Variety Pack: Issue XI

Cover Art, © Ezekiel Gray

VARIETY PACK: ISSUE XI

MASTHEAD

Editor-in-Chief/Reviews Editor/Interim Visual Arts Editor – J.B. Stone

Non-Fiction Editor – Skyler Jaye Rutkowski

Poetry Editor – Asela Lee Kemper

Flash Fiction Editor – Ben Brindise

Short Fiction Editor – Ian Brunner

Poetry Readers – Lauren Peter, Courtney Hilden

EDITOR’S NOTE

As the summer approaches us, this year has been a turbulent one so far, but worth it all to showcase the wonderful folks who have once again trusted us with their beautiful work. As always we send our special thanks to our wonderful contributors, readers, submitters, who’ve stuck around this long, as we are all still humans still trying to make sense of this crazy universe of ours. As we celebrate our eleventh issue we must bid you all adieu until next year, as we plan to take a temporary hiatus shortly after the release of Issue #11. As the earth continues to spin, with every new tragedy still fresh and ripe inside the minds of many, another starts to take hold. It has been seven months since the tragic events of October 7th, and the brutal campaign of violent retribution that has been wrongly inflicted collectively onto the Palestinian people. We stand in solidarity with the resistance of the Palestinian People who have continued to take a stand against the Apartheid occupation that has plagued their lives for the last 75 years, an occupation that continues to plague our world. We believe in an end to colonial projects everywhere, and creating a space where people of all religions, and cultures can live in liberation and harmony, and not in a bubble pumped by the infrastructure of war machines. As an editorial masthead of editors of Haitian, Korean, Jewish, Eastern European, and much more, we cannot fathom speaking on diversity and collective melting pots, if we aren’t making some effort to use all we have to use our voices to stand for liberation. We believe in a Free Palestine, a Free Congo, a Free Sudan, a Free Puerto Rico, a Free Hawaii, a Free Haiti. We believe that no one can truly be free, until everyone else is free.

We also know that only two weeks ago we commemorated the two year memorial of lives taken at the hands of a white supremacist on the east side of our home base city here in Buffalo, NY. We also must take in the fact that there are still survivors from this violent moment in our city’s history that still need community resources, who deserve nothing but unwavering support. It’s been over a year since the death of Tyler Lewis, and have not forgotten the struggle for justice Tyler’s family is fighting. Lastly we want to remind you all that pride month was a riot before it was a parade. Know the history, love and support your friends in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and celebrate their beautiful truths! Happy Early Pride Month friends! Make no mistake that although each and every one of these moments might differ geographically, or at their surface, these struggles are all interconnected for the sake of justice at its very core. So before you even get to the contents page, we encourage everyone to explore the 2-3 pages worth of various organizations/mutual aid networks/activists/fundraisers doing some truly invaluable work. It’s important now, more than ever that we’re doing our part for those fighting against this tide of tyranny and come together, using our art and whatever funds we can, even if it’s a dollar to contribute to those who might need it the most.

Sincerely, Skyler, J.B., Asela, Ian, Ben, Maddie, Joshua, Lauren.

TW/CW: The following pieces may include mentions/scenes of death, genocide, displacement, war, experiences with hate, bigotry, trauma, homophobia, transphobia

VARIETY 4 JUSTICE

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF)

A donation allows PCRF to deliver on its humanitarian mission and send international volunteer medical missions to treat sick and injured patients while training local doctors. It also enables PCRF to send wounded and sick children abroad for free medical care they cannot get locally. As a 4-star rated charity for the past 11 years, you can be sure that your donation will have the biggest impact on the lives of children in the Middle East, regardless of politics or religion.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees. We provide immediate medical aid to those in great need, while also developing local capacity and skills to ensure the long-term development of the Palestinian healthcare system.

Friends of the Congo

The Friends of the Congo (FOTC) is a 501 (c) (3) tax exempt advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. The FOTC was established in 2004 to work in partnership with Congolese to bring about peaceful and lasting change in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire.

Islamic Relief Worldwide

Islamic Relief has worked in Sudan for nearly 40 years, and remains by the sides of families caught up in the violence. Please support our life-saving work: donate to our Sudan Emergency Appeal now.

Doctors Without Borders

One month after the eruption of full-scale war in Israel and Gaza, we at Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), continue to grieve the widespread suffering and death. We are calling for all parties to ensure the safety of civilians and medical facilities. As an independent and impartial humanitarian organization, MSF delivers emergency medical care where the needs for our expertise are greatest regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or politics. We are also an international movement made up of people from more than 169 nationalities working in more than 70 countries. Many of our staff here at MSF-USA

have friends, family, and loved ones in Israel, Gaza, or both, for whom we are deeply worried. All of us have colleagues working right now in Gaza delivering lifesaving medical care to people caught in the crossfire.

Lakota Law Project

An Indigenous Peoples and First Nations rights organization who promote the legal efforts of protecting lives of the true Americans of this country. From addressing the conditions of Indigenous territory, to helping the legal fight behind groundbreaking protests at Standing Rock to Lines 3 & 5, Lakota Law Project has been taking their fight head on and continues to make the voices of Indigenous and First Nations communities heard loud and clear!

Black Love Resists in the Rust (BLRR)

[From the website] BLRR is a member-led, abolitionist organization of Black folk and POC that believe – through leadership development, a shared politic, and community organizing – we will build safe and flourishing communities that resist the ills of white supremacist, cis-heteropatriarchal, capitalism; including policing.

Jewish Voice for Peace

While our mission is to build and mobilize enough power to change Olam HaZeh, the world as it is, we also seek to embody Ha’Olam She’Ba – the world to come – right here and now. When you organize with us, you are part of building a Jewishness and Jewish life beyond Zionism We have millennia of Jewish history where our traditions and our communities were not bound up with support for an apartheid government. We have liturgy, poetry, rabbinic debate, jokes, theater, dance, film, and song. Organizing rich in ritual, culture, and art connects us to those histories, and strengthens us in fighting for a future where our people – and all people – live with freedom, dignity, joy, and belonging.

Justice for Tyler Lewis

It’s been over a year now since the senseless murder of Tyler Lewis, and we still haven’t forgotten about the injustices to Tyler and his family. We wanted to share the updated fundraising site as the Lewis family continues to seek justice. Please read their words, donate, and share if you can. We are deeply saddened and heartbroken by the loss of our bright, funny, and charming teenage son, Tyler Lewis, on October 14, 2022. Tragically, his life, potential, and perseverance were all violently taken while away at college. Tyler was quite accomplished; he was awarded an academic scholarship and chose to attend SUNY Buffalo

State College. He had an appreciable work ethic; this past summer of his freshman year, he completed a four-course workload. Tyler was our only child, and the only grandson, and is survived by a great-grandmother. This senseless act of violence has stolen not only his life but his dreams, his future, and all that he has worked towards. He valued his interpersonal relationships with those he loved. His college sweetheart, Karla Longmore, says it beautifully, "You were so sweet my handsome boy. My perfect person and my best friend. Everyone knew you were so caring, respectable, and simply a ray of light. You were my forever, my motivation to even try and you knew this." Tyler's grandfather had to make the arduous drive from Buffalo to pick up Tyler and bring him back home to Long Island. We pray every day that the person who killed our son will come forward. Donations will be used towards a scholarship in Tyler's name.

Agents of Advocacy

Your generous donations directly support our initiatives, including: Community Outreach - We engage with local communities, organizing workshops and events that promote awareness, dialogue, and action against systemic racism and socioeconomic inequality; Resource Allocation - your contribution helps us provide essential resources such as food, housing assistance, and healthcare access to those in need, bridging the gap between privilege and disadvantage; Community Events - We organize engaging and inclusive events in the community that foster a sense of unity, celebrate diversity, and provide opportunities for individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds to connect, learn, and support one another. Your support matters. Together, we can break down barriers, transform lives, and create a fairer society for all.

Breaking the Silence

Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories. We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life. Our work aims to bring an end to the occupation.

Climate Defiance

We need consistent, mass-turnout, nonviolent disruption to stop business as usual and compel politicians to act. When we engage in direct action whether through a strike, a blockade, or a mass occupation we break through. People see us. People tune in. People engage. Our movement grows.

We Are Family CHS

A grassroots 2SLGTBQIA+ organization deep in the heart of North Charleston, South Carolina, providing a safer space for the youths, and allies along with their families since 1995. Be sure to check out the history ad be sure to donate to this wonderful local not-for-profit.

Autistic Women & Non-Binary Network (AWN)

Autistic Women & Non-Binary Network is an ever-growing organization truly committed to empowering the lives of Women, and LGBTQIA+ folks across the spectrum, through the providing of various resources, solidarity aid, community publication, and fiscal support.

SisterSong

The National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective working to strengthen the fight against the tide and collectively raising awareness and fighting for the access to necessary reproductive health care.

Colored Girls Bike Too

A growing collective led by Black Women & Black GNC cyclists, promoting mutual aid, teaming up with programs such as seeding justice, and providing pop-ups/food drop-offs to help Black communities across Buffalo, NY. CGBT also actively run workshops, and programs on the decolonization efforts of mobility.

D.O.P.E. COLLECTIVE WNY

D.O.P.E. (Dismantling Oppressive Patterns for Empowerment) Collective is an anti-oppressive project-based collaborative primarily led by creatives and theorists ages 18-35. They also have chapters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and Philadelphia, PA.

Trans Maryland

[From the Website] Trans Maryland is a multi-racial, multi-gender, trans-led community power building organization dedicated to Maryland’s trans community. By trans folks, for trans folks.

Tops Markets Community Resource Document

A go-to source google document constantly updated on ways we can all support those effected by the acts of Racist violence that occurred on May 14th, and as well addressing the support this area has been needing and will need further into the future. There are links to food drop-offs, pop-ups, donation portals, and much, much more.

Harriet’s Wildest Dreams

Harriet’s Wildest Dreams is a Black-led abolitionist community defense hub centering all Black lives at risk for state-sanctioned violence in the Greater Washington, D.C. area.

Buffalo Books & Literary Freedom LLC.

An incredible program founded last year by Buffalo, NY’s Poet Laureate, Jillian Hanesworth, Buffalo Books mission aims to expand literacy to the most underserved communities of buffalo through the expansion of book houses across the cityscape.

Indigenous Mutual Aid

A network of resources, donation hubs, informational articles for the purposes of creating support to Indigenous Communities across the U.S. & Canada. With the Supreme Court set to gut the EPA’s ability to take on the ravaging effects of climate change; with a presidential administration refusing to shut down Line 3, Line 5, Mountain Valley, DAPL; and selling hundreds of thousands of acres of public land out west, we need to stand by the communities will know that bear with the most devastating harm from all of this.

The Galactic Tribe

Along with The Wakanda Alliance, an organization dedicated to creating educational thought-spaces within black communities. In these spaces, we examine works of art inspired by the many cultures within African diaspora, thus spurring insightful conversations between our audiences about the impact we can create when one combines space-time, culture and imagination! The Galactic Tribe also provides workshops and right now is calling for donations of clothing and sneaker drop-offs.

Friends of the Night People

A local organization in the heart of the Allentown neighborhood of Buffalo, that has served as a true beacon to homeless lives across the City of Buffalo, and anyone in need. Their efforts range from providing food, resources for various shelters, basic essentials/supplies, spaces to do both laundry and shower.

Buffalo Blizzard Group

If you are a Buffalo Resident trying to get through this coming winter and find the resources to help get you through this tragic storm the Facebook group Buffalo Blizzard group has been a super convenient tool for establishing the resources, calls to action, and as well emergency posts.

Feed Buffalo

A local organization that has been a beacon in providing food and food rations to underserved communities throughout the city of Buffalo.

CONTENTS

Flash Fiction Short Fiction

Avra Margariti 51

M.P. Parker 112

Wilson Comey 14

Will Musgrove 43

Poetry

Heather Rae Ackerman 47

Daniel Orisaeke 92

Audra Burwell 72

Ashlyn Harmon 111

A.R. Arthur 130

Fadairo Tesleem 13

Agboola Tariq A. Swan II 63

Theo Morris 76

Aishat Yahkub 122

Abdullah Jimoh O. 54

Beau Farris 12

Vy Lieu 77

Anthony Marchetta 19

Susan L. Lin 101

CNF/Essays

Marcia McGreevy Lewis 115

Glenn Shaheen 64

Jeffrey Howard 45

Visual Art/Mixed Media/Comics

Edward Michael Supranowicz 73 Amanda Yskamp 124

Susan Kouguell 49

r. fay 94

Ezekiel Gray 10

Gary Bloom 114

Ojo Victoria Ilemobayo 131 Aaron Lelito 56

Translations

Hendri Yullus Wijaya (Translated by Edward Gunawan) 58

ILLUSTRATIONS/SKETCHES

by Ezekiel Gray

Murmurations

by Beau Farris

THE ECHOS OF GAZA

by Fadairo Tesleem

Dozens of dead bodies lie by the roadside–east and west ravaged by hounds Quds News Network

meteorologists, in Gaza, don't track records of rainfall but men's losses each treasure snatched by airstrikes/ unearthed from their midst: their wives, children, friends, and everyone everyone including their shattered selves.

in the twilight's stillness, a boy cries out: "not me, only my sister matters." dragging what remains of his sister from the rubble, believing she is too young for the scathing touch of death.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL

by Wilson Comey

Self-Insert just broke up with her boyfriend. She goes to stay at her parents’ house where she can’t help but resent her mom’s eagerness to comfort, like the pain of her children is what sustains her.

Self-Insert’s mom makes blueberry muffins and does laundry. After folding, she takes Self-Insert to PINK to buy her new underwear because she’s been wearing the same cotton panties since high school and because Victoria’s Secret is for whores.

Self-Insert googles the difference between PINK and Victoria’s Secret.

PINK’s target demographic consists of youth from ages 13 to 22.

She turned twenty-three last month.

Her mom buys her twelve pairs of underwear and two bras. Some of the underwear are lacy, and this makes Self-Insert feel good, which makes her feel like a materialistic bimbo. There are two Self-Inserts: The Self-Insert who feels and the Self-Insert who judges those feelings.

The three of them walk to the food court. The two Self-Inserts get Sbarro. Their mom gets Panda Express. They meet up in a booth and drape egg noodles over pepperoni slices.

In every novel I read, the characters don’t eat. It’s not that the authors forget to tell us what they eat; it’s that the authors devote time and attention to the characters’ not eating, to the lithe Parisian aesthetic of it all. I wonder whether I’m drawn to such characterizations or starvation is in vogue.

The problem with being a post-anorexic writer is that food restriction is not only triggering, but boring. I find new ways to torture my protagonists. They stand in empty subway cars, submerge themselves in freezing water, press their palms to electric stovetops.

Self-Insert forces herself to talk to the cashier at CVS. She could’ve used self-checkout to buy her mom’s iron supplements. In fact, the cashier seems miffed, having been restocking the candy and having had to walk all the way around the counter in boots that seem much too big for her feet or any human feet for that matter thick, black leather boots with both buckles and laces, probably booby trapped as well for maximum security. Was this masochism or was this what the kids were wearing these days? In all SelfInsert’s recent observations, these two seemed the only possibilities: self-loathing or conformity.

“I like your boots.”

“Thanks.”

“Are they comfortable?”

“I guess.”

The machine cries out. Tap, Swipe, or Insert.

“Why do you work at CVS?”

“Because I love corporations complicit in widespread opioid abuse,” the cashier deadpans. Clumped lashes crowd her eyes.

Self-Insert thinks, she’s probably quite pretty under all that goth makeup.

Self-Insert thinks, I’m the oldest person still breathing.

I always send my tortured characters to CVS. Their angst condemns any other setting to cliché. A Brooklyn fire escape?

Never. Their beat-up Toyota Corolla? This isn’t a freshman writing workshop. Anywhere at sunset? Go fuck yourself. Supermarket?

Weike Wang did it better.

Self-Insert watches her mom play with her grandson Self-Insert’s nephew though he’s more grandson than nephew,

considering Self-Insert is afraid to be alone with the two-year-old.

“Who’s a good boy?”

“He’s not a dog,” says his grandmother, Self-Insert’s mom, Self-Insert’s sister’s mom, Self-Insert’s nephew's mom’s mom.

With only three people in the room (Is the nephew a person yet?) the matrix dizzies.

“Let him answer the question,” says Self-Insert.

“Appa juice,” says the boy, who, just by nature of being born, is already a grandson and a son and a nephew, whose golden hair curls at the nape of his neck, which is the color of almond milk, which Self-Insert is intimately familiar with because she hated herself in college. He waves an empty sippy cup in his pink tulip fist.

He is the most beautiful thing (person?) Self-Insert has ever seen.

During a virtual workshop, a famous author told me I write about beauty like it’s an inherently good thing.

“And you can’t keep using all these hyperboles. Everything is the most beautiful thing the narrator’s ever seen the most beautiful lips, the most beautiful sunset, the most beautiful sidewalk, the most beautiful can of fucking pea soup. For Christ sake, the story’s only four pages.”

The barely contained rage that billowed through her webcam made me want to forget the English language.

I should note that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever encountered.

I should also note that I grow chin hairs at twenty-three.

Self-Insert and her mom see a movie. Self-Insert’s mom tries to get her out of the house at least once a day, even if just to sit in a dark room and eat Twizzlers and cry. The movie is about two gay men who fall in love in the 90s. It ends how you would expect.

Her mom asks, “Why do movies like this have to be so sad?”

“Because life is sad.”

Self-Insert’s mom looks at her.

“When did you get like this?”

“It’s not your fault, Mom.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Apa juice.”

They laugh in the dark as the credits roll. Each name each grip and double and extra is someone’s child. The song that plays over the names is entirely in French. Self-Insert doesn’t speak French. It’s the most beautiful song she’s ever heard.

No one wants to read your fiction about fiction until you’re a famous author. Sigrid Nunez can get away with it. She’s earned the right to have run out of ideas outside herself, to have grown too lazy to call her self-insert a painter or a singer because of all the casual googling it would require of her. And it’s not that she’s not brave enough to write a memoir. It’s that a memoir would be a bushel over the flame of her imagination. Sigrid Nunez can write fiction about a fiction writer. So can Elif Batuman. Andrew Sean Greer. Ayad Ahktar. Yiyun Li.

I can fuck off.

THE LAST FIGHT OF SIR LANCELOT

by Anthony Marchetta

In a tiny village on the outskirts of France an old man sat and prayed in the small chapel of St. Bertin Abbey, just as he had done every day for the last 75 years. The man was a monk, and he had been in the Abbey for so long that nobody remembered when he had arrived. Now, at an age where most men had already died, he was exempt from physical labors. Yet still he prayed.

Nobody knew where the old monk came from. His chosen name when he entered the order was Brother Michele, and that is what everyone called him, if they talked to him at all. Mostly he went about his work alone, a model of service and disciplined living.

Of course, the white-haired old monk accepted no compliments. He knew, he said, he was not worthy, though when asked to explain why he remained silent, except in Confession, which he went to constantly - though in truth, the old monk never truly felt himself forgiven. For he had a terrible secret. He had a sin of which he could not repent.

But his fellow monks knew nothing of this, and merely thought him pious, which only added to the old monk’s shame. But then, he didn’t mind the shame. It was only what he deserved.

One day in that 75th year at the monastery, a boy was waiting outside the chapel for the old man to finish his prayers. The boy was young, energetic, and excitable, but he had just enough patience and personal piety to know that one never interrupts a monk at prayer. So he waited. The sun was midway in the sky when the boy arrived, but it had set by the time the old monk finally left for stew

and water. By then the boy was practically beside himself with excitement, and had to use all of his willpower not to tackle the old man.

But he was patient. The boy knew something almost nobody else in the whole village of Vallon de Orchidée knew. The whitehaired monk was a knight - and no normal knight, but a knight of King Arthur.

If the boy had learned it was Jesus Christ himself he could not have been more excited, but that is what his grandfather had told him, and his grandfather did not lie. King Arthur, of course, was more legend than man, the mighty king who had united France and Britain before falling to treachery at the height of his power. His time was long past, but the memories lingered, and his grandfather was alive to see them. He told young Mark story after story of King Arthur’s knights, before revealing his coup de grace: One of the knights had fled to their village when his grandfather was a child, and was still living in the monastery.

Mark knew who it had to be. Everyone in the village knew the monks of St. Bertin, and only one monk could possibly be old enough to be a knight of the Round Table. But he knew he had to be careful, if he wanted the old monk to talk to him - and Mark desperately wanted the old monk to talk to him. The only thing better than stories about King Arthur’s knights was hearing a knight tell the stories himself.

“Good evening to you, Brother Michele,” said Mark as sweetly as he could.

The old man merely nodded at him but kept walking. Mark was slightly discouraged but kept up with him. “How have you been feeling lately?”

“Old,” said the monk shortly. Mark didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept pressing. “Would you like my help with anything?”

“No,” said the old monk. He quickened his pace, and Mark had to half-run to keep up with him. The monk had a very long stride. “Are you sure? I can“

The monk stopped so suddenly that Mark nearly ran into him. “Do you need something from me, boy? Why do you pester an old man so?”

Mark nearly lost his nerve here, but he mustered up his courage. “I heard that you are a knight of the round table. Is it true? Did you fight in the war with Mordred? Did you quest for the Holy Grail? Was Arthur really your friend?”

Mark said all of this in a rush, barely able to contain himself. The old monk lowered his head. “Who told you this?” He wasn’t looking Mark in the eye.

“My grandfather.”

“Your grandfather. I see. Well, boy, let me tell you the truth. I did not fight in any war against Mordred. I never obtained the Holy Grail. And…” The old monk paused here. “Arthur was not my friend. Now leave me alone.”

He started walking again, lengthening his strides even more to leave Mark behind. But Mark was undaunted. He was not a stupid child, and noticed the nuance in the monk’s answers. He was more sure than ever that his grandfather had spoken the truth, and the old man really was a knight. “Wait! Please! Let me be your squire!”

The monk did not even break his stride. “No. Leave me alone.”

“I’ll do whatever you ask, I swear it.”

The monk paused. “Anything?”

The boy looked up at the old man, his face full of hope. “Anything.”

“Very well. Go to the chapel and pray until the sun rises. Now leave me alone.”

The boy did as he asked, but to the old monk’s surprise, when he returned to the chapel in the morning the boy was still waiting there, praying.

From then on, Mark became the old monk’s shadow. On Brother Michele’s orders he helped the other monks with their physical labors, performed tasks as instructed, and was a constant presence in the monastery. The brothers were confused as to why he followed Brother Michele around like a puppy, for the old monk had strictly instructed Mark to mention nothing of his past.

The old monk rarely gave more than a crumb of detail about himself in exchange, but Mark didn’t care. He knew who Brother Michele really was, and that was enough for him - for now.

Things went like this for some time, the days stretching into a sort of peaceful tedium. The consensus among the townsfolk was that Mark was destined for a vocation, but Mark knew better. He, too, would be a knight - if he but had the patience. And while Mark was not patient in most things, there was nothing he would not do to become a knight. So he served quietly and faithfully.

Then, one day, the Beast appeared.

Wolves were not unknown to the village of Vallon de Orchidée, and the townsfolk, while obviously cautious, did not fear them unduly. A stab to the head kills a wolf as well as a man. But this monster was…stranger.

He was first spotted around the sheep, but curiously, he did not seem interested in killing them. Just waiting, as if he was expecting someone. Still, one could not simply leave a wolf around sheep, so three men banded together to confront the creature.

This was the first time the Beast spoke. His lips did not move when he talked, but he bared his massive teeth, as if he was growling at them. His yellow eyes were pitiless and cold. Bring me the white-haired knight.

The men were astonished and confused.

“Did you hear it?”

“I heard it! The creature spoke!”

“It’s of the devil!”

The Beast was slowly pacing back and forth in front of them. Though all three men had reputations for bravery and hardiness, they all quaked with fear. Bring me the white-haired knight, and I will trouble you no more.

One of the men gathered the courage to speak. “But - but there is no knight who lives in this village! Honest to God!”

The wolf snarled, and all three men jumped. Then you will not bring me the white-haired knight?

“We can’t! There is no white-haired knight!”

Then die.

And with a flash of snapping fangs and wicked paws, two of the men were killed on the spot. The third was slashed across the face, a nasty but not fatal wound that left him screaming, more in fear and grief than pain. You live. Tell your people to bring me the

white-haired knight, and I will trouble them no further. If they do not, I will kill one man every day, until every man, woman, and child in this village is dead. I will find the white-haired knight.

The Beast then bounded off, leaping over fences with an almost supernatural strength until it was out of sight.

Of course, in the village this created pandemonium. The villagers’ first reaction was that they would not be such cowards as to send one of their men to be slain by an evil Beast. Parties of men got together and searched for the monster.

The attitude changed when, day after day, each group was slain, leaving only one survivor, who always had the same simple message from the Beast: Bring me the white-haired knight.

After a week of this, the villagers were quite prepared to send the white-haired knight in, except for one problem: They did not know who it was. Things were getting desperate and grim.

Mark knew, but being a young boy, he was not permitted to speak in town meetings, and his opinion, when given, was not valued. His grandfather knew, but he was almost entirely bedridden, and the only one who ever listened to him anyway was Mark.

So Mark waited. He knew that when the time came, his liege Lord - that is how he thought of Brother Michele, though Brother Michele vociferously denied any such thing - would act.

Yet Brother Michele did nothing. Two weeks had passed since the Beast’s arrival, and over two dozen men and several children had already died. Mark felt as if he could hold back no longer. One morning he finally confronted Brother Michele.

“My Lord“

“Don’t call me that.”

“Brother Michele. I have…will you…”

The boy did not know how to bring the topic up. He feared offending the old man.

“Out with it, boy.”

“Why do you not confront the Beast?” The words came tumbling out of Mark’s mouth before he could soften them, but once spoken he did not regret them.

The old monk turned to the boy. “Confront the Beast? And why should I?”

“It asks for the white-haired knight. You are white-haired and a knight. It must mean you.”

Brother Michele was silent for a moment. “I am a knight no more. I cannot help.”

“You can! I know you can! Even now, I see how strong you are. And you fought with Arthur! In the Round Table! Surely“

“ENOUGH!” The old man had never yelled in Mark’s presence before - perhaps had not yelled in many a year. Mark was shocked into silence. “I told you, I am no knight. I am no credit to Arthur, or the round table, or any lordly ideals you pretend I have. I am an old man waiting to die. And if I fight the Beast…” Here the old monk swallowed, looking off into the distance. “...I will only bring death upon myself sooner. I cannot help you. Find someone else.”

Mark couldn’t believe what he was hearing. While the old man had never shown any knightly qualities before, Mark was thoroughly convinced that was only because he had not had to. A knight, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, no less, giving up in front of him - the very idea was utterly unthinkable. It was impossible.

An older man would perhaps become jaded or disillusioned hearing this, but Mark was young yet, and his youthful idealism had not entirely left him. So he got angry.

He balled his fists and, despite being several feet shorter, got as much into the old monk’s face as he could. “You - you coward! People are dying.”

Despite himself, the old monk could not bring himself to look into the boy’s face. Shame burned within him, loathe as he was to admit it. “They are not my people. It is not my duty to save them.”

“It is the duty of any Christian man to do what one can. And you a knight! You - you“

Mark was so angry he could barely find the words. “Enough of you. You were right all along. Whatever you once were, you’re no true knight now.” He spat on the old man’s shoes and marched off.

The old monk did not reply to him. What was there to say? The boy was right.

Brother Michele thought that this was the last he would see of young Mark, and was satisfied, at least, that he would be able to end his days in peace. But fate had something else in store for him.

Bursting through the chapel doors that afternoon, while the old monk prayed silently, an old man limped into the room. Though he was actually younger than Brother Michele, he looked older. His eyes were caked with white, so he could barely see, and his right leg did not bend properly. He breathed heavily, and was leaning on a stick. “You,” he said. “Get up.”

Brother Michele was on his knees in prayer. He did not move. “No. Leave me alone.”

The old man limped towards the pew, squinting, then poked Brother Michele in the chest with his walking stick. “I know who you are. You are the white-haired knight. And I will tell you something I did not tell my grandson. You are Sir Lancelot du Lac, Arthur’s greatest knight. Now get up! Find your courage! Fight the Beast!”

This time Brother Michele stood up. He towered over the old cripple, but the half-blind old man did not flinch. “So you are the boy’s grandfather. You remember my arrival, then?”

“I do,” said the old man. “Though I was only a boy at the time, and you would not talk to anyone then either. And nobody will listen to a senile old man…nobody but my grandson. Still, it didn’t take a genius to work out who you were. The war in Britain had just ended. Mordred and Arthur were dead. Joyous Gard empty. Guinevere consecrated. And then you show up here, as strong and handsome as the day you entered Arthur’s service. Yes, I remember - even if nobody else does. And now the time has come to take up arms again. Stand up! Fight!”

But the old monk just shook his head. “There is much you don’t know. I cannot fight. I’m sorry. But I can’t.”

“You can,” said the old cripple, punctuating each word by shoving the walking stick into the monk’s broad chest, “And you will. Because you owe me, personally.”

For the first time Brother Michele looked confused. “What? How?”

“My grandson, you fool. When you broke his heart and tried to crush his dreams - and failed, by the way, for his spirit is hardier than yours - he took up arms and went out to confront the beast himself. He is holing up in the ruins of the old monastery, calling out for him, looking for a chance to strike the creature down. And it’s all because of you, you old coward. If I were a younger

man, I’d belt you then go searching for the beast myself, but I am half-blind and barely mobile. This is your fault. This is your responsibility. Do you still choose to run, and leave a child who loves you to die at the jaws of a monster? Has King Arthur’s greatest knight fallen so low that he lets mere boys fight his battles for him?”

The words pierced the old monk’s heart, for he knew they were true. Inwardly, for a moment, he struggled. He was still afraid to die. But…

But the boy loved him.

He nodded. “Bring me a sword.”

The old man grinned, and drew a rusty sword from his side. “This sword is old and in poor shape, but it is the only one I own. I too used to fight as a young man, though it has been many a year indeed. Now go, Sir Lancelot, and fight once more. Save my grandson. Go!”

And Lancelot went out under the gray and cloudy sky to seek out the Beast and save the boy.

Lancelot - he had not been called by that name in many decades - knew where the boy was staying. On the edge of the abbey property lay the ruins of an older abbey - so old that it was already in disrepair when Lancelot first arrived, 75 years ago. It had been abandoned for a larger building and left untouched.

This is where Mark had set himself up, armed with a knife. He trembled as he stood, defiant, calling out to the Beast. For Mark, despite his age, was no coward.

Lancelot ran for the old abbey. As he ran, unbidden, a vision of his past flashed through his mind, as it had done every day for the past 75 years - the moment of his life he regretted the most.

It was five days after the Battle of Camlann. Arthur had been badly wounded, and had to be spirited away from the battlefield, assumed dead. Mordred was dead, nearly cut in two by King Arthur, according to Sir Bedivere. Mordred’s sons were causing problems, but their deaths were not Lancelot’s goal. Let Constantine take up Arthur’s crown. Lancelot had greater purposes.

Lancelot arrived once again in a devastated Britain. He had not taken part in the civil war there - no friend of Mordred’s but not trusted by Arthur. In fact, the war had moved so quickly that Arthur could not have gotten word to Lancelot in time even if he had wanted to; everything that Arthur had spent careful decades building up seemingly collapsed almost overnight.

But Lancelot had not come for the war. He had come to meet someone.

The woman he loved was staying in a nunnery. Lancelot did not know why; perhaps she was hiding out, waiting for when things were safe. Perhaps she simply thought she had nowhere else to go. Either way, Sir Bedivere had told him where she was.

He met her in the entrance hallway of the nunnery. His true love, the woman he could never forget, never leave, no matter who he hurt in the process: Queen Guinevere.

She was dressed in a habit. This surprised Lancelot, but he didn’t care. He ran to her when he saw her and embraced her.

She did not embrace him back. She kept her back straight, her arms at her sides. She did not kiss him. She did not fall into his arms. She stepped out of his arms. He could not resist her.

The sight of her was intoxicating. Lancelot grabbed her arm. He didn’t know what to say. Should he talk about Arthur? Mordred? Her kingdom?

Instead, he said, “Jenny, come with me.”

In response, she laughed a mirthless laugh. “Really? That’s all you have to say to me, Lance? Where is the regret you spoke of before…?”

“That's all that needs to be said about that. Jenny, God help you, but your kingdom is gone. Your subjects never respected you; you can’t rally them on your own. You know that. Come with me to Joyous Gard. You can be a queen again. We can be together.

There is breath in our bodies still! You don’t need to die in a place such as this!”

Guinevere didn’t look Lancelot in the eye. This stung him more than he cared to admit. “Arthur is alive, you know.”

“Jenny, answer me honestly. Will the two of you ever meet again in this life?”

She wrung her hands together as if washing them of some invisible stain, but did not respond at first. Then: “No.”

“Then come with me. May God forgive me, but out of all of this, if we can still be together…that is a life I can accept. It is something I can live with. Can’t you? Won’t you?”

Guinevere did not cry. It was one of the things Lancelot had always loved about her. She never cried, not in sorrow or pain.

“I’m sorry, Lance. I can’t. I won’t! I can never accept this.” She finally looked him in the eye. The old queenly look, a look of authority and dignity, was still hers. “Do you not understand what we did? We betrayed your friend, my husband. I made him cuckold

for years, the greatest man I’ve ever met. Everything that happened since - the war with you, the betrayal from Mordred, his injuryall of it is because of us. And you want to run off? Have a happy ending? As if we never did any of that?”

She shook her head. “I won’t do it, Lance. I won’t! And neither should you.”

Guinevere’s words were like daggers to Lancelot’s heart, because every word was true. His romantic demeanor dropped. He scowled at her, and had to physically walk away to prevent himself from slapping her. “So you think you can just walk away? And what ? Staying in this…this nunnery will atone for what you did? You intend to do nothing but pray until you die? Don’t be a fool! You committed your sins. You can never atone- not for sins such as ours.”

Even as Lancelot said this, he knew how she would respond. “I? I atone? Of course not, Lance. The blood on our hands is too great. No water in the world can wash it off. But the living water can do all things. You of all people should know that more than anyone else.” She shook her head and turned aside. “Yes. I intend to spend the rest of my life in prayer and penance - not because I can make up for what I did, but because I know of One who can. But you…”

She reached out and touched Lancelot’s face, and for a moment there was real tenderness. “You can do more than I. You can rally people, have them follow you. Salvage some small piece of Arthur’s dream. I know you, Lance. You loved Arthur - more than I even did.”

Lancelot already regretted what he had said. He turned aside from Guinevere’s touch, and the familiar feeling of shame crept back into his soul. “I am sorry for coming, my lady. Forgive me - you are right. We can never be together. But you are wrong about one thing. I am too - too“

“Too

what, Lance?”

But Lancelot did not - could not - answer. Instead he got back on his horse and rode - back to his waiting ship, back to France, past Joyous Gard, where he would never step foot again, until he found a small French village with a monastery.

He knew he was not worthy of power, of carrying on the legacy of Arthur. He could never fight again. Because deep down, Lancelot knew that if Guinevere had asked him to run off, he would have gone in an instant.

All of this again went through Lancelot’s mind. For he knew what the Beast really was. It was Death - his death. Not the physical death of the body, but worse, the death of the soul. Sir Lancelot was being made to face his demons, whether he wanted to or not.

And now, even now, he was not ready.

He could not win. And he knew it.

Still he ran. The old heroic spirit could not be entirely snuffed out. Deep in his heart, Lancelot knew that he could not let a child die for his sins. Much of his old life was gone, buried under his grief and shame, but even his weak and feeble sense of duty knew that he could not let this stand.

If I must die, thought Lancelot, I only get what I deserve. The boy shall live yet.

It was midday, but dreary and cloudy, when Lancelot arrived at the ruins. He was already exhausted from running all that way, his breath heavy, sweat starting to drip.

The old abbey was smaller than the one Lancelot and the other monks currently lived in, and much of the roof was caved in, but it was still large enough that Lancelot was worried that he would not be able to find the boy in time.

He need not have worried. Standing on top of a pile of rubble, brandishing a knife and trembling, stood Mark. He was yelling into the sky. “Come and take me, Beast! I dare you! Come on! The white-haired knight may not come, but I will!”

There was no sight of the Beast at that moment, and for a second Lancelot dared to hope that perhaps they could escape without fighting it.

Then:

Foolish boy.

The words slithered into Lancelot’s ears like a snake. His heart nearly stopped with fear.

In the distance, on top of a small hill, was the Beast. He bounded in the boy’s direction, in front of him within two leaps.

So, you will not bring me the white-haired knight?

“He - he won’t come.” The boy trembled, but held his knife in front of him bravely. The Beast’s eyes narrowed.

Then die.

And he raised a massive paw to strike the boy down.

“Hold, Beast!”

Lancelot had sprinted to within twenty feet of the monster. He paused, one paw up, and turned towards Lancelot. Then his lips curled upward.

Ah. So, you came after all.

Mark was amazed and excited. “Brother Michele! You came! You came!”

Lancelot drew his sword. “The boy has no quarrel with you. I’m the one you want. Fight me.”

Lancelot tried to sound brave, but the run up had sapped his strength, and though he hid it better than Mark, someone observant could see the fear shaking his limbs as well. The Beast turned to Lancelot and started to growl. With pleasure. It is time for Sir Lancelot’s final fight.

And the Beast leapt at Lancelot.

It had been many years since Lancelot had picked up a blade, but there were none who had mastered the art more thoroughly. He managed to parry the Beast’s outstretched claws, knocking it aside, but the effort knocked him back several steps. With a growl that almost sounded like a roar, the Beast lunged again, its jaw heading for Lancelot’s throat, but Lancelot was just fast enough to knock him away with the flat of his blade.

The monster’s massive claws caught on Lancelot’s left arm, causing a long but shallow gash as Lancelot yelled in pain. He tried to weakly thrust in the Beast’s direction, but it knocked his sword aside.

The Beast’s eyes narrowed, and it started circling Lancelot. What is wrong, Sir knight? I thought you were the best. Were the boasts all lies?

Lancelot’s vision was blurring as sweat dripped into his eyes. His limbs felt heavy, and he could barely lift the sword. Everything around him was swimming, the effort to keep up the fight exhausting him in a way he had never felt before.

The Beast lunged forward again, only this time, it wasn’t a beast, but a brother knight - Sir Bedivere. Lancelot desperately dodged his sword blow. “Look at you, Lancelot. A disgrace to the Round Table. When Arthur needed you most, you ran away - a coward. You left his legacy to rot.”

The words of Sir Bedivere tore into Lancelot’s soul. “No! It’s not true! I couldn’t fight! I - I had no choice!”

The knight took a step back and was the Beast again. He lunged forward, and it was Mordred thrusting at his chest, a powerful blow that Lancelot desperately parried, the blade slicing his left cheek. “Do you blame me for ending Camelot, Sir knight? Fool! I fight my father, and what did you do? NOTHING! Worse! It was YOUR fault!”

Lancelot gave a clumsy overhead swing, but with a quick backstep it was the Beast that dodged with ease. Then -

His own son, his flesh and blood, Sir Galahad stood before him. Lancelot’s arms felt like lead, but Galahad swung his sword.

This time it was Lancelot’s right leg that was struck with the blow as he backpedaled desperately. “I am ashamed to call you my father. You did not raise me as a father should. Is there any duty you would not shirk? Any responsibility from which you would not run? You are no true knight. You never were!”

Lancelot was forced to draw on his strength and lift his sword to block the killing blow, and he was almost knocked to the ground. When he finally raised his head, it was the Beast again.

This time Lancelot charged forward desperately, hoping to land some sort of killing blow before he could transform again, but the Beast leapt back nimbly. One more lunge forward and -

Lancelot dropped his sword. For the person facing him was no knight.

Guinevere faced him. She was not dressed in her nun’s habit, but the royal finery that Lancelot remembered her most for.

She took a step towards him, and Lancelot ran.

His breathing was labored, and sweat poured down on his face. His vision swam around him, and he heard the Beast following behind him. Desperately he made his way over to the outer walls of the old Abbey. There was a small hole on the ground, too small for the beast to fit through, leading into what remained of the structure.

Lancelot dove to the ground. Though the fit was tight, he managed to squeeze his way in, with not a second to spare. He could feel the Beast’s snapping jaw just barely scratch at the edge of his foot, but he was through.

Lancelot turned onto his back and tried to catch his breath. His heart was beating wildly, and he could barely see through the sweat in his eyes and his swimming vision. His arm and leg bled, slowly sapping him of more and more strength. And he knew:

He was going to die. He was not safe. He had merely found a short reprieve. The Beast was coming for him. This was the end.

He was not ready.

Lancelot looked around, and suddenly realized where he was. This was the abbey chapel, a small place. The Cross, man-sized, still hung over the altar. Dim and gray sunlight came in through high windows with broken stained glass, just enough light for him to see with.

Lancelot crawled to the foot of the altar and bowed his head. He tried to pray.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…please…I am not ready…I’m sorry…”

His prayer was feeble, weak. His thought strayed to Arthur.

Arthur!

The old familiar feeling of shame washed over Lancelot as he thought of Arthur. Ah, now there was a man - a titan of a man. A greater man Lancelot had never known.

Tears filled his eyes as he remembered again his betrayal. “Arthur…please…forgive me…forgive me….”

Then something strange happened.

Though his face was lowered to the ground, Lancelot saw a warm glow fill the room. He looked up curiously, then scrambled from all fours to his knees. For standing in front of him, looking for all the world as he had when Lancelot was young, was Arthur himself. He gave off a warm and ethereal light. He stood in front of the altar, facing Lancelot, mere feet away. He gave a warm smile.

“Hello, my friend. It’s been a long time.”

And Lancelot wept.

Arthur just waited, and Lancelot, with his face covered in tears, mucus, and blood, raised his head. “Arthur - Arthur - are you -

“I am alive, my friend. Didn’t Guinevere tell you? I did not die in Camlann. I was simply taken away. And one day, I will return. But not yet. Not yet…”

“But - but why“

“I am not immortal, old friend, any more than you or any man is. I am simply…biding my time. I can come back once, and when I do, it will be Britain’s hour of greatest need. But not yet! Now I must be patient. Set aside your concern for my state. Did you want to tell me something?”

Lancelot could not bear to look Arthur in the face. “How - how can you call me friend - after what I did to you - after - after“

His voice choked with emotion, and he bent his head, sobbing.

Gently, Arthur spoke. “Lance. Look at me.”

Lancelot forced himself to look into Arthur’s eyes.

“I forgave you the second - yes, the very moment - that Guinevere told me you regretted what you did. You are forgiven. You can lay down your burden.”

Lancelot felt his cheeks burning with shame. “Guinevere was wrong. I would have run off with her after Camlann - but she would not have me. She was a better woman than I.”

“And yet you come to me now, on your knees, begging for forgiveness. Calm your heart! It is granted. Stand up straight, Lancelot.”

Lancelot got to his feet in front of the king.

“Listen to me closely. You think I failed? Nonsense! Nothing is over. You and I still live. Camelot is not dead. But you must listen to me now. Do you want to return to my Round Table, Lancelot? Do you want to be my knight once more?”

Lancelot did not hesitate. “More than anything in the whole world.”

“Then be a knight! A Beast ravages this village. Do you love me?”

Lancelot bowed his head. “I do, Lord.”

“Then obey me now! Take up your sword and defend the innocent. For THAT is the true mark of a knight of the Round Table. This village is made up of my subjects. Therefore, they are under my protection - and yours, as my knight. Do you understand?”

And finally, for the first time in many decades, Lancelot did understand. “Of course, my Lord.” Lancelot smiled. “Come now.

Do you think that I would permit a Beast to kill your subjects wantonly? A mere Beast? I am Sir Lancelot du Lac. I will not be overcome by some mindless monster. It is as good as dead.”

And Arthur’s grin broadened. The light shining from him grew brighter and brighter, so that Lancelot had to look away. “I expected nothing less from you. Now do your duty once more, and join the Round Table again!”

And Sir Lancelot clenched his jaw and his fists and nodded. “I will, my Lord. I swear it!”

But the light had faded, and Arthur was gone.

Lancelot had no time to consider what had happened. The door to the chapel was made of a rotting wood. With a crash like an explosion, the door fell apart, and in the doorway of the chapel was the Beast.

Lancelot frowned. With no sword, this would be harder. Well, no matter. He would have to fight the monster with his bare hands.

Lancelot and the Beast circled each other around the chapel. The Beast growled. Something happened. You’ve changed.

“No. I am the same, Beast, as I was 75 years ago. Now prepare to meet your death!”

Bold words for an unarmed man.

Just then, there was another noise. Through the hole that Lancelot had managed to dig himself through, Mark managed to wriggle his way into the chapel - armed with the sword. “Brother Michele! Here! Your sword!”

Lancelot grinned and grabbed the sword from him. “Superb, boy! You’ll make a fine knight one day!”

If Lancelot had told Mark he would raise the dead and turn water into wine, he would not have been more excited. “You - you really mean it?”

“You have a knight’s heart. Now, stay back and watch closely. Sir Lancelot du Lac fights once more!”

And with a clash, the knight and the Beast fought their last battle.

Mark had never seen such a fight before. Lancelot did things with his sword he had simply never thought possible. He lunged, he parried, he struck. It was like watching a dancer at work.

Soon, the Beast was angry and bleeding, but he did not give up. He moved with a supernatural speed and strength, always avoiding Lancelot’s killing blow, but never managing to inflict that blow on Lancelot in kind. He’d weave and feint, snap his jaws and lunge, but Lancelot would simply laugh and taunt the monster. “Is that the best you can do? This is the Beast that killed so many men? Were you replaced with a pussycat?”

He fought with a freeness, even a joy, that amazed Mark.

To laugh - laugh! - in the face of death…!

This was what Mark knew a Knight of the Round Table was supposed to be. And to think, not just any knight! It was Sir Lancelot all along!

The Beast had one thing on his side: Time. Lancelot was extraordinary, but despite his second wind, he was still old - very old. And he was getting tired. He did not say it, but Mark saw it - slowly his parries were just slightly later, his dodges just a little slower. Mark wanted to watch, but the tension was almost unbearable. He turned away.

Then the Beast spoke. You defend yourself well, Sir Knight. But can you also defend the child? Save him, if you dare!

Mark opened his eyes in horror. Across the tiny chapel, under the altar, the Beast had turned and was staring at him with his pitiless yellow eyes, Mark raised up his arms -

“NO!” yelled Lancelot.

Mark was braced for the leap, but at Lancelot’s yell, he peeked through his arms. Lancelot tackled the Beast to the ground. The monster and the man wrestled each other, the monster’s jaw snapping, Lancelot using his immense strength to hold back his jaw. His sword was lying on the floor, feet away from him.

Mark knew - if he really wanted to be a knight, if he wanted to accomplish his dream, this was his moment. He had to act one more time.

Mark sprinted across the chapel, dodging his way through the half-destroyed pews and the cracks in the old stone floor of the chapel. He leapt over the rolling, wrestling battle between the knight and the monster and grabbed the sword from the chapel floor.

“Sir Lancelot! Catch!”

Lancelot heard the boy. With a burst of almost superhuman strength, he held back the Beast with one hand and caught the boy’s throw. The sword was large, and it took the boy all of his strength to heave it over to the knight, but Lancelot caught it with the grace of an acrobat.

It all ended with one fluid motion. With a slash and a yell of triumph, Lancelot struck the Beast’s head from its body. It rolled across the floor of the chapel and landed at the far wall.

The Beast was dead.

Sir Lancelot stood, holding the massive body of the Beast in one arm, and his sword held high in the other, and for one second, it seemed to Mark as if he was young once more, his hair not white, but flowing blonde, his face free of wrinkles and handsome.

“Behold! The Beast is dead at my hand! I am a knight of the Round Table, subject of Arthur, King of the Britons! No man nor monster is a match for me! Hear my boast: Camelot will rise once more. Arthur will return, or my name is not Lancelot du Lac!”

Then the old monk collapsed. He was dead before he hit the ground.

In the village of Vallon de Orchidée, an old man was buried. He was neither statesman nor king, but a simple monk, living a life of penance for 75 long years, yet his funeral was attended by the entire town.

Only one young boy and his grandfather knew his true name, but it didn’t matter. The Village knew their savior.

And so the legacy of Camelot lived on.

LATE FEES

by Will Musgrove

I check my voicemail. Apparently, I owe Blockbuster late fees for an unreturned DVD of Weekend at Bernie’s even though the Blockbuster in town had gone out of business over two decades before. I call back, get a “Your call cannot be completed as dialed” message, and hang up. Figure someone spoofed the number to prank me.

While idling at a red light, I google the plot of the film. The titular Bernie dies. Two salesmen attempt to convince everyone he’s still alive. The light turns green. I accelerate. I’ve just gotten off, and a thin layer of pig guts coats my shirt, forming the shape of an archway. I work the second shift at the slaughterhouse on the south side of town, stacking cured pork bellies for eight hours a day.

I’m driving to see my buddy, Greg. He used to work in my department until our supervisor fired him for calling in too much, for accumulating too many points. Greg handed me his address on his last day and invited me to stop by after work, which I’ve been doing for about a week.

When we worked together, we talked about all kinds of shit, but his favorite was asking me hypothetical questions. “Would you rather have a billion dollars and lose yourself or live forever and always struggle financially?” Greg would say over the everpresent hum of the freezers. Then we’d spend the next hour or so analyzing my answer. Made the day go quicker.

After Greg got canned, I tried to come up with my own hypothetical questions to ask, but just like how you can’t coin your own nickname, you can’t answer your own hypotheticals, so I gave up. You need a second person. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I knock on his screen door, and Greg welcomes me in with a nod, an episode of The Jerry Springer Show playing on his ancient tube television. When I visit his house, we mostly just watch late-night trash TV. We don’t talk much. On the episode of Springer, two men wrestle in a kiddie pool filled with mud, vying for a woman’s love.

“Hey, Greg, would you rather be on Springer or Maury?”

Greg just shrugs, laughs as one of the muddy men slips and falls on his ass, and I wonder, if I quit coming here after work, whether Greg would cease to exist, or whether I would. The episode ends. We say our goodbyes, the credits for Springer flickering on the screen, and I leave.

I take the backroads home instead of Highway 71 and pass the old Blockbuster, which is now a mattress store. I kind of hoped to see their blue-and-yellow signage lit up, maybe even catch a glimpse of an employee inside restocking the shelves with popcorn and boxes of peanut M&Ms, but everything is dark. Regardless of how much I want them to be alive and well, they remain closed, leaving Greg and me no place to pay our late fees.

PICK-UP STICKS

by Jeffrey Howard

Her gaze sweeps the litter of dry noodles for a next move. Dry spaghetti pinched between thumbs and fingers, she extracts yet another sprig like we’re playing Operation, and she’s after the wishbone. Her pile accumulates, pale yellow and haphazard, on the orange tile beside the summered forearm on which her slender body leans. Sometimes she makes me forget which end of the spaghetti box I’ve opened. Water salted on the range, element already radiant, we now collect my mess. Supper will wait, as will her roommates, whose favor I curry by cooking. Like two bomb techs cutting tangled wires or parents moving in the dark to prevent a baby’s waking, we still our breath, our trembling hands. The steam thickens, beading on the window.

FOR YOU, ANYTHING

by Jeffrey Howard

Some cool tap water rubbed on my face after dinner has diluted the warmth of chilies on my lips. Yet it lingers. You breathe, and I smell onions in your hair. On a mattress the same age as our marriage, we lie forearm to neck, unspeaking. You’ve been upright all day, and my arches are screaming, muscles stretched tighter than a steel banjo string. To retrieve pajamas from the dresser seems an unthinkable journey.

I hear no noise from the bedroom down the hall. Our young sons, cairned in their bunk bed, have surrendered. When my stomach breaks the silence, creaking like the bathroom door, its brass-plated hinges pulling off the frame, you declare that next time simple words of affirmation will suffice: I do not have to eat the whole pan of enchiladas.

But you exaggerate, I think. Or misremember. I ate only half the pan. About four, no more than five, and not once thought of you. Not once while my tongue explored the coupling of sour cream and cumin, the tear of hot tortilla, melting chicken behind my teeth.

I will add, though, given another chance, for you, I would eat the whole pan. Please believe, in fact, that I would do more. Oh, so much more. Here in the pallid cast thrown by the bathroom light against our sad door, only ask me. Ask me to remove your socks. Let me tune the strings in your frayed shoulders, your neck, your throbbing calves. Settle your head in the pillow’s deep. Prepare eyes for dreams. Whisper whatever you need, my love. I can reach almost anything from here.

HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE

by Heather Rae Ackerman

So what if the Floridian ocean is too hot for pink shrimp to stay alive?

You'll just go to Iceland this year. It's a smoke day in the Northeast! Wear a mask. The dog needs walking at an inconvenient time, and so doors are slammed.

Uneasiness is getting boring. You don't want to breathe any oxygen into this, but the conditions are right for an air warningthe hairs on the back on your neck stand up and the leaves turn over, clear and present danger of a storm, basement cleared out and candles countedthe kid sensed it first. The adults are still planning dinner placidly in the aftermath, (fried chicken? You want to do fried chicken?) while there is a packed cartoon backpack in the sunroom, because we can say this about the zoomers: they understand nihilism like a fish understands water. Look at the girl. Her middle name is danger.

You try to protect her but she didn't feel safe in a time when her bones were still growing, so maybe now she never will.

You try to tell her about the women in this family, put tools in her hands. Ocean rises around your knees and it takes you so long to parse the clues and discover what you feel is anger. Catch and release the looks of naked contempt. Intercept the bad faith messages. Translate. Endlessly translate, because the war department and the tactical team

do not speak the same language, and their fingerprints are all over the red button that they caress but do not press. Summer nights are for restlessness. Telephone poles are down and on the ground. You pick up sparks of anxious energy from the live wires. Somewhere in space you don't know, black holes stretch and stars die, and the moving parts of life sink into entropy. Somewhere in places you think of in therapy heat lightning brings down an old tree. Being home is getting harder, because their unhappiness is like an open tomb. Out back, the cicadas sound like a keening, always at peak, always crying breeding, breeding, breeding, life is short and hot and beautiful, it sounds to you like they're saying you too should be frenzied with love! But in fact they are screaming, trying to tell you the house is on fire.

by Susan Kouguell

WITNESS PASSION

IN TIMES SQUARE

by Susan Kouguell

BARBIE

AGE OF THE CATBOYS

by Avra Margariti

“I need a photo,” I tell my granddaughter. “A profile one.”

She’s been El ever since her return from summer camp. What’s so wrong with Eleonora? I’ve worn the name for eighty years.

She taps at her phone with rainbow nails, bitten to the quick as if looking for gold. “What for?”

“It’s for a gentleman, very distinguished.”

I lead El into my computer room. She groans as the large beast takes its time coming to life. I expect the usual adolescent indignation. But the look on her face is gentle enough to cut.

“Grandma, do you know what a catfish is?”

I laugh. “Isn’t that your little boyfriend?”

El rolls her eyes. “Mikis is a catboy, and it’s an aesthetic. A catfish is an online scammer.”

I think of the photos El showed me from art camp. The boy she met there, with his acne scars and cat-ear headbands. Their matching pastel shirts and jingle-bell collars. Their matching smiles for the camera.

“He’s no scammer,” I say, stroking my computer. It purrs, feline under my fingertips. “We’ve been courting for months.”

El is a sharp thing. With her teachers, her mother, me. But now, I cannot catch my breath in the face of her terrible softness. “How about some tea?”

“How about that picture?” I ask. Always ignored. “You promised.”

El prepares the tea herself, although she doesn’t know the first thing about different blends and correct steeping times. My gentleman would know. She texts her catboy, the rainbow polish of her nails a gray-sludge blur of velocity. I would ask her to teach my arthritic hands how to type like that, but she would surely judge me again. Always judged.

“Mikis is a hacker. He’ll erase that scammer’s profile in no time,” El says. “Isn’t he’s a lifesaver?”

A car honks outside; El’s mother done with errands, here to pick her up. My daughter doesn’t come inside since her father’s death. She can’t stand to see me, or the empty house, or both.

When I was El’s age, I was already engaged. We had no art camp then. No velvet-soft cat ears and rainbow nail polish.

“El, the photo,” I plead once more.

She feathers a kiss against my forehead. “Next time, I promise.” Always a next time.

El leaves. The chimes of her catboy’s text messages echo bell-like in my empty kitchen.

In my bedroom, I switch off all the lights and lie under my patchwork quilt.

I haven’t asked what my gentleman’s favorite animal is. Certainly not a house cat. I think of my own answer. I count cunning kestrels, lithe gray wolves, mighty gorillas as I fall asleep.

I’m on the highest floor of a burning building, hanging off a marble balcony. Cameras and helicopters circle me, the crowd below calling, hold on, you can make it, here he comes, your lifesaver.

Here he comes, my distinguished gentleman, my chimera-man. He has wings with which to fly and claws with which to cling to the marble facade, and strong, warm arms in which to grab me--always held--as the building falls down, down, down.

MILE 2

by Abdullah Jimoh O.

Traumatic traffic gaslights me.

I am beginning to think the ashoka trees

Move faster than this bus. This is The city of yellow buses. The reality is trying To smother me. Four hours in traffic & vehicles are still snailing through the road. Sandwiched by other sweaty passengers, there Is a rowdiness here and in my thoughts.

One agbero bangs a wooden peg on our bus, Waking those asleep already. As he speaks, His breath reeks of gin. Here, sometimes legs Are faster than vehicles. Countlessly, I look up

To the sky from the window, as if pleading With God, to descend or send one of his angels

To remove whatever the fuck is causing the hold-up. Bikes breeze past every tiny space they can get. I am tempted to get down from the bus and walk To my destination. But I have paid and The drivers here don't refund the fare And Mile 2 is still some miles away.

EID IN THE GHETTO

by Abdullah Jimoh O.

Again, you bathe in the tight-rat-and-ant-infested bathroom. You have choice but the choice is one: to bathe still in the same small-as-coffin bathroom. Then you dress up and go out, to the mosque for the festival prayer. The mosque is small too, can't contain the people. So they overflow and spill onto the road. Sprawl their mat on the asphalt floor. Then you go to the shop of your host after prayer, because here, death day is the only rest day. You eat the food you are given: white rice crowned with crimson stew and square size meats. People moving to and fro like it's a normal day, only that their new and shiny attires say otherwise. You wonder if people still wear lace fabric when you see a man who don one with its glistening sequins. The gutter and the vicinity of the general garage nearby stink of urine and other unnamable elements. You cover your nose with your folded handkerchief but the hyper-foul smell still pierce in. Then rain runs in by past four, after asr, sending everyone home. You close the shop and go home. In the sitting room at home, you work for a while on your research paper while music blasts in the neighborhood from hefty speakers with hefty tune, making Qdot a loudmouth. Then by evening, you recollect the broken day semi-haphazardly in a poem, like the pieces of a broken mirror recollected with a broom and a parker.

ABERRATION, AGAIN

by Aaron Lelito

A SENTIENCE

by Aaron Lelito

MEN AT PLAY

by Hendri Yulius Wijaya

Translated by Edward Gunawan

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

The original poems in this document are by Hendri Yulius Wijaya, written in Bahasa Indonesia mixed with a spattering of English words and expressions. They are published as a full-length collection Stonewall Tak Mampir di Atlantis (translation: There’s No Stonewall in Atlantis) by Indonesian publisher “Buku Mojok Grup” in 2020 (ISBN # 978-623-91089-9-1).

Hendri Yulius Wijaya, the poet of the original work, is one of the rare handful of openly-out queer writers writing/publishing in Bahasa Indonesia and from/in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world. The translator of this work, is a fellow openly-out queer Indonesian. Both are also of Chinese heritage, an ethnic minority in Indonesia that, as a community, has faced discrimination and persecution.

The author has granted the translator permission to translate the work into the English language, and both author and book publisher have granted the translator reprint rights of the original poems to be published alongside the translated work. While a handful of translated poems from this book (translated into the English language by this translator) has been published in various literary journals, there has not been a complete translation of the collection.

In keeping with the author’s intentions of highlighting the plurality of languages found in the original text, the translator has approached the translation in the following ways:

- [ Text in brackets ] denotes Indonesian words that appear in original poems, including Indonesian queer slang.

- Italicized text denotes English words that appear in original poems.

- With the author’s permission, footnotes that appear at the bottom of the original poems have either been reproduced as epigraphs or moved to the Endnote section. Endnotes in bold are translated reproductions from the original poems, while [ endnotes in bold and in brackets ] are translator’s additions. Some may not be necessary for Western readership, and the translator will work with editors/publishers on their inclusion in journal and/or book publications.

- Commonwealth English words and expressions in original poems have been adapted into North American’s context and spellings.

- Original poem in Bahasa Indonesia is included after each translated piece.

Sadako crept out of the TV

to make a brief transit on an external hard disk, before being cloned to Google Drive then set to roam free on BitTorrent those pumped-up men rushing straight from the gym to dive into a computer aquarium the size of a bathtub “ so fresh after working out,” with a devil-may-care swagger then dressed in the smoothest slickest uniform to pursue lofty dreams and aspirations for the benefit of the world’s citizenry

be doctor, soldier, teacher, mafia, lawyer, and even hot step-daddy some even achieved success as famous entrepreneurs: Lucas Entertainment deliberately created heaven on earth ropes of muscle like fiber optic tendrils continue to propagate unimpeded even if once shackled by Occupy Wall Street to remind Men's Health with audio tuned to Dolby 7.1 all around you not to forget Creatine, BCAA, Whey Protein, keto diet for Amex is here to help

at next year's Pride parades let’s take a group selfie

Eric Rhodes has not worked out since 2012.

Sadako merayap keluar dari TV

transit sebentar di hard-disk eksternal, sebelum di-copy ke dalam Google Drive

lalu diizinkan pelesir dalam BitTorrent

lelaki-lelaki berotot sekal itu

menukik langsung dari gym hingga tercebur

ke dalam akuarium komputer seukuran bathtub

“biar fresh sehabis exercise,” timpal mereka seenak udel

lantas bersalin dengan seragam yang paling licin dan klimis

untuk mengejar impian dan cita-cita luhur

demi kemaslahatan penduduk dunia

jadi dokter, tentara, guru, mafia, pengacara, bahkan hot step-daddy

beberapa bahkan meraih sukses sebagai wirausahawan termasyhur:

Lucas Entertainment sengaja menciptakan heaven on earth

serat-serat otot seperti sulur-sulur optik terus merambat tanpa hambat

meski sudah sekali dipasung Occupy Wall Street

untuk mengingatkan Men’s Health

dengan suara yang disetel dalam Dolby 7.1

all around you

agar tak kelupaan Creatine, BCAA, Whey Protein, diet keto

karena Amex is here to help di pawai Pride tahun depan mari kita selfie-selfie cyantik.

Eric Rhodes lupa pergi fitness sejak 2012.

Endnote:

Men at Play

- [ Men at Play ]: A video production company based in the United Kingdom specializing in adult films of gay men in suits.

- [ Sadako ]: Character and title of a supernatural horror film directed by Hideo Nakata (1998).

- [ Lucas Entertainment ]: An American video production company specializing in gay adult films.

- Pride Parades: Celebratory marches for the LGBT community which are now held in many big cities in various parts of the world.

- Eric Rhodes: A gay adult film star who died by suicide in 2012. An article entitled "An Early Death but Perhaps Not a Surprise" written by Jacob Bernstein on the pages of The New York Times briefly tells about Eric's career journey.

BROWN CITY

by Agboola Tariq A. Swan II

here, one does not bury curses in the belly of the ground, cause in my language, earth [ilè] is a homonym for home[ilé], & my people do not throw curses at their homes. the roofs take the colour of the earth, to show how war rusts in the history of our home/land. during rainfall, the clouds catch cold & sneeze our prayers back to us. children predict the sound of thunder & their mothers turn ears towards the storm, reading the rhythm of its rage. any opening in the sky could be a boy's father, fading into God's voice. in dry season, there is a likeness between the people & the land lips cracked open like the walls of our homes. our bodies, dry & drab, lack the moisture to un-dry our land. beautiful faces filtered with brown powder, & every face has a story written on it. here, the atmosphere reeks of history, & the land hills towards it.

RANCOR

by Glen Shaheen

HEAVEN

The dream Paul told us jokes about dying, said he didn’t have a lot of time left. You’re not supposed to say that out loud, somebody said, maybe I said. It was his stomach, the amazing cook, the foodie who fed us figs from his own tree. I blame Houston’s water, refineries, radiation from whatever’s in our soil.

Hey ma, I’m all aglow! My silly little watch, my silly little calculator.

The dream friend the only one I see, the structured books of poetry on the shelf. A memory of eating a half a pig’s head, a good photo op.

Tony, hated now, he’d love that. Another loved one Houston forced into memory. Not enough dreams on a day to day basis, not enough visions clear against the yawn’s black. In the dream I proposed marriage to a friend. It was a gift, my complications and sorrow. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.

The children’s gizmo where you put your hand in a square of pins and on the other side appears your hand in pins. Death mask a la etch-a-sketch.

Worrying about the format of the emdash in the poem. My relatives think it’s silly, I went through the door into the windy, sleety night.

And sure, there were cigarettes. A quaint horror for teens these days. Every little carcinogen a roll of the dice, the sun lolling between the mountain peaks like a skateboarder on a half-pipe.

Punched in the tummy over Whitman.

What flavor death, metal on the back of the tongue, a dropper of medicine. The eyedrops don’t go in the mouth, ya goof!

Sero molar saline solution.

In my mind the highways have become the same mountain twist. When I’m in New York in dreams it’s the same New York each time, wrong, small, six lane highways running up and down Manhattan.

Imagine all memory bursting at once. Is it all there, that’s what we think, but the tape’s only got 90 minutes, recorded over and over again.

Remembering the photos more than the women, the men. I don’t take photos anymore, a pain and I’m bad at it now that it’s so simple and nothing’s at stake. The vinegar of the developing solution hardly any of you remember that or even could. Like what would silver nitrate smell like, contaminating juices in the chemistry closet, fats lining the interior of the skull, and juices there too, not to be gross but it’s true in a sense.

Light waves oscillating off the little blobbies in our eyes.

EARTH

Rapscallions. Rhapsodies. Reagonomics, still waiting for that delicate trickle. Rowboats. Robots. Roberts. Repo men in their apologetic

cloaks. Retcons. Remoulades. Rous. Rues. Russia. Rubbing all the wrong ways. Rather Ripped by Sonic Youth. Rusted out hulks by the side of the road. Roads. Rats. Rapports. Rubber ducky, you’re the one! Rambunctious little so and sos. Rams. Ramscoops. Rest stops.

Rhythms and rhymes. Rid of it. Ripcords. Rastas. Rums. Reconnaissance drones. Roast beefs. Roger that. Reeds for all kinds of instruments, clarinets and oboes and bassoons and what have you. Regular gasolines. Rubies. Rice, awesome! Rabbit rabbit. Ribbit ribbit. Rhinoceroses. Rhinoplasties. Right turns. Rigor mortis. Ribs. Rabbis. Roosters on the fence, shut the fuck up! Regulations and or rules. Remote controls. Rimshots. Runs, fun ones and other. Rascals. Rags and riches, but mostly rags. Rin Tin Tin. Ruts. Radical!

Rashes, yeesh! Real talk. Radios. Robberies, highway, strongarm, etc. Ramshackle houses in the woods. Rivers all over the place. Rips in the best books, on the best pages. Ruckuses. Roly polys. Robins. Rewind and be kind. Reverse Retros. Regurgitation. Repulsion.

Renumeration. Rap songs. Rackets (tennis). Racquetball. Runts. Rungs, broken off by the last one up. Risks and rewards. Retro rockets. Rebellions, I hope this one takes. Rites of Spring. Ripples from the sunken ship. Reentry. Rhombi. Rectangles included. Robocalls. Ropes. Rhesus monkeys. Rolls before dinner, what a luxury to need to whet one’s appetite. Rushing to work. Rushing home after. Reps, how many you got? Ratchets. Romania. Rumplestiltskin. Rugs. Rudders. Rigging the main sail. Rwanda. Read only memory. Random access memory. Really tired, man! Request denied. Refills allowed. Rebels With and Without Cause. Reds. Ruddy cheeks in the cold (a dream here in deep Houston summer). Reading, PA. Roaming the back woods. Refunds, please. Rocks. Rotting hunks of meat in the

trash but it’s feeding something. Right button, right trigger. Rubes. Rickety old shacks in the city. Ranch dressing. Ranches on which they probably do not use any dressing. Rock and or Roll. Rube Goldberg machines. Rancor. Rinks. Ripped jeans. Rims. Robot Jox. Roxy Music. Rank and its privilege. Rang the alarm but nobody came.

HELL

Fronds across the corpse’s face. AFK in the boss battle.

Harder and harder to lie to myself about my own pain, easy to lie to everyone else. If you haven’t established yourself in the community as troubled, nobody believes you when you admit it.

Never been the same since I heard the alphabet.

Hope you’ve enjoyed hearing my ideas of heaven and shell.

The reading where a professor gave me a time out for saying the word “shit.”

A woman on the street pushing a stroller – no, it’s a garbage bag in an office chair. After the glory then comes the shame.

“The writer’s role is to be a menacer of the public conscience” – Rod Serling. The reading where nobody came except another reader’s girlfriend.

A triptych of Facebook Stories – on fire apartment building, a model showing some leg, on fire airplane engine.

In Houston forever, the land of the angry bumper sticker and angrier driver. Finding myself jealous that the stranger’s dreams of fortune are greater than the fortune I actually have.

The reading where the hosts tried to get us to help them break into a house to spend the night because they got evicted for a rat infestation.

I was bad to everyone you love and good to everyone you hate.

Darn this counterculture – it's got me all bugaboo.

Love, the last ten seconds of our lives in the air.

I swear I’m not procrastinating; I’m edging.

The reading where I unknowingly said motherfucker in front of a real actual nun who’d been arrested for protesting war.

Fronds across the friend’s face.

I buy cool things, let me prove my worth to you.

The reading where I had to answer questions about the “Arab World” despite not reading even one poem in which I spoke about being Arab.

Greater light pollution or shaking out the shadows?

I asked a person from South America if she easily noticed the different constellations and she motioned to the Houston sky, slathered in smog and light even at ten pm. You’re lucky if you can even see Orion.

GRIEVING A FRIEND

by Audra Burwell

choking

wood-dust sediments my lungs still heaving beneath black velvet cleaved the by weight gunsmoke you as whisky wraiths haunting my spine you left writhing the you in dreams of dust and decay ally the the mirror soldier above your you as the viridescent acid licking my skullbox final I artist snarled words could curls ringing Not in save me from the gum-rot of grief, lichen growing on my scalp and a ears you swarm wandering of I’m campus cicadas proud at smothering of dawn august’s you lemon I blaze and blister and burn for you are yesterday

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

by Edward Michael Supranowicz

JUMBLE AND TUMBLE

by Edward Michael Supranowicz

A QUESTION OR TWO

by Edward Michael Supranowicz

PROTEAN WEATHER

by Theo Morris

The third week of May, hail, lilies-of-the-valley pummeling the houses, a public stoning of springtime.

A storm worthy of shapeshifters, hail amasses on the grass, chiseled each minute by the sun.

Rice thrown for far-off weddings, bones of gutted halibuts, and finally, its true form shown:

barbed crystals, cracked globules, the shame of ice among new leaves, the shame of a vacuous chameleon.

Against this shade of generous green, my melting heart’s exposed, revealing a pathetic puddle, shallow thing.

THE KITSUNE PLUSHIE

by Vy Lieu

“A kitsune?”

“It’s for my nephew,” Mai Nguyen blurts out. This is a lie, but what else is she supposed to tell Kyoko? Mai isn’t supposed to bump into her roommate from college in the Japanese bookstore by Bryant Park. But as the light overhead swings over the stairwell between the ground and basement floors, perhaps she should have expected it. She draws her paper bag close. Inside, the kitsune’s cream snout scrunches together.

The cashier, who had bagged it and had tied a matching ribbon to the handle, complimented her taste. Mai ducked her head and only breathed easy when he called for the next customer.

“His birthday is coming up.” This is also a lie. The kitsune’s ears flop over its slit eyes lined by scarlet thread. The magical fox’s nine tails, furry vestige limbs sewn into one unit, cushion the bottom of the bag. This isn’t an ordinary kitsune. This kitsune lived for a thousand years, gained its ninth tail, and ascended to the heavens, henceforth the cream coat: a tenko.

Mai tries not to fidget. The people around them shoot hard glances as they sidestep her and Kyoko. A woman cusses under her breath as she stomps by.

Kyoko tilts her head, curious. “I didn’t know you shopped here too.”

“I don’t,” Mai corrects her. “Not really– sometimes I go to the top floor for the books.” She got the kitsune from downstairs, where the store displays all its products imported from Japan.

Panic sinks in Mai’s stomach. Her throat feels dry and the kitsune’s tranquil expression does little to soothe her. It wouldn’t be too late to return it now, would it? She still has the receipt at the bottom of the bag.

She brought the kitsune for herself. Mai had seen it through the display window and after loitering there for way too long, she gave into temptation. If Kyoko finds out, would she look at Mai the same way she did all those years ago?

“Nothing wrong with that,” Kyoko says warmly, but she takes a step back. But then again, Kyoko doesn’t likes standing too close to people; Mai remembers that from their college days. “This store has good stuff on both floors. I usually go here for the office supplies.”

Kyoko holds up her own paper bag. It’s filled to the brim with pastel stationary, pens, and washi tape. Her kimono robe– an adaptation of the traditional version– hangs loosely off her arm. The fabric is navy: bold and glossy in comparison to Mai’s cotton white t-shirt with the kanji for Tokyo printed on the front. If Molly sees them now, Kyoko’s kimono robe especially, would she have found issue?

Mai looks around. The glares from the passersby still sting, but Molly isn’t in the vicinity.

It’s just Mai and Kyoko.

Kyoko sets her bag on the ground. She holds her hands out, expectantly, just like the first time they met in college. “Can I see?”

What did Mai remember about Kyoko?

First, it was that Kyoko was born in Japan, but moved to California for her dad’s job. Every summer after that, she went back to visit family in Hokkaido. For college, she moved to Pennsylvania and was rooming with Mai for their sophomore year.

The first thing Mai noticed about Kyoko were the pastel colors: light pink and blue, like cotton candy. From the bedsheets to her backpack to even the pens and pencils on her desk, it was like half the room had never been dipped in shadows. From a distance though, the pastel shades looked no different from the white walls of the dorm.

“I was in Japan for the summer,” Kyoko said to Mai, a day before the first day of the fall semester. “It’s cheaper to get school supplies there. I like your fox by the way it’s so cute! Can I see it?”

They had been paired up by the lottery system. Mai just hoped Kyoko wouldn’t hate the smell of the eagle oil she used for stomach pains. Mai’s previous roommate had complained about the eucalyptus stench, even when Mai had opened the window to let fresh air waft in. Maybe as an Asian person, Kyoko would understand.

Here though, Kyoko held her hands out, stubby fingers unfurling like beach waves overtaking and then collapsing on the shore.

Mai handed her kitsune over.

If not for the nine tails, this kitsune plushie, Mai’s very first one, could have passed as an arctic fox. Black thread formed the oval eyes and red and gold threads lined its snout. The tips of the nine tails were dipped in the scarlet red. Like the red of the money envelopes Mai got every Lunar New Year from grandparents she could barely understand.

“A kitsune, right?” Kyoko asked.

Mai nodded, climbing onto her bed to tuck a thumbtack into an anime poster. “My dad got it from Tokyo.”

“Oh, cool. My relatives live in Hokkaido.” Kyoko furrowed her brow. “Sorry, but are you also–?”

Mai shook her head. The answer that should have been automated, tumbled out. “I’m Vietnamese.”

“Oh.” Kyoko paused, blinked, and then straightened herself. Stepping back, she tossed the kitsune back onto Mai’s bed. “That’s cool. There’s a big Vietnamese community in my hometown. Their phở is to die for.”

It didn’t feel cool to Mai, being Vietnamese. In Pennington, New Jersey, she could count the number of Vietnamese people she knew on one hand. Her family’s history was simple; the War happened and her grandparents exchanged generations’ worth of wealth for passage out of South Vietnam. They never spoke of the war again and in broken English, they made Mai swear to never visit Vietnam. Her parents continued the tradition and by the time Mai was born, English had replaced the language spoken in their dreams. Vietnamese had dissolved for them, silver lines left by surgical scars.

Mai met Molly through Kyoko. Molly and Kyoko had been in the same orientation group in their first year and after marathon watching a tv show for three days and eating only greasy pizza and fries, they began holding study dates in each other’s rooms.

“I wouldn’t have met half of my friends if not for her. Would’ve roomed with her too if she didn’t already have a roommate,” Kyoko admitted once to Mai. She smiled apologetically. “Not that you’re bad though.”

A week into the fall semester, when Kyoko brought Molly over to their room for a study date, Mai waved to her over her sketchbook. Molly, with her wavy dark hair and dark eyes, set her bag down. She nodded, half bowing to Mai in greeting before she turned to Kyoko.

“You didn’t tell me that your roommate was Asian,” she said.

“Happy coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Well, that’s good for you. The last thing we need are more white girls to deal with.”

Mai tilted her head. She thought Molly was white.

Molly frowned at her. “What?”

Mai shook her head. “Nothing.” She noticed the enamel pin collection on Molly’s bag. There was the Pride Flag, the Black Pride symbol, and the Japanese Flag fastened to the front pocket. “Is that the Japanese flag?”

“Molly’s also Japanese,” Kyoko spoke up, turning to Molly. “It’s your mom’s side, right?”

Molly nodded. “But I’m still Asian.”

“That’s cool,” Mai blurted out. “I mean, I didn’t realize you were Japanese like Kyoko since you look– anyways, I’ve always wanted to go to Japan. I’ve been studying the language too–”

That line of thought evaporated, however, because Molly was staring, scrutinizing Mai now. She glanced over at Mai’s side of the room, at the kitsune, sitting on a plain comforter and at the anime posters stuck against a drywall. Molly’s expression soured and why did Mai suddenly feel like she was standing in court awaiting the final verdict?

“Let’s study in the lounge instead,” Molly said, picking up her bag. The enamel pins clanged against one another. “It feels cramped in here.”

Mai frowned, scrambling off her chair. “I can go out if you want to use the room.”

But Molly was gone. Kyoko bowed apologetically before following Molly.

“How was anime club?” Kyoko asked as Mai slipped her backpack off her shoulders. The lethargy built up over the course of two classes and a club meeting was finally settling in.

“Fun. Long though,” Mai admitted, wanting to change into pajamas. And she would have if not for Molly, who was reading, sprawled over Kyoko’s tasseled rug. Hopefully Molly would leave soon. These days, Mai felt like a guest whenever they shared a space. “We just finished Dead Man’s Rise to Fame.”

“My sister said that one’s amazing.” Kyoko noted, twirling her mechanical pencil, pink as cherry blossoms, between her fingers.

“I didn’t know we had an anime club,” Molly spoke up suddenly.

Mai and Kyoko exchanged looks. Molly barely spoke to Mai, let alone acknowledged her existence. The one time Mai had tried making conversation, she had asked about one of Molly’s other enamel pins: the red kanji letter meaning pride.

“I like your pin,” Mai had said. “Where did you get it?”

“Online?” Molly had said as if Mai should’ve already known. “I got it from an artist I follow on Twitter.”

Mai had then asked what the kanji meant to which Molly had asked her why she needed to know. Mai learned not to make small talk with her after that.

“They meet once a week,” Kyoko said, clicking her pencil. The lead tip grew longer and longer. “Mai's been a member since like, our freshman year, right?”

Mai nodded.

“Huh, the more you know,” Molly said. She turned to the next page in her textbook. “You don’t go to them?”

Kyoko shrugged. “I don’t really watch anime. It’s not my thing.”

“I get you– I’m in the same boat.” Molly’s voice lowered as if the next thought was confidential. “Most of the creeps I’ve met tend to come from those circles.”

Kyoko pressed her pencil to her notebook. “That’s not the only reason.”

“Maybe you haven’t found the right anime yet?” Mai piped up. Her breath hitched as their gazes turned towards her. What was she saying? She swallowed the stale air in her throat. “There’s a lot of shows that even people who don’t watch anime like. The Makoto Shinkai films are pretty popular in the West.”

“Never heard of him,” Kyoko said. “But I can check him out. What did you say his name was again?”

“Makoto Shinkai.” Mai repeated. She frowned. “You really don’t know about him? I thought he was popular in Japan.”

“I’ve probably heard of him once or twice. But I don’t really keep up with the anime side of things.”

“Oh.” Mai looked down. Suddenly, her sketchbook became very interesting to study and to run her fingers over too, flesh gliding over the ridges of a coiled spine. “I thought he was well-known.”

“So because Kyoko’s Japanese, she has to know everyone from there?” Molly spoke up. “Really?”

Mai winced, skin prickling now. “No, no– I mean, I just thought since he’s famous and came from Japan, Kyoko would at least have heard of him.”

Molly huffed, closing her book. She glanced at Kyoko. “Is this what you meant when you said she didn’t talk about anything but Japan?”

“I didn’t say it like that,” Kyoko said quickly, frantic. Her pencil stopped in mid-stroke. Kyoko’s voice was a ribbon pulled into a knot. “C’mon Molly, she was just asking.”

Molly shook her head. “You’re being too nice. She looked over at Mai. “You do know that being Japanese isn’t the only thing to Kyoko, right?”

Mai opened her mouth, lips dry. “I didn’t–”

“Where are you from anyways? It definitely can’t be Japan.”

Did Molly really just ask that? Something heavy and cumbersome tumbled inside Mai’s stomach. She should put the eagle oil on to soothe it later. But her answer came out like change from the vending machine in the lounge. “My parents are from Vietnam.”

“I thought so.” Molly’s eyes glinted, shimmering, the sheen on ice. “It’s interesting, you know– I’ve met a lot of people like you. Obsessed with Japan and anime.”

Kyoko’s pencil tip chipped off, the lead piece rolling onto the floor. “Anyone can watch anime and buy a stuffed animal from Japan,” she said.

“Well yeah-” Molly said, defensively, “But don’t you think it’s weird that she’s focusing on our culture when she’s already got her own? Wouldn’t it make more sense for her to learn about Vietnamese culture instead?”

Mai stiffened.

“Molly!”

“C’mon, Ky. You know you were wondering too.”

Are you Chinese? The girls from her elementary schools had used to ask Mai. Or are you Japanese, they had continued, pulling their eyes back.

No, I’m Vietnamese, Mai would have said even if the label had been and still was a stranger’s name.

Her father got Mai the kitsune when she was eleven. When work took him to Boston, he got her a kitsune t-shirt. In Seattle, it was a poster. If a kitsune popped up, she would show it off to her classmates the next day. By the end of middle school, they called her

Fox Girl which became Kitsune Girl by high school graduation.

It was easier this way, Mai realized. It was easier to tell her classmates that a kitsune was not the same as a gumiho, the kitsune’s Korean counterpart. It was easier to show them her kitsune drawings than to explain why her parents spoke Vietnamese to her grandparents, but never to her. It was easier to list her near encyclopedic knowledge of kitsune and Japanese mythology (that she found from Wikipedia) off than to recite what she knew of Vietnamese culture- phở, bánh cuốn, and the War. And the last one, she knew the most of only because of her history classes. Maybe kitsunes weren’t part of her history, but she could become Kitsune Girl.

Kitsune Girl was someone who would be recognized.

“Don’t you get uncomfortable around her?” Molly asked.

Mai lingered at the door to her room. Of course, Molly and Kyoko were studying inside. She wondered if Kyoko had remembered the conversation from a few days ago.

“We’ll study somewhere else.” Kyoko had promised Mai once Molly had left the room that night. “You know she means well, right? Molly gets…passionate when race comes up. She’s been trying to get an Asian American protest group started here since last year.”

It aligned, seeing how Molly hung exclusively around the activist circles on campus. And how Molly also steered clear of the Asian cultural clubs and of the Anime Club, especially. And she did all that while wearing a new pin too, one of the Rising Sun Flag on her backpack.

“I couldn’t tell,” Mai had said. “Is that why she has the Rising Sun on her bag too now?”

If Kyoko had flinched, Mai pretended not to notice. Just as she didn’t need to mention to Kyoko the outraged looks the Korean and Chinese members of Anime Club gave Molly. Mai didn’t know if she should be offended as well on behalf of her grandparents, who survived not just one war, but two wars and an occupation.

Probably yes.

But now, Mai took a deep breath, remembering that this was her room, not Molly’s. Those were her dad’s words: this was her room, not Molly’s. She gripped the doorknob once more, inserting the key into the lock.

“What do you mean?” Kyoko said, “She’s not that weird about it. Anime’s always been popular.” Mai’s hand froze. The door remained shut.

“See?” Molly sounded smug. “Even you admit she’s weird–she wears fox headphones everywhere and she speaks Japanese to herself when she thinks no one is listening. You don’t have to be nice about it. She’s not Japanese but she’s like, obsessed with our culture.”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking interest in it.”

“I know that. Like it’s good and everything that our culture is getting more popular, but the way she does it it’s…Kyoko, we should be on the same team. As Japanese Americans, we have a right to say how our culture is represented. Just ‘cause she’s Asian doesn’t mean she’s beyond criticism. She’s basically white if you think about it.” ‘White’ was uttered with acid dripping off the ‘t’.

“She doesn’t even know her own language.”

“A lot of us don’t,” Kyoko pointed out. “The only reason I know is because my parents made me go to language school. And I thought you resented your mom for making you learn.”

“I’m just saying,” Molly said. “Why is she learning ours? Wouldn’t she want to learn Vietnamese instead?”

The resources for learning Vietnamese language online were scarce to begin with, Mai would have said. And those didn’t even teach the accent that her grandparents spoke with.

“You’re taking Italian-” Mai heard Kyoko say, voice sharper here. “Aren’t you German on your dad’s side?”

“Yeah, but Italian’s a romantic language,” Molly insisted. “Besides, didn’t you tell me once you thought she wished she was Japanese?”

“That was just a theory.”

“You mean observation. And apparently, a classmate who went to her high school said she used to insist on being called Kitsune Girl. It’s annoying. She doesn’t get to go in and be a creep about my culture, something I’ve been bullied over for years. And I don’t care if she’s Asian– just because we’re all Asian American, doesn’t mean we’re in the same boat. When people like her say they’re interested in our culture, all they actually care about is manga and anime. They think that’s all there is to Japan when it’s not. You can’t tell me you’re not uncomfortable, Kyoko.”

Silence. And then Kyoko’s voice came out, barely rising above the hum of the heater. “I…I don’t think you’re wrong there.”

The door lurched open. Kyoko, who sat at her desk, turned towards Mai. A smile, as practiced as a ribbon tied in a bow, came to her lips. “Oh, Mai. We were–” She gestured vaguely towards her books. “We’ll be in the common area.”

After they left, Mai rolled up her anime posters and dropped them in the recycling bin. On the weekend, she sold her fox ear headphones to a secondhand electronic store. As for her kitsune, she stared at it now. Somehow, the red dye on the tails had never faded.

Her father would be picking her up for break soon.

The tag on its rump brushed against her finger. The ink had paled over the years, but she could still make out the label at the bottom: ‘Made in China’.

Maybe she could look into Vietnamese myths for a change. She had already read all the English articles about kitsunes on the Internet anyway. And one way or another, she had an obligation to her lineage, doesn’t she? If not for her grandparents, she wouldn’t be here now.

Mai tucked the kitsune under her arm. She’d throw it in the dumpster on her way out.

And four years later, in front of the Japanese bookstore by Bryant Park, Kyoko is holding Mai’s new kitsune, the tenko.

“I bet your nephew is going to like it,” Kyoko says. Her hands glide over the tenko’s cream fur. The tails dangle. The summer sun bares down on it, cream set ablaze to gold.

“I hope so.” Mai agrees, holding onto Kyoko's bag of stationary supplies. A question lingers on the tip of her tongue. She twitches.

“Are you still in touch with Molly?” she asks finally.

In their junior year, while Mai opted for a single room, Kyoko roomed with Molly. Molly only grew more outspoken. She switched to using her Japanese name, Minori, and wore the Rising Sun pin on the collar of her shirt. Kyoko, however, camouflaged into her, shadows fading into light.

Sometimes Mai pitied Kyoko– she looked trapped, resentful, more often than not in their last two years of college. But most times, Mai avoided both of them.

“I haven’t spoken to her in a while,” Kyoko says, simply, firmly. She smiles though. “You know, new cities, new lives? It’s hard to keep in touch, but it might be for the better. But you two together were…well it was interesting to watch to say the least.”

Interesting is an understatement. Mai decides not to point that out. She also decides not to mention on her bookshelf at home now, a textbook to the Vietnamese language sits next to her battered kanji dictionary.

“She was working through a lot.” Kyoko continues. “I think she really just needed a Japanese community of some sort– I was lucky to have one growing up.” Kyoko lowers the tenko, now looking with Mai in the eye. “But it didn’t justify her behavior towards you. I’m sorry– I should have told her off.”

Is this really the same Kyoko, the Kyoko who approached and handled everything with a light touch, that Mai roomed with?

Mai fidgets, fingers curling further around the handle of Kyoko’s paper bag. “Um, thanks.”

“I’m glad you still like kitsunes though. I thought I had something to do with you emptying out your side of the room back then.”

“It wasn’t because of you,” Mai lies. She just hopes Molly learned more about Japan’s history, especially if it’s supposed to be part of her roots.

“I know.” Kyoko agrees although whether she is only keeping up pretenses now, Mai can’t tell. Kyoko holds Mai’s kitsune up once more and gives it a squeeze. “Your nephew’s lucky.”

“He is.” A pause and then: “Actually, I got it for myself. I don’t have one in my apartment now.” And I missed having one, Mai would have added. She doesn’t. “And I don’t– I use normal headphones.” Her face burns and not because of the summer sunwhy? It isn’t like Kyoko would care. It isn’t like anyone would care now.

In the city where the Japanese cultural events are evenly split non-Japanese and Japanese participants, where the anime group meet ups have majority non-Asians regulars (although Mai always avoids the one guy who wears a hoodie with an anime girl’s face–he is creepy), where the owner and cashiers of the local Japanese food market light up when she greets them in their native tongue, where her landlord praises her for speaking better Japanese than his own kids, why should Kyoko’s opinion matter now? Kyoko is only one in a population of thousands, millions.

But gingerly, Kyoko’s hands slide over the kitsune’s fur, like paint over a canvas. Mai looks down at Kyoko’s shopping bag. At the top, there is washi tape- dark pink with gilded ribbon accents.

“The summers in Japan are rough. But if you can survive the ones here, they shouldn’t be that bad in comparison,” Kyoko says. Her navy silk sleeves brush against the kitsune’s golden fur. She holds it out for Mai. “I bet you can find more kitsunes over there if you go.”

FRACTURE

by Daniel Orisaeke

In the silence, the solitude, the madness I tear out of this body. barely alive. searching…

I cut off my fingers and keep them in a gift box my mouth is herringboned by fibrosis. I have been eating insanity for days. I barely remember that grief doesn’t fashion in straight lines but in fractures.

Yes, I'm a broken thing.

I am in a bus that heads towards a sleepy horizon. The air burns my eyes and lungs I cry for the wrong reasons. The clock stops while a body kisses the asphalt I’m lost; stranded where my neurosis touches reality. There is a sentence of thoughts spilled on this tarred paper, spreading, singing a familiar stanza only God remembers.

WHAT DOES GOD KNOW ABOUT GRIEF?

by Daniel Orisaeke

a boy builds sandcastles from a grave dug by his father’s tongue. the sand is warm with fright come eventide, he takes off his pajamas, put on his father’s clothes & sleeps in it.

tonight there are no dreams.

a mother waits for her mother behind closed doors. folded hands, silent orisons in a white room littered by footfalls and beeping things. the divorce of lips God takes a right to exit. at the crack of dawn a child becomes a memory.

MEMORY BOOK, ISSUE #6: CONVERSION PT. 1

by r. fay

W.I.S.H.

by Susan L. Lin

Dear Mommy,

Mrs. Lyons is trying something new in class today. She says writing is just as important as reading so we’re going to start having

WISH Time every Monday before we start our English lesson. Today, we’re supposed to write a letter to someone. I’m writing to you.

We don’t have to send it. That’s good, because I don’t even know what to write anyway. I see you every day. This is kind of stupid.

I’m going to stop now.

Your younger daughter,

Deanne

P.S. I got 2 new stickers on my sticker chart this morning! Aren’t you proud of me?

P.P.S. They served enchiladas in the cafeteria for lunch today! Sometimes I wish we could eat Mexican food at home too.

P.P.P.S. I love you.

Dear Mommy,

It’s Monday afternoon again. I’m writing you another letter. I never gave you that last one. I don’t think I really said anything in it, so it felt silly. I don’t know what we’re supposed to learn from writing these letters. I would rather be reading. We’re starting a new book today. Tuck Everlasting. I’ve actually read it before, but I really liked it, so I’m excited anyway! Maybe we can read a few chapters together when I get home later. I think you might enjoy it. It’s about this family that can live forever because of a magic spring... Well, I don’t want to ruin it for you. Okay, I just read back over what I wrote and this letter was stupid too. Sorry. I’ll write you a better one next time.

Deanne

P.S. I love you.

04/04/94

Dear Mommy,

Another Monday afternoon. I just ate the tuna salad sandwich you made me for my lunch. It was yummy. I hope you make it again! We’re supposed to be writing book reports today but you know I hate those. I’m writing you instead. I’ve decided to date these letters, so today is April 4 (one more month until my 9th birthday!) I don’t remember the other dates but I can just count back a week when I have a calendar in front of me. I don’t have one now so I’ll fill them in later. I wonder what you’re doing right now? What do you do

every day when Brianne and me are at school? Are you bored? You can borrow some of my books if you want. Maybe you already do and I just have no idea! That would be funny. Mrs. Lyons is telling us to take out last weekend’s homework now so I will leave you with that.

Deanne

P.S. I love you.

04/11/94

Dear Mommy,

What were you and Daddy arguing about last night after I went to bed? (Or after I was supposed to.) He sounded angry. I wish I knew why he always seems upset about something. Brianne’s the same way, but you and I aren’t. Isn’t that weird? Sometimes I think you don’t tell me anything. I wonder why. Can’t you trust me? I don’t know what else to say.

Deanne

P.S. I love you.

04/18/94

Dear Mommy,

I guess I know now that you’re going back Taiwan next month. Why couldn’t you tell me before? Is it because Ah-mah is sick?

Brianne says you’ve known since December. Why did you tell her and not me? It’s not fair. Just because she’s older, you tell her everything. I wish you trusted me. I trust you.

Deanne

P.S. I love you too.

04/21/94

Dear Mommy,

It’s not Monday, but I don’t care. I can’t believe it. You want me to go to Taiwan with you! I don’t want to go. But how can I tell you that? How can I tell you it’s dirty and the air smells funny and everybody tries to talk to me but I don’t understand them and then I have to feel stupid at dinner because I can’t use chopsticks? And Brianne always throws up on the plane ride over and I’m the one who has to sit next to her. I won’t go Mommy, but I don’t know how to tell you.

Deanne

P.S. I love you. Please don’t make me go.

05/23/94

Dear Mommy,

The last Monday before summer break. Finally! But I decided I’m not going to write to you anymore. I’m mad at you.

Deanne

P.S. I love you. (I’m still mad!)

10/28/99

Dear Mommy,

I found this old notebook buried under my bed yesterday when I was looking for a missing cassette tape. I’m not mad at you anymore, obviously. I barely remember writing that crap. It sounds so childish now. I don’t even know why I’m writing a new letter now. I

guess sometimes I think of things I want to say to you, but I can’t find the right words because we speak two different languages. And because we don’t use the same utensils at the dinner table. LOL! Reading that letter back, I feel so stupid. Though I am embarrassed that I still don’t know how to use chopsticks when even my friends who aren’t Asian can. I wonder why that is. Did you ever try to teach me? I can’t remember. I’d never say this to your face, but sometimes I wish you and Daddy had never come here in the first place. You always tell me that you didn’t want to, that he tricked you. Do you hold it against me?

Deee

P.S. I love you. I wish those words meant the same thing in every language. *

12/18/99

Dear Mommy,

I wasn’t planning on writing to you again, but after what happened last month, I can’t think of where else to put my thoughts. The same ones keeping running through my mind every time I have a quiet moment. They won’t leave me alone. I jump now every time I hear a loud noise. Is it like that for you, too? I have no idea because you won’t talk about it. Daddy won’t talk about it either. I almost wish he would rant and rage like he used to. Say anything real. Instead, we just act like everything is completely normal, like maybe she’s still in college and just stopped coming home on the weekends…but we all know that’s bullshit. I wonder if maybe I’m to

blame. Because I heard the gunshots outside that night but I didn’t understand what they were, so I didn’t go out to see what was wrong until it was too late. “Dead on arrival.” I can’t stop hearing those words in my head. I can’t stop picturing Brianne’s face as she disappeared into the ambulance, knowing now that it was the last time I’d ever see her alive. I hope they catch those boys and put them in jail for a long time. At least then it’ll feel like someone is acknowledging that something happened to us.

P.S. Bri might be gone, but I’m still here. And I love you. Even if we never say it.

10/03/02

Dear Mommy,

Why are you so mad at me??? What did I do? I almost forgot about this notebook again, but since you haven’t spoken to me in two weeks, I figure it’s the only way I can talk to you right now. I don’t get why you’re mad. I should be the one who’s mad. I’ve spent my entire life thinking that I wasn’t good enough for you and that it was somehow my fault. Well, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of trying to be pretty and popular and perfect when it’s obvious I’m never going to be what you envisioned in your head. Ever since Bri died, it’s like you’ve thought of me as your last hope: Oh, how lucky it is we still have Deanne! That’s not being fair. I can’t be two people at

Deee

the same time. Besides, I’m 17 now. That’s old enough to make my own decisions about my future. How can you give me the silent treatment for that? And Daddy just sits there pretending like nothing is wrong. I hate this.

Deanne

P.S. I love you. Do you still love me? The real me? Did you ever?

12/30/02

Dear Mommy,

I found that note my pediatrician gave you 3 years ago, that list of local support groups and grief counselors. I looked up their names online. How could you hide this from me? Maybe they could’ve helped me. Maybe they could’ve helped all of us. We should have at least tried it! I wish you could understand that admitting you need help doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. I have no words for how angry I am right now.

Deanne

P.S. I love you. Even when I’m mad at you.

08/09/03

Dear Mom,

I wish I could say I’m not mad anymore, like before, but I think I still am. I recognize that you’re a product of your time and your upbringing, as we all are. The problem is, sometimes the cultural divide feels too wide for either one of us to cross. I just finished rereading those early letters again. I always thought WISH Time was corny, but maybe there was some truth to the acronym after all, at least in my case, because what are undelivered letters if not unfulfilled wishes? Apparently I never actually mentioned what the abbreviation is supposed to be short for: “Writing Is Special Here!” Corny, right? Remember when we read Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting together? You gave up halfway because you couldn’t accept a story filled with “impossible things,” but I think you secretly liked the idea of our family frozen in time. Brianne and me as baby birds forever, unable to leave the nest because strangers would eventually reject us for our incomprehensible immortality. Part of me does understand the appeal now. Because in that hypothetical scenario, Bri would still be alive today. Not even a bullet could’ve killed her if she’d only taken a sip from that magic spring. But of course, that’s not how real life works. I’m leaving for college tomorrow, and whether you approve or not, I’ll be 1500 miles away. Don’t worry, I’ll keep writing in this notebook when I’m gone. Maybe this time I’ll even tear out the pages and send my words back to you.

Your daughter, Deanne

P.S. I found a Chinese dictionary at a library sale, and I’m going to start learning a new character every day until I can write one of these to you in your native language. Won’t you be surprised! Just promise you won’t ridicule me when I’m only trying my best.

P.P.S. I love you forever.

COMPOST

by Ashlyn Harmon

Mouse prince, forest nymph, river rock man, sculpted from bird bones and almond butter, and glued together with moss and hope and wooden words.

Cryptic cryptid, manic misfit, cantaloupe kid, you're a hummingbird screaming a nightingale's tune, a redwood carved into a tired teaspoon, mismeasuring moments.

Someday soon, I want to crack open your walnut skull just to climb up each leaf of your brainstem, if I can find it behind the lichen growing over your eyes.

I wish you were tangible, solvable, and sure, connecting unsaid with mycelium in the rain to see if our severed threads could dare span the same earth.

I need to know how you can be a person when the dirt knows your name better than I ever will

A Mother’s Love

by M.P. Parker

9 Reasons Why it is Completely Possible for your Mother to Love You

1. You know it can be possible for you to be loved because of your cat. Cats are fickle beings, ruled by food and a great deal of selfimportance. Mr. Pickles isn’t even your cat, but your neighbour’s, which makes this point all the more prominent. You scratch him behind the ears and listen to his constant purr and tell yourself it is this easy to be loved and to love. He paws at you and your eyes almost tear up at the fur he leaves at the foot of your bed like a belated anniversary gift.

2. Similarly, you know it is possible for your mother to love because of that stupid plant by the front door. It is an orchid, which are supposed to be difficult to look after. Probably why your mother places it to be the first thing in view when you walk in the house, telling the whole world about her perfect, perfect love. The delicate little buds get spritzed once a day with pH tested, clinically approved mineral water and specially boiled rice for nutrients. Once you could have sworn to see your mother talk to the plant and whisper words of affirmations that you have never heard directed at you. You feel like burning the plant in front of your mother, but that will not help your case, so you watch. It is stupid to feel jealous of a plant.

3. When your mother commits, she commits. You’ve seen her pull multiple all-nighters as she bakes the perfect cake that she promised she would. She is the perfect volunteer, people-pleaser, always-there-for-everyone figure. She swears. She smashes stuff. She screams and she fights and she stomps. But she commits. So it doesn’t make sense that she would not want to commit to you. It is only right, after all.

4. You can love the person without the sin. And you are a sinner, you feel it in your soul like the ever present condensation on your window each morning. You have learnt that the number one commandment is to love, which is why it is so strange that your mother doesn’t do this to you. You don’t think you are defined by your sin, and by any means, your mother is just as fallen as you, so she has no real right to ignore you. However, you would think that if she really did love you, she would pray and care and try to convert you, which she doesn’t. Perhaps she doesn't love you enough to save you. Or perhaps she doesn't love you enough to see the sin in the first place.

5. Your mother likes you, which is not so different to love if you think about it hard enough. Like can turn to love in a blink of an eye, and the more time you spend liking something, the easier it is to love. In fact, it is only a matter of two very small letters. Your mother is an English teacher. She knows the difference is minute, yet she insists on using the former to refer to you.

6. You can love something you didn’t before. You have watched 10 Things I Hate About You, and the source Shakespeare. Nostalgia is a strange thing, loving a time of war and sickness and suffering, but hopefully you will not have to die for your mother to say you were loved. You almost laugh, because you know she will not say it even then. Missed by Many, will be etched onto your gravestone, underneath the name that is not yours. She will smile politely at the funeral and dab at pretend tears. Then she will take down all of your pictures from the walls and play at pretending you have never existed in the first place.

7. You know love exists because you just do. That feeling when your heart swells up may just be joy mixed with pride but deep down you know it is love. The kind of love that makes you want to dance in the rain in the middle of the road and yell words in poetry to that person in your art class. The kind of love that burns at your eyeballs, at the back of your throat to say words that you never do, because it wouldn’t feel right anyway. You think of Irene Papas’ face at the end of Iphigenia, your favorite shot in cinematic history. You think of her anger, and how much she burned with love and hate. You want to burn like that. You want to be burnt for like that. But if your own mother doesn’t protect you, you don’t know if anyone ever will.

8. It is possible to love flaws, which means it is possible to love you. There are people on the internet that love ugliness. You have seen it written on tote bags, toys created with the sole intent of being ugly and disgusting. You know that when you love you love everything, which means it is perfectly possible for your mother to love you, despite everything you have told her. You feel like a hypocrite because flaws are one of the first things you notice about people. You can’t help that though. And that doesn’t stop you from loving.

9. There is no ninth reason, you realize. If your mother doesn’t love you, then you think she never will. Still you cannot help but cook her meals and buy her flowers and hold her hand when she is feeling sick (even though you hate physical touch). If you love her enough, perhaps she will take pity on you and say hello.

by Gary Bloom

FLORIDA BEACH

YOU THINK YOU’RE TOO SMART?

by Marcia McGreevy Lewis

You think you’re too smart to get scammed? So did I. My cell phone is private, I delete sketchy-looking emails, don’t answer unknown callers and have a home security system. Then my darkest moment happened on June 30, 2023:

This message was on my phone:

+1 (213) 653 9542 AmaznAlerts: Your order #xxxxx of iPhone 13 Pro is approved. $1100.00 will be charged from your card. Contact Customer Care 1 833 627 0084 if you wish to cancel.

I was aware that I had foggy thinking because I was recovering from COVID exhaustion, but this was a serious amount. Though I’d ignored similar messages previously, I decided to check my Amazon account. When I logged on, my computer screen immediately shut down with a message saying to call Microsoft security at 669-544-2241.

The screen shocked me, so I called the number and reached Eric Shaw. I was trying to be cautious, so I asked for his employee number. He gave it to me: MIC 230885. Then he ran a test, and the result on my screen showed that someone in China had used my

credit card to charge child pornography. The “porn charges” did their job of making me feel chagrined. Wanting no part of this, asked him what to do.

Eric said he could reinstate my computer and put me on a secure line with my bank to cancel the charges. That sounded good, so on the line came Ben Morgan who had a Middle Eastern accent similar to Eric’s. The accents made me suspicious, so I asked for his employee number too. No problem. It was: AD 0910 CCB. Wanting to verify further, I requested his phone: 800-669-2570. Ben asked me to verify the approximate amount in my checking account, and the sleaziness of the charge had mortified me enough that I gave it to him. Then he stated the charges: $23,000 for child a pornography subscription in my checking account. That was a bright red flag that I should have caught because charges were conveniently in line with my checking account balance.

Ben assured me that we could fix the issue, stating that our call was being recorded as proof that I was working with them to clear my name and my credit. We would need to act quickly by withdrawing my approval of the porn purchase to undermine the hackers.

Ben said our weapon would be to implement a countermeasure by presenting a purchase of an equal amount to the bank. The bank would then inquire if I approved the charges, and I would tell them that I didn’t approve of either charge, nullifying both. I was to get

into my car and keep him on the line as I made the purchases. I hurried my phone to the car and set off with my heartbeat pulsing madly.

A tactical move he employed was taking me only one step ahead. He didn’t mention what the purchases would be so I couldn’t envision the endgame. When I was in the car, he said to go to the bank and withdraw $20,000. Now I listened to the alarm bells. I headed to the bank with the intention of verifying the process with the bank manager. I didn’t tell Ben this, but he anticipated my move and told me to talk to nobody. He said there would possibly be suspicious persons wanting to know the destination of the money so to keep quiet. Against my better impulses, and with sweat massing in my armpits, I complied.

Then Ben told me to go to Safeway and purchase $5,000 in gift cards for Target. He said we had two hours to complete the purchases to undercut the hackers’ efforts. Both my phone and my emotional state were buzzing. Because I was talking to Ben on the line, I couldn’t answer the repeated calls from my partner. He worried because I wasn’t answering. I worried that he worried. Stomach cramps now accompanied my sweats.

A strategy Ben used was empathy. He said he knew how stressful this was, and he was sorry I found myself in this position. He acknowledged that it must feel awful. That bought him some cooperation.

Usually I appreciated the aroma of roses that waft by customers on their way to purchase fruits and vegetables in the grocery store.

Not today. I zeroed in on the cards and returned to the car. Ben said we needed to get them registered to my account, so I was to read him the card numbers as well as the access codes. My stress level increased because this was sounding pretty sketchy, but I did it.

This was all taking so much time that Ben said he needed to check with the fraud investigators to extend our time because we needed to repeat the process. I was to go to another Safeway and purchase $5,000 more in cards. While I criticized the idiocy of this scheme, Ben said he understood my concerns, but that it was the only way. I’d need to be patient while he asked for extended time.

My phone kept ringing with unanswerable calls from my partner, jettisoning my stress level to nearly intolerable, so I purchased the additional cards in a flurry of agitation. When I again returned to the car, I was to repeat the same process of reporting the card numbers to “encrypt them in my account.” Though my stress was peaking, I acquiesced.

Then Ben said we needed make more purchases, and I blew up, refusing. Now he was starting to lose patience with me. He said that we didn’t have time to get upset and passed me along to the “fraud manager” to discuss another option. Onto the “secure” line came Jerry Atkinson, again with the same accent. The similarity in their accents heightened my mounting suspicions. Was this a bunch of scammers in some foreign country using names we’d find culturally familiar? Of course I asked for his ID Chase number: #SL 7206.

He tried his best to allay my concerns, finally resorting to another mechanism. Instead of more cards, we could deposit into a Bitcoin machine where I would get a receipt verifying the account in my name.

I was furious, but I wanted to end this lunacy so I drove to the machine. Ben was back on the line as I stood in front of the machine. Like a bolt of lightning, the insanity registered, and I hung up. I raced out of the store, and drove home to my distraught partner. I was shaking as I laid it all out to him. Now there was genuine empathy, not the faux-Ben kind. We decided that I would talk to the bank in the morning.

Ben called, beside himself because their team “was doing everything in their power to help.” I could barely respond, thinking, “Your team? Was I on the team or the target?” I told him I would proceed in the morning, but he said that wouldn’t work. The fraud manager could extend the deadline no longer. He put Eric on the line.

Eric explained as he “told me initially” that the funds needed to be in my account so we could refuse permission for all purchases when the bank called. I resisted, so in desperation, he walked me through the bank’s fraud policy.

Eric had restored my computer to its former function, so after much coercion from him, I capitulated. With Ben on the line again, I drove to the Bitcoin machine and re-started the process. Then my body froze. I charged to my car and told an angry Ben that my final decision was to do it in the morning. He was furious, saying he was doing everything he could to help me, and I deserved what would happen if I didn’t do my part. That shocked me, and I said that his unprofessional comment had just revealed his incompetence. He didn’t back down, but said through obvious embarrassment that he’d call me early in the morning to walk me through the transaction. I hung up.

The next morning Ben called very early and kept calling, but my plan was to talk to the bank manager. I didn’t answer. I went to Chase when it opened and asked the manager for help. He attempted to retrieve any balance from the gift cards. None. Neither the manager nor I expected any. He’d seen this before. His concern was for my account, so we changed the passwords and implemented double security. He worked hard to pull me out of my dilemma, but I left the bank red-faced, embarrassed that I didn’t talk to him initially.

The bank manager suggested that I get hold of my brokerage account, so I called my account manager to renegotiate entry to my account. While I was working on my account, Ben was madly calling and I was ignoring his calls. I finally turned off my ringer, but he phoned for hours.

It took most of the day to get things sorted, but when I finally did, the tension in my shoulders began to release and I had a feeling of gratitude for the professionals who could plow through these demonic schemes. I’m a vulnerable senior who is aware that the growing pains from this experience lead me to be extremely cautious, but it makes me angry that I need to be so scrupulous. I question my email messages, look askance at texts and ask for sources related to the most mundane topics. Why do I need to be that skeptical person? That’s not me.

I have been shrewd enough to sift through numerous scam attempts since my devastating episode. I may never forgive myself for this devious one, though, because I am the smart woman who had convinced herself that she could never fall for any scam and has a $10,000 hole in her bank account to prove that she did.

I KNOW WHY YOUR DEADS DO NOT SLEEP

by Aishat Yahkub

I.

because death has made you one, whole renamed your bodies hers.

This road pours into a shadow dancing in grief Here, this way leads to madness Float on it in mourning

Say, why does your mourning seem so much like a possession? You ululate with the silencing of the moon And let the night into the sanctuary of your rituals.

II.

I have moulded this poem over and over Hacked and carved its body into stutters that I hide In the womb of its lyrical brethren Maybe their parturition will offer up the words that'll absolve me the crime of possessing and offering nothing more than language. Forgive me.

I seek to cough out songs that will etch the extent of this ruination unto the canvas of the avenging wind that never forgets how III.

My sisters mourned all the possessions they had to desert, fleeing at the call of war They lament the laughters that'll be left buried

in the ruined sands, never to be recovered

Bemoan the now strewn anklets that were once beguiling invitations to dance

Bless the unsullied winds teasing their midnight hair into chaos, And the mountains, trembling witnesses over their fading screams

Oh, how the birds protested, and the skies recorded.

Bless the gentle soil that cradles their feet, grants them soft treading, swallowing the depression of their footprints into secrecy.

My sisters,

Cry for the children's muddied footfalls into the sun

Grieve the simple pleasures of licking the rain

The miracle of the flowing river

Oh, how they yearn for the warm hands of home, what they were, how they shimmered before war arrived on their threshold, bearing devastation.

My sisters pray

For relief and peace and succour and victory and the return of light.

by Amanda Yskamp

ARRAY

SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT

by Grace Larson

Do you want to go to fairyland, you’d say. And we’d look up from mugs of hot chocolate and from comic books and real books too and shout yes! And then you’d smile and tie your hair back - which meant serious business - and we’d sweep away the kitchen and the dining room and every room in the house and begin the journey. Mostly it was Neverland - that was our favorite game. You’d take baking soda and sprinkle it over our hair and faces. And we’d sneeze and laugh because some would always get breathed in and then jump from the couch into the air - up, up, up - and it was really like flying. You made a mean Captain Hook - I was always frightened when you’d bare your teeth at me and brandish that famous claw. Not that it was a real one. But we never recognized the old clothes hangers once you were done with them. One of us always had to be the crocodile and that was normally Allie because she was the baby of the family and still crawling. She was a strange crocodile because we always had to coax her to come. We’d tape an old clock to her back and try to lure her in with caresses and cookies and - once in a while - threats. Sometimes she’d come. And sometimes she’d just sit there and look at us - finger in her mouth - and kind of smiling. As if she knew what we wanted and still wouldn’t give it. Then one day you said you had a new game for us and did we want to play it. And we all jumped up shouting yes yes yes! And you said ok then put on your coats. We’re going on a quest. A quest was something new for us. Johnny asked if he could grab his swordthe one he had used to cut off your Captain Hook hand - but you said no. This quest didn’t need swords. That was surprising. You could see we were confused but you didn’t explain and instead told us to look at the car, can’t you see the beautiful carriage it’s

become? Almost as good as Cinderella’s! And we cheered up and forgot about the swords. The whole ride there we wondered what the quest would be. Johnny thought it would be a band of pirates and I thought it would be mountain lions and Allie said nothing but sucked on a Nilla-Wafer. We asked you, but you just said wait and see. We got there soon enough. You said look kids, there’s the castle. And we all crowded over to Allie’s side to see it. Johnny said it didn’t look too much like a castle and I said this was the 21st century for crying out loud and you had to expect they weren’t using stones and mortar anymore. But I was worried too. I didn’t like those tall cold slabs of concrete or those staring windows. Like so many unfriendly eyes. There was a drawbridge though there wasn’t any moat. You had to press a little button in a large box to open the gate and a little piece of orange paper came out too. You see this, you said, waving it in the air. This is our ticket to the castle.

There was a guard hiding in that box and I had to bribe him so we could sneak in. We didn’t say anything - not to you. But Johnny whispered that no one in his right mind would want to sneak into this castle. You parked the carriage and tied up the horses - Allie wanted to give them a carrot but we had forgotten to bring any - and then we walked to the main door. I reached for your hand as we walked up and yours was cold as ice. I would have pulled away but you were holding on too tight. There was a woman sitting behind a desk when we came in. She was the lady of the castle, you said. But I thought she was like a prison warden. Tall and gray and cold. You told her a name I didn’t recognize, and the woman pursed her lips and led us to an elevator. The doors slid shut behind us and my last glimpse of her was iron spectacles glaring over iron eyes.

We floated up up up. This was the fairy-vator you said. For fairies who have lost their wings. Why do they lose their wings, Johnny said. And you sighed and said they get too old sometimes. And I closed my eyes and felt my stomach doing flip-flops all the way. We stopped and the doors slid open. We walked down a white hallway and I thought that this castle should have some tapestries because back then those were for warmth and color and this place had neither. You paused just before the last door and pulled us all close. I could almost hear your heart beating, could see it pulsing in your neck. Ok kids, you said. Here we are. Our quest. You’re going to meet someone inside. Someone you haven’t seen in a long time. She’s very special and I want you all to be very kind to her.

If she’s so special why haven’t we seen her before? Johnny asked. And you pressed your lips together so that they went all flat and white and you said that was my mistake.

You opened the door then and it creaked like the deck of a pirate ship. We filed inside and we were all very quiet - even Allie. You were the rear guard and I could almost see the saber in your hand and the wariness in your eyes. But there was nothing bad in the room. There was nothing much at all. It was all white - like the hall - and there were bright lights and blue shadows and a big white bed in the center. I thought that maybe we would look up and see Red Riding Hood’s wolf in there. But we only found her grandmother - wrinkled, small and dried up. Her eyes were closed but she opened them when we came in. They were small and sharp and darting like a bird’s. Who are you all? she said and her voice was like a bird’s too. Not a nice one but like a bird that is too young to sing yet. Or a bird that has grown too

old. It’s me momma, you said and my heart froze a moment. You were momma - this old bird here wasn’t momma. What do you mean this woman said. I don’t know you. I had two daughters but they don’t come to see me. No momma, you said and you walked up to her with the stealthy Tigerlily walk you do so well and took her hand. No momma I’m here. Stop calling me momma the old lady said. There were flecks of spit around her mouth and the lips were sunken in and shriveled. You reached out a hand and grabbed a Kleenex and gently wiped the spit away. But I’m your daughter you said. Don’t you know me.

It wasn’t really a question. You already knew the answer. No I don’t the old woman said. Who are all these kids. They’re mine you said. And I heard the pride in your voice. They’re your grandchildren- I don’t have grandchildren. I have two daughters. They won’t come to see me. Where are they? Where are they?

Here momma. Here… But you couldn’t speak anymore. This old witch had grabbed your tongue and cut it out and your voice couldn’t work through the bleeding roots. The witch was starting to shout at us and the flecks of spit came back. A guard came in and said we had to leave. He wasn’t mad - I think he actually looked kind of sorry. You started to walk out and Johnny tugged at your skirt and said, “Hey did we complete the mission.” But you said, “not now Johnny not now. Wait until we get outside.”

So we were silent while we floated down and the white walls washed around us. And we were silent when we walked past the iron lady with her iron eyes. And we were silent when we got back to the horses and I nuzzled them and held Allie up to pet them. You slumped against the door of the carriage and I looked up and saw the tears filling your eyes though you tried to hide them. It was like the bottom of my world fell out then because I had never seen you cry and then I knew how Mowgli felt when his first tears came and I thought that I wanted to stay in Neverland and never, never grow up… But you were hurting more than me and so I couldn’t really think of just myself.

I leaned over and took your hand and found it was hot now. Burning, burning, and sticky with sweat. But I held it and squeezed it hard and you put your arms around me and cried into my hair.

Hey momma, I said. Do you want to go to fairyland?

WONDROUS

by A.R. Arthur

Wondrous roving creatures fill pedestrian sidewalks silencing mechanical creatures intent on riding roughshod over microworlds where organic interactions intermingle with the rouge artifice of human necessity,

For abrasive constructions do not break the terrestrial just out of reach, Instead, disturbances warp what wild winged and earth-bound life has perfected until the ground is depleted and we are left hungry, Insatiably driven by our predilections to grow and dominate

no matter the consequence for this simple life, This miraculous swelling that battles against our frivolity our wanton desire for dominion over a planet groaning and tearing at the seams

until we have annihilated any hope of earthly salvation, Until we are but food for the roving creatures just out of reach.

I AM (LIKE)A TREE; I AM FRESH AND I FLOURISH

by Ojo Victoria Ilemobayo

CONTRIBUTORS

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.

Ezekiel Gray is a digital and traditional (watercolor, acrylic, ink, gouache) illustrator from WNY.

r. fay is a writer and cartoonist from North Carolina. they're the author of three chapbooks and the ongoing minicomix series "Memory Book." they live in Durham. you can reach them on Instagram @latebutcoming.

Gary Bloom was born in Minneapolis and attended what is now Minnesota State University- Mankato, where he studied sociology. He has been a teaching assistant in a psychiatric hospital, a driving instructor for spinal cord injury patients, and a computer programmer. His articles, photography, and poetry have been published in newspapers, magazines, and websites, including Kaleidoscope, Literary Hatchet, Milwaukee Magazine, The Buffalo News, The Grand Rapids Press, Art Times Journal, and Black Diaspora.

Susan Kouguell Susan Kouguell (she/her) is an award-winning writer and filmmaker based in New York City. Her international prizewinning solo experimental works films are in the Filmmakers Coop; group shows include Microscope Gallery NYC and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Susan’s collaborative prize-winning films screened internationally, are in the Museum of Modern Art film archives and permanent collection, and were in the Whitney Museum Biennial. She was awarded fellowships and grants from the Whitney Independent Study Program, MacDowell Residency, Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Edward Albee Foundation, CAPS, Brooklyn Arts & Cultural Association, Art Matters, and a SUNY Purchase Faculty Support Award. Susan wrote choral texts for composers Ryan Homsey (Believe Me) and Alvin Singleton (Praisemaker), and artist Annebarbe Kau for her sound piece Kopfstand. Susan’s poems appear in Tiny Spoon Literary Magazine and her haiku photo collage pieces are published in 49th Parallel Magazine. Instagram: @slkfilms

Ojo Victoria Ilemobayo is a Nigerian Literary Enthusiast and Student. She is also a dynamic poet, creative photographer, babysitter, video editor, graphic designer, and a host of so many things. Some of her works can be found in Southern Arinzo Press Anthology, Colourism Healing Writing Contest, Firebrand magazine, Sledgehammer, Nnoko, GEMP, Prawns paper, Mixed Mag, Agape Review, Mad Swirl, The Beautiful Mind, Enceladus Magazine, The New Man Gospel Movement, Fringe Poetry Magazine, World Voices

Magazine, Eboquills, ICreative Review, Christian Century, Eco Theo, Thema, A Coup of Owl, Christian Courier, Astrolabe, Sledgehammer, Nnoko Magazine, Olney Magazine, Communication League, Christian Crusader, FEEEL magazine, Con-Scio Magazine, Typehouse, Ake Review, Banshee, Off Limits Press, Sunlight Press, Hey Young Writer, Christianity Today, The Hooghly Review, Josephine Quarterly, etc

Aaron Lelito is a visual artist and writer from Buffalo, NY. His images have been published as cover art in Red Rock Review, Peatsmoke Journal, and The Scriblerus. His work has also appeared in Barzakh Magazine, Novus Literary Arts Journal, SPECTRA Poets, and The Primer. He is editor in chief of the art & literature website Wild Roof Journal and author of the poetry chapbook The Half Turn.

M.P. Parker (they/he) is a queer and autistic young writer. He writes about growing up, family, love, and navigating life, with a special love for the macabre and gothic. Follow them on Instagram @waffel.writer

Amanda Yskamp is a writer and a collagist. Her artwork has appeared in such magazines as Black Rabbit, Riddled with Arrows, and Stoneboat. She is the poetry editor and frequent cover artist for WordRunner chapbooks. She lives on the 10-year flood plain of the Russian River, teaching writing from her online classroom and serving as a librarian at the local elementary school.

Avra Margariti’s work appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, Wigleaf, The Offing, and elsewhere.

Wilson Comey (they/them) is a high school English teacher from Washington DC. Their work is featured in Honeyguide Magazine, Flora Fiction, Aura Review, and The Arcanist and forthcoming in I-70 Review and Dawn Review. They’ve penned essays for The New York Times and The Washington Post

Vy Lieu Vy Lieu (they/them) is a Vietnamese-American writer based in New York City. This is their debut publication. They can be found at @t.vy.lieu on Instagram.

Anthony Marchetta is a co-writer of the Horror anthology podcast Pinkerton's Ghosts as well as the editor of the anthologies, God, Robot and Tales of the Once and Future King. He has also been published in the online magazine the Sci Phi Journal. He is editor in chief of High Tower Magazine at hightowermagazine.substack.com.

Jeffrey Howard teaches writing and multimodal composition at Converse University and directs the university’s writing center. His nonfiction and poetry have appeared in literary magazines such as Arcturus, Wordgathering, Glint, and Ekphrastic Review. Jeffrey lives with his wife and four children in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Susan L. Lin (she/her) is a Taiwanese American storyteller who hails from southeast Texas and holds an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. Her novella GOODBYE TO THE OCEAN won the 2022 Etchings Press novella prize, and her short prose and poetry have appeared in over fifty different publications. Find more at susanllin.wordpress.com.

Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Penn Review, The Florida Review, Wigleaf, Passages North, Pinch, and elsewhere. Connect on Twitter at @Will_Musgrove or at williammusgrove.com.

Marcia McGreevy Lewis (she/her) lives in Seattle and is a retired feature writer for a Washington newspaper. She has written for literary journals, magazines, travel sites and books such as Chicken Soup for the Soul. Reach her on Facebook and Instagram: marcialewis25, Twitter: @McGreevyLewis and Linkedin: marcia-lewis

Abdullah Jimoh O. (He/him) is a linguist and a poet. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Modern Poetry in Translation, A Long House, Sky Island, Tint Journal, Gyroscope Review, Efiko Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, IHRAM, Thanatos Review, Mudroom, Afritondo and elsewhere.

Agboola Tariq A., Swan II, is an unfolding poet from Western Nigeria & an undergraduate student of law at the University of Ibadan. He explores in his writing, self / identity & spaces he occupies. Some of his works are forthcoming/in Brittle Paper, Eunoia Review, Olumo Review, IceFloe Press, The Hellebore Press, Variety Pack, Fiery Scribe Review, The Poetry Journal, Verum Literary Press, etc. He tweets: @Agboola_Tariq_A

Aishat Yahkub is a young Nigerian creative, writer, poet, bookworm, art lover and overwhelmed medical student. Her poems appear in Brittle paper, Agbowó, Fiery scribe review, Juste literary and elsewhere. Her works explore the body as a space striving to contain devastating chaos, the fluidity of identity, language and the portrayal of "home", through her cast of outcasts. When she's not reverentially appreciating exquisite poetry and art, she practices stillness and escapes into dreams. She's overcoming her mild social (media) anxiety by tweeting @AishatYahkub.

A.R. Arthur is a Black Mixed-race poet & writer who has spent most of his life in Kuwait jostling between the UK, America and the Netherlands. Anthony's work has been published over 260 times internationally. Anthony's Reviews have been published, or are forthcoming over 100 times internationally which you can read at Full House Literary, The Poetry Question & Fahmidan. Anthony's Flash Fiction was shortlisted and received an honourable mention in the 2022 The Dillydoun Flash Fiction Prize Competition. Anthony has 3 published chapbooks titled 'The Great Northern Journey' 2020 (Lazy Adventurer Publishing) & 'Vultures' 2021 (Roaring Junior Press) as well as a novel 'The Sands of Change' 2021 (Alien Buddha Press). Anthony's Chapbook 'Half Bred' was the Winner of the

2021 'The Poetry Question' Chapbook contest. Anthony writes for Psychopomp and reads for Harbor Review. Anthony is the EIC of Fahmidan Journal/Publishing & Co and Reviews Editor at Full House Literary. Twitter/Instagram: @ararthurwriter https://ararthurwriter.wordpress.com/

Ashlyn Harmon (she/her) is based in North Carolina and Ohio. She is a queer and neurodivergent poet, writer, and student at Kenyon College.

Audra Burwell is a creative writing major at California State University Fresno, pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree with a specialization in poetry. Entropia is her first full-length published work, a dystopian fantasy, multimedia collaboration featuring a fashion line designed by Fastened By Lyn and photography provided by Raven & Crow. Audra is a member of Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society and has headed literary workshops at the Young Writers Conference as well as working on the editorial board of the Spectrum journal. Her poems “Residing in Your Veins” and “Concealed Oasis” were both selected as finalists for Fresno State’s Art Song Festival.

Beau Farris is a visual poet from Colorado. He does something like writing, but likes staring at words best. It would be inaccurate to say he loves poetry; he's just not very good at anything else.

Daniel Orisaeke (he/him) is a poet and a dental student in the University of Nigeria, Enugu. Twitter handle: @dannie_bry

Edward Gunawan (translator) is a Bay Area-based writer and translator, who authored Start a Riot! Prize-winning The Way Back (Foglifter Press, 2022) and Press Play (Sweet Lit, 2020). Their work has also been published in Tripwire, TriQuarterly, and The Town anthology (Nomadic Press, 2023), amongst others. An Indonesian-born Chinese queer immigrant, Edward serves as the founder and lead organizer of HOME MADE @ ARTogether that hosts free literary arts gatherings in Oakland, CA. Visit addword.com for more.

Fadairo Tesleem (TPC vi) is a Nigerian poet and a member of The Poetic Collective. Tesleem is also the author of the Gazelle, Sacrament Of Prayers. He was on the shortlist for 2022's Spectrum Poetry Contest, Abubakar Gimba's Prize for Nonfiction (2023) & Africa Teen Writers' Award (poetry category). His poems are published in The B'K Magazine, Geez Magazine, Dillydoun Review, Protean Poetry, Consequence Forum, Efiko Mag & host of other publications. Tesleem has received supports from the Horror Writers Association and Boston Writers of Colors & he currently serves as the assistant poetry editor for Rowayat & as a poetry reader for Consequence Forum. He tweets @_olakunle_

Heather Rae Ackerman (she/her) is a writer and artist from Buffalo, NY. Her work is inspired by nature, history, and life along the Great Lakes. "Little Apartment", her first book of poems, is out now through Fair Isle Publishing.

Hendri Yulius Wijaya (poet) is an Indonesian writer and researcher on gender, sexuality, cultural politics, and sustainability. He has extensively written and provided commentaries on Indonesian anti-LGBTQ+ panics and queer movements for various national and international media outlets. His academic research focuses on the development of Indonesian queer activism from the 1980s to the present, anti-LGBTQ+ panics, pornography, and sustainability, among other topics. He is also the co-editor of Queer Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2022). For his long-term engagement with LGBTQ+ rights and sustainability issues, he was invited to deliver the 2023 Tomlinson Memorial Lecture at Nottingham University in the UK. Stonewall Tak Mampir Di Atlantis is his debut full-length poetry collection.

Theo Morris (he/him) received his MFA in poetry from West Virginia Wesleyan College. His work has appeared in ABZ, Cartridge Lit, Home Planet News, Jet Fuel Review, Unbroken Journal, and other magazines.