Writer to Writer Fall 2020 Publication

Writer to Writer

a journal for writers, by writers

FALL 2020

ISSUE 3

Writer to Writer

a journal by writers, for writers Editor-in-Chief Caitlyn Zawideh Aylin Gunal

Design

Taylor Schott and Jackie Kim

Communications Aria Gerson

Submissions Sydney Wagner

Secretary

Madi Altman

Editors

Dani Fink Kristen Boudreau Alicia Haun Amber Hashmi

Faculty Advisor Shelley Manis

Cover photo by Serge Kutuzov

ISSUE 3 FALL 2020

Letter from the Editor

Dear Readers, Welcome to the third 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 third year as an organization, we were met with the unique obstacles introduced by the coronavirus pandemic.

As classes switched from in-person to remote, so did all our operations. 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 or Google Meet to share ideas, review submissions, and work together to produce the latest edition of our publication.

Poetically enough, as Writer to Writer made efforts to stay connected internally, we found the submissions we received for Issue 3 reflected that same need for connection. A poem about an awkward phone call, a reflection on a prom-date-turneddoomed-relationship, and a short story about new friends atop a mountain are just a few examples. We hope you can find this theme and its various insights recognizable and that the pursuit of human connection in these works resonates with you.

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, Caitlyn Zawideh and Aylin Gunal Editors in Chief Writer to Writer

Table of Contents 1

A Musing on Mediums Taylor Schott

3

Not Fully Anonymous

6

Violet’s Premier Ghost Bottling Eileen Kelly

14 Imagination

Samantha Havela

16 A Lesson in Performance and Neuroscience Kara Warnke

26 Red Ink

Danielle Fink

31 Eyebrows

Caitlyn Zawideh

33 Pour

Malin Andersson

35 Human Agriculture Priscila Flores

37 J

Gabrielle Lauren Byrnes

39 Light in the Dark Priscila Flores

40 Car Sex

Ethan Cutler

42 Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down Ethan Cutler

48

After John Mayer’s Slow Dancing in a Burning Room Kailyn Bondoni

50

Unexpected Calls Madi Altman

54

Golden Week Rachel McKimmy-Warf

65

Home Lucy Freeman

A Musing on Mediums

by Taylor Schott

When considering what it is that you wish to write about, it is helpful, if not ultimately necessary, to consider how. What I mean by this is really quite simple: how will you be writing what you wish to convey, divulge, express? Will you use a typewriter—that is, if you have one —because you are sure of yourself? So sure that you won’t be wasting valuable ribbons of ink, that you won’t be hammering down on the keys for nothing? Or, will you be typing away a little less loud, but loud enough still, on a computer? Or, finally, have you returned to a most dependable, intimate sort of writing, with pen and paper — which will it be? I believe that these implements must be used in accordance with crucially different intentions.

The typewriter is reserved for those with great confidence, or for the later stages of drafting. Collect notes and musings first, before you begin an act so costly. My 1950’s Royal Deluxe typewriter was only $40, but I did have to bargain for it, which took time and effort, so you could say that it actually cost more. Ink often runs $20 per spool — are your stories worth it? Mistakes are difficult to mask, and it is a loud practice — loud enough for your family to come barging in, inquiring about what it is that you’re going on about, cracking jokes about how it “sounds like a newsroom in here”. You cannot use a typewriter without drawing some level of attention to yourself, unless you are in total solitude, or you happen to have a noiseless machine, a Remington model. Though, there are almost no distractions while typewriting — no tabs or windows to sort through, no notifications to bother with. If I was left alone with only my typewriting materials, I believe I would get a great deal of work done. That clacking, the hit of the ink-loaded lever onto the page, sounds and looks and feels productive, even if you are just typing Hello my name is Taylor, which I have done before, just to feel it.

1

The computer is a required implement for many college students these days, unfortunately so. I am a college student myself, but I leave the most important matters to the tangible (see next paragraph). The Google document is fine for a project proposal, or for those with terrible handwriting, but is not conducive to revelations of a more intimate nature. Not with that propped up, harshly lit screen, no. Though, one advantageous aspect of writing on a computer is that it can make for a quick thought; have you ever been able to physically write as fast as your thoughts arrive? Only on a computer’s keyboard can you come close.

Writing with pen and paper is most desirable for those who seek avenues of a more journalistic nature, possibly because their therapist or close friend has recommended it. Writing down various thoughts, feelings, happenings — ideally in solitude — can be therapeutic in itself. Perhaps you have been jilted, or you have done the jilting, and now you feel bad about it and need to articulate that guilt. Guilt, jilt. Or, you are working out a math problem for which you must show hard and clear evidence. Or — as I often find myself — just wishing to exercise your writing hand, your writing arm. Children learn cursive on paper, those dreadful dotted lines.

Friends send handwritten letters or invitations, though not so much anymore. Notebook margins fill with mindless scrawls. It’s often private, and has the impression of productivity, writing by hand — even if you draft just a sentence or two.

There are certainly many other advantages and disadvantages of certain implements and ways of writing — I just don’t wish to relay and analyze them now — I’d rather end the mulling here, at three.

Plus, a drawback of pen and paper that I forgot to mention: my forearm is cramping.

2

Not Fully

by Anonymous It’s a day in late December when I get a text ––no, she’s double, triple texting–– from a friend.

Well, we’re friends through an org from years ago; so, why the text?

Well, obviously there’s no discernible reason.

This is exciting. Who cares about what the message is. We haven’t talked in months, but I’ve thought about her, and she sent me a text ––no, 3!–– which means she has thought about me.

The realization comes like a loud sound or punch in the chest or the window flying open and wind streaming in ––cold and alive!–– swooping in and pinning my eyes open.

In the bathroom I put my forehead against the mirror and whisper, I have a crush.

––on a girl!–– It’s a face of my identity I never knew existed yet here she is now, blinking in the bathroom mirror with newborn eyes.

There was no accumulation of this!

No raining hail of moments, filling the window screen with so

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much rubble that it becomes unavoidable, the task of squinting at the window and whispering ––half annoyed, half excited–– Well, I suppose I should go outside and take care of this.

At least, this is what friends have said it was like, whispering their secret over a coffee, allowing it to materialize for a moment so I could feel it in the puffs of steam on my cheeks.

An overlapping sentiment ––’I always knew, deep down.’–– and I smiled to their faces to tell them I loved them regardless and unconditionally, and to whisper to myself, Well then, I don’t have to worry.

After all, there was Sanjay ––the only exception to my all-girls birthday party in first grade–– and Josh ––whose hoodie I proudly wore at the lunch table in eighth grade–– and Luka –– for all of high school, the boy I couldn’t look in the eyes without stuttering. god I wanted him to love me back!–– and other Josh ––the last one, the one from a study group in college.–– All of these pieces of evidence against, so at the very least, I am able to assure myself in a breath against the bathroom mirror ––I must not be, fully.–– and my words deliver fog over my face.

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Though it is mostly joy, I feel, ––in the bathroom mirror–– as I come out as bisexual to myself.

I didn’t consider that years later, I would still have dreams where my parents knew and were accepting.

I didn’t consider that these were nightmares due to inconsistencies with reality.

––in the bathroom, wash the sweat off your forehead with cold water and awaken!–– But in the bathroom mirror I am free to be joyful.

And I have a crush.

––on a girl!––

5

Violet’s Premier Ghost Bottling

by Eileen Kelly

You’re sitting at the dining room table when you hear the noise for the first time. At first, it sounds like mice in the wall, tiny scrabbling fingernails against the backside of drywall, but it’s not.

Your daughter is asleep in the room at the top of the stairs—she is fifteen, a good girl, always wears her retainers. The clock above the stove in the kitchen is visible through the doorway, black hands behind glass reading eleven thirty-eight. It’s a Wednesday.

For all that your mother warned you against moving out to the island, you’ve never felt unsafe here. Jagged rocks and sharp waves are nothing compared to an angry husband with a drinking habit. If you climb the metal stairs up to the top of the lighthouse tower on a clear day, you can see the lake stretching out for what must be miles in every direction. It feels like the real-life version of the games you used to play with your sister as a child: you would sit back to back on your twin bed and pretend that all of the carpet spreading out beneath you was water, every little brother that crossed it was a battleship that risked being shot at with a hair band launched from your fingers. You were telling your daughter this story just the other day, and it made you feel a bit guilty, isolating her out here on this rock with only you and the gulls for company. But still, it’s comforting, knowing that nobody can ever sneak up on you. The noise at the kitchen wall is just some scraggly branches in the wind brushing up against the siding, and you ignore it, shutting off the light above the table and standing at the window above the sink for a minute before going to bed, staring up at the beacon shining out forty feet above the lake’s surface.

Ever since moving to the island, you’ve had more time to read than ever before. Twice a month you take the boat across the strait and into the harbor town for groceries, and usually you stop at the library, too. The librarian knows you by name now, and she also knows that, as a rule, you’ll read anything that isn’t a ghost story— they make you nervous.

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You’re able to tune out the noise until your daughter asks about it the next day. You try to brush it off, say that the keeper’s quarters are old and the pipes probably make strange noises with the shifting temperatures, but the look on her face gives away the fact that she isn’t buying it. Eventually, by mid-afternoon, the scratching stops, and you give her a triumphant look over the top of your book. She’s doing her schoolwork in the floral living chair across the room. All of the furniture came with the place, and it looks like nothing had been changed or reupholstered since the first people moved out to the island . The flowers and ribbons printed on everything from the curtains to the carpet in the bedroom remind you of your grandmother’s house, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The next day you go into town, to the grocery store and to the library, and then to the animal control building. You tell the man behind the counter that you think you have a mouse problem, and he hands over the scraggliest orange cat you’ve ever seen. It’s none too happy to be shoved inside the cardboard box that comes along with it, and as you’re walking out the door, he calls after you to be careful letting it out of the house if you live near a busy street.

You and your daughter are laughing about it when you get back—if the cat has enough sense to stay out of the water, it won’t have anything to worry about once it’s out at the lighthouse.

It’s been so long since you last had a cat—your husband was allergic—that you don’t notice it’s acting strangely at first. It keeps sniffing around the doorway to your bedroom, and it won’t go into the hallway that leads to the light tower and the staircase to the lantern room, but the scratching sound hasn’t returned, so you assume that it’s doing its job even though you haven’t found any dead mice lying around.

You’re cooking dinner that night when there’s a creak in the floor above your head. You call for your daughter to come down and finish peeling the carrots, but she’s right behind you. There’s a moment where your hand freezes on the wooden handle of the spoon you’re using to stir the pot of soup before you brush it off as the house settling. A voice in the back of your head tells you that there’s not much to settle when the only thing it’s resting on is solid granite under a thin layer of crabgrass, but you ignore it. You tell

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your daughter to turn up the record player in the living room.

You’ve been on the island for three months before it finally starts to cement in your head that there might be something strange going on. Doors left wide open when you’re sure you closed them, little things going missing and then turning up days later in places they had no business being. Christmastime is coming, and you chalk it up to just the usual holiday scatterbrained state of things inside your head as you scramble to make sure that you’ll be ready to visit your mother for the holidays. Back when you lived downstate, everything always seemed to fall apart in the weeks leading up to the 25 th . You recall it being the source of more than a few fights that would end in dented drywall, and once, most memorably, a smashed Sunday lamp that you’d been given by your grandmother. While the misplaced—that’s what you tell yourself— towels and jewelry are frustrating, it’s better than digging shards of stained glass out of your heel sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

You’re just becoming a bit forgetful, you say, although your daughter is more than a little annoyed when her favorite sweater disappears for a week.

It’s a few weeks before Christmas before the feeling that something could truly be wrong sets in for good, and it isn’t the missing trinkets or the strange noises that do it. You’re getting a box of tinsel and garland down from the linen closet upstairs even though you’ll be gone for the day itself, the house feels cold without any decorations—when you notice a wooden box shoved up behind the stacks of sheets and washcloths. Inside is a leather-bound notebook, the keeper’s log from the lighthouse, you realize, after flipping it open. A page at the front of the book lists all of the appointed keepers stationed on the island since the lighthouse was built, leading all the way up until the light was automated in the 80s. Every row lists the start and end dates of their positions, and every box in the table is filled except the one in the bottom right corner—there’s no end date for the last keeper. That night, you can’t sleep, and you swear that you hear footsteps on the metal stairs that lead to the lantern room. You know it’s silly, but you still get up six times to check the latch on the door.

The next day isn’t Friday, but you suddenly can’t stand being on the island, and under the guise of last-minute holiday

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shopping, you manage to drag your daughter around to eleven different stores (which she complains about all evening) before heading back just as it starts to get dark. You eat lunch at a café, and she swipes a newspaper of a deserted table as you’re leaving, spending the rest of the afternoon reading it while you poke around the dollar store and spend a half-hour waiting in line at the post office to send cards.

It’s the second night of no sleep and you’re wandering around the house, because getting up every half hour to check the lock on the front door and the one on the door to the tower, and then, eventually, the latch on every single window, makes the mattress creak and scares the cat, who’s taken to sleeping at the foot of your bed, which in turn scares you, as on edge as you are.

After a while, you sit at the kitchen table, where you can see both doors, and pick up the newspaper. It’s mostly full of exactly what you’d expect from a small-town newspaper—local politics, a writeup on the church Christmas pageant. The insert page displays ads for a dairy farm, a special on turkeys at the grocery store. You’re about to fold the paper up again when a tiny box in the top corner catches your eye.

You’re not superstitious, not really. You’ve walked under ladders and stepped on your fair share of sidewalk cracks. You don’t know your star sign; you don’t trust fortune tellers or fortune cookies—you’re not even sure if you believe in God. To be fair, the advertisement would draw anyone’s attention, if only for a moment, for a good laugh, but you aren’t just anyone. Violet’s Premier Ghost Bottling, it reads, text wrapping around a drawing of a small spirit in a purple jar, Distilling and Purifying Since 1804. There’s a number listed below, a nine-oh-six area code that matches your own. You leave the page open on the tabletop, and every once in a while, as you pace the house waiting for morning, you stop to look at it again.

As you could have predicted, your daughter finds the whole thing ridiculous, but funny, as well, and she outright encourages you to call the number. She’s probably hoping that it will be the cell of some teenagers playing a prank, but it’s an older woman that picks up, and a few moments later you find yourself penciling distilling appointment into your calendar for the following Thursday

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morning.

Violet doesn’t look how you expect her to, all things considered. In fact, she reminds you a bit of your third-grade teacher, with an angular bob and a blazer. She explains her business model to you on the ride back across the lake, raising her voice to be heard over the boat’s engine, but you still lose most of it to the wind. You catch that her name isn’t really Violet, but Janet—it’s a pseudonym that she inherited, along with the business itself, from her mother-in- law. She carries with her a gray suitcase that she keeps referencing to as her “equipment”. To be honest, you’re not totally sure what she’s talking about at any point in the conversation, as you tell your daughter later.

Reaching the island, you realize, belatedly, that Violet— Janet—is your first houseguest. You scramble to offer her tea, a sandwich, your hostess tendencies rushing back from the years of parties you held for your husband’s colleagues, but she’s all bus ness, swinging the suitcase up onto the table and clicking open the latches as you and your daughter stand to the side.

Inside the case sit three rows of glass bottles, separated by pieces of cardboard. She wastes no time in removing them, one by one, from their compartments, peering at them, holding each up close to her eye and then far away. They’re all different shapes— round, rectangular, long and thin like test tubes—but all roughly the same size, smaller than a beer bottle, maybe three times the volume of a shot glass. She goes through maybe half of them before she’s satisfied with one that looks quite ordinary to you: it’s oval in shape, with a neck about half an inch long. There’s a cork in the top. She removes it and tucks it into her pocket.

Janet walks through the house, which doesn’t take long, and you and your daughter trail behind her. All three of you end up back in the kitchen, and she looks disappointed, asks if there’s anywhere else. Reluctantly, you lead her to the door to the tower, lift up the latch that’s been firmly in place for weeks. You used to go up once a day, stare out at the water and collect your thoughts, but lately even just the idea of opening the door gives you the creeps.

The air is warmer in the tower, you think, warmer than you remember it being in the kitchen just a moment ago, warmer than can reasonably be attributed to the insulation of the brick

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walls. Janet takes the stairs one at a time, methodically pausing every few seconds with her right hand on the bannister, the bottle in her left. You glance back at your daughter, who looks amused, but you feel nervous, which only intensifies as you move upward and closer to the lantern room. Once there, you barely even glance out at the lake, too fixated on Janet and her bottle.

There’s a noise to your left, a footstep, perhaps, and you turn, but there’s nobody there. You freeze, Janet inhales sharply, her penciled-in eyebrows raised in excitement. She holds out the bottle as if she’s handing it to someone standing in the empty space, and in an instant the lantern room is freezing. Janet plugs the bottle with the cork, and you and your daughter edge closer, eyes wide— hers with surprise, yours with what can only be described as vindicated alarm.

You think you see a wisp or something behind the glass, pale and fibrous like a torn piece of quilt batting, but you blink and the bottle looks empty again, nothing there to explain the unsettled feeling that only grows stronger as you lean in to examine it more closely.

Janet explains that she’ll take the jar with her, put the ghost in her library with the rest, and you ask what you owe her as she follows you back down the metal staircase. She brushes it off, says that it’s really you who’s doing her a favor. You ask what she does with the ghosts—a library implies some sort of lending system, does it not? She laughs, agrees, explains, under the incandescent lighting of your dining room, that she’s the only ghost bottler still in business in North America. Every haunted house, every amusement park dark ride, has to go through her to source their haunts.

You smile, uneasily, say that you’ve never really thought about it before.

Your daughter is hanging on every word that comes out of Janet’s mouth, but probably by that evening she’ll be laughing about the whole thing on the phone with her school friends from back home. Most likely she’ll do the same with her cousins over Christmas dinner, after the two of you spend the next days packing up your things for the trip—clothes, foil-wrapped gifts, your toothbrushes. It’s a good thing that, unlike you, I don’t have

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very many possessions. After all, a bottle is a rather small place to be living.

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Writer Spotlight: Eileen Kelly “I wrote this for a class, but it was very open-ended. I knew I wanted to try writing a shorter story, and when I originally outlined it, I was thinking it would be shorter than it is. But, I ended up expanding on the original idea. I have a family friend who owns a lighthouse in the UP ‑ I’ve never been there and I don’t know them personally very well, but I remember as a kid thinking that was super cool. I knew that that would be the setting, and it was around Halloween, so I was like, well, it’ll be a ghost story. It just made sense.”

“Something I’ve tried doing recently – and I’m sure it’s not my original idea, I just don’t remember where I heard it from – not outlining a whole lot.I’ve had times where I’ve written something and I’ve gotten to the end and realized that I have no idea where it’s going. With this story, I actually did know how it was going to end. I knew how it started, and I wrote the ending right away because then I had something to head towards. It really helped, and I’ll probably do that in the future, too.”

Hear more from the writer on our website!

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Imagination

by Samantha Havela Every year that I grow older, I can feel my imagination vanishing.

The foundation that makes up my castle is being destroyed brick by brick.

I miss the childhood bliss of unreality.

The mermaids that lived in my pool and the crowd waiting for me to take the stage and the portal at the end of the street that brought me to Paris.

I want to live in a world where anything is possible just because I believe in it.

I want to see the magic in the world, allowing fairies to live in flowers and all people to be naturally good.

We live under a façade of adulthood and act like we have things under control when in reality our minds and hearts beat like the hooves of wild mustangs with our childhood fantasies guiding us making up our existence no matter

how much of our imagination fades away in the hours our mind is locked behind the golden vault of limited reality.

Even if one’s perception of the world constantly changes, I believe the imagination is never completely gone. My castle will never be fully knocked down.

How could this world function without fantasies and magic and miracles and daydreams.

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The dichotomy of reality and unreality is a lie.

They function together not a part.

A part of something bigger that drives the human mind.

And I choose to believe in magic in a world that says magic does not exist.

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A Lesson in Performance and Neuroscience

by Kara Warnke

Grand Mal Seizure

Quite literally, a “Big Bad Seizure.” The grand mal seizure occurs when the electrical signals in the brain begin to behave abnormally. Many neurons will begin to fire synchronously, causing the person to seize.

The grand mal seizure consists of two stages: the tonic phase and the clonic phase. In the tonic phase, the person will lose consciousness and cause muscle contractions which force the body to fall to the ground. The clonic phase occurs for much longer and has more dire consequences. The muscles of the body repeatedly contract and convulse. The person will lose complete control over her own body and will lose consciousness even after the seizure has run its course (Mayo Clinic 2020).

~

“Can you tell me what day it is?” My nostrils burned from the smell of antiseptic.

“Can you tell me what month it is?” This was not my bedroom.

“Can you tell me what season it is?” This woman’s face wasn’t registered anywhere in my memory.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“I should know this.” I didn’t know any of this.

~

For two summers in high school, I went to a color guard camp at Michigan State University. I voluntarily devoted myself to spending twelve hours per day in the July heat and humidity while engaging every muscle in increasingly intense exercises. I hated every moment of it.

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But the instructor was a color guard god. His flag was a paintbrush, the world around him his canvas. He painted sunrises and ocean waves with each sweep of the pole, leaving us trying to imitate his art with our basic package of 10 RoseArt crayons.

“Internalize the pulse of the music. DAH-dut-dut-dutDAH-dut-dut-dut. You need to feel it right here,” he’d say, tapping in time with the music. “If you can’t feel the music, your flag won’t either.” We internalized the pulse.

“Don’t leave spaces in your work. The movements should flow together and form a complete sentence. There should be absolutely no fragments left behind.” We completed our sentences.

“Pay attention to the position of your body and flag during every count. Be aware of your positioning during the off counts too. The ‘and’ is just as important as counts 1, 2, 3, and 4. If your flag isn’t where it’s supposed to be, control it. If you aren’t in control, who is? This metal pole and a piece of fabric? Squeeze harder.

Use more strength.” We took control.

By the end of the week, he had melted our crayons down and replaced them with the finest watercolors and brushes. And we painted.

Oligodendroglioma

The oligodendroglioma is a small tumor, built up of glial tissue cells, or oligodendrocytes. These are the cells that would typically make up the brain’s supportive tissues. They are not required to simply exist on their own and may be combined with other types of cells. An oligodendroglioma is typically grayish-pink and soft and can appear to have short arms when viewed under a microscope. Some may say that one resembles a fried egg. Lower-grade tumors are typically non-cancerous but may be accompanied by seizures, calcification, cysts, and personality changes.

Higher grade anaplastic tumors tend to be malignant and cancerous, often causing death.

One may find an oligodendroglioma on the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain. This does not mean that the tumor is constrained to only these locations. They may grow anywhere, and if uncontrolled, will spread as far as they please (American Brain Tumor Association 2019).

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~

“Well, the MRI came back, and it showed that you have this little tumor right here on your right frontal lobe.” Dr. Chugani zoomed in on a small grey area on the computer screen. “To be frank, I’m surprised that none of your previous neurologists caught it before.”

It was the size of a pencil eraser. And it ruined my life. It shot the fireworks that rendered my consciousness obsolete.

“So, what we need to look at now is what our next steps are. There’s always the option of just leaving it be and hoping your medication takes care of it so that it never happens again. But that’s a little risky. I’d like for you to seriously consider a surgical procedure to have the tumor removed.”

My entire body convulsed, not from the electrical signals in my brain, but from the soul-shattering thought of exposing my brain to the world it was never meant to see directly. My mom’s hand was suddenly in mine, gently squeezing. My mind worked to erase this possibility from my memory, but the glial cell pencil eraser remained and forced itself to the forefront of everything.

On the morning of my surgery, I curled up in my mom’s lap, crying that I didn’t want it to happen, that I didn’t want to go.

I braced myself in my hospital gown on the bathroom floor. But time didn’t stop. The surgery processes didn’t stop. The midazolam flooded my veins through my IV, causing me to lose awareness before slowly feeling consciousness drift away. ~

College marching was different than high school marching in every way imaginable. It required strength and stamina beyond possibility. Veteran members were superheroes, with lock-step so sharp it could slice a tree in one fell swoop. They’d laugh and talk together after pregame run-throughs while I choked on my water, gasping for air.

Marching was wobbly. Balance was a fantasy, but only to those who had just begun their time here. Those who had come before were masters of this witchcraft and never faltered. They worked the forces of gravity in their favor, allowing themselves to remain upright with one leg in front of them, thigh parallel to the ground.

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“Don’t kick your legs out when you move!”

“Be more snappy with your movements!”

“You’re fazing a bit, make sure you’re not falling behind the beat!”

“Lock your post leg and squeeze your core to stay strong and sharp!”

The advice was easier said than done. My body failed to recognize and accept my demands and actively worked against my every intention. I failed.

Epilepsy

Epilepsy, a type of seizure disorder, is the fourth most common neurological disorder in existence, characterized by seizures that present themselves unprovoked. It is estimated that approximately 65 million people worldwide live with epilepsy, 34 million of which reside in the United States. Those persons with epilepsy have had at least two seizures that cannot be traced back to a reversible medical condition.

Epilepsy may be connected to genetics, brain structure or injury, or metabolic issues, but the majority of cases have no known cause. Still, most epileptics can minimize their seizures with medication and/or other treatments and live mostly normal lives. Even then, people with epilepsy must take extra responsibility for themselves and take extreme caution when participating in certain activities, such as swimming, driving, working, and eating certain foods (Obsorne Shafer 2014). ~

“Alright, Kara. I know you’re still really sleepy, but I am going to need you to lift up your left arm for me okay?” My morphine-drugged body complied, and the strange woman next to me breathed a sigh of relief. “Fantastic job, now can you wiggle that left leg for me?” I waited a few moments, then took her satisfied nod as an indication that my body had in fact seen her request through.

Anesthesia still coursed through me, rendering my eyes as useless as a faulty digital camera, pulsing the cellulose ceiling tiles

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in and out of focus. I was a drunkard, and every attempt at speech slurred enough that the words undid themselves and became the antithesis of comprehensive sentences.

My brain still allowed for the untangling of the linguistic threads from other mouths through the painkiller fog. It allowed me to learn about the fears the doctors had experienced during my surgery. The tumor had grown. The tumor was resting atop my motor cortex. They might have bumped that area when they removed my tumor. I might have lost my ability to move the left side of my body. ~

I wasn’t built to be a dancer, but some routines forced me to act as one, leading my own struggles with bodily movements to be amplified. I was expected to be flowy and graceful in every movement. Despite my lack of dance training, save for the two years of jazz and ballet I took when I was in early elementary school, I was expected to dance and spin with the technique of a professional.

My back legs weren’t straight enough when I did chassé and sauté combinations across the field. There were too many moving parts in a calypso for me to keep track of: chaîné on relevé, chaîné in plié, fan kick with the front leg, push up and out with your back leg pulled into an attitude derrière, land in the correct position to turn into a ground roll, then pull yourself up from the ground, and make it all one fluid motion. I looked like a newborn calf, spinning in circles before shifting into an awkward hop before flopping onto the ground all at once. I couldn’t lift my leg higher than my hips when we practiced battements, and my hips were never turned out far enough during piqués. They said my landings were too rough, I should never be using my heels when I move.

“When you guys are dancing, you need to let the energy extend all the way through your body, shooting out your fingers and toes. If it helps, imagine you’re moving through a big vat of Jell-O. You need to push through the air with force, and when you leave the ground you need to push through that as well,” my instructor shouted from the front of Elbel Field. “Make sure your lines are straight when you extend your arms and legs. I want to be able to see the force you are putting behind them from all the way up here.”

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We’d run the dance sequences over and over again, never to her complete satisfaction. We’d be dismissed with an obnoxiously loud sigh to get water and flags, to be pushed more to achieve a level of perfection that seemed unattainable. ~

I wanted to try and stand up and walk approximately four hours after my skull had been cut open on the surgical table. My nurses didn’t give me the opportunity to make even the slightest of attempts but allowed me to raise the incline of my bed by 25 degrees and let me sip heavenly nectar from a hospital apple juice box. My body fought every upright movement, begging me to lower myself back down to what was safe and comfortable. My stomach threatened to self-destruct with each turn of my head.

They let me stand the next day. My brain did not. My feet meeting the floor led to my lunch of ice chips meeting the bottom of the bowl next to my bed. The next day, I was allowed the agency to take a few steps. My body never signed the permission slip, so I was sent back to bed. ~

My arms are stronger than angel hair pasta but far weaker than the average twig. Strangely enough, people in color guard are required to have the strength of a standard 2x4 at minimum. Twigs can’t handle a fifteen-minute show of constant arm movement. They struggle with maintaining perfect technique while keeping in time with the band during a windy and rainy day.

My instructor knew I wasn’t strong enough. She knew I struggled with building my own body strength, yet she continued to shout, “push through it!” and “use your muscles!” from the tower as though it could really make any difference in what my capabilities were.

I performed during halftime at our final game of the decade against Ohio State. We capitalized on the 1920s, pulling fast, energetic songs to represent the decade. It was windy on that Saturday evening, and the silk of my flag did not take kindly to the harsh

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gusts. It preferred the safety of my velour jumpsuit and clung to my leg for the entirety of the show. The wind won the battle against my arms and took the flag hostage. I wasn’t good enough or strong enough. I lost.

Oxcarbazepine

The drug Oxcarbazepine (10,11-Dihydro-10-oxo-5Hdibenz[b,f]azepine-5-carboxamide) is most commonly used for controlling certain types of seizures. Inactive ingredients include colloidal silicon dioxide, crospovidone, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, iron oxide, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, polyethylene glycol, talc, and titanium dioxide. When in powder form, Oxcarbazepine is soluble in chloroform, dichloromethane, acetone, and methanol, but is mostly insoluble in ethanol, ether, and water.

The initial dosage of Oxcarbazepine is 600 mg twice daily and can be administered using 150, 300, or 600 mg tablets. The dosage may be increased according to the patient’s age, weight, and condition severity, but typically should not exceed a 1200 mg dose.

A patient administered Oxcarbazepine should take caution and watch for adverse side effects such as allergic reactions, suicidal ideation, signs of low sodium, shortness of breath, weight gain, muscle pain, joint pain, confusion, inability to focus, change in speech, and muscle weakness. Those using this drug are advised against consuming large amounts of alcohol and grapefruit, as this may diminish effectiveness (RxList 2016). ~

My brain was on its best behavior for seven years. The pencil-eraser-sized cavity did exactly what it was meant to do: nothing.

My medication did its job, my tumor removal surgery had done its job, and I was safe. Supposedly.

I don’t think Orlando, Florida wanted me to leave. It took inspiration from Disney World’s nightly firework show and began an instant replay in my brain as I tried to begin my flight home. I remember my head turning almost 180 degrees to the left without

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my consent, leaving me staring at the overhead lights behind me with great intensity, unable to look away.

I wonder if this is what it feels like to have a seizure. Everything went black.

I’ll have to tell Mom that I had a dream that I had another seizure on the airplane.

Thank God that wasn’t real. That would suck. I could hear words around me, but they were in a language I’d never learned to speak.

Holy shit, I’m having a seizure. My friend’s mom’s voice cut through all the noise, and I somehow understood her words.

“Kara, are you okay? Kara, can you hear me?” I wasn’t. I could.

Every attempt at speech was translated into light grunts. I cried.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I always took my medication, I was careful with how I conducted myself and avoided dangerous activities. I had gotten my tumor removed. Why didn’t it work?

When I forced my eyes open, I was greeted by the stares of hundreds of other airline passengers. Eyes concerned for my well-being, uncomfortable by the situation, annoyed that I had delayed their flight. I sent a silent, embarrassed apology to each of them.

When the EMTs met me on the plane with a wheelchair, I was hysterical. I tried to stand up and I fell. I tried to lift my arms, but they were too weak and fell down to my sides. I was lifted into the seat and rolled back out to the terminal, where I underwent a medical examination and called my mom. She was 1239 miles away and couldn’t get to me.

On the ride to the hospital, I fell asleep. But when I woke up, none of it had disappeared.

I made it home later that day, but nothing was the same.

My bedroom and bathroom doors were now required to be unlocked at all times in case of another relapse. I was not allowed to be home alone anymore. My ability to drive legally was stripped from me for six months in a town with no public transport system.

I was no longer Kara, the student, the performer, the artist, the person. I was now just the girl who couldn’t control her own body and therefore couldn’t be left to her own devices.

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~

I don’t know if I can ever be enough. I can’t control the motions of the flag on the football field, much less the electrical workings of my own complex brain. There’s something inside of me that refuses to acknowledge that I don’t have to take responsibility for everything that has happened to me. At the same time, I can’t seem to allow myself the luxury of allowing others to take this history of mine as an explanation. That would give them reason to see me as weak. I am not weak. But then, where is the middle ground? I’m in an endless cycle of feelings of inadequacy and guilt for the things I cannot control. I promise, I’m doing my best. I’m still here, I’m still working to be all that I want to be for myself and for everyone else. I refuse to be weak. ~ God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace (Niebuhr 1932)

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Works Cited American Brain Tumor Association. “Oligodendroglioma.” American Brain Tumor Association, 2 Mar.2019, www.abta.org/tumor_ types/oligodendroglioma/.

Mayo Clinic Staff. “Grand Mal Seizure.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 18 June 2019, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/grand-mal-seizure/symptoms-causes/syc-20363458.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. “The Serenity Prayer.” 1932, Heath, MA Obsorne Shafer, Patty. “About Epilepsy: The Basics.” Epilepsy Foundation, Jan. 2014, www.epilepsy.com/learn/about-epilepsy-basics.

RxList. “Trileptal (Oxcarbazepine): Uses, Dosage, Side Effects, Interactions, Warning.” RxList, RxList, 11 Jan. 2019, www.rxlist.com/ trileptal-drug.htm.

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Red Ink

by Danielle Fink

Once your family is too busy for you, focus only on yourself.

Watch youtube videos on how to apply eyeliner. Try it on the right eye perfectly. Smudge it on your left eye as you demand your hand to stop shaking, try it again and again.

Formal titles come with a lot of unspoken authority. Whether that authority comes from God, higher forms of jurisdiction, or internal consciousness, titles bring a responsibility that is unchanging and bounding.

Camp counselors are expected to be cheerful, full of laughter and light, and ready for any challenges to appear.

By definition, the word “protector” means “the one who protects,”, though the common idea of a protector is usually held in reference to colonial administration or heads of a state.

We’re supposed to wake up with lightning in our steps, smiles permanent on our faces, prepared to take care of the eleven-or-twelve children in the cabin we sleep in for 9 weeks for the entire day.

Buy your first padded bra and hope your breasts eventually fill it out- don’t forget to make sure the pink straps are showing when you get to school.

Lean over your bathroom sink and gaze into the mirror so you can see your face clearly, then pop your pimples and tear into skin, clear out any and all of the gook that hides behind your pores.

Leave no blemish behind untouched, turn your chin into a minefield.

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There are religious protectors who serve in other fashions to protect people under those who practice that religion.

Sob into your pillow when you lean back and see what you have done.

Scraped knees, lost bathing suits, stolen water bottles, unforgiving sunburns, or sandy wooden floors all presented daily challengesusually before noon. Still, though, I didn’t expect any of my campers would have challenges that paralleled my own.

Sneak into your sister’s closet and take her leather skirt she wears to parties, and try it on in her room when you know she isn’t home.

I woke up every morning before the rest of the cabin, careful not to wake my pack of 9-year olds sleeping before me. My co-counselors also slept soundly in their beds as I went to the shower house and brushed my teeth, preparing for another hectic day in the relentless Missouri sun.

Protectors are leaders at heart, who take the means of guarding others as a duty, a part of life, and a characteristic of identity.

By the time I got back from the bathroom, the cabin would be in a frenzy of hair ties, flip flops, and tank tops, as the girls got ready to head to breakfast just a little too late.

Turn around and look at your butt, feel curveless in the mirror at the stranger staring back. Wear your first bit of makeup to school, but not too much, or else the boys in your class will notice and tease you for wanting attention.

In terms of who we, the people of the United States, look to for our protectors, there are multiple avenues that could provide a sense of safety. Where should we look?

Every camper had her moments of testing my patience, whether it be at breakfast when one spilled her cereal or at the firepit when

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another forgot her bug spray halfway across camp. Sweat always formed on my forehead before noon, and it dripped alongside my spine by lunchtime.

You do want attention from them, but not too much of it so it seems obvious.

I carried bandaids, sunblock, eppy pens, and extra sunglasses in my too-full backpack, which clutched onto my shoulders at all times under the beating sun.

Foundation and mascara are your friends, of course, but be modest with blush and eyeshadow. Sparkles look tacky, I learned that quick.

Ask your parents if you can wear crop tops, throw tantrums when they say no, cut your full-length shirts and wear them anyways.

Revel in the ways your father looks at you now.

My campers would reach in, pulling out a tissue or colored pencils or whatever they needed, and in doing so yank me backwards as they reached up to grab towards my 5 foot 3 stature.

Protectors for some are punishors to others. Some who feel safe in the hands of one person, viewing them as a protector, while others may view that person as authoritative and abusive.

Not all of the girls had personalities of firecrackers, with laughs that filled up the cabin walls that made me yell “Stop talking!” over and over again into the night. Some of the members of the bunk got swallowed into the crowd, unseen by the rest of the camp and the counselors and the staff and even me.

Snarl at your natural curls and begin to straighten them, day after day after day. The ends of your strands will begin to fray, but don’t worry- that’s normal.

I opened the windows in the cabin evvery afternoon before dinner,

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so the girls wouldn’t complain about the heat when they returned from their meal. As I reached every corner of the cabin, I leaned on plush comforters to extend my arms and twist the locks that have been broken for 40 years.

Ask Google all of the questions you have about life and love, how to be attractive and when to have your first kiss. Demand Google give you those answers.

Squeezing both sides of the lock and desperately pulling upwards, the lock was undone but the window was stuck, and as I pulled I felt drops of sweat start to fall down my lower back, again.

Ask mom to take a sip of her wine at dinner, pretend that it tastes sweet when it touches the tip of your tongue rather than the medicine it reminds you of that you take when you get a bad cold.

While attempting to loosen the right latch on the window, I realized I was kneeling on a bed that was much harder than any of the others in the cabin.

I checked under Amanda’s mattress, confirming my suspicion that she did not have a mattress pad on her bed, despite the fact that it was on the recommended packing list and most parents sent their child to camp with one.

Protectors have a sense of equality, fairness, and justice in social and political organizations, with a wide variety of who may feel protected under that sense of fairness.

I set her mattress in place, disappointed in myself for letting my camper sleep without the necessities while I dozed away on my own mattress cover. Her pillow had also fallen, so I quickly grabbed it off the musty floor and brushed it off with a quick sweep of my hand before the rest of the bunk came back from breakfast.

Stuff that hot pink bra with tissues when it still doesn’t fit you, but

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only when you see your friends’ chests spilling out of bras of their own.

I didn’t intend to read the note that fell out of her pillow, but it had fallen on the floor, red ink side up. Before I could stop myself, I recognized a few of the words through the back of the page, all crumpled up. One word in particular gave me license to open the letter.

I immediately recognized the sorrow in her words, I felt her anguish in the red ink, and my heart shattered as I realized I shared these desolate feelings with an 8 year old.

I had been in Amanda’s place, hiding amongst her happy place of all. I was supposed to be taking care of her, and I’d turned a blind eye to the red writing that had been everywhere.

Start carrying a wallet, even though you don’t need one.

You have to carry something of your own. Show the world you’ve grown up.

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Eyebrows

by Caitlyn Zawideh

The pretty blonde girls at school get the space between their eyebrows for free, but not me. My dark, stubborn hair grows back no matter how many times I try to banish them. I lean over my bathroom counter to bring my face closer to the mirror, run my fingers over the trespassers. I dab the cold white cream my mom gave me over the space. She says it will numb the skin.

The beautician has me lie back on the padded bench, sweeping my hair out of my face with sterile gloved hand. She pulls down the ring light inches above my face and turns it on. I close my eyes. Splotches of color dance in the darkness behind my eyelids.

Prick. She stabs a single hair in the space between my eyebrows with a needle, hot enough to zap the follicle.

Burn. She holds it there, pressing so hard it feels like as if she’s pierced through to my skull. My eyes water reflexively.

Pluck. With the hair follicle properly burned, she pulls the needle out, taking the single hair with it.

Waxing is quicker, plucking is less painful, but this is permanent. Supposed to be, anyway. My mom says when she was my age she went to an appointment every couple weeks for a few months. The hair was gone forever by the time she started high school.

Prick. I inhale.

Burn. I hold my breath, teeth clenched.

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Pluck. I exhale.

Prick. Burn. Pluck. Prick. Burn. Pluck. One hair at a time, the beautician clears the space between my eyebrows. When it’s over, she dabs cold aloe onto my skin and I wince, expecting another stab of the needle.

“You’re done,” she says. “See?”

I open my eyes. My reflection hovers above my face in a handheld mirror. The hair is gone, replaced by angry skin, red and raised. She tells me the swelling should go down by tomorrow.

In the morning, before school, I lean close to the mirror and run my fingers over the new space. It’s not smooth. The swelling has given way to dark, rough scabs. Horrified, I steal concealer from my mom’s makeup bag, helplessly dabbing it over the irate skin as it stings in protest.

Eventually the scabs heal, but by then the hair has grown back, so I return to the padded bench and the ring light and the prick burn pluck. I scab. I heal. The hairs always return. Stubborn.

Unwilling to stay dead. Insisting on being reborn.

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Pour

by Malin Andersson I’m looking at the hole that’s been poked in my side.

A freckle on my hip that has spilled wine ever since.

It’s not big at all, you’d think I’ve worn it since birth, but it’s hurting me now as merlot stains my skin.

I’m pouring out on the gray sidewalk holding my boxed wine tummy as some pedestrians, the private type, avert their gaze.

Some bring glasses, still warm from their dishwashers, itching to raise wine to lips and consume in gulps.

A certain few bring rags to soak up this mess, wipe my legs white, and call it a day.

The ones who wash their hands in my wine, slowly, sweetly, and sickeningly, are the ones who scare me most.

Don’t ask who first stuck the pin into my skin, I can’t remember.

Perhaps it was the bowtie, the silver kiss,

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or the fantasy of turning water into wine that made my side so beautiful to stab.

I wonder: do I taste sweet to you? or do I burn your throat and crinkle your nose as you wait for the buzz that I might give you?

My wine is my shame but not if it warms your belly.

Not if I can make you happy.

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Human Agriculture

by Priscila Flores

“What are we getting for lunch today?” Asked Bell to Mud. “Let’s go to the market. I think I’m feeling feet or a couple thumbs.”

There they went, surrounded by food and peers unknown.

Human organs, appendages, and muscles and bones.

A world where the cows and pigs reign the top of the food chain, disassembled, deceased humans posing for ad campaigns.

There’d be eyeball ice cream, child arms at the fair, finger nuggets, and fried scalp after carefully having plucked the hair.

There’d be baby back ribs, a stomach without the ache, penis sausages and even a great juicy thigh steak.

Breaded women’s breast, greasy cooked belly fat, bits of flesh wrapped with veggies and the lips of an obnoxious brat.

Human burgers, human tenderloin, and as a delicacy, thinly sliced groin.

Forcefully bred in captivity, moos and oinks not understanding sympathy.

“I could never live without eating meat.” Softly announced Mud. Then he continued to chew on his human meal, taking small sips of blood.

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Writer Spotlight: Priscila Flores “...when I was writing that, I was thinking about how a lot of people who eat animal products have a weird separation between where their food is coming from and what they’re eating. I feel like a lot of times people who eat meat are not thinking, “Oh, I’m consuming a cow;” they just think, “Oh, I’m eating a burger.” There’s a disconnect. So I was trying to think how I could write something that breaks down that disconnect by showing what it would look like if humans were the ones being consumed instead.

I’ve always used writing as a way for me to express things that I think like opinions and also emotional things. I have a really hard time talking about my feelings so I turned to writing instead where it feels like I’m talking to myself and no one else has to know about it. I also just feel like it’s a really powerful way to communicate issues that you see in the world. For this poem, for example, I think you can really talk about problems you see in the world and it’s an interesting way that makes people see it differently than they would have if you were just talking to them in a normal conversation”.

Hear more from the writer on our website!

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J

by Gabrielle Lauren Byrnes

He grins and says, there’s lipstick on your neck— like I’ve been able to think of anything else since you put it there like I’ve been able to think since you showed up at my door in those pink plush slippers you love.

I can’t sleep.

Since you crawled into my bed and tucked yourself into my throat.

I’d like to say, baby, baby, baby, did you know your heart isn’t in this? did you know it’s beating somewhere else that’s not here? That’s not mine?

But I’d like to say it as if I’m not scrounging around your chest for pieces as if I wouldn’t shove my fist through your ribs for a shard.

So I don’t say anything because we know this already.

Humdrum and humdroll and on and on and on— you tuck yourself into my throat and I can’t breathe.

Is that what you wanted, sweetheart?

Was that your intent?

When you whispered baby like it meant something like not a knife like something like love?

Let me put it this way: My chest is open on the pavement and your hands are wet and red to the wrist and you’re asking me to hold on but there’s nothing to hold on to except your cheek. You’re crying and I can’t breathe.

I say, sweetheart.

And look, now my blood’s on your jaw and the whorls of your

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thumb.

Now my blood’s on your mouth that’s not mine.

You’re not mine but I paint you red there and there and there.

Am I making any sense sweetheart?

Let me put it this way: Someone’s got a gun to your head so I shoot first.

I kill the bad man, and maybe you hate me for it but so what? So fucking what?

I steer you away from the body, I hide your eyes from the wreck, I make sure you never have blood on your hands because we both know you’re too sensitive for this shit.

And when the monsters come to rip my heart out, well you’re hidden away for that too safe in a tower laying in his arms, red on your neck where I kissed you goodbye.

Do you get it now sweetheart?

Let me put it this way: I’m standing in a field at dusk and you’re running big gown, soft light, you’d be a dream to undress— you’re running toward your one true love and you’re running away from me.

But I can still feel the shape of your hips under my fingers and the half-moons you stamped into my spine and the taffeta of your skirt on my cheek and the soft skin of your knees where you parted them for me.

But you’re running toward your one true love and you’re running away from me.

Do you get it now sweetheart?

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Light in the Dark

by Priscila Flores

For ages, civilizations have fantasized about what could be lying at the center of the earth, in galaxies beyond, and in the uncovered darkness of the world.

They have kept their minds in bright enclosures with beliefs of higher beings that are meant to bring light into every room, yet feel inclined to uncover what wanders in the shadows.

They say there is wickedness in the twilight, in the velvet blackness that holds a millennium of questions, but if so, why be so attracted to it?

Why profess a pull to halos when the dirt is just as enriching?

They say the night is full of terrors yet in that deafening darkness, they soundly sleep, experiencing colorful dreams through kaleidoscope visions.

They say the night is full of horror yet in homes across the hemisphere, millions bathe in their acquired states of relaxation and lovers intertwine like the Auroras dancing above them.

What can be said about the dark when its duality proves it to be more refined than previously thought?

In the late hours of our slumber, we find ourselves alone in our minds. We lurk in unsearched mental pathways and uncover sheltered truths.

In the bright hours of the day, we tirelessly work, watching the clock as the minutes tick on by, awaiting the moment of release into the sky of the setting sun.

We convince ourselves we are in search of light around us and within ourselves, yet ache to be released from its restraints.

Darkness may be feared, but it is the light that blinds us.

39

Car Sex

by Ethan Cutler no i do not want to you god no im sorry i dont want to anyone and no that does not make me gay—not wanting to girls apparently means wanting to boys— and no that does not make me abused or assaulted and yes i did fuck before but maybe have you thought that maybe i hated it this car reminds me of sweaty backs bent over— stretching to compensate for awkward sadness and youre unfinished you ask me if i’m sure— no im not fucking sure how could someone possibly be sure of that— awfulness

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you need me to explain you dont understand when i say its not your fault— its just how i am idiopathic absence of my id every little boy wants to fuck his—mom babysitter teacher best friend—dad uncle

neighbor—what else makes boys boys but all their maniacal desires— i must have slept while they taught us dont make me explain away that empty section of my brain dont cry about it—how could you possibly think this is worse for you hi nice to meet you my name is apathy entire lack of perspective and what is attractiveness to you ive never felt that echo an ache for love my bones could never penetrate that cold thing i just dont want to please dont make me prove it

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Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down

by Ethan Cutler

It was homecoming, sophomore year of high school. She wore a short green dress, hung up by two small straps over her shoulders. Her feet were bare, she didn’t want to spend money that she didn’t have to wear fancy shoes for the first two minutes of the night, only to take them off indefinitely. It must have been so gross to walk barefoot across the school floors, dirty and wet from the rain tracked inside. I took off my dad’s huge dress shoes too, but left my socks.

day?”

“God you look good,” she said. “Can you wear this every

“I’d rather die.”

Some friends showed up behind me, and I turned to greet them. As I waved them down, she reached around behind me and put her hand (in that small place) on my back between my spine and my hip, just below the rib cage where my frame gets thin and you can feel the tense muscles that hold the weight of my posture.

I was very still. My friends, not knowing who she was, acknowledged my presence and then went on to the dance. I’d like to think that I was unaware of what she meant, oblivious to her intentions.

But I think I knew.

I came along anyway, walking the long hallway leading to the cafeteria and gym, where the dance was being held, in silence.

It was lowly lit, with balloons and decorations covering the walls. I long outpaced her (bare feet), and she had to thoroughly compensate in speed just to keep up. Sometimes she would run ahead and dance on the cold wet tile floor, spinning and leaping, then wait for me to slowly catch up.

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***

This was the beginning of a complicated relationship—we had been friends briefly before, but the dance started the spiraling.

For about a year afterwards, we were a complicated mix of close friends and secret lovers, where being open and honest about our lives fueled a translation of that into desire. For her, it was telling me about her awful boyfriends, her mom, her struggles through (drug-fueled) depression. She was always good at telling stories, the kind where all of sudden something horrible happens—there she goes stabbing herself in the neck—and you’re surprised, again.

I was good at listening. I told her all the small things every day that set me off—loud alarm bells ringing, people talking, my mother being a mother, the volume of the radio wasn’t set in fives, the ways my brother set an impossible bar to reach. And with a wink or a touch or a smile, she could melt that tension away.

And I told her all of the quiet desires (the whispers), the things I would do. I said I wanted to run away and be with her. She told me all the things she wanted to do to me. I told her I wanted them. But, in a way, we were never friends, and we were never lovers. We told each other the most important things in our lives like the closest of friends, but only to set up that romance we thought we wanted. And the flirting and romance was always to distract ourselves from our lives. It wasn’t fair to her that I lied over and over when I told her that I wanted what she wanted.

I lied to myself, too. ***

That first night at the dance was the closest we ever got to a relationship. I got some snacks and we stayed out in the cafeteria, away from the dancing and music. She took my hand and sat us down around the corner, back behind the vending machines where the hallways to classrooms were closed off, on the outskirts of the cafeteria. Past her I could see people glance towards us. Not quite out of sight. Focus.

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“What do you want to do?” she asked me.

I was silent. It wasn’t a question.

Her hands explored my body while everyone could see, and I tried to close my eyes. But I knew their faces. That one-eyed squint in disgust, “look at that” to their friend. I was doing a good job, I think, kissing and feeling and breathing. But the next day a friend asked me if I was okay, they said she was on top of me and I looked lifeless (catatonic). Arms and legs limp, lips numb, always gasping for a breath.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” A teacher noticed us and she slid off of me. Neither of us said anything, her hand still resting on the inside of my thigh. Her fingers were soft and soothing. She had a hair tie on her wrist, along with some fancy metal bracelets that made a lot of noise whenever she moved her arm.

They were probably borrowed from a friend; she would have never asked her mom for anything, and she wouldn’t spend money on accessories herself. The only thing I ever saw her wear besides that day was a cheap keychain bracelet. She usually wore long shirts (that covered her wrists).

The teacher walked off. She smiled at me and poked my forehead.

“Now you can get in trouble with me! It’s been so lonely...” she trailed off with a smirk. I gave her a blank stare. My eyes go dark when I really think. Hair, eyes, skin, green dress, bare feet, long sleeves, power, love, pain...

She tilted her head to one side, and asked “What’s going on in there, huh?”

I thought for a moment. “Unromanticizing. I’m trying at least.” She looked blankly back. “All of this, all of you. I’m trying to rationalize you.” This did not give her clarity. “I’m trying to take you apart.”

“Oh....okay...” She smiled. “I can handle that...”

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“No, no. Not like that. You’re just, too many things, not like that. God. You’re just...” Deep sigh. “Nevermind.”

She paused, looked away. I wondered if I had hurt her feelings.

She hid her eyes from mine as she was thinking. Her skin was so pale, face scattered with acne and blemishes, visible even in the low blue light of the dance. I only noticed when she was looking away, the way that her blonde hair covered most of her face when it was down. And I wanted her hair up. Her open face. Show me so I don’t imagine. Show me.

She turned back and caught my eyes. “I can be anything I want to be.”

And she kissed me again. ***

She left the dance first, an old grey sedan pulled up to take her home. Her boyfriend. I watched her get into his car (and kiss him) and then drive away, and I finally let myself remember. My brother came soon after, and I was quiet. Another kind of numbness ensued. I told him (she was—no...) the dance was lame, and he laughed and agreed, all the dances were always lame. And then he let me be silent for the rest of the ride. We listened to music— back when he loved Interpol. Only when it was far into the middle of the night, when I was sure he was asleep in the bed across from mine, I finally began to cry.

She probably didn’t realize the same things that I did that night. Maybe she discovered how exciting it was for her to fantasize and imagine another life apart from her boyfriend, how powerful it made her feel. I think I discovered a kind of (cold) apathy. When I was with her, for a moment I felt numb to the million things that occupy my mind at all times — clocks ticking, people looking, my body aching (remembering). Maybe that’s why I say we were never really in a relationship — real relationships deal with real life, both people serve as anchors to reality for each other. It always felt like

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we were real. But ours was an escape, a fantasy designed to forget about reality. Eventually reality comes and you can’t pretend anymore.

I learned to forget about her boyfriend. Boyfriends, really, after a while. In my head, I could justify everything. I know it’s bad to cheat on your boyfriend, but it’s fine cause he’s fucking horrible to her. She deserves better, she deserves something else. That kind of thinking grows on you, where one really bad thing can get cancelled out by another bad thing. I always felt guilt and regret and discomfort about the things me and her did together, or said we would do. But she (loved it, so it) was fine.

Slowly she became something clear—she was my love-joy diver. My stand-in. She was my blood-red keychain bracelet. Eventually I knew we would never do anything we talked about, eventually I realized that I was utterly terrified of that first night at the dance. She was so many things. Love, lies, sexy, wrong, everything nothing wrong. She was power. I was terrified of her, and I thought I loved it. I was terrified of sex.

I still am. I would rather die. Just as much then as now.

Never again. Unromanticized.

*** In the following spring, long after the dance and far into our mess of a relationship, I was at work with my dad, doing office work. Filing papers, scanning things, wasting as much time as I could.

My dad was in another room, in a meeting. I checked my phone.

And she sent me a message. “Open carefully” with a winking face. I went to the bathroom and it was another video, this time of her mast(fuck…don’t read this)amera, her mirror was so dirty. Her feet were bare. And there it was, finally—emptiness. I’d taken her apart.

It looked like the most unnatural thing a person could do.

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Writer Spotlight: Ethan Cutler “The paradoxical thing about a memoir is you don’t remember what people said – there’s no way you remember what people said. So you have to pick details that represent what you think is the truth, but aren’t necessarily realistic depictions of the truth. I don’t actually know if a conversation took place, but it’s an embodiment of things that I know happened. You have to decide that you’re representing the truth however you want to go about it. So, most of the details in the story come from truth but don’t necessarily end up in a final draft situation, as memory.”

“At the end, I had to try to make a strand through the whole essay to make this make sense, but over time you’ve realized that what you thought you were feeling is different, and I mean that’s kind of the arc of the whole essay. I thought I was feeling this thing, and at this one moment at the very end I’m like, actually, this is not desire, not really, it’s distraction, and there’s nothing behind it – so I thought that was a good moment for that. But that doesn’t come across I guess, in the clearest way. But I like ending with scenes and not descriptions.”

“This whole piece is very much inspired by Turn On the Bright Lights by Interpol, the album. I listened to the album on repeat for probably the entire two weeks, and a week before and a week after of writing this.”

Hear more from the writer on our website!

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After John Mayer’s Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

by Kailyn Bondoni

Hand on hip swaying to the beat Of the rum in our throats swimming In our heads and humming memories Over the sounds of a box fan.

It’s a dance on a minefield.

A waltz through this fire.

Too warm to be cooled By the silly fan in the corner.

You grab my hand and stitch it To yours like you’re saying That you love me, but no Words exchange.

This is a dance, not a conversation.

It’s not a promise I’m looking for, But the part of me that knows that Is six feet under the rum and stomach acid The dance is a stumble.

It’s as much beautiful As it is mistake-Too soon too soon.

We drift to the dance floor-Not ready, not set.

You dip me down and let go, And I fall through the floor Kissing hollow wood, Precious empty sentiments

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I ask you why you ever quit, And you tell me you hate yourself.

Imagine a dancer so lovely, So loving, hating his own feet.

I’d like so much that you’d see me On the dance floor again.

Step around the box fan.

Slip ice cubes from Your lips into mine.

We’re cool.

Let’s try something Just as casual, my lead.

Something like swing.

Somewhere like home.

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Unexpected Calls

by Madi Altman

6:16 pm Incoming call

I pick up

You do push-ups slightly off screen

Must have been an accident I hang up

6:17 pm Incoming call

I pick up thinking it was another mistake

You talk, teasing me about hanging up

The camera flips to a wall where playing cards are being thrown at full speed You show me your smiling face again and promise to call me later 10:52 pm Incoming call

You let your anger out about your old sheets that are worn too thin

I awkwardly laugh, attempting to defend myself

I continue to laugh, amused by your simple skill I hang up

I answer on my laptop, forgetting about the school work I was focused on

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You scrunch your nose

It’s my turn to tease you about how exactly the sheets got worn too thin I scrunch mine too

You fidget with a pen

I go to the basement so my parents don’t listen in

You flash the screen with flashlights because you can’t sit still

I roll my eyes and talk about whatever comes to mind

You strum your guitar, finding something to do with your hands

I joke about you serenading me You roll your eyes We stayed up until 4 am that night 11:28 pm Incoming call You are bored and want to watch me paint

You play the guitar again, this time it’s electric and a different song than usual

I answer

I don’t understand why you want that, but I want your company just as much as you want mine

I complain about the paint being too thin

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You always listen to my complaints

My sister calls you homeboy

You call my sister homeboy and proceed to tease me You scrunch yours too because it is now a competition of who can nose scrunch the hardest You continue to strum

I finish painting and head to my bedroom I lay on my bed and grow sleepy

You lay on your bed too, wide awake

I ask you to tell me something, anything

You tell me something and state it’s my turn

7:45 pm Incoming call

I scrunch my nose

I tell you something, it becomes a late night tradition We stayed up until 2:30 am that night

You are working out, proving you can multitask You say Justin Bieber

I tell you I need help with something whenever you get the chance I ask for an embarrassing song that I like for a 30 day song challenge

You continue to do your workouts,

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I giggle, knowing you’re right

keeping me on the phone with you

You make idle conversation about how you’re tired

I don’t mind, wanting the company while I finish a project last minute

You ignore me and grab a Red Bull to energize you

I tell you to take a break, that you can afford one night off from working out

You debate that my diet is less healthy than your one Red Bull It’s your turn to complain

I say that those aren’t healthy

I concede and let you get back to your workout I try to give you motivation, saying that you got this

You say that my motivation makes you not want to do it; You tease that I annoy you

I roll my eyes and scrunch my nose

You scrunch yours too and complete your workout

I tell you I have to go eat and promise to call you later

You wave goodbye and call me late We stayed up until 3 am that night

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Golden Week

by Rachel McKimmy-Warf NOW The car ride up the winding mountain road was sickening. Mei grimaced out the windshield at the passing pine trees, almost grateful for the car-sickness, as it distracted her at least partially from her memories. A sigh slipped out of her.

Her mother glanced over at her, then returned her eyes to the road. “A few summers ago, you couldn’t stop talking about how much you wanted to go back to camp.”

“Yeah, well, a lot’s changed since a few summers ago,” Mei muttered, still staring sulkily out the windshield. “Some camping trip won’t fix everything just because you want it to.” Almost instantly, she wished she could take her words back.

“Don’t speak to me like that,” her mom said. She drew a deep breath, her dark eyes glossed with a tearful sheen. “I know you’re hurt, Mei. But please, don’t -- don’t take it out on me.” Voice trembling only slightly, Mei’s mom summoned a smile. “All I want is for you to be happy, 梅梅” Mei-mei. Her little plum blossom.

“This will be fun.” Mei’s mom sounded as if she were trying to convince herself just as much as she was trying to convince Mei. But neither of them was fooled. *** THEN It was Saturday, the Fourth of July weekend.

“So you went to this camp when you were little, Mom?” Leaning forward eagerly from the back seat, a twelve-year-old Mei gawked out at the towering sugar pines of the Sierra Nevadas.

“That’s right, after my parents graduated from Berkeley together.” Her mom beamed at her. Mei’s dad, sitting in the driver’s seat, smiled and patted his wife’s knee as they pulled into the long drive, up to the camp check-in.

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Their cabin could barely be called a cabin; its wooden frame was covered by a canvas, and inside were bunk beds, a set of wooden shelves, and a single bare lightbulb hanging from the rafters crisscrossing the ceiling.

After laying her brand-new sleeping bag and duffel on the top bunk furthest from the door, Mei jogged back outside, her flip-flops slapping the worn wooden steps. Hands on her hips, she surveyed the camp. Sunlight filtered through the pine branches to paint bright patterns on the needle-covered dirt. Cabins were scattered among the trees. Further down the hill was the path to the bathrooms, and, beyond that, the rest of the camp.

“Mei!” called her dad, popping his head out of the cabin.

“Where’re you going?”

“Just gonna look around,” she called back.

He protested, “You shouldn’t wander off in --”

“It’s okay, Mark,” Mei’s mom said from within the cabin.

“Mei, go explore. Just take the map with you and meet us at the dining hall when the dinner bell rings.”

“Okay!” Mei pulled the map out of her pocket and unfolded it, giving it a quick once-over. The camp was huge -- there was even a lake nearby.

“Why’s it okay for her to go off by herself if you say it is, but it doesn’t matter what I say?”

“I explored Camp Golden all by myself when I was her age,” her mother replied.

“Well, what about what I think?” Mei’s dad repeated, words now holding a tinge of anger that meant his pale skin was as red as his ginger hair.

Her mom’s voice held a note of impatience, and even with her back turned Mei knew her mom’s expression, as well -- a false calm belied by tight lines around her mouth and a narrowing of her almond-shaped eyes. “It’s perfectly safe! There are people everywhere, and how is she going to become independent if we don’t--”

Mei sprinted down the path, her parents’ voices fading behind her. Running until she was out of breath, Mei collapsed against the trunk of a pine, gasping the hot, dry air of the mount-

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ains. The air was thinner up here; she was out of breath faster than she normally was jogging down the street at home.

Still, the rush of blood pumping through her veins, the hard, fast thumping of her heart, and the aching of her leg muscles felt like freedom.

Now back near the entrance of the camp, Mei could see the tiny wooden building where they’d checked in, with the “Camp Store” sign hanging on it. Other cars pulled up the long driveway, carrying families away from their real lives for a week of relaxed camping. Or so that was the hope.

Mei smoothed out the wrinkles in the map, examining it more closely this time. Up the hill in the opposite direction that she’d come, behind the Camp Store, was a place called “The Lodge.” Behind her -- she must’ve passed them on her run down the hill -- were the “Dining Hall” and “Fire Pit.”

A chitter from a nearby tree captured Mei’s attention for a moment. It was a grey squirrel, with a big, fluffy tail, facing upside-down on the trunk of the tree above her. The squirrel was nothing like the fat, brown city squirrels Mei was used to in Sacramento. It skittered away up the tree trunk, around the other side, and out of sight.

The lake lay beyond The Lodge. Mei set off in that direction, kicking up dust behind her as she ran.

The lake was a crystalline blue, shimmering with sunlight. Mei panted, squinting out across the too-bright water. Trees grew all the way to the water’s edge in places, while in others the waves lapped at a wide, white stretch of sand. On these strips of beach, people sprawled out in the sun, soaking it in, or eating packed lunches at picnic tables under the shade of the trees. Towering mountains, capped with snow even in the heat of early July, surrounded the lake. A group of hikers dropped their packs on the ground, wiping sweat from their brows and taking deep swigs of water. A cluster of signs nearby pointed toward various hiking trails around the lake.

Mei trekked along a trail that followed the shore for a while, skirting a group of giggling younger kids darting across the path. After following the trail for a while, she found a deserted

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boulder by the lakeside, crouching in the shadow of a giant tree.

Clambering up the boulder’s side, loose pebbles digging into her bare knees, she collapsed on top of it, staring up at the pale, cloudless blue sky through the thatch of branches above her.

“Hello,” the tree called, rather shyly.

Mei jerked up, palms flat on the boulder on either side of her, peering around. “Who said that?”

“Up here,” came the quiet voice again.

Perched in one of the thick lower branches of the tree was a boy. His hair was black, like Mei’s, but it wasn’t straight and flat like hers. His poked out every which way from his head in untamed curls like a birds’ nest. His skin was a dark honeyed tan. Knobbly knees stuck out of ratty cargo shorts, his feet were fitted with sandals a size too big, and his gangly frame wore a faded blue T-shirt.

He grinned shyly down at her.

Staring up at him in surprise, Mei shielded her eyes from the brightness of the sun and asked, “How’d you get up there?”

He gave her a bemused look. “Climbed.”

Eyes wide, Mei stared at the tree. The trunk was too skinny, the branches too far apart for her to climb. She was instantly impressed. “What’s your name?”

“Salim.”

She hesitated, then asked, “Why don’t you come down here, Salim?”

He considered for a moment, before drawing his bony shoulders up to his ears in a shrug. “Yeah, okay.” Scrambling down from his branch as deftly as the squirrel Mei had seen earlier, he landed on the rocky surface next to her, rolling forward on the balls of his feet with his arms splayed at his sides for balance. Still sitting down, Mei had to crane her neck to look at him, and she felt a sudden rush of shyness.

Jumping to her feet, she brushed the pebbles and dirt from her palms onto her jean shorts. “I’m Mei,” she said quickly, offering her hand.

“Salim,” he replied, brown eyes wide as if he were surprised to be making a friend. Salim shook her hand, and when she offered him a tentative smile, he returned it with his own crooked-toothed

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grin.

*** NOW

Mei collapsed on the bottom bunk furthest from the door, next to her unpacked bag. The cots were thin, narrow, and uncomfortable, more so than she remembered.

She wondered where he was now. Salim. Her friend. A twinge in her heart told her she’d probably never see him again. It’d been too long. Four years since she’d last seen him, at the end of that perfect week that marked the happiest time in her life. Before everything had gone wrong.

Before her dad cheated on her mom. Before the constant arguing. Before Mei grew quiet and hostile at school and lost all her friends, turning to books instead because they were the only thing that made her feel less alone. Before her family split irreparably apart, rending her heart into two pieces so that she felt her love would never be complete again.

Mei’s best friend’s voice intruded on her mind. You didn’t lose all your friends, Drama Queen, Carmen said.

If Carmen were here, she’d tell Mei to look on the bright side. Here she was, with a week to do pretty much whatever she wanted -- no homework or grades or chores to worry about. No empty rooms in her house to haunt her, no brittle tension ready to shatter at any moment. Just woods and squirrels, and plenty of fun ways to distract herself from her real life.

Mei had the sudden urge to call her best friend and talk about the whole thing, to hear Carmen’s chipper voice. It’d be so much more fun if Carmen were here. Checking her phone, Mei groaned. No cell service.

She’d promised to text, but it looked as if that was out of the question now.

Although, Mei wondered, thinking of the tall mountains, maybe if I could get high enough to get a good signal... Would that even work? Well, she guessed, it beat sitting around feeling sorry for herself.

Mei grabbed a granola bar and an apple, an empty canteen

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-- she’d have to fill it at the water faucet near the bathrooms -- and of course, her phone, the key item in this mission.

“I’m going on a hike, Mom,” she told her mom, who was napping on the bottom bunk across the aisle. Tired. She always seemed to be, lately.

“Okay, have fun, 梅梅 ,” her mom replied groggily.

Prompted by a sudden impulse, Mei leaned over and gave her mom a quick peck on the forehead. Her mom’s lips curved upward happily in her half-asleep state.

Mei pulled her hair into a short ponytail, put on and tied her boots before slipping off down the dusty path toward the lake.

The best hiking trails were over there. And before she did anything else, there was someplace she wanted to visit first. *** THEN Plunging her bare feet ankle-deep in the burbling water of the deep stream that ran through the forest, Mei gasped. The shock of the icy water made her feet almost instantly numb.

Salim waved at her, standing proudly on top of the thick log that bridged the stream. His cargo shorts were wet from wading into the water, but unlike Mei, he wasn’t shivering. “Come on,” he said, his voice barely carrying above the sound of the stream. Mei couldn’t understand why he spoke so quietly, but maybe that was because she was always so loud. Or so her dad often teased her.

“What if I fall in?” she gasped, windmilling her arms as she struggled to balance on the slippery rocks. Each hand held a flip flop.

“You’ll get wet,” Salim informed her, giving her a queer look.

“Yeah, well, I know that,” she replied in annoyance, her heel slipping backward off a rock into the water. Hurriedly, she shifted most of her weight to her other foot while swinging the first one forward to land on the next rock.“What I don’t know,” she admitted, a bit embarrassed, “is how to swim.”

“Oh,” Salim said. Apparently, that hadn’t crossed his mind.

“Well, I guess I could, you know,” he rushed, then halted. Mei

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paused and glanced up at him. His face was flushed red. Or maybe he was just sunburned.“Jump in and save you?” he finished, his voice growing yet more quiet and questioning.

Mei avoided his gaze and hopped from the last stepping stone onto the larger, granite slab. Using that, she climbed onto the log next to him, far less gracefully than he’d done earlier. “Why don’t we just cross the stream using the log instead of wading in?” she’d asked when they’d arrived.

Salim had pointed at where their side of the log was lodged deep into the high mud bank, and the five-foot deep stream below that. “We can’t climb onto the log on this side. The only way to cross is by making it to that granite rock and getting onto the log from there.”

He started walking down the length of the log. She followed him, crawling on her hands and knees and letting out a squeak of fear every time she felt the log teeter a little under their weight.

As soon as Salim was across, he turned and watched her scramble forward and collapse on the opposite bank. “Did I forget to mention I’m also afraid of heights?” she panted.

Salim gave her a dubious look. “We were only six feet above the water.”

“I’m just being dramatic.” With a sigh, Mei got up and wiped her hands off on her already wet and dirt-streaked shorts.

When they’d met at the lake he’d told her that he’d come up here every summer with his parents and four older brothers for the past five years. After skipping stones on the lake for a while, the shade of the tree wasn’t enough to keep the sun off them, and he’d invited her to come to his “secret hideout” with him. Whatever that meant.

Mei perhaps should’ve considered the possibility of him being one of those serial killers she’d been warned about, but those warnings had only ever referred not other kids. “Where’s this secret hideout of yours?”

“Just a little further.”

Salim led her down the bank. Mei slipped on her flip flops, but they did little to shield her cold feet from the pebbles that were determined to gouge into her soles and were soon caked with mud anyway. The vegetation was thicker here than at the camp or even

60

at the lake. Grass grew out of control, tickling against her legs, and unfriendly brambles scratched at her skin.

After a few moments of walking, he halted and turned around. “Here,” he said proudly.

Looking around, Mei noticed nothing out of the ordinary. “So?” she asked.

Salim’s face turned red again. No, it wasn’t sunburn. For someone so tan, she thought his blush was surprisingly noticeable.

“Listen,” he said, and fell quiet.

“I don’t hear anything,” she muttered a few seconds later, and he waved her quiet again.

“Shh,” he hissed.

“Geez, okay.”

Straining her ears, Mei tried to pick up some sound, but there was nothing beyond the burble of the stream nearby, birds chattering in the trees, and the buzzing of insects drawn to the water.

“I seriously don’t hear anything,” she announced, and Salim gave a triumphant grin.

“See? It’s a special place. No people. Just trees and animals.

I picked it last summer for my secret hideout.”

“Isn’t it, like, not a secret anymore if you’re showing it to me?”

Salim gave her a look that reminded Mei of a puppy asking for a treat. “Well... what’s the point of having a secret hideout if... you don’t have someone...” He turned brighter red, and he scuffed at the dirt with his shoe, avoiding eye contact. “...to share the secret with?”

Mei stared at him. It was hard to argue with someone who had such simple, sincere reasons for doing everything, but she was difficult by nature. “I guess.”

He scratched his head, his dark hair falling into his brown eyes. As his mouth twisted a little in a way that told her he was disappointed with her answer, Mei felt a small stab of guilt.

“I think I see what you mean,” Mei conceded with a sheepish smile, and Salim returned her smile with one of his own.

Mei changed the subject. “So, uh, where’s the hideout?

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Have you got a fort or something?”

Eyes narrowed, Mei stared speculatively at the so-called ‘cave.’ “O-kay,” she enunciated slowly. “Your hideout’s lame, so here’s what we’re going to do.”

They spent every moment of their free time over the next week working on Salim’s secret hideout.

After acquiring a rope swing and a hammock -- Mei had no idea where Salim had gotten them, but suspected thievery was somehow involved -- and building a small wooden shelter out of large sticks and rope, the hideout wasn’t exactly awesome, but far less lame.

And at some point during that week, it became not just Salim’s hideout, but Mei’s, too. She even stopped being afraid to cross the creek.

Even when she wasn’t at the hideout, it was a constant presence in her thoughts, and whenever her parents started arguing about the smallest thing like whose turn it was to do the laundry, she knew that being at the hideout would silence those raised voices -- and it was all thanks to Salim. She gave up other camp activities, from pottery to the pool, to spend time there with Salim, whom she hadn’t seen around camp at all. Not even in the dining hall.

Well, maybe Salim was lying about his family’s camp membership. Maybe he was a wild animal who lived in the forest. He looked the part, she thought, with his ratty clothes and messy hair.

It was the last day at camp. Mei lay in the hammock, long legs kicked up against the trunk of the supporting tree and reading a comic book. Her parents thought she was at a sketching class.

A soaking-wet Salim sprawled on top of one of the boulders, drying his clothes off in the sun. He hadn’t bothered to bring along a swimsuit, and Mei had protested his taking off any clothing to go for a swim. So, with a shrug, he’d climbed onto the rope swing and jumped into the water fully clothed. He resurfaced, laughed at her sputtering disbelief, and shook droplets of water from his hair like a dog. Recalling it made her want to laugh and

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roll her eyes simultaneously.

Mei must’ve let a little giggle escape, because Salim opened his eyes. He didn’t ask her what she was laughing at, only grinned back at her.

To her surprise, Mei felt a blush rising in her freckled cheeks. She lifted the paperback to hide her face behind it.

“I should teach you how to swim,” Salim announced suddenly, standing atop of the boulder.

“What? Why?” She was embarrassed, being twelve and not knowing how. She’d never liked the water.

“Because everyone should know how to swim.”

Mei sniffed and shuffled through the pages in her comic, trying to find her place. She should have brought a bookmark.

Hearing his footsteps in the sand approaching her, Mei paid him no attention.

At last finding her place, she was startled by the aspen leaf he thrust in front of her face. “All-natural bookmark,” he said, dropping it between the pages of the comic.

Mei craned her neck to squint at him. If she were standing, she’d be taller than him. (She liked being taller than people. Especially Salim, for some reason.)

Shaking her head to clear it, she answered his unspoken insistence: “You can’t teach me to swim in a day, anyway,” she reasoned. “My family’s leaving tomorrow morning. And, I don’t want to.”

He didn’t turn and stomp away as she expected him to.

“Fine, I won’t teach you to swim,” he said, without even an edge to his voice. “I just thought you might like to know how, is all.”

Mei was slightly annoyed she had not been able to get a rise out of him. Finally, she set her comic aside and climbed out of the hammock, stretching her limbs.

“Are you coming back to camp next year?” Salim asked, still hovering nearby.

“Are you coming back to camp next year?” Salim asked, still hovering nearby.

“I don’t know, maybe. Why?”

Hands on his hips, Salim surveyed her. His hair and clothing were still dripping, his curls a soggy mess on top of

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his head. “Even though you’re a know-it-all and you think I’m weird, I like having you around.” Then he flashed that smile at her -- and for the first time, Mei felt a fluttering inside her chest.

“Um,” she articulated, tongue-tied and blushing. She leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss to his cheek. “You’re adorable,” Mei told him honestly, and it was his turn to blush.

“I’ll see you next summer,” she promised hurriedly, and, grabbing up her backpack and comic, without bothering to put the comic inside, she rushed off, leaving him standing there, gaping after her.

She couldn’t keep the goofy grin off her face her entire journey back to her cabin.

That was the last time she saw Salim.

To read the rest of the story, follow the code here!

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Home

by Lucy Freeman This house has wrinkles. Sagging eyes and aching knees.

Its squeals of excitement have turned into groans of effort.

Checkered tiles cement their palace in the time capsule.

Thresholds between worlds have been negotiated The rain gets weekend visitations in the summer while the heat slips through window sills each winter. Some travellers seem to have gained dual-residency.

Each time a member of the house is retired, others take a stand in protest.

The router held a sit-in for a week after the stove was replaced, and the fridge started to drip upon the Keurig’s arrival.

These floors have been trampolines and racetracks and runways and cradles.

These walls are now bones of an aged mother, the rippled drywall weathered muscles.

She has raised her child well.

She welcomed tents into the living room, tap shoes in the kitchen.

Rollerblades with cabinets as brakes.

She stored songs in the glass for safekeeping, playing them as whistles of wind when the world seemed too heavy.

Though she may have cracks and swells and patched up bits, her foundation is ever-grounded.

Solid. Strong.

The best thing she could pass on.

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