Yahara Journal 2019

YAHARA YAHARA JOURNAL JOURNAL A FINE ARTS AND LITERARY JOURNAL

2019

YA HAR A JO U RN A L A fine arts and literary journal

Editor-in-Chief Calvin Hicklin

Editorial Staff

Elva Paulina Kababie Tina Matlock Doran Redlich Megan Stellmach

Book Design

Elva Paulina Kababie

Web Editor Tina Matlock

Advisor

Doug Kirchberg

The Yahara Journal consists entirely of Madison College student work.

It is made available by the Student Life Office 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.

1

table of

CONTENTS PROSE

POETRY

7 Thumbs-Up Man

29 The Leash

41 I Am

11 In the Dark

36 Junkyard Mike

44 A Room of Men

Victor Gear

Drake Williams

13 The Scrap Paper: A Postmortem Reminder of Perservance

Andrea Hannigan

Lindsay Hope Siekert

Rhianna Prine

Ally Lord

47 A Year Without You Lindsey Wilson

Lindsey Green

48 Insecurity

16 The Unbearable Lightness of Waiting

49 earth is no place for me

Rhianna Prine

Casey Olson

Denae Brown

21 Fire Alarm

50 End of Winter

Nan Bogue

Tori Hawkins

22 The Bird Mom of Harlem

51 Dragons, Majestic Few

Lindsey Green

Scott J. Olson

26 Hobbies of a Scientist

52 Making Fun of You

Katherine Severt

William Moore .

ARTWORK 57 Urban Arachnid

65 View From Above

74 The Antelope Canyon, AZ

58 Fire Muse

66 Self Portrait

75 Homerun

59 Wisdom

67 Jose

Abbey Miskimen

Anna Krylova Anna Krylova

60 Waves

Antilica Xiong

61 Yellow Happiness CJ Chiefe

62 Padme Senate Gown replica from Attack of the Clones

Forrest Clark

Irasema Villarreal

Irasema Villarreal

68 Infinite Day Dream Milan Aori

69 Ruins

Ellie Froelich

70 Couronne Ellyza Gore

71 Unnatural

Dana Ponce

Hyunmi Park

63 Two Swans

72 A Happy Flight

64 Floating

73 Intervention

Emma Karbusicky

Emma Karbusicky

Hyunmi Park

Jazmine San Juan

Maryna Gumenyuk

Rachel Otto

76 Raven de Los Muertos Patricia “Raven” Fabal

77 Trouble Tabitha Dahl

78 Phases Sylvie Tyska

79 Secret Garden Tran Vo

80 Swan Princess Tran Vo

Mission The Yahara Journal will support learning and creativity at Madison College through the publication of a print journal and the sponsorship of events and activities that facilitate growth in writing and visual arts.

Special Thanks The Yahara Journal would not be possible without the financial assistance provided by the Student Activities Board and Madison College. The Yahara Journal staff is especially grateful to the faculty members who encouraged their students to share their work with us. Finally, we would like to thank all Madison College students who took time to create and submit work for consideration in the journal. This book would not exist without your efforts.

PROSE

Thumbs-Up Man Victor Gear It was a cool October afternoon in a small suburb not far from the big city. Heavy clouds drifted against a backdrop of cerulean blue, the silhouettes of far off skyscrapers on the horizon. The chill of autumn air drifted in through the open window and caused the dull green curtain to dance in anticipation. I could smell the strong scent of apple pie and spices wafting inwards through my window.

The Jeffersons were baking again. A faint sound of rustling could be heard from the bushes next door, probably from the wind.

I had just moved into the little suburb a few months ago, and from those I met, all were nice enough. There were the Andersons across the street–a young interracial couple with a yappy little Boston Terrier named Frodo Baggins. Yes, that Frodo Baggins. He was constantly trying to find the route to Mordor in the yard, I think, digging franticly with his little furry feet.

To the left of my white paneled house was Mr. Yagi, with the largest home on the street. People driving through would often pause just beyond his iron gates to stare openly at the size of it–looking more like a castle than a house. Mr. Yagi, an older Japanese gentleman, lived alone in the castle along with his lively trimmed trees. I say “lively” because the old man had skill. Each bush, each tree, was sculpted as some creature, human and clearly not human. I’ve jumped a few times at night when flashing my car lights across them.

And then there were the Jeffersons to my right. Every time I went outside, one of them was standing out on the lawn. Sometimes watering it, sometimes preening it with what appeared to be scissors … or picking up toys off the lawn.

The most frequent standing there was the father, John Jefferson. If you envisioned the stereotypical white man, John Jefferson would fit it to a tee. Neither tall nor short, balding, with a slight gut. A yellow sweater tied around his shoulders, and beneath that a white button-down dress shirt and tan slacks. And the brightest, most plastic smile imaginable.

Every morning when I left, John was there to greet me with a wide, infectious smile and a big thumbs-up. Every single time. He didn’t say much to be honest, save the occasional, “Hey there, neighbor!” and “Have a good day at work, Emily!” and “You’re such a sweet neighbor!” Even though my name wasn’t Emily.

It’s Ayda. Not sure as to where he got Emily from. Perhaps it was the previous neighbor. Or he was forgetful. Not that it bothered me as much. Not nearly as much as the way his eyes seemed vacant–like there was no one home.

But it wasn’t just every morning that I spotted John Jefferson. See, on the third night after I finished moving in, it began to happen every night. There was John Jefferson, standing in his driveway, ready to greet me after a long day of work.

7

Thumbs-Up Man Being a bartender, that meant it was often 12 a.m., 1 a.m., or even 2 a.m. in the morning. I wouldn’t always see John right away, either. Standing parallel to my driveway, he’d be hidden in the shadows. The street lights seemed to always be out near the Jefferson’s house, until my car drove past–which kicked the light on and exposed his pale face, smiling, and his thumbs-up. It was a bit ridiculous, and the second time I saw him standing there, grinning ear to ear, I wondered if I should call the police. But what would I report? That he smiled at me too much? He never said anything bad per se, and he never stepped onto my property. Even still, John Jefferson creeped me out.

Nancy Jefferson wasn’t nearly as bad. See, she seemed much the same, but she didn’t smile nearly as enthusiastically as her husband. On the off chance, just before I saw John, Nancy would come out outside to greet me. It was just a few days ago that I was able to speak to her for more than a moment. She smiled, even if briefly, and offered me some fresh cookies from a tray. Unlike John, her eyes didn’t reflect emptily. Instead there was a rather thoughtful and conscious person, cautious even.

“Morning neighbor!” She began, much like her husband. “Would you like a fresh cookie from the oven?”

I was midway from my front door to my car, but I thought why the heck not. I had smelled her baking before, and this was the first time I had seen any evidence of it. I still felt a little wary of being closer to John’s property, although there was no sign of him yet. I took the plunge and walked across the lawn to where she stood, with the tray in her pink oven-mitts. In the wind, her pink polka dotted dress swayed.

I grasped a cookie and took a bite. My mouth still waters when I think back on it–it was the right mix of gooey, hot, and crispy. Sweet, but not too sweet.

Probably the best cookie I had ever tasted. My wariness melted like the cookie in my mouth, and I relaxed.

“These are to die for, wow!”

She seemed to flinch almost, as the word “die” left my lips, and her smile faltered. But only for a moment.

“Thank you, Em… neighbor. Thank you. It’s a family favorite.”

I slowed my chewing, watching her demeanor shift from welcoming, to closed. I gulped. She shifted with the smile still plastered on her face, her eyes crinkling.

“I had better go now, dear. Junior and Junior are probably wondering where I am. And John will be out to say good morning soon. So much to do!”

With that Nancy spun around, her skirt whirling, and walked from the neatly mowed lawn to her front door just as John was coming out. That’s the first time I saw John without that grin I had become so used to. It seemed as if he was angry–at Nancy. For what, I don’t know, but he whispered something heatedly before that smile appeared again and his eyes met my gaze.

8

Victor Gear “Howdy there, neighbor!”

……………

I leaned against the window sill and drank in the scents wafting in from the Jefferson’s home across the way. Even if I thought John was a bit of a nut, his wife was all right. She was odd as well, but since that interaction, still as warm as ever.

It had felt less like a show than with John. Although, ever since then, I wondered about her kids.

I never heard them playing. Never saw head or tail or them, or even heard John ever mention them. Though I saw toys being picked up in the lawn on more than one occasion, which meant they had to have been out there. The mystery Junior and Junior were more like ghosts than real kids. I shook my head and sighed to myself.

The neighbors might be odd, but I was overthinking it. They were just a little too enthusiastic. Maybe they didn’t have a picture-perfect relationship like they clearly tried to advertise, but it wasn’t criminal what they were doing.

Suddenly my house was filled with a loud, echoing ring. I jumped back from the sill and nearly tipped over, my heart racing. The ring sounded again, and I realized what it was.

That’s right. My doorbell. I had forgotten I had one of those. This was my first time hearing it ring. Feeling extremely silly, I shook my curls and rested my hand over my heart for a moment before answering the door. I was a little surprised by who I found.

It was Mr. Yagi.

Mr. Yagi, up close, didn’t seem nearly as cold as he had when I had spied him from behind the iron gate that surrounded his entire property. He was neatly dressed, in a blue collared cotton shirt, with lightly worn tan slacks, and a snowwhite beard, trimmed short. His eyes peered from beyond the only thing untamed –his bushy brows. His face was warm and wrinkly.

“I noticed you need help with your garden. It’s overgrown.”

I blinked and stared at him blankly, unsure what garden he met. I kept no garden, although there was a remnant of what looked to be one in my backyard.

It had been all torn out and left imprints in the lawn. How would he have known that?

“Uhhm. Mr. Yagi, there is no garden.”

He shook his head. “You need help, let me come in a moment.”

I was totally against letting strangers into my house. Especially the sort that trimmed the kind of bushes Mr. Yagi trimmed. But he simply shook his head and let himself in, pushing me back and closing the door. Not sure how to respond, I watched the old man walk quickly to the open window. He closed the window and drew the green curtains. He turned to me, his face not so warm anymore.

What the hell is going on?

9

Thumbs-Up Man I backed away and glanced over to my smartphone laying on the counter of the kitchen.

“Mr. Yagi, you need to leave,” I said, hoping I didn’t come off as freaked out as I was.

Mr. Yagi shook his head again, rather strongly, and motioned with his hands.

“No, no, I have to tell you something. I did not want to let them hear.”

Them? Hear what? Oh god.

“Our neighbors. Them. The Jeffersons,” he said in a harsh whisper. “They like to listen as much as they like to watch.”

“Mr. Yagi, I have no idea–” “You do,” he interrupted gruffly. “You aren’t stupid, are you?”

I gulped.

“You aren’t the first to gain their attention. Another young girl, Emily Kitchet, lived here. For four years. Had a beautiful garden in the backyard.” He turned from me, and looked at the window curtains and sighed, reaching out to grip the fabric, rubbing it before turning back towards me.

Emily? Oh god, that’s what John had called me, what Nancy nearly called me.

“I saw. They don’t know, but I saw. I was afraid to say, but I saw her go into their house.” He took several steps forward, and grasped either sides of my arms, and shook me.

“And the monsters they call their sons. You should move, go. Go back to where –” The sound of glass shattering into a million pieces filled the room and pierced our ears. The shards flew at us from the window that had been open only a few minutes before. With a great rip, the curtains were torn from their place and strewn to the floor. I had very little time to raise my arms to protect my face, but in that instant I caught sight of two bodies–twisted, curved, non-human. Much like that of Mr. Yagi’s bushes.

Before I could scream or make a sound, Mr. Yagi was torn away from me and dragged, shrieking, out the window–a trail of his blood left behind.

Mr. Yagi! Oh God…Mr. Yagi!

The front door swung open as I fell to my knees in shock and terror. It was Mr. Jefferson, with his thumbs up and a malicious smirk on his pale lips.

“Howdy there, neighbor. Such a sweet neighbor.”

10

In the Dark Drake Williams Listen to the cold wind blowing on your ears and in the dark. Listen to it rattle in the weeds. It is ever quiet on the roadside, in the pitch-black of the night and there is no moon. The trees reach up and overhead with their skeleton branches.

It is cold and there is only the little puff of breath that goes out before you and hangs in the air and is gone.

The cold finds you through four layers. Feel it on your earlobes, in your chest. The air rings in its silence. Only the hiss and skitter and rustle of the wind in the weeds and the brambles. A shriek. It curdles and fades on the air. You can hear it.

Only silence and the rattle of the corn and the weeds. The cornfields empty and so grey. Listen to the cold wind and the cough that carries and tickles your ear.

You can hear it too. So alone in the dark and no one to hear you and no one to see.

No light by which to see. Just you and the road and the cold and the cough.

There’s a shadow in the cornfield, tall and stiff. It does not sway with the cold wind and it does not move. You can see it. It is there. It is not. So cold and the cough is gone. It is there. It is dark. There’s the black of the road and the black of the sky. The grey and empty cornfields and the shadow in the dark.

Do not cry and do not run and do not look. Listen to the cold wind blowing in the dark. It is quiet on the roadside. It is empty in the forest. The grasping hands wave in the cold wind. Long and bony hands thrust upwards Between them the pitch-black of the night.

Listen to the creaking of the Riggins’ place. Smell it on the wind. It is old and dark. It smells of buckwheat and of rot. In the summer when the flood-rains came and turned the ground to soup. They bubbled up from the boggish ground, gaunt and moldy carcasses. The old Riggins, dead, floating in the rancid liquid earth. Smell them on the air.

Listen to the cold wind and smell the evil on it. Evil of the rot and of the dark. They are there in the darkness, among the trees. Rotten corpses thin and groaning. Hanging. Standing. Shadows in the forest, tall and stiff. They sway in the cold wind. They walk their jaunty death march in the dark. Do not stop and do not cry out. There’s a shadow on the roadside, tall and stiff. It does not sway with the cold wind and it does not move. It is broad. It is waiting. It is dark. Do not look and do not run and do not cry. It is there. It is not. Listen to the cold wind blowing.

Silent. Listen to it rattle in the weeds. Hear the cough. It is there. It is not. Walk on with the cold and no light. Walk alone. Just you and the forest and the rot. The shadow and the darkness and the cough.

11

In the Dark They look up from the mud, their rotten heads floating in the muck. Do not look and do not watch them. Just the road. Listen to their groaning in the frigid air. Out there by the Strangler’s Shed. In the autumn when the cold came and the Blues came north to the cabin. In the dead of night, he found them and he choked them. Strangled Ma and Pa Blue, and choked the little boys Blue in their night-beds and pajamas. He is out there in the dark and on the wind. Listen to the wind blow and listen to the cough.

Do not run and do not cry and do not look around. Only the darkness and the cold of night. It is opaque, and you cannot see. Or should not see. Listen in the pitch-black. See the streetlamp glowing in the dark. At the end of the street is the house. Do not run and do not look behind. Listen to your feet upon the road. Hear the cough and hear the Strangler coming in the dark.

Hear the quiet crying in the dark. Listen to the cold wind and the hunger carried on it. Listen to it rattle in the weeds. In the light of the streetlamp you are alone. It is cold. It is whispering. He is there. In the darkness. In the night. He is watching. He is waiting. He’s behind you. Do not look and do not run and do not cry. There’s a shadow in the darkness, tall and stiff. It does not sway in the cold wind and it does not move.

The door is open. Black and hollow for you. Listen to the cold wind blowing and the creak. Do not run and do not cry and do not look. The step creaks once. Then creaks again. It is dark inside when you close the door. The hall runs forward, dark and cold and yawning. There’s a window at the end. Listen to the silence of the house. It groans and creaks with rickets. It mutters to you from the dark. The basement door is open. Do not close it and do not look. Listen to the cold wind blow up from the darkness. Feel it on your shoulders, on your neck.

There’s a shadow in the window, tall and stiff. It does not sway and it does not move. It is waiting. It is dark. Do not look and do not run and do not cry. Close the door and lay down in your bed. Listen to the cold wind at the window and the walls. Listen to the coughing on the wind. It is rattling. You can hear it. Hear the murmur and the moan.

Lay there in your bed and the cold. Hear the groaning basement and the cough that comes up from the darkness. Do not cry and do not fall asleep. The step creaks once. Then creaks again. There’s the Strangler in the darkness, on the stairs. Listen to the silence and the creaking. Hear the footsteps coming in the dark.

There’s a shadow in the doorway, tall and stiff. It does not sway and it does not move. He is waiting. He is coming. It is dark. Feel the fingers tickle at your face and at your neck.

Listen to the creaking in the dark.

12

The Scrap Paper: A Postmortem Reminder of Perservance Lindsey Green I found it – folded, saved, and forgotten under my bathroom sink while I was cleaning today. It seemed so insignificant 18 months ago when I saved it, but something told me to do it anyway. The statement on this battered, crinkly remnant of paper, spelled incorrectly and almost incoherently, was a correction to the pharmacist monotonously checking off her medications. “I only use Albuterol.

I don’t use the (unintelligible),” it said. Its deeper message being one of iron clad determination. She never stopped when it came to advocating for herself and those she held dear. Always questioning, always correcting, always investigating further.

The last time I saw her was the night before she died. She made us lasagna and nonchalantly described another symptom in what seemed like an endless and perpetual sea of physical fatigue and illness. She had been a hospice patient for over 15 months and, against the odds, her health was actually improving. For more than 25 years she struggled to simply breathe, the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD, slowly withering away her lungs and cardiovascular system. It seemed that reconciling with the reality that her disease had progressed to an endstage status had somehow ignited a desire to live. To truly live. To not watch the clock for accuracy regarding when she self-administered her piles of medications and breathing treatments. To not worry about waiting 30 minutes after taking one medication to eat, but 2 hours before taking the next one, but on an empty stomach for yet another. She was incapable of imperfection when it came to those orange bottles, filled with expectations, anxieties, and sometimes even cures for her ails. But now, she no longer felt incarcerated by their presence and promises. “I’m going to eat when I want to. I’ll still take the medicines, but I don’t have to follow the directions exactly.” Yes, mom. We’ve been telling you that for years. And, within a few short months of her parole granted by her own self agency, she had gone from a bleak, emaciated shell to a lean but healthy looking human. And she was happy.

The next morning, the deceitfully warm November sunrise danced across the frosted grass as I mindlessly sipped my coffee, staring blankly at the backyard that would soon be blaring white with snow. The phone rang in my hand. It was my brother.

“Mom died,” his voice on the other end calmly, but shakily said. Time stopped. I went deaf and blind for what felt like hours. My heart fell to a place where, once I relocated it, a large piece would never return–gone forever, still dropping, spinning, lost in some shapeless and bottomless abyss.

13

The Scrap Paper: A Postmortem Reminder of Perservance But he was wrong. In the confusion and chaos of it all, he’d misunderstood.

She had suffered sudden cardiac arrest, but had been resuscitated and transported by ambulance to St. Mary’s Hospital in a coma. The prognosis was grim, the sterile, beige walls closing in inch by inch with every new devastating detail. Her lungs, weakened from years of chronic disease, had quickly grown dependent on the continuous oxygen the respirator was now providing her. Her lungs no longer had to work so hard to move and receive air, and they were grateful. Because of the amount of time she was without a pulse or respirations of her own, a brain injury was probable. She would never regain cognition, in the extremely unlikely chance she could even ultimately survive this trauma. I held her long, delicate hands for hours, watching the steady, mechanical rise and fall of her chest, searching for any sign of life. Listening carefully to the biting and destructive words from each new specialist, the tips of my warm fingers occasionally traced the details of the antique rings she took such pride in, and found nothing but cold metal and lifeless hands. Hands that had held mine so sincerely, through every mother to daughter talk of significance.

When her arms moved, it was hard to discern if it was real. Small movements at first, but increasingly more purposeful. Then her eyes–a fluttering open and shut, then actual, real eye contact. When a wobbly but determined hand went to her mouth in an attempt to remove the endotracheal tube, we knew she was awake. And she was in there. In a mix of panic and exhilaration, we alerted the medical staff, who immediately attempted to communicate with her. The minutes turned to exhaustive and frustrating hours for her, as she tried so tenaciously to make her medical history and directives known. She did this in a torturous combination of mouthing words over the breathing tube in her throat and writing notes with a black Sharpie on scrap paper with her arms restrained by cloth straps to keep her from confusedly pulling out the ET tube. Removal of the tube meant certain death.

Her body was absolutely dependent on it now, which went against one of her biggest final wishes: to not be intubated indefinitely.

After hours of discussion with staff some profound details emerged such as the transplant staff walking us through what harvesting her organs would entail: 12 hours of testing and matching with recipients, extubation, then waiting two hours maximum for her to pass away; if she didn’t pass in that window of time, her organs would no longer be viable and she would be taken back to a hospital bed to die. Other conversations were routine, like the pharmacist doing a medication check, I don’t use Albuterol, just the (unintelligible). It was decided that we needed to ask her what she ultimately wanted. She was increasingly becoming agitated, and we all viscerally opposed the purgatory she was now trapped in. My brother, sister, father and I took turns staring at our feet, deciding who would be the ambassador to deliver this news, each of us shuffling. Who was going to tell her that she had to decide when she wanted to die? That death was imminent? That there was no buying time? It was here. Who was going to tell her that it was now her decision 14

Lindsey Green

whether to wait for unconsciousness and organ failure to set in, or to pass quickly and comfortably? The ET tube could be immediately removed, with a compassionate IV push of morphine sending her on her way in a euphoric, sleepy journey.

My body sunk into her bed, and I was met with her lovely, full eyebrows in a knit. The bloodshot but still beautiful dark blue eyes that had looked into mine for 30 years, were now bewildered and anticipatory. I slowly brushed away her tears and my own as I explained everything that had happened that day. She went through various stages of lucidity as I asked her those terrible questions that no person should ever have to ask someone they love and, conversely, no person should ever have to answer. She bravely decided she wanted to go through with organ donation and to be extubated as soon as possible, knowing fully that to do so irrevocably meant her death.

As we collected her belongings–a specimen cup now holding her rings, the tank top torn by the EMTs, and a pair of lint-covered pajama pants–that stark white paper caught my eye. It beckoned me, but in the quietest of whispers. She had exasperatedly scrawled so many notes of greater magnitude throughout her endeavor to communicate with us that day: Bryan gets my engagement ring. The girls get the other two rings. I don’t want to die here. I want to die at home. At the time, I just wanted anything that had touched her hand to be kept. All of it felt undeserving to be thrown into the waste bin with the wrappers of plastic syringes and leaky disposable water cups used by her countless visitors. When I saw that paper, nothing much stood out to me aside from the miracle it was that she had written on it. I folded it up and placed it gingerly into my overnight bag, which until that moment had remained untouched and abandoned for the almost 16 hours I’d been in the room.

How the note ended up under my bathroom sink is still a mystery to me, but finding it when and where I did felt like no small favor or coincidence. I’ve always thrown my energy into physical exertion during times of extreme stress. I was rage cleaning after a particularly difficult week of packing and moving out; all sad and necessary steps of a looming divorce. Looking down at it, folded into fourths, haggard, and browning with water stains, I wonder why I even opened it. But when I did, I got the message loud and clear. You are going to be tough no matter what. As I go through the most difficult chapter in my life, I struggle every day being without her. She was the absolute most unyielding, yet fragile person I’ll ever know, and I’m often bereft without her to hold me up even just a little. But I have this wilted paper, reclaimed from the strangest of places, and its reminder is clear: I can do this. Whatever it is. And I can always look to her for an example of what it means to be tirelessly enduring.

15

The Unbearable Lightness of Waiting Casey Olson When I come to, it’s because I’ve been flung back into consciousness by the desperate cry of a woman at the table in front of me.

“I need a Diet Coke!”

I haven’t passed out; I’m still standing and facing the group seated at table four. Everybody looks bored, but not completely confused, so I don’t think I’ve said anything strange. This has become more and more common: in the middle of rattling off the specials, I zone out. I completely lose track of what’s coming out of my mouth. The words come automatically, and I find that I don’t remember saying them. Lake Perch. Rye bread. French fries. Coleslaw. Twice a week, every week, for too many years to admit, I tell my tables about a fish fry special using the exact same 18 words in the exact same order. Nobody says anything about what I’ve just told them, but this woman’s drink order is at least evidence the table knows I exist. This is not a given. They’ll probably ask me to repeat the special later.

“Sure, Diet Coke. Did anybody. . . else? want anything? to drink?” I look around the table for eye contact or any form of acknowledgement, but nobody is looking at me anymore; the group has gone back to talking over me, in spite of me. This is their way of letting me know they are done being bothered for the time being. I put my server book back in the pocket of my apron which I now see is covered in some mysterious sauce, and one man looks up at me with a pitiful stare.

Irritated, degraded, and unsurprised, I turn and begin to walk back to the kitchen.

“Ma’am!”

I spin back toward the table. Another woman is now frantically waving her arms at me. I say nothing, just wait. The guest needs no permission to speak, and so I don’t waste my breath giving it to them.

“Can you bring me some lemons for my water? And a straw?”

I nod and turn again. I should be better at this by now. I should smile.

I should act happy for her, no–I should be happy for her! Here is a successful businesswoman who has come to triumph in her glorious accomplishments by watching a lowly server do her bidding, a powerful woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to assert her love of citrus and suction, as long as somebody else is going out of their way to fetch and deliver them to her.

When I come back with the lemons, straw, and Diet Coke, a third lady pipes up.

“Do you think I could get a straw, too?” It’s confirmed: they like to watch me work.

16

Casey Olson You’ll get at least a few of those each night, the sadists. It sounds extreme, but there’s no other possible explanation for their laundry list of needs; every time I’ve returned with one highly coveted ramekin of ranch, I am sent back for something else equally integral to their dining experience. A glass of ice? Be right back! The drink menu I warned you to hold onto? No problem! Enough straws to kill a whole species of turtles? I thought you’d never ask! I wonder sometimes if these people are even hungry for food when they decide to go out. Perhaps they are simply hungry to sit back in leather thrones and celebrate their position in life by asking for endless sides of dips and stacks of napkins.

Stay positive, Casey.

I try to think about how many calories I’ll burn running around for the pleasure of these sick bastards. I do some quick mental math to figure out how much money I’ve made so far. Then, I start dreaming up drink orders for the moment I clock out. When I’m feeling bitter, nothing matches my mood quite like a Negroni. I would never say no to a smoky mezcal after a long day. The first sip of a cold beer, though, is unparalleled in its healing powers, and that’s what I’m craving tonight.

It will be hours before that sip, however, and those hours will drag. I look at the clock and it’s 7:24. How is that even possible? The last time I looked it was 7:12. And that was a lifetime ago! My shift only started at 4:00, but within the confines of this restaurant, time moves exponentially slower than elsewhere.

Before I arrive to work each day, I spend a couple hours getting myself presentable and fed while questioning every single life choice I’ve made that’s led me to this career. I shower and try to put on the perfect amount of makeup to seem cute and approachable, yet non-threatening to the girlfriends and wives of my male customers. If I’m hungover, some extra concealer below the eyes and a bottle of kombucha from the grocery co-op near my house make me feel a smidge more capable of the impending shitshow. I usually bike to work. I enjoy pedaling along whilst mentally preparing for the shift. Reducing my carbon footprint is always in my thoughts; also, I can’t afford a car. If I’m biking to a Saturday morning shift, I resent any passerby who might assume I’m heading up to the Capitol for the weekly farmers’ market. I work for those farmers’ market-goers, the 9-to-5ers, the people with “real” jobs, the people who finished college and who enjoy seeing and being seen on the weekend. I am not one of them. I resent and envy them all at once. I often hate serving, but even more I hate those who look down on it, who look down on us. Who don’t even see us.

Every day after clocking in, I look at the 86 list which tells us which beers and food items we’re out of. Sometimes we are out of the same beer for weeks on end. I stare at the board in front of me for the appropriate amount of time but only half-absorb the information. Later, inevitably, co-workers will turn to each other, “are we still out of the Riverwest?” or “are we back on cheese plate #2?”

17

The Unbearable Lightness of Waiting I’ll glance over the schedule to see if anybody I particularly like or despise is working with me. There are usually a couple of each. Depending on where I am in the line-up, I have a certain list of mindless tasks to complete before we get busy.

Sometimes it’s re-stocking sugar caddies or wiping down glass domes which display cookies. Once in a while I have to dump out every single bottle of ketchup before cleaning and refilling them all. We’re doing God’s work here, y’all, I’ll joke to my co-workers. After making money, my number one priority is to keep people laughing. We need it. The side work is arbitrary and redundant, and none of it is what I thought I would be doing at this time in my life. This restaurant was somebody’s dream, I think often, but it’s not mine.

The best-case scenario is the place filling up right away. Time goes by faster and there’s no room for the dread of the first customer, the waiting game that always makes me feel slightly sick. When we’re thrown right into it and the best servers are working, the night has a rhythm to it that’s almost fun. It’s a well-oiled machine with all its moving parts turning out plates and raking in cash. When we train new employees, we tell them about the “steps of service.” It’s hard for me to train anymore, because the steps of service feel unfortunately hard-wired into my DNA. I know when to ring things in, and I know the moment to walk back to the kitchen to grab them. I can tell if a table will need separate checks and I can tell if they’re going to be a pain in the ass about ordering. You tell me your food allergy, I’ll tell you every single item you can eat and how you should modify it. One trip off of the floor might involve me getting two to-go boxes, a stack of napkins, a side of mustard, three different checks for three different tables, and a cappuccino. If I can’t fulfill the needs of six tables at once, I will sink. Other servers will wonder out loud into the open air “Who makes the Alphorn Pale Ale?” Out of my mouth without a second thought will come the brewery and where to find it in the computer.

Pecatonica. Central Waters. Lake Louie. Some people use their brain space to perform life-saving surgeries or to defend innocent men on trial. My brain space is filled with the ins and outs of a well-loved but supremely mediocre restaurant.

If the start is slow, however, my introverted bullshit comes out to play and I can’t stand the thought of getting sat. I despise the host for giving me tables, which is completely illogical. The customers are why I’m here; they are what I need to pay rent. My livelihood depends on a bunch of gluttonous assholes. Sometimes I try to guess if I’ll have more third or fourth circle of hell types throughout the night.

Sometimes I look out over my section and imagine all the people that will fill all the tables that I’ll have to say “hi” to . . .and it makes me want to run away out the back door, and never come back. It always gets easier after the first “hi,” but not by much.

The upside to a slow start is that I can ideally catch most of Jeopardy and taste a couple of the new beers we have on tap. As a joke I’ll ask for an old favorite with a high ABV, which I’ve had countless times, sharing a knowing laugh with the bartender.

18

Casey Olson I’ve mastered the art of walking the loop of the restaurant, doing a few things here and there to look busy. Sometimes I open a menu and stare at it, as if I don’t have it memorized front to back. As if it had changed once in the last five years. Days on which I truly don’t give a shit, I will lean over the back of a stool and chat with a bartender while we watch Alex Trebek quiz his contestants. I am not shy about shouting out answers, and customers always seem perplexed if not annoyed when I actually know things. Just so you know, I like to turn and inform smug-seeming men, during Double Jeopardy you would get penalized for not saying “what is” at the beginning. Just so you know. I don’t think they like when I do this.

On this night, with the lemon-loving sadists, I feel good when things finally start to pick up. I get into my rhythm and moving around is helping to alleviate (or distract from) all the listlessness and self-doubt. Then I see a regular sitting at the bar, a guy I hooked up with six months ago, unaware at the time of his wife’s existence. I’m holding three plates full of food, so I feel it’s excusable to keep moving before he sees that I’ve seen him. A couple minutes later, standing in the server station, I’m ringing in an order and I look around the room. I glance at the back of the regular’s head and then at my coworkers hustling around the room. My coworker, Alex, is next to me. She’s a young server, and I don’t know her too well, but we get along at work. We have the same violent thoughts towards the general public over the same things: You want gluten-free bread but you’re drinking a beer? Get fucked.

Oh, you fought over the check but neither of you felt like tipping? I hate you.

“I just realized I’ve slept with four guys in the building right now.”

Alex looks over, scandalized.

“Wait, really? Who?!”

I laugh and keep ringing in the burgers (no cheese, no mayo) for a table of college-aged girls who are somehow both over and underdressed. Vodka sodas all around, separate checks please.

“One of them is at the bar; the other three are co-workers. You should guess!” I walk away. I’m a veteran at this place and I know I’ve just blown this new girl’s mind. It’s not exactly that I’m proud of the proverbial notches in my server book, but you have to be able to laugh if you want to survive. Moments like this one are the reason serving is bearable. I can’t speak for Alex’s and my future, but life-long friendships have been formed in the server station over similar conversations. In 30-second intervals, yards away from our guests, we gossip and laugh. We choose our anecdotes wisely, knowing there’s precious little time.

Sometimes we bare our hearts and souls. We talk about our relationships and sex lives while we roll silverware. We make eye contact while setting food down on a table and laugh together as we walk away. Usually we don’t have to say anything because we know what we’re both giggling about: a ridiculous food order, an oftmade joke by a customer, a cute guy.

19

The Unbearable Lightness of Waiting Toward the end of the night, after the businesswomen and vodka lovers are long gone, my last table of the shift gets sat. It’s a one-top. I consider asking the late-night server to take it - I waited on this woman last week, and she was grumpy.

She had been with her husband then, and I remember how picky she was making her order. I decide there’s no reason to give up the extra few bucks I’ll make, so I go over and greet her.

“Hi there, how are you doing tonight?”

She seems tired and tells me she’s fine. I let her know about the specials.

“Do you want me to get a Rye Manhattan started for you, or do you feel like something else tonight? I can give you a few minutes if you want.”

“You remember me?”

The moment she looks up, our entire dynamic changes. This part doesn’t happen every night, but when it does, my heart always cracks open: we’ve recognized each other’s humanity at the exact same time, and I’m flooded with compassion for some reason, overwhelmed by a stranger’s humility. And she’s awed by my memory, something that so frequently goes unnoticed here.

“You remember me, like you don’t have other things to think about all week long?” I can tell she’s actually touched, and it feels good to have done something right.

Instead of confessing to her the way she’s lifted my spirits and restored my faith in server-guest relations, I play it safe with a bit of humor. I joke that although I can remember a customer’s drink order, I usually can’t remember where I set my keys down when I get home from work. I feel like sitting down and hugging her, but it’s okay. This is enough.

Later, at the bar, I decide a Rye Manhattan actually sounds perfect. I’m scrolling through my phone while the bartender mixes it up for me. There is a general understanding among us servers, that the first drink is allowed in silence if we want. We can talk or not talk, but we’ve all been through the same thing so it’s usually pretty easy to feel out the mood.

The bartender sets my Manhattan on a coaster in front of me. “Sorry about that last one-top,” he says. “That seemed like it was annoying.”

I take a sip of my drink. It’s perfectly balanced, and it’s boozy, and it’s just what I needed.

“That’s okay,” I say, already looking back down at my phone. “She was all right.”

20

Fire Alarm Nan Bogue I am a fact finder in every sense of the phrase. But not today. My 27-yearold son came home yesterday, ten pounds thinner than when I last saw him a month ago. His short brown hair still looked the same, and the scraggly beard I’m not fond of still felt scratchy when I hugged him hello.

This morning, I fried three nice eggs in butter with fragrant cheddar for him but became lost in thought as they cooked. It all burned up, and as it smoked, I stared at the cast iron pan for a few seconds, watching the cheddar. Fact: when exposed to high heat, cheese first turns a crispy brown, followed quite suddenly by a dull black. The fire alarm in the hall went off, sending my husband scrambling frantically to quiet the rhythmic shrills. I don’t want to know the results of the biopsy my son will have tomorrow. Facts aren’t everything.

21

The Bird Mom of Harlem Lindsey Green She runs an art gallery in New York, but her heart and mind belong to Madison, Wisconsin. She was born in 1985, but when she gives every lyric of a Sam Cooke song her all, you’re reminded that her soul is much older. Her long tunics of dark and muted tones have been carefully refined over the years; replacing the punk rock t-shirts, ripped black jeans, and homemade quirky necklaces of her youth. She’s got a tattoo on her inner arm of a universe unraveling and giving birth to another universe. To the common observer, it simply looks like a black swirl connected to another black swirl by a basic line. It is Meghan in a nutshell: understated in appearance, but complex, intelligent, striking, and gritty; immediately yet unexpectedly obvious, once you take in the full scope of what’s in front of you.

She went insane with her best friend once, when they were newly seventeen. It lasted weeks. Maybe even months. They’d park somewhere at night.

The dead, icy air of mid-winter Wisconsin swirling around the Honda Civic, enveloping them. Sharing a stolen fifth of Jack Daniels and chain-smoking Camel Lights, a silver, pocket-sized tape recorder documented their angst in real time to reflect upon when they felt like it someday. Seventeen years later, she’s still never listened to those tapes. Their contents are locked in her heart, tight and safe, part of her cognizant that if they remain locked in her chest, their proximity is nowhere close to her head. She tells herself they’re benign there, that listening to the recordings wouldn’t be so bad–just musings of two dramatic teens in their perceptions of distress. But the truth is, she’s afraid to release them, to hear that pain and to spiral and touch that darkness again. She knows her fragility and obeys it, which is one of her deepest strengths; to obey the darkness of her mind and what it’s capable of. She is wise, calm, and mindful, but controlled chaos lurks beneath the surface. When she lights her American Spirits – a healthier cigarette choice for a now-grown woman–she takes a long, satisfying pull. She never speaks until she has fully exhaled the smoke, both clearing her mind and body of pollutants– making sure all traces of them are gone, while simultaneously crafting and perfecting her responses. The cigarette balances between her long, thin fingers, curling smoke toward her eyes as she narrows them to avoid it. She has quit smoking at least forty times since picking up the habit as a teenager, and when she needs a cigarette, which is rare these days, she feels it in her teeth. They ache for it, for the pop and tingle of that first drag.

She’s always practiced self-care: eats her spinach, drinks kombucha and tea, stays mindful of her iron levels, and goes to yoga; but can be persuaded to switch to wine and a couch with a smirk and wink of an eye. When she overdoes 22

Lindsey Green

it, she makes corrections and suffocates the vices, declaring, “The gift of anxiety and having had it your entire life means that self-monitoring and adjustments are intrinsic.” If she drinks or smokes too much one day, she’ll go three days without.

Like most women in their mid-thirties, she’s added a skin care routine to her day.

Nothing extra or overly complicated, but she never leaves the apartment without Merle Norman SPF 30 on her face. Her gorgeously smooth, alabaster skin thanks her for it, and rarely does it show any signs of age aside from the hints of crow’s feet she’s earned with decades of earnest smiles and laughter dappled with the occasional self-deprecating snort. When she is called beautiful, she giggles and says, “I look like Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery, nudging her dark-rimmed glasses.

She is completely unafraid of being her truest, silliest self, and if left feeling especially vulnerable, she’ll turn the stereo up to 11 and crack a bottle of Merlot.

She’ll scream-sing Whitney Houston, Adele, and Beyonce, dancing and laughing with you until her conscience reminds her that it’s gone past 4 am. She’ll smoke one last cigarette, place a glass of water on her dresser with some collected trinket and talk with you until you fall asleep first. Afterward, she’ll finally close her eyes, knowing her therapy is complete that she’s filled hearts to the brim, and in doing so has replenished her own.

She’s an artist, and her need to create, challenge and express her humanity is palpable in everything that she does, whether it’s cooking an impromptu meal or painting a portrait on a five-foot canvas over the span of months. When she was 19, she decided to move to Oregon and she didn’t have to think long to pull the trigger. She was in a rut and needed a change – something intense but controlled and focused. Things were solid with David–her live-in boyfriend of three years–but she was uninspired, had fallen out of love, and her legs and hands were restless. She needed to run, to move, to change. She needed to create. She didn’t ask David to come; she merely told him her plan and began to execute it, inviting him to join if he wished, but communicating her intentions for his benefit and not his permission. She enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute, packed her gold Kia Spectra until the doors had to be forcibly squeezed shut, and hit I-80 to Portland.

When she returned after two years on the West Coast, she found a job in Madison as a chocolatier within two weeks. A new art form flourished within her, by which she could not only express her talents, but also creates and shares on a level that nearly everyone would eagerly appreciate. Christmases and birthdays overflowed with gifts of 80% cacao hand-rolled in pepitas and chili powder, handiwork as interesting and unusual as their artist, but equally brilliant and enchanting. She now craved comfort and family, but when her new skills became routine and conquered.

The restlessness returned. It was quiet at first, but eventually blared like a midnight test pattern on her parents’ 1989 Zenith–abrupt, impossible to ignore, and immediate action was required to silence it. She craved more than just creation now; her mind begged for expansion, and she is by an intellectual by nature. The Jack Kerouac and Chuck Palahniuk hardcovers once again met their temporary home in a cardboard

The Bird Mom of Harlem box next to Aretha Franklin vinyl and bird figurines. Again, her life was loaded into the gold Spectra, but the course was set to South this time: St. Louis. Two years later, she held in her hands a master’s degree in Fine Art from Washington University.

She loves animals and sees their souls. She takes the time to truly but passively examine them, dissecting their personalities and quirks over a beer with their owners. “She’s not deaf, you know,” she’ll confidently declare of a 14-yearold Australian Shepherd. “She just doesn’t like what you have to say.” When she was 6, her mom, Jean, adopted Finnegan, a sweet but opinionated 5-year-old West Highland Terrier who loved turkey hot dogs and his girl. She intuitively understood him and his needs and protected him when he grew anxious. Their relationship was symbiotic; Finnegan was a gift of stability and normalization to her while the divorce of her parents was underway. She now takes the same comfort and support from Uli, a green-cheeked conure with as much sweetness as attitude. Uli will peck and squawk in behest of a command, and with the stern, tolerant voice of a mother, Meghan will ask the bird to lower her voice and be patient. She is her baby, and when Meghan talks about her, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish whether she’s describing a three-year-old human or a parrot. Her 400 square-foot apartment in Harlem costs that of a monthly mortgage on a modest house in Madison, but she loves this space. Books made into floating shelves adorn the spackle-patched walls and hold dried flowers and small figurines curated from a thrift shop somewhere.

Uli’s cage abuts the kitchen table, which conveniently folds into the wall when not in use. Every inch of room is used wisely but whimsically, and never feels cluttered.

Each morning to the murmur of NPR, she French-presses her Italian roast, swipes organic peanut butter on a slice of toast, and makes Uli’s salad. Afterward, they hop together into the black and white tiled shower, interspersed with hairline chips and cracks, and dance themselves clean. It’s the perfect home for a girl and her dinosaur.

Her sun sign is Gemini, but a psychic once told her she’s actually a Scorpio.

Halloween is cozier to her than Christmas, but she adores both. The sound of a balloon popping is terrifying, but she’ll watch horror movies all night. She’s drawn to astrology and mystery and is sure that she herself is somewhat clairvoyant. She deeply feels what others are feeling and feels it beyond an empathetic level. When her father, Nels, passed away, she stayed connected to him throughout his death process. She telepathically kept him alive until her sister, Sunya, could make it to his bedside to say goodbye. For hours she held his hand, watching his respirations and effort become more agonal. Come on, Dad, she thought. Sunya is on her way.

They’re getting in the car now and driving here from the airport. Just a few minutes longer. Please wait for her, Dad. Just a few more minutes. This became her mantra. When Sunya at last arrived, Meghan collapsed onto the bed–mentally and physically drained. Within a few minutes, Nels was gone.

She now feels his presence even stronger in death than in the last years of his life, having truly lost him to a form of dementia years ago. When she has to make important decisions, or feels lost or sad, she senses him guiding her.

24

Lindsey Green

She gets her stoicism from her mom, and when three weeks after Nels died, Jean’s cancer came back, Meghan allowed herself to truly fall apart for the first time in over a decade. Though, in her innately indomitable fashion, she understood that she needed to come completely unglued. To live in that headspace and respect it. Allow it to take over, but only for the amount of time she determined and not a minute more.

Tonight, she pours two rocks glasses of Maker’s Mark, carefully watching the bourbon cascade into the half cylinders. She delicately replaces the crystal stopper on the ornate, antique decanter she keeps it in, but leaves it on the counter – there will be several strong pours tonight, of that there is no doubt. Her friend offers to start a fire in the hearth, but the idea of her baby bird somehow flying into it or having difficulty with the smoke snuffs out that idea. She grabs a few knitted blankets and turns the thermostat dial a couple of notches to the right.

Uli darts up her shoulder and burrows into her hair while Meghan settles into the couch next to her closest friend. For over 25 years, they’ve deeply understood one another and known each other’s thoughts interdependently. “Alexa, play How to Fight Loneliness by Wilco,” her friend says. The guitar strums, and pangs both hearts. It’s the soundtrack of their madness at 17 and they haven’t listened to this since, either.

“You ready?” Meghan asks, her voice slightly quivering, the unease flowing out in her breath. She’s had so many journeys under her belt, so many excursions.

But this is the first one she’s been really, truly afraid of. Why? What could these tapes possibly hold that could shake up her constitution after all this time? What could be so bad? It’ll actually just end up being funny… right? She’s unpacked carloads of boxes and suitcases but somehow has never unpacked this part of her life. A part that has played into her psyche for close to two decades.

“Yeah.”

Click. The tape recorder begins to whir.

25

Hobbies of a Scientist Katherine Severt He dumps a spoonful of mayonnaise on almost everything, and he makes up facts that he reckons are true. He spouts them as if they are fact–and people believe him. He has a lockpicking set that he fiddles with in his downtime, and sometimes he will still appear in a Daniel Boone-style coon tail hat with a deerskin “jerkin” he made. Though he’s twenty now, he’s never lost his sense of acting and pretending to be characters from a bygone era. He has a YouTube channel to share his comedic sketches, featuring various characters he’s created.

Figuratively, in everyday life, he resembles a scientist who experiments with his own personality. The eclectic repertoire of talents is a result of an ever-curious and imaginative mind.

He impresses people with his yoyo skills–he’s mastered the unresponsive ball-bearing ones–but he never does the tricks for the audience’s praise. The joy is in practicing the art and passing on the love of it. When he was little, his favorite movies to check out from the library were kids’ science and nature movies and animal documentaries. His mind was a sponge for facts, absorbing everything he learned about animals. Growing up, his family always had pets in the house, but he personally kept rats that slept in little fleece hammocks, and hermit crabs with knobby shells.

When he was ten years old, he tried his hand at loom knitting, intending to make a sock. Just one sock, not a pair. After weeks of steadily working on making the fabric long enough, he bound off the stitches only to find that the tube proved enormous for his foot. Determined to find another use for his creation, he cinched one end of the sock closed, dug out some Poly-fil stuffing and filled the open end, then secured the other side. It then resembled a sausage, not a sock. He found some scraps of felt from the craft cabinet and borrowed a sewing needle from his mom, and stitched on two little eyes, ears, and a nose. It now indeed looked just like a guinea pig. He named it Fred.

As an adult, he wakes up before light each day, careful not to wake up the rest of his family. No matter how hard he tries though, the sound of his favorite round frying pan clangs against the other pans as he digs it out of the overcrowded cabinet. On an average work or school day, he will eat four eggs and is a master at over-easy. Picking up the little frying pan with the eggs sizzling inside, he gives it a sharp shake to make sure the contents will slide. Then in one swift motion, he launches all the eggs into the air. They do a graceful turn, then land face down in the pan to finish cooking.

When he’s driving home from his construction job after dark, he has a policy “based on distance” on whether he will choose to blare his horn at deer 26

Katherine Severt lingering in the margins of his headlights. Two-hundred feet is the limit. His trusty Honda Accord, known as Douglas, is as old as he, though the car did not grow big enough to comfortably accommodate its current driver. Douglas provides a home to a variety of items: a tool belt, packages of staples, spare and sometimes dirty clothes and work boots, and empty plastic water and Gatorade bottles.

He always wins at games, making his friends and siblings annoyed, yet no one wants to play a game unless he’s there. He makes friends easily and can find common interests because his own are so broad. He was clumsy and uncoordinated when he was young but somehow found his balance and grace riding things with wheels. From tricycles to bikes, roller blades to skateboards, unicycles to longboards; he’s mastered all but the unicycle, which still hangs from a hook in his garage.

Movement and action have an equal importance to quiet reflection and growing his mind.

Passionate about natural and holistic health, he once conducted an experiment with shampoo, or rather without shampoo. He washed his hair with nothing other than water for a several weeks to alter the way his head produced oil.

The process lasted a long while and his hair was not quite up to par as far as social standards go during the experiment, but in the end, it was a success–he was able to greatly reduce the need to use chemicals on his hair. He also taught himself how to cut his own hair–he is proficient in the skill and never looks disheveled.

Eighty percent of his clothes are not purchased new. He is a thrift store aficionado, frequenting Goodwill and St Vinny’s maybe once each season. In his bag of success were the usual purchases: sturdy jeans, tightly woven oxfords in warm earth tones, and often a belt or flannel. Unlike the rest of his family, he was lucky. A unique linen shirt with its original store tag might appear before him. A suit jacket fit perfectly without needing alterations. He claimed frugality, but really it was just an excuse to spend the money he saved on clothing on something else–a new pocket knife, perhaps. He explored the art of whittling for a time but passed it up for learning how to slaughter and butcher the animals his family raised on their small farm.

He learned to play acoustic guitar when he was eight, when the instrument was gargantuan, and he could barely wrap his arm around the body to strum. He cried when the soft pads of his fingertips bled from the steel strings that dug into them. Eventually, he developed callouses and kept up with lessons. Jazz, classical, and rock styles drifted audibly throughout the house each day. He borrowed his cousin’s amp and bought his first electric, but after learning how to play some of his favorite solos, he realized acoustic guitar was his home.

As he grew older, he became ruthlessly blunt. He struggled to understand other people’s sensitivities, but he was sensitive himself. Whenever he was upset, he would close his bedroom door and play guitar. But the sounds still seeped through, and his family could tell what was bothering him by what he chose to play. He met many professional artists and had plans to go to college and major in music. He played in the rhythm section of his high school’s jazz band and went to state with 27

Hobbies of a Scientist the band. He was the music leader on his missionary team in Texas and subtly tried to play songs that were not so blatantly Christian pop, which drove his jazz mind crazy.

Living far from a town, and even farther from a gym, he once decided to DIY his own equipment. Barbells were formed with cinder blocks on the ends of a broom stick, a primitive punching bag was constructed by wrapping carpet around a wooden cylinder and hanging it from a tree limb, and a pull up bar was made from spare pipes driven into the ground. He loves swing dance and broke the same arm three times‌ but not by dancing or exercising. In addition to loving animals and nature, his interest in biology extended to the human body. He possesses a natural intuition towards health and often offers accurate and practical advice on muscular or joint issues. After a couple years away from school, he decided to return and work towards becoming a chiropractor. He loves to talk about bones and medical terms to anyone who will listen.

To know him is to have experienced all his interests and fascinations, or at least share in one or two. Younger cousins still ask him to make up games and pretend with them. A youthfulness and creativity reside at the front of his identity.

His bizarre meal concoctions are designed on instinct alone, and the results usually turn out well. Though musician, actor, and explorer could all be used to describe him, scientist is what encompasses them all. The hobbies of this scientist are the result of an innate sense of experimentation and curiosity, fostered through his imagination running wild.

28

The Leash Andrea Hannigan What was war? What was the purpose of it all? To have settled a fight between two feeble nations or to slaughter each other’s countries one by one? Maybe it’s just to prove that one’s right over the other. No. No, of course not. I didn’t see it because the reason for it has a cloth over its head. All I ever saw was the bloodshed, the sweat, and the salt-streaked tears. The battlefield was filled with nothing but hands, feet, and gun powder. It didn’t matter how many breaths I took; I still couldn’t breathe. Suffocating. Yes, it’s like suffocating. War is a huge hurricane that drags us all underground and leaves damage in its path.

My eyes locked on the grey-stained ceiling as I thought this. My eyes had trained themselves to follow the droplets of water that dripped from the top left corner. Even with all the covered windows, I could tell the angels were bawling outside. How long had I laid here staring?

My lips were dry, so I licked them. So, so very dry.

I hated it.

Slowly arising to a sitting position, I heard the bed groan in disappointment. I put a hand to my forehead as I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and looked around. Nothing was out of the ordinary, my door locks were still secure, and the curtains were still closed around the boarded windows. This meant no one had broken in. My eyes traveled to the floor slowly and I looked at the papers and trash that I’d strewn on the floor earlier. When was the last time I cleaned my house? I couldn’t remember.

Everything around me was grey. So, so grey and lifeless without a sound to be heard.

I hated it.

Finally standing up, I nursed a throbbing headache that’d grown in the past few hours. I headed to the bathroom to wash my face, hoping to feel better.

CLINK! Immediately, I spun around on my heel, having only been halfway to my destination. What was that sound? I knew I heard it; someone was here. My eyes darted frantically around the room, but I didn’t see anything unnatural. Hesitantly, I turned and entered the bathroom with my heart in my throat.

With a frown, I stood above the old cracked sink in front of the broken mirror. I examined the distorted fair details of my face. Two chocolate eyes glared back toward me and the bags under my eyes made it look like I should be in a morgue. Running a slender hand through my thick black hair, I stared at the man who felt like a stranger to me. He was distant, broken up from the glass. Suddenly, my eyes flickered to the scar. Halfway above my chin and on my jawline was a 29

The Leash jagged vertical scar. I had let my fingertips brush it, to ease its dull pain. The feeling was rigid, yet soft.

Something flashed behind my eyelids and I realized what was happening.

The echo of explosives and gunshots rang in every direction as the memories flooded my cranium. In desperation, I gripped my head before cupping my ears. I scratched at my face, pressed at my eyes, pulled at my hair, all to drown, to drown out the horrid noises, to not let it suffocate me again and pull me under.

That was when I remembered Johnson.

“Vince!” Johnson, my war partner, screamed above the battlefield, “You’d better do it or so help me I’ll never forgive you!”

I didn’t answer and, instead, gaped down at him and his dusty blonde hair as he dug his nails in the dirt below. Sweat and dirt was smeared on his tough face as blood caked his chapped lips. His uniform could tell a whole shebang of trauma if it could talk. Blood wasn’t just on his face, it drained from his legs – no.

His leg sockets.

I jumped when Johnson suddenly gripped my uniform with an iron grip.

“Damn it, Vince, I’m going to die anyway! Do it or I’ll do it myself if I have to!

Keep stalling and you’ll get caught! Do you want a barrel in the face?!” He snapped like a crocodile.

My heart picked up speed with the rise and fall of my defined chest as my eyes pleaded with him. He nodded at me. Exhaling a shuddered breath, I raised the gun. Johnson let go of my uniform and slid his hand down to the barrel with a boldness I could associate with bravery.

His face read no fear or regret. No. It was soft, an almost mellow look in his eyes. My stomach hardened and I found I couldn’t look at those eyes anymore.

Instead, I slammed mine shut because I couldn’t bear to watch what my filthy hands were about to do. Biting my lip, my finger shakily brushed the trigger with a hesitation that was like forever. My heart twisted, wrenched, and distorted like a piece of clay someone had molded. Tears stung at my eyes and I felt choked.

I pulled the trigger.

The minute that shot rang out and repeatedly echoed in my ears, time seemed to stop. Noise was no longer a part of my surroundings. Already, I had plunged into a black sea of which I couldn’t swim. Its thickness was rising quickly, and I was drowning, unable to catch the air. The black liquid formed hands and gripped my neck with a crushing force.

Something had built inside of me. It was then that I fell to my knees, touching my lifeless friend with his grey matter spilled out. I cupped his hard cheeks with both hands, then shook his body wildly, all while screaming in his face to come back to me. I knew that in reality he couldn’t. Suddenly, I didn’t care whether I blew my cover or died because all that revolved around me was this man. I slapped hard at his face repeatedly until it stung, and I collapsed in defeat over him. Opening my mouth, a strangled cry managed to squeeze out. Then I screamed.

30

Andrea Hannigan Snapping out of my stupor, I squeezed my eyes shut. Just that memory alone always sent me back to that black sea to where I never wanted to wander. It’s not like I wanted to go to the Civil War. I only did it to present myself as a man and to make them happy. I wanted to show my parents that I was not a coward and that I could, in fact, make them proud.

Then I felt it. They were towering behind me now, bending over and hissing in my ears like snakes. “Go to the military, Vincent, your mother will love you if you do.” My mom spoke on my right.

“Listen to your mother, my boy, “ My father deadpanned huskily, “Be the man I created you to be. You want us to be proud, don’t you?”

My hands reached up and clawed at my face, my eyes widening in horror. I remembered back when they would stand in front of me with their hands on my shoulders. They’d be at my height, but on the inside, I was a mouse.

My mom gripped my shoulder now, her long nails piercing me, just as she did years ago. My hands slid down my cheeks as she whispered with her breath tickling my ear, “You don’t want to disappoint me, do you? Our country is in a crisis, so do it. Do it for me, your loving mother.”

“Yes son. Do it.”

“Do it.”

“Do it, do it.”

“Stop!” I hollered as I leaned against the bathroom door, their presence starting to dissipate. All I could see in my head was their voices, their dark wide eyes, their cackling grins. That’s all they’d do is smile.

Without warning, a boiling feeling welled up inside of me like acid. My body began to shake, and my nostrils flared. I stomped out of the bathroom and entered the living room, pure rage concealing my vision. “RAAH!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I slammed my hands down on a cluttered old wooden desk. My nails dug into the papers on it like talons and I slid them off, not caring to watch them spiral to the floor. I lifted my hands up and slammed them back down again, scratching the wood like a rabid animal. I then overturned the furniture, kicking them, punching them, screaming at them because they were my witnesses.

Finally, I stopped and slumped over, catching my breath. I knew no matter how many things I ruined; it wouldn’t satisfy the hold that was bearing down on me. It never would. I couldn’t shake the noise of the voices and the feel of lips on my ears, no matter what I did. Those voices kept cramming into me as I gripped my hair now.

“Make us happy, Vincent, make us happy, do it, come on, do it.”

“You are now an official United States soldier.”

“You will obey orders, so when I tell you to shoot, you shoot.”

“Vince, it’s a cruel world out there. I mean, see all these people? All these experienced soldiers? There’s no life left in ‘em anymore. They’d be better off dead, y’know? We’ve all got our own leashes to bear, some are just tighter than others.”

31

The Leash The voices filled my senses, getting louder and draining my thoughts. The room was spiraling beneath me while questions littered my mind. My friends didn’t live, so why do I get to? What gives me the privilege? I couldn’t even protect them, not a single one. The only one I felt I had saved was Johnson, and that was by putting him out of his misery. I didn’t deserve to live; I should’ve died out there.

Why? Because I was a murderer.

I fell to my knees and burst into an uncontrollable sob with my head craned toward the ceiling. My heart lurched at the word I had just called myself because I knew it was true. The waterworks streamed down my face, one after another, as I squeezed my eyes shut. With an uneven gasp, I whispered to those voices around me, “Sorry... I’m sorry... I am so sorry... so, so sorry... Please...”

“Why the tears, Vince?”

My eyes shot open at the sound of a familiar voice. I abruptly turned around only to cause my breath to stick in my throat. Terror ripped through me and a choking noise escaped me. The person that I saw, who stood behind me with folded arms...

Was me.

He looked identical to me, but the bags under his eyes were gone and he held no scar on his jaw. Even the paleness of his face was absent. His clothes were the same; A freshly cleaned button-up white shirt with black trousers compared to my dirty ones.

My body winced when he unexpectedly chuckled, “C’mon, why the long face? Are you feeling rather sad and maybe a bit… oh, lemme guess, guilty?”

Panic rose in my throat like bile and I fell back on my bottom while jabbing a finger at him. “H-how the hell did you get in here?! Everything was sealed off; you couldn’t have gotten in like this! Tell me how you got in here, you bastard!”

I screamed.

The man stepped back with his hands out in front of him. “Now, now, there’s no need to swear. Besides, shouldn’t you be more worried about why I’m here rather than how I got in here?” He replied calmly with a grin.

I glared my hardest at him as pieces of my shaggy hair fell over my eyes. A giggle only ruptured out of him as I did, and I resisted the urge to strangle this man, grip him by the throat, and literally snap it in half like a twig. Then I’d laugh as I’d rip his vocal cords out while he’d gargle and choke on his own disgusting dark blood.

“Man, you are a murderer. Just look at that expression in your eyes, they’re so filled with bloodlust, like a starving wolf.” He paused, taking a step toward me, “Tell me, you savage, how many people did you kill? Ten? Twenty? Maybe it was thirty. I bet you decided to count one day and lost how many.”

What was this man trying to provoke? I suddenly felt as if I had a connection to this guy, like he was a brother of mine. But that couldn’t be because he 32

Andrea Hannigan looked just like me.

The rage drained out of me as I thought this, replacing my expression with one of soft sorrow. I fell on my hands and knees, muttering, “I...I don’t know. It wasn’t my fault.” That last phrase rang in my ears like a broken record. Not my fault, not my fault, not my fault.

The man’s eyes widened, and he roared with laughter as he slapped a hand to his forehead and held his stomach. “What?! Not your fault?! That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day!” He abruptly stopped laughing, “Vince, you know better than me what that statement really is. You just can’t seem to stop lying to yourself, can you.”

I focused my gaze on a piece of broken glass on the floor and refused to look at that lunatic. Sorrow seeped into my veins and I suddenly felt heavy, very heavy. My tears had crusted, leaving a dry desert feeling in my gut.

He started to circle around me like a lion watching its prey as he continued to talk. “Face it, Vincent, you’re one hell of a killer. The killings of those you committed are like a leash…” He paused, stopping in place. He then went and crouched in front of me, “Why make it tighter, huh?” He whispered, nose-to-nose. I felt his hand under my chin now to meet my eyes, but I wouldn’t allow it. Finally, I gave in and stared lifeless at him as I did the ceiling earlier. A joker grin appeared on his face and it spilled many secrets, but one of those secrets I couldn’t quite reach.

I parted my lips and spoke with a whisper, “Why are you?”

The man seemed taken aback with my question. He leaned back and let out a loud echoing cackle. “That’s enough questions! Who don’t you get up for me?”

For some odd reason, I obeyed him. I stood up on my heavy iron feet and began to follow the man as he walked away. My body felt as if I were a doll, a hollow shell with nothing in it.

“You know, you could’ve spared yourself the pain.” His clear voice broke through my train of thought, “All you had to do was not befriend them in the first place!” He howled in laughter once more.

I didn’t care what he said anymore. It was like my body shut down, like that black sea came back and swallowed me up. Suddenly, I looked up and realized where we were.

The bathroom? Wha– “Why don’t you come over and sit, you look tired.” The man smiled and motioned with his hand for me to come over.

Again, I obeyed and sat down on the closed toilet bowl. I placed my hands over my eyes to try to ease my everlasting headache. What was this profound feeling? I couldn’t understand what was happening or what anything was anymore.

Each movement I saw was a blur. Blurry. Ah, my mind whirled. It whirled. whirled. whirled. Flashes of memory bounced around behind my eyes. Anger, sorrow, guilt– almost every emotion I could feel–slammed into me like a passing vehicle.

33

The Leash Slammed, slammed, slammed. Was I licking my lips again? I didn’t know.

The voices came back again; they rang in my ears. Were they voices?

RangRangRangRa– The sound of running water snapped me out of my stupor. I shot my head up and looked to my left, watching as the man had turned on the bathtub faucet. I stared at him like a deer in headlights as I asked shakily, “Wh–What are you doing?”

He peered over at me with his back facing me and he smirked, testing the water with his hand. “Were your parents ever happy, Vincent?” He asked out of nowhere.

I furrowed my eyebrows as I wondered where he got that question from.

“N-No.” “Hm.” He scoffed, “That’s funny. Where are they now, huh?”

That acid was rising in my stomach again and I gripped my hands into fists. “Wh-Why are you asking me this?!” I shouted in a trembling voice.

“Where’d that scar come from, buddy?”

Another familiar voice pierced my ears like a spear, and I looked to my right with wild eyes. There was no way this man was standing beside me right now, but he was, and I knew exactly who he was.

Henry, one of my war partners.

He looked as clean and handsome as ever, before he went to war. I stabbed a shaking finger in his direction, forcing the breath out of my constricted lungs.

“B-But you died!” I screamed, but he only smiled at me as if I just cracked a joke.

“You shouldn’t yell like that, Cross, you might wake the neighbors.”

I whipped my head to another voice. This time it was none other than Ryan Johnson standing in front of me in all his muscular glory. It had to be a dream; this couldn’t be real.

Suddenly, as I looked around, long dead soldiers crowded my bathroom, and some blocked the exit. They couldn’t have been real, but they were. They were because they were standing right here in flesh and blood. Why didn’t any thing make sense anymore? Why couldn’t I fathom how they got here or even why I was sitting here spilling my tears again? None of it made sense, none of it, not a thing.

I watched in shock as the man of my looks broke through the crowd and leaned down to talk again. “You’re an animal. Even now, no matter how many times you try to forget what you’ve done, it just keeps on haunting you, coming right back up like a beast and coming out of your throat to eat you alive. It eats away at your inner thoughts, mercilessly biting down, and biting down hard. I wonder, does it involve what you did to your parents? How many people have you counted? Oh, but the real question is, are you a savage or a man? Answer me!”

What a real question that was indeed. I could remember finding my friends, killed, dismembered, or wounded. I killed so many people, people with families, kids, and innocence. Their wives were probably just waiting for them to come home like the brave soldiers they were, but I murdered them. I took that hope 34

Andrea Hannigan and smashed it into the ground repeatedly. What kind of internal scars did they achieve because of me? But I had to do it because I needed to–no, I wanted–to live.

I live with this monster called regret and guilt. It crawls up onto my bed and stares down at me at night with its claws in my belly. It pushes me further and further into that black sea from which I drown. Drown, drown, drown.

Why couldn’t I have died in that war too? No… I guess that’s not completely true.

I did die in that war.

My body jerked forward as an unknown hand gripped a handful of my hair from behind. The force of the action had pushed me down to the tile floor. When I tried to right myself, I was pushed only to have my chest slam into the bathtub siding, I gazed at my rippling reflection and sucked in a deep breath. The stares of the soldiers around me bore into my back while I shut my eyes. Those stares are suffocating.

Yes, it’s suffocating.

That’s when I found the answer to that question. I whispered, “I’m both a savage and a man. Yes… I’m both.”

That was the last thing I said as the hand that held my hair plunged my head below the full bathtub water. I felt the muscles in my body relax as I parted my lips. I didn’t struggle or even attempt to breathe, I simply let it in. That soft water rolled along my tongue as I closed my eyes. I understood it now, that look on Johnson’s face before his final moments.

Today, the leash comes off.

12 p.m., Saturday night, June 1866, the body of Mr. Vincent Cross was discovered in his home. He appeared to have drowned himself in his bathtub as an act of suicide. Mr. Cross is believed to have had a mental disorder and mild schizophrenia as a partial result from trauma. However, there is no evidence as to how strange footprints were present on the scene, as they do not match Mr. Cross’s. They appeared to have come from the closet, but it was locked as of now. It remains a mystery as to how these footprints came about. Further investigation is needed for this odd case.

35

Junkyard Mike Lindsay Hope Siekert His deep wrinkles carved a map that showed his 66 years of existence. You could follow each line like you would a roadmap. The creases around his eyes tell of laughter shared with co-workers and of good times spent with friends and family. His furrowed brow speaks of monetary worries past and health-related worries present.

From under his woolly stocking cap peeks a pair of slate blue eyes, and he speaks with a husky drawl. His chin and upper lip are covered in short-clipped, silver, facial hair, that clings to his skin much like how a cold wintery blast sticks to an outdoor window pane. His jean overalls are threadbare, ragged, and covered in motor oil that carries a musty odor, and underneath he wears a button up, red-and-black buffalo plaid flannel shirt, rolled up carelessly to his elbows.

He lives alone. Never married, and he likes it that way. He can watch the shows: Overhaulin, Street Outlaws, and American Hot Rod on television (with no one around to complain about it); use the bathroom with the door open; sleep in the middle of his king-size bed with all the blankets; and leave his dirty laundry piled up on the floor. He is a retired auto mechanic, who earned his stripes within the auto industry. He is a self-taught grease monkey who started out doing brake jobs and routine maintenance on friends’ cars in high school. He was promoted to Master Automotive Mechanic at the time of his retirement. He would talk about how working on cars for 48 years made aches and pains his constant companions.

The years he spent routinely grabbing pieces of hot and sharp metal, loosening stubborn nuts and bolts, and lifting heavy auto parts left his hands callused, with grease settled into every wrinkle, crack, and cut. His gnarled hands would tremble as he brought a Marlboro cigarette up to his mouth for a drag. It is nasty habit he tried to kick since his twenties, but the nicotine had its grip on him. The ash sprinkled across the cement with every flick of the filter as he talked about his first brake rotor repair job. He gashed his forehead on a sharp metal shaft that was jutting out from the wheel well. He jerked back in pain, only to bang the back of his head on the fender. It was like a moment of slapstick comedy, but he was not laughing.

He collected silver, storing it in old coffee tins. He never voted in a presidential election because he believes all politicians are liars. He escaped death a few times. He drank his Folger’s coffee black. He hung on to the blue Murray tricycle he rode as a child. He would fire up his charcoal grill in the middle of winter, because he craved the smoky, mesquite flavor it added to his favorite cut of meat–beef tenderloin. He would give you banana nut muffins he just baked, fresh from the oven. He places money in the offering plate on Sundays, at the Lutheran church he attends. His favorite holiday is Christmas, despite the fact that he has no one to share it with. He often likes to ignite his senses: taking lavender scented bubble baths, the feel of unwashed, new, socks on his feet, and the buttery, salty taste of theatre popcorn. Most of all, he likes to lend a helping hand to someone in need.

36

Lindsay Hope Siekert If he comes upon a car on the side of the road, he offers his help. He has the tools and knowledge to fix just about any problem that caused the breakdown.

One time, someone offered him a hundred dollars for getting their car back up and running. He wouldn’t accept the money; instead he told them to pay his kindness forward. He believed in karma and would often say, “If you give out good energy, it will come back full circle.”

The intoxicating smell of Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey follows him around as he hobbles about with his lopsided swagger. He often can be heard humming some tune from one of his favorite 1980s hair bands on his way out to his favorite place, his garage. A rusted metallic hedge of corroded oil drums and worn out auto parts frames the garage’s perimeter. Inside, worn out serpentine belts, rusted jumper cables, and yellowed plastic packages of spare fuses and spark plugs all dangle from aluminum hooks stuck into the pegboard that lines the walls of his carbon laden garage. Old calendars with pictures of scantily clad women are hung on a white brick wall near his blue, white, and yellow Napa Auto Parts clock. The sharp, invigorating smell of gasoline rises up from the concrete floors and cat litter is scattered about soaking up a recent oil spill.

He would not put a single piece of broken equipment in the trash, because he could fix anything with a motor: a Lavet-type stepping motor in a wall clock; a Briggs and Stratton four-cycle engine in a snowblower, although, he wouldn’t waste his time with two-cycle engines unless they were in a leaf blower; a Mercury twostroke outboard motor that he found at the town dump; and even an antique motor from an Indian motorcycle.

His neighbors know him by his nickname, Junkyard Mike. He spends his days of retirement roaming about his land that is covered in a burial ground of automobile auction rejects. He stacks machinery into tall precarious heaps, sorting auto parts like one would separate their laundry. Alternators and batteries in one pile, brake rotors and calipers in another. He weaves his way around many cherished auto parts in his small junkyard: stacks of old rubber tires that came off of his “baby,” a 1973, canary yellow Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup truck; a naked ‘79 Camaro chassis, that was once his father’s daily driver, now stripped down to its bare frame; and a pile of random hubcaps he collected from finds alongside his favorite country road.

Blowing the steam from his fresh cup of black Folger’s coffee, he spoke of his only regret in life, which was not purchasing the land adjacent to his property when it came up for sale last year. He tosses a tire onto an already towering stack, and says with a toothy grin, “Guess I’ll have to go higher up, instead of further out.”

37

38

POETRY

40

I Am Rhianna Prine When you step into the shower can you tell if I am the fleeting steam or the cleansing water or if I am the body itself in there with you Because I can’t I am waiting I am waiting to hear my name called somewhere: by my lover, by a speaker welcoming me onstage for my hundredth presentation on whatever it is people want to hear a hundred presentations on, by my mother when she’s finally proud of me, and by myself so I know I am really still here Because I am not today I am living for tomorrow like I have for a million yesterdays waiting for today to become now and the future to arrive so I can finally start my life because God knows I am too young to be alive And if I am truly too young to be doing any of this then maybe that’s why I hate to see myself in the mirror before and after I see all of him Because if the way I have convinced myself I look isn’t the same as who the outside sees, as what I am in the mirror than how can I be anyone else?

41

I Am

Tell me what I am so I can become it Because whenever I build myself I only fill half the glass and I don’t know if that glass is half empty or half full and maybe I just need to get a smaller glass So I can feel as small as I am when I am the little girl who still hates herself I am still crying because I never cried and maybe that’s because I am always crying I am hoping my life has something worth living for and that my brief cameo on stage wasn’t an accident because the director left the door open too long and I just assumed he was welcoming me in I am living like this is what I am supposed to do, floating through life with my feet barely touching the ground like they did when my father lifted me by my hands and tugged me across the floor while he was teaching me how to walk And I am sorry, mom

42

Rhianna Prine

I am sorry I grew up and out of your love, I didn’t mean for it to happen I am trying to reconcile the child I am still learning how to walk because most days I am forgetting about 90% of my body maybe because I have tried to erase 90% of my body and then I wake up with bruises I did not fall asleep with So again, the girl from last night is not what I am in the mirror

43

A Room of Men Ally Lord Stripped of her Wednesday underwear by a man she trusted. Fourteen and penniless.

No one owns things at fourteen.

She prays she doesn’t need an abortion.

To the God that doesn’t believe her.

To the powers that don’t protect her.

To the judgments that proceed her.

He’s the after-school math tutor.

She can’t afford it. To see the looks on their unsorry faces.

Stole mom’s red minivan. Obstruction of access. Two towns out and forty-five minutes away. The only women’s health clinic in Missouri. Her phone buzzes, How was the movie?

Light elevator singing, phones ringing.

Tucked into herself on a hardly cushioned waiting chair she inspects the sterile air. She awaits the results of an exam, unlike the algebra test she took on Tuesday.

A regular Jane Roe. A friendly face in blue scrubs reads her name from a clipboard.

She is not the first of her kind. Classmates, neighbors, teachers.

Ninety percent of victims know their attacker.

What was she wearing? Did she imply consent?

The doctor will see you now.

Clogged.

The production of indentured soldiers and workers, Paused.

She breeds frustration, questioning structure.

Demonstrate the highest form of illegitimate containment.

Now consent is important.

— 44

Ally Lord Sifting through testimony like sand running through hands Carelessly. She doesn’t remember what street the house was on and claims inebriation.

Men are inherently reliable. Beer in hand dub them commendable flag-wavers.

His dapper, navy blue tie splits his white chest in half.

Paper possessions canvas the desk, body draping purposefully over the desk before him. He helps himself to more property than he requires. He grips the corners of the desk with his hands, projecting his body out of his seat to intensify his dispute.

Listen to the way he defends his guiltlessness but leaves his innocence untapped.

Bullets of saliva discharge from his mouth, leaving tiny wet dots on his calendar of blamelessness in a polka dot pattern. He refuses to disclose the amount of liquor he consumed that night because a gentleman never tells.

Her posture tall and professional.

Stiff and uptight.

What is up her spine?

She trembles when she speaks the truth, but no one asks her to repeat for the sake of sensitivity.

She has all the right answers but the answers she has misfiled reveal uncertainty in her recollection.

Uncertainty is invaluable in this room and that man is certain he carries no guilt.

Her motives live beyond fairness and due process because justice does not withstand the passing of time in this room.

She wants to destroy a good man and his reputation in a slimy search for fame.

A terrible time to be a man, the game is rigged. A victim in his own right. A scape goat overnight. He assumed the form of a reputable man of the people.

Make him judge for the people that mirror his image.

Dangle boiling victimhood with no claim over his balding head and he is the face of the new order.

45

A Room of Men Wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers with no likeness to his image do not sit at his table they do not speak in his room.

She can remember the boys laughing at her. Owning the burdens of that night for thirty-six years, she notes her responsibility to the people she owes nothing to.

She sits before them as they challenge her goodness and intent.

Men are inherently good until proven ungood and sometimes even after that.

— Protected by a podium. Pardoned by a presidential seal.

Mockingly he uses the stage to test his latest material. Mimicking “I don’t know” into the microphone for a laugh. At him or with him.

Prick and prod.

Pick a side.

Grab em’ by what they fear most The crowd cheers in agreement. Their laughs affirm his actions.

Like he needed them.

He scoffs in their unsorry faces.

Think of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons.

Men are under attack in America.

46

A Year Without You Lindsey Wilson Measuring a year without you, With eroded cakes of ivory soap, Slipping down the sink’s steep slope, in all the tiny hands washed in its peach basin.

With discarded crust from Bill’s White Bread, In piles gilded Werther’s wrappers, With cotton candy colored aerosols of Aqua-net, In years of Thursday perm appointments.

In unopened cards and unanswered phone calls, As sure as your knees knew the approaching rain, I am sure of your constant presence, You come alive each time my name is spoken.

In your baffling idiosyncrasies stacked meticulously, Against a wall of secrets and fabrications.

Hypocrisy weaved her web within your words, Convincing yourself as you recounted each tale As an Aquarius child in a Virgo’s world, Promisingly analytical, with a twitch of whimsical.

Gold teeth and a twinkle in your eye, That would put jolly Santa to shame.

In a house erect with walls of nostalgia, Adorned with azure bay windows Glistening caerulean, like the pools of your eyes, Brim with unfallen tears.

Beguiled by wistful thoughts, Wrapped up in the loss.

How do you measure the time; Of someone who is gone?

47

Insecurity Rhianna Prine Why does everything hurt so badly?

And I need my storylines again to pretend that it doesn’t?

Or at least pretend it will stop.

I dreamed that you would like the art museum.

And walk hand in hand with me.

You did not like the art museum.

And my rose lotion ground into my neck did not inspire you to kiss me deeply then slowly make love to me.

I did not sleep over.

You got tired at 10:00.

I went home. I cried as I drove.

Life I believe is like a bathbomb.

I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do with it yet everyone else is happily posting about it on Facebook or Instagram or whatever social media site is cool now.

I don’t know.

I’ve never been cool.

In the bathtub, the water fizzed sadly around me.

Again how I’ve let my imagination convince me of grandeur and reality strike me down.

I think I could be a kite if I really wanted to.

But the wind told me I was too heavy to lift.

The clouds laughed when I tried to reach my arms out to greet them thinking if I made myself what the wind loved maybe it would help me fly.

But I’m still on the ground waiting for the day I see what color the sky is when the grey clouds taunt me with their secret.

The water turned purple when the bathbomb disappeared.

Maybe it was symbolic of the strange marks we leave behind.

Maybe it was just red 40 and blue 32.

Maybe life isn’t as magical as I thought it was when I was three and did not know death erases body.

Maybe romance doesn’t mean obvious love and passionate sex.

Maybe art is just accidents hung on walls.

Maybe I just tripped on the keyboard and wanted everyone to make me feel good again

48

earth is no place for me Denae Brown You prefer ironic mom jeans on small petite girls with ironic coke bottle glasses and ironic love for small indie bands playing songs that sound like menthols and long boards and instagram themes I’m more like accidentally tripping on an ant on the sidewalk and falling face first into bubblegum and lollipops made of razor blades.

But cute razor blades, the ones that are marketed to women that are pink and come with rose scented moisture bars and cost twice as much as mens blades because we are twice as valuable, and because they’re pink.

You’re so cool.

You are the secret ingredient to peace and serotonin.

You are the human form of periwinkle sunsets and aliens coming down to abduct me from my anxieties.

What if there’s no more space?

I want to set up camp with my red recliner and my white maltese that needed a haircut 28 days ago.

I want to go to the moon, but not with you men have no place there.

I want to go with my books that have been sitting on my bed unread for months like my diary where I spill what happened that day because nobody’s there to hear me say it out loud I want to go with the color of today that made me feel so bright I want to go with the rusty pen I have in my nightstand that’s waiting for the day that I put it out of its misery and drop it off at the local coffee shop to be used by a hippie that thinks that pen fits with their aesthetic.

I want to be your aesthetic.

I want to be everyone’s aesthetic I want to be thought of as the sunflower that grows in the middle of nowhere that passerbyers see and think “you’re so cool.”

I want to be the one that doesn’t text back because I’m too busy watching Joes complain that they have not yet received their morning cup of coffee while in line for their morning cup of coffee and telling people not to talk to them until they’ve had their morning cup of coffee so quirky of you, Joe. The universe hates me that’s why it made me attracted to men.

49

End of Winter Tori Hawkins End of winter is the best season because everything smells like rain.

Air releases its grip on winter, fog dissipating into space.

The sky takes in big gulps, breathing out sunny days.

Nature is the Fools card, wandering with eyes up, feet tripping over change.

Midnight turns wet ground into glass but by noon, a shifting plane.

Water flowing, all in transit, finding and finding its place.

The fresh air, a smiling traveler, tracing maps into the banks.

Sun reflects against snow, like a hungry Earth raking, fistfuls of dripping light, until all is full, all is glowing.

50

Dragons, Majestic Few S c o t t J. O l s o n Dragons are a majestic few Complex, with a simplistic view Flying high above the clouds Scanning for treasures on their grounds Hoarding gold, jewels, and other gifts Through which their mighty claws could sift Precious metals, from which they make their bed Stacks of coins upon which to lay their head The more its worth, the better it feels To support their back, to pad their heels The more they have, the less they eat Gaining sustenance from the value beneath their feet And when they have enough to support their weight They sleep for many years, in an almost catatonic state Almost oblivious as to what goes on outside their dens Living off the value of their gold and many precious gems Till one day the outgrow the value of their hoard They wake up, hungry and board Taking wing, into the sky they soar Hunting for food – cow, sheep, man, or boar And searching for treasures beyond compare Watching for hunters, always aware Until they mass enough to sleep again Hidden away in their secluded den Because all Dragons from life is this Too sleep forever in valued bliss

51

Making Fun of You William Moore I miss making fun of you And you laughing at me Something truthful in the act Of laughing while we’re mean Honesty’s a virtue that people often miss But truth is best digested when hidden in a diss Some walk around with skin so soft They crumble from critique But you and I were hard as nails From punching where we once were weak At or with, always together Howling at our pain Every time you got me good A mental callus gained I miss making fun with you And you laughing with me I miss painting targets On everything we’d see The world and space were all fair game And we had trained to kill Yes, making fun of life with you Was once my greatest thrill I miss you making fun of me And me laughing at you There seemed to be some jest or joke In everything we’d do I was grumpy You were frumpy I was dumb And you were gross We’d go too far Or laugh too hard And sometimes we’d do both

52

William Moore In all these acts of fun and folly You showed me who I am A laughing, loving, silly, dummy Who’s not good at exams I hope that I had done the same With my prodding and my pokes Steeled a spirit sweet and pure Who always had better jokes That last line hurt me to admit But I know it to be true You taught it making fun of me While I laughed at you

53

54

ARTWORK 55

56

Abbey Miskimen Urban Arachnid Photograph

57

Anna Krylova Fire Muse

Watercolor

58

Anna Krylova Wisdom

Watercolor and Salt

59

Antilica Xiong

Waves

Acrylic Paint on Glass

60

CJ Chiefe

Yellow Happiness

Watercolor and Ink

61

Dana Ponce

Padme Senate Gown replica from Attack of the Clones Replica Movie Costume

62

Emma Karbusicky

Two Swans

Oil Paint and Dorlands Wax 63

Emma Karbusicky Floating

Oil Paint and Dorlands Wax 64

Forrest Clark

View From Above Oil on Canvas

65

Irasema Villarreal Self Portrait

Oil Painting

66

Irasema Villarreal

Jose

Oil Painting 67

Milan Aori

Infinite Day Dream Oil Painting

68

Ellie Froelich Ruins

Ceramic

69

Ellyza Gore Couronne

Soft Pastels, Charcoal, Acrylic

70

Hyunmi Park Unnatural

Oil Painting

71

Hyunmi Park A Happy Flight Oil Painting

72

Jazmine San Juan Intervention

Acrylic Paint, Foil, Glue

73

Maryna Gumenyuk The Antelope Canyon, AZ Mixed Media

74

Rachel Otto Homerun

Colored Pencil on Black Paper

75

Patricia “Raven” Fabal

Raven de Los Muertos Ink and Colored Pencil

76

Tabitha Dahl

Trouble

Acrylics on Canvas 77

Sylvie Tyska

Phases

Oil on Canvas

78

Tran Vo

Secret Garden

Oil Painting

79

Tran Vo

Swan Princess

Oil Painting

80