Resonance Spring 2018

Vol. IV, Spring 2018

Literary Arts Magazine of Mount Aloysius College

Resonance is created based on submissions from Mount Aloysius students and vetted by a review board comprised of students, staff, and faculty.

Housed by The Belltower student newspaper, Resonance can be found online at: belltower.mtaloy.edu/arts/ Faculty Advisors

Samantha Bailey ...................................................................... 4 Rachel Cain ................................................................... 4, 5, 6, 7 Tara Chappell ..................................................................... 6, 10 Chelsea Hutnick .....................................................................8-9 Becca Houghton ........................................................................ 4 Stephanie Mays ..................................................................... 3, 7 Brianna Sheeder ................................................................. 5, 12 Sarah Soyster ........................................................3, 8, 9, 10, 11 Samuel Svonavec ...................................................................... 5

“Resonance happens when your mind and heart come into sync.�

- Ravindra Shukla, A Maverick Heart: Between Love and Life

Jessica Jost-Costanzo Christopher Burlingame Student Review Board Tara Chappel Becca Houghton Hailey Rzitchey Sarah Soyster Samuel Svonavec Design Rachel Cain Hailey Ritchey Sarah Soyster

Submissions The Resonance review board seeks: short fiction; short, creative nonfiction;poetry; photography; and photos of fine art each semester at mid-term. Submissions from any undergraduate or graduate student are welcome. Please send all submissions to: BellTowerArts@mtaloy.edu.

Front Cover: Kalyn Blake, Courtesy of the Digital Grotto Back Cover: Brianna Sheeder

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Forgiveness Stephanie Mays

“I forgive you.” Those words are not bitter or full of lies. They are humble and powerful.

They can bring the strongest men to their knees and fill their eyes with tears. They can make monsters reach back for their humanity, and make the meanest souls have kind eyes again.

They are words that only people of courage will admit. They are words that are filled with love. True love. Forgiveness is not something to take for granted, it is not something you make someone do. Forgiveness in a physically sense is fragile. You can break and destroy her. She is stubborn and easily overlooked.

But one of my favorite qualities is that she gives second chances.

I let forgiveness show herself to me after a

year of pushing her away. I was appalled she wanted to finally let you go after all you did to me. After she watched me put holes in walls, and fill a bathtub up with my bodies H2O. She watched me starve myself and get sick mentally. She watched me fight the urge to call you or to look back at “the good times” captured and saved on my desktop. Forgiveness was patient and let me mourn the lost of you my love. I finally allowed her to take the memories of us, the laughs along with the cries, the yelling followed by the hugs, and she boxed them up. I watched forgiveness place the box that held (us) and put it on a shelve titled “I forgive you, because I love(d) you.” In that

moment I realized I was going to be okay.

I realized my heart was going to be complete again so that one day I could give it to another in time.

I realized that you weren’t a bad person, you just did a bad thing, but no one is perfect. I realized yes you did care about me and yes you did love me. We were real and we were in love and there’s nothing to regret about our story because it was meant to happen this way. Lessons were taught and we grew into adults together but ended as separate individuals. And that is why along with forgiveness there is thanks. You have to thank forgivenesses; she brings you closure for hard times or reunions after fights.

I will be happy for you

when you are happy and I will smile when you love another. And I will be joyful when you succeed and I will cry when you leave this world. Because that my dearest, is what my forgiveness looks like.

Above and below: Photographs by Sarah Soyster

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Beaming

Missing You

Becca Houghton

Samantha Bailey

I smiled today However, I did not just smile like I normally do I did not just smile to mask my pain or to put on a show This smile was real, the most genuine I’ve ever known I was truly happy, for the first time in a long time There was no sadness to hide, no tears to fear This was a smile of pure joy, so brightly shining Even after all of the hardships and burdens that I bare I am so grateful that my smile is still there.

Missing you is as Easy as missing A glass of ice water In a desert storm.

It may be refreshing But the problem Still stays.

Missing you is like Being shipwrecked And wondering whether Or not I will see you Again.

Lastly, missing you Is a small price Knowing we will be Together again.

I’ve missed you.

Above and right: Photographs by Rachel Cain

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Unknown Angel

Celestial Light

Brianna Sheeder

Samuel Svonavec

Everything is done for every other one Every breath is for just one more Bleeding out through the soul Always taking the ultimate toll

Starlight fades on the cusp of nocturnal death.

Every word spoken To save another heart from being broken Wrapped in the invisible wing Taking all the pain Nobody else seems to ever care About the ones in despair But the unknown angel Never stop breathing Go on believing That we will be rescued Never falling in the depths of hell Fly instead on the wings Of the unknown angel Every word spoken To save another heart broken Wrapped in tight wings Hear the angel sing

Earth’s feathered tenants sing dirges to the night.

All beauty ever perceived by human wit can not compare to the cosmos of your eyes.

Sunlight’s tender kiss caresses mountaintop shale, countryside, and dale.

Revealing creations beauty to all wondering eyes.

One beauty stands tall over all, the face kissed by the rays of heaven’s light.

I lament mankind for its misfortune, for it may never see that which only I can when the sun illuminates your face, and for your presence, I bless the celestial guide, or cosmic chance who brought you here to share my life.

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Chekhov Observation Tara Chappell

“Next up, 200 Freestyle!” The announcer boomed over the crowd, his voice echoing within the tiled walls of the pool area. Different ages of people sat around us, each chattering with excitement looming in their voices, turning to their neighbors every so often to express that anticipation and hope as each event passed.

“Swimmers, step up onto the blocks!”

As I did so, I felt the sandy material grating the undersides of my feet. I pulled my black lensed goggles over my eyes and tugged my rubber cap into place. My heart pitter pattered in my chest, my nerves overcoming me as I breathed in as deep as I could without feeling as though I would vomit from nerves. The tangy, yet calming,

smell of chlorine flooded my nostrils, giving me the boost that I needed—my heart pounded harder. My breathing was unsteady as I took in all of the faces in the bleachers all around me.

I tried to recall the cool water from warm-up earlier—the temperature had calmed me for a brief moment. I didn’t know if it would this time. Everything was on the line; everything that I had trained for (even on Christmas break) rested in this race, so it was one that I couldn’t let myself muddle up too much.

My nerves, obviously well placed, were enough to keep me on my toes as I awaited this event throughout the early afternoon.

Friends, coaches, and swimmers from other teams assured me

that I was good at it and that I would be okay—I knew I would, but that didn’t stop the acid from churning in the pits of my stomach.

Nerves were a part of this sport and they always would be.

Making an attempt to relax my trembling limbs and stop the shaking of my fingers, I stretched them with caution, trying to ensure that I wouldn’t accidentally fall into the water which so many have done today. I inhaled, feeling the deep intake of air calm my rapid beating heart slightly, but not for very long. As soon as I released the breath, my heart beat at an unsteady pace once again.

“Swimmers, take your mark!” With this, I leaned forward.

I gripped the sandy material at the edge

of the block, nudging my feet to a comfortable position to get the best traction for my dive off. My goggled eyes studied the nervous reflection in the water—lights, other swimmers, the lane ropes—the solid, cerulean water. I knew that in about five seconds I’d be home again, and I would be comfortable.

My heart jumped into my throat as I readied myself to leap into a dive.

I took one last breath of air before I heard the shrill sound of our start-off—I dove into the water.

As my body met the cold home, I felt my nerves dissolve away into nearly nothing. I began to swim, knowing that I could—and would—do this as best as I possibly could.

Above and right: Photographs by Rachel Cain

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DearStephanie Mays

Dear May, it is the first, the first of your offspring army of sunflowers and weeds and the welcoming of small mammals.

Dear friend, open your mind to what this new season has to offer. Dear old soul, my skin is laced in pollen, my soul lingers over you, I can distinctly remember the way you felt between my hips as we lay on a patterned blanket surrounded by what looks like the beginning of Genesis.

Dear creature of the night, we stay up too late wasting time on nonsense...we will never be enough for the grown up thanksgiving table, we will never be able to fill each broken home hope despite the urge of kindness.

Dear bold man, we can take this storm approaching the meadow, we lay, naĂŻve to what is to come in the colder nights. The only gift we can offer each other is body heat. The darkness seems quiet Dear honey, you are but it is loud inside too sweet for the bees our bones we ache for to ever sting or for the a hand to touch and curse of humanity to heal our wounds, they affect you. are not all physical.

Dear lover, the wind is drawing you near and these goosebumps are giving me curiosity for your bittersweet lips to glide over me once again.

Dear young flesh, your smile is leaving wrinkles, I adore ever crease filled with nature oil. All the pores are a passage way to get one layer deep-

er, a year has gone by and the pit in my stomach still hungers for the look of approval to be suffocated in your arms which are smaller than mine but your grip is tighter.

Dear sweet boy smoke helps give the illusion of clouds forming, shall we build a kingdom just for it to be swept away?

Dear mine, you have always been wanted by me even before our eyes linked and the sky changed its color to a burning red though it might look orange to you because you were born with an imperfection I call beauty.

Dear earthly mate, the windows in your car are becoming blind by the humility caused by your heat-

ed breath full of hate towards temporary problems. You have noticed dear observer I have two ears big enough to engulf words of worry and a small enough mouth to speak a caring answer.

Dear Hun, we have laid still on many surfaces full of thought but it seems we run out of the correct knowledge to apply our imagination.

Dear my future, you have been chosen. I hit the refresh button every week in my brain to make space for the memories yet to come.

Dear, may is over and the heat outside is fading, I will be inside waiting for your hand and the words I love you. This is a new season.

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Surviving Humanity Chelsea Hutnick

I’m different. We’re different. We’re beings trying to live in this dramatic, fallen world of epic failure and disease amongst the worst of all, humans. They see us as monsters, but they’re the true creatures of the dark.

I’m sorry, I must be confusing you. I am easily communicating with you in the complex way only humans can, but I am telling you I am not human?

Well it’s true, it must be for the species who raised me have difficulty grasping the concept of “lying”.

I am a noetic. Most humans don’t know much about us. Then again, they don’t know much about anything… Anyway, humans and noetics are technically the same species, but I don’t want to think about that. Their brains have shriv-

eled with time, the smarter technology got the less they used their brain and if you don’t use it you lose it, I guess is how that works.

A person was considered smart if they knew how to operate a computer, but in reality the computer was practically working them. As it progressed it just got worse and worse.

Those who believed in comprehension, application, and creativity instead of memorization, regurgitation, and technology were outcasted. Students with the highest IQs flunked out of school because they were incapable of using computers. Once out of school many of those kids became homeless because no college would accept them and no one hired them because all jobs required the

ability to be satisfied with being run by the new technology.

These people clustered together in the dark corners of The City to form Sequestrates that were filled with death and poverty. Soon education centers ended as a whole and those who didn’t fit in were shunned into these foul areas against their will.

Since humans didn’t believe in exerting effort to fix the technology that they made to malfunction in the first place, the walls of the Sequestrates were just piles of useless, broken technology. No one was allowed out. There were electrical trigger points surrounding these sections of The City. If someone tried to leave you knew they were never coming back. Once they stepped on a trigger

a pulse would be sent through a network of hidden wires and several microscopic, heat seeking, metal stars were fired out of nowhere. These little gadgets are called Starshots because they are shaped like stars, I know it’s not creative, but I wasn’t there when they named them. “If they are microscopic how do you know they were stars?” You might be asking.

Well, once it embeds itself into the skin and reaches the bloodstream big, red, burning, bumps appear around where it landed in a star formation and the star continues to get bigger until the person dies. However the star is not why the person dies, it is just an unintentional side effect that, to the humans’ pleasure, adds to the dreadful agony being experienced.

What actually kills the person is that once a Starshot enters the bloodstream it dissolves. Which releases a mysterious chemical that causes the iron in the blood to bond together. This causes a person to be petrified from the inside-out in the most literal way.

This process takes approximately two minutes, but I’ve been told the chemical that solidifies the iron also attacks the part of the brain that perceives

Above: and right Photographs by Sarah Soyster

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the length of time something takes.

So as their last two minutes pass by, each second is like an hour.

Once the person dies, the ground swells up around them and seems to swallow them, leaving nothing to acknowledge that the person ever existed. The body then falls into a large catacomb under the Sequestrates, where it sits forever.

No one really knows about this. The humans don’t. The noetics barely know about it. And of course, it is all The Government’s doing. They spent years watching the humans deteriorate and all they did was enforce it or ignore it.

No one knows exactly who is in charge of everything or what is happening in The Government. No one seems to wonder or care about it at all, but then again caring isn’t really embedded into human nature.

For decades it has not changed, so I wasn’t expecting it to change during my lifetime... but I was mistaken.

Although now is not the time to explain all of that, I do not have the time or enough paper.

Anyway, once a human reaches their eighth birthday, they must take the Incompatibility Test which differentiates those who are human from those who are noetics. If a child is human nothing changes, but if a child is a noetic they get everything they have taken away from them. Then they are stuffed into the Sequestrates and left to die. Or that’s at least what The Government hopes will happen. They didn’t want the humans to know and they certainly didn’t want the outside noetic population learning of their cruel ways. The outside noetic population was small, but

they overwhelmed the humans in intelligence. They supplied nearly all inventions, electricity, and even controlled most of the food supply.

You see, The Cities of humans were all identical and covered in cement. The only thing growing was a tree in the concrete slab of every backyard. They were modified, of course, they were made to stay green and keep away bugs as to not cause any inconvenience to the human inhabitants of the homes. Everything was grey, the trees were the only source of color in the miles and miles of grey.

There were no roads because no one had reason to leave their house, everything that was needed was ordered and delivered by drones. Everything was coated in concrete so there was no hope of any plant or animal life at all. The

Sequestrates were the only place where dirt was found. These areas were scattered with crumbling buildings all tainted black with age and disaster, a dangerous place to be… but the only refuge from the elements. Nothing would grow here either because the ground was poisoned with hatred, blood, oil, battery acid, and who knows what else that leaks out of all the forgotten pieces of the past. It was their junk yard for everything they didn’t want to deal with. Both objects and people alike were treated like garbage, never given a second chance or the chance to be fixed.

I know what it feels like. I was there. I was tested. I was rejected. I was left to die.

My name is Eli. I am a seventeen-year-old noetic and I survived humanity.

“MY NAME IS ELI. I AM A SEVENTEEN-YEAROLD NOETIC AND I SURVIVED HUMANITY.”

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Fear: Aquaphobia (The fear of water) Tara Chappell

I almost drowned when I was eight.

We were going boating, I think—my parents, older brother, and I.

It was a warm and pretty sunny day on the lake, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. From what I could remember, I think it was mid-august. I wore a bathing suit and my flip flops with my sun glasses over my eyes, my blonde hair pulled into a bun on the top of

my head. While my parents were getting everything ready for the trip, I stood on the dock while my mother stood beside me, tossing our bags into the boat. My brother, Alec, danced around the dock, spying into other people’s boats.

I remember laughing at him as I watched.

Suddenly, the next thing I remember was falling face first into the murky water with barely enough time to take

a mouthful of oxygen with me.

The water splashed around me as I struggled to put my head above water, so I could breathe, but at the time, I was still in swimming lessons, so I couldn’t tread water well, or at all. I could hear panicking above me (from my family and people passing by), but it felt like a century as I attempted to right myself. My arms and legs became jelly after

only seconds of being in the water—I felt water bubble up in my lungs…my eight-yearold self realized that I was drowning, probably to become part of the depths below.

The next moment, I felt someone yanking me from the water. I was coughing up stagnant lake water as I was pulled up and out. Sputtering through cold lips while listening to the crying and sheer panic around me from my

parents, my sibling, and those who stood around, too shocked to actually assist in the rescue. My father dove in after me, scooping me out before I had sunk too far into the water.

Luckily for me, I was still conscious—only barely, but at the very least, I was still alive.

I later found out that a few boys running along the dock accidentally bumped into me, knocking me into the water—their parents punished them, from what I remember. I also remember my brother crying a lot.

In fact, it was the first and probably last time that I’ve ever seen him cry.

He hugged me for days afterwards. He thought that I was gone, quite frankly, I did too.

I thought I was going to die.

Mom and dad didn’t let me out of their sight for the

next few weeks while I recovered from the terror of nearly drowning. I suppose it’s accurate to say that I never really got over the incident—I will not go near water, nor even think about approaching water, regardless. The thought of it causes my chest to tighten and the moment of nearly drowning to resurface. It was something that my eight-year-old self should not have had to go through…

That single event will deter me from water for the rest of my life.

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Left and Above: Photographs by Sarah Soyster

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