Issue One: Elixirs by Sugar Rascals

SUGAR RASCALS ISSUE ONE: ELIXIRS

Sugar Rascals is an international literary magazine for teenagers.

Staff Editor-in-Chief Farah Ghafoor Poetry Editor Farah Ghafoor Prose Editor Almas Khan

Website http://sugarrascals.wixsite.com/home

published July 2016

>>>TABLE OF CONTENTS<<< Farah Ghafoor

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Note

Maxine Crump

Elixir

Christina Imp

Transmution

Lindsay Emi

Aubade with Theme Park

Luya at the Supermarket

Mock Sonnet for Coastal Childhood

Featured

>>> Emma Camp

<<< Arts & Crafts

For Teenage Girls

Nikita Bastin

Chinatown

Nicole Seah

Ophelia

Savannah-Jane Gilchrist

Levi

Alice Xu

Smoke

H.B. Ackan

Swoon

Emily Stefhon

Lost Soul

Violet Singer

A Short Letter

Eleanor Jones

Elixir

Laura Ingram

Tattered Atlas

Emma Camp

Pelage

Contributors

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>>>>>EDITOR’S NOTE<<<<< Farah Ghafoor

Hello and welcome to Issue One of Sugar Rascals! We are very pleased to introduce you to the Rascals that have been born within the four sides of this screen, a collective spirit that is sure to touch you. This issue was built slowly by hands that reached for greatness, for growth, and for courage. We had a wonderful time of reading many captivating submissions, yet had to sift through those that felt at home in Sugar Rascals. The theme of this issue, Elixirs, came to Farah last winter as we yearned for the freedom of longer days and warmer nights. The idea arrived on her doorstep, asking for something more than melancholy. Over the course of a few months, it transformed into tangible words and bright voices that came shouting into our inbox. And oh, they were stunning. Featured Writer Christina Im created a powerful story about the philosopher’s stone, and Lindsay Emi’s poetry feature took us inside the cross-section of magical places and identity. Our quirky cover art by Maxine Crump suits the theme perfectly. Nicole Seah, Nikita Bastin, Violet Singer, Emily Stefhon, H.B. Ackan, Savannah-Jane Gilchrist, and Alice Xu steal the air from our lungs with their incredible poems. We were enraptured by Laura Ingram and Eleanor Jones' delightful stories as they unraveled. Love these elixirs until they fill you up, giddy and powerful. Celebrate these teens and their loud and proud creative minds. We won’t keep you waiting any longer, dear Rascals, read on!

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>>>>>>>>>ELIXIR<<<<<<<<< Featured Artist: Maxine Crump

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

No one can truly live forever. Lara is the first to say it aloud, but none of us are surprised. They’ve been stamped behind our eyelids, our own expiration dates: they call themselves death-days, but oh, they’re blacker than that. Black to remind us just how mortal we are, or maybe more gray, like lead. Edith looks up from the yellowed pages she’s been scanning. She’s a ruin of a girl, with a sly, hard mouth meant for an easy life that’s anything but long. “We almost have it,” she says, voice thorny with frustration. We can all see she’s ignoring Lara on purpose. I suppose her dear parents didn’t mean for her to let their money, so many millions, slip through her fingers. It’s probable that they didn’t mean for her to spend it all chasing a myth. Edith is still fingering the spidery handwriting in one of the books. “Don’t you see, Amanda?” I sigh. “Yes, Edith. We’ll know when the lead starts turning.” Lara and Nicholas shoot me a meaningful glance: Amanda, do something. You’re the one who knows her. It’s true, technically, that I’ve been here with her longest. I watched her stop playing with the copper on pennies when she was six and ask whether it could ever be gold. I’ve been letting that question get louder ever since. But like the hired, hard-luck chemistry major I am—like we all are—I shut up and stare at the Bunsen burner in front of me instead. “It’s just beneath our noses,” Edith tries again, but the dark half-moons under our eyes are beginning to overshadow even the promise of her old, inherited money. I don’t point out that the philosopher’s stone could be under our noses quite literally, frothing and reacting with a kettle of molten lead. All of us are too sleep-deprived to appreciate my stab at a joke. “Edith,” Nicholas says gently, “I think it’s time for us to go home now.” He points to the flickering screen of my phone, where a bright 4:28 a.m. is making itself known. “We can come back tomorrow, try again.” He jumps something like three feet in the air when Edith slams a manicured hand onto the lab counter. “I’m done with this trying again,” she mutters, gritting her teeth. It’s Lara who comes to her senses this time—timid, mousy Lara. “You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow night.”

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

She’s the first to desert Edith, and she sweeps the rest of us out with her.

*** I’m with Edith the day she’s diagnosed. We’re both seven years old and still use pinky promises. I sound out the word leu-ke-mi-a in my head, roll it over my tongue. Her mother begins weeping primly—a feat if I ever saw one—and her father just shakes his head and says disaster’ over and over. Only I hold her hand, and in true Edith fashion, she doesn’t so much as twitch to acknowledge it. “Isn’t there anything they can do?” I ask the doctor tremulously, and he looks at me with this why-are- you-here expression, the one people use once they really look at me and realize that my train wreck of a face could never be related to Edith’s old-moneyed one. It’s like I’ve flipped a switch in the room; suddenly Edith’s father slams back to life and is barking money and sums like he’s smashing the diagnosis to bits, as if he can barter for his daughter’s health with the sheer force of his will and wealth and political power. He can buy campaign votes, maybe, but can he buy back Edith’s life? All he’s doing is spilling oil on the floor. He only needs to light a match to set everyone aflame. “No,” the doctor finally says, if only to stop the onslaught. “Edith needs nothing short of a miracle.” Miracle. The word reverberates, and I try holding it in my mouth right next to leukemia. Together they’re bitter, like decay and kindling. Strike a match and watch the fire, I think, strung high with nerves. I look sideways at Edith. Her parents are silent—there’s no use lying to a girl like her. And I swear that I can see the exact moment that her heart starts to burn.

*** I don’t know whether it’s pity or genuine liking that makes Edith keep me around, but the needy, horrible hole inside me says that whatever it is, it should stay. Usually she’s a terrible roommate and an even worse friend, but today she’s grinning like she’s invincible. Maybe she is, I almost get tricked into thinking. “Hey, take a break today,” she says in a light-footsteps voice. “I’ll tell Lara and Nicholas not to come to the lab. Want to go shopping?” I protest—it’s Monday, and what kind of college student would I be if I didn’t go to college?—to no avail, and she pulls me into a taxi. She hands the driver a hundred dollars, to his delighted confusion, and settles with

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

with cunning bravado into her seat. “So what’s your main roadblock right now?” she asks, and I get a sinking feeling that can only come from knowing exactly what she’s talking about. “Budget’s not a problem, is it? And research materials I can get for you.”

I’ve never wanted to yell at her so badly. Edith, I want to say, the thing you’re having us make? It’s not real. She’s been in remission for a while, after the most intensive chemotherapy rounds she’s ever had, but remission never lasts, and she’s desperate for insurance. Snap out of it. Instead, though, I remind her, “Break, remember? That means it’s time to go be superficial in clothing stores together.” She relents, and we pass the rest of the taxi ride and a long while after without speaking. When we enter the mall, we’re as distant as strangers. But as soon we get to an adequately stiff, glamorous store, she yelps excitedly and drags me inside. I find myself sputtering amid swishing, diamond-laden dresses that smell like purity in the worst possible way. “Do you want one?” Edith asks gaily, in that careless tone that only rich people can master. My immediate ‘no’ gets lost in the folds of countless skirts. After a few increasingly tense minutes, Edith emerges from the forest of fabric with a painfully white, flowy frock bunched up in her hands. She’s looking at it with something like reverence. “I’ll get this, then.” She approaches the cash register, and the woman behind it takes the dress, brow furrowed.

“Honey, this is a wedding dress,” she says, frowning. “You look a little young to be getting married.” Edith sets her jaw, her expression turning oddly raw. Brutal, almost. “I might not live to see my wedding.” She’s dangerously quiet and shaking ever so slightly. “Cancer kids hardly ever do. So if you’d please excuse the goddamn cosmic joke that is my life, I’d like to buy a dress without any fuss.” “I can’t allow that, unfortunately,” the saleswoman replies, chastened but firm. “It’s specifically for bridal use.”

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

“I can pay however much you want,” Edith persists. “I’m immune to capitalism.” “I’m afraid I have to be adamant on this matter.” She glances apologetically in my direction, but I can only respond by way of a small shrug. There’s nothing I can do.

They engage in an uncomfortably long staring match that I’m forced to break eventually by clearing my throat. “Fine,” Edith decides. “I won’t buy the stupid dress.” She snaps her fingers, which I take as a signal that we’re leaving, and we walk out of the store with what I hope is defeated dignity. We march straight towards the mall exit—her resolute and gasping in little hiccups, me half- running to keep up. It’s not until we’ve almost reached the glass doors that she erupts into full- on, soul-shredding sobs, the kind that waterfall out of you once they’ve started and just have to run their course. Mascara streaming down her cheeks, Edith staggers out of the mall and hails a taxi. I get in cautiously, never meeting her eyes, and in the afternoon light, I think she’s taken on the mantle of years.

*** Edith first reads about alchemy at the age of nine, and instantly she’s hooked. For her there’s something beguiling about this stab at magic—I guess I don’t blame her, since she’s had to live with her diagnosis for two years already. She shows me an encyclopedia article on the philosopher’s stone like she’s introducing me to a pet. “Brilliant, isn’t it?” she says, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her face light up with truly unadulterated joy. “It turns any metal into gold.” I’m grounded in the things you can touch and taste, the worldly things, so I can’t help but doubt the merits of something bordering on sorcery. “Sure,” I mumble, uncertain, but it’s answer enough for her. “It could save lives,” she insists, eyes shining. “Yours.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Mine.” I hear the impossible dream in her words like a shivering star.

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

I just half-smile and pray that star doesn’t collapse and leave a gaping black hole in its wake.

*** We meet in the lab again that night, any prospects of a real ‘break’ forgotten, and we spend nearly an hour wordlessly boring a hole in the Bunsen burner with our eyes, at a complete loss. There is no moldering alchemical scroll in existence that we haven’t read at least three times, and yet here we are, dead-ended like we’re in high school all over again. Nicholas admits defeat first, as always. “Edith, we’ve tried everything.” Predictably, she rounds on him, high-pitched and climbing ever higher. “Well, I’m giving you everything. Where would you be if not for me?” Nicholas, in a rare moment of prudence, doesn’t attempt a retort. “Back in your tiny town with no cash and no precious college fund!” Her shrieks turn to outright shouts. “You are nothing without me!” “Edith, that’s—” I start, but she silences me with a razor-blade glance. “And if I die?” she continues, a little more brokenly. “All of that’s gone.” “We’re just about killing ourselves over this,” Lara jumps in. “Go easy on him for today. His grades have been suffering.” “Oh.” Sarcasm drips from Edith’s lips. “My bad. It’s just that for every day you waste”—she delivers a landslide of a cough, as if to emphasize her point—“I take a step closer to the grave.” “Maybe it’s time for you to realize the world doesn’t revolve around you,” Nicholas snaps. “Maybe you should just accept—”

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

“Accept what?” Edith cuts in shrilly. Her hands are balled into white-knuckled fists. Nicholas falters. “I didn’t mean that, I promise.” But Lara—oh, Lara’s just done with this conversation. “He means you should recognize that you’re going to die sooner or later and try not to drag the rest of us down to hell with you.” Her expression, her demeanor—no, her entire being—is poison. Edith, quivering, splinters the room with a scream of bright, blinding rage. She sweeps an arm across the lab table as if it’s an executioner’s axe, knocking a beaker to the floor. Let’s fix this, I think hastily, and I speak too soon. “Lara and Nicholas might have a point.” Edith actually snarls at me—feral, uncontrollable. Don’t move, I plead inwardly. Don’t let all this go up in flames. But my thoughts don’t count for much. They never have. She picks up one of the beaker shards and lashes out with it, chest heaving. It scrapes across Nicholas’s features, opening up a long, deep wound. I clap a hand to my mouth. The gash on his face extends from the bridge of his nose to his lower lip. He lifts his fingers to it, stunned, and swears a black string of curses when they come away covered in blood. It’s doubly shocking because most of the time, he’s mild-mannered to a fault. Trembling with outrage, Lara takes Nicholas’s hand and takes one two three steps toward the door. “Don’t expect us tomorrow.” Her glare is barbed and sparking with electricity, a fence to keep us out. And when they leave, the door slams shut like a death sentence.

*** There’s a car crash on Edith’s sixteenth birthday and suddenly her parents are reduced to an IN MEMORIAM and two full-to- bursting bank accounts, all of which land squarely on Edith’s shoulders. When the police have her identify their bodies, she surveys the damage coolly, clicks her tongue, nips her tears in the bud. I’m there, like I always am, without an explanation or any need for one.

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

“Well,” she says wryly, looking sidelong at me, “at least they left me enough cash to avoid the whole charitycase deal.” “Edith Blackley,” I chastise, but it’s a halfhearted effort at best. “No, really. I appreciate it. Maybe now I can actually do something useful. Donate to cancer research, perhaps.” She lets out a sandpaper laugh. “Or do some research of your own.” She nods thoughtfully. “That’s right,” she says, and in the fading blood-red sunset her blue eyes flash gold. Gold, I think, suddenly sick to my stomach, and I keep my mouth shut for the rest of the evening.

*** Lara and Nicholas don’t come back the next day. Edith can rail against it and punch as many walls as she wants, but it doesn’t change the terrible reality of the gap they leave in the lab that night. As Edith’s unwanted but perpetual unofficial therapist, I commiserate and console as necessary. When we go to bed after hours of waiting, I think to myself sadly, Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.

*** When Edith’s first boyfriend leaves her, a year after the accident, she screams and wails and asks me why. Not so much because of losing him, but because of losing one more thing that makes her a person and not a time bomb.

I tell her it’s because he fears her. She goes quiet. Then, carefully, she says, “Do you fear me, Amanda?” By this time we’ve already begun looking for the philosopher’s stone. I’ve wasted innumerable hours and dollars on the worst kind of wild goose chase, where the goose in question is running headless and bloody and leading you straight to nowhere. I’ve seen Edith’s shell crack more times than I’d like to, and the bits of her soul showing through aren’t pretty.

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

I remember that there’s no use lying to Edith Blackley and manage a subdued ‘yes.’ She bites her lip, taken aback despite herself. There’s a silence like ink in water. I fear her and I always will. At long last, she opens her mouth and her eyes turn to ice. “Well,” she says, with such finality that my heart sinks, “good.”

*** “Amanda.” A shaft of sunlight is peeling at my eyelids, and Edith is coughing up blood. “Oh,” I murmur, “I think you’re relapsing.” “I know the cancer’s back. I think I can tell when my own fucking tumor’s acting up. I need to get to the lab.” No, no—“Edith, if you think the stuff we left in that burner is going to turn lead into gold and keep you alive, you have to know it’s nowhere near ready.” “I don’t”—cough—“care.” She’s already out the door, stumbling down the hallway of our apartment building towards the lab. “I’m not supposed to die.” I know it’s useless to try and hold her back. She’ll tear out my throat with her fingernails if she thinks she needs to. “I’m supposed to be the alchemist.” Her voice echoes crazily off the wall. “A girl with cancer, cheating death. That’s how this is going to end.” Blood is trickling out of her mouth, leaving a trail, and somehow I decide: Edith will die today. If not from the solution in the lab, then from the blood loss. There’s nothing I can do but clean up her mess, like always. She almost rips the lab door open, swearing. The burner is still there, and flecks of the maybe-elixir have congealed over the material’s surface. It’s a reddish-rust color now, and every part of me wants to cry poison. “Edith Blackley, stop this instant.”

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>>>>>TRANSMUTION<<<<< Featured Writer: Christina Im

She looks back at me, just once, long enough for me to know she’ll do just the opposite. Then she swallows a hunk of what probably isn’t the philosopher’s stone. I think I scream when she starts to glow softly, lightning behind a cloud. Gold, enough to pay back her entire inheritance five times over, traces its way through her veins. Her skin crackles and hardens. At some point I cover my eyes, my nausea rising in waves, but I have a bad habit of not leaving her when I should, and old habits die hard. The glow fades, and I exhale. What do I do? Do I look? Do I—but my thoughts are frozen by the unmistakable sound of Edith gasping. I turn in her direction and am greeted by her form, cast unblemished in solid gold. There’s her immortality, I think with a dry, choking laugh. But not like this, never like this. Edith’s sigh hisses straight into my core. Statues don’t breathe. There’s an explanation for this. My ears are playing tricks on me. I’m in shock. Something. My whole body is rigid, and I don’t dare move as my gaze lands on her still-unmoving mouth.

“Forever,” she whispers, and I finally turn and run.

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>>>AUBADE WITH THEME PARK<<< Featured Writer: Lindsay Emi After Novica Tadic In the morning after the symphony a violinist takes me to Toontown maybe our dreamland bright and sugared and liquid there the sky makes a green seam with the hills maybe a trick of the light I go anyway wait with her-- two hours in this pretend house with birdless windows rooms with three walls Minnieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fake oven propped in her pink kitchen table set for ten thousand we watch how

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>>>AUBADE WITH THEME PARK<<< Featured Writer: Lindsay Emi the house sags like a theater under the sky with its bright seam-- I turn I ask who built you house I ask someone who behind my back in the imaginary room

rearranges the plates

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>>>LUYA AT THE SUPERMARKET<<< Featured Writer: Lindsay Emi luya finds the moon packaged vacuum sealed on sale: 1.24 lb white slab cut neat as fish. at her fingers it turns fleshsoft beneath its skin of plastic and fluorescent light. luya finds moon fragments in aisle 6: FROZEN FOOD packages furred with ice, sweating in her hands knows all those myths for the moon and stories for mid-autumn; same woman as deceit again same man coming to punish-luyaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s moon goddess who wears her motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face with wetted lips, cradling the hare in her arms a clot of green light in the dark

this slab of moon luya wonders, thinks of its residues of elixir that swell the moon-flesh and pool; in the market luya dreams upward, or homeward, her body fleeing to the same shared hunger

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>>>MOCK SONNET FOR COASTAL CHILDHOOD<<< Featured Writer: Lindsay Emi In these waves I consider my girlbody translucent, blue and soft-edged. Ocean formed me so I open my mouth to it, emptied into the round of a loose fist. Like the water I take into myself red and orange and yellow echo and hum in a vessel for light or else I separate, by skin and membrane and instinct for air--

either way, my body knows no drowning only seams pulled and opened up with the opening of a mouth, returning water to water to water.

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>>>>>ARTS & CRAFTS<<<<< Emma Camp

After Lauren Goodwin Slaughter I absorb coconut oil like a garden snail— a floral osmosis of sorts in my fingertips. Beads of beeswax—blue and white on cafeteria tables—Little glass jars to fill and melt— lavender drops on my knuckles—I make a battalion of small, sad, candles and write half-hearted greeting cards to the homeless— fake velvet and rows of foil stickers—a dozen tiny, red hearts.

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>>>>>>FOR TEENAGE GIRLS<<<<<< Emma Camp You will get told you are like a kumquat— pockmarked and bitter, a fruit destined for birdseed & roving fingers—round & orange, there is something meant for plucking about your skin. I would tell you not to believe that you are as fragile as petalflesh, but I, too find myself tearing at invisible seams—learn to sew & find thread in the cradle of your palm, weave armor red & black, the color like thumb blood after bitten hangnails. You will find yourself in the communion of rough edges—a basket of summer fruit—bruised & yellow, your sores open in the sun. The first time you are called crazy, do not listen to the voice determined to reduce you to a halved tangerine, but understand there is no way to peel off your own rind. If you are made into a nymph, forge a blade in your orisons— a palmed permission, your purpose is more than as muse

for tragic poems—try not to believe the muddled

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>>>>>>FOR TEENAGE GIRLS<<<<<< Emma Camp verses your voice is sworn for, but go on, despite the pitcher of rosewater you were meant to drown in. Previously published on girlspring.com.

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>>>>>>CHINATOWN<<<<<< Nikita Bastin

Wandering through the garbled paths that slither through the town, the year of the snake, the ninth one for the gluttons who, here, thrive, their hearts illuminated in the careful gilding of the ridges that line the back of this dragon slinking between pillars. At the triumphant gutting of the snake, my mouth is sewn tight, the blood welling out of the scales, dripping in a constant rhythm like the monotony of that boatman who claimed that the snake was anything but poisonous. These scales break my heart like mirrors, but the blood from the tears cannot escape my netted lips. When these fish look at me through the shoddy crosshatching of their nets, I can only think of how red this defiant, little town isâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the sign asserting community, community, the paper lanterns, the antique roofs hanging over the homeland, the feathers suspended in the air like fallen eyelashesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; this is the infinite home, but remember the man on his knees draining the blood of the fish into his own heart of white, ghost-crowded veins.

Previously published on nikitabastin.com.

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>>>>>>>>OPHELIA<<<<<<<< Nikita Bastin

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>>>>>>>>>LEVI<<<<<<<<<< Savannah-Jane Gilchrist

Your love was nomadic. Returning to me and leaving again, in savage, all-consuming waves. Ravaging me. draining me of all worth, until I stitched myself back together again, until I began to build fires, gather fruit, construct my heart all over. My arteries would begin to flow, muscles to contract, hair to shine, eyes to fade the grey and reclaim their honey, that sweet, golden concoction infusing into me, with its gilded sutures healing the death, razing the grief to calloused scars. But as if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d smelled the sugar dripping from my fledgling wings, Felt my halo saturating this mind, there you were again, on my shores and in my woods,

ready to raid my body.

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>>>>>>>>SMOKE<<<<<<<<< Alice Xu

Each night, his mouth / turns into a nicotine mine. / By now, I know to close / my door, open / windows. Sister burns scarlet, / and Mother coerces / him into cleaning his teeth / skinned with rotten apples. His spit / sticks onto the sink like zebra mussels. / After he lost her, / he let fumes choir / an emptiness into the sky. Seeds / for a fire. By now, Mother does not speak. / She clutches the safehold / of her sweater and waits.

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>>>>>>>>SWOON<<<<<<<< H. B. Ackan

The days when my heart poured crimson red, Heavenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tempest shook to gather for me, Lighting the skies with sharp, sudden fireworks As thunder played on its bellicose drums, Making a haven for my wild blood To rage in those sullen times.

ii.

The days when my soft hands danced with the night, And the moon made love to its light, The wild seas bowed to me as I stepped into Tritonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skin And my lungs swallowed dark poison to grow my fins. I remember, for one second under the biting water, I felt like I could breathe the sea: Its ambience, its life, its secrets.

iii.

The days when my eyes reflected the blue light of blaze That licked the tapers lit around the cold dungeon,

Echoing the flickering of fire; The ashes rose, bringing life to the mortuary. And I dipped my fingers into the melting ink As the candles fed off of their burning bodies While the wax grew cold, capping my skin of The secrets that I hid behind its thick gown.

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>>>>>>>LOST SOUL<<<<<<< Emily Stefhon

The devil waits anticipating, anxiously watching me come forth, a grin of evil spread from horn to horn. It is time for my perdition, the selling of my soul, in exchange for my mind to become blank from every memory you gave, permanently erased. Yet as the devil goes to seize my orb of light, to both his and my surprise, my chest was bereft of any life.

The devil roared with rage, as I cried with emptiness, for you, the one Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been trying to forget, had already captured my soul, long, long, ago.

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>>>>>A SHORT LETTER<<<<< Violet Singer

To all the sad people in the world: I would like you to think about orange. Orange light tossed gentle onto yellow walls on a Friday morning in October. Orange as a fruit, whose insides make miniature cathedrals and miniature chandeliers. Think about how no one ever mentions that if you happen to glance outside in the early hours of the morning or the late hours of the night, when it is snowing the sky is orange reflected off the smear of white that is the world and the earth has become a realm of softness, of glow and of gold. To all the people who believe themselves broken: I would like you to think about how somewhere, out there, there are both a. people singing lullabies in French and b. dogs with raincoats.

Think about how coconut water sounds so good but tastes so bad

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>>>>>A SHORT LETTER<<<<< Violet Singer

and how when in a rush you can always find everything except your keys. To all the people who feel betrayed by their bodies: Think about why everyone looks bad in school photos and why, oh why, did you have that haircut when you were fifteen, and why didn't anyone tell you that you looked like someone's grandmother. Think about how you can't even remember the last name of the girl who broke your heart in third grade. Think about how grateful you are to not be in third or fourth or sixth grade anymore. Think about the first time someone maybe your best friend offered you a smoke

and how everything, your entire future, seemed to hang in her outstretched hand her mascara gaze and how whether you took it or not whether you choked (in either sense of the word) it didn't really matter so much at all.

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>>>>>A SHORT LETTER<<<<< Violet Singer

To everyone: Think about how someday this whole mess will just be a story you tell at dinner parties that time in high school when you got drunk rode in the way-back of a pickup truck kissed someone else's boyfriend and almost fell out and how cliche that all seems now.

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>>>>>>>>>ELIXIR<<<<<<<<< Eleanor Jones

Slowly I swallow the clear elixir. Gran gave it to me last night; she said she’d made it especially for me, adding as much power and magic and strength to it as she could. “A young body can’t take too much power all in one,” she’d said. “It can overwhelm them with its immense power.” I’d nodded in agreement, loving that I was involved with Gran’s secret magic and potion-making, but mum had just rolled her eyes, saying later that Gran said a lot of things, and most of them exaggerated nonsense. But I think she’s wonderful. I focus my thoughts only on the magic and powers within the contents of the bottle. Gran had said the magic wouldn’t work unless I focussed all my energy, all my thoughts, onto the elixir. I feel the cool liquid run down my throat and settle in my belly and I imagine it fizzing around in there, building up defences, making me more powerful. When I glance at myself in the mirror I no longer see a shy, awkward girl in a faded school jumper and shoes that are two sizes too small. I see a capable, strong, independent woman, who can handle anything the world decides to throw at her. Carefully, I place the bottle, with its precious liquid, back on the shelf, running quickly outside to the bus stop as I see the bus pull up just outside the house. As I walk onto the school bus Kim comes up to me, as she does every morning, taunting me, teasing me, trying to make me feel as worthless as she clearly does. Yesterday I would have burst into tears, ran to the back of the bus, hidden my face in my jumper. But today I have the elixir. I feel its presence deep within my belly, making me recognise that her taunts are a desperate cry for help, a way to release the emptiness she feels deep within her own body. Today I calmly walk towards her, taking a seat next to a tall, ginger, freckled boy at the front of the bus. She carries on teasing, shouting insults in my ear, jabbing me with her finger, expecting me to rise to it. But the elixir prevents me from giving her that satisfaction and I let it work its magic as she eventually grows bored and stalks off somewhere else, attempting to hide her shock at my calm aura. “Thank you Gran,” I mumble under my breath, and the ginger boy gives me a strange look. Yesterday I would have turned crimson if a boy so much as looked at me. Today I meet his look with a smile. Walking down the corridor to first lesson the elixir forces me to stand straight and proud, my hair pulled back from my face in a ponytail. I see people look at me in shock as they try to place this new confident woman with the small, cowering girl of yesterday. I meet their gazes head-on as I stride past and people move out of my

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>>>>>>>>>ELIXIR<<<<<<<<< Eleanor Jones

of my way, even smile at me. Yesterday I was invisible, and liked it that way. Today the elixir gives me the confidence to become visible, to be seen, it have a presence. I take my seat in class, and even Mrs Mackenzie does a double take as she sees me looking straight ahead, not gluing my eyes to my desk, too scared to make eye contact with anyone.

“Can anyone tell those who were out of class yesterday what we were discussing?” Mrs Mackenzie asks and, before my mind registers the action, the elixir pushes my hand up and words come tumbling out, my voice sounding as though it’s coming from another, stronger person. “We were discussing the Tudors, Miss, and the fall of Thomas Cromwell in 1540.” I sound confident, powerful, fearless. Yesterday I would have known the facts, the answers, but had a teacher asked me a question my voice would have dried up like a cactus, failing to make any noise or any impact. But today is not like any other day. I have the elixir. I have power in my body, magic coursing through my veins. I grab some lunch, alone, but the elixir makes me feel at ease with myself and I don’t worry, as I might have in the past, that people will call me a loner. Suddenly I hear a shout. The ginger boy is on the ground. Jordan Matthews, the largest, meanest and, most likely ugliest, boy in our school is standing over him, laughing and taunting him, making him into a joke for the amusement of his cronies. The old me hated confrontation and would have been glad for the distraction. But the elixir clearly has other ideas about the new, more confident, me. It picks me up and drags me over there and, standing tall, it makes me use my power to move Jordan Matthews, make him leave the ginger boy alone. At first Jordan, along with his mates, just laughs and catcalls as I question him, the elixir heightening my sense of justice, making me raise my voice, and encouraging me to use my newly found presence. My newly found voice. But then, little by little, they edge away, clearly embarrassed, casting me looks of anger and annoyance. But I couldn’t care less what they think, the elixir telling me deep with my mind that they will forget, that, for them, this is just a bit of fun. I help the boy up and he mumbles thanks, apologies, gratitude. I see people looking at me in surprise, and what seems to be admiration, even awe. Perhaps they are not used to seeing me face, my head help up high, my body willing to make a presence. Perhaps they are not used to hearing my voice. Perhaps, like the students in the corridor, like Mrs Mackenzie, They are struggling to place the old, cowering me, with the new, confident me. Whatever the reason, I know that the elixir has given me this new power and has given me the strength to stand up to people, to stand my ground. The elixir has given me the courage to find my voice again, and use it. The bell rings, interrupting my thoughts and, as I walk back into school, with the boy, who introduces himself as

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>>>>>>>>>ELIXIR<<<<<<<<< Eleanor Jones

Fred, and a few of his friends, who smile at me in awe, offering friendship, I spare a thought for that magical, amazing, powerful elixir that gran made for me, using all her powers to give me this strength and confidence. Strange that she chose to leave it in an old Evian bottleâ&#x20AC;Ś

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>>>>>>>>TATTERED ATLAS<<<<<<<<< Laura Ingram I don’t know what it is about her that they think they’ll be able to bury, because she is still everything in me that is able to open, and remembering seven summers together I swear my heart is a cicada, shearing my lungs to lace, protesting the redundancy of daily dusk. They want her to have an open casket, but even after all this I know completely there has never been a whole body. It was the creak of her voice that I cradled close to my clavicle, Latin root, "little key"; but no amount of turning in different directions allowed me to open up. When I couldn’t sleep, her somliloquy left grass stains on the side of my face; she was made of gossamer and dragon-snaps, almost as small as the rain, and no, there has never been a whole body, but she told me stories, and they were my morning. She sent me postcards of places we’d never partake in, sometimes even those advertising the next city over, always begging me not to leave her behind, that it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t fly, maybe the next surgery wouldn't go so badly, and no matter how many times I just sighed and explained that two weeks is not forever, that I’d get her presents and send her e-mails, She’d slam the door to the screened-in porch and spend the rest of the afternoon shelling snaps. After a while I’d sit next to her, names I’d never heard tattooed to the gnashing of my teeth, and wait. “We’re fine.” She’d say, but neither of us ever moved. Two weeks after she died, I bought a plane ticket to Germany, accepting it open-palmed, as if it were a peace offering. I missed the flight by five minutes.

I did not ask for a refund.

Previously published on thewordshaker.tumblr.com.

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>>>>>>>>>>>>PELAGE<<<<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp Violet was nearly thirteen when her mother committed suicide. They found her dead in the bedroom of the old, empty house, gone before the paramedics even arrived. Her mother had never liked that house, the way it ached and whined under her feet, as if her weight was one step from breaking it. She hated the way cold wind whistled through its bones when the windows weren’t shut tight enough, how the white paint of the brick was cracked and crumbling, Something her father had sworn he’d fix, but never did. He bought the thing right after they got married, a wedding gift her mother had tried her best not to hate. “It’s a nice neighborhood, Kathrine,” she imagines her father saying, slamming the door of the car just a little too hard behind him. “And you like old houses, don’t you?” “Yeah, but it’s falling to pieces,” her mother might have responded as she twisted the diamond on her finger, and tried not to sound like an ungrateful child. Her father might remark that it was it was his money that they were spending, and his job that they were moving for, keeping her silent. She might have touched her belly then, almost absentmindedly, feeling the child stirring inside, and reminding her why she married him. The funeral was louder than Violet expected. Relatives whom she had never met flocked around her, chirping how much she had grown, and how old she had become. Aunts buried her in their perfume soaked shoulders and pinched baby fat, grasping their cold, clawlike hands in hers. Their sympathy seemed to suffocate Violet, crushing her with pity, their heads shaking indisapproving sadness: poor thing, they said, to grow up with a mother who killed herself. Their small, beady eyes bored though her like awls. By the time they had finally buried her, Violet almost felt like she was choking under the weight of the people around her: all crying, all looking at her with insuperable pity. Her father’s face was set and solid. His hands firmly gripped Violet at her shoulders as they lowered her mother into the ground. It was a closed casket, cold and white, adorned with artificially pale lilies. Violet felt out of her own body, like it was someone else’s mother being buried, and someone else’s father grappling them so tight they couldn’t breathe. Like it was someone else being pinned down by grief and whispers. Her mother always wanted a garden. Her father would never let her, claiming that she knew nothing about plants, and that it was too expensive anyway. She settled for windowsill pots instead, filling ceramic planters with forget-me- nots and sprigs of basil. She doted on them constantly, carefully watering the soil and pruning tender foliage until the flora flourished delicate and green. Soon, more plants followed, filling the house and porch with enough vegetation to meet her mother’s ambitions.

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>>>>>>>>>>>>PELAGE<<<<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp Violet remembers the sticky summer days she spent with her, standing over the sink, transplanting supermarket seedlings into brightly painted terra cotta pots. Her mother would press Violet’s hands into the wet soil, teaching her how to handle the mass of dirt and roots, her voice gentle and patient with Violet’s untrained fingers.

“See, when you pull it out of there, you have to be careful not too lose too much dirt.” She said, pulling a shrub of mint from its soggy carton. “Okay, so how to I hold it?” Violet asked, taking a heavy plant from the countertop. “Here, don’t grab it by the stem, or you’ll tear the leaves.” her mother said, placing her gloved palms at the base of the container. “Now get it from the edges.” Violet eased the mint from its casing, stringy white roots holding the heap of black soil in place. She pushed it into a planter, awkwardly compressing the soil. “That looks great, sweetheart.” Her mother said, peeling off her gardening gloves. “Soon enough, I bet you’ll be doing this all on your own.” “Thanks, mom.” Violet said, warming under the praise. Her mother smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Alright, help me clean this up. You know how your father feels about all this dirt getting everywhere.” Violet sat on the porch when the relatives had finally gone, the soft whine of the too-old swing groaning in her ears. She was sore from crying: her chest tight, her eyes red, her lips cracked and nearly bleeding. Inside, her father did the dishes from the casserole the neighbors brought, the yellow light from the kitchen painting warm shadows onto her thighs. She looked out at the street, mostly deserted at night except for the drone of an occasional car. The streetlamps did not work, and Violet thought they looked like skeletons, tall and sinewy against the empty road, casting black and blue shadows like bruises. The air was heavy with leftover heat from the day, and Violet wished she had changed. She was stuck in tight pantyhose and ladylike dress, too-small Mary Janes crushing her feet. Without thinking, she kicked off the pinched black shoes and watched as they clattered to the splintered floor. She sighed, a great weight shifting and releasing from her chest. She hadn’t been able to breathe in days, not with the constant motion of mourning and the tightness of loss. Her father had barely spoken to her since her mother’s death, keeping himself

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>>>>>>>>>>>>PELAGE<<<<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp locked away at work, coming home only to retreat back to his bedroom and lock the door tightly behind him. He was a bowed man, hunched over from years of desk work, and bent permanently from crunching numbers and looming deadlines. Violet flicked a blade of grass from her knee and watched as it floated to the floorboards. The slice of lawn clipping too light for its own good, managing to transcend gravity for a few feeble seconds before trembling back to the ground. She couldn’t remember how her mother’s voice sounded anymore, what was once so constant, now gone with the slightest slip of memory. The realization hit Violet deep in her chest, and for a brief second, she was unable to think. The loss was so tangible, so real that it felt almost sacrilegious. All of the times her mother had sung to her after concrete-skinned knees, all of the stories told during the transplantation of a blossom, all of the promises whispered after childhood nightmares were now silent and empty. Her mother was fading even from memory and Violet was scared by how easily she was forgetting. A breeze picked up, sending shivers down her bare arms. She stood up to go inside, but suddenly remembered the two terra cotta pots of mint her mother had planted on the wooden porch, somehow missed by her father’s raid, and tacitly hidden under the wicker coffee table to keep relatives from trampling. As she pulled them up, heavy and dense with dirt, she was surprised to find them sill green and full, rather than shriveled after the days without water or sun. Violet pinched off a leaf, putting it in her mouth as her mother had taught her so many years before, the faint sting of mint settling on her tongue. She went back inside, rocking her bare heels on the threshold, the door closing like a whisper behind her. She stepped into the yellow linoleum kitchen, the faucet still running from the dishes her father washed. Violet turned the cracked porcelain knob. The water trickled down to a quiet drip. Her father had started doing the dishes by himself, his big fingers working away at grime leftover from frozen dinners or scrubbing at the stained rings leftover in coffee cups, always up to his forearms in suds because he used too much dish soap. He was nowhere to be seen, now locked away in some corner of his office, not wanting to look at her. Violet was always told that she looked like her mother. Aunts would cluck their tongues and pat her cheeks at family reunions, declaring that she had her mother’s eyes, her mother’s nose, her mother’s hands. They’d beam at the woman as she held Violet at her side as if she might fly away and told her how lucky she was to have a beautiful girl like her. Violet’s father would always interject at moments like this, putting a hand around his wife’s waist to remark how they were both lucky to have a beautiful girl like her. The women would chuckle and press dollar bills or hard candies into Violets’ palm, saying how they were sure he spoiled her rotten. Her

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>>>>>>>>>>>>PELAGE<<<<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp father would laugh then, a forced smile awkwardly crossing his lips, and look to his wife, who said nothing. The next morning, Violet began to notice the feathers. They were small and brown, cresting her forehead and stomach with down. She found them in an unexpected brush of her hair in the morning, in her finger’s grazing while she put on a shirt. They alarmed her, and in the hope that she could quietly rid herself of the plumage, she rummaged through a bathroom drawer to find a pair of tweezers. She took the little grey instrument between her unexperienced fingers, and plucked slowly in front of her bedroom mirror. The pinpoint feathers pulled without blood, instead leaving raw red bumps behind. She winced with each rip, but didn’t stop until there was a small pile of the quills in her lap. Violet let out a shuddering breath, touching her pinked skin lightly. She stood up, her shirt rippling back down her abdomen, the cotton brushing up against the stinging wound. She went downstairs to the kitchen, the white, Sunday-morning light filtering through the windows. Her father was gone, leaving a hastily written note on the refrigerator: Had to go into work this morning—I’ll be back around three or four. Scrambled eggs in the fridge if you want them. Make sure to clean your room. Call if you need anything. -Dad Violet opened the trembling refrigerator, and stood in front of it for a long time, letting the wave of cold roll over her. She closed her eyes to the fluorescent glow, the near-constant hum of the electrical appliance droning in her ears. Eventually she found the plate of eggs, the sulfuric yellow knobs resting cold inside. She didn’t bother heating them up. She sat on the swollen living room couch and ate silently. From across the room, the door to her parents’ bedroom caught her eye. It was slightly ajar, unlocked for the first time in weeks. Violet thought of the unspoken rule that prevented her from entering, but her father was gone, and he would never know that she had invaded. Violet opened the door softly. Inside, the room was dark, and from it wafted a deep, animalistic stench. She flicked on the lights and stepped inside. The carpet was thick with dust and dirt. Plastic bins of withered feathers lie on the floor, some were covered in rusty blood, others seeming to be ripped out in troves. The smell was overwhelming, something base and primal bringing tears to Violet’s eyes. Instruments ranging from nimble tweezers to clamplike pliers rested on the bedside table, a layer of grime covering them. She picked up the biggest pair of pliers, the thick, rubber-coated handle molding into her palm. Its jaw was coated in torn fragments of down, now old and paper-thin with age, layers of grime that once rested beaten the feathers caked onto the metal. Violet began to feel bile rise hot and raw in her throat, the acid burning in the back of her mouth. She

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>>>>>>>>>>>>PELAGE<<<<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp dropped the pliers, the steel digging into the carpet with a sickening thud. Dazed, she stumbled out of the room, shocked and gasping for air. Her throat tightened, the skin on her stomach and forehead burned. A few weeks before her death, Violet’s mother stopped tending to the plants. She began shutting herself in her bedroom and only emerging at night. Despite Violet’s best efforts to care for them, the plants eventually withered without her mother’s careful hands. One afternoon her father ran through the house with a heavy black trash bag, dumping the contents of the planters inside. “Dad, what are you doing?” Violet asked, horrified as she walked in the kitchen to see him shaking out vase containing a once-beautiful calla lily. “You can’t throw those away.” “If she’s not going to take care of them, I don’t see why I should have to deal with all the mess they make.” He replied, slamming the empty vessel on the kitchen table. “But those are Mom’s.” Violet said, her voice fading as her father grabbed yet another plant from the windowsill. “Take it up with your mother, why don’t you.” Her father said as he flung another blossom inside, the bag straining against the weight. “See what she’ll do about it.” That night, her father heaved home later than expected, pressed down with an unsurmountable weight. Violet had spent the day locked in the bathroom, spending hours examining her body for new growth, trying to predict when the feathers would come in next. She pinched skin and combed through limbs, trying to feel the spines on their accent though the epidermis. The smell of her mother’s room would not leave her. It seemed sunken into her, tattooed onto her cells. When she heard the tremor of the garage and the whine of his car, Violet stopped, giving one last scour over her arms before going downstairs to meet him. He already had his laptop out, the dull, digital glow lighting his tired face. “Hey Dad,” Violet said, walking into the kitchen. He father looked up from his work. “Hey. Sorry I got in so late. The meeting ran long.” He said, shuffling through a folder swollen with yellowed papers. “Did you eat dinner?” Violet watched as a wilted feather slipped out of the folder and sank to the floor. “I haven’t eaten yet,” Violet said, quietly. Her stomach turned. “I was going to fix some of that leftover lasagna Mrs. Phelps brought over.”

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>>>>>>>>>>>>PELAGE<<<<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp “Good, good.” her father responded, distracted. “Hey, could you make me some of that too? Remind me to thank her for it. It was nice of her.” Violet took one the ceramic dishes out of the refrigerator, stuffed with neighbor’s condolence dinners, all in various stages of being eaten. Her hands trembled as she forked squares of it onto plates and put them in the microwave. “Hey, I know you’ve been through a lot lately,” Her father said as she waited by the tremoring appliance. “I just want you to know that you can still tell me anything, okay? You can talk to me about anything you’re feeling right now.” “Okay.” Violet said, shifting where she stood. “Thanks.” Over days, more and more feathers began to appear, this time thicker on her arms and legs. Violet began wrap them in elastic bandages, compressing the new plumage underneath. She took to spending more time alone, and being more active at night. Her father hardly noticed, too wrapped in the cadence of work and habit and grief, keeping himself hidden from his daughter out of instinct. One morning, the sky just beginning to pink with sunlight, Violet sat on the front steps of the porch, the brick cold and damp on her bare feet. A blue plastic watering can sat next to her, bulbous with water and begging to be emptied. She meant to water the mint, as the black dirt had gone dry in the sun. Violet pushed herself up from the steps, taking the overfilled watering can in her hands, the unnatural bulk sinking knots into her knuckles. She poured into the pots, unable to control the liquid rushing out so fast. It overflowed, ribboning like silk down the side of the terra cotta, puddling at her downy feet. Violet watched the water run, setting the can down onto the floorboards, rubbing her spent fingers as it fell away, slipping through cracks and settling into the fissures in the brick. Violet wasn’t sure how much longer she could hide before her father would begin to tear out the plumage that now coated her body. Violet looked out at the sky, and felt the quiet white breeze settling on her face. She pushed herself up from the brick and began to walk. She found herself along the holiday streets of her lily-bred white neighborhood, blending in with the flock of middle school kids as they trudged towards street corner bus stops, awaiting a day of gym sweat and algebra. She passed houses so neat and clipped that they could be gingerbread, and walked her bare feet over slabs of sidewalk dare not crack. Her feathers were uncontrollable

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>>>>>>>>>>>>PELAGE<<<<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp now. Her wings would come in soon, pelage that could not be plucked without blood or bound without breaking. Violet ran a hand under her jacket sleeve, feeling quills as they pricked behind bandages. She came to a fork in the street, now narrowed and childless, where she could no longer see her impassive and miserable house looming behind her. Violet thought to turn back, she thought to recede to the place where her father would soon be waking, would soon find her gone. She shook away the doubt in her stomach and moved on, letting the roads become an unfamiliar blur around her; determined not to fade out but to fly away for a thousand years.

Previously published in Blue Marble Review.

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>>>>>>>>CONTRIBUTORS<<<<<<<<< Emma Camp is a junior in the Alabama School of Fine Arts Creative Writing department. Her work has been featured in Canvas, Blue Marble Review and Girlspring, as well as been recipient of honorable mentions in the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest and the Gannon University High School Poetry Contest as well as two Gold Medals in The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She is a clinical Shakespeare buff who enjoys community theatre in her small amount of free time along with watercolor painting and playing show tunes on her ukulele. Nikita Bastin is a poet and nonfiction writer from the San Francisco Bay Area, and has been published in literary magazines such as Blue Marble Review and The National Poetry Quarterly. She has attended the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio at the University of Iowa, been mentored by The Adroit Journal and has received distinction in the 2016 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and in the 18th Annual National High School Poetry Contest. She also hopes to strengthen literacy rates for children with access to limited resources through tutoring. Nicole Seah’s writing has been featured or will be forthcoming in JUNOESQ Literary Journal, Wallflowers Magazine, EastLit, the Singpowrimo Anthology 2016 and Eunoia Review. Outside of poetry, she is an advocate for a healthy lifestyle and body positivity in women which she blogs about for AWARE women Singapore. Savannah-Jane Gilchrist is 19 years old, from South Georgia, and a sophomore art major at the University of Georgia. She loves to travel and to create in all ways. She thinks that life is all about creating and constantly reinventing oneself. She also likes to spend time outside, feeling at home in the swamplands and oak woods. She grew up as a kid born to the wild, and where she finds solace and inspiration. If you want to follow her on social media, her Instagram is @savgil and my Twitter is @savjgil. Alice Xu is a high school senior in New Jersey who adores Jane Austen and her novels. She currently serves as a Co-Editor in Chief for her high school’s literary magazine, a Genre Editor for Polyphony H.S., and a Prose Reader for The Blueshift Journal. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Textploit, Phosphene Literary Journal, The Riveter Review, and elsewhere.

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>>>>>>>>CONTRIBUTORS<<<<<<<<< H.B. Akcan currently attends the Global Studies Academy of Clements High School. She is an avid reader, writer, and binge-watcher. Her work has been recognized by the Columbia College's National Young Authors Contest and she has submitted her literature portfolio for the Davidson Fellowship. Emily Stefhon is an 18-year-old senior attending St. Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School for Girls in Maryland. She enjoys pouring her feelings onto paper, taking photos with her Canon everywhere she goes, and traveling as much as possible. She has been published in Moledro Magazine, and she aspires to have a sliver of James Joyceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talent. Violet Singer is a 16-year-old poet from the middle of nowhere, Oregon. She fell in love with writing at the age of 5, when she wrote, illustrated, and edited her own book on butterflies. It wasn't a masterpiece, but in her defense, she was 5. Maxine Crump is an 18 year old college dropout/painter/illustrator currently living in Baltimore, MD. Her work has been featured in publications such as Rookie, FORGE., and Nylon, and can be found primarily at maxinecrump.tumblr.com or on her Instagram, @maxine.jpg. Her favorite pastimes are petting dogs, playing her theremin, and slammin' cold brewskies with her pals. Christina Im is sixteen years old and attends high school in Portland, Oregon. Her fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Words Dance, The Adroit Journal, Fissure, and Strange Horizons, among others. Her work has been recognized by Hollins University, the Adroit Prize for Poetry, and the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Lindsay Emi is seventeen years old and a recent graduate of Viewpoint School, CA. She has been recognized for her writing by the U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts Program, the National YoungArts Foundation, and the National Council of Teachers of English, among other organizations. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Sierra Nevada Review, Winter Tangerine Review, National Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. She will attend Princeton University in the fall of 2017.

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>>>>>>>>CONTRIBUTORS<<<<<<<<< Eleanor Jones is an British teenager that never stops reading, whether it's in her local library, or while walking to school. When she leaves school she'd like to go to university and read more there, though she's not sure what she'd do without her cat, George, and no-one to make her a decent slice of toast. Laura Ingram is a tiny teen with large glasses. Her poetry and prose have been published in Canvas Lit, Assonance, The Cactus Heart Review, Gravel Magazine, and over a dozen other journals. She would like to be some sort of bird when she grows up.

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