THE ANA: Issue #12 by The Ana

THE ANA \THƏ\·\Ā-NƏ\ 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 actively seek to honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people connected to this land on which the magazine was founded. And we honor the fact that they are still existing on this land, and deserve to thrive. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, we encourage you to pay an annual Shummi Land Tax (via the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust) or to find a way to aid in the redistribution of land sovereignty to Indigenous folks. Cover design by Minhee Kim & London Pinkney Cover texture by JZ Creative Space. Typesetting and design by Carlos Quinteros III & London Pinkney Set in Georgia (Matthew Carter, 1993), Futura (Paul Renner, 1927), Krungthep (Susan Care, 1984) iii

THE ANA presents

ISSUE #12 Spring 2023

EDITOR’S NOTE Summer is on the horizon as The Ana heads into the second half of her third year. It still feels surreal publishing all the beautiful art and necessary writing that have filled the pages of our last eleven issues. Although, at times, it was not easy. From ensuring we have enough funds to print our yearbooks and hitting deadlines so the artists and writers could witness their work navigate the world and finding places to host our electric events, here we are on the eve of releasing the 2023 Yearbook with no signs of slowing down. As we continue to gain ground, I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone about the understanding and empathy we all generously gave each other during the pandemic. As things return to whatever normalcy there was before the pandemic, please continue to spread patience and care throughout your communities and to those who may need it. Just because there isn't a global pandemic doesn’t mean we stopped needing time to organize and process the events in the world and our personal lives. Also, as we head into our fourth year (!!!!), I want to take this opportunity to meditate about “gaining ground.” What does it mean to gain ground? Are we taking space away from others to carve out our space in the world? Obviously, I do not think this to be true, but rather we are gaining the ground lost in our voices and expression collected in our issues and events. Gaining ground for us here at The Ana is about reclamation, not capturing something that is not ours. See, as I prepare to graduate from the MFA program at SF State, I am determined to understand my footing on this earth and where I stand in the different groups and communities, I am a part of. Where do I go after this? It is a question I ask myself constantly. It brings me stress, panic, and fear. It sweeps the floor beneath me until I am curled up in my bed, wishing that the world could just stop for a second so I can have one clear thought without the weight of doubt on my shoulders.

I am not here to answer how to get out of this headspace, but rather reiterate how much The Ana means to me and express how much I hope it means to you. In my times of weakness and doubt, The Ana becomes a map of lives and experiences that remind me of the humanity nestled inside the chest of each of us. It reminds me of where I have been, what I have survived, and what I cherish. The Ana has become a lifesaver for me, and I hope it does the same for you, the reader, and you, the artist and writer, because we all need each other on this old ground, we are reclaiming together. A space beyond the text. A space where we can celebrate the work put into the craft and understanding our positionality in the literary space.

Carlos Quinteros III MANAGING EDITOR & POETRY EDITOR

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CROSS GENRE LITERATURE 65

Andres Had Always Wanted a Dog by Daniel Gonzalez

FICTION 1

Wrecked Remnants by Robert Pettus

What Would Khadijah Do? by Akasha Neely

I Love You Also, I Promise by Sophia Quinto

Fucked in the Name of Empire; or, Death to Fucking America by Akasha Neely

NONFICTION 24

in the poet’s house, i am the mirror by Erick Sáenz

To The Hardware in My Leg by Lujan Al-Saleh

POETRY 23

Deac by Elisha Taylor

On Turning 17 by Alexandria Wyckoff

February by Abigail Pak

On TV There Are Two Women Kissing by Elodie Townsend

Vandals by Elodie Townsend

shell by Kwame Daniels

Aspen Vista Blue Pt. 1 by Jesse Strohauer

VISUAL ART 36

Words on Fire by Karen Gomez

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The Condor’s Cove by Violet Bea

Smoke Break by Violet Bea

Cecropia Hyalophora by Violet Bea

T.P.T. by Brielle Villanueva

El sol y la hierba by Brielle Villanueva

MetaCarpal by Violet Bea

What A Joy To Be Beloved by Jesse Strohauer

. . . . . . 10

The Serious Business of Childhood a conversation with Christine Ferrouge

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Writing Through the Mutant Continuum a book review of Poetechnics: Designs from the New World by Yaxkin Melchy

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Contributors

Wrecked Remnants fiction by

Robert Pettus The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. She had never seen much of anything out there—it was like staring at a slightly mobile painting, one that changed only slightly each day—but she continued to peer into the curved glass of the scope anyway. “You need to stop wasting your time doing that,” said Mr. Greenwell, rocking on his wobbly stool, “Anything happens up there, you’ll know about it. I promise you that. You won’t be able to avoid it. This little bunker of ours, it’s only holding on by a thread. I’m surprised we’re still here, to tell you the truth—a decade is a hell of a long time to survive in this sort of situation.” “What else am I supposed to do?” said Alice, turning from the exteriortelescope and glaring backward at Mr. Greenwell, who sat comfortably on his stool, which was cushioned with an old, cut-out Styrofoam mattress-pad duct taped onto its brittle wooden surface. She grinned at him. He smiled back. He was her only real friend in the world, and she was likely his. Though he was so apathetic—that was a new word she had learned when reading in the library last week; apathetic—he just sat on his stool pointlessly all day, every day. Mr. Greenwell took a healthy smack from his vape, exhaling the fragrant vapors as smoke engulfed the small room. “This place is a cell,” growled Mr. Greenwell, scratching at the remnant, prickly gray hairs on his shiny bald head. “You say that every day. And you really need to quit smoking. I don’t know how the guards haven’t snagged that thing from you yet.” “It doesn’t even have any nicotine. I make the juice myself—what can they say about it? I’m doing nobody no harm. Plus, they should simply be happy I don’t lose my damn mind at not having a single cigar for ten years.”

“I’m sure your lungs don’t appreciate it,” said Alice, “And plus, since you make it yourself, why don’t you make it a little less…pungent?” Pungent was another word Alice had recently discovered. “I like the smell,” said Mr. Greenwell. “Anyway, what are you reading this week?” “Notes From Underground. Saw it in the library; it seemed fitting.” “Fitting, indeed,” said Mr. Greenwell, scratching at the creases on his wrinkly brow. “Why are you so dried up and flaky?” said Alice “I have psoriasis. No ointment in the hospital wing. They say the patrollers look for it when they go out—I put in a damned request, for that and cigars—but they haven’t found anything. I don’t think they even look. Bastards.” “Oh,” said Alice. She didn’t know what psoriasis was; she hadn’t learned that word yet. She made a mental note to uncover its meaning. She would ask Mr. Greenwell, but she didn’t like seeming uneducated; that was the paradox of self-education for the proud: questions were a double-edged sword. Alice felt proud that she so easily recalled the word paradox, though. Unable to intelligently respond, Alice instead looked back into the exteriortelescope. Exterior-telescopes—one of the only novel ideas of subterranean, post-End life, were tubes, stretching upward through the earth, which used a series of underground mirrors to see into the outside world—like a window. A window from underground into the “real” world. Alice stared at them incessantly, and she mostly used Mr. Greenwell’s, being that he was the only person she really trusted. Every morning, Alice would hop off her top-bunk in the adolescent dormitory and, after stopping by the library to gather her new books, run over to Mr. Greenwell’s room to see what was going on in the real world. Nothing much was happening today. She had seen a tumbleweed roll across the chalky dirt of the outside post-apocalyptic desert, bouncing into an unaware desert cottontail, which leapt around in instinctive, prey-like horror before realizing it was just a dry plant. The rabbit then began eating the tumbleweed, satisfied with the crunchy snack.

“Damn!” said Alice, removing herself from the lens, “As much as I love rabbits, I need some more excitement on the tube!” Encircling her left eye was a red ring, proof of the time and effort she expended staring into the scope. “You should watch your language,” said Mr. Greenwell. “You cuss all the time,” said Alice. “Yeah, but I’m old, so I’m allowed to say whatever the hell I want. You’re a young girl, so it’s not polite.” “No one gives a shit about that kind of stuff anymore; we’re at the end of the world, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Mr. Greenwell chuckled. Alice smiled at him. “So, what’s for lunch today?” said Alice. “Let’s see,” said Mr. Greenwell, removing the weekly news bulletin from the organizer on his wall and scanning it for the menu. “Looks like Salisbury steak with brown gravy, buttered peas, and mashed potatoes.” “We have that every week,” said Alice. “Peas are easy to preserve; Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes are easy to fake. It’s a pragmatic meal when you live underground.” “Well I’m tired of it!” yelled Alice, throwing her hands skyward. She was also wondering about the meaning of the word pragmatic. “I kind of like it, honestly,” said Mr. Greenwell. Alice smiled in concession, “I do too—I can’t deny it. There’s something about that mushy steak that just gets me.” Talking about food had worked up their appetites, so they decided to head out a little early for lunch. Alice grabbed Mr. Greenwell’s cane—an old, twisty thing with a rubber base—and helped him from his stool. They left the quiet of Mr. Greenwell’s room and entered a surprisingly bustling hallway. . . . . . . “The hell is going on today?” said Alice glancing back and forth at groups of people scurrying by frantically.

“Who knows,” said Mr. Greenwell, “Maybe they’re having a surprise Keno drawing; they’ve done that before. If so, we’re going to have to wait on lunch so I can get in on the action. The administration had recently begun using Keno as a sort of lottery to help create a bit of excitement and tradition for colony residents. It was a normal Keno game, but instead of money, the winners received additional access to goods like food, pillows, blankets, books, and board games. It had thus far been very successful. “Maybe you’ll win!” said Alice, who wasn’t yet old enough to participate, “Then you can snag that Connect Four game the patrollers found! Wouldn’t that be awesome?” “If I happen to win,” said Mr. Greenwell, “I’ll gladly purchase you the copy of Connect Four.” The two of them continued toward the cafeteria. As they pushed forward down the narrow hallway, they noticed in the expressions of passersby more terror and confusion than excitement. “I don’t think this is related to Keno,” said Mr. Greenwell. “Yeah. These people are acting crazy,” said Alice, “What do you reckon is going on?” Mr. Greenwell didn’t respond, but Alice could tell by his worried expression— which crinkled the lines on his wrinkly forehead—that he was nervous about something. “Let’s go to the cafeteria,” he said, “Somebody will be able to tell us what’s going on there.” The cafeteria was nearly vacant. Steaming trays of food sat unattended at the buffet. Mr. Greenwell noticed someone—a plastic-apron, hairnet wearing member of the kitchen staff—ducking from the main room of the cafeteria into the back room of the kitchen. “Hey!” said Mr. Greenwell, pacing over to catch up with her. His cane wobbled with each step as he leaned into it and pushed forward. “Hello, ma’am! I need some help!” Alice, grabbing a hardtack biscuit from a nearby basket, followed him into the kitchen. “I can’t help you, sir,” said the kitchen staff employee, worry induced sweats painting her leathery face. “You don’t know anything?” said Mr. Greenwell, “Nothing at all?” 4

“Only thing I know is what my boss told me, which was not to plan on coming back to work anytime soon. Something serious is about to happen; I don’t know what the hell it is, though.” Straining to bite into the crunchy biscuit, Alice bit off a chunk of the bread, chewing it aggressively. “A mystery!” she said, nudging Mr. Greenwell in his side, “We’ll get to the bottom of this, won’t we! Finally, some real excitement for a change. This will be way better than staring at radiated rabbits in the exterior-telescope all day. “Let’s get out of here.” said Mr. Greenwell. “That’s a good idea,” said the kitchen staff, “I’m about to do the same, myself. Feel free to help yourself to some food.” She handed him a couple of reusable plastic to-go containers. Mr. Greenwell turned and walked out of the kitchen, making to leave the cafeteria entirely. Alice, noticing he hadn’t grabbed any food, snatched one of the to-go containers from him. “So, you’re just going to allow us to have this conversation about how we secretly love Salisbury steak the whole way here, and then not even get any of it? What kind of bull shit is that Mr. G?” “Oh, sorry,” said Mr. Greenwell, glancing toward the hallway, which by this point had calmed substantially, “I had something else on my mind. Let’s scoop up some steak for the road. And watch the language; we’re in public!” “Way ahead of you!” said Alice, darting back over to the buffet and filling the to-go container with steak and biscuits. Their lunch collected, they returned to Mr. Greenwell’s room. . . . . . . Mr. Greenwell sat atop his stool at his small desk, his hand at his face—his thumb on his chin and his pointer finger curled around his nose—as was his habit when he was thinking hard about something. Alice, having already devoured her lunch, was now back to staring into the exterior-telescope. “Man!” she said, her eye still pressed to the scope, “I really wanted that ConnectFour game, you know? I was really looked forward to whipping your old ass!”

Alice heard nothing in response. Normally, she knew, a vulgar comment like that would have elicited from Mr. G at least a snicker. But there was nothing. She tore herself away from the telescope, looking over to Mr. Greenwell, who still sat soberly on his stool. “We might need to get out of here,” he said. “How in the hell could we possibly do that? And where would we even go?” “I don’t know, and… I don’t know…” “Isn’t there a big door? A big metal, twisty thing that opens into the outside?” “Yeah, there is. That’s past the administrative offices, though. I don’t see how we could get by there.” “We’ll sneak it! There are some advantages to being seen as a helpless little girl by everyone, you know. Maybe I can trick them; allow us some time to get by.” “And what would we do once we got outside?” “Huh?” Alice was momentarily confused. She scraped her foot across the collected dust of the floor before understanding, “Oh!” she said, “Because of the radiation!” “Yes,” said Mr. Greenwell. Alice hadn’t ever been out of the colony. Not really, at least—not since she was two years old, when her parents had dropped her off here. “Don’t they have suits?” she said. “They don’t give those to just anyone.” “Well, obviously we’re going to have to steal them. Sometimes thieving is necessary.” Mr. Greenwell looked to the floor, considering this wisdom given to him by a child. “Okay,” he said, “We can try it. But first, we have to…” The walls of Mr. Greenwell’s room abruptly split and cracked. The floor shook. Loud crashes and bangs were heard from neighboring rooms. Mr. Greenwell’s twinsized bet rattled around on the floor before being flung sideways halfway across the room. Alice covered herself with her arms to shield herself from the oncoming blow of the metal bed, but it didn’t quite make it to her.

“It’s happening,” said Mr. Greenwell, “It’s actually happening. I always knew it would, but I guess I became too complacent down here, all this time—during this monotonous decade.” Alice darted to the exterior-telescope, looking intently and then immediately pulling away in shock before diving back and peering again. After a time, she removed herself from the device: “Holy shit!” she said, “We have to get the hell out of here—like now!” “Why? What’s going on out there?” “Lights, flashes… Dead stuff. Snakes and scorpions. I didn’t see any rabbits—I hope they’re safe—but I did see lots of smoke and fire. The ground is destroyed. There are some sort of drones digging into the sand. The ground is cracked, as if the colony is being uprooted.” “That’s what’s happening,” said Mr. Greenwell. “What?” said Alice. “The colony is being uprooted.” “What? I wasn’t serious about that; I don’t think so, at least… How could that happen?” “That’s one of the alleged weapons our political leader’s enemy could use against us. We use it against them, too—supposedly—over in their colonies; over in Siberia; over in the caves of the Caucasus.” “We’re just sitting under a bunch of shifting sand! We’ll be easy to dig up, right?” “Probably. I guess it makes sense that the Mojave colonies were among the first hit—assuming we actually were among the first. We must have been… But we’ve been down here for so long...” “They’re going to dig us up?” “Yes.” Dueling buckets of a flying excavator—its metal arms attached to a drone hovering overhead—crashed into Mr. Greenwell’s ceiling, subsequently scooping out and gutting the majority of his room. One of the buckets nearly scooped up Alice, though she managed to spin out of the way unharmed.

“Holy shit!” she said, crawling backward away from the drone. Her back against the door, she twisted it open and fell backward into the hallway. Following her, Mr. Greenwell lifted her up. In the hallway they saw panic. No one knew what to do. Everyone was darting around like feeder minnows trapped in a fish tank as the net delivering their doom moved around the aquarium. “We have to get to the administrative offices!” said Alice, tugging at Mr. Greenwell’s red checkered button-up shirt to hurry him down the hallway, “We have to make it to the exit.” “Right,” said Mr. Greenwell, beginning to move down the hallway as quickly as was possible with his cane. Abruptly, the front end of a bulldozer drone pushed through what had previously been Mr. Greenwell’s doorway. The drone then hovered upward, among the furthering wreckage, and reached out its excavator arms as if to entrap Mr. Greenwell in a pincer. There was nothing he could do about it; he felt the pinch of the sharp metal as it broke the skin of his abdomen. Alice shrieked in startled terror. Mr. Greenwell looked at the drone, which as a result increased the pressure of the pinch. Mr. Greenwell wasn’t aware that drones had been made capable of sadism. “Go,” grunted Mr. Greenwell, “There’s nothing I can do; I’m toast. Get the hell out of here, kid.” Looking at Mr. Greenwell one last time, Alice then turned and scrambled down the busy, chaotic traffic of the hallway. Walls crumbled around her; stones from the wreckage fell from the ceiling like pieces in a Connect-Four game. Alice would be lucky to make it to the administrative offices alive, she was well aware of that. She pushed on, nonetheless.

The Serious Business of Childhood a conversation with Christine Ferrouge

Often times the art that changes us comes into our lives by happenstance. But I was lucky enough to have an artist fall into my life. I met Christine Ferrouge by chance, via email. She reached out about her upcoming show—Watching/Waiting (April 27 - May 27 at Oakland’s GearBox Gallery) and graciously offered for us to use the space for a reading. Allow me to digress: the Romans believed that genius was a wind that flowed through people. If you’ve ever sat down to create something you know that electricity. It’s part of the magic of being an artist. But there is also magic in finding people who see you, and you see them. I felt this way with Christine. Carlos and I visited her at the GearBox Galley, then took a detour to her studio to view more of her paintings. From the colors she used, the creaminess of the oil paint, to the nuanced explorations of girlhood, I was enamored. It felt like home. Ferrouge’s work and her studio buzzes with tactileness and motion—characteristics that were everpresent in my articulation of girlhood. Girls are fast. They are movers and shakers. I told Christine that I wanted this interview to be a collaboration. Even though I found kinship in her and her work, I wanted to dig deeper. I asked her: what question do you want to be asked? And five days later, at the interview, she answered: I want to be asked about my painting’s connection to art history and contemporary girlhood. So that’s where we’ll begin.

After the Night Out, oil on canvas, 96” x 120”, 2022| Christine Ferrouge 10

Christine Ferruouge: My work is deeply rooted in an understanding of art history. Early in school, I discovered the Ashcan Painters, and was inspired by their gritty portrayal of everyday life and I was excited about where American art first became relevant in Western

art history.

I loved the founder of the Ashcan School, Robert Henri

(pronounced: Hen-Rye), who often painted children. I also fell in love with the brushstrokes of Manet, who could create dynamic faces and forms with minimal smudges of paint! I was inspired! I continued to study by looking at the old masters (studying in Florence, Amsterdam, and Madrid). When my daughters were young, I began thinking about how girls are reflected in pop culture and compared that to history. Their contemporaries had a weird princesses conglomerate that I was skeptical about. When I was young I wanted to be Wonder Woman because she was powerful. And I also grew up with the JonBenét Ramsey story, so as a mother, the dolling-up of young girls struck me as very disturbing. I don’t know how we ended up with so many cheap polyester princess dresses in our house! I never bought them, but they were everywhere, so I began to paint about them. I realized I was not the first artist to paint princesses, so I looked to Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, and other portrayals of real-life princesses.

Details of Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez

The painting is important for a lot of reasons: Velázquez—the painter, himself—is in the painting; kind of the first selfie of art history. The artist and the audience are both aware of one another and reflected in the painting. On top of that self-awareness—to this day, there are people standing in front of Las Meninas, in the Prado Museum, continuing to be the audience that Velázquez intended. And they’ve been doing so for almost four hundred years!

Living Room Princess. 60” x 72”oil on canvas, 2016 | Christine Ferrouge Photo by Francis Baker

In contemporary art history, Kehinde Wiley and Kerry James Marshall have always been heroes of mine—for their larger-than-life, dignified figures and art history references. Hung Lu is similarly inspiring to me. My life-size or larger scale is crucial to my work. I want there to be a physical reaction and presence to the characters A six foot man musts to look up at these little girls to witness them. 12

London Pinkney: I could sit in all this knowledge for hours. I love that we began like this. We have this knowledge, so now I want to ask: who are you? CF: That’s so existential! (laughs) I always say I am simultaneously a full time artist and full time mom. And my subjects are my girls and girlhood. So I am both raising them and studying them.

The Exchange, on oil canvas, 120”x 60”, 2023| Christine Ferrouge Photo by Francis Baker

LP: I have a kinship with you because, as a writer, I have an inverted experience—I study my mother as she is raising me and, somehow, also raising her inner child. How has your role as a mother influenced your art, and how has being an artist influenced how you parent? CF: A core part of who I am is being a reflective person, so, in reflecting on what I do as mom, I am shaping that role. And what I do as a mom, shapes the work. It goes around and around. The part that blew my mind when you asked that question is the fact that 13

my girls are also watching me. I realize that it is normal for me to watch them and they understand what the paintings are because that is their life—they know me and what is going on with that work. And they understand art. So they are my best audience, because they understand art history and who I am. It’s us knowing each other, which is incredibly intimate. As a figurative painter, I have always painted the people that I know, and now the people that I know the best are my three daughters. When I have concerns about them as humans moving through

contemporary culture or through girlhood, I use the

paintings to work through those feelings. Much of my work starts as a question. I worry about how they are influenced by their social culture, or how they will survive wildfires and invisible environmental toxins, but I explore it via art, and come out on the other side. In the work I climbed toward hope, and recognized how strong my daughters are, and how adaptable I think about the importance of imagination as play, and how it allows us to create different realities for ourselves that help us define who we are and give us skills to cope with life. So in my work, I’m starting with my girls, but it relates to every person who has ever been a child. LP: I find it interesting that paintings come out of anxiety, I would think with anxiety, you would want to move away from the stimuli rather than sit in it. Does art work as a coping mechanism of art that allows you to sit in anxiety, or have you always been the kind of person to do so? CF: Fear is bad. But in a way, I think a lot of good art starts with anxiety because art is a good way to process life. And more importantly, if there are no questions or something to solve, what is the point of making the art? I think there has to be an exploration. My process of painting helps me find answers and usually surprises me with deeper and more universal connections to others than I initially perceived. LP: How did your daughters become your subject matter? CF: I knew that I needed to be taking care of myself to be a good mom. And as mom, I didn’t have the freedom to go over to a friend’s house for five hours and have them sit for a portrait for me. So, I started painting the people around me, which were my 14

daughters. Painting my children itself is an act of rebellion, as many women have been criticized and questioned throughout art history—even by feminists—that they should not, or cannot possibly, be both a mother and artist. LP: You have described that your work is about “the serious business of childhood,” which I love. Children aren’t respected in American culture. They are seen as accessories. And girls are categorically not respected for the cultures they create for one another and amongst themselves. How has this artistic journey revealed new things to you about childhood, and more specifically, girlhood?

Picnic, oil on canvas, 60” x 72”, 2020 | Christine Ferrouge Photo by Francis Baker

CF: I love what you said about girls and how they create cultures for one another and amongst themselves! That is so important! Often when someone looks at one of my paintings, they relate to it in terms of their own childhood before they think of someone who is currently experiencing childhood. For many years, my daughters and I refer to the person in the painting as “she, her, or that person in that painting”—not actually my daughters’ names. We all understood their likeness was simply a character that could

represent anyone. I love the fiction

disclaimers at the beginning of novels! It’s so funny to me because it is impossible to not base your inspiration on real people! I haven’t thought of myself as any of the characters in my paintings until more recently, as my oldest daughter is looking more like a young woman than a child. Also I constantly try to peek into their brains and they are starting to think with more maturity about the world. When they were younger I was clearly the mom looking in at playtime. Even though I related, I didn’t feel like I was painting about myself. It is healthy to not see too much of yourself in your kids. They are separate people. LP: Do you feel like that healthy separation between these characters and you also mirror the distance a mom should have with her kids? CF: Yes, And I think it’s helpful. Being both an artist and a mom helps me create healthy boundaries. My children are not my subject to manipulate, and likewise my paintings are their own thing- their own beings. Much like with kids, I make them then they go off into the world. It’s a healthy artist philosophy—if you are overly precious about something- you ruin it. A good artist responds to the needs of the painting and isn’t overly controlling. Similarly, there are things I cannot control in my daughters lives. I do what I can, and then I watch and wait. LP: What I love about what you do is that your subject matter is living. Yes you are a mother who is an artist and those identities intersect, but to have subject matters that live with you and grow with you feels so ripe with potential. At least right now, the theme of your work is girlhood, but do you see that shifting as your daughters get older? Is womanhood going to be a new theme? Or, as odd as this sounds, are you going to find new children to paint? 16

CF: Who knows?! I don’t think I’m ever going to stop being fascinated by my girls. But when they grow up and move away, will I have to paint other people again? My girls’ friends and even a few strangers are subjects in some paintings already. Or maybe I’ll have to paint about myself. (Laugh) That sounds really funny to me. ...All I know is: you have to follow your interest to make good art. And right now my inspiration is my three daughters - and their internal and external worlds. LP: It feels like the second art project, is you as an artist chasing this subject matter. As if the art is also in making something perpetual. Perpetual girlhood is not a real thing, but it feels like your work captures that in a very noble way. CF: The things that make us who we are are always part of us- and we form those things during childhood—imagining, inventing, reflection. Those actions are always in us. In my new work I’m growing interested in how girls relate to one another—whether friends or siblings. I remember getting dressed up or ready to go out with girl friends- like for a birthday or a dance. It was a time when you proclaimed who you were to some kind of audience, and it was important. You were becoming. And there was a monumental feeling about it—that it should be documented. That sense of becoming doesn’t go away, no matter how old you get. Becoming is perpetual. When the girls and I did the photoshoot for the Picnic series, we went out into the desert and set up a picnic with pink-frosted cake and bright blue lemonade. Getting to the location was somewhat dangerous and together we had conceptualized the props and meanings of it all.

As we were acting out this strange tea party which I was

photographing to paint, I thought to myself, which part is the art? This event?—or the painting I will make in the studio? We are the art and the art is life. LP: I’m biased, but the artist life is healthy: you have to know your worth, act with intention, know how to create community, set boundaries.

CF: Absolutely. Being in a place where you’re creating is a healthy place to be. There is a universal desire to create, even if you are not in the creative fields—you might be building a company or building a building or building a family. But it’s all creating. LP: Tell me a little bit about the upcoming exhibit, Watching/Waiting. CF: The title of the show is about suspense, the sense that something may be about to happen. For me, it is what I do with my girls—I am constantly watching and waiting. My show partner, Joy Ray, makes sculptural weaving that look incredibly fragile. Joy and I found visual connection in the art of falling apart—my paintings kinda look like they’re falling apart, and Joy’s work looks similarly, but neither work actually reaches that place. She explained to me that her weavings are inspired by a memory of watching people walk on to a semi-frozen lake in Southern California. As the people walked across the lake, cracked and splintered beneath them, so her art captures that precariousness. It is about that tension. And I resonate with that because as a mother watching over my girls, I’m often aware of the ways they or the world around them could fall apart. That goes back to the watching and waiting—that’s all I can do as they move through girlhood. Watching/Waiting runs from April 27th to May 27th at the GearBox Gallery in Oakland!

Left: After the Night Out, oil on canvas, 60” x 72”, 2022 | Christine Ferrouge Photo Christine Ferrouge’s work by Francis Baker

Right: Apparition, plaster, cheese cloth, and thread, 10” x 12”, 2022 | Joy Ray Photo of Joy Ray’s work by Anna Pacheco

LP: Yes! Thank you so much for letting us host inside that space. And I’d love to end on some fun, light questions. Since I am a Parliament Funkledelic Fan, I must ask: are you a stoplight, a flashlight, or a neon light? CF: Ooh! I’m probably a neon light, but in my work I’m using a flashlight. I’m neon, I’m not someone who shies away from attention. I wear a lot of black, but I love color. LP: And that leads me to the next question: What is your favorite color to work with? CF: The moment I get to place red on my canvas is always a favorite moment. You have to use it sparingly, and it’s not my favorite color in general, but it brings me back to the pure love of paint. From my earliest memories. I remember dipping my paint brush in dripping red tempera paint at the preschool easels and making that mark on the paper. There’s nothing as exciting as that. Red is a power color—it’s fire, it’s blood, it’s excitement, it’s passion. And you have to use it decisively. LP: And the final question is: what’s next for you? CF: After I launch this show, I need to get back into the studio! I’m starting paintings about girls getting ready in mirrors, and about our relationships with one another and ourselves. I’m excited to be in my new LA studio as well, where I’ll be hosting studio visits and enjoying focused work time this summer. Being an artist is a continuous journey. Thank you so much for this interview. I cherish our conversations. It has been wonderful to work with you. We are thrilled to host The Ana at GearBox Gallery for your upcoming release party!

Three Masked Princesses, oil on canvas, 72” x 48”, 2015 | Christine Ferrouge Photo by Francis Baker

Watching/Waiting April 27 - May 27, 2023 GearBox Gallery in Oakland, CA

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To follow Christine Ferrouge: christineferrouge.com @christineferrouge

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Ferrouge’s recent honors include exhibiting in the deYoung Museum Open Exhibit and solo show at Gray Loft Gallery. In addition to studio practices in Oakland and Los Angeles, Ferrouge is a teacher, curator, and promoter of the arts, who contributes passionately to art communities such as: the Oakland Art Murmur, Los Angeles Art Association, and Kipaipai Fellows.

After the Costume Party, oil on canvas, 96” x 108”, 2015 | Christine Ferrouge Photo by Francis Baker

Deac poetry by

Elisha Taylor

I never hear her voice anymore in my name/I just hear the common tree planted firmly by living waters/Swaying my name from first to last and letting his leaves bristle Durrell in the middle/Just as calmly as he could seem/

in the poet’s house, i am the mirror nonfiction by

Erick Sáenz

“There is no problem of influence because everything writes even when I don’t write” - Lisa Robertson

Con mucho amor a Ángel, Farid, Tato, Vickie, & Roque - ese fin de semana y para siempre

// I believe in the power of books. They find you, if you weren’t aware, dear reader. When you’re at your local bookshop browsing dusty shelves for something to jump out at you—that’s the power of books. Other times, it’s a recommendation from a friend / partner / lover. The book connects y’all in a way that can’t be undone. It’s an anchor for a certain time and place in your life. And you can always go back; reflect remember. // In the Spring of 2018 I found myself returning to a nostalgic place. My first book had just been published by a press back east and I was invited to join five poets for a weekend of readings in Monterey. So I found myself traversing across those familiar farm landscapes of Central California on the way to the event. Imposter syndrome and that familiar nervous ache in my belly traveled along inside, like the words tattooed on my right arm; taking dreams back at one thousand miles1 down highway 101. // Have you ever noticed all of the different textures books hold? 1.

Grab a book off your shelf. Don’t think about which one, try to figure out which will be the most satisfying to touch. It’s better when it’s random.

Hold the book between your thumb and index finger.

Pause and think about how it feels on your finger tips. What is there and what isn’t?

Take your middle finger and brush the book back & forth.

Close your eyes.

What do you feel?

1 “Forty Four Sunsets” - The Saddest Landscape

// Ángel and I met at a reading in Santa Cruz. By that time I had read (and re-read) his debut collection. My book had just been accepted by The OS and I was going through the motions of becoming a published poet and a deep-setting imposter syndrome like a shadow. Somehow I knew immediately Angel is from Los Angeles; I could feel the traffic, smell the heat radiate off concrete. We’re both adjacent to LA; close enough to know the city but far enough away from the congestion. the attitude, the speech. We know you gotta hit up the Tommy’s Burgers on Beverly for those late (late) night munchies; but beware the drunks,

and those chili cheese fries sitting in your belly for the rest of the

weekend.

// When I was in my late teens & early twenties I was obsessed with punk music. But more than that, I was obsessed with all the tiny micro-genres of the genre. I found myself devouring information about bands and labels. I’d spend countless hours reading liner notes, noting who played what, documenting labels to look up later, either in real life or on the web. Years later, I find this practice has stuffed my brain with mostly useless information. I see record covers in my mind. I can tell you what band(s) someone played in and how long they existed. Every few weeks I find myself doing a deep-dive on the internet, vastly expanded from those days, and nostalgically downloading obscure EPs long out-of-print. If this obsessive practice did anything for me, it taught me how to throw myself completely into something. To live and breathe this… something.

// When Ángel’s debut collection, Black Lavender Milk, came into my life; I was living in Monterey for the third time in 10 years. Let me pause for a second and explain: I earned my BA in English at CSU Monterey Bay, and then promptly moved back from Southern California to earn my Teaching Credential. After that I floated around California spending time in various cities but never feeling home. For me Monterey was (and frankly still is) a place of transition…I return

when I need a reset. This time around would turn out to be my last jaunt living in Monterey, although I still visit as frequently as possible. In the months leading up to my final move to Monterey, I had found my writer’s voice. I’d always had an interest in writing from a very young age, but I’d never made time to focus on my writing or develop a regular practice. Once back I suddenly felt compelled to write about the corridos that kept me up at night, the familiar smells of fresh pan dulce, riding my bicycle and breathing in that salty air, the wind howling in the early mornings, that fog settling on everything outside my window, obscuring the familiar and making things more familiar.

// In preparation for the gathering, I read the latest books by all of the poets whom I will soon be kin. We are strangers, but I feel connected to them through textures. They say the words I could never find in my throat. After the weekend I write a poem for each of them. I am too embarrassed to ever hit “send”

// Everything loops; a snake eating its tail. What’s that called again? I’m living in Southern California (again) and invited back to Monterey (again). This time as a guest poet for a Latinx Creative Writing class Ángel is teaching at the college. I’m nervous but quickly put at ease by the students’ enthusiasm for my book. Rather than go through the passages I had pre-marked in my own worn & creased copy, I let the students curate my reading. They excitedly shouting out the pages of their favorite poems. I comply, reading on a whim. Ángel and I laugh about this impromptu poem-on-demand over beers afterwards.

// 30

The last night of the Latinx Symposium feels like a baptism. The imposter syndrome is gone. I do not know if it will return once I’m back to my real life in Southern California. But I feel different. Later, we drink, we laugh about the weekend, we watch music videos, cry in each other’s arms. We scream at the ocean, the pitch black night. // My hands hold fire I better put it to use2

I find myself at the ocean. Every time I return like the punchline to a bad joke no one is telling. It’s because he is there; we ebb & flow through a conversation that is only for us. He was never great at listening, but now listens patiently at the voice that I found after he was long gone. I say all those unsaid things I couldn’t while I watched him dying. Maybe the point is he can’t really talk back. su voz como el viento llenando esos espacios vacios, tantos años después 2 “My hands hold fire” - Sinaloa (is a state)

// The same weekend I visit Angel’s class, I’m asked to give a writing workshop at the local Boys and Girls Club in a sleepy Monterey suburb. I stop at the ocean; for advice, or to calm my nerves. The pavement is wet from a recent downpour, that smell mixing with the Eucalyptus-lined pathway. I read some pages from the book and then tear out a page and film it saturated with saltwater, and then tumbling away with the waves. Not my last communication, but a good ending anyways. The workshop goes well; I break through with one kid in particular whose story is similar to mine. He knows paternal loss. We are kin. // We all hop into a rented van the second day, heading to Salinas. Where the first day felt … “academic,” this feels more ________. Farid and I stay together in one of the college apartments I know well. We drink until the wee hours of the AM, and the coffee feels good in my throat and stomach. Ángel is behind the wheel, looking the part of a tired parent taking their kids to a practice of some sort. The day consists of a writing workshop with youth from the area, and a reading that includes local poets. I am taking it all in. // Later, write poems for each of them. Too embarrassed to share; love letters from an imposter.

// In the poet’s house, i am the mirror. taking it all in: Tato reading their poems the 2nd day in Salinas - seated on the floor; confident, relaxed. Moderating a writing workshop with Roque - the young people sharing their stories while we listened, intently. Driving Farid to the tiny Monterey airport; early and hung over. Vicki reading her poems the 1st day in Monterey - the ease in which she spoke Spanish. Crying on the balcony with Ángel, darkness carrying it away. // Several years later I’m eating chicken wings and drinking beer with friends. It’s been a while, although we live in the same neighborhood, and it’s nice catching up. One of them says something like the art world tends to fetishize poetry. The line bores into my head for several days and then finally I remember why I agree with the statement. // The last excursion we take as a (what do you call a group a poets?) is to BAMPFA for a reading Ángel is asked to do. The crowd is very… white… for lack of a better word, a stark contrast to the people we’ve surrounded ourselves with all weekend. We get there early, and find ourselves in the awkward moments of milling around looking at the art and paying way too much for snacks. Finally they are ready to begin. Ángel absolutely kills it. Their mix of performance and poetry is something I am always envious of. I’ve been privy to many iterations but this one is probably my favorite. As they read to their ancestral peoples, a rope is woven in and out of the crowd. People seem embarrassed by the fact that the script has been flipped: they perform too. No safety in the spectator. 33

By the end everyone seems to have missed the point. They are unsure how to react once the performance is done, standing idle while Ángel collects their artifacts. The other reader reads and a sense of familiarity with the work (or the person) fills the room. A strange way to end. // Later, a cenote surrounding White-washed space bodies pose, then goodbyes. i think we stopped for burgers, one last night together. // We hug outside BAMPFA; damp Berkeley air. Two need to leave to catch flights, head back to their version of home. // I’ve sat down and tried to write about this countless times, words never quite right.

I think about the famous scene in Stephen King’s 1986 film Stand by Me.The main character finally is alone with his thoughts while his friends sleep nearby. He sits quietly and watches a deer approach and linger for that one extra second before vanishing back into the background. He returns to his friends but never tells them about what he witnessed. The memory his own. The point, I think, is that the main character has this great moment of clarity that he doesn’t need anyone else to justify. And maybe that’s why I’ve been reluctant to share. I keep these moments in my heart, return to them when I need to remember what it is to be a poet. I hope you find these moments, too. // Someone remembers to document the final moments of the weekend. We’re all there.

Words on Fire, Karen Gomez

On Turning 17 poetry by

Alexandria Wyckoff I have two rules on my birthday:

be grateful when they slice across my knee

smile when needles pierce my skin and flood my veins with drugs I try to convince myself: this is exactly what I wanted this year. Could I go back to the day I broke my future? Kick the ball away, this fragile

body, built haphazardly, waits for the perfect moment to fall apart like a Jenga tower teeters back and forth. Don’t lunge against the hardwood floor; that waxy surface, that squeak. My leg takes the momentum, collapses onto itself with a loud, final snap. There was a moment. I could have walked away.

The Condor’s Cove, Violet Bea 38

What Would Khadijah Do? fiction by

Akasha Neely Fuck six am. Kenya Jenkins plundered her one-bedroom apartment looking for a tiny Spider-man sneaker. Mornings were chaos because she had to take the bus to open at The Bizarre Burger Bazaar where she worked. She opened her refrigerator to grab an energy drink. What the fuck?” she mouthed. A tiny Spider-man sneaker rested on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. She sighed in defeat, chuckled, and placed it next to its sister on the floor. Every morning, Kenya placed her daughter Serena’s outfit for the day in the ripped armchair next to the couch where Serena and her grandmother, Rashida Washington slept intertwined in a crochet of skinny limbs and blankets. Root and seed. They were so cute that Kenya almost forgot how much they both worked her last damn nerve somedays. Almost. Kenya placed her mother’s hypertension and heart disease pills in a cup on the coffee table. She set the third alarm on her mother’s cellphone for 7:30. She cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom knowing that it would look worse than Deus Falls after the first crack epidemic in the eighties by the time she got home. She kissed both of her leading ladies on the forehead and left. After twenty-seven cramped minutes on FTA #3 bus, she arrived at her job already tired and ready to go home. A black Suburban with tinted windows pulled up to the drive-thru window where Kenya was working. She gasped once the window rolled down and the plume of marijuana smoke cleared when Pete, someone she hadn’t seen or thought about in years gave her a twenty-dollar bill.

A Decade Earlier Fuck six a.m. Kenya Jenkins trudged to the bathroom. This was her second month attending Cardigan Hills high school way up on the northside with all the fancy people. She had gotten accepted into their program for gifted students and transferred

from Deus Falls high which was only a few miles from her home on the southside. She flicked a cockroach from the door and ducked as a bigger one went flying over her head. Inside the shower, the water hotter than the temperature of the surface of the sun, Kenya imagined winning past arguments and brainstormed story ideas. She had just started writing a comic book and novella series about Khadijah, a black superheroine, she would have nuance and not just be arm candy for a male superhero; or a reincarnation of the blaxploitation era. She thought of her backstory: Freshman girl bullied and beaten up gains super powers from drinking the sludgy brown water that flows from faucets in the ghetto. She would have super strength and the ability to set things on fire with her mind. Maybe a few lasers. Never-mind – no lasers. A keen understanding of the universal and intricate human narrative. Khadijah still needed flaws, though. In her imagination, she always had the perfect clapback, the perfect story, and the best character arcs; however, when it came time to put pen to paper, she found herself lacking. Her body seemed to be in want of the skills necessary to translate her Voynich manuscript of thoughts into pragmatic and understandable symbols. Kenya got dressed and upon exiting the bathroom collided with her mother who was entering the bathroom in her bathrobe. “Ouch,” Ms. Washington rubbed her forehead and blinked several times. “I always knew you was a hard-headed chile.” “I got a sneaking suspicion on where I got it from,” Kenya massaged her own throbbing forehead. “I’m working a double tonight, so I won’t be home when you get back,” Kenya’s mama reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of loc jewelry. “Your locs are starting to mature,” draped the silver coils over the handful of Kenya’s locs that were separating; she was in the process of free-forming to connect with her ancestors. “There! Now you look like you’ve just hit a milestone on your journey.” Kenya left her apartment and she was almost to the bus stop when three young men approached her. Kenya’s pulse quickened; she didn’t want her body to be used as a masturbation toy. The weight of the straight razor she carried in her pocket made her feel more nervous than anything. Would she bitch up if accosted? Khadijah wouldn’t – she would just start slashing.

Khadijah would use her powers of pyrokinesis to burn anyone that dared to run afoul of her. However, she was no Khadijah, as evidenced by her knees quaking with every step that put her closer to the trio of boys, who were looking less like teens and more like hissing vipers. “You got some money?” The shortest one asked. “Hey,” an angry and familiar voice. “Get away from my cousin.” Kenya was surprised to see Derrick. They had grown up together because their mothers were best friends at one point. One day about four or five years ago the Jakes came and took Derrick away. Rumors circulated that he was out and different. She no longer saw the boyish joy of playing It or being able to jump Double Dutch better than most of the girls in their class in his eyes; instead, something primal. Calcified. In. Time. “I ain’t e’en know dat was you, D. No disrespect, my nigga,” said the short thug as the trio backed away from them. “Got that four and a baby for the low if ya tryna talk later, D?” Derrick ignored the Lilliputian street pharmacist and handed her a wad of money. “Don’t come back through here for a while cuz some shit bout to go down. These young niggas out here wildin’,” Derrick dumped some loud into a swisher and hastily rolled a blunt. “My squad been posted up in the cut for a minute. Just stay off the block for a while. Niggas wanna scream gang shit until it’s time to start wettin’ mothafuckas then they turn into conscientious objectors.” Derrick lit his blunt, “Wanna hit this gas?” “No,” Kenya thought her reply curt and added, “I gotta get to school.” He was making her nervous, and the toaster on his hip wasn’t helping. Had he used it before? She didn’t want to know. Kenya nodded and hurried to the bus stop a hundred dollars richer; she was torn between making a mental list of art supplies and being concerned about Derrick; he was not the same person anymore. She didn’t think Khadijah could save him. FTA #12 bus arrived five minutes late and just as crowded as usual. Scanning her fare card was challenging because the driver took off like a greyhound tweaking on Molly after snorting an eight ball. Pushing through the stinky 41

thicket of people standing and holding on to the straps that dangled like canvas vines from the ceiling, Kenya saw a gap between an older man and a girl with purple microbraids. Diamond had used her purse to save Kenya a seat. The bus was the only chance Kenya got to hear and speak AAVE without judgement until she got home. Cardigan Hills was a culture shock. On her first day at the new school, Kenya answered a question and this girl with freckles and yellow dolphin teeth felt compelled to inform Kenya that she hadn’t pronounced syrup correctly. Kenya stopped raising her hand after that. “Hey,” Kenya waved. “Hey,” Diamond looked up from the stack of papers in her lap. “I’m just studying for my audition tonight.” “Good luck, y’all could damn sure use the money,” Kenya watched three more girls from Deus Falls high school get on the bus. “Definitely. The doctor said she got gangrene,” Diamond flipped back through her papers to start over. Kenya nodded and squeezed Diamond’s forearm. The three girls made there way to where Kenya and Diamond were sitting. “Hey Kenya, girl, we was just talkin’ bout you,” Mary, her former classmate, said. Kenya raised her shoulders and sank in her seat. “Remember when Roselyn used to bully you and one day you slapped her, and she stomped you out in front of the whole class? You had footprints e’erwhurr,” Mary said apropos of nothing. Laughter. Kenya sank. “Mary, didn’t Roselyn stomp you out cuz of a boy that year, too?” Diamond snapped. A cacophony of laughter joined the staccato orchestra of squealing brakes and rattling metal. That would’ve been the perfect Khadijah clapback.

“Look, y’all need to stop bringing up shit from the past. I am delivert now. I am filled with the Spirit,” Mary said clasping her hands together and raising her eyebrows to the sky. “You’re filled with an ‘s’ word and it’s definitely not ‘spirit’,” Diamond looked up from her notes again. “I gotta call Roselyn, later; her little brother just got killed over there on Temperance. He got caught in the crossfire.” Quida said. “The two-year-old?” Kenya asked. Quida nodded, “Shit ain’t e’en make the news. Sad.” She exited the bus after it screeched to a halt. The rest of the girls trickled off at different stops. Kenya felt a deep anxiety about Derrick. Another one of her own lost. She saw it in his eyes today. They were supposed to be better than Deus Falls – not succumb to it. Assimilation. Kenya exited at the end of the line and took the train the rest of the way to Cardigan Hills high. In her math class, Pete Jones, a jewelry-clad, boy who wore his hair in a dark caesar with 360-degree waves, arrived late. “Nice of you to join us,” said Mr. Albertson. “My business meeting ran long,” Pete said to the laughter of everyone except for Mr. Albertson and Kenya (who was busy drawing cartoon characters). There was a folded-up piece of paper on his desk – he had failed another test. Pete’s mood went from impish to forlorn. “Damn, my mama gon’ cancel my credit card. My father gon’ take my game away,” Pete lamented. “I just got done with being on punishment, too.” He sucked his teeth. “You’re missing a linking verb,” said freckle-face girl. “Link deez nuts,” Pete said. Mr. Albertson finally managed to quiet the class down after Pete’s clapback. “Mr. Jones, I want you and Ms. Shanika? Keisha? Sharknado? Charmander?” he stared blankly for a moment while he tried to remember her name, 43

(Kenya’s face burned, and she wished that Khadijah would just set the rest of her on fire). “Ms. Jenkins to work together.” “Are you busy after school? Can you come over?” Pete asked. “My mama will be home. She’s taking a personal day.” Kenya wanted to say no; but, she remembered her mother was working a double and being home alone was a bad idea today. She subconsciously touched the pocket that contained her straight razor, “Okay, sounds good.” Kenya smiled awkwardly. Pete lived in a two-story house nestled in the heart of a gated community. “Y’all rich?” Kenya couldn’t believe how high the ceilings were. Mrs. Jones, Pete’s mom, snores reverberated from the couch. “Us? No, we’re, like, upper, middle, middle class. I hate it. I want to live somewhere real like you do in Pleasant Meadows.” “Why? Everyone where I’m at is tryna get here. I would love to have this.” “Wasn’t there a quadruple homicide there yesterday?” “Yeah, and a little boy got thrown from a window on the top floor – it didn’t make the news, though; stuff never makes the news.” “See, nothing like that ever happens here. I hate living here. We’re the only black family in this neighborhood so every time I walk outside I feel like I’ve got a million eyes on me. Shit, leave my black ass alone.” “The gaze is something that I don’t think any of us get used to. Besides, living in a shithole doesn’t make you any more black than living in a nice neighborhood with good schools,” Kenya sat down on their second couch (That Pete sure had some nerve to complain). “I know, but I feel like a pampered puppy. I wanna be a rottweiler,” Pete poorly imitated a dog growl. Kenya’s ire grew, “I have this friend named Derrick that I grew up with. I don’t recognize him anymore because the streets have taken him and substituted something sinister. 44

He’s adrift in an ocean of asphalt and guns and I don’t have a fucking life jacket. My friend Diamond’s mama got the sugah and she might lose her foot because she got frostbite on her toes waiting outside for the bus, so she could get to work last winter. If you wanna be real then use your privilege to help black kids that live on the south side in poverty. We don’t have a lot of opportunities.” “Yeah, my mom says niggas on the southside are too busy smoking blunts and having babies at sixteen to ever do anything with their lives. She says we should just wall up that part of the city with all them niggas in it. My dad actually grew up not too far from you, he says niggas are too lazy to pull themselves up from the gutter.” Kenya took a deep breath and let the avalanche of bullshit ride, “Are you ready?” Pete was difficult to tutor because of his short attention span. He seemed more interested in trying to talk to her about every other subject besides math (“Do you comb your hair?” “Is your grandmother thirty-five?”). They worked for over an hour, before Kenya decided it was safe to head back. “Leaving?” Pete’s mom asked (she had woken up fifteen minutes ago). “I gotta catch the train and the bus.” “I can’t believe your mother lets a tiny thing like you take public transportation alone. Some parents just don’t care,” she stood up, stared at Kenya’s hair for a second, put on her wig, and grabbed her car keys. “Where do you live?” “Pleasant Meadows Housing Projects on the southside.” “Oh well,” she took off her wig, sat down, and turned on the television. “I gotta get dinner started. Pete, walk her to the train-station.” Kenya and Pete walked down the road toward the train-station. Kenya was impressed with all the well-manicured lawns they were passing. Pretty grass. “That Mr. Albertson’s a trip, huh?” The awkward silence made Pete’s question reverberate. “I like him,” Kenya mumbled. “I guess he cool,” Pete backtracked. 45

A siren stopped them in their tracks as a police car pulled up behind them. Kenya’s heart did a barrel roll. “Do not fucking move. If you move I will fucking shoot you, I swear to god!” Two cops rushed them; strong hands put Kenya face down on the sidewalk next to the pretty grass. The officers handcuffed them, went through their pockets – Kenya’s straight razor was confiscated. “Where were you between ten and eleven?” they asked. “Fourth grade, nigga!” Kenya was unable to hold back her vitriol. She paid for it with a sharp kick to her ribs. Where was Khadijah when she needed her? “Keep your bitch in line,” one cop said. There was dull thud followed by a sharp yelp from Pete. “It’s not them.” As quickly as it happened, they were un-handcuffed, and the police sped off. Pete climbed shakily to his feet. “That was scary. I thought we were going to get arrested,” Pete said softly. Braille patches of gooseflesh had formed on his arms. “At least you landed in the grass,” Kenya touched her scraped knees. That night while Kenya and her mother searched for a show to watch on Netflix, Kenya was struck with a sudden urge to ask a question that had been bothering her for hours, “Mama, what class are we?” “Girl, we ain’t even in the building.” Kenya didn’t quite understand the answer, but her mother was often cryptic. She decided not to worry about it and contented herself with playing with one of Ms. Washington’s neatly manicured locs. Kenya worked with Pete almost daily that schoolyear and he managed to pass math – with a “C-.”

Present “‘Fourth grade, nigga!’” Pete exclaimed. Kenya giggled at Pete’s perfect imitation of the ghetto twang she had at fourteen. “Hey, at least you landed in the grass, okay?” “Rebecca, this is Kenya, Kenya, this is Rebecca.” He gestured to his frecklefaced passenger then back to Kenya. Kenya waved as she handed Pete the greasy brown paper bag. “What are you doing working here?” Pete asked. “I would have thought you would have ended up a doctor or something? Did you ever make that comic book?” “A doctor? me?” Kenya laughed. It was a nice fantasy, but her and her mother couldn’t even afford community college at the moment. “Khadijah was just a fantasy of mine. Can’t eat by telling stories all day. It would be nice, though.” “You were so smart, you definitely got me through algebra freshman year, Mr. Albertson was on that bullshit,” Pete laughed. “I liked him,” she shrugged. “I work here, and I work at the comic book store in the mall on Andre. I got a five-year-old to take care of.” “I was a Yeti,” Pete pointed at the ring on his finger from the prestigious college up north. “My parents weren’t too happy with me at first: I kept snorting coke, drinking, fucking bitches, and failing classes,” he paused for a second in thought, “usually in that order, too.” “They paid for you?” Kenya’s voice raised an octave; though, in retrospect, she wasn’t sure why this shocked her. “Yeah, the whole way, too bad I’m not using the degree.” “What’s the degree in?” “Criminal Justice.” “Oh, what do you do?” “I rap,” he gave her his phone. “Check out some of my freestyles. My rap name is Assault Peter.” “That’s… interesting,” Kenya said as she looked through his information page. “It says here you’re from Pleasant Meadows? You’re from Cardigan Hills.” 47

“I know, but, you know how it is, it’s just music at the end of the day. Besides, somebody’s gotta tell the story of the poor ghetto youth across the country and get rich off of it. Plus, I grew up in their world I know how to navigate it better than a kid from the ghetto would,” he pocketed his phone. “It was nice seeing you. Don’t forget to add me on Instagram!” He pulled off. Hell, what would Khadijah do? Kenya just shook her head, laughed to herself, and went to the next order.

February poetry by

Abigail Pak It’s February. I switch the phone to my other hand as I walk around my neighborhood, trying to convince a friend that I hadn’t thought about dying for a while, when I see the lizard laying on the sidewalk. It’s dead. I guess that’s important to know. With its soft belly and tucked in head, I can’t tell how it died except for a missing foot. And I’ve seen more gruesome things— a gutless bird, an eyeless calf, half of a runover pronghorn—but after my dog died two years ago, the ones that look like they’re sleeping haunt me the longest. The voice speaks in my ear about talking to someone as I bend down, setting the lizard into the wet grass with a half-broken twig. At some point, I think I stop listening, looking up to clouds the color of silverfish I find smashed in boxes after sitting in the garage over the summers, listening to waxwings fly by, noticing, for the first time, how cold my hands are. I forgive my hands for being hands. I walk back home and the couple next door with the poorly trained dog has just pulled into their driveway, unloading groceries. He weaves between them like a mosquito in June, with a tail as fluid as kite streamers, and not once do they notice how beautiful he moves.

I Love You Also, I Promise fiction by

Sophia Quinto Henry fell into the river and it was your fault. This is what I’m thinking about: Rain plink-plunking off the bicycle, on its side in the dirt. Water beading on the shiny red metal; drops swelling and slipping to the ground. The back tire rotating slowly in the wind, squeaking twice with every interval. Snails inching out from under rocks to soak the summer rain up into their fat, spongy bodies; they are replenished by the same water that killed Henry. The snails are puzzled by the bicycle, a new landmark in their habitat. But, as with sprouting bushes and resurfaced stones, they will grow used to it and trace paths into the dirt around it. Vines will weave through its spokes until the tire can’t turn. Furry animals will gnaw at the seat until the polyester stuffing spills out and dissolves into the earth like it belongs there. The bike will become a part of the forest. It will exist for the trees and the dirt and the snails, not for Henry, because Henry threw it to the ground and raced to the riverbank, chasing you, and fell in. Sometimes I wish it was you who died. I will never tell you that; it’s a wicked, twisted thought. But. You are just a boy. Nine years old. You have pink cheeks and skinned knees. When you laugh, flowers bloom and the sun brightens and I wonder how anything on Earth could be so beautiful. You play in the forest with imaginary pirates and ghosts and dragons, you chase your friends through the trees shouting I’m gonna get you I’m gonna get you! until you all collapse in a giggly dogpile. You need your dolphin-shaped night light and your stuffed calico cat Albie smushed under your chin to fall asleep. You are loud and sweet and funny and alive. 50

But if it had been you and not your brother, I wouldn’t blame the son I had left. I would look at him and think Oh, my poor darling who has lost his big brother. I look at you and I am horrified. I look at you and I think I hate you I hate you I hate you I wish it was you and then I pinch the skin on the back of my hand hard because a mother isn’t supposed to think like that. But I do. I do, in the dead of night, when you and the animals and God are asleep and I can’t swat the thoughts away with something to do. I lie there and I hate you and I hate that I do. I love you also, I promise. “Mom, I saw Henry!” you say. I scream at you. I cry. I threaten to throw my beer bottle at your head for making such a sick, disgusting joke. You don’t move. You’re standing in the doorway, gasping for breath, clutching the doorframe like it’s the only thing keeping you standing. “I saw Henry,” you say. “I really did.” You are not sorry enough. You tell me you are. You cry at night and whisper that you are sorry so very sorry. You tell me you wish you hadn’t been so selfish, so careless. But I see you walking home from school with your friends, smiling and shoving and shouting, and I wonder why you get to feel any happiness at all. I see you giggling at cartoons on Saturday mornings and I wonder how you can find anything funny in a world where Henry is dead. I see you bike away from our house, and I know you are heading for the creek that stems from the river because you come back with stringy, wet hair and a sunburnt face. I wonder how you could go near the river again when you know that its water filled your brother’s tiny lungs. But I guess I’m glad you’re having such a fun summer. When you lead me down to the river, we don’t pass the bicycle. You’ve made a new trail in the six months since then. You’ve hacked away branches and shrubs, tied purple ribbons around specific trees so you don’t get lost, shuffled your shoes over rough patches and brushed away pine needles to make a path. 51

Does it make you feel better, I wonder, to follow a different trail to the river than the one your brother followed to his death? Something is wrong with you, I think as I watch the back of your head bobbing in front of me. Your friends have a sick sense of humor and wanted to see your crazy, shut-in mother in daylight. Your brain can’t process his death, so it made you think you saw your brother in the shadows. Something. Something is wrong with you. But, for some reason, I can’t help but follow. When we get there, the riverbank is empty. You splutter and look around, peeking behind trees and squinting your eyes, searching the far shore. I feel sick for you. Your naiveté disgusts me. I want to grab you by the collar of your shirt and shake you until I can see in your eyes that you understand: your brother is gone. But I don’t do that. Instead, I watch you suffer inside your little-boy-mind that can’t make sense of the truth. I watch the grief seep into you again when you realize that Henry is not a ghost, that he was not on the other side of the river, that you are stupid. You are so fucking stupid. I tell you this, and you stare at me with wide eyes, mouth gaping. Your dad doesn’t call me anymore, and that’s your fault, too. He blames me for what you did. When I told him what happened, he cried and cried like someone he loved died, even though he hadn’t seen Henry since he was a baby. Henry was not his son, he was mine. Mine only. But you belong to both of us, and I hate that part of you that’s his. You even look more like him than Henry did, with your big, triangular eyebrows. Sometimes I can see your father’s face in yours, especially when you’re mad at me. You still call him. I know you do. Your voice sounds different when you’re on the phone with your dad than when you’re talking to anyone else. More desperate, more polite. You want him to like you so badly, to come back for you and whisk you away from your sad, mean mother and your quiet, empty house.

But I know him better than you do. He won’t come back for you, no matter how polite you are or how much you complain about me. Because he is awful and because you killed Henry. How could he love you after something like that? You and I don’t talk anymore, either. You avoid the house all day. I sit on the recliner, sleeping or staring at the TV, only seeing the face of my Henry in every sweet-faced child in every back-to-school-season commercial. Every night, you come home late and tell me that you were with your friends and you had a good time. I say, “That’s nice; there’s bread and peanut butter in the pantry.” I don’t ask why you look as bad as you do, and you probably do the same for me. Your cheeks become gaunt and your eyes vacant, and still I don’t ask. Sometimes it feels like it was both of you who died. August 4th. Five weeks since you first thought you saw the ghost of your brother. Five weeks since I told you you were stupid and watched your face crumple. This is when it happens. You have been going to the river, but your friends have not. You have been lying to me. I finally left the house this morning to get groceries. I couldn’t force myself to eat what was left in the pantry: canned beets, stale bread that thunked when tapped against the counter, and one rotting sweet potato. So I tied my greasy hair into a knot, threw a sweatshirt over my Doritos-stained T shirt, and stepped outside. The sunlight stung deep into my eyes for the first time in weeks, and it felt good, in a nostalgic sort of way. My bones were heavy and my shoulders ached, but now I had all the air in the world to stretch into. I reached my fingertips towards the sky like a child and marveled at how close to the clouds they could get if I just tried. But most of all: the smell of pine trees. I’ve missed the smell of pine trees. It was wonderful to get out of the house. To run errands like a person with nothing more important to worry about, to wander the familiar aisles and remember a time when it was all so easy. I didn’t think about Henry. I thought only about what food we needed and which brands were cheapest and which damn aisle would rice cakes be in because they’re not a cracker and they’re not a chip. 54

It was wonderful until I saw your friend Taylor’s mom. She waved me down, and I put on my best smile and let her hug me. She offered me her condolences and said she missed seeing me at Little League games. I wanted to change the subject, so I glanced in her Cheez-it-and-Oreo-filled cart and I said, “Picking up snacks for our hungry boys?” Her eyebrows scrunched upwards and toward each other, like caterpillars kissing, and she told me that she hasn’t seen you since the end of June. “June?” I said. “What do you mean you haven’t seen him since June?” And she said, “Only the Martin boys have been coming over. I figured you both were taking some time for yourselves.” I couldn’t look at her ugly caterpillar eyebrows anymore, so I said, “Oh, yes, right, we are. Just said that out of habit, I guess. Well, it was great to see you, great catching up. Tell Taylor we said hi, would you?” and then I walked away. I’m home now. I shove a new bag of Doritos behind a box of raisin bran so you won’t find it, and I don’t tell you what Taylor’s mom told me. You have been lying to me. The last time you lied was when you told me you saw Henry at the river, and I think back to that now. The foggy, glazed look in your eyes. The low, flat tone of your voice. Have you been like that since that day? Longer? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, but I’m going to find out. The next day, after you leave, I follow your new path to the river. I run, and the insides of my sweatshirt sleeves bead with sweat. I slow only when I see you, crouching on the bank, right at the end of your trail. You’re laughing at something, the kind of laugh that suggests you’re with someone and you’re only laughing because the other person is. I press myself against a tree and crane my neck. Henry. Oh God, Henry. My tongue goes dry, pastes itself to the roof of my mouth. My knees lock, imprison me where I stand. My eyes blink blink blink but they cannot blink away Henry, sitting next to you on the riverbank, swinging his legs over the water. He’s wearing the 55

clothes he was wearing that day: a Fair Isle knit sweater, your old jeans, and his bumblebee rain boots with smiling bumblebee faces on the toes. It wasn’t even raining that day; he just loved those boots so much. Henry doesn’t look like himself. His skin is a sickly shade of green, his lips a purplish-blue. Dark patches underline his eyes, pinkish-gray foam borders his mouth and leaks from his nose. His eyes are clouded with fog, and I can’t make out the rich green behind it. His hair is soaking wet, plastered to his forehead like he’s just gone swimming. Like he’s come from the water. But still, it is him. It is inexplicably, undeniably him. The ghost of my beautiful, darling Henry in his bumblebee rain boots. He looks to his left, past your head, right at me, and smiles. Mommy. He’s too far away for me to hear his low whisper, but, somehow, I do. His voice is carried to me on the breeze; it threads through my ears like a needle through a button hole, it lays siege to my brain and it is all I can hear. Mommy, you’re here! How sweet he sounds. Mommy, you found me! How excited he is. Mommy, come join me! He turns to face the water. He jumps in. I run to the shore so fast that I skid on the gravelly dirt and have to grab onto you so I don’t fall. “What are you doing?” I yell, my nails digging into your shoulder. You don’t look surprised to see me. You don’t make a move to save your brother. You point a steadfast finger toward the churning water, where Henry’s hair is waving in the current. His face is upturned, and he smiles at me again, his lips peeling back to reveal that all of his teeth are rimmed by black. His shiny little baby teeth, rotting. His sparkly green eyes, dimmed. I turn away; I can’t look at him like this. But his voice. His voice, in my head, in every part of me, sounds exactly the same. Don’t worry, Mommy! It won’t hurt me. I’m part of the water. 56

I missed you, Mommy! Come back to me. I ask you what’s going on. I beg you to tell me if this is real, if I am imagining him or if you really do see him there, if you do hear his voice. His sweet, lilting voice. “I can’t hear what he’s saying to you,” you say, looking up at me with foggy eyes. “But he’s there. And I can hear what he’s saying to me.” I ask you what that is. “He’s been waiting for you.” A smile plays at your lips. “And now you’re here. We can be together again.” My stomach claws its way up my throat and forces itself out; sour vomit-smell clouds around us. You watch me wipe the spit from my lip without judgment, without anything. This is what I’m thinking about: Bundling Henry into my arms and carrying him home with his head resting against my chest so he can feel my heartbeat. Plopping him in front of the fireplace and warming his little toes, kissing each one as I pull off his little socks. Watching the pink return to his cheeks, the green to his eyes. Making him hot chocolate with extra marshmallows in his favorite cat-pattern mug. Drawing him a bath and watching him splash his duckies around in the soap bubbles, gently massaging his sweet baby shampoo into his hair and swirling the ends into a curlicue on the top of his head. Smoothing back his hair to kiss his forehead before bed, singing him a lullaby and watching his eyelids slump. Hugging him close and breathing in his pine-tree smell. Smelling it forever. No, Mommy. We can’t do that. W-what? Henry, baby, what do you mean? I don’t know if I’m speaking or thinking, but he answers me. I am part of the river now. I am the water. I want to take you home, baby. Can’t you see? I am home! We are all home. Here! The river took you from me. It isn’t what I want to say, not to his face, but it’s what he hears, what he responds to. 57

No, I am here. We can be together again. All of us! Can you see it, Mommy? I can see it. My boys, each holding onto one of my hands as we float on our backs down an endless river, our faces turned up toward the sun. My boys, swimming and swirling and soaring through the water, bubbles swarming around their propelling feet. My boys, as much a part of each water molecule as me, so that we are always together, as the water turns to salt to fresh and back again. My boys, safe in my arms. Together. You edge closer to the river. Together. Henry reaches out a pale arm from the white crests. Together. You move to take it. Together. You’re going to jump in. Together. But. But it’s not real, it can’t be. But I notice the way Henry is looking at you, like he’s hungry, like he wants to tear you apart, like he’s not your brother who loves you at all. But the current is strong and you’re so small and I know what happens to little boys who fall into rivers. But, that day, I heard your screams as you came running to tell me that Henry had fallen. I saw the bicycle on the path, tipped over and abandoned. I felt, standing on the riverbank, that he was gone. Swallowed by the water. Smashed into the rocks. Tangled in the river’s mad, desperate rush to get to the ocean. That’s where he is now. I know this to be true as anything. The voice and its poison words bleed from my ears until I can’t hear him. I will never hear him again. He fell in the river and water filled his lungs and he died. He’s not here. But you are. I grab your arm.

Your head whips around, and your eyes are foggier than before; I can’t even tell where you’re looking. You wrench your arm from my grip, and the cold wind shocks the skin on the palm of my now empty hand. “Wait,” I say. “Please.” You’re balancing on the fragile, crumbly dirt of the drop-off, and all I can do is plead. I know that you won’t believe me, that you can’t trust me. Not anymore. I have forced you here, to the river’s edge. “Henry forgives me, Mom,” you whisper. “Henry still loves me.” It is not Henry. It is the river, it is the wind, it is all the evil things in the world coming for you because you believe this is what you deserve. Because I have broken you, it can weave you a glossy, distorted promise of salvation. It is a lie, but I no longer think you’re stupid for believing it. You’re not stupid. You’re hurting and you’re confused and you’re a little boy. I know that Henry is dead, and I know that death is final. If even I could consider that this apparition is actually Henry, I cannot imagine how it has warped your little mind. It, which tells you that the water won’t drown you, that I will never stop blaming you —for I know this is what it must be hissing in your ear—, it is not Henry. It is not, not ever. And I have not been your mother for a long time, but I can be again. I can stop you from falling. “Henry is dead.” I step toward you. You stumble back, toward the water, like the words shot forward on the wind and pushed you in the chest. “Henry is gone. He’s not here.” “No.” You shake your head, chew your lip, but you don’t sound as certain as before. “He’s part of the river. I can be, too.” You thrust your hand out to grab the ghost’s. “Together,” you say. “Henry is dead.” Another step. “And I blamed you.” Another step. “But it’s not your fault.” “W-what?” Your pupils press forward through the fog in your eyes, and, for the first time in months, you’re listening to me. You’re understanding me. I’m making sense. Your hand falls to your side, and the roar of the river gets louder. Angrier. Violent.

For the first time in months, I look in your eyes and I know you. I know what’s true. I know what’s not. I know what gives the ghost power over you, and I know what will take it away. I know what you need to hear more than Henry forgiving you, what you’ve been needing to hear for a long, long time. I know what I need to say more than you’re so fucking stupid and I hate you I wish it was you. I sink to my knees, so we’re eye-to-eye, and I press my hands into your little shaking shoulders. “It’s not your fault, baby,” I say. “It’s mine.” You promised to watch and entertain your brother in the woods for a couple hours in exchange for a ticket to an MLB game. You were going to go with Taylor and his mom, and you were so excited. Don’t stray too far, I told you. Keep him in sight, I told you. Be careful in the creek, he’s still too short, I told you. But you were too busy texting your friends to listen to me. I know now that you were telling them to meet you in the forest. Stay in the clearing, you said to Henry. Then you disappeared to play more mature games with your friends. Henry wanted to be you so badly. And you told him to go ride his kiddie bike with the kiddie training wheels while your friends snickered behind you. This made him more determined. So determined to tag you and be involved that he ran too fast, too far and fell into the river. I thought that you were so awful for what you did. And, in a way, you were. Nine-year-old boys are awful to their little brothers, and I knew this. I knew this when I made you watch Henry. I knew this when I gave you that job, but I’d wanted to take a bubble bath and drink a glass of wine and have a moment to myself so badly that I’d convinced myself you were ready. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I’m sorry. Henry fell into the river and it was my fault. It’s not your fault, it couldn’t have been your fault because you are nine years old and I am your mother. I don’t hate you, I could never hate you. I love you only, I promise. The ghost starts to sink into the murk. I’m sorry, Henry. 60

I am not Henry, the ghost hisses in its own low, gravelly voice. It bares its black baby teeth at me. I know. The dark swaths of water wrap around its face, bleed into its eyes and through its ears until I can’t make out what is it and what is river. Before it disappears, it sticks its tongue out at me, pouting because I won. I won, and it’s gone, and you’re still here. The river keeps rushing out to sea. “Come away from the water, Benny,” I tell you. My voice shakes and wanes in the wind, but I have never felt louder. I stand up and back away; you have to come to me on your own. You blink blink blink, look bewildered to find yourself at the edge of the river, your arm stretched toward the water. You gently pull it to your chest, like it isn’t your own and you’re trying to coax it back to you. Your eyes slowly travel up to mine; in them, I see anger and resentment. In them, I see you are afraid. You’re so afraid. But you’re also relieved, I can tell, about what I said when you were still entranced by the ghost. You heard me, over everything else, and you came back. I reach out my hand, fingers splayed. You stare at it, and you start to cry. “Come on, baby,” I say. “Let’s go home.” This is what I’m thinking about: Drawing you a bath and making you hot chocolate without marshmallows because you don’t like them. Tucking you under your comforter and smushing Albie under your chin. Curling next to you on your bed, hugging you and breathing in the pine-tree smell of your hair. Telling you all the things I’ve been thinking about over the last few months, listening to you when you do the same. Then lying there quietly while you fall asleep, knowing that when you wake up, I’ll hug you again. Talking more and more and more in the days to come, until I know how much I hurt you and you know how sorry I am, until I know how I can make things better and you know that I will try. I will do anything. But we’re not there yet. 61

Right now, we’re walking and sunlight is falling around us through the breaks in the leaves. Right now, birds are singing around us because nothing is wrong in their simple, little lives. Right now, you’re here and I’m here and Henry is not, and maybe someday the weight of that won’t be so heavy. For now, it is. Maybe someday, we’ll talk and laugh about all the cute, funny things he used to do, like wearing his rainboots even when it wasn’t raining because he wanted to have bumblebee faces smiling up at him at all times. For now, we won’t. Maybe someday, I’ll once again feel the full, brilliant sunshine of you. For now, you are quiet and scared and sad, but you’re no longer wavering on the edge of a riverbank, your knees bent to jump. Right now, you’re holding my hand, and that’s a start.

Smoke Break, Violet Bea

On TV There Are Two Women Kissing poetry by Elodie Townsend

There’s a girl in the back garden and she’s burying plastic dinosaurs. Damn the weatherman and his dark clouds! Inside the house, you’re banging fists on the coffee table and making grief sounds like car alarms in an empty parking garage or the pounding of a well-oiled mitt, with the open-mouth moan of the freeway behind. The girl in the garden is getting mud on her jeans. You find your heartache in the small things— The machete-path through the weeds on the way up to the water towers, the rusty ladder on the roof of the abandoned church that Massachusetts winter. The waiting room to heaven is a wood-shingled house with a short-sloped drive, and you’re standing on the concrete porch, in your flip-flops, waiting. On TV, there are two women kissing, and the girl in the garden has finished digging.

Andres Had Always Wanted a Dog cross-genre literature by

Daniel Gonzalez Andres had always wanted a dog. That’s what he told the 7th grade class on his first day at Los Cielos K-12 school. His teacher told them to give him a warm welcome, but they just stared at him as if they knew something he didn’t. He would stand alone in the corner of the hot concrete quad and pick out the weird smelling deli meat from his free cafeteria lunch. He felt the scrutinizing eyes of his classmates on him and heard whispers of how long they thought he would last. He didn’t know what they meant by that, but it wasn’t his first time at a new school, and he knew how cruel other kids could be. The whole town of Los Cielos treated him that way. After school and on weekends he would ride his bike around town to explore but everything he found quickly disappointed him. On the westside of town there was a dingy diner that was infested with flies and served only rare steaks. Even if he had the money, he wouldn’t eat anything from there. In the middle of the town, next to the abandoned church, there was a library on wheels that had only banned horror comics, cookbooks with outdated fad diets, and a 26 volume Compendium of the History of the Morlocks. From the corners of his eyes, he thought a small brown body was following him as he’d circle the border of Los Cielos, but when he’d turn to look it was gone. He pedaled past the empty and cobwebbed storefronts on main street where the old folks would look at him with suspicion and paranoia and ask him what his business was. The Martinez family told the townsfolk of Los Cielos that they had moved there for work, but Andres knew his father was an unemployable drunk. They had moved to Los Cielos because it was far enough to avoid the loan sharks his father owed. It was his mother who supported the family by working graveyard at Ace Meats, the town’s slaughterhouse, and largest employer who outsourced their meat products around the globe. Which Andres thought was weird and impossible because from all the times he rode his bike around he never once saw a pig or cattle farm in town.

It was a strange town at the edge of the Central Valley, resting in the shadow of the Tehachapi Mountains. His mother had to use a printed map from 1986 to find it because it was unsearchable on the GPS. And for some bizarre reason the night sky arrived at Los Cielos two hours before it did anywhere else in the Pacific Time Zone. The town had no cell service, internet, or radio, which would make it easy for them to disappear, his father said. His father drank and waited for his disability checks, but for some reason the mail never arrived, or for anyone in town for that matter. After two weeks, his father grew impatient and dragged Andres to the post office to translate before closing. But they found the building empty. It was unlocked but looked like it hadn’t been used in decades. They could hear a conveyor belt in the back, but there were no packages or workers there to sort them. The P.O. boxes had been smashed open with a sledgehammer which someone had left behind. Except for one box in the middle that was black and scorched as if it had been blown open with dynamite. Inside the lobby, stamps of Ronald Reagan and the ‘84 Olympics covered the walls. They formed a mosaic on one wall, spelling out a message: “Gone Postal”. Andres followed his frustrated father outside, whereby common occurrence in Los Cielos it had already become nighttime. “¡Son chingaderas!” “Maybe you can ask for it to get delivered to the next town over, or we could just move back to another place?” His father slapped him in the face to shut him up. Andres pressed his lips tightly to hold in the pain. He felt a welt swell and would have to say that he fell off his bike again at school the next day. His father looked around the street as if his check was to magically appear. But the only thing nearby was a liquor store and a telephone pole. His father walked toward the store and Andres followed. “Quédate aquí.” Andres watched as his father stumbled into the store. He sat outside and waited. The liquor store’s neon lights illuminated his back and the telephone pole by him. He looked over at it and saw that the wood was covered with faded and torn missing posters. He stood up and walked to the pole to inspect them. He hadn’t been 66

living in Los Cielos long, but he rode his bike around town a lot and figured maybe he’d seen one of them. Most of the posters were pets: cats, birds, reptiles, and dogs. But there were a few seniors and children stapled up, Andres shivered. He looked for a poster that wasn’t as tattered, hoping the more recent it was the better the possibility they were to be found. And maybe there was a reward, which could help out his family. He circled the pole. “¿Que haces?” His father’s breath reeked behind him. He was holding an opened 40 oz. bottle. “Nada, just reading these posters apá, look they’re—" “¿Y que tal ese perro?” “Which one are you talking about?” Andres turned to the pole, but his father thrusted his angry finger the opposite direction. He turned to see what he pointed to and saw two large, gold luminescent eyes studying them from 10-feet away. They belonged to a brown pit bull sitting on the street, its ears perked up and tail still. Was this what was following me around town? he thought. He took a step closer and whistled. “Hey chucho, it’s ok.” The pit bull tilted its block head to the right. It appeared to smile at Andres. He got a better look at the dog and saw that it was a female. She also didn’t wear a collar. “No lo llames, pendejo.” Andres’ father smacked him hard on the shoulder and felt it begin to swell and bruise. Andres had always wanted a dog, but his father never allowed them. The dog tilted her block head to the left and began to snarl. His dad got scared and pulled him back. “Vamanos.” “Wait! Maybe it’s one of the missing dogs! We can get money for returning her!” Andres only had to mention money to make his father stop and listen. His father waited by his side as he surveyed each poster on the pole. The pit bull stood up and grinned; the moonlight reflected off her teeth. Andres’ father began to sweat. “¡Apúrate!” He rushed, but Andres couldn’t find a poster with the pit bull. The dog took one step forward. His father stepped back. Andres began to rip off posters

in frustration and discovered that there were more posters underneath. Dozens of strays stapled on top of one another, unwilling to share space or to be found. Finally, he caught a glimpse of the dog’s silhouette on a poster. It was stapled directly to the wood, underneath layers of others. Possibly one of the first missing cases. Andres stared at the brittle and discolored sheet of paper. LOST DOG “CINNAMON” BUT REPOSNDS TO “GOOD GIRL” BROWN PIT BULL

SLIPPED HER COLLAR, NO TAGS LAST SEEN MON 11/01/1979 IF FOUND PLEASE CONTACT: (209) 55568

The rest of the phone number had faded into obscurity. He looked at the dog then back at the poster. They looked exactly the same. “But that can’t be right. That’s way too many years. She’d be…” The dog sat her muscular body on the asphalt, took in a hollow breath, and released a deep howl. Andres felt as if she was trying to communicate with him and inched closer with his hand out, but his father grew scared and impatient. He downed the whole 40 oz. then threw the empty bottle at the dog. It missed by a couple feet and shattered on the street. “¡Córrele!” His father shouted and bolted home without looking back for his son. She finished howling. Only broken glass separated Andres and the dog. All he had to do was walk over the shards and grab her short stocky frame and she would be his, but there was something disturbing about the way she had intimidated his father. Andres did not move. The pit bull stared at him a moment longer, yawned, then turned away and left. Andres watched as she treaded towards the Tehachapi Mountains. Once she was out of sight, he walked home. . . . . . . Andres arrived to his father passed out on the couch and a cold T-bone steak in the microwave. His mother received free meat working for Ace, which was a deciding factor for her taking the late-night job. But he thought their beef tasted and smelled unnatural and left it. He sighed and wished his mother was around more. He missed her homecooked meals, but her new job consumed all of her time. He snuck around his father to his bedroom and turned off the lights. He laid on his lumpy mattress on the floor and stared out his window. The moon glistened and shone like the pit bull’s saliva on her fangs. He wished the dog would have bitten his father. All the years his father had hurt him, not once had he ever felt it reciprocated. He closed his eyes and smiled as the thought crept into his dreams. He dreamt of walking the dog through the fields of Los Cielos. Or rather, the dog was walking him, looking back to make sure Andres was following. The dog stopped suddenly at the foot of the Tehachapi Mountains, and other animals crawled out of the thick bushes with large glowing eyes. There were other dogs, cats, goats, cows, sheep, pigs, and lizards. Even a few birds hopped out of their nest hidden within the foliage to greet them. Andres was taken aback, but the pit bull pressed her cold wet nose on his 69

hand and nudged him forward. The animals crooned in unison, and Andres wasn’t afraid anymore. Suddenly, he heard dozens of footsteps descend down the mountain. When the sound got near, he expected to see more animals but instead found that the footsteps belonged to several humans, also with large glowing eyes. The oldest of them, stepped toward him. He was a native man, covered in ancient shaman garb. He was covered in regalia that resembled an amalgamation of all of the animals at his foot, and a feathered headdress with horns. He walked up calmly to Andres with steps that sounded like hooves on gravel and inspected him. Andres stood still. The shaman touched the welt on Andres’ face and his eyes flashed like tiny solar eclipses on the hottest summer day in Los Cielos. The shaman removed his hand and turned to his tribe of creatures and humans. “We have found another lost soul. Bring him. He must be saved.” The dog jumped up and placed her paws on Andres’ chest and licked his face. . . . . . . Andres woke in the middle of the night to a low whine outside his window. It was still dark out and sounded nothing like his mother coming home from work. He was afraid to get up and look, but something inside of him told him to. He peered over the windowsill and saw the dog pacing in a circle in the backyard. He opened the window and the dog stopped to stare at him. “How did you get here?” She ran to the back door. Andres had to get her out of there before his father heard. He put on his shoes and scurried to the backyard. He heard scratching on the back door and decided she might be hungry and grabbed the T-bone. When he opened the door, she was sitting outside watching for movement in the shadows. Her head tilted to the right when she saw him. He tossed her the meat, but she stared at it and gave a low growl. He knew there was something off about the meat from Ace, and she confirmed it. Andres ran back to the refrigerator and found a spatchcocked chicken he had gotten from the poultry farm down the street. The farmer said that Ace Meats was buying them out, and practically gave the chicken away. He said Ace was ruining the Los 70

Cielos and he should get out with his family before they were next, but now Andres wondered if he meant something more sinister. He tossed her the chicken, and she devoured it, cracking bone and sucking the marrow. He remembered that he shouldn’t feed dogs chicken bones because they might splinter and cause choking. So, he fetched a bowl and filled it up with water in the sink to give to her. But she finished the whole chicken by the time he placed the bowl down. She slurped the water anyway with her large tongue. Andres watched her drink and smiled. She was fed and hydrated. For the moment, he was relieved. “Ok, but you can’t be here. You have to go now.” He spoke in a soft tone; afraid his father would wake up and decide to get rid of the mutt himself. But the dog stepped closer and let out a soft whine. “No, I said get out of here,” he said while waving his hand to shoo her away. She stepped closer still. Then Andres realized he had been wrong. She wasn’t whining. She was whispering. She murmured to Andres, but he couldn’t quite understand her. Or perhaps he didn’t want to. He became frightened. “No! I said get out of here!” he cried. He quickly shushed himself, and closed his eyes, hoping his father didn’t hear him. But it was too late. He heard the clunk of bottles echo from the living room. “¿Qués ese pinche ruido?” His father staggered towards the commotion and saw what looked like Andres letting the pit bull into their home. He cocked his arm back and smacked the side of his son’s head with a sloppy fist. “¡Ya sabes que estoy alérgico, pendejo, no te haces!” Andres fell to the ground and felt his ear immediately swell. He was dizzy and couldn’t stand. The dog stopped her whispering and growled. His father raised his drunken hands. Andres covered his face and anticipated the blows. As he squeezed his eyes shut, he heard sharp claws shuffling and scraping against the floor. He heard the thud of a thick body hitting another followed by the sound of fabric being ripped to shreds. There was an inhuman snarl over his father’s 71

deep shouts. Then an unworldly shriek accompanied by a soft whimper. The last thing that he heard was a muted gargle under the noise of flesh being torn. Finally, silence. Andres uncovered his face and opened his eyes. There was a pool of blood growing around his father’s neck, and he saw that a chunk of his throat was missing. His jeans were torn, and his leg had a large, powerful bitemark on it. A few of his fingers twitched and tapped on the tile as he bled out. His eyes stared at the ceiling but the life behind them was gone. Andres stood up and vomited. “What did you do?!” The dog stood next to his father and licked her red and wet muzzle. “¡Apá, levantase!” Andres shook his father, but he didn’t move. He looked back at her as she sat with her tongue out, proud of herself. “You killed him!” Her ears perked up and she scowled at him, almost confused. Andres had wanted his father to understand his pain, to get some sort of retribution, but not like this. He put his hands up. “Please don’t hurt me. You’re a good girl. Aren’t you? You’re a good girl… don’t hurt me.” The dog tilted her head to the right and watched his lips as he spoke. Andres circled around her slowly, inching against the wall to make a run for it out the door. “I AM A GOOD GIRL,” she said as her flew flapped into a smile. “D-did you…did you just…speak?” She stuck her tongue out and panted with a wide grin. “Are you…are you Cinnamon?” She sucked her tongue back into her mouth and glared at him. “THAT WAS NEVER MY NAME.” “Then what is?” “I AM A GOOD GIRL,” she repeated. Her jowl drooped down as she puckered up her snout. “Are you lost?” “NO.” She stepped over his dead father and brushed by him to step outside. 72

He stood paralyzed and transfixed by her. She sat in the backyard and stared at him. “COME.” “W-where?” “YOU KNOW WHERE.” She turned and faced the ancient mountains. He looked in the same direction and felt a pull towards them. Was the tribe in my dream real? Is THIS real? he thought. “WE WILL PROTECT YOU. I WILL PROTECT YOU. I AM A GOOD GIRL.” Andres looked at his father lain in blood. He could leave and never look back. Then he thought of his mother putting up missing posters with his photo. He didn’t want to leave her behind, she would be alone in this strange and twisted town. But how would he explain this? He looked back at the dog and saw her march towards the back fence. “Wait! What about my life here, my mother? What will happen to her? What do I say?” The dog stopped and looked back at him slightly impatient. “SHE IS NO LONGER YOUR MOTHER. SHE IS NOW ONE OF THEM. SHE HAS BEEN CORRUPTED. YOU MUST LEAVE NOW OR YOU WILL BE TOO.” “What do you mean?” “ALL WILL BE REVEALED. BUT WE MUST GO NOW. COME.” She looked up at him and somehow, deep inside he understood. Andres followed her to the back fence. She crawled under the fence through a hole she dug and waited for him on the other side. He hesitated. Andres looked back at the neglected house he had briefly lived in. This place was never really his home. The other kids ignored him. The townsfolk looked at him with mistrust. His mother was absent and worked for a malevolent corporation. And his father was dead. He had lived his whole life on the road, running away from his father’s mistakes. Now, he finally had a choice. He heard the Good Girl whisper from the other side of the fence, inviting him to become a part of her tribe.

He climbed over and felt a mysterious pull beckon him towards the Tehachapi Mountains, and she was his guide. He followed her through the fields of Los Cielos and out of the town’s borders. Andres had always wanted a dog.

Dedicated to the loving memory of Scarlet. A rescue who saved me. Forever in our hearts.

Cecropia Hyalophora, Violet Bea

Fucked in the Name of Empire; or, Death to Fucking America fiction by

Akasha Neely Jade McCall’s heart was mosh-pitting inside of her chest. Every time her foot thudded off the pavement, a wave of nausea percussed through her stomach like the blast beat of a drummer in a subterranean venue. She kicked off the side of a nearby building and landed hard against a fence. The metal spires on top skewered her fingers. She grimaced and hoisted her hundred and forty-five-pound frame over the fence. She crumpled to absorb the impact as she landed and stared at her fingers that weren’t bleeding—instead they had little indentations from where she had grabbed the fence. “Motherfucker,” she muttered. “Shoot that bitch,” said one of the officers pursuing her. She had counted five in total. Their faces obscured by Kevlar helmets and their bodies bulky with armor. Jade was scared to death. Her hands shook as she braced them against the cold asphalt to stand up. Her knees clicked together like some shit out of the Wizard of Oz and chill bumps broke out on her forearms, telling a story of terror in braille. Jade bounded around the corner of the building. The night sky was illuminated with dozens of flashing lights advertising everything from skin bleaching to the latest room and board streaming services. The ping of a round ricocheting off the building in front of her brought Jade back to her senses and she forced her feet to pound the pavement faster. The sky opened up and the heavens shed cold tears. Jade’s feet slid every few steps because of the oil being drawn to the surface by the rain. Something hit her from her 3 O’clock and Jade tumbled to the ground. The pursuers swarmed her and soon Jade was being kicked, punched, and electrocuted with stun batons. She did her best to block her vital points and cover up. The water and mud in her eyes made her vision kaleidoscope as the impacts to her head caused her eyes to lose focus. Cold. Every bit of warmth was being sucked out of her by the steel bed beneath her. She opened her swollen eyes and let the shitty fluorescent light attack her retinas like a fucking Samurai hacking at a tree during the feudal era. Jade turned her sore neck to the side; the steel sink and toilet combo was about a foot from her head. “Same old jail,” she muttered to herself. 76

The cell door buzzed and a tall slender woman wearing a business suit and about Jade’s complexion walked into the cell. Jade stood up despite herself. A damn broke inside of her and her mind was awash in a deluge of memories and pain and hurt. Two officers of compliance flanked her and stood at attention when she paused in front of Jade. “Leave us,” Adelisa commanded. “Aye, Ministress Adelisa,” the officers said in unison as they exited the tiny jail cell. Adelisa waved her palm and a small digital docket appeared with Jade’s mugshot photo. “Thirty-one-year-old, five-foot-seven inch, a hundred- and forty-five-pound, Black female wanted for intergalactic terrorism was apprehended last night unharmed by several officers of peace –” — Jade snorted. “Anyway, how did I just know I’d find you here? Why do you do this? Why do you have to make life so hard for yourself? Why are you violating the terms of your exile? It was exile or execution. I was hoping to never see you again. Jade, I could have helped you. You could have one of the highest positions in the American empire with your military service background. Two Black women at the helm of the most powerful empire in the history of mankind. You could have been great.” Jade was still swimming through the deluge of memories – and drowning. Adelisa and Jade, two privates in the American army. All the trouble they got in together. Adding filthy jokes to running cadences, stealing people’s clothes while they showered, they were just looking to have fun and break up all the monotony and structure around them. Adelisa dyed her hair purple one time so she and Jade (Jade being her buddy always got caught in the undertow) had to wake up every hour on the hour and go downstairs to the Sergeant of the Guard in a different uniform that was then inspected for deficiencies and if any were found they would have to do pushups or squats. This went on from 1800 at night to 0600 in the morning the next day. “Fuck you, Chancellor of the American Empire, Prime Ministress Adelisa” Jade’s fist clenched, and she stared through Adelisa’s pretty brown eyes. “I’ll never spend another second of my life in service to this xenocidal empire. They brainwashed us and forced us to do unspeakable things in the name of interplanetary democracy.”

Adelisa grabbed Jade around the neck and shoved her against the wall. In the tiny cell, Adelisa’s six-foot-one-inch statuesque frame seemed almost surreal against how tight and cramped the cell was. It was their first time in combat. Everything had gone to shit. There was miscommunication from the top down. They had bad intel and thought the house was empty. Adelisa… Adelisa… Jade was so scared. It was a trap. Adelisa… Adelisa… bloody on the floor. She had been shot… a lot. The barbecue smell. Jade pulled her out of the house, under heavy and effective fire from the enemy. She could remember the rounds coming so close to her head that she could see them in midair. The ground was hot and even hotter when you’re facedown dragging another body to cover behind the bushes. Jade didn’t see her until their unit got back to earth. She needed assistance round the clock and Jade wouldn’t let anyone else take Adelisa from her charge. In those budding days, their romance had blossomed from two teenaged pranksters to battle scarred lovers. Jade was using her martial arts training from the army and started laser-cage fighting to help make ends meet. Adelisa’s lips collided violently with Jade’s. It was just like everything else in their relationship: intense, short, and passionate. Adelisa’s chest heaved up and down. An uber roach crawled from behind the sinktoilet and started to make its way up the wall across from them. “Where do you want to go? I’ll have a transportation pod ready in about fifteen minutes to get you the fuck off my planet and out of my life forever,” Adelisa said as she handed Jade a few thousand credits. Jade wasn’t too proud to take the money, but still continued her onslaught, “So that’s it? We’re just going to pretend like we never happened? You can’t erase me, bitch. I gave up so much for you. I loved you – I still do. I love you even though I don’t know who you are anymore,” Jade reached out and pressed Adelisa’s side. Adelisa flinched, “You fucking asshole.” Jade knew Adelisa still felt the effects of being shot. She knew her bones still hurt when it got too cold out. Her pain would warn them when a storm was coming back when they were married and lived together. Algometric weather forecast. “My bones still hurt too,” Jade said. 78

“Where do you want to go? I will not ask again, Jade.” “Asteroid 217,” Jade said. Adelisa’s eyes rolled and she let out a heavy sigh. “Why were you even here in the first place?” “I thought she was here – my mom,” Jade’s voice had lost its edge. “She’s dead, Jade. I feel for you, I do.” A few minutes later she waved the officers of compliance back. “Escort Ms. McCall to a transportation pod to asteroid 217,” Adelisa said in professional voice. As Jade and the officers were walking away, Adelisa called out to her: “Jade, if you ever step foot on this planet again you will be executed.” The hills scattered across the desert landscape like acne on a pubescent face. The town was small – only a few wooden buildings. Staccato gunshots could be heard in the distance every so often. She stepped over an old man passed out still holding an empty bottle of whiskey. “Nice to see you today, Mr. Mayor,” Jade said aloud to the unconscious and drunk elected official. Jade walked to the building in the center. The tavern had several horses outside tied to a hitching post. The jetpack charging station was also full. After Jade entered, she walked straight to the back, through some double doors, through a curtain, through another door and into the harem. Jade waved her hand to open the haram’s menu. She hated seeing Adelisa and the effect it always had on her. She was nothing more than a scared child back there. Jade needed a palate cleanser. She scrolled through headshots of hundreds of sex workers until she found a young man that would be of use to her. The young man, called Simon, and Jade giggled and smiled whenever they made eye contact over the small table they now shared. It was haram policy to wait at least fifteen minutes after consuming the sickly orange flavored prophylactic before sexual activity. A kindly old woman employed by the haram dropped off the STD scanner. Two negative results later and they walked up the stairs into one of the prepared rooms on the second floor.

Simon was roughly five-foot-eight inches tall and not too much thicker than Jade was. His youthful face belied his twenty-six-earth year chronological age. Jade instructed him to lie on his back. She took off her pants and underwear and straddled his face. His tongue felt ecstatic inside her. Jade moved her hips in figure eights as the sensation spread throughout her body. She moved back and forth and up and down – her breathing getting more and more intense. A wave of anger came over her as she thought of Adelisa grabbing her and kissing her. She could feel the rage and passion tapping on her thigh. At first, it was like the sword of Damocles, just hanging above her head tapping on her thigh. The sword had fallen through her skull and was impaled in her torso. Fire and poison radiated from the sword and entrenched themselves in her veins, tapping on her thigh. Tapping on her thigh – she realized that she had been smothering Simon this whole time and he was trying to tap out on her thigh. “I am so sorry,” Jade said as she sat back on his chest to allow him to breath. He took in big gulps of oxygen and said something that Jade couldn’t make out and didn’t quite care to at the moment. Once she was back perched atop his face like a horny bird of prey, she grinded harder. The harder she fucked his face, the less worthless she felt. The less powerless she felt standing next to Adelisa. She felt his tongue slip into her asshole where it fit snugly and the beast that she carried inside of her exploded into orgasmic rapture. Once she was finished – his face looking like a glazed donut – Jade passed him a couple of the credits from the money that Adelisa had given her. Simon thanked her and licked the snail trail she had left from his lips as he pocketed the generous tip. It was time for Jade to have a drink. As soon as Jade stepped back into the tavern side of the house, she heard a gruff and sonorous voice call her name. “Jade! You crazy dyke butch bitch get over here!” There was no mistaking Savage. Jade followed the drunken obscenities to a table off in the far corner of the tavern. Savage was alone with several empty bottles of beer in front of him. Jade and Savage couldn’t be described as friends under any circumstances. Savage was a big loud, casually racist and misogynist, alcoholic piece of shit. Still, he was great on the battlefield. He and Jade were both mercenaries so they had participated in numerous missions 80

together. Ironically they had also gone against one another in the theater of combat. Surprisingly, there were never any hard feelings (aside from her just hating who he was as a person) and both seemed to view war as just a job. Savage was also ex-army, he had just gotten kicked out a decade or so before she had even joined. “How you been?” Savage asked as he waved toward where all the bartenders were standing in the back. Xyl, a transwoman around Jade’s age, placed two cold beer bottles on the table in front of them. “I’ll also have two shots of your finest cheapest whiskey,” Savage slammed some credits onto the table and Xyl disappeared into the back. Xyl and Jade had hooked up a few times back in the day, but neither seemed to really get along with the other if there wasn’t alcohol involved. She just liked Xyl’s slang and the way she referred to other trans-girls collectively as “The Dolls.” Hell, Jade had even caught herself referring to “The Dolls” every time she had extended interactions with Xyl. Ever since Jade was younger, she would inadvertently pick up accents and slang from people without meaning to. Xyl set their shots down without making eye contact with Jade and scampered off. “How the hell are you, you pretty, Black bitch?” Savage asked. “I’ve been better,” Jade responded. “Same,” Savage concurred. “Jail!” They both said in unison with a sigh. Five shady looking patrons sat down a couple of tables away from them. One poured a powdery substance onto the table, took out a razorblade, divided the powder into lines, then one by one they took turns snorting the lines. Savage and Jade looked at each other, the new shared revelation lingered in the air like smoke from an extinguished candle, downed their shots simultaneously, then began to laugh uncontrollably. “You first, love,” Savage said finally. “Okay, you know how I got exiled from Earth after the Black and Indigenous rebellion a few years ago?” Jade said after downing her entire beer in a couple of gulps. She 81

motioned to Xyl, who had been sneaking glances in her direction since she sat down, for another round. “Yeah. Truth be told, I was never formally exiled like yourself, but it’s pretty much shoot me on sight if I’m ever caught back in America.” Savage threw down more credits as Xyl brought their drinks over. “Well, I heard a rumor that my mother was back on Earth, so I went to go find her. I didn’t think I’d get caught. Besides, I haven’t seen the lady since me and my twin brother turned twelve. Anyway, the goddamn officers of keeping the peace through peaceful means picked me up.” “That explains the bruises,” Savage said as he and Jade clinked glasses and laughed. “I was fucking pissy on Faustus (Jade raised her eyebrows) It’s a moon of Asteroid Jute. Anyway, I got fucked up on Faustian rum to the point where I was having some paranoid delusions. I fired a few shots into the air and the goddamn police came and picked me up. Fucking weird place where you can’t just fire a gun if you want. I’ll take Asteroid 217 over those other places any day,” Savage punctuated his sentence by firing a round from his pistol into the air. “See? Nobody here bats a goddamned eyelash at what you do. I love it.” Jade had to admit one of the reasons why she loved coming to Asteroid 217 was how safe she felt among all the lawlessness. It was an egalitarianism only seen amongst the hyperviolent. Mutually assured destruction trumped any bullshit honor amongst thieves doctrine. Every mercenary, petty criminal, galactic pirate, freedom fighter and queer haunted Asteroid 217. Villains, scoundrels, and rogues (oh my) called this desolate rock just outside of American jurisdiction home. “I’ll be honest,” Savage narrowed his eyes and straightened his posture. “I was hoping I’d run into you because I got a job that you might be interested in.” Another reason for coming to the tavern was the fact that it provided steady work. Clients would sometimes need a job done (everything from unclogging a cyber drain to taking up arms in a sectarian genocidal conflict half a galaxy away) and word of mouth would get them to the person for the job. “How much?” Jade crossed her legs; she could still feel the wetness in her crotch from the young man she face-fucked in the back. 82

“600,000,000. Also, it’s a jump. We get the other 600,000,000 upon mission completion.” Hot damn. That explained why the job paid so much. Jumps were always lucrative. They were also usually a lot more dangerous. She had done dozens of jumps with Savage. Normally the way they jumped was from just beyond a planet’s outer atmosphere. They were Super High Altitude Low Opening jumps and very few outside of the American military were qualified to do them. “The American empire is after the zillion dollars worth of Lazarus minerals in that moon that the Black and Indigenous Liberation Association annexed a few years ago. The Americans have funded a group of loyalist to American capital to wage war on BILA and oust Ministress Zee as prime minister of BILA,” Savage gave her another shot before taking one himself. “BILA is expecting a shipment of weapons and supplies from Neo-China at 1300 tomorrow. The weapons are being air dropped via third party not affiliated with Neo-China. As you know, America has established a ‘No-Fly Zone’ over BILA.” “I see,” Jade’s drunken mind caught on right away. “They want us to jump on BILA so that we can establish a drop zone for the shipment of weapons then gtfo.” “Exactly. We need to establish an DZ quickly and collapse it quickly so we can get to our ground extraction point. In and out in fifteen minutes. The area will be completely clear of enemy combatants so it should be easy money.” They had to be up early for the mission so Jade went back with Savage to the room he was renting at an inn a few doors down. Neither could walk in a straight line. Her bones hurt and that meant a storm was coming. “I saw a deca-dragon one time,” Savage said as he fumbled to type in the code to open the digital door. Jade just nodded in agreement. Even drunk, she knew he was full of shit. Decadragons were a type of tera-fauna. They hatched from planets and planetoid objects and devoured other planets and stars for food. They were gigantic and lived at the outer edge of the universe. The odds of seeing one were infinitesimal. Savage tossed her a blanket and passed out on hover sofa. Jade found a spot under the coffee table and closed her eyes. Normally sleep eluded her and all she could see at night 83

were the faces of the fallen; some were comrades, some were enemies, all had died violently. Body parts amputated via explosions usually danced around in her head before falling asleep. There were no mental health services for mercenaries. You just did it until either you put a bullet through your skull or someone else did. She was conflicted because she never stopped fighting in wars long after she renounced American galactic imperialism. Her dreams were either haunted by images of death or memories of Adelisa in sundresses making fungi bread and cookies on Saturday morning. Jade sometimes had trouble distinguishing which was worse. Four jumpers in total: Jade, Savage, Sebastian, and Jackal. The four of them had jumped together in the past so Jade was pretty comfortable. The space vessel cloaked itself just before it entered the moon’s orbit. Soon they were ejected from a tube out the back and plummeting at thousands of feet per second. Jade watched as the heads up display inside her helmet informed her of just how far she was from the planets surface. Her heart was in her throat because this was the most dangerous part of the jump. This was where suits cracked and people burned up on entry. This was where mathematical calculations got jumbled and jumpers slammed into each other. This was where life support systems failed to start. She couldn’t think about that now. She was terrified and no matter how many times she jumped she never got used to the feeling of plummeting so far so fast. “I was walking down the street one day,” Savage sang into the communicator. “I ran into a stranger. She asked me what I wanted to be I said an airborne ranger.” “Airbooorne raangerrrsss lead the way,” the other three sang the old army cadence. “I’m sitting in my foxhole, sharpening my kniiife. When up jumps the enemy, I had to take his life,” Savage crooned into the communicator. “Airbooorrrrnneee rangerrrrrs lead the way,” they crooned back. “Looks like we got a welcoming party,” Jade exclaimed. There were explosions and lots of smoke coming from the ground. “Shit,” Savage exclaimed into the communicator. “Someone must have tipped off the American loyalist we were coming. No easy money today folks.”

“Just like Titan,” Jackal laughed into the communicator. “I’d feel weird if we ever didn’t jump into a hot drop zone.” “Not gonna lie, it’d be nice,” Sebastian added. The landing was rough and Jade was immediately fired upon. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from; it seemed to be everywhere at once. She had no idea where the others hand landed. I hear the choppers coming oh oh. Jade’s face met the ground when the percussion wave from a nearby explosion knocked her over. She could see the tracer rounds flying over her head and decided it best to stay low to the ground while she unstrapped her rifle and got into a hasty fighting firing position. Jade laid there in the prone for a second before realizing she was completely exposed with no cover or concealment. They’re hovering overhead. Jade crawled on her elbows to a nearby cluster of rocks. “Have you seen the others?” It was Savage. Jade was happy she found him. They could call in the ground team and get the hell out of there. A hot DZ meant an aborted mission and this DZ was scalding. Jade didn’t get a chance to answer as Savage’s head exploded into red mist and bone fragments. His body hit the ground hard. Jade jumped. They come to get the wounded. The hell with the dead. Airboooorrrrnnnne raaaaannngeeeeerrrs lead the way. More faces exploded around her. A young soldier did a backflip from the high powered round that struck his torso. There must have been a sniper in the area. To her chagrin, as she looked around, they had landed in a valley. This meant that they were in a depression with other members of the BILA resistance and the enemy had the high ground. Jade couldn’t think of a worse place to be during a battle than a valley. My buddy’s in a foxhole with a bullet in his head. The medic says he wounded, but I know that he’s dead. Airbooorrrrnnneee rangerrrrrsss (shoot the son of a, shoot the son of a, why won’t you die?) lead the way. She could just make out a faint glinting in the distance at her one o’clock. She opened fire and watched as the body tumbled head over heels into a ravine. Her stress level was so high that her hands were shaking, and she had trouble zooming her scope in to make sure the perpetrator was dead. Jade stood up and fell back over. She didn’t realize that she had twisted her ankle on the landing and now pain shot up her leg. The din of gunfire and explosions was 85

deafening. Jade was having a sensory overload as she crawled, determined not to stay in one spot. Another explosion launched Jade into the air and she landed hard in a small patch of grass. The smoke cleared and she tried to focus her rifle toward the fray as she took up a more stable kneeling position. Something hit Jade in the back and she fell forward. She didn’t have to see the blood to know she had been shot. By the time she saw the muzzle flash from the rifle that dealt her the coup de grace, the bullet had already bored its way into her forehead. Jade’s body slumped to the ground as the contents of her skull painted the rocks behind her with gore. Ministress Zee, Prime Minister of the BILA, sat in the underground bunker with her advisors. “So, our shipment has been intersected,” Zee kept her voice even. “What about the security? Dead? Oh, those poor souls. How did the rebels know where they were going to land? We even had security to ensure no one got any crazy ideas.” “It gets worse,” an advisor said. “The American empire has sent an interstellar nuke to our coordinates. It should be here within three hours give or take. I guess they really wanted those Lazarus minerals.” “If we’re going to be obliterated, we might as well send them a little parting gift,” Zee played with her braids nervously. “The deca-dragon, ministress?” “Precisely.” In an hour an object exploded above the surface of the moon wiping out the BILA settlement and all who called the surface of this moon their home. It happened in an instant: a blinding white light followed by silence. Something in the core of the moon was still alive. Something big that fed on nuclear energy. It had trouble breaking through the rocky surface at first. When it did it was huge and suspended in space. It’s scales were black and shiny; it’s body long and sleek. It was twice the size of Earth, which it found with ease, the nuke had left behind a scent trail.

The creature landed on the earth hard, wrapping its scaly body around the planet and sending it several hundred million light years away from the sun at the same time from its sheer weight. The ice sheet that used to be the Earth’s ocean was peeled from the planet like skin from a grape. The creature tore crust from the planet like flesh and ate greedily. It consumed the now rapidly cooling core of the planet in its fanged jowls and burped radiation back into outer space. The creature swallowed what was left of planet earth whole.

T.P.T, Brielle Villanueva 88

El sol y la hierba, Brielle Villanueva 89

To The Hardware in My Leg nonfiction by

Lujain Al-Saleh

Image of the hardware that was formerly in my leg. The hardware is encased within a frame that was altered in a writing workshop (taken on February 5, 2023)

I was hit on January 5th, 2022. I saw it coming, and I also did not. As a biker, runner, and pedestrian, I was always afraid of cars. Years before, I was brushed by a car while walking as a pedestrian in my first semester at UC Berkeley. The car was turning left, the pedestrian sign was on. I was really lucky I wasn’t farther into the intersection, otherwise who knows what would have happened. Although I was okay, I was terrified. I can distinctly remember the other cars honking, yelling at the driver, stopping and asking me if I was okay. I had to tell myself I was. In that moment and the moments after, all I could think about was Mr. Prewitt, my high school teacher who was killed by a car. It was on a weekend day, he was running, preparing for his upcoming Marathon. The car came speeding toward us, attempting to turn left. It is often the left hand turns that kill people. I looked at the pedestrian sign blinking in white, my mind wanting to justify why we were there in that crosswalk. I started to scream as I quickly unwrapped my arm from around my partner’s arm. I pushed him forward when I realized that the car was not stopping. Within a matter of seconds, all I remember is the front of the car going straight into my legs. It wasn’t until the heavy metal hit my legs, that the car stopped. I went down. Fortunately, the heavy metal did not run over the rest of my body. My partner tried to get me up, pleading for me to “get up, get up.” I could not move. I honestly was not sure if I would be able to move again. My mind often goes to dark places. Fortunately, another pedestrian up the street saw the whole thing and called the ambulance. In the grand scheme of things, I was lucky to still be alive. Like the first time, I had to tell myself that I was okay. After 12+ hours of lying on a hospital bed with agonizing pain in the Duke Trauma Center, we found out that I had a broken tibia and a bucket handle meniscus tear in my left leg. I would need surgery very soon in order to ever walk again. The surgeon, who grew up in the Bay Area, told me I would be back to running in the summer. I truly do not know why doctors tell you what they think you want to hear. I stayed at my partner’s parents home for five days before flying back to Oakland to get the surgery. Looking back, I would never recommend flying with a broken leg. I did not want to be a burden on his family, but by doing that, I could have lost my life. By the time I got to Oakland, I had developed a deep vein thrombosis in my calf without knowing it. My calf was swollen, hot, red, and perpetually cramping.

Going into surgery, I found out that I most likely had a blood clot, but that they would still need to operate on me, even if it developed into a pulmonary embolism. Worst case scenario, the blood clot could have eventually traveled to my lungs, potentially leading to death. The surgeon casually said this as they wheeled me towards the operating room. He told me that if I didn’t get this surgery now, I could end up being a “cripple.” Again, why do doctors say what they say? I cried as they put the mask over my face and told me to count to ten. The hardware was screwed into my body on January 13th, 2022. A plate with 15 holes was screwed into my left tibia with 10 screws of various sizes. To the eye, they look like the type of screws one would use for carpentry and housework. Instead, these carpenter-looking screws were what repaired my leg, the very reason I was able to walk again. The hardware remained in my leg for exactly one year and 6 days. For over a year, the plate helped me to heal the tibia plateau fracture deep within my bone. After the bone healed, the hardware remained encased within my bone. While I have an immense amount of gratitude for this heavy plate and the 10 screws, I could feel a perpetual tightness, ache, and pain in my leg on my daily walks, going up the stairs, and even while I swam laps in my neighborhood pool. It wasn’t until I saw the hardware that I understood why I was always setting off the airport security detectors. When this all happened, my surgeon told me that most people keep the hardware in their bodies. I thought I would follow along with the majority of people. However, over time, I wondered whether the metal had to leave my body in order to help me fully heal and move forward. As I thought about the decision for several weeks, I decided to take a chance. I couldn’t continue wondering whether there was potential for the pain to leave my body. On January 19th, 2023, two months to the day that he unexpectedly ended things, I chose to go under and get the hardware out. During my consultation, I asked my surgeon if I could keep the hardware. He laughed and told me yes. The last thing I remember before going under is the anesthesiologist gently putting the last over my face as she asked me to take deep breaths. She told me I was doing a good job and asked me to count to ten. I remember slowly saying 1, 2…nothing else. As I laid on the hospital gurney crying, my surgeon walked up to me to tell me I did a good job. I could only muster a quiet “thank you” as the tears kept streaming, wetting my surgical mask. Despite the pain and deep sadness I felt, I reminded myself that I 92

could keep this hardware as a reminder of what I’ve lost, the changes in my body, the impact of traffic violence in this country, along with how strong I am and how strong I will continue to be. I wanted to honor this metal that used to be in my body with gold and silver, hence the silver aluminum and pieces of gold origami paper. The gold origami paper is placed in a way that resembles Kintsugi (⾦継ぎ, "golden joinery") or Kintsukuroi (⾦繕い, "golden repair"), a Japanese art practice of repairing and putting back together broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum. This practice serves as a reminder that breaks and cracks should be embraced, there is beauty in imperfection. My scar is also a reminder of that. Inspired by the practice of Kintsugi, I placed two screw eyes, which are used to hang photos and decorations, on the top and bottom of the frame that houses my hardware. The screws are intentionally positioned opposite of each other, representing the juxtaposition of healing and pain. Healing is often painful. It is not easy or glamorous. Yet, we often can’t truly heal without fully experiencing our pain, our loss, our broken bones and our broken hearts. I felt my broken bone. I felt my broken heart. Over time, the very metal that healed my leg, began to hurt me. And then it was removed. My incision is still tender from the surgery and my heart still hurts from time to time—but I no longer feel the pain and the aching from the metal that was formerly in my body. My heart feels more free, ready to move forward and upward. To the hardware in my body, thank you.

Vandals poetry by Elodie Townsend Everyone screaming bare-throat down 580 comes to an enraptured stop, spilling from sports utility vehicles to cast wonder at the six-pump Chevron gas station. Witness aspirational heresy and hedonism in black Sharpie in the lonely bathroom stall! “NATO BOMBS WEST TEXAS— GAS OVER 7— BLAME RUSSIA!!!” I profess my love for my sweetheart with a half-dull Swiss Army Knife etching feverishly onto the thick plastic door. Expedient and euphoric, I move on to a leaky ballpoint and write a nineteen syllable haiku: “Oh, my heart possessed swallowed whole and spit back out the enamel goes with it.” All to be scrubbed away, of course hacked at with a sharp-tooth chemical soaked sponge held with both hands by a stooped man in a reflective vest making $7.50 an hour. Here, on the slate-metal mirror above the gaping sink, see the magic marker manifesto, the dogmatic mouthpiece of the last true patriots of the greatest country in the world! “JOE BIDEN AGENT OF THE TRANSGENDER INVASION!!!” “PRONOUNS R 4 CRISIS ACTORS!!!” I might as well pen my apology to my grandmother, set in rhythm to the pathetic music of the hand air-dryer: “To Grammy, pasensya na, I love you. Sorry your favorite granddaughter is a dyke and doesn’t believe in the miraculous work of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 94

Come, worn and weary, take part in the great exchange of languages lost and butchered beyond belief! “EL AMOR ES LA FALTA DE LA AUSENCIA” “SHE FUCKED ME RITE HERE IT WAS GOOD” I’ve still got three minutes left in here before the semi-truck driver waiting outside starts kicking his steel-toed Wolverine work boot at the door and calling me a self-centered little socialist— “In eighth grade I hit Andrew Fox so hard that he bled for twenty straight minutes, crying on the free throw line of the dusty gym floor. I ran away and he never told anyone a word of it.” Before you go, take one last look at mankind’s most profoundly obscure prophecy, preserved for eternity on spit-slick tile walls: “WHAT THE FUCK M I EVEN DOING HERE ANYMOR?” Back outside, it smells like sweet tea gasoline and fresh cut center-median grass, and the second “I” is shuddering red, coughing up fluorescence on the Mini-Mart sign.

MetaCarpal. Violet Bea

shell poetry by

Kwame Daniels The first time I saw a snail’s shell I thought I was seeing a dewdrop. The delicacy of the whorls seemed as intentional as ripples of water, as the shape of water pulled inexorably down by the planet. I thought I was seeing the ghost of what lives in my blood. And perhaps I was. There is a shaft of moonlight that falls onto a leaf and it looks like sap. It looks like life and where living goes — into the air, as breath and the flexing of muscle, as a heartbeat that pulsates with the movement of the earth, slow, slow, big, big, a shift between shifts, a taste of citrus in cake. Everything is a ghost. Everything is a haunting. The moon haunts the sun, the trees haunt the dirt, snails haunt their shells. Look closer. Bugs haunt the summer. They fly and buzz and pester. They’re living their own lives, flashquick as a day or as long as it takes me to read a collected works. What kills us is this: we don’t realize these things are ghosts. We don’t realize we haunt ourselves.

Aspen Vista Blue Pt. 1 poetry by Jesse Strohauer Fatigue tears Lack of oxygen in Heaven Blue wings on cemetery dogs waiting on Gabriel’s whistle to take their people home expectant little hands Tugging on prayer chains Damming up rivers

What A Joy To Be Beloved, Jesse Strohauer

Poetechnics: Designs from the New World, Cardboard House Press (2023)

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Writing Through the Mutant Continuum a book review of

Poetechnics: Designs from the New World poerty by

Yaxkin Melchy translated by Ryan Greene

Reading Yaxkin Melchy’s collection Poetechnics: Designs from the New World (Cardboard Press, 2023) was a mediation on curiosity. Rarely do I walk away from a collection where I’m just as hypnotized by the author’s ethos as I am their work. Often these aspects inform one another, I see who a poet is via their work. But after reading the collection, I was hungry for both more poetry by Melchy and to pick his brain. Where does someone get the idea (the gall!) to fuse what is often seem diametrically opposed—science and poetry; the objective and subjective? When one completes the collection, they are greeted by Ryan Greene’s translator’s note which states that Poetechnics is a selection of poems derived from Melchy’s decade long project, THE NEW WORLD, which he began as a 21-year old industrial design student. Without sounding too corny, this collection functions as a machine. The invention, or perhaps, the world Melchy develops is the Poetechnics— “a scientific imaginary rooted in the heart, and a sensitive understanding of scientific theories and methods in order to overcome the modern world’s poetic disconnection.” Throughout the collection form, language, and muse are not bent, but rather, adapted to reflect our Digital Age. Titles are shifted around the page, the poems have become diagrams. We are in an era where we consume more information than generations past. Poetechnics embodies that everythingness.

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Melchy’s work, with the help of his translator, Greene—who, like Melchy, has a dual knowledge of science and the arts—weave Spanish and English together. The translation is not merely an English version, but rather part of the poetic puzzle. This is inductive of a poet who has full command of the world they created, and languages this world exists within. Melchy explores this new form with such fluidity, it’s as if it has always existed. Because why not— why shouldn’t poetry grow and expand, just as the scientific understanding of our natural world has? After reading, I was left feeling hopeful. While I do not know if this was the intent, the collection reads as a celebration of human curiosity. Both scientists and poets are in the business of distilling the world around them while also expanding it. The professions mirror each other. Or as Melchy said, “their heart is shaped like science/science is shaped like their heart.” 01001001 01101110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01000100 01101001 01100111 01101001 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00101101 01100100 01100101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101100 00100000 01010000 01101111 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01101000 01101110 01101001 01100011 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100100 01110011 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110000 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011 01110101 01110010 01101001 01101111 01110011 01101001 01110100 01111001 00101110 00100000 01101110 01100001 00101110 Thank you, Yaxkin Melchy.

London Pinkney EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 102

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yaxkin Melchy Ramos (Mexico City, 1985) is a Mexican and Peruvian-Quechua poet, translator, ecopoetics researcher, and artisan-activist editor. He is the author of THE NEW WORLD, a five-part “constellation-book” which was written intermittently between 2007 and 2017. Currently he is a graduate student at Tsukuba University in Japan, where he is researching ecopoetic currents between Japan and Latin America. Since 2017, he has been translating contemporary Japanese poetry to Spanish, and currently he runs the artisanal press Cactus del viento, which focuses on ecological, spiritual, and transpacific poetics. He also publishes on his personal blog, Flor de Amaneceres.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Ryan Greene (b. 1994) is a translator, book farmer, and poet from Phoenix, Arizona who is currently working with Yaxkin Melchy to translate the first three books of THE NEW WORLD. He's a co-conspirator at F*%K IF I KNOW//BOOKS [www.fiikbooks.org] and a housemate at no.good.home [www.nogoodhome.com]. His translations include work by Elena Salamanca, Claudina Domingo, Ana Belén López, Giancarlo Huapaya, and Yaxkin Melchy, among others. Since 2018, he has co-facilitated the Cardboard House Press Cartonera Collective bookmaking workshops at Palabras Bilingual Bookstore. Like Collier, the ground he stands on is not his ground.

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Contributors Lujain Al-Saleh (she/her) is a public health advocate and writer living in Oakland, CA, Ohlone land. Lujain holds a degree in Environmental Science & Management with minors in Professional Writing and Middle East & South Asia Studies from UC Davis. She also graduated from the Master of Public Health program at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in 2020. Along with her role as the East Oakland Clean Air Project Coordinator at Communities for a Better Environment, Lujain writes as a freelance writer for KneeDeep Times, a online magazine that features stories of climate resilience. Lujain’s piece “To the Hardware In My Leg” is an essay and was written to honor her hardware and experience as a survivor of traffic violence. Violet Alexis Bea is a queer BIPOC artist currently based out of the bay area. She moved to the USA all the way from India. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Comics. Her work is grungy and psychedelic with attention to detail. She loves drawing reptiles, mechanical/architectural detail and funky alien creatures. You can check out all of her latest work on Instagram @violetalexisbea. Kwame Sound Daniels is an artist based out of Maryland. Xe are an Anaphora Arts Residency Fellow and currently working toward an MFA in Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Xir first book Light Spun came out with Perennial Press in 2022. Xir second volume, the pause and the breath, came out with Atmosphere Press Jan. 25th of 2023. Xe like to learn plant medicine and paint in xir spare time. Karen Gomez is an amateur jack of all trades based in Redwood City, CA. She loves to use many forms of art to express herself, like music, painting, photography, and writing. She plans transfer to UC Berkley, graduate with a Psychology degree and become a Clinical Psychologist. 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, About Place Journal, Allium, and The Ana, among others. He enjoys playing with his dog and writing about morality, death, and those small human moments which we all share.

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Akasha Neely (she/they) was born in Chicago, Illinois. They are a nonbinary femme person who currently resides in San Francisco. Abigail Pak is a queer, California-based writer. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Westmont College and has had pieces published in Phoenix Magazine, The Inkslinger, and Apricity Magazine. 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 The Horror Zine, Allegory Magazine, The Horror Tree, The Ana, JAKE magazine, The Night Shift podcast, Libretto publications, White Cat Publications, Culture Cult, Savage Planet, ShortStory.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. His first novel, titled Abry, was released earlier this spring. He lives in Kentucky with his wife, Mary, and his pet rabbit, Achilles. Sophia Quinto is a first-year Writing and Literature major at UC Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies. She mainly writes fiction that revolves around family. Her other work has either appeared in or is forthcoming in Revolution Publication, The Bayou Review, The Bitchin' Kitsch, and MakeNoiseToday's "Letters To..." exhibition. Erick Sáenz is a writer living & working in San Francisco. He is the author of two collections of poetry; Susurros a mi padre (The OS // 2018) & Lucid Traversal (Selfpublished // 2021), and one collection of fiction; This is my exit: stories (Little Skull Press // 2021). His chapbooks & zines include An Essay, A Ritual (2022), Semillas de Tamarindo (2018), Summer Forever (2018), Three Stories (2017), and 2 stories (2015). You can find additional writing online. He was previously a contributing editor for Cheers From The Wasteland, an online magazine based out of San Jose, CA. He ran a punk record label from 2007 - 2012 releasing bands from across the United States and Europe. In 2014 he founded Lilac Press, a small DIY imprint. Jesse Strohauer is a multidisciplinary artist/writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Their work deals with themes of spirituality, mental illness, and the points where they intersect. More of their work can be found at Christiangirlautumn_art on instagram. 105

Elisha Taylor is a California poet who still doesn't understand nuance. Yet he is a published writer and overall cool Jesus guy. Elodie Townsend holds a B.A. in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley, and is in the process of earning her M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She is from San Francisco, and currently lives in San Rafael, just north of the city, where she enjoys walking her two rescue chihuahuas, and coaching softball. Brielle Villanueva is learning what it means to see through the lens of others’ emotions. As a visual artist, she seeks to learn more of herself and the community around her by capturing others’ joy, love, and depth into single images. Since moving back to the bay in 2018, she’s focused her work on amplifying the beauty of diversity in varying visual aesthetics. Alexandria Wyckoff is currently a senior at SUNY Oswego. She is majoring in Creative Writing with minors in English and History. She has been previously published in The Great Lake Review, Gandy Dancer, Zenith Literary Magazine, and Planisphere Q. She loves reading on rainy days while sipping on a cup of mint tea.

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THE ANA: Issue #12

Articles inside

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Writing Through the Mutant Continuum

To The Hardware in My Leg

Fucked in the Name of Empire; or, Death to Fucking America

On TV There Are Two Women Kissing

I Love You Also, I Promise

On Turning 17

THE ANA presents