FOOLS Volume 14.5

vol. 14.5 September 2024

Dear Reader, Welcome to Volume 14.5 of Fools. This is a time of change: the 2023-2024 school year has drawn to a close. Some are graduating, while others wave goodbye to their friends or make plans for the summer. Thousands of lives revolve around this campus as spring storms drench Iowa in rain and warmth.

Amidst all the motion, I feel that many of us are looking back at what’s ending—what’s being left behind. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. Our eyes linger on the past and the memories we’ve made this year, and we carry the beauty of that remembrance with us as we drift into new beginnings. Many of our pieces in this volume reflect the tumultuous emotions of change, of the ways in which memory unites past and future. Others focus upon the love and tragedy of the present, an exploration of this enchanting, wild thing we call life.

This year, we in Iowa City witnessed a solar eclipse. The very sun changed. Darkness swept over it—scary, unknown, and yet captivating enough to entirely fill the Pentacrest lawn with spectators. We witnessed the world shift, we lived and breathed together, and we emerged into the light once more.

This volume of Fools is dedicated to nostalgia and change, as well as all the raw emotions— good and bad—that come with it. Enjoy.

With love,

Sabrina & the Fools Team

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i will take a saw to your skull working with precision, cutting just deep enough to open the bone so i don’t damage what i’m after i need to get inside i don’t care about the bone the bone can crack because once i get the saw through enough, i will rip open the rest of it breaking all my fingers your blood my blood pooling around me seeping into my skin maybe your blood will help me be you too. i will do whatever it takes if it will mean i will get your brain particularly the right half, but i can make do with the left if i need i just need

something something that gives me your genius the way you dress the way you write the way you talk all of it i need it i crave it. i will do whatever it takes if it takes every last shred of me, my humanity my decency none of it will matter if i can have what you have, do what you do nothing else will matter

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WINDOW

By Lily Meline

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1. When does and their fawns used to pass by my mom’s old house, there’d always be a fascinating, yet chilling moment where, as I gazed out to look at them, one of the does would freeze and stare at me with unblinking eyes. I wanted to assure her that I meant no harm and she wasn’t in danger, but the house was surrounded by three intersecting streets. If I ran out to warn her of this, though, she and her family would take off in the other direction. So, to avoid any lasting guilt of mangled deer carcasses, I’d draw the curtains and step away from the window.

3. When does summer truly end? September 21st? The last day before school starts?

When Starbucks starts rolling out the pumpkin spiced drinks? I always felt like it ended a lot earlier, sometime in early August. By all means, it is still summertime, but the energy feels more melancholic somehow, like the point in a party when people start going home. You don’t feel like going to the pool anymore. Your friends are out of town and can’t hang out with you.

You haven’t gotten anything done that you said you would. The only thing you feel like doing is staring out the kitchen window.

2. When dough for the bread had sufficiently risen, I’d roll up my sleeves and pound it down into the shape of a baguette.

It, however, kept retreating into itself, completely undoing the trouble I’d gone through to make it long. Knowing my inattention, I’d forget to put flour on the rolling pin, so I’d have to peel away sticky dough from an irritable roller. Finally, once it’s in the right shape, I looked at the directions, and... the dough is meant to rise for another half hour. I’d sigh, roll the dough back into a ball, and leave it on its perch by the window.

4. Windows shouldn’t make you feel sad, should they? Regardless, the nostalgia that I have for one particular window permeates a sadness I can’t fully explain. When I went to college, my mom sold the house I grew up in. I didn’t feel all that sad at the time, but the longer I’m away from it, the more I miss it. As someone who barely went outside growing up, most of my memories of my life are tied up in that house. I still write it down as my address from time to time. It takes everything in me not to sob thinking about looking out that kitchen window.

I love you so much it’s disgusting

By Aishani Kundu Cavatappi pasta This chunk of lettuce is too big to fit into my mouth, but I need lettuce.

It’s healthy.

Twisting the fork, I shove it all in.

Why is everything you own green? how many girls are you sleeping with tonight?

Mousse for my hair and vanilla latte, –yes, vanilla latte– I really need one, but I must write a poem.

Maybe, I will come by tomorrow were you writing down how your first kiss felt? or the one you had last night?

Pencil scratches I broke my pencil again.

It’s the sharpener that’s faulty.

Nevertheless I threw my pencils away. $3 muffin I had to splurge for my sanity.

But that’s when I saw you in your purple pants and sweatshirt with flowers on it. are you gay?

It frustrates me headphones on the entire damn time.

What feelings do those songs translate for you? are they better than mine?

I will never know your songs.

I couldn’t finish my muffin it was not the $3; It was the half-eaten muffin.

Half-said thoughts Two washers on a Sunday morning.

I forgot to put my blanket in the dryer. no tumble dry on the label I had assumed.

Why aren’t you home for Easter? you walk fast; I can’t catch up.

Prussian haze at 8:00 p.m. cold air makes my fingers numb Whose fingers give you warmth?

Pick up your phone Long message Do you care?

Just leave me alone. z-scores.

Normal curves.

I turned off the alarm, rolled over in bed.

You dared to be in my dreams again.

Reflection in the black screen of my laptop.

My hair isn’t curled enough Don’t look at me, or look at me.

I don’t care, or maybe I do a lot.

Hands in pockets, nonchalant Your cough is bad, but I’ll take care of you, nevertheless.

Italy, 2023.

Do you write poetry?

Tornado watch I wasn’t scared.

I am scared of never seeing you again.

Hurt me, at least I’ll know you’re wrong.

Baseball cap, brown hair, I see you everywhere.

You weren’t there I was looking for you.

Didn’t run, missed the bus.

Did I ever run to catch something I wanted, or let it go in hopes there will be another.

Talking to my mom I got the job but and I stop nothing much, I was thinking about you.

I didn’t get you.

Photos from summer Bad glasses Why would you like me?

Oranges I kept one in my backpack and forgot about it I can’t have it anymore Have you ever been in love?

Do you love yourself?

Or do you only love yourself? burning questions burning desires I spent 45 minutes in the shower instead of 20.

Skipped breakfast I love you so much it’s disgusting repulsive consumptive humiliating sickening weakening.

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By Aidan Wirtz I hold the 25 cents like a present on Christmas.

Sticky hands and lemonade spilled upon the plastic table we found in our basement.

Helmets are useless on safe streets like these, and we ride bikes until dinner grows cold.

How do scraped knees feel so good on a street like Kensington?

Inflatable bouncy houses rise like skyscrapers on July fourth, and fireworks illuminate the sky like lightning bugs in a mason jar.

An old ipod, velcro shoes, a neighbor is a friend; this is Kensington.

But the trees that used to shade my irish skin from sunburn are now gone.

The laughter, squealing Turns to tires, wheeling Down driveways to 9-5s.

Times change. People change. Things change.

I have changed.

This block is not what it used to be, but I’ll never forget the memories from my old home.

The day we moved felt like saying goodbye to an old friend, only this friend built me. This friend felt like home.

But a home is not always a house, no. A home is all that is Kensington.

My heart is Kensington.

I am Kensington.

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By Kailie Foley Give a gravestone to the past of mine, and I will set the white lilies down. I will grieve and mourn for what I could have done and said, until my anguish becomes a silent part of the same body I walk with. A small ache will be here or there, but this agonizing will eventually have no name inside of me.

The past is not knotted into my soul; time is both neatly composed and boundless.

As I find the etchings of my past’s name that I have only come to know upon death’s wake, this heart will surrender. I will remember this separation.

Though it is undeniable, I will say “I am alive without you here,” and, though I am connected to this earth, bones of attachment are kept away from this beating heart. I will not hold onto the past’s sweaters and socks; they will all be washed, given up. I will take a few petals from the grave for myself; call them forgiveness for this lifetime. And when I visit I will question, “Has the dirt grown deeper, or have I changed?”

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By Kieran Phillips

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By Kieran Phillips

I wanted to be five years old, bright wearing a slimy sunscreen painted face. Long quilted beach towels graint with pieces of sand, sticky mandarin orange fingers. A limeade teethy smile. And hours would pass, the salt washing away layers of my skin, until all that was left was raw threads seeping down my legs. Bright, right down to the tops of my feet.

But I was nineteetn. Spring breaks lounging sipping sun from wine bottles, high.

Bright yellow dog beds posing prepped and shaven. Glossed dolls aside an ad for nutriotional weight loss fasting. So worried that another ounce given to the ocean, and the waves would swallow 9 us up.

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By Elizabeth Birchfield Lee looked down at the smattering of red and black and fought to keep her dinner from making a surprise appearance. She was no stranger to gore, but that wasn’t shit compared to seeing a human with their neck and stomach ripped apart.

She’d acted out of instinct to try and find a pulse, but now that she was up close to the body it was painfully obvious they were long gone. Ribbons of muscle and skin were missing from their neck to God knew where, leaving long valleys of scarlet in their wake. And then there were the bite marks that“I’ll give you five bucks to lick some of that blood,” Sam said from behind her. Lee was still for a moment.

She knew better than to start consuming blood of any sort–especially blood from an open wound that had already started to coagulate like a forbidden slime– but if she refused, she’d look weak in front of her friends. Despite the screams and inhuman groans of pain around her, some part of her feverishly believed all of this was some sort of sick hazing experience, meaning if she didn’t play along and prove herself, she might as well go back home with her tail between her legs.

“A’right, bet.”

Spreading her fingers caused the blood to string

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between them like threads from a spider’s web. They were still wet, but evaporation was quickly sucking any moisture present from the substance.

“You gonna be alright, girlie?”

Lee stared at the deer carcass that hung upside down in their garage.

“Now look here, there ain’t nothin to be scared of. Here.”

A large, calloused hand took hers and pressed it against the deer’s pelt. It felt smooth but thick with the promise of warmth.

“Ya like it?” Daddy asked.

She nodded.

“Me too. Ya know, th’belly’s even softer.”

Lee’s hand drifted from the brown flank to the white stomach and she couldn’t help but giggle. It felt fluffier than the wiry outer coat and it swirled into itself instead of laying straight against the deer’s body.

“Now watch yer hand, girlie.”

A soft ripping sound came from where Daddy’s larger hands were. Lee’s eyes flicked to see what was happening and immediately caught the wicked glint of a knife the second before it started its descent down the deer’s belly. A part of her wanted to make Daddy stop ‘cause he was hurting her, but the deer never said a word.

Underneath the fur was another layer of white.

“She has fur in her belly?” Lee asked.

Daddy chuckled. “Nah girlie, this’s the fat she was keepin’ fer wintertime. She’d go round eatin acorns n’ crops all year so she can stay warm when the snows come.” Rivers of reddish, pink liquid ran between hidden gorges within the fat like rainwater did in the driveway.

“She’s not gonna use it this winter, is she?”

“Nah, but we will.”

Lee’s face scrunched up as she pictured the gelatinous, offwhite fat wrapped around her. “Are we gonna wear it like her?”

Daddy kept separating the fat from the purple meat beneath, causing more red liquid to splatter on the concrete like a hard rain.

“Nah, but we’ll use it fer cookin and cleanin.”

“What’sa red stuff for?”

Lee pictured her and Momma scooping it up and leaving it in a mason jar downstairs like they did with the veggies and fruit harvested each spring and summer. Maybe it tasted like okra.

“We don’ use that stuff, girlie.”

“But Daddy, we use everythin, don’ we? Cause if we don’, then she’ll be sad she’s dead…and I don’ wanna make her sad.”

He set the knife down and squatted down on her level.

“We won’ make her sad, girlie,” he said, “this stuff ’s gonna go back t’the plants when we wash it off so more deer can have good food like she did.”

Lee looked outside at the weedy driveway, then at the growing pool of blood. Her hands plunged into the red liquid, causing her to squeal in surprise. It was a lot warmer than she expected. She covered both hands in silence and walked out into the driveway. “What’re you doin, girlie?” Daddy asked.

She smiled and picked the smallest plant, a tiny dandelion with one yellow bloom in the center, and covered it in blood. She repeated this, making multiple trips until all the weeds in the driveway were painted red. About this time, Daddy finished taking the deer’s pelt off, so he joined her in admiring her work.

“Now they’re gonna grow up really big so the deer won’ be sad!” Lee explained. She could feel his laughter from beside her and giggled when he ruffled her long brown hair.

“Yes they are, girlie. Ya did a good job.”

Lee’s tongue touched the blood on her hand automatically and the pungent taste rocketed her back into the present. She’d tasted her own blood before during many a fight, but this was different. There was a sharp, aching bitterness that lay beneath the metallic sting, suggesting rot. She spat it onto the ground beside the body and wiped her mouth, as if that would somehow cleanse her of how awful that was to taste, and glared at Sam. “You better fuckin pay up.”

He put his hands in the air. “Y-Yeah, I’m good for it, promise.”

Frowning, she stood and rejoined the conversation everyone else was having about what the hell to do. Someone mentioned this being some sort of zombie outbreak and every fiber in Lee’s being stiffened.

Oftentimes when LeeAnne Monroe got herself into deep shit, she would feel the realization dawn on her physically before it did mentally. This sixth sense had been honed to a sharp edge over the years as she found herself fleeing time and time again from angry cops and even angrier drag racers. Her gums would light up in pain and a sickly sweetness would stick in the back of her throat, which she interpreted as a sign to get the fuck outta dodge. It was never wrong and had on numerous occasions led to her evading arrest, or an even worse fate. The problem with this sensation popping up now, however, was that there was no way to escape what she had done. Lee may have been a mechanical engineering major, but even she knew that whatever was in the blood she just licked couldn’t be extracted from her body while she still lived. That is, if this really were a zombie apocalypse scenario, which her senses worked double time to assure her it was.

Her adrenaline didn’t lend itself to further deliberation on the impending doom, however, and Lee soon forgot about her actions in the heat of the moment. She was sure this would bite her in the ass later, but for now all she could think about was making sure these people knew she was reliable enough to be useful. Being useful meant having a purpose, and having a purpose meant sticking with her friends, and everyone knows that when you stick with your friends you’ll survive a zombie apocalypse. Probably.

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this is my favorite part

By Ethan Kilcoin this is my favorite part Simpson on ‘long with Peter in tow that funny guy steps on my chicken tail what a chase! in their eyes as I walk down the ave hang a left ‘fore the stop in my bathrobe Hey T calling to ask you probably don’t feel it when it happens right well it’s about to happen here it comes I’m waiting not now here I’m waiting on that stump ‘long those woods through that bark dig your hands in the mud spread it thin like ‘nam Pile shot himself you saw what it looked like Stan did a good job showing what it looked like I’m waiting but if you have the time stop by King’s chicken fries served hot fucking dunked barbecue bitched on fat organs can really change your life McNulty gets shitfaced so why can’t I I don’t solve murders but I do sing pretty enough And Judge was written well but I’d never kill although not the case although not the case! take a pill chill as a font this is my favorite part

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A Final Visit

By Julieta Rangel Gomez The paint on the walls of 1272 Calle San Juan continues to chip.

Joy has been stripped from the home that holds my third, tenth, and thirteenth birthday, posadas when we rocked el niñito dios to sleep.

The home is now yellowed books, dirt-covered curtains.

An outline of a crucifix above the bed my grandmother despised, where my grandfather eventually took his last breath.

Her hairspray continues to sing in the morning, his cologne lives in the grout of the blue tile bathroom.

Scents familiar to me like carrion to a starved vulture.

My ears, my soul yearn for the kitchen door’s creak – my grandmother smoking in private.

Did I ever see her take a puff?

I hope she enjoyed the cigarette we threw in her grave.

My lips, my soul long for the sensation of stubble – my grandfather asking for a kiss on the cheek.

Why did I hesitate one time?

I hope he felt the last kiss on his cold skin.

A Weeping Ficus is at the center of the garden that was a labyrinth in childhood.

It has shrunk twice, once for each death.

Muted bougainvillea bush, algae on white walls.

The color has been drained from it, though the bird of paradise still blooms.

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Most Blessed Among Women

By Abigail Khola Jael, assassin of Sisera

Sisera is coming for her.

She hears the bloody battle Sisera, exhausted, finds her She speaks softly, soothingly offering milk, blankets, safety Sisera is sleeping. alone in the tent.

among Ruth, Sarah, Rebekah, Martha, I do not wonder why she is called most blessed among women.

She does not tremble at the murderous leader against her God.

Only God can help her when she’s So many lives depend on her that I wonder why only one of these women filled my girlhood.

Mary, mother of Jesus,

Herod is coming for her.

She hears of the census, womb heavy, jolting on a donkey, drowning in strangers, straw poking, animals stamping.

Her baby is coming. lying in the stable.

Where was Jael?

There was Mary The women of Thebez, crushing invaders’ head and loyal Ruth with a millstone? and patient Sarah Sheerah, builder of cities? and beautiful Rebekah Deborah, the Judge, prophetess, and general? and serving Martha The wise women of Abel Beth Maacah, and naive Eve Mary Magdalene, Anna, Joanna, and gentle Rachel, Tabitha , Lydia, Priscilla, Junia. mothers, wives, daughters.

I wonder why I knew one when both, Jael and her peg, sharp and crooked Mary and her baby, soft and gentle drip in blood because she, most blessed among women, is strong enough to push a tent peg through his skull His skull through her vagina.

A silhouette of soft, bloody robes, she awaits the soldiers rushing forth, the shepherds bowing forth, blood drying under her fingernails, having just ended a war having just started a revolution pooling from their hands into mine, all blessed and bloody, all our Father’s daughters.

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Some things that will always make me think of my mom:

By Natalie Tegtmeier

The fair.

Call the Midwife.

Chickens, and other poultry.

The need to always be working, no matter how tired.

Just a little bit of self-loathing, mixed with dislike from other people.

Random racist, homophobic, transphobic, or xenophobic comments disguised as Christianity.

Complaining about how something is being done wrong, but helping with it anyways.

Going out to eat and then lamenting about getting “fat.”

Making passive aggressive comments, all the time.

Falling asleep on the couch at 7:30pm.

Nesquik strawberry milk powder.

Chicken Run. Eggs.

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Photo by Anna Miller

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Skittles and the Pursuit of Happiness

By Anika Maculangan

I will eat as much and as many chemically processed candy as I can bear to stomach until that thing inside me decides to kill me — and if I die I will die having tasted every color of the rainbow — and if I puke it all out I’ll spew a pond of vomit that looks just like the kaleidoscope so you can look right through it and find that even if the poison kills me I am happy in this toxic prism — as I smile with little-to-no teeth rotting but sweet crumbling but coated in the kind of sugar that makes one feel so good and so sick

at the same time

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I am a bug too

By Shea Winters

I am a bug too and I walked too far for it to be carried with me, strayed a ways from beaten

paths only to find embedded in mud cracks, ran too close to the sun for my hands to still be so

cold and wet with sweat, to gush like melting glaciers and to swim in a polluted stream of subconscious. I am a forgetter and I s cat te r memories like puzzle pieces to the floor, dust collecting in the hollow spaces, until I go searching under the table for more— scurry my fingers over boards like a scavenging rat.

I build my edges like walls and bridge the gaps between and then you tell a joke that reminds me how a father screams at a pliant mother, and I, in turn, become my mother too, fly too far from the scene to escape it, still see it when I close my eyes— go back to curses to constantly circle splintering glass, honey-stuck to the dining table in that house, where I cried so much for the bug to be taken outside instead of killed.

footsteps

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By Carter Jensen Luke Thomas stood at the liquor store counter while a voice on the radio next to him went on about a slew of robberies and killings in McAllen, Texas. He had picked up his mother’s groceries from a store owned by a woman he knew across the road and walked over to buy whiskey, leaving his father’s truck in the lot outside and taking account of the despondent scene before him and the way the advertisements on the liquor store’s windows were peeling or had faded away altogether. The place was lit only by the evening sun coming through the front windows and smelled of plastic and uncleaned air filters. Luke made his way from the shelves to the front counter with a bottle of bourbon in hand, and the clerk waiting for him there was a quiet, slow-moving old man who took little notice of Luke as he logged the transaction in a coffee-stained notebook. The man on the radio continued on about how eleven were dead in McAllen, run down and shot in the street and in businesses along the sidewalk by a gang of men who then robbed and set fire to a few of the evacuated stores in town.

“They still ain’t put out the fires in McAllen,” the clerk said in a low voice, nodding slightly to the radio before him. Luke hadn’t expected him to speak.

“Sir?” “McAllen’s still on fire. Them boys come through this morning and shot up the whole town and burnt half of it down.” He paused. “Burnt the church halfway down.

Shot a couple of deputies on their way.”

Luke was silent for a moment. “Shoot,” he said under his breath. “You know why?”

“Nobody does. Newsman said they took just about everything there was to be stole, just took it and killed all them folk, set fire and left. Said they were there and gone in ten minutes.” He looked up at nothing, his eyes falling just over Luke’s shoulder. “It’s the money. Makes men sick.”

“Yessir, it would seem so.” He thanked the old man and left.

Luke listened to the radio as he drove home from the liquor store and watched as the evening sun began its decline and the light that spread over all things living and dead began to darken. The shadows under the

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leaning ashe junipers on either side of the road began to dwindle with the coming of night, and the yucca plants with their rosettes and leaves reaching out in every which direction began to fall into darkness. The newsman on the radio talked at length about the raiders in McAllen, and how nothing like this had happened in Hidalgo county since a hundred years ago, before Luke’s time, when marauders and prospectors and self-proclaimed businessmen roamed upon the land, spreading west across the country like untamable wildfire. A statement from the mayor of McAllen then came over the air asking any able-bodied men to drive into town and help clean up debris and to donate money to help rebuild the church, his voice strained and desperate. The newsman then came back on and talked endlessly about how no one knew who the men were, except for they were all dressed in black clothing and there was one who may have been identified as Darrell Ward, and Luke thought that name sounded familiar. It was dark by then, and as Luke flipped his headlights on, he figured his mother would be up waiting for him and have something to say about him being home late. He decided he would leave the whiskey under the driver’s seat until morning.

Luke walked through the weathered front door of the old ranch home and his mother didn’t regard him except to thank him as he placed the groceries on the counter.

She was cutting an onion with care and tact, her long, brown hair tied up neatly over her head. The dim glow of the lantern in front of her made Luke realize he had forgotten to get a replacement lightbulb for the burnt one in their kitchen. He took off his hat and cleared his throat.

“Shoot, ma,” he said, gesturing to the empty socket above his head. “I forgot a bulb. I’m sorry.”

“Lower your voice. Your pa’s sleepin’.” She stopped and turned around to face him. “You can go out and get one tomorrow. I’ll make do for tonight.”

“I was gonna go out anyway, I’ll get one on my way home.”

She turned back around. “Where you goin’ to?”

Luke paused for a moment. “I’m gonna drive down to McAllen. See if I can help out.”

“The hell you are.”

“I’ll be back before dark. I’ll do my chores before I go, too.”

“No,” she said flatly. “You ain’t goin’ down there.”

“Yes mam.”

Luke ate dinner with his mother and she spoke little except of the pigs they kept and how in the afternoon, Luke’s father had found a single bite mark from a wolf or hyena on one of them and kenneled it on the belief that it was rabid. He planned to kill it in the morning, and Luke’s mother advised him not to talk to his father unless he was spoken to. Luke heeded her warning.

After he finished his food, he sat back and thought for a minute, staring at his mother who had taken only a few bites and set her plate aside.

“You sure I can’t go to McAllen tomorrow?”

She spoke quietly but with an edge that raised the hairs on Luke’s arms. “You won’t go to McAllen tomorrow, and if you do, your pa will beat your ass so bad you’ll cease walkin’. That’s that.” She paused and looked back at her plate. “There’s no business for you there anyway.

Let those people mourn and work without you gawking at ‘em.”

Luke looked off and sighed. “Yes mam. May I be excused?”

He walked back into the kitchen and began to clean the dishes as his mother put up the dry ones that had been sitting on the counter, and he thought about what he had heard on the radio earlier in the evening.

“Ma?” His mother looked up from the dishes, her eyebrows raised as she waited for him to speak.

“We ever have a hand named Ward?”

The lines on her forehead grew deeper as she furrowed her brow and shook her head. “I don’t know.” Her voice carried with it a stark exasperation. “You should ask your father once he’s finished going mad over that damned hog. Why do you need to know?”

“I’m just curious is all. Maureen, the lady that owns the grocery store? She said she knew a feller named Ward used to work for pa.” He paused as his mother went on with the dishes, unused to lying to her. “Can I go and see the hog ‘fore I go to bed?”

She nodded toward the screen door at the back of the

house. “He’s out there. Don’t get too close to him.”

Luke walked out the door and down the creaky wooden steps, finding the pig prone in its wire cage. He regarded the animal uneasily as its digits twitched erratically over the small, foamy pool of saliva that had collected underneath its mouth. It was one of only twelve pigs that the Thomas family had, and Luke wondered how the animal had been bit and if his father was really sleeping or if he was out driving around aimlessly looking for the culprit.

Luke came to a squat before the pig, and as he did, its eyes flew open and he saw that the pig was terrified as its pupils darted from one end of the socket to another in all sorts of directions, like a bullet ricocheting around the walls of an empty room. Still, the pig was quiet except for its rapid yet shallow breath and it remained prone, like it was waiting as patiently as it could for death to free it from its diseased, purgatorial state of being. Luke went on staring at it for a few moments, wondering if the pig could see him as its eyes continued to bounce around, seeming to look at everything except the boy looking back at them.

Around him the great sky opened and let down a monumental rain that blanketed everything he could see under the now obscured moonlight, and he began to roll a cigarette with great focus under the metal awning that shielded him from the downpour. When he looked up from his hands, he saw that the pig had died, its eyes still peeled open in a look of wild terror and shock as if in its dying moments God had come down from the crying sky and warned it of the imminent coming of something awful and unholy. Luke regarded the dead animal and sat and smoked in the rain before going inside and turning out the lights.

Ambiguous Death

By Olivia George teetering the razor-thin ledge between joy and grief no explanation to your pain the ache gnawing at your heart is not yours you can speak to an echo of her you can hug an echo of

her

but the one you knew is gone time has sliced his brutal knife across her mind carving away the person you once knew

only whispers of them speak to you

hollow shouts blocked by the decay of time until you are left cradling the memory of a death yet to come

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Stretch Marks

By Emily Boismier

silver divots dimple supple skin pocked with blotchy tips of crackled blush; pores and hairs stay anchored to roost in the space left between the is and was and ghostly will be i hear singing tones of puckered flesh heaping heaping noise: ecstatic to be and to be ample from under layers of self comes bursting glee the skin revised reprised perfected adorned with threading time; each stroke sculpts a memory a hope sublime monument to indomitable me i trace the lines that all pull back to the center of fickle baby skin softness: the root from which i stretch to the end i cannot see

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Takeaway Boat

By Ava Rashid

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Curb Car CUlture

By Ava Rashid

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