Port City Review 2016 by SCAD District

Port City Review Issue 03

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Port City Review Issue 03

My Mystic The last time I saw Mystic she looked so small. Her little shoulders were twin peaks above her hunched head. She had always been tiny, but now the skin underneath her black and white fur hung low in a way it never had, and there was an aching cautiousness to her steps. Mystic was my cat, in the way that my parents were my parents. I felt like they implicitly belonged to me and with me. I didn’t understand that they were things that could leave because, at eleven-years-old, no one ever had. The new garage’s concrete floor did nothing but box in the cold and amplify it. Winters in Florida last about a month, and my college roommates—one from Missouri and the other from Wisconsin—would tell you that Florida winters aren’t really winters at all. But it was cold enough for me, and cold enough that I worried all day at school about Mystic. All through the bus ride home I sat, quiet and anxious, waiting to be close enough for her to find me, knowing she would eventually come to the sound of my voice. I stopped calling her when I saw her face coming under the cracked door. I can’t remember the color of her eyes anymore, but I remember the way that they angled downward at the corners. Whatever the opposite of a smile in your eyes looks like, that’s how hers looked that night. She was wary, even of me. I saw the blood and went to her, kneeling down to pick her up. Her fur was chilly but her body was warm. “Hey, little girl.” Every time you picked Mystic up, she just looked at you. Her big eyes were so full of love and adoring admiration that you couldn’t help but love her back. The fur around her right eye was a half circle of deep black, her left framed in white. Just above her lip, and below her whiskers, was a smart, perfect little black mustache. I think that mustache was one of the reasons everyone wanted to pet her and hold her more than her brother Apollo. He was big and clumsy, and no matter how hard he tried, his face only ever held his one expression. Apollo was already gone. It’d been two weeks since any of us had seen him, and the only one who noticed at first was my brother. Apollo was his cat. When we’d moved into the new house full of sharp lines, modern appliances, and cold tile floors my mom made it clear that she didn’t want the cats to come inside. They shed a lot, and while that had been okay in the softer, carpeted, cozy low-ceilinged old house only a couple of miles down the road, this house was special. We were the only ones who ever lived in this house, and like with a new car, my mom feared the first scratch. Mystic and Apollo were so trusting when we picked them up and placed them in that plastic travelling crate. They didn’t know that they wouldn’t be coming back home, but instead would live in a new neighborhood, outside of their family’s new home. The backyard was a sloped mess of palmettos and marshland. As unfamiliar as it was to me, I couldn’t imagine the shock for them. There were snakes here, alligators, and worst of all, other territorial cats. I figured my mom would eventually change her mind, once the newness became a little less shiny. I walked to the back of the garage and sat down on top of a bed I’d constructed for Mystic using cardboard boxes and a soft pink and white comforter and cradled her, worrying in that less than concrete way where you know there are dangers but don’t actually expect the bad to happen even if the bad is inevitable. “What happened?” I touched a finger to her back paw, just beside the gash.

The cut was small but deep. I thought about the horrible sounds of cats fighting outside my bedroom window the night before and I knew. She let the leg just lay at her side. Mystic, who had so meticulously groomed herself every day of her five years, didn’t even try to lick away the blood. I knew what it was, even then; she was miserable. She’d lost her home, her family, and her partner in crime. I was miserable watching her. Looking back at it, I think she was more than miserable. She was defeated. I still assumed Apollo would show up one day because he’d disappeared before. The last time before the final time, he’d been gone for almost two weeks. Maybe Mystic knew better. Her little body told me that she did, even if I didn’t know what to look for at the time. Apollo, who had circled her protectively when she’d come home sore and not herself from being fixed at the vet, her brother, became her first loss. I stayed with her until it was time to go to bed and wrapped her in the blanket before I turned out the lights. I memorized my bedroom ceiling that night. More than once I thought about sneaking back into the garage to bring her in bed with me, but I didn’t. I just assumed I would see her in the morning. When I woke up the garage was empty. Every New Year my family drives up to Georgia for three or four days to a hunting club that’s been a part of my family longer than I have. That morning I loaded up into the back seat of my dad’s truck and laid my head against the window as we drove away. My mom stayed home for a few days that year to work before driving up alone. When she pulled in, the first thing I asked was if Mystic was okay. She said she hadn’t seen her but that she was sure she was okay. But when I came home, Mystic’s bed was still empty. I kept expecting her to show up, and by the time that it was clear she wasn’t coming home, it seemed too late to cry for her. Mystic was five when I lost her. It took five more years to stop blaming my mom and myself for her being gone, and another five before I finally cried. Still, when I think about what might have happened to her, I remember the blood and assume the worst. I don’t see her off with a family somewhere that lets her inside. I think an alligator must have gotten her. There were so many that year. Funny that I never blamed them. I don’t really know that Mystic is dead. All I can know is that she’s gone. Maybe that’s the way it goes, and we each mean no more or less than any other being that’s here for a second and gone the next. Maybe we can no more belong to anyone than anyone can belong to us, because we already belong to a system that gives and takes as it pleases. And if there’s a pattern, I don’t see it yet.

My Mystic Non-fiction ( 2014 ) Savannah Rake Saint Augustine, Florida BFA Writing

Port City Review Issue 03

My parasitic lover

My blood must smell sweet to you; I remember laughing when you said Mosquitoes must love me as much as you do, The way they eat me alive and still Beg for more. I say, you must love the misery They put me through; You say, I’m in love with you. The love you speak of is stagnant, shallow, Disaster’s breeding ground, where the mosquitoes Go to fuck. I remember standing in the water When you said, this is the place where If you’re not careful enough, We’ll love too hard and be itching for each other In the morning. You know me; I scratch until I bleed. I remember bruised knees, scraped elbows, Scars on wrists and ankles and my poetry; I remember feeling like the blood in my veins Belonged to you, My parasitic lover, but you left me flea-bitten, Itching for your hands, scratching my heart open, Skin, broken, raw.

My Parasitic Lover Poetry ( 2015 ) Rachel Sandene Plano, Texas BFA Illustration

Truth or Dare Flash fiction ( 2015 ) Brianna Howarth Cinnaminson, New Jersey BFA Writing

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Truth or Dare

“Truth,” she said. “How about, what are two things you miss about your ex, and two things you don’t miss about him?” Zach asked. Jade readjusted the lawn chair and sipped her drink. “I miss his shitty taste in beer and his cigarettes. I don’t miss his god damn shitty taste in beer and his god damn cigarettes.” Zach laughed, “I hated seeing his PBR in your fridge.” “And his cigarettes made my clothes stink.” “You always smell bad. But, okay, truth.” Zach and Jade had been friends since grade school, neighbors, attended the same high school, and then ended up at the same university. “Would you rather date a girl who gives killer head or a girl who cooks the best food?” It was tradition that Zach and Jade spent Friday nights drinking alcohol and playing a game of truth or dare. It was understood each turn warranted a truth, unless the dare was to get the other person a drink. “Does the cooking chick still give head? It’s just not the best blowjob in the world?” Zach asked. She looked at him, studying his face to determine which question was more difficult to answer. “It’s blowjob girl, but she won’t make you any meals, or chef girl who will cook you the best food you’ve ever eaten, but she doesn’t go down.” “Well shit, why am I dating either one?” “Because it’s the question,” she said, playfully slapping his arm. “I’d pick blow job girl. I’d still get to eat at least.” “Truth.” “Would you ever kiss me?” Zach asked, staring at the car driving past. “I mean, I’d kiss your forehead,” Jade said, unsure of her answer. “No, I mean kiss me kiss me.” She got up from the chair and sipped her drink for a long time. “No,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “Why not?” “Because a kiss isn’t just a kiss.” He shook his head, unsure of the meaning behind her insinuation. “Truth.” “Strangest place you ever kissed a girl?” she asked. “A day care center.” “Why were you at a day care center? You got a kid I don’t know about?” “Oh absolutely. No, I was dating Melanie, and we were picking up my cousin and he was taking forever. So we just started making out in the hallway.” “That makes more sense. Truth.” “What would our kiss mean?” A dog barked and in the distance a car alarm went off. “I hope you’re just asking because of the game,” she said. “Does that answer the truth?” She toyed with her necklace and then looked at him. “It’d be a regret. You know, a friendship like ours. You don’t mess with it.”

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Port City Review Issue 03

Jumpin’ Jack Welcome, folks, to Tallywood, the world’s tallest town. It’s full’a tall people, tall buildings, even tall hounds. But there’s one who doesn’t quite measure up: A short boy named Jack – no larger than a stump. This town looks up to the tallest man alive, Mr. Tim, But Jack didn’t wanna be like him. His heart told him to jump and that is just what he did; Jumpin’ all day and night, they called him “the Jumpin’ Kid”. Jack jumped over the dish that ran off with the spoon. Little Jack even jumped over the cow that jumped over the moon! But then, one day, he fell, and as he laid in the dirt, Todd and Ted snaked up to lie into the squirt. Todd said, “Little Jack, in this town, We’ve got but one simple rule. And if you think you can jump Out of being short, you’re a fool.” So Jack ran away beaten, cut down by their jeer. He cried, “Why am I the only short one here?” His heart snapped back, “Why Jack, You’re jumpin’ makes you tall – it makes you you. Why’s that suddenly somethin’ you don’t wanna do?” Jack just looked off and barely replied, “I’ll never measure up, no matter how hard I try.” So Little Jack tuned out his heart in shame, And tried to stretch his legs, but his work was in vain. And soon, the day came for the town to judge Just whom the tallest kid in Tallywood was. The mayor revealed the Talla-Measuramo-Heightamatic, And shouted, “Let us begin,” which made the crowd ecstatic Till Jack showed up, which made quite a scene. One man barked, “This boy looks lost – he must be in a dream!” And they were a’booin’, and Jack nearly broke. They laughed themselves silly, and Jack began to choke! The weight of their hate almost made him cave in, But then Jack’s heart made him lift up his chin. “I don’t wanna be the next anybody,” Jack said, “I wanna be the first Jumpin’ Jack instead!”

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So Jack jumped with all his might – Past the trees and birds and clouds and even the height Of Mr. Tim – the man they’d all praised! Jumpin’ Jack kicked off his hat, and the town was amazed.

Jumpin' Jack Poetry ( 2015 )

Grant Whitsitt Jackson, Tennessee BFA Animation

The Great Nashville Flood

The Great Nashville Flood There was a rumor that a house was Under water I hadn’t written a word in Over a month And you were sober, unable to leave So you asked me to take a break From my weeping To go and see it The rain was calm At first And we tried to light a bowl Back and forth Joking, like we used to Walking through ankle deep water On the paved asphalt of our street Free For a moment Until the rain turned torrential As we had expected

Poetry ( 2015 )

Isabella Roy Mount Juliet, Tennessee BFA Writing And we ran to a nearby tree For shelter Providing Nothing And you made this joke About our real father And I laughed And you looked worried When I didn’t stop As if I were insane And you asked if I was still taking my Pills Pulling out a handful of blue Circles with smiley faces on them Handing one to me While we stood underneath the outstretched Limbs of our father Soaking wet Waiting

Like those buckets we waited under at Water parks

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Port City Review Issue 03

When I Was Home Today is crowded and cluttered, but I feel empty. Shoppers shuffle their strange dust across my tiles and carpet, and it’s not the taste that bothers me. Nobody is here for Christmas. Nobody is here for Easter. I suppose this time was as good as any for this sale, here in the drought of austere and leftover joys. Nobody is baking fresh chocolate cake in my seen-better-days oven while the seal of Pillsbury Whipped Frosting is broken. Nobody is walking through my door with two or three French loaves or hot scones. Nobody is laughing the way I like. Nobody is smiling a smile I know. Nobody is using positive adjectives when chatting about the family. Nobody is quiet, and though it may sound so to the human ear, it is not the silence of peace I first felt in the shade of my elm trees and the lateness of 1960. I came into this world quiet, on purpose yet not consciously mute. Neither deaf nor dumb, my senses were the peeps and squeals I first sounded once I had a solid foundation. The ones who made me stand talked all the time when there was noise, not directly from them but, as I later concluded, from my construction. That’s not to say noise or sound was scarce otherwise. I have a very head-on view of the road laid long before me, though I myself am far from my weaker youth. From the beginning, noise slowly became sound, then music, and before long, it was what prevented me from being utterly heartless. When my ground was broken and a few elm trees were cleared, the homes around me would compliment one another on their chic green shutters, flat-top roofs, and plain, contemporary edges. “Fit for our times,” they told me from their chimney tops. That’s how we stay close, besides our placement in this earth, a factor completely out of our control before, during, and after “our times.” Every type of smoke and steam from furnace, fire, and fued alike makes this transmission possible. Address, house, or residence was my first name, but I can’t remember which one exactly, because I already day-and-night dreamt about the moment I would begin puberty, the instant someone inside of me would let it slip, and like THAT, I would be “I” in the greatest form of me. I would be home. Not “a” home. I cringe when I hear them say I’m a home. The very minuteness of the article degrades my dignity as one who has seen, heard, and learned too much from the race that made me and the world that puppeteers them. They think they are God because they made me and many more similar. It is that which keeps them shocked when the world does what it has always done. Humans always seem inevitably surprised when nature does anything beyond a simple sunrise. You would think they would learn, but I’ll admit it is an amusing spectacle, that routine, almost enforced, panic at the first snow. If you were not home, you were a house. Ouch. A house. Not as nails-on-chalkboard as a home, yet “house” is just a three-letter difference from “home.” “Use” and “me,” our humble plea for purpose. If you were not a house, then you were one of the lots waiting for a purpose. However, they were not the only ones waiting for that. I waited for it all of the ten months I grew up. “Waited” might be the wrong word. “Hoped,” maybe. “Dreamed,” more so. Just the miracle one mind considered the slightest in conceiving me meant I had an unpredictable chance for anything. I could be immortal for a while, make history inadvertently, or probably see the world end before I ever discovered it was just me dying. And it would all be beautiful, but only the best kind of beauty seen when at home.

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Today, I am almost there. Tomorrow, I want ever so badly to be all and not almost. Yesterday was better, but fours years ago was the last time I know I was truly home. The furniture hugged my heart when I could not. Now, that old, itchy sofa’s footprints are all that remain. I do my best to embrace my internals, but they have gradually grown cold, dreary, and aloof, becoming as empty as my family room feels. No family is gathered on that sofa. No cousins scamper in avoidance of the coffee table’s pointy corners. No men watch the Bears or Cubs on that dated television set with the two anteni. No women hold their big and little babies while gossiping over Frango coffee swimming in those collectible Chicago architecture-themed mugs. No chocolate lab lays in ecstasy from belly rubs on the brown carpet. Today, I am de-gutted. I find myself relying upon the presence of remaining furniture for reassurance that I am still alive, have a heart, and will not lose my soul to this transition. This sale is not for my purchase, but for the treasures I cradled and protected for my organs, my guts, my family. I gave them me. They made me home. Now that they are almost gone, I am almost another lot.

When I Was Home

Dear Emotional Black Boy

Fiction ( 2014 )

Poetry ( 2015 )

Emilie Kefalas

Aliyah Curry

Decatur, Illinois BFA Writing

Enterprise, Alabama BFA Dramatic Writing

Dear Emotional Black Boy 1. It is not an excuse to be a fuck boy. 2. It is okay to cry in front of me. Let me hold you, let your tears water my dry shoulders, let your eyes be cleansed so you can see. 3. But since you don’t want to cry, don't take it out on me. Don't push my emotions, hard, like stirring a pot of something stubborn and burning , until I burst, and give your mind relief. Don’t hurt me so you don’t have to feel yourself. 4. I love you. 5. You do not have to be the image of the strong, muscular black man. Do not compare yourself to the star athletes, be the best you can be. I will not, cannot, think lowly of you because you are who you are. 6. They want to kill you, so stand tall like the mighty tree you are. Encourage your brothers in knowledge, not one night stands. Continue to give them someone to be afraid of. 7. It is not an excuse to be a fuck boy. I love you. So love yourself.

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Port City Review Issue 03

Screaming or Whispering?

Screaming or Whispering? Has anyone ever told you that you don’t know how to love? Did you ever play spin the bottle in a friend’s basement? How about Never Have I Ever? Can you still recall the sensation of having a crush on someone? How your heart beats a bit faster when you see his smile? How you fiddle with your clothes or hair when he talks to you? How you can never manage to articulate an intelligent sentence? When was the last time you cried? How would you describe your voice? Do you speak softly or loudly? Have you ever proposed to someone? Are you single? If so, why? If you are in fact in a relationship of some sort, are you truly happy? Are you content when you are alone? Have you ever felt more alone with someone than without? Which is worse: screaming or whispering? If he never called you beautiful, does that mean he never thought it? What’s better than intimacy? Does crying have to be considered emotional? Have you ever been in the car with a boy you cared about while he drove you home in the pouring rain as he yelled at you and explained your faults, and why you are an insufficient human being, a terrible friend, and a shitty girlfriend? Isn’t love about accepting the other’s flaws? Which is worse: silence or noise? Could you list his flaws if he asked you to on the spot? If you couldn’t and he yelled at you for it, what would you do? Would you cry like I did? Do you look pretty when you cry? Does he think so? What makes you cry? What was the best date you ever had? Did he pay for you? Is it rude that he didn’t knock on the door and instead texted he was here and refused to greet your parents? Would you blame my parents for being angry with him later that night? Do you like holding hands in movie theatres? Have you ever made out in a movie theatre? Have you ever cried in one? Why would he laugh at me when I cried at a movie in which someone died? Did you ever watch the clock because you wanted a date to end so badly? Who do you care about? Do you like the rain? Have you ever felt that everything you want to say shouldn’t be said? Is silence louder than noise? If he insulted your livelihood and your major and your college, should you slap him? If a perfect conversation existed, how would it go? Are you a glutton for abuse? Am I? Is that why I stuck around? Did you ever pray for the end of a relationship because you are too much of a coward to end it yourself? How important is communication? Have you ever taken a vow of silence? I apologize too much; did he need to point that out? He didn’t like my choice of clothing, so he told me I was an attention whore, am I really? Are you like me in that public displays of affection make you uncomfortable? How would you take the comment: “You have a funny way of showing me you love me”? Which is worse: physical scars and wounds or the mental ones that slice away self-esteem and act like pipe bombs in your psyche? Once in my car in the parking lot of a Subway he proceeded to say cruel things about my mother, what do you think I should have done? His mom wouldn’t accept anything less than perfection and dictated his life; do you think he took out his frustration on me? Because I can paint, his mother thought me stupid; do you think she knows anything about art? Why would he tell you all the shit his mom says about you when you aren’t around?

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Can you believe that while working at a library for two years no one had the audacity to ask, “I have a library card, can I check you out sometime?” Do you get jealous easily? Are you a talented public speaker? Do you prefer a high-pitched voice, a low bass tone, or a raspy voice? When was the last time you screamed at someone? Have you ever screamed at a significant other for cheating? Are you friends with your exes? Is that juvenile? What was your first kiss like? If I said I can’t remember mine, would you assume that is because I have repressed the memory, I am lying, or I have kissed so many people in my life they have all run together? If a lie were a noise, what would it sound like? When was the last time you cried? Are you uncomfortable when someone you are with cries? Are you a lover or a fighter or an instigator? Could you scream for me? Could you scream at me? What is the best way to cope with a broken heart? Would you break the law to save a loved one? What does a bad relationship sound like? Is a healthy relationship like a beautiful love song? Like two people harmonizing? Like a slick guitar solo? Is it even musical in the least? What’s worse than disappointing someone? When was the last time you wrote someone a letter? What does joy look like? Is it more important to love or be loved? Is crying a form of purging terrible feelings? If sadness were an instrument would it be string, brass, percussion or something else entirely? Have you ever ended a relationship through a text message? Did you ever try a long distance relationship? Would you want to? Have you ever called someone just to hear the sound of their voice? Do you think he kept the movie stubs, letters, birthday gifts, photographs, drawings, and sticky notes with kind words? Have you ever tried to erase someone from your life? What does denial sound like? If he talked shit about you to your best friend, should you blame your friend or him or both of them for denying your trust? If he hooked up with your best friend despite the fact that every chance he got he called her a bitch, do you think he really enjoyed her company? Is this a true statement: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’? If you know other people don’t decide your worth, why is it so hard to shut out the things they say? What does it mean to be good enough? Does love have a soundtrack? Will you whisper it to me? Actually, scream me the lyrics?

Screaming or Whispering Non-fiction ( 2014 )

Brianna Howarth Cinnaminson, New Jersey BFA Writing

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Port City Review Issue 03

The Sun Room The room had no walls, but was supported by large dusty windows, pelted by time, the elements; a sort of greenhouse. There were light smudges of dirt, spots where water had dried, like faint marks of ghosts of the earth. A large circular piece of glass was set in the zenith of the room, the very center of the ceiling. A cold eye looking into heaven, unvarnished by nature, untouched by change. Along the edges, on the inside and out, the room was lined with flowers on the cracked and worn tile and brick floor. Daisies, daffodils, all sorts of greenery. They lined the edges of a long crescent in an asymmetric unity, different heights with no set arrangement of colors: a small, but welcome chaos. Jessica danced in this room because she liked the way the light bounced. She would sway and move to the unknown, foreign melodies in her head, the humming in her breath. Rays of the sun reflected off of her clothes like they were mirrors, caressing the edges of her arms as they reached high above her head, twisting and turning in a warm embrace. They braided themselves into the gold strands of her hair. Had her eyes been open, they would fire back, small bursts of flame and lightning. Those few rays were lucky, blessed. She wore white that day, an ivory shirt almost crystal in the light. Robert discerned the shape of her breasts, the gentle slope of her abdomen, the small of her back. They moved together in a time of their own; a slow time, a pace known to the patient and the deserving. Jessica was more of a goddess, a nymph, a banshee than a woman. An unattainable, boundless thing in a porcelain package trimmed with gold. A porcelain knife, naked in her purpose, faultless in design. She spoke softly, laughed like thunder. She changed her style of dress as quickly as she twisted her temperament. She knew she was heavenly, and danced barefoot in a glass box covered in dust and dirt. Robert knew he was lucky to have her call him hers. She stopped her ceremony, out of breath, breathtaking. She looked at him with her eyes, green, clouded spheres of jade. Her lips puckered, plumped by the air. “I have your tea,” Robert said. “Thank you!” “I didn’t want to bother you while you were dancing. It may have gotten cold.” “It’s fine either way.” “What were you dancing to?” “Hm?” “The song.” “What song?” “The one you were humming.” Jessica swallowed, a drop trailed from her lower tip to her chin. “Oh, the song I was dancing to?” “Yes.” “Something I made up. I like making them up as I go along, you know? I can hear the drums in my head, and every now and then I add a tambourine. The words don’t usually make a lick of sense, but I’ll sing them anyway,” she shook her head. “No, that’s not quite right. I never sing my words aloud.” They sat together on a wooden bench near the door. “You should,” said Robert.

“Should what, love?” “Should sing out loud. I’m sure you have a wonderful voice.” “You’ve never heard it.” “I know I’ll love it.” She looked at him with a mother’s pity; the pity one receives when they wear two different colored socks. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Robert smiled. He picked up a fallen petal from one of the daisies. Blood red, a bright tint of yellow around the edges. No other petals had fallen. He moved his index finger and thumb in a circular motion, massaging it. It was soft, wet, cold as it eroded between the fingertips. It left a mark of fragrance, a slight refreshing note that it had been there, touched. “Have you decided?” She looked at him, glancing away again quickly. Jessica brought the tea to her lips, “It’s already been done.” “I’m sorry?” “It’s done.” “I don’t understand,” Robert turned to face her. “I took care of it a few days ago.” Her voice was firm, but resigned, distant. Robert loosened his grip on the bench. “I see. Who went with you?” She did not answer. “Who went with you?” “Nobody.” “You went alone?” “That’s what nobody means.” “Weren’t you scared?” “No.” her voice was an icy wind, slapping Robert. “I would have gone with you.” “I know. I didn’t want you to.” Jessica finished her tea in silence; honey lined the bottom of the bowl. With a pale finger, thin as string, she fished the golden substance and landed it delicately into her mouth. Her eyes closed, lashes fluttering in a small ecstasy, ruby lips plumped and glossed. Robert was sick. “I love you,” he said. “I know you do.” Jessica rose from her seat, kissed him on the cheek and walked back into her home. She left the cup for Robert. He cradled the mug in his hands, searching for an ounce of warmth in the ceramic. He flung it through one of the glass walls, letting the pane shatter onto the tile, into the dirt outside.

The Sun Room Fiction ( 2015 )

Sara Terrell Carrboro, North Carolina BFA Writing

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Port City Review Issue 03

Snakes and Snails and Puppydog Tails “Snakes and Snails and Puppydog Tails” There was no softness inside of him. There was concrete, there was motoroil in his marrow, but no pulse, no sound, corrosive like a pennywhistle with its spine snapped. All of his anger had dried into iron, into copper on his teeth and in trying to cut the snarl out of his tongue they removed his heart in the process, scraped out all the warm hot things like the meat from an oyster, threw out the pearls and fed him hollow points instead like tramadol, something to keep him callous and quiet because there is no diagnosis more fatal for a fifteen year old boy than appearing feminine. That is how you make a boy into a gun, by starving him of love and touch and the markers of affection among men then teaching him that to be weak is to be a woman and that weakness is something that he must crush through consumption. You teach him to quarantine gentleness like a plague and then wonder why he acts so feral.

Snakes and Snails and Puppydog Tails Poetry ( 2015 )

Mel Walton Savannah, GA BFA Writing

Oh What I Would Give Poetry ( 2015 )

Asli Shebe Dar es Salaam, Tanzania BFA Writing

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Oh What I Would Give Oh What I Would Give To be the cigarette held between your lips. Craved. An addiction. Apart of a daily routine. Passed between your mouth and fingers. Perched on the edge of your ashtray. Watching you as you cook. You’d have me with your morning coffee and your evening tea. In between breaks, against the red and grey brick building. I’d stay on your tongue a burning reminder. My perfume in your hair, on your mouth and clothes. A secret you wouldn’t want, your Mother to know.

Marlboro Camel Newport Dunhill Winston. Have me light have me raw, wide and unfiltered. You go through cigarettes like you do women. Careless. Two, three at a time. Hand and mouth. Back-to-back. A pack-a-day. Oh, what I would give to be, held between your lips, tucked behind your ear, always in your back pocket. You’d breathe me in every breath every break. Two packs a day. The first thing you reach for when you wake. The blackened tar on your lungs. The smoke rising, spelling out my first and last name.

A pack a day.

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Port City Review Issue 03

Miracle Gro

We were standing in the courtyard and it was hot and you were watering your plants. I was sitting in that metal chair smoking one of those long Marlboros that you hate but don't have the heart to scold me off of anymore. It's hot and the plants are dying, but they're plants and that’s what they do in Arizona in July. You loved them, brought some with us when we moved from New York, buckled precariously into the backseat of my station wagon next to the bungee corded mass of our clothes and records and luggage and kaleidescope life. You’ve always been a man who cared for things, whether plants or students or politics or me. For the plants, you swore by sunlight and soil and club soda, but bought some Miracle Gro from the hardware store this year, hoping that it might help them last til the fall while trying not to gripe about how synthetic it smells. Water froths cold down between my sweat and my shirt and I jump up fast enough to knock the chair back, dropping my cigarette into the tributaries trickling between the bricks below us, shoving you away. It's July and we're both laughing and I'm cussing at you and you trap me close in the crook of your arm and hold the hose over my head, soaking my hair and my shoulders and watering me just like those plants, knowing that we are both going to die, that the doctor said December. It’s 1989, you’re 52 and I’m 41 and the last time I went in they wouldn’t let you see me. I know it kills you that you don’t know how to take care of me anymore. But you try to hide it so I don’t see, so I don’t feel worse. You wish that there could be a chemical that could help me, a chemical or a change of light and water, but it’s 1989 and all of our friends are dying. I wrestle the hose from your grip and spray it all over your glasses and your shirt and your grin, thinking that I'm going to miss it, wishing that I could just be like the water and seep into your skin and not have to worry about who’s going first.

Miracle Gro

Beauty on Her Arm

Poetry ( 2015 )

Non-fiction ( 2015 )

Mel Walton

Cherrelle Rand

Savannah, Georgia BFA Writing

Heidelberg, Germany BFA Writing

Beauty on her arm They are referred to as beauty marks. I'm certain there’s a special, difficult-to-pronounce scientific name for them but what the everyday person refers to them is a beauty mark. Most people think they’re moles; I did when I was a kid. But they’re actually small black birthmarks most notably on the face near the nose, under the mouth usually at the corners, or near the eye. They can be anywhere else on the body, really. Sometimes they’re small and elevated, you know like Madonna’s. But usually they’re on the same level as the skin. That's how my older sister and mine are. Only her mark is on her right arm and mine on my left. As a kid, hers was fairly small but, as she got older and grew more, it grew with her. By the time she was a teenager, it had doubled in size. It wasn’t massive, it didn’t take up the whole arm, but it was big enough to notice. I stared at it quite a lot despite how disgusted I was by it. It made me uncomfortable to look it. Some members of my family would tease her about it. Some of our younger cousins would poke it. That made me queasy. The poking. I knew her mark was black, but it appeared green against her dark skin. I believed if I touched it that it would get on my finger, infect it, and spread throughout my whole hand. Then my hand would just be a giant mole. I began to wonder if it would keep growing. Would it take over her entire arm? Would she have to get hers removed? I looked down at my own. It was tiny just as hers had been but no longer was. I didn’t want mine to get big. I was shocked whenever someone would call it a beauty mark. It wasn’t beautiful, it was ugly. And while my skin might have been dry and cracked from my decision to stop applying lotion to my body, I refused to have something so hideous on my body. I decided to get rid of it, but I didn’t know how. I knew that asking my mom to get laser surgery was out of the question. We were a working class family. I didn’t know how much it would cost but the word “laser” in front of “surgery” screamed expensive. I thought about cutting it off, but the thought of taking a cold knife against my skin made me cringe. But then the perfect opportunity presented itself. Somehow I managed to get a cut near the mark. I was always hurting myself somehow. I would wake up in the morning with cuts and bruises as if I was fighting myself all in the night in my sleep. I went to the bathroom, locked both doors, sat down on the toilet seat and started scratching at it, picking at the wound moving my way towards the mole, ignoring the pain and the blood that spilled out. I can only imagine what I must’ve looked like. I picked until I couldn’t take it any longer, until it appeared to be gone. I sat on the toilet seat for a few minutes taking deep breaths. I got up and washed the blood and skin from my hands and underneath my fingers. I cleaned up the wound with hydrogen peroxide before smacking a Band-Aid on it. I left the bathroom with my arm still stinging and a smile to accompany it. I went to my mom’s room. She was lying on her bed watching tape-recorded Soap Operas. I crawled onto the bed and curled up with her. “What happened to your arm?” she asked after a while. “I had a cut,” I said nonchalantly. I felt her reach up and peel the Band-Aid half way off. “Is that your way of getting rid of it?” my mom asked angrily. I knew what she was talking about without even having to think. I tried to come up with a quick lie. But I was a terrible liar. Always had been. “No, I just cut myself on accident,” I said, looking up at her; it was partially the truth. She shook her head, replaced the Band-Aid on my arm, before going back to watching the stories. I felt a tinge of guilt and embarrassment. Days went by and I finally decided to peel off the Band-Aid. And there it was. Still black and still the size it has always been, barely noticeable. But mine.

24 10

Port City Review Issue 03

(GRAD)

Port City Review Issue 03

(GRAD)

Port City Review Issue 03

(GRAD)

Port City Review Issue 03

- Can be anything - No limit on submissions - Have to be a student

Our panel of student judges will vote in fall.

If accepted or if turned down we’ll send you an email. You celebrate regardless if you got in or not because your awesome and why not?

The book is published winter quarter and everyone loves it