“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
–Henry David Thoreau
When creating a new edition of The Colton Review, we never quite know what to expect. Encountering each piece of writing and art is an entirely unique and unpredictable experience that reminds us of the diverse creativity we are fortunate to have on our campus. With each staff meeting, each author consultation, and every mock-up we receive from our excellent design team, we grow in appreciation for and amazement in the literary and artistic skill of our campus community.
While searching for a common thematic thread between the prose and poetry of this year, we were reminded of the concept of memento mori—the inevitable end to all things. From loss of self to illness, the ending of a relationship, abandoning our childhood identities, to simply the concept of death itself, these pieces explore finality and what lies beyond. While the topic of loss and death is dark and heavy, there is also a peace in it, a lightness that feels even brighter when observed in the face of darkness. The works in this edition of The Colton also serve as a reminder that, within an ending, the beauty of grasping life and truly living in the present moment can thrive. For some of our readers, their world outside of these pages may be hectic and shredding at the seams. We hope these pieces are a reminder
to appreciate the complexity of these endings, of cycles of life and memory, of loss of identity, and of the journey towards discovering our true selves along the way.
We would like to offer sincere thanks to all those involved in the creation of this year’s Colton Review. Thank you to our staff writer-editors, design team, our incredible faculty advisors, and our judges. We deeply appreciate your presence and contributions to the process. Thank you for allowing this journal to act as a creative voice for the Meredith community. Lastly, we would also like to thank our loyal readers; The Colton would not exist without your support and engagement.
We invite you to enjoy the 21st edition of The Colton Review, not dwelling on the finality of each piece, but to fully savor each moment, beginning and end, of art and story.
SINCERELY, THE COLTON REVIEW STAFF
ARTCONTENTS
Diptych Rainbow, Charlotte McKinney
Muñecas, Nayeli Rios Guzman
Asturian Alternative Landscape Photomontage, Luna Testa Gimenez
Queen, Holly Fischer
Spring, Holly Fischer
Acceptance, Perla Gerez
Abandoned, Sydney Nelson
You Can’t Stop Time, Perla Gerez
Dragon Vessels, Tara McCormick
Turning Grey, Perla Gerez
Quarry of Consumption, Todd Jones
Rhinestone Eyes, Yuliett Lozano
Envy, Yuliett Lozano
Holy Red, Yuliett Lozano
Abstract Dream of Hollywood, Sophia Herrera
Abstract Dreams of Blonde Hollywood, Sophia Herrera
He’s Gone Bad, Yuliett Lozano
North Carolina Literary Review,
In the Summer of Missing Girls, Dana Ezzell
Trans Graphic Designer, Kamar T. August
Blue Bloom, Leen Abazid
Between Tides, Emma Erb
Duomo, Maya Ryba
Dive Deeper, Ainsley Rounds
Red Moon, Rachel Hince
Seeking Solace, Matt Martinez
Squiggle Series, Mae VanFleet
Daisy Field, Kelsey Smith
Anghiari, Emma Erb
Paint Like a Girl, Emma Erb
Fake Believe, Charlotte McKinney
Falling Emotions, Cindy Rivera-Flores
Language of Leaves, Katelin Craven
Remnants, Todd Jones
Feeling a Feeling (Horse), Liese Devine
Our Joy is Resistance: A Trans Experience, Grace Thorpe
Silence Speaks Louder Than Words, Luna Testa Gimenez
Florum Nexu, Kelsey Smith
Snow Bush, Leen Abazid
Caslon Hotel Identity Series
North Carolina Literary Review Online, Violin Shop, Dana Ezzell
Muir Woods Creek Photo 6 Series
Muir Woods Trees Photo 5 Series, Emily Hodges
Branches Muir Woods Photo 3 Series, Emily Hodges
Path Muir Woods Photo 1 Series, Emily Hodges
Grove and Paw, Mae VanFleet
The Kracken, Andie Araya
Nurture, Holly Fischer
Resilience, Kelsey Smith
Meredith Snowflake, Emily Hodges
Ephemeral Canvas, MJ Russell
Autofocus, Ainsley Rounds
Typographic Broadside, Ashleigh Hare
vowel series, b&w–tessera a, tessera e, tessera i, tessera o, tessera u, Dana Ezzell
vowel series, color–tessera a, tessera e, tessera i, tessera o, tessera u, Dana Ezzell
ASTURIAN
ALTERNATIVE LANDSCAPE PHOTOMONTAGE • photography
Luna Testa Gimenez
MUÑECAS • oil on canvas
Nayeli Rios Guzman
LITERATURE
CONTENTS
the female body is the highest form of art, poetry Katie Avants
Gibson’s House, prose Aditi Anand
215 State of Mind, poetry Katie Avants
Anthropophagist’s Love Letter, poetry Rowan Elwood
Bridge Scene, prose Anonymous
Guillotine, poetry Molly Scrivner
Shh, No One Can Know, poetry Lucia Celetti
The Old Photograph, poetry Gianna Pasquale just before sunrise, prose Rowan Elwood
On the Other Side of Sunrise, prose Rowan Elwood
Litany for the Philanthrope, prose Lola Mestas
tethered, poetry Lauren Dixon
natural, poetry Lauren Dixon
O Kitten! My Kitten!, poetry Katie Avants
Repeat, prose Madison Myers
Body, Cease to be Mine, poetry Grace Harrington
Sunflower Seeds, poetry BC
Home-Grown Rot, prose Rowan Elwood
Little One in the Mirror, poetry BC
The Severance Committee, prose Camille Duncan
small america, poetry Margaret Devitt in the atlas, poetry Lauren Dixon
Untitled, prose Cae Bowers
Tribulations, poetry Grayson Morris
Pancakes & Figs, prose Ellery Wilde
How to Shoot A Deer, prose Grace Harrington
That Funny Feeling, poetry Lucia Celetti
How to Die, poetry Cady Stanley
No Exorcisms or Seances, prose Molly Scrivner
Floral Contrast, prose Molly Scrivner
Everything Eats and is Eaten, prose Lauren Shaw
Lamb and Wolf, poetry BC
Sunken, poetry Alex Konecy
Rend-egg-vous, poetry Katie Avants
THE FEMALE BODY IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF ART
THE FEMALE BODY IS THE
Katie Avants
QUEEN • ceramic
Holly Fischer
men only come in a few simple shapes, angles and lines in roughly the same place he is an image in which god is practiced, a mold unrevised
but womanoh, she!
like rills below crescent moons at the end of a hand, and six-sided couriers of the cold, and white freckles of night when the sky blushes indigo
what other art reproduces itself?
god crafted her once and then she said, “i’ll take it from here.” no curve ever found in quite the same place, no substance careless on her frame the woman is all efficiency
weakness is in the eye of the beholder, and prying eyes can’t pierce the writing of our soul they school us on our smaller size - as though anything precious ever thought it needed to take up a whole roomand they forget we’re the first to bleed and the last to die the secrets of the universe aren’t so discrete examine the earth and learn, the soil doesn’t seek the seed
HIGHEST FORM OF ART
in pursuit of greater truth, i did one day receive a breath of fresh air amidst the smoke about our first: Eve.
words of a woman wiser than me proclaimed, “she is not an afterthought, she is a culmination.”
words that defied labor and scrutiny and generation to find their way to me
the male form is a show of might the female form is a silent sword apostle of apostles, messenger elect, the cyclical scribe of salvation, whose pen knows the ending before the story starts, entrusted with the ultimate prophecy of love and life for why else would only she know the secret of two beating hearts?
- with thanks to Phyllis Trible and Dr. Shannon Grimes
Holly Fischer
SPRING • ceramic
GIBSON’S
GIBSON’S HOUSE
Aditi Anand
[TW: brief descriptions of gore, implied/referenced suicidal ideation]
https://gibsonshouse.neocities.org
[Image ID: A crudely drawn puppet resembling an old, tattered ventriloquist dummy. The picture is black and white except for the puppet’s eyes, which are blue. It stares directly at the viewer.]
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHOW?
Have you watched a TV show called “Gibson’s House?” I’ve been searching for anyone who might know what I’m talking about and haven’t had any luck. My posts get deleted. If they don’t, no one answers me. There aren’t any fan forums for it. It’s not on any streaming service. I can’t even find an article on Wikipedia. But I watched it. Hell, I was obsessed with it. But, for reasons that will become clear, I wouldn’t say I liked it.
To give you some more context: this all happened around three years ago, when in a rare burst of motivation, I decided to move out of my mom’s house. Imagine: we were at the tail end of quarantine restrictions. People thought COVID was over (whether that was true or not is another question). Nevertheless, they were taking off their masks, throwing parties, and going to restaurants and harassing the waiters like everything was normal
again. I figured I would take that as a sign and find a place of my own.
Also, I had been telling myself I would move out for years at that point. I was 28 years old at the time, and it wasn’t like I was doing anything that warranted still living with my mother. I had dropped out of college years ago, and despite her subtle comments that I should go back and finish my degree, I had already settled on my dead-end telemarketing job. My social life was nonexistent. My job was remote. I barely left my room most days. All in all, I was pretty pathetic, and felt it. But maybe, I had hoped, maybe this would make me feel less pathetic.
I spent a while searching the internet and finally found a promising apartment. It wasn’t too shabby. The rent was suspiciously reasonable: I could afford it, even with my shitty job. I moved out as quickly as I could.
I left without much fanfare. I can best describe the relationship between me and my mom as ”begrudging roommates.” We barely said anything to each other besides “good morning” and “good night,” or rarely she’d tell me about some reality show she’d half-watched while doing the dishes. If that sounds depressing, don’t worry; it isn’t. It’s been like that as long as I can remember. Can’t really tell you why. If you lived with a relationship like that your whole life, you’d get used to it, too. She helped me move my boxes into my new place and made a perfunctory offer to help me get set up, which I shot
down. She accepted that without much argument and left. Which left me in an empty apartment, alone, for the first time in my life.
I didn’t have much time to process this before the doorbell rang.
I opened the door, and there was a woman standing outside. She was wearing a giant, fuzzy sweater, patterned with a hundred rainbows twisted together like a Gordian knot. Butterfly clips were scattered in her frizzy hair.
She said, “Hi!”
“Um, hi,” I replied, cautious. “Do you have the wrong door or something? I just moved in.”
The woman didn’t stop smiling. “No, that’s why I’m here! I wanted to say hi.”
“Oh. Well, hi.”
“Yeah, hi!”
We both laughed for a beat too long, and then there was a long, painful silence. Amazingly, after this she wanted to talk to me more. She introduced herself as “Margot” (Note - not her real name, I’ve changed it for security reasons). She lived next door to me with her girlfriend and two others. We bonded a bit over what we did for a living (she was a web developer, I was an insurance salesperson - both still remote). At some point she asked me if I was going to throw a housewarming party.
“No, I still haven’t unpacked my boxes.”
“Ooh, but that’s kind of exciting, right? Deciding where everything goes.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Mainly it just made me a little embarrassed that I hadn’t unpacked my boxes.
“Oh!” Margot clapped her hands together. “I just had an amazing idea. You could come to my apartment this Friday! I’ll host your housewarming party for you.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you or anything -”
“No, seriously, we’re already kind of having a party anyway. We’re gonna watch Gibson’s House.”
“Gibson’s House? Is that a movie?”
She gasped. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it. It’s like my favorite show ever! Now you have to come, you’re gonna love it. I won’t take no for an answer.”
ACCEPTANCE • acrylic on canvas
Perla Gerez
A quick note: I don’t really “get” TV. Yes, I know, I’m a psychopath. It’s not for lack of trying; I’ve watched all the critically acclaimed shows you’re thinking about and always gave up before finishing the first season. My coworkers keep telling me to watch Breaking the Wire or whatever it’s called, but I never will. The point being, I wasn’t exactly excited about the prospect of watching Gibson’s House with my new neighbor. The name made it sound like a sitcom, which I especially didn’t like - the jokes annoyed me more than they made me laugh and the sound of canned laughter made me want to crawl out of my skin. But for some reason I said yes. Maybe it was because the question caught me off guard. Maybe it was because I literally couldn’t remember the last time I had been invited to a social gathering. Maybe it was because she promised that there would be popcorn. In any case, I found myself sitting in her living room that Friday night.
Her roommates were all there too, ignoring me for the most part. They aren’t really important to this story, but I’ll name them anyway: “Kyle,” a skinny white guy,
was sprawled out on the rug in front of me, shoving popcorn into his mouth in giant handfuls. “Ben” was sitting on the floor next to him, scrolling through his phone listlessly. “Jane,” Margot’s girlfriend, was in the kitchen, struggling to scoop out Ben and Jerry’s ice cream into two bowls with a spoon. And Margot herself was sitting on the couch next to me.
I felt very uncomfortable. For some reason, I dressed up, even taking the time to iron my blouse and slacks. I regretted this immediately, as everyone else’s clothes were more in the hoodie-and-sweatpants range. Nobody was paying much attention to me - even Margot was locked into a conversation with Jane - but I still felt scrutinized. The casualness of it all - the banter, the movie nights gathered in the living room, the way Margot swept her girlfriend in for a kiss as she gave her a bowl of ice cream - it made me feel out of place. It always did. I was almost looking forward to the show starting so I’d have something to focus on that wasn’t my teenager-y angst.
And then they turned on the TV and “Gibson’s House” started to play, and I ate my words.
ABANDONED • photography
Sydney Nelson
Maybe it’s just hindsight, but as the opening credits played, I immediately noticed that something was… off. It looked like the intro to a normal sitcom. There was an establishing shot of a suburban house accompanied by a cheesy, grating musical sting. But it didn’t look like an actual set, more like a hastily slapped in stock image.
Cut to the inside of the house, to a kitchen. It was a mess. Not a normal mess, like the people who lived in it were just too lazy to clean. The countertops were coated in a thin layer of grime. Trash was littered everywhere. The sink was full of dirty dishes, so neglected they were growing mold. There were a handful of other appliances, too - a toaster, a blender - but they had been knocked over. I thought I saw a few flies buzzing around. It looked like a house that had been abandoned for years and then ransacked; I had a hard time believing anyone could live there.
And there was complete silence - no music, no voices. Nothing.
The camera lingered on this image for a minute too long. Then there was the creak of a door in the background, and “Gibson” appeared.
He was a puppet. That surprised me, because everything prior to this had been in live-action. He looked very old, wearing a ragged vest and trousers, both frayed and covered in miscellaneous stains. He had a tuft of black fabric on his head, which I assumed was supposed to be hair. His eyes were glassy and blue, and they seemed to bulge out of their sockets. Gibson turned on the lights, filling the room with a dim fluorescence. He opened his mouth to speak:
“Oh, god. This place smells like shit.” (Laugh track.)
His voice was somehow both gravelly and nasally.
“Which one of you assholes forgot to do the dishes again?” (Laugh track.)
He took out a dusty bottle of wine and smashed it against the counter. (Laugh track.) “Hey! Time to put on a show! I know you’re there! You can’t hide from me!”
Silence. Was that supposed to be the joke? That there was nobody else in the house, that he was just losing his mind? But as I was sitting with the terrifying notion of watching that for another half an hour, there was the sound of feet pattering, and three more puppets descended from a staircase. The first looked like a raggedy-ann doll. The second was a felt dog wearing sunglasses and a backwards baseball cap. And the third was a sock puppet with a mop of multicolored strings for hair, and googly eyes that were slowly sliding down her face.
“Hey, Gibson!” they said in unison. (Audience applauds.)
“Yeah, yeah,” said Gibson. “Whose turn was it to do the dishes?”
They all exchanged glances.
A thought came to me - it felt ridiculous, but they seemed afraid.
“Um, I think it was Dougie?” said the doll, breaking the silence.
“What? No way!” said the felt dog. “It was totally yours! Don’t believe her, Gibson!”
“Ugh! You always do this!” the doll sniped. “Can’t you just do something around the house for once?”
The sock puppet wailed. “Oh god! Please don’t fight! I’ll do them, I promise, just stop fighting, please…”
“Shut up, Lisa,” Gibson said. (Laugh track.) “Char lene, it’s obviously your turn, just do them.”
“No, I did them last time, remember?” said Charlene. “Why doesn’t he get a turn?”
“It’s about the principle of the thing, okay?”
“Yeah!” Dougie crowed. “The principle!”
“You think you can get out of everything,” Gibson said. “With your little smile. And your stupid hair. It
There was a tense silence. Until Charlene asked, “Why do you hate me so much?”
“You know what you did.” (Laugh track.) “Come on, you two, let’s get out of here.”
Charlene looked like she was going to protest more. It was odd how much nuanced emotion a doll’s face could show - irritation, then fear, then resignation.
“Okay,” she said under her breath.
The other two left with Gibson. I thought the scene would cut away to follow what they were doing, but it didn’t. For a long, uncomfortable stretch of time, the camera focused on Charlene doing the dishes. There was no dialogue or music. Occasionally she would sigh, or mutter something under her breath too quietly for me to understand.
This went on for five minutes.
I have to mention that the whole time this was playing, Margot’s friends were losing their shit. The show barely seemed funny to me, but they were laughing so hard they had trouble breathing. During the dish-washing scene, Kyle and Jane literally had tears running down their faces. You may be asking: why wasn’t I running for the hills? This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I thought that maybe I was the problem. That something about the show was hilarious and I was just too dull to get it. I didn’t want to be a mood killer, so I laughed along. No, I don’t feel great about it either. If I had just left, I would have saved myself a lot of grief.
To be fair, there was a plot after this: Charlene got mad about having to do the dishes again, so she made a chore wheel and forced everyone to follow it. Cue thirty minutes of sitcom bickering. But something still felt wrong. When the characters made jabs at each other, they would be too pointed. It was as if they actually hated each other and it was only the constraints of the format that made them keep their mouths shut. At the same time, there was an odd amount of violence. Characters throwing bottles at each other. At one point Charlene and Dougie got into a literal fist fight.
And I didn’t like Gibson. I couldn’t tell what his role in the show was supposed to be. After that first scene, he had no lines of dialogue. But sometimes he would be lurking in the background of a scene, just out of view of the camera. When the camera switched angles, I could see him for just a second. Standing completely still, glassy blue eyes unmoving. He wasn’t looking at any of the characters; he was looking directly at the camera. At me. Nobody else, not the characters, not Margot or her friends, would acknowledge his presence.
Finally, after twenty minutes, the episode looked like it was about to wrap up. But before Charlene and Dougie could make amends, Gibson came back.
“It looks like about that time,” he announced. “It’s time to go into the hole!”
(Audience oohs.)
“What? The hole!?” Dougie exclaimed. “But we haven’t been in the hole since… gee, I can’t remember!”
Lisa sighed. “We don’t have a choice, Dougie.” (Laugh track.)
“Someone gets it!” said Gibson. He moved to the back of the set, towards the staircase. The camera followed. From this new angle, I could see that there was a second set of stairs leading… somewhere. Downwards.
Nothing beyond except darkness. (Laugh track.) I felt an irrational sense of dread.
“What’s the -” I started, turning to everyone else. But they didn’t answer. They were staring at the screen. Not laughing anymore - their faces were completely neutral. Intent.
So I looked back.
The four puppets walked downstairs, followed by a single, shaky camera. They were walking for what felt like hours, and yet I still couldn’t see the bottom. Even though
nobody spoke, the laugh track still played. Over and over and over. But eventually even that faded away.
YOU
CAN’T STOP TIME • oil on canvas
Perla Gerez
Finally they reached the bottom, and here I had to look at the others again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things because there was nothing down there, just a black void. The camera stopped, the view obscured by the character’s heads. I could still hear the laugh track, very distantly; it played on loop without even a second of pause. For a few minutes more, nothing happened. Then they raised their heads in unison as something descended from the ceiling.
It was a woman. Not a puppet, like the other characters - she was real. Her hair fanned out at her sides as she fell slowly downward like a piece of paper. But for some reason, I couldn’t tell what she looked like. Her features were blurry. As if they were being censored.
The puppets started laughing. First Gibson, with a harsh, throaty chuckle, then Dougie’s annoying screech of a laugh, then Charlene and Lisa. The laughs got louder, more rabid. They could see her distress and they didn’t care. They reveled in it.
As she continued to descend, the camera cut to a new angle, catching her from a bird’s eye view. And I almost screamed.
The woman was me.
I didn’t know how I knew that - her features were still too blurry to make out - but I was sure of it. I was falling into the void. The puppets were laughing. The studio audience was laughing. Margot and her friends were laughing. The camera captured her until she turned into a speck in the distance and disappeared entirely.
Cut to credits.
I stared at the screen, frozen.
Around me, everyone else was getting up, talking amongst themselves cheerfully like nothing was wrong. Margot was still next to me. She smiled.
“So?” she asked. “What did you -”
I put the bowl of popcorn down and ran out the door.
Back in my apartment, I started to feel a little sheepish. My mind was already working in overdrive, coming up with all the explanations you tell yourself when you see something unexplainable. I was tired, on edge; I had imagined the whole thing. I sent off a quick text to Margot (she had given me her number earlier) telling her I wasn’t feeling well. I sat down on my mattress and tried to relax. I couldn’t. Then, for reasons I can’t remember now, I turned on my laptop, found a free cable service online, and switched to the channel Margot had told me about.
Gibson’s House was on. A different episode - all four of the puppets were gathered in the living room, eating sandwiches. A realistic pair of lips was superimposed on top of Gibson’s mouth. They all stared at the camera, stock-still except for their gnashing teeth. The sounds of chewing grew louder and louder to the point I had to clamp my hands over my ears, as the audience laughed over and over and over again like a broken record. Then they all stopped, staring at the camera blankly.
I shut my laptop off.
Behind me, Gibson said, “You like that, you sick freak?”
I wheeled around. He was there. In my apartment. I tried to scream, but my lips were sealed shut. My apartment crumbled apart, leaving only the blank void, and I looked down at my hands and my hands were blurry, and I was falling, falling -
And then I woke up.
Okay, I’m sorry for tricking you there, but that’s how jarring it felt to me. Before everything happened, my
dreams had never been that vivid. I checked my phoneMargot still hadn’t responded to me. Blearily, I noticed my laptop was open. Hadn’t I closed it before falling asleep? When did I fall asleep? Gibson’s House was playing - I had tuned in in the middle of a new episode.
Dougie said, “I’m trying to make french onion soup!”
Laugh track. I laughed too.
My stomach churned. I hadn’t eaten anything yesterday except for a few handfuls of popcorn. Other than that, I didn’t know what I felt. I wasn’t sure I had woken up. I didn’t feel awake.
I finished watching the episode, and then the one after that, and the one after that, not moving until the sun rose. -
The next few months were a blur. Margot did text me back eventually (it’s okay and I hope you feel better soon) but never invited me over again, so it was back to my usual routine. Something I didn’t consider before moving out: my mom drove me up the wall, but those inane conversations we had were something. The judgy looks she gave me after I would spend all day in bed, only coming down to heat up a frozen dinner were something. Now there was nothing stopping me from doing all that and more.
I never unpacked my boxes. I woke up at around 9am, still on a bare mattress on the floor, shrugged on one of my clean shirts, then took out my laptop and went to work. I never got out of bed except to make instant noodles or circle around my apartment restlessly like a zoo animal pacing its cage. I got back to work. Work ended at around 5. Then I would watch Gibson’s House.
I had quickly become obsessed with the show. Something about that night after the party flipped a switch
in my brain. One of the things you noticed about the show was that it had no real structure. Episodes were thirty minutes long. There would be an introduction from Gibson, usually. Other than that, there was no telling what would happen. Some episodes didn’t seem to have plots at all. The puppets would just do chores or something equally mundane, the silence only occasionally punctured by dialogue. When there were plots, they were usually violent. They hated each other. They absolutely hated each other. When an episode ended and the characters reconciled from whatever they were arguing about this time, I could tell they didn’t want to, they were just doing what they had to do, and the very next episode they would go back to fighting and screaming themselves hoarse. When I wasn’t watching the show, I was making art. My mind didn’t want to think about anything else, so I sketched the characters over and over and over again. One of my rare trips outside was to a local arts and crafts store. I filled countless sketchbooks like that. Eventually I started pasting my drawings on the wall. Then I tried
DRAGON VESSELS • clay
Tara McCormick
my hand at other forms of art: sculptures of Gibson and the others, a diorama of their house.
When I wasn’t making art, I was sleeping. There was nothing else I wanted to do. Even then, I dreamed about them. Gibson especially. Those dreams were violent: they would beat me, tear me to shreds, reach into my torso and pull out my intestines. I would wake up in a cold sweat, feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. But those weren’t the worst dreams. The worst dreams I had were when Gibson would just… stare at me. I wouldn’t be able to move a muscle. I was forced to look him in the eyes. There was no telling how long I could be stuck like that. Sometimes it was minutes, sometimes it was hours. I would feel hunted, afraid for my life, although nothing ever happened.
I dreamed about the blurry woman, too, though she hadn’t appeared in another episode since the first one. But the less said about that the better.
I think I knew, deep down, that what was happening to me wasn’t good. I hated the show, like I said. The
stress of watching it for hours on end made me want to vomit. But I couldn’t stop; it was like picking at a scab. The hatred emanating from that show seemed to confirm something to me. They were miserable, and I was miserable, and they hurt each other, and I wanted to hurt them, and they hated each other, and they hated me, and Gibson hated me, and Margot hated me, and my mother hated me. It was the truest thing in my life. So I didn’t
stop watching. I reveled in it. My apartment was covered in trash and old takeout boxes. I hadn’t done my laundry in weeks. Hadn’t even opened the window blinds so I could go whole hog. I had never felt so sick in my life, and it felt amazing.
I made my excuses. It wasn’t so bad, I told myself. I went to work, didn’t I? Fed myself, paid my rent? And hadn’t I spent my time the same way, even before moving out? Lying in bed numb and unmoving, lying in bed losing myself to obsession, it was all the same; nothing I did made an impact on anything and nothing made an impact on me. I was a closed system.
And then Margot texted me again.
The text was short: “watch gibson with me?”
But it took a while for me to register, like I had forgotten how to speak English. Why now? It had been months - months? The thought felt like a slap in the face. It had been months? Fuck, how long had it been since I talked to anyone? How long had it been since I’d gone outside? I looked around my apartment, actually looking for the first time in god knows how long. I’m not exaggerating when I say there wasn’t an inch of my wall that wasn’t plastered with drawings. Some of them were finished, but many more were just vague black scribbles. One of Gibson, his blue eyes the only spot of color on the wall, hung above my bed. His stare bore into my skull.
Nearby - my attempts at a diorama of their house. Sculptures of the characters beside it. I couldn’t even remember making some of them. The ones made out of clay, maybe. But the ones shaped out of piles of trash?
I noticed other things, too. Like how some of the sculptures were topped with human hair. How there were dark red streaks across them.
I went to the bathroom to throw up. Then I texted her back a quick “okay.”
It was Thursday, so I still had time to pull myself together. I took a shower for the first time in a while. Then I swallowed down acidic fear and forced myself to go
TURNING GREY • mixed media on canvas
Perla Gerez
outside. I didn’t feel prepared for a party in the slightest, but just being outside and around people made me feel a little better. Maybe enough to not seem deranged to Margot. Going back to my apartment was hard. I made a weak attempt to clean up some of the mess, but couldn’t. I vowed to do it after meeting Margot, and fell asleep trying my best to avoid the feeling of being watched.
The next day, I knocked on the door to their apartment. Margot answered almost immediately.
“Hey, stranger!” she said.
“Hi. Um, I know you said it was okay but I’m still really sorry about leaving without saying goodbye. I’ve been kind of -”
She threw her head back and laughed, a little too sharply. “No need to apologize! Come on in, we’ve all been waiting for you.”
dull greyness I had been swallowed up in. But not here. When Margot turned on the TV and Gibson’s House started to play and I stayed, I was looking for the end.
The puppets sat in the living room in silence. This wasn’t unusual; it could take a while for the plot of the episode to start.
Charlene: “So what are we -”
Gibson: “Shut up. Just wait.”
The mood was tense. That also wasn’t unusual. Nobody was ever happy in their house. Charlene and Dougie looked around impatiently, while Lisa just looked anxious.
Gibson was the one who worried me. Because he looked exactly like Margot’s friends. Waiting for some
falling out, revealing spots of pinkish skin underneath. She had dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. She wore a plain grey sweatshirt and flannel pajamas, both stained and rumpled.
But that wasn’t what scared me. For the first time since that night, I saw a flash of the blurry woman. Just for a second, superimposed on top of Crowina. And I immediately knew what that meant: this new puppet was supposed to be me.
“No,” I said, horrified. Margot and her friends laughed.
“Jesus, you’re depressing,” said Gibson. (Laugh track.) “Why the fuck are your feathers falling out. Are you sick? You better not spread any of that shit to me.”
“I’m not sick,” said Crowina, her voice threadbare. “I’m just sad.”
“Yeah, you’re sad, alright. It’s probably cuz of your life.”
From the TV screen, a pair of hands reached out, making their way towards me. I couldn’t move. I had to keep watching.
The other puppets had joined Gibson. “Eww,” said Charlene. “Do we have to keep that thing in the house?” (Laugh track.)
“Yeah, it straight up grosses me out!” said Dougie. Their fingertips dug into my shoulders. I tried to fight, to pull them off, but nothing worked. I had to keep watching.
“I know, it sucks,” said Gibson. “ I don’t wanna live with this sad sack either.”
They grabbed my shoulders and dragged me towards the screen.
“Don’t fight it. This is how it was always going to end, buddy.”
I couldn’t argue with Gibson, because he was right. That thought cycled through my head every day. But in that moment something became clear to me: maybe it would always end like this, but I didn’t want it to. I wait-
ed to be pulled in arms-length of the TV, then raised my fist and smashed it into the screen. It went dark.
There was silence for a moment. I felt a weight off my chest, like I could finally breathe again. For the first time in a while, my mind felt like my own.
Kyle broke the silence: “What the fuck.”
In case any of you are wondering, I’m fine now. As you can imagine, they weren’t happy that I broke their TV, but Margot kindly agreed not to press charges. We haven’t talked since then, though. I moved out of the apartment and back into my mom’s house. Quit my job and got a new one as a cashier at a local grocery store. It’s not ideal, but it forces me to go outside, so that’s one silver lining. I’m saving up to move out again. Fingers crossed my next attempt isn’t as disastrous. Most of the time I can write off this whole incident as a really long fever dream. It’s easier that way. I have mostly moved on with my life.
But sometimes I can still watch the show.
It’s there if I go looking for it: the same channel, the same time. Everything is the same, but there’s a new segment: “Hey, What’s Crowina Doing?” It’s just a single static shot of her messy room. Her laptop is the only light: a pale, depressing one. And Crowina is just sitting on the bed, her legs huddled up to her chest. Her eyes are bloodshot, her stare is empty. More feathers are falling off of her than ever.
She just sits there for ten minutes, staring blankly into nothing, until the segment is over.
Sometimes she’ll start to cry.
But I can turn it off. I feel a little sad, and a little sick to my stomach, but that draw I felt three years ago is gone. If anyone else has had an experience like this, please message me. But for those of you that haven’t: if you’re ever channel surfing and come across Gibson’s House, DON’T. WATCH IT.
215 STATE OF MIND
215 STATE OF MIND
Katie Avants
My city lies in wait beneath the ache of smoke and steel. It breathes a lusty grey, the dawn called forth by feet of first awake. On streets and rails alike, they chase the day. Gas stations serve up Coke and Tasty Cakes for breakfast to the lines of private school kids and construction workers. Margins break down: country balks, but urban flouts the rules. Heat bleeds from sacred valor of days past encased in brick and copper, blessed by trust of parchment and bifocals, likeness cast in stone and bronze, a vigil so robust the noise still sounds four hundred miles away. I promise, Philly, I’ll be back one day.
QUARRY OF CONSUMPTION • mixed media
Todd Jones
RHINESTONE EYES
Yuliett Lozano
ANTHROPOPHAGIST’S LOVE LETTER
Rowan Elwood
love letter ANTHRO POPHAGIST’S
[CW: Themes/descriptions of cannibalism, implied/mentioned homophobia]
I could just eat you up. I don’t mean that metaphorically. I want to devour you whole, tear you open with my hands and eat you piece by piece; I want bits of you stuck between my teeth, the sticky heat of your life running down my chin, desperately lapping at your bones to get every last taste of you like the animal I am.
I’ll keep some of your hair in a locket just so you’re always close to me. Maybe I’ll keep your eyes too, or your heart; those are the parts of you I liked best.
If only you could’ve been mine some other way, but they’d kill us both if they knew the truth. Don’t think of me as a monster, dear— I know it’s tempting, but try to see it like this: to devour you is the only way I can show you my love. This is sacred. My need for you, ripping into your flesh, sating myself on the meat of you— this is worship. This would make congregations scream in horrified awe; it is filthy and bloody, it is God and the devil and sin, it is everything I could not give you without repercussion. I need you so primally. This is much more than desire, dear; I want to make communion with you, want to snap ligaments with my teeth, bite and bite and bite until I’ve sampled everything you have to offer. I won’t let any part of you go to waste. I will savor every last tender cut I make of you, put you to bed in the freezer so I can enjoy you slowly. I want to enjoy this—
I want you to enjoy this, too, as much as you’re able.
Imagine it, won’t you, darling?
The way I will care for your body even once you’ve abandoned it; it’s such a shame you’ll never feel how my hands would’ve worshiped every inch of your skin, how my mouth will know every corner of your body. Such a shame it’d have been a sin to have touched you like this when that pretty heart of yours could’ve beat in time to every frantic breath. So instead of making love, I suppose this will have to suffice. Let my teeth and tongue ravage your every muscle, leave nothing untouched; let me eat of you until bliss descends and you and I are one.
printmaking
Yuliett Lozano
I need you close to me, closer, closer, and no matter what I do, no matter how many deliciously forbidden things I could’ve done to you when you were alive— how I could’ve made you scream in the dark we would have lived in, how I would’ve clawed and bit, trying (oh God, how I would’ve tried) to make our flesh and bones catch and meld, to make two men one creature— I could never get you closer than you will be when I consume you.
Muscle bundles, lovely bits of fat, organ by organ; your heart is a delicacy I’ll wait on, satiating myself first on the tougher cuts. I said I wouldn’t waste anything, and I meant it; I’ll make stock from your bones, sip the marrow straight, I’ll stew your biceps and triceps, braise your thighs and feast on them for days.
I want—no, I need to taste the salt of you, the iron sting of your blood filling my mouth, the richness of you folded into every dish I make.
If I could, darling, I’d peel back your layers and crawl inside, live subcutaneously.
I want to memorize every nick and scratch in your ribs, get tangled up in your veins and arteries and lay my head on your lungs every night.
I want to scrape my teeth on every vertebra, Leave bite marks on your hips, saliva in every joint; I want to feel your heart spasm in my mouth, your blood mixed with mine, forever a part of me.
I need you like I need air to breathe, and I can’t have you so I must consume you.
This could be something like holiness, I think; my teeth in your skin breeding divinity.
It’s almost a shame to ruin such a masterpiece, but darling, I’m starving for you.
ABSTRACT DREAM OF HOLLYWOOD • digital image
Sophia Herrera
ABSTRACT DREAMS OF BLONDE HOLLYWOOD • digital image
Sophia Herrera
graphite and markers
NORTH CAROLINA LITERARY REVIEW ONLINE, IN THE SUMMER OF MISSING GIRLS • graphic design
Dana Ezzell
Ainsley Rounds
POSING FOR THE TITLE COVER
• digital illustration Lily Zimiles
Lily Zimiles
The man draws level with the alcoholic and stops his aimless journey. The two share a mournful look. The look of men with one foot in the grave and a noose in hand, of the book already closed; pour a drink, the night is over, has been for a long time and now it’s just the wait until the endless dark descends.
“...Hello,” says the man in white.
“Hey,” replies the alcoholic, nodding his head in casual greeting.
“What are you doing up here?”
The alcoholic scoffs, his face contorting with a morbid smile. “Same thing you are.”
The man, too, smiles, a weary expression. “Admiring the view?”
“Sure.”
“Bit of a strange way to do it,” says the man, looking at the alcoholic’s arm holding the railing in a headlock, the way only his heels are on solid ground, the way he leans ever so slightly forward.
“Try it for yourself,” the alcoholic replies, taking another swig from his bottle.
The man climbs over the railing to stand on the same side as the alcoholic. He braces his hands on the top bar and looks down at the drop, at the water churning below, at the widening space between their frail forms and that unforgiving body, that impenetrable iron-blue.
“I think I see what you mean,” the man says quietly.
“Gets the adrenaline pumping, huh?” The alcoholic chuckles, as if they are sharing an inside joke.
“It certainly makes me feel alive.”
The alcoholic barks out a heavy laugh. “Hah! Alive. Hell of a thing to say.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, come on man,” the alcoholic says, scoffing as he looks over. “You can’t come up here looking like you look and not know what I’m talking about.”
“...No, I guess not,” the man returns with a sigh.
“And you’re up here too,” the alcoholic says, a note of bitter accusation creeping into his voice.
“I am.”
“So.” The alcoholic pronounces it like a judgment, throwing back another mouthful of whiskey and pinning the man with a strange look. “Spill.”
The man takes a moment to reply, frowning faintly before confessing. “The… state of the world, I guess. The expectations placed on me. By my father. By the world. I feel responsible for so much.”
The alcoholic whistles under his breath. “Damn.
The whole world on your back?”
“Some of it, anyhow,” the man replies, and he frees a hand from the railing to rub over his face. “I was
WORBLER 2 • scratchboard
meant to be a symbol of hope. My life was meant to be an ideal, spreading… goodness. Kindness. Love, if you will. But there is so much hatred in this time. Whatever progress I make seems to be swept away in an instant. Those who appear friends reveal themselves as enemies, spilling poison in the guise of something higher than themselves… and here I am.”
The alcoholic considers for a moment, his expression becoming sober. “That’s… noble.”
Jakub Augustyn
“Is it?” the man asks. His eyes, dark as rich soil, pure as the night sky, pierce into the alcoholic’s, making him look away. They seem too ready to flood with tears, to decorate the man’s face with fallen stars and broken glass. “When I failed?”
“Sure. You still tried, and that has to mean something. Even if you lost hope,” the alcoholic replies quietly. “Beats my reasons, anyhow.”
“And what are your reasons?”
The alcoholic snorts derisively. “God knows.”
“Hah… He probably does,” the man says with a bitter chuckle.
“Not that he cares.”
“Would you rather He did?”
The alcoholic is silent for a moment. “...Huh. Never thought about it like that.”
“It’s worth a thought,” the man says. “Given where you are.”
“...I guess not. Having the full weight of an all-powerful deity paying attention to everything you do sounds kind of… stressful.”
The man huffs out a laugh. “You’re telling me.”
The alcoholic blinks, turning his head to look at the man again. “You have experience in that department?”
The man is silent for a long moment before he speaks again.
“In a sense.”
“Mind explaining?”
stirs first and offers the fifth to the man, groping blindly
“If you look at it the right way. Thanks.” He accepts
“Hah… old-fashioned parents, you could say.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Were your parents like that?” the man asks.
“Yeah, I guess,” the alcoholic responds, rubbing his chin. “Sort of. They wanted me to… I don’t know. Become a lawyer or something. Respectable, you know. Do something with myself.”
“And you didn’t?”
“Nah. Nothing good.”
“Nothing?” the man says, sounding disbelieving.
“Wouldn’t say so. Look where I am now, heh. I got nothing.”
The man simply nods in mournful silence.
“Of course, it all depends on what you think,” the alcoholic continues, squinting into the setting sun, swirling the bottle of Evan Williams in one hand. “If the world is just a bunch of lucky accidents from the Big Bang forward, or if there’s some unseen hand guiding it. Me, I think that’s a crock of shit, but what do I know? Far as I’m concerned, we’re all knee-deep in it, a bunch of barely-evolved animals all fucking and fighting each
“And if there was something more?” the man asks.
The alcoholic snorts. “If God could prove he’s real, I’d be sober tomorrow. Cheers,” he bites out sarcastically, and he gulps down another mouthful of whiskey, coughing as he emerges from the bottle. “Don’t see either of those things happening anytime soon. Not in my lifetime, anyhow.”
He’s still restless, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and the passion he’d displayed fades out into contemplative silence. Once more he lets his hand cut through the air, rocking the bottle back and forth as though debating whether to drop it or take it upon his lips again. Finally he settles into something approaching stillness with a heavy sigh.
“...I’ll miss this view.”
“Yeah?” the man replies, gently prompting him to continue.
“I’ve come up here plenty of times. Watch the sunset with a drink or two, one foot on the edge, too much of a damn coward to do it. Not sure what’s on the other side.”
“I get that.”
“You done it too?” Now it’s the alcoholic’s turn to sound disbelieving.
“...Yeah,” the man sighs after a moment. “I have.”
“Well, ain’t that some shit.” The alcoholic whistles lowly, and he offers the fifth again, which is gratefully received before being passed back.
“You could say that,” the man replies, delicately wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“You thinking you’ll go through with it this time?” the alcoholic asks, feigning casual interest.
“Are you?” the man asks pointedly in return.
“Maybe. They say it’s a private kind of thing, don’t they? Dying.”
“Hah.”
“You don’t agree?”
“Sure, it’s private,” the man says. “But that doesn’t change just because I’m here. You still have to do it yourself.”
“I guess,” the alcoholic says with a frown. He glances over at the man. His expression relaxes slightly, and he looks at ease for the first time. Almost vulner-
DEAD BIRD 5 • scratchboard
Jakub Augustyn
able. Maybe it’s something about the man’s eyes. The openness of them, despite their dark color, as though they were mirrors of a calm summer night, drawing observers into half-recollected film stills of fireflies and sticky-sweet sweat, of undermixed lemonade and bitter nostalgia. “...You know… for some reason, I trust you.”
“That’s a little fast,” the man comments dryly. “Considering you and I have never met before this moment.”
The alcoholic scoffs weakly. “Hah. Does it matter?”
“No, I suppose not,” the man muses. “I trust you too.”
“That’s a little fast, don’t you think?” the alcoholic quips in return.
“Hah.” The man shakes his head, but it draws a small smile from him nonetheless.
“So… this is it,” the alcoholic remarks, studying the last of the liquor sloshing in its glass prison. What once had destroyed his life has become, in that moment, nearly insubstantial.
“This is it,” the man echoes, sounding halfway between question and statement, balancing on the razor’s edge of Before and After.
“Should we… I don’t know, say something? Make a big speech to the uncaring world? Pray for forgiveness?” The alcoholic’s voice grows more sarcastic as he speaks, but underneath is a trembling uncertainty.
“Do you have things left unsaid?” The man gazes at him, his eyes soft, reaching into the alcoholic somehow, some silent exchange made without words, a touch without contact.
“I wish I…” the alcoholic coughs, clears his throat, looks away. “Nah. Nothing to say now.”
For a moment, only the wind speaks between them.
“I wish I’d tried a little harder,” the alcoholic whispers, his eyes on the sun but his words for the man. Or perhaps not for the man at all; perhaps spoken in a vain hope they would carry on the wind to whoever it was he truly wanted to express his regrets to. “Not let myself fade out.”
“You did the best you could,” the man says softly.
“Did I?”
“Would it make you feel better to believe you did, or to brand yourself forever with your failings?” the man asks, and though the question is pointed, it offers, too, a soothing balm, an escape.
The alcoholic just nods, chewing his lower lip.
“...You did your best, too” he finally says, stiffly turning to look at the man, and his expression says what his words cannot.
“Thank you,” the man says, his smile sad.
“Right.” The alcoholic breathes in, breathes out, tastes the salt on the air and takes in the dying sun. “On three?”
“Take my hand.”
“...Okay.”
The alcoholic hesitates, but he takes up the man’s hand. They stand united, each with one hand clutching the other, their heels the only tether to the earth, leaning out over the yawning descent before them. The alcoholic examines his liquor bottle one last time and slowly extends his hand. He lets it fall, watching it shimmer in the setting sun, until soundlessly it is lost beneath the waves.
“One,” the man murmurs.
“Two,” the alcoholic returns.
They share one last fleeting look. Three never arrives.
IMPACT BLUE BIRD • scratchboard
Jakub Augustyn
Guillotine
GUILLOTINE
Molly Scrivner
I am romanticizing France,
Not for a romantic language, Which sounds terrifyingly confusing, Or bread so good I could eat it plain. Our government betrayed us again, So please, tell me more about guillotines And government overthrow. Take me somewhere Where worker’s rights and democracy Feel like a reality. Teach me how to bring an end
To lifelong unelected positions swiftly, And let me have free healthcare, to heal the harm They’ve done me. I’d love a croissant, But even more, I’d like a beheading.
AMERICA’S DIVISION • mixed media collage
Cindy Rivera-Flores
SHH, NO ONE CAN KNOW
SHH, NO ONE CAN KNOW
Lucia Celetti
Light content warning: Discussions of negative body image
Can you keep a secret for me? It is nothing too big
Just a secret I’ve kept my whole life
I have told few people
Friends in between sobs
My partner in between wandering hands
My mother in between fluorescent lights and mirrors
I have my ways of hiding it
My mom shared her ways with me
Something that was passed down from her mother:
To always check the side as well as the front
To wear things that are light and flowy
To wear baggie things
To wear things that are “flattering”
(But that just means it hides you)
To always tuck in my shirt in the front
Or if I have to tuck it in completely
To pull it out so it isn’t tight
I was told that I could not wear certain things
No crop tops
No tight shirts
No pencil skirts
No low rise jeans
No stripes
I lived by those rules
I repeated them every time I got dressed
Or went to the store
I look for clothes that are big and cinch at the waist
(Never higher or lower)
I keep an eye out for what “flatters”
So you cannot see the shameful thing hiding under
Shhh
No one can see or know
It is our little secret, right?
UNSPOKEN LOVE • printmaking
UNTITLED • charcoal
Elizabeth Daughety
Elizabeth Daughety
THE OLD PHOTOGRAPH
THE OLD PHOTOGRAPH
Gianna Pasquale
I let my wrinkled hand trace a face in the old photograph.
She stares back at me, her eyes almost squinted shut by the smile that lights up her girlish face.
Her head is thrown back with the silent laughter that pulsates through the photo.
Her arms are wrapped around the two people who’ve been there for her all her life, who she thinks will always be there for her… Mom and Dad.
I haven’t seen this face in years although it is my own.
I haven’t seen their faces in years either.
It’s her Sweet 16, and she’s in love with the feeling of laugher, the sensation of breathing, the sound of her heartbeat…
She’s in love with life. She’s in love with her future.
I was young once, you see.
I have many lives folded up inside of me.
Mae VanFleet
Many memories. Many dreams. Many souls.
Many sorrows. Many stories.
Many deaths.
Many loves.
They form a beautiful web of wrinkles across my heart.
I am like a time traveler, you see. I remember people and places that my little grandchildren have never seen.
Sometimes…
I try to transport them back in time and bring the old photos to life again, whenever they ask me to tell a story.
That’s the only way I have
Tobridgeall myloved
ones
togetheracrosstime .
to try to bring them to life in the same room, and give them a chance to see and touch and love
IwishIcouldtruly
bridge the two
ofthemtogether .
The laughter in the photograph between Mom, Dad, and Sweet 16 Me, frozen in silence for eternity an old photograph? playing nearby?
Break ing
Will they feel their hearts like mine is now at the thought that soon I will be… leaving all my loved ones behind and fading into an old photograph hanging on the wall staring out silently until it is packed away to make room for another?
And will they feel the tiny but unquenchable spark of hope that I do in knowing that death
will be the last goodbye before the souls in my old photos come back to life and I can laugh with them and hold them close once again?
HEELFLIP • photography
MOTHER’S DAY • digital image
Zorah Olivia
Charlotte McKinney
BLOOM • colored pencils, white gel pen
BETWEEN TIDES • weaving
DUOMO • embroidery
Maya Ryba
Emma Erb
BLUE
Leen Abazid
JUST BEFORE SUNRISE
Rowan Elwood
just BEFORE sunrise
just before sunrise i hear a mourning dove calling by the window
i know i haven’t slept at all and i know you haven’t either because i’ve been watching your hair flutter with every breath and the ring of lamp-light glowing in your eyes across this space between us filled with unspoken words and wrists and breath
just before sunrise i know you like i know that gravel road from fifteen years ago the home i used to have— you remember, i told you about the brick walls and the back porch always covered in ivy and honeysuckle and how i broke my arm climbing
the cherry tree next to the shed and laid in the attic wishing on cobwebs— life was simple then (i didn’t know who i was yet) and i could’ve walked with you barefoot and with my eyes closed the whole way (or maybe i’d just be too busy admiring the way you shimmer in the sun)
and your lips taste like triple sec and tequila
and i can pull your hair and i know you’ll look past me at the glow in the dark stars painted over on the ceiling (isn’t it funny how innocence leaves us with so many scars that still itch years after they should’ve been forgotten)
DIVE DEEPER • fiber arts Ainsley Rounds
and you’ll say my name like it’s honey on your tongue and your skin is sticky like a summer’s day dreaming of rain
just before sunrise we’ll lay naked in the grass and i’ll cover you with dandelions and wash your hair with dew and you’ll kiss me and you’ll smile and we’ll pretend it’s love
i can pretend it’s love
i can learn to love your triple sec tequila mouth like your lips can get me drunk and drunk and drunk until i’d drown in the bathtub right next to you with that candle you stole from your mom’s house that had vanilla sundae printed on the side but it always just smelled like artificial technicolor dreams to me
i can learn to love your peach perfume and the bruises you leave on everything you touch because no one ever taught you how to hold things gently no one taught you that watering flowers too much will kill them just as much as neglect will
i can learn to love you even though you only say it when you’re drunk or whisper it in my hair after the high passes i can learn to love you when everything in me wants to run because i still can’t believe i deserve something this soft
and i want to pretend it’s not love
i want to pretend it’s not love when you tear across the neighbor’s lawn just to get me roses and the way you’ll lie that orange chocolates are your favorite just so you don’t have to admit you bought them for me
i want to pretend i don’t love you or that i don’t need your triple sec tequila tongue and your fingers leaving bruises and the way your teeth will dig into my shoulder every night as you cry out for a god that isn’t listening and i want to tell you i know you deep down understand why not— i used to ask why too but i never got an answer and i’m starting to think that that is an answer and it’s just us and the stars and everything that happens just happens— but i don’t think i need to
and we can pretend it isn’t love until just before sunrise my hands will claim your skin and i’ll whisper your name like it is heaven on my tongue and you will finally understand that tequila and honey and dandelions all just say i love you
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SUNRISE
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SUNRISE
Rowan Elwood
[After Donika Kelly]
But what does it mean to taste like triple sec and tequila?
You say my fingers leave bruises, well, I guess they do, But I never considered you a flower to drown.
You say I’ll look past you at the glow in the dark stars painted over on your ceiling, (and yes, innocence leaves scars, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it) But you can’t look too long at the sun or you’ll go blind, And I want to keep looking at you.
Girls like us don’t get happy endings where I was raised. Girls like us get their wings stripped clean down to the bone, Girls like us grow fangs and horns, But I’m trying—I swear I am—to file them down for you.
Because your name is honey on my tongue. And I should need you like I need blunt force trauma, but it’s still a need, Still an indescribable want I have for you, For the way you move, for the smell of roses on your skin.
Because I love you should not be something we whisper into each other’s hair, Sweat-soaked, pretending the other is asleep, or worse, that it’s just the adrenaline, Just the dopamine rush making us fill this space between us with those three wanting words. I love you should not be a plea to stay or a bandage over a wound. And I’m scared—so scared—that that’s all you think this is.
So I’ll learn, my love.
I’ll find a way to wear down these fangs and claws, to blunt myself for you, If you’ll teach me how to hold things gently once I do. And I love you will no longer have to be something whispered in secret, But a promise, a sacred oath, And I will learn how to say it without shame.
RED MOON • photography Rachel Hince
PHILANTHROPE for the
TETHERED
Lauren Dixon
you were with me, tethered together by a string, restricting movement that was individual
though it could be overwhelming, it started to blossom into a custom, where you were always around me, latching on like a part of a chemical bond
i feeded on it, i breathed into it, i needed it my blood stream, my life source, mine and now without your grasp i feel incomplete, i had found a part of me that i never knew was living and as time is fleeting, becoming independent of moments where we were one that part begins to die
SQUIGGLE SERIES • acrylic ink
Mae VanFleet
DAISY FIELD • acrylic
Kelsey Smith
NATURAL
Lauren Dixon
a regular at the river dividing our towns, pleading for you to see it as an intersection, as a way back to me
i feel as if it’s ripples give me false hope, thinking that the soft air reigning it diffuses settlement, channels of it’s wind blowing right to you it seems
it could be forever that i wait here, because i don’t want the natural grooves of the earth to tell me that what happened is natural, and if what i’m standing in is true grim i’m unmoored, within a vessel, that i pray will take off one day one day perhaps
NATURAL
ANGHIARI • watercolor
Emma Erb
MyKitten!
O Kitten! MY KITTEN!
PAINT LIKE A GIRL • mixed media
Emma Erb
O KITTEN! MY KITTEN!
Katie Avants
In Loving Imitation of Mr. Walt Whitman
O Kitten! my Kitten! it is not time to eat. Though your paws look very soft and though your face does look sweet, I cannot feed you every time the kitchen I walk through. Until next meal, words of praise will have to be enough for you. But O cat! cat! cat!
O the tufts of fur he shed, Where on the floor my Kitten lies, Mewling and “unfed.”
O Kitten! my Kitten! get off that shelf so high!
Our home is not a jungle gym - “Settle down!”, shouts I. Down the hall his bean-toed feet scamper and make noise. To the couch his claws lay waste, he batters his beloved toys. Here Kitten! dear baby!
Catnip, scratcher, and bed!
Gracious gifts scorned, rather, You’re mewling and “unfed.”
My Kitten does not answer, his tail fur stands on end. What hath hunger done to you - made savage a loving friend?
Get out of the cupboard, step away from the cabinet door. You ate but an hour ago; you cannot have anymore. Offer O hugs, and give O pets!
This cat declines, instead: He haunts the halls, glares my way, Mewling and “unfed.”
REPEAT
Madison Myers
It is human nature to forget what makes us troublesome. Each day we create new memories and we burn them just as fast. We do not want to acknowledge our faults, our flaws, what makes us bad. Each day I forget I have migraines. No, not in the literal sense. You do not forget that you have a medical condition that for a few days out of each month confines you to a darkened room. Like how women forget the sensation of a live birth after the frightening part is over, I forget the severity of these migraines. I let them happen again and again, over and over.
up all on my own to mask something I don’t want to deal with at all? Some try to convince me they are an excuse for the days I just don’t feel like going to class or work. Maybe they’re an excuse for not wanting to see family, not wanting to eat dinner, not wanting to get dressed in the morning. I do not have a disease, but I have a complex lie that I live.
Migraine headaches are considered a disability, but what good does calling myself disabled do if I am imagining it all? Each day I take a medication for prevention, and even then it does not fully prevent the inevitable. Sometimes I take an extra step, a second medication, because migraines are something you can feel. No, not feel as in pain. You can feel them hours before they happen, suspenseful and teasing. They trick you, giving you a taste of what is to come. Sometimes it starts with a bubble of light floating across my line of sight. A will-o-the-wisp leads me through the dragging hours of the day to my fate. Sometimes it’s a hangover-like dizziness. Vomit lingers in my throat, waiting for the worst possible moment. The trembling of hands, the taste of bluntness. God, what is that taste?
No one wants to admit they’ve got a disease, whether it is a real disease, like a tumor or an aneurysm, or a fake disease like a migraine headache. From my uncomfortable pillow, hands over my eyes to block out the light that slips through my blackout curtains, I will not admit to my disease. From under the coolness of my icepack, bloodshot eyes resting, but never fully sleeping, I will not admit to my disease. I feel it, that pressure. The same pressure I felt at the opera with my classmates all those years ago. That was the first time I really, truly felt it. Even then I won’t admit to it, the severity and the pain. I do not know where it comes from. The thousands of explanations for this false illness do not calm me down or assure me of my sanity. Doctors will tell me these migraines are all in my head, literally and figuratively. The vomiting, the sensitivity to light, the dizziness. Are my pain receptors poor? Did my mother pass down only her weak genes? Am I at increased risk for stroke? Or is it all deduced to anxiety, a disorder with almost all the same symptoms, minus the head pain, which could be related to another illness altogether? Could it be that I am convincing myself I have migraines, mustering them
With each migraine I seem to forget the feeling a little bit more. Once the curtains open, my eyes reform to their natural status and I’m back on my feet. I forget the last 24 hours had even happened. There is a short, blissful moment of peace after a migraine passes. I’ll never learn to appreciate these moments, just as no one ever learns to appreciate a clear nostril before their next congestion. In between one and the next, in that vague forgetfulness, you feel like a fraud. That’s the peaceful part. It’s living the lie. Pretending to be normal. Pretending you can stare at a computer without tinting the screen red. Pretending you can go more than four hours without eating, pretending you
don’t have to wake up at the same time everyday to feel healthy. I play into what some doctors, teachers, and outsiders try to feed me: “Your migraines aren’t real.” I toy with this idea on my off days, the days in which I’m given that brief break from pain. However, during these peaceful little moments, I can’t stop that lingering feeling of impending doom. I know all too well what comes next, and after that even. I know the cycle.
Neurologists always ask, “How severe are your migraines?” “How often do you get migraines?” “How would you rate your migraines from 1-10?” I’ve never told the truth. I don’t even know the truth myself. I never rate my migraines above a 5, yet my migraines have been so severe I’ve lost my ability to speak. I save the higher numbers for when I believe the pain truly matters. Right now the pain is far from mattering. I know that things could always be worse. I could be on Botox shots, I could actually have brain scarring and that’s causing my migraines, I could have a migraine with an aura that leads me to have a stroke. I’ve never met that threshold set by the rest of the world’s migraine sufferers.
Is my medicine working? I can never be sure. After years of taking preventative medication, I can’t be sure if it has prevented anything. I cannot remember what life was like before the preventatives. Maybe it’s the brain fog, or maybe it's my brain cells deleting one-by-one. I always suspect there’s an underlying condition, that migraines truly are a fake illness. Migraines are a disguise for something much, much worse. I’ll often lie awake at night in the midst of a migraine thinking about my piles of undone homework,
my chores I cannot fathom completing at the time, and all that is tough when it shouldn’t be. I think of these things and I wish I suffered from something visible because then people would understand my setbacks. It would be understood as to why I cannot speak full sentences, why I can’t wear my glasses, why I can’t eat food with flavor today.
It is human nature to wish the worst for ourselves. Human nature to never understand. Tomorrow I will forget why I was angry, why I wore the ice pack across my eyes and fell asleep, why I wished to be sicker and sicker. Tomorrow you will tell me it’s all in my head, that you get headaches too, and I will laugh. Then I will choose to forget it all again.
FAKE BELIEVE
Charlotte Mckinney • digital collage
BODY, CEASE TO BE MINE
Grace Harrington
[Content Warning: Death]
I was sixteen years old when I died, Briefly, on a hospital bed
In a room with no windows.
CeaseBody,to be Mine
A comedy of errors led me to this cot With the thin paper blanket bunched around my stomach And a steel cart stacked with surgeon’s tools behind my head. I wasn’t supposed to die.
By the time I noticed the grasp of nonexistence Coming over me, freezing me in place, I realized, too, that I couldn’t speak. I was a modern Gregor Samsa, Awaking from the mist transformed, Confined in a body I could no longer recognize.
And it was cold–cold like I’d never Felt, the cot underneath me give way to nothing, And suddenly I’m floating, Untethered, In a room with no windows And nothing but fluorescent lights To banish the shadows That play around the edges of my vision.
It doesn’t stay cold, though. Before long, there’s a tingling warmth that starts in my stomach
And radiates outward, the way a fire engulfs a house Where somebody used to live–Where somebody should live–Where somebody was just living.
FALLING EMOTIONS • wire
Cindy Rivera-Flores
And the fire creeps up and catches in my throat
And suddenly I’m choking on smoke
And the little monitor next to me is making that strange sound And, in real time I watch
My heart Stop.
The last thing I think about is my mom
Alone in the white waiting room. I worry about her, Finding me dead, But even my concern isn’t enough
To restart the electrical current.
And however I may scratch and claw
At the inside of this leaden body, I cannot will it to live,
And I wonder how my spirit will leave the room With no windows.
It’s probably less than a minute Before I breathe again,
LANGUAGE OF LEAVES • photography
And suddenly the room is much more crowded than I remember And the monitor at my bedside screams.
I walk out alive–More so than an hour ago But less than yesterday–And find my way into the sunlight that I missed so sorely.
So now I cry when I read Kafka, Because I know what it feels like When my body is not my own.
Katelin Craven
SUNFLOWER SEEDS
BC
Too new. I should’ve hit more before tonight. The leather gloves are too stiff in the wrong places.
HE would’ve pushed for me to be in the garage every night.
Mom calling us for dinner, “One more bucket!”
I begged
Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. Can’t change it now.
His voice echoes in my head.
Deep breath.
I breathe.
Ready?
Hand up, Measure the plate, Good grip in the dirt. Ready.
First pitch way out.
“Ball,” barks Blue.
I inhale again.
The wind changes, and a smell catches. Sunflower seeds.
The same sunflower seeds he used to keep in his pocket around in the dugout, on the field, walking between games.
The memories center me.
A smirk plays tag with my teeth and I’m back in the box. “Play.”
The pitcher starts her windup, and I zero in on her hip. Second pitch, middle in, perfect.
Crack!
Bat hits ribs and falls;, I bolt down the chalk.
“Go, go, go!” First base coach yells.
Sliding “SAFE” into second, I stand, triumphant, clapping, dirt flying.
Ears grasping a familiar voice, I look to the stands.
Turning my gaze, it snags on something.
A purple hat.
My first coach sits in the stands. The feeling in my chest is mirrored on his face. It blooms and rushes through my fingers.
Tears threatening dirt-caked cheeks. There’s no crying in baseball. I had a game to win.
SUNFLOWER SEEDS
REMNANTS • mixed media
FEELING A FEELING (HORSE) • oil on canvas
Liese Devine
Todd Jones
OUR
JOY IS RESISTANCE: A TRANS EXPERIENCE • acrylic on canvas
Grace Thorpe
HOME GROWN ROT
HOME-GROWN ROT
Rowan Elwood
[CW: brief descriptions of graphic violence and death (referenced and in text), moderate-graphic descriptions of cannibalism]
The house is tiny and dingy. It’s the first thing I notice about it. It’s falling apart, but it’s ours. For at least a little while, here on the razor’s edge of fall, it can
We’ve been on the road for ten days, sticky with the sweat of summer’s deathbed, driving from one tiny, backwoods town to another in the beat-up black truck Ivy hotwired from her pa’s junk lot. And sure, the seats are peppered with cigarette burns and one of the windows sticks like someone poured honey in it and left it to dry, but it keeps us moving, keeps us safe. Whatever gets us far away from the suburbs we’d grown up in is a good thing these days, whatever gets us far away from barking dogs and bloody handprints on the walls and teeth in the garbage disposal.
I see the house first, lurching out from the edge of some scraggly, swampy woodland. I can see the broken windows from the road, the ivy strangling the rotten walls, and even though it looks about one good gust of wind from caving in, I don’t think twice before smacking Ivy’s shoulder so enthusiastically she nearly swerves off the road. We’ve been running so long, I say, and sure, it looks like shit, but let’s try it. We need somewhere to
stay, somewhere private, somewhere safe, and we haven’t seen any place better than that abandoned lot. Ivy isn’t hard to convince—she never can say no to me, she always says with a rueful little smile—and she hides the truck behind some willow trees bowing near the road. We creep inside, dragging our whole life behind us in faded floral sheets and patched-up tote bags.
It’s perfect. I know that it won’t last forever, that there will never be a place where we can put down roots after what we did, but I believe in the fantasy of it while we scramble over broken furniture and caved-in chunks of drywall. Punched-out windows and molding two by fours have never been as romantic as that first night in the house. I imagine us living here forever, dying here, our ghosts embedding in the walls, love bleeding through the gashes in the wallpaper. The smell of mud and dew-slicked grass every morning, the creak and whistle of the wind at night, they all say home, home, I’m home. Home with her.
The first night Ivy makes up a bed for us on the living room floor, in front of the fireplace, piling dirty blankets on the scuffed wooden floorboards. I break branches off the dead trees outside to build the fire. We carve out our own little existence here, and we know it will be hard, the kind of life that reaches into your bones, that makes you ask yourself if it’s really all worth it, but none of that matters the moment she puts her lips on me. All that matters is that we’re together and free now.
Free. Free and together, in that rotting house next to the old gravel road, wrapped up in peat and skeletons of trees, in slime mold and lichen and moss. The ghost of honeysuckle vines embrace the white clapboard walls, bleached under the summer sun and swollen with the autumn rain. Two floors of dilapidated wood, a kicked-in back door that falls apart in our hands a little more every time we go in or out,
and windows with jagged edges like teeth, like hungry mouths. I sometimes think that the house was as starved as we were, that maybe it called to us, that it needed us like we needed it. That the house was still standing at all seemed like a miracle saved just for me and her. We do our best to make a home of it—there’s nothing we can do about the rot, and in a way I don’t want to. It feels wrong, somehow, to pretend we aren’t just as rotten as the house. We live alongside it. Ivy stitches together old linens we stole from clotheslines to make curtains, and I tear up flowers from the side of the road to put in pots in the windowsills. We make it ours, little by little, make it a home. A warm space just
UNTITLED • acrylic on canvas Grace Thorpe
big enough for her and I, way out there in the woods where no one will ever bother us.
We’re far enough out now I don’t think twice about taking the truck down to the nearby towns and earning a little cash for whatever we need. Ivy always says that’s my real talent; according to her, all I have to do is bat my eyes real nice at someone and they’ll give me anything I want. I can’t say she’s wrong. I got her heart that way, and now I help myself to the contents of wallets and purses. I don’t see it as stealing. If these people had any kind of good sense, I wouldn’t be able to take a cent from them.
I make plans for a garden, start a little compost pile to fertilize it—there’s plenty of old leaves around, plenty of decay to harness—and she walks deeper into the woods nearby, stripping bushes of the last of their summer berries, foraging for roots and mushrooms. I start to dream in earnest of us living here the rest of our days on earth. Of days spent washing our clothes in the little creek behind the house, of training new honeysuckle to grow up the walls, of nights spent making love by candlelight, her teeth in my shoulder. She whispers into my mouth, around the stinging taste of sweat and sex, what we’ll name our children. Sometimes I dream about asking her to marry me, thinking maybe we’ll make the long drive to some no-name place where they won’t ask for the papers, just so we can have that special title for each other.
When it rains—and it rains plenty in our hazy days of bliss, big storms of rain and thunder cracking overhead, sending lightning to kiss the earth—we climb up to the attic and make a sort of game of it, counting seconds between the flashes, listening to the wind howl. I hold her hand, press my fingers to her wrist and feel her pulse beat in time to the raindrops as they strike the crumbling roof. We drag the blankets up and listen all night, feeling like the only two people on Earth.
As the weeks pass, it gets easier to believe maybe we will be able to stay, that we’ve found eternity right here next to the old road, in this rotting little house with the dead trees shielding us from the rest of the world.
But peace doesn’t come easy, not for me and her. It never had before, and it sure didn’t now. Our peaceful little bubble, our paradise, our little garden of Eden . . . Well, I guess I knew from the moment we saw the house that it couldn’t last forever.
The chill came early this year, but with how little use the old road saw, making a little fire at night was never an issue. Not until tonight, anyways. Neither of us hear the sputtering hum of a motor drifting by, not until it’s too late, until the sharp click-SLAM of a door sounds out, the thump-thump-thump of a rough hand banging on the rotten front door.
“Hey! You folks home?”
A masculine voice, twanging through the walls like a poison arrow, the sound of fear, of discovery; I feel what I assume scuttling bugs do when someone overturns their rock, burning away the homey darkness. There’s nowhere to run to, though; the smoke curls lazily, traitorously from the chimney, giving away that the house isn’t as unoccupied as it looks, and the man outside shouts again while we sit frozen, clutching each other’s hands.
“Hey there! I broke down a little ways down the road! C’mon, don’t y’all have any care for somebody down on his luck?”
Ivy moves first—she’s always been the brave one, the one ready to bare her teeth and face things, where my first instinct is always to run—and she goes to the door, pulls it open just a crack.
“Lord,” the man said, and he whistles low and slow, something hungry in his eyes. “Now what on earth is a pretty little thing like you doing in such a shithole?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, seeming to remember his goal, but I watch his eyes wander past Ivy into the house, and I hate him for looking at things that had never been meant for anyone else’s eyes. I stay back, stay quiet.
“Anyhow, you folks got a telephone in this place? My truck broke down and there ain’t no way in hell someone comes through here in the next few hours.”
“No,” Ivy says, her voice low, and I can hear the warning in it. “We don’t.”
“We? You got a friend in there?”
The man leans forward, trying to peer around her, but she nearly slams the door on his hand, and he backs up with a curse. I melt back into the shadows, groping for the knife I know Ivy keeps under the ripped-up loveseat. Just in case.
“Alright, alright! Easy there, little lady,” the man says, and I hear his boots shuffling on the front stoop, sliding on the slimy boards. “Fine, then. Could I at least wait here until morning? It’s getting wicked cold out here.”
Ivy is silent; I can almost hear her thoughts running. I pray she’ll turn the man away, that he’ll go and leave us be, that nothing will disturb the fragile peace we’d made here.
“...Yeah. Come on in.”
Ivy turns and pins me with a look before I can say anything in protest, and I see that gleam in her eyes, the one from before, from when this all started. When she’d stood there in the backyard, dripping with the viscera of her pa, and I’d still walked right up and kissed her for the first time, tasted the iron on her tongue and known I was hooked. I knew that I’d follow her to the ends of the earth if she asked me to, that if she was sick I wanted to be infected too, wanted to rot together. And I suppose I did do some of the rotting myself. It had been my idea to cut her pa up and eat what we could
JULY • acrylic on canvas
Grace Thorpe
of him, my idea to make it look like he’d been taken by some kind of animals. It’s given us both a taste for the stuff, and it’s been an awful long time since we got a bite of anyone but each other.
And I know, all at once, what she’s thinking.
“Come on out, Bri,” she says, the hunger in her voice sending electricity racing up my spine and through my veins.
I shuffle into place.
The man takes his first steps into the house, looking around the dim interior.
He doesn’t have time to say anything before I plunge the knife in his back.
I thank our good fortune that no one but us lives anywhere close, because that man hollers and thrashes something fierce, and it takes us both to get him on the ground, to keep him quiet until his heart finally gives up. I wipe the sweat from my face, spit on him for good measure.
Peace never did come easy for me and her, and peace dies tonight with his heart in her hands. And Lord, I know it means we’ll be running again, that we’ll never see this rotten house after tonight, but her lips never taste sweeter than they do when they’re sticky with blood, just like the night we ran away.
Maybe that man had been innocent in his heart, maybe he would have waited calmly by the door until the morning and never done us anything close to harm. I don’t think so. Not with the way he was looking at Ivy. If she hadn’t started this, I might’ve killed him myself, just to keep his filthy hands away from her. But I guess it don’t matter much, in the end. We eat him down to the bone, eat until we can’t stomach another bite. He’s not so greasy as Ivy’s pa—stringier meat, leaner, and he’s got a funny taste that reminds me of those cloying candles Ivy’s momma used to burn every Sunday. We
leave his mangled carcass out by the woods so it will look like the wild cats and bears got to him. When Ivy looks at me with that pretty face of hers all painted in red, I can’t help but kiss her again. God, I wish I could kiss her forever.
“Bri,” Ivy says, and my heart about leaps from my chest at the sound of her voice. She gives me one of those smiles of hers, the ones that make the whole world fall away. “Go find his truck, yeah? See if he’s got anything worth something.”
I hurry outside, sneering at the sight of a bumper just around the corner. That man couldn’t even lie right, it wasn’t even far enough to say down the road. As I walk up the side of the truck, I notice it’s a lot nicer than I expected. I climb into the cab and dig around for a wallet, rifle through the glove box, and what I find makes my heart drop.
I tear back to the house and nearly crash headlong into Ivy. She tries to say something, but I cut her off before she can say a word.
“We gotta go,” I say urgently, rushing past her to start gathering our things. “We gotta go now.”
“Bri, what-”
“He was a pastor, Vee, they’re gonna come looking for him. It ain’t like your pa, where just about everyone wanted him dead already, they’re gonna look for him. We gotta go before someone realizes he ain’t coming back.”
Ivy gapes at me for a moment before pulling herself together.
“Right,” is all she says, and together we bundle up everything we can into the truck again. What isn’t worth keeping we burn outside, watching the ashes scatter into the mud. I can’t help but wonder numbly how far we’ll have to run this time. I doubted anyone cared much about Ivy’s pa, other than her momma
maybe, but in these little towns, the pastor might as well be Jesus Christ himself. Someone would come looking to find him, and they might just realize it was human mouths that tore him up, not animals. I don’t imagine they’ll take too kindly to the two of us. Best case I figure, we spend our lives in prison, but it wouldn’t surprise me none if we both got hanged for all we did.
Ivy goes out to his dead truck, cursing when it turns out to really be broke-down, and in hopes it’ll keep the dogs and pigs off our trail we smash the windshield with a big stick.
“Maybe they’ll think he got confused and wandered off, and he died out here like that,” I say tentatively, and Ivy tries to give me one of those smiles again, but it can’t quite touch the fear I know we’re both feeling. There ain’t no chance the pigs’ll think that pastor’s death was anything like an accident, and we both know it, don’t matter what we try and tell each other.
“We’ll get through this. You and me, Bri,” she murmurs, and my heart still thrills when she talks to me like that, no matter how many times it happens or how deep a hole we’re in. “It’ll all be alright.”
Before the sun rises, we’re on the road again, leaving that old house behind us. We can’t risk being found, but it’s still a hollow feeling, watching our little slice of paradise disappear into the morning mists. Even Ivy’s hand on my knee doesn’t shift the aching feeling in my chest, saying goodbye to all my little daydreams of what we could’ve had. I guess I’d always known it wouldn’t last, but it’s one thing to know it and another to watch it disappear into the muck.
For a moment, it almost makes me scared to think of what’s next.
But then, I guess it don’t really matter. As long as we’re together.
Just her and I.
LITTLE ONE IN THE MIRROR
LITTLE ONE IN THE MIRROR
BC
There was this girl I knew
Saw her in the mirror
She was warm, And giggly, And bright.
She danced.
Not quite graceful
But owned the biggest smile on stage
Always swooning over the ruffles and flowy skirts
The highlight of every year and age.
She was smart, would name every dinosaur And count to forty-nine in Spanish. Couldn’t name all the state capitals, But knew the important ones; Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Providence.
She was pretty,
The tightest ringlets bounced around her round face. Honey-flecked eyes rimmed with long, dark lashes.
Olive skin splattered with freckles
She hated the dark and windows scared her The trees mimicked the fears of her nightmares
But the dark was now a friend. A blanket of its own.
Blistered feet became bruised wrists.
Weeknights at the studio to weekends in the garage.
Ballet ribbons faded into laced cleats.
Floor grains became grass stains, And streaked every pair of pants she owned.
Her brightness was tucked under a mask. The outside was something to hide from. Her intelligence had been crafted into a red-hot poker. Sculpt her words, burning those who dared touch her.
Her innocence became calculated words. Her love became a treasure she guarded with spikes. Her laughter became a hard-earned reward. Her joy became eggshells just out of sight.
I lift my hand to wipe the tears from her eyes, I wept for the girl I had become And who she had left behind
ILLUDE • charcoal and oil pastel
Emma Erb
HASTA LA RAÍZ SERIES • photography
Nayeli Jimenez Esteban
LOGAN • photography
Liliana Mazzei
SISTER RIGHTS • mixed media collage
SOUND AND SEA • fiber art
ENTANGLED • wire, flower foam
Maya Ryba
Gabrielle Foster
Kathryn Francis
THE SEVERANCE COMMITTEE
Camille Duncan
I. A Rainy Day on Fifth Avenue
It was Friday, November 5th, 1993. Weyman Severance was dead. The maverick CEO of Carmen & Swartzreich, one of the biggest global investment banks, had been shot five times point blank in his office, in the middle of the day, with no witnesses. It didn’t take but thirty seconds for his secretaries to come running, and as word spread through the C-Suite, arguments of culpability, frets of scandal, and aggravated indigestion ensued as police were sent for. The flies had flocked to this stinking fruit in no time. Within half an hour, CNN jumped the gun—blocking the EMS services at the building entrance; CBS snagged first comments with Commissioner Brown as the body was being taxied out of the executive suite. NBC had an exclusive with Mayor Dinkins, whose lukewarm initiative on crime came under further fire. NYT scrapped the evening edition cover of Gore and Perot’s trade debate, and Dan Rather
the
capped off the night with a noble in-memoriam for the fallen “Lord of Manhattan.”
During this scrimmage, the foot soldiers of the local press had trouble getting a word in edgewise against the national pundits muscling into conference rooms. All further questions were then embargoed until the NYPD did their assessment over the weekend, leaving humble journalists like the Manhattan Tribune only leftovers to pick at once the nighthawks left for better meat. That didn’t entail that Tribune writers like Anne Feinberg would rest easy, however. On Sunday, she managed to wrangle info from a contact on the 1st Precinct, though, not without some hassle, having to leverage her story on a botched drug bust. Anne was a career champion, though, knowing where to put the pressure and how to pull her weight. As her coworkers filed into the office Monday morning, Anne was already typing up the final draft of their coverage for the evening edition.
SEVERANCE
committee
“My, the devil works fast, but Annie got her gun faster,” Ed quipped as he waltzed in through the door, shaking the rain off his umbrella. Anne glanced up from her glasses, unamused, her sharp gray eyes trained on him like a cat to a canary, strawberry blonde bob framing her face in the glow from her desk lamp.
“You took the weekend off; someone had to tend to the flame,” she snipped in return, raising an eyebrow. “How was Greenport?”
Ed smiled his crooked smile, taking off his wet raincoat, grabbing a donut and coffee from the refreshment table, and taking a seat at his desk next to hers. “Well, Red, I had a grand time fishing with Paul and Mike; I visited my mother, who’s doing well since the knee replacement; I had dinner with a lovely med student at Aldo’s—highly underrated; it’s French; you’d like it—and I spoke to Harold Keene’s chauffeur.”
to the Hamptons. That’s the old turkey’s nesting place, you know.”
Anne let out a snort, shaking her head. “Well, thanks for doing your homework, though I wish you’d called me. I was just getting done on this report.”
“Eh, I got tied up,” Ed winced nonchalantly, scrunching his nose.
“The med student?”
“Ah haha, I wish. No, I had to help rebuild my folks’ deck,” Ed chuckled.
“What did you find out, then?” Anne asked, taking a bite of her pen.
Ed pointed at her. “Tell me your thing first, since you’ve been burning the midnight oil.”
“Well, I—” Anne began but was startled by the office door clanging open. It revealed Kitty Stokes, their cheery social columnist, complete with a blonde perm, a catalog smile, and a pantsuit to match. Anne and Ed straightened up in their seats.
“Keene? The COO?” Anne’s tone sharpened. Keene had been silent since the murder, and every reporter in the city was trying to pin him down. “Keene was in Greenport?” She let out a sigh, her fingers clattering on her keyboard in frustration. “The Post had tracked him to Martha’s Vineyard.”
“No, no, no, that was Harold Keene Jr., his son, the CFO,” Ed replied through his mouthful of donut, holding up a wagging finger. “And actually, I made a quick visit
“Wait! Hold the phone! Don’t get into this without me!” Kitty chimed in as she sashayed into the office. Daniel Jennings, their sports columnist, followed in behind her, remiss of protection from the weather, slapping his ball cap dry against the coat rack. He glanced up at the clock, letting out an annoyed grunt at being two minutes late, and traveled over to his desk to drop off his things and join the conversation.
“Hi, you two! What’s going on? Anything juicy?” Kitty bubbled as she plopped into her chair with a bounce,
shimmying over to their desks. Anne gave her a warm but polite smile.
“Hey, honey, we’re talking about murder, the Severance case,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And Ed and I have been gardening; good dirt.”
“Ooh! Do tell!” She beamed, tapping her heels on the carpet. Daniel soon joined them, sauntering behind Ed’s chair and tiredly sipping his coffee.
“How’s it going, Othello?” Ed teased, tapping the back of his hand against Daniel’s stomach. The poor soul let out a puff of air in exhaustion.
“Not in the mood, Iago. My son flooded his bathroom before school and was late for the bus,” Daniel responded sluggishly, straightening his tie. “I forgot my umbrella and almost got creamed by a bus on 5th.”
Ed let out a whistle of sympathy. “So more of a comedy of errors, then?”
“Never mind,” Daniel replied. “What were you saying, Anne?”
Anne smiled a confident, knowing grin. “They got the guy over the weekend.”
“What?!” they all exclaimed in unison. Ed’s deep-set eyes widened in surprise, Kitty’s jaw dropped, and Daniel spat out his already burnt coffee.
“Okay, hold up, let me read this,” Ed interjected, scooting his chair next to hers and scanning her report. Anne scoffed and squirmed out of her seat, making a few quick clicks on the document.
“Okay, better yet, I’ll go get this printed,” she huffed in annoyance. She then pointed at her crass colleague as she headed over to the copy room. “Edward Merrick, don’t you dare mess with my computer.”
“I’m noooot,” Ed whinged as he enlarged the font size. After a few minutes, she came back with copies for each of them, and they all silently pored over the lurid details. Kitty tapped her leg against Anne’s file cabinet as her brown eyes burned fanatically over the report; Daniel leaned back against the window, like a Lord Byron
from Crown Heights, slowly and methodically going over each page; and Ed, though the devil may care, betrayed no expression as he flipped over the last page, looking back up at Anne.
“This is some dark shit,” he said, running a hand back through his dusty brown hair.
“A real medicine cabinet,” Kitty remarked, setting the report down in her lap.
“Huh, that’s not the end of it,” Anne replied wryly, pulling out some papers from her desk. “Get this: the day of the murder, Severance was doing his morning memos when it happened. We got it on tape.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ed exclaimed, incredulous.
Anne’s smirk grew wider. “You’re right; with you, I aim to be as disingenuous as possible.”
“Well, that’s definitely something to chew on,” Daniel commented, scratching his mustache. “And imagine us being first in line for a change.”
“Well, not exactly,” Kitty winced, handing him a magazine. The National Enquirer had pounced that morning, splashing photos of Severance’s young widow, Louise Carrig, tearfully leaving their Park Avenue mansion for the Chief Medical Examiner’s office.
Daniel shook his head. “Oh Kitty, we’re not that trashy.”
“Alright kiddos, what’s the score?” A voice announced behind them, cutting through their conversation. They all turned to see Morris Landau, their elder statesman editor, sauntering into the office like a scruffy emperor penguin, short but in command.
“They just caught Severance’s killer,” Ed replied, craning his head over to him as he swiveled his chair. Landau stopped in his tracks just as he was about to fill his coffee cup, staring at his staff in blank astonishment.
“Who’d they get?”
“A lone wolf named John Grey,” Anne replied, looking over her report on the computer screen. “Worked in the janitorial staff and was injured on the job five months ago. They didn’t give him worker’s comp on a technicality, so obviously he aired out his grievances with Severance—with a .38.” Landau scratched his beard, pursed his lips, and raised his eyebrows.
“Viva la France,” He nodded morbidly. “Any profile on this guy?”
“He’s a bit of a homebody, no criminal record, but was in and out of institutions most of his life, suffered abuse, the bad, the bad, and the ugly,” Ed added, straightening out his copy of the report. “Anne was able to get a copy of Grey’s confession annnd . . . Severance was recording his memos when Grey stepped in for his ‘appointment.’”
“You got a transcript of that?” Landau asked.
“Yes, Captain,” Anne nodded, not looking up from her computer.
“What does the transcript say, Anne?” Ed asked, swiveling back over to her. Anne shuffled through her papers and adjusted her glasses, narrowing her eyes at the information.
“It says, well, in his agenda, Severance was going over Q4 reports that morning, nothing exciting; he had a meeting with his son talking about whether Carmen & Swartzreich should acquire Aberman Investments, and then at 12:02 pm, on his tapes, Grey storms in with his gun drawn, and Severance yells out, ‘What are you doing back here? No, don’t!’” Anne then pantomimed pulling the trigger. “And Grey, in between blasts, quietly repeats, ‘Burn in hell. Burn in hell. Burn in hell. Burn in hell. Die, you rat bastard. Burn in hell.’” She looked up at Landau as she took the last shot, a nervous chuckle escaping from his lips.
“Well, he certainly didn’t hold back,” Landau remarked. He scratched his beard a moment, cleared his throat, and then surveyed his crew once more.
“Okay, well, that’s a good start. We can break that for the evening edition, right, Anne? Nobody else knows, right? You ran that by the copy editor?” Landau inquired, rejoined by a nod back from her.
“Marsha’s going over it now,” Anne said.
“Good,” Landau replied. “Alright, then I want you and Ed to stop by Carmen & Swartzreich. Get interviews on this. Start with Lorne Swartzreich, Severance’s CoCEO. Then head to the NYPD and dig up everything else they’ve got on Grey. I want to know his psych eval, his arrest transcript, every damn thing.”
“You got it boss,” Ed replied with a thumbs up.
“For the rest of this week . . . Ed, I want the Jersey election story by Wednesday. Anne, finish that report on that . . . that building collapse in Chicago when you get to it. Danny, I know you’ve got the roundup from week ten, so you’re good there.”
Daniel nodded, spinning a pen around in between his fingers.
“And Kitty . . .” Landau faltered, snapping his fingers. “You’ve got that thing . . . that . . . fashion thing . . .”
“Yeah, Ponyboy, whatever, finish that.” He then pointed at the interns and support staff working hard in the periphery. “And you people already know what to do: wrap up the evening edition. Andrea, field all incoming calls until after nine; I’ve got a call from Washington
coming in soon,” he motioned as he ambled over to his office.
Kitty, twisting in her chair, raised her hand as if she were back in school. “Do we get bonuses if we uncover a corporate conspiracy? A sex scandal?”
“Kitty, I don’t pay you to gossip,” Landau chided.
“Yes, you dooo,” she shot back in a sing-song voice. He threw up his hands. “Y’know what I mean.”
“Yes, sir,” Kitty replied, trailing off into a quiet, exaggerated dirge as she swiveled back over to her desk. “In my own little corner, in my own little chair. . .”
Landau then looked back behind him at his staff and gave them a nod. “Good luck, folks. Dismissed.”
Everyone then subsequently turned to their work, ready to ease into the rhythm of the day. Ed turned back to Anne, who was still intently studying her report on her computer.
“So, are we going to head out?” He asked.
Anne nodded, scratching at her chin. “Yeah, yeah, just give me a few minutes to look at this,” She then tossed him her copy of the transcript. “You can read more of that in the meantime.”
“Alrighty,” Ed replied casually, slipping his coat on and propping his feet up on his desk. In the three years they’d known eachother, Ed had grown used to her pace, knowing it’d take some time before Anne felt satisfied to let things lie. Though others may be annoyed at her meticulousness, she was always thorough in her work, and it always brought back fruitful results. Unlike Ed, who could usually let things roll off his back, she never wanted to be caught in a gaffe. Maybe it was the Ivy League schooling in her; he didn’t know; he managed to get by
fine at UW-Madison. And it was opportunities like this where he got to flex his Hoosier education as he glanced through Severance’s death knell.
It was like Anne said; Weyman Severance’s itinerary wasn’t anything special. Ed glazed through the maverick’s route business routines and commentary on stock performance, his criticisms on the Gore and Perot debate, and concerns on regulations from the newborn European Union. He read through Severance’s conversation with his son, Carlyle Severance, and found it peculiar the lack of warmth between them as they spoke candidly on Aberman Investment’s weak finances—Ed made a note to look over it again later. Then he got to the main event, simple as gruesomely simple. Grey seemed an odd character: he didn’t holler his damnation against Severance as he fired at him. Seeing Anne’s notes, it was a passionless, repeated command that he ‘burn in hell,’ almost above a whisper. Seeing it in his mind’s eye, Ed felt a sinister chill lick at his back.
He then came to when he heard the happy chime of Anne’s computer powering down and the brusque shuffling of her putting on her coat. Ed slipped the transcript back into its manila folder and slid it back into Anne’s desk drawer.
He raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “You ready?”
“Let’s get on it,” she said, wrapping on her scarf.
As Ed and Anne stepped out of the Tribune’s revolving doors into the gray Manhattan morning, a cold wind sliced through them, their faces
stiffening in response. Anne tightened her scarf snugly against her neck, and Ed, hands stuffed deep in his jacket pockets, fell into step beside her as they made their way down Fifth Avenue to the C&S headquarters. Thankfully, it had stopped raining, and midtown had resumed its familiar buzz—horns blaring, heels clicking, the accosting street vendors selling chestnuts and hot dogs intermixed with exhaust fumes. In typical New York fashion, it all made for a comforting series of contradictions.
“This feels too neat,” Anne said, breaking the silence.
“Neat?” Ed raised an eyebrow. “A billionaire gets shot in broad daylight, and they already nab his killer with no leads or witnesses? That’s your idea of neat?”
“It’s too convenient,” Anne countered. “Something this big doesn’t get tied up in a neat little bow over the weekend. It feels like a setup.”
TIGER WORLD CUB • archival inkjet print
Shannon Johnstone
Ed shrugged, stepping around a puddle. “Well, I mean, zanies love the glory, right? Maybe he wanted to get caught. That’s been textbook for the past century.”
“Sure, if that’s your angle. But look at it this way. Severance knew he had enemies—plenty of them. This can’t just be some random loner like Grey. Five shots point blank? ‘Burn in hell,’ BAM! ‘Burn in hell,’ BAM! One after the other? That’s too personal to be random and too heinous to not have a better motive. I’ve read back on homicide cases from the past thirty years. Either Grey knew Severance more closely than we realized—”
“Or he’s a complete nut job,” Ed finished.
Anne frowned, her breath visible in the frosty air. “It has to be his inner circle. Someone close to him had to hate him that much.”
“How do you feel about this, Anne?” Ed asked suddenly, stopping them in their tracks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, like you said, Severance was no saint. There were the illegal bribes to Senator Vaughn in ‘83, hush money to his secretary, the affair with Carrig, his other secretary, his divorce from the oil heiress, and laying off two thousand employees. Denying that guy’s worker’s comp? Plenty of enemies, right, Annie? Before we forge ahead, can we say this is really in the pursuit of justice?” Anne bristled at his scrutiny, their eyes locked to one another.
“I’m not saying he deserved it, Ed . . .” She began, with a hint of uncertainty. Ed leaned forward, the penetrating blue of his eyes needling for her true confession.
“But I’m not surprised,” she conceded with a shrug, continuing their pace. “And if there’s anything to gain from this, from Severance’s death, it is that we find out the facts of the matter, and whether this guy was set up; there’s your justice.”
“Ah, there you go,” Ed chuckled. “‘The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.’” He then gave her a nudge. “And this surely doesn’t hurt making a name for yourself as a serious journalist, right?”
“I’m not saying that,” Anne argued. “If anything, it’s for the paper.”
Ed smirked, pointing a finger at her. “It’s not what you said. It’s your tell.”
“My tell?”
“You’re full flush right now,” he said, motioning to his face.
“Seasonal allergies,” Anne deadpanned.
“It’s November.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“I’m just teasing, Anne. Relax,” Ed said with a grin.
“Good,” she replied flatly. “Because I’m not laughing.”
They crossed the street, the imposing C&S Building looming ahead. Its sleek glass façade reflected the city skyline, each window an unblinking eye staring down at them. Anne stared up at the goliath with some trepidation but assured herself that they were within a stone’s throw of success. They’d managed to beat out the major publications so far, punching up and above their weight, so there was no turning back now. As she turned to Ed, however, she found he had discreetly plucked out of his jacket pocket another donut he had swiped from the office, ready to drop it in his mouth. They locked eyes, and Anne snorted at his gluttony.
“Don’t judge me,” he grumbled, taking a massive bite.
“It’s so much fun, though,” Anne chuckled.
SMALL AMERICA
Margaret Devitt
small AMERICA
You go home to be saved by wrong way signs and billboards of white Jesus, but the only Messiah you find is in the hum of the lights in the beer fridge as you buy another six cans and a pack of cigarettes that taste better here.
You drown yourself in smoke like incense that choked you at church, when your mother stuffed you into your Sunday best as though God gave a shit what you were wearing, but you can breathe easy on the fire escape and flick match after match down into the alley puddles.
You crack open another drink, just like holy father would the host, and lift it up to the sky, like anything that’s up there might raise a glass to you and acknowledge that at least you’re trying even if your attempts end up empty just like the cans.
You murmur to yourself with this half-alive idea of God on your tongue, and pray he listens for once as you use your words in his favor; that a thousand faults of him a sinner could not make, and a thousand prayers of you could make you not a saint.
You listen, but the only answer you hear is the hum.
IMPOSSIBLE MAGNITUDE
• mixed media, digital image, ink
Camille Duncan
PHOTOMONTAGE • digital image Maya Ryba
i have lost you in the atlas, my fingerprints trace the blue lips, frolicking to find resilience, but i’m out of air, you weren’t listening.
do i still have the time, remember you were mine, as you become some catalyst?
and i’m away from you.
do you tread across the yellow? i’m living out the bleak, no hello, i step into the dark wood, i wanted to treasure my girlhood.
i still fear the state, that muddies my breaks, and i don’t get my fix.
because i’m away from you.
and i can’t see, how you could ever tame my soul, for all i could be, i could only remain dull, greasing up hell’s way, as you break into a distance, and teeter on what made me
whole. there’s nothing more to do, all because i’m away from you.
THE ATLAS IN
UNTITLED Cae Bowers
UNTITLED
When in a yoga class, you are frequently made aware of your own breathing. Often, I forget to breathe until it’s too late to recover. I am fine until I’m not. I am strong until I lift something too heavy, or too many things so that I lose my balance. I am fumbling, but I am fine. Sometimes, I drop everything that was stacked in my arms. I do not fret as more things are handed to me and more weight is being placed in the bookbag on my back. I am becoming tired. I am told to start running. For what goal? I am unsure, but I run anyway. Faster I sprint towards an invisible finish line; one that is moving two steps away for every one I take. This task is starting to feel monstrous. I focus on the end goal, dropping things from my arms as I run, forgetting what had been placed there in the first place. Running and running and running. Sweat starts to slip from my brow. I have forgotten to breathe. My body yearns to recuper ate; stop for a drink of water; rest my weary limbs, if only for a moment. I continue to run and run and run until the soles of my shoes wear out and I have nothing left in my arms. A tear falls from my eye, but no one says a thing. Barefoot on burning asphalt, the sun erupts into boisterous laughter. My body cannot take the pressure of expectation. I didn’t notice when my steps slowed to a mere crawl. Knees scraping the ground, a trail of blood following my stride. Hyperventilating.
As you transition your pose, try to take a Ujjayi breath to calm your mind.
Snapped back to reality, opening my eyes, I take a slow breath in, holding it at its peak and releasing it with a long, vocal exhale. My heart rate is still too high from the adrenaline and the turmoil of my mind. The day must go on.
REBIRTH • cardboard
Bethany Weatherford
TRIBULATIONS TRIBULATIONS
TRIBULATIONS
Grayson Morris
To make our bed you handed me a shovel. Turn over the dirt of all that’s lost: a memory may be found in the sediment if only you’ve mastered the art of excavation. Dionysus poured mulled wine down my throat, wrapped a grapevine around my tongue. It’s not my fault I picked a bouquet of hell flowers to decorate our malfunctioning mantlepiece. Hold the hammer with porcelain fingers to frame the foundation you laid in the sand. Keep the lifeboat ready when the tide comes in, you said it’s my responsibility you never learned how to swim. If a shattered mirror is a bad omen what happens when I clean the pieces up? Ask the fallen angel who broke your wings? In return he’ll teach you what it means to be lonely. His lips are invitational ice, and you’ve never tasted something so cold. Don’t you know what summer’s skin tastes like—
Similar to the saliva of a woman after taking the bite. A sommelier will tell me what wine goes best with regret, and which one will make me take back my words. You sin somewhere else and come home to hardwood floors. How can there only be one all-seeing eye? And who allowed the poets to welcome me to hell?
Virgil can’t possibly be privy to my pain, so give me the girl in the disgraceful dress. Cause of death: laudanum and the loss of self. Confessions can be written by an Englishman, but what does it take to hear the heart speak of a woman with an empty womb?
When I’m discharged from the damage, it settles in me: these four walls will never be the same.
If I paint my eyes closed, does the color wheel blend itself on my cheeks? Disintegrate my tongue so I can no longer taste the breath between your words. Augment the timeline, make me feel a whole year in a day. If time is what I wait for, then I abandon all clocks
SELF-PORTRAIT • fibers
Naomi Adkins
Andie Araya
INSIDE STORM • mixed media collage
Samantha Woodfin
PANCAKES & FIGS
Ellery Wilde
I remember the first time I considered breaking up with my boyfriend.
Not just considered, but truly thought about it. Reflected on it, talked about it, mulled it over, let it sink into the swampy depths of my porous mind and simmer.
We were falling asleep as the thoughts really began to invade. They marched in and set up camp with striking authority, joining us in the already cramped apartment bed. He stretched against my back, arms around me, and slowly, like a twin pair of boa constrictors, his hands crept up under my shirt to hold my chest. It’s comforting, he murmured.
It’s invasive.
PANCAKES &FIGS
I knew if I moved away, he would stop; knew if I twisted myself out of his grip or even just said the words, he would retreat to the other side of the bed like a wounded animal until morning. But it is easier to say nothing when your brain is heavy with thoughts of ending things, and the sky is heavy with the cold darkness of January at 2 a.m.
It would be easier just to end things. Actually, it wouldn’t. Because that would come with baggage, literal and nonliteral. It would come with fights and tears and resistance and regret, with packing up suitcases and moving half a life from a tiny room it probably shouldn’t have fit into in the first place. It would come with a side of long enduring loneliness, deleting photos and wiping away tears, ruined music and learning how to fall asleep alone again. But something over the horizon of that dark precipice glimmered. A small whisper of a chance of something I’d forgotten about for months, tucked away from the forefront of my mind and wrapped in tissue paper and stored under the bed for another season.
Freedom.
I had recently discovered that constant proximity is hell. I longed for the freedom of feeling every pore alone and having no one there to suffocate me. No one there to take my dreams and alter them, no one to make or change plans for, no one to adapt interests or alter viewpoints—or force me to have viewpoints, for that matter.
I felt it happening for many weeks: my old self, slowly slipping away in the darkened room. Subconsciously and subcutaneously altering myself to his designs, being his version of perfect but abandoning my own. Losing yourself is a surprisingly slow process, one you think you can stop at any time, but by the moment you realize how much is gone, it seems pointless to get her back. Sunk-cost fallacy, perhaps. And I wondered, laying there being slowly constricted by kneading hands, how many women have slowly and accidently lost themselves to a man. Women, who surrender so many things to be with a man, to be right for a man, to be cool for a man. Who become low maintenance, who suddenly become a housekeeper, who become an entire support system overnight and still have to support themselves.
And then I was thinking of Sylvia Plath and her fig tree, her heroine Esther staring up at all those branching dreams and letting them fall and die. That was never my style; I’d sooner gorge myself on both figs and dreams, regardless if they were ripe or rotten. Writer, traveler, country music star. Poet, mother, botanist. Deep sea diver, storm chaser, gardener. I listed the possibilities in my head, a glazed selection of decadent delights and possibilities of what I could do with my freedom.
Suddenly, the sheets were too hot around me, and I kicked them off, freeing my skin to the cool night air drifting in through the open window. It made contact with my skin and sizzled, as if reacting against the fervent feeling of want that was suddenly consuming my body and brain. I wanted so desperately to be high maintenance again. I wasn’t even high maintenance before, but I wanted the solitude of doing my makeup in front of a mirror when the bathroom light had to compensate for the darkness outside. I craved dresses and flowing skirts, cleaning when I felt like it, the privacy
of my room, waking up alone and listening to French music and pretending only I existed in that small sliver of time. Uninterrupted walks. Ownership of my body. Ownership of my time.
I recalled a conversation I had with my mother many months ago. We were walking the dog at the top of a field, tall grasses scratching our legs as the sun sank orange below the treeline, starting a forest fire in the sky. I was naively chatting about my boyfriend, our life together, the possibility of a forever together. She seldom talks about her marriage, most likely because it failed, and she is not one to focus on failures, especially her own. Marriage changes you. It’s different than just living together.
How? I wondered then, still wrapped in the delicious warmth of the honeymoon phase.
It just does. A woman of many words, my mother declined to elaborate any further, leaving me even more certain that with the right person, the right couple, the right combination of souls, it would work seamlessly. She just miscalculated her other half.
Now, trapped in the shadow of my fig tree and slowly being molded like putty by hands so much bigger than my own, I feared I may have miscalculated as well. Not so much the person; he is golden, sweet, and soft, carrying light wherever he goes. But rather the whole concept of a relationship and the toll it would take on me. The little adjustments I would make, the miniscule adaptations to a life that had only recently become intertwined with my own. Dressing quickly to seem decisive and practical. Losing time spent alone
basking in the beauty of trees and words and the sun. Maintaining myself in microscopic ways to remain the girl he fell in love with. A fear of disappointing him and seeing his shining smile melt away. Each detail darker than the last, holding myself to a standard that fit perfectly under his heavy form. And in the too-quiet dark, I vowed not to be one of those women who succumbed to a partner, who let themselves be molded into a version fit for someone else’s needs.
I fell asleep as those thoughts circled in my mind like dead-eyed sharks around a doomed object of prey. I woke twice; once to comfort the man beside me, and once to comfort myself from dreams of loss and heartbreak.
Morning came too quickly and too late. I watched the sky from my sideways position as it turned from dusky gray to pink to a haze of gold when the sun began to claw her way above the horizon. It seemed we had both survived the night.
The hands around me tightened, and the body next to mine shook off sleep. A face buried itself in my neck. He was so unaware of the worries plaguing my mind, this warm, comforting creature wrapped in blankets, suffocating me under his love and skin and silent expectations.
I sighed and rolled over, questioning the smile on his face. What do you have to be so happy about this early in the morning?
You, of course. And maybe pancakes?
His sleepy face lit up as I nodded my head. Be my guest.
He leapt up, rushing to the kitchen to start his pet project. He had been making pancakes—from scratch, with buttermilk—for weeks. I laid in the warmth he left and listened through the wall as he cooked. I listened as my roommates emerged and greeted him, and as they talked and laughed and scuttled around the small central space. Even through the wall, I knew how the sun looked filtering in through the living room window and how the smell of slightly burnt butter would soon fill the entire atmosphere. And as certainly as I knew these things, I knew that I would not be ending things anytime soon.
The sharks had descended, and I was letting them consume me, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. I would let this partnership alter me, compromise and sacrifice and meld into a new form. And I reminded myself comfortingly that I had lost myself countless times before, and I could find her again. She is a persistent chameleon and never really disappears, just changes hues to match her background. Slowly, I convinced myself, repeating the mantra over and over in my tired mind. He is worth it. This—laughter, butter, sunshine, warmth, the antithesis of isolation—is worth it. This is a good life, one without fear, without loneliness or loss. It is stability; it is, maybe, the chance of forever. And I was not going to surrender the potential of forever for a few figs. Not when I had pancakes right in front of me.
So I settled back into the familiarity of the pillows and the growing familiarity of this life. And when a plate piled with pancakes was brought to me, I grasped it with appreciation, and firmly held its heat to my chest to restart my singular, capricious heart.
SPANISH CHANDELIER • photography
Emily Hodges
DUEL • ceramic
Holly Fischer
HOW TO SHOOT A DEER
HOW TO SHOOT A DEER
Grace Harrington
[Content Warning: Death, injury, and firearms]
First, you’ll wake up to the sound of your daughter screaming. It will be around 7:00 in the morning, right when she and her brother are supposed to be leaving for high school. Run to your front door and throw it open and see her running back up towards the house, the car door flung open with the keys still in the ignition. Your son is waiting in the passenger seat, leaning forward to get a look at the scene unfurling outside. She’ll grab your arm and start yelling something. Put your hand over hers and ask her to take a few deep breaths. It's hard for you to understand her when her words are coming faster than her shaky breaths. Eventually, she will explain to you that there’s a deer caught in the chain-link fence the state put up to protect the old graveyard, the one topped with rusted barbed wire. Look behind her in the direction of the graveyard, the ancient oaks with vines, like arms, that wrap around the site and conceal it from view.
Give her shoulder a squeeze and send her on her way. She’ll be late to school if she doesn’t hurry, and you can see your son anxiously checking the time on his phone. You’ll handle it. Promise her. It's just an animal.
March through the woods towards the fence and, as promised, come across a doe caught in it. Its head and front legs will be facing you, but its chest will be caught in the wire. It will be screaming. You didn’t know a deer could do that. Think back to your countless encounters with the silent beasts. They’ve never made a sound, much less a sound like this. Brace yourself against the deer’s chest and push. It will be heavier than you thought, and it will fight you. It will thrash desperately, digging the jagged wire deeper
ALL THESE PENT-UP FEELINGS CAN'T BE GOOD
MJ Russell
FOR ME! • ceramic mosaic
into its flesh with every movement. You will notice one of its hind legs has become tangled in the metal wire fence. It will look broken, hanging limply, and you’re sure it's been rendered useless. Her hot blood is soaking your sleep shirt, proof that there is still life running through her veins. She is alive like you are.
You may start to cry at this point. You wanted to help, but every movement is torture for the creature and its cries are driving you mad with frustration (At this point, you may kick a fallen log beside you to relieve the anger, and feel it melt away into pity).
At this point, you will call the police. They, of course, will say there is nothing for them to do (what, did you want them to come out and wrestle the thing down and stitch it up?). The closest animal control is three hours away. They will advise you to leave the thing. You cannot.
She is alive and you are alive and your quickening hearts beat together. You are all she has, trapped hopelessly in this fucking wire fence that nobody asked for.
The officer on the other line clears his throat.
“Do you have a gun?”
You do.
March back through the woods with your dad’s old shotgun held in both hands. Come back to the deer, screaming. Put your hand on its head, try to give it any kind of comfort before you do what you must.
Put the barrel against its head. It will struggle, weakly. Stare into its large, dark eyes.
Say goodbye, as best you can.
Pull the trigger.
Later, a friend will remove the deer and take it away. Wash the deer blood from your shirt. Wash it twice. Throw the thing away.
When the kids get home, you can say the deer got itself loose and bounded, white tail bobbing, into the patch of forest beyond. Try to hide the truth that wants to pour itself out of your expression. Swallow down the memories of lessons about lying.
Maybe, at a time like this, not all lies are sins.
Maybe some are mercies.
If you can help it, you will never look at the fence again.
funny THAT feeling
THAT FUNNY FEELING
Lucia Celetti
I once wrote a poem
Years ago
When I heard a song and couldn’t stop crying
Choking on sobs and emotion
That all I could do was
Write it down
I wrote “I feel like I’m a cup
With a hole at the bottom
Always being filled, never being full
Somehow
No matter how much water is poured I’m always
Empty
And I wish I could just overflow
So I could feel something
Anything
And not just feel like I’m empty
All the time”
Sometimes I sit
Like I am the same-
That hole was never filled
I am always in purgatory
Always too little or too much
Like I am still 18 in my childhood room
I am alone and I am afraid
Even though the world has gone to sleep
I know that I have to face the light
Of the waking world
Eventually
Then hopelessness and fear’s hands
Wrap around my throat
Stealing my air
And keeping me in that room
Today I wrote a poem
Minutes ago
Because I heard the same song and couldn’t stop crying
Choking on sobs and emotion
That all I could do was
Write it down
Megan King
HOW TO DIE
Cady Stanley
Admit that you’re going to die.
Do not believe it, yet.
Tell your family that soon you’ll be An angel clad in white and lies. That you will always be with them In flowers, snow, and things that fly. You won’t.
Believe in your decay. No white is in your sight. Your flowers grow wilted and maimed.
Be sure—
You are going to die. (Really, you are already dead.) Your wings were clipped before you learned to fly.
So, last, breathe.
Ironic.
The final step in dying— Living.
Feel the lolling relief through your lungs because the knell will soon be rung.
Anticipate it.
Feel nothing.
MEMENTO MORI • mixed media on wood panel
Perla Gerez
HOW TO DIE
NO EXORCISMS OR SEANCES
Molly Scrivner
Sable finished folding the last of her clothes, and stepped back from the bed to pull open the drawers of her dresser. Then she took a deep breath and began muttering under her breath, focusing on the clothes. The first shirt that lifted into the air came unfolded almost immediately, but that was fine. Putting the laundry like this was just an excuse to practice her magic, and after she was done she would fix all her mistakes. She might have to refold all her clothes, but she wouldn’t break anything if she dropped them. That shirt and the next one landed gently in the correct drawer. The item she levitated after that stayed folded, mostly, but it ended up on the floor. She continued practicing, and it was going well until she tried to move three things at once, and suddenly the side effects of her powers made an appearance. Someone is going to try to exorcise Barbara again. You’ll lose her.
EXCORCISMS SEANCES no or
Hurt them if they try.
Like last time? When you hexed the trespassers and they started coughing up blood? I’m not sorry. I was protecting my family. What if someone finds out about it?
They’ll think you’re a monster.
What will they do to you?
Sable took a shaky breath, which was more of a gasp, and pressed her hands over the ears, which didn’t do anything to help. She didn’t know why this happened, why her magic wanted her to be afraid and angry, and neither did her adopted Aunt Barbara, a ghost who used to haunt a witch, and the only person Sable knew who had any experience with magic.
Whatever was going on with her powers would probably go away as she practiced more. Of course, it might also get worse as she continued to use her magic, but it wasn’t really a problem. It was lying, as always, so she could just ignore it, until the paranoia disappeared sometime in the next half an hour. She and Aunt Barbara were home alone today, but both of them were perfectly safe—
Sable heard something crash to the floor, and for a moment, she couldn’t breath. An instant later she was at the door, swinging it open to reveal the hallway. Barbara was standing there, leaning forward to retrieve a broom from the floor. She sighed as her fingers passed through the handle, then straightened and turned towards Sable with a smile. “Hello, dear! Sorry if I startled you, could you help me pick this up?”
Sable stared at her for a moment, waiting for her heart to stop racing.
“Of course,” she agreed, moving forward to grab the broom. She shouldn’t have been panicking. It was just the family ghost dropping something because she’d suddenly turned intangible, even though that normally only happened when Barbara was startled.
Barbara glanced towards the window. “I did see someone in the driveway. It’s been a while since we had a visitor.”
Someone is going to try to exorcize Barbara again.
Hurt them if they try.
The doorbell chimed. Sable tensed, her hands clenching into fists, but she forced herself to relax as she made her way downstairs. She took a deep breath before she opened the door, and asked, smiling, “Hello? Can I help you?”
She didn’t recognize the woman standing outside, who had wavy, light brown hair that had been partially tied back. She didn’t look much older than Sable, and she was wearing an oversized teal jacket with a tear in one shoulder. It had been repaired with the messiest stitches Sable had ever seen.
“Can I talk to the ghost?” She asked.
Sable lunged at her.
She was in motion before she realized what she was doing, grabbing the stranger by the front of her jacket. The woman flinched back. “Hey, what the-”
“Sable Keres Morais!”
Sable dropped the woman’s collar and stepped back. She wanted to look behind her to make sure her aunt was standing out of sight, but instead she glared at the stranger. She’d been looking for Barbara. She was a threat.
“No exorcisms or seances.” Sable snapped, before moving back inside.
“Wait, I’m not here for– I had family who used to live here–” The woman tried to explain.
“I don’t talk to anyone who asks about ghosts.”
“Sable,” Aunt Barbara called her name again, now gentle instead of scolding. “Let her in.”
Sable turned, only to see an empty doorway.
“What? Absolutely not!”
“I mean it.”
Sable turned back to the woman. “Excuse me for a moment.” She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She wanted to slam it, but Aunt Barbara had raised her better than that. She’d been taking care of Sable since her family had moved into the house, not knowing it was haunted.
Sable crossed her arms as her aunt reappeared, standing next to the doorway. “I’m not letting a stranger in to talk to you!”
Barbara sighed. “I don’t think she is a stranger. She mentioned a family who lived here, and she looks like…” She trailed off, glancing towards the door.
Sable knew exactly what name she wasn’t saying, although she usually smiled when she said it. Alice Zephyrine, the witch who used to live in this house. She came up every time Aunt Barbara helped with Sable’s magic. Sable liked her, from what she’d heard. She didn’t feel the same way about Alice’s descendants.
“Her family abandoned you!” Sable scowled. “They moved out and they left you behind. They don’t get to have you back after that!”
“Sable, I’ve told you, they thought I was gone! I didn’t manifest for three months after Alice passed. James and Eloise thought I’d moved on with her.”
Barbara was right. She’d told Sable what happened, how it wasn’t their fault, but it didn’t matter. Sable hated them anyway.
“If that’s true, why is she here?”
“I don’t know! But I’d like to find out.”
Sable turned her head, looking away from her aunt. A moment later, a cold but solid-feeling hand touched her shoulder.
“It’ll be fine, dear.” The ghost reassured her. “You can watch us, I won’t ask you to leave me alone with her.”
Sable took a deep breath, pushed her shoulders back, and reached for the door. She waited for Barbara to step aside before she opened it. “Come in.”
The woman looked like she’d been considering running away while they talked, but she accepted the invitation. Her hands sparked when Sable shut the door.
She has magic.
A possible mentor?
Danger.
“I’m sorry about Sable, there was an incident several years ago and she’s been very protective of me ever since. My name is Barbara Drewitt, it’s lovely to meet you.”
“I’m Araceli Palomer.”
“Palomer? So you would be Jame’s…”
“Granddaughter.” Araceli nodded.
GOLDEN RAY • ink & tea, archival inkjet print
Faith Holbrook
“Oh, of course. I haven’t seen him since before he had children, how is he?”
Araceli hesitated. “He passed years ago. But Aunt Eloise is doing well,” she added hurriedly.
Barbara flickered, appearance changing from solid to see-through. “Do you mind if I step out for a moment? Sable, I think there’s still some challah left over from Friday.” She fled the room without waiting for an answer.
Sable watched her leave, frowning, then turned to Araceli. “The kitchen is this way.” Normally she’d bring guests to the dining room, but this way she wouldn’t have to let the stranger out of her sight.
Araceli followed her, and sat at the kitchen table while Sable got out plates and glasses. She also grabbed the serrated bread knife from the knife block. As she set the table, she placed it, very deliberately, next to her own plate. Then she sat down across from Araceli, spine straight, shoulders back, and legs crossed at the ankles.
“So, Araceli,” she asked. “What do you want with my family ghost?”
WITH RESERVATIONS •
discarded & mistint house paint & resin
Todd Jones
SILENCE SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS
MANTEL • discarded & mistint house paint
Todd Jones
FLORAL CONTRAST
CASLON HOTEL IDENTITY SERIES
graphic design
Ashleigh Hare
CASLON HOTEL IDENTITY SERIES graphic design
Ashleigh Hare
[Nowell] enticed me with the prospect of opening my own branch of Hillmusic in Chapel Hill. This rekindled my dream of escaping bustling Northeast cities to the more laidback South, place of my birth.
EVERYTHING EATS EATEN AND IS
steps closer to the shore of the water, feet sinking into the soft sand along its entrance. It feels a creature wake in the depths and begin its prowl, witnessing the two drawn together in a dance of magnetism.
The girl hovers on the tightrope between swamp and shore, watching how the water runs its oily fingers along the soft sand, lulling it into a false sense of safety before dropping off into an all-consuming abyss. A strong sense of rebellion surges within her to move closer, to challenge the words and warnings she’s heard her whole life. Now, in the present darkness, she wants to wade into the water, to dare it to try and take her. She closes her eyes, turning her face upwards to the milky light of the July moon. She imagines submerging herself slowly, limb by limb, as inky water pools around
her body. Perhaps her toes will be bound by the soft bottom of the shore, sinking down incrementally, slowly. Perhaps she will feel the scraping of teeth against her leg; some unknown bottom-dwelling demon tasting a new arrival. Perhaps it will approve of the sample and nudge her again, sinking sharp fangs into her leg and pulling so that she is finally absorbed, one with the water. A phantom engulfed in the sultry summertime biorhythm of the swamp. She steps forward.
A white flash catches the creature’s eye, drawing its attention towards the eastern shore. A faint wisp of a figure floats forward, entering the water, entering the
swamp. He hears the vibrations of her feet sinking into the silt, the push of her body carving a path through the layer of verdant algae. He watches water pool around her waist, rippling out like circular sound waves away from the beat of her hummingbird heart. He moves closer, the light from her legs pale under the dark water, like twin moons gliding their way deeper, deeper towards him. How easy.
The brackish waters lap persistently against rough sand. A lone frog croaks loudly, piercing the quiet of the swamp before being silenced by some unknown force. The swamp draws the two players closer together, entertained as it observes the tête-à-tête, knowing its own power is at the heart of their exchange. The twisted remnants of trees, their trunks slowly being consumed by salt, cast long silhouettes against the sky. The breath of the swamp quickens. Among the cattails and reeds, the scurrying creatures on the shoreline and the slithering ones below the surface, it anticipates. The swamp knows how this game will end.
She will never be clean. The girl remembers earlier that night, standing shaky under scalding shower water, scrubbing every pore and orifice until her skin turned raw. Still, the stain is there, the feeling of taint, the horrible, suffocating skin and hands and lips and teeth. The shower water was too pure, too clean, for this filth. She wants to rip off
5 SERIES • photography
MUIR WOODS TREES PHOTO
Emily Hodges
BRANCHES MUIR WOODS PHOTO 3 SERIES • photography
Emily Hodges
her skin and step out of it, escape the body she now loathes. So she went to the swamp. The one place that others warned her would harm her, the one place she was warned to stay away from. Instead, she had found greater danger in the world away from the swamp. She decided to face the place that had called to her so often, out of the gnarled cyprus groves and tangles of Spanish moss. Perhaps some sort of primeval pull had drawn her here, a knowledge that it would take care of her. She would offer herself up, offer her discarded form and hope that some sympathetic creature would be willing to end her ache for peace. This is the only way to take back control.
She reaches a point deep enough that the water brushes against the underside of her breasts, holding her comfortably. The urge to sink under and surrender is strong, but something inside her fights it. She falls back, floating her body up to the surface and spreading her arms out to welcome the pitch summer air. Her dark hair fans out around her like kelp, bleeding into dark water and scum. A Floridian Ophelia, pale face to the moon, arms open to accept her fate. For the first
time in months, she feels at peace, balancing her weight in the water, feeling the stars above and the tangled web of life below become twin centers of gravity holding her in place. Below her, she feels something move, and a smile stretches itself across her lips.
The creature peers up at the floating form of the girl, body splayed like a fallen star. It hesitates. Rarely does a meal come so willingly, so easily into the swamp. It survives off those unfortunate creatures clumsy enough to stumble into the thick brine and struggle their way deeper into the depths, or it finds the warped creatures already managing to survive off the feeble undergrowth. This one is small, slight and unblemished. She is not afraid, not swatting violently at the small buzzing vampires trying to taste her blood and sweat, not grimacing at how the silt clouds the already thick water or slithers between her toes. Her face is turned up to the moon and the canopy of cyprus; she has surrendered herself completely, desperately to the mercy of the swamp. An unfamiliar feeling rises in the creature’s gut; a feeling separate from his stomach, deeper and more convoluted. A feeling that has no home in the body of a predator.
The swamp startles as it feels a shift in the balance. A reluctant predator hunting willing prey. It has never seen this before. It holds its breath, and the air goes still, even silencing the chattering of cicadas and the far off singing of stars. What will happen if the cycle shifts? If the balance between life and death unwinds itself, an unequal exchange of life? The balance is what governs the swamp and holds it in place, trapped in still air and still waters, steadfast and enduring against the seasons and changing tides of the outside world. It knows the law. So does the creature, and so does the girl. All three move together, each one willing something the other cannot surrender to.
The girl can feel her pulse quickening and feeds off the fluttering in her chest, as if the swamp is encouraging her heart to skip across the surface of the water. Again, she feels movement below her, something rough brushing against the soft underside of her thigh. Finally, it is time for my baptism.
The creature feels a low, resilient tugging at his gut, scraping against the inside of his tough outer skin. It is a desperation not to kill, but to be full, to feel that warm satisfaction, to tame the thrashing hunger in his stomach once again. It fights against the feeling, willing itself to turn away and find some other creature to satiate that all-consuming tug. But the white floating figure, so similar to the crescent moon she clings to for comfort, is too tempting. A roaring urge forces itself into the creature’s brain, blocking out all else. Its eyes darken, lanterns dimming to tawny slivers of need. It swims up and moves against the girl’s leg.
The girl feels her peace approaching quickly. Gently, she feels a tug. Then, more firmly, something wraps itself around her, and slowly begins pulling her forward, then down. She casts her eyes upwards as the stars slowly blink out, and the moon is finally carved away, disappearing
into the shadows of godlike trees. She basks in the peace as water seals itself around her face, salty brine mixing with tears. The girl lets the ghost of a final smile haunt her lips, whispering a final message to her savior. Thank you.
The creature bides its time. It wraps its tail around her body, pulling slightly harder. No eating yet, just a slow descent into the swamp, a slow death ended by flashing white teeth. It waits until she is fully submerged, then turns to hold her limp body under the water. Her eyes are closed, mouth open, letting the swamp circulate its way into her lungs, slowly taking over. She begins to thrash, but the creature is ready, pressing itself against her. It can smell her blood, smell the life draining out of her slowly. It can imagine the softness of flesh sliding between its teeth, the intense warmth of taking life into its own body. It can no longer resist. It bites.
The swamp sighs as the water stills, a warm mist hanging low over the waters. It watches the growing pool of dark red, as if some careless spirit has spilled cabernet, leaving it to dilute in churning water. It feels the creature ripping, warmth filling its stomach and blocking out every questioning sense that might have fluttered into its predatory mind. It listens as the hummingbird in the girl’s chest stops, and watches as her limp form becomes nothing more than another swamp specter, scraps of white fabric and dark strands of hair floating to the surface and trailing away into the midnight water. Balance restores itself, woven into the deepest corners of nature. The swamp and everything it holds knows the law, the law that sings in the heart of every drop of water, grain of silt, blade of waving grass and heart of every creature creeping along in the shadowy depths. Everything eats and is eaten.
PATH MUIR WOODS PHOTO 1 SERIES • photography
Emily Hodges
LAMB AND WOLF
LAMB AND WOLF
BC
Death has two forms, the lamb and the wolf. He often comes, leaving blood and glass in his wake, Stealing your best friend. Your mother’s father Dragged from his bed, unexpected and divinely furious. Other times, you wait for her, fingernails bleeding. With anticipation, you hold your furry friend closer; Swiftly, gently, she carries ones who left those they love: She is kind and takes their hand, leading them to the light. She takes those willing, her brother stealing who struggles. Those who resist the lamb will meet the wolf.
GROVE AND PAW • oil pastel Mae VanFleet
SUNKEN
Alex Konecy
I am a rock, tossed into murky waters
I try to skip, but it is not my nature
I try to float, but I cannot
I sink
It would be so easy, so simple to give in
Sink into the muck
Hide from the world
Disseapear to the gunk
Forgotten by the tides
I rise
I will not follow my nature
My solid body turns porus
I float
SUNKEN SUNKEN SUNKEN SUNKEN SUNKEN
Just short of the surface
Just out of the muck
THE KRACKEN • printmaking Andie Araya
REND-EGG-VOUS
REND-EGG-VOUS
Katie Avants
Which came first?
Perhaps the scientists and vegans would have varying opinions, but the child in my heart knows the answer. It would be the plate, a dusty teal, so smooth I am surprised the egg does not slide off.
And what a cartoon egg it is!
White as paper, edges like squiggles my mother always drew better than me. The yolk like a baby’s face, darling, pastel orange, and round, friends with bacon, shaped like a wobbly smile. Such a wholesome absence of straight lines.
From there, I knew shells - not like these, but my mother would have liked them, blue and green like sea glass, earth tones flecked with black, he colors she liked best, that complimented our brown eyes
NURTURE • ceramic
Holly Fischer
and olive skin.
And the chicken comes last, for he would have been least welcome at the breakfast table, though he looks tidy here, regally framed in farmhouse yellow, amber feathers he combed for the photo, thoughtfully turned profile, little majesty of eggs.
But since I never met him, let me lend him my words. His ceramic visage feeds my childhood back to me.
RESILIENCE
• ceramic Kelsey Smith
EPHEMERAL CANVAS • natural found objects
MEREDITH SNOWFLAKE • photography
Emily Hodges
MJ Russell
ARTINDEX ART
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LITERATURE INDEX
ARTAWARDS
JURIED BY Meredith College’s Circus Design
Studio Colton Review Design Team
BEST IN SHOW
Our Joy is Resistance: A Trans Experience
Grace Thorpe
FIRST PLACE
Ebb and Flow Series
Mae VanFleet
SECOND PLACE (TIE)
Acceptance Grove and Paw
Perla Gerez Mae VanFleet
THIRD PLACE
Bird Series of 4 images (Fallen Bird, Worbler, Dead Bird, Impact Blue Bird)
Jakub Augustyn
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Anghiari, Emma Erb
Daisy Field, Kelsey Smith
Memento Mori, Perla Gerez
Trans Graphic Designer, Kamar T. August
IS RESISTANCE: A
EXPERIENCE
OUR JOY
TRANS
• acrylic on canvas
Grace Thorpe
POETRY AWARDS
PROSE AWARDS
JURIED BY Bridget Bell
LITERATURELITERATUREAWARDS
Bridget Bell’s poetry collection, All That We Ask of You Is to Always Be Happy (CavanKerry, 2025), which explores maternal mental health was called an “urgent, cleareyed debut” by the New York Times Book Review. She is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Support Grant and teaches composition and literature at Durham Technical Community College. Additionally, she pours points at Ponysaurus Brewery in Durham, NC and proofreads for Four Way Books, a literary press based in Manhattan. Originally from Toledo, Ohio, she is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence’s MFA program in creative writing. You can find her online at bridgetbellpoetry.com.
FIRST PLACE
215 State of Mind, Katie Avants
215 State of Mind exemplifies what an effective sonnet can do. The rhyme scheme is followed perfectly without being too self-conscious–this is achieved through the successful use of enjambment. Additionally, I admire how the concise diction (“blessed by trust / of parchment and bifocals”) conjures up huge ideas like our nation’s history and founders. Finally, that shift to the direct address in the final line provides the classic sonnet turn–the poem becomes a beautiful, complex love letter for this city that “breathes a lusty grey.”
SECOND PLACE
Tribulations, Grayson Morris
Tribulations excels in the realm of fresh imagery. Void of cliché, this poem surprises the reader with phrases like “bouquet of hell flowers” and a “grapevine around my tongue.” And, yes, please, can I talk to the sommelier who knows “what wine goes best with regret”? Resisting a straightforward narrative thread, this piece takes the reader on a compelling imagistic journey rife with a myriad of “tribulations.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Guillotine, Molly Scrivner
Beneath the dark humor in Guillotine there is the simmering rage of a speaker who has been let down by their government. The poem comes across as a plea–“So please, tell me more about guillotines”–but to whom, we don’t know. And that’s why the poem is effective–there’s a comingling of desperation and fury that captures the current emotional state of so many Americans right now.
JURIED BY Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
Ashleigh Bryant Phillips is the author of Sleepovers (Hub City Press, 2020). Stories from it have appeared in the Paris Review and the Oxford American. Sleepovers is also the winner of the C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize and the Towson Prize for Literature. Ashleigh’s short stories have been translated into Italian, Urdu, and Farsi. She’s a graduate of Meredith College and earned an MFA from UNCW. She currently teaches creative writing at Appalachian State University.
FIRST PLACE Repeat, Madison Myers
Reading Repeat is like being taken over by an obsessive dizzying worry. Like when splitting headaches come out of nowhere—you have no control. Only relief when it ends.
SECOND PLACE
Litany for the Philanthrope, Lola
Mestas
“In Litany for the Philanthrope, the POV zooms in and out and in and out– from our foreheads to ancient landscapes. A meditation for the age of self-obsession. And a reminder that our everyday lives are fascinating–if we’re only poet enough to call forth their riches.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Pancakes & Figs, Ellery Wilde
Replicating stream-of-consciousness back and forths, Pancakes & Figs captures the complicated journey the self enters when in a committed relationship. Confronts what’s lost and gained with romantic/unromantic honesty.
VOWEL SERIES, COLOR–TESSERA A, TESSERA E, TESSERA I, TESSERA O, TESSERA U • graphic design • Dana Ezzell
DESIGN STAFF
Co-Art Directors/ Graphic Designers
McKenzie Bowling
Ashleigh Hare
Illustrators
Andie Araya
Kamar T. August
Faculty Design Advisor & Creative Director
Dana Ezzell, Professor of Graphic Design, Graphic Design Program Director, Department of Art
LITERATURE STAFF
Co-Managing Editors
Lauren Shaw
Catherine Stanley
Poetry Editor
Jessica Chapman
Prose Editor
Katie Avants
PRODUCTION NOTES
Printer Printivity
Copies 500
Type Families Georgia, Shree Devanagari
Writer–Editors
Cae Bowers
Carly Casas
Lauren Dixon
Katharine Dobbs
Carly Fox
Lola Mestas
Gianna Pasquale
Molly Scrivner
Riana Wilson
Faculty Literary Advisor
Ashley Hogan,
Associate Professor of Practice, Director of Creative Writing, Department of English
