YWW Anthology 2017 by Young Writers Workshop

Cover art by Katherine Xiong

Contents

Ringo Starr Recently Turned 77

Bring Back Morgan

The Never-Ending Cosmic Struggle Between the Forces of Good and Evil

The Gargoyles

Women Knights of the Round Table

What?

How Are You Doing Today?

2% Milk, 98% Illuminati

<Insert Tannerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Improv> But There Are Only Four of Us

The Gurus

Bounce House

The Tardy, Tiny, Thick-Headed Lizards

Anti

Ringo Starr Recently Turned 77

Ellie Berger

To Look upon the Goblin Men The Goblin Market was miles away from the village of the west wind. Sigrid had never seen the market, but she’d heard many stories and of the many dangers in which goblin men provide. She knew of their twisted hearts and their ragged clothes and their wretched breath. She knew they would bewitch those stupid enough to wander off into the woods alone after the sun had set. Sigrid’s village was a small but beloved place. There the people would sing the songs of the mountain and the moonrise, and they would dance to honor the flowers brought to them by Spring herself. But above all they prayed and prayed to the God of the Winds, Borrum, and the aos sí which were the faery folk who laughed and played in honor of him. Borrum had warned the village long ago of the Goblin Market. He had told them to protect their children from the darkest parts of the forest, and not to wander where the sun did not touch. But time eroded away the warnings of their God, and the people soon grew restless, expanding the village and venturing deep into the wood. The goblins were said to prey on the young girls of a village. But they did not seek out the most beautiful or the most talented and kind. They turned to the girls who lived in the shadows of the most beautiful. The girls who were plain with blotchy faces and stringy hair. The girls who had never been kissed under a summer sun and never knew how it felt to have soft hands caress soft skin. These were the ordinary girls who were told to exist and not to live. The girls who cried and cried because they were so lonely that they would gladly follow goblin men. Sigrid did not know what it meant to truly be alone until she turned 16. Her prince had not come like the fairytales said he would, and no witch had come to cast a spell on her. Instead her days consisted of an endless stream of chores left uninterrupted by romantic gestures or possibilities of great adventure. Older women and prettier women would whisper that she was perfect for goblin men. And hearing those whispers and gossip made that awful loneliness creep up on Sigrid, so much that she found herself drawn to the forest as she had once been as a child. In the forest there would be no one to ridicule her, and no one to pity her for the misfortune of not having a pretty face. The woods were lovely in Sigrid’s eyes. They were an escape from the true treachery she’d had grown so used to, and when she looked up and saw rays of broken sunlight through the treetops she could only smile and laugh and then laugh some more. She did not heed the Wind God’s warning, and she did not think of goblin men. It was late one afternoon when the Erlking was wandering through the woods. The king of all goblins and fae had not left his fortress of carven stone in centuries, and now he walked the earth again, his footsteps light and his heart heavy. But he heard the faint laughter of Sigrid that day, and then saw the streams of tears on the girl's face as the sun faded and the laughter died. He saw her fall to the forest floor and weep, for she was alone and friendless, for no one would dare go near the goblin girl. The Erlking took pity on the young maid and soon made himself known to her. She cried out at his presence, at his beauty and magnificence. And then she stood up as if she wished to run away. “I am the good king, do not be afraid.” He said. Sigrid did not know who the good king was, only that he must be of the fae or of some wicked root. “Please, do not be afraid. All I want is your happiness, is your laughter.” “But you are of the goblin men, the wretched folk who haunt these woods.” The king only shook his head. “I will show you who I am.” And he did, oh how he did. And how beautifully tragic his story was. He was a man who had loved his crooked people and they had turned against him. Rejected their kind hearted king and instead turned to a life of mischief and villainy. Sigrid understood his pain and she was no longer afraid of the good king. She told him how she was the goblin girl, doomed to be taken away by his people. The king smiled at the plain face which was turned beautiful and wonderful in his eyes. And somehow the villagers had been right all along. The unwanted, unloved Sigrid had been taken by goblin men--one goblin man. The Goblin King.

Paige Rolen After practicing lines for my upcoming play, I leave my room and go into the living room. It is a typical Friday night at the Rolen house. My brother, sister, and dad are all seated on the couch, watching as my brother plays a game on his new Play Station. “Can we please play Spider-man 2? I love that game!” I ask, cheerfully. “ Fine” he says, slightly annoyed. I take my rightful place on the couch, and clap my hands excitedly. I am 11 years old, and I have recently begun my obsession with the character. As he starts to play, my brother holds a button down that makes Spider-man continue to beat up someone, even after their dead. The animated figure going up and down repeatedly makes us all laugh, “ Ha take that dead guy” he says. We find entertainment in the little offhand comments, such as “ You’re the man spidey!”, “ Aye watch it!”, and “ Superheroes, think they own the place”. My dad narrates the game, making fun of the appearances of the extras. “ Well fine, I didn’t feel like saving your ass anyways” he says. My little sister continuously insults my brother, telling him that he’s horrible at the game and should stop trying. We let her do this, because she has yet to understand the principle of irony or that he was doing badly on purpose. While this is just a simple moment, my heart is filled with happiness. In the middle of all the sadness and sudden changes that come with a divorce, you look for even the smallest things that can bring joy into your life. And once you find these things, you never want to let them go. At the time, I didn’t know I would have to let it go in just one short year. I didn’t know that we would move in with my dads new wife, making him much too busy for us. That’s the thing about change: it always comes when you least expect it. It swoops in like a tornado, destroying everything familiar to you in it’s path. I often find myself wishing that there was a way to know your in “ the good ol’ days” before you leave them, that way they would feel complete. I often find myself realizing that you wouldn’t believe it if you were. I am now 17 years old, and throughout the years, I have had many Spider-Man 2’s enter and leave my life. They all left a mark, each uniquely beautiful. For every moment there is a memory, and for every memory, a source of comfort can be found. People, and circumstances change; memories don’t. They stay in your heart, reminding you during times of sorrow of the happiness you are capable of feeling.

Emefa Dzivenu Seer Behind her, through the window, the moonlight continues to droop and kiss the cobblestone. She used to know my quiet pain. She used to crouch with the sun and moon in her hands. She used to. Now she wanders listlessly around my apartment, the floor is scattered with eggshells, and she is walking on them, and she is humming the tune to a song that I have forgotten the words to. She says that she wants to play this song at the wedding. Her and her fiancé, Ben, are obsessed with Bocelli. His thick, creamy Italian voice. It’s just stunning. These days all of my sister’s sentences have the tendency to begin with “Ben and I”. My sister, Eva, with her laughing, green eyes. My sister, Eva, beautiful and disillusioned. My sister, Eva, with her rosy lips that quiver delicately on the precipice of adulthood. My sister, Eva, who sees the future, or so she claims. When she met Ben for the first time, she told him everything he wanted to know. For fifteen minutes, she shuffled and re-shuffled her tarot cards, and proceeded to whisper promises of happiness, of wealth, of a future filled with hope, into his ears. She held his hands and looked into his eyes, and she knew who he was and who he could be. She saw everything. She asks me if she can read me as she smiles tightly into her coffee, and I decline, like I always do. She shakes her head, running her fingers through her long, strawberry blonde hair, and I turn to face the window, counting down the seconds until she will inevitably ask again and again. Eva wants to look through me. Eva is desperate to see what I don’t want to know. Sure enough she begs me, saying she needs the practice for a reading later today, and I reluctantly turn back to her and sit down. She puts her thin hands in mine. She tells me she sees change in my life, imminent change. She furrows her brows and her eyes glaze over. She says she sees me in a white dress, crying and laughing at the same time. She sees me holding a small child, with milky skin and a face full of dreams. I look behind her and can still see the drooping moonlight. My sister, Eva, tells people what they want to know. They look into her eyes and they know the truth. They look to her for the promise of a new life in which they can begin again. My sister, Eva, is a liar. And, yet, in a few hours someone will drive to her office on the outskirts of town. They will wait patiently in the lounge until she says, “Next, please,” pulling back the booth’s thick, tawny draperies to reveal herself. And they will sit in front of her, gaze into her wan face and say, “Eva, what do you see tonight?”

Eva-Grace Guthertz Life I once ran. My body flew. Almost. I wasn’t scared. A rare occurrence. I remembered birds. I flew. I wished. Mom saw. She was proud. Almost. I fell. She got scared. Sometimes she falls. I get scared. I consciously walk. Scared of falling. But no freedom? Heartbeat was still. Missed the tightness. Missed not breathing. Not sure why. I understand now. Maybe. I am anxious. This is hard. Saying this is. I am Eva. I am anxious. Sometimes I panic. Chest pains. Lightheadedness. Throwup. I can’t breathe. This is different. Not breathing. This is different. I miss running. Out of shape. Instead I panic. I call mom. She talks. I listen. I’m learning. This is difficult. This is me. Longing for freedom. Anxious of it. Panic in response. It makes sense. My own juxtaposition. My own irony. Can’t be everything. I heard this. I am everything. I am sad. I am mad. Sometimes mad. Sometimes happy. Mostly quiet. Occasionally loud. Occasionally funny. Selectively serious. I am cowardly. Can be confident. Am slow. Am fast. Fast at heart. Maybe. I am shy. I’m not shy. I laugh. Maybe I cry. Maybe I don’t. I laugh tears. Cries from laughter. Often. I am surprised. You are surprised. Surprise! Now. I am running. I am flying. I am understanding. I see birds. They fly below. They fly above. We fly together. Everyone sees. This scares me. That is okay. This is okay. I don’t fall. Not once. I smile. This is strange. I enjoy it. I am proud. Not for once. I am proud. I breathe. I don’t breathe. Same thing. Now it is.

Nora Moran Man Drives Away

Kathryn Smith Salem Witch Trials

Bring Back Morgan

Nathaniel Bowman Name Sake It is not uncommon for someone to change their name. They change it for marriage, or religion. Some people change their name for legal reasons, or maybe they’re just tired of their name. Everybody has that choice. What if somebody asked you to change your name for their sake? What if a family member asked you to change your name for their sake. What if a family member asked you to change your identity, not for their sake, but for everyone else's sake. For as long as I can remember my family has been super religious, and my name has never been a problem before. It wasn’t until the age of 10 that I found out that my dad wasn’t my biological dad, and that I was born out of wedlock. At the age of 12, you can understand that it took me by surprise. That car ride, on our way back from my grandparents’ house, my mom asked me to make an impossible choice. A choice that should not have been put on the shoulders of a preteen. For a brief moment it felt like those shoulder’s were holding up the sky. My mom asked me to choose my name. It had never occurred to me before that my last name put a target on my mom’s head; especially since it was her maiden name, after all. However, to my mother, it was like bearing a stain on her otherwise pristine social standing. So yes, it took me by surprise when my mom suggested I take my step-dad’s last name. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against my step-dad. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, my step-dad is my real dad. He has been for most of my life.The name I bear, however, is mine. My name, my identity, is a story in itself. I’ve never felt like a Dickerson; I’m a fullfledged Bowman. My mom wasn’t surprised when I inevitably chose to keep my story. My mom wasn’t mad by my choice, but instead, proud. In the end I will always be Nathaniel Bowman, and he’s got one hell of a story.

Ryan Chuang

I’d been attending St. Bernard’s, the tiny preppy English school on the Upper East Side, for as long as I could remember. Almost every day, I’d faithfully taken the bus across the park. When I got to the stop, at rush hour, it was always overflowing with passengers. A crowd would form, with each individual guessing where along the curb the bus would stop and forcing themselves to the front in typical New York fashion. More experienced passengers had built up a sixth sense for predicting the location, and would manipulate the crowds like a shepherd in a flock of sheep, and would always end up standing at the head of the crowd when the bus’s doors opened. But for us regular passengers, different people had different strategies. Some would wait back, eyes peeled for an opening, then dart through the raucous crowd nimbly. Some, new to the art of bus boarding, would hang back in politeness, waiting their turn. They always missed the bus. Some would thrust themselves into the crowd trying to propel themselves forcefully to the front of the street. On the day, that was me. He’d been homeless most of his life, but he moved around. He’d spent time on the Upper East Side, in Tribeca, and even in Brooklyn Heights. He’d visit each location, stay until he built up a cast of a few regular donors who dropped him change on the way to work or to home or to school, then he’d leave abruptly out of boredom or curiosity or something else. No one really knew why he left, not even himself. Wherever he traveled, he always looked the same; he wore the same family heirloom tweed jacket two or three sizes too big for his malnourished frame; he carried the same rusted Staples shopping cart he once stole during a Black Friday rush; he wore the same shoes, the tattered brown ones with holes in the toes and heels, no matter the temperature. On the day, he blended in easily to the background of the city.

Tom Guan Batcave

Eric Dunham from recovery let my body be a bullet marred with scars of broken pasts and hearts yearned for and fractured. let me hurt others for when i am left alone i am my only target let my songs be heard as i sink like sullen dreams deflated by the nails of time— let my voice be the soft rains of summer warm on the skin and leaving the humid stench of my memories in the air let me touch the clouds and make a bed for my own in them let me use the wispy curls of smoke as my blanket but don’t let me know the difference between bombs and storms

Sirens Through the curtains the combined glow of the streetlight and the moonlight shone. This cast a shadow of the willow tree through Gray’s window. There were little flecks of light and darkness sprinkled over his sleeping body where the leaves were and weren’t, the shadows another blanket to comfort him in the night. To comfort his slumber.

Hudson Campbell

Your flavors so succulent, so delicious, I try to savor you, but I can’t- no I won’t. Eat two, three, maybe even four slices at once, Stacked on top, like a sandwich of cheese. They say you’re all cheddar, And that you taste like sawdust. They are all wrong, so wrong, You are a gift from above, Sent down on wings of light. Eat you all up, give my friends a fright. Better than memes, and more nutritious too, Got cheese, tomato, and peperoni too. And crusts, yeah you got em, Damn they hella

T H I C C.

Could eat all day till I’m sick Now if you know me you know what this ballads about In 3 2 1 let me hear you shout! 3 2 1 Pizza!

Qinyi Ma An Apology I think my worst fear is having my parents’ last words to me be “I’m sorry”. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be as swift and unflinching as koi swimming in a pond to be as iridescent as when the sunlight streams through the waters and illuminates the hues of red and tangerine to know when to strike to know when to recoil but I cannot. I once aspired to be forgiving then I dreamed of hurting all those who had hurt me I once told God, in confidence, that I would lift the weight of His word and press it like a locket against my lips Like how He bequeathed me life, He would grant me meaning I told Him that my darkest thoughts were his if he wanted it— I didn’t hear an answer. a Chinese quotation is blazoned in a painting in my childhood home: 望⼦成龙，望⼥成凤 expectations of one’s son to become a dragon expectations of one’s daughter to become a phoenix your daughter is no phoenix her tail is bludgeoned with compliancy her feathers, typically instruments to distort planets, propel her toward disaster she is no puppeteer—she lives by not wrenching off the strings extending from the high heavens that lift and slack on her wrists So, mother and father, don’t say “I’m sorry” as I’m gripping your hands tighter than I have in a while wiping away slivers of tears that become entrapped in the folds of your wrinkles you know your little girl is not as brave and indignant as you were she has spent her life following wavering hearts and uncertain tracks it is my apology to you, God, my children, and myself that is long overdue.

Ariel Rockman Burnt Rice “Is something burning?” he asked, inching his nose up so he looked like a weasel and sniffing the air so that I had to exert a commendable amount of self-control to stop myself from breaking out in laughter. He sniffed again–for dramatic effect? – and my face flushed in embarrassment as I pictured my charcoal garlic chicken, and the word rude flashed in my mind, but I argued that maybe he thought there might be a fire and was just concerned for my safety. “Everything’s fine,” I said. “Do you want anything to drink?” The bottle of wine sat ready on the table–the French kind that I suspected a man who gazed at the moon would like. “I don’t drink,” he said, and I tried to ignore the condescending tone of his voice. “I also don’t eat meat either, in case you made any.” The blood drained from my my face, and I wanted nothing more than to run into the kitchen and hide the bottle of wine and dump the garlic-saturated chicken in the garbage. But now this meant that I had nothing else for him but soggy vegetables and burnt rice. “I didn’t know,” I murmured, walking towards the kitchen and hearing his heavy footsteps follow. “Thanks for making the food,” he said, and for the first time I was bored. Online we’d talk about the strangest things–coffee made from lemur excrement and what the end of the world would look like–and now he only seemed to know small talk. I found myself not wanting to gaze at the sky with this man–this stranger. He hovered by the table, eyeing the food, and looked up at the ceiling. “What band is that?” he asked, wincing as as anguished scream cut through the air. I froze, hearing the shouts of Pierce the Veil from my “Hard Core” playlist. I swore in my head–I’d forgotten to turn them off. How stupid of me! He winced at the next lyrics, and I studied the tiled floor. One square seemed bigger than the others. “Not your thing?” I finally said after the chorus line. “I like smooth jazz.” “Oh.” And we lapsed into silence. He looked at me, and then the floor, and made a face at the charred rice heaped in a bowl. I sat down and he did the same. We stared at each other, and he choked on the burnt rice; coughs raked their way through his throat and I could only stare as he spat out a chuck of chewed rice back onto his plate. It was soggy and mushy, like rotten glue. He sipped his water unapologetically, and the intense guitar solo from my speakers did nothing to make the silence any less awkward. Screamed poetry sliced its way through the air and Mr. Dreamy Eyes frowned, no doubt playing whatever the hell smooth jazz was in his head. “I could turn it off…” “No, it’s fine.” Silence. Maybe Sophia was right–maybe he was an axe murder and planned to chop me up after dessert. The clock ticked down the seconds until he would leave, and as minutes passed without him saying a word, I finally put down my fork with an echo of metal. “Is something wrong?” I demanded. “I know the rice is burned, but I tried my best.” “You weren’t who I was expecting,” he said, pushing his chewed rice around with his fork. “On your profile you looked…well, you seemed fun.” I widened my eyes at him. His voice was matter of fact, not even disappointed. It offended me– had he been disappointed it would at least mean he cared. “And this isn’t fun?” I asked, crossing my arms and letting my French wine drinking stargazer turn to dust. He looked at me, his eyes cold. “I think this was a mistake.”

Molly Goodman Empty Nest

Bob and I get home around three hours later – rush hour held us up. When we enter the house, I’m almost stunned by the sheer silence that fills the space around us. No Ivy running up to us to give us a hug. No explicit music that reverberates throughout the house when Ivy listens to her music without earbuds, when she thinks she’s far enough away that we can’t hear it well. No cheerful guitar music that drifts from her room like harp music played by an angel. No loud laughter or loud TV blaring The Office. I sit on the couch quietly, not quite knowing what to do with myself. Bob is the same – he slips into his office and occupies himself with a project that’s due soon. Having nothing else to do, I go upstairs, get the book I stole from Ivy’s room – she had read it before her accident, so she didn’t take it with her to Virginia Tech – go back downstairs, and sit on the couch and begin to read from the point where I left off. Reading the book now is infinitely easier, though my heartstrings still pull a bit whenever I read Ivy’s name. I finish one chapter, and then another. Before I know it, I’ve finished, and I have no choice but to go back upstairs and return it to Ivy’s bedroom. I open her door with reservation. The room is the same as it always looks, just without spirit or life of any kind; memory is all that’s left. Putting the book back on the shelf, I sit softly on her bed and gaze out her bedroom windows. The last of the sun’s rays stream through them, painting the room with entrancing shadows. Ivy’s windows both face west, so every night she can see the sunset from her room. I wonder if she ever watched the sunset.

Dori Newman Guarded The wall at Lydia’s favorite art park was constantly graffitied and graffitied over again. The wall, littered with marks of youth, was beautiful and detailed and revealed imaginations of those who exposed them there. Inside a gated fence was a small swamp. The flowers were cheesy but somehow this little swamp and all the graffiti ironically reappropriated the plastic flowers with green lightbulbs in the center. The summer sun glazed the plastic flowers and the square swamp in a thick layer of heat and sweat. Some fake moss grew against the wall with every leaf’s intention of stopping at the same height. The watchdog of the swamp garden cocked his head only very slightly. It was only noticeable if it was pointed out. The dog’s metallic coat reflected a white light. The decadent graffiti, every nuance of it, stopped when it reached the gated swamp garden. No one cared to climb this fence, which is saying something because graffiti artists climb great distances and break down obstacles to display their thoughts to those who pass by. Who would bring their kids here? Thought Lydia as she pushed the stroller that had so much padding it enveloped her child. There was an area near the square swamp garden where a collection of children's toys resided. There was a miniature plastic pink bicycle with large training wheels among other toys that had wheels and colors and made sounds. If there ever were toys to carry diseases, these would be those toys. The toys had cobwebs scattered generously among discolored stains that concerned Lydia, but not enough to tell her daughter not to touch them. She had an off brand hand sanitizer in her bag. Celia’s dirty blonde pigtails bounced as she toddled back and forth. Lydia fished a previously lit cigarette out of her front left pocket. She gently held the cigarette between her thumb and pointer finger, bringing it closer and farther to her squinting eyes. Finally, she re-lit the butt and stood facing the wind so that the smoke would blow in the opposite direction of her baby girl. After inspecting all the nails she had on her hands and maimed the cuticles she had left. She put her cigarette out and enclosed the butt in a clear plastic bag that was already home to two others she had smoked in the past week. Lydia didn’t have an addiction, she had a pastime. The flowers swayed in the wind, the guard dog watched silently and Lydia decided it was time to go. She picked up Celia by the armpits and placed her in the over protective stroller. They arrived home promptly, though the duo was never in a rush. Jeff Buckley on vinyl was still playing since they had left. The house was never completely clean or completely dirty. Celia never made too much of a mess unless she was in one of her moods. Lydia never made too much of a mess unless she was in one of her moods. They sat down on the floor facing each other, both of them had their legs sprawled out. Celia smiled as some drool burst from her mouth with a giggle. Her mother looked her up and down with a straight face and a tear made its way from one eye. Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Baylina Pu The Beginning The beginning of everything, so they say, was not an explosion. It could have been quiet, perhaps, black matter expanding like bread in the oven. Or, maybe the world came screaming and crying out of its warm womb. Perhaps the mother was thrilled—“Look, honey, it’s a—” as the father grumbled about all the insurance and the hospital bills and whatnot, though secretly he was pleased. Maybe the universe was built by a group of small children playing marbles, flicking particles till some collided or knocked the others out “I got the red one!” “No, you cheated, that’s not fair! You barely got it out of the circle—” and on and on, till they grew tired and let the marbles sit by themselves for a while. Others believe that a clumsy painter was responsible for spilling all her paint and causing a mess of blotches and spiderweb galaxies, too many for anyone to clean up for at least a few million or billion years. My atoms were scattered somewhere in this void, shaking and shivering in anticipation for some cosmic miracle, for something to be part of, like some overexcited toddler ready to grow up into a firefighter, or a mailman, or an artist. The child would come home skipping, making sure to avoid the cracks in the sidewalk (and/or the time-space continuum), and show his mother the picture he drew, which could have been anything or everything or nothing all at once. And perhaps she would smile and kiss his cheek, and wipe her brow as she stuck his creation on the fridge with the magnet shaped like a cat, and watch the bread rise.

Elise Schumacher The Immolation (excerpt)

Girl knelt upon her knees, High above the wanton world below. She had climbed black cliffs before the seas, Reaching the edge she now looked out. The air with glaring force beat into her body, Revealing a nearly deathly interposition. She watched as the waves crashed noisily, The rocks seeming to reel beneath them To a glorious and frightening degree, And in turn casting off their shadows To replace them with the grey cape of the sea. Farther, farther, farther she bowed, Until her head was just above the crest Of the yawning black rocks below: A net of circuitous decay And nothingness; And her face slickened with the spray. She had uncovered a longing to become A part of the air itself Beginning to sway, She grappled with anguish, reeling, alone In the face of her prolonged weakness. In a moment, death was stunning and close; The next, she was more alive, not less, Perhaps than she had ever been before. And she raised her arms To the frowning skies, And hurled herself In her mind’s-eye From those black, starving cliffs Into the waters below; But sorrow’s grim, great fist Had not yet overcome her. What do you want? she cried, And laughed as the air turned her shout into Nothing but a sigh. And then she was lost – Lost to nothing, Becoming nothing, seeing nothing But the dreadful heaving of the sea and sky.

She loved it, and hated it, and felt nothing for it But a tangent thirst for freedom, Which she could receive if in the next moment Some courage she could summon To fling herself from these cliffs, And so enter into the blackness. To be gripped by the beauty of the world: It was not easy when she saw it so clearly – Not as a tattered hope, But as a twinkling belief which all too readily Pressed against her troubled heart. It was now, on this grizzled January night, That she stood on the brink of despair, Gazing down from the ebony heights, Her own black rocks of disrepair Already playing with her fallen mind. And she so sojourned to slip under – To become the darkness, To feast with it on the hearts Of poor empty-eyed souls like her. What would they taste like, Those worthless shadows? And what would it be like, Becoming the nothingness That was her own haunting?

The Gargoyles

Ellie Berenson Almond Blossoms I’m sorry Sydney, I can’t hang out this month Busy conquering the second booth in a smoky coffee shop Order your regular, let bitter hang itself in my mouth Order a cab like a calculator function ‘Cause I can’t brake in my car anymore You’ve gone and left your almond blossoms My unfinished, gloss-less sun The gods are angry with me for ruining tomorrow’s fantasy So I’ll kill someone and live for both of us Walk through 6 lanes of traffic, my revenge complex On your dangerous, extinct word You told me some bitch painted your guitar last week And I gotta find her car You’re an effigy, a flag over 66 You do nothing but fuck up the school’s turnover rates I’ll stuff you in a me-shaped box And your 3 AM hold-me-heres Are echoes of anchors in the moonlight You’ve gone and left your almond blossoms My unfinished, gloss-less sun The gods are angry with me for ruining tomorrow’s fantasy So I’ll kill someone and live for both of us And I want to drive to your father’s house And light a candle to his son The thunder screams a name This damn coffee is its whipping cane I want to drive to your father’s house And burn a candle on your skin Explode from within You die with almond blossoms Mother’s unfinished, gloss-less son Goddamn lonely fantasy Broken car coffee And I’ll kill someone and live for both of us.

Bridget Coulter Taste Test Sheryl used to miss having a mouth. She missed having flesh in general, but there were so many things to miss when you were a skeleton and the mouth was the thing that bothered her the most. She was a baker, after all, and mouths are to bakers as fingers are to pianists. What was the point in making pastries if she could never taste them? What was the point in making warm, rich caramel brownies if the warmth fell on numb bone, and more importantly, if the brownie itself fell straight through her jaw and onto the floor? That’s how she used to feel. Nowadays, she had a new reason to bake. Sheryl leaned forward, shoulders bunched up against her skull. “How’s this one?” She watched, rapt, as Joanna took the cupcake from her hands and bit into it. Joanna hummed, swallowed the cupcake, then smiled. “It’s good! You were right, the grapefruit makes it so much better.” They were sitting on Sheryl’s couch. In front of them, on the coffee table, sat a small tray peppered with mini cupcakes. Or, it used to be; now it was all empty wrappers, the cupcakes having been enjoyed and commented on. It had taken a while to coax Joanna into actually giving critiques. In the beginning, she’d just been happy for the free dessert, and couldn’t come up with anything other than “it’s so good!” By now, through exposure and a long series of teachable moments, Joanna’s palate was almost as sophisticated as Sheryl’s used to be. Joanna finished licking all the crumbs off the wrapper and turned to Sheryl. She had a little icing on her lip. Sheryl knew what that meant in movies. This was her chance to lean in and taste the icing off her in a thin excuse for a kiss. She almost moved in, then froze up, a phantom blush in her cheeks. Joanna raised her eyebrow. “What’s up?” “Nothing, nothing, I was just, um…” Joanna looked Sheryl up and down. Considering. Then she leaned in. Soft lips fell on hard teeth and stayed there. Two seconds later, Joanna opened her eyes. Sheryl leapt away. Suddenly she really missed having a mouth. “OhmygodI’msosorry that was so weird wasn’t it I’m so sorry-” “No! No no no, hey, it’s not you, I was just surprised! I don’t know what I expected anyway.” Joanna laughed. “Hey, c’mon, c’mere.” She took Sheryl’s cheek in her hands. She stroked her jawbone as if it were soft flesh, and kissed her again. She didn’t recoil. She didn’t dance awkwardly around the mouth situation. She just kissed, and it felt strange to have lips moving over Sheryl’s teeth but it felt right. And while she couldn’t taste cupcakes anymore, she could swear Joanna’s lip was sweet like icing.

Josh Garay Honey Maudine You purchased your misery from a man with two green eyes and no shoes. He told you that what he sold could be found nowhere else in the world, and the way he cracked his knuckles made you believe him. You purchased your misery for seven dimes and a coin you found on the street in Venice, but you considered it to be a worthwhile purchase. The misery came in a package wrapped in new parchment paper. You never liked the way that new parchment paper smelled. Old parchment paper was just fine, but the new stuff made you uncomfortable because of the way it didn’t smell like parchment paper anymore. There were stamps on the package from cities you didn’t know, and the address on the package read Miss Annabeth Lee, 3151 Mare Lane. There was no state or zip code. This was not your name, nor your street number. When you got home, you found your cat had hung herself from the ceiling fan with the yarn you used to make sweaters you never wore. You wondered if she did this because she was unhappy. You wondered if you should have brought her with you when you purchased your misery. You untied her and put her in a box and put the box in your oven, hoping that the warmth would bring her back to life. You put your misery on the kitchen table and sat down to stare at it. Outside, a crow flew into your window and broke its neck. You untied the string surrounding the package of misery and folded back there parchment paper. The box itself read amazon prime with the blue arrow logo. You thought this was fitting. The address printed on the amazon prime box was written in a language you didn’t know and couldn’t physically look at. The man with two green eyes and no shoes had told you not to open the box, and you followed this instruction because when he said this, his third, brown eye blinked at you, and this made you believe everything he said. You stood up from the table and looked up to find that your ceiling fan had also hung itself with the yarn you used to make sweaters you never wore. This was upsetting. Your apartment didn’t have air conditioning. Now you would have to find a different fan, preferably one less prone to spontaneous decisions to kill itself. You checked on your cat to find that she was still very dead. Perhaps putting her in the oven was the wrong choice. You sighed and made yourself a bowl of lukewarm Chef Boyardee ravioli. You drank this with a glass of vodka.

Madison Jennings Someone's Little Sister It was the first and last time I saw her. I couldn’t believe that the callous streets of New York City had produced something so lovely. From the way she was dressed, she might have been important. She was definitely someone’s daughter, probably someone’s little sister too. Her dark locks, like threads spun from the midnight sky, fell to her neck, what was left of it anyway. They suited her ghostly face beautifully. Her eyes were what caught me. Smokey and large and so very blue. Bluer than any sky or sea. It was a shame she was dead. She’d probably been for a while. There was no visible evidence. No dark figure, no weapons, no footprints. Just another naive beauty who got her heart ripped out. I let out an irritated sigh, and checked my watch. It was way too early for this shit. I crushed my cigarette and kept walking. Some other fool out late would call the cops. That or the woman would come as a nice surprise to an early rising business man. Someone else would help her. Maybe she had been everything good humanity had to offer. Maybe she was a bitch to the wrong people. Or maybe she was just a stupid little girl with a dream she couldn’t handle. It didn’t really matter. She was someone’s love, someone’s daughter, someone’s friend, someone’s little sister. I’m sure she meant something to somebody, somewhere. But it wasn’t any of my business. Now she’s just another hole in the ground.

Caroline Robertson A Guide to Empty Water Bottles You drop a cigarette bud to the ground Of the parking lot of the school you dropped out from Last week, your addiction was shitty beer But you’re a cool girl now You’re better than that, you’ve upgraded You say you’re different every day But you’re the same, you’re the same Just with a new way to cope with being Human, human You’re a quitter So why don’t you just quit me? I’m off kilter So don’t let me throw off your balance And I know that you’re trying your best to see me as good enough But I am in passive voice And you are an active verb So quit me Your words were a drumset And I was the cymbal crash But you gave up on drums three months ago So now they just sit in the basement of your parents’ house Dusty like your weathered eyes You say you’re learning every day But you don’t change, you don’t change Just find something new To give up on, you give up on You’re a quitter So why don’t you just quit me? I’m off kilter So don’t let me throw off your balance And I know that you’re trying your best to see me as good enough But I am in passive voice And you are an active verb So quit me I’m a disease, throw me to the grow I am blue hair, you will throw me out I am your homework just throw me away Who cares what other people will say I am the star on the guitar you broke Just take me off and give up hope You’re a quitter So why don’t you just quit me? I’m off kilter So don’t let me throw off your balance And I know that you’re trying your best to see me as good enough But I am in passive voice And you are an active verb So quit me

Erin Shaheen MONTAGE: Like She Owns the World [FADE IN: A yellow painted bedroom, ROSE sleeps in old t-shirts. Morning sun streams through the window. LUCA ducks his head through the doorframe, offering a cup of coffee. CUT TO: Pants and a blouse, red lipstick and heels, Rose striding confident the way she used to run. She knows how to fix the world and perhaps someday she will. CUT TO: The front of a whitewashed church with dark bones, the scent of incense and old candles. Mass on Sundays, ten AM she's never late. CUT TO: Dinners with AIDEN, older now, but her smile is the same, less rare but always bright. Aiden makes chicken the way Nan used to, and Rose brings ice cream for dessert. They get drunk on wine and memories. CUT TO: Aiden again, but urgent, serious. The interior of a police station, where she spent too much time as a kid. Dark pants and boots, and her grandmother's wedding ring. Red yarn spirals across the wall, her cousin's picture at the center. He's older now, freckles slashed with scars, but still NIKOLAI still quick moving and ready to help. She feels sick. CUT TO: A hundred dozen missed calls, from cell phones and pay phones and desperate desperate Facebook searches and Instagram until she catches a photo on someone's social media, where a girl sits in the background, smiling at somethings she cannot see. Rose wants to cry but she doesn't, she checks the address and grabs the bag, driving overnight to New York. CUT TO: Rose in her shitty car, she leaves a message for Aiden, telling her what's going on telling her to lie to tell Luca it's a family emergency she's be back in a few weeks, tell him she loves him tell him she's sorry. She doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come back.]

Blue Westover The Symptoms of Regret I was ugly. My hair was too shabby, my arms were too skinny, my skin too white from spending endless nights alone with my computer, and my socks were dirty because I've been wearing them since the washing machine broke. From the back of the church, I could see his mother crying. Her dress was white, unlike the rest of his family, who were all wearing black. I remembered him telling me that she always had to be the center of attention, no matter what, under any and all circumstances, all eyes had to be on her. He had the face and a voice like the ones you would see in the movies. He did not necessarily have the potential to be the main character; the star of the show, but he was more like the main characterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best friend, the one that everyone wishes was the main character, but the scripters fucked up and had to make it that asshole that no one liked...the one that ends up with that petty bitch that everyone was praying for them to kill off. I would consider myself to be that petty bitch, but the dirt under my fingernails, the dried saliva on my sweatshirt from the countless times I've fallen asleep in class, and the bags under my eyes, instead of in my hands, told me otherwise. I wasn't worthy of Cash, he was too good for me even after he got sick. I knew it, his mother, Jamie knew it, and I think that he would have too if he had known his own worth. I wasn't invited to the funeral, I sort of just showed up. It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter how much I hated myself, or how much I knew that Cash genuinely was too good for me...I knew that he would have wanted me there. It was insensitive of me to leave his funeral early, but I couldn't take it anymore. All I could feel was regret, and I was tired. All I wanted to do was sleep, so I went home and I layed my head down on the pillow that I took from Cashâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s room. I kissed the ghost of him goodnight, let him know that I loved him, and I held onto him a little tighter, because it was not time to let him go.

Grace Zander Boiling Water She’d probably say she’s the silence in New York She’d probably say She’d probably say She’d probably say she’s the crack in the tile floor Then walk away She never stays That cigarette butt That damn cigarette butt Put it out x2 This is what I know to be true She looks like the skyline with the sun coming through She tastes like butterscotch and dragonfruit And she sounds like boiling water and feels like it too She’s got her toes in the soot and her eyes on the rust But she likes it that way She likes it She’s got a t-shirt on of a band she’s never heard of She’s so fake That cigarette butt The goddamn cigarette butt Put it out x2 Please This is what I know to be true She looks like the skyline with the sun coming through She tastes like butterscotch and dragonfruit And she sounds like boiling water and feels like it too She sounds like boiling water and feels like it too You are the lights in the city You are every food I’ve never eaten You are the crack in the tile floor that can’t go unnoticed How do you not know this You are the moon in the morning You are the sun at night You are what the world never prepared me for You are the skyline coming with the sun coming through You’re so sick and tired of the truth You are butterscotch and dragonfruit, and You sound like boiling water and feel like it too

Joyce Zhang ribs | after things like this pass by so quickly

one stroke on swing grass, hazel-rimmed

after summer brandishes its last copper whip, the sting crumbling zest,

the taste water

my mouth rum. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m soaped on

meadows and airplane blinks, perched on hills so far away, mesh-coated in memory

twice crafted, sliding on asphalt, sapphire

wings, feet, my broken pieces; there is so much love in trying to hold the nimble sliver of night, trickling

down marrow, bones that have

felt so much but have done so little; these fickle minds shed forgetful snake skins

three stones congregating, conversing

in scales, traveling up tubular streams, attached to it all: the buzz, infatuation of parlor

synth snaps. I want to be a part of

this/chastened/chatter/chaos/consumes/soon.

Women Knights of the

Round Table

Abby Comey At first, I convinced myself that Kyle was out running errands. Maybe he was getting extra hand soap. After all, there would be twice as many hands using up soap in his apartment now. Then, growing more frantic, I thought maybe somebody had gotten into a terrible accident. Maybe his great aunt had taken a tumble at the annual family wiffle ball game and he was just dropping her off at the hospital before coming to greet me. Maybe he would even bring me a pudding cup. He wouldn’t bring chocolate, because he knows that I hate chocolate. He would probably bring vanilla, or maybe butterscotch. It didn’t matter to me, as long as it wasn’t chocolate. But then it grew dark in the city and the hallway outside Apartment 24 had lights that flickered and you half expected a little girl with rotting flesh and an eyeless teddy bear to come crawling out of the garbage shoot. The little girl never came, but neither did Kyle. I thought about sleeping in the hallway or maybe on a bench somewhere. Maybe being axemurdered in a strange American city was preferable to calling her. It wasn’t though, and I knew that after four hours of waiting, I had to call. I knew after two hours, really, but I was trying my best to remain optimistic. I found a payphone. It smelled of sewage and had gum stuck to one end of the receiver. I paid and picked it up. I dialed the first number. It was a four. I thought of the four stems of lavender in my coat pocket, making me smell more and more like a Bath and Body Works with each passing moment. I dialed the next number. It was a two. I thought of the two of us saying goodbye and her telling me, with a sad smile, that she never wanted to see me again. That it would be better for the both of us. That she still loved me, really she did, but that she couldn’t take my unpredictability anymore. Because I didn’t fit neatly into the rows of her cabbage garden. The next number was a three. I thought of waking up at 3am to burn her picture and then changing my mind, quickly smothering the flame with a head of cabbage. I thought of how I ate the cabbage the next day anyway. I thought of how I wished I could’ve had the courage to eat the picture too. I finished dialing and she answered after the fifth ring, sounding tired, sounding like home to me in the very worst way.

Rachel Halpern I stood towards the middle of the subway cart, one hand gripping the metal pole, and the other my phone. People swarmed in and out at every stop. Tired, glazed eyes looked down or at the wall. Most travelers hovered close to the entrances, ready to jump off as soon as the doors opened. Those who were in for a longer ride were situated in a seat; heads down, earbuds in, world out. Although it would be another ten stops or so before my departure, I found that I preferred to stand— more times than not when I ride the subway I end up giving up my seat anyway. An older man sat in front of me, hands folded in his lap and eyes sat straight ahead. He wore a faded green t-shirt and teared jeans. The subway stopped at 34th and 7th. I watched the doors open, watched the hovering travelers scramble off, and watched a flood of people rush in. Among those people were two men who immediately situated themselves in the center of the subway cart. They carried with them a large black trunk in which they pulled out two electric guitars and an amp. People started to notice the two men, staring at their grey sweatshirts, navy hoodies and sagging jeans. Spouses whispered to each other and children held on to their parent’s hand. My mom looked at me and shrugged, smiling. “Aight everyone my name is Matthew and this is my man Dave.” The man in the grey sweatshirt began, tucking his dreads under a tight black cap. He gestured to his friend in the navy hoodie, Dave, who raised his hand. “What up.” “So we’re gonna sing for you all on this fine Tuesday night. You can get off and come back on another cart, or you can sit and listen. I guess you gon’ have to listen for a little until the next stop.” Dave laughed and the subway rumbled on. My eyes turned to the rocking of the man in front of me. He had shut his eyes, and his face was pulled into a tight grimace as he mumbled and rocked back and forth, shaking his head. I pointed him out to my mom and she smiled again. “You know, some people like quiet.” “Feel free to take videos, drop a dolla’ or two, whatever you’re feeling.” Matthew plugged his shiny red guitar in the amp, which emitted a low hum. He struck a chord and a note boomed and shook the entire subway cart. The man in front of me flinched. I instinctively put my hand over my ear. Satisfied, Matthew nodded slowly. “We good. Enjoy!” All of us on the subway looked around at each other, unsure of what was going to happen. Then, a note, but this time, softer, inviting. Matthew and Dave played together, and instantly smiles broke out across the cart, and faces lit up in recognition. Love, love me do! You know, I love you. I’ll always be true. So please, love me do! Their voices were smooth and happy. People started to move in closer, closer to the music, pulling out cell phones and dollar bills. Women and their children clapped along to the beat, laughing. The song ended and the cart erupted in applause. Matthew and Dave were beaming. Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you. Tomorrow I’ll miss you. Remember I’ll always be true. The subway stopped and only a few men in suits with briefcases stepped off. People stepped on More smiles, more phones out, more dollar bills. My mom took out a bill and gave me one, and together we walked up placed them in the trunk. The musicians looked at us and gave an appreciative nod as they kept singing. All my loving, I will send to you. When Matthew and Dave finished the song, everyone cheered. “Alright alright I’m glad y’all are liking what you’re hearing!” “Amen!” The crowd shouted in agreement. “Rach, we’re the next stop.” My mom nudged me. I nodded, silent. There was such an energy in that cart, in that moment. It was late and we were tired. But we were happy. I would’ve followed Matthew and Dave around all night if I could. When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, Let it be. Voices joined in, and soon the whole cart was singing. Then I noticed, across from me, the man sitting on the subway seat. Instead of hunching over, his back was straight. His eyes were gently closed, and he looked content, mouthing, Let it be, let it be, let it be. And at the end, that same man who was shaking and frowning only minutes before, walked over, dropped several crumpled dollar bills into the black trunk, and said something to Matthew and Dave. “Thank you.”

Leyla Ebrahimi Transmissions from the Satellite Heart I remember how you taught me to be kind. Kind was a feeling, you explained. Taste it on your tongue and unravel it, gracefully. We carried home injured butterflies and fed them sweet honey with our fingertips. We asked the great oak tree if he needed water, and we apologized to the grass as it would bend and crepitate beneath our feet. We grew older. You wore cherry on your lips and danced with boys you didn’t remember. You’d come home late at night and smell of acrid grapes and cigarettes. Your eyes would dance as you told stories of nights spent in little bars on big streets, filled with jazz and lust and zealous passion. I asked you to take me to the edge of the garden, to ask the oak tree if he needed water…To feed the butterflies honey with your fingertips. “Ask the grass for forgiveness.” I said, as you ran to cars that waited at the end of the lawn. “Don’t be silly Siya,” you replied. “The grass is not alive like you or me.” I told them you were sorry. I kissed the oak tree, and we cried together as the leaves changed color, falling from branches that wilted with your absence. You were forgetting us. You told me colors tasted of rainbow, they melted into your hair and made you glow, made you seem holy and forbidding all at the same time. At night I’d listen to you, waging your own quiet war as you sang songs softly underneath your pillows, staining them with black mascara from nights you don’t recall with boys you can’t remember. “Bite the rainbow.” You said. It tasted like nothing. “It’s wonderful.” I tell her. She likes it when I lie.

Mariam Anwary Please Forgive Me: I am sorry for not holding your hand or saying good bye for the last time It never occurred to me that we will be apart The hands that held me when I was born The hands that wiped away tears as we were getting ready to say goodbye I will not be able to feel that hand and its warmth I am sorry for not looking at your eyes Those eyes that give anyone hope and a sense of security I am sorry for not taking the time to say the things I should have said The things at I wanted to say were “ I love you and I will never forget your presence. These worlds didn’t come out easily because I didn’t want to face the reality that you will be away from us on the other side of the world. Who know that would be the last time I would get to say “I love you” and “please even if if is just a sec embrace me in your warmth. I am sorry for not spending time with you when I had the chance We are like flowing water we are not be together but in the end we will intertwine and flow together as one I am sorry for saying those words that cut into your heart like a sharp knife The words that I said only when I could not bear the separation from you I heard you moved on in life and I can not seem to understand why It has been 9 years and i have not given up on the hope and promise we made The promise to never let go of each other and to always be in each other’s hearts and souls Our promise was broken like a glass shattered You can always glues those piece together but they will be traces left as evidence Evidence that tells the world “ Hey I broke my promise and you are not important to me anymore.” I am sorry for not being the girl who you thought I would be

Priyanka Aiyer Take One: A Man Picks an Apple but in his hands are only seeds. This is the first way he knows he’s fucked: this & the swimming pool the apple tree is floating in. The country he was born in never called him its son, only a creature inconsolable & flooded with noontime. On the tree, seeds bloom into confession. The trunk is a cathedral with doors always closed. Take two: a man picks an apple but in his hands are only birds. He rewrites their stories until they look like saints or like mouths. He kisses a woman on a cul-de-sac & vomits every exit wound into the grass right next to it. The woman slaps him, & this is the first way he knows he’s still alive. Take three: a man picks an apple but in his hands are only starfields. Take four: a man picks an apple but in his hands are only apricots. The woman kisses him again. The swimming pool is drained of water. This is the first way he knows he’s dreaming, except most of his dreams are about falling & this time he’s only shivering. This time he’s running down the cul-de-sac. This time his breath is quickening in the sun, his palms are itching & crying & momentously tender. Take five: a man picks an apple. In his hands are only more hands, more hands than he knows what to do with.

Sophie Falkenheim Sitchke On the highway from Montana to Nashville, Sitchke’s eighteen-wheeler collides with a pickup, killing everyone inside. The next year, his son is born and he travels to see the grave of the man he killed, by plane now, of course, because Sitchke doesn’t drive an eighteenwheeler anymore. He finds a job as a bartender, shaking drinks silently for the regulars in a seedy cabin. His black beard is dotted with salt and pepper prematurely, and he gets better and better at mixing drinks, although he was slow at first. His wife leaves him because he’s worked nights for how many years now? and she’s feeling unsatisfied. He sees his sons on weekends until she moves to Ohio for work and after that they get cards on their birthdays, a train track on Christmas. Sitchke sees two of his regulars off themselves right after the auto plant closes; he doesn’t go to the funerals but allows their families to drink on the house afterwards. Sitchke meets a pretty young thing who blows into town with her sorority sisters; he’s just a middle-aged father which might be exactly what she’s looking for, although she leaves the next day. He visits his boys in Ohio—flying, of course, because he doesn’t drive anymore—and gives his fourteen-year-old “the talk”, only to hear that his stepfather has beat him to it. He moves into a room above the bar and gets himself a dog, a golden retriever he calls Marco. The bar owner dies and leaves everything to Sitchke, who only spoke to the man a handful of times. Sitchke discovers that he’s inherited a financial vacuum as he tries his best to get the numbers in order. He decides to take a night course at the university, but gives up on the idea when he realizes that there’s no way to avoid driving there, and anyway, isn’t he too old for school now? The bar’s finances seem to pick up after years of anxiety and fear of bankruptcy. One of his regulars backs over Marco with a pickup, and Sitchke buries him alone.

Abby Rooney Belmont [VERSE 1] One cherry coffee/ Stir in some cream/ Put on that song/ that makes fun of people like me/ Call me Joanna/ Don’t mind my lies/ Turn off that steamer/ roaring like a forest fire/ Smoke a cinnamon cigarette [VERSE 2] Hop off at Belmont/ If I have kids/ I’ll name one Belmont/ My sweet annoyance/ I’m stairway surfing/ Chewed up, spit out/ gum on the ceiling/ Keep it in your mouth/ If you don’t smoke a cinnamon cigarette [CHORUS] These streets are screaming/ These streets are mine/ These streets are bleeding/ Trickle down the purple line/ These eyes are moaning/ These lips burn dry/ Break a pretty sweat/ Light a cinnamon cigarette [VERSE 3] I wish on pennies/ I snub your stars/ You can’t invent me/ Mold me like a work of art/ I fuck with Pablo Picasso/ Je connais Edgar Degas/ I dance to broken tempos/ Strum a blue guitar/ Smoke a cinnamon cigarette [REPEAT CHORUS] [BRIDGE] (ooh) Here comes the fog again/ It takes me in its arms/ carries me back to Evanston/ (ooh) This pounding in my head/ One coffee/ One cream/ and please/ a cinnamon cigarette [REPEAT CHORUS] [OUTRO] These streets are screaming (A cinnamon cigarette) These streets are mine (A cinnamon cigarette) These streets are bleeding (A cinnamon cigarette) Trickle down the purple line Purple line Purple line...

Bella Reid Georgia She gnaws at her fingers Till they bleed Pulling her hair out in sheets She stood as a mountain Now her boulders are filled in with cracks A walk through the meadow She keeps looking back Ooo Georgia I’m sorry for wasting all this time Ooo Georgia I’ve left you out too long in the sunlight Your eyes tell of history The colors of battle scarred skin Remembrance in fragments Where to begin? An island of oceans Your arms tell of lies If you were the ocean Would she flow counterclockwise Ooo Georgia I’m sorry for wasting all this time Ooo Georgia I’ve left you out too long in the sunlight Ooo Georgia I’m sorry for wasting all this time Ooo Georgia I’ve left you out too long in the sunlight Ooo Georgia I’m sorry for wasting all this time Ooo Georgia I’ve left you out too long in the sunlight

Emma O’Neill-Dietel Pride When my friend Mike asked me to come to Pride with him, I realized had been waiting for that invitation for as long as I knew Pride existed. I loved that Pride didn’t need any words attached, any qualifiers like “event” or “celebration” or even “parade.” It was simply Pride. We had been so excited, talking giddily about what to wear and what to bring and where to go. But when we arrived at the decided-upon spot on the parade route, the energy left us almost immediately. I was eighteen and he was seventeen but our eyes were barely at chest-level with the tall, tan, tattooed, “real-adult” gays. The sun made my makeup feel caked-on and made his binder stick to his chest. We dragged ourselves up and down the street looking for shade and for something to do. The parade itself was fine, but nothing too captivating. Someone on a float threw beads to us and we split them so that he could have the pink, white, and blue beads. I kept the rest in a glittery tangle around my neck. I looked the part, but the beads weighed heavy on my neck and I was overly conscious of the way that they caught on the pins on my shirt. Finally, Mike and I found shade outside of an expensive ice cream parlor. Too cheap to buy anything, we sat on the outdoor chairs reserved for customers anyway. “So, what now?” I asked. “I think it’s over,” he sighed. “How do you know? There might be more parade groups farther back.” I craned my neck, looking expectantly at the street as if willing something to happen. “I’m tired,” he said. “Me too.” I slumped down in my chair, fanning myself with my hand. “This isn’t like I though it would be,” he said. “Me neither. I think you have to be a grown up to have fun at Pride.” “You’re eighteen.” “That doesn’t count,” I said. I knew that he knew it was true before I said so. I always feel like the youngest in the room. I tried to make up for it, to pretend like age wasn’t the only reason I felt unqualified to be there. “I bet it would be more fun if we came with a big group.” “Yeah,” he said, and neither of us believed it. I checked my phone. “I think I should go back to find my sister.” “Yeah,” he said, “I think I’ll head home.” “Okay. Well, the subway stop’s right there.” “No, I want to walk you back to where your sister was.” “That’s okay, you can go home.” “No, I’ll walk with you. There’s a subway stop there too.” “Okay. Thanks.” We left the shade and ducked back into the heat. We walked in a silence that balanced the fine line between comfortable and awkward. By the time we reached the corner where we had left my sister, the air between us had shifted towards comfort. “I don’t know where she went,” I said, looking past the rainbow-clad crowd for my sister who was dressed like a suburban fourteen year old in a plain Aeropostale t-shirt and American Eagle denim shorts. She wouldn’t have blended in with the other Pride attendees if she tried, which of course she didn’t. Mike and I trudged up half a block and with still no sight of my sister, we settled on the curb. I texted her, then stood. “You should go,” I said to Mike. “Go home to your air conditioning.” I gave a feeble laugh as I pulled the hair off of the back of my neck to feel a slight breeze. “No,” he whined. “I don’t want to just leave you here!” “I’m fine,” I said, “seriously. I’ll find her eventually. She probably found somewhere shady or airconditioned to sit. Don’t worry.” “Fine,” he said. “Come here.” He pulled me to him. My first instinct was to shrink away, not wanting to be near anyone in the awful heat. But he hugged me and I hugged him back. I hugged him because he was my best friend and we were at our first Pride together and he gave me the courage to live out loud and he was covered in glitter and so was I and how could I not. He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the cheek, grinning wildly. I laughed and held his gaze as he made his way back through the crowd towards his subway stop.

Jesse Locke EXT RAIN FORREST- EVENING A lonely TREE FROG sits on a gigantic leaf all alone. He feels horrible. A 28 day old FLY is buzzing near his head. GUILTY TREE FROG I feel slimy, Fly, and not just because I'm covered in mucus FLY What else is making you feel slimy? GUILTY TREE FROG I accidentally killed my best friend today. FLY How do you kill your best friend by accident? GUILTY TREE FROG He was hurt and he needed me to hold his leaf bandage in place. I told him it wasn't a good idea, that my poison would get into his wound, but he said I wouldn't have to hold it for long. I told him to get our other friend, Frank, to do it, but he said I was better since I have sticky hands. So I did but my poison seeped through the bandage and got into his wound and now he is dead. FLY You should not have held the bandage then. GUILTY TREE FROG But he said if I didn't then I would be his worst friend forever. It's like he stabbed my heart with a dagger of emotional pain. FLY So, you would have lost your best friend either way? GUILTY TREE FROG Yes. FLY Then your sadness today can't be helped. GUILTY TREE FROG stares at FLY. GUILTY TREE FROG I still feel really guilty, and without a best friend to tell it all to I'm just plain miserable. FLY You told me. GUILTY TREE FROG Yes, you asked. But I just met you, we can't be best friends yet. FLY Well, did I make you feel less miserable? The GUILTY TREE FROG eats the FLY because he is a frog and that is what it does.

Kaela Wilson Int: August 21, inside a car with a family Stallone the snail is sitting in a little girl’s lap. The little girl lifts him up to her face. Little girl What will you do at the beach? Stallone the Snail looks at her darkly. Stallone the Snail When we get there, I will create a tsunami destroying all of mankind. Because man is stupid and evil! When I take over the world everyone will feel misery and fear. They will cower when they hear the name Stallone the Snail! The little girl smiles at Stallone the Snail. Gary flies in through the window. Little girl You’re my best friend! Stallone the Snail feels a pang in his cold snail heart and blushes. Stallone the Snail Everyone shall perish… Except you… you’re a small exception. At that moment Stallone the Snail successfully claimed his first human slave. Stallone the Snail also decided that… he still hated humanity.

Katelyn Wyatt Imagination

Those noises, everyone made themâ&#x20AC;Ś save one. This girl, the one lacking the scratch of pencil lead on the answer sheet, the one lacking the deep sighs that always come with an impossible test, had become lost in a world that was entirely her own. She began to dream. What if, she questioned, instead of sitting on the cold, unforgiving chairs that forced an upright posture, she was sitting on the back of a dragon, slouching as much as she wanted? What if, she wondered, instead of this wooden, mass produced, stick she held between her fingers, she held a magic staff that could command a great thunder storm, or allow her to conjure flames of unimaginable heat? What if, she queried, this white, popcorn ceiling meant to set a limit on the places we can go, and the heights we can reach, exploded into a million tiny pieces? Then, she answered, I would soar high into the cloudless sky, on the dragon I would have instead of this chair, wielding my staff in exchange for my pencil. And once up in the vast sky, with endless possibilities tingling the tips of my fingers, I would choose my first adventure. When the girl looked all around from up high, perched on her dragon, she became confused and, simultaneously, exhilarated. A first adventure should be a memorable one, she thought. So, she let her imagination run free and stretch wide. Then, looking down, she saw something. Replacing the bleak factories she saw from the ground, surrounding her daily life, there was a maze. One with no ending, no beginning, no dead ends. Yet, this maze peaked the girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curiosity. If it has no end, no start, and no dead ends, what does it have? She wondered. Her next thought was instant. I want to find out.

Mia Weaver How Much Do Humans Cost? The look of gleaming gold glared. It glistened in pretty high lights too bright to even look at and all I could think to do was slump and sigh and sit and wonder what the sky would look like if I had been anybody else but me. Pursed lips and clenched fists I lied—on the ground that is, not to anybody else, I had to tell myself that three times and the cool of black tile chilled me to the bone. I reached out, flattening my palm against it then rubbing it, wondering how much money every shoe that touched it had cost and wondering if I’d be able to buy them all. My eyes squeezed shut and I lay on the floor—no, I didn’t lie. I don’t do things like that. I wanted to watch the ceiling. To peer and think about who else might have done the same, tipping their head back to take a break from looking ahead and examine the things we don’t really ever think to look at. I wonder if I could buy them too, the people looking at the ceiling, that is, but then I figure, probably not, and I probably wouldn’t even want to. So instead I wonder what it would take to buy them, and what kind of person would want to buy them. I wonder if Sue, my wife, would. I wonder if Tom, the guy from work I hate, would. A distant clack-clack-clack lulls me and someone kneeling clears their throat. My weary eyes twitch, but they’re already shut since I can’t watch the ceiling. It’s too bright, the pouring sunlight against its marvelous white and big, gold chandelier gleaming guiltily at me; I just can’t see. Tom from work would buy people. He’d buy anyone he could get his filthy hands on. Sue wouldn’t, though. She’s above that. I wonder if I’m the type of man to raise a son who would buy people. I wonder if my daughter would. I think right now she would, but she’s just at that age. The sort of age where all you really care about is adolescent angst and lying to your parents. I think she’ll grow out of that soon. I thought, “I don’t lie, so of course she won’t when she’s a grown up either.” Those words screamed in my head so I said them too and they tasted like puke in my mouth. I wanted to spit them out but I didn’t know how to do such a thing so I sucked in a deep breath and another then another one until I could count to ten. In through the nose… out through the mouth… Everything smelled old—like good old. Not like cobwebs and dusty boxes from my mother-in-law’s attic that I had to stuff in my own when she passed and I proposed we sell her house. It smelled like it had withstood a good deal. I loved that smell: a scent of certainty, almost. From my sweaty heap on the cold ground that pressed soft lines into the naked skin on my arms, I pondered. Maybe if I could, I would buy someone. Do you think there’s an ethical way to do that? Or an ethical way to steal? I wouldn’t hurt them. I’d give them a home and shelter, and treat them like I would a dog if they’re good, and they could do all my chores, and all my wife’s chores, but not my daughter’s. I want her to learn to be responsible, and to be the kind of person who wouldn’t buy anyone.

Xinru Yin

I crouched. I sat. I rolled. I uncurled. I lay. I coiled. I slept. I woke. I contemplated. I stood. I sat. I reclined. I slept. I woke. I ate. I read. I froze. I slept. I bathed. I read. I meditated. I stared at the ceiling. I stared at stars beyond glass beyond the muslin. I stared at the square dance music with which I used to roller-skate. I stared at a cushion with green leaves sitting on my lap. I stared at the fading blue bricks of the mosque. I stared at the distant longing of my mother. I stared at the kids wearing uniforms. I stared at the sun which was ready to set for the millionth time, or for the first time. I walked past the flowering leaves. I walked past the 3-year-old toddler whom I just knocked over. I walked past the sculpture of a giant fish. I walked past a pretty petty percipient proud pissed boy’s home. I walked past an elementary school alumnus who would be known as my crush in 6th grade. I walked past the telephone pole pretending to be a tree to which I would say hello every day on my way to school. I walked past the girl with a flat face and sharp ponytail. I walked past the girl whose legs were too thin to run. I walked past the girl with her father’s mouth and her mother’s eyes and her family’s snobbishness. I walked past my high school friend. I walked past him. I walked past him. I walked past him. I walked past him. I walked past him. Wait. I saw all of that.

David Borts Zippo Lighter Monochromatic emissary, Let me into your golden years, Your atomic family: animated. Drive me in your shining cadillac. I am a worshipper: I pray to the fantastic Blacks and whites of your television set. Open up my skull and take my mind out. Replace it with promises and propaganda posters Like film in a camera. Let me learn. Let me learn all The truth that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m allowed to learn, Then fill the rest with your asbestos. Let me suckle on your tobacco, Your lead paint and atomic bombs. Let me grow into a plastic man. Let me bathe and incubate In your womb- your embryonic, Amniotic lighter fluid. Then light me- let me Burn to ashes and sink to the bottom. Let my smoke escape, like out of your pipe. Let me light my candleA candle I can place beside you, You steel tombstone of my American Dream.

Finch Davis Written by Violet "Trouble shared is trouble halved.” -Lee Iacocca

“You’re a danger to yourself and others, and we can’t have that.” General Perkins was seated at the head of a long table, underneath the TGA and TSF emblems, as General Zhang paced around behind him. Fred was sitting at the other end, with me right next to him. This entire meeting was about him; I was just here as a witness. "Why? What gives you the authority to say that?" "You know why, Commander Dawson. That stunt you pulled at that prison in the middle of the Mapizao Jungle?" "I'm sorry. What's this 'stunt' you're referring to? You make it sound like it's a bad thing. We had an HVT to escort. We had to keep him alive until extraction." "Look, Dawson. We've been observing you, and the rest of the TSF for that matter, for almost five years now. We're really worried about you. You seem to value pride or ego or something over your own safety." "I value efficiency. I value mission completion. And we're in the middle of a civil war, so who really thinks that safety is something that I can or should guarantee?" "Dawson, you're missing the point. Point is, we've all made the decision to appoint an advisor to you." Fred stared at the two generals with his eyes wide open. "A personal advisor?' "Precisely. Advisor, bodyguard, companion, liaison, whatever you want to call it." "I know what you mean. I don't care about that as much as that you two went ahead and made this decision without consulting me first." "Fred?" I said as I tapped his shoulder. "The others agreed. We're concerned, and even if the whole thing doesn't work out like you want, then surely you value having an extra set of hands to help out." "I'm sorry, but that's the decision we've come to," Perkins declared. "Now deal with it." Fred hung his head for a split second, but then drew it back up. "Okay, fine. But you also said, 'liaison' back there. What organization is getting involved?" "The Federal Security Service." Zhang said. "You know, the organization that protects--" "I know what the FSS is," Fred interrupted. "Then you know that the stakes are high. This is serious. So serious that we just had to make that decision." "I can live with it. Who've you selected?" Perkins pressed his finger to the earpiece. "Chloe, please come in. It's good now."

Hewson Duffy An excerpt from Silence

Rises

“Vancouver, Vancouver! This is it!” Nobody responded. They wouldn’t hear it for hours. David inhaled. The world inhaled and didn’t exhale. And in that second, though the earthquake didn’t cease, silence rose, surging from every pore, every crack in the earth. He exhaled, marveling at the quiet of an entire forest. An entire sky, watching. He turned back to the mountain. It didn’t burst. No, the volcano moved. Its north side glided towards David, mesmerizing him. Solid rock slid like mud. His eyes watered. He had seen this from afar once before, but it was different. Then he had feared for his life; he had ran rather than observed. Now he basked in the glory of the eruption. From behind the rock, lava poured into the basin of the sky. The blue darkened into apathetic gray into remorseless black. Clouds of ash choked the sun. And throughout the seconds, the silence grew, like clouds like passion almost suffocating David before the ash did. He loved it. In college, he remembered the geology class, the book on volcanoes he had spent nights and days reading. He remembered changing his major, remembered the research, the years studying, the PhD. It was all for this: to catch a glimpse of a planet unmasked, to see its blood, to know how large it was, to feel how small you were, to understand its deafening silence, and just as it obliterated you to stand, arms outstretched, and grasp Earth’s fiery soul.

Christopher James Arhat â&#x20AC;&#x153;Modes are infinite, and laws are infiniteâ&#x20AC;? ~ Mahavira This is me. My name isn't real. I am air, Wind in me. I am the space that fills voids. Emptiness is true.

2% Milk, 98% Illuminati

Abigail Feingold Forget-Me-Not Eleven years ago, on the patch of green Beside the driveway, my family Began a small, but confident garden. Home Depot visits and fishing up grandmaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tools Birthed tulip petals and red rose bushes. Saplings of strawberries blossomed into Blush breakfasts that neighbors would savor as The twists of lilac beauty dazzled the air. Yet, as azaleas faded to evergreens And textbooks stole from the trees I long grew, My familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s small, but confident garden Became just a memory I once knew. Centuries of summer, all wilted away. How many more gardens will I forget?

Alexandra Gelman Last impressions. We used to bake. She would come to my house showered in Pink’s “Warm and Cozy” perfume, always prepared for our next creation with a list of recipes in hand. We never stuck to the recipe, though. Despite both of our love for baking, she wasn’t very good at it, always finding a way to mess something up. Whether it be setting the timer on the oven for two hundred minutes instead of the necessary twenty, or cracking an egg and, don’t ask me how, missing the bowl, she was never able to complete our recipes without doing something wrong first. When she first came to the school in sixth grade, she was automatically pushed away by the rest of the students. She was a chubby girl with a prominent lisp and a gap between her two front teeth, making her the prime target for many prepubescent kids’ jokes. Only me and a couple of other girls accepted her and were kind to her, giving her a friend group where she knew she was safe. She quickly became one of my best friends, her loud, bubbly personality never failing to bring smiles into any room. We had sleepovers almost every weekend, whether it be just the two of us or with other friends as well. Even though sometimes she was a little too much, our friendship was always filled with daily phone calls and friendly banter. I remember the day she came back to school after being in Canada for one of her dance trips. The majority of the girls took part in Israeli dancing, so I was a rare species of girl with my soccer playing. Waiting for her at our usual spot in the locker room, I was bouncing on the balls of my feet with genuine excitement, waiting to listen to all of her stories. Of course, she had already texted me all of the juicy details from her trip, but hearing her tell them herself with the thick lisp that everyone, but a handful of people, made fun of, added character to each and every sentence. Her loud laugh that for some strange reason always made me think of the color orange began to approach the locker room, inching closer and closer by the second. Who would have thought, though, that her distinct, orange laughter would be accompanied by none other than, and I quote, the “fake bitch”, who had caused her to latch onto me with tears running down her flushed, round cheeks, soaking my shirt with such sadness that no matter how many times I washed it, the smell always reminded me of the best friend I used to love. And as I looked into her big, round eyes, I wasn’t met by the chocolate brown eyes that looked at me in glee when she saw me sitting on her living room couch with a smoothie in hand, waiting for her to get back from her yoga class. I wasn’t met by the ones coated with warm, peachy eyeshadow we stole from her mom’s makeup drawer, as she gave me her signature mischievous look she always gave me when we gave each other makeovers with the “borrowed” makeup. Instead, I was met by a goodbye. She didn’t have to speak — I could see the truth in her eyes. Her eyes; they had always made her a bad liar.

Caitlin Hundley Behind Closed Curtains The sunset bled through the silk curtains, drenching the room in a rich orange luster. Silhouettes traversed across its fabric: mothers trailing after rambunctious children, dogs led by their teenaged owners on evening walks, a swarm of fireflies signaling the close of another day with flickering lights. Each one was aware of their companions, yet left the sunset in a reverent silence. Concealed to this drowsy world, the room within was exuberant in its sonority: forks scraped on empty plates, laughter rang out like Christmas bells, sweet promises escaped warm lips. A young man, confident as a lynx stalking a bird, tipped a bottle of amber liquid into his glass and clinked it against that of his wife. Her white teeth gleamed over the brim as she took a sip. While the world outside the curtains surrendered to darkness, frogs and crickets filled the air with a chorus of chirps and croaks that vitalized a new faction of life. The night sky was charged with a bewitching energy that invited the adventurous to unlock its mysteries, but not all sought such excitement. On the couch, a weathered man and his wife reclined in the warmth of the firelight, where more tender enchantments were found. She reached for his hand; he combed through her hair. Two children were asleep upstairs, comfortable and safe. “It will always be this way.” His whisper overpowered the cacophony outside. But love is not built on words. Midnight crept in, dragging emptiness and desolation to poke holes in the night like stars in the sky. The world slowed and sped at once as the distance between them on the couch grew and his presence at the dinner table vanished. The old man, sick of being old, ran towards a new day—a life without anyone to hold him back. His attentive ex-wife parted the curtains and traced the sunrise with tear-filled eyes. “Then why did you leave?”

Kierra Dean scene opens to a china cabinet. Everything is perfect. Not a single speck of dust. Pan down to see SIMON, a teacup made for a doll, who is only about the size of a fingernail.] SIMON: How’s it going up there in the display case Dolly? [camera pans to show DOLLY, a large, blue, intricately designed teacup. Note that DOLLY is for adult use only.] DOLLY: It’s going quite well- the view is gorgeous Simon. But I’d hardly expect a child’s toy to understand. SIMON: [slightly irritated.] At least I don’t have to worry about shattering into a thousand pieces every time someone is near me. DOLLY: [unimpressed] Fragile teacups are a sign of fine dining and class. I’d hardly expect a teacup who is plastic to understand. SIMON: Oh, but everyone loves me more than you. I go to tea parties every other day while you wait in that case. You’re barely used once a year. DOLLY: Oh, Simon. I’m used once a year because I’m special. I have value. You’re just a throwaway- if you get lost, they’ll replace you. SIMON: [huffs in frustration and anger] No they won’t. Laura loves me. DOLLY: The child? They like any toy at their age. Soon she’ll forget about you and tea parties. I would know. I’ve been passed down from generation to generation. I’ll last forever. [Enter LAURA, who approaches SIMON, who suddenly gets an idea. He falls over and rolls himself until he is in front of the display case. LAURA follows. She bends over to pick up SIMON and her hip brushes the display case, which rocks forward slightly. DOLLY falls and shatters into pieces. ] SIMON: [yelling] OHHHHHHH. Who’s a throwaway now, huh? Huh? I didn’t hear you over the sound of you being a pile of trash. But you know what? We can replace you now! You know what? Screw you. I AM SUPERIOR! I AM THE BEST TEACUP IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. [Camera pans out to show that behind the shards that used to be DOLLY and next to the display case, there are about 50 different teacups.] TEACUPS: Wait, what?

Nicole Hausmann A Poor Surgeon Named Kylie Jenner A woman wearing a sleek coat ambled suavely down the paved sidewalk. She applied a bright, blood-red lipstick -- like the blood of her victims -- onto her plump, full, natural lips. She wasn’t a bad person, at least she didn’t want to be. Ever since she was a young girl, she couldn’t withhold herself from the urge to kill. Kim got all the attention, and she knew that Kim most definitely did not deserve it. But her mom got in the way of her conspiracies. To assuage to great pain that this brought to her natural heart, she became a doctor to become acquainted with the world of surgery. She got a liposuction so that she could one-up Kim’s curves, and she got a lip injection so she could again one-up Kim’s curves. (A/S : it’s ironic that one of the surgeries removes and the other one injects. What a juxtaposition!) She soon realized that being a surgeon was a perfect opportunity for her to “accidentally” kill her patients. At least when they were dead they couldn’t complain to her about anything. That pleased her greatly. Kylie Jenner is the youngest child in a family of reality stars. It is very difficult for her to get attention from anybody, especially her mom, who is always obsessed with Kim and Kendall, or Khloe, or Kourtney. Just not her. As a child, Kylie tried everything possible to get her mother’s attention, from her liposuction to lip injections, nothing seemed to do the trick. That was, until she accidentally murdered her neighbor. Not only did she catch her mother’s attention, she caught the world’s attention. Today, Kylie earns the second most amount of money in the family, following Kim. This means that she is the first loser. This was simply too much for her to handle. She decided that the only way to make it to the top was by murder. Despite her family’s background and prominence, she is just your average serial killer. The average serial killer grows up with a wealthy, rich, white family. They are outcasts in society and ignored by their family. They always felt like losers. Serial killers always feel the need to be in control, and to be better than everyone. They are manipulators, just like how Kylie can manipulate her cheekbones with ease. They are egotistical braggers, which reflects with her incessant Snapchat story updates. Kylie eats cereal for breakfast every morning, but only eats Lucky Charms because it reminds her of her bling. Then, she changes into an abnormally classy looking outfit and walks around town while paparazzi take pictures of her. Many people wonder why Kylie wears such daunting heels for no reason: I’ll tell you why. Those heels are actually knives. Those boots are actually bazookas. The skin tight dresses are actually cloth used to strangle her victims. And that’s just the beginning of it all.

Tabitha Gonia Starspinning Starspinning, you and me Holding laughter behind our teeth We love helplessly See the stars and we dream Ooh x2 You love the night time You love to dream You decide now’s the right time But I don’t know what you mean Run down the hill and spin around, we Spin so fast that I hit the ground, so Grab my hand and we’ll stumble down We’re starspinning now Ooh x2 Make me a part of your silver glitter dream I don’t know how to seem unexcited And even if it’s night with all the shadows inside, You’re still shining so bright, you’re blinding Higher ooh x2 Starspinning, you and me Holding laughter behind our teeth We love hopelessly See the stars and we dream We dream We dream We dream

But There Are Only Four of Us

Elliot Stork An excerpt from Finding A

Rhythm

I put the gun to my left shoulder and looked through the sight with my left eye. I’d learned I was stubbornly a lefty in this case. The uncle had a carpet-covered wood bench set up to rest the guns on as we shot, but that meant we were on our knees in the gravel. I got to my knees. Each piece of gravel felt like a tiny mountain underneath my already-tender knees. Each time I shot, the gun jumped back a little and hit me, not enough to hurt but enough to sting a little surprise in my skinny shoulder. The finger that twisted around the trigger ached after ten or eleven shots. Sweat trickled down my neck and made its way to my waistband slowly. The uncle came to stand behind me and whispered in my ear to find a rhythm. His breath smelled like mayonnaise but he said breathe in, aim, shoot, breathe out, reload, repeat . The rhythm was soon comforting, and I relaxed shot by shot. Soon, the blue box, the innermost box on the target, could not be seen on my target; I had shot it clean away. The other boys, even the ones with video games and BB guns of their own at home, had shot mostly in the red ring that surrounded the blue box. I found myself cuddling a little bit of pride as we scoured the brittle brown summer leaves for reusable BBs. “You’re not a bad shot, kid,” the uncle said, clapping my shoulder hard enough that I stumbled forward a little. It didn’t bother me, though; I’d outshot all the other boys and I was going to see that pride through. After we ran out of BBs, the uncle took us back, damp and sticky, pink with heat and maybe a little bit of sunburn. My left hand and shoulder ached, my knees had little indentations, and my face felt weird after squinting for so long, but I had my target folded up in my back pocket. Even as I sat, my head ran through the rhythm of triplets with sixth notes: breathe in, aim, shoot, breathe out, reload, repeat.

Izadore Friedland Cat in the Box So here’s how it works, begins the Fascist. There’s a cat in the box. And also, like, some radioactivity. Not that much, but enough to give the cat cat cancer, right? So the cat might die. Or it might not. And you can’t open the box, or see if the cat’s alive or what. We are in the hallway in our school where we spend lunchtime, because it is lunchtime and we exist at this particular moment in the eighth grade at a particular Jewish school. This is also before I met her and unmet her. I am not a happy person at this particular moment. The Fascist continues. He’s an old friend, probably the oldest. Granted, the bar is low. Also granted, he’s very short. So is the cat in the box alive or dead? He asks, spreading his hands. There’s some murmuring from the people we eat lunch with, who aren’t important to the story. Some people say alive. Most don’t care about a cat with cat cancer. “I don’t get it,” I say. You can’t prove that the cat is alive or dead, explains the Fascist. “Yeah, but why do I care? Also, why does it matter that it’s a cat?” The cat is a symbol. “I thought it was a cat.” It’s also a cat, but it’s mostly a symbol. “This seems too symbolic to also be scientific. Scientists don’t use symbols.” Schrodinger did. Look. The point is, the cat isn’t alive or dead. It’s undefined. I stare down at him. I’m not trying to be rude, his height just makes it hard to stare levelly at him. “That makes literally no sense.” Yeah it does, he whines. It’s quantum physics. You don’t get quantum stuff. “Just because I’m an idiot doesn’t mean that cats you can’t see don’t have cancer. I never saw my great-Grandma’s body but I’m pretty sure she still died of cancer.” The Fascist tilts his head. Was she in a box when she died? “Um. No? We put her in one after she did, though.” Well, there you go.

Luc Maurer Dave’s Dead Dave’s dead, so there’s that. Ronan was screwing around with him on the edge of the dam and it got heated so hey-o, down he goes and off he goes to heaven. Ronan told Paul he didn’t mean to do it, that his arm had slipped Paul you saw me didn’t you? Didn’t you see me? I dunno man, that was a push plain and simple and Oh my god you killed Dave Dave’s dead. Ronan said that they wouldn’t have been fighting in the first place if Paul hadn’t been egging on Dave about what a shrimp he was and how Lou-Anne was definitely more into Ronan Shut up, Paul, that’s not true Paul how do you even know that. And Paul said LouAnne once spent approximately 47 seconds staring at Ronan’s biceps and the only time her eyes had ever been trained on Dave’s body was when he vomited on himself in front of class during the Civil War presentation Dave said I know because I was in those classes. Ronan was silent the whole time but also kind of enjoying it I don’t think that’s true Paul and Paul said Clearly there’s a competition here and there’s only one way for gentleman like yourself to settle a competition. Dave said rational discussion and Paul said fists, dummy, and Dave thought himself wiry but capable which was false so he agreed. At first it was tussling Ronan knew his limits but Dave slapped him full across the face and hadn’t trimmed his nails so it left a mark and some blood What the hell Dave and somehow they had grappled their way over to the edge of the dam Ronan was pissed not in control and he wound up his arm wound up like a pitcher’s god he was strong and then boom strike one Dave over the edge down the edge below the edge dead. Ronan said That’s provocation or something there’s a charge for that you rat you rat me out and you’re coming with me Calm down, calm down this from Paul trying to run over the plot of The Fugitive in his mind not the series but the movie with Harrison Ford because he thought it applied to the situation and would be helpful when really it wasn’t. Okay Paul said Here’s what we’re going to do What are we going to do said Ronan Well I don’t know give me time to think You just said you had a plan Okay I expected you to wait a little bit after I said it Ronan said Jesus Christ Paul and Paul said Look from where I stand I’m the one doing all the thinking right now so unless you have something helpful don’t talk. Ronan said We should dispose of the body and Paul said Oh great real great, dumbass, how do we do get rid of a body on the floor of a dam with no tools l mean I don’t know what you carry around in your backpack but unless it’s a hacksaw and garbage bags and not some failed history paper then we are SOL do you get me? Ronan said I did well on that paper Shut up Ronan that’s not the point Ronan said Don’t talk to me that way and Paul realized he was cussing out a murderer and said I’m sorry I’m sorry. Ronan thought for a second and had a bad idea but as we’ve seen sometimes his body moves faster than his mind so he said What if we break the dam and it washes him away or something. Paul sighed and said Ronan this dam has been dry since you were born it’s not like there’s water inside the thing did you actually think there was water literally inside the structure of the dam? This had in fact been Ronan’s preconception about the function of dams but he chose to mumble out a No instead of confessing outright but to Paul it was essentially the same thing and Paul understood that Ronan was for the most part a smart kid if a little misguided but in this situation Paul was the only set of brains and would have to act accordingly.

Angela Wu Small Moments to Ponder **** He sat impatiently at the intersection, waiting for the light to turn green and the nonexistent traffic from the other side of the road to stop. An ambitious runner jogged to the crossroad. Seeing that the light was still red, he jogged in circles around the stoplight and made a couple of stretches. The engine of the car hummed softly, almost in line with the flickering of the street lamp. The light turned green. He parted ways with the jogger. **** The bus came twenty minutes late. It was cold, her legs trembled violently under her leggings. The weight of her backpack only seemed to make the conditions worse, pushing the cold further down her body and keeping it there. Her ears were white; she could feel the pain of the cold on her ear and the sharp pangs more than she could hear the wind blowing onto her ear. Some of the other kids were starting to leave the bus stop. Family sedans were driving past on the street, the sounds of their engines inaudible compared to the howl of the winter wind. Soon, she was standing by herself. The bus came twenty minutes late. **** He drove past the bar he used to go to every Friday. Before his fiancĂŠ got pregnant. **** She forgot her earbuds at home. **** He filled his plastic Steelers mug with the tepid fountain water, and watched the water shoot out from the rusty fountain. Actually, shoot was the wrong word -- more like spill out of the fountain. He practically had to push the mouth of the mug into the faucet to get anything. He hated doing this; he felt that he could see the germs from kidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mouths climbing their way into the mug, or tumbling in with the water. The warm water started overflowing the fountain. The mug was full. He grimaced at his hands, which were now also wet. He thought about when he overheard some kids in the hallways saying that the fountain water came from the toilets. Drinking water mixed with adolescent spit and their shit? Somehow that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem too hard to believe. ****

Hannah Rosman A Little Freedom Trees and people and sidewalks and houses all flash by me. For the first time ever, I am driving a car without my dad sitting next to me telling me all the ways I’m about to kill us. I’ve been waiting for this for so long. I’ve been craving this independence my whole life. Now I can do anything, or even everything. I sing at the top of my lungs, and then I laugh loudly at how weird I am, finally having a car to myself and choosing to listen to music my mom would play if she were driving. It makes me definitely not cool. “Fuck you,” I scream at other drivers, for no real reason at all. Except, no one can hear me and that magical. I feel free, like I’m bird just having discovered that it can fly after years in a cage. Well, that might be a little melodramatic, but I am so happy now. I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time. But then it’s over, and I’m parking in front of his house. *** He is a boy. A boy that I have been dating for over a year and a half now. A boy whom I love very much. Of course I drive to his house, because I miss him. I always miss him, and sometimes I fear that my missing him has become unhealthy. But then I’m sure it can’t be because he protects me. His arms wrap around me like the most soothing blanket and I can’t be scared anymore. He’s quite tall and strong and smart and I know he has bad qualities too, but I can never seem to come up with them when asked. He makes me a better person and sometimes I’m scared of what I would be if I hadn’t ever met him or started dating him or kept dating him. When I tell people that I have this boyfriend, there is always a quite standard response. It’s always something pretty close to, “Oh my god! That is so sweet. I can’t believe you guys have lasted this long. I’m so proud of you.” I don’t like any of these statements. I get very self-conscious and I blush. It’s not because I don’t love him or appreciate him, but something else. It’s because I don’twant the stigma of being the girl who dates the same guy all through high school because she’s tooprudish or dumb or naïve or weak or boring to try new things. I want people to see me as free.

Jisoo Hope Yoon

Michelle Zeng

Phoebe Toole Homeward Bound Cat hair drifting as lost confetti does circling dead ladybugs that litter the play area by the window Buena Vista skipping in the now-vintage player A wine-red rose O’Keeffe tries in vain to drown out the ugly mustard wallpaper matching cupboards with gaudy gold handles- two missing Calendars and schedules on the fridge with deadlines no longer relevant The dewy smell of freshly cut grass geese shredding the rest to its scalp My sister squealing at each Ruby-throated hummingbird flitting to the feeder, iridescent. A fairy’s seahorse stallion. Warm golden glow after dark illuminating the old Steinway, the four-way chess set we never understood, the ever-present laundry tossed onto the furniture The kitchen tile the texture of dip’n’dots worn, dirtied to the point that the gray smudges amalgamated with the white. We concealed similar patches on the rug with an enfeebled maroon carpet: two-thirds of the room covered with caution. The porch stained the color of maple syrup used in the sweetness of summer where I wrote my first poem. Charred corn fell to the squirrels on plum milky way nights. My room was daylight with blue walls, A puff fluff ceiling, and even with the bird’s nest in the tree that layers its leaves to make elephants. At night I burned the midnight flashlight Under the covers, cheers wafting two floors up And I would listen to home until I fell asleep.

Bounce House

Annie Li On Faith one I do believe that we are not alone, that wind is a mere exhale from a mouth larger than you and me I believe that I do two Somehow we are made from blue-gray dust, our bodies a compound of bones and blood in gangly fingers, rivers pulsing through skin somehow three I see sapphires dipped in black paint, seraphs in heaven, hugs of suffocating space around celestial bodies out there I see

Ariel Hirschhorn Margery Inspired by the song Margery, My First Car by Vulfpeck CAPO 4 Amaj7 G Dmaj7 Amaj7

Dmaj7

I like the way the moon looks G When I am driving Dmaj7 with Margery Amaj7 Dmaj7 The street signs don’t grow brighter G Dmaj7 I have forgotten to turn my lights on Amaj7 Oh, I fear death G But Margery comforts me Fmaj7 In the wind of her A.C. Amaj7 Dmaj7 Do you feel real? G Cause I’ve got the keys Fmaj7 And that’s close enough for me Amaj7 G CHORUS: Oh, no one knows your name But I do Amaj7 Be with me Dmaj7 Oh, Margery Amaj7 Fmaj7 I can’t call you mine But it’s fine Amaj7 Stay with me, Dmaj7 Sweet Margery

G Got my plastic in the mail Dmaj7 I can barely pull out of my driveway G Margery knows I’m too frail Dmaj7 To go out on the highway Amaj7 So, I am lost Dmaj7 On the streets I know Fmaj7 G Got Google Maps on and I can’t find back home Dmaj7 K turn on this dead end road… CHORUS A7 BRIDGE: Cause I am young and I am tender D7 And I know you’re just a lender A7 And I really really really really D7 Don’t wanna be in a fender bender… CHORUS Amaj7 Dmaj7 Fmaj7 Amaj7

Indira Khera The Gambler another false Christmas begins brown faces fleshing white teeth in pilling sweaters, triangles of ties peeking out of colors like fat paan circled around a Christmas tree scattered with plastic decorations, surgically extracted from a red and white Walmart box slapping a hand over the mouth that tells us this is not what you do at Christmas Jesus Christ doesn’t live in floors bloodied by that morning’s slit throat goat sticky, broken marigold chains and gods adorned with skulls, tongues lolling to the earth it’s an acquired taste a newcomer sits amongst the crowd of old friends this Christmas the prickle of uncertainty demanding heaving gulps of wine threading their way into loud and stilted words he calls a bookie accented, mouth tearing around jagged words “I need to place a bet” on Monday, he will go to work in a Catholic hospital, with sugary paintings of fruit nailed to the wall no glass in the frames - suicide prevention for the unraveling patients they are spools of yarn yanked by muffled footsteps maybe he’s the holiest person there

Jade Graves Hello, Hey VERSE I: G, AM, EM, D Oh your perfect straight white teeth and bright pink cheeks, Cute fingertips, Your soft sweet lips, And the way your hair lays down all in your face, Bouncing all around, Cute curls moving up and down HOOK: G, AM, EM, D Now I’m not usually one, To get these type of feelings about a person I don’t know, But everytime I see those eyes, Goosebumps start to rise up, My arms and my thighs CHORUS: EM, C, G, D Oh I’m so shy I can’t say hi, But I want to x2 Because you’re so hot and I’m so not, So what do I do? x2 VERSE II: G, AM, EM, D Oh imagine just the two of us alone, Lounging by the beach, Chewing on a peach, Then I’d be in your arms when the rain pours down, We’d share a sweet kiss, That would be pure bliss HOOK: EM, C, G, D Now I’m not usually one, To get these type of feelings about a person I don’t know, But everytime I see those eyes, Goosebumps start to rise up, My arms and my thighs CHORUS: EM, C, G, D Oh I’m so shy I can’t say hi, But I want to, x2 Because you’re so hot and I’m so not, So what do I do? X2 Oh

Elyse Kassa Aran what a beautiful, beautiful face. buried same yellow as a burnt out lightbulb same yellow as my old home same yellow as the motel off the side road where we pull over in massachusetts at an intersection somewhere a red light resting place for $5 worth of pizza they told me he does this every time stomach acid corrodes the throat deathly gasping strangling sounds mouth open what a beautiful, beautiful face. half a man in my rearview mirror torso dangling out the window

Lucy Johnson Uprooted From fried catfish and flaming projectiles tar scuffed patio bricks and phonebooks stacked as stepstools. From the orange teeth of outhouse nutria ghosts caught in the pool filter a bullethole in the closet door. From the itch of floral floursack dresses quilt squares never stitched together an aluminum barn with chandeliers made of antler. From red dirt and red clay dyed by death itself the soles of feet and the souls of those who pasted generations together with cornstarch every place Oklahoma wished it could be. From my mother’s hands loose skin wrapped gently around bone her milky blind eyes. From white plaster molds on cathedral ceilings 6 continents where my father can’t receive communion. From Wichita roadtrips with six kids in the backseat so long ago I can only remember when I bite into grannysmith apples even though I’m from honeycrisp.

Sophie Lyu Absolution Mom didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting any better at math. When she asked for the third time, I told her it was just something that used the part of my brain I wasn’t good at using, and that I was much better at other things. I didn’t tell her it was because we didn’t learn math in school. I didn’t tell her we were preparing for more important things. Ms. Atkins just wanted us to be safe. She told us reading and math weren’t going to get us far if we were all dead. So she taught us where the best hiding spots were in the school, in our homes, and in our town should we be quick enough to get there in the event of an emergency. I always thought Ms. Atkins was smart. She gave us candy when we answered her questions right, which made me want to learn more. Ms. Atkins just wanted us to be fast. She told us science and history wouldn’t help us outrun disaster, so she drilled us hard for the first half of the school day, and my pushup record jumped from ten to forty a minute within four months. She wanted us to be ready to fight back. She didn’t let us drink water until we were finished with our drills. It made us want to finish our drills. Ms. Atkins just wanted us to be better. She told us we weren’t going to go disgrace her if she could help it, so she taught us how to fire guns on our second week of school. She told us the enemy wasn’t going to have mercy on us just because we were kids, she said they would shoot no matter what, so we should, too. She let us watch cool R rated movies if we hit the target. I hit every target since that second week. Ms. Atkins just wanted us to strike first. She told us the enemy would disguise itself as something we trusted, and that we should be prepared to see the evil of through the haze of familiarity. She said appearance could be deceiving, so we practiced on unimaginable enemies: the class gerbil, the class hermit crab. She told us the enemy was the bad guy no matter how innocuous it looked, and that we couldn’t get sentimental, couldn’t get weak. We hesitated so little, she called our parents and told them we were all doing great in school. Ms. Atkins just wanted us to be the best. She told us they were going to attack soon, so we needed to get ready. She took us on a field trip, and we sang Wheels on the Bus the whole bus ride over. We got out onto a large field. I just wanted to make Ms. Atkins proud. I wanted more candy. I wanted to watch more movies. I wanted more A’s. She made us close our eyes, and moved us around. We’re playing a game, she told us. She gave us our guns. She told us that when we opened our eyes, we would see the enemy, and we would have to shoot. She said the winner would get a prize. They could be her student forever. I was excited. I wanted to win this game. Open your eyes , she told us. We did. In front of us were our parents. Shoot , she told us. We did.

The Tardy, Tiny,

Thick-Headed

Lizards

Apple Gould Sydney, Angel, and I Farm Under Our Own Sky We lived years away from the nearest outpost, in a farm that littered the countryside with plots of cabbage, miles of grapes, a small forest of apples, and sometimes yams when the air turned cold. I loved grapes the best. I would work for hours and carefully separate fruit from its vine and when I walked back I held the basket over my head. I would pretend my hair was nothing but strands of what we grew. In the summer, my hair would be longer than the year before and I’d tie in bunches that pulled me to the ground. I was good at grapes and I loved my grapes but the night was what I always waited for. We’d feast on the food we’d amassed that day and set the rest aside for markets or when it was too cold for yams and the ground froze three times over. I loved nights more than I loved the work because the sun sat on my lap. I’d pull it from the sky like one of my grapes and on Wednesdays I contemplated eating it, just to see how it would taste and how the world would spin without it. When I slept, the sun curled around my head and would always wake me up before I was ready to put it back. I never lacked heat, I never needed a cool breeze. I’d tell it tales of the bugs I’d seen and how soft it had looked in the sky that day. When it rained, I’d jump to grab it and buried it under the fruit to save it from Angel’s wrung out t-shirt. Sydney hated the nights the most. She carried the stars in her earrings and after spending the day weeding the cabbages, she’d stand on the roof and lean out until she’d created the constellations, a little further off than the night before. I’d always beg her to put the Lynx in the sky and Sydney would always tell me to wait for March.

Gabriela Ruhlmann

Lorraine Liu Leah laid on the bed, feeling the flat mattress under her back and the tangled blankets thrown over her torso. For a long moment, she squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her fists, and tried to keep her mind blank. Tick-tock, tick-tock. The clock on the wall said 2 am. The second hand skimmed across the dial briskly, like a hummingbird; the minute hand lagged behind reluctantly as if it was a branch being bent down by the Invisible Hand. Hardly catching up with its companions was the hour hand, which had only inched pass a few degrees when the other hands had already rotated at least two rounds. The clock said 4 am. Leah finally gave up: she knew full well that sleep wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come. Gathering herself into a sitting position, Leah switched on the bed lamp, reached into her jacket pocket, and lit up a cigarette. On her bed table, the shimmering light of fireflies dotted the bottom of ashtray; you could see the specks of orange illuminating the black ashes. Outside of the window, trucks dashed across the boulevards, neon lights glared at the pitched-black sky: the city slept on. But Leah couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. Despite the fact that she had tried many methods to induce sleep, none of them worked out well. Cigarettes, sleeping pills, gym...all proved to be futile in scattering the insomnia away, no matter how much exhaustion weighed inside her fragile figure. Now, her figure shifted. She stood up, unintentionally letting the blankets fall to the ground, walked to the windowsill, and sat down on the cold marble. It was her routine on the countless sleepless nights: staring out into the fluorescent darkness and enjoying the bird-eye view from 26th floor. She put her arms under her knees and curved into a ball, a habit that she had taken since 6 years old. At the age of 6, when sleep avoided her, she had remained in that position for the whole night, telling herself that she was no longer a 4-year-old child who could wake mother up in the middle of the night and asked her to sing a lullaby promising sleep while huddling up in her arms because she had to work tomorrow. Seized by the fear that now seemed ridiculous yet used to make her shiver violently in her flimsy camisole, she remembered thinking about how she would become the last human being in the world to fall asleep, and for a little girl, it was the worst fear that could ever have imagined. Leah had been able to fall asleep independently when she was 8, with Raphaelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wind chimes hanging on her bed post. Every night, she would caress the surface of the crystal-blue glass tubes, mesmerized by their coolness and smoothness. The last things she remembered before she sank into unconsciousness were always the sensation of her fingertips on the end of the bell and its tranquil ringing. Next morning when she pulled over the curtains to let beams of bright morning sun streaked inside, she would recall a picture of breeze blowing across an endless ocean of greenness and leaves twirling in the air. The burning fire on her fingertips brought Leah back from her reverie. She looked down, and saw that the cigarette had reached its end. Putting out the last fire in the ashtray, Leah grasped her medicine bottle, only to discover that it had run out of pills. Feeling irritated, Leah threw the bottle across the room, and continued to stare into the distance, wondering about nothing. The intensity of city light has dwindled, the noise of car honks has increased to level 60. Morning came.

Maddie Garneau

Naira Mirza Pretty Legs Stay with the group, she says when we’re standing on the train platform. I don’t want you to get hurt. You have to stay with me and Rowan or Jackie and Alex. I don’t think she realizes how embarrassing that is for me. I don’t want my friends to think I have to be babysat by my sister. I’ll sit with Jackie and Alex, I say, but instead go into a different train car with my friends. We put our music on, loud, and talk even louder. We roll our skirts up like the older girls. You don’t know this? She says, her hair dripping beads of water on my worksheet. It’s easy. Isolate x. That means put it by itself on one side, idiot. Don’t scratch me. I just helped you with your preAlgebra. Why do you eat so slowly? She asks. Why do you eat so little? You need to get some meat on your bones if you want to be able to fight back. Maybe then you won’t be so scared. Maybe then you won’t have nightmares. Are you going to eat that much ice cream? You barely ate any real food. She pinches my arm. See? All bone. Don’t tell Mama, she says. If you tell Mama I’ll kill you. We sit on my bed cross-legged. It’s well past midnight, and out only light is the streetlamp below through the blinds on my window. Look at me. They’re not worth your time. Stop letting them manipulate you because you’re going to get yourself in trouble one day. She’s talking about Lizzie. I say okay. I’ll stay away I promise. The next day, I’m in the train station café with the same Lizzie I promised to stay away from. We dare each other to smile at strangers, as we let the rich flavor of salted caramel melt into our tongues. Lizzie smiles at a man, and he swipes out, almost hitting her. Whores, he calls us. The person behind the counter yells at the man to get out, and he leaves, but we leave faster. As we run to the other platform, run to my sister, my eyes burn with tears. Are you ok? She asks. Then quietly, I wish you were with me. I would’ve made him pay. She says that, but the others say, You should’ve stayed with the group. You shouldn’t have rolled up your skirt; you know you have pretty legs.

Lizard Hou

Jocelyn Leuenberger Two Cups of Coffee “I’m sorry, Brother, but I can’t see myself without it.” Hugo and Charlie sit tableside, facing each other, with two coffee mugs in front of them exalting heat into the open air. It’s just like a Renaissance painting: Hugo, the monk, and Charlie, the heretic, with the light stabbing straight across his forehead, as if God was watching them. “I just don’t understand…” Charlie pauses a moment. He looks at the reflection in the coffee cup. It sags on the right side. “I just don’t understand what else I’m supposed to do. I have nowhere to go—well, I could try and go to Susie’s, but she doesn’t want much to do with me anymore—and there are bills to pay, and at this point I’m just so used to the work…” Hugo puts his hands on the table. The skin on them is cracked apart, like arid soil. “And well, I know that before this whole God thing came up with you, that you were kind of like me—” Hugo points to the altarpiece hanging behind Charlie. It is an image of the Madonna, holding young Christ to her chest. Charlie spins around to view it, then wheels back, facing the monk. “Yeah, like that, with that whole art thing and stuff, but one day I was standing on this street corner at night, shuffling a deck of cards in my hand, asking this tourist lady if she’d like to pick one so the audience could see, and I saw this light. Now, I know Las Vegas is filled with lights, neon lights and street lights and those lights that spin around and twirl so you’ll come in and gamble, but this light, now this light was natural. It was gleaming straight into my eyes, white and blinding, and all I could think was, I want to get saved, y’know? I mean, how much gas station sushi can one man eat?” Charlie chuckles a little. His hands are beneath the table, and he is shuffling them together in a hurried motion, lacing and unlacing, and scrambling the thick badge they hold between his palms. He looks under the table for a moment. It’s embroidered with a single word: Ace. “And I can’t keep doing this anymore, if I want to get saved. I have to quit it. But I don’t know what else I can do.” Charlie palms the badge between his fingers once more. “You see, I’ve never done much of anything else. I was a busboy for a couple of months, then a barista, but all the other jobs I’ve had are only for a little while. I always get to mad at the bosses, or spit in the customer’s food, or don’t fold the blazers just right, and it just never works out—at school, my guidance counselor used to say I’d ‘self-destruct,’ and I guess that’s true.” Charlie tucks the badge under his fingers, then slides it across the table, towards Hugo. Hugo picks it up, peers at it for a second, then sets it back down, silently, as if he had never been there. “Look, I don’t know how heretical or whatever it is to be a street performer, and I don’t think Las Vegas magic is, well, y’know, witchcraft, but all I know is that it doesn’t pay well, and that there isn’t any love in it. I only do it because I have to. I’ve been putting on this Ace character—y’know, like the card—and I’ve just been getting worse. I’ve been spending nights on park benches and smoking cigs instead of eating food— God, food, did you know that I haven’t had Thanksgiving dinner in four years? And my mom, oh god, her, I haven’t talked to her since I was seventeen, and that makes me feel insane. Like, really, really manic, y’know, like I can’t stop falling backwards.” Charlie peers upwards. Hugo is staring straight at him, and his expression is still in that sort of paternal halfsmile it was before, only this time it feels like something, less of a courtesy and more heroic. Hugo reaches across the table, holds his calloused hands in Charlie’s dirt-stained ones. He is silent for a moment, then nods. “Charlie, I will stop you from falling.”

Virginia Dubbs Home Being a kid is

never coming home

because you don’t know what

home means, yet. Your parents tell you to find it when you’re older and you search and search, and just when you’ve settled for something less than

best, you find home at the most unlikely time. Leave your bags, leave your cat. Have your neighbor feed the cat once in awhile, get your mail, and maybe even make the obligatory phone calls to your parents. (But

always revel in the possibility you might not go back to that

cat, to that neighbor, if you find a place in the city only 4 blocks down from the best coffee shop or the countryside where you find fish markets and little old ladies that you can’t help but buy from.) Take the midnight train and watch the woman feed the dog in her purse. Watch the creep who has his hand inching further and further down towards his waist belt and change(carts? Rooms? Cars? Whatever you call those things.) Anyway, make sure you pack lightly, a book bag or two because finding home may take a while. But hey, at least trains have windows.

Anti

Ali Smith Cake and Ice Cream I was eight years old and it was just a normal day at the park with my father. At that moment, he was talking to the parent of another kid, a kid I hated because he had shoved me down the slide so fast that I saw sparks against my skin and the hard blue plastic. “Dad, that kid pushed me down the slide,” I said. The kid was just standing there stone-faced and ashamed, the guilt ripping his insides like a woodchipper. “Oh, and when he pushed me,” I added, “I went so fast that it made sparks, like how you can start a fire by rubbing a stick against a rock. They taught me that in Girl Scouts.” Slowly, the boy’s father started laughing. My dad didn’t speak, but he squeezed my hand and whispered, “Go play with another kid.” I felt betrayed that he hadn’t punched the boy in the face yet. When I left the playground to go the grass area, I said to the boy, “You suck.” I felt the thrill of swearing, since “suck” was not a word that was allowed in my house, along with “stupid” and “can’t.” Still, I found creative ways to swear. “But mom, why cannot I say that I can’t not do this homework?” “Dad, it is okay if I say that I’m sucking this straw?” On the lawn, there was a birthday party going on, complete with balloons, a cake, and children squirming in plastic chairs. A woman struggled to light the candles in the breeze as everyone sang “Happy Birthday” offkey. I walked up to the table and sat down. Nobody noticed me. I thought about making them notice me, but then I thought that maybe I wouldn’t get cake, so I stayed quiet. There was a girl right next to me, and she started telling me about her new American Girl doll, and I started talking about how I wanted an American Girl doll, and then I started to forget that it wasn’t my birthday party. As the woman started passing out plates with cake on them, I put my hands under my legs to keep myself from jumping with joy. There was a tub of vanilla ice cream too, and I asked the lady, “Is it okay if I have ice cream and cake?” “Sure, sweetie,” she said as she worked to put out a flame that had caught onto one of the napkins. “Is it okay if I have ice cream and cake and then I mix them together?” “Sure, sure.” I felt valued. I was busy stuffing my face with ice cream and cake when my dad came over. “Maya, I’ve been trying to find you!” he said, lifting me into his arms. I squirmed, trying to get closer to the cake. “Dad, I don’t want to go, I’m having fun.” “I am so sorry, miss,” he said to the lady, “Maybe I haven’t taught her properly that it isn’t okay to join the birthday parties of kids you don’t know --” “Oh, it’s fine,” she said, waving it off. “She was very polite, and besides, all the other kids like her.” I looked around the table, and everyone was eating their ice cream and their cake mixed together.

April Wang An excerpt from The

Empty Streets of Cornell Avenue

Every day Lucifer commutes to the center of Chicago from his small house in Buffalo Grove. And every day Lucifer commutes back to Buffalo Grove, arriving at the train station at exactly 7:38 PM. He takes the long way home, exiting through the east gate of the station instead of the north, weaving around Bristol Lane onto Newport Drive, stopping at green lights and allowing pedestrians and bicyclists alike to surpass him. He knows there aren’t any beauties on any route home, especially at 7:38 PM, but every day he walks down different roads just to make sure, running his eyes up and down the streets like he was looking out for speeding cars. There never were any. On Tuesday morning, Lucifer’s alarm clock did not go off as it usually did at 6:15, but he woke up anyway at 6:17. Frustrated about his clock malfunctioning, the groggy man looked at the clock on the nightstand to his right and threw it on the floor. He heard the satisfying crash and trudged into his bathroom without turning another eye. Lucifer thought about how he would have rather chucked it at the wall, but he didn’t want to leave dents that he would have to stare at at night. With the flick of a finger, he turned on the light switch and was momentarily blinded by the sudden flash of light. Opening his eyes wide, he studied himself in the mirror and used his fingers to prod his cheeks, his eyelids, and the wrinkles on his forehead. Red spider webs crawling around in the blank white of his eyes stared back at him. “Honey? What’s today’s weather report?” Lucifer called out, not taking his eyes off the mirror. There was no response. His bedroom was empty. Lucifer sighed and lowered his hand. “Ok Google,” Lucifer said, annoyed. “Check today’s weather.” A voice-activated speaker sitting on his nightstand responded in a woman’s sultry voice.

Sarah Miller

There was a body beneath the table. Mom said, “Would you pass the peas, Janet?” Janet said, “Jesus Christ, Mom, there’s a dead body in the dining room.” Mom said, “Not a dead body Janet, Edgar. Don’t be crass.” Dad sighed, a great big weary sigh that deflated all the air out of his body. I dutifully reached across Janet to pass mom the peas. Before you go thinking the worst of us I should inform you that most of our family dinners aren’t this eventful, some are, but not most. Mom smiled brightly, “So how have all your weeks been? Anything eventful?” Janet groaned, “Mom,” she gave us all an imploring glance, “Are we all just going to ignore the dead bo- Edgar?” We all stared blankly back at her and resumed eating. After all, it was bad manners to raise one’s voice at the dinner table, best to just ignore the transgression. I said, “My week went well, I settled the Clayborn case.” Not that my family would ask, but the Clayborn case had been a tough one. The plaintiff, Leia Clayborn had sued her husband, John Clayborn for violating their contract and stealing her intellectual property. The case was made all the more difficult by the couple’s concurrent divorce proceeding. Eventually I got them to settle; I always do.

Devon Winchester

When the first house caught fire, it was largely ignored. Ignored, that is, by everyone except the family who had lived inside it. That family was confused as to how it had happened. There were no candles, they said, no appliances left on, no pie left too long in the oven no spoon in the microwave there was nothing. There was no fire until it engulfed their entire home and left the fire department scratching their heads as to how it happened. Despite the inexplicable circumstances, the other people of the town talked about it for only a day or two. Oh how horrible, they said, with a glint of delight in their eyes that they could not conceal. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so awful, I feel so bad for that family, they said, with the tiniest of grins on their faces. They delighted in the fact that it had not happened to them, in the misfortune of other people. They delighted in the way that humans always do when tragedy strikes those that they do not personally care about. Within the next two weeks, five more houses burned down, and the cycle repeated. There were no candles, the families said, no appliances left on, no pie left too long in the oven no spoon in the microwave there was nothing. There was no fire until it engulfed their entire home and left a now somewhat perturbed fire department scratching their heads as to how it happened. The other people of the town talked a little longer this time. Oh how horrible, they said, with a glint of concern in their eyes that was there not for the families but for themselves. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so awful, I feel so bad for those families, they said, with the tiniest of frowns on their faces. They began to contemplate that it could happen to them, and were upset. They were upset not for those who had already been harmed, but for themselves, who could soon be harmed. They were upset in the way that humans always are when tragedy has a possibility of striking them.

Emma Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Antoni

Olivia Lee

He was the kind of man who couldn’t really speak. His name was Marky. Marky mostly kept to himself, but at least his smile was endearing. As far I knew, I was his closest (and probably only) friend. We were just like any old pair of friends. Two grown men spending everyday together, just like any bro duo. Everyday I would ask Marky what he wanted to do that day. He would ask me the same question. I would say what I would like to do, and he’d agree before I could say anything else. We went to go see a movie that day, some generic action flick with some B-list actor. I tried to be engaged in the movie, but my eyes kept glancing at Marky. He had sunk himself into the seat, fidgeting his thumbs over and over again. He was clearly unhappy, but I looked back at the screen. Maybe if I didn’t worry, time would pass more quickly. I counted the tropes. The generic hero with no personality. The hot chick with no personality. The boat scene. The two characters with the least chemistry make out on a life raft. Then they fuck on the life raft. Oops sharks. It was the same old stuff, boring ass tripe that any 2 year old could see coming. We stepped out of the movie theater, and I asked Marky what he thought of the movie as I stretch. He says a simple alright and asked me what I thought. I shrugged and agreed. He asked me where we should eat. I suggested some generic diner with some okay food, and he complied. I ate as quickly as I could because I could tell Marky didn’t want to eat what he ordered. As we walked out I complimented how Marky looked. A red hoodie with jeans. Marky would always dress simply, but I always thought he looked great regardless. After I complimented him, Marky asked if I meant it, and I repeated what I said. He blushed and looked away. He looked so cute with rosy cheeks. Quietly, we went back to Marky’s place, a small apartment. I told him I had a good time, and I felt a lump in my throat as I watched Marky contort and stretch his face into a smile. He said he had a good time too, and I suddenly lost control of myself. Without thinking, I asked him something that had been buried deep inside. I asked him if he loved me. Marky’s eyes widened, taken aback. I asked the question again, clenching my hands into fists. He says yes. He just says yes. The simplest answer anyone could ever utter. That was the point where I broke. I sobbed, I choked, I yelled. I begged to hear Marky’s voice. I screamed, I cried, I pleaded. And then, all of a sudden, he grabbed me. He pulled me in. He kissed me. Everything went silent. All I could think of is how soft Marky’s lips were compared to the voice I heard from him. After some point (I’m not sure how long), Marky pulls away, leaving me in a daze. He says it again. I love you. I smiled. I finally heard his voice.

Rachel Hsu

crystal yang fortune cookie wisdom do it because you love it. the scale of hypotheticality runs from negative six to one thousand and forty-one. is it possible to ad lib your way through the entirety of saturnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rings? if you manage to miss the ice chunks and dust will you make it to the frozen heart of something that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how to love? we are hacking away at illusionary limbs of lust, a burn stronger than any alcohol. the asteroid belt has often mixed in planets that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make the cut, but if we spend our entire lives drifting along in that monotony the apathy eventually eats away at us. i have learnt to break my bones every time i get up in the morning. someone else has told me that they claw at their vocal cords until the screams turn into music. if this is how the world goes on, how do we learn to do something because we love it, when the fragile concept of love has been manufactured into dust grains, easily blown away by an exhale of routine?