Future Histories Issue 15

DEAR READER, DEAR READER,

Hello dear reader!

The world is on fire!!! Welcome to our tinderbox. Please, take your shoes off, make yourself comfortable, and indulge in some revelry. In these pages, we hope to show you a bit of the light, recognition, empathy, and diversity that this issue’s authors and artists emulate and exemplify.

This is Future Histories’s 15th lap around the Tufts University circulation locales, and we could not be more proud of the talented designers, prescient editors, and everyone who works behind the scenes to make this magazine a reality. We’d also like to give a great big galumphing thank you to our faithful Content Review creatures, including LiLi Miko and Evan Weimann! Which brings us back to you, dear reader; thank you (yes, you in particular) for being here. We hope the pieces that follow strike some chords (or matches) and help you burn a little brighter tonight.

cover art | Anastasia Pak

Our Team Our Team

Co-Chairs

Newt Gordon-Rein

Anderson Toole

Head Copy Editor

Olivia Bye

Co-Heads of Art & Design

Lei Yang

Allaine Lara

Amelia Miller

Writer Liaison

Annika Crawford

Editors

Hank Chen

Maitri Misra

Designers

Cherry Chen

Carys Yang

art | Mary-Amma Blankson

featured artists

Mary-Amma Blankson Vivian Gao

MorGAn Zhang Lili Miko Maya Ventura

Tess Follensbee Aitana Ross

Anastasia Pak and a special thanks to all of our content reviewers!

art | Mary-Amma Blankson

Eyebrows knit and lips quick

Sensitive, like breathing over flour

You whisper, hands clasped, over your plastic tray

In the slant light of the window I tug my denim skirt and arise Weaving towards where you already stand, stacking cups

Do you know God? I ask you You look at me eyes clear as ice – everything moving beneath I love God! you say

We jostle onto the bus, and you pull me into the backseat

The winter air streams through our hair, and I sketch you pencil dangling between your teeth

At the museum, a man with a dog asks where we’re from The universe! You throw up your arms, like the supernova that brought us here

stranger

by Annika Crawford

| Mary-Amma Blankson

Shadows of pigeons

flicker up the walls

I’m not sure I hear you sniffling

Near: I hold the hymnal and we sing, Your voice is soft with mine and resonant, pausing at the verse about lost sheep

but I am – elbows pressed into my knees while the offering plate flashes by suddenly you hug me

I can hardly breathe

Steam drafts from lifted metal lids, hiss of soda streams, I tug your sleeve, you turn and grin, point up to the balcony, dim above everything

my sweater scratches as I lean in, Do you have any secret talents? You laugh lightly and close your eyes fingers steepled to your lips, I have an incredibly sexy body you say solemnly

laughter breaks inside of me and you join in incredulously, scooch your chair and lay your head on my shoulder, gently

I lean back on you for a moment my body tingling –then I move just before I lose feeling

,

befor I g whe yo hold m

by Newt Gordon-Rei

, love you for, absence of endings, gentle fish-curve, continuing, though, your kidney-shape, imperfect, notched love you, for, the, movement, for dip, and swoosh like, basketball, your, fingers, are my, fingers, but not, in the, flow, of, time but fickle. I. fear loving your. not-smooth. sickle. bend. I pull too. soon away.

photo | LiLi Miko

FOMO

FOMO

by Evan Vezmar by Evan Vezmar

Fear Of Being Around.

A buzzkill.

Maybe i could laugh a little louder

Or point a little harder

So you’d stop using me as a window to check out your reflection

And we might exchange words that mean nothing but at least we could dogear the journal of all the souls we’ve crossed for next time

Instead your pissed-up eyes keep staring as my name gets crumpled into a ball and thrown into a bin

And i get a little more tired of pretending i like you

i remember your birthday and your middle name and the reason why your family doesn’t go to Easter Mass anymore

You grind my memory into a kernel, ready to be popped when you want a kick

i am more than tired of being your comedic relief

You should stop inviting me to your parties

art | Tess Follensbee

She isn’t watching me to see my face all lit up with that heavenly realization, tri-pronged face of God the dark night commuter rail crawling towards us over the crushed gravel detritus of long-gone families settled into this long-gone suburb. Suddenly the railroad station around us, which I had picked over with my eyes while we ate our shwarma, etched an in thirty-five millimeter underbelly beauty I struggle to reproduce in my mind but knew in that moment was a streetlight oasis for all the shuddering Sunday vagabonds on their way back to cramped apartments, has faded instantly deep into my own peripheral, and all that exist are those three lights, and the halo of fluorescence that seem to emanate from that face, and I have seen and been seen by something I do not know the name of, and I am there—my eyes are the envelopes. She boards, and then I board; we settle into a chilly seat on the lefthand row. Her head goes to my lap and by then she is looking. Lines in her red-brown eyes are the lines of

those interior train lights, which reform into a row of glowing orbs and march around in circles under the overhead dusty plastic cover, as we stare and pretend they aren’t telling us the movement-flow of energy that brought us to this Massachusetts commuter line with nowhere to go, coming from nowhere, right here, now. She blinks. Why do I always write about lights? Her hair is a thousand little interstates with on-ramps that don’t have speed limits, and roundabouts we call rotaries or traffic circles, and scarlet taillights softly fading into the oblivion of the river we call road. Why do I always write about the color red? She closes her eyes and I take the moment to turn over some of the words in my head, and turn to look out the dusty, scratched-up window as these highways and streetlights and small towns and signs of life that I am so interested in slide by. And the last understanding is that it all looks the same under force of movement, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it when you stand still.

art | Vivian Gao

by Sam Stearns

Pilgrim, pilgrims

Burlington by Sam Stearns

The vagabond detritus of your Vermont city has been shipped Away to Burlington shivering on A Lake Champlain bench

And the band you're seeing Practices in your basement

You can hear them while you're Sleeping but you'll still pay The ten dollar cover In Burlington

There is a fentanyl park and A hobo beach in Burlington And three colleges

And you can sometimes see the Mountains the trees are a green I can't explain Vermont is variable I said That twice

They sit on the rooftops making Room for the new high-rise condo on The hazy skyline hot-topic geek bar pulse Friendship bracelet bong infected bug bite I want to take your hand but you’re already In the water I want to take your hand but Instead I’ll sleep in your bed in your apartment Cross-hatched and warm and not knowing I want

Crying at the cars

Bright green ski lifts

Parking lot to parking lot

The world’s tallest filing cabinet Is in Burlington what is happening to me? I don’t know but the same might be Happening to you

art | Vivian Gao

Skeleton Dance

by Newt Gordon­Rein

My bones are restless.

Of course it happens at night. I am one incongruous shoe in the shoebox of my apartment, trying to remember how I used to arrange myself in bed alone. I feel like one of those gas station hotdogs in a greasy glass cage by the register, idly spinning to keep warm.

I flop onto my back. My arms and legs make stick man V’s. Like, human neutral. I figure maybe if I just relax and stare at the blank ceiling and the blank walls, I’ll bore myself to sleep. So I’m just lying there and it’s dark except for this shaft of yellowy light sneaking past my shades from the streetlight outside, making monsters of the shadows cast by all the shit on my dresser, and that’s when I feel it.

I am holding my body still like a rubber chicken—lifeless, motionless. When deep beneath my skin, something shivers.

Just subtle rustling around at first, and then it’s like my bones are made of marbles and I’m the bag and someone’s shaking it, but I’m not doing anything, so I guess the marbles are alive? My bones are alive. It passes through me in waves and I’m flailing around like a weirdo slinky person. And to be honest, I am too tired to care. After what could have been a few hours or a few minutes, my bones settle, my hot dog body returns, cold and round, and in seconds, I am asleep.

~

Grey metal kisses the side of my head. I press into the piling, letting out a low groan as I ratchet my wrench slowly, slowly, drawing out the action, listening for every click as I reset the angle.

I woke up this morning feeling like all my joints were correctly aligned. Like I went to the chiropractor or finally listened to Mom and went to a yoga class. This little grin pulled at the corners of my mouth as I lolled my head to the side to check the time and realized how very late I was for work.

No day is a good day that starts with a desperate scramble into clothes and out the door, a racing plunge into the anxiety of public transportation, and a graceless stumble into the already deserted Control Room. Kelley the foreman left a post-it on my locker that just read “bolts.” I tore it off and stuck it on the stack of identical notes behind my locker door.

I build bridges, but not in a sexy way. I don’t know why Kelley bothers to notify me of my job assignment each day. Probably because Kelley is an asshole. It never changes. Since I started this contract, my sole purpose has been to double check all the bolts that the rest of the crew has installed. Let me spell that out for you. For six months. All I have done. Is ratchet already-screwed-in bolts.

I am a corpse by the end of the day, the pilings holding me up as I pull on the handle that seems to have molded to the shape of my fingers and check tiny boxes on my interminable list. Finally The End—the Doors version, not the Beatles—peels out of my ham radio speaker. This is Kelley’s asshole way of signaling the end of the workday, which isn’t even necessary because we get here when the sun rises and work until the light leaves, but I take the cue to book it back to Control, dump my gear in my locker, and clock out before anyone can talk to me.

Groceries. I need groceries, then I can go home. Then I can crash.

Busy sidewalk. Train smell. Corner store.

I pick up a box of instant oatmeal. I don’t need oatmeal. I find myself staring down at a huge red onion, I mean massive, like obscuring-my-whole-hand gigantic. Why am I here again? I look up, search the landscape of the small store for inspiration. Vaguely, I register a haircut turning down one of the two short aisles in the store. Eggs? I think I still have a few loose eggs in the fridge. The haircut reappears, makes eye contact. Shit-fuck-shit. I know him. He likes to chat.

“OhmygoodnessgraciouswherehaveyoubeenIfeellikeit’sbeenages…” the man talks like his tongue could be cut out any second. Actually, that might not be completely unrealistic. I very much want to cut this man’s tongue out. Probably three whole minutes later, he finishes off with an overly enthusiastic “…anywayhowareyou?” I grunt.

“YoulookhaggaredhasCambeenkeepingyouupwinkwinkhowisCamweshouldtotallygooutagaindoubledateitwouldbesomuchfun.”

Oh. He doesn’t know.

My heart is an empty shopping mall.

“Cam is gone.”

His eyes go blank. The haircut droops fractionally.

“Oh, buddy…” his cadence has slowed, bogged down by pity, and I regret everything. I do not want this conversation to last any longer. I fear I will perish in the aisle listening to the next litany in slow motion, “I am so sorry! You two were such a dynamic duo…”

Senses gooey from lack of sleep, I don’t notice the pitying hand reaching out until one long, sad finger makes contact with my elbow and—

My bones revolt.

It starts at the end of the affronted arm, fingers waving like anemone, surges up and out, my flesh dragged along with the harder links inside me so that my whole body rolls around in some contortionist wave-looking used car lot inflatable man motion, and I fling the monster onion still clutched in my other hand across the store with the force of the gods.

There is a crash. A moment of silence. And then I run.

I don’t even bother to change before falling into bed, groceries moot since I have no energy to cook. Tonight, I don’t pretend to know what to do with my body in this vast and empty landscape. I don’t squirm like I’ve been doing for the past week and a half. I relinquish control.

My bones shift and click, too many parts to comprehend. They fold me into impossible shapes.

Circle. Cube.

Shapes like kids make out in big cumulus clouds.

A poodle. A dragon. A boat.

Shapes too complex to hold in your head.

A carpet. A fractal. My own intestinal track. A drop of cream swirling into two dollar coffee.

Softly, and soon, I slip into a deep black sleep.

After a significant learning period, I figure out that if I just go limp, my slinky bones will kick in and do pretty much any task I can’t bring myself to. I even do it at work sometimes, when I’m obscured from view so no one sees the manic flopping that every living bone action seems to require. And don’t get me wrong, it’s always floppy, but also surprisingly effective. I even cook my last random fridge egg this way.

Sometimes I play a song in my head while I’m on this bendy kind of autopilot.

Sometimes I philosophize, think about different lives I might have led. I imagine myself as

an entrepreneur, manufacturing my own line of fun shoelaces or exotic hand pies. I wonder if I would be happier as the author of my own daily actions. I don’t know. It seems like a lot of pressure. Anyway, I like bridges. Bridges are simple answers to big problems. You got a gap? Choked city traffic robbing you of hours each day? Someone has thought of a large metal solution to that, and I can help put it together. This is concrete. This is satisfying.

Sometimes I think about all the cheeses I haven’t tried. Not that I want to; just seems like there are a lot out there.

But then, inevitably, my thoughts turn to Cam, and I come back to myself, fill my entire consciousness with the meticulous control of every muscle in the execution of my simple, repetitive task.

After three postponed completion dates, the bridge is finally almost done. The number of bolts I have to check off is in the hundreds, has a limit, rather than the amorphous however many we put in today.

This is the end crackles out of my handheld, and I stop ratcheting. Rather than retreating to my locker, though, I look to the view behind me. I am on the west side of the bridge, and when I turn, the bay opens up in front of me, mildly choppy water catching bits of golden pink sky.

I reach for my phone to take a picture but stop when I remember there is no one to send it to. Fuck. Why do I keep reaching?

Cam isn’t just gone. Cam is Gone. Smoke in the wind. No trace remains. There are no answers, no solutions, no way to leap the chasm from in love to life without.

I hear footsteps behind me, then a presence looms.

All the children are insane, waiting for the summer rain.

“Workday’s done.”

I realize that I have never listened through to the end of this song. I nod.

“Last day tomorrow.” I got my paycheck yesterday. Kelley has not reported any of the days I came in late. Maybe there is a humanist spark that broke through all that assholeness, or maybe it’s simple laziness, but either way I am grateful. “Well, I’ll clock you out.” The steps retreat.

C’mon baby take a chance with us. C’mon baby take a chance with us.

The sun is setting. I let my face fall into the seed of a smile. Warmth seeps through my flesh, and my skeleton begins to dance.

In front of the canvas and easel, awake under the auspices of caffeine, I repeatedly mutter

I know not what tomorrow will bring, but it will change me, for my life is but a fleeting breath of warm air that vanishes in the vacuum of the cold relics of time. My brush avoids the palette, caught in the tremor of indecision, of fear of mistroke, of the aftermath of failure. I have made no progress hours after midnight, only painting the hole of an empty oil canvas into my eyes. Morning dew and dawn illuminate my room and beg me to reconsider. Perhaps what really scares me most is that I won’t be changed, that I will be static, unmarked, forever the blank canvas that the artist never got around to starting. I can not subscribe to this safety. So when the last gasp of worry grasps my words and begs me to ask what if I fail tomorrow

I defiantly answer, So what?

Midnight Oil

art | LiLi Miko

by Nicholas Rishi

Screw Plays Pollyanna

by Spring LaRose art| LiLi Miko

The theater was alive. The stage rocked back and forth on its heels, the curtains shivered with anticipation. And behind the back wall, behind those bare, brick bones, there lay the pounding heart: The people of Starville Community Theater.

“Where’s Ellen?” Thomas asked, smoothing back his gelled hair. He was playing the role of Nathaniel Nixon, a sweet-talking Southern gentleman and strong, masculine lead.

Vincent emerged from the stage door, pale-faced. He was clutching a clipboard over his tweed vest, white-knuckled. “Ellen has fallen ill.”

The cast and crew collectively gasped. Ellen, ill? Ellen, who was playing the role of Pollyanna Parson, leading lady and love interest to Nathaniel Nixon?

“She will be unable to perform this evening,” Vincent said.

Another gasp.

Then Carol came through the stage door, a swirl of fake red hair and purple fabric. She let her jewelry settle into place before she spoke. “Yes, I’m afraid it’s true. Ellen cannot be with us for opening night. Ah! What a tragic turn of events.” Carol shook her head, and her hairdo teetered. “But fear not! We have an understudy who is prepared to take on Pollyanna tonight. Screw, will you give us all a wave?”

Screw raised one silver tube in the air and rotated its claw twice. Vincent’s eyes darted over to Carol.

“Hello,” Screw droned. “I am very grateful for this opportunity. Beep bop.”

“Yes,” Carol said. “Now, everyone resume the festivities! We are opening the house!”

The people of Starville Community Theater buzzed back to life, scripts and feet flying.

“Oh, Carol,” Vincent said, “you really mean… That robot is going to play the role of Pollyanna?”

“Screw is the understudy, Vincent.”

“Dear God…”

“All of Pollyanna’s lines are programmed into Screw’s memory drive. We have nothing to fear, Vincent.”

“But, Carol… Oh, Carol… How can a robot possibly convey the raw emotion and feminine charm that is required for the role of Pollyanna?”

“Trust me,” Screw said, and Vincent jumped. “I can play Pollyanna like a piano.”

Carol chortled. “What a fabulous sense of humor you have, Screw!”

Screw’s lights flashed like a carousel. It liked getting praised by Carol.

“Yes… “ Vincent said. He sucked his teeth. “Fabulous.”

Meanwhile, Thomas was dealing with another kerfuffle in the dressing room. The button on his trousers had popped off. It was very unbecoming for Thomas, and even more unbecoming for Nathaniel Nixon.

“Take ‘em off, and I’ll sew on another button,” the costume mistress said.

“Okay,” Thomas said.

Just as Thomas’ trousers dropped to his ankles, Screw burst into the dressing room.

“I need to put on. Pollyanna’s dress,” Screw said. It stopped in its tracks once it saw Thomas. “Hello, Thomas. I did not mean to. Intrude.”

Thomas shrugged. “Lost a button,” he said, by way of explanation.

Screw beeped sympathetically. It kept its sensors trained on his body, tracing the white bend of his calves and his boxers.

“The dress is hanging right there for you, Screw,” the costume mistress said. She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have the same womanly curves as Ellen, but we’ll make do.”

Pollyanna’s dress was powder pink and very frilly. The flounciness of it all contrasted sharply with Screw’s metal body.

“How do I look?” Screw asked, pinching the skirt with both claws and spinning around.

“Good enough,” the costume mistress said.

“Nice,” Thomas said.

A beat passed, and Screw’s motor skipped another. “Thank you, Thomas. Beep bop. Good-bye. Beep bop.”

Screw backed out of the dressing room and whizzed to the wings.

“Do you,” Vincent asked, folding his clammy white hands, “have a microphone pack on, Screw?”

“No,” Screw said, and now Vincent was the one malfunctioning.

“Dear God, somebody get this robot a microphone pack!” he yelled.

A tech crew member swiftly threaded a wire down the back of Screw’s dress and taped the tip of the microphone to its forehead.

“And a wig!” Vincent added.

Another tech crew member pulled a long blonde wig over Screw’s head. And there she was, Pollyanna Parson. The transformation was complete.

But where was Nathaniel Nixon? Had his trousers been repaired in time?

Luckily, Thomas rounded the corner a second later. Screw whirred in relief.

“Break a leg, Screw,” Thomas said, his lips curving into a smile.

Screw’s lights glowed even pinker than the dress. “Thank you, Thomas. Beep bop. I hope you break. Both your femurs. Beep bop.”

The house lights were down. The curtain was up.

Thomas pulled at the collar of his starchy white shirt. “That’s my cue,” he said, and then Screw watched in awe as Nathaniel Nixon took the stage for his opening monologue. The spotlight cast him in gold. He looked like he was carved out of cheese, Screw thought.

“Make your Daddy proud,” he said, looking down at his war-weathered hands. “That’s the last thing my Mama told me before she died of fever.”

Fifteen minutes after that, Screw heard its own cue.

“I’ll tell you what’s sweeter than a Georgia peach,” Old Mister Montgomery said, tapping his cane against a wooden crate, “A Southern belle.”

Screw walked on.

“Why, salutations, gentlemen,” Pollyanna Parson said, “I do hope you’ve been enjoyin’ this sunny afternoon.”

There was a silent murmur that rippled through the audience– a ruffling of people in their seats, a shifting of programs. This was not the Pollyanna that they had expected; Her flesh was not like dough, but rather like sheet metal. In fact, her skin was sheet metal.

“I do enjoy a man in uniform,” she was saying, “Especially when that man is you. Nathaniel.”

There was a skepticism that stewed with the audience for a while. But line by line, “sir” by “sir,” Pollyanna’s claws became hands, and her motor became a heart. There was not a dry eye in the house when Pollyanna said her good-byes to Old Mister Montgomery, who died of fever.

“Who would’ve thought a vacuum cleaner could play the role of Pollyanna Parson!” somebody said.

“That’s not a vacuum cleaner,” somebody else said.

Screw was relaxing in the dressing room during intermission, sipping oil out of a straw and sitting on a burnt orange corduroy couch that had been there as long as Starville Community Theater itself. The scent of sweaty, hairsprayed actors wafted into Screw’s vent.

“Sigh,” Screw said.

“Room for one more?” Thomas asked. He was standing over Screw, in a raw state of undress. Between costumes, between acts.

Screw beeped affirmatively. “Yes. Thomas.”

Thomas sat down beside Screw. “How do you feel act one went?”

Screw beeped again, this time out of surprise. How do you feel? It was a question the robot had never been asked before. How do you feel?

“I feel it went. Well,” Screw said. “Beep bop.”

“Me too,” Thomas said. He leaned back on the couch, folding his arms behind his head. “The audience really likes us.”

Us. The word sent a volt of electricity through Screw’s body. One fleeting, feeling syllable, us.

“Yes. Thomas.”

A comfortable silence fell over them, bridged by the theater buzz. Screw could get used to this, to him. On the unbeaten path of the orange corduroy.

“The other dress is hanging right there for you, Screw,” the costume mistress said, cutting through the TV static. It certainly was not as nice to have the costume mistress standing over the couch, peering through chained glasses and grey bangs.

Screw set its oil can on the floor. “I will put the dress on. Now.”

Thomas cleared his throat. “I’d better finish changing, too.”

Pollyanna Parson wore a powder blue dress in the second act, which went gorgeously with Screw’s silver complexion. The robot admired itself in the mirror. Yes, there she was all over again.

And then there was Nathaniel Nixon all over Pollyanna Parson, under that voyeur of a white spotlight. His white hands – one clenched into an impassioned fist, the other around her blue chiffon waist.

“When I go on that battlefield, it’s you who’ll be on my mind,” he said.

“The kiss,” Vincent hissed at Carol, eyes wide open, “The climax of the scene, Carol. How is the robot supposed to kiss with no lips, Carol? Dear God.”

Screw wondered the same as Vincent did, running its sensors over the vent that resembled a mouth. Never had this vent known the damp embrace of human lips.

Nathaniel tilted his head down and kissed Pollyanna. And as he did so, Screw realized that Thomas was also doing so. It was Thomas under this soldier uniform, skin pulled over a heart taut with desire.

Pollyanna repressed a system overload and pulled away. “Now go, or you’ll have to stay forever.”

Screw realized that it meant every word. What a funny thing, how the hot lights turned the stage into an emotional incubator. What a funny thing, how the script programmed into Screw’s hard drive now felt, and felt so raw.

And afterward, once the roses were thrown, it was back to that orange corduroy, beneath that black blanket of night.

“For just one night, you can. Beep bop be Nathaniel. And I can. Be Pollyanna,” Screw droned into Thomas’ ear. He was lying so supple and sweet on the couch.

Thomas’ hands hesitated on his shirt buttons. “Do you, uh… Do you have the uh, the anatomy for this sort of thing?”

Screw reached down and stroked his damp, dark hair. “That will not beep bop be. An issue.”

you hawk circling above while I ran through the thicket eroding green go until I was gone but I couldn’t though, at the kitchen table, still, I checked the door my mom’s bony hand massaged me, and my palms left sweat rough as if to wake me on the desk I leaned on I followed her unsteady burning like a dog for the flash of dragging bed sheets his eye white wry wave of hand through the garage to snap to seize to beg looked up wide eyed: again: at the manna headlights flood fluttering streaking the slats of the shed in the pitch he holds his breath black cold I cover my chest on my birthday, the landline phone rings from my palms my grandfather sings You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make me happy When I am sad You’ll never know dear How much

I let go— like something holy hurts to touch then

I felt you so close like shower steam I want to hide, but you spoke to me words that warm inside me and blur all the other things deep amber burgeons above the trees like the quivering lip over grit teeth light no longer swallowed light weeps hold me

THE DAY YOU FOUND ME

by Annika Crawford

photo | LiLi Miko

Do

you know my last name?

Ivy creeps along the wall / I rest my guitar, missing its low E string / on the edge of the table / coated in dust and nearly unplayable / my t-shirt is unbuttoned and I can / feel the sun on my neck / wasp crawls along the stone / age old patterns in the ivy / and the dead brown leaves hanging / from its nervous system / but along the floor / new greenery / planted by my mother and my sister / over the years / flowers and plants with huge leaves and / last night I instructed a friend / to bury a cigarette butt out in the dirt / so nobody would find it / but that’s stupid / because it’ll sit there forever / and someday someone / or someone’s dog will go digging / discover it / and that’ll be my ass, I guess / the generator in the back croaks on / disturbs the nature / emits a breathy low hum / I stare at my strands of chest hair / and wonder if I might be / confused about love / until

Until she texts me

Letting me know she’s on her way

And I have no choice but to Put my phone down And walk back inside

by Sam Stearns

art | Morgan Zhang

I long for owl days

To loom yellow I crave

I wish to sit upon my branch

I wish to sit and stare and hold my stance

My claws rip holes in the night

Tempting is my silent flight

I hunt the beasts that flit the floor

I leave their bones but chew their core

I eat alone but yearn for more

Bloody beasty full on gore

Though silence my call tore

The night demands an encore

Winging aloft to settle the score

I long for owl days

Survival saves

My feathers wrap my skin

I feel warm whispers from within

My eyes look side to side

But in, up, and down I cannot confide

I see all in owl days

Molded to the forest like clay

My forest is a maze

Beware to those not wary of my gaze,

For flight comes in flashes of grey

And although my anger is never not at bay

Alas, the hunting bell does toll

For when I see prey

I eat them whole

by Lilly Marchbanks

O w l S o n g

art | Morgan Zhang

ICan Picture theCorner

byLilly Marchbanks

There is something so evocative about a corner. It’s scandalous in its curve.

To its former line predecessor, it dares to be deserved.

Bent at the knee, it kneels, its submissive nature is part of its appeal. It smooths and soothes into an ellipse that arcs and twists. Only alone does it serpentine self whisper truths. Its course never wavers so much so that its’ trail leaves me a little loopy.

Impress me, it does to discuss the beauty I see. I cannot seem to remember where I found the corner yet, the corner I cannot seem to forget

art | Vivian Gao

night sledding by Annika Crawford

Goodnight

Okay

Final goodnight

Goodnight

I turn and pull the sheet over my shoulder

my sister pulls it back all the way to the sledding hill

the red sled jitters over the salted road

held by a string Wait for me! I stagger up the slope my boots printing over hers

Shhhh She looks and I look the dark tangle of trees at the edge of the snow the tennis fence frayed glinting

a plane sails blinking across the sky

their cabins must be yellow like these porch lights

We promise never to forget this moment

We promise never to forget this moment I repeat, like dinner table prayer then we ride: forwards backwards on our stomachs standing up run and jump hands held and eyes closed she spins as she skims beyond the foot of the hill

if I ran and hid now she would never know

on the driveway, scootering in circles waiting for dad to come home

when the gravel faintly lightened we’d run into the garage

watch the shadow of trees appear then glide across the wall this time not for us

What did you wish for? the snow burns against my cheek as I turn over

You have to promise not to tell Okay

Okay you promise? I promise not to tell

Wakes up from their slumber to find they live. Flowers and cards from many by the bed. Gasps of relief from Brothers and Sisters. This Mother says her prayers have been answered. This Child says nothing of the matter.

Tomorrow the winds will blow, as they always do. All laughter will dissipate, as tends to happen. And the mind will wander, as it usually does. What love, then, to reveal to this Child— this Child of God who has asked to leave?

THIS CHILD OF GOD THIS CHILD OF GOD

by Nicholas Rishi

art | Vivian Gao

by LiLi Miko

art

| Maya Ventura

Shadows Shadows

by Jaila Lampley

The fresh morning air kisses my cheeks as I step outside. My lips begin to chap up, welcoming me into nature’s bitterness.

It was a crisp morning, the dew had just begun settling on the fine blades of grass.

I catch sight of the stray black cat that roams through my neighborhood, weaving between parked cars.

I have never had the chance to get close—always admiring her beauty from afar. She shows no interest in my presence, disappearing down the alley next to my building.

I doubt she’ll leave anytime soon, yet whenever I cross the street to go on my walk, I subconsciously search for her along the city streets—whipping my head toward any suspicious sound, hoping to find her tiny, dark figure frolicking among the neglected cars.

My hands are frigid and dry. The grooves on my skin begin to crack as the harsh wind licks at my nose. I feel so fragile, I fear I might shatter at any moment.

When I return, she’s perched up on the fence, waiting.

She stares hesitantly as I approach her, but she stays unmoving, filling the air with a tense silence.

As I reach the steps, I feel her amber-colored eyes peering down at me through her wispy lashes.

Her shadow-like figure slowly disappears from my peripheral–and that is all I need to know.

SACS SACS SACS SACS

by Anderson Toole by Anderson Toole by Anderson Toole

“The shapes of all four types of [nucleotide] polymerases resemble a right hand consisting of a palm, fingers, and a thumb, with the active site of the enzyme located in the palm.” (Principles of Virology Vol. 1, 4th ed.)

Is this the image and likeness?

Your body is a temple fueled by the body of Christ at the base of a great food pyramid, pointing up to the heavens

Asleep hearing sacs creak and whistle sausage tubes of shit and a taut balloon of reeking urine––what if it popped aerated by sticky, scarlet-staining gore

Your body is a temple does God smell this way? hot rot-toothed exhalation through cracked lips, miasma and pitted, sebum-pocked skin––dead membrane, sparsely hairy, cold-sweat clammy unfit for desire, or fit for only that

The other night i was so high i cried thinking about how beautiful beta-barrels are––look them up, proteins––and at the beauty of the genetic language which we all spoke first jabbering between monkeys and fish and even inviable, parasitic virions bursting from your cells

And I forgave myself sausage tubes of shit

My God we are beautiful outside of the garish honesty of our senses

photo | LiLi Miko

The mysterious feeling of being alive

never goes away i realize sitting on a lawn chair listening to neighbors discuss politics watching a woman devour a novel seeing lovers nestle heads, nestle hearts on a blanket

I don’t have an answer to why tree buds look like falling snowflakes in the wind nature likes to repeat itself watching lovers nestle heads seeing a man doze in the grass

Foliage seems like seaweed from far away if the sky were water

I’m not sure at what point thinking becomes pondering Ponderous cars trundling up and down the cement black tar that frames the grassy knoll I sit at I don’t have an answer to why we like this high-top structure We like to repeat ourselves

The strange sentiment of inhaling cigarette smoke having never smoked before mixed with the welcome drops of rain upon a tear-stained face

Thunder rolls in as I decide to skip, tumble down the hill for some reason I do not get wet but my heart a dank seed covered in dirt stirs in the scream of life

I do not understand it nor does anyone

Looking for light nature likes to repeat itself: we always find some, often misunderstood but there. that is not so mysterious in the end

by Evan Vezmar

art | Aitana Ross

art | Mary-Amma Blankson

art | Aitana Ross

Carving by Lili Miko

The motion of slices

Scoops that peel

Knives their own devices

Scoops that reveal

The negative space

We carve to remove what we don’t like

We carve to form something new

We carve to make marks, cuts

We carve to reveal

Carving

If drawing had a bite

If painting was with knives

If ceramics started as a block

If you remove everything

What are we left with?

Something beautiful or something missing?

Do the bites leave a mark?

Or are they untraceable?

Carving is gradual

It’s like eating an apple

Bite by bite

Till what are we left with?

Only the core.

Are we centered or are we stripped?

Is the core everything we hoped it would be?

We’re not carved

Usually

We’re not bitten

Usually

Sometimes the knife goes through to the other side

And we are left with a hole.

A new hole.

A hole from a bite

I don’t like the violence

But I do like carving

Just a little bit of violence.

This was not supposed to end this way

With bites and decay

I wanted the carve to be something real

Something precious to feel

This is the end

This isn’t the core, though

Cores come from centers, not endings

From circles, not lines

This isn’t a line

It’s a circle

A circle of

Carving

The motion of slices

Scoops that peel

Knives their own devices

Scoops that reveal