Folio: Lucidity

L U C I D I T Y

L U C I D I T Y

Lucidity slips into focus. Time slows and despite the never-ending noise of life, all that can be heard are your thoughts. The truths of the past and present become obvious, the path forward is clear. Grasp as you may, this dream cannot be held onto fully. The clarity creeps away silently and you find yourself just as you were. Here.

Left with a memory that appears clear in the mind until it is attempted to be put into words. To undertake the curation of such elusive ideas is a hope that they are realized in permanence.

Lucidity: A creator seen, a feeling recognized.

Don’t forget to explore more amazing works published online at SLCCfolio.org © 2023 Folio Literary Magazine, Volume 24 #1. Folio is an award-winning literary and arts magazine compiling artistic pieces from students, staff, and faculty at Salt Lake Community College. The works included in this spring semester 2023 edition, “Lucidity,” are published with permission from their respective creators. All rights are reserved by this publication and the creators whose works are published in “Lucidity.”

Folio is curated, edited, formatted, designed, and published by SLCC students and Folio editorial staff. This edition is intended for free public distribution and is not for sale.

Cover design by Samuel Wilson. Inside cover collage designed by Samantha Stubbs using submissions by students of ENGL 1830.

Fonts used are Servus Slab and Acier BAT. Contact folioslcc@gmail.com for information on enrolling in ENGL 1830: Literary Magazine Studies—the class that produces Folio.

Special Thanks To: • • • • •

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Folio Advisory Board: Ron Christiansen, Jessica Curran, Jeshua Enriquez, Kerri Gonzalas, Kati Lewis, Cris Longhurst, Andrea Malouf, Carol Sieverts, and Virag White Professor Jerri Harwell, Chair of Department of English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies Dr. Roderic Land, Dean of School of Humanities and Social Sciences Theresa Adair and staff at SLCC Printing Services All of the SLCC students, faculty, and staff who shared their voices and creations with Folio!

ENGL 1830 Students/Folio Staff Saturn Davenport Benjamin Eisenberg Summer Marriott Finnegan McDonough Georgia Peterson Sienna Stern Samantha Stubbs

Student Design Editor Samuel Wilson

Student Literary Editor Miriam Nicholson

Folio Faculty Advisor Dr. Daniel Baird

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Lu-cid-i-ty noun

/lōō · sidədē/ 1. Clarity of expression; intelligibility 2. The ability to think clearly, especially in intervals between periods of confusion or insanity 3. A presumed capacity to perceive the truth directly and instantaneously Origin: Latin luciditas meaning light, bright, clear Lucidity is often associated with clarity, the ability to understand or comprehend something clearly. In literature, it is a theme that is commonly explored, and one emblematic symbol of lucidity is the rue flower. The rue flower, otherwise known as Ruta Graveolens, is a bitter herbaceous perennial plant that has been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. It has a bluish-green foliage and blooms with small, yellow flowers in the summer.

Throughout literature, rue has been symbolic of grace, clear vision, and fresh starts. The meaning of the rue flower is a powerful concept that can help us navigate difficult times and rebuild our lives after tragedy and trauma. By cultivating an attitude of grace, we open ourselves up to new possibilities and can begin to create a fresh start for ourselves and our communities.

The Spring 2023 issue of Folio beckons forth “Lucidity.” Floral motifs and an emphasis on human growing pains creates an ever-glow atmosphere of therapeutic clarity. Cloaked in a violet haze, our cover choice gently masks the busy of the brain. Every aching thought and loving memory, evenly weighted against a tranquil exterior; rue and all.

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table of contents: Editors’ Choice Poetry: Anonymous 3 “Recuerdos,” 74 Creative Nonfiction: Brittni Bergstrom 3 The (Con)undrum of (Pro)creation, 116 Photography: Daria Khajavi 3 Blue Eyes, 23 Fiction: Katherine TDR Prince 3 Rue Shale True, 1 Visual Arts: Spacequeen 3 Masking (collage), 67

Literature Arik Yand 3 What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger? 108 Ashley Wilson 3 The Longest Night, 92 Autausaga Danny Feleti 3 Equal, 18 Autausaga Danny Feleti 3 One True Love, 37 Benjamin Eisenberg 3 Dear Samuel, 24 Caleb England 3 Wandering Soul, 7 Dallen Williamson 3 Overcome, 72 Daria Khajavi 3 Deciduous Me, 2 Daria Khajavi 3 Niku, 43 Daria Khajavi 3 Pieces, 4 Elizabeth Snow 3 EX, 58 Evan Lujan 3 Stargazing, 113 Gabriel Holm 3 I Don’t Wanna Go To School, Because I’m Sad, 65 Georgia Peterson 3 Lattés Are a Matter of Life and Death, 104 Heather Grahame 3 Faltered, 14 Heather Grahame 3 What Remains, 103 Heather Grahame 3 Alibis, 55 Justin Smoak 3 Sun Eater, 20 KaylieAnn Brown 3 Wonder, 95 Melissa Wamsley 3 A Candle For Billie, 88

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Miriam Nicholson 3 Rain, 29 Miriam Nicholson 3 The Big One, 90 Miriam Nicholson 3 The Fountain of Youth, 9 R. R. Smith 3 Mixed, 78 Rachel Nguyen 3 I love you without an “I Love You,” 48 Samuel Wilson 3 12 Hours, 84 Saturn Quinn 3 The Corpse in my Grandfather’s Bed, 31 Saturn Quinn 3 The Flight of Birds, 97 Saturn Quinn 3 The Unwitting First, 39 Shams Al samarrai 3 The Emotions of Summer, 59 Sienna Autumn 3 Ancestral Knowledge, 75 Summer Marriott 3 A Coward’s Curse, 112 Suzanne Williams 3 We Are Having A Baby!!! 5 Vanessa Flores Rodriguez 3 Gone Too Soon, 15 Vivian Fackrell 3 The Snail, 68 Yasmin Ochoa 3 Don’t Be Sorry, 52 Gabriel Holm 3 A Self-Deceptive Dreamland 120 Arliss Mitchell 3 New America City 124 Autausaga Danny Feleti 3 Pain, 126 Bonnie Jensen 3 Pills in a bottle 127 Tony Coccimiglio 3 The Best LEGO Piece Ever 129 Brian Carlson 3 The Fall 134 Talicia Porter 3 To My Child 138 Christina Beers 3 What Do You Say To Death 140 Chendryx Reyes 3 Where I Am From 143

Art Brisa Aguirre Jurado 3 A Day at the Beach (digital art), 64 Brisa Aguirre Jurado 3 Sweet Death (digital art), 19

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Cristofer Beltran 3 Street Silhouette (photography), 28 Cristofer Beltran 3 Salt Lake Street Photography, 13 Daria Khajavi 3 The Lack of Mental Health Funding (collage), 71 Finnegan McDonough 3 Bull Oil (monotype ink print), 36 Heather Grahame 3 That Sinking Feeling (photography), 14 Keelee Lough 3 A Night at the Winds (photography), 8 Larissa Silveira 3 Natural Beauty, 3 Miriam Nicholson 3 No Parking (photography), 30 Paige Joy Ney 3 Escalate (photography), 42 Paige Joy Ney 3 Fresnel (photography), 89 Raissa Fernandes 3 Amazon Beauty (colored pencils and digital background), 83 Rogelio Pena 3 Female Glamour (photography), 38 Samantha Stubbs 3 Pins and Needles (multimedia), 87 Samuel Wilson 3 Sweet Hearts 199X (photography), 57 Spencer Diaz 3 The Hands That Hold All Things (digital art), 77 Rogelio Pena 3 Female Nature & Beauty (photography), 145 H.E. Grahame 3 Mercurial (photography), 146 Hermia Ounleu 3 Snow (photography), 146 Fiorella Contreras 3 Squirrel (photography), 147 Daria Khajavi 3 Time Flies By (photography), 148

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Rue Shale True

By Katherine TDR Prince (Editors’ choice: Fiction) A good beach house did not the capitol make, in the end.

No sand remained then, only grotesque marble. There were no gentle waves, only defiled Potomac. Neither were there seashells, the things long since dissolved—in their place was left only plastic detritus, refuse, not a thing more.

And, ah, there was certainly no company, either. No, the company had long since left, grown tired of it all—of the stink and of the smog and of the shit. They had taken their baroque furniture, been sure to evacuate their immaculate portraits. One or two or three bits of parchment, too, but for that had there been little regard to begin with.

The House wondered just how long it would be ‘til those righteously liberated things got auctioned like knickknacks, like toys long discarded—like, for example, all the rest. But there came no more men or women or besides to carry such words, to deliver it these twisted truths.

It sat and it watched and it waited. Waited for the occasional metal fleas, come to take pretty little pictures, images to purchase commodities by dozens, to purchase in bulk some pity hollow. They grew sparser, sparser still, as the House waited long years and years, as mired skies grew darker, darker still.

It wondered whether Lincoln found the waves kissing his loafers more agreeable than his visitors last, wondered if his seat, too, had begun to dull and soften and forget its meanings told.

Oh yes, indeed, the House’s pillars had long since lost their fluting, been reduced to mockeries of whatever had first been doodled on cheap papers.

And, when again it reflected, it could not help but to think, “I am true, so long at last.”

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Deciduous Me

By Daria Khajavi I am deciduous I change with the leaves and watch them wither I am never evergreen However it may seem I am deciduous You will never know I’m turning into ashes, until it’s too late Some say that change is my fate I am deciduous I fade away with the wind I am carried away And continue to fade away Although I watch the scene of change play out And look at it like it’s beautiful It’s a beautiful pain That will not cease for even a moment’s gain Change does not stop for anyone So I continue to fade away That’s me, deciduous me Now you see that no one has won I am deciduous I mold with the wind I cease to exist on and on And yet I always come back in autumn to fall again

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Natural Beauty by Larissa Silveira

Pieces

By Daria Khajavi Roly-polys in Sunday sunlight Rain streaked cars and covered windows Sweeping hills where I strung a kite And a princess canopy warding off mosquitos Snail homes and hotels built meticulously And “I love you’s” whispered innocently Small pieces Time decreases To remind us that everything will leave us

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We Are Having a Baby!!!

By Suzanne Williams

Alan left to play golf, and I am still wrapped up in the cool comforts of bed. He left with a passing kiss on the cheek.

Pregnancy has caused my sense of smell to be elevated, and Alan smelled of coffee and coconut sunscreen. I miss the taste of coffee, and I feel a little envious. All of the “baby books” tell me to avoid caffeine for a healthy baby. I also feel vindication that after all the years of being a “nag,” he slathered on some sunscreen before heading out.

Knowing painful sciatica radiates from my back to my knees, and sometimes beyond, my husband bought me a “pregnancy pillow.” The cover had the same feeling as my favorite blanket when I was a child, and I feel at home when I lay in it.

We live with Alan’s parents, Steve and Susan, until we find a house. Susan is more concerned with cleanliness than how a home feels. The walls are white, the sheets are white, and the comforters, you guessed, are white. The vibe of this place resembles a sterile hospital ward and not a home. The sheets are rough and ironed with a hint of starch. But I am a guest, so Alan tells me I can’t object.

As the sun wakes me from the crack in the hardwood shutters, I feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. I wrestle out of the burrito covers and shuffle to the bathroom.

As I round the corner to the hall, I start to pee my pants, and a puddle forms on the carpet. I quickly cross my legs to make it stop, but it won’t stop. I hold them as tight as I can, but the puddle continues to grow. I feel my face flush with anger and embarrassment as I realize I am wrecking Susan’s white carpet.

My mind races, and I realize my water has broken. I think, “Oh no, I am going to be a mom.”

“Okay, I need help, but Alan is at the golf course. Ugh, I hate golf.” I take a deep breath and call, “Susan, will you come here,

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please?” That voice is not mine. It is about an octave higher than usual, and I think my voice just cracked.

From the kitchen, I hear, “Are you all right, dear?”

I shake my head and think, “I can’t stand it when she calls me dear. I am not a woodland creature.” Susan rushes into the hall with a dirty towel and a worried look. She looks at me, the floor, and again back at me, her eyes open wide, and her mouth turned up into a smile. She grabs me tight in all my soggy self and yells, “We are having a baby.” She then runs off, I’m hoping to get Steve, but I am not entirely sure what she is doing.

The door from the garage to the house makes a distinct squeaking sound, and I am relieved to see Steve at the door. He yells at Susan, “What is going on?”

She grabs his shirt and again announces, “We are having a baby.” She again runs off.

I asked Steve to bring me a towel from the bathroom, and he did. I place it over the puddle on the floor, hoping to sop up the mess and feel better about myself. Alan looks much like his dad, so I feel comforted when he walks up to me. He asks me, “Are you ready for this?”

I tell him, “I’m not sure.”

He puts his arm around me, and we walk towards the door. His low, calm voice tells me, “Yes, you are.”

Before Steven and I get to the car, Susan rushes past us and opens the door. She is trying to remain calm, but the ecstatic look on her face gives it away. I tell her, “Thank you,” as I fall into the car.

Susan again grabs Steve by the shirt and blurts out, “We are having a baby.”

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Wandering Soul

By Caleb England Drifting, past bars and cities, looking for something easy, some kind of soft retreat, Nothing looks like home, and home was sweet.

Drifting, and does life turn to nothing?

No, she whispers softly, the winds’ whispers were sweet.

And if I can’t find something easy, what then will it be?

If home, forever behind me, what’s this before my feet?

The path that’s winding jagged, the one that waits for me.

Home now, forever behind me, a new home at my feet.

Not room to look behind me, not room for a retreat, The journey beckons softly.

And once when I did listen, she sang her song to me The song it’s writt forever, inside my heart it beats.

At home at last and weary, and scars upon my feet, What journey this, of journeys, What songs that I can’t sing.

And she did wait the while for me, her arms a soft retreat.

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A Night at the Winds by Keelee Lough

The Fountain of Youth

by Miriam Nicholson Corina’s shadow was her only companion as she set out into the maze. Many had tried before her, but few had succeeded. The fountain of youth was such a rare thing after all. Each step she took was harder than the last. But she had to keep going, she needed its waters. As she stood at the ominous entrance she could hear her doubts almost audibly.

It’s not worth it. Turn back. Accept your fate.

“I can’t. I’ve come so far. I need this.” She placed her hand on her stomach and felt a faint kick. “I have to.” Her weak steps into the maze felt stronger in her mind.

It had been two weeks since the doctor had delivered the news.

“This baby will kill you, you should abort.” But Corina couldn’t accept that. It had taken her too long to get here, too long to get pregnant.

She could hear her friends and family in her mind, urging her to listen to the doctor. “It’s not worth it! You’ll be leaving your husband to raise the child alone! There’ll be other pregnancies!” but she shut them all out. They didn’t understand. They would never understand.

At the fork she took a right, attempting to leave her shadow behind. The past needed to stay in the past. The vines had grown over these walls, nature attempting to bring down what man had created. The fountain most would say is unnatural, a fool’s errand.

When all had seemed lost an old friend had contacted her and let her know that magic wasn’t dead, just moved. Told about this ancient maze, in Ireland of all places. Filled her head about the fountain of youth that would cure her, so that both her and her baby would survive. She believed her. She had to.

Corina quickly fell into a trance like state, taking every right in

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her path. Was this the right decision? Her husband had urged her to stay home saying she was too sick to travel, as if he was saving her life. But how could she kill something so innocent?

So alive? So present that she felt it every moment. She couldn’t.

Hours of wandering had her counting the leaves on the vines.

Two hundred and twenty two. She had always noticed patterns, and at each triple digit she gained more stamina. One last right and she gasped. There it was.

An ornate fountain reclaimed by ivy stood in front of her, water dripping endlessly from it. Before she could process the beauty before her, her body rushed to the fountain.

“Fancy meeting you here.” No. It couldn’t be.

“A-Alena? What are you doing here?” Corina’s voice was higher pitched than she liked.

The woman was leaning against the ivy covered wall, idly twirling her bright red hair.

“Oh just following a fool to the holy grail.” Her voice was smooth like a fine wine, as if trying to seduce Corina.

“The holy—what the hell are you talking about?” Corina’s hand clutched her stomach, the other hand resting on her freedom: the fountain.

“I’m pretty sure you heard me.” Alena walked up to Corina, a dagger appearing from her belt.

Alena laughed, cold and maniacal. “Just keeping the water fresh, or did you think that it granted youth just like that? It requires someone . . . young. Someone to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. And you?” She laughed again leaning in close. “You’ve got a young life in there . . . with your sacrifice the fountain will last another hundred years.”

Corina shuddered and took another step back. “T-this is mad.

We’re friends!” Again she stepped back. “You can’t be serious!”

“Can’t I?” It only took a few seconds for Alena to catch up to Corina, the blade meeting her throat. “I’ve never been more

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serious in my life. And I’m almost as old as the fountain. The priestess of it, you might say.”

Corina’s beating heart made Alena’s words distant and ghastly.

Her brain froze and had a hard time catching up.

“Now…” Alena gestured to a symbol on the ground that Corina hadn’t noticed before. “Are you going to go easy? Or do I have to make you?”

Fight or flight took off within Corina as she bolted. It was a sluggish pace, her being almost nine months pregnant, but it had to be enough. That same sinister laughter followed behind Corina as she desperately tried to find a way out. There had to be a way.

The walls were way too high to climb, but before she was even given a chance pain consumed her leg as she fell. Before hitting the ground Alena caught her, her grin more creepy than any horror film she had ever seen.

“Can’t have you killing the baby on accident, now can we?”

Before Corina could respond she was being dragged back, her brain barely processing the trail of blood.

She fell to the ground on the sigil, trying in vain to stand. “Cute that you think you have a choice in this sweetie.” Corina felt a pressure on her chest as Alena’s boot shoved into it. “Now be a good girl and stay.”

She should have listened to her husband, she should have aborted the baby, she should have. . . . The blade being sharpened next to her brought her to the present. Her heart beat unbidden in her chest, and Alena could sense it.

“Don’t worry sweetie, I’ll quiet that heart soon enough.” She removed her coat and lifted the dagger to the sun. “Gods, deities, forces of nature, hear me and obey.” Light descended upon the pair, blinding Corina. When it cleared, the fountain water had turned to blood, with Alena standing over it wearing a red robe.

“By your will I have provided a sacrifice. Two lives for the price of one!”

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Thunder gathered around them, the clouds dark and menacing.

“With this thrust the fountain is reborn!” The dagger sank deep into Corina’s chest, causing her to cough and stutter. “Blood for life and blood for youth!” Another thrust of the knife to Corina’s belly. “With these lives become reborn!”

The fountain’s waters flowed forth gold. Corina’s helpless gaze fell onto the water as she reached for it. Her chance at life, at freedom, only inches away. “So . . . close.” The gold became the light at the tunnel as her life flowed into the fountain. At least someone would live another day, at least someone else would get a chance. The last of her drained into the fountain, her life and will fading to blackness. As she accepted her fate.

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Salt Lake Street photography

by Cristofer beltran

Faltered

By Heather Grahame

THat sinking feeling by heather grahame

Dancing forever more in simple memories. Fading like photographs in the sun. Ghosts of what we once were. What we once could have been. Our brilliant dance faltered along the way. Leaving no one to lead or to follow. Steps void of passion, left hollow and well-rehearsed.

Gone too Soon

By Vanessa Flores Rodriguez It was the middle of the year 2014… I’m in bed with my fan on high. Relaxing to what sounds like a hundred buzzing flies. It’s another hot summer day, mentally getting prepared for my 10th year in high school when I get a text.

It’s my mom, “Call me it’s an emergency.”

Knowing my mom, I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was just some gossip she wanted to fill me in on from our family in Mexico.

I called her. Without even saying hello, I can feel the tension.

Something was wrong.

“Is Juan there with you?” Juan is my boyfriend.

“Yeah, he’s here with me, why? What’s wrong?” I replied.

“Your sister is really sick, she has cancer,” My mom proceeds to tell me.

Everything went quiet, I felt like the ground was swallowing me up whole. I can’t breathe. I couldn’t catch my breath to respond to my mom. To ask the hows, the whys. My eyes drowning while my heart sank… My boyfriend pulls me closer and holds me a little tighter as he takes the phone from me, talking to my mom.

What? How? We just spoke to each other 2 days ago and you seemed so happy and healthy. You were planning your baby shower, your wedding. I didn’t want it to be real. I needed to know where you were at. I needed to see you. I couldn’t quite process the words mom was telling me.

We got into my father-in-law’s truck to get to you.

All I could hear was your laugh on replay. Your small eyes

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squinting as you giggled. You would smile so big; you lit up a whole room as if it was Christmas morning. So beautiful, mouth full of braces that shined as bright as the sun was that very hot summer day. Our childhood memories kept running through my mind, of us walking to the school bus stop singing our hearts out to whatever we desired. I look out the window, the Rocky Mountains getting closer and closer as I feel smaller.

It felt like an eternity to me, that 40-minute drive to the University of Utah Hospital.

As I made my way to you, suddenly the hot summer day turned into a cold, dark winter night. Walking through the bright white halls making my way to you. My feet getting heavier and heavier each step I take. I start to choke up as if my heart was stuck in my throat. Before I realized it, I’m at your door. “FLORES”.

My heart drops.

I make my way into your room. Mom, our younger brother, and sister are there. You’re there, but not there. You’re laying down in that so called “bed” white sheets and gown, you’re hooked up to all sorts of different machines.

“Hey, what are you doing here?!” You looked half asleep, confused as to what’s going on.

I was only 15, you 16. I didn’t know how to express my feelings.

I wanted to say something, anything. Tell you I love you. Take away whatever it was that you were feeling. But it didn’t seem like you yourself knew what was going on. I got all choked up and opened my mouth. No words came out. Reality started to set in… Before I could even find the right words to say to you, nurses with white gowns barged into the room, as if you were a celebrity that everyone wanted to meet. They push you out of the room for tests they say.

We’re left alone in your room with only our thoughts and blank stares.

Your beautiful smile, your bubbly, happy personality. That’s all I saw. You, for you. I wish I would’ve held you a little tighter, my beautiful big sister. Such a loving and beautiful soul. You always

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saw the best in others and supported me through my hard times. Now it was my turn to grow up and be there for you.

You fought and gave it your all, you won battle after battle. We all thought you’d be okay, watching you gain some strength and being able to walk again but inside you were slowly fading away.

We didn’t want your battle to be over. Not yet, not so soon. But you needed your rest. The last time I saw you awake you were so happy, singing along to Taylor Swift “You Belong With Me.” That’s all I could focus on, your soothing voice singing along as a nurse strung the guitar. You’d giggle when you’d mess up the words. I was so star struck by seeing you smiling and singing, despite everything you were going though, I didn’t even realize the reason why you giggled, until you did it again. That last happy memory I have of you in that hospital is forever glued in my mind.

Losing you on top of officially becoming a mother so young really took a toll on me. After I lost you, my big sister, your first niece was born just 30 days later, Jackily Nevaeh Fragozo Flores.

Named after the most beautiful soul I’ve ever met. You. I was always trying to push myself to continue going to school to graduate. Depression hit me hard. I would always think back to when you were going through chemo trying to still go to school and complete your work. but being on so many medications and doing chemo sucked the energy out of you. Witnessing you at your lowest and still wanting the best for yourself motivated me.

I had to do it for you. You’ll always be loved and remembered for the caring and admiring soul you have always been.

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Equal

By Autausaga Danny Feleti Black or white and everything in between, We are all the same but it has yet to be seen, At the end of the day, it is you against us, We can do the same crime but I’m the one that they’ll bust.

We scream Black Lives Matter, You scream all lives matter, But when it comes down to it, we’re the only ones getting battered, People cry and everyone gets sadder, Now all that’s left is to get madder and madder.

You keep saying obey or it is what it is, All we’re saying is can we get some Justice For the things that keep having us lose our people?

Justice like you because you claim we’re equal.

No one wants to see the same thing over and over like a sequel, We just want what you got, to be treated like equals.

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Sweet death by brisa aguirre jurado (Digital Art)

Sun Eater

By Justin Smoak What scares you most? Is it the things you can see, and may somewhat understand? Is it the irrational? I’ll tell you what scares me most. The fear of the unknown. The fear of how little we understand about the world around us. About the galaxies around the world, and the many potential universes that make up these galaxies. Do we have the faintest idea what all could be out there? Or maybe even is out there? From as early as we could see the stars in our telescopes, we’ve witnessed whole galaxies collapse. In the potentially infinite, vast emptiness of space, where an entire civilization can collapse in the blink of an eye without leaving anything behind, what little imprint could humanity as a wholes’ lifetime achievements have? What little difference would it make, if suddenly everything we’ve worked for our entire history, just vanished?

I had a very vivid dream one night. I couldn’t see anything except darkness. Velvety, smooth darkness with tiny glitters. I was very slowly bobbing up and down, like I was at the bottom of a swimming pool. The dark void quickly filled with a flash of blistering light that almost instantly made me sweat. Then, slowly, a dark silhouette of a round floating object came into view. As this object floated towards the bright flash that had originally filled my entire view got closer, I could tell what the round object was. It was a dimly lit planet. And this planet was now floating towards, well... I’m not sure, maybe a sun?

An enormous star? Either way, whatever it was, it was now in full view as the planet, a fraction of its size, floated towards it. I could see the stars twinkling in the black void behind the sun. For brief moments I could almost feel the heat of the sun’s rays. Flashes of heat that would cause me to sweat profusely for just brief seconds. There was nothing around me but empty space, and these two planets. I could see what looked like a shooting star flashing in the distance. And as this dark, ominous planet slowly drifted towards the sun, I could almost see the sun moving. Not glimmering in the way that sun reflects light,

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but actually, slowly, moving . . . as if it was living. I knew that planets may have ecosystems, but this wasn’t like that. It was unsettling. It was at this point that I realized that the sun was actually moving towards the planet. As this planet drifted closer and closer, I was waiting for it to start to burn up and catch fire.

Before the planet gets too close, the sun rotates on its axis and reveals, in my dream state what appears to be, an eye in the center. Just below the eye, where its mouth would be, started violently shaking. And ever so slowly, sharp jagged stalagmites, giving the appearance of teeth, showed themselves. This thing had teeth. Rows, and rows of sharp rock-like teeth. And inside the set of teeth, a long tongue unrolled itself out like a swirl of galaxies, or a curled-up rope, until it stretched out to the unlit, lifeless, cold planet. Wrapping its blue-purple galaxy like tongue around the planet, crushing where it touched, it slowly dragged it towards the sharp jagged teeth. And in the vacuum of space, I could almost hear the grinding of the teeth, as this thing ground them across one another, back and forth. I couldn’t really hear it, but I could . . . feel the vibrations from this happening. And as I was noticing this, I noticed something wrong with the planet it was attempting to eat. It was covered with vast, dark land masses, separated by sprawling oceans. But that wasn’t what was odd about it. The odd thing was this planet looked somehow familiar to me. Maybe I didn’t want to believe it then.

Maybe I hadn’t really put the two and two together. Either way the sun was slowly pulling the planet into its chomping teeth, and before slowly closing its “mouth.” I could feel more powerful vibrations as it imploded under the pressure. Smoke plumed out of the craters, and the flames of the leviathan disappeared. Then the sun’s gigantic eye slowly rolled backwards, disappearing, as it sucked what little life the planet had left into oblivion. Then the sun turned back on its axis, and slowly drifted off into the vast void. Like it was ready to find the next galaxy, or victim.

But as I watched this evil monstrosity of a . . . whatever it is, disappear off into the void, I noticed something moving in the direction it was going. I squinted hard, fearful of even looking in the direction of the sun when I noticed a large round silhouette.

The sun was enormous. But this silhouette, was somehow way, way bigger. And as the dimly lit sun drifted towards the void, it slowly began to light up what I was seeing. I immediately

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shivered. It was an enormous planet, with two giant dark craters, peering in my direction menacingly. Its mouth was already open, its tongue already unfolded and stretching out towards the sun.

I violently jerked awake, sweat pouring down my face, and my clothes drenched. While fumbling around in the sheets for my phone, I felt a light breeze of cold air. I peeled back my covers and stepped out of bed onto the cold floor to check the time.

I looked at my phone and checked the news to make sure the world hadn’t ended yet. I looked outside to make sure everything was still there, and just gazed in disbelief at the cloudy, dark sky.

Taking in everything I had witnessed in my dream, I just sat and gazed. It had felt so real. There’s so much out there that we don’t understand about the universe, that it’s almost improbable for something completely out of our comprehension to not exist in the vast, emptiness that is space. And for all we know, there could have been or be other planets just like ours, just waiting for the next sun eater, to take everything that their entire civilization has worked for in one gulp. As I’m pondering out the window, I can’t help but feel cold chill. Almost like there is a breeze blowing into the room from another open window. All of a sudden I hear a loud, piercing sound that jerks me awake and out of bed.

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Blue Eyes by daria khajavi (editors’ Choice: Photography)

Dear Samuel

By Benjamin Eisenberg My Dear Samuel, As of today, November 4th, 1982, I am on my way to survey a set of old ruins in eastern Europe that date back well before the fall of Rome. I will be in a team of ten. I cannot express my excitement enough. I wish to share my experiences with you, as I know you are interested in my work. I wish I could have flown you down here, but I know you are busy with your thesis and all.

The ruins are located in the outskirts of Poland. Most of them are buried, and have just recently been uncovered. We are still unsure exactly who built them, but I am excited to see what information we uncover. I will write to you with updates.

I will be able to send you my letters every four days, but unfortunately I will be unable to receive any.

All the best, Your good friend Fabian

Dear Samuel, I arrived at the ruins today, November 5th, 1982. I can’t help but feel something is wrong with this place. They are not very big, only about three buildings and a few areas we think might have been cemeteries. There is something that is off about it though.

A few of my colleagues have told me I am just nervous. They are probably right, so I’m sure it’s nothing.

I feel like I have only just graduated from Oxford. I remember our first tutoring session. I just want to say I am so proud of both of us. I can only hope that you will be able to join me as one of my colleagues after you graduate. I’ll be sure to catch up with you when I am back in England.

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Some of the artifacts we have found are quite curious. We found some texts written in Latin, and a few small statues depicting some kind of deity. It’s hard to describe, but I will try my best. The statue depicts a cloaked figure, with tentacles for arms. An eye is depicted on the back of the cloak, and the hood has a repeating spider web-like pattern on it. We haven’t seen anything like it.

I am about to settle in for the night. Take care! I will write to you again soon.

Your good friend, Fabian

Dear Samuel, It is November 12th, 1982. I have grim news. It seems that one of my colleges has tragically passed. Last time I talked with him, he was going to head into the inner sanctum of the main structure.

Two days later he was found dead in one of the graveyards. The inner sanctum has remained sealed since we arrived. Today I am going to work on translating some of the texts we have found. I hope they give us some insight on what this place was used for. They are in Latin, so I can read them. I am not sure if I want to.

Your good friend, Fabian

Dear Samuel, It is November 18th, 1982. I am contemplating whether or not I should share my findings with you. I have been able to translate a good portion of the texts we found, and their contents are . . . disturbing. What we thought were graves are actually sites for a ritual. Sacrificial spots.

The ritual is apparently meant to summon something. The

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inner sanctum is the center of the ritual. The rest of the instructions match up with what we have found. I will probably have the rest of the texts translated in a few days.

One of our group members was attacked by someone in a hooded robe earlier. He was able to fight them off. His description of the assailant leads me to believe it was a cultist.

The person’s robes and jewelry all line up with the iconography we have seen here.

This colleague has decided to leave, and one other person has decided to go with him. On top of that, another one of the group has not been seen in days. I can only assume the worst. We are down to six people. I know I should leave too, but I feel like it’s up to us to stop whatever is happening.

I hope I will be able to see you again. I’m not even sure if you will receive this letter.

Your good friend, Fabian Beloved Samuel, They attacked us under the cover of night two days ago. Our base camp was destroyed. I am the only survivor. It’s November 26th, 1982. An ancient entity has its grip over this place. It was written in the texts. A horrible ritual is almost complete, as written in the texts. I CAN FEEL MY MIND SLIPPING SLIPPING SLIPPING SLIPPING. I must steel myself. My mind is not gone yet. Tomorrow I will enter the inner sanctum of the main structure. The texts deciphered say the only way to prolong the great awakening is to destroy the ritual sites and seal those involved inside.

I can feel a buzzing in my brain. Writing to you is the only thing keeping me together right now. Although I am unsure if you will even see these letters.

Your friend, Fabian

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Dear Mr. Samuel Müller, I am writing to you today, December 6th of 1982, to inform you that we currently have Fabian Romero in our care. A rescue party found him after the research team he was attached to went missing. Reports say he was found malnourished, covered in blood, and talking to himself. The ruins his group were investigating seem to have collapsed.

Currently authorities are still investigating what happened at the site. No bodies have been recovered yet, but it is safe to assume that Mr. Romero was the only survivor. This unfortunately puts him as a suspect for the disappearances, but we will not know until he has recovered.

On a much lighter note, he is recovering. Not quickly, but we suspect you will be able to see him soon. We are keeping him confined to his ward for now, but rest assured knowing he is in good hands.

Sincerely, Dr. Herbert Palmer Hanwell Asylum

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Street Silhouette by Cristofer Beltran

rain

by Miriam Nicholson

rain falls gently on my skin as it mixes with my tears as i stand over father’s grave; his life flashes with the thunder, as i stand alone; thinking about when i’ll join him in the coarse, grassy, ground with only my thoughts abandoned

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no parking by miriam nicholson

The Corpse in my Grandfather’s Bed

By Saturn Quinn “Grandpa passed away last night.”

I don’t think I’ll ever truly have the word for anyone to understand how hearing those words felt to me. I loved my grandpa.

In the back of my mind, there were good memories there for him, made up like a little boat with a beautiful bright lantern hanging off the bow to guide the way, floating on an otherwise tempest river ready to carry him away into rest forever.

But they tell you that your grandfather’s dead, and somehow, you already know. You’re already prepared for that. For years, it seems like it’s always been that way. You let your father grieve, you worry about him most, but you see it in his eyes too. The blankness. The strangeness to the words. The mourning of the past, but the complete and utter erasure of the present.

Ménière’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear, fluid building up behind tiny bones and sensitive nerve hairs, putting pressure on the delicate parts. It causes things like dizziness, vertigo, loss of balance, and hearing loss. It’s on one of the 44 chromosomes people have beyond their sex-chromosomes—because of how rarely it occurs, it feels like some kind of cosmic accident when it happens. Only about 615,000 people have it in the United States, 0.2% of the population.

It isn’t supposed to be genetic, at least not in the way we think of genetic diseases.

My grandfather was a candy man. When he was young, before me or his kids were ever born, he and his father would spend the summers traveling all across the country teaching people how to make chocolates. That was the family business before individual, hand-making artisans were drowned out by factories and big chains. When I was a toddler, I used to love going to his house. I knew he’d have candy, even if it was the cheap kind: Tootsie rolls, spice drops, suckers that tasted more like plastic and chemicals than fruit.

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Once our hands were sticky with saltwater taffy and our appetites for grandma’s homemade chicken and fresh-cut fries totally ruined, he’d take us outside and play like only a grandfather who knew he wouldn’t have to deal with the worst of us when we inevitably got tired and cranky later could. He chased us around the trampoline while we jumped on it, hooting and hollering like the old-timey cowboys he loved so much while we screamed and giggled.

He saved old bikes for his grandkids to ride down the street, ancient things your parents worried would give you tetanus. But they worked, and suddenly it felt like you were transported back in time, pedaling down old streets with no sidewalks, looking between houses out on miles and miles of crop field and pasture that surrounded the major highway way off in the distance.

My grandpa once brought in a dead gopher he’d caught in my grandma’s raspberry patch, a little limp thing hanging from a trap. I was still in elementary school at the time. It was the closest I’d ever come to death then. Even my parents steered me away from roadkill still. Almost like he knew it would illicit all kinds of screams, he paraded it around the basement like a trophy in the middle of our movie until my grandma commanded in a deep tone only a mother could muster, “Stephen, you take that thing out of here!”

He asked me if I’d write him a western someday. I lied and said I’d try, being polite. I still know nothing about westerns.

Then came the fall. It wasn’t anything to worry about at first. He stumbled here and there. He kept asking us to repeat ourselves.

But he was my grandpa. He wanted to be included in the world like it was normal.

Slowly, in crept the feeling that we knew it wasn’t.

He’d burst out laughing in the middle of things that weren’t funny. All his programs were suddenly subtitled with no sound ever turned on. He sat in one chair and one chair only, joining us for meals in his armchair in the family room. The hallways at night were lined with light because grandma knew he couldn’t be trusted to find his way through the house they’d lived in for almost five decades on his own.

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I remember suddenly being afraid to go to his house. He wasn’t aware how loud his steps got when he walked now. You could hear him shuffle all over the house, his joints stiff in an effort to keep his balance. The world was spinning under him—I knew that had to be hard—but I was autistic, and suddenly, my once loved grandfather was so loud, and I was scared to be around him.

The worst of it was his hearing. He went from asking us to repeat ourselves to trying to read lips and yelling back his answers.

You had to shout to get him to listen to you. And I was quiet.

My lips were never clear enough for him to read. And forget going out with him. Unless you were willing to advocate for him, lead him by the hand, he couldn’t communicate with the outside world. I was embarrassed by him. For me, we’d effectively lost our whole relationship.

He was dying years before he passed. We couldn’t talk to him.

He couldn’t talk to us. He withdrew from our family, in the middle of our family gatherings like a phantom, an observer.

Then he actually did fall.

He made a commitment to attend all his grandkids’ graduations.

Mine was the last he traveled for. I was eighteen at the time. He was so frail and unable to climb stairs that he spent my entire graduation on our couch watching subtitled westerns. My grandmother filmed my graduation so he’d get to see it.

She never showed him it.

He fell in our front lawn trying to go to his car while we were out. And he couldn’t get himself back up. The world was spinning and all he could do was lay there and scream for help until our neighbor heard and helped him up. That neighbor called.

That neighbor interrupted me getting my high school diploma to tell my parents what had happened. I’m grateful for that neighbor because without him, my grandpa would’ve been stuck on his face for hours until we came home. He could’ve gotten more hurt. I’m glad he wasn’t. At the same time, I felt shame too.

Grandpa was fine inevitably. But that wasn’t the worst part of that visit. My grandparents stayed a little longer beyond my graduation, having planned a visit with a specialist in Salt Lake

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City beyond my diploma. We’d known for years that it was Ménière’s destroying him, no surprises there, but this doctor told him she could give him quality of life. Physical therapy and a cochlear implant. That was all it would take to give him his independence back.

My family was thrilled hearing that. Everyone was really—cousins, aunts, uncles. We wanted him back in our lives. Everyone agreed that even though a cochlear implant would be expensive, we’d all chip in so he could have one. We wanted him to meet his new grandkids, his great grandkids. We wanted him to live longer, like his father.

He refused. And that was the day he died to me.

I didn’t see him after that. We kept his corpse as he started to get worse. He couldn’t walk. Couldn’t clean himself. Couldn’t go to the bathroom alone. He could barely understand my grandma, who had reinvented language so she could exchange just a few words with the man she married. It was only a matter of time before it was over. And when my grandma tried to sell the house to put him in a place where he’d be safer, he was gone.

Grandpa told us he would never leave that house. And he never did.

It was at his casket that the feeling finally settled in for me, when I was dressed in half a suit and a tie for the very first time in my life. I watched as my older cousins’ tiny children touched the cold hands of the strange, sickly pale-green plastic man they called “grandpa”, knowing somewhere in my head this body and the man I knew weren’t the same people.

He’d never gotten to know me as I was. He was gone long before I’d truly come to exist as me. He knew the kid I was in elementary school. He knew the one who was a nervous preteen, afraid to approach him, anxiously scribbling into a notebook because they didn’t feel like talking.

He never knew Saturn. I never got the chance to introduce myself. I never got the chance to explain myself. And even though my grandma used my chosen name, I’d never know if he did.

I’d never know if he’d even listen had I tried to tell the truth. I’d never know if he’d accept me.

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Ménière’s is not supposed to be genetic, but some cases have been shown to run in families. It develops between the ages of forty and sixty. My dad is fifty-one. He’s exhibiting some of the same symptoms. I refuse to let him get away from me like my grandfather did. Sometimes I’m afraid it’ll be me next.

We buried my grandfather when I was twenty-one. Three and a half years after he was dead.

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bull oil by Finnegan Mcdonough (monotype ink print)

One True Love

By Autausaga Danny Feleti My heart was a half, But now it’s a whole, My One True Love I now know, I’ve searched and searched far and wide, Yet coming up empty and still half inside, Now I know, now I’ve found, That One True Love that keeps me sound, She completes me and makes me whole, That One True Love that I now know.

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female glamour by Rogelio Pena

The Unwitting First

By Saturn Quinn Unwitting.

Both of us then.

She could not hear the little flutter in my chest when she chose to sit across from me in a class which neither of us spoke the language— And yet we spoke.

It was her laugh that drew me in, like stitches between two separate fabrics, A grand quilt in which her stitches enraptured me.

How could someone so timeworn around the eyes Laugh like every breath, warm with life, could be the last?

She knew. And I think all of us did.

Despite the vigor in her laughter, the love she felt for even the worst of us, every chuckle and song and word Rang stretched and weak Against a fiery soul, Who fought a brain Which was Killing Her. The dark circles under her eyes Were staccato marks on the notes That were her most sarcastic remarks.

Her sleepless nights and bone-thin wrists— Sonatas and minuets in soft minor keys.

The skin pulling away from her lips, Dry and cracked, Crescendos for her smiles.

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We waited with bated breath, Praying for her symphony not to end too soon— Yet we knew it might.

But we could not stop listening.

How does death sound?

What is the timbre of suffering of pain of self-silence?

Her. Light, fast, jingling, like keys, accompanied by a crinkled nose, A face she covered to appear more beautiful.

Smile. Nod. Respond. Inhale when she starts to become a tug on your heart again.

Forget the smell of violets in her hair.

Stop thinking about swearing along with her when she curses under her breath.

Don’t touch the dark curls on her head.

Don’t think about wrapping them around your fingers— Soft, soft, soft—stop yourself before it’s too late.

Chocolate and coffee and violets— Shampoo that smells like her, Uniquely her, Like starlight and dark meadows and front porches with all the lights turned out, the middle of nowhere and the middle of everything.

She smiles at you.

She laughs with you, Gasps into breathing because yet again you said something stupid.

But she is snorting and clutching her stomach.

She has chased away men, worn masks to shield away her insides.

You know all of it.

She’s told you all of it, and you—

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Stop it. Stop it. Stop— I was straight then.

But for her, god, I wouldn’t have been.

I wonder if she’s still alive.

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escalate by paige joy ney

Niku

By Daria Khajavi Slumped in the corner of the fraying navy blue bus seats, Daniel’s entire side felt the coolness of the fogged window. But his insides felt like they were burning.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. He’s my best friend.

The last thing he wanted to do that morning was to be pulled aside by his parents and told he had to say goodbye to Niku.

“Well honey, once dogs get old enough they have to be sent away so that puppies have homes and families to live with.”

Daniel’s thoughts of Niku loomed over him the entire morning.

As he sat in class watching the students pile in, he couldn’t bring himself to count how many there were. Even when Ms. Latterburg droned on about the basics of fractions, he couldn’t enjoy the distant chirps of blue jays outside the window. Instead he fiddled his fingers under his scribbled desk, only half aware of what he was doing or what was happening.

Something started to come through the fog, “Daniel? Daniel!

What is 3/4 plus 2/4?” Daniel blinked a few times before frantically trying to understand the question Ms. Latterburg asked him.

He felt a mob of eyes target him as he raised his head and stammered, “Um, I-I’m sorry Ms. Latterburg, wha-what was the question again?”

Some silent giggles echoed in the cramped sand colored walls of his third grade class. The teacher brushed aside the student’s reactions.

“Can someone who was listening to my question please answer it for me?” she said sternly.

The class moved on and Daniel quickly faded back into his desk and under his shaggy walnut colored hair for the remainder of

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the class.

What seemed like a whole school day passed before he glanced at the clock in the corner of the room. It read 11:52, about 15 minutes before lunch. He wanted to rush right out of the room and race back to his house to reunite with Niku.

Why can’t I? He’s my dog. He’s my best friend. He couldn’t stand by knowing that his parents were the reason he wouldn’t be able to play with his best friend anymore. Maybe I can save him. I can! I can save him. I have to try!

Daniel’s leg bounced for the most restless 15 minutes of his life.

He prepped his patch-covered Spider-Man bag, and with only an inch of his body left on the chair, briskly bounced from his seat as soon as the bell rang.

At first, he blended in with the range of colorful backpacks and humdrum students happily walking to lunch. He whipped around the corner and spotted his escape route: the east side exit door by the lunch entrance.

He was so scared that if he looked back he’d see a swarm of teachers chasing him. Pushing open the door, he was met with the overwhelmingly bright afternoon sun.

As he rushed across the grounds he couldn’t help feeling like a prison escapee. He locked eyes with a gorgeous bright red bike on the rack across the grounds. Now that’s the sickest bike I’ve ever seen! Target acquired: Jacob Wiser’s brand new bicycle!

“I’m just gonna borrow this real quick,” Daniel silently sniggered, “What Jacob doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

He eagerly jumped on the bike seat, took a last glance at Lincoln Elementary, and quickly set off on his journey to the vet. A dirty white shoe lace brushed against the passing asphalt as the rich autumn-scented wind cut across his panting face. He had only been there once, a little less than a month ago. His parents didn’t like to talk about it. They made him sit out in the car accompanied by the local radio stations.

“Win ten free car washes at Ben’s Car Wash during this week’s

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special giveaway!!!”

The piercing voice was muffled by the sound of rain hitting the car and the swooshes of tires through puddles on the road.

Suddenly the clek clok of the car unlocking brought him out of his daze. Underneath the cool gray sky he saw his parents bring Niku by his leash into the back seat of the car next to him.

“Mom, what happened?” Daniel asked, once they had settled in their seats and he had been given a proper greeting of licking by Niku.

His mother didn’t glance back as she answered bluntly, “Nothing you need to worry about honey.”

He saw Madison Avenue and was shaken out of his flashback, remembering this was where he needed to turn right. He sped on with determination and drive, his mind buzzing.

Without warning, he reached his destination. Parking his sweet new set of “borrowed” wheels in the patch of dry grass outside the front entrance, he swiftly strode all the way up to the tall window beside the door.

He peeked inside and saw a woman at the front desk straightening papers. How am I supposed to sneak past her? He waited, watching as the woman led a middle-aged couple into one of the main hallways and out of sight. This is my chance!

Swiftly, he opened the door and beelined for the opposite hallway the front desk lady had just walked through. Except, as soon as he made it four steps in he realized something. He had no clue where Niku and his parents were.

He took a hesitant look around and landed at the looming front desk. There were sticky notes on the desktop, piles of paperwork and rows of drawers. He frantically rifled through the papers until he landed on one that said “October 29th Appointments.”

His hands snatched the page and his pointer finger scanned the names. Smith, Richardson, Martinez, Borson, ugh where are they?!

Geller, White, Caph, Caph! They’re in Surgery Room 2!

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Everything that had led up to this moment bubbled over and flooded over him as the resentment towards his parents rose to his reddened cheeks. He swiftly walked through the empty light brown hall, urgently reading the names of the rooms: Private Room 1, Private Room 2, before coming to a halt at Surgery Room 2 - Reserved. A few heavy breaths left his lungs before he very quietly cracked the gray door open, one eye taking in the situation in front of him.

Ready to ram through the door, he heard something that made him stop in his tracks. His parents’ hands were interlaced, they looked up at each other with teary eyes. “It’s okay Niku, you’re a good boy, everything’s going to be okay,” Daniel’s mother said.

Niku was laying down on a table that reached his parents’ stomachs. He was facing the door that Daniel was looking through, but his eyes kept opening and closing.

“Are you ready? He seems calm and comfortable with you talking to him. Keep consoling him during this process,” the veterinarian in dusty blue medical rags solemnly stated.

Daniel’s father gently stroked his thumb across Niku’s cheek, looked at his wife who nodded and said, “I think we’re ready.”

As the nurse prepped the vial, Daniel’s mother started to hold back a sob.

His parents were crying. Why are they crying? They’re choosing to do this!

Then he took a moment to look at his best friend, his pet, his dog Niku. He remembered warm summer days when they would chase and sprint through the sprinklers. He had so much energy and was the only person that would play with me. And that time when I had a super bad flu he laid on my bed for days.

Now when he breathed it was in heavy sighs like breathing through water. Anytime he moved, he winced and quietly whined. Niku had always seemed like a friendly tank to Daniel.

When he hugged him, his arms couldn’t reach all the way around and whenever he tried to walk Niku he’d be pulled by his weight like a feather on a string. But now, laid out below his

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parents, Niku looked so small. It scared Daniel.

Suddenly a memory resurfaced; it was late July of that same year. Daniel was hunched over watching a worm in his front yard and Niku was laying in the vibrant green grass a few feet away. The worm burrowed below the dirt leaving Daniel with nothing to do.

“Well this is boring . . . Let’s play ball then!” Daniel spotted one of his dog’s tennis balls, faded and torn from years of playing.

“Come here boy! It’s your favorite ball.” He jogged over to Niku whose ears perked up hearing Daniel’s voice.

“Don’t you wanna play? Here, I’m gonna throw it. You ready?”

Niku wagged his tail in response. He shifted slowly but stayed laying down.

“Come on boy! What are you waiting for?” Niku whined back at him.

How had he never noticed that before? His best friend was in pain and Daniel had refused to see that or accept it for months.

His parents hid it behind solemn smiles and reassurances and not telling him the whole story. He wouldn’t have his best friend anymore and he couldn’t accept that.

He had always blamed his parents. Finally he started to understand that they had to do this. They had to do this for Niku.

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I Love You Without an “I Love You”

By Rachel Nguyen I used to be jealous of other people who were able to talk to their grandparents. I would imagine them sitting around their grandma and grandpa while they told stories. Stories about their lives, the interesting things they experienced, and the story of how they met. I was jealous of how people would be able to understand what their grandparents were saying. I didn’t even know their actual names, apart from ông bà ngoại, which means maternal grandpa and grandma in Vietnamese. They lived in California, and being ten hours away, they were just people I saw once a year. However, after all of us siblings had grown up, we all lived different lives and didn’t have time to visit every year until eventually we just stopped visiting entirely.

It didn’t feel like I had a relationship with my grandparents from how I idealized the Hallmark grandma baking fresh cookies while grandpa gave advice. However, I did have a relationship with them, a more distant one. From an outsider’s perspective of us, it may have seemed like we were strangers if not mere acquaintances. Every year I visited we would share a minimum amount of words that I knew in Vietnamese.

They would always ask me if I was well, “Con khỏe không?”

And I would reply yes I’m well, “dạ khỏe.” Even if it was just a formality I wish I wasn’t so shy to ask them the question back, “Ông bà ngoại khỏe không?”

During those visits, I wouldn’t interact with them very much, but when I did there was a tenderness to it. The words “I love you” always sounded unnatural to me in Vietnamese I don’t remember if they were ever said. Instead, my grandma would give me a Vietnamese kiss whenever I visited. Some people call it the vacuum kiss, it was our way of showing endearment.

“Kiss” in Vietnamese is “hôn hít,” but taking the two words

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apart, hôn means kiss and hít means to breathe or inhale. My mom would say we kiss with our whole face with a small sniff on my cheek or the top of my head. My older sister would say it’s to sniff in all that love. In a way, it was my grandma greeting me with fondness. It was an act of warmness and comfort that I didn’t know was love. It’s a love you receive as a child and don’t understand or notice how much it meant until you get older.

Visiting my grandparents every year as a child and growing into a teenager, I didn’t think they got along. In fact, they had lived in different apartments a few doors down and across from each other. It felt very natural crossing over the pavement to the other’s place. Taking off and putting on our shoes again, to go inside and outside of their homes, moving between them. It was like they were separated but together, only a few doors from each other. Seeing them as a child, made their relationship seem very distant. But when my grandma had her stroke, my grandpa brought a bed over to her apartment and slept across from her as she slept on the couch in her living room. He would put his arm around her while she slept, sit by her to hold her hand, and take care of her. Through the yearly visits that I had seen them, it was the first I saw them express that type of adoration. Even though nothing was said in words.

Years after not seeing them, I finally flew up with my parents to California. It was the last time I visited before they died. My grandma had a stroke and we got the news that my grandpa didn’t have very much time left to live. I had understood my grandma’s health before my visit, she was bedridden, tube fed, she couldn’t talk and she didn’t have any memory of us. Or at least there was no indication that she knew who we were. I had known what the situation was but it still felt unsettling when she pushed us outside of her apartment. Kicking us out of her home like we were trespassers or even strangers. I knew my grandpa was going to die, we all did. When we went through the stuff he hoarded, doing spring cleaning, it made me uneasy.

It felt weird for me because it felt like he was already gone as we cleared out his place. I went on the trip with the intention of being with my grandparents, wanting to have a relationship with them before they passed, but I didn’t know how to. I didn’t know what questions to ask, I was bad with words, especially

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with my grandparents. I didn’t know enough Vietnamese to ask them about themselves and I didn’t understand enough for them to tell me.

My grandma, my bà ngoại, died in the summer of 2020 a couple of months after my last visit. It was during the height of COVID-19, though she didn’t die from the coronavirus. I found out about her passing while I was at work, and I continued to work without thinking too much about it. I didn’t cry knowing about her death. I didn’t know her very well, nor did she know me. I just stayed up contemplating, trying to think of ways I could cry. Trying to dig up moments and memories of someone I knew barely anything about. Trying to remind myself that she was my family, but my eyes were dry.

It was a year later when my grandpa, my ông ngoại, followed her. However, unlike when I found out the news of my bà ngoại I cried to myself that night I found out. I felt guilty, recalling all the times I could’ve visited before he passed, all the countless times visiting him was put in the palm of my hand. My parents would always ask if I wanted to come with them. And I remember even one time when my dad told me grandpa was wondering why I didn’t come to visit.

Realizing both of their deaths, I felt guilty that I didn’t try enough to know either of them. I felt guilty because I took the opportunity to visit my grandma while she wasn’t in good condition, but not my grandpa even though he may have been lonely after she left. Perhaps it was the realization I hadn’t tried to bond with either of them or bother visiting while they were alive and well that made the tears finally come out. I didn’t go to either of their funerals; it felt insensitive for me to show up when I never did while they were alive.

Not knowing the memories between us made me feel even more distant from them. It seemed like there was a divide, deep between us. They were Vietnamese and I was American.

Language and lack of comprehension made the boundary between us feel even deeper. Death seemed to split us even more, but it made me recall the small moments when we understood each other.

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There was an understanding between us on my last visit and the ones before, showing that quiet, subtle sentiment I’ve always known. When my grandma would give me Vietnamese kisses and give me a full hug when big hugs were an American thing. As well as my grandpa making me food when my parents dropped me off at their apartment, even though I was a picky eater. Things like, sliding money in a red envelope in my hand and putting their finger to their lips, telling me not to tell anyone that I received money while my siblings didn’t.

Or the time I had last visited and sat by my grandma on the ground gently applying lotion on her hand, while she lay on the couch, not knowing who I was, as we watched Paris by Night.

I was connected to them with small actions when I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The affection that didn’t need the words “I love you” to show love. That’s the type of love I know.

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Don’t Be Sorry

By Yasmin Ochoa I laid in my bed; it was dark and cold in my bedroom. I was wrapped in my blanket that was soft from the sheep fabric, I could smell the fabric softener from my sister washing it for me, a strong flowery scent with hints of lavender, my favorite.

My legs folded up against my chest and my arms holding onto the blanket so tight around me. Then, there it was. I heard my dad come storming into the house almost as if, well no he was, he always is. Barely being able to keep his balance and falling against the walls and hitting the stair railing. My mom started yelling at him upset he was drunk, again. It’s almost as if I could smell the alcohol pouring out of his breath. I think back now that I’m older and don’t think I can remember ever having a childhood memory that doesn’t involve my father, Arturo, being drunk.

We had so many nights like these; I grew up in a Hispanic household with my mother Arteria, fair skin with burgundy hair at the time. So beautiful. She was hardly ever home because she was always working but what seemed at the time, she preferred to be at work than home with us or dealing with my father. I don’t blame her. My father, the drunk who still managed to keep his job and help provide, is older looking than my mother due to all the alcohol he’s consumed and working in construction, that sun will eat you up like a raisin. He’s always been known for his thick black mustache. Then there’s my 3 older sisters, myself, and my brother.

My sisters are older than me. My eldest sister Liza was the one who practically raised us and is like my second mother till this day. Life is so different now than it was when I was younger. It seems my dad has learned to somewhat control his drinking habits by only drinking for 6 months and then stopping for 6 months. But since we moved back from Nevada in September 2021, it seems he’s just drunk every day of the week now. He started picking up more on his drinking after my mom caught

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him having an affair 5 years ago, it’s unbelievable how fast time has gone by since.

My mom called me into her room that day and asked if she could confide in me with something and I instantly felt a gut wrench feeling in my stomach, almost as if someone had just gripped my insides in their hand and twisted them. I knew something was wrong just by the drained look in her face and glossy eyes. She wasn’t sad, she was disappointed. Disappointed that the man she’d been married to for 26 years could have betrayed her and their vows. She proceeded to tell me about what she had found in his text messages during that week to which he told her were a mistake from a coworker meant for his “wife”.

I then took the phone and logged into their T-Mobile account to find that there were phone calls being made constantly during his drive from and to work. He would make phone calls when we would be grocery shopping, which was religiously every Sunday. As far back as I can remember I remember my father always disappearing at the store, mall, any public place when we would be out and when we would see him again, he’d be on the phone hanging up walking towards us. Well turns out he was talking with the other women the whole time. Lucy.

He’d been in Las Vegas for a “work trip” but we knew it was bullshit. I proceeded to look through the account and let my mom ponder in her thoughts about what was happening, what she was going to do when he arrived any moment. I then called him with a calm tone in my voice as if everything was okay and nobody knew anything. He answered and said to me in Spanish “I’m at the gas station, I’ll be home soon.” I responded “okay, will see you here.” I could hear it in his tone of voice that he was drunk, how could I not recognize this after I’ve seen him drunk my whole life. Even when he’s had just 1-2 drinks I can instantly tell in his face.

After hanging up the phone my sister Sondra arrived and we told her everything that was happening, well she became furious and then called my other sister, Jonna. She was so upset I could hear the cracking in her voice when she said she’d be right

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over. You see Jonna was the closest to my father, might say his favorite honestly. Well, that was. When she arrived, we all waited in the entrance way of my mother’s home the anticipation of what his reaction would be or how my mom was going to react made me feel so nauseous in my stomach.

Then there he was. Pulling into the driveway in my mother’s burgundy Dodge Ram. The nerve to have gone to go meet up with the other women in my mother’s truck. He could barely walk up to the entrance from how intoxicated he was, we opened the door and he looked up at us and just started laughing. He had absolutely no remorse for what he’d done, and he knew we knew. He immediately charged at my sister Sondra saying, “It’s your fault, you’re the reason this is going on!”

Sondra responded in Spanish “I did nothing but help my mother find out the truth about you and the type of man you really are.”

I then stepped in and told him to back off from my sister, that this was all his fault and nobody else to blame.

My mother cried and so did my sisters, the amount of disappointment was excruciating. I couldn’t believe this was all happening.

My mother then looked him in the eyes and said, “I want nothing to do with you or know anything anymore, this ends here.” She turned so delicately and went to her room and cried to me, she felt betrayed, and it was understandable. She didn’t sleep that night, she hasn’t rested since; mentally, emotionally, or physically. Our family was destroyed from his disloyalty. But how hypocritical of me to be writing about this when the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree ‘cause here I am drinking as I write this short story.

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Alibis

By Heather Grahame (Trigger warning: self-harm) In the icy winter of 9th grade, a dramatic outburst for attention found me, barefoot on porcelain bathroom tiles dragging a dull, silvery steak knife across the back of my trembling hand, rhythmically sawing the pale flesh until the skin became raw and bloody. I made excuses and alibis for the wound: a startled dog, a ferocious kitten, a haphazard nail in an abandoned drawer.

I downplayed the angry cuts and their origins to everyone except one person: the one I wanted attention from. The boynext-door who hadn’t yet dumped me for kissing his best friend.

The sweet, honest, understanding friend who hadn’t yet walked away for making up fake guys who asked for my number or told me I was beautiful. I was dramatic and manipulative but more than that, I was egotistical. The Boy-Next-Door refused to pay attention to it. He liked me from the first awkward Jurassic Park viewing kiss and forgave me every time I pushed the boundaries to get a rise. His indifference drove me crazy. I wanted him to fight back. I wanted him angry. Because I was angry with myself and with him and with all the stupid 9th-grade boys who could never see me until I was “unavailable.” I was furious with my ego and my desperate need to be seen and invisible, brave and safe, joyful and dripping with sadness. I was angry at all of my contradictions and each and every drop of self-doubt and worthlessness. So I let the anger stream out of me through the raw, sticky cuts on the back of my hand.

He finally fought back. And walked away.

Several years later I sat in the cold bare bathroom of an apartment I could barely afford just off the campus of a college I had dropped out of with a razor blade pressed to my arm. An artful flick of the wrist produced a shallow ribbon of crimson and I smiled as the blood beaded along the line. It wasn’t about attention anymore. It was about feeling something. It was about being in control of the pain. Each thin razorblade kiss felt like love and tension. It was drama and understanding. Like an

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addict desperate for their next fix I longed for the next cut. It was the kind of love you fall into without realizing the damage it is causing.

Love was no longer about butterflies and melodies. It was simply about feeling anything at all to take away the empty brokenness.

Ruby kisses replaced real ones and misery muted the music.

I had fallen in love with the pain because it was the only thing that I could feel. I was enamored with this sense of control because my entire world was in turmoil. I was smitten with shiny silver and bold reds against my pale skin because everything else had been reduced to shades of gray. I knew that the blade would not leave me, would not make me feel anything that I didn’t want to, would not beg for me to be more than I was and would not tell me the things I had heard for too long.

It would not tell me that I was shameful or worthless. It would not tell me that these cuts were penance for all the mistakes that I had made. This was love. Love would not question my alibis.

Love would not tell me that I deserved this . . . even though I thought I did.

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sweet hearts 199x by samuel wilson

EX

By Elizabeth Snow Peryton!

Twisted, Depraved, Demonic. A mythical beast.

Disguising as the boy next door.

Seeking to devour your next meal.

A still beating heart you rip from its home.

Only adding to the illusion. As your shadow takes the shape of your last victim. This time it was me.

Foolishly I turn a blind eye.

Moments when the disguise failed.

Weaving your reassuring webs.

Twisting my thoughts.

Struggling to believe what I know deep down.

Unable to contain it any longer It bubbles up to the surface.

“I think we should break up.”

As you finish the last morsel You adamantly agree.

Seven days is all it took.

You’ve found your new victim.

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The Emotions of Summer

By Shams Al Samarrai Your clothes fluttering in the wind, big ocean waves slamming to the shore, breathless kids running back and forth, boats speeding ahead, this is your final summer here. As the warm sand, the glistening sun, the chilly water, and squealing seagulls surround you, you promise to take it all in, but you don’t. You can’t.

Your eyebrows drop and you plop on your back, eyes focused on the sky. Will the sky be this shade of blue in the city? Will the stars light up at night, guiding your heart back to the water?

Will you be satisfied without the soothing hug of nature? Your mind ponders, and your heart shifts. The gust of wind that rustles the leaves brings you back to reality. You must go. You can’t hide your face in the pillow anymore while your mother wailed, unable to endure the affliction. You can’t watch her go through all those blink-less nights again. Can you?

People like you must sacrifice today’s happiness for tomorrow’s blessings. Think about walking the beach with your mother again. You guide her through the different constellations, pointing to Aargau, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor. You explain, and her eyes follow your finger, afraid to lose the path of your world. She looks at you and chuckles, “You are such a nerd, Estrella.” You look at her face and analyze her cheeks, which are high enough to touch the sky.

You sit on the nearest bench you encounter and place your head on her shoulder. She reciprocates. Can you see how happy you are? Toss away the worries into the water and live for that moment.

The sun is advanced in the sky, blinding your eyes for an instant before an old acquaintance’s smile steals your attention.

He stands above you, shading you from the fierce sun rays.

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Your friend knew him, and your heart chose him back when youth was a full-time job. The glances you exchanged with him in the school hallways as he passed still live in this cluttered mind. You blush at the memories and jump up in full swing.

“How are you?” His face crumbles into a soft gaze. The water dam you created tumbles at the thought of the question. You bring your knees closer to your chest, planting the drenched face in them.

“I’m going to Stanford School of Medicine this fall.” You peek at him through your folded arms, anticipating his response. The neighborhood you live in is diminutive, and everybody knows everyone. He must know everything there is to know about you; that you are the oldest of two girls, you have an ill mother, and you are responsible for the family. How can he not know when he can also see you drying your clothes on the balcony?

How can he not know when your miniature, broken-down house is the mold staining the beautiful area painted with rich hues?

His ocean-tinted eyes wince, then he gestures for a hug, and you nod. He carefully envelops you as if he is managing glass, afraid of it cracking. You shyly walk your fingers around his shoulder until your arms grasp his neck. The closer he brought your body to him, the tighter you embraced. A whole conversation starts and will end once you separate. He can feel your heart unpacking the load the world assigned it. He senses the words that won’t slip out your shut lips like your mother did when you told a lie. For this moment, he is a part of you, a part that is enabling you to breathe.

The rush of emotions dries up in the heat, allowing embarrassment to stain your cheeks in the deepest color of love. You slowly untangle yourself from that enthusiastic hug.

The bright sun highlights your sparkling tears, emphasizing the puffiness of your eyes. He cautiously caresses your face, removing your tears with his thumb. His hand slides down to land on top of yours, grasping it firmly, assuring you that life

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will be okay.

You sigh, face looming with uncertainty, like the ocean on a stormy night. He rises to his feet and pulls you up, dragging you to the water. You want to resist, but your feet follow him effortlessly. The deeper you go into the water, the heavier your dress becomes. You let go of his hand and attempt to drown him in the water, pulling his leg. He falls in, howling with laughter, his mouth corners spread wide, exposing his perfectly aligned white teeth. He then splashes water at you, wetting you head to toe. You play like two children that found a puddle after heavy rainfall, jumping and screaming, not afraid of the judgment of others.

His child-like actions sucked you into the past, the days when your envy almost crossed the hostility line when you thought a well-off elitist like him rocking a god-crafted face with his athletic, sun-kissed body lived without a care in the world. Kindness was second nature to him, though when you exchanged looks, he never smiled, just stared, and you misunderstood. However, the image you draw of him collapsed once your friend enlightened you of his misery. You had no idea that his mother fancied a younger chap over his dad and deserted the family for her happiness.

Angered at the visions you composed in your head, you sprint around in the school like a person who lost all sense and checked the library where he hid from his friends, the lunchroom where he goofed instead of eating, the English class you had together but you had no luck. Disappointed, you drag one foot after the other until a familiar rhythm captures your attention. The basketball courts! You peeked through the inch-opened door and saw him taking himself on. Most would think he was practicing and be fooled, not knowing the fight he took on alone. Quietly entering the stadium, you tiptoe closer to him. Unfortunately, the sweat caused your shoe to squeak against the floor. His tense face faded into surprise at 61

my arrival. You’ve come so far, yet you’re just going to stand there??

Uncertain about the next step, you whisper, “I am sorry.” He dropped the basketball, puzzled by your words, the expression you offered him, and came closer, looking for an explanation.

Because of your awkward nature, you answered him with a hug enriched in warmth. “Don’t act unfazed. If the world is cold, then find warmth in someone. Anyone! Today, I will be your warmth.” Seconds later, you regretted your efforts and tried to pull away, only to be embraced tighter.

“Thank you,” he mumbled in your ear, sending chills down your back. You gently stroke his back as you would for a newborn baby. Burying his face in your shoulders, you feel his sorrow drowning your shirt. You unintentionally smell his cologne mixed with his sweat, making your heart race. Before the situation became intimate, he slowly unraveled himself for the passionate hug and petted your head, grinning. You noticed his puffy eyes and chuckled under your breath. That was the last time you saw him before he transferred.

You retreat to the sand after the tiring back-and-forth, feeling the lightest in years. Snagging your slippers, the man ran away.

You chase after him, tripping, and face planting on the sand.

You can taste the feet of all your ancestors and their stories.

You flip to your back and look up at the sky once again. The colors resemble the cotton candy your mother bought you from the carts on the beach. While reminiscing on the sand, the sweet-looking guy came back with your sandals and a conch shell. He placed it in your hand, causing your heart to flutter.

You can see a ten-digit number written on the inside of the conch with the name “Mathew” engraved.

You turn your head to him, your eyes meeting his, and exclaim, “I will be okay!” He smiles back, assuring you he will wait for you, be there for you. You hold it close to your heart, knowing that now you have support from a person you adore. He kisses the back of your hand and returns to his world, slowly evolving 62

into a silhouette, fading from your sight. The beautiful beaches of Miami will wait for you, missing your every step. Stuffing the conch shell in your pocket, you take one last glimpse at the raging waves and sprint home for your conclusive goodbye.

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A Day at the beach by Brisa Aguirre Jurado (digital art)

I Don’t Wanna Go To School, Because I’m Sad

By Gabriel Holm This is a story form my youth Back to a time, when I was bound To the other kids on the playground I remember we would run round and round Until one day I tripped, fell on the ground Oh, how quick those kids were to put me to shame, Never again, did I play their game Now it is recess, and I, Invisible and alone Stayed hidden in the back smoking my cigarettes alone When the time has passed, I head to class I would doze off during the lecture.

Then the teacher would ask: “Any comments, questions, or thoughts” But those quiet kids, with their mouths closed Gave no considerations “Nobody has any thoughts?”

“Can somebody please speak? Somebody please think!?”

So, I timidly raised my hand “I can think, I think” “I think the butterfly would have loved me more if I was a flower You see, the butterfly never lands when I stretch out my hand It would much rather settle on a peddle, There it finds pollen, and when the pollen has been gotten The plant is forgotten, the flower, stuck in its place Cannot chase (the thieves), but worries not, For another butterfly lands, after the first one leaves” Before I could finish my tangent, the school bells rings Yes, I remember quite vividly, the time was 2:22 Two rings, it is time for the kids to go home from school Two shots, they caught the kid walking home from school

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Oh, how these kids can be so cruel So sick, twisted, and wicked They have no compassion for those who mourn Don’t even care for the hearts that’ve been torn Rumor has it, you’re their next hit They are coming for you, boy you better run Don’t stick around, don’t try to fight You are not equipped for this battle, No, my boy run, run, run “Nah boy, run me those f*ckin sneakers” Now I can proudly say that I know fear A realization I came to looking in the bathroom mirror Into eyes, so ugly and pitiful, I wish I had makeup, Maybe that would make me beautiful I just wanted to create, thought I could be an artist But they took my shoes, now I want to burn and tarnish.

So now do you believe my claim: That I would’ve been much more successful as a flower, But I am not a flower, a fact I cannot deny Rather I am he who didn’t do his homework, Just because I got too high

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masking by spacequeen (collage) (editors’ choice)

The Snail

By Vivian Fackrell Hugging my dad tight, I heard the announcement for his flight boarding. “Please don’t go! I need you to stay here!” I yelled, tears falling from my eyes, my knees shaking. My dad peeled my arms off and walked off, his voice muffled. Around me I heard the rolling of people’s suitcases, tickets being printed off. I felt my mom’s soft touch on my shoulder. My knees shook harder than ever, and my face became a ghostly white. “I’m gonna puke . . .” I whispered and ran to the bathroom, a big ball in my throat.

Holding my hand over my mouth, I smelled the sweat coming off my hand.

As I crouched over the toilet, my mouth filled with saliva, the smell of toilet bowl cleaner filled my nostrils. Finally, I puked.

As I looked in the toilet, I tilted my head, my hands instinctively went towards my mouth. Inside the toilet was this small, black snail. It looked back at me, its eyes slowly blinking. Around it, it filled the toilet with this disgusting black sludge. Oils dripped off its shell, as it completely absorbed the water in the toilet. “Ew . . .

What the fuck. . . .”

I heard my mom’s heels clicking against the tile of the airport floor, coming closer to the bathroom. In a moment of panic, I picked the snail up and put it in my purse. I covered it with toilet paper, the toilet paper sucking up the oils and black sludge.

“Baby, are you ok?” my mom yelled outside of the bathroom. I didn’t answer her. I just walked out in the direction of the car.

On the way home my legs bounced in the backseat as sweat poured down my back. I didn’t dare open my bag, not in front of my mom. “What the hell is this. . . . What the fuck do I do?” thinking to myself.

When we got home, I ran into my room and poured the contents of my purse out on the floor. Sitting in the middle was the snail.

It looked up at me, this black oil dripping from its antennas.

Against the light, the thick oil looked iridescent. A horrible smell was coming off the snail too, a tangy, putrid odor, like

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rotten meat. Poking it with my finger, the oil coated me and slowly made its way up my hand. “Ew! Ew! What the hell?!”

I whispered, trying to wipe the oil off. The friction of rubbing hardened the oil, wrapping it like a cocoon. My stomach twisted in horror; my eyes could not shut. My whole body started to shake as I stared at that snail. It twisted its little oily head at me, almost like it was confused itself. “This has to be a dream…

I just need to sleep,” I thought. Looking around, I decided to place my empty laundry basket over the creature, caging it until tomorrow.

I turned off the light and lay in my bed, frozen. My heart seemed to slow; my breath shaky. After what felt like forever, I finally drifted off to sleep. When I woke up it was still dark outside.

There was a something pressing on my chest, like concrete.

The snail was laying on me, its beady little eyes staring at me.

I shined my flashlight on the creature. This was no little snail anymore; it was the size of a watermelon! I tried kicking it off my body, but my legs were completely covered in the snail’s trail of oil. Tears rolled down my face; the oil absorbed them. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The room was completely silent, except for my crying. The snail made a small gurgle, like a baby crying. Opening its mouth, I saw the reflection of steel.

Its mouth opened wider and wider, a small array of knives for its teeth. Its oil around my whole body, paralyzing me. Oddly enough, it had left my arm out of its cocoon. I saw the snail tense up, suddenly pouncing on my arm. It bit me! The knives tore at my flesh; a warm goo covered my arm. It kept gnawing in place, and after a while was just gumming at my arm. My arm was wet and warm, and I felt the suction of the snail, drinking my blood.

Finally, I mustered up a scream. The snail panicked, latching off my arm, returning to its original size. My door opened and light flooded my room. My mom had come to save me!

She launched at the snail and threw it on the ground. I heard a thud on my carpet, my mom stepping on the snail. All we heard was repeated wet crunches. Finally, my mom turned her attention from the dead snail to me. I saw the damage the snail

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had left, thin, deep lines all around my arm. It had repeatedly cut me, getting closer to my wrist. My mom cried with me as we examined the cuts. She took me to the doctor immediately.

The next day, when we left the doctors, they had given me a prescription. I looked at the small orange bottle. On it, the bottle had the words “Snail repellent.”

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lack of mental health funding by Daria Khajavi (collage)

Overcome

By Dallen Williamson Getting into my father’s car without my sister. It’s hard. No blame, but I had to choose, and so did she. The reason why I chose to stay is still unclear. I never felt the abandonment everyone told me I was supposed to feel. She did. I still can’t relate to my sister about this. I don’t know her different experiences. Growing up I was starved for independence, but on that day, I understood why I was so sheltered. Making my independent choice of still seeing my father after he lost rights to my sister almost split the family. I opened the passenger side door and sat down. My dad hugged me. There wasn’t much he could say. To be honest, I didn’t want to hear anything. I didn’t see his face. I wish I did. Choice after choice I’ve made after that day separated the family more and more. My mom always wanted to know later on in life what happened between us— independent choices. Every choice I’ve made after that day could be seen as a deliberate set of events to separate us.

My dad spent the rest of the ride trying to explain what had happened. I don’t think he even knew. Everyone had their side of the story and none of us were correct, or we all were correct. All I know is that my singular happy meal still tastes the same to me, and that’s all that matters. Everything was “Just one!” after that. I wonder what my dad did with all the extra children’s cups and bowls he bought for my sister and me. Maybe he threw hers away. I know I never ate out of them. Heartbreaking.

I would have done the same thing but out of rage. Not at my daughter, but at myself.

The marriage was stacked against my parents from the very beginning. Money was always tight, and it was one of the major things that broke our family. I don’t think either of my parents thought about how much worse their money situation was about to become after the divorce. Parents can be selfish like that. Looking for their happiness instead of setting up their children for success. Children can be selfish by writing a memoir about it. I was always bitter. What would my life be like if my

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family didn’t have an economic crisis one after another for 18 years straight? Then a slight break, and then back at it again.

I hate making myself a victim of all of this. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. I shouldn’t have been surprised. At the time I was too young to know that I should’ve prepared. Both my sister and I were unprepared. We both won’t let that happen again. She now, as an adult, always expects the worst, and I always prepare for the worst so that we don’t have to be victims again. A “victim!” A “victim of divorce!” Stop. I’m fine. I just want to move forward. Please don’t embarrass me. My sister is strong.

She doesn’t have daddy issues. Quit saying that. She’s moved forward. She didn’t dwell on the past. I wish others would do the same. We don’t need to be victims our whole lives. It just takes away meaning from both our choices. To stay or to go.

Growing older, though, I realized what everyone was trying to do. Everyone is a victim in one way or another, and acknowledgment of that pain has relieved them, and they want us to feel that as well. I fear that allowing myself to be a victim will just become another excuse for me not to succeed when the best thing I can do for myself is to overcome, even if I am a victim. Both my sister and I are too weak to become a victim.

We have looked at our families and seen what allowing yourself to be a victim can do to people that share our genes. It’s like telling someone with alcoholism in their family to drink a ton.

Some people can be a victim and be just fine. We cannot.

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“Recuerdos”

By Anonymous (Editors’ Choice: Poetry) Me duele, Me hace feliz, Me quema, Me empapa, Los recuerdos de una vida pasada.

Son como fuegos artificiales, Que después de explotar en el cielo se desvanecen y no regresarán.

Te extraño, Lia Los extraño, amigos.

Te extraño, abuela.

Te extraño, papá.

Te extraño, vida.

Mi vida desvanecienda.

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Ancestral Knowledge

By Sienna Autumn Bizhdebah fluttered her eyelids, squinting through the gentle sunlight that the Arizona dawn brought with it every morning.

The blanket to the hogan had already been lifted, and she drifted in and out of consciousness to the sound of her mother’s gentle voice praying to the Eastern sun as she did every morning.

“With beauty before me, I walk. With beauty behind me, I walk.

With beauty below me, I walk. With beauty above me, I walk.”

The words quietly stirred Bizhdebah awake.

It was time to get up. Bizhdebah wiped the sleep from her eyes and staggered to her feet before her mother could walk back inside and see her still laying down. She kicked her little brother, a staunch warning to follow suit before they both got in trouble.

After all, it was the end of September and the harvest season was upon them. There was work to be done.

Working life was all Bizhdebah knew. At a mere ten years old, she was accustomed to the never-ending list of chores that each new day brought. This week alone she had been solely responsible for picking beans, gathering the sheep, and—her least favorite of all—making sure her little brother didn’t wander off into a pile of red ants. She sat on the floor of the hogan as her mother combed her hair into a tsiiyeel, soaking up her last moments of rest before the day began.

“Today, Bizhdebah, you will help your grandmother gather the wool from the sheep,” her mother said as she fastened a long piece of white yarn around her ornately gathered hair.

Wow, thought Bizhdebah, her head buzzing with excitement.

This meant that she got to walk the half-mile to her grandmother’s hogan all alone. This was rare, and would give her a much needed break from her little brother, as he was too little to walk the distance on his own.

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She quickly got dressed, ate her corn mush, and said her goodbyes as fast as she could. Running out the door, Bizhdebah could feel the heat from the sand already begin to penetrate through her moccasins. She loved this feeling, the warmth from the land and the breeze from the sky combined made her feel free.

When she arrived at her grandmother’s hogan, she swung the blanket aside fully expecting there to be a pile of freshly cut wool in the middle of the floor. Instead, she was surprised to see her grandmother sitting at a loom with a pile of freshly spun yarn to her side and the beginnings of an intricate blanket already woven into the bottom of the loom.

“My little shijei,” said her grandmother, greeting her with a toothless smile that sat between two deeply wrinkled cheeks.

“Today, you will weave with me.”

A feeling of wonderment filled Bizhdebah’s body as she took a seat next to her grandmother. To weave was to learn. The invaluable knowledge of her ancestors coursed through her brain as she listened to her grandmother instruct her fingers which pieces of yarn to pluck and which to pull. The colors of the yarn sung as the pattern of cornstalk deities began to emerge on the loom. Her grandmother, a deity herself, became Spider Woman as she weaved her intricate web of stories as each strand of yarn was added. Bizhdebah listened and watched, until she soon became the embodiment of the blanket—the embodiment of love, the embodiment of power.

A little girl, full of ancestral knowledge.

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hands that hold all things

by Spencer diaz (digital art)

Mixed

By R. R. Smith “I’m mixed,” I tell myself and try not to wince. I’m not white, though I’m not technically brown either. Is “brown” politically correct? Technically correct? Is that racist? Can I be racist against my own . . . color? When I was 14 years old, I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered how I still had my summer tan in December, and then realized it wasn’t a summer tan.

My mother is brown. Everywhere she goes people assume she is a part of their culture. In Hawaii, people spoke to her in Pidgin. In Texas, people spoke to her in Spanish. In reality, she was raised by a tiny, white Finnish woman and a very white Mormon man. All six of her siblings are shockingly blonde and pale. Except her. Growing up, she believed she was adopted. For years she tried to get her mother to tell her the truth, admit to her that she wasn’t like the rest of her family, to explain why.

But Raili Jeffery, once Raili Leppionemi, would only purse her lips and say, “I am your mother. I gave birth to you and you are mine.”

I am the oldest daughter of four, the lightest of the three brown children. The sister beneath me is white like my grandmother: platinum blonde hair and beautiful blue-green eyes. Growing up, she believed she was adopted. But my mother would gather the little girl into her arms and say, “I am your mother, but do not forget that your father is white too. When he was your age he had your same beautiful hair. You have his color, but you have my face.”

In middle school, the Hispanic girls tried to speak with me. They wanted me to be their friend, but it never worked out. I didn’t speak right, didn’t listen to the same music, didn’t dress the same. At night, I sat in front of the mirror and practiced saying things like, “Hey guys” and “what’s up dude?” During lunch, I would listen to their conversations and mentally assign myself a list of research topics. Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Missy Elliot, MTV music videos, Usher… Sometimes I wished they would

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spell things out. It took me months to realize it was “Bohemian Rhapsody” not “Bo helion rap city.” I memorized the lyrics as though they were for a graded test.

At home, we listened to Nora Jones and Michael Jackson with my mother, and Depeche Mode with my father. Our Mormon beliefs didn’t align well with the current music of the day. Once, I yelled at my mother through tears because she recognized a celebrity singer on television and I didn’t. I felt like she was the reason I was different from the other kids. Once, during a school assembly, the administrators played a montage of popular music videos. I didn’t know any of them, but I was so terrified of being found out that I pretended to lip-sync to each song. The girl next to me frowned and said, “We get it, you know them all,” and I felt sick.

I was in High School when the family secret was finally revealed.

His name was Norberto Tangyrifi, and he had been their family driver while our grandparents lived in Columbia. He was handsome and friendly and Raili looked like a silent film star.

Already a mother of four with barely a grasp of English let alone Spanish, she was sad and lonely. Her husband worked long hours at the university and she had no one to talk to. Norberto spoke English well enough, and they got close.

She didn’t admit all this to my mother. Raili wrote it out in a dispassionate email sent to the entire family, all seven siblings with their dozens of children each. She claimed it was rape. Maybe it makes me a bad feminist, or maybe I’m just a hypocrite who says “believe women” until it’s my own family, but I don’t believe her. I hate her for lying to my mother (a lie of omission is just as capable of doing harm) and then making her feel like she is a product of rape. My mother gave me Raili as my middle name, and I am ashamed to carry it. I wish for one day in her life she would tell the truth that could heal someone else, instead of lying to protect herself.

And so I sat in front of a computer screen. The college applications and their list of boxes mocking me. Ethnicity and race. Check your box. Ethnically Hispanic and racially white?

Was that right? Did it count when I’d been raised as a white

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Mormon girl? That I had no real tie, cultural or otherwise, to my grandfather? That the only piece of him we had was his name?

Did the college application boards care?

“Come to the meeting,” a girl with long braids down to her waist smiled and handed me a flyer from her stack. A POC luncheon for Utah Valley University. I was thrilled and horrified. Some part of me wanted to shout from the rooftops that I was seen, that someone looked at me and saw more than “white-passing.”

And the other part of me knew I couldn’t go to that luncheon.

It wasn’t for me. I would be an invader to their safe space, an outsider. I was culture-less, ancestor-less, heritage-less. All I had was a man’s name in a country I’d never seen.

So, when a drunk man at a party leaned over to whisper in my ear, “you’re so exotic,” I wanted to laugh and scream and claw his eyes out. I am only brown when fetishized by white men.

When my boyfriend told me, “I thought you were joking about the whole brown thing until I saw your pussy,” I wanted to peel off my skin in strips. I am white until proven otherwise.

When a white girl at a dinner party chastised me for using the term “spirit animal” in conversation when I wasn’t Native American, something vicious and angry in me snapped. She was right of course—I knew as soon as she said it that I agreed and would make sure to use different words in the future—but that only made me want to lash out more.

“Oh?” I smiled sweetly and rested my chin on my hands. “And you can tell just by looking at me what words I’m allowed to use? You can tell just by looking at me what my ethnicity is?”

She blushed and stammered, but I went on, enraged.

“Tell me then, what is my ethnicity? What race am I? What is my culture? My heritage?”

Shame burned in both our faces, but she had no answer, and neither did I. And so, in order to discover my missing heritage, I bought a plane ticket to Columbia. With nothing but my estranged grandfather’s name, I found the little university town where my

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grandparents lived and asked around in rudimentary Spanish for any news of my long-lost family. Or was I the long-lost one? I found Norberto Tangyrifi in a small family plot and it was there, paying my respects to a man I’d never met, that I met my cousin Maria.

Or, that’s how the story is supposed to go.

Maria would take me back to her home and tell me of our grandfather, how he had spoken often of Raili and loved her until the day he died. I would meet her husband and her children. Her daughter would be named Raili too.

Or maybe they wouldn’t know me. Maybe my grandmother was Norberto’s family secret, like he was ours. Maybe he wasn’t a man worthy of knowing. None of my other grandfathers were.

Larry, David, and Kirby: abusive wife-beaters and worse. Why would Nortberto be any different?

In my coursework on Diverse Women Writers, we discuss intersectionality. We read from the writings of women who were caught between two cultures, who felt less “mixed” and more “torn apart.” Women who felt like they belonged nowhere. And I suppose I should agree with them. I suppose that I should find solidarity in their stories, and learn from their lives and their writing, but I can’t. On some level, I feel like I don’t deserve to align myself with their struggles. I haven’t earned it. I’m not oppressed enough, haven’t struggled enough, am not close enough to my nearest relative of color. I’m only a quarter POC, which surely disqualifies me. POC don’t talk about their heritage in percentages.

I make a joke of it. I tell people that my culture is “Mayonnaise,” that I’m only technically not white, and it doesn’t count. I casually drop the family secret—my grandmother had an affair with a Columbian man—whenever the issue of my ethnicity comes up. I hope the shock value keeps people from prying further. When people talk about their ancestors, I laugh and tell them that the relatives I do know about were Mormon pioneers.

My great-grandfather wrote the hymn High on the Mountain Top and helped build some of the original houses in the

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Avenues. This factoid is a hit in my queer, ex-Mormon social circles.

Why should one part of me matter more than the others anyway? Why should Tangyrifi matter more than Leppionemi, Jeffery, Smith, McFarland, and Cook? Maybe it wouldn’t matter if my ancestors were people I could be proud of. Maybe it wouldn’t matter if Tangyrifi was more than a name. If it meant something, anything.

I’m mixed, even if that makes me wince. And it is that very sense of un-belonging, even with other women in my exact position, that defines our shared struggle. It is the struggle of passing, of not passing, of “too white” and “not white enough”, of ethnicity and culture and belonging nowhere, that we have in common. We can find solace in the similarities of our stories. I can. Even if I’m only a quarter Columbian.

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amazon beauty by Raissa Fernandes (colored pencils and digital background)

12 Hours

By Samuel Wilson 12 hours to go.

Anxiety hasn’t gripped me this hard in years. In fact, I can’t in good faith remember the last time my stomach has turned like this, my arms twitching with the need to move, to talk, to do anything to distract me from the current events. This is what I’ve wanted for years. My life has led up to this moment the minute I began to feel the pangs of discomfort plaguing my body at age 14.

In approximately 12 hours, my first appointment for hormone replacement therapy will happen.

The reasoning for picking such an early time comes from a place of anxiety; of hearing other trans people’s stories of having to wait years in order to receive the care they need. The soonest appointment is at the Sugarhouse clinic at 7:20 am in some fucking building that I suppose I’ll have to find tomorrow.

Maybe I’ll look at a map.

I’ve already accepted the fact that I likely won’t be able to sleep tonight. This feeling is sickening. I know it’s right—it needs to be right. It’s been a feeling I’ve experienced my whole life. I want to do this.

So why do I feel so out of sorts?

Why do I feel so incredibly nervous?

The weeks leading up to tomorrow have been surprisingly normal. I go to work, I go about my day, I do things with my friends and family. My siblings know. My friends know. My parents don’t know. It’s become increasingly difficult to find the strength to tell them. I hate how I’m procrastinating, but as garish as it sounds, it’s a low priority. I wanted to make sure I had the money for the doctor’s visit, the ability to pay rent and bills, and to keep my head above water long enough to take care

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of myself. This has been a long time coming, I tell myself.

It really doesn’t feel like I was nervous at all before today. 12 hours and I take the next step.

10 hours now. Nothing seems to help quell the sloshing feeling in my belly, anxiety controlling my thoughts and actions to the point that sitting still is a herculean task. This is the right choice.

Don’t let her words get to you. This is the right choice.

When I was 17, I made a playlist.

I was walking home—something I preferred to do to stay out of that stuffy apartment for a bit and have some time to think.

I had recently smuggled a chest binder into my possession— expertly, if I might add—and things weren’t looking too bad now that Adam was long gone. I felt optimistic. I knew moving forward was the right choice. I knew I wanted HRT. I wanted the world to see me as a man some day, no matter what it took.

So I made a playlist; one I intended to fill with songs that would remind me of that fact. “This is the day your life will surely change,” The The said, and I knew they were right.

In 10 hours, my life will change.

Remember why you wanted this.

When I was 14, I tried to come out to my mother. She said I was confused. The next year, I stopped going to church for good, and I was told that I can’t keep being rebellious. A year after that, I was told (with intention to discourage) that she wouldn’t call me a man until I started hormones. Two years later after graduating, I was asked if I “was still being trans.” She knew the answer—she was merely afraid to hear it.

Yes. Of course. How could I forget?

She was sick of it all, she said. I missed class that day because all the energy had been sapped from my body with one frustrated, angry lecture aimed at making me give up.

Three years later, nearly. 10 hours from the thing I’ve wanted all my life, and I still feel scared of hearing those words again. My

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mother has changed, but I don’t think she’s ever realized how much those words broke me. Could that be why I’m so scared? I hear the things they say about me, unconsciously spewing vitriol my way because I couldn’t possibly be one of those trannies, right? Just a tomboy.

Just a tomboy.

Honestly, when have I been “just” anything? From the moment I learned how to hold a pencil I’ve been proving that I’m more than “just.” I’m more than a seen-but-not-heard child that quietly fidgets in the corner while petting the family dog. I listen.

I pay attention. I know exactly what everyone thinks about what I’m about to do. That alone will never be enough to discourage me. You are you, and I am me. And I decide what I do with myself.

I think the greatest validation of my own identity is how often I think about it.

Tomorrow morning at 7:20 am, I am going to make the right choice. I’ll never live another second in the past.

This is the right decision.

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pins and needles by samantha stubbs (multimedia)

A Candle for Billie

By Melissa Wamsley The smell of a burning candle lingered in the air, The sweet scent made her taste the burning scented air The touch of the candle was so hot, It made her feel melancholy to hold it, she thought.

The fire danced and twirled in the night breeze, Like a ballerina just for me she teased She heard a creaking step, and dropped it flat.

The curtain caught fire, with a white burning blaze, She had to choose whether to run or stay The smoke filled her lungs with burning air, Her foster parents would know she was there She stumble backwards then cried in hot tears; “I only wanted to see the pretty lights I swear” She couldn’t help but know of the punishment she got The fear and unknown sickened her with thought When her foster father opened the door and acted fast “I don’t want to leave another house again,” Once the fire was out the curtains in ruin, he relayed in pity; “Just no more candles, again okay Billie?!”

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fresnel by paige joy nay

The Big One

By Miriam Nicholson That year at Moosehorn lake in the Uintas, only one thought was on my mind: fish. Specifically catching one, finally. All of my other cousins seemed to already have this momentous achievement under their belt, a true staple of growing up. This was the year, I told myself, this time, it’s my turn.

The sun was almost high noon by the time we made it onto the water. The stalwart crew was composed of a foreign exchange student, my dad and myself. Armed with nothing but a tackle box, two fishing rods and our life vests, we set out in our green canoe.

I always got a bit uneasy on the water, as I had almost drowned at five years old, but the excitement exceeded the nerves today.

I was determined, I would not go back without my prize. My brother’s fishing rod was not nearly as fancy as my dad’s; an elegant yellow rod that was taller than me. I was stuck with my brother’s janky black stick that never seemed to do what it was told.

After what seemed like ten years of trying to force the fishing rod to my will, I enlisted the help of my dad. He handed me his rod and cast it out as he wrangled the beast. The new rod felt like a magic wand in my hands, how smoothly the reel went. Not long after I’d adjusted to my new responsibility, I saw something white streak under the canoe.

The student whispered something excitedly, it sounded like “you got it!” but all of my focus remained on the rod. There was no way that was a fish, I had just been mistaken. Tug. The rod became alive, a lion I had to somehow wrangle, almost shocking me enough to let it go. “I-I caught something!”

As quickly as the words had left my mouth, my dad’s hands covered mine, guiding me gently. “I think you got a big one!” his voice came to me as if it was at the end of a long tunnel, till the moment of contact. A large white fish leapt onto the boat,

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smacking my dad and me on the head a few times as we tried to right it in the canoe. The way it flopped about made me giggle slightly, still in shock about what had just happened.

My dad removed the hook while asking me the ever important question “keep or release?”

“Keep!” I saw my father’s smile falter slightly as he put it on the hook to trail behind our boat, but the adrenaline was still pumping strong.

We started heading in as my dad decided that my brother’s rod wasn’t salvageable for this trip on the lake. Elation made me lose track of time as we bumped into the shore. I got out excitedly only to see the fish flopping around helplessly in the shallow water.

Once my dad came out of the boat he pointed to a rock. I don’t remember what either of us said as we stared at the flailing fish.

I didn’t count on this leg of the journey. I would have to kill it.

Frozen in place my body moved on its own, dropping a rock on the poor fish’s head. The flopping stopped. My dad was solemn as he then explained that I’d have to gut the fish too. But before that we needed to measure and take a picture of my first fish.

My dad set it on the tackle box that had a premade ruler on it, 14 inch rainbow albino trout. The accomplishment felt numb in me as I still recalled how sad it had looked, flopping around on the gravely earth.

I held it up and smiled for the picture, which felt like it took forever to take. The weight of the metal hooks weighed me down, but not as much as what I had just done. As the camera flashed I let the fish fall to the ground. What had I done? In a daze I picked it back up and brought it where my family had gutted their fish for the duration of the trip.

I barely comprehended as the knife sliced down the belly of the fish, feeling the blade grate on my soul. The knife gutted the fish and me at the same time, before I turned away, unable to deal with what I had done. Looking back I now understand why my dad only catches and releases. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget.

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The Longest Night

by Ashley Wilson It’s 1 a.m.

My toes curl in until the pain is blinding. I whimper through teeth clenched tight to fight the shaking.

This is it. I’m going to die here.

It’s melodramatic, but I believe it.

Unable to stand the cold any longer, I gently peel the blanket from my body. The air mattress sinks and I all but fall ungracefully from the makeshift bed.

Outside of the blankets, it is even colder. As if my body had never known warmth and what little it had known it would never feel again.

Teeth set to renewed chattering, I walk the few steps to the edge of the tent and turn on the space heater, checking the cord is plugged into the generator we brought. We were so sure it would work, so sure it would be enough.

How did we let this happen?

The whooshing of the fan pumping hot air accompanied by the buzz of the generator cut through the sounds of the chirping night.

I sighed as heat hit my skin.

Not enough, I whimpered internally.

My eyes roved the tent. There have to be clothes somewhere.

Where did we put the bag?

As I searched to no avail, my stomach sank with knowing. It was out there . . . beyond the zipper.

The zipper was the only thing keeping out the bitter cold night.

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My frost-addled brain contemplated it for only a moment before I moved. Extra layers meant extra warmth. Surely opening the zipper was worth it.

It’s not worth it.

My breath was a plume of air as if the night were a Fae creature from a story of old, one meant to rip the breath from travelers too stupid to prepare properly.

Moving was slow.

Faster, I chided myself.

I forced my body to function. With curled fingers I ripped the suitcase open and dug, grabbing anything that felt like clothing and quickly putting it on. Socks flew, shirts crumpled, a hairbrush lay discarded.

Finally. I was now a puffball of clothes.

Quick as a puffball can move, I made it back into the main tent area, pulled the zipper in one long motion, and sighed with the warmth the space heater had managed to retain in the small space.

Then I saw it: low battery.

No, no, no.

We needed the generator. It was our food cooking source; it was our heater’s lifeline. Again, my brain flickered through ideas, but I had none. With great remorse, I turned off the generator.

The whooshing and buzz ceased. My heart sank.

As I crawled back into the bed, the mattress dipping with my added weight, the sounds of the night flooded back.

“Are you okay?” came my husband’s sleep-heavy voice.

“No,” I admitted as cold seeped back in, my toes beginning their slow painful curl.

“Whose idea was it to not bring sleeping bags?”

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I wanted to cry. “I don’t know. Both of ours.” I laughed a desperate, sad thing. “We suck.”

There was a long pause.

“Do you think any stores are open?”

“No.” I ignore him. Pulling my head under the covers to not let the light disturb our daughter smooshed between us, I pull out my phone.

I wish the light could warm me. Instead, it’s an unfeeling glow on my frozen eyes.

The closest store—only two hours away—won’t open for another five hours. Surely, we could drive there. It would be warmer than this.

I pitch the idea to my husband, not caring that he might have fallen back asleep.

“We will be fine. We can get one in the morning.”

I sniffle, put away my phone, and with the utmost care snuggle closer to my daughter. She is always an inferno. People share body heat, and this is really doing us both a favor. After all, what if she is freezing?

I sigh with warmth. How can she still be so warm? Sure, her head and ears are cold but beneath the blanket . . . bliss.

With the quick reflexes of a cobra, she flings the blanket all the way to our feet.

“I’m hot,” she mumbles through sleep.

My husband and I scramble for the blanket.

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Wonder

by KaylieAnn Brown “I will never have her” I wonder if my childhood friend ever thought that. I look back to the days we used to hide in her basement watching playthroughs of the Sonic games. We would have the widest smiles on our faces as our favorite characters flashed on the screen.

I also remember the look she’d give me.

I wonder if her choice to leave the church came from me.

Sometimes I think about my persistence that she must go because “I would hate church” without her. She would try to kindly reject me, and I would continue to go over every Wednesday to drag her to church activities.

Maybe she left because she was queer.

I wonder if she wanted me to meet her girlfriend. She was surprised that day I showed up on her doorstep wanting to hang out, but she gave me the look of horror as another girl sat beside her, glaring at me with a harmful intent. I didn’t like her. In fact, as soon as they started making out on the couch, I made up the excuse that my parents needed me home.

I wish I had never gone over that day.

I wonder what her thoughts were when we went to the senior dinner dance with our friend. At this time we hadn’t hung out as much, but instead became acquaintances. I told them about my recovery process from sexual assault. She was silent, and I remember that she looked sorrowful.

Was it because she didn’t find out until 2 years later?

I wish I had been silent last time I saw her. It was months after graduation, and we saw each other in a store. She told me

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that she was starting college, and my remark was that I was surprised she would even go. I remembered her saying she hated school so much she never wanted to go for longer than the required 12 years.

I wonder if she interpreted it as an insult.

I still look back and try to understand what Little Me didn’t.

Did she like me more than a friend?

Does she hate the church because of me?

I often feel guilty for things I did.

Would she have been more open if I hadn’t backed her into a wall?

Would we still be in contact if my words didn’t run ahead of my brain?

I wonder if we would’ve dated if I had come out sooner.

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The Flight of Birds

By Saturn Quinn Why do birds fly?

When you are five and first able to express the thought, first able to realize that birds are among one of the few things able to fly without help from anything else, you wonder. Birds sing outside the window of your little room up above your parents’ room in the morning, calling the sun over the peaks of the mountains against the horizon and swimming through the sky. It’s easy for them. Sometimes they’re in pairs, the mourning doves following each other and cooing softly on the roof’s eave through the winter. Other times, they’re in swarms, dotting the sky as they all take off at once from your lawn in October, finished pecking the ground over for food.

Why do birds fly?

You get older. You begin to go to school. You are still transfixed by the birds, but that question, once holding so much childlike wonder, has become overanalyzed by your schooling.

Scientifically defined, birds fly because they must. It is how they survive. Their evolution dictates that in order to avoid predators or to be predators, they must use their gravity defying skills to their advantage.

Of course you believe this. From adults who have absolutely no reason to lie to you, who are gods among children still trying to understand the strange symbols bound between pages and pages of paper, there is no reason yet to be skeptical. But then they tell you there are some birds who do not fly. Your nose crinkles. Your brow furrows. Your head is spinning again. Now is the time for criticism.

Your teachers talk about birds like ostriches and emus.

Penguins. Kiwis! Kiwis are fruit, furry on the outside, slimy and green on the inside, their sweetness never good enough to combat their texture. None of these “birds” could ever be real.

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You’ve never seen any of them before. These strange adults who’ve been assigned to look after you for seven hours a day have to be lying. Why should you trust them?

Aren’t birds supposed to fly?

Your mother takes you to the local aquarium. They’ve got a new exhibit she’s excited about, and you’re just happy to be out of the house in the summertime. You’re still too young to wonder about the efficacy of housing thousands of trapped species within a building of under fifty-thousand square feet. You’re morbidly curious about the anaconda strangling its weekly dinner within a glass cage no more than a few feet across.

You’re captivated by the glowing jellyfish beneath your feet.

You accidentally peer a little too close into the tiny cage of a tarantula embedded into the wall and suddenly realize nothing should ever have eight legs, that many eyes, and be allowed to be hairy.

But then you get to the exhibit your mother brought you here for and you forget about everything else. Gentoo penguins.

Before, you’d only ever seen pictures and videos of penguins, movies about fictional birds stomping away on an ice continent to communicate. It was never real. But you follow your mother into this dark, packed room, push through towering adults to the glass up front, and from beneath the surface of the water, you see them.

They are unlike any other bird you’ve ever seen. They are tall instead of squat, like little men waddling along the rocky interior of their enclosure. They don’t look feathery. They look like they’re made from wet rubber, wings pressed into compact, slick shapes. As the handler’s voice comes warbled through the speakers and they toss dead fish into the water, you realize your teachers lied to you.

Penguins do fly. Just not through air. They jump into the water and zip after the fish, flapping back to the surface with their meal and flinging themselves back onto dry land. They swallow the fish whole and ask for more. Greedy little birds penguins are.

But they fly.

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But why do birds fly?

You’re older now, worried more about college tests and what major is going to make you miserable for the rest of your life.

You have resigned yourself to the fact that it is as your teachers always said. Birds fly because they have to. They have to fly just as you have to wear a seatbelt when driving with your grandpa.

Unlike birds though, you don’t have a special skill that allows you to survive. You don’t have to defend yourself from predators. You don’t have to hunt for your own food. You don’t have to build your own shelter. Someone else did that for you.

You, as a species, dominate only on the basis that your brain operates at a higher capacity than most animals. Your ancestors figured out how to provide you with all your basic necessities, and all you have to do is enjoy their modern conveniences. You are the most useless era of your species, and yet you thrive.

They’d be glad for that certainly. Their hard work has paid off.

Why couldn’t you be a bird instead?

Birds are nervous creatures. Their heads swivel quickly and they flutter off the instant they sense danger. You’ve mounted a bird feeder to the glass outside your dorm room. When you hold still, they’ll perch there and eat. It’s brought back some of your childlike wonder for these beautiful creatures. You’re becoming like them in anxiety alone. You’re busy trudging through college, giving up on childlike wonder to pursue a degree in something that pays.

“Be a doctor,” they’d said. “You’ve got the brain for it.”

There are quail running up and down your university sidewalks.

“Be a lawyer! You like politics, don’t you?”

Finches flip through the air. Starlings taunt the breeze and chatter to the sky.

“Be a teacher! You always said you wanted to change someone’s life.”

You lay on the grass out front of the university’s student center

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after classes and stare at the hawk circling high above. It lives in the pine closest to the building’s main entrance. You wish you were that hawk. Its life is simple. It doesn’t have to get a degree, find a career, or appeal to other people, not like you. It just has to eat and survive.

Why could humans not be as simple as birds?

You’re bent over your laptop with your phone on the table connecting you to your mother. She’s called at least seventeen times in the past two days to make sure you’re getting settled into your new place well. You are. Of course you are. You don’t want to make her worry after all. But you’re only half listening.

It’s mid-March after all, when your job is the busiest, and your boss wants all your client’s taxes worked out before the end of the week. Being an accountant is boring to you, but you can do math, and it pays well enough.

Your mother asks you if you’re still going to church. You lie. The ‘90s fashion-inspired angels in your childhood chapel left little to your imagination. You hated the depictions of winged people, especially when you found out what biblically accurate angels actually looked like. Too many limbs. Too many eyes. Then you fell out with church politics, and the rest was history. You’re grown. You can make your own decisions. And you don’t have to report them back to your mother.

In your time away from church, unlearning the cultish things you’d so believed, you’ve done your own soul searching. You looked into modern paganism, Buddhism, satanism even.

Ultimately, it wasn’t for you. What you did find yourself fixating on was old Greek myth. Icarus mostly. He was fallible, unlike the angels in your church paintings. And he flew, like your treasured birds. But unlike the angels, holier than thou, Icarus understood the great wonder that was flight. You imagined what he might’ve been like as you read that myth, over and over. Laughing and smiling as he flew towards the sun, his soul expanding up towards the gods.

Why are there no humans like Icarus?

An oriole lands on your neighbor’s rose bush while you’re

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getting ready for work. You stare at it, entranced by its bright orange underbelly and shiny black head. And then it flies away.

You forget all about going to work and spend an hour googling to learn its name. Your boss will be furious of course, but you don’t care. You’ve never seen one here before. You have seen so many kinds of birds before—doves and robins, toucans and red parrots—but there is something about this sunset-colored bird that just connects you to it.

In that tiny moment, that rush of adrenaline, you realize quite suddenly that there is a much larger reason birds must fly. It’s stupid. Your whole life you never believed it because it was nonsense peddled by people pushing an agenda. Patriotism.

Godliness. The apparent goodness of horribly overbearing capitalism. Never just for the birds. Never just for the feeling.

You don’t go into work that day. Your phone fills with voices that could berate the gods into obedience, but you never listen to them. Today, you do not belong to them. You are Icarus. You are speeding through backstreets towards that tower within the labyrinth your forefathers built. You are holding your wings against you as you look from its peak out onto the horizon. The air is a murky grey, threatening to blot out the sun. But Apollo is not swayed to give up his brilliance. Helios will still drive on his chariot no matter how your skies look. And today, they smile upon you.

Blustery as it is, November with its unforgiving winter chill, the cities below your fade away. There are no more buildings rising to kiss the sky. No thrones for ordinary men to believe their human ingenuity for creation grants them access to the heavens.

No bustle of traffic or blots of life against the earth. Just the seas off Cnossus. And the birds. Soaring into the sky.

Why do birds fly?

Finally, you have your answer to that question. You understand for the brief moment when there is not earth beneath your feet. The moment your body is weightless. The moment that your soul expands in your chest and your eyes shut to drink in the warmth of the sun you’re soaring towards. Today, you are Icarus.

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But Icarus never made it to the sun.

You have mere moments to understand the birds. Mere moments to feel like Icarus. Mere moments to understand that Icarus’s story was never a happy one. In the next moment, you are crushed by grief. You are finished playing Icarus. You want to stand on solid ground again. You want the whipping winds flowing beneath you, cutting up your arms and legs, chilling your blood and bones alike, to cease. But it is too late.

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What Remains (a sonnet)

By Heather Grahame Some nights we clash and curse. We cry and plead, throwing weapons disguised as words and spite.

Verbs and nouns that we know will cut and bleed.

Brawling until we are too numb to fight.

It’s not always sunshine and smooth blue seas instead, there are storm clouds and hurricanes and words that can infect like a disease.

When the storm has passed we see what remains But what is left is still our loving bond.

We can forgive and we can grow. Always letting what’s real and good and true respond, trusting repair and growth. Revise. Rephrase.

Some nights we fight, battle and spar. And then We love and trust. We grow and laugh again.

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Lattés Are a Matter of Life and Death

by GEORGIA PETERSON (Content Warning: substance abuse, eating disorders) I’m a stickler for calling out the undeserved criticism of women.

We all know that as a woman you can’t be too sexy, too smart, too talkative, too thin, but also not ugly, dumb, quiet, or fat; that, in womanhood, you must be everything and nothing all at once—oftentimes not a person but rather a concept waiting to be assigned meaning and value at the hands of a man’s imagination. To simply exist is grounds for criticism, harassment, and danger and that’s just it.

With that being said—when I saw a group of five or six white women descending on the yard of the coffee shop wearing “western floral” printed maxi skirts and straw hats, mask-less in a small town while still very much riding the tail-end of a deadly pandemic, I thought, “God, I hate these bitches.” One came to the window, and in ignoring my obligatory barista greeting of, “Hi, how’s it going?” She spurted, “Can we just get like five skinny caramel macchiatos?”

“Would you mind wearing a mask at the window?” I said, exuding fake charm and feeling thankful for my own mask in its hiding of my true feelings. They looked at me with utter confusion, as though I’d just asked them to be wearing a mask in another time, before all this happened.

“Well, do you have them for us?!” The main girl responded, with a perplexing amount of retort and surprise. I told them we’d spare one disposable mask and that they’d all have to communicate their orders through the designated wearer.

Also, we didn’t have caramel, nor “skinny” drinks, nor macchiatos in the sense Starbucks had trained them to understand. I don’t want to be a coffee snob, (Starbucks’ peach green tea lemonade really does something for me, and I actually briefly worked for them) but Jesus Fucking Christ. What

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flammable fuel for my hatred fire. I ended up selling them on some iced vanilla lattes, and as they turned to the yard to take Instagram photos while they waited on their drinks, I turned to my coworker Jeffree and said, “God, I really always thought I was a pretty good person. . . .” He laughed—his fourteen years in the service industry having made his skin thick to the lack of thoughtfulness and frankly, idiocy, of the general public.

We churned out the lattes—Jeffree on espresso, me lining up the cups and filling them with ice, milk, and vanilla syrup—talking smack the whole time. Equipped with the barista’s sixth sense: an inhuman ability to be receptive and attentive to the presence of customers, even with your back turned to them, coffeehouse music blaring, steam wands wailing, espresso machines whirring and grinding, always acutely aware of their presence. I called out the name they gave, probably Ashley, or Madi, or Melissa, or Katie, or McKenzie, and a new woman—a minion of the main one—came up to receive the drinks. Maskless, she scooped them up. I didn’t bother reprimanding her, only silently begging her not to drop them so I didn’t have to remake anything and spend a morsel more time interacting with them. Luckily, she didn’t.

Jeffree began filling a cup with cold brew—the silent but sure sign of an impending smoke break. Well deserved. *** Months later, I had a job at another coffee shop in town. Having worked at two out of the three shops in all of Marfa, I figured I had a clear path forward. Obviously, it became my goal to work at all three at some point or another. The circumstances of this tenure were different from my previous shop; what was once a temporary, niche creative experience in a quaint art town where I spent my days making craft lattés and toast, napping, and writing about being in love, this stint was tainted by managerial duties, living in a garage, (not temporarily) and having issues staying generally upright due to my lack of eating and passionate love affair with alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and bulimia.

Still, in the liberal-owned shop in a town without a hospital, masks were required. Because Marfa is inhabited by almost

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exclusively queer leftist artists, this wasn’t a problem with the locals I could spot from a mile away, (even if I didn’t recognize them from the grocery store, recycling plant, or gas station, the contrast between local and tourist was stark.) It was, however, often a problem with the visitors. Whether it was conservative Texans passing through from Odessa or Midland, entitled fashion-types from New York or LA, (too high on shrooms to read the many MASKS REQUIRED signs anyway) or Scandinavian art lovers, I got quite good at sensing which customers I needed to reprimand without even taking my eyes from my portafilters pulling double-shots of premium espresso.

During three-day weekends, spring/fall breaks, and any holidays, it was a sure assumption that everywhere in town would be packed. We as locals knew to stay home as much as possible during these stretches, except for when we inevitably had to mingle with the visitors at any one of our multiple jobs.

I don’t want to sound pretentious or as though I’m trying to gatekeep a town that has been so obscenely gentrified, (in part, by me, considering that I was a transplant there myself ) and I’d also hate to group all tourists together considering I once was one, but why do they have to be so awful?

“Would y’all mind wearing masks while you’re inside, please?” I cried out to the showroom. I watched as almost everyone in line looked to their partners/friends/coffee dates as if to say, “What did she just say?” and then not move from where they were standing, mouths agape (and unmasked) I could’ve sworn I saw smoke coming out of some of their ears, like they were shortcircuiting. I let a few beats pass, and then I said, “We have some up here on the bakery case if anyone needs one.” Then, the near entirety of the line came up and violated my poor box of masks, freshly opened.

“There aren’t any left.” Someone barked at me as I steamed some oat milk. I pledged to go get some more from the back as soon as I’d caught up on the 20 drinks I still needed to make.

I took a break to take an order. A hardened man in his sixties approached the register with his very glam wife who was way too pretty for him. She was younger.

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“You know, y’all Marfa people are really on another level.”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you the one who made this mask rule?”

No, I just work here, moron. I hate my life.

“Nope,” I said instead, through gritted teeth, “that would be the owners.”

“Well, I’m not wearing this shit.”

He opened the mask he’d taken from the box atop the pastry case and hocked a thick, cloudily-brown loogie right into it. Comedically, he tried to throw it at me, but the COVID protection screen at the register made me inaccessible. It bounced back towards him and landed at his feet. His wife tugged at his arm, visibly embarrassed.

“That’s fine, dude. You don’t have to wear a mask. You just can’t fucking do it here.”

I thought back to Jeffree and his composure. I stole a Topo Chico and went outside to smoke a cigarette.

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What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger?

By Arik Yand (Content Warning: strong language, gore) The heavy pouring rain dropping from the night sky slaps against the armor of his helmet. He inhales. Holding it in.

Exhales. He slumps down against a massive rock formation.

Blue and green explosions of plasma scatter the mud and water puddles as they hit the ground around him. The sounds of machine guns, rifles, and grenades deafening in the background.

He closes his eyes, trying his best to gain some sort of peace in this chaotic situation. “Isaac!” a muffled voice rings out. Trying to ignore it, Isaac keeps his eyes closed. Biting his lips, he squints his eyelids shut, not wanting to come back to reality. “Isaac!” the voice rings out again, but closer, “Isaac . . . Isaac, for fuck’s sake!”

He wakes as a fellow Myrmidon—the origin of the voice— shakes him awake.

Standing over Isaac, a man, in the same heavy dark brown armor as Isaac, and an armored face shield covering on the lower half of his face. “What, damn it?!” Isaac yells back at him.

The shield retracts back into the sides of the man’s helmet, revealing his face and allowing for Isaac to recognize him as JJ, his best friend and comrade.

“Civilians! Family of four coming in! They’re making a break for it!”, JJ yelled.

Isaac’s eyes widened, quickly standing from the mud where he was sitting. “What?! You got to be fucking shitting me, here?!”

He peeks out from the side of the rock formation, looking at the battlefield to the North, destruction laid about. The green and blue flashes from the Covenant’s plasma weapons from across, mixing with the marines and Myrmidon’s as they return the fire. There, dodging and weaving the Covenant’s fire as they ran across, was a family of four trying to make it to Isaac, JJ, and the

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rest of the marines and Myrmidons.

“Jiminy-fucking-Christmas! There are kids with them!” a marine yelled from the back.

JJ snapped a look over to Isaac. “Boss, artillery is inbound.

Danger close! Those civilians will be—” Isaac cuts him off.

“Hold that fucking artillery! If they drop one round, I’ll rip their damn heads off!”

“I’ll get on it, but what about the civilians?”

“Merek!” Isaac, ignoring what JJ said, yells back towards his men, “Get your ass up here!” Shortly after, a man, in same the armor as Isaac and JJ, runs up.

“Isaac?” Merek inquires to him. Isaac motions him to take a knee with him in the mud behind cover.

“Civilians inbound, four of them. I want you and your team along with Ezo’Rarum to follow in suite with me. We’re going after them!” Isaac then points to a small rocky ridge, 15 meters to their West. “I want Rig and Walker on that ridge to provide sniper support. Have Walker target those machine gun nests!”

Merek turns around, issuing Isaac’s order to his men. Isaac peaks over the corner to look for the family. Blue plasma bolts strike the rocks near his face causing him to quickly duck. He attempts again. This time seeing the family 50 meters ahead behind a pile of rubble. The father covers the mother and two kids—one of them looking no older than 4 years old—protecting them from the incoming explosions.

Isaac’s eyes widen with desperation and impatience as he waits for Rig and Walker to get into position. We must get to them! They won’t last much longer! He thinks to himself. Even among the pouring rain, Isaac can feel a warm sweat of anxiety dripping down his forehead, tickling his eyebrow as it moves down to the tip of his nose. He looks at the child as flashes of memory begin to flood his vision. Flashes of a child, about the same age, trapped under a burning vehicle. Flashes of Isaac extending his arm towards him.

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He quickly shakes his head. Slapping his helmet. No! No! Not now, damn it! Please, not again! As he tries to snap out of it, he squints his eyes and grunts under his breath. He can’t escape the images, the memories. It takes him, he begins to lose his composure, drowning in a sea of darkness with the water-like quicksand slowly swallowing him. Then, finally, his eyes snap open.

A loud voice from his radio, a female voice. It’s Rig calling over, “Isaac, Walker and I are in position!” Isaac quickly takes a breath and snaps out of it. He looks over to Merek and nods his head, gets up from cover, and begins to sprint towards the civilians with Ezo’Rarum, Merek, and his men following in close pursuit. Making it about halfway towards the family, Isaac takes cover. Shooting his battle rifle towards the enemy, Merek and Ezo’Rarum doing the same. As the rest of the men provide covering fire, Isaac signals towards the family trying to tell them to stay put. The language barrier makes this difficult, as well as the intense firefighting all around them.

He looks at the father, yelling and signaling him to stay. The family is scared. The mother whimpers and the children cry.

Explosions trail closer and closer to the family’s position. “Stay where you are! We’ll come to you!” Isaac yells out to them.

The father shakes his head as he begins to slowly stand. Red hot metal spikes, shot from Covenant spikers, ricochet off the ground, Isaac feels the heat as they whiz by his head. He ducks, swearing under his breath before popping his head back up.

“You stupid son of a bitch! Stay down!” He continues to yell at the father.

Desperation sets in, the presence of Isaac and his team begins to draw enemy fire closer to them and the family. It’s now a race against time, and time is not on their side. The father, fearing for his family, looks at Isaac and shakes his head. He begins to stand with his family outside of cover. No, no, no! Don’t do this.

Isaac minds begins to race. The family begins to sprint towards them. “Holy shit . . .” one of the Myrmidons with Isaac said.

“This guy’s got some fucking balls on him.”

Dodging the explosion and incoming fire in a serpentine fashion, the family rushes over to Isaac. Isaac begins to fire desperately

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towards the enemy, trying to provide as much cover as possible.

Hot metal spikes strike the ground around the family’s feet.

Explosions on their tail. But they’re close, so close that Isaac can smell the breath from their mouths. Isaac stands, getting ready to grab them and yank them into cover.

A green explosion of plasma strikes the ground in the middle of the family.

The bodies fly, pieces of the mother and father spread across the battlefield. The mangled arm of the eldest child drops in front of Isaac and his men. The mother’s abdomen, split wide open, inside burnt to a crisp from the plasma. The father’s face caved in, unrecognizable. The faces of Isaac and his team, white as snow, as they watched in shock. Yet, amongst the bodies, there is movement. The youngest, he’s alive! He begins to crawl out from under his parents’ bodies. Crying, legs broken, yet still has the strength to attempt to get himself to safety. He uses his arms to pull himself against the dirt and mud, towards Isaac. “The kid!

He’s still alive!” a marine shouts out. Isaac pulls himself together.

He drops to the ground and begins to crawl to child as quickly as he can. He’s only a few feet away from him. I can make it! I can save him! Isaac reaches out his hand, fully extending his arm. The child extends his. Inches away from each other. Moments from grabbing his, a red-hot metal spike strikes the back of the child’s head. Piercing through his left eye. The child’s head drops, lifeless.

“You sadistic fucking bastards!” a Myrmidon shouts out towards the enemy. Isaac’s vision is once again, polluted with the memories, returning vigorously. He cannot escape them and it is far too late. His eyes widen, pupils constrict. The whites go bloodshot. Anger, hatred, vengeance . . . evil. He stands up, outside of cover. The background is muffled, the only thing he hears is his fast, deep breaths and a deafening, racing heartbeat. He radios over to JJ, “Drop the artillery. Get 1st platoon on me. We’re going in once they’re done. . . .”

Isaac looks towards the enemy’s position. He takes a deep breath, slowly letting it out. He radios over to the 1st platoon as the artillery drops. Grinding his teeth, he inhales.

“No . . . prisoners . . .” he exhales.

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A Coward’s Curse

By Summer Marriott Does the arrow strike true?

For the nock is poised but the string never taught A ghost of a threat never fully unleashed— Though the message is clear.

Will you ever let it go?

How readily you reach for the mask to don Half-hearted embers dance within its gaze— So easily stoked yet just the same dampened A coward’s curse ever fastened.

Can you remember the original form?

The details no longer given flesh in the mind.

Endless masquerades have repercussions— Though you have your coterie to cope Is the burden ever truly lightened?

Acquiescence lies in the road before Ambiguity of the self just as well— Truly reliable traveling companions, If but the only ones you have left.

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Stargazing

By Evan Lujan “Excuse me . . . sir?”

“Sir?” The bear said in a low voice. “Sir seems a bit formal for a bear in the woods. Maybe if I was one of your big-city bears I’d be a sir, but Barry works fine.” The girl chuckled. There weren’t any bears living in the city, at least she was pretty sure there weren’t. And Barry? That couldn’t really be his name.

“You’re staring ma’am” The girl felt embarrassed and the bear’s smile told her that was intentional. Looking at her feet she said, “Ari will be fine.”

“Well Ari, what can I do for you? It’s not often I get visitors and I can’t imagine you dropped by just to say hello.”

That actually was why she made her way to the middle of the woods. She had found a book in her grandmother’s attic about a spirit in the woods and wanted to see if there was any truth to it.

Now that she had actually met him, she didn’t know what to do and wondered if this is what dogs feel like when they catch their tails.

“Well, I guess you’re right . . . Barry. I actually came here to say howdy. You see, it’s more fun than hello.”

Was that a joke? The bear thought. It wasn’t a very good one and the girl’s goofy grin was funnier than what she said. It made the bear chuckle, and the chuckle grew into a roar of laughter that shook Ari and the forest around her. Barry stepped out of his cave and that was when Ari realized just how big Barry was. He was at least twice the size of the bears she had seen at the zoo and the gray strands of fur in his black coat reminded her of stars in the night sky.

“So, you just came here to say howdy, eh? You don’t want to ask the great spirit of the woods what the meaning of life is? Why

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we’re all here?”

Ari began walking toward Barry and said “Nope. I just thought I’d grace you with my presence.”

“Well, good.”

“And why is that good?” Ari asked.

“Because I didn’t know it.” He said with a wry grin. “And your presence is a welcome one. Like I said before, I don’t get a lot of visitors.”

The young girl’s eyes lit up. “Soooo, you’re saying I can visit again?”

Was this girl serious? Who would want to visit this grumpy old bear in the first place? Let alone again. With a nod he said “yes Ari. You can visit me anytime you would like.”

The two spoke until the sun began to set and the bear hurried the girl home. He warned her that other spirits roamed the forest at night, and they weren’t all as hospitable as Barry was. He told her that even though the humans had forgotten about the spirits, the spirits hadn’t forgotten about them. He understood why the humans destroyed parts of the forest to build homes and schools, but the others weren’t as sympathetic.

She thought of the bear’s warning while walking home. She jumped at the sounds the forest made but eventually she made it home safe. The girl would visit as often as she could.

Sometimes she managed a few times a week and other times it was once a month, but she always made time to see her friend.

She would bring him fruits that didn’t grow in the forest, and he would give her crudely carved wooden figures. She had amassed quite the collection of animal carvings over the years, but her favorite by far was the first one he had given her. She would never forget the excited look in the old bear’s eyes as he nudged it toward her. It was a bear about the size of her hand and while it was passable at best, the fact he had managed something like that with his giant paws was incredible on its own.

“Why?” she remembered asking him. “Why are you so kind to

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me? I’ve heard other spirits when the sun goes down. They’ve never tried to harm me, but they’ve made no effort to keep their true feelings for me a secret.”

The stars in his eyes faded, but he only looked at her with kindness. “We’re so old,” he said in a tired voice. “We’ve had so much time to enjoy this world and soon it’s going to be your turn. The others might not see it the same way, but they will in time.” He sighed “The problem with having such long lives is that we have a lot of time to grow stubborn.”

Tonight, the full moon was shining on Ari as she sat her basket of fruits in front of the cave and looked around her. Even though the sun was down, the forest was quiet. It had been quiet for a few years now but that didn’t stop her from visiting her friend.

She pulled her favorite carving out of her bag and sat it on the ground next to her. She stared at the stars in the night sky above and thought about her friend.

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The (Con)undrum of (Pro)creation

By Brittni Bergstrom (Editors’ choice: creative nonfiction)

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Across

Down

1. Impressive; Astonishing

1. Apart from; Distinguishable.

I remember staring: her fair skin sparkling with the waves of sunlight just barely resting upon her fresh human covering.

“I think you are losing your mind. You aren’t being yourself—you’re impatient with me, with the kids, with the dogs, and especially with yourself. I want you to take a trip, to leave, to make some time for you.”

“Good morning sweetie,” I said to her, to the crib, to the unpacked and disheveled minutia surrounding her crib like a moat, to the still bluetaped, ready-to-paint walls that never got their coat, even months after she was born.

Uncoordinated gobbledygook, she carefully responded.

And even though I am tired and am desperate for more of my own bed, she looks extraordinary, outstanding.

I am left navigating the extreme waves of feeling like a phenomenon and beholding one at the same time.

2. Collective flora and fauna.

Humans take months and years to engage in meaningful communication, to use our bodies to move ourselves with will and want, to learn how to survive with the untamed, amongst the other living, wild things.

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I remember sitting and crying on the floor of our empty apartment, freshly repainted and clean, in the midst of transitioning to a home. I remember feeling a hybrid of emotions towards my husband after he said those words to me. I remember that he was never mean, but in retrospection: brave, unapologetic, and loving enough to be honest and vulnerable with the woman he loved. Clarity came with more tears: I needed to carve out space for me, so I could make space for him, for our kids, for our new life together.

6. A scarcity.

More please, I hear one voice chiming in increasingly impatient tones.

Intermittent crying, although predictable background noise, is a constant, fervent

3. A likeness, or model of a person.

I’ve divided my life into moments: there are moments that have caused an abrupt shift in who I am, how I perceive the world around me, and how I perceive myself.

Puberty, leaving home, serving a mission, marriage, a faith crisis, divorce, becoming a professional, remarriage, creating and birthing a child.

Everyone has moments of true abrasion, that restitch their worlds into new worlds with new shapes and surfaces. We were someone then and we are a different version now, after the moment has passed.

I reflect on past versions of myself and sit in awe of the comparisons I can clearly make between the two beings.

Just as our physicality shifts as we age, so does our interior.

It can become more muddled, more knowledgeable, more or less of anything. But the current you and the current me, we are composed of our interior perspectives and our exterior appearances, and this composite is our reality in real time. The previous versions were just similitudes, and we are present and tangible and relevant and real.

4. Total; Undivided; Thorough.

reminder.

Two dogs approach and sniff me as they beckon me for more water, more attention, more affection.

Phone calls to schedule and reschedule demand another layer of being needed, being stretched.

White dog hair and crumbs stare up at me, nudging me towards madness.

7. To fully encase.

I remember exactly where we were when we made the decision to reproduce: sitting within eyesight of the shimmering lights of the Eiffel Tower. We could feel the expansiveness of our freedom—it.

Although there is never regret, there is now a clear understanding of how allintensive that choice was.

At the time, neither he nor I recognized how mountainous, how pressing, nor how unrelenting parenthood would be.

8. Something accepted without overt proof.

Associating a smiling exterior with a smiling interior; mother ”always knows best”; a stay-at-

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5. To appeal; Request.

Ask and ye shall receive.

My toddler asks me for food, for water, for sleep, for cuddles, for open doors, for Buzz Lightyear, for help, for upand-down, for mama, for dad, for more juice. My 8-monthold presses me for food, for touch, for sleep, for attention.

I ask the ether for willpower, for patience, for positive communication, for precise attunement, for a flexible sense of humor. We are always asking, and sometimes receiving.

Across: 1. Stunning 2. Wildlife 3. Effigy 4. Absolute 5. Petition

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home parent has no ambition or drive.

Labels are formed and extrapolated to every person we meet, every day. Brief exterior observations made without effort to uncover the lurking, interior truth.

Always in hypothesis mode, waiting for speculations to be manifested and so often ignoring evidence that would disprove our thesis statement.

We are stranded, left drowning in conjectures instead of reality.

Down: 1. Separate 6. Shortage 7.

Envelop 8. Assumption

Immediately after I dislodged a small fetus from my womb for the first time I remember crying and crying and crying, and then some. I would cry on and off for months after that—finding myself in the throes of the heft of motherhood, of parenthood, of adulthood, of newfound expectation and responsibility.

We had created life and it was ours for the nurturing. It was finality and totality in human form, being cradled in my tiny, inexperienced, human hands.

A Self-Deceptive Dreamland By: Gabriel Holm

I: I have something to show you: T’was my enjoyment: Staring into the absurdity alone.

All to write another superficial poem And now, I have the will to power my artistically created dreamland, To show you, I cannot take you by the hand I cannot convince, nor point a guiding star, To this land I’ve created, with no instrument to measure how far So, it seems, only profound words Can capture such a dream Yet I assure you this is not to be profound, I just wanted to be beautiful

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I found myself staring at the ceiling, Wearing off this blissful feeling, Then with a magical *poof* and gone was my roof Lying in bed, exposed to the darkness of the sky, Unrevealed wavering lights, which was ever so blinding to my eyes “They’re coming to get me” The spaceship cast down its beam, with a gleam That seemed to study everything (even my dreams) But the aliens decided it wasn’t me The UFO carried on through the skyI think the greatest flaw in our being is our need for a whyTherefore, I chased the ship all through the night In conclusion, t’was all but a delusion, There were no extraterrestrial beings to take me away nobody is that lucky!

III: 121

After that fit of mania, I found myself alone With only the darkness of desolate December Coldness has creeped up slowly, the numbness I remember, from my nose to the tips of my toes Some might say that I’m strange, For I don’t need a jacket when I go outside: I decided to stop being cold No heavy cloud can weigh me down And don’t worry about the pollution: I breathe just fine It seems that after a countless amount of repetition, All great things become boring and mundane --especially sadness

IV: I might come off as delusional, or maybe even schizo Yet, according to diagnostic criteria, I’m only S.A.D. “Although, I could never contrive to the way of the tribe (maybe that’s a lie), I’ve always been cautious about the way I walk,

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But not a thought on the way I talk”

They asked me to provide my proof “No, F*ck you it’s the truth” “I believe you,” said the shrink “This cannot be the typical mode of being” “So please, diagnose my ailment and give the pills that I need” I begged for an excuse, A justification to why I do the things that I do But with all my self-seeking, I found myself weeping Not because of a story: I was just tired.

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New America City

by Arliss Mitchell I can't believe it. Only a week living in new America and I'm already addicted to marijuana. Sour peachy ice cream for breakfast, spill coffee over it and call it a charmed affogato. For good measure, I slap some bacon on a pan and wait until the fat oozes. Mushroom, onion, garlic, corn, cauliflower, and salt.

I construct a beautiful spicy pasta, and my body finds clever pockets to stash it in, providing relentless, staggered fuel for the day.

I've taken up the habit of worshiping worms and attending mass on a whim. The worms are more of an abstract daydream, but the mass is very real and rigid. The building is carved from angel moon rocks, perfectly sculpted to emulate Jesus's love. There's a massive marble table of exhibition atop black and white checkered marble floor. Benches crowd the perimeter, like the front seats of the football game. Saturday night lights, stained glass sunlight oozing, the dentists blaring ray, the telly program broadcasting the presidential election results live, the referee has called a misfire. Such a display sends my brain straight to the morbid: bloody torrents coming from virgin goat sacrifices.

The belting of its suffering grips everyone; this is a compelling and daunting test in loyalty. Abraham's son is shedding silent tears, and no one in this congregation could speak up. The rattle in their bones registers as severe devotion. Seeing as I'm high as tits, this is a drastic thing to digest. We all spill out into the warm lazy sun after saying our amens, and I set off to smoke a joint in the non-gentrified corners of town behind the library.

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When I smoke, my eyes start warbling with the teeming gratitude I have for the life I'm conducting, and the space I get to conduct it in.

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Pain

By Autausaga Danny Feleti

As I'm sittin in a crowded room I am overwhelmed by silence I look and see everyone is still there But it's just silence that I hear Then suddenly a pain shoots through me an indescribable pain It's as if my heart was ripped out of me and just torn to shreds Then as a constant stream it starts flowin Confused am I as to why it won't stop This pain within me and these tears that are streamin Clueless to what is goin on or why all this is happenin Then with the sound of one ring It is all clear to me As I stand in front of the mirror and wash my face It is understanded why I was suddenly stricken with all this pain and strife It's because of that thing sticking out my back Which I believe is a knife. . . .

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Pills In A Bottle By: Bonnie Jensen

29 pills in a bottle, tucked secretly in a drawer A small reminder of a struggle that started just years before Life seemed to be going okay, there wasn’t much to complain When slowly life got dark, it’s hard to explain Everything that once brought happiness and joy Turned into a misty fog, a dark and empty void Tried reaching out and talked to families and friends Only to hear “you’re tough, you’ll figure it out in the end” Consulted a doctor of these feelings being lost Was handed a prescription, 30 pills of Zoloft It took a few days before taking the first pill Hid the bottle in a drawer, ashamed to think I was mentally ill And right when I thought that life would be better if I just disappeared A work email from the hospital, the Covid pandemic is here Everyone do their part, overtime, all hands on deck So much work to be done, but in the coming months, no one knew what to expect

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New restrictions in place and people’s frustrations ran high Family members eager to see patients, we sadly had to deny Told we were heroes as we work till we’re burned out Vaccine mandates are announced, still seen as heroes? Some of us seriously doubt Walking up to the hospital, a 14-hour shift like so many worked before A big orange sign was hanging on the door My eyes fill with tears and every tense muscle was softened As I read the words “You are not forgotten” 29 pills in a bottle, tucked secretly in a drawer A reminder of what I’ve been through, and can take on whatever life has in store

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The Best LEGO Piece Ever

By Tony Coccimiglio

Click!

The comforting sound of two LEGO pieces coming together reached my ears, did I have ears? Oh well, whether I had ears or not, somehow, I knew what was happening. I was tile 1x1 round (orange) and I was part of the greatest LEGO set ever!

“The builder has been at it for hours,” I thought. I didn’t know what else to call this magical force that was able to assemble my brother and sister pieces into amazing shapes and ideas, so I just called them “the builder”. I had been one of the first pieces to emerge from the bag labeled 1, but I hadn’t yet been placed into the new creation that was being assembled on this large wooden surface.

Snap!

I observed another piece being added to the object coming together. “How can I see? I don’t even have eyes!” This really didn’t matter to me; I just was anticipating when it would be my turn to join the other LEGO bricks and become part of the whole. I thought back to several hours ago (wait, how do I know how to tell time?) when my fellow LEGO bricks and I had been nestled in our individual sealed and numbered bags, waiting to

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be released and to fulfill our purpose.

It was dark inside the box. There wasn’t any light at all, but there was noise! As the box we were in was shifted and moved, all the pieces would crash against each other, like rocks in a landslide, making that tell-tale LEGO sound. Then there was light! The lid of the box was ripped open and all the bags we were in tumbled out to the wooden table as the box was upended.

Rip!

Bag after bag was torn open and dumped out onto the building surface. It was like a tidal wave of small plastic bricks of all colors. I observed the builder sorting all the pieces by color.

Black, blue, white, green, brown, tan, orange, yellow, red, and clear. All neatly divided up so we would be easy to find as the builder began construction on the project. I didn’t even know what set we all were a part of, but I was sure it would be glorious!

Click!

Another piece connected! From where I lay, I could see that there weren’t many pieces left. The set would be completed in just a few more minutes. Since I had yet to be added to the build, I surmised I must be one of the final pieces. A magnificent final piece that would put the perfect touch on the set.

Snap!

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Two more pieces added in. One had been from my orange pile.

I had hoped it was my turn, but it wasn’t yet. I’d been shifted around when my fellow orange piece had been picked up and now, I could see the set. It was a large building. A three-story bookstore called Birch Books and next to the bookstore was a cute blue two-story apartment with white trim and a brown door. The bookstore had a red roof and tan bricks. A white trunked tree with yellow and orange leaves stood in front of the store. I wondered where I would be integrated into this building.

The builder grabbed a few more pieces and assembled a lamp post that was placed near the apartment. Once that was complete, they began placing the LEGO mini figures into position. Some inside the bookstore, some inside the apartment, and a few on the sidewalk in front of the building. I noticed one of the mini figures was a small child with a red toy airplane.

I was starting to worry at this point. Usually, the mini figures are the last thing to place on a set, but the builder couldn’t be done yet, there were still a dozen small pieces including me sitting on

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the table.

Suddenly the completed building was lifted into the air, and I realized the builder was moving it to the shelf on the wall where all the other completed sets were. As the builder moved further away, I could see it was a teenage boy and this was his bedroom.

“No,” I thought. “This can’t be true!” But I knew what had happened. I was just an extra piece. I thought back to the conversation I’d had with a small blue 1x2 plate while we were still in our sealed bags.

“I’ve heard some pieces never get used,” the 1x2 plate said to me.

“That can’t be true!” I exclaimed. “Why would a builder not use all the pieces? It doesn’t make any sense!”

A flat white 2x4 plate chimed in, “I’ve heard the same thing. It’s a terrifying thought.” I refused to believe this horrible idea as we all sat patiently in our plastic bags, crammed up against one another.

My mind came back to the present as the next thing I knew, me and my fellow extra pieces were being gathered up and were unceremoniously dumped into a plastic bag containing what must have been over a hundred other extra LEGO pieces.

I couldn’t believe it. This was the worst fate of all for a LEGO piece. Just stored in a bag, forever un-joined with other LEGO bricks.

As the builder placed the bag of extra pieces in a drawer and

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closed it, everything went dark. I could feel the frustration of the other pieces with me. It was almost overwhelming, but I decided then and there that I wouldn’t give up hope. There was another rumor amongst LEGO bricks. Rumors of people that just free build without following a set of instructions. That would be my goal! I would hold out hope that me and all these other extra pieces would eventually be in the hands of a free builder and would be part of a creative free build.

Someday. . . .

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The Fall

By Brian Carlson Why am I even trying. Every damn time, I try to catch a few hours of sleep, but I just lay in bed, not sleeping. I might as well get up. What time is it anyway, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm? That alarm is going to go off any minute, and I won’t have slept at all. I can hear my wife next to me, breathing, tossing. I can tell she’s not sleeping either. She doesn’t have to tell me. I can just tell. Not sleeping. We’ll both be a mess later. Tired.

I open my eyes. It's black outside. Not totally black. We live in the city. Streetlights shine through the window. Why are we doing this again? Getting up in the middle of the night to go on another adventure. How many times have we done this? I can hear a car drive by. Probably up to no good this time of night. Or a hipster coming home from the local watering hole. Portland is full of both. I prefer one of them.

I’ll close my eyes again. Maybe this time I’ll catch a few minutes of sleep. I’m so tired. I know what’s coming. I’m good at it.

Climbing mountains is my thing. I love the bitter cold feeling of being up there. I love the darkness in the middle of the night.

Black, not like the city. Except for the stars. Bright needlepoint nightlights in the sky. I love watching the sun rise. Just a hint of light at first. Then an orange hue starts to emerge. Not bright mind you, but enough to keep going. That’s the name of the game, keep going.

What's going on! Is that the alarm? Where am I? Did I fall asleep? No, it's bright outside. But I can’t see. I need to get up.

Why can’t I get up?

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“Sir, sir, stay down.” What, who is that? I just need to get up. “Sir please stay down; help is on the way.” What is he talking about.

I just need to get up. My head is pounding. I can’t think. My eyes are open, but everything is blurry. Everything is confusing. I’m cold, very, very cold. I feel something running down my face. It’s wet. Not like water. Feels thicker. Or is it thinner? Either way it’s moving differently. Slower. Is that blood? I just need to get up.

I’m hearing multiple voices now. What is going on? Oh.

We did it. After all these years. We submitted that damn mountain. But things got bad quickly. Real quick. Snow turned into rivers of ice. How do you explain it? It’s not something a normal person would have ever seen. I’ve been climbing for a long time. I’d never seen it. Unseasonably warm weather hit the mountain in the middle of winter. All the winter buildup of snow quickly turned into a roaring rapid of snow and ice raining down the mountain.

Then it happened. My climbing partner and wife was swept off the side of the mountain. It happened in the blink of an eye. Oh yeah. We’re roped together. I jammed my ice axes into the side of the mountain. But we were near vertical. I was plucked off the side of the mountain like you’d grab a grape off the stem. Pluck, I'm airborne.

Ok, I fell off a mountain. Now what do I do? I’m alive but where is my wife. Is she ok? I can hear her. She’s talking to whoever these people are. She sounds talkative, but I can’t make out anything she’s saying. Now, I’m hearing more and more people talking. I think I do anyway. It’s like I’m in a hotel with thin walls. I’m hearing bits and pieces of conversations. Actually, more like an old Charlie Brown cartoon with the adult's talking

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gibberish. Was that a radio I just heard? This is serious.

Then it hits me. A pain in my right butt cheek? No. Groin? Hip? Maybe. Somewhere. It hurts. Badly. I feel a burning sharpness.

It's getting worse. Fast. Real fast. “AAAAAAAAHHGGGH.” I’ve had quite a few injuries in my life. This outshines them all. Not a feat I was looking to break. “AAAAAAGGHH.”

“Sir, what's wrong, what's wrong?”

Am I speaking? “Hurrrrrtttttts.”

“Where, where does it hurt?” I point to my hip, groin, butt, whatever that area is. I am writhing in pain, unable to think, talk, anything. Moments, or minutes, longer, shorter? I feel something warm placed on the painful area. Not warm like the unbearable pain. An external warmth. It feels better. Warm, like flannel sheets or sitting by the fire with a warm cup of coffee.

I force my head up. I look around and see quite the scene. I see 10 to 20 people. Who are all these people? I see a few people hovering over us. They look official. I see patches on their jackets.

I see others, like me. In the latest, overpriced outdoor gear. They appear to be standing in the background. Looking down, I see some sort of heating blanket on my hip. Ah the warm cozy feeling. I crank my neck around and see my wife sitting up. She’s talking to the people around us. I see her foot, nearly touching my head. It looks bad, real bad. Twisted, mangled. Will she ever walk again?

I want to engage and find out who these people are. I want to talk to them like my wife is. The fog on my brain is lifting,

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but the pain is taking over. My head is clearer, but the pain is searing through every part of my being. I can’t do anything.

I’m screaming on the inside … or am I screaming for real?

The guys with patches are talking to me again. I can’t tell if I'm responding or not. I feel like a drunk. I am. Just not at the moment.

I hear lots of radio squawking. I hear something about internal bleeding. Life threatening; then, a helicopter. Are they serious, am I going to die here? Are they really going to land a helicopter at ten thousand feet, on the side of a mountain? They did that ten years ago. It was on the national news. It didn’t end well. I want to be part of the discussion. I want to help make decisions.

I want to control the situation. Only I can’t. I can’t do anything but lay here like a helpless child. I wish I was still back in my bed. I wish I fell asleep and missed the alarm. I wish I woke up and had a cup of coffee by our warm fire. I have a bad feeling it’s going to be a long time before that happens again.

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To My Child Talicia Porter I pray for you daily. I know you are out there, and that you have been imprisoned and abused in abominable ways. I’m sorry for what you are experiencing. It is difficult to know what to say to you, but I sincerely want to try. My greatest desire is for you to feel in your heart that I still love you. You are mine, and I look forward to the day you are in my arms again.

It has been six years, eleven months, and two days since you were taken from me. I wish that I could relive that day all over, I promise I would do it differently. I would not turn my back for that one split second. I would make sure that they couldn’t get to you. I would be a better Mother.

It was sunny that day, you had just turned 14 months old. I thought it would be fun to walk to the park down the street, you always loved that park. You would scurry up the steps with your cute chubby legs and then race down the slide into my arms, laughing the entire way. You were going up the steps for the tenth time. Suddenly I heard a loud bang behind me. I quickly looked, to see what it was, but did not notice anything. When I turned back, you were gone. I ran around the park calling your name. Panic filled my whole body as I realized you weren’t around. My heart felt like it would burst from my chest, I could barely breathe as I ran around like a maniac. I didn’t care who saw, all I could think about was you. Other mothers joined in the search, and one called the Police. We didn’t stop. We kept looking, screaming your name up and down the street. You were gone.

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The Police suspect that the cowards who stole you were part of a sex-trafficking ring that had recently hit our area. They kidnap children of all ages, even as young as three-month-old, and then disappear. It is beyond my comprehension what kind of monster would take such sweet innocent children. The rage I feel in my heart is indescribable. I will never stop looking for you. I don’t care how long it takes. No matter what has happened, know that I still want you.

You may believe that you are worthless and admissible. You are not. Your difficult situation does not retract or define your worth. You are more than what is happening to you now. You are more powerful than the people who are trying to take away your light. You have the strength of a conquerer, you are not just any child, you are mine.

Remember, Mom loves you. I will search the entire world until I find you. Keep your hope, I promise that the darkness will be chased away, hold on, I am on my way.

With all the love in my heart

Mom.

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What Do You Say to Death?

By Christina Beers It was a beautiful warm day in May. Birds were chirping, and the squirrels had come out as she packed the car. She couldn’t quit smiling, knowing she was going downstate to pick up her father from the VA hospital. His surgery had gone well, and he was being released today. She had already gone to the store to buy his favorite snacks, Fritos, bananas, and beef sticks. Not the best choice for someone recovering from a triple bypass, but he was worth spoiling. He had spoiled her as often as he could, so now she could return the favor. She had bought a soft blanket, brought his favorite pillow, and even found a cassette tape of big band music, which he always listened to. She could imagine the sounds of Glenn Miller Orchestra, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington filling the car as she and her dad would talk about everything. Dad was her best friend. He was the only person that really understood her. “Don’t ever change,” were words she’d heard from him so many times. “The right people will love you just the way you are.” She could hear his voice plain as day.

She pulled into the hospital parking lot. Time for just the two of them was so needed. She grabbed her purse. Walking briskly into the hospital, the smell of food turned her stomach.

“Ma’am, who are you here to see?” asked the nurse at the front desk.

“Clarence Beers,” Christina answered.

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“Down the hall to the left, room 313.”

As she reached for the handle, knowing the smile that would be on her dad’s face when he saw her, the doctor stopped her in her tracks.

“Ms. Beers, there’s been a change for the worse. Your father has caught an infection and only has hours left.”

So many questions ran through her head.

The doctor put his hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eye and said, “I’m sorry.”

This was not what she was ready for. She wiped her tears and slowly opened the door. There he was, lying in a room with no noise, except for the whisper of a radio they had placed on a shelf behind his head. She heard that hearing was the last sense to go. She couldn’t handle the silence, so she talked to him just as she would if he were sitting up in that bed, looking at her. She pulled the cassette out of her purse and put it in. She started dancing around the room. “Remember when you taught me this, Daddy? You’d let me stand on your feet.” As she breathed in his cologne and the rubbing alcohol from the room, there was another scent she could not place. She went on to tell him all the good times they’d had in her 23 years. “I always loved playing catch with you.” Hours had gone by. She held his hand, leaned in, and kissed his forehead with all the love she had inside of her. “I love you, Daddy.” He squeezed her hand. Then the piercing shrill cut through the air. A sound she’d never forgetthe sound of the flatline.

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His funeral was just a blur of people giving their condolences.

Until one woman stood out. This strange woman who came up to her was short and wore big glasses. She’d never seen this woman before, and in later conversations, no one else had seen her there.

“Your father wants to congratulate you on the baby.” The woman said.

“Thank you, but I’m not...”

The woman gave her a grin. Christina could smell the unknown scent from the hospital room as the woman walked away and disappeared into the crowd.

She was so confused. The mystery woman’s words sunk in when Christina was in a doctor’s office two weeks after burying her father.

“You’re pregnant!” the doctor said.

How did the mystery woman know? This made her remember one of her many off-beat conversations with her dad. “What do you say to death, Daddy?”

“Nothing, sweetheart. You just talk THROUGH it.”

And that’s exactly what he had done.

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Where I am from

By Chendryx Reyes

I am from a small house

Theraband and apple

Small, simple, yet memories come about.

Crazy, loving, chaotic sizzling

I am from one place that dropped something on another for war’s sake thanks to history.

I am from loving, height size, with variety where saltiness abounds

I am from mango trees juicy, not that sweet, but just sweet enough.

From novenas, to litanies, chaplets and opening doors for others

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I am from greetings of hafa adai and goodbye hugs.

I am Reyes and Dalugdog

I am from Siapan and Germany

I am from a blue and red photo album

They explain the significance of my presence among the world today.

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Female Nature & Beauty

by Rogelio Pena

145

Mercurial

by H.E. Grahame

Snow by Hermia Ounleu 146

Squirrel

by FIORELLA CONTRERAS

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Time Flies By

by Daria Khajavi 148

SLCC’s Queer Student Association (QSA) is a club that welcomes all identities, including LGBTQ+ and allies. We meet on Wednesdays from 3:30-4:30. Join us April 25th for Crafternoon (crafts and snacks) in the Gender & Sexuality Student Resource Center, 3:30-4:30 p.m.

For more information, contact our Advisors: Elisa Stone, elisa.stone@slcc.edu or Peter Moosman, peter.moosman@slcc.edu

Visual Art & Design Department Students with an aptitude in creative problem-solving, drawing, painting, design, photography, and/or computer-related visual communication should consider the rapidly expanding and competitive creative field of art and design.

More Info: http://www.slcc.edu/visualart/

Work in the SWRC! Writing something? As a student, you can work with consultants in the Student Writing & Reading Center for any writing (or reading) assignment for any class here at SLCC. Stop by any of our locations (RWD: AAB129; SCC: 1-137; JRD: JSTC206) or visit our website at www.slccswc.org to find out more.

Need a job? We also have employment opportunities for SLCC students to work as SWRC Consultants.

Contact Clint.Gardner@slcc.edu for more information.

Community for students to improve their creative writing skills, uplift voices, amplify passion and collaborate with other writers and creative students

Remember to visit slccfolio.org to view the web edition!

Thank you to all past and current Folio artists, writers, musicians, dancers, photographers, activists, and more for trusting Folio with your creations!

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