Thoroughfare
Johns Hopkins University Fall 2017
Thoroughfare Johns Hopkins University Literary Arts Magazine Fall 2017
Contents Cover Art: New Yorker Luyi Wang The Bible Belt Has an Extra Strap That Runs Through Ohio Anna Wesche Evolution Luyi Wang
Gossip Among Trees Cait Yanos On How Prometheus Sparked American History Rudy Malcom Ready
Grace Lee
Colored Grace Lee The Gold Coast Rudy Malcom Abeille Gareth Evans Gone into Oblivion Emmanuel Osikpa Artwork Victoria Yeh The Model Rudy Malcom Photography Suthicha Kanacharoen An Afternoon in Slapnik Yungchen Tian Photography Jaeyoung Lee
The Bible Belt Has an Extra Strap That Runs Through Ohio by Anna Wesche Reciting God’s Commandments takes no time for any girl who’s brushed her hair with sounds of echoed Gospel music. Ask me how I can remember all of these absurd perplexing riddles, still explaining to my dear old Martin:What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not – It’s little things buried under my nailbeds caked with dirt and Keith Urban that you don’t see because I’m hiding in alleys, leaning up against decaying brick dressed in black and stained Italian leather. Faintly an ideal and steady match for the embossed, immortal, indifferent King James Version bound in black analogous binding like an ode to me: unrecognizable Nice N Easy boxed blonde, who was chewed up, spit out teeth marks up and down her arms, a line of lyrics that’re about some trucks and mud and Jesus read religiously from memory despite the fact that she has only listened to disjointed songs by a guy whose name begins with “Lil” since 2012. But if you examine closely, magnifying glass held to your eye, you’d see that, still, she prays.
Evolution
by Luyi Wang
Gossip Among Trees by Cait Yanos
My mother was as attentive as she could have been; she had her good days, and she had her bad. At some points in the year, she’d be beautiful. At other points, she’d be completely bald. The difference was striking; during the spring time her leaves would be a soft, bright pink. During the summer, she’d be a striking green. Winters hit her hard though. To me, her branches seemed to get thinner and thinner every year. It didn’t help that the color of her bark created an alarming contrast against the white snow, making every angle of her more pronounced. As much as I wanted to at times, I couldn’t blame her for the bad days. She has a lot of children, scattered all around her. Not to mention the grandchildren, and their children. The whole forest started with her. Her seeds making more trees, and those trees making little saplings of their own. It’s not like she could have helped it, it’s kind of hard to stop seeds from falling and planting themselves. I was her first child. She used to always tell me how happy she was when she first saw me sprouting out of the ground. I took those times for granted. Her attention was spread thin now, with trees growing for miles in all directions. The forest was where “daddy issues” were born. The fact was, there was an obvious blurred line, and that line raised a certain question: who was whose father? When my seed found its way to the ground, my mother said the wind was the culprit. Because I am her oldest, she was
sure of that much. I guess you could say, depending on how you look at it, the wind is my dad. A lot of my siblings aren’t so lucky, many not knowing who their fathers are. They all have their suspicions; some guess the hyperactive squirrel, sometimes running a little too fast along their mother’s branches, rustling the seeds loose. Others guess that it was simply gravity, taking its toll on their mothers’ weak branches. Having the wind as a dad, it was different than having a squirrel or gravity. The squirrel has no time to worry about a tree when it needs to gather food and care for its own family. Its visit is quick, only taking what it wants from the tree, likely never to be seen again. Gravity is always there, but there’s a difference between being there and being present. Gravity doesn’t speak, it doesn’t give attention to anything or anyone. You don’t even know it’s there until you think about it. Gravity only does one job: making everything fall to the ground. The weather around here is nice, known for being warm. There were barely any clouds in the sky today, which meant there’d barely be any wind. Throughout the years, my father did his best to be there for me. I’d feel him whenever my leaves rustled, even the slightest bit. It was comforting. I hear the whispers from the other trees; they gossip about how “privileged” I am to have a dad who “makes an effort”. But I can’t help but be constantly on edge, never knowing when he’ll leave and never knowing when he’ll be back. Sure, I’d go from seeing him every day in the winter, to barely in the summer, which gives me a good idea of when he’ll be around, but the weather is unpredictable. Sometimes I think it might be better to have a definitive answer, to either have him in my life or not at all. Because my siblings’ situations weren’t any better, our mother did her best to play the role of both parents. Based on my observations, having a slightly more active father warranted even less attention from my mother. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t even have parents at all. Maybe if the other trees knew that, they’d have something different to talk about.
On How Prometheus Sparked American History by Rudy Malcom I THE THEFT OF FIRE Clay sculptures lit with civilization, kilts smolder and spark from my donation— to their god, vowed mortal veneration. Glassy red leaves shimmer iridescent. Brittle pastels descend, efflorescent, Mother Nature’s striptease evanescent. Coals gleam an industrial volcanic— Revolution burns from the Atlantic; factory embers ignite titanic. II THE WRATH OF ZEUS Electric blizzards howl retribution, striking down heavenly prostitution, the eagle dormant in convolution. Icy tempests ablaze, vitriolic, my lightning-chapped side, for fall, nostalgic; a blinding mask will melt melancholic. Roaring fires combust in transgression, brightly exhausted white ash confession; one cigarette puff, and then Depression. III THE CAUCASIAN EAGLE The ethereal raptor awakens, regenerated and so mistaken, my liver soon bleeds out, corpse forsaken. Frosted vineyards on mountains liquefy, crags stained with flame-powder blood vitrify; rusty ichor, spilled, does not dignify. Lawns are meticulously constructed; they flicker suburban green, destructed; American dreams have been abducted.
Ready by Grace Lee
Colored
by Grace Lee
The Gold Coast by Rudy Malcom Sands Point’s ancient flapper still blazes through eroding shorelines, breezy. Her bobbed hair still shimmers with squid ink from the brackish. Her knobbed knees and wizened lips are stung by bees, her bare arms and short skirts sewn sleazy. Formaldehyde surges and preserves—varicose veins speak easy. Thirsting for liberation from societal controls of Queen Victoria’s gender roles, she dons herself in undue make-up, dancing freely, drinks galore, smoking and petting in her shakeup! The seasons observe golden rains like fiery coals. The city’s embers trickle into the suburbs, gleaming as they float, jangling smoothly in deep pockets of the Sound. These fermented ashes, foamy crests of cigarette puffs, make landfall and burn through dreamy verdant forests. One lone mare, chalky white, ambles through the dull preserve. A mother upholds her grandmother’s break from tradition, her children’s genes laced with amber ambition. She knows all her neighbors, dead and alive, not by their names, but the cars that they drive— brittle leaves falling, the people in love with the gold. I step over coughing lungs of the livid pavement, pulsating with foam and black wisps of festivity. Passing drivers gawk at my means of transportation, my sole companions scurrying rats; as is their proclivity, their bloodshot night-eyes unblinking in starvation, muddy footsteps in aureate enslavement.
Abeille by Gareth Evans
Gone into Oblivion by Emmanuel Osikpa The wisp of the wind trailed off as if I had already forgotten what I wanted to say; And so softly too: The murmur of your thoughts was the swift trickle of water on such a hazy day, But bemoan the seasons! I am but a dark veil in which your loved ones shall pass; Indeed, before you will have time to relish them, And foolishly you will accept My sorry that has been mumbled out, gurgling forth from my lips like thick thief ’s honey, spoiled for the liarsAnd I will tickle what used to be your open ears, your once beating heart, with words that glisten like arsenic; Now into this fourth hour you have taken the recipe with you; how glorious you have escaped the second coming of our Dark Ages,
How peaceful could you laugh and see, from on high above, or soon with me down below? Off into the river, I remember I promised, to float down to you The Lock and the Key.
by Victoria Yeh
Art by Victoria Yeh
The Model by Rudy Malcom
Some might say she is a model, Bedazzled skeleton, living fossil. Timeless beauty limps with grace; Ashen vapor lingers in her place. Painted hollow hands fasten to your gaze, Finger your lungs, contoured ablaze. Thin cigarettes fit her for Kodak, All crammed into one day’s pack. If you tapped her teeth they’d shatter; Eroding potholes pitter-patter. Porcelain tapestries unsewn, dentin putrid, Saffron needles emerge uprooted, Brushed back to standard with whitening tools— Distorted reality embraced by fools. Shorelines of enameled sky-scrapers topple, So decays an empire’s aesthetic gospel.
Art by Suthicha Kanacharoen
An Afternoon in Slapnik
by Yungchen Tian
by Jaeyoung Lee
Masthead Editors-in-Chief Alyssa Mefford & Thaara Shankar Prose Editor Alex Houck Poetry Editor & Design Manager Hannah Thorpe Art Editor Victoria Yeh Treasurer Saena Sadiq Marketing Director Christine Song Secretary Emma KurtzFreilich
Special thanks to the members of our poetry, prose, and art committees!
Fall 2017