The Ana: Issue #11

London Pinkney Managing Editor

Carlos Quinteros III Fiction Editors

Santos Arteaga TreVaughn Malik Roach-Carter Poetry Editors

Oli Villescas Carlos Quinteros III

Art Editor Minhee Kim

THE ANA

PRONOUNCED: AH-NUH

(NOUN)

1. A collection of miscellaneous information about a particular subject, person, place, or thing.

2. The Ana is a quarterly arts magazine that celebrates humanity. We act and publish in line with the notion that everyone’s life is literature and everyone deserves access to art. While all rights revert to contributors, The Ana would like to be noted as the first place of publication.

The Ana acknowledges that this magazine was founded on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced occupation of their territory, and we honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people connected to this land on which we gather from time immemorial.

Cover design by Sun Park

Typesetting and design by Carlos Quinteros III & London Pinkney

Set in Georgia (Matthew Carter, 1993) and Futura (Paul Renner, 1927)

THE ANA Issue #11

Editor’s Note

If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with what “Ana” means. But if you’re new to our publication, we have two definitions:

1. A collection of miscellaneous information about a particular subject, person, place, or thing.

2. The Ana is a quarterly arts magazine. We are a collection and celebration of humanity.

So welcome readers, both new and old to our collection of humanity. I wanted to share with you another meaning of the word. A meaning that grew from the second.

3. A place where heart lives.

The Ana was started by a community and chosen family of writers, to create a space where people can exist without limitation or exception. The desire for that space comes from a place of love, for both people and art.

When I was invited to join The Ana, I jumped at the chance to be in that chosen family that holds art and people so close to the heart. Throughout my entire experience with The Ana, from contributor to editor, I have been able to see and experience the collective heart that beats in our mission.

As I write this, I am preparing a to move to New York, very far away from San Francisco where this community and mission were born. There is a part of my heart that breaks knowing I’ll be so separated from people I love, the city I call home, and the home base of The Ana. There is also part of my heart that is overjoyed with all that we’ve done and all that we continue to do. As I travel across the country; I carry The Ana, community,

and our mission with me. I join other editors who have branched away from San Francisco and hold part of The Ana in LA and Washington.

While we may rest in different places, we all come together to to keep the heart of The Ana beating, and as a result, I see a future where the community we cultivate spreads and grows much further than the San Francisco literary community in which it was born.

The Ana will be known to the wider art world. The Ana will be a global sensation. The Ana will always be where my heart lives.

As you consume this issue, and any other issue, I hope you feel that as much as I do.

reading, TreVaughn Malik Roach-Carter FICTION EDITOR

Happy

CROSS-GENRE LITERATURE

10 Land and loss: on seasons by Janna Wagner 18 Within Shadowed Clutches by Daniel Gonzalez 24 The Unfortunate Tale of You by Shaun Garlick 48 I LIKE SLEEPING WITH THE FAN ON BUT THE WIND KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT by Clara Sperow 50 I Whisper as I Hear Him Sleep by Janna Wagner ESSAY 29 Hurt So Good by A. Cabrera 62 A Departure Into Noise by Lucas Tonks FICTION 13 A Chemical Spritz by Robert Pettus 79 The dance of Celeste by Bianca Pasquinelli 84 The Storm of 84 by Adrian Jose Fernandez 88 Tito Boy by James Bitoy 96 For Becca by Maddy Yukich 104 Stranger by Sarah Butkovic 113 thirsTAY by Tayah Groat

NONFICTION

73 Big Shoes by Daniel Gonzalez 75 Exposure by Amy Cook

POETRY

4 my people by Zander Moreno Lozano 12 2 DOLLAR BERKELEY BOWL TULIPS by Clara Sperow & Chyna Robeson 17 sad by Nicholas Barnes 27 Isobaric by RC deWinter 28 Butch Baptism by Anastasia Lê 42 Your God Is Too Small For Curvy-Thick Girls Learning To Love Their Flesh by Hazel Cherry 43 Films by Elisha Taylor 44 Objects of de[struction]ire by Shams Alkamil 45 Everything is Illuminated in Its Dying by Anastasia Lê 53 Black Woman by Hazel Cherry 54 ARCHETYPE: The Diva by Isra Hassan 55 Mothers by Shams Alkamil 59 Hymn by Hazel Cherry 61 during the miscarriage by Stephanie Pritchard 83 acer by Nicholas Barnes 93 gone fishing by Nicholas Barnes 94 My Father’s Poem by Michaela Chairez 95 Moon. Light. by Stephanie Pritchard 102 everyone you know someday will die by Nicholas Barnes 111 Ser con la muerte by Eliezer Guevara 119 Bananas by Yvette Schnoeker-Shorb 120 labor bop-it by Cecilia Stelzer 121 Love Letter by Kaitlyn Bancroft 122 The Great Unseen Maw by Michael Gallagher

123 okay, winter by Noreia Rain 125 poet kills bird by Nicholas Barnes 126 la vida opresiva by Zander Moreno Lozano

VISUAL ART

3 Lotoeria #3 by Caitlin Torres Graham 23 Sirin by Irina Novikova 41 Senora Pera by Caitlin Torres Graham 47 Identity by Nimisha Doongarwal 52 Blood in my boxers by Chyna Robeson 57 Shower Paint #1 by Alaura Garcia 58 Shower Paint #2 by Alaura Garcia 72 Rabbit by Irina Novikova 78 View from Up Top. 59th Street Bridge. NYC. by William Crawford 87 Boy and dog by Michael MacDonald 103 Flower And Vase by Michael Moreth 110 mirleft by Melissa Morano 124 Untitled by Z White . . . . . . 1 The Ana: Issue #11 Cover Contest Winner — Sun Park 128 Contributors

The Ana: Issue #11 Cover Contest Winner:

SUN PARK

Sun Park is currently pursuing an MFA in Visual Art at San Francisco State University.

Sun’s work considers entangled bodies—human bodies, animal bodies, bodies of water, divine bodies, or a community—and the physical sensation of their porosity. Ceramic objects, installations, videos, and writing combine to create mythological worlds. Park uses visual and literary abstraction as way to incorporate Sun’s personal spiritual history—with Christianity and Korean shamanism—and experience with different environments. For more of Sun Park’s Work Instagram: @sunparkparksun Website: www.sunparkparksun.com

A Word from the Editors…

Well, this cover is just a visual dream, isn’t it? The background is wavy, groovy, and has just a touch of that TV static je ne sais quois. Like my neck hairs would stand on end were I to touch it. I love how the “11” stretches from the very top to the bottom, and I am obsessed with how “The Ana” is connected altogether in one mass, yet perfectly recognizable as two words. Lastly, there is an inherent charm to how that ballpoint pen sketch is almost entirely obscured by the foreground words. What does it depict? What was its purpose? Perhaps the knowledge is not ours to have.

Minhee Kim

ART EDITOR

Loteria #3, Caitlin Torres Graham

my people, bred out of corn husks and strawberry stems, with whiplash’d wrath do such crop yield form soil rich. my people, fervent porridge of the scorched seasons and flood’d rains do break bone paralleled confusion in search of next meal.

my people

poetry by Zander Moreno Lozano

my people, fragrance’d maiz y jugo de naranja, sol y tierra vive debajo sus uñas, en las calles rodantes reemplazan voces ligeras de ayer pasado. my people, con magia indigena revolt shrapnel noses cause crescent of devotion, for tending the land hath cost us centuries. my people, stewards with

flock as abundant earth, mound’d knowledge like dirt burrow’d chapulines and wheat’d fields of daily bread. my people, bright with shades of melanin, we color each other out of luck for we are made in image of soil richness, celery fruit’d sweet. my people, crecen sentimiento genial en fruto

de su labor, temen crecer hijo derrumbado y desecho. my people, tout in frugal intention carry intent in throat’d tales of wonder. my people, whisper guerrilla spear’d songs serenad’d in soil richness yield of crop grant wishes far beyond generations. my people, dwell on land

with perished ancestral bones catacomb burrow’d far beneath guanajuato ganache colonize’d frosting. my people, sembrando momentos cranial en paso, toman el camino con menos paso, siembran maiz pa’ el camino. y gritan sin vergüenza por el cielo cai mas cerca cada dia.

mi gente, my people, we, orange auburn soul groan in earth palette, as moved pallet construction in suburb backyard. mi gente, my people, i will seek you as pollen fall, again.

August

September

Land and loss: on seasons

cross-genre

by Janna Wagner

literature

purple spell of August is in the sky and on the land. There is faint kiss of rust on the heads of tall grasses, yet the plants on cold mornings are ample and fragrant and pregnant with fruit. I love my home among the fireweed, tilting on the swampiest corner, close to the road, far from the opposite edge of acreage that lays gently beside borough land, glimpsing ocean. Pineapple weed is rioting by the porch and on the path, clover is still sweet for the bees but starting to turn, and horsetail’s arms are flung wider and ruddier these days. Bees are sipping fireweed and yarrow’s lace is peaking from patches along the stream bed and watermelon berries hang like crimson tear drops under wide green leaves. The land is bathed in rain and comfrey wraps its arms around my heart. This is the summer of another sweater, of aching for sun until its yolk cracks through silver clouds into the throats of upturned flowers. The days of August shrug back from the fingers of a northern wind - the sweet ripening of summer isn’t over yet.

farther I walk on wounded grounds, searching for blueberry. Through stumps and waist high grass past the old garden. Baby, I planted radishes! he said. Why would you plant that many, I said, unkindly. I didn’t know the alder had taken back the potato trenches and sheltered the black currants. I hope, within the tangle, strong mint still sings. Reclamation of place. Reclamation of space - so I walk a little father, searching for blueberry. It has been years since I went this far, leaving the abandoned well and heading towards the power lines, in the direction I do not go, every step closer to the tree where you left us - but look! A bush, a bush! Look there -another! berries small and feral and blue: the bushes had been there these quiet years, drinking from earth and growing strong and spreading across rotted stumps. Thank you berries. Thank you land. The sky threw handfuls of rain and we sat under a tent of alders part way down the path and burned cedar and left tobacco. We came far enough today.

October kitty and I on the porch steps, worshipping the last sun. The oranges, reds, yellows, and browns are alive today, brilliantly alive as they turn to earth, worm, root, and ocean. The frost has flattened the great tangle of summer and the browning yarrow crumbles its blessing on the land. The taste of coming snow is on my tongue and pushky bones are bleaching next to fallen stalks of fluffy fireweed. Season of fires, soups, and frost turns morning in to fairy tale. October 11: four years since you left us – we went to the beach today – me in my boots, you in my heart. Moose skull alter on the rocks decorated by mussel shell and orange red rose hips. Breathe, it’s easy this year to breathe. There could not have been a better benediction or a more peaceful way to remember you this day than to feel the earth heaving up her arms to gather in the stalks of her children, than to sit on a friend’s front porch at the head of the bay, watching yellow leaves blow in clouds off skeleton branches. I welcome this season with love and relief. Draw your blanket tighter, the moon is filling, blessings are upon us, we are held by the land.

November i crumble the hyssop, lemon balm, horehound, and oregano between my fingertips. Herbal magic dried and put to bed – rosemary, calendula, dandelion, fireweed root, raspberry leaf – thank you. The land is breathing deeply, gently awaiting the first snow. The apple tree in your best friend’s garden on the hillside draws medicine down into the roots that cradle you, concentrating strength. Look, you can always see the ocean. I love the energy of being pulled back into the earth, nestling in the root of the thing, the leaves crumbling from their stalks, and the deep peace on the land. There is a great and powerful softness in the air as winter gathers the plants and creatures and us to her bosom, wrapping her furs around us before the great cold. The time of the hermit is calling - it is time to sleep longer, light fire, breathe deeper, and allow the bones to create.

2 DOLLAR BERKELEY BOWL TULIPS

poetry by Clara Sperrow Illustration by Chyna Robeson

A Chemical Spritz

fiction by Robert Pettus

A heavy autumn wind pushed inward the window screen, which flapped back and forth attached unstably to its home. A stink bug traversed the endless squares of the rippling grid.

The wind blew again, this time with too much force, causing within the tiny bug discomfort—in whatever way bugs can experience discomfort. It detached itself, flying into the sky, across the front yard and above McAlpin Ave. The writer on the other side of the screen, only momentarily noticing the soaring bug, got back to his story. It was a bad story; he had no business wasting his time writing it. He was aware of that, if only deep down.

The stinkbug flew chaotically across the road, the beating wind causing turbulence within its humming, robotic wings. It landed across the street onto the backpack of a middle-school kid walking home from school. One of the kid’s friends, running up from behind, shoved him into a nearby pile of leaves.

“Hey!” said the kid, pretending to be angry. He liked piles of leaves; he loved the fall. He flailed around in the pile, subconsciously savoring that thick scent of dead autumn leaves before jumping out back onto the sidewalk.

The stinkbug liked piles of leaves, too. It began instinctively chewing on a crunchy, dried brown leaf. Not quite as good as an apple, but it was close enough.

The stink bug then took again to the skies, flying further down the street, onto the front porch of a house. It flew unintentionally too close to a flickering flame, which burned a scented candle on a table atop the front porch of the slouching old house.

The stink bug felt pain.

It averted its course, onto the shoulder of a nearby humanoid figure. It was a life size mannequin of Pennywise the clown, a truly disturbing Halloween decoration. The

stink bug would have been terrified if it had read the book, or even known who Pennywise was. It didn’t, though—it couldn’t read. It landed on his painted face, instinctively spraying a chemical cocktail across his fat red nose. There was no reaction, which was strange. Usually people fall back in revulsion, sneezing and rushing off to the bathroom.

The stinkbug then flew through a crack in a nearby window screen into the house.

The place was dimly lit, but the stinkbug didn’t care about that. It cruised through the living room, spritzing its putrid scent everywhere like a reverse airfreshener. It then landed atop a Keurig coffee machine. It nibbled at the remnant grounds matted like an aromatic carpet into the bottom of the machine. This got the stink bug going—it now felt alive, though also somehow slower, somehow weakening. Caffeine, apparently, affects insects in different ways than it does people.

It flew off the coffee machine up the stairs, down the hallway and into the master bedroom, where a woman lay heaving, slobbering down her chin in the throes of REM sleep.

It landed on her cheek.

She was an elderly woman. The stinkbug crawled along the bumps of her wrinkly skin like an ATV off-roading on a mountainside.

It crawled to the bottom part of her eyelid, and she blinked.

The stinkbug again took to the air, spraying its odorous discharge all over the woman’s eyes and nose.

She sniffled, smelling the stink, feeling a strange chemical sensation in her eyes. She blinked rapidly and opened her eyes, the foreign chemical seeping into her moist eyeballs, creating almost instantly a bloodshot, pulsating involuntary quiver.

She jerked up in her bed, yanking open the curtains and looking out the window. The afternoon was bright; kids were walking home from school, as usual.

She got up and flipped on the light, which also activated the ceiling fan. As it

began spinning, the stinkbug leaped from its comfortable place atop one of the blades back into the airspace.

The lady felt a singing, pulsating sensation building from her eyes into her head. She spun blindly around the room, screaming as a result of the exponentially intensifying, piercing pain drilling into her eyeballs. A comfortable breeze blew in through an open window adjacent to her bedside—she loved to feel the afternoon breeze as she napped so she always left it open. Sometimes she would even smell the smoky, seasoned scent of a nearby sizzling grill, which she believed comforted her dream world as she slept.

Not today, though.

Her mind was deteriorating. She followed the breeze, which was her only solace from the blinding pain. Like a fool she leapt into that breeze, falling out the window. Contacting the grated shingles of her front porch roof, she rolled, falling from the roof to the front yard.

Falling face first, her body pointed so perfectly straight it would make an Olympic diver jealous, she crashed into the concrete path leading to her front porch. Her teeth cracked, molars and incisors ejecting from her mouth. She lay dead in the yard, though the throbbing pulse of her bursting eyes continued.

The stinkbug flew through that same window out of the bedroom back into the street, joining with its now swarming brethren. Clouds floated peacefully in the sky, though not blocking the brightly shining sun. It was a beautiful afternoon.

This peaceful feeling was unfortunately interrupted by shouts and screams shooting out from the front-door-mouths of nearly every house on the street. People fell into their yards, flailing around like rabid animals. People dove into the piles of leaves. Cars—at least those whose driver’s had made the unfortunate choice of keeping their windows open to enjoy the afternoon air—crashed into other cars; stampeded through yards, colliding into houses, ran over those crazed individuals writhing around on the

ground. A man rode a skateboard down the slight decline of the street, staring vacantly ahead before swerving and crashing with a thud into a telephone pole.

The stinkbug, responding to the chaos only by instinct, flew skyward toward the sun, as did the rest of the swarm. The swarm looked like a shifting, static cloud—a literal plague. They would move to a new neighborhood, a new street, which they would only briefly call home.

Stinkbugs, as you may well know, are an invasive species.

End

sad

poetry by Nicholas Barnes

these days, holding onto a good feeling is like wrangling the breeze with a greasy lasso; catching that mythical wave on a stick of bubblegum;

boogieing in babylon with no dancing shoes; separating fireflies from the julep night with a thimble.

trust me, i can do these things and more, but lately, it's just been too damn hard.

it’s a shame: i’m all oil & vinegar inside, babe.

Within Shadowed Clutches

cross-genre literature by Daniel Gonzalez

Humans spend their brief lives searching for meaning, never realizing that they sleep for half of their mortality. They believe that reality is only in the Waking hours, that this is the only realm where dreams could be accomplished. But in the Dreaming, you can comfortably travel in a hot air balloon around the celestial equator in one night’s rest or relive every excruciating hour of appendix surgery in a twenty-minute nap; for time moves on its own accord down there.

But he knew all about the Dreaming and its manipulation of time. He wasn’t sure anymore how long he had been plagued with the reoccurring dream, only that it had been afflicting his sleep every night.

They all started the same.

The shadow of a muscular arm and thick hand, reaching out from under his desk, thrashing at him. It would snatch his arm and drag him across the floor, then throw him deep into a black abyss that formed under his desk. Which shocked him; he had never seen that black hole by his feet during the day when he was working on his writing. He had spent countless hours at his desk trying to muster up some fiction with at least an ounce of believability in it. Something original that at least felt like it could be real, rather than regurgitating his own life into dramatization. Perhaps, he was so occupied in his Waking hours with his writing that he had never noticed it forming. But now in his dream, a void had materialized, and he couldn’t block it out any longer.

There were consequences for ignoring it.

The tenebrous demon hand wrapped and clawed at his arm. It knew of the dread which stemmed from his work desk and deliberately chose it as his portal to taunt and haunt him.

He would yell, but no one would come. The shadow screeched with delight drowning out his cries for help. He would pull back and heave his body towards the door in the opposite direction. But in nightmares you’re never quite as strong as you think

you are. Always a sliver weaker than usual, which brings confusion, then disappointment in overestimating your abilities, and finally a blow to your self-esteem.

At first it was a nuisance, like a stiff neck nagging at him for sleeping wrong. Just a slight discomfort.

But it was after the third time of encountering this nightmare that he realized it was a reoccurring torment. He understood then that each time he had that harrowing nightmare, he would attempt to stop the hand and end the dream. And each time he failed.

The 7th time he had the dream, he tried to bite it to let him go. But his teeth splintered and shattered into the hard muscles of the arm. His smile disintegrated. Only the taste and texture of calcium and iron remained.

On the 15th try, he rolled into a ball and threw his blankets over him so the arm couldn’t grab him. The blanket evaporated into the shadows. Then a half dozen arms encircled his bed and held him down. More came out from the shadows and covered him in a quilt of dark flesh and claws.

On the 31st attempt, he tried to bend the rules of the Dreaming. He closed his eyes tight and wished for a sharp weapon to stab the arm with. A sharp and elegant dagger apparated into his hand. He was ready for it this time and stabbed the arm when it appeared from beneath the desk. The dagger cut through it like paper, but it was he who felt the sharp sting of a blade piercing into his forearm. He felt the muscles and tendons split and weaken his grip on the dagger, causing him to drop it.

On the 57th night of the chronic ordeal, he decided that running away from the massive hand, or trying to combat it, only caused more harm. Instead, he sat up on his bed and stared at his desk, dead in the center of the abyss and waited. Within moments, the hand emerged from the dark and crept towards him. Four strong fingers and an opposable thumb worked in unison to inch towards him like a hairless tarantula. But he wasn’t scared of it this time, it was only a dream, he thought. And so, he spoke to it.

“What are you and why are you doing this?” He confronted. But the hand just kept its pace until it reached the edge of the bed where he sat. The heavy tapping of fingers stopped, and it sat on its palm. He felt the eyeless stare of the hand. He dared not break eye contact with it, but even in dreams you blink. And when he did, two hands

grabbed his ankles from under the bed, and pulled him to the floor. The sitting hand pointed towards the desk, and the other arms followed their leader’s command. He tore at his bed sheets as they dragged him once again.

Finally, on the 109th night of the persistent taunting, he decided it was enough. Attacking it, running away, and even negotiations with it had all proved futile. He woke up in his familiar nightmare and peeled the sheets off him. He stood up hastily and made his way to the abyss that was his desk before he could be dragged against his will. He looked around and saw that the shadowed arm was not around, not yet. However, that feeling of dread, like sharp nails prickling down his scalp and neck, was still there.

He stood over the desk and inspected it. He had never seen it before, but there sitting on top of the desk was an unfinished manuscript. A lump began to build up in his chest. Rather than wait for the shadowed arm, he sat down at the desk and picked up the stack of pages. The paper of the manuscript felt light and delicate, unlike the weight it had in his waking life.

They say you cannot read in dreams, but he was able to sift through these halfmaterialized ideas effortlessly. Time within the Dreaming stopped as he read, and the dread that had plagued him both day and night, began to erase from his mind and subconscious altogether.

As he read it, he came to the realization that this ethereal manuscript was beat for beat, line for line, down to the last period, the same as the one he spent every waking moment foreboding. He had been procrastinating and avoiding it for months and wasn’t sure how it could have followed him into the Dreaming.

He got to the end of the Dreaming manuscript and realized it was incomplete like its Waking counterpart. He had been too afraid to finish it because he thought his audience would see right through his façade and realize that it lacked any real substance. And now this dream only further proved that it was a pointless endeavor in both realms.

Now that sinking feeling was coming back. His diaphragm filled with anxiety and stress. The tension and pressure of it all raced through his veins. He understood it then; it wasn’t a demon that had been haunting him. No, it was something much crueler.

Underneath his desk, a darkness grew. His feet grew cold and stung as if he were barefoot on top of a frozen lake. He looked down and saw the wispy black portal grow but the hand was still nowhere to be seen. For a moment he thought he was safe, until he heard the calculated sound of sharp fingernails crawling his way. He stood up from the desk and kicked the portal, but his foot went through as if it were smoke. His toes collided into the desk, reminding him that pain still bleeds its way into the Dreaming.

The air within the dream grew tense, as if the molecules in the atmosphere where being sucked away by some phantom. He was left standing alone in that vacuum, void of any hope or thought.

He could feel that evil Arm’s presence through the empty portal inching closer to him by the second. There was no way to beat it in this realm. Not on its terms. Not like this. So, before the cursed demon limb could arrive, he sat back down at his desk.

He pulled out a pen from the desk’s drawer and flipped to the last page where the manuscript had left off. Without brainstorming, without hesitation, and without an outline, he began to write. All that came to mind he put down in ink. He didn’t stop to correct any errors, there was no more second guessing in himself. Every idea flowed out of his subconscious and trickled down from his brain to his arm where his hand refined them into the right words. He didn’t dare stop to look at the progress he made; it would only hinder him. He had no need for revision because he was not yet finished. He created fabulous new worlds with interesting characters in extraordinary situations. And as he wrote all this in the Dreaming, time stopped. And the shadowed arm never came. The black abyss shrunk with each sentence he jot down. But he hadn’t noticed. He was in the manuscripts clutches still. He sat at the desk for what could have been an eternity, had he not been in the Dreaming. He continued writing. He knew he was close to the end because his words came out at a slower pace. Then his head grew heavy with exhaustion. Then his arm cramped up as he was on his last page. He had encountered unspeakable and impossible things in this realm, but never had he experienced fatigue in a dream before. He finished the last sentence on his mind, dotted the last period, then dropped his head on the desk and fell asleep within the Dreaming.

Then, he woke up.

He stood up and went straight to his desk. He checked under it for the black portal and looked for any trace of the demon arm but saw nothing. He sighed with relief. He was finally awake.

He grabbed the unfinished manuscript and flipped to the last page as he’d done in his dream. It had led him here. He knew what his story needed now. The difficult part was to do it. But if he didn’t try, he’d be within the shadowed clutches of the abyss.

So, he began to write.

He blew through the pages, putting down everything he could remember from his dream before those remnants of ideas disappeared into the afternoon. It was like tracing over a picture the way every word came out with ease. By noon he had finished.

He set his pen and manuscript aside and relished in his accomplishment. All his anxieties were relieved, and he was able to enjoy his work.

Then, he had an idea for another story. It was different from the last, and would take some time to flesh out, but the initial spark was there. He would just let it permeate in his head for a while and let it grow until he felt it was ready to write. There was plenty of time, he thought.

For now, he deserved to go outside and live his life in the Waking hours. He forgot about his new idea and stepped outside. He felt warm and protected under the sun’s rays.

. . . . . .

Under his desk, a pitch-black abyss newly emerged. It was small and hardly visible, save for its misty edges. Within it, a shadowed arm grew impatient. It tapped its sharp claws to the rhythm of a sleepy metronome. It would wait for him.

He would come back. He would procrastinate.

And he would fall asleep.

Sirin, Irina Novikova

The Unfortunate Tale of You

cross-genre literature by Shaun Garlick

Bright light shines through your cracked eyelids. The burning smell of antiseptic seeps into your nose as you breathe in. Your head is spinning, and when you finally force your eyes open, the blurry room is too. Where am I? What’s going on? The harsh white light makes you blink, and the room starts to come into focus. White walls, white bed sheets, a woman in a white coat standing next to you holding a clipboard. Is this a hospital?

Ah you’re finally awake, welcome back. You took a nasty hit to the head earlier tonight, how do you feel? The doctor smiles at you kindly.

W-what happened? Panic rises in your chest as you stare at the doctor.

You’re in a hospital, do you remember anything? The doctor’s smile melts off her face, concern rising in its place.

I-I-I don’t know wha-what. Everything goes red. . . . . . .

Rage fills you, heating you up to the point that you’re surprised the rain and tears don’t turn to steam on your face. You pick yourself off the wet ground where you fell, and run at him. Why are you like this?! Why do you always do these things to me?! I hate you! You shove him against the wall and punch him in the stomach as hard as you can. Why can’t I just be happy?!

He shrugs off the punch and everything flashes white as he hits you back twice as hard. You fall back, ears ringing, something thicker and hotter than the rain and tears running down your face. He has always been stronger. Now he’s angry too, and advances on you, droplets of water thrown up with every stomp of his feet towards you. You crabwalk back, then feel a rock under your hand. You grip it and with all the strength you can muster, you throw it at him, turning and running before you even see if it hits him. Your heart races as sparks turn the world orange. . . . . . .

You can’t believe she actually said yes. Now here you are, sitting on opposite sides of a booth sharing a milkshake. The cold vanilla coats your tongue as you take a sip. Your

hands shake, so excited to finally be with her, the girl you’ve been dreaming of for years. Your mind has never felt so clear and so crowded as when you look at her. A thousand dreams of a thousand dates and a thousand times as happy as you have ever been before. Her laughing, a dollop of chocolate ice cream on her freckled nose. Her skipping through a field of tall yellow grass, her wave of red hair whipping around as she looks back at you. You catching her as she trips on the rocky trail, her long arms wrapping around you. She shines through all of it. I can’t wait to see it all, feel it all. You laugh with her at the joke she just told. She’s so pretty when she laughs, her green eyes sparkle like the stars and pure joy shines from her face. Fuck it I’m going for it, you lean across the table and kiss her. Angels sing and golden light bursts all around you.

. . . . . .

You and your girlfriend cuddle on the couch, watching some show you haven’t seen one minute of. You’re too busy looking at her. You bury your nose in her hair, smelling her shampoo. Mangos and honey. She’s so perfect, and she’s with you. I never thought I could be this happy. She laughs at something in the show, and you can’t do anything but smile and stare, enraptured. I could sit in this moment for a thousand years. Instead, an evergreen forest shoots up between you, taking over your sight. . . . . . .

You’re walking downtown, holding hands with the love of your life and feeling the warm glow of the sun on your face. You close your eyes and take a deep breath of the warm clean air. When you open them, she’s waving at someone across the street. You look to see who it is, and the smile leaves your face. It’s him. Why do they have to be friends? She is the most amazing person, and he is the lowest of the low. A bully, stealing your stuff, spreading rumors about your family, an endless barrage of slaps and punches. He is the meanest motherfucker you have ever met. He doesn’t look mean now though, a wide smile covering his face, rather than the sneer you’re used to. His eyes look bright and friendly as he waves. The dark, menacing disgust that is ever present in gaze when he looks at you is gone. She’s returning the smile, just as bright and happy as she always does to you. Tendrils of jealousy shoot through your soul. That’s my smile, why does he get to see it too? The sun goes behind a cloud, shadows spreading across the street. The air feels colder, and so do you. Your vision blurs as blue seeps into your eyes. . . . . . .

Tears stream down your face, an endless river of sadness. A deep pain grips your insides, like the hand of a demon squeezing your soul. Like a sponge it all spills out, unable to be contained under the pressure. How could she do this? She was perfect, they were perfect. Soulmates in every sense of the word. She was your sun, and now she warms another. Him. She couldn’t just leave you, she had to go to him. Why Him?! Why does he always ruin everything?! You can’t let this go, you have to do something. It’s his fault. Your breaths start coming faster and faster as the world shatters into purple shards. . . . . . .

You slip on the wet pavement, landing on your shoulder and sliding a few feet. You have to get up, you need to move, move, MOVE. You’ve never been so scared. The adrenaline keeps you moving, your soaked clothes weighing you down. You can hear him gaining on you, shouting your name, rage in his voice. I can’t let him catch me.

Get your scrawny ass back here! The words echo down the alley. You keep running, only to slide to halt at a dead end. There’s nowhere else to go. Shit shit SHIT. You turn, and there he is, silhouetted against the mouth of the alley. Oh god he’s huge. There’s nothing you can do, nothing, nothing. You’re hyperventilating, the panic filling you to the brim. He takes a step into the alley, and you only see one way out. Without thinking you let out a primal shriek of terror and run right at him. But halfway there you slip again, falling forward. A hot, hard pain, and everything is white. . . . . . .

You are back in the bed, struggling, thrashing. I need to get out, I need to find her. I need to find him. This can’t be the end of my story. She’s mine, she can’t be his. You scream, a ragged, broken sound. I need to get to them. Orderlies are holding you to the bed, and as you try to escape, a nurse sticks a needle in your thigh. A sharp pain and your brain fills with syrup, thoughts barely moving--my arms...my legs...I...can’t--it feels like they’re being filled with cement. You let out a whimper, feeling crushed under the weight of it all. Slowly, it fades to black.

Isobaric poetry by RC deWinter

The incremental game is growing old.

I cannot breathe abstractly anymore and winter nights bring nothing but the cold, all promises abandoned at the door.

I cannot breathe abstractly anymore, hemmed in a space too small in which to live, all promises abandoned at the door –too much for me to rescue or forgive.

Hemmed in a space too small in which to live I feed on memories that daily dim, too much for me to rescue or forgive. I am a chorister without a hymn.

I feed on memories that daily dim, and winter nights bring nothing but the cold. I am a chorister without a hymn –the incremental game is growing old.

BUTCH BAPTISM

poetry by Anastasia Lê

A pyre alive with rain refrains the noise complaint of your joy, your umbrella collapse of a laugh. That night, each sharp oak leaf did us a favor. & though the rain takes your heat, cold is but the frontier between bodies. What can you do with wet kindling but watch, as it denies light?

HURT SO GOOD

nonfiction by A. Cabrera

“[T]he romantic idea that the disease expresses the character is invariably extended to assert that the character causes the disease—because it has not expressed itself. Passion moves inward, striking and blighting the deepest ... recesses." - Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor.

22 1/2 Years: Knee Injury. The driver pulled alongside as you limped down Wildcat Canyon Road, leaning on your Raleigh Super Sport and asked if you were okay. Yes. Fine. He wanted to take you to the hospital. You didn’t have insurance, you explained.

“The bone is showing,” he pointed out. Indeed, your knee was worse than you thought. He put your bike in his car and dropped you at Highland Hospital in Oakland. He made out a blank check to the hospital and drove away. You never saw him again.

(To counteract the effects of an all-nighter, you set out on the 20-mile bike ride from the Berkeley flats up to Grizzly Peak, out to the end of Inspiration Point and back. Despite having snorted, smoked and drunk assorted substances all night, and not sleeping, you felt strong. You cycled hard and fast. On the return route, for one second, you let your mind wander. Did not focus on the crumbling pavement. You fell and tore your pants but would not inspect the wound, opting to wish it away.)

7 Years, 3½ Weeks: Three Cracked Vertebrae. The mother of the tonsillectomy girl in the next bed visited her daughter, carrying a white box tied with a bow. The mother

wore lipstick, her stuck firm in fluffed-up perfection. You watched the girl open the box and pull out a pink two-layer nightgown, shiny nylon beneath, and gauzy chiffon on top. Then the girl lifted out a matching see-through robe with a wide satin ribbon tie, and ruffled bell sleeves. You had no idea such things existed for girls your age, this I-Dreamof-Jeannie-meets-Fredericks-of-Hollywood ensemble.

The next day, the tonsillectomy mother came with another box, just like the one the day before. But this was for you. Inside, you found the same nightie and peignoir she'd given her daughter, only in Florida orange. When you tried to thank her, your voice got stuck behind a clump of embarrassment and joy. The doctor was right; you were fortunate. (The last week of a hepatitis quarantine you were allowed out of bed, told to move around the house before returning to school. Giddy with permitted ambulation, you ran in socks along the hallway at the top of the stairs and tumbled down the steep wooden staircase. Your mother, despite other questionable choices, like waking you weeks later in the night and leading you downstairs without your brace to watch her staged suicide attempt, had the wherewithal to make you lie still until the ambulance team put you on a special stretcher. You stayed in the hospital two weeks, hooked onto an assembly of pulleys and weights, and were fitted with a clunky metal brace. They threw in a lock, so you could not take it off. The orthopedic surgeon declared you fortunate. You could have been paralyzed.)

15 Years: First Pregnancy Scare. You called Gigi’s older sister and asked her to check for blood on the sheets so you would know if you were still a virgin. Gigi wore a lot of blue eye-shadow and fiddled with her chewing gum, pulling it in strands from her mouth. You did not hang out with Gigi again for the rest of your life.

(After your father died, you had no curfew, no rules. You went to a party at Gigi’s house with a group of 19- and 20- year-old guys and drank Southern Comfort and orange juice. The last thing you remember is making out on her sister’s bed with a tall skinny guy with long straight hair who wore tight bell bottoms and a jean jacket. It was the first of many times you came out of a blackout partially-clothed with a stranger.)

8-10 Years: Broken Arms. You were afraid of recess and were now excused from it. As the fighting and drinking on the homefront increased, the shyer and quieter you became. You could not figure out how to play with other children. But you were ashamed to be seen all alone. Each broken arm respite from the playground, an excuse to stay inside and help the teacher.

(The broken arm is a byproduct of an even moderately active childhood; you had a swing-set in the backyard and five siblings.)

24 + Years: Hammer Toes & Bunions. Twisted bonsai appendages grow from the ends of your legs.

(You went on ten- and twelve-mile runs, several times a week, for over a decade. And danced for longer. You wrapped and taped to protect the toes. You wore flip-flops because shoes hurt too much. The insurance company categorized a bunionectomy as elective surgery. The feet bent and curved, toes rearranged themselves. Biomechanics shifted alignments. You ignored the pain, kept dancing and running until the knees gave out.)

50 Years: Intussusception. You were on a morphine drip, half-watching a crime show series to your heart’s content. Best of all, you were still skinny, and had a deeper understanding of the limitlessness of addiction. You were exempt from hosting your annual New Year’s Day party that, like the Blob, fed on people and grew out of control. No one brought you an orange nightgown set, but your sister-in-law lent you two cotton camisoles for the hospital. People showed concern, brought leek quiches, roasted chickens, and books. (You followed the Master Cleanse for 12 days to get skinny and find enlightenment, then binged on so much black licorice that your intestines telescoped in on themselves. The Hungarian surgeon cut out a section of your colon and biopsied a suspicious mass of “black tattoo-type pigmentation.”)

7 Years: Hepatitis B. You were mandated to rest for a month. They moved you into your oldest sister's private, teenage bedroom and set up a small TV. Never before had a television been allowed in a bedroom. You stayed home from school with your mother,

who fixed whatever you wanted for dinner. You ate minute steak and green beans every night, had only to endure a tablespoon of cod liver oil twice a day. Doctor's orders. (How you contracted it, a mystery. You doubled over in pain; your parents, not ones to overreact to a child’s every complaint, brought you to the hospital as a last resort nestled in a plaid blanket in the back of the Gran Torino station wagon. Mother, father, five siblings, and the neighborhood children who'd been at the house the previous day eating buttered popcorn from communal bowls were mandated to get gamma globulin shots in their rear ends. You alone were delivered from that sentence.)

18-22 Years: Bad Trips. Abortions. At the Oakland Feminist Woman's Health Collective, you were instructed to sit on the floor, naked from the waist down, in a circle with nine women you didn’t know and hold a mirror in one hand while drawing a sketch of your labia. You wanted to be fitted for the free diaphragm, so you complied. You hitchhiked in the Alps, went out in drag all night in Lisbon, taught English to air force engineers outside of Madrid while tipsy, and crashed a wedding in Nice. You fell in love. You were healthy. Or secretively in need of a doctor’s care. You discovered the benefits of socialized medicine in other countries. The shabby waiting rooms in free health clinics at home, the lack of privacy in a county hospital where shackled male prisoners lined up against the wall of a cramped examining room as you got weighed, your vitals taken.

You made a point of meeting John F. Kennedy Jr., visiting briefly in his dorm room at Brown and making small talk before Secret Service agents, with professional graciousness, escorted you out. John John (you could not think of him otherwise, but would not call him that to his face) declined your invitation, did not want to go on a date with you. (You drank. You jogged. You discovered THC, cocaine, Quaaludes, Black Beauties and LSD. You purchased quantities of speed, cocaine, pot and Ecstasy to sell, but consumed too much of your own inventory to net a profit. A break-up in college felt more devastating than your father’s death. You wrote about it in a journal you later used for recipes and still refer to when making chicken pot pie or criolla de pollo.)

54 + Years: Reconstructed ACL and Meniscus Repair (Both Knees), Partially-Severed Broken Pinky, Cataracts, Hemorrhoids, Plantar Fasciitis, Depression, Suicidal Ideation. You went alone to a house on a mountain and tapered yourself off the meds that helped you cope for seventeen years. (You started repeating yourself. One day in class, while explaining an assignment, you were met with collective shock, stunned looks on the students’ faces. “What?” You begged them to tell. The student who sat front and center hesitated: “You just said the same thing five minutes ago.” Your teenagers and husband caught you repeating yourself, too. You read articles on research linking dementia to long term use of certain antidepressants.)

23 Years: Eczema. After your mother’s funeral and newly-sober, you, your best friend, and your boyfriend Bill drove to Tijuana in a '67 Ford Falcon that required refilling the radiator water every 40 minutes. Over the border, you bought cheap flights to Barre de Navidad where you swam in the warm salty sea in Bill's boxer shorts and a bandeau top fashioned from a scarf. You spent evenings playing Yahtzee with Rosa, the daughter of the restaurant owner. Two days in, the itchy, scabbed patches disappeared. (Shortly after being orphaned, you developed bleeding scabs in the crooks of your elbows, behind your knees, and at the base of the neck. You hid the bleeding, wore longsleeved turtlenecks no matter the temperature, even when cocktail waitressing in a sweltering dive bar on Shattuck Avenue, ferrying umbrella-adorned drinks mounted atop dry ice that trailed billowing clouds behind you, like an airplane sky-writing messages. You served this specialty drink, the "Fog-Cutter," to the woman in your section wearing feet pajamas and talking aloud to herself. Cortisone soothed, but didn't stop the oozing.)

6 Years: Plantar Wart. Dinner alone with your parents in a Manhattan restaurant with white linen tablecloths. Your mother and father didn't argue; they talked to you and smiled. (Child number five, of six, doesn't often get top billing.) The waiter placed a covered serving dish before you and lifted the top to reveal a steaming white object, folded over like a fortune cookie. A special dessert? Your parents and the waiter laughed. So Cute! How impossibly fancy, a hot washcloth on a covered tray just for you, a soft fortune steaming secrets.

(You began walking on your toes; it hurt to walk on the whole foot. Your parents brought you to a specialist in New York City. The doctor put you on a steel table under a heavy blanket, alone in a room with just the spot on your heel exposed. A giant insectshaped machine looming overhead zapped the invisible intruder in the sole of your foot.)

22 Years: Snow Blindness. The world disappeared. With care, the doctor peeled the contact lenses from your eyeballs and applied a cool compress. “Keep your eyes closed,” she said. (You and your roommates, Mary and Alan, drove to the cheapest ski resort in Tahoe squished into the cab of Alan's little red Toyota pick-up. You had never skied with contacts, unhampered by prescription glasses fogging up. It was a sun-blazing spring day and your first time in the Sierra mountains, exhilarating. The next day, you all drove to Santa Cruz, a group of you consigned to the open bed of the truck, windswept and jostled, as you sped down Highway 17 to spend Easter Sunday on a beach. The quintessential California experience, you thought -- skiing on Saturday, the beach on Sunday. That night, you went blind. Unlike prescription eyeglasses with darkening lenses, contacts did not protect from the sun's glare.)

51 & 53 Years: Bell's Palsy. Your students were nicer than ever. You canceled a conference presentation, extra classes, and an environmental fund-raiser you had been

planning. Outside, you wore dark glasses and a scarf to cover most of your face, moved more freely in that half-concealed state. Three times a week, you napped behind a screen in a storefront on Irving Street while a slightly-bent white-haired Chinese practitioner who wore the same cardigan every time you saw him for two months sat guard. He smelled like cigarettes and the low-ceilinged room hummed with a barely-perceptible loop of instrumental music, so low you thought you were imagining it. (You heard the same melodic background buzz at Lou’s auto repair shop where they also have an altar with an orange and a statue.) There was no computer. The walls were plastered with dried, yellowed papers with Chinese characters, and two anatomy drawings that reminded you of the board game Operation. The doctor repeated the same words over and over. One sounded like “Hi. Hi.” But he knew you well already. He checked your symmetry and peered into your eyes, your ears, your organs, your secrets. “You sad. You worry. No good.” His voice as quiet as the music you couldn’t hear. He stuck needles in your temples, around your mouth and chin, inside your wrists, on the tops of your toes and in the soles of your feet. You fell asleep on mismatched tattered towels with a heating pad underneath. Each time he came to wake you, you had tears in your eyes. You hoped he was not embarrassed. He wanted you to feel better. “You sleep. Good. Very good” He extracted the needles with much care, as if plucking hairs from a butterfly. He was your mother in another life. You wanted him to know you loved him.

But he was protected by people who soundlessly appeared in the office and spoke to him in Chinese. Once you brought him a persimmon, and a young woman, not the daughter who was a medical doctor at the hospital up the street, but a teenager with acne and a low brow reading a romance novel, handed it back to you. “He says, ‘thank you,’ but he cannot accept this.” You paid cash.

(Your face froze, half-fallen, the left side of your mouth permanently melted. You gave lectures with one eye taped closed to keep it moist, propping up the corner of your mouth with a finger to speak. The acupuncturist called it the Wind Disease.) . . . . . .

A psycho-immunologist challenges the medical field's tendency to study pathology rather than health. He researches centenarians for clues on the bio-cultural factors that determine people’s vitality and active lifestyles well into their 90s. He poo poos genetic dispositions as the cause for many ailments. Healthy old people say “no” when they want to. And “yes” at their will. Illness allows people to avoid things they don't want to do, he asserts. And more damaging, the things we feel we don't deserve. (You lie when your doctor asks if there is anything else. No. Nothing. You downplay the depression, don’t mention the despair. So much to be grateful, your sadness an embarrassment. You purchase over-the-counter medications, research herbal remedies, vitamins, diets. You stop seeing yourself as moderately invincible.) . . . . . .

Latest: Injured Rotator Cuff. You break from tradition (17 years to the same family vacation spot) and go to Cuba for three weeks with your dance teacher, a priestess in

Orisha, a mashup of musicians and dancers. You carry black and white photographs of relatives who died before you were born. You share in underground AA meetings with Cubans who memorize texts because they don’t have enough copies of the books. You and the other dancers study with the husband and wife Afro Cuban folkloric professors from Havana. Your bare feet slap the wooden floor, the planks smoothed by decades of countless soles pounding across them. You undulate and tremble in space, pelted and pulled by song chants and drumming. You spin and trip and swivel through salsa rueda classes in the Santiago sweat of June, four to five hours a day. Body parts wake and twitch off dormant years. You kick and jump, bow and spin to deities for everything -- motherhood, thunder, crops, happiness, water. You are a message written in the music, floating inside drumbeats and claves, a low eternal reverberation, pulsating against skin and beyond the breath. You dance to the core of your body, out of the limits of being. You chance drowning in joy while stomping and undulating with fury and love in the moment that lifts you up from time. Your shoulder has healed. Everything works. You are cured.

(After a bicycle accident coming home from work one foggy San Francisco evening on the metal MUNI tracks on Ocean Avenue when strangers stopped and gave you and the bike a ride home, your shoulder stopped working. You went to chiropractors, got cracked and taped up, saw a surgeon, had an MRI, considered arthroscopic repair. You tried rehabbing with weight machines at the gym, and still could not hold a plank or pull a shirt over your head. You felt guilty about canceling an annual trip, did not know if you would be able to dance. But your spouse and kids

gave their blessing. Your youngest said if it is what you want, you should do it. The most difficult prescription of all to follow. But you do.)

Senora Pera, Caitlin Torres Graham

Your God Is Too Small for Curvy thick Girls Learning to Love their Flesh

poetry by Hazel Cherry

Toni says, love ain’t thin. My thighs are full of meaning. My hips carry the brute force of the world. I work hard to fit into my jeans.

It took me years to see God in my reflection. And you mean to tell me the God you preachin’ don’t want women to love the glorious bodies he gave ‘em?

Your God sounds insanely moody. Needy, even. Nah, I need a God that loves me big and round. Pound for pound.

I need a God that can handle the line of questioning that comes from the beautiful intrinsic brain He gave me.

Your God always wants you sad, weepy and sufferin’. What kind of God is that? Then you say God is love. Baby that don’t match.

I need a God who wants me to have bliss and pleasure. Suffering always be there, why would God want me to have more of it? Make it make sense.

My God knows when I’m bluffing and knows how to shoot the breeze. Speaks to me in the wind and in the trees.

My God laughs with me on the porch and at my kitchen stove. My God loves everything about me and had fun fashioning the little intricate details of my personality. The good book say, I’m a fearfully and wonderfully made being.

My God is proud when I pursue my dreams and wants more than I can imagine for me. Your God don’t want you to enjoy the gift life.

Sweetie sounds to me like you’re in prison and God is the Warden. I’m gone pray you get free and taste the life that Jesus say he came to give you abundantly.

Films

poetry by Elisha Taylor

Film me while I'm living

My death will be with him but

I don't want to see

I don't want them to no longer want me

objects of de[struction]ire

poetry by Shams Alkamil

jordan peele scripted / a meat-eating chimp / niggas say black is chimp niggas is niggas / roll the cameras / confuse set lights with sweat-ridden palms africa is hot? / niggas is beautiful / ugly is roll over on your side

cocaine-pinky scooping sugar into chai / i cry over the kettle / confuse boiling water with servitude beautiful is dashiki clinging to/ sex scars/ damp with chai niggas say black is chimp / niggas will fuck you nonetheless / sugar coats the air

auntie stares whisper / the golden-tooth smirks / confuse attention with attention shake as the kettle pours / shake as cocaine-pinky cackles / shake as the kettle pours ask (oblige) me/ lick the sugar off / aaaaaand, end scene cocaine-pinky

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED IN ITS DYING

poetry by Anastasia Lê tongue wilts against sour grass ... blunt knife on tomato skin ... blue flame caressing cast iron ... puckering plastic bleeding cabbage ... freckled with sesame ...

leaves webbed with oil sweating out ... palm chilies open curl an toward

I LIKE SLEEPING WITH THE FAN ON BUT THE WIND KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT

cross-genre

by Clara Sperow

literature

love is here, in this queer platonic spring break desert camping trip. we trade off driving, playing our old music. we build fires together, pitch the tent. we talk about how much we love our partners and what it would feel like to be parents. we share hard kombuchas and honey dijon chips and toothpaste. make rice noodles together and laugh. i’m so scared of losing community as i get older but here it is, still.

the best way i can explain my spring break to my family is “like a girls trip” even though some of us aren’t girls, and we’re not escaping husbands. we all have different experiences of queerness – one is tired of being everyone’s first “girl crush,” one is coming to terms with her queerness within a loving straight relationship with a childhood friend, one wears a “tiny hot topic bitch” shirt (based on the hayley williams tweet), one is me.

we use a handful of different pronouns and labels to communicate our identities, but here in the car world we’re just singing fun! songs and the sound of music soundtrack together. two of us have pisces mercuries (we speak softly to each other in the back seat). two of us have aquarius moms and gemini dads (we are the first to pitch the tent). i’m looking for connection everywhere, looking for patterns. finding my childhood best friend in my neighbor in the dorms. finding my partner in my friend driving the car to joshua tree. the trip is one long game of sweet and sour. i played it as a kid – waved and smiled at strangers from the backseat of my parents’ minivan. my parents would tell me to stop, worried i might upset someone. but i wanted to see who would wave and smile back.

i think about this as i step out of the car at a gas station in arizona. i look at the american flag flying, the trump bumper stickers, i look at my tattoos, my piercings, my outfit. i put on my mask before i walk into the store, looking for sweetarts and a bathroom.

i think about it again on a hiking trail in the grand canyon. we wave, smile, say hi. some do it first. others avert their eyes, and i can’t tell what to take personally. i think about it again, again, again, i’ve thought about it before, before, before, before, before. when i get dressed in the morning, when i hold hands with my girlfriend, when i notice another gay person in public and this feels unusual, rare, an exciting sighting. when i think about every time i have heard queerness labeled as attention seeking and i wish i could switch my identity on and off and still feel okay when i’m alone.

we park at a busy campsite and i don’t want to leave the car world. but i do. and we exchange plant names, rock facts, memories. we do bits, laugh, assign each other percy jackson parents because half of us never read the books. we take breaks and feed each other trail mix when the hike gets hard. i feel the wind and i feel my body and the stranger in the campsite bathroom asks if i had a nice day and i say yes. i ask where she’s from and she says colorado and i say it’s so beautiful there because it is. every night of the trip, the four of us sleep next to each other in a big tent with the top tarp off so we can see the stars, even though it’s cold. we rotate one over each night, switching spots and tent positions, and on the second to last night (right before sleep) a friend tells me she likes hearing stories before bed and then she is quiet. and i tell her i’m not very good at making up stories even though it seems like i might be. i only know how to talk about things that are real. she says she’s sure i can tell a good story. and then she is quiet. soft quiet, waiting. and i am quiet. and then i ask if she wants me to tell her a story. and then everyone is quiet. and so i do.

I Whisper as I Hear Him Sleep

nonfiction by Janna Wagner

, the world is bigger than this.

I think of the desert, the coast of Maine. Juneau. This is the time before.

I feel my face with my fingers. I am here.

“I can’t be here for you,” he said. (I had just come back from a war; from bodies and bullets and invisible wounds). “My father is dying.”

“Ok,” I said. And never forgave it. This was the tip of the first domino.

We are in the middle of falling. Still making love. Still making plans. A woman is done long before she tells you. She wants it to be you, so bad, that the part who stays thinks it’s winning the fight. Only at the last moment, only at twilight, always without warning, a surprise to no one and to everyone, leaving wins.

Somewhere lives souls that just love, hand to heart, eyes to eyes, breath to breath.

I turn my face; his hands trace my hips. He is happy. Across the world, thousands of other women are curled on their sides too, saying « I’m fine » to cover the breaking. I try hard not to think of the one I love. The one who claws at me and I moan for him and we are lost. Pressing cheek to cheek, pressing (what is love if not the anguished pressing?). He didn’t pick me.

I lie beside a good, kind man, who strokes my hair when I cannot sleep, and think of how I must not love him. Stop it! you are lucky. I think of how I recoil from the tone of his voice when he whispers the hurts of his heart. How I must be a hard, over-boiled woman. Full of sinew and elbows. Viper. Shrew. Forgive me. I long for the one I love. Stop it. you made the healthy choice.

I think of the soft underbelly of my bicep, a magical ample place, and think of how, in the race with the worm for the apple, we lose. It occurs to me I may have serious depression. Or is longing simply human, inextricably tied with being a person in the world?

"I love you," I say. I am always the last to sleep. I sigh into the night. Relief. Try not to cry, try not to think of him, try not to imagine getting in the truck one day and just driving. A different life is always just minutes away. Forgive me. Even though my wet cheeks are chubby and even though I’m losing the war with time, I long for the desert, the coast of Maine. Juneau. The world is bigger than this, I whisper as I hear him sleep.

Blood in my boxers, Chyna Robeson

Black Woman

poetry by Hazel M. Cherry

I am not ruined. I am overworked.

I have danced a thousand rhythms with my thighs, gave way to galaxies from my bosom. My delectable nectar has nurtured a thousand children.

I made meals to feed the systems discarded. Protested at rallies until my voice could no longer shout. I am not your backbone. I am your foundation. And I am weary.

I helped lead you to wholeness at the expense of my weakened bones. I am not an anchor. I am a survivor.

You drank from my chalices and made supple honey from my words. I am not a home maker. I am the home.

ARCHETYPE: The Diva

poetry by Isra Hassan

Act I.

i hear that you claim the pain is at a level 10- / a number that high is… you see, typically… / ….inflated… / see / the issue is

i can’t hear / what’s being said / murmured assurances / it's what's best / for me / unquestioned / withheld / information / withheld / medicine / pleading / “can you write me a prescription” / withheld / answers / “can someone please give me an answer” / left / with requests ignored / asking me nothing / anything but / to / come again

i can’t / help myself / i’m scared what if there is no next time Act II. so this is what we’ll do / nothing

i refuse to believe nothing can be done / absent doing is / an active doing Act III. there is no next time / but i can’t / say that

white curtains / white insurance / white deliberation / white sheets / white walls / white sterilization / white hands / white syringe / white are you sure / white foam hand sanitizer / white linoleum / white coats / white degrees from white institutions / white screens / white gauze / white calls / white paperwork / white there is no problem / white formality / white noise / white annoyance / white proof of licensure / white oh we see this all the time / white there is nothing to worry about / white emptiness / white delight / white questions / white sight / white wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait… / to black lack of answers / to black preparation / to black patience / to black hesitancy / to black fear / to black persistence / to black fury / to black mortar cracks / to black silence / to black passing obscured by white curtains

Mothers

poetry by Shams Alkamil

sometimes, i feel them with me, softly opening my mouth when the pain is too much not to spit daggers. angry with me, for me. i wear their presence like a cloak, except when a man says he loves me; it becomes too hard to remember. but it is (ok). after decades of cloak-imprints, i carry their grief in vertebrae that refuse to be bricked. mothers escape when my heart fleets, mothers tag-team to collect a man’s lies. i wonder: which man is responsible? for stealing shared breaths in my lineage? which man is responsible? for making my first mother unlovable? & which man fashions his cloak today?

sometimes, i extra feel them with me, when i see mama's face contort as jido grew upset. her face shifts like a glitch in the matrix. one second she is a divorcee, another she is 8. she is 8 and afraid of men. she is 8 and unlovable.

slowly, our voices pitch up and turn into a question to make men believe they are the answer. they are never the answer. &i wonder, does he grow hard even though we only pretend to practice subservience? &so i wonder, is he too dumb to ever know the difference?

sometimes, i step on a crack just to curse myself. because all the mothers

before i was a mother, are dead. it is merely a small act of kindness it is only fair their backs break. this way: i am the newest mother. the newest burden.

&i wonder, how much worth my sticky tongue offers if it twangs & tweeds the diaspora telephone game?

Shower Paint #1, Alaura Garcia

Shower Paint #2, Alaura Garcia

I am what I am

I am what I am

I am what I am

Hymn

poetry by Hazel M. Cherry

Made of strings of pearls and corner liquor stores birthed from grandma's prayers nurtured on her wisdom and cooking

I am graduate degree and former SNAP beneficiary nurturer and sex goddess pastor and savage Oakland city girl and Mississippi ancestral roots

not contradictions but inclusion of my bodycon dress and holiness

I am sassy and seductive with swear words and soothing prayers ushering folks through grief I am bantu knots and 16-inch yaky weave

I am wrinkled face muffin top and still lovely

Not contradictions but inclusion

I am my right to choose and to reverence life I am come undone and have my shit together meditative and

I am sassy stiletto heels and decorative sneakers

I am put a praise on it and put yah back into it

I am Beyoncé flawless and quirky Erykah Badu Ratchet and righteous

I am what I am not contradictions but inclusion of all the complex ill-fitting pieces perfectly Me

a roaring lion

during the miscarriage poetry

by Stephanie Pritchard

womb wrecked like a ramshackle monument power drills early this morning that sound rises up

like fog in the dawning, dazed birds wheel low, their long shadows stretch over everything unbolted and splintered.

A Departure Into Noise

hybrid essay by Lucas Tonks

17th October, 2022

In one month from now, you will be gone. I’m scared of losing you, your voice potentially irretrievable amongst the deafening call of sirens, or what those sirens warn us against. Please let it not be long until I hear your voice again.

To offset the anxiety of your absence, I attempted to write an article in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The leading question would have been what the theorisation/concept of the platform does in terms of reconceptualising the discursive agency of individuals. I embarked on a purposefully overly academic endeavour, one that would distance me from the actuality of our situation. But it seems academic language and logic become troubled in the face of what is occurring, and what I fear for you, of your loss.

Instead, what has turned out, is a theoretical rambling, a letter (?), a troubled attempt at sense-making and information-seeking. You will see me lose myself in lines of thought, connections will seem disjointed between subject matters, and certain points will contain excess amounts of information that I believed to be important but am no longer certain are. Of course, there is a fair share of contradictions too. I chose not to scrap or change this in any way. I long to preserve against erasure. What you read here is an attempt to make sense within a climate of misinformation and paranoia, and what occurs when one attempts to approach a logical void in the midst of its creation.

Informational warfare, a politics of disinformation. A form of warfare that has gained increasing significance and would not have as far-reaching consequences if it were not for digital platforms.

I am afloat upon an ocean of noise.

Platform: A raised level surface on which people or things can stand

Origin; French, plateforme, meaning ‘ground plan’, literally ‘flat shape’.

We’re perched upon the crest of a perilous ledge, you and I. The wind pushes us back and forth, forcing us to brace ourselves against and sense the proximity of the void below, waiting to engulf our fragile bodies. It pulls us closer toward it, luring us in as we gaze downward, our vision and minds captivated by deathly possibilities. Simplification. Nullification. It would not take much for us to be pulled into its jaws, seemingly at the hand of our own will. I sense myself slipping. And then you call my name.

The revolution will not be televised, but the war will be platformised. In recent history, we witness a rapid change in the manner in which the general public experiences the politics of vision in relation to war. Most information concerning foreign conflicts prior to Vietnam was disseminated through radio broadcasts and newspaper articles. Vietnam was the first to be televised. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the first war to be brought into the palms of our hands. Platforms serve to facilitate the streaming of spectacularised images of war into the minds of people across vast networks. Civilians across the globe are called upon through telegram channels to paralyse Russian networks and websites with a simple click, as they casually participate from the comfort of their own homes. Never before has a foreign war been brought into such close proximity to individuals who are not directly affected by the terror of conflict. War, brought to us through the visual, informational, and participatory mode of the platform brings with it new challenges concerning the narrativisation of the conflict.

In March 2021, one month after Russia declared its “special operation” in Ukraine, your friend was living with us, displaced as a consequence of the invasion. One morning, she rushed to the living room with tears in her eyes extending her phone out toward me, “Is this real, do you think this is real? I just don’t know anymore”. On the screen was an image of Volodymyr Zelenskyy firmly shaking hands with a party official of

another government. After some close inspection, it appeared to me to be a craftily doctored image. But to someone bombarded with swathes of information regarding each development of the war, with the fatigue of it all collapsing in on her, the lines between information and noise were clearly beginning to blur. This was one of the first cases where (as far as I’m aware at least) that I encountered Russia’s informational warfare, or tactics of disinformation.

What ensued was an internal barrage of doubts and questions. But a slower process crept along, something else began to eat away at me. A displacement. A distrust. A disordering. I sensed myself entering a disquieted perspective. In a home that is not truly yours, how can you settle, gather your senses? From which reference point can you draw from anymore? At which point, your very sense of self becomes displaced, everything entering an agitated state of heightened precarity. You generate a new unsettled reference point, a new home. Where else to reside but within uncertainty? In German, the uncanny is instead the ‘unheimlich’. This phrase, in its literal translation, becomes the ‘unhomely’, or home, but not quite. The home, the body, the mind, transformed into spaces that are no longer beds of settlement, but those that regard you as an intruder, a stranger, one who no longer belongs. There is an unwelcome guest in my mind.

I began to question the idealism of the notion of the platform, the very thing that brought your friend and I that distorted reality. There are certain contradictions at play. The platforms, in their aesthetic guises, serve to flatten and democratise all information to users. I say guise, the democratic idealism of platforms is rarely true.

Information and discourse have always been presented to us in a flat manner, if we consider the material modes of informational presentation. Think for example, of newspapers, through their spatiality, rather than simply the discursive authority of the titles. Certain information is privileged over others, news deemed less significant or marketable is filtered toward the back of the paper, whilst eye-catching segments, images, and salient current events usually reside on the front page or at least tucked within the first few. In other words, newspapers in their mode of presentation do not suggest or create the ideal that they are equalising platforms of informational

distribution. Despite being flat, they suggest to readers that not all information or discourse is created even. Although, of course, these biases and distributions can be problematic in their own right, they do tend to make themselves visible, there is a certain degree of transparency that grants readers a critical positionality toward the manner in which the information is being framed or treated, with relative ease.

People don’t read newspapers nowadays though, do they? On digital platforms, the production of singular identities (both on an individual opinion-based level, and that of the personality production of larger organisations on platform mediums) serves to disorder and enumerate source validity whilst distracting the senses. There is a balancing of the potential validity of alternative discourses and information presented to us. All stories are told within uniform windows, all comments and opinions appear underneath, neatly assembled and compacted into uniform comment boxes. Everything is flattened behind the screen. There is a troubled dissensus, a rabid democracy occurring, with consequences reaching much further than my strained eyes and scrambled mind. All information and discourse have lost value, as the hierarchies collapse.

But are they? Most of us know those informational pecking orders remain firmly in place. Yet there is an amplified opacity toward these hierarchies. If I am information literate, I can attempt to disregard some and have an effort of attention toward certain information, but I have little to no choice in what I am shown when inhabiting the platform. There is no way for me to distinguish how or why I am being shown a story, comment, or image over another. Information and possible disinformation seamlessly blend together as I scroll endlessly down my feed.

Uncertain as to what I seek, the resounding hum of noise returns. There is an unwelcome guest at the table.

Another unwelcome guest. Back on the platform. I’m watching an evening speech of Zelenskyy, I scroll through the comments, not really listening to the speech, so many at this point, most along the same lines. A comment sticks out to me, it’s short, simple, potent. My agitated thumb froze mid-scroll, twitching eagerly.

“Do you people really believe everything this guy says?” Another user replies, “I can see the Russian bot farms are back up and running”. Who were these people? Were they people, bots, or somewhere in-between? How many users on this platform are not simply users, but politically backed individuals or bots that relentlessly regurgitated state rhetoric? Singular identities merged into a cacophonous multiplicity of voices and actors in my mind, a dissonant roar bombarding my senses. Whose voice was this really?

Journalist Lyudmilla Savchuk began her process of infiltrating the IRA as early as 2015. The Internet Research Agency, Glavset, based in St Petersburg, doesn’t conduct research. Many describe it as a ‘troll factory’, a producer of false information, discourse, and commentaries to be disseminated online. Viruses that grow beyond their hosts. Brexit, anti-Islamic hatred spewing out from the factory. Trump, a whole lot more disinformation and madness spewed and strewn across the platforms. 2014, the actual initial invasion of Ukraine, if anyone remembers that, commenting under posts and news articles, sowing seeds of doubt. A vast information campaign against Ukraine has been ongoing for years.

Whilst there, Lyudmilla noted how the farm was not inhabited by the usual suspects -secret service agents or public relation peddlers- but instead former journalists. Journalists. If you want to spin a story, a narrative, a warped recollection of reality, a sensationalist and affectively captivating retelling of events, you hire a journalist. Their insidious narrative tendrils sought their way into every aspect of her life. The fake reality, the dubious order established by the trolls was mirrored and regurgitated by her friends and relatives. In conversations with them, lines she had seen produced within the farm would weave their way into their conversations.

If I were to trace this comment back to its origin, would it find its home in St. Petersburg? So, I vow to stay away from comments, I’m tired, I don’t know what to believe anymore, who to trust. I just read an article, whilst avoiding comments, that told me over 60 websites mimicking that of popular news sources were proliferated on social media. I’m left wondering if I read or saw one of them. The void, the endless well of

information is beckoning me toward it with its alluring hum, the echoes of discursive reproduction with origins unknown, seeping into the utterances of familiar trusted voices. All voices become flattened and devoured.

I am afloat upon an ocean of noise.

All it takes is one minor interception for a logical order to be toppled. Michell Serres describes my feeling well: “When an infinite amount of information is scattered in the well, it is the same well as if it were totally bereft of information […] Chaos, noise, nausea are together […] We often drown in such small puddles of confusion”.

I am falling from a platform, a slow slide off an unbalanced surface, a trembling diving board perched above a blackened ocean threatening to swallow me. In these moments, your hand has always been there. But soon I shall not know what to grasp.

Noise is the unwelcome third guest present in all communication. The interrupter, the disturbance, the trembling, the destabiliser of order, sense, meaning. We are now, it seems, entering (or are we already in the midst?) of a period in which noise is very much a welcome guest. From a tool of the state to create dissensus among critics and sow seeds of doubt and confusion concerning our shared realities (Glavset and God knows what other states and all-consuming corporate monstrosities), to a means of distraction from the very task of meaning-making and truth-seeking within a society that awards quite the opposite. Noise, whether it be in the form of political chatbot discursive disorientation and dissemination, or the mindless background chatter of attention-span-depleting videos lined up on your platform feed, serves to unsettle our realities and presents us with the endless possibility of entering alternate frames of quasi-existence. Our attentions are distracted or numbed to our true existence, of events occurring around us. We are being driven mad within a stimulioverloaded world in which we lose any frame of reference as to the real – the real being

our own mind and the material presence of the world that contains and forms that mind.

All our relations are in fact based upon this disruption, granting those who are ‘other’ or outside of the situation, the unwelcome guest, the noise which is always present and underlying, to enter and disrupt the logical ordering of the current situation, the current distribution of the sensible. The accepted forms of sense-making, being logos, order, understandable and interpretable sound, and that which is phonos, static, noise. As soon as the order is disrupted, a new order becomes established, granting us new understandings and means of sense-making. Yet, this new order is subject to the same destabilisation as the previous. All orders and logics are in a state of constant flux and disorder. Yet, the disorder is generative of order, there is reason to be found within the unreason, that you could grant me the ability of form through alterity. There is a black box of communication. What secrets lay in the wreckage? All forms of communication occur in a black box, a non-representable entanglement of relations, discourses, an undefined and impenetrable space between input and output. Hello Glavset, are you residing in this black box? Are you the noisy parasite that rattles me so? Or is the platform the black box through which all communication is filtered?

What can we call a system that collapses at the most minor of noises? Who is the creator of this noise? A collective trembling, a static emanating from a black box. In all communication, there is noise, disruption, slippages and misinterpretation. These fluctuations, disordering, and noise are no longer enemies of reason. We are within a system, a societal palimpsest, that has inscribed upon it the deviations from the orderly, the collective trembling of disorder. Order is overwritten by disorder. A corrupted file no longer appears corrupted. Chaos and noise are the new understood form. We know the corrupted to be the uncorrupted. Am I being rewritten by this trembling? I’m beginning to sense the fragility of my own ordering. I am the system that collapses at the slightest tremble, the most minor of changes.

This one constant sound, almost deafening, produced a dull static blanket in which nothing could permeate. It was within these walls within which he could find

peace, drowning in the static. No longer could he bear the voices of others, to him they now arose simply to screeches, unrelenting and tiring monologues about things he could not fathom to understand. Each voice attached to somebody, with their own prophetic vision, their own starved desires of mastery or submission, an unending desire to produce a world of their own order. Each served as a reminder of the unsettling truth underlying each utterance. For these words would never hover in the air, leaving a lingering image or scent, instead they dissipated, and those that produced them disappeared as quickly along with them. Each erased by the next.

Waves of sickness arose from his stomach thinking about them. For the time being, he would much rather reside within this warm static he created for himself, lacking in any coherence or sense, yet everlasting and omnipresent; order and disorder in the guise of one another. In this, he found cold comfort, distraction from erasure, from her absence.

I stumbled across this diagram in some book, and it swiftly became my obsession. Don’t let its simplistic flattened nature fool you. The names swap in and out, the multiplicity returns, each actant replaceable, vague, the disorder overruling the formulation of its own order.

I can’t rest long enough. It’s not that I hear only noise, I also see some reason, but I’m tired, I’m paranoid. I haven’t settled long enough in one established order to gain my senses. Everything is flat and presentable on the platform, it’s all noise.

Am I experiencing hyperaesthesia? I’m smashing my head against an impenetrable block of information, of noise, of something. A violent wave of data collection and production crashes toward me. Facing the wave, I choose to let it swallow me. Its roar bombards my senses, there is no sensing what else surrounds me, all is fixated upon that wave. I’m drowning, submerged in the deep well of my own sensemaking. Information has become a weapon, a means of ensnaring those who seek to establish truth and order, and it seems I have succumbed to its trappings.

But I’m not overwhelmed, I’m just overly aware, right?

Back to the platforms, I’m fatigued but unable to stop, drone strikes in Kyiv, I’m worried about your family. Each strike produces such a wall of information that I don’t know what to do with. I used to ask you what information you were getting from the Ukrainian telegram channels (whose information is often more up-to-date and reliable than Western media channels), but as time goes on, I have begun to distrust even those. The realms of dissensus are tainted, contaminated. I’m stranded. I’m lost. I am afloat upon a sea of noise that I’m not even sure is noise anymore.

You could try to pin this down to hyperaesthesia, but it seems like there is something far more sinister going on. It’s not that there is too much information, it’s that I no longer know what information to trust. My logic becomes destabilised, but to the point at which I don’t even understand what the new logic is before it becomes destabilised once again.

As with all wars, a great void is left. A war of the senses, upon the senses, the sensible. A senseless war. A war based on false imperialist narratives spun throughout history. How can I make sense of this? It shall be many years until any clear narrative can be found within this war.

I think I’ll be getting off the platforms now, away from the ceaseless chatter. I don’t think I’ll be checking the news today either. I’ll try not to be paranoid, to withdraw, to shut out the noise.

You go back home to Ukraine next month, for family and research. I guess I’ll be back on the platforms again then, attempting to find any sense in it all, to ease the worry if you cannot fill me in on your narrative. We all construct our own, but for a while now it seems our stories were one.

And I know I can’t stop you.

But please, my darling, take care of yourself, for you are one of the few things that still make sense to me.

Rabbit , Irina Novikova

Big Shoes

nonfiction by Daniel Gonzalez

I will always remember the summer after my father left us. He was laid off during the Great Recession of the aughts from the ConAgra Foods factory in Placentia. But he also had other priorities. And he left on a whim, leaving only a note with one sentence to justify his departure.

You had just found employment as a caretaker. When really you needed one yourself. Months before, you dropped off your last student and were off duty. Then, a car rear-ended that small school bus you drove, leaving you with two dislocated disks in your spine. You were not at fault, but were still fired, labeled as a “liability”. You would get vertigo every day and forced to take pill-induced naps from the pain. Our income barely covered your prescriptions.

But now, you had just gotten your first check from your new job. You were so proud to hold that perforated paper with numbers on it. After having to work under the table jobs that felt like charity, asking family and friends for favors just until we were back on our feet; you felt like you finally earned something.

September was coming, and the tradition of buying shoes and clothes for the new school year didn’t seem likely. I told you I didn’t need anything new; I had barely grown that summer. And while the rubber soles of my shoes were so worn down that I could feel the scorching asphalt burn through my socks, I wanted us to have food in our refrigerator instead. Not the steamed cabbage and white rice we seemed to have every other day. I craved one of your extravagant meals from before.

But you insisted on going. We walked through that sparkling lit mall, just the two of us, holding hands. I was almost a teenager, and some older kids laughed at me, but I didn’t care. My father had left us, and I didn’t want to let you go.

We walked passed a Pac-Sun, Anchor Blue, and even a Ross. We never entered them. You couldn’t afford the back-to-school specials advertised on the windows.

We went to the food court instead and found the cheapest treat. A ninety-nine cent churro which we shared. You gave me the larger piece.

The next day you woke me up and said we’re going shopping.

We arrived at the thrift store, and you told me to look around. I browsed through the kids’ section and couldn’t find anything I wouldn’t be teased for wearing. My allergies began to flare up from the dust of forgotten memories on the weathered clothes and broken furniture. You told me to wait in the car, you were almost done. You came out five minutes later with a swollen plastic bag.

There was a pair of blue jeans, khaki shorts, a nice button-up for picture day, a warm sweatshirt for the cold months, a sports tee for the Spring, and a pair of black Chuck Taylors, a size too big. The clothes looked brand new; some still had the original tags.

“Where did you find these?”

“When I came here from Mexico, this was the only store I could afford. You have to look hard, but you learn to find the good stuff under all the basura.”

I kissed your cheek and felt it tense up from your smile. I asked what you got for yourself. You ignored my question. And instead rested your hand on top of mine.

“The shoes may fit big now, but you’ll grow into them one day, mijo. I promise you.”

Exposure

nonfiction

by Amy Cook

Exposure: the minutes, hours, days, waiting for a bomb to explode. Outrunning the shrapnel cloud.

Exposure: And then…

There was this moment, that spring. Maybe it was May, but it was the sort of afternoon where the promised sun is still in absentia. Walking to the grocery, I saw an older man coming up the other way; a man of the sport coat and khaki genus; crooked tie species. These men are congenial; harmless.

And there was his square chin. A not-too-long nose. A jolly Howdy Doody mouth. There was a man’s face, unsheathed.

He had his mask roped around his wrist, this being our afternoon of liberation. The government had, just now, today, said that this was okay. It was all going to be okay.

This is a city of ruin, of empty storefronts and the ghost howl of too-frequent sirens. We will never be who we were. But at this moment, Howdy Doody-mouth and I, we are fine.

We grinned at each other like we had never seen another human being smile.

Take a photo with old-timey film. Hold it up to light. Watch it burn.

My cousin, our family photographer, almost died; it was a long time ago when we were halfadults on the precipice of life. His accident was a big deal; in the papers, on the news. My cousin and his car were under water for the length of a sitcom, and then he came back. Now, he has a wife and a child, and on the anniversary of his Lazarus day, he celebrates not just his own rebirth but the people who gave of themselves so that he might still be here. So that our family is photographed intact.

Two weeks before our grandmother died, all the cousins were together for Pesach. It was unusual that all nine grown-up grandchildren could find the time, but there we are, grinning in this picture, looking straight towards the future. We’re assembled on my aunt and uncle’s foyer stairs; my grandmother sits below us, in a dining room chair, surrounded by ambition, love, success, and hope. Next year in Jerusalem? We’re all here now.

There’s a second picture, one I don’t remember posing for. Someone must have said, “do something silly” because I’m draped over the railing, pretending to be asleep. My sister-in-law gives bunny ears to Grandma. Several cousins burn American Gothic stares. And my husband, bless him, is making the kind of face you warn your children about; keep it up, it’ll freeze that way.

My grandmother is looking down, almost off camera. There’s a softness in her gaze, a peal of laughter about to break. She’s looking at Brady, Cousin Sam’s little dog, who has chosen this very moment to run through our family snapshot. Brady is doing something silly, too. . . . . . .

When my grandmother dies, I travel to Bethesda to be with my family, though we’ll all have to make the trip back up north for the funeral. It’s just one night, but I want to be surrounded by something. Love, maybe; comfort. I want to drown in whiskey. I want to linger in tradition. I want to be on those stairs again. Hadn’t we all just been on those stairs? Where’s the little dog?

In grade school, I came in second in a spelling bee, because I couldn’t spell the word burnisher. I’d never even heard of it. B-e-r-n-i-s-u-r-e?

A burnisher is a hand tool used in woodworking.

Burnish the images into your memory so they can’t escape.

Expose a child to enough music, and they will want to hear that music forever. I liked the days I was ostensibly sick, growing up, because it meant a road trip. Our pediatrician’s office was in a town magically called West Windsor, a good forty-minute car ride from home. My mother would turn on LITE FM, and she’d sing the oldies while she drove. How often did I fake it so we could take the day, listening to music? Often enough.

Exposure: no such thing as bad publicity.

Janet Reno called us once. It was after my grandfather died. My uncle had been working at the FBI, and Janet (may I call her Janet?) paid her condolences by phone, while we were doing the dishes.

I told that story everywhere as high school currency. I was a weird girl.

Exposure: the fact or state of having been exposed.

When it became apparent that we were all going to die, I made a plan. At the first hint of fever (I checked three thousand times a day), my father would come to Manhattan from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We’d load up some clothes, and the cat, and apparently, take our novel virus to a part of the country that didn’t have it yet. Exposing my father on the way.

The logic, of course, was that at our hospital, the doctors and nurses were using trash bags to prevent exposure.

“What was it like?” our nieces and nephews will ask.

It was like living in a horror film or, like living in a jar, maybe. If you closed the lid tightly enough, maybe nothing else could get in.

Exposure: the minutes, hours, days, waiting for a bomb to explode. Outrunning the shrapnel cloud.

We never got sick; not that spring, anyway. By chance, our comings and goings had kept us out of harm’s way, while so many others stood, unmoving, as the bombs rained down.

Exposure: And then, all of the sudden, sunlight.

View from the Top. 59th Street Bridge. NYC., William C. Crawford

The dance of Celeste fiction by Bianca Pasquinelli

In the humid basement where she had been working for two years, Celeste had met a large number of would-be actors. A cordial greeting, a quick flick of the wrist and those sitting in front of the crystal desk dominating the office, began to recount with enthusiasm dreams and projects, putting lively hopes in the interview that the 26-year-old talent agent had granted them. They looked into her black eyes trying to catch any signal, but no emotion could be seen, as if she was watching a landscape seen hundreds of times behind the glass of the same train.

One day, Celeste dragged herself out of an interview with the umpteenth actress who dreamed of becoming the new movie star. She gathered the last fragments of strength and climbed the steps to the outside world. Through the blanket of grey clouds enveloping the city, slanting rays of sun fell on the multitudes of people hurrying along the roads. Instead of making the usual tour of the block, she turned to a deserted street and passed by a dropside van parked on the sidewalk, with her head heavy, bent over her smartphone.

Suddenly, a dull sound hammered in her head. A vibration ran through her body. Knees buckled and legs swayed for a few moments in an absolute darkness that encompassed everything. Something had slammed hard against Celeste’s head.

“Are you okay?” said a voice from behind.

She opened her eyes and turned. Two workmen stood on the back of the van were staring at her. At their feet hung a wooden beam, jutting out into the street. Celeste ran away in embarrassment. How could I bump into such a huge beam? Why don't I look where I'm going?

Guided by the instinct of her steps, she began to walk quickly to recover from the impact, as if, after having a hangover, she had to dispose of an

excessive amount of alcohol in the body. The traffic noise and the sharp smell of smog faded and her reserved and cold demeanor dissolved, as she went along. Feet moved fast through the streets of the city, giving her the impression of walking suspended in the air. She walked in that particular state for more than an hour, without thinking about anything: neither about work, nor about herself. The hive of thoughts and worries that had abusively invaded her brain in the last months had been hit, and the bees inside it had flown away in fright, giving her a temporary relief. Now on the ground, only an empty hive was lying.

At a crossroads, while she was waiting for the green light, the frightening awareness of all the responsibilities she had to face rose before her. She checked the smartphone left on silent mode: seven missed calls, eight messages. Most came from her boss: "Where are you? Some of our actors have been calling me to tell me they can’t find you. That’s not right, Celeste. Call me as soon as possible!" The outlines of the words on the screen appeared blurry. Taken by a feeling of anguish, she turned her phone off.

"I want to live, I have to live", she whispered. And all of a sudden, her entire being was enlightened by the truth of those words. . . . . . .

The next day, without thinking too much, she left for Pietrasanta, in Tuscany. She would stay in the holiday home inherited from her paternal grandparents, where she used to go every summer with her family. During the train journey, she decided to leave her mobile phone off for a few days, and that gesture, almost of rebellion, made her breathe for the first time in a long time, a yearning for freedom.

As soon as she opened the door of the apartment, the stale air assaulted her nostrils and penetrated her lungs. The cracked walls, the antique furniture, the kitchen rag hanging from a chair: everything was impregnated with an ancient scent and lay frozen in absolute silence. She wandered around the living room to see what had changed since the last time.

An inlaid wooden cabinet that seemed to emanate life from within caught her attention. She tried to open its doors, to no avail, since the key in the lock

was jammed, rusted by time. After a few tries, she struck a blow and finally a door opened, revealing its contents: ancient volumes and manuscripts, newspapers announcing the end of the Second World War and a photo album of grandfather’s ancestors. Behind the other door, which had remained blocked instead, she glimpsed in a corner what looked like a book. With a tentative hand, she pulled out a leather-bound notebook, covered in cobwebs and dust. She untied the thick brown leather lace that wrapped it and opened it carefully. It was the diary of grandfather Duccio.

Filled with a threadlike calligraphy and yellowed by time, the pages told of trips, paths and walks taken together with his family in the region of Tuscany, the beloved land where he was born and raised. As she read the diary through in one breath, Celeste heard the warm voice of her grandfather narrating those adventures to her. Leafing through the last blank pages, she found inserted in the notebook the map of the Via Francigena, the medieval pilgrimage route departing from Canterbury and arriving in Rome. The line passed right through Pietrasanta, whose position was marked with a green stroke. However, there was nothing in the diary to testify that her grandfather had traveled the ancient trail.

Sitting on the ground, the map in one hand and the blank pages of the diary in front of her, Celeste felt once again an overwhelming need to walk. . . . . . .

At the first glimmer of the day, she put on a pair of jeans, running shoes and a cap found by chance in a drawer.It was not exactly the right clothing for walking a stage of the Via Francigena, but the desire to do it was so intense that it swept away any concern. When she left the house, she took a deep breath of crisp morning air, while the nightingales, struck by the first glint of dawn, sang their last warblings. After leaving the village behind, she entered the ups and downs of the gentle Versilian hills.

The fine mists evaporated and the sky became limpid, as if it had been cleared by a crystal wind. The thousand shades of the green olive trees and vines seemed gaudy in the sunlight. The rhythm of the hours of solitary walking was

marked by the sound of her footsteps and by the tolling bells echoing from distant villages.

She kept following the red and white trail marker and plunged into a forest slightly uphill. Primroses and violets scattered here and there announced the arrival of an early spring. As she approached to savor the flowers’ sweet scent, she caught sight of something shimmering under the tall blades of grass. Her tapered fingers brushed a white feather, for a moment finding themselves in contact with something living, soft as velvet and so delicate that her own fingers seemed to become delicate to her.

A subtle chirp broke the silence of the forest. She raised her eyes to the turquoise sky and saw a few sparrows that fluttered, making the treetops sway. They called her, leading her to unknown places. She floated a hand in the air to follow their movements, determined and graceful at the same time. Soon that gesture involved the arm, the shoulder and then the whole body. Wrapped in a kind of bliss, she began to dance among the trees with ever wider and softer movements. Guided by the singing of the birds, she let her head swing; the ponytail melted, the elastic band that held it tight fell to the ground and the flowing black hair slipped over the shoulders. Eyes closed, she advanced slowly, yet confidently, while a new light expanded inside and out, a light in which there was no longer any fear. In the womb of the forest, she felt welcomed, protected, and free to go back to being herself. She opened her arms to the sides as if they were two large wings with which to embrace that moment of joy, so immense that a burning feeling in her chest rose to become tears in her eyes.

She was no longer watching others pursue their dreams. Reflected on the glass of the same train, she now saw herself dancing on the stage of life. Suddenly, a little 13-year-old Celeste appeared in a white tutu and ballet slippers. For fear of failing, she had given up the dream of becoming a dancer, devoting herself only to studying and a career in which she did not recognize herself. It took the courage to look inside to discover that dance, on the contrary, had never abandoned her.

my maple kisses power lines. rests over the sidewalk and the street. does a full costume change every year. shows her true colors, only lasting a brief three–four weeks: until the high winds undress my girl frond by frond.

swirling through seasons, gone are those hues in the blink of an eye. those pigments that even a painter would struggle to replicate on an easel.

only a month ago, she was green all over, with a little bit of cinnamon orange. and even rarer, this deep cheek blush, scarlet tulip. had boughs of leaves changing in their own time signatures, playing at their own tempos.

now i see a gray, pale milky cadaver. bloodless, dormant, receding. stripped down, bare, without anything there. but don’t worry, for her bloom will come again. soon enough.

please, whatever you do, don’t ever cut her down. my gentle giant has finders keepers on this land.

we’ll both be memories someday, but i want to be one first, so she can keep on grinning, beaming, smiling. i want to be her fertilizer, consider this my will.

acer poetry by Nicholas Barnes

The Storm of 84 fiction by Adrian

Fernandez

Great surges of salt water slammed aggressively against the barnacle covered concrete that was the seawater retaining wall, over which abnormally large waves threatened to burst over and into main street. Down at the pier, a vicious tide churned pacific waters into foaming rip currents that would have surely stolen away even the most experienced swimmer from between the piers algae ridden pylons. Most of the towns citizens were still tucked away under multiple layers of hand stitched quilts and heavy electric blankets when the sirens began to wail from old air raid system, repurposed as extreme weather warnings after the war. A sirens warbling song could be heard throughout the coastal valley, alluding to some sort of imminent danger. It was a reminder for some of terrible times not yet so far in the past to have been forgotten, though the children were too young to recognize the oscillating pitch and its significance. Instead, it was with blank faced terror that the children reacted to the deafening sirens that pierced through the sound of crashing waves and rolling thunder. The voice many were greeted with when they switched on their kitchen counter radio that blistery morning was not that of their normally jovial disk jokey but of an eerily calm woman who told residents to “Stay inside, this is not a drill.”

The winds whipped up the coastal waters as thick smatterings of rain smothered the once dry soil. Reports of such a storm had not been on the previous nights weather forecast, which William watched religiously for the past several decades, biding his time. There was little else left to do in life, he truly believed, other than the waiting. It was only the sound of waves lapping at the window of his red brick house that alerted the old sailor of the worsening weather outside. He lived in one of the oldest structures in the entire county, and had been one of the first residents to call this seaside community home. He’d built this abode out of red fired brick and cheap chipping mortar some fifty years ago, right where the sand and soil met some hundred feet from the waters edge. It was then no great surprise to him that the ocean seemed poised to swallow his red

brick house, for he had seen the same thing happen several times during his life and lived to tell the tale. He had constructed this home with his own unwrinkled hands, before the railroad made travel into the coastal canyon more assessable to the general public. Back then he had been a handsome enough man, thick black hair combed to one side, heavy with pomade to reveal an elegant line of scalp. Nowadays he was a grey approximation of that man, sporting more sun spots and pock marks on his face than there was strands of grey hair on his head. He predated most every one else in town. The only people who had lived on the salty soil prior to William had long since been buried at the local cemetery or moved to one of the nursing homes in the big city that held the last of his acquaintances. When the not so soothing sounds of sirens wailing infiltrated the dried clay and mortar and entered the old timer’s hairy ear holes, he reacted with a calm indifference. In fact he reacted with such nonchalance one might have been forgiven for thinking he was deaf. As the haunting song continued he set the rusted kettle to boil, hanging it with care in the chimney before starting a fire beneath it with kerosene, crumpled newspaper and wood chips. He blew gently on the embers as the storm raged outside, the waves pressing themselves up against the one ocean facing window in an attempt to gain entry. Built long before contemporary building codes, Wililiams house stood much too close to the waters edge and was assaulted time and time again by the furious surf until cracks began to form on the glass that had warbled with age. Still William had seen worse, had been through worse, and so he simply put on another coat and made his first cup of insta-coffee and got on with the waiting. The unleashed vigor of el Nino battered the town, brought on by some invisible air current that crossed the pacific or, the all mighty hand of God himself depending on who you asked. The two lane highway was blocked or made otherwise un-drivable going both of the ways out of town. The southbound section of road had a given way to the raging ocean that heaved against the cliffs underneath, while the northbound section of highway bad been blocked by a fallen eucalyptus. Torrents of rain assaulted the citizens in their own homes and the relentlessly pounding waves threatened to swallow any house built too close to the shoreline, which included Williams red brick home. The waves grew to a size that even William had not previously witnessed though he did not react with anything more than mild amusement, lighting the hand rolled

cigarette with a red phosphor match he struck to life as Seaspray began to spurt through the cracks in the glass of his window. He watched the sea pull away, leaving many planks and two by fours somersaulting on the wet sand, pulled seaward by the currents powerful grasp. William stood up slowly from his chair by the window, coffee in hand and cigarette in mouth, and staggered forward toward his simple spring loaded cot. It was the kind of bed used in hospitals that came with little wheels on it, like a shopping cart. The spindly metal legs creaked under Williams meager weight as he sat on the quilt covered mattress with a weary sigh. Smoke would exit his hairy nose before the cherry of his cigarette would glow orange in the cloudy midday darkness. This action he repeated without ever removing the cigarette from his lips as the stone tile floor of his home became slick with salt water, his feet not quite touching the ground from his perch on the hospital bed. The irregular rhythm of of bits of wood and runaway rowboats against the pylons that kept his red brick house somewhat drier than it would be otherwise lulled him to sleep, and the still lit ember of the cigarette continued to glow as he dreamed fondly of youthful, sea faring days.

Boy and dog, Michael MacDonald

Tito Boy fiction

by James Bitoy

Tito Boy was a man loved in the dreams of Filipino-Americanized stories. Yes, his body was often tired, as his workers made him worry about taking in another long-lost relative every other month. (There were only so many Filipinos who could not speak or write English to take care of file cabinets full of immigration papers, manila folders from Manila, Mindanao, Davao—with those thick Visayana accents that barely passed through customs). Of course, he smelled of day-old deodorant, day-old pandesal, dayold coca-cola, day-old coffee, day-old dinuguan, day-old dinuguan with rice, day-old cornstarched shirts, day-old Dior perfume, day-old Tiger Balm, day-old Salonpas, dayold Icy Hot, day old— as in day-old-day-old herbal medicine— old medicine, all ground up, jarred, creamed, and stored in plastic and tin containers ready for every other Tito and Tita to take before Mass. When we sat in Church, we held our breaths to stop from inhaling every medicinal scent known to Asia, only to wind up with the stale after scent of Shaq’s Icy Hot when we finally exited. (Though, Mass would take us down the Red Sea and Moses would split the water and allow us passage without blinking an eye— because we were chosen by God or something). And sure, Tito Boy wasn’t always kind. He could be evil, exceptionally so. Tito Jay won’t speak to him anymore, and Tito Jay speaks with everyone.

Yet, even with this on his plate (and on ours), even with it swimming through our hearts, and even with our hopes for something more, we loved Tito Boy. He was a Tito among Titos, if such a concept could be; a Titoy Boy of Tito Boys, for the young men of this Little Manila (a specific locality, I know). The arc of his spine, the sharp, steady creak of his dress shoes, and lines of his ironed slacks, all of it was a sign of what could only be called sainthood or the makings of a devil. He could sing like God made him sing, and he could yell, yell so hard that the Marines tried to recruit him as a Drill Sergeant, we swear that we heard him make the poor recruiter cry. He would straighten himself upright, so upright that it was like a wall arose, to stop any bullshit, even the

teenagers who slouched and sagged their pants would straighten themselves, futures that would be compromised by Americanization would stop, and even the Lolas and Lolos whose fears took them back to Martial Law, stifling and malnourished and subject to a power drunk president became resilient. The Lolas would say that Tito Boy was even more handsome before the silver overtook his head.

Yes, to us, Titoy Boy was our hero, our Fil-Am posterchild. That’s who he would always be. But who was he to everyone else? Well, it’s easy— he was a fucking postal worker.

We looked to Tito Boy for direction— on how to handle the racist white boys, who simultaneously believed us to be monkeys and nerds that speek English ah; on wearing Lakers Jerseys long enough to cover our knees like dresses, ‘cause we were Asian men and therefore as homo as straight men can be, except maybe AJ. And every day we had new exciting, life-changing trauma, from the bullies, like when Percival was thrown into the dumpster of the cafeteria and he pissed his pants when we pulled him out. So when Roberto told us that the kid from Los Cerritos— Paulo— who was playing Yu-Gi-Oh with us the day before, was given a swirly and passed out next to the toilet, we ran and dribbled our tiny brown legs to find Tito Boy.

We ran from the basketball courts, the ones near Orange Park, where our Titas would sell trinkets to the white moms who wanted something exotic to show the other white moms, the courts where Rodrigo was wedgied on the rim. (Our long jerseys, hindering our knees, causing us to pull up the hems of our shirts like dresses, sauntering and galloping, but who cares, Roberto’s our friend). It was May, and as hot and dry as it was in rainless California spring, we sweated and remoisturized the earth in our wake. By the time we caught up to Tito Boy on his route up the street, we were coated in a thick layer of salt, dirt, and ass-sweat and drenched our jerseys. We were a gaggle of geeks, stretching our jerseys over our heads, exhausted from exhaustion.

Tito Boy hailed us by raising his hand for us to bless him. “Show respect to your elders, ah, so you’re not disrespectful, okay,” he spoke, even though we couldn’t even breathe. He was talking in Taglish to Percival about how he hadn't come to church in a

while as he delivered mail to the various mailboxes up the street, his tone balancing on the razor’s edge of sainthood and devil.

“Tito Boy, please why’re we still here delivering mail?” Percival tugged on a package in Tito Boy’s hand. “You need to learn duty first, ah, otherwise you’re not a man, just a tanga.” He removed Percival’s hand and delivered the package by the doorstep, collected the signature and before anyone could let out an objection, Titoy Boy continued to deliver the mail. “Tito Boy, I’ll become Tito Percy by the time you finish.”

“Putangina! If you want me to help, why don’t you be useful and grab those letters and make sure the addresses are filed properly, baboy-tanga,” Tito Boy said.

“This guy gets a salaried job and suddenly he’s the President of Little Manila. Like he’s the king of Asia or some shit.” Percy joked as he crumpled the letters into the mailbox. Which caused Tito Boy to pinch his ear—Percy let out a variety of shrieks like he was his Ate when she was getting beat. “Bastos ka! Who was it that got you into that school? Who was it that took you to get your surgery? And you want my help? Help yourself first—” And the devil took hold of Tito Boy’s hand as he rained down a plague of blows on Percival. AJ and I rushed in to stop Tito Boy, but we were caught in the swears and blows. Each hit was a reminder that Tito Boy was a guerilla fighter, a lawyer, a nurse, a student, a farmer’s boy, a Tito to more than just us, but to the whole community — and to us— right now, a devil. Because it was his duty to straighten us out so that we’d remember how blessed we are to not be back on the islands— begging on the streets for pesos. The beatings stopped. And Tito Boy left us crumpled next to his truck as he finished his route. His blue collared shirt was stained with sweat between his puffed chest and his pudgy stomach from too much pork and rice. “You have a duty first to complete, before anything else, you must do your job because if you don’t, you’re not a man.” And to Tito Boy, we were never men, we were barely boys in our Lakers Jersey dresses, we wanted his approval, his help, but all we got was an ass beating while we were too tired— as if it would have mattered.

Tito Boy told us to hop in his truck as he drove back to the school, and we searched all the bathrooms for Roberto. Tito Boy was methodical like he was back under the cover of the setting sun in the jungles of our homeland, how he tiptoed around the

hallways and violently opened the doors, how he looked under each stall for Roberto’s corpse, how many times did Tito Boy do this? When we were younger and Tito Jay was watching us, he would tell us about the times when Tito Boy went overseas to train the American PMCs. He never told us what happened after, only that it happened, and that Tito Boy came back with silver hair. Tito Boy never talked about it and Tito Jay always did. There’s one where Tito Jay said that Tito Boy sailed a boat under the nose of Marcos himself, smuggling refugees, money, guns, all while having a sprained shoulder and carrying a light machine gun like a Filipino Rambo. The refugees hailed him as a saint. (They would never see the devil that we saw today or see what the devil can do under the guise of Tito Boy, who was all parts a Catholic and all parts a sinner, and now both parts waged war thrashing the bathrooms until he could be the guardian angel for Roberto and become the devil for the white boys who would know his wrath afterward.) Then there were times where he’d see the bathroom mirrors and you could almost see the Tito Boy that Tito Jay talked about when they were younger.

When we found Roberto, he was bleeding from the side of his head, probably because he was coughing so much and disoriented that he smacked it against the seat. Tito Boy looked at him, put his hands together and rubbed it, the way Mr. Miyagi did, and pushed it against Roberto’s chest, only for Roberto to wake up and scream. Roberto could not see what we saw because he did not know Tito Boy. But Roberto knew that in that silver hair, those cavernous wrinkles and dark eyes, and his callous hands that carried the weight of Little Manila, hell had come to earth. Roberto “snitched” but it was more like Tito Boy interrogated him until Roberto wished that he did not know a single lick of English, that Spanish could have saved him, but by chance or by fate, Tito Boy was Filipino, and Spain left with him Spanish in the form of sweet Senorita bread— sweet, buttery, and bad for his cholesterol— but taught him Spanish straight from the womb.

The white boys made it a point to skate in the park at night and light up so much weed that only the wind at night could ever remove the stench. Tito Boy showed up, still in his blue-sweat-stained shirt and asked them with his thick accent. “You are- bullies to my kids, do not do that, okay?” And with the same temperament Percy showed before,

the same bastos behavior, the white kids said, “Fuck off you monkey!” And they tried to skate away.

And to our delight but to their horror, Tito Boy, grabbed one of their skateboards and swung it across the chest of one of the kids, breaking the board in half, making the kid fall on his ass, sending one of the pieces flying towards the face of one of the kids, and then he picked up the other kid by his shirt— shook him until he pissed himself— and left them broken in the park.

None of us ever got bullied again. Not even if we were playing Yu-Gi-Oh in the cafeteria, or when we were playing basketball with our jersey dresses, or even when AJ said that he was bayut and started to wear Ate Irene’s clothes.

We all left Little Manila, as all good Filipino-Americans do, sometimes we come back, and if you’re lucky, you’ll hear about Tito Boy appearing again. He’ll deliver packages, solve the immigration crisis, and help Lolo and Lola across the street. And halfway through everything, he will teach a generation of bullies how to love themselves the hard way. He’ll watch the young basketball players who want to be Kobe or LeBron, and tell them to trade their jersey dresses for something smaller, despite Titos and Titas telling them that they’ll “grow into it.” And sometimes when I come back and drive across the school, I think of all the hallways, all the sea passages, all the medicines in the world, and think that because of Tito Boy, Little Manila could have it all, that every brown-skinned, fat, lanky, ugly-acne-ass kid would find Tito Boy as both their savior and their devil. ‘Cause the trauma of being Tito Boy lingers harder than every single racist word we’ll ever internalize, and Salonpas only ever heals the outside but the smell stays buried deep in your lungs and clings to your stomach like a cancer. And maybe instead of the Santonino, I should have a picture of Tito Boy. I pray, in His name, Amen.

gone fishing

poetry by Nicholas Barnes

he sat and waited on the umpqua riverbank. basking in the sun with two ice-cold sixpacks.

walking across the river bottom, straddling the slippery bedrock, i peeked into the submerged fissure: fifteen or more bass shadows zigzagging, hiding from the swift current.

dipping my pole into that water, teasing my electric blue lure, i watched the tip of the shakespeare rod until i felt the hook set.

reeling in, my eyes beheld a glistening, twitching smallmouth. gasping for air, crying out for something to drink. hanging off the end of my thin nylon string.

forgot the billy club. no sticks or stones in sight.

he held the slimy submarine toward me, facefirst. told me to punch its lights out. bloody knuckles, bloody fist, bloody fish.

grabbed my pocket knife. gutted it from tail to chin. the good river carried the entrails and fins down to the sealions and bullsharks.

washed the grime and scales off my hands in warm running ripples. took the catch to shore. wrapped it in a plastic walmart shopping bag.

got back out there. caught some more. by the time the sun went down, i must have tallied eight in total, but only kept one or two.

barroom cheers of approval, shouts of praise, still echoed in my ears hours after my final cast.

i started packing up my bait and tackle. and he corralled his twelve empty glass bottles. sat down in the passenger seat of that little korean subcompact. reluctance, hesitation, fear. held onto the oh-shit handle as my drunk driver swerved us home.

thought about all the ways i could prepare my bony river bounty, if i made it back. tried to think about anything but the fact that i just might die in a cheap green kia on a curving country road.

focus on the passing cows, sheep, blueberry fields, grapevines, horses, and farmland. not a very long trip. but it felt like a million miles.MY FATHER’S POEM

My Father’s Poem

poetry by Michaela Chairez

Two fists full of cracked knuckled dreams sit in front of me on the kitchen island of the house you built for me. “I’m halfway through my life, and I still don’t know what I’m doing.” You were making salsa that day. “You know, mi abuelo would put nothing but hot salsa in his tortillas, and just eat ‘em like that.”

The stove was hot. You wanted more for me than just my words –“Everything I have I’ve worked for, remember that, mija.”

The jalapeños and serrano peppers were popping black bruises on their skin. It was getting hard to breathe as it was when speaking with you. The heat from the Comal warmed the space between us as you put the corn tortillas on, waiting longer than usual to flip them. “I don’t like soft tortillas. I like ‘em hard.” I remember. You hated anything that fell apart in your hands.

The moon woke me up, Mom.

Moon. Light.

poetry by Stephanie Pritchard

My daughter at three years old.

I am always just half asleep these days - hovering in the in-between like a boat out to sea surrounded by gloom. Everything murky and muffled, but the nighttime sounds lulled beneath the surface

are still sounds, and when her mattress creaks I know she is stretching, she is coming out of sleep like a beaked whale rises from the depths for air. She finds her voice a moment later, a murmur like water lapping

over round stones. It almost harmonizes the white noise from her sound machine. But now there’s enthusiastic chatter across the hall and her hands clap while she giggles with the stuffed sheep and small bunny.

Her sweet exchanges would be welcome any other time, but it’s four thirty in the morning and my eyelids itch. I want earplugs and my own heartbeat soft and predictable between my temples like slow rainfall.

Instead, two bare feet pound the wall in sync with “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” vocals and the occasional cheer. When I drag my body into her bedroom, she yells “Hi Mom!” and her eyes shine in the dark like pearls. I think

of warm mud and oysters. Something about a waning moon, how shells widen at the hinge. Something about the intensity of the moonlight, how it drives this hunger, this insatiable need to be alive.

For Becca fiction by

Maddy Yukich

Lola took off her sleep mask and rummaged through the layers of blankets on top of her duvet to silence her alarm. Her temples were pulsing and her mouth was void of any moisture. “Jesus, I only had one drink. Welcome to my late twenties, I guess,” she mumbled to herself.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” said Damiano from the pink chaise lounge across from Lola’s bed, espresso cup in hand. His head was perfectly centered with a framed poster of Dr. Jane Goodall holding a baby chimpanzee.

Lola sprung up. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I don’t think the profanity is neces…” Damiano began to say.

“Oh, my bad. Pretty, pretty please, can you tell me what the actual fuck are you doing here?” Lola exclaimed. He might have said something in defense, but Lola’s attention was drawn to the porcelain teacup on her nightstand. She picked it up and examined the thick, dark red liquid inside. The pulsing in her temples slowed, but the dryness in her mouth became nearly unbearable.

“What is this?” Lola asked Damiano without taking her eyes off of the teacup. “Ah, that would be AB positive. My personal favorite. Others prefer O negative, but I find it too bitter,” said Damiano. “I have some errands to run, but I should be back in an hour or so. Before I go, let me give you some advice: do not open any of the curtains, do not go outside under any circumstances, and decide if you’re going to drink that sooner rather than later. You won’t last for too much longer without it. See you later.” Damiano winked at Lola and left her apartment.

. . . . . .

As a kid, Lola loved all of the animal residents of her family’s farm, but Becca the Pig was her favorite. Lola did everything with Becca: collecting eggs from the chickens, reading under the willow tree, swimming in the pond, and drawing with her 72-pack of crayons at the picnic table. She even snuck Becca into her room every night and had

her sleep in the miniature barn Harry, Lola’s oldest brother, built for her seventh birthday. Lola never got along well with the other kids at school, but she didn’t mind as long as Becca was waiting for her back at home.

One morning, Lola woke up and found that Becca wasn’t in her room. “Becca?” Lola whispered. Lola got out of bed and asked her brother if he had seen her.

“Um, I think dad took her outside,” Harry told Lola.

Lola’s eyes widened. “Oh no,” she gasped. He promised her that he would leave Becca alone. He pinky promised. Lola turned and ran toward the kitchen.

“Lola, wait, come back!” Harry yelled after her, but it was too late. He heard the back door slam shut.

“Dad, Dad, stop, don’t hurt her!” Lola shouted, tears blurring her vision. She opened the door to the barn and froze in her tracks.

Dozens of pigs waited behind a metal gate, waiting for their turn. Greg, Tonya, Winston, Fred, Eloise. The walls were splattered with blood, and the air was thick with the scent of iron the bleach just couldn’t erase. In the center of the barn was a dark silhouette of a man standing over his prey. No, not prey. Prey have a shot at survival. They aren’t bound with rope, or trapped in a horror house with their family and friends. Lola looked down at the pig’s hooves: blue with reflective star stickers. She wanted to match with Becca, so last night she sacrificed the rest of her nail polish to paint each of her four hooves.

She pleaded once more, “Dad, please, no! You promised!” Her pleas were answered with a sharp squeal. . . . . . .

Before stepping into the restaurant, Lola took one last look at her pig-shaped compact.

“Shit,” Lola said under her breath as she scrubbed off a spot of blue paint on her forehead.

Lola had been up since three in the morning working on her latest piece. She hoped that the drugstore makeup she purchased two hours ago hid her exhaustion well enough. She would have canceled the date and enjoyed the solitude of her studio like every other Saturday evening, but her best and only friend, Angela, would never let

her hear the end of it. According to Angela, Lola needed to get out there and secure a suitable partner before her eggs shriveled up and left her uterus with cobwebs and tumbleweeds.

Lola took a deep breath and opened the door. The restaurant was industrial themed: brick walls, black metal pipes and beams across the ceiling, hanging lighting fixtures with carbon filament bulbs, wooden tables accompanied by black chairs, and a bar underneath the glow of an illuminated, wall-sized shelf filled with liquor bottles of every brand. Sitting on one of the bar’s iron stools was a man wearing gray distressed jeans, a black leather jacket, and a cigarette behind his ear, chatting with the bartender with a thick Italian accent. That man’s unusually pale for an Italian. Lola approached him and tapped his shoulder.

“Hi, are you Damiano?” Lola asked.

“Yes! You must be Lola. Wow, you’re even more beautiful than the photos,” Damiano said with a grin. His black shirt was only buttoned up halfway, revealing the dragon tattoo across his chest.

Lola laughed and tucked her hair behind her ear. She took the seat next to him.

“How was that dinner party you were telling me about?” asked Lola.

“Oh, it was such fun. I got to catch up with some friends I haven’t seen in centuries,” Damiano replied. He took a sip from his Cabernet and asked Lola,”Would you like a drink?”

“Sure,” Lola said. She turned to the bartender. ”Excuse me? Can I please have a Negroni?” The bartender responded with a nod, and a quick glance at Damiano.

Damiano returned the glance with a smirk, and then turned back to Lola. “Did you know that the Negroni was invented in my hometown?”

“I figured it had to be from Italy, but, no, I did not know it was from Florence specifically. Do you miss living there, or do you prefer LA?” said Lola. The bartender placed the Negroni in front of her and returned to the guests at the other end of the bar.

Damiano looked down at his glass and swirled it. “I miss Florence with all my heart, but it was the right decision to leave.”

“Why was it…” Lola started, but was interrupted by the host.

“Your table is ready. Right this way,” said the host.

“Ah, perfect timing,” said Damiano.

After looking over the menu, Lola’s brow furrowed. She looked at her neighbor’s dish and winced as he cut into his steak, blood oozing out and pooling in the plate. Lo, it’s just a pig, they don’t have feelings. She hasn’t spoken to her dad in years, but his words from that day will always haunt her. Lola looked up at Damiano, who had already put his menu down, ready to order.

“Um, Damiano, there isn’t anything vegan on here,” said Lola.

Damiano frowned. “Is that a problem?”

“Well, yeah, I’m vegan. It was in my bio. The little leaf emoji?” replied Lola.

“Oh, I am so sorry. I thought that meant something else entirely. Why don’t you finish your Negroni and we will go somewhere else,” said Damiano.

“That would be great, thank you for being understanding. Most guys would just order their food to go and ghost me,” said Lola.

Damiano laughed and said, ”Don’t worry, I’m no ghost.” . . . . . .

Lola and Damiano walked around the Arts District for half an hour looking for a new restaurant. The ones they had found so far were either closed or fully booked, or not vegan friendly, which was quite shocking to her. Los Angeles was the mecca of all the health nuts out there; there were eight Erewhon’s, Lola’s favorite grocery store, countless pilates studios, too many hiking trails, and for every Tesla there were ten smoothie joints. It was getting late, and Lola just wanted to go home, crack open one of her fifteen cold-pressed juices, and pick up where she left off in her rewatching of My Octopus Teacher.

“You know, we could just go back to my place for dinner. Most of my pasta recipes can be veganized,” said Damiano. He took the cigarette from behind his ear and lit it.

“Don’t take this personally, but I’d rather not. My rule for the first date is that it has to be in a public space,” said Lola.

Damiano blew out a puff of smoke “Oh come on, I promise I won’t bite.”

“I’m sorry, but rules are rules. I’ve had a great time, but I think I should go home. I’m exhausted. Why don’t we raincheck for next weekend?” said Lola.

Damiano sighed. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

“Um, okay, I’m going to wait in that bar for my Uber. Have a good night,” said Lola. She turned around to walk over to the bar on the corner, but Damiano grabbed her and covered her mouth with his hand.

“I’m sorry about this,” said Damiano with his cigarette between his teeth. He placed his other hand on her neck and snapped it in one swift motion. . . . . . . .

Lola frowned at the teacup and set it back down on the nightstand next to the polaroid of her and Becca sitting by the pond. She licked her lips and cringed at the texture of the flakes of dry skin. Lola got out of bed, dragged her feet to the bathroom, and gasped at the figure in the mirror; her skin was whiter than a sheet of paper, her neck was covered with blue and purple splotches, her irises were bright red, and when she opened her mouth, her canines were extended and sharp at the tip. She had previously thought that borrowing her ex-boyfriend’s fur coat for one night at Coachella was rock bottom, but she was wrong. Going on a date with a random Italian dude, getting murdered by said Italian dude, and then having to choose between living, and completely compromising her morals, or dying at the ripe age of twenty-eight was definitely her new rock bottom.

Lola went to the kitchen to find something to eat, cradling the teacup in her hand. She didn’t know why she bothered to bring it, there’s no way she was going to drink actual blood. Not only would she be betraying Becca, she would become a borderline cannibal. Not that she owed her species anything. Humans ruin everything they touch, and Lola knew that all too well; she wrote a twenty-page essay on the impact humanity has had on the environment back in college.

Lola found some comfort in the familiar feeling of hunger in the morning. If she’s hungry that means she wants normal, human food, and not a cup of blood. She opened her fridge and felt nauseated. She tried to eat a banana despite the nausea, and threw it right back up a few minutes later. She sliced a bagel in half, shoved it into the toaster, and took out some plant-based cream cheese. While she waited for the bagel to finish toasting, she made herself a cappuccino with oat milk. To Lola’s relief, the cappuccino went down quite easily. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the bagel.

Lola paced in the kitchen for about an hour, occasionally glancing at the teacup on the center island. She wasn’t just uncomfortably hungry anymore; she was starving. The cramps in her upper abdomen turned into stomach contractions, and the gnawing sensation started to feel like her insides were collapsing on itself.

Damiano walked into the kitchen and put a bundle of shopping bags on the counter. “Oh good, you’re still alive. Ish. Have you decided yet?”

“Why did you do this to me?” Lola asked.

Damiano sat at the island and rested his chin in his hand. “I was bored.”

Lola clenched her fists. Before she could yell at him, or punch him in the face, she was surprised with warm tears sliding down her cheeks, and turned away from him. “Anyway, there’s nothing you can do about it now. Drink the blood or die. I guess you don’t have to worry about your eggs shriveling up anymore,” Damiano laughed.

Lola froze. “What did you say?”

“Oh, right, I forgot to mention that we have a mutual friend. Angela was at that dinner party I told you about. I hadn’t seen her since that cruise we went on back in 1912. Small world, eh?” said Damiano. “You were all she could talk about. Lola this. Lola that. And then I remembered that I, what’s the term? I ‘matched’ with a Lola on a dating app. I showed her your photo and she was like, ‘Oh. My. God. That’s her!’ And now here we are.”

Lola started to feel her legs give way, so she sat down on the stool next to Damiano. She put her face in her hands. “This is too much. This is all just too much.” “Drink it. Everything will feel much better, I promise you.” Damiano whispered as he pushed the teacup in front of Lola.

Lola peeked between her trembling fingers and stared at the cup. She would do anything to relieve her of this pain; her headache made it nearly impossible to process anything Damiano has said since he walked through the door, and her insides were dangerously close to imploding entirely. Lola looked past the teacup at her silver fridge where a drawing of Becca sleeping in the miniature barn was hanging by a Piglet magnet.

“But it’s wrong. I have spent the last twenty years avenging Becca. I went to every PETA protest in the LA area, I burned my stupid ex-boyfriend’s fur coat, I even cut my

entire animal-murdering family from out of my life…I’m not just going to throw that all away and become just as selfish as everyone else.”

“Who’s Becca?” asked Damiano.

“My pet pig I had as a kid. She was murdered by my father because ‘that’s how things work’” replied Lola.

“Ah,” said Damiano. “I suppose that’s why you don’t eat animal products. So what’s the issue here? This is not animal blood. It’s human blood.”

Lola looked down at her hands. “Right.”

“Then, at least in my logic, spending an eternity feeding off of humans would fulfill your life’s mission better than hanging sad animal posters around the city and eating tofu for every meal,” said Damiano.

Lola looked at him, and then back at the cup. In his own twisted way, Damiano was right. People were the problem. They murder animals, destroy ecosystems, build machines that poison the air, and then have the audacity to make plans to leave for another planet instead of cleaning up their own mess. The only other human Lola did like turned out to not be a human at all, which in retrospect made sense as to how they got along in the first place.

Lola raised the teacup. “For Becca.”

poetry by Nicholas Barnes

maggie died in june. suddenly. unexpectedly. she was a friend of the band.

five months later, on a tuesday, her burnt remains were stuffed into a confetti cannon before showtime

& aimed over a buzzing audience of shaggy psychedelic heads, neon rainbows, and cosmic unicorns.

upon the conductor’s command: there she was, a musical cremated evel knievel salvo.

bouncing on a sprung dancefloor, the ballroom exploded into cheers upon the crescendo of the song, of the dirge, when tiny boneflakes fell coarse as sand over us all—

mixed with fog, little bits of paper, and potent sonics booming through the speakers.

maggie clung to my face, to my cotton button up, to my eyebrows in static attachment.

i ardently, eagerly jumped into the air, feeling her with my fingertips as she came down. she danced with us until midnight. i felt her happy hovering over my crown.

human ashes, human ashes. fell like snow. felt like peace. like mortality. like killing existential fear. a birthday celebration, a party, a regal sendoff, an early christmas.

when the encore arrived, before the lights faded, the singer triumphantly hoisted a colossal silver balloon onstage, proclaiming: maggie forever.

everyone you know someday will die

Flower And Vase, Michael Moreth

fiction by Sarah Butkovic

The first time I saw him was July thirty-first. Dressed in a powder-blue pantsuit with a Guess bag glued to my hand, I was quickly outgrowing nineteen, haughtily noting that I was “almost twenty” to anyone that dared to ask. What they didn’t know--and what I was in denial about myself--was that my birthday wasn’t until fall, my last three months of teengedom masked Estee Lauder and a set of vintage pearls. I’d been perfecting the art of pretending I was grown since I graduated highschool, and by the summer of ‘91 I’d stopped dating anyone younger than me to compensate for my girlish looks. My Nana said I’d attract the “good ones” that way.

My memory of The Man is hazy. It was early morning--eight a.m.-- and I was mentally preparing for an obstreperous day at work. With board rooms to buff, clients to greet, and a slew of overnight voicemails, playing Sherlock on the train wasn’t exactly a pastime of mine. In just that afternoon alone, Knix had a two-hour business lunch and our biggest sponsor was coming in to meet the head of sales. I could recall my anxiety clearly.

As for The Man, I remember him stumbling onto the train with a half-empty tumbler and a battered snakeskin briefcase, his left hand mummified in a slipshod bandage secured by a piece of tape. He got off at the Kedzie stop, sluicing through the throng of commuters, one of the only faces in the crowd that wasn’t weighed with fatigue. Other than that, he was just another stranger-- someone I saw on my way to the office. Someone with places to go and people to see, a glaring sun attracting the orbits of a thousand other strangers whose lives I’d never breach, an intricate microcosm invisible to the wandering eye.

I got off at McCormick Place and power-walked to Knix & Marx, my Discman buzzing with the blare of Paula Abdul while my heels clicked on the sidewalk. By the time I reached my desk I’d completely forgotten about The Man, and frankly, anyone else from that morning. I vaguely remember a fight breaking out over priority seating, but I was too preoccupied with the luncheon seating arrangement to gape and gawk and point my finger.

The next time I saw him was in the middle of August. It was dark outside--which meant it was past nine-- and I was returning from a stood-up date. The man I was scheduled to meet with left me deflated for hours on a diner barstool, ringing my cell to let me know he was stuck in traffic but would only be ten minutes behind. My naivete let ten turn into twenty, and twenty into forty-five, killing time by throwing back shots of tequila until my stomach ached with erosion.

There were five other bodies in the train car. The bandage on The Man’s hand had been removed-- I noticed this as I watched him grip the handrail. His blistering skin caught the sickly chartreuse glow of the overhead lights. I tried my best not to gawk, but the morbid allure of seeing something in a state not-quite-right gave my eyes a mind of their own.

He also had no briefcase this time. Not a backpack or a satchel, either. It was just The Man, his snakeskin hand, and a pair of eyes that swirled like roiling folds of black lagoon water. I pegged him to be between thirty and thirty-five, allowing myself a generous gap to account for how the stark incandescence deepended every wrinkle in his face. I was also near inebriated, which meant everything felt more exaggerated.

He got off after two stops with a rather hurried pace. As I sat slumped in my chair, lacquered eyes slick with a drunken sheen, I wondered how low the chances were for me to see the same passenger two times in a month. The vastness of the city, teeming with millions of faces with jobs to work and friends to see, made the odds seem fairly slim despite many people commuting the same route everyday. Ultimately, I concluded, what made my interaction with The Man so haunting was that we ran into each other after hours. It felt intrusive-- voyeuristic even-- to see a sliver of someone’s life I was likely never meant to see.

As I waited for the following stop, I pressed my feet into the dirty prints standing in The Man’s wake. It was soft loam from the looks of it, dark brown and speckled with sprinkles of white-- perhaps remnants from a garden bed. Based on the outline they formed, the shoes he was wearing were angular, likely Oxfords or Brogues, arching wide at the bottom but coming to a triangular head. My feet, so tiny and nestled in dainty heels, looked almost comical standing inside his own.

THIS IS PULASKI. DOORS OPEN ON THE LEFT. THE GREEN LINE TRAIN RUNS FROM OAK PARK TO ASHLAND. TRANSFER TO THE PINK LINE AT GRAND.

Still damp, the dirt clung to the soles of my Jimmy Choos as I took my leave at the Pulaski stop, bringing the ghost of The Man’s elusive travels home with me and into my closet. As I trudged home all alone, cardigan wrapped around my chest like a straitjacket, I caught a glimpse of a missing poster plastered to a lamppost. The woman’s face was wan and translucent in the milky glow of the moon, fuzzy even to the keenest eye. Her photo was blown up to the point where she looked like everyone else, not a distinguishing feature available, the amalgamation of every other white twenty-something rolled into a pixelated mess. Her glare followed me as I passed, envious of my sanctuary ahead.

As I reached for the keys to my apartment, I briefly mused over someone leaping out from the velvety darkness and plucking me out of existence, and how poetic such an otherwise heinous act would’ve been given the circumstances.

III

We exchanged words the third time I saw him. It was daytime again-- the first Sunday in September-- and I was on my way to have brunch with my Nana. The train car was swarming with midmorning passengers, each head a balloon seconds away from popping from atmospheric pressure, all buzzing and agog with excitement. Tensions rose as more people piled in, and suddenly I felt lucky to be one of the few sitting down. Bodies loomed over me like perspiring redwoods as they hugged support railings with tightened fists, and I couldn’t help but think of the thousands of germs that were transferring onto their palms.

This thought is how I noticed The Man once again: as we pulled away from a train stop (whose name was submerged by the boisterous crowd) I noticed a glove latching onto the pole right above my head. Attached to the noir-film fingers was none other than my serendipitous partner, all dressed up in a pair of black slacks with a slate-grey top to match. His hair was slicked back with what looked like half a bottle of gel, so hardened and stiff it probably wouldn’t have moved in the eye of a hurricane.

“Smart move.” I told him from below. I don’t know where my sudden boldness came from. The Man peered down at me with a gangly smile, picket-fence teeth oddly vampiric. “Pardon?”

“I said smart move.” I tried again. “Y’know, to wear gloves on the train. That way you can’t get germs on your hands, and you can pick your teeth or touch your eye without catching a disease. I’ve never seen that before. I think I might start doing it.”

“Oh.” The Man’s voice was much deeper than I was expecting. It tore through me like a gust of winter wind, and despite the insufferable heat of the train car, sent a frosted shiver down my spine. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

As we whizzed into the underground, I suddenly felt fatuous sitting there with a dopey expression on my face. The air was packed with muffled discourse, each one competing for dominance, talks of business deals and dinner plans, stock prices and yoga classes-- and here I was complimenting a stranger on his fashion choices. How dumb I was to think my meek attempt at conversation would do anything but fizzle out like a faulty firework. I suddenly wished I was on another train car.

“Say,” The Man cleared his throat after a long bout of silence. I felt his heavy gaze on shoulders like a woolen coat. “Not to be too forward, but haven't I seen you before? Your face is oddly familiar.”

“Uh, maybe. I take this train every day for work.”

“Aha!” He lit up like a spark plug. “You’re the one with the big-city office job! You always wear a powder-blue suit.”

“Do I?” I questioned. “I don’t remember that being such a staple in my wardrobe. I mean, I guess I’ve worn it a couple times this month, but…how do you know I’ve got an office job?”

As I looked up to meet gaze, I discovered that the body next to me was now the corpulent mass of a diabetic woman. She was toying with the insulin monitor strapped to her inner forearm. In the brief moment I submerged into recollection, The Man had disappeared like a rabbit in a magic act. For an even briefer moment, I contemplated if I’d even seen him in the first place.

IV

Our penultimate encounter was September 29th. I know because I was on my way home from my Nana’s 80th birthday party-- we’d just finished dinner and drinks at her

favorite restaurant downtown. I was coming off my third mojito as I boarded the train, miniskirt askew and jewelry entangled. Clutching at my locket and various chains was a nervous fixation I had, and walking to the station under a moonless sky was nothing short of petrifying.

I was hoping the comfort of the Green line’s fluorescence would coax me into comfort, but I felt even less at ease standing at the rail. A man in his thirties with mosaic skin was sleeping in the seat next to me, tattoos creeping down his calves and all the way up to his neck. It almost looked like patterned poison ivy that was spreading like a rash.

“Sorry,” I muttered as I bumped into him. The man awoke with a hold and knocked loose a name tag reading RAMOS. He scrambled to the floor to go catch it.

But apart from my new friend, there was nobody else in the train car. At least, that’s what I thought until I saw the skyscraper shadow hidden by the door.

The Man slithering into view like a black-and-white film reel, all dressed up in navy tweed and a pair of workman’s boots. He approached me with an auspicious gait--both hands tucked in his pockets and spindly legs striding wide.

“Good evening, little miss powder suit.” He said, tipping his hat in my direction. “Have a big outing tonight? You look like you’re dressed to the nines.”

“It’s for my Nana’s birthday party.” I explained. I wanted to keep my words deliberately short. The less he knew, the better. “She’s turning 80 today.”

“Sounds fun. So where’re you headed now?”

I felt those eyes again-- black like dominos but speckled with light-- come down on me like a tropical tempest. They were heavy, suffocating, hauntingly vacant, and most importantly, relentlessly prying. I wanted nothing more than to fling myself onto the tracks, if only to get away for a moment.

“Home.” I choked out. I was struggling to maintain my composure. “I’m on my way home. I’m tired and it’s nearly midnight.”

“Home? But it’s a Saturday.” The Man countered. “For kids like you, the night is still young. When I was your age--”

“I’m not a kid.” I shot back, teeth clenched into daggers. “I’m twenty-one.”

“Sorry.” The Man backed off, recoiling into his jacket. “I didn’t mean to strike a nerve.”

Feeling like a picked-to-nothing carcass, I turned my attention to Ramos. To my dismay he’d fallen into another coma of sleep, chest rising and falling like tides on a shore, blissfully unaware of the tension around him. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I clung to the hope that he’d wake up and swoop in to save me.

The Man had gotten closer. He took a step forward in the time I looked away. I could see dead veins running under his eyes like twisted pitchforks, almost sinewy in nature. There was a stain on his navy jacket whose color I couldn’t make out.

“Please, and I mean this with all due respect, please just leave me alone.” I warned, inching closer to the exit. Regardless of what the next stop was, I knew that I had to get off.

THIS IS ASHLAND. DOORS OPEN ON THE RIGHT AT ASHLAND.

As soon as the train car came to a stop, I grabbed my bag and whirled onto the platform with tsuamic force. Head spinning like a top, I fastened the strap of my purse and began to bolt for the exit doors. I heard the whiz of the Green line make its way towards California, sending ribbons of wind fluttering through my hair. I took a moment to look down. Both shoes were untied and my stockings were sagging at my ankles. Anyone unlucky enough to spot me at this hour would’ve thought I was a hooker coming home from a brothel. I had to make sure I had enough cash to call for a taxi home-- walking would simply be dangerous.

V

As I fumbled in my bag to fish out my wallet, I heard a pitter-patter behind me. There was The Man, looming over me in black, tweed swallowing in frame. I watched in horror as he unbuttoned his coat, revealing a horribly stained white shirt. He outstretched his hand like a priest handing me communion.

“Looking for this?” He asked, unfurling his wiry fingers. In his gloved palm was my leatherbound wallet, empty and stripped to the bone.

mirleft, Melissa Morano Aurigemma

Ser con la muerte

poetry by Eliezer Guevara

Being with the death is a poem that explores the concept of “death” like a repeating form of being in this and other possible worlds. Thinking in terms of phenomenal philosophy, speaks about the fact of appearing in “scene”, existing as a concept, memory, image, poem, and even in reality habiting different bodies, analyzes the embody condition -living with/in our ancestors and they habiting our flesh- causing a never ending form of existence in a timeless ethos.

El concepto de “ser” es un dialelo rotundo, es la repetición de la posibilidad el hecho de haber desdibujado los límites entre los muertos y los vivos; la capacidad de vivir entre los muertos, como ellos, -ellos como nosotroscon ellos y ellos con nosotros… En ese sentido somos huesos que sostienen la armazón fenoménica que aparece frente a nuestros ojos, somos aroma a carne viva… piel entregada. Grasosa Acuosa Apestosa Porosa Perfumada Podrida Eriza Cicatrizada Bañada Acariciada Lastimada Fría Cálida Palpitante De hielo Muerta Sudorosa Muerta y existente en un mismo eterno aparecer/se.

thirsTAY fiction by Tayah Groat

There was a time when I thought a great deal about alcohol. But it wasn’t me.

It was her, and she was me but I sure wasn’t her.

Her alcoholism was was typical , the only atypical part of her alcoholism was that I was underneath. It started as simple, innocent, wicked opportunism. This youthful child was reckless for all the regular reasons, so when alcohol was offered she experimented with the substance just like everyone else. And she loved it. She’d thirst for alcohol, crave the burning in her throat, she had an opposite of drunk feeling, stress like, buzzing until she had at least half her first drink. She’d reach for a glass after a stressful week, and then when she felt things she didn’t want to, and then all the time. She usually didn’t have to look very far, it’s not hard to get alcohol underage, but it always felt great to get what she wanted, like beating another level in a game. She was so confident she had it under control, that she could play with fire and never really get burned. She started going to class buzzed. She made me her home and it was terrifying. I’ll forever be afraid that she will come back.

You see, me, I’m just kid. Going on 20 years old, but still pretty much a kid: the kid part with potential and ambition anyway. I have everything going for me, really. I got grades that got me into college and I got to go because my parents have the money. I’ll probably get a decent job. I want to go overseas and teach English. I’ll probably meet someone special at some point. I could settle down and have a couple kids. I might go back to school and become a professor to teach about teaching, to inspire. I could go on to mentor somebody. I could change many lives, make a difference, live a really good life.

If it wasn’t for her. My first sip of alcohol was from my mom’s wine glass at age seven. The smell

drove me away, but wine by definition is a ‘forbidden fruit’: just very aged fruit, that’s not always so sweet. Like any child, I nearly spit it out. I didn’t understand why someone would drink such a wretched flavor. Most of the time, when I saw people drinking they were not drunk; it was just social. They did it at parties to have fun together. But when they were drunk they were funny and honest when they slurred their words. The bottles behind the bar were pretty and shimmered with glare. It seemed like a good idea, it worked well for everybody else.

The first time I drank, I was iffy, it was like meeting a stranger. I had been cautioned, of course, and have always been the nervous type (but not quite nervous enough not to drink at all). This was in fact an illegal activity at age 16. My first drink was an expensive Bahamian rum and Coca-cola, rum and coke. I was housesitting for my uncle and saw my opportunity: a full stocked cabinet of alcohol and nothing holding me back. I made myself food (carbs) because I heard it was bad to drink on an empty stomach. I didn’t really get drunk, in fact I barely felt anything, just a little weird. Honestly I had this fear I would be an emotional drunk, angry or depressed (it is a depressant, I researched). I wanted to meet her. I thought if I met her maybe I’d like her or if I got to know her I could protect myself. It was just experimentation, a try, a meet and greet.

The first time I got drunk, I had just finished my finals of junior year and felt far from confident of my performance. I was stressed: the kind that buzzes throughout your body but is highly unproductive. All my mind said was “!!!” and all the world did was spin. I drank as an emotional response, I turned to alcohol to make me feel better. This was a mistake. I dumped a bottle of peppermint schnapps in a glass of Pepsi, as if the drink wasn’t revolting enough and downed it on my kitchen floor. And so we met and she was the savior of my bad day. In this instance, she made me feel better. She danced around the house, singing, then crashed and took a nap.

It was then I was convinced, and really it might have been better if I was not, that she was great. I decided though she had flaws of stupidity and outspokenness that I liked her anyway. At least she didn’t hit kids or spew profanities. She ceased to be the uptight over-thinker I was sober. She was not scared or the least bit anxious. She sings in public, says what she thinks and does what she wants. She was super me. And knowing all

this, encouraged her.

The next time I saw her was among some flames at the end of the summer. Bonfires are beautiful things, not for the city folk, but appropriate for all walks of life. It’s the sense of community that comes from standing around a fire at night. She was among friends and got tipsy on Peach schnapps learning beer bong. She bonded, we bonded and I felt bonded. Guys passed around fruity cigars. The next morning I was late for work, I had completely forgotten and ran out without shoes. I skipped breakfast and paid for it later, the alcohol felt as if it was melting the lining of my stomach.

If you send an American seventeen-year-old to Germany, they will have a drink. It was the first thing she did when the chaperones let us go; straight to the Biergarten. She began drinking the guy next to her ‘under the table’ and her friends seemed impressed. The beer tasted just as awful as beer does but her tongue became numb to it. But then they started recording her and offering to buy drinks, it was fun until it wasn’t. Flowers of red bloomed in my cheeks and it wasn’t because of the heat my drink was giving me.

She still recalls a friend challenging her to walk a straight line to him. She couldn’t do it. And though she laughed it off in the moment, it struck a nerve that brought forth shame. Nobody liked to be that girl. The last night, I had planned a night of drying out before I saw my parents, but that’s not what happened. She agreed to bar crawling. She doesn’t remember what she drank exactly or how much. My head was still spinning the next morning, I peed a lot and went home hungover. After that, I’d say I didn’t know what I was driving into but I’d probably be lying. Going in, all I knew was that my ex was drinking and invited me to their friend’s house. It was 10pm. I guess I should’ve assumed the get-together was a party, but I was still convinced high school parties were a thing of movies. When I got there, I quickly figured it out. I was honored to be invited and she was was stoked. With jello shots in the fridge, a huge bottle of Svedka and good company she knew it’d be a good night. She poured herself a drink and another without realizing how strong it was, drinking it quickly to catch up as everyone else was already intoxicated. Not chugging but taking a swig in every pause in conversation. Besides her ex, there was one of my good friends but everyone else was merely acquaintances at the time.

And then came shots; don’t ask her how many. There was jello shots, she’d never had them before and they tasted great. She, with invitation at least, ended up on the hostesses lap displaying PDA I’d always sworn against. I had been crushing on them and this event didn’t positively affect the timing trouble we had been experiencing. When she was touching them, it was much different than I would have. Sloppy and numbish she felt disconnected from her body when she didn’t want to be but it was still fun. The next morning at breakfast, I had to be told exactly what happened. She did nothing unprovoked but was described as aggressive, which bothered me deeply. For the first time someone else’s words had to describe something she had done for me to remember it, but it wouldn’t be the last. To not remember things you did, to not have mental images of your own actions is terrifying. I was not the type of girl to blackout and not be bothered by it. The memories I could elicit consisted of passionately (aggressively) making out and making foolish decisions. But there was no real harm done, this time. I never planned on going to senior week. But she thinks whoever invented senior week knew what was up. The only pain was worrying beforehand and the massive and unrealistic amount of cash it took. No pain in being hungover if you drink it off the next morning. The whole week blurred together and she fell in love. She ate nothing but hot pockets (unless you count jello shots) and drank nothing but vodka. With a mind of her own, she pulled up her shirt and Snapchatted my friends. It was clear she was having a great time but I deserved judgement. The only rule was don’t get arrested. I wore minimal clothing all week. I went for a bike ride buzzed from the night before, spent too much time in the sun and had the most atrocious sleep schedule. My friends lost their virginity and she didn’t mom them. Coming back from that felt like the end of of a great party and the splitting of a family. My mom asked me after if I drank at senior week. Inside, she scoffed, as if I could answer that honestly and not scare the living crap out of her.

College parties are everything she’d expected amplified times ten. She’d run the circuit; been to many kinds, on every street. She’d been to house parties and frat houses, every drinking game in the book and nights of boxed wine. She’d squeeze in the doorway avoiding eye contact with the young man in control of the door that let her in free because of her gender. She batted her eyelashes at guys distributing beer, “ladies

first.” She danced around in over-crowded, over-heated, disgusting and dark basements every weekend. She gained the alcohol tolerance of a 6’2” wrestler but damn she looked and felt pretty good doing it. And then afterwards she’d get pizza or chinese and spare her liver a portion of alcohol for a few hours. Finishing the night she’d stumble back to her apartment, joking with her neighbors that were still up, drink water and slip into a death-like sleep until she awoke for a thirst of an ocean.

She’s tried to explain to me. How she feels like she’s swimming, floating, swaying when she’s standing still. Like her body itself is heavy but her spirit is so light. Her eyes wander and her fingers fumble. Her mind gets simpler, just one thought at a time. And with her courage, she could do anything. Unfortunately her ambitions limit her to words and who she wants to make out with at the time but it feels like freedom. It’s her bliss and I’m a slave to it.

But not every night went flawless. There were nights when she sipped past buzzed, chugged too much ‘drunk’ and found herself showing off the liquid contents of her stomach for the world to see. She wouldn’t call it getting sick, she’d say she over did it. And after she over did it she’d go right back out there and keep going. Because sick is painful, a bug causing you to reject food. Overdoing it is just your body having had enough but you’re too drunk to remember the event.

One night, she hooked up with one her friends. She wasn’t sure who had taken advantage of who. Luckily their friendship survived but only for their shared love of getting entirely too intoxicated. Most of time, by an act of God, she got home or at least in a friend’s bed or a friend’s floor.

She clearly got her fair share of hangovers. I had always thought they were simply a headache before I met her. I learned. It’s not just a headache. It’s the sun feeling like a desk light that follows you. It’s the need for the rare commodity that is water. And a reason to pig out on carbs. It’s a random girl on her floor asking if she’s hungover and then telling her to take better care of herself. It’s a pang of regret. But unlike everyone else, (people usually prefer getting high over drunk because of hangovers) I always felt like we deserved them. To take it easy the next day. Or to drink it off, rinse repeat. Guilt ate me. Drinking brought dishonestly to my lips with every sip. The fact I got away with it all was only more sad. It was the fact her alcoholism was never even

mentioned, no one even said she had a problem. Hangovers pounded at more than my head. Regret and embarrassment followed me every morning after and began to build up. I knew how things proceed to get bad until they explode. I knew this destructive pattern could not continue forever. Alcohol only goes one way, it poisons and you can get addicted to it. But it was one of those times that I had to learn the hard way. And so she wasn’t moved by my pleas to stop or at least control herself.

It was only when she lost my virginity that things changed...It was a scene I do not cherish. But I recall it in flashes, frequently after it happened and still today during my bad days. I remember hands, everywhere, and taking off my clothing. I remember the taste in my mouth the next morning and how I didn’t sleep well long after it happened. I remember the walk of shame home and how I thought I’d feel better after a shower but I didn’t. It was consensual I know, but I’d still felt she had taken advantage of me.

It was then I realized how I started to notice I didn’t know where I stopped and she began. It scared me. Who is more closely Tayah? Tayah, guarded and conscious and clear? Or her? Is sloppy and honest more closely related to Tayah then the Tayah seen on a daily basis? Does she bring out the real Tayah or does she alter Tayah into something she is truly not? Is she me? Am I her?

And then I saw my life flash before my eyes. I saw her running the show. I saw her creating children that would be taken away, mistreated, and hate me. I saw myself through others eyes, a drunken mess every day of the week, a lost cause to addiction. I saw the girl who took everything “Irish” and destroying my liver at a young age. All because of her.

She was out for blood and so we went to war. Every day I ignore her, I keep her locked up inside and we stay separated. But she still beckons for me: weekends, holidays, social events with friends. But I won. And I fight her every day, I don’t drink, it’s a daily decision. Perhaps one day I will write about her, to show you this silent battle I have won.

Bananas

poetry by Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb

I’ve been thinking about this Covid year— it’s like anesthesia; we’re right where we were before we went under, he says between bites of banana as we crawl along I-40, trapped among trucks and endless construction in 106-degree heat. We eat the long, yellow fruit, high in potassium, good for lowering blood pressure in impatient travelers. But, after two years, at least we are back on the road, having missed our annual trek to see a friend across states, now moving slowly closer to the place he lived before we lost him last year.

humidifying my clothes straight correct and even like the 2 holes made by staples on the elevator at work a drunk man leaned in to tell me about how we me + him deal with such shit, don’t we living in NY and all

playing the bop-it cat and vacuum game hot oil twinkling autopsying the iron, the pin making a case for anxiety uncredited laugh resonance mouthing quilted slicer u r that 2 me handing me over a silver toy a muffler

labor bop-it

poetry by Cecilia Stelzer

Love Letter

poetry by Kaitlyn Bancroft

I have always wanted to write a love letter I have always wondered What depths of myself I could plumb, what bones I could break In the pursuit of exquisite expression

I like to believe I would have been a good lover to you I like to believe I could have moved you With no more than messy ink scrawl and skipped heartbeats

But I never was and I never did and you never were So I write these words instead And pretend it’s a love letter they spell

The Great Unseen Maw

It was like walking into the jaws of the great unseen maw disguised as a city knowing you would skip over the canines gracefully with a fractal of teeth dangling from your frayed shoestrings.

It was like driving through the infected molars of your home town and trudging through the grey saliva of the Target parking lot and seeing the white drug-snot dried onto red bandanas.

It was like feeding the bottomless stomach we call the public, the unending orders, the tickets and yellow dupes spilling out of the machine until the entire kitchen drowned in demands.

It was like practicing alchemy – turning the unused pieces, discarded guts, pitched brains, nasty bits, losers and leftovers into a wonderful “wow that’s really fucking good!”

It was like you letting the good times roll until you were a flattened beverage pretending to be carbonated, served anyway, and even the one drinking it didn’t mind because it was still poison.

It was like living a hand-to-mouth existence, tramping around medium raw, nearly too rare to consume, certainly too bloody to be universally usual, but delicacy to the annoyed and initiated.

It was like a cycle of slaughter: a poem: the great unseen maw: people at brunch: chef putting in meat order: butcher slicing hog: me slicing black forest bacon: hog devouring corn: corn gulping water.

It was like walking down the street holding your hand as the world fell apart around us, like a jewel frozen in time glimmering on the necklace of the one who chose to spit it back into their mouths.

poetry by Michael Gallagher

okay, winter

okay, winter, welcome to my bones. i had forgotten candleflames in the cold and your particular note of silence, like an ice shard hitting a frozen lake.

and okay, bones, step forward again into quiet. a stillness so vast, an echoless tone racing toward a blind horizon. a ceasing, a breathing in of air so icy it spreads its searing tendrils through my lungs, branches of an old and silent tree, the color of earth under snow.

okay, darkness, i didn’t want to hear you. your lower range, an ancient rumbling, constant and resolved. a gravelly, thick serenity. voice in the night.

okay, sorrow, you’ve reeled me in. i float in your dark waters. i breathe in your fluid wind. hope was a bird on a window ledge in the city. hope was a field of fire. but sorrow, bring your rain in place of a lover’s hand. its steady, insistent tapping calling me, with this dull drumming behind my eyes, down a dirt path under a black symphony of a sky.

poetry by Noreia Rain

Untitled , Z White

poet kills bird

poetry by Nicholas Barnes

a seventh-grade boychild plods around the backyard. in his flowerbed periphery: a twitching, stuttering movement. a mini chirper, either a sparrow or a bluebird. petite from afar, though up close, puffed like a parrot pea. trapping air under velveteen down, birdie was cold, birdie was in poor shape.

craven twelve-year-old hands held the tiny critter in noonday rays, stroking its ethereal gossamer, its hollowed-out osseous parts. how he tried to shake it back to its senses, to rouse it from its pained dying.

the light in there was waning, its eyes were in its head. floating over to the woodshed, an ax materialized in the boy’s grip. strolling toward the suffering in earnest, the question hung above his crown. but eventually, it came down, and found its answer. little fella disappeared into a veil of feathers. it was one hell of a euthanasia. no undo button, no rewind: the tape’s all eaten up. a stradivarius out of tune, out of time, in potting soil splinters. no shoebox nurse, no animal hospital.

only a syringe plunged, a glass bottle emptied. just some jeweled remains in shallow earth, wings clipped in perpetuity. he robbed something from the sky and put it in the ground forever. from that day on, his feet never felt heavier.

entomb’d in the oppressive walls of lovers galls, sick and twist’d in the grotesque scene of society. what looming do a loner practice on his day of sorrow, ne’er in the glee of what lies in tomorrow. as he lies, facing the oppressive walls of a shuck’d bedroom. shuffling on the conveyor belt, pick’d and prickle’d with intent to breed,

la vida opresiva

poetry by Zander Moreno Lozano

we a bastard children whose grimace teeters on the compulse of imposing. what imposition of worldly policing do our pork belly’d politicians fornicate unto us. as trickery do a good man shame, where the shame in creatures of our own?

Contributors

Shams Alkamil believes in holding space for Black neurodivergents. She is SudaneseAmerican and spent summers in the Middle East. She published the chapbook West 24th Street (Lulu Press, 2022) to highlight the impact a location has on trauma. Her work has appeared in Mizna, Tofu Ink Arts Press, Writer Con 2022, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Melissa Morano Aurigemma is a writer, artist, and doctoral candidate studying phenomenology. She is lives in Italy and New York.

Instagram:@mmzaurigemma

Website: melissamoranoaurigemma.com

Kaitlyn Bancroft is a reporter with KSL.com in Salt Lake City, Utah. Previous and forthcoming publication credits include Hole In The Head Review, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Ocotillo Review, The Dread Machine, and Fleas on the Dog. Twitter: @katbancroft

Instagram:@katbancroftreports.

Nicholas Barnes earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Southern Oregon University. He is currently working as an editor in Portland, and enjoys music, museums, movie theaters, and rain. His least favorite season is summer. His favorite soda is RC Cola.

James Kimo Bitoy is a Creative Writing student currently pursuing his BA at San Francisco State University. Born in the Philippines and raised in the East Bay, he finds inspiration in capturing oral stories and blending it into his writing.

A. Cabrera’s stories and memoir pieces about the intersection between family, addiction and mental illness have appeared in Brain,Child Magazine, Berkeley Fiction Review, The New Guard, Litro and other literary publications. Her work has been

nominated for a Pushcart Award and adapted for stage by the Bay Area Word for Word Theater Company. She writes, teaches, dances and otherwise lives in San Francisco, CA.

Michaela Chairez is a poet from the Inland Empire. She holds a BA in English from Cal State Fullerton and is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University.

Hazel M. Cherry has a zest for contemplative life. Captivated by art, nature, and the senses, she is a multi-genre storyteller who seeks to empower women to love themselves and chart their spiritual paths with authenticity and freedom. Hazel obtained her Master’s in Divinity from Howard University School of Divinity (2015) & an MFA in Creative Writing from American University (2022). In the summer of 2022, she welcomed her first child. Currently, she is enjoying motherhood and working on her first poetry collection.

Amy Cook (she/they) is an MFA candidate at Pacific Lutheran University (Rainier Writing Workshop), and participated in the 2021 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop in Creative Nonfiction. Her work has been featured in thirteen literary journals, magazines and anthologies, including the Jewish Literary Journal (October 2022), From the Waist Down: the body in healthcare, Papeachu Press (July 2022) and Arriving at a Shoreline (great weather for MEDIA, August 2022). She was a finalist for the 2023 ProForma competition (Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts) and a Finalist for the Disruptors Contest (TulipTree Publishing, 2021).

Cook is an award-winning lyricist (BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement) whose work has been heard at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway (Easter Bonnet Competition, 2010), the Metropolitan Room and the Algonquin Salon.

She is the Legal Administrative Manager of Lambda Legal. Amy was a charter member of the Youth Pride Chorus (2003), as well as a singing and associate member of the

New York City Gay Men’s Chorus. She holds a B.A. in Political Science, summa cum laude, with Distinction, from Rider University. Outside of her professional work, Amy is also a spin junkie and a marathoner. She is married to lyricist Patrick Cook.

William C. Crawford is a prolific itinerant photographer based in Winston Salem, NC.

RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2/2017), easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, (Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, 11/2021) The Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Anthology (River Bend Bookshop Press, 12/2021), in print: 2River, Event, Gargoyle Magazine, Genre Urban Arts the minnesota review, Night Picnic Journal, Plainsongs, Prairie Schooner, Southword, The Ogham Stone, Twelve Mile Review, York Literary Review among many others and appears in numerous online literary journals.

Nimisha Doongarwal is a mixed media artist. Her conceptually layered pieces combine painting, photography, fabric, and digital prints which explore varying relationships between past and popular culture, by referencing social issues such as racism, immigration, and gender inequality. Each image tells a unique story, creating visual links to current and historical events in time. Through her work, her goal is to give a voice to social issues faced by women and people of color; to encourage viewers to embrace cultural diversity and step up for equality for all. Nimisha has been featured in publications and magazines such as Forbes, Maake magazine, Artmarket magazine and has exhibited in museums and galleries including the De Young Museum, San Francisco Airport, Museum of Northern California, and Brown University.

Adrian Jose Fernandez is a Latin American poet and published writer. He is currently editing his first collection of poems which will be titled To Whoever Might've Stolen My Computer while working at The Pacifica Tribune covering city council meetings.

Michael Gallagher is an Irish-Mexican poet from Oakland, California currently earning their MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State. They have published three books of poetry. Gallagher earned their undergrad degree at California College of the Arts, studying under poets such as Ishmael Reed, Joseph Lease, and Gloria Frym. They have attended writer's residencies at Arquetopia in Oaxaca, Mexico and CAMP FR in Toulouse, France. Gallagher is an awardee of the Steven Kowit Poetry Prize and the Daniel Langton poetry Prize. They grew up competing in spoken word poetry at Youth Speaks and Brave New Voices representing team Stockton. Gallagher is currently working on a style of poetry called California Gothic.

Alaura Garcia (b. 2003) is a photographer and fine artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a very, very proud woman of African-American & Puerto Rican descent.

Shaun Garlick is a 22-year old queer writer based in San Francisco. They are attending San Francisco State University, studying to get their BA in Creative Writing.

Caitlin Torres Graham is an artist and therapist living in the bay area. She works with a variety of mediums including watercolor, pen and ink and block printing. The content of Caitlin's artwork is highly influenced by surrealism and Latinx folk art. Caitlin's work is not only a reflection of her culture, surroundings and world view, but also as an outlet for processing trauma, emotions and identity.

Tayah Groat is a language assistant currently working in Spain that studied Spanish and education at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is 24 year old from York, Pennsylvania. You can also find her work in the New York Times Modern Love column under the tiny love stories.

Daniel Gonzalez was born in Anaheim, California, and earned his MFA in Creative Writing from CSULB, where he served as the senior editor of Fiction for RipRap

Journal. He has written an award-wining short film Matty Groves and has short fiction & poetry published in ANGLES magazine, About Place Journal, Allium, and WhimsicalPoet. He enjoys playing with his dog and writing about morality, death, and those small human moments which we all share.

Eliezer Guevara has published several essays in some magazines: Terremoto magazine based in Mexico and San Carlos University from Guatemala faculty of humanities magazines, has read some poetry in some places in Mission district. His writing explores visual arts, philosophy and critical thinking which are his areas of study.

Isra Hassan is a Somali-American essayist and poet based in Minneapolis, MN. Find her @israology everywhere.

Anastasia Doantrinh Lê is a Vietnamese American poet and printmaker. Her work has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, the walls of her former co-op, and a mulberry tree. She has received fellowships from the SF Writers Grotto and the UC Berkeley Arts Research Center. Her favorite color is red. You can find her on Instagram @noturstroganoff.

Zander Moreno Lozano is a gender non-conforming, queer, poet of color currently in the transit of their life, and in attempts to build their poetic repertoire. This past fall, Moreno was named Brooklyn Poet Fellow for study in Imani Cezanne’s workshop on Revolutionary Poetics. Moreno has also been showcased in the likes of Bay area (now East coast based) magazine ARTF*G for his work Cavities (2020). Moreno is the author of a forthcoming book we melt as earth under us (2023), a collection of poems based on love in the perverse and withering capitalistic society.

Michael MacDonald is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. In 2013 he graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in painting. His paintings and drawings depict minute details that hint to a larger, perhaps more bizarre scene. He compulsively

adds figures, shapes and objects to build a visual catalogue which he regenerates into moments from a missing narrative. Flattened textures with vibrant color take the artist’s hand out of the work just enough so that the viewer has space to interpret and claim a little ownership over MacDonald’s narrative and intent.

Michael Moreth is a recovering Chicagoan living in the micropolitan City of Sterling, the Paris of Northwest Illinois.

Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design.

The first personal exhibition "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection "The 50 Best Short Stories", and her poem was published in the collection of poetry "The wonders of winter".

Bianca Pasquinelli is Italian, from Milan. She graduated with honours in Communication and Advertising at IULM University and worked in the entertainment industry for many years. In the past year, she has devoted herself to pursuing writing and translating. She has recently won the Italian literary contest “Professione viaggiatore,” by Rudis Edizioni.

Robert Pettus is an English as a Second Language teacher at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, he taught for four years in a combination of rural Thailand and Moscow, Russia. He was most recently accepted for publication at Allegory Magazine, The Horror Tree, JAKE magazine, The Night Shift podcast, Libretto publications, White Cat Publications, Culture Cult, Savage Planet, Short-Story.me, White-Enso, Tall Tale TV, The Corner Bar, A Thin Line of Anxiety, Schlock!, Black Petals, Inscape Literary Journal of Morehead State University, Yellow Mama, Apocalypse-Confidential, Mystery Tribune, Blood Moon Rising, and The Green Shoes Sanctuary. “A Chemical Spritz” is one of the stories he recently wrote.

Stephanie Pritchard received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in creative writing with a concentration in poetry. She teaches in the English and Creative Writing department at the State University of New York at Oswego and is the recipient of the Provost's Award for Teaching Excellence. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Stone Canoe, The River, Ink Babies, Better Than Starbucks, Book of Matches, MASKS, and other places.

Noreia Rain is your fingers so close to the flame that your teeth clench tight, but you don't pull back because this work requires fire.

Her writing and artwork have appeared in The Ana and Transfer Magazine, as well as in the April 2022 issue of Vast Chasm. Her poem “bitten” was featured in Wingless Dreamer's 2021 Halloween Anthology. She is currently seeking a publisher for her poetry collections, The Yellow Inbetween and The Aftertaste of Rain. You can find her on Twitter as @NoreiaRainWords, and as noreia_rain_words on Instagram.

Chyna Robeson (they/she) is a plant biologist and artist currently residing in Oakland, CA. They graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in genetics and plant biology and have created art of many mediums throughout their life. Through her work, Chyna

enjoys combining abstraction with realism and they are heavily influenced by their dreams, emotions, queer community, and everyday aspects of the world around them.

Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb is the author of the chapbook, Shapes That Stay (Kelsay Books, 2021). Her poetry has appeared in The Midwest Quarterly, Switchback, Earth’s Daughters, Weber: The Contemporary West, About Place Journal, High Desert Journal, Clockhouse, AJN: The American Journal of Nursing, Terrain.org, Slipstream, and elsewhere. She holds an interdisciplinary MA and has served in various capacities as an educator, a researcher, and an editor, and is cofounder of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Native West Press.

Clara Sperow (she/they) is a writer, multimedia artist, and educator who loves making and writing about desserts, joy-centered memories, & queer love and home. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in English & Creative Writing and she is currently earning her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

Cecilia Stelzer is a poet, painter, and editor living in Brooklyn, NY. They received their M.A. in creative writing from Eastern Michigan University. They currently work as a gallery administrator at The Painting Center and an assistant at Book Post. They also intern with Segue Foundation and volunteer at The Poetry Project.

Elisha Taylor is a resident of the famous Rivertown, Antioch California, where he lives with his mother, father and younger brother.

Lucas Tonks was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England. He began writing in 2017, focusing on political and cultural critique, touching upon themes of the abject, posthumanism, loss, and boredom. He is an active union organiser, works in a warehouse, and hopes he doesn't end up in academia. He currently resides in Amsterdam, with his wife, Nastya, and his chubby cat, Bolaño.

Janna Wagner is an MFA candidate at Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop. She is focusing this year on a grief project, playing with form and lyricism to gently lift the heaviness of grief by focusing on wonder. She writes from a small cabin on her land in Homer, Alaska. She has also been a nurse with Doctors Without Borders since 2014 and also focuses some of her writing on the experiences she has had in the humanitarian world.

Z White, a Bay Area photographer. They have a great passion for travel and exploring as much as possible. Avid coffee drinker with little to no sleep.

Madelyn Yukich was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She is currently a student at San Francisco State University working towards a BA in Creative Writing. She aspires to tell stories that comfort, confuse, and challenge her readers. When she’s not writing, Madelyn enjoys listening to Taylor Swift on repeat, baking too many cookies, and taking her dog on hikes.