DAY PLANNER VOL. 2 by Day Planner Magazine

DAY PLANNER VOL 2 :: SUMMER 2017

WRITINGS :: CREATIONS :: PHOTOGRAPHY

ALIEN ‘A Distant Land’

:: Corey Westendorf

WATCH IT SLIP AN ALIEN’S GUIDE SEVERANCE Jordan Jenkins Christopher Ronan Conway TO DATING Anna Hovland THE FATE OF UCHUBITU :: MEN KOJUN Emily Rampone Alex Gennette EYES, NOSE, MOUTH AGORAPHOBIA MARMALAISE Alexandra Haniford

Stephanie Dinkmeyer

Natasha Bennetts

DAY PLANNER creatives editor-in-chief Mattie Wong poetry/prose editor Benjamin Walker contributors Natasha Bennetts James Conkling Emily E. Crawford Christopher Ronan Conway Leah Danze Stephanie Dinkmeyer Alex Gennette Alexandra Haniford Michael Hechme Anna Hovland Jordan Jenkins Martin Phillip Emily Rampone Benjamin Walker Katie West Mattie Wong cover image Corey Westeroff on the web at dayplannermag.com

DAY PLANNER was conceived as a way to encourage finishing projects and exploring ideas. Sometimes, all we need is a deadline to help us buckle down and work on those things we put off day-in and day-out. Life has a way of sneaking up on you and suddenly you realize youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve set aside your creative goals for six months, a year, or even longer. DP is a contributor-based magazine that gives our creatives and thinkers the platform to display whatever work they can finalize by the submission date. We hope our words and pictures enlighten, surprise, and perhaps inspire you to start with renewed enthusiasm on projects inspired by your own unique brilliance. -MW illustrations :: Joani Maher

eyes, nose mouth :: poetry Stephanie Dinkmeyer

The Fate of Men :: essay Emily Rampone

stench :: poetry Katie West

table of contents

One to One :: cartography James Conkling

Be Bold, Brave Lion :: poetry Michael Hechme

Severance :: poetry Christopher Ronan Conway

The Politics of Hiding and Being Hidden :: short story Mattie Wong

Marmalaise :: photography An Alienâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide to Dating Natasha Bennetts Tikkan Olam :: poetry :: visual Benjamin Walker Anna Hovland

Uchubito Kojun :: visual Alex Gennette

Agoraphobia :: photography Alexandra Haniford

Watch it Slip :: short story Jordan Jenkins

Dispatches from the Road :: photo essay Martin Phillip

Working Title :: work in progress Emily E. Crawford

Special Thanks

This edition of DAY PLANNER is in memory of Mark Hulsether McKee. You will always live in the thunder, always live in the sound.

letter from the editor

Feeling alien is possibly the most relatable human condition. For many of us, it brings back embarrassing memories of puberty, of sweaty armpits and blood between our legs, deciding whether to fit in or stand out, getting thrown off by our own reflections in mirrors. For others, the feeling of alien starts much sooner-- whether it stems from not belonging in a certain family, or not belonging in the prevailing society, being treated differently in such a consistant manner that we start to normalize the situation. It is simply very relatable to feel unrelatable. The word alien has a metallic taste when you say it -- like biting down on a bullet. Society wants something to be alien for only a short while, a placeholder until a better definition comes along. Because of this, we are conditioned to rid ourselves of our alienness as soon as possible. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m here to beg you: Please Stop. I propose a twist to our definition of alien. Instead of alien meaning something or someone unknown and non-human, alien is actually the beginning of humanity, the beginning of knowledge. Being alien is to be fully human, free from prepackaged explanations and definitions. Leaning into your otherness creates a more true cohesion in our society than denying it. All of us aliens at DAY PLANNER wish to share with you a bit of our terrestrial and extraterrestrial glory, now one and the same thing. To new aliens and reclaimed aliens, welcome. The world needs you. My biggest hope for you is that you know there is a place in this world for your otherness, and that you start to feel comfortable in being uncomfortable. Thank you for your bravery, and gather your courage where you can. -Matt

illustration :: Leah Danze

eyes, nose, mouth :Stephanie Dinkmeyer:

i come in peace but certainly you’ve heard that one before alien is listening but being unable to hear alien is looking very hard but never really seeing or being seen without anyone looking very hard alien is being 13 and hearing that two planes had flown into buildings and asking “is that bad?” alien is the thick, dry, intentional slice of silence before the teacher says “yes.”

she does not yet know the alien of being and hating the same thing

alien is arriving in peace but they’re still afraid because none of the makeup in their drawers would match you none of their socks would fit you people would notice you and only you in photos alien is small talk with your best friend because we are better than this Alien is beginning prose in the middle of a poem because you’ve tired yourself. Just kidding. Tiring oneself (myself) is the least alien of all. Tiring oneself (myself) is actually home. i asked my niece what alien is she said green face eyes nose mouth

she does not yet know the alien of seeing your own face eyes nose mouth turn into your mother’s or in my case my father’s

she does not yet know the alien of anything really she’s 4, thank god but what i now know and hope that she one day knows is that as alien every day when i land and i step out of my craft and i puzzle and i twist and i gasp and i gnaw to become less alien and more… something else or at least to understand the something else that i am not more and more i inhale the fact that all of the answers i seek blanks i want filled in words i would die to define are actually none of my business and i am peace

the fate of men :Emily Rampone:

Rampone yet brings us into her world of insects, contemplating the lives of creatures most of us wish to avoid. This installment exposes a cringeworthy veiw of wasps and their spider victims. There’s a gentle breeze outside my window. It’s one of those blissful summer evenings, when the zephyrs caress bare legs and the setting sun kisses cheeks and for a few hours it feels like we all might live in San Diego. In this peaceful moment, I am reminded that across this great nation, warm, summer dusk is ripe for wasps’ ritual spider torture. Though feasting for most of their lives on nectar and honeydew, wasps cannot fulfill their genetic destiny without violent death.

Wasps and spiders. Mortal foes. But both feared by humans, so who cares if they kill each other? You should. And I don’t mean for some higher moral purpose, preserving the ecosystem, saving the rainforest, hippie mumbo jumbo. I mean if you were a ‘90s baby whose parents forgot some of the finer details of Alien and let you watch it before you could handle the hotness of Sigourney Weaver stripping or the bloody John Hurt moment, I have news.

Alien is real. Much like the alien in Ridley Scott’s seminal masterpiece of the late 1970’s, spider-torturing wasps convert an existing burrow (or spaceship) for their young. Then begins the hunt for a suitable host. If you are of the genus Anoplius in the eastern United States that will likely mean you are hunting for a wolf spider. If you are an oversized, spiny extraterrestrial, this will mean hunting for a human, preferably a likable one with minimal backstory. Remember when John Hurt goes from having a tummy ache at dinner to a baby alien bursting from his abdomen? Spider wasps inflict this same fate on spiders nightly. And much like poor John Hurt, spiders are alive for much of the gestation. Like any loving mother, mama alien wants her baby to have a nice hot meal. The host survives the initial egg implantation and young larvae saves its host’s vital organs for last.

: Katie West:

While most species simply sting her victims into paralysis, insert a single egg, rip off a few to eight legs, and shove the host in her nest, some wasps’ rituals are pure science fiction. Healthy spiders spin webs in a consistent, circular patter and slurp the juices out

of insects they have encased. Infected spiders, in contrast, take commands from their larval guest. The larvae rewires the spider’s brain to cocoon rather than spin, and the spiders encase themselves in a silvery pillow. So as you mull over the gruesome natural world, wondering if

goodness is achievable for any species, let me leave you with a joke: A spider and a wasp walk into a bar, and the bartender says to the wasp, “I can’t serve you, you’re pregnant!” The wasp rolls all five of her eyes and politely folds her wings, “Not much longer.” The spider turns to the barback, “Can you get a load of

one to one

this feminazi? Drinking while she’s carrying a baby?” The wasp whips around, paralyzes the spider, and lays her eggs in his thorax. Such is the way of the new world order. Long may the matriarchy reign.

:James Conkling:

Here we are looking at the southern coast of China, Taiwan, and various pieces of countries in south Asia. In this density map, Conkling works off the assumption that the number of Pokemon Go! players and population is correlated at a ratio of 1:1.

be bold brave lion :Michael Hechme:

Be bold brave lion Behold the beautiful sights For one day everyone you love will be washed away But do not fright The water will rise The sun will burn The flesh of man will crackle and yearn

Be bold brave lion Into the night For when darkness falls Do not fright The oil fires will light your way Guide you to another day To the house on the hill Of those you were meant to kill

an alien’s

:Alex Gennette:

‘Uchubito Kojun’ is an imagined Japanese existentialst movie created for DP by graphic designer Alex Gennette. Translated to ‘Alien Kojun’ we are prepared to imagine through a series of three movie posters what exactly the meaning of alien is in this context, and what problems and thoughts the unknown characters, represented by a lack of color, might be grappling with.

guide to

dating

:Anna Hovland:

Homage to the pieces and parts of online dates that took me from feeling disembodied from myself (an alien, if you will), after a rough breakup to something more closely resembling a human.

uchubito kojun

AGORA

PHOBIA

:Alexandra Haniford:

By stepping outside of our private dwellings and away from the safety we feel in our virtual worlds we can engage with nature. By looking to focus our time on nature’s beauty, a socalled “third space” that is not provided by capitalist companies, we can begin to expand our imaginations as we once did while children, bringing relief to some of our anxieties.

This work is part of an ongoing series by the artist to be continued over multiple years and locations.

I heard the piper’s drone at dawn from half-a-mile away As I from Prince’s Landing Stage looked out upon on the bay Where he stood upon a pillar – rigid, pressing in his tone – As the ship moved down along the pier I heard the piper drone. A mourning note of severance from those still on the shore And five hundred-fifty exiles flown where exiles went before – Five thousand gallons water and five hundred-fifty men, A full three thousand miles ‘til we’d see the shore again. I slept the night in Croxteth Road – I was a lonely man – Imagining the breath of her I left in Birmingham – Her breath upon my neck, her slender hands across my breast, Her eyes on me in morningtime as I in silence dressed. When day was full the coast was gone but for the washed-out peaks – The spires of city churches visible still from the decks I walked the Île de France’s deck – my heart was black with grief – As my thrill of going spalled to horrors now at last I leave. I smelled the salt spray from the sea – too like the stream of tears, Flowing bitter from my face – the sins of six-and-twenty years Paled in my heart to how I chose the emptiness and pain, The emptiness I chose for us when I went o’er the main, No more to feel her breath and sweat and hands, no more her hips Would press and sway, while walking quiet streets, against my fingertips, No more to hear – when I from my fond lover did depart – Her whisper “Seán a chara” and “mo chroí, my love, my heart.” ***

I could hear a piper playing By Lough Arrow’s quiet tide, With my parents and relations dear

severance :Christopher Ronan Conway:

On a turfgrass-clad hillside. As their seisiún music rambled on In Castlebaldwin town From the rim of hills surrounding us I saw her walking down. On the nettled-thatched brake she kissed her mouth so sweet and raw As she leaned against me – at last off the road from Ballina – Leaning – intertwining fingers, grasping, holding me at last, With ancient songs stirring the air, recalling the past. I and Evelyn left the vale in nineteen-forty-four, Across green hills to urban Pale – a flat in Inchicore – To walking strands in hand with her besides the Irish Sea, To join our friends who’d gone before, to loving poverty, To desire nothing more than silent summer eves and nights, Than making love in morning lit from windows’ early city lights, Than Ballyfermot’s pubs with music sessions warm within, Rooms filled with Diarmuid’s pipes, and Michael Devlin’s violin. Yet when the first few wrinkles seared into our faces we Joined the droves to Liverpool, our native land to flee – Our jobless native land, so full of native idle men – And by ‘forty-nine from British earth I left my home again, At the gunwale of a coffin ship beneath an endless sky As the western ocean swallowed us the laughter died and I Cursed the furnace driving us Farther yet from the quay

photograph:: Christopher Ronan Conway Passing the horizon’s limit Into isolated sea. *** An immigrant’s shrill chanter-pipe rose o’er the ocean’s din Eight days from Liverpool and twenty-two K-rations in To signal to five-hundred-fifty men – to stupefy Them with the sight of Brooklyn’s dreary waterfront beneath the sky. In the final half-an-hour of the wild Atlantic road I could not join the revelry of my fellows in the crowd As I doubted deep the cold and bitter calculus I made – Her love for me against the freedom of a new world weighed. Broadway’s outbound canyon intersecting Dyckman Street Was catchment for we exiles of the shamrock shore’s worn feet. A glass of porter raised high in the Archway on Jerome And in the Piper’s Kilt of Inwood, with my comrades far from home –

To all our lovers and our friends, far from the Hackney Downs And from London Fields and Moss-Side and the streets of Dublin town. We gathered outcasts, pressing onwards, Like the spear-tip thrust Into a void, supported by The shaft of hope and trust. As I walk home up Inwood’s stairs that wind up every hill Cut through mighty rock and cliff, I hear her say, “Seán, I love you still, I love you now and always, no soul could take your place No matter three or thirty-thousand-miles; no time nor space Could make me doubt the power and the passion of our choice, To choose to love each other.” And so I dream about her voice, And steel my faith, maintain the plan unto the very last, Not to burn uncertain future on the pyre of the past.

marmalaise :Natasha Bennetts: some film pictures of things I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to miss, taken during a period of transition.

watch it slip :Jordan Jenkins:

Charlie and J meet up with Clara under pressing circumstances, and the three of them drive off across state lines, looking for a new chance and new ending this time around. We need to go, Charlie said. A horn sounded from far off as if in response. Jesus they’re onto us, Charlie said pulling on his jacket. J noticed he hadn’t pinched his sleeves with his fingers before slipping each arm into the jacket. J thought about the bunches within. Down a narrow hallway Charlie pushed past a housekeeper and cart. The cart banged against the wall and the housekeeper swore at Charlie as J walked by, hands up in surrender. Charlie pulled on a baseball hat, readjusted his bag on his shoulder, knocked against a door. When they reached the end of the hallway, someone was sticking their head from the door Charlie’d hit. They told Charlie and J to keep it the fuck down. When the elevator arrived and the doors opened, the couple Charlie had gotten into a fight with down at the hotel bar was standing inside. They were holding each other, bleeding down their shirts. They saw Charlie and J and started yelling, stepping out of the elevator in unison, advancing on Charlie. They shoved him against the wall. J stepped inside and pressed L. Charlie pushed the man one way and ducked under the woman’s swinging fist and jammed her face against the wall behind him. He jumped into the elevator

and the doors closed. The ride down to the lobby was silent save for Charlie’s increased breathing. They stepped into the lobby and walked past the bar where people stared at them, pointing, a security guard in their midst. The security guard was wearing a blue sweatshirt with SECURITY written across the front. He looked wiry, like he smokes cigarettes all day and grabs his wife’s wrist too hard. The security guard yelled stop and started pushing chairs over trying to catch up with Charlie and J. They found their car, threw their bags over the seats into the back, got in and drove off. The security guard was banging on their windshield before they were able to gain separation. The blacktop rolled beneath. At a red light and it seemed to crave escape into the darkness. J stared hard as the red seeped into the black and grew weaker. Everything’s trying to depart, J said. That was a bust, Charlie said. Was that your card they had? J said. Charlie gave a look like come on. Then whose was it? Where did you get it? Charlie pressed the pedal down harder, passing through the last of a yellow light.

Where is she? Charlie said. Who? J said. Don’t, just don’t, J. Don’t what? Jesus, Charlie said. J opened his phone, the light too bright. He typed in words on the screen. He pressed send. Let me see, Charlie said. He reached in but J moved it away. Charlie looked into the rearview and shook his head. The phone beeped and sent a vibration into J’s hand. He opened it again to see a message from Clara. Across the bridge, she wrote, in Cincy. Let’s get out of Kentucky, J said. Ohio? Yeah, J said, she’s up there. Outside a house with a porch whose roof was dripping like a teardrop, Charlie stood watching J smoke. J’s head was spinning and he felt like sitting. When Clara opened the door, J thought he might fall down. His head ran around itself and disappeared into the air like a lie you want to believe. He put his hand against the doorframe to keep himself up. Clara said, I take it something happened. She took Charlie into the bathroom to clean the blood from his face and hands. J sat down at the kitchen table. The light was too bright and he turned it off.

He poured a drink from an open in Michigan, J said. J, don’t go bottle on the counter and drank in anywhere. Ok, he said. the dark. The next morning Charlie was Clara and Charlie came in, turning gone. He didn’t leave a note and the light back on. Charlie sat down stole thirty dollars from on top at the table in a ragged t-shirt J of Clara’s dresser. I saw him do had given to Clara. Clara poured it, Clara said as J set down a cup two glasses from the bottle and of coffee in front of her on the set them down at the table. kitchen table. The glasses from the Where’s who lives here, Charlie night before were still there and said, his eyes fixed on the floor. Clara poured some into hers and It’s some guy, Clara said looking J’s mugs. Where do you think he’s at J. He says things like lit and fire going? Clara said. Baton Rouge? when he thinks things are cool. Lit, J said. Not alone, she said. J Charlie said. looked at Clara, saw a lifetime with her, everything they’d never said Why were you in Kentucky? Why they’d do and knew they wouldn’t. are you in Cincinnati, Charlie He wanted a baby with her. He asked, draining his glass. Why are wanted to look into another any of us anywhere, Charlie? The being’s eyes and see himself and drink was making J feel better, her at the same time. I want a clearer, and he reached over and baby, he said. Yeah. Where are put his hand on Clara’s, resting on you going to get that, J, she said. the tabletop. She looked at him She poured more from the glasses and turned it over, intertwining her into their mugs and they sat there fingers with his. Her always-cold looking at each other and away in hands. silence. Where were you when Charlie was getting beaten up by this couple, ‘Do you think your face Clara asked. Standing next to them, J said. I backed up a little, shows emotion, J said. Not actually. Remind me, what was the today, please, J, she said. fight about? What are all fights about, Charlie said. Understood, It always seemed like an Clara said, taking a drink, looking oil-covered rope.’ at J. Clara is someone who looks like they’re asleep all the time while all the while never sleeping. Her eyes puffy yet blue and clean as if scrubbed with ice. The next day the guy who owned the house came back. He stood In bed, J and Clara stared at the close to eight feet high, J figured. ceiling, side by side. Their chests His bald head and face as large rose and fell and J knew. Where as J’s torso and his forehead will you go next, Clara asked, her held deep creases as if he were voice flat like she didn’t care. I in immediate confusion at all don’t know. I don’t know where times. The boots he wore left we were going in the first place, temporary craters in the floor as J said. Charlie thought there he walked. What’s up, J, he said. was something in Baton Rouge. Mi casa, su casa, he said. Then he I don’t know what. It’s so hot in disappeared upstairs along with Louisiana, Clara said. It’s too cold the sounds of his footsteps. Seems

like finding the right size would be hard, J said. Clara pinched some tobacco from the end of a cigarette and rolled it up with weed in white paper. Charlie had taken the car so Clara and J jumped in the giant man’s Ford Ranger. This is too small for him, J said. Clara turned the key and Mick Jagger told them he’d miss them through the speakers as they started rolling down the steep hill the house sat on. Clara held the wheel in one hand, the spliff in her mouth, and a lighter in her free hand, torching. These give me headaches, she said. They drove around not saying much. They rarely said a word to each other. It was a constant mystery to both what the other was thinking. At least so J thought. Clara’s eyes expressed nothing, but not in a dead way. They seemed a shield. J thought his did too, but he’d heard that if you think you don’t show emotion then you probably do. And the reverse is true. Do you think your face shows emotion, J said. Not today, please, J, she said. It always seemed like an oil-covered rope. In a half-filled parking lot for a strip mall selling homewares, electronics, office supplies, and coffee, they sat on the tailgate and let their legs dangle. Clara pushed her palms into her temples, eyes closed. J said sometimes caffeine helps with headaches. Do you want a latte, he said. Sure, that’s fine, she said. They stared toward the coffee shop and Clara put J’s arm around her and they laid down against the hard bed of the truck. A car rolled by, crunching the pavement underneath. Another and another. There were no clouds, only streaks left from planes going anywhere else or not.

J woke to his phone vibrating and five minutes or an hour had passed since they’d pulled into the parking lot. A message from Charlie told J that he was stuck somewhere in Tennessee. A brake had seized up. The tow truck guy had driven off with Charlie’s car he didn’t know where. He was sitting in a restaurant, his phone plugged in. He was ok to hang until Clara and J got there. Let’s find some place to hold up for the night, Charlie said. Clara was in the driver’s seat, J in the passenger’s, and Charlie in the middle. Can you imagine if we were any bigger, Charlie said. Wouldn’t be fitting in here that’s for sure. What about the car, J said. What car? In a motel room they were sure they’d seen a thousand times. The person at the front desk told them that as long as the card swiped, he didn’t care whose it was. Pretty weird thing for someone to say unprompted, Charlie said. Maybe he was just saying it to put you at ease but really he’s calling the cops, Clara said. Charlie looked from Clara to J. You think so? That would not be good. No, J said, it wouldn’t. Charlie scratched his arm and looked around and picked up the phone and listened for the dial tone and whatever else. Charlie was not in the chair he fell asleep in when J and Clara woke in the morning. J was holding Clara from behind and pushed himself against her, sliding his hand down the front of her underwear. She whispered something too quiet for him to hear and reached down to put her hand on his. J watched a spot on the wall until it disappeared. Clara turned around to face him. She snaked her legs in his. Let’s go to

Louisiana, she said.

‘In a motel room they were sure they’d seen a thousand times. The person at the front desk told them that as long as the card swiped, he didn’t care.’

Driving through the mountains and Charlie insisted on sitting in the bed of the truck. The motel manager sold him some kind of upper, he told them. He sat in the bed with his back to the cab, an arm draped over one side dangling in the wind. Clara drove and J kept turning around to make sure Charlie was still there.

of mints next to the register. That oxygen tank’s going to blow any minute, he said. Did you know Tchaikovsky tried to kill himself by walking into a frozen lake, Charlie said. I did not know that, Clara said. Yeah it didn’t work out. It was probably too cold, J said. The small pickup looked even smaller next to the semi trucks on the freeway. They could feel the Ranger being pulled toward every semi they passed. It’s like a suction, Clara said. Failed suicides are my favorite kind of suicides, Charlie said. Like, what could make someone want to kill themselves more than when they can’t successfully kill themselves? The fear of failing again? Yikes. No thank you, he said.

Tchaikovsky, Charlie said, also had a pretty terrible love life. One I can’t eat this, Charlie said. He’d woman said she loved him but ordered the House Special. A ultimately didn’t want to move to plate of fried chicken sat in front of Russia. Well yeah it’s way too cold, him, mashed potatoes and gravy. J said. And this other woman, I Clara tore a piece of skin off the don’t know what the problem was. chicken and dipped it in the gravy. But it didn’t work out, Charlie said. It dripped along the table as she They just couldn’t make it work, brought it to her mouth. The diner Charlie said. smelled like smoke and J watched a man with an oxygen tank light a A highway patrol car was parked cigarette. Guess it’s no big deal, along the side of the road reading Charlie said. If you’re already speeds. Charlie kept his head dying, he said and left it at that. straight but J could see him watching from his periphery. She’s Charlie disappeared into the going the speed limit, Charlie. I bathroom to take more drugs. His know that, Charlie said. I’m not eyes, J noticed, looked different worried about anything. You think than they usually did when he was I’m worried? I’m not. high, as if he were letting concern creep in. The drugs didn’t seem to I don’t think I know any be helping him any. Clara paid the Tchaikovsky, J said. Nutcracker and tab and when Charlie came out of Swan Lake and all that, Charlie the bathroom J asked if he was ok. said. I’m more of a Debussy man What, Charlie said. Is everything myself, J said. Is that right, Clara all right? It will be as soon as said. Debussy’s lost in the dream, we get out of this fucking place, Charlie said. What dream? Hey Charlie said grabbing a handful can we stop for a second, Charlie

said. I got to go do a thing. Clara pumped gas as J rolled up the weed. Charlie came out of the gas station carrying an empty two-liter bottle with the key for the bathroom attached. He walked around the side of the gas station and disappeared behind a rust-covered door. J looked through the rear window at Clara putting the pump back. Want me to drive, J said as she slid back in next to him. Nope, she said. Just make sure Charlie doesn’t open the door and fall out while we’re moving, ok? You ever watch a button fall off a shirt, Charlie said. Not right when it falls off. But more like as it’s falling off. The thread comes loose and is at first pretty short. You try and tuck it back in, keep it from losing itself even more. You forget about it and then one day look down to see the thread hanging limply, or maybe statically stuck to the shirt. You wrap the thread around itself behind the button knowing it won’t hold. You’re already thinking about the loss of that button and next thing, you look down it’s gone. You wish you’d taken care of it earlier. Or were looking just as it fell. But you weren’t. And now you have to go find a replacement, from then on looking down, being reminded, just from the pure fact of the replacement’s existence, that the original is lost to you forever. What do you know about Baton Rouge, Clara said. Not a thing, Charlie said. He was thrusting his head through the open window into the wind repeatedly. It just sounds kind of grimy, he said, his words muffled. And it’s not New Orleans. Jesus. Enough with New Orleans, you know? I’ve been to New Orleans, J said. Had a beignet. J, just shut the fuck up, ok, Charlie said. Had a café au

lait, too, J said. And the French Quarter, my God, Charlie said. You’re not going back to Cincinnati when we get to Baton Rouge, are you Clara, Charlie said. Why would I do that? Well, I’m just wondering why you’d stay, he said. Hey Charlie have you thought maybe you’ve done enough drugs? How much could you possibly have left? Enough, he said. But, really. What. Are you going to stay because of J? Like this time is going to be different? J thought Charlie had a point even if he hated him for it. Every time is different, she said. No it’s not, Charlie said. It’s really, most definitely not. J woke to Clara pulling off into a rest area. The sun was down, had been for hours, and Charlie sat next to him manically drumming his fingers together. Let’s just take a little break, Clara said. We’re about two hours out. Let’s hang here for a bit and then push the rest of the way. Charlie was already out of the truck and walking toward the bathrooms. J and Clara walked to a patch of grass and laid down. The sounds of owls and cicadas engulfed them. I’m sorry, J, she said.

‘The way the heat and humidity dripped from everything made J think of Clara, forgetting she was right next to him, holding his hand.’ Charlie came and laid down next to J. He seemed more at ease than he should, J thought. Louisiana is terrifying, Charlie

said. We’re not in Louisiana yet, Clara said. We’re in Mississippi. Mississippi is terrifying, Charlie said. Like submerging underwater, the sounds around them coated their skin and held them down, filling pores and sneaking in through mouths to grab hold. The way the heat and humidity dripped from everything made J think of Clara, forgetting she was right next to him, holding his hand. When he opened his eyes the night had turned a pale blue and Clara next to him, her skin a color he’s seen on a corpse. Charlie was not there and nowhere in sight. He leaned over and kissed Clara’s forehead and licked the salt of her sweat from his lips. She opened her eyes and said J. Hey J, Charlie said emerging from the bathrooms way off. Clara, let’s go. Time to go, he said. For the first hour, none of them spoke. J sat between the two. Charlie was turning the radio from station to station. Willie Nelson asked how things went for them today. Clara let her arm hang out the window as if it didn’t belong to her at all. Listen, Charlie said. Since we’re in this together, he said. I want to make sure that we do, most definitely, stick together. It’s Louisiana for Christ’s sake. We don’t know what we’ll run into with those hillbillies, he said. I don’t think you call people in Louisiana hillbillies, do you, J said. Rednecks, maybe, but even that sounds wrong, J said. We have to stick together, Charlie said, digging around in his pants pockets. When I was driving through Tennessee, Charlie said, I got into an accident. The breaks didn’t

seize. I got into an accident. I hit a deer. A big one and part of its antlers came through the window. And I wasn’t alone. I had picked up this girl. This little girl. Hitchhiking. We were really high. She had all this stuff. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crinkled bag of powder. And we were doing it and, he trailed off. And so we hit the deer and the head and the antlers came through the windshield and they like stuck into this girl. I had run off the road and we were in the middle of all these trees. And she was coughing blood and saying Charlie Charlie help me and all these bubbles of blood were coming from her mouth when she was saying it and she was crying and asking for help. What could I do? I couldn’t do anything. She was going to die. Right? She was already dead, right? She had glass and these fucking antlers all in her neck and face. Her chest just kept rising and falling real fast and this little moan between the blood and cries for help. But what could I do? I left her there. J, I left her there in the car. She was already gone. I mean, she was slipping away every second. I was walking back up this slope through the trees to the road and I could hear her calling for me. Calling my name. I can still hear it, J. All that blood, J. All I can hear is her moaning and spitting out my name through all that blood. When they got into Baton Rouge they found another dingy motel and checked in, paying cash up front. The room was the same, or it wasn’t. It didn’t matter. The curtains closed and the door locked and the hot water worked. Clara and J showered and when they got out Charlie was gone again. They stayed in bed and watched TV and walked across the street to buy bags of chips and

ringing the bell, waiting for the attendant to come by. I’m just dropping this off, J said, handing over the room key. The attendant looked past J, outside. J turned I used to have this dream, Clara expecting to see Charlie but no said. You and I had been fighting one was there. I just thought there about something and I walked was more of you, the attendant away and you followed. We were said. I know the girl left, he said. walking along this boulevard, arguing all the way. We passed by She left you this. He reached under the counter and came up this man, like some fifty-year-old with a small envelope with a J man, and he told us we should written on it. J thanked the man have more decency. And you walked up to him and pushed him and walked out into the heat and could have sworn he could see and he fell out of the boulevard and into the road, getting run over Charlie walking up the road in the haze of a mirage. by oncoming traffic. But then I realized the oncoming traffic was actually three police cars and the cops got out and drew their guns on you and I realized it was over. That was the dream. jerky and soda at a convenience store. They slept and woke and didn’t see Charlie again all day.

Charlie had been gone two full days and nights. J didn’t want to find him but went out looking anyway. We have to stick together, right, J said to Clara. Isn’t that what he said? J walked down sidewalks crowded with weeds, passing fences drooping low enough to step over. He walked into bars asking if anyone had seen Charlie. He drank a beer. He kept walking. In and out of doors. The humidity and sweat becoming the same. He thought of Clara and their baby. The baby he wanted. The life he wanted. He thought about her dream and felt sadness like a dull blade. It was always the same. He checked the hospital and then went back to the motel. He knew when he walked in Clara would be gone. The sheets rumpled on the bed, TV still on. He laid down and drifted off. He woke just as the deer came up in his headlights. At the front desk J stood after

dispatches from the road : Martin Phillip:

To the Illustrious (and Persistent) Editor: Thank you for your recent message, and the reminder of Day Planner’s upcoming second issue. And thank you as well for the half dozen unanswered messages before that. To answer your question, I’ve written nothing. Writing is a kind of memory, and I’ve decided to live without either for a while. However, as a good friend, and to save you what I imagine is a significant amount of time and money being spent on phone calls and postage, I dug some old pictures from the depths of a saddlebag the other night. They are perhaps a bit worse off for their rough traveling arrangements, but they’ve been farther and seen more than most. So forgive them for aging a little along the way, as pictures rarely do. You said something in your letter about a theme for the issue. Alien, or alien-ness, I think. I don’t know if these fit your theme. I think – no, I’ve found that everything is alien. Or rather, everything is unique, so how can anything be alien, or familiar, if none are the same? Consistency, patterns...ways for our brain to simplify the world into things that can be categorized, written down. Made into memory. No two things are truly alike, no two things can truly be compared to one another. So, familiarity is just….blindness. Anyway, do with the pictures as you please. No need to return them, I’ve already forgotten what I sent. -MP

artwork :: Leah Danze

the politics of hiding and being hidden :Mattie Wong:

Joshua had always seemed a certain way to those who loved him, but how much do we know of each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inner worlds? How much are we assuming?

Joshua’s hands were incongruous with his body. They would shake and tremble at odd times when he was afraid, aroused, competent, incompetent, bored, or laughing. The flutter served his wife Sarah well - she knew when he felt things overflowing from his body, and would have to shake them off from his fingertips.

the might-have-been.

at the end of Joshua’s gravel driveway before the school bus Robert had been his best friend. came, bright and energetic, while They had grown up three houses Joshua would come rolling out down from each other along a looking like a crushed up layer small road in the country that cut cake: shirttail hanging out of around the quarry, connecting sweatpants, collar half-popped two different sides of the outskirts over hoodie, mismatched socks of town. Their road was trailers rarely making it entirely on a foot. with plasticine lattice covering Robert had learned early on to the crawlspaces, stand-alone contain himself in the mornings, But he had odd timing. garages with apartments above for sitting silently by Joshua on the They would tremble with the first bachelor sons. Big pick-up trucks bus, looking out the window glass of water for the day, while with floodlights would careen by while Joshua, hood up, would doing dishes, and would be the in the nights on their way to the lean his head on the seat in front worst when changing lightbulbs. mountains, leaving fresh empty of him. Joshua would usually fall He transferred their shaking to cans of Bud on the front lawn. immediately into a grumpy nap, Sarah on their wedding day, hands bracing for the potholes he knew together exchanging vows. Again intuitively at this point. This is they shook on the marriage bed, when the trembling in his hands ‘No one in Joshua’s life the daytime lovemaking sessions started. School bus seats, unfit for of their early newlywed days, those with gangly knees, forced had ever mentioned the hot sunshine streaming through Robert and Joshua into close shaking, taking them as a proximity, and Joshua’s hands wavy glass. When the call came that Robert had died, she saw given- a bodily personality would tremble in his sleepy state a them shake and heard the rustle few seconds before every pothole. trait like slumped shoulders Robert could feel Joshua’s right of phone-against-earring, the same earring he had gotten on a hand tremble next to his left knee. or arched eyebrows.’ dare from Robert. These intense instances she understood. The Years and puberty went by, others, not so much. and Robert never said anything These they turned into rocket about the tremors. Neither did When they were first living stoves, airplanes, wind chimes. Sarah after they met. No one in together, she would come up with Joshua’s mother had collected all Joshua’s life had ever mentioned reaching explanations for these of the wind chimes and hung them the shaking, taking them as a odd occurrences- he must be so off of bamboo poles around their given- a bodily personality trait taken aback by the power of this wooden porch addition. They like slumped shoulders or arched lightbulb, of the depth of history glinted in the wind, keeping away eyebrows. And like slumped and science to bring us to this the songbirds from the vegetable shoulders or arched eyebrows, point that we can merely change garden, but attracted the crows everyone had an explanation that a lightbulb and continue to have on their rounds through the town. seemed to fit the circumstances light at night. She imagined him Every few weeks or so there was well enough to never really doing dishes and reliving all the an especially ominous day when question the act. other lives he could have had, all the crows decided to use the oak the other dishes he could have tree across the road as their roost. been washing- his mother’s, other The silence would be broken up … potential wives, perhaps plates a by the glinting flashes of the Budprison could have provided. She chimes, exciting the crows who never asked, preferring to keep would start cawing, growing in a these fantasies of her lover to chorus that could put Hitchcock The crows had entranced Joshua herself, as she hoped he kept his on edge. since he was young, tiny blonde own about her. In this way she head popping above the window expanded his influence: the reality, Robert, black hair combed back, sill, light slowly shifting over his the fantasy, the future possibility, would arrive in the mornings face. He loved how silent the

world would be except for their seemed too personal to ask about cawing. The wind would stop, another’s extra life. Robert must silence echoing between choruses. have also been an artist, in both lives, current, and con-current, The memories would start at the he had concluded, looking at the first caw, or were they imaginings? way Robert was able to wield a Didn’t really matter, he concluded paintbrush. When Joshua got later in life. They were real, there, the call that Robert had died, for inside his head. Existing in realthe first time it wasn’t the crows time, space-time, didn’t matter. that triggered his memories. The They existed to him. idea that Robert had been an artist twice over sent him into convulsions of joy— either Robert had found that Nirvana-place, or ‘He wasn’t all that his next life would truly change the world. It’s amazing how much joy religious but he heard of and grief can look like the same reincarnation once and thing.

that seemed to make sense and he never asked anyone about it ever again.’

He would remember places he had been, seemingly as an adult, though he was still a child. He remembered how hairy and large his knuckles were as he reached for a straight razor in a dimly-lit corridor, he remembered the time he broke his leg at 24, or rather the pain right after that scourged through his body. Finally, he remembered the crows picking at him, before he blacked out and seemingly faced his own death.

Joshua was barely aware he was loved because of his sensitivity to the world. People mistook his pauses for contemplation, the way he got that other-worldly look sometimes as deep wisdom. The shaking was seen as a byproduct of an especially emotional moment, or perhaps anxiety. Joshua in truth rarely noticed the world around him. The world rarely noticed his not noticing. It was far more entertaining to wonder about Joshua, but what would have happened had anyone asked him directly about the shaking?

In another life, Robert asked the first time he noticed the tremors. He lived his life half-in, half-out, Joshua had explained everything, half-aware of those who loved including the crows, and Robert, him, who never told him they not ready to hear, had scooted noticed his hands shaking. away so their legs were no longer touching, though it meant he As he grew, he wondered what was crammed against a greasy other lives the people around him window. Robert drifted away, had. He wasn’t all that religious eventually laughing and making but he heard of reincarnation once fun of his strange neighbor to and that seemed to make sense the other kids at school. A few and he never asked anyone about years later, Robert started to get it ever again. his artistic eye and view the world differently, but was terrified by He imagined his wife Sarah as these deviations from the norm a Baroness, but never asked; it in his own behavior. He shut his

mind down, replacing it with a high intensity interpretation of normality — he was afraid he’d be made fun of in the same way he had made fun of Joshua. Joshua never met Sarah, and Sarah found another man she placed stories into, creating patterns out of lottery numbers, seeing destinies in the wood grain of her friends’ kitchen tables.

tikkan olam Benjamin Walker

I. I’m not really known to dance – but like stories of eggs standing on end at the equinox, some people swear they’ve seen it. They say you just need a recipe for the right drink, notes for the bass-line. This is why some demons, some saviors, some light-shows on the horizon are nonsense until the day they’re scripture. These are the myths people build walls to keep out. Four out of the ten aliens we want to expel came here on airplanes. Most of them had yet to commit a crime when their feet hit ground. They came from the ground. They return to the ground. No one really travels, in the end. We only have home, and those bald enough to deny it. I hear the winter’s over, but it might as well stay – everything that matters is still frozen, on hold like a creator’s breath, watching their child’s first steps. I’m downstairs trying to rekindle the pilot light with a map of valves & pipes, black Sharpie-scrawled on the basement wall, but the mapmaker’s long gone, and that landlord drew this from God-knows-what angle.

42 II. No one should bother to ask if an end is coming. That question has been answered with a clean cut – no jagged ends, no sinew hanging to the breast. You’re here to wonder just how many ends will come at once, and whether they’ll get along – one flesh, standing tall and crowing as the ax comes down. Tonight, in a slave-built mansion, a lonely man is seducing his own reflection off a television screen. Somewhere in the Naval Observatory, another is getting hard while binging The Handmaid’s Tale. On the same earth, hurtling the same direction around the sun, a small body washes ashore in a red tee. I take it on faith that once, we had all the light we needed gathered in one place, and a vessel that held it. We had bread & circuses, but they felt nothing like this.

III. I can see your head buoy in the sharp current, your nostrils teasing water (just sink into it already, you’re killing me), telling me you never needed to learn to swim. Who the hell needs their own library when an evidence locker will do? One plague down, nine more coming. I know people who feel it when they pass your bolted door. How selfish of you, to have a home of all things and to keep it this way. Try laying bricks for a thousand miles. Inspect the work from low orbit. Walk out of Egypt and take your time. These myths kill just like any other, believe me. But trace the route back far enough, and you will discover that while you may never know home, you’ve also never known a stranger.

:: illustrations :: Leah Danze

working title :Emily Crawford:

These images are video stills from the film currently in process from Emily Crawford, temporarily called “Level Up”). The documentary explores three gamers’ experiences living with mood and anxiety disorders and the ways in which digital games can help people manage a variety of psychological issues. The primary goals of the film are to destigmatize mental illness and promote awareness of the power of digital games to help people.

camera for ‘controller’ and ‘wall’: Jean-Michel Christopher T. Fischre

This still series was inspired by the modern editing process of staring at a laptop screen for hours, scrubbing through footage in search of just the right moment. It is a meditation on work in progress and documentary filmmaking more broadly. These stills in particular are all from one of the very first shoots, when the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s concept was still embryonic, vague and full of possibilities. Follow the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s progress (and suggest better titles) at https://www.facebook.com/ levelupdocumentary/.

:: 44

special thanks to our sponsors :: Robert Green Susan Cunningham Robert Leming Kevin Hann

Christopher Ronan Conway Lynn Haniford Alex Gennette Anna McGrady

We couldn’t have started this magazine without your support. Thank you for believing in us, and helping us bring DAY PLANNER to print.

contributors Natasha Bennetts is from the Flathead Valley in Montana. She likes hikes and bikes and her puppy. You can catch more of her work at flickr. com/photos/natashabennetts. James Conkling is a web developer and cartographer. Occasionally he takes a stab at living in the real world. Find more of his work at http://jameslaneconkling.github.io/. Emily E. Crawford is a filmmaker, writer, and student (among other things) living in Washington, DC. She makes films and other media for social impact and writes about digital games, film, and culture. Twitter: @e_e_ crawford

Christopher Ronan Conway is a student, writer, photographer, and player of the accordian, currently based in Minneapolis. Lover of old city blocks and the years of stories layered on them. Leah Danze hails from Dallas, Texas and is currently working on her Master’s in Art Therapy at NYU. Stephanie Dinkmeyer lives and works in a town once dubbed “The Most Radioactive Town in America.” Her work has previously been published by Rookie, HelloGiggles, and Thought Catalog. She worships words and it gets her in all sorts of trouble.

Alex Gennette is a Designer & Art Director from rural Vermont, now based in San Francisco. He is currently creating 3D work that evokes a feeling of solitude and wonder in an art series titled ‘the dark world’. When not creating he can be found hiking in Marin with an ace in his back pocket. www.alexgennette.com Alexandra Haniford is a fine art photographer, currently living in the small town of Troutman, North Carolina. Her favorite things to do outside of photography are bike rides, thrifting for old records, upcycling cool finds, drinking espresso while chatting with friends, and listening to local bands at the town venue -- The Bathtub Gin in Moorsville, NC. You can find more of her work at alexhaniford.com Michael Hechme is currently a student, gardener, and a soap maker who writes in his spare time and resides in NYC. Anna Hovland is a digital storyteller and intuitive spirit healer based out of DC. Jordan Jenkins has a Master’s in English and a dog. He is currently working on a novel. Please purchase when/if available.

inspirations do not come from one medium, but from the desire and need to express. Mattie Wong calls a different place home depending on the day. She is the editor of DAY PLANNER. Corey Westendorf is 31 years old and a life long Michigander. His main areas of concentration are environment concepts and illustration. His pieces often have a darker feel to them, sometimes an element of danger, action or mystery. He tries to keep things fresh and stay away from specific styles in the hopes of not getting too specialized while continuing to grow.

Please find DAY PLANNER at dayplannermag.com and on FB to keep updated on future volumes, events, and how to get involved.

Joani Maher works on her creative confidence by making meditation drawings and watercolors. More of her projects can be seen at hayrita.com. She is currently working on her Master’s of Integrative Health and hoping to link her love of calm living, chill pets, and gabbing with smart women into one blissful existence. Benjamin Walker currently writes and works as a civil servant in Harrisburg, PA. He recieved a MFA from Hollins University in 2012. His poetry has appeared in PANK, SOFTBLOW, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Prick of the Spindle, and OccuPoetry, among others. He is the poetry and prose editor of DAY PLANNER. Emily Rampone describes policy and politics by day and welcomes this opportunity to use her own voice at night. She hopes the reader will find her piece more interesting than technical accounts of federal rule-making procedure. She lives in DC with her two cats and husband. Katie West is a phototgrapher and digital media specialist living and working in New York City doing various jobs and projects. Her

write it in your day planner and do it every day; write it in your day planner, before you fade away.