Tea Volume 22

TEAXXII

Cover Image: Detail from Shower Chair by Micah Lomel

EDITOR IN CHIEF Mirjam Frosth

Art Staff Devin Ozmon

ART EDITOR Hannah Kline

Design Staff Julia Cooper Maria Morales

DESIGN EDITOR Megan Horan PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Jessie Li White POETRY EDITOR Brianna Steidle

Photography Staff Zoya Mukherjee Madeline Murphy prose staff Alejandro Aguirre

PROSE EDITor Laura Torlaschi Outreach manager Elizabeth Fernandez Tea Volume 22 was designed, produced, and edited solely by University of Florida undergraduate students. The opinions expressed are those of our contributors and do not necessarily represent those of the editors, staff, faculty, administrators, or trustees of the University of Florida. Copyright 2020 by University of Florida’s Tea Literary & Arts Magazine. Tea, and by extension, the University of Florida, has been given permission from the contributing students to reproduce the content of this magazine for use in physical and digital publishing, social media, and any other reasonable academic uses which may pertain. Submissions are welcome from all University of Florida undergraduate students. More information can be found at tealitmag.com.

Blackbird Prize for Poetry

Honors students published in Tea are eligible for the Blackbird Prize for Poetry. It was originally advocated for by Dr. Kevin Knudson, Professor of Mathematics and former Director of the UF Honors Program. In 2012, Dr. Knudson named the prize after one of his favorite poems, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens.

Poetry Editor Brianna Steidle selected Nicole Marie’s Ranching to be this year’s winner.

Here is what Steidle had to say about it: “With piercing synesthesia, Nicole Marie invites us to peer through four fragments like window panes. Ranching picks up where Wright, Hall, and others left off; in our image-saturated, virtual world, Marie’s rendering is irresistibly transportive. Her speaker is at times brutal, but always elegant— stumbling upon “clumps of gray fur” rather than corpses. She treats so carefully a landscape that remains wary of her. The cows, the barn cats, the ibis, and the fleeing coyote swell with dignity under her pen.”

Palmetto Prize for prose

All prose works published in Tea are eligible to receive the Palmetto Prize for Prose. Traditionally, a representative of UF’s creative writing faculty selects one piece, and the author’s name joins those of previous winners, engraved on a plaque in the English Department. Owing to the pandemic and hurdles of distance learning, Tea’s editorial board convened a roundtable to nominate the Volume 22 Palmetto winner.

We hope our selection process captured the persevering (and perhaps stubborn) spirit of the university’s creative community. We are honored to have granted this year’s Palmetto Prize to James A. Our poetry editor, Brianna Steidle, spoke to what we found so compelling: “James A.’s An Excerpt from: Church Management in Central Florida, a practical guide is lucid, biting, and above all, a pleasure. The business-casual clip sets the reader up for the genuine joy of surprise (no spoilers, but prepare for a sharp left turn at ‘a word of caution’). James A. hangs social commentary on live-wire prose. The reader gets a bargain—strong writing, strong message—but keep faith, the good reverend always has a fee up his sleeve.”

contents 8

Acidic Snail Micah Lomel

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9

Leaning into Limbo Micah Lomel

20 Demo Men Samantha Marshall

To You Rwanza Erica Penley

10 Through the Zit on . . .

Micah Lomel

24 Loving Relationships Selina Wagner

11

Shower Chair Micah Lomel

26 Process of Becoming Selina Wagner

12

Jonesboro Sarah Tang

28 Interrogation William Merced

13

The Fast and the . . .

Sarah Tang

29 Recirculation in Rural William Merced

14

Breathing is a Temporary . . .

Ash Joseph

30 Conversations with Grandma Marissa Balbuena

18

The Best Find Victor Ospina

31

Family Quilt Marissa Balbuena

contents 32 Orfelina’s Empanadas Marissa Balbuena

46 Thanksgiving Time in Rurual . . .

Alexis Schuster

33 Tote Bag Marissa Balbuena

47 Ancient Wonders Kara Gordon

34 Limber Nicole Marie

48 Sarang Eunice Park

35 Ranching Nicole Marie

49 Worn Eunice Park

36 An Excerpt From: Church . . .

James A.

50 Bibimbap Eunice Park

40 Below Jul Jankowski

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42 I’m Outside Jul Jankowski

52 Your Safety Announcement Adi Basu-Dutta

45 Something’s Happening Jul Jankowski

Kimbap Eunice Park

Dearest readers, I’m to write you two to three paragraphs of something inspiring, something which sets the tone for this year’s issue. This won’t happen.

Nobody wants to read that. Maybe some of you do. Either way, this page isn’t for that, it’s for me to say: We’ve been pushing for a few years for this magazine to mean something, to matter. If it can’t do that, it should at least be good, and if it can’t be that, it should at least be fun to make, and if it can’t be that, well, hell. I don’t know. Just read the book and look at the art and the writing. That’s what really matters.

All my very best, Cheers, Best regards, Regards, Kind regards, Sincerely, Mirjam Frosth Editor in Chief TEA

Left: Where by Eunice Park, Intaglio print

Micah Lomel

Leaning into Limbo

Acrylic paint on canvas

Acidic Snail

Acrylic paint on canvas 8

Micah Lomel

Through the Zit on my Shoulder Acrylic paint on canvas 10

Shower Chair

Acrylic paint on canvas 11

Sarah Tang

Jonesboro The crown-molding architrave is scored with age, the refectory hallway lined with peeling card tables. Etchings and crayon scribbles decorate the walls like Bernini bas-reliefs.

An east window illuminates mismatched chairs, pulpit, altar, two broken pianos, and a Christmas tree, unadorned, save for a porcelain angel covered in dust.

Nothing in this church shimmers.

The morning light refuses the room something holy, as if angels had taken up residence with the termites.

My childhood lives between wood grain and fear of brimstone. I try to pick out memories that don’t burn: plucking tiny unripe persimmons, climbing blooming dogwoods, drawing angels in gray sand. They are the memories in which no god resides.

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The Fast and the Furious Judy, my babysitter, was stopped for speeding on the way to the funeral; the Virginia license plate and cherry-red car made us an easy target in a Florida speed-trap.

Seeing me in the backseat— a grumpy eleven-year-old, sipping a Coke and fussing at an oversized, black choir dress— the officer let us off with a warning.

We sat in the back of the church.

The coffin, polished black, wore a shawl of freckled lilies and mauve rosebuds.

I did not know the deceased, so while Judy went to see her great aunt, I plucked up a hymnal from the pew-back.

Gossip augmented the chords: Jane’s daughter was drinking again, Jon had left the seminary.

I flipped past the elegies, ignoring how none of the chatter was about their Great Aunt Julianna.

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Ash Joseph

Breathing is a Temporary Condition

a five act play I. It was a Tuesday night and a Wednesday morning.

My bad decisions started with a white van and a short uphill walk.

The bassist (for our band that never happened) and I heard muttering about a cloud room. What the fuck is a cloud room.

I went inside and found a tomb for a contemporary Frankenstein, polishing a silver volcano attached-to-bag, attached-to-nozzle.

Intriguing. I would have settled for an apple.

I see the bag deflate like a lung as mine become beehives of smoke and honey.

I sway with the leaves outside. I say I NEED TO GO; I HAVE A FLIGHT IN SEVEN HOURS and slink into a mysterious chariot.

II. I can feel the big dipper scooping out my brain.

Cat says I’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU if I explain how I got here. I tell her it’s been two months of medical meshugas and I’m scared to stay in school.

She offers her mother’s banana bread.

I follow her to the kitchen and down a can of Monster in spite of my health.

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III. I get home and sleep, useless for hours until my desk starts buzzing. I answer the phone.

IT IS TIME TO GO. GET TO THE HOSPITAL. Everything the family does is on borrowed time.

In that bleak room Dad scribbles, “I’m sorry,” I whisper I love you.

(This is an interaction I never thought possible.)

IV. In the cafeteria I tell Ryan about the smoke and honey and banana bread.

He laughs and says WELCOME TO ADULTHOOD. Dad sleeps when we get back, and I do the same.

Ryan shakes me at 2 am DAD IS AWAKE AND IN PAIN. He’s begging for the morphine drip.

He pulls a quote from my book, “Please, I can’t do this anymore.”

We hold him off for eight hours, just so the doctor can get there.

This is the last time I can listen to Oceans, This is the last time I actively listen to the gospel, This is the last time he writes.

“Thank you, I love you.”

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V. We decide that each of us will have five minutes.

I am third to say goodbye.

I go into the room and tell him about the tattoo I’m getting.

I tell him that since I can’t get my first one with him I’m doing it for him.

He doesn’t respond.

I tell him that college is great and I hope he’s proud of me (I know how deeply pride runs through him).

He growls and I think he’s trying to speak and then realize it’s the death rattle and I am still in the room useless.

I run to my family to tell them THIS IS THE END and I am kicked out of the hospital in an attempt to spare me what I’ve already seen.

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Ash Joseph

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Victor Ospina

The Best Find Photograph

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Erica Penley

To You Rwanza Photograph

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Samantha Marshall

Demo Men

We are at work ripping the carpet out of Tom Web’s construction office. The office building of Nielson-Web Construction Corp. is where all of the secretaries and phone call people and numbers guys and project managers sit at desks in slacks and ties while the tradesmen for hire are out there building a new radiology clinic or whatever it is. Us demo men were hired for the office renovations by virtue of having the cheapest bid, as it goes.

Tom Web stands behind us at the end of the hall, surveying with his arms crossed and his legs spread like a cowboy in a western preparing for a shootout. Genteel guy, wears Wranglers and boots he manages to scuff up somehow between pacing his office and playing golf. He prowls around the office bowlegged, big friendly psychopathic smile on his face, perfect as a toothpaste commercial and nothing behind the eyes.

He gives loud hail-fellow-well-met greetings to anybody coming through the front door, be they colleagues or the cleaning crew, and peers down the receptionist’s blouse and adjusts his junk inside his pants while maintaining eye-contact and carrying on a

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conversation with such careless abandon that he makes you feel like the one committing a faux pas just for being there.

Tom says, “Good work, boys. Keep up the good work.” And it is good work.

Better than he knows: to squat and stand, reach and pull, strip the carpet from the ugly gray concrete underneath. I think of my exwife, of peeling the dead white skin from her sunburned back. It’s both a dangerous and a pleasurable thought, so I neuter it—make it any woman, faceless, not her. We wear masks to keep from breathing in the dust and whatever future cancers are floating in the air with it. Do the masks help? I don’t know. Ask me in another twenty years or so.

Tom Web walks away, and I imagine the sound of spurs jangling as he goes. Lloyd pulls up some carpet and says, “Look at this.” We all look. There on the bare rough concrete is a splash of teal paint.

Fisher gets his water bottle and pours it over the paint to clear the dust and it comes through bright as wrapping paper. Teal as the flashing flank of a tropical fish. I have snorkeled in warm oceans and seen such flashing, surprising and delightful as the wink

of a navel when the arms go up and the shirt lifts. I have heard the parrotfish crunching on the reef and tickled the bellies of nurse sharks. Teal as the bikini bottom of the girl swimming ahead of me, which I later took off with my teeth. I say so to the appreciation of all. Lloyd says it is the color of his date’s dress to senior prom. Fisher tells us it’s the exact hue of the light coming through the stained glass skirt of the Virgin Mary, whose image he sat beneath every Sunday as a boy. Hugo recalls the eyeshadow of a particular drag queen he knew when he tended bar in Miami.

Maybe we should be more careful, save some things for ourselves, in case we need them one day—but sharing passes the time and keeps us amiable. As far as buried treasure goes, the teal splash is not worth pausing over on its own, without bringing our own associations to it. Often you find the autographs of workers who came before you, next to the year they signed their names.

When I began this line of work and found my first autograph and started looking out for more graffiti, I expected to find a lot of the lewd and crude type of thing you see on bathroom stalls and in the back of high school textbooks, but it’s actually very rare.

And now I understand why. Who would

bother? Who would bury a time capsule with nothing in it but poorly drawn pornography, except for a pervert or an idiot? You can put that sort of thing anywhere. But to leave a secret in the walls, under the carpeting, beneath a car’s interior—you want it to count. To bear forward who you are to some other person, in some other time—or to nobody at all. Because the mark you leave behind is really for yourself. In Germany in wartime, my great aunt hid two baby teeth in the wall of her family’s apartment. She told me before she died that she had known others who had done the same, or similar. The teeth wouldn’t rot and would be there hundreds of years later, granting that their buildings were not razed. In a crisis, people didn’t leave behind something profane. Names, teeth, dates. The stakes are less salient without air raid sirens blaring, but they are the same, there is no doubt about it. Once we tore up the carpet in another office building and found a giant pentagram painted onto the floor and clumps of dried wax. That makes a good headline for a local paper on a slow week, but ultimately interests me less than the autographs.

I am a graduate of a special class I attended while in prison, taught by a

Maybe we should be more careful, save some things for ourselves, in case we need them one day . . .

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professor of philosophy from the local community college and a few of his students. A man in his eighties with such a thin, intense face that you couldn’t help but see the skull pressed up against underneath.

He led us in discussions on what we valued or might value, and what concerned us. He wrote whatever answers we gave in chalk on a board he rolled into the room. Money, our kids, drugs, domestic abuse, false accusations, police brutality, race relations, unfairness of the penal system. Then we’d talk about it and he’d give us things to read. I used to tell everyone I could about the class, right off the bat, but I don’t anymore. I found that it would generate arch laughter.

Not nice laughter. Laughter which took for granted that a prison philosophy class was the punchline to a cheap joke. Laughter that made one feel small and belittled and angry.

These are feelings I try to avoid because I have found that they make me capable of great irrationality and violence, such as breaking and entering in the dead of the night into the house where the mother of my children and her new man and those same children are sleeping. And wearing a hockey mask and carrying a bat for no good reason, just in case, having not thought ahead to in case of what, intending only to take with me in my black trash bag those items

I considered mine, which I had never been allowed into the house to collect, including photographs of my children, of which I had none. And scaring the living crap out of all of them, and causing my ex to fall backwards in hysterical fright into a china cabinet which nearly toppled over on her, and causing the new man to shoot me in the meat of the shoulder with the pistol he apparently sleeps with under his bed within easy grabbing distance. And tearing the mask off and bleeding all over the carpet and probably traumatizing my children for life while my ex and the new man argued over whether to call 911 or the police.

When a cop hauled me up and twisted my arms behind me, the bullet wound sang a high, shrill tune and I jammed my elbow into his face. On reflex, I swear. Reflex or not, I broke his nose. So on top of everything I was responsible for assaulting an officer. But on the other side of violence I now think much clearer and I don’t hold the time I served against anyone.

It might have been worse. My ex might have knocked her noggin hard and died. The new man might have been a better shot. I might have slammed the cop’s cartilage into his brain and become a killer by accident. The cop might have been trigger happy and put me down right there. A kid could have been

Laughter which took for granted that a prison philosophy class was the punchline to a cheap joke.

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Samantha Marshall hurt. I heard such sorry chains of events in the philosophy class, from men who are not here stripping carpet in Tom Web’s office, as I might not have been.

I am a lucky, lucky man. Lucky to be here, breathing asbestos and admiring teal paint. On my lunch break, to sit in the shade and eat a ham sandwich and a crisp red apple.

To laugh with the others at the way Tom Web walks as if he’s sitting astride a horse with a saddle between his legs. To walk Chauncy the fox terrier in the evenings, and watch him and my neighbor’s frantic pomeranian go in circles sniffing each other’s behinds, while the neighbor and I take turns cutting eyes at each other. I never have to hurt anyone, ever again. It’s the biggest relief I’ve ever known, and it’s why I don’t stop at my kids’ school to try and see them, and it’s why when I am in the grocery store at the same time as my ex and the new man, I hide and leave quickly before anything can happen. I never have to hurt anyone ever again, for as long as I live.

I have done enough. And anything I might like to do or say to the new man is not worth missing one evening of dog walking. It is not worth missing even the smell of Chauncy’s business when I pick it up out of the yard in a plastic grocery bag. Even that can be appreciated. Anything you can lose, you can learn to love. And I could lose it all.

Can I remain content, or will teal paint one day not be enough, and will the feeling that the world owes me something,

something more than this, come back? It’s awful knowing myself as well as I do now— knowing the depths of reckless stupidity I am capable of reaching.

I will have to be careful, very careful.

They say keep your enemies close, so I’m in luck, being my own enemy. How careful? I could walk around with barbed wire wrapped around my chest and nails in my shoes, maybe. Perhaps in a corset or one of those chastity belts that constricts. That way I couldn’t move too fast, or too much, without remembering myself.

When the carpet is all torn out, we will find a place to sign and mark the date.

Others may one day read the names, or they may not. It’s beside the point.

Tom Web ambles over, hiking his jeans up and grinning. He hovers behind us, his shadow falling across the floor. “You boys do good work,” he says. “And fast. Neatest demo men I ever saw, I tell you what. Not like those slobs I last had in here. What’s the secret?”

Lloyd smiles up at him, gap-toothed and blithe. “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.”

“A job well done is its own reward,” says Fisher.

“As you sow so shall you reap,” says Hugo.

“It’s all in the wrists,” says I.

Tom Web laughs, one loud harsh bark of sound, and claps me on the back like I’m his only son.

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Selina Wagner

Loving Relationships

Graphite on toned paper

Selina Wagner

Process of Becoming Charcoal on canvas 26

William Merced

Interrogation It went like this (the investigation): She came home from her housekeeping job at nine fifty when he beat her. Fifty-seven lashes from a leather belt until she broke free, ran to the closet, took the pistol from the shoebox, and fired all six bullets. Two of the six hit her boyfriend while the rest traveled into the neighbor’s unit, through her daughter’s left temple.

His went like this (the boyfriend’s testimony): I grew tired of life and of her so when she came home, I planned to make her learn from my misery. I lashed her five or seven times when the bitch leapt from me and went into my closet, into my shoebox, took my gun and dared to aim it at me. She pulled the trigger twice and shot my soul out past the roofs, and everything was a silent fog.

I froze time, saw her exact emotion, saw the bullets fly through the plywood walls, saw them enter the skull of pequeña Evita and transform the face of her mother forever in present and future denial.

Within this fabrication, I am alone.

Hers went like this (Evita’s testimony): I was drawing a lonely woman, my mommy, with her happy hija hiding behind her inside a big house with big things like a big bed and a pretty garden where parrots and pretty kitties played and roamed about. I felt a sting inside my mind and grew very sleepy. I dreamed for a long time until I felt the touch of something like a cloud. But I never felt a cloud. What do they feel like?

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Recirculation in Rural He would always walk at night, feet soaked. I saw him once while I smoked and he played with his hand on the tongue of an overtime cow.

He crawled under the udders and did not move, so I grew bored. I walked to that flaccid cantina. I drank.

I walked back home with a woman.

He was standing now, his back to me.

I decided right there to smoke some more but then I heard that noise which cows make when they see their life ending.

He was on all fours, face to the sky, tongue clear against the moon’s puslight: it waggled like a pendulum clock as he waded into the fly-infested watering hole.

He disappeared completely for five minutes and reappeared legs-first on the other side. I did not see him after, just his clothes lying nearby. I searched through them, hoping for a couple centavos.

Instead, photographs of missing persons, some from the first national census, some newer.

When I turned to walk home, I could not see anymore.

I felt my belly feel the weight of a child. I could not speak but groan.

The weight of my back compressed on the horizon. I craved grass and slept among it.

The sun rose, and I saw the blue clear of the atmosphere.

There, the wave of the winds and a pasture of beautiful cows, slow and loud and snoring like only beautiful cows could.

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Marissa Balbuena

Family Quilt

Watercolor and waxed thread on paper

Conversations with Grandma Deconstructed chair

Marissa Balbuena

Orfelina’s Empanadas Product design 32

Tote Bag

Product design 33

Nicole Marie

Limber Abuelo tried teaching me to ride a bike before he died. I never did learn— mostly because I was too smart. I knew that if I fell and scraped a knee (maybe shed a tear, too) Abuelo would take me to buy limber, as much as I wanted, so I’d pick out two lemon-limes and three fruit punches (he’d buy one coconut).

I never could finish them all; Abuelo would save them in the freezer para luego, he’d say.

When he got sick, he stood inside and I tried learning on my own, falling to no reward.

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Ranching I. I like to come out here in the mornings with the mist lying low, and the Brahmans, emerging from a long night spent looking after their wearisome calves, stumble near the fenceline, unaware I am watching their morning rounds, squinting at their alabaster forms disguised by the fog—it won’t be long till the sun calls away the haze and the cows, noticing the figure watching, call for their calves, stomp the ground, and bear their horns ready to strike whoever so dares enter.

III. I think he wants to be one of them; I think I do too. The evening has grown quiet, the sky pink with pre-darkness, the pasture dotted with white ibis. Haltered beside me, he softly paces, and we hold our breaths as the flock stills.

The hush splinters with the whip of wings against air. Fearless, they continue up, as the sun releases its hold on the sky. Ears forward, neck craned to see them leave, he nickers.

Even when the dark has swallowed their forms, he stays, watching.

II. The two barn cats are always the first to greet me in the mornings. Tails high and purring, they circle my steps, heads rubbing against my calves. I pour out their kibble, and as soon as they finish, they scamper away. They are comely little beasts, and even more graceful than the horses. It is easy to forget why we have them. The cattle for market, the horses for herding, but the cats?

Today, I am reminded: I trace clumps of gray fur to the feed bags.

I don’t need to see the bodies to know.

The cats? Our lovely cats are for killing.

IV. The world is different here at night, separate even. With no lamplight to blur out the stars or men at work to drown out the sounds, the wilds begin their rituals. The coyotes saunter through the fields, yipping, sending the mice scurrying among the horses. Spooked, the mules bray as their hooves smite the ground.

Fearing such might, the coyotes flee and the bobcat, who had patiently watched, enters prowling and exits successful, mice in maw.

Soon, night draws towards its close, and the owls roost with their quarry. Dawn rises on birdsongs and cattle lowing.

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James A.

An Excerpt from: Church Management in Central Florida,

a practical guide

By Rev. Jonathon Borrows Bachelor of Business Administration, Polk State College Doctor of Ministry, Knox Theological Seminary # Chapter 11: Weddings “Marriage is a gift God has given to all humankind for the wellbeing of the entire human family.”

Hosting weddings and performing marriages are two of the most important services a church provides to its community.

They also represent an opportunity to make a lot of money. While there are rules against the sale of “sacraments,” which limit the amount you can charge for the wedding itself, couples can be called by God to give to the Church as a token of their gratitude and as an expression of their joyous union in Christ.

Richer couples will often be called to give more generously, so target them if possible.

Limits on the sale of sacraments only apply to the wedding ceremony itself, 36

which means that hosting the reception is essential to turning a serious profit. It’s like how movie theaters really make their money from popcorn sales: you should think of the ceremony as a promotion for the real product. You may feel uncomfortable hosting wedding receptions, which involve loud music and alcohol and dancing without room for Jesus—but note that at least these things are occurring in the context of a Godly union between man and wife. Feel free to set up a dance floor and rent out the Fellowship Hall’s sound system for additional fees.

You should help set up before and clean up after the wedding, as a gesture of courtesy. More importantly, you should “hang out” at the reception, just in case things get out of control and property damage occurs. Thus, although you won’t really be attending the event, you should dress nicely—a black suit and tie with a white dress shirt is fine. Normally, you shouldn’t mingle at the party, but if the couple invites you and it’s been a long week, it’s acceptable to say yes. Avoid drinking too much, in case you need to legally represent the church in a situation with law enforcement.

A word of caution: you should definitely avoid the awkward twenty-sevenyear-old standing in the corner, wearing jeans and a hint of eyeliner. He may be alone and look sad and seem like someone who has not yet accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, and you may feel called to reach out to him. Beware: this is not the voice of God speaking to you, but the Devil exploiting your evangelical instincts.

If you do end up in conversation with him, avoid learning his name (Aaron) and committing it to memory. Do not find that you have a lot in common and talk for hours. It’s possible that you have been lonely recently, or that you and your wife have been fighting, but this is all a test.

don’t need help, even if he told you about his exercise routine and showed you proper push-up form by holding your chest as you practiced, rising and falling, helplessly locked into the rhythm of the music.

It’s possible, though, that in addition to Aaron a few other guys stuck around to help, and you felt safe with a whole group carting tables and chairs away. If so, they will have left at this point, so that—fumbling nervously with the padlock and unwrapping the chains around the gate, feeling cold spring air cut at exposed flesh—you and Aaron are alone in the church shed, rolling the last folded table into the darkness where you know there’s a narrow space.

The table might get stuck, requiring two people and four hands to guide it in gently, and you might brush up against his arm, just above the place where his rolled-up sleeve hangs against his elbow. You can appreciate the Christian comradery, and the way the kicked-up sawdust looks almost like snow in the moonlight, but don’t mention this to Aaron, along with the fact that you’ve never seen snow before, because this will prompt him to look at you and push your hair back and kiss you full on the mouth. And then your knees will buckle like a girl’s until he

If you do end up in a conversation with him, avoid learning his name (Aaron) and committing it to memory.

Remember: God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.

As the reception winds down and guests begin to leave for an after-party or their hotel rooms, refuse his (Aaron’s) help folding up the tables and stacking the chairs; you can manage this on your own. If you do accept his assistance, don’t let him help you carry things out to the church shed. You’re a man, you’re not afraid of the dark, and you

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finally sets you down kneeling in that dark corner, and you won’t be able to see anything—you’ll just smell sawdust and his cologne and close your eyes, like a teenager waiting for someone to pour beer into her mouth.

DO NOT DO THIS.

And if you do, don’t get him to write his number on a disposal cloth rag. Because you’ll keep it in your wallet and stare at it and think about texting him, even though it hurts because when you tried he didn’t answer.

And then the next time you smell sawdust or stack chairs your knees will buckle again and you’ll fall straight down to hell—like those old MGM cartoons or that Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion movie. No matter what you felt in that moment or what you read online on your phone with the bathroom door locked, there’s no way this doesn’t end with a lake of fire and a pitchfork up your ass for all eternity.

The threat of damnation is, of course, the only reason it burns so hot in your stomach when you think about him.

Which you do compulsively, like picking at a wound.

And, more to the point, none of this will contribute to the church’s bottom line. # 38

Rev. Jonathon Borrows is a pastor at Abundant Grace Ministries in Bartow, FL. He was the operations manager at Abundant Grace for five (5) years, when his congregation voted to provide him with the funding to pursue a doctorate from Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He has written several books about theology and church management and has been happily married for ten (10) years.

James A.

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Jul Jankowski

Below

Resin mixed with India ink, styrofoam, eraser, figures, and plexiglass 40

Jul Jankowski

I’m Outside Oil on canvas

43

Jul Jankowski

Something’s Happening 44

Oil on wood panel

Alexis Schuster

Thanksgiving Time in Rural Wisconsin Mucous and blood-varnished tubes bloom in the jagged halved belly, white fur as wine-soaked as that beard, that man hoisting the gun.

Did you look him in the eyes, young man? Gentle thing, the hard part is done.

All he must do is hang. Seven-pointer, you say, young man? He would have shed those antlers this winter. And how many times had he shed them before? And how many hunters passed him over when he was a fawn?

Do you wonder, young man? How he had grown into his old gait, and then happened to walk right to the place he’d been shot?

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Kara Gordon

Ancient Wonders wounded doves in plastic bags dangle from my ceiling fan like the hanging gardens of babylon sprouting from stucco. i save them seasons past their expiration date, on the off chance they might fly again.

47

Eunice Park

Sarang

Fabric and thread 48

Worn

Fabric and thread

49

Eunice Park

Bibimbap 50

Embroidery floss

Kimbap

Canvas, fabric, and thread

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Adi Basu-Dutta

Your Safety Announcement Ladies and Gentlemen!

Your safety instruction card was in the seatback pocket until the captain burned it up.

Please imagine having read it.

A life jacket is in the pocket under your nose. To put it on, place a ring on a finger and pray.

Put arms around the waist and squeeze.

Please do not inflate while you are still inside the aircraft, unless you want children.

Life raft and evacuation slide are available in case of insecurities.

Dark thoughts will direct you to some doors. Additional exits are available all around you.

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Should you wish to remove anything from the overhead bins, please take care as some people may have marked your belongings as theirs and could fall out with you.

Passengers are reminded that this is a non-smoking flight and that almost everyone will be smoking.

The non-smoking sign will remain illuminated until the end of the flight.

Thank you for riding with us!

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JAMES A.

James A. enjoys manipulating form in order to convey emotion. His biggest influences are Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, David Foster Wallace, and K.A. Applegate.

MARiSSA BALBUENA

As a visual communicator, Balbuena uses art and design to express her identity within the context of culture and family. Her works celebrate the powerful Hispanic women that have helped her develop into the woman she is today.

ADi BASU-DUTTA

Basu-Dutta is a political science major at the University of Florida. He aspires to hold a public office position.

KARA GORDON

Gordon is a second-year BFA acting and BA English student. Gordon writes fiction, poetry, and plays.

JUL JANKOWSKi

Jankowski envelops her works in the comfort and silence of solitude. The points of light in her works illustrate the peace and safety a wide open landscape provides while exaggerating its danger when in darkness.

ASH JOSEPH

Joseph is a sophomore studying mechanical and aerospace engineering. He is passionate about art, breakfast food, guitars, and bees.

He often writes about identity and past experiences, and his ultimate goal is to help others in any way possible.

MiCAH LOMEL

As a painter, Lomel balances theory and production, occasionally exploring a variety of styles within a singular piece. She calculates color and composition to express her concepts with a poetic sensibility. Her current works focus on the word “limbo” as any space between moments, locations, materials, and mental states.

NiCOLE MARiE

Marie is currently a senior honors student pursuing a dual degree in English and animal biology. Marie’s passion for poetry was sparked by a box of her great-grandfather’s poems, which she inherited in middle school.

SAMANTHA MARSHALL

Marshall is a senior at the University of Florida pursuing an English degree with a minor in teaching.

WiLLiAM MERCED

Merced enjoys writing poems regarding Colombia and the perspective of some of its economically troubled yet passionate peoples.

ViCTOR OSPiNA

Ospina is a fourth year digital arts and sciences major. He photographs memories: the people, places, and things he frequently sees so as to keep a tangible archive.

EUNiCE PARK

Park explores her Korean-American identity and culture through various mediums, from installation art and sculptures to painting and drawing. Her more recent works incorporate cross-generational traditions into textile mediums.

ERiCA PENLEY

Penley is an undergraduate religion major.

She recently transferred to the University of Florida after traveling to regions such as Rwanda, where she took the photo.

ALEXiS SCHUSTER

Growing up in rural Minnesota, Schuster developed a keen ability to depict wildlife and human interactions through her writings. She currently studies English.

SARAH TANG

Tang is a junior graphic design student at the University of Florida. In addition to her design and artistic endeavors, she also writes poetry and is pursuing a minor in English.

SELiNA WAGNER

Wagner is a senior drawing major. Through graphite, charcoal, ink, bristol, and unstretched canvas, Wagner’s pieces reveal the artist’s process of self-understanding, adding to a tradition of self-portraiture.

Special thanks to: Brian D. Avery, Layne Thue-Bludworth, I. A. Cosentino, Matthew Diaz, Shelbie Eakins, Elizabeth Fernandez, Debora Greger, William Logan, Michael Lozano, Silas Lozano, Mical Malgorzata, Emily Margolis, Allyson Martinez, Andrea Mendoza, Julia Morrisroe, Alejandro Nunez, Allysa Peyton, Julie Roinos, V. Santiesteban, Wendy Shang, Fredda Steidle, Darby Webb, Veronica Vintilla, Emily Ruth Hill, and above all, Emily’s dog, Rooster.

;-)