Ultraviolet Magazine Volume 20

COVER ART | UNTITLED by Massimo Hertzer

FIND US ELSEWHERE Email ultravioletmagazine@gmail.com Facebook Ultraviolet Magazine at Queen’s Twitter @ULTRAvioletMAG Instagram @ultravioletmagazine Online Publication http://issuu.com/ultravioletmagazine

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Dear Ultraviolet Readers, We have had an incredible time preparing for Ultraviolet’s twentieth year. We have had the pleasure of working with a wonderful and dedicated Editorial Board. Through fundraising and word of mouth, the magazine is growing and becoming a space for the artistic presence of the Queen’s University and the Kingston community to shine.

We want to thank our Editorial Board for their commitment and love of the arts. This year, and this publication would be nothing without their creative energy and their enthusiasm. We also want to thank every person who has supported us through donations.

Without their contributions this magazine would not exist. Finally, we wish to thank the writers, artists, and photographers whose work you will find on the following pages.

And with that, we are pleased to present to you our twentieth issue of Ultraviolet Magazine!

Stay Violet

,

Hannah Edson & Kelsey Newman Reed

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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS 2015-2016 Co-Editors: Hannah Edson Kelsey Newman Reed Editorial Board: Alexia Khorsandi Emily Hurst Jasmine Fernandes Jessica Paoletti Nicole Langfield Sarah MacCormick

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TABLE OF CONTENTS UNTITLED by Massimo Hertzer PUPPYHOOD by Megan Boothby SYLVESTER by Natasha Brown THREADBARE HORSE by Megan Boothby AUTUMN LEAVES by Sydney Wilson TRICERATOPS by Kelsey Newman Reed FOLD by Dahlia Docrat LA FAVORITE by Claudia Laforty TWO COFFEES, EIGHT WORDS by Jessica Goddard OUTSIDE MY DOOR by Claudia Laforty AXEL by Ramolen Laruan UNTITLED by Kaitlin Allen PSYCHOPATHOLOGY by Navy Chadsey BOTTLED SUNLIGHT by Ashna Asim UNTITLED by Kelsey Newman Reed SHADOW ANIMALS by Megan Boothby NINETEENTH BIRTHDAY by Jessica Goddard NIGHT FIGHTS by Ramolen Laruan AN OVERSTAYED WELCOME by Kaitlin Allen PAINFUL AWARENESS OF REALITY by Elyse Hermack REAL LIFE BEAUTY QUEEN by Elyse Hermack INNER TURMOIL by Kylie Dickinson RIGOR MORTIS by Jane Elle FINDING STRENGTH by Jessie Read ST. CLAIR by Ramolen Laruan YOU MUMBLE IN YOUR SLEEP by Kaitlin Allen THE IMPOSSIBLY ROMANTIC FEELINGS THAT AFFLICT A FICTIONAL BEING by Michael Baker UNTITLED by Massimo Hertzer LONG DISTANCE by Dahlia Docrat ILLUMINATED by Claudia Laforty SHOPS by Kelsey Newman Reed UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE OF NAPPING DURING THE DAY by Jessica Goddard

Cover 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 25 26 28 29 30 31 32 34 35 36 38 39 40 41 42

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GOTHIC KINGSTON by Jasmine Fernandes GETTIN’ HANDSY by Meghan Simard PARALLEL LINES by Kaitlin Allen THE DARKNESS DOESN’T BITE by Serena Wilde THE UNKNOWN by Claudia Laforty

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PUPPYHOOD by Megan Boothby I remember being young.

Being small, like a ball of buttered, cotton fluff, toasted golden brown on the eves of summer.

I remember when a good day was an ice cube and a belly rub.

When the smell of rain was still exotic.

When my paws were round and light.

Back before my human children left, my legs grew stiff, my face white like wheat fields in November snow.

Back then I could still fit my curled ribs inside my boy’s crossed lap, chew my girl’s hair, chase shoes.

Back then, when the winter knit a silver blanket over the curved horizon, I ran beneath it lithe and torrential like a caramel bullet.

In age, I am ponderous.

But still my mother touches the top of my head, I lick her palm, we rest – I have buried my memories of dandelions outside with my very last bone.

SYLVESTER by Natasha Brown

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THREADBARE HORSE by Megan Boothby Nothing will ever be as it was before.

We do not realize this until we are 21 and hugging our knees, tired with wire coat hanger shoulders, crooked feet.

Until we are watching the sun set over the canal, thinking of ourselves and our significant others, thinking of our futures, our someday careers and rocket ship dreams.

When we look up we notice each other like strangers on the concrete pier – unknowns. My best friends of blood and bone and scraped knees. Of eighth grade dances in awkward strobe and badly-cut bangs, Barbies and scrabbling trees, of hiding our fears and intelligence, our sacred selves, from everyone but each other – where have we gone?

And as time passes us on a threadbare horse, in separate cities now we check our watches, check our Facebook, check our minds for fondly creased memories of those cream-soda days only to find them running thin.

Running low, like the lights in a theatre where the last of the audience has drifted out, called to some more important duty like raising children, or paying taxes.

The three of us sit in the near-darkness, reluctant, but holding each other’s hands by merely the fingertips, our gazes fluttering to the door.

Nothing will ever be as it was before.

Every day I miss us even more.

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AUTUMN LEAVES by Sydney Wilson start to fall catching the wind it’s grey these days sitting in paper shells finding fragments in our pockets letting our pieces fall away we used to be strong you hold hands with strangers that we made with hands that don’t move anymore lifted by arms walking with limbs that don’t belong to you we used to dance this is us and this is ours I’ll let you leave and fade and oh how I wish I could go

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TRICERATOPS by Kelsey Newman Reed

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FOLD by Dahlia Docrat The sea folds into itself and breathes the waves licking envelopes closed the density of my bravery carried within it tired eyes that slowly wane Your reverence is displaced it is held in her sand soft hands fallen from my shell calloused fingertips you stole for her our places and left me without home again You became an archaeologist the curator of my shattered bones you dug up my burial site made marrow of plaster and screws the tide of my dislocated self swept back My sea foam eyes drip through the cave when they pooled you dove in she held the oxygen mask to your mouth I only shared with you what chokes lungs: sea salt substance abuse that glitters from sun strokes Let the dogs run on the silvery sand lose yourself so far into the water it is calm choose for yourself my vast unknown Just try again to float before I drown

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LA FAVORITE by Claudia Laforty

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TWO COFFEES, EIGHT WORDS by Jessica Goddard Without realizing it, I’d finished the very last of the coffee I bought forty-five minutes ago. You were supposed to be here forty minutes ago. If you arrive right at this second, at this precise moment, you’ll see that the mug in front of me is empty. You’ll know that I’ve been waiting here for you and you’ll probably remember that when I get nervous I drink things up quickly. And if you determine that I’m nervous, you might wonder what would make me nervous. And then the implication of my being nervous might scare you away.

But if I get up immediately and order a second coffee, it’s possible that you’ll walk in while I’m ordering or waiting for the coffee to be poured, and you’ll reason that this must be my second cup. Of course if you’re still going to be a while, I’ll have time to order the coffee, sit here with it, and sip some so that when you arrive, it’ll seem like maybe I was a little late as well, and I had just sat down.

Although I’m sure you know that I would never be late for this. I had planned to take the bus, but with all of the construction in the city I thought a bus would surely get me here late. Yes, I was determined to be on time, so yes, I chose to pay a little extra and take a taxi. I think I pissed off the driver because I was anxiously brushing my hair the entire ride. Strands must have been falling everywhere and probably getting all over the seat but every time I looked in the window reflection, my hair looked worse than before.

I have to decide. This should not be a difficult decision. Do I get another drink? Do I even want another drink? Maybe a different drink this time?

I don’t mean to keep checking the door so obsessively. It’s totally habitual at this point, I swear. I know that if the door opens, the bell attached to it will ring but I keep lifting my head to check anyway. I hope you don’t find that creepy. Aaaand now I’m worried that when I see you approach the door from the sidewalk, I’ll panic and my senses will overwhelm themselves and I’ll lose control of my limbs and you’ll make eye contact and I’ll jump up with too much enthusiasm, waving and flailing about like a panicked goose. So I’ll try harder to keep my eyes off the door. Maybe I should switch seats, so that my back is turned to the whole doorway. Perhaps not having the street in my peripheral vision will make waiting much easier. But then what if you come in and don’t recognize me because my back is turned? And then you leave? I should definitely stay where I am.

I should definitely get another coffee. I mean now it seems like I’m loitering. Someone might want this table. And they should want this table.

It’s a very good table. I will get another drink. I stand up halfway, then sit back down immediately. Because if you arrive right now and see me buying a second coffee, you’ll feel guilty. I know you; you’ll feel bad for me. I don’t want you to keep feeling bad for me. You’ll keep apologizing and you’ll probably offer to buy me a bagel or a cookie or something but I don’t want any of that.

14 All I want is for you to sit in the chair that’s facing mine, and for your face to be facing my face and for both of our faces to be happy.

When I had realized that I was here early, and that you hadn’t arrived yet, I made it my mission to find us the perfect table. I thought I’d found it, but then I remembered that you hate fake leather upholstery. You used to always complain that those chairs were much too cold on your bare legs. So I switched out those chairs for these ones. But then one of the seats was a little mucky, so I switched it out again for a clean one for you. I wiped down the table as well.

There were a couple leftover crumbs scattered around on the one end. But you’d never know it now.

Maybe I should switch seats after all. If my back was turned to the door you’d still have to know it was me, right? You’d have to! I mean, we were friends a whole four years. And my hair hasn’t changed at all. I might have gained some weight and these shoes may make me look slightly taller but I’m sitting down.

I hope you’re okay. I hope you aren’t trapped on a stalled subway somewhere underground, desperately trying to reach me. Or maybe you forgot to charge your phone before you left. I hope nobody mugged you and took your phone on the way here. I hope you’re not stressed out about being late. I know you have some good reason for it. When you get here, I won’t even bring it up. I promise, I won’t acknowledge what time it is at all. You won’t have to explain, you won’t have to apologize. I’ll never let you apologize.

Each time I look to the door, I see your image for a split moment, and then realize it’s only anticipation getting the best of me. I am really so excited to see you. I want to call you or send you a text to ask you how much longer you’ll be but I refuse to nag you. I refuse to bother you. I refuse to make you feel guilty. Or like you owe me an explanation. Most importantly, I refuse to let you know how much this means to me. And how long I’ve looked forward to this. You’ll never know that for years I’ve thought about what I would say to you if only you would talk with me again. How I improvise internal monologues addressed to you when I’m walking home alone, when I’m making myself dinner, when I’m brushing my teeth before bed. I tell you that I don’t blame you.

I tell you that back then, I thought I was being brave and now I see that I was being selfish.

I’m sure it’ll be difficult to pretend you don’t look beautiful when you’re here. Secretly, I tried really hard with my appearance today. I wanted to look like I hadn’t thought about it at all, but ever since you had agreed to see me I’d been planning what I’d wear. I got my eyebrows done for the first time.

You always said that I would look so pretty if I fixed my eyebrows, and I always wanted to, but I couldn’t make it obvious that I cared about what you thought.

The wax hurt a lot but I wanted you to notice that there was something different about me.

It’s time to make up my mind. Will I get another drink? I’ve been staring into this empty mug for fifteen minutes. There’s no way you’d be a full hour late for this. Again, unless something happened to you. Which I don’t even

15 want to think about. What are the odds that in the two and a half minutes it would take me to order another coffee, you’ll walk through that door, huh?

Statistically not good, at this point. I’m probably safe. I’ll do it. I have to do it.

I’m standing. There’s no turning back. Is that you at the door?! No. Just a man with long hair. Okay, my heart can’t be beating this quickly when I order. The barista will think I’m a lunatic. Then again I have been sitting here alone for an hour, looking to and from the door every six seconds.

How is this woman in front of me taking so long to order? Come on, lady. Your kid does not need a two-dollar cookie shaped like a flower. Especially when the person in line behind you is about to combust with angst. Once again I catch myself staring at that stupid tease of a door. I’m embarrassing myself, I know. If you walk in right now while I’m standing in line like this, I will be so mortified. I’ll never forgive myself. The absurd flower cookie is passed to the absurd bucket-hatted child and I am upgraded to front of the line. I pull myself together, request another coffee – the same order as before – and hand the teenager standing there a crisp five dollar bill. With my eyes still accidentally locked on the doorway, I stand waiting for the barista to fill up a new mug.

Are my organs spilling out, or is my phone thrashing angrily in my pocket? I frantically yank at my new jeans and find that the screen is illuminating with your name and exactly eight words: “so sorry! cant make it! something came up” I make my way back to the perfect table, holding the freshly-filled mug as delicately as if it were your hand. I reread the words you typed for me, and gradually begin to construct sets of my own. “was that today??! I totally forgot.” I glance at the door one last time, just in case. And I hit the button which sends the message. And I type another message, to complement the first: “you know I don’t like coffee anyway.”

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OUTSIDE MY DOOR by Claudia Laforty

AXEL by Ramolen Laruan

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UNTITLED by Kaitlin Allen I fight the feeling of fictitious fingertips falling upon my face, of knife-like nails nearing my neck, of heavy hands holding me a haunted hostage.

Helpless.

Sinking slowly in sweat soaked skin.

Silent screams suppressed by suffocation.

Tangled tight in tear stained t-shirts.

Body breaking beneath blankets bearing the breathtaking weight of boulders.

Demons developed in darkness are dedicated to my demise.

Malicious monsters made of memories morph into the masters of my mind.

Nothing is normal in the night.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY by Navy Chadsey

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BOTTLED SUNLIGHT by Ashna Asim 1.

When no one was watching She ran her fingers along the empty ledge Where her mama’s plants had stood Lined up in a neat row Of overflowing, intertwining leaves and vines So that the living room would smell of Damp earth The bare walls Had once been alive Green veins encircled the room Climbed up to the ceiling Those plants filled her with oxygen so pure She wore flushed cheeks Those plants breathed out enough air To be let out in laughter Or long sighs

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The boxes bloated with dishes and books Suitcases were filled with clothes The plants were given to a neighbour Or perhaps her aunt

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The car is too stuffy It’s hard to breathe

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4.

Her mama warned her: “Don’t look at the sun too long or you’ll go blind” But she figured her eyes were stronger than that.

Through the car window On the way to the airport she stared at the sun until her eyes burned When defeat was finally called She broke her gaze But the brilliance was still there Like an exploding firework Freeze-framed Molded onto her sight She was bathed in gold

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Those spools of light seeping through closed eyes, She poured into a glass bottle To save for a rainy day.

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UNTITLED by Kelsey Newman Reed

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SHADOW ANIMALS by Megan Boothby We walk through deserted wedding halls, apocalyptic grocery stores; we eat stolen grapes in a silent field, sitting on the hood of a red Mustang which can no longer drive.

The crickets have long been buried and we sleep in the backseat under a cottony green moon.

You are wearing red pants.

Even when I lose you I can glance across at New York City, peep down at Mumbai, and there you are: a flash of heated movement fluttering the still nexus of the world.

We are not immortal.

I both love and hate you, as we chase each other along the Great Wall of China.

I see your dusty figure across a ball diamond in Indiana when all I desperately need is a drink.

We meet time and again at that crossroads in Devon where the wild horses used to run, you with a quiver on your back, I barefoot. We sit on emerald moss, looking out, and share bannock, or a story, and you tie clovers into my hair before you leave in the morning, saying, see you in Auckland, for these are stepping-stone continents.

We meet and part without direction.

My hair grows dreaded and your eyes grow starved.

English has left us; we sing star music alone next to small mounded fires until the other emerges from the night like a shadow animal.

To think that once, a lifetime ago, I watched your purple slicker vanishing into the rain and was certain that this is as far as we go together.

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NINETEENTH BIRTHDAY by Jessica Goddard Aren’t people like candles, after all?

Planted for quick amusement?

While some burn down the house most fizzle out in warm waxy puddles leaving spirals of smoke on which the rest of us choke.

I remember how at this time every year bodies were not bodies they were misunderstood balloons.

Meant to be popped, punctured thrown against walls, caught.

Sometimes I wonder if I inflated you too full and you had to float away, even though tomorrow was your birthday.

And still at this time every year my skin falls off in little flakes meant for baking into your birthday cakes.

Bodies are balloons sometimes swallowed by a hungry sky.

So I guess that day the sky was starving and you were edible.

NIGHT FIGHTS by Ramolen Laruan

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AN OVERSTAYED WELCOME by Kaitlin Allen Hello old friend, I see you’ve returned.

Don’t bother with the pleasantries, I know it’s feigned concern.

I wondered when you’d visit A week at most had been too long.

I thought you’d forgotten me, Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Let me get your bags, Looks like you’re here to stay.

No need to show you ‘round, I know you know the way.

Make yourself at home, I see you’ve brought your friends.

I should’ve known they’d join you, Together till our end.

Loneliness, worthlessness, Self-loathing can come too, Guilt and exhaustion, You all remember your rooms.

Loneliness is the only friend, That will never leave your side.

Worthlessness is a black hole that says, “You won’t make it out alive.”

Self-loathing is the shadow, That stalks your every move.

It slowly steals the light, Until there’s nothing left to lose.

27 Guilt is self destruction, Hurting everyone around.

Exhaustion is the heavy chains, When you’re already six feet down Some say I’m entertaining you, Just playing host for fun But they don’t understand, You are a table set for one.

Who would I be without you, I’ve wondered for some time, without the lingering black cloud, that shipwrecks in my mind.

Maybe I’d have the strength, To get out of bed each day.

Maybe I’d see life in colour Instead of bitter shades of grey.

I don’t want fame or riches, A normal life will do, But I won’t have any of that.

Instead all I’ll have, Is you.

So with a heavy heart I welcome, The only one that never leaves.

See we’re not so different, Because all you have, Is me.

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PAINFUL AWARENESS OF REALITY by Elyse Hermack

REAL LIFE BEAUTY QUEEN by Elyse Hermack

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INNER TURMOIL by Kylie Dickinson My brain Used to be filled with thorns, Wrapped around each pink strand and Tightening everyday, grasping for an angle that Would result in pain for me My brain Used to be home to a boa constrictor, squeezing each happy thought out of me until I gasped for air determined to darken every lit corner until I could only see life on a gray scale My brain Used to be my worst enemy, A shelter for abandoned thoughts of hatred And disgust, where my dreams went to repent, For their hope that they could some day prosper My brain Used to tell my body that it should rot And drank toxins into the skin to soak and give it pain and agony My brain Used to be a mine field of pills Uppers and downers A mixed cocktail of hatred Stuck somewhere between believing I was better and knowing that it Was worse But my heart It quieted the dark thoughts, Shouted over top of the noise That told me I wasn’t good enough It forced me up each day and reminded me That I was still alive My heart Was my kingdom that wouldn’t let My reign end, it protected my body when My mind wanted to see it destroyed I am not my brain or my heart but hold both Like mirrors to my soul

RIGOR MORTIS by Jane Elle

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FINDING STRENGTH by Jessie Read Some tonic and gin, fifteen clonazepams in My mind, is steel toed boots into carcass My mind bloodshot eyes turning back into sauciest My mind weighed down by gravitational pull Gravitational pull, pulling me underground Mind blood clotting, through my soul How do you have the audacity to say Robin Williams was selfish, When all he said was help me I don’t want to live in a tragedy?

When you say suicide is selfish you need to ask yourself, if you’ve been there before That maybe their reality is different than yours, That saying suicide is selfish is like telling an artist they cannot paint, That they have to colour in between the line To only see things as black and white When the only colour that fits on there canvass is grey Their reality is ankle chained to the floor, Pulling down, squeezing so tight like jackknife flesh rips out cracked and torn Do you know how many survivors are sitting around you Do you know that suicide is never a choice Do you know how many times I’ve shrunk myself so other people could feel bigger Robin Williams hid behind the tears of a clown, felt the world so heavy like Atlas on his shoulders he letting his world fall down Some people can’t hold themselves together because they’ve been split in half too many times Because keeping yourself alive, is not a measure of strength, Sometimes the stitches break when gravity has weighed down on them too many times I have learned the nights when I am hanging on a star, I’m seeing things clearer than in the light Because some say that moonlight, Is what keeps them alive knowing the sun will forever fall and the stars will forever rise

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I feel like the sun trying to rise after it has fallen Because I have fallen so many times, Stumbling on my toes, we all owe it to ourselves to make sure others don’t direct us where to go I got in a fist fight with the moon last night, telling it that it falls too soon Because on the nights I need to break When I’m not ready to face the next day, those are the nights that teach me living, living is okay And I want to live, because I feel that all this breaking has made me more whole, I wanna be stretched out like a quasar the biggest star in the galaxy, Continuously growing stronger, Let’s burn out into oblivion creating a meteor shower, Lets get bigger and brighter because we have every right to be here, Because the nights you don’t feel you don’t feel like you have the strength to stay The milky way is continuously shouting in our ear living is okay

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ST. CLAIR by Ramolen Laruan

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YOU MUMBLE IN YOUR SLEEP by Kaitlin Allen The city lights flash: “Exotic dancers! Tequila Tuesdays! Live Music!”

This life makes you feel alive!

Club hits, strobe lights, heart racing, body swaying, submissive to the pulse of the crowd; laughing.

This world is my everything, It’s all I’ll ever need.

Does life get better than moments like this?

Pull you close, kiss your lips, I could dream this out forever.

But you mumble in your sleep.

The light bulbs flicker: EM RG NCY Burnt out like most of our hope.

Unbearable silence, enveloping darkness.

Flat line. Can’t move, can’t breathe.

All alone in an empty room; suffocating.

The materialistic world could never fill this void.

Why did I waste my time?

Hide my tears, hold your hand.

I cannot live without you.

“Chemo’s a bitch,” You had mumbled in your sleep.

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THE IMPOSSIBLY ROMANTIC FEELINGS THAT AFFLICT A FICTIONAL BEING by Michael Baker The city seethed quietly, a snake coiled and waiting to lash out. Sharp fangs, just out of sight and looking to find soft flesh.

-How far will you go?

He remained silent, watching quietly as she invaded his eyes.

-What will make you good?

The city always looked so beautiful at night, a horizon of artificial bonfires.

A million lives he did not care to cross or imagine, and one that he dared not abandon.

-How much will you sacrifice?

He turned towards her, and saw the million lights reflected in green eyes. He pulled her into a hug, feeling the familiar ache of the unspoken chasm. She lifted herself from the embrace and smiled carefully.

He met her when the world was young, and all grass glinted emerald in the first glimmering rays of the morning sun. Shortly after the invention of light, but prior to the unleashing of all evil from its locked chamber. The winds that whispered past were warm and soft, heavily laden with feelings that could only exist in that first spring free of knowledge.

She could ignite him with gasoline; he’d see it as the deepest expression of kindness. Clearly, death had been his ultimate destination all along, and she had divined that from reading the palm he stretched out to hold her hand. It would only mark a most minor obstacle obstructing his path, he would step out of supposedly eternal shadows with a spring in his stride. Walking the edge of the razor wasn’t an apt description of the balance he remained suspended within, as it implied that one slip would doom the miserable traveler. Rather, it was the warmest and happiest he thought he could ever be, and if he was sliced in half, it would be the end, but a delightful one. She was his beautiful, mystic madness, and he would tie himself to her like a man clinging to the side of a plunging bomb.

Though he feared her power, the control she seemed to wield over what had once been a stubbornly resolute soul, it would be worth every moment of pain she could choose to inflict. It would be worth every agony.

To align with something dangerous and unknowable he always recognized as being foolish. It was asking to be left broken and defeated, bloodied and bowed. The heart desires, however, and so he chased her like a plume of smoke in a hurricane, braving the tempest for the distant shore. He promised himself a brutal journey, told tales of cuts, lashes and gashes, but set out nonetheless.

Every drop of blood was hers to have, every fall hers to watch. He would litter the roads with discarded souls if he had to, a mountain of warm bodies offered up as tribute. And if she rejected his offering, he would find a new path to her, a sacrifice that would appease his demanding deity. He would cease drawing breath and devour cyanide at the snap of her fingers. He was beyond the realm of logic or reason; she couldn’t be reached through such rational methods.

37 She would bestow upon him the lucidity of a great storm, of the apocalypse itself. There would be no need for horsemen, the breaking of ancient seals and the sounding of distant trumpets. No dragon would rise from the inferno to devour the world; no plagues would dare present themselves to her. But with the clairvoyance only cataclysm could bring, life would be stripped of frills and ornamentations, artifices and pretenses. Wild fire would burn through the old forests and send great pillars of smoke upwards, choking and blackening earth and sky with blood and thunder. She would hold his hand as the stars disappeared behind the grey. For when the ash cleared, the clarity of a new world would emerge, a destiny as yet unfulfilled, and together they would build the glittering dream promised by prophecies thought to have been void.

She would be his life’s greatest wonder. The warmth of a body to hold, the secret smiles exchanged, his sanctuary from a life unlivable by the living and inhabited by the dead. Happiness in the bleakest of times, and comfort in the coldest nights. A source of looks only he received and deciphered, a puzzle only pieced together by his hands and a riddle spoken only in his words. The unfading happiness would linger until the sunset of his life, when the warmth of the sun finally left his bones and he departed to the distant lands. He would cross through the black veil, and remember that the ghosts lingering behind would haunt the paths they once walked.

But these were all just thoughts, words on pages that he could see turning in the skilled reader’s hands as they hastened towards the conclusion, wondering if this constant outpouring of nonsense was building to anything remotely interesting. He was paralyzed by the impossibility of his own desires, the crushing lack of realism that could only be tolerated in melodramatic romances and historical epics, not in the regular discourse of non-fictional beings.

This garden of Eden could be burned down to appease hungry serpents in an instant. Biblical imagery could be employed to elicit a powerful emotional response from the reading public via the use of a conventionally recognized and culturally powerful linkage. Self-aware commentary should be included, mocking the writer’s own fallacies in order to render them palatable and self-deprecating as opposed to grandiose and overwrought. Self-aware noting of the self-aware commentary will follow, with any luck the multiple levels of meta will implode the known universe and bring an end to this. His mind was on the precipice of collapse.

She was still looking at him calmly, toying with a strand of her hair. He needed to say something, to speak the words that would bring calm to the roiling sea that threatened to rise up and drown him. Though the lights reflected in her eyes were nothing more than the emissions of mass-produced bulbs, produced on the far side of a smog-filled ruin, the words escaped him to describe the beauty, the wondrous world she ruled that the lights illuminated. He breathed deeply, and surrendered hopefully.

-I love you.

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UNTITLED by Massimo Hertzer

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LONG DISTANCE: by Dahlia Docrat INSIDE OUT There is something delicate in the stars In how they flame and scorch with power In how they canopy our minds In how they constellate our belonging There is a moment In the rich sticky soil behind our backs that lingers In the silence of our breaths In the imprints of your hands In the faint quiver of self-conscious singing In hands in hair In minds on lungs There was you In me There is cowardice In distance In the burning jet fuel of “I don’t say goodbye” In small talk through wires In inhabiting ideals There is calm In the carpet In eyes blurred and unfocused In nails in skin In eager tears In disheartened counting In pills like lullabyes In smoke like ghosts that do not haunt but console There was you In me There are whispers in the trees Of every second That my neck cranes and aches Staring blindly up at the sun Instead of down at my own steady feet

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ILLUMINATED by Claudia Laforty

SHOPS by Kelsey Newman Reed

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42 UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE OF NAPPING DURING THE DAY by Jessica Goddard Dear God, I think we must be the only ones awake.

There are no squares of light on those buildings across the way, no car wheels rolling.

I keep thinking one window may light up, your silhouette will appear, waving (I would hide under the sheets like I used to when I knew Dad was mad at me and could hear his footsteps approaching the door).

Do you know what time it is in Vienna?

They’re hearing their alarms, they’re postponing waking.

Maybe the sun travels, suitcase in hand, millions of miles just to land in her room, in his eye.

Somewhere there’s a baby half emerging.

Freshly formed lungs are filling with ancient air and someday her eyes will distinguish a rainbow, wondering what keeps it from falling into the backyard.

I’m sure in a part of the ocean where no boat has been, whales are dragging air down, towards bottom and they have never seen any person their skins are unscarred, and they never feel old.

My feet are getting clammy and cold.

In view is the unmoved gravel mound, an abandoned laundromat splotched by sprayed paint.

Streetlights hunched forward, protective of all those sun-drained cracked up parking spaces.

While we’re here you should probably know I’m not as skeptical as I let them all believe.

GOTHIC KINGSTON by Jasmine Fernandes

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GETTIN’ HANDSY by Meghan Simard

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PARALLEL LINES by Kaitlin Allen You were magnetic.

You drew me in with sand coloured curls that spilt over your broad shoulders; thick locks that became home for my fingertips to get tangled in.

The soft drawl of your sleepy voice was laced with the drug of a siren song.

I was an addict and couldn’t get enough of the way your green eyes would flicker with gold in the sunlight, and crinkle at the corners when you smiled.

Of the way you gently bit your lip, And god, I wished I could be that lip your tongue running over me, white teeth nipping at my skin.

I longed for the way your scent would cling to everything you touched: my clothes, my hair, my sheets.

I ached for your soft, strong hands, the way they would scribble secrets on the surface of my soul, creating worlds that only we could find.

It was intoxicating, the way your taste would linger on my tongue, my own personal fix when the distance became too much.

We were electric; fused together with static cling, every glance charged with kinetic energy, every touch a dynamic spark.

But I wanted more.

I wanted to read the stories imprinted behind your eyelids, but the tangling of your lashes sealed the entrance to your soul.

I wanted to anchor the clouds of your mind fasten my string to the hole in your ribs.

But my weight was too heavy and my rope too thin, and the frays in your thoughts sent me spiraling down.

I tried to jump puddles the size of oceans to find the shore where you buried your heart.

But I got swallowed by the undertow, caught in the riptide, capsizing my desperate attempts to reach you.

I wanted all of you, not just the parts I could hold in my hands.

I wanted to conquer the world together, you would be Alexander, and I could be great.

Oh, the empire we could have built if you had let me bridge the distance.

But your walls remained guarded and your doors stayed locked, and I stood on the outside holding your hand at arms length.

So we ran on and on, two parallel lines, always close but never crossing.

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THE DARKNESS DOESN’T BITE by Serena Wilde It’s time for sleep, darling, the darkness doesn’t bite.

The closet is clear of monsters, as is your bed, So get under your blankets and put out the light.

The moon is shining like the armour of a knight And all of the ghouls upon seeing it have fled.

It’s time for sleep, darling, the darkness doesn’t bite.

All the ghosts have returned to their burial sites, And the boogeyman went home with his words unsaid, So get under your blankets and put out the light.

All of the witches and bats have taken off in flight And the vampire left with no fangs dripping red.

It’s time for sleep, darling, the darkness doesn’t bite.

The odd creatures that haunt you and give you such fright Have all come from thoughts running rampant through your head, So get under your blankets and put out the light.

The hour is late, it is time to say goodnight To all of your fears, your doubt, and all of your dread.

It’s time for sleep, darling, the darkness doesn’t bite So get under your blankets and put out the light.

THE UNKNOWN by Claudia Laforty

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