Misentity - Spring 2024

Spring 2024

M

I

S E N T I T Y

Well-Known Secrets Well-Known Secrets

An exploration of the world that is right there in front of us through the written and visual arts.

Misentity

Well-Known Secrets

Misentity Magazine

An annual literary and arts magazine continuously published at North Harford High School since the 1950s (originally published under the name Golden Harvest).

Visit issuu.com and search for “Misentity” for previous years’ issues

Cover Art by Elizabeth Balistrari (grade 12)

Editors

Dev Griffin

Lio Tolliver

Melayna Tidwell

Special Thanks

Mr. Blevins

Mrs. Campbell

Mrs. Green

Mr. James

All rights reserved by the respective artists in this publication. All rights revert back to the artists after publication. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without their consent.

Art Contributions from the following students

Art Contributions from the following students

54 - Samira Bojorquez

56 - Evelyn Gonzalez

58 - Victoria Danielczyk

59 - Sascha Kendall

61 - Kora Niebel

63 - Sascha Kendall

65 - Julia Pfarr

67 - Catie Wehage

69 - Abigale Sersen

70 - Bella Fisher

71 - Evelyn Gonzalez

73 - Emma Corcoran

75 - Victoria Danielczyk

78 - Phillip Brown IV

79 - Elizabeth O’Brien

80 - Lio Tolliver

82 - Nate Brosh

83 - Jack O’Connor

87 - Ella Morgan

87 - Luke Brown

90 - Kavin Carter

55 - Sophie Howell

57 - Elizabeth Balistrari

58 - Emily Vaughn

60 - Samira Bojorquez

62 - Kora Niebel

64 - Chelsea Perkins

65 - Mia Siegel

68 - Jasmine Owens

70 - Emma Corcoran

71 - Jack O’Connor

72 - Toluwanise Oje

73 - Luke Brown

76 - Corrin Turner

78 - Ryley Montgomery

80 - Syd Culberson

81 - Emma Cornman

82 - Jasmine Owens

85 - Lio Tolliver

87 - Taylor Kraus

89 - Nate Brosh

90 - Eugene Liebel

Fiction Contributions from the following students

Your sunrise/My sunset

Peter Freer

I love the way the earth looks during a sunrise

The reddish hue it throws up in the land

The way the sun washes everything in a fiery tint; it makes me feel alive

How the daffodils in my front yard open every morning at its rise

It makes my heart ache, the way it shimmers across dew-covered grasses

The bugs must find it as beautiful as I do

There's nothing quite like it

When it peeks over the horizon in the early morning

Washing my kitchen in orange

There's a tenderness in waking before the sunrise

Making coffee and breakfast for loved ones

It makes life ever sweeter; it reminds me there is good

Similarly, sunsets

They're less reserved than sunrises

Bright orange

Yellow

Red

Pink

Spectacular hues scattered across the sky

Broad strokes of purple in the clouds

Speckles of pink

Soaking in a canvas of orange the subjects of candid photographs

It's well deserved, you know Sunsets are never the same

There's no better way to save moments from the decay of time than a photograph

Freeze moments and memories

Bottle laughter

Frame smiles

I think you're a sunset; maybe I'm a sunrise

My Father’s Daughter

Melayna Tidwell

I was here first; she came last, Yet whatever she does she gets a free pass. She’s goofy, she’s silly, she makes everyone laugh. She runs faster, plays harder, smiles wider; Everything I’m sure he wants in a daughter. She’s an easy keeper, content with just having fun. He denies it, but it’s true; she’s his favorite one. Yet I truly do love her, and consider myself lucky; I just never thought I’d get upstaged by a puppy.

Art by Melayna Tidwell

Suspension in what hadn’t been

Lio Tolliver

He whispers something, and the words are lost to time the moment they form on his lips. Suddenly, then, he’s out of his bedroom, out of any Earthly place he’s ever seen.

The first thing he notices is it’s cold here, cold everywhere, so cold it feels hot, and that freezing heat creeps instantly through his skin and deep into the marrow of his bones, seeping like spilled ink through the white cotton walls of his cells. The second thing he notices is The Nothing. There is no ground beneath him, neither liquid or gas to suspend him. No gravity to pull him, because there is no mass from which gravity could be born. The Nothing is vast and consuming, black in all dimensions and too dark to perceive its volume, infinite or otherwise. His lungs seize, trying to process the oxygen that isn’t there, and he gapes like a fish.

Stop trying to breathe.

She pulls him and the third thing he notices is The Everything, and her name comes to him like instinct. The Everything is bright. Bright like the sun if the sun was placed within the confines of one's skull. Bright like the explosion of the uranium bombs that won’t exist for another fifteen years, like the Northern lights, like a gasoline fire lit upon the flesh of the perceiver. The Everything is colorful. Colorful in every way that The Nothing is black.

He turns his head to her and the motion bleeds his energy, slipping from him and into The Nothing in a forceful shock of cold- electric greed. The Nothing rumbles

in hunger and pulls against him, sticky on his skin, thick and viscous and slow. His mouth falls open to speak (to scream, to cry, to shout,) but there is no air to make sound, nothing for vibrations to travel through, nothing to push out through his throat.

Stop trying to speak, says The Everything, you’ll exhaust yourself.

“What?” he thinks, and hears it aloud like a voice in his ear. This is how you speak in The Nothing – it consumes all interference, kills the barrier that keeps thoughts confined to their brain of origin. They leak out here in a language more pure than any which men have created, unlimited by the confines of syntax and definition and personal understanding.

You’ll exhaust yourself, she says again, and The Nothing will swallow you.

She doesn’t really say it, of course. But he knows what she says because she does, and she wants him to understand. The knowledge settles in his mind as though recalled from his own memory, concrete and real.

“Where am I?”

In The Nothing, you know that.

She’s right and he’s afraid. He wants to thrash and rip away and go back to wherever he came from. There is a comfort elsewhere, without the cold and the empty, but the specifics of it refuse to creep into his conscious mind. The memories of everything are hazy. He knows only that somewhere, elsewhere from here, there is something other than this.

“I don’t remember my name.”

You have no name here, there is The Nothing and there is me. That is all.

“How am I here, then? Why am I here?” His lungs try to inhale nothing again. He doesn’t need to breathe here; the cold has chilled his blood. “What’s happening?”

The world is finished with you.

“So that’s it? There were things I was supposed to do.” He doesn’t remember what they are but feels deep in his belly that they must’ve been real.

If you were supposed to, you would. But you’re supposed to be here, so you are.

“Oh.”

Art by Rachel Roberts

Art with Symbolic Significance

by Alex Heineke

Art by Ben Steele

Art by Karlee Tuohy

A Twisted Conviction

Melayna Tidwell

The cool rushing water of the tumbling stream

Convinces even the most stubborn rock to soften And smooth.

I, too, am quite convincing. My persuasions

Make spears from rose stems

Knives from butterfly wings And a missile from your garden gnome.

Art by Lio Tolliver

Art by Morgan Thomas

Art by Elizabeth O’Brien

Barnhouse

Art by Avery

Art by Jada Felton

Seasons Anonymous

Winter descends, a silent thief, Stealing hues of warmth, and leaves A cloak of frost, its whispered breath

Transforming landscapes, life bereft.

The air grows crisp, a biting kiss, As snowflakes dance in gentle bliss, Blanketing the world, pure and white; A canvas for dreams, endless and bright.

The trees, once draped in vibrant green, Now stand bare, a solemn scene. Their branches reach like icy fingers, Reaching for solace as winter lingers.

The sun, a distant memory, Hides behind clouds, a pale canopy. Daylight wanes as darkness prevails, Embracing stillness, as nature exhales.

Fall is a gentle whisper, Nature's golden sigh, Leaves dancing in the breeze, A farewell to the sky.

Colors burst forth like fire, Crimson, orange, and gold, A tapestry of beauty, For the world to behold.

The air turns crisp and cool, As summer takes its leave, A reminder of the passing time, And the warmth we once received.

The scent of pumpkin spice, Fills the air with delight, A comforting embrace, On a chilly autumn night.

If a Tree Falls in the Forest

Mia Siegel

if a tree falls in the forest, with only the moss to dampen her fall, did she exhale one last time? would anyone notice if no one was around to hear it?

come lay with me in the tall swaying grass and memorize the way the freckles on my arms make constellations

come inspect the leaves of a tree and tell me they don't have the same green speckles your eyes get when you are happy

come feel the liquid kisses that drop on us from the heavens and tell me how you hate water, but you'd slow dance in the rain with me every day if it meant holding me close

let me paint the soft lines of your profile in the confines of my sketchbook even though they will never feel the tender kiss of daylight

I wish I could hold your hand like the towering oak trees whose branches entangle towards the top so shameless in their love as if the only thing simpler than to love one another was the continuity of day

if you kiss me when there is no one around and no one else sees the way your face always adopts a soft pink and no one sees how my body breathes in relief at every kiss we share did it ever really happen?

maybe another person will never know maybe your parents could never see me as more than your friend maybe they could never understand but oh darling, the trees understood their roots entangle far below the soil they can feel each other just as I can feel the invisible thread that ties my heart to you, I can feel the perpetual gravity of loving you swinging me around, stuck in your orbit

maybe our poetry will be forever confined to live under your oil pastels, away from prying eyes

and maybe I can only hold your hand away from the eyes of others

but love, the grass knows our freedom the grass remembers all the flowers I've plucked from her soft garden to weave into your hair

the grass remembers the way I used to lie in her bed and listen to the moon tell me about the sun, while I told him about the galaxies I've explored in your eyes

our love is a well-known secret because people may never find us out but the grass, the trees, the stars... they know darling, they know, the world will always remember what people will always fail to see.

Art by Elizabeth O’Brien

Art by Amber Lara

Blood/Water

Anonymous

I ask you to close your eyes, To feel the rain. It drips on your face, Calming

And somehow warm.

I ask you how it feels And you say nice. Tilt your head up, Hold out your hands, Enjoy the moment. There is no thunder, No lightning. Just rain.

And how is it that there was no forecast? You ask.

I smile, Say I don’t know.

And watch the red fall.

Because who knows the difference Between blood and water?

by Syd Culberson

Art

Art by Nate Brosh

Art by Julia Pfarr

Incongruence the Ocean

Lio Tolliver

The flashing sirens went off the first time it moved. They went off the next four times, as well, until 0016 decided it wasn’t an immediate danger. The alarms don’t sound when it moves now, but Box still gets louder as all the machines whir to life, recording every detail down to the electricity in the room. Numbers scroll up the green analog screen beside the containment, too fast to read. 1380 and his team analyze the numbers overnight, far away from the commotion on the floor above Box.

“One of the lights is burned out,” says 0129. He adjusts his glasses, the thin gold frames pressing red marks into either side of his nose. “I did all the restart procedures, and it’s the only one staying off.”

0016 glances over. Twenty-some lights circle the perimeter of Containment, casting down a harsh red light into the room where it gets absorbed by the white thing laid out beneath them. “We’ll fix it when we switch Incon to Containment II.”

Incon writhes and squiggles on the steel floor of Containment, spreading like oil on water before pulling together again, elastic and viscous. It stretches thin and flat, reaching to all four corners of the room and ripples, pure white and all-absorbing.

“It’s been more active since the light went out,” 0129 says, “1380 sent the reports this morning and everything has just been… higher. The magnetism, the gravity, temperature, all of it. We need to be paying attention to this.”

computer, typing some unspecified information that 0129 hopes isn’t a performance report. “Sometimes it’s just more active.”

“Okay,” he says. That’s all he’s allowed to say.

0129 stays later than anyone else in Box. 0001 to 0128 head to Home in order, and since 0130 got sent up a floor, there’s no one to force 0129 out. He finishes his work far before then, but this is his only time alone with the thing he’s here for. The light rail back to Home is less than an hour, and he doesn’t mind missing the rush of everyone getting back to their pods. The 0000s rarely check the pod statuses regardless. 0129 rolls his chair up to the glass wall of containment.

Incon writhes, seamlessly folding in on itself. Sometimes 0129 feels like it’s watching him and he’ll get a creeping feeling deep in his body, like suddenly there's just more of everything, squeezed into the same space as usual.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, knowing that his words can’t make it past the thick inches of glass separating him from Incon.

It continues to whorl around the metal room, slipping against the smooth walls and catching on the seams in the corners.

“You’ll have more space in Containment II,” 0129 says. He knows, rationally, that no single room could be enough space. No number of rooms could ever be enough. In a world with finite space, Incon could never really fit.

“I’m really not concerned,” 0016 says. Her fingers smooth over the keys of her

The 0000s and the 0010s like to reminisce about the day they made Incon, the day they created it. 0129 has always thought that’s far too much credit – Incon wasn’t made, it was found. It was ripped forward into containment from some distant elsewhere, unreachable through any billions of miles of travel. The rip is still there, and sometimes a little more of Incon seeps through. Everyone working in Box knows it, an open secret that goes unmentioned. A light beside the dead one flickers and goes dim.

“I’ve been thinking about what you told me.”

Incon drips up against gravity, splashing up and falling upon itself.

The door isn’t locked when 0001 gets to Box the next morning.

“Hello?” says 0001, stepping into the lab. It looks just the same as she left it yesterday, sans the other workers – including the white fluorescent ceiling lights, which shouldn’t be on yet. “0002? Are you here early?”

“Hi, ma’am,” says 0129 from his position in the corner.

“Name?” she says, startling back.

“0129,” he says. His head rests against the glass wall of containment. Incon taps against the window in a dull thud.

“You shouldn’t be here yet,” 0001 says. “When did you come in?”

“5:29.”

“Yesterday?” She stares at him, eyes wide. No one stays out overnight.

“Yes ma’am.”

Incon ripples up like a stormy ocean, and 0001 finally notices. What yesterday was no more than a paper-thin layer across the floor

of containment has risen like the hurricane flooding of the old world. Incon sloshes back and forth against containment, nearly a fourth of the way up the glass wall.

“Oh my god,” 0001 gasps. She reaches a thin hand behind her and locks the sole door to Box. When 0002 comes, any minute now, he’ll stand obediently outside the door until it opens. Only 0001 opens any doors in Box.

“The lights went out,” 0129 says. He gestures to the dead red lights on the walls of containment, flickering and dark. “Incon doesn’t like containment.”

“Incon isn’t alive!” 0001 shouts, pulling 0129 away from the window. “I knew we should’ve moved it to II last week.”

“It’s leaking in.”

“There are no gaps–”

“The hole you brought it in through.”

“The Incongruence Electric? The machine? 0129, the machine is broken, it broke when Incon came out.” She groans into her hands. “Do you need to go to Medical? This is highly inappropriate.”

“No, no, not the IE. The hole, the gap in the universe the IE pulled Incon through. Are you stupid?”

“Excuse me?”

Incon taps against the glass again, a thin tendril extending like a finger to scratch at the containment window.

“Did you run contingency?” 0001 says.

0129 shakes his head, pulling away from 0001 to lean against the window. “Contingency isn’t going to help. The tear is too big.”

“I don’t think you understand how this works,” 0001 says. “Contingency has to help. If the uppers come in, that’s it. For me, for you, all of us. Incon too.”

“They can’t destroy Incon.” 0129 looks again at the thing they’ve been holding captive. Incon, Incongruence Celestial, is like staring into a star. White in the way the night sky is black. Absorbing in the way a black hole consumes. There are no shadows on Incon, neither reflections of light – it’s simply a solid nothing, a fluid window through which the expanse of empty is visible. “Incon can’t be destroyed. It’s like trying to blow up time.”

“They’ll– I don’t know, 0129. They’ll send it back.” 0001 sighs. “I’m only the head of Box, I never hear a word from the uppers.”

“That’s why I’m trying to ignore you. They can’t ‘send it back.’ Have you been paying attention to anything?” 0129 knows speaking like this, to 0001 of all people, will result in termination. That doesn’t matter now. Not when things are so much bigger than Box. “Incon fills space. It slipped through the tear, it’s here now. There’s no room to go back. No room. Old world neon ‘NO VACANCY’ sign. Are you listening? Try to listen.”

“You’re making things up–”

“I’m not.”

“We don’t know that any of that is true,” 0001 groans.

“I know these things, ma’am.” 0129 thumps his hand rhythmically against the

glass, where, on the opposite six inches, Incon continues to scratch at the containment window. “I sit here. Hours at a time. I listen. Incon says such… such exciting things, ma’am. Beautiful things about the world, about everything bigger than containment and Box, bigger than the pods and City 32nd. Bigger and more. ”

“I’m going to send you to Medical,” 0001 says, stepping back. “You’ll rest a moment, and the uppers will speak to you. I’ll- I’ll handle this with 0002.”

“0002 is just as stupid as you are,” 0129 says, cheek pressed against the cool, smooth window. “Just as stupid as I used to be.”

by Lily Corcoran

Art

What They are Too Afraid to Tell You.

Avery Barnhouse

What is the use of thousands of dollars if you can’t buy yourself new organs? You can’t take your body apart at the root like you can that house, and you can’t buy the organs of the people below you if you pollute their waters anyways. Your body may be tanned and warm, but you are the same inside as me and that queer kid you used to bully at school and the starving child from the other country you pretend to empathize with. Your thousands of dollars buy the warmth beside you in bed and the food that fuels your life, but it does not buy you a new heart or the ability to breathe. The smog from your pollution will erode your children’s skin and your children’s children will never know your name.

Art by Avery Barnhouse

Art by Lee Kress

Wallflower

Charlotte Erismann

Formality doesn’t suit me.

Tuxedos and ball gowns

Dress shoes and heels.

Women dancing.

“May I have this dance?”

This dance?

You want to dance with me? No.

Two left feet, Broke your heel, Powder your nose. Stick to the walls

In your bow tie and slacks. Stick to the walls

With your diamonds and pearls.

Do not bow to societal expectations

Or a new dance partner.

Art by Phillip Brown IV

Art by Sascha Kendall

Birds

Ben Grabia

“Where are the birds, anyway?”

She glanced up from her phone briefly, looking at me in a way that doesn’t make a guy feel great about himself.

“I mean, you hear em’, right? It sounds like a thousand of them, right in my ear, but when I look, I don't see a single one.”

“What?” she asked, not listening. She doesn’t like to think about things. None of them do, I forget that. I felt stupid for having tried again.

“Nothing.”

There was a time before all of this. No one brings it up, which makes me feel crazy, but I remember, Kelly used to love talking. Before our world was plagued with phones and videos we had to watch. Before the birds.

“You are so weird.” She laughed, brushing me away like a piece of lint, then returning to her mindless scrolling. It’s like she’s not even in the same place as me. Like my present self is so painfully uninteresting to her that she'd rather virtually be somewhere else. Nice.

I look up from our picnic table under the tree. Out to the grass, the barn, the sky. And I can still hear the birds. Mocking me almost. They sound distant, and yet loud enough to be close. Like a movie soundtrack playing over my real life. That’s what gets me. They just don’t sound real. I don’t believe they’re real.

“No.” I announce firmly, shaking my head. “I don’t think I am weird. That seems to be the general consensus nowadays, I know, but I think that’s the safe answer.” I could tell by the look in her eyes that I wasn’t supposed to have spoken on this further. “Why do none of you think? What’s the

crime in talking?” She displayed confusion on her face, but it was artificial. I saw fear. “Why should I want to be somewhere else right now, distracted? I want to be here. With you.” No response, back to scrolling. Her face was birch white. Sweat streamed down her neck. She refused to look up. “Oh, you're not seriously afraid, are you? Of what, the birds?” I turned to face the empty landscape. “Hey birds! You better take me! I’m talking, I’m talking and I’m not afraid! You better come get m-”

“You should be afraid, Benjamin.”

My blood ran cold. The deep, perfectly articulated voice was not Kelly’s. I whipped around.

It couldn’t be. Surely, they weren’t real. And yet, perched calmly a few paces from our picnic table, there it was. A bird.

It stood on strangely muscular legs, had marble-black eyes, nothing behind them, and a pointed yellow beak, stained slightly red. From a lifetime of tearing through flesh, I thought. It was an eagle-looking creature. Only, it was eight feet tall.

I opened my mouth, looking up at the beast. My bones were ice but I was sweating all the same. My heart wanted so badly to jump out of my chest. My stomach was experiencing one long rollercoaster drop. I looked back to Kelly. She was staring into her phone, ever-intently, as if unaware. Behind her distant gaze, I still saw fear, and this time I understood.

“Wh-what do you want?” I called out to the creature, my voice broken and girly.

“You.” It responded. “You are risking the nest. We do not allow that.”

The creature spread its wings without warning and leapt forward.

Art by Mia Siegel

Stained glass by Toluwanise Oje

Eternal Melancholia; The Teenager

Peter Freer

Don't you ache, my dear?

I can hear the melancholy from here

It's in the food you eat

The bed you make in the early mornings

Half awake with sleep in your eyes

It's in the clothes you throw on

When it's too early to think

It's in the music you listen to

The song that makes your chest tighten slightly

It's the yearning

That I can feel radiate from you

In the way you take care of others

You'd like to be taken care of for once, wouldn't you?

Oh yes, that makes you ache, doesn't it?

You scavenge for little moments of tenderness

Hold hugs a little too long because you need to be held

Search for deeper meaning in the words of others

Craving their sweetness and care

Don't you ache, my dear?

Art by Rachel Roberts

by Abigale Sersen

Sculpture

Sculpture by Yahey Eid

The Minds Anonymous

Among many of those who tramp around the minds of those around them, there are those who don’t mind at all. For minding one’s own business I am not as enthused, for minding others? I will cause lots of colloquy, I will fester solutions for such conundrums, being able to obtain the strongest of solutions. Could I be one of those who are tramping? No-no, that is preposterous, I could never be such a foolish disingenuous person. I would be much discomfited in such nonsense.

The number of minds I surround myself with while at my duties leaves me quite disconsolate. I simply could not bear to see my wife after this. She would think I was disassembled– deranged – even a hypocrite. I could never be any of those, no-nonsense; she wouldn’t understand, how could she? How would she? In all logic, the thing to do, the way to do it, the only way to keep everyone safe, my own Houri would have to be put at rest.

I began my plan the next morning whilst the crickets were still lively, the mind of her was too great, too dangerous, too brilliant for one to have. I needed a weapon that would be different- new-unknown. The axe of the stump needed sharpening, can’t use that. The saw over our bed, framed nicely in a glass case, but that was too simple. The freshly sharpened knives from the butcher, no-no, too inculpate. Aha! - AHA! I scramble to the kitchenrunning my fingers across the lethargic marble down to the brass

handle, ripping it off the drawer. I am left only to use my nails to pry open the drawer grabbing out the most obvious of all weapons- a small shallow bowlshaped receptacle- supported only by a skinny handle. At last! I have found my weapon of choice; I have such excitement that my wife looks over at me humorously. I give her a look of great monition as she turns back around finishing to read. I rapidly throw the spoon into her occiput, and she collapses, her plasma oozing, leaving nihility around us as I fill with felicity, saving myself once again from a mind.

Art by Ava Seally

Art by Syd Culberson

Devil in the Eyes of Horses

Liora Tolliver

It’s a hot, stale June. Crickets sing outside the little cabin on the edge of the ranch, just one in a line of several, each housing this year’s crowd of working men. Today was brutal –some boy, barely 18 by the look of him, got taken out to town after a horse-kick to the head. The mood changed after that. He was a nice kid, and his split skull was a reminder to all the men to stay attentive. A night’s rest came welcome to all, no matter how sweaty and fitful.

Chester Allen doesn’t know the names of many ranch hands, just Clyde and Peter, whom he shares the cabin with. Peter is a harsh, fearsome man – he came to New Coyote with the much quieter Clyde a season-or-two back, roaming in from California when the work there dried up.

It’s just past two in the morning and Chester jolts upright when a figure crashes into the cabin, its heavy wooden door slamming hard against the wall. His hand snaps to the pistol under his pillow, cool and smooth against his rough palm. The oil lamp in the figure’s hand shines against his face and Chester recognizes him as one of the new boys, hired a few months back for calving season.

The boy leans against the wall beside the door, body heaving as he gasps for breath.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Chester barks, rising to his feet. “Burstin’ in here, hollering before the sun’s even come up?”

wide, fearful eyes. “I saw some-thing, come on. Come on, come with me. All y’all, come on.”

“I ain’t going no-where,” Chester says, “Till you start explainin’ what you think you seen out there. And it better be real damn good.”

“I can’t explain it, sir. I can’t, I can’t.” He reaches forward but Chester smacks away the boy’s dirty, calloused hand. “Come and see, I ain’t crazy, come on.”

“Shut it,” Peter calls drowsily.

“I didn’t call you crazy, boy.” Chester says. “Don’t you start making things up.”

“You’re thinkin’ it,” the boy sobs. “I just know you’re thinkin’ it, but you’ve gotta come see.”

“Some-times men get to seeing things out here.” Chester says, gaze settling on the wet tears streaking down the boy’s dusty face. “They get lonely at night, missin’ their ma’s and houses. But it’s nothing, kid. Just the cattle callin’ out. Go back to sleep.”

“I seen fire, you don’t get it,” he wails. “The horses, they’re burnin’. There’s fire.”

Chester glances through the warped pane of the southern window, out to where the stables are. It’s dark. Nothing but clear night and distant stars and the low glow of a waning moon.

“There ain’t nothing messin’ with them horses. You had a bad dream, the heat’ll do that to ya. Go on, now.”

“Tell him to shut up!” Peter shouts from the corner, back still turned. “Too damn early for this bullshit.”

“Shut your damn mouth, Pete,” Clyde grumbles. “Ain’t helpin’ nothing.”

“What’s your name, kid?” Chester asks. “What- Hey, quit chokin’ on your air- What’s your name?”

“Jacob,” he says. He reaches again, tugging on Chester’s sleeve “Just- just come on.”

“You ain’t understanding me, Jake.” Chester says, shoving the kid back. “I don’t care about no dream you had.”

“Please-” the boy shrieks.

“Just humor him, Chess,” Clyde grumbles. “Get him outta here.”

“God-damn it, fine.” Chester stomps into his boots, shoving Jacob out of the door into the broad night. “Go on, show me.”

“Thank you,” Jacob whispers, walking towards the stables. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Don’t bother,” Chester huffs.

Jacob creeps slowly forward, his head on a constant swivel. His shoulders hunch as they approach the stable as if to make himself small enough to disappear. “They’re quiet.”

“They’re asleep, Jake, like you should be. There ain’t nothin’ happening.”

“Come on,” Jacob whispers. He leads Chester past the large barn doors, across the hard packed ground and to the open far wall lined with stalls. He points at the one nearest to them. “It’s that one, sir. It’s her.”

“That’s the boss’s hoss, kid. Expensive as hell,

don’t go messin’ with her.”

The mare shifts her feet, ruffling the straw she stands on. Jacob slinks towards her, breathing hard and loud like a cornered sow.

“Jake-”

“Look!” Jacob cries out, swinging the lantern towards the face of the mare. She whinnies, bouncing on her hooves. “You see it? You see it? The flickerin’, good god, the the smoke–“

“You’re scarin’ her, kid! Quit it!” He tries to yank Jacob’s hand away from the horse, but his arm holds like steel, extended towards her. “Get back!”

The mare whinnies again, shaking her head, dancing back until she bumps the back end of her stall.

“Jacob,” Chester hollers. “Fuckin’ stop!”

“I seen it, sir– I– The devil, them’s is demons out here, sir, demons.” Jake rambles, whiteknuckled fist shaking the rusted lantern towards the horse.

She rears back, huffing through a sharp screech. The lantern light shines sharp and yellow on her broad, white face and she shrieks through her teeth.

“No!” Jacob stumbles back. screaming like a caught rabbit, hollering with all the oxygen in his lungs. His hands claw across his face, down his neck, leaving behind red trails of torn flesh. His head bounces against the ground and his legs kick out, seizing and flailing.

“Jake?” Chester says. “Jacob?”

The kid gurgles, neck thrashing to the side, sending blood flying from his nose onto the dry dirt. The fallen lantern flickers against him, illuminating the closer half of his face. His eyes roll back in his head and his mouth stretches open like the yawn of a hound.

Chester hears another snort, his head snaps to look at the horse. Her front leg kicks against the ground and she stares at the twitching form flinching in the dirt, watches as his body slows and stills.

“No,” Chester says. “Fuck.”

He steps back, eyes locking with the wide, dark gaze of the mare. She shakes her head and snuffles. Chester turns and runs, leaving the crumpled body of the boy to lay beside the stable. He jogs back to his cabin, stumbling in and slamming the door behind him. He collapses onto the edge of his cot.

“He calm down?” Peter asks. “He quit hollerin’.”

“Died,” Chester says, voice low and gruff in his throat.

“What?” Clyde asks.

“He died. Fell right back in the dirt. Must’ve gotten some hurtin’ in his brain, makin’ up crazy shit till it killed him.”

“Pity,” Peter says. “Seemed like a strong boy. Lifted them bales like they was nothing.”

“Yeah,” Chester says. Jacob’s face won’t leave his head, the blood trickling down from his nose, the way his body jerked. Something

wrong with him, there must’ve been.

He’ll never tell anyone what he saw, not with any sort of detail. Not the way the boy died. Not the shrieking groans that bubbled up from his throat, foaming like a hydrophobic bobcat. Never, not ever, the yellow flicker he saw in the glimmering eyes of that white mare, the smell of smoke blowing off from her, the curling flame that licked up from behind her teeth.

Some things you ain’t meant to talk about. Some things you die quiet on, and that damn kid figured it too late. Chester wonders what it is that Jacob saw in those ponies, what face of the devil sprung out at him. He imagines the drawings of demons his Catholic mother kept in the back of her bible, stark red faces and gnashing teeth. The next night his dreams will be plagued with images of flaming mares with skin like thorns, stallions made of hot hellfire coals, and of bloodshot eyes rolling back into young skulls. But it isn’t tomorrow yet, and for now he sits on the edge of his cot, the metal frame of it pressing against the back of his legs.

by Evelyn Gonzalez

Art

Sculpture by Mackenzie Scott

Sculpture by Bella Brockmeyer

Fate

Peter Freer

Fate is a cruel mistress not because of the unforgiving harshness she will inevitably forge for you but because of the ever-indulgent, rare blessings of the sweet nectar of life

Oh, what a pity it is to bask in reverie knowing fully well you shall never achieve that high standard nor dream an eternal sprig of hope, planted by the thought of ‘what could have been' worse yet, 'what could be' to construct a dream land, setting one's heart on the most unattainable of outcomes is to abstain from the harsh reality of our plane and yet, fate seems to greet others with the things they yearn for

Fate is a cruel mistress not because she is fair but because even fate picks favorites

Art

Art by Phillip Brown IV

Art by Zoe Barnes

I Liked You

Ryleigh Zimmerman

I liked you.

I liked our Facetimes and our funny conversations. I liked how you were always there for me even though you never answered. I liked getting to know you, your friends, your family. I liked talking about baseball, soccer, and sports in general. I liked teaching you sign language. I liked you.

I really did, but I liked is past tense. I always hoped you would like me the way i liked you. I liked you for you.

Your personality, your smile, you just you.

I liked you in the past.

The past, that's a funny concept. What's considered “the past”.

One minute ago? 30 seconds ago?

The past for me was not too long ago. But a lot has happened in that time.

Alot has changed.

I've grown to like you in the past. Now it will never going to be the same.

by Chelsea Cortes

Sculpture

Sculpture by Abigale Sersen

Art by Jack O’Connor

Art by Nate Brosh

It’s a Well

Loki Minichiello

It is a well-known secret that in order to stay home from school, one must fake sick. Not only must you pretend to be in immense pain, but you must be convincing. You must seem pale, weaker than usual, and not your normal self. You must also seem contagious enough to stay home.

It is a well-known secret that to fake a cold, one must cover their under eyes in blush to give the appearance of illness. You must make your voice hoarse, and layer yourself in blankets. You must also pretend to have a stuffy nose to really sell the act. Tissues are a nice touch as well.

It is a well-known secret that to fake nausea, one must concoct disgusting fake throw up in the bathroom to add to the illusion. You must pull at your eyes to make them watery and pretend to be disgusted at the smell of food. Furthermore, you must deny yourself food in order to prove that you really are sick, even though you aren’t.

It is a well-known secret that in order to fake a fever, you must hold the thermometer up to a light bulb to increase the temperature. You must hold something hot to your forehead incase your mother checks to feel if you’re warm, and you must make your cheeks red to make it seem like your hot.

It is a well-known secret that all of these things help you stay home from school, but an even more well-known secret that you quit when you’re convincing enough to fool the doctor.

Art by Kora Niebel

Knights

Peter Freer

Do you remember?

when we were six years old playing fantasy games on the playground I never wanted a princess to save a prince to marry, oh no I wanted to be a knight to protect others I never truly understood why It makes sense now, though looking back children should not have to beg for a shield— so I took up my own

“Suffering feels religious if you do it right”

I am three

There is glitter on my boots I’m in my winter coat staring at the stone tile on the worn, burgundy cushions of the wooden benches the echoes of The Word of God rain from the vaulted ceilings of this cold, bitter church I am alone in a cold, grey room It’s lit with candles, sure the windows are colorful Vibrant are the depictions of Mary Jesus

The Cross but the words of the pastor

are bitter I can’t remember what his words were something of “sinners” Those who are different from him, with his skin, wrinkly like the wet, offwhite linens hung by the river freckled with dirt

“Sinners” he says Those who love

Those who have loved and been hurt, separating themselves from those who hurt them

Those of different faith different, different, different

“mommy?”

She doesn’t answer She… … walks away? where is she going? why is she leaving me alone here in this seat to be berated by this man for something that isn’t my fault? don’t you know I’m different, mother? Come back, please, he’s loud–loud, loud, Loud, LOUD why am I here, mother? have you no love for me? no mercy? you drag me here, to this cold, bitter place filled with people, but it feels so empty

I’m sure you knew what you were doing then, why else do you take your child to a church

The House of God

Oh, but it is so bitter

So angry why would you tell me He is so kind, If my first impression made me want to beg for mercy I was different you knew it too. you continue, though “nothing is wrong with you” “it’s not a big deal” but the pastor rots in my very being his speech is garbled now from fourteen years of burial in the depths of my brain

tainted from the soil that is my memory fourteen years of blocking it all out Oh, but it echoes even now

The saying of words I cannot–could not–yet understand They worm their way into my brain nonetheless

I have never claimed to be a man of God, but I am still on my knees praying to a deity I don’t believe in in the vain hope that someone will save me

years upon years I have hoped and prayed begged into the void late nights early mornings

The inky black of the witching hour sky The empty white of my bedroom walls

I drown in it, some days It ebbs flows

I pray for someone to fix what was done unto me

save me from the night terrors he left in his wake

The terror that strikes in me when I smell vanilla Frankincense feel leather upon my skin or the benches that reside in churches neither are safe

The themes of the pastor’s words leave my body and mind aching, even now

I don’t believe that orientation is a problem to be fixed but I catch myself judging those who are even in the mirror, especially in the mirror

I don’t think that those who are of different faith are strange. I never have but he does I have to pivot myself from that way of thinking

I support those who stand up for themselves breaking free of relationships unhealthy I admire them for it, yet I find myself thinking “but why?” I loathe that thought even worse still, is the belief that I am broken for the things that were done unto me as if it is my fault for how my brain works the people I love the way I am as a result of being hurt by the people who were supposed to love me and keep me safe in the first place

So here I am begging on my knees for a shield a futile attempt to reach out, I understand but it is buried so deep into my being That someone will save me, if they love me enough

God does not love me, mother neither do you. I’m not sure I love me

I love everyone else, though I’m too empathetic to not

Suffering feels religious if you do it right

what is more religious than sacrifice and saviors? I have not been a willing sacrifice, But I will wear the armor nonetheless

I am more than a Knight, in the battle that is life, my armor is my experience and if suffering is religious, I am holy so I will wear my armor, bear my shield

I am the Knights Templar.

Art by Nevada Abels

Art by Samira Bojorquez

Backstabber

Melayna Tidwell

This is love surreal

Heat burns the delicate roots

This is hate unbound

“Canuck” – Art by Sophie Howell

Silenced

Charlotte Erismann

A shadowy hand gently cups my cheek

Before curling its palm tight across my mouth

Smothering my screams in its depths.

On days like these

Where my lamp buzzes loud with electricity

And my room is painted a sickly yellow, Forcing a single word out is a Herculean effort.

My mom asks me a question And it takes everything in me to open my mouth And croak out a response.

My throat begins to ache, Sympathizing with my heavy tongue and paralyzed lips.

My head throbs and my eyes sting And it almost doesn’t seem worth it.

The hand holds my mouth closed And forces the breath from my lungs. It makes it hard to care enough to speak.

Art by Evelyn Gonzalez

Balistrari

Art by Elizabeth

Sculpture

by Victoria Danielczyk

Sculpture by Emily Vaughn

Desert Eyes

Chloe Page

My eyes have dried up

I no longer cry

Instead, I stare

At the floor

As my eyelids flutter

But no tears come

I’ll feel my stomach drop

And my hands shake

Music so loud in my ears

I can feel it in my heart

But I don’t cry

At least Not Anymore

Art by Sascha Kendall

Art by Samira Bojorquez

POINT PLEASANT, WV

1967

Melayna Tidwell

I waved my hand along the strings of the bridge, imagining it as a plane, dropping freedom bombs on the Soviets.

Freedom bombs. That’s what my mom called it. Spreading the American ideals to the poor people enslaved by the chains of communism. She didn’t realize I was old enough to know that bombs – ACTUAL bombs – were the only way to truly end a war. My uncle, her brother, had told me as much. He was a bomber in World War II, and the most exciting person I knew.

But Mom said there was no need to talk about violence in our own home, INCLUDING the car. So the imaginary devices dropping from my hand were only “freedom” bombs, landing in the glistening winter water of the Ohio River below.

The luggage tied onto our car bumped the roof with a metallic thud as we slowed to a stop amidst the heavy traffic. Our only mortal possessions were in those briefcases. When Dad got the job in Point Pleasant, he had to leave right away. After all, contracting waits for no one. He went ahead as we scrambled to sell or give away everything that wouldn’t fit on top of the car.

A new home, a new school, new people to meet, to judge, to interrogate until I exposed

them as the Soviet spies they were – none of this was new to me. My parents had no roots. They were dandelion seeds, little bits of fluff that floated on the wind until they found some place that fit their fancy.

Mom sighed, checking her watch. “After all this, to be so close, and we’re stuck here.”

My hand plane stilled in midair and had no choice but to fall into the river below. I mimicked an explosion but stopped at the sight of Mom’s disapproving eyebrows. “It was the plane,” I promised, “not the bombs.”

“If all we focus on is war-”

“-then all we’ll be able to see is war,” I finished her phrase, which I had heard countless times before, always following any comment made by me or my father made about the Red Plague.

“The Hunt” – Art by Kora Niebel

I fished my hand out from the wreckage of the plane, this time morphing it into a daring adventurer, trekking up the side of the bridge’s wires.

The adventurer paused halfway up the steep, suspended mountain. He had seen something that was enough to make his knees tremble beneath him and break him out of his makepretend reality entirely.

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear?” Her eyes were fixed on the car in front of her, which had started to inch forward.

“What’s that?”

With a sigh, her eyes followed the direction my finger was pointing. Her eyes widened; her jaw slackened. I could see the blood drain from her face.

I turned to get a better look at the unsettling sight, my mind raging with images of communist spies and Soviet war machines.

A loud crack interrupted my red-stained visions.

With a sickening crunch, our car, and the one in front of us – no, the entire bridge! - lurched forward. With a frenzied fury, Mom put the car in reverse, but it was no use. Me, her, everyone else in this congested mess, slid forward as the bridge shuddered. The car in front of us disappeared, and I was left staring at the churning Ohio river.

The car flipped sideways as we fell. I could barely hear Mom’s screams over my own heartbeat pounding in my skull.

As the water closed over my window, I caught a final glimpse of it.

It was flying away from the carnage on huge black wings.

Then it looked over its shoulder.

The last thing I saw were two blood-red bug eyes.

The frigid water rose up to my neck, enclosing me in an icy darkness, and my mom’s screams and my own heartbeat were replaced by the pressure of rushing water until that, too, faded away.

Art by Kora Niebel

by Sascha Kendall

Art

Untitled

Kora Niebel

In shadows cast, o’er rooms of smokey haze.

I spy you from afar, my heart intertwined.

With ever aspect, my soul set ablaze.

A paradox of life, love undefined.

Your voice, a melody, like whispers soft.

Exotic cadence, a captivating spell.

A presence powerful, yet aloft.

Enigmatic allure, in shadows dwell.

Alabaster skin, a moonlit glow.

Contrasting words, a tale of secrets veiled.

A phantom’s grace, as white as driven snow.

Intriguing depths, a soul that’s never paled.

In whispered vows, my heart remains concealed.

Admiring from afar, my love unseen.

Art by Chelsea Perkins

Art by Mia Siegel

Art by Julia Pfarr

Arospec

Avery Barnhouse

I wrote a song for someone I loved. I am young, And stupid, So miserably stupid. I sang to them before I could be sure it would stay. I fell in love with someone with my eyes wide open. I close my mouth.

I changed the world for someone I loved. Or at least I wish I could have.

I changed everything just to see them smile. I fell in love with someone with my heart on my sleeve. I open my mouth.

Art by Catie Wehage

Art by Jasmine Owens

Pressed Flowers

Melayna Tidwell

Held under crushing weight For time unforetold, Drained of my life and soul; Made your idea of beautiful

Art by Abigale Sersen

Art by Bella Fisher

Art by Emma Cornman

Art by Jack O’Connor

Art by Evelyn Gonzalez

A complicated relationship with food

Peter Freer

It's that sickening feeling, Food settling

Just finishing dinner

Leaving the table

When it hits you that you've eaten that much

It eats at you

Guilt

Claws sunk deep

It's looking at the food on your fork

Just before you have to put it in your mouth

Gnash your teeth and smile politely Force it down your throat

That horrible sinking feeling in your gut

Where it is heavy blunt acidic

Content Warning: Mentions of eating disorder, self-harm

Art by Luke Brown

Art by Emma Cornman

Steelville Loki Minichiello

Off in the plains of the great Midwest, where the corn is plenty and the wheat no less lies the quiet still town of Steelville, Illinois.

What’s special about it? Is there even joy?

Well I’ll tell you, you see, for joy there is. In their own homely way, like “pop” with fizz.

There aren’t any McDonalds, and not a Starbucks in sight. Especially no Target, Walmart, or other blight.

But the Steelville Marketplace was fine by the townsfolk, they didn’t need a mall, just a friend and a good joke, but dairy queen did well for the young folk.

The atmosphere of family must rise up in the plains. That sheer flatness must have done something to their brains. Despite lacking in resources, all were cheery and bright. Save

for that one raccoon, which the town hated with all their might.

People got along, and made do with what they can. It was special to see that, refreshing as it began.

Yet this town was dying, and it wasn’t its fault. I truly felt bad its work was all for naught.

Perhaps a story would form here one day. A girl with talent longing to get away.

For though the wheat sways its nothing to broadway.

She might work her whole life trying oh so hard, saying “Big city here I come!” Is that her glass shard?

I don’t know perhaps she’ll make it. When I see her one broadway, I can say she had a chance and chose to take it. But for many, its fake it til you make it.

The

best kind of pain is the one in your heart

Melayna Tidwell

The crash Pounds your thin skull, Pulls you in the current. You realize this is how it feels To love.

Art by Victoria Danielczyk

Art by Corrin Turner

I entered the small dining room which was incredibly dusty and felt cold in a way. Everything was left the way it was after he died, including the food, which was closer to nothing, as is when I last saw it. I dumped some here.

The living room sat parallel to the dining room and kitchen, though it was in much heavier disrepair. It is where Mom and Dad slept, as their real bedroom was for other purposes. The TV still didn’t work, and neither did the housephone. I dumped some here.

I noticed the window to the side of this room. I remember sneaking past my parents to open the window at 8:55 pm every night to crawl out to meet Jamie by the old oak tree. I remembered the last conversation there.

“I had turkey tonight. My mom said she knew what was going on here. Said something about getting you out of it, Tom.” He handed me a chunk of turkey in a little container, which was more food than usual.

“She can’t do that; they’re my parents. They just get angry sometimes, but they love me. At least, I love them.” Jamie couldn’t understand, but he nodded. I turned my head stiffly and quickly, skittish about any noise. I was always anxious out of the house, but this night felt different.

We talked for an hour about Power Rangers, cars and current events, stuff I could not see. As I ate, I dreamed what it would be like outside the house and beyond the tree.

But that was years ago. Jamie moved states away. My dad’s liver failed. My mom died in a car crash. As I stared from the window into the dent in the earth where I once sat, I was reminded of why I was here. I sighed and walked away; my final glance was of the old tree that now stood withering.

The old linen closet, that I was told was a suitable room for somebody, had not changed in the slightest. The pad I used to sleep on was still stained with tears and the stack of books Jamie gave me still sat ever so precariously on a wooden box that had been bashed to high heaven. That was one of the only things Dad ever gave me, his trash. I dumped some here.

The original bedroom of my parents was converted into a barren room with an oven. Well, in truth, it was a lab that was called an oven. It was always called an oven to keep me away, thinking it was nothing. My parents worked from home, which is why I could only leave the house for school in fear of me telling too much. Though they received heaps of money for the drugs they sold, I never received a nickel of benefit. The greatest disservice to what happened there was for it all to be nothing.

I dropped the match here.

Art by Ryley Montgomery

Art by Phillip Brown IV

Life

Peter Freer

I lust for the idea of life itself

There's nothing quite like laying in the lazy afternoon sunlight

Soaking up the warmth of the world's most precious and vital sources

I live for the smiles of lovers

Hand in unlovable hand

I bathe in the laughter of my friends

The way their eyes scrunch up as they giggle

I sink into the crevices

Where moss grows and fungi thrive

I breathe in the sweet air of the valleys

And marinate in the speckled sunlight that reaches through the trees

I seep into the cool river water

Washing away the worries and burdens of days passed

I lust for the idea of life itself and the glory that it holds

That everything we are, is everything that ever has been and everything that will be

Art by Elizabeth O’Brien

Art by Syd Culberson

Art by Lio Tolliver

Think Anonymous

Think.

Think about the way you look after a long day of work soExhausted.

Think about dragging your feet through the doorframe, gasping forAir.

Think about charging to your armchair and shrieking til you had yourIce. Cold. Beer.

Think about expressing yourself towards me like a bull when it sees that brightRed.

Think about smiling, good towards me, if I hadn’t let youDown.

Think about replaying those short instances, when there wasn’t fighting all the timePeace.

Think about why it happened- where it went wrong – why it all justStopped.

Art by Emma Cornman

Art by Jack O’Connor

Secret of the Tolls

Katie Vanarsdale

Our town was perfect. The weather was always pleasant, and the grass was always lush, a thick carpet beneath our feet. My town had everything we could possibly need. We had mountains and snow to the north, and warm beaches and waves to the south. To the west were gently rolling hills, golden fields of wheat waving in the breeze. To the east was a giant river that cut our town off from the surrounding towns.

On top of this river was a bridge that connected us to the only road leading in and out of the town. A single metal arm hung across the road, controlled by the lone man in the toll booth, blocking the road. The closest I had ever gotten to the bridge was standing a few yards away, crouching in the bushes, watching the toll man sweep the road.

He had been there as long as I could remember. He never talked to anyone, and I never saw him come into town. He was always at the bridge, either sweeping the road, or sitting in his toll booth. Nobody knew where he came from or even what his name was. But he was always there.

I became fascinated by the man in the booth. How could everybody know him and yet not know a single thing about him? Every day after school I would sneak out to hide in the bushes down by the river rock. I didn’t watch him for long, maybe half an hour each

day before sneaking back towards my perfect little house, on the perfect little street, with the perfect little family.

It was midspring when the weirdest phenomenon happened. I had been sitting by the river rock when I had seen a car coming from the road that led from town. I couldn’t tell who it was, but the metal arm never rose to let them through. The toll man hobbled towards the car and spoke. I couldn't hear what was said over the roar of the river, but the car turned around and headed back into town. An hour later a car came from the far side of the bridge, heading into town. The arm rose immediately to let them through, and again the toll man stopped to talk to them.

The weirdest part happened a week later. Suddenly, the tourist family who had come into town that day, was moving into a house that appeared overnight. The entire town acted like they had been there forever. I felt like the only one who knew that they had just arrived. But nobody ever talked about the people who tried to leave, it was as though it never happened.

Whatever was happening, it had to do with the secret of the tolls. Nobody ever questioned when people would suddenly live here, yet nobody ever left. It was the secret that everyone knew, but never talked about. You could come into our town, but once you did, you wouldn’t ever leave.

Art by Lio Tolliver

Ghost Sightings

Charlotte Erismann

I bought the book at a Goodwill.

With you at my side, I felt invincible. Your head tilted towards mine, Whispered theories and hushed giggles

Shared in the air between us.

A paper clip marked a map in our book.

You thought it had meaning

So I bought it for you without hesitation.

The book was about ghost sightings

Across the pond. No relevance to us

But it made you smile, so I had no choice.

I see ghosts everywhere now.

I hear the echoes of your laughter

And see your rust-colored hair

In my peripheral vision when I see our book

Lying lonely and neglected on my bookshelf.

I see you reclining on my bed

Head thrown back in laughter

I can’t remember the sound of.

My soul is haunted by you.

I carry a piece of you with me

Everywhere I go. Forever tailed

By the ghost of that day

Spent chasing your laughter

Morgan

Art by Ella

Art by Taylor Kraus

Art by Luke Brown

Enlisted

Brandon Armiger

“Hey Gomez, you ought to get that mud out your hair, otherwise the drill instructor will chew you out lookin’ like that,” Barnhouse said with a smirk.

Gomez raises his hands to his head. His head feels so heavy because he is so physically exhausted, and his spirit is nearly broken. “Yeah, I know, but honestly I don’t think I'll be here much longer...” Gomez looks around nervously while tapping his fork constantly.

“Why I'm sure you can do it. If the past generations before us could do it, we can too!”

“Thanks, but I felt like I had too, regardless. My dad, my grandfather, and my uncle were all in the military”

“Oh? So do you feel obligated to be here just because your family has been in the military too?”

“Yeah, I just want to prove I can be good enough for them...”

“Well, I’d say you should stick around as long as you can, but if decide not to that’s all up to you, man.”

“Yeah, but how do I know if I'll make it...,”Gomez says with a sigh

“You will make it; I just know it” Barnhouse says with confidence .

Just then, the drill instructor walks into the room to tell their squadron to move out of chow hall and move to the briefing room.

“Alright, Trainees, we are going to do PT, which will contain a 25-mile run and an obstacle course!”

“Sir yes sir” the trainees shout.

Gomez comes back from PT entirely drenched in sweat. Right now, the physical and mental exhaustion is making Gomez question if he is good enough for the military.

“Hey! Gomez, look. You ran one of the fastest times in our squadron. I knew you could do it!” Barnhouse says as he slaps Gomez on the shoulder.

Gomez, sweat running down his face, walks over to the board where lap times are recorded. He looks at the top of the board and sees his lap time, and he feels this sense of pride, feeling like he can keep pushing through basic military training and make his family proud.

“Dude, you’re right!” Gomez says with pride and excitement in his voice . “I think I'm going to go to the very end I think I can show everybody I can do this!”

“See I knew you could do it!”

“Maybe you’re right, I think I can do this...!’

As the weeks pass, Gomez develops this sense of belonging in basic training. He realizes that he doesn’t have to do this just because of what the previous generations of his family have done. He wants to do it for himself, so he decides he wants to graduate as an enlisted airman of the United States Air Force.

The day has come, and Gomez and the rest of his squadron are getting ready to graduate from the Airforce's basic military training. Everybody can tell that the squadron feels happy but nervous for graduation but at the same time filled with pride..

“Trainees,” a slight pause in the command, “March!” the drill instructor shouts. The drill instructor gives the order for the trainees to move towards their family members to congratulate them. Before they leave, he continues, “Trainees you are now officially a United States Airforce Airmen! You may now see your families. You should all feel very proud of yourselves”

“We are, thank you sir!” the trainees shout back in response.

His mother and father both run to Adam with open arms shouting, "Congratulations Adam!!” In the warm embrace of his mother and father he knows everything he went through was worth it.

Art by

Nate Brosh

“The Life of the Artist in Two Images”

Art by Kavin Carter

Art by Eugene Liebel

The End