Phoenix Literary Magazine, Spring 2019

magazine

spring 2019

issue sixty-one

volume two 1

2

magazine

printed in knoxville, tennessee 3

Poetry i didn’t want to be a pageant queen

Andrew Davis

my first love as a parlor palm Zoie Mull

6

routine Zoie Mull

7

drafty house

7

Sarah Ali

Fruit From the Book of the Knowledge of Good & Evil Deep Blue

Brynna Williams

chapman hwy - south knoxville, at 1 a.m.

Kosovo 1997

4

2

Rrita Hashani

Amber Albritton

11 16

Sarah Ali

18 19

Neruda’s Apple

Amber Albritton

21

Karaoke Night

Andrew Kochamba

21

Art Dallas Dim Sum Untitled 4

Kelly Moore

Cover

Abby Hamilton

1

Sophia Abouelata

Regards

Ashley Bergner

The Hands That Make Electric

Self Portrait Dua (I)

Ali Bihmani and Lila Shull

Hands

9 10

Abby Hamilton

12

Marieli Valencia

13

Elisa Razak

15 Tatiana Tikhonova

17

Kayla Dean

20

Sarah Goldstein

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Family Portrait This is Mary Rerequited Nomad

8

Juniper Teffeteller

She Always Comes Back Alicibea

5

Hannah Allen

Hidasrotti NEON

3

Tori Barrett

23

Kelly Moore

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Jodi Canfield

25

Jodi Canfield

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Prose Mama Does This Mean I’ve Made It?

Jada March

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5

Untitled Film phtography Abby Hamilton

1

i didn’t want to be a pageant queen Andrew Davis

and when i began to feel that my

and i knew what i was doing

body was wrong,

when i made my mother cut my hair

my mother forced me back into that

and she cried

sparkling turquoise gown

and i knew what i was doing when i

she pulled it

changed my name

so tight it hurt my ribs

and when i bought a suit

the dress was too big in the chest

and when i went to the doctor

as if my mother knew what she was doing,

and when i bought my prescription

some wicked form of torture

with the money from my summer job

but there i was: glittering

at Christmas, she begged me to

in the sun,

wear a dress

under the stage lights, under the watchful gaze of my parents

why don’t you wear dresses anymore?

as i traipsed across the stage,

her eyes glittered like turquoise,

my body felt worse, heavy, foreign

sparkling with tears in here eyes and I was

i cried in the dressing room.

not on that stage, not under those lights,

when i first bound my chest,

not under the watchful gaze of everyone I knew

it was too small,

and I spoke softly

so tight it hurt my ribs, but my chest was gone,

I didn’t want to be a pageant queen.

and i knew what i was doing, 2

4 Digital collage Sophia Abouelata

3

an interview with Raiza Guillen-Coleman

by Jada March

I

t’s a lazy Sunday afternoon in a suburb in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and unseasonably warm for November. Sunlight streams directly through the large, high arch window that overlooks the foyer and makes the spotless tile floor and caramel wood warm to the touch as I pad barefoot through to the kitchen. The fan hanging from the high ceiling in the attached living space casts a light, comfortable breeze throughout the whole house. I catch whiffs of the remainder of breakfast—a breakfast that was eaten at noon due to a wedding reception the night before. Milanese, rice, fried yuca and tomato salad are on the counter, still up for grabs. Scarecrow figurines sit atop the mantle, and my mind drifts greedily to the leftover Thanksgiving dinner that still overpopulates the fridge, even after we’ve all dipped into every dish on four different occasions.

Elephants in patterns, ceramics, and jade are scattered throughout the room for good luck. Crosses of all different shapes and sizes hang above each door. The first time I noticed them, I remember feeling safe. I also remember smiling as I am when I make myself comfortable in the chair diagonal from Raiza Guillen-Coleman, my best friend’s mother and first generation Guatemalan immigrant. Her short hair is pulled back and is a naturallooking black-as-midnight despite just having turned 46 the weekend before. She’s in an oversized gray sweatshirt and blue plaid pajama bottoms, and looks years younger in a fresh face.

I smile at her. “Are you ready?”

“You’re ready?” Her accent is thick, but her English is the Queen’s. She pulls her legs up under herself, making her small frame even smaller. “Yes. Well, where are we starting?”

So, you said you came here [the United States] in ’93?

Mmhm. I was 21, and I had $28 in my pocket.

Why’d you leave?

I think it was more, like, curiosity. But a lot of other people, they come to the United States for a better life. But in my case, you know, I knew that I was not gonna be able to go to (continued on page 23) 4

Regards Oil on canvas Ashley Bergner

5

my first love as a parlor palm Zoie Mull i go to water you

i decide it’s over

i’m sorry i haven’t in a while

probably root rot

but i don’t think you wanted me to anyway

still, i will keep you on my table

it’s winter and you’re aloof

‘til it’s time to throw you out

i watered you too much in november 6

routine Zoie Mull drafty house Sarah Ali

day breaks like glass shattering. i broke a bowl when i was young.

walls to a home for a child i’ve yet to carry you salvage yourself tearing apart the drywall shredding the insulation who needs this shade of red there’s no baby here to call this home it’s god-awful why does it hurt so much why does making myself a home hurt worse

opaque white and pure, the porcelain burned new fingerprints over the labyrinth of my previous skin and into that of a hardwood floor. burnt air made home on my tongue.

Tyler was there and got Super Glue. impure. broken. small pieces. we thought it could be glued and the dishwasher dismantled it to prove a point. like it was so full of beauty it just had to break. reverberating, the ugly sound of an end is a flat shatter. i take the broken bowl and reassemble my body. baby’s going insane. i’m going to do this every day under our stupid star. i read a poem and i’m ok again. je suis désolé the sun apologizes for itself and i hear day break once again.

7

The Hands That Make Monotype print Ali Bihmani and Lila Shull

8

Electric Relief print Hannah Allen

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Hidasrotti Relief print Juniper Teffeteller

10

Fruit From the Book of the Knowledge of Good &Evil Amber Albritton

I want to go to bed with Neruda

With mouths stuffed,and on their way

And shut the world away But the Mormons are coming at 4

I watch them hurry with joyinto their lives, Well and thoughtfully formed.

On the second highest hill

And, as when they were toddlers, I think

Fourteenth house on the right

Slow down, please slow down

Where the Japanese maple and red bud Guard the porch

Latter Day Saints sit in the middle of wall to wall books

That spills into the yard

And I wonder if they can read the spines

With short pines & cherry tree,

Nin & Miller squashed tightly against the Marquis de

Which holds the chimes my father gave me

Sade

Beforehe moved his half of my heart to Texas

Story of O & Marguerite Duras’The Lover

Corinthian Bells, where the peregrine lands

Fear of Flying and Forum Letters

Watchingover me A totem, witness to my life

They brought aformer bishop this time

On this hill without him

He teaches seminary and bible classes Off Clinch next to the Masonic Temple,

––On the solid granite

To anyone who’d rather

In the modern kitchen of the

Sip milk spoons instead of using a knife and fork

Post mod Lloyd knockoff I slice two apples: green, red

I continue to ask questions

The kids pile in with kisses and quick goodbyes again

Of God, eatingthe slices.

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Self Portrait

Digital Photography Abby Hamilton

12

13

N E O N Digital photography Marieli Valencia

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Dua (I) Screenprinted shadow puppet Elisa Razak

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Deep Blue Brynna Williams in the world, rocks no one’s ever seen.

I want the ocean.

I want its blue pull, frothy claws dragging sand out from shore, tugging a surfer gently into vast

I want to feel the waves in me, dancing, pulling me apart, pushing me together, rebuilding me in steady rhythm.

cerulean plains away from everything, turning eternal atop that lonely board

I want motion.

‘til the waves swallow him up.

Not to drown, but to feel like I’m drowning, to breathe in

I want a riptide.

buckets of evening blue and

I want to go somewhere I’m

let it carry me down and down.

not supposed to be, somewhere

To be that ocean, to twist blindly forward

I can’t come back from even when I know how, to push against a current that will never let me go back to where sunshine wasn’t the

without the choice to stop, rest, to pull you with me into this earth’s darkest night.

Painters swipe their brushes at the sea, day by day, into identical infinities,

kiss of death, where the sound of voices

into an unchanging stretch of

eclipsed the sound of rolling waves.

turquoise on a million of the same canvas,

I want to watch a human silhouette fade like dust in the distance, until I forget that shape completely.

I want depth.

I want that churning forever, blue to black to invisible, holding me tight in heavy liquid arms, pressing me into aquatic dust and dropping me off in thin lines over the deepest rocks

but the ocean is never the same; I want to never be the same.

Water moves, and so must I, so must we all in time.

The human body, when tired, aches to remain stone still, but I want to move.

I want to move you.

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She Always Comes Back Relief print Tatiana Tikhonova

17

chapman hwy- south knoxville, at 1 a.m.

Sarah Ali

you, you hold my heart

south knoxville public library

nobody on the streets

where i received my first piece of plastic

just you and me, baby

pinpoint location where i became addicted

and the glitchy lights on the left side of henley street bridge

(to books and libraries, like a drug)

go down the hill

basement records

that arby’s and that shoney’s have been there forever

sorry, but you’ll never be disc exchange

i miss disc exchange

the stretch of trees afterwards

wince at the “wee-care shoppe” that replaced it

heightens my anxiety

the bend at martin mill pike

quadruple-scoop cone in the sky

i know it like the back of my hand

marks the road my childhood home sits on

the spy shop and the comic book store

the restaurant there is dead now

(i bet you didn’t know sokno had a comic book store)

everything dies in south knoxville

indoor flea market that was once a big lots

one day i will, too

big lots that was once a food city which was once a bi-lo next to the eye surgeon that was once a women’s fitness center 18

Kosovo 1997 Rrita Hashani I was born during a war and like she said, nobody told me it ended My mother is Kosovo my sister is Amerika but who do I stay loyal to?

Caught in between the two shqyer at the core 19

suspended

Alicibea Medium Kayla Dean

20

Neruda’s Apple Amber Albritton

I want to write an apple

Curved stems,legs

Better and truer

Of plump dessert, thighs

Than any apple

Green symmetry

Ever written.

Heart halves

I want to take Neruda to bed

Hold ecru satin flesh

And Discuss his Full Women

Silk wax [shoulders]curve

His Hot Moon

She drops herself

So I can write, he’ll describe

Onto soft grass

ThoseFleshly Apples:

Bitten Heavypalm’djuices to chin

Soil so black the night can’t see

Flesh chewed to liquid

Crooked branches, arms Blossom to bloom, kisses

A body defeated

Pointillism birth

Swallowed wholly

Star sex cyanide

By a single drop of honey

Middle-life fruits

Karaoke Night Andrew Kochamba

21

The fog machine spits haze over the ales

“I just got back from my mom’s funeral.”

and ciders in the corner of the room.

I rise, and drift across uneven floors

Feet shuffle on uneven wooden floors

and grip the mic with all the life I have

As muffled speakers boom above the bench.

and sing The Black Eyed Peas with Elliot,

Ties are loosened, collars opened wide

who asks me why I ever would come here

Knuckles knock a rhythm on the bar.

and dreams of California’s sunlit coast

“Get up you lot,” he said, and gestured down

and hours before, lowered his mom to earth.

to where I idly sat and sipped a pint.

Hands Digital scans Sarah Goldstein

22

Mama Does This Mean I’ve Made It? college. And then I was like, okay, well, I need to do something with my life. So … I came here.

Is it that you didn’t want to go college, or you just knew that you wouldn’t be able to afford it?

Cont ’d

Back home, you know like in any other country besides the United States, especially in a third world country, there is not a such thing as scholarships. So you have to pay for school yourself.

And, most of the time, how a lot of my friends goes, is they have to get themselves into debt and they have to get loans, but there is not a lot of loans that you can apply for. And 90 percent of the time, they’re gonna deny you anyway. So a lot of the times, your parents have to help you. I’m the oldest of four. And at that time, I did not wanna be any extra burden on my parents. So I was like, I’m not going to go to college because it’s gonna be a burden on them.

Did you have an idea of what you wanted to do when you got here?

Well, my parents were against for me to come because my mom and my dad were like, “Well, you know, if you go there, you are going to end up, cleaning somebody’s,” …basically cleaning somebody’s ass. “And we don’t want you to do that because you have so much potential.” try it.

So I told them I was just going to

When I got here it was kind of hard because I didn’t know the language or the culture. I didn’t know nobody; the only person that I knew was my mom’s sister. Which, I only see her maybe every five years, four years, or every—you know because she would come to Guatemala.

But I didn’t know anybody else. And when I got here, it wasn’t pretty with her.

Where did she live?

California.

Family Portrait 11 layer screenprint Tori Barrett

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Where specifically?

Los Angeles. Yeah, in L.A.

How long did you stay with her?

I stayed with her about, maybe two or three months, and then one of my cousins had twins.

And she said, “Well, why don’t you come live with me and I will help you. I’m gonna give you at least a hundred dollars a week,” and I was like, I need feminine stuff at least. So, I went with her, and she lived in a studio apartment. It was probably as big as

Beverly Hills as a live-in nanny. But I didn’t know much English. I was starting to get used to it a little bit, but you know, almost, 90 or 80 percent of the population in L.A. is Latino, so in a lot of places, you don’t need the language.

I start working for these people. And it was a lot better because I had my own room, I had my own bathroom, my own TV, and a little privacy, and

this living room.

To this I reply, “Wow.” The house we’re in is large, open, and two stories with a catwalk that overlooks downstairs.

But when she motions to section off the living room and demonstrate, the closeness of the space struck me, especially when she continues.

It was her, her boyfriend—which was the kids’ dad—and then a 3-yearold little girl, her twins, and me. It was too many of us in one little bitty space.

And then my other cousin, she was a single mom. It’s my cousin’s sister. She said, “Why don’t you come and live with me and the boys?” And she lived in the projects in California. And I was so devastated, Jada, because when you opened the cabinet doors, the cockroaches would crawl out. And her refrigerator was in such bad shape, when you opened it the roaches would be in there, too. It was really disgusting. And so I started cleaning her apartment, and then one of my aunt’s friends, she found me a job for this lady.

I was cleaning this lady’s house in Santa Monica. In the part where, you know, rich people and big houses and all that. And you know, she only paid me about $125, and it was like, every two weeks. She never had any food. She expected me to work from 8 to 5:00. And then she would turn on the alarm before she left, so I felt like a prisoner in there.

Finally, about seven months later, I found a job working for these people in

This is Mary Acrylic, ink, wood on metal door Kelly Moore

24

she always made sure that she had enough food in the house; it was a little bit better. But her husband, he was the type of person that was … verbally abusive to everyone he would encounter.

So I remember one day, he was saying something that sounded like “American Airlines,” but it was not that; it was that the air conditioning in the second and third floor of the big mansion was not working. So because it was a mansion, your name or your company’s name had to be in a logbook. And if it was not there, you could not get in. So I remember that somebody ring the bell and he said something about air conditioning, and I said, “Sorry, I cannot let you in because your name is not in the logbook.” And the guy said, “Well, I was supposed to come and fix the AC.” I said, “I’m sorry, but I cannot let you in.” And, you know, I was there by myself.

So he left, and at the end of the day, they charged him [the owner] about $200 for a call-in fee. The man actually turned red when he walked in the house. His whole face, his neck everything. He went off on me. And I remember, the way that his body language and facial expression was, I promised myself that he would never yell at me without me knowing what he was saying.

She looks off to the side for a moment as if the memory she’s uncovered from her subconscious is unfurling more deeply than she’d like. She turns back to me with a remnant of her determination from the time evident in her expression.

So. I start translating with the local newspapers. I started translating by myself. And because I was the live-in nanny, sometimes the lady would be like, “Raiza, we’re going to the store.” So I had to go with her. I remember we went to a place called Price Club, I think. I found a big bilingual dictionary, and I bought it. And then I bought some pencils, and I bought some notepads, and that’s how I learned to speak English. Sometimes, I would know what a word means but I wouldn’t know how to pronounce, and I would ask her.

How long did it take you to become fluent?

Well, I was able to have almost a full conversation in almost two years, but that’s because I wanted it. And I liked it. I was like, nobody is ever gonna talk down on me because I don’t know the language.

Rerequited Mixed media on drywall Jodi Canfield

25

Then I moved to Nashville in 1995, and when I moved here, there weren’t many Latinos. I was forced to make my vocabulary whiter. But then I felt better because I started working at the Sheraton Music City Hotel near the airport as a housekeeper. There were a few other ladies working there that were Latina, but they didn’t know how to speak English at all. It made me feel good that I was able to communicate some and able to translate for them. Then I got another job, so I had two jobs back then. I got a job as a dishwasher at the Marriott, also by the airport. And the apartments where I used to live, I could actually walk to work. It was about a mile and a half, but there were no sidewalks so it was dangerous. We had to be there at 4 or 5pm, and we wouldn’t get out ‘til 1 or 2 in the morning. And working as a dishwasher, that’s how I met Maya’s dad.

I give her a smile at the mention of her exhusband, Lawrence Jackson, with whom she shared a last name until October of this year when she married her new husband, Phillip. I’ve interacted with Lawrence plenty of times. He’s a character, and responsible for exactly half of everything Maya is.

Both adoration and resentment are ever-present whenever she speaks of him.

How long did you know him before you got married?

About six months. Then we got married, and that’s how I became a citizen. I remember that I had enough money to put down on a Toyota Corolla. You know, it was a 1980-something, but it was a good car. That was our only car because he didn’t have one. We got married December of ’95, and then I had Maya in August of ’97. But we started having problems because we couldn’t ever agree financially.

I always tell people, financial is a big deal.

She pauses to prop her head on her hand and rolls her eyes. She’s relaxed into her story now.

Up until this point, she’s been talking easily, but her body language has been guarded.

But we moved to a different apartment, and then he started making excuses that he had to work late.

She pauses again and looks at me pointedly.

At first I thought, Okay, great. We’ll have extra money this week. But his checks were always short. When I’d ask him about it he’d blame it on HR, and it was always something. It was always something…

She closes her eyes and sighs.

So then his mom called one night, and she said, “Where is Lawrence?”

I said, “I don’t know, Ma. He said he’s working late but he hasn’t returned my calls.”

And she says, “No. This son of a bitch is cheating on you.”

And when she told me that, I was surprised.

I didn’t know what to do or say, nothing. And now I can remember there were nights when he’d come home and I would smell the cigarettes.

[Pause.]

He’s never smoked. He actually cheated on me with this woman, and she’s the one that died a couple years ago.

Judy?

I’m incredulous. I’ve only ever heard Maya talk about Judy as being her stepmother and having passed away. That time was so hard for her, and she even got a tattoo in her honor—her very first tattoo, at that. She’s always expressing adoration, so these details were astonishing.

Yep. At the beginning, she was mean to the girls. She used to be mean to the girls, and she was always putting stuff in his head like, “You’re not supposed to be helping her this much and give her all this money,” but I was always working very hard.

And his mom, when the girls were younger, helped me out so much. I would call and ask her to watch the girls, and she would never say no. So when she passed away it was hard for me. We were close, and she always claimed Mariela to be her granddaughter too.

Mariela is Maya’s seventeen-year-old sister quite literally from another mister. She’s a senior in high school and the exact same as her mother, so they’re always butting heads. I listen to them yell at each other on the regular, but the tender moments outweigh the tensione.

When Lawrence and I separated, he didn’t want to get a divorce because he didn’t want to pay for half of the lawyer fee. So we were married until 2003. When Mariela was born, I was still legally married to him. In a way it’s good because she gets to have the Jackson last name. I knew her father was not gonna be a good person. Everywhere I would go with them, people would question whether they were my kids or not. And it really hurts my feelings.

[Pause] kids?”

Even now, people are like, “Are those your [Scoff]

One time I was in a parent-teacher conference with Maya, and the dumbass teacher asked if she was adopted. I actually tried to act

26

like I didn’t hear it.

But, you know. We live and learn. I’ve always been working a lot of jobs. I’ve never had just one job. Always multiple jobs. I tell Maya, I get frustrated when she’s not able to get something. I have to be the one [to get it]. Because her dad always complains too much before he gives her anything. I always have to be the one to make things happen for the three of us.

[Pause.]

When I bought the house, I bought the house by myself. But too many times, I had to debate on either paying for gas or putting food on the table. But they never knew that I was struggling.

And I don’t care if I have to work … I don’t have a retirement account, which is why I keep holding on to my [old] house because that will have to be my retirement probably. I don’t know. Or if things don’t work out here, with Phillip, you know, I can always go back to my house. I tell the girls you always have to have a plan. You need a plan B and a plan C in case A doesn’t work out. You always have to. You always have to do that. But… [Pause.]

It is hard. It was very hard to be a single mom. And I was trying to give the girls a decent life.

A lot of the times, when they were younger and the girls would bring friends over, the friends would say, “Well… you are not poor.” But the thing is, I always like to keep my house clean and organized. When it’s clean, it makes it look better. So I never had a lot of money, but my fault is that I think too much of other people instead of thinking about myself first. Yeah.

I chuckle when she finishes her thought.

“Well, you definitely passed that down to Maya. I always tell her, sometimes you have to worry about you. Take care of you first.”

You have to be selfish. But my motto is, be kind to everyone you meet. Because everyone is fighting a battle. And you know, uh…

She trails off and is quickly choked-up. I tilt my head to the side and feel a rush of tenderness for this woman whom I have never seen be vulnerable.

In three years. She angles her head away as she 27

wipes at the corner of her eye with one perfectly manicured pink fingernail. Her engagement ring and band sparkle brilliantly as she does so. Her voice is laden with emotion when she continues.

When it was time for Maya to go to college, I was so worried all the time. Because she’s so smart, and I don’t want her to waste it. She’s so smart, she’s so intelligent. When we got the letter form UT, God, I cried. I cried and I cried, and I read it about ten times. It was relieving to me.

Tears flow freely down her face.

That’s why I don’t want her to leave UT. I don’t want her to come to MTSU and waste all the work she’s done. If she comes back, she’ll have to get a loan. All the sacrifices, I feel like it’s been thrown away. I didn’t like MTSU. I feel like the environment was safer at UT, and I felt like it was healthier.

She told me that she wanted to be like me when I moved to the United States, like independent.

And I told her, I said, “Maya, independency is going to take a lot of sacrifices. A lot of tears. It’s not gonna be easy but I will support you.” But now she’s telling me she wants to change her major and it’s like, how many people are out there—and I know that not everyone has the same story. She’s a very successful person. However, like I said, we need to have a plan B in case this doesn’t work out. And then we need a plan C because…

She pauses to sniffle and stifle a sob. She looks at me almost desperately. At some point along the way, I’ve gone from interviewer to confidant.

What if music doesn’t work out for her as well as she thinks it will? I cannot continue supporting her, because even though twenty, thirty, fifty dollars doesn’t seem like a lot, it is when your budget is already tight. I hate that she’s working at O’Charley’s because eight dollars an hour is nothing, and she has to pay her car note. A lot of the time I end up having to add some to make the payment.

I tell her and Mariela, you know, I’m busting my ass and sacrificing so much so they can actually do something. Be somebody. Have a degree so that way they don’t need to work two or three jobs like I’m doing to live a decent life. And then if you have kids and are a single mom, at least if you have a degree,

it won’t be as hard because you’ll be able to support your family and not work so many jobs. You know, it’s not easy to work four or three jobs and have kids on your own. When they were little, there were too many nights…

When Maya turned ten, I kept calling her and asking if they were already in the house and if they had already locked the doors. I ended up giving them cell phones because I needed to know they were safe, or if something happened in the school, they could keep in touch with me. I would tell them, you know, “I left this this and that in the fridge.”

You know, Mariela burned popcorn— She’s calmed down and amusement has returned to her voice, but we’re interrupted by wild laughter from upstairs at the mention of Mariela and the microwave, a story I have heard many times.

I join in with them as Raiza rolls her eyes.

She even burned a cookie in there. I mean, the house stunk every time that I had to use the microwave. No matter how much I cleaned it, it

Nomad Oil on canvas Jodi Canfield

was a stink. You saw that house; it’s so little. So the smell, oh, God, the smell. I just had to throw it away.

And I was like, man, if I don’t be careful this child is gonna burn the whole house down. But the older they got, it got easier because I was able to spend 28

more time at work. But it was hard because I didn’t get to spend time with them. So, Sundays were the days where I would not work. I will not do anything so I can spend time with them. But it was also the day that we cleaned and did laundry and went to church. My friend Sonya is a single mom, so we would help each other out here and there. But the girls, when we talk now, they have good memories.

They also have painful memories. At the same time, I think that’s why we were so close.

Sometimes I ask myself if it’s really worth it. I just don’t want them to struggle. When I had Mariela, with my stomach open in the operating room and a baby in my face, the first thing I did was I told the doctor to tie my tubes. I said, “cut them, sew them, burn them, I don’t care.” I will not bring another child up in struggle. And a lot of times, I feel like they take all that for granted in a way. I don’t know. I don’t know … But. They are my babies.

Always my babies.

Raiza pauses briefly then abruptly calls Mariela down to do the laundry and reminds Maya that it’s past 2pm and time for us to get back to Knoxville in her solid mother voice—she doesn’t want us driving in the dark. I give her a huge hug and tell her that I love her as she thanks me over and over again. She kisses me on the cheek, and ten minutes later, Maya and I are on our way. ●○● After we’re out of the neighborhood, as if her mother could hear, Maya asks, “So what’d you and my mom talk about?”

I blow a raspberry. “Everything. Almost.”

“Hmm.” She turns to look out the window as we merge onto the interstate. We’re silent for a bit and ease into the flow of traffic.

I think about Raiza and how she is The American Dream, complete with the good, the bad, and the ugly. I think about how, even though she can’t yet see it, she’s single-handedly provided a life for her children she could only dream of at their age.

I think about the amazing girls she’s raised and how close to my heart they’ve become. I think about how 29

because of Maya and her family, I’ve been gratefully forced into tackling cultural barriers through dialogue and customs, more so than the majority of people in the United States ever will. I think about how lucky that makes me. I think about how lucky Maya is to have a mom who wasn’t lucky at all, but who took her life into her own hands because she knew there was better out there for her and for generations to come.

“She just really loves y’all,” I said.

Letter from the Editor

Phoenix is a magazine, but it provides so much more to our students and faculty. It is an outlet for expression, for growth, for reflection. A place to find escape but also to find common ground.

When I picked up my first Phoenix magazine four years ago, I was instantly struck by the beauty of its form but more importantly of its content. To those who submit to the Phoenix: you are what drives this magazine and our staff. To be entrusted with your work is an honor and I thank you endlessly.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my beautiful and talented staff. I have nothing but the deepest gratitude for you all. Each and every one of you are brilliant creatives who continue to inspire me every day and I look forward to seeing the strides you will make both on the Phoenix staff and beyond.

Finally, there are a few people I would like to thank personally. I would like to thank my parents for supporting me through all these years—not just through University but throughout my entire life, allowing me to reach this point. Alex, thank you for being my rock, listening to me and offering your help whenever I needed it. And thank you, our readers. Your support is invaluable to the success of the Phoenix. This magazine has been more than a magazine to me and I hope you can find a similar feeling within these pages.

Best wishes, Peyton Whorley Editor-in-Chief

Colophon

Phoenix Editorial Staff is made of Editor-in-Chief, Peyton Whorley; Prose Editor, Collin Green; Poetry Editor, Monica Brashears; Art Editor, Zoe Evans; Copy Editor Jenna Dirksen; and Lead Designer, Lukas McCrary.

They are supported by staff members Alyson Sliger, Bailey Fritz, Peyton Vance, Eric Rouse, and Emma Vieser.

Phoenix is advised by the Interim Director of Student Media, Jerry Bush.

Find our full archive, exclusive features and more at www.phoenixmagazine.net.

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