SUMMER 2019
JUNK DRAWER is a prompt-based art and literary magazine that aims
to both showcase what artists can produce when baited and to praise the tangential nature of creativity.
We are so inspired by the contributors’ interpretations of these prompts and hope that their work encourages readers to create something of their own. Feel very free to check the prompts at the end of each issue and send your arts our way. Thanks for giving a shit! Yours,
No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without permission from the artists. For more information, contact junkdrawermagazine@gmail.com Cover art by Ali Berry
CONTRIBUTORS
ANONYMOUS
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ALI BERRY
Maker and Painter
MELISSA DURANTE
University of Michigan grad (English, Psychology, Creative Writing & Literature). Writer (fact & fiction). Wanderer. The Electric Rail team. Immigration Paralegal. Ballerina.
CONTRIBUTORS
CASEY O’BRIEN
Casey O’Brien writes, mostly about water and mirrors and smoochin’. She currently lives in Milwaukee, WI where she reads physics books she can’t absorb and dystopian YA novels in Spanish. brocasarea.webflow.io/
N E L L I E VA N C E
artist/designer + hopeful crybaby nellievance.com
T H E H U N D R E D H A L L WAY S
THE HUNDRED HALLWAYS
1
ALI BERRY
L O NG H AU L H O ME
First off then on at Penn every day. As we rolled in to the station just before the morning rush would clog its tiled pores, I would see the parallel tracks; separate halls where the train cars resided. No different than my own familiar oak hall upstairs in our colonial. The more I traveled, the more halls I found. Locomotives opening up their doors for me as if to say “Here is my guest bedroom in the Allegheny canyon. Make yourself at home,” and “Have I shown you my succulents in the red Arizona earth?” They live their steel lives wandering hundreds and hundreds of halls making entire countries and continents their homes.
THE HUNDRED HALLWAYS
2
MELISSA DURANTE
F O X U ND EC I D ED
do I look
as much like a child who wandered too deep into the grocery aisles as much like a fox undecided in the boulevard engines coughing on both sides as much like a young Jennifer Connelly surrounded by pointless arrows and shifty goblins
as I feel
THE HUNDRED HALLWAYS
3
CASEY O’BRIEN
A TRUE I
INSIDC EA R PABLE OF EERIE THINGS
L AVA T H E W H O L E T I M E
I was she all along capable of eerie things a landmine dormant II when a woman guts you, she uses her own hooks knows just where to aim III you thought she would hold your hair back but instead laughed and took a picture IV even when she cracked your chest, you told her she was light, soft, light, easy V betrayal is when you realize the floor was lava the whole time
CAPABLE OF EERIE THINGS
4
CASEY O’BRIEN
VI you dreamt of your past selves - before she bought that gun before the hot smoke VII her tongue finally found a cause to wrap around but it’s rancid and wrong VIII in a corner you spend the night gnashing, but that’s not what teeth are for IX she wrote this horror film, the kind that punishes women for being
CAPABLE OF EERIE THINGS
5
CASEY O’BRIEN
CAPABLE OF EERIE THINGS
6
ALI BERRY
T H E X - R AY U N D E R S
S T A N D S M E B E T TH EA RL F T H E B I R D S
HALF THE BIRDS
7
NELLIE VANCE
L I K E F I R EWOO D
the military planes split the sky like firewood that dad piles high in case son ever comes to visit ever needs to burn old receipts or keep his woman warm ever through the winter I finger-gun the pilots down and holster the weapon at my hip scanning the parking lot for an eye-witness whose hands are these where did they learn to aim at the living? half the birds that stuck around this flu season dad with the war in his ears and the dogs cower beneath the tearing fabric of midday with the very same fear that convinced me to fight gun with gun someone take me into custody for these murders
HALF THE BIRDS
8
ANONYMOUS
HALF THE BIRDS
9
ALI BERRY
ED I TO R ’S PL AY LI S T
T H E H U N D R ED H AL L WAYS
Ghosting - Emily Reo 13 Places - Graham Hunt Spiral - Wye Oak
CAPAB L E O F EER I E T H I N G S
Ipanema/Evol - Pony Bwoy I Bet On Losing Dogs - Mitski Heather in the Hospital - Avey Tare H AL F T H E B I R D S
Amen - Jewel Weather Reports - Bright Eyes The Dreamer - Anderson .Paak, Talib Kweli, Timan Family Choir
SU BMI S S I O NS F O R FA L L 2 0 1 9 D EAD L I N E AU G U S T 1
JU N K D R AW ER M AG AZ I N E@ G M AI L . CO M
The Way Of Contagion All Hush Hush Closer To Gold
Jerks need not apply.