Volition - Fall 2022

CONTENTS

POETRY

Alfredo Cervantes Frias

Kundan Kushu

Grace

Safiya Khan

Kanwal Ahmad

Colby LaTessa

El mundo se apagó | 4

La noche estrellada | 38

Allegiance | 5

The Doe | 6 rain walks | 10 time: the fastest runner on earth | 36 gone | 12 poem (n.) {english} | 34

Midnight Oil | 40

If the Sun Hit | 14

An Homage to the Things I See Out of the Corner of my Eye | 44

Kameron Dionne

Jhoana Salinas

Aloana Hall

Lara Brugioni

Sally Deen

Nina Durham

Must She Be Dainty | 16

The Machista was gifted six daughters | 18

Music Man | 20

The Inconstant Cup | 26

Blessed Meantime | 28

Deeper Than Deep My Skin | 32

Sienna Haze | 33

Our Crown | 30

VOLUME 33

PROSE

Brandon Bennett

Thomas Malinovsky

Sara Thompson

Do Dogs Feel Disappointment | 8-9

Story of a Cripple, Written by Himself | 22-23

Final Judgement of Taylor Morris | 42-43

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY

Amani Jefferson

Elizabeth Forbes

Anna Simakova

Sophia Porter

Intemporel (Timeless) | Cover

Deterioating Love | 11

Adventures in Mushroom Spotting | 23

A Seascape | 35

City-Relief | 13

Energy of City. Spanish Motifs | 21

Pharoh’s Ship. Egypt | 31

A Couple in Vondel Park | 15

Tulip Dream | 19

Private Space | 41

Adella Bailey

I Believe in Harmony | 17

Testing the Waters | 24-25

Clarity of a Memory | 29

Lienhardt Romain

Rheagan Nelson

Trisha Dahal

Electric Firefly | 27

Hidden Hope | 37

Porttrait of Bride | 39

MISSION STATEMENT

Volition serves to elevate the creative capacity of the Mason community by fostering freedom of expression across diverse mediums.

FALL 2022

El mundo se apagó

El mundo se apagó y se olvidó de mí. El mundo me dejó en el vacío en el abismo.

Y ya no sé. No sé si volveré a ser el mismo. Mi conciencia se estremece; se convierte en un charco de dolor. El mundo me abandonó y se olvidó de mí. La costumbre me obliga a seguir sangrando.

El mundo siguió su camino y me perdí, como un ave en el desierto. Mi corazón truena en la tormenta; se hunde en lo más profundo de mi conciencia.

El mundo se apartó y no supo más de mí. Ya no sé qué rumbo seguir entre lo real o lo vivido.

The world moved on and forgot about me. The world left me in the void in the abyss.

And I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same. My conscience shudders; turns into a puddle of pain. The world abandoned me and forgot it all. It forced me to continue bleeding. I got lost, like a sparrow in the desert. My heart thunders in the storm; sinks into the depths of my conscience. The world turned away and knew no more of me. I no longer know which way to go between the real or the lived.

Allegiance

Easy isn’t it? To watch the world fall apart. Rise, and do nothing.

The Doe

Fresh rain and rotting leaves, pressed into the earth like a sore attempt at pressing flowers.

The doe doesn’t mind me, walking a path I’ve worn down a thousand times over.

Her children have grown and she’s left to scavenge for food before the cold comes, alone.

Ears flick in my direction as I step on a leaf, the crunch, horrifyingly similar to the break of a bone.

We make eye contact for a few seconds before she sprints away, bounding over the naked underbrush.

Adventures in Mushroom Spotting | Elizabeth Forbes | Photography

Do Dogs Feel Disappointment?

Just a few days ago, I came back from school. It is early in the fall now and the leaves here have not changed their colors yet. The weather is still nice on most days.

I am at my parents’ house, on the front porch, lying on my back. The upper half of my body is shadowed by the porch-roof, but below my waist I can feel the sun shining softly on me.

I have been out here for almost a half-hour.

My dog has rested the bottom of her snout on my shoulder, and her neck is nestled firmly into the pit of my arm. Her name is Cuddles, my little black-and-tan wiener-dog. She is getting rather old.

When I was younger, I used to think that ‘dachshund’ was German for ‘wienerdog’, but I know now that it does not translate literally. No — it actually means ‘badger-dog’.

Before I first went to college, I lived in this house with my parents for almost eleven years. It is a big brick house sitting on the top of a moderate, rural hill. Not many people live around here. There are probably less than ten other households in the surrounding square-mile.

I try to spend as much time as I can with my dog while I’m here, before I have to leave again. I miss her very much when I’m away. Sometimes, when I talk to my mom over the phone, she tells me that my dog misses me too, or that at least Cuddles acts like she misses me.

As I stay still, she pulls away from me to toddle off to the porch-ledge and gaze out into the front field. She does this every few minutes before coming back to me, in a little cycle. She goes to the ledge and scans the treelines that bound the meadow our house is in, always left-to-right, always slow and thorough.

When she does this, her pose gets all rigid and sturdy. Like she’s alert. Like she’s on guard.

I guess Cuddles is protecting me. It makes me smile.

As she turns around and walks slowly back, I see something in her tired gaze that I have also seen in the eyes of other old dogs. I don’t have an exact word for it, but I think it’s like a kind of dignity, or something approaching dignity, and that whatever it is, it’s something well-weathered and worn, and it’s like it can’t be taken away from

them, like they will have this thing with them forever, no matter what, even after they pass on.

It has been a long time now since I first noticed this look in her eyes. Since the start of this year, her eyes have also grown cloudy. Even though she still likes to look out at the trees, I don’t think she sees well at all anymore.

Cuddles had a brother that died three years ago. His name was Rex, and he was a shade lighter than the usual dachshund brown. He was a fat, lazy, and often nervous dog.

His sister was never like him at all—often, as she chased wildly after a rabbit or a deer, or howled at the occasional car passing by in the distance, he could be found sitting down somewhere, all relaxed, not caring to join, just watching her like she was performing for his amusement.

My dad used to say that Cuddles was the one born with all of the personality, that her brother was no good and lazy. I think he was just frustrated that Rex didn’t chase away the deer from his tomato garden like his sister would, that he’d sometimes just watch them from a distance while they ate my dad’s plants.

I liked him very much, though.

If you looked at him with expectation or made your voice reproachful, it seemed like he understood you, because he’d look up at you with these adorable, sad little eyes that told you he was ashamed of his own nature, his laziness, but that he couldn’t help it, that he still meant well.

For all his faults, I believe he was an innocent and kind animal.

His sister watched while we dug his grave.

It hurt to look at her. That day, for the first time in a long time, I felt my heart swell somewhere between the rhythm of each shovel hitting the dirt and the confused stares of the sister he left behind.

I think that was the first time I saw that tired look in her eyes.

Now, in the present, she is next to me, looking through the glass midsection of the front door behind me, evidently watching something. It opens abruptly, and my mom steps out.

She is going to get the mail.

Cuddles gets very excited when my mom comes outside, because my mom usually comes out once or twice a day to give her a dog treat and to pet on her. My dad says she spoils the dog.

As my mom begins walking to the mailbox at the end of our long driveway, Cuddles follows her, eager and anxious for a treat. Only a short way down the path, she starts to slow down and trail behind.

As she comes to a stop, I think she has finally realized that there is no treat for her this time. She is standing still now, staring at my mom’s figure receding in the distance, being left behind. I see this and ask myself, knowing well the answer: do dogs feel disappointment?

rain walks

sometimes a walk in the rain is all you need to feel alive

to walk when its cloudy out and the silence before the storm nips against your skin

if it weren’t Mother Nature herself I’d say the silence feels unnatural

a suppression of sound like every living thing is told, “ hide, the rain is coming ”

the same type of suppressed silence that comes with snow when it layers everything in its white flakes and the world begins to feel asleep

sometimes a walk in the rain is all you need to feel alive to walk briskly as the sky softly rumbles knowing when you look up, no matter how gray the clouds might appear, high enough up there are blue skies so clear

to walk with your eyes peeled ready to see the first droplet of rain only to hear it first before it touches your skin or comes in your sight

the light pitter patter that’s only drowned out by the abrupt chainsaw sound you hear from a nearby neighbor only making the walk more ominous but also energized

sometimes a walk in the rain in the final moments as you reach your house is all you need to be reminded that you are alive you are here being drenched as rain tries to get in your eyes but is blocked out by your hat since for some reason you’re usually wearing one on your walks

sometimes a walk in the rain is all you need to feel rejuvenated cleansed awakened and most importantly.... alive.

sometimes we don’t realize how much we’re just walking through life until certain experiences arrive at our doorstep and wake us up again.

| Safiya Khan

Deterioting Love | Amani Jefferson | Photography

gone

at least wet gravel crunches, but here sneakers tap listlessly on water pooled on sidewalk the romance is gone. the water is a layer so thin you cannot splash it, so thin there is no point in dancing around it.

there is no nature to block out the sound of logic, the wind has died and refused to redden these cheeks with excitement, some adversity to fight in pretend fervor just for a moment.

the world is large, and it seeps, it seeps into this story that hardly begins

this child worries in the silence wonders where the neighbors have gone, locked up in their houses wonders and wonders and walks on.

there is no grass, save for the ones that peek through cracks, save for the ones that beckon a trespasser, save for the ones that grow where the water drains gone is the romance.

and even under the shade of trees, she cannot find the rhythm the leaves here do not whisper to each other there is no song to this story there is not a tired wisp of smoke that climbs out of the houses. and she wonders if all that’s left here are ghosts.

| Kanwal Ahmad

City-Relief | Anna Simakova | Paper Collage

If the Sun Hit

If the sun hit the buildings of New York City

You would be blinded by the light

But you’ll never see that Because we chose dirt and money

Over art and beauty

If you looked at London

Whilst it was uncovered

You would be stunned in awe of the The sights that go unseen

But instead a veil of soot covers it’s souls

This world is an ordained work of art

A masterpiece of creation

Be it natural or divine

Yet human intervention

Has made their decision that Death and destruction is more profitable

You’ll never see the sun...

At least not here,

But a solemn promise

I leave with you

The sun you shall see again

See it reflect off the marble

Of New York and London

See it shine upon the mountains

And light up the sea

There is something here yet

There is art here yet

| Colby LaTessa

A Couple in Vondel Park

| Sophia Porter | Photography

Must She Be Dainty

to be divine?

Do her eyes have to shine to attract the masses, or can there be interest in her muted, incurious gaze? Is there no desire for the brute beauty queen — who draws in chaos between every contested breath — every indulged chuckle?

How has the focus migrated from her arrogant smirks, her spitfire tongue — and settled on the circumference of her hips and thighs? Must she only be between a winter-kissed daffodil and sweetened whispers?

Is there no divinity in her abstained anger — her frustrated cries?

| Kameron Dionne

I Believe in Harmony | Adella Bailey | Photography

The Machista was gifted six daughters

Machismo bleeds through our culture

Mi mama faced the extremities of machismo

To being beaten and raped

Her abuser was gifted six daughters

He never viewed them as gifts from the creator

But as burdens, objects, and slaves

But the six daughters were saved by their mother

Mama broke generational curses

“Mija, uno nunca se deja”

Giving consejos to be strong willed, Independent

There’s no need for a man!

I broke my mother’s heart

Was never abandoned by any women

However

Absences of fatherly love, Complete neglect

I was in search of love that don’t love you back

Found one love

Poured my soul

Yet left only to face the extremities machismo

Just like her mother

Los lloros y gritos

Cuando se enteró lo que le pasó a su hija

La Virgen Morena no nos escuchó ese día

Tampoco su hijo

No pudo escapar la cultura

In the end

She couldn’t protect her daughter

My sister used to say to my mother

“If I only I looked like you and not the man who hurt you”

Mama caught us drawing stretch marks on our stomach and thighs

Mama’s years of self-hatred on her skin

Gone in seconds

Her beautiful creations

Her soulmates

Two beauty marks mama’s shoulder

Two beauty marks on my shoulder

One big

One small

Destined to be my mother

To have hate in her skin

Was to have hate in her daughters’ skin

To have hate in my skin

Was to have hate in my mother’s skin

Never will I have hate in myself nor the world

It’s my mother’s beautiful creation

Mother nature’s beautiful creation

To have hate

Was to have hate in a mother

| Jhoana Salinas

Tulip Dream | Sophia Porter | Photography

Music Man

Music man at the street corner, don’t stop playing that melody that makes me feel like I’m in a movie, the main, lead me as the music leads you too; cadence causing the exchange of blue souls. Your heart

beats enable your hands to move, fingers plucking the strings which shake in excitement making the molecules in the air dance and vibrate, bumping into each other in a crowded nightclub. Their collision is an energy wave bouncing through this alleyway, weighing down the velvet summer,

leaping off the sandstone cathedral walls and off flowers hanging from all the balconies. The prearranged bouquets of Sunflowers and Asters after your show.

After your performance, after music gives you liberation, after the crowd — I alone — applauds the color you add around you. Each strum harmonizes and paints the distant voices, tires rolling over cobblestone roads, and the natural hum of the air. But

when you press down against the neck of the guitar, do your fingers bruise, do you always play here, even when there’s no one around?

Is this beauty causing you pain, as you relieve mine?

Energy of City. Spanish Motifs | Anna Simakova | Mixed Media

Story of a Cripple, Written by Himself

They will call you a cripple. You know this. You know this as surely as you know that there’s a “they”.

This is a prophecy and a history lesson. They will call you a cripple and you will laugh.

Freak shows hit their peak at the start of the 19th century. They were usually traveling, much like circuses, putting on their displays at taverns and fairgrounds. Some of the numbers included displays of talents (contortionists, animal tamers), but they were mostly exactly what it said on the tin: freaks. People who were deformed in some fascinating, hideous way would put on outfits to accentuate their bodies and exist. People who were lucky enough to be considered normal paid to stand by and try not to react. But how could you not? How could anyone look at a freak with a straight face?

It’s been two months since your accident and your leg is getting worse. The doctor doesn’t know what to do with you and he’s halfway to recommending cures for hysteria, but, while he offers to pray for you, you can’t walk around school or work anymore, so you buy a cane. So it begins. You’ve made a crucial mistake. The cane is a physical presence to prove what they could have ignored; it is a constant reminder to them that you are other. You’re broken.

They could have ignored your limp and your pain was easy to push aside, but a cane? A cane is permanent. They can’t ignore the cane. They trip over it time and again. The look they give it, the look they give you for a split second after they catch themselves, before they realize what it is, is full of confusion. They’re not expecting it. It doesn’t fit into

their worldview.

It starts slowly, like a glacier gliding down towards the sea. Your friends start suggesting events for you to do as a group that you are no longer able to participate in. We could go ice skating, they say. Then, they see your cane. It is a reminder of the reality in front of them. They could ignore your pain. They can’t ignore a wooden stick.

So they lash out. You don’t make sense anymore, you’re ruining their plans with your leg, with your cane, with the way you make them feel stupid when they forget to accommodate for you. There is a way to make up for this feeling, for them. It is tried and true. Maybe they have been thinking it the whole time.

You hear someone mutter it as you pass by in the hall on your way to your English class. Cripple.

You stop and turn around to stare, eyebrows raised. You can’t believe your ears. You think you must have made a mistake. Who uses that word anymore? This is the modern age. No one is openly ableist now. Who still says that? What are you, some Victorian orphan hobbling around with a crutch?

You tell the story to your friends. If their laughter is strained, you ignore it.

People with disabilities were often presented as an undiscovered race of humans. Anyone with a visible deformation was fair game for a clever poster artist to claim their company had found a new brand of creature. After all, just look at them. They aren’t human. Not looking like that.

You don’t expect it from him. You knew some people would do it, you’ve heard other people do it,

| Thomas Malinovsky

but that was them. This is him. You trust him, don’t you?

You’ve been going out with him for two months now and he’s seen you break down over the looks you get. It’s either pity or disgust and confusion. The people always glance away by the time you spot them looking.

He calls you a cripple anyway. He calls you lame. He says that it’s a joke.

You don’t laugh.

It’s just a joke, he says. I don’t mean anything by it.

How could someone willingly put themself on display as a freak of nature? Many of the artists in freak shows simply had no other means of income. Coming from lower classes, some with families who had disowned them, they could not work in stable jobs due to either discrimination or physical disabilities. Freak shows, in a best case scenario, provided a sense of community and could even be run by the artists themselves to create a worker’s union and set wages. It was a communal living space and a way for marginalized groups to make money off of their oppression. But still, one cannot help but wonder. Did it feel like debasing themselves? When they wiped their makeup off at the end of the night, did they feel exhausted? Humiliated?

You start calling yourself a cripple. It is a victory and a surrender.

It comes with a thrill, like a swear. Like you’re a kid again. Your friends laugh. It feels good.

You ignore the knowledge, deep down, that their laughter is partly relief. They’re relieved you’re calling yourself that so they do not have to. They’re relieved you’re stating the obvious. They’re relieved you laughed at yourself before they had to.

Isn’t this better? Isn’t laughing at yourself better than others laughing at you? It isn’t exhausting. It isn’t humiliating.

It is only a little bit bitter.

Freak shows lost popularity after WWII. They were seen as having no place in a civilized society, such as the USA. Disabled people were looked at as pitiful or inspirational now. Yet, still, freak shows persist in some areas of the world. They advertise strange and abnormal people. They call themselves names. They are neither pitiful nor inspirational. They are bitter. They are loud. They make their audience uncomfortable. They make them scared. After all, they aren’t supposed to take control of the way they’re viewed. They’re supposed to be laughed at, pitied, and simply take it. They don’t. It’s terrifying.

Why do you call yourself that? they ask. It makes them uncomfortable. Why don’t you love yourself? You’re being so brave.

You could tell them they’re the reason why you do it. That they started it. But you know what they would say.

Oh no, not them. They’d never. Who says things like that, in this day and age? They’re accommodating. They were raised in good families, raised to open doors for you and carry your things for you and only think of you as lesser in their minds. They’re polite. They look away when you catch them staring. Isn’t that respectful of them?

You smile, wry. You make jokes. The laughter is still there, but it is nervous. They don’t know how to react to you. You’re not supposed to find this funny. You’re not supposed to make them feel bad. It’s supposed to be the other way around. You’re the victim, for them to pity or humiliate. What you are is supposed to be up to them.

When you wash off your makeup at the end of the day, you feel exhausted. You feel, sometimes, humiliated.

But, deep down, you feel a bitter kind of joy in owning what you are.

Testing the Waters | Adella Bailey | Photography

The Inconstant Cup

My cup has been in front of me for as long as I can remember, filled with something that never tasted right, but obediently, I drank it. Today, I hear the clink of porcelain and look at the table next to mine.

They call themselves queens, with hair styled to the sky and dresses made from tulle, silk, and lace the color of sugar, with lips red like rose petals that cusp the edge of cups held in satin-gloved hands. Conversation is uttered casually, without the cast black shadow of the words faggot, tranny, trash that clash with the beauty of their fanlike lashes and lids like twilight blues, pinks, oranges, and golds. Queer sisters gather like twirling swans basking in clouds of glitter and dirty jokes.

Queen bees, I want to be like you. They pour honey in my cup and tell me to sip — it coats everything, sweet and sticky, oh how I ache to be pretty like a princess, they dress me up and blush my cheeks, turn me into the technicolor Disney dream that the girl twenty years ago would gush about. But this isn’t me, with eyes too dark to shine and brows too thick and sparse lines of hair above the lip and lashes that refuse to flutter. I refuse to utter “girl,” like it’s a curse, a crack in the reflection, leaves stuck to the bottom of the cup that get to be tossed with the rest of the bitter pot. What do I call myself?

They put whiskey in my cup and tell me to sip — it burns my throat like tears never shed, oh how I ache to be strong like those Guys on TV, with their hard looks and chiseled features, a spirit like a knife’s edge, corked and barreled and left to age. Forget my name — call me Clint, call me Indy, give me a whip and a trick up my sleeve, a gun that splits the night in two, a dick, and maybe a lady, too. The Cool Guys and the Queen Bees take me, deck me in dark leather and slick my hair, and lift me up and ask is this better? Is this you? But it’s not meant to be, not with a too soft face and not an ounce of grit that’ll fix this skin that wasn’t born to be a boy, let alone a man. What do I call myself?

Why do you have to call yourself anything? ask the Queens. Who says you can’t empty your glass and pour another, or mix and match until you find that perfect flavor of identity? Who says you have to be one thing or the other, so long as your cup is full and hot and fits into the palm of your hand? The answer lies in rose petal lips that kiss the rim of the cup and taste the leaves, the full-flavored body, your body the vessel.

| Lara Brugioni

Electric Firefly | Lienhardt Romain | Photography

Blessed Meantime

Meantime, We will express ourselves

Through pen and paint, and pain and play. We’ll capture youth, For it will escape us if we fail to embrace it. It is our intent to face life with a critical yet winking eye; To countdown the hours till granted sips of champagne; To note how our destinies dance in our dreamsBut resist rehearsing the choreographies of our future. Our experiences enriched, In knowing that these days will not last forever. But in the blessed meantime, We will imagine That they are never ending.

| Sally Deen

Clarity of a Memory | Adella Bailey | Photography

Our Crown

Our ancestry is in our crown

From our coils, kinks, curls, locs, fros, and protective styles

From cornrows showing tribal roots to unique rows and patterns showing escape pursuits Constantly enduring ridicules, critiques, and strict rules to dim our crown that continues to shine

Our strands continue to show our strength with defined designs

Our ancestry is in our crown With fros that glisten from oil sheen that grows to a height others can’t believe All of our crowns are beautiful

Even through our turmoil, how we hold things together it’ll forever be unforeseen

Our ancestry is in our crown Boosting our confidence

Even bringing spiritual resonance through our locs The connection takes time to grow and understand completely And discreetly, the relationship isn’t always easy But our ancestry is in our crown Please, believe me.

| Nina Durham

Pharaoh’s Ship. Egypt | Anna Simakova | Mixed Medium

Deeper Than My Deep Skin

Can you see deeper than my deep skin?

See my character and complexities Or only my complexion akin

To cocoa? Cocoa is all you know of me, it seems. You don’t listen when I speak. Instead, you contemplate what to steal next. I’m sure you’d rather I be mild and meek

As you take the way I talk, and look, and dress. Strip away my image from my person. It’s your last chance to truly see me. I stand bare. Your eyesight only worsens.

You don’t recognize my humanity, although you stare. I show you the intelligence and passions within But you reach no further than the richness of my skin.

| Sally Deen

Sienna Haze

When I close my eyes and think of Africa, I feel warmth

But it’s more than just rays of sun caressing my skin

It’s the soft sand sizzling sweet beneath my feet The way the waves cascade clear The breeze of the palm trees

Neighbors and strangers give and love with ease Just like my family, forever expanding Never will I be standing alone

Picked from the tree of my mother’s home The mangoes are so much sweeter, Sweet like the taste of these memories

I see a sienna haze

A layer of golden light on every surface The beauty blazing bright

When I think of Africa, I think of all the teachings and customs that my family has passed down to me I think of how blessed and proud I am to be African

| Sally Deen

poem (n.) {english}

from poema {greek} “thing made or created” so this truth i tell in cryptic verses is different in nature than those fictional immersives that exist to be, and yet both, behold, pull tears out of me one to get lost in, the other to help me breathe

| Kanwal Ahmad

A Seascape | Elizabeth Forbes | Embroidery on Canvas

time: the fastest runner on earth

I spent 1 hour and 7 minutes at Starbucks yesterday waiting for a drink for my mom 67 minutes for a $6.32 dollar drink

I spent 32 minutes doing my makeup yesterday propping my phone up against my makeup brush cup right in front of the hotel window far enough that people can’t see inside from nearby buildings but close enough that the natural light lets me clearly see what my makeup looks like so I don’t overdo it

I spent 25 minutes being lost yesterday trying to find my friends from out of town so we could stand in line for another 25-40 minutes to get our lunch from nearby food trucks

I spent 15 minutes max remembering my Lord yesterday combining my prayers as I was out of town

all this time running through my fingers as I go with the flow that doesn’t seem to make enough room for my Lord which makes me realize I have to fight against myself to not bury myself in the ocean of the world and instead, dip my toes more often into the ocean of God and his majesty.

| Safiya Khan

Hidden Hope | Rheagan Nelson | Photography

La noche estrellada

Bajo la noche estrellada, vuelo y vuelo.

Sin saber a donde voy y sin saber en dónde estoy.

Mi cordura es bendita, pero nunca entró en mi penar.

Puedo durar un centenario y aún desconocer lo que es pecar.

Mi alma supura lo que un día fue estelar.

¿Qué quiero de la vida? Pues aún no sé ni andar.

Bajo la noche estrellada, vuelo y vuelo sin pensar.

Sin saber en la agonía en la que me he puesto a andar.

Bajo la noche estrellada, vuelo y vuelo con tu pesar.

Portrait of Bride | Trisha Dahal | Photography

Midnight Oil

she says this is not brilliance

i know that this is my self-worth built on a tower of late nights and crumbling resolve

but she knows as i do that this facade is the standard

she asks if i see the problem in comparing sparks in the sky with midnight oil leaving bright spots in my eyes and dark circles as their outlines

i tell her this is midnight season eyes crack open, dry mouths close and try to swallow hope nose back to grind long hours around false hearths searching to find something to show for all of this pain so many hours with so little gain

it is midnight season no rest because i’m not wicked sharp and no rest because we revere the drought; to give every breath until i’m done and out

no, this is not brilliance — it is midnight season. if there were embers, they’re ashes by now.

| Kanwal Ahmad

Private Space | Sophia Porter | Photography

The Final Judgment of Taylor Morris

Dark storm clouds had gathered in the Texas sky on the night Taylor Morris was scheduled to meet his maker. From his cell, the condemned man could stand on his tip-toes at the window and look up at the clouds above. They were gray and thick and heavy now, though most nights he’d spent there the stars shone bright, and the moon threw cold light through the barred window and across his bare cot. But tonight the moonlight had been smothered. The hallway which stretched before his cell door was also quieter than usual. Most nights would pass by with the shuffle of feet, the sound of hands dragging across the bars, and the measured tread of the prison guards. Now there was nothing but the sound of cicadas, and the night-wind picking up as the rain rolled in.

He paced his cell several times, sat, then rose again. He thought of the chaplain, who had come at ten and talked to him in his cell for thirty minutes. It had been so long since he’d looked a man in the eye, and even longer since he’d spilled his heart to anyone, and when the chaplain had stood to leave, Taylor had wanted to tell him to stay; but the chaplain said “You should be getting some rest,” which didn’t make much sense to him. His rest would come soon enough, and a lot of it; what he wanted now was to be able to squeeze as much living as he could from what few hours remained before he was to get the chair.

The storm front stampeded like horses, and with every rolling cloud, heat lightning crackled. Taylor wondered what it would be like, having lightning jump through his bones. For so long he had fronted being unafraid of death, and unrepentant of his crime, but he was afraid of dying. He wasn’t afraid of being dead, but rather of getting there. He was afraid it would hurt. When the clouds opened up and the rain began to pour down, Taylor released the bars of his cell and dropped back down on his heels, and again began to pace the room like a caged tiger. He had all his things laid out on his bed; his toothbrush, his cup, his dog-eared Bible. Glancing over at its weathered cover, Taylor stopped and thought about it for a moment.

Now, Taylor had not been much of the praying kind, but people can draw from deep wells within themselves in a pinch. Sitting down at the foot of his bed, the prisoner buried his head in his hands and began to pray as hard as he could. It wasn’t just a prayer, it was more than that; it was begging, it was pleading, it was an expression of his desire to live that consumed every ounce of his being. Having been unable to secure a reprieve from the

governor, Taylor Morris decided to appeal to a higher court.

As the damned man prayed, the storm began to kick up and get bigger and bigger. The water was dumping down in buckets, the wind was blowing the sagebrush out of the ground by the roots. The dirt had been so parched before the storm that the water couldn’t seep into the packed and cracked ground, and instead a great mudslide pulled down a powerline and the whole town suddenly went dark, with the prison included.

With no lights, no moon, and no stars, Taylor could no longer see his own hands in front of his face. Walking to the door of his cell, he could hear the voices of his fellow prisoners echoing up from the hallways below in a great clamor of confusion and fear.

“What’s goin’ on?”

“¿Qué es?”

“What happened to the lights?”

In the great and all-consuming blackness, Taylor felt himself awash with relief. Stepping back from the door of his cell, he felt the coolness of the damp air on his face, and felt the knot in his stomach rapidly unraveling. He took a deep breath and let it out, thinking of the electric chair, that dispassionate death-dealer now rendered impotent by the greatest thunderstorm west Texas had ever seen!

He jumped for joy! He wrung his hands! Among all the shouts of fear, he laughed! Not just with relief, but at the very thought that somehow, fate had granted him amnesty!

Then, the lights flickered and returned. The generator had kicked in.

An Homage to the Things I See Out of the Corner of My Eyes

Whether you are my friend or indifferent to my existence, I simply wanted to speak to you, in no formal manner

Just something on my mind, homage might’ve been too strong a word

But I liked the title so I’m sticking with it

But I digress, I wonder what you are

Whether you’re a product of my overactive imagination

Or maybe something more tangible, something crawling around in the darkness

As I walk through the empty rooms of this house

You seem to appear at anytime of day, with no rhyme or reason for your appearance

It seems that you all simply show up, uninvited but not unwanted

I don’t mind you there in the corner of my eyes, you always make me glance a second time

But by then you’re gone

You’ve never bothered me, so I’ve no reason to bother you.

I simply wonder what you are and why you are, But no way to ask, so here’s to you

Things I see out of the corner of my eyes

I like your potentially false existence, I like the scavenger hunt my mind plays on itself

But still I wonder what you are

Some of you have towered over me and seemed like you don’t fit in the room in which you stand

Others so small I’m surprised I can even notice your presence

You’ve never walked into my room but I’ll notice you in the hallway

Or down the stairs

So what are you doing there

Simply watching and wandering

Or something more, not that I’ll ever get an answer

Mainly cause I know you’re not real and only exist in the out fringes of my mind and eyesight

Still I’d like to meet you someday, just to know what you are

ARE

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