the continuist p r e s e n t s:
dark
mornings
A note from the editors It is in the intimate moments of the days and nights that we think about the things that leave us equal parts unsettled, excited, and curious. This introspection is allowed through the spaces between events that rest in the corners of our minds. The notion of Dark Mornings encompasses this feeling of confusion and stasis, while remaining, as always, progressive in its artistic potential.
The Continuist is an online and print collective based out of Ryerson University. Our mission is to provide an outlet for artists to showcase their work, whether professional or amateur. This is a passion project, run by a grand bunch of students who are committed to making and sharing art.
Interested in submitting? Send us your work to thecontinuist@gmail.com and check our online submissions at thecontinuist.wordpress.com.
Good morning, dark people. Good night, dark mornings.
Love always, The Editors of The Continuist November 2015 Cover photograph by: Jana Beaton
Jordan Donavon Playlist available via online publication.
Interval Ladybug in love With ceiling fixture Naked on bedsheets I am the same The cosmos wanting something to pour Out Revolving doors When you’re around Covered in honey I am the same Wanting something to pour out the Cosmos Paul Harper
Toby Penney
Toby Penney
dead to me I’ll rinse the taste of last night off my lips with a mourning cup of coffee. two teaspoons of sugar, one of honey; yet still not sweet. A steaming shower brings blood to the surface of my skin. a surface you can never touch again in the dusky hours that you used to call me
yours.
k. rashidi
Toby Penney
Earl Grey Chewing apples in skinny hallways your body reflecting the stiff black arm plunging onto 4am ‘I love you’ dark bites into bright skin bruised and browning fruit made out of flesh my rib cage thinning into origami heaving breaths of air confessing night time traditions stories of snow and how you like the way gala apples are green red yellow in perfect unison staring contests with ceiling fans my eyes like steeped tea wishing 6am would never come Jamie Lupia
LET THE COFFEE GO COLD I had a dream about you last night and I can just barely remember it. I know it felt like cold toes on white sheets when I wake up in the last weeks of October. It was like the yearning for the soft buzz of my space heater to kick in from across the room. I like to create a barricade of darkness and warmth to hide from the cold that drifts up from the garage below my room. Your eyes always teased me for this habit of burying myself under excessive blankets, as you’d nuzzle my neck and silently whisper good morning by brushing your lips against my throat. We’d be bundled away and there was safety there under the folds of fabric that always ended up smelling like a mix of pine and spice – as if you brought the woods to my bed and my sheets. All I can remember is half of this dream like a windy disorienting morning; I can’t quite get it right. It’s a wildly frantic breathiness in my chest that I just can’t quell. I remember the dream in shards like it’s hovering just above my head but the wind keeps whipping it away with my hair. It’s close, but I can’t get close enough to it. There are pieces of it tangled in my tendrils and they tear my skin when I try to brush them out.
I’m alone now but I remember touching your hand briefly and fumbling a little. Our fingers don’t fit together initially and it takes a moment. It’s been so long since I’ve felt the soft pad of my thumb against the callouses on your drummer’s palms. That feeling’s been lost under the layers of my blankets. I lay here and we are reintroduced to each other’s skin. It’s been a long time since I’ve looked into your eyes that are always adjusting, always peering from the blankets and blinking quickly before focusing on mine. I remember opening my eyes and being in a crowd. A sea of people parts for you. The fog lifts for a moment and you’re there. The fog lifts, I’m aware of the nerves dancing
under my chest and we shake hands. And it feels like the buzz of my heater in the corner of my room. It takes a few moments but I can feel the warmth. I remember your arms around me then – a barricade. And like it’s second nature, I’m inside of them again. The warmth becomes heat. And I am left with this overwhelming awareness that these actions ache with familiarity; that this drowsy morning heat is familiar to me. I had a dream last night that I was in a fog and then it lifted. I had a dream and it’s blurry now but I think I can almost capture it from the wind. It’s morning now and my day is starting slowly like the leaky drip that is pinging against the bottom of the bathtub in the room next to my bed. My sister is humming a song in the kitchen and my mom is texting me because there’s hot coffee and it won’t stay hot forever. There are sounds and feelings reverberating all around me; my pillowcases are absorbing the scent of them all.
But mom, I had a dream last night and I finally woke up with warm toes. Mom, I was asleep and now I’m finally awake. Rebekah Veerasammy
Pillow Forts Tell me about the time you designed a galaxy. Drawing lines like constellations across my shoulder blades while our legs intertwined like astral arrangements; Floating through the cosmos.
‘All thoughts of you are interstellar.’
I whispered with small breaths into your eardrums. My words swirling like dust, these fragments forming our nebula. In this other universe, your mouth leaves craters on my hipbones And the curvature of my back is our crescent moon. In this universe, time bends so quickly and night falls by three pm. In this universe, for once We left everybody else in the dark. Jordan Donovan
after all that is lost Smoke swirls in attics, from the embers burning late into the night, and departs through the gaps in the boards licking out into the haze of morning where all bungalows that tatter, invisible in numbers, become a blur in passing car winodws as each one gets to where it thinks it needs to be getting, rubbing the asphalt like a lamp. in all of this puzzling uniformity what’s shaved off from the edges drifts down into the cracks of the sidewalk never to claw again for the surface. Denver Jermyn
SHADOWS IN THE LIGHT I am nothing Only the shadows cast Beneath crooked floorboards The curses of a haggard man Past his prime Rotting From the inside out On a deathbed of his own creation I see now The darkness That surrounds The light m. k. watts
ACHLUOPHOBIA The dust Doesn’t sing as it did before Silent madness Broken ribs & Shattered teeth Line the walls of my mind The light hesitates Beneath its steel horizon As I stare into the mirror Asking if this reflection Has ever been me Snarling at this creature Crooked & old Begging again For a fight I can’t win m. k. watts
Because I miss you like the Blood Moon
Anonymous
Where Scattered Thoughts Lead Me
Anonymous
Skeletons Burn More At Night The first night I slept without the blanket you gave me, I woke up to numb feet, hands, and legs; it appealed to the numbing in my heart. I strip myself of layers of you to reveal the never ending numb core. The second night I succumbed to the warmth of the blanket, it felt too much like you to ever let go. The third night I didn't think about you and your blue eyes and your missing tooth and your tousled hair and your broad shoulders and contagious laugh and radiating smile oh god no, I focused on the love that was lost.
The fourth night I danced with my best friend to our favourite band live. I like that I'm forgetting you. I saw you on Instagram and I can feel my heart and stomach and liver and everything in my throat I want you back The fifth night I drank too much and laughed too loud and wanted to kiss everyone that wasn't you. The sweat induced atmosphere with 300 of my closest beating hearts provided such an intimate escape route from your arms, while the alcohol provided a stereotypical burn to escape your gaze. The sixth night I heard your voice for the first time in a week. Your words caused my chest to both cave and explode all at once and my tears burned my eyes as I choked for air. I deleted your number and cursed your existence. I had to sleep on my roommate’s floor because the nightmares and tears seeped so far down into my brain that it was almost like you were here, plucking at every memory to tear it away.
The seventh night people from back home kept asking about you. I called you an ass and blamed everything on you, but I know it's my fault too. I just wish nothing happened, we didn't happen, I didn't happen. It hurts to think of us apart forever. I submerged myself in schoolwork to distract my mind for bursts at time. Our favourite tv show returned. I watched with tears in my eyes. Not only do the clouds of the night cloud the moon, but they bleed through my ears and cloud the inner workings of my mind from any conscious sunrise decision. The eighth night I almost forgot to torture myself. I can feel you leaving me even more and it makes my heart fall to the floor. Come back. I did a midterm. Didn't think about you that much. But oh God, when I did, my sun exploded. The ninth night you went unmissed. I almost forgot this self torture again. The tenth night I did forget.
The eleventh night I prayed the dreams of you would stop. In my dreams you were there, loving me like you used to, only to have uncertainty wash over you, wash over us, and drag you under. The twelfth night I reached out to you. You spit me out and I wished I had never been born. The flashing lights, the raw tension of my heart grinding against my rib cage, all signs that point to an expected doomed dusk. Shannon Tinning Thirteenth night to end available via online publication.
Untitled Illusions of grandeur come to me, in the wee hours of morning before darkness turns to light. I’ve already forgotten the bastard I was yesterday. I will be someone else tomorrow. as I sit here, between yesterday and tomorrow trying to hold on to the promise, the one that is slipping away, I think whose face disgusts me more, my mother’s or my father’s. I feel like I’m at the airport, waiting for tomorrow to arrive, anxious and jittery it did not occur to me, it’s already today. Mahsa Rashidisisan
Nearly Flightless I walk along the high road, hoping to see you there, balancing with arms like wings –bird like– toes pointed precariously out to my next steps, parallel to the low road and when I glance down, sneaking a quick peek –for you, of course– lose my flighty appearance, stumble and fall, flightless and not quite as birdlike as one could hope. Kristina Pantalone
Dylan Mitro
Comfortable Orphans
Dylan Mitro
Rooted – In Three Parts You Hate Cauliflower As Much As You Hate Yourself Every evening at six thirty two you sit at your kitchen table The religion of overconsumption A daily gorging Emotions eaten with vigor Chewed, gasping swallows As if it wasn’t already enough That you wept after each meal Did You Eat the Last Sweet Potato? Your skin is peeling Cobwebs hanging from your nose I know you aren’t home, love I’ve been standing here for years Empty bags litter your kitchen floor Cupboards full of toothpicks and smoked oysters An Ode to a Leek (In My Heart) They had the lights in the tunnels turned on this morning And you were on your way home from number 15 Just trying to feel something Daisy Barker
Dusk sixth finger cigarette men with collars, white hair, gingham sidewalk shoes, so beautiful! Metrical steps – pigeon! sky bare, puce twilight stitch my smile in news, sun setting slender inner urban kingdom muse, aglets everywhere! Somewhere trumpets sing a tune with the streetcar saunter, fixed eyes from windows – bike! night-bars, curb dice, silhouette men measure the soles, so colourful! Then, stopping to smoke my finger. Cameron MacDonald
night vision
Elana Delaney
moon duo
Elana Delaney
night light
Elana Delaney
lucid
Elana Delaney
the continuist