Speaking To The Issue
A Letter from Your Editors-in-Chief
Hello again, AmLit!
We had a restful summer and a not-so-restful semester, and we are so proud to present our Fall 2025 Edition of AmLit. A huge, special thank you to all of our student artists without whom this magazine would not exist. You are all so talented, and it has been such a privilege to work with you this semester. We appreciate your submissions more than you can imagine, and we hope we made you proud. This semester, we had the pleasure of swearing in many new members of the AmFam. Each and every position in AmLit is vital to the creation of our magazine, and every one of you did a spectacular job. Big shoutouts to our Copy and Design teams, who bring our magazines from good to great. This belongs to all of us!
Oh, AmLit! I (Abby) cannot believe this is my last issue as Editor-in-Chief. It has come far too soon, but I am so incredibly lucky to have at least some time left. We’re so fortunate to have so many new faces on the E-Board and AmLit as a whole this semester, all of whom have contributed excellent things to this issue and our overall semester. This would be possible without me, but it most certainly would not be possible without you! A big, big thank you and transfer of my love to Ruth, my battle partner this semester. I’ve loved working with you just as much as I’ve loved becoming your friend. I know my baby is in fantastic hands! This magazine would not be possible without many small chai lattes with oat milk, Monday and Thursday Night Football in the background of review sessions, the first floor of the library, the always lovely Gina and Ryan Tredway, and my little stuffed longhorn, Bo. I am so, so proud of this, and you should be too. I love you!
I (Ruth) owe so, so many “thank yous” to Abby for her guidance and fearless leadership through everything this semester. Abby, I cannot properly describe how much I have loved working with you. You are so endlessly passionate, committed, and brilliant, and I am so lucky to now call you my friend. You are a credit to AmLit and to American University. I hope that I can do you proud in the spring. I must also thank McKenna Casey and Emma DiValentino for their counsel thank you for making time for my silly questions in your post-grad lives. I would also like to thank my mom, dad, and brother, for being my lifevests through the nearly-unmanageable chaos of this semester. Without you, I would have easily been pulled under. Hope, Adam, Christina, Liz, and Jeff, thank you for encouraging me and always pushing me to grow. Finally, shoutout to our lovely Circulation team at the library. Y’all have helped me more than you know. AmLit, we’ve created a beautiful magazine together this semester, and I can’t wait to lead us into another.
We pride ourselves on our output being a reflection of authentic human experience through art. We aspire to foster a community at AU that values creativity and connection to one another. AmLit has always been a platform for students to share, whether it be through prose, art, photography, or poetry. Thank you for picking up this magazine, and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.
Love from AmLit,
Abby Tredway and Ruth Odin Editors-in-Chief Fall 2025
No generative AI was used in the making of this magazine.
Spring
Arin Burrell
velvet under my fingertips, the smell stains my skin. should I wait until you’re here again, counting the fallen petals until I’m past my bloom? i shiver in the chill you will get rid of soon. congested from change and missing the sun. when will you be back?
the trees warn me to be patient.
Blush of Spring
Noelle Sommerville
The Face on My Shoulder
Caden Eldridge
On the seven-thirty bus to New York City, a thirty-five-year-old man or thereabout rested his head on my shoulder as he slumped next to me. His head bounced against my bony shoulder with every pothole we flew over, and yet he continued to rest fitfully. I could hear his soft snoring against my jacket as the streetlights strobed through the window.
What could I hear but his snoring? Even though I tried, the cold humidity of the air refused to let me sleep peacefully, and as I looked out at the dead branches of the trees that pressed down on the road and reached out at me, my breath made little amoebas of fog on the window. The presence of his curled locs against my neck as he turned his head to a more comfortable position both enraged and disturbed me.
The city loomed into sight ahead and above us. Two million fireflies in each hole of their fortress buzzed aggressively as we trailed through the spits of cars along the highway. It was only his face that flashed in my mind, his sleeping against my side and his waiting for me in the city, what I was running from and towards melding together into one man which refused to disappear from my vision even with every aggressive blink I made. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of the journey that was getting to me. Perhaps the two faces were one and the same.
The bus stopped at my station and I exited into the noise of Manhattan, and still, the quiet violence of the bus maintained its presence within me, waiting to pounce. I met him on a random street and we started back up where we’d left off, like nothing had ever happened and we hadn’t each traveled five hours to see each other.
It was night by the time we made our way to the thirty-square-foot room we’d booked off of Craigslist cheap-style in Crown Heights. The subway, too, attempted to assault my ears as he kept his head against my shoulder, the man I’d run towards. He slept peacefully on the bright orange plastic seat of the 2-train towards Brooklyn, and as the sound of arguing and laughing and crying throughout the car slithered its way towards me, I tried to block out the sounds to focus on the tired, quiet snoring I’d tried to ignore just a few hours before.
The train exited the tunnel and seemed to fly out above the city as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. I put my arm around him as the lights flashed in and out of the train car to stop the lights from disturbing him. The room was indeed small, hot as hell, too, and just as humid as the bus. I felt his bare skin on mine and we melded together into one for a time. It was too hot to stay touching while we slept. When I closed my eyes, I only saw his face.
I sat across from him, my love, on opposite stations facing each other with the track running in between us. The trains arrived at the same time and a gust of wind hit me. His face was obscured by the trains and yet I could still pinpoint him through the cold steel between us.
I was pondering the possibility of tearing the trains to shreds when his train picks up the pace, chugs out of the station and down the dark tunnel to what I can only assume is hell. In a moment he was gone. On each empty wall and each quiet moment I saw the dark circles of his eyes, the five-o’clock shadow, the sagging yellowed skin. They were my love’s, and those of the man on the bus who had leant against my shoulder, and mine now, as I look at the mirror on the wall of the run down bathroom in the bus depot and see my own eyes sunken, my chin collecting hairs, my skin sagging and pock-marked by the air of the bus and subway and Manhattan smog.
On the way back, another man rests his head on my shoulder. He is younger than the first, and his breathing is less shallow. His skin is dark and his hair, as it scratches my neck, is raw and sharp. The face I see when I look at him is mine, and my love’s, and that of the thirtyfive-or-so-year-old man I’d sat next to on the first trip. We are all the same. Lost in the sea between cities. We cling to each other for support as the branches of dead November trees lurch at us out of the mist of eleven o’clock darkness on the return trips. We found what we came for, and yet here we are, returning, swimming like schools of fish between spits of cars along the highway between those fortresses that hold our dreams; the lights of our lives dim as we fall away into the darkness between them.
On this ride, I don’t try desperately to stay awake as before, and I don’t press my head against the window in an attempt to see my destination as we arrive. I put my head against his sitting next to me and closed my eyes. The face in my mind sinks into the darkness of the back of my eyelids, melts into the fabric of me. The return trip is always easier, I reckon, because I already know whose face is whose. Because I know we all share the same face.
Editor’s Pick
Hawaiian Waters Series
Kaymen Noel Story
Sun Bleached Bones
Elena Williams
Summer is coming
Wash the dirt from the screen door
Scrape away the bitter salt
Make room for sweet mildew
See my face flush with pink heat
From sun kisses, hot and slow
Sweat pools above my lip
Lick it off, why don’t you?
Lay me out like seaweed
Marooned and gasping for air
Search my tangles for starfish and seashells
Before I float back out with the tide
Hands on the clock melt backwards
And you don’t know me yet
Find something in me that is living
Push your eyes into mine for the first time again
I’ll braid goldenrod into my hair
And run topless down the shore
Pretend to be someone with wind in her bones
But grow shy when my nipples turn hard
We were born from the sea, ‘course you know that When I swim I’m one cell again
Just tell Mother Sea how you want me to be
And she’ll make me a woman for you
Southern Prophecy
Katie Hamilton
I was rocking in a chair, talking to the Lord on the front porch
And I asked Him if He preferred gas station Lipton or Georgia sweet tea
To quench His thirst because His tongue was parched as He talked back to me;
I asked Him if the angels in Heaven line danced or did the New Orleans tango
And if they preferred to fly down paved or gravel roads, as I chased after them
I was staring up at a Tennessee sky as the sun went down, talking to the Lord
And I asked Him how long it took Him to hang the stars in the sky and carve out a crescent moon for this night;
I asked Him if the angels connected the dots in the heavens to create Ursa Major
And if my guardian angel completed the constellation for my lion star sign
I was driving down a back road, and in between verses of “American Pie,” I was talking to the Lord
And I asked Him if I sang loud enough for Him to hear me from Nirvana; I asked Him if my music compared to the orchestras of Seraphim, or if it made angels turn the radio off
I was lying on my deathbed and I was whispering to the Lord, And I asked Him when it was my time;
When I closed my eyes, He answered me.
Forest Triptych
Clair Sapilewski
Belgian Canals
Kaymen Noel Story
Funeral Song
Emily Rhodes
1
I buried a songbird in the woods last night.
That isn’t a metaphor.
I clawed a hole under a tree, tore roots and sinews. Laid it down, covered with damp earth.
2
I emerged from the dark, burrs on my legs,
Hands caked with dirt, eyes wild with grief,
the bird’s and my own, and my magical hands
Alchemizing mud into grave dirt, and into my clothes.
“cos’ mos’ children, Cause most children” Ruchel Limbos
children of the cosmos, you smell like summer and laugh like spring.
When you open to the frequency of bees, are you bleeding, bursting, or blooming, or are you freer than the confines of time that dictate that you must wither?
Children of the Cosmos, you fall like angels and feel like winter.
When we try to catch or capture you, are you grateful for finding a warm home, or are you trapped with no way to return until a last breath releases you? cease vibrancy, Cease wandering. When are you home? ever not beautiful? Here.
Modern Renaissance
Lucy Greenburg
Lake Bled Reflection
Lucy Greenberg
November
Katie Hamilton
You fell on me like an early November rain
A little cold to the touch, warnings of the coming winter, Soft winds tangling my hair like winding ivy, weaving the honey strands into Rumpelstiltskin’s gold straw
You painted my skies a melancholy gray, as deep as your piercing, ashen irises and dramatic as a setting sun
I could feel you soak through my skin, droplets so small an outsider could call them insignificant
This water ran thicker than blood
And cut deeper
You still linger like the smell of rain on the buckled pavement of the streets we grew up on And you stay in the salty tears pouring down my gutter-like dimples onto my stained cheeks And I pray for December
Low Tide
Katie Hamilton
Falling in love
Is letting yourself fall victim to the undertow, A tsunami of sand and anticipation crashing into your lungs, Every breath is a gasp for one more beat of euphoric heartache; It means allowing yourself to surface only to steal a kiss from salt-sprayed lips and be intertwined together in the seaweed forevermore.
Being in love
Is waiting for the sun to break the horizon on stilted conversations and whispered arguments; It’s riding the waves into the beach and back to the deep blue, Ever so patient for an epiphany discovered in crystal water while trying to wade through a murky sea foam.
Falling out of love
Is watching the tide go out, Tedious and dreadful, But always predictable; It’s not forgetting how to swim, But accepting that your feet can’t touch the ground at this depth. Regrets, lukewarm regards, and farewells burn scarlet deep into your skin, Piercing the barrier you tried to keep thick;
It’s a slow burn, a calm realization
That you’re only standing in shallow waters now, all deeper levels of sentimental passion
Filled in with grains of sand; Falling out of love is pouring into the eyes of your moon and stars during the daytime, waiting for the sun to finally set, praying for low tide.
For there is nothing more bitter than realizing the tongue that once said ‘I love you’ is soaked in a salted deception.
Bar Harbor Series
Miles Hazo
Magenta Yellow Cyan
Hailey Hartman
Lights dance, contort, move across airtight panels curved into Post-Modern-Pre-Mechanical-Utopia ceilings. A neon-bright allusion to distract me from you digging your carefully bared bones into my digitally scanned eye sockets; unnerved nail scratching unsleeping skin to try and ground yourself as we lose our joint gnawing grip on mortality, now grasping at nothing, air, skies. And in that moment we become the birds, but for tonight, today, for ever, this instant, we can’t stand it. We can only stomach a reality of
magenta, yellow, cyan stories: our brown/gray/green/black/blue eyes would regurgitate anything more real. When 30,000ft in the air, lullabies don’t need to be heard, just seen.
Not song, just stimulation. Just enough motion to rock us to sleep.
Lucy Greenburg
Paris Lights at Night
Grave Digger Digs
Lucy Greenburg
An Unearthing
Jillian T. Sinder
They tell me to find myself
As if I’m meant to stumble upon her somewhere on the sidewalk or bump into her in the coffee shop on the corner or trip over some part of her on the subway or elbow her in the hardware store in the paint aisle, by the blues
As if I would be buying Sherwin-Williams Sea Serpent for the bedroom, and That’s just where I would find her too
It’s as if I’m meant to find her humming, whirring, wondering, worrying
Maybe I’m meant to find her in the beam of a streetlight, I think I would dare her to stay
She would laugh, and I would say “laughing looks good on you”
And then the next day, she’d press her lips together, turn them inside out and move out west
I know the dirt is harder to dig out west
It’s as if I’m meant to find her troubling
As if I’m meant to find her confusing
Her lefts and rights
Homophones and homonyms
She turns and tangles undiscovered
Maybe it would be better to meet by chance in time
But they say I am meant to find her, so I
Dig for her, shovel and all in my palm, I
Let my creases fill with dirt as I dig for her
My knuckles caked, stained, with dirt as I dig
They tell me I am meant to find myself, but Damn is it dim in this expanse, and I dig everywhere, everywhere, deep, but
Everywhere I dig, I only unearth you.
I dig desperately; I’m just unearthing you
I’m tripping over you, I’m walking backwards into you
I’m buying paint for the bedroom, and
There you are next to me, you’re buying paint too
I’m looking for myself down Aisle Five but all I find is you, and You’re gently humming, you’re singing by the blues
Everywhere I dig, I only unearth you
And when they tell me a shovel sits squarely in my palm,
The whole world looks like dirt I’m meant to dig
California Dreaming
Ella Altman
People dream of California, the “City of Angels.” It has been glamorized to a fault; Its very existence mystifies those around the globe. I grew up in Los Angeles, and, a week from now, I am leaving.
For a long while, I resented my home. I didn’t understand what it was about this city that allured so many—infatuating the media, the musicians, and the movie stars.
Yesterday afternoon, I was driving down “Laurel Canyon,” and finally felt it. The palm trees seemingly grazed the setting sun, and the footsteps that once seemed foreign to me charted a trail I’d been following all the while.
The love I feel for this city, though not romantic, is true and real.
California has served as the backdrop for some of my biggest losses, heartbreaks, highs, and lows.
My annoyance festered when I’d walk to the Santa Monica metro station after school, internally whining about the lack of stops and long wait times. But how lucky am I to be able to walk down the sandy shores staring off into the Pacific Ocean, a breathtaking sight, one I often took for granted, as if it were just a part of my daily routine rather than a remarkable gift?
The Los Angeles traffic is something one must experience to fully grasp, though amidst streets of Cybertrucks and Waymos, above me, I see signs: “Sunset Boulevard” and “Rodeo Drive.”
Now everything is picturesque—cigarette butts on the streets and Venice Beach vendors. The state that surrounds me moves like a movie. Every person I encounter is beautiful and free; Maybe they’re not, maybe just like me, the weight of their lives holds them down, and the darkness of the world casts a shadow on the West Coast sun. Yet, in my eyes, they radiate a light that contrasts starkly with the unseen struggles they face.
I feel as though I’ve uncovered something, an old box packed with dusty photographs from every stage of my life, buried in the corners of my mind. Each image, whether polished by nostalgia or rooted in reality, evokes a vivid tapestry of memories, stirring emotions that have been long forgotten or at the very least pushed away.
When I was young, I loved the beach. I remember “Sandy Days” summer camp. I remember our vibrant neon yellow rash guards, and how I so desperately wanted to surf with the big kids instead of playing beach volleyball with those my own age. I remember falling off my borrowed surfboard and winning “Best Wipeout.”
At that age, I didn’t think much about the first time I stood up on a board, but now, as I struggle to find the time or motivation to get in the water again, I envy that version of myself.
When I got my first surfboard, I drove to Koreatown with my dad. I bought it secondhand from a woman on Facebook Marketplace, having diligently saved my babysitting earnings for weeks until I managed to gather enough, 60 dollars, to claim it as my own.
A few months ago, nearing the end of my senior year, I was overwhelmed with emotions. The school itself was not a good place for me; I succumbed to loneliness and a desperate need to fit in. After the day ended, I began making my way to the beach. I saw groups of other seniors hanging out on the 3rd Street Promenade. I was so confused. What was I doing wrong? I wanted to go over and say “hi,” but instead settled for a reluctant smile, one not returned.
Yet, as I made my way closer to the beach, I found my worries drifting. I sat down in the sand and wrote about my surroundings. The ocean air calmed me, and I felt at peace. At the time, I had no idea that’d be the last time I was there, at least for now.
I wish I had made more of an effort to go back this summer. I live so close, and it wouldn’t have been that difficult. But July invited an unwelcome set of new emotions, and I couldn’t find it in me to go.
I know I’ll be back. College doesn’t mean leaving forever, but I wonder how I’ll feel amidst East Coast snow or the now unfamiliar summer humidity.
I was lucky to grow up here, and I’m lucky to be able to call it my home. I’m grateful to have had this city, through everything. I can now acknowledge how California has shaped who I am, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Editor’s Pick
To My Cousins
Avery Grossman
My aunt lifted two slender eggs from their carton and cradled them in front of the FaceTime screen.
My heart’s music thrummed in a rapid crescendo.
Two eggs = two lives
“Identical twins,” my aunt told me. “You will have your very first cousins.”
Cousins to gift love poems into uncalloused palms
Cousins to reanimate my dust dulled ponies and explore any world of their imagination
Cousins to warm with bear hugs and sweet kisses.
I peeled up pages of my calendar preemptively to study the way your birth month bloomed into life with promise on the page. Little April (baby) showers come late yet the skies fill with the musty scent of rain months before the sweeping rains arrive.
Luna Dove, you danced between our fingertips. You flitted past the vaults of heaven, all the way to the undiscovered country where soft hued rainbows meld with stardust. I am always the seeker whispering come back. I chase after the fading echoes in your wake as you flutter through the boundless sky.
Willow Isla, your windswept cutting drifted into my world. You dipped your tiny roots into life’s water and shot up to the horizon. You are still so small, but you grow new wisps of leaves every day. Together, we weep at the vast skies.
And so, with ink-smudged hands, I press this poem deep into the soil beneath the weeping willow tree. I fold this poem into a paper airplane and watch it with waterlogged eyes as it soars past the horizon.
Steadfast Companion Noelle Sommerville
Morbid Tendency to Self-Actualization
Hope Hammerslough
I told her, it’s been a while since I wanted to be something else. Like a bird, a bug, a fairy, or one of those salamanders that can swim in the water. She told me, I don’t know what you mean. I tried again. To express myself in a way that could find her.
I asked, haven’t you ever wanted to be something else?
She said, no.
Now I don’t understand.
I couldn’t fathom how she’d never taken part in this practice. I thought everyone had thought about it at least once.
I tried again.
So, you never let the feeling of escaping this world, which forces you to live by rules you did not choose, consume you?
She said, no.
I needed to try again. In this moment, it was important that she understood.
You never once wanted to be something outside of yourself? Something that does not demand the same things from our existence that our social culture does? Something that subverts the formal acts towards rendering our ‘self’ as a visible being? Something that puts us out of our pain, and out of our worry, even for a little bit? So, our only purpose is to fly, to hunt. Our only function is to breathe and to live.
Those dreaded words, she spoke.
I still don’t understand.
I tried again.
It would mean leaving consciousness behind; it would mean we never have to think about ourselves relative to everything outside of ourselves. She looked scared.
She said, that sounds horrible, and she finally asked me, why would you want to do that?
I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer. I felt incapable of articulating a halfformed thought about something so significant to me. But the answer seemed inherently preexisting to my speculation.
I guess it would mean an absence of everything that makes me aware, but saying this still didn’t seem to contextualize my sense of feeling. She still looked terrified, but didn’t stop trying to find a way to access me.
She said, I thought about becoming my younger self before. I would go back to the child I used to be and do things differently. I told her. That’s not really the point. That’s not the same thing. But maybe it was.
Maybe, if I could go back to my younger self and sit inside her, I would make the same decisions my feet had made and bring myself back here to this moment.
Maybe I would forget, so that I could hurt, destroy, and remember all over again.
Maybe I could teach her, so I would have a purpose in sitting outside of this life for a while.
Maybe I could be her, see through her eyes, walk around inside the different versions of myself, and relearn.
Maybe I could find new ways to love her—like children love, freely and without hesitation—in ways that I never knew how to, and maybe no one ever has.
Maybe I could practice the art of becoming all over again and use time to help me reconcile with my want of a different life. No, I don’t think so.
Too many “maybes”... “maybes” that would subsume what little control I have over my reality... “maybes” that would let life’s arbitrary nature consume my precarious autonomy. Now I look at her.
Afraid. No.
I do not know much in this life.
But I know this, I know I would still rather be a fairy.
Salzburg Bratwurst Stand at Night
Noelle Sommerville
George Gershwin’s An American in Madrid
Lincoln Baldwin
yellow lamplights, sparse streets, Intercontinental in a dim white glow no language is needed to hear America in darkness.
midnight here is emptier; streets meant for Ballistic bypassers empty and cold and shaded with piss. the encendedor colors my lips and clears my thoughts, a Missile of clarity through a golden filter, though I can’t remember how long I’ve been here.
longing for my home shades my dreams: the colors and the voices fade, choked by gloved hands and ivory keys, blue and white stained by ensanguined hands, young minds drained of red and painted with gray.
The Tempest
Jaden Maitland Anderson
The night does bear but little fare for such unquiet minds as mine, Such breeding grounds where Thought is bound to torture, ensnare, and to bind. Seeking to tranquillize the mind I’d learned to beguile the time In idle contemplation of the storms as trees and leaves would wind.
I stood at the window watching wind wave in the windswept trees Which unlit lights and fallen night had long since in shadow concealed; But moonlight unobscured and traced the trembling, reddening autumn leaves, So while I cried, my time I’d bide, beguile observing the dark scene.
So friendless were the lonely nights, so endless each thought of despair, Night would not hide, nor Day deprive me of what never would be there. But wind-whirled trees could get me by; in windy storms could I confide, Confer the tempest of my soul, my heart, my mind, away to fly.
I’ve never known the kinder feelings, those so long kept barred from me, So if Death should care to take me I’d release my life in ease. So, if Providence would kindly wish to protect kindly souls, God could carry me away, and so borne, satisfy my soul.
Budapest at Night
Lucy Greenburg
La Grand-Place, Brussels
Kaymen Noel Story
Eye Spy an Elegy
Alicia Zelmanovitz
Never again will we see
The cloudy gaze of your glass eye
The multiple colors it came in Nor the way you’d pop it out of its socket to scare the children
You got me with that trick
When I was seven and still excited to learn piano from you
The sclera like the white keys
The pupil like the black
I grew tired of trying to learn to read music when it wouldn’t stick I never grew tired of your witchy laugh and habits I remember vividly the old book smell of your house And the way you liked your tea
I’ll picture you
In every glass
In every eye
I’ll ever see
Diablo Triptych
Clair Sapilewski
I’m There Too Andrew Gardner
All the writing I see bores me to death
And so does my own That joke’s been told before And I was fed your latest obsession the night before You don’t seem so unique to me anymore I could drop all my cameras and never look back I’ll drop a pen too, what difference does the pageantry make Yeah I’ve seen those shoes before It comes back to you like So many graphic t-shirts
A thrift store wave
I can pretend to be Neil Young too I can even pretend to be Paul Westerberg I just wish you wouldn’t act like you’re the first
To see a rotting piece of meat and feel it between your legs
Besos en Inglés
Florencia Gondolesi
Entre las sábanas soy un pedazo de carne a las brasas. Me despierto, lejos, y sueño, borroso, que no estoy acá quemándome dando vueltas en la cama con la cabeza pesada, el cuerpo abollado en inglés.
Quiero construir con mis cenizas cualquier cosa
quiero construir una casa.
English Kisses
Florencia Gondolesi
Between my bed sheets I’m a piece of roasting meat. I wake up, far away, and I dream, blurry, that I am not here burning turning around in bed, with my head heavy and my body dented in English.
I want to build something with my ashes anything
I want to build a home.
Lighthouses Series
Miles Hazo
Moorish Mirror Pool
Lucy Greenburg
Afterthought
Katie Hamilton
You loved me like an afterthought,
A word caught in the back of your throat
A scratch on a vinyl skipping,
A whisper of a raspy voice,
A door left unlocked,
A key lost in a purse,
An unpaid bill on the kitchen counter,
A thirsty plant left on the windowsill,
All things deemed insignificant
All to be forgotten by you
Under the Stars (Excerpt)
Avery Grossman
Lumitari gazed at the sky—or the little of it she could see—from the tempered glass window of her bedroom on the tower’s bottom floor. It was midnight, but the New York principality never got very dark—there were far too many lights. Sickly green clouds of pollution floated between the mutli-mile high exoscrapers, blocking out all traces of the stars. There were no birds here.
She’d read about birds in her school lessons. Supposedly they’d possessed the ability to fly even before humans had discovered technology. It was said that their birdsongs were sweeter than anything—sweeter even than a swab of frosting or a dopamine shot. Yet, birds had vanished in 2765, when the men in dark suits had developed all that could be developed on the ground and had started to build up and up and up. The air had turned into the consistency of soup. It was too much for the birds’ tiny lungs to handle. That’s why anyone who walked in the gray outside world had to wear breathing masks.
Some people wondered if the birds had gone to live in the stars, the final remnants of nature.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Silvan mumbled, standing by Lumitari’s bedside table. His gaze passed over it, noting the star trinkets, medicine bottles, and her golden communicator. “I know how much you want to see the stars, Lumi, but your parents barred you from the Astae Ascension for a reason.”
Lumitari shrugged her thin shoulders. “Every other thirteen-year-old climbs the Tower of Astae on their birthday to see the stars.” The Tower of Astae was the tallest exoscraper known to humankind. Its delicate amber spirals pierced the very heavens themselves. At the top, one could see stars as if they were simply pieces of dandelion fluff floating by on the wind.
“That’s a logical fallacy, you know,” Silvan commented. “You shouldn’t do things just because everyone else is doing them.”
“Whatever.” Lumi stuck out her tongue. “I don’t care if it makes me sick. I need to see the stars or else I’ll be stuck on the ground forever.” She was ready for her midnight adventure. She had tied a pink breathing mask around her face and was wearing her Halloween costume from a year ago—the sparkly spy costume with a stick-on mustache, shiny gloves, and the black-rimmed hat with a fabricated leaf at the top (for camouflage).
Lumitari folded her arms over her chest. “I will be climbing the Tower of Astae tonight. Are you coming?”
“Of course I’m coming.” Silvan joined Lumitari at the window. He was dressed more reasonably. He wore long black jeans and a black T-shirt, upon which he had slapped an equally uninteresting black hoodie. His form-fitting breathing mask was dull gray. “Someone has to keep you safe. Besides, I did this two years ago. I’m practically an expert now.” Also, someone has to be there to comfort you when you decide that you’ve finally had enough, he added in his head.
“Hush,” Lumi snapped, her eyes darting towards the wall closest to her parents’ room. She could hear the springs creaking in her parents’ bed as one of them stirred. Silvan immediately went quiet.
Lumitari screwed her eyes shut, imagining her parents’ footsteps and the questions that would follow.
“Why were you sneaking out?”
“Why did you get Silvan roped into this?”
“Didn’t you hear what the doctor said?”
“Didn’t you know it was dangerous?”
Yet, no footsteps came. Lumi counted to one hundred in her head before determining that it was safe to move. Her parents couldn’t know that she had left until it was too late to stop her.
Silvan pulled the window open. Even though she was wearing her breathing mask, Lumitari could still taste a sour tang in the air. It smelled like eggs that had been left out under the sun for far too long and burst open. She coughed a little, her eyes watering as she stared at the rope that Silvan had dangled out of his window on the third floor. Her heart clamored like a bird trapped in a cage.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll help you.” Silvan grinned at his friend.
Silvan lifted Lumitari up easily. He could have sworn that she was as light as a feather. He held her in place while she found a grip on the rope and then easily hoisted himself into the outside world. There was only one foot of space separating Lumi’s window from the neighboring exoscraper—a seemingly topless concrete building which housed part of the water supply—just enough space for two children to climb through.
As she climbed, Lumitari pictured the glow-in-the-dark stars she had glued to her midnight blue ceiling two years ago. The stars had been a gift from Silvan—he’d given them to her right after he had returned from his Astae Ascension. Would the real stars look like the ones that Silvan had given her? Or perhaps, she thought, they would be even more magnificent.
Insomnio
Florencia Gondolesi
Un bollo con las piernas una
sobre la otra me acuesto en el centro del colchón me están por parir. Mis pies descalzos acarician ovejas me están por parir. No cierro los ojos y tengo que nacer. Se agranda el rebaño, se llenan las sábanas. La caja se achica siguen entrando ovejas me están por parir.
Viendo, escuchando todo.
Bajo la cortina se hace de día.
Nací con los ojos abiertos.
Insomnia
Florencia Gondolesi
A bun with my legs one over the other I lie down in the middle of the mattress, someone is giving birth to me. My bare feet caress sheep, someone is giving birth to me. I can’t close my eyes and I have to be born. The flock grows, the sheets fill up. The box gets smaller sheep keep coming in, someone is giving birth to me.
I am seeing, hearing everything. The sun is rising under the curtain.
I was born with my eyes wide open.
AU Clock
Lucy Greenburg
Only You Can Start Wildfires
Lincoln Baldwin
It’s hard to see the smoke, this time of year. The flame is only one fire burning across a shining continent, thick with euphoric catatonia; the air chokes out imperfections.
Now I taste every milligram of tar that enters my lungs, even with the exhale near invisible. One of God’s famous, cruel tricks.
The smouldering of my life is indistinguishable from the surrounding blaze; Self destructive, man-made, supremely humiliating and liberating. How am I supposed to know I suck when I’m blacked out?
Croatian Sunset
Lucy Greenburg
Rock Triptych
Clair Sapilewski
Lucy Greenburg
Vintage Car on Hill in Budapest
Winged Wonder Noelle Sommerville
Pen Pals
Avery Grossman
Two girls whispering wishes in the night, 400 miles apart yet achingly familiar.
I wait for you.
You’ve just gotten off I-95 in your family’s big white van, coming to see me for the first time. Why would you ever want to be my friend? You live up North in a small town where sweet-smelling flowers speckle the trees, and I live here in this sprawling metropolitan city, standing in the beaten-up parking lot of a fast-food chain on Philips Highway. The asphalt underneath my shoes is cracked and uneven. In the back, two dumpsters are overflowing with trash. Strip malls and winding asphalt rivers dance in the hazy horizon.
Even still,
There are racoons scurrying through the grass patch—there’s two of them—paws gliding, flying on air, bounding to the tree line.
Even still, flowers peak through the asphalt, twine together, hold each other up when the wind blows strong. But when your van pulls into the lot and you step out of it, the disrepair around us only makes you more radiant—a shining star in my cosmos. Wavy brown hair, bright brilliant smile, dimples. We run towards each other with reckless abandon, arms outstretched, closing the distance. Is it all a dream? Will I awaken alone, arms drawn tight across my bruised chest, the sky colorless and dim?
Don’t be afraid now. Moments flash before my eyes and suddenly I’m there and your arms are encircling me and I’m squeaking out a meek little hi. You giggle into your hands, and I grin.
It’s really me. Come, sit down, stay a while.
Let’s enjoy the sunshine on our faces a little longer.
Jasper Beach
Miles Hazo
Judgement Day
Eowyn Ream
I sat with the oracle of teenage rites
And nursed this little cup
It smelled of gasoline, vinegar, and mud
So I choked it down and raised it up
In the walls inside my throat— there the acid stuck
So I took the roll I was offered then I coaxed the smoke into my lungs
I counseled the judges in ripped jeans and leather
They argued as I hummed
The hearth cast a peculiar red and as I watched the pendulum swung
Pass fail pass fail
Louder—slur your words—
Laugh with luster, Las Vegas appeal
You try too hard too soon
Get it right, the oracle said It’s in your blood and bones
You’re just like the rest of us Lonely, bored, and stoned.
Skulk
Alicia Zelmanovitz
They say not to feed affection to a wild fox. I did so anyway. Holding out my hand filled with pellets of limerence and all my knowledge of you. He licked it up. He reached the bones of my hand with his coarse tongue. My new pet, cradled red in my arms, was satisfied and full—with your light blue linen shirts and the nervous way you tug on your ear. I liked the way his yellowish eyes looked just like mine. To the point I could see through them too. I liked the way he stalked and sneaked by your house. Unnoticed.
I did not expect him to find his way into your trash bins. I did not expect the rustling and metal clashing to be so loud and scare you so. I did not expect you to shoot him. The red snow, now melting in my arms.
Saint Peter’s Church, Leuven
Kaymen Noel Story
Snow
Jaden Maitland Anderson
While b’yond the crystal windowpanes the rushing wind beat hard and wild, the outside coolth confined again us, me and my darling child.
Softly as I read to him, his precious head was softly pressed as if, in total trust, reposing on my safe and quiet chest.
I’d noticed in this time of ours snowy cascade descend upon the earth, like pallid, fallen stars; I saw, then I continued on.
Though settled so for hours on it took one stray glance towards the glass And as though something roused within, he rose——he ran——he dressed——and fast——,
Alighted from his balmy home, passed through the door toward wind and snow. I, too, rose——donned a shawl——followed—— for where he went, there too I’d go.
And running out into the snow revealed to me an inken sky which, fire-littered, glittered, glowed; I heard my son’s bright, mirthful cry.
Then I: “Come, son——are you not cold? Your head is bare; your neck, unclothed!” If he did hear, he did not care, left my plea told, but unavailed.
So on he went, so did I go; He whirled like wind made form by snow in tempest dance to juxtapose my timid steps, my inward throes.
And whilst we whiled the while away my mind and heart were split in two: the latter with light bright like day, unlike the benighted former who,
to die in snow, would wish to go numb with the wind-drawn, pallid flow, and lie in earth to, senseless, feel the Heart’s last wheel of Will fall still;——
To look into an unlit sky and drown in heavens——sink and fly; wished, awake in that silent night, to die with dawn, calm inward plight——
But then I caught a glimpse again of my son’s bright and moonlit face, saw how the God of stars and rain shone on him, left him moonlight-traced,
And rushing back into my ears the blustering of the clustered wind, it sung like God’s voice——booming, clear—— called me to dance, to live, and when–
My son spoke, said, “Dad, come, just be! The night is free——come dance with me!” And thus commanded, so I was borne from within to cry with glee.
I danced, convulsive!——light!——and free!—— then paroxysmic as could be one body borne from quiet storm to newfound, unbound liberty.
An inward paean borne without, Two snowstormed maenads danced and shouted. Still an inward quiet remained; it, wordless, hushed, whispered about—
How I had long since travelled sans a bright star for this unwise man, without my son, my midnight light, who guides to joy with inward sight.
My son, you wish to follow go as far as clouds and wind would blow—— your guide, the bright-white, air-light snow—— so far, too, would I travel go.
Memorias Aguadas
Florencia Gondolesi
A veces escucho la pileta llenándose a la madrugada cuando el jugo de sandía vuelve a mi garganta y escupo memorias de un domingo en viaje con las ventanillas bajas y la música alta.
Me conformaba con lo que entraba en una mano y buscaba caramelos en el fondo del cajón.
A veces la pileta rebalsa, se convierte en un parque acuático.
Me gusta salir al patio a mirarme en el reflejo del agua porque puedo ver las estrellas, y mis amigos alzan la mano desde el fondo aunque ya están hundidos
Liquid Memories
Florencia Gondolesi
Sometimes I hear the pool filling up at dawn, watermelon juice runs through my throat and I spit out memories of a Sunday road trip, the windows down and the music loud. I used to be happy with whatever could fit in my hand, looking for candy in the back of the drawer
Sometimes the pool overflows, it becomes a water park.
I like to go to the backyard and look at my reflection in the water, I can see the stars, and my friends raise their hands from the bottom even though they have already drowned
Hopewell Rocks
Miles Hazo
Flower VI
Kaymen Noel Story
Solitude
Jaden Maitland Anderson
I’m writing like little exhalations through closed lips, breathing for breath’s sake; writing like a lazy summertime kiss, like the soft breaths between momentarily parted lips.
I lie nude upon my linen sheets clothed only in Solitude whose hands lie idly on my thigh and who has bejewelled my neck with kisses and inlaid my chest with crimson; our legs are engirdled like ivy, and i cannot— i wish not to— go.
why, when i can spend such days with my lover, dearest, sweetest Solitude, who breathes kisses on my lips like spring breeze flitting past the petals of my lips; there’s little else to wish for.
and it’s no matter that she grows cold sometimes— cold like an empty bed, an uncradled head leaving me to warm myself with a failing inward hearth —cold like frigid fire from senseless hands wrapped around your neck
i’m not one to remember the sweet touches when the frigid grasp does come again, but when it switches back to something like clement calm, i will let her wordless lips whisper her love, her balm, to me, and let her formless arms be the bed I sink in.
oh, old friend, you should’ve known you could little compare when Solitude was my first lover— when all the world is so human and all the divine is saved for Death, that I would let her bear along and kiss me till she’s snuffed my breath.
Editor’s Pick
Aún podemos ir a la playa
Florencia Gondolesi
Escribí tu nombre en un papel, lo metí dentro de mi zapato y la tinta se impregnó en mi pie. Sin quererlo ahora te llevo tatuado
Camino descalza raspándome los pies contra el cemento esperando borrarte. Me duermo con los pies ensangrentados las letras impresas, intactas, empujándote contra mi piel obligándome a soñar con lo que dejaste
Al despertarme veo que tu cuerpo no es más que el contorno de mi almohada
We can still go to OBX Florencia Gondolesi
I wrote your name on a piece of paper I put inside my shoe. The ink impregnated my foot and without meaning to I have you tattooed.
I walk barefoot scraping my feet against the cement hoping to erase you. I fall asleep, with bloody feet, the letters still printed, intact, pushing you against my skin forcing me to dream of what you left behind
When I wake up I see that your body is nothing more than the outline of my pillow
Castle of the Counts, Ghent
Kaymen Noel Story
The 4th Ruchel Limbos
I. Pyrotechnics and Supernovas
People gather on blankets like tired souls before a TV.
They switch the channel upon the sight of an unwanted war –
Waiting to watch pyrotechnics flicker in between panels of pitch-black sky; sparks in bewitched eyes fizzle & die.
Like diving competition spectators, their eyes are fixed on each splash of color, measuring the trajectory and shape of the lines and the amount of smoke as they fade.
Casual observers rating the aesthetics of supernovas, casual strangers gathered in the same place. They may not agree on the best fireworks or politics, but they silently agree that independence should be celebrated.
The kids in front of us become acquainted and make summer memories, while I wonder about the relevance of independence and existence to anyone else in the audience.
ii. Everyone must see fireworks differently, like how they trace shapes in the clouds and stars. In which lives will my supernova be small and temporarily distracting, or one that is searched for in the next blossoms burning the night sky?
A star cannot be everyone’s sun, but doesn’t each one hold a value?
Like how every penny, shiny or dirty, makes up a hundredth of a dollar.
Though no one firework is the same, each explosion mimics the sounds of chaos elsewhere.
Lightning must strike somewhere. Though perhaps a blip of existence whose light does not reach us in real time, a star must die somewhere.
iii. People picked like produce Families picked apart for use. History carries the shackles of slavery and brutality and violence speaking to violence and revenge and redemption and stolen inventions and stories lost to the narrative.
Trapped in their own countries, lives destroyed by machines over land; The scars of genocide mark the wounds of war.
Hospitals are targeted graveyards
The healing and the dying become the still warm, helpless dead.
A baby cries nearby and I think of children who will not grow in a home. Children who will not grow. Everyone is someone’s child. Everyone was a child once. Some, not long enough.
The last of the fireworks erupt in succession while machine guns rip through the air without interruption and I go home.
While watching pyrotechnics and celebrating a nation, sparks start fires and dreams die.
And I go home.
Alhambra at Sunset
Lucy Greenburg
Cavendish Boardwalk Series
Miles Hazo
Skeletons Isa Rose Serra
I want an eternal kind of love
A spooky kind of love
I want a maddening love, a disgusting love
Encapsulating, smothering the cold earth with our heat
I don’t want to be a trophy I want to be a skeleton
The kind of love that makes the miserable brutes of this planet shudder and heave
I want to be two skeletons that lay under the earth holding hands
I want a love that doesn’t flee
Just like the corpses of Pompeii that were discovered in a lovesick embrace
That isn’t matted hair with fleas and lice of lust and hierarchy
I want to feel safe, to be a happy skeleton holding your hand
I don’t care what happens to my insides
Someday you’ll lie down next to me and we’ll be
Two twin flames burning beneath the earth
All that I ask is that you don’t devour my heart before doing so.
You can put them in jars to remember me by, You’ll miss the color of my irises, which you keep on your bed stand
I. Angel Ruchel Limbos
When he was officially accepted past the gates of Heaven, he asked the Goddess to grant him the chance to temporarily return to Earth.
Some people are like that, she thought. Planning their existence for beyond the grave.
But he hadn’t planned to present her with this wish. He only stood before her, heard the words “I will grant you one return to the living world, whenever you wish,” and he said, “At my love’s last hour, let me be the one to guide her to you.”
After decades of waiting in heaven that passed like centuries, he stood before the Goddess again, ready to be reunited with his beloved. Though a tinge of sadness passed through him at the thought that her life had come to an end, he was full of happy anticipation to see her again and take back the time they lost after dying from a condition caused by fighting in the war. We can finally have peace together, he thought.
The air around him shimmered and slowly melted into the colors of the city. He could hear it and feel the vibrancy of human life as he was transported to the street outside of the home he and his wife had shared. Memories flooded back to him as he walked up the stairs to their bedroom, where she was imparting her last words to their daughter and grandchildren.
He stood by the door as her voice faded. Then there was silence. Their family shared tearful prayers and quiet sadness. He waited until they went downstairs before entering the room. She lay in bed peacefully, her glasses resting on her face and her hands on top of the blanket.
Her spirit sat at the end of the bed, gazing at her physical self. She looked just like she did when he left her. He gathered her up in his arms and she thought, This must be where all my loving went. We are a lake and our waves of movement flow back into each other rippling from you to me. We cannot easily separate and see the world without feeling displaced, but, we are whole, and we are content. Or something like that.
Usually a glowing apparition with an echoey voice and the appearance of someone who already passed would strike fear into someone. But as he led her out of the room she just departed from, all she saw was him. He was always meant to be an angel, in her eyes. It only made sense that he would be the one to greet her at the end of one life.
All he saw was her; not the woman who grew old without him, or the still body on the bed whose heat was fading. He felt the weight of her hand in his and thought it to be the best burden he could have chosen to carry. He gazed ahead with more life and energy than he ever had. The nightmares of rushing into battle couldn’t grip him now. They were going home.
They were stopped at heaven’s gates.
“This must be a mistake.” He shook with anger.
“Yes, there was a mistake,” the Goddess echoed coolly. “Her placement changed as soon as you left to retrieve her. Now we know. Angels who knew the dead in life cannot guide them here. She has not earned the status in her lifetime. Now she must be sent to hell because she was complicit in your crime.”
“She is innocent! This rule didn’t exist before, we didn’t know, please—”
“Your error has been a valuable contribution to the laws that govern us. Now we know. An angel cannot guide the dead…”
“My love—” She was tugged away from him.
“Please, wait—” He reached for her.
“...into paradise. Death is eternal, and still unequal. It is the law, and to maintain order, there must be a balance…”
She began to sink as the clouds swallowed her.
“The sinners and the innocents…”
His wings could not be used to fly to her; the clouds would not part.
“...are sorted and separated.”
His halo burned brighter.
“It is the law, it is nature.” The Goddess paused. A heavy silence filled the air. The clouds were suffocating. “You will be promoted from a Seraphim to an Archangel for your troubles and sacrifice—”
He was done being someone’s soldier. The halo seared his hands as he gripped it, then beat his wings with all his might to fling it far across the expanse of clouds. A fire started in the place that it landed and the heavens thundered.
He would not fight for anyone but himself.
Orpheus doesn’t deserve his censure. His love wasn’t a failure. Though he lost Eurydice, she let go of his hand knowing that she was loved. Him looking back was proof that he loved her. It didn’t matter if their love was like Orpheus and Eurydice, the thought stabbed him bitterly. Our suffering won’t be remembered and praised or glorified. We will be a lesson to others and ourselves. His wings suddenly felt like a burden. They fought hard to spend life together, and now they were being denied the gift of sharing death. His love was damned to eternal suffering without even earning it.
Really, he was the one in hell. Perhaps he could find some way to be cast down as a fallen angel, and make her suffering less lonely. It would be the same as how they were in life, on Earth.
It only made sense that he would be the one to greet her at the end of one life. When her sentence was finished, maybe, he would greet her in the next one, and they could do it all over again.
A man with ashen wings tumbled from the sky. She took his face into her hands then embraced him. They were home.
imagine this: a sonnet
Hailey Hartman
When I was small enough to be carried on the shoulders of other small people, I loved to play in boxes. The big boxes. The kinds that old car parts that replaced older car parts in the oldest car I had ever seen came in. And I would take those boxes with the confidence of a youngest sibling. And climb into those boxes that were big enough for forts! Or rocket ships! Or enough space to set up shop! And I’d just sit. My young arms gently pulling box legs back, asking slats to rest and sit. Like car parts being shipped to an old man who needs them to fix his oldest daughter’s car. Like a cicada that refused to screech I’d sit in the dark of the box. There wasn’t a game. And that wasn’t the game. Too young to do nothing except sit in a box so at some point someone decided I was simply too creative and that’s why I sat there. Somehow too old for my own good. I didn’t have words to tell them they were wrong so I just sat in my dark and let their imaginations carry them along.
Flying at Golden Hour
Lucy Greenburg
Waterfall Triptych
Clair Sapilewski
Clair Sapilewski
Bird Triptych
Enclosed
Adam Tatby
Editor’s Pick
Currently cramped in a damp, muggy, humid space in the basement of this rustic, old, and crude ship. The sea is desperately trying to fill in the gaps of this poorly designed vessel, planks of wood nailed on top of one another. It stinks of sweat, rum, and rotting wood. I’m alone down here, waiting for the inevitable. A crewmate will eventually come down here and spot me as a stowaway. I can only hope that they take mercy and don’t throw me off right away. I wait, and I wait, and I wait.
I recall my brother’s birth. When I first held him, I remember shaking as I looked into his eyes. Before I knew it, tears fell. It was the first time I’d ever felt that way. He sowed a seed in my heart that grew daily, filling a hole I never knew was there. I remember an evening under a tree, the wind brushing the little hairs on my arm. Lying on the dirt, soaking in the sun, I felt embraced by the earth.
Growing up, just being near him felt like the sun bouncing off my skin. He pulled me in, guided me with his light, without even realizing it. I was just happy to be in his orbit. The memory fades, and sickness takes hold in this daunting chamber. I lie on my back on the damp wooden floor, separating me from the unbearable sea. My eyes grow tired. My fingers, full of splinters, and my body aching. I beg myself to stand, but I no longer have the energy. Engulfed in darkness, I feel something crawling on my arm—an ant. Normally, I’d shake it off, but this time I can’t find a reason to. I close my eyes and try to rest.
Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp
Kaymen Noel Story
Walking Through Art
Kaymen Noel Story
only fans
Isa Rose Serra
Someone once told me that I have the body for only fans—Actually it wasn’t one person, it was three men at different points–all politically progressive with the emotional competency of a prepubescent boy
Thanks and you have the face for radio was my response the first time. Then it was, “thanks my double d cups carry the size of my heart.”
The third time I said nothing so I wouldn’t cry because I’ve learned that men do not respect what they sexualize.
Dating is a tightrope between sapphic empire and a filthy rich Madonna. Sharing a bed is a bullet locked and loaded in a good ol’ fashioned game of Russian roulette. Love is a gun—a weapon of mass destruction, yet the only thing that makes life worth living
To be compared to an only fans model is to know lust before mercy, touch before embrace, slutty angel of darkness with a nice rack.
Editor’s Pick
This Horrible Feeling
Emma Lee
The feeling of seeing a ghost but it is just a stranger whose name you know. Whose eyes used to sparkle in your dreams and now glower in your nightmares.
It is the chill of the wind from the September air that whispers on your cheeks, like the splattered freckles and morning kisses you used to know so well.
It is seven Christmases you opened presents side by side and the stockings you filled in secret after the other had fallen asleep.
It is the lingering taste of coffee from your favorite blue mug. Brewed before you even woke up, sitting in front of your place at the table with a little green sticky note that says, “I love you.”
It is this horrible feeling of knowing.
Knowing the stranger who once was yours now can only be a phantom passing in the street.
Gritty Vienna
Lucy Greenburg
Tabloid Adlibs
Hailey Hartman
I. Celebrity Relationships (Page 1)
UNEXPECTED MATCH BETWEEN MARK MILLER AND LONGTIME FRIEND LILY LAKE — AND WE’RE LOVING IT
Fireworks weren’t the only thing throwing sparks last night!
None of us writers had freshly Oscared Silver Fox Casanova film director Mark Miller getting with internet sensation and number-one female album of the year at age 22, ingénue Lily Lake on our 2025 Bingo cards.
Last night Mark was caught on a romantic New Year’s Day dinner with his new partner, but long-time friend (picture on left). Not even distance could keep LA-based Mark from his newfound soulmate.
In response to the photo, Mark tweeted, saying that he’s been seeing Lily in secret for six months and that they were keeping the relationship secret to “Let love flourish in privacy.”
Of course, this columnist thinks this love story has been taking root for longer than that. Just look at this unearthed picture from a guest segment the two did on “Buds and Blooms” in 2023.
But this truly is the relationship news that broke the internet; after the news broke, Lily Lake fans (affectionately called Lakers) took to TikTok.
One Lily Lake fan is quoted saying “Finally! Mother has found someone worthy! I know Mark will let her shine instead of trying
to hide her like an old cardigan — Swifties understand this! We’re finally going to get that wedding album!”
Whether or not wedding bells will be ringing in this new blushing couple’s future is yet to be seen.
Stream Lily Lake’s latest single through this exclusive affiliate link!
II. Celebrity Obituaries (Page 14)
MARIGOLD MILLER: 1998-2025
Mrs. Marigold (Mary) Miller, (of West Cedar Street, Hollywood, California ) rose to fame for growing and cultivating what were considered the most tantalizing gardens on this side of Eden — or Beverly Hills at least.
The host of the renowned HGTV “Buds and Blooms” competition, recently celebrated her 27th birthday: which was shockingly and distastefully bubblegum-themed with Forgetme-not party favors.
(Buy the NOVEMBER 12th issue for more in the article WHAT NEVER TO DO WHEN PLANNING A PARTY!)
However, sadly, she died at Christ Hospital at 4:30 pm in the afternoon on Tuesday.
The choice of hospital was a true surprise to those who knew her best. Her best friend, popstar Lily Lake, even told us that “[she] worshiped her flowers more than any god.”
Mary left behind the world’s most famous flower beds, and three
school-age children.
(Pictured on the left. From left to right: Briar, age six, Dahlia, age four, and Azalea, age two)
Her husband refused to give a statement at this time.
Cause of death is unknown.
(Read about UNEXPECTED MATCH BETWEEN MARK MILLER AND LONG-TIME FRIEND LILY LAKE —AND WE’RE LOVING IT on page 4)
III. Opinion Piece (Page 26)
THE NEWEST KIND OF INFLUENCER IS INFLUENCING YOU NOT TO BUY THINGS? A PROFESSIONAL SHOPAHOLIC WEIGHS IN
De-influencing is all the rage right now, as manicured women sitting in front of ring lights with salon hair and hours of makeup tell you not to buy what another influencer told you to buy.
Who to believe?
Well, this writer believes that the answer is — neither.
Sure, both of the undeniably beautiful and persuasive women make great points, but the best argument comes from someone else.
You.
The best trend, in my opinion, would be a trend toward thinking about what all of the creators of your media are trying to do.
All you can ever know about your content creators is that you don’t know them as friends, or ever as people: you just know them as professionals.
Professionals who have to make money off someone’s bad decisions and gullibility — yours.
II. Editor’s Favorite Recipes (Page 10)
HELEN’S CHOICE: MY NEW FAVORITE VIRAL TIKTOK CORTISOLBALANCING TIKTOK RECIPE FOR WOMEN OVER 32
I got this delicious recipe from my personal trainer, but it is taking the internet by storm and I am obsessed. It is all I’ve had for dinner (and lunch) all week!
Be prepared to fall in love at first bite, And stock up on ingredients to this viral pasta dish!
Ingredients
½ cucumber
4 cups Saratoga Water 1 pinch of salt
1 tsp lemon juice
¼ cup fresh basil ¼ tsp avocado oil
1. Cut your cucumber lengthwise into thin twig-like strips or use the Automatic Spiral-Matic from MUST HAVES OFF OF AMAZON (page 7) to create your noodles
2. Soak your noodles in room temperature Viral Saratoga Water with a pinch of salt for 10 minutes til tender
3. While your noodles soak, get a small bowl and mix the gut-healthy avocado oil with the lemon juice
4. Finely dice the basil and add to the oil mixture to complete your cortisol-conscious homemade pesto sauce
5. Remove the noodles from the water bath and add your sauce
And voila!
You just made a high-protein gut-balancing, dish that won’t spike cortisol!
“A Woman’s Jeans” and Other Articles
Ruchel Limbos
The hamper and my weight both sag at the end of the week until they emerge from the machine fresh, soft and wrinkle-free, smelling womanly.
I could lose a sock or two and the house would become sick with nausea.
i. The pockets of my jeans are too small. That must be why my heart spills so messily. Like chapstick, it smudges and spreads in the washer and melts and molds to other things in the dryer.
I thought female rage was a hoax until I realized that I partook in cheating myself out of peace by fighting for the wrong things out of love and cheated myself out of happiness by fighting against my wishes in case they overlapped with others’ attention.
ii. The clothes tumble in the washer like the words that make me selfish. The skirt in there must be shrinking the way I want to when I wear it to feel good, then realize I’m being seen.
The shirts in there must be softer after the nth wash, like me over the years that wash over like sandpaper “exfoliating” my skin.
I have many jeans of similar shades and differing cuts. I know them for their personality and feel and you know them for their shape and look.
I lost a diamond earring once Forgotten in my pocket. It tore through several clothes and rattled so it would never be forgotten again. Now, I can distinguish it from its pair from the way it glares and its cut stares.
iii. Women are not “found” like gems to be polished, cut, strung, and arranged in a display case We are made.
I wait for the hour I suddenly know that I have become a worthy woman who worked well, relaxed half-heartedly and played even worse.
[But I know I must be a woman, at least, for this bitterness could not belong to a girl]
I set the clothes free. The dryer’s heat reminds me of the lives I’ve lived and how the clothes on my back breathe with me.
Flower IV
Kaymen Noel Story
Man at Work
Lucy Greenberg
Crow Eyes
Caden Eldridge
He has crow-eyes.
Those pale, opaque dark pearls
That hold within so much depth that One inch within them stretches out miles.
He is perfect.
He is searching endlessly for a shiny thing.
He asks me when we will see each other again And I don’t have an answer. It kills me.
He spins endlessly on an axis
Perpendicular to mine
Rotating around a body loose with itself
As a fish is loose with water And throws his heat onto me biannually
Before hurtling away into the empty space.
He is always searching for a shiny thing.
He is slippery as an eel between grabbing fingers. Wanting but not willing to give himself to anyone.
He knows what he wants and takes it Before I even know he’s there.
The northerly wind carries him further than He fathomed.
It has taken me far from home, and Further still from comfort.
He has crow’s feet when he sees me. It’s just the cutest thing. It’s all I strive for now; To have those Spotlight eyes on me. It’s why I’ve learned to command A presence.
He lays his head on my arm. His eyes search my face.
I’ve learned it is impossible to Sleep when he looks at me, For all I can dream is his eyes
Searching some other corner for A shiny thing.
Artist Bios:
Adam Tatby wishes he was at sea in the 16th century.
Alicia Zelmanovitz is a Brazilian girl and Hoosier in her senior year at AU. Last semester she studied abroad in Japan, and it seems like her heart is still there. She’s now working on her YouTube channel: @azelmawrites.
Andrew Gardner is a poet.
Arin Burrell is sitting outside trying to look cool and mysterious.
Avery Grossman is a freshman studying Literature at AU, aka an Alternate Universe.
Caden Eldridge is an up-and-coming author and two-time Nobel Peace Prize winner whose work focuses on the dichotomy between what is human and what is elvish. He is also known for his work in negotiating a peace between Switzerland and Austria.
Clair Sapilewski is a Photography and Journalism student. She has a particular affinity for truffle brie. And key lime pie.
Eowyn Ream is a sophomore studying Business. When she has the time for hobbies (which is almost never), she enjoys reading, crocheting, watching K-dramas, and of course writing!
Florencia Gondolesi started writing as a hobby, and now poetry is an intrinsic part of her identity; through her writing, she celebrates nostalgia and the incomprehensible.
Hailey Hartman is enjoying the pursuit of progress.
Isabella Serra is a poet and artist from Phoenix, Arizona. You can find her on Substack and Instagram: @no.blind.folds.
Jaden Maitland Anderson is a longtime writer, but a recent poet. A junior majoring in Communication, Language, and Culture. When he’s not practicing his languages, he can be found in some hidden corner of the National Cathedral, journaling, philosophizing, or romanticizing (probably all three).
Jillian Sinder is a sophomore from San Diego, majoring in International Studies. In her free time, she likes talking about the weather and drinking decaf earl grey tea.
Katie Hamilton is a junior studying JLC with a love for commas.
Kaymen Noel Story is a senior majoring in International Studies, with a regional focus on Europe. She spent part of her sophomore year in Brussels studying Belgium and the European Union, and she spent her junior year in Oxford studying the United Kingdom. She was introduced to the art of photography by her loving father, a talented amateur photographer. Through her photographs, Kaymen attempts to capture the mesmerizing world of beauty, both natural and constructed, that surrounds us on a daily basis.
Lincoln Baldwin is a member of the chamber choir and a brother of Sigma Alpha Mu. He enjoys Stevie Wonder and walks with his dogs, Quesadilla and Lucky.
Lucy Greenburg is a freshman at American University whose photography stems from a simple desire to capture and share the world’s beauty. As a military kid, Lucy spent 2022-2025 in Germany, where a gifted camera became the gateway to exploring both urban and natural landscapes across Europe and now here! Working in digital photography, she focuses on the interplay of lighting and texture, trying to highlight the moments of beauty that made her pause. For Lucy, photography isn’t a career path but a personally fulfilling practice of noticing what’s already there.
Miles Hazo is constantly contemplating changing his major.
Noelle Sommerville is a passionate artist who studies Psychology. She finds her creative outlet through drawing, painting, and photography.
Ruchel Limbos is spending more time thinking about writing than actually having her characters go through what she has planned for them. She’s working on it (“it” being poetry, short stories, and novel drafts that hope to see the light of day). You can find her yearning to create, and creating because she’s a yearner.
Staff Bios:
Alexa Berman is moving to Montana to work on a dude ranch. Not law school, much to the dismay of her parents, but Montana.
Abby Tredway is retiring, but not really, but retiring, but not really.
Adam Tatby is procrastinating writing a fictional story by writing another fictional story.
Alyosha Vak is doodling on her notes.
Amanda Vincent is somewhere listening to Arctic Monkeys.
Arin Burrell is a Literature major who is trying to stop writing so many run on sentences but can’t seem to help it and thinks they can still add a lot to her essays and other various writing assignments if they have something important to add to the piece.
Avery Grossman is in a galaxy far, far away.
Caroline Jones is keeping it one hundred.
Chloe Sword.
Dania Reza, the Creative Director, is procrastinating in submitting her staff bio.
Daniel Midden is attempting to ascend this mortal plane.
Danielle Serrano is on her third (!!!) lavender & vanilla chai of the day.
Ellie Kaufman is feeling big emotions over Lloyd Dobler in “Say Anything” for the fourth time this week.
Faith Starchia is a junior majoring in journalism and literature, she is originally from Wilmington, Delaware, and enjoys reading and going to the movies.
Gabrielle Frangie loves this magazine; sad she missed the deadline to submit her poetry; happy she helped put the mag together.
Jaden Anderson is out buying another edition of the same Brontë novel, though he has several copies of them all.
JaNae Keyes is currently suffering from perpetual writer’s block.
Julia Weisenberg is probably procrastinating something.
Kendal Henderson is probably not responding because she’s sidequesting.
Lauren Carr stopped to smell the flowers and is unfortunately running late!!
Maya Shaw wishes she lived in Maine.
Nadia Liban is trying to shift to the Glee universe.
Paulina Wilson is looking for her next fantasy.
Ruchel Limbos is ruminating as an art form.
Ruth Odin contains multitudes.
Sara VonEisengrein is dancing while baking blueberry bagels.
Sophia Berumen is thriving.
Stevie Rosenfeld was accused of being an AI because she just loves the em dash too damn much.
Victoria Mahabir is probably rewatching the Muppets.
Editors-In-Chief
Abby Tredway
Ruth Odin
Creative Directors
Dania Reza
Alexa Berman
Design Assistants
Victoria Mahabir
Danielle Serrano
Alyosha Vak
Copy Editors
Caroline Jones
Stevie Rosenfeld
Copy Assistants
Ellie Kaufman
Paulina Wilson
Jaden Anderson
Poetry Editors
Adam Tatby
Gabrielle Frangie
Poetry Assistants
Avery Grossman
Kendal Henderson
Ruchel Limbos
Photography & Art Editors
Maya Shaw
Sophia Berumen
Photography & Art Assistants
JaNae Keyes
Chloe Sword
Amanda Vincent
Prose Editor
Arin Burrell
Prose Assistants
Faith Starchia
Daniel Midden
Julia Weisenberg
Events Coordinator
Lauren Carr
Event Assistants
Sara VonEisengrein
Social Media Cordinator
