The Wire Harp - 2020 by the Wire Harp

THE W IR E H AR P 20 20

SPOKA NE FALLS COMMUNIT Y COLLEG E

THE

2020 CR E ATIVE ARTS MAGAZ IN E

Poetry The End of the Lane �� 2

The Veil �� 5 0

R AY DEAN L. BLAK L EY, J R .

J O S C E LY N B RAD B U RY

Ocean Study �� 4

Setting Out to Save Ourselves �� 5 2

W ILLOW JO HNSO N

MCKENZI WINGO

Glenrose Trail * �� 6

Accident as a Synonym for Purpose �� 5 4

LUKE RO E

Next, Her Eyes �� 1 1 LI LY STANKIEWICZ

W I L LOW J O H N S O N

I’ll Learn to Change �� 6 6

steveless and adrift �� 1 4

P O L I N A P L I TC H E N KO

CALVEN S. ELD RE D

L I LY TH O RE N

after Tony Hoagland

Words So Strong I Can Taste Them (For Emilie) ��27 ALEXIS HART

Our Cosmic Trashcan �� 31

My Mother the Angel �� 69 As Long as My Heart Is Beating �� 7 7 CO RRI N M I C H AU D

To Neptune, Jupiter, Venus �� 7 8 with lyrics and titles by Sufjan Stevens

M I KE KRAUSE

RI L E Y W I E S E

Bus Stop �� 38

It Wasn’t Supposed to Be Him �� 8 0

LI LY THO REN

B RAN D I K . M AAS

Worm Vaginas, and Other Important College Subjects �� 42

The Ghosts of the Cecil Hotel �� 8 4

BRAND I K. MAAS

For the Love of My Father �� 9 1

AL E X I S H ART

S . I S AAC CO DY

* DE NOT E S AWA R D W I N N E R

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Hole-Punched Heart �� 9 8

True North �� 1 0 8

M CKENNA F EY H

M I C E L L I O L M STE AD

The Toll �� 1 0 0

When You Are Engulfed in Milk �� 1 1 2

PO LINA PLITCHENKO

L I LY STAN K I E W I CZ

Fiction Late Start * �� 9

How to Become Persephone �� 45

JAID ING HAM-RIL EY

RI L E Y W I E S E

Falling Short �� 21

Just Nod �� 5 8

after Jenny Offill

S ETH BENDEWAL D

K Y L E CAP RY E

Paul Rudd �� 1 0 2 RY L E I W E E K L E Y

Nonfiction My Sentence Hasn’t Ended Yet �� 34

How to Be a Witch �� 8 6

S PARROW BLANTON

RAY D E AN L . B L AK L E Y, J R.

House Tour ��73

Girl �� 9 5

DAVENE MITCHEL L

after Jamaica Kincaid JAI D I N G H AM -RI L E Y

* DE NOTE S AWAR D WI NNER

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Fine Art Mandrake �� 1

Emptiness �� 37

ANNET TE HUMPH R EY

B E L L A CAM PO S

Whale �� 3

Fox in a Field �� 40

CASSAND RA MO N TGOMERY

E M I LY D E B O M A

Beauty of Zambia �� 5

Robot �� 41

CARLY KEISER

JAM E S O L S E N

Aurum Lepus �� 7

Harmony �� 4 3

M EGAN SELBY

RAC H E L RO S S

I Am The Best �� 1 2

Untitled �� 4 4

C HANG HEE KIM

AARO N K I LG O RE

Comstock Winter �� 1 3

Sad Girl �� 4 8

R OBERT BUTLER

B E L L A CAM PO S

Steam �� 1 8

yolo �� 49

R ACHEL MCCOY

RAC H E L M CCOY

Vase �� 25

All About Me! �� 51

OL IVIA REIT

AN N E T TE H U M PH RE Y

Untitled �� 26

Untitled �� 5 3

JAMES O LSEN

D I AN A B RAE N D L E I N

Sustainable Housing �� 29

Vessel �� 56

ZACK BRAUN

PATRI C B U RT

Untitled �� 3 0

Wise ��57

OL IVIA REIT

J E N I FE R CO LTO N

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Freedom Paid in Full �� 64

A Man by the Sea �� 9 3

M I KE MALO NEY

J E RE M Y B ARTLOW

Eleven �� 65

To All the Women History Forgot 9 4

ANNA CO PE

E M I LY D E B O M A

Wolf 's Face �� 67

Freedom �� 9 6

E LIZ ABETH COVE Y

J E RE M Y B ARTLOW

Bernie �� 6 8

Leaky Faucet �� 97

AARO N KILGO RE

RAC H E L RO S S

Happy Tails �� 71

Banana �� 9 9

R ACHEL RO SS

E M I LY D E B O M A

Crushing Solitude �� 7 2

Untitled �� 1 0 5

C HANG HEE KIM

C H RI STI N A B O B L I C K

Succulent Plant �� 76

Tundra Afternoon �� 1 0 6

CARLY KEISER

N ATE LU N D RE N

Under Pressure �� 79

Revelation 12:17-4 * �� 1 07

BRAND O N JO HNSON

C H AN G H E E K I M

Arthur �� 82

Northern Lights �� 1 1 0

JE REMY BARTLOW

C H RI STI N A B O B L I C K

Come What May �� 85

Bowl & Picture �� 11 1

OL IVIA REIT

AN N E T TE H U M PH RE Y

A Scholar's Momento Mori �� 9 0 R AVEN TAMMIE HENDER SHOT T

* DE NOTE S AWAR D WI NNER

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Photography Mother Protecting Her Young �� 8

Oregon Travels �� 3 3

T HERESA BAUMGA RT EN

GAB RI E L L E ARC H U L E TA

Beauty of Black & White �� 1 9

the void �� 36

T HERESA BAUMGA RT EN

CO DY TH O M AS

Spokane Summer �� 20

Sunset ��70

CODY THO MAS

B RE N DA B U RTO N

Reflection �� 24

Wallace * �� 83

T HERESA BAUMGA RT EN

CO DY TH O M AS

Beautiful Abundance �� 3 2

The Drop �� 1 0 1

LADO NNA RO SE

S AM W I L L I AM S

* DE NOTE S AWAR D WI NNER

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Wire Harp Awards Richard Baldasty taught philosophy and history at SFCC from 1984-2007, and during his tenure, he was regularly published in this journal and contributed significantly to the arts on our campus. Upon his retirement, The Wire Harp honored the spotlight he shone on art by naming our poetry award for him. Each year, The Wire Harp staff selects what we consider the most artistic poem and piece of prose as the recipients of these awards. We also give an award to a photograph and a work of fine art. Each of these four student artists receives a $100 prize, as a result of a generous gift from Richard. We appreciate Richard for supporting students in their creative arts.

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Mandrake ANNE T TE HUMPHRE Y 1

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The End of the Lane R AY DEAN L . BLA KLE Y, JR .

The baby is with the frogs again I would go pick up the kids But the baby is with the frogs again They’re counting cookies on tv again Why is it always cookies Until the red puppet has a gun I’m trying to get home But the chicken tracks keep going I hate being sober Can you ask the movers To take the white elephant from the basement I’m trying to bake, after all The frogs are yellow and empty Like coins in a sink The baby speaks out of their belly

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Whale CAS SANDRA MONTG OME RY 3

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Ocean Study W IL LOW J O H NSON

When I first followed an unimaginable emptiness to the coastline, I met a man with a four letter name who sold my now-dead friend a pack of cigarettes for three dollars. I wondered how that exchange looked through the grain of the security cameras. It probably looked a lot like an elementary school parentteacher conference. I was probably crying in the hallway, counting fish in the wallpaper, listening for curse words to collect in my diary. While he enjoyed his smoke, my now-dead friend and I looked down into the ocean where the sea creatures were filming their brand new reality show

and the beached whales were crying for help off camera, obscured by the artsy shot of waves. Their cameras werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meant for salt water, they only captured salt crystals. He suggested we paint this moment so our future children could pretend to analyze it in an empty art museum and try to form an idea of what we looked like back then, maybe foresee the way the world ends. In the hotel room post-ocean, the afterthought of a man in the blown glass seashell on my mantelpiece says heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s glad I am who I am. I wonder if he knows the difference.

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Beauty of Zambia CARLY KE ISE R 5

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Glenrose Trail * LU KE RO E * BALDAST Y AWAR D WINNE R

Smoke naps over the houses In the valley Dragonflies scrambling in the Terse mid-day sun Every year we invent new iterations Of last year’s seasons This one we call ‘Bodies spit out by the Spokane River’ Or ‘Shadows of bugs playing Underneath the white curry of Sallow sky’ Here we play a game; We catch wasps in coke bottles And see how near to us we’ll let them Before flinching Our bodies say run Our conditioning Implores us not to

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Aurum Lepus M EGAN S EL BY 7

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Mother Protecting Her Young T HERES A BAUMGA RTE N THE WIRE HARP 2020

Late Start * JAID INGHAM-RILE Y * BALDAST Y P R OS E AWAR D WINNE R 9

The girl lies beside her mother in bed, goose bumps lining her skin from the breeze of the ceiling fan. The mother lies face down, and the girl connects the freckles on her back. “Mama’s made from the stars,” she says to herself. Her tiny fingers slide down the notches of her spine and through each rib, gliding along her shoulder blades. The mother’s skin, so translucent that the girl can find each depleted vein, and so cold that she instinctively pulls the blankets up, letting them fall limply over the mother’s frame. Outside, the girl can hear the frost forming on grass blades, and the crunch of dead leaves against the pavement. Cold air seeps through the window, crawling like a monster under the bed, waiting to grab the girl’s feet when they hit the floor. The room is silent, lacking the vibrations of her mother’s snores. She is careful with her footsteps, weaving in and out of dirty laundry, chipped dishes, cigarette butts, and scratched off lotto tickets. There are empty soda cans playing hide and seek in different corners of the room, dust and dead flies lining the baseboard, shoes

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without pairs littered throughout. The girl trips, the thud of her body against the floor shaking the wine glasses on the nightstand. The mother doesn’t budge. The girl goes to the kitchen, pushing aside half-drank mugs of coffee and blackened spoons to find herself the rest of the off-brand pop tart that she had had for dinner the night before. The couch is covered in stains, crumbs, loose change, and blankets that were 95% holes and 5% fabric. She sits atop it all, staring out the window at the people below, tallying up the stray cats she sees under cars and on the sidewalk. She watches the cars play their chess game, hearing the faint sounds of their horns when someone makes the wrong move. There are homeless people sleeping flush against buildings in cocoons that shield them from the sweet winds of hypothermia and frost-bitten fingertips, buses running on the monotony of their daily routes, letting a sigh out each time more people get on. Readying herself for school, the girl goes into the bathroom. It smells of cheap cotton candy perfume suffocated by the left over smell of her mother’s marijuana. Crushed eye shadow is sprinkled on the floor, broken compact mirrors inhabit

the counter along with cut off hospital bands, and rolled up one dollar bills. The faucet is broken, dripping every couple seconds and echoing throughout the entire house. She squeezes the last few drops of the tube with a lid too crusted over with dried toothpaste to close onto her brush, and watches as the bubbles form at the corners of her mouth like a rabid animal. She grabs her clothes from yesterday off of the floor. She pulls the t-shirt over her head, her skin peaking through the holes in the hem. Her mother always said that a shirt with holes in it is better, because it means it was well loved. She is finishing looping the bunny ears of her muddy shoes when someone knocks on the door.

now. They ask her when the last time she had spoken to her mother was. The girl silences the buzzing. They pull the blankets over her mother’s face. “She can’t breathe like that,” the girl says calmly. They tell the girl to say goodbye to her mother. She kisses her mother’s cheek, and the men close her eyes. “See you later alligator.” The girl smiles, and heads out the door to go to school.

Men with badges and uniforms come in one by one. They scatter around the house, putting the mother’s belongings in plastic bags. The mother’s alarm clock has been going off for some time

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Next, Her Eyes L ILY STANKIEWICZ

Her hair is a blanket thick and heavy as a stripe of Nutella along dry toast sweet texture Her hair is a curtain falling over her shoulder to wave me nearer to skip in a meadow

Drawn by the wind, singing songs of violet roses

Quelled and tamed, pressed by the fire she keeps

Her hair drinks those flames of late spreading to nest in the void between my lungs victim of furious, tyrannical adoration

Sometimes, her hair is a mane as wild and full and alive as the heart burning, breathing Sometimes, her hair is a beast atop earthly eyes growling and snarling for me to come hither leaving marks

Sometimes, ah, sometimes I catch her so off-guard a candid mess of divine halo to caress thin elbows an angel, her sneeze incarnate

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Her hair like rapids of Nesquik rushing beyond a point of no return oh. but to drown in hazelnut bubbles

I Am The Best C HANG HEE KIM THE WIRE HARP 2020

Comstock Winter R OBERT BUTLE R 13

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steveless and adrift after Tony Hoagland CALVEN S. E LDR E D

we called it a socio-psychological experiment paying homage to Kesey and his test a generation before. a lot of people at the time were also tricked into thinking that second hand rags from Value Village were fashion, too. what we were really doing was getting high all the time. Steve wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to do that so we gave him the notebook and told him to write down all the profundities we genii were to soon be harvesting. he agreed and spent that summer keeping us out of traffic and giving us unusual foods and watching me synesthetically float on a symphony written by David Byrne. you need a Steve. and you need to listen to your Steve.

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that one night we were steveless and in a tiny park none of us had ever seen before and i swear this is true, none of us ever saw again. at about 930 we were sitting on stone benches talking about bee language and how we needed ballet dancers as translators and 15 minutes later it was 3 in the morning and we were talking about platypi and all the varieties of venomous snake in Australia and how they showed that by the end of the week God must have been kind of tired because it was all getting a little derivative. the cops were really nice, so i donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t blame them for how the rest of the night went. the parks are all closed so you guys are going to have to move on after we check everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ID to make sure everythingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cool. but

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Tyghe had forgotten about a court appearance for a moving violation and had to go with them. his only complaint was that he wanted to finish his cigarette. maybe it was because we were so docile, just rabbits wanting to go back in the hutch, a cop held his smoke for him while he sat on the stone bench in handcuffs. i disintegrated. the bees had shorn their tutus and put on clown masks, crawling out of the mouth of a broken porcelain doll and all the snakes were gathering around me, coiling to test my faith in questioning ineffability. someone called Steve and he said to go to IHOP and get some pancakes and tell Calven to write out, including maps, his plan to break Tyghe out, and Steve would be at IHOP in less than an hour.

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Tyghe needed no rescue. he was alone in a pink cell with a string dangling from a light bulb. he stood there in the glowing calm turning the light on and off thinking i have autonomy, i control my own destiny. click click click click clickclickclick click click click click click

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Steam R AC HEL M CCOY THE WIRE HARP 2020

Beauty of Black & White T HERES A BAUMGA RTE N 19

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Spokane Summer CO DY T HO MA S THE WIRE HARP 2020

Falling Short after Jenny Offill

S E TH BENDEWA LD

We were asked to give a commemorative speech to the staff the day before we left. They called it graduation. I didn’t feel like I was graduating anything. My knuckles were still white as I concealed them deep into my pockets. “I want to thank everyone for believing in me, and I promise to apply what I’ve learned in here outside of those doors.” End of remarks, end of commemorative speech. That is what a broken collar bone and idiot doctor lead to. A life outside of my own, forever outside of it. I’ve bled too much now to ever live a normal life in that beautiful trailer. She always hated it when I called our manufactured home a trailer, but I thought it was amusing to watch her get so worked up over something so mundane. She knew I was kidding, why did she let it get to her? “The first step to getting somewhere is deciding not to stay where you are.” I peeled the eviction notice off of the door. It was right on time, as she said it would be. The house was fucking dirty. Not just with clothes and toys thrown about, no this wasn’t the typical mess I’d

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let go a day before cleaning up. It was a colossal disaster. Like a hand-grenade got tossed in the living room when gathering word of my return. To boot, the six-pack remained chilled in my refrigerator. Welcome home. I lived on a lake that was actually a river. They only called it a lake because the flow was controlled by a dam. The water was still? I guess. Anyway, the levels were down when I left. They actually control the water level to kill off their seaweed problems and all the bacteria. Now, upon my return, the water was back up and the sun was out. It sure looks like a nice day for a swim. They say that depression is caused by synapses in your brain misfiring or not making the appropriate connections. I say it’s coming to an empty, dirty home after ninety days of pure hell. To each their own. I remember our last fight. She was crying uncontrollably. In the culture I spent my last five years (and prime years of development) in, crying was frowned upon. It made me uncomfortable. I was also uncomfortable with trying to comfort her when I was blatantly choosing the

latter of the ultimatum she bestowed upon me. “Did you ever love me?” she asked. “Of course, I love you,” I responded. “But were you ever in love with me?” “I don’t know what love is.” As I peered out the window of my office, I realized there is no order in the way trees grow. They don’t have boundaries and they don’t make any fucking sense. I felt as if though that meant something. I typed a few words and then erased them. I loved the city. I went crazy when I wasn’t with people. I went crazy when I was with people I loved. The city fit in there perfectly. Strangers all walking about paying no mind to my existence. I knew I could get away with my piece of shit tendencies all while being within a close enough proximity for someone to save my soul if I ever reached out my tired hands. It was beautiful, and I didn’t have to question the trees. The ones in the city parks were all planted there. And people have order, unlike mother nature. Thou shalt not steal. Bullshit.

I thought back to my commemorative speech. It wasn’t a lie, after all. I intended on applying what I learned there outside of those doors. It just didn’t happen to be what I learned from the staff. A kid named Jesse taught me a fancy lift and return technique. I applied it and got myself 150 dollars. Maybe should have kept the Ray-Bans. They looked good on my sunken-in face. I sat on the park bench waiting for him. I never knew his name, I just called him my plug. I had no idea where he was or if he were ever coming back, but I had nothing better to do with my day. She and my daughter were across the state, rebuilding their lives without me in it. They say Edgar Allen Poe died penniless and depressed. He said: “Come quickly O death! But be sure and don’t let me see you coming, lest the pleasure I shall feel at your appearance should unfortunately bring me back again to life.” Yeah, I think they were right. I saw a man pushing his daughter on the swing. It reminded me of a picture hung in my office. The picture had a man wearing a smile, holding his young daughter in his lap while they swayed back in forth

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yelling in excitement. Wee, I think they were saying. He looked like me; we shared the same tattoos, and it surely was my daughter. But it wasn’t me holding her in my lap. It wasn’t who I am anymore.

my man, be careful though, I’ve been dealing with some new shit.” He said. “Thanks.” I grabbed it, gave him the cash and looked over my shoulder at the park. The father and daughter were gone.

I got off the park bench, I couldn’t bear to watch the man play with his daughter in the park anymore. I surely wasn’t going to hit a fade with my “plug” in their presence. I felt my conscience creeping back in. Maybe seeing that man with his daughter was a better lesson than I learned during my whole ninety days without heroin. “Hey man! Shit! Good timing. I haven’t seen you in a while!”

I was damned well before I met her. It was just bad luck on her part, no fault to either of us. We knew each other maybe two months before the doctor gave us the news of the life we had unintentionally created. I was already a war-torn alcoholic at that time. She was an innocent lush with the intention of saving me. I never wanted to be saved. I only wanted to be loved, and to love someone else. She gave me a daughter to love in hopes that I would love her too. She fell short of the love she wanted. We all fell short.

Fuck, there goes my conscience. “I don’t have time, I need three points,” I said without any patience to begin with. “Alright, alright. Chill.” He reached in his pocket. “This should do you in

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Reflection T HERES A BAUMGA RTE N THE WIRE HARP 2020

Vase O LIVIA REIT 25

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Untitled JAM ES O L S E N THE WIRE HARP 2020

Words So Strong I Can Taste Them (For Emilie) AL EXIS HART

When Emilie moved out she left a bottle of perfume to my sister but no one ever wore it. Now, I go and sit on the floor of the bathroom and hold the tiny bottle and breathe. Not all words sound right when I say them. My tongue trips quick, lick my lips, they fall (fail [flail]) from my mouth. For the longest time I said receipts as recipes. Her last name was a conundrum and I loved practicing the round curved Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and the Y sound the J made, all out of place.

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She would give me funny soundalike words to wrap my tongue around but I will never know how much it must have hurt to say that name sometimes. All the big weight a word can contain. I never learned how to properly grieve for the person I knew. Soft and eloquent and overflowing, all the things I wished I could be. She has her own daughter now and she sings to her like she once sang to me. And I am not envious, and I am not angry, but I want her back in my kitchen. Back to when all the words didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite fit right in my mouth.

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Sustainable Housing Z ACK BRAUN 29

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Untitled O LIVIA REIT THE WIRE HARP 2020

Our Cosmic Trashcan M IKE KRAU SE

The Earth is not round! What a surprise, I know. No, I didn’t say the Earth is flat but it isn’t round like you would think.

Perhaps we humans are more like the planet than we think densest in the solar system our metallic core the source of our charisma and magnetism.

It is curved; an oblate spheroid and although it’s not flat and no longer the center of the universe we celebrate it like we celebrate ourselves.

Although the pole moves northward at a rate of ten miles per year is that really any different than the saggy skin we get in our old age?

Behold the wonder of how we’ve named our ancient planet the only planet the Romans didn’t name after a god. Isn’t it ironic that while we treat ourselves as gods we treat the planet like a trashcan? Yet we can’t stop spinning down the cosmic path we’ve charted.

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And further down the line we either bury ourselves in our planet or reduce ourselves to a similar state of being. Behold the Earth mirror to ourselves: Doomed.

Beautiful Abundance L ADO NNA ROSE THE WIRE HARP 2020

Oregon Travels GABRIELLE A RCHULE TA 33

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My Sentence Hasn’t Ended Yet S PARROW BLA NTON

Silence. The magical sound of the absence of sound; the one that has a habit to either heal my wounds or make them worse in a way that confuses or intrigues me. Sometimes, it’s even both. It’s the sort of sound that can be safe, while simultaneously being dangerous. It can help me while hurting me, show me the truth while lying to me, save me while killing me. It’s that kind of sound. And it’s my favorite. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve sat in silence, poring over my thoughts just a little too much, or maybe not enough. At war with the three sides of my brain, the three personalities in my mind: the one that exaggerates everything, the one that darkens everything, and the one just trying to survive. The latter is the one that I try to strengthen in silence. I try to tell it that the anxiety and depression, the lies and the sadness, are just that. I try to put the blame on something, anything, but Anxiety tells me I’m making excuses, and Depression rises from the ashes to shame me for doing so.

I sometimes feel like I should come with a warning label. Something that says, “I am hopelessly broken.” Something that tells people, “I might break you, too.” I watch as my life falls apart in so many different ways, as I lose so many different things, feel so many parts of myself wither and die off, and all I can do is sit in silence. The safety of it; its warm yet cold embrace. It protects me by doing nothing at all. I do the work, and yet, I feel as though the silence did it for me. Then there are the days when the silence gets to me. When I sit in its embrace for so long, I want it to be permanent. I want to escape the depravity of life, of myself, of those that hurt me and of those I’ve hurt. I let the silence wash over me, surround me, suffocate me, but it realizes what I’m doing. It knows I’m giving in, and it stops me. It stabs me, snapping me back to reality. Suddenly, the permanance of what I was prepared to do washes over me, and I break. I fall deep into myself, my demons, my angels, my soul, and the silence sits with me, reassuring me that I’ll be okay without ever saying a word. It apologizes

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for letting me get so far, not doing more for me sooner, and I forgive the silence. I allow everything around me to be sad, to be dark and grey and bleak and horrible, because I know, in the end, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be better off. I sit in silence, ready to end my sentence, and I break it; I break the silence and come back to life.

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the void CO DY T HO MA S THE WIRE HARP 2020

@abstractrea1ist

Emptiness BEL L A CA MPOS 37

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Bus Stop L ILY THO REN

At the bus stop At the corner of Monroe There’s a man standing there He waits all alone

And the bearded man Who talks too much Spent ten years in the war Forced to fight for love

And his wife is at home Screwing another man Was this just some way to mess him over Or was it all part of some detailed Cosmic plan

When will these oxymorons Be too much

There’s an old woman Sitting down Unwanted eyes on her They join Unannounced But I’m sure you have some witty piece of conversation That’ll make her say I’m so glad You’re around Look what a catch I’ve found

And I know I worry about a Lot of important things Like where all the bees are going And all about climate change And what I’m gonna eat for lunch So baby hold me ‘Cause I can’t do Anything By myself I’m too young and delicate Pretty porcelain doll Won’t break on a shelf

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And why do I have to be a narcissist To feel good About myself At the bus stop I hold my head high It’s better to look haughty And confident Than sweet and scared And die Let’s go see how fun it’ll be to play hide

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Fox in a Field EM ILY DEBO MA THE WIRE HARP 2020

Robot JAM ES O L S E N 41

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Worm Vaginas, and Other Important College Subjects B RANDI K. MA A S

When dissecting a preserved female Ascaris, step one: find her vagina It’s Y-shaped, with the base of the Y leading to the “female pore” The only way to tell her anus from her mouth (poor dear) is to figure out which end’s orifice has a vagina nearby The “female pore” is closer to the head end… somewhat jealous of that arrangement Existentialism can be simultaneously both a disease and a blessing “Your destiny is up to you; you are because you choose to be” The sense of empowerment can be freeing, inspiring The guilt is stifling; this mess I’m living is my fault? Philosophy is fabulously unsettling to study… I envy the Ascaris in her ignorance

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Harmony R AC HEL RO SS 43

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Untitled AARO N KILGORE THE WIRE HARP 2020

How to Become Persephone R IL EY W IESE

You, the socially anxious eighth grader you are, hate riding the bus to school every day. You sit alone, earbuds in both ears, watching the driver’s eyes glance back and forth between windshield and rearview mirror. She stops for the turkeys crossing the road. You don’t know where the turkeys came from. They just showed up one autumn and never went away, and your bus driver always stops for them. The whole school year of bus rides in seventh grade, shared with elementary students, helps you look at this year’s bus rides in a more positive light. At least you don’t have to sit next to Dennis anymore. You have to get off the bus and walk to homeroom, forgetting that it’s Thursday—late start—therefore you don’t have homeroom. Arrive late to first period Honors English and apologize to Mrs. Ward, blaming the bus for being late. Go through your day, waiting for lunch, the only time you get to see your friends. You sit across from Lucy, taking out your Tupperware of pomegranate seeds. She finishes her lunch much quicker than you, and asks if anyone would lend her something else to eat. You throw your now closed plastic tub at her, almost too 45

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quickly. You want her to like you. You know she likes pomegranate. You also like pomegranate. There’s just something about fruits that take an enormous effort to yield such a little amount of actual edible bits. School ends when the bell rings at 3:15. Amy’s dad waits in his truck to pick you up. At Amy’s, it’s the three of you, reduced to two when Amy responds to her mom’s call. At the kitchen table, you are physically incapable of saying anything to her. You never had to start conversations before because everyone always talked to you first. Unfortunately, Lucy is the first person you’ve ever actually wanted to talk to, but you both sit there in awkward silence until Amy comes back. These feelings grow until you realize it implies you aren’t heterosexual. You don’t know why you didn’t realize this sooner. It didn’t hit you that Lucy’s a girl and you’re a girl and you don’t even know if she also likes girls, but you just assumed because she dresses like a boy, and then you feel bad because you assumed and that’s a bad thing to do. You don’t really have feelings about these feelings. You know you’re gay and there’s not much to it.

Eventually Freshman year will roll around, and your mom will finally let you invite friends over, as a special birthday present. You sit in your room and talk for hours and the conversation finally lands upon sexuality. This is when you know for sure Lucy is gay because she tells you and Amy. For some reason, you don’t feel the same about her this year. You have to meet a girl in your sixth period English class who also listens to My Chemical Romance and immediately fall in love with her. This is the only time you’re not required to be in love with your best friend. However, this girl moves away over the summer, and Sophomore year you have a class with Lucy. Therefore, it’s back in the hole with you.

with you two months later, after making you pay for your own movie ticket to a not-even-good movie, citing the lack of “spark” he felt. You never felt it either, but you never said anything because he was a good distraction. It is now December and you will never date a boy again.

The next year, it will be unrequited love in unbearable doses. You will cry almost every night. You have depression. You will be walking to class with Lucy and talking, and she’ll run away from you in the middle of your sentence to say hi to the girl she likes. You will try your best to not breakdown during math class.

Anyway, high school goes by so quickly, and suddenly you’re a senior and you have no idea how college applications work. You don’t even know where you want to go to college, so you decide there’s no harm in going to Community College for two years then transferring. That will give you time to figure your shit out. It’s September so you don’t worry too much about it. It’s a problem for future you. At this moment you’re in Gus’s basement with Lucy, Brooke, and Lyn. Gus’s mom bought you all a bottle

Junior year, date a boy you don’t even like that much, but you’re desperate enough to no longer be in love with someone who won’t love you back. He will break up

You resolve to yourself that you will never date anyone again. It just doesn’t make sense to you. Why deal with all the complications of a romantic relationship when you have friends that you actually like? Friends that even hold your hand and cuddle with you on the couch at Amy’s Doctor Who-themed birthday party, which makes you even more confused because previously Lucy wouldn’t even let you touch her.

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of peach vodka, and because it’s your first experience with any sort of alcohol, you get extremely drunk after two shots. Sitting very close to Lucy on the couch a bit later, remember that you’re both unbelievably un-sober when she starts to bite your ear. It only goes downhill from here.

lines of “me and Brooke are gonna do acid do you still wanna come?” After about an hour of crying in the bathroom because you’re still weird about drugs at this point in your life, say, “yeah, absolutely” when Lucy tells you that you’re the one she’d want to calm her down if she has a bad trip.

By February, you’ve become super good at convincing the teacher you assist that you need to go to Lucy’s history class to work on a project with her. There is no project and there has never been a project, but Mr. Fischer has no quizzes for you to grade, so down to the basement you go. On Valentine’s Day, sneak away from your calculus class because Lucy’s ceramics class is having a party and it’s not fair that your calculus class isn’t. She invites you to hang out with her and Brooke after school the next day. When you get to sixth period, you get a text saying something along the

About five hours into their experience, you’ll be lying in the basement of Brooke’s friend’s house. Lucy, running her fingers through your hair, will realize Greek mythology is real. “Riley, you are Persephone,” she’ll say casually, breaking the silence and almost killing you.

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Reply, “if I’m Persephone, then who are you?” She thinks for a second. “The pomegranate.” And by Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon, she is so right.

tr a c tr e a

Sad Girl BEL L A CA MPOS THE WIRE HARP 2020

yolo RACHE L MCCOY 49

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The Veil J O S C ELY N BRA D BURY

the skeletons drank while tangoing with death but their footsteps awoke the humans. the skeletons write love letters but the ashes ruined the paper. the skeletons took polaroids of each other screaming at the sight of their bones falling apart at the frame.

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All About Me! ANNET T E HUMPHRE Y 51

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Setting Out to Save Ourselves M CKENZI W ING O

When I think of what I know of a hazardous voyage I think of marriage of love and all other forms of afflictionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;no, devotion

But the thing about a hazardous voyage is that it is never embarked upon without a dire, or beautiful, purpose

I see a ship in my mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye tossed and toiled by the sea hanging onto merely hope

There is always something at stake, a world to save someone worth journeying for, at your own peril, just to hold their face in your hands once more

A wagon carrying precious cargo making its way through bandit country or a jungle thicket with beasts stalking every step forward

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Untitled D IANA BRAENDLE IN 53

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Accident as a Synonym for Purpose W IL LOW J O H NSON

The girl wearing the big blue glasses draws a map where the boys corner girls into shadows and teach them what the sex education classes in middle school never could. The only lesson I’ll be taught here is how easy it is to learn silence when your tongue is cut from your mouth and stuffed into the pockets of boys. Once we leave the schoolyard we pull our skirts up until the paleness of our upper thighs shine through like beacons. We wear virgin or whore around our necks like bedazzled nooses and the boys call us prude while the church calls us pure and it’s funny

how it makes so much difference when each word is the other, just rearranged and missing a letter and still our bodies leave imprints in the grass when they’re done with us. The day I walk home with the girl wearing the big blue glasses, she tells me stories of her girlhood. Like the time her father caught her hair on fire and used accident as a synonym for purpose while her mother fanned the smoke alarm with a towel until the only sound inside the walls were screams;

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and after how she dried oranges in the oven so the house smelled like a grove of weeping citrus trees

like a lamb on the sacrificial table, drunk with a gentle mix of adrenaline and fear

and not the bitterness of her daughter on fire.

and I watch all those boys in the corners dancing in stop motion around her bed.

At night she tells me about her experience with God as I am floating somewhere in her popcorn ceiling between the plastic sticky stars that glow in the dark but only after she spends minutes holding her lamp up to their pale green surface. Finally, when I have had enough of being awake, I lay myself on her innocent pink comforter

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It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like a nightmare until they pour sleep down my throat, dip their fingers in my blood and write the confession for me.

Vessel PAT RIC BU RT THE WIRE HARP 2020

Wise JE NIFE R COLTON 57

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Just Nod K Y L E CAPRYE

“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me. ‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. ‘What are you thinking of ? What thinking? What? ‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.” T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland The halls of Enoch High School always seemed deserted nearing summer time. The school had a pleasant look. Freshly painted walls and a well-kept schoolyard hid the panic and anger that were commonplace within. Strong metal doors that stood guard at the exit haunted the students who still showed up. Many students didn’t show up anymore however—being lured away early by the promise of summer’s freedom. Lewis Farmer was the perfect student: always participating in the charity events the school ran, getting near straight-A’s, and known to students and teachers alike for being kind and mild-tempered. Lewis picked up his bag after the final bell rang, and started a swift pace to the door. Shuffling through the mostly empty halls and dodging any students who didn’t notice him, Lewis reached his locker at the end of the main hall— locker 4-8. Next to his locker hung the biology class’ science

projects on the “origin of mankind.” He got his locker open, shoved his books inside his backpack, raced through the remaining hallways and out the thick metal doors. Once he got outside, he slowed to a stroll, and relaxed. The school was surrounded by a few industrial complexes, but mostly by sprawling suburbs that reached out and out forever. Lewis walked home counting the footsteps between each concrete slab on the sidewalk, and trying to think of a life after school. Lewis knew education was important for his future, or at least he thought he knew it was important. He had never really stopped to think about whether it was or wasn’t. He just knew most people thought it was and that was good enough for him. Everything seemed hazy to him today, none of his thoughts came without an indescribable layer of fuzz caking their surroundings, and making him have to sift

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through it to try and keep thinking. Death was on his mind a lot recently and he didn’t know why. He figured it was just because of something he read but couldn’t be sure. His thoughts were funny like that; he always knew everything about them except where they came from, or why they came. After about fifteen minutes Lewis arrived at his home. Lewis’ house was an older brick house with a huge, encompassing, wooden fence dividing where his family’s property was and wasn’t. Once Lewis got inside, he threw his backpack down in exchange for a small book bag he could easily hang over one shoulder while riding his bike. What an odd transaction this is, he thought, leaving my bag full of books and papers and instead grabbing my bag full of books and papers. Everything was strange to Lewis this year, life seemed more and more like a dream he couldn’t wake up from—everything seemed hazy. Lewis had been thinking a lot recently. This wasn’t abnormal, yet he had only recently begun to think about what he thought: Why were his thoughts there, and if he could truly control them, or if they in-turn controlled him instead. Lewis’ thoughts were often sporadic; every day 59

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he had any number of passing thoughts. He thought of witty remarks that no one but him would ever hear because they were much too vulgar for him to actually say. He thought of descriptions of animals, plants, and people, as he saw them, making them as poetic as he could in his head and often imagining the creatures in their most enraged state. He thought of his slightest gestures and how embarrassing they were, how he nodded to a bus driver raising his chin slightly too high one night back in September and how he wished he could wipe the memory of everyone involved. And he compared things to things. Lewis thought this last idea was very interesting. Specific and unique things were very much similar to other specific and unique things, so everything could be a metaphor for anything. Like the wind that flowed through his hair weaving through each strand as it coasted across his scalp, that could be a metaphor for progress: bending and diverting but always headed in one direction; and the sunlight that bounced off the ground in soft yellows and reds on that early evening of that late June day, that could be a metaphor for faith, how it always bounced

right back to your eye in its perfect way unless you stared at its blinding source making everything turn a putrid off-color. Lewis took his bag, got on his bike, and began pedaling down the streets row after row, column after column, taking in the torrid summer air— and thinking. Summer was definitely on its way, Lewis thought as he felt the heat rising from the searing asphalt of the road, and mocking the cadence his father always said it in. His father always said it matter-of-factly like nobody else in the whole world, let alone his own house, could look outside the window and see the dry, sedated atmosphere of an urban neighborhood preparing to never be inside again. Lewis missed his dad. At the general store on the east of town, Lewis slowed to a stop at a pedestrian “X-ING” sign and leaned on his right leg. Looking back, he saw identical houses lined by identical lawns and wondered why they chose that design, why everything was supposed to be the same. It angered him for a second until he resolved it was a useless effort to get upset over something he couldn’t change. Still, he thought, there is a certain beauty in disorder.

After making a reasonable assumption that no cars were coming, he crossed the street and headed down to a nearby knoll. He stopped under an apple tree, set his bike beside it, and sat down. The sky stretched above him yellow and orange, and the wind blew through the leaves of the newly budding tree. He thought this would be good enough for today. Taking out one of the blank journals he began to write his thoughts down. Lewis was very scared of one day losing all the thoughts he worked so hard to think of, so a few months back he started to write them down, and hide them here, under the apple tree. After some writing the daylight began to grow dim. Lewis still wrote many things before he ran out of ideas, and out of light, but slowly, as they always did, his thoughts progressed to violence and anger. He then set the journal down, and spat on it. Garbage, he thought. Lewis knew he wanted to get his thoughts on paper, and save them. He knew he wanted his words to mean something, but he also knew they meant nothing to anyone else, and this angered him.

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Lewis picked up his bike and started home, leaving his journal covered in saliva to sit eternally under that apple tree. A small part of him wanted somebody to find it, to read his nonsense and be dumbfounded by how somebody could throw such art, such a grand blueprint of the mind, to sit there in the dust. An even bigger part of him wanted the field and the tree to burn with his book never to be seen again. The ride home was always the difficult part, going back to a bland life he wished was different. Two ravens perched themselves on a nearby roof and stared at Lewis as he passed them. Lewis didn’t like birds, he didn’t like how they could go anywhere they wanted without consequence, he didn’t like their careless songs, or their supposed symbolism. He didn’t like anything about them. Once a year his father would take him hunting and he’d always liked killing birds the best. Watching them fall like angels torn from the heavens, filled with shrapnel and plummeting to the earth. He hated killing deer, elk, or anything borne to the ground; they never really had a chance, there was no sport to it. Birds however were free from earth’s shackles, and mocked those below, 61

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singing, and making grand displays free of predators; killing them was to Lewis a reminder of their mortality. Standing over a pile of disgruntled feathers filled with searing, metallic, earth filled Lewis with joy. It took away their symbolic value, rooting them into material things again. This indignant, wrathful, anger was common to Lewis. He knew it was also common to everyone as well, no matter how well they hid it; after all, God made everyone equal. Lewis arrived back home after dark; the waning crescent moon hung high in the air shedding dim light down onto the pavement. A light fog spread throughout the town, just making it so Lewis couldn’t see everything quite clearly. He gently opened the gate, slowly sat his bike down on the grass so it wouldn’t make noise, and crept to the door. His mom often left it unlocked for him thinking he was at school, tutoring. In reality he just wandered to the apple tree, not wanting to be at his home which reminded him of how dull his life really was. The early night was still, quiet, and hot; the heat of day crept into the night and pushed back against the chill the dew of the fog brought with it. Once at the door he heard a shifting on the other

side and froze. He didn’t want to be asked about the specifics of the tutoring session this evening, so he waited at the door motionless. Anxiously, he waited and listened till it sounded like his mom had gone to bed. He then opened the door only as much as he needed to, slipping through the crack, and closing it slowly behind him. His room was past the living room, the kitchen, the laundry room, and his mom’s room, so he knew he’d have to be extremely careful not to make noise since any small peep would wake her up. The inside hallways were completely shadowed from any light source, and Lewis dared not to turn on the light in fear of arousing his mother from her already light sleep. He shifted his weight as he walked over the wooden floor of the welcoming hallway, so the floorboards wouldn’t creak. Slowly, he made it to the carpeted living room. The living room and the kitchen were right next to each other making a square with the two hallways on each side. Lewis carefully walked past the living room, and getting to the kitchen he froze again. Something

distorted the normal dim light of the moon. An odd moving darkness was present where there should have been nothing. A man stood in the middle of the room. Lewis’ muscles seized and he was petrified into standing there, like Helios over Rhodes. The man was walking towards the bedroom hallway unaware of Lewis’ presence, and he held something in his hand, but Lewis could only make out that it was small and had a weird shape. A gun he thought. He intends to kill my mom! Lewis crept back to the living room, moving quicker this time, but still being just as careful not to make noise; he dislodged a brick from their old fireplace and began walking back to the kitchen, still being very quiet. He held his improvised weapon above his head, ready to strike anything that jumped at him out of the darkness. Once he made it to the bedroom hallway, he saw the man checking to see if anyone was in the laundry room. Only someone who didn’t know the house would check a laundry room for anything, thought Lewis. After seeing the shadowed figure, once again he seized up. His heart pounded in his chest, and his stomach sank. He couldn’t move.

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Until he realized something. This man broke into his house. This man was trying to steal from his family. This man even planned to kill them if they woke up to resist. Lewis’ face heated up. He became furious. He stomped over the wood floors right up to the figure, not thinking about being quiet anymore, and just as the man turned around, just as the man noticed him, Lewis came down on his head with the uneven, rectangular brick. Then he came down with it again. Then again. The man belted out in agony, and there was a loud metallic clang as something hit the floor alongside the two males that fell. This’ll teach him to never come back here. Crack. I’ll beat you brain-dead so you can’t harm another human being ever again. Crack. I’ll hit you till you can’t talk. Crack. I’ll hit you till you can’t walk. Crack. I’ll hit you till you wish you’d never came here.

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Lewis didn’t notice that the man stopped moving, stopped struggling. He didn’t notice that he was just hitting a motionless cadaver that was staining his mother’s carpet in that dark hallway, late at night, on that late June day.

Freedom Paid in Full M IKE M ALO N E Y THE WIRE HARP 2020

Eleven ANNA CO PE 65

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I’ll Learn to Change PO LINA PL ITCHE NKO

I will go once you find pleasure in another’s soul Then no one will tie the laces of my shoes I will go then, I will dance my solo, and you should find another swan then my finger will shrink and your promise will fall off I will know no better than to forget again I will go, so that the solitude starts to define my escape I will go, so I don’t press piano keys again then, you, my love will painfully regret You did something so wrong, should pray to God, your dear, dear Love. You know. Don’t leave your hugs and kisses on my sweater with your Dior Sauvage You fried the daffodils in castor oil and we would eat them when we went out I will go when those flowers are the last ones I get then, when the lion bites through penguins’ smooth and silky necks I will go when my ballet shoes sink in blood from ugly blisters then, from pedestrians I’ll learn to change and tie my shoes alone I will not stay and hear your weak and broken ego complain I will not forget to twist the key so it unlocks I will go, when sweet smelling cedars are in bloom

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Wolf 's Face EL IZABETH COV E Y 67

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Bernie AARO N KILGORE THE WIRE HARP 2020

My Mother the Angel L ILY THO REN

Mother says I am always to keep the windows clean and the blinds closed so that she can catch a ball of light that would rather run away She is not at school again today Tentacles of an octopus are wrapped around her as hyenas poke and prod her and then offer her a cherry lollipop My mother is an angel who brings souls back home because they are running straight into the blue fire The mouse is so pretty and small and I am afraid I will break her into porcelain bits 69

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But I do not worry For motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tender needle will open up again to fill the mouse with light Her eyes flickered like an electric bulb going dark Where does the light go? You can hear them crying cherry lollipops because the mouse is not behind the iron gate but do not worry She is safe with Mother

Sunset B RENDA BU RTON THE WIRE HARP 2020

Happy Tails R AC HEL RO SS 71

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Crushing Solitude C HANG HEE KIM THE WIRE HARP 2020

House Tour DAVENE M ITCHE LL

It is amazing what memories the brain will hide, tuck away, when it comes to protecting your sanity. The memories from my childhood are in shards. I only remember small stories now. There are some that are seared into my mind; others that float like jellyfish, stinging me when I’m with friends playing catch in shallow waters, crippling me with pain. Then there are the few that bring tears to my eyes and cause my chest to swell with sweetness at their recollection. I remember my childhood home with clarity, the furniture that set up each room, and with each new item a different memory comes back to life. Part I In my mind’s eye I walk up to the front door, pushing past the spring-loaded dusty metal gate, looking right toward the path to our garage. The front door is pushed open, and I step into the hall. I’m greeted by a strong redwood table, decorated with a clock that is ticking my eyes toward each photo of the family that seems so perfect, in these photos taken at Macy’s and for picture day at our church. Tucked in the back there

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is a photo of a younger me with a princess crown, waving a ribbon streamer so fast it’s almost not caught by the camera. I do not remember why I was dressed like that. Here, I can see my mother walking back and forth, laughing whilst on the phone with one of her friends. As I get closer, she talks in more of a hushed tone, only to burst into laughter at the next moment, blowing her cover again. I turn right in the hallway, and into the wide opening of the living room. On one side of the room is a large window, bordered by two chairs; opposite from the window is a big blue sofa with a fish tank next to it, which depending on the year, is either filled with fish swimming merrily, or there is no water in it, long forgotten. The couch and fish tank are against a soft blue wall with white sponge marks that look like gentle clouds floating by. This room always felt like it could open up to the sky, so separate from the rest of the house, with the doors shut to the family room and all the bedrooms. This room is living, with more openness and air in it; no hard conversations held here. One time I taped a sun onto the wall in this room, put origami throughout the

forgotten Christmas tree, and threw my dad a birthday picnic on the carpet of this room. Writing “Happy 30th Birthday!” on a banner, for a little humor mixed with the panic of not being sure how old he was. I would sit with my mom and little brother as we used a machine to pump air into his weak lungs while he whimpered and cried. I walk through the living room, past the dining room, through the next doorway leading into the kitchen, where everything is nicely organized and clean. There is a landline next to the door, and a white board purchased for planning our weeks, but never used. I sit down at the kitchen island, and look at the cold metal sink, surrounded by long marble countertops. The rich smell of bread wafts through the kitchen and overwhelms me with its warmth. I beg my mother for some, but she tells me it is for communion, so I will need to wait for Sunday like everyone else. I told her I hated church now, and later that night I ask God to forgive me.

The bar stool I’m sitting on turns left and right, so I spin around and now have a full view of the family room. There is a futon on one side of the room, a love seat perpendicular, and in between a rectangular coffee table. The giant entertainment center my father set up is against the wall, with a TV, multiple video game consoles, and a stereo. Part II Getting up from my seat, I step closer to the coffee table in the center of the family room. There are deep scratches in it from testing the surface with forks and pens, and speckled along the legs and underbelly are wads of chewed gum. I can see my brother and me arguing over video games while sitting at the table in front of the TV. My father comes in after Cody and I raise our voices enough to wake him up. We stand up, startled, and back away from him, as he grabs the coffee table and throws it up in the air. It lands belly up, defeated, and he walks from the room again. I walk out of this room and back into the hall, passing the room that belonged to my brother. I come across my bedroom door, with a circular dent the size of an aerosol can. I open the door slightly, and THE WIRE HARP 2020

see my loft bed towering in front of me, where I was woken up by a family member telling me that my dad had gone missing. Filled with too many things to look at, I turn away and close the dented door. I am pinned against the door. My father, angry at our fighting waking him up again, slams the air freshener I was using into the door, half an inch away from my skull. I turn away from my door and walk back down the hallway I had come down. I do not want to see the master bedroom. Or the study, where I found my father unconscious for the first time, the night my mother passed. I look into the living room once more, the furniture has been replaced by a hospice bed, the carpet has been rolled back for a wheelchair to go beside the bed. My motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ghostly body takes up a tiny portion of the bed, while all her friends and family surround her in the living room. Someone lit candles, and there is some

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lavender in a vase that I find is the easiest thing to look at. Suddenly, like a lantern, I see the rest of my mother floating up into the sky my mother had painted years ago. Quickly now I say goodbye to the house that outlasted the family. I step out onto the front step again, go down the walkway, past the gate matted with dust. I walk past the giant orange tree my brother and I used to climb, remembering how we would giggle while tossing oranges onto the grass for our tennis game, and I smile.

Succulent Plant CARLY KE ISE R THE WIRE HARP 2020

As Long as My Heart Is Beating CO RRIN M ICHAUD

I bit my tongue that night Woke up with a bloody pillowcase Gritty teeth He wasn’t supposed to be there I learned that eyes can lose their sparkle Nice boys can adopt bad behavior like Him He wasn’t supposed to be there I couldn’t finish dinner The butterflies in my stomach were rotting They took up too much room He wasn’t supposed to be there Pearly white pills are a symptom of insanity As long as his heart is beating It beats for me He wasn’t supposed to be there His face became unfamiliar and sunken Words made less sense to him He made less sense to me He wasn’t supposed to be there My stomach recited Edgar Allan Poe into the blackness I felt the cockroaches crawl up my throat 77

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They cried for me He wasn’t supposed to be there Where was your mind, child? Where was your empathy? You can not play God. He wasn’t supposed to be there Did the man ask to sleep forever? 28 voicemails 28 news articles He wasn’t supposed to be there A nightmare would have been blissful I can’t wake up this time Animals can hide in seemingly harmless places It wasn’t him He wasn’t supposed to be there

To Neptune, Jupiter, Venus with lyrics and titles by Sufjan Stevens R IL EY W IESE

Sufjan never sang “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get us.” It only plays when Lucy’s in the car. She emerges from the cocoon like a moth made of smoke, she fills the sunset. Sun setting just to be filled by her. The peach skies of October disappear into the inky nights of November. It is December, but the snow is only ever made of little bugs. Bugs in her skin she says, bumps on the human canvas that is skin. “We were in love, we were in love.” Sufjan Stevens never sang “for the Widows in Paradise for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti,”

and paradise does not exist unless I’m with her. She is wine drunk midnights after pot highs and Xanax lows. In January the bugs have turned to rain and are puddled under my nails. “I did everything for you. I did everything for you.”

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Under Pressure BR A ND ON JOHNSON 79

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It Wasn’t Supposed to Be Him B RANDI K. MA A S

it wasn’t the pale, skinny guy with the wide, shifty eyes and the neck tattoo that says “CRYSTAL” that she couldn’t help but wonder whether it was referencing his favorite woman or his favorite chemical dark circles hanging under his rheumy gray eyes bones prominent beneath his ashen flesh his papery skin stretched so tight it hurt to look she couldn’t help but look anyway as he approached her she stood frozen, uncertain, unsettled as the ghastly skeletal shadow of a man stalked angrily past, eyes darting wildly in sunken sockets muttering to himself, “dumb fucking cunt”

that leered at her through her cracked kitchen blinds asking almost weekly if she’s still single suggesting she may need his help to find a “real man” he made a point of asking her once if she liked his tattoo, baring his freckly, yellow-nippled chest revealing the image of a slavering scarlet demon consuming a bleeding nude woman that shrieked in agony she masked her disgust to deny him the reaction he sought she said, “ that’s neat,” made an excuse, and hurried into her house locking the deadbolt loudly, so she knew that he knew she installed privacy blinds in the kitchen the next day

It was supposed to be him. It was supposed to be him. it wasn’t her slimy neckbeard neighbor

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it wasn’t the cartoonishly roided-out gym freak with the bulbous spray-tanned muscles and bulging veins the source of his searing anger a mystery she tried to walk away from his rages as fast as she could he followed her out of the store, shouting after her, “Don’t ignore me bitch! Hey! I’m talking to you!” then screamed obscenities at her in the parking lot as he climbed into and revved up his super-lifted F-250 she was really worried when he followed her car first out of the parking lot, then down a few blocks she drove in crazy circles for an hour before she went home to make sure he never found out where she lives

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It was supposed to be him. It wasn’t the angry meth head. It wasn’t the creepy neckbeard. It wasn’t the roid-rage maniac. It was supposed to be them. it wasn’t who it was supposed to be. it was he who vowed “to love and to cherish” her. he who slept beside her each night. he that had promised her eternal love. It wasn’t supposed to be him that broke her. But it was.

Arthur J ER E MY BA RTLOW THE WIRE HARP 2020

* AWA RD W I N NE R 83

Wallace * CO DY T HO MA S THE WIRE HARP 2020

The Ghosts of the Cecil Hotel AL EXIS HART

the sunset oranges are in hollywood now. i left them all to grow in the stomachs of crop top girls. i could learn to love anyone if they asked. loving someone simply because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what i want is the same as relearning all the steps of a dance i once knew. somehow, that love is selfish. we are all tired. and iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure god asked the ghosts of the cecil hotel to leave him be, just for a minute. under my chewed-up fingernails there is dirt and dust and dead things. burning out the sun is simpleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; all it takes is the closing of my eyes.

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Come What May O LIVIA REIT 85

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How to Be a Witch R AY DEAN L . BLA KLE Y, JR .

First be born Christian. Don’t go to church every week because your absent father is a half-hearted atheist, but do have a grandma that serves your canned spaghetti with a side of “Don’t be a sinner.” as she scoffs at the black president on TV. You’re part black. You don’t really get it, though. Years later, spend a lot of time staring at a girl’s butt during tech week at your school’s crappy rendition of Romeo and Juliet. It has zombies. You are so sick of zombies. Naturally, once you realise you are staring at a girl’s butt and really, why did that take two weeks? Naturally, you have to stop believing in God. You’ve spent years only praying outside in your driveway, staring at the night sky, trying desperately to get your stew of confused feelings to resolve into something less sinful. But ultimately it’s a girl in too-tight Levis and a matching denim jacket that makes you believe Christianity just isn’t for you. From there, you have to become a bad kid, a troublemaker. Yell at your mom and stop talking to your grandma. Treat your dad like he’s the vengeful god you no longer believe in. Sneak out of the house

and wander the neighbourhood in the dead of night. You aren’t sure why you have developed this habit. Just… Sometimes you get this itch, to find something. You don’t know what exactly, but you search the side streets and closed store loading docks and empty playgrounds anyway. Like an addict searching for their next fix, you become a fixture of the city’s night. You don’t exactly see what you need, but you do see a lot of full moons, and starry nights. Befriend a skunk, and steal plenty of food from your neighbours’ gardens. Stealing food from people is historically bad, but this is more a Robin Hood than Irish Famine situation, so you just enjoy the raspberries. Sometimes you try and stay inside. But the back door to your dad’s little apartment is a screen, which gives you the perfect view when a summer storm rages outside as you watch horror movies you shouldn’t have in your head, but have no parent to tell you not to watch. Pause the movie, you hate watching people puke anyway, because you know the rain will be warm, the grass soft under your bare feet, and the storm will be so close you’ll feel the thunder in your bones.

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You spend a couple years in this limbo, no God, all the shame, doing what you can to find these little divine spaces in the mundane world. Then one day a casual conversation with a friend gives you the key to the rest of your life. “I mean, have you ever tried magic?” The thing, the thing about trying magic, is you end up in weird situations. Not dangerous, or illegal, usually only kinda culty. But weird. Shopping for example. The lady at the dollar store counter might spend a minute on her lunch break wondering what you are doing with apple juice, votive candles, modeling clay, and pinecones. And most of the stores that sell things like sage, cauldrons, and cute little figurines of Anubis, also sell weed and tie dye tote bags. On that subject, why is it that every one of your friends will make fun of their parents’ chain-smoking, but are now trying to impersonate the Hogwarts express with their cute little cotton candy vape pens? You get it, people can do whatever they want. But it smells weird, and they are all way too invested in you trying it. And yeah,

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a lot of witches smoke various things, but lots of witches also think psychiatric meds are poison, and you happen to be on a lot of them, so you are passing not puffing. You buy candles, and spend too much money at hippy stores, and won’t smoke but have a soft spot for red wine. You try to learn Latin. You don’t learn Latin. But you do pick it up enough you can’t stand watching people try and speak it in movies. Sorry priest man, that girl is staying possessed cause your pronunciation is straight wack. Nobody gets why you want to learn Latin. But you could write a book on all the things you do that your family doesn’t get. Maybe one day you will. On Thanksgiving, you get into a fight with your mom because she wants you to pray with them over the ham dinner that tangentially celebrates a massacre of your ancestors, and she just doesn’t understand why you are so difficult. Is it any surprise that unlike most teenage girls who watched The Craft too many times, you don’t get past the phase and become an Easter and Christmas Christian like everyone else, but instead decide to go full Pagan?

A year or so later, you go to your dad’s Rez for a funeral. A vigil takes place in the community rec center for a day and a night, your distant great uncle’s body taking its spot at the front of the room as his family gathers around on plastic folding chairs. People are laughing and telling stories, half a dozen aunties in the center’s kitchen making potato salad and Montana red hot dogs. You all came together for a death, but this really is just a celebration of life, not only his, but all of you in that ratty retrofitted building. Before joining the vigil, you drop off your bags in the house of a woman you have never met, but you can feel is your family anyway. You see a cross-stitch on the wall of a feather and a crucifix, and the images together make your heart ache, visions you have never actually seen of residential schools and a religion being beat into people who look like you, feathers cut from long braids and crosses hung from unwilling necks. Maybe this, not the girl in the tight jeans, should have been why you left behind that god.

They bury him in the cemetery, which is just a collection of graves on top of a windy hill, bordered by a rickety fence and spotted with wild sage. There are barely any buildings in sight, just a handful of trees, a roving group of cows. A single bay horse in the distance. That’s the thing about the Rez. There’s just horses sometimes by the post office, grazing from their bushes. One horse wanders down the street with a little toddler swaying on top of it precariously, making you wonder if you should rescue him. But now it’s winter, so there are fewer animals around, and most Indians are smart enough to stay inside, especially since there’s a storm warning, which is why this funeral is going perhaps a bit faster than it should. The snow hasn’t started yet, but the ground is covered in frost. Once they figure out where they lost the shovels, they start the arduous task of actually burying him. It’s dead-ofwinter freezing. Everyone is huddling together in patterned blankets watching the not-dead uncle’s work. Someone starts singing, the deep burr of every powwow drum song echoing across the hills.

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It’s miserable, but you can feel the gods with you on that hill, and you know you want to be buried there too. That is really, you figure out, how to be a witch. It’s not attractive girls, smart comments at family dinner, and buying too many notebooks. It’s feeling your ancestors with you when you are watching a ceremony in your homeland, or playing around with candle wax in your bedroom. Turns out, you don’t actually hate religion. You find out you are allowed to be, love being, devout. Spending your life devoted to something about freedom, and pleasure. Power and love. Turns out, the things you were told would damn you, there is a way of living that celebrates them. So you decide to do that.

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A Scholar's Momento Mori R AVEN TAM MIE HE NDE R SHOT T THE WIRE HARP 2020

For the Love of My Father S . IS AAC CO DY

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always pain in the music of the night. It summons all my broken dreams to come dance about my mind, and in their fractured shadows, I contemplate your plight, yet in that frantic jig, no answers can I find. Nothing I consider can justify your bitter flight, when all by your wretched flaws you were confined. All my strength of will cannot manifest my dreams that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d reunite. Were you scared of yourself, or this child you left behind? My heart bleeds with tormented hate, as I sit beneath the midnight sun and recall the moments of our twisted, brutal history, my soul stings with lamented hope as I think of all those things we should have done and I silently yield to the whims of fate, like an ancient mangled tree. Still, I wonder what might have been were you strong enough not to run. Would I be better than I am today, or would my life be wreathed in misery? In your absence did fate see fit that a stronger me has become? What was it that caused you so fervently to flee?

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Despite everything come to pass, I still held hope that we’d meet again, even in all my burning rage, for the loss of my father my soul still sobs. Throughout the years, my dreams of you I’ve faithfully sustained; good and ill, they scamper about my mind like a sickly, feckless mob, and by them all I am both empowered and constrained. For when you died, I did find that of any absolution I was robbed, yet my desire to atone for the bloody, hateful past I’ve maintained, and I’ve found that with a burning love for you, my heart still throbs.

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A Man by the Sea JERE MY BA RTLOW 93

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To All the Women History Forgot EM ILY DEBO MA THE WIRE HARP 2020

Girl

after Jamaica Kincaid JAID INGHAM-RILE Y

Make the bed in the morning, do the dishes after every meal; ration out your servings, count calories on your fingers, never weigh more than your husband; don’t try too hard; try just enough to give people the illusion that you are effortless; comb your hair, whiten your teeth—smile at the men that take your jobs and laugh at you through the glass ceiling; get a job as a barista-- that’s more your pace; bat your eyes at the boys, pull down your shirt just a little more—they’ll give you a better tip, but don’t you dare give them the wrong impression; get ass fat injected into your lips until you can’t open your mouth— because nobody gives a shit what a woman has to say; write words of fury and hate, bring people to tears with your words on a page and then sign it under the pseudonym ‘Dave’; only cry when you’re alone; never buy tampons from a male cashier—you don’t want to make him uncomfortable; always park in a well-lit area, look behind

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you when you walk; pull out strands of your hair in an Uber just in case you go missing; don’t get pregnant before you’re married; don’t say no to the guy you met on Tinder when he doesn’t have protection—that was your job; always be available; never say no— it feels good to be needed; show a little leg— only if it’s shaven; never let your bra straps be seen; take free drinks at bars—don’t feel bad if you wake up with missing time and an unzipped skirt; have kids—but not too many; make sack lunches every day; work a full-time job—don’t be lazy; be the perfect wife; don’t talk about the affair; don’t cry after he hits you—you deserve every beating.

Freedom JE R E MY BA RTLOW THE WIRE HARP 2020

Leaky Faucet R ACHE L ROSS 97

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Hole-Punched Heart M CKENNA FEYH

What I want is to be a part of your hole-punched heart, and skip over broken and barren sidewalks, while your brilliant mind mumbles muse, and those hopscotch xylophone tones play patterned chords on my soul when you do, and you do.

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Banana EM ILY DEBO MA 99

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The Toll PO LINA PL ITCHE NKO

Your thorns will prick this sick pale skin of mine. You take the cigarettes out of my hands, Rose petals mixed with the scent of pine Blood dripping on the grains of sand. You, fallen one, knew things of me You’d gift me things not sold at Tiffany’s Found too many reasons to disagree With you my thoughts had deficiencies. The question wasn’t about your familiar face, I didn’t question all my feels Or that those feels opposed my fragile taste But you cold-hearted human gave me chills. I find my soul too serious to handle Imagine flowers dead in my mom’s vase My heart, extinguished like a candle, Kept thinking thoughts of you were just a phase. The textile patch would cover the black hole. Unpay my price of Lucifer’s toll.

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The Drop S A M W IL L IAMS 101

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Paul Rudd RYL EI W EEKLE Y

The figure looks like a tree stump with a branch sticking out of it. The label that says “Restriction” on my license declares I must wear glasses while I drive, but I say fuck your rules, whoever you are. My therapist says I need to do one thing a day that doesn’t make me seem like such a “tight ass,” as she put it; I used to call it “safe.” Now, on day 187, safety is no longer my number one priority. Today I decided not to wear my glasses; seems a bit freeing, setting my life in the hands of strangers and the laws of the road that only some truly follow. It may seem like an extreme and pre-meditated suicide, but I smoked a bit of my anxiety suppressor before I left, so at this point I’m ready to overthrow the patriarchy. He isn’t a tree-stumpbranch-man, he’s a hitchhiker! Guess I’m crossing two things off my list today, because I slam my brakes right next to the man and let the cars figure out their way around me. Maybe it’s my poor eyesight, but I’m pretty sure I’m picking up Jesus. The way the light hit him, my added blur effect, and the way he had his arm extended out really had me convinced. He obviously had the shoulder length brown hair that was neither straight nor

curly, but not too wavy. Plus, the chin beard, the cheek hair, the sideburns, and the top lip mustache that connected the cheek and chin hair—I’m sure there is a name for this whole Jesus ensemble, but I’m not a man, I don’t have the answers. We have our first awkward exchange before he even enters the car. He stares at me with his arm still extended, not sure if I was actually picking him up or stopped to have a staring contest with him. So, I honk. He takes the hint and rushes to the window. “Are you a serial killer?” I ask as I roll the window down, finger hovering over the unlock button. “Yea, I just got out of prison for it,” he says without the “Haha, just kidding” moment. “Well, as Jesus would say, we all should have second chances.” Don’t think he’s ever said that, but I unlock my doors and he sits down in the passenger seat. When he sits, his scent whooshes into my nostrils. He smells of damp air and faint mildew. “Thanks, wasn’t sure anyone would actually pick me up.”

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“Well, it’s your lucky day. Though I’m like a quarter blind without my glasses so maybe not.” That gets a little huffed nose laugh, which I find validating. “So, what’s with the whole Jesus look? Did the bible really make a mark on you behind bars? I think that’s like a typical thing,” I say after moments of silence. “Actually, Paul Rudd made the mark. We watched Our Idiot Brother for a good behavior reward, and he rocked that shit.” I do a big, slow-motion nod to his response and he looks at me with wild eyes and says, “Please don’t tell me I got into an uncultured stranger’s car.” He throws his head back against the headrest and huffs. “You’re kidding right? Willie Nelson reuniting with Ned brought me to tears.” I keep my eyes straight ahead. He slowly turns his head towards me—I guess from the sound of his hair scratching against the headrest; I’m also guessing he smiles. “So, where are we headed?” I ask him. “As far as you can take me. Where are you headed?” “I was gonna go see my therapist, she’d be proud of me right now.”

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“Why’s that?” “I’m supposed to do at least one thing a day that’s an impulse; something that if I thought about for more than 5 seconds, I wouldn’t do it. I’ve done two today: drive without glasses and pick up a serial killer.” “I think that your impulses are trying to have you commit suicide or something. I’m not really sure you should be allowed to leave the house.” “If I don’t die out here, the silence will kill me in there.” He’s quiet for a few moments before he says, “Dark.” “Just how I like it,” I say immediately after. “What do you say we go out and do something? Do you have another victim in mind? I think that’d be interesting,” I say nonchalantly but layered with sarcasm. “Interesting? Huh. I have something in mind. Turn here.”

I follow his command. At least if he decides to kill me, I’ll die high. After about 25 minutes of following his directions he says, “Stop here.” We stop at a lookout over the river, surrounded by cavernous mountains. We both step out of the car and lean on the side of it to take in the view. “Why here?” I ask while I look up and over at him. “They found my first body here; the rest was history.” “Wait, so you’re literally a serial killer?” I say as I tilt my chin down and lift my eyebrows. He just nods. I breathe out and say, “Yea, I think you were right about my impulses.” We sit in silence again, a thing I notice we like to do.

way it contains so much life. The way it sustains so much life. The way it’s so effortlessly beautiful. I feel the warmth of his body directly behind mine. Before he pushes, I jump. The way the air moves through me makes me feel more alive than I ever have. Then Jesus starts speaking to me, “I did not die on a cross to be compared to Paul Rudd.” “I didn’t jump off a cliff for you to finally talk to me.” “Touché.” And when I splash into the water, everything goes dark. I no longer envy the water, for I am the life within it

I start walking forward, leaving him to trail closely behind me. I stare at the water and take a deep breath in. I envy the water. The way it keeps moving. The

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Untitled C HRIST INA BOBLICK 105

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Tundra Afternoon N AT E LUNDRE N THE WIRE HARP 2020

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* AWA RD W I N NE R 107

Revelation 12:17-4 * C HANG HEE KIM THE WIRE HARP 2020

True North M IC ELLI O LMSTE A D

Everything changed in autumn, my charted course took a left turn, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never been a talented driver, so I stop the car. Pulling off to the side of the roadâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I idle. The heater blasts, blanketing me against the change. On the side of the road, in an open field, crows pick apart the frozen remains of a deer. Her chest exposed to the stinging air. The crows come and go, picking brown and red chunks from the deer, steam rising from exposed chest. I step out of the car, an am greeted by wind smacking my face, cold and unforgiving. I idle, staring at the mess of deer and crows. Approaching the deer and the murder, moving slowly to inspect the bloody chaos. All I get is lost wandering in my own maroon reflection.

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I can see jagged black obelisks rise in the distance, like altars to my failures. I stare at my reflection inside the deer. I pick her up, carrying her on my back, and the empty Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sorries in my mouth. Moving against the wind whipping me, striking my body and face, I continue on. Trudging through the field, moving towards the altars, navigating through a settling black fog. I reach an altar, & drop the deer on the table. The jagged obelisk shakes cracks crumbles, accepting the sacrifice. I see my breath, it is melting the sabel fog. A deep breath in and I feel tranquil. And see the fog lift a little.

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Northern Lights C HRIST INA BOBLICK THE WIRE HARP 2020

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Bowl & Picture ANNET T E HUMPHRE Y 111

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When You Are Engulfed in Milk L ILY STANKIEWICZ

In the beginning, there was only milk. People love milk. Milk was milk, and milk was milk, ya milk? Milk was born from the milk, and to the milk it would re-milk. During the milk, it would continue to be milk until the next milk came. Not all milk is morning milk, but hey, another milk, another milk! So, milk gets ready to leave for milk. Takes a milk shower, eats some milk-fest. Then kisses the milk good-milk and sees the milklets off to milk-school. Milk walks down the drive-milk, unlocks the new milk, and sits after a clap of silent milk. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ah, new milk smell!â&#x20AC;? Milk arrives late at milk; rush-milk. Bumper-to-bumper milk. The boss milk is milked, as always, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just the way the milk milks. Milk sits, milk works, milk continues. Milk goes on. Cold, crisp, fresh. Milk is good. Milk is home. In the end, milk died as milk. How milked up is that?

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2020 Wire Harp Staff Graphic Arts Editor: David McGuire

Literary Editor: Brandi K. Maas

Literary Staff: Brittany Graves Alexis Hart Jaid Ingham-Riley Willow Johnson Zoe Joyce Summer Skognes Lily Stankiewicz Lily Thoren Graphic Arts Advisor: John Mujica

Literary Advisors: Laura Read and Connie Wasem Scott

Special Thanks: Richard Baldasty, Heather McKenzie, Shelli Cockle, Linda Beane-Boose, Anna Gonzales, Carl Richardson, Erik Sohner, and Becky Turner Printer: Lawton Printing: lawtonprinting.com 4111 E Mission Ave. Spokane, WA Production notes: The 2020 edition of The Wire Harp was printed on a HP 10000 digital printer, using 4/4 color process HP Indigo Liquid ElectroInk tecohnology, on White 100# Blazer Satin text and cover. The typefaces employed were Miller Text, Miller Headline, and Bicyclette.

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CRE ATIV E ARTS MAGAZ IN E