Underground Pool 2016 by The University of the Arts

Underground Pool Issue Six:

Spring 2016

Fiction Editor:

Emily Famularo

Poetry Editor:

Alyssa Langenhop

Designer:

Ryan Breeser

Cover Artist :

Natalia Jablonski

Readers :

Leyna Bohning Sarah Butler Brekken Carns Amy Jannotti Maggie Fenning Gregory Manley Katie E. Murphy Glorious Piner Aleasha A. Q. Watson-Mitchell

Faculty Advisor:

Elise Juska

Illustration Coordinator:

Matt Curtius

uarts.edu/undergroundpool undergroundpool@uarts.edu The University of the Arts Philadelphia, PA

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Together by Shaina Nyman

Letter from the Editors The collection of work featured in this year’s magazine is a quiet reminder that often in life we come across obstacles that challenge us. As human beings we are constantly looking for ways to better ourselves and our situations—this sixth edition of Underground Pool sincerely explores humanity’s resilience through the use of storytelling, poetry, and visual art. The poetry in this edition represents a collection of past experiences that often result in optimistic outcomes. The poems frequently utilize strong voices that are open to acceptance and anticipate the future. Many poets fortify their pieces with a confident tone, even if they are composed of disasters and misfortunes: Alex Tripodi’s “Contentment” depicts the idea of playing the game by one’s own rules, while Amy Jannotti’s “She Was Never Good” illustrates the power one individual can have. Confidence is introduced in these poems not only as an important factor in their work, but also in one’s life. Meanwhile, the short stories in this issue are often dealing with the reclamation of one’s self. Nia Benjamin’s piece, “Golden Brown,” is a perfect example of a woman reclaiming her presence in a man-dominated world, while Leyna Bohning’s “Not Coming Home” is a reclamation of one’s emotions. These acts of discovery further support this issue’s theme of resilience—a hopeful movement forward. We found resilience to be a perfect summation of the sixth issue of Underground Pool. The works featured in this magazine are all reliant on an angst that seems self-motivating and driving. Unlike angst, though, resilience is the ability to move past worry and anxiety, to hold out hope and perseverance for a better future.

Emily Famularo Fiction Editor

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Alyssa Langenhop Poetry Editor

Fiction 08 | The Start of Everything : Thaddeus Mayfield Illustrated by Rachel Park

20 | Dark Water : Katie E. Murphy Illustrated by Hannah Lloyd

30 | Wet Block : Glorious Piner

Illustrated by Troy Bugarin

42 | Not Coming Home : Leyna Bohning Illustrated by Maximillian Wolff

48 | Botched Angle : Dean Ridgeway Illustrated by Martha Maynard

62 | Golden Brown : Nia-Samara Benjamin Illustrated by Trevor Fraley

71 | Contentment : Alex Tripodi 72 | two at a time : Chester Huynh

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Nature Reclaiming by Natalia Jablonski

Tenth Plague of Egypt | Nicole Revelli Our father who art in Heaven. Dad came home and fell into the couch. He’s a little tired after the dose of elephant’s blood brushed on the top of his forehead, guaranteed to end the plague on his body. He’s going to be able to come to my karate match; I’m getting a new belt to demonstrate how much stronger I’ve gotten. And so is he. I hang my new belt around his neck when we get home. Our father who art buried in a cemetery. The forehead is a not a doorframe, so his spirit is taken away at night. Someone must have made a mistake because he is not the firstborn. Neither am I, but I ask someone if they can take me instead. I pray to Ra to spite that silent someone. He sent me warmth in a dream where Dad told me everything is okay. On the days I forget that it is not, lights flicker on and off like Dad’s working on the electricity again. Our father who art still with us.

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Illustrated by Rachel Park

The Start of Everything | Thaddeus Mayfield Space was alone. And she was very, very bored. She waded in the void of Nothing, yearning for something more than the inky blackness. If only, she thought to herself, there was something to feel, to touch, to make. Although nothing existed, Space had an incredible imagination. She refined it into a shiny gem because there hadn’t been anything better to do than sit and dream. She imagined big things and little things and things that changed shape and size. She thought that, maybe, there could even be more than just one thing interacting with another thing. There could be two things that held together, a third, and more and more until they made something even bigger. There could be a thing built from so many things that it didn’t even look like the littler things, and that thing could make something bigger still that was much different, too. “Things, things, things,” Space called to no one, “everything, anything.” Depressed, she continued to tread in the infinite ocean of vacuum that she called home. Unbeknownst to her, Time rolled around in his own little void, known as Never. It was an endless loop of perpetual standstill. He circled about, feeling uncomfortable and uneasy. He grew more frustrated day by endless day, and total absence continued to happen. All around him, he could hear a cacophony of silence that boxed him into Never, and it was driving him insane. He wanted to shatter the silence with action, to cause change, to move around, to stretch, to feel. But there wasn’t anything to do in Never because nothing changed. All he could have was hope that change would come. “It needs to happen,” Time kept saying in his head over and over again. He made himself believe it, and until the day came, he would just keep spinning. Space and Time dwelled in their respective states, letting their imaginations grow and expand. Until one moment, something happened. It was quick and it was small, but in a single flash, existence broke through the static barrier that separated Nothing and Never. The shatter rang out loudly through mutual voids. Space drew back, fumbling about in the Nothingness as the jolt shook through her. She assembled herself and attempted to focus on the havoc that was crashing into the void. The cage of Never had exploded in a similar way, and Time was spinning out in a ball of infinite possibilities.

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He lurched and floundered, struggling to make sense of what had just happened. Until everything came to a stillness that warped through his state. For the first time, Space and Time looked across the void to actually see something else. Space looked at Time, who brimmed with an infectious energy that shook her to her core. Equal levels of fear, confusion, and intrigue coursed through her. Time looked back at Space, who had an aura of wonder and majesty that jolted his mind with a flash of wonder. Neither had any idea what to do. They stared at each other, both amazed by this presence, something that they could barely conceive. Time took advantage of the opportunity before him. “Hi,” he coughed out, and the one syllable rang out between them, the ripples of energy echoing on empty waves. He felt the strange sensation of words leaving him, becoming real and continuing on to somewhere else. It was an alien process, and though he knew he should be happy, for some reason it made him incredibly nervous. Not helping things was this entity in front of him. He didn’t know who she was, and he was worried that she might think he was too strange or unpleasant to be around. ‘Hi’ didn’t seem like the right word at all, for his first contribution to vocabulary, but it was all he could think of. “Hi,” Space stammered back. Her words followed his on the empty sea, the energy of hers combined with the energy of his, widening the both of them tenfold. She had never seen energy of words change like that before. What was happening? She could feel herself shaking as the question grew in her head. Something about him made her shiver, and though it felt good, it mostly just twisted her into a bundle of nerves. Silence followed their initial hellos. The ripple of awkward greetings faded into the background and started bouncing around the void as Space and Time locked eyes. In a perfect unison of disaster they both stumbled out the same sound. “I—” And more vibrations of energy rang out. Their words collided in the void, which caused the planes of Nothing and Never to quake. This caused them to feel even more nervous, and the same thought rammed into both of their minds — oops. They had spoken at the same time, that wasn’t right at all, or was it? There were no rules for existing, so neither had any idea how this worked. Was this normal? Should they acknowledge it or just move on and say something else? The thoughts lingered, but were soon silenced when they realized that they had both started a statement without completing it. Time was the first one to attempt to amend the knotty issue. “I’m Time,” he completed. “I’ve been going around for a long time, I mean, I just, I mean, again and again, it happens where I can’t move from when I’m in. Except, I’m not in it anymore, you saw me crash out of it just now. So, I’m able to move, and actually make a direction. It’s amazing! It’s wonderful! And I’m so terrified right now! And well, like when we said those words—and they actually went out. They went and they moved, they’re moving still. And that happened. I just, I’m, yeah—” Time cut himself off when he realized that he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and had probably made a fool of himself. He looked at this opposing state of being, who was probably regretting ever saying a word to him. He wanted to start over, to say something else to her, or maybe just go back into Never and cry for a bit. What Time didn’t realize was that Space was feeling roughly the exact same way for not saying something. Here was this embodiment, Time, who was able to burst

out so many thoughts and ideas. He was real and filling the void around them with his presence. While Space was filled with millions of different ideas about where the conversation could go, and yet she couldn’t think of any of them. Why couldn’t she say anything? She was drawing a complete blank. She just wanted to float back into Nothingness where she could dream without fear of actually having to say things. She couldn’t, though. There was something magical about Time, and she had to say something so that he didn’t think that she was crazy. Space started to panic, saying the only thing that came to mind. “Space. That’s me. I am things.” She was mentally kicking herself, wondering what that was supposed to mean. She and Time wanted to move past this. Their words were progressing through the void, becoming pure energy that could be who knows what? If only they could be comfortable with each other, something incredible might happen. They could feel the start of it, but there was something that just wasn’t working. Desperate for something to happen, Time made a decision. He would do something crazy that had never been done

Illustrated by Rachel Park

before. He would ask a question. “What are things?” “Things?” Space said back, not sure how to explain the concept. “They’re . . . things, they are what, they are, they’re these waves of energy we’re making, they’re what we’re in, they are things.” “But what do you do with them?” Time inquired. “What do things do? “I . . . I’m not sure. They just are.” “Well, like those waves, they’re moving.” The vibrations had been bouncing around them, but as soon as Time pointed it out, the waves of word energy started moving inward toward one center point betwixt Space and Time. “Oh, like that, I know what you mean,” she said in an attempt to act like she knew. She watched the energy gather, even as more words left her; they shot for the counterpoint and added to it. “Well like, now, all this energy is a group of things, and they’re coming together into a new thing,” Space explained. The vibrations started swirling together into a tightly packed cluster. The two looked at the strange occurrence forming before them. “Yeah,” Time continued, “and if it were to change—” The tightly packed cluster began pulsating feverishly. The gears in his mind started turning, and Time became too focused on it to worry about his anxiety any longer. He observed the cluster grow to a blazing heat, becoming hotter as the energy continued packing together. “Then maybe something—” The nerves in Space relaxed. Words were starting to come to her as she felt the beginnings of confidence coming from the point. She reached out to the cluster that was growing and shrinking before her as it took in everything around them. “Can exist,” Time hypothesized, reaching his own hand into the cluster. It packed in as tightly as it could, spinning faster as their two hands approached. In the smallest fraction of a second across the tiniest portion of an inch, Space, Time, and the cluster all touched one another. With a colossal bang, the cluster exploded in every possible direction. Instantaneously, particles shot out to fill the nooks and crannies of the universe that had just been formed. They zipped throughout the void, ripping through the absence and replacing it with white-hot, burning heat. The energy inside the particles brimmed so intensely that they shifted form from matter to energy and back to matter again. The titanic burst of matter began colliding with itself, changing directions, and drawing new paths across the void. The particles crashed into existence and buzzed in a magnificent storm of material and energy. Space and Time stood back, gawking at the miracle that had ignited before them. They gasped, holding on to each other at the point where the cluster once had been. “I can’t believe it,” Space fumbled. “This is, it’s just—” Time blabbered back. “Beautiful,” they finished in unison. Time tightened his grip on Space, his excitement causing him to shake. “Let’s go, let’s see what we can find!” Space squeezed back. “Yeah!” she exclaimed, while bracing herself for the

unknown. “We’ve got to see what’s out there!” The two leapt from one form in the void to the next, carefully examining all of the tiny particles that were scalding them like a boiling, microscopic hurricane. “What are they?” Time wondered aloud as he felt the tiny balls jump back and forth. “Building blocks,” Space answered, reaching across a stream of racing particles, feeling their drive flow through her fingers. “Just think of what they could become.” Time came up to the mass of bits and watched as they scattered to and fro with just a mere touch. “Oh, there are so many of these, maybe, if we could put them together . . . ” “We could have them do something!” Time jumped, ready for action. “Yes! Make them grow into huge masses in the void.” The initial awkwardness that had wedged a crevice between Time and Space had been removed. The two of them were too enthralled by the wonderland they had just created to think about anything uncomfortable. They allowed their imaginations to burst free as they discussed the possibilities, the two of them still holding hands until the point of contact began to glow again. “I guess we should start going,” said Space. “Yeah,” replied Time, “there’s a lot to do out there.” The two went forth, letting touch guide their mutual pathway through the new frontier of Existence. Space reached out to the new creation with her free hand and swirled the particles together, while Time used his to arrange them into all shapes and sizes. The glow of their held hands spread to the entirety of their two forms. The two were too entranced to even notice as they revolved the masses around each other. Some grew sturdy as they held their bonds tight, while others wavered into a haze. Some relaxed into a gentle flow, while still more erupted with pure energy and reaction. The glow between Space and Time continued throughout their creation, and the universe glowed with magic. They halted just for a moment, and smiled at their new home. “How about that?” Time released his voice, shaky with amazement. “We made that happen.” His sight swerved back to the partner who helped him craft such a work. He smiled at her like a buffoon, feeling no shame or regret, and she was staring back at him with the same expression. “We did,” Space giggled, feeling the immense presence around her. “And now that thing exists.” She wrapped around him, shifting from her grip to a full embrace as the newborn galaxies bobbed up and down in the shining sea of particles and charges around them. They continued to hold each other, completely overcome with joy. The pockets of void had been filled with a new landscape where there was something new in every direction, an infinite number of tiny actions all working together in a perfect harmony. Space felt her eternity of loneliness start to fade, and Time was starting to relax for the first time in this symphony of the universe. Right then and there, the two felt like they had everything. He finally opened his eyes and looked at Space. “Let’s go see what else we can make.”

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Untitled by Tabitha Rogers

The Traveler | Alex Pruden Time it is for me to go After three-hundred-sixty four thousand stories Told in almost as many movements. Along this road, in winter and autumn, go very few. I have learned to live and war with them In an old and wrecked ship from far in the west, Pushed to the shore by a stray, black whale. In restless dreams I walked from south to north, From the ruined city to a cathedral of crystals At the end of the mountains in the long night, And seen the ways of stranger men and animals Carved into stone and glass and finer things. On rarely have I passed by my home or homey places And fashioned a manner of survival and discipline In a vessel many thousands of times faster than light. Do not pity me; I was born for this. If I am not back again this time tomorrow, Carry on, knowing I will find my way elsewhere, And I will find a place to lay my head Where they will not know me by my armor. When I wake in three-hundred-sixty-four thousand years, I will return in time for a performance near the Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tree And recall a green and shaded place along the way to the water. In older age I will recall a time when we were very young And in a steady homeland study warfare no longer. I will have a balefire prepared on the deck of my ship, With a jeweled sabre to pass on to an unborn son, And joyful stories memorized for an unborn daughter. If I am not back again this time tomorrow, May the night be quiet under your passing footsteps. The morning star is getting high. We are moving on.

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The Undiscovered Self | Sarah May Butler Unfortunate—that faith should be called Submission to the irrational That immersion should be approached on cohesive feet, I called you My lord, who would not be buttresses for matters Of long-blasted illusions to synagogues (you used to fix my blueprints). I predicted the peril of parallel systems, how Through your fanaticism (would I know, the most charming form of overcompensation), I came to know I was no longer drawn to harmonics—but exceptions Due to your past of stripping watery pastures (into the perfect seal) You became your own sear, Contention in white dressing (you used to wear), Discarding (you used to ware) anything to stave off the boredom— of your thoughts. Your thoughts no more than impressions probing Darker, I saw light only When considering your atheism, a camouflage (you were afraid) For your manipulations. How fairly you blemished the most straightforward of my retired eclipses Out of self-conscious banality (you were a satyr), Into heroicism (you were the god I lost long back). Back then we were so open to recession, gathering objects (dead flies, light fixtures, empty wombs) Just to disintegrate them, Renewing subjectivism (you were the rib), that chaos— But one day you could no longer feel (you were the snake) The shade allowing my face to be discernible, too full Due to consistent overindulgence in trips to In-between the dreaming sense and the sensible dream (you were the garden). But you could force me to fall (not the season) harder Even (not the lines but the numbers) Though I knew you well Enough to tell (Dionysus, Morpheus is wearing your skin— Morpheus, Dionysus’s sleep doesn’t match his din) what kind of sleeper you were (hearing the moths graze the sill in silver, hearing your vines wrap around the columns, hearing you say: “I don’t believe in God,” hearing myself say: “My greatest fear is walking in this Passarade”). I wish you had never defined faith. Then I’d be the one who ordained Our shared irreverence (our maiden and cradle).

As deeply embedded as the retired harvest Was our ethical repulsion for one anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence. Yet you never learned yourself, nor I As you lacked the means of comparison Necessary for self-assertion. Still remains Your mouth, a concavity of vice and encasement, a dementia That in your advancement toward the millennium, You are only diminishing, you know. You are only a slave to your own fictions, Rustle Aster, And I am the most embellished of them.

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Self-Portrait as a Ghost by Shaina Nyman

The Boy from Summer Camp | Corrine Evans Jacob Wise is going to be a father. Proving I loved him is like watching a feather fall from a tree where no bird has been. Believing I thought we would be together is a 13-year-old girl whispering, “I promise” into the ears of a boy with no pinkies. When you fall in love with someone you only see one week per year it is easy for the moments to turn into months, the seconds to turn into centuries. When I say, “I can’t remember the last time I talked to him” I mean, it was before I was born. Jacob Wise is going to be a father. And I am not going to be a mother.

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Illustrated by Hannah Lloyd

Dark Water | Katie E. Murphy Every Sunday, my two brothers and I ride our bikes down to the bridge at the edge of town. Normally, the bridge is off-limits to my younger brother Davey and me, but if Kyle comes along, Dad says it’s all right. He’s fourteen now, so he’s responsible. Dad used to come with us to the crick, but lately he works a lot. He’s usually gone when I wake up, and he gets home after I go to bed, so I don’t see him like before. He calls me, though, and yesterday he said he might get home from work early today, but to go to the crick without him. He’d come as soon as he could. Mom’s leaning on the counter in the kitchen when I get downstairs. I jump up on the stool next to her. She doesn’t look up from her magazine. “When’s Daddy gonna be here?” She flips through the pages and says, “When I finish my drink, sweetheart.” I climb off the stool and tell her I’m going to get my stuff for the crick. Mom laughs. “Sorry, that was a joke.” I just look up at her. “Not a very good one, huh?” “Well, me and Davey are gonna go to the crick.” “Where’s Kyle?” I tell her that he’s still in bed but I can look out for Davey, I watch him better than Kyle anyway. Mom sighs and sits down at the kitchen table. She stirs the olives around in her glass, looking at the floor. “Soph, don’t talk to Kyle about the other day. He didn’t mean it.” I try to interrupt, but she cuts me off. “Sophia, it doesn’t concern you. Now, go wake your brother but don’t provoke him. He’s a monster in the morning.” Her voice feels sharp; it has for a while, since Daddy started working all the time. I run up the stairs. I get up to the top and stop when I see the bracelet. Not on purpose, but my hands are shaking and I can hear my heart beating. I peek down the hall. The bracelet is still sitting on the tiny table. It’s the one that flew off Mom’s wrist, and I caught before it fell down the steps. I’d have thought she would be happy that I caught it, but her face was sunburn red when she looked up at me from the floor yelling to go back downstairs. Kyle stared down at me through his long hair then ran into his room, slamming the door.

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The room is dark when I open Kyle’s dungeon; that’s what Davey and I like to call it, because his windows are blocked by the blankets he put over the blue curtains. I used to play in here a lot with Kyle. We played with his Hot Wheels and my stuffed animals on the big carpet with the town on it. He always let me be Mayor, before he grew taller and his hair got greasy, when his room still had Noah’s Arc and sunshine. Before he started fighting with Mom, and she told me to leave him alone. Except on Sundays, because that’s when we go to the crick. I try to wake him gently, but he doesn’t respond so I flip on the light and pull his pillow out from under his head. “Kyle, it’s Sunday, come on.” His eyes open and he grabs the pillow from my hands and throws it at me. It was kind of like how my best friend Kayla does during our sleepovers, except there’s no laughter coming from Kyle. I back toward the door. “But it’s Sunday, buddy. And Dad said he might come.” He grabs the Harry Potter book, the big one with the green cover, threatening to throw it at the wall. “He’s not coming, don’t you get that? Now get the hell out and stop calling me buddy.” I push open the door and run back down the sinking stairs. Mom’s on the couch in the living room. Usually, when Dad’s home breakfast is made by now, but when it’s just Mom, we usually eat cereal and watch soap operas. I don’t exactly know what makes something a soap opera, but I think it’s about crying. I cried when Mom put soap in my mouth one time for yelling at Davey, so I guess it makes sense. I sit down next to her and pull at the loose threads where the yellow foam peeks through the sofa. Without looking away from the TV she says, “Sophia, you’re gonna need shoes to ride your bike.” I don’t say anything because I know we’re not going to the crick, so I won’t be riding my bike. The screen door slams, breaking the quiet, and Davey comes running into the room, jumping onto the couch and spilling Mom’s drink. “Dammit, Davey.” She shoots up and her face twists into something that makes me nervous. “And where’s your brother? You guys should be out of the house already.” When I don’t say anything, she goes toward the stairs. I hate when Mom gets mad at Kyle. “Mom wait,” I say, grabbing her hand. She jerks around, giving me the dark stare. I back up. “Stop flinching, I’m not gonna hit you. Just gonna go wake up your brother.” “Mommy, please.” But she’s already stomping up the stairs. Kyle’s real mean to Mom sometimes. I don’t know why she goes up there when Dad isn’t home. She always comes back down crying, warning me to leave him alone. “He’s violent, baby,” she says. I only saw him push her once, but I can usually hear them through the bedroom door. Davey is sitting on the couch when I turn back around. His round eyes, too big for his head, drop fat tears onto his freckled cheeks. There’s a thump upstairs that shakes the ceiling. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go outside.” I take a peek up the stairs, but there’s nothing to see, just noise. He jumps from the couch and runs into the kitchen. The screen door creaks open. I grab his boots and follow after him. “Davey, you need your shoes.” He runs up to the wire fence in the backyard and sits, facing away from the house. “Davey, buddy.” He doesn’t look at me. I walk over and take a seat in the yellow grass across from him, pushing his long red curls out of his face. The tears are gone but his eyes still look sad.

“We’re not going to the crick today,” he says. Doesn’t even have to ask, he just knows. With nothing to say I pull him into a hug, promising him we’ll catch crayfish when Dad says I’m responsible. The screen door creaks open again, like when my teacher moves the chalk on the board too fast. It’s Kyle with a slightly pink face and a harsh look; he slams the door and walks through the gate in the fence. “Come on, buddy. Let’s put your shoes on. Looks like we’re going catching.” Davey’s head jerks up, eyes wide, and he smiles, running down the yard and out of the gate — calling after Kyle. They’re both on their bikes when I get out front. Davey waves me over. “Sophie! Come on.” I go to grab my bike, but the handlebar gets stuck in a crack in the stone. I tug at it but it doesn’t budge. I look over at Kyle, but before I can say anything he yells, looking at the front door, never at me. “Would you come on? Mom wants us gone.” I pull at my handlebar hard. It doesn’t move. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Sophia.” I flinch. He sighs and grabs my bike, yanking it out of the wall. Dad would have punished him for saying the Lord’s name in vain, but I don’t like to correct Kyle. The three of us ride onto the road, Kyle up front with Davey pedaling his hardest to keep up. I stay behind him just in case, `cause he still rides with training wheels. The sun is bright today, making the street hot under my sneakers, but the wind is running through the big trees that cover the other side of the street. It’s like they’re singing for me. When I was little and Davey was still a baby, Dad would take me and Kyle on walks through the woods. With the sun falling down on the three of us, we would race through the trees to get to the river on the other side. When we’d get back, lunch would be ready and Mom would be sitting out on the porch with Davey on her lap. That was before, though, and once I asked Mom to take us but she doesn’t like to leave the house anymore, so now I just like to look at the trees instead. Davey’s voice cries out up ahead. He hit the hole — the biggest hole on our street. The person in front is supposed to yell when it’s coming up, and that’s what Dad did when he used to ride with us, but Kyle doesn’t. I pull back on my brakes, and hop off the bike. Davey and his front tire are tipped forward into the hole, and I can’t help but laugh, because sometimes Davey doesn’t know how to feel so he just freezes, waiting for me to tell him. “You’re okay, buddy. You’re okay,” I say and he smiles, his cheeks kind of pink. I look around for Kyle, but he’s a tiny dot further up the street, and I yell for him but he doesn’t look back. So I wait for Davey to pedal a bit ahead then I ride behind him. Kyle is at the edge of the two-way street when Davey and I finally get up the hill at the end of our road. He smiles with mean eyes, one of them looking blue. “Took you guys long enough.” Davey breathes heavily beside me. Kyle looks at him and says, “Gotta learn to keep up, little man.” Davey laughs and smiles at our older brother. My hands wrap tighter about the handlebar, because I hate when Kyle acts like he didn’t do anything wrong. Just like that he yells, “Crossing,” as he’s already in the middle of the street. The bridge is just after the two-way street, into the trees a little bit. You can’t see it from the road, so you have to know where to go in to find it. Big wooden beams lay

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across it with a space in between each. I usually like to jump from one to the next, but Davey is too little for that. He’d fall through the cracks. The bridge is real old; they used to bring steel out of the factory on it but nobody uses it anymore. Now it’s just for playing. A fat tree grows into the clouds right next to it, which marks the spot that’s easiest to slide down. As we ride up to it, Kyle jumps off his bike and crawls onto the edge of the bridge. I’ve seen kids do it before; they swing from the bridge and jump onto this big rock that sits high above the crick. When Kyle once explained his friend doing it, Dad, and even Mom, told us never to do that because you can break your neck. But Kyle is there, swinging from the edge anyway. Davey comes running up next to me. “That’s so cool, I wanna try!” His eyes look out at Kyle wide. I remind him that he loves to slide down the hill so he doesn’t run after our brother. This is why Mom wants us to leave Kyle alone. He acts so stupid. Davey runs over to the tree, dropping his butt down onto the hill, sliding down, and I do the same. The crick is shallow, like a kiddy pool with muddy green water. The trees that line both sides of it cast shadows. The shaded parts are the best for catching crayfish. Kyle’s sitting on top of the big rock when we get down to the water. He yells out, “How awesome was that, huh, Little Dave?” Davey runs after him into the water as Kyle jumps in, which throws our little brother onto the rocks that cover the bottom of the crick. “Davey! You okay?” He looks up and smiles, running off farther down the crick. I throw Kyle my meanest look, but he doesn’t flinch. I take a step closer. “This is why Mom doesn’t like us around you,” I say, and he turns around with dark eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sophia. So shut up.” He stands tall and scary in front of me, his dark hair hanging in his face while his too-big T-shirt falls off his shoulder. When I don’t say anything back, he walks up the crick. The branches sway back and forth, making the shadows dance against the water. I look around for Davey, but I don’t see him anywhere. I yell his name, but I only hear the water drifting lazily down the crick. The wind blows through the trees, causing the leaves to swish, like the sound tissue paper makes. I move down toward the bridge when I hear his little cries coming from underneath, in the dark water where the sun never touches. I’ve only gone under there once, but I was with Dad, so it wasn’t scary. I grab a stick floating in the water, holding it out in front of me as I walk into the dark. His crying is loud and angry, echoing under the bridge. He doesn’t look up as I walk toward him, so I sit down on the rock next to him. His sobs grow louder and louder, and I just wrap my arms around him. “Crayfish bite you, buddy?” His head jerks up and my own eyes look back at me. “I killed him.” His eyes are red and wet as he points toward the bottom of the rock where bits and pieces of crayfish are squashed. His little body starts shaking and over and over as he says, “I’m sorry.” I wrap my arms around him but he just cries harder. “It’s okay, buddy. You didn’t mean it. Lets get out from under this bridge. Come on.” I jump from the rock, but Davey still sits. His head hangs between his knees. The first time I was bit, Dad was here. He picked me up out of the water and carried me to the rocky bank. I don’t think I can lift Davey, so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. So I say what Dad did: “Getting bit just

makes you tougher.” Davey doesn’t look up. I wish Dad were here. I try to remember what else he said. “You’re more interesting a person now. You’ll laugh about this story someday.” Nothing. His tears have stopped, but he hasn’t lifted his head. Finally, Kyle emerges from the sunlight and walks over to us. He looks at the crayfish and smiles. “Good job, kid! You killed ‘em.” Davey looks up at Kyle. “Hey, I think I saw a duck up the crick,” Kyle says. “Wanna see who can catch him first?” Davey jumps from the rock and starts running. I grab Kyle’s arm to stop him from following after him. “Don’t teach him stuff like that.” I stand as tall as I can. Kyle turns to me. His eyes look wet, but now that he’s fourteen I don’t think he gets sad. “Well, Dad’s not here to teach him anything, and sometimes you have to hit back,” he says, looking at the black water where his reflection should be. All I can see is Mom falling. I take a deep breath like I do when I jump in the pool and push Kyle as hard as I can. “What the hell, Sophie?” I don’t step back. “I saw you . . . ” But I can’t say anymore because Kyle’s eyes drop tears like Davey’s. He looks younger, like when we used to be friends. He takes a step toward me, and leans down so we’re looking at each other in the face, the blueish eye now black. I couldn’t have done that. “Soph, Davey didn’t mean to kill the crayfish. It bit him and that scared him. He just reacted. What you saw . . . it was the same thing.” He doesn’t say any more, and I don’t think I want him to. Instead we just look up in the sun, where Davey is chasing the duck. Kyle puts his arm on my shoulder. I pull away and he lets go. I don’t know if I should believe him. Mom says he’s a liar. This could just be a lie. I wish you could just know which people are bad and which are good. Like the crick. I can tell the difference between the dark and the shaded water because one is just covered by darkness and the other is the darkness.

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Nature, 2 by Sam Malandra-Myers

I Am Black Water | Lauralee Martin It flows through my veins it flows through my roots and permeates my soil and clay. It is my lifeblood, and when cut, it is what I bleed. I am Piedmont, Pee Dee, and Santee. It feeds me muscles and small bony fish, cat fish, and mud skimmers. It runs down my cheeks when I sink and when I rise. I am black water.

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Gravity by Hannah Gregory

She Was Never Good | Amy Jannotti she was never the water in the desert: she was the desert she was the barren waste born to suck bones dry she was the ice age; she was the sickness she was the plague that brought civilization to its knees she was never an angel: she was the wrath and fury of a forsaken god she was the black hole, ripping apart the galaxy of me inch by inch, she was never good but oh, when she was, she was better than any creature living or dead to walk this earth

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Illustrated by Troy Bugarin

Wet Block | Glorious Piner I remember the clerk’s arms going up in fury, two loud shots like firecrackers, cops surrounding the gas station before Running Man could get out the door, him walking through gunshots like a light shower of rain, violet blood dripping from the seven holes in his T-shirt, his knees hitting the faded black asphalt, the piercing screams from a fat lady in a big black church hat, and the deep Southern gospel music blasting from her car. It was the same kind of music that made me hate church, and it reminded me of Saturday morning house cleaning with my ma and little sister. Word around the strip was he was stealing chips and juice for his son, but everybody knew he was just off wet. To me, it didn’t make much of a difference what the reason was. A starving child won’t make a man walk through his own death, but being a man and not able to be a man to a family can make him crazy enough to find a fix. Everyone in my hood had a curse. Even if they thought they didn’t, they did. Living here was a curse alone. We all had our pills and potions to try to reverse it. I smoked a little bit. My mom drank a lot, but not the hard stuff: just the Colt 45 and Budweiser. Running Man, he used embalming fluid. My dad used to sell it before he got booked for pushing a brick of cocaine on the corner of our old block in South Philly. He told me it was the stuff undertakers put in dead bodies to preserve them until the funeral, which I thought was wild until I realized there’s always been a thin line between the breathing and the buried in my neighborhood. The living ignored and forgotten, and the dead names ringing through the halls of row homes from the mothers who wail for them as if they were just up in their bedrooms, their ears plugged by headphones. Womp and I watched Running Man get lit up from across the street at the Chinese store about a week ago. Since then, flashbacks had fucked with me from time to time. It’s not that I knew him well. He just used to live in the house next to mine, and sometimes it felt like I was an address away from being dead. That’s probably what haunted me the most; the only thing that separated me and him were the walls between our living rooms. I didn’t think it got to Womp much because he never talked about it. Nothing got to

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Womp, and that’s what I loved about him. He lived around the corner from me on Spruce Street, stood short and thick at 5’5” with skin brown like wet sand, girly eyelashes, and good hair. He wore a bright smile like a tattoo, the kind that made you forget that there was darkness behind it. The night after the shooting, I went home and cried, but I never told him that, and he never told me if he did or not, but I’m sure he didn’t. When he was ten he saw his dad die. They robbed his pops right there on the front porch, and Womp watched it from his bedroom window. While sitting in those stale and stiff church pews, all I remembered was him not crying. It wasn’t even my father in the casket, and I cried, but he didn’t shed one tear which, in a weird way, I kind of admired because men aren’t supposed to cry. Even my mom taught me that, and ever since the funeral I wondered how men got to be that way. Did something make a man withhold his tears or did withholding tears make a man? Every nigga strolls with some sort of rhythm, but Womp walked with the weight of the bodies of our dead friends on his back. A lot of them used to live on my block, 54th and Locust. We called it Death Row because someone died there every summer. It’s like all of the trap niggas in West Philly collectively agreed to wage war in the sweltering heat of mid-July. I imagined them sitting around a small square table at the Checkers on the strip with their snapbacks and gold watches, and their coke-white Air Forces, bent at the toes against the floor, trying not to let them touch the dirt and used napkins, respectfully discussing how they were going to scare the shit out of all the old people on the block. They’re the reason niggas carried guns like house keys around my way. I wore a Glock 9 on my waist at all times, and I named it Potato because it was always fully loaded. It was just something you had and something you needed to have. It’s not like the police would protect me. Shit, the pizza man comes quicker than they do. Sometimes, they took their time, but at least they came. ... It was 12:45 AM, the night before the first day of my last year in high school. Womp and I sat on my porch steps, playing Speed and drinking Colt 45 because it was the only thing that we could get our hands on. “Why Chauncey text me last night talking `bout some ‘wassup ugly’ with a little heart face emoji next to it?” Womp said as he shuffled the deck. Chauncey was this tall, pudgy girl in our English class. Altogether, she was an okay person. She was friendly in an invasive way, and always pressed her breast against me when she gave me long behindthe-back hugs, and she always pulled away, giving me a kiss on the neck. I never felt the need to tell my boys we weren’t together because she did it to them too. “Bruuuuh,” I laughed. “Why would you ever give her your number?” “We had to do this project for Ms. Flare’s class. I spend one day at her house cutting cardboard, and BOOM, she wants my dick.” “What’d you say back to her?” “I said, ‘my guard, beautiful.’ You gotta hit `em with that reverse psychology `cause bitches is backwards. Yes means no. No means yes. Ugly means fine as hell, so beautiful must mean gross.” He bridged the deck before dealing the cards.

I shrugged and swigged the rest of my drink in four gulps before letting out a forced, breathy exhale. I only drank around Womp because it felt like we were on two different planets when he was buzzed and I wasn’t. I hated the bitter taste of alcohol, the way it burned my tongue, felt like fire warming the inside of my chest, and how it made me realize that I should cry more. I always wondered what made depressed people drink to cope with feeling sad. Is it because liquor has a way of making you feel more sad, and for some reason humans love feeling emotions even when those feelings hurt them, or is it because it’s hard to be honest about them without it? “If she wasn’t so damn ugly, I would pipe her. I really would.” “Pussy don’t got a face.” We’d just started the game and I was already down to just five cards. “How.” His face became comically grave. “It got a whole set of lips fuck you mean,” he said. Jack, Queen, King, Ace, Two. I threw down the rest of my cards. “Game,” I declared. Womp tossed his cards to the side of him and pouted. “Fucking cheater.” “Ain’t no cheating bitch. I won fair and square.” “Okay, but you win every time, and that’s not how ‘fair and square’ works.” I flagged him and then stared off into the abandoned house next to me for a moment. “Ayo, I miss Running Man, fam.” “You ain’t even know the nigga.” “You don’t have to know someone to miss them.” “Ahh, here we go with your sentimental shit.” “Naw, it’s not even like that. He was just a good dude.” “Running Man, man,” he laughed. “That nigga died like a G.” His hand dug into his pocket, pulling out a dime, and then a pack of Back Woods from his inner jacket pocket. “This is wild, fam.” “Shit happens,” he shrugged. “I mean, the way I see it, we all gone die anyway. Ever since we was born, we had to die. It’s the way life is.” The way he saw it was true, so I couldn’t argue that. We all die one day, but how does someone get to be that way? How do they get to see death before life? How could they be okay with that? He broke down the weed. “It’s still not fair, bruh. They ain’t have to shoot him that many times.” “He was bustin’ at them too, though. He was bustin’ first. I mean, they ain’t have shoot him like that, but still.” “Still nothing, it could have been another way. They could have at least tried to see what the problem was. Nobody wilds out like that for no reason. He was off the wet, and that shit makes niggas think they invincible, and only niggas with problems smoke that shit. He needed help, not death.” Womp licked the seal of the pearled blunt. “Wet ain’t have shit to do with it. He was just going through it. We all do sometimes. It’s not that deep.” He flicked the igniter of a lighter and ran a flame over the body of the blunt. “How could you say that? Running Man didn’t bother nobody.”

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“Neither did my dad, and now he dead and it’s because shit just happens. It don’t got shit to do with wet or whether he was a good person. Life is just fucked up in that way.” “Not everyone smokes wet, Womp. Weed, yea, everybody smokes weed. Not everyone got starving kids.” “Everybody on this block gon’ die. At least Running Man died like a man. Fuck the police. I would have shot at them too, and if his aim was anything like mine, he would have killed one.” I shrugged because he had a way of telling the undeniable truth. Everybody was going to die one day or another, so what made last week any different than next year? “How fucked up you down to get.” He gave a cunning smirk. “I hit up Bruce from up the street yesterday, and look what I got.” He pulled out a small glass medicine bottle of wet. “BOOM,” he shouted, as he let out the kind of laugh a man gives when he won the lottery. “Nigga, did we not just talk about a man who died right after smoking that shit?” “Like I said, wet ain’t got shit to do with that.” I twisted my face as if I were pondering it. “Come on, don’t be a princess all your life. You’re blowing my high, and it hasn’t even started yet.” I shrugged and knew I’d go along with him, just like I knew that I shouldn’t. Womp dipped the joint into the wet and lit it. He took a long pull and then held it out for me. I pinched it between my fingertips and stared at it for a bit. My stomach turned like a vortex, and all I could see was Running Man walking through the bullets, his soaked red T-shirt, and the blood streaming from his body to the sidewalk drain. I handed it back to him. “You not gon’ hit?” “Nah, I’m good.” I hesitated, but resisted. “I don’t feel so good.” He sucked his teeth and the tip turned orange as he pulled, longer this time. “Why you bein’ a lil bitch?” He shook his head and dragged it again. “This right here gone have us feeling like Superman.” I looked at him and wondered what his curse was. Living around here was a curse enough, but we all loved it too much to let it run us away. I knew his father died, but Womp wasn’t the type to let those kinds of things earn tears, so what made him smoke wet? Womp was in one piece and only broken people ruined themselves, so what made him do that? What was his curse? “I think you should stop smoking it.” I hated myself for saying that because if there was a moment that made me sound like a lil bitch, it was then. “I mean, we know what it did to Running Man.” “I ain’t at a gas station trying to steal chips, though, or shooting at the cops. I’m sitting here on the steps with you, so chill with that.” He pulled again and even though he didn’t move, the distance rudely forced itself between us. “Yo, let me hit that.” He shook his head no. “I ain’t dumb, nigga. You ain’t want this five seconds ago.”

“I do now, though. Give it up.” I tried to take it away, but he held it up like a basketball player on offense. “Come on, bruh. This ain’t what you want, trust me.” As he went to take another hit, I tried to grab it out of his hand, but I did it too swiftly and it looked like I tried to slap it on the ground even though I didn’t mean to. Too quick to be just a reflex, he punched me so hard I fell on the sidewalk. “Ayo, Womp, chill.” I tried to get up, but he sent a fierce jab that knocked me back down. He was moving too quick for me to defend myself, and before I could attempt to make a move, his foot nearly stomped my face through the cement. I tried to grab his hands before they got to my face, but they kept slipping through my hands, and the more he slugged, the more I felt my consciousness slip away. “You don’t know everything. You don’t know me.” He said that over and over again, and I kept saying sorry, but I don’t think he heard me. I reached for my gun in between the pulses of the kicks and punches. For just a second, his forehead was in perfect alignment with the barrel of the 9, so I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger because I knew that if I looked into his eyes, I would see my best friend, and not the monster that became of him. I kept my eyes closed for so long that I thought I might have passed out until I felt the blood from his forehead dripping to mine like drool. He swayed and fell on top of me. My arms almost gave out as I heaved him off of me. I struggled to roll his body under one of the parked four-by-fours. When my panting slowed down, I sprinted, turning every corner I made it to, cutting through Pine, and Osage, and the alleyway between Cedar and Addison.

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Psalm 137 | Maggie Lily Fenning By the floods, The floods Of Babylon We hung up our organs. They hung up our organs, Wet slaps in wind like song. Food for cotton fields, Fields of anise answers, and mint man cumin. Sip sepulchers sweet with limb julep jubilee. Limbs not made for running, Or breathing Almighty, all lone and chilly. The heat of Almighty not coming. What to slave is July of fourth, If July knows stones, Stones to cast children on? We remember, We remember, We remember you Zion.

The Pom of My Hands by Lindsey Gill

Turning by Kristyn Stickley

It Was All In Our Heads | Rachael Longo I remember every empty word you said, as your temporary void-filler, backseat driver. Didn’t you know it was all in your head? I filled up buckets with the lies you fed, stored them in my pockets, and chewed on them later. I remember every word you said. Too quickly, dimly-lit clothes were shed, bodies entangled under a mesh web, didn’t you know it was all in your head? Suffocated by the sheets of a pity-stained bed, you were my sedative and I was your stimulant. A lot was spoken through words unsaid. Killing time and swallowing hope, didn’t you know it was all in your head? And we faded, gave up; it’s nothing new. I’m untangled yet strangled, and still soaked in bits of you. I‘ll always remember every empty word you said, didn’t you know it was all in our heads?

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Pink | Shyanne Marquette He left me at the circus I know that is supposed to make me happy, but I’m the drunken girl near the cotton candy stand And I can’t help but think that this shade of pink is beautiful, mixed with crystallized sugar and cavities And I take one from the smiling man who tells me my ass looks amazing And I’m walking towards the Ferris wheel because that was your favorite You told me you could see everything from there Liar. You couldn’t see how we would fall apart. There is a small boy with blue hair At the top of the wheel crying He sees everything and it’s scaring him Like you were scared when you told me I was too much for one man to handle But I’m not a package. I’m not even a gift. Suddenly you’re there by the ticket booth, Telling a girl in a pink parka how you can see everything from the top of the Ferris wheel You tell her that your favorite color is pink as she buttons her Pepto-Bismol parka closed And I give my cotton candy to the blue-haired boy Tears falling off his face As he thanks me, and I tell him that I hate the color pink.

Psyche by Kailey Whitman

Illustrated by Maximillian Wolff

Not Coming Home | Leyna Bohning Why are you crying? I don’t know. Are those tears of happiness or tears of sadness? I don’t know. Why don’t you know? Because, I just don’t. I was on vacation in Orlando, Florida. It was the last night, and we were packing our bags in the hotel room. Madison turned on the news. That’s how I found out. Not by a phone call, or by my mom telling me softly. It was on the news: the picture of him in his decorated uniform, manicured military haircut, and his soft, loving smile. All of that accompanied by his name under the caption “THREE MILITARY MEN FROM COLUMBUS, OHIO, KILLED BY SUICIDE BOMBER” shouting at me in all caps. Know what I did? You cried? No. I didn’t believe it. They had the wrong name and the wrong face on the screen. It was the news; they always got some things wrong. They would come on tomorrow morning and apologize for false information. Maybe it was because I was naïve enough to think it could never happen to someone I knew. I didn’t believe it when my dad told me. I didn’t believe it when my mom told me. I didn’t believe it when I went to the funeral.

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It only sunk in when I watched a video on some website of a soldier coming home. He hugged his wife, and his child, and they were all so happy. So that’s why you’re crying. I guess so. He was a stepfather torn away from me by a divorce that I had no say in. I thought of him as a second father, but when my mom said goodbye, I never got the chance to. His son and I were good friends then, but we haven’t seen each other since. The funeral was a large event. Because it was such a big deal for the public, three different news stations were there. Out of respect, not even close friends were allowed to share their condolences with the immediate family. So I never got to speak with his son. Now every time I see soldiers just standing around with their friends enjoying the beautiful day here in the United States, I can’t help but feel some sort of resentment towards them. It’s not their fault. I know that. Then why do you resent them? Because, they’re home and he’s not. That hardly seems fair. It’s not like I physically shoot them dirty looks, or look down on them. They’re heroes, they deserve respect, but no matter how I try to look at it, I’m still angry with them. Basically, you wish it had been them, not him. I never said that. You didn’t need to. There’s something wrong with me. Not necessarily. I need help. No, you need to understand that you’re not the only one who has gone through a thing like this. Think about his son. He probably feels the same way. So, you’re saying that it’s selfish of me to sit here and feel sorry for myself. I never said that. You didn’t need to. In Loving Memory of Master Sergeant Jeffery J. Rieck

Meditation by Catherine Carrozza

Tonle Sap Lake by Kailey Whitman

Checkout | Lauren Grossman Your breath smells like the old library books that sit upon the shelves As I breathe it in, I don’t know if I want to read you Your grin is filled with teeth They’re yellow, like pages and your breath sounds just like a story turning and I can’t tell whether you’re going to rip or not You were hard to find, always put on a random shelf, but I chose you Every time I smiled there were creases in the corners of my eyes The creases faded but the pages were full of them

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Illustrated by Martha Maynard

Botched Angle | Dean Ridgeway Part I The Vicious Cage Molly had been thinking of a good story to pitch to Rupert and the writers that could give her a good shot at earning the promotion to be the champion, like she’d always wanted. When she was a little girl, she’d watched the legends of old stare each other down in the ring on Pay-Per-View. At 13 years old, she started getting lessons from a professional trainer, and she’d been on the circuit since she was 18. Now 23, Molly had been in WXW for the last three years. It seemed like all of her hard work should be paying off. Rupert walked into the room. His craggy face and graying temples struck fear in her; they called him the Temples of Doom when he was angry. She was either promoted or fired, you could never tell with Rupert. She stood. “Hello, Mr. Jones.” “Hello, Miss Hassler,” he said. “Please sit down. I’ve got an offer for you.” Oh, good. She wasn’t fired. Not yet. “I was thinking we set you up in a feud with Bella,” he said. Molly got excited. Bella Brant was the current champion of the Women’s Division. All the fans loved to hate her. In real life, she was fine: a wonderful actor, but not the most skilled wrestler. All of the other girls went to great lengths to make Bella look better than she was, and the crowd believed it. “I’d love that, sir.” “The only thing is,” he said, “is that she’s gonna retain the title.” Molly’s heart dropped. “Why’s that?” she said. He might’ve heard that as a complaint. If there’s one thing Rupert was known to hate, it was talent questioning creative decisions. She asked a follow-up, “We’re giving her a bigger push?” “She wants to get rid of the bad girl image for a bit.” “Am I gonna be the bad guy?” “You’ll do a turn when you get help from Jason. He’ll run in the ring while the referee is distracted and you’ll throw dirt in her eyes. Then you can act all bratty and grab a cheap pin. Bella contests the referee, and you guys get a rematch on the spot. She wins

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it while you’re distracted with celebrating. Bella’s gonna go over big when you cheat. Easypeasy, she’s mad at you for playing dirty, she’s changed into a rule-abiding sweetheart. You run with Jason for a while. I’m sorry, hon, but it’s the best way to do it. We’re making good money on her being the champion. You’ll get your title soon enough.” “That sounds like a good story. I’ll do my best. Thanks, sir.” With that, she got up and walked toward the door. She left the office and made her way downstairs to the locker room, balled up her fists and took a large exhale. She wasn’t fired, no, but she was professionally embarrassed. Her first main event in her division and she was losing to a rookie. She would get to hold the title for six seconds, which was worse than not getting it at all. Bella was smiling and lacing up her boots near Molly’s locker, a towel wrapped around her head, humming a song that Molly didn’t like. She took a deep breath and strained to put on a happy grin. “We’re gonna be sharing the ring for a few weeks!” Bella said. Her blue eyes batted with excitement. “I’d really like to do a good job with this one. I’ve been waiting to get a story with you.” Bella whipped the towel off of her head. “Ready for our first match?” “Mm-hmm, we’ll go through a quick card. I just need you to give me your best,” Molly said. “Luckily we have free rein over our match today. Do you wanna win it?” “I think I should.” ... “Making her way to the ring, the current WXW Women’s Division Champion . . . Bella Brant!” The crowd enthusiastically booed and cheered when she ran through the curtains and down the ramp to the ring. Bella smiled wide, closed her eyes in a really pretty shit-eating grin. The boys swooned. Molly did a quick warm-up behind the curtain, jumping up and down, stretching out to get her blood pumping. She walked into the arena, threw her arms up and posed for the crowd. They cheered and clapped for her, too, but that excitement, the adrenaline died down. Ding, ding, ding! They threw together in a lockup. “German Suplex,” Molly told Bella. Bella ducked under Molly’s arms and clutched her across the stomach and then suplexed her over her head. Molly slammed down on the mat and sold the move, grimacing in pain. It was fun to throw together a house show match. The wrestlers were in control and could decide the match storyline. Bella understood match psychology well: utilizing the crowd’s reactions and moves together to tell a story of a fight. Molly didn’t have to carry her through any decisions and it was a relief to her. At least they wouldn’t be getting into any arguments about how to do the matches. Bella retained the advantage for the next few minutes and then Molly took over. Molly hit Bella with extra-hard, extra-loud chops to the upper chest, letting her emotions take over her fighting for a moment, and she may have actually hurt Bella. Molly slammed her down for a ground grapple. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, you’re fine . . . I need a slow moment.” Molly nodded and locked Bella into an armbar. “Reverse me,” she whispered. Bella flung her legs around and had Molly hustling to put herself into a position for a simple armbar lock. Bella wasn’t going to be able to do the ground grapple from the position; Molly carried her through the motions and the crowd reacted with excitement from the reversal. Bella secured a pin by hanging on to the bottom rope for leverage, an intentionally illegal move, which prompted boos from the crowd. Bella gloated about her win and played up her bitch-factor. Molly sat in the ring, defeated by Bella, both Bella the fictional wrestler and Bella the popular star. ... Molly snaked her way through the Vicious Cage, a grungy music club in the center of the city. Distorted guitars thrashed through every inch of the place, snare drums reverberated in the ground, high-pitched screams of the punk rock vocalist singing her heart out on the stage spread through the air. She was looking around for Hannah, hoping she would show up a little early to see her. Hannah’s band, The Many Stairs, had just gotten back from a huge tour of the United States, Canada, and a few festivals in Australia. They’d played with some hip bands that Molly had never heard of before. Molly made it to the crowded bar and pushed aside a lurker who wasn’t using a stool. She looked around the club. Still no sign of Hannah. The band on stage finished their set and left. The MC walked over to the microphone. “That was great, guys. We’re gonna bring up the next group, just back from their big world tour: The Many Stairs!” Hannah was backstage then, Molly thought. Hannah and her band walked on the stage and took positions. Molly waved at Hannah. Their eyes met for a moment. Hannah’s face wrinkled in confusion, like she had never met her before. The lights that pointed at the stage must be bright, Molly thought, and Hannah adjusted her eyes, threw on a smile, and waved right back. She went to the microphone, guitar in hand. “Hey guys,” she said. “We’re Many Stairs. My best friend is in the crowd today.” She pointed at Molly. “Say hi to her. We’re gonna play a song for her.” One. Two. Three. Four. Hannah smiled and sang away. Her silver delivery was washed away by massive reverb pedals, giving her voice a dreamlike quality. It was no wonder that Hannah was as popular as she was; she was a tall blond with a great voice and an interesting face. Hannah had had more success in a few short months than Molly had in the past ten years of physical training and wrestling professionally. After the show, Hannah sat down at the bar next to Molly. “Good show,” Molly said, quietly. The ambient music in the bar sprang to life; the late night rock and roll was over. Just like Hannah to be the showstopper. The Main Event. “Thanks, Moll. You look good. You look tired, but good.” Hannah waved to the bartender and ordered a beer. “You too,” Molly said, popping a fry in her mouth. “I mean, you don’t look

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tired. Just good.” “I know what you mean,” Hannah laughed. “You have a wrassle today?” “Yeah, I did. I fought the champ.” “That Bella girl? Is that her real name?” “Her name is Isabella Braddock, but yeah, that’s the girl.” “Did you win? Did you get the championship yet?” “I didn’t win today. But I do have a title shot.” Molly finished her beer. “Would you want to come and see my title match? It’s next month, if you’re not busy.” Hannah looked at Molly for a long moment, studying her face. Hannah’s mouth curled up into a sly smirk. “I’d love to! Of course I’ll be there. If nothing comes up, of course. I’ll always support you, Margaret Hassler.” “It’s Molly Flag. They call me Molly Flag in the squared circle.” “I love it,” Hannah laughed. “It’s cute.” “Thank you. I’m gonna put something on the jukebox, `kay?” Part II The Squared Circle The summer heat burned through the arena. Sweat dripped from the foreheads of audience members throughout the evening, and all those in attendance loved every second of it. Molly sat alone in the locker room. The only two women on the card were her and Bella. Their feud had been getting popular over the last few weeks. Everything was going according to plan. The audience was on Molly’s side, and Bella’s long reign of tyranny over the title belt was ready to collapse. The fight tonight had been touted as a fair fight; both girls signed a contract to play nice and do a straight match. The audience would be so surprised to see that Molly, not Bella, would be breaking the terms of the contract. She finished her water bottle and wrapped up her hands with athletic tape. She wanted to give Hannah a good show; she wanted the audience to love her more than they loved Bella. Bella walked in. “Hey, Moll,” she said. “What’s up?” “You know what’s up.” Bella paused. “Yeah. You ready?” “As ready as I’m gonna be. I gotta wait for Jason to talk about how we want to end the match so he can show up in time. Remember what we practiced?” “Of course I do.” Bella sat down next to Molly on the bench. “You have to give it your all tonight.” “You don’t think I will?” “I do,” Molly said. She wasn’t going to let this girl cry all over her. “I just hope you have everything ready.” Bella’s face fell, a thin frown overtaking her always-smiling demeanor. “Do you think I won’t do good out there?” Molly opened her mouth, giving herself a moment’s hesitation to think and formulate a sentence. An intern walked in. “You guys are on in five,” the girl said. The

muffled crowd rained chants toward the ongoing match. Things were heating up, both in the ring and in the thermometer. Bella grabbed her championship belt and draped it over her shoulder. “We’re on our way, Bobbi,” she said, giving her a thumbs-up. “You’re gonna be great out there, Izzy,” Bobbi said to Bella. She turned to Molly. “Kick her butt!” She smiled to both of them and left the locker room. “Well,” Bella said to Molly, her smile returning to her face. “We’re up!” ... Ding, ding, ding. The crowd was pumped for action and another intense rivalry title match. Bella was looking murderous and Molly was acting suspiciously tame, to foreshadow her cheating turn at the end of the match. Molly took a quick look around the arena, scanning for Hannah. Bella made eye contact with Molly. They fumed for a moment and hooked each other in an aggressive lock-up. They struggled in the middle of the ring, performing a test of strength.

Illustrated by Martha Maynard

Bella dragged Molly over to the ropes. They ducked under the barrier of the ring and fell to the ground below. Molly wasn’t prepared and caught herself on the bottom rope. The crowd reacted to the botched move. Molly pulled herself back into the ring. Bella was taking big risks by leading the match. She wasn’t ready to take leads. As Bella joined her in the ring, they stared each other down. Molly threw a big kick into Bella’s stomach, grabbed her head and slammed her down to the mat. The crowd was loving the intensity of the fight. Molly threw Bella around the ring, wrestled circles around her, and Bella was loving every second of it. There was something different about Bella, though. The way she carried her face, Molly noticed. Her eyes didn’t have the same glow that she usually had. What was that glow? Molly was on the turnbuckle, resting on the top rope. She was getting ready to jump off and do a big splash move onto Bella. This was a big beat in the match; they had worked on this move for a week. Molly closed her eyes for a moment, praying that Bella wouldn’t mess it up. Molly raised her hands into the air, and the crowd cheered. Bella stood up, in an instant, and caught Molly a little lower than expected, slipping off her perch. She caught herself, and leapt into the trajectory of the move. Molly was forced to launch herself from the top rope onto the mat of the ring; the impact of both of their bodies at the right spot caused a huge slamming noise to reverberate throughout the arena, and the crowd went nuts. Molly grimaced. Bella had botched the big move. Jason ran into the ring, still bandaged up from the match fifteen minutes ago, and yelled at the referee. Bella was about to make a pin on Molly. “Close your eyes,” Molly said. She unzipped a pocket from her outfit and shoved her hand into it. When she pulled her hand out, it was balled into a fistful of dirt. A hard throw into Bella’s face put her out of commission. The referee didn’t see it, but the crowd sure did. A cosmic showering of boos fell onto Molly and she won the title. The referee handed her the belt. Bella then ran over to the referee, showed him the mound of dirt. Molly saw that she was unwavering in defeat. She was more intense than she’d ever been. The bell rang again. Molly, celebrating on the top rope in the corner, felt Bella grabbing her from behind and slamming her back down to the floor. She lost the championship. ... Hannah hadn’t been there. Molly checked her messages at the end of the night. Hannah said she totally forgot, and that she’d make it next time. Molly was almost relieved that she hadn’t seen the embarrassment that was her seven-second title reign. Molly sat in the locker room before the night was over. The wrestlers weren’t allowed to leave until most of the crowd had trickled out. Molly got dressed into human clothes and started to head outside when it was acceptable. The heat was letting up, a cool summer’s night breeze wafting around the parking lot. She started toward her car. She mumbled to herself and cursed the match she’d just had. “Hey!” Bella called out from behind her. Molly spun around.

“Hi.” “I know I made some bad choices in there tonight. I heard you complaining and—” Bella choked on her words. “I just think you’re . . . I didn’t want you to think I’m bad. I know what the locker room thinks of me. I just get so nervous. I think I’m constantly doing a bad job. I made mistakes tonight. I wanted to impress you tonight and I botched everything. I know you don’t like me. I’m not sure why. But I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for helping me train these past few weeks.” Molly sat in silence for a moment. Distant traffic buzzed along the highway. “Yeah, sure. You’re welcome.” “I had a really great time. I think we’re going to continue the feud . . . the crowd loved our thing. We’ll get a rematch soon, right?” “I’ll talk to Rupert.” “You’ve taught me a lot and I really appreciate it.” Molly smiled. She had never felt this bad. Why had she hated this girl? “Would you want to come to the bar with me and some of the guys? I think it’s karaoke night.” “Yeah, Bella, I’d like that.” “Call me, Izzy. All my friends do.”

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No Boundaries to Beauty by Destiny Bottino

Optimistic | Sam Quattro every thursday my mom gets into a car accident, my dog dies, my auntcousinrelative dies, i don’t feel too bad, sheyouwhoeverwhatever leaves me, i get angry because sheyouwhoeverwhatever leaves me, i feel terrible, i look more disheveled, i smell worse, my arms become more detached from my body, the ceiling gets too far away from my eyeballs, the kids upstairs have sex, there are more black marks in the wall, there are more balloons on the wall, the walls look greener, i get drunk at noon and no one stops me, i eat ice cream for breakfast and no one stops me, i have to shit but someone is in the bathroom, i cry, i cry more than i should, i cry more than i need to, i hate myself for crying, i hate sheyouwhoeverwhatever (no i don’t), i hate no one, my mom doesn’t love me, my mom calls me, i eat sour gummy worms, i lay awake, i lay awake, i lay awake, my insomnia isn’t cool anymore, i ache, i turn, my paranoia about the door being locked isn’t cool either, i daydream, i nightdream, and we call it friday.

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Touch by Samantha Morris

Your Wedding Ring Remains On My Window Sill | Aleasha A.Q. Watson-Mitchell Our motionless memories molded movements into scriptures. Divorce on one lip. My name on the other. Our confessions cradle words in liquid prayers, not passionate enough to pulsate your arteries with an apology. Your soul as cold as the night, I watched you and her make love in the mirror of my light blue Nissan. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve forgotten how to Forgive facts foreign to I love you I can taste the sequence of your lies; our sins, stained. Moans meshed between grey sheets, your flesh laced with mine is still my favorite fragrance. I wear your name better than her.

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Boarding School | Meredith MeeRee Orlandini I’m leaning on the chalkboard, the one with the smeared Heart of Darkness quotes written down the side, it’s “mad” made wonky from the teacher who leaned against it earlier, now wearing some white on the back of her otherwise clean, ironed sweater and I’m careful not to brush my own back against it because I’m not a painter, but an amateur girl with a boy waiting to brush his lips against mine. You know the feeling — When the floors you walked on every day were the hunting grounds for adults with an eye for kissing couples, or impulsive punches that led to bruised cheekbones or necks, when the cafeteria tablecloths were stained with Sloppy Joe slime and the floors of the dormitories over-dusted with teenage emotions and crumbs of microwave popcorn I know it in this dark classroom that’s like all the others, in the sense that its darkness is occupied by a couple searching for companionship amongst the thick words and jungle of Joseph Conrad who tells us that when we get out, graduate from this, the world is just the same.

Self Portrait by Lindsey Gill

Illustrated by Trevor Fraley

Golden Brown | Nia-Samara Benjamin This dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s schedule had thus far existed without error: shaving seven seconds off his routine by allowing his coffee to brew while he brushed his teeth. But this day, this day his train was late. He counted in his head, his pulse quickening as each thought of a breach in synchronicity caused him to panic. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. He stopped his disquietude by sending his energy elsewhere. To her. He counted as the juice from her peach rolled down the corner of her mouth, getting caught on the delicate fuzz that lined her angled chin. Two seconds. His eyes shot back to the empty subway tunnel. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three. He had seen her at this stop before and daydreamed about the way he was sure sweat would collect in the bowl between her clavicles as the summer heat warmed her caramel skin. Twenty-seven inches closer than this past Wednesday, close enough to map out the constellations of freckles he was sure continued down her back. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two. Fifty-three. Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven. The weight from his leather satchel had nearly doubled since heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been standing there, as he remembered the army of accounting files that would occupy his evening. Sixty. A rush of wind blew through the subway tunnel, and his heart almost stopped as he saw her skirt whip up in fiery tendrils around her hips. He quickly checked his watch: 5:15:02PM. The train was just on time, arriving approximately forty-five milliseconds later than its usual arrival time of 5:14:07PM on a Wednesday evening. The subway freed its fatigued passengers. He figured he would have seven seconds to dash his way through the downtrodden crowd if he was not to lose sight of her. Only seven seconds. He had always made bets on time, testing his theories about the existence of an everlasting God by challenging his proposed higher power to a game of chance. Seven seconds until he would lose sight of his precious target, seven seconds until the weight of his accounting files would again bite down on his shoulder, bringing him back to Earth. If he could bridge the gap between him and her in the next seven seconds, he would give

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reverent prayer to his impermanent God for another day. He took a deep breath, darting left, then right to avoid two gawky, sun-moistened Latino teens with eyes rimmed red from some odious hash, almost tripping over the front wheel of a baby stroller pushed by an underpaid black nanny spelling out some tale of bastardized hoodoo to the strapped-in, wide-eyed child of some overworked WallStreet Manhattanite. The thick fog of the subway train almost choked him as he spotted her seated near the back of the car. He felt an electrical surge flow through him, like his blood was rushing through his veins at breakneck speed, circling around his groin and shooting sharply up into his head. He walked with feigned distinction to the cold, gray subway seat just catty-corner from her own. The subway train shot off into the underbelly of the city. Clocking her every move, he tallied the milliseconds between each of her breaths, moving toward her slightly when the space between each inhale stretched beyond his level of comfort. He was sure she was toying with him, drafting up some devious plan to get his body to seize up right on this very train. A man incapacitated by the rise and fall of this woman’s breast. On her exhale, the subway jolted and lurched to a violent stop, tossing its passengers about like dice from the hand of God. The woman’s bag spit up her belongings onto the train floor in a hefty retch, sending her and her huge breasts down to gather them. He studied her as she picked up three dollars and fourteen cents in coins, a box of matches, a pair of sunglasses missing a lens, a thumbed-through copy of The Second Sex, and a ripe peach. Steadily, the peach crept down the dingy subway corridor away from her, stopping as it came in contact with his worn leather shoe. From the floor she traced her eyes along the length of his pinstripe-suited legs, rising to his argyle-tied neck, stopping at the bridge of his pointed, panting nose, and into two pools of wild, silver eyes lined by pale skin. She smirked, and he stopped breathing entirely. He had indeed begun to seize, until a voice needled its way into his ears. “The funniest thing about a peach is that they bruise so easily, but they’re never not soft,” she said, her voice percussive and hollow. The train swallowed up droves of more dreary and dank New York City bodies. He felt the blood rush through his body in a downward motion. The noise of the train seemed to quiet in salute to her. The long fluorescent lights flickered. She picked herself up and sat in the subway seat directly across from him, the bowl of her hips filling the curve of the seat in perfect proportion. Her two cocoa-colored legs crossed over each other, her skirt obliging the gesture by falling backward, exposing almost too much. They were the only two that far back in the train as it started up again. He traced the contours of her body up and up; she seemed to go on forever. He looked so hard he almost saw his reflection in the droplets of her sweat. He lingered on the softness of her belly, her dimpled chin, the mole on her lower jaw, her crooked nose, and thick Amazonian brow: he consumed her in totality. “You look like you could use a peach in your life. Have it, I’ve got plenty more in my bag,” she said. He reached down and held the peach in his hands. It was warm and glistened with summertime sweat. The train jumped to a stop once again, and her bag flew forward as it had before, this time spewing only peach after peach. She laughed a loud guffaw, watching

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as her peaches bounced down the train. The gaggle of fellow passengers snapped their heads to watch the lone pair. “Go on, try it . . . I picked them all myself,” she retorted with challenge in her voice, leaning forward to expose the cleft of her breast, which shone like bronze. As the train started once more, he realized they had passed his stop minutes ago. “I—I, I was supposed to get off at the last stop,” he muttered, wringing his neck in an attempt to fixate on some detail that wasn’t her. “Mmmm, must be the heat, it tends to mess with you,” she shot back, her lips turning up into a genteel smile. He slid back into his thoughts, imagining her mouth as a hammock on which he could lay all his troubles. She grasped the peach closest to her and stared at him for a few moments. “It is quite hot,” he replied, choking out a laugh. He gasped as he looked down at his shirt, which was completely soaked through. He swallowed hard, looking back at her. She took a decisive bite of her peach, and with a mouthful of its succulent juice spat at him, “Don’t worry, the sweat is good for ya. I promise.” She uncurled her legs, rising up from her seat, leaving him eye-level with her belly. It bounced to and fro as the train lumbered. He laughed. “Ah . . . there it is,” she said, contented. “There’s what?” he countered, standing to meet her eyes. “Every Wednesday we do this dance, and I have yet to see you smile.” She stepped closer to him, keeping perfect balance. He counted nine seconds of recognition as it passed between the two. A haggard man slapped open the door at the rear of the subway car, disrupting the peace of the moment, sloshing the boozy contents of a brown paper bag all around

Illustrated by Trevor Fraley

him. Advancing toward the pair, he caulked the air with his heavy, liquored breath, singing: “My wishhh, oh my wishhhh, sweet lazzie o’ mine My wishhhh was sweet lazzie, you’d let me unwinnnnnd, SSSSet me beside you, I’ll telllll you my minnnd Laaaay me downnnn, my sweet Goldennnnn Brownnnnn.” He pressed his pungent body between the two, holding out his last notes before stopping just after he had passed them. He revolved on the heels of his raggedy tennis shoes to face the man with the unbitten peach, who tightened his grip around the fruit, clinging to its sweetness, studying the world-weary fellow before him. His face was a map of a thousand wrinkles and folds, his eyes two sockets deadened by images of war. He was a festering replica of his long-dead father. The haggard man opened his chapped lips again to sputter, “I know you, I’ve seen you before,” spreading his mouth into a two-toothed smile. “You’re the type of man who only loves for a while.” The words sloshed around in his mouth, sending the man with the unbitten peach reeling backward into his seat. In an effort to gather himself, he attempted to recall the schedule he had forgotten so long ago on this ride, but he found nothing but the image of a thousand rotting peaches rolling about in his head. The festering fellow put a bruised, sooty hand up to the face of the man with the unbitten peach, slapping it across his puzzled cheek twice before shuffling down the subway car again, singing in grizzly baritone: “Withhhh all of my ramblinnnn’ my heart ledddd astraaay My Goldennnnn Brownnnn lady I’m ‘fraiddd of your wayzzzzz, Laaaay me downnnn, my sweet Goldennnn Brownnnn, lay me downnnn.” And with that he was lost in the throng of steaming summer bodies, leaving the scent of unbathed flesh hanging in the air. She sank down in her seat, examining the mystified man before her who now looked not as pleasant as he had before. In fact, he looked like someone she should have cause to fear. Alarm, like a proud, protective sister, wrung itself around her belly, creeping its way up to her eyes. “Did you know him?” she questioned, slinging accusatory arrows at the man sitting before her. He grumbled, suddenly out of breath. He had gripped the peach so firmly that its skin snapped and buckled in his hand, oozing its fruity blood down the length of his arm and onto the floor. She watched her gift atrophy in his palm, and shook the feeling that this was somehow the death of innocence itself. The lights on the train flickered, and the iron horse inched to a stop. Her stop. The subway doors hissed open, drawing her in. She was leaving. He watched the expanse of her cocoa-brown hips cut through the foggy train air. She was leaving. He decided to make a bet with his God once again: eight seconds to undo the awkwardness of the last ten minutes. She was leaving. She was— “The peach can give you eternal life,” he gurgled, hoping she would stop. “Least that’s what the Chinese believed,” he added, in a stammer.

She stopped, looking back to him. She curled her mouth into that genteel smile. “Interesting,” she threw back, almost in a whisper. In a blink he lost her in a crowd of exiting bodies. He shot up, desperate to make their encounter last. Weaving through the mass, he followed her up the steps that brought them back above ground. She had tried, but couldn’t shake it. Alarm now wrapped itself around her throat, restricting her breath. She was stuck on the peach that had lain in a heap on the dirty subway floor. Stuck on the golden brown melody that had consumed the white man with the sweaty shirt and the annotation on eternal life. The summer heat bit into her at the nape of her neck, releasing a solid stream of sweat as she walked. Alarm called her once again, whipping her around to find herself far off of her normal track. She stuck her hand in her bag to rifle through its contents, brushing against the familiar fuzz of her handpicked peaches. She smirked. She thought the best course of action would be to head back in the direction of the subway car. She retraced her steps slowly as the sun was swallowed by the night. She was tired. The thin, penciled heel of her shoe began to chew her foot down to the bone. “Womanhood is exhausting,” she thought. Peeling off her shoes she let the expanses of her feet meet the dirty ground. Passing neon signs spewing curses of consumerism, she let herself breathe for the first time since night had fallen. The words of de Beauvoir sighed heavy in her head. She thought about her mother’s hands, her favorite feature on her. Strong, brown and resilient, they had cracked like old leather from years of housework. She went to her mother every Wednesday to read to her and to pull at the kinks in her worn hands. A special penance for the curse of womanhood. Alarm rang in her again. She whipped around quickly, trying to locate the source of her panic, finding nothing but the far-off rhythm of footsteps that eerily matched her own. She quieted herself, singing that unfamiliar golden brown melody that clung to her thoughts. The steps drew closer. Alarm rang again. She calmed herself by thinking again on her mother’s leathered hands, and the strength with which they still labored lovingly after fifty years of playing housewife. A voice from behind her matched her melody, and they sang together. He had followed her, and was now closer than ever. As their voices found cautious harmonies, he let his soul dip into euphoria. He thanked his happenstance God. He sent up prayers to the night sky, knowing that fate had determined the slight deviation in his schedule. He was sure this was also her doing. All part of her big plan to get him to give himself over to her completely. He imagined that he would be crushed by the magnitude of her, erasing thoughts of his human clock running out, making him eternal. He quickened his pace and walked in front of her, stopping the force of her strides with his hands. She fell into his arms. Alarm wrung the image of her mother’s hands from her head. She brought her eyes up to meet those of the man with the unbitten peach from the train, now horrified at what she saw before her. Some strange depravity had fallen over him. His face looked hollow and his eyes hungry. The smile that had once danced across his face was now contorted into an ugly snarl. She fought herself free, and her feet began

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to sprint across the hot summer concrete. He followed her, quickly, cackling at her devilish game. Her modesty was alluring, and he now knew she had been testing him all along. Appraising and scrutinizing the extent of his desire in relation to her own, some deep golden brown desire that would consume him entirely. She searched desperately for some storefront or bar to tuck into to get away from him, but in every window hung an ominous CLOSED sign. The menacing golden brown melody now ricocheted off the damp city walls. He was singing now, louder than before, hoping she would hear his beckoning call and stop her game. What more would he need to do to prove he was worthy? He had made his bets and his God had obliged. His lust clung to him like a parasite. He knew he would never be free of it without another touch. She stopped, her breath ragged and heavy. She turned toward him, looking at the bundle of misguided humanity before her. She counted nine seconds of recognition pass between them. Suddenly she realized what had come over him as she watched him calculate the breadth of her hips and the mass of her breast. Desire had wrung itself around his head, filling him with lascivious blood. There was no trace of human nature within him. Remembering her mother’s hands curled around household appliances, bent into submissiveness to the expectations placed upon her feminine form, she knew this was her chance to be free. He matched his breath to her own, feeling the space between them collapse into nothingness. He wanted nothing more than to taste her, to let her cocoa-colored sweat infuse his own ad infinitum. “I prayed for you. I prayed and put my bets on you,” he hissed into the air. “I’ll do whatever you need me to. Make me wild, peel me open.” She watched him sputter like a mad man. Something savage crept out of her: her hands cracked into fists, brown, strong and seething. She walked to him, slowly, resolutely, until their two chests met. Staring at her reflection in his eyes, she smiled at herself. She had never felt more clear. She planted a kiss upon his lips, wrapping her hands around his necktie, pulling down, closing it upon his neck. Her knuckles snarled, her fist leathered and she sang her golden brown melody once again. “SSSSet me beside you, I’ll telllll you my minnnd Laaaay me downnnn, my sweet Goldennnnn Brownnnnn.” Her lips on his own, he gave himself over to absolute pleasure. She pulled his tie tighter and tighter, watching the vessels in his eyes bulge, hearing his bones crush together. His neck snapped. She let him fall in a clump before her, relieving him of the burden of lust. A smile rested on his face. She reached into her bag and pulled out a peach. She felt it in her hands, unbruised, unbroken, and ripe as ever.

Test De Rorschach III by Ana Villarreal

Bass Harbor by Samantha Morris

Contentment | Alex Tripodi When my time comes and I’m up at bat one last time I will not try and hit a home run I will not attempt to score at all I don’t want to play this game forever so I will graciously strike out I won’t swing again and I’ll climb down into my dugout with a smile on my face I will know then that I’ve won because in the end I played my way

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two at a time | Chester Huynh There’s two. —two men, fingertips wrapped in a pressing need. Perhaps a folding of walls. a converging of forehead(s), below the chins lie the ghost of a portrait, of a heart. Negative space in the form of a cavity, of where the heart was. Reminding us of where it died. eyes Closed. shutting shunning shouldn’t eschewed No breathing, the polarity of our inhale. — There’s two. heads shaved, ribs bare. A waltz. An image(s). of exhaustion. of sad boys. (once happy boys)? Isn’t that love? A waltz with another until the heart is emptied. — —two at a time.

Internal Tides by Rachael Longo

Proud by John Freeman

Bios Nia-Samara Benjamin | Acting `16 I’ve spent my time at UArts exploring the dynamics of the human experience; it has changed me. I am honored to be able to take my passion from the stage to the page. #blacklivesmatter

Leyna Bohning | Creative Writing `18 I’ve always had trouble expressing my feelings or thoughts through speech but I’ve found that writing helps me express the things I’m too afraid to say. People aren’t always there for me, but words are.

Destiny Bottino | Illustration `19 aspires to be the very best tattoo artist, like no one ever was. She’s a self-proclaimed champion at doodling and is inspired by animals and nature in most of her work.

Ryan Breeser | Graphic Design `16 A New York bound designer who swoons at the sight of a Pomeranian, sweats waterfalls at the gym, and dances ferociously to Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” every night.

Troy Bugarin | Illustration `16 is an illustrator from Howell, New Jersey. His work is characterized by loose, bold line work and flat color inspired by comic books and manga. He loves playing video games in his spare time.

Catherine Carrozza | Photography ‘16 is a New York native with a passion for music, fitness, and adventure. She lives a straightedge, vegan life, enjoying every second of it. Hardcore shows, Goosebumps, Boy Meets World, avocados, and hugs make her happy. Catherine’s motto through everything and anything is always: Positive Outlook.

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Corrine Evans | Acting `17 is first and foremost a performer, but also loves to write poetry. Her favorite subjects are her childhood and things she’s afraid to say out loud. She’s passionate about sharing her writing with people and hopes they can relate to her words.

Emily Famularo | Creative Writing `17 is best friends with Alyssa Langenhop, and has enjoyed the last two years working together to create exceptional issues of Underground Pool.

Maggie Lily Fenning | Creative Writing `17 is an artist-poet-student-hoarder-moth who likes to write like she’s the moon and can’t decide whether she’s 8 or 80 (also a Creative Writing junior).

Trevor Fraley | Illustration `16 is from Newfield, New Jersey. He is enthralled by film of all kinds including animated features, which he plans to pursue a career in, most notably the field of character design.

John Freeman | Illustration ‘16 is not nothing. He is something. He is nonnihil. He believes anything is possible if one sets their mind to it. You can view more of his work at www.nonnihil.com.

Lindsey Gill | Illustration `19 is from North Port, Florida. She enjoys violin, yoga, thrift shopping, coffee, and going on hilarious adventures with her friends around the city.

Hannah Gregory | Illustration `16 is a weapon collector, caffeine addict and aspiring comic artist. Her weaknesses include historical dramas, apocalyptic landscapes, and sci-fi dystopias. See more at hannahthemighty.tumblr.com.

Lauren Grossman | Creative Writing `17 is a Creative Writing major pursuing a career as a Young Adult author. You’ll usually see Lauren wearing a cardigan or piece of owl jewelry, with a book, pen, or crochet hook in her hand.

Chester Huynh | Dance `16 is lactose intolerant and sometimes makes racially insensitive comments that offend first dates. He dances and writes maudlin work while not on first dates.

Natalia Jablonski | Illustration `16 is happiest when she is outside exploring nature or behind her computer incorporating her love of flora and fauna into her work. She often watches sad movies and daydreams.

Amy Jannotti | Creative Writing `19 is a Dr. Pepper addict from Pottstown. She enjoys film, music, and staying up all night on her laptop.

Alyssa Langenhop | Creative Writing `17 is best friends with Emily Famularo, and has enjoyed the last two years working together to create exceptional issues of Underground Pool.

Hannah Lloyd | Illustration `16 is an artist from Hatboro, Pennsylvania, who works mainly in pen and ink with digital color. She is inspired by nature, vintage ornamental designs, and dreams. In her free time she enjoys outdoor walks and independent films.

Rachael Longo | Illustration `17 is a cat-loving South Philly dweller. Through her artwork and writing, she explores human connection and aims to inspire others to embrace and express emotion. When not writing sad poetry, she can probably be found watching The Office.

Sam Malandra-Myers | Photography `18 is currently a Philadelphia-based photographer focusing on honing her technique in antiquarian and alternative photographic processes while also balancing two jobs and heavy involvement with campus organizations. She is most inspired by nature and other natural things.

Shyanne Marquette | Creative Writing `18 is a budding writer specializing in poetry, novels, and short stories. She lives in cozy Downingtown, Pennsylvania, where she spends most of her time writing and criticizing the world around her.

Lauralee Martin | Creative Writing `18 is from South Carolina. Many of her poems reflect growing up in an outdoor environment and the relationship she has with her family.

Thaddeus Mayfield | Acting `16 is from Fargo, North Dakota. To him, writing has always been like a blob of Play-Doh, a ball that can take any imaginable shape, and he wants to mold it into everything he can.

Martha Maynard | Illustration â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;17 enjoys painting ladies and talking to dogs in the park while avoiding eye contact with their owners.

Samantha Morris | Interdisciplinary Fine Arts `17 is an Interdisciplinary Fine Arts major with a concentration in Painting and Drawing. She is fascinated by spaces, and makes work inspired by landscape and architecture.

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Katie E. Murphy (Creative Writing `18) is a Creative Writing major concentrating in fiction. Her work is inspired by strip mall parking lots, cemeteries, crumbling towns, and uncomfortable interactions.

Shaina Nyman | Photo + Film Media ‘18 is a sophomore from Yardley, Pennsylvania. Her work is based off of experience and wonder. She always has a camera in hand and is inspired by nature, travel, and a good cup of coffee.

Meredith MeeRee Orlandini | Creative Writing `19 is a poet and fiction writer. She grew up in a farmhouse in West Chester, Pennsylvania. She likes 24-hour diners, train rides, and a lot of honey in her tea. She writes mostly of experiences with love and relationships in youth and young adults.

Rachel Park | Illustration `16 is from Belleville, Illinois. She is obsessed with creating fresh new work with immense detail and interesting ideas, splashed with bold colors. She is also a poet at heart and tends to be a little more dramatic than necessary.

Glorious Piner | Creative Writing `19 My mother didn’t look at me when I was born and say, “Glorious.” I looked at myself in the mirror one morning and said, “Glorious.” That is who I am. I won’t answer to anything else.

Alex Pruden | Creative Writing `17 is a Creative Writing major with a concentration in fiction. In addition to writing, he enjoys long stories about far-off places, movies, fencing, fortune-telling, lucid-dreaming, and a number of hobbies and interests he refuses to tell us.

Sam Quattro | Interdisciplinary Fine Arts `16 is a human. She has thoughts and feelings, among other things that other human beings tend to have. Whatever you have heard that is contrary to this statement are rumors and should be ignored. That is all.

Nicole Revelli | Creative Writing `18 is a working mom to a beautiful pup child. When she isn’t juggling it all, she likes to write badly, daydream to rap music, watch repeats of Parks and Recreation, and do absolutely nothing.

Dean Ridgeway | Writing for Film & Television `17 I’ve wanted to tell stories ever since I saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular at Universal Studios when I was five years old. I went to Bucks County Community College for Film and transferred to UArts to continue honing my skills at telling stories. One day I hope something I make gets a Stunt Spectacular at a theme park.

Tabitha Rogers | Painting + Drawing `15 enjoys studying new languages and cultures, bar-hopping, and watching `90s throwback cartoons and movies.

Kristyn Stickley | Illustration `17 I am drawn to creating artwork that immerses the viewer in a novel experience of visual imagery and imagination. Through my work experience with those battling mental health challenges, I continue to be interested in how the healing potential of art can be harnessed and kindled through the visual experience of illustration.

Alex Tripodi | Music Business, Entrepreneurship + Technology `18 Hailing from the forests of Deadzone, Connecticut, Alex is an MBET major who has been excited to explore the many creative avenues available in such an inspirational environment as Philadelphia. He is glad he can share some of his personal writing with the awesome folks of UArts.

Ana Villarreal | Graphic Design ’19 is from Mexico City. She enjoys travel photography, reading Cortázar, and making little illustrations about overheard conversations and inner monologues.

Aleasha A.Q. Watson-Mitchell | Creative Writing `18 is a motivational speaker, published writer, and award-winning Spoken Word artist. Aleasha works in the UArts’ President’s office, as Motivos Magazine’s Poetry Ambassador and Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement’s intern, and teaches poetry workshops.

Kailey Whitman | Illustration ‘16 likes to draw until her hand hurts. She usually drinks too much coffee and she likes to be outside.

Maximillian Wolff | Illustration `16 Working with brush and ink, Max creates a vintage woodcut feel with his art. He enjoys creating an emotionally charged image to create relatability between artist and viewer.

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Butterfly Commute by Kristyn Stickley