Short but Sad and Sweet

The Continuist Presents

Short but Sad and Sweet A Valentines Special 2017

H G U

Short but Sad and Sweet...

February is the shortest month but can be filled with such unpleasantness.

So naturally, we at The Continuist asked how much dread and woe could be imparted in as little space as possible. We opened it to all mediums and this is what we came away with! The special collection of sorrow was released as a special Valentines Day gift to all on our blog.

Thank you one and all for your submissions for, “Short but Sad and Sweet�. We were overwhelmed by the heart breaking and tearjerking content that we recieved.

This small zine brings together all the submissions that we released on our blog over the course of February 14th, 2017.

Just remember, no matter how you celebrated, there is always time to feel sorry for yourself!

Happy Valentines Day! Woohoo!

Boohoo!

The Continuist Team

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10 am. an open letter to the one that broke my heart (or: although your reasons were valid, that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make it hurt any less) to know that you thought fond of our time together would be to assume you still thought of me at all. </3 David Warner

11 am. bullshit collage

</3 Sydney McInnis

12 pm.

Chameleon I do not know how to live life In black and white Either Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m too much Or not enough Passionate and resilient Red But mostly Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Blue Calm Sad and quiet </3 z.f

1 pm.

Untitled I bought a gypsy rose Down by the Seine With no one to give it to. </3 Lou DuMiel

2 pm.

Humument

</3 Karolina Fedorcio

3 pm.

Scum City I wish Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d met you when you were 18 Before you dined and dashed and involved me in your sleep In that you lay naked on me Oblivious of my consciousness </3 Daisy Barker

4 pm.

Burned Out The caretaker had only bought 2 packages of light bulbs, each containing 4 new bulbs. The Assistance Needed strip had ten bulbs, each assigned to a different resident. This was only the latest in a series of minor frustrations suffered by the nurse, who was particularly annoyed at the constant demands put upon her by her floorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surliest resident.

She unpacked the bulbs and began replacing them. Her favourite resident, a comparatively young woman afflicted by an aggressive form of skin cancer, died in the previous month and the nurse still hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t recovered. Her bulb was chosen as one of the two to leave unchanged: partly because the room was still vacant, and partly as a sort of memorial. She had decided immediately what other bulb to leave unchanged: that of the cantankerous old codger who had bogged down her day with trifling complaints. To leave his warning light with an old bulb was a sort of silent revenge that, once her task was complete, she found disappointingly unfulfilling.

She left to perform a sponge-bath on one of her nine surviving residents, not realizing that the manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bulb, stressed from too-frequent lightings, had already burned out. The filament had overheated and burst earlier that day when the man, complaining about a lost TV remote, stubbornly held his finger on the button. As such, he could not warn anyone of the hard candy that had become lodged in his throat. Again and again he pushed his button, but the useless bulb did nothing to alert the nurses to his peril. He died with his hand on his throat and his finger on the </3 Liam McConnell

5 pm.

Love Trumps Hate I wish I never loved you: Not because you said so, But because youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a Trump supporter now. </3 Morgan Bocknek

6 pm.

Untitled Its been 3 hours and I still haven’t lit my cigarette. 3 hours at my desk and no smoking. 3 hours at my desk of uninterrupted, unadulterated, uncensored and unsweetened stream of consciousness. How pleasant.

I cant imagine how pleasant it’d be if you were here, I’d probably be smoking. Or enjoying myself. I am not to say in these days.

These days, I have no say. Speech requires desire.

I realize I have a voice, but it has been strained. I have a will, but it lacks strength. I still have my wits about me. Still. And there, that, is the only problem.

You knocked me over on your way out. I fell from the table by the door I always used to fuck you on back when potentials and possibilities were a short bridge to cross between now and a future gift-wrapped like a present. Like one where it could have been anything we’d dreamed it to be until we opened it. Now that stream floods me like an ocean. I didn’t quite shatter when you knocked me over, but the water inside poured out and I’m soaked. The possibilities and potential are drowning in them now.

I will not pull myself off the cold-soaked floor, however.

I will sit at my desk. She will not light it nor shall I wait for her to. I will light my cigarette. I will take 19 drags. I will ash my cigarette and stamp life out from it.

Her favourite part of Cloud Atlas was always when Robert Frobisher killed himself, he says how suicide is given a bad name by the people who rush it. Suicide isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t selfish. Suicide isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cowardice. A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty, he says.

I took my 19th drag, my 38th pull, ashed my cigarette, and for one moment between this and the next, I took my weakened will, lifted my heavy hand to my head, and made it courage. </3 Matt Glavin

7 pm. sexi sexi new media usually i donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do these things with strangers usually i donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do these things with anyone </3 philip johnston

7:30 pm. good benefit fondling granny smiths at the dime n bag before the gala so at least something can benefit from my touch </3 Kristina Pantalone

8 pm.

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to February

</3 Danica Frose

9 pm.

Two Haikus “Unplugged” Like a kitchen sink, I want to be able to drain my sad water.

“Relationship Anxiety” Feeling all the time like any moment you could be broken again.

</3 Colleen Filson

10 pm.

Crack.

A bite of time, like the small of a back.

A time changing line and a shattering crack.

Five years of a life â&#x20AC;&#x201C; fifty five long.

The joy like a knife, that cut slightly wrong.

In five short years you brought two daughters in; you wrapped them in tears and you taught them to swim.

</3 Dayna Lang

11 pm.

A Quickie Playlist - Go Down on Me (The Memories) - Long John Blues (Dinah Washington) - He Hit Me (Grizzly Bear) - Flickers (Son Lux) - Venus in Furs (The Velvet Underground) - American Beauty (Girlpool) - Bonnie and Clyde (Brigitte Bardot, Serge Gainsbourg) Run Time - 25 mins

</3 Jordan Donovan