Writers Magazine 2010 by Writers Magazine

WRITERS A literary magazine

2010

UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND

WRITERS SENIOR EDITORS: Mary Holdener Tyler Moss

EDITORS: Caterina Purves Catherine Montgomery CJ Graves Enid Spitz Ian Clark John Bergez Laura Eager Lauren Seynhaeve

ADVISOR: Dr. Lars Larson

COVER PHOTO: Autumnal Crunch by Alistair Rokstad

SPRING 2010

Wordplay BY ROBIN SVED

Table of Contents EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S 5. My Return to the Luxury of Distractions by Nathan Haskell CHOICE 8. Portrait by Mary Holdener 9. The Sparrow and the Oak by James Mahoney 11. Last Ones of our Kind by Lisa Nims 12. Story Problems by Patrick Rexroat 18. Untitled by Abby Olson

POETRY 19. Cadence by Elliot Boswell 21. Ode to Abuela by Alex Graham 27. We All Fall Down by Tyler Moss 29. Straddling the San Andreas by Mikel Johnson 34. A preference in taste by Clifton Campbell 37. Empty by Ben Cilwick 40. The Hill by Megan House 43. Four as One by Ona Golonka 46. Simply Goodbye by Sydney Syverson 53. Death wrote you love notes by Catharine Rechsteiner 56. New York Paper Airplane Flight by Evan Gabriel 61. Parenthesis by Doug Orofino 63. fissure in the marrow suite by Anna Czuk 69. Letter to English One by Frances Klein 72. Looking Back by Annemarie Medrzycki 79. Unusual Classrooms and Passionate Teachers by Christina Radmacher 82. 20 Years by Daniel Lunchick-Seymour 84. Poetry by Ian Clark

PROSE

22. A Short Stay at a Cabin by Robert Cosby 30. FOR HADLEY by Sydney Syverson 38. June by Sarah Fitzgerald 48. Transaction Finalization Liaison by Andy Matarrese 57. Lost in Juarez by John McCarty 65. A Town Story by Lupita Ruiz 74. As Time Goes By by Tyler Moss

VISUAL ARTS

2. Wordplay by Robin Sved 20. Green Beater by Kevin Lockwood 26. Untitled by Nadia Peer 28. Panther Creek Falls by Chanel Gardella 36. Wonder by Sydney Syverson 39. Unfamiliar by Lizzy Wellner 42. Repose by Jackie Jeffers 45. A Cambridge Spring by Emily Dermann 52. Letting Go by Collin Pedeaux 55. Droplets by Bri Bobiak 62. Through the Fence by Jessica Dowling 71. Karrakatta Paradox by Caitlin Nusbaum 73. Lookout at the Ile aux Moines, France by Jenny Gresham 81. The Lion and his Bird by Enid Spitz 83. Linger by JoAnna Langberg

MISC.

87. Biographies

My Return to the Luxury of Distractions BY NATHAN HASKELL

In the end it was not the months spent in the hospital and the rehab center that were the hardest. It was not being too weak to move or learning to walk, nor was it my utter helplessness to attend to my own bowels or make sense of a seemingly endless barrage of nightmares and hallucinations. It was not being alone, alone, alone. In fact, I never once remember feeling truly lonely. When reality hits this hard, life is not about distractions but about life. You don’t think twice about the tangle of IVs spewing from your neck and arms. You look on passively as a nurse lifts your shattered legs by the monstrous metal scaffolding holding them together. The hardest part, really, was getting what I longed for most: my return to the luxury of distractions. Peers are the most clamorous and amiable of distractions, always tugging at your shirtsleeve to say hey let’s go on a bike ride, watch a movie, smoke a bowl. I returned to this type of distraction slowly. At first all I could do was smile weakly at them across the metal side-rails of my hospital bed. Soon though, I could sit up in a wheel chair and wheel myself in their direction. Eventually wheels became crutches and I hobbled, fawn-like, toward them. Looking back, I am shocked at how quickly I found myself living in a house with two friends and pedaling to school on a bike. That was when things really began to be strange. I was back in “real life” but able to escape it more than ever, with drugs and baklava and Starcraft. Such sensual joys were a Palm Sunday return to being alive, after months of confinement in sterile halls. I gloried in them as such, but also soon realized that I was just as often indulging in these pleasures to forget that I was alive. Bad day at work? Have a beer or six. Hung over the next day? Smoke a bowl or two. Daily, hourly barraged by pain the size of sand in an oyster, my now-able hands readily seized at the thousand sparkling means of pleasuring these pains away. Of course these pleasures are not in themselves reprehensible; it is using them to the point of distraction that I realized was cowardly. These distracting pleasures are often enjoyed with friends, but as my post-accident life took shape, even the company in which I could enjoy these pleasures was no longer pleasing to me, for I became aware of things about the social game that I had previously overlooked. I felt like Rip Van Winkle: after a mighty sleep, everything seemed strange and unfamiliar. I didn’t know what to say or how to act around people. Is this really the way things have been all along? I asked myself. All this

shamming and deceit? Such callous, hurtful solipsism? Conversations seemed more like monologue-competitions — people competing for airtime so that they could propagate an image. I couldn’t handle it and I didn’t want to compete, so I withdrew. I withdrew to a place more dark and more lonely than any I had known before. I walked the streets of my neighborhood at night, battered and bewildered; how had I become so trapped in the hermitage of my mind? I thought I was leaving that hermitage behind when I left the hospital bed, but instead I felt forced to retreat to it, and even to long for it, when I found that the world outside was not as I remembered. A life in which my only companions were Austrian nurses seemed infinitely better than a life where my only companions vexed and bewildered me with their thoughtlessness. It was this clash of drastically different worlds that induced my withdrawal. Before I spent those months in the quiet, white corridors, I knew no other life. Now I have felt a type of strange peace so deep I still dream about it. In my dreams the walls and floors are bamboo and the nurses are monks. They speak in low, serene voices as I lay my tired body on a mat and feel at peace once more. The cacophony is silenced for a moment, but it clamors all the louder when I wake. Thus as corporeal problems diminished, internal ones grew. Life had lost the paradoxical simplicity of the white corridors and, bewildered by a world made new, I retreated to the shelter of distractions. Yet I had also become painfully aware of how shallow and cowardly a life of distractions is, so I struggled against the temptation to numb my pain and live in a different reality. I also struggled with people; I was no longer able to look at them and the things we did together the way I used to, but I needed friends more than ever. Everything was shockingly new. Amidst my throes, I cast out to Whitman and to sunrises, and found a sandy footing. This new world is warmer and more alive, I feel its pulse, yet it is also more coarse and tumultuous. I unabashedly seek shelter in Whitman’s promise that: “There is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future.” This becomes clearer to me with time, and I would not have crossed that street a second later if I now could. Nevertheless, some scars never heal—I will forever be looking out at life through the curtains of my hospital bed. But the view is always breathtaking.

:: Epilogue :: Less than a year has passed since I floundered amidst such turbulent waters, but so much has changed. Whitmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s promise is no longer an ephemeral, poetic sentiment to which I cling. It is the reality I create through the light of my mind. The sandy footing I once tentatively trod is become a bedrock of the most extraordinary firmness and luster. I am still tripped up, from time to time, but whenever I look to the source of my distress I invariably find it is another gem, worming its way to the surface, that has caught my toes and caused me to stumble. Words do little justice to the joy and the peace that now flood my soul, for I now see that everything that has ever befallen me has been either inconsequential or for the better. With such a track record, what foolishness can lead me to believe things will ever be otherwise? Only the remnants of my old, fragmented self, which I daily push further and further from the new person I am becoming today. When I think of all the people in the world and the atrocities that go on, I am the first to admit that I know next to nothing about suffering. But I have sipped of the bitter wine, and that one sip has left me nearly delirious with love for the world. Of course, suffering was not the sole benefactor of the beatific smile I wear today, but it was the first step in opening me up to the realization of all that Life can be. I challenge each and every one of you to touch the center of your pain; I assure you that unfathomable riches lie therein.

Portrait BY MARY HOLDENER

The Sparrow and the Oak BY JAMES MAHONEY

The sparrow and the oak one day began a great dispute Concerning which development is better: wings or roots. “It’s wings!” sung out the sparrow as he sliced the sky in two. “With them I’m free to roam the Earth in any way I choose. Adventure and excitement, this is how I pass my time! You’re stuck in place while I can chase horizon’s endless line.” “At first your wings may sound the best but ponder this my friend, You are not safe from tempests and the violence they expend. Your course is Mother Nature’s whim, dependent on Her wrath. What freedom can you claim when but a gust can change your path? Concede I speak the truth that roots are better to equip! When storms bear down I hold my ground, for sturdily they grip.” “It’s true that my security does pale compared to yours, But risk’s the price that must be paid by souls who need explore. Flights through the dawn and sharp ascents through sunset’s every hue I call that life, now what is it exactly that you do? I’d wager that if one could weigh the life we live each day One week in air could be compared to years spent in the clay.” “Dignity and pride have I, and life without regret. Firm and fixed and focused, never spending time to fret! I have a constant home carved out by roots that spread so broad While your existence flutters like the wings that you applaud. It matters not what sights you see nor distances you roam — When night descends your shelter ends — no place to call your own.” The two withdrew in anger and strong feelings of dismay, Both firm in their convictions that the truth had been conveyed. This moment of frustration, though, became a blessed respite As each fellow saw the other’s argued points in brand new light. “Perhaps in both our cases there lie elements of truth. For different paths our strengths are cast — life forms in their pursuit.”

“Forgive me for my haste,” sang out the sparrow with new zest. “I realize now it’s roots I’m sculpting when I build my nests!” “That’s quite all right!” exclaimed the oak, “I’ll swear on all my rings That I never noticed ’til just now my acorns are my wings!” And so the pair went back and forth, discovering anew The might they had, when ’stead of bad, the good things they reviewed.

Last Ones of Our Kind BY LISA NIMS

Story Problems BY PATRICK REXROAT

A typical classroom setting, with clinical fluorescent lighting. A packet of paper sits on a desk with a pencil, lonely. CHILD enters to take a seat at the desk. MATH TEST also enters, and takes it’s prescribed position onstage. CHILD should not notice actor chosen to play MATH TEST, for, after all it is right in front of him/ her. MATH TEST and CHILD enter, looking indifferent. MATH TEST Hello Elementary School Student. Are you having a nice day? CHILD’s head thuds downwards onto desk

Please read the following instructions before you begin the following investigation of your computational mathematical skills: Please get your face off of me. CHILD does not stir. You are crushing me with your heavy pre-pubescent skull and I cannot provide you with instructions. You are preventing me from breathing. CHILD lifts head, puzzled Thank you. CHILD’s puzzlement has already dissipated into boredom as he/she stares out the window. He/she begins to draw childish pictures in the margins during the following: Hello Elementary School Student. Are you having a nice day? Are you looking forward to taking a math test on such a sunny and beautiful spring day? I will be administering the following investigation of your computational mathematical skills through the following set of instructions. Please read carefully. Provide a complete answer in a complete sentence to the word problems below. Please show your work. Do not draw wee-wee’s in the margins (CHILD immediately stops.), because even if you try to erase them or

scribble them out, teacher will still be able to kind of see them, and you will feel extremely guilty. CHILD goes back and forth between reading and staring out the window in the following: MATH TEST (cont.) You will have thirty minutes, and should you choose to take longer, the grains of sand in the hourglass of your oh-so-precious and oh-so-brief recess time will be quietly slipping away. Please begin! CHILD snaps to attention, and stares at the paper, momentarily dumbfounded. Please begin. Or perhaps you are now approximating how it is possible that your math test, which was clearly pre-written and arranged and collated and stapled into a nice packet by your severely underpaid teacher or severely underappreciated teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aide, has seemingly gained complete sentience, and is frighteningly anticipating your every childish action and thought. CHILD begins to scream, but stops mouth with his/her hand as MATH TEST interjects: Shut up. Keep your mouth shut, or you will be so, so sorry. Your mother and father will put you up for adoption. No talking will be permitted during the investigation of your undeveloped computational mathematical skills. Shut up! CHILD, frightened, breathing heavily, decides to buckle down and get to work. Puts face close to test and puts pencil to paper. You have bad breath and a million cavities. CHILD pulls face away. Word Problems Question #1, part A) CHILD begins to solve the problem. As the problem is read, a tired and sad looking BROTHER appears on a train platform, in the classroom. He is older. He does not notice the CHILD. Your brother waits to get on a train that will travel 225 miles from an orphanage and/or military school to your house at a speed of 45 miles

per hour. How many hours will it take him to get home? CHILD finishes the problem. Part B) Wait a minute. You don’t have a brother, do you? This is a problem. CHILD suddenly realizes BROTHER’s presence in the room. Part C) CHILD becomes increasingly uneasy. BROTHER grows more menacing and dejected.

Your parents had a first son. They hated him from the day he was born, so they sent him to an orphanage and/or military school to get rid of him. He ate bland porridge every day of his childhood. Later, they had you. They loved everything about you, but little did they know that your brother was slowly developing a chip on his military school orphan shoulder. He grew up. He located his parents using various modern resources. He didn’t contact them, but rather, thoroughly researched their lives. He found out they had a child. You. His plan for revenge seemed all too clear. BROTHER notices CHILD, begins a transition into a lumbering monster. If the train travels 225 miles an hour at a speed of 45 miles an hour how long will it be before your brother steps off the platform and begins to strangle you to death? Approximately how long will this take? BROTHER begins a Frankensteinian grab. CHILD opens mouth to scream and nothing comes out, writes something quickly while trying to lean away, hard. In what MATH TEST perceives as CHILD’s voice: “I have n bother!!!” BROTHER vanishes into thin air. CHILD is endlessly relieved. Fortunately, this is not a spelling test. Unfortunately, you are actually boring me, a math test. Therefore, Question #2, part A)

A bag of marbles drops out of the sky. (A bag of marbles drops out of the sky, onto the desk.) It seems that most of the marbles are blue, although it is dark in the bag. What is the probability of eventually drawing a red marble? CHILD looks frustrated with the impossibility of the question. MATH TEST (cont.) Looks of repugnance will A) Only land you back in 4th grade math again. B) Not answer the question. CHILD, annoyed, scribbles something down. Okay, whatever works. Marbles are boring. Parts B) through G) will be about marbles, and drawing them out of a bag. CHILD madly scribbles all over test. Part H) Have you lost your marbles? CHILD realizes that the marbles that were on the desk have suddenly vanished. Part I) This is not a cheap parlor trick, seriously, where the hell did that bag of marbles go? CHILD searches with a look of complete bewilderment, and goes back to reading. Oh well. You’re probably not crazy. CHILD internally questions own sanity. Question #3 part A) To attempt to make this investigation more interesting to your young and malleable mind, the author will now make a superfluous shift from mundane stories of marbles, (however, the absence of marbles “x” means the necessary inclusion of a train, “n”) to a more colorful plot coopted from an age appropriate joke-book found at your local public library. You are the operator of a very successful “blood bank,” but unfortunately, you have the occupational hazard of housing a terrible fear

of vampires. Meanwhile, 6 vampires hop on 6 separate trains coming from 6 geographically varied locations to your blood bank, located quite centrally, in Omaha. Considering that the trains all move at different speeds “q”, traveling from different locations “n”, and also considering the amount of sick people and proprietors of blood banks compared to the amount of hungry vampires, “y”, concoct an equation that will keep vampires out of your blood bank, because they are bad for business, and scary. During the above, the CHILD easily and suddenly becomes the proprietor of the Blood Bank, handing out jars of blood to the SICK PEOPLE now passing through the classroom. Towards the end, the CHILD tries madly to come up with an equation. MATH TEST (cont.) VAMPIRES arrive at the blood bank, and begin trading clothes with the SICK PEOPLE.

Choreographed pandemonium ensues as the VAMPIRES and SICK PEOPLE become more and more generalized, passing jars of blood between themselves as they weave through one another. Part B) It’s too late. The cunning vampires, instead of viciously attacking the blood bank as expected, have infiltrated your customer base of sick people, and are now getting blood in a pragmatic, quiet, yet still creepy way, through the sick people blood distribution system that you yourself devised. Your failure is that of Business Leaders of America, and the healthcare system. CHILD hangs head in disappointment. VAMPIRES and SICK PEOPLE exit. CHILD returns to former position at desk. Begins glumly to finish the test. Question #4 Choose your own adventure! and/or choose one of the following questions to answer: You: (LIGHTS OUT on CHILD)

Part A) Return to pg. 1: You get held back a grade so that you can re-take 4th grade math, yet again, as the findings of the investigation of your computational mathematical skills illustrate your clear lack of basic ability. Or: Part B) Stay on pg. 4 Have your loving parents complain to the school board and get both your severely underpaid teacher and severely underappreciated teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aide fired from the influential position that it would be easy to accuse them of abusing. You decide! BLACKOUT

Untitled BY ABBY OLSON

Cadence BY ELLIOT BOSWELL

There are acts of kindness, I think, which, for at least one person, collapse surface and depth and intent and second-guess in the clap of a pair of unseen hands acts which have only one layer, an infinite one, forever circling in on itself (This/-ese is/are not the infinity/-ies of a Mr. Georg Cantor, who, in or around the year 1875, wrote an 8-foot long equation and hanged himself with it. It is neither the infinity of a Mr. Lucien Freud, [grandson of a Mr. YouKnow-Who Freud], and who, in or around the year 1950, painted himself a bottomless well and tried to dive all the way down in one go. It is closer to this second one, though.) acts which, if they could be un-nested, like an endlessly interrogated matryoshka doll, would reveal themselves to be nothing more than acts of kindness

Green Beater BY KEVIN LOCKWOOD

Ode to Abuela BY ALEX GRAHAM

The film of masa Stains her fingers With the years Of feeding welcoming mouths. Her voice wraps around My fears As she whispers Te quiero mija She looks like An angel. When she laughs I trace the lines That form around Her eyes And hope someday That Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be as beautiful She savors the Taste of strawberries. The sweet pieces of fruit Look like red gems Between her fingers As she eats them One by one. She smells of love and life But the faint scent Of tamales lingers Forever.

A Short Stay at a Cabin BY ROBERT COSBY

I sat on the tailgate of my stepdad’s Chevy 3500 with wet cheeks and whiskey spilled down the front of my flannel shirt. I wiped the tears with my sleeve and watched the Ponderosa Pines at the end of the wheat field turn into shadowy figures. The sun had already gone down, but a light red banner remained above the horizon, dissolving around the edges into the night. I was drunk and feeling sorry for myself and my parents’ decision to split up. I sat there and drank until the last thread of red light dissolved into black and the thousands of stars came out. The next morning I told my mom that I planned on spending the remainder of the month at my grandfather’s lake cabin to focus on my running for the upcoming cross country season. I was too much of a coward to tell her that I was having a hard time with them splitting up, and that home no longer felt like the place I had grown up. I knew doing so would break her heart and only make her problems worse. I told the same story to my grandfather who was away for the month on a business trip. His only request was that I do my best to complete an evergrowing list of jobs he would give me over the phone. My mother knew that something was bothering me but decided to let me have some alone time before confronting me about it. Even so, as I drove off that afternoon with my golden retriever, Jasper, in the passenger seat, I could tell that she was fighting the urge to cry; my dad, standing beside her, simply waved goodbye. The drive is east through the wheat fields that surround my home, through the Indian reservation which sells tobacco and fireworks at discount, and into the steep, rugged, pine-clad hills that guard the silver and blue waters of Lake Coeur d’Alene, where the mirrored water creates an impressionists’ painting of the surrounding mountain wilderness. The winding, washboard dirt road provides the only access to the cabin, which sits on a steep hillside wedged between thickets of bushes and hundred foot Douglas Firs. The cabin is a small log framed structure built more than seventy years ago by my grandfather and overlooks the lake to the East. Over the years the roof has been replaced from its original wood shingles to a forest green aluminum covering. The inside of the cabin is simple and comfortable; the sun shines strongly through the lakeside windows into the living room and glimmers on the oak furniture. The smell of decades’ worth of oils and furniture polish rubbed into the hard wood coat the cabin and give it a familiar warmth. I sat in the living room in one of the two reclining

chairs that sit at a slight angle of each other and face an old oak cabinet with a flat screen TV on top. The worn fabric of the chairs holds in the musty smell of wood and polish. Across the room is a large stone fireplace with a white pine mantel built by my grandfather decades ago. Above the mantel sits a ship’s steering wheel from one of the many steamers which used to run timber and ore up and down the lake. From where I sat I could look down into the sun porch. The porch is enclosed by six-foot tall windows, which wrap around the long rectangular room. In the far corner of the sun porch, next to the glass sliding door, sits a cast-iron wood stove used to heat the thin room when the power goes out in heavy snow. The porch holds a massive dark wood dining table with hand crafted rustic wood chairs surrounding it. What used to be a dark green couch sits facing the windows; years of sunlight have bleached the fabric and bring to attention its age and imperfections. The rest of the cabin consists of two small bedrooms, which have trouble holding their tiny twin beds, the master bedroom, and a small functional kitchen. The cabin is clean of any dust, stain, or mark of any kind. Everything is maintained and in working order. The spotless windows, evenly spaced chairs, and polished wood give the impression that there are too many servants with too little to do. Such perfection is my grandfather’s intention, and any patrons of the cabin are required to keep the cabin in such condition. I cracked open a Pabst and began to settle into one of the small bedrooms at the back of the cabin. After I unpacked my belongings into the cedar dresser I walked into the kitchen and put some soup on the stove. After I ate, I sat on the edge of the octagon-shaped deck connected to the cabin. I drank and watched the shadowy figures of trees and clouds dancing in the water as waves distorted their clarity. Jasper was swimming between the docks, and had been since we arrived. “Damn dog will swim himself to death,” I said to myself. I gave a short firm whistle; he turned toward shore and paddled hard and within seconds he was up the stairs and shaking the excess water off next to me. “Easy Hoss,” I called out while flinching away. The sun had disappeared behind us but still shined brightly on the other side of the lake. I pulled out my can of Copenhagen and stuffed my bottom lip with tobacco. I leaned forward and spat. Jasper was leaning against me with his damp body, making the legs of my jeans wet. The hair on the top of his head stood in little spikes, as it always did after a swim, and he looked in the same direction I did. Once the last suggestion of sun had vanished and we were in the dark, Jasper and I went up to bed.

The next morning I woke around six, pulled on my nylon shorts, tied up Jasper so he wouldn’t follow me and ran up the steep dirt driveway into the cool, crisp morning. An hour and a half later I returned to the cabin, untied Jasper and ran barefoot off the end of the dock before my sweat cooled. Both of us swam in the cove provided by the two docks until I cramped and tired and climbed out. I sat in my shorts drinking black coffee at the end of the dock, throwing a tennis ball out into the lake for Jasper to retrieve until the morning sun began to make my back burn. This became our morning ritual. The afternoons heated up into the nineties. At noon the tall, gangly pines provided little relief from the sun’s scorching heat. Each afternoon I worked. I approached my grandfather’s list with a firm devotion. The list became my obsession. It provided a break from all of my life’s stresses and problems. I never thought about my parents while I worked, and if I did I simply picked up my pace and increased my efforts. The jobs ranged from enjoyable to unbearable, but I approached each one with the same dedication as the last. A great feeling of pride and relief came every time I completed a job and crossed it off the list. Around dinnertime I would stop working, take a swim and wash up. As I prepared supper I would usually start drinking. When I began to run low, I would drive into the nearest town and buy a case of beer and can of Copenhagen. After I ate, I would sit on the deck with Jasper and drink several beers before moving on to Jack Daniels. I would drink and talk to him; he would listen and look at me with his soft brown eyes in a way that all dog owners know. I shared everything with him: jokes, stories, lies, mistakes, and he always listened with the love and loyalty found in no other friend. When it was dark, I would retire to the cabin and read. I read more books than I had ever read in my life. I never turned on the TV; doing so seemed to be a sin in such a quiet, solitary place. I worked my through one novel after another. I read Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row, which compelled me to drink wine and stay up late. I read Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, which compelled me to read more Steinbeck. I read Charles Bukowski, and on such nights I drank more whiskey than beer, and Cormac McCarthythose nights I chewed more tobacco than drank. I read Ernest Hemingway and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. I read every night till my eyes grew heavy and I could no longer force them open. Drinking and reading became a favorite pastime of mine. When I returned home on the weekends I was quickly reminded of the reasons why I left. My dad had moved out to the shop in our back yard and my mom wouldn’t stop complaining about their troubles. On

one such weekend I arrived home late in the morning, and by the time supper was over Jasper and I were back in the pickup heading out to the cabin. I began to appreciate the isolation of the cabin and found comfort in the simple lifestyle I had. Running at the cabin meant less than I originally thought it would, and there were several days that I would skip my strict routine and take Jasper for a walk through the hills instead. As the days went by I began to notice a change in myself that is hard to explain. I was no longer overly worried about my folk’s troubles, or my own. For the first time I wasn’t preoccupied with the thoughts of what other people were thinking or doing. The only thing I could control was me, and for the first time that was alright. I couldn’t control my parents or their decisions; I couldn’t control other competitors or even future competitions. It felt as though every job on the list had been crossed out and the only thing left for me to do was take care of myself. I ended up coming back from the cabin a week early. My parents were still struggling but they agreed to see a counselor before calling their marriage off. On the night before I left for school, I tried to explain to my parents how I felt, and how my outlook had changed during my short stay at the cabin. I did the best I could and they both nodded their heads and seemed to understand what I was telling them. They took their turns reassuring me how much I meant to them and how much they loved me, and each other. We ate and drank wine. I told my parents how I spent my days working at the cabin; they listened as though I had revealed a secret to them I had kept my entire life. They asked me questions about my stay with the intent of learning, not judging or overbearing. Their faces were soft and caring, with the look a parent gives when they are proud of their child. I said good night and they went to bed. I went outside and sat on the bench in my back yard with Jasper lying at my feet. A breeze from the hills bent the reedy wildflowers in the gardens and sent my hands into my pockets. The stars were covered by thick, threatening clouds. I leaned forward and spat. “Looks like a storm brewing, Hoss.” Jasper shot his head up at the sound of my voice; he didn’t know what I was saying but knew I was talking to him. “Better head in.” I walked toward the house and he followed by my side. I slid in bed and Jasper curled up on the rug beside me. We listened to the rain start to fall outside. Jasper’s breathing was heavy and slow, I quickly fell asleep. That night, for the first time in over a month, my house felt like home.

Untitled BY NADIA PEER

We All Fall Down BY TYLER MOSS

Fall is best known After half a bottle of gin. In the backyard The ground is littered with red leaves And crabapples, Which I throw hard against a tree. Bitter fragments of fleshy fruit Rain like applause. The golden lab runs in circles Gnawing the air, And I collapse in the dead grass, Alive, alone.

Panther Creek Falls BY CHANEL GARDELLA

Straddling the San Andreas BY MIKEL JOHNSON

I wear glasses given to me By open-hearted, red-handed, And my own twisted volition. Place them on my crooked bridge Each time the daylight shakes me From my futile excuse for escape. For the histories that (smashed together) Make up this tool to guide my world I see their birds, their flowers, their bees Like the Achilles, the San Andreas Like her bottle, or his candy necklace. In all of my oscillating surrogate selves I cannot pin down my own devianceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Am I fashioned by the same hands? Am I so grossly disfigured? Have I fallen? Am I faulty? Is this so much worse? I neither love nor want to love them. We neither love nor want myself. Below the sea, above the sky. Then the time comes to leave and I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel their absence deep in my bones Like books say, like they say, you say. In broken isolation, I am surrounded By shapes and shadows, bottles and unprotected tendons. Even in tossing and turning through this darkness. Even with these spectacles removed I cannot find the time to be alone, like my heart does. After multiple conclusions, I am still Searching for the beginning of this story. A history of glasses for our birds and bees. A history of falling, ever searching for a push And waiting for the bottom.

FOR HADLEY BY SYDNEY SYVERSON

REFLECTION:

When I walk outside the heat hits me like a vindictive secret; harsh and unexpected. With the 113 degree weather beating down on my pale lifeless skin, you would never guess that this never ending summer is coming to a close. A book opened too late to fully grasp the characters and plot must now slam shut on another era and it’s time for me to live up to my expectations and potential…it’s time for me to change the world; a command scribbled in my freshman yearbook by an old dear friend. At the time I convinced myself his words were that of a sage, “You’re gonna change the world, kid.” Kid. It’s this word that catches my gaze and I fix right on it. Kid. Perhaps. Perhaps as a kid I could have changed the world. My naiveté and childish grin could have made some semblance of a difference or else I would have been too young to fully grasp my failure and shortcomings. But now…now “kid” no longer refers to me. This word is now a foreigner looking longingly into my grey eyes hoping that I speak its language. I don’t. I no longer speak hopscotch and water balloon fights, sleepovers and unending nights. Instead…instead, I speak taxes and bills, gas prices, responsibilities, cigarettes…I lick my lips and can still taste the last one I had 20 minutes ago. Adults do this…they inhale hot deadly smoke into their fragile lungs on a 113 degree day. And I am no different. Kids inhale honeysuckle in their neighbor’s yard and chlorine from the local pool…or rather they inhale second hand smoke from the adults; from their protectors. As the sweat begins to annoy the small of my back I want to scream. I want to shout at the taxes and bills, the gas prices and cigarettes. I want to blame someone…I want to blame something for the building blocks of my childhood being so hastily tossed aside. I open my mouth and my lips crack from the lack of moisture in the air. My lungs do their best to expand properly and I wait to let out an earth shattering screech. I wait. “Oh bother. It’s no bother,” I think to myself disappointed at my lack of…my lack of…follow through. People are streaming by, rushing here and there trying desperately to get out of the unforgiving sun’s glare. And I am, once again, to aware to let go of the pent up frustration trapped underneath the exterior… underneath the “business casual” attire I wear at the place where people literally say, “I’m just calling to touch base” and “I’ll be sure to

check those numbers and get back to you ASAP”, the place where I sit in my staunch cubicle in the uncomfortable chair that I ceaselessly shift from side to side in praying that “maybe today my ass won’t fall asleep and stay that way for 8 hours”. Instead of my own stentorian sound bellowing from my throat, I hear that all too familiar buzz of the male cicada. This sound brings about nothing less than undeniable disgust for this desert landscape and I find myself wondering what kind of god forsaken creature spends 9 months of the year burrowed under the ground, only to emerge for the hottest and most god forsaken months of the year, where they only choose to add to the repulsiveness of an already repulsive backdrop? REGRETS: The drive home is too familiar to take any notice of it at all. In fact, I hardly recognize that I’m driving or that I even have a desired destination; my body seems to take over this menial task and carefully tells my brain to “take a break” so as not to make it feel ordered about. But much like myself, my brain is not one to take heed of useful commands and my mind begins to wander into files that are closed, dusty and marked confidential for a very specific reason. “Rules are meant to be bent,” I think as I open the file and swiftly flip through memories better left unsaid — the ones I’m wishing now that I had forgot. I skim through pages and pages of symbols, song lyrics, hyperboles and it’s like I’ve lived my life through other people’s melodies. It’s amazing that I can even stand to listen to any music at all anymore I think to myself as I quickly turn off the song that is playing in my car because surely it will just bring about another unwanted memory…another face I’d rather I’d never seen at all. A song for each point in my life, every mood, every emotion, everything I’ve ever felt is hidden away in a dusty file in my mind; hidden between the lines of song lyrics. If you listen to them carefully — to the lullabies and comforting tunes — maybe you would know who I am…maybe he would know. I sigh as I come to stop in front of a house I call my own but it is no home. I sit in the driveway for a while, contemplating whether entering is a good decision. A subtle laugh juts from my mouth because in that moment I know I never make good decisions…so why begin now? As I meander into the front door I see the all too familiar scene. It’s the one I saw last week, the one I saw yesterday, and the one I’ll see every day that I continue to exist in this all too realistic reality. He’s not in the living room. I walk into the kitchen for no real reason at all; I know he’s not there. What I do find is a half eaten bowl of pasta; the gnats circle

around the meat sauce wanting so badly to devour it all but knowing they would never succeed in this task. I wonder if I sat on the kitchen counter long enough if the gnats would come to devour my meat or if he would come to rescue me after hearing my shrieks and screams. I’m sure he cares more about that bowl of pasta than my frivolous flesh so the odds of him saving me are as likely as a white flag being raised in this unspoken war we’ve waged for months. I thought he would save me though. At least that’s what he promised me; back when we were…who we wanted to be and not who fate has forced us to become — two strange skeletons coexisting simultaneously in a diving bell always feeling claustrophobic and alone. REVELATIONS:

I walk into the hallway and an endless ambush of photographs are thrust upon me. Stopping to gaze at the pictures I notice for the thousandth time the glimmer in our eyes…I realize how young we look although the pictures were only taken a few months ago. Lines of age are now drawn into our faces like the lines of sand on a beach, yet unlike those lines ours will not be washed away by the seas salty current or drowned despite our tears most valiant efforts. “Goddammit,” I say as a shard of glass slices through my foot. I search for the source of the glass and it only takes me a moment to notice a photograph missing from the wall now lying face down on the floor. I brace myself for the scene I know I am choosing to encounter. Walking into a bedroom decorated in light purples and sunflower yellow, I see him sitting next to a chest filled with toys like our lives once filled with dreams of happiness. There is no happiness here now. I ask him about the photograph. He doesn’t respond. The cicadas buzz ruthlessly outside the window as if they are egging on this impending argument. I plead for him to talk to me; to tell me why he insists on taking down the picture and yet refuses to step out of this room for more than a brief moment. The way he looks at me when I condemn him for not going back to work and leaving me to support this family is the way a father looks at a disobedient child when he is utterly disappointed at their unkindness. I know he doesn’t believe that I’m in as much pain as he is, that I secretly wish that glass had sliced out the remnants of my tattered heart, because he has never valued my emotions as much as his own. Finally he speaks. “We don’t have a family anymore. You made sure of that.” I stare at him, completely unable to form a single phrase or

even create a profound thought. He must see the appalled look on my face as tears well up in my eyes. I won’t cry. I won’t give him that consolation prize for his unforgivable victory. As if his first words weren’t at all painful enough he has the audacity to speak again. “You can stand there looking at me like an innocent child but you’re not innocent…not in this…not this time.” I storm out of the room and tear down each photo on the wall. I break them, I scream, I throw things. He doesn’t come. I grab my keys and he hears the jingle of the key chains. “You’re really going to drive away in anger? Don’t you think that’s caused enough problems for us? Go ahead…leave…go have your temper tantrum and feel sorry for yourself; feel sorry for what you’ve done but don’t ever take responsibility.” He doesn’t even have the courage to say this to my face. I drop the keys on the counter and head to the room with a mission. “Yes. It is my fault. It is all my fault what happened to Hadley. You are innocent. Your hands are clean of this crime,” I shout and the words spill from my mouth like they’d been waiting on the tip of my tongue for decades. He won’t even look at me. “Jesus Christ! It was an accident! Cars kill! They just… do. I wish it had been me. You think there is ever a day that goes by that I don’t wish it had been me instead of your precious baby? I can’t turn back time though! I can’t stop people from running red lights! I can’t do this alone…every single day. I can’t live with you hating me…I hate myself enough. I can’t. I wish it had been me.” He looks at me with a sense of relief on his face, like I’d just said the magic words, and I foolishly believe that he may say something kind and comforting to me now…finally. “I wish it had been you too,” he says and his eyes are filled with more darkness than I even thought imaginable. I feel as if, in that moment, I had been hit by a truck and I longed for the forgiveness of death. I look at him, accepting that this is not the person I promised to spend the rest of my life with; no…that person died along with our one shared interest and now stands a person I do not want to know in the slightest. I choose my words carefully and speak one last time, “I may be a child, but you are not a man.”

A preference in taste BY CLIFTON CAMPBELL

The crumbling man’s hands rested, turned upwards towards the sky Thick and sticky counter-top had been left glued to his palms From his visits And saline wetness dusted his face, his body rose and fell with the tide of his breathing No, you are right, he was not exactly crumbling Drowning depicts him more capably than crumbling, I suppose

I wish that I had seen his hands with my own eyes And I heard they were caked stiff from his visits Deep brown lacquered by a red-bloody sangria finish Crystallized, forever gummy sweet, crushing his hands sweetly Into sharp candied graves jutting out from his arms like garish rotted teeth He held them still for they throbbed and screamed abuse at the slightest tremble He sat knowing that the betrayal of Dionysus had been pain This was a sickly treat for the gods One of whom would be delighted with the intricacies of the flavor, much more so than I am willing to explain This was quite different from the salty taste that had infiltrated the large pores on the old man’s pale-white cheeks. And the deep ship-wreck eyes that had sunken into the deep and cold darkblue waters of his thoughts over time And, week after week. His hands rested, turned upwards towards the sky. His body rose and fell with the tide of his breathing Hoping that Seattle rain would wash him free from his aches, dispel the layers of dust and grime from his brow Many odd bits of dust and curious little particles were bound to fall from the fluorescent lighting he had once known It rained indoors and outdoors in Seattle Those bright pinks, blues, and reds willed him nothing but sadness now Late at night, Chronos and Odyne had a brief argument over a slight preference in taste “But the complexity and individuality of human tribulations are all too appealing,” fervently stated Odyne, trembling from ecstasy

His palate was smeared sloppily with little shiny sweets Nodding in the darkness Chronos silently acknowledged the appeal, but preferred sorrow over pain for its weary permanence, its wet coldness He sipped his Scotch slow

Wonder BY SYDNEY SYVERSON

Empty BY BEN CILWICK

Set me down In a year—no two or three With boys from youth Planning heists, in and scan Heists of the can A suicide of sorts. In and on bus to Rincon With love brushing The skirts of the generation. In and on the generation Ain’t mad, it ain’t mad, but mechanical oceans Of hip-hop madness seep into Self-love O prose of prose And bound for med-school And a grave And a daughter And skirts, flirty skirts Of the generation. With both find smiles And empty denials Or a trash can, or a dumpster Toppled with muddy sneakers And jazz of the new age Smoothly blasting a trumpet Into and courting and slipping Into the generation. Neither or both leave us Proclaiming, hollering, pleading Our belief in Nothing.

June BY SARAH FITZGERALD

Look at her. Wild, untamable hair, hardly detectable as she runs, running to play, running to tease. She speaks of what is good in the world; a vast, open yard concealed in the corner of the mountains, uninhibited. A swirl of ringlets to match the swaying of her butterfly dress. Yes, she chases what she wants , feeling as light as a butterfly. Bare feet in the grass, drinking from the stream as clear as her vision of what is beautiful to her, she knows even the smallest of birds learn to fly. The fortress of the cabin behind her is but a large dollhouse filled with her precious dolls, the people she loves. Breathing the air, her age not yet past the delicate fingers on her tiny hand she stretches towards the seamless sky, she knows how perfect this moment is. Whether it be dream or real life, uncertain to her, she knows that it will not last forever, but grasps it so that it may be in her pocket for now. Where does the unbounded innocence come from? Everything is perfect, crystal, the type of clarity perhaps possessed for the briefest of time only to be lost… When she discovers pain will she ever be the same? She will not feel as wild. She will not see the surrounding mountains all the same, aware of what pain is creeping, preying to harm her. She will know pain and fear it. Her ringlets will lose their curl before the day is gone and the magic of her butterfly dress will be packed away until next summer. Until she is a big girl and has outgrown the dress. Too naive, too little, too unfamiliar with the world at large, she only knows what makes her happy. One last turn, a swirl of the skirt of her dress and the world is spinning, blurred and unclear. A moment, a breath, a giggle and her vision is clear again. “The sky,” she says “is just a promise of forever.”

Unfamiliar BY LIZZY WELLNER

The Hill BY MEGAN HOUSE

you getting nowhere on an upwards slope staring at the sky dreaming of angels more perfect than the most delicate bloom lying crushed and dying beneath your oblivious sole reckoning sweet and ghostly kisses upon your fettered lips

i have seen the top of the hill the deepest crevice i too remember that night of breathtaking stars and the soft, effervescent meadow in my curling toes eyelashes fleecy and gentle upon my gooseflesh, then gone with the wind, two wishes, two ways gravity, inescapable but chained by bygone kisses, you resist oh but the wisdom of the world; newton knew better my feet begin to slide, itching for more ground the grass begins to grow too long itching for new life longing to escape your stifling stance slope steepens, iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m gaining speed and you pass out of sight i catch up wildflowers in my arms as the wind catches up my soul caresses of a different kind similarly sweet but they linger longer, a sweet breath of promise, steady and safe, without fear.

faster, faster the sights of cities synthesize below a whirlwind so wide and deep I catch small snippets of the timeless nymphs whispering the secrets of exuberance, ecstasy free, but not alone love radiates from all b o u n d s . I go freely, swiftly with the grounding gravity of hope, sure it will lead me safely to his wonderfully strange and cradling shores.

Repose BY JACKIE JEFFERS

Four as One BY ONA GOLONKA

Paving its way through dark, grey, concrete halls, The breeze emerged to find white tiled walls. Standing in this cold lair underground A diverse, dense crowd was to be found. Sipping lattes or clutching newspapers, Bordered by walls emitting strange vapors, They waited for the rumbling of tracks, Tapping their feet on the ground filled with cracks. Amongst this morning rush, they were to go, To cubicles or classrooms, to and fro Blending with the wall, there stood a young chap, Playing his cello; on the ground, his cap. His bright smile masking his worried mind, For there were no coins, not even a dime. Throughout the week, he played in this same spot Whether he obtained a few bills, or not. His melody relieved him from the stress, Of staying unknown, not knowing success. Dressed in weathered clothes, an unshaven beard, An unknown; yet his music persevered. Enjoying that music, was a young lass, On her way to school, excited for class. Her mind ready to learn, her face full of glee, She pranced in her shiny shoes happily. Not knowing corruption, not knowing hate, Her innocence, people would want to take. Dressed in pastel colors, her hair in braids, Her zeal for knowledge, she couldn’t evade. Learning about pyramids or the sun, Forming pure memories, innocence won. Holding the girl’s hand, was her proper mom, Who practiced yoga to try to keep calm. Balancing her family and career, Trying to thrive in the global work sphere. Wearing a crisp blouse, holding the girl’s hand, She appeared motherly, and in command. With her hair tied in prim and tight bun, Nothing in her world could be undone.

Her life now fast-paced, no time to unwind, Years ago, this was not what she had in mind. Lurking in the shadows, amongst the crowd, Was a pickpocket, never was he cowed. Sly as a fox, cunning was his style, Diverse spoils he managed to compile. Wallets, jewelry and handbags he stole Stealing gave him a sense of full control. He did not consider himself as wrong, But he hoped that this trade was not life-long. Many valuables he could now afford, Yet did not see a future in-store.

A Cambridge Spring BY EMILY DERMANN

Simply Goodbye BY SYDNEY SYVERSON

I just want to sleep— soundly and drizzle dizzily in and out of my consciousness without feeling the tugging of my conscience on my skull — simply saying, like my best friend, reminding me over and over again— “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to put yourself through this” — on repeat and repeat until it’s beat into me so brutally that I begin to believe it. I just want to keep myself so busy —

with the tick tock of the clock that perches painstakingly on the street that is mind — moving so quickly I don’t even have the time to think about — rewind, wait, stop, go back. I just don’t want any thoughts — at all. Not a single thought — not a thing that could potentially conjure up a — buried-so-deep I could-have-sworn-it-had-deteriorated — memory of that last night when something about our skins lying next to one another in that dim dramatic light — catatonic — the contrast so catastrophic as if the difference was inconspicuous — it was meticulous — it was egging on an impending argumentative — preventative — repetitive fight. Alright? I just want to breathe — on my own. without acknowledging that I am doing so alone — there is no syncopated breath following — mine catches when I try to no avail to frantically suck enough O2 to fill up the hole that you burrowed yourself so deeply — so discreetly inside that’s just a bit left of what you left of me that last time. I just want to lie —

to everyone — all of the time — saying like a broken record that I really am fine. Except that tragically this time — this time… I actually wanted you to be mine. I just don’t want this to be misconstrued as a crime — I commit day in and day out — all I really want to do is count… on you and — that defines me — that controls me — that binds me to this person — I don’t know — I guess I don’t just want anything. I just want everything — you promised me. you called me…sunflower — for years only you and I knowing the symbolism that nickname struggled to hold. But I suppose a promise can’t be expected to stand up against the test of our — differences — love, hate, lust, time. I know that the timing was just never just right. I know now that a promise is just a lie in its first stage of life. We refuse to act like adults so we just lose it — we throw tantrums like punches and we’ve learned to just roll with them — the changes — when our life together rearranges into two separate lives — which it does time after month after year after time… but why? Why do we “just” anything? Hell, you and I, babe we “just” everything. When we could just as easily and much less drastically decide to end that this time — because without the “justs” — it’s simply goodbye.

Transaction Finalization Liaison BY ANDY MATARRESE

For eight hours a day, about four days a week, I was a priest to the almighty god of the dollar. The rubber conveyer belt was my altar, the beeping bar code reader computer my choir. The faithful would come in droves to sacrifice cash, credit, debit, or check upon my rubbery altar, and if deemed worthy, they would be granted a shiny new red credit card good for 20 percent off their first purchase. Well, at least that’s what I’d tell myself. I worked retail for a summer at Target, and working retail is just like any other crappy entry-level job. Like millions of other working stiffs, I punched in every morning to trade my time on this earth, arguably the most precious thing in my possession, for minimum wage plus five cents per hour, each hour spent in the stuffy bowels of America’s consumer economy. And boy were those bowels stuffy. The thought of doing my civic duty to keep the corporate machine humming along, thusly preserving the market at large, did not stop the scent of fabric softeners from drying my eyes nor the fluorescent lights from sucking away my will to live. My body doesn’t take kindly to department stores. Thankfully, I was a cashier, and the opening and closing of the automatic doors provided enough ventilation for the front of the building. It was nice to see the light of day, too. If you didn’t look at the clock, that little window to the outside was the only way to get an idea of what time it was. Theoretically, you could look out and think it was early morning when it was actually dusk. The light looks the same without the context of the sky or a timepiece at the ready. Clocks became the enemy on a long shift, turning a long shift into a kind of twisted fight against time. Time slows to a crawl upon passing the automatic-door threshold. You have to find ways to avoid looking at the clocks in the building. Thankfully, much like a casino, there are none in well-placed areas for customers. In a cruel twist, however, there are clocks on the screens around which a cashier’s life revolves. For floor workers, it’s not a big problem, but it’s the cashier’s private hell. Customers meant activity. A busy day at the check out line was a short day, a break from the monotony. A good cashier can stack a bag like a Jenga tower, twirl their barcode-reader gun like the Clint Eastwood, and make the computer beep to the Macarena. Downtime meant slow time, so work became a goal. Rarely have I seen people jump at the opportunity to do something. Whether that meant helping lift something

heavy, going into the back parts of the building, or anything that wasn’t in the original job description, it meant variety, variety being the only relief to the menial laborer. One of those ancillary jobs was called “zoning,” or tidying up. Target took tidying up and turned it up to 11. Anything hanging on a rack must be pulled to the end of the rack. Clothes needed to be folded and piled neatly. Stacks of printed ads, catalogues, and coupon books are to be squared away and organized. Displays of single products had to be arranged symmetrically. The candy, especially the gum, has to be placed properly to maximize its ease of consumption and aesthetic quality. Right angles and perfect symmetry. It was systematized, Aryan retail, all with a prescribed purpose. Target knew that life is all about the show. Employees are “team members,” not unskilled labor without any other prospects and/or wanting of some quick cash. Our customers were “guests,” not Target’s meal tickets. I joined in, and fancied myself a “transaction finalization liaison.” The nicely arranged displays and orderly stores are all part of Target’s greatest bit of showmanship, their dirty little secret: Target is exactly the same as Wal-Mart. The prices, the types of products, the customers — everything. The only difference, the only thing Target does that’s significantly different, is all about the show. The red theme and the tidiness make shoppers forget the difference. Don’t believe me? People don’t protest Targets like they do Wal-Marts. Target can get away with everything Wal-Mart does because it all looks nice. The shiny finish makes shoppers forget that every department is another boarded-up local small business. The attractive presentations make it easier to forget that the employees cannot organize. The niceness of it all lets people who would not be caught dead associating with the class of people who shop at Wal-Mart do so without fear of losing their middle-class credentials. At my stand alone, I would have to speak some caveman Spanish, sell boxed wine, process hundreds in credit transactions, and sell gaudy jewelry to the most yearning masses of huddled humanity on up to the snootiest suburban middle Americans the universe had to offer. Misery loves company, so it was nice to have co-workers. Most of my co-workers were just fixtures of the store to me, like the glowing bullseyes on the side of the stucco box building or fixed bagging rack, but they were a good bunch. My fellow cashiers were mostly middle-aged women, bubbly with outgoingness, and that was nice. It was like working with an aunt, one always curious and infinitely interested in how I was doing. Ian was our rent-a-cop, Target’s iron fist in a badge-wearing, blue-polyester glove. He would spend most of the day at the en-

trance or in back doing clandestine observation analysis on the camera system. His partner, Brad, was our undercover man. Where Ian was wiry and nimble, Brad was the muscle, and would keep an eye on suspicious customers in the guise of an everyday shopper. We were all jealous of him because he didn’t have to wear the corporate-mandated red shirt and khaki pants. My bosses on the floor were all female, a few years older than me, and were entertaining, but for more aesthetic reasons. Heidi was the blonde, neighbor girl type. Victoria was a tall, slim brunette who meant business. My other boss, she had kind of a Velma from Scooby-Doo thing going on. Even in a building with no natural sunlight, they managed to bring a little of their own brand of sunshine, if you catch my meaning. Unfortunately, there sometimes wouldn’t be zoning to do or long lines of customers to keep me busy or cute bosses to ogle, so I had to find other distractions. Organizing the workers was out, so I would derive my kicks from customers. Some activities were more direct, like flattering the old women by ID-ing them when they bought wine or giving the little kids stickers. Most the fun I had was in my head. Don’t let it bother you too much, but yes, your cashier does judge you based on what you buy. It’s not personal, it just helps us get through the day. A favorite pastime of mine was creating profiles about customers based on their purchases, much like how cops make profiles about serial killers based on their murders. There was the overworked mother, with up to two carts full of things only a medium-sized family would want. In the summertime, especially, the usual fare of Gushers, Oreos, one to two toys, diapers, and cleaning stuffs would be augmented with piles of school supplies. The “bro,” as I have classified him, will rarely have enough in purchases to necessitate the need of a cart, or even a basket. Whether the succinctness of their shopping is a masculine quality, I know not, but these young, 18-24 year-old males often purchase an energy drink and a few small items — DVDs, video games, CDs, a magazine, a pair of sunglasses, a box of condoms — and pay with debit as to expedite the process. When creating a taxonomy of customers was of no interest (on weekday mornings, the crowd is mostly middle age to older women, limiting the variety), I derived my entertainment from making up actual stories about shoppers based on their purchases. A woman came in to do some wholesale school supply shopping — crayons by the crate, so it seemed. Great Pyramids of yellow Crayola crayon, marker and colored pencil boxes; enough rulers to build a short fence around Washington;

100 half-reams of lined filler paper (college and wide ruled) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it went on. I postulated she either was starting her own medium-sized primary school or was trying to corner the school supply market in her local school district, undercutting then muscling out the competition. Another woman bought 50 boxes of maxi pads, totaling to about 200 pads. Such volume told me that there was no other reason one woman could need that many feminine hygiene products except to handle major hull breaches aboard Navy battleships. As the end of the day approached, time slowed even further, the final minutes passing like hours. It felt like being a little kid, awake at 5 a.m. and waiting to get up on Christmas morning. The time would finally come, and someone would relieve me from my post, and I was off. There are few moments between human beings as beautiful as when someone picks up at the end of your shift and gives that look where you both silently acknowledge the great service, the grand and magnanimous act of charity, your brother or sister has done for you. Likewise, there are few feelings as refreshing as leaving the stuffy store for fresh air, then to sit down in your car after standing for several hours. Nor are there sensations quite as gratifying as the small victory I felt when I kept the nametag I was supposed to return upon quitting. Things like that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t buy at your local Target.

Letting Go BY COLLIN PEDEAUX

Death wrote you love notes BY CATHARINE RECHSTEINER

It goes back to when I was a kid. We’d hide our rifles in guitar cases, hop on the bus and hike up the mountains. We’d practice shootin’ cans. And shootin’ cans isn’t much different from shootin’ clay pigeons. Every day we’d have target practice on the deck. One 40 mm, an M16 and a Colt 45. I was a marksman, a sharpshooter. Seven young men sit around a fire. Fire fills their eyes and their voice and their faces. Throws shadows across their features. They don’t realize who they defy. Even the sand shies from their feet, the ocean falls back at their laughter. They don’t think. Crushed cans in their hands. They laugh and are young and invincible. I stood outside the fire’s glow and watched them. A statement dark and heavy like driftwood becomes a promise light as smoke. It drifts before their eyes, fills their heads, makes them dizzy. And they love it. You wanted to serve your country, be bigger than life. A real hero who never dies. Just like John Wayne. I ordered them to back off, they were gettin’ too close to the gunboat. These fishermen were using concussion grenades to catch fish. They’d hold it in their hands and let it drop in the water. I watched as we sailed past. He pulled the spoon and I counted with them. One Two Three. There’s no guarantee it’ll go off in ten seconds. I hit five and Boom. It blew up in his hands, one big bloody mess. One man sits on his motorcycle waiting for the light to change to green. You didn’t think, with your children on your mind, that your life could be worth less than a U-turn. That everything can change, quick as one touch, metal on flesh. Make your head spin, shoot you out like bullets. But the pavement didn’t want you, not yet. One Two Three. Your body stopped spinning, finally cradled by the curb. But how could you rest before you found yourself? Limbs tangled and ripped like paper. I was watching you, I was always waiting for that one slip, I was there since your seventh year, the day you became bored of

the shallow water. And a part of you liked me too, the shock of our fingers touching sent your heart racing. Made you feel more alive. And when every breath you took tasted like fire you held on to it, because you knew what letting go would mean. You knew who was waiting.

Droplets BY BRI BOBIAK

New York Paper Airplane Flight BY EVAN GABRIEL

Fly Straight Sway in twists and curves of direction Set free from a Brooklyn Brownstone the rain fell all over today. Over immense worlds of no clocks a time system disrupted I watch weather and space.

Where paper planes dash and turn Over AA meeting atop outdoor patios Rooftop dinners the Theaters remind their audiences of long lost lovers, Peppermint twists have come to illuminate the night outside the barber shop As a beacon for those returning home Sail All harbors sleep quietly now “Ship ahoy” while the O’Jays paint Nautical themes, in sound. Oh Vincent, reveal the starry night And let my paper airplane Take Flight

Lost in JuarezÂ BY JOHN MCCARTY

Juarez is one of the largest cities in the country; it is also the center of a bloody urban conflict. The drug cartels work out in the open with little fear of the police; they can buy them or just kill them. The New York Times may compliment the authentic dining of Juarez or her promising business and industry, but they leave out the miles of slums surrounding the city like a giant, dirty amoeba. Every day bodies are found; 2008 saw more than 1,500 murders, over 200 in January alone. Drug runners battle each other for turf and publicly kill any cop or citizen who stands up to them. El Paso sits directly across the border, Mexican officials and police cross the border seeking asylum because the gangs have targeted them. El Paso is unsafe; the fearless drug cartels cross the border to kill or kidnap their targets. The Mexican government is currently working on legalizing possession of small amounts of drugs like marijuana, meth, cocaine, and heroin so they can focus on the big time dealers. Juarez is three times as violent as the worst American cities, and the drug cartels are never pressed to find hired guns. The kilometers of slums called colonias supply a ready workforce. The cartels employ police officers and government officials while more than half of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population of 1.5 million struggles to feed their families. People will not go out at night for fear of being kidnapped or struck by stray bullets, yet Juarez somehow boasts a 5.3% population increase over the past ten years. The growing industrial center with more than 300 factories provides one of the few legal ways to earn a wage, but judging by the astounding size of the colonias it is unlikely the factories pay well enough to allow economic stability. El Paso and Juarez sit like Siamese twins with only an imaginary border between them. It is only a matter of time before the sickness of one twin spreads to the other. In 2009 the violence got so bad that the Mexican government sent in the army to keep the peace. Prohibition has once again created an extremely profitable and violent black market; Juarez is merely a gateway to America, the cartelsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; biggest customer. Twelve long hours on a bus brings us to El Paso, directly across the border from Juarez. We stop for dinner and then we change buses, the comfort of the Greyhound is replaced with the nostalgia of a late 80s school bus. It seems like our group has gained twenty people in the bus transition, it could be because the school bus is about half the size of the Greyhound. The bus driver is a very stocky and jovial man by the name

of Jésus. Crossing the border is a breeze even at 8:30 P.M., apparently it doesn’t really matter who you are as long as you are going in to Mexico. A half an hour passes and we are now driving through downtown Juarez, the streets are almost completely empty and every shop has barred windows. The only signs of life are clustered around the few bars we see along the way. Near the edge of the city the businesses change to large, independent junkyards with scrap metal and a host of burned out cars. The further we drive the worse it gets; we have definitely entered the slums, the tallest shacks reach two stories and power lines crisscross the sky like a shoddy spider web. Jésus makes a smooth left turn and maneuvers the bus down a wide and bumpy dirt road. Coarse huts made of tin line either side of the road; a few mangy dogs scatter as we drive past a lot heaped with debris. We approach the compound where we will be staying for the next three days. My younger sister Kelsey looks over the seat at me and asks, “Is that broken glass on top of the walls?” “Yeah, and razor wire too. Those walls must be ten feet high, definitely not what I was expecting.” We will be staying in what appear to be trailer homes that have given up their wheels. Four to each house, there are two bunk beds in each room and a bathroom with a sink, shower and toilet. There are six houses in our row and another six running perpendicular to ours near the far wall of the compound. Robert, the church’s youth director, calls everyone to the pavilion and says, “All right everyone, welcome to Juarez. The compound’s gate will be locked at night. Please do not go anywhere by yourself. Breakfast will be served at seven tomorrow and we will be walking to the construction site right afterwards so please be dressed and ready to go. I suggest you all go to bed now. We have work to do tomorrow.” *** Our group leaves the compound at eight. We walk down the garbage strewn street, tools in hand, toward the ten by fifteen foot concrete pad where we will be erecting a house. A mustached white guy, and three other well-built Hispanics greet our group at the site. They direct us towards a woodpile and we begin to lay out two-by-fours in the rough shape of a wall. Hammers in hand, the wooden framework begins to take shape amidst loud pounding and shouted conversation. After lunch at the compound we are back at work by 1:30, hammering on outer sections of the wall, dull gray siding on one side and plywood on the other. By the end of the day we have all four walls erected, complete with siding. This house is beginning to look good and it is drawing attention from the residents of the surrounding shacks.

*** The second day begins with the same routine but our task today is to install and tar a roof. As we are hammering on the plywood roof a large truck drives past, intermittently honking its horn. I look up at Jaime, one of the Hispanic workers and ask, “What is that?’ He looks up and responds in accented English, “It’s a water truck. That’s how most of these people get their water. It is delivered. Some drivers make them pay for it. A couple of weeks ago federales found dead dogs floating in the tanks of some of the trucks.” We trade out our hammers for a bucket of tar and a roller. The tar is thick and tends to get on everything. I spread the tar in three-foot wide sections and people lay tarpaper on areas I have already done. After the paper is down and I am thoroughly covered with globs of tar, we begin to hammer nails through the tarpaper. Upon completion of the roof we are herded back to the compound for lunch; the afternoon has a new surprise in store for us. After a quick change of clothes, I join the group on the bus for a ride to the orphanage. The bus ride is relatively bland, all the buildings we pass are run down and covered in graffiti, their empty windows stare at the scorched countryside. The orphanage is a large, uninviting concrete building that no doubt served some other purpose in the past. There are too many children to even begin to count, ranging in age from a few months to about twelve years old. We have brought pre-made lunches in brown bags, bubbles, whistles, and other cheap toys to give to the kids. After the food and toys have all been handed out Jake and I go outside to play soccer with the kids. Three boys play soccer with us for about an hour; the two older boys understand the concept of passing the ball. Juan, the youngest of the group, prefers to kick the ball as hard as he can and laugh as someone tries to chase it down When we get back to the compound we are free to do as we please until dinner. A group of people heads down the street to a store, a small room on the side of a makeshift concrete house. There are a few shelves lined with cheap toys and coloring books, a glass counter with more merchandise below it, and a Pepsi mini-fridge. I buy a bottle of Coke and Jake gets a sugary Mexican soda. I give the storeowner a fivedollar bill and tell him to keep the change. Everyone overpays, the excessive charity is almost offensive. After dinner we attend a local church service, but this is Juarez, there isn’t an actual priest and the band consists of an electric bass guitar, an ancient drum set, and a lead singer. The Latin style music gives the service energy and the locals sing along with admirable intensity. When collection baskets are passed around they quickly fill with American money.

*** Great wads of insulation are forced into the spaces between the twoby-fours. Once this is done the installation of dry wall begins and windows are placed and sealed. Only a few can work inside the house at once so the majority of the group works on painting the house a dark gray. Some locals watch and laugh as we splatter one another with paint. When all the major construction is done the house is thoroughly swept. A simple set of shelves is brought in and stocked with some nonperishable food items. Some blankets and toys have been included for the children. The family who will be moving in shows up as we are nearing completion. It is a family of five. A rotund man with a warm smile, a thin woman with kind eyes, and three young boys full of mischief. The boys run around shouting and laughing while the parents stand around watching. The family is brought into the house; we all cram inside for the blessing. The father holds his wife and sons close; they all shake as they sob. The crying is contagious, even language barriers can’t stop pure gratitude. People clear out of the house so the family can be given a full tour. With only three small rooms the house is unremarkable, but to the family it may as well be a mansion. As they are shown through the house each room brings a fresh wave of joyous tears and gracious smiles. Winter in Juarez is almost as dangerous as the gangs. The wind flows freely through the slums, stopping you in your tracks with its icy hand around your neck. Staying warm is not a matter of comfort but rather of survival, any illness can be potentially deadly when living in a tin shack and eating three square meals of nothing each day. The keys to the house are handed over and we all say goodbye to the family. Once back at the compound we eat a celebratory dinner and watch a slideshow of past mission trips. *** “So are you guys ready to be headed home?” Kelsey half-yells over the background noise. Jake and I both hesitate to answer, “I don’t know. I guess, but not really,” I say. “I totally know how you feel. I think there is so much more we can be doing,” Kelsey replies. “I’m still trying to understand everything I’ve seen. Those three days went by so fast but I feel like I got a lot older,” Jake says with a grin. “It’s definitely a different side of Mexico. Not at all like when we were here for spring break. The poverty is unreal to me, like a movie or something. I just can’t comprehend how those people are even alive.” Kelsey says. “I hope one day I can be half as appreciative as those people,” I say. Jake smiles, “When can we come back?”

Parenthesis BY DOUG OROFINO

everything alive, vibrant and audacious lives here on the cusp of these curved scaffolds (inside, among ignorant flowers. among flickering shadows of footsteps between ignorant flowers. dwells a lesser denizen, akin to cocoons the promise of blossom, lost, between the waning fingers of time) yet

unbound by curved scaffolds )butterflies, with colored wings delicately birthed with truth and a higher calling, wait, untold( we know they existâ&#x20AC;Ś we have seen them. held them. bequeathed silence and secret to their unfailing ears, unyielding mouths. an intricate symbiosis (because they) needing our eyes to seem magnificent, feel alive, to exist or else their hollow cocoons would wilt, unbroken by birth (p)(are)(n)(thesis) | contain the uncontainable, sets limits on boundless infinity until it can belay no more the inner forces and it ruptures with delicate magnificence to be within it impassioned (ignorance). outside of it bl( )iss

Through the Fence BY JESSICA DOWLING

fissure in the marrow suite BY ANNA CZUK

his hand is here he feels the syncopated rhythm of this heart (rendered asunder) palpitate trepidate tremble anticipate in fear shall i hold my breath? (rendered asunder) in the quiet of this iniquitous heart i feel him breathing next to me shall i hide? yes, i will hide i slink beneath this shroud silence! be still you quivering heart come slip into this darkness as these whispers slip into my mind i find this silk sliding over my skin like liquid pouring over my skin -my eyes-my nares-my lipsliquid between these fingertips touchhush listen to him sing these secret soliloquies notes swing in harmony over soundâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s circling song around (knowing not sentience) whispers slipping over fears mere momentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fears

here filling years submerged beneath this skin so thin yet throbbing for these whispers here when will this heart know release from sin? i hold my breath. his whisper- soon there is no fear in love there is no fear in love (triumphantly) he sings i was conceived to love without fear deliverance- he is near

A Town Story BY LUPITA RUIZ

The Cristeros would burst into Las Zarquíllas on horseback and take everything they could, sometimes even the townswomen. After dusting over the church with their governing horses, they would retreat to a spot near La Agua Santa in the outskirts of our village to celebrate through hard sips of fine Tequila. My grandmother Mama-Chuy, engraved these clear memories of the Mexican Revolution and other countless town stories into our heads, just as sharply as the Ave Marias. This eighty-two year-old little lady who was raised in the tiny town of Las Zarquíllas praying the Rosario through passionate whispers and with eyes closed, now sits daily on the left side of the old couch in her Salem apartment. In her left hand, she holds the fifteen-minute prayer book that was once white. With her right hand, she rubs her bad knee with one of those thick, strong ointments she swears by, extracted from some special animal somewhere in Mexico. Sometimes I think she puts it on because it brings her a piece of home. It brings her the smell of crowded little ladies veiled in black and passionately whispering prayers to the sick and deceased, and the smell of the house where her parents, Antonia Maciél and Isidoro Hernández, raised a family through tough and humble years. Mama-Chuy chuckles every time we request her father’s story. Her gold-plated loop earrings dangle heavily from her ears, and she lets out short and tired breaths as she shifts around on the couch, preparing to talk for hours. She always squints her eyes and looks upward, as if physically reverting to that thirteenth day of February. It was my great-grandfather Isidoro Hernandez, Adolfo Ruiz, Santiago Ruiz, and David Ezquivel under the Guamúchil tree behind the Secundaria. Three men secured the rope around the four necks and shrunk the nooses; they had been planning to kill my great-grandfather and his comrades for their money. My great-grandfather and the two other shaken men, watched the lynching of Adolfo Ruiz with their own damp eyes and without a shadow of a doubt that they were next. The men yanked both of Adolfo Ruiz’s legs until his face purpled, his fingers trembled, and not a hint of life exhaled from his parted lips. My greatgrandfather was next. We follow my Grandma’s arm as she explains, with admirable precision, the way the rope rested on her father’s shoulders. She carefully places her fifteen-minute prayer book on the lap of her apron. With one hand she clenches an invisible rope around her neck, and with the

other she raises a stiffened index finger. Firming her eyebrows and raising her arm, she continues to explain how my great-grandfather’s courageous words saved his life that evening. “I’d rather lose against bullets than be taken by this damn rope,” she gently grunted, trying to mouth the exact brave words of her father. As the lynchers continued to yank the dying Adolfo Ruiz, my greatgrandfather quickly ducked out of the noose and sprinted away from the Guamuchil tree. Santiago Ruiz and David Ezquivel took advantage of the lynchers’ shock and hurried after my great-grandfather through the town. They sprinted far into what marks the starting point of Las Zarquillas, near a body of water called La Presa. It was said that this area was where the first inhabitants of the town established themselves. A man by the name of Don Guillermo from Sahuayo de Hidalgo had built all the adobe houses there, and he visited the town every eight days to check on his livestock and land. It had turned dark, and by the time my great-grandfather and the two men had recognized one of the adobe houses, they could only make out three faint beams from the pursuers’ flashlights. They caught their breath and rushed to seek refuge in Dorotéa’s little house on top of the hill. “Do you have a pinch of salt? I’m on my way home and don’t have any,” my grandmother whispered, trying to maintain her father’s worry with a gentle pitch and the joining of her brows. The men told Dorotéa what happened, calmed their anxiety for a few, and then made their way home through what seemed like the longest and darkest walk. Later that night, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother loaded the mule and led their family to the little chapel of La Virgen del Refugio. They fled with the certainty that the men would burn down their house at night. Joining her hands between her chest, Mama-Chuy explains to us who La Virgen de Refugio is again. She tells us that the Virgen, the patron saint of Las Zarquillas, has dripped tears in her eyes from pity for those suffering. And long, long ago, in her cathedral in Totolán, a man wiped the artificial tears from her statue with a linen and it is believed that actual tears transferred from her stone face to his cloth. This man’s story seemed to comfort my grandmother in knowing that it was La Virgen del Refugio’s haven that protected her family that night. They headed for Peribán the next morning; my great-grandparents, my grandmother, and her siblings. Peribán was a small town beneath the hill of La Cometa, near Pajacuarán and Parácho. It was quite a walk away from Las Zarquillas, and the loaded mule slumped speed even more. Two baskets hung from the sides of the mule’s belly, on one of

them, my grandmother, and on the other, her sister Joventina. In the baskets, they were tightly cushioned between pillow cases stuffed with rags and other belongings. My great-grandfather limped behind with Abelito in his arms and Roberto on his back, while the rest led the way before the mule and through the muddy trail of the towns ahead. By the time they arrived in Peribán, they were smeared with mud from slipping, and drenched from the rain. There they lived for two years. Years after their return to Las Zarquillas, a man by the name of Manuel Maciél was after my great-grandfather. On the seventh of February, Maciél came into town with a loaded gun, and approached my great-grandfather who was fixing the remnants of his father-in –law’s house. Mama-Chuy takes a moment to describe her grandfather, Francisco Maciél, or Papa-Pancho. He was a light-skinned, handosome man with a sharp nose. Papa-Pancho lived a lonely life after the death of his wife, Juanita Paníagua, but my grandmother said his sense of humor was of gold. With his age came dependence, and my grandmother and siblings squabbled over who would help him to the bathroom and who would help him put on the crisp shirts that his daughter Antonia would knit for him. When they would go to the market in Sahuayo de Hidalgo, they asked Papa-Pancho if he needed any favors. He always asked for two whistles for when he needed someone’s assistance, an extra one in case the other one broke. After joining MamaChuy in a few giggles, I subtly remind her to continue with her father’s story by asking if Manuel Maciél was the man who killed him. She crosses her arms in silent contemplation and says, “Ah yes, he shot him multiple times in the back, and then he took off.” Word of my great-grandfather’s murder spread through town, and finally to my grandmother’s family. My grandmother’s brother Gabriel Hernandez was nineteen at the time. Gabriel was the rough one, always rebelling and never filtering the bad words that came out of his mouth and my grandmother considered “grocerias”. Rumor even had it that various people had seen him drunk at night, on top a hill near the entrance of town, calling out to the devil to prove that he did not exist. “He was really, really mad,” my grandmother says, closing the description of her brother’s reaction. Gabriel quickly cocked a gun and ran after Manuel Maciél through the path that joined Las Zarquillas and a nearby town, El Varal. By the time the two men were at an eye’s distance away, they each had only one bullet left. Manuel Maciél missed a shot at Gabriel, shortly before Gabriel shot him right between his two eyes. To make sure he was dead, he pounded a rock on his head until, according to my grandmother,

there was brain matter everywhere. After hearing â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the storyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; yet again, we remain in awe and try to dig up questions for Mama-Chuy before she picks up her fifteen-minute prayer book again. Something about her stories makes her smile wider, toughen her little voice, and her looped earrings dangle more than ever. What occurred sixty-seven years ago is ingrained in her memory, a memory that sometimes forgets to take daily medicine or what day of the week it is. Her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story is always the one that makes her shift in her couch the most. Perhaps it is because it brings back his memory, and she can tell us about how he knew everything and everyone. But sometimes, by the way she prolongs the name of Las Zarquillas or shifts to a story about Papa-Pancho and his whistles, I get the feeling that her stories place her back in the town where she lived for eighty years.

Letter to English One BY FRANCES KLEIN

I’m so sorry for everything. I’m sorry for the sometimes parents, For the way they looked at you With dollar sign eyes And government subsidized sympathy. I’m sorry for Mrs. Foster in Salem, Who found the money you’d hidden (Saved up from years of odd jobs and regular thefts) And used it to buy cigarettes. And for Mr. Foster in Astoria, Who accidentally walked in on you While changing your clothes At least once a week. I’m sorry for the deaths, For the cousins with leukemia, The grandmothers with diabetes And the best friend with a gunshot smile Or a piece-of-shit car. I’m sorry for the candlelit vigils, For the auditorium memorials And the year you didn’t run for student government Because cremation urns and gravestones Make poor running mates. I’m sorry for the disappointment, For the colleges you won’t get accepted to, And the jobs you won’t get hired for. I’m sorry there aren’t enough Sports scholarships and record deals To go around, And that MTV and ESPN have spent your whole life telling you That’s all you’re good for. I’m sorry for the children you’ll have too soon And the ones you’ll never have at all. And for the things you kept yourself from wanting Because you didn’t know you could.

I wish I could give you something more Than comments on an essay, Something more than watch out for run on sentences Or be careful with homonyms. That my advice could be more substantial than I like your anecdote, but try to develop the story more.

Karrakatta Paradise BY CAITLIN NUSBAUM

Looking Back BY ANNEMARIE MEDRZYCKI

The back of the boat has the best view. One can see all that’s left behind. Each side a passing panorama. The azure basin promises nothing – only past and present. The horizon has rounded edges. Falling off’s not so abrupt.

Over the Edge? Not today. The sun lingers two fingers from the rendezvous. Ethereal glows the life-giving liquid as it basks in gentle flattery. The sky is wearing blue again. Forgetting its own mysterious beauty, trying to replicate the depth of the waves. ———————————— Clouds exist as clouds only should in an Adriatic dream. A silver swath with glistening extremes, waiting to cushion light’s descent. What’s past is serene in its certainty. The present is to be accepted flawed and unsure. What can one ask of the future? Only that it be beautiful in retrospect.

Lookout at Ile aux Moines, France BY JENNY GRESHAM

As Time Goes By BY TYLER MOSS

David Arthur Connors had forgotten to pick up milk. It was an innocent mistake, a small slip of the mind really. He had simply lost track of time at the office. He arrived at his house twenty minutes later than planned, tired and famished, to find the dinner table empty. Inside the kitchen he discovered his wife stirring a boiling pot of sauce with a wooden spoon. The condensation made her hair frizz out in all directions. As the spoon churned clockwise around the pot, two small children simultaneously ran around her legs, as if the gyrations were connected by an invisible bike chain. “Where’s the milk,” she asked, wiping the sweat off her freckled forehead. “I need it for the alfredo.” David looked at the heap of dishes in the sink, now dripping with cheesy mucus, then down at the children, one of which was now wailing on the floor. “I’ll be back,” he said. To delay his return home, David went to the Albertsons on 147th and Sunnyside, a full ten minutes farther away than the nearest Safeway. In the parking lot, brown leaves crackled beneath his feet. The sound brought made him feel as if he were crunching the spines of little organisms with every step. He liked fall — it made the trees look Spartan and dignified. He pulled a gallon of milk out of the industrial refrigerator without bothering to look at the expiration date. Remembering his children’s disdain for nutritional value, he placed a loaf of Wonderbread in his black plastic basket. With the intention of falling into an alcohol-induced stupor following dinner, David walked toward the beer aisle. At the intersection of cereal and seafood, a woman ripped around the corner like a freight train, plowing directly into him. The impact knocked him to the floor. Lying disoriented on the sticky linoleum, a host of curse words coursed through his head. After looking over at the woman who had leveled him, however, he quickly suppressed the derision on the tip of his tongue. The woman was not unattractive. She was reasonably thin, wore little makeup, and wire-framed glasses. Clearly embarrassed, she muttered something incomprehensible and headed for the check outs. David jumped to his feet and quickly scanned his items at the selfcheckout. The machine spit out his Visa and David had to pull out Mastercard, all the time eying the woman a few registers down.

The wizened checker passed the woman her receipt, and she made a beeline for the door. David tapped his foot impatiently as a peppy robotic female voice asked him if he had any coupons. Snatching the groceries, he burst through the sliding doors and out into the parking lot. It took a moment for David to identify the grey sweatshirt entering an independent video store called “Videorama” across the street. He could not believe his luck. He headed toward the store as a sharp wind ripped through the parking lot. As David rubbed his hands together for warmth, he noticed the thin golden band around his ring finger. He placed it carefully in his pocket, then vigorously rubbed the imprint with his thumb and forefinger. He felt thankful it was fall and he had no visible tan line. He entered the store. David gave a curt nod to the piercing-filled teenager behind the counter. He scanned the rows of shelves, searching for a bobbing bun amongst the DVDs. He walked through the comedies, turned a corner, and froze. She was stooped down in the classics aisle, and he noted her shapely figure. Wanting to look inconspicuous, David snatched a nearby box and pretended to read the cover. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her rise and stumble. “Are you alright?” he asked. She stood at the end of the aisle, clearly embarrassed. He pretended to suddenly recognize her. “Well, if it isn’t miss hit and run. I think you may have shattered my pubic bone back there.” So began their conversation. Her name was Holly — he was able to extract that much — yet she seemed so genuinely bland that he almost decided to forsake the endeavor. Only when she noticed the movie in his hand, Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, did she show some verve. He feigned interest in her classic movie rant. In reality, overexposure to Frank Capra films by his aficionado father had left him disillusioned by sepia tone and Technicolor. His favorite movie was The Terminator. Holly thrust a movie into his arms, insisting he watch it immediately. Spying an opportunity, David asked when he might be able to offer an opinion on her selection. She murmured something about renting movies on most Saturday evenings, and so David left the store with the devout intention of returning at the same time the following Saturday. “What took so long?” asked his wife the moment he stepped through the door. “The salad is soggy.” “Crowded,” he said. “Let’s eat.” The alfredo had the texture of saran wrap. They ate in silence. David

had been to livelier funerals. He daydreamed about Holly while his wife admonished the child in the high chair for throwing noodles. David had seen the outline of Holly’s nipples through her shirt in the cold store. The image aroused him, forcing him to stay seated for five minutes after his family had risen. He was distracted at work. Houses he might normally have described as cozy and simple were now compact and humble. His price negotiations were weak. He was infatuated with that timid girl, but was unable to comprehend why. Perhaps it was because she was malleable, like silly putty in his hand. Regardless, the clock had never seemed to tick so slowly at his small Re-Max office, and by the time the weekend arrived, he was bursting with anticipation. Maybe that was why, for the first time ever, he was upset to hear that his wife was going out on a Saturday night. He was expected to watch the kids. “I told you weeks ago,” said his wife. “But I have work to do!” he said. “I only go out with my girlfriends every few months. We’re going for seafood and then dancing.” She smacked her crimson lips in the mirror. David grumbled to himself. The only time she ever bothered to get done up is when she went out with her friends. A car honked outside. “In bed by eight,” she yelled to the children before descending the stairs. David frowned from the doorway as she wobbled across the wet grass in her high heels and climbed into the back of a Volkswagen. He felt a miniature arm tug on the rear of his jeans. “I’m hungry.” David turned around. “Who wants to rent a movie?” “You watch your brother while I go into the store.” They were sitting in the parking lot outside of Videorama. “Why can’t we come in?” asked the older one. “Because daddy said so. If you want ice cream then you’ll listen.” “I wanted to go to Blockbuster,” said the child. “I’ll be back in a minute.” David got out of the car and walked into the store. The same teenager was behind the counter again. It was a little after four-thirty. If Holly was to show up at the same time as last week, he would have to wait a few hours. With the children in the car, he was lucky to get five minutes. He walked back to the classic movie section and picked The Sound of Music: 40th Anniversary Edition off of the shelf. He walked to the front counter. The clerk’s nametag read “Joel,” and David was the type of person to take a nametag as a formal introduction.

“Hey there…Joel,” said David, “I was wondering if you had seen a fidgety brunette with glasses today. She was here last Saturday night.” “You mean Holly?” the clerk asked, looking up from a pile of new arrivals. “Yes! I mean yes, Holly.” “No, she hasn’t been in yet. Doesn’t typically show up until about sixthirty or seven.” “Could you do me a favor, and if she comes in, tell her I’m sorry I missed her. Also, let her know that I should be back here at around six next Saturday. Maybe I’ll see her then.” “Alright. Will that be all?” Joel pointed at the DVD in David’s hand. He passed it to the clerk, who raised his pierced eyebrow after scanning the cover. “I have a thing for Julie Andrews.” David said quickly. Back in the car, David handed the child the video. “This is for old people,” he said. Beside him the toddler gurgled. “I wanted Shrek 3.” “You just lost ice cream privileges,” David replied. David told his wife that he had a meeting in Seattle over some commercial real estate. “Call me tonight so I know you arrived safely,” she yelled after him, but he had already slammed the door. He stopped by his office to comb his hair and apply Old Spice. In the mirror he could see the minute hand on his antique wall clock point to the 8. The time had finally come. He pulled in at a minute past six with Journey blasting on the stereo. His hands were sweaty with anticipation as he pushed open the glass door. Joel looked up from the counter, nodded toward the back of the store, then looked back down. As he turned the aisle, he was blown away by what he saw. Gone was the shapeless sweatshirt from a few weeks past. The woman he saw tonight — and by god she was a woman — wore leather boots, a tight black skirt, and had her hair tightly curled. She was absorbed in another movie box. He quietly stepped behind her and cleared his throat. “What did you think of the movie?” she asked. He praised her taste. He hadn’t watched it, but had read an extensive summary on Wikipedia at the office. The online information was sufficient to stimulate conversation, and it wasn’t long before she invited him over to her place for dinner and a movie. David couldn’t believe his luck — his plan had consisted of taking her to a model home or back to his office with the excuse that his apartment was being remodeled. However, he had to pretend he had never seen Casablanca, the movie she insisted they watch. In fact, it had been his mother’s favorite film, and years ago he

had told himself that if he had to sit through that sappy romance between Rick and Isla one more time, he’d self-asphyxiate. Fortunately, this contract had a provision that excused him if watching the movie might get him laid. Back at her apartment, he immediately began pouring wine. During dinner she chattered continuously about her career as an elementary school teacher, but her lasagna was so delicious that David was suffered through it, his eyes only glazing over once or twice. He had a considerably more difficult time paying attention during the movie, and distracted himself by sneaking peaks at her cleavage. He even nodded off during the scene in which Sam plays “As Time Goes By,” and snored so forcefully that he woke himself up. Holly seemed to think he was crying and put her head on his shoulder. Finally, the movie ended. David had filled her with five and a half glasses of wine, and had nearly as many himself. It was enough to do the trick. As he leaned in to kiss her, she wrapped her legs around his thighs and let out a throaty moan. He slid his tongue into her mouth and she submitted, totally and wholeheartedly. It was still dark outside when David was awoken by the beeping of his Blackberry. He climbed out of Holly’s bed and picked it from the pocket of his jeans, which were strewn across the floor. The screen read “4 Missed Calls — Home.” On the voicemail, his wife’s shrill voice worried that he had died in a car crash on I-5. He had never called. Behind him, Holly lied naked on the bed, out cold. He quietly got dressed, grabbing his keys and wallet off of the dining room table. Before leaving, he placed the Blackberry on the tile floor, directly beneath his shoe, and stomped. The screen went black. David saw few other vehicles as he halted at a stoplight. He could see the sun rising above a 7-11 to his left, the colors cascading down a sign that read “Hot Dogs — 99 cents.” A bench sat next to a nearby bus stop. Plastered to the back of the bench was a large, grinning portrait of David next to a red and blue hot air balloon. In the picture he wore a navy suit with a red tie, his hair was slicked back, and he was smiling broadly. David hated his smile. The light turned green. He would go home and tell his wife that he accidentally dropped his phone yesterday at a rest stop outside of Olympia. He would apologize and she would be happy he was safe. He turned right and pulled his black BMW into a strip mall. He walked into Safeway and headed for the floral section, searching for a bouquet of long stemmed roses.

Unusual Classrooms and Passionate Teachers BY CHRISTINA RADMACHER

I am from unusual classrooms. I am from learning isn’t only done at a desk in the classroom. I am from an attitude that living is learning And learning should be life’s addicting adventure. I am from getting my “homework” done in a few hours, Then spending the rest of my day to live and grow in other ways. I am from an elementary and middle school That shifted one period from a kitchen, Where the aroma of grilled-cheese sandwiches told me what’s for lunch, To a dining room table with the cloth pulled back, So I wouldn’t litter it with my eraser crumbs, To Farrel-Mcwhirter’s Pony Club, Teaching children and taking care of the animals, To adventures in the library, Where I would come out with a half-hazard tower of books, To my grandparents house, discussing faith, growing up, and gardening, To doctor’s waiting rooms, waiting for Grandpa. To co-op classes with Saint Thomas Moore Home School Educators At a grange hall bustling with friends and their younger siblings. I am from a high school called Family Academy And from Running Start at a community college. I am from unusual classrooms. And, I am from passionate teachers in these unusual classrooms. I am from a perky piano teacher, A choir teacher of high expectations, A fiery, fun youth group leader, A drill-sergeant of an Irish dance coach, Passionate mothers as co-op teachers. And a demanding high school teacher. And I am from a passionate mother, teacher, coach, and confidant. A mother who held the belief that sometimes the best teacher for A child’s education is the person who knows her best — Her mother. I am from passionate teachers. I long to share with children These gifts that I have been given

Of unusual classrooms and passionate teachers. I hope that I can pass bring a taste Of the comforts of home and a loving mother, Hearty discussions, And my delight for lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s addicting adventure of learning.

The Lion and His Bird BY ENID SPITZ

20 Years BY DANIEL LUNCHICK-SEYMOUR

A score marks the scoured shell of the wall, Which fell with the scar. Stolen was the warmth, Rekindled in the shadow of the age. Changes passing fire through the East, That cut and carved the lines driven, In the Earth, reinforced with stone, And repaid in blood and secrets traded. Chief of war-grounds, Father-Nation, Alit amongst the United. The change smelled, A human smell. The sweat of bone and muscle, To reach the point where the wall was, Not the master of money or thought, but, A stain on the realm of the living and dead. But, what has come in the years passed? Culture bleeding like melting ice cream, Into one homogenous mass. A wall still stuck, In the mind. The symbol ever looms over society, Shouting and cursing with graffiti. The idea, Enjoys the warmth of human skin and breath, While creatures enjoy crinkled paper bills on flesh. -2009-

Linger BY JOANNA LANGBERG

Poetry BY IAN CLARK

My father took me into the mountains as a kid and told me we were going to the place where heaven drapes down amongst the tangles of tree roots. We drove for a long time, wandering where kerosene clouds catch flame, walking along a dusty riverbed that wound around boulders and past trees and ended next to a ridge. At the top my father asked me if I could see the cliffs that mark the ocean and the meadows up in the mountains where wild heather rustles in the rain. A white road lead out of those meadows and into a forest of silver trees. Then I was in the hills where mist rolls down from beds of sunlight and I knew it was heaven just like my father said. She was a ballerina from New York — small, fragile like rosehips, always drinking coffee and smoking — and I remember her because she used to ask me whether I had found god wandering the woods or if it had just been a shadow running from the sun. Once she danced for me in the street still slick from last night’s rain, and her feet were lovely patterned on the pavement in a world sleeping quiet beneath the firefly-golden eaves of a blue fang moon. She was wandering, just like I’m wandering now, a leaf afloat in the water where trees nestled their branches into lily ripples. She told me there was god in the folds of the water that turn over on themselves in the forever motion of our world — and everything was holy, everything was sacred so the air hummed of it. Once, following the tale of a summer twilight, we walked through a forest of trees made silver by the eyelashes of the moon. Rope me the edge of the dark space, she said, find for me the space of the world where the rain cries of the weeping times — the old times — the beginning when trees bled wine into virgin soil and floated mesmerized where deserts and dreams collide. One day we ran over the highway into the pine woods that run up the flanks of the mountains. She was a bob of white swishing through the underbrush and the edge of her dress was delicate like coastline sea-spray unfolding like dove wings. I chased after her, slightly behind, running barefoot between the lords of the forest. We ran for a long time and at the end we found a river and she told me to close my eyes so that I could see everything beautiful like poetry. If you have ever seen a sunrise in the mountains, you know how the world begins. It’s a whisper at first, a red glimmer on the mountainspine knuckling the ripped-up sky. Then the red rays shoot between pine trees and everything bathes in river wine and the wind sings you a

soft song beneath the eaves of heaven and you wonder if god wandered the world like she said. The sun grows and grows, faster and brighter and sometimes you can see the cliffs that mark the ocean. Silver trees grow out of the water and between their flowering boughs you find the child you used to be in the bed of youth. And so it goes, the sunlight warming the rocks, the world opening up to that first breath just like in the beginning when the dawn bloomed and bled like roses. The clouds draw back and then, if you wait long enough, you see it: a white road leading straight-shot to the horizon where mist rolls off the hills like heaven. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all poetry, really. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all it ever is.

“People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy — and I keep it in a jar on my desk.” — Stephen King

Bri Bobiak: Bri is a sophomore English/Pre-Med student from Bainbridge Island, Washington. She’s an avid photographer, particularly nature photography. Elliot Boswell: Elliot is a senior English and French double major, who hails from Spokane, WA. He has lived with Patrick Rexroat for 3 out of 4 years of his college experience. Clifton Campbell: Clifton is an Education/English major from Fort Collins, CO and likes to write during his free hours from time to time. Ben Cilwick: Ben is a UP freshman from Ogden, Utah. He loves granola bars, coffee with liberal amounts of cream, and soaking up sunny, spring days pretending that nothing matters. He in fact does know that things matter. Ian Clark: Ian David Clark enjoys writing, smoking pipe tobacco and giggling when basset hound puppies trip over their ears. He is currently a freshman, but doesn’t want you to tell anyone in case the upper classmen decide to beat him up. Robert Cosby: Robert, born and raised in Spokane, Washington is a senior pursuing a degree in psychology and is on the varsity cross country team at UP. He plans on obtaining a minor in English while completing his final year of eligibility for the men’s cross country team. Emily Dermann: Emily is a junior elementary education major. She studied abroad in London, England last spring and considers it one of the best experiences of her life. She took this photo on a weekend trip to the beautiful campus of Cambridge University. Jessica Dowling: Jessica is a Junior Education Major at the University of Portland. She enjoys all mediums of art, especially photography as a means to capture the natural beauty of God’s creation. Sarah Fitzgerald: Sarah enjoys the good stuff in life: climbing trees, going on random adventures, and saying yes to life. She owes a big thanks to everyone who has inspired to put a pen to paper to somehow form a string of somewhat understandable words. Oh, and she also thinks that Kylee, Tommy, Ben, Timmy, Andrew, Mat, and Alexa make life on The Bluff pretty sweet. Evan Gabriel: Evan is from St. Paul Minnesota and has been finding a voice through creative writing for the last two years. He will be going abroad for the 2010-11 school year. He is currently studying English. Chanel Gardella: Chanel is a sophomore Spanish, Social Work, and Fine Arts student. A Floridian by birth, a Northwesterner by heart, she loves the beauty of the Oregon outdoors…the wine is good too. Ona Golonka: Ona is an Organizational Communications major at the University of Portland who enjoys writing, literature and photography.

She is proud of her Polish heritage and enjoys traveling to various part of the globe and exploring different cultures. Alex Graham: Born and raised here in Portland, Alex has been writing since she was a little girl. She is an avid reader of Sufi poet, Rumi and has recently become obsessed with Glee! Jenny Gresham: Jenny loves to travel and she spent most of this past year in countries other than the good ol’ USA. As a student of the beautiful French language, Jenny’s journeys have led her to France, and she cannot wait to go back to her “other” home. In her spare time, she is a junior at the University of Portland and enjoys spending time with her friends and her camera. Nathan Haskell: Nathan is an English major about to graduate and hopefully become a 1st or 2nd grade teacher. He can’t wait. Mary Holdener: Mary is a senior English and German double major. She likes to draw, paint, and eat pizza. Jackie Jeffers: Jackie is a freshman engineering major from Bellevue, Washington. Aside from photography, she enjoys life. Frances Klein: Frances is from Ketchikan, Alaska. She is a junior at UP and is majoring in Secondary Education, English, and Spanish. JoAnna Langberg: JoAnna was born and raised in Medford, Oregon, and loves to read, write, and draw. She began showing and interest in art and drawing around the age of two, and thanks to encouragement from her family, she has continued in her artwork. Since then, she has created numerous compositions as well as multiple murals for her local high school. Kevin Lockwood: Kevin is a senior mechanical engineering major and biology minor from Salt Lake City, Utah. He likes to bike, run, ski, and occasionally take a photo. Daniel Lunchick-Seymour: Daniel is a Political Science major from the Big Island of Hawai’i. He is the kind of person whose true favorite color is blue. James Mahoney: James, a math education student, interprets symbolic moments as they happen. Poetry laudably unlocks significance and relates truth. Andy Matarrese: Andy is a senior history and English major from Battle Ground, WA. Tyler Moss: Tyler is a senior English major, history minor who will be attending graduate school at Northwestern University in the Fall. He will be working towards his Masters in Journalism with a concentration in magazine writing. Hobbies include avarice, sloth, wrath, lust, pride, envy, and gluttony.

Lisa Nims: Lisa is a freshman who is undeclared at the moment. She thinks film photography is way better than digital and canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t imagine life without her SLR by her side. Also, she loves a good adventure. Caitlin Nusbaum: Caitlin is a senior Life Science major with a passion for photography. She grew up in the small town of Hope in northern Idaho where the beauty of nature inspired her to start shooting. She got her first camera when she was five and has been taking pictures ever since. Abby Olson: From PDX to MSP, Abbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s camera flashes to capture all that is brilliant in life. Her equal dexterity with prose creates a verbalvisual duo that would rival those of ancient lore. You can see more of her photography at www.abbysuephotography.com. Doug Orofino: Douglas Chandler Orofino is a sophomore music education major at UP. A writer and lover of poetry and essays, he has been refining his style for six years. Douglas hopes his words will resonate with his audience and contrived as it may be, would like to thank God and his parents for everything. Collin Pedeaux: Collin is a sophomore Social Work & Spanish double major. He is from Shreveport, LA. Nadia Peer: Nadia is a Communications major and English and Fine Arts double minor. She likes writing, photography, traveling, and volunteering. Christina Radmacher: Christina is an Elementary/Middle School Education major with endorsements in language arts and social studies. After she graduates this May 2010, she is excited to return home to Seattle to her awesome extended family of 19. She will miss very much her silly, caring, and supportive housemates in the Faith and Leadership House, and she will miss all the fantabulous people she has met leading Voice for Life and Divine Mercy Chaplet and taking part in swing dance club, salsa club, R.E.X., Freshman Escapes, Praise and Fellowship, God Centered Community, Hall Masses, and random peers, professors, and mentors and all here at U.P. who have blessed her life in some way. Catharine Rechsteiner: Cat hails from the foggy city of San Francisco. She is a junior English major, minoring in Fine Art and German. Language usually fails her, so she makes up for it by expressing herself through art and poetry. Patrick Rexroat: Patrick is a senior theatre major, who hails from Jerome, ID. He has lived with Elliot Boswell for 3 out of 4 years of his college experience.

Alistair Rokstad: Alistair is a Sophomore Engineering Management student from Olympia, Washington. He enjoys all seasons for all reasons, and sometimes finds the time to play soccer, snowboard and climb. He is constantly amazed at the world, and appreciates the opportunity to share a minute snapshot of it with you. Lupita Ruiz: Lupita is a sophomore majoring in Psychology, French, and Spanish. She is originally from Michoacán, México, but lived in Salem, Oregon most of her life. She enjoys running, writing, traveling, and spending time with her family. Enid Spitz: Enid Rosalyn Spitz was born in Germany, of Asian descent and missing one eyeball...in an alternate universe. In this one, she likes to read. Robin Sved: Robin is a freshman nursing major. She is from Seattle, Washington. She enjoys reading and watching movies, and her life goal is to see the world! Sydney Syverson: Sydney is a Junior Social Work major with Psychology and German minors. Her favorite hobbies include writing, making hideous faces, sleeping, making midnight runs to Taco Bell, and reminiscing about Salzburg. She dedicates her work in this year’s magazine to Debbie — who would have been 13 this year. Lizzy Wellner: Lizzy was born and raised in Bremerton, Washington. She is a freshman at The University of Portland, is majoring in Nursing, and when she has free time she enjoys taking pictures.

Special thanks to Bridget Bimrose-DelCarpio and Susan Safve, from the masterful Marketing and Communications Department, who helped lend this publication some much needed verve. Also, to Dr. Lars Erik Larson, who was the Gandalf to our Frodo. To our steadfast editors, whose efforts are responsible for this wondrous piece of the literary canon you now hold in your hands. And finally, to the student submitters who allowed this magazine to devour their heart and soul and regurgitate it upon these pages for the entire world to adore.