Blacklist Vol. 1 by Blacklist

Blacklist

Managing Editors Tiana Murrieta Sarah Terrazano

Arts Editor

A Literary and Arts Journal

Liana Simpson

Poetry Editor Sumner Alperin-Lea

Prose Editor Hannah Sussman

Tafara Gava Nicole Kim Nyomi White

Blacklist Journal

Assistant Editors

| Vol. 1

Cover Heather Schiller

Blacklist Journal blacklistjournal.com | Brandeis University

Vol. 1

Poetry

Table of Contents

Drowning — Leah Scher Dove — Candace Osterhout Villanelle for the Female Future — Leah Scher Welcome to Town — Nicholas Douglass Pancho Marrón — Gerardo J. Lamadrid Triolet — Julia DiFiori Virgil Speaks With Dante — Alexander Eden daisy by marc jacobs — Julia Wasilewski Kelp Bed — Sam Keezell the one time i forgot to buckle my seatbelt — Katherine Oksen A Lighthouse in the Dark — Hangil Ryu Landscape I, Landscape II— Jackson Holbert Quatrel — Nick Endicott Since Nineteen — Rebecca Boese

1 2 9 12 14 19 24 27 33 47 48 49 55 57

Prose The Taxidermist’s Wife — Kevin Douglas Salty — Mia Silvan-Grau In Bloom — Natasha Thomas dream snippets — Rachel Feinberg Primavera — Johanna Stiefler Johnson

4 21 35 43 51

Visual Art California Donuts — 35 mm film — Harper Lyon Untitled — ink, digital — Aliona Filipchenko Twins — photography — Candace Osterhout Untitled — ink, digital — Aliona Filipchenko Night Lights — 4x5 film — Mark Peyton Austen — photography — Sarah Lemansky community — watercolor, digital — Justus Davis Self Care — photography — Sarah Lemansky Thoughts and Prayers — photography — Taryn Allen Untitled — 4x5 film — Annie Hodgkins Untitled, 2017 — digital photography — Weston Clark from Passing — photography — Zai Gray Rutter Untitled — photography — Tyler Healey 上善若水 (Shang Shan Ruo Shui)/ Water — photography — Xueyan Gao Still a Mystery — digital photography — Taryn Allen Mom at Sunrise — photography — Sarah Lemansky Untitled — ink, digital — Aliona Filipchenko Untitled — photography — Tyler Healey

1 3 8 10 11 13 18 20 23 26 28 29 34 42 47 50 53 56

Drowning Leah Scher

gave me and ir of concrete boots you oceans a pa flew over without rachute thought the ponds and ascaded thro i y were c ugh you f you onl louder i ould have ca t

California Donuts Harper Lyon 1

Dove

Candace Osterhout Light drowning in heat and dust, she reaches out like she is accepting communion wine, cradling the birds in her hands. The string is taut, and the feathers fell long before she arrived. Buried in pulverized tile. And even though they are just birdsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; skeletons of birds, maggots of birds, their splintered bones like fallen kitesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; she still wraps one in a towel as if to nurse it back to flight.

Untitled Aliona Filipchenko 3

The Taxidermist’s Wife Kevin Douglas

It was the night of Melody and Samuel’s 30th anniversary when she tripped and fell down the stairs, cracking her neck on the fifth step down. As the rest of her tumbled to the floor, her neck contorted further and further out of place until her torso was pressed to the ground and her empty eyes stared at the gaudy secondhand chandelier in the living room. She had just put on her nicest yellow dress and curled her salt & peppered hair for the evening. By the end of the night her efforts would have led to a ruined head of hair and a crumpled yellow dress at the foot of the bed they hadn’t dirtied in a year. But her new black pumps weren’t made for walking. That was clear now. Samuel wasn’t home to witness the fall. He sat in his office, biding his time before making the long drive home. He was excited for the evening. His annual orgasm was just a few hours away, and his balls hadn’t been bluer since senior prom. He and Melody’s unspoken contract regarding the arrangement had been going on for almost eight years now, but neither of them seemed to mind. Neither had gotten better looking since they’d known each other, and neither still had the energy to do it spontaneously. A year seemed like a reasonable amount of time to wait, to regain the energy lost from last year’s endeavor. Still, Samuel liked his office more than his home anyway. The flame he once held for Melody hadn’t disappeared, but relocated. The passion he put into organizing floral bouquets and penning poetry for his wife now went towards his craft. These days, he was more interested in raising the dead than charming his wife. His interest in death was what brought them together in the first place. Their affair began in one of Vermont’s largest funeral homes, Ferdinand’s, just after college. They were hallway acquaintances in school; they passed each other enough times on the small campus that brief eye contact and a mutual halfsmile became the norm when in one another’s vicinity, despite the fact they had never spoken a word. After graduation, Samuel was granted an apprenticeship under the 12th most respected mortician in the state. Melody’s sister had just passed from an unfortunate encounter with a bolt of lightning, and her family was browsing Ferdinand’s extensive coffin selection. They shared uncomfortable pleasantries, skirting around the dead elephant in the room. When the inevitable subject came up, the remorse planted itself across Melody’s face. Her eyes struck Samuel, two hazel cannons bursting with questions. Samuel wasn’t a stranger to this—his customers wore their grief on their sleeves—but in this moment, he wanted nothing more than to say the perfect thing, to say exactly what Melody 4

needed to hear. “There is an unrealized beauty in death that people seem to miss. In the stillness of body and mind, there’s a certain... grace. One that no one looks close enough to find. With death comes a peace that cannot be seen by the average eye. There is silence and simplicity in it—no changes of heart, no movement of body or soul. Just permanence. Tranquility.” They proceeded to find the nearest janitorial closet and have loud and unforgiving sex for thirty minutes. That initial lust carried them for many years of what would appear as a conventionally satisfying marriage. He lost the apprenticeship at Ferdinand’s for obvious reasons, but this turned out to be a blessing—he was more interested in taxidermy anyway, a trade handed down by his father. With a few loans and plenty of ambition, Samuel opened his private taxidermy practice: Samuel’s Angels Taxidermy. Melody began a non-profit organization to spread awareness of lightning strike-related injuries: Three Strikes & Yer’ Out! The two were happy that they could spend their days separately achieving their goals, and at the end of the night they could take their workplace frustrations and channel them in athletic and pleasurable ways. The unfaltering tides of time slowly eroded their seemingly unlimited sex drive. To Melody, the love that remained outside the bedroom was solid, but nothing to write home about. Her attitude toward Samuel was one of positive indifference—he was sweet, but not too sweet. He was sensitive, but opaque. He didn’t belittle her, but he didn’t empower her. He was there, but he wasn’t there. Samuel, on the other hand, was consumed by his love for Melody. While his business was struggling, while he was still perfecting his craft, he had nothing but her affection. That was his livelihood. He was no musician, but he tried to write her songs like his mother had for his father. He never felt they were good enough, so most of his lyrics wound up crumpled and soggy in the bottom of the trash bin. If she seemed distant, he would distance himself —he couldn’t risk appearing overbearing. He always acted in response to what he thought she needed. Always trying to yin her yang. Three Strikes & Yer’ Out! maintained consistently average attendance and impact, but Melody never gave up on the organization. The morning of her and Samuel’s anniversary, just hours before tripping down the stairs and snapping her neck like a twig, she had booked the local rec center to host the annual Shocking News conference for the 15th year in a row. Melody knew consistency, but she didn’t know much about growth. She didn’t care much about it—she was helping people, and that was enough. Samuel wasn’t of the same mindset. Once his taxidermy hobby became artistry, his drive for greatness became insatiable. He began to spend all his time 5

in the office: dead cats and dogs became his nighttime company while Melody slept miles away in their suburban home. His care went towards fiddling with pet corpses, perfecting the eyes, the teeth, the paws. He stopped writing songs for his wife. And this is how things were for a long time. Neither Samuel nor Melody seemed to mind. Anniversaries became more of a tradition, less of a celebration. Once a year, they could watch a rerun of their marriage’s Greatest Hits. It became routine. When Samuel walked through his front door to find the corpse of his wife gathering dust on the floor, he didn’t say a word. He laid himself onto the floor and touched the top of his head against hers. From above, the two resembled a young couple cloud-watching. The difference was that one laid on her stomach with smog cloaking her pupils, and the other could not stop sobbing. **** It took all Samuel’s strength to lift Melody onto his shoulders. He was not a particularly strong man. Melody was small, but the emotional weight felt like an elephant on Samuel’s back. But he wiped the tears away with his sleeve and proceeded out the front door. Once he set Melody down in the passenger seat of his car, he reached over her and secured the seat belt into its slot. He tugged at the shoulder strap to ensure it wasn’t too tight, and then at the waist strap in case it had pinched any skin. She had always been very sensitive to pain. After she was in place, he took a long look at his wife. She was sitting upright with perfect poise—she always scolded him for slouching, but he couldn’t help it. Aside from a head facing the wrong direction, Melody looked like a queen. How did Samuel end up with someone like her? He gently put his hands over her backwards ears and, with utmost delicacy, twisted her head back to its proper place. The tiny pops and cracks weren’t enough to make him shiver; he had heard them all before in his work. When she was turned back around, Samuel couldn’t help but smile at his beautiful wife. He thought she might have smiled back. Samuel started the car and turned on the radio. He had to shuffle around a few different stations before finding something Melody would like— she was big on oldies. Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., the whole Rat Pack. If he tried to show her anything remotely modern, she would just plug her ears and bust out her rendition of “Come Fly with Me,” like she was in musical warfare and only Sinatra & Friends were in her arsenal. In this moment, “Love Me or Leave Me” was on the air at just the right time. One of her favorites. Their nighttime drive was scored by the lively brass section, a contrast to the newborn silence coming from the happy couple. By the time they reached Samuel’s Angels, the tired buzz of the strip 6

mall was fast asleep. The only sign of life was the small liquor store two doors down, its neon light flickering to the beat of the music. As he got Melody out of the car and onto his back, Samuel glanced through the window of the liquor store. The stout, balding man behind the counter glanced back. The parking lot was empty, aside from the lone man with his unmoving wife draped around his shoulders. Samuel managed a friendly nod from where he stood, then turned and walked straight into the taxidermy shop. The man nodded back. What a lovely lady, he thought. Samuel gasped in relief as he set Melody onto his work table. Lifeless beasts around the room had their eyes fixated on her. A turtle’s mouth was slightly agape in permanent surprise. On the shelf, a cockeyed chicken and squirrel sat together in silent judgement. He couldn’t help but look around and feel his creations staring through him at his beloved. Even his proudest achievement, an elegant fox with its front paw raised as if posing for National Geographic, seemed glued to the specimen now gracing the table. Her gaze was green with envy. Samuel always began his process with a moment of silence. He would kneel before the table with one hand grazing the creature’s face, the other hovering over the scalpel. The ritualistic beginning lasted a minute, but this one felt like an eternity. His tears dripped onto the concrete floor. He wanted to weep out loud, but he wasn’t sure how soundproof his underground workroom was from the street above. He did not want to alarm the liquor store man. Samuel brought himself to his feet and sat himself before Melody. He always started with the face. He picked up the scalpel and mentally outlined his path. As he brought the knife to Melody’s jawline, his eyes met hers. He began to shiver. Her stillness made him hyper-aware of the chaos in his wrists, the dancing of his fingers. He couldn’t grip the knife any longer—it grazed her cheek as it dropped to the floor. How long had it been since he told her he loved her? Since he bought her flowers? Since he kissed her? “I love you.” “I love you, too.” The memory of her voice made him whimper. He could not live without her. He wished he had known this earlier. He wished he had told her. “I will never leave you.” He picked up the scalpel.

Twins Candace Osterhout 8

Villanelle for the Female Future Leah Scher

This month another girl went folding Like an origami shuriken ’Til she became a small enough plaything. She said lately her core’s been leaving her wondering How it learned to bend for that long, that far, And if there are others each month who also go folding. Last month one shed two linings, silver & red. A wellspring, They said. Bleeding out, she said. A pain that likes to mar Her posture as she doubles over into a small enough plaything. Look now, she’s regrown, and again, she’s undoing. A sigh for her timing, and other murmurs of those from afar Who think a girl can’t hear when she goes folding. All come done & undone like this, letting out everything That’s in until they’re no longer women. These warTorn veterans, once small enough playthings. Next month I want to catch a girl stargazing So I can point out the moon & how similar they look. She should try one month turning and not folding. She looks so tired from only ever shrinking.

Untitled Aliona Filipchenko

Night Lights Mark Peyton

Welcome to Town Nicholas Douglass

The house on the corner of Main And Willow is not real. Johnny Will dare you to enter, But ignore him. Old Ms. Taylor sees the future, But only stuff about Crosswalks And who will be sheriff In fourteen years. The creature in the steeple eats Only what it can fit Inside Its mouth, like bicycles And the odd dog. Sometimes people fade away Into the fog But usually they come back. The angel under the bridge Will always tell you lies. If you see your date of birth, Malevolent, On the dinerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sign, leave town. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ask your questions. Just hope That the answers come quick.

Austen Sarah Lemansky

Pancho Marrón Gerardo J. Lamadrid

“I was born a white girl in Puerto Rico but became a brown girl when I came to live in the United States.” -Judith Ortiz Cofer, “The Story of My Body” (Stop judging people by the color of their skin: judge them by the color of their sins ?) I love staring at the patch of brown on the green that burnt, birthed patch of brown on my wrist: mi manchita de plátano. Más ron, más Don Q , por favorto diss-dissolve the brown es soluble, This little patch o’ brown, mixed, stir up a bitches brew. Más ron para el marrón I used to be cristal,

¿verdad?

now I’m brown?

We’re here, we’re weird, conjuring up cocktails to forget that little bit of brown on our faces la raza está en la casa, la raza lista pa’ la caza. See-through skirts and kinky hair and crossfaded Snapchats for days how to cure, or inebriate, these five centuries and score of mezcolanza - why... we must be bartenders?

What’s the score?

Or am I wrong? Or should I speak? Should I explain the questions 14

Watercolor my piel roja en la playa, saltwater, agua de azúcar añejada under the blazing sun del cañaveral, at 5pm on a summer day, met the negra and el mayoral, and they did not all have fun it was not a Tinder date. Aquí se mide la densidad de las pieles by I don’t know when the minorities will be the majorities back home we just want to get drunk off that sweet, brown pitorro de almendra you know almonds are not endemic to PR, and here I have to explain that pitorro is boricua moonshine though I always felt it more like sunshine. But that brown brine builds up until one day you find, you’re a lot of a kind and none of it. I’m not that dark anyway, mírame, si yo soy blanquito, I could pass for a gringo.

Oh, stop it!

Green go! I lay on the green for a white Sunday picnic how different am I from that patch of brown amidst the green? How different am I? Could you call me Pancho Marrón? Or is that too racist?

Because we’ve been wondering lately what with all the needing federal aid and the ever-increasing talk of second-class citizenship how brown are we? Are we gonna have to keep praying a la Virgen María por culpa de María waiting on help from México y Latinoamérica -

because we’re not WASP enough? Because you feel guilty for race, but not colonialism? No, really, I’d like to know. Green go!

Green come!

El Atlántico tiene esos días en Ocean Park que se ve casi verde a las 5 de la tarde or is that just me? Or is that just? I’ve been not wanting to judge, pero We’ve been going through a lot, and the flag at my bed and Lin-Manuel’s song just ain’t gonna cut it what will? The capataz’ whip? The Red Cross for our red skins below the cross? Me harta preguntar, and yet I must: if I was darker, what would you do? Or should I just look at your Manifest Destiny and figure out our destiny? Because I’ve been trying. I’ve read the history books, I’ve seen the referendum statistics, I’ve witnessed the inaction at your steps ¿llegará el día de las tres Marías? Will the boulder move? Or must we move it cuz we brown, mastuh? Just a little marrón is enough to get the leader of the free world playing games with us is that not inscribed in the Resolute desk? “If they’re too dark, stay resolute! Don’t let that soluble skin fool you! Play basketball with them - that’s what they’re good at!” Is a white savior not good enough? That’s what we’ve been taught forever.

And is not the Savior amongst us? - That’s what we’ve been taught forever? We came here thinking it couldn’t get any worse there - here - everywhere - forever. But when we look around we see oh shit, it can get a lot worse.

It is.

Aquí y allá - jodidos, perennemente jodíos. I’ve got you slipping through my light fingertips with colored nails freedom. Fernando e Ysabel, Trump. What’s the difference? If we’re just always too different, wherever, whenever we go, if ever we show - just enough of ourselves. Heron ringin’ through the harem if you ain’t white, you fucked. Even then, you’re fucked. I say we burn the fields and our skin what say we start anew? Baptized by hurricanes of fire am I not human enough? Are we just dark, dark, dark ghosts?

community Justus Davis

Triolet

Julia DiFiori Earrings makeup remover floss burns bruises scars fibonacci moss table chair hi hello New Yorker gloss cutting corners, cutting loss our bodies guzzling like cars bite once into apple and toss wherever we are going must not be that far Stretch marks freckles bug bite scratch cleanse moisturize hydrate bouquet of weeds seed pods ash birthmarks tattoos flybuzz good catch two whitesrips one day good match two joints one evening stretched late why the ones before us why us now why anyone beyond us at this rate

Self Care Sarah Lemansky

Salty

Mia Silvan-Grau I remember the days when my legs hung over the toilet, feet nowhere near the ground even if I pointed my toes. Those were also the days I would stand next to you while you brushed your teeth, my chin scarcely reaching the top of the sink. I used to watch mesmerized as you gargled water, the sound of the ocean at the back of your throat, living inside of you. I was almost convinced it did, the way you would spit on the side of the road, a need to empty out the water. How you told me that those big conch shells held the waves inside of their small pink spirals. It made sense. The ocean still held a magic you believed in even at forty, one that was palpable when you took me to the beach. You made me love the ocean before I could even pronounce the word. On your shoulders, you ran me into the water, salt water up the nose, boogers everywhere, eyes stinging. Bringing me above the surf and you looked at me the way you looked at the ocean, wiped the tears, the salt, the hair away, made me believe I had magic living in me too, pink swimsuit days when I still believed in the word. On 10 p.m. awake nights, you told me not be afraid of sleeping because I was always safe with you in the house. You would tell me the mountain story, a soft meditation, and whisper that my dreams were made of a mind you helped create, that you would never make something that would hurt me. When you left for that permanent rest, the bad dreams you said were only of a beautiful mind grew more painful by the day. The house didn’t feel safe anymore and neither did sleeping. I quit the ocean for two years, stopped believing in its magic. I would not believe that its sand glittered gold when the crest uplifted it. It was an act of resistance. If I couldn’t have the ocean with you then I wouldn’t have it at all. But I was also petrified of the crabs, and the sharks, and the big surf if you weren’t there to pull me up, if you weren’t there to protect me. I stopped believing in magic the day I learned that night skies were good 21

to wear to funerals. I stopped believing in myself because you were my magic. How could I if I didn’t have you, if I didn’t have the ocean? Eleven years later and I find myself with the same tendency to rid myself of the water, occasionally on the side of the road, occasionally in tears, it’s all the same anyway, just salty water.

Thoughts and Prayers Taryn Allen

Virgil Speaks With Dante Alexander Eden

Let’s cut the poetics, Dante, and let’s pick up the pace, please. Do you know where we are? Do you know where I am right now and what I’m doing for you, Dante? We are in Hell. I am in Hell. And I’m here to take you to Lucifer’s frozen ring Through the literal planes of torment Because I owed some woman a favor. I saved you in those woods, Dante. I am guiding you on a path to salvation So could you at least do me the favor of not stopping Whenever curiosity takes hold to ask me what’s going on? I am saving your soul, Dante. You have a soul that can be saved. You were born with the privilege of being baptized And you were going to throw paradise away. I was born without baptism. I lived a pure life as any. And how was I rewarded? Limbo. Not even a chance to go to Heaven like you, Dante, I was sent to the first ring of Hell for what I believed. You turn to me A poet And ask me to bottle up all of the horrors from this existence Into a digestible morsel But do you not understand that I am as human as you are? I have seen the deaf and blind bathe in an endless sea of shit. I have seen lovers blown in an endless wind for the sin of passion. I have seen men eternally drowning in boiling blood And you expect me to know why this is all here? 24

I do not know, Dante, I do not know why there is so much suffering here Because torture works in mysterious ways And I, a poet, have the duty to help others pass through This torture that I do not even understand. Now, Dante, the sixth ring is upon us. Please, let us quickly get to the ninth And get out of this God damned place!

Untitled Annie Hodgkins

daisy by marc jacobs Julia Wasilewski

how is it that the smell of a rotten potato— a shriveled little thing in my pantry— is enough to excuse myself from every family barbecue for the rest of my life? or how the smell of a decaying clam on the shore is enough to resent the sun and the sea. i don’t enjoy summers like i did as a girl. they are not fun anymore. age twenty one i learn that sex is supposed to be fun, even pleasurable. here lies a new and profound idea. pleasure is foreign to me, i don’t speak fun. i convince myself that i liked it each time my lover falls asleep next to me, his soft penis looks wrinkled and ugly and it makes me sick. soon i learn that i am capable of feeling pleasure the way my lover does, but mostly: terrible thoughts linger like a bad smell. i cannot shake them. it clings to you forever like chain restaurant grease.

Untitled, 2017 Weston Clark

Passing | Zai Gray Rutter

In the case of transgender individuals, it is the other, the public, the society, that has the power to recognize them as intelligble or not, the power to give them value as human beings. It is also important, however, for transgender people to give recognition to their own self, though it is inevitably â&#x20AC;&#x153;bound up with social critique and transformation.â&#x20AC;?55

Passing | Zai Gray Rutter

Passing and Self-Hatred It is recognized in sociology that the members of the lower social strata tend to accept the fashions, values and ideals of the higher strata. In the case of the underprivileged group it means that their opinions about themselves are greatly influenced by the low esteem the majority has for them.

Passing | Zai Gray Rutter

For many transgender people, passing means being able to live and work in the world in the gender with which they identify. Rather than a refuge of necessity, transgender passing becomes an aspiration, and experienced trans people sometimes offer advice in journals and websites on how to pass successfully. Trans people who live so that very few people know their trans identity are said to be “in stealth.” However, even though trans passing has a more positive definition than black/white or gay/straight passing, the trans person who hides his or her trans identity can suffer the same isolation and alientation as others who attempt to pass. The fear of being found out and the separation of the self from one’s own kind take a great emotional toll. In the trans classic Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg’s hero Jess Goldberg mourns the outsider status she has among women when she successfully passes as a man among them.

Passing | Zai Gray Rutter

“You are so beautiful,” she whisperered. “Handsome, I should have said you are so handsome.”

For the complete “Passing” photo series and artist’s statement, please visit our website at blacklistjournal.com.

Kelp Bed Sam Keezell

Please help. please don’t step through the kelp bed spread in front of my door that reeks of low tide decaying matter and is fatter now from drinking refinery runoff I don’t expect you to be patient while I keep wasting time trying to heal myself with the same broken tool I don’t know how you could watch me continue to fall gracelessly the shame stings I keep playing the ring-around-the-misery game but can’t get off this ride can’t keep coming to you and confide all my misguided moves my sense of pride looks like the towns by Santa Rosa there’s nothing left but burnt remains. It pains me to carry this remorse but it drains me more to think of outsourcing it to you I’m through burdening others I’m gonna contain the burning to my own parched corpse though the heat seeps out and the fires will not wane. Soon I will be but ashes of an elegant home so many people tried to maintain 33

Untitled Tyler Healey

In Bloom

Natasha Thomas

Bai Yin, I’ve been thinking about you again recently. It’s been months since I last thought of you. So many peaceful months. It all forgotten. Until yesterday, that is. You snuck into my mind again, like you always do eventually. They all do. It goes like this every time. I will be enveloped in silence like a newborn child in the world. Only surrounded by soft noises and watercolors. And then you all return to me and I am like a child that has dreamt of some horrific violence that incapacitates me and wracks my body with sobbing. It is during these times when I am most prone to drinking. Just now I’m waking up with a horrible hangover. It feels like someone is taking a mallet to my temples and, excuse the extension of this metaphor, but my head reverberates like a gong as sound comes crashing in my ears. I will probably get another drink once I can raise myself from this bed and then spend the rest of this week incredibly drunk until I forget again. Forgive me for trying to forget you, my sister. It is not so much you as everyone. But yes, you are included, for it is your face that haunts me most. I can see you right now at the foot of my bed. You are sitting there with your two thick black braids resting just beneath your shoulders. You are laughing at me, dimples exposed on either cheek, telling me I’m a drunkard, a fool. You tell me to quit wallowing and pick myself up off the bed. Your laugh is loud, mercilessly so. I want to join in—the whole room wants to join in. It is the most infectious laugh in the world. I feel my lips smile. Ever so slowly, a red blot appears on your clean white shirt. My smile fades and you stop laughing. You look down and we both watch the blood expand in amazement. Like a gentle rose, it blooms, soaking the entire shirt. This is wrong. You are not the one that was shot. That is father’s blood. You shake your head. Bai Yin, I cannot breathe. Gin clears my throat. You stand and leave out the door. *** It has been two days. I think I can tell you what happened now—what triggered your memory again. Suddenly I feel inspired to write. For one thing I’m still 35

drunk and therefore quite numb. For another thing, I have had time to think about what it was that put me into such a terrible state and believe I have identified it. Your hair. I was at the brothel on Tuesday when I remembered it. It’s not what you think. I’m not that type. Well, I used to be. But now I’m genuinely in love with one of them. Zhu Hui is her name. She’s very witty, and terribly beautiful. Her hair spills down her back in smooth tresses and she has these round lips and soft brown eyes. They are lighter than any of the other girls’ and so deep and rich that I could get lost in them forever. She is madly in love with me too. She says she waits for me. Doesn’t let any of the other men get at her if she can help it, because she knows I’m coming and she’d rather be with me. That is total bullshit, I know. But the fact she insists on it so fervently is very touching. She is thirsty for my approval even if she needn’t be. What she doesn’t realize is that she has me wrapped around her finger. Perhaps I’m too sarcastic with her. It’s a weak façade that gives me some guise of power. All I want is for her to adore me as I adore her. Sometimes I’ll go to her and we’ll just sit for hours—my head in her lap as she fingers my hair and tells me about her life. I know all about her past now, about her childhood. About her triangulating thoughts and desires. She knows a lot about me too. Not about you. But she knows I don’t speak with my family. She knows all about my time in the army. Stuff like that. I would marry her, but I’m very difficult to live with. Even I find it hard to live with myself sometimes. It’s because weeks like these happen. Because alcohol. Because depression. Because poverty. There are many reasons I would make her miserable and I would not want that for her. Besides, things are working. We have a system and its fine. It allows me to become like I am now in isolation. I worry and disturb no one, until I reemerge on the other side. You forgotten. I forget what I was going to tell you. Why did I begin speaking about Zhu Hui again? I would go back and read what I wrote before this but my eyes are too blurry. Oh yes. Your hair. It was very simple. I was with Zhu Hui. We were putting our clothes back on when she turned to me and said, “Will you braid my hair.” “Braid your hair? How would I know how to make a braid?” I teased. “I can teach you.”

I did in fact know how to braid hair. As a child I had learned from you. You taught me using your doll. “I know how to braid hair, Zhu Hui.” She snorted. “Why, did you used to have a rattail?” “No. I had a younger sister.” “I’ve never heard you speak of her before.” “I told you I don’t like to speak about my family. Come here. I’ll braid your hair for you.” Zhu Hui came obediently to me and I set about splitting her hair and braiding it. I was out of practice, so the braids were lumpy. When I was finished she turned towards me and smiled. “How does it look?” It was the two braids. There was always one on each side of your face and the fringe would hang just above your raised eyebrows. The braids would swing from side to side when you ran. Whenever you bent over your work you would sweep them behind your shoulders, only for them to fall into your vision again. Your hair was never as long as Zhu Hui’s but something about the thickness or the texture brought your hair to my mind. I felt suddenly very weak. “Fine. Looks fine.” It took all my effort to say these feeble words. “What are you looking at me like that for?” Zhu Hui asked. She went to examine herself in the mirror, but already you had set in. You were sitting right beside me. I kept my eyes cast down so I wouldn’t have to look at you. “I look so proletarian!” exclaimed Zhu Hui. “Who asked you to put it in two braids?” “It’s the only way I know how,” I said. I must have said it oddly because suddenly Zhu Hui was kneeling down before me. “Is everything okay, Wen Ru?” I took out my wallet and removed some money. After this withdrawal my wallet was as good as empty. “You’ve already paid,” said Zhu Hui. “I have?” “It’s upfront. As always.” “I need to get going.” I stuffed the money back in my wallet. “Thank you.” My eyes were blinded with your hair. You were running off, giggling, you whipped your head around to look at me, braids swinging about you. Once I left the brothel I headed straight to a nearby liquor store and asked for ten bottles of the cheapest and strongest liquor. The shop owner looked at me pityingly, but didn’t ask any questions. 37

This liquor is what has sustained me for the last couple days. I looked in the mirror earlier today. I look disgusting. I haven’t showered. My hair is sticking out all over my head. It’s greasy and matted. And the worst part is, my eyes are bloodshot. I look almost as wild as Shi Hai did. But not quite. Shi Hai’s eyes were like coals that day. No human could have eyes like that. Not that black. Not that shiny. And then there was that third eye. Yes, that is how I remember it. Looking down that barrel was just the same as seeing into a third tunneling eye of our own brother. Do you remember that? We all froze at the dinner table. The room became frigid. The silence might have fooled someone into thinking we were all dead. Your voice broke the perfect tableau. “Don’t,” you pleaded with our brother. “Don’t do it.” He was thirteen years old and the gun shook in his hand. My hands are shaking now. I doubt I will be able to read these characters I write when I wake up again from this memory. If I couldn’t save you, perhaps I could have saved Shi Hai, but I knew nothing at the time. Mother and I gaped in amazement. We were the only two kept in the dark at that point. Our darkness was a much quieter dark than Shi Hai’s burning eyes—but it was a dark all the same. If only I’d known then. If only I’d known, perhaps our brother would not have gone to jail… But would I have gone then? And if I did, would Shi Hai have gone down the same path as me? Would he be the one here right now drinking pitifully to no end in an anonymous, crummy room in the city? Perhaps he is drinking somewhere else. What I would give to share a drink with him in this moment—to sit across from my brother. If only I knew where he was. I miss him. He used to have the most beautiful whistle. Do you remember? What a sweet sound he made just blowing air through his tautened lips. He loved to whistle. He loved animals too. He was always playing with stray dogs and tending to our neighbors’ horses and sheep without them asking. He knew every single one of our chickens by name and grew angry when one had to be killed. He was so soft-spoken and serious. When he first started school the other boys and girls were mean to him. He would come home with a split lip or dirt on his pants or a crumpled notebook, but he never said a thing. That stopped though. One un-extraordinary day people just left him alone. There was a mystery about him that people feared I suppose. He wasn’t loud and boisterous like I used to be and he wasn’t fierce and 38

charming like you. What a strange and handsome child he was and never was he more handsome or more strange than that day his eyes burned with fury and he pointed that gun at our father. Which was louder would you say? The gunshot or mother’s scream? I could’ve sworn my ears were bleeding. They’ve been bleeding all this time, and I don’t think they’ve ever stopped. *** Today a friend came to check on me. He lives in the building. He said he was worried because he hadn’t seen me for days, but he’d heard noises coming from my room that sounded like yelling. When I opened the door he took a step back. “Is that you? Wen Ru! You look terrible.” “I know,” I grunted. I wanted him to go away. It’s embarrassing how bad I’ve gotten. This is one of the long spells. There are times when it’s been shorter. There have also been times when it’s gone on for weeks. But I’m afraid I’ve been particularly negligent of my personal hygiene this time. Screw hygiene though. There is so much dirty with this world, why be clean? Nonetheless, my friend insisted I get washed up. He drew a bath for me and set out some clean clothes. He kept on asking what had happened to me. I didn’t know what to say so I told him I was ill with an onset of overwrought nerves. He eyed all the alcohol bottles. “Shit! Did you drink all this?” “Yes.” Five of the bottles were finished. The five remaining bottles sat by my dingy little window. The others were strewn about the room wherever I had finished them. Our family has always had a great capacity for drinking. Even you, and you were only fourteen. How mother used to beat you when she found you drunk. It wasn’t your fault though. My friend shook his head and blew air out of his nostrils as he gathered the bottles and put them outside my door. He began to reach for the full bottles. “No,” I said. “Leave them.” “You are going to drink yourself to death.” I shrugged. “How long have you been here?” “What day is it?” “What?” “The day,” I demanded. 39

“Friday.” “Friday. It must have been Monday that I saw Zhu Hui. So four days then.” “Five bottles in four days?” He gaped at me. “Yes,” I said, “it’s the only thing that helps.” “Can I get you anything?” “No,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” “Should I get a doctor?” “I’ve already seen one,” I lied. “Please, leave me alone. I just need to rest. I will be better in a few days.” “Aiyo.” He sighed and stood. “Let me at least get you something to eat.” “There’s no need—” “I insist,” my friend said, making his way towards the door. I didn’t have the energy to protest. He came back a couple minutes later with some steamed buns in a plastic bag. I devoured them quickly, which was a mistake because I felt quite sick afterwards. But I thanked my friend and told him I felt much better. Before he left he said again, “You should see a doctor,” and then closed the door quietly behind him. A doctor. Is that where one went in these situations? There was our father bleeding on the floor and there you were at the table in stunned silence across from mother’s equally stony face. “Is it true?” I kept on asking. “Is it true?” Where was Shi Hai? True. Fact. Father was bleeding on the floor. Shi Hai’s words still burned the air. “You touched her you dirty dog! You made her put your penis in her mouth and told her not to tell! I saw you! You scum!” His burning eyes darted to mine. Tears and snot stained his skin. He turned and ran. “What do we do?” I said to mother. “Do we go for the doctor?” I turned to you. “Do you need a doctor?” You had buried your face in your arms. Your braids were the only things we saw. They rested quietly on your shoulders. One of them was coming undone. The ribbon had fallen out. The tightly coiled hair had come unraveled halfway. Bai Yin, you’re killing me. Mother said my name. “Get a doctor for your father. I will tend to Bai 40

Yin.” You raised your eyes and looked at me. It was like looking into the deepest wells in the world. Bai Yin, you’re drowning me. Your mouth was flat, your lips pressed together so tight a white line had formed around them. I looked for a smile. I could not see your face. Bai Yin. “He did that, Bai Yin?” I could not see you anymore. Laughing loudly. Flipping your hair. “I’m fine,” you said. No one in the whole world could believe you. You’d lost your face. The unraveled braid was the only thing. Maybe you said more. I hear nothing. There was father on the floor. Shi Hai had only hit our father’s shoulder, but he was still bleeding on the ground. Do you still draw little flowers planted along the bottom of every page in every notebook? That’s what I want to know. Father said he loved you. It was out of genuine love. I joined the army. The night I left, you and I got drunk and filled the streets of town with laughter. We decided to go looking for Shi Hai in the village. We yelled his name out in the darkened streets. People yelled at us to shut up out their windows. It was the middle of the night. Eventually we lost track of each other. I don’t even know if you made it home. I fell asleep on the sidewalk. The next morning I woke up and left on the bus out of town without a backward glance. It was a lovely spring day. My sister, just leave me alone. When will this good bye be over? Why do you always have to come back? I cannot see your face and my head hurts. *** Something left the room last night. What it was, I can’t remember. In any case, I feel much better today. I think I might go outside. The alcohol is gone. I’m hungry.

上善若水 (Shang Shan Ruo Shui)/ Water Xueyan Gao

dream snippets Rachel Feinberg

4/21/14 The night of your senior ball, a boy who you have never seen in real life knocks on your front door and asks you to be his date. You say yes. Together you walk through your neighborhood until you arrive at the venue: a hotel with a spiral staircase at the center of its lobby. There’s a game at the top, a butler tells you. You and your date ascend and join the other players. A hallway lined with doors stretches to your right and left. Night suddenly shifts into day, and the staircase fractures like a puzzle. It falls away. A voice introduces itself as the gamekeeper, and announces the rules from hidden speakers. In each room is an obstacle course with an exit. If you reach the exit alive, you move on to the next room. Your date fades to the background as you battle through several rooms. In one room you battle kids with weapons. In another you do nothing but navigate a sea of dead dogs. And in another you must climb the walls to avoid impalement on the steel spikes protruding from the floor. The gamekeeper introduces a special room to you: the Quitters’ Room, where you can hang yourself on provided nooses if you get too overwhelmed. Over time you accumulate points, you watch your allies enter the Quitters’ Room, you beat rooms and beat the game, but you never find your date. 12/10/14 A ghost haunts your house. You can’t see her unless you look through your phone’s camera. She throws walnuts at you out of nowhere, and while you bat them aside, you say you’re willing to help and find out who killed her. She agrees to help by appearing in your dreams and guiding you on your case. She follows you in daily life and helps you hunt for clues. Now you’re at the mall, gas station, an upper-class residency, and you wear a light blue dress, white stockings, and your hair is long and black. A black mist contaminates the air. Black spots cover your hand, sinks into your skin, flows through your veins. You collapse, die. Wake. 12/16/16 You’re in college, but you transferred to another campus that’s larger, more public and difficult to navigate. In your trembling hand is a new schedule. You don’t know all the professors or where to go. You can’t load the room listings on your phone so you head to the main office for help. Then you attend 43

your first class, arts and crafts, which is reminiscent of your crazy high school art class, where your teacher asked if you were Jewish because your last name and your nose are Jewish. Wow, was she crazy. You still remember the time she phoned the office to report a student that was “threatening” her and could they please send someone to remove her from the class? You sat in the back of the room next to the “threatening” student, whose only “threatening” action was talking back to the teacher in a not-smug, not-angry, not-rude voice. She wasn’t “threatening” at all. But in this class, the dream class, you have to create a new, functional object by combining in-class materials. Everything you create keeps falling apart. Time is ticking and you’ll have to complete something by the end of the period. You wake before the bell rings, and thank goodness because you freaking fail at art class. 12/26/16 Now you’re Wendy in her classic blue dress tagging along after Peter Pan. You can also fly, so you go around a city trying to find Peter, but it’s difficult to keep up with his shadow. You have a flute whistle that alerts him to any danger you might be in, and you use it when people come after you. But it doesn’t work with your lips. You toss it to a passerby who easily blows a short and sharp tune. Peter comes but doesn’t seem particularly happy to see you, though you are destined to be together. Wendy and Peter Pan, forever and always. You’re different from the real Wendy, though, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t want you. You want to stay with Peter in Neverland for eternity because you’ll never become an adult, never be expected to date, marry, bear kids—a shame, then, that Peter wants a Wendy who decides to grow up and leave him. 2/8/17 Somehow you now have a boyfriend. The setting: a party in a large estate with him and your family. You don’t really talk about becoming a pair, but your parents seem to think you’re together and they approve. They ask for his age and after finding out he’s nineteen, your family happily looks at each other and say that’s okay. It’s not like he can take advantage of you when you’re older than him. You don’t know how you feel about relationships—you’ve always been a bit repulsed by them. You’re cringey around him and lean away when he puts his arm around you. Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross, you think. You go into a social room on the second-floor of a mansion and head to a mirror that also functions as a window and portal into another family’s living room. Through it is your boyfriend’s family, and the sight repulses you, but you want to escape from your boyfriend. You try to go through the portal, but you can’t, and you’re stuck in a mansion with that stupid boy. Another mission failure. What the heck is wrong with you? Why can’t you do the normal thing 44

for once? Just grab his freaking hand and date him. It’s simple. Everyone does it. Why can’t you, you freaking loser? 4/16/17 In this shitty dream you have a game board that resembles the Monopoly Collect & Win Game that a bunch of grocery and pharmacy stores participate in at the start of the year. Every time you complete an achievement you fill in one of the slots. Each slot has a specific achievement, but you can’t read any of them because your vision sucks. You know you’re dreaming, but you manage to stay inside your head. You manage to laugh at how pathetic it is that you can’t see your accomplishments in real life or in the dream world. You manage to play along with the dream. Suddenly the dream shifts. Time passes. You start filling in the slots though you don’t know what you’ve done to earn them. Your love life is lackluster. Your writing career is stuck. Your high school friends aren’t talking to you anymore. Your communications with your Internet friend in New York is trickling down to an occasional text. You don’t know what you want to do with your life. You’re stuck. You’re stuck and it’s a wonder that your anxiety isn’t peppering you with panic attacks and sleepless nights. But you’re filling your Monopoly/Bingo board, so that you’ve got to be doing something right. It’s not like you’re dead or living on the streets, right? Well, now that your game board is filling up, you’re earning rewards. Some of them are unlocked universes. Now you can escape reality. BUT OF COURSE something goes wrong when you try to activate your rewards. Nothing happens when you try jumping into another universe. You want to cry. Instead you laugh. You don’t know what you’re doing. Your dreams are a mess. Your life is a mess. Everything about you is a mess. Get a job, why don’t you? 5/17/18 You forget to record this dream for almost an hour. Some of the details slip from your memory as you scribble down whatever remains in your brain. Remembering dreams without a journal is like trying to hold water in your cupped hands; no matter how miniscule the gaps between your fingers and palms, water finds a way out. It drips. It evaporates. It gets absorbed into your skin. It’s gone. All you remember about this dream is attending an indoor ball with your parents and one of your Filipino aunties who might be directly related to you. You think she’s a distant cousin of your mom, but what do you know? Filipinos are intent on assigning everyone a title. Auntie, Uncle, Cousin, Grandma, Grandpa. Your grandparents are dead—have been for years—but you still have 45

four-ish living grandparents. Anyway, your auntie dances with you and asks if your date is coming around so she can hand you off. Or so you think. You don’t remember if she actually said anything, but you think she did. You have a feeling she did. Then your mom walks you around the ballroom, and your dad follows, and you look down at your ball gown and hate that it looks like a wedding cake that someone vomited confetti all over and that it’s not well-fitting and that you don’t have the boobs to fill it out and that there’s an ugly painting of an upside bouquet of red and pink flowers embroidered on the front of the bottom tier of thick fabric and that everyone’s giving you a funny look because you look fucking ridiculous and your parents are following you around. You go to a large alcove in the back of the ballroom, where two rows of fitting rooms flow down the walls. People in casual clothes are waiting their turn to change into their gowns and tuxes. Your mom starts fiddling with the laces on the back of your corset. You didn’t know they were there, but now that they’re tied tight, the dress fits properly. The straps that hung the dress over your shoulders drape down your arms; they’re not supposed to be on your shoulders, after all. You’re supposed to have bare shoulders, which you hate on a normal day, but people are giving you envious looks now, and you glance in a mirror and see how beautiful you’ve become with a simple change. Your mom reminds you of your date. Yes, you remember him. He’s Asian, either Japanese or Korean or Chinese, or a mixture of any two or all three. His jet black hair is pulled into a high ponytail. He looks like a movie star. You know he’s supposed to be here, but you can’t find him. When you wake, you remember the face of a guy who often visits your Japanese class. He’s East Asian, and his hair is long enough to tie up. Sometimes he talks to you. Yesterday, you saw him in the campus shop when you returned your rental textbooks. He nodded at you. You nodded back. He’s a chill guy, but he’s graduating this year and you’ll likely never see him again. You’re not even friends. Why bother? (5/25/17: He’s from Laos, you dimwit.)

the one time i forgot to buckle my seatbelt Katherine Oksen

the number of times i unlatched your belt buckle juxtaposed with the ferocity of my knees buckling when i found out she had done it too i have fingernails the color of raspberry jam with which i would jam nails into your open palms if i still thought you had a holy body

Still a Mystery Taryn Allen

A Lighthouse in the Dark Hangil Ryu

Everyday, he stumbles out the brick house old as him, but straighter framed, and bends over a bent back to choose bright red bricks just right in size and color. He places bright red brick into broken two wheel wheelbarrow, his imbalance dark dead gray eyes stumbling on bright red bricks. He heaves angel hair arms and hoists full of fire bricks nearer the unfinished lighthouse and wonders if the cleansing cool waters near, free and not giving a damn, boiled by red bricks will make his angel arms warm, full of red spaghetti. He stacks bricks hour by hour, high as blue Building a new Babel wondering if God will recognize those gray eyes as Its own. What is the language of dead gray eyes? It is easier to see than to describe. --One day, he may finish. The world may stumble from all over in French and Spanish and Chinese to see bright red bricks full of life and full of fire. One night he may get up from bed and cast his silence in their dark. He will trip because he cannot see in full of fire, full of life brick lighthouse. He wonders only then, for those still stumbling outside, if he turned his lighthouse on. 48

Landscapes Jackson Holbert I December gathered the birds and fled. I wrote music I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand. The black pick-up burning in the black trees. Crows will come and I have to live. Spring fills with razorblades. I hide. II Ponies chasing their fathers. The night: a seam of coal with stars hammered in it. Birds and the sound of birds. The water. The spiders in the trees.

Mom at Sunrise Sarah Lemansky

Primavera

Johanna Stiefler Johnson Estate (Summer)

There was a different sun in Italy—of this, Violet was convinced. She tilted her face toward it and closed her eyes, allowing its warmth to stroke her face as she admired the orb of white imprinted on her eyelids. Italy’s sunlight was pink-tinged and unwavering, and it was for this reason, she was sure, that the Italians were always so relaxed. Their sun loved them and they in turn loved all that life offered them. Violet inhaled a dandelion breeze while the Fiume Po floated by, carrying with it rolling otters and gleaming ducks. She was sitting on a splintered bench overlooking the river. A tree above her shifted its shadow on the ground, the leaves appearing to dance and pirouette. Behind her, couples kissed while they walked, bicycles wheels zipped and squealing children discovered the beauty of the world for the first time. Violet crossed one knee over the other and opened her book: Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Marta had given her the afternoon off. Luca was at school and the household chores that day were minimal. In fact, there had been little to do since her arrival the week before, but her responsibilities would increase as time wore on. Her host mother wanted her, first, to feel at home. She was only seventeen after all and away from her family for the first time in her life. A small flower fresh from her primary education and seeking a year of adventure before falling into another routine, Violet had come across a website for au pairs to meet host families. This was where she had found Marta, the single mother of a three-year-old in Torino, eager for someone to help around the house and teach her son English. The same day Violet contacted her, Marta replied asking how soon she could start. Now here she was, una ragazza Americana on Italian ground. This idea aroused something deeply artistic inside her—an urge to paint, to write. And so she sat with a view of the river reading Kafka, weak with content, while the shadows of leaves did ballet below her. Autunno (Autumn) Luca bared milk teeth at me, the sides of his eyes crinkling. A lion cub attempting ferocity. To me he was full-grown, a monster. It was three months in and he still hadn’t warmed to me; what was I doing wrong? Whenever his mother tried to leave he clung to her legs and screamed for her to stay until his face shone

pomodoro-red. Outside, some of the leaves started bleeding. The greens melted into meeker versions of themselves until they were not green but yellow. Then the yellow leaves were spiked with orange. Some appeared to turn ginger all at once, like a switch being flipped. “Mamma!” Luca shrieked in a pitch uncomfortably high for adult ears. Marta assured me that this is just what children do, and advised me to have patience. But Luca had never been forced into such close quarters alone with anyone except his mother and grandparents. He growled, snapped, bit, cried until he hiccupped. I dreaded my time alone with him, feared his determined hostility toward me. Marta was convinced that his behavior was normal for a boy his age. Some leaves went directly from green to red, and glowed in their gory redness. From the kitchen window the trees were set on fire at sunrise and sunset, shattering the previous months of green and growing. The leaves charred to brown, withering like tarred lungs, lost their grips on tender twigs. “Luca, pass Violet the water,” said Marta at the dinner table. “No!” cried the boy, and if she asked him again he would start to cry. “Is this normal?” I aimed this question at my parents on Skype. “Normal depends on the culture you’re in,” said my mother. So it was their Italian-ness. La bella Italia, my torturous betrayer; it was not what it was meant to be! I allowed the tears to swallow my face only in the dead of night. And yet when most of the leaves had been sacrificed, Luca knocked on my door and entered with his favorite blue teddy bear. “Do you want to play?” he said, and all was saved. Inverno (Winter) When the trees were bare and the snowcaps began to creep down the mountains, you were no longer Violet. The endless collection of ashy skies, spitting rain and sleet onto the city, took its toll on you. The wind that nipped at your cheeks when you picked Luca up from school was wicked. All was gray and black, and you longed for a world blanketed in snow; without snow the cold was intolerable, deformed. You woke up with melancholy waiting at the bottom of your first cup of tea. But there were small comforts. You found some friends in other au pairs, from Canada and Australia, whom you met at an intermediate Italian class. You compared your host families over cappuccinos and pasticcini and pizza. You ordered in Italian to impress each other. “Una margherita, per favore.” And Luca came to adore you. He asked you to do puzzles with him and held your hand when you walked side by side. You spoke English to him and he responded in Italian, and you understood each other. Marta roasted chestnuts on the stovetop and the three of you ate them with warm milk in the buttery glow of the kitchen lamp, listening to Bach. She bought you a scarf for Christmas, which you all spent with Nonno and Nonna, who didn’t know any English. 52

Untitled Aliona Filipchenko 53

You missed your family intensely, but Marta had only taken a week off for the holiday, and Luca was off from school for three. She needed you there. On Christmas Eve you cried yourself to sleep thinking of your parents and sisters and all the family traditions. It did not snow until the fourth day of March. On that day, the snowflakes exploded from the sky like confetti on a stage. The city was buried. In the evening all three of you armored yourself in winter clothes and drove half an hour to a forest. It was higher up and the snow was several feet deep, all the trees iced like pillars of cake. At sunset, the forest glowed pearly pink and you were so moved by its beauty that you forgot what it was to feel blue. You were Violet. Primavera (Spring) “Look!” cried Luca in English. His little finger jabbed into the window, on the other side of which was a pale blue butterfly. It flicked its wings in a flirtatious sort of way, then leapt from the sill and fluttered away. Luca’s enormous eyes watched it until it was out of sight. I was reminded of a question I had once heard, asked by a young girl in a New York Times video: Do blue butterflies eat parts of the sky? “Farfallina,” said Luca, his eyes urgent as they met mine. “Yes, it was a small butterfly,” I said, smoothing the hair away from his forehead. I dressed him in a light sweater and trainers and we went for a walk. He brought his bubble blower and filled our path with shimmering rainbow planets. He gasped as they grew from his plastic hoop, and then chased after them. In the windows of the apartments on either side of us, flower baskets were filled with new blossoms, their leaves rich and green. Trees bragged their buds; some exploded with white and pink flowers, others with leaves. Luca wanted to go to the park by the river. He held my hand when we crossed the road. Beside the Fiume Po, dandelions burst from the earth, and Luca squealed at their yellowness. Dogs bounded after soggy-skinned sticks and children gossiped together on their way home from school. As Luca crawled through the playground, repeating every game a hundred times, I leaned against the fence and watched squirrels scurry across the grass hunting nuts. All around there was the satisfied hum of bees as their bodies feasted on flowers. The year was coming to an end, and before long I would return to my real life. What had I learned? That Kafka made sure not to specify the vermin Gregor Samsa became. That children are angels and monsters. That all would be well. We found ourselves sitting on a bench overlooking the river, licking gelatos that dripped luxuriously down their cones. Above our heads, swallows swooped and sang, and I was filled with joy.

Quatrel Nick Endicott

what makes it a fifth is that it fits in my pocket—what makes it mine is that that silly fool bought it—brought-in latest plastic reddit shit, unedited, and better when you remember the residence—insensitive, selected, made mine a mansion on the salt-dusted Newport coast—big beaux belle arts affair, baroque and spare space, schematically built up on the crop of a share—lace-blue big baby with a name and a namesake—Quatrel—for the walls or the limbs or the buttresses lifting up air—I can’t remember—baby blue Rhode Island, backlit by a new image, unreligion—I thought it after I bought it, after the big bow delivery, a sin-and-see—what a shame if I transfer to Brown, a false rectangular R-I of unbought property, known to me but sight-unseen, they’d sniff my gild—the scent of “see?”—beaux arts bought for a fifth of tequila gold drunk thoughts, a will to be made by a future me—alcohol bought, drank down to ill—legal license, wrapped up in the property—a sea-smelly seven-figure mansion in Newport, never laid a finger on it and it’s all mine—Bellevue Avenue is all mine—broad blind sunrise mine—all sweet life mine—a fake ID—mine

Untitled Tyler Healey

Since Nineteen Rebecca Boese

Maybe being young is taking a polaroid picture of him Eating a burger at Johnny Rockets And going home and writing on it In the dull glow of the colored Christmas lights you hung in your room In black pen in the white margin below the photo: “1:48am, we got the munchies, he spiked my vanilla milkshake” Maybe it is painting your Halloween pumpkin lavender and using it to hold the dying sunflowers you picked from your mother’s garden Maybe its wondering why your heart aches so terribly when you see the wilting petals Maybe its saving the bumblebee that accidently flew into your lemon ade that you left out on the porch that July, Because you knew what drowning felt like And you also knew what being attracted to things so sweet felt like And maybe being young is knowing these things But not yet realizing that they often go hand in hand Maybe it is before I left and he left and they left and turn left and wait no I leftMy soul on the other side of the wall (of youth)(of you) And Lord please help me please find my spirit and speaking of Lord, Do you remember that time I lost myself so hard and I Didn’t know what to do so I drove around town and cried and cried and all I wanted to do wasI didn’t know So I went to the church And I was so scared to go in alone And I sat in my car in the parking lot for 25 minutes until I finally got the courage to go in and I did and it was so beautiful and Holy water and candles and I’m saved I sat in the back pew and sobbed (have you ever felt physical pain in your soul?) until I stopped but At least I wasn’t alone Thank you for reminding me I’m never alone You used to believe that art was the only thing real in this world 57

You used to talk to the moon because it was the only one that understood You used to paint your nails black and no one ever asked why August nights and mosquito bites and pink wine and young skin and we danced through the forest and watched the freight train go by and watched our spirits hop on and watched them wave goodbye and fade into the distance why would they stay with us anyway? They mustâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve known that time would devour us eventually, inevitably This way at least, they will live on forever And this is the only peace my heart has known Since that night Since nineteen

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