CANVAS Volume 22

I

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine is a Bloomington, Indiana based publication that accepts the best visual and written work from undergraduate and graduate students at Indiana University. Each piece of published work is the property of the author or artist and may not be reproduced without his or her permission. The views represented in the magazine are not necessarily those of Canvas, Union Board, the Indiana Memorial Union, Indiana University, or the Board of Trustees.

For questions or to submit to the next issue, contact us at: canvas@indiana.edu

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Dear Reader, We hope your time spent with the work on these pages is valuable and beneficial.

These featured artists chose to labor over transpiring their individual ideas into meaningful work. We strive to fill the pages of this magazine with premiere art from Indiana University, to acknowledge the incredible work by students, and to engage readers in a creative dialogue.

Our hope is that you enjoy the 2019 edition of Canvas and that it inspires you to create and grow.

Editor's Choice Award Canvas gives editor's choice awards to the best written and visual work submitted to the magazine each year. For this issue, we present this honor to Elissa Fertig (43) and Christina Klein (76).

This award serves to recognize the high level of craft and creativity with which they represent their chosen fields and to thank them for sharing their exceptional work.

Alexandria Ruschman, Audrey Lee Editors

Creative Arts Magazine

Spring 2019

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Visual Art

Yaoxuan Liu Ava Steensland Mathew Wheeler Brandy Scholl Sam Perin Erin Ryan Caitlin Rikard Bell

Angiee Liliana Rocha Parra Jenny Reed Tommy DeNardo Leo Quirk

Joann Quinones Coady Raab Gabriel Mo Lexi Rose Lee Luke Huling Jonathan Christensen

Bethany Habegger Megan Furness Hayley Skrezyna Kayla Barta Rachel Casper Christina Klein Yingqi Zhao Alyssa Joyal Shannon Pritchard

Olivia Kalish

8-9 10, 37 12 13-15 18-19 21 22

24-25 26 28-29 31-34 38-39 41 42 48-49 50-55 58-60 62-64 65 67 72-73 74 76-77 78-81 82 85 86

Written Art

Taylor Belleville Lex R. David Brinson Juliana Connelly Elissa Fertig Victoria Jones Audrey Lee Quinn Titus Ashleigh Poe Lillian Wright

6-7 11, 84 16 27 17, 36,40 20,43-47 23 30 61, 68-71, 83 56,57 66

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

you don't have to be so brave. there are so many trembles in your heart and in your mind. it's not when, it's always if. every worst case scenario erupts fear and anxieties inside your pretty head. your backbone is not as sturdy as you want everyone to believe. you lay your head on the pillows and feel unfulfilled, like there is so much more you could have done. but you have moved mountains and inspired change. to be exposed, you feel vulnerable, and then you lock your inner world away. let someone in. let them watch your mind dream the days away. within you stirs tremendous vision, and images that won't always be make believe.

Selection Comittee

Assistant Directors

Design Staff

Alexandria Ruschman Audrey Lee Isabel Drumwright Natalie Fritz Shazreh Bokhari Benjamin Tasseff Hayley Skrezyna Niharika Alasapuri

Audrey Lee Niharika Alasapuri Katie Creager

Alexandria Ruschman Audrey Lee Niharika Alasapuri Isabel Drumwright Hayley Skrezyna

Director

Editorial Staff Alexandria Ruschman Audrey Lee

Alexandria Ruschman

Publisher World Arts Inc.

Cover Art Tommy DeNardo

7

shards of your memory have lodged themselves into my spine and i cannot even breathe without feeling your presence. you are intertwined into every book of poetry i read so i start creating my own to try and escape. but now instead of reading strangers' words that paint images of your clouded eyes, i write you into every line myself. but i cannot write my way out of the pain that you have caused me. i lock myself in my room because every stranger that passes me looks like you. i feel your hands on my body when i'm trying to fall asleep, claiming me for yourself. i was never anyone's to be taken. how can i take control of myself again? how can i feel like my body is ever my own when all i can feel is you? so much of that night has been barred from my memory. did you think it was okay, because you were drunk too? or was it okay because you asked me so many times, too many times, with the answer of no before i finally broke down and said

yes? you had to carry me up the stairs; i remember that much. and then there i was, naked and alone in a closet when the police came. i couldn't even put into words what had happened. so i didn't. i sometimes wonder if you even realize what you did. it took so many months before i could even let myself admit what had really happened. but it was real. and while i survived, you left me broken for such a long time. my body has mended and i have scrubbed your fingertips off of my skin, but what you did will always be a part of my identity, of who i am from that day forward.

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Homesick Mixed Media

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Homesick Mixed Media

Tiger Woman Colored Pencil

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You have yours and I have mine And now I see they don't entwine If not your home but just a heart Will it soon be torn apart.

Home Ceramic

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Imperfect Perfect Mixed Media

Holly Brooch Mixed Media

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Ebony Brooch Mixed Media

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

w = ((A x T)/d) + .5673 Does my worth, (w), let's say, equal your affection for me (A) times the time invested in years (T) divided by the distance dividing us (d) plus the constant (0.5673)?

What is the magic value for w?

Does it have to be Positive?

Perhaps just equal to or greater than one?

Like floating, like density?

You were always so meticulous and math-minded.

Tell me how you decided my worth.

Give your formula, cancel your units, show your work.

Tell me my worth.

17

I thought savage meant outwardly cruel A lion shackled in a cage, A skeleton dressed in rags, Both begging for pity no one will have.

Every crooked smile a test of my training, my loyal devotion. Apprentice to impassivity itself I've earned that promotion, no emotions splay across my facial features. I swear they're all gone; the curtain's been drawn.

That's why I didn't see you.

Yet still you don't see me.

Your face an eternal mask, emotions hidden behind glass eyes and metal skin a robot ready to train me to never feel again.

I'm done with the love, no turning back now ready to dispose of my humanity if you'll just show me how.

I force myself to leap through flamed hoops To earn your affection: Flesh singed, skin raw and blistered.

You refuse any connection.

The definition of savage, my love, is you. Isn't it?

I asked for this pain, I know it's true because looking at you and feeling as I do and refusing to spill my secret through and through makes me cruel too.

But I can't forget you.

They say you can never lose what was never yours to love.

But they never said I'd lose myself, thrust into the 9th circle of hell -

he called my bluff.

I say you sneer and grunt, not smile or laugh, as if you're against me, but I'm biased against you now, too scared to take a polygraph because I know it's really me tearing myself in half.

Even now I won't forget you.

Foggy Memories Digital Art

19

I

Winter Days Digital Art

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

As far as I'm concerned, I want a bloodless life one that is filled with enough light to see by but not so much that it blinds me, sun-bright and salt-bleached, or the swallowing of your lips over mine or anything.

I would like to retreat to the woods to grow a second set of hands, in case the first set fail me as they have on several occasionswould like hair the color of molten gold from a box, bleached like Marilyn Monroe on a Tuesday.

I would like an army of dreams to storm my bed at night, crosshatched and riddled with the blank knife of tomorrow, cutting into me, a future wrought by blade.

As far as I am concerned, I still don't know what I want. And the city holds me in palms so sharp I fear wound, the country in arms so wide I could get lost in them.

And I remember too my hometown, that heavy emotion of the suburban bedroom, my sanctuary and the walls I grew up between, yes, and in all my not-knowing there thrums an urgency, probing as another tongue in the mouth, whatodyouwantwhatdoyouwant whatdoyou-

Folding A Fitted Sheet Photography

Pete Acrylic on canvas

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Youthful Eyes that dance in the moonlight.

Youthful Eyes that serenade in the summer sun.

Youthful Eyes he mistakes for bedroom eyes.

Youthful Eyes he wants to make his prize.

Youthful Eyes you will meet Your demise.

But Youthful Eyes You will rise.

Youthful Eyes sees clear blue skies.

Youthful Eyes rests then sighs.

No more lies for Youthful Eyes.

VESTIGIOUS (Close up) Embroidery on organza and plaster

VESTIGIOUS (Side view) Embroidery on organza and plaster

Feast Week Ceramic and mixed media

27

Expiration date is what he said

The day he would be dead, As if he were a carton of eggs Or a loaf of bakery bread.

Casually, he broke the newsTo me and my big-eyed brother Like he could be tossed away today And the next we'd have bought another Perhaps he will last longer Than they said he would They always play it safe When they label your food Expiration date is what he said

The day he would be dead

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Erosion Graphic Art

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

I Close your eyes.

Bow your head.

Fold your hands.

To me? To my life? Where?

Your will be done Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

No. My plans. Stop. I've got this.

I promise everything's going fine.

My record? Clean.

No, really, this is a formality.

As we forgive our debtors

I'm shut. Doors Closed.

I'm angry. Tired. Find forgiveness under my boot.

If I'm to learn, where's the forgiveness from you?

On earth as it is in Heaven And lead us not into temptation Heaven? What about hell. Hell!

My Father who aren't in heaven Give us this day our daily bread So I'm stressed. Sad. Is that bad?

hand?

Anything! Damn. Give me anything.

Hallowed be thy name Forgive us our debts No helping hand. No need to pull me up from my knees.

Your kingdom come

But where else should I go?

Where the hell's your guiding

Debts? Shit. Skip forgiveness, find me payment.

I'm lost, in the desert any turn could be better than you, your non-existent voice.

But deliver us from evil.

Amen.

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Rebirth Photography

Oracle (Far Right) Photography

Womb iotography

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Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

To all the imaginative words hiding amidst the blue lines that rule this spacious domain, come out, come out. You've much to gain.

I promise I'll coddle you until you mature able to ripen the meaning I seek but cannot complete without your voices somersaulting inside me and maneuvering into place at last clambering out of my word-riddled womb to my loving embrace.

The journey is difficult and filled with pain, mostly because my brain has shut off, refuses to stain the page with imperfection I'd rather not claim as my own. I'm afraid you won't make it, afraid I will fail: Death of the incapable writer words gone stale.

Trying to harvest the emotions brimming in my mind is like giving birth for a verylong time. For every hour, my brain offers up one cm of glorious expansion -just enough for a slyly crafted phrase or two to breach this impenetrable cocoon of thoughts I yearn to set free.

I push and I huff, wheeze and heave, yet only one phrase makes its way to the page.

As soon as I ink you onto the lines, my pencil chases you down, making up for lost time. But the lead doesn't bloom, doesn't nurture you. It erases your life, stabbing through my concentration with a knife.

My hard work diminished, brain shuts down once more and here I sit staring at the floor. If only you could help me make it to the door, I know success would ou But for now all I am is broken and sore.

If it's creation the halls of knowledge desperately crave new life, new birth look elsewhere for a writer willing to slave away without pay.

I've nothing left to unearth.

I

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Cara Graphite

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Atlantic for My Children 1 Mixed Media

Atlantic for My Children 3 Mixed Media

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Untitled Mixed Media

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Shimmering Mirage, sing to me of the snowy Birch glinting in the fiery flames, of the swirling creek's eddies melting under your unwavering blue-yellow gaze, of the charcoal beneath your rotted limbs ashen and afraid for within a few hours your tongues will lick, singe, lap them up in a blurried haze.

Rock crushes metal and paper enfolds rock, but any inferno blazes right through paper's grip, curling the edges like ribbons on presents.

Your presence scalding my skin, my muscles, my tissues. You'd melt even my bones without a worry.

You feed on every morsel - nothing satiates your thirst - but even you fall prey to water, oh glorious water, slurping

and sloshing, spilling and slopping onto your heart, quenching the parched, cracked lips until you disappear with nothing but your own bones left to decay amidst the rocks who will scrape by for another day.

Joshua Tree (Rig Photography

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Side to Side (BeLov Mixed Media

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v time living,working and rock ;uel's Pizza in Slade, Kentucky. wave. On that night you told still dizzy from sun, your ke petrol. Aluminum. We were kitchen and I could not stop ie threat of nighttime. Above single window screened over .otted with magnolias gone ill of dry stalks of womanish uths of bulbs lost to whatever hrough. A quick smoke. Just to say something good just e the words from me. Teeth Is. For one mouthful, I am a

I am driving through Kentucky backcountry in the dark. The sky is pockmarked with starlight like pinholes, something you could slip through. Tunnel vision. I am eating fruit in the dark as I drive and the juice drips down my chin and it is sticky and sweet and sour and now I am crying and the crying is mixing in with the fruit juice and all I am thinking as I drive through this dark southeastern landscape is Goddamn you, the rest of the world, whoever you are past this country highway, I cannot hear you right now and I am all alone.

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Everyone on the campground is friends but we are all scared of each other. Each conversation is another blister waiting to be had and skin scars easy. I remember when I began working at the restaurant and they told me, you will be eaten alive. That night the peppers in the dry storage rotted and multiplied, soft and worming with black mold like an ancient cave. We will not be eating those, they said. But maybe we can give them to the customers. I scraped the top off with my fingernail, the place where the stem met the puckered lip of the plant, and it gave way under my fingers like a gasp. Please, I said.

What is it to you?

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine *

That summer held all scars. From nowhere, and from all of the important places. Mosq bites where I'd scratched 'til it drew blood

Long night. This is all part of the plan. Fireflies.

Once I woke up and heard about her getting

A wolf spider sleeps in my tent at night. The

pushed to the ground. It's muddy down there, in

forecast is for mist so dense it will trap you for

June, July and August. He said, I wanted to be

at least a moment; a woman winking. Hanging

the one fucking you on this campground. When

in the gray of skylight and damp as a child's

he was fired, the restaurant put their hands up.

nose I am not with you anymore but the grass is

"We don't want none of that trouble here, they

still greening. They told me once that life is like

said. The one who got pushed to the ground

and met my palm. From climbing, of course, all its forms. On my knuckles like tattoos wh,

driving in the dark. You can only see as far as

shoved her knuckles up and made some noise.

the rock bit too hard, or just hard enough.

your headlights, but you can make it the whole

I watched my reflection in the rearview mirror

way like that. The ground slick with spring mud

for the next hundred miles that I drove around

Where the skin had rubbed raw and then tae a long time to heal-dipping that wound into

underneath me. Alex takes the grease buckets

there. Gravel roads are loud enough to drown

out to the parking lot again, just to get away

out most thoughts. Dirt is a different story.

from mincing the papered skin of red onion, the kitchen until dark, where the knife slippy

pickle juice, banana peppers, bags of pepperoa and sausage. The time to breathe never came.

from the smell. He told me love is like God,

Scars from eating shit while hiking, from

once, or maybe the other way around. I do not

running too far too fast, tripping over my owo

know the difference.

feet, from grabbing hot trays from the drippy mouth of the oven. From your hands clawing down my back. From loving too hard.

45 *

*

go swimming. The Green in I chopped off my hair with

Bagels. Cold cups of coffee in the morning,

In August they burn the pile of wood that has

Pepper jack cheese. Heirloom tomatoes

been building up for nearly the whole season.

vhile Rose was in the shower p the remains. Later her sister

bulging like the figure of a woman. Sauces

In Utah and Wyoming forest fires are a real

dripping onion and garlic and lime. Rotten

danger but here they only mean more life.

>wn threads scattered across

eggs. Avocado cut quick to the skin where the

At first I don't notice it. In the kitchen, we

n the duvet, in the sink, mostly in her mirror that hangs

pit comes out smooth and hard and round.

are chopping vegetables, laughing, washing

Cutting oranges in the morning and having

dishes-"Watch that tray!" "Behind you" "Can

I stared at myself for so long stranger there. In the mirror

the air be scented with that strange citrus mist.

I get this on the fly?" "Heard!" I fold boxes and

Meredith leaves for Wyoming. Colton leaves

sprinkle onions, mushrooms, jalapenos dry

igged

for Tennessee. Alex leaves for New England. I

and cut thin as lace. It isn't until I go outside

leave? Where will I go?

that I notice. In the dry storage, green glass

and her fingernails were

at would never come clean. where I want to go swimming.

soda bottles have gone orange from the fire's

.tell you. Anywhere that no

reflection. The neck of each one holds a tiny sun, carbonated, sparkling. I carry two crates inside the restaurant and when I touch them I draw back suddenly. The bottles are smooth and cold, where I expected something hot.

Something branding. "Are you done over there?" they holler at me. Broken green glass sits around me, unmelted, and I get up and leave.

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine *

When I leave it always feels seductive and

I get a splinter in the first joint of my middle

then like being tricked. The world outside the

finger, who knows how. In the middle of work,

campground drips with concrete and harsh

I stop and hold myself close as if I have visible

sunrise, plastic smooth and unsnagged, the

seams and Roger asks, Is something wrong?

Great Indoors. Usually I spend some time lying

I can remember being a child and having my

on a carpet and then wishing I was back at

father bend over my baby-smooth skin with a

the campground, surrounded by the bugs and

pair of tweezers, letting me hold his other hand

bees, the wash of damp air across my face, dirt

as he drew the pain out. This image will not

on my feet, the ache of the cliffside just in the

leave me-me and my father sitting on the bed

background, my most mornings view, the bad

in Lexington, my skin warm with sweat-until

coffee in the restaurant, the sandstone pressed

Benjamin removes it with a sewing needle

with fossils, tall men hiking, sunlight palmed

some night in the pavilion. Who knows how

against the grass underneath me and the rain.

something so small gets inside of you? Splinter and headache and homesick view?

Ridgeline battles dawn each morning. Outside my tent are the bullfrogs, the gravel path and beyond that a woman laughs, drinks her co, leaves fall and the whole world unfolds. The crickets continue like dawn never came, and if nighttime is a memory let it continue as though for forever. Stars like liquid mercury, like a tattoo or else transient, or else water in a moving stream. Someone sighs, someone says, it's too hot to climb today. At work they will crack eggs into a pan and Kyle will say, No having fun. They will run out of coffee and dip fat slices of bread in yellow batter. Bamboo shoots struggle through wet soil and men light up morning cigarettes outside the shop.

Rose smokes with them sometimes when she is feeling tired. All of this will happen before I wake up in the morning, before I even think about opening my tent flap. Each small thing coming together, or not. Perhaps some things never come apart-or at least I would like to think it that way.

47 *

ie solar eclipse, someone the skin of my thumb with

80 miles per hour. The rhythm of cicadas

:member this place forever >f a stick-and-poke, though

gathering, leaving, cresting like waves, receding,

t maybe more because of the

stiffness in the morning, the fog cutting across the ridgeline, the pocketed sandstone, iron

or the laughter settled deep e roots. In the end the shape i ink-splotched until I rub my ol and the dark parts clear. !yelash of a moon, reminding ;ht and morning coffee and

calling across southeast skyline. Tears forgetting. Forgetting the smoke and the

bands jeweled in the sandstone. Oil wells.

Muddy hikes and Queen Anne's Lace. I think I know what you mean, now, when you talk about going home. I think I know what you mean when you say you are leaving. When you say you are going, going, gone. I am gone too,

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Self Portrait Photography

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Facade

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Facade (Close-Up) Sculpture/ Ceramics

Zipped Relation (Close-Up) Sculpture/ Ceramics

53

Zipped Relation Sculpture/ Ceramics

I

Weight of it All (Close-Up) Sculpture/ Ceramics

55

Weight of it All Sculpture/ Ceramics

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

I've spent my entire life being told that I take up too much space.

When I speak of my body, I use sentences that start with "if only" and "I wish" I hate the soft curves that should be solid and the textured skin that should be smooth.

I have tried for so long and with all of my willpower to love this carcass, But I can only resent it for the prison that it is.

I know, maybe I should just get the fuck over it and lose the weight.

Spend the money, rearrange my fat deposits, cap my teeth, and remove the scars like it never happened.

But how am I supposed to take care of a body that disgusts me?

How am I supposed to love a corpse?

And if I can't do it, is it fair to try to convince someone else too?

When I look around at the women near me, I can feel the bile in my throat, Because I know they all have something they hate about themselves.

But even if they complain about their home, at least they still feel welcome on the street.

My body is just a shell, but how do you tell someone that the version of yourself in your head Is not at all related to the cadaver that you parade around?

I do not own this body, I am just burdened by it.

Because it doesn't matter if you're pretty in the face if you aren't pretty in the waist.

Please just look at this lump of clay and tell me that you would kill to hold it in your hands, To feel the weight against your fingertips.

Lie to me and tell me it is feather-light Tell me I only take up the space of your palm And you want me to take up more.

57

)ittersweetness of it all. life by glaring contradiction able when good men die. erse is apt to take res that which is worth having.

question, why am I still here? the cosmos is to tear apart everything that is good, wely hie warmth of the happiness of the past about me that when all the brightness of my life fades, lone in the dark? it is better to have loved and lost

Don't know what it looks like to watch your friends love their new companions.

To watch your past lover with their new wife.

To watch the doctor sign the script for chemo.

All of the good in my life is insubstantial, As easily destroyed as sandcastles after midnight.

How am I supposed to enjoy the movie if I already know I hate the ending?

I can't give the universe any more ammunition against me.

I will remain ugly I will stay covered in spikes and bombs and teargas.

I will swallow all of the hate and pull the ugliness into my lungs, I'll absorb it through my skin if I have to, But I refuse to lose anything Or anyone Else.

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Choose Only One Earthenware

59

Service Mixed Media

Precipice Earthenware

61 dietary supplement, assess your tolerance by consuming one capsule in the A.M. with water and food for 3-5 days. After assessing -rance, you will take too many anyway. Supplement facts. This product contains Trixanthin" Complex, Triple-Heat Thermogenic Intensifier", caffeine extract, green tea extract, and fruit. We do not expect you to know what these mean, only that they will work. These may cause hyperactivity, high blood pressure, confidence in the body that you didn't earn, and heart failure. Proceed if any of these are desirable. Warning. This product can heighten anxiety and depression, chemically and placebolically. This product is not affiliated with the Food Pyramid, Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!", or the FDA. This product is unsuitable for anyone who is comfortable with their natural body. We do not expect you to abide by this label to the letter, but understand its legal necessity all the same. Disclaimer. The manufacturers of this drug are in some societies legally bound to tell you that they are profiting from your natural insecurities. Legally, you the consumer are responsible for personally assessing the weight of your mental health versus the weight of your body, and whether or not to abide by the suggestion to adhere to a healthy diet or a diet at all in your quest to be t

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My Obsession Graphite

63

Nature and Still Life Oil

Reminisence Oil

65

Unity Colored Pencil

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Filaments of your coiled strands nap on the pillow the way those tie-dye tees from tropical trips rent a plastic tote in the corner of your closet.

Neon moon looms while you and I hold Reddit vigils and gasp at stories about how some people have died and come back to life, reporting nothing but darkness.

Your socks lay by the bed after being peeled away like how a sunburn blisters salty, coconut-scented skin and reveals the tender flesh once free of encasement.

Our bodies tangle in the albumen sheets, we are two yolks sharing the same eggshell walls speckled in saccharine sayings, "Home Sweet Home.

Dawn bursts through the blinds like how that fig tree poet must tear through the flesh of the fruit with his teeth, I drink sun nectar from my hands so I can spit it out for you.

67

Hidden Colored Pencil

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

"What the hell are you looking up?!"

Oz slammed his laptop shut in his lap, closing the prominently-featured poster of Grant and the website containing it out of sight. f whirled around on the couch to find Caleb's snarling face hovering above him, wobbling and reeking of alcohol.

"I.. .I thought you were staying at the frat house tonight," Oz stammered, feeling the blood drain from his face. He stood quickly an backed away. The veins in Caleb's neck were pulsing so violently he wondered if they'd jump out of his skin.

"Decided to come home early," Caleb said, wiping his upper lip and staggering around the couch. Oz prayed he hadn't driven. "Goo thing, too. I didn't know you were still keeping tabs on that fag."

Oz stared back into Caleb's murderous expression, positively quaking in his boots. His instinct was to back down, apologize like normal-I'm sorry,it was a mistake, I won't do it again.

But a latent anger nagged at him-nursed over the past several weeks of silence, fed by jealousy and the frustration that came with being complacent. Oz took a deep breath and forced himself to plant both feet. If he was going to have this conversation, he may as well have during a time when Caleb might not remember it.

"So what if I am?" Oz fired back. "You're still in the same frat as Ash. I'm not allowed to see what my ex is doing?"

"It's not the same!" Caleb roared, grabbing the couch with both hands and digging his nails so deeply into the leather Oz feared it would tear. "I dumped Ash, but Grant dumped you. And you clearly aren'tover it' "Yes I am!" Oz gulped; he was regretting this already. "You're drunk, you don't know what-"

69

suddenly, grabbing Oz by the shirtfront and yanking him closer. "Iknow what I saw!"

Ieal terror gripped Oz's throat. He tried (and failed) to pull himself away. "Let go of-!"

You are mine now," Caleb said raggedly, swaying from side to side even though his grip remained rock solid. "Nobody else's. Especiallynot at means you don't talk to him, you don't look at him, you don't even think about him. Got it?" ,aleb's glare bore into him, and Oz stared helplessly back. He felt faint with fear even before he opened his mouth.

It doesn't matter!" Caleb lunged forward

No."

'.alebblinked-once, twice, his expression going slack. His mouth twisted into a feral scowl.

What do you mean, no?!" He threw Oz away from him as though he were something disgusting. )z stumbled back, grabbing onto the couch for balance. "I said no!" he barked back with as much courage as he could muster. "Why eve to give up everyone and everything if you're not even willing to?!"

What does that mean?"

I know what you did!" Oz said, his voice growing thick. It was now or never. "I know you cheated on me! A few weeks ago, when I came work early, and I-" before Oz could react, faster than he thought a drunk person could move, Caleb's fist came flying and clocked him in the jaw. the world went flying; Oz stumbled and fell hard against the wall, the right side of his face groaning in pain. He came to his bearings the ceiling dazedly, dizzy either from the injury or disbelief.

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Caleb stared at him, panting hard, shaking out his sore knuckles. "You're a liar,"he said roughly, his words slurred. "I thought you knew better than to talk shit about me. You ever say something like that again, I won't hold back. Got it?"

Oz didn't say anything. He blinked blearily at Caleb, still crumpled against the wall. Blood filled his mouth from where his skin had brol across his teeth; all he could taste was metal.

"Good. Stay the hell out of my bed tonight" With that, Caleb wiped his hand on his jeans and hobbled over to the staircase. Oz remained immobile until he heard the bedroom door shut, echoing through the empty house.

There were a few moments of hanging silence that seemed to stretch on forever. Then slowly, silently, Oz slid down the wall into a sitting position, drawing his knees up to his chest. Every nerve in his body felt icy-except for those in his mouth, which continued to throb in time to his heartbeat He didn't know how long he sat; nothing seemed real anymore.

What am I doing?

Oz felt weirdly formless, even timeless-like he'd been sitting on the floor for an eternity and also no time at all. He wanted desperately to feel something-anger; betrayal; even despair would do. But all he could feel was that same sensation of blurriness-the feeling that he was fading away, one molecule at a time, and that he wasn't quite sure if he cared whether or not he vanished entirely.

I could die here, he thought sluggishly. I could stay here all mylife and no one would care. No one but Caleb, anyway-Oz's beloved white night, his "savior"when all else failed. He was the last person in the world that Oz should've run to, but in a world without options, where else could he have turned?

Dying here wouldn't be so bad. Oz slowly began lowering his heavy head, swallowing his own blood without any urge to gag. Better than dying alone.

No. You need to move. Oz blinked. It wasn't his own voice in his head that time; it was Ana's, as firm and warm as it had always been. You need to get up, Ozzie, right now. If you don't get up now, you'll never get up again.

71

"But where?" Oz whispered aloud, not caring if he sounded crazy. His voice felt hoarse and ragged.

"There's nowhere left to go. There's no point anymore."

That's not true. Only if you've given up, and I'll not allow you to be a quitter.

"What do you suggest, then?" he asked dully, running his hands through his hair.

Go. Leave. Anywhere's better than here, Ana insisted. Welcome to rock bottom, Ozzie. Nowhere left to climb but up.

Eventually, Oz raised himself off the wall-slowly, slowly, like a corpse coming back to life-and he fell onto his hands and knees, crawling is laptop and pulling it into his lap. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision. There was no point in crying. Nobody could hear him. Oz knew n to think that anyone would be here to save him but himself.

He pulled up Ticketmaster, made his purchases, and slid his laptop back into its case. He rescued his bass from the basement, and in the found his phone, wallet, and keys right where he'd left him. Only when he grabbed them did he realize how scared he'd been that Caleb :n them away somewhere.

He stepped out the front door, still feeling frozen, letting the stormy April air nip at his skin. The stars above twinkled like pinpricks in a Oz slowly walked towards his car, not daring to let his heels click on the driveway.

As soon as he was on the road, his gas pedal mere inches off of the ground as he careened through turns, he reached into his pocket and to pull out his phone.

"Hey, Siri' he said, his voice sounding detached. "Get me directions to the Victory Gardens Theater...and play Five Finger Death Punch."

Dutifully, Siri complied, and the car was soon filled with the sounds of "Wrong Side of Heaven" And for whatever reason, that was what spell-maybe it was the song, or the open road, or just the knowledge that this was the music that Oz had turned to so many times when ;ht things could get any worse-because in a few moments he was white-knuckling the steering wheel, his injured jaw throbbing, unable to obs.

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Graphic Clay One Set White storeware, oxidation

73

Graphic Clay Teapot White storeware, oxidation

Troppo Bisogno Digital collage

75

demon in the furnace ckling again.

,angs and he cleaves at the pipes, :ing the walls as

aakes his demands. hungry."I'm sorry" it have you broughtfor me? it sorry excuses have you today?

-n people ask what you do, say, "I'm an expert arving to death." ve made a career out of wanting. e's fortune in famine, dence in desperation-ight oil, flame and fear, romanticism of poetry on paper. romanticize insignificance void the defeat lling the demon ve nothing to offer you." use then he'd scream and he'd claw ie walls of his prison, he'd say, Then let me the hell out!

But then, where would you put him?

Inside my head?

It seems so cozy in there, he says.

The rent is free in there, he says.

The landlord can't find me in there, he says.

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HUNGRY in here!

Your landlord wants him quiet.

Your parents want him satiated.

Your therapist wants him dead.

You can offer them nothing.

You will do them no favors.

Your demon is dangerous, But at least he doesn't lie to you.

And so you succumb to him.

You can't afford to evict him.

And you feed and you feed him The mutton of your dead thingsYou feed him your most blackened thoughts Instead of letting them feed youAnd you go to bed hungry, And he growls aloud, Yes. And by the next day you have written something that Your parents find strange and that Your friends reluctantly read and that Your demon calls PATHETIC!and You say, "Yes, but it's food.'

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Future Daydreams Acryllic on wood panel

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Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Ring Mixed Media

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Ring Mixed Media

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Self Portrait Lithography Print

83

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Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

Strong for too long, the demon inside caught her soul.

The glimmer in her eyes; now empty with desolation.

Her lungs are filled with screams but they never pass her lips; She's much too afraid to embrace the comfort of another.

Alone is what she is; hopeful is what she was.

She can see the future, but why hope when the end is closer?

The breaks, the hits, the tsunamis that attack her cheeks; All amount to the broken angel.

And just like that, the angel lost her wings.

The devil roams at night, he creeps into her dreams.

There is destruction of her being and the remains of his touch on her skin.

His mouth whispers the lie; his eyes scream the truth.

The devil doesn't love her anymore; it's just the lingering lust.

Tell her now, at what point did he lose his love?

When the whispers became the screams, and the screams became reality.

The devil doesn't love the angel anymore, Because she lost her wings.

Present in absence, he's there to get by.

She's submerged by all, there's no leaving his side.

The curve, the arch; the body then falls.

The devil turns away while the angel searches for an ounce of love.

Another tear descends from the angel's cheek; Another tear the devil won't see.

And when the night time falls, the rhythm begins again.

No curve, no arch; but the body falls.

Tell her now, devil, tell her you've lost your love.

Tell her it's gone, she's weakened and wingless.

85

My Space Oil on canvas

Canvas Creative Arts Magazine

I Need Tints Oil

87

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