Lighted Corners 2024

Cover: “Free Bird” by Trinity Sandacz Photography

lighted corners

vol. 43 currents

Mount St. Mary’s University

16300 Old Emmitsburg Road

Emmitsburg, MD 21727

301-447-6122

lightedcorners@msmary.edu

msmary.edu/lightedcorners

www.instagram.com/lightedcorners

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 reviews 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 Service in Frederick, Maryland. 300 copies are printed by the company. The Spring 2024 issue is printed on 100# Gloss Cover and the inside is 70# Uncoated Opaque Text. The magazine body text is set in Georgia, headers are set in Didot, and titleset in Lao MN. Lighted Corners is created using Adobe Creative Cloud. Editor-in-Chief Claire Doll, Design Editor Emma Edwards, and Fiction Editor Erin Daly 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 Lighted Corners logo was designed by Rachel Donohue, C’21. Rachel was a long-time Design Editor and served as Editor-in-Chief for Volume 40.

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 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2008

Silver Medalist 2018, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009

Gold Crown Award 2022

Silver Crown Award 2021, 2014

Gold Circle Awards

2023 to Eleanor Fisher, Ana Purchiaroni, Kayla Jones, Ashley Walczyk, Helen Hochschild, Frances Fisher, Robert Prender, Claire Doll

2022 to Rebekah Balick, Victoria Tyler, Megan Ulmer

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

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.

Claire Doll 2023

Betsy Busch 2022

Our contributors have earned recognition in Delta Epsilon Sigma’s undergraduate writing competition. DES is a national scholastic honor society established in 1939 for students of Catholic universities and colleges in the United States.

Erin Daly 2023 Second Place in Poetry for “Heavenly Bodies”

Claire Doll 2023 Second Place in Short Fiction for “Dear Gracie”

plain china: the Best Undergraduate Writing is an ever-growing anthology featuring young writers and artists on a national level. The following pieces from Volume 41 of Lighted Corners have been selected for plain china:

“The Dawn” by Tess Boegel

“Swimming Lessons” & “Sitting Under Starry Skies” by Claire Doll

“Los Pensamientos de la Llorana” by Alyssa Pierangeli

“Staring at my Bookshelf” by Angela Vodola

our team

Editor-in-Chief

Design Editor

Assistant Design Editor

Fiction Editors

Assistant Fiction Editors

Creative Nonfiction Editors

Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editors

Poetry Editors

Assistant Poetry Editor

Art Editor

Assistant Art Editor

Public Relations Manager

Faculty Adviser

Staff

Claire Doll Emma Edwards

Anna Dang

Erin Daly & Ashley Walczyk

Hannah Perry & Sophi Toth-Fejel

Gabe Vilches & Hailey Fulmer

Amaya Bowman & Christopher Derocher

Margaret Stine & Kayleen Dominguez

Tamara Olobo

Robert Prender

Dolores Hans Kayla Jones

Dr. Tom Bligh

Joshua Aybar, Rachel Hoerner, Sarah King, Tess Koerner, Kayla Lijewski, Veronica Marchak, Maureen Pham, Clover Satchell, Jenna Scalia, Gavin Schisler, Kelechi Udom “Percy Jackson”

editor’s note

One of my earliest memories is of the sea. It’s late summer in Ocean City, Maryland, and I’m standing at the fringes of the first ocean I’ll ever know. Foamy water trickles between my toes, crashing onto the sand, then suddenly reels backwards. Beside me, my father holds my hand, and my mother lies on a towel nearby. My sister stands knee-deep in the tide, and I am four or five, somewhere in between, a mess of tangled hair and sunburnt skin. I watch how the waves are constant, a promise; there is never a moment that the water will not return back to the ocean.

Don’t we do the same? Life is but a stream of currents, pushing and pulling us in different directions, yet we always retreat back to the sea. We return to our mothers and fathers, to lost loves, to memories tethered to our past. Our oceans are vast, filled with heartache, but familiar, what we long for when the world outside grows cold and strange. We are humans, containing memories as countless as the peaks in the ocean waves, and the power of a single current can bring us back or force us into something new.

I’m twenty-two now, no longer the little girl standing on the shore of Ocean City. The currents of my life have led me here, as an aspiring writer, leaving my words in Lighted Corners; I am eternally thankful that for four years, my writing has found a home in this journal. That, once each spring, poetry, prose, and art marry to create an intricate display of student voices. For me, creative writing is a love; it’s something I find myself reaching towards when all else feels far in this giant world, something I can call my own. No matter where the currents take me after college, I’ll never let writing go.

For that, I want to thank our adviser, Dr. Bligh. His unwavering support for his students and Lighted Corners is absolutely inspiring, and I am so grateful for his leadership and devotion to creative writing. Thank you to Dr. Mitra and the Mount St. Mary’s English Department for constantly celebrating the beauty of the English language. Thank you to Robin and the Valley Graphic Service team for printing Lighted Corners with dedication, to Mr. Joe Paciella for your continuous help with the magazine, and thank you to President Trainor, Dean Zygmont, and Provost Creasman; I cannot express how grateful I am for a college that supports the literary arts. And lastly, thank you to my staff, and to the writers and artists that make up this magazine. Each one of you is a talented, worthy person whose currents will lead you to amazing things. Thank you for leaving a piece of yourselves here.

In Volume 43, we reflect on the currents that move us through regret and loss, but also toward hope and adventure. Through lyrical poetry and imaginative art we dive deep beneath our surfaces, exploring our beautiful depths, our darkest trenches. We invite you, like the seagulls on our cover, to glide above the push and pull of our ocean tides, our reaches and returns to what we know and love: our mothers, our childhoods, our imagined worlds. Be moved by these pieces the way you might be moved while swimming in the ocean under a wide, summer sky.

Editor-in-Chief

Claire Doll

Abe and His Sushi and His Baskets • 46-53

Joshua Aybar

I Cry into My Bowl of Spaghetti • 58-59

Tess Koerner

Invisible Strings • 61-69

Kayla Jones

Dear Gracie • 80-85

Claire Doll

Boiling Point • 87

Erin Daly

Freezing Point • 88

Erin Daly

Untitled Ocean • 96

Erin Daly

Mausoleum • 98-101

Savannah Laux

c o n t e n t s fiction creative nonfiction poetry

Nanny • 17

Emma Edwards

Heartbeats • 24-28

Claire Doll

Plays from my Diary • 40

Tess Koerner

Pretty Copper Rings • 42-43

Abigail Jarrett

My Hair and Me • 73-76

Rayelle Weir

Exposure • 92

Abigail Jarrett

On Growing • 102-103

Claire Doll

Considering Summer • 14

Margaret Stine

Life in the Classroom • 18

Amaya Bowman

Mother’s Sonnet • 20

Jane Allman

Blooms of Time • 23

Kiara Ramirez

Waves of Emotion • 30

Sarah King

Ode to the House with the Outgrown Peach Tree • 33

Kiara Ramirez

You Cannot be Mine • 34

Joshua Aybar

Upon the Conquest of Coffee • 36-39

Anna Dang

Fantastical Truth • 44

Annabelle Colton

Milk • 54

Sasha Shandrenko

Forest Trail • 60

Sarah King

Pearls, Rejected • 7o

Jane Allman

Forever Still • 79

Krissy Roots

Growing Old Together • 91

Kayla Canfield

In the Company of Wasps • 95

Kayla Canfield

photography

Free Bird • Cover

Trinity Sandacz

The Storm • 12-13

Caliann Dietz

Grandma’s Porch • 16

Emma Edwards

Born to be Wild • 18-19

Trinity Sandacz

Emma in Flowers • 22-23

Alexandra Eastman

Mist Opportunity • 32

Dolores Hans

Mountains • 36-37

Kevin Ryan

Catedral de Sevilla Spire • 40-41

Robert Prender

Fuinneog Bhinn Éadair • 42-43

Tess Koerner

Good Old Days • 48-49

Caliann Dietz

Catedral de Sevilla • 56-57

Robert Prender

Onism • 58-59

Jenna Scalia

Balance • 60

Robert Prender

Morning Stroll • 62-63

Alexandra Eastman

Cornucopia • 70-71

Tess Koerner

Rights • 72

Kaitlynn Lowman

Tools of an Artist • 78

Caliann Dietz

When We Were Young • 80-81

Dolores Hans

Ocean Air • 93

Hailey Fulmer

Beloved Facade • 94

Dolores Hans

Moon • 96-97

Caliann Dietz

I measc socracht na sléibhte • 100-101

Tess Koerner

Good Old Days • 104-105

Dolores Hans

visual art

Percy Jackson • 7

Aubrey Preske

Stoneware • 15

Emma Edwards

Birds • 21

Emma Edwards

A Slope of Yellow and Blue • 25

Anna Dang

Alaskan Seaside • 30-31

Alexandra Eastman

Called in a Dream • 35

Anna Dang

St. Michael the Archangel • 45

Anna Dang

Kira • 54-55

Aubrey Preske

Dawn • 86

Aubrey Preske

The Other End • 90-91

Annabelle Colton

Next page: “The Storm” by Caliann Dietz Photography

“like

as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

so do our minutes hasten to their end.”

William Shakespeare, Sonnet

Considering Summer

The field of flowers is endless— warm breeze, hot sunbeams; it is summer.

Margaret Stine

The flowers grasp your ankles, stems reaching for a touch, petals leaning for a kiss. You trudge on— is this not life?

In the middle of the field, you stop. You are surrounded by beauty that words are unable to express. Why try? The flowers don’t seem to mind, brushing against you, whispering secrets you cannot understand. The sun looks down in pity.

Flowers

Nanny

Emma Edwards

A cardigan hangs in my closet with colorful birdhouses stitched into it. Soft, navy buttons tell me it has been well loved. I picked it out of a faded bin filled to the brim with her clothes before I moved back to Maryland. The smell was familiar for only a few days, like sleepovers on her couch, tucked in with blankets that have comforted generations before me.

creates the breeze that makes it ring its mournful tune; before dawn, the mourning dove duets with the hollow, rusted metal.

A short poem is pinned to my bulletin board. On the backside is a photo of her. She wears a bright beaded teal, beaming, matching her wild, well-kept garden. When I remember her, I hear buzzing hummingbirds sipping sugar water

before dawn, the mourning dove duets with the hollow, rusted metal

A bluebird figurine now sits on my bookcase, plucked from its perch amongst swallows and cardinals in her kitchen windowsill. My mother claimed it for me when I told her I wanted it, before the frenzy of extended family swooped in to treasure away the rest of her belongings. It sings a sweet tune if all is quiet.

A set of wind chimes hang outside my doors. The long move from her porch to mine must have made them tired; they are corroded, a dull brown against the rich, firtree green that acts as their background. A painted mountain range

“Grandma’s Porch” by Emma Edwards Photography

from the back porch railing. I smell strong coffee in modest white mugs with muted gold rims. I feel the soft summer breeze as it strokes my hair, putting me to sleep on the beloved wooden porch couch. I see her compassionate wrinkled hands, busy setting the strong oak dining room table for the next twenty-some person meal.

By the finches that ate seed from the feeder in her backyard, always well stocked; by the flowers that stretched their necks to see into her living room windows; by the crisp mountain air that dried her blankets on century-old clotheslines; by the sun who woke up every day to greet only her, she was well loved.

Life in the Classroom

Pencils, crayons, and caffeine: the teacher’s life for me.

Children laughing and crying and singing and learning. One’s peeing in the corner, one’s yelling my name. Miss B., MISS B., I am going insane. It’s my passion, it’s an art, I tell myself.

My hair thrown in a bun, tossed books on the shelf.

I feel like there’s no time to myself.

It’s glamor, it’s grace, but in reality, it’s just sneezes to the face. I love my job, I really do, but sometimes I get through the day and just say PHEW. At least I did it, I say to myself. Being a teacher, you don’t get much time to yourself. Kids screaming and yelling might seem like a lot, but the product of their success is worth all the snot.

Amaya Bowman

“Born to be Wild” by Trinity Sandacz Photography

Mother’s Sonnet

Jane Allman

Under your eye, my quick youth gleamed galore with those pink star-studded slippers that kept my tiny toes encased, safe through my door which you’d quietly crack, to see I slept.

Beneath the blankets, knitted by Nana and piled on by you, I squirmed and shrunk into cocoons of comfort. Pajamas plaid with matching set in your heirloom trunk. I met adolescence on sleepless nights with long-lasting lacerations, white to red. Here I faced budding woman’s lonesome plight and by morning you cleaned my stained bed.

Mother you’re mine, your nourishment innate. We bleed, graciously gifted to create.

Blooms of Time

Kiara Ramirez

In the quiet dusk of my childhood room, where shadows danced upon the walls with glee, memories linger, like flowers in full bloom.

A haven of dreams, where I'd find my way to zoom through realms of make-believe, wild and free, in the quiet dusk of my childhood room.

Stuffed animals gathered, their faces a gentle gloom, witnesses to secrets shared just with me; memories linger, like flowers in full bloom.

As time unfurled, my heart began to assume the changes that life would inevitably decree, in the quiet dusk of my childhood room.

Now, as I stand on the precipice of gloom, surveying the artifacts of who I used to be, a new chapter unfolds, in a different room.

The walls may change, and the space may resume, yet, in my heart, the essence remains free. A new chapter unfolds, in a different room. Memories linger, like flowers in full bloom.

“Emma in Flowers”

by Alexandra Eastman Photography

Heartbeats

Claire Doll

I’m five.

The world is bigger than I could ever fathom, and right now, we’re driving in a town far away from home. I watch the sky change patterns from the car window; bright blue turns to scattered clouds turns to streaks of winter sunlight. I fall asleep, then wake up to Dad parking the car in front of a small strip of stores. When I ask Mama where we are, she says, “It’s a surprise.”

She unbuckles me from my car seat and the air here, at this surprise, feels different. It is colder, sharper, even at the very end of February.

I cannot read very well, so when we walk into a store between the Chinese restaurant and a barbershop, I blink and follow Mama. I’m small and scared, holding onto my mother’s hand, suddenly breathing in the smell of dogs as she opens the door.

Puppies.

So many puppies, crowded in little cages, a melody of barks swelling like a symphony. There are big puppies, scratching at the walls of their crates, letting out deep barks with their begging black eyes. There are smaller puppies, squealing and whining.

And then there is you.

You’re tiny, golden brown and

black, with eyes big and twinkly. Ears, triangular and pointed. Your nose perfect, your paws delicate and small. As you sit in the corner of your crate, you look right at me, wearing an expression of fear. It is as if we are the only two people— creatures—in this store.

When Mama and Dad ask me which puppy I like, which one I want to keep and take home and grow up with, I choose you.

We name you Toby, after the country singer, Toby Keith.

We teach you the basic things: how to sit, how to raise your paw. When you lie down, you stretch your arms and legs, you curl your tongue in a yawn, you perk your ears up, then fold them back. I go to school and tell all my friends about you. His name is Toby, I say to them. He’s a silky terrier. He’s my best friend. They tell me best friends can’t be dogs, only people. I don’t believe them for a second.

We do everything together. We go on walks and watch movies. We run outside and you dash into the garden beds—it’s May, and you get lost in the flowers—and I wait anxiously for your return. When I play teacher or doctor, I pretend you are my student, my patient. I believe you can talk, so I go on and on about my friends, about my “A Slope of Yellow and Blue” by Anna Dang Acrylic Paint on Canvas

second-grade science class, and recess today. You don’t talk back yet, but it’s okay. I know you will. I dress you up in American Girl Doll clothes and take your pulse with my toy stethoscope and I can hear your heartbeat, a beautiful thud, thud reminding me that you are here, that you are mine.

“You do realize he’s just a dog, right?”

Just a dog. The words sting, because you’re a pet, Toby.

Doesn’t that make you more than just an animal?

you look up at me with those twinkly brown eyes,

I’m eleven, and you are lost.

Through my tear-streaked vision, I hang the posters around my neighborhood. The sky is fully blue, but hints of the sunset stretch into the clouds. It is summer. It will grow darker later, but still.

I had left the gate open, and by some animal instinct, you ran out. Sometimes I forget you have those—instincts.

I wonder what called you to leave. Do you not love me? Is that why? Have I been a terrible owner, best friend, companion? Or do you find more homeliness in the darkness of the forest, under the slowly changing leaves?

Do you even know what home is?

As I roam the neighborhood, one of my neighbors—a boy in my class—walks up to me.

“Hey,” he says. “What is wrong with you?”

“Toby went missing,” I manage to say. I hand him a poster.

He rolls his eyes and laughs.

He leaves, pretends like I’m crazy. Suddenly I wonder if you even love me, or if you really are what Henry said. Just a dog. I find myself crying now for a different reason, because if you were just a dog, it makes sense that you would wander into the backyard, into the unknown, exposed to all elements. If you were more than that, you would have stayed. You would have looked at the open gate and turned away.

We find you later that night, snacking on a pile of dog treats we had left by the mailbox. I am relieved when I see your perfect little nose and smile, but the happiness quickly fades when I think about how you are just a dog.

I’m sixteen, and I hate boys (except for you). I’m crying on the edge of my bed, a box of tissues on my side table, and you jump up and nestle next to me. Your nose fits right in the crook of my elbow, and as my tears fall on your fur, I wonder why you’re doing this because all my life, you’ve been just a dog.

I’m eighteen, and moving to college. In my little dorm room, I place a photo of you on my desk. Apparently, when I was six, I used to take your heartbeat (how silly of me?) and pretend I was your doctor. Anyway, that is the photo I chose to display of you, because you’re looking up at me in the kind of way that transcends everything people say about you being just a dog.

I’m nineteen. Mom notices blood on the floor—it’s yours.

You don’t eat or drink and you have a mass growing in your mouth, full of blood that drips everywhere. You spend the early days of December coiled in bed, hurting.

Mom says you’re suffering.

I take philosophy in college, and we learn that suffering reveals beauty. It’s an anguishing experience that makes you more human, except you’re not human. Does that mean that it’s all for nothing?

getting married and having children and grandchildren, after I’ve had more pets (none that will be like you, of course), and after I’ve grown old and gray, I will go onto the afterlife and you might not even be there, after all these years, because you were just a dog.

I wonder why your life begins and ends at a small strip of stores.

The veterinary clinic in our little town lies just before the main street. Mom, Dad, and I take you that evening to “put you down.” I hate that phrase. Like we’re killing you. Although, in a small way, we are.

You’re confused. You look up at me with those twinkly brown eyes, and suddenly I’m five again, and you’re my everything. But I’m twenty, and you’re dying. And I’m not. I’m far from it. You don’t know what’s happening, but you know something is different. You watch

For a while, we wait inside of this small room with no windows— just a medical examination table and a counter. We wait for so long that I think you’ve already died, that and suddenly, I’m five again, and you’re my everything.

That your suffering is natural, that God would allow it because that’s just the way things are? That your suffering is not even suffering, because you don’t have a soul?

That’s the thing that hurts me the most—I do not know if you have a soul. So when I die years and years from now, after I’ve lived a life of college and finding a career and

the sky change above you. You rest your head on my shoulder. It’s cold outside. No one talks as we walk into the clinic. It’s an unspoken sadness, lingering.

we’ve died with you and that this is purgatory. But then the vet comes in. She says some kind words to us, then talks about the shot she’s going to inject into your body.

You’re terrified. You’re shaking next to me, your eyes darting back and forth. At the little girl who dressed you up in skirts. At the girl who held a stethoscope to your heart. At the girl who always cried, the girl who then left home every fall and spring, the girl who you ran to first.

Do you remember all of that?

In these last few moments of your life, I wonder if everything I believed about you was wrong, because you are so full of fear, of raw and human fear.

“He’s going to yelp a little,” says the vet, and then she combs through your gray-and-black fur until she finds the perfect spot, right next to your spine.

Then it’s in.

You let out the loudest, most gut-wrenching squeal, and I feel hurt by the amount of pain and shock you must be feeling. The sting of a sharply cold needle, the

eyes watching you from all angles. I begin to cry and it feels uncontrollable, sobs escaping my mouth as my vision blurs. I wipe away the tears, holding my hand to my mouth.

But then it only lasts long enough for you to hurt. The exhaustion of a fifteen-year-old life veils upon you as you turn limp and close your eyes, and I wonder if you’re going through that flashback that people experience before they die. I’m holding your paw, stroking your back. You’ve stopped shaking in fear, and I like to think that the pain is draining away, that a warm sensation of peace is overtaking your body, what once belonged to you.

I wish I had my stethoscope to listen to your heartbeat, to the thud, thud, to the sounds of my five-yearold laughter and your fierce barks. To the sound of your collar tags as you ran towards me. To your paws against hardwood floors.

Then to your final breath. To the piercing beat of silence. To the quiet cries in the windowless room.

then to your final breath. to the piercing beat of silence. to the quiet cries in the windowless room.

Waves of Emotion

Sarah King

The waves on the beach, their melodic hum— they remind me of things out of reach, of my dear Mommom, and how their crashes mist my cheek, and how the sun warms my skin. It takes me back to that day, so to speak, when the mist was tears running past my chin, and you were not there to give me a hug like you always had been there to do. But I stand in front of this rug of sand, embracing all that is blue, for now I have this happy-sad place where I can remember you and your embrace.

“Alaskan Seaside” by Alexandra Eastman Black and White Charcoal on Gray Paper

Ode to the House with the Outgrown Peach Tree

Kiara Ramirez

Where a peach tree was born and flourished on the porch, a table of puzzles done every weekend, the daily paper being read; where the kitchen once smelled like sopa de frijoles y arroz, the telenovela in the background from the living room, where an old lady braids the little girl’s hair—

to the basement, where the little girl played in her plastic kitchen, the little crib where she put her baby to sleep; to the room upstairs, watching Thumbelina as she ate breakfast in bed, the little girl walking with her grandpa to his mechanic shop a few blocks over, where they spent most of their afternoons,

until it was sundown and they walked back home, to eat sopa de frijoles y arroz, to the house that no longer belongs to the little girl, the house where the peach tree no longer has peaches; the house she is losing memories of, cannot even recognize— the house the peach tree has outgrown.

by Dolores Hans Photography

You Cannot be Mine

Joshua Aybar

How can you be mine, you pretty little thing?

Your eyes are too precious, your smile too pure. You cannot be mine.

You pretty little thing, you cannot be mine. Your face is too hopeful, your laugh is happy. You did not get these from me.

So, you cannot be mine, unless I’ve forgotten a bygone age when my eyes felt wonder, when my smile never left, when my laughter was real, when I was like you.

Waterfront Beauty by Annabelle Colton Photography

Upon the Conquest of Coffee

Anna Dang

‘Twas morning light, 1683 of Jan Sobieski’s victory; and Christendom’s banner wav’d on high against the Turks retreating nigh. Their spoils rent all o’er the field, Vienna’s guard caus’d them to yield; but Jan, the king, in his long stride, soon chanç’d upon a tent offside. The soldiers there had gather’d true, murm’ring spite of some dark brew. “Away with it! the potion bred to fight all night with us,” they said. Jan Sobieski push’d through the crowd. “What cause so early your din so loud?”

His soldiers bow’d, and to him conferr’d, “Your Majesty, we shall affirm: in Turkish lands, Ethiopia east, there grows a plant, the Nether’s beast. Our comrades in th’ bosom of Christ must each day slave for Ottoman heist, to harvest, grind, and blend these beans into a drink by th’ Devil unseen.

They call them kaffers, insult and drool, and name this ‘coffee’ for their suff’ring cruel.

How else it be, that they fight without end? Only this drink, by the Devil’s own hand.”

So, King Jan open’d that burlap sack and saw the powd’r of coffee beans cracked. How does it, then, have fragrant smell, when this curs’d growth comes straight from Hell? “No, no,” he said, “we cannot say. Instead, we’ll ask the pope and pray.”

“Mountains” by Kevin Ryan Photography

To Rome he marched with th’ roast of death and yet still aw’d at its sweet scent. The ships soon dock’d on Italian shore, the load of coffee brought from store. The people turned away their sight in hateful fear of th’ Turkish blight.

King Jan persisted, and with his troops, he soon enter’d the Vatican’s coop.

Card’nals, Bishops, Monsignors all, majestic array’d in St. Peter’s hall.

‘Til ascending, upon the throne, Pope Clement sat and welcom’d Jan home. “Hail, King Jan, by th’ Madonna’s hand, Hero who ‘ath sav’d our Christian land. By grace of God, in Our Lady’s stay, What brings you back so soon this day?”

“Your Holiness, I beseech thee hear, to heed my request in Christ so dear.

The coffee I’ve brought, as thus we’ve known, has come from Turks, by Christians sown. The Devil’s Drink, ‘tis thus recall’d, but I’ve no pow’r to so outlaw.”

Card’nals and Bishops all lik’d the plan, but Clement calmly rais’d his hand.

“What is this strange query, King Jan? I must try first, before a ban.”

Then all the court was in disarray at Clement’s radical words that day. What was the Holy Father’s intent? ‘Twas Satan’s fruit—give no consent!

a cup was brew’d, the black drink pour’d,

“Then how shall we discern it well if Satan true brought them from Hell?

Let God be judge, but as His Magistrate I must discern of coffee’s state.”

A cup was brew’d, the black drink pour’d, its fragrance o’erflowing out the door.

Jan and the court, with bated breath, all watch’d him drink the roast of death.

For one moment did silence reign. For one moment, all was restrained. Then Clement’s eyes lit up like flares, and he rais’d the goblet and declar’d, “The Devil’s Drink is too good to waste! We’ll cheat him with baptism now, make haste! For infidel pow’r the Lord has slain, and as we’ve won, we’ll stake our claim. Card’nals! Bishops! Monsignors here, join me in Heav’nly joy so clear, to share a blessing o’er this cup, and to the Lord, we’ll offer up.

Now you, King Jan, O noble knight, ye who have sav’d us from our blight, go out and claim the spoils of war, and cut good Ethiopia’s cords. We shall take the coffee for our own, and save our brothers from Ottoman zones.”

And soon thereafter, in Rome so fair, by Clement’s verdict in the square, from hill and dale the folk came out to Europe’s very first coffeehouse.

its fragrance o’erflowing out the door.

Plays from My Diary

Tess Koerner

Tucked away in the back of my closet, my high school diary sat with your name amidst my poorly practiced cursive. You were listed on the first page, not in the expected role of lover, but in the role of classmate #2. The setting: a cramped English lit classroom. Cheap copies of A Tale of Two Cities and Pride and Prejudice lines the windowsill on the far wall with their spines cracked and brittle. Wooden desks with scribbled profanities on the inner corner are arranged in staggered rows to prevent us from chatting. Our names are written on the whiteboard next to characters from Macbeth. By Act II, I figured that you dreaded reading as Lady Macbeth, with your head buried in the ridiculously heavy textbook as you spoke. I perfected my best attempt at a gurgled English accent as one of the Witches to make you smile.

Page after page of each entry was you: the two months you experimented with berry red lipstick— which always smudged on your teeth by the time class got out—the book summaries you’d give me after wondering what you’d been reading before class, the classes where you let your curls fall naturally after weeks of straightening

them. Complaining about exams became talking about your favorite Harry Potter book. Inviting you to join my lunch table became seeing if you were free on Saturday. Pointing at the stars outside of your car became asking if you could kiss me.

From then on, the role of star-crossed lovers always fit us better.

“Catedral de Sevilla Spire” by Robert Prender Photography

Our walking tour of sights of the 1916 Rebellion was memorable for a single reason. Our tour guide, Lorcan Collins—a quippy fellow who knew his stuff but had an unfortunate knack for quoting bumper sticker logic—noticed my rings at the statue of Jim Larkin. They’re from Bosnia, I said, acting only half so thrilled as I felt that he’d noticed them and asked about them to boot. Bosnia, says he, I have a very good friend from Bosnia. A refugee, so she was. He then quickly glossed over a tale of the time he and his friend smuggled this Bosnian girl back into her country during the war because her mother was ill and without them, she wouldn’t have been allowed to return to Ireland. This was before 9/11, he said; it’s much different now. Now, they’d never get away with it but back then, they bribed

Abigail Jarrett

and charmed their entire way across Europe quite stoned. They only had a little trouble with “the fascists” in Croatia because they weren’t keen that their friend shouldn’t have a passport, but eventually their Irish charm prevailed, and they finally made it to Bosnia. He said he never really thought about the danger until years later. I guess the marijuana wore off. You know, I think I’ll give her a call, he said with a smile, and I was left to marvel at the size of the world and just how cool people can be, and wondering where in the world they get the balls for these stunts.

In Bosnia, I met people from all over the world—well, mostly Australians, because the flight anywhere is something like twenty-four hours—who up and travel to Europe for months at a time with only a backpack, their passports, and enough cash to keep them from starving. They have only the vaguest outline of a plan, and make the rest up as they go along. They hop trains and planes and buses with the ease of Rick Steves. They meet in hostels long enough to share an adventure, a smoke, and a recommendation before skipping along to the next city.

That kind of adventure used to seem like a dream to me, something I could never do but always wished I could. A dream which I would say to friends and family, “one day,

that’ll be me” and they believed me, but I didn’t really because it scared the hell out of me. In fact, before Ireland, I had come to the unpleasant realization that many of my dreams had gone unrealized and that maybe being an adult is accepting that they won’t.

It’s not true. It’s funny to think that I’m that person now—the person with half-buried memories of the places and scenarios I’ve stumbled into while half drunk, and stories prompted by spotting a pretty copper ring on a random girl’s finger bought in some faraway place. I tell my stories to gaping mouths, to oohs and ahs and laughter. I’ve done what my mother, my grandmother, and myself three months ago could only dream about. I hardly recognize myself.

“Fuinneog Bhinn Éadair” by Tess Koerner Photography

Fantastical Truth

The world is full of fantastical stories. Of fairies, dragons, and unicorns, friendship, betrayal, and love. Yet, have you ever heard of that story?

That fantasy story of a god and a mortal?

If you have not, let me tell you of a god who loved life back.

Annabelle Colton

He was a valiant one, the most triumphant of the skies, the most beautiful of them all, as strong as he was wise. But take heed and remember still, he was the one in whom love was fulfilled.

He loved a young woman, a mortal in tears and spat upon. Wondrously beautiful but daily she cried, for she was cursed to die.

And he desired that it were not so.

He rushed down from the sky to heal her, to proclaim his overflowing love for her. He suffered and died, purchasing immortality for her with his life.

The woman was freed of her deadly curse, her humiliation and ill fortune reversed. In magnificence, the god arose and triumphed over death, and the woman loved him back—he who gave her new life’s breath.

Have you ever heard of that story?

The story of a god and his beloved? Of the eternal love within his heart that radiates forevermore?

Indeed, the world is full of fantastical stories. Indeed, this is our fantastical story. This is our fantastical truth.

Morning Rosary by Emma Edwards Photography

“Saint Michael the Archangel”

by Anna Dang Watercolor Paint on Watercolor Paper

Abe and His Sushi and His Baskets

Abe Schuman stood at his window, scratching at his ankle monitor, returning his neighbor’s glare with a smirk. Gerald Snyder was taking a break from learning how to use the wheelchair lift in their new minivan. Little Jeanine had gone back inside, most likely embarrassed by her new chair.

Abe opened his window.

“Nice day isn’t it, Gerald?” he said.

Gerald continued to glare through his glasses, crumpling the instruction packet in his left hand.

“Really, a great day for a bike ride,” Abe said, now leaning on the windowsill, “and I know how you Snyders love your bikes.”

Gerald started to walk forward but turned when a voice called him inside his house.

“At least you could have fixed my car!” Abe yelled after him.

A Mercedes pulled into Abe’s driveway. It parked next to his front stairs, cockeyed in the empty lot. Out stepped a tall, lean-muscled man, his kippah held onto his loose brown curls by a large hand. His wedding ring reflected the sun into Abe’s eyes.

“Hello there, Abraham,” he said, brushing flecks of lint off his

Joshua Aybar

blue athletic-fit suit.

Abe shuffled from the window to the door, hastily scratching at his unruly beard and thinning hair. He slowed himself, took a breath, and cracked open the door.

“What, Isaac?” he said.

“I have the sushi you wanted. They were out of yellowtail, but they had white salmon, which I remembered is your second favorite if I’m not mistaken.” Isaac held up a brown paper carry-out bag.

“So, you actually don’t have the sushi I wanted, just some sushi I now have to eat to not be rude.”

“I mean, technically, you’re not incorrect, but I figured you’d want something.”

“The something I want is the thing you neglected to get. If I must, I will eat this, but only out of courtesy to you.”

“I appreciate it,” Isaac said as he walked through the door. Abe had opened just enough for his brother to squeeze through.

Abe shuffled around the house, quickly rinsing off two plates from the pile of dishes in the sink, not caring to dry them off or remove the stuck-on pieces of food. When he put the sushi on them, the soft pieces of fish stuck to the scraps, and each bite had a chunk of gunk

hidden on the bottom.

Abe watched his brother’s eyes as they wandered the room, eventually stopping on an old piece of woven fabric that had been stuck in a cabinet door to wedge it shut.

“Is that the kippah mom made for you?” Isaac asked.

“Hmm? Oh, that old thing?” Abe said. “Yeah, I guess it is. I had totally forgotten about it.”

“She loved you, you know.”

Abe shot up from his seat. “You know that’s a lie!” he said. “That bitch always loved you and despised me! She worshipped the ground you walked on, and she never gave me so much as a loving glance!”

“Abraham, relax.”

“Don’t call me that”

“It’s your name.”

“My name is Abe. If you can’t handle that, then get the fuck out.”

Abe just stared into Isaac’s eyes, waiting for a response. Isaac still remained seated, seemingly undisturbed by Abe’s outburst. He always did this.

Just give in, thought Abe. Come on you prick, just give in.

“I never understood why you do this, Abe,” said Isaac, between bites of sushi.

Abe continued to stare at his brother. No matter what Abe got good at, Isaac could always pick it up right away. He even used chopsticks better than Abe did, and Isaac didn’t even eat sushi that often.

“Fuck you.”

Isaac then stopped chewing. Slowly, he swallowed his bite.

“Abe, why?” he said, voice calm.

“Why can’t we just have a peaceful little meal? It’d be good for you.”

“Oh, oh, I see. You also know what’s good for me. Look at that, my lawyer brother also got his medical doctorate. Congratulations, Dr. Schuman!” Abe was hyperventilating. He stood across the table, drooling and glaring at Isaac.

“Abe—”

“Don’t ‘Abe’ me, you prick!” Abe was leaning on the table now.

“Just cool down. There’s no reason to be so hostile.”

Abe reached his hand out and grabbed Isaac’s plate, throwing it against the wall. He tried to speak, but rage choked him. All he could do was point angrily at the door.

Isaac put up his hands, stood up slowly, and walked to the door.

“I’m sorry to leave you like this, Abraham,” he said. Isaac stopped and turned, realizing his mistake. “Sorry, I meant—”

He was cut short by a plate crashing into his face. Abe had another one in his other hand, and he hit Isaac across the left side of the head, sending porcelain shards across the foyer. Isaac staggered. This was the first time Abe had ever gotten the jump on his brother. He followed the plate with punches. Abe poured years of jealousy and regret into each blow.

Two large palms simultaneously

lighted corners

hit Abe in the chest. He stumbled backwards, fell onto his table, and rolled off into a pile of broken dishes and scattered raw fish. He

looked up at Isaac. Tears rushed to Abe’s eyes as he realized Isaac’s kippah had not even moved. Isaac looked down at Abe, who could see

“Good

Old Days”

by Caliann Dietz Photography

sadness in Isaac’s eyes. Isaac moved to help him up. Abe swatted the hand away.

“Get. The fuck. Out. Now,” he said. “You’ve done quite enough.”

Isaac sighed, brushed himself off, and turned to leave. Before he got out the door, he hesitated, half turning around, but he continued out the door, leaving Abe in a pile in the dining room.

Abe pulled himself to his knees and looked through the window to see Isaac leave. He tried to think of something clever with which to cut him, thus winning the fight, but nothing at all came to him. Isaac had beaten him again. There was no point in going against the norm. Abe flopped back down in the pile of destroyed sushi and cried himself to sleep.

When Abe awoke, it was dark outside. The clock said it was 11:00 p.m. He pulled himself to his feet and looked out his window.

Gerald Snyder was at his usual nightly post, drinking beer after beer in a lawn chair in his driveway, staring at Abe’s house. Abe waved two middle fingers in the window, making licking gestures with his tongue to match the disrespect of the fingers. As usual, Gerald just sat there, seething.

Abe, brushing the shards of porcelain out of his hair, pulled the chunks of sushi off his clothes. He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and went to bed. He lied there for hours, staring at his ceiling. His thoughts wandered to his fight with Isaac.

I had him, Abe thought. Why can’t I win? Even if I go at it with every advantage, he still beats me.

These thoughts repeated themselves over and over again, until Abe drifted to sleep.

His dreams carried him to his childhood. He and Isaac were about to run a race. Their mother counted down from three, and Abe ran when she said “two.” He shot ahead, and reached the halfway point across the yard before his mother was done counting. He saw the finish coming closer. Four more steps. Three more steps. Two. One. Then Isaac shot by him, finishing just ahead.

Their mother scooped Isaac up, congratulating him. Their father sat on the patio, shaking his head.

“You can’t cheat your way through life, Abraham,” he said. “The hard workers will always beat you.”

Abe woke up.

He found an outfit from a pile of grimy clothes in need of a wash. He walked into the kitchen and set about making eggs for breakfast. Something outside caught his eye. Abe went over the window and saw a new car in the Snyders’ driveway. It had rental agency stickers on the back windshield.

Gerald and a man that could only be Gerald’s brother, albeit heavily tattooed, far more muscular,

and sporting a buzzcut, walked outside and got luggage out of the trunk. Abe smiled and opened the window.

“Ah! It’s Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dumber!” he said with laughter.

The Snyder brothers looked up. Gerald glared at Abe, but his brother leaned over and whispered something, and he went inside. Abe and the brother held eye contact for a moment, then the new Snyder smiled, waved, and followed Gerald inside. The smell of burning eggs pulled Abe away from the window.

The eggs had caught fire as Abe’s unclean pan had dripped grease into the burner. He ripped the pan from the stove, sending flaming eggs flying through the air. He ran around the kitchen, found a fire extinguisher, and sprayed the fire. After a moment, he was picking up eggs and wiping some of the white foam off of them. Abe had gotten used to eating food seasoned with fire extinguisher foam.

Abe took his plate over to his still messy table. The smell of raw fish left to sit out overnight filled the room. He put his plate down, then he went to the basement to get his basket weaving supplies. He was almost out, so he made a mental note to tell Isaac to pick up some willow strands from the craft store.

Abe had been working with straw recently, but he wanted to experiment with something stiffer.

He sat at the table, eating burnt, chemical-soaked eggs, and weaving his last straw basket. He had to work efficiently, as he did not have much straw left. He’d made the first few two large. This final basket took him three hours to make, but it was small. It was more of a straw purse than a straw basket. Abe finished his breakfast and took the basket to the basement to add to the pile of baskets he had been accumulating amongst the old furniture and keepsakes. There were eighteen baskets now, not counting this new addition. He threw it on the pile.

I need to clean this place out, he thought. Could make a good workshop if I get rid of all the broken shit.

Abe walked back upstairs. He sat down at the table in his still destroyed dining room. He thought about cleaning, but dismissed it. Instead, he stared out the window, watching a robin build its nest. The bird used a technique not dissimilar to his own basket weaving. Abe smiled when he saw she was using some of his discarded straw. As the robin finished her nest and flew away, Abe went outside to get a closer look. He was careful not to touch it, but he took pictures of it from every angle. He then went back inside and began sketching them out as basket designs.

Abe stayed at his table sketching for hours. He came up with

thirteen different design ideas, six of which were viable. It was dark when he stopped. He sat back and looked at his work, and a smile danced across his lips. It was amazing what a man could perfect when confined to his house.

Fuck you Isaac, Abe thought. You’ll never be creative enough to outdo my baskets. Take the rest, but I still got you on baskets.

Chuckling to himself, Abe went to bed. He glanced out the window, but didn’t care to engage the Snyder brothers sitting in their chairs drinking beers and staring at him. He didn’t think about the fight with Isaac, or the neighbors’ glares. Only baskets occupied his mind. Until he fell asleep.

Abe dreamed of his mother teaching him basket weaving. She told him he had talent like no one else she had seen, and that he was the only one in their family that cared to let her teach them. They laughed together, and she showed him new techniques.

Then his subconscious pulled him to that phone call. The one that brought the news of her death. Abe pretended not to care, but it broke him inside. They had had their differences, but they had also shared many little moments together. The day it happened, Abe stumbled out the door, dropping an empty whiskey bottle. The noonday sun beat down on him as Abe got in his car.

corners instead, he stared out the window, watching a robin build its nest. . .

His kippah became a handkerchief for the sweat on his face. The key turned, and the car flew backwards.

CRUNCH!

Then came the screams. The scream of a little girl in pain. The screams of a mother and father in anguish. The scream of a man who didn’t know what to do anymore.

Eyes blurred, Abe looked into his rearview to see a mangled pink bike and a growing red puddle.

Abe shot awake, covered in a cold sweat. He wiped a tear from his left cheek and the beginning of another from his right eye.

“It’s not my fault,” Abe told the darkness.

After finding his composure, Abe stumbled to his kitchen for water. As he sipped his water, he looked out the window. The Snyders’ chairs were empty. He put down his empty cup and headed for bed, but stopped when he heard water running.

Goddammit, he thought. The hose again.

Abe walked out the back door, then everything went black.

He awoke in his basement. The air was hot, stuffy, and hazy. His head throbbed, and there was blood coming from a gash behind his left ear.

He was sweating profusely. Did I just sleepwalk down the wrong stairs? Abe thought. Why is the heat blaring like this?

Abe rose to his feet and started up the stairs. When he got to the door and tried to open it, it did not budge. He tried again, and again it didn’t move, as if it was being blocked. Abe leaned on the door for rest, and realized it was hot. Only then did he smell the raging grease fire.

He ran back down the stairs in time to see embers float down from the ceiling. They landed on the old wooden furniture, and some of them caught. Abe sprinted around the basement, beating out any fires he could, but the air only grew hotter and hazier. It was getting hard to breathe. He looked around and saw the fires reach his baskets. The pile became a bonfire, and it consumed the surrounding furniture. He backed away and began to pry open the three-inch basement window. When he removed the dirty pane, Abe could see out into the neighborhood. Fresh air reached his lungs. He looked out and saw the Snyders sitting in their driveway drinking beer. Now, however, for the first time in a long time, Gerald was grinning.

Abe didn’t bother to call for help.

Milk

Sasha Shandrenko

In the cup I find moments curdle; time is not kind, never sound of mind, able to be left behind.

The cow is aphonic, but it'd say, Don't let what was once mine waste away. Sip the milk, for it won't stay— Good for now, but only for today.

Next Page: “Catedral de Sevilla”

by Robert Prender Photography

“Kira” by Aubrey Preske Oil Paint on Canvas

I Cry into My Bowl of Spaghetti

Tess Koerner

My salty tears make up for the salt I had forgot to sprinkle in the boiling water. It’s missing something— garlic, maybe? I continue to eat it anyway through my blurred vision, knowing that you’ve always hated my cooking as much as my tears. I’ve tried so hard to be the perfect little housewife for you: lay out your ironed suit before your drive to the office; make the coffee and eggs to your liking; follow your mother’s recipe for torcetti down to the dough’s double twist; scrub the spot I missed on the tiled kitchen floor with sweat dripping from my upper lip. But my cleaning was never spotless, and my cooking didn’t remind you of your mother’s.

On my birthday, you made me bake my own cake. It’s not your fault that your secretary forgot to pick one up. I was turning 30 and hadn’t given you what you truly wanted. It was the subject of most night’s arguments. You had wanted nothing more than for me to say I had already gotten the best birthday present I could’ve asked for. You wanted me to pull out the stick, with its two bright pink lines, smiling for your approval, and say the magic words: “We’re pregnant.”

“Onism” by Jenna Scalia Photography

With tears streaming down both of our faces, we would embrace each other until you held my face

in your hands and kissed my head ever so gently, as if I was our child. I would’ve finally been spotless in your eyes. Deep down I know that your love is contingent, conditional, subject to change. Whatever you want to call it, I’d always be striving

for perfection. But I can’t help myself from yearning for that love. No matter how ephemeral.

But instead, my 30th birthday ended with you saying the red velvet cake I made was dry. I guess my tears in the batter went untasted.

Forest Trail

Sarah King

They told me walk only where they permit, the leaf-covered pathway; it will guide me if I find it.

I put too much faith in my own wit; I have lost my way today. They told me walk only where they permit.

I feel like crying as I sit, searching for God as I pray; it will guide me if I find it.

I remember the past when I was bit by this truth, and yet I still choose to disobey. They told me walk only where they permit.

With shadows creeping soon all will be unlit, how can I stay on the path in such disarray? It will guide me if I find it.

I think by now the truth has hit, I fear that in this forest I shall forever stay. They told me walk only where they permit. It will guide me if I find it.

“Balance”

by Robert Prender Photography

Invisible Strings

Kayla Jones

That car must have been under a tree, I think as a Toyota Corolla drives past me. Indeed, there seems to be more bird shit than blue paint covering it. I laugh softly and continue basking in the warm sunlight of the new spring. It’s the first decent day we’ve had in a while. Rather than staying cooped up in my office, I decided to take a stroll around the park across the street. The cool breeze runs teasing fingers across my skin, pushing my hair back from my face like the gentle caress of a faceless lover. The fresh air feels good after spending the morning in a small office with one window that faces the side of another building.

I’m not the only one enjoying the day: there are many people here, most of them with children who are probably too young to be in school. I see groups of teenagers, no doubt skipping whatever classes they’ve deemed unworthy of their precious, youthful time.

I sink down on a wooden bench. It’s painted a beautiful blue-gray and has a little golden plaque nailed to the back:

In memory of my darling Willow, who loved this bench.

I can see why Willow loved this bench. It has a perfect view of the park: trees just beginning to sprout leaf buds on the tips of their branches; the dog park where three small dogs chase a bigger one; the little playground teeming with children squealing and laughing. It’s even in a spot where the sun shines more than it hides behind the trees, which is what I enjoy most about this bench. When I sit, the wood is already warm, and I can tip my head back a little to let the sunlight kiss my cheeks.

This bench is also perfect for people-watching, something I always enjoyed doing with my mom in high school. Some days, when we were bored on a rainy Saturday, we would go to the mall, get some Chinese food from the food court, and just sit and watch the shoppers. We had a game where we would try to come up with stories about people. Sometimes it was easy to guess their stories; other times we made them outlandish. There was once a man with a very nice, trimmed, dark beard wearing a bright red dress.

Mom laughed, leaning over to say, “Emma, look. A crazy crossdresser seeking attention.”

“I actually saw a woman and a little girl wearing the exact same

dress a few minutes ago,” I countered. “I bet the little girl wanted to match with her parents, and she’s got him wrapped around her little finger, so of course he obliged.”

Mom didn’t care much about my theory, though while she was looking for more “crazies,” I saw the man meet up with the woman and the girl, who was carrying a stuffed swallow bird, the U-shaped tail clutched in her tiny hands. The girl grinned and ran up to him, squealing in delight, and I smiled.

I then think about my own father, losing him when my parents divorced, then when he died. Although I had Mom, she was never a mother, at least the kind that loved me or spent time with me. She was a bully and she hurt my father. If she were here right now, she’d curse Willow for how hard this bench is.

Thoughts of the past are interrupted when a group of teenagers noisily comes this way. Two are on rollerblades, three on skateboards, and one on a bike. The biker has a speaker attached to the handlebars and is blasting music. I smile as I recognize the reggae band Iration. They’re all grinning and talking amongst themselves. As they pass, I catch a snippet of the boy nearest to me: “I’ve heard that human bodies can bounce six feet into the

“Morning Stroll”

by Alexandra Eastman Photography

air when they hit the ground. Did hers bounce or was there, like, not enough altitude, not enough momentum and speed?”

my way to my car, I’ll be there in twenty.”

I stare after her, my hand resting on my stomach while the clickclick of her heels quickly drowns away. If that small snippet wasn’t enough birth control, I don’t know what is. I’ve never wanted kids, but hearing Miss Business Mom’s own dilemma has only solidified that further. Has she ever sat on a bench in the middle of a park and let the

has she ever sat on a bench in the middle of a park

A shudder racks through my body at the casualness with which he said it. With them zooming past and the music blasting, I’m unable to hear his friend’s reply; I’m not sure I even want to hear it. What I do hear is a woman walking in shiny black heels talking animatedly on the phone, her pencil skirt straining against her attempt at taking long strides. I admire the black and white blouse she wears, and the perfection of her hair, pulled up and out of her face in a very professional way. I wish I could pull off an outfit like that. She’s a businesswoman, that’s clear from the way she dresses, but her voice is also very commanding, belonging to someone used to giving orders and having them followed exactly as she wants them. Her eyes are wild with annoyance, heels click-clacking against the pavement.

“No, Karissa,” she snaps, and I realize that her tone is more irritated than animated. “You cannot glue the feathers to your sister.”

She pauses, letting Karissa speak. “No. Karissa, I swear to God—where is Nana? Rissa, give the phone to Nana—Mom? Lock her in her room—no, she’ll be fine. I’m on

warm sun kiss her skin on the first day of spring? She may not have done it in a while, may not even be thinking about how nice the weather is today, but the people she walks past certainly are.

An old couple, likely in their late seventies or early eighties, strolls with their soft, wrinkled hands clasped comfortably. When he catches her looking at him, he stops walking to press a loving kiss upon her brow. She leans into it like he’s the sun and she needs his warmth and strength, and my chest tightens at the ghost of someone’s loving lips on my own brow. I thought Ben and me would have made it as far as this couple here. I was so sure of it—of us. Maybe if I could just be a little more openminded about things, then I could fall asleep to his warm body and soft snoring instead of in a cold bed in an empty room.

The old couple smiles warmly at me as they pass by. “I love your sweater,” the woman says to me. “The little birdies are adorable.”

Pride swells inside my chest like an inflated balloon as I look down at the sweater in question, the three swallow birds seeming to fly across my chest as I shift. “Oh, thank you. My grandmother made it for me for Christmas. We both really love birds.”

resuming his monologue of the beautiful world around them, and I marvel at how easy it is for people to reveal pieces of their own stories to complete strangers. That lady didn’t ask where I got the sweater, she merely complimented it; yet, I so easily surrendered that piece of my life to her. How often do I do that?

I can hear my mother scoffing at me from wherever her soul is:

and let the sun kiss her skin on the first day of spring?

She smiles sweetly, the corners of her bright, young eyes crinkling. “How lovely! Homemade gifts are always the best. My granddaughter just turned six, and she’s already starting to get into knitting and crocheting. Her father got into it when he was a young boy, too, and is teaching it to her. Right now, she’s—oh, what is Louise making again?”

“I believe she’s making gloves. She made us each a scarf last time,” he adds. “Nothing crazy, just a solid color.” He flashes a proud grin now. “Mine was a bright pink. She said it matched my ‘happy personality.’ I feel rather inclined to agree.”

A small laugh bubbles out of me at the image of Ben teaching kids how to play guitar or build complex things out of Legos. “That’s so adorable! Maybe someday I’ll see some of her stuff on Etsy.”

They continue on, the man

“A whiny over-sharer, that’s what you are. Someone who spills her life story to anyone who will listen. It’s a wonder you managed to snag Ben and keep him this long.”

Ben. The thought of him wipes away my mother. He is my greatest love. We’ve been together three years now and have never had any serious disagreements until now, and it’s my fault. He’s been staying with his brother across town for three weeks, and I’m still sitting on this bench. The sun arches over me.

A little girl runs past, her hair pulled into two high pigtails tied together with robin’s egg-blue ribbon. But suddenly I see the two small, straight lines on that white stick. As the girl shrieks with joy, I reel in the all-consuming fear that threatens to swallow me whole again. I felt it when I saw the two lines; it was like hearing I’ve been fired, or we’re being evicted. While I gasped with

horror, Ben gasped with happiness, surely feeling like he’d just won the lottery.

Of course, I’m going to go through with the pregnancy, but— raising a child? Now that I must make the decision, I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’ve barely begun my new job at The Swallow Magazine, and Ben is still fighting to start up his new music shop, but he’s having a hard time with getting people to know he’s here. When I showed him the test, my words nearly incoherent from the crying, he said to me, “It’ll be okay. We will be okay. And this baby will be okay.”

I only stared in shock. How could he possibly want to have a child right now? There is too much uncertainty in our lives. What if the music store doesn’t work out and he’s left unemployed, and we must rely on my measly paycheck? What if I lose my job, too? Or what if we can only rely on how much the

store can sell? And then there’s the issue with the horrible, dark world we live in. And how long would we stay in this rundown town? What is the best school district? What if I forget to pack the kid fruits and veggies in their lunch and the teachers start thinking I’m a bad mom?

What if my kid hates me?

I can’t even count how often I told my own mother that.

Yet, envy always stabs me in the heart when I see Ben’s parents together, laughing and hugging with no animosity between them. They have no idea how lucky they are— Ben has no idea how lucky he is.

A loud squeal catches my attention. A very tiny baby boy is walking awkwardly from a woman to a man. The man scoops the boy into his arms and tosses him into the air. He catches the baby and holds him close. “Dude, you did it! You just walked!”

The woman comes closer and kisses the man. “We have a child who can walk! Oh, God. We need to really baby proof the house now.”

“We’ll worry about that later. Right now, I think we need to celebrate!” He tosses the baby again, and the young boy shrieks with adorable baby giggles.

Once again, my hand rests on my stomach. I suppose Ben does have a point when he tells me I don’t have to be like my mother. I know how I wouldn’t want to treat my kids, and whatever my mom

would have done I’ll just—not do that. I’ll be supportive like my dad was. I won’t put them down for trying or forgetting. I’ll teach them how to read and write, teach them about birds. Ben will teach them all he knows about music and fishing and useless-but-entertaining movie trivia. My grandma will make them adorable little sweaters and maybe teach them how to knit and crochet their own scarves and gloves. And I can’t deny that a small part of me does want to start a family with Ben. And watching our kids take their first steps? Say their first words? See them smile when I tell them “I love you” as many times as it takes for them to never once doubt that their mother does, indeed, love them—

I know none of those people, yet the new parents and old couple make me feel—well, excited is not quite the right word, but certainly more optimistic than I have felt before. I wonder what story the people around are making up for me. Do they know I’m a pregnant woman who’s terrified of becoming a horrible mother like the one she had to grow up with? Or do they merely see a quiet, young woman going on a walk through the beautiful park?

Later when I get off work, as I walk to my car, I pull my phone from my purse and dial Ben’s number. Movement catches my eye. Turning, I watch as a bird leaps

from a branch hanging over my car. A swallow bird, I recognize from its tail, resembling the ends of a stingray egg sack. I stop walking and watch it fly away until Ben answers the phone, his voice pulling me from my daze.

“Hey.” It’s short and clipped, as if my call is the biggest thing bothering him. It probably is. I don’t blame him.

I finish the walk to my car and reach for the handle. “Hi, Benny. Can we talk when I get home—oh, God, damn it! What the hell?”

“What?” Worry fills his voice now. It’s been ages since I’ve heard anything but anger from him, and hearing the worry in his voice is like finally finding water after being stranded in the desert. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “There’s bird shit on my car door handle, and I didn’t see it until I grabbed it.” My mother would be

rolling her eyes and telling me how dumb I am for not paying more attention to my surroundings. But Ben—

“You—oh my God.” He starts laughing, and suddenly I’m drowning in the oasis I’ve stumbled upon. I haven’t heard his beautiful laugh in so long, so rich and deep and purely from the bottom of his stomach. So open and carefree. The laugh of someone who loves without

set it on the center console, cringing at the mess on my hands.

“You’re very—ditsy is a bit mean, but you can be spacey sometimes, especially when birds are involved. You lose yourself in a daydream, and it’s hard to get you to come back to me.”

The amusement in his voice fades. I sit back and look at the tree next to me and sigh. “Benny, I’m really sorry. What I’ve done to you

hearing the worry in his voice is like finally

hesitation, without guarding a fragile heart. “How did you not see it?”

I pin the phone between my ear and shoulder and go around to the passenger side door to get in that way, keeping the dirty one stretched far away so as not to get the goop on my clothes. I make sure to check all over the handle for bird poop. “I wasn’t paying attention! There was a swallow that flew—oh, shit. The swallow was sitting on the branch right above my car.” I tilt my head back. “The swallow is the one who did this!”

Benny laughs again, and I can’t help but laugh with him, shaking my head at the bird poop covering my fingers. “Em, I really—this is so on brand for you.”

“On brand? What? What do you mean!” I laugh again, grabbing a handful of napkins from the glove box. I put the phone on speaker and

is—it hasn’t been fair.”

“Em, no. I’m sorry. I’ve been pressuring you, and that isn’t right. It’s your body, your choice.”

“Yes—sort of. I think it should mostly be up to us. You and me. And I’ve thought a lot about it and about what I want.”

“You have?” There’s a small trace of apprehension laced through those two little words. A vice clamps painfully around my heart knowing it’s my fault he’s worried about my next words.

I rest my clean hand on my belly. I swear I can feel the little baby move, like someone tugging on an invisible string to make a small fluttering feeling like a bird testing out its new wings. “I don’t want this baby—” His breath hitches and I smile. “—Unless you swear it will be spoiled absolutely rotten with love.”

His silence drags on. I wait

patiently for him to mull over my words—then I yank the phone away when he starts cheering loudly. His voice gets distant, and I hear a faint thump-thump-thump like he’s jumping around. “Yes!” he yells. “I’m going to be a dad! A dad!”

Giggling, I finish wiping the shit off my hand. I better get used to this. I make a mental note to buy lots of gloves to wear for the next few years when I change diapers.

jostled a bit. “Emmy, baby, listen to me. Listen to me. You are not your mom. You are going to be the best mommy in the history of best mommies. Our child is going to adore you and look up to you and want to be just like you. You’re going to teach our baby how to recognize birds zipping by, I’m going to teach him how to play Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd.” I laugh again, using a clean napkin to dab at the

finding water after being stranded in the desert.

“Yes, Benny dear, you’re going to be a dad. You’re going to be the best dad ever. We’re going to dress up with him or her, we’re going to watch their first steps, we’re going to put pretty ribbons and bows in her hair. This baby will never doubt that we love him or her.”

There’s a shuffling sound on his end, like he’s just jumped back onto the bed and the phone is

tears falling down my face. “We got this, Emmy.”

I nod, feeling even from here his warm hands on my cheeks, his guitar string scars scrapping comfortingly against my skin. “We got this, Benny.”

Pearls, Rejected

Jane Allman

Her words were hollow and bordered with lace. I revealed my pearls, through her squints and big blinks. She hasn’t the courage to encounter my true face.

Before I confessed, I considered our place: a Catholic retreat, at nighttime by two shared sinks. Her words were hollow and bordered with lace.

I thought that treasure would slow our rash pace, but those sentences compelled her calling jinx. She hasn’t the courage to encounter my true face.

My pearls she advised me that night to efface; bastard beads of amoral, dangerous links. Her words were hollow and bordered with lace.

Months passed and she had luxury of taking new taste, her tongue loosened by aleberry drinks. She hasn’t the courage to encounter my true face.

Today she claims she had always preached grace, but I remember the night she made me shrink. Her words were hollow and bordered with lace; she hasn’t the courage to encounter my true face.

by Tess Koerner Photography

“Rights” by Kaitlynn Lowman Photography

My Hair and Me

Rayelle Weir

The hair that sits on top of my head sometimes falls down my back and other times at the nape of my neck, shrinkage. A thousand and one black, curly follicles that cover the whole twenty-three-inch circumference that is the dome of my head. For all the hair that rests on this scalp of mine, I understand the heartburn my mother faced when she was creating me. From the time I was a one-year-old, or maybe even younger, my mother has been taming the beast that resides up top. It was as if she was preparing for battle when it came to wash-day Sundays, a dozen rat-tail combs snapped all over the carpets of our house, dryers lying in disarray as if they are almost seeing the light, and empty containers of Blue Magic hair grease all over as if they were bombs dropped. It could be seen as comical, if my tender-headedness didn’t make me cry during every style change. Despite the fact, my mother’s calloused hands have always been taming the beast, and there wasn’t a weekend where they weren’t. Until I decided to put an end to it.

I was in the fourth grade when I decided to take on the responsibility of doing my hair. This is also when I started to develop a hatred for it, too.

It was the week of picture day, and not only did we have to take class pictures, but we also had to do individual portraits. For this occasion, I asked my mother to straighten my hair, despite her wanting to style it differently. It was spring, the grass was a bright shade of emerald green and the clear blue sky that rested above me gave the sun full access to release an overwhelming amount of heat into the atmosphere. My class’s pictures were set for after lunch, and recess was around 1:15 p.m., while my portraits were set for 1:35 p.m. This meant that I had twenty minutes to keep my hair as intact as possible before standing in front of a flashing camera. Knowing this, I decided that I wouldn’t participate in recess, and the sweat-filled festivities that came along with running up and down outside. Instead, I sat outside in a pocket of shade, gifted by the sharply constructed corners of the school building, but even the humidity found me.

Just when the silver whistle screamed the end of recess, I entered the building and made a strategic beeline for the nearest bathroom. Neglecting the blast of cool air, I turned to face the set of mirrors that rested on the wall across the sinks. I stared at the reflection in the mirror, almost

screaming, because who I saw was not me. The person in the mirror shared the same clothes as I did, even went as far as copying my glasses, but the hair that rested on her head was not mine. My once tail-bone hot combed hair was no longer silky straight and flowing flawlessly down my back. Instead, it was a frizzy mess that rested just barely in the middle of my back. As I stared at that the monstrous sight, I couldn’t help but to let out a shaky breath. I even went as far as running my fingers through it to see if that would be of use. Instead, my fingers got stuck. Eyes watering and lips quivering, I knew that picture day was over. I left the bathroom, no longer feeling the cold air while making my way to my classroom. Before entering, I grabbed my hoodie from my locker and put it on.

I was in the fourth grade when I decided

Ruckus from inside seeped out into the hallways as the doors began to open. Students were either talking, running, or simply not paying attention, all while teachers yelled in an attempt to regain a sliver of order. My teacher guided our class towards our designated area, which was two groups away from being next. Seated in the backrow, I waited, watching and sulking, and then suddenly heard the clicking and clacking of my teachers’ heels. Turning my attention away from nothing in particular, I watched as my teacher made her way over to me.

Walking into the classroom, I found my way to my seat with my head down and fingers fiddling together, anxious about what was underneath my hood. Once my teacher noticed we were all in our seats and ready to go, she lined us up in alphabetical order. I walked to the back of line, thankful that my last name began with “W” so no one could question my change in mood. Our journey to the cafeteria was quiet and almost too quick.

She was a tall, dark-skinned lady sporting a hot pink pantsuit paired with sparkling 6-inch heels. Her current hairstyle of the month were box braids wrapped in a tight low bun. Reaching where I was, she took the open seat that was to my right and scanned my appearance from head to toe, stopping at the hood that covered my head.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her tone laced with concern. She sat there, waiting for a response that never came. I looked down at my feet and slowly started to peel the covering from my head. Removing the hood, I glanced up and she looked back at me with sympathetic eyes. Releasing a sigh, she said nothing and took my hands,

leading me out the cafeteria doors. We walked down the quiet hallways all the way back to her classroom, where I took the liberty of hopping into her gray swivel chair. Once I was seated, she began to rummage in the white plastic drawers she had behind me. As she continued to gather and place things around her desk, I took the time to observe. There were papers and sticky notes everywhere, like her desk had been under attack. I shifted my gaze from the evasive scene before me to a picture frame next to her computer, untouched by the clutter. It was like a peaceful island in the middle of the sea. The image encased behind the glass was of an elderly woman wearing a long white dress. In front of her was a little girl in the middle of getting her hair done. The older woman looked like she was midpart with a clear substance on the back of her hand. There were colorful clips and bows all over the couch along with a variety of hair products on the floor.

My teacher noticed where my focus had landed. “The little girl is me, and behind me is my grandmother,” she started to say, her hands rested on the back of the swivel chair. Her eyes began to gloss over as she continued. “Every Sunday, she sat me down in front of her against my will and did

my hairstyle for the week. It was a pain to sit through since she’s heavy-handed, but despite it all, I always left looking good and feeling confident,” she said, and then chuckled towards the end. In that moment, as her words sank in, I looked around at the objects she had finished placing on her desk; it was the same things my mom used in my hair: a tub of Blue Magic hair grease, a yellow jar of shine and jam, rat-tail combs, and a hard-wooded bristle brush.

“I was sitting outside at recess, and I didn’t even do anything. No running, no jumping. I didn’t even kick the ball back when it ran away from the game of four square. But yet my hair still did this,” I said while pointing to my hair that had somehow managed to shrink more.

“Can I fix it for you?” she asked me, I nodded my head as fast as I could.

She started by removing the caps from the bottled products, brushing and parting through the tangle on my head. Before she continued further, she placed a small white desk mirror in front of me so I could see what she was doing. I thought we were going to sit in silence until she started to talk to me. She told me how, when she was younger, her hair did the same thing, how humidity is a black girl’s to take on the responsibiliy of doing my hair.

lighted corners

worst enemy when it comes to getting our hair straightened. Although she told me she used to hate her hair, over the years she grew more confident. When she was done putting the final touches on my now slicked-back hair, she turned the desk chair around and looked me in my eyes.

“No matter what, you are beautiful,” she said. “Your hair is who you are because it’s the feelings and stories you hold. Don’t let anyone touch your hair, because no one likes an interrupted story.”

She held the mirror up to my face, and I couldn’t help but smile back at the sight in front of me. As I jumped out of the chair and gave her a hug, only able to hug her knees, she then told me to remember what she said. She packed up all her hair supplies and then we made our way back to the cafeteria, magically just in time for my class’s photo. Running to rejoin, I stood tall in front of the camera, filled with confidence, smiling as big as ever.

your hair is who you are because it’s the feelings and stories you hold.

Forever Still

Krissy Roots

In the painting, a girl poised, serene, and tranquil. A portrait of peace, with a book in her embrace. How I wish to be in that frame, forever still.

Her book to be finished, a powerful will. In hues of calm, akin to a cerulean ocean’s grace, in the painting, a girl poised, serene, and tranquil.

I yearn to master that powerful skill, to freeze in time and find my safe space.

How I wish to be in that frame, forever still.

Through strokes of color, her silence could kill. A wish to linger, a serenity to trace. In the painting, a girl poised, serene, and tranquil.

To be that work of art, against time’s will. To be forever stilled, in that treasured place. How I wish to be in that frame, forever still.

As life moves, and moments fulfill, I’ll seek my own peace, find my own embrace, like in the painting, a girl poised, serene, and tranquil. How I wish to be in that frame, forever still.

“Tools of an Artist”

by Caliann Dietz Photography

Dear Gracie,

Claire Doll

I haven’t forgotten about the cherry blossoms, about how much you loved them.

I was in D.C. earlier today, because it’s early April, and the pink petals are unraveling and raining onto the surface of the Washington Channel. I went with Mark; you’d like him. We met in college, my last year, and now he works in marketing for a printing company, and—

Anyways, sorry—the cherry blossoms. Remember when we would skip class in high school? Mr. Kendrick’s class, fourth block. And it was always fourth block because that was the end of the day. And we would only skip in the springtime because it was gorgeous out, the bright blue sky stretching above us, and Windsor’s Creek was full of water from leftover rain. When I got my license, we picked up coffees from the nearby café and drove all the way to the creek to walk. But before we’d leave our high school, you’d point out the pink cherry blossoms along the parking lot, the hundreds of petals scattering the grass like snow.

“They’re just trees,” I would say. Because they were. Last week, they were bare. And in a week, they’d turn green. I never took in the world like you, Gracie.

I still don’t. Do you know what I did after graduating high school?

“When We Were Young”

by Dolores Hans Photography

I went to community college. Only, I barely went. I took online courses and worked as a waitress at the local diner on Route 40, and then I finally applied to the state college for a measly degree in English.

But remember when we dreamed about our futures? You’d go down south to study animal science and swim at the beaches. You craved the salty, sunburnt weather. I wanted to go up

endless, bright blue water

north, explore cobblestone roads, study creative writing. We promised we’d write back and forth, because we liked the idea of having letters to keep in our desk drawers, of buying stamps from the post office.

Anyways, senior year, we’d skip class, and you pointed out every growing flower, every tree that was bright and pink and blossoming. We’d drive to Windsor’s Creek and sit by the running water and talk about life. About what we wanted to do, who we’d date from our high school—stuff like that. You always talked about wanting to be a doctor like your father, but a vet, because you loved pets. You walked dogs all the time. We talked about all

the boys in our grade who were cute, about what college would be like. Those days felt infinite, like they would never run out. Endless, bright blue water cutting through rocks in the creek.

And do you remember when Evan Burns liked you?

I saw him, the other day, at the grocery store. He was with his wife, a short, blonde woman with tanned skin, and they seem happy together, but he had once been in love with you. To be honest, I used to get a little mad when you’d eat lunch with him rather than me. But I’d look across the cafeteria and see you in the corner, smiling with him, laughing as you held the crusts of your sandwich in your hand. And when it happened, he was almost as bad as me. I heard he came to school late, every day. He would hide his tears and go to football practice like nothing happened, but then he’d drink with his friends at night. Under the school stadium, hidden by the starlight.

He was the only person that called you Grace rather than Gracie. As if it was his name, just for you. He seems fine now, but back then, he was tortured. We all were.

Gracie, I still think about what happened.

The cherry blossoms haunt me. They always have, since the third of April, our senior year. In the sweet spot of the blossoming pink trees. And sometimes, when I talk about it, when I think about it, I still feel the racing of my heart, the pounding of its pulse against my frail, seventeen-year-old

ribcage. I thought, if the man with the gun doesn’t kill me, my own heart will.

You weren’t in English class when it happened.

“Mrs. Park, could I please use the restroom?” you had asked moments before, but I saw you slip your rose blush in the pocket of your jean jacket. You shot me a soft, knowing smile, and suddenly, it clicked. You were seeing Evan in your third block, so you needed to look pretty. You always looked beautiful, in my opinion, with your bright blue eyes and thick, curly red hair. But still, you had some type of method to your makeup. A thin layer of foundation, spots of blush swirled on your cheeks. Colored rose, like the sky at dawn. Mascara clinging to your lashes. Freckles like stars, dotted on the bridge of your nose. You always made it look so natural.

And then I still remember this part, my clearest memory. We were reading Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers…” and I wondered why she never titled her poetry, and I thumbed through the crinkly pages of our textbook and thought about what kind of coffee I would order when we skipped fourth block and—

In that same moment, bookended by seconds of sheer silence: a gunshot.

It didn’t sound like a gunshot at first, and for a second, I considered the thought that it wasn’t. A door slammed. Someone dropped a textbook in the hallway. A class was watching a movie. With each thought, with each imagined outcome, my heart made this racing,

sinking feeling, as if it were storming all throughout my body, dropping into the pit of my stomach.

I realized I had never heard a gunshot before. It was loud, resonating, electrifying. I still hear it today, in the fringes of noises, like an afterthought. Boom.

Silence followed, an eerie silence that held the weight of a thousand unspoken sentences. I looked around at the rest of our class, at the basketball player in the corner of the room and the theater girl we both made fun of and the quiet kid in the back, and when I thought of you, that you weren’t right next to me, I let out a sob.

“Down,” Mrs. Park muttered to us. Her once-olive skin was pale, her face blank. Again, in a harsher whisper: “Down.”

Gracie, I should have stopped you from going to the bathroom. But how would I have known? I imagined you

cutting through rocks in the creek.

looking at yourself in the mirror, painting your cheeks with the sparkly rose blush you bought at the store, with your dog walking money. I imagined the mascara sitting on the ledge of the

sink, waiting to be used next. I imagined your heart beating fast thinking of Evan in third block, and then I imagined it stopping altogether, hushed and afraid of the gunshot. I imagined you hiding in the stall, locking it, standing on the toilets. I imagined the look of fear in your eyes. Your quivering cries, color drained from your face. I still see it, every day, even though I’ve never actually seen it. That day, you wore your jean jacket with the olive-green skirt, the black top.

She’s okay. She’s okay, I would remind myself as I sat pathetically in that classroom, but as the moments passed on slowly, like pages being torn from a book, I felt everything within me grow cold.

I tried to rehear the gunshot. Was it close? Did it seem far away? Where are you? From where I sat, I could only somewhat see out the window; a sliver of the sky poked through, bright and filled with sunlight. Two tall cherry blossom trees, their buds full and unraveling. My heart dropped.

A certain silence surrounded us, an unspeakable one—until the next gunshot.

This time, it was louder; closer. It echoed down the hall, and I swore it shook the room. I sucked in a breath, felt the beating of my heart

pound against my ribs, feeling paralyzed. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I wasn’t even there, in that classroom. I was with you, at Windsor Creek. We were in college. Our parents were at home, right now, and they had no idea. We would go back to my house after the creek, and I would hear all about Evan Burns in third block.

I can’t remember how long we sat huddled in the classroom, Gracie, but I remember so clearly the after. When we found out someone had broken into our school, with a gun. When the police showed up, dozens of cars, flashing lights of red and blue painting the trees. When I couldn’t find you. In the sea of students, panicking, rushing to their cars, I tried to find you. The jean jacket. Your wild, curly, strawberry-blonde hair.

It took a while for it to sink in. You were shot. You didn’t make it. You died in the stalls of our high school bathroom.

Your blood stained the stall doors, your blush crushed under his boot.

Gracie, I barely finished high school after that. For years I never drove past Windsor’s Creek, although I missed its clear running waters and our coffee talks. I thought about that college in Florida, how you were accepted but couldn’t attend, how you

so pink you might think

would never be able to study animals and be a doctor and help others. How you had been assigned a roommate you’d never live with, how your parents started buying dorm decorations you’d never use.

You were one of seven that day, Gracie.

Our high school closed for a bit after I graduated, and then they demolished the building altogether and built a new one. As if they could erase the trauma, just like that.

And then the cherry blossoms turned green, and summer arrived, then fall, then winter. And again. And every spring—that one, beautiful week—the blossoms grew pink, unraveled their petals and faced the sun.

“Look at them, they’re stunning.” I heard your voice everywhere.

And I can hear it today, in D.C.

Mark took me here on his day off. I’m a freelance writer, now, but I still love to write stories and poems. I’ve never written about you, until now. And I’ll probably keep this letter

hidden. In my desk drawer, next to my post office stamps. D.C. is beautiful in the springtime—there are so many cherry blossoms, so pink you might think the sky is painted light rose. Petals fall like rain, and swarms of people come from all over to see them.

But, Gracie, I miss you.

I miss the long talks about our aspirations, our coffee drives, our creek walks. I miss seeing the world through your eyes, the buds at school and the bright spring days. How did you find beauty in everything? How did you find that joy?

You won’t write back, I know that. I won’t send this anywhere. I’ll keep it, with me. But Gracie, I just wanted to tell you—the cherry blossoms are gorgeous. I know you would love them here.

Sincerely, Me

the sky is painted light rose.

Boiling Point

Erin Daly

You kiss the back of my head and tell me not to wait up, slamming the front door closed with a practiced decisiveness. I stare into the tepid pot of water on the stove. It’s useless now that I will no longer need to make your favorite pasta dish for dinner. I let out a breath and can see it in the air, in the wake of your icy indifference. You will return in either 12 hours or two days, and your clothes will smell like red wine I don’t drink or perfume I don’t have or laundry detergent that isn’t ours. Any questions or accusations will be met with the same biting chill, to which I have become completely numb.

Tiny bubbles are popping up in the water sporadically. I remember learning something in a science class years ago. If you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly bring it to a boil, it won’t try to escape. It can’t sense the difference in temperature. There will be no struggle for survival, no frantic crawl to freedom. The frogs can’t be blamed for their naivety, yet I have no one to blame but myself for mine. I dunk my hand into the water until my palm hits the bottom of the stainless-steel pot, wincing but fighting the urge to rip it free. I use my other hand to keep the extended arm steady, determined to endure the scalding heat. I turn the stove to its highest setting and see more than feel as the water bubbles up more intensely.

Truthfully, I don’t feel anything at all. The familiar numbness is unpleasant, so I yank my hand from the pot and bend over at the hips, tears leaking from the clenched corners of my eyes. I laugh hysterically at the horrific pain and kiss the violent scarlet streaks on my palm, imagining I can already feel the blisters forming under the dead skin.

Later, I carefully wrap my hand in off-white medical bandages and curl up in bed, still smiling at the lingering warmth. When you finally return two days later, you don’t ask what happened to my hand, and I don’t tell you. I have always been better at learning things than knowing them.

by Aubrey Preske Oil Paint on Canvas

“Dawn”

Freezing Point

Erin Daly

I awake to the soft press of your lips over my beating heart, up my neck, beneath my chin. I grin sleepily and reach out to touch only to grasp at empty air. When I open my eyes, I see you leaving the bed and methodically redressing. I got two days with you this time, which is longer than usual. Two days of passionate heat brought about by possessive rage. I knew pretending to want someone else would cause a flare-up, and I hoped it would finally be enough to convince you to leave your wife. But all my demands and requests are met with a surge of burning anger so powerful my forehead becomes covered in beads of sweat.

I close my eyes and pretend to sleep to avoid another confrontation. As soon as I hear the front door slam, I kick off the heavy covers and relish the cool December air washing over my skin. It’s not enough to ease the feeling of my blood boiling as it runs through my veins, so I stumble into the shower and turn the knob all the way to the right, standing under the ice-cold spray for what feels like hours. When I examine myself in the mirror afterwards, I startle at the Lichtenburg figure running from my heart to my neck, the branches a shock of amaranthine against my pale skin. I trace the tree-like pattern with the tips of my fingers, hating the feverish warmth your electrical energy emits.

I throw on a thin T-shirt you left one of the hundreds of times you came here but didn’t stay, and the feeling of soft cotton is like an iron brand against my still damp skin. I walk into the backyard and crash into the snow, turning over on my side like a broken marionette, a snow angel with only one wing. A tear falls quiet

i let out a breath and can see it in the air, in the wake of your icy indifference.

Growing Old Together

Back when I was young, so was God, it seemed. He didn’t take kindly to being ignored, His patience thin as paper. His stern look would linger, until even I felt its weight, burning bright like a coal in the night.

We were both stubborn, caught in our ways. Me, lost in my carefree dances, sporting a thin, wispy bob, trying to look older than I was.

God and I, we danced a strange tango, spinning until we were both dizzy, ending up in a tired embrace, sweaty, out of breath, feeling our years.

Now, as we’ve both aged, we've learned to handle each other, like two old friends making amends. We've come to an understanding, God and I, to protect whatever’s left to protect in each other.

I think of Father Mark, his words a push when I’m dragging my feet, and Dad, who I dream of emulating. I'm content now, and I like to think God is too, letting things slide, letting life be.

Kayla Canfield

“The Other End” by Annabelle Colton

Exposure

Abigail Jarrett

Saturday night in Galway, I stared up at the ceiling of the hostel with a smile playing on my lips. Hostels are meant to be icky, dangerous places, only meant for people who can’t afford hotels, but I like them. In the dark, I can hear everyone breathing slowly, drunk, and heavy from their adventures, restless to begin again.

My thoughts are happy until they’re pierced by a sharp pain in my small intestine. My eyes widen. My stomach turns. A low gurgle mutters in the dark. Please, I think, please let it be a freak pain. But it’s not a freak pain.

Soon I’m driven from my bed and the makeshift ladder is competing with my stomach for the loudest noise in the room. I tiptoe across the floor to the bathroom. There’s bile, alcohol, and goat cheese cheeseburger rising in my throat. This is so unfair, I think. I don’t even feel drunk. And that burger was twelve bucks…

I’ll spare you the rest of the details. When I finally went to bed it was 4:00 a.m., and I woke up two hours later. Looking into the eyes of my roommates, I knew they knew what had happened; I knew they knew that I knew that they knew, too. And all was masked by a polite smile and a head nod. Baby’s first hangover. Well, she’s beaten but not broken.

That day, a few of us took an overpriced taxi to this diving board right

across the bridge in Salthill. It overlooked the ocean, and we decided that nothing could compare to an early morning plunge into the freezing cold ocean after a night of hard drinking, and in my case, puking. We had no swimsuits and no money to buy any, so we stripped down to our underwear, extremely conscious of the old folks preparing for a swim in their thick, insulated wetsuits. I gripped the ladder that was slippery with algae. We were going all the way up. I shook with cold, nerves, excitement, until a shout from below signaled for us to come down.

Turns out, you can only jump at high tide. If we had jumped, we would have died. We craned our necks to look over the edge, and the rocks at the bottom were clearly visible through the water. We giggled stupidly and thanked the wetsuits for our lives. Then we got in the old-fashioned way.

By the time the weekend was over, I’d been exposed in more ways than one. My polar plunge primed me for illness, so I wasted away in my sick bed over the course of the week, wondering if the body’s pilgrimage could initiate one for the soul, too. If I wanted to be a bit more open to what life has to offer me, a little exposure can’t hurt. I just hope it works because I’m never drinking again.

“Beloved Facade”

by Dolores Hans Photography

They say the wasps are lazy, drunk, diving into the honeysuckle, over and over, lost in its sweet scent. They crash into a world made of sugar, everything before and after.

What comes after changes what came before, turns it into something sacred. The quick dart of a robin in the lawn, it’s all a kind of prayer. Even the clouds moving north, and the catalpa flowers drifting in the wind, the hawks circling, widening their world.

In the Company of Wasps

Kayla Canfield

There’s this life, and the next, and something else, born from the conversations between. But those who get close to it, who try to understand, can’t really speak it. They stand back, overwhelmed, a bit lost, longing for something else, another side of the fence.

If we can’t reach the divine, something human will do.

A wilted wrist, the line of a collarbone, all of it, a prayer.

A child with a leaf in her hand, as if she’s seeing something alive that sees her back, holds her.

And where won’t I kneel? Nowhere. Nowhere. Even in ashes.

And then, the heron in the water, so unexpected, but it makes sense. Time telling its story, it’s all a response, each question shaping its answer.

The wasp finds its peace in the flower’s gentle embrace. A prayer of existence, being and praying, in one.

Untitled Ocean

Erin Daly

Every night I scream at the ocean until my throat is hoarse, until my jaw feels locked in that open, vulnerable position. I claw at the sand so roughly my knuckles ache and I spend hours the next day picking the small granules from beneath my nails.

Every night I look at the vast expanse of murky gray-green and pretend I’m scared of it, when all I want to do is walk into its depths and sink into its loving embrace. I want the shock of cold to distract me from the frigid hand of apathy squeezing the life out of my heart. I want the gentle push and pull of the moon’s tides to lull me to sleep, or the whiplash of a rip current to yank me into a fugue state from which I can never wake up. I want to float out beyond the breaking point where everything is silent and still, and I want to fall into the black below, so dark that when my lungs force me to swim to the surface I go in the wrong direction.

Every night I scream at the ocean and I hope it screams back, but every night I am more and more entranced by its soft siren song.

“Moon” by Caliann Dietz Photography

Mausoleum

Savannah Laux

The only thing truly consistent in this world is the inevitability of my death.

Through the ages, my bones have been turned to dust behind the protection of stone, worn by the weight of the dirt that pressed down on them, and burned to ash on many a pyre. My skull sits, bejeweled and gilded, beneath the altar of a cathedral in Europe. Somewhere, I know, lost to me in the shuffle, is a jar containing my heart. I can remember so clearly the day I dug it up, holding the weight of the burned clay in my hands. It had been a long time since I held one of my own relics and long-forgotten sensations dusted off the cobwebs in my chest; the feeling of the kohl rimming my eyes, silk sliding over the skin of my thighs, the desert sun kissing my collarbones.

The only thing as inevitable as my death is his own. It has happened more times than I can recall in this age. Some of my sharpest memories are those littered with my own agony as I see him, finally, my lost companion, marching along the front lines of my army before the slaughter. I can so crisply recall the soft strands of his hair soaked in blood, his body littered with wounds on the steps of a great building, surrounded by traitors. Some deaths are even more agonizing as I miss them entirely, hearing about them from an adviser, or reading about them

in a book or the newspaper. A new memory, not greyed by the act of distant remembrance, often plays before my eyes as I drift off to sleep; standing before an exhibit as people mill around me, mothers corralling their children, teenagers huddled together as they shuffle past. And me, looking up at him for the first time with my new eyes.

He was smiling in the picture, arms thrown around two other men as they stood before a car. The small plaque below engraved in polished metal read, “Three gangsters stand beside a 1932 Ford Model 18 V8 in New York City, 1926.” His dark hair was slicked back, and his coat was fitted to his lean frame. I was so transfixed I did not realize I had stepped forward and placed my hand on the glass of the photo until a guard sternly asked me to take a step back. The moment the world came rushing back to me was distinct. A sharp pang took over my chest when I realized it, when I knew it in my soul; I had missed him entirely. It happened from time to time, when the only way we knew of one another was through a history book or a passing mention from a stranger. I was only eleven when I listened through the crack in the door of my father’s court as his adviser told him the tale of the Great King who had died in Babylon, as was prophesied. Not even the muddled understanding of my youth could keep me from the crushing loneliness of knowing, in my soul, that I was utterly alone.

The memories come slowly at first. Those around me often noticed the

morbid wisdom beyond my years, dismissed as a quirk of my personality. At some point, an understanding settled in me to hold those memories close to my heart, like the smell of smoke that still burned the inside of my nose from time to time, the echo of my charred flesh shaking me from my slumber. I think, sometimes, that I can hear the timber of his screams paired with the taste of ash in my mouth. I singed myself once with a candle. I watched the blood drain from his face as he cradled my burned skin and wept. It was clear that our shared memory was much sharper in his mind than my own vague impressions. There are many stories we cannot bear to tell the other that haunt the space behind our eyes. At some point, he stopped looking at fire the same way. For me, he has yet to understand why when he turns his head to the side, just so, tears slide down my cheeks and I see him sprawled on the dirt, neck broken as my husband towers over him in a foreign land.

And sometimes, warming ourselves in the light of a fire, the night settled around us where no prying ears can hear, we will fill in the gaps of each other’s forgotten experience. The name of our first-born child, the war we fled from, the court he presided over, the last name I wore. Our first names are long forgotten along with the life they lived, a sad but relieving tragedy in the face of our endless existence.

His favorite story was that of his time as one king or another. The kingdom was forgotten in the cracks of his

memory, but he could still remember the sweet smell of my hair as I poured wine into his goblet. He had never noticed a servant before, yet found himself lifting his gaze to mine. His mouth had stretched into a grin when our eyes met. He often teased that his first thought was that of triumph to finally be the towering authority after so many moments standing before my many thrones in the past couple ages.

My favorite tale is always that of the wide set of his eyes as he was introduced to the visiting sister of a fellow priest standing on the steps of a grand cathedral. His surprise was so great, he tripped on his way down the steps and landed in a heap before the hem of my skirt. I would always tease him for how he could barely make eye contact with me once he righted himself and he would defend himself with a scoff and a waving of his hands. How was an old soul in the body of a young man supposed to react when he realized how sorely he regretted taking his holy orders not even months prior, when he was now faced with his lost love?

Our journeys to finding one another are mostly waiting for fate, which we both had decided must exist, and would lead us to each other eventually. Though, the fear was always there of when and how and if that meeting would happen; our hope was scarred by many missed opportunities. In the meantime, how were we supposed to live our lives? Sometimes the waiting would be too much, and our indifference would grow as our years passed in

one life or another. One cannot cease living to wait for the companionship of another. Once that wisdom was taken to heart, the years after that realization were often better for it. And the meeting, if it did come, was a sweeter gift.

One of my favorite pastimes is reading about him, those details I don’t know or the people I missed entirely. Only a few years ago I even wrote a senior thesis on the phenomena of prohibition crime inspired by that picture; the smirk on his lips, the gun in his pocket, him looking like the ever-suave

American gangster. I hope to remember my work the next time I see him so I can ask him my many questions. He will most likely tease me for being so obsessive as to write a thesis on him. Though he’ll quickly blush when I mention the multiple volumes he wrote on my past queendom, by hand, when Gutenberg was but a young man.

In this life, however, my love for his past is, I am beginning to see, a veiled acceptance. A hope that, if I dig enough, he will appear. If I just walk through the museum hall one more

time he will be standing before that picture, waiting. I have yet to learn, once again, that waiting will only lead me to an agony too painful to bear.

I hope, in the meantime, to leave something behind for him as I am now. When fate eventually brings him

to stand in a museum hall, or see the pictures on a wall of alumni, or maybe read my name under the authorship of a paper handed to him by his professor, there will be something to comfort him until we see one another again.

“I measc socracht na sléibhte” by Tess Koerner Photography

On Growing

Claire Doll

The first story I ever wrote was about a flower. “The Little Flower,” I called it, beaming. I made it using construction paper and crayons. It was about a stick-figure little girl with pencil strokes as hair, and how she dropped seeds into the earth one afternoon. Each day she watered the dirt, and a Crayola sun from the corner of the

you are young. My mother, cooking breakfast on an early school morning, a hazy stream of gold spilling onto the wall. My sister, our summers at the local snowball stand, and egg custard snowballs. My father, brewing a pot of coffee, slowly pouring in the cream. The first time I ever drank a latte, or my first date. Pierogis on Christmas Eve, and apple turnovers on Christmas morning.

High school blurred into college, and the summer in between felt like a

as far as my imagination could reach, I wrote,

page gave it light. The girl waited days and seasons until a stem emerged from the soil, then grew and unraveled and became a daisy. Just like that. Delicate white petals with a golden center. Smiling, the girl plucked the flower from the earth and gifted it to her father.

The story was my most prized possession, so once I finished—stapled the pages to make a book—I wrote more stories. The tale of a lost island in the middle of the sea. A girl who dug a hole to the other side of the world. Talking butterflies and crystal castles. As far as my imagination could reach, I wrote, words spiraling like a fountain onto the page. I would think about writing constantly, as much as my seven-year-old self could. I carried crayons with me everywhere.

But as I grew out of stick figures and construction paper books, I wove my stories out of the fabric of real life, images clear as day, as they are when

million summers, filled with pink sunsets at nine o’clock and moving boxes and wearing masks on a walk outside. And college felt like an eternity. A season of life I would never grow out of.

I told myself I’d write a bunch in college. Stories about the new people and sights around me, or poems inspired by snow-dusted mountaintops and fiery autumn trees. I would dream of being an author so hard, write every morning, explore the library, discover new things—

—like the gym. Did you know you’re not ripped? The voice still echoes in my mind. Perhaps I always sat when I was writing, always used my imagination while sitting. I won’t spend all my mornings at the gym, I promised myself, but it was addictive, the feeling of tortured legs and burning arms. Or runs that swept your breath away. Or seeing other girls grow beautiful and fit. Just like that.

I would stop drinking coffee. The good kind of coffee—frothy lattes with caramel drizzle and whipped cream. I would put aside the cookies Mom baked for me to take back to school, the spontaneous pizza with my friends. Or the sparkling rosé on a Friday night. I stopped it all.

I was a flower. I was meant to grow.

But it all happened so quickly that when you looked back, you felt as though you were living a dream.

gym. I was far from all of that, could feel the distance in my bones.

words spiraling like a fountain onto the page.

The fabric of my life became food scales and morning spin classes and protein shakes. A watch that reminded me that you haven’t stood in hours, and skipped lunches, and you’re not ripped even though I never felt more like a budding flower, the one I wrote about, the one with delicate petals reaching for the sun. Flowers always bloomed in the spring, and winter was the hardest season. Sometimes it’s too cold to grow. Sometimes you can’t grow at all.

And I didn’t write. The words, the stories, tossed to the side.

I could barely remember the smell of Mom’s cookies, but at night I dreamed of it. I dreamed of lattes. I dreamed of little moments in my days when the sun caught itself in the window just like the kitchen at home, or the starry nights that reminded me of my sister, or a morning without the

And when springtime arrived, a swirl of watercolor dripping into the world, I would watch the flowers grow from my window. Think about that story I wrote, all those years ago, about the little girl and her daisy. The stick figure little girl. Did she cry when she looked at her stomach? Her pencil strokes as hair. Would it fall out if she grew thin? Her smile, wide and big, spreading a tinge of blush on her cheeks. Why did she smile? Why did anyone smile? The sunlight from the corner of the page, the electric lime grass. The blue sky. How did anyone see the world like that?

But somewhere, hidden under piles of books and clothes and letters, is a pen. On a blank piece of paper, I swirl my name in looping cursive, watch the ink bleed onto the page and watch it grow.

Images fall like rain into my mind—sunsets splattered on windshields and daffodils blooming in March and coffee. Coffee. Iced lattes with cold foam, rich caramel, sugar, milk. Dark espresso. Evergreen summer days. Snow cones. Pancakes at breakfast. Smiles, true smiles, taking over everything on my face, and blushing cheeks, and skin full of life.

Then I write.

“Good Old Days”

by Dolores Hans

Photography

contributors

Jane Allman is a junior majoring in Fine Arts and English. She likes taking exploratory walks along streams and RipStiking with friends.

Joshua Aybar is a senior studying English as well as Criminal Justice and Political Science; he also plays rugby. He loves his family and slamming people on the ground.

Amaya Bowman studies Elementary Education. She enjoys being strong on the softball field, fun in the classroom, and reading on a beach.

Kayla Canfield studies Communication and English Literature. She has been writing poetry since the age of 8 and lives in Waynesboro, PA.

Annabelle Colton is a junior studying Data Science and Cybersecurity. She loves the Rosary, fantasy romance, bookstores, and 80-degree weather.

Senior Erin Daly studies English and Accounting. She loves reading romance novels and is currently learning how to play the piano. Let her know if you’d like to hear a below average rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

Anna Dang is a freshman majoring in Philosophy and Music. She is still in the process of learning how to break through the clouds, but she hopes she can share sunshine to everyone she meets.

Caliann Dietz is a sophomore studying Mathematics. Outside of her studies, she enjoys various forms of art.

A graduating senior, Claire Doll loves all things creative writing! She enjoys inventing espresso drinks, driving her car named Donna, and teaching grammar.

Alexandra Eastman is a junior studying Math and Computer Science. You might find her making sourdough bread, thrifting with a coffee in her hand, or teaching spin classes.

Art Education major Emma Edwards is constantly making pottery or sitting on a bench watching nothing. She enjoys blaring The 1975 out of the art studio garage doors.

Senior Hailey Fulmer studies English and creative writing. She enjoys running and watching film. Last semester, she studied abroad in Dublin, which instilled her love of traveling!

Junior Dolores Hans studies Special Education and Elementary Education and Theology. She loves all art forms, especially photography. She also enjoys service and taking care of kids.

Abigail Jarrett is a junior studying English, Philosophy and Communiation. She studied in Ireland last semester but if you ask her about it, she’ll probably tell you about her fall break trip to Bosnia instead.

Kayla Jones is a senior Communication major. She enjoys reading, writing, playing with her baby sister, and going to the beach.

Sarah King is a sophomore studying English and Secondary Education. She enjoys playing volleyball, going horseback riding, and making friendship bracelets while watching reality TV.

Senior Tess Koerner studies English with a minor in Communication. She enjoys listening to Lady Gaga and believes that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the superior Charles Dickens adaptation.

Savannah Laux is a senior Philosophy major and a hippie at heart. If she isn’t reading fantasy, she is writing until 4 a.m. promising herself she will go to bed soon.

Kaitlynn Lowman studies Psychology and Sociology as a double major. She loves photography and the beauty of everything around her.

Robert Prender is a senior studying Business and the Visual and Performing Arts. In addition to photography, he enjoys sculpture and working with stained glass.

Aubrey Preske is a senior studying to become an art teacher. She likes snowboarding and going on hikes.

Kiara Ramirez is a freshman studying Health Science and Psychology with a minor in Creative Writing. She’s just a girl that gets lost in her thoughts and turns them into poetry.

Krissy Roots is a graduating senior studying Communication. In her free time, she finds joy in rollerblading and collecting antique porcelain dolls.

Kevin Ryan is a sophomore studying Marketing and Business Analytics. He enjoys playing trumpet and engaging with anything nostalgic.

Trinity Sandacz is a senior studying Cybersecurity and Computer Science. In her free time, she enjoys photography of still life as well as action such as sports games and has a high-level appreciation for music and art.

Jenna Scalia studies Communcation and minors in Business and Creative Writing. She is also a female Eagle Scout.

Sasha Shandrenko is a senior studying Computer Science and Cybersecurity. She loves journaling and being creative.

Margaret Stine is a senior triple-majoring in English, History, and Italian. In her spare time, she loves to listen to ’80s music, crochet, and draw.

Rayelle Weir is a senior with a major in Communication and a minor in Psychology. She is a full-time wordsmith, and a part-time foodie.

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