Paper Crown: Issue One 2015 by Paper Crown

WHO? Sarah Bradley is 20 years old, lives in a tiny village in England, and studies History at University. She hopes to become a professional artist one day, and she dreams of telling stories, spreading positivity, and helping people through artistic expression. More of her work can be seen at sbeeart.tumblr.com

WHAT IS YOUR FIRST ART RELATED MEMORY? My first art related memory is from when I was very little. I was colouring a landscape with orange grass and a green sky, because making the sky blue just seemed far too dull!

There are millions of ways to fold paper into a crown. You could crease your way to a masterpiece. You could fashion yourself a pointed model out of last Sunday’s newspaper. Paper is malleable and it listens. But there are billions of words out there – even after we’ve plundered the earth for every last wood chip, there are too many voices in this world to catch on paper. So the words you’re about to read are built of pixels, not ink. They can’t be burned, crumpled, or left to decompose on restaurant napkins. We’ve heard it before: The Internet Is Forever. However Cyberspace is second best to memory, which is why I want you to explore the pages I’ve compiled, and remember them.

SHELBY TRAYNOR CO-EDITED BY JORDANA HEHIR, NATALIE WARNOCK, & JEAN-LUKE AH-WENG

SUNDAY DRIVE All the nice cars come out on Sunday as I ride my bike to the current place of employment. (Return to the forest) The water ripples under the towerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s benevolent watch. The rock beneath me provides sturdy footing. Wind blows peacefully by. There is an old man fishing somewhere, and somewhere else, there are fish being fed. (Emerge from the forest) Sports cars, big trucks, and motorcycles pass me by as I pedal to work.

PJ CARMICHAEL

MEMORY This was where the flowers wilted, sagging against one another in the light of noon. We sat inside the haze with rusted Kodaks, us as the subjects of the negatives. Our hands were inked blue and foreign, tattooed over in a new dialect of shadows, brightness and contrast, over-exposure.

This was where you taught me the schematics of a camera; the click and the shutter tell you that this is how not to forget. This is the method of how to tell the truth without a stutter. I used this trick with the repairman, showed him our fragments in the form of photos, asked him how to fix a record of something that was never there.

PARISORN THEPMANKORN

ÂŠ CAITLIN SCHOKKER

I WILL NOT DANCE FOR YOU I am not the hips of the many women before me. The moves of passion are a celebration of holding onto the body of another. And you sway left and right you step backwards and forwards. Then you twist off the licks of flames you built up. You hold on again and cool down. I am the abomination of Cruz. I am the American failure of Wang. I will not hold on and move for you. In this wedding I will silently ferment in my own iced tea.

MARIA NG

DAFFODILS â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do you wanna go out and play?â&#x20AC;? Momma asked, running her fingers through the tangled hair of her daughter, who stood at the windowsill looking out into their vast yard. Narci shook her head.

“I want spring,” she told Momma, looking away from the yard and up at her angelic face. Their small country home seemed to be surrounded in white, in the nothingness of winter. Narci longed to see the robins fly through the blue sky, for the yellow of daffodils to bloom. “Spring will be here before you know it,” Momma assured her as there was a knock at the door. She walked away and Narci returned to watching the void, hoping for something to catch her eye. Like yesterday, when she saw a brown bunny hop across the desert of white, oh how she tried to get Momma’s attention. But by the time she came to the window the rabbit was gone, with only a few tracks in the snow to prove it was ever there. Narci’s thoughts were interrupted when she felt warm hands pull a hat over her head. She turned and was met with a scarf and a jacket. Momma got down on one knee and began to tie the scarf around her daughter’s neck.

“You should go out and have fun. Make Momma some snow angels,” she smiled with teeth almost as white as the winter snow. Momma was like spring; her hair flowed like red ivy up a stone wall. She was always warm, from her smile to her calming voice. Momma pulled the gloves onto Narci’s hands and held them in her own. Even with the thick gloves Narci’s hands were small seeds in Momma’s palm. She wrapped her long fingers around Narci’s and gave her one last smile before leading her towards the glass sliding door that lead her out to the yard. Narci swore she heard a third pair of footsteps, but before she could question it she was out in the cold. She heard a loud click behind her. Instantly Narci wanted to be back inside, where there was warmth and colour and Momma’s pasta dinners. But she had to at least try to have fun, for Momma. She hopped down from the porch and into the foot of snow that had fallen over the past few days. Her yard was a blank sheet of white, like untouched paper.

Narci sat in a pile of snow and thought about her blank canvas. She saw herself in art class, paper in front of her with a pencil in hand. She could still see the tracks of the rabbit from the day before, a little crack in a clean slate, a line of mineral in marble. She hopped up from her spot and began to drag her feet through the snow. The snow was her paper and her feet her pencil. The fresh snow covered her past masterpieces but they still remained in her mind like the rabbit and springtime. Closing her eyes she remembered not just the way the rabbit ran â&#x20AC;&#x201C; she recalled the curves of its spine, how its long ears pushed back against its skull. With its legs fully extended to a jump she could see a small protruding belly, probably filled with dandelions and greens. She giggled at the thought, white smoke rising from her lips like one of her mommaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cigarettes. As she continued to drag her feet she blew hot air into the cold. Joy warmed her heart and she felt like spring â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like Momma. She imagined her own short choppy hair with the

sheen of ivy, her fingers growing like tree limbs, the deep purple bruise on her left cheek fading away to reveal her natural creamy skin. She soon found herself back at the head of the rabbit where she started. She bravely jumped forward, wobbling as she landed on one leg in the centre of the rabbitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face. Hopping back around she made a huge leap to the outside, untouched snow. She stepped back and looked at her masterpiece. Not satisfied with just one angle she ran around the rabbit, looking at it from all sides, seeing every turn and line she had drawn with her own two feet in the blankness of the snow. She ran, and ran, and ran, until her legs felt hollow and the ice bit at her toes. She hugged herself, trying to recreate the warmness of her home to no avail. Her cheeks burned and her lips felt as if they might flake off â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like the bark of a dying tree. She walked up to the glass sliding door of her house and knocked. No reply. She didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see Momma in the kitchen or

the living room. The house was as empty inside as it was outside. Trudging back through the snow she made it to the front door. She lifted up the matt and struggled to clasp the spare key between her mittened hands. Frustrated, she pulled the gloves off with her teeth like a teething pup. Narci opened the front door and stripped herself of her damp clothes, from her sweater to her socks, and left them by the door. Too tired to take the steps to her room, she walked to the living room. She wrapped herself up in a blanket and fell asleep on the couch dreaming of rabbits jumping across meadows and filling their bellies with flowers and grasses. A modern Eden, till the dogs came growling with drool dripping from their fangs. “Narcissa!” Momma growled. She looked up and saw Momma’s angelic face curled and mangled like the roots of a tree. “Why did you leave your clothes by the door? Now everything is soaking wet!” She ripped the blanket off her daughter to reveal her naked body. Narci shivered.

“I’m sorry Momma.” “Why are you naked? Good God you’re going to get a cold.” Momma ordered her upstairs to change into something dry. Covering her chest with her shaking hands Narci walked up the stairs to her room like Lady Godiva. Once in her room she looked at her pale body in the mirror on her dresser. She had a slight potbelly from eating too many sweets, but her arms and legs hardly seemed able carry her body. Her red hair was cut short, yet still managed to tangle up into gross bunches in the back. Her bangs were too long and always made it seem like she was watching the world through fall branches. Narci covered herself with a fleece nightgown and a pair of warm leggings. Walking back downstairs she found Momma smoking a cigarette in her bathrobe. Narci mimicked Momma from afar, arching her head back and watching the ceiling. “Where were you Momma?” she asked, still looking up.

“What do you mean? I was here the whole time.” Narci started towards the table. “I knocked and you didn’t let me in.” Another puff of cigarette before she replied. “I was upstairs, I just didn’t hear you.” Narci nestled herself in Momma’s chest and peered up at her. Momma’s hair was unruly and the skin of her neck was pink and red with marks shaped like smoke circles. Her pink bathrobe slipped slightly off her shoulder. Narci’s eyes widened when she saw what looked like teeth marks. “What happened?” She poked at the sensitive flesh. “Nothing – ya nosy kid.” She ruffled her daughter’s hair before pushing her away. It was always like this. In the mornings Momma would smile and smell like pomegranates and mint toothpaste, wearing pretty dresses or shirts that Narci hoped to have some day. But by the evening, after school, she would be in a bathrobe covered in smells that burned Narci’s nose and lungs.

see what I made?” “Why don’t you just watch TV,” was the only reply. The rest of the evening was spent like this; Narci watching in sadness as the fresh falling snow covered up her rabbit tracks, with Momma blowing smoke and watching it like it might start a fire.

NATALIE RUDDY

Narci returned to her windowsill. “Momma…you wanna

I have been trying to find courage for a while now – in the cavities of mountains & the caliginosity of fog – when all this time I could have been kissing confidence from your wrist

(It seems a sea change is close at hand)

I am no longer envious of the way bravery canvases your body like a lover; instead, I am asking for the determination that rests upon your backbone

(People wonder about the pain they can withstand) I have begun rummaging for boldness – in between my carefulness & your recklessness – so that one day I might handle the orbit of your torso

(Yet only the love-struck will truly understand)

LEONOR MORROW

ON COURAGE

ÂŠ SARAH BRADLEY

HYMN You called her an angel. All soft edges and halos And pinky promise innocence. Then the dissonant echo of your Footsteps pulled the feathers Out of her wings and scattered Them in the wind. You cut her just to watch her bleed. Just to see humanity stain her purity, To see lace knit itself into armor And good intentions compacted Into cobblestones. You called her an angel, Now look at what you have created. Can you see the hellfire in her eyes?

OLIVIA BRADLEY

SHAGGY HAIR The back of my hair is knotted I’ve been lying around too much drinking in my recliner and showering very little people tell me to cut my hair or to get dreads but I wouldn’t choose ratty dirty hair it’s merely a curse for looking good I keep my hair long and curly because this world has a tendency to bore me and it’s easier to play with my hair than balls so if you see me with knots in the back of my hair take me home I shouldn’t be out

ALEX OSBORNE

PEEPERS I woke up and there were two little mottled blisters on my left thumb that looked like a pair of tiny eyes. I didn’t know what had caused them. It was the morning after he told me he didn’t love me anymore – actually I think what he said was that he didn’t love me ENOUGH anymore. He’s not really important to the story after this, or rather he’s not really important ENOUGH to the story after this, but please note I paused to give the (eyeless) finger to the screen after typing that. It’s more important that I had started to wonder if the blisters were blinking when I wasn’t looking at them with my actual face eyes. I fancied I felt a dim perception coursing from them, like how if you stroke the inside of your elbow you might feel it in the roof of your mouth – but I reasoned that the eyes were too small and my brain receptors too big and clumsy to make proper sense of the signals.

At first I shielded my thumb with a Band-Aid, fearful that if I kept it uncovered the sensory connection would start to evolve and one day I would close my actual face eyes but somehow still see two pinpricks of light that seemed to be coming from no direction in particular. Then I decided I kind of wanted that to happen. One day I drew a nose and smiley mouth underneath the eyes, but I swear they looked irritated by that, like I wasn’t respecting them. A good thing was that their Lilliputian presence temporarily stopped me from compulsively pulling out strands of my hair, something I have always done with my left thumb and forefinger, like I’m creating fodder for bird nests. I didn’t like the way the hairs felt sliding across the blisters, but also if they did start to see, I didn’t want my first visual delivery from them to be a scaly close up of a dark hair.

When I cried over him, even after I decreed he was not important in the kind of voice the Red Queen would use to say OFF WITH THEIR HEADS, I wanted tiny tears to fall from my thumb, but they never did. One of them healed before the other, so over the course of several days it looked like my thumb was performing the smallest and most languid wink goodbye ever.

EMMA WORTLEY

LOVE STORY IN TEXT MESSAGES Text: are you there? Text: people keep saying they want to read my poems…like they’ve never understood what it’s like to love someone until they don’t love you back anymore.

Text: sorry i keep doing this

MINDY GILL

I AM ALL OPEN PALMS AND BRUISED SHINS You are all tongue and teeth. I am a folder of unfinished poetry on a MacBook Pro. Open me. Here: This is what an apology looks like. I am writing a book of them. I hate to use the phrase oceans apart but how else could I describe how my hands feel when the poems don’t come anymore. All my spices are still in your kitchen cabinet. So many of these words used to be your words.

MINDY GILL

You're my stillborn butterfly afraid of your beauty with limp wings â&#x20AC;&#x201D; pried from the safety of your cocoon by my old hands in a forest where everything is charred. Only the skeletons of trees once lush with life and birdsong can admire your strange elegance as you lay listless on their roots that thirst for a storm of passing love and thunder. I want to carry you away to my field of wildflowers and resurrect you with the unfiltered glow of the shy moon, who only shows its face in this meadow of lies. I'll watch the breeze wake you on my fingertips then let you fly away, carelessly into a world of colour I'll never compare to.

CHASE GAGNON

ÂŠ RUBY SMEDLEY

MY FIELD OF WILDFLOWERS

One day, my sweet I’ll leave you. Pack up my memories of the child and get on a whole new ship, my hair dancing in the wind. You won’t notice wrapped in a blanket of their admiration and your charm. Until one day, you’ll remember us vowing not to say it often. Then you’ll feel the empty space because by then you won’t be allowed to say it at all.

IRYNA BYELYAYEVA

A TOAST TO THE FUTURE

VOICE I wonder about what draws someone to stay a while and be absorbed in an entire collection of poetry. For me, it is as if meeting a whole other person and winding into a specific conversation, while both of you are drunk at a party neither of you were invited to. A book of poems is a gathering. Sometimes, I soak in what they say and linger in the kitchen. Other times, I see two or three lines and head off in search of the bathroom.

Art is different. Lines of ink and dabs of paint say nothing. The coarse knife on driftwood and smooth, erotic touches on marble are always quiet. They do not speak. And yet I can feel David’s trepidation, I stare back into Machiavelli’s imperious gaze. The café lights glow yellow as the meditating rose in the sky turns to sleep, and lets the moon roll her lights. I am certain, though, that I will find someone sitting across the terrace, flipping through poems by Joy Harjo, or Roberto Bolaño.

JACK PEVYHOUSE

KALEIDOSCOPIC #6971 Maroon Perspective: Morning, zero days since I was leaving my apartment this morning, but a man called to explain how precious life is. I told him my name is Cleare and asked him to wait while I climbed to my desk through a disaster of crunched notes and failed origami. I thought I could leave for breakfast. No one calls during breakfast, right after they wake up. I think he was putting on a voice, overinflated, like a lyrical dog-whistle, or otherwise his voice wouldn’t work properly. “Vapid,” he’d say, stuttering on the V as if he’d just learned the word. He was one of those people who nothing big and traumatic had ever happened to, that feel guilty for calling. They shouldn’t, but I can’t tell them that. I dropped the phone when he paused too long. The static cacophony jolted him back. He didn’t hang up. Dropping phones is my largest expense. It was the first habit I ever developed, and it isn’t even tax deductible. I tell them it’s a business expense, and they ask the name of my business in a circle of superfluity.

While I was talking to the caller so effortlessly, handing out techniques without a prescription, I realised I’m too accustomed to suicidal people – they should affect me more. Maybe I’ve seen all there is in this apartment and need a new perspective. Maybe I’m just more observant, or know what to listen for. I desperately want to help, that’s my main skill. I want to help sick people, even when they’re contagious. #6972 Carmine Calm: Fifty-six days prior I nearly hung up the first time anyone called. “I’m on top of a building, but I promised I’d call if I got reception up here.” Fancy that, before I even greeted him! I’d only just gotten out of the shower. It spurt bursts of hot and cold in an unnatural concoction (it plays up so often that working is the anomaly). I can’t afford heating, so the cold was imperious, and water clung to my skin like a festering, external virus. My walls are red. I imagine them as manifestations of warmth, placebo heat, but that day they looked blue, like when you stare too long at a painting and finally understand it. “How did you get to the top of a building?”

Never trust yourself so thoroughly. He could’ve hung up, out of courtesy. Listening to air flay a limp body is harrowing. Broken in symphony. Air scattered, gravity betrayed, solidarity evolved, organs contract and disperse. Nature, the infallible assassin. I still can’t distinguish when the phone shattered and lucid imagination took over, but only I heard him drop. #6973 Rose Jam: Mid-morning, zero days since My apartment’s a de facto office, so I don’t leave. I can’t miss a call. People just started calling. I think that’s why I got the apartment

cheap.

Phone

lines

got crossed, or

something, but whenever I call to alert them I get put on hold and can’t endure the music. I should hire someone else, but I’m not good at sharing, even though you’re supposed to be. At least I don’t have to wear a uniform. There are calls daily. No rhythm, no pattern, like a distracted sniper who misses as often as he hits. My musical friend keeps nagging to hang around so she can study the tempo, but I tell her to buy an instrument first, and that one-woman-bands will never catch on. Mum’s supportive. She brings supplies. She always said I was too precious and helpful, but she might have meant

hopeful. She always got those confused. Regardless, I never knew what that meant. She never actually called me precious, but I like to imagine. Being on the end of the phone line is draining. I feel like a bucket with an elusive hole; haemorrhaging, just to be refilled. Mum says people can’t feel like buckets. She’s never even owned a bucket. Waiting’s an emotion as much as an action, and perpetual waiting has left me with a sickly, creeping unease. They say find a job you love and you’ll never work another day, but that’s only true if you’re always working. #6974 Venetian Red: Afternoon, zero days since “Hello?” I always answer this way, as if I’m not expecting a call. “Who’s there?” “Sorry, do I have the right number?” “Sounds like it.” “Could, - would you mind telling me who you are? Sorry, it, I just think it might help knowing who I’m talking to.” “Well, my name’s Cleare…”

People don’t usually ask about me. They’re so preoccupied with how I can help, or how nothing can help, or how I can’t help and they don’t deserve it anyway, or how I’d better help, if I know what’s good for me. Makes for interesting conversation. I’m used to silence, but I’m not charged with breaking it. “…I’m 24. I help people. I live-” “- Oh…that’s a description. I meant who are you, deeper than that?” “Well…what do you mean? I’m not sure I know.” “Never mind. I don’t know, myself. That’s why I called.” Then dull, empty silence.

My real estate agent calls my apartment cosy. It’s not. She concedes it has seen better days. I doubt that. It’s colourful, and full. It has to be. Not like a rainbow, more like a communal wardrobe, full of costumes and suits, uniforms and formalwear. Even with colour, my apartment’s unremarkable. A kitchen without appliances. A bedroom with a lone, askew mattress. A lifeless living room. At least there’s colour.

Visitors say I’m lucky to have three rooms. I tell them I can only be in one at a time, so what’s the point? I never entertain guests. Worse,

the

front

door

doesn’t

lock.

Given

the

neighbourhood’s reputation, this is my biggest worry. I tried to fix it, but now it won’t close either. A new take on open plan living. Maybe I’ll finally meet my neighbours. My bedroom door and front door are one and the same. If that breaks I’ll be forced to retreat to the wardrobe, like a spluttering whale pushed back to the ocean.

apartment’s slowly digesting me. Architects are dangerous, aren’t they? #6975 Flame: Late-afternoon, zero days since “Hello?” Calls are irregular and unfair. Maybe she’s calling back, from before - got disconnected. That happens a lot, I hope. “Who’s there?” Breath slopping in your ear is always unnerving, even the first time. “I need someone to talk to.” A gruff, real voice.

Memory’s a fantastical thing. I’d never want to understand it. How do we recognise someone from just their voice? You can’t distinguish a bee by its buzz. I panicked. Hung up. I knew the voice. How can I help someone I know?

The apartment looks different, but it hasn’t really changed. I repainted it myself, and I’d repaint every week if I could. Each wall a lighter shade of red (I stopped before pink), or heavier, depending which way you twirl. I twirl counter-clockwise. The other way unravels my scarves. They’re hard enough to wrap, without going out of my way to unfurl them! A shame, since I have a pretty neck. If you twirl long enough colours become fluid and translucent. All the reds blend, and paint the whole room. Making things move is exciting! The colours look new every time. Things don’t change otherwise. My world is stagnant and unnatural, punctuated by artificial light. The walls look better at night, with dulled vibrancy. I’m not sure if I twirl for habit or relaxation, but it’s the one time I’m not dizzy.

I have a lot of scarves. I’m not sure if I have enough to call it a collection, but a lot nonetheless. All silk, all multicoloured. They suit me, but that’s not why I buy them. The colours make me feel safe and overwhelmed, like a smudged, hastily written cheat-sheet. Sometimes, when the weather allows, I wear three scarves at once. Did you know the mantis shrimp can see colours we can’t even fathom? They’re awful pets, though. #6976 Medium Rare: Three days prior Mum visited the other day, with a basketful of supplies. A lovely, earthy, wicker basket, which seemed cosmically out of place. Exuberant colours menaced it like UV rays. I worried about the bag of ice. Since it’s solid, can eating ice can fool the body into nourishment beyond water? She brought a small dog too, but kept the receipt in case she was coerced into returning it. I told her I had enough to take care of while the dog barked at my walls in bliss. The phone rang while she was here, and mum spent most of the call answering me as though I was talking to her. She’s the one that taught me how to use a phone, perhaps so she wouldn’t have to. “So then, why are you calling?” “To drop off the supplies and check in of course, dear.”

The lady on the other end told me of the stray dogs that harassed and spied on her, which she could no longer bare. I can’t imagine the small dog yelping in the background helped placate her. I suggested she enlist cats as a barricade. We agreed animal sacrifices were wrong, but times were desperate. Mum radiated pride once she finally caught on and stopped responding. Pride in herself, that she was able to help someone who needed it as desperately as me. We’re a lot alike, I think. #6977 Vermillion Victory: Forty-seven days prior Last time I left the apartment, I tried to buy a pack of coloured chalk, but it was the last one and I gave it to a gentle young girl in a sharp, black-and-grey dress instead. She didn’t ask for it, but then again she wouldn’t. I went back to ask the man when they’d be getting more, but he said they weren’t! “Doesn’t sell well,” he explained. How can it not sell well when it’s sold out? I settled for conventional chalk - from another shop. I use the chalk on the darkest wall where the contrast is greatest. There are two sets of markings. On the left,

people who call and live, and others on the right. The left has more marks, but the right has too many. Shame they’re both white. I never really know where people belong, but there are guides. If they finish the call they go left – a reflection of them, not me. If they hang up, or disappear, right. If I don’t know, left. Usually I have a feeling from the start. I listen, to their breathing mainly, depth or shallowness, intonation. Listening’s key. That’s why they call. I’ve never missed a call. #9034 Rainbow Weekend: Evening, zero days since I always thought hearing that man fall would be worse than seeing it, because it freed my imagination. I was sitting at my desk today, two scarves on, attempting the same origami swan I’ve fucked up for the past week. I opened the curtains since the sun had set. She descended so gently, with such momentum that it was almost like imagination. She wasn’t a blur though, I saw her clearly. Red eyes, red skirt, but hot blonde hair. Everything echoed, but there was no noise. And I kept seeing her, out the window. She didn’t move anymore, just like I hadn’t for months. I leaned so far over that I almost fell too.

I thought I was falling until the spinning stopped. The walls looked red, but the same shade. My scarves danced like fireworks in a kaleidoscope. But kaleidoscopes are vibrant and infinite, and no matter how much I fill this room, and shroud myself, with colour, no matter how much I replace and refresh and renew, I live in nothing

than

dry,

well-preserved

museum.

Recommended donation on entry. No interactive exhibits. Don’t touch the artefacts. Don’t touch me. Distance is evil, I’ve decided. But why can’t I help those who don’t reach out? And why won’t magicians reveal their secrets? #0000: Several days since The wall’s clean now. Took a good scrub, but the chalk’s gone, and the paint started flaking. I made one fresh mark in the centre, stuck in purgatory like science gone wrong. The best thing about a broken door is that it’s already open when you leave. I think I’m going to have to start wrapping my scarves more tightly, I can barely feel them.

DOM MURRAY

DEAR SYLVIA Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. Oh my darling Sylvia, I once thought us special – tragic girls made of tragic things broken glass and monster howls we clawed at our insides, screamed to the night. Dear Sylvia, how much three years can change. I see now that we are human, you and I. Our scars are not our monsters’ but our own. We formed each ragged line they are for us to heal. Worry not, lovely Sylvia, I will rise with red in my hair, I will eat men like air It will not be the creature inside. It will be me. (Italicised lines from Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus”)

LINDSEY SPARROW

HOPE AGAINST HOPE It's in the heart of Noah – who built an ark with the woods he had piled. The clouds were over the earth – the bow was seen, the covenant was made. It's in the heart of Abraham – who waited a century for the promised child. It's in the heart of Isaac – who was still blessed in a famine land he stayed. Then there’s Jacob – who’s forgiven by the brother he riled. Joseph – who arose, escaping his brothers’ hate. God had brought Israel out of Egypt, the house of slavery, out of the wild. After forty years stranded – at last they got to the promised land as said. It's in the heart of Daniel – who into a den of lions he’s thrown. It's in the heart of David – who put down a giant with sling and stone.

Then there’s Job – who survived the loss of wealth, health, family. Jonah – who was barfed out of the great fish’s belly. There’s Jarius – who pleaded for his daughter’s remedy. And Bartimeus – who was blind and yelled, "Lord, I want to see!" Paul the apostle – who was imprisoned and beaten, but still preached Christ. And the twelve disciples – who left their nets and life to follow Christ. The large crowd came to Jesus – all the lame, the leper, also the mute. Down at His feet, He healed them – They walked, cleansed, spoke. When all you can see is dread – all you can hear is strife – remember what Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He brings one true hope – into our hearts.

ALFINDY AGYPUTRI

ÂŠ CAITLIN SCHOKKER

RESILIENCE Flames burn, relentless, flesh sweats and softens. Fires lick, incessant, resolve melts in instants.

Heat will consume, blazes will caress; wear ashes in your hair, and flames as battle dress.

Resist with resilience, don't burn and blacken. In the end, it is armour of gold, the embers will mould.

ZHI YI CHAM

AMIR NISHAN Blue Dolphin Street playing, making me count my steps to the market that I went to today to shop for bangles to match my bright yellow and pink kameez1 that my aunt bought me for Eid. It’s a day away.

A long tunic worn by many people from South Asia, typically with a salwar or churidars.

I picked it up from the tailor, throat parched â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I was fasting â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a little boy apprenticing with the tailor did the interlock. Afterwards I explored the market: women, some in burqas, others in ordinary looking clothes, saving up the nice ones for Eid, walked with some urgency, looking for accessories for their salwar kameez.2 This is Amir Nishan. Market of colours, fabrics infinitely still in the humid afternoon, soaking up the moisture, suits and dupattas3, pink, cream, mirrors, oranges, gold and silver threads. Everyone is busy. There are girls looking at earrings, and a mother buying a plastic pink ring for her daughter gives me her opinion: those bangles wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really go with your suit. I end up buying them, scuttling away from a blind beggar and the daughter who leads him.

A pair of light, loose, pleated trousers, usually tapering to a tight fit around the ankles, worn by women from South Asia typically with a kameez (the two together being a salwar kameez). 3 A length of material worn arranged in two folds over the chest and thrown back around the shoulders, typically with a salwar kameez, by women from South Asia.

No one pays attention to beggars today – everyone is busy shopping for clothes that will send them to blue heaven. But there is one ordinary looking woman who just gave alms to a beggar. They line up along the roads, rickshaws and two wheelers barely missing them. They try to catch your eye, you who look down from your rickshaw, and raise their bowls. They are on this street every day, I recognise at least one. He doesn’t have legs and today he is lying down on the street – like he has passed out. He is protected by an invisible cloak; all traffic misses him. I don’t like him. He’s an actor. But today I am going out. After a very long time, I’m going out to buy something for myself, to shout out the colours, spit them out, yellow and pink, pink and yellow. And I have to find bangles to match. My aunt tells me of a shop at the end of Amir Nishan, “Right at the crossroads, you have to climb down.” I call my old world friend, “T—, please come.”

“But I just came from somewhere,” she says. “Yaar, tumhe main bachpan se bula rahin hoon bahar jaane ke liye (I have been beckoning you to come out with me since childhood).” She laughs, I know she doesn’t want to come but I insist. Who wants to go shopping so deliberately alone? I want a friend. She comes in a purple salwar kameez. “Where’s your hijab?” I ask. “Yaar, it’s too hot.” I nod, understanding. Her fiancée wants her to keep it on. “I told him ‘It's just too hot,’” she says. The young man arranging the bangles for us has sparkles on his face, rubbed off from the bangles. He must be around twenty or younger. He’s patient. We are picky customers. I want rani colour, I say, and I put my Eid kurta4 in front of him so he can put together a combination of bangles to match it. The first is too tacky, the pink is not

Kameez and kurta are often used synonymously.

bright enough in the second set, but I love the third. I say yes, we shine. T— wants a black and white combination but her guy is not that good. He gets annoyed with her. “Aap time waste kar raheen hain (You are wasting my time),” he says as I look at her hands. They have small cuts on them. “Even I have one,” I say, “I don't know how I got it.” “S— did this to me,” she says. “We got into a fight, did I tell you?” S— is her younger sister, autistic, withdrawn, with a warm smile. “I slapped her,” she says, “and she started hitting me back. ‘Don't tell anyone I did this to you,' she said to me.” T— smiled, wincing, her eyes under the bright lights lit up, sparkling. “Lagta hain ab meri zindagi yahin hoke reh gayee hain (It feels like this is all that my life amounts to now),” she says. "No,” I say. I turn away to look at the bangles, but then place my arm on her shoulders. I get my guy to make her a combination. She says ‘yes’

definitively to his choice. I buy her the bangles but this time around I don’t mind. I’m going to do something else that’s good today. “I want to tip him,” I say about the young matchmaker of bangles. T— looks sceptical. I put forty rupees in his hand. He takes it, but doesn’t get it. We are about to climb the stairs when he calls out. “Please take this back.” He looks at his boss, who looks at me, and smiles a bit, and says there was no need for that. The young boy holds out his hand, and people start to look. I awkwardly burst out, “Le lijiye, yeh ajeeb sa lag raha hain ab (Take it now, this is starting to get awkward),” and we climb out. “I’m going this way,” says my black-and-white-bangled friend. We part. We’ll meet tomorrow for Eid.

MEHER ALI

I AM HERE I've been lost since before I could even walk and now it makes me sick that I can run, jump, and rip the moon down from the sky if I wanted.... but still wouldn’t know where to go with it or how to get there.

So tonight I drank for the first time in months and wished on the only star bright enough to pierce through the smog of Detroit – on that one little dot that says “You are here” like on a map in some failing shopping mall full of empty stores and kiosks of fake jewellery painted gold.

ÂŠ CAITLIN SCHOKKER

Maybe if I keep drinking I'll find my way somewhere... to brilliance, to rehab, or to the ground. I'll just let Jack take the wheel take it from my hands because I can't find my way on my own.

There's just something so unexplainably beautiful about kissing the lips of a cold bottle under an empty, polluted sky then watching the stars appear one by one, telling me exactly where I need to go and be.

CHASE GAGNON

DARLING Darling, I know all about how you tango with the devil and lap at the blood that beads on your lip when the rose pricks you. How you unhinge your jaw, letting the flower fall to the floor, and crushing the petals under his hooves and your stilettos. You toss your head back, press your bosom to his, and let the music trill through your veins.

And yes, darling, I know how some nights you pull the blankets over your head and puff warm air

and pray to fallen angels. How you mash your fist against your teeth

ÂŠ GRETA WOLZAK

into the spaces around your cheeks

and smear crimson lipstick across your knuckles and pretend that sobs aren’t rising in your throat and bile isn’t roiling in your belly. I know all about the scar tissue between your lies and the gauze packed in your arteries. I know about the hurricane temper and I am standing in the eye of the storm; begging, pleading, please, darling, won’t you dance with me instead?

OLIVIA BRADLEY

MIDNIGHT Eyes, weighing down, wilting like roses that have seen last monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sunset Clock, chiming twelve times with the fervor of a feline prepared to pounce Crickets, filling the silence with the sounds of their disapproval of the darkness Organs shutting down Sensory skills fainting Surroundings fading

Moon, glaring as it graces the stars sweetly, glowing

PATRICIA P.

BETTER DEAD THAN NOT FORGOTTEN The tamagotchi has enough decency to die of neglect as should all living things But nintendogs have the audacity to remember exactly how I sounded after three years of starvation and thirst

ÂŠ SARAH BRADLEY

I stroke his electric body but he doesn't recognise me Does he wonder where I went or who the teenager with the cracked voice is?

GLEN LUFF

DOORS CLOSING Olivia scuffed her shoe on the drab grey carpet as she repeatedly jammed the call button for the elevator. Tucking her flat brown hair behind her ears she looked around, dull hazel eyes searching the run down foyer for potential threats, such as nosey Mrs White from apartment 502B. “Come on, damn it.” Finally, just as she was about to lose her grip on the bag of groceries, the doors opened with a soft ping. Head down, she shuffled straight into the small square box and pressed the button for level ten. It wasn’t until the doors closed and the lift jolted upwards that she realised she wasn’t alone. Across from her stood a sharply dressed woman, tall and imposing with sleek hair and thin framed glasses. Her clothes were impeccably neat, there was a Bluetooth device in her ear, and her eyes were a cold, calculating blue. There was a manila folder tucked under her arm and the scent of lilies surrounded her.

She stared right back at Olivia who nodded awkwardly and turned to gaze at the numbers as they slowly rose. Suddenly the elevator slowed and stopped, the number on the screen disappeared, and the doors stayed shut even when Olivia tried to open them. Olivia pressed the emergency call button but only a flat tone emitted. “Well great,” Olivia muttered, losing her grip on the overstuffed bag so it fell on the floor. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” “It seems we have stopped,” the woman replied, her voice tight and low sounding like Olivia’s old high school maths teacher giving out punishments. Olivia stared at the other woman wondering how sarcastic she could be to a complete stranger without being overly rude. Instead she settled for polite. “Do you think it’ll take long to fix?” “I hope so,” the woman replied. “I’m sorry?”

“I said I hope it takes a while to fix, you and I have an appointment you see.” “We do?” Olivia had never seen this woman before. “Indeed. Make yourself comfortable.” “I don’t understand. Who did you say you were?” “I am Death.” “Excuse me?” “Sorry, my name is actually Thann. I represent Death. There are a few things we need to discuss.” She brought the folder out from under her arm and flipped it open. Olivia could see a photo of herself clipped to the front page. “Are you serious? Is this some kind of joke? Is this being filmed?” “No Miss Wallace, this is quite serious. If you take a look at the file I have here we have your date of death scheduled for Thursday the 12th of November 2074, when you are 85, but we have received some alarming data that indicates you

no longer intend to maintain your contract with Life up to this point.” “Huh? Are you sick in the head or something? Because this isn’t funny.” “It would appear Miss Wallace that you are the one sick in the head. We know all about the pills.” Olivia’s face paled and she took a step back, the rail of the elevator digging into her hips. The pills had been hidden, stuffed in a sock in the bottom of her drawer. They were left over from her surgery and in a moment of weakness she had kept them, hidden away. She had told no one. None of them knew about the struggle, the darkness that had crept in post operation, post accident. She hadn’t even told her government issued therapist. “How did you know?” “Like I said, I represent Death, and we have some concerns

about

prematurely.”

your

contract

with

Life

expiring

“Contract?” “The contract all humans sign before they are born. You never remember it though, which makes things very difficult for us in situations like these.” “Situations like these,” Olivia echoed flatly. “Yes. You are not the only person to want to terminate early. There are many who do it and it creates a lot of problems for us.” “Problems for you?” Olivia snorted trying not to cackle and sound as crazy as this lady clearly was. “What about the people, don’t you think they’re doing it because they are having problems? Do you think they do it for fun?” “Of course not, but they, you, never fully realise the impact that you have terminating your contract early. That is why I am here. It is my job to make sure you are fully aware of the implications surrounding terminating your contract with Life early. There are costs associated with an early contract with Death.”

“What costs?” Olivia scoffed, shuffling her feet and examining her bag of shopping. “Well for starters it affects the end date of a few other peoples’ contracts with life.” “It does?” “Yes. One example is Penelope.” “Penelope?” “Your daughter.” “I don’t have a daughter.” “You don’t have a daughter now. But you will, if you don’t terminate your contract early that is.” I will have a – no, this is ridiculous. I don’t know what your game is but this isn’t funny. I’m going to call the police.” Olivia pulled out her mobile and dialled the number but it wouldn’t connect. “What? No signal? What have you done?”

“We are in limbo at the moment; it’s the only way I can talk to you.” “You’re insane.” Thann narrowed her eyes and then spoke into her ear piece. “Show her the girl.” Before Olivia’s eyes a young girl with bouncy brown curls and a pert nose appeared. She was silent and smiled to someone that they couldn’t see, before running off and disappearing through the back wall of the elevator. “Who was that?” “That was Penelope.” “My... daughter? She looks just like...” Olivia shook her head “Your sister? Yes, I know.” “I don’t understand. What do you want from me?” “I need you to understand fully what will happen if you terminate your contract with Life too early.”

Olivia swallowed and took a deep breath, shaking her head as she blew it all out. “I’m listening.” “Firstly, your brother.” Another apparition appeared. This time it was Tom, Olivia’s younger brother, but instead of the smiling young man he was, he was haggard and sick, wearing rags instead of clothing. “He still blames himself for the accident. If you terminate early he will believe it’s his fault and will turn to alternatives to be free of that guilt.” The apparition faded and another took its place. An old woman with worn skin and wrinkles all over her face. There was no joy in the flat brown eyes, only sorrow. “Mum?” “Yes, losing you will hit her hard. She never gets over it and eventually pushes everyone away,” Olivia’s mother faded and Thann turned to face Olivia full on. “Your friends

go their separate ways unsure how to deal with the grief, your team mates perform badly over the season resulting in most of them being replaced on the team, your apartment is rented out to a couple with a history of violence resulting in the assault of several of your neighbours and of course, Penelope is never born. Do you still think that terminating early is the best course of action? There are a lot of repercussions you never thought of.” Olivia stood up straighter, face flushed, and looked into Thann’s unfeeling eyes. “You don’t understand. Have you ever felt like this? Like there’s no future. That nothing is ever going to change, you’re just going to be stuck here never moving forward, always a burden to those around you? I have nothing, there is nothing to keep me going. I have no hope. Do you know what that feels like?” “Of course I do. I work for Death. I see it everywhere and I see the results of it. So many – innocent, evil, young, old –

they all pass me by on their way to Death. But the world just keeps on turning, so why should anyone keep going?” “I-” “Because there is Life. Because the world keeps turning, the sun rises every morning; the stars shine every night, even if you can’t see them. This is why you keep living, for the small moments of beauty each day, the smile of a loved one, the steam of a cup of coffee, the song of a bird, the colours of the sunset... For your daughter, your daughter’s daughter, your nephews and your nieces. Everyone has the ability to give joy to others. You live so that others can live and experience the gift of life through you.” Thann adjusted her glasses and looked at her watch allowing Olivia to think over her words. “How can I do that, if I don’t even bring joy to myself?” “I don’t need excuses. I need you to decide not to terminate your contract early.” “I can’t just do that.”

“Yes you can. I will know as soon as you do, so I don’t need an answer now. Just think about it. If there are any issues that arise in the future I will be in contact.” “What, how –” “– Our time is up. I have many more people to see, such a shame how this century is turning into one big mess of early terminations. I have to go see a twelve year old next. That’s right, not even a teenager and thinking about terminating their contract early. What is this world coming to?” Thann drew herself up and pressed the button for the 10th floor and the elevator lurched upwards again. “Good luck Olivia. Hopefully I won’t be seeing you soon.” With that Olivia found herself standing alone in the elevator, bag of shopping at her feet, the screen above her head slowly counting up.

NATALIE WARNOCK

L-BOMB I’ll just close my eyes a little, I thought, as bricks fell and blacked out the room. I awoke, aloof, and the room was dark; full of shadows, but not empty. How long was I out? Shuffles – you kick off your shoes. My body liquefies at your proximity. I hadn’t realised waiting for you had strung me up; I unwind, unravel, fray. As you climb toward the bed, clothes trail on the floor. Limbs are lead, not listening to my mind urging them to wrap around your form. You burrow under, one doona, two. I wait for you to find me, cocooned in layer after layer. Stale tobacco faintly interrupts my train of thought followed closely by the scrape of your beard on my neck, cheek; OH GOD now that you’re here I recognise I had been missing you, even in my sleep. I am contentment personified but silenced by fatigue, and though you rouse me I can’t attend for more than a single, slumbered, blink. “Are you awake?” I answer in my head, but the message doesn’t reach my mouth.

“Are you awake?” You squeeze me. I barely manage a grunt, but something comes out. “I love you.”

ERIN GEORGIOU

UNTITLED She is cracked ribs Your favourite place to hide Your first fist fight Bloody knuckles Busted lip She makes you quiver Makes you think She never slows down and you won't ever catch her She's afraid you'll grow tired of running She's afraid your legs will give out before the finish line And she's always sorry A walking apology One day you asked her why And she sat there staring out the window And you screamed I can't read your fucking mind But she's quiet Always quiet She says sorry for the change of her footsteps The way she's always looking back

The way she's always sleepy The way her hair looks without a hat The way her finger nails are always dirty The way she never wants to get undressed And she doesn't know why And you keep calling her perfect But she always sits up straight And she cries too much Or she doesn't cry at all And she says sorry And you wish you could grab her and take her away from All of her fears and all of her doubts But she's made of these don't you know They run down her spine They're attached to her hips To her finger tips She never leaves bed without them She breathes in deep Her heart beats And she's sorry

MICHALLA GARCIA

MY LAUGHING COUSIN Laughing the loudest out of everyone on earth. Cackling and calling down thunder. Telling stories of the past that were only half true. Filled with familial love and rivalry. I know that cackle you do, the shine in your eyes. It predicts tears, smoking in parking lots, dancing in dark corners, and kissing young flowers.

MARIA NG

DAPHNE I was wearing that lurid orange jumper and feeling like the generic Me that I am most of the time Monday through Friday. Drawn too easily into whispered conversations behind closed doors and whiling hours in front of blue screens. I looked out the window and noticed the rain, which was suffocating the sky. Sipping from my mug, I felt tired, resigned to the return of monotony. I did not realise that in an hour I would meet the next mother, and hold her child in my arms outside of the building…the icy air around my neck…my hair being pulled by two sticky little hands. The three of us together would turn our faces down from the rain and scuttle past the fragrant daphne hedge, through the glass doors.

ERIN GEORGIOU

QUEENS Riona’s mother used to be rich. Now they lived in a mouldy apartment with mismatched dishware and an aging Labrador who was blind in one eye. His name was Cody and he’d been around when Riona’s mother had been rich. Riona hadn’t. Riona’s mother’s name was Lauren and she mostly stayed in bed. Riona brought home a lot of rich boys and kicked them out in the middle of the night when she grew sick of herself. They had trust funds and hair that swirled out, beachy blond, from underneath lacrosse helmets. They had Connecticut names, Boston names; old money with vaguely Anglo-Irish origins diffused enough to be respectably American. Tommy. Will. Mikey. Chad. Ryan. Charlie. Matt.

They’d go on to be congressmen, or CEOs, or whatever rich blond boys did to stay rich and blond. They lit cigarettes in Riona’s bed, leaving ashes on the sheets when she threw open the window screen and made them climb down the fire escape in their expensive sneakers. Then Riona would find Cody – that stiff, pathetic dog with peanut-butter-and-ass breath, and she’d haul him up onto her bed and ask him about the days when her father had been alive and her mother had been rich. Sometimes she relit the crusty cigarettes and cracked the window, exhaling sick, blue smoke in pointed swirls to join the filth in the air and poison the suffocating stars. Riona felt a lot like the thin smoke. She felt a lot like the dimming stars. It depended on the day. Sometimes Riona would crack open the door to her mother’s lair and let one pie slice of light fall on the bed. She’d stand with one shoulder pressed against the door jamb, hip popped, and listen to her mother breathe. She could always tell when Lauren was sleeping or just

pretending, because Riona herself hadn’t slept since the accident. Well, she’d slept. Barely. When she lay down in the dark, her eyes wouldn’t close because the sound of screeching tires sent sledgehammers down her spine. So she would watch her mother and send smoke out the window and sort her drugs and pills on the kitchen table. She drank apple juice

and

watched

infomercials,

wondering

the

enthusiastic workout girls in purple spandex were washed up porn stars. Riona knew she could probably be a porn star. She had enough practice, anyway. She had a running tally of how many consecutive days Lauren had stayed in bed. That’s what she called her mother now. Lauren. Riona didn’t have enough energy to be sentimental. They said it was the meds; that all those chemicals made her lethargic. Lethargic. It sounded like a soap brand.

They’d told her when she’d first woken up to stop using recreational drugs. Even weed. So Riona filched a Vicodin and her mom’s sleeping pills and stored her Xanax bit by bit, a squirrel in a nuclear winter, popping whatever looked best in plastic bags at three am. An exotic pharmacist. When Riona was little they’d lived in a little brick house with a compact garden and blue shutters. There had been a doghouse by the swing set. Riona hadn’t minded that they weren’t rich. Or that her dad was dead. She’d been eight. But the doctors and the police decided Lauren was too sad to be a mother so they took Riona to a house with lots of teddy bears and a lady who looked like the Grandma from Riona’s favourite picture book. The Grandma Lady made lots of cookies and mac-and-cheese but she never left Riona alone. There was a cat that scratched Riona’s hands when she tried to pet it. She spent a year and a half with the Grandma Lady before Lauren came to get her. The Grandma Lady was

mean to Lauren. The first thing Lauren did was drop to her knees and cry with both of her hands over her mouth. She didn’t remember how to buckle the seatbelt of the booster seat so Riona had to do it herself. That made Lauren cry harder. They went to dinner and Lauren told Riona a lot of bad stories about when she was little and kissed Riona’s face. They went to the sticky, ugly building on the brokendown side of town, and Riona knew better than to ask about the little brick house with blue shutters. Not when Lauren chain-smoked out the car window. They slept in the same bed that night, Riona, and Lauren, and Cody, who was just starting to get arthritic. Neither one of them said anything. Letting it stretch. Riona took pity and held Lauren’s hand so her mother could fall asleep. She wondered if her mother had slept easier back when she was rich. Back when she didn’t have a little girl. The car hadn’t been driven in over a month.

The keys were in the fridge. Lauren had once told her – one day in the fall when the world was smouldering into ashes – that her name meant queenly. Riona thought it was a bunch of bullshit. Sometimes she spiked the apple juice with butterscotch schnapps. Lauren kept vodka on her dresser. They both showered in the dark because the accident had soaked into their skin. It had been in March. March ninth. Riona had been at a rich kid party in the Cove neighbourhood, stealing breath mints from bathrooms and talking in a voice half an octave lower than normal. The boy, Caiden, was Washington High’s golden boy. He had a sick mom. He took her upstairs. Riona was too drunk to remember most of it. She didn’t remember him being good. She just remembered the embroidered bedspread and The Girlfriend some Ivy League beauty with an IQ sharp enough to grind an axe against, who had burst in with red ears, livid and small.

Riona had bowed out, awkwardly making her escape into the adjoining bathroom. She sat on the tile. It was gold. The Girlfriend yelled for a long time. Riona threw up. Campbell – Riona couldn’t remember if it was his first name or his last name, everyone just called him Campbell, like the soup – found her on the bathroom floor eventually. He’d been the second best to Caiden James since the second grade; good, but just not good enough in girls, grades, sports. Riona’s hair was limp and she was half-dressed. Campbell smiled. “No,” she’d said. But Campbell was not like a dog. He didn’t follow simple commands. After, Riona crawled into the shower – sticky, bloody, useless – and called Lauren. On the way home, Lauren yelled and cried and cried harder, her lipstick melting in the cup holder, and Riona felt

like her heart was growing hands and trying to climb up her throat. It was when Lauren said, “Jesus, Ri, how could you be so stupid?” that Riona opened the door, watching the white lines of the highway under her feet. It reminded her of cocaine. Lauren screamed and swerved. Later, the shrink said it was a natural reaction. To swerve. Riona hit the pavement chin-first at fifty miles an hour. The doctors didn’t know how she’d survived. Lauren drove the car into the side of an SUV headed up to Buffalo for a peewee hockey tournament. A mom and three boys with spiky hair and missing teeth. Aged five, seven, and ten. Their pictures had been in the paper. Riona broke all four limbs, cracked three ribs, her skull, her collarbone, and one kneecap, the left one. She wished she’d died instead. At least, she did most nights. Lauren got a concussion and a fractured wrist.

The boys never got to play hockey again. All Riona’s fault. When these rich boys crawled in her window and fucked her, it hurt. She did it anyway. Her favourite was Mikey. He pretended not to notice when she winced. It was after she’d kicked him out for the fourth or fifth time that he grabbed her wrist and turned it over to read the medical bracelet. There was a scar on her thumb. He touched it. “The accident?” he asked. He had sneakers like the rest. There was a dying cigarette in his mouth that highlighted the lack of glow in his eyes. Riona withdrew her hand. “Bye, Mikey.” He left. Riona found Cody and fed him some peanut butter. She popped a few OxyContins and popped open Lauren’s bedroom door, letting the tallow light fall onto the bed. Lauren rolled over.

They looked at each other. Riona thought about black holes. “You’ve been in bed for four straight days,” Riona said. “Yes,” said Lauren. “Would you get me some apple juice?” Riona poured the juice into a wine glass and dropped an ice cube into it. It was shaped like an anorexic moon cut in half. She brought it to her mother. “I haven’t been to school in two weeks,” she said. “Good,” Lauren said. “Come here, Cody.” Cody hobbled up onto the bed. Riona crossed her arms and curled her toes. It was three forty-seven in the morning and she felt tired for what felt like the first time in years. She wondered if queens got headaches from the heavy crowns they wore. She wondered if they had black holes for eyes like her mother did. “A Xanax, please?” Riona got her a Xanax. “We’ll leave in the morning, Ri.”

“And go where?” “Does it matter?” Cody whined. Riona sat on the bed like it was made of broken glass and her mother yawned. She scratched Cody’s ears and looked at her medical bracelet. Lauren had one that matched. They’d had adjacent beds at Saint Claire’s and never said one word to each other. “Is this my fault?” she asked. It was dark, the pie slice of light cut Lauren’s face in half as she rolled over to look at her daughter. Moon crater eyes. “No, Riona.” Riona nodded. They stayed silent for a long time, Cody snuffing occasionally. It was like the first night all over again. Riona took her mother’s hand. They slept.

TESS WALSH

SUSAN RESPINGER susanrespinger.com PJ CARMICHAEL “Sunday Drive” PARISORN THEPMANKORN “Memory” CAITLIN SCHOKKER MARIA NG “I Will Not Dance for You” “My Laughing Cousin” SARAH BRADLEY sbeeart.tumblr.com NATALIE RUDDY “Daffodils” GRETA WOLZAK wandering-folk.tumblr.com LEONOR MORROW “On Courage” OLIVIA BRADLEY “Hymn” “Darling” ALEX OSBORNE “Shaggy Hair” talesofanurbanfisherman.com EMMA WORTLEY “Peepers” MINDY GILL “Love Story in Text Messages” “I am all Open Palms and Bruised Shins” CHASE GAGNON “My Field of Wildflowers” “I Am Here”

IRYNA BYELYAYEVA “A Toast to the Future” swanky-blog.com JACK PEVYHOUSE “Voice” houseofpevy.tumblr.com DOM MURRAY “Kaleidoscopic” LINDSEY SPARROW “Dear Sylvia” ALFINDY AGYPUTRI “Hope Against Hope” ZHI YI CHAM “Resilience” MEHER ALI “Amir Nishan” PATRICIA P. “Midnight” pennilesspoet.tumblr.com GLEN LUFF “Better Dead Than Not Forgotten” NATALIE WARNOCK “Doors Closing” ERIN GEORGIOU “L-BOMB” “Daphne” wonderinful.tumblr.com MICHALLA GARCIA “Untitled” TESS WALSH “Queens”

EDITORS SHELBY TRAYNOR JORDANA HEHIR NATALIE WARNOCK JEAN-LUKE AH-WENG