s t o n e c u t t e r s
2012
stone-cutters
Editors in Chief Jamie Chang Jessica Gold Wyatt Kroopf Staff Melissa Flores, Julia Aizuss, Madison Tully, Gil Young, Lucas Foster, Hana Chop, Merissa Mann, Patric Verrone, Steven Ring, Hannah Kofman, Alisha Bansal, Louly Maya, Ben Greene, Angela Knight, Maddie Lear, Jeremy Bradford, Josh Shapiro, Michelle Chang, Erin Sugarman, Natasha Simchowitz Faculty Advisors Jennifer Raphael English Department Alyssa Sherwood Visual Arts Department
Special thanks to the Chronicle and Kathy Neumeyer Front Cover: It Starts With a Touch by Anders Villata Back Cover: Transmitter by Caitlin Yee Stone-Cutters is a Harvard-Westlake publication for prose, photo, and art. The fonts in this issue are Palatino Linotype and SevilleT. Printed by Sinclair Printing.
Erin Sugarman
2
scrambled eggs and winter. sometimes the winter gets so cold and you wonder how you ever slept alone. -- you wonder it aloud. and a stranger passing by hears your question and moves into your bed. and he makes you eggs, just the way you like them, with diced up bits of tomatoes and onions, and butter. a lot of butter. just like mom used to make them. and not too scrambled -- ‘cause you don’t like that. and he keeps you warm against the cold of the rain. and you love the way you fit into the curvature of his body in the middle of the night. and you make tea and you make love and you fight and he makes you eggs while you read the paper in the morning. and the two of you wear socks to bed so this must be love. but then one day you wake up and he’s gone. and you’re cold because your dog’s too small to keep you warm the way he used to. but you open the window and notice flowers waking – so you figure it must be spring. (when did that happen?) and just like that you know --
you’ll be alright.
Meli Flores
3
Jamie Chang
Arrays
4
Reliance I think the stars must get tired of smiling. They shine even when the sun refuses to, and they stay on display when the moon decides to hide. They never sigh with the wind and they never weep with the rain. They never quake in fear of the earth and they don’t drown in the ocean’s waves. They are nocturnal beasts, cascading across the night as though they were a blanket that could muffle all the voices of the world: and still they have that twinkle in their eyes, that skip in their step, and that beam sweeping over their bright faces. i think the stars must get tired of smiling so often, but what would we be if they frowned?
Madison Tully
5
Autumn Foliage She knew it looked odd that she walked with her eyes scanning the floor, but she could not help it this time a year. The trees were resplendent in their shades but underfoot were the leaves that would never be the same again after she walked through. That life sped death was inevitable: life and death so distant from each other were inseparable. Thus, in her life’s movement she crunched old leaves into dust (dust to feed acorns, and trace out the path of new life). Newly-fallen yellowed leaves, August wind’s bounty, would be bruised by her step and start browning. Though she walked away her thoughts remained on leaves. The dead and dying foliage filled the air with a sweet odor of farewell. The leaves did not seem to begrudge Earth the way warm animals did, perhaps because leaves had never been self-moving. All of a leaf’s life was light-gathering, because through enlightenment they saturated not just treelimbs, but the range of breathing fauna.
6
What gentle generosity! she realized. Few were the leaves that could ever be said to hurt, and none did not give. They took the lashes of rain, the ever-present gnawing, and the whistlingly wresting wind and yet turned a collective cheek upon it all. Green is the most pacifist of shades, she decided. Why should the flag of peace be white? White was thrashing sea-foam and wind-molded cloud. White was in widened eyes and the glare of sunlight through fog. White was the rainbow in concert and the most fervent star. White was the color that by everything stains. There was no forgiveness in white.
Maria Qui単onez
Caitlin Yee
Nexus Vitae
7
James Her fingernails were smooth crescents in the palm of my hand— clean, clipped, cared for. Salt on her neck. Sand grainy on her knuckles. I first took up swimming as a way to escape. Pungent seawater to startle my nostrils, eyes open until it stung my eyelashes—a reminder sinking with the sand into my body as the corners of my eyes would redden: it won’t always be this easy. She gripped me as if I possessed the barnacled sanctuary of an anchor, as if I had absorbed the strength and squelch, the stationary pull and sink of sand. But she lacks that Odyssean skill to hold on until blood is a familiar coating sticking to the fingers, and I will clothe myself in the sea’s clay-slick ripples, those transient longing movements; I am not her anchor, and when I reach, blood-knuckled, for another distant shore, she won’t be able to hear even a whisper-thin ghost of my sound, not even if the seashell slips cold against the hollow of her ear.
Julia Aizuss
8
Not Black People Last night I dreamt of Taylor Swift, Not Black People.
Last night I ate food, Not Soul Food.
Last night I listened to music, And it had No Rhythm, And it had No Blues.
Last night I went to sleep Under White Sheets In a Black Neighborhood Around People, Not Black People.
Alexander Cecil McNab
9
She Said She said she was walking through a jungle or maybe she said she was sliding through a jungle with trees that were not green or brown when she locked eyes with a tiger that was not orange or brown and suddenly it was like they were joint at the hip so she said she was striding through a jungle with a tiger at her side and she felt like she was lying way up high on a cloud burnt by the sun
Wyatt Kroopf
10
Meli Flores
are you nervous?
11
Minnesota One summer I traveled to Minnesota Grandma made sure to buy me some cream soda. Plane wings across the California sky Parents asleep, I smoke a slice of rye. Flurries falling along the frozen road Black tires printing out their wan winter code. Aunts’ shaky hands stretched out for love’s embrace White curtains, Red hambones boiled with lace. Food keeps Gram still, away from bags of waste Afraid, evade, while he avoids the taste. My family obtuse within our own Our presence only for him, all alone. Minneapolis where feelings come to float Shadows of Snow, forming the reaper’s coat. The straps and spokes fit Tom. More every day, Burgundy slippers, Yellow teeth will fade away. Dark sleeves around the gray tacticians skull Cracked skin, dry lips and eyes of a seagull. With nothing to do I offered my help, To mend and calm the winked withering whelp, Fear gripped my hips, I went outside for life, Red reeling rime, a clear transparent knife. Silver shovels scooping submerged sludge My mother’s gloves and grit, the hardened drudge. We’ve cleaned the porch, the ingrains of a smile, The blood of labor’s breast beginning to beguile Our hobbled senses limping for a drop, The richest ripples, starving for the sop.
12
We sit around and watch the game till four, Tom’s slacked jowls bend and slouch down to the floor. A normal day despite the crumbling man I help Tom up, his palms form into sand. I scoop his grains and place them in the frost The forest breathes, another soul has crossed. At night the wolves stare through the icy door, Hungry for heavy hearts, tattered and sore. Tom stands, a warrior ready for rest A final hug to seal our drooping chests. We’re not related in the slightest. I Will remember gentle Tom’s immortal sigh A groan so earned, acceptable and just That thinking of it now I feel his dust Pouring from his right ear and nostril hair No matter what he always stopped to care. As for me, I’ll never see my own regret The day I had my first blue cigarette Oaks coughed and spat but I was rather still A smoldered sage sitting on sacred hill. Minnesota is where Tom did dream, A powder White fluorescent half-dome beam. Shining past the elk and bunny hide Footprints of hope, Blizzards caressed the tides, Tom ambled past branches and arctic brooks To live where he had only read in books.
Hank Doughan
13
Neptune I had a conversation with a stranger today Not like my others which are mostly In one way or another Symphonic, Remote. She was blind and asked me not to pet her dog Mozart And I asked her at the bus stop Where she was going. She said her name was 21-year-old Sonny and she was meeting her fiancé at the Fox Hills Mall For dinner for completing her class. The thought of her at such an empty place Reminded us both that I had only approached her to pet her dog. And now I remember that strange sort of round sadness that I discovered when I was Very sad. And it’s reflection as a blind girl off of a cold steel sphere Or a planet of water.
Gil Young
Looks You’re violent. I need help! (She looks at me with a coldness I’d never seen). What? Why are you looking at me like that? Monster, (she thinks). This kid is fucked up. Yeah. I know.
Mena Kalokoh
14
Ian Dura
Doe Squaller Conquers All-er 15
fingertips & secrets. everyday at 9:05 we brush past each other in the hallway — the tips of her fingers along the curves of my knuckles. we are quick so that no one will see, so that no one will know. i look forward and she looks sideways with downcast lashes, lashes thick and dark and casting shadows across her lips. i can’t bear to look at her for fear of what she does to me so my stride pushes forward, confidently, arrogantly, forcefully. away, away, away -- from you, from me, from us. i see the creamy porcelain of her long white thighs, smooth and shaven beneath her pleated skirt. i see the cascading shadow of her hair between her shoulder blades, the skin on her back glistening and freckled from sleeping in the sun. what are we doing? how did this happen? what does ‘this’ mean? i kissed her against a wall in the bathroom once, and her lips on mine were hard and fast and terrified and thrilled. what if your boyfriend finds out? what if my boyfriend finds out? i never liked him much anyway. secrets like ‘this’ are always dark and hollow. but there is no time for questions. she looks sideways for my eyes then looks away, out of fear for what i do to her.
Meli Flores
16
I Watched My Language you looked at the sling on my arm and asked how I was. I told you it hurt like hell, but we were standing on the front porch in front of your new sister. you told me to watch my language so I did. I stood an hour by the blackened window and watched the change in the curvature of my lips as they jumped from vowel to vowel. my teeth begged for something splendid. And so I found it. my fingertips rode the creases of my mouth. Everything curved. It all tasted sweet when I spoke to you. I analyzed the cadences of my laughter. I wrote them down for you. you thought I wrote you a song. I wrote you the truth. and then I became insatiable. I remembered forever wasn’t mine, that it clung, cursedly, on the future’s delicate finger. so I swung my good arm around you, pressed my good lips to you, and you dared to give me forever, in a tin box and wrapped in blue. “you’re a damn good liar.” you told me to watch my language so I didn’t.
Deborah Malamud
17
A Visit to My Grandfather There was a lot of you then none of you How can that happen When all around nothing else has changed The house is the same, little impatiens glancing their white petals against the sidewalk The kitchen is still the same, a few dishes in the sink the clock still clicking on the wall But your room is empty The bed linens suspiciously taut Your bathroom counter bearing none of the tools-Toothbrush, hairbrush, hollow medicine vials One of those last days You were already beyond conversation I climbed into bed next to you Did you feel the mattress bend As I climbed in, my weight sinking us down Smelling your muddy exhale Smelling your cottoned pajamas I knew you were ready to go I put my arm around you Feeling your chest Rise and fall Rise and fall In little birdie breaths You did not know I was there, or did you You did not say my name, or did you Nor did I say yours My cheek on your shoulder Of course I was sad, but I did not weep Crying would be for another time Like today When nothing else has changed
Hana Chop
18
Katie Ehrlich
1000 Words 19
Sleeping Beauty It’s not a pleasant story, not something I want to remember, but I can’t forget. Why can I not forget? As the days, the weeks, the months go by, everyone has forgotten—everyone but me. In a way, this makes sense: it didn’t happen to them. If I had the luxury of forgetting, I would, too. But I don’t. I can’t. It did happen to me. And now, it happens to me every night, in dreams, in screams…why do I not forget? I have changed so much since then. If you put my current self in my past self’s place, I guarantee you it wouldn’t have happened. Now I am bitter, and ashamed, to be sure—but cautious, too. So, so cautious. Nothing like it will ever happen to me again. But it is too late for preparation, too late for change. It happened what seems a lifetime ago, when I was young, and innocent, and fearless. I want to go back and tell myself a little fear is a good thing, it could save you a lot of pain, but I can’t. And as for youth and innocence, well, no one is young after going through what I’ve gone through. No one is innocent. The thing that haunts me is I shouldn’t be able to remember it. That night. What with the combination of alcohol and adrenaline and whatever it was snuck into my drink, I shouldn’t be able to remember a damn thing. But I do. I remember laughing as my supposed best friend pulled me along behind her, tripping in high heels and windmilling one free arm to stay upright, vodka sloshing out of the open flask. I remember cutting to the front of the line, ahead of the fat girls, the ugly girls, the shy girls—the smart girls. I remember my hand on the bouncer’s chest, confident of the power held in blood-red nails, yellow hair, and a two-short, too-low dress. I remember lights ricocheting off of clouds of smoke, smoke, smoke in my eyes, my nose, my lungs. I remember his touch. I remember his golden hand on my waist as we swayed in time to the pulsing beat. I remember his strong arm draped over my shoulder as he held the lighter to my lips and I sucked in. I remember pink lips on pink lips, and gold skin tracing white. I remember swaying in sun-tan arms. I remember, from later, green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, black eyes— but not his gold. Where did he go? I still don’t know. I remember a line of endless drinks, but not him leaving. I remember falling. I remember sleeping. I remember dreaming. Why do I not forget?
20
There are people who say that dreams are our escape. These people are liars. Dreams are not an escape; they are a prison. I remember everything that happened that night, in the back room of the club, and I cannot forget it. I remember the hard tile floor, the single flickering light. I remember piles of clothing—I remember the reek of sweat and lust— I remember them, my tormentors. I remember their eyes as they sank into me, green and blue and brown and black no gold—and was that absence a blessing or a curse? I still don’t know—burning with sadistic pleasure. They thought that I was sleeping, sleeping beauty, but I wasn’t. I was awake. I was awake the entire time, and I remember. I remember their touch. I remember his touch. He thinks he saved me with a kiss—one kiss, in that darkened room, when the gold eyes reappeared, one kiss, and only one—but a kiss couldn’t wake me. He couldn’t save me. I was already awake. As he carried me out in his warm arms, the world spun around me, and the stars plummeted from the sky. I remember falling. I remember sleeping. I remember dreaming. Why do I not forget? Every once in a while, he drops by to visit. He doesn’t understand why I won’t let him touch me. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. How can I tell him that he already has? How can I tell him that he came too late, that it’s not a rescue if the captive’s already dead? How can I tell him that I wasn’t sleeping? How can I tell him that I can’t forget? I can’t forget. I know he already has, but I still can’t. Every time I close my eyes—every single time I close my eyes—I’m back there. It’s too late for me, I want to say. You stormed the castle, slew the dragon, but you didn’t rescue the princess. It’s too late. At night, as he sits next to me, staring at the stars, an inch between my skin and his, I want to tell him that I’m dreaming, that I’m screaming silently. I want to tell him that we’re still there, and it is real. I want to tell him that he’s forgotten, but I haven’t. I want to tell him, but I can’t: I’m still trapped within the dream. Why do I not forget?
Jessica Gold
21
Ian Durra
Kevin Spacey is Guchi
22
A Vision I saw a rabbit in the ocean, floating and swimming faster than all the fish combined waves crashed, boats destroyed but the rabbit emerged soaked and proud yelping triumphantly as the fish cried air and the ocean hid away its fear from the now massive hilariously glorious rabbit who couldn’t hop and had small ears
Wyatt Kroopf
23
Fear Not! Your New Gods Oh, race of men! From whom the beating, Bloody heart of Ambition has been so So wretchedly torn; From whose broken bodies The new gods might form And mold, and shape That rusted waste Into which your kind - Iron gods! Have deformed. You stopped not to consider As into your own flesh You hammered the nails Of bohemian death! Of false love and Greed, of Unbridled needs, Of the perfumes and powders And filth on your TV, Of the sewer pipe draining Its waste in your mind – Of the rancid and unspoken Horrors you find But embrace! And exalt! And fall down on your knees! Into the black sludge Of degeneracy. Oh, race of men! Whose very will to Survive, to Endure, and to Thrive Has been bled through The leeches of Well-meaning lies; From whose life-blood And sweat-beads, Whose toils were real Your new gods shall Melt down the old For their steel.
To flush out the old, To purge what was strong To wash away notions Of right and of wrong; To forge a new world Not on shoulders of giants But in a festering mire Of moral defiance. But all that you loved And thought to protect Was blackened by the shadow Of what would come next: The ocean of blood that Enveloped the earth The tides that would drown Any hope of rebirth! And yet you racedAnd race you still doLike the vermin you are To your impending doom. Rush in and die, you Experimental mice Embrace your demise, for all Change is worth the price! And fear not! Your new gods will Change all in your life! You race of men who Know that stability Is strife, You brilliant minds Who know so very well Everything that you have been told To tellTo think, To drink, To cough and To drown To cover up that most Cynical frownAnd to go on believing, If just for a day, That they won’t crack your skull Once they have had their way.
Thomas Thorne
24
Maddie Lear
BL
25
26
The Tiller’s Touch Straw brim shades over eyes of my tanned face, Cracked hands are shown scarred now, they sometimes bleed, Spring days are long without my porch’s grace. Blouses still hang, alone, ribboned with lace, Remembering burnt lips enclose soft reed, Straw brim shades over eyes of my tanned face. I till these fields of swollen ash, no trace Of fruit we used to grow. Just rotted seed. Spring days are long without my porch’s grace And red kite’s string still hangs from prairie’s base; Distant laughing silenced by tumbling weed. Straw brim shades over eyes of my tanned face. My feet are beaten by time’s sharp glass mace, Only the crows of my shadow take heed. Spring days are long without my porch’s grace The chill of her night wind – only embrace, For in this dust there is nothing I need. Straw brim shades over eyes of my tanned face, Spring days are long without my porch’s grace
Elias Putnam
Claire Hong
Summer Afternoon 27
The Power of Probability The longest five seconds of my life were the ones that it took the Chancer to draw and aim. All I could see of him was the split-face mask that they all wore, a frown curving like x3 into a smile beneath his long flat, almost rectangular nose. The glass on his eyes looked faceted to me, like a spider’s, almost. There’s no way that the world looked like that to them, or aiming would be impossible, but I could see a thousand versions of myself in those facets, and the long black barrel extending towards me in each. The glittering robes clinked gently as the glass-scales, moving with the motion of his arm, blazed with a multitude of scattered suns. I needed to close my eyes, and I did, but I couldn’t stand to be the only person who wouldn’t see the shot. The marketplace had gone silent, precious entropy going to waste as all motion ceased and every person stopped to watch us, two figures brought together by a computerized roulette ball a thousand miles away. The pinwheels on the houses flittered and spun, tiny flecks of colored light dancing across the rooftops before being drowned out by the swelling sun. I could taste my own mouth now. Dry and sour. My tongue moved slowly over parched ridges, rasping. Then, in one motion, he reached up with his left hand and caught his fingers in one of the chamber grooves, setting the clip of his pistol spinning. I had a 50-50 chance; four bullets in an octagonal chamber. The chamber was driven by an electric motor and a random number generator, no telling where it would stop. The bullets were even designed to tumble maximally as they left the gun; the men in the boardrooms had streamlined this process, to be as random as they could make it. My forehead, my cheek, the space between my collarbone, my heart, anywhere could erupt in a fountain of steam and blood. It was really for the best, though. The devastating wars for oil and coal and plutonium had stopped when they finally figured out how to mine the multiverse. Randomness had saved us. The world changed in that cramped auditorium as the three men showed how they could power an oscillating fan with the roll of a six-sided dice. Every second, every instant of the day, they demonstrated, an infinite number of options were chosen; the length of a stride, the fall of a leaf, and each option sprang its own little universe, an inch off from our own. And we could crack those universes open, now, and shell them and suck them dry, to power our skyscrapers and our ion drives and our forests of blinking LEDs.
28
I’m watching his finger pull down on the trigger now. A beam of light bounces off the mirror on his knuckle, and I’m blind, for the actual moment when the chambers stop moving. I can’t see anything at all, just hear the sighing of a jet somewhere miles away. In half of an infinity universes, a little copper firing cap is sitting right in front of the space where the hammer will be. Why? Because the little things weren’t enough. You can’t power a skyscraper with a six-sided dice, or a breaking vase, or the convection currents in a pot of boiling water. We needed more energy. So we upped the ante. We tried bombs in china shops, we set hawks on flocks of starlings, and the randomness, the entropy, was tremendous - and it wasn’t enough. Our megacities, our skylabs and our artificial islands, cried out for more power. Las Vegas, the seat of the new world order, the probability capital of the world, answered. The Chancers spread across the globe, glittering, silent, impersonal agents of the room-size random number generators that dictated their targets. A human life is so complex, so intricate, so erratic, that a random death could keep the flywheels spinning for days, could light humanity into the future. Any torturing of chemical or atomic bonds could not parallel the ripples caused by a single sudden shocked silence. And we were alright with that, and we went about our lives, and so did I. And every so often, in a public place, a Chancer would walk past in their shining coats and their hard masks, and every so often a single shot would ring out, and there would be a moment of silence before motion resumed and the street cleaners sped out in their moon-suits to clean up the mess. The light is no longer in my eyes as the hammer falls. It’s 50-50.
Rhett Gentile
29
Maddie Lear
Untitled 50 30
Memento I. I recognize my scars in the rough wounded skin of trees; the sunlit spotlights, freckles; the bony points of shoulders and of elbows. I recognize my tears in the branches dripping leaves; in the morning, gorged on dreams those tears weep tears of dew. I recognize my fears in an ancient creature’s bones, its roots; half-forgotten, it slumbers ‘neath its burial shroud of leaves and then it stretches, popping gnarled joints and cracking its wide jaws. A hundred mouths scream silently a thousand eyes dream ceaselessly. II. The graveyard lives in skin and mind soldiers rising from the dead corpses crawling in the night into the light; buried memories stir. When mist slipped into our eyes, sitting on stone rooftops, and crawled back out, the rain above spoke for us. Now, sunlight embraces mist and fades into the morning, mourning the departure of its soul, but we know better. In eternity, there is no ending.
31
III. During the darkest hour music throbs, electric sparks within our veins. As darkness retreats, as the tide ebbs, we are blinded by the light of bygone days. Green-eyed, sad-eyed, or ashamed mist wraps around sweet sunlight, one kiss before farewell: the embraces of lovers hold a softer kind of song. Tell me this dream will never have to end. Lie to me, my lover, of nights and lullabies: tell me this will not end.
Jessica Gold
What Happens When You Work too Much In the style of the late Dr. Seuss
If you work and you work all night and all day, And you find that the work will just not go away, But you say to yourself, you must work and work hard, For my time’s not for play, not for fun in the yard. If you wake up at six and you work until ten, And get up the next day and you do it again, First your head will get sore, and your eyes will go black, And once that’s begun, well, there’s no turning back. Then your teeth will grow long, and so will your hair, And you might start to look like a bat or a bear. Your bones they will crumble, they’ll wither away, Just because you refuse to get out and go play. If you think that I’m lying, or you think it’s not true, Or you trust such a thing couldn’t happen to you, Then work till you’re dead, and then work some more, But don’t go complaining that life’s such a bore. While your hair may stay in, and your eyes may feel fine, All work and no play’s such a dull waste of time.
Alex Musicant (Dr. Moose)
32
Steven Ring
Untitled
33
How to be Dead stop. reciting. the EULOGY! the damn lady’s in a coffin, spindling soul’s probably in the belly of an angel, getting reborn like her Buddhist friends promised her she’d be. She’s dead, alright. ‘not terribly sure she’s doing too well at it. Like, you’re supposed to be more present in life than in death, but I never gave a shit about the lady and here I am in black. You’re not supposed to leave a messy will. (she left her only child nothing at all) ‘Supposed to show some sign in the sky or some shitbut it’s raining. And I’m soaked. I’m wearing new shoes and I’m soaked. everyone knows she’s not following the rules - she has no clue how to be dead. They’re crying anyway. so am I. damn lady’s my mother.
Deborah Malamud
34
Sarah Novicoff
Careless Joy
35
Conor Cook
Long Days, Short Nights
36
The Biggest Sad Thing The Destroyer of worlds, the terror of the sky your bright green light forces men to cry and although you lie in a galaxy so far I still pity you, oh lonely Death Star cast off to sulk in the deep black void a hollow metal husk, much like a droid tall gray walls echo as stormtroopers strut oh but if you had some color! such as the palaces of Jabba the Hutt you are forever Doomed to exist in your vast isolation such is the tragedy, of a super battlestation.
Steven Ring
Rainy Day I’m lost in my castle in the sky, Perched on a grey cloud very high, In the shape of a bunny On top it’s always sunny, But on the bottom it looks like it will cry
Luis Gomez
37
Lauren Waters
Escape
38
SunStar Light You’d think that like the moon he would have taken the sunlight, taken the ultra and sent violet to blue the sky. You’d sun think he’d be small, a serene face in the giddy crowd, but when the light fell on his face, dappled in his eyes, looped and arced through his hair, I turned away from the sun only to see the sun’s light on him. It burned me. Out of the corner of my eyes I would not so much watch the sun as feel it on my lips. The sun, it blinds you, to look at the sun. It was dangerous. I didn’t. Out of the corner of my eyes, I’d sometimes feel it on my lips. Natural light. I was told mercury light was more reliable in glass. Or starlight, I thought. Those distant suns. The warmth was embarrassing. I turned away but there it was, the sun.
Maria Quiñonez
39
Rough Like Creamy treats are always dreamy. You and me, We wake from orange sleeps, foaming at the mouth. We habitually Throw rocks like evil twin lovers, hiding Youthful desire. We’ll never be ying and yang, but it’s Something that we’ve healthily come to terms with. I think Nevada suits us best. The confusing street signs, the tourism, Your pile of teeth. But we always “conquer the irony,” you were right. We find a loophole and slay a figurative dragon. I know you’re Laughing at me, and I know I’m laughing at you, but let’s just try to focus. Let’s turn down the speakers and admire the train. After all, these are the kind of trains We dreamt about, right? We scratch the surface and, Like baby kittens, we pee on the carpet and smile, like Devils. You like to forget that we’re in love, and I Like to call you a dog until you remind me that you’re just the opposite. We’ll stay in this position, totally stiff, for three to four weeks. And on the last night, you’ll light a vanilla scented candle and talk About your unexplainable fear of flames. You want me to Chuckle. By the way, last night I remembered the time we were separated: I held on to my copy of The Lost Pilot, crying hysterically Whenever I would flip to an annotated page. I’d spill soda all over the Table and stare at the suds. Your curly hair and thick accent somewhere Between point A and point B. In two mornings, though, I Will wake up early. I will greet The sun with my bare chest and apply for a low paying job At a go-kart factory. I will forget about coral reefs And remember why I appreciate you so much. Like now, I’m Remembering that I like the way you’re shaped. I feel your Bumpy back on my car window and you’re saintly. You’re a pill. You’re working without fault.
Lucas Simon Foster
40
Merissa Mann
Tempest