Brushfire
Literature & Arts
Copyright 2013 Brushfire and the individual contributors. All rights reserved by the respective artists. Original work is used with the express permission of the artists. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Brushfire would like to thank the judging panel for their time and participation. The opinions expressed in this publication and its associated website and social medias are not necessrily those of the University of Nevada, Reno or of the student body. Front cover photograph by Krissy Clark, “Stranger in a Strange Land” Back cover photograph by Jennice Rodriguez, “Chamberland” Book Layout by Hannah Behmaram Printed by A. Carlisle
Brushfire
Literature & Arts Edition 65 Volume 2
Published by the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno
Krissy Clark, Blue Haze
Dear Reader, We are on the precipice of a technological revolution, one perhaps even more vast and terrifying than that of the 19th century. It manifests itself in our priorities, in our paradigms, but most vividly and honestly in our art. In these pages, you will see a direct reflection of our societal shifts, whether it be a refusal of them through a return to natural materials or a recognition of them spoken in post-apocalyptic language. We are flailing to remain human in a way so tragic, that it’s beautiful. It is my hope that as you scour these works, you may find some corporeal sanctuary in them, but also appreciate the temporality of both their content and the pages they are printed on. Enjoy.
-Hannah Behmaram
Table of Contents Poetry:
8 Kylie Westerlind, What the Stars Heard 17 Emilee Guido, Las Medias Denaranjas 18 Alex King, The Back 25 Brandon Fischmann, William S. Burroughs 32 Christopher Willson, The Darker Hours 33 Ryan Schwalm, Performance Enhancement 37 Nathaniel Benjamin, The Scripture of Light & Time 40 Zack Rybak, A Homicidal Art 42 Thomas Buqo, Trancated Title is Trunca 56 John Blomquist, Images in Technicolor 59 Hannah Behmaram, The Reality of Time 68 Sunny Mok, Hand Readings from a Psychic 69 Suzanne Shoemaker, Mrs. Kingsley Doesn’t Believe in God 71 Samuel Cruz, Rivulets 73 Lauren Hober, Here They Are 75 Michael Williams, I Watch and Listen 78 Dylan Smith, I Am No Man 82 Nathaniel Benjamin, Studies of Consciousness, Tests 1-12 92 Griffin Peralta, Burying Christian Redmill Prose:
11 Kelsey Mammen, Coyotes 20 Katie Eastman, Crooked Girl 28 Nikki Raffail, Being a Cloud 38 Alexis Olige, The Body Exhibit 45 Annie Monson, Childhood Memories of Painted Walls: A Room by Room Description of the House We Left 63 Courtney Vigo, The Adventures of Baby Beluga 80 Kristin Holland, The Last Rain 87 Emilee Guido, Pomaire 91 Kylie Westerlind, Thermal Conductivity 95 Jonathan DuBois, Trolley Man Artwork:
4 Krissy Clark, Blue Haze 10 Haleigh Hoff, Oh Look That’s a Deer 14 Nick Noyes, Blue 15 Nate Conrad-Forrest, I Blue Myself
16 Jena Greenburg, The Opening 18 Estefania Cervantes, Becoming 22 Nathaniel Benjamin, The Plains of South Dakota 24 Stephanie De Barros, Abaca 26 Geoff Roseborough, Brittney 27 Geoff Roseborough, Jay 30 Lauren Jensen, Creativity 32 Roberto Avila, Methodology 36 Nikolai Kolupaev, Burning Skies 39 Jennice Rodriguez, Untitled 42 Erin Parsons, Chrysocyon brachyrus 43 Stephanie De Barros, Smear Deer David Tilley, The Meadows 44 Lauren Jensen, Bratt Construction 53 Jena Greenburg, Color Crave 54 Lynsey Nelson, Heidi 55 Clarisa Depari, Chit Chat Kylie Dingman, Available Light 57 Jen Callahan, Ol’ Bristly 58 Garrett Rottner, Eastern Sierra 60 Katlynn Gibbs, Mariachi Band Oaxaca, Mexico 61 Jed Locquiao, Applied CH 201 Alli Williams, Stinky and His Ass 62 Courtney Vigo, Cady 67 Krissy Clark, Girls 68 Kyle Wirgler, Cloud Love 70 Katlynn Gibbs, Agave 73 Brian Bolton, Morning Dew 74 Jennice Rodriguez, A Rippling Effect 75 Teresa Barns, Inn the Sky 76 Daniel Hanson, External Front 79 Brian Kreuger, Untitled 80 Jennice Rodriguez, Lost 85 Erin Parsons, Ursus arctos horribilis 86 Lauren Jensen, Old Whittler 90 Kylie Dingman, Horizons 93 Caitlin Cosens, Bend and Break 94 Nate Conrad-Forrest, The Butcher 97 Jennice Rodriguez, Untitled
What the Stars Heard by Kylie Westerlind
It’s the end of the world and no one will have read these words. It’s the end of the world and the vespertine stars are supposed to shiver inside out, or the sun will blink, or we will feel what it’s like to stop spinning. It’s the end of the world and I’m barely halfway through a book on how a person should be. It’s the end of the world and most of us are trying not to hold our breath, hold our pillows, hold each other’s fingers. It’s the end of the world and we’re trying not to swear, say we’re sorry, ask for another chance, say the sugared things we’ve harbored in our mouths. It’s the end of the world and we’re trying not to look at each other. We’re trying not to believe in god, or that this could happen, or that we could believe this has a chance of happening, or even hoping that no one can hear us wishing for a few more years. Just a few more years until I’m supposed to say I’ve been wrong, until you say that you love her, until he says that he hurts. It’s the end of the world and we’re looking at the ground, at the sky. Looking around at anything other than mirrors. It’s the end of the world and we’re all waiting for the volcanoes to spill forth their red entrails, the earth to split its sides, the wind to whip the skin off our faces. We’re waiting patiently for the clocked doom to tick closer to our reckoning. We’re waiting for punishment, scolding, hurt.
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We’re waiting anxiously, hungrily for nature’s merciless gore that we have already made ourselves: the car’s metal spear halving a young girl’s skull, the hollow and cracked thin-veined nostrils of the mister coke addict, the unwanted blood-pendulum of the woman perched on the toilet, the sky-high laughter of boys with desert boots and machine gun slings, the puckered tongues of women, the feverish strokes of men who can’t let go, the loneliness of murderers, the sadness of a skeletal sister, the love of a woman for everyone but herself, the teeth of the homeless man on the sidewalk, the womanly piss on the building, the needles of the hungry, the tasteless cans of the poor, the heated cancer in the bones of the mindful, the naked gasp between two lovers who think they’ve found god in the body’s dispel. It’s the end of the world and we’re crossing our fingers for a blood-letting because god should be doing this to us, the silent flash of time, the warm whisper of space. It’s the end of the world and we’re waiting for god to do something as if we haven’t been punishing ourselves all this time.
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Coyotes
by Kelsey Mammen
ei H al
10
ff, Oh Look Th g h Ho at
’s
a
De e
r
I was halfway to the barn when the door of the house slammed behind me. I had no doubt he’d come after me, the lawyer didn’t walk away from a fight. He was most passionate when we were fighting. Sometimes, when he’d spent a lot of time working on a case, I would leave the cabinets open in the kitchen or the bed unmade so that he would have a reason to fight with me. “Margene,” he yelled after me, “don’t walk away from me.” I was wearing the dress boots I had cleaned earlier that day, but I made a point of walking through the mud in them. “Stop,” he said, “stop, now.” I kept walking. He grabbed my shoulder and tried to spin me around but I shoved him off, and turned to face him on my own. “What?” I said, throwing my hands up, “what do you want?” His eyebrows shot up and he looped his thumbs through his belt loops, stuck out an alligator skinned boot. “I don’t know,” he said, “why don’t you tell me?” “Because I don’t know what to say to you,” I said, letting my hands hang at my sides. “Was it the dinner?” he said. “No, dinner was fine.” “I wasn’t flirting with the waitress.” “I know,” I said, shifting my eyes to the ground, “it’s not that.” “Then what?” he said, “what is it?” “I don’t love you,” I said, “that’s it.” And there they were. The words that in the past months had come so often to my mind during Friday dinners with his firm where I felt out of place in my boots and jeans and he picked out his teeth at the table while his secretary watched him through alcohol glassed eyes. And his mouth closed, and he didn’t say anything after that. He nodded once, because he knew I wouldn’t miss it, and then turned and walked back to the house and I walked into the barn. I went to the feed room, poured some grain into a plastic bucket and shook it. The two horses trotted in from the pasture, ears perked at the sound. Rupert made it to his stall first, and Lila came in after him. I let Rupert have the grain after I slid a halter over his nose. I patted Lila, she always went a little sour when I didn’t pick her for the ride. She was 11
young, though, and wouldn’t understand the urgent energy in my legs and the firmness in my hands. Rupert would. He stood quietly as I tacked up, sliding leather through buckles and wiping the dust from the seat of my English saddle. I ignored the protest from my right knee as I mounted, and my joints softened as I settled into my seat. I shortened my reins, and Rupert raised his head. He trotted out down the road, moving with the hum in my legs and hands. I looked back once at the driveway and saw the lawyer on the porch, watching me go. I didn’t wave. Neither did he. The fading heat of the day felt good against my bare arms. When we hit the dirt trail I raised up out of my seat and Rupert rocked into a canter, tucking his head and waiting for the cue to move out. I waited until the sand turned soft, when hoofbeats were lost and all that remained was silent motion. I clucked to my horse and he stretched out his neck and dug into the sand. I knotted my hands into his thick mane, felt his sides move against my legs with the gallop. Out here there was no lawyer. There was motion, air, energy. Exuberance built at the base of my spine. I asked Rupert for more as the sagebrush flew by and we entered the dried creekbed. He churned his hindquarters at the gentle pressure of my leg, and I felt the energy in him that horses don’t have to give but do. The power that they offer when they don’t have to run, but want to. It was between the two low, dirt crumbling walls of the creekbed that they came. The power of Rupert’s gallop shifted from desire to necessity. A fear crept into his breathing. I glanced over my shoulder, where a pair of coyotes ran ten feet behind. They were playing, nipping at each other in their chase. They had manic smiles on their faces, more like hyenas than scrappy coyotes. And I realized that though they looked like they were playing, because they couldn’t have seriously believed that they could take down a horse, they were still pursuing us through predatory hope. They were chasing us until something easier came along, or because they had nothing else to do and they were hungry. I turned forward to watch the sage and dirt melt together. I let Rupert outrun them. And then as the coyotes ran behind us, I thought: I haven’t loved anyone since the cop who changed more tires than he wrote tickets, though the kindness I loved sent him running back to his cheating wife. The lawyer hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just him. It was the way he talked with arrogance around his coworkers but expected tenderness from me when we were alone. It was the way he slept with a pillow over his head so that to wake him I had to wrench it from his grip to talk in his ear. It was the way he liked all cats, some dogs, and no horses. 12
And then I couldn’t remember who was who. Was it the lawyer or the cop who liked cats? Who was it that gave me yellow tulips on my birthday? And why did it matter? It didn’t, I realized. They were both men with different faults and different virtues, and I wanted the one I couldn’t have because he wasn’t around to demonstrate his faults. Because somehow it would be better if I could have the unattainable one, the one that got away. And then I wondered about women, and the unhappiness that we blame on men but really is rooted in our choices. Because there is always a point at which we chose. When love does not cloud our minds or hearts, when clarity steps in and we say, “I really don’t want him, do I?” I felt Rupert’s breathing become labored, and knew I should slow down. We passed a sagebrush housing a rabbit and the rabbit took off. The coyotes smelled the prey and fell out into the brush. I slowed Rupert to a walk. And, as I turned towards home, I knew that the lawyer wouldn’t be there when I got back. In the distance, the coyotes yipped.
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Nick Noyes, Blue
Nate Conrad-Forrest, I Blue Myself
Las Medias deNaranjas by Emilee Guido
Jena Greenburg, The Opening
No puede ver las montaùas in the morning porque no existen in the morning. They go to bed late and rise late. They begin to exist just when the sun begins its downward half arc in the sky cuando sienten como existiendo otra vez. But when the sun disappears so do they. Perhaps they’re in love con el sol! And can only exist when the sun does, too. I bet they spend all night dreaming of what they will say to each other tomorrow. I bet they spend all night dreaming of how they will touch each other tomorrow. I bet they spend all night dreaming.
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Estefania Cervantes, Becoming
The Back
by Alex King
The back is a room deep in our minds, where strange thoughts find abyssmal corners to sit, wait, fester, and plot their escape. Where paranoia, anxiety, and curiosity are devoured and transformed into hideous abominations that take the place of “who” in “who’s there?” Where shadows are given form: arms, eyes, fingers, claws, teeth, gnashing jaws of some unseen predator standing in the corner of the bedroom drooling at the sight of its next meal.
Michael, Freddie, Jason, the Devil, the Boogeyman and all the things that ever went bump in the night all creep in the back. Some swarm like insects, some perch like vultures, others rot in its deepest parts. They all wait for their opportunity, gather their strength for that time when the house is empty, when the hour is neither late, nor early, when you are just about to drift off to sleep. The door to the back creaks open.
Where Lovecraftian horrors stretch their tendrils, “It” smiled at Stephen King, “Psycho” stalked Hitchcock, “The Raven” spoke to Poe.
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Crooked Girl by Katie EAstman
That damn plastic had become my best friend. In summer, it was always very hot inside my brace, the plastic would almost seem to melt but instead would torture me, cling to my cotton undershirt which then stuck uncomfortably to my moist skin. It was another long summer in Idaho, the clouds vast and blue, the air hot and dry with the smell of cow manure, and I was still trapped in my plastic. When my mother came outside to water her 4 o’clocks, I was sitting in the same spot in the grass that I had been for hours, hunched over, surrounded by the outside cats like some kind of broken-down grandma. My Dad appeared from the back of the house and I had to humor what was considered my parent’s norm; Mom in her low camisole without a bra and Dad without a shirt and khaki shorts rolled up higher than usual. Mom yelled something at him as he walked by and I knew it was about her roses. It was always about her roses during the summer. He escaped her wrath and headed inside to the comfort of the Golf Channel and as Mom turned back to her watering, I noticed the way she suddenly stopped and looked up at the sky as if to think of ways she could make the flowers grow to reach that high. “Lil!” Mom said, looking at me from across the lawn. I looked down at my cat, Bo, sprawled out at the end of the blanket in front of me, begging for attention. Mom turned her water off and headed toward me, all the while preoccupied with other thoughts, work to be done in other flower beds. She stopped at the foot of my blanket and sassily put her hands on jarring hip bones, “What’s your problem?” I covered my eyes with my arm and glared up at her. Taking a seat next to me, she patted my back, the stiff plastic loud and hollow against the palm of her hand. “You must be burnin’ up, Lil. It’s hot today.” I shot an irritated look back at her. Mom pinched my arm, the way she used to when I was little, forcing me to laugh unwillingly. “Listen, Lil, I’m really glad you’ve cooperated so well with wearing your brace. Just think it’ll all be worth it in the end.” 20
“Why do we have to talk about this?” She sighed loudly. “Well sorry for trying to talk about it. You’re obviously upset about something. Is your brace hurting you?” She waited, but I didn’t reply, “It is, isn’t it? That must be why you’re acting like such a snot.” Her sarcasm was unstoppable. It was always so hard to tell if she actually gave a shit about me or not. “You don’t understand. No one does so there’s no point in talking about it,” I said. Mom stood up, surprisingly quick for her age, moving the dirty bangs out of her face. She signaled for me to get up and then walked over to the nearest flower bed and bent over the newly bloomed chickens and hens. “See them?” she said, hovering her finger over the delicate blooms. “These are so fragile, always so beautiful, but so difficult to maintain every year.” She sat down on the flower bed border and I did the same. “These flowers,” she continued, pulling the camisole up onto her bony shoulders, “are a lot like you, Lil.” I gently touched one in the center. “Don’t touch them! You can’t touch them. Like I said, they’re fragile. They require lots of care in order to stay beautiful... just like you and your little crooked spine, Lil.” I looked down at the strange flowers. “Don’t you ever touch these,” she said. “I have to cover them with bark to keep them safe all year round.” Mom understood that I was not going to communicate with her by any means, and retreated back to her flowerbed. “Jim!?” she shrieked my Dad’s name and I knew the day would continue on as expected. I glanced over to my blanket nearby which was now vacant, as the cats had proceeded to follow me and my mom around the big yard. I decided I would take a shower and ran into the house and up to my stuffy bathroom, stained rose-colored carpet and bile-green walls that had become so comfortable to me. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and I decided I would take my brace off for the next five hours (I was not allowed to have it off for more than five hours a day). The relief became overwhelming just undoing the first strap, the Velcro sounding off like the recess bell. I undid the last two straps, the middle one being the most difficult, and awkwardly took the brace off my small torso. 21
My white cotton shirt was stained with old blood, reminding me of the scars my brace had given me under my armpits, scars that would later mortify me in my junior prom dress. I quickly took that off too, and jumped into the cold shower’s spray, feeling like a newborn child. I began to wonder if I would ever get the damn plastic off or if I would forever be depressed, trapped in a painful device meant to torture me, maybe for something I did that God was getting me back for. I wondered if getting the brace off would even change anything, or if I would always have a severely disfigured spine. These thoughts made me shiver, or maybe it was the temperature of the water. I was crooked. That was just how it was going to be. Crooked friends. Crooked school. Maybe even a crooked boyfriend in the future.
There was nothing a damn brace was going to do about it, no matter how many times I travelled 200 miles to the orthopedic doctor to get it tightened. What is life going to be like crooked? I wondered. What if because my spine is crooked, there are other things inside me that are crooked? What if I have to get discs or a metal rod shoved into my back even after going through this hell with the brace? I stopped my thoughts and realized that none of it mattered. Either way, I was in the brace now. It was the summer after my seventh grade year and I had a long way to go before I could be released from my plastic cocoon. I guess I would have to wait for my time to bloom, just like Mom’s chickens and hens. Until then, I would just be Lillian Gouphen, the crooked girl.
Nathaniel Benjamin, The Plains of South Dakota
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William S. Burroughs by Brandon Fischmann
Stephanie De Barros, Abacá: Manila rope fiber
I had a vision five nights ago- at least I assume it was five nights because I’ve made two trips to the barrio bathhouse since and never attend to my vices more than twice a week. There was Miguel, hair slicked back by bread and butlers. He had skin like sidewalked copper pennies with all the fierce nobility of Lincoln gazing into my pores. His touch was much softer though, like a blanket knit with religious suppression. In the vision I was ear deep in pod, I could hear the tar singing an old tune the buskers would wail from the gutters of the French quarter. The pigs stood aside palming their batons with a hunger I haven’t felt since I last quit junk, back in New Orleans. (Abstinence has no implication of permanence, especially when your lover has kept their bed ready) and besides, there is nothing for me to fear on the lam here, no obligations but my 5 o’clock rum. (I’m addicted to the equatorial sun even when my doped eyes can’t take it) Joan was there, disheveled hair hung like a hobo’s shadow but a smile to loosen my old joints faster than a slug to the arm. The palm fronds danced like the prohibition was ending. Neon lit shanties sprawled beneath, training Bodhisattvas to have orgies on top of copies of Time Magazine, like you thick-rims always dreamed. It is only two past noon and already I am unraveling faster than thread on speed, still, I think this Latin light will do well for my wrinkles.
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Geoff Roseborough, Jay
Geoff Roseborough, Brittney
being a cloud by Nikki Raffail
The dog is taking too long to shit. I am cold. Wet grass from overcast is seeping through my boots. Today wasn’t a good day. In fact, I’m quite numb to most things right now. It’s easier that way. But it’s a weird feeling when you’re simultaneously coughing on smoke and crying. Things like that shouldn’t happen in the world. Anyway, my eyes are almost shut from the combination of crypuffed, sleepy, and stoned. The dog is just skipping around the grass, trying to find the perfect place to lay her loaves. And all of a sudden I’m not looking at her with spite anymore, but I’m looking at the sky, and the sky is this strange navy color with these light, almost white clouds. And they’re so close to me. And the moon produces countless spots of after-image if you look at it for longer than a glance. And there are giant burning rocks a few million light years closer than any other star to that moon, and they’re shining like the ends of the needles of my brother’s multi-color-lighted little Christmas tree. And the clouds are still close to me. I’m standing directly in front of and facing my neighbor’s living room window, accidentally. And if anyone were actually in that living room and not slumbering away in their little family beds, they would see a woman standing with her face to the sky, mouth agape, eyes concerned, and that would be awkward. But luckily, people have normal sleep schedules and no one is around to ruin this moment for me and the dog’s still tugging on the leash while skipping around like an idiot. After affirming no one is around to witness my experience, I stick my hand up. Into the clouds. Like something would actually happen. Because I thought it would, with how close those clouds were. How they seem to envelop me and to sink lower and lower until my entire vision is covered in cloud, and I could fall into them and sleep, away from the earth, away from this day, away from all of the things that we label as bad…and just be a cloud. For a little bit, at least. The dog could come. But of course, my feet are still wet and I’m still on the ground, and I’m trying to practice realism and the art of letting go.
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So I try to make up some analogy of emotions and clouds and beauty and acceptance written through elegant words that this was supposed to be, but nothing meshes in the way I hoped. I’ve been a bit cynical today. Flowy, eloquent scriptures of happiness aren’t coming to me. I think of how clouds are imperfect, so people are imperfect. Nature is beautiful, and we are a part of nature. We came from the same atoms as clouds, etc., etc., our worries pass like clouds, and the things that are always around us can always amaze us. So these are great concepts, but I feel they’re better in list form than prose. After touching the cloud to no avail, I am overcome with this deeply moving and numbing feeling of comfort. My neighborhood usually scares me, but I feel like at this point, I could lie in the street and be safe. I guess maybe there’s comfort in knowing that something will never go away, isn’t there? Whether I live or whether I die, the stars will keep shining, and the moon will stay blinding, and the clouds will be confiding to someone, somewhere out there. There’s comfort in knowing that things stay. And there’s comfort in knowing that everything on this planet was made out of the same atoms that make up the things I’m looking at above me, which give them somewhat, in a way, the same potential in providing me with the comfort in being there. Suddenly, after a day of forced enthusiasm and numbing emotions and thoughts, I’m feeling, for the first time since I opened my eyes this morning, happiness. In its purest form, I think. Its most attainable form. Easiest form. Best form. Always there form. Always there. And suddenly, I am a cloud.
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Lauren Jensen, Creativity
The Darker Hours
Performance Enhancement
On the porch we sat in gray twilight, I reading a book and you reading something different. You mentioned the nakedness of Grass and I the chatter of the moon. We Agreed that life was difficult and went Upstairs and took off our clothes And laid our bodies beside each other. You said, “What is poetry without love?” I said I did not know and kissed Your shoulders. At midnight we rose and Entered the town and sought the children Who were laughing in the graveyard, and we Wished we too were one of them. Then Dawn appeared and the daybreak people Emerged and you and I looked at each other, With a message creeping in our eyes, Wanting to say, “What is better than these, The mothers wearing raincoats in the early autumn wind?”
Four four four. This is what I did last night.
Roberto Avila, Methodology
By Christopher Willson
by Ryan Schwalm
I experienced obsessive compulsive. Wrote Wesley a note. Went swimming in tears. I love you period. I walk very carefully. Touch every black square. There’s less of them. Kind of like me. I’m trying to escape. This is so weird. I never do this. I am becoming you. I will carry on. My name will sound. And trumpets will follow. Assuming I’m breathing tomorrow. How comforting, a preconceived skeleton in which to work. I am no different than I have been in the past, but I’ve ruined my eyesight staring into the abyss and moved on to my liver, drowning it in conveniently placed blissful ignorance. What are you supposed to do when you’re trying to follow your heart, and your heart tells you to die? If the basest animal instinct is to survive and if the answer to life is love, then that kind of puts me between a rock and......................
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I sometimes feel like people look up to me before they know me. Everyone wants to be that person that doesn’t have a care in the world, and does whatever they want because they want it. Free. Apparently I embody that...but what kind of pisses me off is that I feel the same way they do. I look up to the me that isn’t me. I envy the freedom others think I have. That guy, he doesn’t exist. Ever. There is no one human so disconnected. So sometimes I catch myself thinking that if I truly wanted to change the world...I would have to take this hero away from the people. How would I do that? I’d just have to kill him. I think the unknowable thing I fantasize about the most, more than what happens after death, or how the universe was created, is how would all of my friends, my beloved friends, my relatives, my acquaintances, my fans, and the people that allegedly hate me would react to hearing, “Ryan killed himself.” I wanna know how much stronger everyone would become after they witness the person they thought was so strong fall.
So, learn about someone, and don’t expect to learn anything. Take care of your body, because I love your body. Avoid safe patterns that you’ll only fall into because you’re scared of change. If you wanna Die, point to something Beautiful Indulge yourself in it and Experience it in any and every way that you can My favourite numbers are doubles of four.
So I denounce suicide as a terrible choice. Because pain is part of having feelings, and feelings should be felt. That’s the beauty of being human I say. I say I could never kill myself no matter how much I hurt, because I loved it all so much. But you don’t know, and I don’t know how things work sometimes and I don’t make plans. I can’t see very well anymore, but I fake it. And I haven’t been in a lot of fights, but my body’s breaking in places I don’t like, and places that may never recover. So I’m ashamed. This poem is about a guy named Expectancy. I’ve never met him. But I’ve heard a lot about him, and he sounds really great. But you know how it works once you get to know someone...so I think it’s better off we’ve never met. I am not a poet. I don’t KNOW things. And I’m not an existentialist either. I’m not fucking stupid. I don’t know how to tell you to live your life. But I will tell you anything that pops into my head, if you’d like. 34
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Nikolai Kolupaev, Burning Skies
The Scripture of Light & Time by Nathaniel Bemjamin
I am twenty-five years old: a mind wandering on the banks of Anno Domini, watching the fish swim against the stream only to stand still. I am twelve years old: an earth of young valleys, of whirlpools drinking in light, of caverns carved by sound & taste scent & waste, a body which is simply an echo chamber for thoughts, with senses that touch but do not feel: Only in the sum of the mind is creation whole. I am unborn: a wash of unknowing particles on the phantom wave that rolls below the ocean of experience, an unwritten word in the scripture of light & time, swinging quietly on the arms of galaxies as if we were childhood friends.
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The Body Exhibit by Alexis Olige
I saw the body exhibit today. Eight bodies of Asian men donated to science and put on display at the state fair, nestled tightly in between the lion cubs and the airplane hangar full of quilts. This, of course, was not their final resting place. These men had not been treated and dried for an entire year only to find the end of their road naked in Palmer, Alaska. This was just one of their many stops, I’m sure, until their bodies became too travel worn to display. I wondered if any of these petite men had ever been to Alaska before their death, or anywhere in the lower 48. Did China have fairs where you could eat a funnel cake and watch an overweight tanned man play with an adolescent grizzly bear in a canvas tent? Somehow I doubted it. The exhibit had signs strung by fishing line evenly spaced on each wall, spewing facts about what smoking does to a body. You would think that they would have more of an impact than your typical anti-smoking campaign considering the actual dead bodies not two feet from you, depicting the consequences of smoking. These placards, still in the stagnant air of the portable building did not say if each man had in fact died from a smoking related complication, but it was implied. Even the skin sack with its haunting tuft of pubic hair was laid under a sign that read, “Smoking inhibits the flow of oxygen to the cells, causing the skin to wrinkle and pale.” After pacing through this alien graveyard for about a half an hour, I needed a cigarette. I walked over to the designated smoking section, located in between the bathrooms and the lumber jack pavilion, littered with puddles filled of floating filters. I thought about you for a minute as I inhaled and exhaled, inflaming my larynx and blackening my lungs. I thought about how you were not the same, about how your eyes wandered, but not in any way one could follow, about your engorged fingers and how I wasn’t sure I wanted you anymore. The man who I fantasized about and castigated myself for losing was gone. I imagined a man to my left, a man who had no skin, simply sinew and bones. He took an awkward lipless drag from his cigarette and nodded. He understood the allure of unrequited love, the refreshing flush of salt tears, the appeal of tattered organs. I stomped on his cigarette for him after he’d flicked it, he had no skin on his feet after all, and his 20 minute break was surely over.
Jennice Rodriguez, Untitled
A Homicidal Art by Zack Rybak
Ejected shell-casings revolve end over end through the air, contrails of twisted smoke track the spent cartridges like the icy plume that follows jets through the sky, the jets he always looks up at and wishes he was on, especially the ones that crashed into the towers. His boots track crimson footprints textured by blood behind him. Screaming and pleading isn’t going to change his mind. He is a painter with a palette of gasoline, intent on setting fire to this canvas before he ever finishes. Artwork becoming something, more or less, a pile of carbonized ash, curdling and eddying into micro-tornadoes from the breeze careening in through the open window. Of course an open window. Always an open window. Behind every work of art there is an open window taunting the artist to throw away nothing before it has time to condense its superheated gases and explode again and again and again and become everything, the brain igniting like the sizzling crack of the magnesium flash that creates milliseconds of light in darkness, the signal flares leading off the icy road to the overturned car, each one brighter than the last because the one prior is already burning out, just as everything burns but nothing burns forever. Not the tour de force of pyromania that burns Detroit’s sky crimson every Halloween, and not the smoldering ember inside a girl’s ribcage, nuclear fission mistaken for nuclear fusion. Every blank page perpetually reminds us of how much we haven’t done. Is art the avenue in which the mind connects itself to nothing? What is Klimt without women? A match without oxygen? Us without love? A work in progress, broken, incomplete, the holes of our whole exposed, a thousand ugly pieces pressed together and shown as just that. 40
They’ll call him a madman, not born mad but became mad, found madness, snapped like an old, whirring timing belt. He sees himself as an artist—maybe Monet, except instead of haystacks he aims to illuminate the different shades of being human. Not the collagen-lipped smiles but what is inside. Blood, marbled muscle, phlegm, silicone implants, twenty-eight feet of interwoven, shit filled intestines twisted into a slithery mess like the phone chord in the sweaty hands of a fifties housewife, hopped up on amphetamine salts, speed freak, in the middle of her noontime phone call with Sophie who is telling her how—three children later— she no longer feels comfortable being naked in front of her husband, like his eyes are the plastic surgeon’s scalpel, seeking to scrupulously sculpt her skin into fantasies. One night, she plunges a kitchen knife into his heart. A madwoman, but without the publicity that this poem’s protagonist receives—the madman stalking through the lobby with the AR-15 hanging heavy in his hands, mushroomed hollow points lodged in fat, the backs of heads unfurled like blooming roses.
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by Thomas Buqo
I miss the days of the telegram, when messages were priced by length: brevity in elegies: melancholy in seven sentences or less, arrogance allotted no more than a paragraph, apologies at a penny per word. As these couriers ramble on through the over-beaten path of our conversations, it would be nice if they could get to the point and not travel these same roads again.
Stephanie De Barros, Smear Deer
Truncated Title is Trunca
David Tilley, The Meadows
Erin Parsons, Chrysocyon brachyurus
Childhood Memories of Painted Walls: A Room by Room Description of the House We Left by Annie Monson
The House I spent most of my childhood in a faded blue house on Bunker Hill Lane in Reno, Nevada. Three summers into living there, my dad repainted the whole house by himself. He walked into the garage, got out his tallest ladder and began painting over the blue house, rolling his brush in buckets full of white paint and stroking a fresh cover all over the house. My mom suggested my younger brother and I help, “Can we have some brushes?” we asked, eager to do what our dad was doing. “You have to be careful not to miss any spots. Try to paint over the blue as evenly as possible,” he instructed, handing us the brushes. We helped some, but could not paint as well as my dad. He stroked each bit of that house, methodically making sure none of the old paint was showing through at all. He outlined the house with forest green trim, meticulously hiding all of the ugliness underneath. Driveway During the days it was just my mom and my brother and me at home. The driveway would be empty of my dad’s silver truck all day. My dad would pull out early in the morning and drive 40 minutes to work, watching the sunrise on his way. Every evening he came home at five and parked his truck back in the driveway. My dad hated his job, but as a kid I didn’t know that. No matter the situation, no word of complaint ever left his mouth. My childhood observations led me to believe my dad loved only three things: his family, solitude, and basketball. After dinner sometimes he would play basketball with us. He’d move his silver truck out of the driveway, park it on the street, and we would play Horse together. My dad always nailed a backwards shot with nothing but net. I stood, just like him, with my back to the hoop, and I launched the ball over my head, but never came close to making it, neither did my brother. My dad spun the basketball on his index finger until we were both dizzy from watching. He dribbled between his legs, and when we begged him enough, he showed us how he could dunk the ball through the hoop, hanging on the rim for a split second before his feet touched the ground again. When we all became tired of basketball, he’d sit in the driveway in his blue lawn chair, head resting in his hands, and watched the sunset as we rode our bikes up and down the wide tree-lined street. Lauren Jensen, Bratt Construction
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My Bedroom Before we lived in that house, I shared a room with my brother. When we moved in, my mom promised I could paint my walls any color and make my room exactly how I wanted it. I picked out a purple comforter for my white day bed and I asked her if we could paint the walls green. She said I could do whatever I wanted, so after carefully looking at the rainbow wall of paint colors at Home Depot, I picked out a bright, grass green color and handed it to her. “This is exactly what I want.” Her eyebrows scrunched over her eyes, and said, holding out a minty green color, “What about this? It’s softer. Not as bold.” “It’s not bright enough,” I said, knowing the vision of the room I wanted in my head. “Trust me; the green you want has too much yellow in it. This green is better.” I helped her paint my room. We started after breakfast and worked till almost eleven that night. We pushed all my furniture to the center of my room and as we went around painting each wall, I told her all about wanting to become a judge when I grew up, so I could make sure all the bad people were in jail, and all the good people were free. I told her I thought the President should pray more and rich people should give poor people their money. Every time she checked my sections of the walls she pointed out all the splotchy parts that I missed and suggested that I go over them again. The next day, when my walls were dry and all my furniture was back in place, I looked around at my room. I pictured my walls were the grassy green color I picked out instead of my mom’s green. She didn’t understand my idea; she, for the first time I could remember, was completely wrong. Her green was not better. Dining Room The house was never quiet inside; though, it always was. A layer of unsaid feelings always lingered behind the noise of my family’s moving about. My mother home schooled my brother and me. The bookshelves in our dining room, contents stacked to the brim, held colorful workbooks and school supplies. Every morning we sat around the dining room table and pledged to the American flag. Then, with our hands even tighter over our hearts, we pledged to the Bible. Following our morning allegiances, we took turns reciting that week’s Bible memory verse. My mom, then, looked in her lesson plan book and explained our work for the day. She switched back and forth between helping my brother and helping me. I sat, every day practicing cursive and working on long division. All the while, I pretended I went to a real school with other kids. Every now and then I asked my mom 46
if could go to school, and every time, like an automated answering machine she told me, “No, this is what our family does.” I waited for her to help my brother and then, flipping over a new page on my yellow tablet, I drew and re-drew the plans for Monson Academy. I drew a big brick building with stairs leading up to the entrance. I planned science and math next door to each other and reading, creative writing, and social studies up the stairs in the noble-looking two story elementary school I pictured so often it was real to me. I placed my imaginary friends at the desks in my mind and I went to school in spite of my mom keeping me home. Every outing we took during the day, I counted as a field trip. I asked for breaks to play outside, so I could have recess. My imaginary friends always traded parts of their imaginary lunches for parts of mine – my carrot sticks for their sour gummy worms - and they waved good-bye to me as I pretended walking upstairs to my room was walking home from my day at school. Mom & Dad’s Room In sixth grade, my mom taught me a Bible class surveying Old Testament kings. There were so many difficult names to keep track of and too many weird laws to remember. I lost all interest and gave up, completely, on the readings the curriculum had her assign. I did not want to admit that I didn’t do it, so I kept it a secret. When she handed me a test or a quiz, I hid it under all my other assignments and waited for her to do the dishes or change out the laundry. I knew where she kept the answer books, so I slowly began making up for what I lost by cheating my way to A’s. I became crafty in cheating, makings sure to purposefully miss a few answers, and even more crafty in keeping it a secret. I hid it so well; she didn’t know about it for almost a whole school year. Right before summer break, guilt began blooming from the deeply buried seed of silence. I knew cheating was wrong, and it felt doubly wrong that I cheated at my Bible class. I felt God’s disappointment, and if my mom knew, she’d be disappointed too, but I could not hide it anymore. I walked into my mom’s room. Their big bed sat against a bright red wall, and cream lace curtains framed their window. She sat at my dad’s desk grading my schoolwork. My hands and knees shook, and told her, “I’ve been filling in the answers and not reading the book at all.” I waited for her response, “We’ll have to talk to your father about this,” she replied. She never told my dad when I misbehaved, so I knew I was really in trouble. I searched my memory to see if my dad ever punished me, and I couldn’t recall a single time. My mom took care of the spanking, and grounding. 47
My throat dried up and tears stung the back of my eyes, but I didn’t cry. I sat in my chair doing my school work, watching the clock round five.. Through the window, I watched the shine of his truck pull up. He walked in calmly and sat his gray lunch box down in the kitchen. I heard my parents whispering, and my hands started sweating. They sent me to their room to wait. My stomach flipped over itself like a pile of soggy, wet clothes inside a washing machine. My dad came into his room and sat calmly on the big bed next to me. He said nothing to me except for one question, “Why did you do this?” I had no answer for him. I knew I betrayed him. The stare of my parent’s red wall, the disappointment in my dad’s patient blue eyes, the distance of my brother who was playing in the kitchen downstairs, everything in that moment sat on top of me in the heaviest weight of guilt, and still it stings; even though, they never brought it up again. My dad dismissed me from his room without a punishment, leaving me alone to work off the wrong I had done. The Kitchen My mom went through a phase where she bought a large box of frozen corndogs from Costco for my brother and me to have for lunch. She taught us how to use the microwave, so that when 11:30 hit, we could take a break from our schoolwork and make ourselves lunch. My brother and I sat across from each other at our kitchen table. The almost noon sun poured through the windows making the kitchen warm and comfortable. My brother and I would milk all the time we could for our lunch break. We learned that if we didn’t finish our food in the half hour my mom gave us for lunch, she let us take time more time to finish eating, so we played silly games to make it last as long as possible. “Betcha can’t make me laugh,” I dared, dipping my corn dog in mustard. He tried without success, “Now you make me laugh,” he poked back, his feet swinging under the table. I twisted my face as weird as I could which usually made him crack. He got upset that I always won. I felt bad that he lost so much, so I told him my trick, “You just have to dig up whatever is inside you that makes you sad and think about it.” It didn’t take long for the game to become harder and harder for me to win after that.
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Living Room When I was nine, I had walking pneumonia. My mom folded a white sheet in half and tucked the fold into the crease between the seat cushions and the back cushion of the couch in our living room. The couch sat under a big window that looked out on our front yard. While I was sick, I could hear the neighbor kids ringing their bike bells and missing numbers as they counted time for their friends to hide. I knew I was missing out on all the fun, but I couldn’t get off the couch. I spent three weeks lying there between the halves of the sheets. My mom handed me the TV remote, and allowed me to watch whatever I wanted. Normally, we were only allowed one hour of TV a day. This type of privilege was almost unheard of. She checked on me every hour, and she kept me company. She rested on the other couch until I fell asleep at night, making sure I knew she was there if I needed her. On our way out of one of the doctors’ offices we visited, the receptionist handed me a red balloon and a Barbie sticker. When we returned home, I sat the balloon in front of me so I could watch it bob in the breeze of the fan spinning near to keep me cool. In the haze of sleeping and TV commercials, my brother asked if he could played with my balloon. I let him. He tied a toy soldier to the end of the balloon string and let go, as it bounced underneath the stucco ceiling, it popped, jolting me wide awake. Fury filled my feverish body. My balloon was a treasure; other than watching so much TV, it was the only good thing about being sick. I insisted he owed me another one, but my mom wanted me to be grown up about it. She kept reminding me it was just a balloon and it not worth making a big deal over. She stroked my hair, and brought me more soup. The Garage My dad had one place all to himself in the house: the garage. It was only fair that it was supposed to be completely his because I had my own room, and so did my brother. My mom had the other rooms and the downstairs room was for guests when they came to visit. My dad kept all his treasures in there. He had a plywood work bench which stood underneath a long florescent light that needed to flicker three times before it turned on. On his work bench, he kept his worn red tool box holding every kind of screwdriver and a tape measure I would sometimes borrow and forget to give back. Over his work bench, he hung the antelope heads he hunted, his antique rifle, some awards he received, and his forest green city league basketball jersey decorated with a white number twenty-three. He hung up signs too, a UPS sign from the many years he worked as a driver and my favorite sign that said, “What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.” 49
It was supposed to be a space just for my dad, but the longer we lived in the house, the more we all borrowed the garage space from him. Most of it was never returned. My mom filled it with boxes of stuff to get rid of, or boxes of Christmas decorations to put up. We kept all our extra folding chairs in a growing stack against the wall by the door. We added a garage fridge for our frozen food, and as my brother and I started outgrowing little kid toys, we added bigger bikes and better scooters to crowd my dad’s garage space. At some point, we started parking my mom’s green minivan inside the garage too, and since my mom was afraid of driving into the wall, we hung a tennis ball up to mark where her windshield should stop. My dad took this hijacking without a word of objection. Though his ownership of his space was slowly taken away, he never brought it up. I could tell though, in some silent sinking of his eyes, that it bothered him. The invasion of his garage space hung in the air with cordial tension as he silently handed over every bit that was his. The Closet I owned two dolls more special than any other toy I had. One was blonde, and I named her Jennifer. The other had brown hair like mine; I named her Samantha. On the floor of my closet, I set up a room for them. I arranged my dolls’ beds and their clothes so they each had somewhat of their own space. I drew doll-sized posters for them, so their walls didn’t have to be boring. I pretended I was their mom, and, every day, I made sure they ate breakfast before I sent them off to school. I didn’t want my dolls to be home schooled like me. My dad always kept a careful record of our height inside the doorframe of our coat closet to mark our growth. I decided that as my dolls’ mother, I should record their height as well. Only, I knew they wouldn’t get any taller. I had to fill in the gaps between my imagination and the reality in front of me, so the first time I measured them I made the pencil mark an inch shorter than their actual doll height, so that the next time I measured them it created the illusion they were growing. Every Saturday an envelope waited for me in the top drawer of my dad’s desk. It held my weekly allowance of five dollars. I put fifty cents of it in a jar for my savings, and I put fifty cents of it into the offering plate at church on Sunday. The leftover four dollars were mine though, and I could do whatever I wanted with it. One week at the store, I saw a tent that was the perfect size for Samantha and Jennifer. It came with a plastic campfire and two twigs for roasting marshmallows. I needed twenty four dollars for it, and I saved up for weeks until I had almost enough. I was only four dollars short, but I 50
couldn’t wait another week, so I borrowed the last four dollars I needed from my savings jar, promising to pay myself back. I went downstairs and politely asked my Mom to take me to the store. With victory, I spent the rest of the day camping with my dolls. I planned all week to pay myself back, but the next Saturday the ice cream man came by, and I needed money again. I never got around to paying the four dollars back. The Backyard A tall apple tree grew in our backyard. My dad and my brother built a tree house in it one spring, and I sat up there and imagined that somewhere in the dirt, there was buried treasure. When I was thirteen, I moved up into the youth group at my church. Instead of being in a Sunday school class with just my grade, like I had been all my life leading up to then, they mixed the eighth graders in with all the high school kids. I started playing the keyboard on the youth worship band, and I was the only girl on the band. I just started noticing boys, and I thought their messy hair and dopey, charming smiles were to die for, so playing music with group of cute boys was fine with me. My parents, however, had only one rule about dating; it wasn’t allowed. I wasn’t allowed to hang out with boys either, but because I was on the worship band, breaking that rule was unavoidable. A few months into my time on the band, a boy named Bryce asked if he could join the band. He was the type of boy whose too-short black corduroys enunciated his white tube socks a little more than was necessary and all he ever talked about was his latest success on Kingdom Hearts or his newest Ninjitsu moves. No one really liked him, but since it was church, we let him join as a backup drummer. Bryce started following me around and going out of his way to be near me. He always moved his friends around to sit next to me and waited to leave until after I left. A few weeks after joining the band, he gave me a picture of himself and a necklace, winking as he handed it to me. I didn’t like Bryce at all. My friends made fun of him behind his back, so if they found out I knew they’d make fun of me, and I felt like if I told my mom about the necklace Bryce gave me, I would owe her an explanation I could not give. I knew I’d be in trouble. To top it off, the necklace he gave me was almost as hideous as a necklace could get. Its ugliness stared back at me from my hand while I held it, a stupid heart with wings growing out of it, and if I were that heart, I would be thankful for the wings so I could fly away from my humiliation. It was plastic, but someone painted over to make it appear silver. I didn’t know how to tell my parents about it without risking their teasing, or their judgment, or possible punishment, so, out of fear they might discover the necklace in my room, I dug a hole under the tall apple tree and buried the necklace deep into the ground. 51
Foreclosure One day, when I was 16, my mom and I were driving home from grocery shopping. As we pulled up to the house we saw something on our front door. My mom got out of the car quickly and walked to the door. I followed to see why she seemed worried. I noticed, on our green door, two rectangles of blue painter’s type framing the black-lettered details of foreclosure glaring unapologetically off the white paper behind. My mom hurried me into the house. She called my dad, and with a struggling voice, she explained the papers on the door. We began packing up our house and selling the old things we didn’t need anymore. I went through my room and bagged up the things I outgrew, donating whatever we needed to get rid of that we couldn’t sell. My dolls, that had not been played with in years, sat in their box waiting for the move, and the tent I borrowed my savings money for, which had been sitting in my closet for years, went in the giveaway bag. I erased the lines inside my closet marking the pretend growth of my dolls because I didn’t want the next person who lived in my room to think whoever lived there before them was crazy. We sold the kitchen table at a garage sale and the bookshelf that used to hold our schoolbooks. Every time I came home it seemed like my house forgot more and more who I was, like it was slowly closing itself off from me. Strangers and their realtors walked through our house almost every day to see if they could picture themselves living in a “Foreclosure, a great deal for first time buyers.” On moving day, the memories of the house screamed inside my head.. I thought of the hours I spent at the dining room table with my imaginary classmates. I thought about losing the laughing game in the kitchen. I thought about all the stuff in my dad’s garage. I saw everything we covered up. I thought about the ugly necklace buried in the ground underneath the apple tree. I needed a shovel. I found one leaning against the fence, one we weren’t going to take with us. I started digging all around the tree looking for the necklace. I dug and dug, and I couldn’t find it. “We have to leave now,” my dad said. Reluctantly, but without argument, I climbed in his truck with him. As we drove away from the house, all the things we buried seemed lost beyond lost: the money I still owed my savings, the balloon my brother popped, the guilt from cheating, the money my parents borrowed from the bank, all the stuff we could never pay back. All the things unspoken had been buried under the trees of our hearts, swallowed by the earth, never to be returned. 52
I thought of the paint covering the walls: white, green, the red in my parents room. We tried everything to make our life something better. We tried to cover up our walls, but painting is like digging a hole. Slow, and methodical, after a while you can do it without thinking, and both are ways to cover imperfections. Our debt grew tall like the apple tree, marked, like my dad marked the heights of my brother and me in the doorframe, by the bank. The hole filled with unspoken words deepened like the hole I buried Bryce’s necklace in, so hidden it was impossible to uncover. The layers of silence and money grew above us and beneath us trapping us in a moment of surrender where everything we tried to cover was finally exposed.
Jena Greenburg, Color Crave
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Lynsey Nelson, Heidi: Releif Print
Clarisa Depari, Chit Chat
Kylie Dingman, Available Light
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By John Blomquist
The urge rose up in me like the product of nuclear fission. Stars explode into fits of full color, and smell of raspberries and green tea. A veiled voice spoke to me from the result of the starburst, asking me to taste Nirvana. It offered a sample; a sparkling taste of infinite space-St Mary’s 1985 in the arms of John R.--it’s happening now. Impossible. To a moment where we were drunk in the kitchen, laughing because, “you’re a breeznay.” We had just invented it today. To the moment where I sat on your bed when it was time to go and you fought me with lust, not love. “No, please don’t go.” “There’s some right fit birds, eh?” the two British Blokes say; after a tequila or two on two euro tequila Tuesday. The constricting hands of memories anchor me to this place, as a flightless bird given cardboard wings. While Bink opens presents on Christmas day in ‘87, John lies eyes closed in a box six foot long. I want to release the anchor, but you know who I am. The fission fades, my body is grounded. Full-color spectrum, sparkling taste, and the infinite gift of infinite space. Maybe when it’s time to go.
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Jen Callahan, Ol’ Bristly
Images in Technicolor
The Reality of Time by Hannah Behmaram
I have seen eternity in seemingly commonplace things: in the perfect arc of a marble in looks from my father in a stranger’s note scribbled in a novel and waiting for me in a jail cell. You see in these seconds a flash of reminder, unknown to those whose shadows are burned in the moment as well, and like the dancing children posing for the museum shadow camera you hold your chin up and grin, so the permanent image might be remembered better than it ever actually was. One theory of Eternalism states, “There is no passage of time; the ticking of a clock measures durations between events much as the marks on a measuring tape measures distances between places.”* All points in time are equally real. So, that summer when we were drunk every day at noon and making papier mâché balloons is still existing. That first ride on a roller coaster when you thought you cheated death is still existing. That moment that the whole of you screamed as you jumped naked into the freezing lake is always screaming, and the hands we’ve held, and the faces we’ve sketched, and the hearts we’ve broken, are always existing.
Garrett Rottner, Eastern Sierra
Eternity, elusive like the flash of a camera, is keeping us.
* “Eternalism (philosophy of Time).” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.
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Katlynn Gibbs, Mariachi Band Oaxaca, Mexico
Jed Locquiao, Applied CH 201
Alli Williams, Stinky and His Ass
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Courtney Vigo, Cady
The Adventures of Baby Beluga by Courtney Vigo
He tells me I’m paranoid, and I’m sure I am. But really, I’m sure I’m not. He tells me I have nothing to worry about, but I’m sure I do. Tonight, he tells me he’s watching a movie at a friend’s house, but I’m not invited. That friend’s name is Joelle, and she’s a dumb bitch. He assures me she’s just a friend; she’s a lesbian or something. Doesn’t seem like it to me, considering she’s 20 years old and has slept with 18 guys. At least, that’s the last I heard, and that was three months ago, so I’m sure that number’s increased by a few. Thousand. Anyway, it sounds like a nasty rumor, but it’s not. Her cousin - my former best friend - told me so. Well, before we were ‘former’ best friends. So I know it’s fact. If she’s pretending to be a lesbian, she’s not being very convincing. Joelle and I used to be friends, kind of. She was always really mean to me, calling me stupid, making it sound like a joke, but not really. She and her cousin and I used to hang out sometimes. That’s how she ended up meeting my boyfriend. “You’re just the sweetest guy I’ve ever met,” she said through her giant overbite, meaty hand on my boy’s arm. And he just eats up that compliment like it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. Like he’s never heard me say nice things about him - and I do all the time, and I mean it every single time. It’s just that from me, it doesn’t matter because I’m just the loving girlfriend of two years. Joelle is shiny and new, in a used-up, slutty sort of way. So I’m sitting here, my brain rolling these little gems around each lobe, making me more and more worried. I chew on my bottom lip. My heart pounds, then flutters, then the acid in my stomach pumps and I wonder just how long it takes to get a bleeding ulcer. I’d probably be puking up blood though in that case, right? Although, I do want to puke, thinking about Joelle and my handsome, nice boyfriend. Joelle. Jelly Roll Joelle. That timeless question: what does she have that I don’t? I mean, obviously extra padding. And I’m not one to judge about weight. I think girls with curves are far more attractive than sticks, but this girl is like three of me. And flabby. Does he want me to eat? Because I can eat. I’ll get bigger if bigger is better. But bigger isn’t better. He tells me, well, he used to tell me before Fatty came around, that I’m beautiful and he even loves my flaws, all of them, and no matter how ugly or fat or scrawny or stupid I feel, he assures me that I’m perfect. 63
He likes to follow the curve above my hip with his tongue. Well, he did. Now he just sits there and thinks about her and in which cellulite divots his tongue will get stuck. But maybe he doesn’t think about her. Maybe he’s just preoccupied with school and work and being a young man. So he’s just distant because of that. Not because of me, and not because of Bucktooth McGee. He just wants a night out without his girlfriend. I mean, I’m not clingy, and I don’t want to be that controlling girlfriend who doesn’t give her man space. I have girls nights sometimes. Except, with my girl friends. I don’t ever go over to a guy’s house, especially without my boyfriend. “But Mandy will be there, so it’s not like it’s a big deal.” So he’s going to her house with her and her cousin. My Former Best Friend. Who hates me. And the Whale. Who not only hates me, but also wants to jump my man’s bones. Fantastic. But I can trust him. I mean, that text the other night from Twatwaffle was just friends messing around. Just play. Friendly flirting. That’s all. “I’m wearing that shirt you like. You know, the one that you can see down and is see-through,” (correct grammar mine). Just a little flirtationship. No big deal. Except that it is. I’m sitting here alone in my bed, my big ol’ bed, alone. Lonely. Is he snuggling up to her right now? Is she resting her head on his shoulder, in his lap? What a whore. I’ll just check his email. I mean, I still use email, so maybe he does too. It’s possible he doesn’t know I have his password, but he probably gave it to me a long time ago and just doesn’t remember, and maybe I don’t remember him giving it to me either, but it’s fine. I think maybe he said he wanted me to check his email for him, in case there was a bank statement he really needed to check right away or else his house would blow up … or something. Whatever, I’ll just check it, open up that little email that has her perfectly lady-like email address attached to it - something like im_a_slutty_mcslut_slut69@hotmail.com. But there’s nothing there from her. Which is good. I guess. Except that it tells me nothing about what’s going on. I look at the email from Amazon, in case he wanted to get her a present, but it’s just telling him a video game shipped. I close it out, check my own email, trying to be good. My fingers play across the keyboard, and I really shouldn’t, really really shouldn’t do what I’m about to do, but I do it anyway. I mean, he’s not being honest with me, and the truth will come out eventually. Better to come out sooner rather than later, right? And I’m sure he gave me his Facebook password before. If you ask him, he’ll probably just say he didn’t, but he doesn’t have that great of a memory. I mean, obviously he doesn’t if he can forget me so easily, replaced by the memory of her. 64
There she is, number one message, sent and read and replied to yesterday. Her stupid face filling up that little box. I click on it. I feel the hot liquid in the back of my mouth, the one that warns you you’re about to vomit out your guts all over the place. I swallow. There’s so much hatred in my chest, I think my ribs can’t contain it. I’m shaking, but not from the cold sweat on the back of my neck. “Hey, babe,” it says, she says, that piece of shit says. Babe? I don’t even call him Babe, and I’m dating him. Would a pet name make him love me more? “I miss you. Call me later? Can’t wait to see you.” And my idiot boyfriend replied with, “Miss you too. Excited for tomorrow.” I’m. Dying. Every insult I’ve ever heard - and ones I’ve never heard - runs through my head. Then I try combinations, and full phrases, like slutty whore who should seriously die a horrible violent death. There are not enough strong words in the English language to quell my anger. I switch to Spanish but cussing in another language is more fun than expressive, so I imagine ripping out her beady little eyeballs with my nails. It’s not good enough. The imagination is not powerful enough. It needs to happen in real life. I need to take her frizzy head in my hands and smash her face into the concrete. Repeatedly. I need to shove her down stairs, rip her hair out, something. I’m usually not violent. Actually, I’ve never felt violent like this before about anyone, even people who make me really mad, and not many people really anger me. Usually I just want to hurt them emotionally, but this girl seems to bring out the basic animalistic need to just tear into someone. I scroll up to previous messages. Three days ago she sent him Taylor Swift’s video of You Belong With Me. Of course she would send him a T-Swift video. They look like they could be related, except that Joelle would be the bigger, meaner sister that their parents kept in the closet, hidden away from company. She wrote, “Look, it’s our song!” Winky face, heart. I gag. Literally gag. Luckily for him, he didn’t reply to her. I play the song. I’ve heard it before, though I hadn’t really paid much attention to the words. Some dowdy girl thinks she’s better for her guy friend than the cheerleader he’s dating. Well, at least I’m the pretty one, right? Beyond those messages, my boyfriend had started the conversation. “You should wear that dress more often,” he had written. I could picture his eyebrows raised in a ‘if you know what I mean’ way. Her response is coy, asking why. “Clearly you looked hot.” She winked back, and there the conversation stops. 65
I try to scroll farther, but there weren’t any more messages, meaning most of their conversations were on his phone or in person. Ones I can’t see, so I can’t tell how far over the line they’re going. I melt off my chair onto the ground with a groan. I lay in a pile on the floor, my face smashed into the carpet. Seconds pass, my brain shut off entirely, my murderous intentions gone. Not because I hate her any lessbecause, trust me, I loathe her even more than I’ve ever loathed anyonebut because I just can’t handle anything anymore. “Mom,” I manage to croak. My cat walks by, sniffs my forehead, walks across me. He stumbles a bit over the side of my torso. He catches himself with his claw before moving on to my other side. I’m sure I’m bleeding, but I can’t move. “Mom,” I say, louder this time. The carpet fibers poke my right eye, which is being held open by the floor. I’ll probably get a stye, but the will to blink is gone. “Mo-om.” Somehow, she hears me. I hear her get out of her reading chair, coming to my rescue, although she doesn’t know it yet. “Yeah honey?” She’s so cheerful. Cheery, happy mom while her daughter lays broken on the floor wishing she were dead. No, just wishing that skank were dead. “Phone,” I ask, but it comes out more like, “Ffflurn,” my lips too weak to keep in my spit. She panics. “Why what’s the matter are you sick do-I-need-to-callthe-doctor howcanihelpwhathurts?!” “Nuthin, ffflurn!” I cry. She hands me the phone. I roll onto my back, soak up the drool and loose carpet fibers on my face with my tongue. I’m so much more attractive than Joelle. My mom still stands there, her upside-down face contorted in fear. “Thank you, Mom, please go away now.” As she hesitatingly walks back to her chair, I dial my boyfriend’s number. He doesn’t answer, so I call again. And again. And again. Finally, he answers, clearly annoyed. “Get your ass over here or we’re done,” I say, my anger returning. He pauses. “What?” He’s mad, like I’m the one to blame. “I know what you’ve been doing, and if you don’t get rid of her forever and come to my house right now, we’re done, and you’ll never get me back.” He’s silent. My stomach drops. He’s going to choose her. I hear keys. In the background, the streetwalking Sasquatch cries, “Hey, where are you going?” A door slams. “It was never physical,” he says, defensive at first, but then his voice thickens with tears. “I’m so sorry. Really, I - I’m more sorry than I can ever say. Please forgive me.”
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Krissy Clark, Girls
Hand Readings from a Psychic
Mrs. Kingsley Doesn’t Believe in God
Your hands whispered a hundred stories. Intimate letters that were engraved upon your fingers Intricate words that traced your palms Your hands were the unspoken feelings of your soul
She thinks that her ceiling is the peak of sky, and as the moon looms from its hood of bone, casting battered light across his hollow face, she doesn’t have faith.
A reflection of yourself that you never saw in the mirror Your hands illuminate the truth of life if you just set them free Into the expanse of this world and realize that hands were meant to learn. Hands learned to hold other hands. Hands learned to not touch the stove when it was hot Hands learned to dance your fingers over the piano Hands learned to throw a football Hands learned to open doors Hands learned to love.
To her, the rooftop is heaven—the window, Venus. He sits at the foot of her bed, reaches out, and whispers it is time to go away, she stays.
Your hands are stories waiting to be shared. The hundred stories that came from the letters engraved upon your fingers were stories about the loss of love. The intricate words that calloused your palms were from working too hard. The unspoken feelings that outlined your cracked knuckles, Your hands are waiting to be shared, to be interlocked in a beautiful zipper of love.
She denies that he will one day pinch himself through the scrolls of her mind, flicker in her pupil. She can shut her lids swiftly, but he always returns,
by Sunny Mok
Kyle Wirgler, Cloud Love
by Suzanne Shoemaker
She wonders if the moon is the lamppost. He paces, black cloak drags like the train of her wedding dress she still pushes into once each year, then swears to throw that old thing away.
seats himself again and again at the foot of her bed. If he could only catch her, cup her last tear, swallow, then maybe she would believe.
Katlynn Gibbs, Agave
Rivulets
by Samuel Cruz
It isn’t green. It’s Spanish Moss, and it’s warm. All I could think was how cold that water must have been. That river was corporate blue, and toppled like Jell-O in wanderlust. I love the tap-tap of grainy film. That insidious flutter, jagged cinematography, and every time the overexposure tenders the flesh behind your brow, drives me crazy. For a moment, when the cornea filters a butterscotch sepia, and craters of flame surround a temporary tunnel vision, nostalgia is to run, and jump, and spin, and fall. All I could see was how happy I was to be there. A kernel’s crispy exoskeleton pricks at my cotton ball tongue and warms my molars with melted butter. There was a chill, no more than 22 degrees, a sugar-glazed fog, the two of us, and a lot of nothing else. All I could feel was how cold a recycled script can be to an audience; and the story dies. I guided what was left of my stub’s tear line into the matrix beneath my thumbnail, flipping the ticket like professionals do at the turn of the river.
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71
My Gaga is a Marlboro Menthol, and a glimmer of Dr. Pepper ChapStick, because there is no better compliment to northern lights. All I could hear was Little Talks, and the tapping tenderness beneath my brow. I could be a cartoonist here, and live as the losers live. I could be “The Man in the Hobo Coat,” and inspire the resurrection of Richard Bachman, but I can’t draw. So I danced with a girl under a lamp post. Nostalgia is tap-tap-tender, and technicolor. All I could know was movement. Warm clothes are made for cold weather.
by Lauren Hober
They say actions speak louder than words, but I fell in love with words at an early age. I’m never speechless. I’m never at a loss for letters making a home in my thoughts. They’re simultaneously strengthening and weakening me. Remaining timeless, leaving me powerless. I’m collapsing into their capabilities, lacing their meanings in and out of my hopes and dreams. Drifting around the halls of my mind, mapping out my vacuous insecurities and the darkest of secrets. Redefining my memories. Constructing the worlds I live in. Assigning emotions, characterizing relationships. Here they are: uniting my mind with my body with the earth. Ubiquitous. Experienced. Inherent. Omniscient. My life is just a collection of words, but they say actions speak louder.
Brian Bolton. Morning Dew
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Here They Are
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Jennice Rodriguez, A Rippling Effect
Teresa Barns, Inn the Sky
Daniel Hanson, External Front
I Am No Man
If I were a man… I would no longer Howl at the homophobic demons of censorship while sitting up drunk, fantasizing beneath the sacred city moonlight.
by Dylan Smith
If I were a man... I would stop looking for truth. I’d abandon hope. I would set down the composition. I’d take hold of vice. I would abandon the night. I’d adopt the eight-hour routine.
If I were a man... I would abandon ferocity. I’d be dormant. I would abandon spirituality. I’d be mundane. I would abandon sensitivity. I’d be callous.
If I were a man… I would drink a fifth of bourbon and hide from myself in a lonesome mountain cabin while my family cries out with tears of pity and fright.
If I were a man... I would abandon myself. I’d be you.
If I were a man... I would stop listening to Hemingway. I’d pay heed to the matriarch. I would stop listening to Kerouac. I’d pay heed to the patriarch. I would stop listening to myself. I’d pay heed to you. If I were a man…
I would attempt societal suicide through vodka and ecstasy while being incarcerated under a loving Tahoe moon.
I would take a pet for a walk only to show it where the leashes and electric fences of Americana forbid it to go.
I would smother the abstract creations of my peers with the white paints of my own insecurities and prejudice.
I would force dirt down the throat of my wounds while spitting alcohol onto the fire of my own naiveté and self-loathing. If I were a man... I would abandon fear. I’d drink. I would abandon literature. I’d trust. I would abandon love. I’d fuck. 78
Brian Krueger, Untitled
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The Last Rain by Kristin Holland
I didn’t know it would be the last time I ever felt the rain. Our rain once represented something so free and beautiful. I can still remember when people would actually go outside and dance when the droplets made their way down from the sky. The joy on their faces was contagious, and their laughter seemed to echo and radiate off every drop, carrying the blissful sounds through the storm. I miss those innocent days. It seems so long ago that I, myself, was among those who would run outside at the first chance to feel that fresh moisture falling upon my skin. And, oh, how the crackle of thunder and lightning were as electric as my anticipation of every coming storm. Even as that last summer came, our lives prevailed as normal. Tremors had begun to plague the ground, making us run to grab falling objects or throw ourselves against a wall to steady our bodies. Soon after the tremors started, the skies had begun to take on a strange hue in the evenings. An uneasy sickly green, or maybe yellow. Despite these changes, the storms came and went as they always had, filling our vegetation with the green of life and giving us our small moments of joy. But on the day of that final storm, I witnessed the end of that joy, and the start of our lives today. I lived closer to the site than the others: I enjoyed my place among the trees at the edge of town and the soothing smell of wet pine during a storm. On that day, I had been walking through the trees that flooded the land behind my home when another tremor erupted, throwing me to the ground. This one was different, and I knew it. As soon as I could push myself up to stand, I ran to the edge of the bluff that overlooked the rolling valley below. I had no chance to brace myself as the source of all our troubles met its end. In an eruption of smoke, pollution, and sickly protruding light, the factory that we had always believed to be an energy plant exploded. The force of the exploding air pushed me back and the smoke burned 80
my eyes, blurring my vision. The rancid remnants of the plant flew into the sky, spreading into our atmosphere in the form of a dazzling rust-red mushroom cloud. As it combined with the storm, lightning permeated every inch of the black sky. Tears filled my eyes, but I don’t know if they were from my heart or the smoke still billowing around me. At the time, we didn’t know what the effects of the plant’s meltdown would be, and aside from mild radiation around the site, there seemingly weren’t any. It wasn’t until the next storm that we realized what terrors had been unleashed. The instant the rain began to fall from the sky, it tore apart all that it touched. It melted skin and burned through fabric and vegetation. The screams from the streets woke me and I jumped up to look out the window above my bed. Everyone was running for shelter, and their lives, as the world dissolved around them. If I hadn’t been ill that day, I, too, would be carrying the marks of that terrifying storm, or worse. Even now, the rain beating against my re-enforced window does not allude to the danger it carries. It still seems as magical to me as it once did. They say the effects will wear off after only twenty-thousand more years. I obviously will not be here when that time comes, but at least I can carry with me the memory of that last time I felt the rain.
Jennice Rodriguez, Lost
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Studies of Consciousness, Tests 1-12 by Nathaniel Benjamin
Listen to the silence and study it: Know the name of God;
I believe that dreamless sleep is when consciousness steeps in the depths of nonexistence (I am scattered though I am not consumed); I believe that my movements reverberate like an echo through the universe (I have touched the most distant star); I believe that the doctrine of entropy is the doctrine of Christ (I am the prophet of all ends); I believe that my face is the mask of God (I am the expression of infinite aspects); I believe that my eyes bestow as much blindness as sight (I have plucked out my eyes though I carry them with me); I believe that my feet give a pulse to the earth (I am the marching percussion on her cushion of soil, marching to the music of the end of days); I believe that the future is the bed that I am going to;
“II”
“VI”
Everywhere you go you feel as if you’re leaving something behind;
You smoke among the rubble of commerce, You are yourself the rubble of commerce, You puff the clarity of tobacco in the hollow of the streetlamp night, You are a smoking sacrifice to your god:
“I” I believe that separation causes suffering; I believe that existence resolves into perception through words: labels pull the body from the Whole; I believe that I fell into reality like a tender peach from a tree; I believe that when I am named and cut into slippery measurements, I remain an undivided fruit, scentless, without sound or sight: my flavor is the sum of all flavors; I believe that I am a pocket of vibrations with worn seams, broken on a churning cloud;
You decide that you don’t want to take anything for granted anymore: You realize that you may have been taking “for granted” for granted. “III” I believe that I burn my roots but I never escape from the light of the sun, Nor do I forget the grind of my bones along the traverses of time, Nor do I know the meaning of Infinity but it’s the only thing on my mind; “IV” You solemnly realize that you’re going to be wearing glasses for the rest of your life: Your perception is never cleansed.
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“V”
Your Americanism begins and ends with your choice of cigarettes, You would box the American Spirit and sell it to burn; This is your America! Towns and trucks and crust and debris crown your horizon and flood your sea. “VII” You know you’ve barely been acquainted with silence, Silence has long since forgotten your name:
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You say, “I’ll write this poem to her until I’ve intimately touched all of her parts, and my virgin tongue has had its fill.” But you fall asleep as you write: It was so cold and she was so warm. “VIII” I have burned in the centers of innumerable suns, and I will burn in innumerable more: My vision illuminates the myriad worlds and the endless bounds of space; “IX” The half-moon passes you by on the stoop of the midnight party, She follows her drunken companion into his car, She leaves you with the worry of her death;
“XI” The brown blur of a violin spider heaves on the wall, Falls to pieces from conscious activity, A stolen example of death in the eyes: You call, “I love you and praise you! We all will be removed one day. We all will be removed.” “XII” All my songs are sung for one ear, All my breath satisfies one desire, All my blood runs to one river, All my words tell one story;
You consider wearing your helmet the next time you ride your bicycle: You wonder if the dying ever truly reach the moment of their death. “X” I believe that I am the beast with seven heads and ten horns (If anyone have an ear let them hear!); I believe that my electric breath ushers the wilderness into exodus; I believe that the animal kingdom breaks beneath my kingdom (Who is like unto the beast, who is able to make war with him?); I believe that my feet are like unto a bear, and my mouth like unto a lion; I believe that slaughter is genocide (If anyone have an ear let them hear!); I believe that Deliverance comes unto all those who feel pain upon an open throat; I believe that those who leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; 84
Erin Parsons, Ursus arctos horribilis
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Pomaire
by Emilee Guido
Generally speaking, they were an ugly race of people. Even spous-
es found it difficult to find the other atractivo. In fact, unless you were a nativo of these people, it was difficult to distinguish between los hombres y las mujeres. Their eyes were small and dark, their eyelashes sparse and short. Thick eyebrows were considered a sign of fertility and fuerza. The man with one eyebrow, stretching across his forehead in a continuous line of coarse hair, was the most sought after man in the town. With meaty noses, slack cheeks, and lips that dipped below the chin, the flesh on their bodies hung at odd, loose angles. Polvo, suelo, sweat, and comida often became stuck in the crevices of their skin. One man in the village could grab a fist full of skin at one end of his belly, grab another fist full at the other end of his belly, and spread his flesh wide, like opening a theatre curtain. Once, he swore a paraja flew out of his belly button.
They only had tres redeeming features, and all are consequences
of their trade: pottery. Ceråmica. They removed chunks of clay and dirt from the earth, added water and a special solution (sal, powders, magic), and spun them into pots for tourists and specialty gardeners all over the world. If you asked a gardener, a serious gardener, who sighed respiraciones verdes and dreamt of curling blossoms, where to find the best pots, Pomaire would be the only answer he would give you. Most gardeners would swear that it was something in the clay that is used to make the pots (or maybe it’s the hechizo) that thoroughly coaxes the most brilliant colors from the most timid of flowers and gives long lasting vigor a las plantas. This might explain why Pomaire has some of the most beautiful plants and flowers in todo el mundo. It is said that once, a world renown gardener came to Pomaire to pick up her order of pottery, saw the flowers there and, when she returned home, burned her garden to the ground. It is said that Lauren Jensen, Old Whittler
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she has not been seen since. You have not seen verde, you have not under-
With hands tan soft, a hammer would spin out of a raised hand, potentially
stood rojas, you cannot envision azules, you cannot believe in rojo – until
hurting someone nearby.
you have seen the colors of the foliage in Pomaire. The roots run so deep
that beben la misma agua that the dinosaurs enjoyed. Even the smallest
In order to create this pottery, los nativos have to push, with their left foot,
garden flower has roots up to five miles deep. They have perfected the abil-
a crude spinning wheel. When you push the wheel, a corresponding handle
ity to draw from the most cavernous recesses, the richest tierra, the most
on the top of the spinning table turns, and you can proceed to fashion
valuable minerals that men don’t even know exist yet. They greedily pull
the clay mixture into a pot. Therefore, the natives of Pomaire have over-
from the deepest histories of the earth, taking the past up to the surface in
developed left leg muscles. They bulge and protrude while the rest of their
the form of a petal, a twisted vine. The follaje understand the secrets of the
bodies sag and drag. They have ever taken off the left pant leg from their
earth in ways we can never know. They speak the same idioma, they have
trousers in order to show off their asset. Anyway, as a result, every native in
the same lengua. They have made the suelo their lover, the clay their dearest
the town of Pomaire has the most beautiful limp in the whole world. They
friend. Every story buried in the earth can be told by las flores, las arboles,
move with a specific canter and grace that is unknown of and unheard
the colors the flowers release in spring time.
of in every other corner of the world. It is specific and elegant y sin una
manera de gravity. They float down their streets and alleys in a manner that
The second redeeming feature de la gente is their piel. In order to
The third (y final) redeeming feature lies in their lopsided piernas.
make the pots, the people of this village had to sink their arms – all the way
sends most catwalk fashion models to their knees. In fact, if there was ever
up to their wrinkly, hairy codos – deep into the clay. To move it, to mix it,
a nativo de Pomaire that was beautiful enough (or at all), she would im-
to mold it, to dry it. They did this all day, some of them all night, too, if
mediately be recruited by the most highly sought after runway shows in the
they had a lot to make for these serious gardeners. As a result, sus brazos,
business. Even if you lived there for ten years, for fifty years, for a hundred
from underneath their fingernails to the tips of their wrinkly, hairy elbows,
years – unless you were born and raised in Pomaire, you will never have that
were the smoothest substance known to man. After touching their arms,
unbelievable and hypnotic limp. However, it has not – and cannot, if you
many tourists could no longer stand the feel of algodón or seda or cash-
can believe – been duplicated.
mere, complaining it was too rough, that it chafed their skin. One woman,
Why would anyone ever want to go there?
who spent many nights with one of the village men (God knows how) was almost killed when she accidentally brushed against sandpaper. It is said that when these people greet each other, they grasp the other’s forearm. But their hands immediately slide off because their skin is so suave. Unless it’s clay they’re touching, it is very difficult for them to hold onto anything. This might explain why they live in such desperate pobreza. Their houses are made from sheet metal and are held down by piedras. Electricity comes and goes in spurts as the civilized world refuses to claim Pomaire as its own. 88
89
Thermal Conductivity by Kylie Westerlind
Kylie Dingman, Horizons
90
You press your forehead against the window and lean your knees toward the car door so he won’t see you curl your fingers around the handle. The sky is a thick canvas stretched far and taut and layered with colors you usually find on your mother’s palette when she paints landscapes of national parks during autumn. The man next to you is not much of a man at all, the more you think about it. But he sits there, dumbly, and his hands grip the steering wheel as firmly and surely as when he first held your hand, and you only said yes to him because you felt pity for the guy. You wonder if he has any idea that was your fall into becoming a different person, of hating yourself and the sick feeling you got in your stomach when you thought about how you were doing something for someone for so long and it was out of pity. You also wonder if he has any idea that after weeks - months - you finally snapped out of it and you let yourself love someone else, wholly, fully, for real this time. You stare at the receding light still shining out over the strained, spiky spinal cord of mountaintops, and you remember the first time after your physics midterm a few weeks ago, when you squeezed your eyes shut at the questions about the isotopes of actinide and how deep of a crater a nuclear bomb can carve into the ocean floor, and decided it was time you grew a backbone and got something you deserved. You remember turning to the man next to you, the man you’ve sat next to the whole semester because you like the way he taps his foot on the chair in front of him, a rhythm that reminds you of your mother’s pop songs that she used to listen to on her music player when she mixed acrylics, and said quietly, “So, I’ve been thinking,” and after class you proposed to meet each other before the football game that night, and as the tang of lemonade was skulking on your tongue he walked you to his apartment and you finally smiled at someone you liked for once in your life when he pressed his nose against the bend of your jaw and said you smelled like a lot of things: mint, jojoba seeds, coppery nail polish, crinkled leaves. You lean your head back now and can feel that crater in your stomach is filling, slowly, and you think about the next time he will touch you, strip you of your layers that only your mother could define as tidewater, coconut husk, mouse’s back, and at your very core, the very you, cerise; he calls you that sometimes but you don’t ask how he knows. You roll your head to face the man, the other man, driving and you want to laugh at him, but instead you bite at your lip to keep from smiling and breathe carefully and say what you’ve needed to since the beginning. 91
Burying Christian Redmill by Griffin Peralta
Christian drinks plastic bottle whiskey. Sometimes. He never asks for a lot. He doesn’t pace, but is always nervous. He could never tell the difference between living… and surviving. He’s terrible at small talk. He’ll tell you. There’s nothing small, about him. He’s never felt beautiful in his whole life. Been a hard life. He carries the reminders, skin deep. Don’t cast stones. You didn’t see the glass house he was raised in. Vaulted ceilings. Carnivorous windows. Seething red palm readings stapled with hat pins long as God to his tendency to cry wolf. Listen. I’m sorry. I know he never told you he wanted to die. Christian just couldn’t rise above gravity. He’s still, taking life literally; One whole summer, he was just a funeral procession lacking a casket. He drinks two bottles of wine and you come home unannounced just as he uncaps the morphine. Serendipity, they call this. Miracle. He puts each pill back, wondering which one had his epitaph in it. The mouth is wide enough for him to fit his whole life story through, Wide enough for him to wake up the following morning, wrapped around the only thing that ever loved him, covered in Her lipstick, with which he would write across his newborn body, LISTEN. I’m sorry. l could never tell you… I wanted to die.
92
Caitlin Cosens, Bend and Break
93
Trolley Man
by Jonathan DuBois
Jeremy Ramos sat in his chair—legs folded, fingers wrapped around a smoldering cigarette, long black hair tied back in a ponytail that ran nearly down to his waistline. Doctor Reedus sat in his chair on the other side of the desk, tugging thoughtfully on his chin. The trolley man pushed through the door, jars clinking together and sloshing their liquids. With grunts of effort he positioned the cart beside Ramos, exhaled greatly, and asked, “Excuse me sir, would you like to trade?” Ramos lifted his chin and brushed a few stray strands of hair out of his eyes. “No thank you, I’m still quite happy with the one I have.” The trolley man shrugged, “Suit yourself,” and then pushed his trolley over to the other side of the desk, where Dr. Reedus sat. “There you go again,” Dr. Reedus said, addressing Ramos in his chair. “You say that all the time, and quite frankly it sets people on edge. Tell me again about this ‘Trolley Man.’ What does he look like?” “Well, I’ll tell you,” Ramos said, “but I don’t think it’ll matter. You’re about to trade with him and then I’ll just have to tell you again.” “Please, please,” Reedus said, “humor me.” The trolley man leaned on his trolley and turned to face Ramos. Ramos examined him, “He wears all white.” Ramos said, “I think the words ‘Milk Man’ most accurately sum up his attire.” The trolley man tilted his head for a moment, and then, deciding that Ramos’s description was accurate thus far, nodded his head for him to continue. “But his face is like an unmolded glob of bread dough.” “I see,” said Dr. Reedus. “Well, lets talk about—“ “—Sorry Doc,” Ramos interrupted, “He’d like me to say that that gives the wrong impression of him.” “Oh?” “Yes, he’d like to say that when I say bread dough you probably imagine he hasn’t a mouth, but he does. There are three teeth in it. Other than that, he thinks ‘unmolded bread dough’ is an apt description.” “Okay then, I think I have a good understanding of what he looks like now, so why don’t you tell me what exactly he does.” “Sorry,” the trolley man said, “I’m gonna have to interrupt your conversation. The thing is that I’m actually running behind today and I need to get a move on.” Nate Conrad-Forrest, The Butcher
95
96
Jennice Rodriguez, Untitled
“That’s quite alright,” Dr. Reedus said to the trolley man. “What is it?” “Would you like to trade?” “Yes alright,” Ramos watched as the trolley man grabbed a handful of Dr. Reedus’s hair and unscrewed the top of his skull. He set it on the desk and, producing an instrument akin to a giant ice-cream scoop, scooped out his brain and dropped it in an empty jar. He grabbed another jar—a full jar—and poured its contents into Dr. Reedus’s skull, careful not to spill any down the sides of his head. He screwed the lid back on and began pushing the cart away. “Oh, hold on,” he said and reached back onto the trolley. He picked up a new name plate, this one saying “Dr. Gaines,” and switched the two. Dr. Gaines grabbed his chin and tugged on it thoughtfully. The trolley man stopped next to Ramos on his way out and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to trade?” “No thank you, I’m still quite happy with the one I have.” The trolley man shrugged, “Suit yourself,” and pushed his trolley back out the door he came in. “There you go again,” Dr. Gaines said. “You say that all the time and , frankly, it sets people on edge.” He paused, “Tell me again about this ‘Trolley Man.’”
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