Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine: Fall 2019

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Sofia Caruso Elizabeth Doyle Chelsea Henderson Natasha Khoo Kathryn Norris Ava Rognlien Sabrina Ruiz Sarah Sherard Emma van Geuns

Sofia Caruso Elizabeth Doyle Natasha Khoo Brian Yang Maria Zymnis

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Sofia Caruso Ryan Doolittle Elizabeth Doyle S Dreschel Ella Filardi

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Cover art adapted from “Coming Home on a Friday” by Euvin Lee. © Copyright Spectrum Literary Arts Magazine and respective authors.

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Contents

Staff

Chelsea Henderson Natasha Khoo David Malone Sabrina Ruiz Brian Yang

Members

Niah Tobarri Laura Shrago Jade Fiorilla Gwen Cusing Remenna Xu Mitch Gamburg Gabby Bruck Kristi Bui

Committees

Editor-in-Chief Creative Director Finance Manager Secretary Advertising Manager Web Developer Junior Creative Director Junior Web Developer

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Ode to Angels // krk ghost queen // Sofia Caruso

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Wander // Denise Lewis Darling // Sam Penney

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Loss of Clear Blue // Ryan Doolittle Fried Chicken Pizza // Laura Shrago

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Dip // Gabby Bruck Learning to Cook // Gabby Bruck

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in which reuben selects “yes” to organ donation at the dmv // Gwen Cusing Mirrored // Denise Lewis

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Bleed Out // Allison Zheng Fix // Brian Yang

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The Black Kurti // Sharvari Ajit Deepti Narendra

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Sweet Dreams // Alexandra Fryman Success of Small Town Americans // Carolyn Kiely

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Window Shopping // Euvin Lee Ache // Niah Tobarri

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Beast // Hana Shapiro Sacrificial Memories // Melania St. Cyr

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release:return // Gwen Cusing

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Back to the Old Times // Hongqian Huang

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Coming Home on a Friday // Euvin Lee I Wonder — But Do Not Ask // S Dreschel

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Sink Dive // Hana Shapiro Emergency Exit // Ben Landsberg

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Monkey Business // Joyce Downey été // Laney Nguyen

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9/18/18 // Niah Tobarri Inevitability // Aishwarya Deva

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To Sing America // Jade Fiorilla Under the Bridge // Ben Landsberg

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the fox // aximilya

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Heat Transfer // Joyce Downey Love Letter // Sabrina Meyer

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When Much Is Lost // Jade Fiorilla Framework // Laura Shrago

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heartfelt, she’ll melt your knives tenderly, safe as you’ll ever be healing, skin sealing she revives

ghost queen // Sofia Caruso

Ode to Angels // krk

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Wander // Denise Lewis

Darling // Sam Penney I crave the taste of “darling” on my tongue, To savor it, to mean it, But when the word is on my plate I dare not stab at it fork and knife in hand.

It is a tender phrase, “my darling,” One I ought to have served you more often.

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Loss of Clear Blue // Ryan Doolittle

Fried Chicken Pizza // Laura Shrago

You, with the ancient eyes.

Are you the one the sailors sing about that once wore that brilliant cerulean cape, whose frayed edges caught alight with the sun’s golden flames, and at night would glitter in the gentle beams of moonlight dripping down from the sky.

But now I see the coat you wear is stained with oil and grime, charred and tainted with the reflections of neon eyes and fluorescent smiles stretched to plasticized proportions, and so energized that their violent glow overwhelms the moonlight that once feel upon you.

Will you ever return to those cerulean days?

I suppose the men who once told your stories have been swallowed by time, barely leaving a ripple in their absence, while the rest of the world has retired you.

Now they frame your old cape in their marble halls, where wrinkled men wonder about a distant age and how they watched that cerulean fade.

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Learning to Cook // Gabby Bruck

Dip // Gabby Bruck

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I inherited this tidal wave body from my mother Leah, her belly waxing and waning again and again: new/renew/renew/renew.

The eldest son of an eldest daughter, I do as I’m told.

Mirrored // Denise Lewis

in which reuben selects “yes” to organ donation at the dmv // Gwen Cusing a reading to / from the holy gospel of Reuben’s body / vessel / carcass

I never wanted this body.

Reach into my chest and pull. Weave lifelines from my arteries, a safety net from my vocal chords, a storm shelter from my arms.

All I ever wanted was this body.

My proud spine is an artifact of lineage.

Count each vertebrae, stack one on top of another. Let me stand with my back straight.

Let me tell you all about the party trick where a mirror looks another mirror in the face, which is to say, I am always looking back.

I never wanted this body.

Another bone to pick your teeth with, scrape me clean once again.

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Fix // Brian Yang 3AM dreaming about digging through a swamp, meandering through muddied memories of affection never manifesting.

Prancing for a fix of DayQuil dancing — muddled trancing through Freudian feelings.

My flu-filled pharynx fails at filtration.

Fighting for breath, my brain floats from my physical

imagining fraud fixations,

fetishizing faux fantasies,

fancying father fabrications, and falling for them.

Am I such a fool to wake up famished to be fixed?

Bleed Out // Allison Zheng

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The Black Kurti // Sharvari Ajit Deepti Narendra

“This seems like a good place to stop,” she said, smiling a little and wiping her glasses on her black cotton kurti. “We will continue again tomorrow, but you are doing really good,” she reassured him, as he stood up, his dark brown hair a slight mess from the number of times he ran his fingers through them in frustration and discontentment.

“Thank you,” he shook her hand and smiled back at her. He took a few steps towards the door, but stopped, and looked back at her hesitantly.

She was immersed in a stack of papers, her glasses sliding down her nose a little, her sharp, black eyes focused on the document in front of her, and yet, for some reason, he thought she had stopped breathing. May be it was the way her fingers played nervously with a loose strand of her hair. May be it was the way her eyelashes fluttered for a fleeting moment. May be it was the way her entire body seemed too still.

She looked at him a split second later, as if just realizing that he was standing right there. “Yes, Manav?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “I will see you tomorrow.” He almost reached the door but stopped again, and turned around. “Avanti,” he called out, her name swirling like an unfamiliar, nostalgic mist on his tongue.

“You’ve got cake on your kurti.”

“How did it go today?”

“Fairly well. He has lesser trouble opening up now.”

“I want more than fairly well, Avanti, I want to see actual results. I am paying you a good amount of money for this and if you cannot get it done, I will find myself another therapist.”

Avanti sighed, pinching her eyebrows. “I understand.”

She kept the phone, her hands shaking from the conversation.

She opened her purse, and removed the photo that she had carefully placed inside. Her eyes lingered on the handsome man in the photo for a moment as she recalled what Tarika had said to her, her voice cracking.

“Our wedding’s in a month. I want him to remember me. I just want him to remember me.”

Her eyes slowly wandered to the woman standing next to him, her eyes on his, adoration and love shining in them.

“I cannot risk him remembering you, Avanti. Please.”

Her eyes were now on the black kurti that the woman was wearing.

“Oh,” she seemed slightly flustered as she tried to wipe it off. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Help him forget you before he has to go through the pain of forgetting you again.”

“No problem,” he shrugged and added, “It’s a nice kurti.”

Avanti closed her eyes, her fingers grasping fistfuls of her kurti like straws.

He left abruptly, and not a second later, her phone rang.

“It’s a nice kurti.”

“H-” Avanti could barely get a hello out before Tarika interrupted her.

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Success of Small Town Americans (A Subconscious Desire for Escape) // Carolyn Kiely “You aren’t truly a local, until there are three lifetimes of your blood alongside the soil.” I hover at burials for third, fifth, seventh generation of distant peoples, trailing hearses and precessions two streets over to a growing field.

A seed planted among this crop has a chance, sand grain small, to flourish for the new year’s harvest. Roots shot beyond the borders often return in time to plant seeds for the new season.

Sweet Dreams // Alexandra Fryman

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Dandelions are not for planting; they escape to the skies, find a home on satellites, spin around us. Gaze upon their glory.

Envy the pearly stars born of your sandy silt.

Convinced of abandonment. Convinced still not to uproot from the greatest place on earth, while dreaming of flying. Sending prayers for blood on distant soil.

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Window Shopping // Euvin Lee

ache // Niah Tobarri like man walked the moon, i feel you trekking across my brain turning grey matter to mush, pacing my cerebral cortex, creating a niche in the yellow wallpaper lining of my skull, turning on the loop pedal function of my synapses so your name reverberates over and over and over in my skull. i feel you in my fucking bones.

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I tackle the crazed ire waiting to spit and chew on those who have wronged me, Disallowed from scathing the Skin of my forgiven. It cries, That is all they are.

In retaliation it howls at me Mimicking a familiar instinctual Barbaric yawp.

Sacrificial Memories // Melania St. Cyr

Beast // Hana Shapiro

I mistake the horrid beast for anger.

I pluck its dentured fangs from its Soft mouth and Feed it dark sugar, Close its jaw and massage its Tender throat to shiveringly Sooth its burning need.

Lo, Comfort. I see you.

I release you from this binding pelt.

May you never seek to impose again, Only to be called upon.

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release:return // Gwen Cusing Let this be the winter perfumed by cigarette smoke and sweat. Let it be the winter of hands, the winter of tattooing the characters of your own name across your ribs, reminding you to

be present to be past

to never forget this foreign soil staining your fingers, a thin half crescent under your nails.

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RETURN Let this be the winter of saccharine halfpromises, of breaths against pulses. Let it be bruised apple skins, the winter of teeth, of silent snow-soaked Sunday mornings.

Let it be the winter of your name across my ribs, throbbing red hot until the day I press a fingernail to each stroke

and feel nothing.

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Back to the Old Times // Hongqian Huang 26

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Coming Home On A Friday // Euvin Lee I Wonder — But Do Not Ask // S Dreschel I grew up watching college football. On the TV at home, or standing in the sticky southern air.

I never understood the appeal behind the brawny violence. At dinner my family would talk about the games, the teams, the coaches. Eventually I left them to itfound different tables to eat at.

My mother told me once how when she turned eleven, she began doing the grocery shopping for her family.

When I think about this, I picture a barely pubescent child pushing a cart that eclipses her in size through the aisles of some sad Alabama store. I imagine she was scared at first, with her eyes darting between different brands of canned goods. My mother hates grocery shopping to this day.

My grandmother and I are now prescribed the same mood stabilizer. I wonder but do not ask my mother: does it hurt to see your mother’s illness in me? When I reek of cigarette smoke, do you know that it is because the smell reminds me of home, of you? Would you like me if you really knew me? Do you know that I feel guilty, still?

I have a phantom brother six years older than me.

When I was younger, I would measure seasons not by calendar but by when my father began yelling at him about his grades. I could always hear the end of the semester approach from the safety of my bedroom.

He does not speak the language of the church he attends. Once he asked if I still do not believe in God. I replied, “There are skulls in the greenery.

Dead animal bones decomposing in the grass.

How can I, when they regard me with their barren eyes?” I wonder but do not ask him: do you drink too much? Are you happy?

Did you inherit a sickness? Do you feel loved?

When my grandfather died nine years ago he left me a grandfather clock. It’s a beautiful, regal thing: etched on the clock face is a painting of the stars.

It sits in our living room still wrapped in plastic.

I guess we could unwrap it, but instead we talk about college football.

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Sink Dive // Hana Shapiro On the first heave wave of Summer above 100 degrees Blinding sun spread across the sky Enveloping the last of yesterday’s blue And shot yellow into its reflective particles I guzzle watermelon Over the running sink that acts As an apron Wiping away the worry of Stain and stickiness The metallic trough turns into a clear Swimming hole of glacial waters Teasing the throat and skin To gulp or to be gulped up Here In the central of the city With no central air I rinse the droplets of salty Humid air and Popping grains of sweet sticky red Down the river Onto the next swimming hole

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Emergency Exit // Ben Landsberg

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été // Laney Nguyen Summer of my seventeen, Tangy sweat and sweet drops of rain, The sunlight grazing our nose bridge, Your name beating a tattoo in my heart, Our intertwined hands: fire coursing, bursting, Beneath the wind-hassled chlorine pool.

Summer of my eighteen, Cookies in ice cream and popcorn bits between teeth, The rain beating down our brows, Painting your eyes with tears, And washing mine away, along with all these Little Things, That was ever us.

Monkey Business // Joyce Downey

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you google search the differences between love and infatuation. scroll down, click through the sea of results. articles from the odyssey and cosmopolitan but they are anything but. you google search webMD symptom checker but you know. it’s like when you go to the eye doctor and they tell you that your astigmatism is like, really bad.

Inevitability // Aishwarya Deva

9/18/18 // Niah Tobarri

you know. you’ve been down this road before. of being so blind but feeling every minute detail. you know, you know, no, no, no-you Are. but you don’t want to be because you know how it all ends and somehow, you’re not afraid. like a fine wine, or maybe you’re just old. maybe you’re old and wise and your bones are weary and you’ve lost your mind but you know you’re in love. you know you’re in love because it makes you want to cry and you remember that you have a heartbeat.

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To Sing America // Jade Fiorilla She is in the mirror again, The girl with silk hair and slanted eyes, Her flat face the color of sand.

I jab my finger at the reflection Until her eyebrow blossoms In a pearl of black and blue.

I know my hair is strawberry blond, I know my eyes are wide like quarters, And yet she haunts me.

A stock image of the exotic, the foreign, The non-white, the non-American, But I promise I am not these things.

Under the Bridge // Ben Landsberg

Tears stain her cheeks, my cheeks Wet and flushed, I shiver As though her own skin isn’t enough.

We want to laugh but my chest It collapses from so much longing— We, too, are America.

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the fox // aximilya

Heat Transfer // Joyce Downey

Love Letter // Sabrina Meyer instead of holding my hand you write of my calloused palms of my slender fingers of my nubby nails that curl around your own and you send the story to publishers in hopes of winning the Pulitzer Prize without so much as a letter to me all you do is call me your muse but all i hear is the word “use”

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When Much Is Lost // Jade Fiorilla I never realized Womanhood strikes in the dark In those fleeting moments Between tides, between moons When mourning doves call the loudest.

Framework // Laura Shrago

Without my consent, the spring rains pass Revealing blooms bright with desire And consumed by a ripe impatience— Oh! what to do when much is lost But turn to the night sky.

This body is an unexplored land Every curve a secret cove Leading to my thighs, a great canyon— See! what was barren has erupted fertile But the wind breathes on it all.

At the call of the mourning doves Who congregate atop the old shed roof I run barefoot out the door To wave my arms and join their cries For the loss of skinny bones, a natural disaster.

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