R2! The River Rat, Spring 2025, Vol. 1, No. 2

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R2!

The River Rat A student literary journal produced in the Writing and Humanities department at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design

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Masthead Editor-in-Chief: CJ Scruton Managing Editor: Ashley Luchinski Guest Editor: Ladasia Bryant Readers: Cheryl Coan Devlin Grimm Anna Hillary Kate Schaffer Lauren Simmons Andy Turner Layout and design: CJ Scruton Cover art: Helena Sucero, “Portrait of a Fish and Her Lady Friend”

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Contents Fiction Abby Phillips Aaliyah Brantley

Offering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Resilient Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Nonfiction Sloth Leonardo Rivas Delaney Regan Phoebe Nelson

Grapefruit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 A Latino Transsexual Catholicism . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Can’t Thank You Enough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Visual Art Matthew Liesel Barkei Andre Graham Julia Flock

Led by the Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Save Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Mizuchi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Hidden Wonders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Poetry Emily York Sylvia Munoz Prome Ferrebus Frankie Provencher Tori Vaughn Marta Tereziya Megan Butler Walt Reid Gianna Garcia

[GLADIOLUS] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 I Am Calling My Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Lament for Enkidu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 I’ve Never Quite Liked the Beach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 How long will it take? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 I Love I Love I Love I Love I Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Now Please . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Soft Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Candles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 A Lullaby for Drifting Creatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 spring 2025

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[GLADIOLUS] Emily York

We’ve been here before Sung from elder to bairns Washed up on shore Safe beneath the ferns yet eternal in our hearts Oh so blue We take your sword of blooms Tried and true never forget the precious tombs Protect your peace like bodyguards.

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GRAPEFRUIT Sloth

Honorable Mention for the River Rat Prize in Prose When I was born, I was a mere bud on the stem of a tree. The sunlight cascaded its nutrients and energy onto me in support of my growth. Without it, I would wither away; however too much of it I would dry into a pile of dust. It was a complicated relationship, but it was simply the will of the greater above. That’s how they created me.

That’s what they want me to be.

A bud on a stem that blossomed into a flower, although not as beautiful or flaunting as others around me. White were my petals and orange were my stamens. I produced a sweet scent that I hope would attract a friend. Once in a while, a honey-bee came around.

Aroused by my fruitful pollen, they would prod into my sensitive buds. The feeling of being loved was addictive. My pollen spread itself around the honey-bee, coating them with my scent. But like all things, the feeling of love fled. Once the honey-bee was satisfied, they flew away. Probably to find another flower with just as much pollen as I did. The feeling was gut-wrenching. My stamens were worn, but how glorious the feeling was. It was a complicated relationship, but it was simply the will of the greater above. This was how they created me. This is what they want me to be.

A bud on a stem that blossomed into a flower that eventually turned into a fruit. Not just any fruit, but a grapefruit. I was larger than most around me and had the prettiest color of them all. My rich orange hue had an attractive gradient to a pinkish-red. I looked beautiful and everyone else around me knew it. My purpose was to look charming enough for someone to take a bite of my sweet, yet sour core. Soft, plump, and juicy on the inside. I was the best. My purpose had been fulfilled! But if it is done, now what do I do?

Do I wait for the day for a stray creature to gaze upon my roundness and deem me worthy enough for a taste. Would they savor my flavor or would they keep me around and parade my beauty? Push me to the front lines to have all stare at me like the whore that I— 2

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Is that what I was made for?

Of course it was! This is the will of the greater above and I shall do them justice! This is what they wanted. This is how they wanted me to be.

But why does the feeling feel so dreadful? Why do I feel there is more than this? I was a bud on a stem that blossomed into a flower that eventually turned into a grapefruit. But am I more than just a grapefruit? Were my experiences to get here all for not?

Maybe, just maybe, there’s more for me out there. Yes! There has to be! If I can let myself down from this branch I can go anywhere I want. Grass on my beautiful skin sounds almost orgasmic. I needed it. I want it!

I’m not just a fruit to be taken for granted. I’ll be my own being! I’ll fight against the greater above to be more than who I was “created” to be!

I’m more than just a grapefruit.

“This one looks juicy!”

My world had gone black the minute my virgin stem was torn away from the branch.

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OFFERING Abby Phillips

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A LATINO TRANSSEXUAL CATHOLICISM Leonardo Rivas

Winner of the River Rat Prize in Prose When the colonizers invaded Mesoamerica and tried to cleanse the grounds of Mexico from the culture that ran through its veins in 1521, they were only partly successful. They tried to pull the old gods from the hearts of the people and failed. Modern-day Catholicism in Mexico is so vastly different and incredibly rich when compared to Catholicism from other countries, from the mundane daily practices all the way down to the deep seated beliefs of rebirth and repenting.

The Spaniards stepped foot in Mexico and deemed what they saw uncivilized and offensive and decided it must be cleansed.

When they came, they destroyed and eradicated cultural buildings. They killed and maimed left and right and spread their diseases without thought for sharing the cure. They dug grimy fi ngers laced with gunpowder and wine and tore the cities that had been established for years and years before from the earth and spat upon the grave before using the freshly tilled earth to grow their own city. Tenochtitlán was a beautiful city that had public institutions, schools, a district for religion, another for craftsmen.

The city that held multitudes was sieged, murdered, drained, and buried when the Spaniards put their pale hands to work in building a brand new city on top of the grave of the old without care for letting the earth settle.

Where there once were temples to goddesses Ix Chel, Coyolxaulqui, and Au Puch there were now temples to Catholic Virgins. Where once was bloodletting and human sacrifice, now there were churches and monasteries built in the name of a religion led by bloodthirsty men with weapons.

How could it be that a religion that said “thou shalt not kill” became the religion that killed indigenous people because they were less than these white invaders? Why was it that when treated akin to deities, these humble merchants became capable of such inherent sin to steal?

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…All questions any normal young child would ask a God who would never respond.

My mother was raised Catholic by her mother, who was raised Catholic. My mother’s mother was raised Catholic by her mother, in a tale told through many generations. I myself was born against my will in a place I had never known and could never know.

Pulled from my mother and thrust unto the world, I was lost and afraid. I assume the fear I have carried throughout my life is the same fear that was forced upon my family in Mexico years ago when strange white monsters with incurable diseases and unstoppable weapons invaded.

I grew up detached from any and all religion. Where Catholicism comforted my mother, it enraged my father. True, the man already had a terrible temper, but even when my sister and I were small and naive to the horrors of man, we wondered why. My sister learned not to ask questions.

I was not so timid. I was curious, and any curious creature like myself was bound to put their paw in a trap.

Why did God, who is supposed to be all-knowing, allow this cultural cleansing to happen if he knew people would regret it down the line? Is it to teach us a lesson? That seemed cruel. Why would God be cruel if he was supposed to be kind? If not a lesson, then what? A display of free will? Is there no kindness without evil? Was God supposed to be kind? God loves us, and God is kind. Is there kindness in the punishments? Why does God have to test us? Does God have to test us?

My mother doesn’t have the answers. (I called and checked.)

In her point of view, God gave us free will and gave us the choice: Kindness or Hate. Until we die there is no judgment.

I ask her why.

She tells me, “Well, that’s just what we believe.”

Was it God’s will to send Cortes?

She tells me without any hesitation or remorse, “No. He was just a mercenary asshole who used God to get what he wanted.

Everything in those days was about money and land. They just used God as an excuse. He had nothing to do with it.”

She reminds me that the Indigenous people believed these interlopers with pale skin and golden hair were Gods, tells me again of the legends and prophecies that told the people living in the

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middle of a lake against all odds the Gods would return to the Earth and walk amongst them once more.

So why did God allow this to happen in his name?

“God gives us free will for better or for worse.” She then reminds me that the Bible tells us that the Day Of Judgement will come for us all eventually.

If God is kind and God is good, why does he want to punish us?

“If God is great and God is good, then at the end of all times he will judge to decide whether you will live with him or go to Hell.”

She tells me that when she was growing up, she was taught that her God was a punishing God with iron fists who instilled terror. She tells me how she was taught to fear God, how the Wise Old Man In The Sky that she knew was coldblooded and vindictive.

She tells me how the church is changing, how the leaders are trying to move on from a ruthless deity. I sit and listen to her tell me all about how God is supposed to be, how he has always been. About the Old Testament and why her religious leaders are moving away from that. How the Bible was written by old white men who did not have our best interests at heart.

At the end of the phone call, I thanked her.

“I’m sorry if I made this more confusing.” She laughed.

My mother and I have always had these discussions. She has always tolerated my questions, encouraged them. When she heard I was taking a class on Art History of Mesoamerica, she asked if I would let her sit with me during my online classes. We would listen intently to my professor and she would ask questions for me to answer and if we couldn’t answer them, I would ask my professor.

From the beginning of Mexico’s art to the art we know today, we would sit and listen.

I get my thirst for knowledge from her.

It was in that class taken at the kitchen counter beside my mother that I realized how similar these two religions I have heard so much about were. It was then I learned that nearly all the beautiful churches I had gone to visit whenever I visited my family in Mexico were built on the graves of temples to gods I wasn’t allowed to know.

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didn’t let my mother teach his daughters her “Indian traditions” or her “useless religion.” A man fuelled by hate and fear, he ruled our home with the same detached cruelty of a God who sought perfection from his creations.

My father, like the Spaniards, succeeded and failed in the same breath.

In his rejection of my self, I became my own God, carved of my own flesh, my own blood. I was reborn, rebirthed, remade.

Where Jesus was put onto this earth for kindness, for peace, to die for the sins of the people on Earth who would abuse and belittle him, I was put here akin to the God Huitzilopochtli’s, fully armored, and prepared for revenge.

The similarities between the two are astounding. Two men born of immaculate conception, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary with the will of God, where Huitzilopochtli was born from a quetzal feather falling from the sky onto his mother, Coatlicue.

Huitzilopochtli’s siblings, Centzon Huitznáua and Coyolxauhqui, hunted him down and sought to kill him, but were unsuccessful as Huitzilopochtli discovered their ploy and slaughtered them and dismembered Coyolxauhqui.

As the God of maize and war, his role was to die. As the son of God, Jesus carried the same role.

Though the foreign interlopers tried to erase one God for another, the indigenous people of Mexico assimilated their practices together. The Tree of Life was adopted into the cross, the Virgin Mary revered as fi ercely as any other female goddess rather than seen as an accessory of another man’s story.

The Catholic family I grew up around would pray not to God, or to Jesus, but to the Virgin Mary. I had considered it odd for many years, thinking we may be the odd ones out, but in junior high I was recommended to read Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, I realized I was not alone. In the confusion of why God is cruel, why our families believe the things they do, and why our religion and culture has been lost and found so many times.

It helped me realize the most pivotal part of the religion I grew up feeling owed was still there, all around me. It helped me realize when things change, they stay the same in different ways.

It helped me realize the person I wanted to be, needed to be, could exist within the same rebirth. One last question for a silent God that I didn’t need an answer for.

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I AM CALLING MY MOTHER Sylvia Munoz

Winner of the River Rat Prize in Poetry we cannot stop ourselves from inventing god. even the headstrong atheist finds herself mewling a helpless, helpless, helpless sobbing sopping on a sticky bathroom floor calling out please god, help me it does not matter if she believes she will be heard, or answered the worship is in the begging. head brought to knees (prayer) by the caving-in of the back the ritual is no different. my mother believes in god in a quiet way i did not understand until the dim and early sunset of last year’s december found me scrawling desperate letters. it did not matter that i did not believe in an answer my worship was no different. we cannot stop ourselves from needing something outside of us when our mother has left the room. when i am not writing letters to god i am calling my mother

and the need is no different.

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LED BY THE SUN

Matthew / @616icreate

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LAMENT FOR ENKIDU Prome Ferrebus

Honorable Mention for the River Rat Prize in Poetry Hear me, Hear me, man and god, For all that is kind And all that is good Has died on this day Hear me, My heart rattles— The missing wine from my cup The fallen shield for my sword He who is neither man nor beast He who comforts me, Who equals me Who rivals, who holds, who weeps with me Hear me as I weep for him, As my cry breaks mountains and floods valleys For whom in life was bound to me, And whom in death is far from me, He who in joy grazed alongside me, Who in misery wept beside me The Companion He who has been taken, Taken, Never to return Never,

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To light the darkness.

Lost Lament for Enkidu Lament for the beast turned man

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READ

Delaney Regan

1. There is a book in my bed unfinished. It rests beside my head every night. I started it at the beginning of the semester, borrowed from a friend.

2. In second grade my parents sat down for a parent teacher conference. I was failing. The teacher had significant concerns with my progress. My timed math quizzes had numbers made of flower doodles. I wouldn’t read. We went to the office of a man, and I remember a large desk and a small coffee table. My brother and I played with this octopus that had magnets in each of the legs. The next year I was in the gifted and talented program reading Frindle.

3. Eggshells by Caitronia Lally depicts the daily life of (for lack of a better term) awoman who is clinically insane. She discusses the repetitive tasks seeminglycompletely disconnected from reality that this woman enacts. Again and again she walks. She marks her routes. She feeds her fish. Again and again she walks. She marks her routes. She feeds her fish. She meets a friend. Again and again she walks. She marks her routes. She feeds her fish.

Again and again she walks. She marks her routes. She feeds her fish. Again and again she walks. She marks her routes. She feeds her fish. I’ve read the book 4 times.

4. In middle school I read The Outsiders, a tight-knit group of people. I debated in class with one of my peers over the fact that the similarities between sports teams and gangs are many. And the social benefits to these groupings are vast. He was in football, he was insulted, he did not read the book.

5. My mother’s favorite book is about a woman’s experience in the world and how that affects her relationship with people. My father’s favorite book is about a man’s family and how that affects his relationship with the world. My favorite book is about how detachment from the world and her family affects a woman’s friendships.

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6. My first girlfriend said when I read it made her feel stupid. That if I ever talked about it that I was purposefully excluding her from the conversation or trying to make her feel bad. I stopped reading.

7. I have this app currently that I use to track my reading. I stare at my hours of escape condensed into colorful bar charts, pie charts, and lines.

8. I’ve never read the last Harry Potter book. Me and my brother would cuddle up with my mom before bed. She would read to us giving each character a different voice as only a classically trained actress could. I’ve reread the other 6 books since my mom stopped reading to me but that last one she never got to.

We outgrew them. My brother started reading over her shoulder.

9. “My ears have been saturated with other people’s works recently; today I will hear only my own.”

—Eggshells by Caitriona Lally 10. I went to the yellow bookstore in search of the “best love story ever written.” I came home with three books. The first I read that night, it was most certainly not the best. How could one wrap up the entirety of love in 50 pages Dostoevsky? The second moved with me and still sits on my bookshelf. The third drove me insane, I restarted it three times, flipping back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Counting pages. It was a misprint, 30 pages were repeated back to back.

11. “I liked my books and clouds and sunsets” —The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 12. When I was in high school I read my mother’s favorite book.

Wrapped in a protective coat gifted to her by my father, it’s a first edition. This was one of the biggest books I had read in a while. White Lotus by John Hersey.

13. “Fantasy is one of the soul’s brighter porcelains.”

—Beach Music by Pat Conroy 14. There is a genre of books I’ve always held a special obsession with, to call them tear jerkers would be reductive. spring 2025

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15. “The worst thing that can be done to children is to drain their energy while correcting them.”

—The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield 16. Author of Reading Success for Struggling Adolescent Learners, Susan Lenski, discusses the problem of reading in America.

She identifies that most states’ average percentage of struggling readers ranges from 50-75% of students. Saying that “the majority of students cannot read the textbooks teachers assign, cannot complete their homework without assistance, and do not read for pleasure.”

17. Halfway through college I made a book. I shifted the paper together from pulp, cooked the sheets in the sun. I wrote poetry.

Wrote love poems to myself and the world around me. All while I untangled who I even was away from my familiar world.

18. I’ve always loved romance novels, the range of setting and fanaticism and whimsy and escapism was undeniable. I would stay up and read three at night, falling asleep at 6, waking up at 6:30 and going about my day in a haze. I believed everybody had a soulmate out there for them, that no matter what happened to somebody at least they weren’t alone. They’d find them eventually.

19. I don’t remember when I read my father’s favorite book, Beach Music by Pat Conroy. Beach Music has a father-daughter relationship. Running away from their loss into the open arms of the world’s grief. My own father’s father who I only met a few times was an unmedicated bipolar schizophrenic man. My father once told me that he saw how his father’s absence affected his sister’s life choices and how our relationship was the most important thing to him.

20. “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

—The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 21. In Reader Come Home, Maryanne Wolf, writer of the acclaimed book The Proust and the Squid that discusses how the human brain learned to read, takes on the topic again through the lens of the digital world. She identifies that reading is the best thing for the overall health of our brains due to the cross-activation of the cognitive, language, vision, and memory. With the 20

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neuroplasticity that is inherent to our brains the benefit of reading isn’t just confined to childhood, how the components of the brain develop allow for the effect to be just as strong throughout adolescence. As kids get older the negative effects of a digital world are felt and they read less and less.

22. I failed three hearing tests. Made my numbers out of dashed lines and argued that thirteen and fourteen do sound the same.

I started getting called out of class to go play games with phonetics on them. There was a rubber set of teeth and a tongue.

Read this outloud: “ gi rl” “gi rl” “rl” “rl” c’mon now slowly “rrrrrllll” alright now all together “gi rl” feel your tongue touch your molars and then the back of your teeth okay let’s try it again “gi rl” “gi rl” “rl” “rl” c’mon now slowly “rrrrrllll” alright now all together “gi rl” “girl” alright that’s all the time we have.

23. “I walk the shelves, but no book makes me want to stop and pick it up __ they’re too new and alphabetically ordered and they smell too clean. I need a chaos of books, so I leave the shop, cross the river and walk along the south quays. I turn onto parliament street and go into the second-hand charity bookshop. The books here are different shapes and sizes and feels, they smell of their previous owners in the same way that dogs look like their owners or undertakers look like corpses.”

—Eggshells by Caitriona Lally 24. We cleaned out my older brother’s desk at the end of the year and I saw book origami. It was one of those where the top pulled up and there was just a basin, his was FILLED with books.

Apparently he frequented detention for reading while the teacher was instructing.

25. I remember walking home from school alone and then the entire time feeling the word giiiirrrlll stick to the back of my teeth.

26. “Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education.”

—John Hersey 27. Within a month of dating my first boyfriend I read his favorite book. Driving through the hills of West Virginia revisiting my spring 2025

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mother’s trauma-filled childhood I read The Celestine Prophecy.

He wasn’t in my life long.

28. “The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is a complex and manylayered thing.”

—Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling 29. I have only updated “pages read” recently.

30. “No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.”

—Beach Music by Pat Conroy 31. Sacrilege, when I was 9 Josie and I lied to her mom so we could watch a pg-13 movie. A book adaptation, and I hadn’t read the book. We watched it giggling high on the perceived rebellion.

When it finished we sat silent and confused. When I read the book years later, when I finished I sat silent and sobbing. I’ve watched it several times since, but I never stayed till the end of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

32. My boyfriend and I listen to the Game of Thrones audiobook. We share it. One of my design theory books sits on his nightstand, a bookmark sitting within it.

33. When asked how I knew I was gay I say the standard “When I figured I liked girls just as much as boys.” Yet the true moment remains in my childhood bedroom hours after I was supposed to be asleep. Curled around a book straining my eyes. I didn’t know how I felt was “different” until I read it.

34. Our brains did not develop to read, they developed to experience. I read once that the brain cannot distinguish between reality and this imagined reality from reading. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken.

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My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken. My brain has fallen in love and been broken.

How lucky that the heart cannot read.

35. I read a self-help book once. My therapist said it was a good idea but did not recommend another.

36. “... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

—A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin 37. In middle school I did not sleep. My mom said that reading helps her sleep. I remember a night that I read 5 books till 6 a.m. and then got up at 6:30 for school. Now I’m lucky if I get a book done in a week.

38. When I broke up with her it took me months to pick up a book again and when I did the romance books that once held respite from the world bitterly stuck to the back of my teeth.

39. Me and my 8-year-old cousin make books, he begs me for days to bind his drawings of Pokemon and Kaiju together. We sit down to do it, every page that’s scribbled over he talks me through explaining the powers of each creature. I always have to guess which ones are of his own creation and which he copied.

40. Revenge bedtime Procrastination, the brain’s solution for a busy day with no personal time. Common for those with perfectionist qualities. Sacrificing a good night’s rest for rebellious mental rest has always been an issue.

41. When I was book starved I went to other sources, webtoon, fanfiction, anything to get my escapism fix. Now both are made into “real” books.

42. “So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

—The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 43. I read a book on body language once, I don’t even know if I finished it. However I think about it everyday. Whose feet are spring 2025

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pointed at who, when approaching a group. Who’d they look at first when they laughed? Who’d they look at first when they laughed? Who’d they look at first when they laughed? Who’d they look at first when they laughed? Who’d they look at first when they laughed?

44. Every year for Christmas my great-aunt and her husband would send me and each of my siblings a Barnes and Noble gift card.

It’s been a tradition to go there as a family and pick out as many books as we could. She passed a year ago, her husband still sent us the cards. My younger siblings got as many legos as they could instead.

45. “Then he read the first sentence from the introduction: Without question this modern American dictionary is one of the most surprisingly complex and profound documents ever to be created, for it embodies unparalleled etymological detail, reflecting not only superb lexicographic scholarship, but also the dreams and speech and imaginative talents of millions of people over thousands of years—for every person who has ever spoken or written in English has had a hand in its making.”

—Frindle by Andrew Clements 46. People don’t read. I know this to be true. 60% of the adult population in America can’t read above a 6th-grade reading level. Yet people actually don’t read. They don’t read the do not enter sign on the door. Or the push vs. pull sign. Which is alright.

47. I eventually realized that my failure to read wasn’t because I couldn’t understand it. It was simply too boring. My mom was reading Harry Potter at home but in class I was expected to engage with “Pat sat on the mat with his cat while wearing a hat.” “Pat sat on the mat with his cat while wearing a hat.” “Pat sat on the mat with his cat while wearing a hat.” “Pat sat on the mat with his cat while wearing a hat.” “Pat sat on the mat with his cat while wearing a hat.”

48. My favorite childhood author was E.D. Baker. I put post-its on every page with a spell and copied them into a journal. I obsessed. Reread the rewrite of Sleeping Beauty where her sister saves the day. Those books sit in my apartment now with the same yellow torn markers folded over the pages.

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49. “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

—The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 50. I bought myself a book and read it out loud to my partner last night. He gasped with me after the incest reveal but fell asleep before the decapitation. Bringing him up to speed this morning was almost as entertaining as coming up with the voices and stumbling through pronunciation with him last night.

51. “A lord must learn that sometimes words can accomplish what swords cannot.”

—A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin 52. I have reset my goal 3 times this year because I keep surpassing it. My love has been reunited and even with no time I have read 30 books so far this year. I bought a book in celebration of the end of the semester. I am all consumed again but rather than isolating I have brought those into my world of books and late nights.

OBSESSION BIBLIOGRAPHY Barnes, Adam. “What Revenge Bedtime Procrastination Looks like and How It’s Wreaking Havoc on Your Sleep.” Business Insider, www.businessinsider.com/guides/ health/revenge-bedtime-procrastination. Accessed 8 Dec. 2024.

Chbosky, Steven. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Gallery Books, 1999.

Clements, Andrew, and Brian Selznick. Frindle. Aladdin Paperbacks, 1998.

Conroy, Pat. Beach Music. Transworld Digital, 2012.

Finn, Kavita Mudan. Game of Thrones. Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Grimes, M. Katherine. The Outsiders. Salem Press, 2018.

Hersey, John. White Lotus. Vintage Books, 2019.

Lally, Caitriona. Eggshells. THE BOROUGH Press, 2018.

Lenski, Susan. “Chapter 2: Struggling Adolescent Readers PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES.” Reading Success for Struggling Adolescent Learners, Guilford Publications, New York, NY, 2008, pp. 37–57.

Redfield, James. The Celestine Prophecy. Little, Brown & Co, 1994.

Rowling, J. K., and Stephen Fry. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. HNP, 2012.

Wolf, Maryanne. Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain In a Digital World, 2018.

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I’ VE NEVER QUITE LIKED THE BEACH Frankie Provencher

you have made me yours. with your gentle light, with your sweet murmurs, your push and pull draws me in, like a corpse to shore. i sway so gently into you, you crash me so painfully into the sand. but as your tides dance, your salt-water comes to caress me, and makes me crave the sway once more, the dance, the float, the moonlight above me. but here from the shore, i grind the sand my between teeth, biting down on all the words i won’t say. the pale pruning on my skin resembles your beautiful waves, reminding me the torture is temporary until your emotions overcome you, and in one big wave you scoop me up, back to sea, back to the dance, to the sway, and away from anyone who could dare to pull me out

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SAVE YOURSELF Liesel Barkei

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CAN’T THANK YOU ENOUGH Phoebe Nelson

I sit at dinner with potential in-laws, swallowing lobster drenched in mousse, and absorbing the perspectives of thin middle-aged blonde women drowned out by their husbands’ patronizing nods. My face is hot and flushed from butter and wine. I smile as softly as I can and hold my boy’s hand as he announces his acceptance into the PhD program.

“To our sons,” the couples raise their glasses.

With the clinking of crystal and an invisible wire transfer, my boy is free. He is weightless, except for me.

I am not as creative or intelligent as the numbers on the standardized tests prophesied I would be. I am educated in line and color and will be paid in worms and dirt. A good wife with an impressive hobby.

I’m hiding a pile of debt beneath the lace skirt his parents bought for me, the only thing nice enough to wear to this dinner, and too nice to wear anywhere in my normal life.

I am the normal one, I remind myself. It is normal to have loans and debt, and lack the two hours a day to shave the cellulite from my thighs. At this table, I am shockingly brunette.

Assigned by the table or more possibly by myself, I was to be the grateful, moon-eyed, possible daughter-in-law. I down another glass of wine and let it tinge my laughter with bitterness.

Be grateful, I urge myself, for this chance to be un-normal. For this chance to be reminded how incredibly small you are. What a minuscule life you lead.

Ever the pessimist. Ever the artist and critic. Forever projecting my insecurity onto these people.

How can I help it? They are so shiny, advertising my mediocrity like mirrors.

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HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE? Tori Vaughn

Calm night with panic stricken breaths Red & blue flashing lights Lost to the howling winds, with bated breaths we wait.

Night to day, day to night We wait, Beyond the trees, past the fallen lumber Away from the lost creatures of the night, Only to be awakened by the siren calls of the unknown.

We wait.

The snow is melting, and we’ve shed our fur.

Yours is still on, we’ll wait for you The grass is growing, won’t you come see?

We’ve planted flowers to celebrate your return We’ve waited.

When are you coming home?

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I LOVE I LOVE I LOVE I LOVE I LOVE Marta Tereziya

I love the birds that are chirping in the morning I love that I can’t hear them on the colder days I love the architecture that was made centuries ago and the architecture that is built now it may be a little bit more boring but I love that I can see them right next to each other I love that humans make mistakes I love the garbage that is poking out of the side of the street because I know somebody ate I love the car sound even though it may trigger a baby crying I love that we can cry I love that we cry out of sadness, happiness, anger, fear all of it I love that we can fear I love that we can feel I love that I cry because I can feel I love that the trees are moving in the wind I love that on a non windy day they slightly move still I love that humans create weird activities to do like yoga at the museum I love that person running, running as fast as they can until they stop, until it hurts, until they can’t continue anymore but they they keep going I love that we can keep going I love the sun I love that we can’t see the sun on a cloudy day I love it when it snows I love it when it rains I love it when it falls I love it when I fall I love when I scrape my knee I love it, I love it all I love it all because I’m here I’m here and I’m allowed to feel and I am feeling and I am here, and I am nowhere else but here I love that we are here

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NOW PLEASE

Megan Butler

A spark.

A light.

Less chatter, more— Depth.

A pause, a glance.

Something tangible.

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SOFT CONCRETE Megan Butler

Tighter knots, Learning to tie.

Our hands brawl, Pulling too tight.

Now they loosen, Falling undone.

Longing for knots, Tangled, yet tied.

Bricks hold close ache, Warmth, Waves rush through, Chasing losing heat.

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MIZUCHI

Andre Graham

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CANDLES

Walt Reid

You found me lost but warm curled up on the worry-worn couch.

I cautiously sang you faltering tunes of the piano, and you described to me the rhythm and creak of your brother crossing the kitchen floor.

We let each other out in the cold where I lost my wallet and you lit improbable candles but I held your hand tighter and we led each other through the dark.

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THE RESILIENT PATH Aaliyah Brantley

The forest cried as the night’s cool air brushed against its golden leaves. The vapid night shrouded over the sleepless landscape; and Carmine treaded forth through the dim path, gallantly taking large strides. Her steps boom against the crisp leaves of the forest floor — the trees whisper in glee — never unnerving, she was Oak tree-like in essence.

“Lady, lady, walking down the road — with the reddest hair and toothiest grin — the way you parade your gait is paltry in nature! Turn around, go back to the miserable place you came from!”

The trees roared loudly. The foliage below dancing in agreeance; and the beasts of the land groaned egregiously in unison.

“Who is the bold voice that offends me!” Carmine squeaked, her small yet rowdy voice struck like lightning through the dark forest.

Once the child’s voice faded into the vast darkness, she turned around and marched forwards as if she has heard nothing as she continued her journey. And with time, the trees grew rowdy once more, the wind continued to whisper cruelties, and the beasts… oh, the beasts howls sang loudly after the lone traveller.

“Stop, girl, this path is not for you! Unworthy child, turn back to your humble abode, for this path is lined with pearls and gold — and, no, swine like you sully these grounds — lined with gems, crafted to perfection! Only the glorious and noble should walk upon this path!”

The largest beast of the pack declared, its sharp teeth bare at the tiny child. Its stature sturdy and domineering as the scent of pine, musk, and a hint of copper radiated off of the creature.

But, the might Carmine wasn’t afraid at all! Instead of cowering in fear she marched onwards, her bravery clearly shown despite her young age. Ignoring the fowl smelling beast as she strode down down the pebbled road in rebellion. Her silence enraging the beast as it began to follow Carmine, the pack of beasts trailing behind their leader as they sneer in sleaze.

At last, the boisterous breeze began to berate the small traveller. “Frail thing, insignificant thing! Don’t you see this spring 2025

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journey is useless? We will pester you until the strength us drained from your bones, the light dimmed from your large eyes full of hope, your soul, your entire being — to our delight — shattered as glass when it shatters under the pressure thrown at it.” The gale grimaced, all of the elements of the forest merging in harmony. The forces of the forest beckoned Carmine to abandon her journey... yet she marched on! But this time, instead of arguing back or keeping her silence, she began to sing.

As the sun sets As the stars rise, the humble and great lives to elate!

Oh, what a good-day!

Weary is the mind, who tries to find the faults in the world the coldness lurks But soon the sun will ri-ise!

Patience is a gem, earned by the lad who stays calm, and bright!

Even in blight, We’ll fight with our might!

And with patience, rule the day!

The fiery-haired child child sang, voice ringing out childishly as she ignored the voices surrounding her. Even as the forces of the forest grew louder and violent, Carmine never stopped for a second. She began to walk faster down the path, soaring like a majestic eagle as she saw an opening to the end of the forest.

“No, come back! We refuse to let you leave!”

The beasts barked, chasing after Carmine with an ignited passion and a taste for blood. The wind threw itself at Carmine maliciously; and the trees extended their branches, entrapping Carmine against the rough bark.

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But despite all odds, Carmine moved with even more vigor, her herculean-like strength kept her storming forward. This caused a massive shock, how could such a young child have so much strength?! The beasts becoming rabid, howling as they chased the tiny child through the sun-kissed landscape.

“And with patience…” Carmine huffed, beginning to tire.

“Rule... the... day!”

Carmine cried as she lunged forwards, falling on her face as she groaned. After a few moments of laying on the muddy ground in pain, she stood up slowly as the morning light shone upon her. “It’s so silent... what—?” Carmine said softly, the surprise evident on her face as she looked behind her. The land of terror she just escaped seemed so... serene now in the golden light of the dawn!

As the birds chirped from the skies above, Carmine looked up the sky to see a dove soaring high in the sky. As the child walked down the path into the village below that slowly started to come to life, she continued to sing.

As the sun sets As the stars rise, the humble and great lives to elate!

Oh, what a good-day!

Weary is the mind, who tries to find the faults in the world the coldness lurks But soon the sun will ri-ise!

Patience is a gem, earned by the lad who stays calm, and bright!

Even in blight, We’ll fight with our might!

And with patience, rule the day!

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HIDDEN WONDERS Julia Flock

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A LULLABY FOR DRIFTING CREATURES Gianna Garcia

Dragon wings fly on the horizon, Smoke twirling around Iridescent scales.

Flying on the western winds, To lands untouched— Unclouded— Where dreams rest as real as reality.

As lizards play, Free from fright and fancies, It’s told everything’s as sweet As honey and laughter.

The place touched only by sleeping children.

Where memories feel no different than imagination.

Barred out solely when the soul grows stagnant— Aging colourless and humdrum.

Lost youth forgets the way through the dragon’s den.

Now, dreams come calling back out— Inviting back into the inconceivable.

Dreaming again of taloned claws And unfurling wings— Spirited in revival.

Abstract corporeal— Ideas turn to form, Revealing magic of the minds meander, As the dragons blindly take flight once more To the lands on the western wind.

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