Writer to Writer Issue 5, Fall 2021 by writertowriterumich

FALL 2021

Writer to Writer a journal by writers, for writers

ISSUE 5

Writer to Writer a journal by writers, for writers Editor-in-Chief Madi Altman

Submissions Chair Krystal Koski

Operations Chair Kristen Boudreau

Art and Design Chair

ISSUE 5

Taylor Schott

Editors

Andrew Smedley Kevin Sang Amber Hashmi

Faculty Advisor Shelley Manis

FALL 2021

Letter from the Editor Dear reader, Welcome to the fifth edition of Writer to Writer, a literary journal run by students in collaboration with the Sweetland Center for Writing. We aim to foster interdisciplinary creativity across a variety of modes, mediums, and genres and encourage conversation and growth among our community of writers. In our fourth year as an organization, we were faced with a transition back to in-person classes, rigorous schedules —but maintained our operations remotely. Since moving to a completely digital space, we’ve had to rethink how to connect as a community of writers without the ability to gather in person. Fortunately, Writer to Writer is full of motivated individuals who rose to the challenge and convened regularly over Zoom to share ideas, review submissions, and work together to produce the latest edition of our publication. Within this issue, you will find pieces that all touch upon common themes of identity and reflection, particularly within relationships. From existential poetry to romantic partners having fallen apart, we hope that you see yourself in this wonderful microcosm of writing, and that you enjoy the stories our writers have chosen to share. As always, our journal strives to celebrate multimodality in writing as well as the individual writing process for different writers with our “Spotlight Interviews.” You can find snippets

of these interviews with featured writers in the publication itself, and you can hear them in full by scanning the supplemental QR code to listen on our website. Lastly, this journal would not be possible without the generous support of the Sweetland Center for Writing, especially from our wonderful faculty advisor Dr. Shelley Manis. Her thoughtful guidance and enthusiasm have been absolutely essential in producing our journal and continuing our growth as a young publication. To Shelley, the Sweetland Center for Writing, the contributing writers, and to you, reader, we are so grateful. Thank you for all your support. Sincerely, Madi Altman Editor-in-Chief Writer to Writer

Table of Contents 1

Maiden Voyage by Heather Sherr

The Morning After Pill by Madi Altman

The Sickle-Rinded Moon by Amber Hashmi

The Speech of Maria Jitanjáfora by Brian Daza

Freefall by Sarah Schenck

i look at my body with a naked censor bar by Isabella Crow

Making Peace With What We Have Left by Lucian Van Fleet

Dorm Ruminations: Spoken by Anonymous

We were cleaning the classroom for summer on the last day of school by Renée Szostek

Nights on North Campus by Sarah Schenck

restless, restless by Isabella Crow

are you there? by Kristen Boudreau

A Regrettable Love Letter by Kaye Lani Weatherly

Beyond the Pane by Sharon Shaw

The Women Who Came Before by Madylin Eberstein

Searching for Something by Donaven Lee

Maiden Voyage by Heather Sherr

A slimy substance streaked the sides of The Boat and a Hulk-fist-sized dent decorated the grey stern. I asked the ship captain if he had considered taking it into the shop; he answered with a green-glowing grin, a shrug, and a raised brow, a Johnny Depp impersonation sans the smudged eyeliner and pirate garb. I noticed the tension folding his forehead and his effortful act of confidence. I climbed up and into The Boat, narrowly escaping the opening act of drizzle accompanied by the low roar of thunder, an audience in suspense. The rain-crowd cheered and the drops grew large, raising the water height below. I began to partake in the tension they felt. I turned to my left and watched his Jack Sparrow nonchalance broaden into a fake-toothed smile, as if this, our second date, was all part of his sick comedic routine of existence. He undocked The Boat and off we were, on our maiden voyage. During the first leg of our ride through the seascape, the crowd clapped and booed and jeered at as I forced conversation; waves crashed to end my half-hearted anecdotes of my summer job and the water flowed to the rhythmic recounts of his pirate duties: stealing money from middle-aged women in return for life insurance. As he’d cackle about how the smell of death, to him, was the scent of gold, the rain accelerated, as if comprised of the angered souls who walked the plank with his contracts in their fingers. My eyes stayed fixed forward, watching the raindrops slap the glass and shatter into infinitely smaller droplets. At the time, I thought of this as a silent request of him to focus ahead, but now, I know that it was a distrusting seasickness from his asymmetrical, compelling eyes, the eyes later described as “villainous” by those I trust most. The rain turned from golf claps to cheers to the screams of a mosh pit in a matter of thirty minutes. The captain’s cell phone went alight with a tornado warning. The water was no longer a rising body, but a flood, bouncing and sloshing on the road. The

Boat, a Dodge minivan named for its inappropriate grandeur, was coated in thick July heat and lacking air conditioning; the crowd breathed hard and the glass fogged. I meekly requested that he take a break from driving blindly down I-96, but as if my mouth was filled with water, my pleas were inaudible. He howled with excited determination, promising to finish the journey without breaking to gasp for air. He swore that he, and I as an afterthought, weren’t to die that day. After all, he hadn’t sold himself an insurance quote, so his death would be costly. Minutes later, the windows were down and my head was outside, submerged in the storm at the demand of my captain. If I closed my eyes in that cruel position, I could feel the rain-viewers throwing rotten tomatoes in my face; for how terribly this date was going, I deserved every goopy, seed-filled piece of disappointment. I was the pirate’s eyes, steering by proxy to stay between the white lines. When I’d turn to him, our eyes would immediately meet, making me fear his overconfidence, but imprinting his chaotic enthrallment in my head. The opening of the floodgates drowned our conversation, which was for the best; he looked better when he had nothing to say. After ten minutes of heckling, the raindrop assemblage grew tired and the sky began to stitch itself back together. I re-entered The Boat and laughed at the absurdity of the date; my usual giggle was replaced by a throaty gargle. He joined in, looked into my eyes once more, then took my waterlogged hand in his. Maybe it was the black makeup in my eyes, but I saw the future with him for a moment, a moment stretched into weeks of moments that the universe had done its best to prevent.

The Sickle-Rinded Moon by Amber Hashmi

The sickle-rinded moon softens the pull of the stream as you drift to bed, thoughts twirling like a dancer-And fickle-minded you, with the mausoleum of dreams rising from the dead-- as if called upon by a necromancer-Like a prickle kind of shoot to ghostwrite your memories that drag you with leadened nostalgia, replicating like cancer.

Freefall

by Sarah Schenck

To walk, to run, we fall in step Along Penrose Stair, we stumble The sky is falling In orbit, galaxies tumble The Earth plummets, and misses the Sun. Like a falling system converts height to movement, Constant total energy Constant total time. We start on high Life stretched out before us. We are, all of us, In freefall. The piercing wind Our whispering past We recall Momentum gathered As we fall, Not down, but further. What is so massively important? What matters so much (So much matter) That space-time is forever warped? Our futures to this gravity we forsake For we are falling forward, Leaving our legacy in our wake.

Making Peace With What We Have Left by Lucian Van Fleet

In their boots and under their socks, their feet were coated in dirt and glitter. The club lights lingered on the back of their eyelids, flashing with the beat despite the lack of music. They were pretty sure that their eyeliner and mascara were smudged to hell. Everything sounded like they were underwater. They liked it that way. It drowned out the silence. They didn’t bother to fix their posture. They preferred to slouch in the kitchen chair like they had been poured onto it. Besides, waking up with a stiff back was the least of their concerns right now. They sighed. The only light in the room was the warm glow of the lamp at their elbow. It flickered from time to time due to ancient wiring, but that was okay. Ambiance. A mug of steaming tea was loosely clasped in their hands. They took a long, leisurely sip. Their feet were filthy, but they kept on their shoes. The nights were colder nowadays. They needed every bit of warmth they could get. Their gear would need a wash, too. Chains draped over their chest like glittering ribs. More dripped off their shoulders, shining against the stark black of their dress shirt. Even more chains hung from the loops of their leather bell-bottoms. The sight of them would have been intoxicating if not for the sweat-stains and the discolored splotches that told of many spilled drinks. It wasn’t their fault their hands couldn’t stop shaking. It was their favorite club outfit, one they only wore for special occasions. Today was one of those rare days. They imagined that they looked rather pitiful, slumped over their paint-splattered table that was almost too tiny to even call a table. The kitchen was small and cramped. The trash can was almost overflowing. Somewhere in the house, the heater sputtered to life and began to hum contently. Shadows stood guard from every side of the room, leaning

against the countertops and swinging their feet. Speaking in whispers and creaks, they slithered around the floor and tangled around their human friend’s feet. I’m not yours. Not yet. They raised their head. The curtains were drawn over the windows, but they reckoned there were just a couple of hours before sunrise. They debated putting on a record but ultimately decided not to. Although the sound of classical music drifting along the eeriness of the Witching Hour was enough to crush any case of writer’s block, getting up simply wasn’t on the agenda. The cheap plastic and scuffed leather and green-tinged metal that weighed down their wrists shifted and clicked every time they rose their mug to their mouth. They ran their fingertips over one bracelet in particular. The paint on the beads had faded with age, but it didn’t matter. They doubted they would ever forget what it said. They had turned it over too many times, both in happiness and in regret. I’m sorry you had to go so soon. They slumped in their seat, tilting their head back. They didn’t want to spend the rest of the night thinking about the distinct lack of headlines and sneering neighbors and mud-spattered front room carpet. Their days were already full enough without spending their nights lost in their thoughts as well. They glanced at their recently thrifted calendar, which hung from a screw in the wall just above their oven. It was marked red with enough reminders about graveyard visits and bill deadlines to last a lifetime. They didn’t have to flip through it to know that the next month was left completely blank. Just like every other month after it. Planning anything beyond the next couple of weeks seemed too much at the moment. They’d cross that bridge if and when they came to it. They looked to the beat-up tin breadbox on the counter with a frown. Stuffed inside, amongst a bag or two of bread butts, were dozens of red papers angrily marked that read “OVERDUE” and concerned letters from friends that they didn’t have the energy to answer. Everything seemed to be stacked against them. They were trying to distance themselves, so why were they still so

horribly, painfully attached? They could run from this life, of course. They could leave all the debt and the medical worries and the gravestones and the starving friends behind. But they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t get very far, anyway. Running wouldn’t change their sentence. They looked at the doorway to the living room, hoping to find some sort of reminder there. It stared at them as if it had a personal vendetta. Whether it was against them or the sickness curled up in their chest, they’d never know. They refrained from squinting. Their eyes hadn’t adjusted quite yet to allow them to see the grey outlines of the rest of the house. For that, they were grateful. Usually, out in the living room, they would be able to see the gentle rising and falling of chests and hear the soft grunts or muttered words directed at the inhabitants of a dream. Now, the room was full of emptiness. Sure, it was stuffed with faded and scratched knick-knacks from lives past. Sure, every wall was lined with sagging furniture they couldn’t bring themselves to sell just yet. It was empty in that it leaked memories. Memories of Sunday afternoons spent piled onto the floor, Uno cards in hand as warm laughter and faux suspicion keeping the atmosphere light. Of Rod Serling’s calming voice that crackled over the bad television connection and possible theories about what was to happen next. Of a new song with warbling words and plinking strings paired with proud smiles and a standing ovation or two. Remembering those good times, and then remembering that they were finished, made that room feel almost too empty for them to bear. Now, it was too quiet. In those days, each and every moment was spent with cheerful voices filling up the background. Back then, everything was all trimmed with harmonious bliss. Kids came in whenever they needed a little sanctuary. It wasn’t a permanent setup by any means, but they wished, deep deep down, that it was. That it would never end. All good things do, unfortunately. Their sunlit hours were spent behind the counters of soup kitchens, making sure that all the bodies that couldn’t fit into their

house had a warm meal. Their moon-bathed hours were spent tucking in loose limbs and sitting at that very table, pouring over schedules and lists and prescriptions. None of their darlings were related to them biologically, obviously. Their bonds were stronger than that. Their bonds were built out of years of love and care. Their bonds had been forged out of compassion from strangers where blood had failed. These bonds were made of lots of things, actually. They were made out of whipping around the corner in a minivan at borderline astonishing speeds to make sure that their little one got to therapy or band practice on time. Thankfully, they were an extremely good driver. How else would they get to their destination with five minutes to spare every time without fail? These bonds were made of cleaning up cuts and bruises after a fight and going out for ice cream regardless of whether there was a technical victory or not. If their kid gave a slugging or backtalk to a bully who deserved it, that was cause enough for celebration. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t step in if there was any serious trouble. A quick call to a superintendent with their best White Mom Voice always did the trick. These bonds were made of attempting to fix the holes that had been mostly-on-accident punched into the wall during a particularly enthusiastic Just Dance session. More often than not, that meant pinning a scrawled picture over the hole and making a sarcastic crack about the security deposit. Never a harsh word was heard, only the stomping of feet as the team ripped apart the house trying to find the ever-illusive toolbelt that they were sure they saw somewhere. Those holes never did get fixed. Despite their very best efforts. That all made their isolation all the more difficult. Sitting down with those beautiful kids of theirs and explaining why they had to shut their doors was the hardest thing they ever had to do. “Things are bad right now. I can’t have you guys over anymore. You lot have to go home,” they’d said. One of the younger ones, barely over fifteen, had jumped to his feet, eyes wide. “Why? Did we do something wrong?” “Of course not, my love. I’ve got to heal and rest on my

time worrying about you here kids.” Another one, emboldened by years on the streets, stepped forward. “We’ll take care of you. You don’t have to climb this mountain alone.” They had tsked, fighting to keep the sadness from their words. “That’s where you’re wrong.” They had surveyed the room, meeting each and every confused and angry and sad gaze. “You all have a place to sleep for the foreseeable future, yes?” The fidgeting occupants of their home had nodded, too afraid to acknowledge their strange tone lest it completely give way to sorrow. “Good, good.” They look worried, they remembered thinking. They had put a hand over their heart in a promise, offering the most reassuring grin they could muster. “I’m just taking some time for myself, that’s all. I’ll be better in no time. ” The kids didn’t have to see the crossed fingers behind their back to know that they were lying. In the inescapable, all-consuming emptiness that followed, they had comforted themselves with a single thought. I’m not strong enough. Not nearly strong enough to look after those bright voices that used to fill up their life. Not anymore. However. They didn’t want to admit it, but it wasn’t about that, really. Their failing health was just an excuse to shut those voices out. They didn’t want their friends to see them dying. They knew what it was like. To watch those around you wither and crumble. The hollowness in their cheeks, the haze in their eyes, and the weight of unimaginable fatigue on their shoulders. This particular illness eats its victim from the inside out, scraping at their will to fight until their words rang through a hollow breast. Every time one of their friends walked through the door, they found themselves searching for symptoms. They were always on the lookout for the next uncontrollable shudder, the next rattling breath, the next helpless whimper. Even if they did notice, it didn’t matter. There wasn’t any treatment. There wasn’t any solution. There wasn’t a point to any of it. Even if the signs were there, they could never bring themselves to say the plague’s name out loud. The only thing that would

accomplish would be solidifying that little scribble on their death certificate. Instead, they kept their mouth shut as the number in their living room, in their passenger seat, in their life, dwindled and dwindled with each passing day. They were quiet when friends, much too young, collapsed into their embrace, crying as loudly as they could. They didn’t say anything as friends went in through hospital doors and didn’t come out. Breathing, at least. It hurts less this way, they’d say to themselves. It hurts less to hide away. But this wasn’t true. It didn’t change the fact that when they closed their eyes, all that laughter they could hear so clearly was being stripped away voice by voice. They were familiar with tasting pain so potent in the air you feel it as your own. They knew it better than breathing. Fresh on their tongue was the desperation of knowing you were doomed. They had seen it in too many of the sleeping bodies that were stretched out on their couch. They had held too many bodies against the cold concrete of an alleyway. Against the starchy sheets of a hospital bed. Against the stained upholstery of a backseat. And now... And now they were feeling it themselves. They had heard about it, how it attacked the immune system. Or something like that. You weren’t supposed to get tested, the activists said. Don’t get tested. But they couldn’t help themselves. When they got that call from their doctor that the test came back positive, they knew that they’d have to leave, too. Eventually. They’d become another hole in the lives of all those they loved. They looked down at their club outfit, arranging the cuffs just so. A special occasion, all right. I wonder if they’ll parade me around downtown. I hope they put me on the steps of the Capitol. I hope they say, “Look what you’ve done with your silence! With your coldness!” They chuckled and went back to clutching at their mug. Wishful thinking. They scrubbed a hand down their face, choking down the lump in their throat. I’m sorry I have to go. There were no tears in their eyes. They were too tired for that. Death had already come for so many of their family. Why shouldn’t Thanatos come back and finish the job? At this point, it

was just a question of whether they’d like to die at home—where they’d have to be found—or in a white-tiled hospital that couldn’t care less. They wondered if Death’s touch would be cold or thick with blinding light. I’ll be pissed if he isn’t hot. They tried not to think too hard about it. For now, all that existed was illuminated in the glow of a single, flickering lamp. They sighed and took another sip of rapidly cooling tea. What else was there to do?

Writer Spotlight Lucian Van Fleet

What first inspired you to write “Making Peace With What We Have Left”? LVF: I was at my grandparents house sitting at their kitchen table, and it was like, 1 in the morning. And, I was so intrigued by the thought that there was an entire world outside of where I’m sitting, but also, there isn’t. You know, like all these emotions that are contained are simply here and it was such a beautiful emotion that I wanted to touch on with this piece. If you could describe that emotion, how would you describe that? LVF: It’s like when everyone else is asleep and you’re awake, and the entire world is spread out in front of you, and everything is there, but at the same time the kind of peace and serenity that you have in that moment is central to the window you’re looking out of or the lamplight that you’re bathing in. Is there a particular message or takeaway you would hope for a reader to have with this piece, or how would you want the reader to feel after having read this? LVF: It’s definitely up for interpretation - that’s why I tried not to describe the character themselves too much - because I wanted the reader to put themselves in their shoes. I did want to communicate the kind of hopelessness that comes with being terminally ill, and being alone for that and trying to soldier it by yourself. Because I feel like that’s a really big issue especially with mental health, trying to soldier it alone, and I wanted to shed light on that. But whatever the person feels like at the end of it, that’s completely their business.

To listen to the full interview, follow this QR code to our website!

We were cleaning the classroom on the last day of school

restless, restless by Isabella Crow

by Renée Szostek My honors English teacher asked who would take her plants. Only I could, like only I did all the homework. Still she hated me.

summer tastes like it’s missing the salt. any day overripe with feeling has fallen and fermented into dirt, no good harvest left edible against the leaves. the hours turn like blank pages bound before a novel, except i never get to the exposition. my house is in a field, my love is in a field, my water bottle is warming in the crabgrass in the sun. there are no trees for miles or maybe just no trees in sight, is there a difference between what we cannot touch and what we will never touch? there is no dust, only gnats and sweat and fences to keep us forgetting that we will not outlive this land. when i try and think about you all i can see is the hot and empty sky, that tragic shade of blue, the last word ever birthed in every language. it wants us gone, this is not the epilogue. people still have yet to die. we know there is violence in the world, but all the death we can see happens on the side of the road. and i think thank god we are cremating the earth where we stand, that she may never have to rot.

are you there? by Kristen Boudreau

are you there? i can feel the flesh of your chest under my cheek; i rise and fall with your smooth breaths of slumber. our bodies are malleable. we are two bodies with tangled limbs and hurt hearts, hearts only to be healed by the warmth of another body. i need you to hear me say the words that never come when i want them to; i am petrified by the sunlight exposing parts of my skin i can’t scrutinize on my own. now, with the darkness providing me with a blanket of nothingness to ease me, i have a chance of etching my words into the present. my body is beaten and bruised. it immortalizes the dramatic bike crash ending in a brutal cut; it reminds me of the marks i branded myself with when i was fifteen. my body reminds me that i failed. this prison of flesh and bones will never be good enough, i am trapped inside and will never escape. i have to learn to live with it. but i am an amalgamation of decades of unfortunate luck and abandonment; i have fought on my own for too long. my body has not been on my side, not by its choice, but by mine. years of neglect congealing with inherent insecurity resulted in a proto-adult. i was desperate for attention from anyone who bothered to care and to get that required the appeal of my body. i saw no use in it, but every so often someone did. i would give them everything i could, anything i was comfortable with. nobody stuck around long enough for me to finally trust them enough with my body; it wasn’t enough. once, i found myself trusting one of the ones that wandered over to me. he told me pretty lies and held me close; he brought me trinkets as an excuse to place his lips on mine, and, in shock that someone may see the appeal in something so broken, i believed him. i gave him my body; he took it. he had me over the next day to give it back to me, presumably bored by the broken toy.

after that, i closed my body. i bore my broken heart on my sleeve, right next to my failure. the broken girl with the broken heart. the marks my body displayed were more prominent, now, and new injuries would appear overnight. i did nothing to stop them. my body lay dormant for months. my tears would tuck me in in the early evening and wake me the next evening. it was dark at 4 pm; i never saw the sunlight. my body chained me to seclusion, and i accepted. those who marked my body controlled i; i was powerless to myself. are you there? my hand is over your heart. i always have to wait until you fall asleep before i allow myself to drift away to the purest bliss of non-perception, did you know that? i channel your heartbeat through my body, calming my body with yours. it’s odd when we melt together so effortlessly; i have never felt comfortable inside my skin, except when it’s touching yours. words are written on my body, serving as reminders of the past i can never sever myself from. with careful examination you can see the etchings of my father -- they cover me like chickenpox. not the daughter i raised. i can hear your sobs all the way from downstairs, could you be a little quieter for the love of god? if your relationship with your parents is so bad, have you considered that’s by your choice? i hear his voice every time the words appear, forever haunted by the echoing roars of drunken rampages. i scrub my skin raw, begging my body to forget half my genes. when my skin grows back the words are still there, this time they are deeper. i am a broken mind trapped inside a broken body. a broken body flinches when a deeper voice exclaims in frustration while i’m in the room; a broken body doesn’t go home for the holidays. a broken body, a broken girl. are you there? i acquiesce to your body when it’s next to mine; i want you to feel it. when you hold me, your large arms envelop me,

protecting me from the dark nothingness. i feel you pressed against me; your lips occasionally grazing the back of my neck to accompany the exhales of tired breathing. i fall into you. as i fall, a wave of despair crests and falls right atop me. i cannot reach the floor, my toes are stretching to find solid ground to stand on. i am sinking, and sinking fast. i frantically look for something to save me. tears run down my face and i can’t have you notice. your peaceful rest should be untouched by my unnecessary sadness. the tears continue silently but i settle into you, begging myself to leave it be. falling, falling, falling. i listen for your breathing in an attempt to steady mine, awaiting the moment when our bodies disappear and it is just us. faster, faster, faster. i am all alone in my body. there is no turning back now; i am in too deep. drowning, drowning, drowning. my eyes close as the tears begin to slow. you didn’t notice me crying -- you were sufficiently asleep. subconsciously, you tighten your grip around my body, and just for a moment, i am not my body. we are inseparable when our skin collides. i align my breathing with yours, inching myself closer to sleep. before i go, are you there? did your body get the message from mine? nothingness spreads her domain even further, weighing me down into slumber with her infinite (and nonexistent) weight. i am drowning. drowning, drowning, drowning; falling, falling, falling.

A Regrettable Love Letter by Kaye Lani Weatherly

I am once again plagued by ‘happy’ thoughts. Thoughts of your omnipresent gaze finally fixing on me, and the long fang you bare that flashes in the moonlight as it circles your prey—oh, how my cheeks burn at the thought! But I must not give in to fantasy; what you see, you destroy, and destruction is your very being. Yet the concept of you enamors me so—as I am conditioned to loneliness, to your looming presence I both fear and anticipate feverishly. Three times I have witnessed you in the past, the first at mother’s birdbath, second at Sport’s old enclosure on the lawn, and last when I went swimming along the bank. The breeze weighed down on me like a malevolent force, the tides even worse. Your presence enveloped the air around me, blackening my vision as I cried not for help, but for mercy. I look back upon this memory with great tremor, yet I find myself seeking comfort in it; I relive the moment as a playwright in my head: me, frantic in the harsh waters below, and you, like a catatonic bastion hovering over the moon, invigorating her tides and collapsing the ripples into my lungs. I nearly died that night. Very, very nearly. In the same sense, however, you saved me. I found it warmer in your arms than in the vast pool I thrashed ever so violently in. You were my worst mistake, and like all mistakes I never regret having met you, as I have learned the best and hardest lessons from this unfortunate chance encounter.

are you there?

Beyond the Pane

by Sharon Shaw

The Women Who Came Before by Madylin Eberstein

Jessie Emig. Jean Hopper. Ann Holmberg. Joan Fry. This is a list of names you will never see again. It is a list of women—ordinary women—who passed long before our time, who are no longer known for the beauty, talent, or spirit they may once have been, but who live on only as faceless, grey granite gravestones bearing names that are not their own. These are the names of the women who came before me, and as hard as it is, I try not to know them as Eberstein, or even by my mother’s maiden name, Hosken. Instead, I have chosen to name them as they were born, before they belonged to their husbands, grew up, and became mothers. These were their names when they were allowed to just be Jessie, Jean, Ann, Joan. Back then, they were probably not so different from me. Like me, they were once gracefully clumsy. Like me, too, they were goofy, friendly. They once had trouble holding in their girlish grins and quieting their giggles in class. They used to look at themselves in the mirror and wonder, anxiously, who to be, what to do. They used to lay awake, late at night, gazing out at a mid-century Milkyway and dreaming of the rest of their lives. They were once young, timid, shy, insecure, beautiful, hopeful, free. They were once just like me, but in another time and place, far from my own. Maybe they did not dream to be on their own, resent their circumstance, or worry that they might someday lose their namesake. Maybe they did. Either way, they went on, raising themselves up to become unknowable, all-powerful maternal beings in the eyes of their loved ones, entrenching themselves in familial duty, labor, and sacrifice. Once they did so, they were lost forever; today, we know them only as Mom, Grandma, Wife of.

For years, their bodies bore the weight of our existence—all of us, in eventuality. Their hands scrubbed pots in greasy, lukewarm water until, at last, their skin turned to soft, worn leather. In tired arms and aching backs, in womb and swollen stomach, they carried their sons. With body and spirit, they raised these men who would allow them to be forgotten. They seduced the men who produced them. From some distant past, they gave us life, safety, pleasure, love. They gave all of themselves and vanished, faded into history as if they had never lived at all. Now they are gone, gone, gone. All gone. All for good. All for naught. Their names are traces in marriage licenses, in passport applications, and on gravestones. With the reciting of a vow and the donning of a ring, their lives have been routinely written away. My grandmothers live on in legacy only: in memory, in family, in me. When we speak of the patriarchy, we keep our eyes forward, noses downturned. We picture Equality and all its utopic glory, and we march on, dead ahead, straight for the prize. On our way, we forget to look up. We cannot see how wide, how winding the path truly is. We do not see how foggy it is, shrouded in mystery, tradition, and family. Even if we see, we ignore it, just for now.

As I look up on this path, I see that there is no place for us in this world we have built. There is no name truly our own, none I could inherit from my mother, from her mother, and onward. There is nothing we, women, may claim in our short lives to help us survive the fate of history. Eberstein, that is my name. A thousand years ago—or maybe two—there was an Eberstein, a man, living somewhere on this Earth. He probably had a wife. He definitely had children. I do not know anything more about him, but there is no need. I know he was there. I still know his name. As for distant grandmothers, I can only remember them in

anonymity, as plain, generic faces, with no names, living out a medieval life I have conjured myself. Still, I tell myself to remember the women who came before me and to learn the names I can. I tell myself to thank them for their beautiful, ordinary lives that led to mine. I repeat their names as if in mantra, in a steady rhythm mirroring the heartbeat they gifted me so long ago. Emig, Hopper, Holmberg, Fry. Emig, Hopper, Holmberg, Fry.

Searching for Something by Donaven Lee

Are we alone? Drifting in this ceaseless ocean We search we send It seems useless Or are we just clueless? In this vast vo id we are small er than a toms a nd so ar e they Ex tin ction w ill com e B efor e we m eet Ti m e p as s es an d fic ti o n bec o m es real ity Wo ul d w e ac ce p t each ot h er ? I s t hi s a d r e a m T hat w e wa n t to be li eve? T h e sear Fro m ou

ch co nti n u es i n t he d r at om ic in fe rn o

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Writer Spotlight Donaven Lee

What did your process look like? How different was the final result from the initial draft? DL: I always usually just start with whatever comes to my head. I always keep a list of all my different ideas on my phone or on my notepad somewhere. So, anything that comes to mind I write down and, whenever I have the time or feel like it I usually go back and see if I want to expand upon one. This one — I knew that I was going to submit poems to a bunch of journals. I picked this one in particular because I thought it was fun to do. So, I got to express my creative side a bit. Is poetry your favorite genre with regards to writing? DL: I would say I’m pretty comfortable with it. I don’t write in it a whole lot, but when I do I really enjoy it. I mainly started to get into it about a year or so ago. But, other than that, I kind of treated English classes as a requirement I have to do. Poetry’s been one I’ve been enjoying a lot more since I’ve been doing it. So, yeah, I’m a newcomer. What draws you to the act of writing? DL: It’s a way to express myself because I find it very hard to say it to somebody. ‘Cause, especially when you’re face to face with another person, there’s more, I guess, pressure on you, uh, to actually let yourself out. So, I find that just writing down something is a lot easier. Then, if they wanna read it, they can, if they don’t want to, they don’t, so. It’s basically uh, an easy way to express oneself, which I like.

The Morning After Pill by Madi Altman

I awoke this morning with the bright light of dawn piercing through his slightly open window. I only got about two hours of sleep, so I knew that my never-ending anxiety would skyrocket today. My iPhone alarm blared twice: one at 8:30am and the other at 8:45am. I snoozed the first one, promptly falling back asleep on him. But so many thoughts flooded my head at that second alarm. Holy shit, I had sex. Holy shit, I slept next to a boy. A naked boy. Holy shit, I am going to be late to class. Bile rose in my throat. Am I hungover? Do I regret my decisions?

My legs became restless, his sherpa sheets grew to be too warm, my pulse was at a steady exponential increase. Do I wake him up? Do I just leave? What did I do? I rapidly tapped him in succession, thinking that may be the best decision. He opened his brown bleary eyes, staring right at me. Fuck, he doesn’t remember last night. He doesn’t remember me.

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His arms wrapped around me and pulled me into his warmth. He claimed he wanted just five more minutes, that I should simply skip class. The anxiety spiked. Is this awkward? This doesn’t feel like how it did last night. I can’t skip class.

I finally escaped his grasp and did my best to speed walk home without looking too much like the infamous “Walk of Shame.” People are judging. They know I’m not a virgin anymore. I won’t make it to class. I stripped out of my alcohol soaked clothes as soon I was at my place. I have class. I had sex. I need to go. Heading to the door, I turned back because I forgot my morning after pill: 100 milligrams of Zoloft.

The Speech of Maria Jitanjáfora by Brian Daza

Wanted to cry? Wanted to scream? Not sure but something I wanted but I could not find the words in my voice. Read the poems, listened to the songs, the beautiful words I grew up with and once lied with me in the ground. I searched everywhere, every place I know. Cada idioma, cada piece of love I still stored somewhere in the kitchen. Then I went for a walk followed a crowd without really knowing what they were aiming for. Tried to ask: where are we going? what does this mean? just did I understand a couple of signs. Then we arrived: two thousand people or just two of us. I can’t recover how it was but it really doesn’t matter somehow. I ended up hearing a speaker, that is the fact.

Unable to hear my own words, I was eager to get what she had to say:

just to let her gestures mimic what she was about to say.”

“Ahr sohrai Ahr sohr hee” She calmly addressed someone else. “Not me” - that’s what I thought.

Tomó nuevamente el micrófono, se sentó ‘apropiadamente’: Prosiguió el discurso.

“Thwo shez uer to go. Thwo shez dahreswest. Thwo shez ingayo.” Like a prayer, like a bomb, her speech resonated with me. ¿Qué significa esto? ¿Por qué estas palabras resuenan conmigo si no las entiendo? Entonces recordé que no soy capaz ni de pronunciar bien mi nombre. Ni de expresar lo que siento en idiomas que los papeles dicen que sí.

Su cabello, tan ordenado como antes. Agradecí mucho llevar una máscara sobre mi rostro. Mi enorme y quizás estúpida risa me habló solamente a mí. Logró explicarme, en silencio, lo que mis palabras no pudieron. Y de las semillas del caos brotaron pequeños lirios. No me atreví a darles sol. Es más, no tengo idea de cómo hacerlo. But then she just said: “I’m very sorry. But it was mom who just called”.

Entonces just looked at her Kept listening to her: “Keiri se-yoon Oe sepá lab odón stand”. Y me rendí de intentar entender significados. Abandoné cada palabra que aprendí después de los 15 años. María Jitanjáfora soltó el micrófono. Puso sus manos sobre su cabeza y sentí en ellas la misma desesperación que en la mía. “That’s so honest!” - me dije a mí mismo. “I can’t believe she messed up her hair,

Note from the author: A jitanjáfora is a type of poetic expression that became popular during Latin American vanguardism. The aesthetic aim of jitanjáforas is to focus exclusively on phonetic beauty and music by using invented words with no meaning at all. The aim of this poem was to suggest it was probably an impossible task: Are all the words in jitanjáforas maybe just meaningful words in languages that we already don’t know?

Writer Spotlight Brian Daza

What first inspired you to write “The speech of Maria Jitanjafora”? BD: I remember the day and the moment very perfectly, actually. I was kind of sad or burnt out; I don’t know how I was feeling. So, I thought it would be great to talk with someone, but at the same time, I didn’t know with whom to talk about it because what I was feeling was related to graduate school. If I talked to my friends or family from my country, I felt they wouldn’t understand. The people that I am meeting here, I only knew them for a couple of weeks. I didn’t feel that I would be able to have a proper conversation with them. The other thing that I was worried about at the moment was, I usually write poetry or short stories in Spanish and then realized that I have to start writing in English as well just because English is the language of the place where I am living now. But I feel that it is kind of hard to feel in another language. So the idea of this poem was, at the beginning, to start writing something in English, and in that poem, Maria Jitanjafora starts speaking in something that sounds weird, but at the same time, it kind of resembles the sounds and questions I was making. What draws you to the act of writing?

i look at my body with a naked censor bar by Isabella Crow

once a month i meet the person i am becoming / in some kind of butch reading of the tea dregs / or rather the scraps of hair buzzed from my scalp / wilted on the creaky polish of the barbershop floor. / i am not a pretty girl / i do not remember the last time i was. / call me a winter stag loose of his horns, / the bull without the dagger, / a thousand packing peanuts in soggy cardboard. / my body is lucky to have me, though i am stored / entirely in the crawlspace beneath my left collarbone. / the rest of me is a flushed misshapen / pillsbury dough boy-girl / fucked up hybrid where god took the bad parts of both gingerbread cookie-cutter shapes / and baked me all in one giant lump. / i hope i am still edible / i am pink and inflamed. / my body is like some great picked-at scab / and i’m always happy to offer up its blood. / how can you look at me and feel anything that looks like love? / i chose to make myself / into this halfway house for people i’m not quite ready to be. / i recoil like i’ve been burned / if i am touched / though i’ve never been burned, / nor touched. / i dream only of an / imaginary dick / i don’t want and will never have, / oh what the hell, / sew it on, cover me up, / let me slide into someone who is blind / and sees not this pinkedup-fucked-up body-of-mine / but feels what i am making them feel, / which is goodness, / which is my redemption.

BD: I would say it’s kind of for a relief or a hobby, but it’s not like that because sometimes writing doesn’t necessarily make me feel better. Sometimes I feel worse after writing, but I feel like it is a kind of need, a necessity to. The necessity comes in when I feel like reality is not enough to process or to figure out what I am thinking or feeling in general.

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Dorm Ruminations: Spoken by Anonymous

I know you’re just about the busiest human ever, but I think you’re really great. If you ever want to hang out sometime, let me know. A thin, cinder block wall. A door held open. A measured, coasting voice that rolls over a room like a cool sea breeze. People say he looks wholesome. They’ve said the same of me. Innocent. Kind. Good-hearted. The boy and girl next door. Sixty years ago it wouldn’t have been a question. Eighty, even less. But it is not. It is now. And I feel the tug to do what my forebearers did not. I feel an obligation to break the cycle that has hounded me all these years. And so, that boy, that spoke on the wheel, will never be. I will never let him. But, in stopping myself, do I let the cart crush me down as it did the rest? Do I allow that wheel to dictate my direction? Is steering me away the same as toting me towards? There is no life without difference. Despite it all, we’re so different. And there is no difference without division. I feel that divide like a crack in one of my bones. Difference, division. Mathematical terms. How clinical. I thought I’d passed that by now. How cynical. How sad. How arrogant. To think I can avoid the less charitable foundations. Difference and differentials. Subjugation and subtraction. How can one square up to the roots of this world? Face them down and knock them out one by one like a timed multiplication test. How can I prove to myself that I know I am not less than? That difference doesn’t subtract.

For our difference is the key, our similarity a map I frequently find myself lost within. Shipwrecked and stranded. He and I. The boy and girl next door. The wheel may have made him woozy as it whirled him around but it always kept him inside its perimeter. Safely hidden away. I hide as well. Not safe. Outside. Ducked under a narrow awning on a perpetually rainy day. Heavy water spilling over and splashing on the ground. The fallout shines my shins and soaks my socks. I dodge the worst of it. No cholera, no typhoid, no liquid in the lungs. Just water on my feet, eating me away like a soldier in a ditch. Erosion takes time. But this is far from new. For I am not the first, nor the lone. I am merely the one with the phone in my hand and a long habit of talking to no one. I’d like to talk to him. Mostly just to listen. I want to hear him, the words and the voice. I’d like him to laugh at me. My stumblings and my stupid jokes. Flustered and endeared. I’d like him to look my way. Pause and hold my gaze as he scans the group, his eyes a monstrance blessing my adoration. All I want is an afternoon. Spent on a boat in the middle of Lake Huron, no other voices for miles. Just him and me. The grumbling engine and the chuckling waves. I think he’d like that. The boat at least, if not me. We’re never alone here— except in that Jordan Baker way that two people can choose to be alone at a crowded table. Sometimes he chooses that. I wish he’d choose it more. Not all the time. Just more.

The moments we do have are dense. They’re syrupy, sweet and viscous. Testing waters of eyes, waves of hair. Fishing out voices from a pedagogically saturated sea. He is a life jacket on Phelps. My crown of thorns. Unnecessary, a bit insulting, weighty. But comforting. And warm. He feels like home. Not my home, that mess of passive aggression and redemptive suffering. He’s what I’d like home to be, the way it should feel. Stable, considerate, caring, something strong to lean on. I lose my words around him. Me, the girl to whom prose is a parachute slowing my fall from stability. I gain them as well, filler and fluff, excessive explanations incited by the fear he’ll not understand. I didn’t realize that I had written us before. I hope I am not doing so now. I’d not like my words to be incursive, though it is what I was taught. Likely what he was as well. Damn that woman, that disciplining disciple who dug deep into my lively, literary brain and built into it a benediction. Damn her for teaching me of colors, birds, and sets of threes. Damn her for breaking me with the bread. And damn him for dining and dashing, for following my footsteps and not holding my hand. Damn me for staying, half-silent, just to savor the sweetness of sitting next to him. Damn us both for the gifts we dole out— dangerous and delicate as they are. There is trouble, for me, with omnipotence. The gods and the style. I struggle to understand how an eye could see without a human lens— lenses, perhaps. How can a story be told without a voice to speak it? How many voices have I had?

I have always been a stained glass girl. Prismatic, conflicting lights coloring scenes. Hard, transparent. Lovely and stark. Boundaried. I am a girl without gradients. I bounce between my panes, letting the inks bleed into me. Patchily painting me in ways I cannot hide. He makes me wish that I could. That there was some method to close or cut away the full extent of myself. Not all of it. Just the bits that don’t fit. I try to bite my bumbling tongue for him. Halt the heckles and quench the quarrels. I can act the lady I should’ve been. A beautiful little fool. My friends find it excessive when I fantasize of a future with him. I can admit that it is. But the better word, in my belief, is dated. That’s something we both are. It’s why I wish that word, and myself, weren’t so odiously overdetermined. She’s spindly in my roots, parasitic and pervasive in my history, she who would slide into his life like a battery against a spring. She’s there in the back of my mind, always. This is what I was made for, after all. Is he simply a reconciliatory route back to being her? In flailing for him, do I beg forgiveness from my family? Why do I feel there is anything to forgive? I have cold blood— rich, poor, back and forth. Good Catholic housewives and diamonds of the season. Possessions belonging to men like him. Those men as well. I wonder which of my ancestresses would be proud of me. How many would be happy I met such a match? How many would condemn me for wanting it to burn when I could simply flick on the lights?

I wonder if his mind works like mine, if he has a companion too. I wonder what it whispers to him. What things hold him back? Is there anything to be held? Please hold me. Does he see the cracks where I do? What keeps the voice whispering despite those fault lines? Does it whisper at all? Whisper, kindly. Does he too have moments and mannerisms locked away in the back of his brain like buried treasure? What’s his version of the dorky way he types on his phone— resting it on the table face-up, nothing to hide, with both index fingers poking at the buttons like whack-a-mole? Or the laugh— puffing through a halfway smirking smile— that he shares with the best character I’ve ever written? The infuriatingly hilarious knowledge that my mother would prefer him to any of her children? Is he grateful for the mask he wears to class, for its service in hiding a smitten smile that pops up like ads with fake, unclickable red exes in the corner? Does he feel his mind wander in the middle of his homework, look up, and laugh to himself because that’s all that he can do? Or am I alone in my voyeuristic, invasive romanticism, this theft of flecks of flesh and bits of banter to build a boy he’s never been? What would he like me to be? Does he notice the days we are totally in sync? Or the days it feels like our precarious vessel will plummet down? Will we sink? Or will we sail?

Nights on North Campus by Sarah Schenck

I am alone under the starlight on a campus with thousands of other souls.

I know that tomorrow, I will wake up and look at the ceiling, follow the pipes with my eyes, and hear my roommate snore. I know I will sit and eat with familiar strangers and marvel as we converse, us young adults with interesting pasts and wondrous futures and so much to learn, so much to discover. I know there will be a court and someone will have a ball. Shoes and socks will lay scattered on the grass, like the sprinkles I shook onto iced cookies last winter. The sand will be cold and numb my feet, but my reddened forearms will be warm, and so will our hearts. I know when I get back to my dorm, I will look at my desk and unfocus my eyes, and see a tangled mass of scribbled black yarn on a wrinkled white canvas.

And I’ll blink and see my own scrawl detailing how the stars came to be and a sketch of a nuclear reactor.

But for now, I stand beside the bell tower, a shadow among shadows. The lamps like a string of moons along the path through the trees. And I watch the watching stars and trace the constellations in my mind.

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