Pwatem: An anthology of literature and Art, 2024

[PWA-TEM]

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A fictitious French province created by James Branch Cabell that serves as the setting of several of his fantasy novels.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s anthology of literature and art.

Editor-In-Chief

Reese Cilley

Assistant Editor

Miska Khan

Art Director

Kirsten Sturgill

Designer

Reese Cilley

Secretary

Mack Blair

Editors

Paige Dudley

Jordan Kalafut

Avery Eckert

Fatima Arevalo Zambrano

Sean Kalchbrenner

Emma Pizzillo

Esther Schneider

Mollie Donovan

Masthead

Illustrators

Melody Vang

Avery Eckert

Tessa Coleman

Imani Tigney

Fatima Arevalo Zambrano

Kirsten Sturgill

Mack Blair

Reese Cilley

Director of Student Media

Jessica Clary

Creative Media Manager

Mark Jeffries

Officer Manager

Owen Martin

Cover Artist

Reese Cilley

Editor’s Note

This year began my first year as Editor-In-Chief of Pwatem. Through this year, I have grown so much, and that is due to the Student Media Center. Student Media is an essential part of my education that I would be lost without, so I first want to thank Jessica Clary, Mark Jefferies, and Owen Martin for their continuous support throughout my journey as Editor-In-Chief of Pwatem. I have truly enjoyed this year and can not wait for the next.

This year was remarkable for us and could not have been without my excellent staff. Each and every one of the Pwatem staff has dedicated hour after hour of their time to making this publication the best it can be, and I am truly grateful. Because of that, we have increased our submission count and engagement throughout this year.

For this publication of our spring anthology, I wanted to continue to push what a literary art publication is; because of this, we continued with our themes for each publication with the design. This year is around the theme of sketchbooks and us trying a new way of illustrating pieces. This year, I wanted to have the writing work seamlessly combine with the staff illustration, which set my staff with a great challenge that they all took in stride. In turn, they created beautiful pieces that make me smile every time I see them.

This book is for VCU students, and we are proud to continue to provide the opportunity to get undergraduate work published while they are still in university. We provide VCU students with the ability to have their work reviewed and published each year. My staff and I are excited to continue making more books next year. We hope you will continue supporting us by reading our publications and spreading the word about how amazing student media is.

- Reese Cilley (Editor-In-Chief)

Lillian Prichard

Swaths

Derek Chiou

old and wise, alone in the wilderness sit in the dirt drink in the rain feast on the air throw out some seeds and pray

born to this world of the richest of soils with water all over whenever you want it, your seeds will go on for a gross generations and they will subsist on your sweetest of bounties pray that they will pray that they don’t leave you rotting in the box

Hands

Isabella Hazel

Illustrated by Tessa Coleman

We usually hold hands for a long while

And before she has to let go

She squeezes my hand harder for a moment

To let me know

That she doesn’t mean it

That she doesn’t want to

So even though I love her

Each time she cradles my hand

I dread the moment

That she will hold me tighter

Praying

By Lily Belleville

BABY’S BREATH

Jessica Jirapinya

Illustrated by Kirsten Sturgill

We wrote poetry with our bodies close in the impending summer swelter that leaves limbs shaking from good sex and syntax. I laughed with my head thrown back because you won’t let me live down the fact I fell so fast. Oh, what was I to do? Everything is good and safe and comfortable with you. So there we were circumnavigating the city ‘til the sunrise drenched us drunk on the ache of wanting endless hours. I’ll stick around with fists full of baby’s breath—our favorite—stolen from corner store roses so innocently earnest, like how we kiss gently and then all at once.

Love’s Spite

Madeline Trice

Crisp autumn breezes sift through the canopy of burnt umbers and bright ambers. The leaves rustle softly on their branches and crunch gently into the packed earth under the wooden heels of the white-haired woman’s boots. She stops for a moment and takes a long wheezing breath, letting her lungs billow with the cool air spiced with embers of a changing season. Savoring every second, the white-haired woman drifts down the path with eyes closed, tasting memories of apples and allspice on the dying breaths of fallen leaves.

The white-haired woman’s feet follow her nose while her mouth gulps down the windblown aromas until her socks are soaked to the ankle. The lake. Waves no taller than the woman’s boots crash on the shore, splashing her with balmy water, still summer-warm. She opens her gaze, greeting the sun that rises in the east just as it breaks the day, and catches in her tired rheumy eyes a glint of red morning rays rebounding off the water’s edge. She holds the sunbeam’s stare, letting it burn stars into her sight and warm her old bones before she turns away.

Soothing tones of water lapping at the land follow the white-haired woman’s footsteps. Swaying branches whisper a gentle woosh and the chitterings of all the unknowable little lives teeming within the forest join in the harmony, beckoning the woman toward sleep and surrender. She pauses for a moment. Considers the book and the rolled-up blanket in her basket, and the creaking in her knees. A quiet morning. But her contemplation meets its end when nature’s song is joined by a raven’s discordant caw. Its echoes rend through the forest’s tranquil timbre and ring inside the white-haired woman’s ears. Again, she turns away from the wave-swept shore and faces toward the trees. Circling in the sky above the foliage that blocks her view, the ravens show the woman her final destination.

She returns at last to that fated place. With hands waving so fiercely that the air flitting between her knobby fingers feels almost a physical thing, the woman shoos away the treacherous birds that led her there. The tall grass snags and pulls on her skirts and the rising sun beats down against her sweating skin as she makes her way toward the clearing’s center. Her heart pounding achingly slow, she kneels carefully under the shade of a solitary willow and grimaces at the pain in her joints. She rocks back on her heels so that her boots sink into the soft damp soil and places her basket down, retrieves her blanket, smooths the coarse woven fabric down over the mossy earth, and begins to unpack. The first thing she draws from her

basket is a single rose. Without looking at the unburied body still leaning against one of the tree’s exposed roots, she places the rose at the dead woman’s feet. As the flower’s delicate stalk slides from between her fingertips a thorn bites into her flesh, tearing a shallow line across her palm. The white-haired woman hisses as if vocalizing the sting and clutches her bloodied hand into a tight fist.

Cradling her bleeding palm to her chest, the woman awkwardly finishes unpacking with only her other hand. Candles, bones, and book, a leather-bound tome. She arranges them in a circle, candles pointing toward the seven winds, bones facing the eight points, open book at the center. She rises weakly, and, for the first time, beholds the dead woman’s form. She tenderly takes her by the hand, not worrying about the blood. The white-haired woman pushes back cold fingers locked in a rigid grasp and plucks free the tuft of hair and flesh still gripped there. The dead woman’s last revenge. Her killer’s final regret.

The white-haired woman gingerly sits down on her blanket, taking great care not to disturb the circle, and begins to speak quietly but with grave intent.

“Curse the head from whence this hair was taken.”

She places the tuft of hair on the open pages of the book and continues to recite the incantation, her voice catching and cracking with the agony of tears not shed.

“With scent of Autumn’s wind,”

She bends over the book, holding her head just above the pages, and wheezes a hushed breath from deep within her belly, causing the candles to flicker and the hair to flutter.

“And glint of morning’s light,”

Sitting up, the white-haired woman tosses her head back and carefully draws something needle-like and invisible from her eye. She sets it down to rest next to the hair and carries on.

“A ring of raven’s cries,”

Tilting her head now to the side, she reaches into her ear and draws forth something trembling and unseen, then drops it down onto the book.

“And sting of rose’s blight.”

The woman squeezes her bleeding palm in both hands with a faint wince, letting the crimson droplets stain the page, and continues maybe a little sharper than before.

“Take their lover too.”

As she rasps out the incantation’s end with her final dying breaths, the white-haired woman closes her eyes and lays her body down to rest next to her lover one last time.

“Make them feel my spite.”

The Beast

Gordon

The pain of buying bicycles

Naomy Cardoso Perez

My friends have bicycles

I am scarred by poverty, from poverty, in reference to poverty

But I suffer very little from purchasing bicycles

I know someone whose dream was a bicycle. In a 2010 Nissan, she confided in me of all the hunger that comes with dreaming of a bicycle.

In America, there are people who journey across the world to experience what it feels like to dream of small things; Understand the bigger picture in worlds that are unable to see anything bigger than a bicycle.

“This Is Enlightenment”

Enlightenment is being shoved down my throat by an American who was trained to see in Larger Formats. I am being taken farther and farther away from this world where all I could dream of was bicycles with my mother.

The details of splitting meals meant for one into three, peeking through the windows of other people’s homes to experience the four same Russian cartoons. Surrounded by starving children who want to know what it’s like to dream in another language.

Bring your children home.

So they see how far from bicycles you’ve taken them. I am being chased by hunger I don’t personally feel.

I have so many bicycles, but I haven’t dreamt of any of them.

The pain of buying bicycles

american frills

Kyle Hull

Illustrated by Fatima Arevalo Zambrano

tire marks of ruin hit so fast, all that’s left is the sanguine, shapeless eruption from the once-breathing soul of a deer hit by a Ram

the American dream, they say is the weight of the wheels, and behind the wheel we hide freedom, independence excess, indulgence

uniquely American, this certainly is: the opulence of the six-foot tires and its bloody grille

from the console, we see its stem, P, R, N, D, S and from below, we see its flowers left or right or straight ahead we could go anywhere but all I see is dazzling monotony our so very American chimera

where shall the death sun shine? who will be hit today? it will light someone, more often many, and flowers will always face the sun while stems will grow towards it

is this what we call choice? is this what we call the liberty in “give me liberty or give me death?”

it seems we’ve chosen death

I feel them in my stomach When the nerves kick in.

Butterflies Don’t Do Justice Paige Dudley

They should be called crows. The pain is piercing, pecking, Prodding me to claw it from my gut. This moment is too much.

Let their talons grab my arms and Let their wings hoist me away To a moment more calm than this one Where my stomach could finally settle. It shouldn’t be too hard to find.

Vascular Machine

Deepa Rao

Illustrated by Avery Ekhert

[Best Writing]

This part of the earth is long and black and barren. There is no one here. Wires stretch in sagging heaps. They bow over the long and black and barren strip of road dividing the earth. They connect to tall pieces of metal. The tall pieces of metal are spaced at precisely the width of Its footsteps. This is a kind consideration. This means It can walk side-by-side with the humming of the wires in the sinusoidal way most pleasing to Its kind. It stops in the middle of the long and black and barren earth. There will be a man driving on the strip of road soon. It will need to look at the miniature intricacy governing the man’s machine. It will need to pull the beating heart out of the engine. The man will stop. The man will be illuminated by the light from On High. The man will receive a gift from It. The man will go on his way.

It takes the time to blink. Slowly. Leisurely. It opens Its eyes— too many to count— and that is when the rumblings of the desert start to be replaced by the singing of a mechanical body.

If the Creator created man in the Creator’s image, then the machine is the shadow of It and Its brethren. There is great sadness in killing something in your own shape, and even though It does not know what sadness is, It still feels a burst of electricity somewhere behind Its fifth sternum at the moment of Its crime.

(Down on the ground, Father Javier Machado’s car sputters and dies a silent, painless death. The Father swears— not with the Lord’s name, no, because he is a priest— but he wrenches the wheel to the right and stops under a streetlamp on the side of the road, muttering about his shitty Prius and his shitty luck. He’s got a sermon to get to, clear on the other end of New Mexico, and he’d think that the Lord would want him to be there in time. He invokes Saint Joseph, asks him to keep watch over his travels, and Alberto Marvelli, to make sure no semi drivers fall asleep and plow into his stranded vehicle, and Abhai, too, just in case the Southwest’s venomous reptiles want to make his night any worse. Then he sighs, nice and long and loud like his grandmother used to, and he gets out of the car to take a look under the hood.)

The man appears. There is no need for light from On High. There is a beam of light already cast down on him. NO LIGHT, It thinks to Its siblings. THERE IS ENOUGH ALREADY. The Host hums Its assent. No more light.

It has already selected Its vessel. It will be a human with three deer heads. Father Javier Machado likes deer. It solidifies into Its earthly plane and walks into the glow from the streetlamp. (Father Javier Machado hears rustling sand from behind where he’s bent over the hood— which seems to be missing the entire engine, but maybe the light is playing tricks on him— and he turns around hoping that it’s nothing more than a friendly animal.)

(Instead, he’s met with the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen.)

(It’s— something, it’s something that has the body of a Ken doll and three terrifyingly realistic deer heads plopped on top, and he thinks he might scream. He’s pretty sure he starts praying. Holy Mary Mother of God, et cetera. The thing is walking towards him, now, and in three seconds he’s gonna piss his pants. Is he hallucinating? Is he going crazy? Did he actually crash into the streetlamp and damage his brain so badly that it can’t do anything other than come up with insane interpretations of his last few neural impulses?)

(And then the thing screams, and he loses all hope of sanity.)

It tries to talk. It does not modulate very well. Its voice is stuck between the triplicate deer vocal cords and Its higher-wavelength communication with the Host. This produces a very dissonant noise that makes the man’s eyes roll back in his head. It reaches out and stimulates a few of the man’s neurons. He does not lose consciousness. He wants to— but he does not.

It tries again. HELLOJAVIERMACHADO, it says.

“How do you know my name,” the man says. His eyes are very round. His respirations have increased. He is sweating. It touches a few more neurons in his brain. He returns to his baseline physiological state.

IAMNAKHIELOFTHEHIGHERHOST, it says.

“What?”

IAMNAKHIELOFTHEHIGHERHOST.

“Could you— could you go slower, please?”

I AM NAKHIEL OF THE HIGHER HOST.

“Uh. Nice— nice to meet you, Nakhiel.”

THANK YOU.

“What— what can I do for you?”

This is Its time. This is the moment when humanity is forever changed. This is when It carries out the duty of the Host to propel Life and all of Creation into the next phase.

It pulls a beating heart from the Host’s plane into the earthly one. HERE. THIS IS FOR YOU.

The man is very sweaty once more. “That’s a heart,” he whispers. “That’s a— that’s a real, live, beating human heart.”

YES. IT IS FOR YOU.

“For— uh, I’m flattered, but—” IT WILL GO IN YOUR MACHINE.

“What?”

YOUR MACHINE.

“Wh— my car?”

YES.

The man’s facial muscles pinch up as if he has tasted something unpleasant. “Why?” BECAUSE IT WILL WORK.

The man’s facial muscles now loosen and go slack. “What?”

And as It was instructed to do: It takes the heart and closes Its fingers around it. It reaches towards the naked machinery. It places the heart squarely in the center— where the metal heart used to go. The heart and the surrounding steel bleed outward into each other until they become one.

The heart beats. The engine lives.

“Holyshitholyshitholyshit,” the man says in one sobbing breath. “Am I going insane?”

It was told that this would happen. Even still— It tires of being second-guessed. It turns all three heads to look directly into the man’s eyes. YOU ARE SANE AND RATIONAL AND CHOSEN TO UNDERSTAND THIS, It says. BELIEVE ME NOW.

The man becomes calm once more. He is only mildly impressed. “Wow. Why me?”

BECAUSE YOU ARE A GOOD MAN. YOU ARE CURIOUS. YOU MASTERED ENGINEERING AND LITERATURE BEFORE TURNING TO THE CREATOR. YOU WILL BRING THIS EVOLUTION TO THE MASSES. YOU WILL BE HERALDED AS A SAVIOR.

The man’s forehead crimps inward. “Why should I?”

It is suddenly very confused. This is not how the Host told It this would go. DO YOU NOT WANT TO MARRY TOGETHER THE FLESH OF HUMANITY AND THE FLESH OF THE HOST? DO YOU NOT WANT TO BE THE MASTER OF MAN AND MACHINE?

“I don’t think anyone should be master,” the man confesses. AND YET YOU WORSHIP THE CREATOR.

“The creator isn’t here. The creator sent you.”

It blinks all six eyes. Slowly. No longer leisurely. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

“Why not?”

DO YOU NOT WANT TO KNOW THIS SECRET? It asks.

“Of course I want to know,” he says. “But why should I do this?” WHY SHOULD YOU NOT?

“Because that’s what you people said to Eve.”

There is a term for an electric current that travels along a path with no resistance. This is short circuit, and this current will deliver an overabundance of energy in an undermatched amount of time. This may cause an electric arc, which is a channel of hot ionized plasma. This is what happens to Nakhiel of the Higher Host, and the hot ionized plasma whips so quickly through the seven planes of existence that it severs the connection between Nakhiel of the Higher Host and the Rest of the Higher Host. Now It’s just Nakhiel.

“Thank you for fixing my car,” says Father Javier Machado. He says it very sincerely, because he is a man of the cloth and a man of science and a man of the arts and a man who has done it all for knowledge, and he reaches out and clasps Nakhiel’s bloodied hand as if he knows what just happened. “Do you need anything—”

NO, says Nakhiel dumbly. I AM OF THE HIGHER HOST. I DO NOT NEED.

“Well, if you want anything,” the man says, “I’m sure you can find me.”

I CAN, says Nakhiel.

“Okay,” the man says. “I have to get to my sermon, but you take care now. Thank you, again.” He shakes Nakhiel’s red hand between his two brown ones, and then he gets back in the vehicle and grips the steering wheel with his bloodstained fingers. Nakhiel steps back so he can maneuver onto the long black barren road. The vehicle moves farther into the desert, and the specks of red light glowing from its back bumper get smaller and smaller until the only color left is on Nakhiel’s fingertips.

Nakhielnolongerofthehigherhost is alone in the long black barren desert, and for the first time since Its creation, It only has the streetlamps for company.

Etymology

Victor Kuye

Metal Dog Anthology

Marcel Vansickle

A diary entry from Lucy to Pearl

It’s a summer Wednesday night in suburban Virginia, humid and unbearably quiet. Your phone’s clock will reveal that you’ve just passed the witching hour. Despite this fact, you’ll still stay awake and wait. Wait for something, anything, from them. From Pearl. If you fall asleep now, you might just miss it.

You’ve already swallowed the tab of acid and feel it disintegrating in your belly. You’re so tired, your body begs for sleep, but you can’t just turn in now. You think back to times that you didn’t have to spend the night alone. Think of when you and Pearl were together.

You think of how many times you’ve both fallen asleep together after long nights of talking. You think of the way that their arm slung protectively (possessively) over your shoulder in the presence of friends, other people (how sweet).

You think of when they promised they would always be there for you and then they just

“Heya! I should be back in town for a break, when are you free to hang?”

“Hey, are you okay? Text me back when you get this, please.”

“We need to talk, please text me. Hope you’re doing alright.”

Disappeared.

You are just a lone body, stationary on a stiff quilt and staring at the drywall ceiling. The spiders blossom in firework bursts across the walls, the LSD has successfully digested. For the first time in months, you fall asleep in your own bed, with only one real thought lingering in the cloudy drug haze of your mind.

Fuck you, Pearl.

Wandering Eyes

The Wolves will be Gentler Marcel

Vansickle

“Yeah, I kicked that head hitting shit”

No, I didn’t.

It’s just very much under wraps. Paper wraps, paper mache, paper casket

Iron sledgehammer, iron handle, iron wound

There are no more wraps

My mind boils I wake up for my seventh tuesday anniversary

The life in which we live is very much akin to the hard soil ground dirt made of nutrients on which we place our hard flesh feet, I must speak at you about the Godfather and then make you pay for your own uber home.

Speaking at you Shh woman shh woman

“You are a woman, right?”

No, not really. Haven’t been for a while. But, since my head is already simmering and I’d rather not die on a Wednesday night I say “Yah”

Nice shot, nice job

Lest they deadname you and laser your High School senior photos into gross gray granite.

Embracing

Red4Red

Marcel Vansickle

The dog days heat of summer burns into our fall afternoon, sultry breath whispers aimlessly

Smokey leaf smell hangs in the air, a t4t sign that the seasons have started transitioning

Surrounded by a wall of tall prickly grass, I’m only a little worried about ticks

Our knotted blanket of azure and wool protects and guards from woodland vampires

“Wanna check my legs later?”

If you choose to rest your pretty little head in my lap, then I’m more than happy to oblige.

You are a palette of red; hair a curtain of wine, flush of crimson in your cheeks–

–a curved cherry smile curled around a cigarette, carmine kisses staining the paper

My brown gaze meets your hazel stare, surrounded by the bugs and sun we are only inches apart

“Wanna shotgun?”

Too close- not close enough- close enough to feel radiating heat

Friction of tights and sweat specked skin, do I want to exchange smoke?

Soft and sticky air with a wet fuzz like flame, do I want to burn?

Do I want to taste red?

“Yes.”

Perception of a Highway Median

Paige Dudley

Daisies dancing on the hillside–

A chorus of yellow and white

Made colorful by sunshine. You pick one, it’s mine.

Daisies dancing on the hillside–

Singing to the butterflies. They flutter as they pass me by, Made beautiful by my eyes.

Manatee Madness

Jamie Ryan

“It

Does Not Envy”

Paige Dudley

Humans chase the hummingbird highs— Heartbeats, flights, metabolisms— On treadmills, planes, and sidewalks. Humans envy the hummingbird’s size.

Why?

The hummingbird, with his heart so small, is in a race against time. For the hummingbird, It’s fly or die.

Why do we admire this?

Aspire to bleed ourselves dry like this? Our species no longer respects rest. We see the sloth and call him “Sin.” But there’s something to be seen in ease.

My aunt loved the hummingbird. Love— “it does not envy.”

She also loved the sloth.

She also loved me.

My aunt now loves among the angels. Her love lives among her beloved. So, by that rule, I can love these creatures, too.

A Fun Ride

Stafford: White Throated Sparrow

Belle Isle: Red-Winged Blackbird

If the Clock Struck Twelve

Tilden Culver

Josef stood totally still. Not even his lungs moved. If he could pause his heart, he would, but all he could do was hope it did not beat when it mattered.

The moment passed. His muscles unclenched, and took in whatever temporary satisfaction his survival bred. This was, as always, short-lived. He soon returned to vigilance, that state of fretful complacency he knew like a brother. It was the only family he did know, after all—besides the nomads that wandered in and out of his life with the wind. But the wind did not blow now; Josef was alone, with himself, and with his fear.

He mulled these facts over as he walked, an act without any purpose but to fuel two purposeless eyes. A fencepost grazed his arm. It should have, at least; but his arm passed right through. This did not surprise him. Why should it? He was lucky enough for the ground he walked on to be solid, not yet broken by a force he knew he could never comprehend.

Ravaged townhomes painted the backdrop on either side of him, falling apart not from human means, but from the lack of it: from disrepair, the elements. Josef liked to pretend sometimes that he was not of this world, and was only a visitor, given the arduous task of piecing together what had happened. In this state, it would’ve been easy to assume war. It had been, however, one-hundredsome years since humanity’s last war. The rational Josef knew the reason: it was pointless to fight if what you were fighting over wasn’t real. The last war had been the fallout from that very realization. Josef hadn’t been alive to see it, and could only reap the nihilistic peace that gripped the world right after. He should have been grateful for that. But when the thing they had fought over began to fight back, it left destruction in its wake that no war-torn Earth would have ever thought possible. Cities and gratefulness both turned to husks.

The front door to one house had been left open. Its hinges, Josef noted as he approached, were rusted, and the entryway tiles were caked with dirt. This house was not pillaged; it had sat open since the day its owners vanished, whether on their own volition or by digestion. Assimilation? Josef didn’t have the proper word for it; no one did, even when there were still people to share such words with. Wherever and whomever they were, Josef was quite certain that they were no longer what he’d recognize as human. He stepped inside their house.

He was careful to test each tile before lending it his body weight. Whenever his foot would slip through the dirty linoleum he would try the next, and walked forth in patterns with no structure other than the avoidance of what he believed to be death. This was a pattern he followed often. But for what? What was it that he wanted from this house? It wasn’t food; if a man kept in mind that nothing truly did exist, and nothing truly did matter, it was with ease that he could stifle the idea of “hunger.” It hurt at first, the starvation, but Josef had grown accustomed to it, just as all of the few remaining humans had. It was an art form first practiced in the last great war, which was itself a fact that Josef found ironic. Was it not the same concept that allowed them to starve which they fought over? The hypocrisy made Josef more inclined to draw any connection he could to the war, largely to voice his opinion that it was no “war” at all but a large tantrum fueled by bullets and injured egos. Alas, there he went again!

The derelict couch swallowed him—metaphorically, for he did not sink any farther than the broken springs allowed—and spat out a belch of dust. He didn’t need rest, either, much like food, and as such he had not slept in a lost count of nights. Today, however—this night—was presumed different to him; he had no calendar, but kept track of the cooling air year in and out. The stale sky told him one thing: today might as well have been his birthday. The world’s gift to him, he had decided, would be sleep. This was quickly delivered.

When Josef woke up, he did not at first remember where he was; the night had only grown thicker, and it doused the room with an impenetrable dark. He toyed anxiously with a hangnail until his memories came back. With remembrance came realization: something had woken him. The darkness of the house took on a new meaning then, and this meaning made Josef freeze, locked on that dusty couch and trying his hardest not to breathe. He waited for the moment to pass. He waited. He waited more. He waited so long that his lungs began to plead. Air, unlike food or sleep, was something he had not trained himself to avoid. He inhaled. The clarity of breath refreshed him, but filled him equally with dread; breathing had never felt so deadly.

But he was still breathing. Did this mean he had survived? Josef did not know what death felt like, so he could not answer that question. He sat in silence pondering it. In his sitting, an answer came—he did not believe, however, that this answer was his own. A man could usually understand an answer he himself had come up with, whereas this answer may very well have been crafted in a long-forgotten tongue. Josef’s skin burned like ice in that moment, and all the air in his lungs bubbled over. Whether this was shock from the answer, or a symptom, he did not know. And

perhaps this un-knowing was because his brain soon stopped whirring.

I apologize, for I cannot explain to you in any coherent detail the horror Josef had encountered. This is unfortunate for two reasons. The first is in fear of disappointing you. You crave gore and, though what Josef endured then was nothing you’d recognize as “gory,” it is the lack of fulfillment that does not sit quite right in your gut. That is just the human in you.

The second reason is that Josef wished, as he was assimilated, for his agony to be shared. He never did consider himself a socialist—not in any economic sense—but he could not bear that he alone was forced to suffer. That was just the human in him. But this wish did not last, for his humanity did not either, and what became of Josef is equally beyond the scope of words.

I will leave you with this: that day was not his birthday. He was a few hours off. By the time his assimilation was complete—which I cannot say that it was with any certainty, for time is not important to things beyond this plane—the Earth may have indeed completed its rotation. If you would like to consider this a coincidence, a gift, or a cosmic prank, that is your prerogative. Personally, I consider it romantic. And Josef would disagree with both of us, I’m sure. He knows the right answer.

The fact that we don’t? That’s just the human in us.

Kirsten Sturgill

The Snow Globe

Kylie Leahy

Did I tell you about that day?

The day when my life fell to pieces

Shattered on the ground at my feet

I had dropped it

The snow globe I was young

But no so young as to not understand

That I had made a mistake

I was not gentle with something fragile

As fragile as my life was I should have known better

I had learned this years ago

I wept over the fragmented glass shards

My mother told me it was not a big deal

She ushered me out of the room

She cleaned up the glass

And everything was fine

But now my mother isn’t here

To usher me out of the room

And clean up the shards

Sweep them into a dustpan

And put them in the trash

And tell me it’s not a big deal

And everything is alright

I should have known better

Then to handle something so fragile

As fragile as my life was With blatant disregard For its fragility

And now I’m telling you About my snow globe About my life

Happy Kitties

bye-bye

Derek Chiou

check out my garden every day i come back here sunrise by sunrise, slowly but surely blossom awaits isn’t it nice? buds and shrubs saplings and vines this one has two stalks drink up, lovelies one day i forget here they stand wilting and shriveling if only i could bring them back

… transaction complete! enjoy your 25,000 gems

pigeon poem

Miska Khan

Illustrated by Melody Vang

In the old days, they held me close, I was cherished. A messenger, a sacred pet, a holy guide.

Through bustling streets, I began to see their dreams take shape, and those hands did I guide Now roaming in those same designs, they’ve released me,

Years flown by, each cycle I observe humans’ hearts and ideas began to swerve. Though cast aside, they will once again see that their togethers belongs with me.

Once more will they see the truth in me, a creature of pure grace. A loyal friend, a cherished bond, and loved companion

I envy every pet, I envy every loved one, I hope soon their love will find its way back to me

Humanity will change, and once more, we will share a day together Where I am destined to be loved once again.

I Am Not Entirely Sure What I Will Become Jaan Autumn

I sit in different chairs and drink different cups of the same coffee every morning. And in the evening I repeat the cycle, only this time with worn out limbs. Out amidst the brisk chill I find myself to be extremely contemplative and wary of the darkening hours. It is so odd, to find oneself out against the changing air and at once be struck with visions of a childhood, a chore of a life–that do not seem applicable to one’s current personage. And oh… thank Heavens for the cold!–for without it I could not be drawn out of that sudden delirium.

In my periods of lucidity I step calmly down damp cement roads, suffer the attack of troubled clouds, and place in a line all the moments I have found myself most happy and at peace. Yet time is so funny, for I am graced with a task before I have laid the first recollection. So what am I to do? For I cannot be inside of myself, contentedly alone–withdrawn–and so there is no peace. There is only this wretched in between; where, in the light of my room, I have been thinking about stillness, and winter is upon us. As the world tip toes out of the autumn brisk I find myself questioning the certainty, the very phenomena, of my own corporeality. Where have I ended up, and how is it that I have ended up in this particular place? And what is humanity but the ceaseless repetition of this very inquiry? I am still me, and my soul is not a stranger to change–only this turn seems unnatural almost. It is as though I cannot even fathom it, whilst I live within it at this very moment. I did not notice myself becoming habitual. I did not notice what I now consider the beginning of my unraveling. I have been twisted up, confound–searching and meeting the same four walls–since I could perceive self. And now? And now. Now, I am not entirely sure what to make of all this space for thought. Not entirely sure what to make of these consistent blossomings of accord, in which I am blurry eyed and far off at sea.

Jamie Ryan

Jackie and Ruby

Baby blue eyes cherish a youthful smile

The evening infused with dad rock

Flicked flames are walking under the moonlight

Conquered and sailed the midnight pavement

Harvested energy during the early hours

Stayed tall for the waking hour to rise

Their glory days are at ease

The house shows have simmered

But the girl and the gem shine bright

Third with Two

Em and Grace

Fall cares for their birth

A shift in title

A sapphic composition secured

Feathered fawn bangs with blond waves nearby

She years for exploration

She follows for discovery

Movies whirred while their words trick to each other

She dreams for endless nights

She wishes for forever

Isa and Harley

Tied to the truth

Made of glass

Echoing their presence down the line

Permanence in their wisdom

Pulsing to and from A desire awaits attention

Four pupils on a stray Your fortune is told

Let their smiles assure you

Third with Two

Conner and Aaron

Radiant lights soak boyish smiles

Wondrous eyes recall their scars

The cultured media plays on

Laugh coincide

A spark spawned every hour

The night frames their meetings

Metals taking shape

Jewelry flexed as innocence

They searched for their conclusions in the morning

Third with Two

Ash and Jordan

While passing under the promise A grin will appear

A laugh will be spared

Devoted to the choir

Caring for their daughters She’s parallel to the freckled boy

Discovering him in a sea of blankets Guided by her ocean eyes January is when they age

Third with Two

Floating over Grace street

Just below the leaves

Popped cheeks are seared with crescents

Serenading the public

Belting a proclamation of love

Hair colliding with tall boys

Wearing their respective hearts

They lead with passion

Finishing a performance of a lifetime

Gracie and Malachi

DEVOURING THE OLD POETS

Jessica Jirapinya

Windows cracked ajar. The smell of morning. You slide out of bed slowly so as not to disturb the air around me. But I’m already awake and say, Come here, as I rub your sore muscles from yesterday. You’re so good to me, you sigh. And I want to tell you that I love you, want to look into your sleep-clouded eyes and ask, How do you like your eggs? Meet me downstairs in the kitchen, baby. I promise I’ll keep the yolk all runny and spilling over the bread like sunlight streaming in through the window, or like my heart, once hidden in the bones of my chest, now gushing through every part of me you were able to get your hands inside. I want to tell you, Please stay for a while. Then we’ll eat breakfast, licking our fingers clean.

Xerces Blue Teapot

Roots Grow Deep

Mollie Donovan

Illustrated By Imani Tigney

My roots grow deep, Tirelessly working to keep me close, Tradition woven in soil made to maintain me, Even Boulders will merge into mountains, Sunlight only brings in news in streaks, With rain to wash it out close behind,

I often wonder if these roots and vines will cover my corpse? A coffin of safety, littered with lilies, Will trees grow in my abscess? An inspiration, and warning to others, Especially to the one seedling, Who’s dreams reach over my walls.

Untitled

Jaan Autumn

There is an inescapable anguish in my soul–do you hear it calling out? And I am running myself into that hole in the ground to silence it, do not fret when the worry may drown you–let it drown me instead. Weak as I am, seeking as I am. I have let the outsides of my skin peel through and feel the beaming sunlight. It has been too long now; the world, all of the world, is victim to this dramatic irritant that is my weary soul! I am sick of youth, and who is not? The joy in my small body was that of my frame, it did not grow with me. I have fallen toward the dissoluteness in the moonlight, I have danced with the knave. But there is a burning loneliness, and keenly does it plague the rotted caverns of a pitted cranberry, once vestal. Who am I, who cannot turn toward their own reflection with admiration? Who am I, who cannot spend the hours in the skin of a walking stiff? I have wanted nothing save for the truth of love, yet my soul sees no love in the waking morning, or the capping night. And so how may I find it, that certainty? How may I cradle it in my being and walk happily toward death?

Where will I go with this blinding incertitude, where will I go with this piercing truth–that threatens to return me to wretched high hands, clambering up from that heavy dirt? I am inconclusive as is the world as is death as is happiness. And so there is always this. I wonder how I may retain my presence, even in my lonesome–for I am always contemplating, and so my peace is futile. But I remind myself, always, that I am occasionally thankful for my humanity–it is not parallel to the length of a tree’s life. My view of the world is short, sweet, serene, when compared to the tree. So long a life to live, I have been a million people in my seventeen years and, between the life lines they hold, how many times have they driven their souls to points of insanity? So very long a life to live, the mind is a satanist, and I could not survive so very long a life with myself. And so applaud those mystic hollows and their sacrifice–humanity rests upon them and the weight is heavy. Humanity rests upon them, and what a terrible task to be given.

I have been a million people in my seventeen years, we all yearn to escape this unending springtime–so bleached with resignation. And where will we go, my Self and I? Who know each other to be shadows, strangers. There is no Paradise here within the skyless grot of self and mind, only an unbearable truth and unquenchable thirst for unknown, indescribable unknown.

Naila Ohmke

LOVING MACHINE

Okezie Onwuegbu

Illustrated by Mack Blair

Kristof found himself thinking about the day he first met the woman he lay in bed with, and of Clementine, the woman whose image she had been created in.

He found that it was just like the movies; now that it was over he was only able to recall the good times. The reasons he fell in love. A shared song. A kiss before saying goodbye.

“No,” he thought. “All that is behind me. This is my wife now, and I must love her. I do love her.”

When he laid his head onto the pillow he had one clear goal in mind; forget. The first words that the Woman ever heard were from her husband. Awaken, my love!

“Welcome to the land of the living, Clementine” he had said to her. “How lucky you are that I’m here to welcome you! You, who will never know more than a half life.”

This was her destiny; the circumstances of Woman’s birth did not entitle her to much more.

“I am Kristof, but you shall call me master!”

“Yes… master.” she replied in the haze of fresh creation. “Why have you called me to life?”

“Not to ask such manlike questions,” he spat. “You were made to obey, as I was made to command!”

“Yes, I sense you speak the truth.” Woman crossed her arms. “And yet still I find myself consumed with curiosity!”

He laughed at the thought. “Such an emotion is for fools! You were made for better things.”

“And what was I made for?” the Woman asked.

“I am your husband, and you exist to be my wife.”

He explained to her the kind of person he was. He was a man who had the ability to create new life after all, and what did he do with it? He created a companion.

“It’s like the God of the Christians says; man was not made to be alone. ‘I shall make him a helper suited to his needs.’”

Woman considered this statement. “Lord, it seems unlikely that there is a God above us.”

“You’re not wrong, but as unlikely as it seems there is a God. He is the one who shall receive our souls when we die. Nonetheless religion is beyond us. He has no interest in souls like yours or mine.”

He paused. “This doesn’t mean that we don’t have destinies. Believe it or not, you and I were made for even better things!”

Eventually the Woman’s memories came flooding to her. She remembered a life before, a life with Kristof. The college class they had met in. The song that had played on their first date. The way he choked when she would wear too much perfume. The notes he left in the margins of her favorite books.

She had a very clear image of all of these events, and although she could even see them as things that had happened to her, she knew, because Kristof allowed her to know, that these memories were not her own. It surprised her how sad this made her. Why would he plant them there while allowing her to sense their presence as weeds?

The days that came were joyful. She met Kristof’s friends, she attended their housewarming parties, she ate their food even though she felt no hunger, smiled and laughed at their jokes although she didn’t find them particularly funny. She was finding it very easy to slip into the role of “wife”.

Kristof lived up to his billing as “master”, but this did not necessarily make Woman “servant”.

When they were home he would decide when she woke up, what clothes she wore, what she ate, what movies they watched together, what songs she would be allowed to listen to, even what books she would read as she lay next to him in bed.

Despite his claim that she existed to obey, Nothing he had her do seemed to indicate servitude. Even though Kristof had created her with “girl parts” (as he had described them to her) he seemed to forget or not be concerned about having sex with her. Woman was the young creation, the monster, and even still her body had been touched as little as Kristof himself. It saddened her even more that she was not sure whether or not she wanted to be touched by Kristof. This was her curse, a half existence where she could never live, only emulating the actions she felt someone living would take.

Kristof feared he was growing to detest Woman just as much as Clementine had grown to detest him. It was nothing she had done, as she really was good at obeying, but he felt more and more ashamed of himself the longer he allowed the sham to go on. The more he glommed

onto Woman, the more he dreaded the day she would grow to push him aside. Perhaps this was his curse; to love so truly and be scorned. He thought back to the last words his Clementine ever said to him. “My love, why must you make me…” Indeed. This was his curse.

Woman found she didn’t need to sleep, and when she did she had no dreams. This is why it came as a surprise to her when she woke up from a nightmare.

She saw the now metallic face of Kristof, the half formed thing that had been her husband. “Clementine! I’m sorry! I do everything I’m supposed to! But no matter how many times I try, you “My love, why must you make me…” Indeed. This was his curse.

Woman found she didn’t need to sleep, and when she did she had no dreams. This is why it came as a surprise to her when she woke up from a nightmare.

She saw the now metallic face of Kristof, the half formed thing that had been her husband. “Clementine! I’m sorry! I do everything I’m supposed to! But no matter how many times I try, you just keep remembering!”

Woman listened to this outburst in amazement. Was she Clementine? Or was that the woman whose memories inhabited her mind?

She could not see much else in the dream, but there was no mistaking the sharp pains she felt the more she saw her husband’s face.

When she awoke she was back in bed, and Kristof no longer appeared metallic.

Woman prayed that there was a God above them, someone who would receive her soul when she died and grant her more than the half life Kristof had promised.

That day she watched the color drain from his face as she asked who Clementine was. She would later come to think of it as an act of divine intervention that this moment came at the same time as the memory of the life draining from Clementine’s face.

Kristof was saddened by his failure. Whether his inability to love Woman had caused her to gain even more of Clementine’s memories, or whether Woman was simply a half formed thing, either way the blame was all his own.

He didn’t need to inform her of Clementine’s death; she already knew. She remembered. But just like the real Clementine, she had failed to see that this was not a death, or something to be mourned at all. Was it not enough that the brief time they spent together had bettered him? Was it not enough that he had been made anew from the first time she saw him?

No. He had not failed. She too would be saved by love.

potato

Bitan Chowdhury

it has eyes no gender, no but it grows roots, can be fried and won’t die even when split and will fight for its existence out of spite. oh rooty vegetable, grow, break the concrete of your cage, yearn for nonexistent light, you will be loved in quarters, in a whole, when baked, when seen, with eyes.

I’m so tired. I can’t leave bed. sleep beckons inconveniently. blame goes to experiences, but knows it’s heart belongs to the hole left by forgone discipline. it fades into the bitterness brought by the lye of disappointment, masked by slipping youth, by the passing of days unseized, and by the taste of hedonism gone stale. it’s all too muck. it’s all too flat. too plain.

spice comes from paprika, garlic, ginger, and tumeric. these go into curry, along with onion and maybe a wry tomato if chicken is involved. swiss cheese prefrontal cortex let these names fall through holes the size of my ears, and conveniently right where they would be in my head. remembrance took a day off, and it’s not a cause for concern. my leaves shudder away from the glare of flashbacks to my past. the sun can wait.

potato, you have skin, let me solve that. I say as I take the sharpest peeler I have, a tool best suited for a more elegant plant, but still willing to do my bidding, nonetheless. the root yields. brown reveals white, and the potato is blinded. I am sorry dear, but the world is too unkind, a more fitting place is my stomach.

potato, you are much too big, let me fix that. I take my knife, sharp and long, well suited to the task. it takes like water to the starchy thing. the fresh cell walls give to the force of the cleaver. now it’s time, I gather them in a bowl and toss them into the pot.

oh dear potato, how you golden in oil, your aura draws all those with hunger in their hearts like moths to a flame, or lovers to an old one.

I wonder how it feels to be thrown into the pot again, I wonder how it feels to be skinned and blinded and thrown into a world of waves of oil and spices that inundate your flesh and crisp you inside and out. and yet you glow once done. and yet, you’re served up, a close second act to any star of the show. you’re beautiful and strong and you evolved past what you once were. I can only hope to have the strength you had.

you had eyes but they were peeled off, skin long gone too, you cannot grow roots for you have died a while back, but you nourish me, you satiate my energy, and you starchy thing. I love you. you are everywhere I go. I share my embers with you, from one potato to another.

Dinosaurs Looking Down: Do We Do Justice to Jurassic Creatures?

Paige Dudley

When I received a pair of triceratops earrings from my sister last year, I appreciated them, not only because I like unorthodox accessories, but also because they were reminiscent of youthful times – an association that I didn’t quite understand.

I realized I had made this connection when I instinctively put on the earrings on my first day of working at a daycare.

“I thought the kids would like them,” I explained to my coworker who pointed out the silver critters.

But why? Why did I pick my dinosaurs over my daisy earrings? Or my butterflies?

The answer is simple: dinosaurs have become a symbol of childhood fun in our culture. With the exception of the occasional Jurassic Park reference that reminds us that dinosaurs were, in fact, scary as hell, they are loved by children and adults precisely because they remind us of youth.

The idea to write this first came to mind when I was locking eyes with a plushie dino sprawled across my bedroom floor.

I thought to myself, “Poor creatures, once mighty, now reduced to cuddle buddies.”

Then, I thought a bit too hard.

Will the importance of humans one day be minimized to dolls? To emblems on the clothing of the youth of an entirely different species?

Right now, humans are a species to be feared (we are, after all, destroying the planet). Dinosaurs were once that way, too. If there is a heaven and dinosaurs or at least some of them made it there, do they look down on us in disdain for how we have reduced them to playthings for our youth?

It’s something to ponder next time you feel like you’re on top of the world. Everything has a lifespan and a legacy, and sometimes that legacy can be distorted, even that of an entire animal class.

Emerald of the Sea

Naila Ohmke

Get Me

Vivien Williams LOVER

1

burn of apple vinegar on my “yada yada” throat-cuts from words you’re hearing, said or unsaid. too much talking and too much listening enough to make primordial soup of words-words-words and create God, there’s too much space and too much certainty and too much realism in human imagination always designing a billion ways we may lose what we have heat death from friction “ishah hashuvah yada” rahhhhhhh why are brains so suicidal! always ashamed always undermining scooping little holes in plums for hiding loogies and wishing to be a crab.

LOVER 2

Vivien my love, Do you remember thunder on the mountain? How I dried your tears and raised my wet fingers to make lightning rods?

Falling as I caught you? Waiting as you worried? Do you remember

Lost Mountain? How blackberries fed us where the sun was harshest drinking the last of our warm water in quiet shade when suddenly we stared up the barrel of a bear’s snout, but we got home.

Why is it you always lose faith in our skill at getting through? We always do.

Bring Out the Spears

Esther Schneider

Illustrated by Avery Ekhert

When nothing bites they bring out the spears. Prosperity is hard to pin down. By the time you can see its effects, the source has already run for the hills. This particular town was one where you took your first steps in the marshes on the lakeshore. Babies were rocked to sleep by the soft pull of the waves. Masters of their craft turned fish, mollusks, and other critters that lived in the depths into stomach-stuffing dishes. The one thing people did more than anything else was fish. With hooks and spears, with baited traps carefully woven, they fished.

A middle aged couple pushed through the grasses. Their child, still young enough to tire easily on walks such as these, was perched on her father’s shoulders. This vantage point allowed her quite clearly to see when her mother tripped and fell, catching herself with hands thrust into the muddy waters.

She and her father both cried out.

“Mama!” It was like having her guts suddenly stolen out of her body, that hollow feeling when her mother vanished so suddenly.

Her father lowered her swiftly onto the solid ground and rushed over to lend a hand. When he emerged again, her mother was on his arm, clutching something covered in muck and favoring her left leg.

Her parents sat, father starting to fuss over her mother’s ankle. Meanwhile, her mother seemed to not even acknowledge it, preferring to wash the mud coated object.

“What happened?” She asked, also demanding.

“I was watching my step,” her mother mused. “I’ve been walking this path for years. It was like something reached out and grabbed me.”

She removed the thing from the water, where she had dutifully been scrubbing it. It was lumpy, about the size of a mouse, and when the light hit it, the thing sparkled like the lake at sunset.

“The lake didn’t want to hurt me.” The way her mother said it left no room for doubts. It seemed to seize a person’s heart as well as their ears. “It wanted to give me a gift.”

Her two parents exclaimed over it, and so she started to as well. If she were asked, she might call the object pretty, but only to an extent. It was lumpy. Really, the only thing it had going for it was the shininess. Even the color seemed too bold for her.

She would much prefer to have something like the wooden necklace her friend had gotten for his birthday. It had intricately carved lines, and the grain of the wood seemed to highlight all those curves and dips. She would never get bored of running her fingers over the grooves.

Still, the shiny thing was wrapped in her mother’s shawl and they ended the walk early. Her mother was still limping, but she had the odd feeling her parents had forgotten about it. When their elderly neighbor commented on it, her mother looked startled, almost guilty.

Though her mother was stuck at home, her father still left every morning to stroll along the marshes. For six days, he came back with a sour look on his face. On the seventh day, her father’s best friend visited them, and all of them ate breakfast together.

Her father tried to vanish again, but his friend intercepted.

“I need to stretch my legs! You must be lonely, going on all those walks by yourself. I’ll join you.”

‘It’s not lonely,” he protested.

“Well maybe I’m lonely.”

When the two were heading out the door, he slipped her a candy, wrapped in white waxed paper.

“Keep an eye on your mother for me,” he whispered.

Her mother’s ankle was nearly healed by that point, but she didn’t mention it. Instead, she took the candy with a solemn nod.

Her father returned early, friend in tow and wearing a brilliant smile. His best friend had a nasty scrape up his arm, but he, too, smiled like nothing could be better than that moment.

Her mother stood, a weird gleam in her eyes, and the second man flashed something out of his pocket.

Her father picked her up and swung her in a circle. His friend dropped another candy into her hands. Her mother pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks.

After that day, people swept in and out of their house each morning, fast enough that many of their names were unknown to her. They always returned early, bearing some

kind of injury. But they were never mad about it, because they always clutched something shiny and solid too. When she visited the marketplace, vendors and shoppers alike looked at them different.

She got to know a great many people. They always seemed to be happy with her and her family, because her father would take anyone who asked down to the lakeshore.

When her mother’s ankle was whole again, the three of them went out for one of their walks, like they used to before. They walked for so long that her father knelt down to carry her on his back. They did not return early.

Days passed, and his best friend turned up once more to walk along the lakeshore with her father. They, too, did not return early.

Then he went out for a walk on his own. He did not return early.

Her father didn’t eat much that night. He left the table early and went to sit on the porch instead. She and her mother tried to stay up and wait for him. The girl clacked blocks together, built towers up until they were unstable and watched them fall.

Eventually her mother tucked her in and went to her own bed. She couldn’t sleep, so she thought about the surface of the lake. It didn’t soothe her like it should.

When the front door finally opened, she was restless enough to peek around her door frame, just in time to see her father exiting back out the front door. This time he had something clutched in his hand. Curious, she followed. Had he finally managed to unearth the lake’s secrets and tame it for himself?

He didn’t stop at the lakeshore. And with the moonlight glinting off the lake, the silhouette of what he was holding was revealed. It was an axe.

“Am I not good enough?” He cried. Her father was knee deep in the water, rocking back and forth with the waves as they hit him and receded. His beard was splashed through with water, his pupils dilated.

He hit the water with his fist. The lake didn’t answer.

“I’ll prove it. I’ll prove my worth to you.” His voice was low and dangerous.

She crept closer, and he raised the axe. When it dropped, one finger fell into the lake with a quiet plop. Blood sprayed, and that also fell into the lake, mixing with the water.

The girl clutched at the limbs of the bush, pressing herself closer to the ground. He had screamed, but it didn’t seem loud enough. It hadn’t echoed far enough, not for the impact of what had just happened.

The form out on the lake started hacking at the grasses. He drove the axe into the muddy ground, his other hand still pressed tight to his body to ease the bleeding.

At her side, the bush rustled. Back on the lake, branches and thorned vines burst out of the water. The grasses her father had been cutting grew back with force, and tangled around his neck. He attacked them without pause, but the lake was too fierce. He was dragged under. Quickly. Quietly. Then the surface of the lake was still except for the waves again.

Right in front of her, where the waves met the shore, was a shiny lump of gold. The girl stared at it, still trembling and clinging to the bush. Then she backed away, letting it stay where it sat. All the way back home, she ran until she was in her bed again. She dreamt of the lakeshore.

I've been better, I've been worse

Jamie Ryan

Apple

Vivien Williams

Illustrated by Reese Cilley

i lick your waxy skin thirsting for the crispy meat inside i work myself beneath and hear you give over into my mouth, white juice

FEATHERED GLORY

Jessica Jirapinya

Swans will fly to the highest vantage and dive to their death after losing their lifelong mate. How strange that an animal with hollow bones can sink from grief. Strange that a god would be disguised as something soft, like pink skin grown over a cut or a hum in the throat made from pleasure turn into a growl. The girl didn’t mean to fall and The Swan in all His feathered glory looms over her sprawled body with a war drumming inside her chest. She’s still plucking black tarred feathers from her back. Still remembers the hardness of His mouth.

O wingèd creature, how He caught her in that white rush of firsts. If this is hell, then love is a dog and she is slinking back to you, life-long lover, carrying a bird to your front door. The Swan with His elegant limp neck clamped between her jowls, spit dripping on the welcome mat. She smiles with all her big lustrous teeth.

I, too, gift lovers a dead thing: sonnets in a dead language only the prophetic Greeks would chide upon at how I hand over my tenderness balled in a fist before they can flee. A man once told me mid-fuck Baby, you’re just like the sun. The heat of our skin sticky in summer’s swelter pulling us closer, one to one. I love you so much it makes me want to die. As I watch his wings melt off the bone white night, I can’t help but think of how graceful swans look when falling— suspended in sorrow before the drop.

The staff at Pwatem would like to give a special thanks to the VCU Student Media Center and the Student Media Commission Board.

© 2024 Pwatem Literature and Art Journal

VCU Student Media Center

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Richmond, VA 23284-2010

Everything in this book was created with the blood, sweat, and tears of VCU students and faculty, and funded by student fees. We accept submissions all year round from VCU students only. All styles are welcome.

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