Ultraviolet Magazine Volume 19

Volume 19 VOLUME 19

COVER ART | UNTITLED by Ashlyn Van de Ven

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

2

Dear Ultraviolet Readers, After several months of fundraising and preparation, we are bringing this term of our reign to an end.

We have been extremely lucky to work with such an amazing editorial board, which have helped make this edition infinitely special to us. Thanks to their dedication and passion for the arts, we are able to bring forth a magazine that we are whole-heartedly proud of. We couldn’t have accomplished anything without their help and support.

The arts are such a huge part of the Kingston and Queen’s University community. It is an area that is not always fully recognized or appreciated and we are so thankful to have been given the opportunity to be able to shed a spotlight onto the talent of the artists. We hope that the arts continue to thrive and grow long after we leave Queen’s. Ultraviolet Magazine will be approaching it’s 20th year at Queen’s and we are so excited to see the legacy continue on.

And with that, we are pleased to present to you our nineteenth edition of Ultraviolet Magazine.

Glitter and Kisses, Marena Bray and Kylie Dickinson

3

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS 2014-2015 Co-editors:

Marena Bray

Kylie Dickinson

Editorial Board:

Rachel Day

Hannah Edson

Zoe Kelsey

Ellen MacAskill

Sarah Massia

Alice Miao

Emma Pepper

Kelsey Newman Reed

Mike Zhang

4

TABLE OF CONTENTS UNTITLED by Ashlyn Van de Ven

Cover

FOR NO ONE by Adam Abbas

6

NYX by Laura Bossy

7

UNTITLED by Mackenzie Higgins

8

SKELETON KEY by Kristian Kraemer

9

[THE TRUTH IS IT WASN’T EVEN RAINING] by Corey Stewart

10

DEPTHS by Tyler Dickinson

11

UNTITLED by Mackenzie Higgins

12

I WANT TOMORROW by Jesse Shefelt

13

RAINY WINDOW SEAT by Navy Chadsey

14

MIX by Isabel Mathias

15

MUSCLE MEMORY by Megan Boothby

16

THE INNOCENT PAINTING INNNOCENCE by Navy Chadsey

19

THE ETCHINGS by Mishi Hassan

20

[THE BLACKBIRD’S DAUGHTER] by Corey Stewart

22

YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER by Navy Chadsey

23

ARID by Sydney Wilson

24

[EFFERVESCENCE] by Corey Stewart

27

SPIRIT ANIMAL by Navy Chadsey

28

CONSTRICTED by Rebecca Pilon

29

5

I AM WON by Jesse Shewfelt

30

SUNLIGHT by Kristian Kraemer

31

ENLIGHTENMENT by Samantha Hatoski

32

CARDBOARD BOX by Sydney Wilson

33

GREEN WITH ENVY by Kelly Baskin

36

HER GLOW by Mishi Hassan

37

SECRET FATE OF ALL LIFE by Samantha Hatoski

38

ATLANTIS by Navy Chadsey

39

APRIL WALKS by Navy Chadsey

40

SALLY IN PARIS by Evelyna Kay

41

FERRIS WHEEL by Kelsey Newman Reed

43

IN YOUR HANDS by Kelly Baskin

44

SONG TO A DYING FIRE by Kristian Kraemer

45

BANALITY by Kelly Baskin

46

SAINT IN HIDING by Adam Abbas

47

MUGEN WITH A BULLET IN HIS BACK

by Evelyna Kay

48

NATURE’S GEOMETRY by Brittany Thrasher

50

MONSTER SPRAY by Kasey Caines

51

UNTITLED by Brittany Thrasher

55

6 FOR NO ONE by Adam Abbas i want what you want maybe that’s why i confuse you i pay attention to you

and you see me as satan

because satan will always pay attention to you

compliment you in a way that god never will maybe this is why i can’t reveal my desperations god

perfect and desperate

so hard to love waiting for sinners to awaken compassion never loved nice dumb i can’t save you unless you try to save yourself i can’t save you if you have more problems than me

but maybe you don’t

want me to try and would prefer to leave me alone

7 NYX by Laura Bossy Grieve for the burnt out sun swallowed by dark blankets folding tighter and tighter knots clutched into fists praying to Nyx for release

8

UNTITLED by Mackenzie Higgins

9 SKELETON KEY by Kristian Kraemer The hand grasps it, a greedy lover This key over which the skins of things stretch; To which the lingering blush in the midst of a rose Rallies and runs and gushes like pleasure Faster than falling curtains of night in Leafless branches of the trees in the park.

I carry mine around my neck, it nestles close to my breast Keeping the rhythm, humming to itself Warm on my skin as I remember it’s there – It tears out pieces of me when forgotten.

The moon looks on Still air shaking with my silence With the drifting silence of the lake-mist on the ice With the skeleton-key-clamour like a gong The stars themselves are pinpricks, Colder than wind-bitten fingertips.

I want to step out over the edge of the sky Stopping as I fall only to unlatch and strip The soul from every atom that once bound me in speechlessness So that birds will be my subjects, Befriending drifting space stones, My only masters the little secrets in my heart.

10 [THE TRUTH IS IT WASN’T EVEN RAINING] by Corey Stewart through the railing of the bridge the water, black as silk, gave a lightning pull, thick and wild, to slip under the surface like a knife into a sheath – a hundred thousand droplets nuzzled up cold and close filling pockets in the skin beams of daylight scattered, dim this solemn river, humming beneath these spider traffic lights the river slips, unmarked and grinning

DEPTHS by Tyler Dickinson

11

12

UNTITLED by Mackenzie Higgins

13

I WANT TOMORROW by Jesse Shewfelt 11 am.

I’m wide awake With the day ahead. But, When I look forward, It’s to the night I go instead.

I don’t want this day.

I woke up the same way as yesterday, But I know tonight I’ll forget the waste.

The wasted away of my opportunity to change.

I look forward to tomorrow because tomorrow stays.

It’s just beyond reach and, my friend, tomorrow preaches hope.

It’s another turn of the kaleidoscope that shows you a new perspective.

With every turn I expect it to get better because the objective has a greater effect than I expected.

I want tomorrow today but when it gets here I reject it.

Each day is a flower underfoot. Trodden down And left alone and I would stop to smell the roses, But I’m looking elsewhere.

Time rolls on and it won’t tell us where.

Because it knows we don’t care.

Tomorrow is a beautiful place.

Every time Time kicks it my way I turn and face in a new direction.

I have this apathetic infection.

Indifferent towards Whatever is given to me Out of affection.

Tomorrow is a gift Given whether you want it or not, And I return it for credit I never bought, So I’m left empty handed And it’s my own Damn Fault.

14

RAINY WINDOW SEAT by Navy Chadsey

Mix by Isabel Mathias

15

16 MUSCLE MEMORY by Megan Boothby Thump, thump.

The scar is like a really shiny caterpillar, or an eel like Mr. Nolan showed us on the Animal Planet show, only it’s not an eel it’s a scar and it keeps my new heart in.

Thump, thump.

There are seven candles on my cake. Mom is crying a little bit but I know it is happy crying because I am a miracle and Jesus loves us and was full of mercury and vine wisdom.

Dad says, “Bryana, stop pulling down the collar of your shirt. You’ll stretch it.”

I nod my head like okay but I keep my hand down there because I want to touch the eel.

He was under bandages for so long long and now he can breathe so he’s happy. He is pink and bumpy like my skipping rope.

Landon kisses the top of my head. He smells bad because he was out playing big-boy hockey on the road.

“Happy birthday, little terror,” he says.

“Hey!” He winks one eye. I get mad. I wish I could wink one eye. *** I am screaming screaming. I am so loud. It is dark in my room even with Sammy Bear Nightlight and the heavy man is going to get me.

The door opens and Mom runs in.

“Shh, shh I’m here.”

I am safe in a Mom-hug.

“Was it the same nightmare, hon?”

I nod yes. She always asks where I saw the heavy man before. I don’t know. She always says you only dream things you’ve seen. She asks if I watched a scary movie with Landon. I didn’t. Then she always sings the lullaby I like best, the one with all the pretty little horses.

She kisses my nose and tucks the blankets up tight. I say, “Mom, where did Gabrielle go?”

“What, sweetie?”

“Gabrielle saw the man and me and she ran away and then he ran away. Where’d she go?”

“Who’s Gabrielle?”

“Clara’s friend.”

“Bryana, who’s Clara? What are you talking about?”

I am tired. My head hurts. I touch the eel, just to make sure the heart is still in there.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I say, and I fall asleep. ***

17 “Alright, Bryana. Now we’re going to ask you some questions and it’s okay if you don’t know any of the answers. This is just going to be really relaxed, okay?”

“Okay,” I say. The nice lady at the front desk gave me a box of orange juice. I wonder if there will be cookies.

“Do you know who Clara Yuen is?”

“A girl?”

“Gabrielle Flannery?”

“Gabrielle is Clara’s friend. She ran away.”

“Away from what?”

I don’t like the questions anymore. I drink the orange juice. My sneakers are blue. I bounce them on the chair’s legs thump thump. Like my heart beat. I check. The heart is still in there.

“Bryana? What did Gabrielle run away from?”

“She saw the heavy man on top of me and she was scared of all the blood and she screamed.”

The room is silent. I bounce my shoes.

“Bryana, do you know what the man looked like?”

I nod yes.

“Can you tell us?”

“Yes.” I do. Police men come and listen too. People write lots of things. They shake their heads like wow.

I close my eyes. There is a scream building in my chest, in the new heart. I open my mouth and it comes out. My Mom hugs me tight tight.

I look up into her eyes. They are blue like mine and they love me lots.

“That was not my scream,” I whisper. Soft, soft. *** I have the nightmare.

Always, always. The man’s glasses slide off his hairy nose and there are three pains. One on my neck where his hand is, one in my tummy where the blood is coming from, and one between my legs, like where the pee comes out. I want to make a scream but he traps it inside with his fingers and there is no air. I can’t move because he is a grown-up man like Dad and he is heavy.

Gabrielle is looking for me. She went into the store to buy bubble-gum and the man grabbed me. She comes around the corner and makes her own scream. The heavy man jumps up. He chases her. Or drives away? Maybe. I can’t see. I am like Humpty-Dumpty.

I watch the clouds. The king’s men come in an ambulance but I don’t remember seeing anyone else. I don’t think they put me together again.

The scream stays trapped. *** “Bryana, remember your best manners, okay, honey? Mr. and Mrs. Yuen are very sad and they might want to hug you and ask you questions and you should let them, okay?”

18 “Okay, Mom.” She promised me ice cream after.

A lady with black black hair answers the door. She looks at me and touches her mouth like oh my. I smile with my best manners.

“Hello, dear. You must be Bryana.”

I nod.

“Come in, please.”

We sit on their sofa. It is orange. I’ve never seen an orange sofa before. Mr. and Mrs. Yuen ask me all about myself. What do I like to do? How old am I? Do I like dogs or ballerinas or hummingbirds? They give me a cookie.

Then they ask me why I needed the new heart. I touch the eel. My Mom says all the names of the monsters that used to live under my bed in the hospital. The Roo-bella, and the Myocar Ditis, and the Adeno Virus. They had been evil evil. They fought my old heart and made it die.

Mrs. Yuen touches Mom’s hand and then my cheek.

“You’re a very brave little girl,” she says, and then she starts to cry. I remember best manners so I get up and give her a big hug, big like the sky. Then Mrs. Yuen does a funny thing. She touches the eel and cries even more.

“Clara,” she whispers.

I am confused. My Mom looks at me with a serious face and says, “Bry, your heart. Your new heart that saved your life. It’s Clara’s.”

I frown.

“Why doesn’t she need it? Did she get a new heart too?”

Mom looks at Mrs. Yuen.

“No, honey. No. Clara died.”

Mrs. Yuen touches the eel again.

“She would have liked you, Bryana. The two of you would have been good friends.” She takes a picture of a little girl smiling from the table and gives it to me.

“Keep it,” she says.

It is Clara. I look at her. I wonder if she knows that the scream finally got out. *** I lie in my bed and touch the eel. It feels good to have my hand there, just like it feels good to have Mom’s hand on my forehead when I’m sick. I’m not scared of the dark anymore, because I’m not alone. I look at the picture Mr. and Mrs. Yuen gave me. It’s next to my pillow. I look and I pat the eel in case she’s feeling lonely in there.

The doctor says I won’t have the nightmare forever. He says I’ve done a good thing. The heavy man has gone somewhere where he won’t hurt any other little girls and it’s all because of me.

No, I told him, not just me.

I lie in bed. I listen.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

“Goodnight Clara,” I say.

Thump, thump.

INNOCENT PAINTING INNOCENCE by Navy Chadsey

19

20 THE ETCHINGS by Mishi Hassan I wish words were bright like paint instead of black scribbles on a napkin or the faded lines on my cold skin I wish words were brightened hues on a blank canvas the loudness attracting the deaf and opening their eyes pulling them in with screeching cries But I do not paint I cannot draw I only paint the words of my soul on to scraps of paper They’re merely whispers unengaging sighs colouring nothing.

Words change words die words lose meaning Repeat ‘love’ twenty times it becomes deceiving.

Stare at a painting a glistening sculpture the adoration never fades never floats away with the autumn breeze or winter’s chill I only etch my words onto my sun-kissed skin

21

displaying the contents of my heart onto the one canvas I can yet words can fail words will die words colour the world through only my eyes no one else can see the bright hues of my lines the electric rhythms of my soft-spoken rhymes I cannot scream I cannot sing I merely whisper the etchings of my skin

22 [THE BLACKBIRD’S DAUGHTER] by Corey Stewart I The world is jagged fingernails down my cellophane skin snagging II I am a peach a knotted heart and flesh that bruises if it sits too long III I am the blackbird I learned from the blackbird I am the blackbird’s daughter IV I do it to myself I always have

YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER by Navy Chadsey

23

24 ARID by Sydney Wilson Onomatopoeia: The formation of a word from a sound associated with the thing or action being named; the formation of words imitative of sounds: Scratch Screech to name a few Thump The sounds of a symphony written for the deaf. They are also, coincidentally, the sounds coming from outside my second story bedroom window at 3am on a Sunday night. I probably should be frightened, call the cops, even, but they were sounds I were used to, yearned for even.

Here’s the thing about insomniacs; we’ll do anything to get some sleep.

A shadow emerged behind my curtain and the window creaked, groaned, grated open.

Two oxford clad shoes landed on my floor, my eyes followed up mile long legs to a lean torso and the weathered face of a battered man. If he weren’t so sad, he might be attractive. Too bad he is taken, and also technically mythical.

“Are you ready?” He asked. I’m glad he couldn’t see my disaster of a room. Though I’m sure he could sense it as he moved effortlessly around piles of ‘sorted’ laundry. He came to a stop beside my bed and gingerly lowered himself onto the very edge. He then opened his waistcoat to pull a small bundle from the inner pocket. He placed it carefully into the palm of his hand and offered it to me. I didn’t take it. Not this time.

“What is the matter? You are not tired already, are you? You know it does not work without that; you will just fall asleep a little faster is all. It will be fine, Penelope. Like always.”

“No, I’m wide awake. Painfully awake. But I want something from you tonight.”

“I have no money, you know that.”

“Not money. A story. Your story.”

“I told you it already. I was given the gift of sleep and it is my purpose to-” “That’s bullshit.”

“Pardon me?”

“It’s bullshit. You know it. I know it. You weren’t gifted with anything; you were cursed, right? Was it Mab? I hear she’s nasty.”

“I wasn’t cursed.”

“But…? I can hear a but in there. Go on, tell me, or you’ll have to find another sleepless girl.”

He sighed. It was heavy like the burden I knew he carried. His shoulders hunched like he was pulling his body into itself. I knew he couldn’t find someone else. Not tonight, not willing.

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” ***

25

We lived in a small cottage, by the sea, my wife and I. It was a heavenly isolation, void of most contact with the outside world. But we preferred it that way, we were content with the presence of each other and did not particularly yearn for anything more.

I had no family aside from my wife, my siblings were non-existent and my parents were dead. Mara fell through foster care and crash-landed. When we met she wasn’t in very good shape. Though somehow we managed to pick up most of her pieces. Or so I thought.

As inseparable as we were we spent most of our days within our own heads. I was a writer and she a painter, a wanderer, an anything she cared to be that day. You see I was the one that paid the bills. As such, dinner was the time every day where our minds could meet again.

I don’t recall when everything started, really, but if I had to pinpoint it, it would be then.

That silent dinner where she stayed in her mind and never left again. She was absent, gazing out at the waves as they violently met the shore. The sky will be red, she told me without looking at me. She never elaborated. She turned our pasta to paste, so we had toast that night.

Sometimes at night I would wake up and reach for Mara, my arm stretching over a cold and empty pile of blankets. I would strain my ears, to hear perhaps a faint hum and the sounds of a midnight snack being prepared. Hearing nothing but the silence of an isolated home I was sure she had simply fallen into her dreams in another room. In the mornings she was always back in place, nestled perfectly into my side.

Once, during a quite violent storm, I awoke feeling oddly panicked, I reached for my wife.

In her stead were once again cool sheets; made as though never occupied. Confused and seeking consolation I stumbled downstairs in the hopes of finding my wife and perhaps a mug of warm milk. I combed the entirety of the house twice over; she was not here.

Pulling on galoshes and a rain jacket I ventured into the worsening storm. There was her slight figure, balancing on the end of our rickety dock.

The scene was surprisingly peaceful, as though her small pocket of existence was void of the chaos. I was beginning to see that her storm had only reached the eye. Light wind sent tendrils of hair dancing around her face. She was profile to me, gazing at the sky as tears wove down her sunken cheeks. I never realized how deep they’d gotten. *** He got up abruptly sending sheets of paper off my desk. I watched as they floated to the ground, perhaps the only peaceful things in the room.

He looked up at me through his unseeing eyes, his existence so obviously stuck in an aching storm.

“Please, I need you to sleep. I need to see. Please.”

And I wanted to, oh, how I wanted to but “I will. I promise. I’m so awake and it’s unbearable to be so close to sleep. But I need to know what Persistence: of something firm or obstinate continuance |OR| the continued or prolonged existence in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition

26 happened to your wife. She’s obviously the reason you’re, well, the way you are. What did she do?”

“I just want to-“ “I know what you want, and you know how to get it.” I knew I wasn’t being fair, but then again, maybe I was. I couldn’t keep letting him use me without knowing.

“Fine, Penelope. She died. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

I waited *** She dove in. Out of her isolation and into a watery grave.

I screamed for her. Reached and missed by the length of our dock. She slipped and I could not bear the weight of her mind. Nor could I bear the weight of my mind without hers. I went in after her, to save or follow, I’m still unsure.

I awoke on shore some time later. The sky was clear and the water still. I was alone on our little beach. Beside me there were words engraved into the shore: Come see me, my love.

Search for my heart, and seek my soul.

She was always one for cryptic poetry. She loved Eliot. I grabbed a handful of the beach and flung it into the glass sea. I didn’t expect anything to happen. Which was good, because it didn’t. I kept throwing and re-reading desperate to ask her why. Giving in I threw a handful of the wet earth back and fell into it. It got into my eyes and stung. I swiped at my eyes but the grains stayed in the socket, travelling around my eyeball. My eyes were forced closed and I fell into a restless sleep. In my dreams I saw my wife, my Mara, but only from a distance. She taunted, never coming near.

When I awoke there was a new poem in the ground. Just a single line.

You need different eyes to see.

Then I went blind. *** This time I reached for the small bundle willingly. I silently emptied the grains into my hand and looked at him, right in the eye, I knew he could feel it.

“Thank you.”

I put my hands to my eyes and let the particles slide in. It was soft and didn’t hurt, like it was meant to be there. My mind went blank and I gave him the space for his dreams. He walked along his beach and for the moment he had company.

Sand: a loose granular substance, typically pale yellowish brown, resulting from the erosion of siliceous and other rocks and forming a major constituent of beaches, riverbeds, the seabed, and deserts.

|OR| Sands: moments of time in one's life

27 [EFFERVESCENCE] by Corey Stewart the drug was: creating edges adventure was real and it was ours in golden handfuls smeared across our gums the drug was: sharper existence moments blossomed rawer, realer in those heartbeats we were poets building vast but equal cages eyes and ears and hands wide open grinding teeth and dripping hours searing bitter down our throats

28

SPIRIT ANIMAL by Navy Chadsey

CONSTRICTED by Rebecca Pilon

29

30 I AM WON by Jesse Shewfelt I am one. I am two-three-four-infinity.

I am more, I’m sure, but I lost count Before I finished listing my mount– –ing multiplicity of identity.

I am the poetic-logician.

The scientific-magician.

In passive-competition With my unified-division.

In decisive-indecision.

Blind to my vision.

Forever the faithful-agnostic, Bound by adhesive that is non-stick, Moving slowly-quick Through bright blinding darkness.

The listener, though deaf, Shouting whispers into the shallow-depth; Wishing to live through death By speech without breath Heaving with the narrow-breadth Of my hollow-stuffed chest.

I am full of my emptiness.

I am the son called daughter.

The straight-lesbian mother-father; Thus the parents to my own conception.

The inventor and the invention Of unconventional convention.

Agreeable in dissension With unintentional intention.

A whole of dissection.

Recognize my prized dishonest-honesty.

See the pretensions in my modesty; My high sobriety.

Regard the blankness of my tapestry In singular duality.

Hating to love myself.

Loving to hate myself.

One is two, and two is one, And between these forces My Self is won.

31 SUNLIGHT by Kristian Kraemer Slanting light-shafts dapple skin and sheets With panting breath and beaded sweat That slows to thickened tongue Drips from lips as plump as pillows Simmers in half-lidded eyes Shifts in husky-throated sighs Sings in blushing cheeks and tries To burst from breast like beating drum.

32

ENLIGHTENMENT by Samantha Hatoski

33 CARDBOARD BOX by Sydney Wilson

I see the single isolated stone off in the distance and immediately know it’s theirs. Their family couldn’t afford two stones, so they share one. I wonder if that’s how they lived: sharing. I keep trekking through the graveyard dreading the moment I reach their sad little stone but I know it’s necessary. At least according to my therapist it is. The ground is hard and the grass has a layer of frost, under the pathetic spattering of snow it looks ghostly. It is the omen of the graveyard, letting me know all I’ll find is phantom sadness. I don’t need reminding.

I pass various mourners braving the icy weather to visit the ugly stones.

No one is alone in their plight. Everyone has a companion to share the burden of sorrow. I’m glad of my seclusion otherwise I might feel guilty at not feeling anything at all.

I reach my destination and kneel down in front of the pinkish granite. I sweep away the snow that has managed to pile itself into an impressive mound on the top of the stone. The flakes stick to my mitten and soak through to my once warm hands. It isn’t a pleasant experience, but then again, none of this is.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it really started to snow now, the sticky rice snow that clings to everything but the ground and chills your bones. What is that called, when the weather matches the emotion? Pathetic fallacy? Everything to do with this situation feels pathetic. I almost hope for a storm.

Someone has left flowers on the plot. I’m sure they were once a beautiful and thoughtful gift, but now sopping wet and droopy they look close to death themselves. A stuffed bear leans on the side of the stone. His fur is soaked and spiky - he looks almost demonic. I recall a horror movie I was forced to watch at far too young an age and regret my isolation. As appealing as it is to visit the graves of the parents that didn’t want you, I think dealing with the zombie version of those parents might be a tad less fun. Though maybe I just don’t have a sense of adventure.

I already know their names but I can’t bring myself to read them yet, as if reading them will make my dreadful escapade that much more real. So I skip that part. I read the next bits, about who they were, that’s something I don’t know much about. It’s an education, probably more than I care to know.

Loving Wife Loving Husband Faithful Friend Faithful Friend

Mother

Father

So they did decide to keep a kid, maybe more, just not me. At least it doesn’t appear as though they were ‘loving’ parents. I try to be blasé, to shrug off the knowledge that it was just me they didn’t want. But it stings.

I feel the icy grasp of being unwanted tighten around my heart. I sit

34 back on the ground; my legs sprawl over the plot. I don’t want my brain to acknowledge that I’m sitting mere feet over the bodies that never wanted to hold me, but it does. Much like in life, in death they were unreachable.

I picture their baby, the one that isn’t me. He is a tubby thing, with flying saucer eyes that will get him into trouble one day. Pudgy fingers grasp my dad’s hands and he takes his first steps. Somewhere else I trip and fall because only one of us was ever given the chance to walk holding solid hands. Maybe Dad was absent, or Mom was a workaholic, and Baby Tubs didn’t have it so good. But at least his sorrows came from people who kept him safe. He was never left in a grocery box in the snow outside the 7/11 like he was a trash baby. Maybe they kept him because they ran out of cardboard boxes.

I think of my own frozen childhood, spent walking in and out of other families’ houses. It is these hollow houses that hold my memories tight, memories of parents who loved their flesh and blood and tried to smile at their changeling child who never smiled back. Every chance I had had at happiness slipped through cracks behind crumpled wallpaper misshapen and curled in around itself to hide its vibrant patterns. The thing is, dust can find its way anywhere and dull even the brightest colours.

Suddenly I need to read their names, as if reading the stone will make them the monsters I want them to be. Make them responsible for the actions they died before facing.

Anna B. Rochester Matthew C. Rochester

I take off my sopping mittens to trace the indents in the stone. I roll the letters around my mouth individually letting the sounds slide along my lips. I don’t like how unfamiliar they feel. I thought this would bring me closer to them, that this informal meeting would help me understand why they thought my life was better suited to beginning in a cardboard box. I’m not really sure what to do with myself. I’m again glad I opted to come alone; I couldn’t have dealt with the thought of someone watching me stumble my way through whatever this death meeting was.

I think back to when I found them. When I first saw their faces staring back from a computer screen and understood how my features came to be.

The expressive eyebrows came from my father, covered by the mess of hair my mother had gifted. I don’t want them any more; I don’t want to bear the physiognomy of people who abandon their children. I swipe at the eyes I got from my Mom. I don’t mean to cry, I’m not really sure why I am. I don’t miss them, exactly; I think I miss what could have been. What I could have missed.

I can’t bring myself to say anything, to tell them of the amazing person they missed out on raising, that I forgive them for letting me go and giving me a chance to be raised by people who could afford to love me, like they do in the

35 movies. The problem is, it isn’t true. They didn’t give me a better life, if anything it was the same shitty life without any love. I don’t hate them. I can’t, I don’t even know them, but because of that I don’t love them either. I feel nothing for these people that gave me life, and that’s what hurts the most.

I read the last line of the stone before I get up to leave forever:

‘One day we’ll find what we never wanted to lose.’ <><><>

At 6:03 am an old used car pulls into a deserted 7/11 parking lot. A young woman of 18 gets out of the drivers side and collapses into a snow bank.

Tears fall from her made up eyes and leave silver eye shadow tracks on her cheeks. She looks like an alien. She feels like an alien.

Who would do this?

A young man, maybe only a year older gets out of the backseat of the vehicle and pulls out a crying grocery box piled with blankets. He slams the door shut behind him. The girl flinches. Rust sprinkles from the car door, turning the snow a glistening blood red.

Girl and boy sit together and watch the cardboard box, waiting for it so stop crying.

They can’t take the sound, the wailing of a pain that is yet to come. He places the box in front of the door, protected only from wind and weather.

They get back in the car and drive home in an unbearable silence marred with the eternal echo of their crying baby.

36

GREEN WITH ENVY by Kelly Baskin

37 HER GLOW by Mishi Hassan Those eyes, her eyes, flashing waves of heat Those sparkling jewels make wanton fools grovel at her feet Her lips â&#x20AC;&#x201C; her slow, relentless, smacking lips like cherries on a tree plucked from Eden by the hand of God placed for all to see Your hands -- large, coarse, farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands used to both be mine but when she set her eyes on you I was left behind And I, with my -- dull, brown eyes and fleeting crooked smile (that used to be enough for you before her lawless guile) am burning in her boundless glow and your unyielding love Still longing for the simple boy, for whom I was not enough

38

THE SECRET FATE OF ALL LIFE by Samantha Hatoski

ATLANTIS by Navy Chadsey

39

40

APRIL WALKS by Navy Chadsey

41

SALLY IN PARIS by Evelyna E. Kay sally walked the border with her teeth glowing in the evening lamps. she was smiling and her dress was torn. this was in france and it is over now. Polly clutched her like she was a doorway into which to tumble. like she was a warm fireplace a night through a window or her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lap. sally might have swam from england, for the way that history remembers her. her granddaddy used to ride the sea and whip her grammaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body til it split and howled. sally must have

been born with her legs spread

her lips shaking like stormbent poplar trees waiting for the rain. sally is fourteen.

sally is a slut. everyone will say he loved her. sally must have loved the staring paris sky. her brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cooking and the speaking lessons. she kicked her shoes into the street to feel the earth roll its shoulders free. she practiced writing out her name until the letters felt like home and held her tight. sally must have laughed her sleek hair into life and kissed her looking glass. she must have found him on her pillow. he recorded all her children in his farm book.

she was light-coloured and decidedly good-looking.

42 sally tucks the dawn into her bed to keep the fields cool in the morning. she washed back to virginia with the tide, and when it pulled away it left her breathless. she found her organs whimpering in a shack. she found a dead girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coughing in her stomach. she found she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t white. sally sent her daughters on their feet to run one day and kept her sons to play the fiddle. sally never wrote her nights in Monticello or the quiet darkling Charlottesville repose. it is so easy, with no writing, for history to rifle through your bones searching for a story. everyone will say she loved him. it is over now because he says that it is over now because he says that it is over now because he says that sally never had to pull the cotton til it tangled in her hair and slipped into her stomach in its tufts and blots. her children went on errands and the neighbours loved them and she loved them too and it is over now.

Listen. this is not the part they like to tell where she was no longer pretty and her hair was grey and thick and he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to fuck her anymore. when he died she shivered out into the world too late for paris, or for history to worry where she went.

FERRIS WHEEL by Kelsey Newman Reed

43

44

IN YOUR HANDS by Kelly Baskin

45 SONG TO A DYING FIRE by Kristian Kraemer Whose woods these are I think I know But when the trees shed hues of fire Discarded like whimsy And naked bark lifts in desire Defying orange, red and gold To caress the stomach of winter I wish these woods were mine.

The secret thrill of a stolen picture Where my skin and her skin spoke, Where my eyes lingered within their lids; My hands played scrabble with Autumn – Here I sigh like moss in the mist.

The forest groans and creaks in ecstasy Slow life lifts, quickens Like an arched spine in another’s palm To cut my hands with rushing wind; It whisks away my broken plea In blue, silver – ash from heaven.

Wading through the blood of Autumn Whose woods these were, I don’t deserve the snow.

46

BANALITY by Kelly Baskin

47 SAINT IN HIDING by Adam Abbas The boy spits on a jade tuktoyaktuk As his dog makes a sound like dry skins scraping He laughs in the face of AIDS And has practiced the art of shaking his head At the alcoholism he cherishes His mother’s words “Give me blood for my hunger” Pulse in his throat As he opens the shelter doors To let the morning crowd rush in He shouts in his mind When you inherit the earth, give me a place in the sun Note: The second and seventh lines of this poem belong to Pat Lowther.

48 MUGEN WITH A BULLET IN HIS BACK by Evelyna E. Kay Darrien Hunt (September 10, 2013) I am with him.

I am with him.

I was with him there and the salt was on my lips where the pavement had lodged into the gaps between the wires of my teeth.

I was with him. I must have been in costume - Spock, I think, or Kuranosuke with my tendrils floating in him - in the spilling of him - the dress is white, you know. I was not - I was someone Objection. Why? Because he shouldn’t have to go alone.

I was with him in the gutter. I must have been. with him when he washed into the waterways. One drop is all it takes. I hope his suburb never drinks again. I hope for drought and locusts. I hope my dress is clean.

Objection.

I’m sorry, my mouth is tripping on the cracks.

He must have fallen like a stormburst birch in spring flash of cold and shock and silver on the sky and rainlight twisting in his hair, his leaves. I hope his mother never told him that the world would see her in his lips. I hope his landing broke the sidewalk. I hope the rain is muddy with his name.

Objection.

I know. I’m sorry. There was never any storm. The day was clear and they could see him running with his toy and screaming for his mamma they could see him shaking in their fire and his head submerging in the ground and Objection.

His mamma raised his heart up to shout “I belong” and his feet to walk him to the interview that morning.

I was with him there. I know. I was with him in the saratoga springs erupting from his shoulders. I was with his photo on the television.

49 I was with him in the morgue when his mother had to recognize his face.

Objection.

Good thing his shirt was red. He bled the same as any white boy would. But white boys get taken into custody or just called â&#x20AC;&#x153;nerdâ&#x20AC;? they have their sneakers thrown in the toilet at their school. They have a future.

I am with him and his mouth is wide.

I think his lungs have burst inside him. He is not athletic and we ran until our ankles fainted and our lips split and his chest spilled open to expel his spine in bursts and splinters.

Objection.

He was Darrien. They looked into his eyes and saw a blade that needed breaking. They looked at where his hairline met his skin and saw a target for the taking.

They looked and saw a lunging serpent dripping with the sea from which it spat they saw him eat the stars free of their hearts like sunrise pulling the horizon with its teeth I looked in time to see him swell and break.

Objection.

I would hope so.

When the police left with their guns still itching for their fingers I sifted through his organs for a pulse.

50

NATURE’S GEOMETRY by Brittany Thrasher

51 MONSTER SPRAY by Kasey Caines “2001”

“Mommy, can you keep the light on tonight?”

My mom pauses at the doorway to my bedroom. Her hand is still on the light switch that brought the room to darkness. She sighs. This is the third night in a row I’ve asked.

“You won’t make any melatonin and get a good night’s sleep with the light on, silly,” she says. She flicks the light back on and leans against the door frame. The stars on my ceiling blink out.

“I don’t need metalonin to sleep,” I say. “It’s dark when I close my eyes.”

That’s sort of a lie though. When the lights are on and I close my eyes, the back of my eyelids turn red. I’m okay with sleeping with red eyelids though. Red’s my favourite colour.

“Then why,” she asks as a curl of brown hair falls out from behind her ear, “do you need the light on?” Family members always tell me I look like my mom. We both have blue eyes and brown hair and faces that are shaped the same. I don’t think we alike though because I’m not a girl.

I know I don’t have to tell her again, but I do anyways. Sometimes moms forget things too. “Because the monsters come to get me when the lights are off.”

“There aren’t any monsters that are going to come and get you,” my mom laughs, sitting on the side of my bed. She puts her hand on my blanket-covered legs. She tucked them in a minute ago. “And if there are, daddy and I are right down the hall, and I’ll bet,” she says, tapping the tip of my nose, “that no monsters will come anywhere near you if they know we’re right around the corner waiting to chase them away.”

“If they’re already in my room they’ll eat me before you get here.”

Without saying a word my mom climbs off the bed and bends down to her knees. I peek over the side and watch as she lifts the edge of my blanket and takes a long look underneath. When she looks up at me she shrugs her shoulders. “Doesn’t look like there are any monsters to me.”

“Maybe they’re invisible.”

She lifts an eyebrow at me.

Sitting back on my bed she says, “There aren’t such things as invisible monsters, honey.”

“How do you know if you can’t see them?”

She lets out another sigh: this one says it’s nearly impossible to win an argument with a six year-old. I know I shouldn’t tell her, but it is. “I’ll be right

52 back,” she says a moment later, and she gets the same look in her eyes that I do when I eat cookies before dinner. “I have an idea that just might work.”

As she walks out of my room, she makes sure to keep the light on.

When she comes back she has a spray bottle in her hand. It looks like one of the ones from the cabinet under the kitchen sink that she tells me not to touch or feed to the dog. She holds the bottle out to me. “Do you know what this is?”

I take it in my hands. This bottle is white and doesn’t have a skull on it like the ones in the kitchen. It has black letter stickers on the side instead.

“Monster Spray.”

My mom smiles. “And do you know what monster spray is for?”

“Cleaning dirty monsters who forget to take a bath?”

“No, no silly,” my mom laughs. “It’s Monster repellent.”

Now I lift an eyebrow.

“It keeps the monsters away!”

I understand now, mostly because the monster stickers on the bottle look like pretty clean monsters to me.

“You promise it’ll work?” It wouldn’t be the first time products in bottles didn’t work right. My mom says there’s a reason the dishes come out cloudy sometimes.

“I promise, just you wait and see.”

My mom twists the top of the bottle and squirts a test spray into the air.

Little droplets of sprinkle down to my carpet like snowflakes. “Are you ready to say goodbye to those monsters?”

“I’m ready.”

She kneels back down to the floor and I count five squirts that she sprays under the bed. She sprays another three by the window in case any homeless monsters try to break in, then another under the dresser, on the bookshelf, and behind my toy chest. Another five protect the doorway, and she sprays an extra few around the middle of the room just to be safe. She takes a look around at her work and then back at me. She seems happy.

“Don’t forget the closet.”

“Of course,” she says, opening the closet door. “How could I forget?”

She sprays the top shelf, the ground, and even between my clothes that hang on the rack inside. There’s a mirror on back of the door where I see my reflection behind her. I wonder why the monsters try to eat little kids like me when there are bigger ones in my class.

“Not one single monster is going to come in here tonight,” my mom says as she closes the closet door and comes back to my bed, leaning over and kissing my forehead. She runs her hand through my hair. I feel my eyelids begin to droop as she asks me, “Is it okay for me to turn the off the light now?”

53

I nod my head.

By the time she turns off the light and closes the door, I’m already fast asleep.

“2013”

I can’t find the gun in the closet.

I pull another box from the shelf and look inside to find my old sticker collection. Not what I am looking for.

I’d taken the handgun from my parent’s closet where they’d kept it long enough to forget that they had even placed it there. It wasn’t until my second year of high school that I even found out about it. My dad always said it would take a threat towards his family to ever pull that trigger; he hoped he’d never have to, but it always gave him a little peace of mind knowing it was there, hidden quietly away in case he ever needed it.

Or if his son ever planned to commit murder.

In the two weeks since I’ve taken the gun my dad has had no suspicions about its disappearance, probably because we have yet to experience a situation where a 9mm handgun capable of shooting life from a person is necessary. Since the moment I took it I’ve worried he would notice its absence, but he never has. They–whoever the “they” are that people refer to when discussing universal truths–always seems to caution parents against keeping weapons in the house where children can get access to them. That’s how you hear about three year-olds killing their younger siblings. They get a hold of a loaded gun and boom: they’ve committed a murder before they can speak the word. I’m not a kid anymore though. I’ve also grown up in a middle-class neighbourhood with two supportive parents, and am the last teenager anyone would expect to steal his father’s gun in order to shoot up a school.

Tomorrow is going to be a real surprise for everyone.

“They” were also right to say you should never trust the quiet ones.

If only I can remember where I put the gun. I know it was a shoebox that I quickly slipped it into for fear that I might be discovered, but there are a few more shoeboxes in my closet than I initially thought there were. The stack has already started growing tall behind me.

The last box I pulled now sits on the top of the pile, so I stretch for the next one. I use my middle finger to tap it closer, but by the time I realize the weight in my toes has shifted I’m falling to the ground. I crash to the floor and a pain shots up my spine, but I freeze. I don’t know if my parents heard me. A few long seconds assures me that they haven’t. I lift myself from the floor, rubbing my hand down my aching back, and pick up the box that came tumbling down with me. The lid has slid off on one corner, and in the dim light of the closet lightbulb I can make out the texture of white plastic. I pull off the rest of the lid.

54

Inside the box is a spray bottle like the ones under the kitchen sink that have toxic skulls symbols on the side. It is white just like the cleaning products, but without any of the fancy, colourful labels that came with it. Instead, black letters stretch across its surface, and surrounding those letters are stickers depicting the cleanest monsters that I’ve ever seen.

“Monster Spray.”

I smirk as I’m reminded of the first time I ever saw this bottle, clutched with determination in my mother’s hand as she worked to repel my childhood demons. She had sprayed under my bed, behind the dresser and bookshelf, and most importantly, in my closet. It took years before I stopped believing that behind my row of clothes were monsters waiting to consume me, but I’d finally overcome the fear that had so often plagued my consciousness. I hadn’t been scared of monsters since.

But I feared she had left one behind.

I step towards my closet and slide my hands between the fabric of my clothes. As a kid, I would’ve thought that if I could only move quick enough, I just might see a monster.

I hear my heart inside my ears.

I thrust my arms apart.

And then I see a monster.

The mirror that once hung on the back of my closet door has been propped up against the wall where it faces me now. My face has evolved from one of a boy to one of a man. There are no remains of the child once scared of the dark and its demons. I guess the monster took him after all.

I untwist the nozzle of the Monster Spray and spray a few squirts on the mirror and watch as the liquid trickles down the glass, obscuring my reflection until I’m no more than a blur.

I put the bottle down and keep looking for the gun.

There had always been a monster waiting in my closet.

It had just taken till now to realize it was me.

UNTITLED by Brittany Thrasher

55