V I S I O N
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IMAGES
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Editor-in-Chief Jack Ellmer Vice President Shalee Rowley Design Team Lead Meg Langhoff Design Team Megan Ross Gabby Miller Devin Olivares-Garcia Cheyenne Williams Editorial Team Jasznia Marshall Kaleigh Dixson Rachel Lee Jade Dyea-Purley Faculty Advisor Candace Nadon Printer Basin Printing
I M A ABOUT
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Images Magazine is Fort Lewis College’s journal of writing and art for the students by the students. Please visit out website flcimages. fortlewis.edu for more. Printer: Basin Printing
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We are grateful for the incredible kindness our donors displayed. Your generosity made the Spring 2020 issue possible. Thank you for supporting Fort Lewis students! Lisa April Elizabeth Bussian Noelle Caldwell Nancy Cardona Michele Curran Melissa Dyea Joel Gerig Marjori Langhoff Rachel Lee Erin Magee Michelle Marshall Kimberly Myers Candace Nadon Karen Nadon Emily Neufeld Ashley Neufeld Lisa Ross Madeline Ryan Faron Scott Melissa Thompson Emma Vigers
DONORS
GE S
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E D I TO R I A L TEAM
IMAGES
Jade Dyea-Purley is a senior this semester working with the editing team for Images Magazine. This is her first semester working on the magazine. majoring in writing. Aside from writing, she enjoys listening to music and is always looking for concerts to attend, which can be frustrating where she is from. Her vision for 2020 would be for the world to return to a sense of normalcy, maybe graduate soon, and to find more concerts she can go to. Rachel Lee is the social media manager for Images Magazine. She joined the Images staff after having been published in the magazine several times. As a writing major, Rachel feels at home within the creative community of Fort Lewis College. In her free time, she writes poetry, watches video essays, and cuddles with her cat, Baby. She is always inspired by music and the works of her peers. For 2020, Rachel hopes that we will overcome the injustices we all face on a daily basis and take back our power. Candace Nadon is the faculty advisor to Images. She is an FLC alum, and one of her first publications was in Images many moons ago. Helping provide students a platform to share their creative work is very important to her, and she is awed over and over again by the power of the work submitted to Images by FLC students and alums and the high quality work the staff does to publish the magazine. Her vision for 2020? More art, more story, more joy, more opportunity, more connection.
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Kaleigh Dixson is on the editing team of Images Magazine. She is a senior at Fort Lewis College, graduating this Spring 2020. She is pursuing a Secondary English teaching license along with a Writing minor. She loves the outdoors, her ten-year-old “puppy” Lulu and reading a good book. Kaleigh’s 20/20 Vision is for humanity to come together in love and support amidst this time of uncertainty
Jasznia Marshall is an editor on the 2020 Images team. She is in her senior year at Fort Lewis College as a Writing major. Her personal work focuses on screenwriting, short prose, and poetry. During her summers, she works as a Writing intern for Business Development. She enjoys going to the movies, dancing her heart out, reading, and writing. Her vision of 2020 includes representation of all identities, unconditional love, and creative expression for all. Shalee Rowley is a 3rd year English major and Vice President of Images Magazine. In the winter, Shalee enjoys indoor bouldering with her friends. This May she plans to travel to Spain and hike the El Camino de Santiago with her best friend Mickie. In 2020 she hopes to write more poetry and eat less burritos from Zia’s.
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Jack Ellmer is the Editor-in-Chief of Images Magazine. He will graduate in the Spring of 2020 with a BA in Writing. Jack is originally from Fort Collins, CO, but has lived in South Africa, Maine, and California. Currently, he calls Durango and the San Juan Mountains home. Outside of school, Jack can be found outdoors with loved ones, or with snacks at the very least. Jack’s 2020 Vision is a return to simplicity. More art, more homemade food, more laughs, more love.
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DESIGN
IMAGES
TEAM
Meg Langhoff is a Graphic Design student at Fort Lewis College. She works with the Marketing and Communication Department on campus to create promotional material for the school. She has also worked with students entering the communication design department as a TA for the intro level classes. When it comes to Images, she is the lead designer for the magazine and has had a large impact for the direction of the design. Her vision for 20/20 is to assist her community in producing and displaying more art from under represented art discourses. Devin Olivares-Garcia is a third-year student, or junior by credit hour, and plans to fallow his Communication Design Major. He also thinks about plans for a minor in marketing or engineering in the future. Devin works on a lot of the design layout for the art section of Images Magazine, and stickers/promotions when needed. Devin enjoys spending time with friends and family, playing video games, and catching the adventure everywhere that he can. His 2020 vision is one that will be a very big step for humanity as this world changes ever so quickly, with the technology that is developed and the earth that is restless and continues its cycles and processes indefinitely. He believes change is coming and 2020 is the beginning of it.
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Megan Ross is a junior writing major with minors in marketing and studio art at Fort Lewis College. She’s been a part of Images Magazine for a year and is one of the designers for this year’s edition. Megan enjoys playing RPGs and tabletop games with her friends on a typical day. If she were to give a short phrase to describe herself, it would be “enthusiastically geeky.” In all she does, Megan loves creating pictures for others with words and pictures. From a really young age stories of fairies and hidden doors fueled her imagination, and often she could be found reading and drawing up her fantasy worlds. Now she works towards giving life and meaning to the words and images she constructs. Megan’s vision is to see growth come from what she puts forward each day. Cheyenne Williams is a junior in the Journalism and Multimedia Studies major program and is interested in using this degree to pursue a career in print media as a traveling writer and designer. Hobbies include drawing, reading, singing, record collecting, and traveling in any free time. Cheyenne’s vision for 2020 is reclaiming Indigenous and queer identity to build a better self for a better world
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Gabby Miller is a senior in her last semester at Fort Lewis College. She will be graduating in the Spring of 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications Design and a Minor in Writing. In the winter, Gabby spends her free time at the mountain, snowboarding at Purgatory. She spends her summers on the river in the canoe or paddle boarding. Gabby’s vision for 2020 is to find her dream job as a graphic designer in the city of Boston, MA after she graduates.
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L A N D ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Images Magazine is produced by the students of Fort Lewis College. Fort Lewis College and the City of Durango are located on land stolen from Native American, American Indian, and Indigenous Peoples. Images would like to acknowledge and recognize that this land was shared among the Ute, DinĂŠ, Pueblo, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Kiowa, and Arapahoe peoples. At Images, we recognize that we bear a great responsibility as a result of being in this place to live, work, and share our magazine. We seek to fulfill this responsibility by soliciting and publishing submissions from Native American, American Indian, and Indigenous Peoples across campus. We engage in extensive discussions about using our magazine to address historical and on-going injustice and use the conclusions from these discussions to design our final product.
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E D I TO R ’ S N OT E S Greetings from quarantine. It has never been clearer to me that foresight is not 20/20. We called for Fort Lewis College’s 20/20 Vision from a bustling campus full of life, energy, excitement, community. These visions came rolling in and we faced the difficult task of selecting which pieces to include. On March 11th, we learned that the novel coronavirus would move our campus online. By March 19th, we learned this would last the remainder of the semester. Despite the disappointing news, we were determined to bring Images to readers both online and in print. We share these visions with you from home isolation – our community united from a distance to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Do not forget that art, too, can be viral. But rather than fight it, we must let it in, let it consume us, let it inspire us. The visions that follow reflect what we have to look forward to, to return to, when this is all over. Let them inspire you to shape your own – these visions are more important now than ever. With love, Jack Ellmer Editor-in-Chief
POETRY POETRY
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2020
V I S I O N
MOLLY MCMILLEN ELI USZACKI CARL SCHNITKER ELLIS MCNICHOL CHRISTINA STANTON BROOKE MAZUR LANGSTON SHUPE-DIGGS BARBARA EDWARDS GARETT MARR MADDEE RYAN KATHERINE PAMPLIN
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Eyes Open Molly McMillen
Darkness pools across the floor like murky dancers shifting with the time of day. Shards of light spill through the partly opened blinds; a light that kisses its way into the shadows entreating it to stay or disappear. Specks of dust spin, suspended in the warm and hollow beams. The light and the shadow flicker and flit across my vision. With eyes open, I can see: I too am a speck of dust in the swirling atmosphere, a glow somewhere between darkness and the light, a grain of sand in rolling waves.
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Attention Eli Uszacki
Things are perfect if you pay attention like when the rock makes your fingers bleed but it holds them the way I want my hands to be held or how the air wraps me in silk and linen with every sprinting step no matter how hard I breathe. And the ocean finds all those doubts and sicknesses, it washes away the blood, and fills my veins with water. When I stop and close my eyes, I can feel it come from within. Pure water and silk, slow time and held hands and it is perfect.
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Southwest, somewhere Carl Schnitker
Barbed wire scribes alien shapes across the unbroken plain. Rain streaks toward yellow-green patchwork. Center-pivots lined up: disarticulated steel vertebrae, water towers like Orwell’s invaders. Chamisa and tumbleweeds in the ditch, rotting goat (truck-struck), broken bottles and cigarette butts. Ravens gather on alfalfa stubble. Powerlines stretching into the swirling gloom. Swerve to dodge half a tire. Hay bales by a lone willow tree, glassy water in the wide canal, snow begins to fall.
15 On Dancing Ellis McNichol
She danced on the edge of moonlight in her solitude, curling now, like a record, hazily playing thousands of songs in each tongue of the universe she listens to them all, she speaks them all. She knows the tongues of rhythm the movement of dance breaks her open to absolute vulnerability like that deep trauma did, but she’s smiling now and she dances the dance of her ancestors, she can see them now, as she builds a web around her with each twirl, she’s safe now but she’s not even her now. No, this being has sunk in the vessel of eternity grandmother, can you hear me now? She is the humbled warrior, she is the witch, the hunter she is the divine child, she is Gaia, she isn’t alone now. It’s all so clear now, threads of identity unravel. She can only weep in the presence of unearthed wellsprings, collective memories, and dance through the space of each.
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Fog
Christina Stanton Feet rooted in the firm ground, shoulders back, her gaze fixed. Grass clings to her boots and eyes scan forward for the trail ahead. A trail she’s been following for years has finally reached a standstill. Glassy fog rolls out before her eyes. She’d always loved the fog. Her heart divided, each path ahead would bring something of joy. But which is the one she’s meant to follow? Fear doesn’t break apart her fixed gaze. Rather, with a quick breath, she takes a step and then another. The future flying fast to greet her, but she had always loved the fog.
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Titles
Brooke Mazur there is a room in our house that we call hers even though in reality it isn’t. there is a space in my bed that i call yours even though in reality it isn’t. it never was it was a place where you rested your weary head for a few hours before you went spiraling off into a life that i was never apart of. there is a room we call hers even though it isn’t. there is a place for you in my bed even though there shouldn’t be. it hurts to love something that is only ever half there. half gone.
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Clouded Shaped Lives///Lava in The Sky Langston Shupe-Diggs
I sit in a coffee shop in downtown Phoenix, the mists of personality coming into fruition before my eyes, the walks that I’ve never seen or never, I suppose, hoped to see. Brains connected by loose leaf strings tied in a memory of daylight, a complete and whole being walking the lines of my face only for a scarce moment in passing. Galaxy haired women with minds full of sunrises drift loftily over head restoring fresh cracked sidewalks with the hope of tomorrow. Hope, which was lost at the feet of poor willed men clawing desperately to carve any penny from one another, manipulated by the oppressor to be a shambling corpse of morality. Those ambling smiles floating on the backs of rose-pink turtle doves amongst the great blue sea of atmosphere surrounding the great big green earth tarnished and poisoned by corporate overheads who control the star bound essence of the meaning of infatuation and angels and shatter Mother Nature’s love in exchange for raw perceived power. Those cloud headed younglings, with their tears through the night, flood these high school hallways at the dusk of a memory, content in the knowledge that problems are a fallacy created by solutions.
19 They look up to Sistine ceilings and wonder where their place is in the unforgiving sprawling set of coincidence and lack thereof that makes up the fabric of this universe. Many wonderfully wrinkled old souls with canes to hold up their bare mentality fracture under the weight of this bright dawning of mankind but do not falter under the light of new leaves turned over and new identities explored. Those who endured a great endeavor in the face of hatred for their own love or race. The mingling of the separated, the former slaves and their former masters united hand in hand, soon to create the future of the third planet from the sun. A baby with starlight for a soul, the unity of multiple visible divisions, cries in a stroller made from the bones of his ancestors. He holds only one question: what does it mean to be alive in a world full of pure limb from limb expression and replete prophetic words? Remarkable miled footsteps of those who have traveled near and far to see the humanitarian effect of pure existence in all its forms, learned languages to communicate with those beautiful faces in far off lands, words lost to the dynasty of progress in America. They’ve spoken to those whose holidays have been manipulated by the manuscript of modern time keeping. I sit in a coffee shop in downtown Phoenix. I look at myself and see these prepossessing words engraved into the Carmel of my skin. The cloud shaped lives float by and I feel them in every ounce of carbonated ideas lost to the dullness of noon and save them from demise amongst lava in the sky.
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Equinox
Molly McMillen Dry against the sky, a shift from green to red Leaves fall slowly like your words within my head The weather changes; cold in sunshine’s stead Your voice changes too in things you’ve said
October’s fingers now entangled in my hair The distance cuts a deeper chasm there Clouds sidle slow, bring dampness to the air From you to me, a valley forms a tear Different figures form the shapes of change Have the two of us evolved or disarranged? The autumn chill once hopeful now feels strange Like heat, a bond dissolves in fall’s first rain
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Whispering Softly Christina Stanton
Silence embraces my soul. Peace surrounds my beating heart. Words whisper themselves. Those grotesque lies are laid down, laid bare as my eyes gaze longingly and lovingly. Here I find home – hunger and hurt both healed. Brokenness has no say. A place in the search for becoming a saint, sure, but no final say. Here I find home – Heaven meets earth in a tiny, white host. Love unlike any known. A love longed for, lighting our lives if only we allow. Silence embraces my soul, whispering softly – surrender.
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New Money Barbara Edwards
Ferment in the fruits of your labor fly alongside me, frolic in new money to escape confines of society – confines born from father’s freedom, born from the womb of a woman wealthy. But lay down into the fields that fortify the fairness for longed feverish fellows, a village, it took to feed the next generation with generosity. Don’t let the compass croak cockeyed, lead into your own valley of victory, define money for the means of community.
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convergence insufficiency Maddee Ryan
i see double i see in twos once i found myself crumpled staining dirt red watching blood run into the river then somehow standing again i saw two jakes backlit by evening sun on a hazy river jake untying a figure eight knot his hands shaking jake peeling my helmet off tipping it over emptying clotting blood from a foul plastic chalice jake tearing my shirt tying it around my temples stifling double wounds jake crowning me queen of concussions queen of blood-matted hair queen of double vision of eternally unfocused eyes of convergence insufficiency.
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A Sestina for Grampa Mike Garett Marr
Sunshine on a glass lake is a time for words. As bobbers bounce, baited hooks entice fish. We speak of life and fishing in our boat, in hushed tones we talk softly, to give the quiet misty sunrise its earned respect. Grandpa jigs his line, he takes a sip of black coffee. I know Mom and Dad disapprove of coffee drinking by one young as me, but lake mornings are for words and fishing and black coffee with Grandpa. I was too young to know, but it wasn’t about fish alone. ‘Twas about making memories of quiet mornings; lifelong reflections made on an old boat. Now I’m grown and I think back to that boat. Mom and Dad could care less if I have coffee. These days in my life, it’s harder for quiet times of reflection. There’re too many words and far too few misty lake mornings for fish, and only in my mind is there time for Grandpa.
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Time never stops, all things change and even Grandpas move on. I drift through life as a lake boat drifts, but through all the paddling there’s less time for fish. If only I knew my sunny days of coffee drinking, joke telling, listening to wise words would one day end, and Grandpa would quiet. He’s passed, two years now, and I’m left quiet memories of life lessons given by Grandpa. The jokes, the stories were more than mere words, they did more than fill mornings on that boat. They were irreplaceable advice, coffee fueled memories when Grandpa taught me how to fish. I picture him with all the time now for fish. He wakes up early on heavenly, quiet mornings. He fills his thermos brim full of black coffee. He grabs his pole, packs a lunch, then Grandpa leaves his home for a glass lake; launches his boat and plans the next time he’ll share his wise words. Now in memory, fish on the mind, me and Grandpa drift through the quiet on his wooden boat sipping coffee, wasted silence broken by precious words.
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Interior Paint Katherine Pamplin
I’ve always chased the smell of interior paint. It’s the change that I need when the room is not mine. I don’t find much change here, this stale odorless room. So with some new bright shade, I’ll paint the walls again.
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YOUR YOU HEART DON’T AND EYES HAVE ARELOOK THE TO SAME TO SEE
ART ART
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20XX V I S I O N
ANNIE DAVID EAMON ALDRIDGE ELISE LILBURN GEORGE BANGS SIMÓN ESTRADA V.
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Her Garden
Meg Langhoff & Megan Ross
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Lotus McCourt and her story
My 20/20 vision is learning to accept myself better. Being a trans woman, it’s often very hard to love myself. I always feel too masculine or too trapped in my own body – dysphoria eating me away. I’m trapped – feeling too skinny or too big, never confident unless wearing makeup. Growing up, I was always expected to be very masculine and fit, to become a stereotypical “man.” My coming out story started with my supportive cousin. I have yet to tell my parents. My cousin has supported me every step of the way. I likely wouldn’t be as out as I am now without her. I chose the name Lotus because of the story it tells. The Lotus symbolizes growth. It rises from the murky waters below to flourish above on the surface. It is also the name of a gaming guild I was a part of for a long time, The Lotus, where I met some of my closest friends. To have my image and story featured, to display myself confidently and be accepted for who I am, means a lot to me. Transgender people are not often featured in media. If we are included, it’s usually only in the background. Featuring my image and story prominently tells the world, “Hey, we’re just like you, we aren’t that different.” This isn’t just about my story, but the story of everyone like me. I hope that anyone who struggles with their identity can look at this and learn to love themselves like I am learning to do as well.
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Lighthouse
Eamon Aldridge
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The Fourth Dimension Annie David
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embrace your culture, accept others, own yourself
Decolonize Your Mind Elise Lilburn
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Double Vision Elise Lilburn
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You Can Cry If You Need To
George Bangs
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Gay Pilgrims
George Bangs
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Big Door (Snapped Remix)
George Bangs
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Fast Living
Simรณn Estrada V.
PROSE PROSE
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2020 V I S I O N
KATE MCLACHLAN HALEY STACY DEANNA TRUJILLO
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42 Room Service Kate McLachlan
An hour early for check-in, she wandered the halls to kill time. The place hadn’t changed a bit since she was a child. She’ll never forget what a special occasion it was to stay here, to eat at the restaurant, even though she lived a mile away. Her parents had a corny name for it, “staycation” or something trite like that. One step in the lobby was all it took for the memories to flood back to her. Once, the waitress kindly smiled when she asked if this hotel was on the Titanic. How tightly her wrist was clutched when she was being too loud. The flecks of gold in the wallpaper. How she trembled with fear when she heard the door unlock. Each stairwell was lined with magnificent brass rails. The crazed noise of shattering glass coming from the bedroom. Christmas was especially wonderful, with the already decadent hotel draped in velvet ribbons and sparkling lights. Mascara and tears smeared over ruddy cheeks as stale Chanel No. 5 filled the air. She traced her finger along the wallpaper, following an ornate vine. The hour passed by quickly and her room was ready. “Are you here for business or pleasure?” an enthusiastic teenage concierge asked. “Pleasure.” “Well we hope you enjoy your stay with us!” She knew she would enjoy her stay very much. A bellhop took her bags to the room. She tipped him generously and sat on the bed. Then she called her mother, who was surprised that she was in town and couldn’t wait to come by that evening to have a drink in the room. When she hung up the phone, she unzipped her bag and pulled out the knife, trying to remember how mom liked her martinis.
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IMAGES IMAGES IMAGES IMAGES IMAGES IMAGES IMAGES IMAGES
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I Have to Have Vision Haley Stacey
The atmosphere in the living room is awkward and tense. I want another drink of tea but it’s cold now and if I get up to warm it the quiet spell might be broken. “What are you doing after college? What are your plans?” Her china cup clinks as the spoon taps neatly against it. She lifts the cup to her mouth and drinks, watching me. So much for disturbing the quiet. I knew the questions were coming, that they’d be hard to answer. “I don’t know yet. I’d like to get published before I graduate, though. I’ve heard that can helps my odds on getting a real writing job fresh out of college.” I stumble over the words, pouring myself another lukewarm cup of tea. “Oh, well,” she smiles with fake positivity and too much teeth. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You are first generation, after all. We couldn’t expect you to know what to do next. It is, what, five months away? I’m sure that’s plenty of time. You’ll find some sort of job, I’m sure.” I want to defend myself, to argue that I have had more than my fair share of crap on my plate. That we can’t all have a 4.0 GPA and be top of the class. I want to say that I tried. That every class, every grade, every early morning and late night came at the cost of tears and desperation and a fight that only ever seemed to be uphill. That I did it, despite everything. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” I reply, instead. I work hard to keep my voice soft and my tone civil. Can she tell I’m speaking through clenched teeth?
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She clears her throat, obviously unimpressed. I speak before I can convince myself not to. “Isn’t it enough that I got here? That I’m graduating at all? After everything I’ve been through, I’m graduating on time with a 3.0 GPA. Why can’t that be enough?” My voice breaks at the end, humiliatingly. “I suppose so but really, you need more. You have to have vision if you want to succeed. There’s no point in even getting the degree if you don’t know what you’ll do with it.” She looks at me with a pointed expression. I sigh, stirring my cold tea with my spoon. “Sure,” I reply, feeling defeated. “I have vision.” “I’m sure you do darling; you just need to act on it.” She touches my hand and her voice is soft, now. “I know this has been unbearably hard on you and I am proud of you for getting this far. But just getting to the finish line isn’t enough anymore, you have to know where you’re going after. There has to be something more. It’s time to move on and figure out what you’re going to do with your life.” “Right,” I reply. “Of course.” Because getting to the finish line is never enough. Because I always have to do more, be more, have more. There will never be enough more. Besides, I have to have vision.
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High School Graduation Present Kate McLachlan
A particularly grungy looking man sauntered past my family’s tarp carrying a spray bottle wrapped in duct tape. I felt a particular, yet mundane wetness on the back of my knee and didn’t think much of it. My brother thought a lot of it, though, and he confronted Scruffy McDreadlock on my behalf. Did you just spray my sister? My brother seemed concerned and for the life of me, I didn’t know why. They started to bicker, and eventually, I was whisked away. I wasn’t really listening, but apparently, that guy had just sprayed LSD on my leg. And to think I was worried spending time with my family would be boring. Time passed and literally nothing happened. Maybe I hadn’t even been sprayed with acid. Maybe he was just saying random crap. It wasn’t the first time that a guy with dreadlocks had acted strangely towards me. I was just going to follow my brother through town and hope for the best. He explained to me that in case there really was acid in that bottle, it was important to be out in nature, and if I was having any problems, talk to him. I was skeptical because, like, twenty minutes had gone by and I felt fine.
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We barely said a word as we headed towards a trail behind our condo and that’s when I noticed that the creek sort of looked like clay. In the dark anyhow. How had I never noticed that before? Maybe later we can walk up near the stars and smear them around and I fucking hate being in shoes it feels so wrong and who says I have to walk in a straight line anyway and okay so maybe that man did spray acid on me. All around me were squiggles in the air like the kind that float down your eyeball. They would expand and contract in unison as if they were breathing. At random, certain edges became much sharper while others smudged together like my pastel crayons. My brother’s chin was rigid and terrifying like a Rubik’s Cube. The leaf in my hand might as well have been liquid. At some point, my brother fell asleep next to me and I watched the sun rise, smeared lines of neon radiance peeking out from behind the mountains.
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Archived in Tranquility Deanna Trujillo
Taste the way you taste. Coffee breath and cigarettes, ashy kisses and palsied palms. I didn’t just fall; I crashed hard. Dancing the masochism tango in that itty-bitty kitchen. Burred edges, somewhere I ended and you began memories of your ashen lips plague my sleepless nights. Torturing myself in a Groundhog Day memory wasteland. **** Two-minute town. From cemetery of souls to cemetery of lost gold. My grandparents met at the stop sign when it was the only one in town. ***** Imagine a half sunken fence, trailing rusty barbed wire. Silty haze camouflages the large fish brushing the bottom fence line as a fellow fish follows in its wake. A homestead on the bottom of a dirty lake sits abandoned to the crushing weight of water. Haunting and sparse, a waterlogged house is barely visible in the distance. The shifting light vanishes the house once more. *****
49 Snowy Hill Interlude EXT. HILLSIDE, MIDDLE OF A DEEP WINTER NIGHT BOY, early twenties, ambles beside GIRL, also twentyish, stalking up an icy hill. Girl stumbles, Boy steadies her. BOY Here, we should stand behind this car. GIRL Okay. They huddle close. Boy with his hands in his pockets and Girl with her arms wrapped holding herself together. BOY I have a question. GIRL Okay? BOY Would it be weird if I kissed you right now? GIRL Do you even know my name? BOY Honestly, no. Downhill a bickering couple approaches breaking the awkward silence.
50 INT./EXT. FRONT SEAT OF A CAR, END OF THE NIGHT Girl is driving and Boy sits beside her. Let’s Fall in Love by FINNEAS plays. GIRL Why are you so quiet? BOY What do you mean? GIRL You haven’t shut up all night and now you won’t say a word. It’s weird! BOY Are you calling me weird? GIRL That’s not what I meant! It’s just... What are you thinking about? BOY Nothing really. My house is the one up on the left. The car pulls up in front of the boy’s house. GIRL Okay... Goodnight, I guess. BOY Thanks. GIRL Yeah... You’re welcome. BOY It was nice to meet you.
51 Boy climbs out of the car and moves to shut the door. GIRL Hold on, I have a question. BOY Okay. GIRL Why did you want to kiss me back there? BOY I dunno. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And I was rolling so... GIRL Do you still want to? BOY I’m not sure it’s a good idea. GIRL I should have just said yes. BOY Hindsight’s 20/20. ***** It’s surprisingly easy to throw everything you need for a week into a bag. To escape reality for a second. Everything seems so far away when you’re constantly running. The future is a little hazy but like Muir I want to go anywhere that’s wild. I can always hope, wandering through this waking dream, to learn to be okay living in this moment and the next one, and a million more. *****
52 (A text update from the past) okay so I need to know everything about your present my future… Bro that literally defies all laws of time travel! how do I even know it’s you? I can snap you? bro I love Snapchat! The filters! You have no idea. You can still see other people’s best friends which was a fucking nightmare. How the fuck did you know that??? Because I’m you but just from the future dumbass. Okay, wait how much can you tell me? You can ask all you want but anything that will alter your future is off limits. How you end up to this side depends on your actions and I can’t mess with those without risking my present. I don’t know, fucking time travel science? My brain hurts. Dude. Same. ***** Daisy chains and watermelon smiles. Palimpsest memories. Feels wild to live in the half-remembered Purgatory of an overgrown child. *****
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Sometimes I forget I’m an adult. The other day I was talking to the teenagers I work with. I was sitting there in ripped jeans and a flannel looking like I was sixteen and my eyeliner was so thick I swear I could hear my mom in the corner like “Did you borrow a raccoon’s make up bag?” And then I remember I’m an adult, because one of the girls starts talking about prom and shit and I’m over here wondering when the last time I willingly put a corsage on and the memory is so fuzzy I have to pull out my contacts specially made for my astigmatism to see properly. ***** It’s really fucking scary to know that all of your friends in this moment of wild exhilaration will someday die. And you will be there to grieve for them until you are the last to go. One day it’s the best man at your wedding unexpectedly recklessly young. Twenty years later car accidents and ladder accidents and tractor accidents a whole slew of accidents. Ten more and they drop off from heart attacks and cancerous lumps. Each body failing until there are no more. At some point that’s you and that’s your death. ***** This is the cusp of adulthood. Whatever that means. Technically Uncle Sam sees me as an adult, my taxes for sure say that. But I don’t quite feel fully in that world yet. I am hanging in between what is known and what will be. How am I supposed to know where to go from here? It seems like every plan that I have put together just cracks at the seam. Maybe the best plan is no plan at all? Is it possible to will a reality into being? They say crossroads are the places where the ends of worlds meet. Is it too much to ask for a signpost to mark the way?
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Eamon graduated from Fort Lewis in 2019. Before graduating, he worked on the Images design team and helped to produce issues preceding this one. George Bangs is an FLC alumus. George’s pieces “Big Door (Snapped Remix),” “Gay Pilgrims,” and “You Can Cry If You Need To” are from a recent body of work about climate change and historical recontextualization. Annie David is an alumnus of FLC who graduated in Spring 2019. Annie loves taking pictures and exploring Durango! Barbara Edwards is majoring in English with a minor in Journalism and Multimedia Studies. Barbara has been writing poetry for some four years now. Simón Estrada V. was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia and moved to Las Vegas, NV when he was 12yrs old. Simón got interested in photography when he visited the photo gallery of Peter Lik and saw the magnificent art of making time stand still. Simón got inspired by the beauty of everyday life and he was able to capture life in a way that he could understand it better through a camera lens. Since then, photography has become his daily bread and true passion. Simón aspires to one day be able to have his own photography studio and have his art not only speak to him but to anybody who would like to understand the world through a different eye.
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Elise Lilburn is a junior studying Studio Art, Art History, and Anthropology. She plans to pursue graduate school to study Art Conservation. She is currently President of the Creative Collective, an RSO focused on studio arts. She is from Bentonville, Arkansas. Garett Marr is pursuing a History major and a Writing minor. He enjoys reading and writing, especially the genres of historical fiction and fantasy. Outside of school, he is a cabinet maker and an avid outdoorsman.
Kate McLachlan is a senior English Writing major. Outside the classroom, Kate performs stand-up comedy and produces make-up tutorials. Molly McMillen is a third-year Biology major with a minor in Writing. On her writing, Molly said “I like to marry my two passions of science and writing within my work by including a lot of images of nature. In these poems, I tried to capture the inner transformation I have undergone in my life in the past year and how in 2020 I am able to see myself more clearly.�
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Brooke Mazur is a sophomore at the Fort Lewis College and a writing major. She has been writing since she can remember and hopes to one day be a published author.
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Ellis McNichol is an activist, poet, and environmentalist. She is a double major in Sociology and Environmental studies minoring in Writing. Katherine Pamplin is a sophomore English Secondary Education major, a resident assistant, and a queer rights advocate. Madee Ryan is an alumnus that graduated in December 2019 with a degree in English and Psychology. Maddee was the editor-in-chief for Images for a few semesters and enjoyed it. Carl Schnitker is an alumnus with degrees in Adventure Education and Environmental Studies. He can usually be found sitting down by the river. He enjoys good company and a good campfire. Langston Shupe-Diggs is a third-year student graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology in May of 2020. Haley (Hails) Stacy is a graduating writing major and has been at The Fort for four years. Hales is a born and bred Colorado resident who's lived on the western slope for eleven years. Her piece, “I Have to Have Vision,� is based loosely on a real event and her feelings at the time.
Christina Stanton is a senior at Fort Lewis College from Santa Fe, NM majoring in writing and minoring in Spanish and Rhetoric of Inquiry. After graduating this semester, Christina plans to continue writing and publishing her work. Deanna Trujillo would like to preface this by saying, “I’m sorry mom, I didn’t mean to swear so much. As an English major I should be better at communicating professionally in print. But I am most comfortable spewing word vomit into my notes app.” Eli Uszacki is a sophomore anthropology student at Fort Lewis College. His hobbies include writing poetry and going rock climbing.
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T H A N K YO U !
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