Kula Manu 2021

KULA MANU Brigham young University-Hawaii

2021

KULA MANU

CONTRIBUTORS Alexa Springer Alexis Clement Azumi Kumano Braden Hofeling Caleb Willis Christal Lee Christopher Wolfersberger Clarissa Tekeiaki Cole Fujihara Earl Pelera Elijah Lemusuifeauali’i Elinor Cash Emilio Valenciano Emily Cassler Grace Tuthill Haley Matthews Jacob Cabiles Jonathan Belen Kaila Key Kaleb Montgomery Kate Woodruff

Kayla Queen Keanu Dellona Keonalani Hansen Kristi Dudoit Larissa Hekau Lehonti A. Pérez Ovalle Lindsey Cardon Luke Lytle Michael Kraft Miranda Mantilla Olivia Toone Rachel Pushnam Rebecca Carlson Sadie Madriaga Seth Madriaga Shazer Llanera Tanner Quinn Terrel Wu Ulziibayar Badamdorj Zynfia Sakulsinghdusit

Cover photography by Tanner Quinn The perspectives expressed in Kula Manu do not represent those of the editors, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, or its sponsor institution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Special thanks to our contest judges and to all who shared the gift of their work with us.

Copyright 2021 BYU-Hawaii Faculty of Arts & Letters. Copyright for individual work is retained by the individual authors, creators, and artists.

KULA MANU 2021

staff

Faculty Advisor | Marianne Monson Editors-in-chief | Elias Hopkin & Madison Bird Short Fiction Editors | Sariah Smith & Brittany Waite Non-fiction Editors | Elizabeth Allen &

Jed Talactac

Poetry Editors | Elias Hopkin & Parker Bennett Art & Photography Editors | Haley Marks & Madison Bird Short film & music Editors | Tsetsgee “Flora” Enkhbold & Sierra Ford Copy Editors | Sariah Smith & Elizabeth Allen design Editor | Madison Bird

editors’ note Elias Hopkin, Madison Bird & Marianne Monson

“Putting together this journal has been like solving an abstract puzzle with infinite ending pictures. We’ve tried to pick out our favorite pieces and find all the ways they can go together to make the best picture only to learn they couldn’t always fit how we wanted. Then we had to adjust and swap and change until finally we found the mosaic we wanted to make. It has been a grueling and beautiful experience.”

-Elias “For me, this began as a class that I was taking for fun, but as we got more submissions, I fell in love with the passion of the authors and the beauty of the content. I am grateful for all of the hard work and dedication that it took from the contributors and staff to make this book happen. Everyone experiened 2020 differently, and I hope that as the world begins to heal we can all appreciate how we grew because of the chaos..”

-Madison “It's been a pleasure watching this group of students transform into a powerful editorial team over the last few months. The work within these pages is a tribute to our thriving creative community—an ohana I feel lucky to be part of.”

-Marianne

Table of contents Short Fiction Over the Mountains | page 17

Elinor Cash

Emily Cassler

Kristi Dudoit

Olivia Toone

Larissa Hekau

Mad Girl | Dark Magic: 50% off | pages 49, 85 The Gardener’s Touch | page 64 It Happened On Halloween Night. . . | page 75 The Hole | page 81

Non-Fiction On Changes | page 25

Jonathan Belen

Kaleb Montgomery

Lehonti A. Pérez Ovalle

Christopher Wolfersberger

Michael Kraft

Kate Woodruff

Purpose in Paradise | page 31 My Shadow | page 41

Making Cookies With An Angel | page 57 The Road to Healing | page 69 Moving Memories | page 89

Table of contents Poetry Hybridity | Adi Mereadani | Empower | pages 15, 48, 88

Elijah Lemusuifeauali‘i

Jacob Cabiles

Alexa Springer

Clarissa Tekeiaki

Caleb Willis

Christopher Wolfersberger

Braden Hofeling

Haley Matthews

Keonalani Hansen

Alexis Clement

Miranda Mantilla

Olivia Toone

Rebecca Carlson

9 to 5 | page 22

. . .And the Giant Peach | page 24 He Came | page 27 Q-250 | page 29

LOL | Fictional Dilemma | pages 30, 35 The Rainbow Elixir | page 34

Once Filled With Song | page 36 On That Day | page 37 Rocks | page 45

The Whisper in the Woods | page 73 Sea-People | page 77 Voyager | page 84

Table of contents Photography Shazer Llanera | page 15 Kaila Key | pages 19, 27, 63 Emilio Valenciano | pages 25, 42, Tanner Quinn | pages 30, 89 Azumi Kumano | page 38 Ulziibayar Badamdorj | page 46 Seth Madriaga | page 51 Christal Lee | pages 52, 54 R achel Pushnam | page 59 Earl Pelera | page 69 Cole Fujihara | page 76 Grace Tuthill | page 78

art Lindsey Cardon | pages 20, Sadie Madriaga | page 22 Luke Lytle | page 75

award Winners Short Fiction | page 109 Non-Fiction | page 110 Art | page 110 Photography | page 111 Poetry | page 112 Short Film | page 113 Music | page 114

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83, 90

Table of contents Staff works her green eyes | page 92

Madison Bird

Elizabeth Allen

Sariah Smith

Jed Talactac

Tsetsgee “Flora” Enkhbold

Elias Hopkin

Sierra Ford

Parker Bennet

Brittany Waite

Haley Marks

wet sand | page 93 lazarus | page 94

rain in egypt | page 98 gravestone | page 100 Leave | page 101

sex ed | page 102

where are the days? | page 105 bags | page 106

healing | page 107

Table of contents Short Films Dua Tani | Scan to view

Elijah Lemusuifeauali’i

Remembering | Scan to view

Emilio Valenciano

The Gift | Scan to view

Earl Pelera

Table of contents Music The messages I’ll never send | Scan to listen

Keanu Dellona

Funny faces through the window | Scan to listen

Keanu Dellona

Eternal Love | Scan to listen

Zynfia Sakulsinghdusit

No filter | Scan to listen

Zynfia Sakulsinghdusit

Hybridity Poetry by Elijah Lemusuifeauali‘i Photography by Shazer Llanera

We drink from wells we did not dig and warm ourselves by fires we did not light, yet find ourselves in the presence of those who work tirelessly through the night.

Fortified in togetherness and community, what he does and I do, form the bonds of our unspoken unity.

They are Oceania, we are Oceania too.

If there was no them, there is no you.

Cultural hybrids, distinctly unique, able to traverse worlds from contemporary to antique.

Descendants of pioneers, becoming pioneers ourselves, Deep seas of breathing knowledge, instead of books neglected to shelves.

A diverse mixture of inter-generational essence so sophistic, More powerful than mere number or basic statistic.

Existing in the new, yet grounded in the old, we can, have, and will do wonders, never before seen or foretold.

Take courage and find acceptance in self and diversity, remembering always respect and humility.

Our way forward begins within and the stories before, Reconnect past and present, to lives desiring more.

For our world, culture, and people, are magnificent, priceless, and true, Ever on-going and evolving, born in the shape of you.

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Over the mountains Short Fiction by Elinor Cash Photography by Kaila Key

When I passed through the mountains, all I could think about was Papa. The mountains were the only thing he ever seemed to think about, although he never saw what was beyond them. In fact, we didn’t know anybody who had gone beyond the mountains that towered over our little valley.

What we did know, though, was sheep. They dotted the green hills of our farm, like little clouds moving across a green sky. Papa wasn’t fond of sheep, but sheep herding was tradition, so he did it anyhow.

“One day, we’re gonna leave this place, Millie,” he told me once. “We’re gonna go over those mountains and there won’t be a single sheep for miles and miles.”

Mama clicked her tongue disapprovingly when I told her what he had said.

“Your soul is in this land,” she said reverently. “It’s where your ancestors came from and it’s where your descendants will stay. There’s nothing out there for us.”

And so Papa would look at old yellow maps and point to all the places he wanted to go and Mama would snatch them up if she saw me looking at them by myself.

As he got older, Papa’s shoulders seemed to droop a little more every day, his eyes a little wearier, his gaze straying more and more longingly from the pastures to the mountains. Those mountains remained the same, purple and unchanging, until the beast came.

I remember the day when Papa came barreling into the house, nearly tearing the door off the hinges, and pulled me and Mama outside.

“What’s gotten into you?” Mama asked as Papa tugged on her arm.

“Look at the mountains!” he exclaimed while pointing to the horizon. “D’you see it?”

Mama and I squinted and searched the

empty blue sky until we saw her shining like a jewel in the sun.

“What’s that, Papa?” I asked. I was only seven or so at the time.

“I dunno,” he replied, eyes shining with wonder, “but it’s from over the mountains.”

It was a sight to behold, her coming over the rolling green hills. The beat of her wings sent waves of wind through the grass. Her long body glided through the air like a snake swimming through water. Rays of sun reflected off her blue scales, enveloping her with a brilliant halo. She even swooped down so close to our little house that if Papa had reached out, he would’ve touched her.

“She’s beautiful,” was all Papa could whisper.

Just as quickly as she came, the beast flew away and out of Papa’s reach. It was all he talked about for weeks.

Mama didn’t say much about the beast, but I could feel her distrust by the way her mouth flattened into a short, straight line when Papa talked about her.

Eventually, he hushed up and went back to watching the mountains. Still, I saw him scratching pictures of the beast into the dirt.

For all his watching, the mountains stayed the same for a whole year. It wasn’t until the air was beginning to warm after a long winter when Papa went hollering for us again.

Mama watched with a mix of awe and suspicion from the safety of an open window. The beast still scared me a little, so I clung to Papa’s jacket sleeve as he watched her. She floated above the pastures silently.

Her scales were an iridescent blue and purple in the spring sun. When she soared above our heads, I could see her intelligent bronze eyes carefully observing us.

After circling over our heads a few times, the beast turned back to the mountains. She began

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climbing up higher above the hills when the sleeve I was holding onto was suddenly ripped from my grasp.

Mama and I watched in disbelief as Papa started chasing after the beast, leaving a trail of long parted grass in his wake. We didn’t see him all morning or afternoon, much to Mama’s annoyance. It was only when the shadows grew long in the setting sun, and Mama was trying to decide if she should set a third dinner plate, that we heard the front door creak open. Papa came quietly into the kitchen, his cheeks flushed and eyes wide.

“Where were you?” Mama asked, though it sounded more like an accusation than a question.

“We’ve been waiting all day. Nice of you to leave all the work for us to do.”

Papa sat down at the table, tired and worn.

“I just wanted to see where she went,” he replied.

“And that lets you run off all day?” Mama nagged. “You think that monster is suddenly gonna do all the work around the farm? That it’s gonna feed us and clothe us just by wandering around the hills?”

Papa’s face darkened and his hands balled up into fists.

“Every day I go working and working, making just enough to put food on the table,” he said, his voice raising. “Just like my father, and his father, and his father’s father, working every day, wondering when things will change. But you know what? It’s no use! There is no end! Things will never get better! We’re stuck on this cursed farm and there’s no way out!”

Mama stared at Papa, her mouth bent into deep frown.

“Then go,” Mama said. Her voice was dangerously low. “Go find the way out.”

Papa stood up so quickly he knocked his chair to the ground and stormed out of the house. He disappeared into the dark, leaving us to watch him through the swinging front door.

“Where’s he going, Mama?” I asked. She shook her head as she closed the door.

“He’s gonna march all the way up to those mountains, thinking he’ll cross them once and for all,” she said. “But when he sees how tall and scary they are up close, he’ll turn back around.”

“Why won’t he cross the mountains even though he looks at them all day?”

Mama sighed and sat down next to me at the table, resigned.

“It’s hard doing something your father and your father’s father couldn’t. Don’t worry about it too much, Millie dear.”

Mama was right. I went out to the pasture the next day to find Papa working, looking even more tired and haggard than usual. His face was defeated and his shoulders were hunched, like he had lost a fight. When I remember Papa, that’s how he looks like in my mind, broken and mourning his dashed dreams.

He didn’t smile much, but he always did when the beast came. She started coming once or twice each spring. No matter how much Mama yelled and chased after him, Papa would take off running as soon as he saw her blue wings fluttering in the sky. Every time, he’d run and run after her, only stopping when she started to fly back into the mountains. He’d gaze into the sky long after she was gone, probably wishing he had wings like hers.

When I got older, Papa became sick. At first, I’d hear his coughs echoing around the hills when I’d bring him lunch during the day. If he pushed himself just a little, he’d collapse into a fit of wheezing. It all came to a head when I woke up to find Papa still in bed, fighting just to breathe. His skin sagged like it was barely hanging onto his skull. His arms that used to be strong enough to heft a grown sheep over his shoulder shook with great effort to simply raise a cup to his lips.

When the beast came, he could hardly lift his head to watch her through a window.

I swear she lingered in the sky a little longer, wondering where Papa was.

“You gotta go after her, Millie,” Papa said to me after the beast had disappeared over the mountains.

His voice was hoarse and weak.

“Papa, I can’t,” I replied. “There’s too much work around the farm, especially with you sick.” I was sitting next to his bed, helping him eat dinner. His arm shot out from beneath his blanket and grabbed my wrist with frightening speed.

“You’ve got to!” He gasped. “She came for a reason! She came for me!”

He erupted into a frenzy of coughing and hacking. After a few minutes, he regained control of his breathing although his chest heaved up and down with great effort.

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Over the mountains

“She came for me,” he said faintly. “But I wasn’t brave enough.”

“You’re plenty brave, Papa.”

“No, no.” He shook his head slowly on his pillow. “I wasn’t. You’ve got to be. When she comes, you go after her and don’t stop.”

His voice choked and I saw tears in his eyes reflecting the last bit of sunlight streaming through the window.

“Go and don’t look back.”

We buried Papa on a hillside not far from his father, and his father’s father. His spot looks over the pastures, although I think he spends most of his time looking over to the mountains.

Mama and I worked hard to keep the farm going without him. I took Papa’s spot looking after the flock. I spent countless hours listening to nothing but the wind rushing through the empty fields and the bleating of sheep. The days bled into one another. Papa was right. The work never stopped. There was no end.

So, when the beast came, I watched her as my heart dripped with envy. Mama also watched her, but watched me too, undoubtedly seeing Papa somewhere in me. By then, her face looked worn and tired like Papa’s had been. She was quiet most days and said only what needed saying, although her eyes seemed softer now.

When I was older and grown, Mama joined me to watch the beast disappear once again over the mountains. We listened to the crickets singing in the long, shifting grass. I couldn’t see her face in the darkening twilight, but I heard her quiet sighing.

“Your papa told you to go after her, didn’t he?” she asked quietly. I could only nod. The same sadness Papa surely felt watching the beast leave ached all throughout me.

“Go on, then,” she whispered. “There’s nothing here for you, Millie. There wasn’t anything for your Papa, either.”

All of the air escaped my lungs.

“What about the farm?” I asked.

“Don’t you worry about all that,” Mama said. “Don’t let it hold you back. If the other side of those mountains lead you to a better life, then it’ll be worth letting all this go.”

I wrapped her in my arms, tears flowing down both of our faces.

“I’ll miss you, Millie,” she sniffed. “I’m sorry I trapped you here all this time.”

“No, Mama, thank you,” I sobbed.

On a spring morning, I hugged Mama tight for the last time before trekking to the mountains. I had spent plenty of time exploring the hills of farmland, but I had never faced such a feat like crossing mountains before. Anxiety coursed through my veins as I climbed higher and higher over the rocky ground.

When I reached the top of a ridge, I looked out over the valley. I could barely make out the white herds of oblivious grazing sheep, much less our little cottage nestled somewhere in the hills. It seemed so peaceful and serene. I could go back and live the rest of my life never worrying about whatever troubles came with traveling through the colossal mountains ahead.

As I was contemplating it, I caught a glimpse of something blue shimmering out of the corner of my eye.

To my disbelief, I saw the beast perched on the peak of the ridge not too far from me. She was silently watching me, looking as tranquil as the valley below. Her bronze eyes gazed into mine for several moments before she turned her magnificent head, leapt into the air, and soared further into the mountains.

Go and don’t look back.

Papa’s words seemed to echo all around me, bouncing off the cliffs and peaks. I knew what I had to do. I looked over the valley one last time. This might be where my ancestors came from, but my descendants would go on to places their forefathers could only dream of. I turned to the mountains and took the first step of many to come.

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9 to 5 Poetry by Jacob Cabiles Artwork by Lindsey Cardon

8 am start 8 am struggle Struggle to wake Struggle to feel Feel so tired Feel so empty Empty wallet Empty bus Bus to work Bus tables at work Work really hard Work for less Less time at home Less time being loved Loved to sing Loved to dance Dance to the sound of dirty dishes Dance for the man Man I’m so tired Man I need a break Break from this awful place Break time is over Over dirty dishes Over dirty customers Customers are always right Customers always scream Scream about everything Scream about nothing at all All this wasted time All this wasted potential Potential to be more Potential to be the best Best at being nothing Best at being worthless

Worthless to struggle Worthless to care Care about someone Care about you You push me forward You push me through Through all the rough times Through all the strain Strain to keep working Strain to keep happy Happy to see you Happy to be seen Seen the look in your eyes Seen your smile Smile at work Smile because I’m alive Alive at work Alive at home Home is where the heart is Home so where you are Are you there God Are you listening Listening to my prayer Listening to my wish Wish for it to be over Wish for it to be 5 5 pm finish 5 o’clock bus Bus home at 5 Bus to work at 9 9. . .

5. . .

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. . . and the giant peach Poetry by Alexa Springer Artwork by Sadie Madriaga

I imagine the pit in your stomach grew roots and sprouted like a tree harvesting peaches as sweet as can be making guilt-free pies for your conscience to eat I bet you don’t save any leftovers because you’ll make some for your neighbors oh, how the generosity!

I know you’re thankful for this peach tree I mean you’d have to be because you hold your guilt so comfortably

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On Changes Non-Fiction by Jonathan Belen Photography by Emilio Valenciano

Change. The utmost powerful, glorious, impeccable and endearing enchantment showered on this gorgeous land of damp forests, soft seas, and moist morning pastures. The brightest hope of every towering trees, of every minuscule and vast creature, of every brittle and rough mineral, and of every being with the capacity to breathe the blessed air. This is the dependable never-ending and always-happening instance of the Master and the Lord of all lords, our omnipotent God, whom we call Father.

Like the slow creeping critter, the caterpillar, bellowing his patience in his world of feebleness against the world of the mighty. In his every twitch and turn through the rough branches of neighboring trees, every drag of his body and every curve of his back brings him closer to an amazing feat: a feat possible not for all. A feat of momentary rest in exchange for a reverent milestone. He swaddles himself into a chrysalis and when the time comes, stretches his tiny legs, pressing against the soft-shelled rims of his previous home. An act of willful development. A protest to the stagnancy and the dullness of comfort and solitude, leading into the first unbending of his magnificent wings and his first touch of the barren air.

More so than the latter example is the initial planting of a seed into the moist soil of birth and growth, springing into a firm plant of promise and of fruits, and soon wielding its thin and tiny branches outward to its greenly friends. Slowly against the unforeseen weathers of this earth, it grows steadily, becoming stronger and thicker until finally, it reaches far above the air on that first sunny morning of spring as a tree. It waves to all the world, inviting everyone into a state of peace and rejuvenation.

Surely, this abode of transformation we live in has shared and inspired all humanity by its most amazing feats of change. Although, there is a certainty

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of joy much deeper than what is presented by nature.

It is a resounding joy that can only be found from a particular type of change. A change which brings joy even to our Father who witnesses all desecration, monstrosity, and demonizing infirmities of humanity.

It is the change that is found in the heart of an abusive husband, who for a blessed reason, has been nudged to stop his hand against a bruised wife who holds their scarred children at her back. It is found in the young girl who, after clicking the share button of a classmate’s shameful photo, decides to push delete, and touches her knees to the ground in a solemn prayer of regret and forgiveness. It is found in the hands of people reaching under a fallen tree trunk and reaching into the fallen hearts of the local people washed by the waters of an untimely flood and hurricane. It is found in the tears crawling upon the cheeks of the prideful bachelor, realizing that there is wealth beyond luxury, and it is found in his plea of solemn dedication and covenant to pursue the wealth which can only be felt by the heart. This is change. It is His heavenly channel of pious transformation. It is an enchantment. It is the brightest hope, and the dependable instance of God.

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he came Poetry by Clarissa Tekeiaki Photography by Kaila Key

We went away, waiting between walls, Inevitably worried.

We could not comprehend, each convinced we were alone, a condemned world, confused and cornered.

Unprecedented, unprepared, always upside down.

Though churning currents kept changing, we clamored for a semblance of certainty, uttered prayers, and searched, or simply feared.

Had He, the one we sought, forgotten?

The tumult and torrential storm raged on, yet in lonely moments, between breaths of life and longing, we recognized ourselves.

From chaotic clutter of cultural confusion, we pleaded for peace, and silently peace came, persisting, and so did He who we had misjudged, misunderstood.

The perfect One preexisted, engineering and encoding, created, cured, and carried us.

When we went away, to us He came.

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q-250 Poetry by Caleb Willis

Brush over neutral-colored walls A bright blue exterior conceals the mundane.

Khaki should be a cooler color than it is Q-250 quarantined us long before the world did.

Interesting A one-bedroom apartment is really a studio with an extra wall.

Perplexing Checking in at 5 pm is a necessary inconvenience to ensure cleanliness, yet we had to deep clean immediately Icing on the Cake(ing) There was no shower curtain.

But still, home is the place you are stuck at The place that takes the least effort to exist.

Alla Prima A painting term that describes an oil painting done in one sitting Tragacanth A binding agent used with watercolors and pastels Pentimento A painter’s repentance that transforms regret into beauty.

If only I could pentimento my darkest moments Rusted windows revised to rustic waters White ceilings transcend to the heavens Bare walls become filled with memories Painting over years’ worth of misery with a semblance of majesty A castle in the air

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lol Poetry by Christopher Wolfersberger

I crammed my personality into a boxA little 2D electric blue one with rounded edges.

Then shot it out into the world By that arrow without a target.

A faceless someone saw it and Economized their personality in Reply so it fits into their little Fake envelope.

We kept at it

Except the trip bleached it Gray Becoming more Monochrome Pixelated Flat

Afterwards

We’d been Defined Molded Numbed

And all it meant Was that the

Wi-Fi was on

...

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purpose in paradise Non-Fiction by Kaleb Montgomery Photography by Tanner Quinn

It’s not what I expected it to be like. Gravel crunching. Birds chirping. Cars whizzing past. My hands grip the bike handles as each pushing of the gears, every effort to move the bike forward is another ounce of soreness I will feel the next day. I only imagined being sore from surfing, not from getting to school. I can practically feel every particle of water in the heated, humid air. Sweat drips down my forehead and lands on one of my knees, moving up and down, up and down, keeping the wheels in continuous motion. The chain creaks, even aches, at every movement.

I turn my mind to the view on my right in order to distract myself from thinking about how tight my muscles are becoming. This would be easier with gears. It would have been easier with the other bike I had just a few days ago, before it got stolen. Now all I have is a rusty beach cruiser I found lying around the junkyard of a garage next to my house, if you can call it that. I need some way to get to campus. I’m not used to this lifestyle. I take my hat off to wipe the sweat from my brow and let the wind cool off my head.

That’s a little better.

I push harder on the pedals to get as much momentum as I can going down the slope of the path.

Why am I in a rush? I don’t have a class. I don’t have a job. I guess I just want to feel like I’m here for a reason.

I guess living in Hawaii isn’t quite the paradise I expected it to be, not all that the rest of the world makes it seem like. I’ll be there in no time. It would have been different with family. It would have been different with a friend, even. But here I am all alone, chasing a dream lifestyle that might not even exist. Cars continue to drive past without knowledge or care of who I am and what I’m doing here. Do I even know what I’m doing here?

I push down with my right foot and all of the sudden all of the tension moving the bike is

gone. My foot slides down and I don’t have time to realize what is happening as both my feet slip off their designated areas. I rush to put them back and try to pedal forward but no effort controls the motion of the wheels. As I hear the clinking and clamoring of the chain getting caught in the gears, I realize I won’t be able to break. In one sweeping motion, I bring my left leg over to my right and land on my feet, catching myself with my hands, and look up as I watch an invisible rider come to his doom. The bike crashes with a large squeal as the metal frame knocks against the pavement.

I’m definitely not used to this.

Salty drops fall to the pavement from my head as I struggle to get the chain back on. I can feel the eyes of each car staring at me from behind as they speed past. Back gear first. Now the front gear will fit.

At least I put it on quicker than last time. And it isn’t dark. I flip the bike over and it seems to let out a whine of relief.

There aren’t any cars on the highway now.

It’s more silent than usual. Just the rustling of the trees in the wind and my heavy breathing. I haven’t been around this much silence for a while. I’m not used to this. I get back on the bike but feel prompted to wait a minute before beginning the race again. I shift my eyes to the right and have a hard time not seeing green anywhere I look. Yellow spots of flowers dot the field next to me, lying under the gaze of massive Hawaiian mountains, as if they embodied the presence of an actual tribal God watching over his people, protecting them from an unseen threat. Tidal waves, maybe. I wonder if he sees me all the way down here. I wonder if he knows if it was worth it for me to come to this island. I wonder if I climbed high enough, I could ask him, and he would tell me. He could tell me what to do. He’s probably seen hundreds of people, just like me, riding down this path. I wonder if he thinks I’m

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any different, or if he thinks I’m just another white boy trying to live in paradise.

No, he knows his people too well to think that little of them. He knows why I’m here. “Keep going,” he would say. “Keep pushing forward. I know why you came here; you just need to find out.” Maybe if I ride hard enough and fast enough on this piece of junk, I’ll find out.

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The rainbow Elixir Poetry by Braden Hofeling

Big Red Soylent Green mustard yellow Swamp Thing pink eye Purple Heart brown shoes finger-painted art white roses dusty lace filled with clear water in a rosy vase Drooping violets IV catheter and wrinkled hands the call of a dove snow melting crisp spring air dressed in black they all stand He who drinks from the fountain exchanges a lifetime of happiness for endless misery I’d rather live eternally through those who love me

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Fictional Dilemma Poetry by Christopher Wolfersberger

Why can’t people be more like books?

I’d rather read a book than meet a person—

Complex characters well portrayed,

Their finite lives in whole displayed.

A record of each choice they’ve made

In ink and leather coffin laid,

Ready for my viewing but unasking of reciprocation.

Why can’t life be more like books?

I’d rather read a book than deal with life—

Straightforward pages clearly printed

Jarring plot twists softly hinted,

Certainty in paper minted

From which hope has always glinted:

Omnipresent, but ultimately singularly intentioned.

Why can’t the world be more like books?

I’d rather read a book than face the world­—

Bliss: sesquipedalian daze.

Descriptions to direct my gaze

To a new world’s exotic ways,

Words forcing beauty through the haze,

Expunging memories of banality by removing the need to look.

Since it’s far too much for me, I’ll instead pretend it’s all a book.

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Once filled with song Poetry by Haley Matthews

This house was once filled with song, But now all that’s left is the heavy cleaning smell.

What once was filled with joy and laughter Has become leached to dull and gray, The only joy a vase of colorful flowers.

Just yesterday, you called my name You called me Hay-Hay. No one has called me that in years, Yet I let you do it all the same Hi, Grandpa, I said.

You smiled vaguely in return before your eyes clouded over.

You no longer knew where you were.

Dad, Dad, you said, I need to help dad.

How do we say he’s been gone for 13 years?

I don’t want to disappoint Dad. He’s proud of you, Joe.

The questions cloud together.

Do you need? Do you need? Do you need?

What do you need?

You still want to help.

Yesterday you wanted to mow the lawn.

It’s okay, Grandpa.

We all know you love us Can you please lay down?

Tired eyes Pained smiles Whispered conversations Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Once you handed out packets of fruit snacks.

You always insisted we take two.

Now you stay in bed, Too sick to know that I’m there beside you.

It’s suffocating in this house, Yet I cannot be anywhere else.

Can you hold my hand so I can go to sleep?

That’s some good music you’re listening to.

Just let it go.

Do you have any pain?

Are you cold? Would you like a drink?

Please, get better for me, Or maybe it would be better to just pass on.

You could play music in heaven Although I would prefer if you played it with me

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On that Day Poetry by Keonalani Hansen Photography by Azumi Kumano

on that day, we went to camp competition, we were a great team like i think i like you and i think he likes you too field my rival, my enemy, my best friend asked me, “why her?” heart i’m not sure why, but my heart says it’s her i’m not sure why, but it’s gotta be her. . . on that day, you looked at me with sparkles you begged me to sing, sing for the crowd wish payment for my singing was a wish only you could grant song i sang my heart out, but you didn’t look my way crying i saw you crying alone, three words you said three that broke my heart, “i like him”

on that day, you ran into me i was being pursued, and you hid me baffled who was this girl, running around you seemed out of breath, who were you— stolen you took my helmet for the bike my mom told me not to ride vanished you disappeared from my sight with my helmet, and a fraction of my heart on that day, here you were you, who stole my helmet, at my school speechless you begged for mercy and promised to return what was stolen smirk how amusing, seeing you worked up i held you up on your promise run you ran down the hallway you, who ran off with another piece

on that day, you came to me with questions and concerns littered in your eyes boyfriend he became your man, but you had uneasy feelings what kind of boyfriend was that spicy we ate spicy rice cakes as you poured your burdens on me i knew, if i couldn’t be with you support i would be your support i would be there to catch if he let you fall

on that day, you saw it didn’t you the yellow, brown, and black spots roar you relentlessly tease me making fun of my feline garments again i told you to roar once more obliged, you looked so cute wait what am i thinking she looked. . . cute?

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on that day, he left for the country across the sea i could tell, he loved you and you loved him wait you waited for him here, by my side you looked at him, while i looked at you broken he broke your heart, left you here alone, you thought here i was here the whole time, i never left you alone once on that day, he came back after 2, 3 years, he came back to claim your heart dates i confessed and wished for three dates granted, you gave them to me eyes i knew, not once did you look at me “maybe it’s for the best” guide i led you back to him, my friend who had the hold on your love on that day, i saw you two sitting among the crowd, looking at each other with devotion sing i sang my heart out, hoping you would hear you who had stolen my bike helmet saw you who had seen my insecurities and still stuck by me, my best friend love you, who had my heart, even though i never had yours i’ll still sing for you

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My shadow Non-Fiction by Lehonti A. Pérez Ovalle Photography by Emilio Valenciano

Darkness. . . nothingness. . . the peace that unconsciousness gives. Sharp and clear, my alarm screams stabbing the silence that night left behind. I open my eyes, I perceive things, reality appears blurry, shapeless, like a half-created world before me.

I get up. All senses are numb, my soul has not found my body yet, though, somehow, my feet have been programmed to find the shower, and my hands to open it. The cold water falls on my head, and with it my soul. I’m alive, I’m awake, I am conscious again, conscious of my perpetual solitude, but who is not alone in this world? We strive to stand out from the crowd, to be original, to be unique. Unique…un… uno…one; one and only one. The curse of individuality: one never will be like another. These and more thoughts dance in my head while the water chisels the air with its broken pristine song. Cheap philosophy I guess, but what man has not been a Socrates in his own shower at least once?

I am done, I close the shower and walk towards the mirror. I stare at myself; my head shuts up. All ideas get lost in the hypnotic abstrusity inside my own eyes. Everything is summarized in the infinite darkness of the pupil. The sound of the trash truck breaks the trance, and I notice that someone is standing behind me.

“How are you, pal? Are you ready to play? “

She does not answer back, but I know she is ready, she always is.

She has been with me my whole life; I don’t recall a time when we have been away from each other.

When I was a kid, she was as small as I was; I barely noticed her presence. In my teenage years, she grew up at the same pace I did. It was around this time when she became very fond of me. She chased me around, she touched me gently, she usually found me when I was alone; but sometime later, her intro-missions

became more and more frequent, and more and more persistent. Sometimes, during class time, I could feel her cold kiss on my cheek. That was odd, but tolerable.

Other times she passionately embraced me in front of my friends. I found that unusual, but overall, embarrassing, and awkward. In those situations, the only thing I could do was to smile and pretend that nothing was going on.

Tired of that situation, I proposed to her this little game: I would try to ignore her the entire day; she would try to get my attention at any cost, and whenever she managed to get it, she could do with me as she wanted. We have been doing that for years, and she has never complained about the rules of the game, in fact, she is a passionate player; so passionate that she wins quite often.

I focus on the mirror again and notice that my reflection smiles at me. I chuckle with disdain; how ridiculous! How naïve! Smiling at myself is just another vain effort to make me believe I am happy. The problem is that I can’t be fooled, I am smart enough to recognize an attempt of self-deception. I laugh hard and somehow laughing made my shadow smaller. I walk to the wardrobe and try to choose a T-shirt. She wants me to pick the black one, but I pick the green one instead; I want to dress with hope today. I finish dressing up, pick up my backpack from the floor, and head to the exit. I open the door, and the East spits sunshine into my eyes. She moves quickly behind me; the sun has scared her, has made her feel weak. The game has begun, and I am winning! The light of the morning is giving me an advantage.

I walk facing the sun, she walks in synchrony with me. I can’t see her, but I can feel how she is clinging to my heels. In the distance, a bell sings, sings a song of sixteen notes, sixteen reminders that I am late. I try to run, but I don’t succeed. It is one of those

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awkward moments when three of your steps are fast and suddenly you stop and walk again at the previous speed. I see the building where my first class will be, cross the main entrance and walk with more urgency.

I enter the classroom in a hurry, pretending that I’ve run my whole way there. The professor is finishing the tedious formality of a lifeless greeting and begins with today’s lesson.

Words, numbers, blurry lines. Numbers, words, distorted sounds. All the symbols on the board have evaporated to form the cloud that covers my eyes.

Bar, bar, bar, bar. . . the monotony of a tired voice.

Bar, bar, bar. . . bar. . . like a slow gray litany numbing my mind. I get lost in the spacious nothingness of a blank thought; further and further from the classroom where I am. Suddenly, a word echoes in the distance; it sounds somehow familiar, but I don’t fully understand it. I hear it again, this time with more clarity

Aah! It is my name; the professor is addressing me. I politely apologize for my distraction and ask him to repeat his question. He repeats it, and I manage to give a quasi-decent answer. He finds my words acceptable enough and continues with the Latin mass that he calls “lecture.” Time definitely must be relative; forty-five minutes have felt like three hours. The last five minutes are the worst of all; they seem to be crawling with an extra sack of boredom on their backs. Fifty minutes have finally passed! I can escape now!

I move to the next class, then to the next one. It is already time to attend the last lecture of the day. It is at this moment when she reminds me of her existence. I don’t look at her, but I feel her fingers fondling my back. I enter the classroom and sit in the first row; she manages to sit behind me. This class is my favorite, yet I can’t focus; her breath on my neck freezes my enjoyment and impregnates the air with billions of spores of sadness. Suddenly, the light in the room turns blue, and the green of my T-shirt begins to look darker, as if hope is fading away. The class has finished but I just remain sitting on my desk; paralyzed by the cold, by the light, by the poisonous spores of despair. Her fingers play with my ears.

A hand touches my shoulder gently, it is not hers because this one feels warm. I turn back and find ten lanterns between two lips giving light to my soul.

I forgot that my best friend is also in this class. We walk together to get lunch; two more people join us on

our way. All is laughter, all is fun, all is bright. A dumb joke, then a song, then a smile. It is already noon, and the sun is my crown. She lies under my feet, defeated and weak; all is light, all is joy, all is fine. My friends and I eat together at the cafe; our tasteful conversation gives flavor to the insipid meal. Time is relative; the minutes in this hour have shrunk to a quarter of their normal size. No more food, no more talk, it is already the moment to move and go. We leave the cafeteria and our path divides. I realize that the sun in its zenith has not lasted long.

It’s time to work, my body switches to automatic mode. My actions will be a copy of what I did yesterday, as what I did yesterday was a copy of the day before. At work, yesterday is today and today is tomorrow. No change, no variation, no choice. At work, every day is a node in the rope of routine and each hour bleeds slowly until the shift is complete. After interrogating the clock seven thousand times, finally, I receive the answer I wanted: the day is over, it’s time to go home.

I walk home and the west licks my face with a ray of moribund sunshine. She stays behind me, yet she is not afraid. I can’t see her, but I feel her excitement while she grabs my ankles tightly; she has become a crouching predator waiting for the moment to attack. The day is almost dead, I am crossing the street, and for a short instant, I perceive her silhouette.

She notices that I saw her and jumps over me. I move fast, still, she manages to scratch my waist.

I run away and she chases me. I hurry to reach home before the embers in the sky go out. I am in the courtyard; she is getting closer. When I cross the main threshold, the sky has already turned into a cold piece of coal, she is even closer. I run upstairs faster and try to open my apartment’s door; she is already over me; her hands begin to squeeze my neck. I get to open the door, and frantically turn on the light. The light bulb shuts its arrows and makes her step back. I can breathe in peace again.

I enter my room and fall heavily on my bed; the stress on my back gets eaten by the mattress. I’ve never understood the magnetic properties of a mattress; somehow it pulls out the iron embedded in the muscles, processes it, and transforms it into relaxation.

Meanwhile, my sight explores the white paint of the ceiling, but tired of that, my eyes decide

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my shadow to study the points of light that hide under my eyelids.

Some of them are small, others are big. Some of them have colors, and some others disappear. . . more of them disappear. . . all of them. . . disappear. . . The psychedelic func. . .tion. . . i. . . s. . . o. . . f. . . f. . . .

WAKE UP! JUMP OUT OF THE BED! There is homework to do!

There is no better alarm than your worries yelling to your peace. Slowly, I slide out of bed, feeling my body like overcooked noodles. I crawl to my desk and prepare to surrender to the slavery of the screen.

Inside the computer lays a chain of assignments ready to be put around my neck. Check. . . read. . . write. . . submit. Check. . . read. . . post. . . comment. Check. . . read. . . quiz and submit again. Do assignments have an end? At least, I am already done with the homework for today. I still have some time; I could do some more.

Nah! Let tomorrow’s homework be tomorrow’s load.

I am free from the tyranny of the screen! She congratulates me with two soft pats on my shoulder.

I don’t move, I don’t want to turn and see her because her love is aggressive at night. I sacrifice my liberty and offer myself in servitude to my phone, new master, still a screen. At least, the yoke of social media is more bearable than homework; in fact, I think I enjoy it.

Scroll and laugh, scroll and watch, scroll and envy the perfect life of others. Why are all the pictures painted with a repulsive tone of happiness? Lately, all photographs are orange and teal as if all in life was warm.

For an instant I feel her kiss on my neck, she tries to comfort me, she invites me to turn and get lost in her embrace. I reject the proposition and increase the brightness of the screen to push her away. A couple of videos will keep her at bay.

Scroll and laugh, scroll and watch, scroll and think how tired I am. The weight of the yoke feels heavy on my eyes. I do not want to turn the lights off; I am afraid of what may come next. I try to open my eyes wider, but a yawn forces me to close them. I feel the blood in my veins struggling to reach my brain.

It feels like a river compressed into a small pipe, and it hurts. I can’t continue, my eyes are fried; my mind is pulverized. Reluctantly, I turn off the lights of the room and the screen of my phone becomes my last shield. She surrounds me; she is everywhere, she is everything. Night and shadow, shadow and darkness, darkness and night, all of them are one. I place the

phone next to my pillow and see how the last shine fades away. I can’t ignore her anymore. . . “I can’t ignore you anymore.”

“Oh, shade! Oh, night! Oh, amorphous endless darkness! Have mercy upon me! All day keeping my eyes away from you and now you devour them all.

Your arms surround me, tighter and tighter, no more embrace, only strangulation. Your kiss swallows me entirely. All is shade, all is you, you are me, and there is no light.”

Darkness. . . emptiness. . . my soul and the night become one. Pain. . . tears. . . a desperate scream in the heart, waiting for the moment when nothingness arrives, waiting for the peace that unconsciousness provides.

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Rocks Poetry by Alexis Clement Artwork by Lindsey Cardon

Everyone calls me Rocks, When they take the time to think of me.

Not firm Rocks on mountain tops, But as a boat Rocks, lost at sea.

She who Rocks, is who I am.

Fine! Let that be my definition.

But, to make it beyond the daunting waves, That is my true mission.

Tossing and turning, back and forth, They think I must go down.

They imagine I ignore the holes in my hull And thus deserve to drown.

It’s difficult to steer a ship Without a hearty captain or a crew.

It’s easy to succumb to the waves When harsh winds are blowing through.

I’ve barely sailed from port to port, Worried the waves would overwhelm; Worried I can’t forge beyond the churning waters, For I don’t know where to turn my helm.

Now the waves whip me to and fro.

I am at their mercy.

The lighthouse keepers shake their hands.

They see tragedy and folly.

The ignorant inlanders think I am Rocks For taking the Rockiest mountain trails.

If that were true, I could climb above storm clouds Instead of relying on beaten-up sails.

So this is I, one who Rocks, But not from my own choices.

This name was stamped upon my soul By relentless and unknowing voices.

They watch my struggles from afar, But they just sit and talk.

No rescue boats or flares are sent.

They don’t know what it’s like to Rock.

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“If only a guiding gale would come!” I cry, “Instead of howling winds to slash my sails.

I could use it to propel my ship onward, And push through the watery veils.”

Whether I merely hold on and survive the storm Or receive the gentle breeze I need to pass it, I will not sink, I will voyage on!

My strength, my desire to live, will outlast it.

So call me Rocks, it’s what I’ve done, But the name doesn’t keep me bound.

I will hold on with all my might Till I’m on solid ground.

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ADI MEREADANI Poetry by Elijah Lemusuifeauali‘i Photography by Ulziibayar Badamdorj

Au dau tagi tiko ga mai loma, Niu kila tu ko iko na nona.

Au besetaka na ka kecekece, Ia, au na solia na veidola kei na veisede.

I cry secretly inside Knowing that you are now his.

I refuse all there is, But would give every dollar and cent.

Dua ga na gauna au kerea, Meu rogoca na sere, ni domomu kamica.

Meu raica tale na kena rarama, Ni na matamuni caliva.

One moment is all I ask, To hear your sweet voice sing.

To see again the light, From your shining face.

Levu tu nodaru lako i valagi, Nidaru vuka vata, sa mai dei na veilomani.

Nomuni tu, dau solia mai na katakata vinaka, Sai iko ga Mere au dau masulaka.

Many times, we’ve traveled afar, Our love fortified in effortless flight.

Your presence warms me, For it is only you, Mere, I pray for.

Ia, niu kila tu, e na yaco mai na oti ni kedaru, Ko iko na Adi, ko i au na manumanu.

Au dau diva meu tu vata yani, Deu guilecava nodaru bogi I Sawani.

But I know, our end approaches, You are a lady and I, a simple bird.

I wish for me to be with you, Lest, I forget our night in Sawani.

Na yalomuni sa vaka na ivolasiga, Dau vakavoutaki au vakadina.

Au gadreva meu laveti kemuni kilomalagi, Mo kila na vuravura e sivita, o Adi Mereadani.

Your spirit is like the morning star, Truly renewing me each day.

I wish to lift you to the heavens, For you to know of the world beyond, oh Lady Mereadani.

Au na nanumi tu nodaru lasalasa, Kei na kemu dredre daumata gasagasa.

Ni nanumi au noqu daulomani, au kerekere, Ke ko sotava na rarawa, mo rai ga ki cere.

I’ll remember our fun times, And your cute smile.

Remember me, my sweetheart, I ask thee, If you ever encounter sadness, only look to the sky.

E kavoro tu na utoqu mai loma, Ni sa yaco nodaru veibiu luluvu.

Ia, au sa na tiko ga i cake, e na vanua daumaka, Me waraka tiko ka laveti kemuni tale, ki na sigamataka.

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My heart breaks inside, At the coming of our sad depart.

But I will always be above in that delightful place, Waiting to lift you again, as we fly to tomorrow.

Mad girl Short Fiction by Emily Cassler Photography by Seth Madriaga

Based on “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath has a tendency to hurt my feelings.

She never calls me on the phone; I’m always the one to call first. She never answers when I call on my cell as I’m out and about, in a rush. No, Sylvia answers only when I dial her from the old pink rotary phones within Ace Motel; she has a radar for these sorts of things. I duck into the motel as the sun starts to set and the street lamps turn on one by one. Exhausted, I spin the dial and lean against the dirty pink wall.

I hear the click of her picking up the phone, a huff of her breath, and the aloofness in her voice weighs on me as she says a simple “Yes?”

I always seem to be interrupting something important.

“Come over,” I plead. I sound like a child, waiting to be picked up from the daycare. I hate her for how she leaves me alone. All I want is for her to read to me from the notebook where she hides her thoughts, bringing them out only at night for me, for me, for me.

That is what she says: the words she writes are for me.

She dismisses my whine with the crackle of her cigarette as she takes a drag on the opposite end of the line. “ I can’t. I told you, I’m busy.” She exhales the words along with her smoke. She wants me to hang up.

I grip the phone tighter. “Right, I forgot.” I didn’t forget. I was hoping she would change her mind, and I think she knows that too.

“Well. . . next time, I’ll make it a point of reminding you.”

Next time.

I decide to say nothing. Instead, I listen to her smoke her cigarette until she hangs up the phone with a click. I didn’t get to ask the question that

weighs heavy in my mind.

How do you know that girl Erin, and why does she have a copy of the book you wrote for me?

I remember us lying on my cold kitchen floor as Sylvia whispered her words for only me to hear.

And then today, I see her, Erin, walking out of a classroom after her lesson came to an end. I used to have a painting class with Erin, and I always admired her artist’s hands. She has long, delicate fingers that hold a paintbrush so casually, as if it were an extension of who she is.

And now those same fingers grip Sylvia’s words that travel through bound pages, “Sylvia Plath” proudly displayed in red ink on the cover.

I see red. I see it in Sylvia’s name. I see it when I think of how much of a fool I had to be to believe she wrote those words just for me. I see red when I think of her lying to me, stabbing me in the back, and letting my blood run free. Did you take my blood and pack it into a vial, using it as ink to write your name, Sylvia?

Sylvia Plath.

With your long skirts and wool turtlenecks, I never introduced you to others I know. Although I don’t know anyone as well as I know you.

That thought I am not so sure of now. You wear pearls around your neck, and indifference stains your face. You look like you don’t belong in this world full of tattered jeans and creased sneakers.

I didn’t think you talked to anyone else. I thought I was the only one who didn’t point out you don’t belong.

I don’t remember meeting Sylvia Plath; she was always there—most of the time, she only came out at night. She resembled more of a shadow than an actual person, my own shadow. I don’t know where she lives or what she does during the day, but at night

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when my back is turned, she is silently there when I turn around. It’s as if she never left in the first place. I am not alone anymore. The night is not as scary as the day.

I eat dinner.

I wash my face.

I gulp down my prescribed pills.

Sylvia is with me again.

But not now, not as I walk out of Ace Motel and into the night full of car headlights, glowing neon signs, and streetlamps. The night is so illuminated by artificial light I don’t even see my shadow. . .

Still, I don’t want to be alone. I jaunt along the sidewalk; the rattle of pills in my pocket keeps me company.

And then I hear voices, excited chatter, and idle laughs. Togetherness is what I want, so I gravitate toward that. Heading downtown toward the voices, I find myself led into a cramped room full of occupants facing a small stage, with a single spotlight illuminating the mic, waiting for a performance to take place.

Although I am surrounded, I still miss my shadow.

I hear my own breath become shallow, and dizziness starts to set in. I see pink, green, purple, and orange stage lights fill the room. I am in a swirling rainbow of confusion, my hand automatically reaching into my pocket for my bottle of pills.

I pop one—no, two. Maybe three pills into my mouth. I close my eyes and turn around, trying to make my way towards the exit.

Hushhhhh. Silence fills the room as the lights begin to dim. I see everyone’s eyes lock onto the stage.

The apparent performer has taken their place. I dare to look back, and as I turn around, she is right there, my shadow, standing in front of the crowd.

In her hand, she holds her old canvas notebook, the one she would open up and read to me in the night.

I want to flee, forget Sylvia, forget her words, forget her voice. Yet I don’t move a muscle, afraid if I make any sudden movement, I will scare her away, as if she were a small animal.

But Sylvia does not look small standing above the crowd. Yes, indeed, she does not look as if she fits in, but when she speaks. . .

Oh, when she speaks.

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“Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call.”

I remember when she read those words to me, and now her voice rings out to an audience filled with a hundred people, all being welcomed into her innermost thoughts that I thought she reserved for me. The reverent faces in the crowd are absolutely transfixed upon my secret friend.

I am filled with pettiness and fury.

How dare they hear the words written specifically for my ears. This is private. Did she know I would be here?

In a vain attempt to capture her eye, I push through the crowd.

We need to talk.

She opens to a new page, and as she is about to read a new passage, she pauses and looks up, locking her eyes onto mine.

Clearing her throat, Sylvia keeps her icy gaze on mine, not bothering to look down; she knows the words she is about to say. Somehow I know that despite the audience we have, these words were meant for me.

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids, and all is born again. I think I made you up inside my head.”

I think I made you up inside my head. Every word feels as if it is another stab in my back. Afraid I will bleed out onto the floor, I push through the crowd and exit the venue with the ferocity of someone fleeing for their life.

I don’t let the satisfaction show on my face when I realize my shadow follows me out, yet I don’t stop. I am done chasing.

All I say when I whip around is, “Why?”

“I belong to many people. Besides, I was never really there. I am alone, as are you,” she says as if she is talking to a sad child that doesn’t seem to understand the world is not fair.

I can’t look at her, so I turn around. The two of us stand under a streetlamp: me and my shadow.

“Did you hear what I said to you back there?

I thought you would understand by now.”

I whip back, ready to tell her to stop with the games. . . but no one is there.

“Sylvia?” I call out into the empty street. It

mad girl is just me alone, as if Sylvia somehow vanished into midair. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids, and all is born again. I think I made you up inside my head. I reach inside my pocket to be met with nothing.

Sylvia Plath is gone, and she took my pills with her.

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Strabismus Photography by Christal Lee

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Making Cookies with an angel Non-Fiction by Christopher Wolfersberger Photography by R achel Pushnam

At the beginning of the pandemic and the resulting lock downs, I heard many jokes about introverts and nerds being thrilled with the new safety precautions, what with sports being canceled and social interaction prohibited. As a self proclaimed nerd and a rather reluctant socialite, I must confess I deeply related to such statements. Free of all other engagements and obligations, my days were spent sequestered in my room, reading novels, memorizing poems, practicing origami, reorganizing bookshelves, learning to bind journals, listening to Broadway shows for which I’d never before had time, sewing, writing, sleeping, crafting, and enjoying the solitude in general. The only reasons I ever really emerged from my room were to eat, play the piano, bake the sugary food my mom wouldn’t, and spend time with other family members.

Home sacrament meeting was an experience I looked forward to every week. My older sister was home from school, and by late June, I had also gotten into the habit of calling my grandparents on a daily basis. In short, I had access to nearly all my favorite things, a chance to spend time with my immediate family, and the ability to connect with my extended family without any of the other events that usually interfered. Even after an extended period of time, I have yet to feel sick of being home and having these experiences available.

I have wondered why that is the case. After all, what makes a vacation meaningful is that it is a break from the usual stress we experience, and it feels all the more precious because it is not permanent— the thing that makes the easier times so valuable is the memory of the harder ones. Yet though the time at home has in some ways resembled an unending vacation with the absence of many prior stressors and struggles, I have not really felt that the initial unexpected enjoyments of the pandemic have lost their value. I have reached the conclusion that the reason for this is

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because the opposition that makes free time for family and hobbies valuable, has changed, not vanished.

Indeed there are many who have not been as pleasantly surprised as I have been during this time for very valid, very significant, and very frightening reasons. The knowledge of such heartaches and hardships certainly provides an opposition that increases my gratitude for what I have. But the pandemic induced seclusion has not been as personally carefree as my recollections first portrayed. In between all of the things I did during my time at home, I had the pressure of caring for an angel.

My angel (or I should say my family’s angel) is not angelic in the literal sense, though I guess that is true of most living people to whom we give the term.

But angels are God’s messengers. God often answers our prayers through other people, so I think that when someone helps bear God’s messages, they are sharing a piece of His heavenly light that He has given them responsibility over for a time. My youngest brother has taught our family many things that have been answers to prayers and have prompted us to pray for things we didn’t previously know we needed. I have heard before that children with special needs are angels, but though I think that is true in some regards, it perhaps makes things sound more different than they are. We can all help in being messengers and answers to prayers, some of us just start in a different place.

The place my brother started in was the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. His heart had little holes that shouldn’t have been there and his blood was short on the platelets that should have been. That was all before the doctors were even sure about the rest of his genetics, and by the time we got the miracle we prayed for regarding his heart and blood, it did not seem too significant anyway. I couldn’t even tell for so long, the usual feature of eyelids puffed with extra chromosomes never really seeming to be present. But

as my brother kept crawling and crying when other kids his age were walking and talking, I started to realize maybe there was a difference. When my brother finally did start talking, his phonetics and syntax were abstract enough to have given a linguist a migraine. At age six, his speech is better now, though learning to communicate with him has still been rather like learning a new language without a dictionary or teacher to translate.

The pandemic has been one way I have been able to improve my understanding of Oliver’s dialect.

He cannot really play alone. Apart from keeping some general sense of preservation for our home’s structural integrity, having someone immediately with Oliver at all times is essential for his safety. He has reached the age where he is tall enough to unlock doors in the house, but is not yet responsible enough to understand that he can’t go running through the neighborhood alone or play in the street. I think it may be quite a while before he gains that kind of sense of responsibility. Because he cannot be on his own, my siblings and I take turns looking after him for at least an hour every day in between our school work so that our parents can continue working from home. Finding activities to do with Oliver that keep him entertained and happy can pose a significant challenge, as his attention span is entirely unpredictable and sometimes it can take surprisingly little to spark a tantrum (sometimes they just manifest spontaneously with no discernible cause).

But I have managed to discover various activities that can be generally relied on, and found methods for soothing tantrums that have at least a 60% success rate (which I must confess is the only time I have ever been so thrilled with a D-grade percentage).

My usual go-tos for games are playing catch with stuffed animals (Oliver loves throwing and I love not receiving concussions, so it is a desirable compromise), racing his toy cars (as long as he always wins), and reading stories together (which can either last for 2 minutes or 40).

Although such activities provide an enjoyable source of entertainment for him and ample opportunities for me to trick him into learning, I still have to constantly find ways to keep them engaging or try new activities altogether. On one occasion when I was craving sugar, we were running out of activities and interest, so I thought baking with Oliver could be a

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fun bonding experience and perhaps even a productive endeavor to attempt.

It was certainly memorable.

Things somewhat predictably started better than they ended. We first washed our hands in the bathroom sink. I squirted a bit of soap onto his hands for him, because he usually pumps out half the bottle if I give him the chance to do it alone. We scrubbed, making faces in the mirror and reminding each other to wash in between the fingers and on top of the hands. We rinsed our hands and raced to see who could dry them quicker. He won because there would have been yelling if he didn’t.

I carried the stepping stool from the bathroom to the kitchen, and then realized the recipe I wanted was in a book downstairs. We raced down the stairs and raced back up. I scooped flour from the large container and held the measuring cup over the mixing bowl. Oliver took the handle and turned my hand with the cup to pour the flour in. I thought it was going so well. All of the other full sized measuring cups had mysteriously vanished ages ago, so we had to make do with measuring half a cup at a time, and by the fifth scoop, Oliver decided to blow the flour out of it. I laughed a bit and said not to make too big of a mess, so naturally he blew as much flour as he could out of the main bowl. I quickly added the last half cup and moved the bowl away, which he greatly disliked and let me know as much. I was quite proud of my save though, saying I was moving the bowl because it was time to melt the butter. I got out another bowl and Oliver helped me retrieve two sticks of butter from the freezer. He ripped the wrapper on his block such that I feared we would find little bits of wax paper in the finished product, and then promptly bit the corner. I gave a brief reproof and a talk about germs, then added the stick of butter anyway before placing the bowl in the microwave. Adding the sugar and baking soda proceeded much the same as with the flour. The butter was melted by that point, so we added a dash of vanilla to it. Then came perhaps the greatest fear—the eggs.

I was clever enough to get a little bowl for him to crack his egg into (denying him such a task outright would have led to a grisly end and was therefore out of the question). After a very tense couple of seconds, the egg’s contents were safely in the bowl

making cookies with an angel and the shell remnants quickly removed. When Oliver threw his eggshells in the rubbish bin, he crushed them to a pulp in his hands before dropping them in, so we washed our hands again. He was up on his stool in a flash while I was still scrubbing my hands. Before I could stop him, he picked up the bowl with the eggs and poured it over the bowl with the butter. It would have been fine, except that he missed the larger bowl and poured egg whites all over the counter top. That particular mess took longer to fix and required more hand washing.

Staying true to our previous pattern of random ordering, we then left the wet ingredients alone and mixed the dry ones some more. Several more spoonfuls worth of flour ended up on the counter. I then got out the chocolate chips to add to the dough.

As I tried to measure a generous amount into the mix, Oliver began gobbling them down about as quick as they fell into the bowl.

I appeased him with a little handful of chocolate of his own, but that vanished too quickly. I kept alternating between adding chocolate to the mixing bowl and adding it to Oliver’s mouth, and finally reached a point where I was able to whisk the wet ingredients a bit and pour them in with the dry ones.

After attempting to stir the thicker batter, flicking it over the counter, and declaring it too hard, Oliver climbed off his stool and ran down the hall. My hour was almost up anyways, so I called for the next person to play with him and finished our cookies by myself.

Since then, I have made cookies two other times with Oliver during the pandemic, and brownies once. Each time was a little bit better as I knew what to expect, but not much different overall. Sometimes it’s difficult and I want to simultaneously scream in rage and cry quietly in a corner.

Usually things don’t go as smoothly as I expect. But I have always found the effort is worth it, because, in spite of the struggle to get there, the cookies still get made in the end and the taste of the joy gained in the journey is always sweet to behold.

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Niña con Los Pies Descalzos Poetry by Lehonti A. Pérez Ovalle

Niña con los pies descalzos de mirada dulce y huipil de orquídeas, mojando el vientre en el mar del sur y dando la frente al mar del noreste; de cabello verde, rebelde y agreste a veces peinado por un huracán.

Niña con los pies descalzos ¿No te quieres levantar?

Sacúdete las rodillas y vístete de tu gloria.

Tienes veintidós alas extiéndelas sin demora alcanza el centro del cielo y allí. . . ¡Brilla!

Mas que los soles del sur Y los luceros de oriente; más que el circulo de estrellas alumbrando el viejo mundo; más que los cincuenta astros que adornan el septentrión.

Niña con los pies descalzos con la tez trigueña y venas turquesa de pasos pequeños y andar tambaleante una rosa blanca marchita en tus manos Y un sueño distante preso en la cabeza.

Dime niña ¿Por qué lloras? ¿Por qué las manos raspadas? ¿Por qué los codos con sangre? ¿Qué moretones son esos estampados en tu espalda? ¿Por qué los labios sedientos? ¿Por qué la panza con hambre?

Niña con los pies descalzos ¿Por qué yaces en el suelo? ¿Te has caído en tus andanzas? ¿Has resbalado en tus juegos?

Niña con los pies descalzos no desmaye tu corazón que tu pueblo te defiende, con sus manos te levanta, con el alma te venera, niña bella, niña santa.

Veo tus ojos llorosos, no me quieres contestar; un sollozo envuelto en miedo es todo lo que recibo entonces al fin percibo que me ocultas algo más.

Niña con los pies descalzos ¿Quién te ha hecho tropezar? ¿Rata u hombre? ¿lobo o buitre? ¿O un híbrido aberrante de político y chacal?

Los que juraron llevarte gentilmente de la mano con saña te han empujado y pateado sin piedad.

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Little Girl With bare feet (English Translation)

Little girl with bare feet With a sweet look and huipil of orchids Wetting the belly in the south sea And facing the northeast sea.

Green hair, unruly and wild Sometimes combed by a hurricane.

Little girl with bare feet Don’t you want to get up?

Shake off your knees and dress up in your glory You have twenty-two wings Extend them without delay!

Reach the center of the sky and there. . . Shine!

More than the southern suns And the stars of the east More than the circle of stars lighting up the old world, More than the fifty stars that adorn the north.

Little girl with bare feet With a brunette complexion and turquoise veins Taking small steps and staggering A withered white rose in your hands And a distant dream imprisoned in the head.

Little girl with bare feet don’t let your heart faint that your people defend you, with their hands they lift you, with their soul they venerate you, beautiful girl, holy girl.

Tell me girl why are you crying?

Why the scraped hands?

Why the bloody elbows?

What bruises are those printed on your back?

Why the thirsty lips?

Why is the belly hungry?

Little girl with bare feet, Why are you lying on the ground?

Have you fallen in your wanderings?

Have you slipped in your games?

I see your watery eyes, You do not want to answer me.

A sob wrapped in fear It’s all what I get Later, finally I perceive that you are hiding something else from me.

Little girl with bare feet Who has tripped you up?

Rat or man? Wolf or vulture?

Or an aberrant hybrid of politician and jackal?

Those who swore to gently lead you by the hand With viciousness they have pushed and kicked you mercilessly.

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The gardener’s touch Short Fiction by Kristi Dudoit Photography by Kaila Key

Kilia hadn’t been this deep in the forest in years. She had skirted the edges many times, but there was only one reason anyone ventured this far into the dark thicket of flora and fauna, and that reason, she hoped, was located in the clearing ahead.

The forest abruptly cleared away to reveal open skies and a large garden, a wild combination of edible plants all located in one large area that encircled three sides of the cottage. Near the main house were greenhouses and a garden shed, and Kilia sincerely hoped he was in one of those buildings.

She called out his name as she neared the home but there was no answer. Perhaps he was behind the house in one of the smaller greenhouses or the shed.

“Aiden.” She saw him hunched over his work table, rotating a group of plants in his hands, looking for something.

“Aiden.” This time she was next to him, but he still refused to acknowledge her. It looked like he was attempting to untangle the plants from one another. It was good that she knew him as well as she did. The bundle of cloth she had tucked into her side contained special peach pits from the Queen’s personal gardens, and Kilia hoped it would help to sway Aiden to her cause.

When Aiden grunted in response to his name, Kilia knew luck was on her side. It appeared he was in a good mood today.

“We need your help.”

What was Kilia doing down here in his neck of the woods, and what did she need help with that neither she nor others on her team could handle? He hadn’t seen her in a couple of decades, but the woman was hell on wheels. He considered ignoring her but he knew her well enough to know she’d stand there and irritate him until he answered her.

He pushed thoughts of Kilia aside and turned his thoughts back to his task. The rare seedlings he was trying to untangle had been left in the same pot for too long and now he had to be very careful as he separated the roots.

“With what?” he asked at last, expelling as little air as possible. He couldn’t even allow himself to breathe too heavily. It would lead to jerky muscle movements and possible tearing of the tender flesh of the roots, which would lead to malnutrition and then death. The cost for these three plants was too high to pay again if he failed.

“There was a pandemic in a little coastal town. We saved as many as we could but. . .” Kilia’s voice trailed off and when it was apparent she wouldn’t continue, he sighed.

“Spit it out, woman,” he said with irritation.

Gently, he placed the plants back in the tray of soil before he looked up at her. Her eyes were on the plant and her head cocked to the side.

“Is that the—”

“Yes,” Aiden growled.

“The very one we—”

“Tell me what you want or get out. You’re wasting my time.”

Despite his obvious agitation, Kilia’s eyes lit with amusement. After all the years they’d worked together, Kilia was well used to his moods.

She moved closer to him and carefully lay a bundle of sackcloth next to him that was the size of her forearm.

“We were able to save a good number of villagers. Some were too far gone, the plague had taken them long before we got there. We cleared out as many as we could but there’s a little girl. She refuses to leave with us.”

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the gardener’s touch

He stilled. At first, Aiden thought she had requested his help for a demonic exorcism. His magic was strong because of years of fighting wars and because of the strength he inherited from his own demon mother, so he was often able to get closer to the creatures than the others who fought against them. But a child?

Aiden cupped a handful of loose dirt and carefully covered the roots of the ilota plant he’d been trying to untangle. “Where’s her family?” He hoped Kilia didn’t hear the strained note in his voice.

“According to the other villagers, she doesn’t have any. Some of the older children said she appeared in their town a week ago.”

“And no one in this town looked after her?”

“No,” Kilia answered. “The older villagers were afraid to take her in. Some of them felt bad for her because it looked like she had wandered for a while before she got there. They tossed her scraps of food, but she barely ate anything.”

“And did the child say why she didn’t want to leave?” He placed a small swatch of fabric over the plants for further protection and then reached for the bundle she gave him. When he unwrapped it, he saw five large seed pods with roots that had broken through the hard shell.

Kilia hung her head. “She wouldn’t answer us. Pela tried picking her up, but she fought him, threw herself down to the ground and screamed bloody murder. Acted like a feral animal when we got too close.”

“No signs of possession? That village should have been swimming in negative emotions.” Aiden carefully inspected the seeds before reverently putting them back in the wrapping they came in.

“None,” Kilia confirmed. “Pela tried again and things got a little dark. I thought we’d try a more peaceful approach. We did not feel like disturbing any spirits while we were there.”

“Disturbing pained spirits would not be ideal.” Aiden’s mouth quirked up on one side when he saw what she had brought him. “Should I even ask how you came upon these?”

Kilia shrugged. “I asked the gardeners to save the seeds after the Queen eats the fruit. She tosses her uneaten food among the plants to compost.”

Aiden dusted the dirt off his hands and

finally turned his gaze up to her. “What makes you think I’ll have any better luck getting this child to leave?”

Kilia gave him a weak smile and scratched the back of her head. “Well, you have a way with children. If you could just come and talk to her. . . I don’t know why, but children seem to love you.”

He could only grunt in response. It was true. He had always been able to draw children out of themselves and lead them to safety when others were unable to coerce them. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath.

Kilia’s smile widened and she gave a sigh of relief. He’d do it. He’d help them move the little girl from the village.

“Thanks. We felt so bad leaving her there, but we had to clear out the villagers as quickly as possible.” She waited as he hung his apron on the hook near the shed door and replaced his gardening boots with his black work boots before he walked out of his garden shack with her at his back.

Once they had arrived at the village, Kilia led him down street after street until she stopped in front of a shack in a cluster of homes that lined a narrow walkway.

“She’s in there,” Kilia said, pointing to the open door of the shack. “Little girl,” Kilia called. “I’ve returned. Remember I said I’d bring my friend to meet you?” They heard a slight shuffle and then caught a glimpse of something shifting in the shadows of the dark shack. “He’s right here.”

A filthy mop of dark hair was the first thing Aiden saw. As the girl moved closer to the doorway, her large brown eyes and sweet face appeared. She had a thumb in her mouth and clutched a straw doll to her chest with her other arm. Her dress was nothing more than dingy, filthy rags that hung from her thin frame.

The girl made it halfway into the afternoon light before she stopped and looked directly at him.

Aiden’s gaze softened. She was young, maybe five years old or perhaps a small six. To make himself appear less threatening, he sat on the raised porch and leaned against the post that held a shabby roof up. He relaxed his posture and sat with one arm, palm up, on a folded leg.

He kept his gaze on the girl child and had a silent conversation with her by projecting calm, peace-

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the gardener’s touch ful energy. He took slow, deep pulls of air, focusing on the girl and trying to extend feelings of soft summer breezes and lazy days by the stream. Warm meals, laughter, and friendship. He projected safety, trust, and protection and the girl responded to his wordless promises. Her eyes widened in surprise and she pulled her thumb out of her mouth. She clung to her doll with two arms now and her eyes began to water.

“I want Mama.”

Aiden took another deep breath full of sympathy and nodded.

“I know, sweetheart.” He lifted the hand that had been laying palm-up on his leg and the little girl inched closer and closer until at last, she lunged for him and burrowed into his chest.

Kilia made a sound of satisfaction as Aiden wrapped his arms around the little girl. He hadn’t even said a word to her but she just fell against him for comfort. No one knew how Aiden managed to convince the small, fearful children to leave the shadows and fear behind and cling to him for safety and security that they would no doubt find with him. And much to his amusement, he never shared his secret.

His mother was one of the last and oldest canis demons to roam the earth and her final mate before succumbing to death had been his father, a kind mortal who had an affinity for growing things. His mother was the reason the children were drawn to him, the reason people like Kilia called on him for their more difficult cases.

Lovingly called The Mother of Lost Souls, Aiden’s mom often collected strays who had wandered into her forest and raised them as her own until they were old enough to leave the den and make a life for themselves. A fierce protector she had also been, which accounted for why he had taken up arms against the demons that hunted mortals. Whether her adopted children had chosen to remain at her side as companions or not, every one of them had been taught her love for all living things. Love was her legacy and what could her children do but honor her memory by living the same way?

The young girl shivered against him and her soft huffing sobs made his heart clench. The poor girl.

She was well and truly alone. He tilted his head down so his lips were near her ears. Her cries had nearly subsided and now she just wanted the comfort of being

held and not being alone.

“Would you like to come with me? I’ll take you to a place where you can play with other children and have fun. How does that sound?”

The little girl sniffled and moved so she could look at him again. “And have warm rolls? With butter?”

One corner of Aiden’s mouth lifted. “That sounds really good. Maybe I should go with you.”

The little girl laughed softly and sighed before leaning against him once more. “Okay, we can go.”

“Are you sure?” he asked in a light tone.

“Maybe you should hold my hand so I don’t get lost.”

The little girl laughed again. She pushed away from him and stood. “I’m ready. Can I bring Dolly with me?”

“Sure. We’ll make sure to find her a new dress too. How does that sound?”

The girl’s first, large and true smile appeared on her face, making her look even younger than he first suspected.

“Dolly will be so happy!” She tugged at his hand, trying to pull him up so they could go.

Her laughter filled the quiet town and the blanket of darkness that hung over it when they had first arrived seemed to have lightened.

Like a gentleman, Aiden held the young girl’s hand as she did her best to jump down the stairs.

He watched, careful to not let her step on any large or sharp rocks with her bare feet. Once she was on the path with him and Kilia, Aiden knelt down so he could be eye-to-eye with her.

“This is my friend Kilia, and I’m Aiden. Do you have a name, sweetheart?”

The little girl nodded. “I’m Tally,” she said.

“Can I have some rolls now, Aiden?”

Aiden’s lips quirked upward again. “I think we’re gonna get along just fine, Miss Tally.”

Tally tugged his hand and pulled him along the path behind her. With one last look at the shack they were leaving, he saw what had remained hidden from his view when he was sitting against the porch post.

Two tiny, lifeless bare feet lay facing the shack’s doorway. The shadows covered most of the body attached to those feet but from what little he

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the gardener’s touch could see, there were debilitating wounds caused by diseases of the flesh. Flies buzzed around the doorway as well as the body behind it. Held tightly in death’s grip, Aiden saw a small, straw doll and his stomach clenched at the sight of Tally’s body laying in the doorway.

Kilia had said that this girl had been shunned because she had come into the village wearing nothing but rags and the sores of the deadliest disease to hit this country. From what her team had put together, the little girl must have been cast out from her village and left to wander the roads until she died.

Unfortunately for this small town, Tally had wandered into it, starved and lost.

Aiden squeezed the small hand in his and Tally beamed up at him, happy to not be alone anymore. Mortal diseases stayed with the flesh, so the small child next to him bore none of the open sores or other injuries that she wore on her physical body, the body they had left behind in the rotting shack. Now that Tally’s soul had been collected, Kilia could call for a cleanup team to raze the village to the ground with fire to make sure that whatever lingering diseases would be destroyed and no threat to the living beings that might stumble into the area.

Aiden pulled out a talisman that had been specifically tuned to his energy. It was how he was able to travel between the Mortal Realm and the Underworld so easily. Just before activating it, Kilia put a hand on his arm.

“Thanks, Aiden.”

Affection lingered in his eyes as he looked at her. “You’re welcome,” he answered before opening the portal to the Underworld for him and Tally to walk through. Mystical winds blew at their clothing as he led the girl into the waiting light.

Kilia was grateful that Aiden had agreed to come with her to collect little Tally’s soul. With no one familiar to call to them, lost and abandoned souls were so hard to coax away from their bodies, and many seasoned soul collectors had a difficult time removing them from the location of their death. Particularly gruesome or traumatic deaths could result in a soul being taken over by darkness, which was to be avoided at all costs. It never ceased to amaze her how Aiden gained the children’s trust so easily and without words.

Though he wasn’t one, Aiden was respected

as though he were one of Hades Lord of the Underworld’s generals. Upon his mortal death, Aiden had become a soul collector, though it didn’t last long. He often grew angry at the senseless deaths he’d witnessed and at the time of his assignment, many had been caused by rampaging demons. Instead, Aiden had become a warrior or a death god and fought in the great Demon Wars, destroying thousands of demons that had waged wars on the mortal plane. So many humans and death gods had lost their eternal lives to the gluttonous demons but hundreds of thousands more had been saved because of this one, antisocial, grumpy old gardener.

With those last thoughts in mind, Kilia turned around and caught the attention of one of the soul collector trainees who was double checking the village for signs of life.

“When the area is cleared, light this place up,” Kilia said. “We can’t afford the imbalance this disease caused.”

“Yes, Captain,” the newer soldier said and did one final check of the last section of abandoned homes that she and Aiden had just walked through.

“Were there any other lingering souls?”

The young soldier shook his head. “The soul collectors escorted the villagers earlier,” he said. “It’s a pity this whole village perished. And all because that little girl wandered in.”

“It is quite a loss.” The villagers’ diseased bodies lay lifeless throughout the village. It was not her favorite scene to collect souls from, but at least as soul collectors and servants of Hades, they were able to dampen their sense of smell with potions.

“Ma’am, was that Aiden Canis?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. That must have been one special child.”

Kilia shrugged. “He has a soft spot for children.”

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the road to healing Non-Fiction by Michael Kraft Photography by Earl Pelera

When the video of Ahmaud Arbery being killed while jogging went viral, it broke my heart.

When I heard of Breonna Taylor’s death in her own home, it was crushing. And when I watched the nearly nine minute video of a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck until he died, I knew I could no longer stay quiet.

As a black man I cannot write this without sharing my own thoughts and opinions about the latest instance of an unarmed black man being killed by the police.

American comedian Dave Chappelle said it best. “Black people are very afraid of the police, that is a big part of our culture. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, how old you are, we’re just afraid of them. We got every reason to be afraid of them.”

I do not say this to insinuate that all police are bad, or that all police are racist. Because they aren’t.

But when I get pulled over, I have no way of knowing what type of officer I am dealing with. That being said, interacting with police aren’t the only times I experience racism. It happens all of the time, even with subtle remarks with no malice behind them.

Things like, “But you’re black, why aren’t you better at basketball?” or, “You’re very articulate, a lot of black guys I know aren’t as well spoken as you.”

Yes, I am black. No, we are not all the same.

Please, do not put me in a box. The things you say may not have the same consequences as a police officer drawing his weapon on me, but it hurts all the same. It hurts because putting us all into a box of what a black man is, and what a black man does, is the same reason Derek Chauvin was so comfortable kneeling on George Floyd’s neck until he died.

In August 2020, I participated in a march on Washington D.C. to commemorate the 57th anniversary of the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, by

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As I stood there, I looked around and realized that the reason the fight against racism still rages on, is because it is a battle that takes place not only on a societal level, but on an individual level as well. To end racism on a large scale, it must first be abolished in our own hearts.

That goes for everyone, white, black, Latinx, Polynesian, Native American, Asian, male or female, gay or straight, it does not matter. To finally end this poisonous mentality that any race is better than another, we must first look inwards if we wish to change the outside world.

We can no longer live in fear. We need to make changes so people do not have to be afraid of each other because of differences in the color of our skin. The world has seen enough suffering, it is up to us to do all we can to minimize the suffering of the world going forward. If not for us, then for the future inhabitants of the world, for our daughters and sons, and their grandchildren. We must build a better world for them. They deserve it, we deserved it, so the least we can do is do our best to give to them what we should have had.

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I can’t breathe.

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I can’t breathe.

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The Whisper in the woods Poetry by Miranda Mantilla Photography by Seth Madriaga

I was walking in the woods one day And happened upon a field.

Across the grass, I saw two trees, Which from my eyes did shield

The moments passed so quickly by, Yet somehow not at all.

I think I spent a lifetime there, But I cannot recall.

The secrets that they longed to tell, But couldn’t form the words.

For trees have not a language known Except among the birds.

For just one blink then it was gone Like it had never been.

No memories of the world beyond Or secrets from within.

I knew not that they watched me traipse Across the lofty sod, Bewitching me to come their way And discover their facade.

For when I came back through the door, I stood beside the trees.

I could not tell you what was there Or what it was I’d seen.

The trees had grown to form an arch, Their branches formed the bend.

They whispered to me silently And beckoned me, their friend,

The trees no longer tempted me My mind, no longer chased.

And so they left me mystified, My memories erased.

To walk beneath their twisted limbs And through their unseen door To see another world that came From magic, which they bore.

Before me now the arch still stood.

The leaves blew in the breeze.

Nothing strange or secret now, Just ordinary trees.

Like in a trance and unawares, My legs I could not feel.

They carried me without my wits To the arch’s strange appeal

It must have all been in my head, But every now and then, I still think I can sometimes feel Them beckoning me again.

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it happened on halloween night. . .

Short Fiction by Olivia Toone Artwork by Luke Lytle

It happened on the night after Jake Parson pushed Anna Wallis into the wall so hard her arm broke.

It happened on the night after Anna’s twin brother Harvey took a swing at Jake Parson’s perfect white teeth.

It happened on the night after Jake Parson beat Harvey Wallis to a bloody pulp.

In a place when the Wallises’ skin colors could get them killed.

In a place when the Wallises’ neighbors wouldn’t meet their eyes.

In a place when the Wallises’ windows got broken by bricks and rocks.

It happened in a small town in Colorado.

It happened in a small town in 1959.

It happened in a small town that looked the other way as their children inflicted torture on the Wallis twins every day.

That day the twins came home with a police escort.

That day the twins came home with broken bones.

That day the twins came home with a suspension and a warning that they’d get arrested if they tried it again.

It happened after Anna nearly passed out from the pain.

It happened after Harvey tried to give Sarah a reassuring smile.

It happened after Mother and Father drove the twins to the hospital–if the hospital would even take them.

And then the fear turned to sorrow.

And then the sorrow turned to anger.

And then the anger boiled over into fury, pure and clear.

It happened in the dark of the woods.

It happened in the dark with a scent of bloody anger.

It happened in the dark as the wind pushed through the hair of 11-year-old Sarah Wallis.

They came and they haunted.

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They came with the taste of metallic horror.

They came out of the shadows with a roar of fury that shattered every window and mirror in town, melting out of nothingness to shake the nerves and affect the mind, pushing out of the darkest recesses of the imagination.

It happened as babes cried and writhed in their cribs.

It happened as babes cried and their older siblings screamed in terror.

It happened as babes cried and the suburbs burned in a raging flame around them.

And after there was no one left.

And after there was nothing left.

And after there was only the Wallis children, stumbling out the woods, drenched in fear and foulness, dripping with gore and guilt, covered head-to-toe in shame and something that smelled so foul, the policeman who found them vomited. It happened the night before the Wallis twins went mute.

It happened the night before the Wallis twins found themselves in a police car again, this time with their little sister Sarah.

It happened the night before the Wallis twins discovered that people are not the only monsters out there in the world.

There were cracks in their souls.

There were holes in their hearts.

There was blood on their hands.

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Sea-people Poetry by Olivia Toone Photography by Cole Fujihara Some people are born With Seawater In their veins, Instead of Blood.

When they take Their first breath Into bloody lungs, Instead of antiseptic And ice, They inhale a breeze Made of salt and sand.

And when they let loose That first breath, It is not the high wail Of an infant That is heard, But the sharp, Bold cry Of a Gull

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Heterocentrotus mamillatus & Caranx melampygus Photography by Grace Tuthill

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the hole Short Fiction by Larissa Hekau

Two little pine cones from the common ironwood tree hit the top of the water, one after the other. Upon impact, they dipped beneath the water’s surface before bobbing up to float, content in their new surroundings. The ripples cleared, and on the water’s face, I watched the reflection of the four men at the pool’s edge putting their fins on.

It was a Sunday, March 5th, 1961, and all the Mormons in the village were at church. I should have been there too, but grandma was visiting her sister in Kahalu’u. I’m usually the one that goes with her to church. Today, I decided to stay home with dad, who seems to only attend on special occasions. He heard that something was going on at the Beauty Hole today, so we came to see what was happening. There were other kids and a couple of adults there as well. They probably thought they’d have the pool all to themselves because everyone else would be keeping the Sabbath. I sat on the sand as my dad talked story with one of the other men behind me.

Earlier, the kids splashed around and raced from one edge of the pool to the other. Then the men arrived. As the four began to move closer to the pool, everyone’s attention focused on them, and the noise died down. We overheard one of the uncles say the men were going to measure how deep the bottomless pool went.

Growing up, we always thought the pool had no bottom. Many times kids would try to dive down to see how far they could go. When tourists would stop by they’d throw coins into the pool. We would try to dive down and catch them before they were out of our reach. A boy nicknamed “Gold Coin” was considered the best at diving down and catching the money. One time in priesthood class, I heard him quietly telling his friend that Sundays were the best day to make the most money at the Beauty Hole. He went on to describe the

secret to catching the coin.

“When da tourist trow da mahneh, you no dive on top and follow da coin down. You only goin see buhbohs. The trick is fo dive on da side of it, then you can follow and catch em on its way down. But no tell nobahdeh,” Gold Coin confided in his friend.

These guys were a couple years older than me, so they didn’t notice me off to the side, listening in on the secret strategy. I’ve tried it a couple times since then. Gold Coin was right. Diving on the side of the coins is smart. Now all I need to do is work on my speed and holding my breath a little longer so I don’t give up too early.

The swim hole is fifteen feet in diameter.

On one side of the pool, close to the huge limestone rock we call “the wall,” there is a bottom. For those who are too slow to catch the coin while it’s falling, we can collect the coins on a ledge maybe twenty-five feet down. On the opposite side of the pool closer to the road, that’s the side with no bottom. If you fail to catch the coins as they fall, they are lost forever.

Out of the four men called skin divers, one was a Polynesian. He had just pulled a couple of naupaka leaves from the bush and spit into his mask. Stepping into the shallow part of the pool, he crumpled the leaves, using them to rub the spit all over the glass of his goggles. One of the haole guys was right behind him, stepping into the water, also rubbing naupaka leaves onto his goggles.

The Polynesian man looked at the other two and nodded to the bush.

“They don’t have this in Alaska, come and do how the Hawaiians do it,” the Polynesian man said.

The other two flopped their feet on over to the naupaka bush with their fins and grabbed a couple of leaves before stepping into the water next to the others. The four of them looked so plain. No dive suit,

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oxygen tank, or tubes hanging out like how we see in magazines. I was glad they at least had underwater lights hanging on each of them. We all know how dark it gets on the deep side of the pool. I wished there was such a thing as an underwater camera to film the things they would see. But, if the pool was bottomless, they probably wouldn’t see much but dark space, even with their light.

After dipping their masks in the water, rinsing them out, they strapped the masks over their heads and exchanged a few words. They then went under.

“I hope we don’t lose any of them,” an aunty commented from the other side of the pool.

I had never thought twice about anyone dying. We’ve never lost anyone in the Beauty Hole.

But then again, perhaps there are many tragedies that kids aren’t told.

They say in the 1930s the government began to build Kamehameha Highway on our side of the island. Due to the construction of the road in this very area, a portion of the land fell, creating a sinkhole. I think calling it Beauty Hole sounds way better.

Some say that this pool was always here.

In the old days the mermaids used to favor this spot and were known to gather here. It is also said that it was a bathing spot for the ancient kings and queens.

The oldies talk about the tsunami on April 1st, 1946, just a couple years before I was born. The popular hot dog stand that serviced many people was destroyed.

The waves washed the shack right into the pool. I remember getting a glimpse of that picture in an old newspaper clipping.

Just then, one of the divers surfaced for air.

Then the others joined him at the top. They said some things to each other, nodded, then went back down again.

I wonder how far down the skin divers got.

Sometimes, to prove who could go the deepest, kids would take an empty soda bottle on their dive. When they got as far down as they could go, they would fill their bottles with the water. When they surfaced, they tried to determine who collected the coldest water. There is a story that one boy tried years ago to determine how deep the pool was by taking a four hundred yard thread and putting weights on it, then lowering it into the water. He never could determine the depth of the pool because the string never hit the

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bottom.

I am just grateful that we have this Beauty Hole. The main thing I got from this wonderful place is that I learned to swim here. This is where many of the kids of the village learned to swim. It is the best place to meet your friends and play all day.

The divers had surfaced for air a couple more times and it looked as if this time they were finished with their exploration. They began to talk to each other, giving their impressions of what they saw.

We watched them swim over to the place where they entered the hole, and were eager for any news they would share. My dad began to make his way over to the shallow end of the pool. I followed him. The men switched off their underwater lights as they stood up and climbed out of the water. A little crowd began to gather where the men exited. They were still discussing things amongst themselves.

“Well, what did you find?” a Japanese aunty asked.

One of the haole men spoke up.

“There is a ledge thirty feet down. That’s where all the kids go to collect their coins that are thrown into the Beauty Hole. The deeper we went the colder the water became. We reached the bottom fifty feet down. We saw a number of things. A WWII GI helmet, shoes, a log, palm tree fronds, fragments of coconuts,” the man said.

I was disappointed to hear there was a bottom. It sounded boring and full of junk. It was nothing exciting like all the stories people told. Well, except for the money. Years and years of coins among the coconuts. I wondered how much money that would amount to.

“But,” the haole man said, “we found something we did not expect.

“At the very bottom of the pool, we found a cave. We could see about thirty-five feet in with the lights we used. And it led toward the direction of the mountains,” he said as he held his hand up in the direction the cave went. “The water was very brackish, too dirty to see anything. There was lots of debris.

More curious, there was an underwater river. A current that seemed to want to lure us in.”

My dad looked at me and smiled. Yes! Underground lava tubes we heard of often. But we never quite believed it. Lava tubes that allowed characters of

the hole the stories to outmaneuver, and sneak, and travel undetected. Not only in Laie, but all throughout the island.

I smiled back at my dad. That was exciting to hear.

“So when are you coming back to explore the tunnel?” one of the kids asked.

“We’d need to get our scuba equipment. But it really is too dirty to see anything,” the other haole man said. “We probably wouldn’t be back for a while.”

“So, what shark god lives down there?” the third haole guy asked, as he slipped his fins off.

The crowd of locals exchanged looks at each other. These divers had heard about the shark god legend. Well, the way the haole guy said it, it sounded as if the shark god still lived down there. We have not seen or heard of any recent stories about people getting injured or gone missing. Why did he assume something was down there?

“Did you see something more than coconut fronds?” a girl asked.

Like a skull with the GI helmet, I wondered.

It would have been really good if they could have tried to explore some of that cave they found. The underwater current and brackish dirty water was a spooky situation. Imagine being the diver, expecting to find a shark god at the other end of the tunnel.

The divers all looked at each other, then went back to taking off what little gear they had. The one that asked about the shark god just shrugged his shoulders. Chicken skin seemed to touch us all.

“Some say Ka-mo-hoa-li’i, others say Mano-niho-kahi used this lava tube,” an uncle spoke up.

“We don’t know for sure. All we know is they are long gone.”

Uncle said it: they are long gone.

So why did he look so unsure?

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Voyager Poetry by Rebecca Carlson Photography Emilio Valenciano

Coconut husk, black with wet Licked by waves A tiny sun like an all-seeing eye Shouts from its prow.

Tumbled in foam, rolls on the beach like breathing in and out Voyager seeking rest Still caught in the surf Climb above the tide, Send down roots, reach to the light, Or Slip into the sea and sail on.

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Dark magic: 50% off Short Fiction by Emily Cassler

Did you know they sell tarot cards at Target?

Haphazardly placed between throw pillows and candles, the little deck reminds me of my Grandmother’s words: “never dabble in dark magic.”

She also has schizophrenia and thinks characters from TV are real.

I put them in the cart, a gag gift of sorts that will make my sister laugh.

Tampons, a new red sweater, and witchcraft in tow, I make my way to self-checkout.

Scanning my items, I make the mistake of catching my eye in the self-checkout camera. I don’t like how I look on a good day, but why do the Target check-out cameras make me look particularly unsightly?

The cameras seem to scream, “Look at that long nose and those crooked teeth!” The beeping of scanned items seems to stop around me. Is it just me, or are people staring? It’s as if everyone decided to take a pause in the materialistic chaos just to bask in the sight of my greasy skin and too-large forehead.

Troll girl, why do you leave your bridge?

I am surprised my reflection does not demand an answer to a riddle that is required to pass the automatic doors, away from the stares of those who take interest in my ugliness.

Upon my return home, I meet my sister with her gift. She takes the cards from my hands with an amused grin, and I can’t help but hate her. She is beautiful when she smiles. Beauty and my lack of it are the reasons for my rotten core.

“Grandma would hate this. . .” she says with a laugh. Padding to the kitchen table, she beckons me to sit.

I do not like how her eyes do not move from the bundle of cards in her hands. Like a baby with a box of matches, maybe she should not open it to see

the contents inside.

“If you could perform any spell, what would it be?” she giddily asks, finally tearing her eyes away from the matches in her hand.

I hesitate, but I already know.

“I want to be beautiful.”

Whenever I mention my ugliness, I am never met with empty compliments or false assurance.

This is a sign of true ugliness, when all you are met with is pity.

“Perhaps there is a spell online. . .”

She cannot be serious, but her furrowed brows and rapid typing says otherwise. Before I know it, we are lighting candles and holding hands. The Star, The Magician, and The Lovers stare back at me with hopeful eyes.

And then we chant. Seriously.

I squeeze my eyes shut and through the weight of ridiculousness my sister and I say, “Those who find me attractive are in turn attracted by the magnetism and power that flows through my body. I am irresistible. So it is and so it shall continue to be.” ...

With our sweaty hands still intertwined together, my sister and I open our eyes. Staring back at one another, I search her eyes to see if she looks at me differently.

“Well. . . ?” I prompt.

She lets go of my hands and stands up. I see nothing new in her eyes, only a troll girl reflected.

“The cards are from Target. What did you expect?”

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Empower Poetry by Elijah Lemusuifeauali‘i Photography by Tanner Quinn

With ambitions for better lives and new beginnings, we carry identities with us, do you hear them singing?

Children of migration from decisions not our own, Creating overseas stories giving new variety to brown color tones From old to new, Oceania lives on in transparency, we are living embodiments of that solidarity.

Comprised of entrepreneurs, philosophers, engineers, astronomers, sailors, and scholars alike.

Yes, in a new world, a new time, but the decision is yours and mine whether to breed or kill the stereotype.

Our identity, way of life, is different but sacred, it provides us and them new definitions to being educated.

Our ideologies, practices, and cultures have essentially evolved, protected, and maintained over years but never dissolved.

They live on through me and you, through history, through language, through daily acts you do.

Regardless of early narratives that strived to compare us all, we find hope in the rise, and strength in the fall.

There is power in the individual, there is passion in the collective, there is value in the subject, there is purpose in the objective.

Know that this is our foundation, gifted to the next generation, to build, grow, fortify and share, to demonstrate and teach the basic principles of humanity, to love and care.

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moving memories Non-Fiction by Kate Woodruff Photography by Tanner Quinn

The dusty smell in the kitchen became stronger as my grandma and I pulled out seemingly ancient crockpots and other various kitchenware out of the cupboard. Some of them looked like they should have been thrown away decades ago, but any suggestion of replacements were quickly met with her firm reply of "They still work.” My back ached from all the heavy lifting over the past few days and as I packed all the odds and ends my grandparents had collected throughout their lives.

Standing up to stretch, I spied on one of the top shelves an old cookbook, its binding falling apart and its name long since faded. Gingerly, I pulled it down to get a closer look. An idea struck me, and I held it up as I asked, “Grandma, could you show me which recipes you remember loving?”

She stood up, dusted off her jeans, and took the book from my hands with a hint of a smile on her face, then said, “I guess we could take a quick break.”

After we had sat on the couch and opened the cover, I noticed that many of the pages had fallen out, and the most-loved sections were easily distinguishable by the worn ink. Between the pages, there were dozens of individual recipes, both handwritten and printed.

Pulling out several recipes she had clipped from various food packages, she said, “These were before the days of the internet when you could just look up any recipe you wanted. Most brands would include fancy recipes with their products, and you had save them if you ever wanted to try it. None of this Pinterest stuff you and your aunts love.”

While I was perusing the recipes she had handed me, my grandma had already moved on to another stack. Excitedly, she pulled out one of the handwritten recipes and said, “Remember the story of when a cat walked across my mom’s cake, and she still

served it at the ladies’ luncheon? This is that notorious cake recipe!”

I quickly set aside my stack and scooted closer to see a piece of the legendary family memory.

This paper was in worse condition than any of the others we had seen. My grandma fingered the almost completely faded handwriting, careful not to rip it any further at the creases held together by mere bits at the edges. Though I could not decipher any of the ingredients or directions on it, I knew this: my grandma, who had always been a busy woman working several jobs, took the time to share this with me, amid all the crazy moving preparations. I choked up as I listened to her tell me stories from her life. Some of the stories I recognized, and some I had never heard before.

Sitting together, our shoulders touching, she pointed to different recipes and I was reminded of my little hands stirring with a wooden spoon, guided by her expert hands as she stood behind. I remembered the scent of fresh cookies permeating every room, until the whole family had gathered in the kitchen to have a taste. My love of baking, and my grandma, had come from moments just like these.

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Maya Photography Emilio Valenciano

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Staff works

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Wet Sand Poetry by Elizabeth Allen Non-Fiction & Copy Editor Artwork by Madison Bird Design Editor & Editor-in-Chief

I never liked the feeling of wet sand But you liked the beach And I liked you Every time we’d get ready to go back home You would wrap me in a towel and brush the sand off for me And though you are no longer mine And though I haven’t seen the waves in years I hope one day You have a daughter Who also hates wet sand And that you’ll brush it off for her And that you’ll remember me fondly

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Lazarus Short Fiction by Sariah Smith Short Fiction & Copy Editor

It’s not even noon and I’m already up to my elbows in blood.

We were dispatched to First and Washington at 10:31 AM. Broadside collision. It was a cute little red Mercedes that got T-boned: driver DOA, his wife alive in the passenger seat. Screaming, with scarlet fingers of blood crawling down the side of her permed blond head. But alive.

The idiot who ran the red light wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, of course. He hurtled through the windshield, his arms and head and neck and chest, until the cobwebbed glass snagged his waist. Shattered-crystal fractals boring deep into soft white flesh, tissue paper organs splitting. His veins slashed. The top half of him sprawled over the diamonds of tempered glass glittering on the crumpled hood of his car.

He was beautiful when we arrived, all beatific in his hypovolemic sleep. The glass sparkled around his limp arms, and his sweet, vacant face was nestled against the windshield wipers. His eyelashes stuck to the blood caked dark on his ruined cheekbones. He was so beautiful, and so stupid, and so very nearly dead. Pity he’d been too impatient to wait for a green light—if he’d had just a modicum of restraint, he would’ve shown up alive to wherever he was speeding.

Late, with sordid tales of traffic woes. But alive.

By now he’s lost three, four pints of blood, easy. Maybe more. He’s laid out half-awake on the asphalt, a blue-lipped eight on the Glasgow Coma Scale, mumbling in a primeval language of grunts and moans and sighs. The guy’s blood is all over my uniform, and I’m thinking, Hydrogen peroxide, laundry detergent, and a good hard scrub in cold water. I’m thinking, Apply pressure. Apply pressure. I’m thinking, There’s no way this idiot is going to make it.

The truth is, work long enough and you get to craving cataclysms like this.

Luke, the medic from the other rig, has coaxed the blond widow into a cervical collar and out of her cute, totaled red Mercedes. He talks to her as he rips open gauze packets, pretending to assess her for cerebral hemorrhage or cardiogenic shock, but really I know he’s thinking up a nickname for her. Barbie or Dolly or Goldilocks because of her hair. Rawbones or Skeletor or Chicken Legs because she’s so thin. Something he can whip out at the station later in hopes of earning uproarious laughter for his wit. He’s not clever enough to come up with Japan—I’m talking the flag— for that big spot of red, the blotch of clotted blood drying in her too-blond perm.

Me? When he doesn’t call me “sugar,” Luke calls me Eyes. They’re cyanosis blue, my eyes. Working with a patient like this, the guy whose blood turns my nitrile gloves scarlet, I always wonder if my eyes will be the last thing they ever see. But it’s the best thing about my job that I only rarely find out what happens after we hand off a patient. For all I know, they all live. For all I know, they all die. In my head I’m a savior: any happily-ever-after will happen if I bid it, and my eyes are the eyes you’d see meeting God.

This idiot is torn apart inside, his eyelids fluttering moth wings buffeted by waves of pain, but I’m thinking, Hamartia. Karma. Divine retribution. I tell my EMT to stay back at the rig, prep the stretcher. I’m thinking, Apply pressure. Apply pressure. Apply pressure.

If the guy lives, he might as well be Lazarus.

And yeah, okay, you could say that’s blasphemous, but it’s the least of the sacrilege my crew spews.

Maybe we were religious, once upon a time, but work long enough and death loses its glamorous mystique.

Watch a man’s blood bubble from the bullet hole in his neck, cut a violet-faced twelve-year-old down from the rafters—try and romanticize that. Say they’re in a

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better place. Trivialize their agony with the insolence only the unburied, unbloodied living can flaunt. I dare you.

Under the weight of my hands, my beautiful Lazarus idiot is Schrödinger’s cat: as unalive as he is undead. Frail as a neonate. Frail as a typhoid patient.

His pale hand is like something out of a zombie movie as it comes snaking up to my arm, stamping the loops and whorls of his fingerprints in red just below my bare elbow. It’s startling how strong those corpse-cold fingers are beneath the sticky merlot of cooling blood.

You do this job long enough, every body is just meat. Every body, everybody, is meat, and you are the only God you know.

The idiot’s glaucous, half-lidded eyes strain to find mine. Sunset shades of internal hemorrhage blossoming over his chest, my gloved hands pressing hard against stained wet gauze. The shirt I cut off of him just a pair of bloody wings beneath his blue-white torso.

His lips move silently.

“What?” I ask.

The word on his tongue is nothing but breath, but his purple lips form its trembling contours.

Again and again, he makes the shape of the word with nothing behind it.

“I don’t understand,” I lie.

Soundlessly, he says, Please.

Truth is, I hated him from the moment I saw those corrugated cars.

Please, he says.

I blink at him with the nescient blue eyes of a towheaded Eve in Paradise. I say, “You’re alright.

You’re fine.”

And yeah, okay, maybe he’d had a focal seizure at the intersection, and maybe his eyes went glassy and his mind searched for angels as his foot stayed planted on the gas, and maybe he only came to after crash-landing in a hell of his own creation.

But get real. A pretty boy like this? No doubt he thought the universe and traffic revolved around him, other drivers be damned.

He probably thought he was God.

The guy, this Lazarus guy, he says, Please.

Alive. Shaking, with gravity already peeling his bloodsticky hand off my arm. But alive.

Please.

And I give him big, ingenuous, cyanosis-blue eyes, and I smile, and I say, “No.”

No, because he was stupid and impatient and selfish and now Luke’s brain is at work rechristening a widow. No, because the longer you do this job, the cockier you get, knowing you are the one thing that stands between life and death.

“No,” I say.

The word makes his eyes go so big, I can see the red veins shattering their whites. Desperate, animal eyes, and his chest heaves with stuttering gulps. The purple lips contorting as his lungs pull and pull and pull for air.

He paws feebly at my arm and says without saying, Help. Begs, Save me.

“No.” I smile so hard I can hear my molars grinding.

No, and I hope this hurts like hell.

Against my elbow, the guy’s hand starts to shake. A tremor fueled by shots of epinephrine pumping white-hot through his veins. Nothing but fear in his bloodstream—hormones I can practically smell— and his hand convulses like something electrified.

Through my teeth, I hiss, “Hush.”

And wouldn’t you know it, but the pale zombie hand falls limp. His eyes, when they roll back in his skull, are white marble veined red. His wine-colored lips slacken. I watch him sink down into the dark nothing world where the dead and comatose go, the place that obsesses and terrifies the living in equal measure. The way hauntings and possessions do.

Work this job long enough and the promise of death starts to bore you.

With the whole lean weight of me pushing against my idiot’s cherry insides, his blood is pooling less and less through the gauze. You’d think the whole thing, all the bleeding and pleading and shaking— you’d think it took an eternity. But when you work with the rapidly departing, life passes by in minutes and seconds, fast as the tachycardic pulse of a meth addict.

The truth is, your life is nothing more than a litany of snapshots piling up like cells in a blood clot.

Killing you one microsecond at a time. The slow cumulative creep of death stalks like some great persistent hunter tracking its prey, waiting for the cancer, renal failure, sepsis, pneumonia, gangrene, AIDS, gunshot,

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lazarus impalement, broadside collision that will finally call the maggots.

And you can’t escape it. You will not escape it. Even Jesus of Nazareth died.

My Lazarus is still breathing, for the record.

If it even matters. A capricious rise-fall-rise of his mangled chest, ribs jutting with every inhale. Tachypnea with intercostal retractions. But he’s breathing.

Everyone looks younger with their comatose features gone soft and still enough to smooth out the lines in their face. The way their eyelashes fan against their cheeks, it makes you think of little cherub kids napping. You want to hold them like a baby. Like the Pietà, even if they’re married. Even if they’ve got a baby of their own.

And yeah, okay, of course I check this idiot angel for a wedding ring. All I ever know about my patients is what I piece together from subtext. You’d look for a ring too, wondering if there’s some woman, some man, some anyone out there who can stand him long enough to love him. Wondering if the world will even feel a ripple when he dies.

The band on his left ring finger is silver gone capillary red, set with a blood-smeared stone the size of the phalanx bone in his fingertip. Big enough to choke on. Isn’t that just the dressing on the wound—this uppity little zombie lugging a rock worth more than my salary.

Except the stone, beneath his blood, is a pale Virgin Mary blue. Fake sapphire blue. Scuffed spinel blue, cheap like my class ring from high school. When did you ever see a man wear a wedding ring like this?

The whites of his eyes peek thin as fingernail clippings beneath his heavy eyelids. The apples of his cheeks are the color of bone. Peachy babyface fuzz dusts his swollen top lip.

His shattered fine-boned features. Angelic and boyish because somewhere deep below the blood and bruises and swelling, he is one. A boy.

His knotted hair in need of a cut.

A stupid dying kid with his rangy limbs all akimbo.

Fine, I think. I think, Fine. It’s none of my business. He’s not young enough to faze me. Maybe he would if he were a few years younger, but he’s old enough to drive and old enough to T-bone a cute red Mercedes. You get used to patients his age when you’ve

worked this job long enough. You do.

This little dumb kid with his lungs forgetting how to breathe.

When I look up, the sky is the color of the stone in the kid’s class ring. There’s Luke and his EMT securing their Barbarella widow to a stretcher, the blood in her perm buried under gauze. Tears pour from her eyes and streak down the sides of her face.

Tears salt her yellow-gold hair, and she is alive enough to cry, and I don’t know how close her death is to pouncing but in this rust-smelling moment, this ugly scarlet microsecond, she is awake and breathing and alive enough to cry.

You have to wonder what the medics will see in the heartbeats before life kills you. Just your bruised husk asleep, half dead and forgotten already. Or else your whole self electric with sobs and screams—kitehigh with the adrenaline of fighting the unfightable.

Whatever’s worse, the howl or the whimper, you don’t get to choose. Kill yourself and even your suicide won’t be so polite as to go how you dreamed.

If that scares you, you must work in an air-conditioned cubicle.

My arms sleeved in the Lazarus kid’s blood, I’m thinking, Let me feel something. Anything. My gloved fingertips are brined swollen and senseless with sweat, and I’m thinking, The sting of glass in open gashes.

Pleading, what Christians call praying, Let me laugh.

Anything. Let me cry.

He’s not breathing anymore.

I did this, I think.

This pretty-boy kid that I hate, his chest isn’t moving.

Well, how could I have known he was just a kid?

The year engraved in his class ring is this one.

He shouldn’t have been driving. It’s Friday.

Should’ve been in school.

My hands are still frozen in place. Applying pressure. Applying pressure.

Shouldn’t have run a red light.

This is such a fulfilling job, you know.

Playing God to a kid this young is the way parenthood must be. All covered in blood at the end of his life, I am his mother, his reaper, his guardian angel. My cyanosis blues are the final image fading behind his eyelids, and I wanted this.

The drone of a fly, the flash of wings as

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lazarus transparent as crushed gems of safety glass. Hairy black legs creeping thin as an eyelash across plum-colored lips. I wanted this.

Stupid idiot shouldn’t have widowed the woman with Japan in her hair.

You’d starve to death if you saw the way he looks right now. His face is an American flag of red, white, and blue, so slack and empty it doesn’t look human anymore. Just a broken wax figure of a person, and his mouth doesn’t move. His lashes don’t flutter.

Nothing moves but the little worms of blood still wriggling out of his glass-studded wounds. You’d never eat again if you saw it.

This is exactly what I wanted.

I yank my hands free of the sticky gauze gluing them to the kid’s body. I take off my gloves the way you never should, the way that gets blood on your fingers, and I don’t care who sees me.

He’s only been apneic for forty-five, fifty seconds. Maybe less. I can hold my breath longer than that. This is the part where you start resuscitation, always you try to resuscitate in a case like this, but I don’t. It doesn’t matter. This is predestination. It’s too late.

I stand. I’m heading back to the rig with cinders of dry blood flaking off my arms, flecking my hands like dozens of tiny stigmata. My arms should be sore from applying so much pressure. Maybe I’ll tell my EMT to take over for me, start CPR, kill time, knock himself out. Hey, why not? None of this matters anyway. I’ll do this job until the day I get fired or die, and still no mortal sack of meat will ever matter more than another.

Already I’m planning to counter Luke’s nicknames for his patient with nicknames for mine. Idiot.

Dunce. Schrödinger’s Cat.

I mouth a soundless chorus of names. Probably it looks like I’m praying.

Pretty Boy, I mouth. Meatbag.

Half-wit. Angel. Zombie.

Lazarus.

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Rain in egypt Short Fiction by Jed Talactac Non-Fiction Editor

It was a wonderful day; the sun was up and shining bright. He was excited to be on a trip of a lifetime. He was finally going to see the pyramids, which he had been dreaming of since he was a kid.

He had read stories about Joseph of Egypt and the ten plagues of Moses. He could not believe that those things had really happened, and he wanted to be there.

He packed all the things that he needed for his trip. It was finally happening, and he only needed to wait a little longer before he got there. He got off the plane and rode in the tour bus with some of the other tourists. Finally, he arrived in the destination that he had long waited to see; he finally set his eyes on the majestic view of the old pyramids of Egypt.

He was finally setting foot in the sands of Egypt, and was so excited that he did not notice he was separated from his group. Because of the many people, it was easy to get lost. He told himself that he would eventually find his group and for now he would just enjoy his own company.

Suddenly, for the first time in a long time it rained in Egypt. It began to rain hard, and he struggled to find a shelter to cover himself. He checked his pocket to grab his phone and it was soaking wet. He tried to open it but it was not working. He bumped into some people, looking for others from his group.

He asked some locals if they had seen a group of Chinese tourists, but they had not. If only his cell phone had been working, he could have called the tour guide. He didn’t know what to do and he was starting to panic, afraid no one in the group would notice him missing and go to the next tour site. It was getting hot again and he felt dehydrated. He tried to look for water to buy but he had no local currency.

Then an old man who sold souvenirs in the street saw him struggling. With a smile, the man

asked, “How are you doing?” He was happy that the man could speak English and he told the man that he had been looking for his group for hours. The man said that he saw a group of Chinese people heading in that direction and if he went there, he might be able to catch them. The man said, “Here, drink this,” and gave him a bottle of water, seeing that he looked thirsty.

So, he went and kept going toward the direction that the man pointed out. While he was walking, he saw a lot of antiques, spices, and perfumes in the market. Walking past a large mosque, he saw many people praying, singing and praising their God. He was amazed by how they kept it looking like the times of old. He had seen pictures of it before and had read articles about it, but he could not believe that he was seeing it with his own two eyes.

He went into the streets and started his journey again. He felt strange in a new place with different people and a different language. It was unfamiliar to him, but because of his excitement, his fears were starting to disappear. It was just getting hotter and hotter as he kept looking for his group. After a couple of hours of looking, he had no luck finding them. He offered a silent prayer while walking in the road.

Then suddenly he had an idea to climb to the top of a high building so he could see them. He looked around and saw a cathedral and it was the tallest building that he could see. As he climbed up the tower, he could hear the bells ringing, telling him that it was 6pm, but the sun was still bright. When he went to the top, he could see almost all the infrastructure that was in there. He could see the desert and the people and the houses and everything from his position. Then the sun started to go down and he was mesmerized by the beauty of what he was seeing.

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He said to himself, “I am lucky.”

Then eventually, while he was looking around on the top of the tower, he saw his group from afar. He immediately came down and ran toward them. He was finally able to join them. It had been a very tiring day for him. They went back to the inn to stay the night before finishing the tour.

The next day they visited other places and got ready to go home. When he got on the plane, he looked back and just smiled, thinking of the experiences that he had had on that tour. A perfect tour is not as memorable as what had happened to him.

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GRavestone Short Fiction by Tsetsgee “Flora” Enkhbold Short Film & Music Editor

Hot day of summer, dusty road, a tall truck loaded with all we ever owned. I kept looking through the window, my eyes were wandering, only imagining our new place as I was trying to keep myself down on my dad’s lap. We were now one of the ordinary families which left their nomadic lifestyle 660 kilometers away and came to the city for a new life.

Like a tired lion’s growl, the truck parked at the end of a street. We were the last family so far to set our yurts on that street. A few children, faces full of dust from playing outside the whole day and eyes filled with curiosity for these unexpected new neighbors, were staring at us but hiding themselves behind a fence that was on the left.

If you face toward the sun at noon, you are facing south. Then if you spread your arms to both sides like you were hugging the sun, your right hand will point to the right and the left hand to the left. My grandma taught me how to find my directions in the open field. You could see nothing but your own hands. I miss her. I miss her. . .

Others seem to be curious about what’s on the north of where we are settling. I turned my back to that mysterious mountainside. Gravestones. . . thousands of them. It’s like a whole city staring at us silently. It’s like if no one were permitted to move, more like an army.

There is no end to the right.

“Silent city,” they call this closed cemetery.

They will make good neighbors, my dad said and smiled.

I smiled too. After a second of my parents looking at each other with thoughtful eyes, we started to unload the parts of our yurts to build our home. We settled down quickly. I felt like an adult helping my dad carrying the heavy bins. In the middle of this busy process of moving, our new neighbor’s daughter brought us a vase full of hot milk tea. We thanked her and introduced ourselves. My mom told her to come by with her family,

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once we settled down. The cute neighbor’s girl went back to her home. As soon as she left, my mom proudly smiled and said, “It looks like we got neighbors who know what it means to be Mongolians.”

Days went by. . . then months. . . then years. . .

The road that was covered with ash became rocky road, then paved road.

The cute neighbor’s girl grew up. Boys used to call her name on the street every night. She got a boyfriend, left home, got married then came back with a year-old son. Now the little boy plays on the street like we used to play.

A few people were murdered at the right end of the street before we got a single light bulb on a wooden pole shining on that spot, as if there were a hope of none of us being killed anymore.

Uncle Aldar, who lived in the third house from the left end of the street, passed away three years ago, leaving his disabled son and a daughter with her alcoholic husband. On my way to a convenience store, I see them out on freezing cold nights in mid-winter. I just smile at them. It has been like this since Uncle left this restless life for some rest. My parents called the cops many times, but they always set the husband free the next morning for more heartache.

Every orchestra plays its own music. Every orchestra has its own audience who hears every fault and wrong note. From this orchestra of life playing on my street, the music of a battle for life or death, one realization opened my eyes. I thought I was the audience at the very far back row of a theatre. Or I wished. . . but. . .

The Graveyard. . . the silent city of forty-two thousand gravestones. The final audience.

They did make good neighbors after all, as my dad said.

Leave Poetry by Elias Hopkin Poetry Editor & Editor-in-Chief

Too long we’ve traded guilt For souls crushed and blood spilt Someone pulled you in first And then you pulled me I thought I was defending myself

Wrong though they may seem They are your fight and not for me Inflamed with passions of love and hate You can have the legacy you were given You’ve unearthed and you’ve created But I want to be pure and clean Not drop into your depths so mean I bid you well in your righteous fights Hoping they’ll finish someday But I won’t be sullied any longer

At first, I wanted you to be free I never meant to be your enemy But you grew claws to stay safe And to dig up the past You threw the filth on me I asked you to cease Trying to cling to the greater peace But you never knew it So I grew claws to fight back And jumped into that hated pit

Suffering does not make it right To send your pain out like a blight As if you were some god Tragedy doesn’t enthrone us And I won’t fight for a fake crown

I started to fiercely fight back And lose the things you said I lacked The things you were taught to lack You try to take the good from me So I return with zealous spite

I’m taking what’s mine And leaving you behind To burn in your bitterness Over things I never did And you never felt

It’s taken time to realize we’re tangled I almost hurt you as I had been mangled I started to drink hypocrisy And sink my teeth into fell things That fall outside my path

First to pink and then to white Like a stream of uninterrupted light I surrender my crimson stain And let it fade from my face If the pain is yours, then take it

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Sex ed Short Fiction by Sierra Ford Short Film & Music Editor

Not too long before this incident, Ellie would tell you that her heart had been crushed. She might not have necessarily used that word though. She could have possibly said something more along the lines of trampled, ran over by a massive semi truck, or maybe thrown carelessly into a paper shredder. Elli would say that to have a proper comparison you’d have to understand that the paper shredder didn’t do its job quickly or efficiently, so that what came out was a thousand little pink shreds of precisely cut heart. No. Instead it was a mess of fat chunks of flesh and stringy strands of blood vessels. Yes, Ellie would have told you that. If you were sitting here right now, Ellie would have said that she had cried herself to sleep for two weeks straight, preferring not to wake up in the morning and then have to suffer through an obnoxiously sunny day once again. She would tell you right away that she had depression. Almost immediately, really, she’d open up about how it ate at her insides, clawing at every little ounce of hope that she had left, until it had gobbled it all up and left nothing for her. Ellie would say that the color of a moonless sky, with a thick layer of clouds to cover up the starlit night, was the color of her life. Ellie would tell you all this and more.

What Ellie wouldn’t tell you is that she knew nothing about sex. She wouldn’t tell you that one day, while sitting outside of Walmart in a small Lexus with her older brother and her mom, she begged to know how babies were made.

“Babies are made when a mommy and a daddy, who really love each other, decide to have sex,” her mom stated.

“And you did that four times?” Ellie had asked in horror, not even remotely understanding what sex was, only knowinig that in Sunday school she’d be taught that it was a terrible thing that shouldn’t be talked about.

Ellie wouldn’t tell you that was the only sentence she remembered from that conversation.

She definitely wouldn’t say that she had missed her fifth grade sex ed class because she had pneumonia and spent two weeks laying on her back and watching Phineas and Ferb. Most of all, Ellie would never confess that the real reason she had never learned about sex was because she was afraid of it. She was afraid when her friends started to talk about, well, anything that related to anything remotely sexual. Ellie would literally walk away as soon as one sexual reference was made.

Her friends knew not to say anything in high school.

When it got to college though, this was something Ellie didn’t say.

Of course, as there always is, there was a boy. This boy is the one Ellie would describe to you as someone so undeniably sweet that when he pulled out the dagger, stuck it into her heart, and twirled it around a little bit, it didn’t feel like just a dagger in the heart. It felt like he had cut off every limb of her body, her toes, fingers, hands, feet, arms, and legs, then waited a little while for her to writhe around on the bloody ground before slowly inching the blade into her heart, making sure it was slow enough for her to feel every movement that he made. I think that she would agree with that description.

I should mention, however, that the undeniable sweetness of this boy wasn’t served with a side of innocence. Ellie, of course, didn’t know this at the time, being what some would call extremely innocent, or maybe undoubtedly naive and far too old to not know about the basic functions of a human being.

Ellie would probably use the second description of herself. You see, Ellie knew that she was somewhat of an anomaly among young adults, particularly college students, but up to the point of her getting a boyfriend none of that really seemed to matter too much.

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It was one night, a sweet night, that had been spent laying under the blankets of brilliant lights in the sky. Which, Ellie now would say that stargazing was overrated, and really quite a cheap excuse for a date that someone didn’t want to plan, but that didn’t nullify the fact that the stars were still somewhat enchanting. It was that night, when everything seemed pretty perfect and Ellie just happened to be laying next to the sweetest guy on the whole entire planet, that it became totally and absolutely obvious that her limited knowledge was suddenly going to be, well, if Ellie were to sugarcoat it, the word she would use would be unfavorable.

“Ellie,” the boy said, his hands slipping through her mess of brown hair. “I think you are beautiful.”

One of his arms propped his body up, and the other was used to cradle her head as he leaned in, pressing his lips into hers and Ellie would tell you that she had never felt as many butterflies in her stomach as she did that night. Elie would say that when his lips met hers that she felt something different. It was like with every gentle touch, every whispered word, and every glance he had given her, she could see, and feel, and hear that he loved her. She had become his world, and with any other guy it had never felt like this. Ellie had often questioned the validity of those dramatic romances she watched play on big screens or read between soft sheets of paper, but this she didn’t question. Ellie, for once in her life, knew that she loved this boy, possibly more than anything she had loved in her whole life.

But it didn’t matter. This is something Ellie would tell herself, and it was usually a lie. Still, she’d say it. Ellie would say that it didn’t matter that she had never felt like that for anyone else, or that no one else had ever had eyes that lit up when she looked into them. Ellie would say that it didn’t matter that the night was perfect, or that he was beautiful or kind or sweet or loving. None of it mattered because he didn’t love her enough. Or maybe he didn’t love her at all.

You might think that because it became so obviously clear to Ellie that night, that she had no clue about anything sexual, that this boy would have tried something with her. According to Ellie, he really wasn’t that kind of person. He was definitely less innocent than her, yes, but one thing they shared in common

was this belief that they were going to wait until marriage. The reason, then, that Ellie suddenly became so very aware that she had no knowledge of this subject that night was because she knew. Yes, undoubtedly and clearly, Ellie absolutely knew that this was the boy she wanted to walk down the aisle with, adorned with jewelry that sparkled beneath bright church lights, and a long while veil that rested on the top of her perfectly curled hair. At that moment, Ellie thought that she knew when her happily ever after was going to come, and it was beyond terrifying. Because after the boom of fireworks and wedding cannons, came the bang of the wedding night hotel.

If I were to tell you what was going through Ellie’s mind after that night, it would be wildly inappropriate, but also equally inaccurate. Even she couldn’t quite understand how she had gone twenty years of her life without retaining any information about a process that even ants went through—or maybe it was different for them. She really didn’t know.

If there was anything Ellie did know it was that she needed to learn.

But did she? No. She obviously couldn’t admit to her friends that she had never learned about sex. Clearly, that was embarrassing. And Ellie would tell you that asking her parents when she was this old was absolutely out of the question. Even the thought of that wanted to make her run into the bathroom, lean over the toilet and let go of whatever she had just had for lunch that day. It didn’t matter anyway. She had only been dating this boy for two months.

Even though it would be like murdering a thousand newborn puppies, Ellie would say that it really had been too early to think about marriage. Even though she had already thought about it more than she could count out loud, picked out sapphire blue and turquoise to be her wedding colors, and made a list of all the possible bridesmaids she would want to have, Ellie would still have said this. But not if it had worked out. The truth here was that Ellie was right when she didn’t want to be. You see, this beautiful hunk of a man who just happened to be the sweetest human being on the planet, absolutely adored her. So, obviously it was going to lead to marriage. Wrong.

Remember how Ellie would tell you about how she has this thing that would bring undeniable darkness and terror into her life? Yeah, well, he had

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something like that too. Ellie didn’t really want to get into it because it made her head feel like it was placed on one of those spinning chairs. You know, the ones that get put around the island of a kitchen, and little children like to twirl them around and around until they can’t see straight? Yup, those ones. Just know that the conversation went something like this:

“Ellie. You’re such a good person. I’m not good enough for you. I can’t be with you.”

“What! That’s not true, you are so good. We can make this work!”

“But I’m not like you, Ellie. Like, you don’t even laugh at sex jokes. You go out of your way to bring someone their favorite snack just because they’re feeling sad. You love going to the elderly home on the weekends because you don’t want anyone to feel lonely!”

Ellie would say that was the simplified version. If she told you the whole conversation, it would take a lot of hours, plenty of crying, and a good deal of metaphors that have to do with hearts and breaking.

What Ellie will tell you was that was the last straw. This boy thought that she was too good for him because she didn’t laugh at sex jokes. Ellie couldn’t tell you how much she wanted to stand in the empty valley of a mountain with a megaphone on full blast, screaming with all the capacity of her lungs.

Of course, she wouldn’t tell you about how she didn’t understand sex jokes because she absolutely knew nothing about sex. Ellie would tell you that she went home after that conversation and cried until her pillow was soaking wet. She would tell you that she felt like she couldn’t breathe and that her stomach had a hole in it so big that all of Mount Everest could fall through it without scraping along the sides. She wouldn’t tell you that she picked up her phone that night and dialed the number of a girl who had a range of information on a specific topic. Ellie wouldn’t tell you that the phone rang, and then:

“Hello?” a girl said, surprised by the call that woke her up at two in the morning.

“Hi, Jen. Can you teach me sex ed?”

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Where are the days?

Poetry by Parker Bennett Poetry Editor

Oh, my Father, Where are the days What happened to the light Of thee, I only pray Where did the sun go, With its heavenly glow And where did the stars go I used to watch from below Was there someone else Who had more than me A larger burden to bear A yoke it must be Oh, Father, why?

Must you leave me alone?

Can’t you see I need you, I promise I’ve grown I pray you every night And you hear my call Yet there ceases to be answers I hear nothing at all Father, where are the days?

Can you tell me this much?

Or am I to wait, To just sit silently, And patiently watch?

Oh, Father, are you trying me?

Are you testing me, too?

To see if I’ll break, No, I’ll never break through I’ll have faith, dear Lord Yes, I’ll wait on those days, At once they’ll return From whence they came I have faith, my Father, Even though days are past, That you’ll return and shine bright And relief I’ll breathe last Thy favor everlasting, Thy power endure For thy love is boundless And thy goodness pure.

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bags Short Fiction by Brittany Waite Short Fiction Editor

I hate words because it means talking and I hate talking because it always gets louder and when it gets louder the words turn ugly and I don’t mind the ugly because it’s the truth but when the truth shatters into guilt I turn away and tell you I’m sick of listening to all your—

But you cheated!

And you killed our son! is what I want to say, but I settle for I’m sorry because I’m tired and I know you are too but pride keeps your bags of purple and gray because they’re the only things that stick to you and I hate my bags because they are heavy and dark with two lumps, one for each child.

I tell you I’m trying and then wish I hadn’t as your bags rim with red and you ask quietly, What about me? and I can’t say anything to that so we both stand there rotting away in the silence, two reapers with no seed. You look down at the floor, clutching your barren stomach wishing you could have least held him and I look up at the ceiling wondering how losing someone I’ve never met could hurt so much. Your bags begin to drain salt and water so I bring your head into my chest and wrap my arms around your shoulders.

As your arms slip around my waist I feel my own bags get heavier and heavier until I can’t bear it anymore so I push you back and go in the bedroom, leaving you standing there wishing someone would stay.

I wish someone would too.

In the room I lay on the floor because the bed is where we made him and where you lost him and it’s too soon for me to sleep where he should have and I feel the hurt as if I had been the one bleeding him out and I hate it as much as you do but we both know the pain is the only thing keeping us grounded. Time passes and I begin to think you left me too but then you silently walk in the door and go on the bed, lying just like he did in the only picture we have of him,

black and white, head no bigger than a raven’s egg.

Breathing.

I was going to teach him to live right but you killed him and he was going to have an older sister but you killed her, too. It’s not your fault you know, is what I want to tell you but I can’t because blaming someone else is how I got through the first one so I just listen to you pour out your bags, fill them with purple, and puff them with gray and I wish I could do the same but I sealed mine long ago.

So I lay here, letting them grow heavy and dark.

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Healing Poetry by Haley Marks Art & Photography Editor

time flows like molasses seconds blend together in a pool of silence interrupted by the pounding of a girl’s heart da Dum beating in time with the groaning clock da Dum seconds tick away, each one cutting lines into her heart she manages a shallow breath just enough oxygen to feel everything enough to remember the fire burning in his eyes da Dum the throbbing in her head da Dum da Dum the slamming of the front door da Dum da Dum da Dum the silence that followed da Dum memories suffocate her, crawling through her veins and pumping into her heart da . dum remnants scatter on the cold floor her hands collect the fragments piecing the heart together to make it beat with the rhythm of the clock da Dum

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Award Winners

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award Winners Short Fiction | Judged by: Joseph Plicka 1st | The Hole | page 80

Larissa Hekau

"' The Hole' richly evokes a time and a place in local lore, managing to impart interesting information, explore the connections between facts and folklore, and render a whole ensemble of intriguing characters within the parameters of the short form. The story succeeds as an exercise in literary realism, while gilding the voice and plot with a slender ribbon of mystery and magic. The author does a fine job balancing and blending communal and historical knowledge and the direct observations and curiosity of the narrator."

2nd | It Happened On Halloween Night. . . | page 74

Olivia Toone

"'It Happened on Halloween Night. . .' illustrates how a story need not be long or elaborate in order to draw memorable characters, tackle explosive events, and induce strong emotions.

The story’s clipped litany of one-line paragraphs manages to render a narrative world that outstrips its word count. Though the story still feels somewhat incomplete, it is close to wrapping up a shocking and frightening tale into a very condensed package."

Honorable mention | Mad Girl | page 48

Emily Cassler

"'Mad Girl is an enjoyable allegory of literary fandom and the way readers’ fantasies become woven into the lives and works of their favorite authors."

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award Winners Non-Fiction | Judged by: Keith Peterson 1st | Purpose in Paradise | page 30

Kaleb Montgomery

" The short essay takes readers through the character’s struggle and then realization that he or she doesn’t see all, that even a crash can open and 'shift my eyes to the right and have a hard time not seeing green anywhere I look, an epiphany believable, though perhaps not quite expected. My smile at the end joins the smile I imagine forcing itself to the speaker’s lips."

Art | Judged by: Ellie Toia Valdez 1st | Food fest | page 22

Sadie Madriaga

"Personally, I love to cook and experiment in the kitchen, and this piece reminds me of just that. The artist takes a minimalistic approach to food varieties in a visually satisfying way. The style is fun and simplistic—without being boring."

2nd | Evening Reflection | page 20

Lindsey Cardon

"I really enjoy the feeling of this painting. You can tell it had just rained—everything looks calm. With the sun in the background, everything feels like all is right with the world. It’s real in feeling and makes me feel like I’m right there stepping in the puddles."

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award Winners Photography | Judged by: Marisa Santeco 1st | Mother Nature | page 27

Kaila Key

"I picked this for first place because I really like the composition of this image. It feels nicely framed and uses the rule of thirds as the focal point.

The mixed textures of sharps in the water and smooths in the steam convey such a mood and emotion that I can’t quite describe in words. I feel like this photo presents more skill in using a camera than others."

2nd | Strabismus | page 52

Christal Lee

"I love the sharpness, the composition, and the lighting. This photo provokes more emotion and thought than the rest."

honorable mention | Waves | page 30

Tanner Quinn

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award Winners poetry | Judged by: Stephen Hancock 1st | the wihisper in the woods | page 72

Miranda Mantilla

"' Whisper in the Woods' is a simple poem, in some ways, but it manages to do rhyme without feeling stilted in the rhyming, which is difficult. It doesn’t give itself away, either. It manages to make an event of something simple, like Wordsworth, or a lot of Christina Rossetti, without ever telling us why it’s special in so many words. "

2nd | Niña con Los Pies Descalzos | page 60

Lehonti A. Pérez Ovalle

"'Niña con Los Pies Descalzos' feels like an allegory without ever declaring what it is an allegory of, which is fun and touching. It also uses language very well in the tradition of Romance languages. Some of that doesn’t come through in the translation, though it is good there as well. Knowing enough Spanish to recognize that in the original makes it a special treat."

honorable mention | Voyager | page 83

Rebecca Carlson

honorable mention | . . . and the giant peach | page 23

Alexa Springer

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award Winners Short Film | Judged by: Yifen Beus 1st | Dua Tani | page 12

Elijah Lemusuifeauali’i

"Hybrid identities due to colonial encounter are a complex matter, yet the director underscored the path of injustices, pains, prejudice as well as growth, reconciliation, and hope with poetic grace, optimism and power. It succinctly highlighted the dialectic relationship between past history’s effects on indigenous cultures and their mana and resilience that have allowed them to forge a new identity merging the strengths of different cultural forces and shaping their future with a forward-looking perspective. Visually, the film effectively blends these integral nuances with images through dissolves mixed with straight cuts to signify the nature of the historical process, while aptly depicting a journey that began in the woods of an individual, donning traditional attire, in search of selfworth in the past and ended, like a cycle, in a similar locale at present time of a descendant, reassured of his own identity as he moves forward.

This short film’s narrative line is most sophisticated among the three, with poetry as narration of a complex history and the effects of colonialism that resulted in hybrid identities. The blending of fluid cinematography with powerful poetry shows the director’s multi-faceted talents and creativity."

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award Winners music | Judged by: Daniel Henderson 1st | the message i'll never send | page 13

Keanu Dellona

"Each song entered into this contest is a casual first-person love song, each has a simple, repetitive chord progression, and each features a simple, singable diatonic melody. But ' The Message I' ll Never Send' stands out for its attempts at using humor to express love and lightheartedly joke at the singer's own self-consciousness and fear. It also pays the closest attention to the rhyme scheme, usually using perfect rhyme and maintaining sensible syntax in each line. Unlike the other three songs, ' The Message I' ll Never Send' also goes somewhere new for the chorus or bridge—a quicker tempo, a burst of energ y, and a new melody jumping into the high register. So, for its attention to detail, for its variety, and for its effective use of humor in a love song, that this piece is the winner."

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