Lighted Corners 2022

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Volume 41 Lighted Corners

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Mount St. Mary’s University 16300 Old Emmitsburg Road Emmitsburg, MD 21727 301-447-6122 lightedcorners@msmary.edu msmary.edu/lightedcorners www.twitter.com/lightedcorners www.instagram.com/lightedcorners

Volume 41 Spring 2022

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lighted corners Editor-in-Chief Assistant Editor

Emmy Jansen Claire Doll

Design Editor

Victoria Tyler

Art Editors

Janelle Ramroop & Brett Snow

Poetry Editors Assistant Poetry Editor

Kayla Cooper & Margaret Stine Abigail Jarrett

Senior Fiction Editor Fiction Editor Assistant Fiction Editors

Betsy Busch Erin Daly Annabelle Colton & Elena Murphy

Creative Nonfiction Editor Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editors

Maria Stollenwerk Jenna Scalia & Gabe Vilches

Submission Manager

Sydney Kelly

Public Relations Manager

Erin Duncan & Kayla Jones

Faculty Adviser

Tom Bligh

Staff Rebekah Balick, Tess Boegel, Austin Bradley, Paul Fagnano, Hailey Fulmer, Katie Gaskins, Madison Hall, Rachel Hoerner, Cyre Hooper, Matthew Jenkins, Joanna Kreke, Alyssa Pierangeli, Maureen Pham, Marcelo Saunders, Malcolm Stidham, Angelica Tyler

Follow us! @lightedcorners

ghost Policy Statement Lighted Corners recruits its staff in September and opens for submissions in November.

Students from across the university submit works that reflect diverse perspectives and themes. After removing the names of the contributors, the Lighted Corners staff review submissions. The editors make final selections and design the layout for the magazine by striving to create a union between word, image, and theme. All Mount students, regardless of major, are welcome to join the staff and submit their work for possible publication.

Production Lighted Corners partners with Valley Graphic Services in Frederick, Maryland. 250 copies are printed by the company. The Spring 2022 issue is printed on 100# Gloss Cover and the inside is 70# Uncoated Opaque Text. The magazine body text is set in Kigelia LGC and headers are set in Superior Title. Lighted Corners is created using Adobe Creative Cloud.

Editor-in-Chief Emmy Jansen and Design Editor Victoria Tyler worked collaboratively on the layout of the magazine.

About Lighted Corners is an annual literary and arts magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, fine art, and photography created by students of Mount St. Mary’s University. Lighted Corners holds memberships with the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and Sigma Tau Delta.

The undergraduate student population of Mount St. Mary’s is 1,898.

The Lighted Corners logo was designed by Rachel Donohue, C’21, in 2019. Rachel was a long-time Design Editor and served as Editor-in-Chief for Volume 40.

lighted corners Awards The Columbia Scholastic Press Association is an international student press association, founded in 1925, whose goal is to unite student journalists and faculty advisers at schools and colleges through educational conferences, idea exchanges, textbooks, critiques, and award programs.

Gold Medalist 2021, 2020, 2019, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2008 Silver Medalist 2018, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009 Silver Crown Award 2014 Gold Circle Awards

2021 to Rebekah Balick, Claire Doll, Rachel Donohue, Emmy Jansen, Kayla Jones

2020 to Tess Boegel, Gigi Gaston, Jazlyn Ibarra

2015 to Shannon Gilmore The William Heath Award is an honor earned by the student who demonstrates outstanding achievement in creative writing. For more than twenty-five years, Dr. William Heath taught American literature and creative writing at Mount St. Mary’s University.

Alba Sarria 2021 Breanna DeSimone and Cara Gose 2020 Katherine Brittingham 2019 Trevor Fulmer and Maggie McCormick 2018 Our contributors have earned recognition in Delta Epsilon Sigma National Scholastic Honor Society’s undergraduate writing competition. Delta Epsilon Sigma is a national scholastic honor society established in 1939 for students of Catholic Universities and colleges in the United States.

Claire Doll 2022 First Place in Short Fiction for “Swimming Lessons”

First Place in Poetry for “This Life” “The Austrian Alps,” a poem by Ian Schirra, and “A Shadowy Figure,” fiction by Eileen Rosewater, from Volume 40 of Lighted Corners have been selected for plain china: the Best Undergraduate Writing.

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editor’s note

We are all haunted by something. Chances not taken. Words not said. The loss of a loved one. Yet we are not only haunted by negative things. Childhood holds onto us, where we grow another year older but don’t lose the age we were before. Beautiful memories grab us, leaving marks on us to carry for the rest of our lives. Who can un-see a sunrise? Yet it is not just the past that haunts us, but the future too. The knowledge of what is to come and the fear of what it will be like is ever-present above our heads.

It is this idea, the ghosts of our lives, that inspired Lighted Corners Volume 41. Each of us are haunted by our past, present, and future. We chose this theme, fully aware of the negative connotation of the word ghost, of demonic activity and horror movies. We challenge the reader to think more broadly. Our pieces range from dark to light, from anguish to peace. The reader should aim to see the beauty in every inch of darkness and to join us in reminiscing in what ghosts you hold as well.

This is one way Lighted Corners has impacted me. In 2019, I joined the staff as Assistant Design Editor. I was experienced with literary magazines, having worked with my high school’s publication. But I was not an artist; I was a writer. And yet, since starting college three years ago, I forgot that. It was not until this year’s publication that I submitted any of my written work because I had no written work to submit. Serving as Assistant Design Editor to Design Editor to Editor-in-Chief today has brought up some of the ghosts of my past, showing me the power of my written words and encouraging me to pick up a pen again. I’ve desperately enjoyed letting the pieces of the contributors shape this magazine into an art piece in its own right.

However, I am not the only voice to haunt this magazine. I would be remiss if I did not mention the incredibly dedicated, talented staff of writers and artists who made this magazine possible. I would like to thank Dr. Bligh, our fearless leader and adviser, who allowed me to test my artistic vision, even if he couldn’t quite see it yet. He has heralded staff after staff through beautiful, thoughtful magazines and I can only hope to see what next year’s staff creates. I’d also like to thank Robin and the Valley Graphic team for always supporting Lighted Corners, especially through these past three years of challenges.

We ask that you peruse these pages, leaving popular connotations behind, and allow our ghosts to haunt you for a while.

Editor-in-Chief, Emmy Jansen

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table of contents Visual Art

Sunrise 32 Rebekah Balick Flowers in Bloom 39 Frances Fisher Santa Maria del Fiore 43 Mary Lawler A View from Baia Mare, Romania 51 Mary Lawler Art Block 52 Rebekah Balick Cinque Terre 56 Mary Lawler California Sea Cave 59 Aubrey Preske The Grand Adventure 72 Rebekah Balick

Creative Nonfiction Because Robin Williams Died Eileen Rosewater Ms. Hader Made a Mistake Joanna Kreke Ask Your Doctor About Megan Ulmer Between the Iron Bars Joanna Kreke A Meditation on Winter Lexi Zambito

20 39 41 44 57

Poetry

Glass Shattered 13 Emmy Jansen Cassandra Jean 18 Kayla Cooper Harvest 22 Ashari Cain Missing: A Villanelle 26 Emmy Jansen Seeking Eden 27 Angela Vodola Oxford University Villanelle 38 Matthew Jenkins Eyes of Gold 42 Claire Doll A Love Song for a King 43 Alyssa Pierangeli Evergreen 49 Ashari Cain Staring at My Bookshelf 50 Angela Vodola The Seamstress 51 Margaret Stine Pizza 55 Megan Ulmer Ode to the Call 56 Sarah Johnson No One Else Can 58 Emmy Jansen Heavenly Bodies 67 Erin Daly I Fear 69 Paige Moseley The Dawn 71 Tess Boegel Where I’m Running To 75 Sarah Johnson Freckled Wall 77 Rachel Hoerner

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Conversation off of Route 44 11 Erin Daly Just a Little Story 14 Rebekah Balick Sitting Under Starry Skies 23 Claire Doll Heart Rot 29 Erin Daly Swimming Lessons 30 Claire Doll Los Pensamientos de la Llorona 53 Alyssa Pierangeli Afterparty 60 Megan Ulmer The Final Tapestry 73 Betsy Busch

Photography

Turin 10 Brett Snow Reflection 12 Brett Snow Berries and Raindrops 15 Dolores Hans The Calm Before the Storm 18 Danielle Brathwaite Rainbow Leaf 20 Victoria Tyler Flores Dos 22 Emma Tettey Fall Nights 24 Brittney Bolling A Cliff View of Sunset 26 Dolores Hans

Journey to Sunrise 27 Paige Moseley Lonely Blue 28 Robert Prender Dogs 38 Emma Tettey Moon 40 Dolores Hans Art Studio 42 Brett Snow Bridge Over the Potomac 46 Timothy Hrabinski Evergreens 48 Brett Snow Starstruck 50 Victoria Tyler OC Twilight Sky 54 Timothy Hrabinski Different Shades of Blue 57 Victoria Tyler Muted Spring 62 Paige Moseley Good Luck Charm 66 Paige Moseley Looking Through a Lens 68 Victoria Tyler Fallen Fall 70 Robert Prender Deer Family 75 Dolores Hans Windows in Orvieto 76 Brett Snow Cover: Pentecost in the Pantheon | watercolor and ink Mary Lawler

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Turin | digital photography Brett Snow

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conversation off of route 44

She finds him in the bathroom of a dilapidated truck stop, of all places. His perfectly tailored black suit seems neon bright against the dingy walls and muddy floors that are more forest than tile.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” the young woman says, squinting up at him. “Why didn’t you come when I called those times before?”

He peers down at her, unimpressed. “I apologize, I am quite busy. What makes you think you have any right to see me before your designated appointment?”

“I’m so lonely,” she replies. “My boyfriend left me, my mother hates me, and my friends don’t reach out anymore. I’m tired of trying to get better and failing over and over again. Won’t you save me?”

He squats down to her level and places a frigid hand against her cheek. She can’t make out any of the defining features of his face. Every time she blinks, he transforms into a different variation of the same imposing figure.

“I have seen suffering much worse than yours, suffering you could not even imagine.” He removes his hand and gives her a bit of a self-deprecating smile.

“Besides, I’m no hero.”

The young woman is struck by how much peace his presence provides. For the first time in ages, she can’t feel the violent war happening within her mind.

Typically, she feels like she’s crawling out of her skin, or like someone or something is possessing her and making her do and say things she doesn’t want to.

She watches herself self-destruct from the outside, and whoever is controlling her actions evidently has no concern about collateral damage. But now, she’s settled back into her body. Everything is blissfully quiet.

Until it isn’t. It takes her some time to place the sound, but she eventually turns to see her phone vibrating incessantly on top of a pile of dead poppy leaves.

“I believe that’s my cue,” he says, standing up and brushing off the nonexistent blemishes on his suit. He begins to walk away, kicking the small pile of used needles out of sight as he goes.

“No, wait!” she cries. “Please don’t leave me here. How do I keep going? How do I move past this?”

Death smiles again. “It’s not my job to tell you how to live.”

Erin Daly

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Reflection | digital photography Brett Snow

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glass shatteredEmmy Jansen

I don’t remember how it started— who leaned in first?

Did he touch my waist, or did I brush his hand?

September, but warm.

Something is already wrong.

I don’t remember what he said, but I remember his eyes glancing down, keenly aware of how my clothes clung to my curves.

For the first time, I knew he did not see me as friend.

Because you don’t do that to a friend— You don’t.

You don’t?

I don’t remember what movie he put on, but we didn’t watch it.

Glass bottles and glass candles and glass shatters because beautiful things are always broken.

That’s why he chose me, right?

I don’t remember him ever looking at me that way before, like a beholder of masterpieces, or a possessor of something that didn’t belong to him.

We call those people thieves.

No boy had called me beautiful until that night.

So was it stolen or was it given?

Given like the whiskey drops that appeared in front of me, Given like my smoke-scented sweatshirt in his hands, Given second chance and third and fourth before I’ve Given up.

I don’t remember how many times I said no before he got tired of asking.

I don’t remember what time it was or if days had passed between blinks of consciousness, but I remember that I still haven’t seen Barbados, and that beautiful things are always broken.

I can hear it in the whispers he breathed over my skin that night, and the bruises that blessed my body while I was asleep.

The next thing we did was Sunday Mass, unworthy and unclean.

But I don’t remember what the Gospel was or how to forgive ourselves for things we’ve done, and things that have happened to us.

I don’t remember how it started or how it ended.

I don’t remember the moments in between.

But the next time I heard someone say his name, I remember being scared.

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just a little story

little one—I have a story I Rebekah Balick wantDear to tell you.

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Now, I’m not very good at telling stories, though I am very old and have spent all my time listening to them. But this story—I think it may help you. It’s a true story, you know. A story about the little human sapling who used to come to my forest every day, back when I was shorter and thinner and greener. It had black hair, like woodpecker feathers, and lived in that house over in the clearing. The house had been empty for a long time before the little sapling came, and the woods had been lonely.

I was glad they weren’t lonely anymore. Glad, you see, not scared.

The human sapling wandered into the forest one day alone.

When it entered, it had one of its tiny little branches in its mouth.

It could barely walk at that time; it takes the humans a while before they really figure out how to move, you know. And no wonder; moving sounds exhausting. But anyway, the little sapling took steps towards me and made it all the way to my roots before falling—knocked by the wind, or tripped, or something—and landed square on the ground with its trunks all splayed out. It did not stand up again just yet; it waved its branches about in the air. Then one of its branches picked up one of my fallen twigs, and the human sapling started to drag the twig along in the dirt. You wouldn’t believe what I saw next. The little human used my twig to create things, right there on the ground, just like we

were created long ago. No, these did not grow like we grow. But it was creation all the same, and you would not believe how beautiful it was. I wanted to lean down to get a closer look, but I think the sound of my trunk creaking scared the little sapling. It pushed itself to stand and wandered back out. The sapling’s creation remained for a whole day before the squirrels destroyed it, but I still think about it a lot, you know.

The little sapling came back many times, and I was so excited to have a human in the forest.

It always fascinated me how the humans can move and jump and play. Like the deer, though not as graceful. They sing, too, like the birds, though not the same tunes. I don’t think the birds can understand them, even though sometimes they sound so alike I can’t tell them apart. I especially like those long, high sounds that echo through the forest and make their entire bodies shake. Those sounds feel like summer sunrises and shooting stars.

One day the little sapling fell into the briar bush and cut one of its branches. The song it sang then was not pleasant. It ripped out from the little sapling like the groaning of our fellows during a storm, and it hurt me to hear it. The little sapling held the branch close as its sap dripped out. Humans have two kinds of sap, you know. The first is the red sap, which flows all through their trunks and branches. It tastes like metal. The second is clear sap,

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Berries and Raindrops | digital photography Dolores Hans

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lighted corners and it only comes from their eyes, and it tastes like salt. That sap flows even if the eyes haven’t been hurt.

My old friend—the one who fell a decade ago—used to say that the clear sap flows when something has been hurt inside of the human, deep beneath their bark. No, they aren’t hollow; they have something else to fill them, you know. I think it’s called a heart.

Anyway, both kinds of sap started to flow out of the little sapling, and believe me, little one, it was quite sad to watch.

One of the other humans quickly came running from the house into the woods and made itself small beside the sapling. This tall human touched the red sap and made soft cooing sounds as it wrapped its big branches around the little sapling’s body. Eventually the human sapling stopped shaking, and though the awful cries continued, they weren’t as desperate. That’s a special gift the humans have, you know—to wrap their branches around each

even though we can’t wrap our branches around them,

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other. My old friend said it heals the wounds deep beneath their bark.

That was the first time I heard the little sapling give out such wails, but it wasn’t the last.

Time passed, and I grew taller and thicker, and the little sapling grew and became—well, almost not a sapling anymore. I will never forget the day it ran out and curled itself up against my trunk. It was doing the wailing again, and I could feel it shaking this time. Little rivers of the salty sap ran down its face, even though there was no red sap to be seen. It must have been a very, very deep wound beneath the bark. I kept wondering when the other human would come and wrap its branches around the little sapling and heal that wound. But the sun began to sink lower, and still the little sapling was alone. I wanted to bend down and wrap my branches around it, to help it and heal it, but we can’t do that, you know.

So I tried to keep the little human warm against me—humans are like

ghost birds, you know, they have to keep warm—and tried to make some sweeter music with my branches and leaves when the wind came.

I don’t know if it helped. I didn’t understand why the other humans didn’t come—why they didn’t take every chance they could to wrap their branches around their little saplings and heal the deep wounds.

It looks so nice and so warm when they do that. But humans don’t always realize what a gift their branches are.

Eventually the little sapling became a grown human, and I saw far, far less of it, up until the day I never saw the human again.

Humans never stay in one place, you know. After it left there were no other humans who were regular to me. Every once in a while someone would wander in and stay and sit with us, coming to feel alone.

My old friend used to say that we comfort them—the humans, I mean. Even though we can’t wrap our branches around them, we give

we give them a little bit of healing for their wounds deep beneath their bark.

them a little bit of healing for their wounds deep beneath the bark. I don’t know how, but we do.

I suppose that’s what I’m trying to tell you, little one. Do not fear the humans, and do not blame them. They are careless, and they can be cruel, and they can be fearsome when their branches grow the sharp metal and come to take us down. But they are good, and they like us, even love us. And you know what, little one? We would be useless without them.

Meaningless.

They give meaning to everything. We were made for the humans, you know. Everything here was made for them and for their care.

One day, I think, they’ll realize it.

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cassandra jean Kayla Cooper

Her wild curls, brown and soft, brushed against my face, a warm embrace, to shield me against the cold.

“Daddy cried, I didn’t know he could.”

“My daddy cries too, sometimes, when mommy drinks too much.”

Understanding, soft hands, clasped tight.

Rough trees, scaling branches high, a nest for her and I. Sprawled pages of books in sight, resting on a sturdy branch, still hand in hand, wrists covered in braided pink string, a promise between no one but the two of us.

“It means best friends forever, okay?”

“Okay, forever.”

Spring frost melted into summer honeysuckle memories— muggy, buggy, crickety nights—streetlights blinking like stars, calloused bare feet, hot pavement, skinned knees from jumping fences, stealing blackberries from the garden down the street, freedom, as much of it as we could soak in— Falling Falling Falling off park swings in a warm September breeze.

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”

“No, have you?”

“Yes. Well, actually no.”

“I wonder what it feels like.”

“Me too.”

Blurry yellow school buses, broken square-framed glasses, junior high, laughter, laughing, who are they laughing at?

Fraying pink bracelet, pulling threads, scary big desks, sharp ringing bells, cold metal lockers slamming, pencil lead and cigarette smoke stuck to her nice new grown-up clothes, flat, brownish-blonde hair, and a sneer replacing her soft smile.

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The Calm Before The Storm | digital photography Danielle Brathwaite Pink bracelet gone, lying next to dead leaves from the nest we made in the trees.

“Get lost, this is big kid time.”

“Yeah, go run to your mommy—you still probably call your mom, Mommy.”

She just stared, silent rejection, blue eyes cold like ice, no sign of melting.

But Mommy is 30 minutes and a-few-big-roads-away, that’s why I saw Daddy cry that day.

A broken pink bracelet, a broken promise, furious fat hot tears, blurring already blurry eyes.

Old little-kid clothes, grass stained; they smell like fresh laundry detergent and melted ice-cream.

Swing set memories, soft lips, an experiment.

I was only curious, really: a chaste kiss: Snow fell, forming crisp white sheets, covering the dead leaves from fall.

Cold wind bit at my ears, it dried my angry tears, heartbreak healed by weeks, months, years— An occasional glance without recognition, passing between tile-patterned hallways.

Long gone are her soft brown curls and my little-kid clothes.

I traded them away long ago replacing them with false confidence and cigarettes.

Am I a big kid too, now? Just like you?

Silence filled the spaces between time, time is questionable, forgetting memories.

You are smoke now, intangible, disappearing as soon as you came.

Were you ever real? I find that my memories aren’t always trustworthy.

But, even now, I still feel a phantom of your warm embrace whenever I’m met with the chill of early spring.

Your warmth slipped through my fingers, but I know it was there, because it lingers.

Long after the years have passed, long after the silence stung, only in between the waking from my dreams, can I see or rather, allow myself to remember, Cassandra Jean.

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because robin williams died Eileen Rosewater

Because I was old enough to understand what happens to people like him sometimes.

Because I had started taking my frustration, sadness, guilt, and pain out on myself. Because I forced myself to wear a sweatshirt to school every day, so I wouldn’t alarm my friends or teachers. Because I couldn’t understand why I was feeling the way I was feeling and was too embarrassed to let anyone know I was struggling. Because my best friend was a genius in school.

Because I was always placed in lower-level math. Because none of the answers on my homework were ever correct. Because every time I was forced to share my answer or write on the board, I was wrong.

Because no matter how much I studied, I never improved. Because I would get the same answer wrong more times in a row than I could count, and the solution turned out to be so simple for everyone else. Because all I wanted was to be fixed. Because nobody else was struggling as much as I was.

Because I had to keep smiling

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Rainbow Leaf | digital photography Victoria Tyler

ghost and pretend everything was okay, so my parents wouldn’t worry, and I could help my friends with their problems. Because I was the strong one, who wasn’t allowed to break down. Because too many people needed me and I couldn’t let them all down. Because who would take care of them if I wasn’t here? Because if my light went out, who would guide them through the dark? Because what would happen if yet another light burned out?

Because how could a light like him, have so much darkness around him? Because how could his smile be a mask for his tears? Because if one of the greatest actors and comedians of all time could hide his depression so well, what does that mean for the rest of us? Because people loved him and needed him to be okay, but unfortunately, sometimes people just don’t want to stay.

Because like him, behind my smile is a world of pain. Because when his light went out, the world darkened a whole lot. Because he was a role model for me and countless others. Because he made all of us feel less alone in the world, but none of us ever knew that he was the loneliest of them all.

Because he is now one less light burning on Earth, it’s up to all of us to continue what he started.

Because a world without laughter and a world without love is dark and cold. Because this world needs all the light it can get.

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Flores dos | digital photography Emma Tettey

harvest Ashari Cain

Run me a bath full of blossoms With water so warm that it washes The thoughts thresholding my flesh From breathing, the future that yearns From bleeding, the past that learns Only ego from its mirror image.

Loosen my worries without being timid.

Love my skin no more in the past tense.

Let the latch of hatred fasten.

Wrap me in the womb of oblivion.

Dress my wounds in silk.

Sing me a song so sweet it soothes my burden like warm milk.

Paint me a room in hues of blue.

Build me a tombstone as old as you.

Grow me brittle but water me long.

Sew me up, Tear me off, Thread me through all But never look me in the eye.

Run me a bath full of blossoms.

Run me until I am dry.

Make melodies that mold me.

Bring chaos that bruises.

Play harmonies that harm me.

Harden me, But gently Burn me of all that I know, And when the seasons grow cold Muffle my spirit, But keep my body close.

Show me all that I am Is all that I can’t be, And whoever you think you are Will always harvest me.

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sitting under starry skies Claire Doll The parking lot of my old high school looked the same, even in the dark of winter. It was haunting to see the building lit up only by streetlights, to watch the December winds toss forgotten autumn leaves on the gravel, to be the only parked car in the lot. Lacey had the heat blasting in her ancient Honda Accord, and the faint melody of a Christmas song played in the background. It sounded old—“Blue Christmas,” perhaps. As we listened to Elvis Presley’s deep voice, Lacey and I sat in our black dresses and black sweaters and breathed in the cold.

We didn’t really know why we ended up here, of all places. It was Christmastime, after all, and our hometown had the same charming little atmosphere that it did a year ago when we lived here— ribbons on lampposts, string lights dangling at storefronts, mini-Christmas trees at every street corner. But there was something different about it all, something that could be explained by the empty sorrow resting in our souls, the black clothing painting us like darkness.

Sitting in our laps was the funeral program of Renee Newburg, a girl in our graduating class, a girl who was nineteen, only nineteen, who killed herself just last week.

They say she took too many painkillers. It was a Tuesday night, apparently. She committed suicide, the bottle of pills sitting empty in her lifeless hand, her skin pale, body cold to the touch: the image of death so clearly framed in the

shell of a teenager, on show for her parents to see as they returned from daily evening Mass. At the funeral, which was overflowing with people from our very small town, people like us who barely even knew her, several family members talked, the pain transparent in their voices.

“She was such a beautiful soul,” they said. “Renee wasn’t like this— we didn’t know.” “She just died so young.”

Lacey shifted in her seat, and the noise pulled me back to the present. “Would you like to get out of the car?”

I nodded. It was cold, freezing cold, but I couldn’t stand the heat any longer.

Our high school had a set of steps leading to the main door. In silence we sat next to each other on the concrete. We felt our souls grow younger while watching the scattered stars glisten. We wondered about worlds near and far away, worlds where things like this were unimaginable, worlds where the gnawing pain of a strange and distant sorrow didn’t exist.

“I remember seeing Renee in the hallway,” I said, keeping my voice soft, although no one was there to listen. “She seemed nice.”

“Always wearing that pink cardigan, you know the one? It was too big for her,” said Lacey.

“Yeah,” I said, and then realized this was shallow, the way we talked about her clothes as if they were her, the way we never knew Renee as a real person but we never had the responsibility to, and yet, it felt

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wrong. “What do you think she was like?” I asked.

Lacey stayed quiet for a bit, pondering the question. “I don’t really know. She was in my chemistry class sophomore year.

She was smart, always answering the questions. That’s really all.”

A small silence stretched in between us before I decided to talk.

“Renee once sat with me at lunch.

This was senior year, just last year. We spoke for a little, mainly because we had known each other since elementary school, but this was the first time we ever really talked. She said she wanted to be a teacher. Teach language arts or history or something to middle school.” It was true—Renee was one of those girls who I would nod to in the hallway, who I always assumed was fine. Didn’t I assume everyone was fine? A strange pain tugged at my heart, and I couldn’t figure out if it was grief or guilt.

“I can’t believe she killed herself. Do you think her parents knew she was struggling?” asked Lacey.

I shrugged. “I—I don’t know. I couldn’t ever imagine feeling that way. Or knowing someone who felt

we don’t expect every little thing to be meaningful,

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that way.”

“Maybe they didn’t know.”

More silence. And then I felt the sting of my tears, one single drop spilling down my cheeks before I was quietly sobbing. My breaths grew unsteady, the cold air feeling like a stiff pressure against my skin.

“Anna, what’s wrong?” Lacey asked.

I didn’t know. I couldn’t explain it. I did not know this girl at all, only saw her in passing, never went past small talk. She had grown up in this same small town as us, lived only a couple streets over in a white and black single-family home. When we all went off to our separate universities, Renee stayed here, went to community college and worked full-time at the bagel shop.

And then we came home and she killed herself and the funeral was held a week before Christmas Eve Mass. And we barely even knew her.

“Lacey,” I began, “do you ever wonder why things like this happen?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t think anyone does. They just do. The most we can do is offer support and whatnot. Like going to

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Fall Nights | digital photography Brittney Bolling the funeral.”

I nodded. Then I stopped. “It’s all just so weird. I feel strange, almost, like I was meant to know Renee, as if I should feel guilty for going off to college and coming back and simply hearing the news that she died. It’s so— unexplainable.”

“I understand,” said Lacey.

She turned to face the empty high school parking lot, the backdrop of the main road glowing in the dark of night. “Remember when this felt like our whole world?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s because it was, at one point.” Lacey pulled her jacket closer to her body. “It’s weird, knowing that pieces of our world are taken out like that, so suddenly.

We don’t expect every little thing to be meaningful, until it is, and we are just too late to see that.”

I drew in a long breath and sighed. “Yeah. You’re right.” Then I pictured Renee: tall, brunette, with delicate sky-blue eyes; her smile, soft and shy but beautiful; the way she wrapped that cardigan around her body when we passed her in the hallway; the way she would have made an amazing teacher; the way

she probably drowned in her own struggles and thoughts, suffering alone in the isolation of her mind.

Every thought and experience she ever had was gone, along with each pain she felt and dream she dreamt.

All of her was gone.

“It’s cold,” said Lacey. “I’ll drop you off at your house?”

“That sounds fine,” I said.

So we got back into the small Honda, the Christmas music still playing—this time it was Mariah Carey—and Lacey pulled out of the parking lot and drove off, heading towards the backroad leading to my childhood home. Still, I wasn’t sure why we ended up at our old high school tonight. Maybe it was the product of our unrecognized grief, the longing in our hearts to go somewhere familiar, someplace where we could fall back on memories of innocence. As I stared out the car window blankly, I watched images of ribbons on lampposts and dangling string lights pass slowly before me, and my tears remained welling in my eyes, never even falling.

until it is, and we are just too late to see that.

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lighted corners

A Cliff View of Sunset | digital photography Dolores Hans

missing: a villanelle

Emmy Jansen

This is what they won’t tell you: Distance numbs nothing. You grow foreign to the word “okay,” You’ll always miss what he took from you.

Some girls don’t have a clue.

Naivety is safety, but why are you the only prey?

This is what they won’t tell you.

How years pass like minutes but even at twenty-two, It’s always hands grabbing hips, whiskey-coated kisses while you lay Still, you’ll always miss what he took from you.

The comfort in your own sanity, forever doubting what you know is true.

Waiting for the answer to fall from someone else’s lips on judgement day, This is what they won’t tell you.

Rock bottom becomes home. You begin to like the view.

Reliving every breath, every bruise, as if it is eternally today, You’ll always miss what he took from you.

Jesus had someone to carry His cross, too, Maybe it would be easier if everyone else knew.

This is what they won’t tell you.

You’ll always miss what he took from you.

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ghost

seeking eden Angela Vodola

Distraction is your closest friend, though loneliness comes close.

They hover over your being like the devil and good ghost.

Pastimes take ahold of you, words and films and such— but at their end you feel as if they haven’t helped you much.

So you dive deeper still, into those cold waters of denial, thinking that the more you sink, the closer comes that peaceful isle: That Eden you once sought, only to be blinded and cursed, struck down and then made to submit to this bitter earth.

Still, you never surrendered that lost vision of your youth.

Though forbidden fancies and sly reptiles don’t wield the sharp tongue of truth.

So, each night, you whisper the soft hope that your search isn’t in vain.

And though you are lost on this path, you may find that heavenly place.

Journey to Sunrise | digital photography Paige Moseley

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lighted corners Lonely Blue | digital photography Robert Prender

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ghost

heart rot Erin Daly

I didn’t make him coffee before I left. That thought bounced around my mind relentlessly as I stood in front of the old oak tree at the edge of the farm. It wasn’t my farm, not anymore. After my father died, my brothers and I tried to keep it running, but conflicting desires and old jealousies kept us from working together in a way that would have allowed us to be successful. Now it was no one’s farm: another abandoned, overrun property that brought down the value of the already quickly declining community.

My childhood home now houses garbage, used opioid needles, and perhaps some homeless people as well. My mom would probably have been happy that in a roundabout way we are helping the needy, but the cops who have to visit the house and clear it out every so often probably don’t feel the same.

I shouldn’t come here, and my brothers would be furious if they knew I visited every so often.

They don’t agree about much, but they have always agreed on their disappointment in my choices.

The truth is, the farm is the only place I feel like I can breathe.

I used to come right here, to this

tree, and sit under it with whatever library book I was devouring that day. I would hide out for hours, just me, the branches, and the thin pages of a Nancy Drew novel. The oak was a loyal friend, sturdy and reliable. It had my back.

And now it was dying. Yellowbrown fungal growths, called conks, protruded from its trunk. The old tree must have had some serious wounds that allowed bacteria to seep through. The pathogens infiltrated its core, the heartwood.

The oak was rotting from the inside, and if I could have seen through the spongy bark, I would have seen extreme levels of decay, an organism close to collapse.

I wish I could say that when I saw the heart rot, I mourned my old friend. That I felt a palpable loss. That I felt like my childhood was truly destroyed, with no traces of it left behind.

But all I thought about was that I forgot to make coffee for him before I left. That he would be so angry, that I didn’t have enough concealer left, and that I couldn’t afford to miss another day at work.

That I was letting rot destroy me from the inside, and that more than anything I just didn’t want the conks to show.

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lighted corners

swimming lessons Claire Doll

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I watch my tears trickle into the river. They fit right in, running with the current, salting the summer air, adding to the flow of water coursing forward. There’s something beautiful about that, and if I weren’t crying, I would probably appreciate it more.

Above me, the sky stretches for miles. Momma says it’s colored “periwinkle,” which sounds so magical to me, and as I look at how the dusty white clouds and twirling of lavender and tie-dye paint the sky, it seems to fit. All sorts of blues surround me. There’s the blue of the river water that appears clear up front but deep blue as it runs forward; the faded light blue of the sky as the sun sets; the blue of Momma’s eyes, so bright and pretty as if lit up by the stars themselves.

Blue becomes my favorite color, right then and there.

Before I can even turn around, I feel Momma’s hand slip into mine.

When I meet her eyes, her smile fades to a frown, and she gives me a kiss on the forehead. Instead of wiping my tears, or telling me that it will be okay, she leads me to the river and we begin to swim, dipping our bodies in the chilled water. I still don’t know how to swim well, but today Momma says we are learning how to push against the current.

“Okay, Brookie, I’m letting go.

Kick your feet…now!”

When I feel Momma’s grasp slip away, I pretend like I’m riding a bicycle, or like my feet are jets on a big ship. I feel the pull of

the river drive me backwards, but I kick. I fight. I breathe in all the blues of the world around me, and I swing my arms, splashing droplets of river water in my eyes. They blur my vision, looking like wispy clouds, tasting like salt, sounding like the thick pattering of rain, and for a moment, I forget what I was crying about.

“Good job, Brookie!” I hear Momma say, then feel her hands around my waist. She can’t scoop me up like she used to, but she takes my hand, and we swim back to the river’s shore.

“Can I do it again?” I plead once I feel the squishing of sand in between my toes.

Momma laughs and wraps a towel around my waist. “No, darling, it’s getting late. The sun’s about to set.”

And when I look up, it’s like there’s a whole different world.

I see pieces of the sky through tree branches, periwinkle turning dark, and as my gaze trails down to where the horizon parallels the river, a golden glow trims along the edge of the sky. I watch as nightfall slowly but surely takes over, fading out each color one by one.

“Did you get a letter from Daddy today?” I ask, breaking the silence.

Momma looks down, and I feel a twist in my stomach, a pang of regret for mentioning him. But she looks back up with a smile on her face, the kind that doesn’t reach her eyes. “No. Maybe tomorrow.”

I nod.

I look at the sky.

I look back down and meet Momma’s blue-eyed gaze.

Momma reads my face and finds a rock on the shore, one big enough for both of us. In harmonious silence, we sit and dry off and watch the tide ebb and flow. Then we pray. Today it is my turn, and I say a prayer for Daddy, keeping my stare locked on the horizon, because I know if I close my eyes, the tears will threaten to spill once again.

Momma has been giving me swimming lessons since just after Daddy left. The lessons started when we were walking in the forest one late afternoon, and we stumbled across this beautiful river that coiled around the trees and sparkled in the sunlight, revealing a clear, crystalline surface. Momma said the tide was perfect for me to learn how to swim, something I’ve always been afraid to do. She also said that swimming every day would make us stronger, both physically and mentally. Something about the water made her feel connected to Daddy. I imagined him on a large boat with other men in their white uniforms, doing what Navy sailors did. But I never really knew what they did, so I pictured Daddy staring at the royal blue surface of the ocean, watching the water form peaks, hopefully thinking of Momma and me.

I missed him to the point that I grew to hate waking up in the mornings. I’d open my eyes and adjust to the bright morning light seeping through my curtains, and for a moment, all that exists is that single golden ray entering my room, and a feeling of peace surrounded my heart. But then I’d really open my eyes and turn over

and stare into the photograph of Daddy that sat right next to my bed, his handsome smile and the American flag in the background taunting me. He watched me cry myself to sleep and wake up with such heavy sadness, and he didn’t even know.

So we swam. Really every day I had swimming lessons with Momma. Mostly they took place in the afternoon, but sometimes if the day was warm enough, we’d go in the morning. I felt myself getting stronger, my legs able to kick through the water’s current and my lungs holding breath in longer.

I hope Momma felt the same way.

She loved swimming too, loved teaching me how to enjoy being in the water and let the waves shape my movements. We spent the rest of late summer at the river, picnicking on the shore and swimming as much as we could.

It is a warm day in early September when I look out the window and see the sky as a stretch of blue, lighting up the rest of the backyard. I smile and run downstairs. “Momma,” I exclaim, not knowing where she is. “Can we go swim?”

The living room is empty. The kitchen is empty. Outside on our porch, I see Momma’s thin figure standing, frozen. I open the door.

“Momma?”

She turns around, a blank expression on her face. I hear the revving of the mail truck in the distance pulling away from our court, and when I look down at Momma’s hands, they are empty. A little piece of me breaks away.

“Yes, Brooke?’

“Can-can we go swim?”

She stares for a little, and I can’t tell if she is sad or angry or

ghost

we are learning to push against the current.

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lighted corners just numb, but her lips part into a fake smile. “Yes, dear. Get your bathing suit on.”

The river is beautiful today, as expected. It is always beautiful.

The surface reflects the bright blue of the sky, and the current flows calmly, ebbing and flowing back and forth, reaching no apparent destination. Around us, the wind blows in rhythmic breaths. I notice how some trees are speckled with leaves of red, while most remain evergreen. That and a tinge of coldness tucked in the late summer air remind me that autumn is nearly here, which is one season away from winter, when Daddy will be home.

“The water’s probably cold today,” Momma tells me.

I take a step and let the icy shore kiss my toes. Then I turn to face Momma. “It’s okay. Can I still swim?”

Momma fixes her eyes ahead at the river and says nothing.

“Momma?”

Nothing, again. Her silence echoes louder than the current, louder than the wind and the chirping of birds.

“Did Daddy write today?”

Looking into her eyes, like pools of deep blue, I see tears welling, about to break and spill over her cheeks with just one blink.

Her face is pale, but her cheeks are rosy, and her lips quiver with each breath she draws.

“No,” she finally says, but her voice is softened to a whisper. I suddenly realize that I have never seen Momma cry. Even when Daddy left to go overseas, she summoned enough strength to simply smile through the goodbye. But I also cannot remember the last time I

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Sunrise | acrylic on canvas Rebekah Balick

ghost heard her sing or laugh or speak with even a hint of real joy. “Daddy hasn’t written in a month, Brookie,” she tells me.

I love and hate it when she calls me Brookie. My earliest memory is Christmas Eve when I had trouble going to bed, and Daddy scooped me in his arms and sang a lullaby.

“Goodnight, Brookie,” he’d sing, and the love in his voice sank deep into my heart, etching itself in my mind, as if he knew it was a memory I’d keep. Momma stood next to him happily, and I remember her smile. It reached her eyes. It made those blue irises glow even in the darkness of my bedroom, like two stars that found each other in the night sky.

“I’m sorry,” I say, because I don’t know what else to do. A feeling of worry stabs at my heart, thinking of my father stationed overseas, lonely or hurting or even dead. It’s the kind of feeling that spreads ice through your veins, that pauses every other system of thought. I try to meet Momma’s eyes, but my stare falls to the river in front of me. I wonder about this water, if it has stayed coursing back and forth in this river, or if it has joined lakes or bays or oceans. I wonder where it’s been, because right now, focusing on the river hurts less than thinking about Daddy.

“It’s okay, love,” says Momma.

“We don’t have to go swimming,” I offer.

She takes a little to think, but then shakes her head. “No, that’s okay dear. We should get stronger.

For Daddy.” ...

I ignore the river’s shore kissing my toes. “He hasn’t written at all?”

Momma shakes her head. “No.”

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lighted corners “What do you think that means?”

Momma sighs. She’s thought about this before—I can tell. Her eyes glimmer in the sunlight.

“Remember what he said to you before he left, honey?”

Returning to the day Daddy left sends a wave of hurt rippling through my body. Three images float into my mind: Daddy walking into the airport with nothing but a backpack slung over his shoulders; Momma hugging him tightly, her eyes squeezed shut; the sky coated in clouds, rain spitting down on us like a sprinkler. But before Daddy walked to his flight, he leaned in and whispered to me.

“I will never forget you,” I say, repeating my father’s words. They sounded so morbid when spoken, but months into not seeing him, I finally know now why he reminded me of this.

“I don’t know where he is,” Momma says, her voice steady and soft, “but you are always in his heart. He is always thinking of you.”

I feel the familiar pull of tears, the lump form in my throat.

“Momma,” I say, the same way I said it as a child. “I want him back.”

It is a selfish feeling, rather— the kind of feeling where all I can picture is Daddy leaving the Navy, walking through our front door, and hugging me tightly, where I can go downstairs in the morning and see my mother and father making pancakes in a bundle of laughter, smelling the batter swirl through the kitchen.

“Me too,” Momma says. That’s all she says. Then she takes my hand. “Let’s swim.”

So we spend that afternoon under the changing fall leaves

time passes, and i can tell by the sky how periwinkle exists

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swimming in icy water. Today I learn to hold my breath while swimming underwater, submerging myself in the cold sharpness of the river and then breaking the surface to be warmed by sunlight. Time passes, and I can tell by the sky how periwinkle exists for just a moment before fading to navy blue.

We get back home and the sun is now gone, a forgotten memory leaving glimpses of light reaching from the horizon. And although it is evening, Momma reaches into our mailbox and pulls out a single envelope. It is manilla-colored, with inky-black print on the front and an American flag stamp. It is unlike any of the letters Daddy has written before, but a gut feeling tells me that Daddy didn’t write this—it’s about him.

“Read it,” I say, my voice louder than usual.

Momma’s hands are shaking.

“L-let’s go inside.”

Our house is colder than normal. Perhaps it is the fall air settling in, or perhaps the river water still sticks to my skin, or maybe it’s this feeling of intense, choking panic that numbs all other sensations.

Momma carefully slides a letter-opener through crease of the envelope, and then she pulls the letter out. The paper sounds thick as it bends in the air and is held in Momma’s hands. As my heart races, beats loudly through my chest, I look in my mother’s eyes rather than at the words on the page. I watch her stare flicker back and forth, watch her eyes widen, then squeeze shut, then open back up with tears.

The next few moments pass by through waves of haze and blurred

ghost time. Momma’s eyes are a different kind of red, the kind you see in fire when the blazing flame flickers against the black of night, the kind that makes her blue irises stick out sharply, almost too sharp. I notice the way her hands shake, notice how her face shrivels, notice how it adds layers of pain to what I’m already feeling.

Daddy’s image appears in my head, and I think of an exact memory: I am seven, it’s summer, the sky is bright and clear. We’re at a lake, one of those lakes that pretends it’s a beach, with dark teal water and a sandy shore and tall mountains surrounding us, like each one is competing against the other to touch the sky. As Momma sits on her towel and folds her legs, Daddy scoops me in his arms and runs towards the water.

I remember laughing, holding onto his muscles, watching Momma smile from behind. I remember the chill of the water sprinkled on my skin and the summer sun feeling like gold. I remember Daddy plopping me into the lake, and even though it was a couple of feet deep, I couldn’t kick, tread, or swim.

I was scared. I remember Daddy laughing, remember his crescentmoon-shaped smile, remember the Navy anchor tattoo seared into his bicep, remember hugging Momma as soon as I made it back to shore.

The memory is a broken record.

While Momma sits in front of me, a mess of screams and cries and sobs, all I can think of is how cold that water was on that crystalline summer day, of how it felt like ice trailing through my veins.

He’s dead. I think of my father, of his head being blown off by a gun. Or maybe he drowned in the

deep ocean, struggling to breathe air. We haven’t been told the details yet. But there was once a time that he was alive, loving Momma and holding me. And all I can do in this moment is watch. I watch Momma, the strongest person I know, collapse onto her knees, her eyes a fountain of tears, her breaths rapid and quick like the wind in a storm.

I watch the envelope fall to the ground, and I know full well that it holds heart-dropping words, that it states my father was killed. I watch time slow down, and I wonder if this is what grief feels like: heaviness sinking into my chest, images moving in a blur, the feeling of helplessness and pure disbelief shoved down my throat.

Momma pulls me close, and we cry for what feels like hours. I think about the river, how it still flows during all of this, and I can feel the autumn-chilled water pressed against my skin like I’m still swimming through it somehow. ...

The next time we go to the river, it is winter.

The amazing thing about December is that it uses just a couple of colors to paint a beautiful scene. The trees, save the evergreens, are bare, coated with a thin layer of ice, and when hit by sunlight, the branches twinkle in an illuminating harmony. Snow is everywhere, packed against the ground, sprinkling from the sky.

Momma says December snow is fresh and the best kind to go out in, because the first snowfall always brings a sort of excitement. As we walk closer and closer to shore, I notice the river is frozen over; a slick sheet of ice blankets what was once a streaming, flowing

for just a moment before fading to navy blue.

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body of water, where I learned to swim and kick and tread. Patterns of frost are etched on the surface, and I can see exactly how the river froze, hardened just in the middle of the tide ebbing and flowing.

It is beautiful. I stand and see my reflection in the ice, feeling the contrast of harsh warmth from sunlight and cold air stinging my skin.

“Can we swim?” I ask, a halfsmile teasing my lips.

Momma laughs and pulls her scarf around her neck. “You’re funny.” Her breath is crystallized in the air.

Without speaking, we both have the same idea in mind, heading towards the snow-coated rock we always sit on. The oil-painted evening sky, alive with blazing gold, cherry pink, and a small streak of blue, stretches before us, a collage of colors blended with the fading light of day. From here the river is a mirror, a sheet of ice reflecting everything it takes in.

36

Today is the day Daddy would have come home, but we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the fact that we have spent the last couple of months in some kind of hallucination, from seeing Daddy’s casket carried down the church aisle to cleaning out the house and keeping his uniform tucked in the basement closet. We don’t talk about the hurt—we live it every day, see it painted in the sky, frozen over with the river.

“Mommy!” I hear someone say.

It is a young boy’s voice, small and high-pitched. Then the silhouette of a woman appears far out in the woods, approaching closer and closer with her son. He’s short, with electric blonde hair, holding a pair of ice skates in his hand. Running up to the frozen water, he smiles, throws on his skates, and begins to glide like he always knew how to sail along the surface.

His mother settles down on a rock across the river, and she gives us a wave. She wears a smile too,

ghost

one reserved for the kind of people you meet at a random river in the woods. “This is a beautiful river,” she calls across the river.

Momma nods. “It certainly is.”

“We just found it, yesterday.

Peter wanted to go ice skating on it today,” she says.

“It’s gorgeous in the summer,” says Momma. “Perfect for learning how to swim.”

“That’s a really good idea!

Peter has a fear of water. He loves ice, though,” she says, laughing.

I fix my gaze on the little boy, Peter, how his skates leave a thin trail of swirls and loops etched into the ice. He is a bundle of laughter, wearing a thick winter coat and scarf, waving at his mother with each turn and glide he takes. And for a second, it makes me smile, makes my heart feel a little bit lighter than it had just a moment ago.

“Look at the sky, Brookie,” says Momma.

Periwinkle, in all its magical

lavender and cerulean beauty, glows brightly above me. I notice all the wintry blues surrounding me, notice the blue in Momma’s eyes, still sad, but healing and light. In the sky, the white crescent moon fades into existence, and it reminds me of Daddy, reminds me of his smile.

I blink back the tears that press against my eyes. “Next summer, I’m gonna be the best swimmer,” I tell Momma.

When she smiles, it reaches her eyes. “I guess that means plenty more river days.”

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oxford universityMatthew Jenkins villanelle “Guess when Oxford was founded.”

“When?” asked my friend. “1096,” I replied.

He was astounded.

He called his father. “I just learned something, Dad, and I gotta tell you about it.”

His father didn’t really care but listened to be polite.

“Guess when Oxford was founded.”

“You know I don’t like guessing games, son,” he said. His voice sounded like he’d just woken up, but when his son told him, “1096,” he went wide-eyed.

He was astounded.

He knew it had to be old, but he never would’ve guessed it was nearly a thousand.

His wife saw his face and grew worried. “What’s wrong, honey? You look tongue-tied!”

“Guess when Oxford was founded.”

She laughed. “Is that what’s got you dumbfounded?”

“It was 1096,” he said. She had a heart attack. And died.

He was astounded.

She had a lovely funeral. It wasn’t too crowded.

But my friend’s father was petrified. He’d heard a ghostly whisper as he said his last goodbye— “Guess when Oxford was founded.”

He was astounded.

Dogs | digital photography Emma Tettey

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ms. hader made a mistake Joanna Kreke

ghost

Flowers in Bloom | colored pencil Frances Fisher

Ms. Hader made a mistake.

A terrible mistake. A horrible mistake. An innocent mistake.

She let her students have manual pencil sharpeners. Ones that could fit in our personal pencil case. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know any better. It was her first year at the school and we were her first class.

Mine was red with two little holes at the top and my name typed on a white sticker around the base. Every once-in-a-while I would take the sharpener out of my pink case just to admire it in the fluorescent lighting. I would twirl it in my fingers until Ms. Hader would tell me to pay attention. Eventually, she told me to turn my green apple card to yellow.

It was hard for me to stay focused on the lesson. After an eternity of listening to whatever she was saying, my attention was caught by my fingernail as it snagged on a loose thread from my uniform. It needed to be dealt with. But I had nothing to fix the problem. I tried to smooth it out on the desk, but that didn’t work. I tried to use my teeth, but that just made it worse.

An idea emerged. My fingers found my pencil sharpener. I inserted my pointer finger into the large hole. It fit perfectly. One twist. Half of my fingernail was gone, replaced with blood. The girl across from me raised her hand as high as her little arm could reach and called out for Ms. Hader.

I had to turn my yellow apple card to red. On the first day.

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lighted corners

Moon | digital photography Dolores Hans

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ask your doctor

about Megan Ulmer

ghost

Zoloft Side effects may include: nausea, dizziness, the first time you ever thought of running away, slipping grades, increased sweating, shaking (tremors), drifting apart from your childhood friends, the worst Christmas of your life.

Lexapro Side effects may include: mood swings, nausea, dry mouth, going vegetarian, a budding relationship, drowsiness, a lucky GPA boost, constipation, the first time you ever fight with your parents.

Celexa Side effects may include: headache, nausea, fatigue, dizzy spells, a visit to the emergency room (you’ll be okay, it’s your medicine), more visits to the doctor, seventeen unexcused absences, a new prescription.

Cymbalta Side effects may include: difficulty sleeping, losing your virginity, dizziness, blurred vision, three failed exams in one week, the first time you smoked weed, nausea, vomiting, the first time he ever put his hands on you.

Wellbutrin Side effects may include: headache, weight loss, a messy breakup, insomnia, dry mouth, a call from your ex from the mental hospital, fast heartbeat, dizziness, a death threat from your ex, constipation, sore throat, more absences than classes.

Abilify Side effects may include: dizziness, lightheadedness, burnout, senioritis, vomiting, weight gain, finding out your best friends aren’t that great, moving to two therapy sessions a week, headaches, trouble sleeping.

Klonopin Side effects may include: drowsiness, dizziness, a prescription error, sleep disturbances, weakness, not being able to enjoy any physical activity, an overlooked prescription error, addiction, problems with thinking or memory, increased depression, nightmares and hallucinations, a suicide attempt.

Effexor Side effects may include: dizziness, nervousness, promises of a new beginning, headaches, anxiety, drowsiness, strange dreams, moving away to college, starting over, dry mouth, nausea, blurred vision, the feeling that everything may eventually be okay.

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lighted corners

eyes of gold Claire Doll

What is it like to wear eyes of gold, hazel-colored irises with dapples of sunlight?

I watch you as the present unfolds,

and I want to give you my soul to behold, my hopes and dreams for your very own sights.

What is it like to wear eyes of gold?

as October fades to a bitter and frosty cold, as periwinkle blends into dark, navy night.

What is it like to wear eyes of gold?

I fear that we will forget, that we’ll grow old, ‘cause this wondrous life as we know is finite.

I watch you as the present unfolds,

My hand was made for you to hold, as your lips part effortlessly, your smile so bright.

I watch you as the present unfolds,

and decide our story has yet to be told, that my heart is yours to keep and excite.

What is it like to wear eyes of gold?

I watch you as the present unfolds.

Art Studio | digital photography Brett Snow

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ghost

Santa Maria del Fiore | watercolor and ink Mary Lawler

aAlyssa love song for a king Pierangeli

Come, they harkened to me from miles away.

Shivered and quivered, alone in the dark.

That I may see a babe, adorned in hay.

A newborn king; I see his hierarch From where I stand. Yet, I am unworthy And understand that I have no fine gifts.

But he looked at me. His eyes adored me, As if He saw past my clothes, torn by rips.

He is a poor boy, too—kissed by the skies.

And I, mind you, I hated who I was ‘Til I saw myself mirrored in His eyes, And I glowed like a self-confessed bourgeois.

In front of His grace I stand tall, not dumb.

He smiles each time I par rum pum pum pum.

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lighted corners

between the iron bars Joanna Kreke

44

Visitation Academy was intimidating. Five stories swelling to the sky like a red-brick tsunami about to swallow you whole. The wave was contained by black iron bars that came to a point like they were a row of spears lined up for the impending battle. Beautiful metal work laced the spears together at the top and the bottom and were worn out from the numerous little feet that climbed them, trying to escape the prison. The gate had the same spears and metal work, except it rounded at the top with a gold cross standing at attention in the center. The sidewalk from outside the gate poured into the entrance like floodwater, leaving only an island of manure-like mulch with a few bushes that framed the modern-looking school sign.

It was that very sign that greeted me on my first day. I was four and clad in a light blue jumper that hung off my shoulders like ill-fitted armor. My shoes were brown with a buckle and my hair was a mess. On my back was a bag that could easily fit me. My eldest sister held my hand tightly as she tugged me to the Pre-K building. It was the old carriage house before it was renovated into a place where the priests lived and then to a classroom. The urinal was still erect and hidden by a sea-themed curtain, but that didn’t stop us from poking our small, curious heads under to laugh at the porcelain oddity.

This was a Catholic all-girls school, after all. Boys were foreign

beings that you weren’t allowed to acknowledge lest you contract the dreaded cooties. Despite there being less than five males on campus on an average day, the teachers enforced the dress code more than any other school I’ve ever been to.

The dress code rivaled the military. Each indiscretion was a demerit. Fifth grade and lower wore jumpers: blue in the spring and summer, red plaid in the fall and winter. Middle school wore skirts: blue in the spring and summer, green plaid in the fall and winter.

No holes. Hemlines a quarter-inch from the knee. Blouses perfectly pressed and see-through. No stains. Only black or brown dress shoes. Plain socks covering ankles or school-sanctioned tights. Only religious jewelry. Only one pair of earrings. No hair-ties on the wrist.

No bows in hair. No colored hair.

No makeup. No nail polish. No temporary tattoos. Only white or skin-colored bras. Wear a sports bra or cami underneath. Nobody wants to see your bra. Sweater vests, cardigan, or blazer with the winter uniforms, all school-sanctioned with the emblem on the left breast.

Only wear gym uniforms on gym days after your homeroom teacher says it’s okay to change. No outside clothes. No matter how cold. No matter if you’re freezing. No matter if your fingers have gone numb and turned black.

Visitation was built in 1846.

Central air-conditioning wasn’t invented until the 1920s. At the time of its closing, the most it had

ghost were AC window units, ceiling fans, windows, and metal radiators older than my parents. In the summer, we rushed to the window unit, piling on top of the dormant radiator to catch the cold blast and dry our sweaty pits. We felt the cool breeze on our flushed faces and prayed for the cold. Each classroom was made of paper-thin walls and had singlepaned glass windows and a door that led outside. Four radiators sat in each room right under the windows, emitting heat in a two foot radius. The closest desk was three feet away. Two were broken.

One sat behind the teacher’s desk and the other was what the teacher sat on during class. In the winter, we rushed to the radiators or the scalding water pipes that scaled the wall and grabbed the metal without flinching, ignoring the teacher as she warned that we were going to get severe burns. We felt the snow and ice melt on our thin uniforms and prayed for the heat.

I was in eighth grade when the Arctic Blast hit. Single digits throughout the two weeks the blast sat on us. Single digits without wind-chill. We laughed that we could see our breath in the classrooms.

“It’s colder here than in Antarctica,” Ms. Riley, the middle school science teacher of the year, told us one bleak morning. It was her first year there. She was young.

She sat on the radiator clad in two pairs of pants, three shirts, a sweater, a scarf, four pairs of socks, and boots. “It’s twenty degrees there and nine degrees here.”

She stared out in the sea of girls huddled in semi-fetal positions dressed in thin blouses, thin skirts, and a single pair of socks under our

school socks tucked in our dress shoes. Our necks, legs, hands, and faces were exposed. Our mittens, hats, and scarves were stuffed in the pockets and arms of the coats that draped across our seats. We weren’t allowed to wear them during class, in case there was a prospective student or parents who wanted to walk through the classrooms of shivering, frostbitten girls.

The longer the blast sat on us, the lower the temperatures dropped. Teachers began directing students to use interior stairwells and corridors to get to classes as much as possible. “Take the inside stairs.” “Cut through Ms. so-andso’s classroom.” “Go through the kitchen.” Mrs. Adams was the upperclassmen Religion teacher, but her classroom was across the courtyard in the Primary school building. Instead of forcing her classes to walk through the frigid temperatures to then use icecovered metal stairs, she had us meet in the nuns’ old living quarters. It was unheated due to budget cuts, but she let us wear our coats and hats.

Eventually, the school sent out a message saying we were allowed to wear solid, neutral-colored leggings. Not hot pink. If we wore hot pink, they told us to take them off our shaking legs just like our makeup and nail polish. We were allowed to wear Uggs to school, but had to take them off before daily Mass. We were expected to pry the warm boots off our feet and slip on our cold dress shoes outside in the frigid temperatures. It was cruel and unusual and I can still feel the icy cement before my toes went numb.

it was cruel and unusual and i can still feel the icy cement before my toes went numb.

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lighted corners

Before the clergy left, daily Mass was held in the school’s chapel with the students third grade and undergoing only once a week. For a hot minute after Father Campi left, the weekly school-wide Mass was still held in the chapel with a priest from the church next door; however, the older girls were sent to St. John’s for the other four days.

But it was too expensive to keep that half of the building heated.

The little girls walked with us to the church and we only used the chapel for special occasions.

There was a protocol to follow with daily Mass. Set your stuff down in the courtyard and head to your classroom. March through the balcony and down the stairs to the lunchroom. Stay in single file through the student entrance and the iron gate. Cross the alleyway as a teacher blocks the cars from bulldozing the procession of school girls. Once the church doors open, silence. Sign of the cross with the holy water to the left of the entrance, not the right. Hands folded in the front of you unless you are holding the hand of a little girl. Walk to your seat in the pew, do not slide. Remove your jackets, coats, hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, and ear muffs. Doesn’t matter if the doors are still open.

Doesn’t matter if the heat isn’t on yet. Pull out the kneeler and pretend you’re praying. Don’t be the

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Bridge Over the Potomac | digital photography Timothy Hrabinski

ghost

first to stop. You must kneel even if you’re Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist or Agnostic or Atheist, unless you’re injured. Don’t ask to use the bathroom now. Wait. Okay, ask now. Pass the tissue. Don’t fall asleep. You must recite everything in the same robotic voice as everyone else. They’ll notice if you change your inflection. Bow your head here. Make the sign of the cross there. Do both now. Extend your hands during the Our Father and shake people’s hands, unless it’s flu season. Go up for Communion.

Don’t leave until the row behind you leaves. Shake the priest’s hand if he’s at the door. No talking until you’ve escaped the doors.

Visitation closed its doors in June 2016 with no hope of ever reopening. It was inevitable.

The clergy had been gone for nearly a decade. There were more students leaving than there were students coming. The school had been renting out the chapel and courtyard for weddings and funerals. They stopped heating half the building. The final nail in the coffin came when the man who was solely responsible for paying for the utilities decided to stop. After that, there was no way it could be saved.

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lighted corners

Evergreens | digital photography Brett Snow

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ghost

evergreen Ashari Cain Where in the world could I go? Who doesn’t know chaos?

Brown hands labor, brown pennies pay us; White men favor the Evergreen.

In God he trusts. That green fabric is heavenly.

Where in the world could I go? Who could I trust?

White lines glisten like sprinkled angel dust.

Black skin glitters . . . tangled in handcuffs.

Families listen with their hands up.

Heads up, Man down.

Rise up, Stand down.

Has Evergreen gained an angel now? Who’s to blame?

Free in my spirit with a Master’s last name.

Broken in my spirit when the hateful sirens sang.

Poured out their ocean of badges, Parted the muddy water like Moses, Facades of bright gold in the masses Pulled apart my heritage and all that I was holdin’ Then pulled the trigger, My first name was stolen.

Where in the city could I go? Who doesn’t know hate?

When my heart beats too quick for the soles of my feet to integrate.

When the souls who once had like skin lose their breath to the wind, Lose their life to the same lands they labored in.

Brown hands pay us, Brown pennies labor One in the same.

Evergreen—the white man favors.

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staring at my bookshelf Angela Vodola

Sun and moon switch places.

I’ve aged and so have you.

Years went by like minutes, as they always seem to do.

The open window leaks poison.

The foul wind won’t retreat.

Air turns bitter with western ash.

I breathe it insignificantly.

Dried flowers lose dull colors.

Ancient words lose meaning.

I’ve been staring at my bookshelf, never living, only dreaming.

Starstruck | digital photography Victoria Tyler

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A View from Baia Mare, Romania | watercolor and ink Mary Lawler

ghost

the seamstress Margaret Stine Silk prevents the droplets from falling, protecting the lone leaf from morning dew.

The abyss underneath reflects a mirror image, altered by ripples that skate along the whispery waves.

It is quiet.

Only echoes disperse the serenity at intermittent intervals.

Suddenly, the sun shines with renewed radiance as the clumped clouds depart from their rendezvous.

This silent signal allows chirps and squeaks to fill the air.

Life goes on, and the seamstress continues weaving her silk.

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Art Block | watercolor on paper Rebekah Balick

ghost

los pensamientos de la llorona Weeping, weeping. Weeping at this one little girl’s pigtails that swing back and forth, taunting me. Little children always bother me; they have no respect for art.

They shove lollipops, cheerios, gum, and Care Bears DVDs under the museum’s benches each opportunity they get to be crooked.

They press their sticky, slimy fingers against the paintings as if these priceless obras maestras were just another one of their toy trains. I cannot bear it anymore and seldom care to.

Frida Kahlo created me. I am at her museum in Mexico City. I had no choice in the matter, yet I still sit here displayed upon a wall watching these tourists foolishly try to master the frown, step back, wrinkle, and sigh when observing a piece like they know what it means.

Unbelievable. They did it to me this morning. Their eyes did not even try to understand me; their looks were merely to appear posh in front of their significant others. “¡Qué cabrones!” I would have bellowed at them had Frida created me to be a video rather than a woman with a unibrow glued on her face, frozen in time. I am a masterpiece. Yet, they do not treat me like one. They stare for a moment and walk away, never thinking twice about the 105.9 x 73.9 cm self-portrait of an aged, withered woman that they saw amid 3,000 other obras maestras.

If you knew you were an unappreciated masterpiece, you would weep, too.

Alyssa Pierangeli

English Translation: “The Thoughts of the Weeping Woman”

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lighted corners

OC Twilight Sky | digital photography Timothy Hrabinski

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ghost

pizza Megan Ulmer was the first thing I ate once I was out of the mental hospital.

Everyone gets pizza, my roommate said.

Go crazy while your parents are still being nice to you.

But Domino’s was calling, the cheese as greasy as my hair after days of not showering.

So I sat there devouring Pizza was what I was going to eat on the school trip before I took half of my pills and got my stomach pumped instead.

While the doctors were deciding my fate, a hospital stay or pretend it never happened, I called down to the cafeteria and ordered Pizza was the only thing I was comfortable ordering from the dining hall for a while.

I didn’t know how the meal plan worked and was too afraid to ask, but I knew I could eat vegetarian with Pizza was what my best friend and I got when I was feeling low, and I just needed a drive somewhere and enough calories to feed a whale, so of course, the solution was late-night Pizza was what you were eating in that tiny little shop that smelled a little bit of mildew.

On a Saturday afternoon, still hungover, and for $3 a slice, I noticed how the sun hit your face and how beautiful you were, and I know you were just eating Pizza, but you made me realize that maybe life is worth living after all.

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Cinque Terre | watercolor and ink Mary Lawler

ode to the call Sarah Johnson

You are made of stardust: your beauty and strength created competition in the heavens.

They sent you to Earth to dim your light, banished from the sky by fragile human comprehension.

But you hear the call of your home, carried on the wings of the wind.

The stars are whispering, darling, can you hear them sing?

Chase it through the forests or to the top of the mountains; hear it swirl around you and dance out to the sea.

Learn to sail so that you can follow it over the waters, as the blood of your ancestors flows in your veins.

The sea sings to your soul; your spirit feels called to remain a restless wanderer.

But the ocean has always reflected the stars, my love.

When your ship reaches the shore, do not delay; bid your farewells and be on your way.

The stars have waited millions of years to see your face again.

This world is wide, but the universe is vast, farther and teeming with more love than you can fathom.

So, dance under the night sky, a swirling nebula of your marvelous light.

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a meditation on winter Lexi Zambito

ghost

Walking outside on a crisp winter’s night, you see a sky bathed pink and purple from the dying, ruby-red sun. The stars sparkle like a million diamonds set in sapphire, and the pearly moon is so near and bright, as though the sun never set. The air smells new and invigorating, as though it had never been breathed before. The branches of the pines droop with the weight of snow, as if they, too, are tired, and the needles set in ice twinkle like emeralds.

The untouched snow crunches beneath your feet as you wander, dream-like, under the towering trees, reverent as though you are walking down the nave of Chartres.

It begins to snow once again, and

you hold out your tongue to catch one of the icy crystals tasting of the purest water. As the drifting clouds float overhead, you look up and feel infinitesimally small, not as though the world should not hold you, but as though your eyes should not be able to hold the world. Everything is muffled by the gleaming white sea enveloping you; the sound of the silence is deafening, roaring in your ears, broken only by the soft meeting of the snow falling from the heavens with the blanketed earth. It’s freezing, but how could you ever feel cold in the gently whispering air? And just like that, the world is about to be reborn, dressed in white for its baptism in the rains of spring.

Different Shades of Blue | digital photography Victoria Tyler

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My sister asks me to cut her hair when we get home and it feels like the single most important question I’ve ever been asked.

We’re at the beach.

It’s cold and cloudy and rainy.

The only souls around are us.

But it’s more special to see things when no one else can, like the sun rising while the world sleeps, and the crimson that you would call orange, or what I saw in you.

Most people will say they found themselves in college, but I gave myself away to people I thought would protect me from the world.

Instead, they held me hostage, tore apart each of my limbs, now sewn back together in all the wrong places.

Didn’t mother ever tell you not to touch things that don’t belong to you?

The phoenix burns before it is reborn but the ashes are still smoldering.

A year ago, I was nineteen and breakable.

It was getting harder to breathe.

I spent a lot of time wondering How can he sleep at night?

I wished I could.

I wish I could live on this rainy beach and taste freedom on the ocean breeze, drink up salt water and independence forever.

I wish boys disappeared and nightmares ended after you wake up.

I wish winter wasn’t so short and summer wasn’t so long and that spring and fall were more than just in-betweens.

Am I indestructible or destructive?

I’m twenty now, malleable but not fragile.

Nothing can break me the way I’ve already been broken.

Glass can’t shatter in the same place twice.

People ask what I’ll do if he walks free, if the laws that bind break, and if the wounds he left on me are wiped from his record as if they can be wiped from my skin like drug store makeup.

I’ll probably eat breakfast.

I’ll brush my teeth for an extra thirty seconds like I’ve done for the past year.

Watch the sun wake up before everyone else does.

When I get home, I’ll cut my sister’s hair.

no one else can Emmy Jansen

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California Sea Cave | charcoal on paper Aubrey Preske

ghost

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lighted corners

afterpartyMegan Ulmer

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We knew the party was over after some freshman threw himself onto the pong table, causing it to buckle. You asked me if I was ready to leave. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m too drunk anyway.” I had seen my ex too, but I didn’t tell you that part. It was too recent, the cut still too deep. We walked out into the night, and the cold, crisp air filled my lungs. It felt good to be breathing in something other than secondhand marijuana smoke.

Inside your car was warm, and a light rain was falling. “Where to?”

I asked. I was hoping you’d want to get food (being drunk used to do that to my stomach) but instead, you had a mischievous grin.

“Want to go for a drive?” I don’t know why I said yes. I knew it wasn’t smart to go driving after you’d been drinking and smoking and God knows what else, but then again, in those days I only knew how to be smart when I needed the participation points.

“Don’t worry,” you had said when I questioned your level of impairment. “I know this area like the back of my hand.”

The back of your hand was what I kept looking down at while you gave me a driving tour of your small-town childhood. While I felt the heat of your palm resting on my thigh and wondered what it meant, you pointed out your elementary school, your favorite park, the convenience store you and your friends got kicked out of when you were 17. Though I had passed these places while I came and went

from school, it had never occurred to me that someone could be from here, especially not someone from school. Especially not someone whose car I would be sitting in as they gave me a proper tour.

“It’s not much,” you said as we passed the gas station, the only one within a 25-mile radius that consistently had the good Doritos, and also the last bit of town before you’d hit country roads.

You were right, of course.

Everyone from school ignored this place unless they were desperately low on gas, or maybe snacks, choosing instead to drive thirty minutes away to a bigger town. But it was your home, it was you.

I shrugged. “I like it.”

“You know, you’re the first girl I’ve shown all this,” you said, turning to look at me for the first time since you’d put your car in drive. Not that I was taking note.

“All the rest of them have already been from here.”

Knowing that there were others stung in a way I wasn’t really expecting, but I reminded myself that I was in no place to judge, newly single as I was. I stared down at my cell phone in my hands. It was dead and possibly broken since I’d dropped it on the beer-soaked floor about an hour ago, but it was easier than looking at you. “I’m glad I’m the first,” I said finally and honestly.

I looked up. Although you were back to watching the road in front of us, I saw a smile cross your lips.

ghost “I am too,” you said, lifting your hand off of my thigh. For a moment I was afraid I had said something wrong, until I felt you trying to pry my hand away from my phone. I gave in and laced our fingers together. It had been a while since someone had tried to hold my hand. My ex wasn’t really the touchy-feely type. Or, at least, he wasn’t with me. That other girl, I still wasn’t so sure about.

Suddenly, I felt like crying. As the lump in my throat got bigger and bigger, I turned my head to look out the window at the passing field. It was empty, left barren for the winter, save for a few broken cornstalks. I felt a tear roll down my cheek, then another. I let it happen.

I’d been in need of a good cry.

“Penny for your thoughts,” you said, squeezing my hand. I stayed turned away so you couldn’t see the tears. I had been the overemotional girlfriend once and I was not looking to repeat that role, not this time.

You took silence as an acceptable answer until a sniffle gave me away. “Are you okay?”

I looked at you and shook my head as an answer.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, but I knew you already had a guess.

Although I hadn’t told you much about it yet, news of catastrophic breakups traveled fast at school, faster when it was about me. I didn’t like how quiet it was in the car. I knew I should just say something, anything, but I still didn’t answer.

“I have an idea,” you said, after a while. “I think you’ll like it.”

“What is it?” My voice was soft; my throat still hurt from crying. I hoped that whatever you had in mind didn’t have to involve

fixing the mascara that I knew was all over my face by now.

“You’ll see.”

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be seeing when you pulled into the crumbling parking lot of a roller-skating rink, apparently the only business along a stretch of country road I had never been on. One lone streetlight was responsible for keeping the entire parking lot visible. Whether the rink was abandoned or just closed for the night I wasn’t sure. The sign announcing its presence still loomed over the parking lot, but the letters were faded and peeling off. Abandoned by my hometown’s standards, still a successful business by yours. You pulled into a parking spot, the white lines on the asphalt only barely visible.

I noticed the building itself was sagging, held up by sheer willpower and, I guessed, the occasional handyman. It looked as if it had once been painted yellow, and by once, I mean never again.

The front door, a rectangle of glass and duct tape, was kept closed by a chain and padlock. I wasn’t sure if it was there for the night or forever. It was a little creepy, I had to admit.

Not exactly the hottest birthday party venue in the area.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s where I come to think,” you said, letting go of my hand to grab something dark from the backseat. I saw a logo, a little diamond, and recognized it as one of your sweatshirts. “Put this on. I have something to show you.”

“What?” I asked, but you weren’t waiting for me. You stepped out of the car, shutting the door behind you. I decided to do as I was told and put the sweatshirt

but it was your home, it was you.

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lighted corners on. It was a little funny how big it was compared to my skimpy party clothes.

By the time I had opened the passenger side door and stepped out, you were already waiting for me.

“Notice anything?” you said. I looked towards the streetlight, and I saw it.

“It’s snowing.” I couldn’t help but smile. It didn’t snow much where I was from, so snow was still a treat for me. I would be sick of it by the end of winter for sure, but for now, it was enchanting.

I was still marveling at the tiny little flakes dancing through the dim light when you grabbed both of my hands and pulled me into you. I didn’t realize how cold I was until I could feel your body heat.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah,” I said. I scrunched my nose. “It’s a little cold now, though.”

“You’re always so negative,” you said rolling your eyes, but unlike the last person who had said that to me, I could tell you were joking.

You pulled me in for a kiss and I was happy to oblige. You hadn’t kissed me at the party, choosing instead to just stand by me. Oddly enough, this made me more confused as to where we stood.

But for some reason, none of that mattered in this dilapidated parking lot. I was here, with you, and that was all that was important.

I let myself get wrapped up in your arms and also this moment and let it carry me wherever it was supposed to.

Wherever turned out to be your house, your bedroom at the end of an oddly long hallway. How we got there, I wasn’t sure. Maybe

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Muted Spring | digital photography Paige Moseley

ghost it was the kiss, maybe it was the copious amounts of alcohol still flowing through my veins, but the ride home was lost to me. So was the part where you’d given me a T-shirt to wear, the name of some beach I’d never been to plastered across the front.

I sat on the edge of your bed, careful not to disturb your covers, while you got ready for bed in what I assumed was the bathroom next door. You’d said to sit wherever, but the bed took up most of the room, so I didn’t have much choice. I sat with perfect posture, hands folded neatly in my lap. I was afraid that if I laid down I would immediately fall asleep and whatever we had going on in the parking lot would be over, just like that.

While I waited, I glanced around your room. TV on the nightstand, turned to HDMI-2 instead of off. High school diploma in a frame, leaning against the wall. Medals from your high school soccer team hung next to your bed. You told me you’d played all through middle and high school, thought about going to college for it even, but then decided against it.

Evidently, you were at least decent, judging by the number of medals tacked to the wall. You’d left your closet open, and a lone teddy bear sat on top of the shoes that were piled on the floor. I wondered if you’d put it there to hide it in case someone ended up coming over.

It was odd, seeing things from your childhood. Most dorm rooms I’d been in just showed who the person was in that moment, not who they were five years ago.

“I meant you could lay down,” you said with a chuckle, startling me back to the present moment.

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lighted corners “I mean, I was just afraid I’d fall asleep if I did,” I said.

“Oh, so you were waiting for me?” You laughed.

I paused for a moment, unsure of how to answer that. Luckily, I didn’t have to. You flopped down on the bed, next to where I was sitting.

I followed suit.

The bed felt good. Laying down felt really good. What time even was it now? Not that it mattered, it’s not like I had anywhere important to be. What was important was here. And now.

Are you going to kiss me again?

I wondered.

I got my answer a few seconds later when you pulled me closer and brought my face to yours.

You tasted like toothpaste, and I briefly panicked when I imagined what my mouth must taste like.

Beer probably, followed by a hint of cheap vodka and finished by a twist of whatever was mixed with the Gatorade you handed me in a red plastic cup.

You didn’t seem to care though, as we kept going, moving a leg here or an arm there as our muscles grew tired.

And then I could feel your

you didn’t respond. after that night, i would always wonder why you didn’t,

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hands moving lower. Slowly, as if to test my limits. I shifted strategically so your hands had to move back up higher.

Not here, I thought. Not now.

Not while I was still drunk and I knew you had a teddy bear hidden in your closet and all I could see when I closed my eyes was my ex telling me that I wasn’t enough, that he didn’t love me anymore. It wasn’t right.

You didn’t take my shifting as a hint to stop though. Again your hands moved down. My heart started beating faster. I didn’t know why I was scared, just that I was and this wasn’t the right time.

I pulled away.

“Please don’t be mad,” I started. From the faint glow of the TV screen, I could see you raise your eyebrow.

“It’s just, I just don’t know about this.”

Your expression was unreadable as you let go of me and rolled onto your back, staring at the popcorn ceiling.

“It’s whatever.” I knew it wasn’t whatever, but at least it was over.

“Sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t know if I was, actually. But it just

ghost seemed like the right thing to say.

You didn’t respond. After that night, I would always wonder why you didn’t, but maybe, sometimes there just isn’t anything to say.

It stayed quiet for a while. I wasn’t sure how long it was, but it was too long. The problem was, the longer it was quiet, the less it felt right to say something.

“What do you want from me?” you asked, finally.

To somehow fix the mess my ex left. “Honestly?” I said. “I don’t quite know.”

You were quiet, so I felt the need to continue. “I mean, I like you, I like this, I just don’t want to mess things up.” I had a habit of doing just that.

“Makes sense,” you said, but I wasn’t sure you meant that. I wasn’t sure any of this made sense.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. Maybe if I said it enough times you would think I meant it, maybe it would mean something. Maybe I could apologize my way into a relationship that actually lasted this time.

“You’re weird,” you said. “You know that?” Leave it to you to insult me as a joke at the worst possible time. But joking was good. Joking

meant that everything might be okay.

I laughed. It sounded forced, but it was better than nothing.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I am weird.”

“How about this,” you said, rolling on your side to face towards me again. “You keep being weird, being you, and we’ll see where it goes. Where this goes.”

“Yeah,” I said. I very much liked the sound of that. Where this goes.

“We could do that.”

“Okay, weirdo,” you said, messing up my hair with your free hand. “Let’s do it.”

We crawled under the covers after that, and you grabbed my hand. I knew that it wasn’t going farther than that this time. This time, we were just going to see where this goes.

but maybe, sometimes there just isn’t anything to say.

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Good Luck Charm | digital photography Paige Moseley

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heavenly bodies

ghost

Erin Daly

Shall I compare thee to a bright summer sun?

No. Too bold, too overbearing, too painful to behold.

You are more the moon, reflecting light onto everyone else, guiding them through nights dark and cold.

The sun burns hot: passionate, but quick to anger.

Nothing like your calming presence, controlling the tides with a gentle push and pull. An enchanter, a lover, a distant beacon that sometimes hides.

I wish you wouldn’t hide from me or shy away when you think you are shining too bright.

You orbit around our feelings, afraid to stray from the set path. Afraid to live, except at night.

Maybe loving the moon is worse than loving the sun.

It breaks your heart before the love has even begun.

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Looking Through a Lens | digital photography Victoria Tyler

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i fear Paige Moseley

ghost

I fear change.

I would rather be smothered in miserable familiarity than in the loving unknown.

I fear death.

Never my own, but how it will rob me of all that I have ever loved.

I fear growing old.

I will always regret the things I could not control.

I fear commitment.

I yearn to regain the thoughtless freedom only known in childhood.

I fear war.

The inevitable conflict between human minds will never subside, making us victims to our own thoughts.

The enemy is that of no physical mind, body, or soul.

No, the cause of my twenty-year disquietude was time, itself.

Tick It is impossible to confront,

Tock

incapable of blame, Tick and perfectly unavoidable.

Life is defined by time, and yet not one has ever lived Without knowing the cold touch of fear.

So, have my anxieties been the result of living life to the fullest?

Now, to comfort my crowded, somber mind, I know that although a petal kneels at the feet of time, I will not fall victim to the ticking hands.

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Fallen Fall | digital photography Robert Prender

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ghost

theTess dawn Boegel The dawn creeps slowly on padded feet across the lawn.

Its stripes of gold and red, reflecting on the grass.

Startling the birds awake, it rubs against the trees and wanders up the path.

I look down and see a patch of light has crawled into my lap.

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The Grand Adventure | watercolor on paper Rebekah Balick

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the final tapestry

“When you pull the thread into the fabric, you are filling a void created by the violence of your needle’s bite. You are singing a note into the breath after a fermata. You are adding a word, a comma, a dash to a story that we have been telling for ages, since before these words existed.”

So my mother told me as we stood on the threshold on the first morning of my time in the Great Room, where the tapestry that she had worked on since she was pregnant with me was spread from ancient wall to ancient wall. The walls themselves were soft with hanging after hanging, the tapestries of Embroiderers stretching back into the past beyond the comprehension of my twelve-year-old mind.

On later days, I would try to hide from our work by slipping between the hanging cloths, layered so thickly that my body could not make a bulge in the fabric. Swallowed up in the womb of the tapestries, I would trace my fingers across the ancient stitches, thinking about these old Embroiderers and whether they had dragged their daughters in from the great springs and pools and fields to stab old pieces of fabric with finger-cracking needles along lines of dusty charcoal. I would imagine myself inside one of the pictures, a maiden made of dyed threads climbing mountains and winning wars and leading her people towards the moon, until my mother had poked along enough of the cloth barricades to find me, like the baby who at last pokes out of

the reluctant mother’s waist, and loose robes and flowing skirts are no more use for concealment.

But this was only my first day in the Great Room, where I had never been allowed to come before, and I drank in my mother’s instructions more urgently than I sucked in air after diving to the bottom of the Lake and resurfacing.

I had seen her sew at home before, when she would embroider clothes and blankets and ribbons for my aunts and cousins and me, all in our favorite colors and with our favorite animals and stories.

I had also heard my mother discussing her work with my aunts.

They spoke of her embroidery with reverence and longing, but never jealousy.

“When will it be ready?” one of them would ask as we sat under the stars and moon.

“Sometime, God willing,” my mother would reply. “Sometime.”

From her vagueness over the years, I had guessed that the tapestry was huge; it had never occurred to me that its labor consumed the entirety of the Great Room. When I arrived that first morning, my mother had completed perhaps a quarter of the enormous fabric, full of the Lake on the Founding Morning. Blues and greens interlocked in embroidery so dense that it seemed to be braided rather than stitched. Pinks, reds, browns, purples, greens, and yellows wove, knotted, and looped together into corals, fish, sea flowers, and urchins.

“Last night, the Drawer was here,” my mother said, pointing to

Betsy Busch

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lighted corners the charcoal lines on the brown canvas, covering only the top left quadrant, just above the work my mother had already done. To the right, the canvas stretched out for yards and yards, unmarred by charcoal or thread.

But the picture that we were to continue—it made me feel as if I hadn’t returned from the bottom of the Lake at all this morning. The Drawer had done the best work I had ever seen from her: the village arriving above the Lake, their horses and belongings and children in tow. Although the charcoal could not move or speak, I knew exactly what the people were doing: electing Mina as their leader. I could hear the Reciter’s voice from the familiar chant she intoned every spring, her voice confident and joyful as she told the story.

“Mama, you didn’t say that this was what we were going to embroider!” I gasped, staring at the work already done and the promise of what our hands would achieve.

She smiled at me from her chest of threads, already selecting the best colors for the day’s work.

“It’s a secret, Anna. The last and greatest of the tapestries—until we have another story to tell.”

“When will that be?”

“Who can say? The Prophet and the Reciter say we may have reached the end of our history.”

“You mean this is actually the end of history? The end of the world?”

“Are those the same things?”

Mama smiled again, but the left corner of her mouth jerked; a different feeling fought her grin.

“Maybe this is just the last part of our history that the Prophet can see. Maybe next month she’ll wake up from a vision and remember a

you mean this is actually the end of history? the end of the world?

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time before our people came here.

Maybe something exciting will happen in five or ten or twenty years, and you’ll have another tapestry to work on when our work here is done.”

Before I could figure out my next question, she waved me over to the trunk and gestured for me to kneel beside her. When I did, she smoothed my hair with her calloused fingertips and then reached into her chest for a shiny needle. Placing it in my open palm, she began her prayer.

“May this needle be a sword of truth in your hand. May you guide it with purpose and reverence. May you tell the story of your people with honesty and pride. May God the Creator, who sees and hears and knows all, give wings to this prayer. This I ask.”

“This I ask,” I murmured after her, admiring the sharpness of the needle and its shininess against my palm, congratulating myself for listening to my mother and washing my hands this morning after swimming in the muddy bottom of the Lake with my cousin.

Mama kissed my fingertips and said, “It’s time for us to start what the Drawer has planned for us. Are you ready, daughter?”

I was. I held up the needle, and she handed me a skein of green thread for the grass beneath the villagers’ feet as they gathered around Mina’s Rock. Sucking in my breath, I gathered six strands of the thread, wet them in my mouth, and stabbed them through the eye on my first try.

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Deer Family | digital photography Dolores Hans

where i’m running to

Sarah Johnson

The flicker of a tungsten wire brings a yellow haze to this sanctuary: a cabin in candlelight, cedar, and ash.

Only the fireflies can find us, darling, an owl or sparrow, perhaps.

Maybe a fawn will stumble past, as I do into your arms when the moon is high.

It’s a cold winter, but you keep me warm under powder-white blankets that echo the snow.

When spring comes, we’ll emerge from shelter to put out the fire, but keep drinking hot cocoa as rain falls from the sky.

Mud puddles and bright flowers mark our way through the woods, fresh bread in the oven, whispering curtains, and hazel green.

Summer brings stargazing and toes in the creek.

We’ll bring home a tadpole and release it the same week.

Twirl me by the bonfire in my favorite dress, barefoot dancing to the crickets’ song.

Our cozy sweaters reappear as time changes; we tie our hair back and set to work.

The harvest is brought in, and cider is shared.

The trees whisper secrets while we take our last wanderings.

Then the snow begins to fall, and I’m safe once again.

Another year is gone, but you’re still in our bed.

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Windows in Orvieto | digital photography Brett Snow

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freckled wall Rachel Hoerner

The wall has freckles, around ten, I think.

And as I gaze at it longer, the more I notice and see.

It has wrinkles and texture and a natural shine, but beyond all of that, what it really expresses is time.

The paint all around us, in apartments and office buildings, holds a record of what has been and tells its story for centuries.

Because paint is never gone; it is just painted over, and the layers that still stand narrate freckled texture and stories.

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contributors

Rebekah Balick is a Mount senior by day, an artist by afternoon, and a writer by night. Other hobbies include hiking and accidentally tangling her rosary in her keys.

Tess Boegel is a junior majoring in English and minoring in Communication and Creative Writing. Besides writing poetry, she likes to spend what little free time she has drawing, reading, and binging her favorite TV shows.

Brittney Bolling is a junior studying Criminal Justice and Human Services. In her free time, she loves going on new adventures and observing nature’s true beauty with her friends.

Danielle Brathwaite is a sophomore studying Criminal Justice and Sociology and minoring in Psychology. She enjoys taking photos of nature, writing poems, and watching criminal documentaries.

Betsy Busch is a senior studying English, French, and Music. In her free time, she likes embroidering, hiking, baking, and deconstructing the patriarchy.

Ashari Cain is a sophomore studying Communication with a concentration in Journalism and Publication. If you can’t find her writing poetry, she’s most likely lost in a crime series.

Kayla Cooper is a junior studying English Literature and Communication. She enjoys reading, writing, and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer one too many times.

Erin Daly is a sophomore studying English and Accounting. She enjoys hiking, reading science fiction novels, and watching romcoms.

Claire Doll is a sophomore studying English Education and Creative Writing. She enjoys reading, journaling, and drinking lots of coffee while listening to Taylor Swift.

Frances Fisher is a freshman majoring in Art, specifically drawing. Her favorite things are nature and her cat and dog, which inspire most of her artwork.

Dolores Hans is a freshman studying for a dual certification in Special/Elementary Education. To her, there’s no joy like witnessing the beauty of nature and capturing it through photography.

Rachel Hoerner is a freshman studying Pre-law and English. She enjoys exploring campus to take and be in photos, writing poetry, and touching grass.

Timothy Hrabinski is a senior studying Accounting and Forensic Accounting. He enjoys going on hikes and walking in the great outdoors.

Emmy Jansen is a senior studying Conflict, Peace, and Social Justice and English. When she’s not writing creatively, she’s writing academically about women’s issues and domestic terrorism, but never at the same time.

Matthew Jenkins is a senior studying Communications with minors in Business and Creative Writing. He has an unhealthy obsession with folklore and urban legends, especially the Snallygaster.

Sarah Johnson is a junior studying Elementary Education. She enjoys spending time in nature, learning about science, and writing poetry for hours with four cups of tea at her side.

Brett Snow is a senior studying Business Management. He enjoys hiking and photography but would honestly just be happy staying in and playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

Joanna Kreke is a senior Communication major with minors in History and Creative Writing. She enjoys watching movies and video essays with her cat, Pippin.

Margaret Stine is a sophomore studying English and History. She is a Mount Ambassador who loves all genres of music, but Queen is her favorite band.

Mary Lawler studies Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and Theology. She’s a connoisseur of white pizza and 1940s romcoms, a St. Therese and poker enthusiast, and a chronic procrastinator.

Emma Tettey is a freshman who enjoys photography. When not taking photos, she is on the track and field team.

Paige Moseley is a senior studying Communication and Public Relations.

She enjoys spending time with her family, friends, and her camera to capture life’s most beautiful moments.

Alyssa Pierangeli is a freshman excited to be studying English and Theology. She values using her creativity to bring honor to God and making others smile, even if it’s brief.

Robert Prender is a sophomore studying Business, Philosophy, and Art. He has been doing photography since he was in middle school but also practices many other art forms.

Aubrey Preske is a sophomore studying Art and Education. Her favorite thing to do is catch a nice wave surfing or hit the slopes snowboarding.

Eileen Rosewater is a junior studying Communications and Creative Writing. She enjoys photography, playing volleyball, and spending time with friends and family.

Victoria Tyler is a senior majoring in Communication and minoring in Psychology and Creative Writing. When she’s not taking pictures, she loves exploring the outdoors while playing Pokémon Go and bingewatching true crime shows.

Megan Ulmer is a senior biology and biochemistry double major. She collects coffee mugs shaped like animals and owns way too many plants.

Angela Vodola is an Elementary and Special Education major and Theology minor. She enjoys drinking tea, reading, and going to The Grotto.

Lexi Zambito is a senior pursuing majors in Theology, Philosophy, and Latin.

contributors

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Volume 41 Lighted Corners