The Mill Literary Magazine Fall 2020

FALL 2020

THE MILL

FEATURING

AMIE BARLOW / ASHLEY DRAEGER / BECCA LUSTIC / HANNAH MYERS / ALEXANDRIA RAYFORD-WEST / ABBY ROYFMAN / DARIA SYSOEVA / CARLOS WASHINGTON

THE MILL LITERARY MAGAZINE INCORPORATED

AT

THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

WAS

TOLEDO

IN

2011 FOR THE PURPOSE OF SHOWCASING THE BEST IN STUDENT WRITING AND ART. THOUGH IT HAS PASSED THROUGH THE HANDS OF MANY STUDENT EDITORS, THE

VISION

AND

PURPOSE

OF

THE

MAGAZINE

HAS

REMAINED THE SAME. WE BELIEVE THAT GOOD ART IMPROVES THE HUMAN CONDITION WHILE NOURISHING THE SOUL. NOW MORE THAN EVER, SHARING THIS ART WITH OUR COMMUNITY IS A UNIQUE PRIVILEGE THAT WE VALUE HIGHLY. WE HOPE YOU FIND INSPIRATION WITHIN THESE PAGES.

COVER ART "JOIN ME IN OBLIVION" BY ABBY ROYFMAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

POETRY entwined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 the dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 imprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 sales girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 three years in a balloon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 the red balloon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 the cold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 sunrise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 symphony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 coming back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

PHOTOGRAPHY entangled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 rainy days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 say their names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 daydreams in spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 tangerine orange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 photo by Becca Lustic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 city scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 vision of trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

ART join me in oblivion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .cover art by Hannah Myers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 gashadokuro steals the moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 skull study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 art by Hannah Myers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

entwined

by Amie Barlow i am inside the forest, and she, too, mourns. her ground soaked in rain and moss and mold, she lets the november wind crash through her branches, each leaf exhaling a heavy sob into the wind. she loved you before i ever did. wrapping you in her crowded privacy, you would trace her roots with the same fingers that traced the length of my spine. your hands now still, she shudders, crushed in loneliness. and so, it seems, do i. this may be the last time i visit her. draped in your clothing, i trudge through the forest until i see a nest of roots, climbing from the dirt as if they were meant to grow there. she whispered to me, “rest.� and i laid my spine on her roots and slept until dusk turned to dawn. your first and last love Entwined.

1

Entangled

Carlos Washington

2

Hannah Myers

3

Nature

by Ashley Draeger Take me back to the heart of nature, to the days I was told to stay outside until supper.

When the river current grappled for my ankles, the hem of my skirt soaked by the frothy water.

Pockets weighed down with acorns and jagged rocks, thick mud trapped under fingernails and between tanned toes.

Hair tangled with twigs and the loose petals of the blooming bushes, skin dotted with bug bites, smeared with dirt and sweat.

Take me back to the heart of nature, to the days I was told to stay outside until supper, and at supper begged to stay out later.

the dance

by Amie Barlow pockets empty and hearts full, the suitresses of the sky dance under streetlight, begging for the favor of the constellations with their every movement. their red heels trace the cracks of the parking lot ballroom, their footfalls unafraid of broken backs or of the imminence of sunrise. a midnight traffic chorus serenades them at their smudged mascara masquerade. they dance and dance and dance until the earth falls away, and all that exists lies within their desolate ballroom. they twirl their gowns of velvet and gingham until each planet in the heavens looks down on them with delight. their ball concludes with the gong of police sirens, and they scurry into their carriages and part. as they drive away from their asfalt ballroom and from one another, the sky smiles and christens them; the queens of the new world.

Gashadokuro Steals the Moon

5

Abby Royfman

Imprint

by Daria Sysoeva When a helicopter is whirring above my head, as I am a dandelion and it is a dragonfly, chuffing and screeching, I’m twenty-two, and I’m shrinking, shrinking, shrinking my head into shoulders; an omen of distant bullets echoes Caucasian gorges, and that’s in me.

If I pull it up, as a thread on a sweater or sutured gums, you can trace it back to the porcelain angels of Beslan school.

I am twelve, and I am walking among the graves.

They are forever six in their white blouses and black skirts or pants, while I’ve become two times older, and this knowledge is kept in me.

When the viscous air is cut in halves By a cawing siren, I’m twenty, and I awake with a tom-tom inside my chest, checking the news to look for a declaration of war, and ready to find a bunker as I was taught in life-safety classes ten years ago and two countries back; a mushroom cloud imprinted on my retina.

I can trace it deeper – to my grandmother refusing to break a moment’s silence on how it was – the occupied city back in the 40s, when she was twenty, or to my great-grandmother escaping from the Soviet famine and the Civil war by foot.

A hundred years of pain absorbed. That is why I am staring up at an alien sky, That’s in me – Syrian stars an ocean away from home, exploding above my head, trying to claim – that’s not in me, and the letters of patriotic schoolgirls addressed and to teach myself not to shudder “to the defender of Motherland.” hearing the helicopter’s predatory buzz.

I am eighteen, and at midnight I’m lying to my sleepless mother The dandelion’s head blows its seeds to the soil. that her son wasn’t sent to the front of an alien country for an alien reason silenced and utilized.

6

Rainy Days

7

Carlos Washington

FACING PAGE Say Their Names Carlos Washington

Skull Study

Abby Royfman

POETRY WINNER

sales girl

by Amie Barlow you answer phones for the office supply company just inside the right side of town. you need the money and it’s better than waiting tables or stripping so you spend your summer grinning “how can i help you today”’s into an ancient black receiver. the woman in the desk behind you likes to talk, and most days you’ve got the only ears in the office that will listen. she tells you “i used to be like you ya know. pretty secretary at the front desk, with the bowl of mints and allat. that had to have been, lord. must have been twenty five years ago now. time flies, i guess, __-_—_ that’s what men’ll do to ya.” she says something like that then goes to the water cooler or her desk and keeps working. you see, she spent some time in my chair and she was so good at talking to people into what’s now my black receiver that they offered her a different black receiver and a different chair and a couple bucks more an hour to make sales. and she was twenty two and she wanted to be a painter but she had two kids at home and “my ex husband never worked a fuckin day in his life. just laid around on that green fuckin couch and” -she always paused there for a drag on her cigarette she wasn’t supposed to smoke in the office- “just watched goddamn jeopardy and smoked pot like there wasn’t two babies in the house.” and she tells me he used to aim punches for the walls but he wasn’t a good shot and sometimes he would miss and hit her in the eyeliverheartchest, and she wasn’t really bothered until he missed and hit her youngest in the tooth so she took her cigarette and burned a hole in his arm and his pride and left that very afternoon. so she took that sales job they offered her and she wanted to be a painter but instead now she answers the calls i transfer to her. but some days i can see her tracing cigarette ash landscapes and faces and dreams onto a mcdonald’s napkin at her desk.and those are the days i transfer the calls to anybody else in the office.

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11

Daydreams in Spring

Alexandria Rayford-West

Tangerine Orange

Alexandria Rayford-West

three years in a balloon

by Amie Barlow

i. the summer before. it comes and it comes and it comes. and i think of nothing else. and all of a sudden, my stomach is full of brown couch cushions and roller coasters and the mess that is left after the bonfire is overwe folded the truth across living room floors like playing cards, then. sang it amongst ourselves in the back of old carsif you had asked me who my family was, i would not have hesitated to point to them, with their faded shirts and full toothed smiles and their paper earrings and their hopeii. the summer after it goes and it goes and it goes. and i think of nothing else. and all of a sudden, my stomach is full of new couch cushions and full time jobs and the bottles that are left after the bonfire is overwe folded the truth under our tongues like tabs of acid, then. i would sing it to myself in the dark of my backyardif you had asked me who my family was, i would not have hesitated to point to my own chest, puffed and scratched and full of hopeiii. the summer behind us. it glows and it glows and it glows. and i think of nothing else. the world ended and we all began againand all of a sudden, my stomach is full of laughter at old jokes on new couch cushions and the warmth that spits off the cinders when the bonfire is still burning. we folded the truth like white flags over caskets, then. i hum it to you in the front seat of your carnow, if you ask me who my family is, i will not hesitate to point to my own chest, (puffed, scars faded), and then, to them, with their faded shirts and full time jobs and their paper earrings and their full bodied laughter -

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(cont. from previous page) iv. the summers to come

they will come and go and glow just the same. and, thank god, i know of nothing else.

The Red Balloon

by Ashley Draeger

Mama made me promise to hold tight.

A smile pulled at my blue lips, sticky from cotton candy. Of course.

The string unwound from my fingers.

The red, rubber balloon once inches from my eyes, drifted away.

I stretched out a hand, stood on the tips of my toes, yet couldn’t grasp it. Those were the downsides of being five: you were forgetful–and short too.

Where would it go?

Down the street? Across the pond?

Would it travel to the moon?

I could picture it now: the red balloon surrounded by green aliens among the stars.

I hope they treat you well.

Mama mumbled about carelessness.

She dragged me off, I twisted my neck, all to catch a glimpse of the sky.

I grew pleased with the prospect of popcorn and pony rides, and forgot the red balloon, now snagged on a tree.

13

FACING PAGE

Becca Lustic

The Cold

by Alexandria Rayford-West A sister’s trust is immeasurable, I learned on the shore.

Shaky inhales and watery eyes The only sign of fear As we ran to the edge, Swimming with near ease As she kicked with tired legs.

Hand gripped tightly in mine, We floated out farther.

Water lapped at our skin Lulling me into a peace, Swallowing life’s worries.

Her muscles stayed Tense and unfazed by the cool waves.

She had always done fine With swimming and floating, The object in the sky Taking away her abilities Her skills. And her body, As it left. It had to.

I have searched the sky For the dark object.

I have let the seawater spray My mouth and tangle my hair, Waiting with my hand Clenched tight. Missing hers.

Willing her warmth to come back.

Above, like a canopy forming In the sky, a dark object Loomed in place Obscuring the sun from view.

Tight, already around my hand, Her own squeezed tighter Willing the sun’s warmth to come back.

I only wanted to see The cause of the cold, the strangler of light.

Releasing her hand,I sat up to crane My neck towards the object, Finding clouds and blurry spots The unidentified object no more.

Turning back to her,I was met with water.

No longer bringing peace Now beating my heart Through my chest with each small wave.

They were gone Her small hand and the looming shadow.

14

Sunrise

by Ashley Draeger The water is clear.

So clear that on windless days, you may mistake the river for glass, expecting it to shatter when you push your oar below the surface.

The other boaters do not speak.

They claim conversation startles the fish.

But afloat on the river yourself, you realize words spoken before sunrise taste strange on your tongue.

The fog encircles all.

It camouflages the skyline, and without the sound of horse hooves and the scent of cinnamon bread it’s possible you’d forget the city exists.

Symphony

by Hannah Myers

Have a heart attack in the art museum, drag you along the reve walls, echoing the roller coaster. If The Son of Man goes up, must he ever come down?

Do the tiny wings of the cherubs actually lift their disproportions? Are they holy hell? I bet they strike The Son’s kisser with arrows when we turn around.

Monet and St. Sebastian laugh, when I trip on the flat tiles, taking you along with me, to the roof of my house, just the floor of the museum, looking up at the beguiled lights like stars. Constellations are the black lines above the light bulbs, and churn into paintings like a three dimensional stretch of space: a room of rainbow cosmos.

We sit between the compositions of paint with our own pages of poems and Ginsberg strutting around the room, making Ekphrastic erotica out of landscape scenery.

He doesn’t pay much mind, except to dump coffee around in circles and gossip.

Chiaroscuro stories go on and on. We sit on pedestals for millenniam-

15

brosia, magic mixing through our veins in a timeless stretch. These paintings are immortal, but we don’t mind. I ask if you’re jealous. You chuckle. "Are not.”

City Scene

Vision of Trees

Carlos Washington

16

Coming back

by Daria Sysoeva

I look at my brother, with his body warped, with his arms embracing an invisible rifle – I can smell its grease on the tips of his fingers and wherever he touches blankets.

His breath rips the silence, while I hardly breathe, sleeplessly staring in the night-glow dark, listening to a shoot-up cannonading inside his skull.

What should we do when guilt crawls under the breast bone, tears the ribs, leaving no space to inhale?

I look at him; he’s tossing his head deliriously, clenching the heating metal.

This room is full of dust and terebinth.

“I shot no people”, he dropped when, at the kitchen, a kettle exploded bubbles, so different from its soothing in our childhood – sweet tea, my cry over the last empty sweet-wrapper, his laughter turned into ours five minutes later.

Now, I longed for him to laugh, but his lips hardly moved, his eyes looked through my forehead, two greyish voids: “I shot targets, hear me?”

I hear, and can give nothing more than an apologetic nod.

I shot my words – they died on my tongue long ago.

They died in the stack of his letters, covered with the ash of my endless “what-ifs”.

17

Hannah Myers

CONTRIBUTORS AMIE BARLOW (POETRY WINNER)

is a Pre-Law Political Science major at the University of Toledo. She works as a Writing Consultant with the Writing Center on campus, and enjoys running, reading, and cooking in her spare time.

ASHLEY DRAEGER

is a junior majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing. She is also minoring in marketing, and her favorite genre to write is fiction. In addition to writing, Ashley enjoys reading and spending time with her dogs.

BECCA LUSTIC

is a fifth-year senior, double-majoring in theatre and media communication. She will graduate in May. Becca likes to work in front of and behind the camera.

HANNAH MYERS

is an urban fantasy novelist, matcha-drinker, and dungeon master. She once made V.E. Schwab gag because she asked her to sign her sweat-encrusted shoe. When she isn’t glued to a notebook, she spends her time hiking, watching cartoons, and setting fires in the kitchen.

ALEXANDRIA RAYFORD-WEST

is a senior performance theatre major at the University of Toledo with a minor in English. She spends all of the time she can indulging in the creative, no matter what sense it caters to.

ABBY ROYFMAN (VISUAL MEDIA WINNER)

was born in Toledo, Ohio in the year 2000. She is currently pursuing a Biology degree, along with chemistry and art minors at the University of Toledo. Abby likes to experiment with different mediums, but working with acrylic paint and a brush holds a special place in her heart. She enjoys using brushstrokes and colors to give movement and life to her work.

DARIA SYSOEVA

was born and raised in a small town in Russia, moved to the United States in the fall of 2019 and currently studies Creative Writing and Art at the University of Toledo. In Russia, she earned a B.A. in Linguistics and established herself as a poet, editor, and translator. Author of the book of poetry “Никогда-нибудь” (rus. When-never) and a fantasy novel “Певческий огонь” (rus. Singer’s Fire). Lived in Chile for three months and cuddled a llama.

CARLOS WASHINGTON

is a senior at UT majoring in Theatre with a concentration in Performance. In his free time, Carlos is also a self-taught Portrait & Landscape photographer. Photography is how he shares with others the way he sees the World, in an effort to bring all people closer to a place of collective appreciation for our surroundings. His portraiture in particular primarily depicts aspects of the Black experience in America, a subject which nowadays has only become more prevalent than ever to talk about. "I hope that upon seeing my work, at least one person may take that moment as an opportunity for reflection and growth. Connecting to and empathizing with the people we encounter on a daily basis is one of the most meaningful things a person can do for themselves." After graduation, Carlos plans to move to Chicago where he will continue to share his art with the rest of the world.

SPONSORED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AND THE EDWARD SHAPIRO FUND FOR ENGLISH COMPOSITION II

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