The Gallery Spring 2018

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Volume 32, Issue 2 Spring 2018

Editors Co-Editors-In-Chief Dominic DeAngio Heather Lawrence Managing Editors Maxwell Cloe Olivia Vande Woude Copy Editors Robert Metaxatos Sophie Rizzieri Art Editors Kathryn Hogan Jarvis Hua Hannah London Poetry Editor Noah Dowe Prose Editor Julia Wicks Staff Editors Jake Beardsley Mallory Cox Kae Eleuterio Soleil Ephraim Kate Hansen GuruBandaa Khalsa Emily Laggers

Madeline Myers Catherine Norwood Lindsay Pugh Chrys Stevens Ricky Stockel Katie Wright

Cover Art

Dad Reading

See the complete work on page 30

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Contents An Ode to the Disabled Body, or: Your Body Positive Movement Better Not Exclude Me mirror

Sins of Omission

Estranged after oread Under My Umbrella El caro lust A Broken Record From Father to Son, in as Many Words Elegy for Anne Joan of Arc Buddy Bluebeard’s House Sitter Pretty Somber &c.

Last Will and...What’s the Other Word?

Nonna’s Pot Sleepwalker Nature™ The Cart Circa Summer of 2016

Poetry 4

6 6 7 9 9 10 10 11 14 16-17 18 31 36-37 37 38 39 40 41 43 44

Kathryn Willoughby Maxwell Cloe Kae Eleuterio Annabel Matthews Maxwell Cloe Alyssa Eversmeyer Robert Metaxatos Billie VanStory Sarah Riley Jakob Cordes Jake Leonard Molly McKenna Jake Beardsley Heather Lawrence Arundel Miguelez Robert Metaxatos Patrick Beyrer Maegan Assaf Claire Flynn Kyle Lorey Katie Brownfiel

Prose February 19th, or Any Other Day Help Me December Kinsey Scale In West Baltimore

8 12-14 32-34 45-47 38

Catherine Green Anonymous Hope Parker Bailey Ellicott Paul Jonghyun Lee

Art Eager and Still cigarette grey Sugar Shadows 2:00 am Lady in Blue Joni The Cyclogical Bridge Position Walking Houses, Hands, Flowers From the House of the Rising Sun Whirlwind Suburban Mom Dad Reading Olivia The last song of the Kaua'i'ō'ō

5 11 15 19 20 21 22 23 24-25 26 27 28 29 30 35 42

Chrysanthi Stevens Samantha J. White Kristie Turkal Maegan Assaf Megan Schnellenberger Collin Ginsburg Finley Stewart Samantha J. White Megan Man Rebecca Shkreyov Megan Man Amy Nelson Kristie Turkal Rebecca Shkeyrov Kathryn Hogan Megan Massa

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Spring 2018 Poetry Staff Favorite

An Ode to The Disabled Body, or: Your Body Positive Movement Better Not Exclude Me My body is beautiful. my body doesn’t walk, my body struts

when there are rest breaks every ten minutes my body is happiest in epsom salt baths my body says, “you don’t know shit about deep breathing exercises” my body loves sleep my body is beautiful when it’s asleep and sexier when it’s awake my body keeps me up. all.

my body makes joint pain hot my body’s good days feel like your painful ones

night.

my body has legs that go for miles, except when they can’t move, but my body makes bedridden look PG13 my body’s fingers linger over my psoriasis like a lover’s touch my body’s an itchy temple you wish you could pray in my body is a double-edged weapon it sometimes cuts itself on my body is an overprotective mother determined to protect my soul my body won’t last as long as yours,

but my body is majestic my body’s got hips that swing back and forth my body lounges in the waiting room like a contemporary Venus my body can flip you off when my fingers are able and for you, well, they’re always able my body is sassy my body doesn’t spit, it swallows (pills) my body knows nausea like the back of my swollen hand my body knows the excruciating gasp of a prayer for death, my body is merciful my body loves itself my body has veins nurses can never find my body is shaped like an hourglass and has just as much time, my body is complete my body is whole My body is triumphant.

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but

but

— Kathryn Willoughby

Chrysanthi Stevens

Eager and Still

Charcoal

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mirror “i am not cruel only truthful” says the mere ores silver slyverd tongue but the truth is notme outside notme inside but behindme directly it alludes me as i am in the way i am the wait and the ruse and the bite but not the truth so you are not truthful serp[arg]ent but you are cruel like a handful of dust fed to a drowned fish

— Maxwell Cloe

Sins of Omission it’s like i’ve eaten the last candle in the world. every aching second i hold it on my tongue, ice crystals shroud your folded muscled arms and darkness settles over your stony shoulders and your eyes set. i stand and watch, wax clogging my mouth and i burn still.

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— Kae Eleuterio

Estranged my father presumably still lives but he grows like mould on my memory as if he were burnt up or buried.

He was almost irredeemable, nearly but not quite, so to save myself and him and you I’ll leave the worst unwritten.

This is an elegy after all, a recollection of the good times such as they were.

Forgive the blurry facts for I only have nine years a lifetime ago but I remember sitting on his shoulders, arms aching from the effort of trying to hug the sky, walking through fields gold-plated by the afternoon, wrapped in his voice and his hand holding mine, him sitting by my bed and reading aloud while I closed my eyes to the amber light— this does not erase my memory of the dread dissolving me when I heard his key in the door or the time he had to ask me, his only child, how old I was while I held my stitches together, or how he raged so loud he spat on me or the shock when he slammed me to the wall because I couldn’t read in my head yet and was being too loud— but I tell myself rose-tinted recollections justify the ache to know my father even though they call that Stockholm Syndrome.

— Annabel Matthews

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February 19th, or Any Other Day

by Catherine Green

I sat in the library and I could not make the five pages of Russian literary criticism stick in my head and the red pen I was using for annotations lay idly next to my elbow, propped on the desk, keeping my chin afloat.

What if you have bipolar I knew that was ridiculous. At almost twenty, if I was going to have bipolar, the signs would likely have begun to manifest already.

Do you know that I paused. I knew that normally it was during the late teenage years that the first episodes would occur. I knew that in my sister and in my brother, while they were not formally diagnosed right away, clear signs had germinated by nineteen.

You’re still nineteen Well, yes.

Shouldn’t you check

“ ” I numbered the reasons I would not develop bipolar.

I pulled out my phone. “When does bipolar usually manifest.” Late teens and early adult years.

It could still be ahead of you I numbered the reasons I would not develop bipolar. Unlike my sister and brother did in college, I do not drink heavily. (Because my sister and brother did in college, I do not drink heavily.) I have no PTSD, I use no opiates, the course of my life has been smooth thus far.

But you’ve been so depressed lately Lots of people get depressed. Most of them don’t have bipolar.

Most of them don’t have five blood relatives with bipolar Sure. But I’ve also never experienced any sort of mania.

But you will That’s stupid and unfounded.

You will I have no reason to believe that’s true.

You will G

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after oread curl up bee curl your round little petals into a littler spiral down on a rock knot a knet and whorl it over me crown me in a spool of fire

— Maxwell Cloe

Under My Umbrella This mist turns parasol into parachute and person into parasite tiny pink lichen on a black mushroom trundling under the clouds wracked with gloom If you blink, you’ll miss her pitiful peddler smiling wide orange leaves scattered on either side black shield bobbing and creaking and keeping the dark and the damp up, up, and away From the black molded grip, her chiseled fingers hang Like wreaths from doors and swings from trees she hangs, she swings, is so close to flying free Though cold makes things contract She feels lighter than air There was a load on her back Now it’s spread out everywhere

— Alyssa Eversmeyer

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El caro The students in class poked at the priest, Stuttering in his pocketless, pure habit, ossified By life’s discontents, When he said, ‘el caro’— ‘That’s not a word Father,’ finishing, rudely, his sentence — Robert Metaxatos

lust She knows you, Barren yet overflowing, Aching to be touched And loved.

The bitterness inside you grows, And she knows, Before you know, That you will settle, Sinking low and slipping by, Just to feel those hands Locked in your tangled hair, To imitate that thing called love.

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— Billie VanStory

Samantha J. White

cigarette grey

Ink on Paper

A Broken Record Sing the melody Of our future together The tune is finite — Sarah Riley

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Help Me

by Anonymous

Taking a whole bottle of generic Prozac won’t kill you, but it will ruin a perfectly nice Sleepover.

I learned this five years ago, in June of 2012. I’d just graduated eighth grade and my best friend Megan and I had quiet plans for our summer---our last summer before, for the first time ever, we’d go to different schools in the fall. Our thing then was watching Titanic, sometimes more than once a night; we’d curl up on the couch in her basement drinking Earl Grey tea to keep us fueled. This is how we saw our summer stretching out before us, interspersed with trips to the pool and the mall.

Normal.

My family was staying with my grandparents in D.C. while our new house was being finished. Our stuff was all over the place, which made packing for a sleepover difficult. In my disorganized rush to get my stuff together that night, I grabbed my whole bottle of pills instead of dosing one out in a plastic baggie.

Under most circumstances, I think, I could be forgiven for being sloppy and not searching harder for a Ziploc. But most circumstances do not involve a best friend who had overdosed on pills at least three times in the past six months. In fact, Megan had slept over with me the week before and I’d taken precautions. I piled all my accumulated crap by the door so if she got up in the middle of the night and tried to get any pills from the bathroom, she would trip and I would wake up.

“I’m not going to overdose,” she always insisted, rolling her eyes as if I was the biggest, most judgemental jerk in the world. As if overdosing was something harmless she indulged in on occasion, like watching an R-rated movie without her parents’ approval. Not normal.

This all leads me to wonder, five years after the fact, whether there was something darker at work than a fourteen year-old’s mushy brain that let me bring the entire bottle of pills to her house. Maybe I’m finally ready to admit a little culpability, cop to some unconscious desire to push us over the edge before we fell.

On the other hand, that’s very Freudian, and I’m not sure how much you’re supposed to subscribe to Freud these days.

Megan had been the Tigger to my Eeyore since first grade. She was my opposite in so many ways: tall and balletic and possessed of an upper-body strength that was truly frightening—even the boys feared to arm-wrestle her. Megan was a hoodlum in china doll’s clothing, with Rapunzel-long blonde hair and big blue eyes that saw enemies wherever they gazed. She was sleek where I was scruffy, driven where I was defeated, and most impressively, brave where I was meek. When her father yelled at her, Megan didn’t cry; she yelled back, which both terrified me and made her my hero.

We were equal and opposite kinds of weird, as best friends should be. We lived with the same sort of emotional potency, later teased out as bipolar disorder

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in her, and by sixth grade labeled anxious depression in me. (Hence the Prozac, my parents’ attempt to change the tune of my lifelong doom-and-gloom parade to something a little more upbeat.) Megan and I operated at a fever pitch all the time, bonding us tightly but also making us competitive and suspicious of one another to a ridiculous degree. We once had a massive fight over how to pronounce the word “herb.”

“You know you don’t have to be right all the time!” Megan snapped before she stomped home in a fit of pique.

In second grade, she lost the class spelling bee to me over the double “s” in the word “impressionism.” I felt so guilty that I gave her the prize and spent the rest of the day consoling her. In eighth grade, she wrote nasty graffiti about herself in a school bathroom and blamed me for it. “How could you do this to me?” she demanded in the counselor’s office, where I’d been hauled out of class to answer for her crimes. (I was exonerated because as I pointed out, she hadn’t even bothered to change her handwriting. Not one of her better schemes to ruin my life.)

“ ” Megan and I operated at a fever pitch all the time.

Megan’s parents were combative, unreliable, and sometimes downright abusive. I was the only stable source of love in her life, and boy, did she make me pay for it. She froze me out, spread nasty rumors about me, and pushed me away just to make sure I’d come back. Her overdoses—on pills, on mouthwash, on anything that might get her taken to the hospital—were never quite suicide attempts, but they were (as the cliché goes, as all the adults in my life told me) cries for help. I got sick of them fast because I’d been her first responder for years. Whenever I tried to help her, she turned on me and did her best to make my life miserable. Then she’d admit I was right and need me to come rushing to her side with unconditional sympathy. It got old.

That night in June 2012, I was downstairs on the computer in her basement, G-chatting with her while she was upstairs in her room.

“i kind of want to watch titanic again tonight,” I remember typing. “do u?”

There was a beat. Message seen. Another beat. A long pause. Megan is typing, Gchat informed me. Something twisted in my chest. The sword of Damocles, perhaps.

“come upstairs. i just took a bunch of pills. help me.”

Ah, yes, there it was.

With a crash I shoved the keyboard away and flew upstairs, panicked and angry beyond words---my heart in my throat and her help me stuck in my craw.

“Go throw up! Go throw them all up! Megan!”

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But Megan was just lying on the floor, crying.

Drama queen.

Typical.

Help me.

“Can I have a hug?” she sobbed.

“You know my parents will never let us hang out again, right?” I crossed my arms as her older sister called 911. I went to go pack my stuff up; I was going to have to go home. Help me. I picked up my now-empty bottle of pills from her desk and shoved it deep into the recesses of my sleepover bag. Help me. I was so sick of rescuing Megan, and what’s more, I couldn’t. Help me. I didn’t want to have to help her. I didn’t want it to somehow be my fault again.

Looking back, maybe it was my fault. Maybe the mistreatment had made me selfish and apathetic and I was letting Megan slide off my shoulders like a heavy backpack. Maybe I was selfish and apathetic to begin with. The truth is I shouldn’t have brought the pills in the first place--not one dose in a baggie, and certainly not the whole bottle. I had stopped taking my medication because it didn’t really work. I was only toting my pills around to avoid any suspicion from my parents, any having to explain my defective Eeyore brain.

Help me.

It wasn’t a request. We were never going to have a perfectly nice sleepover. G

From Father to Son, in as Many Words The wind can’t steer like a tiller does — Jakob Cordes

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Kristie Turkal

Sugar Shadows

Woodblock Print

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I.

Elegy for Anne

The day you died my foot slipped on the Cliffs of Moher.

A stone tumbled eight-hundred feet past green-grey sediment.

I couldn’t see its splash.

Another close call, like the time the warehouse worker knocked a pallet off the top shelf.

A crash where I’d been walking.

Red coke cups scattered around the aisle.

Dozens of cars passed, inches away as you biked through Appalachia and the Rockies.

II. The next day, Irish-overcast and my final exam.

I wrote about Joyce’s The Dead, mouthed they were all becoming shades with joy.

We bought booze to celebrate.

The clouds spat rain at my rented bike as I peddled by the River Corrib.

At noon, I opened my laptop, scrolled through photos of people with their arms around you, always smiling. You’d crossed the continental divide a week before. Now, a different milestone.

III. It stopped drizzling.

A friend forgot something, asked me to grab it.

Her door was locked, so I jammed a coin in the window’s hinged joint to prop it open.

I couldn’t squeeze through the crack, stood stupid in the courtyard.

Jim asked what I was doing.

I asked if he knew Anne.

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IV. We broke out the beer.

Cool glass soothed newly-bruised knuckles, still no indent on cinderblock walls.

Cheeks still wet.

Jim took sips from his.

I picked at the label, left white residue on a brown bottle.

I told him I’m tired of death.

V. Hottest day that summer—only 82 degrees.

Cloud-filtered light seeped past the green glass, spilled soft shadows onto the pews and marble floor.

I lit a candle in the cathedral’s empty alcove.

Our friends gathered at your funeral.

VI. The wet road glistens in the streetlamp’s light.

Then, burnt-out bulbs. A stretch of dark.

I ride on the shoulder, think about your knotted bike, your paralyzed friend, your blood on black asphalt.

Car radios blare as they pass.

My reflector flashed red, until the batteries died.

— Jake Leonard

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Joan of Arc It’s as if they wrested the very sun from the sky and made it to shatter into so many sinister shards about my lacerated feet.

But, ah, the incalescence of this inferno is simply an insipid whisper in the shade of the conflagration that leaps from my heart to my lungs to the scorched tips of my toes.

The conflagration that canticles the Truth the One who weaved the stars about the planets the One who raised the terra firma from the sea the One who arrayed us out of dust and placed us just below the angels the One who perished on a tree because we ate from one.

My limbs now char and my locks are ablaze.

Oh, my body it burns but my soul burns more excellently.

They stare at me as my tethered body roasts like the venison they will dine on once I am ash, but I keep my smoking eyes to the sky for I know that if I burn here on this ravaged interim clay I will not have to languish amidst such unbearable igneous tongues for the unfathomable eternity.

But rather I will reside where the cirrus meet the stratus and the Truth sits upon a glorious, glorious throne.

Put a crucifix before me.

Let me burn. — Molly McKenna

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Spring 2018 Art Staff Favorite

Maegan Assaf

2:00 am

MDF Block Print

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Megan Schnellenberger

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Lady in Blue

Acrylic

Collin Ginsburg

Joni

Photography

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Finley Stewart

The Cyclogical Bridge

Photography

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Samantha J. White

Position

Photography

Megan Man

24

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Walking

Photography

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25

Rebecca Shkreyov

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Houses, Hands, Flowers

Paper, Ink on a Book

Megan Man

From the House of the Rising Sun The Gallery 27

Amy Nelson

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Whirlwind

Oil Paint

Kristie Turkal

Surburban Mom

Pencil

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Rebecca Shkreyov

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Dad Reading

Oil on Canvas

Buddy Buddy with the big blue eyes light up the skies with your voice.

Summon the wind—the wind wants to rustle through your hair, the tides want to rise to be near you.

Dust settles to be the earth that you walk on, clouds pour themselves out to fill your cup; light floods the world in search of you, and shadows cling to all of your soft edges.

The planets turn their heads to catch a glimpse.

The mosquitoes and bees want to be inside you. The moss and the leaves want to hide you.

Rivers run shy at the thought of you, brooks babble like they don’t know what they’ll say when you’re around. The air wants to do right by you, and gentle winds die happy as they break upon your face.

Steam rises for hope of a look at you dirt loves to be made of the same stuff as you God will not take its eyes off you, and I— and I am the morning, clear and crisp and you are the water on my lips as I bow before the fountain, tossed around by all these tepid spouts I’ve come at last!—hot and risen like the Sun, and you are cool. You fill me.

Buddy in the base disguise boy of a hundred thousand kisses, know this: the Sun shines for you.

Caterpillars turn to butterflies to catch your gaze, and birds sing across the morning for your ears.

All of nature builds itself for you, you wild, euphonious thing.

The rocks and trees and flowers lift their praises for one king.

The cosmos writes your testaments in dirt and evening dew; all heaven bears this sentiment: Let me make me in you.

— Jake Beardsley

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December

by Hope Parker I can play each moment over in my brain, like a fuzzy old VHS home video.

Each frame is seared into my brain, burning, and burning, and burning.

My consciousness wrestles with itself, trying to make me forget, to drag the memory under the murky waters of my mind, but it keeps floating back up, never letting me forget my pain.

Part of me wants to deny my trauma, whispering that it is not as bad as I make it out to be, but I know that voice is a liar. I wish I could separate my hurt from myself, but it has changed me. It bleeds all over my identity, seeping into pores I thought were impenetrable. It colors my actions and thoughts, subtly, but the effect is still there.

The tape begins to roll.

Light floods into my eyes. I hear screaming. I pull myself out of my warm bed, my security, and into my mother’s bathroom. She’s putting on her robe, hysterical, hair wet, eyes wide. I can’t remember what she says. It’s as if static comes out of her mouth.

The tape jumps to the garage. I can’t remember if my sister has called 911 yet. I do remember the blood pooling next to my dad’s head. My mom screams my father’s name over and over.

Steve!

Steve!

Steve!

Wake up!

My sister is on the phone with 911 now, but she’s stumbling over her words and crying. The phone is in my hands now, and I manage to keep my voice steady steady steady.

There is a blackness closing in around me as I try to explain the situation to the woman on the other end of the line. I put my head between my knees now, I think, or maybe that was later. I learned that trick from a play I was in, only a month earlier. It makes the blackness receded, and allows me to keep thinking. I relay the 911 operator’s instructions to my mom. None of us know CPR, but we’re about to get a crash course.

My mom now over my dad, trying her best to get him to Breathe!

Breathe!

Breathe!

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None of us can find a pulse, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there, right? My mom is in her purple robe. I don’t think she ever wore it again. I told her she should get rid of it. She always said it was too warm for her anyways. I think my dad bought it for her. Maybe as a Christmas gift.

My sister has a friend there. We have an exchange student too. Both are mostly missing from my memories. I have a snapshot of one standing in the doorway, and a burst of the other crying. I am the only one with a level head.

My mom takes the phone from me. They just keep saying soon. soon. soon.

But eternities are passing in front of my eyes. Only ten minutes, I think, pass, and now I’m trying to perform CPR. I can’t remember if I sing Another One Bites the Dust in my head or Stayin’ Alive to keep rhythm. I would guess the latter, because my dad and I used to listen to it together. My dad loved music from the 70s. I didn’t back then. I do now.

He makes horrible sounds. I try to ignore them as I keep the rhythm. At the time, they meant hope. They meant maybe breathing. Maybe life. It was actually a death rattle. Irony.

No one ever warned me how physically demanding performing CPR would be. Why would they? I am exhausted by the time the ambulance arrived. They’re so loud, up close. My ears ring. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still hear them.

The EMS workers bring the stretcher into our garage. A two car garage has never felt so suffocating. One of the men carrying the stretcher says that he found a faint pulse.

He is lying. I don’t blame him.

I watch my father being pushed into the ambulance. There’s crying all around me. That’s the last time I ever see him. He was cremated.

My mom wants to ride in the ambulance with him, but she isn’t allowed to, despite everything you see in the movies. My next door neighbors volunteer to take her to the hospital instead. My sister and I are made to stay at home. I watch them go down the driveway, standing at the top of the hill, shivering in my pajamas.

After she leaves, it all gets blurry. I know two neighbors come over and clean the garage floor, so I won’t have to wipe up my own father’s blood. I remember being on my knees on the bathroom floor, with the door locked, praying and praying to God that my dad would live live

live.

Please.

I know it’s over when my pastor walks up my front porch. He accidentally arrives before my mother comes home to break the news to us. He just keeps telling me to not ask questions until my mom gets home. When she tells us, we stand in a circle, in the kitchen, crying and holding each other. She wears my dad’s wedding band under her own wedding ring.

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It gets even blurrier after that. My mom goes to bed. I watch her go up the stairs. She stays there for days, nearly withering away herself. My days stay full of accepting both casseroles and condolences as the new de facto head of household.

My father’s only brother, who hasn’t spoken to my dad in six months, comes to our house. He sits on our couch and eats our food while he talks about what a travesty it is that his daughter can’t make it to a hockey game he’s bought tickets for.

He sends me a graduation card a year and a half later. When I call to say thank you, I catch his voicemail. He doesn’t call back.

A week later, my mom becomes upset with me when I ask her how my hair looks before the funeral. She says it doesn’t matter. I just want to look presentable, like she has always taught me to. The praise band my dad was a part of plays his bass during his service. It’s weird to see them playing without him. I don’t stand up front to accept more apologies once it was all over. My mother is once again upset, but no one had told me what I need to do. I am only 17. I can no longer try to reassure others through my own grief. I don’t regret standing with my friends instead of being embraced by strangers.

“

”

When I call to say thank you, I catch his voicemail.

He doesn’t call back.

I remember breaking down and crying against my front door, away from the near strangers in my living room, family that I don’t know, that only come around in times of tragedy. I have no time to myself. I don’t want those people at my house.

It is so exhausting. My closest cousin holds me while I weep, stealing time to grieve for myself instead of for others.

The callers slowly taper off, much to my relief. All I want is to be in bed, not entertaining the revolving door of acquaintances that come to tell us how “lucky” we are that we had him while we did. That’s a shitty thing to say when a man with a wife and two children is dead at 51 years old from a heart attack.

Three long years later, no one asks how we are anymore. No one brings casseroles. No one tells me what a great man he was. The sounds of ambulances and firetrucks no longer take me back to that day. My mom is starting to date again. She feeds our dogs now, like he used to. My sister now takes the trash down on Thursday nights. I weed the flower beds in the hot summer months. In so many ways, life has begun to move on.

But sometimes, in the first few notes of an AC/DC song, or while setting up the Christmas tree, the tape of that day is taken off the shelf it sits on in my mind, dusted off, and begins to play once again.

I just hope that someday it doesn’t hurt so so so badly. G

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Kathyrn Hogan

Olivia

Charcoal

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Bluebeard’s House Sitter There was a time when he enjoyed coming home Before his new house sitter She is a college student with freckles and a nondescript face framed in nondescript hair He gives her the key to the room she must not open and leaves What he does then is not part of the story It will not be discussed here He comes home three days early, as is his wont, expecting tears and pleading and bloody finger tips Instead she asks, Can I get a ride home?

The key sits untouched, unstained, unblemished, next to the spot where the pizza money used to be He does not know what to do in this version of the story He considers himself a magnanimous fellow He can’t punish her for nothing She is not a very good house sitter He knows she eats on the couch even though he asks her not to, flipping the cushions over before he returns And she messes up his Netflix recommendations by watching alternating episodes of Making a Murderer and Gilmore Girls But this is not against the rules More than that he comes to realize, picking her socks out of his laundry finding her dull hair in the drain of the master bath.

That it is as much her house as his now This is more frightening than any bloody chamber They’re as afraid of you as you are of them a platitude true of snakes, wasps, and, at one point, babysitters Something had changed between When a Stranger Calls and the invention of the nannycam A different fear has taken root A fear known to the residents of Salem: that a girl will see the evil in your house the rot within your walls, the blood behind the locked door, and accuse you You are a cruel Pandora, He tells her,

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who runs her fingers ‘round the box but doesn’t open it Oh wicked Vashti, you torture me with your disinterest If you had met the serpent instead of Eve, we would still be in the garden Naked and dumb That’s nice, she says Can I have an advance for next week? I need to buy textbooks — Heather Lawrence

Pretty Somber My mom told me her favorite place was her front yard not because she could admire the clouds r o l l i n g in a sea of baby blue or fill her lungs with the scent of freshly cut grass, all while the sun grazed the top layer of her skin, l i g h t l y she had a willow there, she said it swayed tragically she swore she could hear it weep for something else, something more wilting when the slightest of winds would disturb it, she’d scrutinize the tree, wondering how something so somber could project such pure beauty, an abiding kind even on the sunniest of days, she’d wonder about the next thunderstorm,

the first sign of winter,

the brisk air after the sun sets,

when the warmth would be enveloped by the bitterness she grew an allure for the dim shade under the tree itself, always sitting under it, away from the sun the moisture in the air was enough for her her most cherished days is when it would rain, she’d heard the willow howl, louder than all other days sometimes they’d sob together

— Arundel Miguelez

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&c. <I off took my hood where the rain could meet my cheeks as if to say ‘I am crying! Look, sky, into my eye!’

A wine-dark complexion takes over my nose, Masquerading as sniffles though just a snuffed snout.

A feeling of a peripatetic, where on my papers I wish Coffee would stain everything just so to see Something greater than a reflection Of what written I be— Something muddied, something more Than that which becomes my precedence.

The incessant state Of needing to pee.> — Robert Metaxatos

In West Baltimore

By Paul Jonghyun Lee

A sparrow sits atop a street sign and I am taken by the thought, more than the sight, that it chose a dilapidated slum, of all places in the world it could roam and find.

Here lie vacant houses with smashed windows tightly aligned by the streets of a failed project, the American dream’s middle child—a Spectacle. Lost spirits walk a silent march in a single line to head back home, and they originated from the Dark Continent two million years ago in a primate’s testicle just like the rest of us, with which I recall a dark-skinned ancestor’s muffled sounds of cry that began mankind’s history of agony, and it probably sounded like that dirt bike. I, too, could’ve avoided her cry but chose to remind myself that I am also a descendant of tarred souls who sought salvation through unconditional prayers, and perhaps the sparrow is here for the confirmation of it all. G

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Last Will and... What’s the Other Word?

ON 22 OCTOBER 2014, Seymour J. Hodges III passed at the age of eighty-four years old; WHEREAS, the causes of his death stem from dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, related symptoms, et al.; WHEREAS, Mr. Hodges III left a list of belongings ascribed to his only surviving family member, Mr. Joseph Brinkley, grandson; WHEREAS, on 18 OCTOBER 2017, Mr. Hodges III made this list to his precise specifications with the intention of Mr. Brinkley receiving said list; WHEREAS, on this day, 14 DECEMBER 2017, as Mr. Hodges III’s attorney, I grant Mr. Brinkley full and sole ownership of the following items: One (1) Burlington Winter Coat; Three (3) ct. of Trader Joe’s Apple Cider; One (1) G.I. Joe action figure; Seven (7) slinky-toys; Three (3) hunting boots, manufacturer unknown; Two (2) Doobie Brothers CDs (one in poor to broken condition); One (1) Family picture of Mr. Hodges III, and his spouse Miranda, c. 1987; Twelve (12) Burger King Whopper wrappers.

WHEREAS, through the by-laws set forth by the state of Nebraska, Mr. Brinkley is entitled to this set of belongings by the wishes of Mr. Hodges III’s FINAL WILL AND TESTAMENT. SIGNED, 14 DECEMBER, 2017, R. Sidney Wilkins Attorney at Law — Patrick Beyrer

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Nonna’s Pot Nonna’s pot overflowed and the sun spilled out Soak it up and your sponge expands, but only as big as you let it Any larger and you’d fall forwards and walk on your hands Like dogs do. Their sponges are exceptionally big you know That’s why their lightning rod is always shaking— The sun is hard to contain.

A human sponge can only grow three sizes a day When it cracks, rays leak out and settle in the cracks on the pavement, melting the shoes of those who follow you. They don’t mind a bit.

If you’re sucked through the pavement you reach the Over Turned World.

Nonna’s warmth can’t reach you there. In fact, you forget her name.

There are no pots in the invisible underground cities.

It’s safe where the dead dwell but don’t go lower, The lightning trails on your skin will freeze.

I have only been there once and quite accidentally.

I followed a rabbit with the face of a man down below a sidewalk.

Find a string with a name of a loved one, pfhhh pfhhh pfhhh an inflating balloon, it gets fuller and fuller.

Careful, if it pops the universe will spill out.

Tie it to your wrist and pray for an upward wind.

If you’re lucky Nonna will reach in the Clogged storm drain and pull you up.

— Maegan Assaf

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Sleepwalker Where did I walk last night?

Did I traipse beside Brier Creek, wrap myself in tulle fog among the lilt of breezed willows; saunter down moonlit silhouettes all the way to the Savannah?

Did I roam to the Yukon; stand on frost-crippled banks, awake brittle earth with bare feet?

Did I pause to watch the Aurora twirl past pines or the way breath clings to cold then dissipates like ghosts?

I couldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve trekked along the Colorado through inky air.

Was the canyon carver tranquil, idle gloss flecked in starlight?

Or was I lured elsewhere?

Allegheny, Mississippi, Columbia, James?

Missouri, Snake, Potomac, Willamette?

Whichever river it was I must have waded in; slumped in the shallows to wake so damp, so cold.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Claire Flynn

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Megan Massa

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The last song of the Kaua’i ‘o’o

Digital

NatureTM Nature. Nice.

I’m super big on nature cause that’s where people aren’t.

From the little creek behind my house to my manicured backyard that’s nature, right? And even if it doesn’t count there’s still the woods and mountains trails where we like to hike except I doubt that little path was made by tiny little mice or even big deer, no I fear it’s human made, so out further I must go even though in the exurbs there is no piece of nature left untouched by man, and even in the bottom of the sea there is a can of coke at the floor of the Mariana Trench.

First dive ever, they found it.

A polluted little trench.

And so we found out that there’s no pristine environments so nothing that we find has ever anything higher meant and Wordsworth can fuck off because we never can transcend these heavy mortal coils because these coils never end.

— Kyle Lorey

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The Cart Circa Summer of 2016 dappled in the leafy darkness the shadows flirt and skirt in endless undulations rising and falling with the steady exhalations of some southern breeze the passing fancy of a long dead god in the distance an osprey beats his wings falling through the heavy air cutting the water in hundreds of sparkling shards as he grasps the twinkling wriggling scales of fish flesh his children call and caw at a distance while the mute swans remember Leda and manor houses crumbling to dust ducklings circle their mother in dangerously bright clumps while a gator opens its infinite maw to feel the sticky air roll over its tongue polluted still by white feathers and I sit eyes trained on the waves of light while the docile river waves offer kisses to the ever encroaching shore courting it for its favor the seconds are swallowed in languorous blinks and my hands slip deeper and deeper into the ice pitcher as the afternoon world becomes a lull thank you for visiting the Long Island Aquarium and have a safe drive home â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Katie Brownfiel

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The Gallery

Spring 2018 Prose Staff Favorite

The Kinsey Scale

by Bailey Ellicott

0 - EXCLUSIVELY HETEROSEXUAL I’m seventeen and I’m walking down the beach with my mother. I dig my nails into my palms and mull over the words I want to say. I end up spitting out something jumbled and nonsensical because I am nervous. I imagine myself sounding like a barbarian: “me like woman.” My mom doesn’t say anything for a while. She doesn’t understand why I’m saying this.

“I don’t believe that, what about the Amherst guys you dated?” I don’t really know what to say. I mean, what about those guys? What about the date I went on with Joel from UMass, when he paid for my slice of pizza and looked at pictures of my dog?

But then what about Dylan, from down the hall, who went to prom with Chance the Rapper and has her own art tattooed on her arm, who looks at me out of the corner of her eye as if she knows things about me that I don’t even know yet? I agree not to tell my father. I agree that it is probably a phase. “You’re not a lesbian,” my mom tells me. I don’t know enough yet to argue. I nod.

1 - PREDOMINANTLY HETEROSEXUAL, INCIDENTALLY HOMOSEXUAL

We’re outside, near the stables. It’s warm out. We’re lying on our backs in the tall, soft grass listening to music and looking at the stars. She leans over and kisses me.

I kiss her back. I was expecting it but I’m still nervous. I don’t know where to put my hands. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to do this. Suddenly “Up in Here” by DMX starts playing out of her iPhone and I can’t help but laugh. She laughs too. Then she looks at me. “Have you ever done this before?” I know she already knows the answer. She kisses me lightly again. I am nervous but I am no longer scared.

2 - PREDOMINANTLY HETEROSEXUAL, BUT MORE THAN INCIDENTALLY HOMOSEXUAL She comes over again. She tells me about her internship in DC. She shows me a new tattoo she got and I hate it. It’s a child holding a balloon, and it’s right on her stomach. I kiss her but I don’t like looking at the tattoo. She can tell this is off. I think she’s pretty, and I like her company, but the truth is she knows so much more about herself than I know about myself, and in reality it could never work because I’m too nervous all the time and the things I do not know cannot be taught.

I still talk to her. I think if we had met a few months later I could have ignored the tattoo and I would have asked what her family is like and I would have learned that she doesn’t like college either and she’s actually just as lost and confused as I am but she’s better at hiding it.

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I don’t understand at this point why I feel so vulnerable around women I am intimate with. I don’t know why I’m so nervous and scared and feel like I need to be suave. I don’t know where this part of myself fits into my identity. I don’t relate to the people around me who are super comfortable and proud of this label. It’s not that I feel shame. It’s just so new. It’s strange to actually act on something you have internalized and hidden for so long. It’s unsettling that it can become something normal.

3 - EQUALLY HOMOSEXUAL AND HETEROSEXUAL With time, I meet a friend. We’re both juniors and transfers and we both like Childish Gambino and she thinks I’m funny and she says I watch too much HGTV and Food Network (which is true). We’re sitting on her bed watching Tiny House Hunters when she suddenly pauses it and says “Do you wanna, I dunno, make out?”

It’s funny and it’s so her and it’s so us and I kiss her and I know what I’m doing and it feels safe and good. I leave and I feel better and I have a text from her waiting for me when I get home. We balance friendship and intimacy in the way that I’ve been looking for, when I can talk to her about things that scare me and she tells me things about herself that scare us both. She lives far from campus, though, and doesn’t go to my school. I leave for winter break and we fall out of touch and when I come back to school she has a boyfriend and then for some reason so do I and she becomes a memory I wish was still my present.

“

”

I do not seek all the answers. I seek only to feel peaceful among the questions.

4 - PREDOMINANTLY HOMOSEXUAL, BUT MORE THAN INCIDENTALLY HETEROSEXUAL I take a Kinsey test. I score a 4. I focus on the “incidentally heterosexual” aspect of myself, why this incredibly personal aspect of my identity seems to be all anyone else can focus on. People feel that they can ask me personal questions about sex, like being “queer” is something I made up. My sexuality and identity are up for speculation—it is my job to explain to someone what being “bi” is, versus “queer” or “not straight,” even though it is so easily googled. When seeing me talk to girls I am interested in, people tell me “I always knew you were gay,” making me insecure over how much near strangers speculate about my personal life. A friend of mine feels that she has the right to loudly joke about me being a lesbian from across a room full of strangers, outing me, and expecting me to laugh, even when we both know it isn’t true. It’s these expectations that make me feel like a liar, like less of a queer, when I have relationships with men, and also invalidates real feelings. Are these times when I am more than incidentally heterosexual really incidents? If, according to Dr. Kinsey, I am “PREDOMINANTLY HOMOSEXUAL,” does that mean that I am lying to myself any other way?

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5 - PREDOMINANTLY HOMOSEXUAL, ONLY INCIDENTALLY HETEROSEXUAL I am predominantly homosexual when I am surrounded by people who I know do not understand me. I am predominantly homosexual when I hear people call things they don’t like “gay,” or hear even more hurtful gay slurs, which amazingly I still hear often. I am predominantly homosexual when people say things like “I don’t believe in they/them pronouns” or “all trans people must be gay, too,” giving me the option to either ignore the hatred of people towards the LGBTQ community and save my energy, or speak up for the people I love and the people I do not know but still am connected to. I am predominantly homosexual when I am tired, tired, tired, of being an “other,” of being looked at quizzically, of being asked by a stupid straight boy for a threesome. I am tired of men thinking my identity is still a way to cater to them.

I am tired of having to tiptoe around questions regarding my relationship status to extended relatives: “I’m queer and I’m figuring myself out and I don’t need a boyfriend, nor do I want a boyfriend, I have people I like who float in and out of my life and some of them are women, Grandma!” It is in these moments, when I feel targeted, when I feel taboo, when I feel like I am not taken seriously, that the very terms used against me become powerful armor.

6 - EXCLUSIVELY HOMOSEXUAL People see the world in black and white. I kiss girls, I am gay. I kiss boys, I am straight. Because in reality I am grayscale, I am not easily visible. I am both lucky and hurt by this. I can easily pass as a straight person for my safety, but because of this privilege, I often question where I belong in my community. How can I become “queer enough?” How can I become the queer that walks into the room, and no one questions her identity? How can I get rid of that constant, unrelenting feeling of being under a microscope? How will I ever be able to separate the feeling of constant scrutiny that I have internalized from what is actually in front of me?

I do not seek all the answers. I seek only to feel peaceful among the questions. G

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Contributors’ Maegan Assaf- I carve, paint and draw from life as quickly as possible in order to be as true as I can to the subject matter. My main focus is on the figure or the figure in absence, and all of my work focuses on those I am closest to. Both “2:00 am” and “Nonna’s House” were completed in one short session with expression of feeling as the goal, rather than perfection.

Jake Beardsley- is a freshman majoring in philosophy.

Sadie Britton- is a sophomore at the College. She is an intended English major and creative writing minor from New Jersey, who loves writing flash fiction and short stories.

Katie Brownsfiel- is a sophomore and an English major. Her piece was inspired by her time working at the Long Island Aquarium. She dedicates it to her mother for telling her to write what she knows.

Xuanxuan Chen- The inspiration came from historical orientalism examined in Dr. A. Wright’s Introduction to AMES and observation of vegetables in Dr. M. L. Alexander’s Creative Writing: Poetry. The ode is dedicated to the caring minds: the two professors, the Ye family, Ms. Wang, Mr. Gong, Ms. Hebie, Ms. Loheed, Sylvia, Professor Lee-Ferrand, and Professor Harbron.

Maxwell Cloe- just found these poems on the side of the road. He’s glad you like them anyway.

Kae Eleuterio- is a Sophomore who has always dreamed of being world-famous for her writing, but she’s realized that she just wants to have fun with it. She’d like to dedicate her poem to its subject itself.

Alyssa Eversmeyer- This poem was born when Alyssa realized that parasol, parachute, and parasite all start with the same letters and then wondered how many “para-” words she could fit into a single poem. Luckily she stopped at those three to keep things comprehensible and wrote this love letter to umbrellas instead.

Claire Flynn- is a Senior at the College majoring in Hispanic Studies. She enjoys reading and writing poetry, swimming with the William and Mary synchronized swim team, playing piano, and visiting the sheep of Colonial Williamsburg.

Heather Lawrence- is a double major in English and sociology and a senior at the William & Mary. In her spare time she likes to read, write, and browse Wikipedia articles on European witchcraft trials and Minoan snake goddess figurines.

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Notes Jake Leonard- Oh jeez. Jake Leonard’s not very good at these things.

Kyle Lorey- is an English major from Olathe, Kansas.

Megan Man- is a mac & cheese enthusiast inspired by C.S. Lewis, Mister Rogers, and the beautiful soul reading this.

Molly McKenna- To my grandparents who have shown me what is true and beautiful.

Amy Nelson- I made this piece while I was studying abroad in Argentina. I took an art class at a local university, where they taught us about oil stain techniques.

Rebecca Shreykov- Instagram: @theboldstylo Chrys Stevens- The piece I submitted was done at a three-hour Thursday night live model session offered free by the college. The model, Sarah, was gracious enough to allow me to submit this piece, and even though it was her first time modeling nude, she was amazing. She exuded a sense of nervous excitement. This drawing is the culmination of two semesters of hard work and study.

Finley Stewart- I’ve been taking photographs for about five years, and I’ve come to know my camera as my fifth limb. Wherever I go, I’m always looking at the world through a sort of lens; admiring the symmetry, composition, and color. That’s what happened in this photograph-I saw the bridge surrounded by the foliage, almost as if it were protectively framing it, and I knew it would make an awesome photo with a central subject. It was one of those wonderful moments where everything came together perfectly!

Kristie Turkal- My art is often about capturing an experience or finding humor in a moment.

I use paint, pencil, or printmaking to reflect on absurdity, whether it leans more towards insanity or hilarity. If you’re interested in seeing more, follow my art instagram @shesundone.

Catherine Wilhelm- This picture was taken in Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia. Everything in that small village was so brightly colored, and she was shocked especially by how everything felt so vibrant, yet peaceful. To her, this picture embodies that with the contrasting colors of the blue and red rowboats and bright blue water, and its tranquility; the boats are not in use at the moment and are just floating with the tide along with the seagull in the background.

Kathryn Willoughby- is a twenty-four year old art history major. She likes It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and is in love with her disabled body.

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Editors’ Note

Dear Reader,

We are honored to present the latest collection of the best poetry, prose, and artwork the William and Mary community has to offer. It also happens to be our last magazine. Graduation looms as we complete last-minute copy edits and make the final preparations for publication. It’s truly been a stellar semester reviewing all of the submissions as well as training our replacements as Editors-inChief: Maxwell Cloe and Olivia Van Woude, the current Managing Editors. We have also taken on new section and copy editors ready to step up and lead The Gallery.

We are confident that we are leaving our beloved magazine in capable hands.

The Gallery was a different magazine back in 2014 when we joined the staff as eager freshmen. Over the years, we have made several improvements to the already amazing publication. Thanks to our increased presence on campus, we have consistently received more submissions each semester than ever before. Our staff has grown exponentially; we never have an unfilled position or a dull conversation at meetings. Led by Art Editor Kathryn Hogan – also graduating – we have updated The Gallery’s style to a more professional format that highlights the art itself, rather than the page’s layout. Moving forward, we know our successors will continue to grow and enhance our magazine, tweaking our process and reaching more readers and contributors than before.

It has been an honor and a delight to serve as your Editors-in-Chief during our time at William and Mary. The Gallery has meant so much to us both over the years. From the impressive art, prose, and poetry we have had the privilege of receiving to the friends we’ve made along the way, being a part of this magazine has truly meant being a part of the William and Mary community.

-Dominic DeAngio and Heather Lawrence

Colophon

The Gallery Volume 32 Issue 2 was produced by the student staff at the College of William & Mary and published by Western Newspaper Publishing Co. in Indianapolis, Indiana. Submissions are accepted anonymously through a staff vote. The magazine was designed using Adobe Indesign CS5 and Adobe Photoshop CS5. The magazine’s 52, 6x9 pages are set in Garamond. The cover font and the titles of all the pieces are “Derivia”.

The Spring 2012 issue of The Gallery was a CSPA Gold Medalist with All-Columbian honors in content.

Check out the Gallery online www.wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/gallery www.facebook.com/wmgallery

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Submit to:

gallery@email.wm.edu