ToUChStONe
tHe teAm & edItOrs
Staff
Abi Edds
Breana Gergen
Deirdre Hardestry
Elsa Lloyd
Ginger Anders
Justine Gouldsbrough
Logan Warren
Lucrezia Chiessa
Natalie Reese McCoy
Phoenix Medley
Rea Swayze
Rowan Geddes
Design
Additional Selection Committe
Aviv Maddron Bun Shamsadin
Editors
Sheridan Macon, Executive Editor of Touchstone
Mia Martinez, Associate Editor of Touchstone
Ali Burgess, Editor-in-Chief of Hatter Network
Michelle Marshall, Creative Director of Hatter Network
Phoenix Medley, Touchstone Staff Member
Staff Advisor
Alex Belk
Cover
OpposingBloomsby Robbie Gonzalez
@bobbie.hearts
LeTters From thE eDitoRs
Dearest Reader,
Ta da! I am so beyond honored to bring you the 45th edition of Touchstone Magazine! This magazine has been my baby this year, and I am so happy that it has found its way into your loving hands, reader. And much like parenting a newborn, building this mag has been an invaluably terrifying and joyous learning experience. Thank you so much to everyone who has made Touchstone the flourishing work of art that it is, whether it be by joining us at Uncouth hour or submitting your pieces to the magazine. Thank you to my amazing, brilliant staff of artists and designers for the family we have been able to become through trainings, committees, and design days—and a special thank you to Phoenix for stepping up to the plate when I needed you the most. Without you, the design of this magazine would have quite literally been impossible. Thank you to Alex, our new staff advisor, for picking us up from a place of frenzy and becoming someone we could turn to when we really just needed An Adult to help us sort out our stuff. Thank you so much to Mia, my amazing associate editor, for making everything happen this year. I wish everyone could truly see all the work you do for this magazine behind the scenes. From our chains upon chains of emails to our 8 a.m. meetings, you have made the process of building this magazine an absolute breeze. I can’t wait to see your self-confidence blossom and turn you into the leader I know you can be. And, finally, the biggest thank you to former Executive Editor of Touchstone and current Hatter Network Editor-in-Chief, Ali Burgess. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for always being there, even at the oddest of times, when I needed to ask a hyper-specific question or groan about something or curl up and cry. Your guidance has been invaluable. Your friendship means the absolute world to me, and although I’m terrified to do this again without you, your belief in little old me has shown me that I can do anything.
I hope the theme this year brings you the joy you need, despite the way the world may feel right now. Take a breath and allow yourself to be immersed in whimsy, love, and tranquility. Escape with us for a little while. Thank you for joining us for this year’s Touchstone. I hope you enjoy reading her as much as we enjoyed building her.
May you savor the whimsy in your every day, Sheridan Macon, Executive Editor of Touchstone
Dear Reader,
It is with deep gratitude and a touch of bittersweetness that I present to you the 45th edition of Touchstone. This volume holds so much more than just words and images—it’s a reflection of the love, talent, and relentless dedication that has gone into creating it. As Associate Editor, it has been an absolute privilege to work on this edition, and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together. Touchstone has been a vital part of my journey, and I’m sure for many of us, this magazine has become so much more than a publication. It’s a place of community, of expression, and of collaboration. To everyone who submitted their work, thank you for sharing a part of yourselves with us. Your courage, creativity, and passion are what make Touchstone truly special. To our brilliant team, your talent, dedication, and unwavering positivity have made working on this project a joy. I am so grateful to each of you for your contributions.
To my Executive Editor in this journey, Sheridan—thank you for your endless support, encouragement, and friendship. I couldn’t have asked for a better Executive Editor, and I will forever cherish the memories of working by your side. From the late-night 2 a.m. conversations to the shared moments of triumph, you’ve made this experience unforgettable. I know you will go on to accomplish extraordinary things, and I can’t wait to see where your passion takes you. To our Creative Director, Michelle, thank you for your unmatched creativity and for helping shape this edition into something beautiful and whimsical. And to Hatter Network’s Editor in Chief, Ali, your leadership has been an incredible source of strength and clarity throughout this journey. Your unwavering commitment to Touchstone and the Hatter Network has kept us all grounded, and I’ve learned so much from your ability to navigate challenges with poise and determination. Your passion for storytelling and community building has inspired all of us, and I am forever grateful to have worked alongside you. I hope that I’ve made you proud.
Finally, to all of you reading—thank you for taking the time to dive into this edition of Touchstone. I hope that within these pages, you find something that resonates, that sparks inspiration, or that simply brings a smile to your face. As I offer my final farewell, it is with a heart full of admiration for this community and the work we’ve created together.
Please enjoy this edition as much as I have enjoyed being a part of it.
So long and goodnight, Mia Martinez, Associate Editor of Touchstone
Hello Reader,
Thank you for participating in this edition of Touchstone. You may not know me, but know that during my time as Creative Director for Hatter Network, I’ve had the honor of aiding in the design and layout of The Reporter and Touchstone! From choosing themes to executing designs with my staff, it’s been a journey of pouring my love and knowledge of print media into every edition released. However, despite my work in this creative field, I don’t always get a chance to work on pieces that make me fall in love with art all over again. I don’t always get the opportunity to share them with you either! But, I appreciate the individuals here at Hatter Network that make opportunities like this possible. So when you read, peruse, admire every work of art in the 45th edition of Touchstone, I hope you think of the people you know that delve headfirst in their creative passions. People who are gripped with a need to express an emotion or perspective through art. And if you are one ofthose individuals who sees their work now printed in the 45th edition of Touchstone, I hope you take this as a sign that art, your art, deserves to be seen. Your voices deserve to be heard, and your artistry deserves to be acknowledged. The pleasure is all ours and we thank you for rising to the occasion.
Thank you,
Michelle Marshall, Creative Director of Hatter Network
Dear Reader,
As a previous Executive Editor of Touchstone, I cannot begin to express just how much this book has changed me for the better. Now, as Editor-in-Chief, I am beyond grateful to watch the bloom of the 45th edition. Sheridan, I knew that you had a light in you that beamed with the passion it took to dive into this head first. Mia, your delicacy and loyalty to what Touchstone means to the community is everlasting. You both have the intention and passion that created a successor that I am immensely proud of. The 45th edition of Touchstone, to a sentimental like me, is far more than just a set of pages bound and produced. It is curated, cared for, made of the most intimate aspects of those who help create it. In life I believe we leave a little part of ourselves behind with everything we do, but we gain new pieces in return. I am forever marked with the beauty that is our literary arts journal, and now so are you. For that, I couldn’t be more touched. With Touchstone, you never walk alone, even when the sun doesn’t shine.
Adieu! take care of yourself; and, I entreat you, write!
Ali Burgess, Editor-in-Chief of Hatter Network
tAbLe oF CoNtentS
p. 13 Big Chonk, Bigger Zest
Christine Glezer
p. 14 Let’s Play Mermaids!
Natalie Reese McCoy
p. 15 Deep Blue
Joshua Weaver
p. 16 Noodle Nibbler
Christine Glezer
p. 16 Shed
Ginger Anders
p. 17 As Above So Below
Maria Latour
p. 18 Eight Hundred Words for Bee
Elsa Lloyd
p. 21 Leafy Greens
Joshua Weaver
p. 21 Odyssey of the Heart
Jacob Butler
p. 23 Butterfly Elegy
Natalie Reese McCoy
p. 24 I Fell Down a Mountain for This
Zoey Ritchie
p. 25 Skeleton and Cotton
Ginger Anders
p. 26 The Shrine Boy*
Sheridan Macon
p. 27 Mother Goose
Deirdre Hardesty
p. 28 knight girl
Maria Latour
p. 29 Sweet
Natalie Reese McCoy
p. 30 Eight Fragments to Sappho
Rea Swayze
p. 32 Lucid Dream
Sonia Erzhenina
p. 34 the contortionists
Mackenzie Quinn
p. 37 Paradox of Love*
Mia Martinez
p. 38 As I Wait
Indya Mckoy
p. 40 Drowning Sestina
Deirdre Hardesty
p. 42 Golden Reflections
Justin Bardell
p. 44 Beneath the Pyre, Lavinia
Justine Gouldsbrough
p. 46 martyr
Phoenix Medley
p. 48 Bury the Hatchet*
Michelle Marshall
p. 50 Cattail Calls
Breanna Gergen
p. 51 abel-bodied
Rowan Geddes
p. 53 Lightheaded
Indya Mckoy
p. 54 boelyn replica*
Ali Burgess
p. 55 Reduce
Indya Mckoy
p. 56 Fragility
Nikki Membiela
p. 57 Banditaccia Interior
Charlotte Holley
p. 58 Concert Grave
Breanna Gergen
p. 60 atavism
Rowan Geddes
p. 61 Emerald Wilderness
Justin Bardell
p. 62 Hubris
Rea Swayze
p. 64 Twilight Voyage
Justin Bardell
p. 66 The Window
Sonia Erzhenina
p. 66 Yggdrasil
Elsa Lloyd
p. 67 Wishing Well
Elsa Lloyd
p. 68 Airport
Breanna Gergen
p. 69 Moonlit Munchies
Christine Glezer
p. 70 something old something new something borrowed something blue
Sonia Erzhenina
p. 72 Ampersand with Robbie Gonzalez
* Editor Piece
sPeciAl tHanKs
This edition of Touchstone wishes to provide a special thank you to our brand-new staff advisor, Alex Belk! All of Hatter Network is so grateful for your support and boundless enthusiasm. Thank you for being the rock we all needed this year—we truly could not have made this happen without your wisdom and guidance. We at Touchstone can speak for all of Hatter Network’s membership when we say that we’re so excited to work and learn with you to make Hatter Network the best organization that we can be!
Big Chonk, Bigger Zest
Christine Glezer
“Let’sPlayMermaids!”
Natalie Reese McCoy
they giggled, suntanning by the pool, wanting seashell braziers to wear pearls plait between their hair to bask in sun and sailors’ stare to flirt their fins without a care they know not what they do.
Soyoungareinnocentmaidens intosirensmadewhen theyfindthemselvesapearlin theoysterofman’seye...
“But have you read the mythology?” I entreated, “Mermaids mourn upon the shoal! Though God fancied these females a fish tail, He forgot to give them a soul.”
“Never mind that, just come on in,” they sang, “it’s not that deep, timid friend!” as their eyes flirt between the Lifeguard and my goggles, from the shallow end.
Soyoungareinnocentmaidens intosirensmadewhen theyfindthemselvesapearlin theoysterofman’seye...
When they decided “Let’s play drowning!” in my late-bloomer fashion, I did not understand why “Let’s play mermaids!” was left for dead until I watched Him watch the bobbing of their heads the gasping of their chests in depths I knew they knew and knew He knew they could not only tread, but simply up and stand
Deep Blue
Joshua Weaver
Noodle Nibbler
Shed
Ginger Anders
Christine Glezer
As Above So Below
Maria Latour
Eight-Hundred Words for Bee
Elsa Lloyd
1. Easter Sunday
I sat on her knee, squirming. No more than a year old. The sun baked me in my little blue-and-white dress, heavy with frills and lace. Her strong hands lified me up, my gaze level with her watery, blue eyes. I babbled, momentarily pleased by all the attention. We had met before, but this was the first time I would remember. Her arms lified me higher still. Like I was flying. I grabbed for the purple ribbon on her straw hat and she laughed, moving to press me closer to her chest. Her body shified, sheltering me in her shade.
2. Beekeeping Bees everywhere. Bees in her kitchen, her bedroom, her bathroom. Bees above the front door and bees tacked to the backyard fence. They swarmed her walls and her picture frames and even her gift-wrapping paper. I chased their impressions around the house like I chased her, persistent and curious. One lived in her name: Bee. She followed the theme, happily. Some days, when her back wasn’t hurting too badly, she’d take her walker out into the garden and sit with her flowers.
Other days, she’d rest by the window, bowed shoulders layered in bright, flowery shawls of her own making.
3. Cigarettes
Cigarette smoke rose up in an opaque mist and stuck to the bee-saturated walls like flypaper. It wafted down from the ceiling and poured into the sofa’s fabric, the floral bed sheets,
the doily tablecloth. It lingered in the crevices of her figure; spread from skin to ashtray to countertop; lips to cheek to wet-wipe. My brother hid her lighters. But there were always more, conjured from pockets of air, procured from some magic, liminal space. The smoke clung tight. It was her treasured friend. Later, it would only vanish because hospital nurses wouldn’t allow it to follow her inside.
4. Velcro Slippers
I noticed the subtle hoarding. I noticed how cookie batter clumped beneath her unkempt, milky fingernails as she rolled it over the dusty tabletop. I noticed the corners of her house, where shriveled roaches lay in mass graves across the carpet, little legs jutting up into the air. I noticed the MRIs of her twisted spine and decaying lungs; the former, a lifelong disability; the latter, a lifelong vice. It was agony to stand and shuffle over to the sink or even to bend down to tie her shoes. She wore velcro slippers for all the days I knew her.
5. Path of Hands
She painted in spreads of oils and acrylics and watercolors. She sewed with cross-stitch and embroidery; crocheted and knitted and wove, teasing yarn with skillful hands into all sorts of wondrous creations.
She drew with pencil and charcoal—once, with pastel; it smeared a rainbow into the creases of her wizened palms as she worked, trying to etch roses into copy paper.
Later, once the nicotine passed from her body and lefi her ragged, her hands would shake too badly to brandish a needle or brush or hook. She took comfort in molding my hands to finish what hers had started.
6. Second-Hand Stories
I picture her memories as if they were mine. I see her in the highest window of the North Tower on a foggy New York morning, so high up that the clouds swirled at her feet. I see her standing on a sand dune, car keys in hand, glaring into the devastating eye of Katrina. I see the fruit bat that got trapped in her childhood home during dinnertime, chased from room to room by a screaming girl waving a broom handle. Sometimes, I wonder what I’ve forgotten over the years. Sometimes, I wonder what memories were lost with her.
7. Half a Goodbye
Half of her ashes had been stolen by my aunt in a blaze of grief, taken far away to Georgia to be spread under some unmarked peach tree. My family scattered the other half of her in the ocean beside her favorite landmark: the Jupiter lighthouse. A beacon built from red bricks. It was the only thing she loved more than bees and art and her grandchildren. A symbol of Old Florida, she once said. It reminded her of her own grandparents, who’d settled in Jupiter over a century ago. She missed them in the same way I miss her.
8. Spring 2020
Spring spun a fragrant air, thick with jasmine. There was a distance of six feet between us, as mandated. I sat, cross-legged in the painted driveway beside her wheelchair as we spoke. The day was warm and breezy, despite our troubled world. We spoke of our futures; her new favorite sitcom, my upcoming high school graduation. We parted without a hug, not wanting to risk infecting each other. Her blue eyes met mine for the last time, crinkling sofily at the edges as she smiled. It was a lovely day to say goodbye, even if neither of us knew it.
Leafy Greens
Joshua Weaver
This is the odyssey of the heart. The dojang buzzed with rhythmic sound, Of kicks and steps that shook the ground. Among the shouts, a boy stood tall, Ten years young, yet giving his all. With eager eyes and steady stance, He moved as if lost in a trance. He paused, then turned, his gaze on me, “Will I be like you someday?” said he. I smiled and knelt to meet his stare, His hopes and dreams laid open there.
Odyssey of the Heart
Jacob Butler
“It’s not just kicks or belts you’ll find, It’s strength of heart and steady mind.”
His grin grew wide, his voice now clear, “I want to be like you right here. You’re strong and brave, you know so much, Your lessons feel like magic’s touch.”
Each stance he learned, each step he tried, He’d glance at me, his silent guide. In every move, he sought my nod, As if my word was truth from God. Years passed, and still, I see him now, The boy who made that heartfelt vow. This is the odyssey of the heart.
The years rolled on, the mats grew worn, Through countless nights and many morns. He trained with fire, his spirit high, Each goal he set, he’d magnify. The boy became both sharp and wise, Determined strength behind his eyes. And though he stood with skill refined, He always kept a humble mind.
He’d stand beside me, tall and strong, The boy I’d guided all along. His voice now steady, clear, and sure, A leader’s heart, both kind and pure. With every bow, with every stride, I saw the pride he couldn’t hide. No longer a child, yet still he’d be, That boy who once looked up to me.
And as he bowed, his gaze met mine, A fleeting look where stars align. I saw the man he’d grown to be, And felt the boy he’d shown to me. The journey ends where dreams impart— This was the odyssey of the heart.
Dear dead butterfly, dozing on my dresser in death’s eternal sleep—
Butterfly Elegy
Natalie Reese McCoy
only God knows exactly how your graceful wings at once gave out. I am only sure that on the day they drooped, to lift your limp little body I, too, stooped with the selfsame leaf you lay cradled in now.
Wherefore were your friends still suspended in air? Was it for grief, disbelief? Tell me— Do the butterflies care?
Cannot the flowers wait?
Wherefore did they not falter and furl their wings around your altar, in funeral for the day?
As children, we are shooed off to play tag with impossible things. Like with your kind, I learned how not to make friends: neither by force nor flattery, net nor nectar, nor holding my hands out to pray.
In life, I am sorry I scared you away. In death, I am sorry I could only catch you to place you in your grave.
I Fell Down a Mountain for This
Zoey Ritchie
Skeleton and Cotton
Ginger Anders
The Shrine Boy*
Sheridan Macon
They warn men against rapture such as this: The days spent polishing your marble white As opal, filling cracks they might have missed With golden lacquer dancing in your light.
Before, I was a man roaming the earth With assured step, but missing fate’s warm halter. Now you have brought about my sole rebirth, my sweet hedychium lain upon your altar.
Oh, lady of the lily, hear my plea: One day when pilgrims venture to your shrine, They’ll see your statue intertwined with me— Your mythos inseparable from mine.
My goddess, grant me immortality So I may worship you eternally.
Mother Goose
Deirdre Hardesty
Deft hands, needle work, weaving something grander. The subtle clink of sterling rings, soft blankets round her shoulder. A kitten cross the caddied corner waltzing right on over. With a crinkle of an eye and the lifting of her laughter A woman, sister, mother leaves the needling for another.
She'd sowed up many seedlings, some sprouts and saplings, too
The mighty Alder, Holly, Ivy, sprouting roots, and breaking through.
The ground here once was empty, harsh and dry 'fore her debut, But let the woman, sister, mother sow the seeds, bring something new,
From her hands spring forth another, making Adam, making you.
When I look into the mirror, mother dear, I do not see. Till I open up mouth to sing aloud, and with much glee I hear the voice of many lullabies, lands of sugar, begging please. And towns of many sizes, sweet perfumes, a lingering need. Or when I cry about the woes of a woman once-to be.
I will never bring forth Adam from hands of silver rings, Nor will Alder, Holy, Ivy spring from gardens neath my wings, But I will hear you in the shower, when I lift my voice to sing. And I will think of you quite fondly in the yellow hue of spring. And when I hear a southern drawl, I will think of just one thing.
knight girl
Maria Latour
Sweet
Natalie Reese McCoy
You are sweet, but not in the way granulated sugar is sweet: too manufactured and uniformly flavored to be real—
no, your sweetness is distinct, unlike grocery store sugar: so dressed up in layers of white it could be mistaken for salt.
You are sweet in the way that cane sugar is sweet: uneven, raw and earthy melt-in-your-mouth swirl-around-your-tongue soak-in-the-browning-crystals-sweet.
Or, in the way that honey is sweet: unfiltered, tangy and thick with a richness that sticks to every tastebud and, somewhat mercifully, coats my tongue with edifying flavor bridling any self-slander between layers of golden glue and washing it away as I swallow.
You are sweet, but still, your sweetness is more than a product of nature it is more like a promise: like mana bread falling from the palms of a deity or a covenant land flowing of milk and honey—
yes, you are sweet, in a way that reminds me: only heaven will be sweeter.
Eight Fragments to Sappho
Rea Swayze
I.
My knees are swollen and bruised like fruit in my garden, where there are two Eves, twin rivulets of apple juice trailing down their chins, I stare in envy, for I know their ribcages are whole, breath a melody plucked on a lyre, stringed with tender flowers for tender girls, and I wait for my turn.
II.
The sea waited to birth sweet Aphrodite, foam and salt doused, lifted on high by the doves. The goddess, too, has sentenced me to trial. O holy queen of Cyprus, grant me this reprieve. It is hard to pray to your jailer.
III.
The fortitude of my sanctuary founders, the water entraps me like Ophelia in a distant future, drowned in a dreaming flowered land. I am entropy with consciousness, the knife lowers itself to the rind and begins to flay and I watch my dissection from a bird-eye view. I question, and I know, scribbling notes as She removes skin from wrist to elbow. I spread the palm of my hand flat against the marble of the temple. I know as I count the veins webbed against my clenched knuckles. And I know as my eyes trace the dip of her collarbones. Clotho steps back somewhere, I feel her movement, an invisible tug in my chest. Loom weaving, stitching and unstitching, Penelope in her chambers, as fate chafes the lizard skin between my cramped fingers. And I know my turn has come.
IV.
I used to commune with no man god, for I am a daughter, and I refuse to spit words for the wolf. She’s now a secret, I know, an owl somedays, and nothing the next, and I waited a while long
for a chance to speak. I told her “I thought you were something else, you know.” She took me in her arms and asked me one thing. To listen. She tells me there’s no God, for she too is a daughter, and that’s it. The daughter is in the seam of it all. I nodded and glanced down at the sun and sideways to the ocean and I smiled because I understood finally that the truth has never been with me or any God, but with the birds and the dirt that keeps coming and going and coming like the deathless waves.
V.
I realized I was not afraid of a God, but man.
VI.
I shall wait no more. The knife finishes unraveling skin, my exposed innards slowly tumefying in the ancient sun, but devotion embalms even the incomplete, the frankincense half smoking in the altar. I kiss Her. The bygone gods fade away. I kiss the rabbi’s daughter. My first lady has been buried in ignorance, alongside Hypatia. I kiss the burned saint. Enlightenment breeds audacity. I kiss the one standing in a picket line. Lights freckle the face of the earth. I kiss the English writer in Paris. Moonlight ebbs in Lesbos, where I go to relinquish my bones to the old-new soil.
VII.
The mealworms and lavender stalks consume me and my memories whole. In my garden, my knees sprout violets and two Eves waltz arm in arm over my transformed corpse.
VIII.
“Do
they remember us?” Sappho asks. I glance in the mirror. “Yes, they do.”
Sonia Erzhenina
Lucid Dream
the contortionists
EkphrasticworkbasedonTheKiss/GustavKlimt/oil&gold leafoncanvas/1907-1908
Mackenzie Quinn
Women are oft expected to be contortionists. To twist and strain their limbs and lives for the comfort of their lovers.
My junior-year roommate fell victim to this phenomenon. She spent hours each afternoon on the phone with her boyfriend as she worked on assignments. Never joined the study sessions at the library, which were often broken up by whispered gossip and suppressed giggles. Never joined the walk downtown to bars on the weekend, seemingly content to spend her Saturday nights watching movies over FaceTime with a boy none of her friends liked very much.
She loved him though. They’d grown up in the same rural town, knew all the same people and had gone to the same schools. They were just so different. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted children. He wanted at least three. She wanted to travel. He was content at home. She wanted a career. He wanted a housewife.
The two seemed fundamentally incompatible, and yet time after time I would watch this intelligent and driven young woman put a man’s wishes before her own. If he was insecure about what she was wearing, she’d swap her skirt for slacks and put a cardigan over her tank top. Anything to make him more at ease.
My junior year, I fell victim to this phenomenon. I met a boy at a party in February and by May I spent more nights in his bed than my own. He’d text me at nine, ten, eleven in the evening. One,
two, sometimes even three in the morning. Ask me to come over to finish watching Ozark. Ask me to come over to smoke with him and his roommates. Ask me to come over because he slept better when I was there.
I think I loved him. Think I might have loved that I never really knew. Never got the opportunity to find out. Loved the way my heart sped up when I met his eyes across a room. How he’d start to move toward me as if pulled by an intangible force – the almost surprised but delighted grin that stretched across his face when he found himself by my side. Loved the way my heart sped up when his eyes didn’t meet mine. The pounding in my ears when I saw him directing his easy smiles at other girls. Loved the way his ears and the tops of his cheeks would pink up if he caught me starting. The little ways our jagged edges seemed to fit just right.
It was never about how he fit into my life. Not even about how we fit together, in the space we carved for ourselves within the four walls of his room. It was about how well I fit to him. It was his whim that had me hastily shove my charger into my bag, eyes already searching the room for my keys. His apartment we stayed at. His friends we spent our time around.
There’s a new distance between Bri and I as we further tumble into the orbits of these men. As she waves me off to another late night across campus, her boyfriend grainy over the computer screen. Neither of us makes much effort to correct it.
We catch up sporadically after graduation. Her updates feature anecdotes about being back home. It doesn’t take me long to realize how lonely she is. How she brushes over old fights she hadn’t expected would follow her home to Illinois. So, we spend most of our time reminiscing. I let her lead these conversations, never risking bringing up a night she wasn’t present, not wanting to address the reason why.
“Hey, I have a question,” she says halfway through summer.
I switch my phone to my right ear. “Shoot.”
“You finally realize you were too good for that guy?”
She didn’t ask if I finally realized I was wasting my time. She didn’t press on the still raw bruises his absence left; rather, she asked if I was finally able to see my worth.
“Yeah.” And that was mostly true. I’d stopped talking to him, at least. Stopped answering his calls on late weekend nights. Stopped staying up, just in case his name flashed across my screen. Started bending myself back into a shape I recognized –a tedious undertaking.
“Good,” she replies.
Part of me aches to ask her the same question. Have you realized? Can you see the ways in which this boy devalues you? Ways in which he confuses ownership with love?
It took another six months for me to realize that she hadn’t. Over New Year’s, she texts me that they’ve broken up. Overjoyed, I tell my family that she finally dumped him. “She was always too good for him,” I say, borrowing her words from the summer.
I think about the time she told me I deserved better. I wonder if she can now recognize that she deserves the same. Wonder if she’ll demand better in her next relationship. If she’ll leave when he gets controlling. If she’ll twist herself out of shape again for someone new.
Paradox of Love*
Mia Martinez
Love is such an abstract concept. What is it, truly?
Is it the shift in the air when they’re nearby like a bud unfurling or the ease of shared stillness where words are not needed?
Is it the way they reshape your world like light bending across a landscape, or how time fractures— slipping past unnoticed when you’re together?
Does “true love” exist, or is it a myth we tell ourselves to name the unknown?
Can we truly “fall” for someone?
Does love nurture growth, or bind us in uncertainty caught in between hope and hesitation?
Is it in our nature to crave connection? What happens when it’s absent, when you never feel it as others do?
Love is a word spoken without meaninga phrase offered without weight.
For others, it’s a quiet waiting, unsaid until the feeling has already grown too deep and the words arrive too late.
As I Wait
Indya Mckoy
Drowning Sestina
Deirdre Hardesty
You led me to the poolside and compelled me, drink deep
And I’ve had done it in a heartbeat, hoped the chlorine would clean
The rot in my mouth, wash the space between my desire and your need.
You led me to the deep end, spread holes in virgin skin, made for gaping
And know that I’d have called if you let me, begged on hard wood to be free
But there was no wood. Just porcelain tile, and the water that you love.
You led me to the poolside and asked about love
Cradled cranium in calloused hands while wading deep
And I have wrestled and fought, made it known I was free If I wasn’t so certain that your palms could make me clean. Yet I pray, even still, fix my misbegotten body, tend the rot and leave me gaping.
I had kneeled to you in worship, for I thought that you knew need.
I have faced incessant famine when I hungered with no need Wretch, per your demand, whilst I bloat with your love. I gave myself to you, you needn’t ask and I’d start gaping
Yet still you pry my mortised jaw and dig your fingers dermis-deep.
I’d have choked if you’d have let me, struggle still for something clean
But I am left to have the furtive breathing of a creature was once free.
Did you touch my body kindly when you set me finally free?
Caress the waterlogged carrion that fulfilled your dire need Before you left the stagnant water to wash my sweet smell clean?
My own cadaver basks, sunbaked, displayed with little love. For I am worthy of no burial, no dirge to lure me deep And I shall burst beneath the sullen sun and congregation gaping
I will let the maggots rend my flesh, form holes for gaping Jaws on faces passing by, but they won’t set my carcass free Instead they fault the fetid fellow who had ruptured in the deep.
And as they pass with no regard, to continue in their need To travel this and that and every way, to find the sort of love That I had thought I finally found with you, a love to make me clean.
But now I wait for hallowed creatures to pick my body clean Let my lack of skin and bone be the cure for all the gaping Learn the cycle of the sun, of the coyotes and their love. The biting of the vulture rends the tendon, sets it free And I shall know what you made consecrated, I no longer need.
And I shall tell the lonely predators how I came to be so deep.
I was never yours to love, your hungry hands could never clean.
And even now, in the deep, with all my reverent gaping I beg, settle free within my rotted lungs. I would never let you drown.
Golden Reflections
Justin Bardell
Beneath the Pyre, Lavinia
Justine Gouldsbrough
I would place my spine upon a platter if it meant that I could nourish my pyre.
So, I sit and strip each vertebra of its sinew, plate it up as an offering and deprive it of purpose. The scraps kindle my fire, a preparation for an indulgence, and a sigil for a sacrifice not in vain.
My marrow is balmy as it’s pulled from my core, but I gather it in my cupped hands as a token of your ephemeral compassion. I let my vacant bones become your straw and shape the world into an ocean so that you may drink.
Your one request is that a patch of bare land remains, and so I sink into the scorching heat as if I have no other master. A new fire licks at my parched skin, an unyielding embrace that strips me of all except the quiver in your veins. And so, I fall into the blaze, accept the dissolution, and hope that I won’t crumble into the hands of a different beast.
Now, my bones have become charred relics scattered in the ash like an unsatisfactory meal cast to the sky, the dishes held in the hands of an unworthy king as the manservant tracks their path wantonly. The wind carries the remnants of my devotion, so that the air and I, the sire and his peasant, become heavy as we mourn the loss of your incomplete feast.
Savage tears surge past my lashes in bereavement: my marrow is gone, my spine offered, my shallow bones now useless. I have no calling, and the drifting of my unwanted vessels reveals that they never had a destination to begin with.
As my form is swallowed by the tempest, I understand—
I was never intended to be a meal, never chosen for consumption. I was the dish, the tribute, the surrender, but not the sustenance. My spine is the only endowment I have, a brittle tower that holds me upright. Yet, still, I would give you all I have again.
The ache of being bound is greater than the terror of what it may cost.
So, if I must be ensnared, let it be by you, not by the cage of my own vitality.
For in the grasp of your hand, I may one day find meaning; and in the clench of my own, only vacancy.
martyr
Phoenix Medley
i think of you and i remember dry heaving gray matter over a porcelain bowl. the first time you saw me naked i was hunched over in your walk in shower, made of static and an ochre stained stomach, sounding crazy, thinking there was a slug in my throat.
i got food poisoning two weeks after i called you for the last time. i thought about texting you, knew you’d make me feel better about vomiting for the first time in seven years.
i could never purge myself of you.
lavender deodorant reminds me you’re only 16 miles away, that the last time we broke up, my hands found their way to your stomach anyway, fingertips tracing over the new ink you put there yourself. i think of you and i am met face first with the product of my emetophobia.
dating your best friend was like dating the stars— when i was with him you could open up my clenched fists to find pink half moons etched into my palms.
loving you was like being the stars— maybe something more tragic, a saint. i retch at the divinity you marked my body with, the altars you built of your own self loathing, followed always by your mouth and pink palms. you were so busy constructing my godhood, you missed how you made yourself a martyr. and when i was nearly sick on your carpet, could you hear the way my spine creaked, bent for the first time?
i’ve spent all my life keeping my body upright through citrine eating away at my stomach lining, salmonella, and stomach flus. i was not raised to be held. maybe that’s why
i am so sick from trying to be the person you thought i was and failing, left with a guilt-laden stomach, roiling. even now, your piety sits at the bottom of my throat yellow and sour like bile. i heave and come up with nothing.
Michelle Marshall
Bury the Hatchet*
Cattail Calls
Breanna Gergen
Irony and whiskey don’t mix
Not when my denim-feathered dove Is off in the primordial Distance, frenzied
Phone crackle mirroring
Enflamed logs at foot (3:00am)
Miles between us tear
Away his rose-petaled skin, And I’m left perching
On trespassed plywood, allowing The lampreys to leach
My reptilian blood-veins
With only plank-rot and watery depths below And the cattails to call to In seething vain.
His tire tread spins my head Into sugar
Sand, urges me to sing/sob
The Cajun blues, yearn for Those hands to carry me, your false bride Into that Florida cypress-moss and Drop me in a sacrificial pyre, Fire’s dusky hues.
my brother hogs the blankets when i sleep over in his room at night.
i wake up in the morning cocooned not by the navy blue duvet or the thin gray plaid sheets but rather enveloped in their absence—caged by the metal bed frame and only warmed by the righteous indignation i will surely levy at the drowsily warm boy asleep beside me. he’s still smaller than me at this age by a good nine inches
at least, but it makes him easier to carry. our mother says i shouldn’t put him on my back, that holding him hurts us both, but i like the warmth of his head on my shoulder, the faint but steady one-two beat of his heart in my ears. he’s small still, so i let him win every fifth round of cards we play, and i pretend to be upset when he really beats me, which happens more often than i think i will ever tell him. he’s lighter than me,
Rowan Geddes
so when we sit on the swings on the set our father built, i get up to push him, pulling him up above my head, grinning when he laughs as i let him go.
oh, won’t you laugh for me, little brother? won’t you
smile again when i let you go? i had hoped once that you would be the happiest of us— you, our brother, and me—i said to you once that i hoped you would be happy because selfishly, i did not think i would, and selfishly, i wanted at least one child
to leave that house happy if not whole, and yet it seems i, selfishly, have doomed us both.
you were laughing when i let you go but god, i hate my empty, empty hands, and now
i am reaching out pull you back down—oh brother, oh
my baby brother, won’t you hog the sheets once more? i don’t think i’m strong enough to play at carrying you anymore, and we’re too old
to keep pretending she wasn’t right to stop us. oh brother, you and i, we’re cut from the same miserable cloth, aren’t we? wrapped in the same, itchy, gray sheets, caged
in the metal frame of a bed i’ve made but now refuse to lie in alone.
won’t you forgive me? i’m coming home, and i know the bed’s been cold
for a longer time than i pretend to believe, but i promise i won’t be mad
if you hog the blankets again. just let me carry you, let me hold you, let me pretend
we aren’t buckling under the weight.
Lightheaded Indya Mckoy
bolelyn replica*
Ali Burgess
sit tight, and watch as my brush paints the same strokes over and over over over
until desirable with genetically altered colours, declared by those who must have their due. i am born of a pleaser’s cowardice, yet don’t we smile just the same? crinkled canvas like furrowed brows, matching noses and crooked teeth. take a breath, it could be your last until another you comes along. then choke down the image of the mirror’s inverted reflection.
elizabeth bares the burden of her mother’s face hidden underneath her own, ever still. whois that? in between cracking paint and your gaze? her implications need not beget my consequence.
family frames forget faces, new shiny gestated portraits trapped in a walgreens instant camera from 2008 you’ll learn your lesson for letting it slip
if i told you these faces aren’t my own, would you take them out for tea time? if you could give me the time to grip the paper and allow my highlights to fade amidst the sun light.
cover our face, hear it smack on the tile once it slides clean off. say woe to the self fulfilling prophet, she who holds the guilt of the replicated face. new start. blank canvas. who is that?
Reduce
Indya Mckoy
Fragility
Nikki Membiela
So often awarded to those deemed delicate, frail, pale. The softest rose, a porcelain doll whose beauty comes from sheer existence. Graceful, dainty, demure. To touch is a privilege. They sit on the highest shelf, guarded from cruelties. From us, the destructive, solid, unbreakable. Whose merit comes from how much we may be used. How much we must endure. Touch is a transaction that causes weakness with time, but never fragility. Strength comes from necessity. Even the most graceful and frail among us are forced to be firm.
Will the brown girl ever be afforded fragility?
Will delicacy be found in her broad shoulders, her wide hips? How does she find grace in the space that she occupies? The space that works to compress and confine? She sits opposite the menagerie of crystal and ivory. She gazes at what is too beautiful to be touched and is reminded that her existence is in utility. Her own glass skin is left chipped and scratched by a world that denies her breakability. She longs for her fragility to be seen.
The brown girl is told she is a diamond. Brilliant and strong. She is beautiful but judged by her use. She knows she will never be as precious as a pearl. Beauty for beauty’s sake. She is hard, she is firm, she is strong, but she will never simply be. She is appraised according to her ability to destruct, but never how close to destruction she is herself. Her beauty belongs to others, her fragility only to her.
Banditaccia Interior
Charlotte Holley
Concert Grave
Breanna Gergen
under tired boughs of oak sighing
we linger, estranged among barrel racers and redneck-chasers and a shaggy hippie from San Jose—her skirt woven of sunshine fiber but her hair is cut like a wolf’s mane, as if she eats night prey for dinner.
all day you’ve been digging your own grave, shooting bullets with looks and kissing my knuckles even after I nearly sent you flying to Alcapulco.
aluminum whirlpools and darts keep flying—one strikes a man in the kneecap, he’s a coyote howling— and that pack of reds you’re holding? nearly emptied by your own flame but I take one, we’re all dying anyway.
in a chariot
Helios comes to take our sunrays, melting amber in the afternoon late it casts your hazel into jade, and when I look at you your eyes are glazed like you want to eat me alive.
tonight I am the tawny doe to be struck down by rifle, nailed with greedy pride to your mind’s mantle. right then was when I foresaw the night’s demise.
the redheaded man (with his guitar) takes centerstage, fiddles begin to play, the crickets to sing I begin to think between broken verses: maybe this isn’t the worst thing.
everything ends where it all began humming to the diner jukebox, its universal sound.
neon purple set ablaze to your sleeping skin, suddenly my blood covers you like a morbid trophy you earned to win.
atavism
Rowan Geddes
Fetal, four feet curled close to still chest a baby lizard on the pavement bakes, dead, stomach small but bloated, bloating sickly in the sun. A pustulous yellow pool of liquid by its head, stains of blackened, dried blood flecking—a baby lizard bakes, fetal.
If you sit on the pavement, knees under chin, fetal, and watch with your arms around your chest as they bake and crack in the sun, dried, if I sit on the pavement, and with dead and drying eyes imagine bloating on the miasma, the pool of your body curling around itself, a sickly
coil around thin arms, around the gnawing, sickly need to return to earth, to crawl under pavement, fetal, and rot into fetid soil—if I sit in a slowly seeping pool next to your bloating corpse and hold baby lizards to my chest will it be enough to make up for their lukewarm, dead bloat? I sit on the pavement, I sit until my eyes are dried
until the earth under my fingers, wet with blood but now dried, from digging a hundred tiny graves for a hundred sickly, baby lizards decays into dust. I play dead like a baby lizard and the sun bakes the fetal bend of my spine into a cradle. I lay chest to chest with a baby lizard and we float in a pool of blisters and rot and heat, bloat in a saline pool leeched from yellowed eyes, dried. Your body is only as damp as the earth you lay in, your chest now a coffin for a thousand tiny lizards, a sickly echo of the hot, blistered womb from which you, fetal, came. Your body is only as dead
as I can imagine it to be—only as dead as I believe I ought to be—and you pool the yellow, viscous seep of grief into fetal baby lizards. Your body is oozing, and nearly dried and the pavement is bleaching from the force of it, sickly. There’s not enough room in your chest for us—the lizards and i—both. You are dead, and you will be dried, the shadow of a pool left on the pavement. The lizards choked on it, sickly their bodies weak and fetal in the sun. I keep us close to my chest.
Emerald Wilderness
Justin Bardell
Hubris
Rea Swayze
Cooling wax drips from my fingers as Pa finishes the preparations. Ants flock to the half-molten waves, testing the seething white caps. A line crawls into the liquid clotting like blood. I know they cannot see the sun as it pokes through the crevices in the cell, pummeling its warm fists into my skin bruised by bull kings and exposed by cascading strips of tattered fabric. My spine smolders, itches, as slants of light cross and drip through the tiny holes in the stone. Kisses of gentle heat steal away to nestle in the ridges of my collarbone, the hollow where my neck meets the smooth line of tensed shoulder. I embrace the sun, knowing that it has received my offering.
I watch again and again as the ants swarm forward, desperate to covet the sweetness they think I possess. Primal call is as compulsory as a siren’s song. Hunger cannot be ignored. From the window looms the real ocean, blue the color I have only known as a liminal shade imprisoned in the in-between- a cage and the wide expanse soon to be coaxing us to the bright and gauzy unknown. Its tongues consume the tawny shore, whispering, calling me to freedom spelled out by the salt.
“Nothing fickle in our fate.”
I think back to what father said in the winding and lonesome days of the genesis of our confinement.
Nothing fickle, I think, in the organic godhood ribbed in the labyrinthine planes of the brain, yoking our misery to the liberation of creation.
Theirs, I watch the graveyard of ants beneath, knows of no conception of the desire to feed. I stare into my reflection, mirrored in these clamoring ants as they equate Pa’s invention to substance.
Feathers coat my bones in white, marrow on marrow. The sill and ground are littered with corpses, flayed and martyred by my detached hand. All they wanted was to eat, I think, as Pa fastens the straps.
No coins are small enough to rest on their unseeing eyes. Instead, I wordlessly transmute a funeral hymn to embalmed detritus inches away from the anticipating wind. Unconcerned of Apollo dangling above or Poseidon churning below. They spared no libations for gods. There was only impulse for them, thirst, a remnant of the untamed miasma life sprang out of. There is only the wax that left welts rippled across my shaking hands.
Pa grinds the coagulated mass underneath his bare, blistered feet. Aeolus’s paean reaches a crescendo, fervent strings of more, more, more, plucked in rapid succession. A motioning howl only I seem to hear.
I vow to the ants to touch the sun. For them. For me. Pa extends his hand.
“Ready, Icarus?” And I take it.
Because, unlike them, I shall fly.
Twilight Voyage
Justin Bardell
The Window
Sonia Erzhenina
Yggdrasil
Elsa Lloyd
Wishing Well
Elsa Lloyd
Airport
Breanna Gergen
A man dressed in Hawaiian flowers has a heart attack in the London airport, lonesome in his quarrel with Hades’s grip on his life in clacking heels they too sluggishly rush to save him from fate’s fingerprints.
Purple skin Contorted faces
It smells of death here. It has been a year; the grass, it hasn’t grown back Birds kept in cages At the local glided prison with no one to save them from the metallic aftertaste of blood on the tongue, mouth torn from wounds discreet. it takes a teenage girl to see Life blooming whilst Death wilts; they coexist in partnership, a fragile dance of light shared, a bit like when I met eyes and crossed souls with that man in the airport, momentsbeforehisownflickeredout.
Moonlit Munchies
Christine Glezer
something old something new something borrowed something blue
Sonia Erzhenina
AmpersanD
with RobbiE GonzaleZ
By Mia Martinez
Content Warning: This interview discusses sensitive topics, including abusive relationships. Please proceed with caution if these subjects may be distressing.
To experience Touchstone’s exclusive first-ever recorded ampersad interview, scan the QR code and feel free to read along as you listen to the conversation!
Q: What fuels your passion and motivation to create?
What fuels my passion and my motivation to create is really just the world around me and like my lived experiences. But also, just knowing how human beings experience emotions and really wanting to experience that through my art and using it for that self-expression because it is so like, it is so open and so varied. You can just do anything.
Q: How do you discover or seek out new inspiration for your work?
For my work, I typically, I mean—I’m a Pinterest guy, really, when it comes to some inspiration like that, but other than that I really love art. I try to watch other creators; see what kind of stylistic choices they make with their drawings. You know, take little bits here and there, certain eyes you like, certain noses, take your time and develop a style. That’s where I’ve gotten my inspiration is grabbing little pieces, kind of like scrapbooking different artists.
Q: Can you share the story or concept behind OpposingBlooms cover art and what inspired it?
So last year I was in an abusive relationship and it was one of those things where in those situations, it really is hard to speak out and talk about how you’re feeling. So, art became my space to really express what I was feeling. For Opposing Blooms, it was towards the end of our relationship. And it was at the point where like my friends were noticing what was going on. Like, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
It’s about, you know, being in that situation and feeling your friends’ concern, but still having the, you know, that’s your partner and still wanting to, you know, keep their happiness in mind and what makes them feel good, but still having that concern from your loved ones and trying to be loyal in that conflict.
Q: Your chosen medium is a huge part of your artistic voice. Can you share a little bit more about your main medium? What about this medium that resonates with you the most?
The piece for the cover art is digital media, but digital media really isn’t my main media. I would say I am more of a traditional artist. But I do love digital media.
What I especially love about it is that there’s so many layers and each layer is like a living thing. You can always go in and change it or turn them off and rearrange them in ways that look best. It’s just so versatile. But for traditional art, I just love layering colors and it’s just something about drawing on paper that I love. I love digital art as well, but I’ve just always had a soft spot for traditional art and colors. My main medium with those is color pencil and pen. I use a ballpoint pen a lot of the time.
Q: How has your style or approach to creating art changed over time and if so, how?
When I first started making art and drawing, it was a lot of like, I loved watching cartoons as a kid, so I would like kind of watch, I don’t know, like just any cartoon and like pause it and kind of try to draw what I see on TV. That just turned into like a really big interest in like character design. I would just kind of draw the characters that I liked seeing and try to take their like different traits and combine them into my own characters. And then I made a bunch of OCs when I was younger and tried to write stories. And that was my process. But right now, I’m trying to hone my skills that are grounded in like my subjects and actually paying attention to what I’m drawing as opposed to trying to like perfect it as I go. And that’s been really good. That’s been like looking at portraits, pictures of people and like kind of trying to do the same values and work through it that way.
Q: So looking ahead, what’s next for you creatively? Are there any projects, collaborations, or ideas you’re excited to explore and are willing to share?
I mean, I don’t really have anything in mind or planned, but I just kind of am looking forward to spending more time with my different artistic skills. I changed my major to studio arts last semester.
Q: What was your major before?
It was music education. It was fast. Now it’s studio arts with a minor in music and a minor in education. I still get to do all the fun music and education stuff. But I just love art so much. It needed to be a bigger part of my education. So, you know, I’m really looking forward to learning. You know, like the technical aspects of all the different mediums, like painting, you know, getting real solid support and guidance in that is really exciting.
Thank you to Robbie Gonzalez for allowing OpposingBloomsto be the cover for the 45th volume of Touchstone!
Touchstone ColophoN
The 45th volume of Touchstone Literary Arts Journal was printed by Independent Printing in Daytona Beach, Florida, with a press run of 450 copies. This journal was created by student designers using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop on iMac computers. The 2025 edition of Touchstone consists of 80 pages, and fonts including Flóra by AndrewPixel with a purchased license, and Arima Koshi. The 4-colour process cover is printed on soft-touch paper.
Touchstone also features virtual content on hatternetwork.com and on Instagram @touchstonelitart, which is entirely student created, managed, and produced. All submissions to Touchstone are reviewed, selected, and edited by Touchstone staff and selection committee. All works featured are created by Stetson University students. Special thanks to those who submitted their work and to our supporters.
Disclaimer
TouchstoneexclusivelyfeaturesworkofStetsonUniversitystudents.Each staffandselectioncommitteememberreviewedandrankedsubmissions blindly,andiftheyknewthecreatorofthepiece,ortheythemselveswere thecreator,theywerenotallowedinput.
TouchstoneLiteraryArtsJournal.45thEdition,Spring2025.Stetson University.Copyright2025TouchstoneLiteraryArtsJournal.Allartwork, photography,andliteraturearecopyright2025totheirrespectivecreators. Theideasandopinionsexpressedbelongtotherespectivecreators,anddo notnecessarilyreflectthoseoftheeditorsofthe45theditionofthe TouchstoneLiteraryArtsJournal,ortheStetsonUniversityadministrators andcommunity.Anysimilaritiestopersonslivingordeceasedispurely coincidental.Noneofthecontentsofthiseditionmaybereprintedwithout thepermissionoftheindividualcreator.