Strange Spaces in Which We Roam

Strange Spaces in Which We Roam

C.B Raffaelli & G. Helstrom

GEMINI PRINTING is a Seattle-based publication founded in early 2021. This edition was produced by the staff at Western Washisngton University in

Bellingham, Washington in March of 2023. The cover was designed by G. Helstrom. This book is an anthology of collected works. All rights reserved to the original authors included.

Copyright © 2023 by Gemini Printing

Introduction

In this anthology you will explore a weaving of strange spaces, cemented in memory, finding reflections of nature in our most profound emotions. Beginning with Mia Schick’s “ash on the roses” and ending with a piece by Taylar Christiansion, the collection handles personal grief, change, and self exploration. We hover above monumental moments in our lives with attention and gratitude; we reflect and feel and grow. As you travel through the assortment of works, consider how each poem is in dialogue with the next, braiding together a roaming story where you are welcome to find glimpses of home.

Your editors,

C.B Raffaelli and G. Helstrom

ash on roses

ashfall

the ruin of old gods laid to rest on the world of the living

unmelting snow

dusting the earth

the trees

the animals

the people breathe in the scent of an era ended for some choke on the taste of change

-Mia Schick

yet danger does not remove the beauty of the aftermath of a calamity

your mother’s garden

the roses stand tall

unflinching in a snow of ruin pink petals

blush brighter

beneath a haze of ash of inevitability

everything dies but this moment reminds us that everything lives too and what lives is beautiful what dies is beautiful

A Small Child Understands Death

You are tattoos, like scattered buoys on a white lake. I asked you “what will become of me?” When the ride stops, and everything is cold and green again, And that phobic spotted thing comes back, What I fear most is how our eyes wander We will echo chaos back and forth across the wood fire, And I will grow sick to my stomach. That is my penance, to watch you fade away.

-Ellery Pridgen

Remember Dad

Remember when you asked my mom out and she said yes? That was the beginning of our relationship too

Remember when you would take the three-year-old out for treats?

Ice cream, sodas, silken tofu in sweet syrup

-Taho- my favorite

Remember when you asked my mom for her hand because she was air because she was water because she fed your soul without her you would die?

Remember when you told your parents your intentions? Commitment, adoption, moving us to the US

Remember their hateful words? each a quick stab to my heart bastard

dark skin

“do they even speak English?”

Remember when you defied them?

Took those words and made them eat them?

because we were air because we were water

-Jackie Johnson

because we fed your soul without us you would die

Remember when you showed them they were wrong? You showed them you are a good man seeing only humans and a child who needed a father

Remember you made them see you are air you are water you feed our souls without you we would die

You fought for what you believed in and now you’re celebrating 35 years of happiness living the American Dream a beautiful wife, three kids grown a well-paying job, and a two-story home

Remember when I tell you that I’m trans that you taught me to fight for what I believe in to face adversity head on and to be a good man

Remember I am having this surgery because I need air because I need water because I need to free my soul without it, I will die

Remember…

Strange Reflections within a Dream

fallen stars of the night head tucked low within sight. bars crossed across the hidden heart divided by contemplation

“can you see the northern lights tonight?” words typed on newspaper raindrops fall without hesitation ink splotches on my hands eyes closed heart stops all the voices sketched vicariously to life.

Dreams of thought typed across the clouds silence is no more within the mind

It’s everywhere.

Change has a voice that echoes “strange universe…”

Hope cannot keep silent

“I can find the path ahead.”

Confusion sends us their two senses

“to speak aloud or stay silent”

Happiness cannot hold tongue

“onward into the unknown!”

Fear has other plans

“to hide within the subconscious”

Calm appears to help

-Anya Smith

“listen to the silence”

Anxiety travels with baggage

“everything is a mess we cannot forget.”

Curiosity jumps into the fray

“look within the reflections of the windows beneath the shadows. keep looking ahead.”

Sadness speaks up at last

“I miss the path last travelled.”

Empathy agrees

“Life cannot be without memories of the past”

Courage ends on this note.

“To move forward with heart and mind as one.”

awakened by the light of awareness by the moon.

Message sent in dreams. Message received by reality.

The Path of the Unknown

Finding my purpose has been No easy task. I have searched, I have tried, And I have failed many things. Yet, I still have no purpose. Where may I find it? Or maybe I have been looking at it Wrong. Maybe… Just Maybe, My purpose Is the journey Of the Unknown.

-Joshua Jinkens

Fulcrum

Have you ever balanced a light switch in the middle?

-G. Helstrom

That space where the smallest hint of a touch could send it on or off?

It’s a weird space to be in, with the knowledge that you can be immersed in darkness

Or

Drowned in the light

All with the merest of thoughts, even the prod of a fly could make it shift To balance something upon the fulcrum is stressful

I just wish I didn’t have that power

Deciding is hard

The pros of one side

The cons of the other

-Eventually I will have to make a choice, or have a choice made for meBut what of the cons?

Or what of the pros?

Deciding is hard ---

I have a power I wish I didn’t have My future balances delicately upon a fulcrum

Even with hours and hours of thought I haven’t determined what I want Hate myself in the light Or

Become myself in the dark

A weird space to be in, I know I could change it but I’m in a space where the inverse seems like an impossible future

Have you ever balanced a light switch in the middle?

Metamorphosis

I am young. Not even a quarter-century, new to life, but old enough for growth, for evolution.

My larval stage has passed, my form shifted to a clumsy clambering crawl, weaving, spinning a shelter.

I do not know what I could become, what I could emerge as; there are many forms I desire.

Enclosed in my haven, my mind floats and flits on warm air and gentle winds, imagining, picturing my outcome.

Wings, dusted with scales, vibrant with color and patterns, the envy of all others, beautiful and delicate?

Wings, dusted with scales, duller in shade and darker in color, yet far surpassing in detail, in complexity?

-Mia Schick

Yet I may only choose one; one appearance, one form, one body to dwell in, to live and change, to grow old in.

My form swirls and shifts, gossamer wings growing, scales layering, shingling in delicate array, stretching my bounds.

May I not exist as both beautiful and complex?

Must I leave my patterns to garish coloration?

No. I choose both. I will not sacrifice the halves of my self, will not divide for the limits of others. My shelter, a cage, splits.

Like a metamorphosis, I emerge from my chrysalis.

Transplanted

My roots are sick of being pulled out. They are treated like slivers, stinging while extracted by sharp tweezers. They curl their ends in delirium and optimism. Maybe the next pot of dirt they can grow into properly. Praying and hoping they don’t dry out before being successfully transplanted.

-Ariana Norberg

Waiting for the Bus

The soft whisper of rubber on concrete. The low thrum of an engine taking a moment to inhale. The buzz of a stopping car, sounding fancy, sounding rich.

-Maia Rustad

The sharp tin scream of rusted metal made to work through their neglect. The fragments of music, heard through open windows, just for a few moments before their engines exhale again.

Faint cheeps, so quiet under the roar of the road that you wonder if you imagine them, or if they are simply more metallic ambiance.

The breeze across your ears softly shushing you.

The crumpling leaves collapsed in theatrics at the vague moving of your feet. The warm, soft blanket of your inattention, keeping the pure noise at bay, with only the sparse breezes on your feet and the sparse sharpness in your ears breaking through your casual recline into the familiar routine of fade, and write, and notice, and wake, and reflect, and fade, and write.

The craggled twinge on the back of your spine from stiff rigor gone on too long. The dull stab of a rusty nail as the steel screams start to grate on your skull. Like children playing the same game over and over, and finally realizing the concept of something being played out.

The relief as an automatic movement shifts off of your crooked spine, and the ambiently existential panic of realizing the relief is not as relieving as you expected.

We’re smaller in Montana

A kitchen made of two by fours that parts in two, by four yellow chairs, and one red table, and six feet of blue glass before a clear lake.

We swam there at fifteen, kissed here, sixteen, stuffed sandwiches, seventeen; Summer slips down and it’s nineteen years of moonlight across this glittering surface, windless, a window where microwaved reflections glow.

Lakeside pines sit in my eyes; the lightning clouds beyond them. The striking distance drifts too far, for friends now barely strangers.

And yet, we’re smaller in Montana; walls creep close, bones bump table legs. You pour my glass and force my eyes to crowd an open face.

“You can tell me anything

Your words of wine lower down

- C.B Raffaelli

and rest on red-lined rings.

My hand is on your shoulder, tongue tight, squeeze tight, your fingers cover mine.

“Here no matter what.”

Clematis

When my petals were green, I was told

Eating a watermelon seed

Would make my belly grow and grow until I bore fruit

But I’ve swallowed the seed of a vine

And I’m not sure what to do.

It’s a old rite of passage, for some to go to their mother crying, terrified of watermelon parenthood come too soon

But the vine seed has taken root

And I don’t know what to do.

I’ve gone to surgeons and gardeners, who all see the same bleak future

If I’d sought help earlier, there might be time to extract

But the vine has grown into my vital organs

And there’s nothing they can do

Perhaps some light pruning, here and there, Keep flowers from clogging my lungs, keep the pain of plants exploring my skin from killing me

-Maia Rustad

But the vine keeps on growing

And it knows what it must do

On one day I sit on a park bench, soaking up the motherly sun, getting up, something catches and I am twined with the wood

But I cannot stay still

And I have many things to do

When I’m old, veins running with brass sap

And my joints aching from struggle

I will sit on the sunlit bench, never again to rise

And the vine and I, we do what we were always meant to do.

YOU WANNA SEE HOW FAR DOWN I CAN SINK?

-Taylar Christianson

I think I got the idea

Okay

Yeah I see you

Yeah I can see you

Okay good

Are you stuck?

Are you stuck?

Yeah gimme your hand

Come on

NO JUST LISTEN LOOK AT THIS. WATCH

LOOK I’M GOING DOWN.

CAN YOU SEE ME?

I’M GONNA COME BACK UP NOW

I’M COMING UP

NO I GOT IT

I’M STUCK

NO I CAN GET IT

I’M CLIMBING OUT RIGHT NOW

I’m putting on the black dress and I’m pressing myself through this crowd like a bug swimming through water. Are you proud of me? I’m eating the skewered vegetables cooked until they’re soggy and falling off the stick and falling into my throat and it’s covered in oil when someone asks me where I’m working now. Oh I’m locking up the baseball diamond at night thanks for asking but my throat is slick and filled with olive oil and the words aren’t coming up just now. Everyone’s wearing black and the floor is wobbling under the heels of these thick slippery shoes and my stomach is dripping down out of my skin onto the brown parquet and the acid is leaving holes where I’m standing. I don’t know the bride or the groom and I think someone should have told everyone not to wear black because we all look ridiculous.

OKAY I’M UP

Okay good

I asked if you wanted help

You’re all dirty

AW MAN I RIPPED MY JACKET

WELL I DIDN’T

Contributor Bios

Taylar Christianson is a poet currently studying creative writing at Western Washington University, from where they will graduate in 2024. Their work focuses on the gothic, the homesick, the theater, the somewhat gory, and the moss. Their main occupations are to read poetry, dance inexpertly, and add a word to the same Google doc every six months.

Joshua Jinkens is predominately a writer and part time poet that currently attends Western Washington University. He will graduate in the year 2023 during the summer. When he is not composing work, he could be found spending time with his family and pets. He can be reached via email at joshjink@icloud.com

J Finnick Johnson is finishing up at Western Washington University earning their BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing along with a minor in Psychology. Their work has been published in WWU’s Jeopardy Magazine. When not working or writing, they can be found hosting game nights with friends or watching movies and cuddling with their partner and their two dogs. They can be reached by email at ander808@wwu.edu.

Ariana Ruth Norberg is a fiction writer & poet. As a queer woman who grew up in the evangelical church and attended Christian schools for her entire schooling prior to college, most of her work reflects struggles of self-love & selfempowerment. She is a senior at Western Washington University studying English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. She currently lives with her two cats Sushi and Mushu.

Ellery Pridgen is a writer, artist, and filmmaker from the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in Coffin Bell Journal, The Closed Eye Open, Ephimiliar Journal, and other journals and anthologies. She was a finalist for the 2019 Prometheus Unbound Poetry Prize, and a 2022 Associate Writer-in-Residence at the ACA in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Currently, she is finishing her BA in Creative Writing at Western Washington University and working as a music curator for VNYL.

Maia Rustad is an author, poet, and artist living in the Pacific Northwest. She is a few weeks away from completing her BA in Creative Writing, and is working on a biography about her 8 fingered grandfather who lives on a secluded cliff in Mexico with two crows and an owl. When not writing, she enjoys painting and giving long and detailed reviews to point-and-click adventure games.

Mia Schick is a writer and poet currently attending Western Washington University. They will graduate in Summer of 2023. When not writing, they can be found singing, reading, or studying botany. They can be reached at their email: niasa192@gmail.com.

Anya Smith is a student at Western Washington University who plans to graduate in the summer of 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in English with an Emphasis in Creative Writing. Her childhood was spent imagining new stories and poems by Birch Bay and her home is forever the Pacific Northwest. Her dream is to be a published children’s book author. She enjoys writing, learning new songs on guitar, reading bedtime stories to her two young sons, and capturing pictures of nature around her for inspiration.

Praise for Strange Spaces in Which We Roam

“Here we have a poetic collection of grief, self reflection, and nature blending together in our most quiet moments. As we reminisce on the past and consider our current capacity for change, what do we choose to remember? What happens to ourselves in that process? Strange Spaces in Which We Roam begs these questions in a personal and compelling read.”

– Kurt Lathem, author of The Moon Rises and Telltale Saints

“This beautiful anthology features poets such as Mia Schick, Maia Rustad, and Ellery Pridgen, undergrads currently pursuing BA in Creative Writing at Western Washington University. Schick and Rustad’s unique voices and blending of natural imagery with emotion strengthen the heart of Strange Spaces effortlessly. Pridgen’s works have been featured in journals such as Unstamatic, Ephimiliar Journal, Coffin Bell, and The Closed Eye Open.”

– Rosie Smith, author of Blue Forest and editor of Owl Anthologies

“A thoughtful construction of metamorphosis and nostalgia.”

– H.M Laurens, New Naturalism

“Small corners of the world, through the eyes of many.”

– Lauren Adam, Cornucopia

TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS:

Mia Schick Ellery Pridgen Jackie Johnson Anya Smith

Ariana Norberg Joshua Jenkins

C.B Raffaelli is a creative writer with a love for capturing human experiences. Her work includes the original play “Truth Be Told” performed in 2020, and spoken poetry for the 2022 “Ghostwalk” locative media project. She is an avid traveler and has a fondness for collecting rocks to remember where she’s been.

G. Helstrom

C. B Raffaelli Maia Rustad Taylor Christianson

We thank you all. Meet the Editors

G. Helstrom is a Pacific Northwest resident currently lost in the woods. When not dashing through the underbrush to escape the creatures that hide within the green and gray, G. Helstrom can be found lounging around the campus of Western Washington University as they study Creative Writing. G. Helstrom has also been known to peruse local comic book shops, venture to fine eateries, and spend long hours staring at the ocean… perhaps one day all of its vast secrets will be unlocked, but until then G. Helstrom shall stay a safe distance away.