CREATIVE WRITING

CURVE-BALL

Unless you have a crystal ball and a flair for the mystique, you can’t predict what happens to you. There may be cryptic whispers in dreams, but they often go unnoticed or gather dust, forgotten. Luck comes around sometimes, and spirits you onto a good or better path. Sometimes luck doesn’t stick around though, or just doesn’t show up.

Hoping luck comes to hang with you,

MAYAN GODMAIRE Creative Writing Editor

Kalopsia

EMMY RUBIN Contributor

I saw her walking down the street Holding her mother’s hand. She was wearing pink shoes with ribbons And was eating one of those lollipops That looked like they could hypnotize talking rabbits In those retro cartoons. I was sitting on the sidewalk Picking at the hole on my knee, Rationalizing that what’s big is deliberate And what’s small is a sign of misfortune, Even though I know that a hole is a hole No matter what size it is, And the wayward threads that border its edges Are the hints I unintentionally give the world that I’m breaking through my seams. Maybe that’s why I’m so mesmerized By the girl with pink ribboned shoes; Because while I’m worried about what I’ll eat tomorrow, She holds on to her mother’s hand As she takes another lick of her lollipop, Never once taking her eyes off the amorphous clouds surrounded by blue, Not noticing my longing to be looking up there too.

I don’t get any college credits for submitting to the plant

BEN BISALLON Contributor

Which priorities Do I prioritize My eyes Are weary There’s barely time For enough Words To reach tomorrow Perpetuate cycles Status quo Questions are not Quite encouraged Quiet conversely Leads to the same Place again I promise I tried To break it Beat it Find the key That all have searched for Yet few found I bring my only Solace closer As it approaches I ask for secrets Give me liberty Give me ignorance Let me set my naive goals again Like before I knew they were impossible

Forfeiting the Game of Games

ALEX MERFU Contributor

curious to see your face full of shed tears, and your grieving bellowings when all that pulses inside me is uneasiness

for me, he had never lived at all, nor had he ever smiled or laughed; done any of the things you loved him for.

the poet, our lord, grieves alongside, an earth-shattering sorrow not shared by me. perhaps ill see him crossing the street, or perhaps again at the park.

Sometimes I Wonder

LEO HUSSAIN Contributor

I’m standing there, my hand held by yours So they glared, forever stared, We became a car wreck on a busy road

Wind in my hair, I’m driving 120, semi-comatose Sometimes I wonder, what’s the point of loving if their voices speak louder than our own? Sometimes I wonder, what’s the point of living if they say that our living is wrong?

I’m standing there, my hand grasped by yours They barged in, old kin and men I call friends So before they glared, and forever stared, I let you go

Sometimes I wonder, what’s the point of loving if their opinions matter more than my own? Sometimes I wonder, what’s the point of trying if it breaks my bones? Wind in my hair, I’m driving midair, alone

Managing Editor’s Farewell

MIA KENNEDY Managing Editor

It’s been an honour It’s not goodbye, just farewell See you soon my friends

-Mia Kennedy, as resignation from Managing Editor

Exploring Void

NATHAN MCDONALD Contributor

Cigarette in my left, beer on my right, My phone in its pocket and you on my mind, Seeing now how life relies on building block dependences. I’ve tried 8 months without smoking, 4 without drinking, 3 without porn, And I’m still trying to get you out, But the void is an ever-hungry traveler.

Their first success becomes the last as soon as its achieved, And they will find all types of roads to get to what I need. Why do they do this work for me without a prize in mind, This I know I will never know before it is my time.

Chin high, this inner-explorer brandishes their encyclopedic arrow towards what I need to, want to, should go get. As they point to meditation, mindfulness, contemplation, whatever makes me sweat, Being its vessel, this rogue mind runs to the ropes, ravishing and ranting and reminding and racking all to try and hoist my sails. This goal, this game, their insatiable pass time. Serenity, my holy grail, is true North, But with my bravado-ridden companion, no missions will lead me there.

Now, now that I’ve spoken against their efforts, by the explorer’s decree, my feet lay in sinking cement, a mix of bad habit and false spontaneity. Sinking, my lungs fill with troubled waters while my body reminisces the time of heartfelt exploration.

Each shore presented different options: Salty, bitter, bitter-sweet, sweet; Foamy, infested, turmoil-fret fleet. I’ve walked, ran, sat along sands Of coarse, soft, much-trodden land, Always with my relic in mind, the one I swear I’ll find, to no extent. For, the calmest, stagnant, lukewarm waters in which I dip myself Are but short-lived. Once my forefinger bobs over what could fill the explorer’s void Time proves itself unkind. It’s never enough.

Then back to smoke and poison in a can, To endorphins in all shapes and forms. These habits compress the exploration of life. Still are they kinder than the unknown promised land.

Illustrations by

MAYAN GODMAIRE Creative Writing Editor

Winter

KAYLA JOY FRIEDLAND Contributor

the blue silk that spread along the edges of the sun and all she was dipped his finger into the earths’ charcoal used the sun as his canvas and smeared his fingerprints along the sides of her face and a single tear drop fell he wiped it away and handed it to the birds, as they soared among the prairies they dropped her tears onto the wind’s eyelashes and the breeze caught them and they froze, marbled and each different and they fell and he watched from the clouds he had created the cold he had birthed the love he had made he gave her a name the hardened tears and the dusted skies he called her winter and she was so beautiful