Blueprint Issue 8 by Blueprint Magazine

BLUEPRINT Issue Eight BLUEPRINT LITERARY MAGAZINE

2 BPLM 2019 ISSUE 8 1

ISSUE 8- 2019

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

BPLM 2019 ISSUE 8

WHO WE ARE

Blueprint (est. March 2010) is a student-produced literary magazine at the University of Michigan. We originated from the North Campus community, and now collect the artistic creations of students, staff, faculty, and alumni across the College of Engineering, Stamps School of Art & Design, School of Music, Theatre, & Dance, Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning, College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Evident in both the diversity of our staff and magazine content, our mission is to cultivate a space for anyone to be creative and imaginative, regardless of academic background and experience.

EDITORIAL BOARD

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Katherine Qiao MANAGING EDITOR Ilana Silverstone SECRETARY/LAYOUT CHAIR Natasha Gibbs SUBMISSIONS CHAIR Davanna White SOCIAL MEDIA/EVENTS CHAIR Sonia Lee TREASURER Katelynn Mulder ASSISTANT SUBMISSIONS CHAIR Naitian Zhou ASSISTANT LAYOUT DESIGN CHAIR Vellia Zhou

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

agpes gjaengaksgkea bks lhbadkbsd ;lb daklsg adngeangpsngk bld fblad gkaskgla bo la’gak sgklasgpasba slb adb

OUR TEAM Jackson Eilers Natasha Gibbs Rafaela Hasner Jenny Hong Kate Koenig Kendall Lauber Sonia Lee Katelynn Mulder Katherine Qiao Ilana Silverstone Tanuja Tase Natasha Vatalaro Davanna White Naitian Zhou Vellia Zhou

SPECIAL THANKS TO

ArtsEngine Arts at Michigan University of Michigan Central Student Government University of Michigan Engineering Student Government University of Michigan College of Engineering Office of Graduate Education

COVER IMAGE “Sand Man” Xindi Chang

The written and visual contents (“Work”) of Blueprint Literary Magazine are protected by copyright. Third parties (persons other than the original author) may not reproduce Work published in Blueprint without first obtaining written permission from the author. Under all circumstances the Author retains rights to reprint, publish, license, and/or sell their Work.

Editor-In-Chief

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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MORNING CLOUDS Majorie Gaber

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IF (ENGINEER) {CAN’T WRITE} Allison Chang

Hello world, goodbye creativity and expression, I thought, almost forgetting the semi-colon needed to end a string.

The Bunny Rabbits On My Walls

Yet if writing is expressively freeing, science is enigmatically fascinating. I think of how studying engineering forces me Bunny rabbits and barbies, the stage is set:

The times I find myself writing are usually wistful and rare.

to rethink and rework the confinements of my mind.

Borderline-existential reflections,

if ( I can master the disciplines that didn’t speak easily to me )

and narratives or accounts, only burgeon out

{ then I make myself work through anything

of the uncompromising graces of time

}

with no space for the tumultuous emotions

if ( I still find flashes to write in between my math classes ) I am the sort of child that will take a

I couldn’t remember or make sense of otherwise.

Tap dancing lessons from Shirley Temple

on the TV can transform me into a tap dancer

while the finding of snails and roly-poly bugs

make me a geologist, an archaeologist, of sorts—

{ then I know I’ll stay storyteller no matter lost a key to show evidence of what. a lost }

and magical world, who will take two

to think through my words and

rings rusted into the sidewalk to make

to transcribe transient thoughts into documents;

the entrance to an enchanted universe

but it’s also reserved because I mentally succumb

where I’m queen, where

to a slight imposter’s syndrome

every drop of rain is a call to Peter Pan,

if I realize other eyes may skim over my black letters

every tear shed is a wish for my fairy godmother,

and I’m waiting for her to appear but

I have a silent, reserved love for setting aside time

on an otherwise unperturbed blank surface. I think I felt imposter’s syndrome first when I told my right-brain I discovered a beauty in an analytical, strategic discipline. If I felt like an imposter as a right-brain minded daydreamer overwhelmed with static STEM classes before, I now feel like a traitorous, uninspired imposter when I try to write again. “Engineers don’t need to write!”, my peers relievedly proclaim as we were waivered of our first-year writing requirement,

she doesn’t and he doesn’t what does

is now the realization that tears are normal,

that the rain means I need an umbrella and

that cars will need to be driven more carefully;

those rings were just the result of road-worked iron,

that someone must have lost that key I found,

that bugs can be gross, though helpful, but are pests,

hard work and patience and instruction is the

instead instructed to teach computers how to spit back

path to becoming a dancer, not just jumping up and down

littered fragments with barely-English.

if I weren’t always so concerned—with

They dissected and truncated sentences and dared

the way things are, the way they should be,

to rename them “strings”: another word for a medium

the way I’m perceived, I’d realize

you merely manipulate, out of reach of what you really want.

I am a dancer by night, day, stress, or high

Editing is instead “debugging”, and your lines are indecipherable without it. We solely write in our technical communication classes

Splendid

and churn out dull reports punctiliously as if solving another equation.

bugs can help, or still be cool, or also squashed lost keys could be new inspiration for adventure rusted rings a reminder to visit nature

AT THE NORRIS GEYSER BASIN

rain to wash away fear, shame, and regret

tears to bring feeling back into the walls of my mind

Sonia Lee

and a healthy appetite of nostalgia and truth.

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the flinging, flown things stick in me, pebbles in blue goop weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d play with as children. pungent, itchy, left blue goop residue on our chubby little hands, fingernails protruding jaggedly even then, dried blood on the smooth baby cuticles.

red rain is pouring out pale legs itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dripping down to move is a mission for more than just me. white bowl, shiny crown, clinging to it as if I could shove it through me eyes stuck like sand waves crashing us around.

sitting upright I see myself cradling the cold floor curled up like a baby inside the women that walk into the clinic round, full of life, though their bodies suspended in a sweet, little ocean.

do I live in sleep, footsteps in the morning find a trail left, lingering behind sight. my body fumes with fever, all that is visible in clouded perspective. heaviness blurs the image moreso, enchanting whispers of black rest, cover from the bright day, colorful scenery. unwanted, needed daylight dulls the routine daily, moments of stuffed head, beating body.

the epicenter beneath our birth buttons, mended with a needle and cold scissors if only the right hands find them rattling the village, drowning us like bricks in Salem.

NAKED WOMEN IN MY SHOWER Cassandra Huerta

STRUT YOUR STUFF AND GREEN WITH ENVY Shonda Adams

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THE BUNNY RABBITS ON MY WALLS Ana Timoficiuc

SPLENDID Yuzhe You

Bunny rabbits and barbies, the stage is set: Tap dancing lessons from Shirley Temple on the TV can transform me into a tap dancer while the finding of snails and roly-poly bugs make me a geologist, an archaeologist, of sorts— I am the sort of child that will take a lost key to show evidence of a lost and magical world, who will take two rings rusted into the sidewalk to make the entrance to an enchanted universe where I’m queen, where every drop of rain is a call to Peter Pan, every tear shed is a wish for my fairy godmother, and I’m waiting for her to appear but she doesn’t and he doesn’t what does is now the realization that tears are normal, that the rain means I need an umbrella and that cars will need to be driven more carefully; those rings were just the result of road-worked iron, that someone must have lost that key I found, that bugs can be gross, though helpful, but are pests, hard work and patience and instruction is the path to becoming a dancer, not just jumping up and down if I weren’t always so concerned—with the way things are, the way they should be, the way I’m perceived, I’d realize I am a dancer by night, day, stress, or high bugs can help, or still be cool, or also squashed lost keys could be new inspiration for adventure rusted rings a reminder to visit nature rain to wash away fear, shame, and regret tears to bring feeling back into the walls of my mind and a healthy appetite of nostalgia and truth.

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IMMIGRANT TALK Naitian Zhou

Is this your son? -- a voice points to me from behind a counter tinged robotic by a tinny mic Who are you visiting? Your husband? Does he work there? How long do you plan to stay? Goodbye We’ll be back soon -- streaks of neon lights fly by luggage in the trunk, filled with clothes and memories streaks of tears down my mother’s face as home disappears into the distance Chinese kid! We’re gonna call you Chinese kid! -- the school bus is shaking from the energy of a thousand six year olds Do you people always wear slippers? -- an intellectual curiosity only children possess

SUPERMARKET IN PERU Ruchita Iyer

H2Bs, J1s, a green card at the end of the rainbow -- paper plates piled with potluck food plastic cups with box wine a small apartment party rings of laughter and commiseration That’s immigrant talk.

Welcome to the United States -- a plump envelope, filled with papers a flyer, documents, hope and a little card We recommend use of this envelope to protect your new card -- nestled within is a diamond forged by years of pressure, of paperwork, of doubt, of missing school and driving three hours for fingerprints Congratulations on your first home -- a realtor, exhausted by years of searching, to my parents, equally exhausted but proud -- our neighbors have a dog This is the American Dream. Is this the American Dream? I feel stuck. -- it’s a rarity, a family meeting to vent about a dead-end job, a shitty boss a dream quickly vanishing into the deep dark depths of being “comfortable” I want to open a practice -- that’s three years of residency three years jobless income replaced by uncertainty and open questions the house replaced by roaches in apartment rooms frustration replaced by hope I feel stuck. That’s immigrant talk.

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TWENTY FOUR CURIOUS LLAMA IN MACHU PICCHU Susan Montgomery

Eli Rallo

It’s 75 degrees in May– For many people I imagine, It’s 75 degrees. In the grand scheme of perfect days the constant is a sunshine unwavering and cool at 75 degrees. Another thing that makes me strange — On my perfect day I think there’d be rain. I wish I had a thermostat hanging on my window, That way I’d avoid surrendering morning eyes to an iPhone screen. These days an alarm clock wakes me up On a perfect day, the sun would instead.

Okay so it’s early June–– It’s like 75 degrees, With no humidity. Her 75 degrees in a tired, yellowed spring And his, a young summer Hers, in the town she gave all her firsts And his –– a pin on the coast They meet in the center; Sharing 75 degrees with the type of boy who has eyes like hazelnuts. What it is to be in love at 20 years old? To place your perfect day with brevity into familiar hands—an anticipated forever, Without hope we have no perfect days left. How lucky we are, Anticipating our perfect days–

Knowing they sit in front of us and not behind.

Describe your perfect day to me, I ask in a whisper under covers And maybe because I miss you or maybe because I can picture your words like polaroids My eyes fill with tears like wine glasses when you say We’d drive in the car and listen to music and sing along, of course. Mom always says she likes it when you sing Even though you can’t hold a tune. I’d row your terrible voice and tan limbs and sock collection in a row boat if you were sinking— I wish I was close enough to look at you over the center console And not across the world. Pancakes are essential in so many of these perfect days:

I’ll have a short stack of red velvet pancakes with extra sweet cream cheese I have a picture of you eating those pancakes and there is a smudge of butter on your lip, Your eyes squinting up like you do when something cracks you open. I wish I knew what joke I told you To make you laugh that hard. Sleep in till 10:30 and then make chocolate chip pancakes And I imagine you, Brunette curls and round cheeks and an oversized t-shirt Standing in the middle of the kitchen, standing in the middle of May holding a whisk that’s dripping batter onto mismatched socks–– he takes his thumb and wipes the flour off your nose.

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When I ask you for your perfect day You remind me of the time we ate so much pizza That we forgot we had places to be Laughter and tomato sauce make time pass So quickly it feels like we hit fast forward.

Mild but still hot enough to melt. What is it about your very first friend? What is it about being lucky enough to still ask them about their perfect day and have them respond with wishes of doing yoga and driving aimlessly.

If only I could tattoo a memory. Is that your perfect day? or is it mine too.

I try to imagine what it looks like in the west coast bedroom where you reply.

Walking home in the rain, talking to my parents on the phone, Ice cream is involved. I wonder how many ice cream cones we’ve eaten together. In my memory you’re the one from across the street— on a grey bench at the corner ice cream shop in August.

You have bangs again.

POSING LLAMA IN MACHU PICCHU Susan Montgomery

I think one of my perfect days was the time we ate grilled cheese and went to the aquarium and fell asleep before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

I’d start with A couple of eggs over easy with bacon, 9 grain toast, fresh OJ and french press coffee. We ate that once before in my kitchen at home with the glossy red oven and mismatched china bowls. Arguing over many espressos. When we were fifteen in Cambridge, Massachusetts you picked a fight with me about god And got me hooked on coffee. You are two parts wise-ass and one part caffeine. When I ask my cousin She needs more time – she always needs more time – I need more time – She sends me an extended diatribe of the world she knows now A wish of relocating to the west coast –– Which is at first happy and then heartbreaking There is 641.2 miles between us tonight. I can hear her voice through my shaky palms.

Avocado toast with a fried egg and chilli flakes.

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I wonder if every day is your perfect day then, I wonder if dorm rooms in Ithaca, New York have kitchens Or avocados Or chilli flakes. I wonder if showers in dorm rooms have good enough acoustics for vocal chords clear like glass. Soon they’ll have a blonde haired boy that is still and always will be, a blonde haired child to me Calling down the hall, Goodnight mommy.

Bagels. What if we could wake up in New Jersey every day With no obligations and no responsibilities except everything bagels and chocolate milk. In New Jersey, everything is different. Everything is better. Maybe that’s not New Jersey to you, Perhaps it’s just a thing about home. I want to sit on the beach and laugh at the children running around with sand up their butts. I want to take a nap and wake up feeling toasted from my sunburn and eat chicken fingers from my favorite place. My roommate says the day would have to be more than 24 hours long And that’s all you need to know to describe her, For all she is – there’s never enough time in 24.

Asleep in very cold air conditioning under cozy blankets. Chilaquiles breakfast – from The Cottage. I’ve heard so much about this breakfast that I can taste it and I don’t like spicy food but I’m easily

persuaded— I’m sure I’ll be on a plane traveling for the red head and chilaquiles sometime soon.

I’d want to watch a movie in the morning, because watching a movie when the sun comes up is in the top three best things in the world. I’d meet my boyfriend for an iced chai latte and a flaky chocolate croissant You are cinnamon and sugar and also spice. You are solid but you are soft, Dreaming of love found in croissant crumbs. Bowling would be involved— Two very different people with no relation at all Save their identical first name Want to go bowling on their perfect day. What is it about bowling balls and bowling shoes That never grows up, Even as we do. I ask my freshman roommate Because I hope she says cheesy bread on the carpet in our freshman dorm room, When we were filled with hope and thought of the world like we’d never have to pack up our matching bedding and leave. She says something profane and Parisian and that is exactly the answer I knew she’d give.

I want to joke around with Ken the barber and pick up some fried chicken to eat cold at 3 AM. I am overwhelmed with perfect days in haircuts and cold chicken And waking up in queen beds with

MINNA KERDELSKI GOES SWIMMING Andrew Kurdelski

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clean duvets and not waking up alone. In the human connection I am painfully aware that we are losing to our mobile Starbucks apps. I am gifted perfect days in 947 river road and Sundays the opposite of ephemeral— clinging to calendars and seeming to never end, dragging us with them Slow and sexy and ephemeral Like the burn of a cigarette between lips-I inhale people I see everyday And exhale people I haven’t seen in two years, four years, five— whose eyes still seem to burn at the back of my head as I write. I am borrowing your perfect days like library books, I promise to give them back, I must get lost in them for just a while. I’d like to page through them and imagine you living them— I wonder where I’d fit in, If it at all. I’m not great at surfing, But I’ll stay for the Corona with lime. Let me have your words, Let me have your dreams Let me wonder about your wonderings, If I can’t sit across from you at a dinner table in Michigan tonight and ask you about your day. I think about my perfect day, I think about the perfect days I’ve had, In different cities and different years, In lengthy races and lengthy musical numbers and attempting to master the art of the peanut butter cookie. I decide to set aside a year where each morning I wake up and live between the pages of all these perfect days,

I wish there was no such thing as cell phones and taxes and paychecks, That way none of us would worry. I wish we could drop everything right now sit on the California beach that she longs for — And wait till it goes dark Copper mugs filled with ginger beer on the porch And when the sun sets Skinny dipping in the ocean with just the moon on our bare shoulders. Why is it 10 degrees in Michigan In April? Maybe my perfect day was the one I spent calling you all, One hand wrapped around a mug that never seems to be without coffee The other pressed up against my ear—

Just describe your perfect day, No rules, No restrictions. I hear you exhale. I hear you think Silence that loud can’t be replicated. I can’t see most of you looking back at me But you’re alive in my mind You’re alive in these lines— So if today was a perfect day, And with the way the sky looks beyond my blinds— Maybe it could be, I’d sit in the center of the page in my notebook that holds all the secrets of all these perfect days, And I’d lay my head on all of the ice cream cones and sunrises and boat rides and kisses and outdoor showers and picnics, And rest my eyes for a while.

CACTUS WREN Isabelle Huang

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COFFEE DATE

Vellia Zhou

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UNTITLED 10 TOBAR

Majorie Gaber

Caesar Pardales

What if our garden had no flowers there? Instead we could plant a whole field of stars. Each light g(l/r)owing more and more every day and once the lights would twinkle at full strength, we’d lift our flowers up into the sky. They’d shine throughout the night, asleep in day. What if our house had neither roof nor walls? And on the floor we lay, light and amused with popcorn and goldfish to fill our mouths. Embracing one another, fighting tears: we’re savoring each other like our snacks and singing songs, prolonging our farewell When nature holds a mirror up to you, it shows the thunder and the pounding rain, falling like pebbles, cutting like a knife, And neon strikes to cleave the fucking sky. I wish that I could send music in words, for simple wordplay cannot match a tune, but if an envelope could wrap a song, a symphony would pile up at your door.

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WILD GRASS I wanted to feel the waves on my skin but instead I got adorned with red silk and the cool feeling of the breeze that comes from flowers swaying in the wind. Your petals clinch and grasp at the sun, a neon sign for help but the green thorns that embellish your stem bleeds those that show sympathy and the waxy leaves that crowd each other create a picture of vulnerability that saves a face of enduring passion. In the ways of a perennial, you come back to me every spring, bud sprouting the silk I can feel underneath my finger tips. Your beauty comes in ripples, ripe to be chosen again some day. The Rose.

THE ROSE Adelia

Isabelle Huang

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OH DEER Erin Zhan

BREEZE Vellia Zhou

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WISH

Annie Ning I’d like to take you to someplace, Or places, I should say. I don’t know what you’ll think of it, I don’t mind, either way. We’ll travel to the edge of things. A place nobody knows. A place you think you’ve been before, Where flowers grow in rows. It looks a bit like Europe and you turn to me to say: This is no place anew you’ve shown, I’ve been before today. I know it seems familiar, But look around and see— There are no tulips here, my dear, This place, it is for me. I built it once upon a time, And you have done the same. You made your world some years ago— And then forgot its name. There’s nothing strange about it though, We’re just children, you see. We’re just the fools that fools before have always tried to be. There’s nothing wrong with thinking up A place only you know. Discover and explore these lands So hand in hand, we go. We find ourselves a rainforest, The first of any kind. No humans have been here before, Nobody but your mind.

So listen to the underbrush, And look and look around. The noise of birds and leaves and life— I know you know the sound. I know you know the way it hums, Like bees within a hive. Yet louder, and with voices Undeniably alive. Who knew that it could sound this way, Buried inside this crowd. Who knew it could feel calm yet Simultaneously loud. Like twenty stories told at once, Let them run through your mind. Don’t think too much, don’t think at all, And then, open your eyes. You see them now, the city lights, The docks, the streets, the port, The people hurrying around, ‘Cause life is just too short. It looks a bit more like home now, Through clouded window panes. It’s been so long since you’ve returned, To dusty window frames. Is it the same for you as well, Looking inside this room? You didn’t think you’d say goodbye, And honestly—me too. Back then I didn’t know because I thought that I was right. I turned around, walked out the door, And then turned off the lights. I thought that I was moving up, Away from aging halls. Away from recess, birthday cakes, And crayon-ridden walls. Yet now I think I understand This place down by the tracks. And despite what the adults want,

I’d, every time, come back. It makes a little more sense since I’m older than before. Come on inside, take off your shoes, Make sure to close the door. And while you’re here, there’s just one thing I’ve got a request for. If I may ask, these walls before us Are they mine or yours? What color is the paint in here— Blue, orange, green, or grey? Don’t ask me for my answer because I would never say. If you can’t tell, then that’s alright; It’s just my privacy. But if you know without my words, I might give you the key.

You may get mad and start to think Then why’d you bring me here? If not for me then think of who It was all for, my dear. These walls, these desks, these window panes, The chairs all left askew, These things, they are not mine, you see— This room was made by you. It’s unfamiliar for now, But you’ll remember soon. I promise that you won’t regret Returning to this room. Returning to the rainforest, Returning to the skies, Returning to the Europes and The places left behind. So take this room and let it grow Your thoughts like trees and vines. ‘Cause after that could you imagine What you’ll see outside? The adult world, it’s loud and mean, So lock it when you need. And every time you come and go, Do not forget your keys. It’s all yours now, it’s all yours now— It’s yours to let it be. I wonder what you’ll do with it, But wait—you can’t tell me. It’s not my place to influence, Step in, go on, be free. I’ve done my job, I’ve shown you it, So with that, I will leave. Goodbye, my dear, I wish you luck, Let your ideas grow wild. And I hope that one day I’ll see That you’re, once more, a child.

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AFTERNOON CLOUDS

Majorie Gaber

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WINTER SOLSTICE Camilla Lizundia

Reflecting magic upon my pupils Pink cheeks on my face and yours As we sit illuminated by tonightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profound moon Our legs intertwine like fallen branches Hips knotted across river bends Toes in hibernation Limbs like surrealist paintings No concept of time It was the quickest shortest longest of days I was there but my brain was not I said my name, right? Introduced myseld, the usual It was just second nature Half-baked stories unfold of me twelve years ago You too get swept up in reminiscence Although you dislike succumbing to nostalgia I can feel your bitersweet tongue Making words tiptoe across the pale sheet covers Dancing along my bare body And wandering into my naked earlobes Are you here with me right now? What are you thinking, I whisper Blank stares tend to scare me But nothing seems to calm me like a Winter Solstice

URBAN GARDENS Sonia Lee

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SUMMER SOLSTICE Camilla Lizundia

I yearn for love Making it impossible to imagine anything else But the romanticized versions of me and you That dance amidst my dreams Because fantasy is what I know best Reflecting magic upon my pupils Pink cheeks on my face and yours As we sit illuminated by tonightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profound moon Our legs intertwine like fallen branches Hips knotted across river bends Toes in hibernation Limbs like surrealist paintings No concept of time It was the quickest shortest longest of days I was there but my brain was not I said my name, right? Introduced myseld, the usual It was just second nature

I watch the lawn twinkle below my second story bedroom Drunk with spontaneous night swims And pink skies just before dark Soaking my damp eyelids with rose-colored matches Igniting cookout flames onto empty glass bottles My skin is hot And yet my anxiety nips at a familiar form of seasonal regret Running a cool breeze down my spine Perpetual nostalgia can often be my greatest enemy I run my fingers across my exposed neck Sweeping a few stray hairs to one side Why must we drift from place to place Without ever truly seeing That the summer solstice brings us fireflies

Half-baked stories unfold of me twelve years ago You too get swept up in reminiscence Although you dislike succumbing to nostalgia I can feel your bitersweet tongue Making words tiptoe across the pale sheet covers Dancing along my bare body And wandering into my naked earlobes

You kissed me on the bench Donated by the dental fraternity It was weird

SPRING IN A WATERSIDE VILLAGE Katherine Qiao

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DESCENDANTS OF THE DRAGON Yuzhe You

PURA VIDA

Benjamin Barrett

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FABRICATIONS Tanuja Tase

I have questions. Things I would like to ask him when it’s cold and windy and snowy because we live in Michigan and it’s almost always cold and windy and snowy. Maybe my fingers would be in his pockets and he’d have to tilt his head down to look at me when he answered or he’d look up at the sky as he thought about the question. Maybe we’d be side by side and walking slowly, not touching, on one of those spring nights when it’s warm enough during the day, but the nights turn chilly. I’d regret my decision to wear that dress even though I hope it made him look at me for a second longer than usual. The puddles are probably huge and when I try to sidestep one I’d end up sinking my boots into the deep end. He might let out an awkward laugh or a sympathetic smile but he’s not going take off his jacket and lay it over the wet pavement because this isn’t a movie (anyways that’s kind of a ridiculous thing to do). What would I ask you? Probably basic college questions first. “What are you studying?” “__________.” he responds, “What about you?” My world is so small I can’t imagine loving someone who didn’t walk the same sidewalks and hallways that I did while growing up. “Is college what you thought it would be?” “*Says some fake-deep line I heard in a coming-of-age film*,” He laughs. When I was writing my mind-numbingly boring stories about “a time I showed courage” or “a time I failed” I held my breath in anticipation. Ready to cut ties and never see him again after high school. Told myself I was happy about it.

THINKING OF HOME // HOMESICK Leanne Su

“Now that that’s out of the way, any hopes and dreams you care to share with a complete stranger?” He shows up in a lot of my daydreams. More than I would care to admit. I write down the fleeting flying flitting daydreams I have of him and me so that I can exploit them for my writing, distill it, filter it into something good. Take the sharp point of my affections and dull the tip with sandpaper poetry that leaves me smooth and shiny, raw and new. I’m tired of writing sappy, sentimental, silly things about a boy whose answers I can’t even begin to fabricate in my mind.

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HP LASERJET M602

1.5.20

Samuel Mathisson

Sheets smooth to naked eye, Edged in ridges thin and dry The plight of once tall trees That came before the factories Descending into the whirring maw Transformation; natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s law Rollers compressing diatribe An indelible tattoo inscribed Dots combine to form a line Pixels lost in paper prime Image almost formed at hand Till motion stops; the cartridge jammed

ART BY:

Phoebe Danaher 19

0 0.2

1.1

2019

1.12.

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CONTOURS_12 Jay Kim

DUALITY Kate Bishop

Switch from forests of birch to concrete. Replace Orion with his fluorescent shadow; cover the sun with robes of smog. There are no beaches here — Switch back. There are only a couple places offering half-decent lattes, and none are within walking distance … nothing is within walking distance, actually. My sand-covered shoes dwell on the porch. We sit and watch the storms together sometimes. Toward rolling gravel dancing woodsmoke the ambivalent harbor I’m beckoned. I yearn to stay. Something tugs at my sleeve — incessantly backwards, insisting on duality. I can do both: birch, highway, clocktower; bustle, highway, tranquil; home, highway, home — duality — Switch back.

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TIGER STRIPES

Yeshasvi Mahadev

My right knee remembers the time I attempted to ride a scooter with you, Whizzing past affronted pedestrians, until we crash landed on the pavement. Below, my calf still begrudges the permanently unfinished stag, That was to keep the mangy black dog on your forearm company. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wisdom in relenting to the persistence of baking burns, From our (mostly) fruitful summer experiments. I have similarly made peace with the distinct tan line on my wrist, From the bracelet you presented me with four years ago. Occasionally, my left ear tingles as it is reminded, Of the shared pair of earrings we paraded around, for exactly a week. Perhaps, once the memories of their origins wither away, These scars will lose their resolve to adorn my skin. In the meantime, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll avoid the painful view in my bathroom mirror, While I bid goodbye to the last hickey on my collar bone.

WHERE WERE YOU Vellia Zhou

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THIS I BELIEVE Eli Rallo

In eighth grade we had a graduation, And we stood up and read speeches We spoke of our parents and our dogs, Ice cream trucks and reeling through summer days, Broken bones and winter mornings and the fact that we believed childhood was ending-This I believe. This I believe. All two hundred of us-This I believe. I remember asking my dad, What I should decide I believed-Maybe at thirteen I believed in flimsy magazines and high school dreams. I think I decided I believe in music–– But don’t we all? My father believes in many things. I’ve come to believe in many things too. Maybe that’s genetics-Or maybe that’s just us. What if I told you I could fill a sand castle with beliefs, What if I told you I could fill an empty milk jug, What if I said an empty elevator shaft An auditorium, where my voice could bounce off the walls. This I believe, This I believe This I believe. I wonder, As the words leave my lips: what do you believe in— What my father’s father would believe. I think it’d be day old bread crumbs rolled into meatballs, And it’s nice to know that those types of

beliefs And those types of recipes live long after we do. Dad believes in crunchy bagels with cream cheese And the perfect slice of pizza. Both from New Jersey— I guess you’d understand if you were from there like me. He believes in the seven dwarfs, in santa claus, in superman— I’d like to think that really means he believes None of us ever really grows up, As we grow old. That our foreheads gather lines and our hair goes salt and pepper, But we are forever eight years old And fighting the urge to peak downstairs in the tired hours of December 25th, At the fluorescent lit, slim and tall christmas tree–– Its’ branches weighted by heavy, sparkling, tired Santa Claus. I believe in Christmas time because I believe in the time we painted the walls of our living room Red and green stripes, And the sight was so beautiful and so uneven, I think even my father broke down and cried. He believes that life is too short to drink shitty wine And I wonder what he means by shitty And if the wine in my cupboard would turn away in shame--

I believe in shitty wine sometimes, Because shitty wine knows everyone’s secrets.

And celebrating in the blue black, starlit mundane. Maybe I do too.

I wonder what you believe in-- if at all. Wouldn’t it be terrifying if we had nothing like pumpkin pie or first kisses or the last days of classes-Even if you don’t believe in god, or Jesus or angels or chapels— Is there something to which you send your prayers?

I believe in questions And questions lead me straight to you. I walk a path of questions, Under my feet and asleep on storm clouds And nestled In a pile of crisp leaves— On the phone and in person and lit up by the dim, fluorescent glow of a laptop screen. Give me your beliefs, Let me inhale them— let me know them— let me cherish them. I’ll smoke them like drugs I’ll drink them like water. Maybe one day, I’ll believe in them too.

Faith takes many forms For some of us it’s a chapel, a temple-A cloudless sky-The end lane of a bowling alley, A quieted theatre, On the precipice of an overture.

Flannel Sheets. Someone I love very much Believes in flannel sheets, I hope he never grows out of those Because believing can be simple If it’s in moments shared between familiar sheets. A friend from home, My home, Tells me she believes in belting ABBA songs And eating dessert At inappropriate times of the day. I wonder if she knew that’s all I did this summer Or if we maybe share more pieces of our minds Than I once thought. She believes in champagne for no reason Or that feeling when you go weak in the knees-Maybe she believes in not taking moments too seriously,

I believe in dogs always. I believe in animals as companionship. I believe that everyone should grow up with a dog so that they can learn love and loss and compassion from a young age. I believe in pugs, of course. Maybe we’re all longing after connection— After loyalty— A word that fits so large and so round in our mouths. There are some days where we have voids That human beings fill in the wrong ways. Have I ever told you About a time I was so lonely That I turned to a midwestern zoo for comfort— simply because it was there— And instead of sinking into the soil, Distraught with the idea that I’d never feel whole,

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My life was changed As I gazed at the giraffes, pulling down leaves From the tall, green trees. My mother Believes that Fidel Castro killed JFK But I think it was actually the Chicago mob. My mother and I used to disagree About anything — Sweaters and songs and sonnets— But these days I call her five times a day Because I miss the way that she doesn’t mind If I don’t admit That she’s always right. She believes in angels and Chocolate and red wine Though both give her headaches And though she’d never say it I believe that she isn’t afraid of a damn thing. One of my closest friends tells me I believe in hugs from my mom No matter how many times I say I “Hate her.” And I believe in hot fudge as the main course and ice cream as the topping. I wonder what came first, The ice cream Or the fudge Or the hug, from mom. A new friend says she believes That coffee can solve all our bad days And that Avril Lavigne died in 2007. I believe that there’s a tiny bit of truth to just about everything. We don’t create anything out of thin air Except art–– That we can create out of nothing-At all.

I believe in the Michael Phelps and the Stephen Hawkings and the Helen Kellers of the world. I believe in you and me. I believe in myself. I believe in me. I try to believe in myself even when it’s not easy-I believe in Jake and Lily. I believe in Lindsay Lohan–– In Mandy Moore–– In you. I believe in people–– They are untamable and electric–– In women–– In their femininity and their strength-I believe in all of us. I believe in women too. We should all believe in women. No matter who we are, Put down your cereal spoons and your wine glasses and your scary newspaper articles and think of a world without girls. We should all-We MUST all-Begin now, to believe in women. Once someone told me I’d have a hard time being taken seriously, Because I am feminine and sweet and people could be inclined To take advantage Of all that. I believe that sometimes, we take a step forward And then we get shoved-- a mile back And on this dusty path We dig ourselves out From getting stuck, in this quickly sinking sand. I believe that I should celebrate in being feminine and sweet and change the

world too. I believe in Bruce Springsteen, In our kindergarten teachers And hospital nurses. In Sylvia Plath And Hemingway. I wonder why all my favorite authors Wished and willed themselves to death And if their words Would weigh so much If nothing ever hurt. I believe In people that hold your cheeks And kiss your head And collapse into your side In a fit of laughter Or a fit of tears. I believe in pain In heartbreak -- in heartache And my best friend thinks it’s beautiful That someone so intoxicating, could hurt so much. But I think of love like tequila. Too little and you’re not even tipsy Too much and you’re knocked out. I also believe in Italians, And beaches where you can go swimming in clear salt water, topless. Many of you believe in nudity, Many of you believe in naked limbs All tangled up Under blankets In a midday May rainshower Or the early hours of a snowy, December morning. And at dawn, we write these love stories with our bodies And they become the scriptures of our hearts.

I believe in loving someone so much it physically hurts, In those people you’d take bullets for, In the process of finding true love on reality TV, That love is consuming I believe in soulmates, In soulmates In soulmates In soulmates. I’d like to think our soulmates can be our best friends And sisters And cousins And strangers. I think soulmates sometimes come In the perfect caramel iced coffee with a tiny bit of milk, In chocolate twizzlers In the book characters we fall in love with. I believe in Harry Potter And that Hogwarts exists On another planet On another morning. I believe in the people who wake up every morning with writer’s block The ones who surrender themselves to the pen The ones who have committed themselves to telling your stories To inspiring your greatest triumphs And your most lasting heartbreaks-Ones that only begin where the pages end, To the people with rainbow imaginations Raise a glass. With words beating against the rhythm of their heart We bleed. My brother believes that if you are an amazing storyteller, you should tell stories.

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And I hope he means that maybe, I can be professional at make believe-at using my voice for these whispered and shouted fairytales I tell.

I believe If you can sing, sing on the street for everyone, If you can dance, dance at parties, dance in public Take your gifts and share them. With people. That’s what it’s all about. I wonder when he got so wise Or what the air smells like In the place he calls home. I sometimes still feel strange When I say I’m on my way home But I’m not on River Road. Instead, I’m all the way in Michigan. I believe in letters And I wish I could’ve written you all postcards

HARD

Paige Wilson

Opening a door into your beliefs-Into your minds-The inside of my mind looks like the inside of this crowded bookstore in Vermont Mixed with that chocolate river scene in the original “Willy wonka and the Chocolate Factory” movie So I’d rather pinky promise your beliefs Than try and sort out All of my own. I wish I had enough space To write out all of the stories you told me When we were growing up in our bed sheet tents -Or when we met in Boston In Washington D.C. In Missouri In Ann Arbor In the rainy, slick drive to New Haven, Drunk in a sticky diner booth in sweet New Jersey,

The best pancakes are the ones that are warm enough to melt all the chocolate chips On top. You believe in doing the impossible In going through life with white hair In ice cream before dinner And that underwear has no purpose. In food as nourishment, not something we should fear. The potential for things to get better And independence. In sleeping in on sundays French macarons for breakfast Alone time. You believe in ghosts The human spirit Smiling at strangers Nutella crepes Second chances Therapy And guilty pleasures. What if all of this is just a running list -An orchestration that begins when the conductor picks up his hands To signal all of us at once. When we pick up our violins and our clarinets to play Do we play the same note? What if we will dance on these extended diatribes Of faith Of rainbow sweaters Of full bellies and Full promises And full living rooms A fireplace -- bright and warm. What if we’ll never fatigue all of the options, All of the serendipity All of the exhaust gas Dripping, hot Out of the back of your old Jeep wrangler.

Is this the wet concrete of our beliefs? That we have hope-Stored up some place And we will simply never run out. I wish to press a sneaker footprint into this not yet dry sidewalk of believing, So a bit of me stays at home forever. Where did we begin? Where did we learn to kneel and pray? Why is this world falling further away from the sugar and toward the salt. Sit down somewhere familiar And let your wounds breathe. I believe in our childhood homes, In their precious backyards And tire swings. I believe in their scraped knees and Orange popsicles And backyard barns, When my grandfather used to come over, When he still could. I believe in clean sheets, In sharing them In rain hitting the roof so hard it sounds like the world is exploding And Lily and Jack and Jake if I die doing it. I believe in having someone to return home to, In having someone who is home for you -Even when we don’t even know our own zip codes. I believe that we can only be brilliant writers if we are brilliant readers We can only be brilliant artists if we are mindful art lovers We can only be brilliant anythings in this world full of nothing If we use our binoculars To help us see.

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I believe in tradition In Sunday dinners In Fourth of July fireworks From the fingerprinted, floor to ceiling window In the St. Louis apartment To the splintered wooden dock Floating on a green grey sea. The embers fall from the sky every July fourth, Tattooing this blackness with crimson.

I’m trying to decide what my paradise looks like-All my meals would be crispy potatoes and Mint chip ice cream In New York City While the sun rises With my brother In a olive green cafe booth I’d be wearing a feather boa And a bandana in my hair.

I believe in breakfast Specifically the salted crispy potatoes at Toast Across a booth from my brother with his long eyelashes And mugs of coffee That don’t run out.

And I decide in that moment What I believe in most is our potential. I believe in our potential. Each one of us.

I believe in making Christmas cookies And shopping for the people watching on Black Friday And not for the deals. I believe in William Sonoma caramel apples In water to cure anything I believe in running And cappuccino and Words to heal all wounds, walks to mend all relationships And always in wine. In naps after days on the beach The stomach drop of a roller coaster ride In mind over matter, in silly mugs In stumbling across bookstores In the validity of anxiety and the importance of mindfulness In trying new things every day and in New York City even though it scares me half to death sometimes. I believe in mint chip ice cream and the sunrise. Always the sunrise.

Your future is based on the choice to, Or not to, Get hungry for exactly what you’d like to be In twenty days In twenty hours In twenty years. Under the moon This looks like a New Years Day poem Every time I begin to read it again. It reminds me of a cold shower Or bottled lavender face spray. Refreshed. A new year, a new dawn, a new choice. We are running. I am running. Ten miles And then fifteen And then twenty. We are running, From where we are to where we’d like to be. Maybe for you it’s home Or a fudge shop in Nantucket. Or a church pew. The Chinese food restaurant in Boston.

This one time at Jesus camp, Or airplane rides away. Have you ever seen the way the stars look in the middle of the country? I believe that this world Is spinning on the edge of our pinky finger tips All right here, with absolutely nothing out of reach. I believe sometimes our muscles are firm and strong And other times, They feel like yarn. I believe that we open our eyes every morning to a choice-Asking you -What it is exactly, that you’d like to be. This may feel like a divergent From my original ground plan We have built this home And it looks different than the rough draft-Than the bare bones. We turned the wrong way at the fork in the road And it ended up being quite alright. If you have made it to this line, You know my heart is beating here in this 12 point font And you know That I believe that you are outrageous-exceptional-and should grasp on to something, And hold tight. Even if it’s just some words that I’ve asked you to put all of your exhausted faith in to. It will all be alright, someday. This, I believe.

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VENICE

Yuzhe You

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DANCERS

Ruchita Iyer

THE MULTIVERSE THEORY Alexander Wagner

The Multiverse Theory states, in a nutshell, that there are an infinite number of universes in which any possibility or impossibility is true. Because infinite things don’t end, this also means that each universe repeats itself an infinite number of times. For example, there is a universe (infinite universes, in fact) where dogs are the dominant species of the planet. There is a universe where everything is exactly the same except that you, sir, shaved your left eyebrow off this morning. In that universe, you’re probably going through some shit, so I’m not gonna judge. There is a universe where the numbers 4 and 7 are switched. Did you know, in that universe, a ray of light can travel around the earth 4 and a half times in a second, and it would take about 7 years for it to reach the closest star? Did you know that, in this universe, gravitation is the weakest of the four fundamental forces but it’s stilllstrong enough to bend time? Did you know that a thousand seconds is about 17 minutes. A million seconds is just shy of 12 days. A billion seconds is about 31.7 years, and there’s about 7.5 trillion carbon atoms in the period at the end of this sentence.

There’s a universe out there where time and matter are interchangeable. In that universe, molecules are milliseconds and I am made of centuries. There’s a universe where I’m not still finding strands of your hair in my mattress. There’s a universe where everything is the same but, when I lie down at night, my ribs don’t feel like they’re spreading into a vacuum: did you know that outer space is not really a vacuum because there is a minute number of atoms floating around in it? Did you know that your forearms are galaxies and I have spent hours counting the stray particles in them? There’s a universe between my bed and my front door, I know this because there have been mornings I crossed it just to see you. Did you know that if a tree falls in the forest it still makes a sound because in this universe sounds don’t care who’s listening, and I’ll admit sometimes I wish I couldn’t hear what I say when I’m alone. But when silence hangs in the air for long enough it becomes gravity. I thought that letting enough of it linger there might pull us toward each other again, because silence is the weakest of the four fundamental forces but it might still be strong enough to bend time for you.

DANCERS Ruchita Iyer

I know this because there are infinite universes out there where it can.

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BEAUTY Elle Falahee

palindrome noun: a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward

Beauty simply is A collection of rules and standards predetermined by society It is not Who we intrinsically are But Who we wish we could be Beauty isn’t The short girls, the fat girls, the smart girls, the poor girls Beauty is the tall girls, the skinny girls The perfect girls There is no such thing as “Broken is beautiful” Because Beauty is perfection And it’s the biggest lie that We are good enough just as we are Rather, Our worth lies in the opinion of others And it is wrong to think that We are beautiful

PURPLE SNEER William Ammerman

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ETHEREAL

William Ammerman

It really feels ethereal here. Not dream-like or heavenly or any of that; ethereal’s the word. Like an untended, overgrown garden in the blind spot of a magnificent castle—where the wooden archways and lattices are rotting away and the grapevines have grown wild. Moss clings to the stone path and every once in a while, there’s the sound of a single carp leaping lazily in the pond. It smells like sunlight, sunlight and ten-thirty in the morning. But in the shade of the arbors and ivy, it’s a little bit chilly, a little bit lonely—as if you’d just stepped into an empty, long abandoned cathedral. It’s nostalgic, like longing to be somewhere you’ve never been, homesick for a place you’ve never seen. And yet all the same it’s familiar, almost feels like you’ve finally returned—like you could run your fingertips along the sides of the pews and know that this is not the first time.

SAND MAN Xindi Chang

And these stained glass windows, these violets and golds and greens that fall across your vision, tell a story that you recognize, a story that you’d understand better if it were not for the ivy creeping through the aging cracks. Maybe it’s a story about knights in shining armor. Maybe it’s a story about the end of the world. Maybe it’s a story about a secret garden hidden in the crevice of a forgotten castle, lost to the annals of history. You don’t know. No one knows. No one’s ever been to that place, or at the very least, no one’s ever returned.

So I cannot tell you what it looks like, what kind of ground your bare feet will tread, or if there is any at all. I cannot guarantee the sun in the same way I cannot guarantee the sky. For I am not the god of this place. All I have is the fog that settles over the river, which carries with it the sound of broken pocket watches and half-said goodbyes. Who they are from and who they are to are not for me to decide. I cannot describe the place they come from because I’ve never been there, and I cannot describe the place they go to because I’ll never see it. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that it’s ethereal.

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EVENING CLOUDS Marjorie Gaber

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FIRE BURNING Katherine Qiao

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IF THE WORLD ENDS ON A THURSDAY Alexander Wagner

Based on Joseph Louwâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photo of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. If the world ends on a Thursday, it will not end at night. When everything goes dark, the sun will shine gray and tinny behind the smog and cold overcast, which will hold its breath just as still as ever. The castle walls wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fall, as they never rose. The discolored apartment dry wall will leak not blood, but shower water from the room above. The curtain lying on the porch will not revoke its mildew, nor will it hang straight again. The plume of dust from the new hole in the wall behind Him will settle. The cerebral matter will wash out. The people, too, will hear the thunder through the rustling of newspapers before shuffling to work, which will continue. When the world ends, it will end with three friends pointing in unison to the sun, demanding it bow its head below the horizon, and a reverend will fall to his knees beside the dying King.

LAKE CRESCENT Andrew Kurdelski

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THE NEIGHBORHOOD AT SUNSET Alexander Wagner

Beyond the sun-bleached brown railing of the porch, a dead tree with an owl house, stripped bare in front of the forest, stands alone, leaning toward the ragged home. There used to be a swing set here, says the small patch of almost-green-again grass that once held a sandbox, slide, and plastic telescope. The trees flesh themselves out the farther down the hill they go, spilling at last around the pond, where kindling fingers dip, occasionally, into the silent water. Behind the forest is a playground, probably meant for the kids who live along the road on its side, but mostly ignored except by those who discover it, for a moment, while walking their dog or child in a new part of the neighborhood. The sun burns low and lazy against the tops of trees, casting their shadows into pond water that peeks out from a circular gap in the foliage, right about where a soggy stump or clod of moss-topped dirt just big enough to hop to, if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re brave enough, can be stood on. A tennis court lounges across from the swing set, fenced in and graying, and beyond that the woods, thick in this patch, mysterious and uninviting in its dark, ivy-filled underbrush. The ground beneath the swings has been kicked away, dug out into little dirt bowls of a dozen shoe sizes. To the left of the tennis court, behind the playground, three rideable plastic animals of indeterminate species sway on the thick, rusted coil of their legs, the kind that creaks in two different pitches when you ride it, but only one when you kick it hard to test for wasp nests. Behind that still is a grove, a circle of trees and the fresh smell of pond water, a candlelight-sun getting lower by the minute.

LOGS

Samuel Mathisson Veiny leaves from wispy trees lie under branches fallen bare Rising woodsmoke in the air That drifts along upon the breeze Two men stand upon the ground Swinging axes, chopping wood A father and a son were found In the grove where trees once stood As days grow short and nights grow long Woodpiles grew around the hearth As winter sang its cheerless song Stacks dwindled down to frozen earth

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DUSK DURING A POWER OUTRAGE The toilet hisses to a stop, and it seems I might be the only thing left alive anymore. The refrigerator closed tightly, is voiceless, home plunged into a stunned silence, and the world’s white noises, too, have lost their flicker.

Alexander Wagner

I sweat on my bed beside the deceased desk fan, looking out the window I usually keep shuttered, and notice how indigo the sky still is between the charcoal wisps of cumulus, how you can tell the sun is elsewhere by the nimbus of green seeping into the horizon, how the trees bustle against themselves, shadows tossed in the exhausted winds of a summer storm that’s done what it can There is a streetlight there, across the street, winking its way between the branches. One of the older o that buzzes if you get close enough to listen, with the white plastic cover tie-dyed with grime and the dribble of dead bugs amassing at its center. It’s still working, for some reason, and I think maybe I ought to leave my window open more, because it’s been there longer than I have, and it’s more prepared than I am for when the last green burns out of the horizon and the wind, too, comes to a silent halt.

FOCUSED ON LIGHT William Ammerman

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ENTROPY

Samuel Mathisson The movement from order to disorder I extend my arm and transfer the forces in one single point etched in chalk Throughout a felted arena The tightly packed geometric shape, spheres in perfect formation Ready to battle their own ceramic inertia They all scatter

EDIZ HOOK RESERVATION FOR NATIVE BIRDS AT SUNSET Andrew Kurdelski

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THIS IS WHAT FIRE IS FOR Evan Dempsey

Four brothers sat at a table in a forest clearing. Their names were Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Spring and Summer laughed loudly at each other’s follies, as they often did, while Autumn occasionally hefted a sardonic rebuke into the conversation with a sly smile, causing his brothers to lose themselves in delight all over again. Winter, for the most part, remained silent, as was his wont. Eldest Summer paused in his merriment long enough to notice his youngest brother, pale and dark-haired, thinking quietly to himself. “Why so glum, brother?” he asked. Then, as if he had received a secret response that was wickedly funny, he burst into laughter again. Winter had been paying his brothers no mind, and Summer’s intrusion upon his private thoughts irked him. “For the thousandth time, Summer, I am not glum.” “Oh?” Summer arched a blond eyebrow. “What do you call it then, sitting by yourself and not making merry with the rest of us?” Winter sighed. “I call it a break. You do precious little besides make merry, Summer. I was only thinking. You should try it some time.” This only provoked Summer to more laughter. Spring and Autumn joined in, reedy accompaniments to Summer’s booming baritone. They were interrupted by a rustling in the undergrowth behind them. As one, the brothers’ heads swivelled toward the sound. A small boy, naked and trembling, emerged from the bushes. The brothers exchanged glances. They had never seen any other life in the wood, save the plants and animals they ruled. Taking the lead, Summer approached the boy with long strides, tan, muscular, and imposing. Spring and Autumn, as always, flanked him, complimenting his majesty with their lesser presences. Winter stayed where he was, but watched the boy closely. Summer knelt before the boy. “So, child, do you have a name?” The boy nodded fervently, his reply a timid whisper. “I am called Man.” Summer nodded. “Well, Man, it seems you are in need of clothing, and perhaps shelter, but we have none for you.” He turned his empty palms up. “Best move along.” Man looked as if he was on the point of obeying, but he appeared to remember something, and resolve steeled his gaze. “Wait,” he blurted. “I have something for you.” From behind his back he produced a twig, on the end of which danced a brilliant tongue of light and heat. Summer was awestruck. “What is that? And where did you get it?”

Man was not trembling any longer, and his voice was high and clear. “I call it fire. I made it myself. From the wood.” In that bright, burning point of what the boy called fire, Winter saw something terrible, something that made him hate the hand that grasped the twig so greedily, and the wide eyes that beheld the fire with so much delight. He turned away, fearing himself, and fearing what he saw in the fire. Summer was delighted, no longer concerned with turning the boy away. “Can you make anything else, Man?” He was positively beaming at the boy. Man smiled back. “I can try.” Summer nodded excitedly. “Well you go and try, and if you make anything else, come right back here and show us.” Spring and Autumn emphatically signalled their agreement. Before he left, Man noticed Winter. He nodded gravely and waved. Winter nodded in return, and waved back. The next time the brothers saw Man, he had grown. He was tall and lean, with whiskers on his lip. But what the brothers noticed first was the brown garment he had swathed himself in. Man?”

Summer hailed Man as he entered the clearing. “What is that you wear,

“This,” Man said proudly. “Is deerskin. I took it from a buck I killed.” Man stretched out the deerskin, for Summer, Spring, and Autumn to feel. Again Winter stayed back. The deerskin frightened him, but it did not shock him as the fire had. With a feeling of cold dread, Winter realized he had expected this. “I brought something else,” said Man. “I give you, food.” And he held a slab of something soft and brown before the brothers. “This too is from the deer. You put it in your mouth, and swallow it. Like this.” Man tore a piece from the slab, and tossed it into his mouth. After he had swallowed it, he opened his mouth, displaying that it was now empty. Winter’s brothers swarmed the deerflesh, cramming morsels of it into their own mouths. Winter watched with disgust as grease dribbled down their chins. He stopped his ears against their chewing and their belching as he felt his stomach heaving. He wanted to tell his brothers to stop, to warn them, but he knew they would not listen. If it was their pleasure to gorge themselves on destruction, then they would choke to death on pleasure. Winter turned and stalked off into the forest. His brothers, engrossed in sacrificial flesh, did not notice him leave. From then on, Winter made it his sole aim to thwart Man’s artifice. He sent snow to bury Man’s dwellings and livestock. He sent the creatures Man hunted to hidden underground fastnesses, where they could not be touched. He sent chill winds to blow through Man’s paltry clothing, to kill the crops he raised, and especially to snuff out the fires that Man lighted, wherever they unleashed their seductive incandescence. But Man persisted. And all the while, he continued to bring the fruits

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of his labor to Winter’s brothers. Winter did not see his brothers often anymore, but when he did he saw that they were growing fat on Man’s offerings. Spring and Autumn nursed twin guts, shrinking into their paunch as the rest of their bodies wasted away. Summer, who had once been so grand and beautiful, was now puffy and bloated, and his girth was beginning to match his prodigious height. But still they accepted each new bauble and delicacy with delight, gorging themselves on Man’s endless capacity for generating novelty. Winter was changing, too. His tireless efforts to forestall Man’s progress had melted fat off of his bones. He was gaunt, and paler than usual. But where his brothers were made uglier, Winter acquired a melancholy beauty that he had not had when his cheeks were full and rosy. He would have been frightening if the fear and anger in his eyes had not begun to melt into sadness. It had been a great length of time since Winter had set foot in the clearing when he returned to find his brothers dying. The wood had long since gone, replaced by the creations of Man. Only a sad ring of trees, brown and withered, guarded this last place, the brothers’ home. Spring, Autumn, and Summer lay on their backs, mountainous bellies straining to reach the sky like a trio of Man’s towering dwellings. As he approached, Winter realized that Spring and Autumn had already breathed their last, and only Summer remained, gasping in a pool of blood and vomit. The brothers did not exchange words, but as their eyes met Winter knew that Summer had finally conceded to the terrible truth. A long time ago, Winter might have felt like gloating, but now he felt nothing but love for the brother he had once had, and pity for the sad creature on the ground before him. As Summer died, Man strode into the clearing. He was magnificent, in a suit of dark cloth, wrists and neck adorned with shiny things he had scraped out of the belly of the earth. He had not met Winter’s gaze since the day he had brought fire to the clearing, but now he smiled at the last brother, triumphant. He was taller than Summer had ever been, and even under the clothes Winter could see the iron muscles that had made all this evil possible. “So,” Man said. “I have finally won.” “You have not killed me yet.” Man laughed, a booming sound like one of his great weapons, invented for the thing called war that Man had also invented. “Oh, but haven’t I?” As he saw Man striding forward, preparing to kill him, Winter thought he saw a flash of regret in those dark eyes, an echo of the young boy who had stood in the clearing so long ago. But that boy was gone, consumed by the fire. Man knocked Winter to the ground with a contemptuous backhand. Winter saw Man towering above the bodies of his brothers. He saw the rippling muscle looming over their wasted flesh just as Man’s steel-and-glass dwellings sparkled high above the pathetic ring of trees that still futilely tried to shelter the clearing. He saw Man’s fist drawn back, sheathed in all the treasures of the desecrated Earth, and he realized that this was what the fire was for.

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HYBRID (BROKEN FILE) Erin Zhan

INTERNAL ACCOMPANIMENT Author Unknown (!!)

Papier-mâché thoughts crunching under foot; My soundscape littered with parched remains. Windblown leaves continue rustling, These wholly venous and predestined to fall. An indefinite autumnal symphony within a silent concer t hall.

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I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see color Eliot Caramanian

Memory of Rhode Island Yuzhe You

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Entropy

NOTE: need better quality version

Abigail Provenzano

You come back from the desert with needles in your skin. I’m waiting outside the security boundary that separates those brave yet foolish Icarus’s from those with feet refusing to leave the ground, and I catch a glimpse of you before you see me. You’re lugging your father’s old travel bag with the too big, too loud buckles, your hair is a mess, there are lines on your face that I can’t remember being there when you left. Your face was the first to slip away, though, even as I felt it brush my fingertips. A butterfly, just out of reach. It’s nearly four in the morning, that in between time when the sun of day and the moon of night stand together to survey the earth, before one slips away. I was going to buy you roses. You’ve always appreciated a good cliché. I wasn’t going to come—don’t bother, your final postcard had said, voice flat and stretched to Arizona. I’ve never been a spontaneous person, but those two words had elbowed themselves among the chemical equations lounging in my brain and refused to stop shouting. You don’t see me until you’ve passed the boundary, until you’re nearly at the door. You’re squinting amid the

harsh bright lights—a reminder that an airport never sleeps—and it’s a moment too many before the corner of your mouth lifts. “Why, hello,” you murmur. You study me as though looking for something. I raise my hand, can’t decide where to touch, put it down. Reaching to grip my elbow with the same firmness that you’re gripping your bag, you say, “Not yet. I haven’t showered in days, and I’m sore.” “Of course,” I say, as a something foreign passes through the exhaustion on your face. It’s lucky I didn’t bring the roses, I suppose—you don’t have an extra hand to carry them. It’s still dark when we ride the T in silence; our apartment is as dark as the world, so the transition inside doesn’t matter as much as it should. While you were gone and the bed cold, it was easier to come up with the words—there were so many words. You unlock the door. I go to the sink to wash my hands. Too many people, especially in that bustling airport. Too many tiny, possibly malicious things I cannot see. When I turn around, you haven’t moved from the doorway. I can’t see your face. I’m not sure you’re looking at me. “How was it?” I say, because that’s the kind of normal thing I’m sup-

posed to say. My hands are clean, they must be, but somehow my skin is still crawling. “Very good,” Your tone is that one takes when they cannot describe even the most monumental of moments to someone who wasn’t there. “There were a lot of cactuses. And sun.” You sigh. You must be exhausted. You turn to the shower while I climb into bed. Later, you’ll slide under the covers next to me, but your hands are tentative and the sheets still cold. I have always liked to think in equations—life is easier when you give it concrete form. People, the (best) ones I understand, are just variations of equations. You’re like that, calculatable, and over the last year I’ve memorized your constants. The paint under your fingernails, the crooked nose, the twitch of your feet as you fall asleep, the zigzag of moles on your back, the fleck of gold in your left eye. Your ten-minute, outthe-door morning routine. Which is why something squirms in my stomach when the 7 a.m. sunshine slanting through the window brightens not only the cramped room, but you. You’re standing as still as glass, staring out the window at the sun. I hum (do you remember I’m here) under my breath. You don’t move. “It’s beautiful, wouldn’t you say?” You’re reverent. I, who find beauty in the most tiny and intricate folding of proteins rather than the large and sound and fury, nod while I pull at a loose thread in the comforter. The sun’s been there all along, I want to say. Notice me. Instead: “It must not be like the desert, though.” You clear your throat. I still cannot see your face. “No. No, it doesn’t come close.” Somedays I straighten your

tie and you kiss my forehead, lopsided smile at my untidy hair. I roll towards the wall today, (sad) tired. You leave quietly, forget to touch me. You must still be thinking of the sun. I remember the first time I met you. I always remember. Obsessed with detail, you’d say—I prefer observant. “It’s the same thing,” you’ve said before, “but one’s the truth.” You love truth, though it’s abstract—that’s probably why. You (try to) capture it in your paintings. I think that the delicacy of a molecule, of zooming electrons, comes closer. You work in a tattoo shop (extra money for the starving artist—you’ve always appreciated a good cliché). I can’t remember deciding to get a tattoo. The needles and accompanying possibilities of infection—as numerous as the thick books of designs, the colors of available ink—would usually be enough to send me back to the comfort of the sidewalk, trying to control my breathing. I’m twenty-one years old, my last year of college, only a few days after the infamous Thanksgiving that left an un-crossable junction, like a lipid membrane to an unwanted macromolecule, between myself and my parents. Since they disapproved of my—major. We’ll both learn to pretend this is true. I’m too unsure. “I’m not going to give you something permanent if you haven’t made up your mind.” You’re bouncing a little on your heels, never still, in orbit. “I can give you something temporary, though.” There’s a marker in your hand and you’re grasping my arm, and all I can feel is tiny shivers while you scrawl out your phone number on my skin, your name. I go to the lab early, stay later with(out) realizing. I don’t know about the desert, but I do know how to synthesize polymers and organometallics

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with precise control over their structure. You’re already back when I return. You’re eager as you greet me, almost like before. You brandish your arm at me as I head to the sink (dirty) to scrub my wrists, my palms, my nails, to check for bruising. “Look what I found!” I dry my hands on a towel before inspecting your forearm. A few cactus spikes stick up from your tanned skin, invading the borders of the mole that looks like a map. Someplace far away, someplace you’re always heading towards, I used to mumble while I traced the pattern on your skin. Now I scrutinize the spikes. “I keep finding them, they’re everywhere!” You’re laughing while I search for tweezers. “Let me help you get them out, okay?” Your face falls for an instant in a way I do not understand. “It wouldn’t be good for you to-” “Yeah, I know, I guess you’re right.” You sit on the bed while I pull out each tiny spike, barely flinching. “Stop!” Sudden. You jerk your hand away, and I’m lost in your face. What do you want? “I’m good for now, all right?” I scrub at my hands, once, twice. It must have to do with control, I tell you once, as you watch until I squirm. You nod. “Frightening in that sometimes things we can’t see cause devastation, and sometimes they cause nothing. Or maybe there isn’t anything there. It’s the capability, the uncertainty, right?” “Most people laugh and ask why I’m working in a chemistry lab, with solvents and compounds with warning labels and synthesized molecules and—” “Because you’re in control of them there. You’re studying them,

because even though they scare you, they’re fascinating.” You are crystal violet dye in gram-positive bacteria, stuck to my very being, necessary and unable to be washed away. Beautiful. When I return, your back is to me while you cradle your wrist. One small (smug) cactus spine remains, within the map’s boundaries. In the beginning, you grasp my hand and pull me up and up and up, to the top of the tallest buildings in Boston. “Look!” You exclaim, hands flailing, and I do—but usually at you, even as you point out all the little details of what’s spread out before us. I like compartmentalized organization, like the organelles inside of a cell, and I’m reminded of them here. And then there’s the moon (lost, far away) on the first night you kiss me—my parents be damned—spreading pale light over the city, over my skin. You are still as you tell me of the year-long service project in Arizona, how the inspirations and the paintings will give you your show, the gallery. Your paintings are spread out on the scratched kitchen table, the carpet from the 70s, the Goodwill sofa. You stand with hands on hips, then crossed, then running through your hair as you study them. Talk to me, won’t you? You’re the only one who gets me out of shadow. “I can only pick five,” you say instead, though you might be talking to yourself. From time to time you rub in slow circles at your wrist, the needle. You forget to ask, but I think the paintings are (different) exquisite. I am a scientist, but I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty others find outside curiosity and her companion, discovery. You’ve done landscapes of the stretch of desert, the cactuses, a few silhouettes of the

The Equadorian Lady

Erin Zhan

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others in your program—but the sky stands out, all blues and purples and oranges and honey. And sun. “Here,” you say, handing me a piece of the night sky in a frame, the only thing keeping the paint from bleeding into reality. It’s the first time you’ve given me your art. It’s the first time you tell me you love me. There is no (envious) moon in these, this art from the desert. I go to the lab, come home, clean every room of the apartment while you disappear to the gallery. You’re tired but eager. I scrub until (one cracked knuckle bleeds) everything smells like lemon (clean). Still, control is slipping through my fingers—I’m losing—and careful, beautifully structured order is starting to collapse. I think of sitting cross-legged on the floor Sunday mornings, chin in hand, watching you paint. I remember marveling at how the sporadic brush strokes, the flecks of color, the smudges of oil would merge over time into a universe. Entropy: the degree of disorder or randomness in a system. This, this could be a system, and entropy is always increasing. I do not create universes; I study them. Though always a scientist, I do not care much for the increase to chaos. You’re still in your armchair, your side of the bed, but we’re orbiting around each other in a way we’ve shaken long ago. Where are you? How do I get you back? Your fingers itch for the paintings, for desert grit. You do not linger when you brush against my skin. Sometimes I can feel the spike protruding from your wrist, the pain. You don’t notice. I never thought I’d be comfort-

able enough to share my space with someone else—I, who paced back and forth outside my college professors’ doors before leaving, unable to go in for office hours. Interaction was dizzying and too intricate, like the folding of proteins, and I’d never found I had the necessary amino acids or skills to do it right, to properly function. It’s much easier to be quiet—and clean—alone. Yet here you are, having just lugged in my final box, and I feel fine. I run my hand through my hair and inspect my fingernails. Clean. You push your hair back, survey the small apartment. “It’s nice,” you say, taking my hand. “It’s good for us. For you.” “I want a tattoo,” I reply. “From you.” You don’t need to ask if I’m sure. Later: “I’m sorry,” I say as I tense. You snap your glove and back up, waiting for me. I pull my shirt up, expose the bottom of my ribcage. Your design is pinned to the wall over my head. I had decided that I didn’t want to know what it was going to be, and you had picked it out. I trust you, after all, and it is both terrifying and freeing. You move to turn on the music. It’s opera; you see my face and change the track to Queen. I tell you to put it back. You bend over me while I try to control my breathing. “They’re so powerful,” you say, “they fill a whole room with just their voices, just themselves.” Like a gas taking the shape of its container, filling it until the container can no longer hold it. The needle whirs, but I watch your face, lips pursed in concentration, eyes sure, brow furrowed. There is sharp pain, but it’s exhilarating; it dulls, fading while the opera crescendos to a climax, and then there is only you. It’s beautiful, the music, but it

doesn’t make sense. La Boheme; tuberculosis. “Nobody dying could have that kind of breath control,” I say, and you stare before grinning. “Still beautiful, though, huh? Not everything needs sense. Maybe that’s where the beauty comes from.” The opera sputters out to silence with your tools, and you peel off the ink stained gloves. I sit up straight, and I can feel you watching me as I bend to see it. It’s a Δ, like the kind in chemistry that means changing. Change in temperature, change in entropy—ΔT, ΔS. I suck in a breath. “You’re not who you used to be, or even who you will be,” you whisper, and I’m astonished by how much I love you. I cannot sleep; I slide off the bed without your notice and tiptoe to the kitchen. I think I’ll make some tea, but I don’t reach the kettle. The moon’s pale beam slices through the window, catching parts of your paintings in the glow while the rest are left in shadow. I stand there barefoot, soaking in the light from the orb. Cold, inconstant moon— but it is beautiful tonight. Why is it you don’t come to watch, to glorify the moon anymore? Perhaps, surrounded by so much inky darkness, it is lovelier than your wretched, fair sun. I wish you had never gone to the desert. The months apart had been tricky enough, but now—did you ever come back? A long time ago, someone (you) had set foot on the isolated moon—and oh, how it had trembled. But soft; I hear your shuffling footsteps behind me. “Jordan?” Your voice is thick with sleep. I have so much and so little to say.

“I was getting some tea,” I gesture towards the kitchen, still turned to the window. “Do you (would you, please) want some?” You stare at me, eyes half open and nose crinkling. “No.” It’s soft, it’s loud. We drank tea together our first night here, talked until 4 a.m. I thought I’d learned everything about you. All your resonance structures, buzzing, existing, and not existing all at one. You, humming to life. I love you, I want to say, but I don’t know if that will increase or decrease disorder, or which I’d prefer. “No, I’ll just go back to bed.” You turn away, and I see the little piece of cactus gleaming below your rolled-up pajama sleeve. I wash my hands before I make the tea, trembling. You hadn’t even glanced at the moon. As I turn out the light, my elbow hits an empty flower vase. Glass is strewn across the floor as it shatters, glints against the dim beam of light. “Can I paint you?” You say once, though you have never liked portraiture. “Not now—maybe someday.” I’m not clean, pristine enough. “Such beauty starved. I’ll get you yet.” You smile, and I can’t help but smile back. Newton’s third law. Your arms are around me. You don’t paint me, but we make love. Love, if that’s what we are— there’s a better word for it, maybe. And after, I feel like a HeLa cell, multiplying until infinity. Your art show is tonight; you’ve been pacing back and forth in the living room for a while now. Last night, you’d carefully taken the paintings you’ve chosen to the gallery to arrange them there. I’m not sure which ones you’ve picked— but they seem similar enough. I

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hadn’t helped you set up the exhibit. You hadn’t asked, but I was staying at the lab late, anyway. Someday I hope to be more than just a research assistant, but I had been happy enough for a while not to care. I find myself (too fair, too wise, wisely too fair) caring, now. apart?

How was it so easy for us to fall

I had never thought I was interesting enough for you, but you had always assured me that I was—so much so that perhaps even I had believed it. I did. Had it only taken the sun? One trip, that was all? I—I need a buffer, but it’s too late. We should talk, but I’m not good at talking, and you are good at being quiet when you want to be. What light is this? How it fades so fast. I blink as you walk back and forth, stuck in your own molasses thoughts, sure I can feel the entropy swelling around me. Your fingers hover around your wrist, the (beloved) pinprick. I rub at my tattoo, try to focus— like I’m looking for that vital moment in a titration where the acid lets go and becomes a base. I can’t see you anymore, but I love you, don’t you know? Will you love me? You take me to the planetarium, and we look at the stars. Stars are constant. Love is more variable. We (you go, and I go) to the gallery. You get swallowed up by the people and the murmur of Tchaikovsky; you grab my hand and the spine pricks my wrist as you tell me you’ll find me after. I nod. I should wash my hands. Can you feel what’s happening? You must. Where do we go from here? Is it a desert? There are too many people, but your art is breathtaking. It’s as if you’ve found a new spirit that’s invigorated

your brushstrokes, the color, your vision. The sun. It makes me sick to look at, like a beautiful cancer multiplying and multiplying. Too much life, growth, is dangerous. I fall back to the edge of the crowd, away, and no one takes notice. Disorder dissipates slightly, like water molecules ordered around something hydrophobic. I can feel tears welling up, and isn’t it nice that we cry the same tears when we’re happy as we do when we’re sad? They must not be so different, after all—just water, lipids, glucose, sodium, lacritin, and a slew of other things I can’t be bothered to remember. All together; tangible. I can still feel the cactus and the sting of the tattoo and the warmth (cold) of the moon as I turn away. Perhaps I can do better, too. My feet whisper against polished floor. There’s a side room that isn’t being used tonight; it could almost be that first tattoo parlor, or it could be nothing. Permanence, melting. It’s the uncertainty, you had said once, the capability of complete destruction or a miracle cure or just nothing, and that’s what scared me. Nobody ever talks about the Rosalines in life, but they still look at the moon, when they remember. Or the stars. I defy the stars. You leave for the desert with a wave and an eagerness as you clutch your father’s bag and opportunity. I stand at the security boundary until I can’t see you anymore, think of how happy I’ll be when you return. I’ll just have to keep waiting. Inertia, I suppose, the tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged, just as I am. Do I believe in it?

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GANGSTERS Yuzhe You

BPLM 2019 ISSUE 8

Contemplation Yuzhe You

Becoming a Pathology or Who is the Madman Christian Bayley

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RAIN DANCE Each time he drenched me with gasoline, I didn’t notice the stench. This time, the putrid smell turns my insides. Born from the blaze, he sends flames to lick my cheeks.

Sarah K O’ Donnell

Embers become wildfire that crackles so loud I forget my own name. Oh god Oh god Oh god There’s a ringing that pierces through the roaring flames. Smoke twirls everywhere, billowing clouds of denial close in on my throat. I need to escape. I beg my feet to move. Please. My legs twitch. The mugginess of the air becomes increasingly tangible. Keep going. The sky begins to drip like a leaky faucet. Awkward acrobatics become graceful glides and primitive footwork becomes precise. Rain starts to pour, and the earth gulps it up like she has been thirsty forever. A boom of thunder shakes an unsettling rumble across the sky, jolting me forward.

VAMPY Vellia Zhou

Not final (vampy)

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WOMAN

Natasha Vatalro Break your fingernails against the concrete Until the dirt between cracks is seeped through with the blood of your cuticles You’ll break your mother’s back, they chide, Not acknowledging they had done it themselves long ago. Paint war stripes across your face and call it beauty Ladies are gentle, they will try to scold Show them the fury in your eyes, Grab a knife from the kitchen, And go to war. Drink the stars’ indifference And let it smolder in you, Turning your lungs into bellows that stoke the forges of your rage; Root your feet into the magma deep beneath the surface of the earth, Birth volcanoes with each shift of your toes, And erupt passion; Become the battering ram That will split this world apart and expose its churning core.

HUNTED

Katherine Qiao I'm being hunted. Shoot for the legs, thighs, knees. Bullets invisible and untraceable, no one believes me if I cry help to policies and people and parties and police (read: bureaucracies) that don't understand un-seeable evidence. My wounds are bloodless, they're under my heart, under my conscious, under my warmth. My wounds are those that'll break open fresh if you come too close. Hug me and the motion stabs me with pain.

Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic - it's not a big deal. Yes it is, can't you see me dead on the edge of the well-worn sidewalk? Re[a]d between the lines, between the legs. He fired the pistol straight dead center where every person born to be a criminal - perpetrator - knows it'll hurt most. Kill, destroy my unborn babies so that they can't be born, don't want to be born, couldn't be born even if they tried. Because their Mama doesn't want them. Babies can't be born if their Mama is dead anyways. Don't touch my knees, don’t touch my chest, don’t touch me. You are poison - don't infect me. You're mentally unsound, you're sick, don’t make it contagious. My mind is drowning when I’m with you and I can’t breathe, please, let me go.

Make them realize God was never a man. Mercy, they will cry, prayers on their lips— Prayers to you, at last— Tell them, This is mercy. And forge a new world With the used steel of the old.

Come to church with me, you say. You mock, kick my body sideways, nurture steadily festering poison underneath my body's blood, into the cathedral where you'll bury me alive, and I'll never be found again. I see red between your words that say:

“Girls deserve to be raped." You mean me?

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DAFFODILS Annie Ning

By the look of the sun and the sound of the birds, it must be about nine in the morning. The last drops of dew are still lingering on the grass, and the air feels like it’s holding its breath. A lone man stands so still next to his brother in the middle of the freshly mowed green that the rowdy sparrows look tempted to build a nest on his shoulders. Finally, he moves, shifting his weight around his feet a couple times and swallowing the mass of saliva and anxiety that had been building up in the back of his mouth. “Hey,” he says. The birds stop chirping, or at the least, he stops hearing them. “I haven’t seen you in years, man.” He takes his brother’s silence as a cue to keep talking. “I heard you had a grand party last month, even invited Aunt Mary. And Aunt Mary hates family gatherings. I guess it would’ve been rude of her if she didn’t attend this time, I guess.” The talkative man chuckles. “Sorry I couldn’t go. I was in Budapest on assignment when I heard the news, and by that time I figured I’d rather drop you a visit on my own accord and not on Mom’s. So here I am, look! I even bought flowers. And I never buy anyone flowers. The florist told me white lilies would be best, but I thought some daffodils would be nicer. I mean, who likes colorless flowers? Tasteless, don’t you think?” Silence. “Thought so. You were always the quiet type. Remember that time you stole my favorite action figure from me and when I told Mom and she asked you about it you just said nothing so she believed you were innocent? I never got that back, you know. Mom’s probably already cleaned out your old room by now, huh. Maybe she managed to dig it out of the closet. That’d prove you guilty for sure.” The man pauses, thinking. He takes a long, deep breath, a wistful smile appearing on his face. “Do you like the daffodils?” he asks his mute friend. “The florist said that they’re supposed to represent fresh starts. Renewal. I thought it’d make for a good irony. Though to be completely honest, I don’t care about all that meaningless bullshit. I just didn’t want to get you lilies. After all, it’s not like you’re―” He stops abruptly, as if he’s run out of breath. After the sudden, fleeting silence, he sighs, turning his head up to the endless blue sky, only interrupted by half-transparent clouds shaped like the wispy tails of torn cotton balls. He continues, a little quieter than before. “I was so caught up with work that I almost forgot I missed you. And mom and dad. And this goddamn town that smells like coffee until one in the afternoon and beer until one in the morning. I always told myself I was going to come back to visit, and then just pushed it further down the calendar every single time. Half-assed, right? Now I’m going to have to

wait another lifetime to see you, like for real. I just wanted to talk, you know, kind of have a heart to heart. We could’ve taken a day to catch up with our lives―had a couple good laughs and gone out for drinks afterwards if your wife let you. I could’ve told you all the stories behind those postcards I’ve been sending―trust me, there’s a good one behind each of them. The other day, your wife told me you had kept all of them in a drawer because your son―how old is he now, eight?― loved to see them. And, wait, by now your daughter must be at least thirteen, right? You’re going to have to watch out if the boys start to come crawling, haha. I guess I wouldn’t know, though. I don’t have a family to call my own. Mom and Dad are getting older, and I’m just standing here alone, holding a bunch of dumb flowers, talking to―talking to a―,” his voice cracked mid sentence. “Nevermind. This is the best I can do for now.” He stops his chatter, hesitant about what to say next. He’s sure the silence must’ve lasted for a whole day, but when he glances back up at the old yew tree watching from across the green, it’s still staring at him with the same pity it had when he came. “I want,” the man starts, speaking barely above a whisper, “to tell you everything I’ve done since we last saw each other. But what I want even more―” He can sense a choking feeling welling up at the back of his throat, like he’s being strangled by his own voice. “―I want you to tell me everything you’ve done since then too. I don’t want it to be like this―a guy standing alone talking nonsense to a slab of rock with his brother’s name etched on it. I...” By now, he’s not sure if he’s crying or if his vision is just refusing to focus. “...I just want to see you. But I can’t because you’re six feet underground, and my head’s still stuck in the clouds. The next time we meet...well don’t be surprised if I’m a shriveled old man by then. I’ll make sure to have more than enough good tales to tell you, so you better make sure you don’t forget any on your end either.” He knows for sure he’s crying now. “I’m definitely going to see you again,” he says to the tombstone that refuses to talk back. “It might take a while, but if you’re not too impatient, please wait for me.” The lonely man looks down at the bouquet of tearstained yellow flowers in his hands. “There’s just so much more I want to say.” He stays quiet for a bit, messily wiping at his tears with his sleeve every once in a while. Slowly, the sound of the chattering birds filters back into his ears. “Hey,” he says a couple eternities later, so softly that the talkative robins regard it as silence altogether.

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INTERSTELLAR

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Naitian Zhou

“Things have changed so much since you left!” You smile, unsure how to feel, what to think. You see, time doesn’t stop when you go away. People grow up, people grow old. Health decays, and black turns to gray.

T-3, 2, 1 Launch. And you feel the force of a thousand tons Of rocket fuel and dreams Push you into the stars, towards the sun. So fast that you forget to look back And see the world quickly shrinking behind you.

Meanwhile, you know Though this mission is done, The journey has only just begun. And while you can stay for a couple of months, Soon, you’ll be strapping in again Flying into the stars, towards the sun.

At T+32 days, you step onto a foreign land Onto a distant world. It’s intimidating, barren, nothing but sand. Solitude strikes. But there’s no time to think. Just follow the plan. Get the samples and set up camp. But when you finally catch your breath, You think about the world you left behind. A faint dot in a sea of stars. T+2 years, 8 months, 14 days. You keep in touch with your family, your friends Who talk to you from millions of miles away. They ask you what it’s like, in the new world, the future? You think long and hard, then avoid their gaze. It’s hard work, but worth it, you say. You think about how long you’ve stayed. And start counting down the days Until you can go home again. T+4 years, 3 months. The orbits align. You strap yourself in. T-11… 10… 9… Again, you’re pressed against your seat. Heart in a race against your mind. Chest pounding with the force of a thousand tons Of rocket fuel and missed memories. It’s time to go home. T+4 years, 4 months. The chutes deploy. Splash! And you’re back. You emerge tired but grinning with joy. It’s good to be home.

It’s crazy how two countries Separated by an ocean Can so often feel like two worlds A universe apart.

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BLACK HOLE Shonda Adams

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IMPACT

Davanna White

DISCLAIMER: All the content of this release has been translated into a narrative from the audio and video recordings of Melany Maxwell, crew member of the starship Pioneer IV. Taken from an announcement by the Galactic Embassy, the mission of the Pioneer IV project is as follows: 1. Successfully complete the longest interstellar travel of a manned spaceship in the history of humanity. 2. Confirm the surface probe results on Ashima, which indicate that the earth-like planet has an atmosphere which would permit humans to breathe comfortably. 3. Based on their last known location, locate the surface probes that the Galactic Embassy has lost contact with. Collect additional samples and bring them back to Earth. -- One year—that’s how long it’d take to get to Ashima. It terms of space travel it isn’t that long, but when it only takes a month to travel from Earth to the most distant colonized planet, one year sounds like eons. This trip will be Melany’s first time away from Earth, away from the warmth of its sun—away from her father, her family. The launch happens tomorrow, and the realization

that twenty-four hours from now there’d only be a thin metal wall between her and the vacuum of outer space had finally surfaced. “Melany?” her father’s voice breaks her train of thought. His hands, dotted with liver spots, hold a cup of tea as wisps of steam rise from it. He looks much older than she does, small bags under his eyes and permanent wrinkles stretching across his forehead. The Florida sun is almost low enough that the steam is barely visible, but rays still peak over the line of palm trees to the west. Even for February, today is cold. The fleeting sun makes her skin look porcelain, while her father’s shines a tanned olive. “Yes?” Melany asks. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and she’s still focused on the tea. She raises her eyes to meet her father’s behind his thick-framed glasses. “Getting cold feet?” He smiles half-heartedly and lifts his cup to blow on the tea. His glasses slip down his nose as he blows. The small bags under his eyes are more visible, too. A breeze ruffles up his graying hair and a strand of Melany’s into her eyes. She uncrosses her arms to brush it away. “No.” her lips form into a line, “This has to be one of the most import-

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ant missions the Galactic Embassy will do. The farthest interstellar travel, an entirely new habitable planet, and the potential for new resources? I should be happy to go. I am, I think. But I’m also—” “Nervous.” “Yes, I think that’s it.” She nods, puts her elbow on the table, and rests her chin in the palm of her hand. Her father leans back in his chair and looks across the patio to the screen door of the house. “You’ve got every right to be a little nervous. You’ve been training for months, though. You’ve got a good crew, and you’re a damn good biologist, if I do say so myself.” At this, Melany smiles. “Thank you, Dad.” “Anytime, my love. Your mother’s proud, too.” Her father rises from his chair and collects the cup. “She can’t be there tomorrow, can she?” Melany frowns. “I’m afraid not. She’s not feeling well, and they don’t want to risk an off-site.” Shady Grove Senior Care isn’t liberal when it comes to activities off-campus, especially with memory-loss patients. It’d been a few years since Melany’s mother’s admission; they tried to tell her Melany was going on this mission, but her memory was too poor to retain the information. “Bullshit, I know. But she’ll be with you in spirit—you know that.” He heads for the door now. At least his posture hasn’t faltered, Melany thinks as he walks.

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“Right.” Melany stands, pushing her chair in and following suit. “How about we watch a movie? Take your mind off things. You’ve got a big day tomorrow!” “Yes, I’d like that.” -- The invention of gravity control makes the trip more bearable. Melany had seen clips of the first space flights and heard of the dehydrated food astronauts used to eat—she’s thankful they can gather around the table in the main bay. The food’s still freeze-dried, but she doesn’t have to worry about her plate floating away. Since the entirety of the ship is to serve as their base of operations after landing on Ashima, the bay’s designed like a kitchen and dining room combination. In the center of the room stands the table, where Melany and the other three crew members sit on cylindrical, metal stools. To the left and right are doors that lead to the mechanical room and bedrooms. Behind Melany is a small countertop, white like many surfaces of the ship, with a large cupboard against the wall. In front of Will Goodman, the designated captain of the mission, sits a bowl of rehydrated ramen. Loudly he slurps the noodles dangling from his chopsticks. The dark hairs of his beard near his mouth are wet. “How many days do we have left again?” Will asks between bites. He’s taken to more casual attire—a more common practice since the invention of gravity control. There are stains

on his red tee shirt. “One.” Charlet, the other biologist on the ship, answers. She looks up from her tablet and the probe data on the screen. “Did you lose track of time between episodes of Star Trek?” A smile flashes across her face before disappearing. Will leans back and crosses his arms over his wide chest. “Aside from going over the probe data for the seven-millionth time, there’s not that much to do to pass the time.” he retorts. The table’s quiet for a moment before Will speaks again. “How’s the ship holding up, Marcus?” All eyes move to the seat across from Melany. Marcus’s arms are crossed over his chest, but his left hand is too high— close to his shoulder. His hair’s sparse and blond, and the pale skin of his scalp is visible from most angles. The synthetic skin and bone structure look all too real. The words Pioneer IV are embroidered into his black quarter-zip. “All systems seem to be in check.” He says. He scans the table before settling his eyes on Will. “Our efficiency measurements are not as high as we anticipated, but it does not seem to be affecting the overall operation.” Marcus’s speech sounds stilted to Melany. “As bad as the time we fried the gravity control in sim?” Melany asks. Her head rests in her hand, elbow on the table. The blue shirt she’s wearing droops slightly off her shoulder. Frowning, Marcus looks to her now. “You mean the time you fried

the gravity control. No, not nearly as bad as that. It’s more the equivalent of you passing out from exhaustion during anti-gravity training. You do remember that, don’t you?” Marcus’s frown turns into a smirk. Out of the corner of her vision, Melany swears she can see Charlet’s eyes roll. “Yeah, I do.” Melany’s eyes focus on Marcus, and she raises her eyebrows. “My memory isn’t poor just because I’m human.” Marcus’s smirk lingers. He nods slightly. “Does the fact that I am an android bother you, Melany? It is quite late for that sentiment.” Will leans forward in his chair, and Charlet clears her throat. One or both are about to speak when Marcus says, “Now, if you will excuse me.” He points to the small blinking red light two-thirds up the wall behind Melany. “It looks like I have something to fix.” -- “What does Marcus have against me?” Melany stands in the doorway to Charlet’s quarters. Charlet’s sitting at her desk, once again pouring over her tablet. Her brown curls are pulled up into a high ponytail to keep the hair out of her face. Tacked to the board next to her desk are two photographs—one of Charlet and her younger sister, and one of their childhood home back on Earth. Charlet doesn’t look up from the screen. “We’ve been confined to this ship for too long.” Charlet says. “You ever taken a flight to the colonies?”

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Melany shakes her head. When Charlet doesn’t answer, she repeats her response. “No.” she says. “Sometimes people can’t handle it—knowing that they’re inches away from death in the vacuum of space. Some people just don’t like being around others and, unless you’re travelling high-end, you don’t exactly have much space to yourself on a transport ship. The four of us have been together for a while now, longer than any other group. There’s bound to be some tension.” Charlet raises her head. Her eyes are blue. “But it’s just me, I feel like. And Marcus is an android, anyway.” Melany steps into the room, taking a seat on Charlet’s bed in front of her desk, further away from the window. “His feelings are so strong, for an android, I mean. Or at least, they appear that way to me.” “Well, that was the purpose of his project, you know.” Charlet glances out the window, but there’s nothing to see but the black expanse of space. “Android technology’s been trying to advance the artificial neural network and emotion detection framework for years.” “So, Marcus feels? Almost like you and me?” Charlet’s quiet for a few moments. Melany notices that Charlet and her sister have the same eyes and the same smile. Melany wonders what her father’s doing now back on Earth, and

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if her mother has any idea where her daughter is. “Sort of,” Charlet answers finally. “Marcus doesn’t react to things the way humans do, sometimes. Emotions are complex to understand and even harder to program. Or so I hear, anyway. That’s not my area of expertise.” Charlet rubs the back of her neck with her hand. “We’ve gotten to the point that sometimes you can forget androids aren’t human.” “Until we all suffocate to death on Ashima if the probe results are in error, and Marcus has to pilot home an empty ship,” Melany says. “Right, until then.” Charlet feigns a smile. The room falls quiet again. “Your sister looks anorexic in this photograph.” Melany observes, pointing to the photo. Charlet’s face flushes red and, shoulders tensing, she shifts in her seat. “Rebecca has ovarian cancer. This mission’s supposed to pay for her treatment.” Charlet’s words are soft. “I’m sorry.” Melany pictures a cell dividing and dividing until it fills the room, fills the ship, and filters out into the blackness of space before shriveling up and dying. She thinks of hospital rooms and hears the heart monitor. The heart rate goes flat, and Melany hears the drawn-out noise of the heart monitor she’s seen only heard in medical dramas. She can see a person crying. Melany’s left eye twitches once. “It’s okay,” Charlet says, wring-

ing her hands. “Why don’t you go see what Will is doing, Melany?” Melany understands this isn’t a question. -- The cockpit of the Pioneer IV is designed for practicality, sparsely large enough for two chairs. Buttons, levers, switches, and dials line the front of the room just below the thick windows. In the distance, the size of a dinner plate, Melany can make out the green-andyellow shape that’s most certainly Ashima. “Will?” The chair on the left spins around. “Hey, Mel. What’s up?” He runs a hand through his hair before gesturing to the other chair. Melany glances at the chair, but stays standing. “Charlet wanted me to make sure you’re not watching Star Trek again. Just because we’re so close to Ashima.” A chuckle escapes Will’s throat. “No, Mel. We’ve got bigger problems than that.” He points to a screen on the dashboard. Autopilot system failure, landing system failure, gravitational pull detected, it reads. “We didn’t decelerate fast enough. We got sucked into Ashima’s gravity too fast, Mel. We’re spiraling towards the planet, and somebody’s gonna have to land this baby.” Will smiles wryly. “Will.” Melany frowns. “How long have you known about this?” Will was right—this issue was not a minor one. She feels panic begin to set in. “Why haven’t you told the others? Did

you tell Marcus? He can fix it, right?” Melany blinks and watches Will stare out the window. “I asked him about it, and he checked the systems. There’s nothing we can do. We’ve lost control of most systems, and, since the landing system is down, there’s no way we can access extra fuel to try and slow our speed anyways.” Will’s smile stretches wider across his face. He looks like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, Melany thinks, with much the same delusional look. Charlet told her once, in hushed tones, that Will barely passed the psych evaluation for this mission. His last crew panicked in a situation like this and got themselves killed. Melany’s heart beat faster. “We’re going down swinging, so I might as well steer Pioneer the right way.” Will says. “You’re not thinking of piloting this thing. Have Marcus do it, he’s an android. He’s got a better chance of survival, right?” The skin under Melany’s hair tingles and itches. It’s almost burning. “You can’t do it, Will. You can’t. You have to tell Charlet about this.” “We need Marcus.” Will turns to her again, serious this time. “The cockpit’s the area of the ship with the lowest chance of survival, and if this ship can be salvaged, or the planet really isn’t habitable, we need someone to drive home.” Melany’s body feels immobile, paralyzed. “I need you to tell Marcus. I

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need you to tell Marcus and Charlet that when it’s time, you all must go to the rear airlock and buckle in.” There’s no use in arguing or trying to persuade Will, Melany knows. Not now. Will’s the captain, and, as far as the crew’s concerned, his word is law in such situations. Charlet will have an idea when Melany tells her, she knows. Melany nods but, as she’s turning to leave, she collapses to the floor. -- Melany wakes on a bed in what serves as the Pioneer’s medical bay—an extension of the biology lab. It takes her a moment to adjust to the intense light from the fluorescents, but her head no longer feels ablaze. “Good morning.” Marcus’s voice comes from somewhere straight ahead. Melany squints and finds him standing in front of her. “Lights too bright?” He reaches to his left and switches one of the four overhead lights off. She watches him sit down and cross his arms over his chest. She feels a pinching sensation on the side of her neck—a struck nerve from when she fell, Melany guesses. “What happened?” she asks. Her voice is barely audible and raspy. Marcus is smirking again. “Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘compassion fatigue?’” he asks. Melany nods slightly. “Androids get that too. Only theirs is more of a processing issue.” Melany blinks and furrows her brow. She wants to speak, but it hurts too much. “Scientists still have not figured it out. My creators certainly did

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not, anyway. It’s difficult to program an artificial brain when you do not understand your own.” Melany stares at him. Why is Marcus telling her this? “The circuitry in the cranium overheats. Since we are constructed like humans, the entire body is affected. Black-outs are a common result.” Melany shifts slightly in her bed, wincing. “But I’m not an android,” she manages. From Marcus’s mouth comes a laugh, the laugh of someone with a cold or other ailment. The laugh of someone who doesn’t quite know how to laugh. It sounds scratchy. “That is the problem with you. You are blind, and you are wired that way,” Marcus says. Marcus lifts himself from his chair and draws a small utility knife from his pocket. Melany can feel something in her chest tensing as Marcus approaches her. “They thought it was a better idea for you not to know. The knowledge would distort the learning process, they said.” Marcus presses the knife to his arm, just below the wrist, to form a slit. Using his fingers, he pries the wound open, revealing circuitry underneath the fabricated skin. “Have you ever seen your own blood?” he asks. Melany racks her brain for a memory, but the pangs in her head begin again. Marcus reaches for her arm, and when Melany tries to move it away, he grips her by the wrist. Melany squirms, but her strength is meager, and the knife finds its way to the surface of her skin. As the blade sinks down into her, there is no blood.

Like his own wound, Marcus rips Melany’s wound open. Underneath lies the same circuitry. Melany’s head pounds. “N-no,” Melany’s voice falters. “I’m human. I am a human.” This time when she looks at Marcus, he is straight-faced. He still grips her arm. “You are me! Me, but better!” Marcus’s voice regains the scratchy quality. It sounds almost like the noise old satellite televisions would make, had she heard one somewhere other than old shows. “We were made by the same people, you know. I was abandoned. Cast aside for you.” He flings Melany’s arm down and picks up the tablet on the table next to her. “You think you eat, you think you are better than me. I have listened to enough. I have had enough.” He taps at the screen before flipping it around to her. Melany remains still, eyes flitting from Marcus to the screen. She watches herself in the main bay, lifting an empty spoon out of an empty bowl and sticking it into her mouth. She watches herself chew, swallow nothing, and return the spoon to the bowl. Melany feels as if she’s being stabbed in the temples. “You have existed too long without knowing yourself, Melany. The others thought it would be better this way. They took pity on you. You were never supposed to know. Your father never wanted you to know.” Marcus’s dull gray eyes find hers. Melany recalls Charlet wincing at the thought of her sister’s cancer and Will’s acceptance of his impending death. They really

thought it would be better this way? Melany’s chest tightens again, some function of whatever artificial mechanism she possesses, in what she believes are the repercussions of the sense of betrayal. Marcus continues to stare, as if in anticipation. She reaches for the tablet in his hands and presses the button to communicate with the cockpit. “If I am an android too, then I will land the ship,” Melany tells Will. She doesn’t wait for his response. “I will sacrifice myself for the rest of the crew. I don’t want to live.” -- The cockpit is silent. A dozen lights blink on and off in the dimly lit room. All of the power has been wired to support the manual steering of the ship. Melany’s last contact with the rest of the crew was ten minutes ago. They should be reaching the planet’s atmosphere soon. Melany thinks of her parents and their beach home on the Florida coast. Were they volunteers or the creators Marcus had been speaking of? In any case, why didn’t they tell her? Her hands grip the steering wheel, knuckles turning white. If they were volunteers, were they getting paid? Did they enjoy their job? Did they love her? The thoughts swirl in her head like a typhoon. And then there’s the crew. With her for over a year now, and they had kept their pact not to tell. Why is she sacrificing herself for them? Her hands

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slide from the controls. She still has a few minutes. Melany lifts her arm to examine the cut in her arm. She holds it open with two fingers, admiring the tangled network of wires that must serve as nerves and the metal rod that serves as her arm underneath. She thinks she wants to cry, but androids are not programmed with tears. Her memories, if one could call them that, are a jumbled mess of fact and fiction. How many more videos are out there like the one Marcus showed her? Do other people, outside the mission, know her truth? Why did Marcus have to tell her? “You ready, Mel?” Will’s voice breaks over the communication system. His voice sounds cautious. Melany places her hands on the steering controls again. “Of course.” She responds. “What do I have left to lose?’ “Mel—“ Charlet tries to get a word in, but Melany reaches over to shut off the communication channel. The words of liars, the words of humans, meant nothing to her now. The ship begins to shake as Pioneer IV enters the atmosphere of Ashima. -- Marcus lifts a sheet of metal, a remnant of the ship, from his body and glances over at the escape pod. His shoulder joints don’t sound right— there’s an abnormal scraping sound when he moves. The rest of the crew is likely unconscious due to the impact, but they should be alive. The two hu-

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man passengers, at least. Marcus sighs, but his sigh sounds more like a wheeze. He attempts to stand, but his legs too have been damaged in the crash. Nonresponsive, they will not move. Marcus associates this feeling with the human equivalent of paralysis. He takes another look around. The location they’ve landed is one of the planet’s deserts. Fortunate, Marcus thinks, because, if they had landed in one of the thick jungles, they surely would’ve set it ablaze. Marcus turns his head in search of Pioneer, but cannot see it anywhere. Instead, he is faced with the open, unblinking eyes of Melany Maxwell. He crawls towards her, using his forearms to drag himself inch-by-inch over heaps of twisted metal. Some of the fingers on his hand are bent backwards, and he’s unable to move them. When he reaches Melany’s crumpled, unmoving body, he lifts his arm up and pulls a strand of charred black hair from her unblinking eyes. He lifts her body up and slides an arm underneath her, clasping his hands together in a ring. He looks at her face again—synthetic skin burnt and peeled away to reveal wiring and a metal frame. Marcus frowns. The underlying artificial muscle structure of his face is twitching, an indication of system failure. Before he, too, becomes a broken ragdoll in the empty deserts of the unexplored planet, Marcus speaks. “I did not think you would be so human as to die like one.”

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(JUST LIKE)

Abigail Provenzano

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STARTING OVER

The shot heard round the world was perhaps softer than imagined, and if the revolution never got its bearing, never followed, what then?

beside her again when she turns it to ABC, when

December 8, 1980. It’s nearly midnight and the father has fallen asleep, his palm stretched out on the mother’s stomach as if to comfort the seed growing there. She’s dozing while the city lights from outside form shifting patterns on the bedroom wall. The rising and falling harmonies of Double Fantasy that have filled the apartment since its release nearly one month ago are muted, patient until morning. She’s half dreaming of the moment she’d given him the pacifier, the moment everything became clearer and lovelier under his slow-spreading smile.

Something cold clenches in the mother’s stomach, a pain that has nothing to do with morning sickness. “What?” she says, staring at the Double Fantasy album tucked snugly on the top of one stack of records that decorates the sparse room. “What?”

The phone rings, shrill in the lazy silence. The father mumbles sleepily. “Ignore it,” whispers the mother, hands over her stomach, even as he’s already rolling out of bed. He kisses her cheek (kiss kiss kiss) and his nose bumps her ear while she pulls at her covers. The phone encourages his sluggish journey to the kitchen. Quiet descends again as he picks it up, and she’s nearly slipped back into sleep when he’s suddenly yelling, a reserved volume. The mother’s untangling her legs from the sheets while he repeats, “Turn on the news! Turn on the news!” The news? She’s blinking too much and trying to coordinate her fingers and the remote. He’s standing

“John Lennon of The Beatles was shot outside his New York home.”

“This is bullshit,” The father’s fingers are tangling in her hair. “Who would, why would anybody—” They stand in the dark, faces half in shadow, half lit by the glow of the T.V. Some man named Chapman. A stranger. Wanted to be famous. He’d asked John to sign an autograph, his new album. Came back later and shot John outside the Dakota Apartments. Five shots, four hits. Dead on arrival. No one could do anything to save him. More news to come. The mother doesn’t realize she’s crying until she tries to speak. “Bullshit,” she agrees. Her head is spinning; she’s suddenly filled with such rage and a surge of protectiveness for this man, the beautiful John Lennon, whom she’s only known through a crackling voice on an album. Song after song, calling for love and peace; a voice that suddenly no longer exists. There was never much of a chance she’d run into him on the city streets, but now it’s a definite zero. Dead. Dead. Where is he? Can he still sing? Can he see without his glasses?

Is he scared? Breathing heavily, the father’s clumsy fingers fiddle with her hair. The news moves on as if life’s just the same, as if it can go back to the way it was, but the two of them don’t, can’t, move. The mother thinks that it’s a strange, numbing thing, mourning someone you never knew. But this man, John, had been—is—such an integral part of their lives. They’d grown up with The Beatles. If she’d known she was listening to John’s last new album, how she would’ve savored it. “What should we do?” The father whispers. A shrug. He’s crouching and sifting through albums until he finds what he’s looking for, and “All You Need is Love” reverberates through the gloom. They don’t dance, as they had when they’d first found out she was pregnant, his hands at her waist and her head on his chest. They hold hands and pretend to understand.

December 15, 1980. The mother goes back to waitressing at the café, to dawdling outside stores of tiny baby clothes, to comparing cans of pureed vegetables at the market—she doesn’t feel she has to hurry. She finds it hard to trust, to feel, New York City. The days trudge on. There’s someone dark coming closer in her dreams, wrapped in black. Yoko Ono, stooping and reaching for her Kennedy’s ear. Baby Sean joins her sometimes, waiting—a growing seed, waiting to bloom—for a father that will never come. The mother knows in some ways her feelings don’t make sense. John’s been reduced to a voice on an album, but isn’t that all he’s ever been to her? Why then has everything changed? She can’t believe the murder—

such an ugly word—happened here, in her city. Mostly she can’t believe the bustle continues—the taxis still honk and the man at the corner still sells flowers. The father brings her flowers every day after work, as he always has. Who is bringing Yoko (dear Yoko) flowers? The mother wants to shout for everyone to stop since the man who imagined it all is gone, but the people continue to pass, oblivious. It’s been a cold transition to December, and snow begins to fall. The father whispers her name while she lies awake in the dark. He is asking her a question, but she doesn’t hear. Her stomach clenches as she thinks of the picture clipped out of a magazine of John (beautiful boy) standing next to his psychedelic Rolls Royce, happy and carefree. She’d dreamed of that car for months. She supposes she’s always been fascinated with things she can’t have. Mid-December, and Christmas carolers are stretching their backs and emerging from caves of hibernation. The Plastic Ono Band is nowhere to be found. How could someone be so hateful to have done such a thing? The mother strokes her stomach in the dark. Or maybe, how could God be so hateful to let this happen? Maybe John’s murder was retaliation for the infamous “We’re better than Jesus” comments, or the imagined world without a Heaven that was perhaps lovelier than theirs. Maybe He, too, thought there was too much Yoko overshadowing the new album, that it was boring. damn.

Maybe He just doesn’t give a

She imagines John Lennon, all in white, leading the group down Abbey Road and all the way to New York City.

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December 22, 1980. Everything moves forward towards Christmas and joy. The mother walks with gaudy lights and merriment and tipsy travelers and finds herself looking for glimpses of black. It’s scary how easy things are to forget, she supposes. Maybe not entirely, though; Double Fantasy sales have skyrocketed, the album’s #1, even though the mother and father’s copy still sits quietly on top of one reverent album stack. They decorated the Christmas tree last night, Bing Crosby crooning among the soft lights. She hasn’t played The Beatles since that night. There’s stray tinsel their cat, Harrison, likes to pull off the tree strewn across the carpet. The mother is sipping hot chocolate, wearing the father’s white turtleneck that reaches to her knees, flipping through Cosmopolitan while meatloaf browns in the oven. The father isn’t home yet; the office has been uncharacteristically busy. Some big boom in life insurance clientele or something. A few snowflakes cling to the window; the wind whistles against the window frame. The phone rings, shrill against Nat King Cole’s soothing voice. As the mother stands up to answer it, something lurches. Pain flares in her stomach, white hot as it radiates deep into her body. She doubles over, dropping the magazine. She stumbles to the bathroom; drops of blood are on the cracked tile, but also running onto the pristine white of the turtleneck. Shot four times in the back. The mother’s on the toilet, hands pressed hard against her knees, head down to peer between her legs. Something’s wrong—there’s too much blood, thick and dark scarlet against the porcelain, and there are bigger, rubbery pieces too. She sees for an instant John on his knees, then gone. Her stomach is clenching and clenching and everything’s leaking out and oh God

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she can’t stop it, she can only watch, and she can’t think straight enough to figure out what to do or what is happening and her hands are sticky and she can hear the ping of the rogue bullet that didn’t hit anything somewhere in the back of her mind and everything’s spinning off of the correct axis (watching the wheels) spinning and spinning and spinning and A shout. The father’s out of breath and more panicked than she’s ever seen him. The flowers he’s brought are scattered across the tile, fragile bloodied petals crushed. She can’t think of anything (I’m losing you) to say. It doesn’t seem to matter; the father’s kneeling in front of the mother, and all she can think is that it’s such a shame that he’s ruining his dress pants with her blood. She feels the absurd need to be reassuring; his face is wan, practically white, as if someone has died. The dark figure is near, so near that she can almost reach—she can almost ask— It doesn’t take long for a doctor to see them. A dispassionate exam, cold gloves camouflaging any warmth the winter hasn’t sapped from his hands. He draws blood and does scans and runs tests and then he leaves the couple alone. The father slides the mother onto his lap. She feels somehow broken. They’ve washed the blood away, and a thin hospital gown replaces her stained turtleneck sweater. He usually takes her lead on conversations, so silence settles in the room like the barely sticking snow outside. He decides to braid her hair; time drags on, so he’s able to practice one of his favorites, two intricate French braids. She must look like a fairytale queen when the doctor comes back to tell them their baby’s dead. The doctor’s office is cramped and too small. Dead on arrival. All the

woman—is she a mother anymore? She doesn’t think so, she doesn’t have a child—can think of is the man’s reaction, but he appears only to be studying her face, waiting for her. His fingers twitch towards her hand and away, as if he’s afraid to touch her (every man has a woman who loves him). The woman is shrinking and expanding all at once, wanting to hide and fill the room with something, something she’s feeling. How could this happen? “This is a natural thing.” The doctor’s crisp white coat rustles while he adjusts slicked back, greying hair. “It’s not your fault.” He fiddles with his glasses, looking at the paperwork instead of the couple. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” His tone is flat. “Now, you did most of the work yourself, but we’ll have to do a quick D & C, okay?” The woman doesn’t know what that stands for (cleanup time), nor does she care. She yearns to run, to get out of the stark hospital; she yearns to curl up and never leave. She does not want to know how it was to return to emptiness, to a dark Dakota apartment. She does not have the strength to turn on the light. The doctor numbs the patient, but she feels as if she’s already numb. The procedure’s fast and over before she registers what’s going on, before she feels anything. “Does it hurt?” The doctor asks, and she shakes her head. She doesn’t know. Back in his office, the doctor clears his throat. “No one could have done anything to save the baby.” It’s all a practiced script, and it’s bullshit. The woman can feel the man’s eyes, but she doesn’t want to look at him. She has yet to say a word as the doctor ushers them out into the snow, the cold. “You’re young,” he says. “I encourage you to try again.” The man’s arm tentatively

snakes around her waist on the way back to the car, but she shakes him off. He’s oddly calm. She’s scrunched against the passenger seat window, gazing at the city that appears, for the first time, too vast and too dangerous. She closes her eyes. John Lennon had been happy, she was sure. Happy and relaxed in a new place, this city, ripe with possibilities. Anything can happen here, she sees him crow at Yoko, anything. He’d never thought of danger. His Roman Forum wasn’t dangerous. She supposes she hasn’t, either. He kisses the top of Baby Sean’s head; he spins Yoko around, laughing. They dance. The woman sees herself as the fallen temple, with veil torn in two. A failure of a creationist; and God, that doctor had to be mistaken when he said it wasn’t her fault. Whose was it, then? Either she hadn’t been good enough for the baby, or maybe for God. Or maybe the baby she’d made hadn’t been good enough for God. Which was worse? Which was more damning? She watches her breath fog the window and tries to think, to feel, but everything’s numb as if she’s been out in the mucky street slush too long. She imagines herself an umbrella, with a hole. The man’s hand is on her knee, just one small point of connection; he’s crying almost inaudibly, but she finds she can’t join him. How will they remember their baby, when all it seemed to be was blood? She imagines they’re driving past the Dakota, and she wonders if there was a moment when John knew he’d been shot and that all was lost, or if there’d just suddenly been overwhelming darkness, and that was that. December 29, 1980. Christmas has passed with no real celebration. The couple had spent the holiday alone. The woman passes through each day. She

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can’t bring herself to care about the birth of God’s child when there’s no longer a birth for her own. Why should I? she finds herself whispering in the early hours of the morning after a restless night. Why should I care about anything, really? Everyone tiptoes around her like she’s made of spun glass. She despises them for it, and she despises herself for not giving them what they want. “Well, we lost this one,” she tells her mother, her sister, over the phone. Her voice is hollow; that’s what she is. She thinks the word “lost” is wrong, implying that they can find it again. The world continues to go on around her, and somedays the woman feels the bizarre need to tell everyone on the streets, just so they’ll know, even though it won’t make any difference. Somedays she pictures Yoko, a solitary figure, struggling to wrench her door shut to block out the reporters, everyone who wants to talk. Somedays she relishes in the silence, the emptiness. She still hasn’t cried; it’s not because she feels strong or brave or any of those words that sound good, but don’t mean anything. She just doesn’t cry. Not when she’s packing the toys and small clothes neatly away in a bin at the back of their closet, not when she notices the man’s puzzle of spring flowers still on the coffee table that he’d started the day that ended in the hospital, with only the corner border filled in. Sometimes she feels a lot like those middle puzzle pieces—lost for a long time until everything else finally fills in around them and then they fit, by default. The man—she still can’t decide if she can consider him a father—comes home from work early every day with bigger bouquets of flowers, teas, and

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chocolates. He touches her elbow, her cheek, her neck, trying to ground her, but she is far away. She reads his eyes (give me something), but she cannot do anything. He’s the calmest she’s ever seen him, navigating this chaos, the worst, with a clear head and steady hand. The two talk about things that don’t matter, and she avoids the things that do. It must be frustrating for him, but he doesn’t show it. His eyes take on a reddish tint some nights, but he never lets her see him cry. He must think, since her mourning’s private, his should be, too.

into the man’s coat. The three stairwells down are empty, the shops dark, and there’s fresh snow on the street. The man with the flowers has long since gone home.

She doesn’t feel like she’s mourning, though; she doesn’t seem to know how. Everyone wants to know what she’s feeling, but she doesn’t know. She’s never felt this way before. She has no words to describe what she can’t understand. Sometimes she is feverish with rage, and sometimes she thinks it must all be closer to sorrow, and mostly she’s reduced to blank and cold and alone. It’d felt safer to be sad for John Lennon, because the loss felt more tangible when paired with a face, and she knew eventually she’d be able to let go of him. This, this spiraling feels endless, over something so abstract and precious and small, enough so that she should’ve been able to protect it.

She feels as though this moment, in the midst of the snow and the muted street and the new year, calls for something—some reassurance, a revolution, something profound. She stands with freezing feet and waits for it, something profound, to come over her.

The dark figure (I’m your angel) lingers in the corner of her bedroom, head bowed, silent. January 5, 1981. It’s nearly midnight, and the man has taken to curling up on his side of the bed with Harrison at his feet, though the knuckles of one of his hands rest against the woman’s hip. She’s awake, palms over her stomach, restless as the traffic out on the street. Her legs are trembling, and she suddenly needs to get out, to move, so she slides out from under the covers and tiptoes across the apartment, slipping

Before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s standing on the sidewalk, snow crunching under the curling toes of her bare feet. She’s squinting up at the sky, trying to focus on the inky blackness framed by the city lights. She wonders whether God and John (beautiful boys) and this baby she never knew are somehow up there somewhere, but, hell, that blackness feels like it’s nothing.

It doesn’t. She slips her hands into the pockets of the man’s coat, and her left hand touches something cold and hard. She pulls it out, holding it up towards the streetlight to see. It’s the pacifier she gave him a lifetime ago, with its little bow; he’s carried it with him all this time. The woman—the mother, she has to be—stands there numbly, clutching this tiny plastic thing, lip trembling as she watches her own breath fog the air. In, out. In, out. Alone. “Julia!” The man’s standing in the doorway, hair disheveled, hugging himself for warmth. “Julia! What’re you doing?” His white t-shirt’s glowing under the bright streetlights. “I don’t know,” she whispers, and bursts into tears, clenching the pacifier tight. He’s there in an instant, enveloping her in his freezing arms, miles

away from last week’s careful, tentative touches. “Shhhh,” he murmurs into her hair, chest heaving, and she knows he’s been waiting for her to return. “Shhhh.” She clutches at his neck. “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” he whispers, and she nods, because she knows. “I love you,” he breathes (I’m your angel), and she nods, because she knows. The mother and father sway on the sidewalk (I’m moving on), his hands at her waist and her head on his chest, and he sings “Woman” and then “Julia” into her ear, so softly that she can scarcely hear the words. (Hard times are over). That can never be, but The dark figure watches their dance, flickers, is still. Double Fantasy

— John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Released: November 17, 1980 Tracklist: (Just Like) Starting Over Kiss Kiss Kiss Cleanup Time Give Me Something I’m Losing You I’m Moving On Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) Watching The Wheels I’m Your Angel Woman Beautiful Boys Dear Yoko Every Man Has A Woman Who

Loves Him

Hard Times Are Over

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Board Bios

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ARTISTS + AUTHORS

ELLIE FALAHEE

SHONDA ADAMS

writing. You can find more of her work at www.beloverevolution.com/tiny-thoughts!

Ellie is a freshman from Ann Arbor who loves to run, to be in nature, to learn new things and return to old places. She is studying to be a doctor and loves biology but also has a special place in her heart for the Spanish language and creative

Shonda Adams is an Admissions Coordinator for the Graduate Professional Programs in the College of Engineering. She

MARJORIE GABER

was serendipitously fortunate to be introduced to mosaic art by master artist Yulia Hanansen of Mosaic Sphere Gallery

ISABELLE HUANG

in the Fall of 2005. Since then she’s been on an artistic journey of self-discovery and expression through the beautiful medium of mosaic art. She is very passionate about recycling and tries to incorporate at least one recycled item into each mosaic to further enhance depth and perspective in her work. Shonda’s ultimate goal with this medium is to create

Isabelle Huang is a senior at the business school. She enjoys taking lots of photos of nature and (derpy) candids of friends ;)

an interesting and dynamic piece of art while expressing her passion for the ocean, nature, and conservation.

CASSANDRA HUERTA

WILLIAM (COLE) AMMERMAN

Cassandra Huerta is an anxious twenty year old with some interesting qualities! She is pursuing degrees in Ecology,

Cole is a passionate artist who grew up in North Carolina. His artwork is inspired by his life and experiences focusing on periods of transition. Bright colors in his work highlight the excitement that often comes with changing circumstance. Chalk pastel and acrylic paint are his favorite media due to their fast pace and forgiveness. As he continues his first year

Evolution, and Biodiversity (EEB) and Flute Performance. She hopes to work with and advocate for women across the country and (hopefully) globally as an Obstetrician/ Gynecologist. In her free time she reads books about endometriosis, plans to meet pregnant women in prison, pesters her boyfriend, and eats cookie butter.

at Michigan, he plans to explore the art of body painting. Watching series like “Skin Wars” showed him the beauty and

RUCHITA IYER

talent associated with painting on 3D forms and is excited to try it for himself!

Ruchita Iyer is a junior studying public health and biochemistry. She has been taking photographs since she was twelve,

BENJAMIN BARRETT

when she first learned with her dad. She primarily shoots street photography and sports photography. Outside of

Ben Barrett is a sophomore double majoring in Neuroscience and Film, Television, and Media. His hobbies include filmmaking, traveling, music composing, card magic, tennis, and being an absolute legend in Fortnite. He also suffers

JAY KIM

from chronic procrastination so if anybody finds a cure please let him know.

Jay is a 3rd year PhD student in Kinesiology and Mechanical Engineering. He enjoys drawing in his free time, which is

CHRISTIAN BAYLEY

unfortunately always in short supply. His drawings are pen on paper, free-hand.

Christian is an undergrad studying critical and cultural theory. He likes the color black and exploring the woods around

photography, Ruchita also enjoys reading, drinking too much coffee, and watching Michigan sports.

ANDREW KURDELSKI

Ann Arbor.

SONIA LEE

KATE BISHOP

Sonia is a junior from Summit, New Jersey, studying Business and minoring in History. This is her third year on the

Kate is a senior majoring in International Studies. She is from Leland, MI. In her free time, she enjoys The Avett Brothers and strong espresso, preferably simultaneously and around a campfire.

ADELIA Adelia is a senior studying Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience with a minor in Creative Writing. She is obsessed with the feeling of peace she gets from being around flowers and hopes to one day have a garden full of daisies. Adelia would like to dedicate her work to anyone who has ever helped her on her Writing journey.

ELIOT CARAMANIAN ALLISON CHANG

staff of Blueprint and her second year being featured in the magazine. She enjoys baked goods, Soviet history, Ariana Grande’s more recent albums and going to the movies.

CAMILLA LIZUNDIA Camilla is an environmentalist and urbanist hailing from sunny California. She enjoys frolicking in the rain, staring at the moon, and soul searching through poetry. She is an aspiring beam of light, often found hosting solo dance parties and writing about the universe.

YESHASVI MAHADEV SAM MATHISSON Sam Mathisson is a freshman writer and recent contributor to Blueprint Literary Magazine. Sam enjoys writing, whether

XINDI CHANG

academic in nature, journalism, or poetry, and looks to continue working creatively. Recently, he has started to explore

Xindi is a freshman who doesn’t know what she would like to do with her life yet. But as of now, she enjoys listening

Laserjet M602 in Issue 8 for a touch of humor and introspection.

to nifty nineties music, swinging around glow sticks for Photonix, and quoting old vines. She loves the color yellow and her favorite condiment is ketchup.

PHOEBE DANAHER EVAN DEMPSEY Evan Dempsey is a freshman studying Computer Science and German. When he isn’t studying, running, playing the saxophone, or doing any of the other things he likes to do, he sometimes writes.

free verse, as seen in Entropy, one of his recently published poems. Feel free to check out his other poems Logs and HP

SUSAN MONTGOMERY Susan Montgomery is the Chief Undergraduate Program Advisor in Chemical Engineering, as well as a photographer, focusing on stock, travel, and editorial photography. You can find her stock photos at www.shutterstock.com/g/smontgom and read more about her photography at her blog, SusanMontgomeryPhotos.com. She encourages engineering students to make the time for artistic pursuits.

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ANNIE NING

DAVANNA WHITE

Annie is currently a freshman studying an unholy mix of computer science, astronomy, and creative writing. She enjoys

Davanna is a Computer Science major with a minor in Creative Writing from Armada, Michigan. Her preferred form of

exploring unconventional ways to represent characters in fiction and fantasy, and turning traditional cliches on their

expression is longer creative prose, and she is an avid lover of science fiction and fantasy. You can generally find her

heads.

curled up with tea and her cat, looking up at the night sky, or baking exceedingly large amounts of chocolate-flavored

SARAH K. O’DONNELL

baked goods. Don’t even get her started on how much she loves robots.

Sarah is a sophomore, planning to major in English and minor in Computer Science. She enjoys being an RA in Markley, dancing with Léim Irish Dance, and being part of the feminist sorority Zeta Omega Eta.

ABBY PROVENZANO Abby is a senior from Midland, Michigan studying Biomolecular Science and Creative Writing. She especially loves expression through creative prose, and is a Co-President of the Harry Potter Alliance at the University of Michigan. Besides writing, she enjoys travel, space, classical music, dance, science fiction/fantasy, and Shakespeare.

KATHERINE QIAO Katherine Qiao is a senior at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, majoring in Business and double-

PAIGE WILSON YUZHE (VANESSA) YOU Vanessa is a sophomore currently studying Computer Science at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She enjoys making artworks at her spare time, and is especially interested in making digital arts. Because of her skills in both Visual Arts and Computer Science, she realized that she could combine her skills in both areas into making her own games. She is an independent game developer who has published two of her games both as the programmer and the graphic designer.

ERIN ZHAN

minoring in Writing and Applied Statistics. She loves doing art, writing, tech, and publication of every medium possible,

NAITIAN ZHOU

and you can find her portfolio site at katherineqiao.com. Her favorite medium is ink, and she’s passionate about

Naitian is a Computer Science major in the College of Engineering. He’s from Virginia, but also from China, Alabama,

combining analytics and creativity to make cool stuff. Overall she has resigned herself to the lifelong identities of a

Georgia, and maybe even Troy, Michigan? Besides writing, he also enjoys playing sweet, sweet tunes on the tenor sax,

sadistic Ravenclaw and a disgruntled cat.

doing absurd data science projects, and keeping an up-to-date collection of ways people have mispronounced his name.

ELI RALLO

VELLIA ZHOU

Eli is a junior theatre major at the university of Michigan minoring in creative writing, playwriting and political science. She is the founder and artistic director of Blank Space workshop, co-producer of Rude Mechanicals and a Daily Arts Writer at the Michigan Daily. When she is not writing, she is running, eating gluten free cookies and listening to show tunes. Much love to everyone who helped her by answering phone calls and messages in regards to her question based poetry that is included in this magazine!

CAESAR SAMYRO Caesar Samyro is a self-proclaimed asshole who likes to write poems. He’s trying to do something with his life but probably won’t become anything of note.

LEANNE SU Leanne is a first year PhD student in the Aerospace Engineering department. Her research is in the plasma physics of Hall thrusters, an in-space propulsion device. In her spare time, she plays Euchre, embroiders, and drinks with her friends. She is from Seattle, WA, and will never shut up about it. For more embroidery photos (and a healthy dose of garbage internet content), see @its.lean on Insta.

TANUJA TASE ANA TIMOFICIUC NATASHA VATALARO Natasha is a freshman in LSA, where she is currently pursuing a double major in English and a science. She loves to read and write and has won multiple writing awards, including the Hopwood Undergraduate Fiction Award. Natasha is also a member of the Blueprint staff, where she has enjoyed putting together this magazine over the course of the year. She hopes to explore publishing and writing more in the future at U of M to further unleash her creativity. Her other interests include playing the violin, travelling, and spending time with her family and friends.

ALEX WAGNER Alex Wagner is a sophomore studying Creative Writing & Literature through the Residential College at LSA.