Echo 2014 by Echo Literary Magazine

Echo 2014

Echo Literary Magazine 2014 Liberal Arts Honors

Editorial Staff Editor-in-Chief: Katherine Thayer Production Editor: Aza Pace Design Editor: Sarah Lusher Poetry & Prose Readers: Miranda Adkins Keith Padraic Chew Jessica Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Shea Emily Varnell Haley Williams Prose Readers: Bessie Bronstein Thomas Hunter Galbraith Madeline Grigg Kori Morris Poetry Readers: Kendall DeBoer Caleb Parker Kenneth Williams

Editor’s Note When Aza, Sarah, and I were chosen as Echo’s editors for 2013-14, we knew that we would have large shoes to fill. Our predecessors had been running Echo for the past three years, and they had accomplished a great deal with the journal. During that time, we benefited from the opportunities they created: opportunities to see our creative work in print, enjoy our peers’ creations, and gain experience as submission readers. Now it was our job to provide those opportunities to a new generation of students. The previous editors left us with plenty of advice about how to accomplish this task. However, because they all graduated simultaneously, we had to confront any unexpected questions without the benefit of experience. Fortunately, we always had our dedicated fellow editors on which to rely. We’re also grateful to the record number of students who chose to read submissions this year. We enjoyed seeing them gathered around the table in the Liberal Arts Honors office, sharing their thoughts about each piece. Seeing this year’s issue of Echo come together has been a wonderful experience. The authors have expressed excitement at having their work in print, and we’re excited for them. We’re also glad to announce that next year’s editors will have an experienced member among them, as Aza Pace takes the role of Editor-in-Chief. We can only imagine how Echo will grow and change in the future, but we have faith that it will be a joy to see. - Katherine Thayer

Table of Contents Poetry 8 Blooming Amber Martin 9-10 Yet Again Amber Martin 11-12 Barb Amber Martin 13 Road Song Jonathan Lowell 14-15

Skins, After Rain

Jonathan Lowell

16 Greyscale Matthew Garner 17 Chapstick Matthew Garner 17 Grocery List Matthew Garner 18-19 Amaurosis David Wilkinson

Prose 22-34

Eyes Open

Sylvia Kim

35-51

The Five Muses

Lara Kelly

Photography Keith Padraic Chew

Cover Alan’s Theremin 10 Flamingo 12 It Was Fear of Myself That Made Me Odd 15 Era Extraña 16 Why Am I the One 18 Double-O-Seven 19 Big Tortoise 34 Eye of the Llama 51 Oh, So Sweet

Blooming // Amber Martin I once was a girl. I once lay in the womb of my mother. I once told a clown that my mother was bitter because she choked on her own uterine lining after eating for two. I once told my mother that I hated how “mom” sounded as opposed to flower; Because both bloom and spring upward and out, push forth what is a brutish injustice. Both sit firmly in the earth with their restless buds, undeterred by Nature’s breath.

These honorable builders of the kingdom, the construction workers of birthday cakes and growing pains and heartaches and candy canes for a childhood Christmas and knee pads for crash courses in reality, must be remembered as the ones who had to stand by as their work fell into lineal ruins.

Yet Again // Amber Martin This is the hand that touched your side and caressed the flaps that protect your thigh and wiped the moisture from atop your lip that marked my territory. In those pillowcase memories you leave your imprint on the soft spring mattress that has felt the rhythm and knows whose legs are whose and on what cheek sits that benign mark of beauty. That is the hand that in this realm would be considered unlike mine, a heavy specimen that only touches and clutches and caresses the flesh that is solid and live in color. I dream an endless dream in which you are me and I am as solid as the surface from which I leap. I land on one foot and one knee and pray to a cloud that I will rise with both feet on the ground. A breeze slides past and past and through those drops that splash, splatter, splat. 9

My knee scarred, feet dry, I awake still floating. My pillow sinks. How much more weight can it hold?

Barb // Amber Martin Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m as free as a bird--the bird that crashes into opaque boundaries and blocked clusters of wood and fences, carefully mended fences, shoved into the ground to protect the untainted. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m as free as the bird that hears its own littles cooing above in a haven of maimed sticks. I search for bits, too late to find anything of substance. The calling never ends, the cries and chirps employed by the malnourished. I search for bits, my mind as high as the branch offering shade for the babies. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m as free as the bird that has met Death and watched as my rebel clothing, that tough layer of battle spoils, was blown away to the unfamiliar side of the road with fossilized prints. Only the feathers remain.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m as free as the bird that watches freedom float and float like the snow that sticks to windshields and mowed lawns and rusty bikes and the coats of birds that forgot that winter was near. We are a delicate group, large in number, weighed down by aortaed sacs of clotted fluid and heavy livers.

Road Song // Jonathan Lowell Wincing and stalled on the side of the highway, I was rummaging through my book of maps when you flew in through the crack in the window. Just another feather shedding herself from some southbound bird, preferring drift to migration. “Let me rest awhile on your floorboard,” you said. “I want to live by the ocean.” You nuzzled my shoe as we headed east through the night. Conversation leached through the car like wet sand poured through a perforated bucket. Dawn came and blinded us and the hot sun stirred the winds, lifting all things not held down. Now, as you scramble up the side door, be sure to listen to what pours through the window. At first it sounds like the unison roar of a burst dam. But after awhile on the road, your ears adjust, and you begin to pick up the cracked harmonics of wind. The low tractor rumblings of heaving earth, the swirling alto sheets hanging from the clothesline, the high tenor whine of a distant ambulance traveling in some unknown direction. 13

Skins, After rain //

Jonathan Lowell In the night of rain you sat up in your bed and your mind reached out to mine. I was huddled in the park under the awning of the jungle gym, in exile from lightning. In the morning, the sky was raging pink and I was pointing upwards when you came and picked me up by the belt and took me out behind your house to dry in the backyard sun. You hung our bodies together, stretched out longways across the wire. In the afternoon, the breeze weaved its way through gaps where just hours before there had been none. I clung to you like wet jeans and we shivered both warm and cold. but then, like wrinkles in drying fabric, the stories of our skins emerged. 14

You kissed the back of my altar boy knees and I ran my hand across your cross-hatched stomach and I felt like I was finally inching my way off the map of the only country I had ever known.

Greyscale // Matthew Garner My eyes are wide like empty cups that were once filled with the stuff dreams are made of. I heard that in a film once Something I watched in black and white with the lights off next to a girl I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know who reminded me of someone I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite remember. And the stars that night were dim for they were dying, even though they did not know it yet.

Chapstick // Matthew Garner When I first saw my father He was wearing jeans and a sweater that had a buffalo on the front of it. His dad had died one night earlier as it rained in Missouri and a man in a truck lost control. My father sat on the stairs with a phone in his hand and tears in his mouth. A mouth with lips that smelled like the Chapstick he carried in his front pocket.

// Grocery List To do (Most pressing) Call her and tell her I love her. I need more milk, and the store closes at ten. I better get going. It wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be soon now, before long. 17

Amaurosis // David Wilkinson Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure which are worse; The days when I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see her face in my mind. Or those when she is all I see,

When the clouds are the contours of her cheekbones, When running water is the light through her hair, When a petal is the tip of her ear, When maple wood is the nape of her neck.

Sometimes I wonder which I would choose, given the choice; blinding darkness or light that only refracts one way.

Eyes Open // Sylvia Kim Eyes shut. Bang. Eyes open. Heartbeat. The flashbacks have been getting worse. Every time I see a bus drive by I feel it. Bang. A car gets too close. Bang. The car skids. Bang. I’m in a moving vehicle. Bang. Eyes shut. Dead. Eyes open. Alive. My counselor gave me this deep breathing exercise so that I could relax and get my mind away from all the bad things. “Breathe in 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4, out 2, 3, 4.” I’m not even sure if those numbers are right. It doesn’t really work for me anyways. I’ve created a different exercise instead to prevent my mind from seeing things. I call it people making. Riding the bus has given me the chance to see different people face to face without actually having to make contact with them. I watch the passengers who try not to look conspicuous and fade away into their seats and then I make up their identity, their story. It’s what I envision their lives to be once they reach their stop and get off the bus. ***** A little girl is sitting on her father’s lap on the front left corner of the bus right now. They take up all three of the bottom seats because of their stroller and big wide unfashionable bag all new parents wear on their shoulder, filled with things that will keep their child happy. She can’t be more than three or four years old. She has these enormous brown eyes with gorgeous brown lashes. The kind 20

people buy when they turn 15 and want to look like the women on Cover Girl ads on top of the mascara aisle at CVS or Wal-Mart. She is flawlessly adorable. I learned in my Psychology class that making that “Awwwww” sound when seeing things like babies or bunnies is practically innate. It’s because of their disproportionally large facial features in comparison to their much smaller body, the Kewpie Doll effect. Well, whatever it is, you can’t help falling in love with her tiny fingers and shoes. She smiles without questions. Her curly brown hair bounces when the bus goes over potholes as she makes an up and down roller coaster sound with her cartoon voice. Her dad feeds her gold fish which she accepts gleefully and pushes through her puzzle pieced teeth. She chews vigorously, with her mouth shut and open quicker than the flip of a coin. She cries when a goldfish hits the floor and smiles again as she finds another one already swimming towards her mouth. Daddy’s there to recover all wrongs. He reaches into the Tupperware and makes the goldfish swim up and down to satisfy the daughter’s heart. Her father brushes her hair with his fingers and smiles back at her with nothing but uncontaminated love for an uncontaminated daughter. There is a light in their eyes. When she smiles, it lights up his world. Any pain the father felt in the past has died, and been purified through the birth of his daughter, the birth of their innocence. Once the bus stops, they’ll go back to their home, a step up from a shoebox and down from a middle class suburb. He’ll make 21

her some mac and cheese while she watches the wiggles on TV. They’ll be joined by pregnant mom and they’ll all take turns saying grace while holding each other’s soft and warm hands before they eat and think of baby names. The dad will want a son, the mom will want a daughter, and the little girl will want a superhero or pet tiger. She doesn’t quite understand the idea of reproduction yet. I smile at them and release a sigh. I wonder why I was in such a hurry to grow up. I wonder why all kids are always in such a rush to grow up. Kids expect things will be so much grander and greater when you get older. Things don’t get better when you’re older. Maybe they don’t get worse either. But you can’t cry over spilled goldfish when you grow up. And you have to make mac and cheese yourself. After all the times of cooking for yourself, your hand catches a burn or two. ***** I never wanted to be the girl crying uncontrollably into a box of tissues in a bland-colored counselor’s office. It’s embarrassing. But for the first time since the accident I chose to surrender all of the tears and let them flood out of me. I soak in them. I bathe in them. I start to feel comfortable. “It’s OK. It’s OK. This is a safe place. Anything that is said in this room stays in these walls-unless they are a danger to you or to others.” 22

Safe place my ass. One wrong word and they can put me in an institution. I have to be careful of what I say to these people. It’s funny; I used to dream of sitting in her seat. I used to want to “help” people. Now I can’t even be around them. Yeah, it’s real funny how things work out.

“How have your eating habits changed?”

I wait. “Sometimes…I eat too much-but sometimes I eat too little! Like I’ll eat uncontrollably as much as I want one day without thinking about how I’ll feel afterwards.”

“Do you feel guilty afterwards?”

“Kinda. So then the next day I’ll try to eat only a little to compensate for the day before.”

“Have you ever purged after binging?”

I wait even longer. “No.”

“Ok well it sounds like if you keep on going down this route it could lead to an eating disorder. I’d like you to talk to our eating specialist.”

I said too much. *****

There is a shockingly overweight girl sitting in the row in front of me. She repeatedly fidgets herself side to side through her too tight waist banded jeans while priming her bangs with her forceful fingertips. Her auburn hair is pretty and delicate and seems to have been constructed over a long and strenuous period of time every morning, after which she is still never fully satisfied. She rearranges her grey t-shirt’s collar underneath her muggy green knit sweater, trying to obtain comfort but failing with each self-deprecating attempt. She feels uncomfortable and that makes everyone around her, including myself, feel uncomfortable. Her wrinkled fingers grasp the sleeves of her sweater tightly and pull them over any bare skin she wouldn’t dare to show. Beneath the sleeves which cover her entire arms and hands like a strait jacket, are the scars she made. Her eyes stare down at the covered scars, hoping no one else will see them. She looks through kind blue eyes, eyes that love everybody except herself. After her stop, she’ll walk up a hill to her apartment. Her cheeks will get red, not rosy. She lives with two other girls who are both skinny. She used to see herself as an equal. She used to be skinny like them. She used to look in the mirror and smile, liking what her reflection showed. They used to go out and take pictures all the time. Now she just takes the pictures on the days she even feels like showing herself to the world. It was gradual at first. She started eating without thinking of the consequences. Eat more than usual, saltier, sweeter, more. Eat 24

when she’s bored. Eat when she’s upset. Feeling annoyed at first, she would work out hard the next day for her past mistakes, her lapse of judgment, but then the cycle would repeat. She started feeling guilty and disgusted with herself, so she’d try to erase it and remove it from her body. Then, make herself feel pain for the sake of deserving pain. She felt like she deserved a punishment. She wanted-no she needed to feel the pain she deserved for her bad choices that resulted in this life. She started getting used to the pain, accepting it. Why fight the cycle if this was the new way of life? It’s too late to fix what’s been done. After a while she couldn’t even feel the pain, because that’s all that she knew now. Digging herself so deep, eating more and more, because each time requires a little more to feel better and stay alive. Never stopping, lusting, morphing. Food isn’t pain anymore, it’s the comfort. It’s the way of life. She eats more in a day then she used to in a week and it fills the holes she felt before, or at least keeps her from remembering them. But everything tastes the same now, because her indulgence in food was like the poisonous scalpel that scraped the taste buds off of her tongue and numbed the neurons in her mind. And now the scars on her arms and hands have become too embedded into her skin’s fabric to fade away.

***** “They didn’t deserve it. God should’ve already known that they 25

didn’t deserve it. But that’s not how life works. That’s not how God works. I understand that now. Life, the world, God they don’t care about justice. They don’t care about the rules or what’s good and what’s right and what’s holy. No, all they do is take. Take, take take! There’s no such thing as justice, or destiny, or fairness, or karma, just someone waiting to purge your memories of your past dreams and happiness and the life you used to live.” “Yes, you are right. Many things are out of our control. You didn’t choose the things that happened to you, any of it. But some things are in our control.”

“Like what?”

“Like whether or not you’ll let the bitterness from what happened to you consume you. Or whether or not you choose to remember those dreams, that happiness you once felt, and try to make that your reality again.” ***** An old grandma sits in the corner of the bus nearest to the side door. I don’t know if she’s actually a grandma. I just call all old ladies grandmas. She dresses in all black. Not in a gothic or punk rock sort of way but in a means of mature sophistication sort of way. That’s what I thought at first glance. Nice materials-silk blouse, fur coat, black leather purse with a designer label, well-tailored, good construction. But the more I look at her the more I realize it all just looks 26

like plastic and faux fur with nothing but an expensive label to make it triple the price than it should be. She wears makeup, still! I don’t understand why old people wear make-up. If you’re past your 70s people already know you’re old. Your legs will have lines of blue and your hair will always turn white no matter how many times a month you dye it. It’s simple really. The wrinkles on her face, her sagging neck, and her hands that reveal to everyone the number she keeps hidden between tightly clasped thin red painted lips, and that she is too old to be wearing make-up. She could just accept it, her age, her number, her scarred and splotchy hands. She doesn’t seem too pleased about that idea though. She tries to tell herself she’s not old and maybe if she believes it enough, others will too. But she doesn’t believe it deep down. She knows who she is and it makes her angry as hell. She’s mighty bitter about the wrinkles. Moreover, she’s bitter that she’s lived these many days with these few smiles. The more she thinks about the truth, the more she sees it on her skin and hands. The more she tries to lie to herself, the more the world sees her façade of lies. Her eyes have a light, but it’s not the joy of the child’s, it’s the sour bite of age that still stings like alcohol on a flesh wound. She’s angry. She’s tired. She’s tired of being angry. But letting go would be the death of her. The anger has seeped into her bones. They make up the atoms and the molecules. They rise up her arthritic spine and don’t stop till they split the ends of her hair. It’s her identity 27

now. She’ll go home to her loft of sparsely arranged modern furniture and watch some modeling show while criticizing everyone’s bodies aloud to an echoing room. Her cat will no longer come near her when she tries to have it sit on her lap like it used to. She’ll look at her Vogue magazine and fold the pages of the clothes she wants to buy but then realize she already has it all. Hissing and sipping at some fancy three name length coffee in her hand, she’ll shop through one of her six catalogues. At night she’ll stare at the large number in her bank account and try to smile. ***** “It’s like even when I’m happy I’m just waiting to get sad again. I’m scared that I’ll get depressed again. That it will all come back because it always comes back. I’m not even sure if it ever leaves. Sometimes I think it would be better just not to feel things again. Cause sometimes it hurts too much to think about it or feel sometimes.” “Have you ever thought that life is too hard and it’s not worth it?” “No.” Lie. “I think more like wow, life is really hard.” Lie. “Like why is my life so hard?” All lies.

“I see. Well if it ever gets to the point of you thinking that life 28

isn’t worth living then we’ll have a problem.”

“Then we’ll have a problem?” *****

A man sits at the front of the bus with skin tanned by the sun. He has sun spots on his jagged cheek bones and scars all over his sun seared hands. He is young, but his eyes are old. There is no light in his eyes. His face is sunken in and his limbs are attached together in a way that’s not entirely human. As if not God, but some earthly voodoo witch got some ill-fitting sticks, stuck them together with a nail gun, and created this man without a soul. A man made up of limbs and body parts filled with nothing but bones. The heart that beats is just a muscle and the brain that works is but a machine. His feet tap the floor as his knees vibrate together, jumping up and down unconsciously like someone who has sat in one position for too long. Life isn’t what he dreamed of and the disappointment of his ineptitude has crushed his spirit. He isn’t happy. He isn’t living. He’s just a body, an imperfect body with scarred sun seared hands. He’s waiting. He’s waiting for something to happen, but he’s too paralyzed to move. He has a labor intensive job founded on physical strength alone, and a family he wishes he could abandon. He carries rocks every day. Rocks. He has to move them from construction sites. Build around them. Clear them for buildings for rich people who make his years’ worth of salary in a day. 29

He carries stones in his pockets. Ones he thinks are special. He puts them on his bed stand but then throws them away the next day and replaces them with new ones. He’s on the verge of doing something. All of the nothing has built into a massive something. But he hasn’t decided what that something is yet. *****

“You know you have a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can decide how you’re going to feel.”

I laugh. “It’s not that easy.”

“I think it is, and I think you know that it is. We all have the choice to be happy or sad. You can force yourself to smile, and sooner or later that smile will become real. Or you can indulge in your sadness. Feed it, let it grow, until it consumes you and you’re left with nothing but the coldness of bitterness. Until one day you’ll have driven everyone away and you’re left with nothing but your anger. By then, that anger will be the life or death of you.”

“How could one thing be the life or death of you?” *****

The man with scarred hands and lifeless eyes stands up from his seat on the bus and jerks forwards. He hisses something to the bus driver and then in an instant he is facing all of us passengers. He has his hand pointed straight. Beneath the scars, there is a metal contraption which could mean the life or death of me. The overweight lady is screaming and crying wailing with all of her might. Bang. Eyes shut. The grandma doesn’t make a sound. Her face and body are hard and cold as the stiff metal that he holds. Bang. Eyes shut. It’s pointed at me now. I see the reflection of myself on his eyes. Bang. Eyes shut. His hands are on the floor. All that’s left are me, the child, and the father. Eyes open. Heartbeat. Alive. *****

Seven months later.

“How do you feel Renee?”

“Well I am off of my medications and anti-depressants. I can look at a bus and drive in my car without having constant flashbacks. I can sleep at night. I am eating all right. And you know I’ve even been talking to the other two survivors on the bus that day.”

“Yes, yes but how do you feel?”

“I feel, I feel…like I can never go back to who I was before this all happened, before my life all changed. I’ve been trying all this time to go back to before-I mean to who I was before all of this happened. But then I realized that I can never go back and that maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I’ve changed.”

“And you said you’ve talked to the other two survivors?”

“Yeah, they’re great. Little Grace is absolutely wonderful. She gets scared sometimes but then I feel like I need to steer her the right way. Do some good for her instead and make her feel better. But in the process I feel like helping her helps me. Being with her, seeing her smile, helping her forget, helps me to forget. Loving her makes me feel, reborn.” The End

The Five Muses //

Lara Kelly

12:34 AM He came home smelling of vanilla musk tonight. I stare up at the ceiling, though I can’t see it in the dark. I can still smell it, like cupcake icing, but not quite. It’s strange, smelling cupcakes while lying in bed in the dark, next to the man you love, knowing you haven’t made any cupcakes. He’s on his side facing me, arms around me. He’s in that fragile dream state just before sleep; I know because his arms twitch intermittently. His breath lightly warms the top of my head. Breathe in, and, a couple of seconds later, out. This is the regularity of suburban life. I still stare up at the ceiling, absent-mindedly stroking his arm, the way I used to when we first started dating to help him sleep. He’s just as warm now as he was then, hot to the touch, and ruling out any possibility of sleeping with any blankets, ever. I gave up the security of sleeping with a blanket the minute I met this man in college, because I thought he would be all the security I would need. Still running my fingers lightly over his arm, I breathe in cautiously, again smelling that deceptively homey scent. My mouth 33

is dry and my nose stings, and I immediately try to breathe deeply without disturbing him—yet all of this is not as important as my stomach. I feel as though I’m taking the first plunge on a roller coaster I didn’t even know I was on, did not consent to be on. Vanilla was my sister’s favorite, flavor or scent. I always found her melted lip balms on the floor of my car, or flecks of sparkle from her body spray on the bathroom counter. Whenever I found these signs of her presence, without fail there would be that overwhelming sugary sweetness, undeniably feminine. This was years ago, when I lived in the room right next to hers, when youth had an identity in itself. That’s just it, though—it was her favorite as a girl. This was a scent she outgrew. I wonder why vanilla… I listen to his breaths, drawn-out and unaware. Still, I stroke his arm. Still I catch whiffs of vanilla musk on his breath.

1:50 AM

I lay and wonder what her name is. Angeline, Veronica, Julie. I wonder if she has any hobbies. I wonder if she takes morning jogs with her dog. Maybe she goes salsa dancing every other Thursday, or brunch with the girls on Sunday. Perhaps she goes to church. My breathing speeds up as I imagine her car parked near the playground, smiling and calling out to her little boy not to play too rough, and brushing the sand off of her baby girl’s dress. 34

We’ve talked about our children, he and I. Eli and Ella. Someday. He gave me one reason or other why that someday couldn’t be today, and I had understood. Trapped now in the dark, I forget what the reason was. I don’t go to church. I don’t even know if I feel the presence of a God anymore, but right now I’m praying. I am praying in the dark, eyes wide open, next to this man I have known for years, have loved since the evening we met. I pray that he has not given her the child I so long for. I dream of my children every now and again, falling asleep with that wish I leave unspoken. I pray that the little girl on that playground was not supposed to be my Ella. He would never do that to me. He loves me. He told me every day for a year after we met. When I first told him about my dream of a little boy, he called him Eli. He was the one that named our first dream-child. I once joked with him, when my cousin Payton was to be married in June, that I would never be married in the summer. I’m going to be married in October, he said, winking playfully. I’ll see you there… He’s in that place between dreaming and waking; he’s twitching again as he falls back asleep. His arms tighten around my ribs, and he exhales as he settles down into the sheets, snoring softly as he always has, since the first night he stayed over.

1:59 AM 35

I tried so hard that first night. I wore my best pajamas, and a little mascara. He saw it, too; he sat on the edge of my twin bed, watching me. Smiled when I slid my arms around his neck, and breathed in the smell of his shampoo—his wet hair tickled my nose. His arms had locked around my waist. His face was upturned to mine, the corners of his eyes crinkled with a closed smile, enamored with what he saw. Maybe then it was lust that made him pull me down onto the bed with him, making me laugh. He didn’t speak; just brushed my bangs out of my face and kissed my nose. This fantasy is the one I want to stay in. This dream is the one I fall back into every night when shades of red and pink silks, or the eau de femme lingers on his shirt. This man in my dreams is the one I fall asleep with every night, not the one that gets in at four or five in the morning on a weekday, mumbling something about doing research for his new project. I know exactly what “doing research” means. And “research” is not the only thing he’s doing— I burrow my head into his chest, and his arms tighten more around me. Unconsciously, but I’ll take it. I’ll take anything but an empty bed. I breathe in, hoping I’ll find the familiar combination of Axe and Dove.

All I can smell is that hint of vanilla musk.

2:37 AM

I bite my lip as I feel my index finger jerk. I’m picking the skin around my fingernails again. I pinch the bleeding spot to stem the 36

blood flow. It’s stinging though… I shouldn’t be doing this. I broke this habit in college. He told me that if I promised to stop hurting myself, he would write me a story. Well, I stopped hurting myself— and boy, did I ever get a story. Mia was the first Muse. I didn’t exactly stop hurting myself immediately… It wasn’t just peeling back skin, either. I liked playing with sharp things. I felt like I was alive when I could draw pictures on my wrist. It was a long time before his story bribe was on the table. Before that, he threatened to leave me. He had walked out one night, yelling about how I wasn’t really trying. He screamed all I wanted was attention, after grabbing and twisting my wrist with the new marks. I screamed after his blurry shape, crying as hard as I was, not to go, that I would get better. My whole arm was on fire, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was the explosion of that door slamming. Then he was gone. He turned up at a house party later that night and single-handedly downed half a bottle of vodka. After dancing to mindless rap music he was too drunk to understand, he collapsed on the couch in the living room. He had hoped to drown his frustrations with me, and find the answer to his writer’s block at the bottom of that bottle. He didn’t get that chance, though; a curly redhead grabbed the bottle before it touched his lips again. She slid onto the empty cushion next to him in her red dress. No one there remembers how 37

it happened, but after they talked for a minute or two, Mia led him to a bedroom upstairs. Behind that closed door he forgot all about writer’s block. His story was inspired by the genius behind the drink, the honesty of lips loosened by liquor, the passion and symbolism of red silk.

He forgot all about me. 3:12 AM

His deep breaths stop, and his body becomes decidedly still. He’s awake. I close my eyes hurriedly. I’m in no way ready to talk to him at this hour, in the middle of such nightmarish memories. I’d rather him hold me and make me forget they ever happened. I sigh and shift slightly, thinking maybe he’ll comfort me like he used to. He waits a moment before rolling onto his back. He’s still again. It’s almost like he’s dazed, like he isn’t where he thought he was. I hear a soft snore almost immediately, though. I’ve always envied how simple it was for him to get to sleep. It was almost as easy as his quests for inspiration. The second muse was Jess, who was right under his nose for years. They used to date, back in high school. They had the longest damn relationship of anyone I had met in high school. The only reason he left was to go to college, being two years her senior. He left her crying in her mother’s kitchen. 38

At least, he did until he went to back to church.

In the dark, I find his hand with mine and twine our fingers together. His are limp, but I hang on anyway. It was only supposed to be coffee after the service. It had been a year since they had seen each other, and since he’d been with me. Just two old friends catching up over coffee. Somewhere within those two or so hours, she reached for his hand. With her head down, she raised her eyes shyly and said those words. She still loves him. Even now, as I’m lying in bed with him, she still loves him. Falling back into their old patterns, they leaned across the table… And I didn’t see him that night. He came home the next day, cheeks flushed, ranting about innocence and unrequited love—and wrote me another story.

3:41 AM

I. Am. Still. Not. Sleeping.

His snores sound like a tractor engine starting up. They always have, but now they grate against my ear drums, and even though I’ve been hearing them all night, each new one startles me. Even simple dozing is not an option anymore. It’s been weeks since I’ve slept well. Tossing and turning is all a part of my nightly ritual now. I jump as he snores again.

I wonder, if any of those nights that he didn’t come home… No.

Even the exotic Angeline would not have the grace to be as pa39

tient with him as I am.

4:00 AM

Toward the end of our first trial as a couple, he began seeing problems everywhere. I was too clingy, I didn’t fit in with his family, I wanted him to spend too much time with me, I always needed him to help me relax. I was the problem. Well, he figured out a way to relax without me. He tagged along with Mitch that night for some debauchery. It was initially to help Mitch seduce (yet another) redheaded girl in the neighborhood. As it turns out, she needed much less encouragement than either of them thought. To this day, I have no idea how all three of them ended up in the backseat of his car. The point is, they did, Kate in the middle. She was all over Mitch—lips, hands, everything. While the two of them had their hands in each other’s hair, my love was sitting right there next to her, hands in his lap, searching out the window for anything else to pay attention to. He could feel her shift positions next to him, so her head was nearer Mitch’s lap— Oh, I can’t do this right now. I cover my eyes and try to conjure images of our first date, or him bandaging my knee when I tripped up the stairs to his dorm like a klutz, or the first time he brought me roses in this house. All I can see is what happened next… 40

I can’t even look at the clock at this point.

Mitch opened his eyes and jerked Kate’s head back up, kissed her violently. She giggled impishly. He looked over her shoulder at the man who came to act as his wingman, and told Kate not to make him feel left out. Kate turned to him, biting her lip at the wickedness of it all, and grabbed the hair at the base of his neck, pulling his lips to hers.

I feel like crying right now.

His eyes were wide. He was surprised but did not say no. It took a moment, at least, before he lost himself in the immorality. He closed his eyes and kissed her back. Both sets of hands roamed while Mitch laughed the whole time. Kate still giggled intermittently. The man next to me always liked the prospect of getting caught. Now this was something worth getting caught for. Soon her head kissed down his neck, his chest… He didn’t stop that, either. But he did write a damn good story the next day.

5:05 AM

He’s on his side, facing away from me. We aren’t touching anymore. I have no blankets to keep me warm in this frigid house. This werewolf of a man always keeps the air blowing cold. It’s like he’s forgotten he sleeps next to the ice queen nightly. 41

I turn away from him, too. Like that will teach him a lesson. I curl into the fetal position… Maybe that will quell my lips, because Heaven forbid they start trembling now, after going through all of this and coming out so strong.

Is it bad I don’t even remember his fourth muse?

It was during my food phase… I guess lack thereof. I starved myself and ran six miles every day. He had absolutely zero tolerance with my self-destructive behavior at this point, so he called a coworker he knew had a flame going for him… I think this one was Emma. I try to keep my bitterness in check, but this one was more than he could handle. When she found out about me she spread quite the rumor about me being a whore. I hoped he would stand up for me, for the one woman who always stuck with him. I wanted him to be my knight in shining armor. What I got instead was a stony face, a shrug, and a lover who retreated to wherever it is he goes to write. At least Emma fell off the radar, except for in his story.

5:22 AM

There’s a buzzing sound, which should be impossible. We have excellent screens outside of our windows and always keep our doors closed, to keep the insects— Suddenly he’s sitting up on the edge of the bed, head bent. He’s 42

speaking into his cell phone, the thing that was buzzing. He turns around gently to see if I’m sleeping. I close my eyes quickly, and try to be as still as possible. I’m not awake. I’m not awake. He’s speaking in such hushed tones. I can barely make out that the person on the other end is a woman. I feel my heart soar for a moment, because what if it’s his agent finally calling about his stories being published? I can’t help the corners of my mouth turning up and my breathing becoming shallow and joyful. His words become faster, though still hushed. He utters a few words and a goodbye before standing up to rummage through his dresser. I stir casually in bed, like I just woke. Sitting up, I make my eyes wide and innocent, like I know nothing. He turns and stammers out an explanation. His cheeks turn a deep red, with excitement about the deal, I imagine. Oh, uh, I’m just, I found some inspiration just now. I’m going to go write some, but I’ll be back later, yeah? He pauses for an awkward couple of seconds before hopping on one foot, pulling his trouser pants on a leg at a time. And in the quiet of half past five in the morning, the love of my life follows his muse out our front door. 6:00 AM We’re going to be married in October, like he said that day. 43

Our two children will be Eli and Ella. They will play on the playground at the park. I smile now because I can already see their brown eyes, just like their daddy’s. When the sunlight hits, their eyes will look just like polished wood, and sparkle the way his used to when he looked at me. Eli will be just as creative as my love, my husband-to-be. We’re going to travel to Italy. We’ve always wanted to travel, and there is plenty of inspiration in the colorful cliffs there, with clear blue waters that look icy but are warm and homey, just like the people. It will be just like a dream! Now that we’ll have more money, since he’ll be getting published, he’ll ask me to marry him. Before we have our beautiful children, of course. I’ve been here with him for years, getting closer to a decade with every day. We share this house, this bed, but not the most important part: the name. I want so badly to be his in a way everyone knows. I wonder if it’s too much to ask to be his sixth muse… 6:02 AM This bed is cold. There is a gaping expanse of mattress that should be occupied—but I shake my head quickly, settle back into my pillow. He’s gone for inspiration, to write a story that will single-handedly make our lives. I think this and yet, there is something wriggling in the back of my mind, and I feel my heart caught up in 44

my throat. He went to find inspiration… There was a woman on the other end of the line… I couldn’t even remember if his agent was a man or a woman. I wonder if I ever knew, if he ever even talked about that.

I decide I don’t want to know.

6:07 AM

I turn that thought over and over in my head, so much that I start to toss and turn in bed. I had enough bed to do that without falling off. I regret getting a queen-sized mattress because it makes nights like these so much lonelier; it isn’t meant for one person. I roll so that my head is on his pillow, and what immediately grabs my attention and fills my mind is the faint trace of vanilla musk.

Vanilla musk.

Disgusted, I sit up and wrinkle my nose. I think about how silly I must look with my nose wrinkled like that, because anything is better than thinking about how a nervous breakdown is circling in the pit of my stomach like clouds before a disastrous tornado. No. This is my bed. I can lay wherever I want to. So I lay my head on his pillow and spread out diagonally across both sides of 45

the bed, spread-eagled because I can. I am the master of this house. Well, I am the mistress of this house. But not that word… Not exactly.

6:17 AM

I sigh. I know what “finding inspiration” means. That red that colored his cheeks was not for the excitement of his career taking off. That was the blush he used to get when he looked at me, right before we got in bed together. Oh, God. I turn over and let out a whimper. The whimper evolved, punched with staccato breaths and now I’m just full-on sobbing, my head in the pillow to muffle it, but all it does is make my head swim with the abhorrent fragrance. I hate it. I hate her. I hope she has a husband and kids and she feels guilt for making love with someone whose love isn’t even hers to make. Angeline. Mia, Jess, Emma, Kate. They left my ring finger bare, and the spare bedroom and breakfast table empty. These are the five muses that inspired the death of my dreams, while somehow breathing life into his. At this point I’m questioning if that list is even complete. I shiver.

I may or may not have thrown the clock against the wall…

I’m not sure how but my cries calm to sniffles, which honestly is my least favorite part of the whole process. I always feel like an over46

sized toad, my neck expanding larger than it should at a rate much faster than should be possible, uncontrollable. A tear streams from both eyes every second or so, making puddles on the pillow I’m gripping so tightly. This pillow is my life buoy, even if it’s also harboring vanilla smells.

Suddenly, it hits me.

I get up off of the bed, realizing it was still cold despite my body heat. I stride over to the closet and fling open the doors. I’m sure it’s here somewhere— Ah. I pull a hanger from its place at the back of the closet.

It may not be red, but it should work just fine…

I slip into the silk I’ve worn only a couple of times… Automatically I start to tug and pull at the hem; it’s not my usual oversized cotton T-shirt. Now that I think about it, it’s been on a hanger in the back of my closet since the first night he slept over in my dorm room. I walk into the bathroom connected to our master bedroom, turn on the light, and without looking grab the tube that feels like a natural extension of my hand. I start applying the mascara just like I did that first night; I eye the lipstick, but give up after a couple of seconds. I always wind up looking like a streetwalker. I wonder if the lovely Angeline wears lipstick. I wonder if they’re having a good time.

I give my head a quick shake, hoping to dispel those gloomy 47

clouds. This man loves me. He looked at me with that look that a man gives his wife on their wedding day. He told me we are going to get married. He named our future children. He was in this bed a couple of hours ago. These other women, they are just stories in his journals. I’m the real muse, real flesh and bones, in this purple silk lingerie. Inspiring, I’d say. I lay down on the bed again, not bothering to turn off the bathroom light. Maybe it will help if there’s a soft light on the side of my face. I bury my hands in my hair and I try to find a position I assume makes my body look skinnier. When he comes home, won’t he be surprised. He’ll realize sooner or later that I’m the constant. I wasn’t one of his flings. If it weren’t for being with me he never would have had a Mia, or a Kate, or an Angeline. He just forgot that he has me. He’ll remember, though, as soon as he comes home. He has to come back to bed eventually. I jump out of bed and run back to the bathroom. I stand in front of the mirror, fluffing my hair a bit, twirling some of my curls around a finger, making them more pronounced. I wipe away some black that I missed from applying my mascara. I pause, listening into the quiet, imagining I hear a car door slamming. I don’t know how long it’s been since he left. I hope he gets home soon. Before I turn back to the bedroom, I pick up the nearest bottle of perfume—something 48

I hardly ever use, and apply some on my wrists and the nape of my neck. I go lay back down on our bed, and the smell is stronger than everâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Vanilla musk.

Special Thanks to the Liberal Art Honors Program

Dr. Larry Carver, Director Stacey Amorous, Associate Director Dr. Linda Mayhew, Academic Advisor Barbara Carlson, Sr. Administrative Associate

A Product of the Liberal Arts Honors Program at The University of Texas at Austin