Brushfire Issue #60 V.1 by UNR Brushfire

BrushďŹ re Universit y of N evada, Reno lite ra r y ar t s j o u r n al Kelly Bridegum, editor Ashley NoĂŤl Hennefer, assistant editor

Special thanks to Amy Koeckes, Chris Trillo, ASUN senate, Submission Review Committee, contributers, and everyone who submitted. Published by the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno. Opinions and viewpoints expressed are not necessarily those of the ASUN, faculty, staff, student body or administration of the University of Nevada, Reno. Copyright ÂŠ 2007 BrushďŹ re and the individual contributors. All rights are reserved by the respective authors and artists. Original work is used with expressed permission of the artists. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Artwork on cover: Visions of Reality, Justin Manfredi, pastel and graphite on paper Cover design and layout by Kelly Bridegum Fonts: Existence, Gill Sans, Jane Austen, and Verdana Printed by Registered Ink Printing Co.

www.registeredink.com

Brushﬁre literary arts journal Edition 60 vol. 1 Fall 2007 Table of Contents Art: A Picture Says a Thousand Words • 12, Agriculture Abstracted #2, #3, #4 • 81, Alone • 54, Another Yarn • 88, Baby Dream • 30, Bee Your Best • 78, Brave New World • 59, Caught Between • 6, Contemplation • 29, Disposition # 1 • 15, Dylans • 74, Faith • 36, Forgotten • 6, Infernal Barbed Wire • 83, John • 87, Lake Snakes • 51, Les Bon Temps • 82, Make Me the Sea • 40, Munitions Prescription • 88, Night Life • 22, New Orleans Grafﬁti • 42, Never More • 59, Peek-a-Boo • 98, Remember the Mizpah • 87, Sands of Time • 16, School • 59, Self-Portrait • 20, Semblance of Reality • 9, Skull • 90, Spin • 60, Small • 6, Summer Nights # 16 • 30, The Past/ The Beginning • 73, The Ranch • 42, This Dizzy World • 67, Tree • 38, Twilight • 30, Untitled • 34, Untitled • 70, Untitled # 1 • 33, Untitled # 2 • 33, Untitled # 3 • 52, Untitled # 5 • 33 , Utah Sunset • 42, Visions of Reality • cover, Windless • 64, Winter’s Path • 34 Monologues: This Night Has Opened My Eyes • 17, Truth Be Told to those want to read and listen • 66 Poetry: Awaken • 35, Between the Pages • 71, Broken Rose • 37, Brothel • 61, Buttered Toast • 97, Crossing Virginia Street on a Sunday Night • 82, Dreamed • 23, Entitlement • 39, Fire of Inspiration • 97, Gorgeous Through Grey • 80, Lonely Showers • 99, Of the Earth • 31, Pomum Granatum • 79, Sitting, Waiting • 55, Something You Say • 86, Spokane • 55, Tattered Testament • 37, The Road I Walk • 35, Tide • 41, The Fisherman • 71, The Girl • 21, The Pool • 46, The Shiver • 89, Vision • 53, Why Are Pain and Itch not switched around? • 8 Prose: In the ICU • 72, Machines Are Not She • 48, Paradise • 74, Problem 17 • 91, The Perfect Moment • 13, The Stand- Alone Complex • 7, Weekend Warrior • 56, Three Kings • 43 Song Lyrics: Putting it off • 96, The Sun Beam’s Sick • 92 Features: A Modern Day Poe • 11, Coffee with a Closet Poet • 63, I’m with the Band • 95, Starving Artist • 69

Surreal dreams and A Surreal Fire: an introduction A bst ract ed faces Kelly Bridegum, editor

The Brushfire is one of the few opportunities for artists and writers to publish their work in our community. It has seen and served this role tirelessly for many years, and each year new and distinct visions and trends emerge. This year is no exception. Over the past month I have read and looked through seven hundred and three pieces of poetry, prose, and art and while each piece was distinct in it’s own way, not every piece earned a spot in ink. The pieces that transcended time and daily experience, the ones that were able to reach out and affect me differently every time I turned to them, the ones that showed no fear, and the ones that showed complete entanglement with creativity won me over and a place in this edition. Every piece that graces these pages has something different to offer. Some pieces will take you on intimate journeys of a different kind of desire, others will defy and redefine your outlook on life and make you lose yourself in their abstraction. Every piece, however, will intertwine you with it’s reality, it’s intentions, the Brushfire’s interpretations, and your own ideas and imagination. Prepare yourself.

You will become acquainted with new people and new characters, figures who will take up residence in the shadows of your soul and entice new ideas to cross your mind. These figures will become the players of your dreams, and their faces will be reflections of your own. You will visit lands and places that only exist within the visual dimensions of a photograph, and these lands will live as empty movies sets in your heart, waiting for your fantasies to resurrect them.

4 | introduction

You will bear witness to unspeakable events whose voice and tone will become the narrator for all your inner dialogue. Truly, surreal dreams and abstracted faces await you in this edition. Within the prose, poetry, and art, descriptive imagery and ironic visions will evoke chance hallucinations of a bizarre and fascinating nature. Even I find that I am continuously lost in and captivated by this work and how flawlessly the texts and images interact. The power and implications of every piece are magnified by the work they are associated within the context of this volume. This book is a conversation recorded between story and photograph, poem and painting, that whispers something new with each passing glance. The placement of every single aspect in this publication is deliberate and meant to pull the most out of every piece. Every piece is intended to be shown at it’s best in the hopes that you, the reader, might find a glimmer of something that interests and captivates you. It is my intention as editor to spark your creativity and inspire you to add tinder to the Brushfire, so that it continues to burn and it’s glow can be seen, always. It is my privilege to introduce and present the work on the proceeding pages and to have worked on this publication. The publication sitting before you is a gift from me, my staff, and most importantly this volume’s artists and writers. It is your passport to mythic lands, heroic tales, wistful moments, and surreal places. Enjoy.•

Ignit ing N evada since 1950 The Brushfire: from 1950 through 2007 Ashley Noël Hennefer, assistant editor The Brushfire began as a spark, an idea in the mind of a small group of students at the University of Nevada, Reno. It soon ignited into something much larger and, approximately 60 issues later, it is now burning stronger and more brightly than ever. The Brushfire was founded in 1950 and was the first literary and arts journal in Nevada. Over the years the publication has transformed from a basic black and white spread to a colorful, creative layout. Each past editor has brought their own touch to the publication, and this is seen through the character and personality of each issue. And while the Brushfire serves both the written and visual arts in our community, many issues over the years have emphasized one

over the other. Some issues have been heavily laden with poetry, some prose and photography; others were smaller but just as inspired. The look and feel of the book has changed dramatically over time as well— editions from the 70’s and 80’s are letter-sized paperbacks with faded pages and little color; editions from the 90s and the early millennium are smaller, thicker with more abstract and modern motifs and equally diverse content. Through the years, what has made it’s way onto the prized printed pages has remained constant in quality and diversity—as always, there are pieces that will take your breath away, and yet others,

excerpt from “Letter to the Furure” by Mike Nelson from Volume 28, issue 4 of the 1979 edition of the Brushfire They undo knots, and gates out of the self Swing open hopes like noon-lit fields Warm with the scent of roses almost seen Then... Fear of self-forgetting sparks a fire Upon the stagnant oil of his greed. Greed and fear between them gut the palace; He wanders full of hunger in the ruins, His children hungry, never knowing why, And they are YOU. The ashes are around you.

though brilliant in their own right are not-somemorable and will be lost to the sands of literary time. The publication has seen the changing and passing of seasons, school years, movements, wars, and generations... and has lasted. In a time where art and literature sometimes take a backseat to the priorities of everyday life, the Brushfire is a reminder of the unbridled passion that still burns in artists today. The 60th edition is a testament to all of the editors, writers, and artists of the past who once had a vision: of a fire that would spread all over the UNR campus and our community and inspire artists and writers everywhere. 57 years later... thousands of submissions... hundreds of artists... one idea. The Brushfire cannot be extinguished.•

history | 5

6 | art

Caught Between, Small, and Forgotten (clockwise from top left) Emily Clark â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

theThe Stand-Alone Stand-Alone Complex complex Charlene Gey

I wish I was flying. Being stuck on the ground is such a terrible fate. Birds have it good.They don’t have to worry about taxes, which direction they can fly and how fast. No gods, no laws; all they have to worry about is survival. We make shit too complicated. The only reason I would continue this life is for art. I’m trying to simplify my life. My lovers are words and paint, I’m trying to keep them both happy but one only has so much time for indulgence. I’ve been actively cheating on ink with color, so I get my thirtyminute catch-up sessions with her as often as I can: at least once a day during the work week, like lunch, which I usually have right after. Sustenance has various forms. I don’t think she’s caught on yet. Words and I will have to mingle elsewhere since I’m quitting my job earlier than planned. But she doesn’t mind; she loves being adventurous. I’m not that lucky with paint: she wants it everyday after work, when I’m tired and weary, and she wants it at the desk with the windows open and the music blaring— as long as it fits her taste, it can stay on. She almost schedules me, an hour at a time, but when I get into her it doesn’t matter; I just want to keep going. She is extremely satisfied as I use all kinds of tools to probe her and spread her wide: fingers, brushes, sweat. She thinks she controls me, but she doesn’t know that words are scrolling through my head, entrancing me instead. She would kill me if she knew, that when I’m with her I think of you. I like you best when I weave you in the dark, the thick of the mattress weighed down with the heat we create. Sometimes it’s by moonlight, and I watch the strokes my hands make scribble delights onto you. You switch positions but only for me to fill you again. I use you till I’m satisfied, and you like it. You own me, and you know it. I’m a slave to you, and I know it. Both of us are content, so there’s no reason to change. I only need fixations of color when I’m tired of just imagining with words. I’m never gone long enough for her to notice. I discovered paint in December. It was a gift, a celebration, and she showed me things I never knew I saw. Magnificent things. We are a steady and strong junction; when I think I’ve ruined things all I do is find another angle to fix my mistakes and the outcome is more beautiful than I could have imagined, it almost looks

intended. She knows me, pushes me, understands me. Words . . . what a polar existence we share. She gets mad at me— she is a most jealous lover, and she knows it . . . and she knows just how to twist the knife to make me feel it. Her fury is worse than torture, but still I can’t walk away; she holds my concentration. She gets mad, makes me suffer with pure emotion but no thought process [if not the most elementary of words] and watches me writhe in agony as my only pure outlet disappears, and she grins, enjoying my pain. What a sadist I’ve come to love. She can make me feel anything she wants, and she likes to flex the vastness of her ability. She can light the pyre or leave the world still, cold. When she is truly hurt, she becomes silent. It is that I fear over everything else . . . that slow trickle that I know will eventually peel to nothingness, to her departure. She has left me a few times; sometimes with no warning at all. But each time I know, no matter how much I plead and beg, I cannot make her stay, and I never know when or if she will return. If I turned from her, it would be the biggest betrayal of my life, and I would be nothing in her absence. I understand the abusive relationship. She excites me, threatens me, takes me for granted, leaves me hanging and utterly fulfills me; it just depends on the drop of the hat which order the cycle flows. I know she’ll always be there; it just has to be a blind faith. If I go searching for that truth, it scares her, and she retreats. When I ask her, she responds the same, “You know I love you.” So I continue to pace, mull the earth for things I need to be able to love. Why I take care of trees, you ask, is so I can seizure my magic onto their bountiful sacrifice [the true origin of this, I believe, is because of blasted Dr. Seuss and his Lorax]. She and I made a compromise this time around —finally, I think we’re getting somewhere . . . a compromise!— and she wants basics, not toys, from now on. The last separation was rough on both sides; I want her around, and I don’t mind the archaic if it means that she is staying. I agree as long as she gives no nonsense or meaningless points of discussion. She looked at me wholeheartedly and said she really wanted to try.•

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Why Are Pain and Itch Why are pain and itch not switched around? -Jaegwon Kim (1) Not Switched Around? Brad Merrill

A hypnotist can often switch itch to pain, and pain to itch But Smart (2) and Koch (3) both do proclaim, ‘tis fibers firing in the brain. The hypnotist just smiles and winks, simplistic answers really stink (4). How painfully we contemplate, we’re itching to confabulate, not just for an itch or three but on and on infinitely.

Footnotes:* (1) Page 4 of Jaegwon Kim’s “Philosophy of Mind,” Westview Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006, ISBN 0-18133-4269-4. (2) ibid., pages 90-91. Kim has Smart and company avoiding “a huge and motley crowd of psychoneural correlation laws [which] make our total theory messy, inﬂated, and inelegant.” (3) An overarching theme from the concept of the neural correlates of consciousness from Cristof Koch’s “Quest for consciousness,” Roberts & Company, Englewood, Colorado, 2004, ISBN 0-9747077-0-8. (4) “I cannot believe that ultimate laws of nature could relate simple constituents to conﬁgurations consisting of perhaps billions of neurons... such ultimate laws... have a queer ‘smell’ to them.” -- J.J.C. Smart, “Sensations and Brain Processes.” (1959) The quote is taken form the anthology “Philosophy of Mind,” David J. Chalmers, ed., Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-19-514581-X

8 | poetry

Semblance of Reality

Bethany Surber â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

art | 9

Jeff Gesick year • senior major • psychology medium of choice • writing

Portrait of the Artist

Kelly Bridegum • digital photograph

10 | featured artist

A Modern Day Poe by Ashley Noël Hennefer

“I love fear,” said Jeff Gesick, fiction writer and poet. Quiet and reserved at first impression, Jeff isn’t the kind of guy you’d take for an adrenaline junkie. But deep in the words of his work lies a dark sense of horror in otherwise ordinary situations. Jeff, who also dabbles in mediums of visual art, becomes passionate on the page when talking about writing. He said, “I would read all these great works by big name authors and I wanted to see if I could do anything like what they did.” Jeff began writing in middle school. “You know how most middle schoolers go through that phase of trying to write songs, but since most of us couldn’t write music, it was pretty much just lyrical poetry. Really horrid, angsty middle schooler stuff.” Jeff now spends his time writing both poetry and prose. “Poetry is easiest for me to write—its simple, there aren’t really any rules and the disjointed nature of it makes sense to me. I can sit down and write a poem just about anytime I want. My poetry is just a slightly glossier version of my stream of thought.” He finds stories a bit more intimidating. “Fiction, both short stories and novels, fascinate me and I want to do both, but it is a lot of work. Enough work where it won’t fit into a school, homework, work schedule. Especially a book—that terrifies me. I mean, creating a whole other universe and entire people who exist there? Very daunting.” For Jeff, inspiration comes in the form of random thoughts, feelings and the macabre. “I love the macabre and the occult. I like to take normal things or relatively normal things and make them eerie or disturbing. You see a rustic barn, I see a dark ominous building hiding an unknown threat. You see a normal college discussion I see all sorts of pressures and held back emotions. It makes the world a whole lot more interesting... making the mundane disturbing.” Unsurprisingly, some of his favorite writers include the likes of Poe, London, Heinlein, Lovecraft, and Steven King. “I don’t know all that much about

“

It makes the world a whole lot more interesting... making the mundane disturbing. Frank Herbert in specific but his book Dune is an absolute masterpiece. Ooh, and James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small—fantastic.” Jeff takes guidance in the thoughts of his literary idols. “Poe thought that everything in any piece of writing should be directed at creating one overall emotion or sensation and I try to do that with my pieces, so usually one emotion or thought is the basis. Any fiction I have attempted is much the same.” “I believe in Heinlein’s writing process: write, write often, never read what you wrote. I occasionally do, but I almost inevitably have problems with it. I am extremely critical of anything I produce, but while I’m writing, I am ridiculously self assured.” Jeff hopes people find the emotions buried, sometimes subtly, in his work. “I hope they get the emotion or feeling that I tried to create with it,” he said. “One reason I keep my poetry so short is because I think emotions are relatively short, visceral things, so if you stretch something like that out it loses the immediacy of a strong emotion.” From the bold words of Jeff Gesick’s poetry and prose, we get a sense of a person who sees much more to life and everyday situations than most people will ever see. Edgar Allan Poe once said, “It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic. ” And for Jeff Gesick, being truly imaginative couldn’t be more true.•

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words Athiwan Yaemmuan â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

12 | art

The Perfect The Perfect Moment moment Jeff Gesick

The sun shines down brightly onto a park dappled with trees and benches. The park is resting on a gracefully sloping hill as if secretly trying to tumble its inhabitants back down into the hustle and bustle of the city. The man sits at the far edge of the park; the higher end from which it is easy to look down upon the rest of the park. He reclines in his chair tucked between two bushes and thinks to himself how nearly perfect of a day it has turned out to be. He notices the way that the sun glints off of the metal playground (one of the few left in town) in the distance. He can hear the lilting laughter of children as their parents push them on the swings, and he can hear the musical tinkle of the fountain as it splashes in its basin down below him. Finally air scented with the sweet smell of freshly tended grass fills his nose and lungs.The man thinks to himself that the greatest artist in the world couldn’t replicate the beauty of the park sprawled out below him. Even a photograph, though a good representation, still would be incapable of truly representing the day’s greatness. The only things keeping this day from being absolutely perfect, as far as the man can tell, is one gloomy rain cloud off to the south of the park and a mild buzzing, much like a fly that won’t quite leave one alone. In all of this near perfection the man continues to smile and look down upon the park, his park. Presently the man notices a school bus offloading at the park and the new arrivals’ laughter and shouts soon add to those of the previous children increasing in volume but also in beauty. The buzzing seems to be getting louder as well. Having soaked up a generous amount of warmth from the afternoon sun, the man sets about getting to business. He raises his viewing equipment up, looks through it, adjusts the sights and looks through it again. He does this several times until he can get it no closer to perfect than he has previously achieved. Having accomplished this, the man feels even more satisfied, but still the buzzing is growing louder. It seems that the better his day gets, the more determined the

strange buzzing becomes to ruin it. Still, on a day so nearly perfect as this, the man must take some shots; it is simply too beautiful of a scene to miss out on. Sighing, slightly annoyed now, but excited nonetheless, the man brings up his scope again swiveling this way and that looking for just the perfect focus point. He ﬁnds it. A little girl (one of the more recent arrivals the man guesses) is splashing wildly in the fountain to the admonitions but also the secret enjoyment of her mother. The mother, smiling inwardly, tries to remember a time when she visited the park with her mother as a child. She cannot. Her mother was a drunk and more often than not, away from home. The mother feels colder, the day less nice; she becomes more serious in getting her daughter out of the fountain. Little children shouldn’t be playing in park fountains anyway. The man can also see the mother; he can see the change in her face, and he hopes that she will not spoil his focus by getting in the way. Suddenly, as if hearing a familiar and welcomed sound the girl pauses in her playing and turns to look up the hill towards the man. Through his scope the man feels like the girl is staring directly at him, yet he knows this is impossible due to the fact that he is almost 200 yards away from her. Just as the girl attention seems to be going back to her splashing a small gust brushes the hair back from her cheek. The man knows that this is it; this is the true perfect moment of this unique day and he cannot miss his chance to capture it.The buzzing has transformed into a roar that drowns out all else, he must catch this moment.The man pulls the trigger of the high powered riﬂe in his hands. After ensuring he hit his mark the man quickly stands up and begins to walk back into the bushes even higher above the park. He walks briskly but doesn’t bother to hurry at all.The buzzing, which had been deafening mere moments ago, has all but dissipated now, almost imperceptible. A scream chases him up the hill as he retreats. Perfect. •

prose | 13

Golden Golden Golgatha Golgatha Nick DeRose

In the end I fall apart. I want to be strong. I reach desperately to find myself and cry crystalline tears as all the crazy little pieces fall away from me. Why? Approaching the end, and I’m not complete. I stumble up the King’s Highway, I ride to find my future. My mind has scattered as I drive though the ash. Suns burn themselves away above, desolating blackness beneath me. The King’s Highway pitches beneath my feet, the shadows hiss, beckoning from the shade, a cold comforting serpent. At night, the moon watches me like salvation from across a burnt bridge. A blond in denim under a singular streetlight, a lone salty sun casting hellish dreamlike auras over her. Come on baby, take a walk with me. Pushing down the King’s Way we are lost, stray mile markers rolling by, I strive to the end and she drives me again. It seems I convulse the most with you. Can you picture what we could be, limitless and free. We push through lifeless dust waiting for the summer rain. Our paths we leave in sand, my thoughts burn away. My mind is old, and my skin is cold. We struggle because our lives depend on it, westward to the Golden Golgotha. The end begins on the crest of the hill. I set her in the tree when the pain comes. It comes as nails and veils of razor culling the end, my end. On my knees, I pray to the setting Sun; its warm waning rays caress my face. Serrated silence follows my plea. Suddenly she screams, “THE END,” and the Sun crashes into the sea. Its angry flames engulfed by the gnashing tidal maw. This must be it, the end my friend. All futures are gone, and I am pinned upon the hill. My mind is shattered as my body and soul are ripped in twain. The Sun’s steam blasts the earthy hill and clears the universe’s stain from fleshy canvas. Body bound and wrists nailed to dirt, my pain pours from her mouth and eyes. Is this the end or dawning freedom? Her screams ring in my ears, crying my name, but I will never look in her eyes again. Breath and being seep from my mouth, flowing down to join the enduring Seas. With nails and chains, this dark death, my mortal right, is sacrificed before the fire and waves.•

14 | prose

Disposition #1

Chase Daley â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

art | 15

16 | art

Sands of Time

Daniel Sandeman â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

This Night has This Night has Opened my Eyes Opened my Eyes Allen Muresan

I love dreams. Dreams represent the way I wish for reality to have been constructed. I wish I could just sleep forever, to have a billion dreams and never a waking moment. A dream is a life where thought is unthinkable, where events happen before your eyes, and you react upon them with the instincts of your soul only, where madness can run free and unhindered, where you cannot be held accountable for your wantonness, where there is no reason for anything, where you don’t have to be troubled with regret, where you body is not burdened by space, time, or society, where you can return to a state of unthinking, unknowing pre-birth. Dreaming is between life and death; it’s a prenatal existence. It’s dying with eyes wide open. It’s an existence free from the adulteration of the brain. I want to live my life dreaming. I hear about those drugs that induce visions in men which they will never again see in their sober lives; the sort of images that, no matter how vivid they are in memory, become pale and vague in words. The sorts of experiences that no one but the person having them will ever be able to understand. My dreams are like those drugs. Anything concrete is inexistent in my dreams. Words become incomprehensible, the body is destroyed in its numbness, the mind is in a thoughtless daze, able to take in images but unable to dwell on them, free from the anxiety that they sometimes cause the mind to suffer from--free from painful vocabulary. I once had a love that--like a dream uninterrupted by the cruel sounds of reality-- would have lasted forever. I had a love that evoked in me beauties which no dreamer had ever envisioned. It had come and gone as quickly as a dream too, but it will remain in my heart for as long as there is blood in my body. When I looked at my love, I saw a burning universe shining from her soul and through her eyes, an inﬁnite cosmos into which the galaxy of my own existence was being inexorably sucked into. The thought of being in her presence cast me into a dreamlike state. Suddenly, every quality of her body became magniﬁed by a supersensual vision. Her eyes

became exploding diamonds in the sky that rained on me with a radiance that outshone the sun. Her hair became a river of golden silk tickling the cheeks of a beautiful landscape. Her lips gently parted like a budding orchid, ready to breathe life into a new world. Her hands were as perfect, and plain, and fragile as porcelain that’s never been touched. Her voice was like a lazy violin, slow and melodious, a perfect contrast to the booming timpani of my heart. I’ve had dreams of kingdoms rising from satin clouds and being ruled by eternal kings for the span of a night’s sleep, of knights braving the wars of their hearts and gallantly losing, of poets writing sonnets for every inch of their lover’s body and volumes for every breath of their lover’s soul. Let Coleridge have his honey-dew and milk of paradise; my only dream now is to have my princess back in my life. My radiant princess whose eyes are holy wonders which any king, real or imagined, would surrender his domain to. There was a monster within my soul, a devourer of emotions, a hunter of sensations with an insatiable lust for beauty. Only one woman has been able to satisfy and tame the beast inside of me. She is strong and intense, with a mind as cunning as a fox. Both dangerous and playful, she’s as pretty as a lily, but has the heart and spirit of a lion. She was queen of my jungle, her whims were my laws, and her desires were my commandments. But she soon became too much even for me to bear; she had turned the ram into a sheep and played with my soul like a ball of yarn until she flicked me away like an annoying flea in her fur. I heard her quoting some children’s book and I playfully teased, “What? Is that the only kind of book you understand?” and so began everything that has since ended. When we first talked, she told me she felt like she’d known me forever. Now she pretends like she never knew me, but her words of kindness linger on. If ever I had been tempted to deny my own existence, the things she used to say to me removed any shadow of a doubt that I

monologue | 17

was more alive than anyone else in the world. We had an intuitive understanding of each other, and I always knew exactly what she was thinking, “I hate how you pry me open, figure me out and such. I’m tired of you stripping me like wallpaper in order to get to the center of me.” One day she went away. She stopped talking to me; she’d found someone else. I felt betrayed. “I don’t ever want someone to be able to understand me more than myself…If you know me better than myself, then you also know my weaknesses and how to manipulate me. I hate being vulnerable… Why him? He is younger than me…he hasn’t been severely hurt. He hasn’t been damaged. I want a child-like love, something entirely Peter Panesque…Children are innocent. Children are pure. I want a pure, peaceful love.” No book has ever made me cry more than the final chapter in Peter Pan when Wendy actually realizes that that kind of love does not exist. Later, I had started reading Venus in Furs, the worst book my fragile psyche has ever endured; it nearly turned me into a terminal fool. Occasionally fueled by Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the devious thoughts that that book had placed in my mind sent me into obsessive rages. I offered her my total submission and complete ownership of my heart. She told me, “I want a fighter: I want someone to throw me up against a wall and go for it.” Maybe she too had read the final chapter, learnt Wendy’s lesson, and given up on Peter Pan’s love, or had seen a weakness in me that she detested and despised me for. She didn’t want a boy anymore, now she wanted a man. She wanted to surrender her body to comfort and security. She was sick of me peering into the depths of her soul without taking it. She didn’t want to make decisions; she didn’t want the chance to. She no longer trusted me, and I could no longer believe anything she said. Her words used to fill my heart with joy: a single kind word from her lips would give me many days of happiness. But soon I began to develop insecurities; everything she told me became a lie. I was always in the midst of a frenzied paranoia. One day she said something to me that hurt my feelings and like a drunken idiot, who thinks everyone is insulting him, I spoke words so full of malice and contempt that she still has never forgiven me. I tried begging forgiveness,

18 | monologue

I tried pleading with her to be my friend again, but she didn’t care anymore; she was done with me. She ignored me. If I tried to talk to her, the only word she spoke back to me was, “Peace.” Peace. Peace. Peace... A million times. Peace. Peace! “Peace” had become my “Nevermore.” She was like a little blonde canary flying around my room singing, “Peace. Peace. Peace.” For a long time, I was convinced that she’d driven me to madness, or if not her, then I had driven myself there. The rage that beat through my heart has taken ten years off my life. I channeled all my anger into a poem… “Your orchid-petal lips are divine flesh, a poisonous sacrament only martyrs enjoy”…“Your soul was forged in radiant steel, now it rusts with the drying blood of the hearts it has pierced…” All this and you are still a goddess to me? I am nothing to you, yet why are you everything to me? Why do I still kiss the ground on which your venom drips and breathe in your poisonous soul? I would cut off my ear for you, and for what? An indifferent glance? “Good-bye” is too good for me, you won’t even say, “Fare thee well.” Instead you tell me, “peace,” you cruel, ironic bitch. And yet, I still think of you as a goddess. If you are a goddess, then I will be a devil. You will be tormented as you have tormented. As I’ve felt the steel of your soul, you’ll feel the thorns of hate, dear goddess. You’ll be draped and displayed. You’ll see who still worships you. The crowds of young hearts you once owned will humiliate and mock you. Your pedestal will become your burden.Your disciples, your ego, will never look into your eyes again. And how honest you’ll look way up there When your bones shake upon hearing my name, When your will is at the tip of my whip, When your eyes have lost their radiance, When your lips whither away and martyrs no longer die in vain, When your soul turns stale and drips like water from your sides. Today, everything from back then seems like it never happened, like it’s all just a figment of my terrible imagination. The girl I knew back then exists only as an idea now, an example of what to avoid if

I want to keep that thin thread that’s holding me together from ever breaking. In this life, dreams only last for one perfect moment, but I’ll never stop trying to make them last forever, or to make them come true. Like Tyler Durden, I had pulled driftwood logs out of the ocean, planted them in a semi-circle and waited for that perfect moment when the sun aligned itself with my body and the logs. I was sitting in the shadow of a giant hand, but nothing in nature ever stops, everything moves on. Chuck Palahniuk says that a single moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. And now, after all this time, I’m still sitting on this beach waiting for that perfect moment to anchor itself in me. The sun has long ago set behind this rough ocean. The moist air has put rust on my heart, the sand has corroded my soul, the salty water will never leave my wounds alone and if perfection ever does come along again, I’ll be as shoddy as a broken ship on these sandy shores. This morning I had a dream that my dreams came true. I even asked myself, “Are you dreaming?” “No, it’s happening this time, it’s really happening.” I answered myself with a naive conviction. She had her back turned to me, waiting for the right moment to look. The last time she turned her back to me, it was out of anger. She walked away and left me with nothing but the longing for what I could have had. I couldn’t believe what I’d lost, and if I couldn’t have her, I didn’t want the memory either. For months I pulled my hair out trying to get her out of my head. For months I wallowed like a pig in my ﬁlthy sorrow. And then, from nowhere, she had returned. Her back was turned to me, but I knew it was different this time. I could tell she was smiling, being coquettish as always. My dream had brought me back the one I loved, and when she turned around to face me, I felt reborn. I had woken up from a horrible nightmare, and she was there to console me, to ease my mind with her warm smile. There were none of the problems of real-life: no insecurities, inconsistencies, double-standards, jealousy…We were just two souls, as pure as children, existing in a perfect universe. She started calling me names like a mischievous girl who secretly likes the playground

rascal, and I answered back with innocence devoid of curse words. We laughed and hugged, and stared into each other’s eyes with admiration and the calm and undoubting love that nothing could ever end. It was so real, so genuine…so perfect. I had found happiness, I had found beauty, I had captured that perfect moment once more, and my entire life was contained in that perfect moment. But, a perfect moment is just that, a moment. As quickly as it had come, it was over, and I awoke with a tear in my eye. I felt like a widower who, upon waking, is cruelly reminded of his wife’s absence. Every time I think that my broken heart has pumped out the last of my love for her, I find some trace of it in the marrow of my bones. Like the acid in my spine, it creeps into my brain from time to time sending me into a fit of passion, a lucid recollection of the love I once could have had, and a deep longing to capture that canary, that flower, that lion, that beautiful cosmos that will always be too far away.•

monologue | 19

20 | art

Self-Portrait

Abbey Henry • raku ﬁred earthenware

The Girl The Girl Ashley Dodge

The girl you see in the picture

belongs inside the broken frame.

Clinging to her last shred of hope,

Her Jesus, her bible, her faith-

Her Jesus, Her Bible, her faith-

her love, her hope, her security.

Inside the broken frame

should be the perfect picture.

Lying in her bed

Out of all the pain,

in the middle of darkness,

the beauty she has shows.

she’s trying to sleep-

Through the tears and the attacks

to get some sleep.

on her spirit-

Just trying to quiet her mind;

she closes her eyes, lowers her head.

protect herself

Hands raised, raised so high,

from the thoughts locked in her mind.

she’s crying out for help, help to separate her from what she has become.

Closing her eyes, she clings to her secret strength

She wants to break away,

and craves for Him to meet her here.

In this desolate place

The One she feels has forgotten her

He meets her there, picks her up-

in this desolate place.

sets her back in the frame

It’s so dark; she just wants to sleep-

and mends the pieces.

Clinging, screaming, waiting, and failing. Her Jesus was always thereshe just didn’t understand..

poetry | 21

Night Life

22 22 | art

Chase Daley â&#x20AC;˘ digital art

Dreamed Dreamed Ashley Noël Hennefer

I dreamed of the sea the air, salty and sweet and your body, pressed against mine smooth and firm and soft and oh, how I wanted you, oh I could feel the crevices of our curves molding together like seafoam and algae while starfish and seahorses swam around our feet the waves folded over themselves as we drowned from the kisses in our mouths and the sirens sang. I dreamed of the city the sky, fading and blue and we drove, fast and reckless the hills sparkled with tiny houses and paper lanterns and when we waved, your palms caught the light and oh, how I wanted you, oh I could see your hands, silhouetted against the evening sky imagined them in my hair, on my back fingers entwined and my heart raced and we crashed from the heat between our bodies and the streetlights glowed.

whispers of insects and snakes as they crawled around our bare legs as we ran free and liberated and we danced barefoot under the black moonlit sky and we fell when the earth pulsed and shook from our footsteps and the stars shone. In my dreams we swam and drove and ran drowned, crashed, fell but we still tasted salt, captured light, danced for the moon and everywhere we were I could feel your body and hold your hand and hear your voice and if you only knew how much I loved you when I dreamed Beside me, you slept in silence and I awoke, with the words already tumbling out of my mouth.

I dreamed of the desert the earth, dry and dark and we ran, hand in hand my skirt ﬂowing around us like a Nevada breeze secrets in the sagebrush illuminated your voice and oh, how I wanted you, oh I could hear

poetry | 23

AA Fairy Tale... fairy tale…. Joaquin Rafal Roces

Tumbling. That was the word that came to her mind as she watched a leaf snatched by a gust of wind. The leaf circled and tumbled wildly as the wind pushed and pulled it here and ‘fro. The leaf had no control, it seemed to her as its fate was carried by the wind. It was early fall, and there was a soft chill in the air. She was a princess of regal stature. A princess-bride, born of noble stock, promised to another whose face was as foreign to her as was his land. Often she had tried to picture his face in her mind but was not able to conjure up one trait or feature. Of course not, she knew there was not enough concern in her to want it…to will it. Her fate was also left to wind. There was no love; this marriage had been arranged as was her birth and everything in between. Everything was on schedule. It started the night before: a sensation. Dread, indeed, was what she felt. The wedding was but a fortnight away, and at this very hour her groom was crossing the channel. Already the castle was filling up with honored guests as were the local inns. She had not slept and tossed and turned in her bed with anxiety and … dread. That was it. At first she thought it to be anxiety, nervousness. After all, courtiers and ladies of the court fawned over her, parroting phrases about, “How fortunate she was” and, “what a wonderful service she was doing for her King.” One such nobleman, certainly a fine figure in the world, at dinner and drunk on ale, staggered forth and proclaimed, “Hail thee well, for what marvelous fortunes you bring us all.” Up until this moment, she had avoided the word, but it was clear now. Dread fell upon her like an icy cold hand closing on her heart. She had quietly murmured her concern to the Queen Mother a day or so ago as she was being fitted for her wedding gown. The Queen Mother fretted with the gown, and avoided her daughter’s searching eyes. The Queen Mother cooed as she smoothed out imaginary wrinkles in the fabric, “There, there, young child, it will be alright. Speak not of such nonsense lest your father hear of such blasphemy. Really, child, this is for the best.” Her father, the King, was unbearable. All he spoke of with his advisors were of the lands the union would bring, and the handsome brideprice she would

24 | prose

fetch. Once he mused while the Queen Mother combed her daughter’s hair, “Perhaps now, I could have a rightful heir.” Once she heard him speak to the Cardinal, “Your Excellency, my prayers have been answered. My curse has been lifted!” With a wry smile, the Cardinal’s reply slithered from between his teeth, “God wills it.” This night was no different. The fire in hearth of her chamber had long since gone cold as she lay awake in her bed chamber clutching to her mattress for fear the wind might snatch her as it did the leaf. Everything was on schedule; everything was going according to plan. Not a stitch of thread was out of place. The fact was the more things progressed on schedule, the more out of control she felt. These past few days were particularly nerve racking. She had to fight to keep her composure. At first, she thought that perhaps the anxiety had driven her mad, an illness of the mind; hysteria to be cured by the village barber with leeches and bleedings. Then there it was again. Was it the howling of the wind or perhaps some lonely wolf? No. There it was, carried on the wind. Her name whispered in the air. She was sure of it now. She had lost her sense and sensibility. Then she caught her self laughing – her madness would stop nothing. She realized the marriage would proceed, like an anchor it dragged her to the airless bottom of her anxiety. Her in her grand mama’s dress, standing by her faceless husband, after which she would spend the rest of her days talking to spiders in the tower or in some distant convent. What madness indeed. She was about to call for her hand maiden when she heard it again. She rubbed her eyes and shook her head as if to shake of the sleep, but she knew better. It could not be a dream, for that requires sleep to conjure such hallucinations. There. There it was again. Her name, soft and gentle, carried on the wind as if it were a feather. She gazed out of her window at the dark forest that lay far beyond the castle keep, even beyond the township proper and its surrounding farmlands. On the fringe of her world it clung. It was calling to her…for her. “What madness!” she cried. If her father knew of such, he would surely lock her in the tower.

The following day, she found it even more difficult to focus. The fitful sleep the night before had fatigued her. She could all she could do to drag herself to her studies with the Viscount. The Viscount came from the rock strewn and craggy province of Sans-Terre. He was a man who weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, clearly one of immense and ostentatious appetite, and as such was a person of no small consideration. A person fond of gambling and the like, one could measure the breath and width of his estate in the pebbles and rocks affixed to the soles of his feet at the end of each day. Thus he lived on the good graces and fine hospitality of his cousin and brother-in-law, His Majesty, the King—clearly the best of all possible worlds. The Viscount would hold her studies in the antechamber of the Grand Hall after the morning meal. The Viscount de Sans-Terre was an educated man of the highest order, a master barber, learned in Latin, Chief Alchemist to the King and oracle to the Royal Family. He was tutor and teacher to the princess-bride and lectured the young child in matters of metaphysicotheologo-cosmolonigology. As she entered the chamber, the good Viscount began his lecture, “Listen, my dear, the ancient teachers of this science promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little, but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles.” At this, he dropped several manuscripts upon her lap, as he continued his monologue. “They penetrate into the very recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows…” She found her concentration ebbing away as the good Viscount de Sans-Terre droned on barely aware of her presence, and then there was the voice again calling to her. Her mind seemed filled by it. She tried to busy herself with the manuscripts, but the voice kept calling to her. She felt herself slipping into madness; her dress felt suffocating, even the thrill of the birds outside the

chamber’s only window seemed to lend its voice to the conspiracy. How could she marry a man who she had not laid eyes upon—what a ghastly notion! At that moment, she surmised, that the good Viscount de SansTerre, nourished in letters, would certainly see her plaint as innocent and her cries just, and would then indulge the princess-bride her lament. She then spoke up so as to startle the good Viscount, who had been lulled into a state of comfort by his own voice, and citing such works as that of the Lady de Pizan, presented her case to the most learned and esteemed Viscount de Sans-Terre. She spoke of de Pizan’s numerous works as the world’s first lady writer and cited Capellanus’ work as well, “Surely it is the pure love which binds together the hearts of two lovers with every feeling of delight. This kind consists in the contemplation of the mind and the affection of the heart, none of which exists between me and my beloved…” Annoyed at such an offense, the learned scholar and master barber scoffed at the child, “My dear, I am man of letters, a master barber, curer of the ill and infirm, and Factotum of the Guild of Barbers, not some troubadour or minstrel. I tell you every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost. You have burdened your memory with trifle folly and useless names. Good God! In what desert land have you lived where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient? Understanding that you are a woman ignorant of subtle understanding and agile sentiment and not an expert in rhetoric as I, a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus, would fall for such gibberish. Really! In this enlightened and scientific age, to find such folly tainting such a pretty head as yours. My dear lady, we must begin your studies entirely anew.” “Observe, sweet child, your ears, one upon each side, matching in distance and location.” At this, the Viscount donned upon his head his black biretta, commonly worn by such academics as he. “Thus ears are formed so as to allow men to don hats and spare his vision. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles; therefore my lord and liege has a magnificent castle, for the greatest king in the world ought to be

prose | 25

the best lodged. It is a demonstrable thing,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are, for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.” With that, the Viscount continued on, “Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles. Thus my child, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” With that the Master Scholar and Factotum to the Guild of Barbers, curer of the infirm, the good Viscount de Sans-Terre dismissed his young charge with the admonishment not to think of such folly again. But throughout the rest of the day, the voice was there calling to her. No one seemed to hear but her. At the noon meal, it swept her away from the mindless banter of the court and called her to that dark forest on the edge of her father’s kingdom. The dread and anxiety sat upon her chest like a stallion, yet not a person noticed. She busied herself as best she could but the voice was always there. She wondered what lay beyond that forest that called to her.What mysteries lay hidden in the forest’s lush dark folds? After the noon meal, she attended to her loom under the Queen Mother’s watchful eyes, but she found it suffocating and anxiety caused her to flee. She found herself attending to matters in the kitchen as the evening hour approached. There she found herself in the company of three ladies who were women of noble spirit, instead of noble birth, whose wisdom sprung not from the knowledge of man, but was born of the natural lessons of life. The small society, finding much to complain about the men in their lives, supposed if they could, a city of ladies. Each in turn laughed at the idea, fantastic as it were. The first of which was an old woman, a mid-wife and widow, who had found some measure of fortune in the death of her husband, and as such inherited some meager lands which her children worked, and the town bakery which yielded some income as to keep her and her children out of the elements and well fed. The widow was the first to speak, “I suppose,” said she, “if such a city could be built, one must excavate the earth and clear away all past assumptions that men in the past have laid there. Then, using reason, one must create her own beliefs.” The cook, who knew full well the applications of spice as she traded with Muslims and Radhanites for her

26 | prose

spices and knew the difference between true cinnamon and the inferior cassia, was a master chef indeed. She explained briefly to a young maid who attended the cook in the meal’s preparation. “True cinnamon,” remarked the cook to her aide, “comes only from Ceylon, while the closely related, but inferior cassia could be found in the more distant Cathay. Its use is not only to flavour the king’s meal, but also for cosmetics, drugs, balms, oils, and perfume.” While watching the young maid apply the spices, the cook gave careful and meaningful consideration to what had been said of this fantastic city. After a moment of thought, the cook agreed with the widow, “Indeed, those beliefs soundly framed by reason shall make the dwellings for this fantastic city built upon solid foundation.” Then with a dash of pepper and a sprinkling of nutmeg she added, “Thus, the city, fantastic as it may be, will have a solid foundation rather than one built on sand, and thus would have no need of a wall for its defense.” The maiden, being the youngest of the three, quietly observed and learned her master’s trade. After having absorbed that which she had been taught, remarked to her two companions, “Surely, my ladies, such a place does not exist, but if it should, then this city would need to be populated with women following their virtues and proving that all women are not evil creatures born of vice.” The other two looked favorably upon the young maid who had adequately absorbed that which she had been taught. Thanking them for their conversation and company, the princess bride left the three ladies to retire to the Great Hall for the dinner meal. After the evening meal, she reflected on all that she had heard and learned that day – upon the Viscount’s parting advice: all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. She looked upon the plush surroundings of her bed chamber and certainly there was not a thing she could have a want for. Yet for all the luxurious comforts the surrounded her, she could not help but notice the rough hewn walls and the heavy wooden door with its rough iron hinges and lock. Despite all luxury, the question nagged at her: are these not the same walls that surrounded the dungeon? The same walls then were used to keep intruders out and to keep prisoners in! The words of the cook won out in her mind, a city built

on a good foundation, framed with reason, would have no need of such walls for its defense. At that moment, the princess-bride decided that she would leave for the distant forest. She hurried to the Royal Stables and drew her mount, an Andalusian stallion and a most regal breed. At the gate she declined an escort and against the advice of the Captain of the Guard she rode off towards the dark forest following her name carried on the wind. It was early fall, and there was a soft chill in the air. She was a princess of regal stature. A princess-bride, born of noble stock, promised to another whose face was as foreign to her as was his land. She spoke naught a word the entire trip. It was as if she was ﬂoating in a dream. Suddenly, she found herself at the edge of the forest, as if her steed had followed the same call. The forest was lush and green, nature’s hardest hue to hold. The sky was the color of laughing pumpkins as the sun bid its adieu, and the trees dressed with bright colors splattered amongst the greenery like jeweled courtiers danced in the evening breeze. As she dismounted, she once again heard it beckon to her; her name but a whisper in the air falling upon her ears soft as petals. She took one last glance backward at the farms and wooden buildings, the ovens and furnaces; and the castle’s walls with banners held high, with its Latin and Science and Aristotilian philosophy; one last glance at the places she used to go, but she was compelled to pierce the forest’s dark womb. She was drawn in and with her ﬁrst step the very trees, these ancient witnesses to time’s steady march, seemed to part and envelope her at the same time. Each step she took was answered with her name soft and sweet like a songbird’s thrill. With every step it grew louder but never harsh or hard, always gentle as the wind’s caress. She followed the path deeper into the woods as leaves and petals fell about her soft as a spring shower. Deeper she went into the dark woods, following her name whispered among the rustling trees. The earth soft and moist, as winter’s cold had not hardened her yet, rose and fell at her feet in soft arcs, while a distant stream giggled and laughed as it ran through groves of whispering aspens and stubborn rock, playing hide and seek with the moon. She found herself in a small clearing beneath ancient branches of oaks and sycamores.

Then there he was. He stepped from the shadows and into the silvery moonlight, his brazen frame and shock of blond hair, and his face with its chiseled features and deep set eyes of blue. To a lock of his hair, fixed above his left ear, was an Eagle’s feather that dangled with beads – a talisman perhaps. He was shirtless and his bronze skin revealed a life spent in the sun, and on his face was a map of the world. Inked upon his chest was a Celtic circle; an intricate woven pattern that symbolized Eternity. Was he a woodsman? A traveler perhaps, from the Silk Road? An enchanter? A condottieri or even a deserter maybe…a thief and a robber? The mystique of the man seemed to make the very air around him crack and pop like the smoldering embers of her hearth. They were two travelers on the same path, a lifetime apart to come together at this moment. Her eyes met his, and his gaze held hers and drew her into his soul. With his eyes he stripped the layers of her garments from her; her gown of golden embroidery and layers of Egyptian cotton and Oriental silk. Gone, too, were the symbols of regal stature, rings of gold and jeweled stones of rubies and emeralds from lands far away, beyond Persia, deep within the Pashtun and Panjshir Valleys. She stood naked, stripped of the ostentatious trappings of her world. Naked, now she could breathe, like a swimmer’s first gasp at the air after he breaks the surface of the water—that first painful and joyful gasp of air. She stood with broad shoulders and an arched back and felt no shame, no embarrassment. She stood with no judgment, just as pure beauty as nature intended it to be. She forced herself to blink as if to see if this was real, and in an instant he was on her. She could feel his presence around her in the trees and the grass, in the leaves and petals that fell around them, the flowers, and from the very earth beneath their bodies. She could feel the cool grass against her flushed perfumed skin. She could smell the musk of the earth on his skin; it was the smell of the forest—of death and decay, birth and renewal. Then for a moment, her Mother’s voice echoed in her head and a moment’s fear gripped her heart, and she tried to crawl away from him. He did not try to stop her, but instead whispered her name. Though he spoke

prose | 27

with a foreigner’s tongue with an accent strange to her own ears, she recognized it. It was the voice she had heard; the voice carried on angel’s wings. The fear left her and she stopped and waited. “Do you feel it?” He asked. “The slow subtle sensations of ecstasy ebbing and flowing with the cosmic tides of your soul…” Just then he crowned her with a wreath of flowers and anointed her with oil, and again he asked, “Do you feel it?” “Think of nothing…let yourself go. Relax your muscles and your bones…your mind and your tongue and your toes…feel the soft, gentle pulsations of ecstasy coursing through every cell; through every molecule of your body. “ She could feel him. He was all around her raining down from the stars above and rising up from the earth beneath her; rising through the ages, up through the earth through her palms and up still through her arms and legs. This energy that drove at the very core of her soul. She felt it on every bead of sweat that formed on her flushed pink skin; its sweet release rose up from her like steam in the cool night air. He was all around her. She was a virgin and was a stranger to these feelings that raged in her like a wildfire consuming her soul. She tried to resist but could not - would not. She would have him. He whispered in her ear, “Do you feel it?” “Breathe it in. Yes. Again. Breathe it in. Every breath intensifies those sweet, subtle sensations…so exquisite…so magnificent…so divine…so cosmic…yes, breathe it in and let it go.” She arched her back and rolled her head back ,and a moan rose from her throat like hot lava up the vent of a volcano. “Do you feel it? Do you feel me?” He repeated. “Breathe it in. It’s all around you. It’s subtle, and sometimes it is the most subtle sexual sensations that are the most powerful. Breathe it in. It’s everywhere. That ecstasy is all around you, and you don’t have to do anything—just lay there and let it go.” She began to rock her hips for him and pushed up against his body and she would yowl for him and cry for him.

28 | prose

“Do you feel it?” “Yes.” “Can you feel me? “ “Oh yes”. “You are exquisite…” “You are magnificent…” “You are divine…” “You are ecstacy…” “You“ “Are” “Sex.” She briefly thought of her bethroed as she pushed up against him, but she could not picture a face. She bucked and writhed until her soul spilled in him and his into her. Like a mighty river tumbling into the sea, crashing into the waves, they collapsed onto a bed of leaves. She could feel the cool earth moist against her pink flushed skin. She could smell the sweet musk of the earth—of death and decay, of birth and renewal. She turned to him and spoke, “I am afraid. I am so small; I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside of me?” “Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see great things.“ It was resolved. She would leave with this stranger, and the castle would never see their princessbride again. She lay for moment, her body still flushed and warm from her exertion. The stranger slipped on his trousers, and his stomach was flat and strong and her breast trembled with a breath. He extended his hand out to her. She felt the rush of cool air as she inhaled. She looked upon the ivory moon and could not believe that it was the same moon that shone down on her the night before. So much had changed. The grass was wet and the earth soft and spongy beneath her skin; the night seemed electric with energy. The shimmer of silvery moonlight danced on the brilliant creek as a minnow flashed delirious with gnats. A chrysalis pulsed in its mushy cocoon on a gnarled root of an ancient oak. A frog’s heart quickened its tap-tap in the wet bank sludge. Crickets serenaded them from fern leaves while fireflies pulsed in the cobalt night. She took his hand, and the stranger asked for her name and she replied, “Gabrielle Émilie.” There. Exhaling, she had found herself.•

Contemplation

Alex Tam â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

art | 29

Baby Dream

Coty Feest • digital photograph

30 | art

Twilight

Jayna Conkey • photograph

Summer Nights #16

Kelly Bridegum • digital photograph

OfOf thethe Earth Earth Becca Anderson

I feel like every nerve is lying outward And exposed As the branches of the trees Uplifted towards the sky My trunk is strongly rooted The elements intensely ďŹ nd me On one branch falls hatred of those who are different Speak different Look different There are three hundred types of squirrels (I made that up but you get the point) On one branch falls rape The ideology of the miniskirt She had a drink She was in the wrong place at the wrong time With no respect for life For dignity On one branch falls the crushed child The crushed wife The crushed citizen Spirit buried as the dead beneath the ground Of any society lacking in compassion And direction For the way of the earth I am part of the earth but not of this world My soul is every nerve Of my heart exposed openly upon the ďŹ&#x201A;esh of my branchlike veins While I embrace the ideas of what I love I cannot embrace the tangible evil that displays itself

as a daily nightmare A walking paradox Seeking the harmony between the love and lessons of the earth And the cruelty before me Every nerve is exposed and paining my entire existence as a being What cause do I join? What people do I trust? Which one is more important than the other? What an enabling this creates Delusional I belong to the earth I came from it I accept it even in its harshness Yet I am not of this world I do not understand its pain Though I share in it I belong to the earth The animals in it The animals that we slaughter The humans that slaughter each other With guns and with words and with actions That dig and cut and rip into That exposes every nerve My wish: I seek a harmony taught by the earth Seek harmony for our world I belong to the earth Seek belonging to the earth

poetry | 31

Close your Eyes and... Close Your Eyes and... Mario Ponzio

Imagine.The cup of coffee, thick ropes of steam rising from the white porcelain saucer. The squawks of protesting children raking around their closets for today’s wardrobe. A swig of black coffee sloshes around in your mouth, washing away the last sweet taste of your wife’s ventral lips, the thoughts of her bucks and moans still prevalent in your mind. Imagine. You’re brought back to the kitchen (the warmth of the cup in your palm, the scent of wheat bread toasting away) by the sudden churning toll of the doorbell. Excuse the interruption as the paperboy has mistakenly come to your front door for collections, forgetting that you had switched to an automatic payment through your bank months earlier. Looking longingly up the stairwell, wishing only to slip back in your bedroom and into your already invigorated wifeyou set down the cup of coffee after another gulp and march through the labyrinthine halls of your downstairs to the plain, stain-finished oak door entry. Imagine. The sudden shock of seeing a man cloaked completely in black: the only things visible are his vivid blue eyes filled with some unspoken anticipation. No words, actions, or thoughts come to mind in these few seconds except totally enveloping wonder. So entranced, your eyes seemingly look over his raised gloved hand, holding a chrome rod. Just as you come to your senses and open your mouth to speak, to altercate, the man’s free hand pounds on the end of the rod. With a silenced whoosh, you feel a sudden sharp pain in your chest, an unreal jolt of adrenaline courses through your blood momentarily but is overwhelmed. You stumble back into the foyer—decorated in classic Spanish art-deco—and as you collapse and feel your tongue fall limp and heavy, you can only think of your wife and children (unaware and innocent and serene upstairs), pray for their well-being and hope nobody ever finds out about... Darkness overtakes you. Imagine. The stifling air, making it hard to breathe. You restrain a sudden urge to gag and cough deep within your throat. You try to raise your leaden

32 | prose

eyelids—dream of a dungeon that awaits you. Aha, says the inquiring mind, why is the dungeon your first thought? You shrug that momentary lapse off, eased as your eyes finally flutter open. You blink several times, orient yourself with the bold, blinding fluorescent bulbs several meters above your head. Imagine. The same wonder from before seems to seep into every pore almost instantaneously. Your cell is small, minuscule even, just enough to lie on the floor with inches of give on either side. Yet instead of thick, wet mossy stone walls like that of a Dumasian cell, you stare at your own sullen and sore reflection in a gray-smoke mirror. On all four sides, you can only stare transfixed at the ghost before you, your forehead caked in the rust-colored mud from the incomplete floor beneath your bare feet. Imagine. Your eyes going wide as you stare just above your head, on all four mirrored sides, are words written in copper-stained words: LOOK UPON THE FACE.You can barely concentrate on these words before the hot metallic scent assaults you (frightfully familiar), bringing you to your knees. Your head shakes impulsively, feeling sick throughout. You bury your face into the mud, hoping that the earthen soil will wash away that intense, nightmarish smell… only to find that you can taste it now. Solid with iron, the murky liquid on the muddled floor bubbles into your mouth. You raise your head as thick, syrupy pools of crimson begin to dribble down your cheek before you violently expel it in a mixture of liquid, vomit, and bile. Imagine. The profanity under your breath, crawling back against a mirrored wall, staring at the floor in horrid revelation. No longer a refuge from the smell, the floor is only now long rivers of fluid collecting into large, semi-malleable pools. It was blood, old blood- you know that. Human or otherwise, it was blood. Specks of dried blood, fresh watery, and earth combine to form this collage of macabre at your feet.Your body begins to shake, an addict without his fix.Your stomach yearns yet also tosses. Getting to your feet, you bash on the glass wall, ignoring that it only responds with a slight sway as

Untitled # 1, 5, and 2 Stephanie

(top to bottom) Aspiazu • silver gelatin prints

your gore-ridden fists pound away on the reinforced mirror. LOOK UPON THE FACE. He laid down on the floor, unblinking eyes. The blood from the gashes on his hands and from the torn-off finger nails bleeding away into the already old pools. All of his anger has faded away and staring into the illuminating bulbs above his face, warming him, he can only feel remorse. A profound sadness over the too-soon quelled lives, the false smiles, and the wicked deeds. He had, every day, signed away lives in the name of profit, and here he was; his deeds finally revenged. The room began to fill with an odorless haze, slowly choking away the life in his heart. He thought of his wife and children, smiled in realization that they’d see him as a caring father and husband in the end. Their grief would be filled with anger, but they would love him soon enough. Beneath him, the blood became water—the mud became grass—the lights became the sun. He felt the sky above and stared at the mirrored walls vaporizing themselves into unnaturally large oak trees. Imagine. Reading of a weapons contractor who one day opened the door to nobody at all, except a sudden sense of guilt. The by-line speaks of a good family man and a great businessman. Somebody who had, in the span of one working day, made millions on missile sales while still managing to see his son’s swim meet. This same man, having finished his morning coffee and wheat toast, had, like any other day, gone to his garage to go to work. Yet he never opened the door, instead allowing his car to fill with the refuse carried in by a haphazard gardening house from the exhaust pipe. On a sheet of paper by his side, in handwriting barely recognizable as his own, he had written: Look upon the face. The father, the husband, and the bastard. So we go.•

art & prose | 33

Untitled

Sarah Hall • digital photograph

Winter’s Path

34 | art

Blaine Dugan • digital photograph

Untitled

Anthony Contini • digital photograph

TheTheRoad road I walk I Walk Jeff Gesick

It’s what I do

It’s where I go The things I know And how I ﬂow

Awaken Awaken Allyson Patton

It’s up and down

Skin caked with dried blood,

Smile then frown

Bones dusty within the body,

Round and round Tumble down

Grating against sand in sockets. Cuticles cracked, lips chapped, Luster fading;

It’s what you see

I’m living but I am dead.

It’s you and me

To be returned

The sky and tree

To dust blown by the wind.

Pedagogy

Old ways stitched together; I long to be broken down

Its institution

To be re-sewn.

Restitution

Slough off the scabs,

Destitution

Repair this skin,

And evolution

Shocking pink of health renewed. Life in the marrow,

It has no end

Honey to the lips,

It will not lend

Crutch for legs broken.

Completely bend-

Come within and

ing all we mend

Purge this disease That strikes, crushes, and depletes.

It’s life!

Light of God

Full of strife

Awaken And restore me.

It is Existence! Fading, in the distance

poetry | 35

Faith

36 | art

Athiwan Yaemmuan â&#x20AC;˘ silver gelatin print

Broken Broken Rose Rose Jessica Harary

Like a broken rose, Floating down a stream, Leading to an ocean, Of an endless dream. And her heartache, Sinks below, Dying in the waters, She drowned in long ago. And washing upon a shore, This ďŹ&#x201A;ower of grace, Petals as gentle, As the tears on her face. She closed her eyes,

Tattered Tattered Testament Testament Kathy Jakolat

Wearing ragged jeans, a moth-eaten sweater,

Lifts her head to the sky,

red crocheted ski cap, and green mittens

Breathes in deeply,

he lay in disarray

And tries not to cry.

on a cast-iron park bench.

She looks within,

In the relative safety of mid-day,

Searching for a way,

he snores like a grizzly in the depths

To cling to her steam,

of December, vulnerable and exposed

And make it through the day.

in his public sleep. Front page news his blanket against the winter chill. Holes in his shoes reveal last Sundayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s headlines. His worldly possessions lay at his feet; Illustrated Rumi, a well-worn Bible, some corn chips.

poetry | 37

Tree

Joseph Vestal â&#x20AC;˘ digital art/ illustration

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Entitlement Entitlement Joel Lippert

a work for two voices

I AM DUE, THROUGH YOUR BLOOD, SWEAT & GRAFT, ALL THAT I GET – WHAT, WORK, DO I LOOK LIKE I’M DAFT? I REACH FOR THE CHALICE, I CLAW AT THE RING, I WHIMPER AND BLEED PURE JOY AT “CHA-CHA-CHING”.

I AM YOU, I AM ME, I AM TWO/THREE-FACED AND VAIN I AM JUST LIKE YOU IN THAT I SUCCUMB TO THE PAIN... THE PAIN OF NOT REACHING THOSE SO LOFTY GOALS; (YOU KNOW, THE ONES THAT BURN IN YOUR CHEST LIKE GOLDEN-CALF COALS.) I DESERVE THAT, I WANT IT – IT REALLY IS MINE, YOU MAY HOLD IT NOW, BUT I’LL CLENCH IT IN TIME. BUT WAIT. ISN’T THERE MORE? IS THIS ALL THAT I GET? WHAT, I’VE GOT TO EARN IT? – THAT WASN’T PART OF THIS BET. LET’S ADD THIS UP: I RISKED FIVE, YOU GIVE ME ONE; SHOULDN’T I HAVE MORE THAN WHEN I BEGUN? OH SURE, THERE’S THE LESSONS I’VE LEARNED, DO STILL ENDURE – YOU TELL ME THEY’LL MAKE MY HEART NOBLE AND PURE. SO WHAT, SO BITE ME – I AM CAPITAL “G” GAIN. OH, YOU BLEEDING ART-FARTS, REALLY, YOU ALL SCAN JUST THE SAME. Come look in the glass, whose face do you see? COME LOOK IN THE GLASS, WHOSE FACE DO YOU SEE? Is it Tom, Dick or Bill’s, is it you, is it – is it she? IS IT TOM, DICK OR BILL’S, IS IT YOU, IS IT – IS IT SHE? Yes, it’s hard to be sure, with the play of the Light – the blinding glow of Truth that so many do fight. Oh sure, truth is relative, personal – here, this one is mine, but there are others that for all do pass through the times. Like the concept of Karma, by many a name – what you visit on others, happens to you just the same... Or more, if you’re fortunate – be it bad, be it good, ‘cause then you’ve learned that you LIVE in this ‘hood. And you are not due what you have not yet given. If you feel that you are, then find some place else to be livin’ until you find that your way just ain’t a-workin’ (see, our chains, they only take so much jerkin’). This global hamlet is like so many others, and we – we all like minglin’ with sisters and brothers. So when you honor and love us, no matter our...skins, come on home, you’ll be welcomed and treated as kin. We’ll open our arms, feed you, dust off your hat… You know, now that I think, we’re entitled to that.

poetry | 39

Make Me the Sea

Bethany Surber â&#x20AC;˘ digital photogaph

40 | art

Tide Tide

Ashley Noël Hennefer

A river runs through us Emptying into a sea of something much deeper than we know how to explain The tides sway in, and crawl away Each grain of sand is a star A universe beneath my feet We are creating a rhythm – you are the pacing of my steps the rising of my chest, and the fall Ten ﬁngers, two hands Two bodies, one mind One heart – we are one I am all of you and you are everything in me Dissolving in hands, Eroding in kisses, Drowning in love... We rock to the rhythm of the ocean

art & poetry | 41

New Orleans Graﬁtti and The Ranch Meghan Howe • c-prints

Utah Sunset

Mitch Gritts • digital photograph

42 | art

Three Kings Three Kings David Laxalt

The road was dusty, as mangled as it ever was. Deep trenches lined either side where melting snow had carved its path from the tip of the Sierra Nevada Mountains toward the valley below. Submitting to the roadside ravines meant a ruined weekend, perhaps a backseat overnight stay if you got caught in the evening, a long and miserable hike back down if you were lucky enough to get caught before the afternoon sun bore down. Not to mention the long lasting effects on your vehicle and the ridicule you’d receive from drivers who have experienced the road’s unrelenting wrath over the years. Lucky for the party, I was as skilled a navigator as they came, for despite my youth, one learns quickly of each new obstacle of the season on a road that will do you no favors. We were taking a risk traveling at dusk. The glare on a pitted windshield burns the eyes and pulls even the most steady handed driver into its depths. Indeed I did feel a slight pull as the blinding rays cast their spell, but that may have been from the six pack of Newcastle Ale I had been working on since the start of the climb. In the backseat, Dan was already singing his third round of the Hallelujah Chorus. We rounded the bend and came to a halt as the sun temporarily vanished behind some Aspens. It was 8:15 p.m. The Jeep sat angled downward, facing the most exhilarating stretch of road the elements have ever crafted. A rollercoaster drop of gnarly road played host to a solid mass of dirt and stone packed tighter and tighter with each new winter. It was a course of legend. Young bicyclists building ramps at the end of their driveways dream to partake in such a marvel of propulsion. An outcropping of land so absurdly death defying Evil Kneival himself wouldn’t dare attempt it, wouldn’t think of attempting it. Two massive rocks ﬂanked each side of the giant knuckle of earth, like jewels on a crown. The “King’s Crown” behind a royal face of mountain that radiates untainted girth on its valley of subjects below. The crown that provides universal solvent from its royal appendages and shelter from its coniferous robe of diverse timbre. Conquering the King’s Crown is a tradition reserved for those daring enough to tackle the maiden voyage of the hill. The

winter shapes the road anew providing new obstacles to overcome. New rocks may emerge that require evasion, and fallen trees create barriers of sometimes insurmountable proportions. But there is one thing you can always count on; if you make it past all those hindrances that make up the King’s royal guard, you can be certain that when you round the bend and your vessel looks awkwardly away from the sky, the King’s Crown will be there to greet you. As the dust settled in every crevice of our vehicle and on every fabric of our person, I popped the top off of a fresh Newcastle and said through the taste of grit in my mouth, “Maiden Voyage?” My brother, Kev, white-knuckled the hand-hold above the Jeep passenger side window, took a slug of Amber Bock, and ceremoniously replied, “Maiden Voyage.” Dan in the backseat, now having fallen silent, followed suit with an over-exaggerated gulp of his drink, a bottle of Corona, no lime since we had forgotten it at the store in search of chorizo, causing Dan to enter into a continuous outburst of, “you know what would make this moment better” comments. He swallowed, made the inevitable drawn out drinker’s gasp, and with a nod of his head and a slow blink of the eyes quoted, “Maiden Voyage, lads. But you know what would make this moment bet—” Acceleration. I let loose the brake and slammed the pedal that gave our trusty steed its rein and caused Dan to break mid sentence. Our liquored up brains were telling us this was the time of our lives while our reason, locked away somewhere in our minds two drinks ago, was screaming, “Reset the brake moron! This is suicide!!” The intensity level was pacing itself, ﬁrst quick disbelief that this time of year had come again, and then a jolt of adrenaline as speed increased. My left hand tightened on the wheel, my right even tighter around the opaque bottle which was sure to break. My peripheral vision caught a chipmunk scurrying back to the safety of its den, most deﬁnitely not wanting to witness the horror about to take place. As we came closer to the leap, the rust color of the thick water pipe jutting out from either side of the

prose | 43

launch pad came into focus. The pipe, which was built ages ago to pump water from Marlette Lake to Virginia City for thirsty miners, takes credit for the creation of our sacred mound. As the pipe reached the surface over the years, workers would pile more earth over it while the subsequent snow falls bound the dirt and rock into the unforgiving mass that is our tradition. With the speed at which we made contact with the jump, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Virginia City residents noticed their water supply getting a little murky. Like screaming fans at the Super Bowl, we mimicked the collective vocal build up as we started our descent and then the cheer as we collided with the turf. Only we weren’t in the stands watching from afar, we were the ball as it received a tail end blow from the kicker’s cleat. We flew for a lifetime. The engine raced and the tires spun. The trees gasped and the winds ceased. Collectively, Mother Nature held her breath and watched in slow motion as we sailed through the forest. At first, the bright blue sky was in our windshield, the tree tops swaying back and forth. The inertia lifted us from our seats and our seatbelts fought to contain us. Two small birds could be seen very briefly, and the sun was exposed again, creating shadow that danced across our faces, our mouths agape. Then the shadows joined together. The sun was taken prisoner, and the blissful sky with its brother birds disappeared. Instantly, with force like the falling blade of a guillotine, our euphoria was destroyed and the laws of physics became our enemy. The Jeep’s angle shifted and instead of swaying tree tops, stiff trunks were present, the earth’s crust replaced the atmosphere, and floating birds became immovable rocks. Before we knew it, all three of us were slammed into our seats; our free hand outstretched hopelessly holding onto anything which would lessen the severity of impact. In the milliseconds it took for my chest to make contact with the wheel, my peripheral vision told me my brother was pitching forward in unison. In the same instant, reason escaped from the depths of my mind only to provide me with the sobering phrase, “I hate to tell you I told you so.” The next four seconds were spent colliding with various blunt objects within the Jeep’s cab until I could reposition my right foot on the brake and push.

44 | prose

The silence was deafening. I held my hand determinedly around the wheel and the pain in my chest came into focus. I shut my eyes tightly, forcing the pain away until I reopened them. I collected my breath and looked left out my window seeing a sandstorm of dust billow its way past my face, engulfing the Jeep. Not a word was spoken. The ambiance of the forest; its leaves shaking as the wind passed through them, the long vibrato cry of a chipmunk found my ears as if someone was slowly turning up Mother Nature’s volume dial. I turned the ignition, killing the engine and replaced my left hand on the wheel; my right still holding firm to the beer. Surprisingly, we had each found our way back into our original positions. Still no words were spoken but our thoughts must have been the same because at once we each opened our respective doors, climbed out of the Jeep and made our way back toward the jump. Dan broke ahead and took a brief look at the ground. He looked back at us with his hands in the air and yelled, “New record!!” We toasted the new record and this year’s conquest of the Crown. It was 9:25 p.m. when we arrived at the cabin with our headlights on and the sound of Hendrix blasting out into the night. Hendrix was fitting for such an occasion, but mostly we played it to cover the new clunking noise coming from under the Jeep’s hood. It didn’t matter, not a soul was around for miles. The hills were cooling off while the moon was assuming its position up in the twinkling darkness. Conversation was light and pleasant as we unpacked into the cabin. More liquor flowed, this time heavier and faster. More than once we found ourselves out on the porch yelling at the mountains and listening to our distant replicas return the calls. Under the Coleman lantern we played card games like Midnight Baseball, Euchre, 7-27 and Hearts. We ate while playing: chorizo with a side salad and applesauce; a healthy substitute to replace the alcohol burning away the lining of our stomachs. The night began and ended with cards. At 9:30 p.m. fifty-two Hoyle playing cards sat neatly together, by 2:30 a.m. thirty-four splayed every which way across the table, the side of my head among them, my eyes shut and my mouth agape. Kev and Dan were in equal predicaments across the cabin. It was 2:42 a.m. All was black for the time being. I could hear

things but my vision was restricted to darkness. I could feel my arms but I couldn’t move them. My cheek felt wet as I inhaled and my legs were tingling. A piercing clatter broke my stupor and I rose suddenly, bleary eyed and confused. I sat there upright and waited. Nothing. Had I actually heard a noise? Was it inside the cabin? Perhaps one of my inebriated compadres had shifted in their sleep and tipped something over. I looked around the cabin trying to hold my heavy head still. Everything looked as it should; torn apart for the time being, but still holding its rustic splendor. The only sound now was Creedence’s rendition of “I Put a Spell on You” blasting out of the radio, but something was not right. My depth perception was being tampered with. I couldn’t see out of my right eye. I reached up to examine it and pulled away the obstruction stuck to my face: the King of Spades. Earlier, the son of a bitch card had somehow cost me the final game of Hearts and ten bucks, but now he was just mocking me. I stuck him on the table and put a beer bottle on his face. “That’ll keep him quiet,” I thought to myself. Just then I felt the tension in my midsection; my bladder was screaming. I lumbered out of my chair, in the process banging my knee on the table, tripping over some shoes and chuckling all the while. Clearly I was still intoxicated. I turned the radio off and staggered out onto the porch of the cabin, feeling the bitter cold air hit my face as I did. The rail was a godsend as I took a step at a time down to the decomposed granite floor of the forest. I crept my way nearly fifteen yards from the cabin and began to relieve myself. Half a minute later, I zipped up, turned around and became instantly sober. Standing a few yards away, the largest black bear I had ever seen, live or on T.V., was sniffing around our cabin. My blood became as thick as cement. My skin, frozen before I saw the beast, somehow felt tighter, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. I was figuratively and literally frozen. Everything was still except for the giant mass of fur rummaging about and my brain. A barrage of thoughts appeared at light speed. He would catch me if I ran. He was between me and the door. Should I stay still and shiver against my will in the cold? Will the brute see my body trembling? After nearly a billion thoughts raced through my mind the only one

I acted on was when I thought the whites of my eyes shone like the headlights of my Jeep. They must have, I thought to myself. I closed them in desperation. I still heard rustling. I peeked through my eyelids only to find that the bear had sat down now and was facing me, looking directly into my eyes. My heart was destroying my rib cage. Surely the animal would hear a rib crack any moment now, charge forward, grab me by the neck and thrash. At this thought, not one single atom of the infinite amount that made up my body dared to move. For ages we sat and stared at each other. Thirty years passed in thirty seconds. Saliva collected in my mouth but I dared not swallow. My eyes became crispy with dryness but I defied the urge to lubricate them. I willed the beast to turn away. “Please don’t attack me. Please don’t charge and thrash me. Please look away, walk away, disappear.” Then he opened his mouth. The porcelain razors protruding from his dark gums were sure to sink into flesh any second, ending my life in an instant. Any second now. Then…he inhaled. Deeply. His mouth closed, he licked his lips and swallowed nonchalantly. It was a yawn! He doesn’t see me! Or he sees me and doesn’t care! “Please walk away, Please walk away.” And then, without notice, he did. He stood up, sniffed the air, and strode through the trees. Although I still couldn’t budge, I exhaled as slow as my body would let me. I don’t know how long I waited until I could move, but when I felt I was safe, I dashed soundlessly into the cabin, closing the door without noise. I stood, scared and bewildered, with my hands pressing against the door replaying everything in my head, trying desperately to control my breathing. Dan and Kev had not budged an inch. At that moment I thought, “I just survived a face to face with a bear. The King of these hills. I just survived a showdown with the King…and no person will ever believe me.” I sat down at the table and stared at the wall for several minutes. The ticking clock overpowered my trance. It read 3:00 a.m. sharp. I gathered the cards on the table, placing them neatly in a stack. I collected the King of Spades from underneath the bottle and placed him on top, face up. I stared at him for a while, then grabbed the closest bottle of alcohol and poured a shot.•

prose | 45

The Pool The Pool Brianna Thompson

I would wear goggles And jump in on summer afternoons. The poolfull of children And too much chlorine But oh the color! Bright turquoise Catching sunlight. a body of Daytime stars and Reﬂection. I would jump in on late afternoons Goggles tightly adjusted And I would Sink to the bottom. the body doesn’t even tap or bounce on the cement Just hovers in peaceful blue freefall. The underwater world: Sinking The mufﬂed silence Sinking The slow down Sinking I lay On my back and look up At the warbled and vivid world through a lens of water. I get this quiet soft world In brief stretches of lung capacity. If I’m down there too long Primitive instincts kick in. For those few moments, Upon rocketing to the surface, want of breath is the entire meaning of my life.

46 | poetry

The underwater I love. I love in Moments of simple silence Utter secret Where everything is observed And sometimes I see Bits of my life bubble to the surface. It happens: The soft explosion of someone diving in Held by arms of clear aqua and quiet Why is there no real noise? No shock? Just slowly Slowly, ﬂoating I see a child’s long hair clearly, Silent and full of grace. It trails behind her like a visible echo A feathery channel of undulating energy. She is a mermaid And I believe her.

Motionless a current lifts my body And I ﬂoat unexpectedly. The warm pleasure of suspension Reminds me of his love. Surprising and ethereal- but something tangible. Loving him is magicLike trying to hold the warm current in my arms And succeeding. I watch the light patterns (they are the shapes of cracks in ice) That crawl along the cement ﬂoor. They remind me of the ego: Always changing shape but never ceasing to demand attention.

From the bottom of the pool, The clouds in the sky are clean sheets hung out to dry. They ﬂap and twist, widen and curl with the waves of the surface. I spend what seems years Contemplating water’s absence of shape And the face it makes the moment water meets air.

I thought growing up would be like swimming passionately toward the deep end of the pool. But growing up is more like going to take a dip And realizing you forgot to wear your swimsuit, then falling in with a million others Who forgot their swimsuits And splashing loudly And ﬂoating silently And watching the turquoise light And the day-star reﬂections And making grief explosions And falling in love And slowly, slowly

On my back

A current lifts our bodies.

Path of Diamonds

Jane Kenoyer â&#x20AC;˘ acrylic on canvas

art | 47

Machines are Machines are not She not She Brian Boomer

As the last kerosene lamp was capped and extinguished, Kelly felt the security of another week gone by without incident. Although the last scare for the crew had been two years earlier and much of that crew had been replaced with coke nosed migrant workers, every day without incident was notable and to be celebrated at the Oso bar. Kelly and his brother Jonathan walked away from the mine just before sundown, behind the rest of their crew. They grabbed their empty thermoses and piled into the aqua marine Skylark that was the pride of the Juster family and Sweetwater county. It was a beauty of a machine: completely stock, 1963, hardtop with creamy white leather interior and hard vinyl top to accent the sea green paint that had been known around Rock Springs since the day it was purchased. In the early seventies it had been an easy target for the police, who knew the boy’s affinity for liquor. In 1974, that all changed when a black damp in the Calaveras mine took Milton, the boy’s father, and three other men who were natives of Rock Springs. Their death was felt all through town and out into Wyoming, further than the boys or their widowed mother could imagine. Jonathan pulled two cigarettes from the pack of Marlboros that lay on the bench seat between them and handed one to Kelly. Kelly put the car in gear, and they drove down and away as the smoke was pulled like ribbons from the windows of the car. Loretta Lynn was playing on the jukebox when the boys entered the Oso. It seemed as though she was always singing when they came in. It made them feel at home. They saddled up to their usual places at the bar, staring at their reflections in the smoked mirror behind the shelved bottles of booze. They were covered in black soot from the mine, having only bright peach rings of skin around their eyes and red cracked lips to show otherwise. The black film was a badge of dedicated honor. The brothers remained silent, staring into the glass, until Frenchie came around for their drink orders. “What’ll

48 | prose

it be?” she asked. Kelly looked at Jonathan. “I’ve got to call Nadine.” “Ha ha, ya bastard, I win again,” Jonathan said, elated. “Two Budwisers, Frenchie Sweetie.” Smiling, Kelly walked back toward the restrooms, past the pool tables, to the payphone. The brothers had played the game of silence since they first joined the mining outfit in ‘71. They would ride in the Skylark with their father after their shift and by his orders they would remain silent until they reached home. Kelly smiled because although he had lost the game by speaking first, Jonathan was going to pay for the beers. Kelly pressed the phone between his head and shoulder and lit another cigarette. His finger spun around the rotary and after a few clicks on the receiver, the other end picked up. His head occasionally nodded as he stared out the window onto the empty main street. George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” came on the jukebox, taking his attention away from the window. His brother was smiling widely with a shot in his hand held high in the air for his brother. “Step right up,” Jonathan began singing loudly, “Come on in.” “I’ve got to go.” Kelly said into the phone. “Mhm, you too.” He hung the phone up and joined his brother back at the bar. “C’mon, dance with me sweetheart,” Jonathan said to his brother. Kelly smiled, took the shot and placed one hand in his brother’s and the other around his waist. They sang in unison as they twirled about the room. “Over there, do do do do, sits the chair, do do do do, where she’d bring the paper to me.” “Alright Johnny, that’s enough.” “Oh c’mon brother. Let’s spin into the stars.” “I need another drink,” he said, laughing. “I’ll buy the next round.” The crowd inside the bar took little notice of the brothers’ antics. Everyone was local and had acclimated to their nature. Jonathan, who was the younger of the two by three years, required a

bit more getting used to, but was a crowd favorite. They took their stools at the bar and ordered two Boilermakers. Kelly peered back into his black reﬂection behind the bar, noticing that he and his brother, covered in soot, looked strikingly similar. The boys were well known for their looks, inherited from their father. Jonathan especially was blessed with the rugged handsomeness of Wyoming coalminers. Kelly wasn’t jealous of Jonathan’s ‘cutest baby’ trophies or multitudes of girlfriends or dimples and perfect teeth. He was happy to be off the market and without the Clap, which his brother had recently gotten over. “So how’s Nadine?” Jonathan asked after swallowing his whiskey. “Ah, you know, she’s worried.” “Yeah I feel ya.” “You feel me?” he asked chuckling. “Like a deaf mute feels an earthquake coming with his toes in the ocean.” The two shared a laugh. “So, you think this is the right thing to do then, huh?” “Ain’t really up to me, I guess.” “Yeah, I guess that’s true. But you guys are going to go through with it?” “Looks like it. We’ve been talking about it for a month now, and I just want something to be done.” “Yeah.” “What do you think?” “Well, I can’t blame you, brother. Under the circumstances, in our line of work and all, I might do the same thing. I mean, if something were to happen to you in the mines, it wouldn’t really be fair. I don’t envy you though.” Kelly sat quietly for a moment looking at his blackened face. He dropped his shot glass in his mug, spilling beer on the worn bar, and drank the mixture down in a few gulps. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, pulling a considerable amount of soot from his face. “We’re driving to San Francisco to have it done this weekend. We’ll take her truck, so you can use the Skylark while we’re gone. You’ll have to pick me up for work Monday morning then.” “That sounds good, man. God, San Francisco. That’ll be like a full day drive.”

“Yeah, gonna take about 15 hours, we think.” “Good God. It’s a shame you have to go so far.” “Yeah, it’s the closest place that I’ve heard of, and it’s good that it’s far from Rock Springs. I told mom we were going for a vacation.” “Wow, the beach.” Jonathan paused as a smile spread across his face. “Take a picture of the ol’ big blue for me. You gonna pack the Polaroid?” “Yeah, Nadine’s at her house right now packing stuff up.” “You think she’ll be happy after?” “Don’t know. I hope so.” “You gonna be happy?” “I’m hopin’ this makes us both happy, but like I said, I don’t know.” “You need any money?” Kelly smiled. “No, we’re ﬁne. Thanks though.” “Another beer then, Frenchie.” She sauntered over from the jukebox. “What you boys need? I’m tryin’ to put on my songs.” “God Frenchie. Why you always ask what we want? We always want Bud. Always have. Always will. And do I got to petition for some damn peanuts around here or what?” “You know where the peanuts are,” she said as she ﬁlled their mugs, “you can get them yourself with that attitude.” “Aw c’mon dear, that ain’t no way to treat Rock Spring’s most lovely brothers.” She slung a bowl of peanuts and two mugs in front of them before she headed back to the jukebox. “I’m a little worried, to be honest with you Johnny.” “About what? Don’t nobody know but me, you and Nadine and her sister.” “And God.” “God?” Jonathan let out an uproarious laugh. “Since when are you the Pope?” “I don’t know, but it’s got me a little worried is all.” “Like you said, it’s her decision. Don’t worry about it.”

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“Yeah. I guess so.” He looked up from the bar to his brother and looked him squarely in the eyes. Jonathan smiled, then fell to a straight face, then smiled again. His upper teeth shined from out of his blackened skin. “Cheer up brother, we’ll be back in the mines before you know it and we can go ﬁshing next weekend.” “We’re going to look for a place over there.” Jonathan’s face dropped. “What do you mean? In the ocean?” “Yeah, over in San Francisco.” “What the fuck, man? You’re going to move? You’re going to leave me? This? Us? Our family?” “No, nothing’s for sure yet. I’m not doing anything yet. It’s just...” “It’s just what?” “It’s just, I’m going to scout out some jobs and some places since we’re going to be over there. It’s not that I want to leave you. It’s just that… I can’t live my whole life here, you know?” “Yeah, I guess I do know.” Jonathan slumped on his stool. “Two more beers Frenchie.” “Hey,” Kelly said noticing his brother’s dismay, “Why don’t you move out there with us? It could be good for you. There’s got to be plenty of women around that bay that have heard tales of Jonathan Juster and are just waiting to test the legend.” Jonathan chuckled half-heartedly. “C’mon, what do you say? No more mines. No more soot. It’s a big city. There’s the ocean right there.” “I can’t go.” “And why not?” “What would dad say? This town was good enough for his children.The mines have been good to us for four generations. Our family is in those mines. I can’t just leave that behind.” “That’s absurd.” Kelly said quietly. “Absurd.” They sat quietly next to one another, sipping their beers and looking into the mirror as the songs on the jukebox played on. Finally, Jonathan turned to Kelly. “Look,” he said, “you’re my brother and I love

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you. I can’t just go with you, but you need to take care of number one. All I know is that we’re not going to end it like this.” “Johnny, nothing is ending, I’m just going for a few days. I’ll be back.” “Unless things work out.” “Well, that remains to be seen. But if that did happen, I would be back for Christmas, and that’s only a couple of months away. Chances are we’ll just take care of our business, look around and come back.” “What does Nadine think about all this?” “It was her idea.” “Oh.” They ﬁnished their beers, saying little about the situation, listening to Frenchie’s melancholy picks on the jukebox. “Well,” Kelly said after some time, “I’d better get to Nadine’s. I’m going to walk, so you can take the Skylark back to your place.” “Ok brother, I’ll be by Monday at six to get you. Drive safe, man, and when you get back, I’ll take you out dancing.” “Sounds great.” “And give Nadine my best.” “Will do,” Kelly said, still laughing a little, “I’ll take that picture for you.” Kelly walked out of the bar into the cold night. His brother watched until he faded out from under the bar’s neon signs. He turned and caught himself in the mirror and ordered another beer. Kelly walked through the dark streets of his hometown, wondering if Nadine was going to change her mind.Wondering if she really wanted to go through with it, if it would ﬁnally make her happy.•

Lake Snakes

Brithany Thomson â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

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Untitled #3

Nicholette Codding â&#x20AC;˘ sepia toned gelatin silver print

52 | art

Vision Vision

Tara Dawn Connolly If actions speak louder than words I’m always lying

A prayer, may I?

Searching only for an end to know if I should begin

Great St. Anthony ﬁnd me a memory Or the thought of one lost before it conceived

My prince charming Wrapped in steel strings

Yet the answer is no

I can’t reach him I wish he would break

To love is to die I wish you were dead

Knocking on my door with a black rose

I won’t let you die with me

Soft perfume blinds me I don’t want sweet passage

The time is just not right

I want exodus Yet the answer is no To love is to die I wish I were dead But I won’t die with you Pounding on the ﬂoor with my burning feet Floors one through seven A ﬂame from hell shines light on heaven

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54 | art

Alone

Harmony Hilderbrand â&#x20AC;˘ digital photogaph

Spokane Spokane Rost Olsen

This is for Michael Kekoaokalani Maile, my brother…

Sitting Sitting, Waiting Waiting

Your time has now come. The ﬁeld is ripe and ready

Kelly Bridegum

for your peak labors.

I sit, there

You will now exchange

waiting, dreaming

the things of younger children

somewhere else entirely

for things of grown men.

where apocalyptic dreams change with a ﬂicker

The low, baggy pants

Gone, onto something new

and ﬂashy Rocawear shirts

where old movie stills

have yielded their place

dance and it rains beautiful Where life isn’t perfect

to a formal suit,

but so magical

blackened nametag, and ten-speed,

And it ﬂickers back

complete with scripture.

I realize I’m just here sitting, waiting

Proceed with passion. Return with honor, brother. Remember always that it is not just your fellow man and woman who you serve this day.

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Weekend Weekend Warrior Warrior Thomas Reader

Slowly eyes open, senses awake to the supple feeling of soft moist lips upon mine. From the dream state, my consciousness is active seeing the eyes of my sweetheart looking down upon me with her lips upon mine. I readied my clothes, thoughts flounder about my long absence away from my lover, and the life changing decision that I have made. Something inside me says that she will not be there when I return. I lean forward to my final kiss to only meet tear filled eyes and an unspoken goodbye. The look in her eyes foretells of what is to happen only I am oblivious to the message encoded in her brokenhearted eyes. I enter the car and lean back in the seat as I doze off from the gentle bumps in the asphalt covered road. The long and lonesome drive is eerily quiet, so I pull out my letter and read a paragraph and then return it safely to my right breast pocket. The only noise comes from the burning of gasoline flowing past the eight cylinders firing like pistons on a racecar and then the quick build-up of pressure is so enormous that the fumes are forced out the manifold and then past the exhaust out into the cold, dark and silent night. We arrive at a place which could only be described from a scene from a movie: red lights flashing, horns going off, and people yelling at the top of their lungs. I dawn my IBA, sliding my left arm through followed by my right as the full weight of my sixty-five pound IBA bares down on my shoulders. I secure my LBV and fill my ammo pouches with magazine after magazine, using every single open space to make sure that I have enough brass to keep me alive maxing out at a combat load of thirty-five pounds. I ensure that I have enough liquid to quench my thirst as I load my eighty-five pound assault pack on my back and grasp my M-4. I pull down my tight chin strap securing my kevlar to my head and leave through the double doors with my brothers. I insert my hearing protection as we approach the black hawk from the southeast corner. As the black hawk is powering up, the props are swirling faster and faster untill the deafening sound of them can be heard even with hearing protection on. Several hours pass like several minutes as my mind ponders my sweetheart who I left back home as the black hawk lifts off from the he-lo pad. Hours fall like flies, my eye lids

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feel heavy and tired from a night full of sorrow and tears. Later into the flight, the burnt orange light from the sun shines its final light as it slips below the horizon to its nightly resting place. A friendly nudge awakes me; I secure my gear and follow others like me as we get closer and closer to the LZ. As my turn arrives, I sling my weapon and clinch the thick rope with both hands. Counting…1…2… and then I drop out the side of the he-lo fast, roping down thirty feet to the ground where we put up 360 degree security. The props kick up so much dust that our faces are pelted by millions of grains of sand, like a car’s windshield during a sandstorm, for several minutes till the he-lo departs. There in that very cold, quiet and desolate night, not a soul moves and not a sound is made while we await our linkup with the Bradleys. Moments later the linkup is established and groups of sleepy eyed, half awake young men scurrying here and there creates a sense of organized chaos as groups vanish into the dark depths of the bellies of their up-armored Bradley fighting vehicles. Slowly my eyelids close once again, and it was then that my world was to change forever. Suddenly, a deafneing noise awakens me, nearly sending me into a heart attack. An eardrum splitting explosion rattles the troop area and sends the vehicle into the air and just as abruptly as it was shot into the air, it comes crashing down onto its armor plated side. “IED!!!” is screamed by all. We spill out of the devastated Bradley like ants fleeing an ant mound being decimated by a young child. I run toward a concrete divider on the left side of the road and fall to my knees with the muzzle of my M-4 aimed towards the building straight in front of me. My eyes scan the buildings, the windows, the allies, the cars, and the sidewalks for any tell tale sign of movement. The next sound to come is one of those that sends your heart into your throat and creates a sense of anger, pain, and revenge. “Man down, man down!!! MEDIC, where the hell is the MEDIC?!?” echoes through the surrounding buildings as painful, blood curling screams of pain and despair follow. Nothing else needs to be said; all know what has happened. I gently pat my right breast pocket where I find the strength to fight on and press further even when all hell breaks loose. Minutes which seem like hours roll by when suddenly the screams of pain are washed

out by the chaotic noise of life threatening brass flying aimlessly above my kevlar. I slam my face into the ground hard enough to cause blood to ooze from my nose, as my face and the road have become one. I scream out, “Get the fuck down and take cover! 1st Squad support while 2nd Squad flanks!” Snaps here and there accompanied by pops signal that I am under heavy enemy fire and must engage the enemy if I am to survive this day. Sporadic explosions from mortars, RPGs, and IEDs shake the ground making it impossible to stand as they pummel my trooper’s positions. The explosions are so loud that I start going deaf, but I do not dare take my hands off my weapon to shield my ears. We were drilled repeatedly that you never take your hand off your weapon. Your weapon is your life in combat. My drill sergeant’s words echo through my mind, “Hearing does a dead man no good.” Razor sharp shrapnel pierces the air like razor blades capable of cleaving flesh from bones like a hot knife through butter. As debris from the explosions rain down upon me like a meteor shower from hell, I reach into my right breast pocket and clench my letter trying in vain to draw whatever strength I could from its words of wisdom. As I retrieve it from my pocket, my mind goes back to my brother, who is over fighting with the 503rd in Italy. He confided in me during my time of great need. His words of wisdom always seem to give me that light at the end of the tunnel, even when it seems that I am surely going to die. “The Soldier stood and faced God, Which must always come to pass… He hoped his shoes were shining, Just as brightly as his brass. “Step forward now, Soldier… How shall I deal with you? Have you always turned the other cheek? To my Church have you been true?” The Soldier squared his shoulders and said, “No, Lord, I guess I ain’t. Because those of us who carry weapons, Can’t always be a saint. I’ve had to work most Sundays, And at times my talk was tough.

And sometimes I’ve been violent, Because the world is awfully rough. But, I never took a penny, That wasn’t mine to keep… Though I worked a lot of overtime, When bills got just too steep. And, I never passed a cry for help, Though at times I shook in fear. And sometimes, God forgive me, I’ve wept unmanly tears. I know I don’t deserve a place, Among the people here. They never wanted me around, Except to calm their fears. If you’ve a place for me here, Lord, It needn’t be so grand. I never expected or had so much,

But if you don’t, I’ll understand. There was silence all around the throne, Where the saints had often trod. As the Soldier waited quietly, For the judgment of his God.

“Step forward now, Soldier… You’ve borne your burdens well. Walk peacefully on Heaven’s Streets, You’ve done your time in Hell”.

Cautiously, I pull myself back together and get my head straight with what needs accomplishing. Slowly I push my head back up and aim my weapon at the building where I see muzzle flashes coming from. I softly rest my cheek to the stock and through my right eye, I split the enemy’s chest at the center with the red arrow. Calmly and smoothly, I exhale, carefully minding my breathing, and trigger squeeze. I begin to squeeze tighter and tighter on the trigger untill a click sends the firing pin into the casing which sends a round directly into his chest. As the round enters, blood can be seen exiting from the round’s entry point as another round followed by another and another pierce his flesh, spilling his blood onto the ground as one round can be seen ricocheting around inside his rib cage and then rockets out through his groin. I quickly scan the rest of the building to see if any other threats are visible. As I start getting to my feet, out of the corner of my eye I can see something coming at me very fast. As I turn my head towards the object quickly approaching my direction, my instinct pulls my body down till I am laying face down again on the ground with my arms covering my head.Then I feel an explosion to my rear and subconsciously shout out, “RPG!!! 2 o’clock, 150 meters!” At that second, all that could be heard was the sporadic sound of firing pins making contact with the casings of a barrage of 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds which were lighting up the building where the enemy with the RPGs was located. After 2 minutes of intense and devastating fire from 240-Bs, 249-SAWs, and M-4s, a ceasefire was bellowed out above the chaos that was unleashed. As I again rose to my feet, I looked around and yelled, “Squad Leaders, get me an ACE report ASAP! Platoon Sergeant, get us the fuck out of here! RTO, get me Higher on the comms! Move out!” As my platoon reorganizes and begins to move out of the ambush site, I run up to my private, who is on point, and tell him to keep his eyes open for wires, garbage pills, freshly turned earth, or anything that could conceal an IED. I slow my pace, allowing 1st Squad to move

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forward in their wedge formation sweeping and clearing the road ahead while 2nd Squad provides security in a wedge formation to 1st Squad’s rear. As the 1st Squad leader approaches, I move over to him and whisper in his ear, “Careful as you enter this side road ahead, the crossing will put you into a possible ambush, so have eyes on the roof tops and eyes scanning the buildings as well as the road watching for any signs of an ambush or an attack.” I slow my pace even more, so that I position myself in between both squads. Each step causes more hair to stand up on my neck; each step gives my gut a feeling of unsteadiness. With each step, I feel that something is not right, it is too quiet, there are no people out, and there is no movement, not a single sound except for the radio static coming over the handmic. My subconscious begins to interpret the surroundings, and my training slowly begins to take over and analyze the situation. At that second I shout out, “Find something and take cover! Get out of the open street!” Just then I feel an RPG scream right past my face, bounce off the ground and into an abandoned building to my rear and explode. “RP…” is all that passes between my lips. As the sound of the weapons kicking into gear and unloading on all the buildings around us, creating a deadly cover of protection from enemy intent, I again rise to my feet and call out to the platoon sergeant. “Platoon Sergeant, on me!” As we hustle out into the open street, I radio up to Higher, give my platoon’s current situation and give my platoon sergeant the handmic, so he can inform the S-3 on our ACE report. At the end of my transmission, I hear the words “INDEX!” As I echo out the command of index, my troopers rise to their feet and march back to the FOB in a tactical staggered column formation. As the day comes to a close, I am sitting in my car, drenched in sweat from head to toe. I make my way back to my home in Reno after a long and strenuous training event in Yerington.The hour and a half drive back home seems short in comparison to the trip out to the DZ in Bradleys. It is in that moment that I pull off to the side of the road and close my eyes. I drown out all the noise except for my own thoughts. I pray for the safety and protection of all my brothers in arms and for the memory of all those who have sacriﬁced so valiantly on the altar of freedom. There’s no petty squabbling or complaining about what is needed to ensure that every American is safe from the violence and horror that is

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seen by them daily and by me in the very near future. I softly and slowly thank God that we have men and women who are so brave that they are willing to give everything to keep us free.•

Appendix IBA- Individual Body Armor LBV- Load Baring Vest M-4- A military standard issued individual weapon LZ- Landing Zone Bradleys- An American armored personnel ﬁghting vehicle He-lo- Slang for helicopter IED- Improvised Explosive Device Kevlar- Bullet “proof ” helmet Battle- Short for battle buddy RPG- Rocket Propelled Grenade 240-B- Heavy machinegun 249-SAW- Light machinegun, Squad Automatic Weapon ACE- Ammo, Casualities, Equipment Comms- Slang for communications S-3- The Intelligence Ofﬁcer back in the FOB RTO- Radio operator Handmic- The handheld piece of the radio to which communication is being spoken through. Index- Code for end of mission FOB- Forward Operating Base DZ- Drop Zone

School, Brave New World, and Never More Joseph Vestal â&#x20AC;˘ digital art/ illustration

(clockwise from left)

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Spin

Richie Bednarski â&#x20AC;˘ c-print

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Brothel Brothel Jessica Osborne

I ended our affair as soon as I found out. I swear. I ended it as soon as I knew. I began to feel numb to his stroke on my back. He couldn’t hold me with his eyes anymore. I let him gaze on me deep and figure me out. He knew when I’d settle and Lie with him on his dirty sheets. He’d hold me tight and I’d breathe him in. convincing myself his imitation cologne was the real thing. I’d leave his bed feeling void of something, feeling more dirty and used than I was before he closed the door behind him, my deceived heart still aching for a deeper love. I kept going back longing for him to fulfill his promise of making me beautiful. I left my clothes at arms reach knowing he would turn on me at dawn knowing in my depths that he saw me as nothing more than a whore, something to make him feel better through the night. I covered my body knowing I was just easy flesh-nothing more than an affair.

I wear his ring now. I ended the affair as soon as I found out. At least that’s what I’d like you to think. But he just looks so good sometimes. His eyes are just so captivating and…he just gets me. One touch can’t hurt, right? Often I long to take the risk and simply let my lips touch his or let my fingers run through his hair. Sometimes he feels closer than my groom, more natural. I’m torn as he beckons me promising me better love than I can find at home, promising me ultimate satisfaction this time. (If I would just leave… him…) My adulteress heart runs back to that nasty motel. We sit over candlelight and he gets what he wants. Same routine. But this time, his caress leaves me in tears and his whispers leave me longing to run back down the aisle To my spouse who’s waiting with tear stained cheeks, To the only place I fit anymore.

There was a detachment I can’t really describe when I found out. When I found out there was something greater, When I met my groom, When I heard he had been waiting this whole time at the altar. I ran wrapped in those same cheap and ﬁlthy garments to meet him There he took my hand asking no questions as redemption washed over every night I spent in that cheap motel with that fraud.

This ring… It changed everything.

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Jessica Tsang year • sophomore major • criminal justice medium of choice • poetry

62 | featured artist

Portrait of the Artist

Rebecca Holmstrom • photograph

The scent of coffee filters through the air as I sit here waiting. A dim glow is being cast throughout the room; people are quietly studying and occasionally sipping on coffee, as I wait. Sitting here, I roll her work around in my head. I am waiting on Jessica Tsang, a sophomore and a criminal justice major, who is also a poet, an author and a teller of tales. Jessica’s story is the same as many students at this University: student by day and writer by night. Most students never really see how everyone, no matter what discipline they study, has a secret expressive side. Jessica is no exception. I sit back again, sip my mocha and look up to see Jessica rushing in, flustered. “Sorry, I am just running late. I will be right back.” Jessica sits her stuff down, grabs her wallet from her purse, and walks up to the counter. She quickly makes her way back to the table and sits down. The person now across from me is ready to let her heart and secret out: Jessica Tsang is a closet poet. Jessica is well aware that there are many students like her. She tells me,“I think its great [so many students from different majors submit work]. I’m a Criminal Justice major and no one really knows, or would know, that I journal every night and write poetry all the time. I just don’t look the part.” She’s right.The range of submissions we receive is incredibly diverse. It’s fantastic to see so many people of different majors and backgrounds submitting. For many students this is their first attempt at being published and for others, they have been writing forever. Jessica is among the latter; she has been writing since she was in middle

school. She says, “I’ve been writing since I was 12 years old. All my ﬁrst writings were about boys, [and] some of my new stuff still is.” Jessica laughs as we talk about how we’ve all gone there at some time or another with our writing. “Writing has to be passionate,” Jessica says. “You shouldn’t, especially for poetry, have to plan it out, write with so much structure you lose yourself. It’s all about venting for me, a release of any kind of feeling.” As a poet myself, I know exactly what she means. Jessica’s approach to writing is about what comes to mind—knowing sometimes it won’t make sense at all. She says, “Its like, this is a ‘me’ thing, not a ‘everyone’ thing.Writing for me is a passion, it doesn’t make sense sometimes, but it’s just me venting. I write when I am feeling upset, and sometimes the best writing comes out of that.” Jessica ﬁnds her inspiration from people such as Amy Lee of Evanescence and her senior high school teacher. “[W]riting has to have a deeper meaning than what you initially read. Even though it may seem like one of my poems might be just ‘about a boy’, you have to look deeper than that,” she explains. Like most of us, Jessica is a busy college student facing the same day in and day out pressures, but she balances it with her closet musings and truly embodies the diverse and creative pulse of our campus community.•

“

by Ashley Dodge

Closet Poet

This is a me thing, not an everyone else thing. Writing for me is

with a

passion... ”

Coffee

featured artist | 63

64 | art

Windless

Cary Crites â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

Withered Withered Dreams Dreams Jessica Tsang

Tears crash into the ocean The sky, thick with despair Foreshadowing a heartache In the bleak December air Glimmer of the stars Fade away beneath the clouds The arms of icy winds Push away the cries so loud Fallen leaves of dormant branches Float about the dancing sea Absorbing all the blackened tears And fall apart like withered dreams

Another Another Feather Feather Jessica Tsang

Will we stay together strong, or will a breeze make you slip by? Will you contribute to my shattered heart that’s strewn across the sky? Will I embrace you for myself and fight off the hasty wind? Is it possible for me to lose my grasp of things again? You said the effort cannot come merely from one side But I cannot promise you that from the wind, I’ll always hide The wind has its own mind, a disposition for us all Interfering with the breeze will only cause the fall So let’s flip the roles around, I’ll be the feather floating by I’ll be drifting with the pieces of my heart throughout the sky.

poetry | 65

Truth be Told to those Truth Be Told: To Those Who Want to Read and Listen who want to read and listen Grayian Pheonix

It is arguable in ones own defense of the truth, that two between two sides of ones truth lay the reality. It is in this standard, that we (the public) can differentiate on which side, we believe has lent us more of a favorable position and therefore, most but not all judge accordingly. So under the suspicion that one may therefore pick a side that shows the favoritism of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own judgment, does one not see a reasonable argument to pursue a devils discourse and ask why or do the other? It is not as though one has not the right to question, when the authority of another has without reason of the people or a body of sound mind and judgment of another put themselves to be judge and jury. So with the argument of a just body of government, and the liberties granted by the democracy, of what could be referred to as the colonies gone to some mathematical equation whether it be rooted, squared, cubed to an extent. Is it not in the responsibility of the people, the ones whose ancestors to some degree stood behind the colonists not to pursue the ideas of a new world? Tis it not the way of the people, to question the authority that tries to re-morph the same conceptual ideas and then process them with the belief of a papered document/s set them free. Teachers but stand on the threshold of shaping the future of where, ones own future could go, and yet most not all stand to tier themselves of the days work; rather than pursue the minds of tomorrows future. It is we, you hold the power of peaceful assembly, and yet stay rotting away the intellectual diet by a reality in which we only see clips of. Tell me, where is the intellectual prowess in that? Tell me!!!

66 | monologue

This Dizzy World

Emily Clark â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

art | 67

Scott Linke year • junior major • art medium of choice • anime illustration

Duderino

Scott Linke • pencil on paper

68 | featured artist

Starving artist by Nick DeRose

“

There is a kind of freedom I feel when I draw, I can create and erase whatever I want.

“Hey man wake up” says the hand shoving me off the couch. “Aw, what the—” I groan, “what the time is it?” “It’s like nine thirty, I was gonna go buy a new CD wanna come?” I answered him by slapping the hangover out of my face and dragging my exhausted ass to the bathroom to shake out the rest of last night’s debauchery. Checking the time on my cell phone I shout out, “You know we stopped drinking only about 5 hours ago.” We step into the unmerciful morning light. Miraculously we both make it down the front steps in our blind stupor safely (well at least my blind stupor). Sitting on the cool leather of his car he tosses me a sketchbook. Turning through the pages I see the scenes of talent I am accustomed to. All in black and white and skillfully crafted, they are amazing illustrations. Of course in my blunted morning state all I can muster up to say is, “Why are all your drawings of dudes with ripped muscles?” Immediately regretting the question as my left arm suddenly tingles and twinges with pain. “No comment,” is all he says. I smirk and turn to the next page. “Is this the new one?” “Yep,” he mumbles modestly just before he ﬂoors the accelerator. When I can once again pull my skull from the back of the headrest I examine the newest work. “Why all the anime though? Is it because it’s really easy and fast?” I ask jokingly, “I bet you could turn out dozens of pages a day if you wanted to.” “It’s not that easy really, I just like it better that’s all,” he explains. “That and I really hate the rain forest.” “Heh, fuckin’ rain forest what did it ever do for me?” I chuckle sarcastically “Anyways, how long have you been drawing like this?” “I guess when I was seven or something I started, so about 14 years. I started by copying Disney movie covers,” he smiled. “Hmm, that’s gay. No wonder you mainly draw topless guys now a days,” I tease. “Shut up! Male characters are just more heroic to me, anime heroes are more exciting than realistic stuff. I can

”

draw realistically I just don’t enjoy it as much.” “What kind of anime is this though. Like what shows were your influences?” “I first started drawing anime by making sketches of Link from the Legend of Zelda, and then you know, I really got into Dragon Ball Z,” Linke added. “Heh, what prepubescent boy didn’t like Dragon Ball Z,” I corrected, “well I guess the ones that watched Pokemon or Yugioh.” “Don’t mention that filth in my presence,” exclaimed the almighty artist. “Ok, why do you like drawing so much anyways?” “It’s kind of an escape from reality.” he says confiding with me, “There is a kind of freedom I feel when I draw, I can create and erase what ever I want, sometimes it is like meditation to me.” He says as the car returns to the silence of the soft moaning engine. Creating the kind of awkward silence achieved only when one guy confesses some personal truth to one of his friends. I mutter, “We all need some kind of escape like that when life gets crazy I guess.” We finally make it to Best Buy. The cold processed air and artificial light of the electronics store is sobering as I follow him to the tiny section of heavy metal CD racks. I am once again amazed by his ability to function pretty much normally without sleep, a trait I will always admire. Soon he shepherds me through the displays to the checkout counter and finally back to the car. The past 25 minutes are lost to me as I turn to him and speak, “Man lets get some food I need something to wake me the hell up.” “What do ya want? I haven’t eaten in over a day,” he asks as he pulls out of the parking lot. “I don’t know,” I say surrendering to my hangover, “let’s just go, you’re the ‘starving’ artist you pick.”•

featured artist | 69

Untitled

Kelsey Sweet â&#x20AC;˘ acrylic on canvas

70 | art

The Fisherman The Fisherman Andrea D. Juillerat His hands are adept Casting his line with precision The bounty of his take does not ebb. Holding each ﬁsh He momentarily succumbs to awe. They graze his learned eye, His practiced ﬁngers, His thirsty lips. But this only for a second, With silent knowing, He removes the hook And lets them go. Catch and Release

Between the Between the Pages pages Kathy Jakolat

Discovered between pages 124 and 125 of Roethke: Collected Poems lies a blue Bachelor Button crisp and fragile, whispering its history. Have you really been there for thirty years? Perhaps its delicate petals jogged a memory of a lover’s hair wind-blown, and urgent.

Catch and Release I am a sloe-eyed Carp Moving in circles at the bottom of his barrel. Will I grace his table for dinner? His wall as a trophy? His backyard pond as a pet?

It points to “The breath of a long root, the shy perimeter of the unfolding rose,” words from another time, loved by a soul who pressed a ﬂower between pages 124 and 125.

He doesn’t know that when the hour is late I take my true form, The Mermaid Muse. Evading all mortal eyes, Changing form. I am she Who disappears beneath Milky jade waves.

poetry | 71

In the In the ICU ICU Mollie Booth

I walk over filmy tiles kept so meticulously clean with vile-smelling yellow buckets of dingy water pushed by a bored-eyed man in a greenish suit, or maybe it’s blue and I don’t notice because I am holding my breath. But I see his eyes, and in them I see the unconcern of what’s happening around him; what’s happening to me. He looks at me, and I see him say with his eyes, “I just keep the floors clean. There’s nothing else I can do. I can’t stop what happens here. But I can keep the floors clean.” And he is right, and I nod to him and force my face to smile. He doesn’t smile back. I’m wondering which of us did the polite thing. People get sick. They come here. They die. Someone changes the sheets, throws out the used needles, washes out the bedpans. The floors get mopped. Ashes to ashes, dust to dustpan. I get it. I turn a corner, and I wonder why the walls are such a vacant shade of blue, but I notice at some point they shift to pale peach so softly I don’t notice. A framed portrait of flowers on the wall distracts me for a moment, and then I see the woman sitting under it, wearing a livid red sweater (and isn’t it hot for a sweater?), and I think of how bloody that sweater is in this bland bubble of world that has even taken the taste from my mouth until there is nothing but the hint of metal, and I realize that I’ve bitten through a piece of my lip. My hands are cold, and they tremble as I move them, from my purse to my hair to my purse again, to the doors that I push open and pass through. I shiver. It isn’t hot for a sweater. It’s the coldest place I’ve ever been. It’s an infection, I’ve been told. Other things, but an infection for the most part, flying along his veins unseen. There are windows, but no sunlight comes through them. There are bulletin boards that I don’t look at. Everything that is cheery, I am nauseated by. The color drains from the world, little by little, until everything looks gray. There are friendly instructions on the buzzer informing visitors of how to call the nurse’s station. There are pictures on the buttons shaped like a nurse’s

72 | prose

head. My hand is shaking as I press it. The voice that answers is pleasant and quiet. It makes my stomach turn. “I’m here to see my best friend. Some guy I know. I knew him in high school. We aren’t close anymore, but we were once Michael Clayton.” I am buzzed in, and I walk the length of the hall on feet that don’t feel the ground, and I speak through lips that feel like they’ve just kissed a Novocain-laden needle, and I tear at the strap of my purse with fingers numb from some cold wind that has blown through the August afternoon. I try not to smell death, but I find my nose looking for it among the other smells of sickness and cafeteria food. I have smelled death before, if not when I found the squirrels my dog had been piling into the corner of our garage, and if not when I passed behind the mortuary every day after school, then certainly when I wandered through the basement of the coroner’s office on a trip my sophomore year. I can pick it out, over the other scents, as if it is peppering the chicken on the menu today, or it has been added to the yellow buckets that clean the floors.

I am given directions by the same quiet voice that comes from the pretty mouth of a young nurse that I find myself disliking, and I walk to the tiny room. I can see from where I am that it’s dark, and I hold my breath again because this is such an airless place. They have been talking about putting him on a ventilator, or so his sister told me. I wonder again what I will say, or what I will be allowed to say, or what I will be able to say with others around me. No one got us very much, the demented twosome that we were, as much as we tried to destroy each other, as fiercely protective as I was of you, as tolerant as you were of my lunacy. It was an inside joke lost on a great deal of people. Those are hard years, they say, on everyone. Harder still for us, who went out of our way to make it hard. You held my hand standing in the mire of our youth. You held my hair back as I threw up the remaining adolescence inside me. I promise to never forget that. I wonder if I will say what I need to. If your survival depended on me singing stones into life, I would find a way to do it.•

The Past/ The Beginning

Justin Manfredi • mixed media on paper

art & prose | 73

Dylan’s

Erinn Thomas • digital photograph

74 | art

Paradise Paradise Brodie Roman

My dad never gambled in casinos, just slots with spare change at the gas station and his weekly lotto ticket. He would make the pilgrimage all the way to California, to Markleeville, just for the lotto. One time-I was maybe seven or eight--he let me go with him. I remember walking into a biker bar with quarters glued to the front step and bras hanging from the ceiling and the ashtray odor of cigarette smoke hanging in the air. I was kind of scared and a little excited, and I remember wondering why he’d drive all the way out here just to buy a lotto ticket when we had casinos right down the street from our house. It was maybe about an hour from our house to the bar, but that was a long ways when I was little. On the ride back, I asked him why he didn’t just gamble at the casinos once a week instead. He said he liked getting away from things, having time to think and be alone. And he didn’t like casinos. “Why?” I asked. He said, “The games are all rigged, that’s why they’ve got all the bright lights outside. Suck your soul. Turn you into a slave. You wind up shootin’ craps at the Paradise.” “What was the Paradise?” I asked. He explained it was an expression from his mother, an old story. Paradise was the biggest casino in town back in the “Old Days.” They would loan out money to gamblers at exorbitant rates, who would lose it and have to pay off the debt for the rest of their lives. Some people ended up working for the casino for free like indentured servants. And there were rumors about people having to do horrible “favors” to repay their debts. Rumors about murder, devil worship, all sorts of crazy stuff. It got so bad that the sheriff was called in to investigate, but that night the place burned down. Most people thought it was a vengeful debtor who set the blaze, but the stories say the ﬂames of Hell itself rose up and claimed it for the Devil’s own. And they say every year, on the night it was burned, it comes back to Reno to ensnare unwary gamblers and desperate souls.

Of course, I didn’t take that stuff too seriously, although I did think it was a cool story. In the nearly twenty years that had passed since then and last night, I’d more or less forgotten all about it. You see, last night I went out drinking downtown with some buddies. Got pretty good n’ drunk, then we had the bright idea to smoke some weed too. I must have blacked out for a little while because the next thing I remember, I was walking somewhere downtown, alone, and I had to piss really bad. Maybe the weed had made me a little paranoid, I don’t know, but instead of just finding a stretch of wall behind a dumpster, I stumbled through the doors of a casino. I had brief, reeling impressions of slot machines blinging, cigarette smoke, and Oldies music as I found my way to the bathroom. I took a piss, and it was great. Sometimes a great piss can be better than sex. I washed my hands, splashed water on my face, trying to get the room to stand still for a second. I wasn’t feeling so good. Somehow I managed to hold onto my stomach contents, so I staggered out to the bar and ordered some coffee and water. The band kicked in with “Get Back” by the Beatles. They were good. Really good. I proceeded to drunkenly bob my head and mangle the lyrics. When they finished the song, I applauded enthusiastically, but I was the only one. Nobody else was even watching them. I decided to sip my beverages quietly and soak in the atmosphere, and it was around that time that I began to feel that something was a bit off. It wasn’t anything immediately obvious. There were the usual banks of silver-haired retirees pumping coins into the slots, wreathed in cigarette smoke, forming giant cobwebs down the rows. People of all races and nationalities sat around the tables playing blackjack and pai-gow and looking like robots. It somehow reminded me of the Small World ride at Disneyland. Only creepier. The only excitement came from the craps table where people stood around shouting and laughing and cussing. Voluptuous cocktail waitresses in skimpy uniforms flitted through the crowd like nymphs

prose | 75

through a forest. Nothing really seemed out of place but I still felt unsettled. I jumped a little when the bartender asked if I wanted more coffee. He was a young guy, early twenties maybe, with a scruffy black goatee and Jack Nicholson eyebrows. “Woh, sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on ‘ya. More coffee?” “Sure,” I said. “Long night?” “Yeah,” I said. “I can always tell when they ask for coffee and water. Band’s pretty good eh?” “Yeah.” “You gonna’ try your luck?” he thrust his bearded chin toward the casino floor. “Maybe,” I said, “Probably not. Don’t have the money to lose.” He gave me a lop-sided grin and replied, “Well tonight’s your night then. We’re running a promotion tonight. Just ask at the cage. They’ll give you fifty dollars worth of chips for free. If you lose, no big deal, if you win, you cash in.” I laughed, “You’re shittin’ me. Why? I mean, what’s the catch?” He shook his head, “No, no catch. You lose, you owe nothing, you win, you cash in. Really. Ask at the main cage if you don’t believe me. We’re just trying to bring in some new blood, is all.” “What if I just cash in the fifty and leave?” The bartender smiled ruefully, “No one ever does.” I still thought it was a scam of some kind, but I was inebriated enough that I didn’t care. I left a couple bucks for my coffee, then followed the signs to the cage. The cage itself was impressive—all gold and marble and velvet ropes. Behind the cage window was an old harpy of a woman, with a scowl deeply carved upon her wrinkled face, a blue-dyed beehive hairdo, and long red talons for fingernails. There was something weird about her too. Besides the beehive I mean. Her teeth seemed a little pointy, and I thought her tongue was a little too long when she asked me what I wanted in a gruff, gravelly voice. And her eyes

76 | prose

were just plain mean—beady and black and deep-set; hateful. Really not the sort of person who should be working in a customer service position. I asked her for my free chips, and sure enough she gave them to me without another word. I strolled through the tables, wondering if I should just cash in and leave. But what the hell, I decided to hit the craps table, since that seemed to be where the action was. I took a space at the rail and threw some chips down on the Pass Line. Some old rich guy was coming out to shoot, and he was making the woman next to him—probably a stripper by the looks of her—blow on the dice each time. So cliché. But he rolled three sevens in a row, then made a point. I was off to a pretty good start. People kept rolling, and I kept winning. Pretty soon I had a nice row of chips in front of me along the rail. I was laughing and cracking jokes and talking shit. Nobody around me seemed to care much. My turn to shoot came, and I had a helluva’ roll going before I finally dropped the seven. By that time I was up a few hundred bucks. I ordered a drink, with whiskey this time, and I began to think I might just stick around for awhile. But then I started to look around again after my drink came, and my feeling of anxiety began to return. I noticed all the dealers wore thin black gloves, which I thought was a little weird, but maybe it was part of the costume or a health code thing. And there was a stench in the air I hadn’t noticed before, cutting through even the cigarette smoke and human smell. Like rotten eggs and fish and sour milk. Many of the players wore ragged, faded clothes with holes at the knees and elbows and frayed cuffs. The guy next to me was dressed like a dandy from an old John Wayne flick, top-hat and all. He was emanating a rather unpleasant odor of his own, and there seemed to be a blue-green tinge to the skin around his neck, like a thin film of mold or grime. But just as I noticed this, it was my turn to shoot again, and I fell back into the game, still winning more than losing. Eventually I needed another drink. I searched around for a cocktail waitress as I started to wonder what time it was. I came in here late, and I

must have been here for at least a couple of hours by now. There’s no such thing as a clock in a casino and I’d lost my cell phone somewhere. It must be getting close to dawn by now. I never called my friends either; they might be looking for me. I should go. But I’m doing so well. Just one more drink, then I’ll go. I ﬁnally spotted the waitress nearby, handing a drink to a huge Indian playing video poker. The Indian reached out his hand, as if offering a tip, but his hand was empty. The waitress leaned in and it looked like she was giving him a hickey on his wrist. I thought that was strange, but it was the expression on the man’s face that scared the hell out of me. I had never seen such a fucked up mingling of ecstasy, pain, and desperation. It was like someone having the greatest orgasm of their life while being forced to watch their children being murdered at the same time. I was shaking. I wanted to cry out, to help the poor bastard, but my tongue was stuck to the top of my mouth and I was paralyzed. I thought I might puke. The waitress lifted her head, leaving a red ring on the player’s wrist that I assumed was lipstick. The Indian went right back to the machine, dead-faced, staring blankly at the screen and pushing the same buttons again and again as if nothing had happened. The waitress made her way to our table and seeing me staring, asked, “Cocktails?” She gave me an encouraging smile, but it seemed predatory to me. She had too-sharp teeth just like the old bat behind the cage. And there, smudged on her chin, was a small spot of blood. I just stood there, pale and sweating and just about shitting myself. She passed on to the dandy, “Cocktails?” Suddenly I was unfrozen. I abandoned my chips and dashed for the exit. I dodged around slot machines and ran over an old lady with a bucket full of nickels. I didn’t stop or excuse myself, I just kept scrambling towards what I prayed was the way out. I heard a commotion start up behind me, but now I could see the doors, and I wasn’t stopping for anything. The sounds of pursuit were gaining on me as I burst through the doors and immediately tripped and fell to the pavement. I quickly rolled over and backed away on my elbows, breathing heavy, heart

pounding, nearly crying from sheer panic. I suddenly had the strong urge to urinate again, and I fervently hoped I wouldn’t piss myself. No one followed me out. The doors remained shut, the music and slot-noises silenced, a faint trace of the rotten stink still lingering in the air. It was gray outside in the predawn, and as the ﬁrst rays of the sun slowly crept over the Sierras, the blank facade instantly came to life. Lights sprang up all over, blinking, running, ﬂashing. And in big bright green letters in neon cursive appeared the word: Paradise. As the sun rose, the sign and the building itself seemed to fade and become increasingly transparent. Finally, the lights died, the sign sputtered and went out, and the building vanished entirely, leaving only an empty lot and the wind blowing through the weeds and the sagebrush.•

prose | 77

78 | art

Bee Your Best

Heather Horn â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

Pomum Granatum Pomum Granatum ‘apple of many seeds’ Rebecca Noelle Evans

Garnets and Grenades,

and you take from it or from him or from her, your they are

Serpent or Hades or Eve, and you touch, and you taste;

only like to the lifeblood and water that

someone says something about goblin men and

willingly spills down, but they

trees, but you reach for the fruit,

do not embody the sacriﬁce.

and the red garnet grenades slip down, hardened white kernels, the cores catching in your throat—

they are

shutting off the air—then passing down, down into some hell to wait for death, as he smiles at you,

the crying blood of everyman dripping everywhere,

his new concubine, as she sees the terror of you,

the orbs like stones.

of your nakedness, devoid of any light, as it slithers

the wicked witch sighing,

away, biting the delicate part of your heel

“yes, my pretty. . .” she asks to help in your work,

Achilles tendon snapping

and offers her ideas on beauty. she bends out knobby hand—

and the ﬂecks of the so-many seeds lie now, in your

you’ll just take a look.

skin, in your ﬂesh, in every forsaken cell of you, the

the claret stain on your lips

garnets in your eyes, the juice not quenching,

the kiss of death

and now you know.

you’ll just touch their supple forms, the pulp just beneath the surface, light catching deep in the belly of the fruit, silence along the sleek chassis of those so-many-bits, waiting to explode in your mouth the enticement of a devil-you-did-not-want-towithstand “would you like this apple? it’s good for food.” pulling out the pin makes one wise, wise as the hidden red death in a garnet’s heart

poetry | 79

Gorgeous Gorgeous Though Grey through Grey Rebekah R. Sharpe

Droplets of rain clutching onto rose petals, frightened of falling flat on their face in the dirt below Leaves rustle, fearing to come near, like a faint tambourine moving to Nature’s music Frigid air, attempting to steal my breathe to hold away in the cold forever The wind is a sonnet, singing seductively through the trees towering overhead Sweet stench of rotting grasses waver up, dank and dark as a swamp that sees no light Green trees gleam like ancient emeralds waiting to be found A chuckle of water, splashing, spraying and playing over rocks Cool raindrops drip-drop down over my visage—rich ambrosia to a parched mouth and throat Damp rocks, slippery like a fish’s sheen of gleaming scales Earthy aroma of dirt and the overwhelming power of a flower’s sweetness sinking in, overtaking my nostrils with their pungent odor Roses sag and weep fat tears on a stormy grey day Raindrops tap lightly on the tops of trees with their slight, slick fingers, urging the branches to bend and weaken with the weight of the water Sweetness of a rose’s fragrance on the air, like wine—so heady and thrilling, going straight to my head Soft moss, choking the short-lived life lingering on a rotting log The fair mountain air is like a ballet dancer, flying around me dancing with the reeds and wind, tantalizing my senses Breathtaking sense of tranquility, anticipation, peace, and freedom to soar wherever the wind goes

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Agriculture Abstracted #3, 4, and 2 Rebecca Holmstrom â&#x20AC;˘ silver gelatin prints

(clockwise from top left)

art | 81

Les Bon Temps

Ryan Walters • digital photograph

Crossing Virgina Crossing Virginia Street on aStreet Sunday Night on a Sunday Night Matthew Cox

Red. I wait. It used to take forever, but now time passes quickly.

White. I see. Cars in the parking lot, unremarkable and undistinguishable. Large. The SUVs. They lumber over me, ready to pounce upon their prey. The pale blue man appears. Green. I cross. My steps echo across the dark pavement. Painted step after asphalt step. Striped. I march. The cars can’t touch me now. I feel safe in this bright light. Orange. The lanterns. The casinos also show my way. Someday, I will never cross this pathway again, and I’ll miss it. Sadness. I miss. I will graduate, God willing, and want to relive these four years. Memory. I recall.

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At least I will have made it out, alive, able to breathe in the sacred night. Time. It passes.

Eating an Eating an Angiosperm Angiosperm Seth Lagana

A yellow oleander flower, ripe and mature, plucked from its roots by the wind of passing cars, floats aimlessly amidst the bedlam of the city, and falls delicately in between the cracks of a sidewalk. Pollination: the coincidence of thick forests, lush vegetation, and bothersome weeds in suburban backyards—the delicate gamble of biology—fails. But the flower hasn’t lost its purpose just yet. Coincidently, the five-starred embryo falls under the silhouette of Bucky Dimple, a young boy waiting for his bus to take him to school. The boy, curious, picks the flower up and begins to twirl the lobed corollas between his fingers. What curiosity plagues the minds of the lower immediate? Shall aesthetics overwhelm him? The colors of our macrocosm have been known to bait whales onto shorelines. The insignia of exquisiteness though, may be unreachable. Outside of the universe, outside of the Tupperware container that holds our infinity, or the tinfoil that secures our floating rocks and sensitive creatures, lays a morsel of purity—not Mary or Labrador puppies. Beauty! Beauty, from a magical wand (or science or gods or God or aliens, or any other omnipotent deities), occasionally leaks through our barricades, like the yellow hue of an oleander flower. Science tells us that photons trap ultraviolet rays into a vortex. So there’s a big sweltering pot of crayons and chlorophyll, churned endlessly by the hands of Apollo, or something. The boy remembers when his dog, Dragon (A name given by Bucky at an earlier age), ate his mother’s prized burgundy rose bush. The boy was mesmerized with the consumption. He saw that dog eat every petal, every branch and twig, until only a patch of roots protruded from the soil. If only Pierre-Joseph Redoute had the chance to see such an exquisite form of digestion. If only Romeo could have eaten the rose he dedicated, the rose he assimilated to agape, maybe he could have really esteemed its natural symbol. But a golden retriever, a twenty-first century pet, had the precious mind to trump a mysterious tenderness, the highly revered rose. And Bucky had to clean the mess.

The boy closely examines the flower, and picks at a scab on his elbow. He wonders. Can the boy understand the irony of the flower’s invasive placement? Can he identify the phenomenon of beauty found amidst carbon monoxide? CO, the internal combustion flatulent, can kill a feral dandelion in half a day. The only plant capable of withstanding that much chemical pressure is an Oleander. The Oleander is a survivor, the cockroach of its species. This dogbane evergreen can withstand any environment it’s planted in; hence, the lunar garden. In 1969, after technological advances in ablation chemistry and the creation of the left-handed spade, America planted its first extraterrestrial garden, a plot of red, white, and blue Oleanders on the moon (this giant ball of cheese also acts as a natural satellite, inspires werewolvery, and aids in female menstrual cycles—the lunar cycle). Buzz Aldrin opted for a yellow Oleander, but the choice was deemed too communist. Buzz still lives in Neil’s shadow; Buzz’s choice of color sullied his limelight, as though he’d wet himself in elementary school. But the young boy in question doesn’t know these things. The young boy, with the fruitful comprehension of the alphabet, digging into his graymatter like an ice cream scoop at the bottom of an empty carton, prefers his peanut-butter-and-jellysandwich without crust, his world simple. Beyond the silky décor of the oleander’s skin, a serpent’s venom itches at the fang. Can the boy claim the flower beautiful, given that it contains high compounds of toxicity? What does a boy do with such a lethal roadside attraction? Eat it? Does he know that Oleanders are deadly—especially to him, a vulnerable young boy? The young boy, still curious, buries his nostrils into the downy seeds, and smells a sweet sugary aroma. Deep in the heart of the flower a thick poisonous paste stands idle. neriine and oleandrine, cardiac glycosides, form a thick mucous that nonetheless can travel through the body at unfathomable speeds. Their objective: to

prose | 83

stop the heart, to inhibit potassium and nitrogen ions from releasing into the blood. The toxins are methodical soldiers. While the ions become disrupted, calcium levels rise. The heart’s ventricles, the heart’s heart, collapse and becomes congested. The heart pumps infrequently, and blood spills over the organs. The organs become clogged, like a car engine when a potato’s lodged in the tailpipe. But there are forces in the body that distract these toxins, redirect them and push them out of the body manipulatively. The battle, though, is epic, and can last up to a yepto-century (a couple minutes, but seems to take forever, in nanomeric-terms). Who’s the Boy, but a curious infant in the universe, plopped on a rock that encircles a grand ball of fire? He has a rucksack filled with necessities; a bag of cookies, a half empty soda-can with tape sealing the mouth, a yellow yo-yo, two pencils, and a limestone rock his father often uses for a paperweight. He uses this equipment to further his individuality. But a yellow flower seems so scrumptious. The bud could hold sweet liquor. The taste of candy doesn’t normally fall in your lap. The aroma ensnares the boy’s appetite.The indistinctness of the taste is mouthwatering. Could the flower hold sweetness as refined as honey? The pulpous snout of the bud could make for syrup if squeezed. The boy longs for a taste, for a drop of viscous nectar. The thought of bees, dipping their furry tarsal claws into honeycombs, their tiny feelers -- this sedates little Dimple. Then it happens. The boy, driven mad with saccharine desire, opens his mouth and places the flower on his tongue. He never hesitates. The ill-omened Nerium, dainty, dressed in a spring coat, embraces the boy’s tongue. The sap, eager and erotic, waits like Nandi, in the clouds of Indus Valley: a tormented bull, snarling at the grapes of humankind (or just a boy’s tonsils). The boy is yet to succumb to the habit of chewing his food. But the angiosperm breaks apart like a boat in a typhoon, like the Santa Ana in Bermuda, like the Marie Celeste, and the Cristobal Colon. Corollas dance in his cheeks before they’re eaten. The flower is swallowed into the gullet, whole. Like a doughnut splashed in milk, dripping with clumpy flesh, soggy and drowned, the flower, soaked in peppermint saliva, crumbles into the abyss. But how resilient is the most resilient Plantae?

84 | prose

The toxic sap -- the ominous liquid -- curious and disgruntled, upset over the shipwreck and the improbability of reproducing, floats through lumen canals like a cruiser full of pirates. They’re in the veins. The metabolic compounds scratch at the ceiling, laughing drunkenly. A battle is waging. Helical bands, armed with white blood cells, armed with histamines, armed with spears and sickles, form a line in front of antigen compounds. There’s eminent conflict. The pirates shout obscenities and throw pathogens and rum bottles. The white blood cells, armed with Basophilian daggers, cut through the pirates like a pear knife through margarine. But the toxins dilute the histamines with strychnineeffects, and the white blood cells retreat to the gastrointestines. The pirates follow. For the boy, the taste of the flower is gauche, almost like paper: this, of course, not being the first time the boy tasted paper. But he thinks nothing of the matter, merely writes off the experience, and declares the swallowing as a sacrifice of taste. He’s up to no strenuous thinking, just birds, and trucks, and burps, and sling-shots. But suddenly, the stars turn upside down. The boy slouches over and grabs his stomach. His abdomen starts to throb. The pain is immediate but temporary; it withers in seconds. A fart releases from his anus, and the boy is left wondering. Meanwhile, in the catacombs of the boy’s belly, in the acid seas of the inner stomach, white blood cells gather a massive territorial defense. This time, the cells come prepared; cleaving Eosinophils, avaricious responders, and muskets with cytoplasm ammo. They’ve got guns, lots of them—millions. The pathogen pirates are squeamish and straitlaced. They’re suicidal. Both lines hold their ground. A flatulent breeze tranquilizes the battlefield, and the organisms wait for a melee cry. A phagosome pirate, a giant fortress, a killing machine, pushes its way to the front of the line. White blood cells shudder. It’s even got a cell membrane. A lonely white blood cell, congested and bruised, drops his musket. “We’re fighting that thing?” it says. All hell begins. The white blood cells, scared and docile, unload inaccurate rounds of cytoplasm, with calibres ranging from twenty to two-hundred yeptometers (increments of septillion in short scale). These hand cannons, although

imprecise and heavy, can vaporize a mass of pirates. The white blood cells start to eradicate the poison. One by one, the toxins become waste, dissolving in acerbic pools. It is a nucleated war. Pirate pathogens, dripping with venom, shoot their own form of plasm: their arrows. It’s called ouabain, and it immobilizes any cell in its path. The phagosome pirate patiently waits, flexing his potassium inhibitors. The young boy is confronted by another young boy: a friend named Zach (he mostly goes by the name “thumb,” because he typically has them in his nose or his mouth. Thumbs sits down. The new young boy is eating bubblegum. He doesn’t say much, just chews with an open mouth and swings his dangling legs. Bucky begins to unzip his backpack. “I’ll trade you for some soda-pop,” he says. They nod in agreement and exchange. They pause and stare at cars. “My mom says that Bucky’s a stupid name.” Bucky shrugs his shoulders. “So,” he says. They pause and stare at the sidewalk. Bucky feels his stomach tremble, and he leans over. He grabs at his shirt and moans. The tinge of pain resettles in his abdomen and withers away. Again, Bucky farts. “Gross,” says the young boy. “So.” Meanwhile, in the bottomless innards of Bucky’s rugal folds, in the dark caverns of Bucky’s angular notch, and the portentous curvatures of dimpled guts, the phagosome pirate takes its first victim: by absorbing it. The unstoppable pathogenic murderer unleashes fury, digesting everything in its path, fusing with more toxins and expanding. The battle turns into a buffet, and the phagosome pirate gorges itself in a smorgasbord of compounds. Unexpectedly and without caution, the rugal folds tremble and quake. The acid sea rises, and the phagosome pirate is swept into a thirsty current. The stomach world begins to breathe; the walls wake from their sleep. Small bits of chocolate chip cookie and pools of soda begin to encircle the phagosome. It’s a whirlpool, moving vertically. The walls of the stomach fill with green bile; rotting fluid circulates. The bile possesses hydrogen

ions, and they’re active security. Everything must go. The digestive tract in the small intestines sweeps everything into a pile and pushes the mess through the stomach. All sphincters are relaxed; everything’s open, ready for departure. The stomach doesn’t retract, it merely gives up. Bucky feels the pain again, but this time it stays, it grows. He hunches over and spits out his gum. He burps. “I don’t feel so good,” he says. Small intervals of sound resonate down Bucky’s windpipe, vibrating the canals and eliciting a curb of retching, a gag. How ironic the cataclysm? The word “good” sparks a mudslide through his chest and through his esophagus, out into the crystal morning air. He vomits on the sidewalk in front of the bus-stop. A forced expulsion of the world’s contents. Everything comes out. Bucky, wiping the tears from his eyes, stares at his puke. He notices the Oleander Flower, intact. He gets up and kicks the flower into a patch of grass. He sits back down. “I’m sorry I made fun of your name, Bucky,” says the young boy. He wraps his arm around Bucky’s shoulder, and they stare into the puke before their bus arrives. So then it begins, another world spits its kids into the soil; an angiosperm sleeps in minerals, organic matter, and the palpating tentacles of the morning dew. The pedosphere, the world’s cracked skin, envelopes the oleander like a lubed cocoon. The plants are fornicating, releasing carbon gases into ovules and orphic ventricles, bonding like lovers reunited. Spring clouds, cumulonimbus cotton fields so close you can touch, make for an incusbreeze, a comfort, like a bed filled with pillows – a spring bed, a flower bed. The birds glide in through the north on the back of a gusty atmosphere, and the bees lick their lips in anticipation for the new pistils, the gametes, the next season. Fin.•

prose | 85

Something you say... Something you say... Stacie Elliopolus

Our kiss in my car was tainted by our spoiled breath and dirty thoughts, wandering hands that didn’t wander but went limp on contact of each other (your ﬁngers are as cold as my grandma’s). The awkwardness of the middle counsel and the beaming light above our pressed faces as you let the door rest ajar (they can all see in, they are all inside looking out). Our chapped lips motioned and tongue ensued, but only for a moment And then, Not at all. I felt… unworthy of your tank-top. (you’re one of those guys) Such high style, compared to my dress of sleep. You said you liked our kiss, but I had to wonder if that’s just something you say (when you don’t know what to say at all). My drive-away thoughts, as the light went out with the shut of the door, banked mostly on the vulnerability of my unkempt face, my mangled hair and your uncomfortable complements at both. (but you didn’t even turn back to watch me drive away) Instead, I watched you in my rear view mirror return to other watchful eyes that begged the question of (what the hell) I imagined you saying it was a pity kiss and you didn’t want to disgrace. but that’s just something you say When you don’t know what to say at all.

86 | poetry

Remember the Mizpah

Tara Acquafondata • digital photograph

John

Tyler Keck • digital photograph

art | 87

88 88 | art

Another Yarn and Munitions Prescription Matt

(top to bottom) Fiske â&#x20AC;˘ digital photograph

The Shiver The Shiver Janet Smith

The voice on the car radio

Not having passed biology class,

talked about butterﬂies.

I skip to the obvious.

The Painted Ladies were migrating

The plump body lifted by thin wings,

from the Mojave Desert to the empty lots

eye spots shining,

of the Central Valley.

the ﬂight a sauntering.

They ﬂy over, not around,

The voice said, if the temperature falls

skyscrapers, mountain ranges.

below 48 degrees, to keep warm

One year, thousands froze to death

they shiver.

in a blizzard over Tuolumne

A glass box in a bright room:

Meadows. But there are so many,

the scientist measures the result

he said, so many

as the body trembles,

it doesn’t matter.

the cold comes in.

In the field guide they appear between the pictures of flowering plants and trout. Color plate #104. Impaled on the white page, antennae floating, wings outstretched-the pins are there but invisible, like pesticide on roadside weeds. The voice said, They fly from dawn to dusk. We don’t know how they navigate to get to where they’re going.

poetry | 89

Skull

Jamie Swift â&#x20AC;˘ graphite, ink and paint on paper

90 | art

7 1 m e l : b 7 1 o r m e l PProb

e of y cod r a in 7%. ; the b ay = live in w e e w m or ld action the sa the w the fr ill die e y t w b a e t u e r a c yo ake th ide th T ance nd 0’s . iv h a e c D ’s . im e 1 e of . Th t to t t figur iese lated ixture = 90% espec ifican m r y n h h d ig lt Karl G iscalcu it e s a t w e t r m c h f o t a s n o s d ries ome an ex al an . An a d-up is a se norm agic m ing to atistic r h t n n t s r it r fucke h o o a w c b e a t m is f e g m e g le o in g h thin in t ing s u be ou’re lottin your Ever y of yo ing up tiny p e . Solv d all y vote k f e s n e li a c e e n d D w is a . e f r t e ch you gure In th . Tha ility o you life . Th TAX. graph cant fi ences robab u N ifi p w q n Y o e S e ig when s s h N n t R . d e t o e e s n c O t t c R ic. lo e la O a n? ER ith th statist lone . subtr Calcu y love a io r w t e b e l v ie lu a h d a t d e o e h or ight t ano the s ow d es lov 93%. happy ’re jus you m one , n ie what’s u of tim , e o w D d y h . o n ation. t e n a u w r y , k q t u r o r e r a g n e a f th the to c , and cant fi u nev sum o lace in orgot ivided r k. Yo signifi f p d o e r u f w n u o o o Y o ms. nd y tead rmula m to proble st fou ed ins roble the fo li ju p e ip e k d lt r a ’v u o to m n. You uck m ing w detail e bor ongo r the tr le e f t t o w li r you drive ever y ook.) e way s the m a life to a s d the b e f e d o h t d k a t c ’ve n. No he ba should e in t broke r , a s s s le m y, life roble Blood red p s. e n b io m t ratula dd nu Cong o all o t s n solutio (The

prose | 91

The Sun The sun beam’s sick Beam’s Sick Marc Maranon

oh my hands have started to cave in logging each and every sin for every fear and every day i’m a slave to her troubles as they pay my way my lungs keep stop leaving paper trails i want to forget but my blood will say no more no more i hurt i won’t go as i linger in this world of sharps and lacks i’m having trouble trying lying on this back it’s not to say that you’ve been on the attack i’m just having trouble accepting fact so i’ll just drift here til she paints me back

yes her heart has felt hurricane thin and kept me back while she’s taken a swim the songs she sings keep me open kneed but the sighs she throws keep me out of her dreams i’ve counted us to here and i predict more heat but you’re enough, enough to make me keep up. she says, i know, i know, i’m not sure. and as i linger in this world of sharps and lacks i’m having trouble trying to lie on this back it’s not to say that you’ve been on attack i’m just having trouble accepting fact so i’ll just drift here until she paints us back.

92 | song lyrics

my take for kicks and your laugh and gifts mementos sink another drinks while travel keeps from lacking sleep but open gifts leaving moment lifts time will creep as we literally speak ribbons cut your ties and trust promising never to forget but all are threats time will pass a favorite lapse and soon we’ll be with better sleep this tryst is burned for you and i no longer yearn we’re continents now and talking is how when the sun crowns but only through the swings of when my clock sings our war clings on religion’s heels.

Infernal Barbed Wire Nick DeRose â&#x20AC;˘ digital art

art | 93

Mark Sexton year • sophomore major • undecided business major medium of choice • song writing

Band Logo and Portrait of the Artist

Courtesy of The Mark Sexton Band • photograph

94 | featured artist

“

I‘m sure there‘s been times while walking to campus you‘ve noticed stickers pasted up on street signs or light posts and more often than not they‘re for a local indie company or band. I‘m mean, we‘ve all gone to Satellite on a weekend night, not just to go out drinking, but to listen to someone who is so and so‘s brother or friend or whatever play because we love, no crave music. The point is, for all the strikes and criticism Reno may have against itself at times, it has a real music scene. Most of us know someone who has a band or was in a band and nowhere is that more true than on a college campus and our campus is no exception. The Mark Sexton band is one of those local bands that‘s been part of that buzz. Mark says, „I work hard at what I do and I take it seriously. Music isn’t something that people can take away from you, its something that I will always have. I am so lucky to be working with great musicians right now, they are very talented.“ The band‘s music and success reflect Mark‘s words. „Our new album, a year in the making, I’m glad that its finally over, I’ve worked harder on the CD then I’ve ever worked in school,“ Mark explains. The band members and musical style has had many different influences. “We all have a different taste in what kind of music we like,” Mark says.

“Dan is into 311, Dave Mathews… Damien is into Miles Davis and John Coltrane… Alex is into Incubus Devengera Banheart. And I’m into a weird mix of John Mayer and a lot of classic reggae artists.” Every artist has their place of inspiration, where they have the room to experiment and create. For many it’s a paint crusted studio or quiet spot under a tree, but for Mark it’s Alex’s recording studio. He says, “It’s my comfort zone because we are free to kinda do whatever we want without time constraints.” “Winter makes me more of a singer/songwriter and in the summer I listen to reggae more, which might affect the way I write.” Mark’s future looks hopeful. He plans to graduate college and make a name for himself doing what he loves: recording, playing and touring. He says, “Playing live has an amazing energy bouncing between you and the crowd that you just can’t get when you sit at home and write by yourself.” •

Music isn’t something that people can take away from you, its something that I will always

by Chantelle Sousa

have. ”

I’m with the Band...

featured artist | 95

Putting Putting It Off It Off Mark Sexton

I’ve got good friends they always back me up They keep me going when it gets too tough Everyone they talk the talk but when it comes to it The never walk the walk Sad to see they never made it Everyone has dreams they wish would come true But its too bad, too bad They never follow through I have a problem, I procrastinate Wake up and find that I’m too late Not worth the wait Maybe one day I will finish a song The rhythm is right but the music is wrong Maybe one dayâ•œ It will take too long How I long for the day I finish a song Everyone has dreams they wish would come true But its too bad, too bad They never follow through I have a problem I procrastinate Wake up and find that its too late Maybe on day I will finish that book and Fill in the blanks on the test that I took It so sad we make excuses in our sorrow I’̇ll stop procrastinating the day after tomorrow Maybe the day after that Maybe the week after next week Could be the week after that

96 | song lyrics

Buttered Buttered Toast Toast Jeff Gesick

Buttered toast, and rum,

match the drum, created by a cats purr covered in fur ever soft ever warm the joy inexplicable in form that comes from the simple affection of a pet when ive lost my connection with you because long ago you fell asleep while company, awake, i keep trying not to be lonely with a cat when youre the only

FireFireof of Inspiration Inspiration Members of the Student Body

Eyes reveal ﬁre of inspiration—kiss the sun

Hallucination, torment, barren wonder wasteland

one i want Teeming sultry stars entwine green-eyed girl Dengue fever, leaky pain Ethereal rain—readily seeps sorrow Cold deep Earth captures dazzling silence

poetry | 97

Peek-a-Boo

Mareena Waslynchuk â&#x20AC;˘ pencil on paper

98 98 | art

Lonely Lonely Showers Showers Stacie Elliopolus

What she’s come to consider, in the last 20 minutes, is she’s really quite lonely. Desperately lonely. So lonely it even hurts in the shower, where she’s supposed to be alone. In the last 20 minutes, she’s even thought about drowning, or, -accidentallyslipping on the shampoo residue that coats the tub. The water pounds, beating the top of her sunken head it’s her favorite place to cry because the tears never really exist. They just wash away. It is not her fault, as you may have guessed, because what she’s come to consider is she’s really quite lonely. Desperately lonely. So lonely she’d let the water turn to acid to dissolve her skin. But water is water, even at boiling temperatures, and what she’s come to consider, in the last 20 minutes, Is the way he looks at her and never sees her. Sees her and turns away. Sees her in company or doing the dishes or naked in his bed, and the loneliest of lonely is having him inside her and being able to look away. In the last 20 minutes, she’s come to know she’s really quite lonely. Desperately lonely. And all she wants, all she needs, is him to surprise her with himself. Naked and vulnerable Needing his back to be washed Simple with love.

poetry | 99

editor • Kelly Bridegum assistant editor • Ashley Noël Hennefer multi-media designer • Chantelle Sousa copy editor • Jeff Gesick editorial assistant • Joaquin Rafel Roces editorial assistant • Sarah Hall intern • Nicholas DeRose intern • Ashley Dodge intern • Rebecca Holmstrom advisor • Amy Koeckes

The Staff

submission review committee • Antoinette Chilson,

Anthony Sodenkamp, Ashley Dodge, Ashley Noël Hennefer (chair), Elena Willoughby, Justin Howard, Kelly Bridegum, Mareena Wasylenchuk, Nicholas DeRose, Rebecca Holmstrom, Ross Hiranaka, and Sarah Hall If you are interested in joining the staff or sitting on the review committee please email the assistant editor at Brushﬁre. Staff@gmail.com

Submissions All current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and members of the community are eligible to submit. All submissions must include contact information, titles of work, medium, word count for prose, dimensions for artwork and a Declaration of Originality (available in the JCSU and at http://www.asun.unr.edu/brushfire). Literary work should be submitted digitally as a Microsoft Word Document or a Rich Text Formant file and under 2500 words. Artwork should be submitted digitally as a JPG or TIFF file with dimensions no smaller than 5” x 7” at 400 dpi.

Submissions must be submitted via email to brushfire@asun.unr.edu or via CD at the Joe Crowley Student Union Information Center, Attention Brushfire All submissions must be recieved no later than Thursday, February 18th, 2008 at 5pm. All submissions will be evaluated by a voluntary committee based on originality, artistic value, coherence, meaning, and technical skill. For more information, please refer to the complete submission guidelines and the submissions review policy available at http://www.asun.unr.edu/brushfire.

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100

100 | staff, submissions, subscribe, & sponsor