BACKROADS 2019
Backroads Literary Magazine
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Volume 47
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Editors
Brianna Facciani Rachel Logan Breanna Marie Berkebile Patrick Stahl
Editor-in-Chief Poetry Editor Prose Editor Visual Art Editor
Faculty Advisor Professor Marissa Landrigan
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Letter From the Editor
Welcome to the 2019 edition of Backroads!
In a world that is becoming more digital by the second, many fear or criticize the role that the Humanities will play in the years to come. While science, math, and technology have made the world and its inhabitants more advanced than any other previous society, there’s something to be said about the impact of the written and spoken word. But I’ll bite. Let’s look at the numbers. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, and while it’s nearly impossible to have a true count of how many words exist in a single language, the Oxford English Dictionary defines nearly 175,000 words. However, some experts add that when considering verbs, medical vocabulary, or regional terminology, the amount of words in the English language spikes to almost three quarters of a million.
Now, I’m sure there are people out there that could run the figures, but I think it’s safe to say that writers have a lot of options to choose from when finding words to make a story. But what is important to note is that writers hunt for the best words, the words that make you move, laugh, cry, and suffer. That is the power of language - and that is the power of the Humanities. The reason why we read books thousands of years old or poetry written last week is because words are one of the few things that has brought people together from every corner of the world. And there is no greater feeling than knowing that, as humans, we are not alone in what we experience.
That being said, I certainly was not alone in crafting this new issue of Backroads. To Patrick, Rachel, and Breanna - thank you. Without your help and support as I undertook this new role, we would not have a magazine, and I would have missed out on some great friendships. To Professor Marissa Landrigan, our advisor - your work
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with the Capstone class is putting Backroads on the digital map, and I cannot thank you enough for being the driving force in preserving the works of present and former UPJ students.
And thank you, reader. I hope the words that fill this magazine will inspire you to create your own stories.
-Brianna Facciani
“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned
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Poetry
Table of Contents
As She Did ....................................................................... 8 Callie Burgan
If All Else Fails ........................................................................ 9 Rachel Logan
New York Ghazal ............................................................................... 11 Brianna Facciani
Expect(ations) ........................................................................................... 12 Rachel Logan
Suffocation...................................................................................................... 14 Makenzie Croyle
The Lantern .................................................................................................... 15 Callie Burgan Walled-in Wisdom from the Krebs’ Ladies’ Room ..................................... 16 Rachel Logan A Gift and a Curse ................................................................................ 17 Breanna Brubaker Magnetic .................................................................................... 18 Rachel Logan To War ............................................................................ 19 Patrick Stahl Lost ................................................................... 20 Danielle Reeser Him ...................................................... 21 Danielle Reeser
Art
22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, Cover Alberto Mark van Hecke
23, 32 Makenzie Croyle
25, 30, 31 Mary-Lynn Retassie
33, 37 Brianna Facciani 36 Laken Burkhardt
38 Joshua Calandrella
Prose
39 Elise’s Tale Breanna Marie Berkebile 47 Pro Bono Patrick Stahl
51 My Father Owns a Greenhouse Breanna Marie Berkbile 57 Leaving Brianna Facciani
61 Charming But Charmless Patrick Stahl
63 I Tell Him to Run Breanna Marie Berkebile 69 Soccer Ruined Cauliflower Kierstin Crowley
Author Bios 74
Submission Guidelines 76
About Us 77
Cover Image: “Seneca Rock” by Alberto Mark van Hecke
As She Did
Last January I stood with snow-littered hair Surrounded by weeping family and friends Their mouths are moving yet I cannot hear a sound They are telling me that no daughter should have to lose her mother Before her 18th birthday No daughter should have to lose her mother Right before high school graduation No daughter should have to lose her mother Before her life had even begun No daughter should have to watch her mother Slowly deteriorate with a disease That cares little for the lives of the victims it steals Seventeen years was not enough To comprehend the immense love that you brought to our family As I look back through old photographs From before we knew each other When you were the same age that I am now I see a smiling girl with dark hair and cherry red lipstick A girl carrying a Walkman A girl in an oversized high school varsity jacket A girl laughing a bit too much I wonder if she knows The lives that she will touch The lives that she will create The lives that she will love And I know that despite it all, I am my mother’s daughter I will love as she did -Callie Burgan
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If All Else Fails
If all else fails, you’re supposed to Pick yourself up by the nape of your neck Like a kitten wobbling around on its Second week of life
But honey, there is nothing cute about Throwing every tear you could spin out With your worried fingers, nothing New or wholesome about half a head of hair Coming away on your hand when it’s used as a comb, Nothing wobbling except my voice because I’ve walked this road a million times before And i can’t find the path home. When you’ve tried every trick in the book, You’re supposed to call upon Edison’s Tungsten wire, The thousandth thread that pulled through, The deus ex machina in a story You thought you were in control of.
You’re supposed to suddenly fall into place, Fall into line, Wipe away your tears, because Eureka, baby!
If all else fails, cry a rainstorm And name the havoc Eureka. Name the carnage Eureka, name The path you haven’t found Eureka and hope it answers when you call
You tell Eureka, When you find her, That i left the light on in the kitchen And a plate of ravioli in the fridge,
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But I’m going to sleep, going to Lay down my head and wait for her, Eureka, If all else fails. -Rachel Logan
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New York Ghazal
Paddleboats and hot pavement coexist throughout red Central Park. Chilled mangos and pineapples that tang the tongues help cool orange Central Park. Shakespeare’s Garden hosts the most brilliant sights. Flowers, oh flowers— primrose and rue ignite the way for the dreamy and aged yellow Central Park. Looming large trees wrap around each corner, offering shade and a history. The most vibrant grass of New York City is found in green Central Park.
Quick, heated jazz ensembles and relaxed, half-dazed accordion players compose the soundtrack for the magical moments of blue Central Park.
Winding in and out of park benches and people, she stops along Bow Bridge and embraces the day dwindling into dusk—oh, the splendor of purple Central Park.
She walks along, wishing for the love she deserves while the sun falls to sleep and the city comes to life—nightfall envelopes Central Park. -Brianna Facciani
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Expect(ations)
Once, When I was 16, I asked my father if I could go To the pool down the street— He told me that if I Wanted to get picked up-by a boy, as it happens at pools down streets-I would end up a barefoot Mother of Five, a screaming swaddling on one hip above a stained nightgown. He was worried I would end up like His mother, And his mother’s mother, Both with growing bellies before They got their diplomas. My father asks me for Grandchildren. He asks me to find a real man, One with muscles and gumption-He asks me to get hitched and be A mother Of five In soft slippers and A light, lavender sweater, Queen among women. Maybe he is more scared I’ll end up like Him— Published author— Military electrical technician— Robbed at gunpoint in a California supermarket Before he realized he would never raise a family— I tell my father I don’t want children, That the genetic line he untangled ends with me,
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And his face falls. -Rachel Logan
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Suffocation Don’t fall
In love Because the words of her poems Will paint a picture of her face.
Because you Will smell
Her sweet
Perfume and find yourself Frantic To find her Deep blue eyes.
Drain the blood
To her anyway.
Because she will
From your heart, But you will give it
Because you will sit in a coffee shop, filled with the scent of roasted beans, and pull the words, I’ll move on, from your mouth as if they were a cinder block. But you’ll love her anyway. You’ll see her smile, and it’ll bring tears to your eyes. She has your heart tied around her neck as her necklace and wears it daily. She’s a thief and she doesn’t even know it. But you’ll love her anyway. She will walk through her days as if nothing has changed, and it will tear you to shreds. But you’ll love her anyway. You will suffocate in her presence as if her hand was wrapped around your neck. You won’t stop her. She will smile over you as if your lifeless body had no effect on her. But you’ll love her anyway. -Makenzie Croyle
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The Lantern
Peering into the deepest souls We must be willing to step outside of ourselves No matter how small or fragile each deed Our calling is to help all those in need Acts of kindness illuminate the skies Constellations reaching into the depths of hearts Warming and mending the world Like spring melting away frigid winter The ultimate duty of a disciple Since the beginning of time itself To spread the golden message The lantern of faith Illuminating the darkest crevices of the world A flickering flame Constantly reminding us of our true purpose The essence of humanity itself To lift others towards their inner light -Callie Burgan
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Walled-in Wisdom from the Krebs’ Ladies’ Room
Like p.l.o. I don’t surrender. My heart’s been broken! I miss My mom. I miss 2-play toilet paper! Ply? Nursing school is buns. Engineering, too. Me, too. I miss 4:20 Blaze it! I love dicks. Don’t tail the mailman. I love Swagina. Don’t mail the tailman. He cheated. Boobies. Hug.
Travik! Jon Stewart. Ron Swanson. (Knope 2012!) Jordan. Jim. Eric. M+M. MG+MS. FW+LS. Joey. Myself! Pika! Skull. Mikamatt. If he talks shit, then you owe him Nothing. You matter. You’ll live. Look around. You are loved. Someone thinks you’re beautiful.
Yeah, but that doesn’t bring back my mom. Love SLR cameras. (Unintelligible Japanese.) Nikons > Canon. I hope you have a Spectacular day. -Rachel Logan
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“She lives the poetry she cannot write.” Oscar Wilde
A Gift and a Curse
He came with a kiss, a bite, And tears of joy followed by tears of heartache. I could see his breath in the air, for his words were as cold as ice. He who once made my heart beat, now holds it under arrest. In the dark of night, my solitary howls blanket distant chuckles. We once burned with passion, yet gradually the ashes of our love drift. He once was a gift, but now a curse. -Breanna Brubaker
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Magnetic
A red lake ached as a storm goddess rose black mist heaving her boiled sea dress and raw sun bare
There smear moon music hot on my summer skin lick drunk honey rain rusty from my shadow and rip sky out of me -Rachel Logan
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T0 War
Maple tendrils nod submission to black-lashed firm’, a warning whistling of fleeting tears, a gray walk christening, and people thrustling towar’ business bustling. -Patrick Stahl
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Lost
Find me lost in the books. Swallowed whole by the bookshelves, Their pages captivating me. I dive in; No looking back Find me lost in the books. Nose shoved in the spine, Words filling my head Inspiring me to believe. In love, in adventure, in truths.
Find me lost in the books. Navigating unfamiliar places, Written by the creative, Read by the brave Who, like me, are lost in the books.
Rescue me from the books and find that even time cannot heal all; find that while I am free, I still long to be once moreLost in the books. -Danielle Reeser
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Him
Deep green and lush with life, his eyes are like forests, untamed and holding a hidden wild streak within. His arms are my home, rough fingers that curl around my small ones leading to strong arms Where I find my sanctuary. He entered my life When, like a dropped glass plate, my heart was shattered, pieces scattered across the wooden floor. He gifted me glue, told me I had the power to pick myself up off the hard floor and again be whole. “I love you” was a cry into a dark room, a cry he couldn’t hear. It was a desperate plea. Texts seen through a screen, hot tears ran down my face; the only words I could say to him, words that he would not hear. “I love you.” -Danielle Reeser
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Alberto Mark van Hecke “dilation” Page | 22
Makenzie Croyle “Johnstown” 23 | Page
Alberto Mark van Hecke “Cole Run Falls” Page | 24
Mary-Lynn Retassie “orb” 25 | Page
Alberto Mark van Hecke “aloneness”
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Alberto Mark van Hecke “Hallway Experiment”
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Alberto Mark van Hecke “sunburst” Page | 28
Alberto Mark van Hecke “Flooding Falls” 29 | Page
Mary-Lynn Retassie “nourishment”
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Mary-Lynn Retassie “Halloween”
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Makenzie Croyle “moss” Page | 32
Brianna Facciani “super troupers” 33 | Page
Alberto Mark van Hecke “Halfmast” Page | 34
Alberto Mark van Hecke “Columbus Train Station” 35 | Page
Laken Burkhardt “Dangling” Page | 36
Brianna Facciani “Central Park” 37 | Page
Joshua Calandrella “an elephant approaches” Page | 38
Elise’s Tale An Introduction
She grew up reading the fairytales. Of course she grew up reading the fairytales. Every little girl did. The ones where beautiful princesses are saved by beautiful princes and live happily ever after. You know the stories.
Elise would be lying, too, if she said she didn’t enjoy reading them. But while she did enjoy reading them, they never seemed to come close to the tale her mother would tell. The one about the moon. See, the moon, her mother would say, was where people went when they died, and so it was full of spirits.
Truthfully, that really doesn’t hold much importance, other than the fact that it instilled a deep fascination with the moon within little Elise that lasted until she herself went to live on the moon. This is her tale.
The Sandbox Wedding
So here’s the deal: She didn’t actually want to marry him.
The brother of her friend who never lost his baby fat. His name was Nathaniel, but everyone called him Orange Head (because he had red hair, and kids are ruthless). He kind of always smelled like spoiled eggs, and he could bend his fingers to touch the back of his hand. It was gross, and he did it all the time because that was the one cool thing he could do. So, of course, she didn’t actually want to marry him. But here’s the other deal: peer pressure.
It all started when she was playing near the sandbox with her older brother, her friend, who was also a boy, and her friend’s brother (Orange Head). They had little plastic shovels that the boys would purposely beat against the wood that surrounded the sandbox, and Elise, being only seven, minded her own business 39 | Page
by drawing the moon on the sand’s tan surface. She was a petite little thing, with curly brown hair that always felt sticky on the ends due to it getting stuck in her mouth all the time. That didn’t matter to her so much, however, because every kid was sticky. At least, that’s what Elise would tell her mother when she would complain while brushing through Elise’s hair every night. “At least I’m not a boy,” Elise would say while digging out dirt from underneath her nails. “They are extra gross and sticky.”
Elise’s mother would laugh. “You might marry one of those extra gross and sticky boys one day, you know?”
“No way! ” Elise walked down the sandbox aisle toward Orange Head as her brother played an imaginary drum set. The drum set, the whole reason why she was going through this whole ordeal. Remember the whole peer pressure thing? Well, here’s how it went down: “Elise,” said her brother, slightly tugging on her arm, “Elise you have to marry him so I can play the air drums!”
Elise tried to yank her arm back. “Stop tugging me, Adam! I’m not marrying him.” Her eyes drifted up to Orange Head, who stood on the other end of the sandbox, mindlessly moving his foot back and forth. His head was down, and hands behind his back. “I’d make a great husband,” she heard him whisper.
“You’d make a great husband,” concurred Orange Head’s brother.
Elise looked at all three boys over and over again. Partly, she hoped they were joking, but after scanning them a few times with her eyes, she realized they were absolutely, one hundred percent, serious. She wanted to die (not really, but kinda).
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would be her way out.
The boys, however, were not letting her go so easily. They erupted in arguments. “This is different!”
“They play drums at some weddings…” “You have to-”
Elise cupped her small hands over her ears. “No! I won’t. No, no, no…”
Shortly after, Elise found herself standing at the end of the sandbox facing Orange Head while his brother officiated. When it was time for them to kiss, they both grimaced, and opted for a small, back-of-the-hand kiss. She was a married woman. Later that day, Elise divorced Orange Head. Marriage, it turned out, was just too much for her, having to share her cookie and toys and all. Her brother and Orange Head’s brother taunted her and told her that the divorce ghost would follow her around for the rest of her life. Elise thought about what her mother told her not long ago, about the moon. She concluded she wasn’t worried about the divorce ghost because she could just send it back to where it came from.
And so that night, Elise opened her window as quietly as she could and asked the moon to take back the divorce ghost. A breeze blew gently across her face, she fluttered her eyelashes, and watched as a gold streak flashed across the sky, there and gone in a second. The divorce ghost had returned home, and little Elise fell asleep on the floor next to her window with the moon light shimmering against her skin.
The First “Kiss”
Her first kiss wasn’t really a first kiss at all.
It was her first date ever, and it had been going pretty well…up until the point where he tried to kiss her, that is. Here’s how it went down: 41 | Page
Outside it was warm and the air smelled of newly grown flowers and way too much pollen. Elise walked along the side of the lake, her hand locked with her dates (whose hand was slightly sweaty…not that that matters). Prior to this moment, they had spent the whole night eating ice cream and arguing flirtatiously over how Monopoly was the worst / best game ever. Much to Elise’s surprise, the date had been going pretty great, and she thought she might have even liked him, but then…
Her date suddenly quit walking. Elise looked to him, wondering if maybe he saw something alarming, but his face showed no worry. She was about to speak, about to ask him if everything was okay, when he stepped in front of her and scooped up her other hand in his. Elise was momentarily stunned. “I’m having a really great time with you,” said her date. Elise could feel herself begin to blush, despite her efforts to suppress it.
The two stood for a moment in silence, the moon creating a spotlight for them. For a moment, it seemed as though everything around them disappeared. The lakes, the trees, the flowers. They all faded into the shadows, as the moon focused all of its reflections upon the two. Her date leaned in. Elise’s heart pirouetted. Her nerves slowly set in. Would she be a good kisser? Would their braces get stuck together? The words vomited out of her mouth before she could even stop them. “Are you gonna kiss me?” she laughed nervously. Her date paused, still bent over half way with pursed lips ready for some kissin’. “I was just wondering. You know, so I can prepare myself. Maybe do…ugh…lip exercises?” Her date shot up from his bent position, his lips forming a tight, straight line.
“Lip exercises?” he asked, and then once more to himself, “Lip exercises?”
Elise wanted to die (not really, but kinda).
They never kissed or went on another date after that, and Elise was scarred for life. For the rest of her high school career she was afraid to talk to any boys,and when her friends would sit in a circle and gossip about boys they kissed or hooked up with, Elise would tell the story of her first kiss a little differently, so she Page | 42
didn’t appear like too much of a loser.
It went something like this:
“We were walking with our feet in the sand when he suddenly stopped in front of me. He looked at me as if I was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. I knew it then. I knew he was going to kiss me. It was warm, and the crickets were singing. He leaned it. Our lips met…it was the most passionate kiss. His hands were on my cheeks, mine on his chest, and when he pulled away, he told me I was a great kisser. We sat by the lake for an hour after that, talking about anything and everything between occasional, small kisses.” Okay. She knew how ridiculous it all sounded, but her friends ate it up. They’d squeal every time, and Elise knew that her story was enough to distract them from asking her more questions about if she had passionately kissed any other boys.
They didn’t need to know about her ruining the moment before the moment. They didn’t need to know that her date left her there all alone after that. That she sat down in the sand for an hour and cursed herself. That her only companion for the rest of the night was the moon, whom she shared all her laments from the night with. The moon, whose reflections never quit. Who lit her whole walk back that night. The moon, her companion all the way home.
The Second-Chance, First Date
Truth is, there was no second-chance, first date.
In fact, the trauma from her failed childhood marriage, and failed first kiss, stifled any desire she might have had for a relationship. But her mother was a persistent lady, and so Elise reluctantly agreed to go on a date with a man from her mother’s church. It went a little something like this:
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Elise told her mother for the fiftieth time that she absolutely, without a doubt, did not want to go on a date.
“Oh, but sweetie, everyone here loves him.”
Elise thought of how the church her mother went to consisted of elderly people.
“That’s okay mom, I’ll pass.”
This was when her mother cried. “Oh, oh sweetie, that makes me so sad. It’s just, I’m getting older…and you’re getting older…and oh! What if I don’t get to see you walk down the aisle? I can feel my heart breaking at the thought. Oh, oh dear…I… I–” “Okay, okay! Fine, I’ll go.”
Elise’s mother’s tears stopped immediately. “Great! I’ll give him a call right now.” She hung up, and Elise wanted to die (not really, but kinda).
Later that week, Elise stood in front of her entryway mirror and pondered her situation. She let her mind indulge, for a moment, the idea that the date might not be that bad, but the better, wiser part of her mind knew better and stifled the indulgence nearly as soon as it started. She only needed to make it through the night, then she could break it to her mom that their personalities were just too different, or that he had extreme halitosis. She’d come up with some excuse. Elise looked at the clock. It was 7:55, and she began to sweat uncontrollably. He was to arrive at 8:00.
On the side table underneath the mirror rested the earrings she cherished, and Elise did her best to keep her hands from shaking as she pushed the jewelry through her piercings. The gold of the small, crescent moons beamed in the artificial lighting, reflecting it just like the real moon reflects the sun’s light. Elise paused.She stared at her reflection, her eyes eventually drifting and fixating on the little moons in her ears.Momentarily, she was transported back to the time where she was a child sleeping on her floor under the moonlight. Momentarily, Page | 44
she was that awkward teen sitting all alone on the lake’s shore, taking solace in the moon. Momentarily– A knock on the door snapped her out of her reverie.
Elise’s heart dropped, and she whispered expletives under her breath as she looked between her reflection in the mirror and her date who waited just outside. She pushed her curly hair behind her ears, forced her shoulders back, went to reach for the handle, but stopped. Elise twisted her earring. Bit her lip.
Nope. She could not…would not do it. Elise killed the lights and ran out her back door. She ran across her back yard, out her fence, and onto the alley behind her home where she finally allowed herself a moment of rest. She placed her hands on her knees. Panted. Wondered what the hell she was thinking agreeing with her mother. It was then that she formed a conclusion:
She would probably never go on a date, ever. There was nothing her mother could say or do that would change that. She would probably never marry, which meant that yes, she would die alone. Except she wouldn’t actually die alone because the moon rose every night. That she was sure of.
Moon Promises
She never got married.
She didn’t care that she never got married.
She promised the moon that she would always be there for it, so long as it was always there for her. She asked the moon to take her home one day.
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She was pretty sure it said yes. She was perfectly content.
The Day She Went Home
Elise lay in bed as friends and family surrounded her.
There was Orange Head, who she stayed good friends with, despite their divorce all those years ago. There was her brother, but not Orange Head’s brother because he died before everyone else did. There was her one friend from high school, the friend who found the most joy in listening to Elise’s first kiss story.
They each took turns kissing the back of Elise’s fragile, wrinkled hands. The moon aimed its perfect reflection on her, waiting to take her in.
She heard few things:
“It’s a shame,” followed by, “Never married.” And, “She,” and, “Very quirky.” Finally, “Oh well.”
For the past few weeks, Elise was unable to speak, but her heart jolted, and she was overcome with a sudden burst of energy. Her eyes flew open. The moon filled her pupils. “Home,” she whispered.
And with that, Elise finally went where she dreamed of going her whole life: The moon, where she lived happily ever after. -Breanna Marie Berkebile
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Pro Bono Shadows stretched, stroked the virgin earth as the sun squatted down on a mountain horizon. Kyle dug his boots into the soft bed of leaves at the forest’s floor. Moisture from the refuse grayed the dark-brown leather. The vapor wafted up, permeating Kyle’s light coat to slick his Pink Floyd tee to goose-bumped skin. It wasn’t so much that it was a cold night, though the decomposing air was brisk and a faint wind blew in from the distant mountain; it was the body that chilled him. Lucy fell into sobbing again behind him. She set down the feet of the old monk, and Kyle laid his end on the woodland debris.
The white scattered crosses of the nestled graveyard began to glow as the crescent moon poked up and the sun took its final leave.
Kyle pulled a flashlight from one side of his backpack and a shovel from the other. As he clicked on the light, a world of color greeted him: cherry reds, vermilions, canaries, and splotches of emerald green. It exhilarated some part of him—though this was not his first time in this graveyard—to see such a beautiful space for the dead. He wished that he had chosen it, but it had come before his time. “Help me pick a place for him,” said Kyle.
Lucy wiped a hand across her eyes. “What was his name?” she asked, stepping forward.
“Father Timothy. He was eighty-five.” Kyle tapped the ground with the edge of his shovel.
The gravedigger felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He turned to his wife. Her eyes were puffy, but the red only served to set her pale green eyes in balance. The beam of the flashlight showed her hair as chestnut, though in daylight it was mocha, long and straight excepting three waves near her shoulders. Decked in leather, she fit well in the scene. Or maybe that was just the Buffy the Vampire Slayer binge of the last three nights talking.
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“Did he go quickly?” Lucy asked. She scrunched up her nose, held back her sobs. “I’m not sure.” Kyle cleared a tiny patch of leaves, then spread them back over again. “I wasn’t there at the time. It was poison.” Lucy brushed at the floor with her black hiking boots. “Did he have to die?”
Kyle paused. What an interesting question. “I think so. I felt this tugging the first time I met him—maybe a year ago—and I knew it wouldn’t be long.” “And poison?”
“The cooks are being questioned. Without any cameras in the kitchen, there isn’t much to be gleaned besides what they say freely. The monastery doesn’t wish to call in the police, not after that whole debacle last year.” Kyle trained his eyes on one of the white crosses nearest to him. “I think the whole kitchen staff will be dismissed to save face.” “A pity.”
Kyle shook his head. “It had to be done. Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“What about right there?” Lucy pointed at the base of a hulking maple, its first branches high above, gesturing toward the side that sloped down to the tiny creek in the valley below. The roots of the tree spread out wide on the hillside, leaving loose soil inches from its base. Kyle traced out a grave, chopped at the moist dirt, cleared away sticks and fallen branches. “This is perfect.”
A wave of ecstasy rippled through Kyle’s form, from his forearms to his shoulders, down his sides and to his feet. The earth was weightless. Its perfume clutched at his soul. He steeled for the kiss of Gaia’s mouth; Lucy peered off at the body, so Kyle let the vibrations pass over him for a precious moment.
Not a single coin passed into Kyle’s hand from his work digging graves. He worked for a small press in Boston, but the passions he felt there came only as snares, trapping him with drops of nectar that sated him for scant hours, and Page | 48
with days or weeks dividing the drips. This art, the art of the humblest of men, sustained him for weeks, often into months.
He piled the soil at his feet. It stained his jeans, like cigarettes stained the cowboys’ hands; those were rugged men too, but they chose lesser deeds than he. Lucy stared at her husband. “What do you feel?” she asked, a question of young tradition, as Kyle loomed on his half-finished mound. So he told her, calming a detail here and there so that she would not feel shame. He wove it like a poem— fresh, unmetered, and green—but it never lit up her eyes. Lucy quivered, if only for her husband’s sake. “Was he in pain?” Lucy asked.
Kyle stepped down from his holy mountain, spiritually. “He was very old.”
“I mean right at the end.” Lucy looked out to the night sky. “When he died.”
Kyle knit his brow. “I’m not sure.” “Well, it was poison.” “Yes.”
Lucy returned to silence as Kyle lifted himself higher with every scoop of earth. He could not think about anything else. There was the hole and there was he and there would be a body, yes, soon.
Kyle leapt into his hole, felt the clay and dust with calloused fingers. The sides cleared his head by the tiniest margin; there was no pride in being taller than one’s hole. Besides, six feet was a classic, and Kyle appreciated the classics.
Lucy offered a hand to help her husband back to solid ground. He wriggled from his cocoon.
The monk seemed heavy to Kyle’s arms. Euphoria pulsed yet in his veins, but the world could hurt him now, again. Sweat dripped down his nose as he pushed the dirt back into the hole. He let the grave round over like a cask of wine. 49 | Page
At last, Lucy handed him the white cross, and he dug a single stroke for it, stuck it in at the base of the tree, then patted the soil into place.
No, he could not have felt pain at the end, Kyle thought. I made sure of that this time. -Patrick Stahl
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My Father Owns a Greenhouse There is a town that is forgotten. Established around the 1850s.
With houses spotting green hillsides and scattered cornfields.
There is a family in one of those hillside homes. The red brick one with white shutters. The father a manager of a small flower shop, and the mother a painter on the porch. There is a daughter who dances around late-night fires with the mother as the father burns marshmallows, too distracted by his family to get them right. Dinner is always at 6:00. Laughter leaks from cracked windows and tickles the ears of those who pass by. Every night the mother’s imagination runs, and she tells a new story. Sometimes the stars dance, and sometimes there are no stars at all, but a million moons instead. The life is simple and fun.
Until, of course, it was everything but.
One day the mother left without a word. No one knows why. No one knows where she went, despite the many efforts made to find her. She was off writing her own story, the daughter supposed, while the father insisted she’d come back. She never came back. It’s been five years.
I am the daughter, and I am now eighteen.
My father has all of my mother’s paintings hung around the house, and a place permanently set at the table. I keep the house clean and cook for us, and my father plays with flowers. My mother leaving complicated everything, and we have our own ways of coping. For my father, it is his greenhouse. And I hate it.
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The greenhouse took him four years to build. Right in our backyard, around where our fire pit used to be. Memories of twirling on the grass squished beneath the edifice. He would work on it every day until the snow would bring his work to a halt. During the cold, he’d sit inside by the fireplace and sketch. I would make hot chocolate for us, and he’d accept his mug full, setting it down on the coffee table, never acknowledging it again. His hands too busy sketching. Making lists. When I’d ask him what he was planning, he’d simply tell me, “you’ll see,” and that was that. I’d finish my drink, grab his full one, and wash out the glasses. Here’s the scene I imagine in my head:
~~~
I am young. Around eight, perhaps. My father is outside watering the few plants that border our home, and my mother watches him, her thumb and index finger cradling her chin. The window in front of them is pushed open, the screen gone, and I rest my head in the opening. The sun is brilliant that day, and my mother’s red hair is glowing. “What are you thinking, dear?” my father asks, noticing my mother’s stance.
She smiles softly, twirling a silky lock around her finger. “This garden around our house seems too small.” “Too small?”
She spins around, looking at our yard. “Yes, too small.”
My father sets the watering can down and joins my mother’s side. “Well, what do you suggest?” “Have you ever considered a greenhouse?”
“I –I can’t say I have,” he says, and pauses. Speculates for a moment. “It would be a lot of work…and probably expensive…” “Oh, but could you imagine it?” my mother replies, grabbing my father’s hands. “An expanse of flowers underneath our very own roof. We could have a bench, Page | 52
a pebbled path. Just imagine how romantic it could be!” She’s spinning him now, her dress flowing out like an upside-down tulip. And my father’s head is tilted up, wrinkles forming beside his eyes, laughing. The sun radiates between them until they fall together, arms wrapped around one another, my mother’s head resting on his collarbone. “Maybe someday,” he whispers into her hair. “Maybe someday.” ~~~
So, four years seems like an awful long time to build a greenhouse. Even people in town gossip about why it took so long, until, of course, they see the structure for themselves. It rivals the size of our home, which isn’t large by any means, but it’s the idea. That, and everything is recycled. The structure itself is made entirely out of wood my father scavenged over the years, arduously building up plank by plank. And then taking it all down when he realized that the glass he would later collect would come in all sorts of sizes.
It was throughout this entire process, however, that he learned. And I watched him. Build up, tear down. Build up, tear down. Place here, place there. One giant puzzle. I watched him rejoice, and I watched him cry. Until the day the structure was finally complete. It wasn’t the prettiest greenhouse. Most of the wood was discolored, and the different window sizes made the whole thing appear as though it was some avant-garde sculpture. But it was his, and he loved it. I could see it in his eyes, the way he’d tear up while looking at it. I watched him hammer in the final nail from my bedroom window. I watched him drop his tools and stare with his hands on his hips.
I watched him wipe his cheeks and hug the corner of the greenhouse.
As if he could find a piece of my mother within. ~~~
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My father loves his greenhouse, but I hate it.
I hate it because he loves it so much. I hate that he chose it as his coping method instead of coming to me. I hate that I can’t fully understand his obsession with it. And I hate that I kind of love it too, which seems entirely impossible. But it’s not. I love it because I understand that it most likely saved my father from spiraling down into an unredeemable place. But I hate it because I wish that saving grace could have been me. Here’s a scene that actually happened:
~~~
My mother is tucking me into bed. She pulls the blanket up to my chin, and tells me a story of a little girl who lived in the clouds. And once she thought I was asleep, she told me another story. A story of a girl who wandered into a strange town and met a strange man who loved flowers. The girl fell in love with the strange man, and together they lived a strange life full of colors. The girl would explore the endless hills and fields that surrounded them until there was absolutely nothing left to explore. And so she painted new scenes and adventures.
Later the couple gave birth to a little girl, and suddenly, she was their new adventure. Every day was comprised of something new. Their strange house filled with memories of small feet pattering down the hallway and impromptu dance parties. The girl embraced every moment of her new adventure until it began to dwindle, and once more, she found herself longing. And so she painted more stories. She painted, and painted, and painted, until one day it was no longer enough.
And I never heard the rest of the story, for I fell asleep. ~~~
I’ve only been inside the greenhouse once, and when I was last there, it was empty and lifeless. Page | 54
Today it is much different.
Flowers speckle the left side of the house, forming patterns I can’t quite figure out. Their placement looks as though a painter splattered paint upon a canvas blindly. Some orange here, some blue there, and a blob of common daisies. A pebbled path borders the masterpiece, winding its way up lazily, like a stream, and three wooden benches are spread apart to the far right. I walk back and forth on one of them, humming lightly to myself. Trying to embrace the same serenity my father seems to find within this greenhouse. “What’s that you’re humming, dear?” my father questions, not looking up from his spot on the ground. He transfers flowers from their plastic pots into the dirt and pats around. “I’m not sure. It’s something mom used to hum to me.”
“Fitting,” he says, smiling lightly, and I’m not sure what he means.
I finally ask the question I’ve wanted to ask since coming out here thirty minutes ago. “Why did you ask me to join you?” He pats the ground some more, despite the flowers looking perfectly secure. “You’ll see.”
My pacing atop the bench comes to a halt, frustration striking me solid. For five years, I’ve heard that same phrase over and over again. For five years, my father and I have gone without having any real conversations. I want to explode. I want to rip this greenhouse apart and trample through the flowers. I want to shake him and ask him why I couldn’t have been the one to help him.
I take in a deep breath of air, anger ready to burst, when my father shoots up from the ground. He’s laughing. Flinging his arms up in the air. I am a statue momentarily decorating my place on the bench. He jumps up beside me and looks over his creation, a tear escaping the corner of his eye.
“Dad,” I say cautiously, confused. And he looks at me without actually looking at me. His eyes are shining, dazed, as though he’s in a dream. “Dad,” I repeat. 55 | Page
He grabs my shoulders. Pulls me against his chest. “It’s finally complete,” he whispers, “Finally.” And he falls onto the bench, hunched over with his eyes in his palms, and weeps. I stare at him. I stare at the flowers. And then I see it.
The orange flowers her hair, flowing down over a pale shoulder. Daisies are her skin. They outline her forehead, her nose, her jaw. Roses for her lips. Blue poppies for her eye. Her side profile, looking right at us, smiling softly. Warmth on my cheeks. Tears sliding down softly onto my collar bone. “It’s her,” is all I manage to say, and my father weeps louder. I fall down beside him and rest my head on his shoulders. “She’s with us again,” he says between sobs.
I bury my face into his shirt, forcing stability for just a moment more. Now that his greenhouse is complete, I want to ask him if we can go back to normal. But he starts humming my mother’s tune, and I decide, for the time being, that I don’t need an answer. Whether we go back to normal or not, here, in the greenhouse, she is with us and us with her. So I hum along with my father. And together, we weep.
-Breanna Marie Berkebile
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Leaving “So, Rachel, what do you think about Italy? Your homeland—land of pasta, pizza, Prosecco,” Henry laughed, taking a sip of his drink and reclining back into his chair.
I looked up from my plate of food and realized that all eyes were on me, awaiting my answer. We were at the restaurant with the highest prices in town and with guest lists that included none other but the area’s finest doctors, lawyers, and judges. To say that I was out of my comfort zone would be an understatement. But this was Sebastian’s birthday, and he chose this venue, much to the excitement of his father, Henry, who was a regular at this restaurant.
No corners to hide behind with this huge, round table—everyone had a clear view of each other, and I was seated right across from Seb’s dad. He was the type of man that you couldn’t ignore; he commanded respect and, more often than not, always received it. And while I had managed to always be on his gracious and loving side, part of me wondered what it would be like to be on the other end of the spectrum. Two years. That’s how long Seb and I have been together. 730 odd days—he would know the exact number, the precise hour, that we had been in each other’s lives. It’s just what he does. He is the numerical brains of our relationship, the kind of brain that I could never compete with, only complement with my knowledge of literature and languages. On paper, we make the most perfect pair—and I can’t recount the number of times we were told that our children would be some of the smartest kids in the world.
I had wanted this; nobody forced me into anything. I had lost friends over him, friends who saw the warning signs long before I could. My mother abhorred him, my father was just as passive as always when it came to the guys I had dated. But I wanted him. He was new, intelligent, and loved me so much—that part I can’t deny. His dad likes to remind me that I am the woman of his dreams.
Our first date was perfect—he was perfect. The perfect gentleman. Doors— opened. Check—paid. Hand—held. Kiss—just good enough to leave me wanting more. “Too good to be true” was the catchphrase I used to tell everyone who had yet to meet him. 57 | Page
“Hello, earth-to-Rachel,” Sebastian said, smiling and nudging my knee.
“Oh, sorry, Italy, um…yeah, it’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit. The art and history are amazing over there,” I responded, wondering why his dad was asking about a country miles and miles away. “Well then, come with us.” “To…Italy?”
“Yes—I’ve been thinking of a family vacation spot for a while now, and I think I can speak for all of us here when I say that you’re a significant part of our family. We can’t imagine life without you in it, and we certainly can’t imagine going to Italy without you. So, come on now, just say ‘yes!’” he implored, his blue eyes twinkling at the thought of having what he thinks will be his future daughter-inlaw crashing in on the family vacation. “Oh, well, you know I’d love to, but of course I need to check my schedule and possible internships that I have lined up,” I lied, trying to avoid Seb’s gaze as much as possible, because if I looked at him, I would cave. He still had that over me.
“Well, you just keep it in mind, alright, sweetheart?” Henry said, cutting into his steak, moving on to discussing his record-breaking business financials for the year. “Will you excuse me, please? I’ll be right back,” I said to nobody in particular, touching Seb’s shoulder on my way out.
My breathing started to become erratic as I weaved in and out of the tables and chairs. When I made it to the restroom, I checked under the stalls, and to my luck, the room was empty. I locked the door and stood against the wall, breathing in deeply and exhaling quickly. In and out. In and out.
This can’t be happening; this couldn’t be real. His family loves me, adores me, and wants me in their lives forever. Forever—now there’s a word. I think that’s what scares me the most. Because forever doesn’t exist. Page | 58
And I couldn’t make a promise to someone under the terms of “forever.” But how could I explain that to the people at the dinner table who were patiently awaiting my return?
My hands trembled. As I stumbled to the sink and looked in the mirror, I stood horrified at the person looking back at me. I knew what I needed to do. To anyone else, my actions and reactions seemed simply ridiculous—it’s a birthday dinner, for God’s sake. Eat the salmon and deal with it. There are worse things that could happen in life, and would it be so bad to live a life like this—forever? But to me, this was it—this was the worst. I was pretending a life that I did not deserve, nor did I fit into. I was fooling everyone, most of all myself. At this point, I started to remember back to Andrew and how that first relationship failed. I was so naïve, so stupid as to what I thought I was getting into at the time. I never stood up for myself; I just let him wash all over me as if he were the sea and I were the sand—he always pulled me back in again and again, no matter how cruelly he treated me. I couldn’t be the one to end it, and I was right.
There are times when I wish that things could have ended differently—maybe we could have ended differently. Maybe I wouldn’t be afraid of continuing a dinner with people that actually cared for me. And I guess that’s the funniest part to all of this—he, my Andrew, probably doesn’t even care at all anymore. He’s moved on, and I’m permanently stuck between someone that I loved and someone who loves me. And I don’t know which is better or worse. I washed my hands, dried them on a towel more expensive than my entire outfit, and entered back into the dining room. As I sat back down, ready to gaze at my fish some more, Sebastian’s sister showed me a beautiful picture of a seaside town on her phone.
“This is where I really want to take your engagement photos in Italy when we go,” she whispered, smiling and swiping between the gorgeous scenes.
I grinned while my stomach dropped, and I glanced down at the ring. I told him exactly what I wanted, and like always, he delivered. The two-carat oval rock with a thin silver band shined in the dim lighting on my left hand—a sparkling 59 | Page
reminder of what I had agreed to.
I wouldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it—not tonight. It’s his birthday. And I had to go to Italy. Because his sister had a plan. And I’m sure I would keep making excuses until it will be too late, but would a life like this really be that bad? Would being loved forever by your husband and his family be a horrible life to live? I ate the rest of my salmon and ordered dessert. I even made a toast to Seb. Because there wasn’t going to be another Andrew. I would never become that person again, and I’ll never find that man again, either. The only thing more unfathomable than staying in this relationship was leaving it to find someone else. And leaving couldn’t be an option. Even though I didn’t have much to lose. -Brianna Facciani
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Charming But Charmless It hadn’t been enough. The signs. The sad songs with puppies. The videos instructing young children how to cast that simple red “H.” Running a clean campaign had failed once again.
Byron Hildegard tapped the sidewalk with his thin scepter as he strolled along the city street. Twinkling banners bearing “A Vote for Hildegard is a Vote for Wizard Rights” clotted the space between two buildings. Byron stepped over a flyer, “spell” the only word remaining from his main slogan “He Won’t Cast a Spell on You.” “Aren’t you that Fair Party guy, Hirebold or whatever?” asked a middle-aged woman walking her miniature dragon. “I am,” said Byron, flashing a smile.
“You seemed very intriguing in that first debate.” The young dragon bit the end off of one of Byron’s shoelaces. “But you know how it is.” “How it is?” Byron merely frowned at the pet.
The woman tugged her dragon back on course and walked on. “The Fair Party never wins.”
Byron sighed. There had been a time when the Fair Party had split Parliament seats almost 50/50 with the Fervor Party. Those days had been gone for quite a while now.
With eighty percent support in his party’s primaries, Byron had thought for sure that he would have a chance in the general election for Prime Wizard. Alas, only two of thirty provinces had given him the light of day.
Byron swished his wand in the intricate pattern of his opponent, Niles Chester. Ever since the election was opened up to anyone who could hold a wand steady enough to cast their vote mark on their ballot, the theme had been symbols easy enough for children to produce. This time around, the practice was deemed unnecessary by the Fervor Party. 61 | Page
The beauty of it all was that long before the election had opened, the witches and wizards of North Yewland had already signed their rights away. Byron’s endorsers had called him charming, but the usual utterance was “charming but charmless.” It was true. While thousands of enslaved wizards had died in the hidden dungeons of the Fervor Party to charm the vast majority of the country’s population, neither Byron nor his team had cast a single enchantment. In the end, Byron hadn’t even voted for himself. His hand hadn’t let him.
-Patrick Stahl
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I Tell Him to Run There is a picture of a boy who once dreamed of foreign places. His hazel eyes alight with desire. A ring of fire around his pupils. They are eyes untouched by sadness. Still so hopeful, they glisten as if the camera light hit them at the peak of imagination, when the eyes look as though they may spill tears, happy tears. But there are no tears here. Only the gleam of a boy full of dreams. I want to tell the boy to run.
I hold the picture in my hand. Run my calloused thumb along its smooth surface. My nail is bit and ragged, such a contrast to the young boy whose smile is crooked and somewhat mischievous. It’s the kind of smile given to a mother after you promise her not to get your Sunday clothes dirty, knowing full well you’re going to do just that. He has two front teeth, one slightly larger than the other. The other having not yet caught up in growth. It’s the type of front teeth any adult would be ashamed of, but the boy is still unaware of judgments. There are more important things to deal with. Like fighting wars with furry creatures and soaring through the sky. And so he proudly flashes his uneven teeth to the camera man, knowing he’ll probably be saving the world later. His hair looks as though he just saved the world yesterday. Long, too long. It covers his ears and his brows. Little pieces stick up and out as though someone viciously took a balloon to his head. His mother was mortified when she saw the picture. His school photo. The most important picture anyone will ever have taken, according to his mother, and she made sure that red hair of his was tamed before he left the house. How it ended up the way it did, she wasn’t sure. The boy still smiles mischievously. God, I want to tell him to run.
His cheeks are flushed slightly. Freckles forming constellations against his skin’s red sky. His features are that of a boy, so far away from being a man. Smooth, round chin. A jaw so soft there barely looks to be one at all. I wish for him that he could stay like this forever. Soft featured. Flushed. Radiant youth.
The world is going to strip that away, I want to tell him, and so you better run.
But he can’t run. For the boy is me, and the time for running has long since
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passed.
I set the photo down on my mother’s entryway table. Look in the mirror hanging on the wall above. My cheeks are now pale, indented. Freckles nearly gone. My hair is an auburn mixed with gray tendrils, screaming my middle age, the stress experienced throughout the years. I rub my chin, my jaw, where there is now trimmed hair that feels like sandpaper. It too is gray, and I hate the way it looks. I keep it, though, this slight shave, because I look better with it than without it. And still, I look pretty terrible. I was never very good-looking, but as a child I never cared. I never had reason to, but now, I’m much older, and my mother blames my inability to marry on my appearance. She says I get my looks from my father, who died when I was one. Drugs or something. She never kept pictures of him, and so I wouldn’t know for sure if that’s true or not. My eyes used to be untouched by sadness, but now that’s all they see.
The fire around my pupils is dead, a cloudy gold. They gleam, but not the gleam of hopes and dreams. It’s a hazy gleam. An exhaustive gleam. The kind that screams “I haven’t slept in ten days.” But I sleep every night. Sometimes for ten hours. Sometimes more.
I sleep in the bed upstairs. This is my mother’s house, not mine. The bed I sleep in is my bed from high school. A bed surrounded by four white walls. A dresser, a desk. That’s it. I do have my own apartment, ten hours or so away, depending on traffic, but I’ve felt lost lately, more lost than usual, and so I found my way back home for a few days. Or weeks. Months. I haven’t decided yet.
I used to paint my walls. Color on them. Do all kinds of designs and patterns on them. I painted my mother. Sketched my father. Well, what I thought my father looked like. My mother hated it all. She’d throw a bucket of white paint at me and tell me to cover it up. I covered it up. Painted something new. Repeated that over and over again until I finally grew tired of it and switched to drawing and painting on thin sheets of paper. Paper I stole from the printer. One piece each week so my mother wouldn’t notice. I grew a collection of paintings of her pointing her finger at me. She looked nicer in some than others. I continued to sketch the father I imagined in my head. I sketched him fighting the monsters under my bed. In my closet. Sometimes I was with him, sometimes not. Sometimes I was alone, Page | 64
fighting. It made me feel good. Making the images in my head tangible. My mother found those eventually, too.
She built a fire in our backyard. Took all of my work and threw it in the blaze. I cried, but that wasn’t even the hard part. She made me grab all my brushes and paints, my colored pencils and crayons, and throw them in, turning them to ash. I sat there and cried. She let me sit there and cry. Outside, alone, in the cold of the north’s spring night. My butt damp from the grass. My cheeks soaked in salt. I fell asleep out there, under a blanket of stars. I prayed they take me up. That I could live on the moon. But I woke the next day in my bed. Blank walls stretching for miles.
I decided to paint them. But only in my mind. I projected images on them. Images of me running around, fighting imaginary battles against tree people whose bark resembled my mother’s face. But uglier. Much, much uglier. Warped lips and hollow eyes. Limbs leafless, flailing. I’d run at them fearlessly with my sword. My movements flicking by like illustrations in a children’s book. My father by my side. My father who looked somewhat like my teddy bear. But more fierce. Fuzzy and plush, but a face of steel. We would win every time. My mother would catch me staring at my walls some times. She would question me. But that was the one thing she never figured out. My continuing imagination. The movie I made for myself. She never found that out. But she was suspicious. And she did everything in her power to stifle whatever was going on in my head.
When I was in high school I realized margins were mine. I used their blank expanses to draw whatever I wanted. I didn’t pay much attention in class. Class was not mine, but the margins were. I drew enough to have a whole collection. I failed my classes. My mother told me I needed to try harder. Be better. My teachers pointed their fingers. Like my mother pointed her finger.
People point fingers when they are angry. Adults were angry. They told me I needed to be someone different. Every day they told me. Before class. After class. In the hallway. Sometimes they didn’t even have to speak it. I could see it in their eyes. The urge to get me to be better. To fix my insufficiency. 65 | Page
I began to believe them.
I grew very sad. My mother sent me to a therapist. I didn’t argue when she did. I sat in the terrible, velvet chair. Pretended to listen to the man. He was infinitely wiser than me. He was going to fix me. Applying myself at school would fix me. Maybe a sport or two. I nodded. Occasionally gave a fake, close-mouthed smile.
I got out of the chair when I ditched the margins. I began improving my grades. I did well enough to pass. But the only real thing I learned was how to convince. How to convince people I was fine. That I didn’t see my imaginary father walking from wall to wall. That I didn’t see myself flying away. Skipping on clouds. In fact, I became so good at convincing I convinced myself. I convinced myself to ignore my imagination. To stifle it. I was severely unsuccessful at times. But I convinced my elders otherwise. I went to college. Two years, no more. I didn’t want to go. But I needed to go. If I wanted to have a future, I had to go. If I wanted to be anybody. If I wanted to be considered a part of society. I had to go. I went. I got grades that disappointed. Feedback I didn’t understand. I compared myself to everyone and everything. I lost weight. Lost hair. Bit my nails. My imagination slowly suppressed. I would occasionally hear the trees whisper. They’d tell me to run. I wouldn’t listen. I’d shake my head. Pray to be normal. I tried harder. Still received bad grades. Was extremely insufficient.
I graduated. Barely. Some kids had fancy cords around their necks. I had none. The kids and their cords hugged their family members. Everyone smiled a lot. I pretended my smile was genuine. It faltered when I saw my mother. Her lips were a smooth, thin line. I walked up to her. Lifted up my diploma pitifully. A “I kind of did it” gesture. She nodded. I nodded. She poked me on the collar bone, where cords would presumably be had I gotten any. She left after that. I sat on a bench outside and watched families leave rosy-cheeked, elated. I watched until it was night and there was nothing left to watch. The trees no longer whispered.
I got a job two years after graduating, which was about time, according to my mother. I moved ten hours or so away. Sat behind a flannel-board cubicle. Typed on an old keyboard. It was sticky all the time. Sticky from coffee spilt on it from whoever used it prior. I never bothered cleaning it. Some of my coworkers Page | 66
decorated their spaces with fake plants. Photos of their children. I left mine gray. I kept a small calendar. Only to count down the days. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was counting down to. But it felt good to count down. And so I did. Every day I sat and stared at the gray expanse before me. Like looking out at sea, no end in sight. Except this was a lot uglier. And then one day I snapped. Got tired of redundancy. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Where to go. I left without saying anything. My boss called several times, and I ignored every call. I ignored every call because I knew I didn’t have any answers. Being totally lost isn’t an answer. An excuse, most likely. But it was excuse enough for me to leave. I am unsure of why I decided to come home.
The home that ruined it all for me. Home to my mother, who can now barely walk. Home to walls I hate seeing. Plain. Stark. God damn white. Walls I would’ve loved to paint at some point. To create murals. Tell stories on. I place my hand on the one in front of me. It’s cold. Grainy. My fingertips tingle. If I could go back and change it all, I tell the blankness, I would. I would bring light and life back into them. I would tell myself not to listen. To persist harder. As a child it was hard. Everyone influenced you. If only I had seen my future. Its bleak consistencies. Perhaps I would’ve fought harder. But there’s no way of knowing.
I let my hand slide down the wall. I pick the photo back up. The photo I found hidden deep in a kitchen drawer. I hold it against my heart. Feel it beat slow and firm against the thin portrait. I shut my eyes. Breathe deep. I know it’s too late for me, the boy. I know it is far, far too late. I know I will probably get fired. And I know I will probably find another job that looks just as gray as the other. I know I will remain insufficient. I know I will never be fixed. But. Despite all of this. Despite it all. I tell the portrait boy to run. I tell him to run and never look back.
I remove the photo from my heart.
I don’t know if it is my imagination. If it has briefly returned for just a moment. But when I open my eyes.
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The boy is gone. -Breanna Marie Berkebile
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Soccer Ruined Cauliflower My mom was the cheerleader; my dad was the football-playing jock. They were the stereotypical popular couple, whose lives were perfect. If I went to the same high school as them I would have hated them. They would have been that couple that were all over each other all the time in the hallways, lunch table, homeroom, bus, everywhere. They looked forward to the football game every Friday night where my dad would act like a rock star on the field and my mom would cheer him on, making stupid kissy faces from the sidelines, and making sure everyone knew that that was her man out there. I guess that is the reason why they were insistent that I would be in sports growing up, because that was a huge part of their lives. They must have wanted it to be a part of their kids’ lives as well.
I have been involved in pretty much every sport that there is at at least one point in my life. It always went with me being forced into a sport for a season, being horrible at it, quitting, and then moving on to the next one. No matter how many times I would complain to my parents about hating any sort of physical activity that involved teamwork, they would keep telling me that I just haven’t found the right sport yet. I tried basketball and did not make a single basket the entire season. I swam and always ended up in heat three (the slowest race). Not to mention being in the worst heat, I still got near to last place. I did gymnastics to only realize I was incapable of touching my toes, preventing me from doing any of the basics since flexibility is a key factor. I danced—ballet to be more specific—to find I did not possess a single ounce of rhythm in my body. I did karate and made it all the way to a white belt because anytime I had to challenge someone I would run in the opposite direction. I was a cheerleader (this one my mother really hoped would work out) except I didn’t care about school spirit or having to constantly fake a smile; it all seemed phony to me.These are just a few of the sports I was a part of. Like I said, I sadly was involved in more because, according to my parents, I was trying to find “my sport.” I also played soccer. I was a decent runner and knew how to dribble a ball down a field for a little bit before I passed it off to someone else to finish the job, making me an average midfielder. I scored about a goal every season, strictly off of luck. Whenever I got remotely close to the goal, I would kick the ball with my toe (which is incorrect form) as hard as I could and prayed it would end up somewhere. This was the only sport I did not completely suck at, so my parents proclaimed it to be “my sport.” I started playing soccer when I was really young. I was in tiny kickers and worked my way up to the Norwin School District travel team. I hated the fact 69 | Page
that one day out of my weekend was consumed by soccer, but I sucked it up for my parents’ sake. Then high school came and I could no longer meander my way around the field, kicking a ball with no clue what direction I wanted it to go in. I had to try out for the Norwin high school soccer team or quit playing soccer forever.
They called it “Hell Week.” Three sessions a day for five days straight. The first session began at 7 a.m and went to 10 a.m. This was running, including suicides, sprints, high-knees, and gates. Thinking about gates still gives me nightmares to this day. The coach had a timer and set up a “gate” that was the equivalent to a finish line. Runners would start at a marking that was initially close to the gate and had to make it to the end within a certain amount of time. Each round the starting point would get further and further away from the gate. The time to reach the finish line increased too as the starting point got pushed back. The thing was everyone trying out had to get to the gate before coach called time or else everyone had to go back to the start and do it again. It was absolute hell. The second session started at 1 p.m. and went until 4 p.m. This was drills and techniques. I hated this session more than the running because coach would always scream at me, never letting me forget that my techniques were all wrong. It was embarrassing. It was complete hell. The third session started at 6 p.m. and went until dark. This was multiple scrimmages. They were organized with how you had performed that day. If you did shitty that day, you knew it, because you would be in scrimmage four along with all the other losers. Take a wild guess what scrimmage I was in. It was total, utter hell.
I’m sure you are thinking, why would you ever put yourself through all of that? It’s because I so desperately wanted to please my parents. Looking back now, I should have just expressed to them how much I hated organized group activities that involved teamwork and getting sweaty, but they loved going to my soccer games more than anything. That Friday night football game they looked forward to in high school was now replaced with my soccer games, and I didn’t want to ruin all the fun and excitement they got out of it.
My coach told us on day one of “Hell Week” that if we wanted to survive we were going to have to eat right. He strongly advised us against eating large meals before a session and to stay as far away from fast food as possible.The one girl trying out for the team asked jokingly what we were supposed to eat since fast Page | 70
food was a popular choice in our diets. He said eat some cauliflower, and you will be okay. I remember thinking that cauliflower was super random, but in my high school freshman head, if I ate cauliflower before every session, I would be guaranteed a spot on that team. The coach said so, so that was what I would do. After the session was over, I begged my mother to go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of cauliflower heads. I also pleaded with her to go without my company seeing, as I was slowly dying on the couch after running for three hours straight. She did not understand why I wanted this broccoli imposter considering I had never requested it before. I told her that if I ate this white treetop-looking vegetable I would make the high school soccer team. She laughed and performed my request. She returned with two heads of cauliflower about an hour before I had to leave for my next session. I scoffed and said I was going to need a lot more than this to last me the whole week. I grabbed the entire head of cauliflower and began to chop it up into smaller raw pieces. My mom asked if I wanted her to cook the vegetable along with some chicken and potatoes. I refused and told her the coach said to just eat cauliflower so that was what I was going to do. I’m pretty sure she thought I was insane, but little did she know the only reason I was eating this stupid tasteless veggie was for her. Of course I did not just strictly eat cauliflower the entire week, but I always made sure before every session to eat a large portion of it. I had to force myself to eat it. The texture felt like I was chewing on crunchy cardboard that I so desperately wanted to spit out, and the taste was practically nonexistent. To get the cauliflower down, I kept telling myself this was how I was going to make the team and to suck it up for the week.
By the last day of “Hell Week” I remained constant with my cauliflower ritual and ate an entire head before my 7 a.m session. We were running suicides that morning, and about halfway through my stomach began to churn. I ignored the feeling because rule number one of “Hell Week” was: “You quit, you’re gone.” I had come so far, and I refused for my weak stomach to ruin it for me. The longer I ran, the worse the sensation became. The only thing I had eaten that morning was the cauliflower, and just thinking about it made me feel as if there were a cauliflower creature inside my stomach clawing at it from the inside trying to get out. I was going to be sick, and in that moment there was nothing I could do about it. The monster had to come out, all over the girl running in front of me. White solid chunks rested in her low ponytail, and the sight of it made me want to vomit even more. Coach blew the whistle and yelled, “Stop!” Instantly everyone running the suicides directed all their attention towards me. He ran up to me 71 | Page
and bent down to the point where I could distinctly see the beads of sweat resting upon his brow. He asked if I was done, and I timidly nodded my head and ran as fast as I could, choking back tears.
I was so mortified I did not even think to grab my soccer bag, ball, or phone. I just had to get out of there. I ran across the field that we were slowly dying on, cut through the woods and hid myself in a smelly porta potty letting my tears stream down my face. I was in that sad excuse for a bathroom for what seemed like hours, constantly poking my head out for fresh air and to see if the session was over. Sitting on the grimy toilet, I devised an escape route in my head to avoid being seen when the session did come to a close. I caught a glimpse of my mother’s tan mini van making its way down the gravel and saw the girls packing up their things across the way. I left the porta john and ran straight back into the woods to the exact spot where my belongings were on the field. I carefully calculated the best moment to make my exit to avoid being seen and grabbed my bag, ball, and phone, immediately running back into the woods. I sent my mother a quick text to let her know I was still alive and then walked through the woods to where the mini van was parked. I then bolted into the car, slamming the door shut and squeaked the word “drive.”
During the car ride home, we both sat in complete silence, the only noise being the sound of my sobs. Looking back in this moment, I should have calmly told her how much I hated this sport, instead of how I handled it later. When we arrived home, I told my mother the cauliflower debacle and insisted I was not going back. She didn’t like that answer. We argued with each other for what seemed like hours while I was in full-blown hysteria. I was scream-crying, no longer forming words one could remotely understand. I knew that this was a fight I was not going to win, so I threw in the towel out of pure exhaustion. Second session of the day rolled around, and I went unwillingly to experience another three hours of embarrassment. I avoided all eye-contact with the girl who was wearing my delicious cauliflower earlier in the day and my coach. That girl who unfortunately had to wear my breakfast that morning never let me forget it in school. She would rightfully give me the stink eye in the hallways and made certain that all the other girls on the soccer team were to not be my friend. I didn’t really mind though, I didn’t want to be their friends. They were all two-faced bitches, and if I had hung around them, I would probably have become one too.
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The last session of “Hell Week” took place at the high school turf, and this is where I would find out if my hard work and eating of cauliflower would pay off. Only three girls would get cut, and I was confident that I would not be one of them. After all, I had come back after my traumatizing experience which showed I wasn’t a quitter, tried my absolute best at all the sessions, and had followed coach’s dietary instructions to a tee. There were six girls left sitting on the bench in the locker room outside of coach’s office awaiting their fate. Then there were five, then four, then three…Coach called my name along with the two other girls anxiously waiting. All three of us held hands and walked into his office like we were on some televised elimination show. He delivered the great news by telling us that we did an amazing job this week and how talented of soccer players we were and that if it were up to him he would be honored to have all three of us on his team, but unfortunately the school did not allow him to have more than twenty-four on a team. It was at that point when I realized that the great news was not great at all; I tuned the rest of his bullshit speech out. I left that office feeling nothing but pure anger and hatred towards him, the sport, the school, and my mother. I stormed up to my mother’s ugly-ass mini van and slammed the door shut. She glared at me through the rear-view mirror with a hopeful expression on her face and said, “So”? I responded sarcastically, saying I guess I didn’t eat enough stupid cauliflower. -Kierstin Crowley
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Author Bios
Alberto Mark van Hecke is a biology major in his last semester at UPJ. He has been taking photos for 10 years now and loves nearly all types of photography. He hopes to go into a career in conservation ecology or something with nature.
Breanna Marie Berkebile is a super senior and only mildly proud of that fact. She triple majors in Journalism, Creative Writing, and English Literature and advocates for denim on denim in her spare time. Breanna Brubaker is a 2015 UPJ alumnus, where she served as the former Timeout president. She currently works as a social worker in Johnstown, PA. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, attending concerts, and playing board games.
Brianna Facciani is a junior English Literature major with minors in Writing and Art History. She is, among other things, a cat lover, ice cream aficionado, and a firm believer in the powers of a chai latte.
Callie Burgan is a Pitt-Johnstown freshman dual-majoring in Business Management and Journalism. She is passionate about writing as the Opinions Editor for the student newspaper The Advocate, involving herself in UPJ Campus Ministry, and jamming out to 80’s music in her spare time.
Danielle Reeser is a sophomore studying Secondary English Education. She loves reading and watching Harry Potter. In her spare time, she enjoys going on adventures with her four roommates or just hanging out with them and eating pizza.
Joshua Calandrella is an English and Spanish Literature student whose work typically explores comparative religious topics and global cultural studies. After graduation, he plans to continue his exploration of literature, languages, and music. Page | 74
Kierstin Crowley is a senior at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. She is a Biology major with a Writing minor. Creative writing has always been a passion of Kierstin's ever since she was little. She remembers this big binder she has had in her house with all of her old stories that she started writing back when she was nine years old. Kierstin will be attending Slippery Rock University in June 2019 for graduate school to be a part of their Physician Assistant program. She hopes to continue to write for fun as she goes through life—and maybe even eventually come out with her own novel.
Laken Burkhardt is in her junior year as a Theatre Arts and Communication double-major. Outside of photography, Laken can be found hiding in the PPAC on campus where she is heavily involved in the Theatre Department as a Work Study employee, Stagehand, Actor, and Production Stage Manager. In her free time, she is also a writer for BroadwayWorld for their Student Section online. Laken is beyond excited to be involved with Backroads for another year. Makenzie Croyle is a junior History and Creative Writing double-major. She enjoys writing poetry, photography, and 20th Century US History. In her free time, she works at Spencer's and plays video games.
Mary-Lynn Retassie is a Multimedia and Digital Culture major with a minor in Communications at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, graduating in Spring 2019. She was Chief Photographer for The Advocate from Spring 2018 Spring 2019.
Patrick Stahl is a senior Creative Writing/MMDC/French triple-major. He also kind of plays a few stringed instruments, and on occasion, you can find him filling the pulpit at his church, Stoystown Charge United Church of Christ.
Rachel Logan is a graduating senior who couldn't choose between reporting and robots. She hopes the future is more decisive.
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Submission Guidelines
We accept submissions of short stories, short plays, poetry, personal essays, creative nonfiction, literary journalism, photography, and drawn or painted visual art of any medium. We accept submissions from students currently enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown, as well as from faculty and alumni.
Please send submissions to backroads2@gmail.com, with your submission attached as a separate file. Multiple submissions are accepted, but must be included as separate files. The file name of your attached submission(s) should be the name of the work, but the document itself should not include your name (this is done to ensure unbiased reviews of all submissions). The subject line of your email should be "Backroads Submission." In the message of the email, state your name, the titles of all works attached to your email, and a brief (one to three sentences) third-person biography about yourself. Specific Guidelines:
Prose: Short prose includes short stories, personal essays, short creative nonfiction, literary journalism, and short plays, and should be included in a .doc file, .rtf file, or .docx file. We advise that you check your work for grammar and other kinds of errors before submission. We recommend a maximum length of five to six pages but will accept longer submissions. Poetry: Poetry should be included in a .doc file, .rtf file, or .docx file. Art: Visual art includes drawn or painted art (either digital or traditional) and photography. Visual art should be included in a .jpg, .bmp, or .png file. We recommend that drawn or painted art be captured using a scanner and that photography be of a decent resolution. Remember, Backroads editors and staff select the best quality work for publication.
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About Us
Backroads is the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown's art and literature magazine. We publish the best of student-submitted short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, plays, and visual art. We also accept submissions from faculty and alumni.
Mission Statement: We strive to promote and share the love of literature and creative works across our campus and beyond. We want to provide a comfortable, fun, creative, and supportive space for students to experiment with new kinds of writing and art techniques. Overall, we strive to share the love of expressing oneself with any who will listen. Submissions are open until mid-January and the magazine is released every spring.
To be involved on campus, consider joining as a staff member or attending our open mic nights to share your favorite authors or poets or your own work, and enjoy the written word with fellow enthusiasts (and coffee).
For regular and up-to-date info, like us on Facebook:
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And check out our website to access for more detailed information, to contact us, or to visit the online archive:
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