Issuu

vol. 12 may 2022

a thank you to our sponsors Fools Magazine is generously funded by the Magid Center for Undergraduate Writing, The School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and Undergraduate Student Government. the ideas and opinions expressed in this magazine are not representative of the University of Iowa

Dear Reader, Hello, and welcome back. It feels strange that yet another semester has passed by, and even stranger that for many of us on Fools, this semester will be our last. I was eighteen the first time I ever submitted my writing to Fools, an uncertain Freshman with no idea who I was or where I was going. Now I’m twenty-two, and while I still have no idea where I’m going, at least I’ve finally figured out who I am. A lot can change in four years. Change was a theme I could feel as I read through Volume 12 for the first time. Sometimes change can feel nerve wracking or painful, like whenever we find ourselves caught between the lingering past and the uncertain future, aching to leap into something new but hesitating to take the first step. Change can also feel euphoric, like when you’re standing in the ocean and know another wave is coming, even if the water is completely still. Throughout our college experience, many of us shift between these two alternating states. We watch our friendships change, our relationships end, our goals and expectations evolve, and ourselves grow in the process. I could be biased, but I’m not sure there’s ever been a volume of Fools quite like Volume 12. After we had gone through submissions and sat down as a group to read our final selections, an electric silence filled the room. We held our breath as we flipped through page after page, captivated by the magnetic prose and stunning visual work. Every piece felt transformative, reflective, and entirely unique. To all of the lovely creatives who submitted to Volume 12—thank you for trusting us with your work. We couldn’t have done it without you. One of my favorite things about Fools has always been the collaboration it takes to put together a magazine, and Volume 12 is no exception. It’s a magical experience to be surrounded by so many creative people with their own individual talents, dreams, and ideas—and I couldn’t have asked for a better team to make Volume 12 possible. Even though many of us are about to leave Iowa City and begin the next phase of our lives, one thing that will never change is my respect and admiration for all of you. Thank you for all of your endless hard work, thank you for making me laugh, and thank you for helping me find my car keys whenever I lost them (again). I love you guys. And thank you to you, reader. I hope you love Volume 12 as much as we did. Much love,

Madeleine & the Fools Team

editors

Madeleine Ackerburg Editor-in-Chief

Molly Erickson Design Editor

Marriah Talbott-Malone Writing Editor

John McAtee Treasurer

Anna McDonald Design Assistant

Aspen Taylor Writing Editor

M Clark Managing Editor

Kate Doolittle Design Assistant

Ebbie Benson Writing Editor

Cailin Hall Creative Director

Chloe Tharp Design Assistant

Parker Jones Writing Assistant

Gretchen Lenth Web Editor

Bobi Knox Photo Editor

Sophia Considine Writing Assistant

Grace Champagne Web Assistant

Sam Uditsky Photo Assistant

contributors

Aspen DeGroot 6

Spencer Wilkins 16, 38

TMB 31

La Della Gallagher 8, 35

Allison Izui 17

Samm Yu 32, 33

Elsa Richardson-Bach 9

Parker Jones 34

Lily Hester 12

Yuchen Liu, Guiyan Dai, and Jianbo Liu 20 Erin Challenor 25

Callan Latham 13

Annie Klein 26

Amritha Selvarajaguru 37

Tess Kamradt 14

Bobi Knox 28

Maxwell Ward 15

Emmylane Linh Palmersheim 30

Sarena Gibson 36

table of contents

Where the Weeds Grow Without Any Daylight

flowers for the dead

Respite

The Folly of Man

Reaching, or What Never Is

snackz

Vermin

diamondface

Worms

Footprints

Taking my shoes off when I get home

Spit in the Wind and Hope for the Best

Cover Shoot

Not Cool, Man!

sceenes from 2JPW

Irish Stew

Wrath

Enamorada

skeleton wrists

Skeleton Crew

alignment

Love Letter for an Art Major

No se buiga, keep moving!

Where the Weeds Grow Without Any Daylight Aspen DeGroot

The two are dream-borne, rough unseen rhapsodies of soot and girl bone. They furrowed. Aliveness kissed root by root

into an emergence.

They made themselves girls, almost women. Half-loved the same boy from a distance. They performed. Falling from age thirteen into age fourteen. There is an almost chronic absence intermittent in them, the frayed weeds of their love. They sharpened. Pining for his love to pour into their hearts. They are scarcely girls in the afterlife of those years. Amplified to a ghost-thread, They burrowed. Imagining these bodies born into new realities.

Redo. Relive. Instead, in their love-famine, there is no boy. A car parked on a lakeshore. They deserted. Fuck him, they said, come into my open arms. Celestial ghost soot all over. Wipe it off. Their destinies a mouthful of sweet monoxide. They sighed. Fluorescing from dreamgirl into dreams of boyhood. Just them now. Their binders. Their new names. Their warm, dark night of no other appetite. They burned. Searing their girl-selves into a deep surrender. Ghosted dreams. One year ago they were nemeses. Now they daydreamed boyhood together. They/them. Missing the girls they made into unanswered prayer. From the ledge I forgive. Unbutton my shirt. Cut my hair. I come where the weeds grow without any daylight.

La Della Gallagher

flowers for the dead

Elsa Richardson-Bach

R E S P I T E

Hester is out her window before I stop in front of her house. Her footsteps hit heavy on the shingles as she marches across the roof and clambers down to the grass below. I glance at my phone. Her text reads come get me—no explanation—but I figure it out soon enough as she stalks beneath the street lamp. Her hair flashes box-dyed red in the light, which means she had another screaming match with her mom. Last time it was electric blue. Last time she cried into my shoulder until her cheeks were chaffed from wiping the tears away with her sleeve. Stars scatter the sky above the houses and a full moon hangs low, so broad and deep I could cup my hands and drink from it. The car windows are open. The air coming in has the slightest graze of teeth, nipping cold at my neck, but I love the ripple of shivers it sends through my body. It makes me feel awake. I wish it didn’t take darkness to finally light me up this way. I wish I could feel alive in the daylight. Hester slams the car door. I jump, snapping my gaze from the sky to her. The force of her getting in rocks the vehicle, makes the suspension groan. Her back is rigid, fists clenched. “Go,” she says before I can speak, then quieter: “Please.” I put the truck in first and pop the clutch, beginning to roll forward. With each yard we put between us and her house, the more she slouches, until she’s practically melted into the passenger seat, staring out the window with her chin on her fist, silent. I think about tucking stray wisps of hair behind her ear, but Hester doesn’t like to be fixed up. She likes it when she’s made into a mess, when her hair frizzes wild and her shirt hangs crooked, when her lipstick leaves signatures on everything—coffee lids, cigarettes, skin. Besides, we’re still in town, where someone could look out their window and see two girls in a truck, the driver reaching out to touch the other’s cheek, brush her thumb over her temple. I’m scared someone will see, and of course they’ll recognize the two of us from the total population of a thousand people, and they might take it upon themselves to inform the town exactly what goes on at night around here. So instead of touching her like I want to, I reach over and tap the seat belt clip with my nail. Hester turns toward the soft click click.

“Safety first,” I whisper. I always whisper with her, because I’m scared someone will hear us, because I know there’s enough yelling in her house to last a lifetime. A moment later the seat belt retractor zips and the buckle latches in place. If Hester looks at me, I can’t tell, because I’m too busy negotiating a road that’s more pothole than pavement. I can’t afford to be fucking up the suspension any more than it already is. The radio fuzzes out as we drive toward the edge of town, and I offer Hester the aux cord. I know she spends time on her playlists to make sure they drown out her parents’ shouting in the living room. Sometimes we spend our drives just listening. I’m never sure what she’ll play, and I love the excitement of something new. I’ll take whatever scrap of it I can get here. Hester shakes her head at my offer. My brow digs over my eyes, concern wrinkling the skin. She speaks before I can ask what’s wrong.

“I don’t want to hear anyone else tonight,” she says, so, so soft. “Just you.” “I don’t want to hear anyone else tonight,” she says, so, so soft. “Just you.” My inhale catches between my lips. I didn’t think a few words could undo me like this. I didn’t think tears could come this fast but they do now, throat tightening, eyes burning. I swallow away a sob. Is it too much to wish she could say that under the sun, not the moon? Is it too much to wish I didn’t feel as scared as I am happy? Is it too much to wish we didn’t need to whisper and hide? 10

We hit the highway and I manage to ask her, “Where do you want to go?” but I mean something else. We always go the same route, tracing a circle around the town limits, taking roads out only to turn back in. It’s the longest I can drive without making the gas meter drop far enough for my father to notice, and in a small town in fuck-all nowhere, the gas station closes at ten so I can’t refill. I’m always so careful to leave things the way I find them. Make it seem as though I—we—were never there. But tonight I ask Hester where she wants to go because tonight she climbed out her window and stomped along the roof as though she didn’t care if her parents woke up, because she said she just wants to hear me, because tonight is different, because part of me is hoping she’ll say— “Wherever’s farthest from here.” I glance at her. She’s looking at me. Our eyes meet and I know she means it. We’re alone on the highway, the road reaching out smoothly ahead of us, and I stretch in the seat—too scared to move it from my father’s position in case he notices, in case he finds out—and push my foot down on the gas. There’s a lag, then the car heaves forward. The speedometer crests the semicircle and plummets right. I love the snarl of the engine so much I nearly forget to shift into a higher gear. I risk a look over my shoulder, watch that quicksand town wink in and out of my vision the farther away we get. Firecrackers erupt in my chest, and I let out a wordless shout so loud it startles me. When I turn back to the road, I catch the crooked curve of a smile on Hester’s lips. She lets me see it before she looks back out at the blurring scenery. I think I’m the only one who’s seen Hester smile in the past year. She saves them for me, tucks them away for when we’re together, these moments of secrecy and darkness. I’d love to see one in the daylight, but until I can, I’ll covet these flickers of her teeth behind stains of

lipstick. I remember when she wouldn’t smile because she had braces, and I remember when the dentist removed them and she still didn’t smile, because smiles were all she had to give and she would not give them to this place. But she gives one to me tonight and I shoot down the highway like a falling star. It’s only when I can’t see the town in the rearview that I slow down. I don’t want any reminder of it. Tonight it’s not about the cramped houses with arguments clinging to the walls like cigarette smoke. It’s not about the fear of being caught together, or the fear that we’ll live and die here just like our parents, just like everyone else. Tonight it’s just Hester and me and the endless highway. I fuck up the next shift, going down to fifth too early and making the car buck. A grunted “shit” escapes me, and Hester’s hand rests on my knee. I can’t stop my gaze from finding her. She looks back at me, her brown eyes so dark they’re almost black. I have to turn back to the road, but her hand stays on my knee, her pointer finger running circles on the inside of my leg. I’ve never been this far with her. Never had the chance to. Never passed the town borders, never not felt afraid when we touch.

She traces the shapes of things she can’t say against my leg and my heart rate climbs. When I reach to shift again, my hand shakes.

“Tonight it’s just Hester and me and the endless highway.” Then her hand is on mine, moved from my knee. She helps me shift from fifth to fourth, her cool fingers slipping between my own, and when her wrist rests against my skin I feel her pulse running as fast as my own. I want to tell her this, I want to tell her so many things, but my throat constricts and traps those words in my chest. Hester squeezes my hand. She knows. So I drive.

We used to park during our drives, way back in the overgrown lot of the middle school playground. We used to try, with trembling, unsure hands and shaking breaths, but neither of us could stand staying in one place for long. Stagnant. Stationary. Everything we don’t want to be. So we move now. I drive and Hester gives me smiles, and I imagine one day I’ll be able to kiss those smiles without fear. I imagine everything will be better when we’re out of this place and can speak and touch and love freely, and the weight of her hand on my knee won’t feel illegal.

The Folly of Man Lily Hester

Reaching, or What Never Is Callan Latham

The moth is gone again, and I turn on the lights. I wish I could tell you whether any of it mattered. The storm drains like a throat, a silver-scaled fish rotten with its own heartbreak. I wonder about heartbreak. I wonder about the frogs in the winter too, their narrow bodies fluttering like shadows against the house’s siding. But that is summer and now I’m wondering about broken things, as if another season of deep ache is coming, the nature of nothing more.

snackz

Tess Kamradt

Vermin Maxwell Ward

Surface tension of skin hold steadfast. Horsefly, do you have empathy? Suck at my neck. Gnaw my sweet nectar. Carcass drained dun-flies. My neck peters in tenacity, gouged and bloody. Engulf my body, mangle candied skin. Dear sweet mother, you cannot withstand much more. Dear maimed father, what do you covet? Wincing at the things that keep you awake. I will wait for you until I am dead. I will settle my gnawed figure into the bottoms of your hill. I’ll sit on the patio stoop, swatting at horseflies, until my legs surrender sensitivity dreaming of you arriving caressing my own cheek on my own shoulder.

diamondface Spencer Wilkins

Things I kill and hide are hides by cut-and-cover tunnels I took to touch them. Tutu halos disposed in tagged dumpsters. Recital at the gun range. Banana clip-art. diamondface, hand of the carrot farm. Sometimes I eat whole chickens and sometimes it’s now. On highway islands, plaque stains on my teeth. By someone else’s clock I am late, by blustering bay weather whether whirling dervishes were worth a weight or anytime. By and by and buying menthols, memories of German pubs and November baseball. And sometimes I say nothing. By some Sunday some say I went missing. Or missed. Missed out. Missed her. Missed the mist of mystery. Some jungle in Costa Rica. Somewhere where monkeys own airwaves. Some forest too tall to slash and decorate with ziplines above beaches where locals sell coke cut with talcum, but it’s cheap and we’re family. New diamondface, more coal face. Way low weighed down by a face of diamonds

Worms Allison Izui

There is a bird outside my window that has fallen in love with my sixteen-year-old cat. My cat is uninterested. She tells me as such through heavy-lidded glares and a twitchy tail, the only language I have interpreted in weeks. The bird is persistent, though, suffering through multiple concussions in hopes of impressing the lazy sack of fur that plants itself on my pillow. Not that it matters much; I haven’t left my bed for anything other than using the bathroom and filling the cat’s food bowl. I can’t remember how long ago that was. My cat has no interest in helping me, and the bird is even less capable of managing its time. Instead, it runs its beak back into my window in what looks like a vain attempt to seduce my cat. My cat’s name is technically Czechoslovakia, but she has been reduced to Chuckles as the years move on. I try to telepathically communicate this to the bird in some vague attempt at being its wingman. Whether or not he understands me has yet to be seen as feathers smear across the glass, unbroken but approaching a distressing sight. As I watch, I note that the bird is blue. I hadn’t noticed it until it disappeared for a day. Once it returned, I was struck by how blue it was. Everything is muted through this window except this stupid bird, who must be entranced by my mean old cat napping on my only pillow. I have lived in this house my entire life. It is saturated with memories of a childhood that has long since passed and people who have been gone for many years. I have never seen a bird like this one though, and I can’t blink as it headbutts my window again and again.

My stare causes the bird to pause, only for a moment, before continuing with more vigor. It’s a violent, contorting gesture of adoration. Behind my fascination there’s a hazy urge to throw up. I’m too tired to muster up bile, though, so instead I nudge the cat with my foot. “Chuckles,” I whisper, noting her attempt at looking disinterested. She remains completely unmoved except for the twitch of her ears that gives her away. “Your friend is here.” Her tail swishes dismissively, as if to say, They’re not my friend, idiot. The bird pecks at the window frame in a thrilled response, frenzied pecks that I translate into a painful love letter. Oh, but aren’t we? You cannot deny the connection between us, regardless of these impenetrable defenses you have built up to keep yourself isolated. When was the last time your heart raced like this? Chuckles straightens up, but not to respond to the bird’s soliloquy. Instead, she takes a step towards me before pawing at my thigh. Though the bird might, I don’t miss the split-second glance towards the window. How vindictive. I suppose her unnarrated answer was something biting. But all I know is that she is hungry. So, I get up. I pour the last of her food into a bowl. And I go back to bed. Tomorrow I will go out for cat food. But today I am trapped in my own room, waiting for my cat to come back. When she finally returns, glutted, it is in padding steps.

The bird raged against my window, like they always do. This time I got up and opened it. “Well,” I said, my voice ragged from a record of disuse. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” The bird paused, mid-strike, as if they had only just realized that the glass was a threat once it was removed. They sat on my windowsill and stared up at me. I am not a tiger. They announce through ruffled shudders. It might just be them attempting to recover from their injuries, but I explain myself nonetheless. “It’s an expression.” I have no interest in being a bulky, striped monstrosity, they assert, beaten up wings flapping angrily without any attempt to leave or approach. I give Chuckles a look, which she ignores in favor of reclaiming her spot on my pillow. She glares at both the bird and me through slitted, green eyes. I told you. They’re stupid and annoying. Now either shut the window or shut up. For a moment, I do nothing but stare at her, dim frustration and fractured disbelief welling behind my ears. “They like you.” And I am old and tired, she answers, not with her soft meows but in the way she curls into herself. She is an ornery, disillusioned little creature and, as I look at her now, I start to realize that she is also losing fur in patches. I don’t have time to entertain prey, much less for my own amusement. Looking back at the still bird, perched precariously on my filthy windowsill, I process that for a moment.

This is a being built to be eaten by her. Nature dictates that she consumes them to continue some form of cyclical, self-prescribed justice. Worms are eaten by birds, which are eaten by cats who digest and then shit them out, just for more worms to eat that once it has been returned to the earth. Do you get it now? Chuckles asks, barely sparing me a flick of her tail. It’s approaching her naptime. I revise her words to be shorter, less worried and more appraising. You look even more tired than usual. Nodding in agreement, I whisper back, “Worms.” The bird is rightfully indignant, squawking for the first time in what I can only describe as reproach. But there are ways to conquer such existential dread! Haven’t you tried yoga? Drinking more water? Meditation? Love? They barely get through the first recycled suggestion before I’m falling back into bed. These are sentiments that have been repeated for my sake since the dawn of my emptiness. I know these are kind and I know these can be helpful, but echoing noise does not leave a stronger impact on my psyche. Not for the first time, I entertain the thought of disappearing. Chuckles must share some variation of the same thought, for she eyes me in a way that is somewhat relieved and disappointed before settling her body on my hip. She has a way of perfectly choosing where to sit to trigger my chronic back pain. I treasure her for it. The bird pecks on my windowsill, drawing our collective gaze back to it once more. They stare back at us for a few moments before pecking again. They peck. And peck. And carve a hole into the white paint, exposing softening oak. This house has been deteriorating long before we showed signs of it.

Chuckles releases a shuddering breath against my thigh, tail wrapping more firmly around herself as the bird waits for an answer. It feels permanent, like she can’t bear to move again. I don’t give her any more words. She’s had enough. The bird is not looking at her, though. They train their eyes on mine. What are you waiting for? We ask each other simultaneously. Blue feathers spread out in a facsimile of a mating dance, shivering open in a welcome that has long been lost to natural selection. They dip their head. You said it yourself: all beings are connected. By what, though? In a better, more stable moment, my immediate answer would be ‘Who cares?’ Today, though, I had gone nearly four days without eating, seven without leaving this house, and sixteen without speaking. Today, I was talking to a bird. One whom I have convinced myself through sheer listlessness has fallen in love with my cat. “Suffering,” I whisper back. Yes, and?

“And?” There is more to life than suffering. The bird, with the sudden voice of a friend I have learned to miss, explains patiently. There is no sound except for the tap of their childish hopping and a curious tilt of the head. I blame it on the concussion they must have. What else? It’s hard to imagine much more. The deep, unspoken sense of wrongness rooted in my chest fights for anger but comes out numb. Prodding it with creaky bones brings forth a wave of nausea. Nausea—which is like seeing the moon for the first time in a long storm. Hopeful, although the wind still bites. Chuckles only grumbles out in answer to my disturbance. I slip out of bed, careful not to dethrone her, wary while gathering myself. Slow steps follow me through my home, tracing through the dust and deterioration on my way to the kitchen. There is a long history here, as well as a future. Right now, though, I have to drive my cat to a vet appointment that was scheduled for a week ago.

Footprints Yuchen Liu, Guiyan Dai and Jianbo Liu

Taking my shoes off when I get home After “september is a weary month” by Yasmin Belkhyr Erin Challenor

Well, of course I’ve tried lavender. And collecting baby teeth. And stringing them up like holiday decorations. And buying tupperware. And recycling. And reading poetry about locking your jaw. And reading poetry about unlocking your jaw. And naming my sharks. And looking at a shepherd’s pie in the frozen food aisle of Target. And tasting blackcurrants. And reminding myself what forests smell like before I go to sleep each night—like pistols and mint sauce. And picking at my burns. And putting the scabs in my pocket, just in case I come across a microscope. And trying to cry while swimming. And blowing out my headphones. And ripping book pages into strips. And lining them up like toy soldiers, like how my mom used to cut my toast. And being rude to people I find rude. And keeping a list of zip codes that I like to say out loud. And mending my body with ink. And metal. And almost getting on trains. And buying a jump rope. And kissing kissless red solo cups. And swallowing salt water so I can have an ocean wherever I go, being able to peek into my veins for messages in bottles. And buying tiny plants. And promising not to give up on them, but then watching them die with an odd sense of peace. And smiling when I see all the state abbreviations on recyclable cans. And swearing. And counting coins. And making a list of the biggest headlines from every month that I’ve been alive. And drinking more water. And taking my shoes off when I get home, so I can psychologically tell myself that I’m home and it’s fine and I don’t have to go anywhere else and that this place isn’t leaving me. And taking my shoes off. And taking my shoes off. Of course, I’ve tried it. Of course I have.

Spit in the Wind and Hope for the Best Annie Klein

Dreamt about wasps again And cutting off my right arm, And my teeth falling out. Dreamt about being guilty of something dumb. I’ll tell you about it when you wake up By that time the good part is already long gone. We are always telling each other canned stories, The kind that flatter ourselves More than anything we could perform live. I know all of yours, I like to think you don’t know all of mine. Fleetwood Mac songs remind us of our parents’ divorces And weekends in the smoking section of Chili’s with our dads. This is the experience of every millenial from a broken home In the greater midwest. Of this I am fairly certain, Unless your family had other brand loyalties. Maybe you went to Applebee’s. In any case, I feel sorry for you. But not as much as I feel sorry for me. When I graduated high school I got a job at Olive Garden #362 Conveniently located off of I-495. I studied a handbook which told me Which of Francis Ford Coppola’s wines paired best With Vesuvio shrimp and fried mozzarella. Later, an assistant manager sat me in front of a VHS cassette Which coached me through how to handle A guest who had indulged in one too many Italian Inspired Cocktails. There was no instruction On how to block out the numbing looped chorus Of Sinatra and Martin songs “Fly Me to the Moon” Blast me into the sun. My parents put me in a Catholic school Where we marched into kiddy mass every Wednesday With a Kleenex on my head. I’d lock my knees and hold my breath Hoping for a divine experience That would let me go home for the rest of the day. 26

I still try this from time to time But because my god is a vengeful god, I will have to come out of the walk-in sooner or later, Catch my breath, And paint liquid margarine onto bread sticks. You and me We rack our brains for a moment Mundane and sentimental enough To put all of the bullshit into perspective. Like when I was fifteen Floating down the Fox River Full of factory sludge Jamie cut his foot on a rusty shard And when he yelped he drank in the ugly water It was July He shivered violently and vomited in the car And we laughed and laughed and laughed, Drying in the sun of the hospital parking lot. More often than not, There’s only a great build up to nothing in particular. Still, we slam Rip Its And drown out the car’s dying engine with Metallica Hoping arrhythmia means something big is coming Just over the bend. We pass a truck with a decal on its trailer “Did YOU pray today?” We laugh About how stupid everyone else is And then we are quiet for a long while. Listen there’s two sides to this thing We’re at the combination Taco Bell/KFC And what you say next is far more important to me Than religion Or political alignments Or what you think about NFTs Can I have a bite? Soon we will hold each other Horizontal on Ian’s couch. With stomachaches and a sour taste in our mouths Try to sleep it off, And dream of nothing worth remembering.

Bobi Knox

an ode to the miniscule interactions i’ve had with men that they have shortly forgotten, but i must carry forever.

Emmylane Linh Palmersheim

sceenes from 2JPW

Irish Stew “How?” “Overdosed.”

TMB

Today I walked, earbuds Wrapped in belt loop to My classes–my Brother was dead the whole time. I Listened to music and sang Guitar riffs and thought of His cracked palms and the guitar Broken B string at dad’s house. My Brother was dead the whole time. “Thought he was clean—stupid Fucking kid.” I didn’t have the nerve to say I Knew my brother’s brain was Hardwired for self destruction. I Stared at the floor and watched: Today I drove to our dad’s he Handed me a bowl of Irish stew and told me my Brother. My brother.

WRATH

ENAMORADA

Samm Yu

skeleton wrists

I’m made of skeleton wrists and shrouds of knit fabric Poorly lit images of doodles on Polaroid film, Bleeding reflection of jealousy half-lost. Halving time, picking up pennies, Dropping them again in a contradictory manner And not the cool kind, but the bad, the annoying, The frustrating type of way. Scalloped necklines of dresses with tags still on Fashionably late, still a virgin. I’m good at grasping at straws, at pick-up-sticks. Terrifying bits of skin falling lightly Dead, to the floor, lying there all political. Split-ended hair and feathery insides Sticking out like broken palm trees through windows Hurricane season, no end in sight. I’m skinny, starving, never hungry. Freckled cheeks, and not the ones you’re thinking of Red burned scratches, new bodily functions Halving days, hung upside down. Knobby bruised knees, gnarled pilled leggings, Plastic and flesh become one. Plush socks and embedded toenail gunk On purpose, or on accident, Somehow still calloused. I’m passing, time flying by, imprisoned in me. Great friends, great stories when they leave The room, spins, wrists too small, grabbing Break them in two. Decadent imagery and new vocabulary Finding romanticism, spoiled, rotting by politics. Body rectangular, boxed in a cubicle Fashionably late, feet roughened by years Flooding.

Parker Jones

I’m told quick lies, left unwashed dishes. Cherry stems untied, drowned In soapy water. Crumb-ridden bedsheets and dusty floors Energy drained, Dead hair clogging airways. Stained shelves and crumbling dynamics, Horror stories too scary to handle for us, But not for me.

I’m finding I’m not all that sad, just tired. We make our beds like dogs, Grass stains on acid-washed jeans. Losing time and resolve Torn wrappers and funneled alcohol Drips down and over, Spilt onto dappled, grit-ridden shoes. Angled poses, images of drawings, smeared Day in, day out, Barefoot and boney.

Skeleton Crew

La Della Gallagher

alignment Sarena Gibson

ajor M t r A for an r e t t e L Love Amritha Selvarajaguru

You’re working on your latest assignment: some hot glued mess pulsating with discarded plastic, neon Gatorade bottle caps and fish-scale-silver soda can slivers we collected on a walk one day gummed together on the plywood, and I don’t really understand what you’re doing, so I poke around your room instead, fiddling with the stuff on your shelves and walls. You only display that which makes you feel something, heavy canvases thick with acrylic paint and monochrome photography of vignettes like shattered gumball machines and dirty shoes, all the things that I don’t get. I sit down on the floor and watch you paint. The window is open, letting in the creamsicle sunset, and everywhere the orange melts is sherbet pink and sweet as blush. You, backlit, cut through the sugar-breath of color and slice a clean black form across the room, opening up the canvas threads of proximity to the oil-slick of your figure, and this, yes, this confuses me too, but I love it all the same. 37

No se buiga, keep moving! Spencer Wilkins

Because I’m lonely and swimming and she tells me I matter. She bleeds on the blackberry vine and repeats my perfections until I’m pink and drunk. I roll her on her hip until the snoring slows and dive into my phone for anyone but her. When she speaks, she speaks of railroad tracks laid by Mexican laborers throughout the corn belt. I hear tracks churn in Kennebunk where another howled herself hoarse, hypomanic running by boxcars. Or another I try to meet halfway between Denver and Vail to desperately apologize and fuck. No se buiga, keep moving! Mexican immigrants fled north. Their barrios still dot cold train tracks I skip over every dawn I leave her. Another tells me about another who interlaced their fingers when she cracked an axle on the interstate and couldn’t afford a tow, and another who looks like the other with a rib tattoo, freckled shoulders and thighs. In Ma’s home calling another my muse as I send the same love song to her and another and my mother awaits his Parkinson’s diagnosis and another details his life insurance policy. No se buiga, keep moving!

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