GLITCH GLITCH GLITCH
EDITOR'S ENOTE: DITOR'S ENOTE: DITOR'S NOTE:
Something’s not adding up
Something’s not adding up
Something’s not adding up
We are writing you this note from two different Wscreens, e writing from screens, watching cursors flash with each other's thoughts. wAs atching each As university students, we are the sum of our virtual urealities niversity the of realities discussion boards and email chains, the blank stare of -our discussion boards email chains, the blank stare of dour iscussion of our own reflection over Zoom. Our computers groan beneath othe wn over groan the weight of our collective memories, always seconds away wfrom eight of our collective memories, seconds wfrom of from collapse. collapse.
Glitch: a disturbance or short-lived fault that a(often) fault a(often) (often) corrects citself. orrects citself. itself.
“Glitch” emerged from the flickers of our “academic Glitch” from the flickers of academic disruption. In cyberspace, we found a graveyard for dthe isruption. the stories we’ve lost - connections unsaved, spersonalities tories connections spersonalities tories personalities hacked, nuances corrupted over text. By exhuming hthese acked, these errors, we hoped to recover incomplete parts of our lives –incomplete the avatars we used to tbe. he we be.
In the following issue, we invite you to explore Ithe n the we invite you to Ithe n invite you the aesthetics of “glitch” and its underworlds. Find ayourself esthetics of its Find ayourself esthetics yourself adrift in the imperfect clockwork below – transit rides ato drift in below ato to nowhere, time shifts backward, laundry lines of ncode. owhere, time laundry laundry code. Through artwork, writing, and all things in between, we Tare hrough artwork, things between, Tare between, are searching for unsaved changes, the hauntings we couldn’t slet earching for the couldn’t let go.
Thank you to all of our contributors and to the TBlacklight hank you to all of our contributors and to thehank to and Blacklight Editorial Board for making this issue possible, Efor ditorial for transforming errors into moments of creative tpotential. ransforming moments potential.
Sincerely,
Simone Gulliver & Tomás Miriti SPacheco imone & Pacheco
there is not much left to say of the matter to say of endings and beginnings and the fumbling fingers of a forgetful god this bed is a glitch this bed is a product of jumbled keys pressed in the wrong order a divine mishap caught between an extra space in a line of code something brought us here interlacing fingertips and electrical wires tied up in strings of ones and zeroes buzzing fingers and oil slick nights this mecha body was only meant to be held in the dark dimly lit by an alarm clock, a closet light, and a three wick candle with only two wicks burning i made my commute from planet V0971 to your J5345 lightyears and beer can spaceships i made myself yours two and a half forevers ago
turning gears and knobs and heads typing (gasping) one line before the dreaded backspace backspace backspace my mechanical heart left leaking oil all over the hardwood floor what god did I upset to be stuck with taciturn loving? what did i do last life to be cursed with a gummed up motor and dead AA batteries?
this gold plated skin was meant for kinder hands love, care, extended warranties this heart is a glitch this heart is a statistically improbable happening beating soft in spite of her carbon coating rusted and still in this remix of time and space because we found each other cold metal cheeks and neon robot eyes my android anatomy never knew her maker’s benevolence but sometimes copper kisses start to feel flesh like and sometimes i’m almost something human and i think i could love more than i was built to in this unfathomable undoing of code and script and life i think i can make myself yielding delicate and elastic you know what i think heaven is?
a defect dimension between 1 and 0 a slippery place with too much voltage overheating blushing cheeks and living eyes skin and bones five minutes before they find their glasses and double check for errors and notice this pocket of you and me and this affair five seconds before backspace backspace backspace.
A SPLINTER IN THE AMIND SPLINTER IN THE AMIND SPLINTER IN THE MIND
TRANS REFLECTIONS ON EXISTENCE by Sabrina Mahmoodi
You’ll learn to live with the pain, to tolerate and exist around it. loose clothing and long sleeves shield discomfort from detection, each layer a gauze and guard of your own design. hiding helps– if no one bears witness to agony, it lives only in thought.
You’ll suffer silently to survive the ache, anything to avoid inevitable questions intense interrogation, inflammatory inquisition for fear of further hurt and memory of first puncture swells and soon the splinter sinks deeper, away from sight. it lurks beneath skin, an infection spreads into every cell that screams to be seen and you’ll feel it seep into bone, beyond reach.
You’ll dream of relief and dread reminders, fast retreat back to egg like ignorance. self medication is a numbness you cannot afford and yet going for broke means another bill your body continues to pay long after drug induced fantasies of freedom fail to feel real.
You’ll understand identity locked in imagination robs your mind of the right to heal. remember splinters engender revelation. once open wounds, now sutures of survival; proof of love your body will never forget. no matter how deeply embedded the pain, seek out support and remove with care. transition is a tender time– be gentle.
PALINDROME PALINDROME PALINDROME
(AFTER LISEL MUELLER, NATE MARSHALL)
In the rearview I am un meeting my reflection. She’s 21, 19 soon learning to leave adulthood behind.
She lives on the B side of every record. Future etched in a rewind. Hip bone shrinking. Silk press frizzing. Unloving girls in the rain.
by Simone GulliverUnder streetlamps she is running towards yesterday. Porch lights wink off like candles on a birthday cake. Wishes Prozac, peach schnapps, Read it And Weep sucked back in.
She’s circled this park so many times she can’t tell where memory begins and ends. Cherry blossoms drift along her dashboard. First love, Hanahaki memento from yesteryear.
Spring bleeds to winter on the asphalt of her high school parking lot. Last hello. First frostbite. Power lines skitter beneath their sternums. They are so close to getting it wrong.
Sunday winds up the drain pipe, shower head sucking water from her shoulder blades. Unspinning bottles in a basement. Hands in a closet. Hell in a church pew. Stained glass stranger like the ghost in every mirror. Two fingers down her throat, baiting petals from her stomach. She is hungry for words I cannot taste.
"Soon" she will unroot her growing pains. Search for galaxies in her stretchmarks, song notes in a stutter. "Soon" she will love herself back.
Next year she’ll be 16 and ancient. Trading her license for a learners, driving backwards down I 95 and un crashing into stop signs.
When the skyline ruptures, we’ll meet again at the apex of every tracklist. She clicks on the radio I silenced, ghost hands on the ridge where our record stops spinning.
PANTONE 637 P(INTERLUDE) ANTONE 637 P(INTERLUDE) ANTONE 637 (INTERLUDE)
by Simone Gulliveri believe in a world where our webkinz never died, ghost girls glitter in the backlight stitching upgrades from deleted threads. my fingernails are poptropica blue like 8th-grade sky pics or the waves where my avatar killed zeus. she is older now racing down moonview highway every night, she’s died 20,000 times each one less painful than the last. i am dragon-riding to the edge of her memory card past tumbleweeds, patchwork, i love yous to the ex. dreamscapes flicker at the borderlands, stardolls corroding, text chains to kite tails, litanies from alphabet soup. my best self is billowing in cyberspace, hanging laundry from code lines heavy with my youth. i was 13 breeding galaxies on my DS, we are the sum of our past lives, the messages we delivered and unsent.
“HOW TO FIX
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TO REACH IS TO TFALL O REACH IS TO TFALL O REACH IS TO FALL by Cameron Drake
Falling is a sensation one never gets used to.
That split second, liberating feeling of gravity working against you,
Desperately pulling you to its embrace, even as your body fights against it.
If you’re lucky, falling ends If you’re lucky.
I remember when I first fell.
I was just a boy, working on the floor of my father’s workshop.
I was reaching for a wrench When I slipped, dragging the table to the floor with me.
It was then that I learned the meaning of the word: “self control.” Well, I listened. Learned is a different story:
To learn means that I practiced self-control, that I practiced restraint.
But it’s hard to practice restraint when you are told to dream of the sun. So the choice was made for me.
I remember the last time I fell.
If you can believe it, I was reaching for the sun. I remember I almost had it just within my grasp, when it rejected me.
When the sun decided that I was not worthy
To feel its warmth, or to take in its light.
I still remember my father screaming my name as I fell: Icarus.
THE TBEES HE TBEES HE BEES
by Ellie Gilbert BairWhy do we call this the walk of shame? As if intimacy has to be permanent—pleasure, contingent? It’s the breath of re entering your world. The 8:30am recalibration of tangled hair on your scalp and last night’s clothing on your stomach. A sigh budding out of spring, she smells foreign hyacinth. another’s garden setting up a sly pheromone trap—it attracts two straying women buzzing, they share time, names, sleeplessness. ask why don’t these flowers carry through the night? Silent reminiscing of home pollen remains.
The Ghazal Struggles to TEnd he Ghazal Struggles to TEnd he Ghazal Struggles to End
Tomas Miriti Pacheco
You ain't gotta tell me that my path don't end. I got stories to guarantee the past won't end.
Behind the door, the hallway is a bursting pen, Splintered swinging doors bring class a broken end.
In the bathroom, a cluster of whisperers recommend Vapors. They form at their backs, crack, and slowly end.
Between keystrokes, a pause like an indent. Before they start, how many vast poems end?
Last we spoke, an inconvenient silence when Travis let the minutes on his Tracfone end.
Impatiently, I am making amends
With the bowl of memories I let slip and so end.
Standing before the cornerstore, they let in One of us at a time to meet a glass cold end.
The savior waits for an honest friend. The faithful know his fast-approaching end
Tomas, named for the doubting twin: Scrap booked wings will hold you at your end.
