The Crucible Fall 2017: The Wandering

The Wandering

cru·ci·ble ‘kroosәb(ә)l/ noun

1. a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures.

2. a place or occasion of severe test or trial.

3. a place or situation in which different elements interact to produce something new.

The Crucible borrows its name from UNC’s first student magazine, which served what was then the Colorado State Normal School from 1892 to 1920. We chose the name to honor both UNC’s heritage as a teachers’ college and its students of today and tomorrow. Like its counterpart in chemistry, The Crucible purifies its contents; it challenges its contributors to test themselves and to strive for flawlessness in their future creative ventures. © 2017 by United Student Literary Voices All rights reserved by respective authors. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The views expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect the views of The Crucible staff.

Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2017 United Student Literary Voices University of Northern Colorado Campus Box 109 Greeley, CO 80639 www.crucibleunc.weebly.com Cover art by Thomas Gillaspy Interior designed by: Kathryn Derby, Erika Siebring, Jason Keller, and Maddie Siegle “Crucible” defintion courtesy of Google.com

Staff Editor-in-Chief Kathryn Derby

Vice President Kaila Ward

Secretary Erika Siebring

Treasurer Maddie Siegle

Editors

Ashley McDonald Savanna Wilson Molly Riggs Madison Burns Austin Huber Abigail Catherine Amelia Buchmeier Gabby Kallina-Tran Jason Keller

Letter From The Editors

Dear Reader,

First and foremost, from all of us at The Crucible, we’d like to thank you for picking up this book. What you’re about to read is the product of countless hours of labor from our staff, and most importantly, from our submitters. Make no mistake, though, this edition of The Crucible, like all editions before it, is a labor of love.

This is a big step forward. Our senior editing staff graduated, and so for many of us, this our first crack at putting something like this together, and doing right by our incredibly talented submitters. For this reason, we selected “voyage” as our theme for this issue. For The Crucible staff, we’re boldly shoving off on a voyage of our own, destination unknown, course uncharted.

It takes gumption to be an artist though, and without the authors and artists, poets and photographers in this book, we’re as good as a ship without a crew. We can’t even begin to thank them enough for their hard work, commitment, and creativity. We hope that as you read this edition of The Crucible, you’ll see why their pieces were selected among countless others, and that you’ll allow them to carry you on a voyage of your own.

The Crucible staff would also like to thank our advisors and sponsors who made this all possible. Lisa Zimmerman, our wonderful advisor, has been a steadfast supporter of student literary work, and for that alone she deserves a special place in this book. The University of Northern Colorado’s Student Senate and TCBY have consistently supported us both morally and financially, and without them, this book would still be an idea.

Finally, we’d like to thank the readers for supporting the arts, and indulging in some of the best student literary work from around the world.

So with the wind at our backs, an uncharted horizon ahead, and the words of the great poet Alfred Tennyson on our lips, we set off, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

With Care, The Crucible Editing Staff

Table of Contents Poetry Brittany Holland

Infinite Cosmos Higher Parting

6 15 25

Sydney Colby

Where the Water Meets the Sky

10

Megan Martinez

Death of the Century Thighs

11 14

Margarita Azarkh

Metamorphosis

12

Wilhelmina Jackson

Glass Chess Set

16

Taylor Zangari

Building Starscrapers

19

Drew Stengel

My Name.

24

Prose John Farrell

Sapphires

7

Luke Duggan

The Politics of Bipedalism: My Adidas

21

Molly Riggs

Sweden Dreaming

26

Visual Art Thomas Gillaspy

Route 66 Dreaming of Santa Fe

Cover 23

Madison Burns

A Castle In Italy

9

Nina Wilson

Untitled Untitled

13 18

Eva Klauber

Sรณlfariรฐ

28

Infinite Cosmos Brittany Holland

It is not the moon I tell you.

She is incandescent, yes, But it is not her I am after.

It is the stars That illuminate the darkness The hordes of them that form rivers, Flowing silver for us to follow.

To call them beautiful Would be an atrocity.

Magnificent, still, Might be a crime.

Searching for the patterns Assigned to them is blissful, And I would be perfectly content To float in warm spring water And watch them gaze down at us, forever.

6 Crucible | Holland

Sapphires John Farrell

“Were Niagra falls but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?”

-Herman Melville

Born and raised in the high deserts of America, he never got to experience the vast waters of the ocean. The coffee stained earth, jagged cliffs, and sawtooth ridges were all that he knew. The only natural water features he witnessed were the annual flash floods of the local river, which was nothing more than a dry, open scar in the earth eleven months out of the year, and the shallow lake in the nearby mountains. However, even the small lake has ceased to exist. Now, it is nothing more than an empty mold of what it once was.

Of all the wonders of the world, he wished only to see the ocean. To see a singular body of water, so mammoth that he could still see it stretch out of sight, seemed alien to him. One day, an opportunity was presented to him; a cruise trip. Going out to sea in a large vessel, surrounded by endless ocean? How could he miss it?

When the day of the voyage was upon him, he was so anxious that he couldn’t sleep the night before. The imagery concocted in his mind of what he was going to witness was too powerful for sleep to overcome. The cruise liner was departing from England, so he had to fly there to even board. He was sure he’d be able to see the ocean from his plane window, yet the man next to him, a portly man of middle age with too much work on the mind, had the window seat and keep the blinds closed so he could sleep. Once he landed in England, and arrived at the boat, he was so exhausted from lack of sleep and nonstop travel, that he collapsed in his cabin room. He slowly, groggily awakened the next morning to the low drone of the ship’s engines. He decided to venture out and see if breakfast was ready. As he shuffled along the comatose ship, searching for caffeine, he realized that the sun hadn’t risen yet, and everyone was asleep. He figured he would go to the top deck and watch the sun rise while he waited for breakfast and coffee. When he reached the bow of the ship, he saw the ocean for the first time.

The dawn was breaking over the horizon with ribbons of yellow, pink, orange and blue painting the sky. The colors cast down on the ship and flowing water like stained glass windows on an old cathedral floor. The sun reflected off the serene waters, casting Farrell | Crucible 7

small beams of blue light that shined like thousands of small sapphires. The ashen gray seagulls glided over the smooth waters with grace, calling out to their comrades who were nearby. The small islands that were crawling by were glistening like emeralds as the sun illuminated the morning dew on the dark green grass. The sound of the wake collapsing as the ship sailed through the tranquil, briny ocean filled his ears as he looked around and saw this spectacle surround him. He was, for the first time in his life, truly awestruck.

Even though he had seen hundreds of photographs and dozens of movies about the ocean, nothing prepared him for the absolute beauty and magnificence he was witnessing before his own eyes. The ship’s intercom system chimed, alerting the passengers about the day’s events, and that breakfast was ready. Even though he was hungry, he didn’t need coffee anymore—he was awake.

8 Crucible | Farrell

A Castle In Italy Madison Burns

Burns | Crucible 9

Where the Water Meets the Sky Sydney Colby

This vastly endless sea that we do travel swallows us whole and as we try to reach the shore we turn up in the eye of the storm That, my dear, is how this life tends to treat us We are fish in this infinite pond We are without masks in this grand masquerade vulnerable exposed Yet, we dance among the crowd of hidden faces like the music will carry us despite our slowly breaking bones Against this current we swim We row the ores of this little boat forgetting there is a storm around us Disregarding the shore we have not yet met because that, my dear, is how we must tend to react to life

10 Crucible | Colby

Death of the Century Megan Martinez

They call it structural failure—a flaw in the design.

It seemed impossible, endless hallways washed in turpentine, but it’s sulfur that did us in. A brittle fracture. Who knew that steel could be fragile as bones, mortal as man. A few small errors (an international calamity). The iceberg grazed the exposed hull. Then the internal bleeding began. Raised voices from the passengers, like goosebumps. Inner ears vibrate with the strangled sound of water bleeding in. Incarnate beast, she moans as the bow submerges and there’s nothing to do but watch. And count minutes and lifeboats. Something happens then, as the stern rises in the night sky like hips meeting a lover. There is a crack, like broken china after it slips from the hands of a child. But the deck trembles—a fatal sigh— and the seconds drip. Then violence, steel carnage. The high-pitched cry as she splits in two, like giving birth, only the cord has been ruptured and the bow is plummeting—so much weight—a shallow grave of sand and rock. It’s just the stern then, hollow and yearning for its other half.

It’s steel pitted against sea. The waves part like lips—a deep-throated laugh.

Martinez | Crucible 11

metamorphosis Margarita Azarkh

i. striped bodies laze ‘cross milkweeds swaying so gently in warm summer air. ii. suspended by twig, green silk tightly engulfs them, nascent renaissance. iii. home, among flowers, wings outstretched—free, unhindered liberty at last.

12 Crucible | Azarkh

Untitled Nina Wilson

Wilson | Crucible 13

Thighs Megan Martinez

There are stretch marks now on my thighs—like dried blood against Elmer’s glue-colored skin and a littering of freckles.

They look like meandering streams, only not so majestic, or a mouth set in a hard line. They’re mundane really, just scarred tissue, at least that’s what WebMD tells me.

I don’t have the heart to look at them full-on. They mock me when I tease my pants below my hips, then thighs. I avert my eyes but I imagine them cavernous all the same.

Scorching red and thick. And I mourn for my disfigured legs.

Oh, once they were 18 and strong and not riddled with signs of my age, of my mortality. Once they were intact collagen and they didn’t quiver a little when I walked, like cake right out of the oven, before it’s settled. It’s unsettling to see your body expand in such a way, greedily taking up space—though I remember the stretch marks on my mother as she stood naked before that full length mirror, bowed breasts and rounded stomach. She said she liked the striated lines across her belly— they were proof. I remember liking them too, like they were chronicles of a history I would never know. But it’s the knowing that’s hard, the body set adrift on an ocean of unrelenting, impetuous time. It knocks on your door late at night—you’re not so ripe anymore, it says.

14 Crucible | Martinez

Higher Brittany Holland

When I was five, I started Kindergarten And made my first best friend.

And stopped weeping, Dropped my wills like they were poison, Stopped looking for ways out.

When I was seven, She moved away And left an empty crayon box In her place.

When I was fifteen, The second best friend came back, And my addiction to the poison with her.

Suddenly, here were the outskirts again, Replaced like I was dirt On those riverbeds I had made So long ago.

Blackness took root.

When I was eight, I made my second best friend.

I was still on the outskirts of the class Not fully accepted because my parents Didn’t own a mansion.

But we had tea parties, In our little lace gloves And our pretty pink dresses And plastic heels.

We married my birds, And had beverages Because we were fancy Like our new vocabulary words.

When I was eleven, I came home every day And wrote my will, Weeping and making riverbeds That would someday hold my roots.

When I was thirteen, I made my third best friend

When I was sixteen, I went to permanently live on my riverbed It had room for only me.

My riverbed welcomed me, Willows whispering Friendly flowers beckoned me to stay.

When we were twenty-two, She was a cosmetologist, Who couldn’t make the color Stay in a client’s hair, Who totaled eleven cars, Who couldn’t keep love, Who couldn’t keep company To save her life.

A quiet victory, And the branches of my tree Pushed me higher still.

Holland | Crucible 15

Glass Chess Set Wilhelmina Jackson

He had a glass chess set.

The clear and fogged pieces fascinated me.

“Who do you play with?”

“Well I play by myself, cousin.”

I am awestruck in the face of his wisdom.

When God made him, he dipped a toothbrush in brown paint and gently spattered it across his face.

Freckles to complement his wide smile.

The perfect canvas.

I wish I talked to him more.

It happened so fast.

Words of anger.

Lost car keys in the dark.

A knife to his chest.

The home once full of laughter, was now cursed with spilled blood.

A dark shadow left on the kitchen floor.

The funeral was harsh.

Grief twisted the faces of my once happy family.

They said my mother howled, but grief morphed my young mind.

I don’t remember her like that.

I can’t imagine her like that.

16 Crucible | Jackson

The trial was worse.

Brutal pictures of him were thrown in our faces.

God’s canvas was torn. Ruined.

My mother held me close.

The words of Junie B. Jones protected me.

We were all fragile like his glass chess set.

It was cracked, barely holding together.

We broke when the judge said “Not Guilty” and let his murderer slip away.

Jackson | Crucible 17

Untitled Nina Wilson

18 Crucible | Wilson

Building Starscrapers Taylor Zangari

The clouds curl softly on their

peaks & crests As the wind whips wildly and we sit like budding stars waiting eagerly for the black blanket of night to be poked

full of holes so that we may peek

our yellow eyes from our construction paper windows and see

life & light b e l o w us held in tall buildings close enough to our blushing noses h a n g i n g Zangari | Crucible 19

over beige window sills.

Close enough to reach up and with velvet fingers trace our tender jawbones

pulling us in with placid hesitation

painting our supple lips with sparkling sighs.

20 Crucible | Zangari

The Politics of Bipedalism: My Adidas Luke Duggan

Left. Right. They’re exhausted. They curl around the heel to the inside like a newborn baby, but a corpse and a fetus lie just the same. The cacophony of the scraping left-right-left-right has turned their suede black hair to a matted brown and grey, and has blown those aglets off their lace end thrones. Now they crescendo, dragging from the dirt driveway to the pavement. Never had there been such an orchestra of steps and noise since the battle of Jericho, and their suede walls beg to cave in. It would be impossible to forgive their owner and inhabitant, but abhorrence from shoes means nothing. They harboured this same hate on every preceding day, and would hold this grudge to and beyond the trash heap. They’d refuse the insertion of that sock-covered, skin-covered, blood-covered bone. But the sun shines, and they have that morning mirage of optimism woven into their damaged fabric. They’ve forgotten the morning before, when that same sun turned their hexagonal, griddle bottoms to a carcinogenic, rubber omelette on the pavement.

Glass slivers work into the brown bee hive, malleable from heat, and sting. Surely if these worker bees had stung a pair of tires, they, low on tread anyway, could rest in their deflated state, but they must continue. The puddle they stepped in was at first a cool relief, now a soggy torment. Their laces drag over the cement crevasses with weight that adds up to agony, but it is that time where the orange disk in the blue is replaced by the grey one with holes in it. This is that time when the lungless shoes must get their second wind. They had come all too far, but maybe extra mileage incurred in the night ahead would bring some relief, a loosening of fabrics that ached in their constraint. They kick rocks on the way back to that spot they laid in for about five hours the night before. The noxious fumes of food preparation mix over their shell toes, making that hour or so of rest quite restless.

Now the wavering walk to the house of fermented fruits. First those sudsy spills, then the whiskey, then the vomit; it all falls down on them, and they wish for a toe tag. But there is no time of death, just shuffling through the stomach acid cocktail and onto the street.

Left. Right. Swerve. Left. Stagger. Pivot. 17th Ave. Left. Swerve. Swerve. Right. Cherry Ave. Left and right a few more dozen more times and they stop. They normally stand here from nine to five on weekdays, but what is that sound? Metallic jingling, and then aerosol spritz dampened by the cement blocks. They are caked in the overspray of the encircled, ruby “A”. It’s bitumen dark outside, but they are now red and embarrassed like a child caught stealing. They are as confused as an adolescent by the sudden shuffle to the glass of the Duggan | Crucible 21

door they’d walked through so many times. The unfortunate red mask is apparent in the tranquil glass lake before them, and the mask covers those three lines by which they knew themselves: a time of self-reflection, no doubt. They reach the apathy of adulthood as they are shoved through the pane. Just another step like every step before, like every indiscernible day and night, like every season with its own hope of reduced grief, like every year with its unique yet redundant torment. Another step is nothing. Left.

22 Crucible | Duggan

Dreaming of Santa Fe Thomas Gillaspy

Gillaspy | Crucible 23

My Name.

Drew Stengel

My name is Phillip Norris, Every day I wake up in the same small bed in the same boring room, I take the same cold shower in the same small bathroom, I wear the same dull clothes from the same small closet and make the same cold breakfast in the same small kitchen, I ride the same crowded bus to the same office job and type the same small code into the same computer, I get yelled at by the same angry manager for making the same little error on the same efficiency report, I get the same sad feeling and take the same red pills and ride the same crowded bus and sleep in the same small bed, One day I wake up in the same small bed in the same boring room, I ride the same crowded bus to the same office job and I get yelled at by the same angry manager, I follow the angry manager through the exit door and down the dark staircase, I grab the angry manager and push him down the dark staircase, I hear the crack of the skull on the cement wall, I feel the joy and smile, I hear the click of the handcuffs and the pound of the gavel, My name is Phillip Norris, Every day I wake up in the same small bed in the same boring room.

24 Crucible | Stengel

Parting Brittany Holland

My heart ripped out.

An aching hole left in its place.

You take it with you every time we part.

I loved walking to see you At the bar down the road from my work.

We’d sit and I’d have a Coke, While you’d finish your beer, And chatted with the locals.

Clenched jaw, swollen eyes, I try to be strong for you.

It’s hard, I know, for you, too.

I want to make it easier for you, my Captain, my Anchor, my Love.

Now, you’re gone.

Your plane just landed Ten thousand ninety-six miles away.

My heart is with you, And I so desperately want to follow.

Now, I have to learn to again how to live Without touching you, Without picking the crumbs from your beard, Without cuddling up to you at night, Without giggling at absolutely nothing together.

You—the reason to get up—gone.

Steam rising from the kettle.

Aroma of coffee filling the air.

The tinkling of cold water against the cup, to make it just the right drinking temperature.

Barefoot and shivering On the hardwood floor, Warmed only by my robe…

I was happy and at peace.

Your smile as you stood Against the bonnet of my car When you picked me up from class, And quoted Ferris Bueller, “Do you have a kiss for daddy?”

Made me giggle joyously.

Now, I have to go home To face my empty room, Your presence missing, Bringing silence with it.

Last night, I sobbed so hard, I’m pretty sure I scared My noisy downstairs neighbors.

My vocal chords are raw, The pain too much.

I never thought parting would be this hard.

Holland | Crucible 25

Sweden Dreaming Molly Riggs

There were many late nights the three of us spent, sitting around Leah’s kitchen table, drinking tea and sharing our dreams with each other, not thinking about limitations, not caring about what society’s expectations were. We were invincible inside those four walls: free to be anything, do everything, go anywhere. Life wasn’t so black and white back then. Instead, it had been a stream of colors, brilliant and beautiful, our heart’s desires pouring from our mouths and mixing in the air to form an unseen aura of hope and imagination. I miss those nights and I miss the feeling of having endless possibilities right at our fingertips.

One of those nights, discussion turned to the future and we all admitted we wanted more than a cookie-cutter life. Out of discouragement that a typical future was unavoidable, I slammed my hands on the table: “Fuck it, let’s just drop everything and move to Sweden and build ourselves a life there.” It was out of mere frustration of the unattainable that drew these words from my mouth, with no proper reason as to how we’d get there, what we’d do when we got there, or even why it had to be Sweden. Yet, from there, a masterful creation was contrived: an immaculate home comprised of all our hopes and dreams. In this home, we were free to pursue our passions rather than our obligations.

Money meant nothing, jobs meant nothing, technology meant nothing, boys meant nothing; nothing meant anything except the three of us following our dreams without bounds.

We imagined it in the countryside, surrounded by emerald hills and sparkling lakes, a wrap-around porch giving us a 360-degree view of nature’s majesty. Windows covering nearly every inch of our home would allow the light to stream in and warm the hardwood floors, simultaneously keeping any darkness from creeping into our souls—as darkness often tends to do—and dashing our carefree spirits. Books would line the wall—classics for Leah, fantasies for Katelyn, and horrors for me—of all different colors and ages, giving our home the sweet scent of a used bookstore. This accompanied by the rich scent of Katelyn’s delectable cooking in the kitchen: pasta dishes, pastries, coffee, and waffles, all made from ingredients in her garden outside. Upstairs, Leah would be painting away in her art studio, a full view of an inspiring backdrop to guide her brush. The once white walls would be covered in paint splatters, as would Leah’s smock. Across the hall, I’d be working away in my own space, typing freely the stories that brewed in my mind, just waiting to take life on the page. My walls would be covered in photographs I had taken, depicting those I loved 26 Crucible | Riggs

most as inspiration. A kettle of tea would always be brewing and music on vinyl would always be playing, floating through the house with the scent and the sun.

And as the sky began to dim we would go around the house, turning on warm, soft lights to keep the darkness and cold at bay. We’d eat dinner together in the kitchen, droning on about our days, and our thoughts, and our struggles, and our successes. And once the stars shone brightly in the sky, we’d each grab a mug of tea and a blanket before ascending the spiral staircase inside a tower at one corner of our home. The stairs would go on for quite some time and just as our legs would begin to tire and we would question why we bothered with such an immense set of stairs, we’d break off into a large, open space, with a dome-shaped roof made fully of glass. At the center of this space is a small fire pit, which we would quickly set ablaze to warm our hearts. Each of us would lie on the floor, stemming out in three different directions about the fire, and gaze up at the stars.

The breathtaking view would invoke awe every time.

Once we’d had proper time to take in the view in silence, we would sip at our tea and talk about our dreams, just like old times. Only now, instead of being unreal, unattainable talk, spoken only for the sake of maintaining sanity while accepting a much more mundane reality, our dreams were plans we would accomplish the next day.

Riggs | Crucible 27

Sólfariὄ Eva Klauber

28 Crucible | Klauber

Contributors’ Notes Margarita Azarkh is a recent alumna from UNC, having graduated in summer of this year. When she isn’t working at her old high school, she likes to people watch, as well as read and write poetry to pass time.

Madison Burns is a freshman majoring in journalism, who loves to read fiction or historical fiction. She is addicted to the written word, and reads every chance she gets. She’s not a fan of horror. She is obsessed with Alice in Wonderland and Harley Quinn. She wants to be a photojournalist some day and work for National Geographic. She loves anything history, art, and photography related.

Sydney M. Colby is an avid writer and poet. She has been published previously on The Elephant Journal (an online publication) and Accomplished, a book of student work published by the America Library of Poetry. Please follow her writing page Write Brained, Left Handed on Facebook.

Luke Duggan is a student at the University of Northern Colorado. He is a fan of rap music, and enjoys mint chocolate ice cream on occasion. Luke Duggan wasn’t entirely sure how to write a professional bio, so he figured he would take a more humorous, fourth-wall breaking approach. He hopes you enjoy his writing and look out for it in the future.

John Farrell is a writer, poet, and essayist from the University of Northern Colorado. He was born and raised in New Mexico along with his four siblings. This is his first publication.

Thomas Gillaspy is a northern California photographer. His photography has been featured in numerous magazines including the literary journals: Compose, Portland Review, and Brooklyn Review. Further information and additional examples of his work are available at: http://www.thomasgillaspy.com; http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasmichaelart/.

Brittany Holland is an undergraduate majoring in history. She got her associates in history from Aims Community College, and plans to work in museums when she grows Notes | Crucible 29

up. Her hobbies include reading, writing, binge-watching Netflix, and hanging out with her friends. She is an amateur fiction writer in her spare time, who occasionally dabbles in poetry.

Wilhelmina Jackson is a junior journalism major at UNC. She loves storytelling in all forms, but mainly she loves written stories. She loves to write short stories and hopes to publish them one day. Along with writing short stories, she also has a blog called “Life of a Libra.” Besides writing, she loves to read, watch TV, play video games, and hang out with friends.

Eva Klauber has been doing photography for around five years and first became interested in photography because of her father. Eva learned everything about photography from her father and enjoys taking photos with him. Her favorite subjects to photograph are of nature and people, as well as travel.

Megan Martinez is a doctoral student in UNC’s counseling psychology department.

Though she loves the field of psychology, she loves language and enjoys writing poetry and other forms of literature.

Molly Riggs is a first-year English major with a minor in writing at the University of Northern Colorado. Though she has recently developed a passion for poetry, her one true love is realistic fiction. Although this is her first published piece, look out for her best-selling novel, coming to bookstores near you, hopefully eventually.

Drew Stengel is a sophomore history major with a passion for writing fiction. He especially likes to write short stories and poetry. His favorite book is 1984 by George Orwell. Drew is originally from Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Nina Wilson is an author and photographer from Indianola, Iowa. She has been published previously by Fishfood Magazine, the Coe Review, Rascal, Sea Letter Magazine, Dark River Review, and Adelaide magazine. Her book Surrender Language will come out later this year.

Taylor Zangari is a sophomore English major at the University of Northern Colorado. She hopes to pursue a career in writing.

30 Crucible | Notes