Fools Vol. 7

vol. 7 december 2019

Fools Magazine is made possible by funding from three entities that support the Fools team and mission.

We would like to formally thank the Magid Center for Undergraduate

SPONSORS

THANK YOU TO OUR

Writing, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the University of Iowa Student Government for their contributions to Fools Magazine.

The ideas and opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily representative of the University of Iowa.

a

THE

letter from:

EDITOR

Dear Reader, When I was a freshman in college, I made my way to a Wednesday night Fools Magazine meeting for the first time. A photographer friend of mine had known one of the editors and said my occasional poetry writing was enough of a reason for me to tag along, so I did. I remember sitting, wide-eyed and quiet, watching artists and writers pitch essays, interviews, photo stories, illustrations. I watched for the full hour, and then I left, and returned the next week.

After less than a semester and many discussions with my parents, mentors in Fools, and sticky notes on my dorm room desk, I had enough courage to email a campus advisor asking to switch my major from political science to English. I listed my commitments to writing to prove myself. Her response only made my decision clearer: I have to tell you that I saw Fools for the first time this week and went nuts over it. I’ve been in this mini world of Fools ever since, yet I am constantly re-amazed, as if I’ve stumbled upon this large classroom of creatives for the first time again.

I’ve memorized the information most important for proving ourselves to those whose support we depend on—website traffic numbers, membership demographics, magazine distribution reach—but I always find it difficult to articulate the real reasons for believing in our mission. Of course, it’s easy to get a glimpse of that mission by reading about our history on foolsmag.com, by attending our events, by grabbing a copy of the magazine when it’s published; that glimpse, though, would be such a cursory thing.

The heart of Fools looks more like artists and writers getting together in crowded classrooms to create, and learning from each other along the way; editors spending countless nights discussing how to meet the needs of our community; a long-time contributor sitting down with Fools editors to figure out how to tell a story she’s been unable to articulate; or myself as a freshman wandering into a Wednesday meeting for the first time, always finding a reason to go back.

There hasn’t been an experience in my life quite like Fools. For so long, it has felt so in-my-hands: accessible as an editor and young enough yet to be shaped, solidified. I write this as we near our seventh volume, and I’m still learning the whole thing is beyond me. When I hold a new issue, I remember the earliest volumes I was part of and imagine the volumes people I’ll never know will get to be part of. At the end of it, there’s a whole lot of love, labor, and advocating that goes on behind the scenes. What comes from that is this. If you’ve found yourself at any step along the way, which includes holding one of our copies—you’re part of our mission, too. We hope you enjoy volume 7.

Yours truly, Ellie Zupancic

M A S T H E A D editor-in-chief Ellie Zupancic

managing editor Grace Oeth

creative director Vivian Le

treasurer Seth Moffitt

web editor Gabbie Meis

writing editor Skyler Barnes

writing editor Hannah Gulick

writing editor Nicole Pagliari

design editor Katie Sailer

photo editor Hayley Anderson

writing assistant Natalie Muglia

writing assistant Melissa MartĂ­nez-Raga

web writing assistant web design assistant Franny Marzuki Noah Pottebaum

photo assistant Gabby Estlund

design assistant Dominique Coleman

design assistant Lindey Carlson

C O N T R I B U T O R S Ajla Dizdarevic 23

Jen A. Becker 41

Lindey Carlson 13, 18, 53

Nicole Klostermann 29

Callan Latham 11,53

Joanna Moody 53

Lydia Waheed 49, 51

Noah Pottebaum 7,27, 35, 41

Carmella Furio 33,35

Julia Reichart 30

Maddy Ackerburg 4

Philip Runia 18

Cailin Hall 29

Kate Snyder 35

Mara Smith 33

Tayden Seay 18

Dominique Coleman 9, 23, 29, 49

Katie Sailer 4, 15, 19,27, 30, 44

Megan Melia 13

Tyler Stercula 27

Eva Long 23, 32

Kaylin Butterfield 47

Melissa MartĂ­nez-Raga 19, 30

Vivian Le 1, 33

Franny Marzuki 15

Kerstin Stillman 15

Meria Ivy 41

Wyatt Dlouhy 37

Gabby Estlund 11, 12

Lexys Sillin 1

Mitchell Griffin 7

Yized Hernandez 28

Hayley Anderson 4, 25, 37

Lily Rosen Marvin 12

Nate Graveen 44

Zoe Hermsen 7, 9

table

of

C O N T E N T S 1

What We Do In Small Towns

28

summer and i

4

Nets Have Holes, & Houses Have Ghosts

30

Running Out of Time

7

The Taste

32 Untitled

9

When I’ve Worn Body Hair

33

To Be Loved By

11

Wild Fruit

35

The Stairwell Room

12

A Bi Girl’s Guide to Dating

37

Things Can Never Be Like This Again

13

If All the Raindrops

41

The Limits of Success

15

Amabo Te

44

frosting for caulk

18

Me, of Color

47

Mental Landscape

19

A Ricky y Sus Amiguis

49

Baby Blue

23

My Cousin

51 Diidii

27

Cabled Garden

53

Purple Coneflowers

WHAT WE DO IN SMALL TOWNS

by Lexys Sillin

1

We’ll meet in small towns, about halfway, we decide in September. Only two hours if we both drive, maybe less if I drive fast, you say, but I’m so blinded by tears brimming on my cheekbones, all I hear are the days in between where I befriend the blades of a ceiling fan and wonder if you’ve slept with someone else already. I feel so fragile, everything is so new. No, never, I love you the most. I cannot fall asleep. *** The first small town is further for me, but it has an antique shop, and I love antiques. It’s noon. I carry a handmade sign with my fingertips for an hour while we rifle through the assorted collection of misfit items that smell of decaying skin. You check every corner for cameras and feel me up behind a shelf with Janet Evanovich lining. I swipe the top after and tract only dust. The sign is gone, there are no old postcards in a thick, lonely binder to redeem this strange aching. The only record player is missing the needle, I think, but we leave before I have the chance to confirm. Travel as far as you can, as often as you can said the sign.

You take me in the back of my car after, covering my mouth, and then you fall asleep. A snowy film falls over everything, so fine that it sparkles. It’s five o’clock. I am reminded of the few hours we have left, but only because you so graciously remind me.

Dinner can be seen through the window of a pathetic Chinese restaurant with more fluorescent lights than a hospital. We laugh sometimes, the food is toxic, and I will find somewhere better next time. We transfer to a park, where you hover over me like night. My leg slips from beneath me and my skin divides to an askew screw. If blood were to fall in the open door and onto the frame I couldn’t tell. You are an Eagle Scout, that is why you carry so many supplies in the back of your car. Or a murderer.

All I have is a Swiss Army knife and some napkins. Eight-thirty.

Again and again and again, the snow falls heavy over me until the small town is littered by stars we cannot see anywhere else.

Nine o’clock. There’s no remorse in your face or your voice, but there lingers something sickeningly sweet, like honey—subtle like a half plugged headphone jack, with only the harmony coming through the speaker. I spill myself because I don’t want you to leave. The vehicle next to us is red and running. When you look offcenter of me, I think the red car may take off on its own. If we don’t leave now, we will be so tired tomorrow. My hands are peeled off your shoulders. You escape to the red car, and eject down the interstate. The road is blurry, I cannot see. Make a U-turn ahead. *** The repetition of long days is too much, and you decide we can spend one night in a two-star hotel newlywed suite, and you unpack

photos and design by Vivian Le

2

luxury bath items we never talked about. You think these are gifts, but I think I can get used to sleeping in someone else’s sheets. I have amnesia every night, and that’s how I always end up in your bed. In the mornings, your lips are melted like a sigil until you have gotten what you came for. I am nothing. No, my love, you are everything.

through the ceiling—dust collects over the water stains. Behind me, she lifts the hair at the base of my neck. I jump. Oh my god, I’m alive I think for a brief second. The water falls, scalds my foot, burns through my sock. Everything is crying on the floor, and the water never evaporates, but neither the fear nor pain can measure up to you. You are everything. For the first time, I don’t believe it.

*** I drown in the bathtub every night. I turn my car into the median and everything is stardust. I daydream about a vaccine injury from a tetanus shot and rub my leg raw again. Life is so sweet that it’s sickening. I think about walls of the iron maiden closing around me—a warranted penetration. I wake up to find it wide open, my body whole, your arms in open embrace. Come to me.

Here is another small town next to the last, and I cannot hear anything but the water pouring through a drain outside. Maybe the greatest injustice is boredom I think. I stick my head out of the snow only to ask about a movie title or excuse myself to the bathroom. Inside, the open window smiles and curtains bat like eyelashes. So pretty, and look at my face in the cloudy mirror. Trauma is a loving mistress, and how great is it to be covered in snow? I brush long hair behind my ears. So pretty. *** In a small town, but north this time. Everything is in your name, and you start charging your credit card. Nowhere to go, and a brown paper-wrapped box with a twine ribbon. More gifts, you think, and I accept them, but I do not want them. Inside is a piece of plastic painted like driftwood. An approximation of the sign in the antique shop from several months ago, but the states and countries behind the letters look like spots of dried blood. At midnight, I take a pregnancy test in the soft haze of the tiled bathroom. Another gift?

I wonder. The door is pounding for hours, I think, and everything is white. I spin on the floor until I can see again. A blizzard roles in, and even the red roaring engine cannot kick up. Negative. *** I have found my way back to the very beginning. I see the same character come up in your contacts, on various platforms, and in your anecdotes. Confrontation is not my strong suit, and you try to take advantage like everything else. I refuse anything but the truth, banking on the instability of my hormones to last this stand-off, folded in a computer chair while you make the bed. Twice, last July.

You make us both relive the time I studied abroad for two months and left you all alone with no one to hold (down). I climb back into bed.

And it’s still fucking snowing. You wouldn’t have stayed with me if you knew when you were leaving. You’re right.

Our meetings are two weeks apart now, and that’s all I have courage for. I am strung out by promises that you will come to me more, more, and more, but I drive further each time, until there are no more small towns. An apparition appears in the basement while I’m boiling water one night. I don’t see her—I am thinking of the snow in Minnesota that concealed the window. A mist seeps

3

*** You can kill me if you want to, but you do not, I think. Then, I think I’m a sociopath you say, and I can feel the walls jester their spikes

You are e v e r y t h i n g .

For the first time, I don’t believe it. close around me. With release, as they cut my sides, I start looking for the words. I think you need help turns into a war inside the walls of your red Honda Accord. The passenger side is child-locked for a long time, and the clouds start turning from above. Winter may last forever. No, no, no; what I’ve said all along, but this time loud, louder for the people window shopping to hear. I fly over your lap to unlock the driver’s side door and start the foot chase to safety.

As I pull out from the side street, you stand in the middle of the road, with a smile slippery enough to spin out on. I wish it was the last time I saw you. I love you, don’t leave me. I’m sick, don’t leave me. *** My phone rings incessantly until I agree to meet at a public place.

It hasn’t snowed in weeks, go figure. The woman you slept with quit her job and moved to Indiana, so I pray there is no one left for you.

Your face is unshaven and you have not taken your medication, or you have, and this is just how that looks. I deny your pleas to turn you into the cops because I’m not confident in my case, and that’s my fault. The fear of stepping out into the parking lot at the same time keeps my feet glued to the floor. It takes an hour for you to run through the playbook, slam the table, and leave. I watch your car, now red and running for another twenty or so. When it begrudgingly peels out, I still feel unsafe. I’ll walk you to your car. No thank you. *** There is no end. I hate all red sedans, but in time, I return to all the small towns. Gas, food, nice pictures along the river—there’s still plenty of water. Not all snow falls the same, and the lenses of my glasses will mist for days sometimes, but no one comes to visit. I don’t believe in Divinity any more than before—I wish I did—but everything is terribly pragmatic. For a while, no place is comfortable, and I can still feel you touching me. On particularly bad days regular people shapeshift into the parts that scare me the most. And I don’t know where you are, but I do keep a switchblade now in case you’re ever curious where I am. How is she doing lately?

I. in which something something isn’t right She stepped inside the decaying entryway with the chipped white paint. The floor, full of loose floorboards, creaked as she slowly turned on her heel, balancing a cardboard box between her arms. Maybe it had something to do with the hair standing up on the back of her neck, or the goosebumps that rose on her arms. Maybe it had something to do with the eeriness following her as she made her way through the decrepit house, ignoring the twisting in her stomach. She would later say that the house watched her as she moved, as she breathed. Something hung in the air, imprisoned between the confines of life and death.

something.

Nets Nets Have Have Holes,& Holes, & Houses Houses Have Have Ghosts Ghosts

by Maddy Ackerburg

II. in which stars can’t predict the future Mom phoned her grandma the entire time she was pregnant with me. Grandma Timo was small, with crinkled olive skin and loud eyes that could command anything with a pulse. Nobody knew how she did it, but she could look at the stars and the way the tide receded into the ocean and tell you when it was time to stop breastfeeding. There were complications when Mom was pregnant with me, but Grandma Timo told her not to worry, even when Mom started bleeding and the doctors told her she had lost me. “Don’t worry,” Timo said, “Give her time. She’ll be a fighter.” Even now, I look up at the stars and try to find the same answers Grandma Timo did. I want to know who lied and said I was brave.

III. in which things flicker It started small: missing socks, a light that wouldn’t stop flickering in the corner. Papa called a technician but there was nothing wrong with the wires. In fact, the house wasn’t even that old—it had been built in 1938 and there were no prior complaints about the charming and inviting colonial style home on the top of the hill, the one with the red door and the oversized windows. But she knew something was wrong, even as a sophomore struggling to balance high school and her job at a local supermarket so she could afford to go to college. Mom knew because of the drafts that followed her from room the room, the way the walls watched her. She knew when her older brother began to sleep with a baseball bat in his bed because he was terrified of the armoire in the corner of his bedroom. It had come with the house and smelled of rotting mothballs, but he refused to touch it. She stayed clear of it, too. She stayed clear of a lot of things.

4

IV. in which time and space collide

Mom says the moment she looked down at me, the moment she held me for the first time, she realized we had known each other in a past life. Maybe the roles had switched. Maybe we were sisters, always arguing.

Maybe I had been her mother. Something was there: a connection, a tie. Hip to hip, bone to bone. The brown met the brown and suddenly it was just us in that hospital room, suspended in time and space, just as it had always been. I wonder what would have happened if someone dragged a projector in front of my Mom, clicked a remote, and showed her what was going to happen to us. That one day I would watch her stare in the mirror, pinching her hips as she said she looked too fat. That one day we would sit in a therapy room, angry tears pouring from my eyes when I asked her why she hadn’t noticed what was happening to me. That one day she would sit on the edge of my bed, fingers stroking my scalp, and ask me why I hadn’t eaten dinner.

That one night after I turned nineteen we would both come home from drinking and embrace each other, mother and daughter, admitting that we might never understand the other.

My My grandma grandma kept kept seeing her, the seeing her, the imposter imposter that was not mother, that wasmynot my mother, standing in standing in corners with corners with her her white nightgown. white nightgown. she She told herself shetold was herself she seeing things. was seeing things.

VI. in which dirty dishes are left in the sink

V. in which things things are heard and seen

5

Eerie things started happening in that house other than flickering lights and strange armoires. Mom would walk out the front door, adjusting her supermarket uniform as she kissed her mother goodbye, telling her she’d be home for dinner. My grandma would begin to cook, the warm Italian aromas filling the kitchen as she waited for her children to come home from work and school. A voice called from the doorway. “Mommy.” She turned, spoon in hand, and stared in confusion at my mother standing in the doorway, wearing a long white nightgown, dark hair falling over her shoulders. She was smiling.

“Laura,” my grandma said, bewildered, “I thought you left for work.” And the imposter who was not my mother smiled at her and left without saying another word.

Grandma stared after her with uncomprehending eyes until my real mother walked in the door three hours later, exhausted from work and ready for dinner. “Laura,” my grandma said, standing in the doorway with an angry hand on her hip, “Where have you been?” And my mom stared at her, sliding off her shoes in the entryway, annoyed that she was being questioned the moment she came back from work. “Work,” she responded, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” And then grandma explained what she had seen. My mom paled, holding up a hand as if she could block her words in midair. “I don’t want to hear about it,” she responded, “Don’t tell me this shit.”

I saw her cry for the first time in third grade. She stood hunched at the kitchen sink, one hand wrapped around her abdomen, the other clutching the phone. I watched her from the corner of the room, frozen in my fear, as she wailed that her father was dying. And then she looked up, nose running, and saw me. I wandered to her side, trying in the way only children can to make her feel better. My arms wrapped around her waist. I asked her what was wrong. But she had stopped crying the moment she knew I was watching, the moment eyes were on her. Then her jaw clenched and her shoulders set back. Somehow, she was comforting me.

VII. in which connections are made My grandma kept seeing her, the imposter that was not my mother, standing in corners with her white nightgown.

She told herself she was seeing things. Everyone did, during those three years, my mother’s younger sister, who insisted that her things kept going missing. Or my mother’s older brother, who still slept with the bat and his covers pulled up to his chin even though he had just turned eighteen. And my mother, who tried desperately to ignore the signs, couldn’t shake the fact that something was watching her. That the whispering she heard vibrating throughout the room when she was alone was just something in her head.

VIII. in which the distance grows greater

Let’s talk about how we sit in the same chairs passing the same windows because we can’t stand the thought of not being comfortable. Of being alone. And maybe that’s why my mother, when we stared at each other with our identical eyes, told me that she didn’t know who I was anymore. She didn’t know why I couldn’t get out of bed at sixteen and go to school; why I had dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep and my clothes didn’t fit anymore. Why I counted my calories and shoved my finger down my throat. Maybe that’s why she asked me, her face pressed against the bathroom door as I cried on the opposite side, why I was being so selfish. Why I couldn’t think about what she was feeling, for once. And maybe that’s why I threw my keys at her, screaming that I wasn’t the selfish one, it wasn’t me because what kind of mother tells her daughter she needs to lose weight, and maybe that’s why I ran that night. My bare feet on frozen ground, wind biting my cheeks, headlights on my spine. But I couldn’t run faster than the way she looked at me.

But I couldn’t But I couldn’t run run faster than faster than the way the way she she looked at me. looked at me.

IX. in which the puzzle comes together Money was tight and it would have been hard to move.

Nobody brought it up, but everyone was thinking it: something was wrong. One night the family went out to dinner and left Barry, Mom’s brother, alone with his girlfriend in the house. While they were sitting there watching TV, the girlfriend started screaming, holding her hands over her ears as she stared at something in the corner. When the rest of the family came home from dinner, they found Barry sitting on the porch of the house, shaking hands wrapped around his BB gun. His girlfriend hadn’t stopped crying. When they asked what Barry had seen, the girlfriend held up a trembling hand, lips quivering, and pointed directly at Mom’s chest. “It looked like you.” That was all she needed to say. Mom knew what she meant. The ghost was back—and it still looked identical to her.

X. in which the ghost crabs watch

She came to find me after the others had gone to bed.

The cool of evening brought waves that tickled my toes and wisps of the moon on open water. We were rebels that night, tipsy from wine, angry at my father who said I shouldn’t talk politics. As we stumbled across the shore, arms interlocked, we watched the ghost crabs crawl into small divots in the sand and laughed about his temper.

Mom turned to me, her cheeks flushed from alcohol. “He said he was done putting up with his disrespectful wife.”

Our laughter faded. I remember staring at her, and

she fell

like a snipped flower, her knees in the sand, face in her hands. I wish I had been brave enough to tell her how I really felt, how much I loved her. But I held her. We stayed like that for a while.

XI. in which the story ends That’s it. The women of the house sat down for the first time that night, the night that Barry’s girlfriend cried, and talked about what had been happening all those years.

And then, finally, they moved out. For a long time, they refused to talk about it: what my grandma had seen, what my mother had heard. Not a single word. They told me the story years later over flickering candles and half-eaten birthday cake. I had just turned thirteen. My grandma shook her head, shifting her frosting around with her fork. “I don’t want this to scare you, Madeleine.”

But all I can remember is looking at my mom, at the way her face paled. I could see it in her eyes. How the walls were already up.

XII. in which nets have holes and houses have ghosts You can’t blame a net for having holes. And that she does, my mother. I don’t know the woman who danced with ghosts, the woman with nine holes in her ears and the tossed wedding rings and shredded photos. But how do I tell her that she doesn’t always have to wander the sand? That she doesn’t have to stitch her skin with glue?

That she doesn’t always have to wander that house, fingers brushing that chipped white paint, waiting.

Waiting for those ghosts to haunt her. That I love her, and always have, because we’ve known each other, her and I. Through time and space. We’ve always known each other. photo by Hayley Anderson | design by Katie Sailer

6

Facedown on a highway we lick the asphalt to see if it’s still sweet. Horns blaring are not particularly concerning. We want the taste.

We search for the perfect taste at every turn.

We crave it.

Roads that traverse the states and municipalities littered across the nation have a liminal taste, one that is fleeting and surreal, like high speeds and high hopes. Junk food fills our mouths on these roads and feels like sugary supersaturation and the decay of our general health the same way these roadways crumble in front of us.

Gravel roads. This taste is bitter. Not like coffee or losing the war or getting told you look like that one ugly kid you knew once upon a time. It lingers. They bring a sensation of lingering, inescapable filth. All times are the Dust Bowl, a fishbowl coated in a layer of dust only able to be cleansed of the dust by dust itself. The search pushes on.

Yet, dead ends taste like our intuition being clobbered by a royally red stop sign. They should always lead somewhere else. Which they do, except for when they do not. We exist in limbo until we are abruptly forced to turn around and find tastes of brand new. No, not new. Not yet. First we have to retrace our steps and taste it once again, this time duller than before.

Alleys are the roads that are not quite roads. They have the taste of illegal art and sometimes of putrid urine and garbage. The taste, to our disdain, is unforgettable.

Our hunger grows.

7

THE TASTE

by Mitchell Griffin

Roads named after men who were rotten people have a certain tinge to tongue. It tastes like being forced to revere what you hate, forced into an awareness of history in a manner we did not ask for even when every other part of society already whispers it to us at the top of its lungs. That which has been devoured by the eternal worm still remains fresh after centuries. Meadow Lane and Jefferson Street are not the same...

Brick roads are history. They taste like preservatives that have kept everything in place. At least this time, we are more aware than normal that our tongues are feeling something aged multitudes beyond us.

Yet, we are not satisfied.

Cracked roads are the always reliable taste of construction, the kind outpaced by the mighty sloth. Potholes and fading paint and dirty orange cones and automatic lights that cue our decisions for us because Rules are Important in the Society we opted to exist in.

The jolting and skull-rattling remind us that smooth sailing is for the seas.

Imaginary roads, the ones that take us everywhere and nowhere at once made from rubber, steel, and string have the sweetest taste. On these we take strolls atop Dali’s elephants on our way to greet Gaia and atone for the state of our home. The only ends are at the holographic corners of the multiverse. This is the taste we crave. We remain here until the sweet turns sour and we must find stable tastes underneath us once again, facedown.

collage by Zoe Hermsen

design by Noah Pottebaum

8

THE TASTE

design by Dominique Coleman

9

comic by Zoe Hermsen

10

by Callan Latham

I stain raspberries in the mouth.

Clouds seize into sky and fill their jaws with dew.

Plucking seeds from between teeth, they stay cracked and soft. A cool breeze flutters along the brick, begging to be let inside. So I beg to know you.

Hands sticky with red sweetness, the juice seeps into nail, under knuckle.

You mutter the tradition of dying fruit.

We collect berries from beneath trees and boil them with sugar until they’re all shiny and hot. When it cools, we put the jam in glass jars and seal them shut.

We place the jars on shelves in the basement where the walls smell like old laundry, cold and humming and filled with hibernating fruit.

11 photo by Gabby Estlund design by Lindey Carlson

A BI GIRL’S GUIDE TO dating

by Lily Rosen Marvin

1.

When I told him I liked kissing girls I was already halfway out of the car. I tossed the truth back at him and fled the scene. A bi girl’s hit and run. His hands were big and clumsy but somehow he caught the words. He held a piece of me so gently, as if I’d shatter at the first sudden move.

2.

The first time she kisses me her lips taste like strawberry Jell-O and cheap vodka. I take her hand in mine and it’s smaller than I expected. The knob of the cabinet door presses into my back but I don’t care. I just want to stay in this moment as long as it will hold me.

3.

When he asks about my history I tell him every name but hers. Go looking. I want you to earn it. Stories told for the first time tend to stumble. Words bubble up behind my lips, desperate to be heard after all these years. He reaches inside me, pulls out a piece of my heart, and hands it to me like it’s worth something. It doesn’t matter that everything we say is silly and superficial. No one has ever made the space for me to talk about girls the way I talk about boys. Every question he asks trips over itself, wanting so bad to get it right.

He’s the first person who’s tried this hard to understand me. It’s easy to mistake being seen for being loved.

4.

The first time he kisses me, he bruises my lip. It’s clumsy and eager. All teeth and not enough air left for our lungs. I wear the purple and blue like a badge of honor. My fingers brush over the spot long after the colors fade, looking for the last traces of proof that we were real.

5.

When he asks me who I’d pick, Austin Butler or Vanessa Hudgens, I know what he wants to hear. Because he likes her voice. Because he likes my laugh. I’m standing in the shadow of a bi girl fantasy. All of a sudden the piece of me he’s holding feels cheap. As if my sexuality is a slinky piece of lingerie, something I’d slipped on just for him.

6.

He asks me how I feel about tongue piercings and the girl from the gay bar. He’s holding the puzzle piece wrong. Turn it. Turn it again.

7.

The sky here is stubborn. It holds the city lights long after the world has gone to sleep. She laces her fingers through mine and I’m surprised to find they don’t fit the same as before. My words fall from her lips. I see you. I see you. I see you. illustration by Meg Adams design by Gabby Estlund

12

if all the raindrops

by Megan Melia

She was still eating lemon drops.

It was getting ridiculous, really. Half the jar was gone, even though she only had one hand free to keep snatching. But she couldn’t help it.

Sugary and light, their gentle bite disrupted some of the heat bearing down on her, and bathing her palm in sweat, as she gripped her snoozing grandfather’s leathery hand, drenched in Olay lotion. There was a soft pang with each pop in her mouth. A little buzz gently advising her to stop. And like a middle finger to the sky, she’d reach into the jar and eat another.

She knew she would probably regret it. But she kept eating them. Maybe it was because she knew eventually she wouldn’t be able to taste lemon without collapsing, and she knew that day was coming soon.

And as for that day... she found herself bartering daily with God about it. Some days the trade involved making the day come soon, come now. Make it stop, let him rest, let it end, she’d beg and plead to the angels while the rest of the world slept.

Other days, all she craved was time. Greedy, self-indulgent time that would do nothing to change the inevitable. But it was days like this that she would sell her soul to make sure she only had one hand free to eat lemon drops, so that the other could keep holding his.

So she sat. Next to him, as she had all summer. Stocking up on enough lemon to last her the rest of her life. The nautical notes of his cologne waltzed with the tangy lemon in the air, a sort of scented soundtrack, breathing familiarity to the slow beat of their time left. And he’d wake, and they’d talk. He seemed to be remembering the past with such clarity these days, though she could hardly say the same for his memory of last week.

But that didn’t matter because on days like this, he’d puff with pride upon recollection of the 32-inch musky he caught on the lake they loved. He’d absentmindedly rub the lonely wedding

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band on his hand, asking her if she remembered the story of a semiblind date at a long ago school dance, where he fell in love with a radiant girl who loved the White Sox. Of course she remembered, but she’d feign cluelessness, if only to live momentarily again in a world where her grandmother’s striking sapphire eyes had not yet closed forever without warning.

Though she wouldn’t have much practical use for it, he would instruct her in excruciating detail how to build a thatch roof house, in the middle of the Irish highlands, as he had done in his youth.

He’d remind her the key is to angle the roof steeply, using a variety of weeds, straws, and grasses. Mud can be helpful for adhesion.

This was very important for her to know, in the event that she found herself alone and unsheltered in the Irish highlands.

His eyes would get misty when he talked about singing in the cathedral as a boy, humming either an Italian aria or “Loch Lomond,” depending on the day. He told her that someday, she’d get to sing in places even more beautiful than that cathedral. He told her she could do anything. And he’d say it with such assuredness, such conviction, that she couldn’t help but believe him.

She’d smile and kiss his cheek and offer him a lemon drop. When she was young, he always had them stashed away in the deep pockets of his wool fisherman sweaters, ready to slip them quietly to her when her mother and grandmother weren’t looking.

Lately, it was a toss up if he would eat the offered lemon drop. Sometimes he’d take it, mouth puckering a little extra to make her laugh.

Other times he’d turn it down, tell her what a shame it would be if he stole away her chance of having what could be the world’s greatest lemon drop. And she’d play along, as though she were still that little girl who believed him when he said, “I’m just too full.” But something within her splintered every time she saw he barely had the strength to eat a lemon drop anymore.

throw them away, and be back just in time for him to lazily open his eyes. He’d tease gently that he couldn’t believe she had the audacity to leave him all alone and, oh, how he’d missed her terribly.

Sometimes she’d laugh and give a curtsied apology, playfully swearing that she’d never do something so horrible again. Other days, she’d manage a smile and say no, she was perfectly all right, she had only gotten sunblock in her eyes. Because some days, even in jest, it was simply too much. The prospect of missing someone again.

It was wearing on her. Even lemon is not potent enough a scent to mask the reek of panic every time he tipped his worn Irish cap at her as they parted. The crinkle of plastic wrappers did little to drone out what was likely the last time he would hear them sing “Happy Birthday” in their infamous, multi-keyed rendition.

All the sugar in the world couldn’t soothe her throat after being wept raw when her mother asked if her black dress still fit.

But there was this element of guilt eating away at her. Her body was not the one that stopped making blood, it wasn’t her mind that was an overgrown jungle of foggy yesterdays, fuzzy dates and faces. She was not the one who had to start thinking about what she would say to God when she met Him. What right did she have to allow this fear and dread bloom inside of her? Once the day came, the guesswork for her would end. She knew how this next part would go.

This next part she had done before.

Even lemon is not potent enough a scent to mask the reek of panic every time he tipped his worn Irish cap at her as they parted.

So he’d give it to her, watch her eyes radiate that mischievous glint, knowing full well it was his genes that instilled that mischief within her. Knowing full well that sweet tooth was mostly his fault as well.

He basked in the element of quiet comfort of that notion. The fact that however much longer this summer stretched on, there was a place where that mischief would still reside. There would still be someone with a pocket full of lemon drops who knew where that fish mounted on the wall came from.

In this daze, it was easy for the blunt line determining reality to grow jagged. She found herself slipping into a dangerous mindset occasionally, one that sang, “see you tomorrow,” sure as a promise.

Tomorrows tend to add up quickly. Almost as quickly as the pile of discarded lemon drop wrappers on the table.

She’d notice the plastic accumulating and attempt to gently free her hand from his grasp long enough to gather the wrappers,

The world would halt for a week or two. So would her appetite, but the high of lemon drops discovered wedged between the cushions would sustain her enough to socialize while passing around tissues. She’d fall back into a routine of sleeping fitfully in her grandmother’s old jacket, waking feverishly one night to find her hand sticky from the melted remains of a forgotten lemon drop tucked in the pocket. She’d cradle her cheek when she bit down a touch too aggressively on a lemon drop after bumping into a stranger with the audacity to wear her grandfather’s cologne.

She’d keep talking to him, and she’d tell anyone who’d listen where the musky on the wall came from. And one day, she’d hear “Loch Lomond” playing in a store. Her breathing even, she’d picture the brown eyes that matched hers, and she’d smile.

Not only because she knew which reeds to use while building a thatched roof house in Ireland, but because she was so very lucky to have been that man’s granddaughter and been loved so fiercely because of it.

But she knew that once the lemon drops ran out, the jar would not be refilled. Which was probably why, despite the sweat accumulating between their palms, she tightened her grip on his hand, the Olay lotion bleeding into her pores. And like a middle finger to the sky, she reached in the jar and ate another. illustrations by Yized Hernandez design by Lindey Carlson

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Amabo Te:

An Essay on Love and Begging

amo, amare, amavi, amatum v. meaning ‘to love,’ amabo te idiom. meaning ‘please;’ literal meaning ‘I will love you’

by Franny Marzuki

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In Latin, to ask something of another you must offer them your love. /though this is imprecise as there are many verbs to ask, to beg/

To ask something of another—the way that we do in English, as a single word of entreaty added at the end of a request—you must offer them your love.

I tell you this when the light is pinkening through your window. I chew on my nail.

Everything is fresh and pulsing like a wound exposed. Still wet. Still throbbing.

You barely look at me. /though how selfish it is that I want you to look at me, to look at me, please, please, see me/

You wonder what kind of favor would warrant that type of begging of someone; you wonder how desperate you would need to be to offer up that much of yourself to another at a moment’s notice. Because you have never given parts of yourself away before. But I tell you that it would be much easier than you think.

I tell you that love has always been an act of begging. /though maybe, again, I’m being presumptuous, as I only have us to base ideas of love on/

Love is always a form of begging, I tell you again, because you never hear me if I say something once. I’ve gotten used to speaking in doubles.

The phrase amabo te can only be used in the singular, never made into the plural—you would never offer your love to more than one, amabo vos was non-existent in classical Latin. To plead is a conversation between only two, intimate like the insides of medicine cabinets. As whispers passed between bottoms of pill bottles. /though many find it easy to love more than one at the same time, with a breadth wide and unending; unconditional/

When I tell you this, the nail I’m chewing rips unevenly. Leaving a thin transparence, a remaining piece of something once whole. You hum, preoccupied with other things more interesting than my erroneous etymology.

Anything to you would be more interesting than my false science.

It’s much easier to believe that this is the nature of love. Desperate and clawing and begging. Because if that isn’t true, what do the two of us have?

Some type of soured emotion, curdling and infectious.

I wonder who was the one to spread it first. /though I already know the answer you would give/

illustration by Kerstin Stillman design by Katie Sailer

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When we’re alone like this, I remember things I shouldn’t. Things that invert my heart and make my hands shake with want.

I remember the old you. /though maybe it could still be you, if I weren’t me/

I remember we met when the sky was fresh, striking and sure in its color, not the fading lights we find ourselves settling in so often now. Then, you looked at me and said my eyes are brown, my hair is long, and my nose looks like it has a marble placed on its end. You looked at me and saw me. Back then, you knew what I meant before I even spoke. I had no need to use my double speech. /though it’s hard to remember that, so hard to remember, that even in my mind I can barely think it/

In my imagination, old you would tell me what I want to hear. What I want you to tell me in this moment: that I’m wrong. Love has never been an act of begging, you would have said. You would have laughed a little, strained with pity. But I guess that you’re not completely wrong, you just have it backwards, you would have said.

To love someone is to be vulnerable. When you ask something of someone, you’re allowing them your weakness. You create a promise and you put your trust into another for them to fulfill that promise. You would have laughed again and reached out to pull my fingers away from my mouth. What’s more loving than that? You would have said. And I would have believed you. /though you don’t say these things and I can’t bring myself to believe them; I still hide my mouth behind bitten nails/

I think about the fact that amabo te is in the future tense. I will love you. An action that declares continuation, to be unending.

I’ve bitten off my fingernails until there is nothing else to grab onto. You don’t look at me, just barely hearing me. I move to biting the top layer of skin off my fingertips until they are budding pink, /though not striking enough to be red; a yearning/

just to have something to tear.

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by Philip Runia

The ruddy dirt in Texas, just after a Wyoming rain spattered across my back.

The hide of piglets, squeezed squealing in my palms until almost white, but not quite.

The lone drop of buttermilk chocolate that formed the mole under my ribs.

The flat molasses pancake, marked at birth, then flattened with age on the rear of my right hip.

The yellow of the nursery I’d have laid in, had our house been a home.

The manila of my melanin that breaks my blackness, distinguishing stretch marks from the lashes of my ancestors, just on my mother’s side.

The golden hour glow that blondes the hair on my arms and forehead, though not nearly Aryan.

The caramel candy which grandmother tongues, just on my father’s side, like an accusation, questioning my coloredness.

All brown, are the features I am beholden to, beautiful in my eyes.

illustrations by Tayden Seay design by Lindey Carlson

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To Ricky and his buddies A Ricky y sus amiguis

Hello, reader.

Before you examine my photo essay, consider this: During the last two weeks of July, Puerto Rico erupted in protest.

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A Ricky y sus amiguis To Ricky and his buddies

This is my understanding of what el pueblo, the collective power of the people, is capable of.

“Si Fortaleza colapsa esta tarde, no tiene nada que ver con esto……………”

Un poco de colonialismo aquí, un poco de imperialismo allá. Ya es hora de la democracia.

San Felipe Del Morro in San Juan

After members of his administration were arrested for embezzling millions of dollars in relief funds, 889 pages of private chats between ex-governor Ricardo “Ricky” Rosselló and his inner circle, many in his cabinet, were leaked to the public. In just two months, these buddies mocked women and violence against them, LGBTQ+ and disabled individuals, even the dead from Hurricane María. The government announced 64 as the official toll, when it was in fact over 4,600 puertorriqueños, puertorriqueñas, and puertorriqueñxs who passed away in the following weeks. Without any qualms, we, el pueblo, millions in Puerto Rico and the diaspora, demanded resignation: #RickyRenuncia turned into #RickyLeaks and #TelegramGate. He indeed stepped down, but not after manipulating the people, police, media, and press. The following quotes are these men’s comments on figures such as Ricky Martin, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín, and Colectiva Feminista, directly pulled from the chat.

photo essay by Melissa Martínez-Raga

“If Fortaleza (our White House) collapses this afternoon, it has nothing to do with this……………”

A bit of colonialism here, a bit of imperialism there.

It’s now time for a democracy.

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“Ricky in a Casket” an art performance during the July protests

“Nuestra cabeza rodando en la plaza pública” Tus palabras tienen consecuencias.

“…otro gallo con problemas” No puedes borrar la homosexualidad de la naturaleza.

“Our heads rolling in the public plaza” Your words have consequences.

“…another cock with problems” You cannot erase gayness from nature.

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“Beat up that whore” Virgin or whore, that is for me to decide.

I love who I am and your opinion does not faze me.

“Caerle encima a esa puta” Santa o puta, eso lo decido yo.

Amo quien soy y me roza tu opinión.

Wall art in La Placita de Santurce

Pride 2019

“Stop texting and manage those women” We are here, and we are all colors.

“Las mujeres no dan la talla” Las mujeres siempre se visten de batalla.

Míranos ganar la guerra.

2 cocks chilling in Pazzis Cemetary

“Deja de textear y atiende esas mujeres” Estamos aquí y de todos colores.

“Boom ChickenNuggets”

“Women don’t cut it” Women are always dressed for battle.

Watch us win the war.

“Yes” smoking sign in Rincón Boom indeed, chicken shit.

design by Katie Sailer

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by Ajla Dizdarević

Amir

sits across from me, legs spread out on the couch he’s claimed for the next half hour, or however long it takes him to smoke a couple cigarettes. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and Lacoste Café is nearly empty; only a few young men are smoking from nargile as their unamused girlfriends sit beside them.

“It’s more fun at night,” Amir says, tapping his cigarette at the edge of an ashtray placed in the middle of the table. “More people come out at night.” He lifts his cigarette up, puffing on it before exhaling. Fine lines are starting to set around his eyes, making him look older than 24. Everyone in Bosnia looks older.

The sun hits his face, and I see so much of myself illuminated in the slope of his nose and the upward tilt of his eyes. The shape of his jaw is familiar, too, but everything else—his voice, his height, his being—is foreign to me. The skinny little boy I used to run around and climb trees with is a man now. I don’t know what to say.

“I don’t love you,” I blurt out. Amir laughs, and I quickly add, “I mean, my uncle on my mom’s side told me the other day that he loves me, and I just thought, wow, how can he love me when he doesn’t even know me?”

“Did you tell him that?” Amir asks, snuffing out his cigarette before reaching into his box of Marlboros for another.

“No,” I say, “I didn’t. How could I say that to his face?” Amir laughs again and says, “You just said it to mine.”

“Yeah, but it’s different with you.” I sink back into my seat, thinking about what to say next. I haven’t been to Bosnia or spoken with Amir in over a decade, but I still remember when we were kids, throwing jokes at each other and refusing to mince words in the way only cousins know how to do. I sought Amir out to talk with him, expecting revelatory, earth-shattering conversation after years of silence, but I don’t think that’s how it works here. All people in Bosnia want to do is smoke and take small steps towards answering the ephemeral question of “how are you?” A waiter comes by, and I ask for non-carbonated water. Amir orders a Coke.

Muslim. Like how people are culturally Jewish but not religious.”

Amir squints, twisting off the cap of his Coke bottle and asking, “What do you mean? What do you live for if not god?”

“Myself.” I pause. “But I don’t think it makes me happy.” I don’t know what I expected when I decided to visit Bosnia again.

Maybe some kind of break from my life in America, some kind of sanctuary where I could feel whole. Bosnia as the place where I could fix myself and not have to feel too American for my family or too Bosnian for my friends. But I’m noticing that my problems seem to follow me, even here where everyone looks like me and knows how to pronounce my name. I wipe some condensation off my glass before asking my cousin, “Are you happy?”

“Of course,” Amir says. “Why wouldn’t I be?” I stay quiet; talking about these things is hard enough for me in English, let alone in Bosnian when I have to fumble around for the right words.

Amir takes another sip, relaxing on the beat-up couch that’s god-knows-how old. I reach across the table to set my drink down, and Amir catches my wrist.

Amir looks at me, but I don’t know exactly what I see when our gazes meet. I try to make out distant memories in the shadows of his face: playing in the shallow water of a river, petting kittens in the attic, pleading with him to kill a spider in the hallway to my room. Small happenings that don’t mean much but stayed with me all these years. I wonder what stayed with him once I left 14 years ago, what little things he pieced together to keep me whole in memory. It’s easier there, where we exist as kids and don’t know how much we don’t know each other.

“I have a dog.” I look away, focusing on the Coke bottle in his hand. “She’s always biting me. It leaves marks sometimes.” Amir doesn’t respond, as if he’s waiting for a qualifying statement that will give him the truth, but I stay quiet. Some things aren’t meant to be shared with strangers.

“You don’t drink?” I ask.

“No,” Amir says. “I used to, but not anymore. I’m trying to be more religious.” He takes a drag from his cigarette before continuing.

“Muslims aren’t supposed to drink.”

“You’re not supposed to smoke, either,” I point out, and he laughs.

“Well,” he says, “we all have our vices. Aren’t you Muslim?”

“Kind of,” I say. “It’s hard to explain.” The waiter returns with our drinks, and I nod my head. “I don’t believe in god, but I’m still collage by Eva Long

design by Dominique Coleman

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photos and design by Hayley Anderson

Are you sure you want to continue?_

Cabled Garden

by Tyler Stercula There is a cabled garden that Grows and grows and grows, Where the lucky fox sleeps and The Ferryman seeks A fare of fingers and toes.

And in a wakeless silence, The dormant shudderscythe knows: Its absent master sighs a Worried prayer of lies-The Tender reaps not what he sows.

But, for a moment, In the still crackle of rebirth, A stuttered breath can circumnavigate All untilled virginal Earth.

When the fox awakens, From her den, shaken, She’ll appraise the truant Cordsmith’s worth.

There is a cabled Rows and rows and Of cloudroots and And barkbooks and That never ceases

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garden of rows sharkteeth, sinwreathes, to impose.

illustrations by Noah Pottebaum & Yized Hernandez

design by Katie Sailer

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by Nicole Klostermann

i. it’s summer and i slice the soft flesh of my foot on slick red stones bunched in the bed of the shallow creek blood curling into clear water sun spots in my eyes ii. it’s summer and i slice citrus to embalm in red wine stains my fingertips iii. summer and i slip into something fleeting flowers twisted in our hair but sour sick on our tongues from abusing our bodies stringing ourselves along on the clothesline white button ups and torn pantyhose floating in the breeze the sunrise for breakfast yolk split with a spoon

29 photo by Cailin Hall design by Dominique Coleman

R U N N I N G out of T I M E

by Melissa Martínez-Raga Mama, who would ritually close our windows and turn on the A/C right before sleeping, now sets it to max the minute she gets home from work. “That adds to the heat outside,” I tell her, exasperated, as my wrist aches with the swing of the hand fan but the rest of my body stays still, very still, to avoid more droplets of sweat staining the couch. “Well, what do you want?” she responds, “I won’t let us melt like candles.” When I argue we must combat global warming with the little things we can do, she insists, “Ay nena, I’ve heard the same thing for 40 years,” now pointing to the generator rumbling outside. “The fumes will surely kill us first.” My resolve blows away in a trail of smoke.

was waking up sweating every day this summer, the precious time I get to be home, when I read the Amazon, the Congo, and the Arctic were all burning alive.

I already migrate. I spend eight months out of the year 2,000 miles away from home. I already see change around me. But I worry when what I thought were constants in my life suddenly destabilize my navigation of the world. The tides of Ocean Park Beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico were slamming against houses four blocks away from my apartment, while I watched, safely from the seventh floor, a terrifying video of a thousands-year-old glacier melting in Greenland, and another in Argentina, and then another in Russia. I

At the moment, this country is plagued with climate change skeptics and anti-immigration white supremacists; this is the same country whose reality is half-brown. This browning is no coincidence. The same droughts occurring in California are devastating Central Americans, but only the latter are called illegal aliens when they establish in the U.S. to survive. Dismissing the problems afflicting marginalized groups is denying the man-made crisis engulfing this earth.

It is clear the climate crisis is here, and it is here to stay. So, let’s talk some politics too, because those few with the power to stop this genocide, like the orange-in-chief, still have the audacity to deny accountability. Since I began traveling away from home to study in Iowa, the interconnectedness between politics and the social constructions of migrant and marginalized lives has become a recurring topic in my understanding of climate change.

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More than 25 million people are facing displacement due to climate disasters every year; 1 in 9 human beings might find their homes uninhabitable in 30 years. That is 200+ million individuals forced into environmental migration by 2050.

Well, you

what do want?

The U.S. Military is both the biggest investment for the nation and the largest polluter in the world. A few fossil fuel companies and systematic government negligence are directly responsible for decimating natural habitats and exacerbating climate change.

Not only is this information neatly graphed and easy to read, but figures such as Mari Copeny, Jamie Margolin, Isra Hirsi, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will also guarantee continuous updates on these injustices. Something as simple as redirecting funds and legislative attention could provide for nationwide renewable energy, fix Flint’s water emergency, and clean up the Gulf of Mexico—polluted mostly by toxic agricultural runoff from Iowa. Our actions directly affect and parallel what happens elsewhere. Legal measures are a necessity, but public outcry has a massive role in exerting pressure and demanding accountability, or affected individuals will continue to be denied a space of articulation and priority.

Legal plans for wide-scale climate action include the United Nations’ Paris Agreement and Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, our best hopes so far to ensure frontline groups a sustainable future if, and only if, this nation cooperates. Both UN reports and GND rhetoric affirm that vulnerable communities are the least responsible for global pollution yet the most affected by climate change, like Puerto Rico and Nigeria and Somalia and the Philippines, in which the most powerful countries and corporations dump their toxic trash and radioactive ash and then refuse to help during twofold catastrophes.

We can start by supporting environmental policy and disaster relief with our voice and vote, and by donating to local grassroots and community groups, not the Red Cross or FEMA. We can listen to migrants’ stories, and advocate for efficient immigration reform.

The single story of undocumented human beings must expand to suddenly unyielding crops and a familiar lack of government help, events closer to us than we can afford to ignore. We can put pressure on our political and community leaders to commit to renewable energy, steering clear of fossil and biofuels. Little things like Friday climate activism and conscious social media involvement will make a change. We have Greta Thunberg’s speeches for outrage and David Begnaud’s tweets for receipts.

Talk about climate change, the unseen driver of migration. Do not deny the browning of the earth and the brown lives that are suffering the most. Attend climate strikes with friends and family, at least give it a thought every Friday. Consider the environmental ripple effects of your day, and demand your representatives do the same. Our hope for a tomorrow relies on individual responsibility and collective action.

The entire world is melting like a candle, slowly but surely, its vulnerable people the first to drip down and flatten against the ground. I have trouble making out a future. Apparently, I am lucky to experience 106ºF in Puerto Rico and -60ºF in Iowa, starting my roaring twenties with roaring anxiety, imposter syndrome, and survivor’s guilt. I am lucky to have air conditioning—oh,

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I won’t let us melt like c a n d l e s . and water, food, and shelter. Soon enough, another Category 5 hurricane (and waves of death)—a Mitch (11,300+), a Katrina (1,800+) or a María (4,600+)—will sweep over us again, and again. Seasons come every year with increasing cycles of destruction, trauma, unemployment, rationing, and heat, so much heat. ¡Uf, qué calor!

How can I pray full of grace to an Ave María who ravaged my space? Have those beautiful beaches receded to a point where they won’t be a natural staple of the island? Will that tradition, my culture, be forgotten history? Will basking in the sand and hot Caribbean sun become just a childhood memory, distorting through time like a melting candle? I can only look back through a waxy glass to clean water and careless laughs.

We are already the privileged survivors with the responsibility and power to enact change, but maybe not for long. We must take action, and prioritize frontline and vulnerable communities who by now have most likely sacrificed an activity or commodity, a relative or home or an entire identity due to their unsustainable environment. We must help each other, condemn environmental injustice, and emphasize expansive climate policy, because any of us can find ourselves victims of Mother Nature in all its unparalleled and unforgiving glory. As irrelevant as hurricanes seem to Iowa, the same Dorian that slammed against the Bahamas hit North Carolina. The same melting, melting, melting candle of Greenland’s icebergs drips down and swallows the coasts of Puerto Rico today. Climate disasters connect and affect everyone. It is only a matter of when. illustrations by Julia Reichart design by Katie Sailer

Untitled collage by Eva Long 32

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TO BE

BY

by Mara Smith

I want to be loved by black ladies in churches who sing gospels black ladies my ancestors who sing gospels I will never know my ancestors my father felt more pain than I will ever know my white mother will never know my father in churches my mother will never know I want to be loved by

illustration by Carmella Furio design by Vivian Le

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the stairwell room

by Carmella Furio

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2:15 a.m. we found a spoon, once. not ours, yet it was lodged under my mattress. we held it to the light aghast, and laughed until the end of time. the AC is crisp, the air saharan. old dorito crumbs lay like neon signs in empty ash bowls. our garbage bin overflows with tissues, from sickness and from our failure to buy paper towels. the futon, oversized, lay half under my lofted bed and half under ten blankets because neither of us ever figured out just how to work the heat. we’ve been flitting in and out of this snow-barren land, the two of us, hermit crabs so unappeased by our shells that we left them behind for the tides to take. i left my sisters with mine, buried by the sand i upheaved just to claw my way out. but i think i found another, huddled on the futon as we watch my laptop. it’s our living room, now. familiarity hangs on its arms. we have five umbrellas between the both of us. twenty shoes. three perfumes. two fake succulents. i still water mine. just for the aesthetic. sometimes, i search for what i know must be missing, and i imagine it lays within plastic leaves and peeling glue as i release the tap to pour over it. and, sometimes, it feels as if even the spoon has found a new home, watching over the futon from where we’ve planted it in my old, chipping mug atop the microwave. this room will never replace home, but it’ll come close in its own way, for the clouds that lay stuffed in these cushions are nothing but a comfort that i wish i could water, too. collage by Kate Snyder

design by Noah Pottebaum

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Things

Can

Never

Be

Like

by Wyatt Dlouhy

This

Again

Wyatt Dlouhy is a photojournalist and student at the University of Iowa pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography. Dlouhy began learning how to photograph just as his father began cancer treatment. His project Things Can Never Be Like

This Again is an ongoing body of work grappling with how illness alters a family and the future. Dlouhy began documenting this experience while he was still learning to manage the spectrum of feelings that arise from watching a loved one suffer. These photographs capture the darkness and isolation Dlouhy experienced during his father’s treatment. The title of this project is simultaneously an observation that the events leading up to the present cannot be repeated, and a plea that he never has to witness his father endure the disease again.

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40

by Jen A. Becker

“My advisor reminded me that I was a non-traditional student and that I should adjust my expectations accordingly.”

Ryan Riley is a 33-year-old senior at the University of Iowa studying English & Creative Writing. As a child, he was quiet, and the only child of two working parents—a latchkey kid who was picked on a lot in school. “They used to call me ‘chinky,’” he remarked nonchalantly. “It didn’t matter that I was Korean.” Despite being bullied, he was an honor roll student at MacArthur High School in Lawton, Oklahoma, graduating at the top 10% of his class in 2003. Unsure of what to do with the rest of his life, he found himself lost and in with a bad crowd that detoured his way through a path of drugs, alcohol, and parties. “I wasn’t properly socialized in high school,” Ryan explained. “When I got out of my parent’s house, I started drinking a lot, started doing as many drugs as I could get my hands on. By the time I got out of the stupor, I’d wasted four years of my life.”

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Trying to get back on track, Ryan enlisted in the Navy in 2008 at the age of 22. “I remember thinking that the war had to be over soon. Now they’ve been fighting 17 years.” Riley served as a Turn-to P.O. responsible for assisting other military personnel with “anything that wasn’t expressly covered by military law.” This included speeding tickets, how to get out of a lease, how to buy a car, and helping seamen deal with getting married way too young—helping them realize what their obligation is in the military. Ryan completed his Naval service in 2013 and, with the help of the GI Bill, he enrolled in Tulsa Community College, followed by enrollment at the University of Iowa in the fall of 2017. Vocational school could also have been covered by the GI Bill, but undecided at the time, he thought college would be his best option.

“I bought into the whole idea that an education meant something. Now, coming out of this, I’m not too sure.”

Many non-traditional students, like Ryan, have found it was on completing a high school diploma in order to get a difficult to navigate through university life. But what exactly decent job. Since I already had a job at Hardee’s and had is a non-traditional student? According to the National a pretty miserable high school existence, I wasn’t thrilled Center for Education Statistics, the term “non-traditional years later, I started looking into attending college, but student” covers anything from having to enroll in classes ended up getting married, and well, life happens. part-time in order to work a full-time job, having family responsibilities such as a spouse and/or children, or I had been a stay-at-home, homeschool mom for nearly enrolling in college more than a year after high school ten years when our family needed more income. We put graduation. Following this guideline, any student who the kids in public school, but I had difficulty finding work is not counted as a dependent and who will receive until I was finally hired as a teacher’s aid at Alwood Middle their bachelor’s degree past the age of 25 is likely to be Highschool, the same school my children were attending. I considered a non-traditional student. worked there for about four years, It is ultimately up to each college or but the wages were low and I university to determine how they wish didn’t receive pay for summertime, I bought into the to recognize this population and their holidays, or snow days. Trying whole idea that an needs. to find a better and consistently paying job without a college education meant The University of Iowa does not have degree was nearly impossible. a classification for non-traditional Obtaining a degree seemed like something. Now, students. We are not considered the only way I would be able to find coming out of this, when creating programs that will better employment. My husband at help all students be successful. the time didn’t think it was worth I’m not too sure.

In fact, when I asked my advisor, taking out a loan, and was not onKaren “Kate” Torno Fashimpaur, board with my decision to go to what the university does to help noncollege, but it was important to me traditional students, she admitted that we are “a group of and it was the only way I could help meet the needs of our students who fall between the cracks.” She explained that family, so I enrolled in two online classes for Fall 2012. unless a student presents themselves as non-traditional, she doesn’t usually know that is who she’s working with. BHC offered a lot of their classes online, so the majority Kate was unable to give me an estimate of how many non- of my associate’s degree was earned by taking part-time, traditional students she has under her advisement because online classes while working 30-35 hours per week. Over she simply doesn’t know. the next five years, all three of my children graduated from high school, with the youngest graduating the same year I know of four non-traditional students under Kate’s that I graduated from Black Hawk College in the spring advising, including Ryan. My college journey started in of 2017. He went into boot camp. I enrolled part-time in 2012 at Black Hawk College (BHC) in Moline, Illinois. UI’s online Bachelor of Applied Studies (BAS) program.

Thirty years ago, when I was in high school, I was never I wasn’t excited about having to follow such a generic encouraged by my family to go to college. Sure, it was degree program when the university was well known for talked about at school, but even then, the greater focus its writing program—that I would much rather have been

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illustration by Meria Ivy design by Noah Pottebaum

a part of—but I needed to work full-time. I thought if I added the writing certificate, I’d at least be able to take some writing-focused classes. Part of me hoped that the online options would change during my time at UI and I might still be able to take advantage of at least some of the writing program benefits.

Fortunately, after two semesters and 12 credit hours under my belt, I found myself in a situation where I could quit my job to focus on my education full-time. In fall of 2018, I changed my major to English & Creative Writing on the publishing track, but none of the classes I had already taken in the previous two semesters—not even the writing classes—transferred to anything more than electives.

None of them counted directly toward my new major. Kate talked with me a little bit about what I wanted to accomplish and we made a general plan for what I would need to do over the next two years.

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How do other non-traditional students stay motivated?

What have their journeys been like up to this point? How do they balance their home and family and school? When I started asking these questions of fellow non-traditional students, I didn’t realize the common blockade each of us faced existed within the school itself. Complaints started with the fact that there’s not enough guidance of overall programs of study, and insufficient planning assistance to help choose the right classes that will keep them on track.

I had to remind myself I was no longer the painfully shy, awkward student I was in high school.

Transitioning from online to oncampus status put me in an unusual position. Since I was already a UI student, it didn’t occur to anybody to tell me I should go through orientation, where I would have learned more about the programs offered, where buildings were located, and that I now needed to provide medical records; this wasn’t a requirement as an online student but caused problems when trying to enroll for my second semester on-campus.

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a full-time student class-load—including homework—while managing home upkeep and providing meals for my family has had its challenges. So, why do I keep pushing myself, challenging my abilities, sacrificing my home and work life?

Sitting in a classroom again quickly took me back to feeling all eyes on me, worried about what classmates thought of me, and certain if I said the wrong thing, the class would erupt in laughter. Online classes easily afforded the opportunity to participate while maintaining a shield of invisibility. Being in a physical classroom meant both listening and responding to fellow students; I had to remind myself I was no longer the painfully shy, awkward student I was in high school. In addition, learning to juggle

They felt, because they are older students with more life experience, they were expected to know how to navigate their college roadmap. In addition, it would be helpful if more classes were offered online or in the evenings to accommodate family needs.

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Two of the non-traditional students I spoke with about their experiences at the University of Iowa, without being prompted, described many of their required classes as “gatekeeping,” or trying to weed students out. Both of those students are in honors classes, so they can’t be accused of making such a statement out of laziness or as students just trying to get by. Ryan was one of those students. The other one was Brianna Franklin.

continued on foolsmag.com

frosting for caulk

by nate graveen 44

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illustration and design by Katie Sailer

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mental landscape

by Kaylin Butterfield

by Anonymous

as my body warmed and went nowhere. I woke up cr ying and someone was saying my name. He had a blue mask. A few c e l l s e v a c u a t e d , h e s a i d . I t w a s a s u c c e s s . Yo u r b a b y b l u e h a s returned to the ocean or the sky, your pick. All hues flood in.

Indigo blankets, the azure gown, bulging blue veins. I blacked o u t a n d t h r e w u p . P s y c h o l o g i s t s s a y b l u e s o o t h e s . Th a t ’s w h y they put it in these spaces. But blue is somewhere else doing something more challenging than that. I turned my cheek on her that day and closed my eyes.

I had just arrived in San Sebastian, Spain. I understood ever ything t h r o u g h c o l o r. I o n l y k n e w m y n a m e . Th e y a l l s a i d i t l o t s of times as I sat there silent, returning to my mind in a white space next to an ocean. I was emptied, the nurses left, t h e d o c t o r p u t h i s h a n d o n m y s h o u l d e r. H e d i d n ’ t k n o w m y l a n g u a g e . H e l o o k e d a t m e a n d w a l k e d o u t t h e d o o r.

Th i s i s t h e l i f e o f a w o m a n .

I f o u n d l o t s o f s e a s h e l l s . Th e y j u m p e d f r o m t h e o c e a n i n t o m y hands, lined all the walkways, etched ever y building. I put them in jars as validation in my direction. My path was covered in pieces. Remnants, I thought. Gif ts, maybe. Relics of forgiveness.

A new language.

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I f o l l o w e d t h e s e a s h e l l s f o r 21 d a y s o n t h e C a m i n o d e S a n t i a g o with a 20-pound backpack and pocket knife from Por tugal. I had a conversation with my foot, cried with butterflies on my knees, punched my pack (day six), figured out a thousand dif ferent ways to coordinate the syllables of “ensalada ” with my footsteps. I chanted with a monk and cried in pilgrims’ arms.

I h e l d a l o t o f p i l g r i m s i n m y a r m s . I h e a r d “ Wh o L e t t h e D o g s Out” in the leaves and pouring rain while I made crosses out of b l i s t e r y b a n d a i d s . I d r o p p e d t w o s t o n e s a t t h e C r u z d e Fe r r o .

I fell a little bit in love.

Fo l l o w i n g t h e s h e l l s l e d t h e w a y t o S t . J a m e s ’s b o n e s . I f o u n d a l l m i n e o n t h e w a y. S o m e t i m e s I s m i l e d a t t h e m . O t h e r t i m e s I peeled them from my skin and burned them or spit on them and kept walking. I lost weight.

“Don’t go through more than you have to,” Sarah says. Don’t personalize the cells in your uterus, do not gender them, your baby is not blue. She is only blue. She sucked it out of ever y landscape, pulled it into my belly, pushed it out of my eyes. If she was anything, she was blue.

I cannot say many absolutely true things. But I can say that my mother died when I was eleven and since then certain things hold hues. I do not want to condense my mother into a sentence. She i s m a n y. B u t I d o n o t t r y t o u n d e r s t a n d h e r b e c a u s e t h e t h i n g s I think become real, and she is the last thing I want to concoct.

But I do it sometimes. I see her t wirling bet ween the butterflies that she promised would find me af ter she died.Hear her voice o n N e w Ye a r ’s E v e s a y i n g ,

a s I ’m s h o u t i n g 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 , 1 t o t h e d a y s h e w e n t b a c k t o the ocean or the sky, her pick. I see her placing shells behind my feet like footprints.

I f I ’v e l o s t m y m o t h e r a n d m y b a b y , t h e n I a m l i v i n g t h e i n bet ween. Lips and fingernails turn blue just after we die. It comes through as the body stays and the soul becomes. Blue crept in on me the same in Spain. I was still. She came to me and I became.

In ef for t, I keep her around.

collage by Eva Long

design by Dominique Coleman

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दीदी :Diidii

by Lydia Waheed

This piece focuses on the relationship between eldest daughters in families of color and their siblings. Many immigrant daughters, especially the eldest, are expected to take on parental roles despite being children themselves. Coming to America pushes this ideal further as immigrant parents face language barriers and chase after the American Dream. I modeled this piece specifically after my best friend, Nita, and her younger sister, Nuthi. Showcasing an older and younger sister is a reminder of the emotional gap that often occurs between daughters and their mothers as the eldest sister takes on the prominent female role.

design by Katie Sailer

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Purple Coneflower

by Callan Latham There is a styrofoam head in the corner. Makes sense.

My brains are also made of styrofoam.

So is my tongue. My body.

My elbows and my kneecaps.

All of me is false clouds, spiraling into big sky. My breath, a smoke signal in burning fire mountains. I was a late bloomer.

Still am. I can’t say coneflowers right.

I love the prickly brown tops. And the purple.

I want a butterfly to land on me.

I want to rub pollen between my fingers until I am stained with birth. Just imagine having a body made of styrofoam. Choking, choking. I would be unliving.

Do you see me as the world? I am more.

I am a field of honeybees, slowly disappearing.

I am an ocean of figments, slowly filling. Maybe I should put my head in the corner. Leave it to rest.

Maybe that’s what they all do.

53 illustrations by Joanna Moody

design by Lindey Carlson

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