Bullet Quarterly BOOKLET of eighteen one non-fiction works and five photographs and sketches from students of the College of William & Mary.
VOLUME IV SUMMER Wednesday, April 30th, 2014
The College of William & Mary Williamsburg, Virginia
Contents
BULLET QUARTERLY
My Milk, 4 Songbird, 5 “Nothing but words words words all the time,” 6 Untitled 1, 8-9 Love, 10 Untitled 2, 11 Why Must You Be Out, 12 Sixteen, 13 The Way the Wind Blows, 16-17 Quiero Desparecer, 18-19 Reaching, 21-23 Untitled 3, 24 Coloring Books, 25 Vino, 26-27
Panel Naomi Slack EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LAYOUT Claire Gillespie PRESIDENT of the Untitled Society Timothy Eklund Thomas Hood Allison Wheeland STANDARDS Daniel Lantz SUBMISSIONS Noah Williams SECRETARY Kemp Pettyjohn PUBLIC RELATIONS Jacob McCollum WEBMASTER
Autumn Resounding, 30 The House Sitter, 31
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Untitled 4, 32
Elizabeth Carman Claire Gillespie Micah Luedtke David Park Gabby Steinfeld Myles Sullivan
Letter to a [Former] Student at Aleppo University, 33-34 Photograph and Art: 7, 14-15, 20, 28-29, 34-35
Foreword
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
“The adolescent, however... [halts] for a moment before the infinite richness of the world. He is astonished at the fact of his being, and this astonishment leads to reflection: as he leans over the river of his consciousness, he asks himself if the face that appears there, disfigured by the water, is is own... They ask themselves: What are we, and how can we fulfill our obligations to ourselves as we are?” —Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude Bullet Quarterly is the river of water that our readers look into and see an iteration of themselves. The reflection they see in writing is as much the author’s as it is the reader’s. The author contributes to this dialogue by sharing their raw experiences, and the reader responds to it, bringing their own emotions to the conversation. In sharing our writer’s stories, we show our acceptance of their perspective on what happens in their lives. And not just what happens, but what causes a deep emotional impact—of joy or sorrow, pain or relief, hope or fear. Every person has the agency to shape how he or she sees and interacts with the world, and to define his or her unique obligations to themselves as human beings. I hope that your interaction with this issue of Bullet, and with past and future issues, will be one of personal reflection, as well as a communion with our writers’ experience. Bullet, and my time at college, has confronted me with the realization that I can be whatever kind of person I want to be. As I experience this transformation now (and will for the rest of my life), Bullet has been here to accept me and to show me that I am not alone in this soul-scraping re-definition. Next year, I know our new editors, Daniel Lantz and Timothy Eklund, will afford the same experience to our members and readers. Thank you for allowing me to lead you, and enjoy. Sincerely,
Naomi Slack
My Milk
BULLET QUARTERLY
My milk expires today and I was wondering if you would help me finish it. No, this is not a sexual innuendo, no, this is not a metaphor yes, it is in the fridge so have a bowl of cereal? Milcatatonically yours, roomie.
4
Songbird
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
There’s a little bird all caught up in my throat. I set a single toe upon the polished surface of the stage to test it, to see if it will hold my weight. It holds. Across the stage hunches the piano, closed, brightly, tightly lined and all cold shoulders and black tuxedo pants with the stripe. The little bird fidgets. She is unlike any creature I’ve housed in my throat before, and so I am unsure what to do with her. The frog, for example, was an entirely different matter. At that time, my throat was caught in cold after the spring thaw, a pond of soupy garbled words and unhappy, steady swamp drip. But the frog took to orange juice and more sleep. No my little bird has not taken to chicken soup, nor to juice nor to sleep. Even now she shifts her wings and hops foot to foot. I think maybe if I knew what kind of bird she was, maybe then I would know how to appease her. Like how I know that nuthatches hang upside down, or how owls fear the light, or maybe a woodpecker would fly out if I offered a tree full of bugs. Standing in front of the piano is intimidating. He’s dressed for the opera, and my attire is casual, as usual. Casual business casual. I approach him side-on, like fancy meeting you here, and how have you been. Suddenly the little bird stirs, shaking off her wings and my throat is tied to my heart and my heart in my throat and the little bird feels just the littlest bit crowded in there. Reaching forward into the light by the grand piano: I set a single finger upon the polished surface of a piano key to test it, to see if it will hold my weight. It gives. I reach up onto my toes, and then the piano unfolds his wings. Prop it up. And so too does my little bird. And she only hesitates for a single hop to shake off her dust, and my fingers on the keys. I can see that she is a songbird. Like coughing out feathers, finally my mouth opens for breath; And she is airborne and away.
5
BULLET QUARTERLY
“Nothing but words, words, words all the time” The multiplicity of the singular. Yellow music plays in an empty room. Linguistic artifice. Sapphires becoming sapphire. Both here and there, down and up, there and here, up and down. The smell is soft, Tastes continuous as a skipping record. We know a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, but What’s in a rose? That which we call a name by any other rose would smell as sweet As a rose as a rose as a rose as a rose. The puzzle pieces of meaning do not fit. The mismatched fragments Multiply and multiply and multiply… The room is filled with letters, Discarded parts Erratically tossed in piles of indifference. The solitary figure climbs down from the dump. He sweeps the letters into arbitrary collections Of signs and symbols— “Our lesson for the day: what is language?”
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BULLET QUARTERLY
Untitled When I was thirteen, my mother reported to an intensive outpatient rehabilitation program to combat her alcoholism. My dad, a gentle giant with a wedding band stuck on his finger, would bring me to our lake house on weekends to shield me from her transition and withdrawal-induced rage. He and I would take the trips silently, cautiously relying on each other’s pensiveness. I remember that spring came slowly. I could sense hints of it, ephemeral tastes of warmth and new life leaving me leaning over the porch in longing. The nearby ski resort’s whitecap was a testament to the lingering winter. Often the ice would seem to be gone for good, but each night a thin sheet would form on the surface. With vehemence my father and I would together launch the rowboat and break up what we could, though it wasn’t long before the geese began to return and in late March we spotted the first robin, tangled straw clasped in its beak. On the well-worn couch I read Nelson Mandela said, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered,” and I saw this truth in the returning season as well. I always wait faithfully for spring to arrive, but its fecundity finds a way to surprise me every time. We kept busy with long motorcycle rides kicking up dust on wide, dirt roads to rusty windmills and overgrown lots with nice views. I held tight to the belt loops of my father’s faded Levi’s, content with the numbness of a passenger, the vacancy of the mind. It was on these rides that we watched buds mature and crocuses cut through the rocky soil. Then the rain began, and the ground grew soft and weepy. When the ice was gone for a week, I followed my father into the basement with the cold, cement floors and watched while the man resurrected the Evinrude from the oil-stained bookshelf, fingers tender from winding baling wire. When he pulled the cord and the engine sputtered, I sat teeming with anticipation at the bow, bare toes scrunched against the convex aluminum, hands braced on either side of me. Every so often I would look back at him manning the tiller, a thoughtful scowl on his face. 8
WEDNESDAY, APRIL, 2014
After harsh winters I look forward to the winter melt being finalized. Not being able to see through the thick ice feels unsatisfactory; peering over the dock is unfulfilling. Though when the ice is gone, and before algae begins to grow, a person can see far into the depths. Gazing into the water, that opportune window of early spring serves as a portal into another world. It brings a person so close, yet safely removed: a tranquil transition, a reliable occurrence. Sunfish graze, noiselessly nesting, unaware of their audience; crayfish emerge, stiff from frozen slumber. I turned my back to my father to watch the water ahead, realizing that there is comfort in dependence, like Mandela said. At this time and others, when moods and dynamics seemed to change with the direction of the wind, I could always depend on the reliability of nature, and still do. Caught between seasons, between houses, between the hope for sobriety and the dread of relapse, I find comfort in the serenity of the fish and the silence of the wind as it draws ripples on the water.
9
Love,
BULLET QUARTERLY
Dear past boyfriend I will never speak to again: You were right to question me when I said I loved you and “never stopped” loving you. You were right to ask me those hard questions I couldn’t [or wouldn’t permit myself to] answer at the time. You were right when you said we were more like best friends than lovers. And you were right when you told me we were absolutely perfect for each other. We were perfect for each other because you taught me things I never would have admitted to myself before then and I gave you a first relationship. But I was not perfect for you for so many reasons and you were not perfect for me because you held yourself in high esteem for always being right. And you weren’t always right. You were wrong to have asked me if I was bi (I’m gay). You were wrong to have wooed me into bed when I wasn’t sure (“I dunno” is not “yes”). You were wrong when you told me to stay home that summer to be closer to you (I did anyway, even after “we” were inapplicable). And you were wrong to have driven the car like that when I was in there too (terrified). Next week will make two years since us. I’ve grown. Have you? Kindly yours, --girl.
10
WEDNESDAY, APRIL, 2014
Untitled
Thoughts drip to the floor like the weighted drool of Neptune’s mouth, wide open, with glazed eyes staring at the forming pool. And if words were puzzle pieces, that fit together, as a key unto a lock, I don’t think mine need fit, but rather, trapped and piled, one after another. Let the words remain in that dark damp pool echoing with the reverbed soul of those occasional drops. And let the words create Pandora’s Box and maybe this time around we’ll keep it locked.
11
BULLET QUARTERLY
Why Must You Be Out
why must you be out all on your own we've our whole lives to be alone
12
Sixteen
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2014
At sixteen I drew circles around storm clouds and used pills to chase the sadness down. Most nights I prayed for pain, for collapsing buildings, for some end to the endless suffering of living. The darkness hidden in folds in my spirit. It was always a nighttime confessional: "I'm sorry" written in red in my skin. At sixteen I was only wrapped in circles around my own sickness and cynicism. At sixteen I thought they were the things that gave me meaning, without sadness I was empty, without sadness I was nothing. What no one ever told me, because I never bothered to ask, was that the sadness itself was empty. Waking up is a huge deal when the inside of your mouth tastes sour like whiskey vomit and pills. At sixteen I was made of swollen lips and sadness slipped into teenage wrists. I am eighteen, and sometimes even now my brain betrays me. Words don't always come easy and my eyes are wet and bleary. I am still afraid to speak when I am in a crowd. But now I don't mistake that fear for some strange bravery, because now I know how to celebrate when I'm happy. At eighteen the world is more open than ever before and I'm realizing that writing is emotion and that are more feelings than misery and apathy. There are plenty things bigger than an ocean of sadness. 13
BULLET QUARTERLY
14
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2014
15
BULLET QUARTERLY
The Way the Wind Blows A nostalgic difference is here determined by the shapes in the clouds, by the directions the birds go there must be something in the grey colors, something in the way the wind blows It's just not the same somewhere else; when the leaves fall here there is an ominous tone. The woods will hide you when you need them to but the ghosts nip at your back they push you on, their bite is cold So the people bundle themselves and light wood fires in their stoves The kids go downtown or wander down country roads and the farmers just hide out worked all the way to the core
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
the kids look down because of what they now know that one day soon their skin too will be worn that they too will be torn to the bone there is nothing golden here just eyes with sunken shadows just boots that crunch the ground and sagging jeans that are too old and the cigarette smoke wiles up to join the clouds there is a shift that occurs but no rain will come down no, it's dry and stays dry 'till that first crispy snow and all grows quiet
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BULLET QUARTERLY
Quiero Desaparecer
Quiero desaparecer en tu alma, perderme en las olas de tu voz deseo tu amor. Sentir el cariño de tu abrazo Hablar contigo hasta el amanecer. Escucharte, entenderte Amarte así como tu eres. Quiero llorar contigo, reír sin ninguna razón, Descubrir los secretos más guardados del mundo. Sentirnos cómodos en el silencio Mirarte y saber en que estás pensando Deseo tu amistad. Quiero estar a tu lado siempre, y llegar a ver como tus pocas canas cambien a muchas. Deseo tu amor Deseo tu amistad Deseo tu amor Deseo tu amistad Deseo tu amor...
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
I’d like to disappear
I’d like to disappear within your soul, losing myself within the waves of your voice I want your love To feel the warmth of your embrace To talk with you until the sun rises. To listen to you, to understand you To love you as you are. I’d like to weep with you, to laugh without a reason To discover the world’s most hidden secrets. To feel ourselves comfortable in silence To know just by looking at you what you are thinking I want your friendship. I want to stand by your side, always, To see your few gray hairs change to many. I want your love I want your friendship I want your love I want your friendship I want your love…
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BULLET QUARTERLY
20
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
Reaching I show up five minutes early in a collared shirt and nice-but-not-quite-dress pants; neither was comfortable, but today is about appearances. He had invited me to George’s but I paid for the last date when it was just coffee, if he paid this time when it’s more expensive, then, and I knew traffic was always bad. At T-minus two minutes I’m finding new and interesting ways to fidget with my hands and trying to convince myself that I didn’t get the address wrong. T-minus one finds me convinced that this whole thing was a bad idea and I should have stayed home. He arrives three minutes late, all smiles. “-no kidding, you listen to them too? Which songs do you like?” “Well, ‘Red Mirrors’ changed my life is probably my favorite song of theirs.” “Oh.” He pokes at his pork chop pensively, then shrugs. “I dunno, I didn’t really like that whole album.” We end up talking all night, moving to a bar when the restaurant closes and to the park when the bars close. He tells me secrets he’s never told anyone, and I say things on the spur of the moment that I don’t understand but that I know are true. I lean against his side and feel as if I’ve always been there as we watch the sun rise. 21
BULLET QUARTERLY
All things considered, the date went well. He’s smart enough and we have some interests in common, so we didn’t run out of things to talk about or have too many awkward silences. I guess I’m still not sure if this is going anywhere serious, which bothers me but not too much. He offers me a ride home, which I accept, and his car is pretty clean which is probably a good sign. Still, despite how early it is I’m looking forward to just decompressing by myself for the rest of the evening. As he approaches my building, it doesn’t occur to me that I’m doing anything other than making conversation when I ask “so, what are you doing after this?” His eyebrows lift a little bit. “Uh, not anything, really. I mean, I’m free, if you wanted me to come inside…” “Oh, uh,” I realize what I just said and, more on the momentum than anything else, add, “sure.” Our bodies form a small cave on the bedsheets between us, warmed by our breath. He laughs at how my hands are always cold and takes one in his own, rubbing heat into it. We converse in whispers, close enough that his voice is a physical thing, a deep rumble in his chest. At some point our eyes meet, inviting, accepting. His strong arm encircles me... Suddenly, he’s kissing me. I freeze up for a moment but then reciprocate. I’m constantly one move behind him, responding instead of instigating, and as I’m still sort of trying to figure out if I want this until he reaches down, down my back and lower, squeezes, pulls me against him, and my decision is made. He lies heavily across me afterwards, his breath finally beginning to slow. I can’t feel any remaining tension in his body; he sprawls out, like a lion in repose. His head is cradled in my arms, and his face bears an expression of… peace. Surrender. I have been entrusted with something precious.
22
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
Abruptly, he stops. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” “Huh?” I miss it the first time, lost in the sensations. We’re both shirtless by this point, but his pants haven’t come off yet. “Just, I don’t think this is a good idea.” He’s nervous, which confuses the hell out of me since he’s the one who practically jumped on me when we walked in the door. “I, uh, okay.” I then add, somewhat timidly, “was it something I-” “No, no, not at all, it’s-” he gestures as if trying to pull something out of the air, “it’s my own issues, nothing to do with you.You’ve been great, really.” “Oh, well, alright,” I’m a little but disappointed, but also oddly relieved. “Is it anything you want to talk about? Or we could just hang out, I could put a movie on-” He rubs the back of his neck “Uh, I should really go. I have this thing-” He starts pulling his shirt on, heading back for the door. Somewhere, I lost control of the situation. “Did you still want to go to that premiere on saturday?” I call out after him. “I’ll text you!” As I realize that it wasn’t really an answer, the door slams shut.The silence takes a moment to fully settle over my apartment. 23 Maybe next time.
BULLET QUARTERLY
Untitled A stumbling, muddled tenor tenuously leads a body itching with acne and unknown bumps, greasy hair and face that require the extra-strength soap. I grow thick stubble in three days by accident (two if my heart is in it) and once had a friend-of-a-friend discretely relay that my body odor was making my sparring partner miserable. And, in all my days, he was the first one to ever call me beautiful.
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2014
Coloring Books
I The best compliment I have ever received contained a simple adjective I sometimes feel unjustified using to describe myself: genuine. “You are genuine.” It’s what my friend Michael told me. But naturally, I can’t be genuine all the time. So it was a partial lie. Internally, when I am actually sure that this person I see in the five-dollar Target mirrror, flesh and bones and all, is me (really me), then yes, that is what I am: genuine. What I show on the outside mirrors what I am on the inside. But 74% of the time. my mirror is cracked. II Sometimes, I am slow at understanding things I learn. I cope with this by slowing down my mental processes. Slowing down thinking makes it easier to make sense of what is happening. Consequently, this process also slows down my physicality something I’ve learned is sometimes interpreted as confidence. If the confidence is genuine, then so be it. But don’t call me confident when who you see on the outside is just the idealized image of who I’d like to be within the boundaries of my body. III “Draw in between the lines, draw outside the lines, …but what about drawing the lines themselves?” Someday, I will draw the lines of a coloring book, just so that I can erase them all. I will draw the outline of my own self, all the nooks and crannies, all the parts of me I love, all the parts of me about which I’m not that keen. I will color with-in the lines and I will color with-out the lines. And my whole body will all be the same color. My whole being, how people perceive me, how I perceive myself, and who I am in reality, will be the same color. And then I will erase the lines. All of them. Until all that is left is just one smear of color. And that. That will be me.
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BULLET QUARTERLY
Vino
And they need cigarette filters to breathe and glasses of wine to see in anyone else what I see in you everyday. You’ve got a heart “full of gold” sure but an absent mind, and the dew from the morning air, chilled with robin’s eggs and sparrow’s feet is caught on the cobwebs that are growing underneath my fingernails from going so long without touching you. I don’t want I don’t want to make I don’t want to make this a love poem but I will if I I will if I have to I have to
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
yours truly the only one that was truly yours is me but you were too stubborn to see past the glasses of wine you used to see and the cigarette filters you used to breathe in and out in and in out and out out I go slipping on the wet pavement underneath my elbows and my elbows my elbows shine, they shine red they shine. and I look up amidst all of this and I see I see you.
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BULLET QUARTERLY
Autumn, Resounding
I’ll never forget the first time Val told me that I reminded her of her father. It was cold–windy, and try as I might, I just couldn’t get my thrice-damned pipe lit. I had just left a class that I was failing, and I desperately needed the small comfort of nicotine and the ritual. If you’ve never smoked a pipe, then I can’t really expect you to understand the serenity which comes with the almost ritualistic packing, lighting, tamping, relighting, and re-tamping that accompanies each bowl of tobacco. To speak of it is to either make it sound laborious–it isn’t–or to give the impression of a sort of religious fervor–which I suppose is appropriate enough. But, one simply isn’t capable of understanding the ritual, unless they’ve not only participated, but grown proficient in it. With every attempt, all that remained was another used matchstick and an unlit pipe. Then, unannounced save by the barest flash of blonde hair in the corner of my vision, she came up from behind me and held her hands around the bowl until I met with success. We walked in a companionable silence for a time, before she gave me the gift of a sigh of contentment. “I love the smell of pipe smoke,” said she, “my father used to smoke one.” A smile, as bittersweet as hominy and honey and not-quite-ripe muscadines, flickered across her face and through her eyes for a moment, and then was gone, replaced with two mahogany pools that shone just a little too brightly in the light of the November sun. I clasped her hand in mine–warmth radiating through our too-thin gloves–willing that what small comfort I had to give might ease the ache of an old wound. We were two people, alone in the cold. But, we were alone together–and that meant the world to me. I’ll never forget the first time Val told me that I reminded her of her father, It was the day I realized that a small comfort shared between two cold people is more than enough to fight off the chill–if only for a while.
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
The House Sitter
A banana spider as big as my hand spins outside my bedroom, concentric circles suspended from guy wires, fastened from roof flashing to buds on my pink azalea, strong enough to trap a baby hummingbird. Inside, the house sitter weaves sweet nothings into a tapestry of seduction. In my bed. I know his wife. Rending her web sends Arachne into hiding. I bury her bird.
31
Untitled
BULLET QUARTERLY
I tried to write my life, frame by frame, line by line; with sentences, strong as oaks and pines–to flesh out my brain and thicken into spine. I tried to plan my life, each foot landing firm and fast, plotted and pre-mapped, every step in correlation with what would occur next and the past. Yet prose would not be wrought, minor details creaked and popped, all things settled, in fact were not. And as I lumbered along in that clunking plot, the gilded veneer of complex thought stretched and strained to contain all my wants. And in the heart, crumpled and buckled within, The core of it all succumbed by the rot, overcome at last by what I was not.
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
Letter to a [Former] Student at Aleppo University You probably don’t remember me. I was the girl in the red scarf, the quiet one; one-fourth of the mixed race quartet that asked to take a picture with you: “Locals, we want pictures with locals.” Sorry about that–you aren’t a local, I know, so the only time I ever showed your picture was when the President spoke–September 10th, 2013. I hope that’s okay. But I look at your picture often, as you looked at the weathered map spread over the table– your prison, each criss-crossed street an iron bar keeping you in. Are you okay? I read somewhere that they might start deportations. Get out while you can; if you can make it to Philly, I’ll come, and you can help me with my chemistry homework. You know how bonds are formed: tell me, then, why I think of you always wiping tables in an upscale café, with your heavy brow and sunken eyes drifting to the souvenir shop across the street, where there hung a flag, moon and star:
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BULLET QUARTERLY
one star (now – hovering over a red ocean) two stars (then – you would never go back) three stars (tomorrow – the arms fold in on each other, arms of your friends, your peers, fallen) fifty stars (someday…you said someday, voice distant hazy wishful lost asked us, “Is it nice?” We said, “Very nice.” And you sighed, glanced out the window at the lighted ferries, flitting across the Bosporus, 34 like fireflies.)
BULLET QUARTERLY
Credit Plates Bullet Quarterly was founded at the College of William & Mary by Christina Trimarco, Faiz Hussain, Nick Reck, and Rebecca Moses on November 12, 2010. The Untitled Society was founded by Rebecca Moses in the Spring Semester of the 2010-2011 academic year. Following are the credits of the Spring and Summer issues of Volume IV in 2014: PAMPHLET of four works Volume IV Spring Friday, February 14, 2014
BOOKLET of thirty-three works Volume IV Summer Thursday, May 1, 2014
under the direction of our staff with Naomi Slack EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LAYOUT Emma Aylor Nickolas Reck EDITORS EMERITUS
with special gratitude to our publisher Fidelity Printing, Inc. and with special note to our contributors Anonymous Matt Arnold Laura Cooper Timothy Eklund Morgan Ferguson Gregory Gibson Mary-Grace Rusnak Allison Shomaker Gabrielle Steinfeld Noah Williams
with special gratitude to our benefactors The Publications Council of the College of William and Mary Bullet Quarterly and the Untitled Society are student-run organizations at the College.Their future hinges on a wealth of submissions, the dedication and sacrifice of its members, and conditional funding from the Student Assembly. Pieces for the future issues may be submitted in the form of photographs, fine-line drawings, and non-fiction to our website, bulletquarterly.com/submit. The Untitled Society can be contacted at untitled@bulletquarterly.com. PAMPHLET Volume IV FALL September 2014
BOOKLET Volume IV WINTER December 2014