Miscellany Digital Edition, Fall 2014

Miscellany MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS Volume LVIII Issue 1

MISCELLANY 1

STAFF Magazines Editor-in-Chief… Jeff Licciardello Miscellany Editor… Meagan Greene Creative Manager… Heather Yeomans Design Editor… Alexandra Tobia Magazines Design Editor… Kate Rakoczy Business Manager… Virginia Byrd Distribution Manager… Marcelo Sandoval Marketing Manager… Emily Skolrood Event Coordinator… Angelina Heugel OFFICE OF STUDENT MEDIA Director... David Simpson Business Coordinator... Samantha Reid

The Miscellany is copyrighted 2012 by Miscellany and Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Ga. It is printed by South Georgia Graphics, Claxton, Ga. The Miscellany is operated by GSU students who are members of Student Media, a Georgia Southern student-led organization operating through the Dean of Student Affairs Office and the Division of Student Affairs & Enrollment Management. The magazine is produced three times a year by GSU students for the Georgia Southern University community.

Opinions expressed herein are those of the student writers and editors and DO NOT reflect those of the faculty, staff, administration of GSU, Student Media Advisory Board nor the University System of Georgia.

Partial funding for this publication is provided by the GSU Activities Budget Committee.

Advertisements fund the remaining costs. Advertising inquiries may be sent to Office of Student Media, PO Box 8001, or by calling the Business Office at 912-478-5418. Inquiries concerning content should be sent to Magazine EIC at 912-478-0565 or by emailing magseditor@georgiasouthern.edu.

All students are allowed to have one free copy of this publication. Additional copies cost $1 each and are available at the Office of Student Media in the Williams Center. Unauthorized removal of additional copies from a distribution site will constitute theft under Georgia law, a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine and/or jail time

2 Fall 2014

EDITOR’S LETTER

Meagan Greene Miscellany Editor

When I first joined Student Media it wasn’t because I was an adamant newspaper reader, or that I had any idea that I wanted to write — it was because of the Miscellany. Believe it or not, the reason I am sitting here in the Magazines Office is because my freshman year I read through the Fall 2012 edition of the Miscellany and was enchanted.

Oddly enough, this only my third semester with this organization and I am a full-fledged magazine editor.

This semester’s Miscellany Magazine was a delight to work with. Every piece or art submitted was so astoundingly creative I knew the judges had their work cut out for them this semester. I would like to thank everyone who submitted work and applaud you for your efforts. I hope that next semester you will express your creative voice and submit again.

I would also like to thank our judges. These extremely qualified individuals spent much of their free time looking through student submissions and helping us choose what should go into the magazine this semester. It’s all I can do to thank you immensely for the attention and detail you gave this task.

I do hope you enjoy this edition of the Miscellany.

MISCELLANY 3

COVER DESIGN

Number 3

Andy Morales 2D Art

4 Fall 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS STUDENT & FACULTY WORK 6. Freedom Tasha Lund 7. The Mist Settles Skyler Black 8. White Queen Ray Petit 9. Shall?

Ivana Sorrells 10. Whiskers Elise Rustine 10. Little Words Whitt Van Tassell 11. Ann Rutledge J. Tyler Campbell 12. Imagine Raven Waters 13. Deal the deck Jeff Licciardello 13. Becoming Self-aware Heather Yeomans 14. Chidarian Ray Petit 14. After I brushed my teeth Madison Rozakos 15. The Wonder of it all George Brannen 16. Smoking Kills James Devlin 18. The Marchers Deja Powell 18. Pin Ups by the pool Ayanna Aponte 19. Life on Marjane Barbara McGaughey 19. Charlie Brown was ugly Ruth Patel 20. The nearness of the wound to the gift Madison Rozakos

22. Pennies Michael Corner 22. Out on a limb Erika Jordan 23. The pool I jump in will be empty Barbara McGaughey 24. Light at the end of the…trunk?

Christal Riley 24. Lights Tasha Lund 25. Queer narratives Parrish Turner 26. Green James Harker 26. “And as if she were the one assigned to face forwards” Madison Rozakos 27. Zhara Kiara Griffin 28. Design is Alexandra Tobia 29. Sunset Virginia Skinner 30. The Roof Lauren Gorla 33. Afterlife Taylor Jenkins 34. The unknowing Carly Falk 37. Chasing Dreams Jeff Licciardello 37. Abandoned Tasha Lund 38. Chakras Shaunte Francois 38. Day in day out Heather Yeomans

39. Everlasting Barbara McGaughey 40. Sea Fish Amy Rustine 42.Fibonacci’s Garden Ray Petit 43. Free Will Rocks Arthur Hatton 43. Fences Christal Riley 44. In your absence Heather Yeomans 45. I was a king Andy Morales 46. Pi Barbara McGaughey 49. Repition Daniel Martin 50. Perception Heather Yeomans 50. Hydrangeas Ray Petit 51. Revolution Allison Meuller 52. View Point Tasha Lund 52. Girlhood Barbara McGaughey 53. Yellow dress Angelica Labrador 54. I put that lens there, No wait, I put it there Ruth Patel 56. Abandoned #3 Tasha Lund 57. 365 Heather Yeomans 58. NWTS Jordan Rosier 59. Hello Today Christal Riley

JUDGES 2D Art Judge: Elsie Hill & Jessica Burke

Poetry Judge: Richard Flynn

3D Art Judge: Derek Larson

Creative Nonfiction Judge: Christina Olson

Fiction Judge: Theresa Welford

Digital Art Judge: Jessica Hines MISCELLANY 5

Freedom Tasha Lund Photography 6 Fall 2014

The mist that settles Skyler Black Poetry

The mist settles over the lake The moon dips down for a swim While the royal mountains guard silently from a distance Brilliance scatters off the mirror of water Creating dancing crystals in showering streams Trees sway and beg for just one touch One drop of the succulent life that is the lake A single pearl from its shimmering depths But the pool is unrelenting The pool is frostbitten and black The warmth is gone from the trees And the mountains block out the stars No light can penetrate the depth that is the moonless mirror The lifeless hole in the earth Chilling fear is all that is found While the mist settles over the lake

MISCELLANY 7

White Queen Ray Petit 2D Art

8 Fall 2014

Shall I?

Ivana Sorrells

Photography

MISCELLANY 9

Whiskers Elise Rustine Photography

Little Words Whitt Van Tassell Poetry

Simplicity carries a whispered beauty Far removed from a gaudy shout A word set perfectly in place outperforms it’s duty Superfluous contains syllables I can do without

10 Fall 2014

Ann Rutledge J. Tyler Campbell Poetry See, if I had a timemachine you is where I would go; skip backwards dizzy and out of place, buy clothes to fit the time, show up full of fury, shock of hair, eyes like a leopard, mouth burning with syllables uncommon.

No doubt, I would steal you quick.

No doubt, no lank lord, no American expansion dandy could wrest my hands off of your tender thoughts, volcano waist.

And if we got a minute we could slide- beat quick back to this day and age‌ Oh my dear, my death flipped doll, the sights would be like a million fires singeing hot and close with the knowledge that now this land has gotten so wonderfully old; that your beaus now crumble soft in ink and dirt.

With that, I would crush you.

Terrify you near me in the thought that you could never go back without serious mental limp, you could never unsee, never unknow.

And then you bind your love by fear hard to my hip.

Then we live together in this present horror, Ann.

MISCELLANY 11

Imagine

Raven Waters 2D Art

12 Fall 2014

Deal The Deck

Jeffery Licciardello

Photography

Becoming self-aware

Heather Yeomans

Photography MISCELLANY 13

Chidarian Ray Petit 2D Art

After I brushed my teeth Madison Rozakos Poetry but before he fucked me it was April and the weather wasn’t quite right.

I could tell by way of the Willow singing beneath my windowsill, in my pocket full of poetry there is this story.

The carpet isn’t mine.

The flat is rented.

Outside, the earth isn’t flexible like my wrists when I color my Colorado coffee mug to its bitter brim. It’s tipping over now.

It is bold and tastes like blackberry jam or malt milkshakes smoking strawberries 14 Fall 2014

sprinkled with tobacco.

That’s a lie.

It is vanilla and honey drips from a silver spoon.

Why is there no music in the house.

The stylus hit the radius of the record-these were things I had no choice but to overlook.

Somewhere a bird lands on a stoop.

I admire the coffee stealing my tongue and time.

Somewhere, ‘Logic in the House of Sawed-Off Telescopes’ I brush my teeth and look in the mirror.

The Wonder of It All G. K. Brannen Poetry Anyone that knows him knows he loves wetting a line. Early mornings are best he thinks, but later on is OK too.

The fish draw him to the water: like a spider to the fly, the bee to the pollen, the bird to the huckleberry, the dog to the scent.

He searches for secrets the sublime.

They the enigmatic passions of the nature of things, the rubric’s cube that holds truth at place in his world the Ying & Yang.

The only union of the Chaos where peace of nature is violent.

Is there beauty there?

The Nature of it all.

To trap time is a task unapproachable; while, to catch an evolution, a vertebrate of the inherent, is to acknowledge the passage of the world.

Man rambles about through with commonplace routine.

He thinks control. But, to be true he is only a cancer a blight upon this domain. A violent force interjecting the ethereal.

The alligator swims as he has swum for a millennium. Mankind just stumbles about providing chaos. He wonders at the frog, the minnow, the slippery eel ‌the boa constrictor.

Consume and be consumed.

The Evolution of it all.

MISCELLANY 15

Smoking Kills James Devlin Fiction

This has to be my last cigarette, I told myself as I walked down the street. This habit is going to kill me.

I sounded like all of those anti-smoking commercials that have been out this month: “Don’t smoke— it’ll make you choke!”

I could quit whenever I wanted too, but I was stressed. I hadn’t been given any reasons to

16 Fall 2014

enjoy life in a long time. I took a long drag from my cigarette and watched its light flicker in the night sky.

It looked like a lighting bug on fire.

“Hey,” I heard from the other side of the street, “Is that you, Roland?”

“Yup.” I tried to hide my cigarette, but I knew it was too late.

“Man, it’s me, Arthur,” he shouted across

the street. “I didn’t know you smoked.

Haven't you seen the commercials?” He imitated the slogan: “Don’t smoke— it’ll make you choke!”

“A few times, yeah,” I said, taking another drag. I hated when people saw me smoking, I felt like it helped them see into my soul, like Arthur now knew about everything:

school, work, and my ex-girlfriend. It didn’t help that he was one of those churchy types. Hell, I use to be like that, back when I believed I could be saved.

“You know that smoking kills, right?”

Arthur shouted.

“Is that what they're saying?” I said. The sarcasm was surely hard to miss even from across the street. But

to cement the lack of sympathy for my lungs, I took another deep breath of smoke and let it back out, like a dragon whose breath had run out of fire. I watched as some jackass drove with no lights on at night. Surely, that was more dangerous than smoking.

“Look, I’m coming over there to talk to you,” Arthur said,

stepping out into the dark road.

“Wait, don’t—” A screeching sound erupted from the streets, followed by a scream and then a thud. It all happened in a moment—before my cigarette could even touch the ground.

MISCELLANY 17

The Marchers Deja Powell Poetry Next time you will notice them Holding out their signs with black letters.

You will see them chanting and humming Walking down the streets.

Next time you will see them Perched up on the counters Patiently sitting and waiting Waiting to be served.

Next time you will notice them Riding the freedom bus.

While men with white sheets wreak havoc.

Next time you will see them cry.

See them be cursed and yelled at.

See the hot coffee being thrown into their faces.

See them arrested for their “crimes.�

Next time you will see the hounds.

Charging and biting See the power hoses attack them.

See them running and falling.

Next time you will see them march.

Next time you will see the flames Engulfing the bus.

Seeing the riders scream and run

ReneA P.

Pin ups by the pool Ayanna Aponte Photography 18 Fall 2014

Life on marjane

Barbara McGaughey Photography

Charlie Brown was ugly, so I pushed him over.

Ruth Patel 3D Art

MISCELLANY 19

“...The Nearness of the

I remember the leather chair, it was a deep burgundy, the kind of burgundy you get from being used so much. It was my mother who sat in that chair. For nights, though they run together and I can’t figure which ones fell in spring or summer, there were tears, and there were so many nights. Her body would rock to and fro like a single canoe in the middle of a choppy lake. I hear

20 Fall 2014

her cries and I can feel the warmth of her tears soaking into my nightgown. Even now, even now I can feel them. She would sit in the leather chair, separated from the rest of the room, far into the corner where sunlight and moonlight wouldn’t touch her face.

After writing this, I’ll hear my mother in the closest of my consciousness say you look best with a smile, where after

I’ll reply you never smile with your eyes.

And in an instant I am swooned by her beauty and her smell.

Every mother has a smell. My mother’s is the perfect combination of an antique wooden drawer, not rotten by the decades of dampness, but aged in the sweetness of cherry wood.

My nightgown used to be hers. I wore it every night, I’m told. I do however

Wound to the Gift” Madison Rozakos NonFiction

remember it’s silkiness draped over my body, the hem reaching far beyond my mid-thigh where it once hung on my mother. It was burgundy like the leather chair, worn with memories, also like my mother.

When my home is vacant, I have found myself dreamily drawn towards the leather chair that has been packed up, moved, unpacked, and always finding

itself back in the corner. It has traveled roughly 960 miles, I checked. Each move, the corner. Maybe it’s something about the chair, maybe it’s something about the corner, but when my home is vacant, I sit in the chair. I sit and look out the window.

I notice my mother’s nightgown.

It lays across the back of the chair until I reach for it, and it’s silkiness falls into my hands.

I undress.

Head first, I slip into the nightgown.

As it glides down my body I inhale its sweetness, and walk to the mirror. There, I look up and catch my mother’s face.

MISCELLANY 21

Out on a limb Erika Jordan 2D Art

Pennies

Michael Conner Poetry Hollowed riverbeds and blood red plains beside copper cabins, rusted away, crushed on railroad tracks oxidized to black, so heavy trains wheezed and howled with exhaust, like families burning from fires of war offhand, handed off to clenched fingers of dying soldiers, scattered through copper speckled crops and gunpowder soil.

22 Fall 2014

The pool I jump in will be empty Barbara McGaughey NonFiction

My car is an island. It’s New Year’s, and the parking lot smells like cardboard and glue, alcohol yet to be spilled. It’s Christmas, and the parking lot smells like the fat that lives on the cusp of tin foil. It’s Thanksgiving, and the parking lot smells like cream and liquor, a tobacco thickness. It’s Halloween, and the parking lot smells like artificial coloring with that chemical kiss. I won’t open the door until the last bit of will surrenders.

The lot looks the same, and my fingers continue to tick. I can hear my breathing above the radio, mouth open, the lines of my lips drying out, my tongue topped with rot. The scene beside me holds modicums of change: mother, friend, no one. Sweater, small, medium, large, medium, large. Full bottle, open bottle, empty bottle. Receipts, straw wrappers, burger bags, acid reflux syrup, and boxes of cloves; full, empty, cashed out.

I’m here for wine. Liquor. Booze. Cake. Cookies. Bread.

Booze. Bread. Liquor. Cake. Booze. Cookies. Wine. Receipt.

Receipt. Receipt. It hurts to say the deep G-L of gluttony just as it hurts to swallow the bottle, the box, your promises.

Addiction is a loose thread in my double helix; the gait in my walk; the sugar that lights me up, and turns me off.

I slam the door behind me, leaving the door jam shattering like it has teeth. I see a lean, jittery man smoking, and I know without asking. I never expected to make it to the meeting, today. The chairs fall into a soft circle. This is an island; this is our personal shipwreck; this is where people wash-up; this is the land I intend to toss my bottle off. I came hungry.

MISCELLANY 23

Light at the end of the...trunk?

Christal Riley Photography

Light

Tasha Lund Photography

24 Fall 2014

Queer Narratives Parrish Turner NonFiction

What is a queer narrative?A queer narrative is anything that derives from the norm.

Anything that derives from the norm.

But there is no one way to write.

But I will write short. I will write to the point. I will write with force and power that will make you understand.

But am I right? I tell you that 2=4x(23.7y+your heart’s true desire), but have I been colored by the way the light fell on your face that one Thursday afternoon? I will concede that I have never see the light play in such a way before and my brain does get fuzzy and my heart starts to skip when you are around.

When it comes to writing, it is clear. It will always be clear. For that is what is correct. Good writing makes the reader understand. Good writing use correct grammar.

Good writing has been taught to students from day one and students will employ it forever. Students will. Students will.

Students will march. Students will experiment. Students will give up and go back to their straight lines and grey offices.

Students will get married. Students will have two point three children.

But I will be queer. I will write love letters to the boys in my gym class. I will write theses to my lover on our wedding night. On a Wednesday night. On the nights we fall out of love. I will write breakup notes to my family. The Dear John Letters that arrive on cool Sunday mornings.

Or maybe I will give up writing altogether. For isn’t even more writing just playing into their game? Fitting into the framework they have given me of words on a page. Spelled a certain way. Formed a certain way.

Maybe I will never write again

MISCELLANY 25

Green

James Harker Photography

“And as if she were the one assigned to face forwards�

Madison Rozakos Photography 26 Fall 2014

Zhara

Kiara Griffin

Photography MISCELLANY 27

Design Is

Alexandra Tobia 2D Digital Art

28 Fall 2014

Sunset

Virginia Skinner 2D Art

MISCELLANY 29

The Roof Lauren Gorla Fiction

She sat on the roof overlooking the ants that marched below, each with their own thoughts and actions and destinations. She had no destination anymore; the roof was her place, her sanctuary, her home. There would be no more interaction, no touch, no hands, no embrace. This concrete slab and cold metal beam jungle was the place where she would be spending the rest of her time. She did not know what

30 Fall 2014

it was like to walk those hundred feet below but she knew there needed to be disturbance. Break their peace.

Her routine each day was the same. She woke up, sat on the edge of her building, and watched. She fixed her eyes on the walkway below and looked as each being passed by. There were ones on two legs that would run through the crowds. There were some walking with their

back to the sky that did not have clothes, but were lined with fur in white, brown, and black. Her and this building had grown to become one throughout the days.

She slid her palm across the gravelly texture of the roof and laid across its stiff embrace. The light brick warmed her raw cheek as she shifted her gaze to look across the gap to the buildings below her. She did not know if other people

were aware of her presence but at this point in her time on the roof she had no concern for others.

The roof was what mattered.

She rose; it was time to check her project. She slowly got up and looked below again. At a time she had been afraid of heights but now the sights made her body shiver with excitement.

Her bare feet wandered to the dark shadow made by the whirring silver block. There sat the tarp.

The tarp covered a lump.

The lump smelled.

This lump had no movement.

The lump was an experiment.

It lay there, doing its job. The sun caught the highest points, reflecting off the blue shine of the interwoven threads and disappearing into the folds that spread over the concrete. If it could have moved it would have told a tale of how it arrived.

This lump had been soaking in the shade for

weeks now. She squatted beside it and poked at the lump; it was ready. She found the spare rope and wrapped it around the top of the lump. The rope found its home in a neck and the knot tightened against the already collapsed throat.

The woman dragged the lump to the edge of the roof. Her hands now matched her face: raw, red, and bloodied.

She took another glance to the people below. The time was here.

MISCELLANY 31

She hoisted the lump to the edge and breathed in. Her fingers gripped the tarp with the last strength they had.

She breathed in again and shoved.

Falling….falling…. falling….

Thump.

There the lump lay.

The ants were scattered.

Shouting.

Words all over.

32 Fall 2014

Arms waving.

Crying. Searching the sky. Searching around, looking for answers.

Peace had been disturbed.

The woman took her place.

Once again, she slid her bleeding palm across the cement and watched the red streak form. She laid upon it and took in the sights.

She watched as

the ants fell back into formation.

The sun came down. The slick darkness of night enveloped her.

Time went on.

Afterlife

Taylor Jenkins 2D Art

MISCELLANY 33

The Unknowing Carly Falk NonFiction

Lez-bee-iiin? What a funny word. What’s a lesbian? Why am I a lesbian? Jackie looked as if she’d just scored the new not-squeaky swing after she said it. “Carly , you’re a lesbian!”

Do I get mad? I guess I do. I should. I tell Jackie to shut it and crane my neck out from under my heavy backpack. Maybe Mom won’t be last car today.

I really wanted to be in the backyard with the dogs. School gave me that stale, dizzying feeling. When I’m with my dogs, I forget about school, Jackie, and Dad. Sometimes.

A scoff brought my attention back to Jackie and her band of aggressors. She stepped forward abruptly, hard and in false assault. When I didn’t respond, her shove reminded me of my place at school.

34 Fall 2014

Right where I should be, at the bottom.

I made my situation worse without a second thought. I dropped my things and lunged. Jackie was going down. I landed my fist in her stomach and she stumbled back in confusion. As I turned, her hand slipped under my t-shirt sleeve and clawed me on the shoulder .An adult took notice of our altercation. We were separated by a couple pushes and grabs by a younger teacher that I didn’t know. I felt burning and with a look at the bloody scratches on my shoulder a rush of terror swept through my whole frame. My stomach ached and my body tingled. Dad was going to know.

Going home with the marks of fight was a nightmare. The last time I fought, he belted

me in my bathroom. He had rushed in without a second’s notice and raged. Naked and bewildered, I couldn’t run, I couldn’t stop the blows. Soon I wouldn’t even try. I’d take his punishment if it meant that I would learn to be good. If I could learn to be good then he wouldn’t need to hurt me.

Why can’t I just be good?

The teacher sluggishly brought me and Jackie to the office. This cost her precious energy.

She’d been with kids acting like assholes all day and now these two decide to maul each other. She silently prayed that the vice principal would just deal with it and take them off her hands.

Lucky for me, he did just that.

Mr. Parks was an aging black man with a small fro that somehow always looked wet. I

was memorized by this hair and often stared at it when being reprimanded.

He was a kind man, intent on doing his work for the good of the young ones. I felt the tingles dissipate when Mr. Parks took me into his office first. While Jackie waited and sulked with the secretary that smelled like soap, I sat in the same squishy leather chair that I had bounced into many times before.

I squirmed into a comfortable position until Mr. Parks looked up from his paperwork.

He always had stacks of pages and file folders around. It amazed me that one person could have so much to read for work. I wondered if he had to remember it all. Mr. Parks sighed at me and I felt tears coming. I knew what seeing him meant. It

meant punishment and today I was going to be punished for being a lesbian. Mr. Parks assigned me to I.S.S. for hurting Jackie and told me he would be calling my parents. He reminded me that this was my third fight and while he did not think I was bad kid, that I needed to stop acting like one. I wondered if Mr. Parks could teach me to be good and how to not be a lesbian.

When the phone call came, I begged a silent god for my father to not answer. My body stiffened when I heard his voice sweep into the room. He was that loud, or maybe I was just searching and waiting for him. I hated myself. The other kids knew how to be good, why couldn’t I? When my mother arrived, she was crying.

“How could you do this again, Carly?

What’s wrong with you?” I slinked away from her. Her teary, shouting pleas made my stomach hurt and I didn’t want her to look at me. She must hate me because I’m a lesbian. I just wished she would tell me what it meant. At home I sunk into a corner in the back of the house, hugging my knees. He was coming for me. It wouldn’t be long until he came home like a whirlwind , storming through the house to come get me. I kneaded the carpet with my fingers and tried not to breathe.

When I heard gravel crunching and brakes squeaking outside, a familiar shock went through my body.

He was here. Doors slammed, my mother wept, and I could hear him calling for me. I prayed that I would disappear, that I would never be a

MISCELLANY 35

lesbian again, and that I could be a good girl someday. Maybe this time would be the last time.

I surfaced this, now decades old, memory to better understand the paradox the exists within my very nature.

Recently I wrote a letter to my younger self.

“I am so sorry this happened to you. I am sorry that so many years of your life were spent waging a war against yourself.

I am sorry for the unknowing that surrounded you. I am sorry for the denial that bruised you time and time again. I am sorry for what you went through. And I am sorry that I left you alone.”

I greatly lamented being a “bad” child; all the while I tried very hard to be good . I was drafted to harbor the shame of a family

36 Fall 2014

who was imprisoned in a dichotomous view of morality and judgment. For years I blamed myself for the abuse.When the physical abuse ceased, I allocated my own disciplines to replace it. If I could have behaved better,ran more, worked harder, looked prettier, I could have made the world happy and I would have finally been loved. I was the mirror to their secrecy and even today I still do not have all the answers that I crave.

What do the words “good” and “bad” really mean anyway?

Lest I pretend that I have any semblance of astute morality, me being without a religion and all, I would not propose any conjecture.

However, I am sure that my motivation to be “good” for “bad”

people has dwindled away. Never will I hold that privileged place within my familial system, and I have actively stopped hustling for their acceptance. I do not wonder of ways to be a good girl anymore, nor do I depict my reality by the hurled words of others. Put simply, I have chosen to seek the best in myself each day, for myself. I owe it to that little girl who saw darkness in her own home and truly believed that it lived within her own heart.

Chasing Dreams Jeff Licciardello

Photography

Abandoned Tasha Lund

Photography

MISCELLANY 37

Chakras

Shaunte Francois 3D Art

Day in day out Heather Yeomans Photography

38 Fall 2014

Everlasting Barbara McGaughey Fiction

We haunt the woods every spring.

Taking a sharp left off Chelsea’s street, we walk straight through the trees; the air smells a mix of moss and kudzu, wisteria drops down our backs. We kick out spare asphalt rocks that lodge their way into our sandals, sidestepping poison ivy, our voices getting louder as the neighborhood fades behind us. Chelsea and I check for the rope hanging off the largest oak, from here we go right, deeper through the woods until they open to a clearing. Old, tall wheatgrass sways yellow, running up to the edge of the Ocmulgee river. We lay a blanket down, never worrying that this is impermanent, that the afternoon will end, and the moon will take the sun away.

We pretend there isn’t a plant across the river, that the water isn’t turning a little grey; we only smell earth. I wear a stolen bikini, the color of a Fresca can, and we share the earphones of a discman. Chelsea’s bathing suit is the color of the adobe windows in Santorini on the calendar in my bedroom. The breeze raises up goosebumps from our necks to our calves, while the sun follows behind and smoothes them out. Here, we love ourselves when no one is watching.

MISCELLANY 39

Sea Fish Amy Rustine Fiction Salt, strong on her tongue.

Wind, flipping hair in her eyes.

Water, sparkling as it frolicked.

Sea. Flavia had always known it.

Ships.

Water, rushing below her. Wind, snapping the sails. Salt, stinging her eyes.

She loved them.

“Someday, our ship will come in.” That was what her father always said, as they sat by their tiny driftwood fire at night.

“Then we’ll be comfortable.

We’ll have a fine house, and I’ll get you some fancy clothes.

And I’ll take you out on a little sailing boat, and we’ll explore those islands out there.”

Flavia would smile, and nestle closer to her father, as

40 Fall 2014

they imagined their ship. When she went to and from the house every day, doing odd jobs to earn a penny or two, Flavia saw every vessel that came in.

Every time, she would wonder if it was theirs.

If this was the ship bringing a house for them, and clothes. And a little sailing boat. She liked all the ideas, but the notion of a little sailing boat was the one she liked most.

She yearned for water. For sailing. For breeze tugging you, sails flapping, gulls flying, and ocean spray. Her father teased her sometimes.

“I think you might have been a fish that I caught in the sea and brought up. You’re not really a girl.

You’re a sea fish.”

Flavia would grin, and give a fish-like wriggle in his arms.

“But father, how will I know which ship is ours?” she would ask sometimes.

Then her father would tug his black beard a little, and smile, and tweak her nose.

“You’ll know.

You’ll just know.”

“But what if I can’t tell?” Her father would look out the window.

“Then the stars will tell you.”

Flavia would giggle.

“You’re being silly, Father.

Stars can’t talk!”

Father would look back at her and smile.

“Perhaps not.”

And then one day, Father was buckling his knapsack when

Flavia came in for lunch.

“What are you doing, Father?” she asked, a frown creasing her face.

Her father bent down, and took Flavia’s chin in his hand.

“Flavia, darling. It’s time for me to find our ship.” Tears started to Flavia’s blue eyes.

“Hush, now.”

He stroked her hair. “Our ship’s gone astray, somewhere.

It can’t come in unless I go searching for it,” he whispered.

Flavia sniffed.

“But I’ll be back.

I’ll bring it back with me. You’ll know our ship has come in when you see me coming in to port.” Then one strong, tight hug.

And no more.

He had made certain that Flavia would have

a good home with the landlady. She was fed, and clothed.

But that was not all she needed.

She had been loved by only one person all her life, and now that person was gone. The days slipped by, and added to the weeks, and the weeks to the years. And year by year crept past, and still their ship did not come into port.

But Flavia didn’t care about the ship anymore.

In the evenings, Flavia took to escaping to the sea. She would walk to the dock, and watch the edge of the sun edge slowly toward the glistening sea. It would set the ocean on fire, and then slowly be extinguished by the overpower-

ing greatness of that body of water. As the years dragged on, she felt that her hopes were like the sun. But light was never gone; for as the sun vanished, the first star twinkled to life. And she clung to it, for it seemed to her that as long as light shone, hope could not be dead.

One evening, she trudged to the dock and glanced wearily past all the ships. Her gaze was captured by a ship pulling in to port. This in itself was nothing new; ships docked every day. But for some reason, Flavia could not pull her eyes from this ship.

She could not help but think that there was something different about

this one. The light of hope still faintly flickered, and though she pretended she expected nothing, she scanned the decks, her heart leaping to her throat every time she thought she recognized a face. But she did not. Slowly, she turned, and started the long walk back to her lodging, gazing at the dull, trodden earth at her feet. But a cool ocean breeze combed her hair, and she looked up.

For a moment, she saw nothing except boundless air, but then a twinkle, and her star came to life. A faint smile brushed Flavia’s lips. And then, the star moved.

Quick as a gull, darting to the ocean, the star flashed across

the sky. It flew through the air, and fell toward the ocean.

Flavia turned to watch its flight.

As she did so, the star gave one last brilliant flash, and disappeared on the horizon. But Flavia’s eyes were no longer on the star, for on the horizon, a tiny sailing boat was bobbing.

And as it neared the dock, the flowing script of the ship’s name depicted two words.

“Sea Fish.” And finally, a long forgotten light came to her eyes, and she no longer needed the star. For she saw a face she knew.

Salt, in her tears. Water, dripping down her cheek.

Wind, wiping her eyes dry.

Joy.

MISCELLANY 41

Fibonacci’s Garden Ray Petit 2D Art

42 Fall 2014

Free Will Rocks Arthur Hatton 2D Art

Fences Christal Riley Photography MISCELLANY 43

In your absence Heather Yeomans Photography 44 Fall 2014

I was a king Andy Morales Photography MISCELLANY 45

Pi

Barbara McGaughey NonFiction 7:08pm She tells me in a text message that she has breast cancer.

9:30am And then she emails me, saying that I don’t seem committed to therapy.

11:47am She Skypes me to tell me I am running away, that I haven’t been listening, that I will try to kill myself again, that I haven’t really been in dialectical, because I haven’t been participating, that she doesn’t have breast cancer that it’s just an issue with her lymph nodes, and that I should send a list of ways I will

46 Fall 2014

change before we can continue.

3:30pm I cry with fury, and I take to a familial pulpit to drive on about how she’s a hypocrite, and I say it’s for the best.

10:15pm I email her a list three hours before her deadline.

8:20am And I wake up in the morning to a letter that reads:

graphically and clinically) untenable.

She spells my name wrong, but everyone spells my name wrong. I don’t reread the email, there is nothing to interpret. I laugh. It’s funny, funny like how it feels good when someone pulls your hair, because the dead cells finally seem to come alive.

Jane, I have considered your treatment and suggestions carefully.

I see the distance between us (both geo-

I always want to start at the beginning.

There is a four way stop in Atlanta with soft

sidewalks. An elderlies-only condominium sits lofty on the south-west corner; a closed bodega sits on the north-west corner; a home that lives half its life as a knickknack store sits on the southeast corner; and on the north-east corner sits an unmarked house--neither residential nor commercial.

A house that doesn’t say much of gentrification, but is no longer old Atlanta. I miss it three times, before I notice the unmarked driveway. goddamn Lithium,

goddamn empty head. My hand tremors as I take the key out, double-check the emergency brake--I would put the emergency brake on in the flatlands of Louisiana--I am thirty minutes early. I think about how long it took to get here, to get here.

I call her doctor, but she isn’t one.

Her Manolos are silent against the berber carpet, but her voice arches over the furniture and seems to walk into the old vents, spreading through the entire house. Later, I will tell her she looks like a St. Johns ad come

to life.

She tells me stories about suicides that didn’t work, despite their skill. She lets me know that she realizes there are valid reasons for wanting to die. Validation is her largest selling point, a veritable land of honey. I tell her I don’t need to be sold on therapy, I know this place, her place, is the last stop shop. At the end of the first session, she angles that I am intelligent, smarter than most of her clients. She tells me that this makes me more susceptible to my illnesses.

Weaker.

We spend a few months together. A few hours each week on this corner, in the idyllic little house; a mix of creams and tans and little coffee spoons etched with encouragements. It is akin to eating one candy too many, the roof of your mouth soupy with sugar. I tell her I miss the good drugs. Her new diagnosis is borderline personality disorder.

I disagree. I go to group, and I see weak women I have nothing in common with; nothing I want to claim. I close my eyes

to meditate. I am just listening to the Trader Joe’s shopping carts that drift under the second story window; listening to old men pushing them, humming or sighing, and wondering how those men made it this far.

I let her talk.

She tells me about how she has dyslexia, has always had it. About how she was depressed when she moved back from LA to take care of her dying mother.

A mother that she hated, a father that lived which she still

MISCELLANY 47

can’t stand. She talks about her ex-husband who loved the FBI more than their life together.

She takes about how she gave up on acting, because she wanted films, and was given television. Her adopted son visits the office when he has pneumonia, and they are the picture of integration. How progressive. She kindles the fire of my middle-class dream of autonomy.

Our sessions gain ground at the end of each. I come to be of the mind that this is the

48 Fall 2014

trick of therapy: a suppressed climax.

I want to start at the beginning.

In the beginning, I was just a child.

I dreamed about snakes. Snakes so big they can swallow your head. Snakes that dominate their prey, that curl around your body, squeezing until you can no longer breathe.

I saw copperheads slick in Georgia lakes and cobras peer out of National Geographic. I knew snakes were always waiting for me, on the tips of my eyelids; in my

backyard; between my dog’s teeth. Even garden snakes, so small and green like the vines of our tomatoes, deserved the sweaty slice of my hoe. I was just a child, but I believed that like worms, they split and multiplied; that snakes were forever, and I was not.

I want to start at the beginning.

In the beginning, there was heaven and earth. And at the intersection of the two, many of us were born.

We were shown a house and a race track. “Pick

one,” we were told. We think we can come back to the house--after all it is so close to the race track.

We believe we can trick those who operate the race track--we see the space between two bushes, just large enough for a car to careen off, and disappear. Once in the car, we never see the escape route. The operator comes and goes, but the track never turns off.

Purgatory is a circle that other people get to leave.

Repetition Daniel Martin 2D Art MISCELLANY 49

Perception Heather Yoemans Photography

Hydrangeas Ray Petit Photography 50 Fall 2014

Revolution Allison Mueller 2D Art MISCELLANY 51

View point Tasha Lund Photography

Girlhood Barbara McGaughey Photography 52 Fall 2014

Yellow dress Angelica Labrador 2D Art

MISCELLANY 53

I put that lens there. No wait, I put it there Ruth Patel 3D Art 54 Fall 2014

MISCELLANY 55

Abandoned #3 Tasha Lund Photography

56 Fall 2014

365 Heather Yeomans Photography MISCELLANY 57

NWTS Jordan Rosier 2D Art 58 Fall 2014

Hello Today Christal Riley Photography

MISCELLANY 59

JUDGES Creative Nonfiction Christina Olson Christina Olson is the author of Before I Came Home Naked, a book of poems. Her poetry has appeared in journals and magazines including The Southern Review, RHINO, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, Puerto del Sol, The Normal School, Anti-, Gastronomica, Passages North and Hayden’s Ferry Review. Her nonfiction has appeared in Brevity, Black Warrior Review, Wake: Great Lakes Culture and Thought, Quarterly West, and was anthologized in The Best Creative Nonfiction Volume 3. She is the poetry editor of Midwestern Gothic. Originally from Buffalo, she currently teaches writing and technical communication at Georgia Southern University.

Poetry Richard Flynn is a professor in the Department of Literature and Philosophy at Georgia Southern University. He is the author of a critical book, Randall Jarrell and the Lost World of Childhood, a collection of poetry, The Age of Reason, and of many articles about contemporary poetry and literature for young audiences. Recent work includes “Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, and the Lost World of Real Feeling” in the Cambridge History of American Poetry, “Words in Air: Bishop, Lowell, and the Aesthetics of Autobiographical Poetry” in Elizabeth Bishop in the Twenty-First Century, and two autobiographical critical and creative essays: “My Folk Revival: Childhood, Politics, and Popular Music” in Time of Beauty, Time of Fear: the Romantic Legacy in the Literature of Childhood and “Like a Cactus Tree: Coming of Age with Joni Mitchell’s Music” in Gathered Light: The Poetry of Joni Mitchell’s Songs.

60 Fall 2014

2D Art Elsie Hill Elsie Taliaferro Hill is an Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting in the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art. Originally from Savannah, Hill earned a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design and worked as a commission portrait artist for 12 years.

Hill received her M.F.A. from the School of the Arts at Columbia University in the City of New York where she lived and worked as an artist for six years. During that time she was represented by the Nabi Gallery and participated in several solo and group exhibitions.

Hill was recently commissioned to paint the official courtroom portrait of the Chief Judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals, the late Hon. Charles B. Mikell. Hill’s accolades include Second Place in the Armstrong National 2-D Competition, Armstrong Atlantic State University; Natural Resource Defense Council Environmental Art Award Finalist; D’Arcy Hayman Scholarship and Agnes Martin Fellowship, Columbia University.

Jessica Burke Jessica Burke is an Assistant Professor of Art and Director of the Foundations Program at Georgia Southern University. She maintains a small, but productive studio in Statesboro, Georgia. Her work has been collected in both public and private collections in the United States as well as Japan and Mexico. It has been shown regionally, nationally and internationally in the United Kingdom, Korea, Holland and Italy.Please visit her website for more information and examples of her work www.jessicaburkeartist.com.

MISCELLANY 61

3D Art Derek Larson

Derek G. Larson is an assistant professor in the art department, teaching new media, video and animation. He received his MFA in Sculpture from the Yale School of Art and in his practice he combines digital media with painting, lights, motors, and projected animations on freestanding screens. He has participated in a number of national and international shows and residencies, with recent exhibitions at Union South Gallery 1308 (Madison), May Gallery (New Orleans) and Vox Populi (Philadelphia). His work is featured in the Summer 2014 issue of New American Painters.

Digital Art Jessica Hines

Artist and storyteller Jessica Hines, uses the camera’s inherent quality as a recording device to explore illusion and to suggest truths that underlie the visible world. Hines began to cultivate her creative disposition early in life and her love of the arts led her to attend Washington University in St. Louis, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Continuing to pursue her interests, she studied photography at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign where she received a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Jessica Hines’ work has been widely exhibited and published in North and South America, throughout Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

This includes her most recent award, the 2013 PDN Photo Annual for best Personal Photography, NYC, NY, as well as The Kolga Award for Best Experimental Photography, 2012, Kolga Tbislisi Photo in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, and Humanitarian Documentary Grant in the WPGA Annual 2010 Pollux Awards.

62 Fall 2014

The Miscellany Process Submissions are open to students and faculty for three weeks. We collect art from our submission website. The art is then tagged by medium and assigned to judges that have been selected for their expertise in their fields for deliberations. After deliberating, art placement is decided by the Miscellany Editor. Five cover options are brought to the Student Media staff to vote on to narrow the selection down to three.

From there, the Miscellany Editor, the Magazines Editor-in-Chief, and the Creative Manager decide which of these pieces would work the best as the cover for the magazine. The magazine is then designed and printed. After fifteen business days, the publication arrives in the Magazines Division’s office in a mass of cardboard boxes. While it may be the ink fumes from the 1500 copies of the magazine, or the dangerous amounts of caffeine pumping in our veins, we jump up and down excitedly for finally having the finished product in our hands. We hope you enjoy this magazine and we cannot wait to see the amazing work you will submit next semester.

MISCELLANY 63

64 Fall 2014