Ultraviolet Magazine Volume 22 by Ultraviolet Magazine

VOLUME 22

Magazine

Cover Art | Szerena Szabo EMAIL ultravioletmagazine@gmail. com FACEBOOK Ultraviolet Magazine at Queenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s INSTAGRAM @ULTRAvioletMAG ONLINE PUBLICATION http://issuu.com/ultravioletmagazine

Letter From the Editors Dear Ultraviolet Readers, First and foremost, we need to let you all know that the magazine you hold in your hands would not be possible without the incredible work of our Editorial Board. With their infinite creative energy and enthusiastic support, they made our second and final year as Co-Editors one of our favourite university experiences. We would also like to thank every person who supported this edition through donations. Without their contributions, this magazine could not have been printed. Finally, we have to thank the lovely artists, writers, and photographers whose remarkable work you will find on the following pages. The arts are such an important part of the Kingston and Queenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s community and we feel so privileged to have been able to shed the spotlight on the many talented artists in the area. We hope UV is able to provide an outlet for artistic expression for many more years to come. With that, we are pleased to present the twenty-second issue of Ultraviolet Magazine! Virginia & Sarah

Editorial Board Members Co-Editors Sarah MacCormick Virginia Toole Editorial Board Kay Chen Stephanie Corbo Katherine Gall Massimo Hartzer Nathalie Illes Dylyn Reid Myisha Siddiqui

BY : Elyse Loewen How To Reclaim a Morning It is essential you get beyond yourself. But first, beyond your bed. Straighten the covers. Leave something clean and easy behind you. Feel the weight of food on your tongue, And be grateful. Find a window, or a book (after all, arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t they really the same?) and release yourself to it. Maybe you need to cry. Or maybe you already feel The knot of ugliness inside you Take a breath, and loosen, And release you for this now-unknown day.

Holly Lorenzon

By : Emily Wolst

On Self-Acceptance

Me, at 22; I turn off the lights before I get into the shower because I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bear to look at the layer of flesh that now cushions my hipbones But always remember that this extra skin proves that you chose life over death, Hot-fudge sundaes with your sister on a Tuesday rather than water fasts and black coffee Do not hate yourself for taking up more space Wear this extra sinew as a badge of honour Who taught you to value smallness over health?

Summer 2012

Sticky fruit popsicles Shots of vodka, straight, because you didn’t want to

“Get thunder thighs from all the extra calories in mixed drinks” A cacophony of tattered jean shorts Cut seven inches from the crotch And then five when the boy with the tar-black hair and ankle tattoos moved in across the street Three inches when he didn’t return your sidewalk gazes Donated to the church fundraiser when grandmother asked you to change because were they really “the safest choice for a young girl to wear to the park in the evening?” Sultry August twilight and accepting responsibility for what boys do in the dark.

BY: Anastasia mikhailitshenko

Danny McLaren

Unhinged Your friends look at you with blank stares. Their eyes are sunken into their heads. They move slowly, stumbling over their feet like corpses, barely kept upright. They don’t seem like themselves. You can feel something crawling under their skin. You don’t know what to do. You do nothing. Eyes watch you from the shadows of every alleyway. You see movement out of the corner of your eye. You hear footsteps close behind you, slamming into the pavement. It sounds like they’re gaining on you. You turn around. Nobody is there. You smile a lot. You’ve seen and done terrible things. The wars of this world cannot compare to the destruction you’ve witnessed. Flames lick your fingertips and singe the edges of your hair. Your eyes are wide and afraid. You keep smiling. You look so young, but your eyes are not those of a twenty-something. Years pass in a blur. Has it been years or decades? You can’t remember your own age anymore. You’re so tired. You move around a lot. You tell yourself it’s because you like the change. That you like seeing what the world has to offer. That it’s time for something new. You try not to think about the fact that you’ve changed your name four times in the last year and you left your last apartment in the dead of night. You finally settle down. You start dating the nice boy down the road. He holds your hand and kisses you. He sings to you and hugs you close. He tells you he’d kill for you. He probably already has.

By: Kay Chen Forest Fire It starts with a whimper and crescendos to a fortissimo, the fire. They are young now so they shout, holler at the top of their voices the things they would change about the world, the jokes they make their own, the unserious plays on words and plays on conformity that should never be true but at the same time could be. Internally they rebel, they have ghosts that tell them to be considerate, to be humble and not draw attention, that many groups think they rule the world as they sit in their tiny corners, networks of hundreds that make up such a minute fraction of the vast globe. They crunch on the branches beneath their feet, climb the trees that give them this life, sit on the outgrowths, not minding passerby’s, yelling and bellowing as if saying, “Show me your life and I’ll show you mine. This is what we do with what you give us.” Whether they are worthy is a question that gnaws from behind their ghosts, left unsaid, permeating their lines, never addressed directly. The clamouring of the tidal wave is cacophonous today. She is a hybrid of soft and brash, easy and frigid, random and exact, more cold and serious than not, and it has been long since she was young in mind and free of responsibility, so thinks of all these ghosts, can’t shake them in the darkness of the forest.

But their loudspeakers are inspiring, a potent poison and porridge at once. In the heat of the moment she thinks nothing of it, the excitement and humour like adrenaline spiking after a ball game practice, so she bellows as if her jokes meant something, meant happiness to them. It is not muted or taciturn no longer, so the fight roars and rages within the brushes and the tall oak trees that evening and the carefree and the spirited glow orange and yellow in her mind, the same colour as the anger. Things are not orange and blue after all, but shades of each invade the other. In the heat of the moment she fights and surfs the wave both at once, and perhaps it is meant to be, a perfect match, respecting and challenging each other, and a thrill. One moment of respite for years of worries. She will make those shouts her own, no-nonsense, complimenting their voices, a chorus of piano and forte and decrescendo and crescendo. In the end her mind boils over her blood and makes her whole. It starts with a whimper and ends with a bang not a whimper.

BY : Haley Sarfeld Never Better Than Late Unconceived not-child My first-thought never-born Bred of a nine-week wait In a sixteen-year-old Girl-woman, lonely-woman, Sixteen-year-old Lonely-girl, scared-girl, Baby symptom, body bloating Nothing there, nothing there. Empty room pretending to be full Empty cradle waiting for what isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t in an Empty womb pretending to be growing; Empty heart wants something to hold on to. I lie in bed and try to listen to my heartbeat In case I catch a murmur of a second one, A little maybe-echo Little baby-echo? No nudge is needed, in the end; She bears herself out naturally In a cotton-staining sigh. She was only ever a figment of my imagination, The brainchild of a too-scared, too-careful, too-obsessive mind. I should be relieved, I tell myself. Why am I so sad?

Pravieena Gnanakumar

BY : Elyse Lowen

EXODUS When I die my soul will be a spring Bright and shining That punches out of my body Like an impatient bird from a cage Yours may be a leak A slow smoke seeping out Of the corner of your mouth And yours may be a paper crane Crushed for eternities by a foreign fist Before rising, uncrumpled, from your hollow chest But mine is a spring on a timer And it will explode

Holly Lorenzon

By Danny McLaren

BY: Noah Gennaro </Encryption Kings>

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Lauren Fernandez

Tomorrowland

By : Sarah StuBBS

Alyssa Cooper Dinner Date Dissociate in the middle of dinner cherry tomato speared on my fork, when the room gets sharp, too much in focus, and my edges get blurred. Waitress compliments my earrings, calls me so cool, and I wonder how she can see me. Curse I hope you know that, when I curse your name, it is only because you are not here to swallow it off my tongue.

BY: Sasha Hill Erase The lines on my face run deep with laughter, tears and anger Etched into my skin like a tattoo I want to erase my face and give the blank canvas to someone else to “deserves” it more than me

Slowly My heart is smashing against my ribs each beat cracks the bone I’m slowly breaking with each heartbeat

Cosmos In Your Body A shooting star made out with a sunrise Maybe that’s why when I kiss you Fireworks explode in my mouth Turning my tongue into a ticking time bomb Lighting each other’ fuses just for the fun of it Because maybe once upon a time You and I were once one star

Bob MacKenzie Mosaic a mosaic is only an arrangement a convenient image made of tiles laid upon sands which may shift with the weight of time passing out of ancient sands voices cry from between the mosaic tiles bringing up the ancient earth and the peoples of Turtle Island something in the dig has broken cracked the fair visionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface revealing darker sands underneath where ancient cultures are waiting a mosaic is only an arrangement a transitory image that can change as the earth moves beneath the tiles and ancient voices can be heard as cracks appear among the tiles voices from the distant past call to be heard and to be reconciled not buried in some dusty corridor deep in an archaeological museum people weep for the stolen children people weep for the murdered women people weep and the mosaic cracks

By: Katherine Joanne Gall

Contrast. Leaving for home was scary. But the colours kept me company. Flying over Greenland, 2017.

Going. I wanted to talk to the person sitting across from me. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. I was scared. But I was going.

BY: Emily Hamilton Cigar Smoke Avery opened the door and a waft of cigar smoke that had accumulated over several days entered Kristian’s nose without his consent. He scrunched his face and swatted his hand in front of his nose like that would somehow help stop the smell. “So the leaf you said you were turning over last week was actually you deciding that you need to chain-smoke cigars?” “I smoked three two days ago. I thought it would help inspire a dark, enticing fantasy or an intriguing psychological horror. But, I think the insulation in our apartment is actually just old sponges, so the smell might be here forever, and it enticed nothing but a headache.” Avery walked towards his desk but instead of his usual dingy typewriter, there was a gaming computer where he seemed to be playing some mass multiplayer online game. “That’s an insane upgrade to your typewriter. What happened to the stack of writing I was supposed to see when I got home?” Avery plopped down gracefully in his desk chair and slurped coffee for longer than necessary. “The typewriter found a new home, and I found this--” He pointed without any enthusiasm to the computer. “--on Kijiji.” “You sold your typewriter?” Kristian dropped his backpack on the floor, forgetting about the bottles packed until he heard multiple clinking noises and winced. “Oh, no… No, that wouldn’t have been dramatic enough.” Avery points to the window central to the living room. Kristian walked over to see the remains of the typewriter on the fire escape six floors down from their apartment.

“Well, I definitely think you hit your dramatic quota, well done.” Kristian said with audible concern. Before Kristian left for San Diego, Avery had decided excitedly that he would quit his job at the laundromat and truly focus on his writing. This time he would write something worth publishing. “So, I see it didn’t go well?” Kristian said with a lighthearted but weary tone. Avery not only looked un-showered but also unhinged. Avery let out a ragged breath, his throat sore from the cigar. He leaned back in his desk chair that creaked in pain at the descent. He rolled his head towards the window. His neck looked awkward and extended, making Avery unrecognizable to Kristian. “How do people do it.” “Write?” “How do people go throughout their day and find those intricate and special things to write about that causes people to keep reading?” “Inspiration?” “Bullshit. There must be something else. I’m constantly looking for it. They’re always talking about focus. Focus on your writing, focus on reading, and before you know it, you have an editor begging you to make it a trilogy.” Avery finished the last of his coffee and swirled the remaining coffee grounds around in his mug. He tried to make an image but all he saw was a pile of dirt. “And they all get inspiration in things that mean nothing to me. Fuck, people seem to write novels nowadays because they find inspiration in the burnt lines of their goddamn grilled cheese.” Kristian moved to the couch across from Avery’s desk and laid down, still observing his friend’s meltdown.

“I tried everything. I went to cafes to see if the sound of grinding coffee would inspire me to write a brilliant observation on everyday life. I smoked cigars to see if I would think of some philosophic Sartre bullshit that would change lives after one read.” “That’s the thing!” Kristian said, sitting back up and slamming his hands on the couch, which made no audible sound and looked more awkward than powerful. “You aren’t trying to get your own inspiration; you’re trying to recreate others’ and that’s not going to work for you.”

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

“Who the hell said that? What a stupid saying.”

“Picasso said it, Kristian.” Smirks began to form on the roommates’ faces. Kristian hoisted his bag back on his shoulder and walked to their shared room. He tossed his bag on his bed. His bed was still unmade so the contrast of his striped duvet and his plaid sheets was clearly visible. His ex said that he should “just pick a goddamn pattern”, but he wasn’t happy unless he had both. Avery’s set up made Kristian’s bed look like an unmatched luxury. Avery’s “bed” was a mattress and single fuzzy blanket his sister had let him borrow. His pillow without a case had interesting yellow stains along the sides. Stacks of books surrounded his mattress, some with old coffee mugs resting on top. Kristian tried to remember the last time Avery left the apartment. Probably that writer’s workshop last month? Or did he actually get groceries while Kristian was in San Diego? He returned to the living room to find Avery in the kitchen refilling his coffee cup. The coffee smelled stale.

“You have to keep working on it, Avery. You know you don’t want to be doing anything else.” There was a long pause. Avery sauntered towards the window. The typewriter, for such an old and scraggly machine, held on for dear life. The ribbon spool and the paper table were at the other side of the alleyway, but most of the keys stayed intact on the machine. He turned to Kristian while leaning on the window sill. “I’m at a stand-still. This is it, right? I’m twenty-five and I haven’t finished a single novel.” “What are you going to do, work in an office? You’d have to wake up in the morning. And, you know… talk to people other than me.” His lifestyle can only be supported by his dad’s inheritance for so long, Kristian thought.

“I’ll Uber.”

“You’d have horrible ratings. Not to mention your rides would be pretty disappointed by not only your lack of license, but the fact that you don’t own a vehicle.” Kristian paused as Avery slammed his hands on the keys of his computer, a usual sign of frustration. Instead of the usual typewriter reply, the computer’s screen lit up silently. “You know how people always say that bad things happen to other people? The guy down the street gets hit by a car but it will never be you. It’s always that random guy down the street?”

Kristian nodded in response.

“I think that’s me with finding that eureka moment. It’s always going to be someone else. It’s always going to be that other person that went to the slam poetry nights at Goldie’s that will publish a book. I’ll still be here trying to recreate people’s inspirations and epiphanies until I go too far and Hemingway my way into fame.”

This has gone too far, Kristian thought. How do I get him out of this goddamn rut? “There’s a reason why me and your parents encourage you, okay? You’re. Fucking. Talented. But let’s be honest, you’ll never truly see it yourself. I’m outside of your little self-deprecating fishbowl, though, and I can see that you could truly make something. But until you fucking realize it, you’re doomed to a cycle of never finishing something you start and self-loathing until you’re back working at a laundromat. Avery didn’t reply, but instead sat back at his desk and opened up League of Legends. Kristian couldn’t let him give up. He couldn’t. “What if you write about the struggles of being able to write? I mean, you have all those thoughts in your head right now and inspiration must come from it. “Avery laughed loudly over the sounds of magical battles on his screen. “And that, Kristian, is why you aren’t a writer. What an awful idea.”

Pravieena Gnanakumar

By: Madison Adriana

Matutine I hope you can find the love you deserve The kind that makes monarch wings tickle the inside of your belly It will sound like tambourines taped to the wind Eager for it to blow. They can sing for you. I hope your shadows settle. Softly now. A blue jayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nest between trunk and branch will stay safe when the wind comes Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be afraid to suffer. Then move on softly with your big life.

Holly Lorenzon

By : Tessa Warburton

Bruce Kauffman My Own Work most of my poems perhaps even the best or more truly all of them might serve a better purpose recycled reused these pages all shredded and left for the birds to find poke at and pull pieces off to fill small cracks or cover the hardness of twig in a nest or for small animals to find and drag into their holes to create a bed deep in the ground below or perhaps all these poems should simply lie on this wet soil as compost nature then splaying and depositing them decomposing all these pages this paper this dust of tree becoming earth again in pieces of itself becoming simply a bit of ground on which a new sapling grows it, a grander and silent and living poem

BY : Anya Jacksteit Breathe iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always been good at swimming the consistent repetitive stroke after stroke after stroke after stroke breaking the water entrancingly rhythmic but with you i find myself tossed around unsettled by your waves i donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember how to breathe

Sebastien Duff-Mailloux

By : Tessa Warburton

Haley Sarfeld Another Sex Poem Haley has another sex poem! Haley has another sex poem, and it’s about fucking and longing and waiting. Haley doesn’t have a sense of self beyond who she’s seeing and how they’re seeing her. Haley doesn’t know how to have. Haley is had. Haley doesn’t know what to do with herself, so she lets other people do the doing do the feeling do the seeing. Passive voices wasn’t always a problem for Haley, but somehow it has ended up, she has ended up, upended. She’s not the first person anymore. The first person isn’t her. She’s appended.

BY : Notacloo Momoses:

Sad & Tyred, Given In to Out, Can’t Govern, Goggles On, Cusses the State. Who does he harm by being in blue face? No one, except Perhaps himself. Always a critic:

Omni experiens faulti.

Who is to know, it could be better? Momoses will always say so. A task to go place ² place Always a meter to measure ’Tis not his task to live, But in analysis, Momoses basks. No halo but horns, They jingle where he goes He never meets a saint, But only gentle foes. Wherever pleasure is had, He counts the woes. M. used to work in service, His cohorts didn’t seem to Love… bluefaces. M doesn’t care to be admired But M’s an anxious aardvark He hears the snickers & backtalk Not to say they were challenging, They weren’t. But clueless energy burnt big ears’ Low, & bed-deprived grudge. When they pass it eager: “Hey M! Wanta work tonight?” Momoses seize: “Naw man, I’d rathe go home and Steep my hands in crimson summore.”

(GASP all.)

Are you okay? Why would you say that?

“I’m fine, look!” Paws up lika surrender M’s bad place, brings a whole lotta sadface Chunky shark with the cunning capital Chases ² more of his flaws. Her dull claws uncovered all summer’s long, Warned for the “wrong pants” & selling it wrong But what are the cuts being sold? They all love seeing the puppet’s tear Squat on hokey, dipping dignity Here in the Summers; Wint., the cold hits, He repeats it all in Floradim. Hit & miss when he sings w/ A yellow, gummy guffaw. Overalls in M’s way, crushing Under the wait of small stakes. But to keep the lying line loyal To the caps’ employment betrothal, Any antags spill like bitter streetlight In scanned, beaten-to-neatnick eyes. There is no place to walk in the dark. Suffering gets the laugh, it sustains Any epic crusade: long as they’re fed. Down for the clown, & smiles are up. They all smile when they see you sweat The dread bubbles, toe ² toe The labour sucks life in undertow

Anything for a fat wallet M. suppose. Until that day, when words Slit the entire department The faces of waiters, Their eyes dash past, Grass in the pocket, Momoses takes an A ² sinister Q. He quit, ² weeks ahead. Unpuckered ass-less, Now they all feel betrayed. “Look at me, I’m Mr. Daddy Issues Found three gran’ so I’ll stampa tattoo.” Extra! Extra! He’s trynna be funnySpillin’ stolen jokes totem ladies, That cardboard punk, right on the money, A lifted gag may go on the first, But it was funny told once, W/ repetition, it only gets worse. Okay- so maybe Momoses said a lil too much It’s not enough for him to say: “I’m sad tonight. I’ll take your shift some other day.” He’s gotta give sadness a pinch of gunpowder’s flair, Appointed to his head, abysmal & reckless, To the ize, ears, & cents of the others. M’s forgotten, takes said flare to burn a bridge But seein’ their desties are only flat lands, Momoses adjusts, & irons his suit.

Noah Gennaro

Golden Squirrel of Queenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

BY : Noah Gennaro

</The Picnic> It had become a weekend tradition, for the two to have a picnic together. He sat across from her, sprawled on the banket. Neither spoke. No words were needed. Church bells rang across the street, It was time to go. As he finished, he gingerly placed the flowers before her. He gave the tombstone a gentle touch, and was on his way.

Szerena Szabo 47