Letter from the editors PLAYTIME 2018 Our initial thought is always to thank firstly, those who contribute and secondly, those who choose to read our lovely little book. Without you, there would be a lot less reason to. The Continuist is a literary and arts collective run through Ryerson’s Faculty of Arts, and we are exceedingly grateful to be part of the valiant and inspired bunch who helped print this monster. To our team: thanks for showing up to meetings, we should have offered more snacks. We would like to give more thanks to: the ACS program director, Stephanie Walsh Matthews as well as Nicole Florecki for their guidance; SIF and the Faculty of Arts for their generous support; Ryerson University for housing us; the Arts and Letters Club likewise; as well as TLAC and Copyrite for their print services. This collection was playful, playfully put, and well-played out, respectively. As our last publication as editors, we hope you (yes, you) continue to support this modest, imaginative, fun publication. It has truly been a treat. Yours sincerely, Daisy Barker and Kristina Pantalone Co-editors *Cover — Jordan Donovan
Keep It Moving
Amongst It All
Low End Theory
- Ajeuro Abala
Just After Two on A February Afternoon cold wind lashes my fingers turning them pink, In haste I pull my laces too tight, and my foot squirms like the salmon swimming below my eardrums ease me onto the rough ice, the lashing wind lags behind me as I skate, glide, turn, cut, and scrape away, both my feet now circumvent round and around in orbit I can see the world streak like wet paint, and I stop, to wipe my nose Why am I out here all alone, where could he be?
Sinking ships and crispy crackers, boom it’s a hit! Boom it’s a miss… I think as hard as I can, pulling his face over mine, I wear his mask and see his fleet, but the blue mist seeps in and my binoculars fog up, before I know it, it's all over, I can see him get a little taller and me, a little smaller. I don’t notice my fast breath, or my crunched toe, I focus on him as he laces up, he steps on the ice and glides past me with one push, I turn and dance in his shoes, gripping my fiberglass toy with all I’ve got, arming my cannon ready to fire, I pull a toe drag wide, evading him like the plague, I smack it back and in it goes, I see him exhale, then smile. - Marco Moro
#honeykicks - Hani Pathan
Good morning
- Nicole E Schlosser
March Of The Toys
- @kozmostuff
- requiem for sale This disclaimer states that the stage absorbs identities I am consumed nightly by a persona who drinks from the
velvet curtain Lips pressed against the seams This kiss grants the most thunderous of ovations I want you to clap but t not make a sound Let this act resonate against the wood grain floors
Connect these lines like constellations Immortalize me before you swallow me whole - Ashleigh Brown
The Next Fucking Bukowski Pour myself over you The way you’d have your liquor. To burn, to distract and intoxicate. Pour your sorrows in me as you Pour another glass. I don’t mind sharing your lips With that cup that has been here before and will remain After me. I hope it gives you the peace I never could. I know that when time forces those in their home And you alone in yours, It’s the smoke falling out your mouth that holds All your dirty secrets, of how you never loved Anything but the sound of your own poetic bullshit In your head, And to the women willing to listen. The glass is a better suit for you. This one doesn’t talk back. - Michelle Moreira
- Carmen Lew
Tea time - Tamirah Taylor
wallball rails cold on shaky hands we share a coffee together conversation kicking off to childhood rolodex a kickball regime, where we write names on cement walls smoke crawls out of your house torching scars in the school yard
bracelets made of rubber wished upon a purple Barbie cowboy boot to be friends forever in soybean field we rode the new slide together I set my hand in fresh gum warm from the chew clenching the back of the table pale strings flow the weightless windless room tendrils stretching toward the exit graze those cold rails we do not step on those cracks sidewalk toxic dragging us back to past where we became distant - Oshan Starreveld
iris
- Antonietta Faiella
Lover’s Tangent I don't know. / Maybe you're beyond it. / Beyond this. I don't know, maybe you, you think about what happened once or twice a week and it's kinda like thinking about a bad kiss or a shit birthday present or something. The thought's there but it doesn't really mean much. And you're pretty distant from it but of course, you still remember. It just can't affect you now. The memory just rolls off of you, like, like fucking water droplets on a duck. Not that you need a stupid metaphor to get what I'm saying. But I think I have the right to be selfish here. I mean, I was with you for a year, or a year and a half rather and I think I owe it to myself. I deserve to speak my mind- especially because you spoke your mind all the time and I shut my mouth and hung on every word. You remember that, don't you? That took some effort, honestly. I think I liked listening to you complain about your art but when you talked about bullshit at work, that was annoying as hell. But anyway, maybe you're beyond it. Maybe. But I'm not. I’m not. How could I be, really? I romanticized you in too many ways too much of the time. I can't even pass the convenience store without a lump in my goddamn throat. And I still can't figure out why I keep the books you gave me where you written on the index page some ridiculous embellished quote, right there in the binding. With the ink bleeding to the page. It said something like "love you to the moon and back" but much, much worse. And don't get me wrong, I know why you left me. I know why. But it still rubs me the wrong way, you know? The "what if" just irks me. It's like I see you everywhere. It's like your name is spelt in my alphabet cereal or I see some girl who looks like you from the back and I pull this crazy stunt to see her face to only see it’s my coworker and I just terribly embarrassed myself. - Bronwen Spolsky ** Read the remainder of this monologue on our website!
The Summer That Makes Me I am made of early mornings, busy streets born anew into fleeting moments when the world seems to stand still. When the plazas and squares lay bare, devoid of any people. When nature’s audible ambience is allowed to echo freely through the gridded downtown corridors. For in this shrinking fissure of time, a home is found and no sooner lost, as the city begins to wake. I am made of blurring forestry, continuous mental snapshots fill my internal archive of kinetic imagery. Pattering footsteps mark their presence along the winding trails as they dither through the hollow chambers of the woods. Deep and weighty panting score the silent film of my daily ritual. I am made of 90 minute weeks, stains of dirt and grass make manifest the many impacts of this beautiful game. Identical goal posts bookend freshly cut swathes of compact, leafy blades framed by white rectangles. These routinely curated surfaces rustle and compress under the swerving, undulating pressures of the ball at my feet. Each season, another opportunity to summit the leaderboards alongside my comrades as the vibrantly patterned synthetic materials of our brand new cleats wear away from the stress of multidirectional exertions. I am made of painterly skylines, auburn tints soak the wispy clouds heavy in the gravitas of the fading horizon. My eyes held in contempt for their lengthy stares at these surreal landscapes. Dynamic, paralyzing natural filters fester these awe inspired moments of solemnity and repose. Made am I of these short months.
- Ajeuro Abala
Garden Note - Lannii Pettiford
Untitled (head) - Lisa Lattanzio
What Happens to the Center of Fruit Loops? You’re out of breath from running around outside all day, You collapse onto the lawn with exhaustion. You can feel dirt under your finger nails and in between your toes. There’s a sweetly stinging scrape on your elbow from playing cops and robbers with your friends. In the trees above you there are cicadas chittering, a lawnmower is revving on a lawn in the distance. Morning dew still blankets the ground beneath you, dampening the back of your shirt and the bottom of your shorts. Bits of dead, yellowed grass poke up through the green, tickling your neck. Eyes closed shut, tremulous light swims and bounces behind your eye lids. The sun warms your skin. On your tire swing you stay for hours, Winding, twisting, swaying, you cut through the air. A gust of cool wind playfully pirouettes past you, picking up your hair, and goosebumps form on your arms and legs. Blood rushes to your head as you throw it back, you come back up giddy. Your arms held taut, your fists firm around the well-worn rope. Your days are spent fantasizing about what hidden riddles you can uncover in your garden. You are a detective, a ghost whisperer, you have super powers that let you talk to the trees. Like a choose your own adventure novel you think you can do or be anything you want. Every unanswered question is a mystery to be solved.
Why do humans exist? Why does time matter? Are there more leaves in the world or blades of grass? Is the moon really made of cheese? What happens to the centre of fruit loops? - Liana Mortin
Hoop Dreams - Greg Brooks
Summer On almost summer days when the sun painted the sky blue and the grass green, our kindergarten class would go outside for a special carnival day. Slathering on blobs of Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen and slipping off our shirts to reveal bathing suits and putting on springy flip flops, we would ace down the halls and out into the field. “Single file line!” our teachers would yell as we outran their voices into freedom. We pushed the heavy doors open and ran into warm, all encompassing sunlight. A red, yellow and blue bouncy castle pulsed with air as we skid by its new foundations. Translucent plastic pools refracted the sunlight into our eyes from its clear waters, the source of pure magic blinding us in our tracks. Our teachers gave us popsicles that coated our tongues with cherry red, raspberry blue, the citrus whit dripping from the corners of our mouths. In school, we learned that after a rainstorm, the sun would make rainbows in the sky. They would appear in blue skies all at once—first faint, then vibrant hues of ruby red, exuberant orange, beautiful citrine yellow, emerald green, sapphire blue and amethyst violet would sparkle in the sky. Our class sat together in the shaded concrete by our school building, leaning against its worn brick walls. I licked my popsicle which was now melting onto my hands and crystallizing into a sticky mess on the cool concrete. A rainbow was dancing on the ground as my kindergarten teacher walked by, her floral perfume mixing with the faint smell of cigarette smoke.
“All done with your popsicle?” she asked. I handed her my wooden popsicle stick and she gave me a napkin. The sun hit her wristwatch at an angle that caused millions of light beams to dance on the ground—tiny light diamonds spinning like a disco ball. In the middle of the light diamonds, a tiny rainbow prism appeared.
- Eunice Lee
kick
- Jimboy Abella
Twins - Olivia Wong
Oh Hello
Brighter Days The more you say his name out loud, repeating it over and over again until it sounds like nothing. Settling in the dust as you wipe your hand across the window. Nothing left. And gone forever. It's not coming back. He's not coming back. Say it again. And again. And again until it's reverberating through your mind and you're dizzy as you struggle to pull yourself together and figure out what happened. It doesn't matter it never did. The thing you never understood was that dust settles wherever it finds a home and pretty soon it'll be setting in all over again until you're no longer sure of what's happening but your desire to wipe it away will grow stronger the more it settles and the more you realize that sunlight doesn't shine through dusty windows. - to brighter days - Zuha Ziaee
Venus & Mars Venus and Mars are playing games. Playing with red things like passion, looking for something juicy, and tasting so sweet. Ah! they’ve found a heart, nice and soft red meat red like love, red as blood, both pronounce life and heat and why shouldn’t they? Venus and Mars made them. I think I’ve seen them, crossing the heavens at twilight shaking down the constellations like Bonny and Clyde before slipping off to the next star system like two teenagers looking for a place to lie. These stars they cross, they knock out of line and on top of fates they fuck they worry of no why’s, too busy screwing with trajectories and getting off to life, always sucking sweet and juicy passion lets be like them, loving in the stars living beyond reason or prediction oh please, why not just try? Also, lets call this food for thought. Or fucking around. I’m not sure, thinking up weird things and calling them imaginative has been my preferred method for fending off boredom o I guess that’s play? Alt right is short for alternative right, also translated as: wrong.
Humanity prays to the electricity gods for heat now. Humanity has lost its fire. Some humans believe in god. Some believe in nothing. Some know better, and believe in Irony.
I used to love making fun of myself for my massive, solipsistic ego. Then, I realized I could just make fun of other people. Humans have five senses: taste, touch, hearing, sight and smell. Unfortunately, common isn’t one of them. - Matt Glavin
out
- Jimboy Abella
Paper Play Play my music
- Siegar
Tuesday Afternoon, 2004 Thick curls weave and dodge around our fingers, impossible to catch your teeth clink in unison against glasses that hold scotch (exclusively), while our small hands work combs quickly, grating through two snow-white hairdos. Arsenals of clips, pins and baubles clatter from our sweater pockets into your laps, time is spent picking out your favourites, as if you were going to wear your hair like that to the country club later on. Wielding spray bottles, we form peaks and valleys in the curls, they mimic where we have grown up. We too have matching hair, both the colour of the Manitoban straw before the snow. (or so we’ve been told – our family is from there – you specifically) Clips used in even numbers, specific colours, presenting an organized chaos of metal and plastic. Exhausted, our pockets void of trinkets, we sit, folding our bodies into the chairs that travelled with you from the flat of the prairies to the house on the mountain, to the one now, by the river. You are family, though unfamiliar with your fresh made white bread, home sliced ham and potato chips.
We sink our teeth into the beige sandwiches crunching chips between already salty lips, sipping noname seven up (lemon-lime) – something that is forbidden at home. - Daisy Barker
- Heather Rattray
1) Blue and green lights reflecting off bar’s slick surface the heavy thud of music and the wild gestures of dancers hands. A couple in a tight embrace, lips locking intermittently over lulls in music. They look into each others eyes lost for a second, air thick with sweat from exhaustion and blow. shaking hands running over bodies and anxious voices rising
3) stained blankets. hangover-hair. curled hand resting on shoulder or hip, timid or anxious good-morning-voice. thin curtain. soft light on neck. Goosebumps rising over faint trace of a kiss or a not-my-bed-blink. A laugh. - Grayson James
Funny Place The city is a funny place–it laughs car horns and police sirens. Its subway serenades sound of screeching and scraping metal trains on metal tracks.
The city is a funny place– everyone is always in a hurry–they scurry swiftly–like the sewer rats. The streets are museums of grimey gum portraits–they all tell a story. Might not be an interesting story, but a story nonetheless.
Maybe of the smoker trying to stop smoking. Maybe the receptionist’s coffee breath stunk so sourly. The city is a funny place–it clumsily paints the street in sporadic splatters of red and green and yellow. Pigeons square-dance around moldy pizza crusts. Hobos, you can’t drink out of those empty coffee cups. The city is a funny place–parades of men with black visors, black shirts, black pants. His badge glimmers like a streetlight against his asphalt black uniform. He has an elongated arm –a stiff, black licorice baton–he tickles the hobo with it. How sweet!
What a funny joke! It’s so funny he’s–he’s crying! - Kris Dionio
Brighton Boys on the Pier
- Lannii Pettiford
Old and Play In finding ways to age alongside your mother, use grease like water to voice concern of upbringing. Lubricate dry spells with fatted bellies, long full up on choiced scorn. In meeting siblings who care more for raw duck, neglect to shower; leave in light your sheen, your shadow. Salted, sepulchered, steadily resorting to talking through gesture, change from oils to lotions (many) in slick concentration. Motherhood shines like good marrow, mother says. Seems silly to disagree; maybe it’s time for 22 serums. - Kristina Pantalone
Water Lilly
- Daniel Maluka
Water Stilled Souls Would you build a house for me in your rose-coloured air Would you play with me in a glass entourage above the world Would you walk with me by the neighbouring river, Fancying our reflections, the model of water stilled souls Would you lease your heart to me, In the pre-winter's early evening lull The colours of the dying are those we tout the most beautiful And in this twisting park, You paint the end as the beginning Your reddened cheeks speak to chilling But swooping the valley trails, your heart is the glimmering end-light warmth Yet it’s not that easy is it Your cheeks are red but your eyes are watering, Cold wind whips emotions around like glacial shards And runs that well dry Shoot yourself, you who dare look up at the sky Because the part in you pining for nothing Would cede from your soul And life's tightrope has but one final lonely end-thread That's why I dare not implicate you in this dream world I've woven But sitting on that bench its hard not to feel something The sparkling leaves surely that's not all that sets your eyes aflame Maybe we will fall and come to end Like the leaves do
Maybe under the blanket of winter you will realize dreams are just that Better left in the head, hearts better left to choke in throats Yet for now I would hold your hand Through this balancing act, On dark city streets we'd dance our way to freedom Because night time's the only novel worth reading Probably the only novel at all It feels like forever in the long shadow Oh if I could tell you that Would you build a house for me in your rose-coloured air Would you play with me in a glass entourage above the world Would you walk with me by the neighbouring river, Fancying our reflections, the model of water stilled souls Would you lease your heart to me, In the pre-winter's early evening lull I'm not convinced that I can, I'm not convinced that I can Tilt my head down to your face Lips pressed like pages, but who reads anymore I want to stick my neck out, But I'm a little too mindful of the oncoming train Maybe better to live in monologue Fall wind gusts keep rustling the newspapers of old men The old reading the new I would like to read you something few have seen It's my brother's letters He looked up at the setting sun and told her to wait a while When she wouldn't he ran after her I haven't seen him in six years How could you and I rival that
Yet I want to ignore celestial bodies and the passing of time Your gravity is so much sweeter Falling is so much easier I would go ice-skating if you wanted to I don't know how to, yet Laced boots would Hold like laced hands do I would slip and pull you with me Kissing you on the way down When frankly neither of us have Time for such a thing And you would laugh Oh if I could tell you that
Would you build a house for me in your rose-coloured air Would you play with me in a glass entourage above the world Would you walk with me by the neighbouring river, Fancying our reflections, the model of water stilled souls Would you lease your heart to me, In the pre-winter's early evening lull - John Connolly
- Max Challis
99 Till Infinity
- Jared Tupas
A Word Cookies Haiku At my fingertips, Words dance unscrambled, unclaimed. Squeals abound; it’s found. - Roxanne Frazer
(i wanted a reaction but) she played it off very well micro a twitch the corner thirst spout thoughts sprout split second there it is there it went a smile lips (and i swore i did flips)
- Alexa-Rae Telan
Objecthood
- Holly Chang
Kindred Youngest sister, a jumping tangerine jellybean of curly fried hair. Brother, painting glittering rainbows on his cheek to shine potential. Little sister, a mushroom cloud of giggles bursting over each room. Sister, teeth chattering like a rattlesnake to repel enemies of stress. Mother, fists balled in your face, a protective bout of dynamite. Father, pullin g strings from his own back to mend yours. Molding the cookie cutter created to bake my disposition. - Harleigh Keriazes
- Zoe Cezar-White
Not On My Campus CAMERA MAN You said we were getting dinner. What are we doing here? NEWSCASTER Covering the story of the decade. CAMERA MAN At this place? What’s so special about a university campus? NEWSCASTER Don’t you pay any attention when you’re working? CAMERA MAN I just point and shoot. That’s it. NEWSCASTER Spicer University has been nothing but a hot bed for scandal, controversy and outcry. The public can’t get enough of this place. They eat that shit up. THE CAMERA MAN turns around and examines the campus behind him. CAMERA MAN Aw man. Is the place that accidently hired that Neo-Nazi to come speak to the History and Politics majors? NEWSCASTER They claimed it was a mix up. We were right to not believe them. CAMERA MAN And the Faculty Sex Scandal? That was here too? NEWSCASTER That’s right. And the Stale Bread Fiasco, and the Graffiti Catastrophe, and the Dating App Attack and of course… the Night of the Neo-Nazi. CAMERA MAN Wow. NEWSCASTER Yeah, what a week that was.
CAMERA MAN So, what have they done now? NEWSCASTER Point, shoot and pay attention. CAMERA MAN I’ll try. THE NEWCASTER adjusts his hair as THE CAMERA MAN holds up the hand-held studio camera directly in front of him. CAMERA MAN Three, two, one and…action. NEWSCASTER Good evening, I’m a common newscaster… with a new haircut. I’m currently standing in front of Spicer University, home to over twenty thousand undergraduate students and the last time I checked: thirty graduate students. In the past this educational institution has been known for its innovative programs fostering the brightest, most articulate minds of this generation. But, lately, this has not been the case. From Neo-Nazis to stale bread: this campus has seen better days. And now, a new controversy is currently spicing things up at Spicer. CAMERA MAN Your puns aren’t funny. NEWSCASTER Just point and shoot Gus. (pause) Last year, the enrolment rate at this school saw a dramatic decrease; putting Spicer under serious financial trouble. The President of the university, Floyd Swift, has recently come under scrutiny for his new plan to increase enrolment and cut costs. He blames the low enrolment rate on a variety of circumstances, but he mostly points the finger at the caffeine consumption of the students. As such, Swift is determined to remove all on campus cafes, coffee kiosks, vending machines and impose a campus wide ban on all caffeinated beverages.
Swift states that this plan would save the university thousands of dollars as the cafes, kiosks and vending machines cost a fortune to maintain and Spicer receives none of the profits. At least not enough, to quote the President. As you can well imagine, many students do not take this proposed
ban lightly. ENT MARDI JERRY, KATHERINE KANE, STUART GOLDBERG, ARIEL BROWNE and STUDENTS. MARDI, KATHERINE and STUART are all in front of podiums CS, with ARIEL BROWNE and various STUDENTS gathered around each individual podium. All three are delivering a speech, however each speech is self contained. MARDI Fuck you, Floyd Swift! The STUDENTS surrounding her podium cheer. MARDI I am a student, just like the rest of you. And when I’m on this campus, pulling an all nighter to put the finishing touches on my essay, I have the luxury of walking to the oncampus Starbucks and buying myself a grande sized double double. Caffeine is a miracle worker, I wouldn’t have made it to my third year without it. And Spicer University thinks that they can take that away from me? Away from all of us?! Well, not on my campus! - Quentin Stuckey ** Read the remainder of this short play on our website!
Fuck Ru Paul
- Amy Jones
FACTS, NO PRINTER
LOOKIN’ LIKE A SNACK
- Lil Gullykilla
1. In the darkest room, where our hands meet every now and again,
you are finishing your thought and I am growing tired in the chair’s rigid seat thinking about the blown bowl that sits on the shelf, Mocking the blueness of our time together
I spit out my gum as if to say I have no taste for the thrill or the whole thing, the floor creaks—knows when companionship has gotten up to be alone
2. After the red echo upon emptying the wash bin this becomes twofold if I am the scream then I am also the chapped ache of hands hanging laundry, the sweet drain of pink water - Emily Blatta
coconut bun - Kyla Kavanagh
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