Sliver Wesson
Poem byAvione
DeVond
I got a good eight years of all the problems on the shelf. She’s not getting out of bed you’ve got to raise yourself. No dinner on the table
Mama’s still in bed, I thought everything was alright I was just stuck in my head. I'm outside her door, it’s locked I’m still in my fantasy life. The door was opened Mama’s got a knife. Not to use on anyone but herself. Suddenly all the problems were knocked off the shelf. I'm getting bullied she’s too broken to notice I’m looking for a light it seems like no one knows this. While her depression is getting better mine seems to be getting worse. She dealt me a card, it was uno reverse. I’m only 11 years old, What will I do with depression?
Feeling like my only option issa Sliver Smith and Wesson. My dad’s never coming back he was never here.
Now this year 3 of getting bullied I have everything to fear. I was pulled out In the house put in front of a computer.
Year 1, Year 2, Year 3
I’m ready to go back to school. Fresh out the psych ward
I’m 14 mama let me go.
Ready to start my new life
But I was put into a pack of wildlife. Bullied again Year 4
Like Clockwork dropped out, back in the house in front of a computer. What kind of person drops out the 6th grade and again in the 9th One whose life was worth the fight yeah I know It was long ago but damn it still hurt I don’t regret anything, this was just my rebirth
Imagination Falls
Artwork by Briar Herbert
I got into a fistfight with my book last night
Poem by Joseph Knizner
Round 1
I got into a fistfight with my book last night halfway down the page halfway through the chapter and the jab came from nowhere I stumbled, couldn't duck the book scattered to the floor the red of my disgust splattering besides it
Round 2
slapping the pages past studying the text for any hints to its deceit its next blow a way to upset its balance I tweaked my stance waiting, reading the smack blitzed and nearly missed I beat back my knuckles crashing where the words were weakest hunting for flaws pushing back the kick dropped me to the ground but my fingernails tore through the sheet as I tumbled
the strongest words, the untouchable claims remained a shroud of mangled pages littered the floor corners taking on scarlet there were no more fragile, erroneous corollaries to target my last swing caught on rock and the argument persisted shifting my weight I paused eyeing my opponent, my challenger my counterpart the fight had changed and so had I
I got into a fistfight with my book yesterday and we both walked away bloodied, blue and black yet sharper, quicker minds
Chihuahua Royalty
Artwork by Kaley Knapp
I really meant it when I said you make me melt
Poem by Margaret Utley
Your lips
Like a cup of boozy hot cocoa
I swear I’m not an addict
But I can’t get enough of your sweetness
I want to be consumed in your warmth
To feel your heat in my very core
I want to drink from the cup of your softness
And feel it seep into my bloodstream
Let it melt the winter ice
(I really meant it when I said you make me melt)
Cosmic Love
Poem by Megan Thompson
You said you were jealous of the sun
Because it gets to kiss my face when you’re not around
But I am an astronaut
Charting constellations in your freckles
In awe of the cloudy night sky in your eyes
The sun shining highlighting your golden hair
I will memorize all your marks
Observe every eclipse, every supernova
Be there for every rotation
Because you are the sun I revolve around
My Brown-eyed Girl
Poem by Jim Barge
I knew it, almost instantly, So petite, so elegant to me, Like a newfound priceless pearl, Siena, my sweet, brown-eyed girl.
Our first greyhound, we were so thrilled, You stole our hearts, you have them still, Ashy, beguiling glance you gave, Saying, “Here I am, the one you want to save!”
Deceptively small, but oh so fast, Like a lightning bolt you easily flashed Out of the car and into the house, Home for good, by all accounts.
Could it get any better you thought?
Belly rubs and backyards, they’re hard not to applaud, No cramped hard cages or hot dusty tracks, Where gamblers throw money they’ll never get back.
You settled in quite nicely, that I can vouch, Sitting proudly like a sphinx on the back of the couch, Seductive brown eyes, they followed me around, If not shut sleeping, happily dream-bound.
Set free to run at the park each week, You effortlessly ran a beautiful blue streak, No other dog could come close to the pace Of a greyhound, finally free of the race.
But time’s a cruel master, so rigid, so demanding, The life of the Grey no match for its grasping, Eleven to thirteen they sadly say, And twelve it was, right down to the day.
We said goodbye on a bright sunny morning. As you drifted off almost without warning, What a treasure we’d found, yes, a priceless pearl, Siena, my sweet, sweet, brown-eyed girl.
Coronation
Fiction by Nathaniel Sweeney
I have a very personal confession to make…we are not as close to God as people think. We who shape the universe and design the very traits that make you every day, we have no idea what goes on in the mind that made us. But I know your mind, and I am aware of every action you will make today, but it fuels me nonetheless to feel your enthusiasm and surprise as if your eyes could somehow fill my skull.
Dear Clara Jane, you died today, and three thousand years later you will wake up in a room you’ve never seen. It was made with materials traveled from countries that had not existed around the time you were born. There are too many figures playing around for me to know who gave you these thoughts, but I do know you woke up today staring at the grey ceiling in your mother’s basement, thinking about whether or not you’d get to see your father’s smile. It was big day for you, dear Clara Jane, because today you were supposed to get a crown made of gold.Acrown the crafters had let you design.
I am going down to meet you now, to wish you good luck and maybe say hello. I am fretting over which robe to wear when I meet you, though like a silly child it is only as I reach your chamber door that I know I will remember you cannot see me. But I watch the servants and the maids run throughout the hallway. Some crying because of the occasion and others keeping a stiff face in hopes you will not notice their genuine love for you and the concern it causes them. You are a very nice child, and I can tell that because as I walk through your hallways trying to find your room I notice that every so often a vase lays shattered on the floor.Avase that was broken by your playing but never glued together or thrown away because your life, I see, could never have caused someone to worry or become frustrated. They saw your joy as an art, another monument to be cherished and replicated if properly provoked. I however, can see through time, and as I reach my hand out to touch the broken shards of this pile I see the pieces pick themselves up and become as they had been months
ago on the ledge etched into the wall. I am reminded of siblings of mine who also used to play with clay and made pottery. I am weeping now, dear Clara Jane, thinking of how close to us goddesses you’ve become.And your servants hear my weeping.
***
She, the sight and the experience, broke down in the hallway of that newly soon-aged sanctuary, and almost let herself be known.An elder man by the named of Hath thought he heard crying in his hallway, the one section he swept everyday at every two hours. He figured maybe it could have been the child had she been able to access the floor at this hour, but when he peeked down and saw it was empty he again reminded himself that she was gone. But still he thought he heard weeping, and at the sight of his old eyes that though dust-covered never lost their glimmer, the goddess Perspective chose to leave the hallway and search for the girl in another room. Perspective, upon leaving, grazed a purple pot resting on a shelf, a pot the servant was sure had already broken before it fell again at a distance away from him. In the exact place it had fallen before. This time, Hath went to get a broom.
Perspective, meanwhile, was so distraught at the idea of remembering through lifespans that she ran blindly without looking through her tears.
***
She runs and runs banging on every door a fist nobody can see, and behind her is dragging the finest robe with fabric so soft it could smother the serpent trying to engulf the world with its jaws. Perspective is looking for the set of eyes staring at her interest. Her interest she must keep. In her head she now sees her own heavenly palace door waiting to open again should she need to turn away, but Perspective is reaching her hand out to shut it when suddenly she trips down stone stairs. Startled, she takes the form of a mouse.Ahumble creature in this world, a humble creature she is sure Clara Jane will love and see. It is dark. She cannot see.
So instead, Perspective imagines she has Light’s eyes and the rodent can see as it scurries toward a box in the center of the room. She is not
used to seeing something ‘large’blocking her way. She is not used to smelling something ‘cold’as if it had not been moved.
***
Your path was blocked on four sides by solid orange limestone, and a fifth if you counted the grey slab of granite they fitted to cover your frame. Your obstacle was also mine. You present me the option to go around your bed to either the left or the right. Your place, though finely carved to your perfected standards, still added many little chips and niches for a rodent’s paw to ladder up. Your face was replaced by a caricature of stone. Your nose smelled not like dirty hair and the buildup of germs but rather the buildup of dust. You didn’t move when I tried to bite your hand, and I was wounded at how sore you made my gums. You refused to listen when I asked you to stand up, and you refused to holler back when I called YOUR name. It was as though you didn’t recognize me, your old friend, who saw the world the same as you.And it was only as a mouse I realized what Death meant and that you couldn’t see anything at all.
***
We will not be seeing each other again, and you will never know the joy I got see your surprise at God’s world, I world you will come to know I saw much differently when we weren’t together. I stayed a mouse a little longer to try and see the places you walked from a lesser standard.Alesser standard from my perspective, and then a lesser standard from yours. You have a longer journey ahead of you, a journey I for once wish I could see. But it would not be the same for me, young and dear Clara Jane, because I have never been alive to begin with while you were gifted such precious little time to share with me. You see darkness, and you will continue to be seeing darkness until somebody opens a heavy door none of us can lift on our own.
***
I scurried away from your tomb. I scurried between the feet and jumped on the toes of people who were trying not to cry. When I felt ‘tired’at last I rested on the first cushion I could find.Alavish pillow, another purple you loved where once you set your head, and this one held
a golden crown drawn with birds. Specifically long-necked cranes. Looking at it, I remembered that I wasn’t actually a mouse, that I had actually been part of you for a time. Part of you, part of Hath in the hallway three walls behind me, and part of your mother who caressed the crown without seeing me as well as your father, who chose to smile as you sent him rain. I left them along to sleep again in a heaven you would not find. The crown I took with me. I knew they would not miss it, because I felt that day it was you, Clara Jane, who baptized me as an Egyptian passion.
Fall Path
Photograph by Megan Thompson
AWriter’s Graveyard
Poem
by Joseph Knizner
Awriter's graveyard is a place where ideas are recorded and linger and die, smothered by the cold distance of time but resurrection is not impossible–some concepts may rise and be killed again and again never quite making it out this poem has seen firsthand–in its earliest days–the shifting, dissipating forms and stale air of the writer's graveyard before being rescued from that purgatory by the utility and invigoration of interest and inspiration whether the cell bars are the sturdy lines of a notebook and its spiraled barbed wire, the disorienting endlessness of an online document, or mangled, twisted scraps of paper, anything is preferrable than the fate of the uncounted,
the unknown who are lost buzzing brightly one moment, dripping with ideas and novelty, and forgotten the next skipping the graveyard entirely, submerged in the void of the Forgotten without any chance of redemption or rebirth some ideas, few in number are carried punctually to paper and never must roam that forgotten plot but as ideas break down and wither and merge something new is born a unique drop of inspiration grown out of discarded decomposing ideas thought unworkable, unfeasible worthless someday, a distilled, murky concept from the graveyard will obtain the elusive favor and patronage of deliverance,
out of death, life out of life, ideas not all of them good–but you’d be surprised give it time
Processed
Artwork by Mia Grace
Unknown / Unbound Poem by Margaret Utley
Every
night
When I crawl into my childhood bed
I make believe that I am in yours
That we are young and without a care in the world
Anxieties unknown and love unbound
5-4-3-2-1 Technique
Poem by Tori Orbegozo
I can see oak trees swaying, Butterflies fluttering on flowers, Two young girls playing hopscotch, Acalico cat cleaning her fur, The cracked lines on my dry hands, I’m pretty sure they’re shaking.
I can touch the prickly concrete under me, My Grandma’s itchy wool cardigan, Smooth shiny sliver on my turquoise ring, Sticky sweat dribbling down my forehead, I’m pretty sure it’s hard to breathe.
I can hear bluebirds chirp and sing, Cars whoosh past my front porch, The blasting thumps of my heart beating, I’m pretty sure it’s pounding.
I can smell earthy fresh-cut grass, Smoky bacon cooking in the kitchen, I’m pretty sure it’s almost dinner time.
I can taste thick bitter saliva in my mouth, Taking a deep breath, I walk into my house.
I’m pretty sure it’s over now.
Henry Betta
Artwork by Tori Orbegozo
Shelley’s Light Switch
Fiction by Nathaniel Sweeney
They locked me in a large empty room with white walls and a finger sticking out the wall. It’s knobbed and crooked, as though beckoning me to come closer, but I have not seen it twitch or move since the moment I’ve noticed it several hours earlier. It just sits and waits for me to come closer. Maybe it is someone close by, another victim in this place of large rooms and bright lights and tall pale strangers who will not blink as they stare at you and walk you down the hall and shove you, almost politely, into a room without a view or window. Maybe they cannot breathe, maybe the finger’s room is smaller than mine? Maybe it’s some wretched soul they stuck in a closet because the big room held some crazy lady they woke up from a shallow pit, and maybe while I’ve been spinning my head in a corner this person has been suffocating in a closet with only a tiny hole to gesture a tiny finger through! I rush over, trembling and falling because my legs are still ghoulishly thin and fragile. When was the last time I ran? Seems like yesterday, but the aches betray my wisdom. Ignoring reason, ignoring time, ignoring the one mirror against the wall, I finally grab the finger. The lights above my head burst out, and I hear a small crack as something falls to the floor. I am left alone now crying, and the broken finger, which does not feel like bone or flesh, lies in my palm as tears begin to lift it.
Mouse in a Wheatfield Artwork by
Max Wehrle
No One Likes a Mad Woman: Chappell Roan, Harassment, and the Public’s Response Essay
by Margaret Utley
In the article “Where Does Chappell Roan Go From Here?”, The Cut’s Cat Zhang discusses the recent controversy surrounding Chappell Roan. Over this past summer, queer pop star Chappell Roan has taken center stage in the pop music industry, recently topping streaming charts next to big-name artists like Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. Between her viral performance at Coachella, opening at Oliva Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour, and her most recent single “Good Luck, Babe!”, Chappell Roan has been taken from a small town midwest artist and turned into an international pop sensation; You could say she has been crowned a “midwest princess” in reference to her debut album title.As this article discusses, Roan posted two TikToks this past September where she is seen bare-faced and ranting about supposed “fans” stalking her and her family, harassing her in public, and overall violating her right to privacy on multiple occasions. The controversy of this is double-sided. On the one hand, Roan is receiving criticism for speaking out, with onlookers arguing that the harassment she is facing comes with the job of being a musical artist and that she shouldn’t complain about it. On the other hand, many people, including Zhang in this article, believe she was right to speak out about her feelings, but she should have done so in “a smarter, more compassionate way.”
I am a big fan of Chappell Roan and have been for almost two years now, so any controversy surrounding her is important to me as I care about her from a fan perspective. More significantly though, she is one of the largest female queer artists in the music industry right now, next to Reneé Rapp and MUNA, so she represents me and the rest of the queer community in the public eye. How she conveys herself to the world is a direct reflection of the LGBTQ+ community; she can either help lift us up
or tear us down. I have complex feelings about her behavior online recently.Apart of me is worried that her angrily speaking up for herself will be detrimental to how conservative society views queer women. I am afraid that we will be viewed as aggressive, brash, or bitchy, and this is why many fans wish she had expressed her feelings more calmly.A different part of me is proud that she is speaking up the way she is; she is showing how hurt and angry she is over this, and it has caused more people to listen. It is realistic. She is angry and has a right to be. It follows in line with my belief that women have a right to be angry when they have been wronged. We shouldn’t be expected to be quiet or gentle when our safety and the safety of those we care about are threatened. Society wouldn’t expect this of a man, so why should we expect it from a woman, from Chappell Roan?
We can already see the immediate results of this controversy on Chappell Roan’s audience as well as casual onlookers. Between the backfire and the flocking of support, a debate has sparked on how we should treat celebrities when we see them in public. The questions have been proposed: Do celebrities owe us their time off of the stage? Should fans confront them in public for photos or signatures? Should we put celebrities on pedestals and make them our heroes? In addition to this, fans and onlookers are also prompted to reflect on how we view female celebrities when they act outside of what is expected of them. People are disturbed by Roan’s behavior because she is visibly angry, and this response feels very misogynistic. Even my own torn response, the part of me that feels upset over her behavior, is one rooted in internalized misogyny. It is something that I myself am disappointed in and need to reflect on; it is a response that I know a lot of people need to reflect on. So ask yourself, is this how we should be treating female artists in the music industry? For me, the answer is no, but it is not my question alone to answer.
We will have to wait and see how this controversy will influence the music industry as a whole, but personally, I am hoping that it changes what we expect from celebrities and changes how fans treat celebrities
both online and in person. I also hope to see this same change in the press that I expect from fans. Musical artists deserve to have their privacy just like everyone else because their job is to make music, not to be dolls on constant display for the public. Perhaps Roan’s outburst will cause fans and those in the press, like journalists and paparazzi, to reconsider how we treat celebrities and start to view them as human beings like us. This is a much-needed change both for the music industry and for the entertainment industry as a whole, and I want to see it come to fruition in my lifetime. Chappell Roan is breaking the mold set by the music industry, both in her music style and her behavior as a young queer female artist. I believe that this is just the start of her career and that she will pave the way for many artists behind her to change what is expected of them in the music industry.Already she is changing the expectations placed upon her as a female artist; I can’t wait to see how she continues to break and reshape the mold for the modern celebrity.
References
Zhang, C. (2024). Where does Chappell Roan go from here? The Cut. https://www.thecut.com/2024/09/chappell-roan-fan-controversyexplained.html
Trapped Essay
by Megan Thompson
I can feel myself souring, turning. I can feel the anger creeping up my throat and tapping at my teeth, longing to be released. My hate woke me up this morning. He stood next to my bed and ripped me from my dream. He carried me to my car, forced my hands on the wheel, and drove me to school. I want to speak, but he is there with a hand on my throat, twisting my words, snipping my sentences. Hate fills every room I walk into, darkens every doorway, and dissolves my happy thoughts. Why is he here? Why am I so angry all the time? Is it the election results? The state of the world? The funeral? Could my hate just be a manifestation of my hormones? I can’t be like this anymore, but how do you kill someone inside of you? Hate is lounging at the controls of my mind while I fight his vice grip. I have to get him out. I must kill him.
Twin Suns
Poem by Margaret Utley
We will rise together today the sun and I as we always do
We will rise together today to hold each other hand in hand sunbeam in sunbeam to admire each other her for her immensity me for my humanity
We will rise together today to kiss each other's cheeks until our peach blushes match to lift each other up across the sky and around the globe
Sketch of My Grandparents
Artwork byAvione DeVond
Last Look
Essay by
Jim Barge
It’s a late Saturday afternoon in September and I am sitting on my mother’s back veranda looking out over the golf course behind her house in North Carolina. The cicadas and crickets sing a hypnotic tune, the aroma of basil wafts up from the overflowing garden down by the stair, a hummingbird dances among the flowers looking for a nectar snack. The sun is sinking low, peeking through the tall pines, and reflecting off the spider web just in front of me. It’s calm… and peaceful … and the last time that I will look upon this sanctuary. My mother is leaving this house after 37 years to move into an independent living facility.
I was 21 and a senior in college when my parents moved into this house, young enough to be focused so intently on pulling the future forward but old enough to have the place become part of my formative memories and to have me now wishing the future had not come so fast. My mother is 84, in fairly good health and in her “right” mind; it’s the prudent time to transition to a downsized lifestyle. I will certainly see my Mother again many times and have many wonderful moments but I will desperately miss her in THIS place, in this house, in this garden. My wife, Dawn and I make the nine and half hour drive from Cincinnati to see her twice a year, once at New Year’s and again in June on our way to and from the beach. It has been one of the most predictable parts of our lives, something as certain and timeless as the sun rising and setting.And yet, this is our last trip, our last look at her in this garden and in this house. The “sanctuary” includes a wonderful garden, lovingly cultivated and nurtured over many years. While it’s not nearly as large, something about it reminds of the classic movie “The Secret Garden,” full of mystery and miracles. There used to be a Corgi named Virginia Blue Belle or “Ginger” romping through the ivy chasing a squirrel or patrolling the fence along the golf course to make sure no “intruders” could find their way in, or just sitting by the front gate of the garden, waiting patiently for her favorite humans to drive up and sometimes that included us!Agift from my ailing
Father to his beloved bride, Ginger, I am certain, understood her marching orders; in fact I can see in my minds eye the conversation between my Father and her-my Father leaning over and whispering, “Ginger, you have to take care of Sarah after I am gone, like you would any of your sheep, but remember she is a special sheep that I love dearly.”And there is Ginger, bright-eyed, focused intently on every word and giving a subtle nod and muffled bark to let him know she understood. She loved my Mother and ironically took care of HER for ten years after my Father passed. And when she no longer had the energy, she trotted over rainbow bridge with butt and stub tail wiggling the whole way. I think that, along with the more recent pragmatic view that it was all just getting too hard to take care of, was the turning point for my Mother.
She just walked across the veranda, sat down in the rocker, and began reminiscing about sitting out here with Ginger, just the two of them, listening to the crickets talk to each other, watching the fireflies light up the night. They would sit silently, but so completely connected to each other, watching and listening until darkness pushed them back into the house. It isn’t the same now, she says. Without Ginger.
I get it, I understand, but I don’t have to like it. Being selfish, I think, you can’t do this, you can’t take away the homestead, the years I hoped I would have left to enjoy it and you in this place, you can’t freeze my memories…I have more to make...here.And I think about my Father again, reminded of his absence again, having over the years wished for times to discuss the current challenges of my life with him and now not being able to imagine him in THIS place, waxing poetic or philosophic. But it is what is best for my Mother; it’s not about me. It is about the cycle of life, the reality and reminder of the fleeting nature of our lives here on Earth.
My Father used to play a game with us as children and which he sometimes carried over into our adult lives when we visited.At first it started around the dinner table; my father would try to catch one of our eyes, say “Last look” and immediately look away. The game of course was to then do the same to someone else at the table so YOU could claim “Last
look”. Later it migrated to our goodbyes; as we were pulling out of the driveway, Dad would yell, “Jim !”and I would unwittingly turn to him and say “What?” “Last look!” he would triumphantly exclaim, with a huge grin on his face. Of course, sometimes we won, but not often!
So now its my Last Look. With this house, with these memories, with this chapter of my family’s life. Wistfully, I am thinking about how it will feel tomorrow to say those words one last time here. Last look.
Ears Like Wings
Artwork
by Briar Herbert
Innocent Enemies
Poem by Tori Orbegozo
Aflowery meadow in mid-April
Bees pollinating the flowers
Afawn discovers an infant child
They inspect each other curiously
Two innocent enemies who Have not been taught of the Destruction of this world.
Poem by Margaret Utley
you can pick the pimples on my face and back, tear at the skin around my nails until they bleed, rip at the callouses on my hands and feet, pull at the split ends of my fragile hair while i am helpless as i watch from the mirror as i destroy myself unable to stop until my skin is raw and exposed unhinged as i remove myself of my flaws as i remove myself of me
Submission Guidelines
Initiated in January 2005, Lions-on-Line is a literally collection of works by the students and alumni of Mount St. Joseph University published online with the cooperation of the Liberal Arts Department. Lions-on-Line is published online twice yearly, duri ng the fall and spring semesters. When our budget allows, Lions-on-Line goes “in print”. We take submissions during all twelve months of the year.
If you are currently affiliated with Mount St. Joseph and you would like to see your work published, you may submit your work to LOL simply by emailing poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction or artwork to LOL@msj.edu. For full submission guidelines, consult our website.
Lions-on-Line is always looking for new staff members. If you’re interested in joining LOL, please contact faculty advisor, Elizabeth Taryn Mason, Ph.D. at the following email address: elizabeth.mason@msj.edu.
Editors and Staff
Editors: Catherine Coleman Avione DeVond
Ethan Geiger Mia Grace
Sophie Hirt Sebastian Isaacs
Joseph Knizner Zoe Nienaber
Tori Orbegozo Katelyn Rieder
Megan Thompson Margaret Utley
SGA Club Rep: Katelyn Rieder
Treasurer: Maggie Utley
Faculty Advisor: Elizabeth Taryn Mason, Ph.D.