Fresh Ink 2017

Naugatuck VAlley Community College

Fresh ink 2017 The Literary Journal of

Naugatuck Valley Community College Waterbury, Connecticut

Editorial Staff: Jeannie Evans-Boniecki, Greg Harding, Vismel Marquez, Tom Nolan, Humberto Perez, Christopher Rempfer, and Wade Tarzia with special assistance from Ray Leite, Dante Rojas, Forrest Fee and Julia Petitfrere.

Front Cover Art: YuliYa Polichshuk* Back Cover Art: Dom Narducci

© 2017 Naugatuck Valley Community College All content and graphics in this publication are protected by U.S. copyright laws and may not be copied or republished without the express written permission of N.V.C.C. or the relevant author. Re-use of content, editorial or graphic, for any purpose is strictly prohibited. Permission to use content is granted on a case-by-case basis, provided content is not modified in any way.

Please submit your permission requests to freshink@nv.edu.

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Iron Shadow - Sandra Eddy

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April, 2017 Dear Reader, Fresh Ink 2017 was made possible by a collaborative effort shared by NVCC students, alumni, community writers and artists, and faculty, full and part time. Financially, we were supported by generous contributions from both the NVCC Student Government and the Liberal Arts and Behavioral and Social Sciences Division. In these times, when people are frequently overburdened with responsibilities and financing is uncertain, please note my appreciation.

I would like to extend a gracious thank you to the members of the Editorial Board whose expertise in their review of the submissions made this an engaging, enlightening experience.

My gratitude extends to both LABSS and the SGA for appreciating our efforts and the mission of the publication, and to the writers and artists from NVCC, our fellows from the CSUs and those from the neighboring community for their contributions of poetry, prose and artistic works without which this journal would not exist.

Finally, I would like to thank Associate Professor of English, Greg Harding, the advisor “emeritus” of Fresh Ink, who has shared his wealth of knowledge and experience with me. His unwavering support and collegiality has made my experience as the new advisor to Fresh Ink a pleasure and, hopefully, a success.

Now, reader, with the awareness that no person acts alone, I welcome you to the pages of Fresh Ink 2017. I hope you enjoy.

Sincerely, Jeannie Evans-Boniecki, Faculty Advisor, Fresh Ink 2017

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Fresh Ink 2017 Contents The Jungle Gym Gang (1st Place-Student Prose) – Christopher Gordon*...... 1 Marching Women (1st Place-Student Poetry) – Jessica Ney*.......................... 2 Hide-and-Seek– Natalie Schriefer..................................................................... 4

Prometheus – Greg Harding............................................................................. 6

An Aversion to the Universe – Joseline Ordonez*.......................................... 7 A Dearth of Fence (2nd Place-Student Prose) – Jessica Eller*......................... 9 bones, stones, and genes (2nd Place Student Poetry)–Autumn Blackwood*.11 Cloudburst– Emily Hepworth.......................................................................... 12 Talks with Nana – Benjamin J. Chase .............................................................. 13 I Got It (3rd Place-Student Prose) – Christopher Gordon*.............................. 14 Is This It? – Halit Basuljevic*............................................................................. 16 Mental Masturbation – Shelley Stoehr........................................................... 19 Shape of Grief (3rd Place-Student Poetry) – Jessica Ney*.............................. 21 How Henry Taught the River – Tom Nolan..................................................... 2 2 Our Own Kind of Beauty – Anna Duchaine*................................................... 23 Here to See It – Benjamin J. Chase.................................................................. 24 Half Mast – Joseph R. Adomavicia*................................................................ 25 Portrait of a Mediocre Photographer - Lucas Somma................................... 26 Katie at Night – Nancy McMillan..................................................................... 28 New Grey – Humberto Perez*........................................................................ 31 A Day in the Life – Trevor Lilly*........................................................................ 32 Sleeping Alone – Jamie Crepeau..................................................................... 36 Bury the Pet Cemetery – Kenneth DiMaggio..................................................38 To be Touched –Teree Perkins......................................................................... 39 Lady on the Run – Alyssa Katz*...................................................................... 40 Bleak – Emily Hepworth.................................................................................. 44 Lazy Mornings – Lucas Somma....................................................................... 45 Break - Greg Harding....................................................................................... 46 American Shame - Jayanne Sindt................................................................... 4 9 The Trinity of a Stressful Life - Joe Adomavicia*........................................... 50 To The River - Nancy McMillan........................................................................ 52 Tick-Tock - Alyssa Katz*................................................................................... 55 Remember when - Jessica Eller*..................................................................... 56 I Dream Like A Bird With A Broken Wing - Karen Connell.............................. 57 Yellow Shirt - Teree Perkins............................................................................. 58 Swimming - Zena Branch*............................................................................... 59 To Bury the Dead (Professors) - Kenneth DiMaggio......................................60 We’re Not Children Anymore - Jamie Crepeau............................................... 61 * indicates NVCC student submission

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Fresh Ink 2017 Graphics Iron Shadow - Sandra Eddy............................................................................. 2 Positive Love in a Negative Space - David Flook*.......................................... 6

Walking the.... (1st Place-Student Graphics) - David Flook*........................... 3 Piano - Daniel Chabot*.................................................................................... 5 Jonah and the Whale – Kyle Herrick.............................................................. 8

Rocks And Water – Daniel Chabot*.............................................................. 1 2 Wake Up Mr. West - Forrest Fee*.................................................................. 19 A Sponge and His Thoughts (2nd Place-Student Graphics) – David Flook*. 20 Land of the Free – Joshua Jireh Poole*.........................................................22 Pomegranate – Alyssa Latanowich*............................................................. 24 But Not Forgotten – Forrest Fee*................................................................ 31 Seventeen (3rd Place-Student Graphics) – Yuliya Polichshuk*.....................37 Rollercoaster – Alyssa Latanowich*.............................................................39 Fortune Cookie – Noblesse Louzingou*.......................................................43 Precious Gift – Kyle Herrick.......................................................................... 49 Balloon Escape – Dom Narducci....................................................................55 * Lift up your eyes – Yuliya Polichshuk*.......................................................... 61

*indicates NVCC student submission

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Positive Love in a Negative Space - David Flook*

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The Jungle Gym Gang

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Christopher Gordon* er

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The new kid in Mrs. Pynlace’s class was weird! He was larger than the other eight year olds, by at least five tons, and covered in hair. The exact part that made him weird was hard to pinpoint. It couldn’t have been the horns, or the hooves… but something was different about this new student. Maybe it was the tail? Whatever it was, the kids were suspicious.

They spent recess discussing the matter. No reason was off limits, no point too obscure. These boys would have an answer or die trying. This was abnormal!

Eddy reasoned, “He smells like that farm we saw last month, with all them cows.”

“Naw,” disagreed Tommy, “it’s cause he only chewed grass at lunch!”

“You guys got him all wrong, did you see what he did to mean old Pinchface’s desk!?” interjected little Ronny. “She won’t get rid of all that poop for months!”

The jungle gym boys gave a raucous cheer, weird transformed to awesome. A new friend was made today, shape be damned!

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Marching Women

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Jessica Ney* Pinch and pull, squeeze and tuck, Adjust my identity away.

Airbrush, erase and Edit all our flaws.

Zip our lips, lift our tits And put us on display.

Only identified by a cup size, We all start falling For society’s lies.

Speak your mind, But not too loud.

Fit in with us, But stand out in a crowd.

Women are equal, Unless it comes between a man Women are equal, Unless they’re Black, Muslim, Latina or Trans.

We’re begging for our work, While waiting for his two cents.

We take to the streets, And they blame PMS. Daughters, sisters, mothers and friends Teach your children, tell your peers This society can’t go back sixty years Women are equal There is no exception.

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Walking the..... - David Flook*

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Hide-and-Seek Natalie Schriefer Saturday morning is hide-and-seek, so every week I watch from the hood of my car, parked on the far side of the open field, away from the playground. Not once have those brats noticed me. They don’t even recognize my car. I don’t know why I bother coming.

I’m already through my second beer when Mark’s blond hair peeps up by the slide; he pulls himself on top of it and then reaches up towards a plastic roof, slanted on two sides like the roof of a house. It extends over most of the playground to save the precious brats from the blistering, satanic sun.

Mark labors up the plastic shingles. I’m not worried. Never mind that they’re slippery, and that if he falls, it’s a good eight feet to the wood chips. The kid knows what he’s doing. He’s eight, tall for his age. Like his papa. Mark pulls his way up onto the roof ’s apex, resting one foot and hand on each side. The other brats know this spot – at least once every week, usually towards the end of their game, Mark pulls this crap – but for now, he’s looking out over the other idiots running about, digging into their spots, their noise a distraction to the seeker, hidden from my view by the tan slide.

What would Debby think if she saw Mark up there? I could hear her screaming, “Get the hell down!”, her voice loud to hide her fear, a different kind of yelling than the sort she’d used on me, her infamous “Try talking! Don’t you love us?”

Yeah, right. I wouldn’t have married at all if Debby hadn’t been pregnant and insisted, and when I agreed I half-expected someone to step in and stop us – God, her parents, her sister – but no one did. Would talking have made that better? When the four of us lived together, Debby talked only to her phone, and if the kids weren’t watching TV, they were typing away on their phones or some iPad crap. They barely spoke at all, let alone to Daddy, who smelled too much like booze and his coworkers’ stale cigarette smoke; being in my goddamn vicinity was enough to make them crinkle their noses. They even made a game of me: whenever I walked by, they competed to see who could hold their breath the longest. Which would disappear first: Daddy or the stink?

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Daddy. Now, if any of them want love or conversation, they can come to me in my new house across town.

Abby emerges from the counting spot by the bench. With her eagle eyes, she finds her big brother immediately. She points, yelling, giggling, and the others come out of their spots and they all laugh together, maybe at him or maybe cheering him on, because he’s in control, powerful, languishing in the one spot where no one else can get him.

The game breaks up after that. Once Mark and Abby disappear, headed towards their house – my old one – I down my third beer, now warm from the sun, and stand up. Until next week.

Piano - Daniel Chabot* 5

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Prometheus Greg Harding I was ten, almighty, on my knees in the pine grove hiding behind dad's old army tent with the new book of matches I stole to replace the pack Joey’s mom seized for my own good, she said, citing my youth and the danger of fire. She obviously didn’t know who she was dealing with. And I showed her, when I built my ring of stones with meticulous precision, then swept the leaves and needles clear, stacked my tinder and kindling tee-pee style and then unleashed my power! But before my vindication came, the liquid flames poured over the pine straw floor, then rolled upon the oiled canvas, hungry. The tent melted upward, spilling into the spruce green umbrella, and reflecting amber radiance like a candle lighting a cave. And the evergreen fireworks cheered this mischief while the fire riot flew weightless across the emerald ceiling toward the house nearby, and I watched astounded by how fast Zeus can throw his lightning.

Desperate as my age can be, and more fearful of danger than shame, and flameproofed by tears and stupidity, I ran to get Grampa next door. He put out my fire with a garden hose, And a curse about doing dumb things, and a hug for my good sense to get him, and a kiss for being exactly ten.

And for being all that Joey’s mom expected, oh I burned.

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An Aversion to the Universe Joseline Ordonez* The presence and physical touch of bodies is mysterious; all senses arise, and the warmth of the bodies procreate the feeling called “love”. They depend on one another for balance. These bodies have a different way of communication: No words need to be spoken. No gestures need to be made. The infinite understanding of each other was based on a look into each other’s eyes. They dedicated their time to live for each other.

Their connection is eternal. These bodies don’t know the meaning of separation, and it’s absurd for them to think of a time without each other because such thing does not exist. Each body has its own scent; hers is based on a moonlight mist of rose pedals.

Her light brown hair resembled the dry sand on a beach. His essence is that of saffron geranium with hair like waves that crash on the shore. They were simply perfect together.

The universe was jealous so it decided to separate them with the highest mountains and the deepest seas they’ve ever seen. They had to learn how to surpass the time without each other. They felt like a sword split them in half, leaving them to bleed out for eternity.

They became deathless; this superior power gave them immortality because a simplistic death wouldn’t satisfy the Universe. Each body was put into situations where they needed to find the light again.

She became weak, melancholic, and lifeless. He became enraged, wrathful, and violent. They couldn’t understand the reason of eternal agony. Her days were his nights, and the strangers in strange lands became infuriating. They both began to experience this incredible hunger that even food wasn’t enough. Desperate, they tried to kill themselves a hundred times, and a hundred times they failed. In attempts to escape her brutal reality she consumed a poison that would bring her to sleep for an eternity. For him, the only way to overcome this torment was by relieving himself of his emotions, so he did by erasing every memory he had of her. The “love” he once felt had vanished. Anger and fury for the universe grew and didn’t stop growing.

He became more than a man of desires, but needs. These needs

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were provoked by the smell of blood that ran through the veins of a woman who walked passed him. As he followed her, this new hunger changed his light blue eyes into dark holes, his heart beat 100 times per second. His hearing became so intense that he could hear every vessel of blood in her body travelling within her. He followed his instinct. This lady was his prey. As he grabbed her, his canine teeth elongated and he bit her neck, sinking into her jugular. He left her dry and bloodless. He felt unsatisfied and he never stopped.

Thus, the universe had created an immortal monster: a Vampire.

Jonah the Whale - Kyle Herrick 8

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A Dearth of Fence Jessica Eller* It was A clear midnight1, a sleepless hour of nd contemplation. I was pacing the large old house in ner search of a distraction from the sorrow that attacked t Win n e d my sleep. In the end, I sought the decanter of whiskey Stu Prose in the study cabinet. Finding it, I poured a glass, quickly drained it, and poured another. With my chest warmed by the drink but my mind still cold with loss, I pulled a volume from the bookshelf, and read the spine. It was filled with the poetry of Emily Dickenson. I put it back. I reached for another, and, without looking, opened it to a smooth and musty page. My eyes fell upon the last bit of verse. ‘Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream’ - Poe. I closed this too, and pulled a third from a different shelf, this one an anthology of paintings. I brought it to the wing-backed leather chair and sipped my whiskey as I laid the book upon my lap. After a short while of flipping through pages of sparse rooms and crying figures, of blue periods and purgatory, I closed this, too.

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Finishing my second drink, I thought of all the suffering the painters had poured out from their brushes as had the writers from their pens. As beautiful as they surely were, so much of their substance had been born of strife. I began to wonder If all the soul and body scars were not too much to pay for birth2. Were a few pretty lines worth the unhappiness from which they were drawn? I supposed the beauty often outlasted the pain, but it did not last forever and then there was the pain of loss. Here I felt again the stab of my own loss.

Overwhelmingly, I began to feel the need to be outside, Away from books, away from art1. And so I headed out for A Late Walk2 to become Acquainted with the Night2 since it seemed I would be spending quite a bit of time with it.

I walked down from the house to where the Two roads diverged2 from the one I followed, the first to the beach, the other to the cliffs.

I hesitated for a moment, and then, committing, I kept the first for another day2. As I climbed the path to the cliffs, the one less traveled

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by2, I turned my eyes to the gaping sky. The immensity of that creation shrank me with its Fire and Ice2. All those blazing suns reduced to pinpricks by the freezing void between.

When I reached the place where the white picket fence guarded the precipice, a briny wind swept over me. It brought my attention down to the dark, growling ocean. Some say the world will end in fire2, but at that moment, I thought it just as likely to be swallowed up by that churning maw below.

Retreating quickly from that thought, I turned and focused on A Noiseless Patient Spider1 strung between the pickets as it repaired its fragile web. His efforts were undone by the wind even as he worked, and I was struck again by a sense of hopeless impermanence. Nothing lasted. Not webs, or art, and not our fleeting lives. Those are as insignificant to eternity as our bodies to the universe, yet, somehow, we are still able to hold enough grief to fill them both.

Grief was what swelled within me then as I pondered the Night, sleep, death, and the stars1 until, suddenly, all burst forth. Tears streamed, and I screamed, even as the ocean gales stole the sound. I stumbled to the dearth of fence through which my angel had flown this earth. I saw her then, as clear as life. I reached my arms to her.

“Wait, my darling! Let me hold you, O my soul. Where you stand1is not safe!” My sobs increased, and her form faded. I knew she was not real.

“Come back to me, sweet girl!”

My mind grasped grotesquely at what I had lost. It fought wildly against the truth that my child had been gone a week, Fallen cold and dead1. From there, the night seemed an endless journey. My body ached and lurched through miles of denial as I cried. Finally, my lips were pale and still, and that fearful trip was done1.

As the stars dimmed with the promise of sunrise, I stood and brushed the sand from my clothes, and went at last in search of sleep. § Quotes from either Walt Whitman (1) or Robert Frost (2).

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bones, stones, and genes Autumn Blackwood* beacons of light emerge around the Earth at night beautification connection rotation in this world of seven billion I found you bones soul

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clinging, white-knuckled to survive another night pretending someone on the other side of the planet is borrowing the sun because they need morning just a bit more

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Cloudburst Emily Hepworth It poured all morning, off and on – An offended hen ruffling up to be riled – ’Til the storm descended in shrieking fury, All beautiful and wild.

I believe it in these sudden storms, Standing small, a wide-eyed child, In awe that sky could hold such water, That stacks of wind could be so piled – I believe it in these sudden storms, The sketch of You that Lewis styled.

“He’s not a tame lion,” I whispered, And as I said it, I thought You smiled.

Rocks And Water - Daniel Chabot* 12

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Talks with Nana Benjamin J. Chase She answers her questions, so I can affirm her answers.

Her life lists itself away in little errands these days, and she concerns herself with who brought whom where, and whether they had enough time.

I assure her that who did bring whom where, and they did, in fact, have time.

She half smiles and stirs her tea.

She tells me she dislikes her hearing aids— she doesn’t think they’re working.

I tell her they’re definitely helping.

I tell her she’s speaking more softly, but we can still hear her.

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I Got It Christopher Gordon*

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ose My ten-month-old son Sean is inconsolable; he lost his favorite toy today. Toy might not be the best word, it was after all merely a cheap tin container.

But it makes strange noises and has colors that are muted but eye catching. It was emblazoned with “Welcome to Las Vegas”, but I doubt Sean understands what those words mean, yet. It is also round, so he can’t hurt himself on a sharp edge. Most importantly, it makes the baby happy, so we let him keep it.

I can’t say I was pleased when my wife let him continue to play with it, but listening to Sean laughing, even if it’s after throwing the tin across the dinner table, is too difficult to reject. Of course, my wife always retrieves it, despite my insistence that it merely encourages the boy to keep throwing it. “Relax, Chris, it’s harmless.” She always responds with a smile. I can’t help but smile back; you would too if you saw that special light in her intelligent green eyes. I would describe it, but I’m just too selfish. What I see is for Sean and me alone.

In the corner of our three room apartment, our dog, Erma, watches all of her people with a gleam of sadness in her eye. This will sound absurd, but sometimes I get the feeling this dog knows far more then she lets on. It’s as if she is an adoring mother, keeping safe her large puppies who insist on doing odd things, even when they should know better. That doesn’t bother me, though, because Erma is gentle with Sean and my wife, and having a gentle protector is OK. Unfortunately, she knows how to use that to her advantage. Never look her in the eye when she is begging for food, or you will find yourself trapped by the most heart wrenching spirit of need you will ever see. Erma draws you in; you learn just how dire the situation is, and only your pizza or hamburger will fight off the demonic starvation that threatens to engulf her! My wife and I have learned quickly to turn away, to brace ourselves for this inevitable emotional blackmail. It doesn’t last long. Erma soon returns to the canine happiness that is her default mode. Her quick mood swing might have something to do with the endless bag we keep well out of her reach on the top shelf filled with her special food. At this moment though, with Sean in hysterics

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over his lost toy, Erma lays silently next to me on the couch. She clearly feels as helpless and worried as we do, as guilty as a dog can be over her role in what had happened.

My wife can’t be sure, but she thinks Sean was waving it around in his stroller earlier today, on their daily walk through the nearby park. Erma got distracted by a small bird in the grass and ran off, with my wife futilely trying to call her back. She was eventually forced to leave the stroller, and Sean, as she went to collect our adventurous dog before she caused any real harm with poochish antics. It couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds, she assures me, and I shouldn’t worry about it. We live in a safe neighborhood and are friends with most of the other tenants in our building. I worry anyway.

With dog safely leashed, she made her way back to our son. That is when the weather decided to go from slightly cloudy to full on thunderstorm, and my families walk came to a quick end. She didn’t have time to check on Sean thoroughly, she had to hurry away from the park, obviously around when the container was dropped. Once inside and dry, Sean started to cry, and it wouldn’t be long before my wife realized the tin was missing. She searched the apartment, but to no avail; it was gone, possibly back to Las Vegas.

It is hours later. The sun has set, the rain is still falling. I sit with my inconsolable son in my worried wife’s arms and dog beside me on the couch. There is a flash of light outside, and a few seconds later the windows rattle as thunder races across the building. I wrap my arm around my family, a display of protection from all of nature’s wrath.

Sadly, I realize I will not always be successful in protecting my family.

I hesitate to venture out into this storm, searching through the mud and darkness for a silly little candy tin encouraging sin with “Welcome to Las Vegas” across it. It all comes down to what is more important, staying dry on this rainy evening or helping my son feel secure again in this new and strange world.

I am soon illuminating small patches of mud and grass with my cheap flashlight. Erma beside me sniffing like a bloodhound on the scent of a rabbit. Rain water drips in buckets from both of our chilled bodies, thunder and lightning making an occasional guest appearance.

The answer wasn’t that hard to figure out.

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Is This It? Halit Basuljevic* From all around black and white balloons materialize, flying ceilingward where they rest idly and watch. Fireworks explode outside. You can hear the winding moan as they sky rocket to an attuned pitch that if executed acutely leaves the voyeur in a fleeting yet incendiary bliss, drowning out the drone of the rest of the world. The hotel room seems ghostly, remote; models in twopieces and slatted dresses shriek and pop champagne, three swathes of white cross the mirror, in which they all take turns and re-up, throwing their heads back as an icy gust rips through them. Bodies keep flurrying to the bathrooms and back, constantly on the move, so high that in their altitude no one would be able to hear them pop, memory becoming more like snatches than a strip of film, their sense of self spilling from the backside…..

But not Luther here. He is here for his celebratory best-seller, a confessional onslaught of a memoir that left his publishing press, family, wife, and the world cosmically indifferent to his nights of debauchery, battering cars and setting them on fire, casting ‘canefueled gymnastics on his clothesline by their feet while he walks across holding twin Richard Hennessy bottles. All one would see, along with a crowds chant swelling and waning, is his body tripped up and splashed onto the pavement, blades of his purple hair dipped into the pool water. None of the hookers came to help, perhaps only some models. Because there were always eyes afloat, at any point in his life, it only became expected of him to backlash, to either shadow oneself under a shroud or step in and catch every boulder thrown selfward. The transgressions he sought went against what he deemed to be virally extent in ‘ordinaries’, those nihil bound romantics who dream of a percolation of light that will etch their faces in stone. Those people who stood complacent in their own skin. Instead, this was his afterlife, his percolation of light.

And it came as he left the adjoining room with two togadressed twins sprawled all over the bed. He would remember how

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his first publishing deal would go, how his first marriage and all the contingencies that followed, the path that he set himself adrift, knowing and horrified at the walls closing in and that at their third anniversary he could already see through the pages of each year how her figure alighted with ineffable joy to a disagreeable indifference. Sitting at the coffee table with his agent, Martin, he knew almost all too gracefully the borders of self-expression.

Everything was calculated, like a translucent pane split him from the gears that were working within him.

The fireworks sound. A little sliver of light shaped like sabers fall on the belly of the balloons. Flakes of white dust scatter all over the yellow-paged memoir Luther had put over the Bible, scanning the chapters for a particular enlightening passage. He comes across to where pages are ripped out, probably used as tubes for that vanilla sweet over there. One girl spits a tooth into the toilet. The birds outside melt in gray, a pixilation of feathers that crumbles before the edge of the window clears it.

Luther livens up every moment Martin takes up the time to discuss the next details for the book, drawing diagrams and tables, as if they were programming an invention. But not this time. Rounding out the way past Martins, Luther will make way to the hillside in the forest where he’d elude his parents and friends, overlooking a narrow inlet, trying to relive those childhood qualities of remembrance. Throughout his effort, he keeps an array of open lenses that he’s unable to finalize: he now feels nature is detached, mocking, shutting him out of the conversation.

He remembers Soren, his wife’s best friend, a secular ascetic who kept small talk to a minimum and could see the orange leaves spurn in the wind, glossing the lagoon with eyes as white as revelation or alabaster. Eventually, Soren grew a mane, left his kids and wife, and joined the military, only to be discharged for sneaking in a truckload of kegs and a party of half-skinned streetwalkers. Two of them were flamboyant homosexuals, which

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was unheard of at the time. He dedicated his memoir to Soren, the only one he threw praise to.

Luther was a bombastic liberal, voracious hedonist, nickel-slick ventriloquist, second-tier artist, aspiring yuppie, and his memoir was a method of dispelling numerous old shells so that he can seamlessly dwell into new ones, the sort of metempsychosis he believed Soren was graced with, a preternatural faculty that always allowed him the liberation of escape, not so quite like Luther here, who is caged within the parameters, to the inevitability of events.

So, this means that despite his repudiation of his old life, his concoctions of pleasure and adrenaline, his doleful brooding, he can’t past his wife’s home or his parents or even Martins without a feeling of self-imposed exile, a cavernous depth that he knows all too well will never transmit to something new, but that same pit.

He will realize all this, later on. And he knows it. While the rockets fume, smoke snakes all around him, the echoes of silence snuffing out all else as the balloons enlarge. His glass eye roams around the room to scan the surfaces of all these nameless figures here, throwing screams at him to push forth back with his own scream. He walks over to the counter to make some coffee. Women standing on the sink counter dance and strip. After a bit of brewing, taking two long sips, he begins to formulate a new book, maybe a memoir, but a refutation of the older one, one that forges an oblivion of what he allowed himself to become.

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Mental Masturbation Shelley Stoehr I like to chew your words, Pushing possibility around my mouth, Nudging nuance against my cheek, My tongue teasing every morsel From between the cracks in my teeth, Sucking out the flavor and Tasting everything you say …

Call it mastication, Or mental masturbation, Either way, Obsession is Delicious.

Wake Up Mr. West - Forrest Fee* 19

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2nd Student Winner Graphics

A Sponge and His Thoughts - David Flook*

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Shape of Grief Jessica Ney* It begins Like an ocean, Wave after wave A constant force, No end in sight.

It smooths over All of your edges Until you are flat.

3rd Student Winner Poetry

It becomes a weight, Pressing down Aching inside, Tiring you out, Before you even start.

Like rocks, Pulling Pulling Pulling you low.

It lives As a scar Puckered and red A lasting reminder.

It hurts some days, Others it doesn’t.

But you see it, You are always aware.

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One day it becomes You. Just a part of you, Not so painful anymore.

Maybe even a hope You will forget What caused it.

One day Remembering isn’t so hard It doesn’t feel So raw.

But still, It tweaks.

The shape of grief, Like energy, Never leaves Only changes.

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How Henry Taught the River Tom Nolan You had the right idea Henry.

If we could have we would have followed you.

We’d have gone down together, kept our glasses full, sang to each other.

Through heavy, sodden clouds, the same words that made our dreams sing helped to weigh you down, into the river – hot like blood, raging, like sleep through a fever.

You had the right idea Henry, not to jump, but to fall – away from this other place – and into the river.

Land of the Free - Joshua Jireh Poole* 22

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Our Own Kind of Beauty Anna Duchaine* We are like the rose, Blossomed far too early, The honeymoon has past and gone, We have seen the other’s ugliness, Exposed the thorns inside, We can hurt, As easily as we can love, Time continues to pass, All the petals have withered away, And the thorns continue to prick deep within us, Leaving the gaping wounds of resentment and regret, I seek to mend what is broken, As I know above all else, You are worthy of it all, The anguish, The ecstasy, With all the turmoil and joy, We share ourselves, For better or worse, Perhaps if we dig through all those thorns, We can still find the beauty within each other.

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Here to See It Benjamin J. Chase I walk the end of evening on the edge of a deep woods, simply glad the woods is here, and I am here to see it.

On my way I watch and smile as a water strider skims the teeming surface of his stream, barely breaking it.

Pomegranate - Alyssa Latanowich* 24

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Half Mast Joseph R. Adomavicia * The American flag spends another day hanging at half mast.

Its people are in distress, and the blood flow of commonality is imbued into the city streets.

The lives of innocence and of family’s mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews all derived of the same human element, all coexisting in the same planet, only in different locations, yet these same individuals are slaughtered for the prevalence of particular causes and beliefs of an individual group.

Whether the cause is for religion or money, whether the outcome is in result of psychological disorder, or the old tale of revenge, no matter which way you cut it killing is killing, murder is murder.

Is there truly a just cause to kill?

Is peace on earth just a naïve notion?

Something never to exist until there is not one human that exists?

For the sake of the human race, for the sake of our world and our children yet to come, I hope this notion of new-found peace perceived to be inconceivable, is the reason the American Flag once again, rises from half mast.

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Portrait of a Mediocre Photographer Lucas Somma There is nothing special about David. Of course, when you’re as disinteresting as David is, you pretty much know that you’re boring… the fact that he’s self-aware of his boringness and unable to change is in and of itself, boring. Even his name has been bestowed upon seemingly all Caucasian families somewhere in their lineage.

David, or as his acquaintances occasionally spontaneously call him, Dave, is a School Photographer for Lifetouch. He attended the prestigious American University in Washington DC for Film & Media Studies and withdrew two semesters before obtaining his Bachelor’s. Ignoring every warning that paying $60,000 per year to operate a camera was unwise, David decided to follow his passion.

He could not settle for anything less than what the Universe had in store for him, yada, yada.

So, David ends up with $120,000 worth of student debt, no degree, and de facto, a full-time job snapping pictures of stoned, acne-prone, or makeup-riddled high schoolers. Today’s assignment led him 68 miles from his home, with no mileage reimbursement, at Rappahannock County High School. Once a year, David visited the hick, middle of nowhere school to produce a yearbook that nearly no parent could afford. As he pulled up to the RCHS Administration’s trailer, he prayed a silent prayer to the cynical Universe, “Let’s get this over with.”

He was permitted to set up his equipment, which was worth more than his yearly salary, in the dilapidated, lowly lit, unwaxed and cracked floored gymnasium as a dodgeball game subsided with laps around the bleachers and a final set of jumping jacks. As he rolled down the blue backdrop with a makeshift assistant who attended the school, he couldn’t help but overhear the Phys Ed Teacher’s end-of-class pep talk. He huddled his senior class around the RCHS logo in the center of the gym. “Listen to me; I get it, you all wanna leave this town in a minute. With graduation sneakin’ up, it’s temptin’ to pick a fancy university and run for the hills. Life isn’t

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about going someplace to become a better person. It’s about making a better life here and now.”

With the Phys Ed teacher’s perplexing and uniquely satisfying words resounding, the five hours David spent at the hole-in-thewall, failure-to-our-education-system County School flew by. He barely reacted when some nervous twerp vomited before his picture and demanded a refund. He didn’t even notice that the quarterback momentarily stole his camera to take obscene pictures in the men’s locker room. Today was easier believing that he, and only he, had the ability to change his life in whichever way he desired.

When he pulled into his driveway, he noticed a heaping pile of vibrantly colored trash in front of the subway entrance across the street. This was no ordinary trash. The bags were crimson… boldly unique and still not much different in regard to function than a plain tall kitchen garbage bag. Yet, these bags, although they were literally garbage, stood a little more proudly in their smelly heap than their mediocre counterparts.

David, believing the Universe sent him this sign to confirm that he, too, could now make a better life for himself right where he is, snapped a picture of the unscenic, unsexy, boastful garbage. When Lifetouch found that he used company property to take this photo, he was terminated immediately. Things were already looking up.

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Katie at Night Nancy McMillan On a June night Katie lay in bed, wide awake. The almost-full moon lit up the world outside like day. She looked at the clock: 12:40. She turned over, punched her pillow, and shifted to rest on her side. Closed her eyes again. It was useless. Sometimes even the sleeping pills didn’t work.

She threw back the light quilt and rose, then padded downstairs. She pulled her hoodie from the hook, and slipped on her shoes. The deadbolt clicked. She waited to see if anyone stirred. The house remained quiet.

She sat down at the picnic table and studied the yard. The moonlight made the grass look silver. The long shadows from the trees painted designs on the lawn, as if you could see their roots reaching into the earth. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin there. In the dark, without the pressure of the day, the world seemed simpler.

She turned her head at a sound of footsteps. Her brother Connor crossed the porch.

“What are you doing?” He stood in front of her barefoot, wearing his bird-print pajamas.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He sat across from her and gazed at the yard. “It looks like we’re on the moon.”

“What?”

“The light in the yard. It makes it look like another planet.”

“I guess it does,” she said.

“We should go camping.” Connor said.

“Hmmm,” Katie said.

“Maybe we could go back to the lake?”

Katie felt a collapsing sensation in her chest. She shook her head. She didn’t think she could ever go back to the New Hampshire lake where she and her brothers and father had camped the first week of August for as long as she could remember. Too many memories. Too much guilt.

“Maybe someplace closer, then. The three of us. We could do it on Dad’s birthday. He’d like that, I bet.” Connor’s voice was eager,

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innocent.

Katie didn’t respond. Ever since the accident, her ten-yearold brother’s attachment to their father had grown, fueled by what he said was their father’s voice in his head. She both envied and resented his gift. Whenever he shared these messages, she would feel a hunger for that kind of connection, and an anger at the impossibility of ever experiencing it, for she was the reason the accident happened. And it didn’t matter how many times everyone, including her shrink, told her that it was an accident, that she hadn’t caused the car crash intentionally. It didn’t change things.

She was the one who had taken the car that December night against her parents’ wishes. She was the one who set in motion all that followed. She was the reason her father was dead.

They sat for a while not talking. Connor said, “Let’s go look at the medicine wheel.”

They set off across the yard, their long moon shadows crossing then passing through those of the trees. Connor’s work on the medicine wheel, inspired by a school project on Native Americans, was complete. The circle of stones about twenty feet in diameter lay in the far corner of the yard. In the center was a smaller circle, and inside that a pile of balanced stones, about a foot and a half high.

“Nice cairn,” Katie said.

“You can add to it if you want.”

Connor stepped inside the circle and Katie followed. They sat down, then they both leaned back and took in the moon.

“Sometimes I feel like the moon is looking right at me,” Connor said.

“The man in the moon?”

“Yes. His mouth looks open, like he’s saying something.”

“Or singing,” Katie said.

“I never thought of that.”

“It was something Dad used to say: what song do you think the man in the moon is singing tonight?”

In the silence the night opened up, creating a space where sounds emerged, the peepers in the little pond deep in the woods,

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the crickets closer by. The sense of this huge space, accepting, neutral, allowed Katie to form the question in her mind that she’d wanted to ask Connor for months. A snap of a twig sounded close by. They looked at each other.

Katie picked up a stick and scratched in the dirt, making a tiny groove. Her heart pounded as she said, “Can you talk to Dad for me?”

Connor pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “I could try.”

Katie’s voice caught in her throat. She cleared it, then said softly, “Would you ask him if he’s mad at me?”

Connor started to speak, but she held up her finger. “Just ask.”

Her brother closed his eyes and became still. His breathing slowed. Watching him felt intrusive. Katie averted her eyes. It seemed to take forever, then Connor made a sound like a little laugh. His eyes remained closed and he smiled. “What?” she said.

He held up a finger. Then he opened his eyes. “He laughed when I asked him and said, “Of course not.” And he also said, “Tell her ask me herself.”

“He laughed? You’re kidding, right?”

“No. He actually laughed.”

“Have you ever heard him do that before?”

“No, but he always seems happy, really happy. And he always says he misses us.”

The blood in her heart seemed to pour into her body, turning her limbs liquid.

“You didn’t make that up, did you, just to make me feel good?”

“No. I didn’t. Honest.”

She reached over and pulled her brother to her. He resisted at first, but she kept drawing him closer until she had both arms wrapped around his wiry little body. “Thank you,” she whispered, and kissed him once on the top of his head.

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New Grey

Humberto Perez* “I love you too, you know?”

She breathes with certainty and a laugh, Holding a trinket in her hand.

And past the shock that’s in my mind, I ask the question, and she seems… crushed?

“Excuse me miss, but where am I?”

But Not Forgotten - Forrest Fee*

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A Day in the Life Trevor Lilly* I waited. Waited for the screaming to end. Waited for Don’s boneshattering voice to stop shaking the house. It was obvious he had been drinking again. I could almost smell the alcohol on his breath from my room, where I usually hid when he had his “episodes.” His voice got louder. I couldn’t quite determine what he was yelling. His words became muffled through the walls, and were probably unintelligible to begin with.

His incessant yelling faded into a clatter of things being flung around the house. I tried to guess what it was each time. A chair, some books, a glass, really anything he felt was in his way.

Eventually he went back to yelling, and I pressed my ear to the floor to at least try to understand what mundane thing pissed him off this time.

The only word that was even slightly recognizable was my name, or at least his version of it, which was repeated several times. He rarely ever addressed me by my real name, but instead liked to get creative. To test me.

“Hey Dickhead!” His voice cut through the floorboards, this time crystal clear.

“Yes,” I answered.

I tried to play the innocent child. It was the only way I could avoid as much of his bullshit as possible.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He wasn’t like most drunks. Sure, he was violent and impulsive and had incredibly poor coordination. But what he lacked in basic human function, he made up for in a newfound superior intellect. Compared to his sober self, drunk Don could write sonnets backwards. Of course, either way he was a bumbling idiot. But if there’s one thing more intimidating than a drunken asshole who can knock you down within seconds, it’s one who can convince you that you deserved it.

“What should I be doing,” I asked.

I probably shouldn’t act smug when he’s like this, it never really goes well for me. But it sure is fun while it lasts.

“You should be getting off your ass and helping your mom make dinner.”

“Alright, I’ll be down in a minute.”

My last resort. In special cases when he was too drunk to care, I could hide in my room until he forgot about whatever pissed him off in the first place.

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“NOW!” I jumped. There really was no getting out of this one.

I got up and made my way to the door. An unsettling silence fell upon the house. I turned the knob and allowed the potent aroma of alcohol and cigarettes to crawl over me, churning my insides and making my eyes water. That is a smell I will never get used to.

I worked my way down the steps, making sure not to step too loud or too fast. At this point, anything could throw him over the edge. When I made it to the bottom, I could finally assess the damage. I was right for the most part.

The dining room table was missing one of its chairs, which lay by itself in the hallway, one of its legs broken. The bookshelf had been raided, several copies thrown across the room, their pages littering the floor. A football game blared on the TV, some food stuck on the screen.

But the “glass” I heard earlier in fact wasn’t a glass at all. It was a picture of my grandmother, the last thing my mother had to remember her by, now cracked with shards of its frame scattered all over the floor.

Out of all the things in the house, why would he go for this?

I bent down to gather the broken shards. Just as I grabbed the first handful, Don’s voice spoke over all the expletives racing through my head.

“Kitchen. Now.” My hand clenched tightly over the shards. I could feel them digging into my palm, but I felt no pain. Only anger. My eyes leveled with his, that stupid blank expression on his face.

He never shaved. He lacked the coordination to hold anything sharp close to his skin without causing serious damage. His shirt was stained and torn, the same one he had worn for the past three days. Looking at him like this almost made me forget why I ever feared this asshole. If anything, I should pity him.

But he was quick to make me remember. His face changed. His eyes grew into a deadly gaze. His arm shot up and I flinched. I put down the shards, a few still sticking out of my hand, and quickly made my way to the kitchen. Don took another drink out of his bottle and threw it on the ground with the rest of the broken glass. He looked at his mess and smiled, then sat back down on the couch to watch the game.

“What’s for dinner?” I asked my mother, trying to lighten the mood.

She gave a fake smile, glanced over at what appeared to be some sort of pot roast, and went back to work. Her face was expressionless, her hair

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just barely covering a red mark on her cheek.

I glared at Don. Being a lowlife drunk was one thing. But if he thought he could lay a hand on my mother without consequence, he was sorely mistaken. He must have felt my gaze, because his head spun to face me.

“Turn the fuck around and set the table.” I looked away. There was no sense in getting both of us hurt. I just needed to calm down.

“And for god’s sake, can you hurry it up in there?” Screw this.

“Maybe we could go faster if you got off your ass and helped for a change.”

I dreaded my words the moment I said them. I glanced at my mother, who had turned an unnatural shade of pale. The expression on her face matched my own.

Don looked up from his game. He reached for the remote, turned off the TV, and slowly got up from his chair. His head turned around, followed by the rest of his body, in almost a rehearsed fashion.

“What did you say?” I couldn’t move. My face drained of all color. My palms began to sweat.

“I just thought...” I stammered. “I just thought we might go a little faster if you helped.”

“Is that so?” My throat swelled. I tried to respond, but couldn’t bring myself to say anything else. Don took a step forward.

“Do I need to remind you who pays for this house, the car, the food it’s taking you so god damned long to make?”

I still couldn’t say anything, but I managed a quick shake of the head.

“Good.”

He turned to watch the game again. I swallowed. So what if I got hurt? I wasn’t going to let him get away with it this time.

“That still doesn’t give you the right to sit on your ass, you low life sack of shi–” He took no time in getting up now. I hadn’t even finished my sentence before he was on me. He grabbed my arms and threw me to the floor. Leaning over me, he began finding any open part of my face and greeting it with a sharp jab of his fist. It wasn’t long before I started to go numb. I could feel the warm trickle of blood slowly run down my face.

From my forehead, my nose, my lip.

I vaguely heard my mother screaming in the background. I tried to glance over to her but Don swiped his palm across my cheek. My vision blurred. My ears filled with a shrill ringing sound. I could feel her try to

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pull him off of me, but he simply tossed her aside like she was weightless.

His fists stopped pounding on my face. I managed to turn myself to see him leaning over her now, getting ready to strike. I couldn’t let this happen again.

I struggled to my feet. Any blood I had left drained from my head and I immediately fell down again. My face struck the tile. I tried once more, positioning my hands below my shoulders. I slowly raised myself to my knees. One foot made its way under my body, followed by the other.

I hoisted myself to a standing position and looked up. Don was looming over her now. My mother’s face was already bruised and discolored. He raised his hand to strike one last time.

I lunged, grabbing his hand with one of my own, and flailing the other toward his face. The only part of him I could manage to hit was his open palm, which grabbed onto my arm and threw me off of him. My head hit the counter and I was on the floor yet again.

He turned to face me, his crooked teeth showing in the dim light of the room. “Come on. Get up.” He kicked me in the stomach, the all too familiar taste of blood in my mouth.

“GET UP!” His voice shook the house, then died down into a satisfied chuckle.

“That’s what I thought. You’re nothing but a spineless little shit.”

I spit blood in his direction, just managing to utter the words, “Fuck you.” It was barely audible, but it was enough.

“What was that?” He bent over me, his hand cupped over his ear. He was smiling. The sadistic bastard was actually smiling.

I managed to say it again. His face lit up even further. He picked up his foot, and threw it down into my ribcage. More coughing. More blood.

He showed his teeth again before walking back toward his place on the couch. Picking up the remote, he turned to me one last time.

“Oh, and could you hurry up with my dinner? I’m starving.”

He turned the game on and sat back down again. The last thing I heard was his laughter, echoing throughout the house as everything faded to black.

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Sleeping Alone Jamie Crepeau The sheets are woven from ice, a barren plain that stretches out an armspan under concrete air – no relief from fantasy novels or rock music, I breathe in the taste of gauze while staring up into shadows silent as dead batteries and need a drink to convince myself that this void has no teeth.

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Seventeen - Yuliya Polichshuk* Student Winner Graphics

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Bury the Pet Cemetery Kenneth DiMaggio Why the parakeet was named the “General” and the boa constrictor “The Terminator” but for the German Shepard named “Butter” it fit your yellow graveyard statue that even punks like me who carved their initials in their Sunday morning punishment pews would never vandalize And if most of the animals interred at the “Eternal Sanctuary for Our Best Friends” were dogs by the time I got to the Shepard --a tear for all these critters just like Odysseus for the critter he left 20 years before and now dying on a pile of manure-caked straw and if Argos could still whimper at his master the warrior who helped defeat Troy had to pretend not to recognize this faithful animal and not alert the men partying away his kingdom in his palace and whom he would soon slaughter but before he did well like a dog whose graveyard statue was realistic enough to pet and kiss --our most faithful friends quickly pass

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To Be Touched Teree Perkins I was pure and clean, an empty canvas.

White, like the clouds on a sunny day.

He was a starving artist who charmed my logic away.

Addicted to corrupting the innocent, he painted me with every shade of grey.

In his eyes I was reborn, his masterpiece was a storm, trembling while taking form.

Rollercoaster - Alyssa Latanowich* 39

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Lady on the Run Alyssa Katz* London, England June, 1803 “You mean nothing to me.”

Those words hit Emma like a ton of bricks. She’d heard him utter those words before, but under these circumstances, this time the words hurt just a bit more.

“If I could have sent you away I would have.” The Viscount shook his head. “But, I promised your mother to provide for you until you were married. We also agreed to allow you to pick your husband, and have no arranged marriage.”

Emma just stared at him, her balled fists finally relaxing, for her knuckles had turned white. This was news to her.

“You have not been a respectable lady of propriety,” The Viscount continued, “The reputation you created for yourself has been a reflection on me, for I am your caretaker.”

Yes, that was true. Being a proper lady was always on Emma’s to-do list. She may be a lady, but a hellion at that. Respectable men would turn away at a lady who wasn’t pure, and a lady of such scandalous choices was hardly ever heard of. It scared away many suitors, but also intrigued many others. Not always the best bunch, but Emma always had a decent amount of suitors interested in her each season. What was peculiar, but no less intriguing, is that the gossip columns continued to name Emma the catch of the season.

“Enough of this!” The Viscount took a step forward. “Get up to your room this instant.”

Growing impatient of his stepdaughter’s refusal to obey, he signaled his valet to once again lift the pistol. Emma would have backed up further, but she was already pressed firmly against the door.

Emma narrowed her eyes at him. She’d had far more than enough of his tyranny.

“How barbaric of you to threaten my life with a pistol!”

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“Barbaric? Of me?!”

His eyes blazed sinister fury. But what was more terrifying, was that they suddenly softened. Then his lips curved upward into a slight smile; he may very well have cracked.

“I’ll tell you what’s barbaric,” he sneered, “having you as a daughter, a stepdaughter at that. You are a waste of human life, whose only friends are the servants.” His voice began to rise.

“And furthermore, If you don’t do as I say this very instant, I will personally drag you up to your room, at gunpoint, and lock you in there until I feel you are ready to come out. And that may be when I’m dead.”

What a terrible thing to say! He’d threatened her before, but never once had he threatened her life with a pistol.

Emma’s entire body began to shake with such anger. “No,” she stated. “You will do no such thing.”

“Oh?” The Viscount raised an eyebrow at her. “Have you come to your senses with this ridiculous charade? Did you really think you could win? You’re nothing but a failure.”

Emma stilled. All those years of torment, being threatened and called horrendous names—of living in fear….The next move she made, would undeniably change her life forever.

“I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”

The Viscount eyed her suspiciously. When he said nothing, she continued.

“All these years of enduring your hurtful words and threats. Now you dare threaten my life. I cannot take your abuse any longer.”

“You are my responsibility until you are married. I may treat you as I bloody well please,” he bit off.

“That shall occur no longer. I am through with you mistreating me. My mother would be so disappointed.”

She let that sift through the air for a minute. She’d seen the Viscount flinch a tad, just a tad, when she’d said it. It jabbed at his cold heart a little, which proved that he actually did care about her

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mother. Still, he spoke nothing. He most likely thought she wasn’t brave enough to follow through on what she set out to do. Well, he was wrong.

“Enough of this nonsense!” he bellowed. His patience had run out.

“No!” she shouted. “I have had enough. This ends now!”

At that exact moment Emma threw open the front door and burst out into the street.

“After her!” screeched the Viscount.

“M-my lord?” His valet hesitated.

“Go!” he roared once more.

“Forgive me!” Shouted the valet as he charged in Emma’s direction.

Turning her head, Emma looked back to see the Viscount’s valet running towards her with the pistol in hand. She turned back and picked up the pace, running for her life. She yelped when she heard the shot fire. But, knowing it was only a single shot pistol, she stopped.

She was afraid to turnaround, but as she did so ever so slowly, she saw the valet lying on the ground. Ignoring the onlookers, she crept towards him for a closer look. To her surprise, the shot the valet fired—was at himself. Emma shed a single tear for the man. He couldn’t bring himself to potentially harm someone who had never harmed him. And maybe, the Viscount had pushed him too far.

“Bless your soul,” Emma whispered.

She took one last look at the valet’s still body, and the townspeople who were beginning to surround him. One of them pointed towards her and called out, “Lady Emma!” She had lingered too long, and so she dashed off down the street.

There was no doubt the Viscount would be looking for her, only so he could punish her ruthlessly. She knew she had to be far away from where the Viscount could reach her, even if it meant leaving the continent. His wrath was not something she wished to see, or be witness to.

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The Politics of Nostalgia Tom Nolan

Perhaps the farmers knew best; knew that truth could be found in years of cold mornings and cracked skin.

They knew that the fires of liberty burned with coal, that lunch was best served at uniform counters, and that progress is best measured by how far back you can remember.

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Bleak Emily Hepworth It’s been a long, gray day; It’s often long, gray days like this With subtle, stretching pains that sway Faith. Is there such a thing as unmixed bliss?

It’s often long, gray days like this, Inexorably compelling memory’s decay.

Faith, is there such a thing as unmixed bliss?

For now imagined futures merely dismay, Inexorably compelling memory’s decay, Swirling darkly, orbiting empty abyss.

For now, imagined futures merely dismay; Still, I know my thoughts eddy amiss, Swirling darkly, orbiting empty abyss.

It’s been a long, gray day; Still, I know my thoughts eddy amiss With subtle, stretching pains that sway.

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Lazy Mornings Lucas Somma Two months have gone by and I am struggling to get by as you occupy every crevice of my mind.

As night continues its lengthy boast, distance did nothing but host a dying flame of young love.

But it got easier.

More months have slinked by and I’m content with our previous good-bye.

The key to proverbial heart Is in store, and for sale, as singleness seems to be a long lost art.

Nevertheless, On lazy mornings, when I ignore The bleating of a relentless Alarm, I think of you.

On lazy mornings, when I drift between six minute cycles of sleep, our love does not end.

As I nod off, I cling with youthful glee to the dream of us.

I’ve moved on, truly.

What is past, is the past.

But my lazy morning mind won’t let you leave.

As morning bleeds into afternoon, I’ll forget about you soon.

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Break Greg Harding My first gray hairs ever appeared the day before Emily was born.

I hadn’t worried at all until that week. Now, three weeks later, my temples were silver, and the top of my head was sprinkled with salt as we crossed the parking lot on the weekly grocery run.

Inside, I walked along the neatly ordered rows, alternating between glancing at sale items and looking down at the cart that held the basic groceries I’d gathered so far: lettuce, bananas, cream, milk, coffee, and the seat holding baby Emily. And that’s how we shopped, with Emily between us, Marie pulling the cart from the front, and me pushing it from behind, both reassured by the connection, however indirect, to our child.

Marie had begun her turn down the next aisle when I noticed it. The sale on Ragu in the premium spot at the head of the aisle (4 for $5).

The primary colors of the labels on the tomato red background of the contents of glass jars stacked perfectly, precariously, in a tower resembling the Chrysler Building pulled me in.

To this point, I had managed perfectly not to neglect my mandate, “Never, ever, let the baby out of your sight.” So I looked at her, and felt for them. I grabbed one, and placed it in the cart, then another, and as my left hand took the third jar, the pyramid began to crumble. I felt the cardboard between the layers give slightly; then the jars above it began to slide.

I saw the future that had been laid out so many times in classic reruns, the jars falling around me, popping like light bulbs and splattering like movie blood. I imagined standing, helpless and silent, in a red pond of broken glass, waiting, single unbroken jar in hand, for a clerk.

Instinct moved my hand, followed by my eyes, to catch the first cascading off the edge, and my forearm continued upward to brace the row just beginning to give way before it fell. I quickly kicked my right leg out to the side where a single escaping jar bounced softly off the top of my foot and rolled across the aisle unharmed. I had prevented catastrophe!

For an instant, ego intact, I was proud, and I cautiously straightened up. The market acrobatics finished, I looked to see if anyone had

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acknowledged my feat. It seemed no one had. I carefully restacked the glass, embittered by the lack of recognition. Then I picked up the one jar that had not broken and cradled it in one palm like a newborn’s head.

I looked at the cart in front of me, trying to quell the bristle that was rising. The car seat was not on it! The baby was not in it! Oh, no. And the horror set in. Oh no! My bowel churned, then boiled volcanic. I spun quickly to scan the area, hoping to glimpse a bandit with baby in hand fleeing the scene. Nothing.

Marie’s words were a police siren in my head, “Never, ever, even for a second, take your eyes off the baby!” But that is what I had done. I had taken my eyes off her for a second, only a second.

I had no choice, I thought instantly, then turned back the other way, now frantic. I felt my hand hit something as I turned, the cornerstone of Ragu jars, and I saw all those precious tomatoes crashing. And I saw myself standing, silent and helpless, in a pond of red and glass, feeling as though I had puked it all up, and wishing I had bled it all out. I’m sure my face betrayed the internal horror. I could feel the distortion occurring, eyes swelling before they rained, jowls sagging under the weight of shame; teeth grinding in a clench behind pursed lips as terror turned to anger and then bewilderment.

A woman, with a look of disgust, grabbed the cart and pulled it away.

In a reflex reaction, I reached out and pulled at the cart, shouting “Mine!” Her eyes widened with uncertainty, while her razor black pupils reflected madness. I let go, and she staggered backward, still clutching the cart, while I still clutched one intact jar of Ragu protectively.

By now all attention was mine, and the woman was swallowed by the wall of bodies collapsing on me. I began to tell them pathetically that I needed help to find my baby. “She’s gone!” I cried. “Did anyone see?

Someone took my baby!” And no one moved, nor did they speak.

Rather, they stood in stillness, like young children watching clowns.

I tried to get them to help. I shouted orders to swarm the parking lot for the kidnapper before they got away. I demanded to see the manager

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and get access to the closed circuit video that I knew they must have so that we could identify him.

But they didn’t run outside. They backed away, then walked away. The manager did come, but not urgently, and he also shook his head. “Get a mop, Billy!” he called to a young pimpled boy with a blonde crew cut and a nametag, who ran out of sight instantly.

Their apparent disregard threw me to the ground, and I whispered “Marie” as the realization that even worse than right now would be the lifetime of looking at my wife with “I told you so.” Then I fell even further, weighed down by watery tomato juice and the fact that I had made a revealing choice, (Protect your ego, not your baby), and by the belief that Marie would not have the strength, to support my suffering.

I knew she would not allow me that suffering, to see the loss on her face and languish in that torment every day. Instead, she would leave me alone to imagine the faces of my past joy, my present torture, and to suffer the distortions and deterioration of my own memory, undeserving of a concrete reminder of what had not mattered enough to me. “Never, ever, even for a second, take your eyes off the baby!” would ring in my ears in hell.

“Emily,” I sobbed, “Marie…”

“Joe?” Her voice was calm and familiar, yet begged an explanation.

I could not look up. I just offered the precious jar I had left, waiting like a bad dog, superficial gestures in the face of tragedy. I had nothing else.

“What did you do?”

She hadn’t asked the question I feared most, the most obvious question.

She had never, for a moment, had concern for anything but Emily since the moment of her conception. Marie did not speak a sentence or formulate a thought without Emily’s name being attached. Our baby had shown me the depth of selflessness and pure love in Marie that I had never been able to produce for anyone. But now, not a word? And I screwed my face up toward her trying to resolve it without making eye contact.

“What happened? We got halfway down the aisle before I realized you weren’t pushing anymore. Did you knock over that jar of sauce?”

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American Shame Jayanne Syndt I am a proud American who has been shamed.

I am shamed by America by her racist and genocidal history and particularly by her present defense of atrocities, denial of truths and destruction of people, principles, and Our Planet.

Shamed by US- United States- USI wield these words like a sabre of light slashing through the darkness of defense, denial, and destruction surrendering shame For Freedom

Precious Gift - Kyle Herrick 49

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The Trinity of a Stressful Life Joe Adomavicia* What to do, what to do, but wake up, earn a buck, wash up, sleep, and repeat.

It’s the same ole’ stress wearing me down— down to the bone.

Have to earn more money for the better of a company that simply doesn’t give a damn.

Can’t stop working now though, no retiring for me, there is food to put on the table, there are bills, and taxes to pay— another blue-collared worker working their week away.

What to do, what to do, but wake up, earn a buck, wash up, sleep, and repeat.

It’s the same ole stress wearing me down— down to the bone.

Fellow citizen, do we pledge allegiance to one another for which we stand?

Or do we just make claims, assumptions, and accusations, yet our faces, our cases, our intuition, our missions, our grief, our beliefs, are visions seen through a narrow scope.

United we stand or divided we fall.

Will we let one another fall?

Will we redefine hypocrisy?

Or shall we become the epitome of unity?

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What to do, what to do, but wake up, earn a buck, wash up, sleep, and repeat.

It’s the same ole stress wearing me down— down to the bone.

We all have set goals, dreamt, and felt contempt if we fell short, but at the end of the day do we ever question why this is?

Do we even consider how bitter life would be if we continuously hold our selves back?

I say it is either love or the lack there of.

We are either foolishly complacent, or dangerously discontent.

Take control of mind, soul, and spirit.

Refuse to eat the bullet, and don’t ever be the lone voice of complaints, for a voice that bickers will be forgotten that much quicker.

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To The River Nancy McMillan I am sorting out drawers. I had finished his long ago. Now I’m into my top dresser drawer, where I keep my lingerie. I know no one calls it that anymore. There’s so little fabric to undergarments these days they should be called them strings and straps.

I pull out the contents and lay them on the bed, the satiny half-slips with wide lace borders at the hem, the full-length cotton slips, and the strapless push-up bra I once wore for a wedding. When I was newly married I’d wear the cotton slips on sticky summer afternoons with just a pair of underwear underneath. I’d lie on the couch under the ceiling fan and read, feeling a bit bold without a bra on. What a prude I would seem.

I run my hand over a half-slip. Who would go through my things? No daughter or daughter-in-law or granddaughter would sort them, perhaps making fun in a gentle way, but also admiring the creamy fabric, and subtle shades of ecru, ivory, and taupe. “A push-up bra?” they might say.

“When did she ever wear that?” I sigh. No one I know would be going through these intimate things. It would at best be a stranger running an estate sale.

I always knew Peter would die first. While he was alive I indulged in fantasies about my widowed life. It would include a set of mismatched dishes culled from our larger collection, all blue and white designs, maybe a set of six at the most. I’d chose favorites from the Limoges china my mother left me, as well as pieces I’d picked up at estate sales. My home would be a small cottage in a charming village, where I could walk to everywhere I needed. I’d keep a car for excursions to the countryside.

I’d have a cat or two and a quiet routine, breakfasts in a sunny kitchen overlooking a small garden, a happy balance of solitude and social activity, and lots of books, music, art, and movies.

How little I knew about widowhood.

What I didn’t realize was this imagined life contained the love and energy Peter brought to my world. I did not anticipate the hollowness of every moment, the feeling of complete pointlessness to every activity, including getting out of bed. I went through the motions--I’m a New Englander and all too familiar with the slippery slope of depression. A few months after Peter died, a routine vet visit revealed our dog Blue was filled with cancer. I didn’t have the heart for the heroic measures the vet suggested. He was gone within weeks.

I kept expecting life to get easier with time, but that was not so. I

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watched friends my age, also widows, bounce back and thought I would do the same. But they had children and, more importantly, grandchildren.

I never regretted my childless marriage, which was a choice we made together, yet I envied my friends now.

I sit down on the bed. The beauty of these fabrics would have once pleased me, but now they are just another chore. I am halfway through emptying the drawer and am suddenly drained. The room is unchanged, the dresser in the same place, same curtains, same bedspread. His singing, his laughter, his slippers scuffing down the hall, is all gone--not even the echoes of it anymore. I miss the small daily tasks, even the annoying ones. The way he never hung up the damp bath mat or going around the house turning off every light he’d left on whenever he walked out of a room. It surprises me how physical grief can be.

I stand up and walk through the living room and kitchen, pick up a magazine from the dining room table where I threw the mail, then put it back down.

I leave the back door unlocked. Our road isn’t a busy one, and it will be at least a half hour before the afternoon school buses rumble by. I walk away from town, not realizing my goal is the river until I smell its dampness.

I reach the water. This stretch isn’t in a pretty section of town. There are big black rocks along the shore for erosion control. The sand is dark brown, almost dirty looking. The water is dull pewter. I stand and stare at it. My mind is empty. I’m alone, I think.\ A plinking sound catches my attention. The Parker Street Bridge is about twenty yards up and on it are two small forms, a boy and a girl.

They pick up rocks and drop them into the water. They lean over the railing to watch. The boy spots me. He nudges the girl. She raises her hand and flutters her fingers. Reflexively I do the same. They scramble down the embankment and make their way toward me.

They approach as if I am someone they know. I see the boy, in a striped t-shirt and corduroy pants, is about eight. The girl is his size, but appears to be a year younger, with long black braids and light eyes. She wears a plaid dress that looks like she’s outgrown it.

“Hello,” she says, stopping in front of me.

I squint up at them. “Hello.”

“Why are you alone?” says the boy.

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Only a child would be so forthright. “I just am.”

The girl peers at me, her blue eyes so pale they looked otherworldly.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m thinking. Resting.”

“We come here after school, to practice.” They take turns speaking-this time the girl.

“Practice what?”

The boy pulls a small, flat stone out of his pocket. “Watch,” he says.

He flicks it toward the water. We follow its course--one, two, three skips.

“Not bad,” I say.

“I’m better.” The girl finds a rock and, still bent over, tosses it with a gentle motion of her wrist. Five skips.

I nod. “You’re both good.”

The boy tries another. They take turns as if they had nothing else to do, nowhere else to be. The careless beauty of their gestures, the responsiveness of their bodies, their smooth skin, makes me want to touch them and soak up a bit of that ease.

The boy turns to me. “Now you.”

I shake my head. “I was never good at that.”

“I’ll show you. It’s all in the wrist.” He stands next to me and demonstrates. I breathe in his closeness. “Hold it by the edges so it will spin.” I follow his instructions. My first stone doesn’t reach the water. He stoops down and finds another one. I try again. The second skips two times.

“You did it,” he says, smiling.

“Thank you.” A wave of gratitude rises up inside me. I blink back tears.

He shrugs. His eyes are dark. Maybe they aren’t brother and sister.

They certainly don’t look alike.

I stay and watch them a while longer, then stand and brush off my pants. “I’d better go.”

“See you,” they say in unison. A half a block away, I look back and see they are headed toward the bridge. In the dim light their bodies become formless shadows, then suddenly disappear behind the bridge abutment. I walk home slowly, noticing for the first time that the leaves are changing.

All night I keep thinking of those two children, and wonder if I’d imagined them.

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Tick-Tock Alyssa Katz* A precious emerald of eternity, balances anguish and serenity.

Clasped between two prongs of minutes and hours, this gem controls life from its glass tower.

By the shimmer of this mighty royal, his followers always remain loyal.

Hands of Time grapple with lives that are through, welcoming souls to the underworld zoo.

Embroidered, each heart clutches a timepiece, once the last grain falls a body will cease.

Inside this glass capsule houses a pool, grains of sand, treasured memories, a jewel.

This dazzling green specimen has reigned long, weighing life and death, an immortal song.

Balloon Escape -Dom Narducci 55

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Remember when Jessica Eller* we were all artists?

We could make a mess love it Now, messes are work, Irritation.

Once it was simple sensory pleasure a hand sliding through red to break the boundaries of blue, purple gathering power.

A butterfly in a fold of paper, creation still wet on your fingers.

Tempura and bubble wrap metamorphosed into kelp green circles flowing into sea glass blue.

Pure freedom of color Splashing goldfish-orange.

The final impression a pattern of piscine scales across a white paper beach.

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I Dream Like A Bird With A Broken Wing Karen Connell Looking up I can see my friends silhouetted against the steel-blue sky.

A cold wind ruffles my feathers as I slowly walk in their direction I try once again to reach out to it, Let it wrap around me like a long lost friend Pick me up in flight...

It is useless I am useless.

What am I if I cannot fly?

An outcast, alone and broken, no longer fitting in.

Am I so different?

Will I ever be whole again?

Up ahead a highway unrolls endlessly before me.

The rough crags of the silent mountains pierced the now dimming sky.

I hear a loud rumbling noise rush up behind me.

Running beneath a patch of underbrush, I huddle.

My heart beats faster.

I listen to the sigh of the night wind...

Left to die?

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Yellow Shirt Teree Perkins You, in the yellow shirt. Why can’t I stop thinking about you and why do you look so perfect in yellow? Do you notice me sitting alone at lunch? Do you notice me noticing you, standing in the lunch line?

It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me about how you’ve been secretly obsessing over my cokebottle glasses and receding hairline. I wouldn’t have made it weird or anything. It’s not like I’ve been waiting for that moment since the first time I saw you 3 years, 2 weeks, 5 days, 47 minutes and 13 seconds ago. Too much? Yeah, probably.

You know yellow shirt, I don’t blame you for not noticing me, I mean who would? I’ve got one lazy eye, three very long chin hairs and let’s just say I could put down the potato chips once and awhile. But on a less shallow note, my personality is pretty decent. You could even ask Karl, the school Janitor. He’s the only person that talks to me. I think we’re pretty close actually. Within the first week of our friendship, he already had a nickname for me. He calls me “Hond” which is an abbreviation for Hunchback of Notre Dame. Karl says he got the name from a character I remind him of. I’ve never gotten around to look the character up, we might actually look pretty similar.

Give me a try yellow shirt, we could be friends. You know, the ones that accidentally fall in love with each other at the end of the mov-I mean in real life. I could carry your books and walk you to class. Take you on dates and meet your parents like a real gentleman does. I mean haven’t you gotten my love letters? It’s almost rude that you haven’t figured out I’m the one who anonymously wrote them. What other guy in this school pays as much attention to detail as me. Just listen to this one: Oh girl, I dream about the day our lips will meet, the fat under your chin looks beautiful when you eat. Your skin is so pale, you look like a zombie, but I would love you still, like the movie Warm Bodies. You sleep with a nightlight but you won’t need one with me, let’s name our first daughter Tiffany. Who wouldn’t swoon after getting three to five love letters like those everyday?

I can’t help but admire her elegant frame, she’s so graceful and plump and round. Oh crap. She caught me staring at her butt again.

This happens every time, ugh, ugh... You, in the purple shirt, do you notice me?

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Swimming Zena Branch* Jump ship, skip bail Swim deeper under the water.

Drift away, flake out The water’s only getting hotter.

Duck down Do not turn around now, The water’s damn near boiling.

Hide away, Do not show your face, It will only be ours for the spoiling.

Screaming, smoking, steaming, choking The water is filling your lungs.

Duck down Do not turn around now, The water’s damn near boiling.

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To Bury the Dead (Professors) Kenneth DiMaggio Inscriptions in Greek & Latin just as they were in the classroom these professors in death are specialists of the obscure & esoteric yet if not for them and their cemetery above the campus I would not have a couple of years to read a lot of books (half of which I never understood) look at girls (Shh!) and have a place near the dormitory to smoke pot but because it was among the graves of professors who wore eyeglasses back when they were called “spectacles” and whose few female and mostly male students probably stood up whenever Herr Doctor entered the lecture hall it was time go back and look at the girls I mean catch up on what I missed and where despite or perhaps because of a rebellion I too would become a professor who sometimes lapses into esotericism & obscurity when not getting frustrated at my students always texting while the one unashamedly sleeping --despite the way I will yell at you to wake up --your professor (who once looked at girls smoked marijuana and never understood Derrida) envies your dreams

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We’re Not Children Anymore Jamie Crepeau Bicycles and squirt guns have faded away like engravings on old tombstones. We no longer ask why the sky is blue or daydream about becoming astronauts or professional athletes when we grow up.

I recall one girl who smiled like a rainbow as she ran and bounced the length of a court. Years after graduation was boxed away with toy cars in the basement, cancer chewed her organs like locusts in a farm crop while a flyer with her picture hung like a paper crane in a diner window.

Lift up your eyes - Yuliya Polichshuk 61

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Submit to:

Fresh Ink: The Literary Journal of Naugatuck Valley Community College

Who: Anyone may submit. (Only NVCC students are eligible for awards.)

What: Previously unpublished work in three categories - poetry, prose, and graphic image - will be considered. (We will consider submissions that are in any subgenre of these categories: flash fiction, memoir, nonfiction, comics, photos, etc.) Pieces may consider any theme or topic. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but notification of acceptance elsewhere is required.

• You may submit no more than five total pieces.

• You may submit no more than three pieces in any single category.

• Prose submissions are limited to a TOTAL word count of 1500.

When: Rolling submissions (anytime) but annual deadline of March 1, 2018.

Where: Email to freshink@nv.edu How: All submissions must be emailed as separately attached files. In the email, include your name, address, email address, and phone number, as well as titles of submitted work(s). NVCC students must also include student ID numbers to be eligible for prizes. Files should be formatted as such: • Text files should be Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format files.

• Only title and text should appear in document itself - no names or contact information.

• Graphics should be in high resolution .jpg or .pdf format.

• File names should match titles.

Improperly formatted submissions may not be considered.

Fresh Ink reserves the right to reformat/edit submissions as needed.

Student Prizes: Any NVCC student who provides student ID is eligible for awards in each of three categories.

For more information contact Dr. Jeannie Evans-Boniecki at 203-596-2110 or JEvans-Boniecki@nvcc.commnet.edu

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