Yahara Journal 2012

Yahara Journal 2012 A fine arts and literary journal

Yahara Journal 2012 A literary and fine arts publication

Editor

Rebecca Sawatske

Staff

Leona Bergmann Robin Gee Jessica Peterson Ali Nicholson Torrie Ramirez Mary Roth Zina Schroeder Callie Vasey

Advisor

Doug Kirchberg

The Yahara Journal consists entirely of Madison College student work. It is made available by the Center for Student Life and funded by Student Activities Fees. Opinions expressed in this journal do not represent those of the Madison College administration, faculty, staff or student body.

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Table of Contents

Poetry Lindsay Frost • For Plato .................................................................. 4 Andy Staplin • Notes ......................................................................... 5 Andy Staplin • Lips............................................................................ 7 Andy Staplin • 23 Ways to Die ......................................................... 9 Misian Searles • Untitled ................................................................ 12 Misian Searles • Untitled ................................................................. 14 Misian Searles • Untitled ................................................................. 15 Katherine Palmer• Going Home...................................................... 17 Cameron Keys • Theological Bibliotheca ......................................... 18 Cydney Edwards• Lodge ................................................................ 19 Anna Hayward • Thicker Than Man .............................................. 20 Emma Kitsembel • Memoirs of Childhood ...................................... 21 Ben Elmakias • Lust ........................................................................ 22 S.P. Flannery • Scalp Scratched Through ......................................... 24 S.P. Flannery • Damage Ignorance ................................................... 25 Steele Morton • An Eternity ........................................................... 26 Kelli Whitney • Whiskey With My Husband ................................. 27 Courtny Hopen • God’s Country ................................................... 30 Jakob Robinson • Winter Refuge .................................................... 31 Ashley Goebel • The Fortune Teller ................................................ 32

Prose Elizabeth Arant • The Panda .......................................................... 33 Ariella Waddell • I’m Not A Writer ............................................... 40 Aiden Nienajadlo • Last Call ......................................................... 43 Sophia Wright • When I Don’t Know Where I’m Going, I’ll Be Sure to Find My Way .............................. 45 Lulu Addams • Daychasers ............................................................ 50

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Table of Contents

Artwork Philip Ejercito • Glass ..................................................................... 52 Brett Stepanik • CX.......................................................................... 53 Nathan Ortiz • Magical Basement .................................................. 54 Nathan Ortiz • Monona Bay Reflections ......................................... 55 Erin Oestreich • Autumn Rails........................................................ 56 Kiersten Doty • Lost Identity .......................................................... 57 Theo Howard • Skeletons and Sunflowers ..................................... 58 Ryan Cain • Idiopathy ..................................................................... 59 Ryan Cain • Mechanical Man ......................................................... 60 Ryan Cain • Dollar .......................................................................... 61 Charlie Haas • The Act of Kindness ............................................... 62 Jenny Lynn • Crown of Stars............................................................ 63 Thor • Luna ....................................................................................... 64 Craig Fabian • The Wheel of Life ..................................................... 65 Craig Fabian • Anonymous.............................................................. 66 Erin Fuller • Button 1 ...................................................................... 67 Dylan Remis • Aftermath Separation .............................................. 68 Dylan Remis • Breaking Out ........................................................... 69 Dylan Remis • Test Subject 37 ......................................................... 70 Jeremiah Jacobs • Untitled ............................................................. 71

Staff Mary Roth • Gretel’s Confession ..................................................... 72 Callie Vasey • Racine........................................................................ 73 Ali Nicholson • The Retreat ............................................................. 75 Rebecca Sawatske • Golden Twenty................................................ 77

On the Cover Ryan Cain • Dollar

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For Plato Lindsay Frost

My writing is not real, Even though you read and see it on this page, Even though you share the sensation Of your eyes fluttering down this sheet.

It is only a representation, A copy of this form called script, Which there is nothing capable of measuring.

Imagination — a shared one at that — is its essence, No real thought evidenced in the words.

It leaves you, the reader, in a semblance of consciousness, Yet it has no redeeming qualities to impress upon your mind.

It is based in fact, its existence rests On mere perception, But you still can’t prove that it is here.

It is hollow, and shallow Just a copy of a form, That will eventually cease to exist.

So read on, but once you are done So will your perception Fade into a memory of a memory, To be long lost, On the consciousness and raging sea of no one’s mind.

The words that combined to make up the strings of sentences, Will slip and fall, down into a deep dark heap.

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Notes Andy Staplin It was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place.

It housed global-warming deniers, whose white shirts had ridged marks from where they twisted the caps off beer bottles.

If you leaned on the wall, you would get a fine layer of dusty white plaster on your jacket.

That kind of place.

Losing my mind in a minefield of minors, chewing on the end of a cigar as it squirms in my mouth like a fat caterpillar, watching the girls around, all ill-fitting bras and elf ears. reckless freckles and glasses thick as steaks, drinking grapefruit juice straight from the bottle, sifting through a bag of pink and white animal crackers, their waxy exteriors forcing them into dirty positions, trying to find all the elephants, while ignoring the

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Andy Staplin purple impatience raising up like bile, exiting the body into a dumpster that only holds a tube of Chapstick, a DVD box set of Gilmore Girls, and a buffalo.

An entire dumpster buffalo.

I return home and scrub until I hit bone.

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Lips Andy Staplin Locked in a kiss-off, a tongue-filled, all natural, no-dyes-added, feels just right kiss-off.

The kind that lasts a week.

The kind that distorts reality until every day feels like last Sunday, when it was only lounging, in my Superman pajama pants, you all sweaters and Hello Kitty panties, mismatched slippers and tousled hair.

No acknowledgement of the rest of the world, not once frowning, not once moving off the couch for anything less than paying the pizza guy and urinating excess coffee and Mountain Dew, where the debate about blatant racism and sexism in Disney movies quickly faded into the most honest rendition of “A Whole New World� the Earth had ever experienced, where your off-key throat pretended to be Jasmine, delivering shivers of good, where we sang until we blacked out into a warm ball on a warm couch.

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Andy Staplin The kind that snaps you back to the present when your jaw tightens up, and we both laugh about it.

The kind where the cold metal lip ring forgets that it’s cold.

The kind where strawberry lip gloss drowns in the undercurrent.

The kind where the labyrinthine lace and wire clasp of your bra thwarts my inexperienced hands because the kiss-off doesn’t want to be over.

Not until we freeze to death on this park bench and a memorial of us is erected on this very spot to remind people to love with everything they have, for birds to shit on, for people to take pictures in front of, for children to ask, “Who were they?”

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23 Ways to Die Andy Staplin The first has to do with an octopus, and is too difficult to explain, and the second deals with a simultaneous shark/lighting strike, and is too difficult to explain, but the third is caused by a lack of judgment that leads to a quick stab to an exposed back from a person behind a long-faced mask.

When I think about suicide, the first word that comes to mind is “shame,” but shame is quickly overshadowed by “brave” as in we don’t know what happens after the pills the bullet the rope, not for sure, as in brave enough to take the leap as in unable to handle it anymore, fuck the consequences, stop the goddamn pain, as in brave to have lasted this long.

There is always the awkward moment after hearing about someone who was crushed under a vending machine,

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Andy Staplin when you don’t know whether to laugh or give a solemn head nod.

The same goes for autoerotic asphyxiation, though in that case you have to admire that at least the person knew what turned them on.

Then we get to alcohol abuse, which stems from a death of the heart, and ends with a death that is much less metaphorical.

The car-crash-vomit-choking-stumble-into-traffic-by-accident death that comes from an attempt to really live.

And while we’re on the subject of abuse, why not talk about Beauty and the Beast?

Throwing tables across the room, unable to come to a positive solution.

Happily ever after means one of them snaps and has to face the ensuing manslaughter charge.

And while we’re on the subject of abuse, why not talk about food?

That slow-paced suicide of eating yourself to death.

That sit-on-the-couch-watching-reality-TV-til-your-stomachlining-bursts mentality that has given potato chip companies a bad name.

And while we’re on the subject of potato chips, why not talk about hemophilia?

The ripple chip cuts inside the mouth, filling cheeks with blood,

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Andy Staplin unable to clot, until the last flavor tasted in life is copper and salt.

When your captain says to return to your seats, as turbulence is imminent, know that there is nothing you can do.

Regardless of whether or not there is a pissed-off pelican soaring into the turbine, regardless of whether or not the lightning surrounding the cabin has malicious intent, regardless of whether or not you are allowed to say the word “bomb,� know that there is nothing you can do.

Then there’s that divine death.

That Four Horsemen death that follows the idea that something bigger than us gives and takes life at will.

And we turn around in our bathrooms and see that the door has been deleted by the whim of a bored God-figure playing The Sims 3.

And our little video game avatars move on to little video game purgatory where we shake our fists at J.J. Abrams for making it so damn complicated.

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Untitled Misian Searles I used to think my body was a turkey to be carved, that my body’s only purpose was to lay split open and exposed on a silver-capped platter of a lover’s mouth, that the only way I was beautiful is if they believed I was.

If they could proudly take pictures of my perfectly browned skin, falling off the bone, and drool— how juicy it all was.

Now? My body is a Christmas stocking with an imprint of a snow angel inside.

It is bold and beating and proud to be soft.

It is swinging above the hearth

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Misian Searles roughly four minutes before the universe wakes up, wipes the sleep from its eyes, rolls over and spoons its childhood sweetheart.

Do you know how much magic comes from acknowledging that your body deserves itself? Really, tongue-tied to the track.

This is all I’ve got. I have loved you always but maybe have not known how. I am six years old forever and you are my cardboard box spaceship.

You are every knot in the tree that held the house up, pinkie swear to never pick you last kind of deserving. Like, we’re in this together. Like every dream I make is a wedding ring I slip around the second knuckle of my heart.

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Untitled Misian Searles I have fallen in love the most at least twice.

Firstly, I was wrinkled and pink-palmed slap-assed and screaming as the first non-wombed breaths stoked my lungcoals. It’s an almost unbearable first love, makes your gut a universe of impossibilities.

Secondly, was the mouth whose spit dissolved the skin on my breastplate exposing the warped trapped door to my boiling room chest, took a coal onto their tongue, and did not wince.

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Untitled Misian Searles There is a mammoth burst-bellied and sound asleep on my chest.

I am a flooding vessel.

I am all eyes, no hands, only half a tongue. My tear ducts take up 80% of my body.

On days when the hurt is crying and pulling on my arms like hungry children, I go to hold them all at once.

My biceps are just fountain pens, my own ribcage is the only prison I can break anyone free from. I feel like a loaf of bread in the gun cabinet.

It’s not that bad, though.

It’s just pain. Right? It happens. It goes away, it comes back, like a stray cat who only scratches on your door when you can’t even feed yourself.

It happens again. The blood clots.

It happens again. We never really save anyone with our signed petitions and our soggy-cheeked epitaphs. Our protest. Our poems.

It happens again. And again. And again. And a queer girl got crowned Homecoming king in some small corner of the world and we are happy and we hug ourselves and we bake brownies and we walk around mentally kissing strangers on the forehead and then a gay boy is beaten in a classroom in Ohio and we wake up the next morning our skin a bruised purple heart and in a different country a man is burned alive.

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Misian Searles A man is burned alive.

In public. They watched as his skin collapsed through his ribcage.

We are too soft for this and no one has learned anything.

You can feel how much heaving there is in the world and, still, There is more of it. Remember how much we’ve forgotten.

Now her nose is bleeding and broken in her Homecoming pictures and he’s wearing a cheap gold crown but the plastic jewels have fallen out and everything is covered in soot and it is raining wishbones and nothing’s changed and we are no different and the pain is always there, it is the heart under the floorboards, just sometimes we can sing over it.

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Going Home Katherine Palmer if asked where i have been today, i will tell about the bouncing car ride and well-scraped dishes ringing with every turn the dog pressing his velvet ear to my cheek so we could both see the sun the rain wrought. out beyond the iron irrigation bones, the ghosts of chasms and cliffs drowse in beds of sandstone bluffs and light-brindled forest unaware of our bumping progress between their heads while the black-earth fields startle upward and i will tell how they have taken our hearts, mulching them for rows of pale green leaves.

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Theological Bibliotheca Cameron Keys

Vast and vacant the cublicle stands, Stoic and banana scented.

Ghost of a fruit, Consumed by a previous resident.

The waste of an eraser scattered over laminated particle-board.

Ideas snuffed out in their prime, Graphite’s executioner works efficiently.

Uneasy shuffling, Disrupting this concentrated community.

Zipping and unzipping, Backpacks perpetually probed by grasping hands, Blind, Seeking the weighty knowledge contained within.

White cords extrude from many heads, Paying homage to the iGod of technology.

Further disconnecting peers, Simultaneously earning them validating glances, Acceptance amongst the pious.

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Lodge

Cydney Edwards The women in my family love with their chests cracked down the side. Skin unfolding and salted.

There they keep the men their sons resemble.

Their exposed hearts snatch a grin out of the air and remember the faces. They furnish every blink until it is swollen of men they’d rather forget.

When I remind my mother of the man who made me, I watch her face to see if it will change. Something cracks but it still has parts. She just sits and stares — a stone mostly.

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Thicker Than Man Anna Hayward

Like a spider’s web, his branches hover under the sun.

As old as the town, his trunk thicker than man, He holds his battle against man and nature.

He is the proud King of Flora who knows that a mile away The saplings lining the streets offer no protection.

The heart of the town beats like a centenarian.

Old brick and smiles charm the hearts of Velkomen But as the veins of the town meander out, They pick up speed for the busy day of the young brood.

King of Flora frowns at the Wal-Mart pavement and watches over rooftops at the young neighborhoods of humanity rushing Westward.

He remembers the farmers and youth wasting their backs In tobacco fields and children playing with trouble And silently wonders when his time is up...

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Memoirs of Childhood Emma Kitsembel

I love the way Sand feels beneath my toes, Like thousands of little planets Endlessly shifting, moving, In their own universe.

I love the way The forest trees move in the wind, The millions of whispers they speak Telling me of the secrets The world has forgotten of.

I love the way Green grass smells Like hope, and love And sunlight all in one, Mixed specially for me.

These things remind me of childhood, When life and laughter came easily, And the world was at my fingertips.

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Lust

Ben Elmakias Gluttonous hereditary disposition.

A glance, a glimpse, a passing grip.

I sit still, imagination working hard as pyramid engineers.

Starting at the base, the toes, working full up to the nose.

Evoking what’s been given, that trace amount of lucid gold.

I’ve been told of beauty, its grace, of infatuation, merely a tribal manifestation.

It’s there, it always will be, or at least, that’s how I hold, it, an obligatory confrontation.

At every stage it will be center, even as the full moon, eclipsed, an eruption of effect, eroding at every crevice, filling all pores, awaking a central intelligence.

But oh, swaying cause, an empty shell full of assumption, here, I inject my presumptions.

My premise, completely lacking ambiguity, a stranger only in sight.

Without a single utterance, spare one passing sight, I’ve comprehended your essence, your habits, attractions, hobbies and favored interactions.

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Ben Elmakias I’ve coined your presence, a copyrighted transaction.

And so, with weighted foot and turbulent movement, my closest caress is my face, impressed upon still air. Worldly noxious perfumes elegant step, creeping in bearing proper insight.

Distant chains rattle through in agony, imagination’s pastime.

Perilous pact, I swear your destruction.

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Scalp Scratched Through S.P. Flannery

The scalpel blade an atom thick disconnected nerve endings from skin with an infernal itch unending constant signals sent, stimuli that are blind to the response the bitten nails scraped rhythmically, guitar strings played throughout the day in a somnambulistic state arm muscles saturate with lactic acid once full hair sheds precipitately and a head wound erupts blood stains bleach white pillow cases soaked through to the feathers permanent ink blot mosaic that eventually is overlaid with verdant fluid cerebral juice squeezed into the atmosphere continuously, thoughtlessly until the mind runs dry.

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Damage Ignorance S.P. Flannery

Mitotic division of chromosomes that had nucleic acids excised leads to a loss of expression thought commands not replaced and filled with nothing but an echo of what once was mutating attempt to reinvigorate with similar notions that in the end are just convergent the necessity dissipates as subsequent generations adapt to what they never knew

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An Eternity Steele Morton

“Grandpa’s back with grandma now” I doubt it They bickered so much I don’t think an eternity would be long enough to work it out I picture him looking for the first flight out of heaven or even an elevator down Just to avoid the maddening click of those worn out knitting needles Maybe he’ll leave to travel the stars Cruise the galaxy for a while But grandma would be right on his heels Telling him to wipe his feet of on a comet before he gets everything full of mud A low grumble would leave his lips But you’d better believe the universe would stay clean

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Whiskey With My Husband Kelli Whitney

The smell enters the room first.

Sweet and chemically, familiar.

Like gasoline.

Jim Beam Black and water.

The liquid amber sways as he places it next to me.

I don’t let my fingers touch the gold plated owls that live on one side of my glass.

The label lists toasted hazelnuts, smoke, and a hint of warm oak.

I taste fire, burnt caramel, and a hint of memories.

My lips tingle, almost numb.

I can’t stop running my tongue across the hard ridges on the roof of my mouth.

Why haven’t I noticed them before?

Heat pulses down my arms, stopping at my elbows.

Muscles in my cheeks and neck relax.

I didn’t notice the tension.

My glass is half full.

I’ve never seen him this clearly.

The overhead light bounces off only

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Kelli Whitney the red hairs in his beard.

He notices my gaze, uncomfortable.

“What?

I can’t look at my husband?”

I’m aware of my jaw and the way my teeth fit together.

My voice is louder.

I hear the change, but I’m not able to stop it.

I should speak loudly; everything I’m saying is awesome.

My entire head is awake and clean, like someone poured in the solution that takes tarnish off pennies.

Thoughts travel from their birth place to my mouth without pausing at my brain.

My observations on our acquaintances and this Top Chef episode are all witty and profound.

I can tell he agrees.

I might be a genius.

His bathroom break is endless.

When did he turn on Nova?

Why is the remote so far away?

Weighted blankets fall onto my shoulders.

A string pulls my ear to the green suede arm of our couch.

I don’t pretend it’s something it’s not.

The heaviness creeps forward from the base of my spine to my eyes.

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Kelli Whitney People describe passing out as an accident.

They are wrong.

It is a decision.

A relieving choice to give in.

Your body asserting, “Sleep is wonderful.

I promise this isn’t because I don’t want you to drink more.”

Blackness closes in.

Immune to the TV, the bright lights, the husband shaking me.

Asking if I want to move to the bed.

I don’t.

I’m fine.

The perfect end to the perfect night.

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God’s Country Courtny Hopen Should I read it or sing it? she asked on the hot white day when the creek running down the clay driveway had dried to a trickle of mica. An ancient hymnbook from her schooldays slowly flipped its pages in the wet air from the river as sunlight traced the dark power-lines illuminating thinner golden strands that stretched from powerline to apple tree to rooftop to bushes to pine trees and across the middle of the path; everywhere the light touched what my mother said were God’s silks the whole orchard lit with spider-webs my great-grandmother’s house flecked with gold, while from two generations away, she asked, Should I read the Word or sing it?

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Winter Refuge Jakob Robinson The smell of onions and garlic, sizzling in a cast iron frying pan I move from the half light of the entry way in to the warm incandescence Passing through the narrow hallway I think upon my recent journey The moon reflecting off black ice as my long blades carve sparkling white lines Stretching behind me like the gentle curves of a country road As I enter, the smell of marinated TVP becomes distinct to my senses Conversation begins as I recount sights taken in As I glided silently past familiar shores Hot chocolate steaming in a mug, my fingers thaw A roux has been added, subduing the aroma of onion Pasta drained, and all will come together Warm sustenance forming the perfect end To a perfect day

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The Fortune Teller Ashley Goebel The lady behind the glass opens her eyes as a quarter tings in the machine.

She lifts her head in an ever-so animated way, and she speaks, but behind her animatronic voice I feel her sadness.

She moves her hands, fashioned from peach painted plastic, and she tells from her painted on smile of a new beginning.

I find her fascinating in all the ways she seems like me.

Speaking only when provoked, and only what has been hardwired into her.

The saddest part of her tragic tale though, is the smile she’s been programmed to smile during the worst of times.

I feel her pain, and I too, am sick of pretending.

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The Panda Elizabeth Arant When I talked about it later – which I did, often – I would describe the panda as coming to me in a dream. This gives the impression that I was sleeping, which is a false impression, but one which I allowed people to keep, because it was important to my story that they believed in my sanity. Sometimes, however, in more intimate company, I would try to touch at the edge of what might be truth: when the panda came, I was wide awake, far from sleep as only a crack addict ever really is. In those days my sleep was colorless, absolute. A death-sleep. There were no dreams in it.

But when I mention drugs, of course, my listeners present a fresh round of doubts. Their point is valid enough: if you were high at the time, how do you know it wasn’t a hallucination?

At that point, I almost always cave to the sound of reason.

You’re right, I say. It didn’t feel like one, I say. I’ve had hallucinations before, and this was different, I say. But yes, you’re probably right.

The truth is that I remember that moment and I remember the moments surrounding it, and my head was clear – nakedly, painfully clear. I was about two hours from needing and already well into wanting another fix, and the whiteness was starting to ebb, to leave the grey earth-color of my brain. Still, there was some sweetness, some sharpness, in this first fading, just before I had to wonder when and where I’d get it next, that I always liked. It was somewhere between consciousness and bliss. In this place, there were never dreams.

Not to say I hadn’t had them before. Mostly from the heroin, but I’d had some on crack, too – memories I sorted carefully from what seemed possible, memories too fast and broken to be real.

At the time I must have believed them, but looking back I always knew them by the way they shuddered at my touch, like water. In this way, I liked to think, I kept some hold on reality.

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Elizabeth Arant But the panda was different.

I have tried since then, many times, to reason why it must have been a panda. At first I thought it might be a link to my cultural heritage, but I’ve since found out that there are no pandas in North Korea. (This I learned from a studious Caucasian friend, who seemed a little alarmed at my hypothesis, as if I was suggesting that Hello Kitty had appeared to me in the shadows of an addict’s alley.) It’s also crossed my mind that I had a stuffed panda as a child, along with an armada of other plush toys more often lost under my bed than in my arms. It was a funny-shaped thing, more like a cat really; its coloring was the only real indication of the artist’s intention.

But then, these explanations rely on the assumption that what I saw came from within me somehow, from the depths of my subconscious. Perhaps this panda was a panda in the way I am a man.

Looking back on that morning, I can see the details with a clarity that’s almost exhilarating. It was a good morning. Like I said, the crack was waning, but it would be a few hours still until it started to matter. I still had money, then, from the account my parents had never bothered to close, and so far the only thing that had stood between me and a regular hit was finding my dealer dead or missing. Travis, my current supplier, was young and relatively healthy, all leather and sunglasses, a poster boy for living wrong. He wouldn’t be one of the dead ones, not while I knew him.

So the high was still pretty good, there was that, and also I’d just found half a box of donuts in the dumpster behind the gas station. I’d held that station up before and was thinking of doing it again – this was earlier in the morning, when the hit was at its peak and my blood was white magic – but then I found the donuts and realized that, really, that was all I’d been wanting. This even seemed better somehow, like the universe saying “hey, yeah, take it. We got your back.”

So I was sitting in the alley by the dumpster, sinking my teeth into one of these donuts, feeling the way the sugary glaze stuff dissolved upon impact and sent my taste buds into little frenzies.

In retrospect, it all seems a little strange; there are plenty of stories

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Elizabeth Arant of visions like mine, of meetings with spirit animals and guardian angels, brushes with the otherworld – or the afterworld, as some have it – but in all these stories, the hero is always at the lowest of his lows, at the rock bottom dark place that he can only come up from. And I had seen that place, to be sure. I had been there, and come up. And gone down again.

But that morning, truth be told, I was feeling swell. I wasn’t even behaving in a manner particularly immoral or dastardly; I had, as you’ll remember, decided against robbing the gas station.

For the moment, I was merely a blissed-out tweaker enjoying the mild, fizzy rush of day-old sugar in my bloodstream. I finished the first donut and went on to the second, a plain glazed one, a little stale but still soft at the edges where the sugar had sort of melted into it. It was during my third donut, which was jellyfilled, that I saw the panda.

He was sitting a few yards down, his back to the wall like me, facing the same way. I knew he was there before I turned to look: his presence so complete, so imminent, that the weight of it was magnetic. He was munching on something – I thought it was bamboo at first, or maybe grass, but when I looked closer I saw that it was a fruit roll-up.

“Who are you?”

The panda turned to face me, still munching. (It was a very long fruit roll-up.)

“What do you want?”

The panda said nothing. Instead, he leaned over a little and extended a paw towards me. He seemed to be almost snapping his fingers, or wiggling them in such a way that I could have imagined them snapping. He touched his mouth, just to the left of where the fruit roll-up hung out of it, and then extended his paw again, palm flat. His paws looked so strange, cumbersome but delicate, like a child’s hands. Again he touched his paw to his lips, this time tapping his two fingers distinctly against his mouth, then once again reached out to me. Finally, I understood.

“Oh – yeah, I think I’ve got one. Here, give me a second. I know I’ve got one – ” I scrambled off of my seat, fishing for the pack in my back pocket, and opened it up. There was one left, my lucky cigarette. I was and am a man of superstition – not to mention, nicotine addiction – but it is my belief that either of these can

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Elizabeth Arant be temporarily set aside when it comes to spirit pandas. (Also, girls.) I shook the last one out and placed it in the panda’s outstretched palm, and when our hands touched his was leathery and warm, like a heated car seat.

The panda took a few expert drags, exhaling slowly through his nose, then passed it back to me. I breathed in deeply, tasting fruit roll-up (green apple), and when I felt the cool hush of nicotine I handed it back.

The panda took it again, holding it between two perfectly curved claws with all the dexterity and ease of a Buddhist monk using chopsticks. He took a puff and the end glowed red, and then, quite easily, he put his arm around me.

It’s a strange thing to describe that moment, sitting in a crummy alleyway next to a half-eaten box of donuts and a panda, just the two of you, just sitting together. Like equals. No, like brothers. In the weight of that furry, muscular arm I found the peace I’d been waiting for, the kind hand of the universe reaching towards me at last. Saying, “yes, it’s all right. We’ve found you now. Everything is okay.”

I closed my eyes to the colors of infinite joy. In another moment, the panda was gone.

-----------------------I’d like to tell you that it was a straight shot to redemption from there. That I stood up in that alley, dusted the donut crumbs from my trousers, wiped the jelly from my lips and marched straight to the nearest rehab center.

That wouldn’t be entirely accurate, however. For one thing, I had no idea where the nearest rehab center was, and asking for directions seemed like it would entail some social awkwardness. Furthermore, the drugs were now starting to clear entirely from my head, which meant that the full spongy weight of what was left of my brain was becoming as tangible and malignant as a tumor in my skull. I’d never seen a brain, but I knew the gist of what they looked like, from cartoons and pictures in science class. I imagined that all those little wrinkled coiled things were tubes, and that all those tubes were dry, starved and thirsty for something I lacked – brain-juice or blood or maybe gin. (In my

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Elizabeth Arant spare time, I was also an alcoholic.) That’s how my brain felt: desiccated. Emaciated. It wanted something and I knew full well what, and I knew that even if I got it now I’d have to wade through a couple levels of hell before I got to that glorious whiteness again. This induced a kind of panic, which spread a splintery pain through my nerve endings and generally just did not make things better.

I’ll spare you the details. I went back to the crack. That day.

And the day after, and for a week or two after that. But something was different. It was a fight now, a struggle – a struggle that I lost, over and over and over again, but at least I was in it now. I’d identified the enemy and the enemy was me, the blazing hungry giant of my most basic desires. It was made of fire and it laughed at me, but I fought back with mean words and fisticuffs and slowly, gradually, it began to weaken.

On a frozen day in early January, I became aware that both my feet were numb. That, in fact, they might have been numb for days; when was the last time I could remember really feeling my feet? It didn’t seem like something I thought about very often. I did know that I hadn’t been warm for several days, which mostly didn’t bother me until it did. For a moment, in the in-between almost-clarity of the crack’s ebb, I was truly, deeply scared.

So I went to a soup kitchen. I remembered seeing the address on a flyer a couple months ago and noting that it was next to a veterinary clinic, which seemed funny at the time. I still had my parents’ money, but the only apartment anyone wanted to rent me had a broken window and no heat. I could have huddled up with an egg biscuit at a nearby McDonald’s, but either I’d lost track of this reality or, more likely, I was simply curious. There was a part of me that wanted to dive into the heart of what my life could be.

Wanted to eat chewy meat and wilted salad next to the people that could be me, people with no teeth and leathery sunburns and cancer-cracked laughs.

The food was better than I thought it would be. For the first time I realized how hungry I really was; my stomach felt that first bite of lukewarm macaroni and it was like I’d waved a piece of meat in front of a sleeping dragon’s nose. Suddenly the hunger was alive in me, it was a thing of its own, visceral and demanding and a little bit crazed. I shoveled down two bowls of macaroni

37

Elizabeth Arant and headed for the dessert table.

The volunteers behind the tables were mostly women – older women, church women. Stay-at-home moms and retirees, a couple teenage girls that must have come with their mothers. All practically glimmering with the special joy of helping others. The girl dishing out cake looked about fifteen, all skinny soccer legs and braces, and when she gave me my plate she smiled, looked me in the eyes and really smiled.

For a second, that smile made me furious. For a second I forgot that I wasn’t born addicted to heroin or raised in the ghetto with gunshots for lullabies, that I was as much a child of privilege as she was and that I’d gotten myself into this fine mess through skill and determination and anything but bad luck. For a second, I looked back into that generic, pitying smile and I just seethed.

But then, just as she turned to take the empty cake pan back to the kitchen, I saw the panda on her shirt. It was one of those stupid shirts that kids wear, advertising some made-up sushi den in North Dakota, like everyone always has to be selling something even if it doesn’t exist. But the panda. It wasn’t my panda – it wasn’t even a real panda, just a cartoon of a panda with smiling squinty eyes and one of those pointed straw hats that white people love to imagine Asians wearing. I wasn’t superstitious, but I knew what a sign was. For a second I felt the warmth of that furry arm around my shoulders, I smelled that hot green apple breath, and in the girl’s retreating back (“Wok Out at Wu’s!”) I saw my salvation.

On frostbitten feet, I shuffled toward the bulletin board on the other side of the room, holding my paper plate delicately under my mouth as I nibbled on a piece of box-mix lemon cake. I attempted a look of casual curiosity as my eyes darted from one flyer to the next, looking for the one that was looking for me.

Garage Sale, 210 East Street. Help Wanted: Yard Work. Missing Cat, Answers To Bukowski. Then, finally, I saw it: Do You Have A Drug Problem? Northern Star Rehabilitation Clinic, 335 E. Johnson.

I can’t remember if I finished my second piece of cake before I made it out the door. What I do know is that it was lucky I’d found some new clothes in the past couple days, because it was evident that the cab driver who happened to be passing by the

38

Elizabeth Arant soup kitchen at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning already had some reservations about pulling over when I hailed him. Sliding into the backseat, I breathed the delicious new-car smell, settled my ass into the warm leather seats, and handed him my parents’ credit card. “335 E. Johnson,” I said, and then I said it again just to make sure he’d heard. Just before I fell asleep against the heated leather, I noticed the driver running my card – probably, not unreasonably, having some doubts as to the financial credibility of a man catching a ride from the soup kitchen to the rehab clinic. In the next moment I was fast asleep, dreaming that I lay curled in the lap of a giant panda.

39

I’m Not a Writer Ariella Waddell An expanse of freshly-harvested corn fields crawled past the window of the Greyhound bus. Little beams of light cut through the thick, dark clouds every so often, assuring me that the sun still existed somewhere. It had been a very long time since I had seen this part of the province — it was as flat as ever. I checked my phone; I still had another hour or so until I would arrive in Edmonton. An hour after that I would be at the funeral home putting my father in the ground.

The bus pulled off the highway and stopped at a tiny gas station in a rinky-dink farm town. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head. The bank had given me the week off to grieve. Part of me was actually unsettled at the thought of someone else managing my branch while I was away. I had never taken a sick day in the eight years I had worked for Alberta Treasury Branch. That was likely the reason I had moved up so quickly. This whole ordeal had been weighing on me though. I had to practically babysit the staff so that they didn’t do anything ridiculous. I had to send out a mass email the day before. The boys in the ivory tower had brought it to my attention that certain members of my staff had been posting pictures of the branch on Facebook. I had to remind them — again — that this was grounds for termination.

I’ve been on blood pressure meds for the last two years. I started having some very persistent chest pains when I had taken over the branch. I tried to live with it, but after a year and two complete turnovers in staff the pains got worse and I got worried. When it turned out that my blood pressure was abnormally high for my build and age I was horrified. All I remember thinking was, I am thirty years old, and I’m on blood pressure meds. My life is a joke.

The seat next to me had remained empty for the first couple of stops, but now a young woman began to settle in next to me.

“Hiya!” She beamed almost as brightly as her crimson hair.

“You going to Edmonton?”

I nodded curtly. I wasn’t a dick usually, but I didn’t need to be harassed right now.

“Is that where you’re from?” She obviously didn’t take the hint.

40

Ariella Waddell I stared at the back of the seat in front of me. “Yeah, but I live in Red Deer now.”

“Inbred Deer.” She giggled. I smiled, and for the first time in recent memory it was not passive aggressive.

“I like that. I may steal it.” For the first time I really looked at her. Once you factored out the over-the-top, bright, red hair, she was actually quite pretty; not traditionally pretty, more like interesting to look at. Her face was round and soft like a cherubim and she had large, doe eyes.

“I grew up there. It’s awful. I am living in Calgary now though, going to U of C.” She was so chipper it made it nearly impossible to retreat back into myself.

“I went to U of C. What are you taking?” I knew I should stop talking if I wanted her to leave me alone, but it was actually kind of nice to make small talk when it wasn’t just for the sake of asskissing.

“I’m an English major.”

“Arts or science?” I was always curious; I had majored in English as well. My friends and I were always pissed, because we were going to be writers but everyone always asked if we planned to teach.

“Arts.”

“So no teaching for you.”

“Oh my god. No.” She laughed making a cross in front of her with her index fingers. “I love the thought of molding minds, but I don’t think I am influential enough. I do plan on writing middlegrade fiction though, so I will influence them more indirectly.”

“Reading ‘Young Adult’ is one of my guilty pleasures.” I smiled sincerely. Books. They were the reason for everything.

“Best book you’ve read this year?” She inquired raising her penciled in eyebrows.

“Paper Towns by John Green. I always thought I would write middle-grade as well.” I looked down at my feet, ashamed. I had stopped writing when I had started needing to make student loan payments. My dad kept trying to nudge me back into it, but it was impossible to follow your dreams and pay the bills. The last time we had talked was three years ago, after my promotion to branch manager. I called to tell him, and he had been disappointed in me.

We yelled back and forth about finances and dreams. I called him

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Ariella Waddell a stupid old man and hung up.

“Well… why don’t you?” Her face screwed up in confusion, as if her young brain couldn’t figure out what might stop a person from chasing their dreams. Life. That’s what. She was too young to understand this. It didn’t matter anyway. Dad was gone. Even if I finally did write something, it would never be for the same reason it would have been before last week.

“I’m not a writer,” was all I could muster. Her smile died. She pulled a pink iPod from her shiny, red purse and looked straight ahead as she placed the ear buds in her ears.

We sat in silence for a while before I put in my own ear buds and dozed off listening to Chopin.

When I woke at the bus station the young girl was gone, but there was a piece of paper folded in half on the seat where she had been. On the front in large, pink scrawl was, “To: The Sad Dude on the Bus.” I picked it up and noticed a small notebook on the seat under it. It was covered in stickers of all shapes and sizes.

Elijah Wood, with Hobbit ears on, stared up at me from the center.

Letters had been haphazardly cut out from magazines, and taped on with packing tape. The letters spelled, “You have a novel in you…”

I unfolded the note and read the single sentence within, “You need these more than I do.”

I opened the book and found it to be completely full of little blurbs. They were facing every which way, and written in multiple colored inks. Each blurb contained an idea for a story. The first page had a rather large set of turquoise instructions. “Close your eyes. Pick a prompt. Write.” Closing my eyes, I opened to a random page and stuck my finger on a spot on that page. I opened my eyes and read the little purple blurb there. I gently folded down the corner of the page and stuck the notebook in my laptop case before exiting the bus.

42

Last Call

Aiden Nienajadlo

Joanne sat behind her empty bar. She wasn’t happy. But she wasn’t sad either. Now and then, she took a sip of her rum and coke.

“Twenty years, and what do we have to show for it?” she wondered. A naphthous odor permeated throughout the tavern.

Freddy, her husband, was waiting for her at home. It was only a five minute drive from the bar. Freddy hated their bar.

“Nothing but a money pit,” he always said. They argued over it all the time. She took another sip of her drink. Her mind began to wander. “The kids won’t understand,” she thought. “It’s too late now. This will be for the best.” She took a cigarette out. It dangled from her fingertips. “The bank is sure to foreclose,” she assured herself.

A car pulled into the parking lot. Nobody got out. Then it pulled away.

“Good,” said Joanne, with little color in her hoarse voice. The phone rang. She didn’t pick it up. It was probably Freddy. He always called about this time. Joanne again reflected on her two grown children.

“Charles is doing well for himself, almost done with college, doesn’t need his parents holding him back.”

She took another sip. Her eyes were getting teary from all the fumes.

“Audrey will take it the hardest. But she’s got our grandkids to worry about now.”

She quietly sat there, staring. A blank expression masked her face. The room was silent. She could hear the big neon blue barclock ticking by the door. The phone rang. Again she did not answer. “It’ll all be over soon,” she concluded. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Everything comes to an end.” She pulled a lighter out of her purse. It was a blue bic. A single tear followed a crease in her cheek. She wiped it away.

43

Aiden Nienajadlo A couple of minutes later, a car pulled up. It was Freddy. He left his headlights on as he got out. The door swung open and he entered. The hollow thud of his boot reverberated throughout the empty bar. He looked at Joanne. Then he took a deep breath through his nose. “Honey, what smells like gasoline?�

Joanne lit her cigarette.

44

When I Don’t Know Where I’m Going, I’ll Be Sure To Find My Way Sophia Wright I’m attending a funeral in Tucson, Arizona. The church is Episcopalian and has a very modern atmosphere. Where one might expect vaulted ceilings and stained glass, there are short buildings stacked side by side, almost like a compound. I feel misplaced and empty surrounded by my family and other strangers. We are mourning the death of a woman who I haven’t seen or spoken to in years: my grandmother. I become bitter when thinking about all the quality time my cousins must have shared with her that I never did. I did love her. How could I not?

I am the family’s one black sheep, though I make it worse by living up to the title I gave myself. I am the family’s only skeleton that has made it out of the closet.

I keep my gaze on my hands folded in my lap. The few times I look up I end up looking past the pulpit. There is a single cross in the main hall. It’s in the normal spot but it is not a regular cross.

Instead of an emaciated man nailed to a torture device there is nothing there. A window in the shape of a cross allows a view of the mountains through the wall. The distant peaks, though jagged, cut perfectly across the horizontal arm of the holy shape.

This morning when my party was packing themselves into the rental car, an unwelcome present was deposited into my care. My father took two small boxes out of the trunk and handed one to me. Nothing about the package seemed extraordinary. I inspected it and saw a sticker with my late grandmother’s name on it: Elizabeth Thomson. I expected it contained some of her possessions we were returning to her widowed husband, my step-grandfather.

“Be careful with those,” my father warned from the front seat, not bothering to turn his head to look at me.

“Those?” He had only handed me one item.

“Yes,” he replied, eyes still on the road ahead. “Those are your

45

Sophia Wright grandmother’s remains.” It was such a disgusting revelation.

Inside I protested, but said nothing as we made our way to the funeral.

Arriving there was like making an entrance at some awards show, where everybody knows you and wants to be your friend but you recognize no one. I felt like I was adrift in a sea of good wishes and forced smiles. My grandmother was a very rich and influential woman. She was a philanthropist who funded many women and children’s hospitals both in the states and in Mexico.

I learned nothing about her accomplishments in her lifetime, only in death. To me she was only a good woman who did good deeds.

People there made it their personal business to console me on the loss of my dearly beloved grandmother. They all knew and admired her. Didn’t they understand that I barely knew her?

The ceremony flew by. Many heartfelt speeches and soulwrenching arias floated up to meet the good Christian God’s ears but wasted on my deaf ones. This is not my kingdom; I’m in no creator’s good graces. I feel I may as well not exist. I know I should be sad, preferably inconsolable over the death of a family member. I feel nothing. No, it’s worse than that. I have no soul, no center, and no substance from which genuine emotions might spring. I am an impostor in the bosom of the Lord because I am empty. No one can know of the waste that lies inside me. I fear their disapproval will cast me out further than the sidelines I already resign myself to. I have betrayed everybody there by upholding a charade.

After the ceremony I, and other willing family members, arrange to meet at God’s Thumb for a little exercise. Maybe we’re more concerned with distracting ourselves from our shared misery. The landmark is cleverly named because it resembles a giant, balled fist giving very enthusiastic thumbs up. Situated behind a gated community are hiking trails that wind their separate ways up towards the distant figure. Against the crystalline Arizona sky sits a rock that looks just like the Big Man reached down to give us some encouragement.

We leave behind us the man-maintained flowerbeds of the community and make our way into the desert where saguaro rule. I’m intent on watching my feet and I quickly fall behind the group.

Nobody calls for me. Although I have no cell phone and no water

46

Sophia Wright of my own, I suppose everyone thinks I am big enough to take care of myself. I could probably catch up if I tried but I don’t bother. They’re already out of sight Something makes me stop in my tracks. This is the first I’ve been alone since I checked into the airport back in blustery Wisconsin. There’s a tiny stirring inside, almost like a breath of a whisper telling me to turn around. But I do not retreat back to the smooth concrete and security cameras at the bottom of the hill.

I’m starting to feel excited. It’s not often that I get to explore the southwestern desert on my own.

Without intention or hesitation I have broken away. The further I travel the faster I go. The wind of that whisper has grown from a breeze to a gust that is spurring me on, always pushing me towards an unknown destination. My feet are skimming over rocks and rubble yet I have no fear of tripping. My breath is becoming hot and labored but I do not worry about my lack of hydration.

I’m putting more and more distance between me and any other human. This feels great.

I happen upon what appears to be a dry ravine like a small valley in the desert. There are scraggly trees hanging over to create the impression of a cathedral’s ceiling. I sit on a dead log and begin to catch my breath. I have finally found something like my own sanctuary, where my own expectations can’t make me feel guilty and desert is all I see.

A lynx appears from the shrubbery and approaches me. It comes closer and closer until we’re only an arm’s length apart.

I can make out the exquisite details on its regal head. Patterns are drawn into the feline’s face in dry earth tones. Little shocks of blonde hair tuft up from the tips of her ears. I only assume its female because that’s the impression I get. My mind creates an image of my grandmother reclined, eyes closed in the hospital bed where she died. The wisp of hair on her head is similar in color and texture to the animal.

The creature draws unusually near. It strikes me that it’s very uncommon for something so wild to be so unafraid of a human.

I’m intrigued. I try to be still and silent as possible as to not frighten away this mysterious creature. I’ve heard somewhere that it is possible for animals, especially predators, to pick up on your mental state by reading your vibrations or smelling your pheromones.

I try to clear my head for good measure. Maybe if I can master the

47

Sophia Wright turmoil in my mind the space we share can become less offensive to my visitor.

My thoughts are nowhere near the deadliness of the creature’s teeth and claws. I’m absolutely captivated by this animal’s eyes.

Its gaze is intense and unwavering as if we were holding a conversation. It’s as if it were searching for something inside my mind.

I no longer have the ability to look away, although I wouldn’t if I could. I begin to lose track of time. Has it been a minute or a millennium? It’s almost as if I have become suspended in space and time like an insect in amber that might still have the consciousness to stare back from their resting spot on a gift shop display.

All I see, and all that I know exists, are those eyes.

Everything around me, the rocks, the plants the sky, they melt away and become like swirling blackness. Still I’m staring into a pair of explosive eyes and they are piercing me right back. Since everything around me has dissolved I no longer use my eyes to see. The only image I see is already inside of me. Like two still flames, those eyes burn directly into my brain. Everything in my mind, the guilt, the pressure, the uncertainty, it all evaporates like desert rain. Out of the pulsating nothingness that is consuming me springs revelation. Death is always difficult, but it doesn’t mean I won’t have trouble expressing my grief. I’m the only one who is making myself feel guilty for the way I am. My family doesn’t hate me, they just don’t know me. I’m not soulless, I’ve only been struggling with unfamiliar emotions the way we all do.

Again I’m sitting alone. The world around me bleeds back into existence like the image in an instant Polaroid picture. I must blink repeatedly to clear the gummy fog that has caked the surface of my eyes. I gradually become more aware of sounds swelling around me. Insects are humming. Hot wind is slicing through dry leaves. All around me the desert is rattling with unseen life.

The lynx is gone but she left a sign of her presence. A trail of shallow paw prints begins at my feet and leads to the edge of the clearing where they get swallowed up by a curtain of crackling trees. I can already tell the imprints won’t last long in the desert wind. I step forward and kneel before the natural tapestry of vegetation where the lynx once crouched. I slip a hand between the interlaced leaves and branches in my way. I take a deep breath before I go any further.

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Sophia Wright I make the decision to follow the path in front of me. Like a gift, this direction was given to me. And like a gift if is my obligation to accept. I feel I have but one choice if I want continue. I know I have no option but to continue. I must see what’s on the other side.

49

Daychasers Lulu Addams It was a summer of blue-black nights. The sun dipped below the bow-shaped rim and then the captured atmosphere sighed rose and gold away into the long twilight. Somewhere in those stars there might have been a war, but here power rationing did little to crush the nightlife.

We took on a solemnity of purpose, polishing our carapaces and skittering out into the dusk with the rustle and creak of party clothes and clicking of heels like a nest of couture beetles and wasps. The darkness inspired a hush that made the anticipation, the mating dance, an audible buzz of organza and leather.

She’d taken to wearing navy, her silhouette blurry against the matching horizon — that perfect low-light we’d never evolved to handle — dreamtime, pre-party beer goggles. I’d follow her anywhere, and so, night after night, I do.

Her face was a smooth oval of bleached seashell suspended like a broach on that velvet skyline and it shattered with a smile, lovely, painted into a vulgar red gash. Her fingers moved over the silk jersey in the hush of the street before she turned, didn’t have to look back again.

Down the sunken stairs the sign above the door read, “Darkside,” in block capitals punched out of rolled steel, its three blue LED backlights garish, almost blinding in the brownout alley.

Inside the blue midnight became a warm patina of garland lights winking out bawdy Morse code or perhaps only digits of pi. Nested here, the night’s rustle rose to a murmur. The eager potentiality replaced by now-feeling, supplied by hot, synthetic neurotransmitters and ancient hormones. Old dance, new hive.

She slid past the bar, her bony hips angling between an electrical engineer and his mech wingman but they didn’t turn, didn’t stare at the long rectangle of flesh at her back or her Fosse walk, skinny legs set in too-wide hips like a nutcracker. The navy worked its magic here too, the cloak of near-midnight a nun’s habit: chaste to all but the perverse.

Money disappeared from my hands, replaced by pills in colors

50

Lulu Addams out of the wet dreams of dead neon. Pink hexagon: Hive Mind.

Green triangle like a miniature plastic samosa. All chased by a slurry of aloe and rum in gentle hypocrisy.

The EE hissed quietly as I jostled by, already less graceful by the time I hit the airlock. The hexagon lays down a hum like first violins for the triangle’s spicy, ray-gun-gothic halos.

You can’t realize how loud the dead quiet of a full room is, how loud your own body is, until you’re trapped in a vacuum seal with yourself and your neurons curling in on themselves like an ouroboros, a Mobius strip, a nautilus, the event horizon of water beetles circling a drain.

Halfway down the chute when the room — it doesn’t move, but it inverts itself — or rather, my brain does a back flip in my skull.

The enemy’s gate is down. The triangle loves this: fake gravity, fake sunset, fake nun — all of it. So the hexagon moves in behind my eyes and vomits a primordial ocean into my superego. I am the jellyfish god: a colony, sentience emergent. Man o’ War wants to fuck.

She’s standing on a field of gold, a sharp figure cut out of the vanishing point between the Gaussian bloom sky and specular ground. The solar panels blister through my shoes, fat with starlight now fading and bleeding pink, as though her neoteric presence here wills the light to die. She eats the last of the sunset, soaks it until her skin glows, then flushes, then chills to bright matte against blue velvet.

Staring into Sagittarius, just the two of us chasing each new quiet, each day’s dying sighs.

It was hours before she took my hand and looked again, lipstick smudged from her bottom lip, a curl, H. hippocampus smile splitting her open again, spilling captured light. Endless nights ago, we’d named her Careless.

It could be morning somewhere else.

51

Glass

Philip Ejercito

Color photography

52

CX Brett Stepanik

Color photography

53

Magical Basement Nathan Ortiz

Night photography/Light painting

54

Monona Bay Reflections Nathan Ortiz

Night photography/Light painting

55

Autumn Rails Erin Oestreich

HDR panoramic photography

56

Lost Identity Kiersten Doty

Acrylic painting

57

Skeletons and Sunflowers Theo Howard

Acrylic painting

58

Idiopathy Ryan Cain

Pen, marker, graphite, ink

59

Mechanical Man Ryan Cain

Tape, ink, colored pencil

60

Dollar Ryan Cain

Ink, tape

61

The Act of Kindness Charlie Haas

Watercolor

62

Crown of Stars Jenny Lynn

Acrylic painting

63

Luna Thor

Metal

64

The Wheel of Life Craig Fabian

Metal

65

Anonymous Craig Fabian

Ceramic

66

Button 1 Erin Fuller

Ceramic

67

Aftermath Separation Dylan Remis

Ceramic

68

Breaking Out Dylan Remis

Ceramic

69

Test Subject 37 Dylan Remis

Ceramic

70

Untitled Jeremiah Jacobs

Ceramic

71

Gretel’s Confession Mary Roth The gingerbread cottage has fallen to rubble, But we’re drawn through the witchwoods each Hunger Moon. Hansel licks the stale sugar-frosted pane, once—to prevent her return and we scramble through the crumbling door.

Her ashes pepper the broken earth; no amount of sweeping could keep her away.

Her screams still reverberate through my veins where they crafted their home as I held her from escape and scorched my fingers on the iron oven.

We take off our cloaks, boots and stockings, feed the wood-burning stove that seems to breathe.

Then as Hansel counts silver coins he’ll never keep, I dust ashes from books on the hollowed birch shelf until one falls open to a recipe I cannot read.

The cupboard creaks and moans awake and coughs out herbs bound in webs and twigs.

I stir them in the steaming kettle and wait till she chants the verses with my voice and pours her potion down my throat.

We take Hansel by the hand and dance, kicking up clouds of ash that singe our nostrils.

I feel her spices flutter inside me fighting to settle down in my marrow a bit more with each full moon.

72

Racine Callie Vasey

A city that waits for no one.

Producer, Destroyer.

A place many call home.

Old ancient buildings stand with pride.

Cracks in the sidewalks tell forgotten stories.

The river flows with distant thoughts.

People rush by in a haze.

A hard working city, yet hesitant to new comers.

Judge too quickly and you’ll be rejected.

Blood, sweat, tears, and joy flood the roads.

Haunting, Inviting.

Breathtaking.

Snow falls in unfamiliar corners.

Love is gone.

Hope was lost years ago.

Beauty flees to its last hiding places.

Old traditions hold on tight.

The sun screams aloud down upon the city.

Twisted.

Mischievous.

Drained, Revived.

Day after day, you long to hear the foghorn go off, A feeling of reassurance comes over you.

Unprepared.

Glorious.

The 4th of July parade fills the streets.

Happiness is found.

Waves crash along the shores of Lake Michigan, longing to tell you their tale.

73

Callie Vasey Seagulls claim the beach.

Geese claim the parks.

Its luring tricks just waiting to catch you off guard.

I tried to leave, but it keeps pulling me back.

74

The Retreat Ali Nicholson

It was a dreary day, more so than normal. The trees that hid us from the outside looked like they curled away from the barbed wire and electrical fences. We were busy with our daily routine of scavenging what little vegetables were salvageable and picking through decaying sacks of clothes. It was when his voice rang out that we all rushed to attention.

“Line up!” The commandant shouted. His accent was thick like a quilt as he spat at us. “I said line up!” His orders were harsher as he pushed Otto to the ground. “Get up, 267!” he snapped We were numbers to them. It was their way of breaking us.

Without a name we didn’t have our identities anymore.

His face softened to that of recognition. “Instead.” He pulled Otto up like he was a rag doll. “Stand here, 267.”

I looked over at Otto. His head hung in defeat like when his daughter was chosen. He pleaded to go in her stead, but the commandant was firm with her going. He knew what standing apart from the crowd meant. We all did. When we were apart, it meant we were going to the retreat. No matter how happy they said everyone was, we knew they weren’t because they never came back.

The commandant was going through the line pulling people out to stand with Otto. Catrin was next being pulled out. She was a shell of herself since Cees was taken to the retreat two months ago.

The two talked about running away together. She loved him and, when the commandant pulled her out, I thought I saw a smile on her face. The same smile I saw when she was reminiscing about Cees.

He pulled me out next. “I hope you enjoy your stay.” His voice was icy and, when the terrible noise licked at my ears, I felt bile crawling up my throat.

Two more came to join us: a young Asian girl called Tsubaki and another male named Gideon. We were a ragtag group that resembled a bag of bones.

“Move along.” One of the guards tapped Gideon with the butt of his rifle. We began our solemn, single file procession to the train

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Ali Nicholson station. The train wouldn’t be coming. We weren’t going to the retreat.

A tear escaped down my cheek as we entered the station’s main area. It was white with dirt smeared across the walls and at least a dozen grimy beds lined in a row. Each bed lacked an adequate mattress and the sharp and rusted springs poked out from the top of the mattress.

“Pick a bed and recite the prayer,” another guard bit and we knelt down at the foot of each bed. I looked around the room dying for time to flee but all I found were stern faces and hard stares.

One soldier placed the butt of his rifle on the ground with a crack.

Another looked to be loading it with ammunition.

In unison we began our last prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” I heard one of the girls’ voice break, stuttering.

“I don’t wanna die!” Tsubaki wailed and tried to make a break for the door but her escape was cut short by a gun shot. We flinched.

“Finish it!”

“If I die before I wake,” I said before turning to face the guard standing behind me. “I pray the Lord my soul to take.” The last thing I saw was the barrel of his rifle inches before my face. A loud bang erupted.

76

Golden Twenty Rebecca Sawatske

Thin, red worms lined his puffed eyes, looking at her piteously.

Earlier, she punched away four boys who tried asserting their bodies on her, wanting to be in her. She would have preferred to dance with her friend instead. The vent in the bathroom blew cold, stale air, like a tired sigh from a snowman. The floor was covered with crumbled dog food bits and shaved facial stubble.

The water within the porcelain bowl swallowed.

“You don’t need to be here … I’ll be fine,” he said.

“That’s all right. I’ll stick around,” she answered.

He dry heaved, groaning. It was easier to keep his eyes closed.

It stopped the lines on the tiles from penetrating his thoughts. Everything ached, and everything sucked. Eight cold points rubbed his spine, and he felt a slight tug at them getting caught in the wrinkles of his shirt.

She avoided stepping on his socks. Since she was still in her sneakers. Two-thirty in the morning, and the sweat had dried since they both had been smeared by the saliva of strangers, rapists, and potential lovers. Her right breast still felt the foreign hand of a wannabe lesbian, the incessant coddle of someone who used alcohol as an excuse. There was also the feeling of a strange man who didn’t know his boundaries.

Rubbing his thin white shirt, while his stomach rocketed, rejecting the night, she was reminded of the ride halfway home. It was not even an hour ago. There were six people crammed in the car, clown-style. Someone twisted in the backseat, praying the cops didn’t see that his hips were illegally perpendicular to the seatbelt, in order to fit in. The lights from the airport flashed, adding to the stimulus of drunken conversation. She ignored them. Everyone saying that everyone else was the best, “like, seriously. The best … man.”

He told her to pull the car over. The other four in the backseat watched.

Their performance was beautiful. It was the closest they got

77

Rebecca Sawatske to dancing together the entire night. He stumbled out from the passenger seat, blundering in the tall grass and curling over.

Unbuckling, she hurdled out of the car, the red taillights illuminating her thighs, rushing to prevent any sprained ankles on his behalf. Given their difference in body shape, weight, and muscle, she grabbed on the belt on the back of his pants, performing a balanced V-shape between his vomiting frame and her stomach.

Gravity ushered him forward. She pulled back.

About fifteen minutes later, he sang “Ring of Fire,” forehead to his knees, as she pulled the car up. Later, in the bathroom, he argued the points of indie romantic-comedies.

“The woman is a complete bitch,” he said.

“You’re fine,” she said. The discussion was something they could have while sober.

He paused, rolling his head. “... the movie itself is okay, I guess ... I just have a fragile ego,” “I know.”

“Don’t say that!”

“All right. I don’t know.”

He shook his head while it was still resting on his arm, which crossed the toilet seat. He smiled.

“Fuckin’ … you ...”

Trailing the ice-spider fingertips to his scalp, she feathered through his hair. Maybe her hands could distract the dizzying thoughts. Maybe the pads could print comfort onto his buzzed brain. Maybe she could be useful.

His eyelids were tell-tale signs of the nights’ events. They said, I danced with a woman I didn’t know and forgot her name. I was the passenger in the car with a woman driving. Here I am in a bathroom with the same woman. These are the eyes of a man who will fight you. These are the bloodshot trophies of no hesitation.

His spinal cord bent towards the rim, like some bizarre contortionists’ interpretation of a question mark. The ice spiders smoothed down, as she held his hips to help him give birth to a regurgitation baby.

“Sit on your butt, dude. It’ll help the blood flow.”

In this state, everything has to be slow motion.

They both sat, facing each other.

“You doing okay?”

“I will be okay.”

78

Rebecca Sawatske “Small sips,” she said.

Ice clinked as they dominoed against his pasty lips.

He said, “Feliz cumpleaños. You’re a good friend. I’m going to make this up to you at some point. Don’t let me forget.”

79

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