Erato Magazine Issue I: Bloom

E R A T O ART & LITERATURE

I SSUE I:

BLOOM

JUNE 2022

EDITORIAL Editor in Chief Celina Tran Executive Poetry Editor James Taylor Marketing Executive Tiffani Ngo Le Head of Photography Snehil Srivastava Photographers Hanna Postová Snehil Sristava Tiffani Ngo Le

Poetry Editors Emily Smyth Aspen Duscha Willow Kang Liew Bei Leanne Evans Prose Editors Emily Smyth Ana Bogdanova Anastasia Bolshova Rebecca Louise Garbutt

CONTRIBUTORS Laura Kolb

Willow Kang Liew Bei

Mathieu Cailler

Ivan de Monbrison

Jessica Daniel

Grace Evans

Lacey Buycks

Maria Duran

Nora Lisa Harr

Annie Firth

Helen Openshaw Shriya Mkumar Owolusi Lucky Lennie Varvarides Rose Knapp Anthony Salandy Eric Burgoyne Tyler Jones 2

Editorial

Tobun Pelumi Leonard Kress Sanjana Shankar Alice Florence Orr Eric A. Clayton Erik Olaf Dargitz Carmen X

CONTENTS Editor's Letter.........................................................................................................................................................5

Poetry

You Will See A Yellow Hill by Laura Kolb........................................................................................................................8 I wish I Could Be the Age of the Quarter in My Pocket by Mathieu Cailler.............................................................9 Solstice by Jessica Daniel...................................................................................................................................................10 Red Bristles by Lacey Buycks...........................................................................................................................................11 Grocery store Flowers by Nora Lisa Harr.....................................................................................................................12 Late Flowers in May by Helen Openshaw......................................................................................................................13 Ma I'm Home by Shriya Mkumar.....................................................................................................................................13 Slumber by Anthony Salandy...........................................................................................................................................16 Citrus Season by Lacey Buycks.........................................................................................................................................17 Roommkate Situation by Laura Kolb.............................................................................................................................18 My Mother Said I Can Bloom by Owolusi Lucky.........................................................................................................19 So Slippy by Lennie Varvarides..................................................................................................................................20-21 A reminder by Mathieu Cailler........................................................................................................................................23 Euphoric Melodies by Rose Knapp..................................................................................................................................23 Demonstrative Demands by Anthonty Salandy...........................................................................................................24 Microscopic by Mathieu Cailler.......................................................................................................................................25 Early Blooming by Eric Burgoyne...................................................................................................................................26 Violet in the Sun by Tyler Jones.......................................................................................................................................28 Growth Spurt by Eric Burgoyne.......................................................................................................................................28 A Post-Apocalyptic Diary by Willow Kang Liew Bei.............................................................................................29-32 It's Not Night Yet, Though I Have Already Slept a Little Bit by Ivan de Monbrison............................................33 Trans and Culture by Rose Knapp...................................................................................................................................33 Dining Table Silence by Shriya Mkumar........................................................................................................................34 Tapestry by Grace Evans ..................................................................................................................................................36 Breathing Flowers and Unblinking Eyes by Shriya Mkumar....................................................................................36 In the Summer, the Fields Come Alive with Flaming Flowers by Maria Duran..................................................37 The Owl Awaits by Annie Firth........................................................................................................................................38 Dyspnoea for Happiness by Tobun Pelumi..................................................................................................................40 As Flowers Hurry to Bloom by Owolusi Lucky............................................................................................................41

Prose Meatpacking by Leonard Kress..................................................................................................................................45-49 Biomaginification by Sanjana Shankar..........................................................................................................................50 Dégustation by Alice Florence Orr............................................................................................................................51-54 Tired Swing by Eric A. Clayton........................................................................................................................................56 Why I Hated Springtime by Sanjana Shankar.............................................................................................................57 Haunting Lara by Erik Olaf Dargitz..........................................................................................................................58-63 An Orchid by Carmen X ...................................................................................................................................................64



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PHOTO BY H A N NA P OS TOVÁ

DEAR READER After an antagonizing, long period of deliberation, I finally decided to establish Erato Magazine, a magazine and an online platform for both established and new writers.

I would love to say that this issue’s theme was selected after careful thought and consideration, but the reality is that it came over me at dawn, while I was half-asleep on my living room floor. I was surrounded by notebooks and inkless pens, Cyndi Lauper’s was Time After Time blasting from my speakers. When I felt the sun peak at me through those horrible, cheap blinds, I had been awake for nearly thirty hours straight, trying to finish a piece of writing that eventually ended up in one of my many piles of unfinished work. I wondered how I ended up here.

I am what my generation calls a “burnt-out gifted kid,” a previously praised child now suffering from chronic exhaustion and outburn as a result of the pressures of my previous academic success.

Anyway, as a “burned out gifted kid” whose other abilities have faltered with age, I have been trying to prove my worth in the only way I know, writing. Writing for others never works, and I realized that as I began despising the activity with every word I wrote and read.

As Cyndi’s voice floated through my living room, the wick of my creative candle was about to blow out. My language, which has carried every burden from healing to destroying and describing, was reduced to a jumble of incoherent letters. The sun stared at me; I could’ve sworn it was with pity.

Then, my eyes followed its shining ray to my coffee table, where it landed on the plant that I hadn’t watered in half a year. Its leaves were yellow and brown, the poor thing had practically been fried. Yet, there was a budding bloom hiding amidst the dead greeneries. Though it was probably from the lack of sleep, I cried at the sight.

Hope, growth, yada, yada, whatever. It’s so cliché, I know, I’m cringing at myself as I’m writing this. The point is that my half-fried plant inspired me to take a deep breath and rediscover my relationship with words and language, as well as their ability to create. Though I’m not going to delve into silly sentiments about life and all that, I will say that literature and art, like that little bud of bloom, reflect upon life in the most raw and true ways. It's about beauty, growth, life, imtimacy, and everything in between. For most of us, the past few years have consisted of a stand-still, an inability to move on with our lives as the world around us halted to a stop, so it's only fitting that we launch this summer of Erato with the bloom and all its symbolic truth, no matter our interpretation of it. I’m going to leave the words to be what they are and nothing more, and I hope you enjoy them.

A huge thanks to our contributors and writers, all of whom I would love to welcome to the Erato family. They’ve created some amazing pieces for this issue, and I can’t wait for you all to see their work.

Thank you to photographer Hanna Postová for our incredible cover, as well as our own photographers for pieces you'll see scattered throughout the issue. Keep an eye out for my personal favourites, Snehil Srivastava's amazing shots from India! And of course, thank you to our brand-new team of amazing editors – Erato would be nothing without them. And finally, thank you for reading.

Love,

Celina Tran Editor in Chief



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Poetry



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You Will See A Yellow Hill

By Laura Kolb Once or twice in your life you will see a yellow hill – maybe wild mustard in bloom or tall dry grass – full in the sun with a blue-black sky behind it.

You’ll be driving, without a good place to pull over, or maybe you’ll be on a bus rounding a corner on its way between two small foreign towns.

Either way. it’ll only last a moment: sky breaking open, gold pouring down on golden ground. You’ll strain to take in the hill’s bright rise, the coil of clouds, and then it will be gone. When you get where you’re going you’ll say, “The drive was pretty.” You’ll say, “I thought it might storm.” That night, you’ll see the afterimage just before sleeping, but simpler, made abstract: big squares of colour and, with them, a sense of breaking through. Of getting underneath the shell of things.

Dragon’s hoard.

Liquid core.

The world’s yolk.

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I Wish I Could Be the Age of the Quarter in My Pocket

by Mathieu Cailler​ That I just slid into my jeans After buying two Twix bars with a Five-dollar bill. Then it would be 1991, And I would be seven, and my biggest Task would be trying to sink ten jump Shots in a row from the left oil stain On the driveway. My crush would be Bridgette In the grade above me, and I wouldn’t Understand spelling well at all. I would be Preparing—certainly on a day like today— To call my friend Jasper and bike along the Coast, see if I could beat him in a race this time Along the hill by the lighthouse. Maybe, too, We’d see a rattlesnake for real. The last time, I’m pretty sure it was a stick. My present life Wouldn’t make any sense to the boy from 1991.

Divorce wouldn’t connect because love was Just a feeling between me and grandma. My current World would embarrass the boy. I hadn’t become A bullfighter. I never bought that Lamborghini from The poster above my bed. I’d never moved to New York City.

To be the age of this quarter dollar To live like it even—sparkle, glint, hold the same Value as years prior. Have Liberty beam Across my being.

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Solstice

By Jessica Daniel I am arrested / in the summer / when my eyes are edged with ruby / and the drumming sun / has begun the grand procession / I’m a part of the world’s / best marching band today / an element of the parade / I hope / they perceive / me as objection / assume I am rebellion incited / though I love the machine / I am integral gears / the bellow of the undying horn / the darkest harmony / and now clamour gives way / to a great silence / helicopter sleeping on the crest of the hill / I almost forget / the why and why and why / my plunder dense / my life abruptly small / but I hear the music begin again / the trumpets of my heart / tandem to their clicking black guns / it is the day / so much longer than night / they prod me into singing metal cages / smugly / with surety / that’s how I know / I know I need never see sundown / need never cease the patriot’s song

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Red Bristles

by Lacey Buycks He’s already finished the piece, a gift for his mother who burns for the acrylic aroma, the gritty paint her thin hands run over.

The poet does not paint well, when his fingers are estranged to the buoyancy of a brush.

His mind lingers too long and the bristles leave a ruby splotch on the page.

On the canvas, a dirt path leads to a forest of pines.

To the poet though, they look more like upsidedown broomsticks.

In the middle, a fiery splatter covers a boulder overtaken with wisteria and sage.

He curses, overturns his chair and puts a fist through the canvas.

The red is gone, a gaping hole in its place.

The poet takes a pencil and on the back he writes, “your son,” he titles it, “Holy Hell.”

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Grocery Store Flowers

by Nora Lisa Harr The first flowers that were ever given to me was a bouquet from Shoprite. They were still wrapped up in cheap plastic and had the barcode stuck to their bright pink petals. I was so honored that I pressed them in a book, and savored their smell for months to come.

When that relationship reached its end, I laughed to my friends about the flowers. About the barcode. About the ugly pink shade they were. The fact that he couldn’t even bother to take the plastic off. It was just spiteful, angry talk about my Shoprite flowers.

I threw out what was left of the pressings. I threw out the entire book that held them for so long. To smell them was to betray my healing process, my growing.

Everytime I passed the tiny florist section in the grocery store I thought of him. Then, I would roll my eyes about how pathetic I was. Later that night I would cry about my lack of ‘moving on’.

There were lots of tears, and the cheap mascara stains on my pillowcase took some extra detergent to wash out. Soon, winter and him faded behind me until they were memories: pictures of adolescent heartbreak. Mornings came and went; he didn’t cross my mind.

It was a year later when I bought the flowers in the self-checkout area. The decision was spur-of-the-moment. Maybe a little ridiculous. But they were only four dollars – and I liked the purple better than the pink. During the car ride home I could smell them in the backseat. And it was sweet. And they were beautiful.

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Late Flowers in May

By Helen Openshaw The old, tired rosebush pushes Its flowers out late this Spring.

Limp, half-hearted sighs in a May That is bright and cold to the touch.

Last year it flowered twice, But the energy lacking now Seems to send a late apology, The blooms hurried, sour, And gone too soon.

Ma I'm Home

By Shriya Mkumar The combined scent of flowers and ghee made me feel slightly sick. But how could I complain with a room to call home and fresh milk delivered daily. coconut oil seeping through my roots. I miss these roots. Ma, I'm home.

I'm sorry for the missed calls, even the phone seemed afraid to let its ring return to india.

The spicy, masala engulfed meals after millennia of bland, soaked in butter and too-sweet. Curry painting my fingertips and jasmine creeping up the window. It's been too long, yet simply no time has passed.

I missed the arguments between you and the vendors, how you always managed to save 20 rupees. but i don't miss the ones we had. Scorching red and bitter.

Ma, I'm home. It's a sickly feeling, raw honey dripping through my skin, and rosewater painting my eyes.

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Wo m e n o f Mathura

By Snehil Srivastava

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Slumber

By Anthony Salandy Noetic understanding is Bygone knowledge lost to eras elapsing, Where consistent bombardment

Gives rise to false Admiration, A valse played in tempo allegro And enacted with tactful haste

Much like faulty policies, Beings rendered statistics, Numbers to be gratified

And patronized, The creation of illusions Reciprocally concocted

Through passivity, A consequence of consistent immediacy, An expectation unravelling

As dander tarnishes false grass And winds murmur tepid arias, Assaulting amber leaves

As ideological roots continue disruption covert.

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Citrus Season

by Lacey Buycks I Early April scorches my neck when I pick valencias in our family’s grove, droplets of sweat and orange juice running down my forearms.

Dozens of us stroll through the fields, the air mellifluous with chatter.

I listen but say nothing, my smile genuine as flattened orange peels.

A chimney sweep with an effulgent expression refills the birdbath, keeps me on my heels.

Eros in overalls, his blue eyes pull me in, and shine like limes in the sun as it crosses the sky, freckles dusted across his skin. The trees hide our affair, our flirtation, until the sun stays out past dark.

Everyone leaves and I ask, “Where to?” as the chimney sweep puts his keys in his model T. II The speakeasy can be heard above the street, alto sax titters in the air, calling for us to follow it.

Tequila is back for good and tonight I am a snifter.

He grabs me by my cap sleeve, pulls me off my stool as the big band begins to race itself. I spin and flip, the bottom of my dress fanning out like a circus tent.

Sweat gathers on his forehead, a part of me wants to lick it. I forget about the long hours stripping trees that lay ahead of me, right now this man is my future.

We dance on constellations until the wee hours of the morning. His suspenders hang by his sides as we climb back up to the street, the cold air leaving goosebumps on my arms.

He takes me home, holding my hand all the way, his hands are rough from sweeping chimneys. He opens my door, kisses me goodnight, my dreams smell like oranges and smoke.

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Roommate Situation

by Laura Kolb We buy carnations at the bodega pale yellow, striped pink, all winter, on and off. I smoke emergency cigarettes leaning on a wall at City College getting over that divorce. You buy popcorn, but the sublet doesn’t even have a microwave. We buy beer.

The bodega guy cuts prices, asks me out, asks you out. There’s no anonymity in this city, not really.

I say yes then no. I buy milk and ramen.

You say yes but keep changing plans.

We buy a pint of Chunky Monkey frozen so hard I slice it with a knife.

Eventually we will just have to move, driven off by gratitude and guilt, a kind of enormous tenderness. How sweet after all, how sweet to mistake these things for love

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My Mother Said I Can Bloom

By Owolusi Lucky You can keep secret of hurricane Behind a neatly ironed suit.

I gave, you took.

Many things, exhausting.

You gave me a shell to paint.

I folded myself in a card, you kiss it, burnt it, Blow the smoke into promises.

Night passes quickly.

Emotion to you comes in season.

Snow fell, your footsteps faced north, or south, Or to that thigh thicker than mine.

The one you named after all your hobbies.

I water the pot, they bloom, and whisper, “Water yourself.”

I remember as a lil girl my mother Said I was made of flowers, I can bloom.

She patted her round belly.

I’ve shed old leaves, left your greenhouse.

If you return, please water the plants.

They are wise.

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So Slippy

By Lennie Varvarides The body of language Unkept, unsaved, unlearnt – those words, so slippy, I, so sloppy… mess – mess around the edge of it, the white – the great white vast open of it; of line, each one ready, waiting for the paper to get heavy – No rest, no, no rest, no task with a tick, none, no tick, not today, none, no “done,” feeling, not today, no…not today, not here, not on my page or in my cage made of bone, just the struggle to think, to write, to connect to something…

Nothing new left, nothing new comes out, only the same, just the same, the same, same old frustration on a journey to endlessness, to circles that turn the ordinary into dull reminders of yesterday's words, shaped in the form of a poem – Same old poem…never satisfied with what was written, with what there is, always needing more, the feeling never learns to be enough, never learns to be something else, never takes comfort in its form.

It is going away, going elsewhere, into a dark room made of paper, in a book, looking for a fix in someone else's words, looking for a solution to solve the lack of imagery, the cliche of the void of it – Everyone is a writer now, new pens, all of us now, proud pens, tall pens, ready…but nothing comes out…yoga tells us to breathe; we know how to fucking breathe, it is living that is hard…living within the movement for long enough to get the words out.

– Breathe…Relax…Breathe/Relax so that something comes, washes over this place called Mind, until a vision hits – a house – not mine – a house – old, ruined, surrounded by grass – high and dry grass, without a walkway.

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– – – – – – – – Why have the Words brought us here?

Not mine – not…mine – you know, they do not belong to me …we share them – the way one shares love… or is supposed to share love and in sharing we notice something else…the air, the fresh open… air and how lost in it we are – in word-mist, blinded to it, we are.

The pen begins an exodus, the handwriting tires of its trance until the drift to somewhere new, to music I will not …dance, two left feet less gracious, more unpleasant in their jolt of foot and a mouth disfigured by the moth, the frenzy to kill something smaller than myself.

So small and yet so brave, giving birth on the lace, feeding with a sense of entitlement, the same entitlement I felt when I squeezed its breath out…I wonder if it accepts death in its last moments, or fears it…If it died at the touch or felt pain.

Boneless – I accept it is a small loss, a small waste of life, unless its death can start a chain reaction?…No wonder I cannot get any real work done – everything is a distraction…the evidence – left in the shape of a hole I poke my finger through…looking for the right words to save.

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Photo by Snehil Srivastava 22

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A Reminder:

By Mathieu Cailler the moonflower cactus (known properly as Selenicereus wittii)

produces a single blossom (a snowy bloom)

once a year for only a day (sometimes less)

deep in the rainforest the only witnesses surrounding bark and damp earth (maybe a toad or two)

this cactus unfolds its petals, showcases its stamens and pistils when ready

this plant sings for itself

Euphoric Melodies

By Rose Knapp Burnt orange fizzles in a Manhattan The fiery orange coalescing and melding With the sweet bourbon and bitters 23 

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Demonstrative Demands

By Anthony Salandy Smiles are feigned as self-reliance beckons Just beyond the thawing reach Of quashed emotions Collated by decades of mental anguish,

For warring paradigms Where warcraft is vulgarities spewed By languid souls mature Dominates darkened discourse

Where crooked caverns Are demarcated with desolate shields Constructed of sharded screens Jagged, and dulled by inconceivable worlds

Conjoined by brutish broadband And ethereal eternities Forcefully driven From that age old

Quaint familial fabrication, Assembled by occidental demonstrations Contorted by protective promises That never truly transpire.

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Microscopic

by Mathieu Cailler under the lens the slide holder tight light beams hard inside a fleck of jasmine foliage the twist of the knob displays stoma with chloroplasts a sprawling, organized metropolis one trillion atoms in a single plant cell in accord, agreement perfect harmony the human eye a modest opening but needing extreme assistance to see true function, purpose, perfection

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Early Blooming

by Eric Burgoyne Nauseating scent of blooming corpse flowers Surely shunned but for fetid fawning fans Relishing rotting flesh odor putrid pus Celebrating early arrival of a doppelganger Rolling onstage charisma surpassing intelligence Masking malignant immaturity Fear of failure trumping intellectual preparation Nit, wit feigned grit gumption Fascination sans rumination Early blooming hastening early death 26 26

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Photo by Snehil Srivastava 

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Violet in the Sun

by Tyler Jones Purple Hearts of loyalty to my Melanin royalty that holds me Joyously in high regard.

I have come far to plant Flowers that have blossomed Thanks to the blood poured to Nourish my growth in hopes I become better than them.

The soil grows richer from Rotating the crops and the Suns that came before gave Life so that I might shine No matter the downpour.

Petals drip gleefully knowing my Roots run deep in history.

Growth Spurt

by Eric Burgoyne My daughter said her play clothes needed upgrading No more green denim shorts suspended by straps Cutesy yellow t-shirt with smiling unicorn Matching plastic barrettes over her ears Rainbow pendant from grandma Now its ripped denim jeans Black Ramones swag I’m blooming She said 28 28

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A Post-Apocalyptic Diary

By Willow Kang Liew Bei

i. The First Month Fires, cataclysmic raiders brought on by the shelling have grounded this terra into draconic bone not even the primordial oak trees survive, remnants of their bark scattered around what were once parks. The red spider lilies lay ashen in graves charred with similarly ambitious cherubims, & the skeletons of the artists still clutch rifles which we pry from them in death, will the emptiness relieve them or had the weight been a passing mourner?

So, like the rightful monarchs before us, those pickaxe-wielding kings & queens in woven hats we mine for stardust from the powdered ruins of this cursed city then, with tender breaths, sweep the dust into animal biscuits.

Wait for life to scuttle again

ii. The Second Month We freed the bunnies today from that unknowable tabula rasa of the cargo bay.

Outside was a more unforgiving prairie where imperial carpets are red, dyed with blood, rubies cruelly pillaged from stardust. & as the bunnies journey they will find other smoldering lives, but in this country a civilization of creatures in eternal naivete, stampeding bunnies will finally overrun the killing fields

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iii. The Third Month After, we delivered the corpses home, saw to the spirit’s ascension on haloed aviaries, let us hop up onto the roof and watch with bated breath the shimmering cast of candles dance through the black grime of this oil-coated earth.

Let us feel, together, living flesh undulating again, that melts the unyielding isolation of this city built from past desolations, past mistakes iv. The Fourth Month Two lovers waltz in the kitchen, swirls of chocolate following their footsteps twisting and turning like a spasming clock & upon them I pray for the door gods' blessings to keep away the snow-coated coyotes, those imps of the Moon's mischief

v. The Fifth Month I can make a promise to you about the wastelands: soon we can build our cabins there, trees too, imperial ones, cedars & jacarandas & everything else the garden gnomes would call for, teapots & pools.

Are you still worrying about the grazing creatures with their serrated mouths?

But who wouldn't want the Easter bunnies back?

You forget, how they huddled in their flocks when the planets came crashing down on us, their cries, a siren that cut through our jagged slumbers, woke us up to the inferno, so let them in too & maybe we can learn together, to be two ludic mountain shepherds 30

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vi. The Sixth Month We bade farewell to the crumbling grounds, instead step, jump lighter than the bumbling missiles did, into the radiance of the clouds, still balmy from leftover solar flares, & there we will create a new sanctuary for trustful bunnies beneath us, hellhounds roam but here in this genesis, why not try to understand first, how gentle giants become.

After all, we, as morsels of stardust were not born bellicose

vii. The Seventh Month For the terrapin is an overeating nebulae, teeth like celestial cutters.

It would love the starfish, the glitter spilled on the floorboards by the sun, a toddler, hands flailing like the clock does when it looks down to see itself straddling this colorful winded horse called life viii. The Eighth Month The children hold their picnics & high teas on the lawn, flying kites without worrying about airplane crashes.

By dusky hues we sit on swings, do nothing at all, except feel for the cautious hops of bunnies on the spring soil, the yoga sequences of the clouds.

It is only at night that the terrors manifest & this second can be as long as we want it to be, like how the children never fear at all, for sundown & going home

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ix. The Ninth Month The universe spins on the axes of a single stalk of wildflower, we spend mornings in the national parks, laughing like the shrill wind without rations & cabins, mouths earthen, drooling dew

x. The Tenth Month The acid rains have come and gone now it is us, huddled by the fire singing songs of our ancestors with silver tongues there is a future to worry about but let us breathe more of this terra's perfumed air, with its floating nectar, & now, dew rains because our silver tongues too can weave into the tapestry of our muddled fates something coherent, a worldly raison d'être

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It's Not Night Yet, Though I Have Slept a Little Bit Already

By Ivan de Monbrison You look at the empty glass.

Inside yourself, now you understand so many things now, with time gone away, God knows where, and yet you know nothing about yourself.

You would like to catch with your fingers a single ray of sunshine falling through the window.

You hear the voice of a neighbor talking loudly in her apartment located on the other side of the courtyard, and song of a dove on the street side, and the sounds of the city all around.

Trans and Culture

by Rose Knapp How much of being queer is rejecting the Mainstream cis, heteronormative narratives?

There were zero kids I knew in high school That were openly queer or trans

Even though we had sex, we weren’t out about it I was closeted too, maybe much of America is closeted

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Dining Table Silence

By Shriya Mkumar we are dimmer today. words wait at the door, beneath our tongues.

If i did say anything, i’d want you to know that silence screams loud. louder than boiling milk, fractured cutlery, louder than we used to be. now we’re reduced to invisible nods behind sips of jasmine tea, not knowing a love that knows kissing anything but the cup coffee rings that circumscribe stories of what we were and what we could've been. all you had to do was say something. But you never did.

And i was too proud to break the silence. So we did the best we could, we broke bread, like the promises we made in bed.

I kneaded and I needed, a lot more than you In a different world, my brother called back and your father was kind.

In a different world, you told me what the hell was going on in your mind.

It’s upsetting knowing you but it's maddening not to. lonely kettles and lonelier springs. My dear, the bees stung with pity, the flowers slowed their songs, watered offkey with my tears.

You never allowed us to blossom, only comfortable with the process of sprouting. rooted in running sand.

Well, the next time you have your coffee black you’ll taste the bitter state you left me in but i’d never stop drinking, i’d rather have the darkest and quietest parts of you than have nothing.

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Rain Season by Tiffani Ngo Le 

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Tapestry

by Grace Evans You bloom intense into dayspring, Courting your visions through the fields of a sacred Dawn, dew ephemeral on your Skin, blades of meadow-green grass murmuring Folklore eternal into the sun-dampened mist.

Rebirth transforms into a ritual, your life Now accentuated by each field you Ran though, each flower You have plucked in absent-mindedness Interwoven into the flower-crown tapestry of Your presence.

Breathing Flowers and Unblinking Eyes byShriya Mkumar the walls were starting to tire, our conversations fizzled out and i couldn’t stand the pity we paid for. they said we were celestial. cut loose from our bones and into paper angels. peeled away into pastry thin sheets, till all that was left was medical bills signed with grief. i could never hate myself in those chipped walls, but i could taste the metal in my mouth. the lines on your prescription, look exactly like the poem i wrote when we were in love. Maddening.

I don’t understand how we went from beaten-down sofas to a death-defying white bed.

How two weeks ago, I yelled and cried and I laughed. How you used to smile.

Now all i do is pray, pray that god believes i have faith, pray for another day. Pray you will live like all the poetry i wish i could write. a limitless life.

Every time i close my eyes, i see wires and monitors but never you. I’m scared when i open them you'll be gone there too.

You swallowed their cruelty like pills at every hour of the day. and you lick every drop of bitterness as if it’s flowing syrup, viscous in your bloodstream.

Well pills can’t cure me of love, and saline can’t clean these wounds.

Is it selfish to ask you to stay, the flowers bow in agreement, petals staining the floor red.

I know not of time, just the intervals between phone calls, and medication. if i can endure the next 5 minutes, i can last another 50 years. but my beloved, can you 36

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In the Summer, the Fields Come Alive with Flaming Flowers

by Maria Duran I in spring i will crawl upwards towards the sun i will be dirt and worms. i will be warm and known. for now it is winter and my heart is the shape of a seed. something small and easy to crush something the earth is digesting.

II sticks and stones are not so hard to swallow if you have the throat of a river. a curve of a neck the bend of a slope. a delta - slit gathering on the angle of a collarbone. an adornment, full of low vegetable croonings. the sea-songs teach us in their rasping voices: what is there to be done but to make beauty out of swallowed stones? but that is an old lesson. and these shores are not so worn yet. we, who are alive, as alive as the sweeping clouds, so declare: there will be a new season, there will be drough, and there will be plenty. so if the land goes stale it is nothing strange; all things must die, even the grass from the other side of the creek. rivers and necks and stones you see, are not the only old stories here.

III what is there to be done, goes the song, and the tide turns with a new verse - yes, what is there to be done but to strike the stones into sparks, nurture a wildfire in our lungs? summer is long and lonesome and the woods are empty of bird song. the water will bleed out all its sea-wise bitterness, and turn sweeter than the first river. this land will catch fire pretty as a song.

IV and afterwards the old people will gather around under the green shadows of the courtyards and remark that the plants that come from the ash grow taller than others.

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The Owl Awaits

by Annie Firth The wet road in moonlight reflects the sea, beckons me on.

My mind meanders, but follows.

The story runs both backwards and forwards, in black and white.

I do not pause.

No cats eyes for guidance.

An owl travels with me, lends me its eyes so I can see.

Clasping the swollen jar to my belly, I walk as a pregnant lady would.

Slowly.

Carefully.

There.

I kneel and half bury the jar in the sand.

I take off the memories.

The locket, last, is interred in the jar.

I wade into the moon.

Dive under the waves, emerge bleary eyed and gasping.

Then crest the tops, Laughing.

Floating.

Moonbathing.

Ears underwater, I listen to the ocean's heartbeat.

I forgive the past its transgressions.

I swim into now.

The sea gifted an iridescent shell, soaked in the moon's wisdom.

I add it to the jar.

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Photo by Snehil Srivastava



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Dyspnoea for Happiness

by Tobun Pelumi think of this poem as a boy hijacked by the pollution looming the air — gathering his breath into a waste bin, as a body mutilated by the pain hosting a space at the crevice of the heart, echoing angst through pathways of fenestrated vessels. think of this boy as a sanctuary of nothingness punctuated by grief oozing red on tv screens: of the ungodly massacre of heaven's sheep at a cathedral by terrorists during mass, at Owo, Nigeria, of the Russian-Ukraine war making the world a cauldron of red with confetti of bullets showering the sky. then think of all these as a grieving boy whose joy has been measured by doom, hoping to bloom into a chrysanthemum of felicity.

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As Flowers Hurry to Bloom

by Owolusi Lucky As flowers hurry to bloom, So hurries florist to prune Son of man races like Flax, Like masons reveal the beauty of stones After chirping away its early Innocence, so have I watched Petals unfold of many dames.

Like fishermen, I watched Sons like sharks hunt tirelessly In the sea of life and drumming of youth Pounds like feet of buffaloes; Many ended at the pointed end of death.

Time feasts like a hunter and returns men’s Bones to earth.

“Though wisdom’s whistle calls Dogs that shall be lost hearkens not.”

Earless young left their mother’s Lap to roam the earth.

Bright sunflowers travel to the square, Evening shall force it into the hands Of cheap men.

Praise “the rose that tarries in concrete”: For it brings hope to the hopeless.

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Photo by Snehil Srivastava

Photo

by Snehil Srivastava 42

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Photo by Snehil Srivastava

Photo by Snehil Srivastava



43

Fiction

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Meatpacking

By Leonard Kress She meets me at the party. I’ve only been here a few minutes when she arrives, discombobulated after getting off the subway and wandering lost along the grimy, bloodstained sidewalks of the Meatpacking District. And just like I told her - look for a low-slung building with no markings, just a truck-sized convoluted garage door painted orange. When she finally enters the space and finds me pouring myself a paper cup of red wine, she glowers.

“How the fuck was I supposed to find this place?”

This place is actually a furnished space within a humongous meat freezer so large it doesn’t feel the least bit claustrophobic. Someone important lives there - someone along with her partner, but I’m not sure I would recognize either of them. It’s homy, so it doesn’t feel haunted by the ghosts of slaughtered animals once hooked in cramped rows, pooled blood frozen on the concrete floor. It’s lushly furnished.

Flowers and sculpted trees scattered throughout. I wonder how they could survive without the sunlight. I don’t notice any special lighting, though I’m not sure I would recognize it if it was here. Everyone exudes a healthy glow - easily mistaken for smugness. “Glad you found the place,” I say, trying to ignore her annoyance. I’m here at the invitation of a friend and don’t know anyone, except the friend who hasn’t arrived yet. Naomi claims that she’s sure she knows several people here, though when I ask her to point them out, she shrugs her shoulders. Since this is important to me, I ask again. This time she doesn’t bother to shrug. I point to the stuffed backpack she’s removing while scanning the room for a safe corner to stow it for a few hours. Spotting a place, she jolts around and heads over with awkward movements, as though her body would get to its intended destination before she realizes she has already arrived there. This always seems to baffle her, the need to catch up to herself.

“What’s that about,” I ask.

“Just a change of clothes,” she says, “Nothing special.” To me she already looks spectacular, dressed-up or dressed up enough for this crowd. No makeup except for a tiny bit of kohl around the eyes, hair pulled back and secured with a scrunchie, gray thrift-shop sweater and long skirt. The scrunchie seems an important detail because Naomi sported the first one I ever saw a few years back—wearing it on her wrist, constricting it enough to leave a mark when she tugged it off and urged her hair into it. I also remember a time when her hair was secured by two of them, and she vigorously grabbed my forearm and stretched it over my palm, letting it snap gently into place. The skirt hem is so long I have to guess that she’s wearing something like steel-toed work boots. Her usual outfit - which always drives me wild. More so, for example, than the backless leotard and frizzed-out hair of one of the guests popping grapes into her mouth.

Naomi had agreed to meet me here: spend an hour or two devouring plates of free food, while we stand in some corner or private place, pretending to peruse the titles on one of the many bookshelves while observing the crowd. The crowd which is quite sparse at the moment and somewhat humdrum.

Afterwards, I’ll drive her to her Eastside apartment, exchange pleasantries about how we always let too

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much time pass before meeting up, about how extraordinary it was last week, the way we ran into each other, after losing contact for almost two years. No one believes me - and I sometimes don’t believe it myself - when I explain how I boarded the crowded, standing-room-only Broadway line. I was grasping the strap, swaying in time to the halts and jerks of the subway car, almost choreographically aligned with those surrounding me.

Trying to keep from knocking into strangers, worried that I’d be late for my seminar. I hadn’t looked down, I hadn’t looked in any direction for that matter, my usual unpoliced stare turned inward when there she was! Seated right in front of me, below me, her head bobbing as she tried to read the book on her lap. We noticed each other at the exact same moment - what we interpreted as magical synchronicity. We hugged. Others, all around us broke into silent, stifled cheers, as if they, too, were participating in our reunion. As if they were on the edge of their seats and I muttered some sort of Bogartian quip, “ Of all the subway cars in all the routes in the city, she walks into mine.”, All got the inferred reference. In all honesty, though, despite the warm hug and baffled small talk, we went our separate ways a few stops later. Leaving me more confused than ever, having forgotten until this party how much she’s able to activate Ingrid Bergman’s coy, flickering smile.

The party turns out to be a dud, so we leave. This is okay with me, since I’m facing a two-hour drive on the New Jersey Turnpike, transporting myself home to my wife and baby son in Philadelphia. Part of the deal with my coming to grad school in New York was my promise - always fulfilled - to come back every night. Besides, I also had my job at the restaurant two nights a week - necessary to help out with the rent and textbooks for the two seminars I’m taking. Tonight was meant to be a work night, but I called in sick so I could attend the party. It somehow seemed like a good thing to do - making connections, meeting people, putting myself out there (my wife’s words). Actually, I called with the excuse of a sick infant, which was partially true, since he was having a terrible time teething and was often up all night. So here I was, not making any connections, not meeting anyone, definitely not putting myself out there, but excited to spend time with Naomi. Was it possible that we hadn’t spent more than fifteen minutes together in the past five years? Of course, she was out in the Midwest pursuing her own connections, people—and definitely, knowing Naomi, really putting herself out there. I was hoping to find out if she’d been successful or not; that’s why I suggested we meet at the party. I was completely in the dark.

To make matters more confusing, she refuses to get out of my car when I pull over to double park in front of her building. She sits there, still, silent and staring out the window for a minute. She doesn’t unbuckle her seatbelt, doesn’t reach over to the back seat to grab her backpack. I think she’s on the verge of making some sort of pronouncement, though I can’t imagine what. I have no reason to suspect it has anything to do with me, but I still feel a tightening in my chest and have to take a deep breath to keep from feeling dizzy. The thought does occur to me that maybe she’s going to apologize for missing my wedding.

Taking that further for the next few seconds, I wonder if she’s planning to tell me that it was just too painful for her to attend, because of how she felt. Instead of continuing on this conveyor belt, I stop myself right there. This is probably not true, and even if it is, what am I supposed to do with this revelation?

Then, before I get stuck in this muck of speculation, Naomi announces: “I want to go with you to Philadelphia. I want you to take me there.”

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“What are you talking about?” I say.

“It shouldn’t be any trouble. We can catch up on things on the way down. I could even help with the driving. There’s someone I need to see.”

“So will you need a place to stay?” I ask, trying hard to figure out where this is going.

“You can drop me off at my friend’s house - I’ll direct you there.”

The drive lasts about two hours. Little or no traffic, late enough so there are few commuters, though I’m sure the train I usually take is packed. Not even that many trucks are threatening to drive right through my car since I’m taking it easy. Cruising at the speed limit or sometimes just below. Because I want to stretch out the drive, making it last as long as possible without seeming like a slowdown. Naomi, I’m sure, isn’t aware of any speed differential and leans back in her seat, stretching out her legs to rest on the dashboard, shoes off, uncomfortable enough from the seat belt digging into her extended thighs to keep awake. Otherwise, I’m sure she would have napped. Finally, about to burst, I ask her where she wants to be dropped off.

“It’s just a little past your place,” she says, “he’s got a condo a block and a half from the river. Two blocks from the I-95 onramp, or is that the off ramp?” Her specificity throws me off, so instead of asking who “he” is, I try to picture the neighborhood. After all, I live only five blocks from the river, but there isn’t a single condo in my area, so she must mean a much fancier section of the city, which is actually more than just a little past my place. More like a mile. An entirely different realm. “His name’s Ed, in case you were wondering,” she says. I’m about to grill her for more information, but she quickly unlatches her seatbelt and at the same time swivels around, keeping her legs nearly extended. Her movement is worthy of a pommel horse dismount, with the added (or subtracted) point or penalty for knocking my glasses off with her toes. So, while I poke around the floor with one arm, trying to keep in my lane with the other, she settles into the back seat, leaning back only after adjusting the rear-view mirror to get a better view of her own face. Owing to the disruption, the only thing I hear is something about corporate real estate. Or is it estate planning? Something about a private plane. It doesn’t really matter.

I locate my glasses, grip them with my pinky, and fit them back on my face. Only one car honks maniacally as I drift into his lane. Or maybe he’s simply trumpeting his enthusiasm over seeing Naomi’s butt flush against the window as she arches her back and vaults into the back. I can’t tell what she’s doing back there, though I hear the sound of a zipper and the rustling of clothing. To be honest, I’m reluctant to turn around just for a second. I’m afraid of how I might continue driving on the turnpike if she’s sitting there in her underwear. Or even naked. How hard it would be to return attention to the highway. And why would she do that - well, it wouldn’t have been an entirely new feat for her. Over the years she has spontaneously - or would deliberately capture the spirit more precisely - done this. One time at the folk festival, when rain poured from the sky, she was frolicking with a bunch of others and when their clothing (minimal to begin with) became soaked and water-logged, she simply stepped out of hers, twirling in the downpour. Almost like a lawn sprinkler with rivulets of water flicking off as she spun. Another time, during a camping trip, a group of us, none coupled, settled down on a series of grand boulders surrounding a mountain lake. While the rest of us sat there watching, she slowly stepped into the shallow water,

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tugging up her skirt as the depth increased. When she reached a place where she could no longer gather it, she dropped down under the water and somehow, in a move that seemed impossible, let the skirt settle on the surface. Like a giant lily pad. Then she emerged a few feet away, naked, gazing into the distance.

The rest of us gazing at her as if she were an apparition.

“I’m just going to change my outfit,” Naomi says, “I want to look nice.”

“For Ed? I ask. Just what are you planning to do?”

“Seduction,” she says, clipped and forthright and brusque. I’m not sure if she’s serious or joking, or something in-between.

“Really,” I say. “No subtlety here. But seriously, what’s really going on?” It’s getting late, after all, we hadn’t left the meat locker party until midnight, and then dilly-dallying around the city for another half hour. And now, approaching the toll booth near the bottom of New Jersey, it’s already 3 a.m. I can’t imagine dropping her off at Ed’s and then the two of them going out on the town. This is, after all, Philadelphia.

I’m sure there are such things as after-hours clubs and after-hours scenes, but that world has always remained completely foreign to me. Right now, my son is probably on his third Herculean feeding of the night—so intense that he’s in bed with my wife. Right by her side, nursing in his own gurgling, squirmy way, with lots of room for both of them to spread out, since I’m not there to take up space. Yet, at this moment, I’m happier being in the car with Naomi in the back, zipping up or buttoning or snapping together whatever clothes have been stuffed into her backpack.

“Almost ready,” she announces, her voice muffled as though speaking through fabric, pulling some article of clothing over her head. I’m not completely sure that Naomi isn’t telling the truth, though truth about what, I’m not sure. It seems so improbable that she’d be visiting someone so late at night in such a glamorous state. At least that’s how I imagine the final presentation when revealed. I think it’s less a case of disbelieving her and more a case of desperate hoping that this turns out to be some elaborate ploy to get me to spend the night with her. I realize that I was basing this wish on nothing, nada, thin air, no air.

And as I try to make out in the re-adjusted rear view what she’s transforming into, I think of a multitude of excuses I could prepare for my wife of why I never made it home. She did once say that she’d understand that I might be too exhausted from the grad school trek to travel. She asked if I knew anyone in the city I might stay with and I told her no, that was not likely. Then my wife unexpectedly, prophetically, curiously, brought up Naomi.

“What about that woman you used to go out with, you know, the one we ran into downtown who gave you such a huge and lingering hug? I can’t recall her name,” she said.

“I’m not sure who you’re talking about,” I said, though, of course I did.

“Doesn’t she live somewhere up on the West Side or East Side.”

I was about to give a non-answer - knowing that my wife always knew more than she let on and probably had a whole bunch more questions, each one more focused than the next. Luckily, the baby started crying and my wife dropped the subject and began a frantic search for a private spot in the nearby park where she could free her breast and begin nursing. Only slurping and guzzling and looks of pure exhausted bliss on both their faces. This memory seems to pile on top of the others, and I’m unable to take my thoughts on any further excursion beyond the realization that this is something I’ve always wanted: wholeheartedly, unquestionably.I’m back in that subway moment, not as it actually played out 48 48

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(petered out) but how it simply dissolved into meaninglessness. My mind has been stormed by the romantic longings of the surrounding passengers.

“So where are we really going?”, I ask. She’s almost standing straight up in the seat. If my car had a sunroof, her head would be sticking up through it, her hair flapping in the crosswind. She’d be screaming out some silly oldies song. A scene worthy of any rom com, the girl, for once, liberated and unrestrained, free to love. Alas, no hole in my car’s roof, so her head is bent and, as best as I can tell, she’s wiggling her way into stockings or skin-tight jeans.

“I told you. Ed’s.” - Then, her donning complete, she settles back in her seat, tugging and fluffing her hair. Makeup already applied, piled on thick. She sighs and for a few seconds leans back in the seat. I re-adjust the rearview so I can see her.

“You know,” she says, “this is the night. I’m going to make sure that Ed knocks me up.”

“Huh,” I say. Then, wanting to clarify, “you mean get you pregnant.”

“You got it,” Naomi says, as though it’s the obvious and expected outcome. “It’s gonna happen.

And now, just the finishing touches.” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a small canister of hairspray, holding it up like a pistol, aiming it at her own skull. Instantly, a oning, sweet-scented cloud fills the cabin. For more than a few seconds both of us - enveloped in the perfumy mist - cough and choke.

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Biomagnification

By Sanjana Shankar You hear about biomagnification in biology class: the accumulation of toxins as you go up a food chain.

As she speaks, voice faraway and no match for the classroom full of boisterous teenage delinquents, you notice her hollow eyes, the canyons beneath them. It doesn’t help that she isn’t paid enough; and in the midst of the sweltering summer heat, the power has been gone for hours. You wonder if you are supposed to notice these things.

As she continues, you think about inherited traits, the way your hands curl into fists like your father and when you cry, how your brows crease – a perfect picture of your older brother. You think about the trophic levels in your family – which way does the energy flow? You are born with the very best and the very worst of the ones you love. You know no matter where you go, who you love, what you say, no part of that changes.

You remember the time a distant relative let slip that you were never meant to be alive: a mistake. You remember how, since then, living everyday feels like an act of defiance. You think of pea plants and your grandmother’s house; and how no amount of mendelian genetics can make you feel like a better person.

The fan creaks slowly back into life.

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Dégustation

By Alice Florence Orr CW: References and allusions to eating disorders I don’t recall how I knew to meet him at ten to five on the corner of Nansensgade. It was one of the omissions that influences the shape of my memories more than what remains. I remember thinking it was an odd time of day, but men often schedule strange appointments when they have better things to do. They’re always fitting me around a lifestyle they aren’t willing to inconvenience just for my sake. I keep telling myself to become equally inflexible, to cease appearing so perpetually idle. On that day I was curious enough to agree, and so continued my pattern of arriving when called and leaving when asked. I avoid lingering too long. I can give myself that much credit, at least.

It is easy to ignore one glaring inconsistency when you pretend not to see the smaller ones, circling like pilot fish around a shark. He didn’t have my phone number. Not even my email address.

How he contacted me, I cannot say. It was an anomaly that, even now, I leave only superficially examined.

I arrived five minutes early. A— was already waiting. I locked up my bike and joined him outside a pale façade. Two large windows emitted neon pink light.

“You look great,” he said. “Denmark suits you.”

“It’s all the fresh air.”

I asked him how he was doing, why he was in the city. He was wearing dark shades and blue jeans. You could tell he wasn’t Danish. He paused time enough for a drag of an absent cigarette.

“I’m swell. Just needed space to write. Deadlines. Yada yada. Fresh air, huh? European cars are too small to efficiently poison you. My old toys were bigger. I hear this city is supposed to be some sort of utopia.”

The corner of Nansengade turned out to be a ramen joint open for only a few services a day: lunch and dinner. He told me that we needed to get in before the rabble, that this was why we were there before the sun had fully set, but I wasn’t used to being outside of a crowd, habituated to the enveloping feel of a city street. When I turned, people had begun gathering behind us in small clusters.

It was only Tuesday.

The place was Tokyo style, twenty-one seats. We were let in at exactly five o’clock and told to sit anywhere. I could tell the staff recognized him. They looked at me curiously, but only for a moment, after which I disappeared. The menu was a simple affair. A handful of ramen options and a couple of starters. He asked for the Shoyu and the hay-smoked hamachi. I, the edamame with freshly grated horseradish. I wondered what sort of person this made me. The sort of person able to order a side dish that cost 45kr. The sort of person who enjoyed the fresh version of a food that most people can only access from a jar. I wondered if it made me any sort of person, if food could define identity like that, the same way that lack of it seemed to starve me of personhood.

I was limited to the veggie ramen, so I asked for that.

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He started telling me about the meal he’d had at Noma a few days ago.

“Find someone to take you,” A— said. “Hell, take yourself. Reservations are a bitch, what can I say? Stranger things have happened.”

He asked me if I had ever tried a cloudberry. His eyes were expansive, a plunge into water indistinguishable from the horizon. He said: “do you know what a cloudberry is?” When I shrugged, he smiled, confessing: “nope, me neither.”

They made ice cream with roasted kelp. I thought I was biting into a mussel, but it was actually dessert. A crazy, stinky sugar kelp tart. Fuck me. A bitesize powerhouse. It’s seafood season, in case you hadn’t guessed.

Eating at Noma is unpredictable, that’s how it’s billed, but every dish is familiar. Don’t ask me how that makes sense. A meal there is nostalgic, but for what? How can I be nostalgic for something I’ve never eaten before? Memory of a memory. I suppose it was like being back in France. I was a little kid again.

Except they kept refilling my wine glass.

He paused, watching a waiter approach.

So I guess it really was like being a little kid in France again.

The waiter leaned over the counter and asked if we wanted plastic bibs. Apparently, we did. A— asked for their homemade chilli paste. I surmised that he was either a regular or had impeccable recollection. It’s a bittersweet thing, to remember with such clarity.

The waiter was young and wore a hat. He introduced himself to us as Kasper. Somehow he managed to make his hat look fundamental, as if all other servers were missing this edifice, a population divided by pre-hat and post-hat levels of consciousness. I imagined Kasper crawling out of Plato’s cave, cap in hand, mud encrusting the turn-ups of his slacks.

“Of course,” Kasper said, in reply to the chilli request. He told us that the paste was made with fermented Anaheim chillies, a statement I took to be significant and impressive, as was expected of me.

“May I bring you a few other small dishes for your enjoyment?”

A— said: “sure, but you have to watch this one.” He gestured towards me. “She could eat you out of a kitchen.”

Kasper looked at me for only the second time, seemingly reassessing whatever first impression he had formed. His face twitched with an expression that might be generously interpreted as a smile.

A— continued his story. He had eaten at Noma before, four years ago. They filmed it for television. But this time nobody had known he was coming. Nobody except someone named René and a few of the chefs. He slipped in and left with ease. Whether the surrealism of the experience could be attributed to Noma’s recent closure, rendering the restaurant nearly mythical, or because the menu had altered again, becoming a dégustation seemingly recovered from Atlantis itself, he could not say.

After a moment, a pause, occupied by a glancing inspection of the chilli paste just arrived, he said: “but to call the meal ‘unreal’ doesn’t cut it. It didn’t feel the same as when we’re filming, when everything feels stage-managed. Smile for the camera. Give us a bit of B roll. Having visual evidence of something, you’d think, would make it more real. Everyone staring, looking right through you. Roll camera. I’m always playing myself like a fucking actor. I’m James Dean, accelerating straight ahead in my Porche 550 Spyder. Straight for that goddamn sedan.”

I watched the chef lower baskets of noodles into a bubbling metal vat. I asked him if he felt like his whole life was a performance.

My favourite dish was the cured trout roe, he continued, ignoring my question. It was magnificent.

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In the shape of a starfish with these little bits of dehydrated plum.

“Have you started eating meat yet? Or are you still living in denial of the pleasures of the flesh?”

The roe was outstanding. Could’ve left the sea snail broth.

I felt mildly repulsed in a way I could only liken to watching a video of two people having sex in a way you’d never considered appealing. Sucking toes. In full view of the public. Repulsed, but quietly excited.

“What people don’t remember when they meet René,” he said, leaning in close, “is that he didn’t make all these innovations in cuisine just because he is half-Danish. He made them because he is also half-Macedonian. Art isn’t made by people on the inside. It’s not made by the fucks that fit in.”

The starters came. The edamame looked like someone had ejaculated feathers over it. The hamachi was pale and simple, three rolls of raw fish garnished with micro sea vegetables. It was the most Danish-looking Japanese he’d ever seen. We were brought the fried chicken, house kimchi, and a tiny sandwich that Kasper called a “pork tonkatsu sando”.

“Can you really stomach all those courses? You don’t ever feel too full to finish.”

Scooping several edamame out of the bowl at once, he laughed. You talk like being a glutton is hard.

After chewing and audibly swallowing, his tone levelled. “Sure. It’s a hell of a lot of food. Even with the tiny portions, it’s rich. Especially if it's a meat-heavy selection. But if they’ve paced it correctly, it should be no problem. Just avoid eating anything made of potato. Unless it’s drenched in a sexy sauce. And only use bread to soak up juices.”

His eyes flicked towards me when he said “juices”. It was the isolated moment he’d said anything suggestive in my presence.

Retracting his look, he turned instead to the broth being ladled into bowls on the other side of the counter.

“Oh man,” he murmured. “The atmosphere, it’s like nothing else. All these people paying astronomical amounts of money to stuff themselves silly. Don’t tell anyone,” he whispered in a comical, affected way, “but on occasion, I’ve drunk too much and eaten too fast and thrown up in the little boy’s room halfway through a tasting menu. I’d never tell the chef. It would destroy the man. Turn him to the bottle.”

“Right,” I said. “Kind of like having an eating disorder.”

I paused to consider the difference between bingeing on trout roe and bingeing on supermarket doughnuts. I thought that it probably had something to do with money and turned away from the question. Not once in my life had I ever ‘stuffed myself silly’. Nothing ever tasted good enough. Most of the time, after a few mouthfuls, delicious things turned to sandpaper on my tongue. The ramen arrived in deep bowls. As we ate, he gave me pointers on how to fully appreciate the dish. His fingers gripped the chopsticks. He raised the first bite, explaining that noodles were supposed to be eaten in small portions, lifting only a few strands at a time to minimise the inevitable splatter of opaque broth. It flew everywhere regardless, putting our bibs to use. Eating in this minimal way allowed one’s mouth to attend to the sipping only a small amount of wine onto the palate.

The noodles, hand-cut and textural, were to be consumed quickly, finished off before one slurped the broth from the bowl.

I could taste the richness, the umami, dense and viscous. I’d heard about chefs accessing the ‘fifth flavour’ with various ingredients and methods: boiling down animal bones to liquefy the marrow; roasting tomatoes to produce a caramelised tang. In a pinch, the forgotten rinds of parmesan tossed in the 53 

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bin could also be salvaged for a base, simmered slowly with garlic and offcuts.

Kasper did not return to our table, an attempt at nonchalance about as subtle as grating truffles on mac 'N cheese, but he glanced often in our direction, monitoring the progress of our meal and self-consciously adjusting his hat. I knew, without turning, that the people sitting at the window were watching too.

I tried to mirror the ease of my companion. Pretended to be someone who often accompanied famous men to dinner on weekday nights.

I resigned from observing the activity around us and returned attention to my companion. He was unfocused, head turned downward towards the dregs of broth. His fingernails were bitten short, as were mine. Clothing impeccably pressed, his neat collar brushed against unshaven skin. Had it been two days?

Three? I wished that my noticing these things meant that he belonged to me, if only a little, as though people could belong to others merely by being considered at close distance.

As we left, he hesitated beside the door. Even in the evening air, heavy and smelling a touch like the sea, he couldn’t release the expectation of a film crew. The setting of the scene.

He told me that he’d often emerge from a restaurant intoxicated, stuffed and swaying, ready to lurch into the nearest cab or locate his friends in an underground bar. But instead, he would be made to repeat the moment of his arrival, entering the restaurant or diner, shack or dive, over and over. Perpetually, until his real entrance had been not only emulated but surpassed, embellished with small talk and camera angles. It was a relief to simply leave and not dwell on how we got there. He lit a cigarette. I exhaled.

He leaned close to my ear and said that it was his time to leave. I nodded, unsure if he would even see my gesture. I’d thought often of him since we first met. The scene replayed in my mind, our conversation swirling like sediment in wine. Every so often, when another man offered me something in a low voice, I heard reverberations of him. His presence is worse whenever I refuse a taste of something fried, buttery, or laced with syrup. I try to embody him. A man who consumes everything and feels no fear.

No – I want more. He does not merely embrace life, but openly invites it. He had told me about his boyhood fantasies. Rather than wallow in dreams of adventure and seersucker suits, he had supplanted them, made them his life in a way that warranted documentation through images, rather than the other way around. These days, it seems easier to construct a cinematic existence, to hope that the poetic might become authentic by virtue of a generation’s determination to make it so. There had been many occasions, upon being offered a cigarette, or a bowl of pasta, when I would look up at another man and see A—’s eyes, hear his voice goad me: writing about life is great until you realise you’ve wasted your youth never having actually experienced the shit you’re fantasising about.

As I listened, I was sure the voice speaking was a memory. I was sure – Sitting with him in the ramen bar was the sort of situation that would have been easy to release myself from, to simply ride home and eat a plate of steamed carrots and go to bed. But the version of me that excused herself from living was becoming tiresome. I was losing faith in her narrative. What do you want? the city asked. I hesitated, no longer entirely sure. Instead of answering, I said goodbye and left the place, retracing steps back towards Nansensgade and my bicycle. I was quite alone.

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Photo by Snehil Srivastava



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Tired Swing

By Eric A. Clayton Once upon a time there was an enormous oak tree, home to a family of gray squirrels who spent hours each day scurrying up and down the bruised and battered bark collecting acorns. There was one particular branch—a strong, sturdy thing—that grasped for the sun, and the squirrels loved it not because of its tempting stock of acorns—the downfall of many an overconfident companion—but because of the tire swing that hung from its height, lurching about in wind and rain, its braided rope digging, digging, digging into the old bark, eating it away slowly, day after day as the squirrels watched. And from way down below, where the grass was long and peacefully swaying, a little girl—barely four years old, long hair swept up in a bow the darkest of purples—would laugh and laugh, clinging to that piece of blackened rubber, all giggles and grins and snot as a young woman pushed her, watching, smiling. And the squirrels smiled, too, cheeks full of acorns.

But that was once upon a time and what happens once necessarily ends, cut down and cut short in an instant. And now an aging woman returns and stands in front of an old, rotten stump and remembers when the branch tumbled down and the tire swing became trash and the tree turned black and the squirrels vanished—and she’s haunted by all that it has meant to be lonely and lacking and tired.

There are no more acorns.

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Why I Hated Springtime

By Sanjana Shankar You said you think of me in the spring. Daisy chains, hands interlinking, the remnants of winter still chafing at your cheeks: spring. I felt a part of myself wither at your answer.

Perhaps it is because I never liked those two weeks between the harsh cold and the blazing summer sun.

It was too fleeting, too indecisive. What good is loving something if it goes away so soon? I used to think.

But in the beginning, you loved me all the same.

Perhaps it is because I wonder; is that how you saw me? Springtime? Warm but not overly endearing; a slight breeze but never permafrost. Goldilocks and the perfect fit. Just right. Would it make me a bad person to admit I would have loved to be the summer? To feel the wind coursing through your hair, sand beneath your feet as the sky smiled down at you? The winter had some merit to it too, or the apple-coloured fall. The season of bundled hands and cosy hearts, sipping hot chocolate spiked with coffee under a dozen blankets. Watching the very first snowfall of the season, the heat of our breaths keeping us warm. I remember when you picked the smallest snowflake out of my hair like a beautiful, fragile thing. How you looked at me after, like you couldn’t quite see the difference. Springtime means we are not forever.

Wisteria blooms. Birds laugh – or cry – I could never tell which. It sounds beautiful, nonetheless. But springtime ends eventually. After the chill begins to thaw, you forget who rights winter’s wrongs. When you grow tired of my dandelion heart, my partly-cloudy-skies; you will move on to someone new. Someone like the ocean breeze. Someone who smiles at you like the summer sun. Someone you love, and that will be enough.

Maybe I will turn back into the cold. Hit reverse, push the sun back behind those clouds. Take solace that the world outside feels just as desolate as within. Or maybe I will smile until my teeth hurt, take spontaneous trips to the beach and drink in phosphene-drenched recklessness like the salt air around me. Or maybe, I will do nothing at all. Because: Springtime means I am still growing. The grass reaches towards the sky, growing in clumps. Never indifferent for the life around me, the wonder. The journey. And someday I will love again like ivy loves gravestones, like pink blossoms love april skies. Like I loved you.

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Haunting Lara

By Erik Olaf Dargitz How many afternoons have you spent sprawled out on that scruffy carpet, mindlessly following the climbing, whirling sounds of that violin escaping her window? How many times have you listened to a car pull up, to her getting in, to them leaving, and wonder who had come for her and where they were going? How many nights, long after you’d already crawled into bed, have you heard the groan of the garage door, her parents finally home from the oh-so-important dealings of the day, or week, or whatever?

Lots.

How many times have you wondered what she did with all that sweet, soundless freedom?

Lara, she’s one of those girls who’s had a sophisticated sort of independence since she got her braces off. Speaks fluent French. Parties with older kids. Got an off-the-lot Audi for her birthday. Is blessed with an immunity to gossip. Was born with that rare and natural mysterious intrigue.

Girls like Lara have it easy like that. Have everything like that.

You? You grew up on midnight monster movies and mandatory family dinners. Martian Octopus and bowls of mac and cheese with hot dog slices.

No mysterious intrigue here.

And now – no more hot dog slices either.

That all ended when you went somersaulting through the intersection at the speed of lights-out.

When you flew over your handlebars, and then the Jeep, sailor-diving right smack into concrete. When your teeth went rattling across the pavement like a handful of little white dice. When you tumbled for like 30 feet, leaving behind a purple trail of Meghan – not to mention dozens of onlookers each with a fresh set of therapy needs.

It all ended when you bit it.

Anyway, here you are. Ready for your big Haunt.

Turns out, that’s what you get when you croak: a single Haunt. One-time spectral visitation rights.

Thanks for playing, here’s your prize. After that, well, that’s still TBD. Tune in next week.

For the record, yes, you are well aware that you could be using your Haunt on anyone. Like, you could be visiting your mom and trying to send her a message, tell her you’re alright. Or you could Haunting your way into Harry Styles’ dressing room. But it was like you didn’t have a choice, right? You were too curious to pass up on her, weren’t you? Yes. Lara, she is your beautiful space alien, like in that late-night B movie you just saw where this supermodel-looking extraterrestrial came down from Venus. And that scientist wanted to go back to her planet and study her life. You, you’re the scientist, and Lara is your Venusian goddess. Everything that you are not. Were not.

Lara in one word: effortless.

Lara in another word: enigma.

A list of people that hate Lara: (list empty).

Lara, she was always nice to you, but holy duh, that’s like saying the sun was warm for you.

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It’s easy for girls like Lara to be nice. Isn’t the world so nice to them?

She was friendly to you, sure, but friends you were not. Mostly you just admired from afar, like so many others. You were just – and had been since she moved in – infatuated.

Lara: the anti-Meghan.

Maybe curiosity just comes with closeness. And maybe the meanest trick America plays is the one called suburbia. Like, where else can you find a Mercedes next to a minivan? A chain-link fence next to a manicured hedge? A you next to a her?

But it’s not like you resent Lara for having her life. And it’s not like you disliked yours. Mom and Dad loved you so much, so incredibly much, and were so good. Your little brother was growing up to be a smart, sweet, funny young man. Sure, your house wasn’t perfect, but it was always full of love.

But love doesn’t buy an Audi or mysterious intrigue, does it? Ha, ha.

All that to say: there is no big plan here. There is no agenda. Sometimes you just have to scratch an itch. You just have to see.

You stand on the sidewalk, making a big thing of it. Being all dramatic-like. On your right is your house. You can hear Mom yelling at Hippo. You can hear Hippo bark back, everything a game to him.

You see flashes of Mom through the window, happy, still unaware her daughter is smeared all over the intersection of 34th and Robinson. That call won’t come until later, and you plan on being long gone by then. Your little heart couldn’t take that. No way. Dad opens the door and Hippo bursts out into the yard.

He tosses a ball and the dog barrels after it. Dad has that lazy smile on his face, like right now everything is gravy. You feel a little guilty knowing that smile will die soon. You stay, just a few more minutes, just to watch.

That’s the thing about chain-link fences. You can see everything that happens in there. There are no secrets behind chain-link fences.

Lara’s house, well, they have hedges. Too dense to see through. Too tall to see over. Whatever happens behind those castle walls remains royal secrets forever.

Until now.

You love your parents, but you gave them 17 years. So, you blow them an invisible kiss and walk toward the only gap in the hedges. It’s an iron gate, shiny, black and smooth. You reach to grab the knob, but your hand just closes over it, like trying to squeeze a puff of smoke. Ha, you dumb ghost.

In the bad horror movies you loved, the laws of ghosthood were always very convenient for whatever hack wrote the script. Like: spirits could walk through walls, but also flip the light switch or grab a knife. You wonder what the real rules are.

But then … you know, don’t you? Yes. Somehow, you do. You have no physical claim anymore. No flipping lights or grabbing knives for you. But … the soul is fair game, isn’t it? Yes. You can flip those switches, can’t you? Yes. Give joy? Give terror? Yes. Yes. Interesting.

For instance, if you find that your curiosity turns to jealousy, and if that jealousy becomes hatred, say: you could darken her soul to a midnight basement, couldn’t you? Yes. Easy, Meghan. Easy.

You just want to study your space alien. See her real life. That’s all. Right?

Right.

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Well, no time to waste when you’re dead.

You walk through the gate like it’s a light fog, then up the steps to the big door. The door to Lara’s world.

You walk through it.

Let your Haunt begin.

You’re in what’s called a foyer, you’re pretty sure. For comparison, your house opens up into what’s called a TV room. You look around. The place isn’t gaudy. It’s not in your face. It’s not the palace or space station or movie-star mansion you’d hoped for. But it’s still … breathtaking.

You try to put a finger on it, on its breathtakingness, and then it hits. It’s not what’s in here. It’s what’s not. No clutter. No scratches on the hardwood floor. No scraps of pink dog toy carcass scattered around like shrapnel. No multicolored heap of shoes. No basketball. No Mountain Dew bottle sitting on the little table by the door. The only thing on that table is a big abalone shell and one set of Audi keys.

You walk through the foyer into what’s called the sitting room, you’re pretty sure. Like a living room that you’re not allowed to live in. The couch is a shade of white that almost hurts. A no-Cheeto zone, that’s a duh. On the walls are photos, tons, like a museum exhibit. The largest is a professional shot of Lara and her parents. Mr. Meyer in his square suit with his square jaw and his square haircut. Mrs. Meyer in her shrunken black dress with that shrunken blazer, plus a shrunken little smile. Lara, the can-do-no-wrong, looking so right. Her blue dress flawless, her hair falling like velvet drapes onto her shoulders, her cheekbones carved out of ivory. Surrounding this centerpiece photo is what is more or less a shrine to themselves. The family in Rome. The family on some Caribbean-looking island. The family at Lara’s violin recital. The family here, there, smiling, always smiling.

Families like Lara’s have plenty to smile about.

You walk into the kitchen and – holy stainless steel, the place gleams. There is nothing on the fridge except sparkle. No Papa John’s coupons slapped on with magnets. No shopping list. No photo strip from a cousin’s wedding.

The whole house is so still. So quiet. You’re suddenly hit with the feeling you get when you walk by that graveyard on your way home from school. Like this place, dressed up with Gaggenau appliances and furniture from Restoration Hardware or wherever, is just a graveyard in disguise. Like you’re not the only ghost here.

You grin at your stupid self. Maybe you should have sprinkled in some rom-coms there, Wednesday Addams. You can bet Lara doesn’t watch that campy, gory crap. Hasn’t rotted her brain out.

Lara.

And where is the star of the show?

Maybe she’s in some secret room where seduced freshmen lay like cadavers on long slabs, bright red tubes running out of their arms, pumping blood into some crazy whirring machine. Young blood to keep the Meyers vital, spry, full of life. To keep those smiles bright. Just like the evil billionaire in that weird movie you saw last— Easy, Meghan. Easy.

But still, you think: Let me into your closets. Show me your skeletons.

You head back to the foyer and up the stairs. Lara is probably in her room, where she is probably not taking any blood from any freshmen.

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But what is she doing? Hopefully not something boring like getting ready to play her stupid violin.

Hopefully she’s getting ready to hit some underground fashion show or fight club or something.

What do you do when you can do anything?

At the top of the stairs is a hallway, teed off in two directions. You go right. There’s a closed door on your left, and you step through.

You’re in an office. Big, oak desk. Wrought-iron lamp. No blood boys. There’s a framed triangular flag on the wall from Pebble Beach. Two photos sit above it, outlined in thick, cream matting beneath black frames. One shows Mr. Business with other squares at some conference, holding a plaque. Another has him cutting a ribbon with those big, goofy scissors.

Booooring.

You enter the room at the end of the hallway, and it’s the master. A bed the size of your room, yes, and a frame that looks like it took half the redwoods to make, yes, but nothing else. No Lara, no secrets.

Not even a single photo to creep on.

Back in the hallway, its walls are also blank. Like they used all their photos in the sitting room.

Where are you, Lara?

A door on the other side of the stairs is slightly open, just a crack. You walk through it.

And there – There is your space alien. There is your unicorn.

And what’s she doing?

Lying on her bed, on her stomach, looking at her phone. Scrolling with a drunken pointer finger, mindless little autopilot flicks.

High school deities: they’re just like us!

But that isn’t true, is it? No. Even in this position she looks like Aphrodite. Her spine and her ass and her legs are an undulation of smooth curves. Her goddamn life is an undulation of smooth curves.

She is delicate and perfect. Her expression smokey and cool, even in boredom. For comparison, when you assumed this position, you looked like a ball of pizza dough on the counter, starting to flatten out.

You watch her for a timeless stretch. Nothing.

You look around the room. It’s plain, too. This whole house feels like a staged property. Fully furnished, lightly used. On Lara’s wall is a hat rack, with an assortment of wide-brim fedoras and sporty ball caps and floppy beach hats, and you better believe Lara can rock each one. The only other thing on those walls – those big empty canvasses – is a vertical column of small framed photos. You walk over and see that they don’t even have people in them. Just places. Somewhere European here. Somewhere tropical there.

Blah.

Finally, the phone in her hand buzzes. Maybe it’s that hot quarterback seeing if he could sneak over. Maybe it’s that cute new boy, already caught in the all-consuming aura of the queen. Maybe it’s David Friggin’ Beckham.

It isn’t any of them.

“Hi, mom,” she says. The voice on the other end is just that mosquito whine from where you stand. “Okay. No, it’s fine. Yes, there are plenty of leftovers. Yes. Yeah, I’m practicing right now actually.

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Yeah. No, that’s fine. I’ll see you Sunday then. Glad it’s going well. Is Dad still coming back on Sat – okay.

No, go. Love you, too.”

Lara sets the phone down on her white comforter and slowly rotates herself to sit up. She’s almost looking right at you, but she’s not. She’s looking right through you.

And what’s that look on her divine face? It’s a look alright. A sorrowful sort of look. A fragile sort of look. You feel ripped in two by it, don’t you?

A little, maybe. But more than that, you feel cheated.

Lara hasn’t earned that look.

Not that you’d been down and out all that often, but when you were … boy, did you have the right.

Girls like Lara have it too easy to look so melancholy.

Suddenly, you have an urge. It’s like that time you were at Josie’s house, and Josie had to help her mom run something to the neighbors, and there you were, all alone. And you had an urge to open the china cabinet and break one of the little plates with the gold and pink flower wreaths on them. And you did, didn’t you?

You wanted to break something beautiful, and you did.

There’s no satisfaction in breaking what’s already broken.

And when you know you won’t get caught…

Lara, doing her best impression of sulking, like she’s trying it on for fun. Lara, looking down in a world that has only ever lifted her up, up, up. Lara, with too much good for her own good. Maybe you could show her loss, just for a moment. Show her without.

That is your urge. To show her what blue really feels like.

You walk over and put your hand on her. Well, in her. You can feel her running over your fingers like water pouring from a faucet. And like a stream of water, where the slightest movement of your hand can change the direction of the flow, you understand that’s how this is. It would be that easy to drag her down, down, down. To turn her insides to ice. To introduce her to darkness she doesn’t yet know is possible.

Maybe you will, just for a second. Just to give her a taste. It will be good for her. You close your eyes and – Just then, Lara slides off the bed and crouches on the floor. You step back and watch. The floor isn’t a scruffy carpet, of course not, but a white shag rug on hardwood – a rug like a llama had molted its coat just for her, an offering to her majesty. Lara gets on her hands and knees and reaches under her bed for something. Yes, yes, what is it? What secrets does the space alien hide under her bed? What does she do when she knows no parents are coming home? What does she do when she gets that borrowed wannabe-sad-girl look on her face?

Lara pulls out a flat Rubbermaid container. You can’t see what’s inside, but it’s fun to speculate.

She pops off the white plastic lid and reveals … paper.

You stand above her, like supervising. Inside the Rubbermaid is a messy pile of sketches. Lara picks up a stack and thumbs through them like old photos, pausing to reflect, then flipping them over and setting them drawing-side down on the rug.

Here’s the thing: the sketches aren’t amazing.

They’re just pencil drawings, and they aren’t even real scenes. This one is just an apple. This is just a 62 62

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person sitting on a hill. They’re not horrible, but they’re nothing Lara-level.

In fact: you were better.

By comparison, your half-finished comic book is pretty impressive. Sophomorezilla: where a high school girl turns into a monster and terrorizes her school. It’s dorky, yeah, but your lines are sharp, your details are on point, your perspectives are nails.

Lara’s are fuzzy. Way overshaded. Her characters a little out of proportion.

But there’s something to them, isn’t there? Yes. What is it?

Like this one. A girl in an empty room. All the dark shading around her. The way she’s looking to her left at nothing. It’s … well … kind of makes the hair on your neck stand up. Kind of hits you in the feels.

And this one. Just a face, a girl’s face. Maybe Lara’s, maybe not. Too … avant-garde to really be anyone in particular. The face has a smile, but it’s too big, too toothy – a Joker smile that isn’t really happy at all, and gives you the creeps.

And then this one. Totally different. That tree, so full of life, bursting with life, exploding with joyful life. Way too many birds for one tree. Sloppy birds on every single limb, one sitting on the tire of the rope swing hanging from the biggest branch. A squirrel – you think that’s a squirrel – sits at the base, nibbling on something.

Lara pulls out a notebook and flips to a blank page. She grabs a pencil, examines it, and takes her supplies back up to the bed. She sits there, looking out the window, then back to her paper, out the window, back to her paper.

Draw something, you think. If she’s not going to skip off to some invite-only warehouse rave, don’t just sit there. This is Meghan’s Big Day Out, your one great Haunt! You chose Lara, so come on, she owes you some action!

Maybe she’s just killing time until whatever grand adventure awaits.

But Lara just shifts a little, settling into her daydream.

You climb up on the bed. You’re not going to bring her down into darkness. That was crazy. That was wrong. That urge has left, thank God, and that’s not why you’re here. That’s not who you are. You’re just the scientist observing the space alien. And it’s not her fault if she’s not as interesting as you’d hoped.

Not her fault at all.

You crawl on all fours and sit crisscross-applesauce, facing her, your back to the window. She’s still doing a bunch of nothing, her paper still blank. She is looking right through your face, and you study it.

You study it like the scientist you are. And then – You know that look, don’t you? Narrowing, restless eyes, searching for something to focus on? Yes. Because that look is your look.

She shifts her body weight again, for the hundredth time, and – You know that move, don’t you? That twisting readjustment you do when it feels like your skin isn’t yours, like you’re renting it and it doesn’t quite fit? Yes. Because that move is your move.

Lara now closes her eyes, and they stay closed for a good long time, and – You know that game, don’t you? The one where you think of a place, any place, and imagine that when you open your eyes that you’ll find yourself there? Yes. Because that game is your game.

When Lara finally opens her eyes, she isn’t anywhere else. She’s still on her bed, with her dead 63 

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neighbor sitting in front of her, all up in her personal bubble. You keep taking her in. There’s a hint of a smile, a secret smile, a heartbreaking smile, one that is only known to the person it belongs to.

That, and anyone who might be examining it from an inch away.

Where could the ones at the end of the rainbow want to escape to?

Girls like Lara don’t need anything.

You finally look away from that face. You turn around to follow her gaze out the window.

Did you know that from her bedroom she can see your backyard? You did not.

There is Hippo, chasing a tennis ball like his life depended on it. There are Mom and Dad, sitting at the picnic table, beers in hands, smiles on faces. There is your brother, laughing, calling Hippo who has dropped the ball to chase a squirrel. The squirrel scurries up a tree, way too fast for that dumb dog.

That tree, so full of life, bursting with life, exploding with joyful life. Way too many birds for one tree. A tire swing spins lazily.

A new urge swells inside you, washes over you like sunshine.

Lara begins to draw, and you put your hand on her. In her.

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Something About An Orchid

By Carmen X In a station of the metro—I was reminded of the Pound poem. Hurrying along, surrounded by people.

Petals and wet, black boughs. How did he manage to capture an image faster than I could think it up myself? Put it in my own words?

It was then and there I saw her. Finishing that thought, around the corner. A woman in a red coat.

Too warm for the weather. She bore ahead and walked without concern for anyone.

You walk past people all the time, especially at a place like the station. Most of the time it doesn't even register. Sometimes, though not too often, a face or a passing glance smears by, leaving an impression, like a painting from Renoir. And then there is that rare moment when it is not that someone catches your attention, but that your attention is taken, no, stolen from you. You have no say; not then and not there. Finishing that thought, rounding that corner.

Why did she stand out to me? I knew why. She looked exactly like an old acquaintance from my university days. Well, acquaintance put it too coldly. We were more than friends, but not more than that.

She looked exactly like her. In fact, it was her. I knew it. Or maybe it wasn’t, as the coat passed and the red smeared, impressionistic. Could have been anyone else; in fact, it probably was; and it was just something about this woman, that coat, that triggered the sudden connection. Like seeing the word contradiction and immediately thinking of Hegel.

Hi. Hey. How are you? Holding up, you? Yeah, I’m holding up.

What would I have to say? There was nothing to say. We were friends—more than friends, but not more than that—some time before, but not now. And there was no real reason why. Tectonic plates drifting over time. Something like that. To say something would involve surmounting an already wide, yawning gap. The words, even if they were the right words, didn’t have the wings for the whole trip, they wouldn’t stick the landing. My metaphorical courier pigeon wouldn’t make it from Brazil to Algeria.

If I turned and tapped her arm, above the elbow: maybe we’d catch up at a coffeehouse, I’d ask how her teaching career was going, she’d comment I wear skirts now; maybe we’d walk through the park nearby; maybe we’d make plans for a movie the next day; something perhaps blooming again maybe. If I turned. Even if it wasn’t her after all. If I turned.

In a certain region in Japan, Wakayama prefecture to be exact, there exists the Lecanorchis nigricans—a flower that never blooms. It simply takes too much energy to open up. As the red smeared and disappeared into the black of the crowd, I considered how I might not even be a petal, that I’d just remain a bud, and descend darkly to the forest floor. I left the metro; a November chill in August.

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About Erato Magazine Erato Magazine was established in May 2022 as Celina Tran's personal love letter to the world. Named after the goddess of lyric poetry, it is a literary publication for new and established writers and artists. Our goal is to promote a wide range of voices and stories, as well as spread a love for words and language.

@eratomagazine

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