Plains Paradox 2019

PLAINS PARADOX

VOL XVII

PLAINS

PARADOX Literar y and Ar ts Journal

VOL XVII

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Credits

Credits Cover Art:

Personas: Emily Moore

Design and Layout: Caleb Reetz Holiday McAllister

Art Direction Kristin Villano

Student Editors: Kim Adam Leo Wheeler Noah Hill Sarina Pargas‑Vega

Advising Editors: Kika Dorsey Sarah Schantz

Sponsors:

Blake Welch John Cross Patrick Kelling

Table of

Contents Fiction

Loneliness 2 Gretchen Spomer

Hidden 3 Sonya Almaraz-Tatum

Disquiet 4 Emily Moore

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You Mikhaela Christine

5

Limited Palette Still Life

13

Light as a Feather

14

The Dress

15

Lobster Boat

23

Victoria Jaspers Nova Steward Leo Wheeler Kim Adam

Anxiety 24 Arik Burton

Red 25 Evelyn Rake

Hungry Seduction Sophia Zanowick

Poetry

Great Hornbills Sophia Zanowick

31

34

Aloha 35 Sonya Almaraz-Tatum

Funky Cold Medina

39

Knot n' Egg

40

Full, Like Skin

41

Delusions of Athleticism

42

School Shooting Recovery Manual

43

Pine-ing Around

44

Ode to Cut Flowers

45

Annika Lahr Kim Adam

Camille Taft Leo Wheeler

Camille Taft

Nova Steward Ryan Gould

Callidryas 47 Darcy Traynor

Saint Alexandra Sophia Zanowick

48

The Blessed Mother, Angels and St. Francis (after Cimabue)

49

Pinhole Photography

51

Figure Study

52

Dancing on the Clouds

53

One Eighty

54

C. Eliot Meakins C. Eliot Meakins Victoria Jaspers Hallie Smith

Martha Connelly

Temple 55 Leo Wheeler

Snake 57 Sophia Zanowick

Cold Weather Tree-tment

58

In the Sweet Stillness

59

Monochromatic Still Life

61

Courtney (the yellow) Lauren (the purple)

62

Why Black Lives Matter

63

Against the grain

64

Writing a Sonnet

65

Nova Steward

Blake Goodwin Emily Moore

Courtney Saindon Violet Stoudt

Niko Bortolini Leo Wheeler

Colorful Chaos

66

Glass Bird

67

Monochrome Still Life

68

Fifty Cents

69

Hailee Gruen-White Kenyon Perkins Kim Adam

C. Eliot Meakins

Non-Fiction

Battle 72 Annika Lahr

Rose 73 Evelyn Rake

Colored Still Life

79

Light From the Darkness

80

Kim Adam

Victoria Jaspers

starcharts 81 Sydnee Smith

End of the Day Wine Kim Adam

89

Amanda 90 Emily Moore

The Sound of Wild Carrot and Clematis Leaves Camille Taft

91

Walrus 97 Sophia Zanowick

A Leg Grow Shash Dimson

98

Free-Fall 99 Blake Goodwin

Life Goes On

105

Left or Right

106

A Letter to Me From 2016

107

Collapse and Desperation

112

If Audubon had Painted Loss

113

Katrina Schmid Clay Koenig

Jelissa Torres

Sophia Zanowick Violet Stoudt

Fiction

Loneliness

Gretchen Spomer

3

Hidden

Sonya Almaraz-Tatum

Fragments, that's all I have.

Fragments of a grandmother. Trying to piece together what is never talked about, imagining the records of her that can’t be found or never existed. Why, on Friday evening, Mother lights a candle, and in the spring, cracker bread is passed around the table. So to understand I piece together a few fragments by reading horror stories, and sometimes I think I can catch sight of her, rising from the rubble of a concentration camp.

Through these pages in this house of the dead. I have more questions, but they will go unanswered.

Barbwire surrounds large storage houses. Rotting cots are stacked from the ground to the ceiling, creating tight rows from the entrance to the end of the large storage house. With only one exit, I wish someone would have grabbed a torch and burned the camp down.

I envision large chunks of hair falling to the ground, the curls lifeless on the floor. A person parting from what made them human.

Not everyone made it to the camps; some only made it to the edges of their towns. It was cold and yet they were made to undress.

People dropped their wedding bands, pressed them into soil where they were lined up in rows. Sweaty palms clung together, wrapping around one another, bracing for the unknown.

The bodies fell one after the other onto the blood-soaked dirt.

Small breaths reach just outside the nostrils, and the shortness in the chest barely mimics oxygen flow. Whether with breath or without still they go into the pile. Piled one on top of the other, and this was once another human’s job to throw people into piles.

This could have been my grandmother’s story, but that too is hidden.

Plains Paradox

Disquiet

Emily Moore

5

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You Mikhaela Christine

He was sitting in a large brown leather chair, a glass of Four Roses Kentucky bourbon in one hand, and a silver .357 Magnum revolver in the other. He spun the cylinder with his right thumb, and it turned in circles like it was remembering all the times it had been turned on unwary bank tellers or gas station attendants. I analyzed him from behind the wooden table. A saturated Nevada dusk reflected into his cool gaze as he stared out the window, the sunset and his green eyes a violent collision. Johnny Cash sang “Cocaine Blues,” through the old vinyl player that Ma left me after she died. I brought it wherever we went because she always said if life wasn’t any good, at least music was. I was wearing black leather heels and they stuck to the rotted floors as I poured more whiskey into my glass.

“Clair, I needa ask you somethin’, and I need you to be real honest with me.”

“Uh-huh, Jim.” I leaned over the bar and rested my chin in my hand.

“You ever thought about walkin’ out on me? Runnin' away to some other life?” he exhaled with a self rolled cigarette in his lips. His trigger finger tracing over his five o’clock shadow.

“No Jim.”

“Good girl. Cuz if you ever did I just might have to actually kill ya.”

“I’m gonna go get some more Coke from the vending machines, you want anything?”

“Yeah, get me a pack of some of that spearmint gum.”

“I’ll need the key,” I said holding out my palm. Jim looked at me, or rather, looked into me as if he was searching for something.

  

“Come on,” I said. “I’m craving a Coke.” His head cocked to the side, his intoxicated gaze penetrated into me.

“Please, Daddy?”

Jim never trusted me with the keys, but when I batted my ninety-nine cent eyelashes and called him Daddy, it was like I had Plains Paradox

hypnotized him. It never lasted long, and I knew to not overuse this magic trick, reserving it only for when I really needed it, and the truth was I really needed a few minutes away.

I took my time walking. I hummed “Goodnight Moon” by Shivaree and ran my fingernails over the rough exterior of the building, mindful of my new French tips. I turned the corner, past the neon red No Vacancy sign, to the side that faced the highway. The motel kids were playing in the pool while their parents shot speedballs behind flickering windows. I could hear them moaning and see the track marks that covered their arms like decaying tattoos whenever one came outside to call for their kid. I wished that they didn’t have to live that way. I wished I could take care of them and be all of their mamas and we could live in a big house with its own pool. Somewhere nice like Santa Monica where it’s always warm and the air smells like the ocean.

I fed the machine the first dollar and watched the hooks let go of the gum. Then the second dollar, but the Coke got stuck at an angle. I hit the machine and kicked at it but the bottle wouldn’t budge. Under the yellow fluorescent lights, I turned toward the children.

   They were lost to dreams where they were pirates and mermaids and sea monsters. The glimmering pool was their own oasis off of U.S. 50. One boy looked my way and I waved at him. Nine or ten years old, his face was lightly dusted with freckles and his hair a hay field.

“Hey you, can you reach your arm in there and grab that Coke?

I’ll give you some gum and a few quarters.” I smiled at him as he ran over, careful not to slip on the wet concrete. He reached in and pulled it out, then looked up at me, eyes gleaming like bright highway billboards.

“Alright, alright, here you go. Thanks kid, you saved the day.” He handed me the pop and ate the white minty stick, showing me a gaptoothed smile.

“Thanks Miss!”

I always kept a miniature pink composition notebook in my pocket for whenever I went out alone. Otherwise, I stashed it underneath tissue boxes in motels or in a hole I found underneath the passenger’s seat of Jim’s blue Chevelle. I liked to record my encounters with the kids who lived in these motel Neverlands, as well as moments that I thought were pretty. Like the time Jim robbed a corner store in Jacksonville, and we hid under a highway bridge about a mile down the road. There was something 6 – Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

about those red and blue flashing lights that whizzed past us, how they illuminated the air that made the world feel more alive. The sirens blaring into the night like Led Zeppelin's “When The Levee Breaks,” stimulating the air with electricity. Jim would kiss me and I could taste the adrenaline on his lips.

“Ain’t that right darlin,” he’d say as he counted the money. 





I would never let him know I was writing it all down. To me, it was a way to capture the beautiful moments that hid inside all the chaos. But to Jim, it would’ve been evidence.

I also wrote about how when he was mad, he would hit me, my skin a violent Polaroid developing purple and blue bruises. Sometimes I’d fantasize about him having one too many drinks, and falling down the stairs like he did a few nights after we first met, the night his ashy brown boots caught on some loose wood at the Two Star Saloon in Reno, and he tumbled down the stairs like a Kansas tornado. Only now, when I’d think about it, I’d imagine his head busting open like fine china on a kitchen floor. I was tired of sleepless nights, listening to roaches crawl beneath the bed, and Jim’s drunken snores. I hoped each one would be his last. That his throat would fill with liquid vomit and he’d choke to death. I knew a lot of rock stars had died that way. Like Bon Scott or Jimi Hendrix. Some nights when he would drift off, I would look at his revolver like it was whispering my name. I could make off with the money and the car, and go somewhere no one would find me. I thought about California. I could dye my hair blonde and change my name to Lola.

When I first encountered Jim, I was fifteen, and my soul had rebellion written all over it. I was living in a small no–name town in Louisiana. I ran away from home after Ma died because Pa’s drinking got worse and I feared he’d end up killing me during one of his blackouts. I’d come home from school and he’d be lying on the floor in his own piss, only waking from his stupor to swig from his bottle and knock himself down again. In his most lucid moments, the neighborhood had echoed with sounds of busted furniture and my shrill screams. My face had worn raw, red and teary.

Plains Paradox – 7

When he’d say, “I don’t love you, girl,” his voice sounded like an old train blowing smoke into the air and he choked on his own cough.

The brick walls of the house spoke his words and looking at them was like peering into a nightmare.

On a mid July morning, when the sun was liquid gold, I lay in bed. I looked at my honey-colored skin and I felt sweeter. I packed a suitcase with cherry red lipstick, some cash I stole from under Pa’s mattress, and a prayer that I would somehow find my way.

A few weeks later, when the Leo moons were burned into the night, I found myself in Las Vegas immersed in burned cigarette smoke that haunted casino walls and showgirl feathers. I got a job working at silver pole glitter hypnosis, a club called Mademoiselle, for a man named Gino who had three gold teeth and smelled like pine needles.

He introduced me to Loretta who was the club owner. She decided to call me Starla because she thought I looked like Lauren Bacall, and all the old Hollywood actresses. Loretta had beeen a legend in another life.

With eyes like Betty Boop, she could dance between the moon and the sun, headlining hundreds of shows in her day. When I met her, her face wore deep lines that looked like stories, and she had kind eyes. We shared martinis and she told me about her past. Soon, I was her favorite dancer, along with Cherrie.

Cherrie was the main event for two years. She reminded me of a doll. Her fiery red hair and porcelain skin illuminated like fresh snow under the stage lights. She was the one who really showed me how to dance and how to glue sparkles on my eyelids. We’d do shots of vodka and practice pole tricks at 4:00 a.m. when the the sandstorm of people in the club had blown out the door, and the room was still like an empty carnival. During the day, she’d show me her favorite cafes and we’d shoplift red lacy panties from local department stores.

A writer from L.A. named Sebastian stumbled into the club during Cherrie’s set months after I started working at Mademoiselle. Two weeks later, they married at midnight, Elvis chapel and the works. He asked her to move to Los Angeles and be his muse.

“You’re a good kid, Starla. You take care of yourself. I’ll write you, okay baby?” She wrapped her mink fur coat arms around me as she hugged me goodbye. She left me empty as the bottles of vodka we drank together, but as I watched her drive away through teary eyes, I knew she was going to be alright.

One Monday night in May, my set was almost up. I was applying my last coats of mascara, my cheeks already a dusted rose when I 8 – Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

heard Loretta’s voice yelling in the main room.

“Jim, you son of a bitch, I haven’t seen you in at least ten years.”

Stepping out onto the stage, I saw their glasses joining in a toast, surrounded by veterans of the staff. “Jim, you bad motherfucker,” they said.

He stood taller than any man in the room, and his skin was as tanned as a Texas Ranger. Our eyes met through misty lights and champagne rain as he approached the front row. He reclined to one of the red velvet loveseats. Melody Gardot’s “Don’t Talk” bewitched the room as I began my dance.

“You’re gonna love this one Jimmy,” Loretta said, pointing up at me. “A real beauty.”

Jim flashed a million‑dollar smile. Determined to hold his attention, I envisioned a bolt of lighting striking us both, my hips rolling like thunder as a storm rushed through me. The only energy I could feel was his eyes fixed on me. Flames blazed closer and my skin could have melted ice.

After the last song in my set, I drifted back to my dressing room. I heard Loretta’s tell-tale knock on the door, and soon she joined my reflection with hers in the smudged mirror.

“Who was that?” I asked. I could see in her eyes that she knew I had danced for that man and no one else.

“Listen to me child,” she said, stroking my hair, positioning it behind my ear. “I’ve known Jim for fifteen years. He’s been in and out of prison his whole life. I know that smile of his is somethin’ else, but he isn’t any good darlin, do you get me?”

Soon Loretta and I rejoined everyone in the main room where Ronnie the bartender poured us Jasper Emeralds like every other night.

My eyes searched for Jim, longing to meet with his again, despite what Loretta had told me. I didn’t wait long, as he emerged from another room, greeting my hand with a kiss the way Marlon Brando did Vivian Leigh’s in A Streetcar Named Desire.

“My my my, you really dazzled me out there, Miss Starla.”

Loretta stepped away to attend to another dancer whose zipper has gotten stuck.

“Be nice to my girl, Jim.”

Saluting Loretta like a sailor does his captain, Jim sat down next to me at the bar. “Can I buy you a drink somewhere pretty lady?”

“Only since you asked so nice, cowboy.” The liquor on my lips formed my words for me and I hoped the smoke from my cigarette would seduce the air, or maybe "Black Magic Woman" in the background would, Plains Paradox – 9

but Jim looked through me like he knew my secrets, like he knew how young I really was and how I’d been lonelier than ever since Cherrie left, so I let my eyes fall back into my drink.

But then he took my hand, just as I’d dreamed he would, and we slipped away to the Chevelle. It was the very first time I sat in its white leather seats.

“I just need to make a quick stop for some smokes,” he said, pulling up to a gas station a few miles down the road, semis drifting past as we parked underneath the soft red glow.

He jumped out of the car and ran inside as I popped bubblegum through my lips and fidgeted with the radio, looking for the perfect song.

I looked out the window into the station and through the signs and ice machines, I saw Jim point a silver gun at the clerk.

Pushing the cigarette lighter in as my hands began to shake, it took forever before I could light my Lucky Strike, my heart begging to exit my chest, but before I knew it he was running toward the car with a plastic bag full of cash. He slammed the door and the wheels skidded on the asphalt as we peeled out.

“Now I can buy you whatever you want, darlin'.”

We sped on for miles, past cacti and tumbleweeds. Past the sign that said Welcome to Las Vegas. Every time I started to worry about what he had done, the breeze and the sound of his engine carried us further away and I didn’t say a word, just listened.

Fleetwood Mac rattled their heavy chain, playing through the static of his cassette. I closed my eyes as my hair took flight with the sweet midnight desert wind.

We pulled into a dimly lit Western bar on the side of the highway. Lassos mounted the walls beside cowboy hats and bison heads.

The bartender seemed to know who Jim was, and he poured us both a shot of whiskey as he tipped his hat and flashed a silver toothed smile.

Jim pulled a wad of cash from his jeans, “I’m buyin a round for this whole damn joint.”

We danced all night, throwing our heads back with laughter until the sun finally found us. I saw the devil in Jim's hazel eyes, but I began to love him like hell.

Our crime spree spun across seven different states. Bank robberies in Arizona, register raids in Utah, collecting contraband in Colorado. But soon, our nights of laughter and bourbon turned to nights where I chased the taste of my own blood with whiskey. Bruised eyes coated with navy blue mascara, my body was a collage of Jim’s violent 10 – Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

outbursts, and living on the run began to be draining. Jim didn’t make sense anymore. He was too deep in his bottle and his broken mind.

Loretta’s warning haunted me.

Back at the motel on U.S. 50 where Jim had asked me if I ever thought about leaving him, I had lied to his face. We were close to California, and I knew I could make it there by morning if I drove all night long. I had Cherrie’s address from the letters she had sent, and the coast was calling.

I returned from the vending machines empty handed, and Johnny was still singing, this time “Folsom Prison Blues.” Jim began to cough, losing control of his breathing, and he gasped for air. Scarlet ribbons of blood trickled from his mouth. He looked into me the way he always had, and I knew he didn’t see the same innocent girl.

“What have you done woman?” 





“You had it comin, Jim, beatin’ on me and treatin’ me like dirt. Ya know, it really ain’t that hard to find rat poison in a place like this.” Jim’s face drained pale, and he fell back onto the bed.

“This road ain’t leading me anywhere but back to prison. I’ve been stealing cash and burning through it for as long as I can remember.

I’d rather be in a plot next to my pop. Least this way, I can go out on my own, not by the barrel of some cop’s gun. Hell, I know I’ve done wrong, but I’ve said my prayers and I’m hoping Mom put in a good word for me with the warden upstairs.” His final lullaby, I read him the suicide note I had written for him.

I crossed out the first two lines of my list, looking down at Jim, as his breathing became shallow. I knelt down and rested my head on his chest, inhaling the smell of leather from his jacket, and watching my tears fall through its cracks. I kissed his forehead, and watched him fade away.

1. Put poison in Jim’s whiskey.

2. Put suicide note on the nightstand.

3. Erase all traces of myself.

4. Bleach hair blonde.

5. Drive to L.A.

6. Ditch the car at a chop shop.

7. Stay the fuck alive and out of jail.

After Step Five of the plan was done, I slipped into Plains Paradox – 11

the night with half of Jim’s cash. I knew when the police found him, they would see the rest and know exactly who he was. After all, that man must’ve had at least twenty warrants. Fortunate for me, I had always waited in the car while he commited his crimes. Even when I protested, he insisted I wait in the car, telling me I could be a lookout, but the truth was, that he was so good—so fast—he didn’t really need one. I knew I would disappear without detection.

Tears fell into my lap and my foot grew heavier on the gas.

Nancy Sinatra banged her silver bullets through the stereo. I could still smell him in the car. I imagined his arms holding me tightly the night we first met. I let out a scream and my whole body was shivering. I still tasted his skin on my lips.

I drove west until rose-colored flames filled the sky, his Chevelle setting on fire once again. I saw the desert horizon in my rear view mirror, my eyes dead behind black sunglasses.

The Eagles serenaded the road as I drove further and further west. I thought of the land of the stars and the poets, where my dark past would only make for good stories. I could smell salt in the air, and soon, I was there, in the city of fallen angels.

12 – Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

Limited Palette Still Life Victoria Jaspers

Light as a Feather Nova Steward

15

The Dress Leo Wheeler

At 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday, at Number 39 Sunrise Way in Bluffton, Indiana, Evelyn Weber was awake and busy grumbling at her Singer sewing machine. It was an old thing, black and heavy enough to knock someone out. The machine was designed to fold into the nest of the antique table upon which it sat, a table made from oak with wrought iron legs, a partnership she’d long admired. Though the table was a hefty piece of furniture, Evelyn always thought of it as delicate with its intricate lattice pedal and swirled wheel. Thirty-two years ago, Evelyn had inherited both from her grandmother Margaretta Brenner.

Evelyn loved to relay the story of how her grandmother had gotten the pieces to anyone who would listen. Her mother had told her the story so many times when she was a girl that Evelyn knew the whole thing by heart. In 1852, the Brenner family had emigrated from Germany to St. Louis where Margaretta began work in a textile mill producing coverlets. There, she befriended Louise Bauer, another German immigrant.

Evelyn’s mother had always become reticent at this point in the story, and as soon as her eyebrows drew together, she’d say, concentrated and stern, “Well, they were quite—” then clearing her throat, “close,” and just when it seemed she was finished, she’d add, “I don’t know why on earth that woman would give Mother the sewing machine.” And that, no matter how hard Evelyn pressed her mother for details, would be the end of that. Upon her passing, Margaretta had chosen to gift the pair to Evelyn. Now, because she’d exhausted everyone she knew by telling them this tale, she just kept quiet—not that she had much company these days.

Evelyn rubbed her eyes, stretched, and looked at the mess on the table: the tangled thread and aged white fabric had given her a headache.

“Tea,” she thought. “Tea will help this.”

Once she’d made her way down to the kitchen, Evelyn pulled open the tea drawer and rummaged around for a packet of English Breakfast. Pulling the last one from the box, she hobbled to her fridge and made a note on the square Post-it pad to have more delivered. Tea was fourth on the list, scrawled in tiny print under “steel ground oatmeal, Plains Paradox

peas and carrots (frozen, 1 bag), pumpernickel (store brand), and French’s Yellow Mustard.” When it came to Timothy, she’d found specificity was the key. Every week he delivered groceries to her house, and it had taken at least a month for Evelyn to realize he responded best to strict and clear instruction. In fact, it wasn’t until she left the note telling him to never ring the doorbell again, and to only ever leave the groceries in the cooler by that back door, that he’d finally stopped coming to the front.

She opened the cabinet, pulled out her favorite green mug, placed it on the counter and set her kettle to boil. Turning to the kitchen table, she sighed. It didn’t seem to matter where she placed the salt, it just never seemed right.

“Maybe it’s the shaker,” she thought, picking it up. The deer looked back at her with blank eyes. It had once been a rich brown with an expressive and kind face. Back then, before everything, the antlers had been a bit cumbersome, but they’d stay put. Now the threads were worn so smooth that if she forgot to hold them tight when she seasoned her food, the horns fell out and salt spilled everywhere. As of late, she’d been forgetting a lot, which meant more and more of her carefully constructed meals had been ruined by a cascade of sodium. She sighed, dropped her hand to her side, and looked at the peppermill.

“You don’t give me any problems, do you?” she asked, and sure enough, it just stood there, sturdy and austere, slate gray and smooth. It did not match the deer, which used to bother Evelyn, but ever since the salt shaker’s utility had declined, she looked upon the peppermill with a newfound appreciation. She slid the salt shaker back on the table, next to its companion, considered the position, and nudged it to the side with the tip of her finger. With a dissatisfied grunt, she snatched it up, turned around and opened the cabinet. She put the deer on the top shelf, and with a woody thunk, closed the door.

Turning away, she gazed out the window above the kitchen sink. The sun, just beginning to rise, cast long shadows across the street perpendicular to hers, working to tie together the houses on either side. All ordinary, each house was squat and beige with slatted exteriors and asphalt roofs, but then there was the one on the corner closest to Evelyn’s—it was beige too, but the family that lived there had gone and painted the door a deep burgundy. The house itself was something Evelyn couldn’t understand—sloppy and disheveled, it tipped toward the street as though it were five minutes away from tumbling over, spilling its contents out onto the lawn. Even so, there was the tree in the side yard that Evelyn found charming. A papery white bark cloaked most of the narrow trunk, 16 – The Dress

broken by a speckling of black ovals under threadlike arcs, little eyes peering out.

The aspen was elegant and thin, and most important, the tree, despite that sloping lawn and leaning house, was tall, defiant, and straight, but now—“Different,” she said. “Something’s different.”

She leaned closer to the window, inspecting the tree. It wasn’t the leaves, now yellow in the midst of fall, or the way they flashed like gold in the sunshine. It was something else.

When the kettle whistled, she creaked around to pull it from the stove, the arthritis singing from each joint in her stiff body. Taking a deep breath, she turned to the counter and poured the water into her mug, delighting as she watched the tea bag balloon to the top, but that was when she lost control of the kettle. Fumbling to keep it in her grasp, which she managed to do, she spilled spurts of boiling water on the ground.

“Oh shoot,” Evelyn muttered over the whisper of steam billowing from the water as it spread across the cold tile. She planted the kettle on the cast iron trivet, scurried out of the way of the puddling water, and in doing so, tipped backward. As she reached for something to grab to keep from going down, her fingertips only grazed the cool metal handle of the oven door before she landed on the floor with a wet crunch. The pain shuddered from her tailbone to the base of her skull. “Oh, Evelyn,” she said, rocking back and forth. “You stupid, stupid girl.” Then the pain sang its way into her right wrist—the hand she’d used to break her fall— and she moaned even louder.

Using her other hand, she latched onto the edge of the table and pulled herself up. As she did, she let out a giant harrumphing grunt.

“What has become of me?” she thought. “I’m an elephant, that’s what.”

Though she hated to remember what her life had been like, accidents such as this one always conjured up images of herself as a girl, back when her shoulders were broad and straight, not hunched forward—back when her lithe arms cut powerful paths through the muddy water of the local lake. Evelyn had always been better in the water than she was on land.

Not even Eliza, Evelyn’s childhood friend, perpetually, annoyingly, and charmingly talented in every way, could beat Evelyn in the water.

After a few deep breaths, she let go of her wrist and felt around her body for any other wet patches. Her slippers were drenched, but the only other damp spot was on her right pant leg, just below her rear.

She looked at her wristwatch: 5:18. Early, but maybe she could get an answer. Looking for her phone, she remembered she’d left it Plains Paradox – 17

upstairs with her sewing. She gripped the mug, and groaning, she took deliberate, soggy steps toward the stairs, hoisting herself up, one at a time, careful not to spill the tea until she finally reached her bedroom. Ignoring the mess of white fabric still on the Singer table, Evelyn shuffled to the other side of the room where she set her tea on the octagonal table next to her favorite pink velvet chair. From the chair, she could sit and inspect the neighborhood through the large window on the far wall. But first she needed to get warm.

She meandered back to her dresser, gripped the top with her hands, and nudged the slippers off her feet, determined not to take another spill. After pulling a pair of thick socks out of the drawer, she turned around to examine the fabric on the Singer table. A white bodice of taffeta lay overwhelmed among ruffles and ruffles of tulle and lace. But with the sewing machine acting up again, there was no use trying to fix the tear in the bodice. Perhaps she could mend the lace flowers on the skirt. They were graceful things; thin, with rounded bobbles on the ends, something a skilled seamstress would only ever tackle by hand anyway.

“Yes,” Evelyn thought, “manageable enough for now.”

She gathered the dress and her purple satin sewing bag, and with the socks tucked under her arm she trekked back to the chair, and sat with a huff. Her cold toes tingled and she looked at her feet. They were different than she remembered, these pointed things. Yellowed skin stretched over the top (once so pale and fine you could see a web of blue veins underneath). Her nails too had transformed from naturally shiny and easily shaped ornaments into thick obstinate plates of armor.

Grumbling, she bent to tug the socks on. Then she pulled a few knit blankets from the basket next to the chair, covered herself further, and checked her watch again. Ten minutes had passed. Deciding to make the call, she picked up the cell phone from the table and flipped it open. She fumbled with the small buttons and waited as dull dial tones rung in her ear. She counted eight rings before the voicemail picked up. Evelyn closed her eyes.

“Hello, you’ve reached the Everett’s,” the woman’s voice sounded right into Evelyn’s ear, so clear she felt she could touch the woman’s hand if she only just reached out. “Please leave us a message after the tone,” the woman continued. “Thank you.”

Evelyn hung up the phone and put it on the arm of the chair.

She pulled the dress back into her lap from where she’d set it on the table, spread her fingers under the material, and got a needle and thread from her sewing bag.

18 – The Dress

“Nothing to do but wait,” she thought.

As she worked on the lace flowers, her mind returned to the aspen across the street. She lifted her gaze once more to study the yellow leaves. From the second story vantage point the canopy of the tree was more pronounced, a crown of gold, the foliage trembling in the morning breeze. “Something different,” she thought, shaking her head. “Something different.” 



Sometime later, Evelyn opened her foggy eyes. It was later, that much she knew, but by how much? She looked at her wristwatch, but the room was too dark and her eyes too old to read the small numbers to which the glinting golden hands pointed. Growling, Evelyn scrubbed her eyes and looked out the window, yelping as soon as she did. There, perched on the largest branch of the aspen, sat an enormous white bird. Its eye rolled over Evelyn’s face and hovered there. Its feathers poked out at odd angles, aggressive and disjointed, but it was that eye that imprisoned her attention. Blue and bulbous, the stark black pupil in the very center was bigger than any pupil Evelyn had ever seen, a void threatening to swallow her whole.

In a panic she searched for her cell phone. Where had she put it? She pushed the blankets from her body and they fell in a lump on the ground. She braced herself against the arm of her chair, wincing with pain as she leaned over, searching under her bottom. Grabbing the stubby antenna, she pulled it out from under the cushion and dialed.

“Hello, Bluffton Police,” a woman answered, before asking, “How may I help?”

“There’s a horrible thing in the tree across the way.”

“A thing?”

“Yes, it, well—I have some sense, and I know this sounds silly, but—it’s just so big.”

“Can you describe what you’re seeing?”

Evelyn closed her eyes.

“Ma’am, it would help the deputy to know what to look for.”

“A bird,” she said. “A swan, I think. Injured, it must be.” But the voice on the other end of the line didn’t respond, so Evelyn asked, “Did you hear me?”

“Just a moment.” A short pause. “Ma’am, what’s your address?”

“39 Sunrise Way, just behind the Episcopal Church. My name is Plains Paradox – 19

Evelyn Weber.”

“Thank you,” the dispatch said and Evelyn heard a scratch on that end, some muffled conversation, and the phone line went dead.

She flipped the phone shut with a smack, then noticed with horror the blankets atop the delicate dress.

“Oh no,” she said, but when she nudged them aside and her silver scissors tumbled out, her heart sank. She clicked on the lamp beside her and lifted the dress. Combing over the fabric, she saw the large slash cutting through the skirt of the dress, straight through three of the flowers, two of which she had only just repaired. “Oh dear,” she said. “Oh dear.”

Tears stung her eyes as she shuffled to her bed, laying the dress over its generous and flat surface, the slash jagged and dramatic, stretched out like this. Hours of work, gone. Evelyn lifted her hands to her mouth and let out a small whimper.

What would Eliza say if she saw the dress in this state?

Maybe she wouldn’t try to call again. But a dense cloud billowed inside Evelyn’s stomach at the thought. What if she could never repair the dress? If she never had a reason to reach out after all this time, then what?

A knock at the front door jolted Evelyn out of her thoughts.

Sniffling, she stared through the open threshold of her bedroom door as if it were the door on which the person was actually knocking. The knock came again. Gulping, Evelyn made her way to the stairs and glanced through the muddled glass that paneled the side of the door on the left.

She could see a figure just as it knocked again.

“Hello?” the figure’s voice called, deep and a little hoarse, like a person who’d just been sleeping. “Evelyn Weber?”

Evelyn tried to speak up, but her voice caught in her throat. The front door seemed to get further and further from her the longer she looked at it, the wood grain shifting and slithering in the dark. Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut.

A few moments passed, and the knock, insistent, echoed through the house. “Hello?” A face, round and searching, appeared in the living room window and brightened as it obviously caught sight of Evelyn’s head poking out from over the banister. “Bluffton Police, we received a call about a bird?” The young man waved, causing Evelyn to look up at her bedroom, as if she could transport herself back to the safety it offered. When she looked back at the front door, the policeman said, “I’m going to take care of that for you, alright?”

Evelyn sighed and rushed back upstairs to her bedroom 20 – The Dress

window so she could see. The air outside was yellow under the flickering streetlamps. Unable to look at the swan again, Evelyn watched the officer instead as he walked to the tilted house across the street. He knocked on the red door, and moments later it crept open, yet no one seemed to be there. But when the officer bent down, Evelyn realized he was addressing whoever had opened the door, obviously one of the children who lived there. Sure enough, Evelyn could see small hands gesticulating over the still-squatting officer’s shoulder before more children tumbled out into the lawn, followed by a limping woman carrying a ladder. The officer addressed the woman now, pointing to the swan among the yellow leaves.

The woman looked up, studied the bird for a moment, nodded, and then handed him the ladder, which he steadied under the tree by propping it against the beautiful trunk. Evelyn’s heart beat in her ears as she watched the officer climb up to the bird.

“Careful,” she muttered. “Be careful.”

Evelyn could see only flashes of white behind the officer’s black uniform, wings flapping and struggling not to get caught by the man. The creature was putting up a fight. Huffing, she bustled back downstairs to the living room where she plopped onto the sofa, and clicked on her radio.

“Think my breaking heart could kid the moon,” a voice crooned through the speakers. “What's in store, should I phone once more? No, it's best that I stick to my tune …” Humming, Evelyn rocked along to the song until another knock sounded at the front door.

She wrung her hands and stood, stepping toward the door.

Grabbing the doorknob, she flexed her fingers seven times and turned.

The officer tilted his head and smiled through the small crack she’d afforded him between the door and the jamb.

“Ms. Weber?”

Evelyn craned her neck around the side of the door and glanced at the flimsy lock keeping the screen door latched. She pulled her head back and scrutinized the officer. The roundness in his face was less evident up close, but he was noticeably young. Not even thirty-years-old, Evelyn thought, but kind-looking with soft brown eyes and a dimpled smile.

“I’m Evelyn Weber, yes,” she said.

“Ma’am, I’ve taken care of that bag.”

“Bag?”

He hesitated. “Maybe you should take a look.” He held out his hands, and there nestled in his palms, was a crumpled white plastic shopping bag.

“What is that?” Evelyn pointed her nose at the thing. “What Plains Paradox – 21

happened to the swan?”

Scratching the back of his head, the officer tried another smile.

“I didn’t see a swan, Ms. Weber. All that was in the tree was this bag.”

He glanced up, and upon seeing her face cleared his throat. “Well, I can certainly see how it might resemble a bird,” and then he tried a laugh.

Evelyn furrowed her brow. “No, no,” she said. “There was a swan.”

“No, ma’am,” he shook his head. “Just the bag.” He extended his hand as if he wanted Evelyn to take it from him, to look even closer. She eyed it instead, said a quick thank you, and closed the door.

“A bag,” Evelyn said. “Just a bag.”

She floated into her bedroom and dropped onto the pink chair.

Through the window, she saw the officer walk back to the tilted house, the bag loose in the fingers of his left hand. One of the children ran over to him, snatched the bag, and raced away. The other children caught sight of this, and began chasing the girl who’d grabbed the bag. Evelyn watched the girl, running and looping around the aspen. White blonde hair, so like Eliza’s back when they’d just been girls, whipped around the neighbor girl’s face, strands catching in her open, grinning mouth. The bag, which the girl was now holding over her head, inflated with the wind. Evelyn got up then and stepped toward the window. Her heart flapped its wings, beating harder and harder against her ribs. She fingered the lace trim on the floral curtain, studied the girl for a moment more, then slid the curtain closed.

22 – The Dress

Lobster Boat Kim Adam

Anxiety

Arik Burton

25

Red

Evelyn Rake

Guys— Shut the fuck up—you’re so fucking loud— He’s not the one shouting.

I’m not shouting.

There’s no one close enough to hear anyway— What if someone’s in the building?

Nobody in their right mind would be here.

What does that say about us?

Ha! There! Got it! Did you see that? Guys— You got it— That’s what he just said— Yeah, dipshit.

Fuck off.

I’m sure you’d just love to watch me wouldn’t you?

Snark is a sign of insecurity.

You made that up.

I'm going to go back.

Plains Paradox

You’re a— Would you shut up?

Who, me?

Which one of us are you talking to?

Make me.

Somebody, turn on a light.

You think there’s a switch here somewhere?

I think he means your phone.

Yeah, dipshit.

Shit! Don’t point that in my eyes!

Sorry.

Aww, this is disgusting!

Is that blood?

Oh yeah, didn’t you hear? Some poor girl was murdered here!

Really?

No. It’s probably just shit from some— Guys, look at how old everything is.

Watch your step, there’s a nail sticking out of that board— Hey! look I found a—a— A cup?

26 – Red

No, I wouldn’t call it that.

Quinn, you dipshit, that’s a cup.

You should come up with some more creative insults.

A canteen? Yeah, I’d call it that— Like you could do better.

Or maybe it's more of a flask— I think I saw a rat. No—wait—it’s just Jake.

Oh, see, that was better than ‘dipshit.’

Fine. Let’s bet. Whoever can come up with the most insults before Quinn pisses himself wins.

Deal.

What does the winner get?

Fifty bucks.

Where would you get that kind of money?

I’d sell my body on the streets to honor our bet. That’s how much I value you.

Fuck off.

What’s that?

A light?

It’s blinking.

Wow, really?

Plains Paradox – 27

I didn’t think there was supposed to be any electricity here.

Neither did I. Mark, where are you going?

I want to find where the light’s coming from.

What if the police come in and find us and— Wait I hear something— Hear what?

Sounds like— Shush— Quiet— Guys— Sounds like what?

Shit.

What was that?

It sounded— Fuck, I’m out— Mark, we need to leave.

We’ve only been here five minutes. I’m not leaving now.

What is it? I can’t see anything. Quinn, point the light— Oh my— 28 – Red

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What is it? Quinn, move, I want to— Don’t push— Guys what—oh shit.

Go! Shit!

Fuck!

Jake!

Shit!

Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit.

Oh my god oh my god— The car! Gotta get—the car— Everyone in— Start the fucking car!

I’m trying!

Start it!

I’m trying! I’m try—I got it— Where’s the exit?

Nathan? Nathan? Are you OK? Nathan! Please snap out of it—Nathan?

Plains Paradox – 29

Did you see its eyes? They were blinking. Red. It was just a stupid light. There was nothing there.

Then why did we run?

30 – Red

Hungry Seduction Sophia Zanowick

Poetry

Great Hornbills Sophia Zanowick

35

Aloha

Sonya Almaraz-Tatum

The soft wind rustled, pushing against my back, sense of urgency filling the air.

I continued walking down toward dusk, as the darkness crept up from beneath me.

Clumps began to fasten themselves to the bottom of my shoes working slowly up to consume me. stepping forward I tried to shake away from its grasp.

Still, it clung tight to me, harder I shook my body small pieces broke off, hitting the ground, duplicating themselves, only to ascend once more.

I tried grabbing at it, only it would evaporate in my hands.

Immediately another patch appeared larger than before now, filling up the air around me.

My breathing began to slow as the air grew heavy, unbearable in darkness.

I tried to escape, but such attempts only lead to flailing around.

Unable to stand, I gave in to the darkness.

With every exhalation another piece of my form began to reform, Plains Paradox

twisting up into thin lines of smoke.

Break away from the smoke slapping down hard onto the night floor, duplicating itself, only to slowly ascend– I’d inhale once more.

Through this repetition the night took pleasure.

For me, it was watching the coast line through a train window.

Retreating deep into the night, my mind began to spread over its vast darkness.

Realizing that I was no longer a form at all. nothing, yet somehow a part of everything.

I could feel lifetimes unfold from within me, just as quickly refold, only to unfold in an endless repetition.

The odor of sandalwood began its descent, filling small space between the darkness and the dawn.

A faint beating sound landed near me.

With every pause I felt the darkness wilt, moved to allow the folds within me to continue.

No longer could concentrate.

Wanting the drops to take hold.

With this want, the heavy scented drops began to abstain from me.

The more I wanted to submit, the harder its refined form came close.

As I reached for the scent, it solidified slipping away.

Smell grew smaller.

Efforts to escape, 36 – Aloha

descending further.

I began to fill heavier, and less transparent, air around me light, difficult to breathe in.

Searching furiously for a whiff to return.

Able to stand, I fixated on the scent.

Darkness wilted around, I gave in to a lustrous piece which held a faint smell.

Reveling in the sensation, I was overcome by its taste.

Took it to my lips ever so lightly.

Small flavor solidified, slipped down my chin.

I opened my eyes in search of more.

I soon found a hint, held it gently in my palm.

I stood in a lingered thought of solidification knowing that once more I would hold it to my lips, and it slipped far from me.

Withdrawing from the lack of scent, my mind began to narrow in its restrictive aura.

Fully formed to one thing, part of nothing.

The sensation of a knot formed within me, pulling time tighter, taking on a life of its own, clock counting down to a precise moment.

Flower blooms, I pulled up from the ground.

Peeled back the petals, gathered into a small pile.

Set a large pot to boil water.

Between the dusk to night, darkness to dawn, I drank its nectar. Feeling an urgency to be consumed abstained from.

Forms fold and unfold with in my mind.

I drank in the last petal, unsolidified, ascending and descending.

Suddenly everything was real. Wrapped it too tightly.

Every breath is bated by the unknown.

Coasted air Plains Paradox – 37

moved swiftly along in this state of mine, wished me east when in the west.

Picking up seeds, I laid down in the earth, planting you down once more.

38 – Aloha

Funky Cold Medina Annika Lahr

Plains Paradox – 39

Knot n' Egg Kim Adam

41

Full, Like Skin Camille Taft

I fall out of slumber in the same gradual way that I fell into it, interlaced in the white sheets steeped in pale pink afternoon sun.

The weight of her foot, sprawled across my right ankle, acts as a consoling pressure.

A breeze teases the chimes at her windowsill, and her ivory eyelids, wings of a winter moth, flutter open.

Like shattered glass swept into a single jar, the scattered melody of the chimes finds my ears and stays there.

In another rotation around the pink sun, she may be again napping in this mess of pillows, but my ankle will be miles away from her foot.

The chimes reaching her ears, deafeningly quiet to me.

Now, her head rolls on her pillow to face the delicate white frame of the window; blushed gradient of midday light filters through it to greet her upturned cheeks.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” she says, “but there are so many colors out recently.

It's driving me crazy.

The air is really full, like skin, isn’t it?”

Plains Paradox

Delusions of Athleticism Leo Wheeler

43

School Shooting Recovery Manual Camille Taft

Step one: listen.

Listen to how wind and engines’ rev and tires on asphalt are reminiscent of waves.

Ebb and flow.

Begin and end.

17 more lives to add to the list.

Is God keeping count?

Step two: accept a hug from the stranger in the green tweed coat.

She asks if you’re in high school like it’s synonymous with war, and when you answer, yes, I am, pity fills her bloodshot eyes.

We’re clawing blindly down here on earth, trying to find something to hold on to.

But fingers return empty.

Our belayer is gone, the ropes are slack, the ledge at our feet is crumbling.

Step three: try not to collapse under the weight of the names that never pass the age of 15.

Don’t be surprised by the dryness of your eyes; this is old news now.

Plains Paradox

Pine-ing Around Nova Steward

45

Ode to Cut Flowers Ryan Gould

Spray of Baby’s Breath with white flowers like agape kisses, next to bundles of daffodils, egg-yolk yellow tea cups on vibrant green stalks.

I take you in my arms, inhale your warm Spring scent, cup your buds and carry you home.

A treasure against my chest.

The next week comes, this time it is a bunch of pink hyacinths.

Perfume heavy and ancient in lineage.

His mythos is bittersweet, the jealous love of two gods imposed upon one man, adored to death.

Apollo’s chariot kisses your coral petals through the window of my room.

I wait until the Vernal Equinox to caress tulips.

Their bright bursts of color dance as disco-lights, curved petals flute-shaped to sing their congratulations.

I have made it to another Spring.

Daisies are special in their youthful sweetness.

They are trimmed and twisted into wreaths set upon heads for a few glorious hours, then hung up to dry, an eternal wreath adorned with yellow ribbon.

Sunflowers I save for the Summer heat, though I always long for them in winter’s coffin; their flame-yellow and seed-spotted heads Plains Paradox

follow the sun, remind me to.

The pink of dawn is just around the corner.

Week after week I select a beloved flower, silent sentinels and petal-crowned company, to sit on my desk and enliven my room.

I know the irony in it; they are dying and yet the presence of scented tendrils brightens my spirit.

It is a selfish endeavor, for I never give flowers to another.

46 – Ode to Cut Flowers

Callidryas

Darcy Traynor

Saint Alexandra Sophia Zanowick

49

The Blessed Mother, Angels and St. Francis (after Cimabue) C. Eliot Meakins

13th Century AD: The ichor-lined cathedral invites dutiful vicars to hum,

“Hark! The Baby speaks!

Behold this verdigris grit of Sistine grimaces,

on graying wooden

thrones which push into Mother’s left hip.

Watch the angels bend their four necks

like buzzards to hear

the murmuring child in his misery.

Lest you forget we are holy,

we strain under hefty

golden plates, oversized saucers of

the Church collecting dust from above…

Have mercy.”

20th Century AD: Incense is a cheap commodity. It is hard not to choke on the service.

“So, it is written, so it shall be.

The barefoot bald and rusting.

St. Francis is a reluctant book-bearer.

He listens without a care for

the meaning and thinks he will remember.

He will not.

Only the men in the walls

with dry smirks and tin beards

will know of the Bible baby’s content,

hear the slap of winedark wings

on baby’s backboard,

sneezes held in by sickly faces.”

21st Century AD: The whistle washed walls pull in poets to remark,

“What a dismal hotel is this: Plains Paradox

Bethlehem bellhops scavenge through ledgers of immigrant guests, the heaving chests of religion pregnant with stillborn images, the stagnant pilgrim family in the foyer.

Roman hosts dictate the damages; In each chapeled room a dying pariah, the vaulted ceilings painted with the deadbeating holy horses, the foetid scent of rotting symbols, leftover for rats in the rafters.�

.

50 – The Blessed Mother, Angels and St. Francis (after Cimabue)

51

Pinhole Photography C. Eliot Meakins

light like spears thrown by grecian heros pierces at chinks in the pictures of the world the rich greens echo across the room. in the dry murk-light I am the pinhole ancient excavator and cartograph.

I scratch the substance-saturated paper with summer scenes— cherry trees in bloom keen neon bouquets on the table a stiletto silhouette in the heat. do not come in, they are not done. within this box-camera home the acrid chemical posters document monochrome flashes through a keyhole which lather the film paper with one color of light wriggled through leaves.

I hurry to slap on layers and lacquer as massive hands slide the cardboard proscenium and the sketch is incomplete. all that can be seen from the fourth wall— a bungled carriage of a polaroid my misshapen studio which holds the crumbling citadel of the glass half-full.

Plains Paradox

Figure Study

Victoria Jaspers

53

Dancing on the Clouds Hallie Smith

we go for walks in the heat of the Arizona desert to see something and make facts of it

Cacti have water in their center. I dare you to drink it.

The wind from the trees make their imprints in the sand

like ocean waves in the middle of the desert, it’s God.

God doesn’t exist.

A man jumped from a bridge forty feet in the air and lived,

God exists. we do not fall on the same side of the line we see things differently

Snow is actually pretty pollution.

You shouldn’t eat it even if it isn’t yellow.

The most dangerous place to stand in a lightning storm is near a tree.

The most dangerous place to be forever is in someone’s heart.

I fell in love with the wisdom of your age and your ability to guide me without pressure God will be in your heart forever; he seems to like it there.

God doesn’t exist.

The darker the sand, the sooner the water has touched it.

Write your name here where it’s light.

The waves take everything away. Just give them time. we listen intensely as the other one speaks and peek behind the surface level of every line we hear

There are ten fundamental types of clouds,

but you will never be able to reach any of them.

When you die, God will let you dance on any cloud you want.

God doesn’t exist.

I gaze at the cover above me and wonder, which one are you dancing on now?

Plains Paradox

One Eighty

Martha Connelly

55

Temple

Leo Wheeler

We pass through the polygon, prostrate over our textbooks, petitioning St Joseph of Cupertino: “enlighten my mind, strengthen my memory,” in some faint hope that this plot of land will guide us somehow.

We call it a courtyard, but no, it’s not a courtyard at all, not as Merriam Webster defines it: “a court or enclosure adjacent to a building” Adjacent? Sure, the college wraps around it, hallways joined by this patch of land.

But enclosed? Not quite.

It’s not surrounded on all sides.

One wall is gone and the grass opens into a parking lot filled with the corrugated walls of big beige storage boxes, an abandoned greenhouse covered in dead vines.

The sounds of heavy machinery crisscross, the buzz of the saw as it eats through wood, the whining sander coaxing it smooth.

But no, it is not a courtyard.

It is a face.

Folds and fits of thick green hair recede to a sandy scalp and concrete jaw, all angles and points and perpendicular lines, but for one round white pupil that stares up at the sky.

Plains Paradox

The face passes hour after hour, watching clouds swim across the blue, then for the stars to spring from the great black mass, so it may chart and name its glittering friends that travel from temple to temple to temple.

56 – Temple

Snake

Sophia Zanowick

Cold Weather Tree-tment Nova Steward

59

In the Sweet Stillness Blake Goodwin

Atop a mountainside blanketed in snow, my back to the south-bound trail, icy gusts of wind push through my hair, pinch my cheeks, cleanse my nose with the scent of evergreen.

Moonlight rebounds off the soft white below, filtered through persistent fog.

My three friends and I exchange ear-to-ear smiles.

Our breath billows with every exhale; the smoke of winter dragons as we prepare to melt the valley below with our fire.

In the sweet stillness, interrupted only by the crunching snow beneath our boots, my friends, cocooned in marshmallow coats, pop a cork, release the earthy orange yawn of Scotch.

We pass the green bottle, cheap to some, precious to us, from gloves to lips to mittens to lips to gloves again, until the warmth inside kisses the frost.

We trade hopes and confess secrets between sips, the moon and her sisters listening through the mist.

Though she sits, perched far above, to count more winters, she treats us as equals, that lunar smile of hers, and then the foggy curtain begin to part, and our celestial chaperones beckon us to further spill our stresses.

Each worry becomes its own cloud, floating on our breath, a hazy offering to our sky-bound counselors; overdue rent, dreadful exams, broken hearts— all forgotten—washed away by the moon.

December landscape evolves from familiar to intimate.

Plains Paradox

The weight of our burdens surrender.

We joke and kick snow as we stroll back down the snaking trail, leaving the Christmas-card moment behind.

The moon and her sisters, a sea of constellations overhead, illuminate the road that lies before us.

60 – In the Sweet Stillness

Monochromatic Still Life Emily Moore

Courtney (the yellow) Lauren (the purple) Courtney Saindon

63

Why Black Lives Matter Violet Stoudt

In his grandma’s yard, Stephon Clark.

In his car, Philando Castile.

Outside a store, Alton Sterling.

In the street, Michael Brown.

In his home, Botham Jean.

Tamir Rice, at the park, twelve years old.

Plains Paradox

Against the grain Niko Bortolini

65

Writing a Sonnet Leo Wheeler

I find number nine prefers me to ten.

Each line I write a non-starter.

I pause, ponder, sigh, start again, but I have no sense, nor cash, nor coupon to buy that extra out-of-reach vowel, the one that might mold these words into form.

So I grab my tools, take up my trowel, and sift through dirt and slime and mud and worm to mine for coal, gold, some hard and pithy ore.

I toss aside my trowel, scratch at the mantle with my chisel, my muscles sore.

I search for fragments of truth in this skull, and though I mumble and grumble and moan, the few gems I find make this cold cave a home.

Plains Paradox

Colorful Chaos

Hailee Gruen-White

67

Glass Bird

Kenyon Perkins

I have no sweet words to sing; I grasp reality in my framed talons. Some accept my call. Others look at me with judgement, preening their pretty eyelashes and silky hair.

I rest my wings and take in the world that looks straight through me.

I am a shop window midday. The sun darkens my clear, silver feathers, reflecting the bodies that flock by. My crown captures couples holding hands and humming people migrating to and from nowhere.

Necks crane; I am important. My plumage dims and eclipses my sterling quills into cloaks of hazy ash.

I am a mirror.

Fragile body: hollow bones hold me together.

A thin sheet of glass like an incubator surrounds me. I am praised like a prized partridge on the pedestal of wall, counter, and hand. I swallow them.

I am a glass bird.

I perch on the shoulders of Narcissus, and my wings pound against the crystal walls of my cage.

Plains Paradox

Monochrome Still Life Kim Adam

69

Fifty Cents

C. Eliot Meakins

Fifty-cent selflessness comes at record price.

Fifty cents clinks in tin cups of soup cans empty of beefy broths.

Fifty senses of brightened beggars thank you tenfold.

Fifty scents, vanilla scone gestures raise.

Fifty-cent smiles, smug noses.

Fifty sent necessities for braised sidewalk appraisal, peacocking charity tchotchkes.

Fifty percent selflessness sends Fifty cents of canes across Fifty-second street daily.

You were crossing anyway.

Plains Paradox

Non-Fiction

Battle

Annika Lahr

73

Rose

Evelyn Rake

There, in existence, in being, there it is, there it sat, there it was. Repeat it enough and there it will be, there she will be, returned.

There, there, there.

“Since it’s there, you know.”

Where, you know?

There.

There was once… there is not. There I go.

Are you entirely certain? Well, are you going to?

Are you? Are you?

Bargains are for frustrated, spent, desperate people. They are, in my experience, lopsided too. The one who initiates the bargain usually gets the short end of the stick. It’s a last ditch effort of begging without losing your dignity.

Youth Over Universe

Between myself and my inner consciousness we have the best of times. Between you and me I sometimes question things and their ways.

Between God and me... well, that’s all a question of faith.

LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION.

LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION.

LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION.

LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION.

LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION. LION

Plains Paradox

And so she went shopping and while shopping bought groceries and clothes and books written for cooking and was very content and happy and did have a most splendid and wonderful time. But good things hardly last, and she had to return home. And when she, at last, was back in her home, her feet were tired, and she retired to the settee, and she had just begun to unwind and then remembered that she needed to make dinner for her mother and her husband and her child who was named Andrew. And then, once again, after she had made dinner and unloaded the shopping, she sat on the couch amongst the green and blue and pink pillows made of velvet and cotton, adorned with beads and tassels and lace, and she remembered that she needed to clean the house. So she got up and hoovered and dusted and even hummed a little tune to herself.

And finally done with her shopping and cooking and cleaning, she collapsed into bed and dreamed of grassy fields and blue skies.

Men, I call to arms… and legs? What’s the number for a toe?

An elbow?

stuff the space of cottoned heat veering off a loosened breath safe–a smothered engine anger engaged with ass-kicking

The man had a mustache. He was your man. He smoked a pipe imbued with the ripe pungent smell of clove and citrus. You met him at work, interrupted him while he was reading. You asked him what chapter he was on. “It’s only chapter three,” he said. Your first conversation was awkward and tinted with young attraction, but you laughed out the awkward and smiled and blushed sweetly. Later you married, but both of you must have been plagued with short-term memory loss because the first day into your marriage you forgot your “I love you's” in lieu of rotten screams. He sat diagonally from you while signing the divorce papers, and you realized you were happier without him. You won’t find love again until the coming spring.

74 – Rose

Kill. The act of murder, sometimes done by 1) maiming 2) stabbing 3) poisoning 4) gutting 5) asphyxiating 6) and/or bludgeoning Video did not kill the Radio Star by any of the aforementioned most dreadfully fatal means. Video killed the Radio Star by making it irrelevant to the point of death. I hope never to be killed.

The boy threw the ball, cracked of skin, molding inside, dying.

We are heavy. We are with children. Eating linoleum, concrete, memories. We drive time.

And so the next day when she woke up, she stretched and yawned. And repeated her day, same as the one before.

Eat. dEvOur.ENGulf.scaRFdoWn.iNGESt. bite. cccchew.

GORGE.Feast UPOn. SwaLLow.MunCH.inHale. nibble.AbSORB. DIne.FeEd.PIG out.DIGEST.

The sore in her mouth, beneath her tongue, made her dream of dreadful disintegration made her dream terrible truths blistered and bloody.

The sore in her mouth,

Plains Paradox – 75

You. You sit on that stump, the stump on the rock, the rock that juts out into the lake. You sit silently.

It’s been awhile since you’ve moved, moved positions. In fact, you’ve been moving quite frantically, but you’ve remained seated, there on that stump.

But you move.

You whittle away at a stick. You have been for hours. Your back is hunched and your head bent with your chin sunk into your shoulders, your teeth grating and pressing into each other repressing panicky breaths,

creating diamonds from saliva instead.

You whittle. You just whittle.

And maybe you tremble a little too. A light-headedness comes with the tremble. The tremble takes control of the hands. The tremble swats away at sanity, loosening breath on its way out. You didn’t notice it before but it’s there and now you can't stop it, stop it from its ordained hanging and quartering of your body.

The shape is raw, changing under each pass of knife’s edge. A body. A hound. An offering.

The trembling causes you to slip. A quick miscalculation, unavoidable, actually, but you have no room to be upset.

The shavings are red now. It’s the blood from that slip. Except when you squeeze your eyes shut, screwing the muscles tight, and force them open again, the wood has not been stained. It's just red.

It’s always been red.

You’ve not been paying attention.

But that’s not why you’re there. You whittle. You whittle a stick that changes length and shape and dissipates every other blink of the eye and sniffle of the nose. When your nose drips gold, it slicks your hand and your knife, and you desperately want to wipe yourself clean, but you can’t lose focus, don’t lose focus.

Focus. Do you feel it? Yes, and oh, keep whittling! If you feel it you’re no longer focused.

Don’t pay it attention. Whittle your fingers, break the skin. Slice 76 – Rose

strings of muscle and tendon until they hang limp. Let the fat padding your joints melt and drip to your knees, your feet, soak the earth, the only gift you will ever give. Those fingers your mother loved and kissed when they were young. Spit the diamonds; they don’t sit well in an empty stomach. Or swallow them. Just don’t lose focus.

The sting of a knife’s edge is silk. It’s gone. You tremble.

It trembles.

Behind you now.

You whittle.

Whittle. Only whittle.

No no no no.

Don’t look up. Keep whittling.

No don’t look!

It’s in front of you now. Standing over you. The lake breeze parts around it. Breath warm in contradiction to your body devoid of the usual hot iron igniting your veins. No! Don’t look.

Keep whittling. Out-whittle it. It has to get bored at some point.

Whittle as your bones flake, as chips of them fall to the rock.

Stay on that stump until you’re safe.

And so the weekend came. She rested on the carpet near Andrew and watched him play with a red and blue striped car and a little toy lion with maw wide. Her husband passed in and out of the view of the window while mowing the lawn, and she sighed contentedly for her moment of rest.

Good things crawl in ears. Good things live in livers. Good things are not I. Nor him. Just things.

The magical lifespan of a tortilla chip is five seconds. That of one flavored with jalapeño and lime is ten seconds more. The flavor on fingers after Plains Paradox – 77

fifteen holds no magic by itself. Just that of the joint of them together. Small doses of magic to be sure but magic nonetheless. Magic of lights kept green and emptiness in blind spots. Contrastingly potato chips hold sneezes and chances of rain.

Here, in existence, in being, here it is, here is sat, here it appeared.

Repeat it enough and here it will be, here she will be, returned.

Here, hear!

“-since it’s here, you know.”

Where, you know?

Here.

Here is now… here it is not. Here I go.

78 – Rose

Colored Still Life Kim Adam

Light From the Darkness Victoria Jaspers

81

starcharts

Sydnee Smith

regal: you were sixteen when you and your family flew up to illinois to get the free car your dad’s parents were trying to get rid of. you spent two days in rockford, and then drove back to colorado in the back of the five-person car, the whole fifteen hours shoulder to shoulder with your two younger brothers. the car was from 1992. it was older than you by six years, and it blew your mind that a car that old could run. it was a silver buick regal, and it was rusted on the bottom from the icy salted roads of the midwest. the side frame under the door was falling off. your parents strapped it back on with the strap of a bag. her name was queen. it was your first car, and you loved it. you didn’t get your license until you were seventeen because your parents were always busy and didn’t have time to drive with you the fifty hours necessary to qualify for your driver’s test. it wasn’t until you had summer school in longmont after your junior year of high school—because you failed algebra two (because of a shitty first job)—that your mom could drive with you. twenty minutes there and back. for a month, you drove every day monday through thursday. in that time you managed to get enough hours that you could finally qualify for the driver's test. you had take the test in a car from 2008, and it was so new and alien to you that you didn’t know how to start it at first. the ignition had been replaced by a button that read start even though it came with a key. it had been the day of the final in your summer school class, and you were even more exhausted and stressed because of some bullshit with the dmv, and now here you were, with a third party, in a new car, without your mom, and sick to your stomach. you managed to pass just barely within the margin. you still laugh at the photo on your driver’s license because of your dead eyes and greasy hair. your younger self looks like a tiny drug dealer. you drove that buick every day until you left for college on the other side of the mountains. because your parents thought the parking pass fee was Plains Paradox

too high, and that the car wouldn’t survive the trip, you were forced to leave it behind. shortly after you began school, your parents sold queen. the last time you saw her was before you left for school in august. you were pissed but there was nothing you could do. you loved that car, and sometimes you still miss her. 

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andromeda: the princess stands, chained to her rock, paying for someone else’s sins. she grows weary and weak and afraid as the serpent grows near. she waits for a hero to save her. no hero shows. the beast swallows her whole. the monster intends to kill her. 

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starfinder: you don’t remember exactly when you found the book on your dad’s big wooden bookshelf, but you think you were about five years old. it was a thick book with a dark cover, and blazing across the front was a futuristic spaceship with distant stars and planets in the background. though you were young and didn’t understand what the book was talking about when it came to complex science, you loved the beautiful art that someone had spent hundreds of hours creating. each planet and celestial body in the solar system had been rendered as a god or goddess and your young imagination ran wild, your favorite being luna because of her purple dress and shining bow. toward the back of the book there were photos of planets and nebulas and deep space objects, and for a brief moment, staring at a blurry image of some unknown light source deep in the universe, you felt a sense of how small earth was, and it was scary, but you loved the tingling sensation in your head, and you were filled with this intense longing to eat up all the information you could about space. your favorite part of the book, though, were the two pieces of round plastic at the back, held together in the center by a small eyelet. it had the words MODERN STAR GUIDE written on the top and directions on how to use it. you didn’t know quite what it was for, but you loved spinning the two pieces and looking at the little star shapes it showed you. using your imagination, you pictured the stars in the night sky, like they were controlled by these spinning disks.

82 – starcharts

your grandma, your dad’s mom, who always gave you books as gifts, gave you a book when you were about eight. it was a kid’s book about constellations, and it had lovely artwork for each different formation, and a paragraph about the stars and their mythology. the best part was how the stars glowed in the dark. you spent hours in your room with the lights off and a flashlight in your hand, methodically rubbing the light across the page and giggling as the stars shone, when you should have been in bed sleeping. you tried to use your imagination to see the pictures the book told you about, but it was hard. you didn’t understand how five stars in the shape of a W was a queen or how a coat-hanger could be a lion. that was okay, because at least the art in the book was pretty and the myths were exciting, cooler than the fairytales you were used to. your mother was overjoyed to have a daughter, and while she fed your need for books, they were often ones where the prince woke the princess with a kiss, and they lived happily ever after. 

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sagitta: an arrow is meant to be strung with a bow and fired into the breasts of birds. she uses it more like a dagger and carves a ragged hole in the side of the serpent. it’s messy, but it works. she keeps the arrow in case the hero should appear. 

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platinum: the second car you had was bought shortly after your high school graduation from a nice older couple for around $4,000. coincidentally enough, it was the same make and model as your previous car but ten years newer and a different color. it was supposed to be a family car because your parents bought it “for you kids,” even though you had been all set to spend your own money on a different car you’d found on craigslist—a white crown victoria from 1995—that you could call your own. your mother forbade you from buying it, and that was the end of the story. despite the fact they intended to sell your old car, they were adamantly against you calling this new platinum car your own. this annoyed the hell out of you. they would tell you, over and over, that you couldn’t claim it as your own because of your brother, parker, who had just turned sixteen in march and got his license shortly after and that you two would have to share. in the end, it really didn’t matter. you were gone for school the following august and without a car.

Plains Paradox – 83

while you loved your old piece of shit car, this new car kind of grew on you. it ran better, that much was true, and it had proper shocks, so you didn’t have to worry about destroying the underneath on a big pothole. the radio worked, too, which was something you had forgotten about because parker broke the radio in your older car by jamming a cassette tape in the player. what was really exciting, though, was the fact that this newer car had seat heaters. though it was bought in the summer, it was nice when you drove earlier in the morning or later at night and could flick them on to keep yourself warm on the otherwise frigid leather. you didn’t get to drive it much because you still had your older vehicle, but you would often volunteer to go to the store with your mom, or the five of you would pile in on Sunday mornings for church. you knew to never turn the passenger seat heater on high because it was already so hot on low, for a reason your family could never figure out. unfortunately this car could not escape your brother’s habits either. parker blew out the bass in two of the speakers by listening to the punk rock CDs you bought him for Christmas with the volume cranked almost all the way up. you almost regretted feeding his rise against needs. at least the stereo still worked. 

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pleiades: an ancient mariner stands on the deck of his ship, training his eyes on the stars. seven sisters to guide him home. now the girl stands in the middle of a field. will the sisters guide her to safety or to adventure? only time will tell. 

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dog star: when you went off to college in grand junction, you were surprised by how quickly you made new friends. it helped that you were in marching band, even though you were stuck playing trumpet (which you despised), where it was easy to meet new people who for sure had at least one shared interest with you. the first person you became friends with was a girl named kaya. you became quick friends over a couple of midpractice dinners where you found out that you shared a lot of interests and hobbies, including art and video games. kaya had come to the school with two friends from high school, who were also in the band. before you knew it, you had a big enough group of wonderful people to call friends that you had to sit at the larger tables in the dining area in order to fit 84 – starcharts

everyone. it became commonplace to all go to dinner together and sit for hours, and then to walk around campus at night, laughing and talking and enjoying each other’s company as you navigated pale sidewalks that crisscrossed and encircled buildings. halfway through your first semester, kaya and one of her high school friends invited you to join their dungeons and dragons group. you were ecstatic. you hadn’t played the game since your junior year of high school, and it was an honor to be invited to their table. the dungeon master, justin, was someone with the ability to easily do different voices without instantly breaking out into fits of laughter, and someone you had become good friends with due to your shared love of video games (mostly zelda). you met for d&d like clockwork every saturday at 6pm in justin’s dorm room where you’d all play for two hours before unanimously deciding you were all hungry because you hadn’t eaten dinner, so you’d take a break to walk to the university center for cheap, greasy burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches and more curly fries than stars in the sky. if you close your eyes, you can still taste the blackberry soda and ranch-dipped fries. you’d all sit around the small tables and wait for everyone to get their food, while attacking one another with straw wrappers like blow darts. then the party would trek back to the dorm room and continue the game for another two hours or until someone had to leave because they had to be up the next morning. outside, underneath a dome of black and silver, you would say your goodbyes, and head back to your dorm building while the winged horse flew overhead. at some point, you became determined to find the means to play an older video game that you couldn’t find in stores or online at a reasonable price. one night, while lamenting about this at dinner, justin informed you he owned a copy of the game and was willing to let you play it after d&d ended on saturdays. your d&d schedule changed slightly as a result. instead of walking back with the other players, you’d stay after to play the game for a couple hours, muttering obscenities about puzzles and panicking whenever a rotting or mutated corpse tried to kill you, which would cause justin to laugh and tease you. after you died enough, it would be time to head back to your dorm, and justin would refuse to let you walk the short distance across campus alone. you were never very good at killing the monsters.

Plains Paradox – 85

it became a ritual for the two of you to make the trek, reliving the past six hours you’d just spent together, as if the other person had been absent. on one occasion, you stopped him and pointed up at the stars, or rather, one star in particular. it was bright, blue, and had the smallest shimmer to it. pulling him down to your height and physically pointing to it, you told him, that’s sirius. you could tell because it twinkle faintly. you read that in the constellation book your grandmother gifted to you back when you were a child. feeling an old familiar tingle, followed by a wave of excitement, you pulled your finger across the sky. there’s orion, you said, and do you see that red star, right there? where? right there, if you draw a straight line from that star, it’s right there. oh, i see it. now look just a little above it. do you see that V of white stars? yeah, i do. that’s taurus! that’s my favorite constellation. 

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argo navis: ships are made to be worked by a crew, not a single person. sailing alone is difficult and scary, and repetitive. good crews work together and depend on one another. the girl finds that good crewmates also make good friends. sea serpents seem less frightening now. killing one should be easier. 

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garlic butter: after coming home from school the following may, you got a job at a new pizza place that had just opened where the secondhand clothes store used to be. famed for its better ingredients and better pizza, garlic butter, and the uniforms, which consisted of a red polo and khakis, you worked nights delivering pizzas in the car that wasn’t yours but became yours anyway because you needed it for your job, and because your family became reluctant to drive in it because of the perpetual pizza smell. you became used to driving for long periods of time on dark roads where you could barely read the street signs and watching sunsets from the driver's seat as you chartered pizzas across town, watching the sun on your hands turn gold, then orange, and finally fade as the sun dipped below the mountains. summer ended. fall began, and you started classes at a school much closer to your house and much cheaper than the school in grand junction, the school too expensive to pay for without your parents’ help. killing monsters was never your strong suit. your classes were in the evening, which excluded you from working during the week, but you 86 – starcharts

didn’t mind it. you preferred classes to working late nights as a driver. astronomy was your favorite. it wasn’t until late autumn that you remembered to look at the stars again. summer constellations were harder for you to find, and it wasn’t until you spotted the brilliant light of sirius one night that you remembered to look up. without thinking, you flicked your eyes across the inky expanse to orion’s belt, and then even farther to the red eye of taurus. venturing a little further, you could make out seven tiny little stars, and knowing that those were the pleiades, you smiled, the seven maidens you wrote a poem about in an english class the previous year. without meaning to, you would take a moment during your deliveries to sit outside your car and gaze up, finding the maidens and using them as a good luck charm for safe driving. when you got the chance, you would still pull aside anyone you could, your family or your friends, and lead them across the sky, from sirius to the pleiades, telling them about every star in between. 

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libra: a body cannot live on fight and flight alone. it needs rest. it needs peace. the girl drops anchor and settles in. a nap will do her good. she can already sense another adventure on the horizon, like salt on sea air. 

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you had gotten into a fight with your youngest brother, chandler. words had been fired back and forth and when you backed away, he attacked again. you don’t remember what started it. you just remember the hate. you remember being hateful back. you remember the tears. you couldn’t handle it. you grabbed your keys and left your house, and you could see your brother run down the driveway as you pulled away, the porch light bouncing off his short blonde hair. you just wanted to be alone. you ran away like the coward you were. leaving your phone on silent, you drove across town to a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, somewhere you’d found on a delivery. you stopped the car and stepped out, then climbed onto the hood, hugging your knees to your chest and bawling your eyes out in the cold, february night. you cried until you Plains Paradox – 87

couldn’t cry anymore tears, and you finally slipped back into the driver’s seat. you turned the car on so you could listen to the bangles cassette you’d already listened to a thousand times before, warm up with the seat heater, and stare out your open window at the dark sky. your dad was the one who came and found you, the locator app on your phone his beacon. you left it on because you wanted him to come. you saw his headlights as he pulled up behind you, and you watched him in the mirror as he approached, long legs making short work of the distance, his gait graceful but worried. he looked in through your window and asked if you were okay. you nodded, then got out to hug him, sniffling. you apologized over and over for worrying your family and for scaring your little brother, who thought you were going to die, and your dad laughed, reassuring you that it was okay. after a minute, he looked up, and pointed at a star. that’s sirius, right? he asked. you nodded, and he smiled. think you can drive home? yeah, i think i can. pulling into the driveway, you saw your little brother get out of the car with your dad. you hadn’t seen him on the dirt road, but he tagged along. he walked over to your car and gave you a sad look, then hugged the side of the car. when you still didn’t get out, he wrote I <3 U on the dirty window with his skinny finger, and you laughed. stepping out into the cold night air, he hugged you as tight as he could and apologized for being an asshole. you laughed again and hugged him back. it’s okay, I still love you. really? really, as long as the stars shine. 

88 – starcharts

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End of the Day Wine Kim Adam

Amanda

Emily Moore

91

The Sound of Wild Carrot and Clematis Leaves Camille Taft

A smile tugs at my cheeks. The paper in my hands feels precious; I carefully trifold the letter back in its preset creases, and slip it into my coat pocket, as the words settle on my mind.

I must stop since we need to get this to the post office.

Love you, (and will talk again soon).

Grandpa

I can tell this farewell was scratched by hand–a hand that at eighteen years old I know well, his knobby knuckles and wrinkled skin.

Just the thought of it brings some refresh to my body, the vigor of a heartfelt goodbye.

I look down the gravel path that leads home and breathe in the spring air and the timid scent of the Blue Mustard weed sprawled across the fields and threatening the edges of the road. I turn and run. My legs feel willing and my steps grow wider with each step, a Fibonacci series of momentum. When I read the letter, I imagined him telling me those same words, seated in the pale green light of his jade kitchen window in North Carolina, and I’d seen his eyes the most clearly. Embedded in a canvas of tan weathered skin, they were dark and inviting.

My pace slows as I reach the cement sidewalk that trails the paved road to my house. To my left is the red brick house with brown shingles, the spring buds of the clematis just beginning to envelope its structure. 

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“You know what that is, Camille?” he’d said, leaning on the cane in his right hand and gesturing with the top of his bald head toward the plant.

We had that fitting ratio of eight-year-old child to adult at the time, where his hand hung at the ideal height for mine to reach up and be tenderly wrapped in it.

“The purple one?”

Plains Paradox

“Yes, with the vines that’s climbing up the brick.”

“No, Grandpa,” I’d said peering at it. Despite my ignorance, I attempted the posture of a curious young university student, as if I could stare long enough to produce the name from the deep green leaves and deliver it confidently to him.

“The clematis plant. We have those everywhere in Hamburg.”

“It’s pretty,” I said.

“What was that? Would you mind speaking up?” Nuzzled into his ear, his hearing aid could do little to combat the effects of time, and I had to employ a certain amount of eye-contact and then intention in my voice to get the point across.

“It’s PRETTY,” I said again, tugging on his arm, I rose to my tiptoes, my mouth struggling to reach his ear.

“Oh, ha!” he said with a muffled laugh and turned to look at me.

“I think so too.”

I felt the apples of my cheek flush in the midday summer sun, and I settled my feet flat as we continued down the street. Later that day, my brother was to have a baseball game, and at home, in between raucous, chatty conversation with my grandma, and quieting the whimper of my little sister, my mom was preparing salad, hot dogs, and watermelon for the team’s banquet. My older sister had a few friends over and they were playing a fast-paced card game in the front room, shrieking every time someone lost. When my grandpa sat at our kitchen table, his eyes glossy, he chose to ignore the overlap of sounds that coursed through every hallway, ricocheting acround rooms. Like a palette with too many colors mixed together, he seemed unable to focus on the chaotic smear of noises that each begged his attention. That’s why when I caught his eye and we walked outside, I could see his relief. Wind through branches, a jade green. Birds in the trees, a deep blue. These simple sounds were all we needed to focus on. 

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We called these our nature walks. The first one came about when I was an impatient six-year-old squirming at my grandparents’ kitchen table in Hamburg, New York. He was drinking instant Folgers coffee from a flowered mug and eyeing me over the newspaper in his hand. His coffee breath was strong, and I wrinkled my nose. He caught the impatient tapping of my bare feet and the way I stared at him, trying to make my eyes appear doleful and bored. Tucking away his newspaper, he pulled me 92 – The Sound of Wild Carrot and Clematis Leaves

out of my chair and took me outside. We walked through the lush fields of his greenhouse, settled in the acres behind their three story home, a landscape with an unending number of plants to learn. In the following years, the walk down the suburbs of my home in Colorado when he and my grandma had come to visit when I had just turned eight, and then the country lane I visited at sixteen when my grandparents moved to a two bedroom home in North Carolina, we had to scrounge the lawns for subjects worthy of study. But on that first walk, the abundance of his property left me wanting nothing. The white flowerettes of wild carrot nuzzled their way between the rows of greenhouses, and when he told me the name, I remember thinking how remarkable it was that something could have both the function of food and the equally important function of beauty. 

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Now we correspond primarily through letters. I’ve gotten into the habit of writing mine late at night after a day of school and work, the residue of the day still settling on my skin. My apprehension is low and my thoughts and dreams run freely through my pen, before it is sealed up with no proofreading, a postage stamp slapped across the upper right corner of a crisp white envelope. When I receive a return letter, I recall the rabbit trails of philosophy, religion, and feeling I had offered up, carnage of eighteen-year-old thoughts evident on the page, the structure of my last letter scrambled and incomplete, yet he meets it with a response equally as whimsical, nostalgic, and dreamy, and my momentary embarrassment vanishes. 

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Even if we were again sitting at the same kitchen table in North Carolina that I did when I was sixteen, we would need to be writing back and forth, since his hearing was practically gone by then. His demeanor, even before deafened, was always pensive and calm, a fitting complement for my hectic leanings. I had to consider my thoughts before scrawling them on the smooth surface of the pocketbook wipe-off board, and this often presented a new clarity to our conversations. That’s how we sat this last time, while my cousins yelled across board games in the living room, and we wrote about Stephen Hawkings, the galaxy, and nature. We paused before using his handkerchief to wipe the board clean, to smile at each Plains Paradox – 93

other.

This was in North Carolina at their new house. They’d moved in just a month before, and after settling in, we found a route for a new nature walk covering probably twenty blocks. He had his walker with him and the way was slow, crunching gravel when we crossed the street.

If he thought of something to say, he’d stop and turn to yell it at me.

I would smile and nod. Everything he said was smile worthy and nod worthy. Most of the walk passed in silence. In the absence of conversation, I listened to the birds, a dog barking down the street, the rhythm of our slow footsteps on the cement. The wind rustled, distant and austere through the rich green hills a ways off, the occasional rush of a car, a tabby cat’s meow as it poked its head around a white-sided home. Once we passed a house and the T.V. blared out their front window with a static monotony.

As we turned a corner on the far side of the neighborhood, an elderly woman with long wayward silver hair, yelled from her porch.

“Chuck! Chuck!”

But Grandpa kept walking, eyes intent on the path in front of him. I laid a hand on his shoulder and nodded toward the woman, who was now scuffling down her driveway toward us.

“Oh, Elaine!” he bellowed.

She rushed up with a wide smile and laid both hands on my grandpa’s shoulders, staring straight at him. “I’M. BRINGING. SOME. COOKIES. BY. LATER. FOR. AUDREY.”

I could see him processing the words, trying to form the sounds in his mind and match them to her lips. A smile of recognition passed his face.

“Oh, she’ll love that!” he yelled back. I couldn’t help but to smile, standing small between the two. They crossed a lot of barriers of language to communicate, and I was softened by their loud pronunciation and determined faces.

“Elaine,” he yelled to get the woman’s attention, and once he had it, he pointed at me. “This is my grandaughter Camille,” he said. Then smiling at me and gesturing to his friend, he said “And Camille, please meet Elaine.”

I extended my hand and gave her a wide smile.

“It’s good to meet you.” I meant it, she seemed wild with seaweed hair that rippled at her thin shoulders, her cheeks sunken from smiling a lot, and then frowning a lot more. Her eyes were a deep blue, and sparkled, whitecaps of ocean waves. She told Grandpa to give 94 – The Sound of Wild Carrot and Clematis Leaves

Grandma her best wishes and again that the cookies were coming. Then in the same blustery fashion that she’d come, she said farewell, hobbled back up the driveway, and slammed the front door shut.

Grandpa turned and started his way toward home. Before rounding the corner of the sidewalk, however, he stopped, staring deeply into the green forest that surrounded the western edge of the neighborhood. Three geese called and flew overhead.

“You know, Camille,” he began, still facing the looming green of the trees, “Elaine’s son committed suicide a few months ago. And she still brings cookies by for your grandma and I.” He looked down at his walker; what little was left of his feathery eyebrows were drawn together in contemplation.

“I think it’s a terribly unjust thing to have to bury your child,” he said, “And even worse to have to bury him because of something like that.”

He brought his head up to look at me, and suddenly my cheeks burned and tears welled the corners of my eyes.

“You know, I can’t hear all too well anymore and it’s hard for me to walk around, and I do miss Hamburg and my greenhouses. It sometimes feels like a dream, our years there. But I’ve got your grandma, and I’ve got you and your dad, I’ve got grandchildren, and a home, and my God, and every day I get to sit on the porch and watch the black squirrels chase each other up and down and up and down the way. And you know what, Camille?”

A bird chirped.

“I think I’ve got it pretty lucky,” he said smiling, big, goofy, toothy, and the furrow of his brows dissipated.

When we got back to the house, I sat and I wrote down everything I’d listened to. The birds, the tabby cat, Elaine, the geese, the gravel. Then with a kiss on the soft and loose skin of his hand, I pressed it into his palm. Across the top I’d written, “Sounds From Our Walk.” 





I still send him written records of sounds in my letters to him. The same wind through branches, birds in the trees, and cars rushing by as he heard when I was eight. My eldest sister has moved out and my little sister no longer whimpers, but our house is still as loud as that frenzied summer afternoon. I feel the colors of sound overlapping sometimes, my brain muddled with too many choices in the spectrum to focus on. I Plains Paradox – 95

step outside, pass the brick house, and I can hear each individual sound, clarity of color. I write them down and send them to him. He often writes back to me like I’m an old friend. He reminisces of when he and my grandmother were my age. Young, in love, and scared. I, at least, am young and scared. I don’t always know what to do with the sounds or with the act of noticing them. Whether they are tied to a piece of writing, or used to inspire a dance, or to be shared with someone else, they are there, reminders of color and of kindness, the world’s language that compels me on. Grandpa says he thinks about us living on a big ball in space along with millions of other planets. At night I sit on my roof with the crickets humming and street lamps buzzing, taking notes for my next list, watching each star as a ball in space, revolving, swirling, but otherwise tethered. He writes and says he saw a clematis on Elaine’s porch; I write and tell him I saw wild carrot in the field across from my school. He tells me in his most recent letter that he keeps a list of all his neighbors that he’s met, so he can recall their names. He keeps it in his wallet with my letter of sounds, he says, and pulls them out daily to read and reread so that he won’t forget either.

96 – The Sound of Wild Carrot and Clematis Leaves

Walrus

Sophia Zanowick

A Leg Grow

Shash Dimson

99

Free-Fall

Blake Goodwin

Like the half-second of panic after missing the last step on a staircase, or the fluttering heartbeats of anticipation that follow asking your crush on a date, life exists in between moments of free fall. Listening for a whining car engine to finally turn over, or closing your eyes during a visit with the doctor, waiting for a damaging diagnosis, those reccurring “oh shit” moments force you to stare at nothing and wait for the fallout.

Time slows down, and every half second turns into half of forever.

Flash back to Halloween of 2010, when I experienced the free fall moment that dwarfs all my others, or, more appropriately, chews all the others up and spits them out. What I used to think of as an infinitely large basement was the go-to meeting spot for my group of friends. My group of pals consisted of:

1. Matt, the natural hockey talent.

2. Taylor, the light-footed soccer player.

3. Trever, a home-run swinging first baseman (also my best friend).

4. Myself, the cocky pitching ace.

Trever’s mom agreed to have the whole gang over to go trick-ortreating, and like every group of thirteen-year-old hellions on Halloween, we were up to no good. Heaping helpings of candy further fueled our hyperactivity, and we had the perfect storm on our hands. In accordance with typical thirteen-year-old logic, we had created a pastime to capture our attention in between stuffing our faces with Reese’s. The game would be dubbed “Sock-ball,” and the rules were simple:

1. Picture a game of home-run derby, minimized to fit a one-

thousand square foot basement.

2. Substitute a baseball for a wad of smelly gym socks, and a bat

for a broken pool cue stick.

3. Cram four teenagers way too close together.

As misfortune would have it, it was my turn to pitch, and Trever was up to bat. My tongue hung from the side of my mouth, and I began my intentionally overdramatic wind up. Upon delivering the pitch, my life changed forever. Trever always swung for the fences, and one hard cut is all it took to send the splintered pool stick spinning toward me.

Plains Paradox

Oh shit.

I inhaled. The pool stick rotated in the air, its chipped, black paint blurring like a helicopter blade. The room began to shrink. My feet turned to cinder blocks. I exhaled. A sound reminiscent of a prize fighter jabbing a raw side of beef with his fist echoed off the basement’s cement walls as our sock-ball bat smacked into my lower abdomen. I hit the ground faster than Matt could say, “Shake it off,” and Taylor could say, “Stay down.” Welcome to the fallout.

In a frenzy, I half-crawled, half-stumbled toward the stairs.

Pain radiated from my midsection, pulsing throughout my entire body.

My breathing was sharp and irregular, and not a single object in my line of vision maintained solidity—it seemed as though the earth itself was swaying back and forth, quicker with every heartbeat. I felt hands gripping my legs and back, then I was floating. On the walls to my left and right, I saw two shadows carrying my own up the stairs, one taking up the rear to spot the other.

We reached the main floor, and my friends cried out for the nearest adult. Panicked, I crawled for real this time to the bathroom and slammed the door behind me. I sat on the cold hardwood, fixated on the goose bumps popping up on my arms. The pain grew larger than me, its weight pinning me down as it stabbed into my stomach, punctuated by the bass drum beat pounding inside my skull, reducing the voices outside the door to a slow groan.

Sweat drenched my clothes and hair. Careful not to make the pain worse, I peeled off my shirt and my jeans to inspect my wound. I cringed, expecting to see a bloody mess—but there was no blood—and to my great relief my skin was not broken, although my gut had bruised a deep purple. The optimist in me didn’t stick around long as the searing pain continued to skyrocket, consuming all my attention. My mind travelled far away, beyond the confines of the bathroom, to a rainy day at Coors Field. I sat there for my entire life, watching the pool cue sail toward me—my free fall moment glued to the jumbotron on endless, instant replay.

Three sharp knocks on the door dragged me back to reality. I made out four words among the chaotic conversation outside: “Your dad is here.” I sat up onto my knees and cracked the door. My father towered over me, and holding out his hands, he urged me to get up and come home with him. My eyes traced the lines in the driveway as we walked to his truck. He helped me into the passenger seat and drowsiness set in.

There are several important rules to remember when you think you might be dying: 100 – Free-Fall

1. Don’t fall asleep.

2. Don’t puke in the car; it’s impossible to clean.

3. Don’t bother giving an answer to the question, “What

were you thinking?” It’s impossible to remember.

4. Don’t fall asleep.

5. Take note of every second that passes between red and green

lights, and see that there are more than usual.

6. Don’t let any sweat drip into your eyes. It stings.

7. Don’t fall asleep.

A century later we made it home. My dad helped me onto the living room couch, and somewhere along the way, I was given a robe to cover my nakedness. I’d left my clothes in Trever’s bathroom. My stomach felt bloated, inflating more by the second, and before I could ask for a bucket, I barfed up the half-digested remains of the fast food smorgasbord I’d eaten earlier that day. What was once considered cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets bled into the off-white carpet.

Stomach acid and Reese’s peanut butter melted together with the fries and unlimited refills. It looked about as sick as I felt. Next thing I knew, we were back in the car.

We hauled ass to the emergency room. The scenery outside the windows was a blur, and my dad’s truck was the fastest in the world. I heard the crunch of the asphalt underneath our tires. Yellow traffic lights counted as green, and even red ones appeared green if you looked hard enough. My dad’s face was so white, I could practically see through it.

Maybe just rest your eyes for a few minutes.

Don’t fall asleep.

My dad dragged me to the reception counter of the emergency room at Longmont United Hospital where I braced myself, face buried in the crease of my arm to keep the blinding light and unrelenting background noise at bay. I forgot everyone I knew. Only myself and six or seven doctors and nurses existed in the whole world, and they knew me better than I knew myself. My new friends led me down a long, white hallway to a cold examination room. Question after question bounced off my ears, but I heard nothing. In my aching haziness, I greeted every inquiry with the same answer: “Please make it stop. My insides hurt.”

My consciousness jumped around. Mom and Dad appeared seemingly out of nowhere at my bedside, both wearing worry on their faces, my mom’s cheeks stained with running mascara. Every specialist and nurse vacated the room for a moment, save for one doctor, who was tall and lean with thinning gray hair and a five o’clock shadow that stood at the foot of my hospital bed. His eyes darted back and forth from my chart, to my parents, to me. In an expression of sympathy, he pulled down the edge of the scratchy, white blanket to cover my exposed feet. Becoming Plains Paradox – 101

my favorite doctor, he then described my diagnosis, but I only heard four words:

1. Internal.

2. Bleeding.

3. Intestine.

4. Surgery.

Confused, I nodded my head, pretending to follow along.

“Please make it stop,” I said again. “My insides hurt.” Only minutes later, I got my wish, because the nurses stuck me with a needle and the pain started to fade into the background. The ceiling tiles and lights above passed by like shooting stars as I was swiftly escorted to the operating room. “Count backwards from ten,” the surgeons said to me, as one of them held an induction mask over my nose and mouth. My foremost rule—don’t fall asleep—moved to the back seat as anesthesia filled my lungs. The bright lights of the operating room blurred with the sterile, pale green of the surgeons’ scrubs until everything faded to black.

An eternity later I woke up, but it didn’t feel like waking up, because what I experienced didn’t feel like being asleep. My consciousness was simply absent, and I was enveloped in a void of dreamless nothing.

This is what I imagine death is like, and I never experienced a sleep so intense and horrifying.

My body was immobilized in the hospital bed by the plethora of pain killers swimming in my veins. Needles protruded from both arms in multiple spots, with intravenous tubing delivering the medicines in perfect time. My eyes traced the length of the I.V., and I tilted my head to examine a thicker tube coming from my nose, making myself go crosseyed to do so. A pulse reader hung off the end of my pointer finger on my left hand, and for a moment, I imagined I had died on the operating table, and the doctors resurrected me with experimental advancements in cyborg technology, that I was now more machine than man. My feelings were exaggerated and amplified by the morphine drip, and my imagination jumped to irrational heights, but it was realistic to feel less human than before, given the circumstances.

Before long, I was moved from the post-operation room to a designated recovery room a few floors above. Nurses wheeled my bed down the hallway to the elevator, my parents trailing close behind. Soon we all came to a stop in my room, and with my parents, I was once again reunited with my favorite doctor. He enunciated his words, and spoke at a deliberate speed to help me understand him. Despite my best efforts, I still couldn’t absorb all the information, but five things he said stuck out to me:

1. I wouldn’t be capable of playing sports for several weeks. At least.

2. The blunt force from my collision with the pool stick had 102 – Free-Fall

ripped a dime-sized hole in my small intestine, and then

another hole four times that size in my abdominal wall.

3. If my dad had taken me to the emergency room even one

hour later than he did, I most likely would have died from the

internal bleeding.

4. I flat-lined three times during surgery (I never found out why,

but some questions are better left unanswered).

5. I should focus all of my energy towards farting, because

farting meant my digestive system was working again, which

meant I could eat real food.

The fifth thing made me smile for the first time in what felt like forever, and my parents and he shared a laugh, further solidifying his spot as my favorite. He left the room when he finished speaking to my parents and me, and before the door could even close behind him, my mom started tending to my every need. A mother on a mission, she fluffed pillows, dusted the window-sills, and made certain the nurses never drifted too far away from my immediate attention while my father called relatives and family friends, alerting them of my condition, and negotiating the proper times for visitors. The rising sun shone through my window, making the room feel warmer. For the first time in what felt like a long time, I knew everything would be alright.

There are several important rules to remember when you’ve narrowly escaped death, you’re high on morphine, and waiting to fart in a hospital bed:

1. Sleeping will scare you, but you need it.

2. If your mom asks if you need anything, the correct answer

is yes. Make something up if you have to. She will always need

to be needed. Ask her to fluff your pillows or scratch your back,

and tell her you love her when she stays up late watching The

Sandlot, Rookie, The Natural, and your other favorite baseball

movies with you.

3. When people visit, thank them for being there, but keep it

brief. Morphine makes people say really weird things, and you

don’t want your friends telling stories about your bizarre

behavior. It’s nice the guys came, but they’d already seen you

damn near naked in your tighty-whities back at Trever’s, and

they didn’t need to see your bare ass every time the physical

therapist insisted you get up to use the bathroom once the

nurse took out the catheter (another matter of its very own).

4. Sleeping will scare you, but you need it.

5. Memorize the faces of your loved ones, their mannerisms,

their smiles, because one day will be the last day. Instead of

rolling your eyes every time your dad makes another fart joke, Plains Paradox – 103

let yourself laugh, because deep down, you know it’s actually

pretty funny. As for Mom, let her kiss you as much as she wants,

even if you think she’ll embarrass you, or stamp red all over your

forehead and cheeks (after all, when the guys visit again, you can

always lie and say it’s from when the night nurse, Barbara, kissed you).

6. Don’t try to force a fart. It’s exhausting. It’s way better to let

Mother Nature do her work. When you get the chance, let it rip.

See if you can’t wake up Delores, the nocturnal old lady in the

room next door, who likes to watch reruns of The Golden Girls

in the middle of the night.

7. Sleeping will scare you, but you need it.

Moments of free fall are inevitable in life. Whether it be that unsure moment of stepping on the gas, and hoping you make it through an intersection on a yellow light or a phone call from a loved one with bad news that makes your stomach drop. Moments like these force time to slow down; force you to stop and wait for life to throw you a curveball. These moments when your feet can’t find the earth tend to make you panic, make you uncertain of what the future holds. They laugh in the face of life’s rules and turn them upside down, but they can also keep life interesting, and keep the spirit grateful.

On the eighth anniversary of my free fall moment, I found myself at home with my family, feet securely fastened to the ground. The day started almost the same way as the previous seven Halloweens; I woke up, went to work, went to class, then came home and stayed there—not out of fear (this is important to remember, always), but to be with the same people that were by my side that night. When I got home, my parents and I turned on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and waited for trick-or-treaters together, occasionally sneaking away from the TV to steal a candy bar from the bowl by the front door (I still chose Reese’s, believe it or not). My dad and I tasted Oktoberfest beers, and cracked jokes back and forth, some punch lines still involving farts. At the end of the night, I ate a slice of pumpkin pie, topped with far too much whipped cream, then retired to bed, counting my blessings as I drifted off to sleep.

104 – Free-Fall

Life Goes On

Katrina Schmid

Left or Right Clay Koenig

107

A Letter to Me From 2016 Jelissa Torres

Dear Me,

I hope you're reading this letter five years from now. If you couldn’t help but peek into your Google Docs account and click on the document labeled “DO NOT OPEN,” then you're either really depressed, or you just couldn't help it anymore. In your junior year of high school, you had just finished binging 13 Reasons Why on Netflix and had been listening to the song “Shelter” by Porter Robinson and Madeon. I'm writing this letter for no particular reason, but I’m sure you're going to find a reason to read it in the future. I started thinking about what to change in our lives like taking walks or finding new friends, but I couldn’t stick with anything. Then I remembered the night before the school assembly and the music practice.

In the show, Hannah killed herself, and you were thinking of doing the same. The show was a trigger. Sometimes, I kind of wish you did just take a shit load of Advil, to ruin your intestines like the dozens of Google pages said it would. After watching that scene from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air you wouldn't stop crying and almost came to that conclusion.

I keep thinking about how fucked up you must have been, that a small scene like that was what almost made you do it. Remember? It was the scene where Will’s dad leaves him again. After all the shouting and trying to prove to himself that he was fine without his dad, Will finally broke down. Maybe it triggered all the sadness you were carrying and reminded you that you were alone. You were lonely, and there was nothing you could do about it.

Your dad left you, your brother wouldn't listen to you, and your mom could only care so much when you kept pushing her away without knowing why. She’d work her ass off as a housekeeper, working nights at the Colorado Athletic Club down in Boulder, and she’d still ask you how your day was when you got home.

You sobbed your eyes out the night you watched that scene from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. You stared at that white bottle with the liquidPlains Paradox

blue gels, like they were gems—thinking it wouldn't do or solve anything, but you wanted to take them anyway. You grabbed a handful of tissues and blew so much snot out that it was almost funny. You went in the bathroom to look at yourself in the mirror. You felt like an attention hog, but honestly, you needed it. You needed someone—just anyone to notice that you were breaking down like Will.

Even though your brother was right next door, his room barely twelve inches away from yours, you kept yourself from getting up and going to talk to him. You left him alone because he needed his sleep for work in a few hours. He used to be an industrial mechanic who would get up at 3:00 a.m. and worked overtime till 4:00 p.m. Your tired mom was in her room just past the living room. She got home late, as usual, and watched TV by herself in her room till she fell asleep. Her door open, as always. You were in the hallway leaning against the wall, moving back and forth, chickening out continuously and repeating to yourself, “Don’t do it.” Don’t trouble your mom with something stupid like this. You kept sobbing, almost begging for her to hear you cry, but you didn't want to bother her again.

You realized, the next day, that she really didn't want to listen to your problems.

The day after your hallway fiasco, she busted into your room to wake you up and saw the tissues thrown everywhere. “Are you going to school?” she asked, like she did every day. That day you just couldn't. You hid under your blankets and told her—not that you didn’t want to go, but that you weren’t going. You couldn't burst into tears around your friends and the teenagers you barely knew in school.

I can't remember it clearly. Did we go back to sleep? As I’m writing this now, I’m crying, so I'm thinking that was one of the hard parts of the day I wanted to forget. I do remember Mom coming in and saying, “Well, if you’re not going to school then you’re going to clean.” She told you to clean up those tissues, never asking why they were there, and to clean up the mess that was your room and the bathroom. You cried and cleaned for an hour.

You hid in your closet again, so your brother wouldn't be disappointed when he found out you didn't go to school. You still do that when you break down—it's the cozy corner where you question whether or not to call the suicide hotline.

Today you’d go through your contacts: Mom, Goyo, Dad, and debate whether or not to call 911. And you’d hug a billion stuffed animals and remind yourself that there was no one to call because no one cared.

108 – A Letter to Me From 2016

Your brother is living with his girlfriend in Berthoud now and is busy with his work and your mom is usually the reason you're crying in your closet in the first place. Your friends were never really friends, and they still aren't. It’s almost like they’re place holders for real friends in the future. Then there’s your dad, who has enough children to worry about.

He lived all the way out in Aurora with your step mom, two half-sisters, and step brother. When he’s not working in another state, he’s putting all his time and energy into them, even though you were there before all of them. There’s always Gael’s soccer games to go to, all those Mexican parties to attend even though you’re made fun of for not even knowing the language, and Geraldine’s and Grace’s happiness before yours because you’re the oldest sister now—you had to give up the spotlight and treat them like a big sister would.

That morning, your mom yelled at you about your attendance at school, but you’d heard it so many times that the lectures all sounded the same. You took the trash out, cried outside by the stairs, and when you came back in you cried more, giving in and crying in front of your mom.

Even she started crying and tried to hug you, but you pushed her away and somehow got yelled at again. She said, “Oh great, now I’m the bad guy,” because it suddenly became about her when you didn’t say a damn word.

That's what happens when we break down in front of people— we freeze and never say anything.

Like the time at the King Soopers pharmacy. You didn't know shit about prescriptions, but your mom sent you in to get hers because she was too tired. You went in with no idea what to do or say to Jennifer, the pharmacist who shared your moms name, who you’ve known since she was a staff member at your elementary school. Your social anxiety kicked in, and you panicked, because you thought you needed to do something specific to get the prescription, and because there was no cell service to contact your mom. When you finally got a hold of her, she gave up and stomped in to do it herself. You thought you were going to burst like a balloon full of nerves. You weren’t sure if you were having an anxiety attack or what, but your mom scolding you didn’t help you figure it out.

It’s the small moments that stick inside your head and weigh down on you later. It gets you thinking, “Everyone hates you,” and that's what you thought for a long time. And in that moment, in the kitchen, when Mom tried to hug you and you pushed her away, you thought the same thing.

After that mess, you got your clothes on, got your bag, and Plains Paradox – 109

rushed your ass to school because that suddenly became your safe haven.

It was already your last class of the day, but you didn't care. You told yourself that if you cried, you cried; there was nothing you could do about it.

So you speed-walked, and your friends saw you walking up.

Brooklyn even ran to you to make some stupid joke about you being late, but as soon as you got one word out, you sobbed right there in front of everybody. Brooklyn was never good with tears, so it was Tess and Emily that comforted you till the next bell rang—Brooklyn just stood there awkwardly, but you didn’t mind because you understood exactly how she felt.

People hassled you about not being in school. “Where’ve you been?” and “You know you’ve missed like two weeks, right?” was all you heard when you got to class, but thank any and all the gods, there was a freaking music assembly, so the class shuffled down to the tiny auditorium to watch it. It was almost a showcase for the music department at Silver Creek High School, showing off the choir kids and future actors and actresses in the drama club. Your friends complained about the terrible singing and dancing while you tried to laugh it off. You always tried to laugh and look at the good things. Now we've gotten use to finding reasons to complain about people instead of looking at the positive. I think the reason was because swim season ended, and we weren't doing anything productive with ourselves anymore.

You got worse by the end of swim season. You hyperventilated in the middle of your last race, your backstroke race, running into the bathroom afterwards and repeating, “I don’t want to be sad again,” in the stall with your back up against the door it to keep people out. At the banquet celebrating the end of the season, you felt like you got the mandatory participation award. It reminded you of the time in middle school math when you got an award for never paying attention.

The day kept on going with never-ending singing and dancing.

After school you looked through your phone and tried to find someone to stay with for that night, fearing that if you went home, you’d have to face the monster that was your angry mom. You almost called your cousin Kendrick, because you thought you’d be bothering anyone else in your phone. You chickened out, never texted, and ended up at home anyway.

Mom got there at the same time you did, finding you on the porch and apologizing to you with pizza. She always apologized after she yelled at you. The constant shouting and apologies broke us down into a cycle of unhealthy anxiety, and whenever she was nice for too long, you knew her anger wasn’t too far behind.

110 – A Letter to Me From 2016

When things were okay with Mom, bad comments from other people found their way in, and everyone seemed to have something to say about you. That year Brooklyn said you had a lot of anxiety. Your brother told you that you needed to attend school and be responsible. You were told you needed a break by your math teacher. You were told a lot of things, but what you needed was someone who listened, and who didn't judge you for your personality. You never cared what other people did so why did you deserve crap for what you did, or for what you liked?

You started seeing a therapist after that day. You and Mom figured it out. In that discussion you sat down and told her, “I was thinking about killing myself last night,” but you couldn’t even finish that sentence without crying. She told you, “I’ll set up an appointment for you to meet with someone soon.” She did everything in her power to get you that therapist, and you’ve grown and learned so much about yourself that you could never learn through self-help YouTube videos.

You wanted more than anything to have someone listen to you, so you were so happy that you got help. You've been thinking about showing this letter to Luz for over a year. You could schedule an appointment with her when you needed, and if you had to take an hourlong bus ride get there, you would.

You liked it when your brother took you, and you liked it when Martin, Mom’s friend, took you. Your brother asked you not to kill yourself, even though you couldn't speak Spanish and have a conversation with him. Martin got you soda and candy—he was always getting you and Mom food because he worked at three different restaurants in Longmont.

It was the simple shit that made you happy. It was the small shit that got you down.

If your reading this, even if it’s a day or a year later, then please cry. Please let someone know there's something wrong with you. I can guarantee that you’re going to add to this (you already have), and if no one will listen to you, then I will. I will reread this over and over again and remind you that even if it takes five years, you will feel better and love yourself all the more.

You will be free to like what you like, be the weight you want to be, act the way you want to act, because that is who we are, and like everyone else in this world, you deserve to be who you are.

Jelissa, I love you. I, of all people, know those are the words you need to hear.

Love, Jelissa :)

Plains Paradox – 111

Collapse and Desperation Sophia Zanowick

113

If Audubon had Painted Loss Violet Stoudt

Remember when you would take me to Waterworks Park to watch the deer? The park that surrounds the baseball diamond and the ivy-covered tennis courts. They put in new playground equipment a couple of years ago. You would like the extra space for kids to be active outside. Then we’d cross that metal bridge with the flaking red paint to go out to Rockwood where we’d look at the boats on the dock. You’d identify the birds we saw.

Like the Belted Kingfisher, a rarity with its white neck, gray-blue body, and a rust-colored band across its chest. Then we’d go inside the little Lake Rockwood Marina & Restaurant and we’d each have an ice cream cone. I still remember peering through the glass case at all the bright colorful flavors, yet I always got the soft strawberry and you the crisp chocolate, both on cake cones.

What more could a six-year-old ask for? 





Things fell apart after I moved to Boulder, Colorado to start college. It was August and Grandma and Dad were fighting incessantly, and Aunt Jen had returned to Morrison to help take care of you. I tried my best to stay in touch, but I was quickly losing touch with reality as I spun into my first real hypomanic episode. I was homesick, but still I wanted to stay far away from our crumbling family. 



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Remember when you taught me how to ride a bike? I was seven years old that summer. It was the day of the city-wide garage sale, and the family across the street was selling their daughter's old bike, and what became my first. Pink and purple stars were scattered across its frame, and you were the one to run down Maple Avenue next to me as I learned to balance, then lift off. Another rite of passage you were there for. I know Grandma was there too, jumping up and down in the driveway, cheering in the glaring June sun. After I’d improved, we would ride down to French Plains Paradox

Creek Park to fly around the mile-long circle that wrapped the prairie grasses, that landscape that flowed with a sky of smooth lines like Georgia O’Keefe’s.    I started flying back to Illinois less and less, and the times I’d see you, you were less and less yourself. I tried to tell you about my life in Colorado, about my wonderful new friend Ella, how we’d bonded over Jon Stewart, how much you’d like her, but your attention faded, and you looked past me without seeing. I wanted to ask your opinion on my course of study as I was conflicted that engineering was really the right path for me, but you didn’t understand and sometimes your blank stare crushed me. Your blue eyes had dulled. Before they were filled with light, always ready to make a joke.    Remember when we would ride out to DQ and get a quart of vanilla for Grandma and a quart of swirled for us? Then we’d all sit at the glass top table in the sunroom and listen to the birds. You and Grandma named them just by listening to their songs. “There’s the mourning dove. You can always hear them as the sun sets.” I can still hear you sing that familiar call: “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee.” 

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Eventually, you moved into a memory care facility called Windsor Manor.

You probably don’t remember them building it, but it’s out by the new baseball diamonds off Route 30. Grandma was furious, so was Aunt Jen and Uncle Tom, but Dad felt better, and Aunt Liz funded it from afar—I don’t think she could handle coming back from Colorado either. Coming back to a small town means having to explain everything you have done with your life so far, compounded with the loss of our family’s bedrock—I don’t blame her. I only saw you there twice. Once we brought Lila’s brandnew kittens for you to see, and you smiled a lot. She’d gotten them from Santa, and they crawled all over you and the whole room. You always loved cats. You’re the one who taught me that “the way to a kitty’s heart is by scratching under their chins.” Your room had a hodgepodge of family photographs and a trophy for your being first in your age division on a bike ride along the Mississippi. We all wanted it to be as much like home as possible. I wish I could remember more about that moment. It’s just a 114 – If Audubon had Painted Loss

splash of conversation in my memory. 

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Remember how we would fill up the bird feeders in the backyard? We’d go into the garage and open the deep trash can that you kept filled to the brim with the shiny black sunflower seeds. The crisp smell still sends me back to those moments. Then we’d go back inside and watch the birds celebrating and maybe we’d even get lucky and see a Baltimore Oriole with its striking orange feathers. I wish I could show you the bird feeder I got about a year ago. I didn’t have a nice backyard then, just a tiny balcony.

Now I rent a little house with Ella that has a huge maple tree in the backyard. There are lots of flower beds surrounding it. I called Grandma a few times to get tips with the roses. I wish I could call and ask you how you started your tomato garden. Do you remember it, and how I hated tomatoes unless they came from your garden? I’m still picky about them. 

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Grandma got in a fight with the management at Windsor Manor. Things got bad, and I did’t want you to have to know the details—I wished I didn’t. Supposedly, Grandma shoved the owner. Although she claims it never happened, she had to spend a night in jail. I got my second Minor in Possession charge that same weekend. I’m so ashamed to tell you that, even now, but I wanted to forget more than anything the idea of my beloved grandma sleeping behind bars, and our family unwilling to help her get out. I went up into the mountains for a camping trip with my new friends. It was beautiful. We arrived as the sun was setting over the tall pines, painting the sky orange. I’ve never drunk so much, chugging cheap Smirnoff. It burned but didn’t come close to hurting as much as reality did. Back in Illinois, Dad had to make sure you were safe and could stay at Windsor Manor. Grandma couldn’t visit you for a while. I knew it wasn’t right, but I didn’t know how to help from so far away. And I was falling apart too.    Remember when you taught me how planes flew? We were sitting in the dining room under the big chandelier, and I was eight years old. You were such a great teacher. Everyone knew it, and they still know it. I still get, “You’re Jack Stoudt’s granddaughter, right?” and then the dependable Plains Paradox – 115

spiel: “He was my teacher in high school—because of him I ended up becoming an engineer for Caterpillar,” or “that’s why I decided to be a teacher,” or “because of the radio station he built in the high school, I found out I wanted to work in radio.” Hell, you were teaching teachers how to teach. Of course you were good. Sitting at the north end of the dining room table, in the chairs with wicker backs, you taught me the simple principles that made airplanes fly—“The Bernoulli Principle,” you said. You compared it to how a bird could lift off the ground. I still remember your simple descriptions of how the force of the air under the wings would help the plane to lift as the engines sped up. The plane couldn’t help but to take off. You always believed that someday I would too. 

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Dad went to court every couple weeks so you could stay in Windsor Manor, trying to get power of attorney. I learned a lot of legal jargon about restraining orders that year. Eventually, Grandma could visit, but it had to be supervised. She loves you so much. You two shared fiftyfive years together, three children, four grandchildren—family was your everything—but the few times we’d talk she’d tell me, “My own children don’t trust me to take care of the man I’ve loved for over fifty years.” I hated it for you both. It never felt right, but I was so far away. 

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Remember teaching me how to play pool down in the family room with its bright yellow walls? Just one example of how you taught me to love and appreciate the simple pleasures of math—how to angle the stick, line up the shot, and then hit the cue ball in just the right place. I got good. I played pool a few months ago in a bar (it’s weird to tell you I was in a bar) and ome guy tried to teach me how to play. “You’ll want to pick solids or stripes. Then, on your turn, try and hit those ones in.” He absolutely assumed my friends and I didn’t know how to play because we were women. He didn’t know I was always stripes, and you were always solids. I could’ve hit him. 

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By spring, Dad couldn’t keep you at Windsor Manor anymore. He wasn’t able to keep up with the court appearances, and it was too much to fight 116 – If Audubon had Painted Loss

his own mother in court. You went back home. Aunt Jen was there to help. By that point, Mom and Dad had separated and Dad was a ghost of himself. He’d lost so much weight and was constantly wandering around town. He started drinking again, after fourteen years being sober. It scared me to see him like that. I know it must’ve scared you to see him like that.

I hope you don’t remember those times. Things were bad. I don’t think Grandma could admit it, but she couldn’t take care of you even with Aunt Jen’s help.

I was in therapy again. I’ve had some really great therapists here in Colorado, and some really great friends. I could not have survived the collapse of our family without them. 

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Remember how you always helped me with my last-minute projects for school? Like the bulky white wind turbine, we made for my sixthgrade science class? We went to True Value and picked up all the pieces of PVC pipe you masterfully melded down in your little workshop in the basement. We made quite a few stops at the hardware store—I still remember the smell when I walked through the doors there on Main Street and walked up the four little stairs. A mixture of clean rubber and freshly mixed paint. I wish I could take you to the hardware store here—it has a similar smell. I’ve made myself a little toolbox too—I think you’d be proud of how handy I’ve become, but I wish I could still learn more from you. Dad always reminds me how you built a whole house with your grandpa. I wish I could hear you tell the story. 

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I don’t know how it happened—who convinced who—but finally they brought you to Colorado. My safe haven from our family. But it wasn’t really you anymore, and that made me hurt in a way I’d never hurt before. 

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Remember the big Audubon book you and Grandma kept in the sunroom? You’d use it to show me what birds were visiting and singing to us that day. Remember how special it was if we saw an Indigo Bunting?

Did you know their relative, the Lark Bunting, is Colorado’s state bird? I wish you, Grandma, and I could go out and try and spot one together.

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You were in Colorado just an hour away, but in almost every way it wasn’t you. Still, Aunt Jen would say, “It makes him so happy to see you,” and maybe that was true. At that point I was spending most hours in the little office for the Colorado Democrats. I talked for hours to strangers, but I spoke so little to you, someone who used to know me better than I sometimes even knew myself. I tried whispering about it to you hoping I’d get a glimpse of understanding from your eye. I know you would have approved of how I was spending my time, but that’s not an excuse for how little I came to see you.    Remember how you and Grandma always had Blue Bunny Ice Cream?

How you’d always joke about it? Remember how you’d say, “I saw a little blue bunny hopping by and suddenly our ice cream appeared! That’s how it got its name you know?”    You were in Colorado just an hour away. I was a bad granddaughter.

I hardly ever came to visit. I was bad. I was a disappointment. I was unstable again. I had to withdraw from classes again. Once when I visited, you were angry with me. I don’t know if it was just a bad day, or if somewhere deep down you knew I wasn’t taking care of myself. You referenced me being on drugs, and it terrified me because it was true. I was smoking weed constantly to try and numb myself emotionally. Maybe you knew, maybe it was coincidence, but I still think of it every time I smoke. 

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Remember how you would always come to every single one of my volleyball games, no matter how far away it was, just as long as you didn’t have work? For six years, every fall, you were there. Now that I think about it, I bet you just left work early. You were always there to buy me a water after the game. Even freshman year, when the rest of the stands were empty, you were there.

You were always there. 

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When you started leaving us, our family fell apart. I hope you don’t remember how I let you down. They never even had a funeral once your body left. Grandma hadn’t made it out to Colorado in time to say goodbye in person, and Aunt Liz and Aunt Jen held that against her.

She hadn’t made it out to Colorado more than once over those couple of months. But we all know she has agoraphobic tendencies. That’s why you always did the grocery shopping. She had lost the love of her life, so how could we blame her? Then certain family members weren’t going to be allowed to come, ultimatums were made, and it ended with nothing being done at all. All those lives you touched, they never got a chance to say goodbye. Our family didn’t get a real goodbye. We’re all still broken. 

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Remember when you and Grandma would drive me out to Colorado to see my cousins when I was six? As we flew down Interstate 80, we’d practice being able to pick out different birds' songs with that CD you had. I’d sit in the backseat of the Rendezvous, snuggled up with Grandma while she read me one of the many Burgess books as you drove through the night. Who would have thought that we would both end up out here? 

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I’m about to finish up my Associate degree with academic honors. I wish you could be there to see me graduate. I have to give a speech since I’m our Student Government President. Grandma said she’ll be there, and I really hope she’s up for it, but we both know she probably won’t be. I’m going back to CU in the fall to double major in Women and Gender Studies and Political Science. I’ve been really politically active since Trump’s been elected. I’m president of the Feminist Club on campus. I’d give anything to talk to you about our world now. I’m grateful you don’t have to see our country in the state it’s in, but I know you’d be hopeful.

You’re where I got my optimism from.

You were a teacher through and through. You taught me to believe in myself—I wouldn’t have made that first visit to CU Boulder if it weren’t for you. I wouldn’t have flown back to Colorado when things fell apart after my first try at leaving the nest. Like all those little birds that you adored, you not only taught me I could fly—you showed me how.

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