Spring 2017

PHOENIX

LITERARY ARTS MAGAZINE

PHOENIX

LITERARY ARTS MAGAZINE ISSUE 59 VOLUME 2 SPRING 2017

Letter From the Editor Since 1960, The Phoenix has had the honor of sharing astounding works by students at the University of Tennessee.

It is these creative minds who have formed a community that allows expression, adaptation, and confession. We would like to thank this community for their belief in what The Phoenix is and what it will transform into throughout the years. Please know that we support your voice, and our home is always open to you.

The Phoenix would like to rise from the ashes of pressures and tensions put on artists and diversity that has recently covered this country we call home. We believe in a strong and unified community that will rise and choose support, openness, and understanding. Because of faithful student authors and artists, we were able to create a bright magazine to reveal the positive impact the arts have on a community in trying times.

I would like to thank the staff for remaining resilient and being the foundation of an amazing magazine. Thank you to the friends and families of all those involved in the creation of The Phoenix- your influence reaches farther than you realize. As always, a special thanks to the UT community for supporting the voices of blossoming artists, which are needed now more than ever.

Thank you, Michaela Roach Editor-in-Chief

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.� –Albert Camus

Table of Contents ART Water by Yasmin Murphy Timeless by Casey Perfetto Bridge at Grandfather Mountain by Chet Guthrie Noise by Michael Seagraves Stratiform by Zach Edwards Banana by Lukas McCrary Untitled by Lauren Higdon Sixer by Drew Justice Echo by Yuying Yan Humanity in an 18x24 by Micheal Seagraves Blessings by Andrew Gordon I’m Telling on You by Katherine Gentner Cycles of Our Evolution by Lindsey Orrin Love Dad by Katherine Gentner Process of Becoming Dormant by Zach Edwards Thinking in Different Ways by Yuying Yan

1 2 3 4 5 8 9 11 13 13 14 16 18 19 24 25

POETRY Red Pens by Rob Ledbetter Broken Home by Madison Hicks Simple Hot Chocolate by Nicole Yackley Transplant by Elizabeth Clark Closer by Stephanie Hinkle Phony by Sarah Cathey The Fruit by Bridget Sellers The Dingo by Matthew Bryon Tradition by Kennith Hawkins Inheritance by Sophia Shelton Fever by Jenna Dirksen Nubia by Monica Brashears

1 2 3 4 6 7 8 11 12 14 15 17

FICTION Cages by Savannah Lucas

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Water Yasmin Murphy

Red Pens Rob Ledbetter Golden nicotine stains on my Left hand’s second finger Glow gently under the light of the Broken record player.

While I can kiss the scars On the left side of her right wrist, No amount of editing marks Could ever rewrite this.

No one can save her From the razors that raised her.

Sip the syrup from tips of cigarette filters Whiteout inkblots of obituary papers.

1

Broken Home Madison Hicks My sister asked me for a cigarette The day her divorce was finalized We all thought the separation was Temporary Apparently, the nineteen year old Psychology major With big boobs and pink lip gloss Wasn’t She exhales “He wasn’t even a good guy” Yeah, I know He lied about coming home And going out.

Simultaneously if he could get his story right “The only time he was ever honest was when he railed that girl in the back bedroom.”

I laughed but she looked at me Real serious “Do you think he loves her?”

I lit a cigarette For myself “That shit will kill ya”

Casey Perfetto

Timeless

Simple Hot Chocolate Nicole Yackley The trick to becoming an adult is to get used to accomplishing alone.

(I am not used to accomplishing, let alone alone).

Drive yourself back home to someplace with a stovetop, with some counter space and more than one mug in the cabinet.

(Proceed to use just the one mug).

I speak with the experience that comes with negative space.

Drive yourself home (no one’s coming to get you).

The doors will be locked and you’ll lock them again once you’re inside (you can’t know no one’s coming to get you).

Take out your mug and fill it with ingredients you bought yourself by yourself.

Little actions adding up to independence.

(I’m finding where the edges of adulthood begin by circling them).

Chet Guthrie

Bridge at Grandfather Mountain

Noise

Michael Seagraves

Transplant Elizabeth Clark Peter Kavanagh has new lungs.

I was at the Red Piano Lounge while he received them.

It was my first time seeing live jazz.

Wet, pink lungs sustained saxophone arpeggios; His eyes crinkled with the weight of the melody.

He nodded the applause, relaxed his mouth, released – the music scampered to ruddy the face of the trombone.

Peter’s pale face was held still by anesthesia.

Monitors beeped lullabies to his mind.

His mouth relaxed, released the dead trees in his chest, and they buried new life in his dirt.

4

Stratiform Zach Edwards

5

Closer Stephanie Hinkle

Motte Miru

Closer

Tanitsu no sakura no hana ha awabeni shoku to shiro to kiiro gagozaimasu yo.

A single blossom, of a cherry tree is pink, and yellow and white.

Sore wa hoshi no katachi no you mata wa gamu no konoha wa ima ochiru tokoro da.

Sono kajo no naka sore wa made soudai da demo hito wa zenzen minai.

It is shaped like a star, or a sweet-gum leaf, now getting ready to fall.

Among it’s inflorescence, it is still spectacular, but humans don’t look.

6

Phony Sarah Cathey When I left that afternoon, after he and I spent the morning picking apples, I drove up to the mountains because I didn’t want to go home alone.

I ate that dark, bitter chocolate he gave me and saw all the beautiful leaves dying.

The colors bled into each other and the darkening sky and I felt for them.

I pulled over and watched the sun fall, and I wondered if he still loved me the way he had when we first met, when we argued violently about Salinger and nothing else.

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The Fruit Bridgett Sellers You ate of me, tasted unripe Pomegranate; only three seeds it took to tie Persephone in Hell for half Eternity. Sometimes I remember how you smell; something chemical in you or some begotten gene in me and I bit my hand when I reread your love letters— here you can see the teeth marks little pink kernels.

That’s how it is now, I bite down on everything and nausea is a permanent daydream.

No you cannot speak my name.

I will take it out of your mouth myself I will shave it off your tongue I will shear it from your lips.

y rar ana s McC Ban Luka

The pomegranate bleeds I pluck remnant seeds one by one scrape the milk white hull clean.

Only a waxy cavity remains some vestigial husk, the organs of premonition untimely ripped.

I press the color to my mouth, smother your residue, what my body can never forget.

This is indeed the mother of Sin, this must be the fruit of the Dead.

8

Untitled Lauren Higdon

10

Sixer Drew Justice

The Dingo Matthew Bryon I’d be fine with domestic life if everyone was.

People choose a life of excitement I feel obliged to follow while in the back of my mind I’d be fine by the fire.

I wouldn’t leave the house.

I would be furniture for minimum wage and a biscuit, but I know the dingoes are running in the cold, rain, sunshine looking contented.

Umbrella left behind I, too come running

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Tradition Kennith Hawkins After the bala ants have been captured and drugged, the Satere-Mawe tribe leaders put them through diamond shaped holes in woven gloves. With their stingers pointed inward, they will quickly attack anything threatening them in any way.

In order for boys to become Warriors they have to put on the gloves and allow the wasplike ants to sting them for ten minutes.

When I watched my brother fight a neighborhood boy alone, yelling for them to stop, my dad saw them and pulled them off of the too-tall grass and took us home. On the stairs, he yelled to me with rising inflections, until he threw me into my room. His blunt nails and the dry cloth of my shirt pressed into the skin on my back, tearing it away.

The boys will endure the pain at least twenty times over months or years as their initiation. Like a fat, brown nail through the arch of a foot or bamboo reeds being forced under fingernails. Some dance in a line together and jump from the pain. Others appear to be moving because of the sweat reflecting the sun from their bodies, but they stand perfectly motionless from shock.

They never cry out. That is forbidden.hat shit will kill ya�

12

Yuying Yan

Echo

4 8X2 an 1 s y in anit agrave Hum Michael Se

13

Inheritance Sophia Shelton Kudzu chokes the oak trees here, the state park is dying slowly. If Norris Dam broke clean and the valley flooded, I don’t know who would take the blame.

In high school, I muttered Soon I’ll get out of this state for college— I was lying. Welcome to Tennessee. I can count the rings of my people in the dead trees, our DNA is in the dirt.

At the ramshackle museum my father lifted me, age 5 on his sawdust shoulders, said, Your great grandpa built that clock, Sophie.

The way they talk about him— director of information at TVA! You’d think he built the dam with his two hands, that collegeeducated sonofabitch.

I wish I could say more and less of my family than Welcome to Tennessee and Watch your step in the creek, Sophie, these crawdads aren’t gonna catch themselves.

Bless ings An drew

Gord

on

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Fever Jenna Dirksen 1.

3.

I am fire, deep at night hot and orange, red and bright you are just a boy of brush I burn everything I touch I am fire, deep at night twisting, deadly, made of light they should not have let you near you are just a boy, my dear

your

2. touch me hurt me trace your fingers down my spine I am here I am alive

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skin is dry, soft ish eyes can’t remember color, just you’re always squinting as if I’m some bizarrely worded question you are unsure of the answer to the answer is this: I feel the memory of us ringing in my brain soft sick pulse think of you on your back on my floor think of me on you your skin is hot, but I am on fire fire I am so afraid of fire of what? you your stupid squinting face sounds of you leaving you’re a sharp nail in a wall of nails, somehow less sharp you’re a sweaty thought on a sweaty night (I could have said “please stay”) ((nothing would have changed nothing ever changes))

Katherin

On You I’m Tellinge Gentner

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Nubia Monica Brashears Thin clouds of smoke linger in the outskirts of our fantasies; the unwanted ones, the nomad dreams that have nowhere to go but in that band of white.

Our happiness is hazel and crumbling, and the night sky, sagging with lucidity trickles on our numb faces.

Violet ashes in our lungs, Floating deeper with each struggled breath, Blinded in search of that swollen powerhouse, where that light flickers against the haze.

Our throats are filling with sand, but the thoughts are softened like wax, and we cannot cultivate scars in the middle of the Sahara.

17

ion lut Evo ur of O rrin les sey O Cyc Lind

18

Love Dad

entner

Katherine G

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Cages Savannah Lucas Snoring. Deafening, uninterrupted snoring.

Natalie cracked her eyes open and squeezed them into two narrow slits, darting her pupils to the lump sleeping in the bed beside her. She didn’t ask his name; she didn’t want to know it, and she never wanted to. All she knew was that he listened to Hansen, he liked the feeling of corduroy, and he was far too cheap to buy a girl something off the top shelf. Oh, and that he smoked light blue American Spirits, which he kept tucked in the front pocket of his faded flannel.

Pretentious as hell.

She stared up at the peeling white ceiling, remembering how she’d gotten there the night before. They had flung the door open in a wild frenzy. He pushed her through the frame and against the wall, keeping one hand on her waist

beneath her touch. He was aggressive and rough and everything she had missed out on for the past two years. Brad was gentle and cautious. He would never push her against a wall or throw her down on the bed or pull her hair. He avoided trying anything new, and his favorite part of sex was lying next to her in bed afterward, so he could stroke her hair and tell her how much he loved her.

Natalie sighed and sat up. She scanned the studio apartment. Light filtered in through a small window and illuminated an abundance of lint and dust particles as they circulated through the air. To her right, a dresser. Drawers extended; pair of jeans dangling out. Walls nearly empty, save for a few spackling-filled holes that no one bothered to sand down and paint over. A dingy mustard-colored couch shoved against the wall opposite the bed. No coffee table. Box of cereal on the counter. Dishes precariously balanced in the sink. Clothes strung about the scratched and worn hardwood from the front door to the foot of the bed, like a trail of breadcrumbs in a fairytale.

Some fucking fairytale.

as he reached back with the other to slam the door shut. She pressed three fingers against his chest, and pushed him back so that their faces were inches apart, feeling empowered by the quivering anticipation that buzzed through his body

Another string of gasps erupted from Mr. Flannel’s mouth. His Neanderthalian sleep grunting was enough of a sign; she had stayed too long.

Grimacing, she pinched the corner of the sheet between her fingers and delicately swung her feet off the side of the bed, pressing them into the cool wood floor. She glanced over her shoulder at the scruffy man from the booth by the window, then turned and stood. She advanced toward the trail of her clothes, running her big toe along the edge of each floorboard before putting her full weight into a step. Navy lace thong. Black corduroy skirt. Maroon sweater. Tights. Black strappy heels.

Now that it was morning, Natalie’s only regret was the fact that she caved on her no-heels policy the

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night before. Her feet ached from struggling to adjust her balance all night and the unfamiliar design had rubbed her pinky toe raw. She leaned against the front door, slid them back on, and then gingerly unlatched the lock before slithering out.

As she walked down the hallway, the racket from her shoes echoed between the narrow walls. She clacked her way down the concrete stairwell. Each echoing step a reminder of her looming task. Only the worst type of person would be wearing these heels on a Sunday morning. She slammed her fist into a green button beside the exit. After hearing a buzz, then a click, she slung open the stairwell door and was blinded by the intense brightness of the sun. ***

21

Natalie watched as the soapy water poured off her angular body, swirling around the shower floor, mixing with last night’s sins, before slipping into the dark abyss of the drain. She knew that she had made an irreversible decision, and she dreaded the task of dealing with the fallout. She pushed the shower curtain aside and wrapped herself in her towel, pulling it tight around her until it had soaked in her own body heat, creating the illusion of an embrace. A maternal comfort filled her soul.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Her hair, usually a light sandy brown, was

soaked and dark against her pale skin; she hadn’t bothered to ring it out, causing the wavy strands to separate into individual sections like dreadlocks.

She felt the residual water stream down her scalp, pool at the end of her strands of hair, and then drip down her chest. She let this go on for a few minutes, then dried off and slid on her jeans and an old flannel.

She sat on the edge of her bed, shoulders slumped, her left elbow digging into her thigh from the weight of her head resting on her fist. She glanced up at the clock above her dresser. It was a quirky piece; a gem she dug out of a dusty box in the back of a thrift store. It was an ode to her favorite meal of the day; each number represented by a piece of breakfast food—toast, eggs, syrup, hash browns, sausage. The hour hand was a fork and the minute hand was a spoon, but her favorite part was the tiny knife that furiously circled its cutlery counterparts in a rampage as it marked each second. It was nearly a quarter till pancake o’clock, and Brad was supposed to have picked her up at bacon-thirty. He was never late.

Tick, tick, tick. Slice, slice, slice.

Natalie reached under her bed for her brown leather boots, then pulled them on over her socks.

They didn’t complain or ask to be unlaced; her feet

had been inside them a hundred times, and the leather stretched in all the right places so that she never had to untie them again if she didn’t want to. She heard a familiar chirp from the other room, so she snapped the lights off and made her way to the kitchen where a spirited lime green parakeet fluttered around its cylindrical cage. Brad had gotten her the little thing as a gift—exactly a year ago today—for their first anniversary.

She guessed it was supposed to be a romantic gesture, a token of his adoration. But, honestly.

A bird in a cage? She hated to see any animal confined, but there was something especially sad about a bird in a cage. A hamster, at least, has a wheel to run on. Hamsters don’t realize that they’re going absolutely nowhere, but they’re happy in their state of oblivion because they are given the illusion of progress. A caged bird receives no such illusion. It can’t spread its wings. It can’t soar from tree to tree, or hop around the dim interior of a manicured shrub in the suburbs. Each time a little girl with pigtails walks into a pet store and points at a captive bird flitting around a cage, another ounce of freedom is stolen from the natural world.

Natalie despised her own species for this type of systematic imperialism; Brad thought a parakeet would make a nice gift.

The bird cried out again and looked up at her with its beady black eyes. She reached her hand into the coffee can where she kept its seed, but only felt a few crumbs of millet rolling around the crevices at the bottom.

*** Natalie felt a jolt as Brad threw the truck into park.

The engine went silent, and she had no idea where they were.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“Not yet.”

She heard two clicks and then felt her seatbelt drag across her body as it was reeled back into its resting position. Brad’s door slammed shut.

Seconds later, her door opened, and she felt his arms snake around her waist, pulling her out of the passenger seat. He remained latched onto her as he guided her over the asphalt. She began to hear sounds of people around her—the long slide and slam of a minivan door, children laughing and screaming, parents barking orders at their kids.

“Brad, I swear to God, if you brought me to the fair or something, I’m going to lose it,” Natalie said.

“You know I hate kids.”

Brad laughed.

“Funny, because you’re going to have to learn to love ours someday,” he said.

Natalie’s entire body tensed, and then she realized that Brad was still holding her.

“You can open your eyes now,” he said.

Shit.

Natalie snapped her eyes open. The zoo.

She couldn’t remember the last time she fed the pitiful thing. She looked around her kitchen for something to feed it—bread crumbs, maybe—but then she heard the rumble of Brad’s old Dodge as it roared toward her building. She grabbed a pen and scribbled a reminder on her wrist to pick up seed on the way home, gave the bird an apologetic look, and then slid out the door.

Shit.

Brad pulled two tickets out of his coat pocket and grabbed her hand, dragging her through the admission gate.

Shit.

Once through, he turned and looked at her.

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“Surprise! Happy anniversary!”

Shit.

A high-pitched laugh erupted from her throat as she clenched her teeth and forced the corners of her lips into something resembling a smile.

“Wow. This is just—” “Awesome? I know,” Brad said. “I wanted to make today extra special. You know why I picked this place, right?”

She knew.

“Nope.”

Brad’s face fell.

“Our first date? I kissed you in the hall of reptiles, remember?”

She remembered.

break the façade that things between them were fine, to tell him what she had done, and that he deserved someone who truly loved him back. Yes, she was well aware of all these things, but she couldn’t stop herself from picking up her pace anyway.

It was one of the games she loved to play most—a spontaneous chase; Natalie had been doing it since she was a kid. She would be walking through a grocery store with her mom, and then at a moment her mother least expected, Natalie would slip around a corner into one aisle, and then the next, walking briskly and choosing a route that made her impossible to track. Sometimes she would make a full circle so that she was following her own pursuer, just so she could watch her mother panic. In order for the game to work, Natalie needed someone who would never stop searching for her; Brad was the perfect candidate.

She would always initiate the chase, and each time, she was the one running—the alternative failed to appeal to her in the slightest. Always the prey, never the predator. She had no interest in chasing anyone.

But she mumbled, “Hmmpf.”

Brad pulled her in. She felt his bright blue eyes reach deeply into hers, searching for some form of approval or shared nostalgia. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. She turned away from his gaze and looked down the walkway.

“Come on,” she said, taking a step back. “Let’s go check out the imprisonment and exploitation of wildlife!”

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She stepped toward him and offered a quick peck on his cheek. Brad smiled, grabbed her chin, and leaned in, his eyes closed. Natalie slid out of his advance and followed the red brick path toward a bamboo thicket. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled deviously, speeding up her gait. Brad loved when she teased him like that, like two kids playing tag. Natalie knew she should halt herself in her tracks and turn to face him. She needed to

As she passed a weak attempt to recreate authentic African grasslands, Natalie threw a glance over her shoulder. The zoo wasn’t too busy, but she had successfully lost Brad in the sparse crowd. She felt her heart racing from the thrill and uncertainty that came with the chase. She smiled to herself, both delighted to be an antagonist and grateful that she had a few moments alone. Each time she passed an exhibit, she slowed to observe the interactions between man and wildlife, finding that they were all relatively the same. On one side of a metal fence or reinforced glass, children bounced and squealed as they peered through the barrier to see some exotic beast. Looking back through the glass were clumps of lethargic animals, all forced to accept their fates as objects meant only for display. Natalie found the inconsistency in enthusiasm between the creatures on either side of the fence concerning. She wondered if anyone around the zoo even noticed how calloused to life the incarcerated animals were, and whether or not

they would care if they did.

After weaving through the African savanna, Natalie arrived in the section of the zoo housing animals of Southeast Asia. She stopped in front of a tall wire enclosure, enthralled by the acrobatics of a group of apes as they expertly swung from branch to branch. They were the only animals she had seen who were active, and she found their fluid movements hypnotic. After watching them for a few minutes, Natalie was jolted out of her spellbound state by the crunch of gravel under familiar boots and then felt a warm hand press into her back. Tag. It was their signal. She’d been found, and the game was over.

“She’s the only one by herself.”

“Gibbons are incredibly like humans,” Brad said.

Brad jerked his hand from hers, looked down, and kicked a loose piece of gravel. The rock clanged on the metal wire of the enclosure, and the gibbon by the fruit pile was jolted from t her peaceful snack. She flew to rman o D the wire of the cage and ming o c e clung on as she opened B ss ofdwards her mouth wide to bare e c o Pr Zach E her teeth at Brad, letting

He stood next to Natalie and looked over at her.

The adoration radiating from his body made her feel as though she had just opened a hot oven, a wave of heat that she found smothering. Brad’s hand slid down her arm and he interwove their fingers.

The gibbon grabbed a half-eaten banana from the pile and stuffed it into her mouth. Natalie shrugged.

“I mean, yeah, she’s by herself, but she clearly doesn’t give a fuck.”

The ape turned the banana peel over in her hands, looked around, and then flung it at the pair of gibbons to her left. Natalie giggled.

“Solitude,” she said. “That must be the life.”

“When they choose their mates, it’s for life.”

She could feel him begging her to just meet his gaze, to share a moment with him, for once. Her eyes remained fixated on the exhibit as the dark blurs flew past her vision line like ribbons of ebony silk.

She looked down and noticed a lone gibbon as it picked up a round, fleshy piece of fruit and smashed it into its mouth with both hands.

“Maybe not all gibbons mate for life. That one looks like she’s having a great time on her own,” she said, pointing at the small ape. “She’s posted up by the food pile, chowing down.”

Brad looked at the lone gibbon, and then back at Natalie.

“But she’s alone down there,” Brad said.

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out a blood-curdling screech and savagely banging on the metal with her free hand. Natalie and Brad jumped back.

The gibbon’s allies noticed the ruckus and sprang to join in, accosting the couple with a chorus of staggered screeches. They grabbed fistfuls of dirt and pebbles from the bottom of their exhibit and launched their weapons through the wire.

Brad scrambled to Natalie and pulled her close.

He raised his arm to shield her from the storm of gravel, but in one swift gesture, his elbow struck her nose and sent her reeling. Natalie shrieked and staggered backwards down the path, tripping over a brick that had been jostled loose from the pathway. She landed forcefully on the cold ground and stayed there.

Brad scurried to her and bent down with outstretched hands. Natalie groaned and pushed him away.

“Fuck off, Brad!”

Thinking in Differnt Ways

Yuying Yan

25

Brad recoiled, his eyes apologetic but his features contorted in frustration.

“I was just trying to make sure you were okay,” he sputtered.

Natalie felt a hot sensation in the spot where Brad’s elbow struck her. She raised her hand to her nose, and when she pulled it away, it was covered in blood. She raised her bloody palm toward Brad.

“Does it look like I’m okay?”

He shifted his weight from his left hip to his right, but said nothing. She leaned her head back and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Christ, Brad, none of this would have happened if you would just learn to give me some fucking space for once.”

She lowered her head and held the right sleeve of her flannel up to her nose. Brad clenched his fists.

from Natalie’s view.

“You’re always so distant. It’s like nothing I do makes you happy.”

Natalie shrugged her flannel off her back and folded the bloodstained sleeve like an accordion before dabbing her nose with it. The bleeding had subsided.

“Space? What the hell, Nat? We were being attacked! I was trying to protect you.”

“Not to mention the fact that it’s our anniversary and you don’t seem to care at all,” Brad spat at her.

She looked down at her hand. Birdseed.

An elderly couple teetered past them. The wife raised her eyebrows and gave a slight shake of her head. Natalie pushed herself up off the ground, suddenly very aware of the public venue. She looked down at the bloodstain on her sleeve.

“I’m not just talking about this,” she said.

Brad raised his eyebrows. “Then what are you talking about?”

Natalie sighed and looked to her left, locking eyes with a young girl who stood gawking at the couple from a nearby exhibit. She wore pink overalls, her blonde hair straight as a pin, her eyes dark and invasive. In her left hand was an orange balloon with black stripes. Natalie suppressed a smirk.

A tiger balloon at a zoo. Classic. The girl’s mom looked down, noticed her daughter staring, and snatched her by the arm. The force of her mother’s grip stunned the girl, and the tiger balloon floated out of her hand and toward the trees looming overhead. The mother—oblivious of the tragedy at hand—dragged the girl down the brick path, scolding her child for a lack of tact. Natalie’s eyes followed the balloon as it drifted upward, soon consumed by the twisted branches. She heard a faint pop, followed by the beginning of what was sure to be a lengthy and turbulent tantrum. The mother steadily moved her daughter along the path, and the wailing grew softer as they faded

“I fucked someone last night.”

She didn’t realize she had said it out loud until she looked at him. She was surprised by how drastically his appearance evolved over the course of a few seconds. His brows intensely furrowed, nearly touching. Face flushed. Eyes red, watery. Jaw clenched; his soft features sharpened by his anger.

She resented herself for it. He stepped toward her and lowered his face inches from hers. She felt the angry heat from his face hang in the air between them. Brad had never been violent, but she braced herself, expecting him to strike her, spit at her, call her a whore. The whites of his eyes had turned a shade of pink that made his light blue irises look as clear as ice and just as frigid. His lips quivered over his gritted teeth.

“I love you,” he said. Then, he left her.

Natalie felt something foreign drop from her throat to her abdomen like a stone, its immense weight a force of amplified gravity. It wasn’t sadness. It wasn’t even guilt. It was a heavy emptiness; the conflict between the apathy she was encountering and the knowledge that her lack of emotional sensation was a rare occurrence in the human experience. She had spent two entire years of her life with someone she had convinced herself she cared fornd then in one conscious decision, marked it all as wasted time. She would forever

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be the one he talked about in therapy, the ex that fucked him up. His parents would start each new day with a prayer that the fires of hell would reach up and claim their wayward daughter once and for all. She could already feel the sting of the collective hatred of everyone who cared about him, but she knew it would never come from Brad himself.

The sky was beginning to dim. She looked up at the clouds, pink like the rims of Brad’s eyes and fluffy like cotton balls. A mockingbird soared past her, its wings tucked in, coasting on the breeze. Birdseed. She wadded up her flannel and made her way to the exit, glancing at the lifeless beings behind the glass and the metal fences with barbed wire crowns. She wanted to free them from their misery. She wanted to free herself. In both regards, she felt powerless—just another set of eyes peering through the thick, cloudy glass, wishing things were different. *** Natalie stepped onto the curb, her hair dancing wildly in the burst of air created by the taxicab as it sped away. She tasted the exhaust in her throat, felt it burn all the way down into her lungs, a punishment she surely deserved. An orange streetlight flickered over her as she fumbled around her purse for the familiar jingle of her keys. She clasped her hands around the metal ring, and turned the key in the lock, shoving her shoulder into the stubborn door until it gave into her weight.

She stepped over the pile of mail on her doorstep and closed the door behind her.

Her apartment was bathed in a deep blue, lit only by the soft light of the moon that flooded through the window above her sink.

She collapsed onto her couch and let her purse and keys fall out of her hands. The force of her fall expelled a puff of dust from the cushions, and she sat back to watch the cloud of lint spin in the light from her

window. She could see every particle at first, all of them whirring past each other in a chaotic show of choreography. As the seconds passed, the specks became more and more lethargic. They abandoned each other and fell out of the moonlight, probably back into some crevice of the floor, waiting for a new catalyst to make them feel alive again. She hoisted her leg up and let gravity drive her boot into the hardwood. As a new plume of dust sprang into the air, she heard the birdcage’s wire door rattle from across the room.

The bird. Fuck.

She reached her hand into her purse and fished out a small bag of birdseed that she bought at the zoo gift shop. It was a blend meant for cardinals and other wild birds, incredibly overpriced, and would probably only last a week, but it was better than nothing. She heaved herself off the couch and dug a hand into the bag of seed. She paused, then grabbed a second handful—she hadn’t heard a peep from the bird all night, and she was thankful for its silence. When she turned to the cage, she saw it lying in the back corner, its orange, waxy feet stuck out like toothpicks, its beady black eyes frozen in a widened and frantic state. Natalie lost her grip on the seed and felt it filter through her fingers and clatter as it spread across the floor. She flung open the door, picked up the bird’s stiff body, and sank to the floor.

a master of aviation, had it been afforded the chance to fly. But it hadn’t been given that chance. She hadn’t given it that chance. When Brad gave her the bird, it was in a cage, so she left it there. She fed it, she gave it water occasionally, but she left it there. The bird’s purpose in life—the one thing it wanted most—was to fly, but she left it there.

Natalie held the bird just a few inches from her face, the stench of death still absent. A fresh loss. She noticed a thin layer of dust covering the feathers that hadn’t been pressed into the bottom of the cage. Natalie exhaled a puff of air toward it. The feathers ruffled in the gust of her breath and the dust dispersed into the air. She raised her eyes and watched the particles find the beam of moonlight once again, dancing in the glow.

She had never loved the bird. She’d never even held it. Yet she cradled it in her hands, studying the way its tiny green feathers were arranged in layers along its frame. The feathers varied in size and shape and texture and color. Its chest was covered in puffy lime green feathers that were smaller than her pinky and soft as velvet. They looked like a thousand seeds of a dandelion, the kind you destroy and blow into the wind at the end of a long summer just to make a wish. The feathers along the wings were longer, more uniform, and tougher than the ones on its chest, less vulnerable to something as weak as a gust of breath.

Its legs were scalier than she imagined, and she thought that it looked more like a reptile than a graceful master of aviation. Well, it would have been

28

cLIMB tie Miller : r e v Ka Co y Danny Bory : r e v o C Cra Inside Lucas Mc

Colophon Our Editorial Staff is made of Editor-in-Chief, Michaela Roach; Copy Editor, Mikayla Ragan; Art Editor, Jesselyn Voysey; Fiction Editor, Ashley Baker; Poetry Editor, Kelli Frawley; Design Editor, Justin Keyes; and Assistant Designer, Laurel Cooper. They are supported by staff members Emme Marshall, Chris Mills, Joshua Moore, William Plank, Leah Powell.

The type used is League Gothic sized at 24 point.

The type used is Frank Gothic Book sized at 9.5 point.

500 Copies printed by University Printing.

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ISSUE 59 VOLUME 2 SPRING 2017