- James Branch Cabell to his editor, to help people learn how to pronouce his name. Cabell used the word derogatively but we are taking it back. These pages will showcase the writing and illustrations of our rabble- the ordinary students of VCU.
Published at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Student Media Center Richmond, Virginia. Copyright 2024. Printed locally at Carter Printing Co. Headlines and credit lines are set on Fleisch-Wurst
The text is set in Cochin
Feast
noun
1. a large meal, typically one in celebration of something.
Masthead
EDITOR -IN-CHEIF
Reese Cilley
ART DIRECTOR
Kirsten Sturgill
SECRETARY
Gabe Carlson
Mack Blair
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
Melody Vang
COVER ARTIST
Kirsten Sturgill
CONTENTS PAGE ARTIST
Ashley Gabales
SPOT ILLUSTRATIONS
Gabe Carlson
Kirsten Sturgill
Reese Cilley
Melody Vang
DESIGNER
Reese Cilley
ILLUSTRATORS
Reese Cilley
Kirsten Sturgill
Melody Vang
Gabe Carlson
Apollo Hurley
Imani Tigney
Love Wilson
Ashley Gabales
Andrea Morales Mendizabel
EDITORS
Avery Ekert
Jordan Kalafut
Gabe Carlson
Mack Blair
Apollo Hurley
Ian Townley
Killian Van Duong
Katie Rasmussen
Sean Kalchbrenner
Mallie Donovan
Emma Pizzillo
Acknowledgement
With this book, I say goodbye to my last Rabble as Editor-In-Chief of Pwatem. This small book has a special place in my heart, and I hope that it continues to grow year after year. Thank you to the Pwatem current and past staff who have dedicated hours and hours of their time to making Pwatem great.
Special thanks to Dungeon Meshi for inspiring the theme of this publication and providing us with entertainment during long working hours.
Thank you to the City of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University for giving us our little corner of space to create within. Thank you, Jessica Clary and Mark Jeffries at the Student Media Center, for your constant advice, support, suggestions, and insight. Thank you to all the new staff members who helped make this semester at Pwatem the rewarding and positive experience it is meant to be. Finally, thank you to all the students who submitted their creative work during an extremely busy semester; we could not have made this book without you. Thank you.
-Reese Cilley Editor-In-Chief
“Minjun”
Maggie Hudson
I found several little love boxes, which I had discarded. One was pristinely labeled with my name, framed by perfect empty hearts.
Mom rolls out a dinner cart. Broccoli, potatoes, and some slab of meat formatted in gravy. I go to wash my face and pat it dry before crossing the hallway and settling in front of my placemat. As we eat, I score my tongue with my fork and steal glances at the cellophane brightness of my phone.
The whole spectacle is already ruined. Neither Mom nor Dad will light the fireworks, so I run back and forth between lighting and watching with them from behind our farmhouse fence. Mom leans forward with her arms crossed over the top beam of the gate. All manner of winged vermin have come out, making shifty paths through the dark.
I see our neighbors doing the same as us for New Years on the wayside of our street. We have the better, more showy fireworks. One after another, they striate through the sky like angels or bleeding Rorschach tests. I can just barely hear past the ringing that’s crawled from my ears into my mandible.
WhenMinjun died, I was at Burger King. A veteran kept calling himself manager, stepping behind the register, pacing to and from the back office. I watched in amusement, slotting fries into my mouth and looking back from my pink vinyl booth while the employees escorted him out again and again. Every time he would be back, nothing eroding his sense of opportunity.
Mom and Dad either don’t know or don’t care that not talking about Minjun condemns us to it, forcing us to live it and relive it like a kicking inside. I fork a chunk of meat and look at it. The outside is breaded and the inside is red and sweaty. As much effort as can go into sanitizing a kitchen, can anything cancel out the dirt of a human? Mom bites the inside of her cheek and swears with drowned-out words. She drops her fork on the tablecloth and brings her hand to the aching side of her face. You can’t see it, but there is the whitest snowfall sinking over our dinner table. We’re all drenched. This whole scene is fake. It’s not at all what it appears to be.
I’m thirteen. Especially now that it’s so hot out, I’m hormonal and tired. This makes my heroic efforts to be less distant with them hard. I’m trying to make up for the lack of Minjun, but I’m bad at adhering to my own plan. I’ve made it through all Minjun’s trap records for the third or fourth time. I’ve dug a hole for my thumb in all his hoodies. Mom is worse now at keeping it together and hiding her grief. She falls asleep with her hair matted up in the back on the living room couch and resembles a sandy ghost angled towards the same murmur of the tv.
I’m narrowing my whole approach now. I pull meat from the freezer and think I’ll fix them up a roast. I spare no part of the meat, put the whole hock straight into the oven. I break out the formal dinnerware and bring it out to the porch table, which shares the deck with our jacuzzi. Dinner under the stars. The scent of the air is green. I set the table for three but feel this dread start at the dip in my palm and grow, like an arm-sized blade. Will Mom and Dad be mad at me for using the oven? Will they find this whole thing meagerly?
I hear their car pull up on the gravel out front. They will drop their shoes by the front door where the baseboard is scuffed from years and years of habitual use. They’ll round the corner into a kitchen that used to be happy. Like roadkill, their tranquil eyes will look past me into a future that’s already carved us up. I can tell. They wish it had been me. They wish it had been me.
Tangerine
Bitan Chowdhury
- is a cross-breed of two types of mandarins, and its name come from an “exotic” city in an exotic country. It is an exotic fruit because it was sold as such. Very sweet, buy cheap, peel and consume easily.
Delicious. I held one in my hand in 2nd grade it was a brighter orange than I can imagine now, dimpled and dotted like pores on my face. Teacher said that if we peeled it in 1 piece, we would get a prize. It’s skin was too thin. I ripped it to shreds.
Same classroom. Same year. Same me tried coloring in an “Indian man,” but it was the American type, instead of the Asian type. Nevertheless, I tried coloring in the person the same shade as me.
Now a scolding. I didn’t know that there was some sort of stigma for making someone “red-orange-brown”-colored. I didn’t know that it was such a crime for them to be this color. I didn’t understand why it was different when it was me.
I wish I was a slice of a tangerine. I could be ripped and split into eights and eaten easily. I wish I flowed down someone’s gullet like slight citric acid. I could be actually consumed without the bitterness of being an unfamiliar new face.
In reality, the tangerine came from Florida, not Tangier. It came from a man wanting to sell something “exotic” with no strings. It came without the bitterness of unfamiliarity. No, it was more sweet than anything. What else could people consume without abandon?
Balane Temptation The Fruit of
Ajax
What did Eve taste when she accepted the fruit?
Dipped in poison and despair, a gift from an animal promising her demise.
Maybe she felt the taste of sin on her tongue, or perhaps when she swallowed, she understood the tartness of trust.
What did Adam taste when he bit into the apple?
Did it taste bitter and foul, or perhaps it was sweet, filled with devotion.
Overwhelmed by his love, to the other half of his soul, his heart; he consumed the rest, regardless of god's wrath.
All that remained in the wreckage was the cursed fruit, a remnant of their love, a notion a higher being could never understand.
Ravenous
Gabe Carlson
It’s 5:17 am when I get onto the highway to drive home.
The rain has long since stopped, leaving heavy fog in its wake. I have to squint to see the lane lines it’s so thick, almost curling around my car as I drive. The cars from the oncoming lane create fuzzy orbs of light, flying by me as quick as they come into vision. I blink as each one passes me, my eyelids growing heavy.
It takes me thirteen minutes before I turn onto our street. The entry light is on when I get back, shining like a beacon through the window above the front door. The apartment is silent until I force open the old wood and trudge up the creaky staircase into our home.
My hand finds the living room lightswitch, bathing the still room in fluorescent light. My bag drops from my shoulder onto one of the seats with a dull thud, the weight of it troubling the furniture now instead of me.
I want nothing more than to crawl into bed and finally sleep, but I drag myself into the kitchen instead, knowing you'll be upset with me otherwise.
My last full meal was nearly twelve hours ago at this point; the yogurt I had at 2am doing little to tide me over. Not to mention you’re probably starving.
So I cook.
You decide to grace me with your presence once the kitchen becomes fragrant, filled with the smell of food on the stove. I can barely see you from the corner of my eye, but I know you’re there. I’ve long since stopped trying to face you when you decide to join me now, knowing you’d just slip back into the dark corners of our home.
I’m cooking one of your favorites today. Something I introduced to you long ago that you’ve taken for yourself. Something we used to share.
I set the dining table for two, loading the plates up with heaping scoops. Your plate sits across from me at the table, but you never sit down. I wait to feel your eyes on me before I dig in, the chill sending shivers down my spine as I bring the fork to my mouth.
Metal scrapes against ceramic as I eat. I chew and swallow each bite under your watch. Your gaze on me makes sure that I finish my food, leaving the plate clean. Only then do you come closer to me, pressing yourself against my back, your hands tracing down my arms, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.
The plate across from me remains untouched, the steam long since dissipated and the food room temperature. Your hands guide mine as I reach over, exchanging plates.
My stomach is full, my hunger sated, and yet my hands are not my own as I guide more forkfuls to my mouth.
I should be used to eating your portion by now, but still I force myself to swallow against my own gagging. Each additional bite makes me nauseous, my hand shakes, even under your influence.
I eat until I am full to bursting, consuming every last morsel of yours. My body begins to heave, begging to expel its contents. I clamp my mouth shut with my hands, willing everything to settle within me but knowing I am too weak to stop it.
I feel you press harder against me, the weight of you almost
enough to distract me. A familiar chill envelopes me, seeping into my bones, numbing me. Slowly, ever so slowly. My breath evens out and I no longer feel my meal clawing its way back up my throat, the pressure in my stomach. My body stills as the retching stops.
I stand, pushing against the pressure of you. I stagger to my room, abandoning the plates and utensils at the table.
Your eyes are on me, always, as I leave a trail of clothes behind me and crawl under the covers. My body curls in on itself, starting to shiver, as your chill follows me into the room.
The mattress sinks behind me and once again I feel your fingers tracing my body before intertwining with mine. Your body makes contact with mine at every joint, every curve, every inch of me.
My tired eyes finally close as the last of my energy is sapped out of me, bleeding from me like a deep wound.
I feel nothing.
I am exhausted. Again and again, it repeats. For you, it repeats.
You are ravenous.
Hunger
Shannon Fritz
I did not know it was sinful to exist.
I am a wolf. My pack has long since abandoned me, and I have had to move forward without them.
My childhood was built on hunger, an ache made its home in my stomach. My mother did not care to feed me, and I had to hunt too young. Now I honor and am thankful for any bite I can have, and take great joy in eating. There are those that don’t know the joy of fullness because they have never known the fear of hunger.
Hunger chases me frequently still and I run from it. The air grows crisp and the forest grows small.
When the moon was high I came upon a strange sharp bush that was thin with branches you could see through. It ran long, and high. On the other side was a feast, what must have been hundreds of sheep, each plump with meat. My mouth salivated, the ache that lived in my stomach making itself known.
The barbs of the bush scratched my skin, blood dripping down the sides of my body. I was so hungry. I kept low to the ground and smelled the dogs guarding the flock in the strange den. I would only take one, I was not greedy, they would not miss one. The circle of life continues.
I was lucky. I lured one of the sheep out, I bit down on its neck for a quiet and quick death. I took no joy in this thievery of life. I needed it. It was sweet, juicy, and delicious. A messy meal.
Barking scared me back to awareness and I ran, the farmer waking.
The next weeks were harder than before. I had little food, little shelter. Fear hadn’t loosened its grip on my soul, but the thought of the sheep pulled me forward.
I went to the farmers twice more, and two more lives were gone.
The sun is high now, and my paw hurts as I pull against an invisible wire, bells ring above me. The sound is beautiful, something I have never heard before. I look up to the golden instruments as they clang against each other. A warped birdsong just for me.
I don’t even know to be afraid until I smell man.
I am gone before the moon rises.
Fruit Salad
Poppy Friske
My soul is crumpled and creased in the corner.
Ripeness is fleeting. I wish everything was different.
I mourn my old desires.
I crave a sense of clarity.
I want to rip myself open and watch everything dissolve.
Summers have begun to crumble.
Bittered, dry my lips puckered like dried orange rinds.
Before, I bathed in my ignorance.
Lathered my tiny hands with grapefruit-scented hope.
Mom used to dream — now, she dyes her hair and drinks her coffee black.
I fear we are quite similar.
Passion is an insatiable ache — she taunts and teases, always one vine too high.
All of the women in my family are short.
I want to apologize and nurture what I’ve lost
I wish I hadn’t waited until everyone forgot.
Burdened By Everything
Paige Dudley
Seek the soul of hollow heart to find
Endless disappointment
Seek the body, fresh and warm
And bathe his flesh in milky cream
Mark the day he died from heat
Eulogize with cheese
Perhaps he shared a laugh
Out from an always open mouth
Perhaps the soul was Present instead on the border of the Yeastly beast.
Greatly burdened by everything
Aware of nothing.
Real or illusion?
Lost in confusion
Intriniscally encircled by Catastrophe
Seasoned traveler, he was Always rolling with the punches
Likened to a desert explorer, Tumbleweed in form.
Only he had no knowing No concept of self. So, he Invented a universe Orbiting what matters–Nothing matters.
“Twenty-SevenBones”
Poppy Friske
When I was six my fingers felt like honey; thick, clumsy, and calloused. I reached for three scaled minnows, pale blonde under the shallow creek. Their teeth glittered like pearls and clamped shut when I tried to count them. That was the year I got my first bee sting.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you could be a child actress?” If I was five I’d have hugged her, but I was ten so I just kept breathing, taking up space under the fluorescent glow of the Young Ladies department. I bit my nails and chewed her words on my concrete porch, the lawn before me sun-scorched and pouting. I think my tongue is a hangnail.
Last year I learned how to sew, my stitches loose like they were apologizing. I stuck the needle through my flesh (over and under and over and under), but my promises leaked out anyway. Brittle, glassy. They say hands are supposed to hit the ground first, but mine became a tangle of shiny thread and mismatched fingers, all the pinkies crooked.
My cousin is stretched around my knuckle, my mom sitting criss-cross on my thumb. Sterling silver, a gem cradled in their arms. They make me pretty. “You’re not a child anymore, Poppy;” fine, but what do you call the space between your palm and your wrist? The part dressed in burns and other people’s stories? One day my hands will just be bones and no one will know that I stole them.
Janie Wright
Red velvet cake by the fistful
Cabernet spilled onto lace and tulle
Turning cream to crimson
Slender hands adorned with diamond
And polished dig into the jar of maraschino cherries
Stems tangled in between teeth
Juice staining porcelain skin
Swallow them whole
Crawling across the table
Dragging the cloth
Glasses and plates crashing
They shatter to the ground
Save for a steak knife
That will carve the main dish
He’s splayed on the table
Limbs limp, skin cold
The leaking blood will warm him
It spurts out as the knife digs in
Staining the tux
It drips to his fingers
Watching as blood dribbles down
His finger, the ring finger
That stayed bare as he tried to run
Anonymous Rings of Teeth
His love fills me like sweet candy sticking to my teeth. I love him only where the sun does not shine, fearing the light reveals what law forbids. He comes to me, twin candle flames against the cold. Tobacco and vanilla and rose, he smells more divine than the wine I am forced to choke down in the dim lit hall to forgive the very love before me. The moon dare not speak of what she sees.
How else can we love if not expressed through rings? We bare our teeth, no fork or knife in hand, ready to consume. Dripping and gnashing the only sound filling our bedroom, and scent what was once cologne now the wet copper of blood.
I swallow every piece of him whole, savoring every bite as I get near to bone. My own skin torn as he sinks his teeth in my neck, sliding his hand up my body and wrapping around my heart. There is not enough of him nor me, muscle and sinew filling our stomachs but it’s not enough. Twin skeletons marred with teeth marks clutching each other, lit by the moon from the window. Sunrise brings our flesh again, and we close the curtains until bloodstained sheets are clean once more.
He leaves me again before our lives begin; two men cannot share a bed. I wait by the window, for the sunlight to inch past the ceiling before disappearing again, for the comfort of darkness and the feast his flesh brings.
Caller ID: Unknown - 1:31
AM
Bobburi
(PHONE RINGS) SCENE <$N>.
UNNAMED:
Hello, hello, hello, hello. You called me at three-oh-two yesterday and asked me where he was. Where is she? You cried, where is she?
I do not know where she is, but a piece of him is stuck between my la-te-ral incisor and my right canine. I press my tongue against that piece of flesh when I get hunger pains. I'm starving. I ate him to eat him and now there is nothing left for me.
I'll be stick-thin when it's time. I fear I've regressed, to the point of being only childlike. Anything else is unappetizing, texturally abhorrent, only bland in flavor. I ate him and petulantly I won't eat anything else, so there won't be any meat on my bones when it's time to return the favor. He will have to crack my bones under his teeth and lick the marrow out of their hollows to get anything good out of me.
Tell him I'm sorry about that when you see him, won't you?
