Virginia Literary Review: Fall 2022

VLR

VIRGINIA

LITERARY

REVIEW

Fall 2022 / Volume 45 / Number 1

The Virginia Literary Review www.vlronline.com vlreditor@gmail.com Fall 2022 Staff Editor-in-Chief Ella Dailey Production Manager Miriella Jiffar Poetry Editors Emma Gorman Ellaina Jung Mia Tan Prose Editors Sofia Heartney Eleanor Jacobson Stasia Winslow Art Editors Katie Huffman Isabel O’Connor

Founded in 1979, the VLR is published twice a year in the fall and spring. The review staff considers literary and visual art submissions from individuals at Virginia colleges and universities during the first three-quarters of each term. For more information, please visit: www.vlronline.com Copyright 2022. No material may be recorded or quoted, other than for review purposes, without the permission of the artists, to whom all rights revert after the first serial publication.

Although this organization has members who are University of Virginia students and may have University employees associated or engaged in its activities and affairs, the organization is not a part of or an agency of the University. It is a separate and independent organization which is responsible for and manages its own activities and affairs. The University does not direct, supervise or control the organization and is not responsible for the organization’s contracts, acts or omissions.

Contents / Fall 2022 Poetry 6 / Prayer to the Virgin Moon 12 / Mother 15 / Slapdash 17 / On tendrils 24 / monster girl 28 / American Animal 35 / Death Dwells in my Subconscious...

44 / The Landscape 50 / routine disorder

Lex Page Anna Klausner Brenna Courtney Claire Huchthausen Sana Friedman Brenna Courtney Grace Whitaker Brenna Courtney Lex Page

Prose 8 / Streetlights 13 / A Letter, Three Years Later 16 / Artistic Bones 18 / Pretzel 23 / Ants 26 / Ritual 30 / The Night Shift 36 / Erase by Fiction 45 / A Long Night

Jonny Hines Julia Hyde Elizabeth Shackelford Marta Maliszewska Allison Metcalf Allison Metcalf Sofia Heartney Julia Hyde Sofia Heartney

Visual Art Cover / Untitled 10 / Untitled 29 / Untitled

Ryan Lanford Jonny Hines Ryan Lanford

Prayer to the Virgin Moon In another world, I was born to die.

What a resilient bird love is.

I found the dove broken on my porch, no heartbeat left in her tiny frame; after all, loneliness has a gentle touch.

I made her final bed in a shoebox, Safe in shady soil under bright hyacinths.

I left the window open as I slept in case her spirit needed haven, and I was never one to mind the cold.

I thought we didn’t go in dreams, yet I woke up with hollow bones.

It was another one of those nights where I’d die to be anyone else, so I blamed the ache on hormones or a lack of sleep, and ignored how it felt To be eighteen years and still unknown.

Peace wasn’t meant for people like us.

At least that’s what I said to distract from bones ripping through skin.

I called for Hades to relieve me, Swore I’d take damnation over this.

An hour-and-a-half, a whole bottle of acetaminophen later, I had the body of a dove. I had wings.

What other first instinct than to jump?

Call me Icarus, Achilles on the edge, But a life without freedom— well, you know what Sappho would say, Every good prayer is meant for the moon.

So I jumped, and for once in my life, My ankles didn’t break on the ground.

6 / VLR

How unholy a revelation you were, silver-faced patron of a lost girl.

Who gave you the right to leave me like this? You of all gods should know Bird bones are a pitiful souvenir.

They say Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.

Tell that to the tomb where I buried a fallen star, tell that to her ghost. Artemis, wild moon, say you hear me, say the legends aren’t true.

Say there’s a love for me, and her name isn’t Orion.

Tell me I’m your child, tell me it is human to be swayed by your tides. This fate is like the myths, and that scares me. Celestial huntress, Aphrodite never ruled me the way you do.

So if I must be struck Earthwards tonight, Let it be by your arrow, let my blood be a brilliant constellation for sailors who awake in the night with wings.

If this mortal body is a worthy sacrifice, Let my sisters speak the language of the skies.

Lex Page

7 / VLR

Streetlights In our youth, we ran through open fields catching lightning bugs in bottles, using its light to carry us through the tall grass. Barefoot, we walked down Palmetto Street as the coastal pines softened the blacktop with fallen needles. We washed ourselves with the garden hose, its faded yellow paint peeling onto our hands.

I remember nights sitting against the brick wall at the 711, tracing the patterns on my back with my finger and wondering how long they’d stay. Our voices faded in and out of silence as passing headlights flooded our hands in white and gold.

We ran miles through that neighborhood, our shoes wrapped in duct tape to cover the holes we’d torn. Even under the night sky, the heavy summer air of Tidewater coated our bodies in sweat. Your muscles shimmered in the humidity as you passed me, your skin painted orange under the streetlights.

We wore hand-me-downs, baggy white tees and loose chains passed down from our fathers and brothers. Our shirts billowed from gusts of wind off the coast, riding beach cruisers rusted from years of sea air. We stood up on our pedals to look out over the 1st Street jetty, watching the tide break against the coast in an endless cycle. I wondered if our skinny arms were enough to support the weight we carried; all the weight we inherited from our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. Riding home, I blinked through the sweat stinging my eyes, wiping away blindness like the dirt on my knees.

I remember the way your father spoke, meandering over words like he was interrogating their use. Working the door at a Norfolk club on weekends, he’d get home late with a group of friends, new and old. The kitchen and back porch filled with Olde English and smoke, cicadas blending with voices and guitars. It was the first time I heard the twang of a Fender Stratocaster, carrying sounds from the Mississippi Delta to the Virginia coast. We sat on the back steps watching the faces float in and out all throughout our youth; watching lighters spark and bottles glisten under table lamps and wicker fans, finding glimpses of past and peace in the Southern moonlight.

Your dad told us stories about playing ball in the August heat. Strapping on pads for the first time, he passed on words and wisdom he heard through his own helmet all those years ago in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Gliding across the turf in high school, I’d remember the way he described the dew soaked through his cleats and sprayed his legs. How he described cutting into the open field, floodlights reaching into the canopy to illuminate the grass: “Like I was floating.”

8 / VLR

I remember locking eyes, how slight shifts in our expressions meant everything to what we said. It’s a connection I haven’t known sense; something that can only form with the friend who grew up by your side. It’s what hurt most when I picked up the phone and heard your dad on the other line; the feeling of certainty that you were dead.

The last time together, we were 17. You told me about a dream you’d had, laying in the water, staring into the blue. Your back was covered in a web of scars and bruises. You painted a mosaic that covered your body, finding beauty in all its distortions. Contrasts between wounded and healed. You said that blood leaked from your body. It stretched across the world, filling the oceans.

Looking back, it feels like the tangible pieces of memory that defined me have faded. Things I saw hazed over, voices I heard blended together; faces I knew blurred with time. Memory felt fixed, carved into my identity.

I’ve tried to think differently about how I see memory, my perception of the past shifting as I move forward. Its impressions feel bodiless; ethereal streams of thought flowing through me like the waves I watched in my youth.

I think about the past and what remains. The things still living in their original form exist as echoes from lost corners of childhood. Nebulous recollections, the way sunlight danced across chain-link fences and passed through Magnolia leaves, have painted me a way forward.

I’ve tried to find ways to tell you I remember, hoping that writing would cover the ground that words couldn’t. I remember moonlight reflecting off the water, Zippo lighters and halogen lamps outlining silhouettes on the beach. Toothy smiles and turf burns and heat lightning over the bay.

I remember dreaming of Palmetto, returning home. We laid in the road as the streetlights painted our bodies orange one last time, just how it was in our youth. Hanging over us were the shoes you threw on the power lines long ago. I wanted to believe that they’d be there forever; to guide our way home when the streetlights burn out, when the cicadas drown out the world around us.

Jonny Hines

9 / VLR

10 / VLR

11 / VLR

Mother I was birthed from your tree From your stump I slivered Slipping between branches Your roots they quivered I built myself of sticks An acorn for a nose I hide deep below dirt My mama, will she know?

I was born from the oak The circles The leaves Listening to the buzz The birds The breeze I was made from the branches I swung my first steps Will you catch me Mama, hold me to rest Anna Klausner

12 / VLR

A Letter, Three Years Later Emmie, You loved your picturesque gardens, didn’t you?

That night, we were barefoot, it was August, and it was twilight. The air was still warm but it was late enough that the grass was cold. I could feel the beginnings of mosquito bites on my calves, ones that would really balloon tomorrow. The citronella from the candles hung in the air, not doing much to protect me but at least it matched your dress. You loved your lemon dress so much, I remember.

Did I buy it for you? All the lemon-themed gifts blur together, if I’m gonna be honest. Valentine’s day, your birthday, Easter with your family… Every holiday you tore open wrapping paper and feigned surprise to see those lemons on a shirt, or a skirt, or socks, or flip flops… after all these years, every time I see yellow I think of you.

That night, we were drinking Arnold Palmers from Mason jars. I was making fun of you because you never could pronounce Arnold Palmer correctly. Ever.

At every restaurant, it was always “Arnol Polymer” or some shit like that. It was adorable. Every time, I told you, “Please, for the love of God, just say half-unsweet tea, half-lemonade,” but you never listened.

That night, the incandescent light bulbs you hung in your backyard were reflected in your glasses. Wire filaments, wire rims. Everyone else these days uses LEDs, but you never could abandon your precious aesthetics, could you? It was worth the fire hazard, worth the wasted wattage in your eyes. The same eyes reflecting back the hot yellow light.

That night, I knew I wasn’t going to reenter the screened-in porch. That’s where the rest of the couples were, mingling over Rosé cider from local breweries and your mother’s lemonade. This was the night, the night to end all nights, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to look any of those guys in the eye. Not for two weeks at least.

That night, I took your hand. Mine was slightly sweaty, with the same lumpy knuckles I’ve always had and always been a little embarrassed of. Your hands, of course, were perfectly manicured with an average of two rings on each finger… one with a yellow stone, one with green, one that was wrought to look like a leaf. It wasn’t until I took one of them off for the first time that I learned they turn your fingers green. When I asked why, you said it was because you like to pretend to save money.

That night, I reminded you of the first night. The night where there were no lemon dresses yet, no grass-green fingers or soles of our feet, when I didn’t know the grit of your mother’s lemonade yet. The night where there was fluorescent lighting, frigid A/C, and burnt microwave popcorn.

13 / VLR

You remembered then. I wonder if you remember now. You probably have no choice.

That night, in your backyard, you dropped your Mason jar when I told you.

In the movies, it would have been secretly made out of sugar glass, and it would have shattered in a huge impact across a mahogany floor. But this was not a movie, it was just me picking the novelty of a frequent flier club over you, so the jar only made a soft thud when it hit the mosquito-ridden grass.

It was dark before your tears stopped. The air was fully cold, no longer balmy, and I had no blanket to offer you. Your mother was awful at preparing for nighttime garden parties. I’m not sure if you would have accepted a blanket from me at that point anyway.

Well? Are you waiting for the shoe to drop? For me to address the big, wrinkly, geriatric elephant in the letter?

You never tried, Emmie. Never tried to offer to follow me, to stay in touch, to send me care packages of something I loved like I would do with your lemons.

You and your lemons.

No, you just let the mosquitoes soak up your spilled drink on that August night.

What a waste of a perfectly good Arnol Polymer.

Best, Nate Julia Hyde

14 / VLR

Slapdash Merriam-Webster Word of the Day, February 16, 2022 The opposite, in other words, Of the little peasant girl suturing petals Back into the heart of a flower as the dawn breaks; it is more Like the watery egg dawn breaks like; it is more the hot breath Flapping against “sands of the desert” but which no one observes, And yet, sweating into his sheets, a man in nighttime Oslo Wakes suddenly, thinking of it. Still Dryden knew it best: “Down I put the Notes slap-dash,” as though velocity were the chief Motion in question, not the friction of the written against the sound which Hardly needs a source to be heard.

Brenna Courtney

15 / VLR

Artistic Bones I have artistic bones. I get some of them from my father’s side. The day I found out my bones were special, I was nine years old. I leaped high from a swing and tumbled to the ground, catching myself on both palms. As I cried, my mother wiped away the blood from my scrapes until the only red left was of my raw flesh.

My scrapes began to heal, but the bones of my hands remained sore, and the purple on my skin had begun to morph into new colors. Greens, blues, and yellows crept over my body, and I became painted with the shadows of my fall. My mother, fearing I’d broken both hands, brought me to an orthopedic. He suspected my mother was right and ordered an X-ray. They’d both been wrong though, and the X-rays confirmed it. My bones weren’t broken; they were artistic.

My mother rejoiced when she heard the diagnosis. She’d always wished she’d had artistic bones herself, like my father had. His bones, she said, were made of colors and shapes and words so vivid that even the tiny bones in the inner parts of his ears were seen to be artistic. My mother claimed she hadn’t an artistic bone of her own in her body, though. She was no artist, after all. Not a musician, nor painter, nor writer. Her bones were quite ordinary.

Me, my special bones, my mother, and her ordinary bones left the doctor’s office that day and returned home. I felt like I had changed. I had learned something about myself that I hadn’t known before, something about myself I couldn’t even see. There were 206 bones beneath my skin, and each one was sprouting with the potential for invention? I had never been conscious of my bones before, not really. But now I had 206 new parts of me to consider.

My mother made me a quilt to commemorate my diagnosis. She used her ordinary hands to create the image of a bone out of collaged fabrics with the word “SPECIAL” stitched across it in her own swooping handwriting. This was my 207th special bone.

The next year, I received another quilt from my mother, again of a bone with the word “SPECIAL” printed across it—my 208th special bone. The year after, I received my 209th. Today, I have 245 artistic bones. I keep 206 of them inside my body and 39 outside it. My mother, though, has 206 ordinary bones in her body and not a single artistic one. Instead, she keeps all her artistic bones outside her body.

Elizabeth Shackelford

16 / VLR

On tendrils “Isn’t it a good thing” my sister said “that biology is opposed to efficiency.”

We were discussing tomatoes and interplanting.

Isn’t it a good thing when our mass production and straight lines are interrupted.

There is such a thing as ecology.

Even tomatoes are hungry for friendship.

To my shame in school I scorned biology the naming of things without edges the remembering of interrelations the lack of straight lines the unlogic of it.

It is so much easier to work with dead things.

I thought I could glory now in biology walking the roadside grown over with brush.

Look at the way the vines twist into each other in sheer exuberance for growing in the burbling world.

Look at the way the tendrils venture the air in curlicues.

It’s called circumnutation the way they look for a friend.

Isn’t it a good thing that growing things do not go in straight lines.

The wet in that grey sky gave my hair a rampant frizz.

I had the same tendrils curling and twining the air.

Here is my own biology.

It is so much harder to say Isn’t it a good thing that we do not grow in straight lines.

Claire Huchthausen 17 / VLR

Pretzel The other day, I asked my little sister what her thought process is like when she feels suicidal. She sent me a series of texts. I created a black out poem out of them, for your enjoyment: I feel happy aboit continuing Yea it just feels truthful thinking about how there’s nothing I can a staraa like Lyon halls pretzel and sweet potato fries I tried to keep the poem fairly optimistic. Let me give you some context, as to fully understand the situation, you need to know more about Lyon Hall’s pretzel.

Lyon Hall is a local restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. Google describes it as a “trendy French-German brasserie offering a meat-heavy menu & a unique beer selection”. Our family has been frequenting Lyon Hall for years, and we have witnessed both the menu size and the clientele increase over time. Some time ago, I’d say probably five or six years, Lyon Hall added a pretzel to their menu. The menu item appears as follows.

Warm Bavarian Pretzel smoked cheddar fondue, honey butter, spicy mustard 9 The pretzel is worth nine dollars. It may even be worth more. To start off, it is a work of art. It is not shaped in the normal, pedestrian, mickey mouse pretzel shape. No, this pretzel consists of delicate, golden braids. Imagine a small loaf of challah, the color of dark, polished wood, glistening with butter, with the faintest dusting of poppy seeds, enough to add an interesting visual component, but not so much as to interrupt the purity of the pretzel flavor.

Next to the pretzel rest three little silver pots. One is silky and loose, a delicate yellow; the smoked cheddar fondue. The next is the lightest shade of offwhite, airy and soft, the honey butter (they probably whip the butter, to get this gossamer-like texture). The final pot is a muted yellow, with the textural element of mustard seeds, little brown beads to crunch.

18 / VLR

The pretzel comes to the table hot, its crust yields a light crunch, a soft snap when you break it open. A burst of steam, your hands are warmed, damped. The interior is soft, puffing into clouds of dough, a bright white. To achieve this effect, I suppose they give the pretzel a brief run through the oven before serving it. The taste is magnificent, that of fresh bread, with the interior buttery, melting in the heat of your mouth, and the crust breaks up the monotony sheltering the dough from becoming too tedious. The mustard is spicy, hot, enthralling, the honey butter is comforting, soothing, the cheese is heart-pullingly rich.

And this is coming from someone who doesn’t even like the pretzel that much. It is indeed, very good for what it is, a pretzel. One might even say that as a pretzel, it is close to transcendental. I’m just not the biggest pretzel fan. But I do understand how a pretzel of such high quality might be the object that you think about to prevent your own death, were you a big fan of pretzels. When my sister orders this dish, she holds the silver pot of butter in one hand, and refuses to put it down until she has finished the pretzel. Then, she allows the rest of us to partake in the butter, assuming there is any left. She is a big fan of the butter, and of the pretzel.

If for some reason, Lyon Hall were to take this pretzel off its menu, would my sister be able to die unhindered? The answer is no, because even if the pretzel was gone, sweet potato fries would remain. There are many places that sell sweet potato fries, so I think my sister should be safe.

There was a point in time, far before I had ever experienced feeling suicidal, where I too believed that a dish would prevent my suicide. I distinctly remember telling my mother, over dinner at another restaurant, that were I ever to feel suicidal, all I would have to do was order this bread pudding, and I would immediately recover. This was at some point in middle school; I must have been thirteen or fourteen. The restaurant was called The Green Pig Bistro, also in Arlington, just a few blocks away from Lyon Hall.

I had first been there with the family of one of my best childhood friends, probably when I was nine or ten, and at that point it had just opened. I was enamored by their bacon burger at the time, which, as the waiter had proclaimed in a zealous tone, was not like other bacon burgers. Instead of having the bacon placed on top of the burger patty, resulting in an awkward eating experience in which you get either too much bacon or no bacon at all per bite, there were bacon bits mixed into the burger patty itself. What a revolutionary creation, I had thought to myself at the time. They also had cornbread, with a crispy, caramelized crust, which came out hot in a cast iron skillet. It was topped with salted maple butter that melted, greasing your fingers, into the bread as you ate it. This too, seemed groundbreaking. I was also shocked at the time, because my friend’s family ordered an appetizer and a main course and a dessert, something my family never did. The luxury, the opulence! It was a striking experience. I lost touch with that childhood friend a few 19 / VLR

years after that. I can never seem to keep in touch with people for very long.

The bread pudding, in comparison to the cornbread and the bacon burger, was really not all that. But, on this occasion, I had pleaded with my family to take me to The Green Pig Bistro (rather than going to Lyon Hall), and it was my first time trying it. At the time in which I am writing this, the bread pudding appears on the menu as follows: White Chocolate & Cherry Bread Pudding - $10 topped with vanilla ice cream and crispy cornflakes I don’t remember exactly how the bread pudding was served when I first tried it, but I’m fairly sure it was different, as I don’t like white chocolate, so I most likely would not have praised it with the fervor that I did. I think there was some component of bourbon, either in the bread pudding, or in the ice cream. Even when I was younger, I was a big bourbon fan.

Bread pudding is an interesting dessert. It is a child’s dessert. Now I think of it as something sickly and sweet. But I have always loved the combination of steam and frozen ice, desserts that dissolve into one another as you eat them, the cold and hot contrast on your tongue. This bread pudding was satiny, gooey, as butterscotch candy is, but with flour and butter added to the sugar. The ice cream tasted cold, cold enough to drown out the sweet, and saturated with the flavor of cream; I love cold butter, and heavy cream from the carton. It had a flavor like that.

So I told my mother, “If I ever want to commit suicide, literally just get me this bread pudding. I would, like, immediately recover.”

I had not considered, at the time, the possibility of a lack of appetite. I have always loved food. I cooked dinner for my family, nearly nightly, throughout high school. I made food for every dinner party my parents had. I had a subscription to Bon Appetit. I have read every book Ruth Reichl has published; I love MFK Fisher, and Julia Child. I have watched every season of The Great British Bake Off. I did a research project on the optimum acid content for meringue. I had an internship in which I wrote recipes and photographs for a company selling elderberry syrup.

I’d always thought that there was no way I’d ever develop a serious eating disorder, as I am too fond of eating. Of course, I had my calorie counting years, but I quickly got over them. But, again, I hadn’t considered that one of the unfortunate side effects of bipolarity is a lack of appetite. And I hadn’t really anticipated the strength of such a side effect, of the days of blankly staring into the refrigerator, at restaurant menus, dimly wondering if there was anything I actually wanted to eat. Thankfully, I often cook for my roommates, which gives me the motivation to cook for myself. And, you know, such is life. I still eat, just not as much. The bigger problem is, when I feel suicidal, I have no pretzel.

20 / VLR

What else is there to stay alive for? I like shopping on Etsy, but my parents’ disapproval of my spending money is so deeply ingrained in me that my chest hurts when I check out at Trader Joe’s. I like buying people gifts, but even when I spend “my own money” on them, it is really my parents’ money. It must be, because when I tell my mother about these gifts, she valiantly tries to hide her disapproval. To be fair, I have been known to go a little overboard. I think that, if I’m not buying things for myself, it’s a little more ok to buy them. I know that my father regularly spends a couple thousand dollars on ski trips. Lately it’s been every other month, off to the alps or to Colorado. But that, of course, is besides the point. It’s his money after all. Is it his money or our money? Whatever is most convenient, I suppose.

But I feel as though we are getting derailed. Back to the original point. I have no pretzel. I need instant gratification to fight off the barrage of emotion my mind produces, but I cannot even resort to retail therapy. I live a hard life indeed.

Speaking of hard lives, my mother once attempted suicide after the death of her mother. Her mother died when she was seventeen years old, from what I can remember. I learned of this when I was on the phone with her, and I was telling her that it would be impossible for her to understand how someone suicidal feels.

And then she said something along the lines of: when my mother died, I tried to jump out of the hospital window, and I had to be restrained. Perhaps she said that she had to be restrained by a doctor, or by a nurse. I don’t really remember the details, although I probably should, because the whole story consisted of one sentence.

After the death of her mother, my mother worked in Belgium for two months, and stayed with what became sort of an adopted family. I cannot remember the exact story of how she came to live with them, but it involved something along the lines of relying on the kindness of strangers. I think they met at her mother’s funeral.

My mother has always loved chocolate. I think it is a sort of “you always want what you can’t have” kind of thing, because she lived in Poland while it was under a communist government, before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. When I was younger, whenever we saw nutella, at any store and in any form, she told us about how, when she was younger, she was allowed one spoonful of nutella a day.

They had to ration it. Her greatest dream was to have a bathtub of nutella. I have never liked nutella, but I used to pretend that I did, so as not to hurt her feelings.

When I finally told her I didn’t like it, she responded with a bewildered, “Really?”

I have a theory that belgium chocolate is my mother’s pretzel. Sometimes we would stopover Belgium airport on the way to Warsaw. In the airport, there is a chocolate store called Leonidas. This is a popular chocolate store in Belgium, but they’ve also started selling their chocolates in a store that sells many artisanal chocolate brands. It is a store in D.C., and it is called the Chocolate Moose. The Choco21 / VLR

late Moose also sells novelty socks. I have a pair that has “Go Away” printed on it, or something to that effect. There used to be a Leonidas store in New York, but it closed.

My mom goes crazy for Leonidas. She once proclaimed often that it sells the best chocolate in the world. I have produced many counter arguments for this claim, and she has ostentatiously agreed with me. Deep down, however, I believe that she still thinks Leonidas is the best. I remember, when we visited this adopted family in Belgium, that we went to a Leonidas store. I remember a blast of cold air. It was chilly in the store, to keep the chocolates cold. I think they keep it at a specific temperature. There were glass boxes lined with pralines, grids of tempered white and milk and dark chocolate topped with swirls and little pieces of dried fruit, with crushed nuts and dollops of ganache. There were little circular boxes of candied oranges, cardboard boxes of fruit pate, blue ribbons and golden labels.

We bought a box of what must have been somewhere around fifty chocolates. I don’t think they lasted more than a couple of days. I imagine my mother, seventeen, the same age my younger sister is now. I imagine her saving money, putting some aside from what she earned working at the cafe, and buying chocolates, maybe four, tucked into a golden box and tied with blue ribbon. They were probably filled with hazelnuts and cream, gianduja or a praline of some sort. She might have held onto them in the same way that my sister holds onto the silver pot of butter, she might have refused to put the white box down until there were no chocolates left.

Some people have real problems, my parents say. Something like having your mother die when you are seventeen is probably the sort of real problem they are referring to. My sister and I, probably, shouldn’t need a pretzel in the first place. The pretzel is a drama we have created, we cannot help but think. My mother’s chocolates are not dramatic. My mother deserved to need those chocolates. I have heard people I like say that I have created the need for a pretzel by myself, because I have never really needed anything. I conjure up my own problems for lack of having any. Is this true? I don’t know. But the idea that it might be true is enough to leave me craving a pretzel.

Marta Maliszewska

22 / VLR

Ants It starts with the black speck in the sea of salt crystals. I call the exterminator.

He’ll be over in thirty minutes.

I set the phone on the counter, and an ant emerges from the black shards imbedded in the mixed granite. Then another one.

I look back at the salt jar, and it’s now filled with pepper. They are everywhere.

They hide in the black scuff on my shoe. They mimic the quinoa in my salad. They are the poppy seeds on my everything bagel. Who taught ants to impersonate Oreo crumbs?

The internet says they’ll drown in water. I go to throw the salt in the sink, but the sweat makes my hands slippery, and the jar falls from my grasp. Glass shatters against the tiles, and ants flood the floor like a swarm of magnetic iron shards.

They are the dirt between my fingernails. They are the freckles on my arms.

They are the itch behind my ear, the eyelashes in my peripheral. They are living in the hairs on my legs, crawling up them with six spindly legs, gnawing on my skin, taking chunks out of my flesh, sinking their teeth in, and sucking up my blood. My body is the host for the parasite.

The kitchen tiles are now completely black. I can’t see my feet anymore. They have started flooding, piling into an ocean of black bugs. They continue to fill the room, and I think they will never go away, this will never be over, it will always be me versus the ants, and the ants will always win. They are too smart, too resilient, too easily disguised, and they will keep getting away with this, and I will get sick of fighting, and they won’t.

They crawl in through my ears and nose and swim through my bloodstream.

They swarm my lungs, tickle my chest, cover my heart with a dark shadow. I cannot breathe, I am hyperventilating—suffocating, choking. I cry tears of ants. I lean over to barf and expel a gushing wave of black bugs like a water hose.

The exterminator tells me he finds nothing, that the problem is handled, I was overreacting. Pride is a small price to pay for paranoia. I spend the extra thirty dollars for the warranty, though “satisfaction guaranteed” sounds as flimsy a promise as “I love you.”

Later, when my boyfriend comes home, I check his phone while he’s in the shower. I tap the green message icon, scroll through the texts, hold my breath. Blink a few times at the girl’s name. Sent ten minutes ago: See you again soon.

He comes out of the shower with a towel around his waist, a smile on his cheeks. I look into his eyes. He knows, he doesn’t know, he knows, he doesn’t know, he knows—he doesn’t know what’s swimming in the dark pool between his pale blue irises.

Allison Metcalf 23 / VLR

monster girl monster girl talked back to her mother, wrists and ankles bound with sashes thrashing in the garden for hours until her escape mama said too little and her father drank too much battered knees, bruised knuckles, black eye. her mother gave her a straight back and a straighter path she never wanted to be a wife, grew wings and fled too rambunctious for the sweetness of her name and Monster Girl ran fast. but she lost her spirit in the crimson heat buried every hatchet in her skin and learned discipline prayed for the spirit to return but the gods didn’t give it back she searched for a new temple across the sea elbows on the dinner table always sang along with the birds cartwheeled around the house never held my chopsticks right too big for the name my mother gave me little monster girl. look at your sister, little monster girl. whistling is rude. you’ll never find a husband if you’re like that. i should know. raised voices and the sound of dishes made me smaller my heartbeat echoes other people’s footsteps now i lost my whistle in the crimson heat buried every hatchet in my skin and learned silence i shrunk into elegance, learned to smile without my teeth sometimes my Mama dances in the kitchen she tells us stories from when she came across the ocean and i think she is brave 24 / VLR

she tells me to be quiet at the table sometimes Mama sings at the top of her lungs, but mostly she tries to forget, i try to forgive the same almond eyes, too damp for a spark monster girls drive in silence to the pharmacy Sana Friedman

25 / VLR

Ritual You envy the chicken. He pecks ignorantly at the seed you tossed in the dirt, oblivious to his fate. It’s worse to know that you’re going to die in a few hours than for death to sneak up behind you, grasp you in his hands, and take you silently.

The chicken is blessed with stupidity.

In a matter of hours, when the golden-red sun scrapes over the horizon like a big balloon, you will grab the chicken by his legs and head west. Fifty kilometers, you’ll walk, the chicken adorning your head like a fila, riding as though he were king of the Nile, owner of the Sahara. You will trek across the continent together, trudging over a vast expanse of dryness, the ground cracking beneath your sandals.

But now, as the sun begins to descend, casting orange glows across the slack rooves of the village, you press the cool, red clay between your toes. The chores are done; there is nothing left to distract yourself with. You leave the chicken for his last peaceful night and step inside the ile.

You study your home for the last time, memorizing every detail, hoping to grasp it forever. The rooms are adorned with straw and clay beads, porcelain pots.

You study the corner in the living room where you came into the world fifteen years earlier, pushed out of your mother, clutched to her sweaty breast. A blessing, they called you, a reincarnation of ìyá àgbà.

You whisper goodbye to your garden of apricots and palm oil that taught you the art of nurturing, what it means to be a woman. You press your palms to the countertops you pound the yams against, running your finger over the rim of the cooking pot. Mama is preparing to heat up the Gbegiri that she taught you to make for your future husband.

After you eat your mother’s cooking for the last time, you retreat to your room and pack away your only three dresses, setting the best one out for when you meet his family.

Soon, you will be away from home forever, stuck in a place you must rechristen as home, though by then, neither village will feel like it. You wave goodbye as your family sees you off, embracing you and letting go. Your older brother, who will watch over you in your marriage, who is promised your first-born child as payment for his duty, joins you and the chicken on your journey.

Those seven hours are the last time you ever feel like yourself.

Then the pretending begins.

When you approach the village, you pretend you aren’t disappointed by its small buildings, its flatness, its simplicity. You pretend it is not a downgrade from your old home.

You pretend you are grateful to the people of the village for letting you into their home. They seem alien and unwelcoming with their judgmental stares and 26 / VLR

Ritual crossed arms. You pretend you are excited; pretend you are not exhausted and overwhelmed.

As you marry this strange man, the foreign blacksmith, you pretend he lives up to your expectations. He is shorter than you imagined, his eyes farther apart, his ears stick out. When he tells you he is happy to meet you, you pretend it means anything. You accept the arrangement and pretend the men around you didn’t calculatedly set it up.

You are honest when you thank them for the gift of the chicken but start pretending again when they slash and slaughter and strangle it. The chicken lets out a harsh squeal and goes silent. His auburn feathers fall to the floor, drenched in thick blood. He’s then cooked and celebrated as a gift, sacrificed for the matrimony.

His torture is over. Yours is barely beginning.

Later that night, the festivities are over, and you pretend you don’t burn the Igbin on purpose so that he will hate you and let you go home. As stars emerge, he finds you in bed, and you pretend it doesn’t hurt so he doesn’t hit you. You pretend his yellow teeth and stench of smoke don’t bother you. You pretend you are not crying. You pretend you are sleeping while lying awake the entire night, sitting in a pool of your own sweat, swatting away flies.

As days pass, your heart will sink further into your gut. It will sit there, numb like a rock, draining of hope. You cook every day, clean the house. You pretend to be happy when your blood doesn’t come, and the world decides you are with child. You have the child and pretend to love it, even though it is half of him, and you hate him. As your stomach grows, your wrinkles deepen, and you imagine a world where you had been born a man, and someone else would have to give up her entire life to you. You imagine the power that it would give you. You realize you will never know what that feels like.

And you pretend you don’t still envy the chicken.

Allison Metcalf

27 / VLR

American Animal Pull over here—it’s some kind of gas station Antique store hybrid, you can tell by the Church In the truck bed of the Chevy-Jeep parked slantways Across the lawn. I’ll be the homesick wife, young And strawberry-flavored, and you the scattered Academic who looks at the sky when talking About F. Scott. Yes, it’s mighty blue today, The way nothing is until it—it—hits you.

Come on. Don’t dally. We’ll nab something nice And heavy with gilt edges we can both grasp With both hands and for one purebred moment You, this thing, and I will be somewhere unique To us, and isn’t it all terrifically subdued Against the surly promises of history?

Brenna Courtney

28 / VLR

29 / VLR

The Night Shift He had always known that his Mom was a stubborn one. When he was about 7 years old, he wanted to try skateboarding. She hadn’t thought it would be a good idea, and so she tried to scare him with horror stories of people falling, scraping all of their limbs, and being run over by other skateboarders who were so desperate to land tricks that they didn’t notice a little boy crumpled on the floor.

Though this succeeded in scaring him, it still didn’t completely dash his desire to skateboard. So, on Christmas, he ran down the stairs and tore through his small selection of presents to find a long, thin rectangular one. He shook it and it barely moved around in his wrapping. It was, in fact, a used skateboard, and he was absolutely over-the-moon about it. The very next day, they went to the skate park to try it out. He stepped on the board, trying to find his balance, and instantly face-planted into the ground. He felt the unforgiving concrete scrape into his exposed palms and knees. It was like thousands of little fires were burning and stabbing at his skin.

He screamed and began crying, but his Mom made no move from her spot on the bench. He yelled to her, “Mom! Help! It hurts”. She looked away from him. Eventually, he managed to get up, and stumbled over to her bench where she still hadn’t moved an inch.

“I fell,” he stated.

“I know,” she replied.

“Then why didn’t you help me up?”

“Well, I told you that you would fall and hurt yourself, didn’t I?” He was much older now. Though he had never tried skateboarding again, he had embarked on many other adventures in life. He got into a good enough college out of state, and decided early on to study business. Even though he loved examining ancient art works and learning about their original cultures, an interest picked up from visiting his mom’s work, he knew he could never support himself off that kind of salary. At least, not in the way he wanted. So instead he studied business, and when he graduated he got a job in finance in Rome. That way, he could at least be surrounded by the arts and culture wherever he went. He felt bad at first for leaving his Mom behind. She had no other family in New York anymore, after his Dad had left them both when he was a toddler, and she had given up so much so he never had to want for anything more: love, money, or her time. That even meant getting a job during the night shift so she would be there when he woke up and when he got back from school. Still, he knew he had to leave. It would suffocate him otherwise. At first, he tried to convince her to move with him, but she always refused. Said she had moved enough in her life to know when she had put 30 / VLR

down roots. That she had her apartment, and her plants, and the birds that she took care of that couldn’t be moved across the Atlantic now, could they?

It had been years now since he had moved away. He knew his Mom was getting older. She tried to ignore it, living alone and keeping the same job she had had since he was a kid, but he could tell. He could see it in how the wrinkles got deeper and her back stooped more each time he called. How each time he visited, her apartment was in worse and worse shape and he had to help her with more and more basic tasks. He knew it was time for her to come be with him. It was his duty as a son, even if she didn’t accept it at first.

She woke up, her back already aching before the day (or really, the night) had even begun. Rubbing her back, she got up and started boiling water for her coffee as she began getting ready for work. She checked her cellphone, and saw she’d gotten a text from her son. He worked long hours in Italy, so their waking hours didn’t quite match up, and they never really got to talk as often as she would like. He tried to text her as often as he could, though. Today he asked about her plans for the rest of the night and how long she would be at work. She answered him before going through her answering machine and listening to the calls she had missed while she was sleeping. There was one from her doctor’s office asking for payment information for her recent appointment, a spam call trying to trick her into giving out her tax information, and one from her landlord asking her to call him back to “confirm some things”. She frowned. She would deal with all of them when she got back from work. She finished making her coffee and settled down into her rickety kitchen chair that she had had since she had first moved to this city. She drank it while watching the last rays of the sun set. She placed a coffee cup in the sink and rinsed it, then she walked out of her apartment. She was enveloped in darkness as she headed to work.

The bells jangled softly as she entered the museum. It was dark and the Greek statues looked like haunted angels in this light. It was ok, she was used to it by now. She settled back and began the next 8 hours of watching still videos.

4 hours later, it was time for her to do her first sweep. She huffed up, her back still hurting, and began her rounds. She moved from Greek, to Egyptian, to Chinese art. All great empires, before they fell and were pillaged and ended up here, in New York City. She bet none of the artists had envisioned such an ungraceful death for their art. She had never picked up much about the artworks, even after working here for the past 20 years or so. Knowledge like that can’t be gained just from looking at the art, it just isn’t meant to. It was meant to be learned in hallowed halls with crowds as white as the marble statues. Don’t get her wrong, she enjoyed looking at the art. She liked knowing that there was something that outlasted the everyday squabbles of people. She liked seeing the sheer time and 31 / VLR

effort that went into the curves of a woman’s hips, the brushstrokes of a quiet scene by a lake. She just didn’t have the words to describe methods or analyze their meanings. They just looked pretty to hear, but wasn’t that enough sometimes?

When she got back to her desk, it was already nearly 5am. She thought back to her son. It seemed like only a few years ago when he was so small she could hold him in her arms, so small that she felt like she had to protect him from all of the evils of the world. Now, he was achieving his dream, but he was all the way across the ocean. Sometimes, she hated that he had left her alone in this big city, but then she would catch and chide herself. Because she was happy for him, really, she was. He had achieved success more than she ever could have dreamed when she had first moved to this country. Meanwhile, she was still working the same job she had since they were young kids and she had added up their rent and food costs for the month and realized she only had enough money to cover one. She got the job through her cousin who worked in the cafeteria of the museum, but kept it even after everyone else had grown up and left for better things. Now, it was far too late for reinvention. She was used to waking up when the world fell asleep and had no other skills besides watching the lights from the cameras flicker back and forth. She did just that for the rest of her shift before the better paid day security guard entered. She collected her few things and quickly left. As she walked out of the museum she stopped to admire how the art looked in the daylight, how much more bright and ethereal the works were.

She walked back to her apartment and climbed up five flights of stairs because her landlord still hadn’t fixed the elevator. She unlocked her door, ready to collapse down into her old armchair and reach for another couple of hours of precious sleep. She had already forgotten all of the tasks she had set for herself when she got back from work. She began falling towards her chair when she stopped.

There was someone else already there. She could see their silhouette peeking out against the beams of sunlight streaming in from her window. She set down her bag, and picked up an umbrella she always kept by the door. She approached the chair from the side, but the creaks of her old wooden floor gave her away. The figure began to stir. “Mama?” It sleepily asked. That voice sounded familiar. That voice was one she had nursed through sick days at home, through screaming arguments and slamming doors, through tearful goodbyes. It was her son.

It had been a long flight from Italy. He couldn’t afford to take any days off so he had left as soon as he finished work on Friday, and had booked their seats back for Monday morning. It would be quick, but he hoped it would be enough time. It had to be. He had made all the other arrangements while still in Europe: talking to her landlord, finding a moving company, even contacting her bosses at the museum. The only one left to inform was his Mom herself.

32 / VLR

“What are you doing here?” She asked and she rushed forward to hug him.

He hugged her back, “I just came to see you. Is that so bad?”

“No, no, but you should have told me you were coming. I would have gotten off of work, I could have made you some food and cleaned the apartment. I don’t even know where you can stay. How long are you here for?”

“Mom! It’s ok. I just wanted to see you.”

She paused, narrowed her eyes, and shook her head. “I know you too well.

Why are you really visiting?”

He looked away, not being able to meet her eyes, “I did want to talk to you about something.”

“Are you finally moving back here? I always knew you would, I’ve never understood why you moved away to a country where we can’t even speak the language. I—” “No Mom. Actually…” he took in a sharp breath, “I want you to move and stay with me.”

She whipped around and stared at him, her eyes narrowing.

“What? Why would you say that?” she demanded.

“Listen, I know we’ve been talking about it for years, but—” “No,” she corrected. “You have been talking about it for years.”

He spoke slowly, carefully measuring out each individual word, “We both know you’re not getting any younger, and I know things are getting harder for you.

I can’t take care of you when you’re so far away.”

“And you don’t have to! I’m fine on my own. You can go back to your fancy European life and stop worrying about me.”

He got up and started pacing by the window. There was a sense of tension in the air now, as if they were drowning in a pool of cement. He stopped and looked at her. His eyes were full of pain and something more. A plea that he wouldn’t have to say what he was thinking out loud. His voice strained, “You know I can’t do that.”

“Why not? Just leave!” she said angrily, getting up and moving towards him.

They stood face to face, though he towered over her. He shook his head slowly. “That would make me just like him,” he said quietly.

She took a visceral step back and cocked her head. “Your father? Is that really what you’re afraid of?” She reached out towards him and motioned to him to take her hand. He did. “You are such a different man than him. The fact that you’re even here shows that much.”

He mulled this over and sighed, “I can’t leave you here. I have two seats booked on a flight back on Sunday, and you have to come with me.” He looked intently at her, “you have to.”

When he looked at her like that, like he felt the pain of all of humankind all at once, it felt like a part of herself was dying too. She remembered when he had 33 / VLR

wanted a skateboard, he had begged for it for months on end before she had finally given in and gotten it for him for Christmas, despite all of her warnings. When he tried riding it, he had instantly hurt himself, and he had begun crying and calling out for her. It had taken everything in her to ignore his cries for help, even as every cell in her body screamed at her to go comfort him. It had been so difficult for her at the time, but even then she knew that’s what she had to do to make him a man.

A thoughtful, loyal, selfless one. It was exactly what had made him come and insist on her moving, she knew that. That didn’t mean it made it any easier. She closed her eyes, and felt her chest pounding and a headache starting to come on. Like it was coming from another being, she slowly heard herself say, “Okay. I’ll go.”

She rolled her suitcase down the airplane bridge. She had packed it to the brim with memories and knick-knacks that she couldn’t imagine living the rest of her life without. Her son had reassured her nearly a thousand times that he had arranged for movers to come and pack all of her apartment up, that she just needed to bring some clothes and other essentials to tie her over. She had ignored his advice and left all of those in her apartment still. Saving her knick knacks was a sign of her futile resistance as much as it was a practical matter. To anybody else they would look just like what they were: trash, and be quickly discarded. She stopped and looked out at the blinking lights of the airport. If she squinted, from this angle on the bridge, she could even see the faint outlines of the skyscrapers and bright advertisements that dotted the city’s skyline. She didn’t know if she would ever see it again. Before the moment could fully sink in, she turned and boarded the plane.

Her son stood behind her, hoping, maybe still unconsciously, that he had done the right thing. You can never really know though, can you?

Sofia Heartney

34 / VLR

Death Dwells in my Subconscious... …as a figure in a dark coat with one of those old-timey fedoras pulled down too low over his forehead. He’s tolerable enough, most of the time, only recently he’s been getting a little too much into poetics. Don’t you think it’s a little heavy-handed? he’s asking me. What? I’m pissed because I’m trying to sleep, and he only ever seems to want to make himself known when I’m trying to sleep. I don’t know, this whole thing—he gestures vaguely to himself, gaunt, cold, the coat more cloak-like than appropriate for street wear, with a long, gleaming scythe in his right hand and an ominous scroll in his left. He waves the scroll a little—I can’t even read this shit— and the scythe—and this looks like you picked it up in a pop-up Halloween store in the corner of the downtown mall—and he shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge the ill-fitting fedora, but of course it doesn’t budge. What do you want from me? I ask. I didn’t do any of that. He squints at me in response. You must have. You’re the poet. He begins to look around him, taking in his surroundings with distaste visible in his expression. What is this, prose? I fail to stifle my scream of frustration. Come on, he grins, you know you love me. I hate it when he flirts.

Grace Whitaker

35 / VLR

Erase by Fiction I woke up to a buzz on the table and a shift in the air.

My eyes strained against their lids, puffy as all hell. I felt as faint as the light leaking through the blinds, nothing new, but something else left an imprint as I jolted into consciousness.

A buzz erupted again. My phone, charging on a white side table, slipped artificial light into my field of vision to compliment the rays from the window. The sheets on the other side of the bed—deliciously cold—hissed as I pulled myself up to read the notification.

Mom. Good Morning.

Good morning to you, too. The big bubble of impending text hovered at the bottom of the screen. She never, ever opened with declaring the morning would be good unless she was going to give me a reason for it not to be.

It’s been weeks. Answer me.

Stacks, stacks of undone study guides and mock lesson plans peeked at me from my desk.

I’m coming to speak with you. Try to clean at least a little.

I straightened my back. She lived two hours away.

The kitchen. I knew I had dishes piled up, dust bunnies bouncing in corners, and the ghosts of crumbs yet to be wiped. Junior year had long since caught up with me, but she didn’t care. She’d still have a cow.

Almost drunkenly, I swung my legs out from under the comforter and stumbled toward the door. Coffee first, coffee first.

But my mind screeched to a halt and began sputtering as soon as I stepped into the kitchen.

Margie. She sat at the table. Still. Twelve hours later, and she snored softly—only the lightest of sounds permeating through the kitchen. Her soft brown curls splayed in a fan around her face, unkempt like they always were. A rainbow of annotated papers and books with cracked spines littered the space, scribbles in languages like English and Latin and both Ancient and Modern Greek, languages I could immediately recognize precisely because of Margie’s colorful ramblings. Her backpack sat, deflated, on the floor next to her chair. All of her belongings asserted such a strong presence that I could barely tell the ugly, piss-yellow color of the pine table and chair set underneath it all.

Coffee, coffee. The craving sharpened at the sight of her.

I padded over to the coffeemaker on the other side of the kitchen, careful not to wake her. My tile was cold from a night without touch, and its presence against my sent goosebumps up my arms. I shivered.

My hand shook as I scooped ground coffee into the basket. The possibilities 36 / VLR

the day held unfolded before me, each worse than the last. I imagined Mom bursting through the front door, seeing my papers mingled with Margie like they hadn’t in nearly two months. I imagined the questions, the interrogations, the shame, the temple-rubbing. I filled up the water tank.

If it was soon, Mom could wake Margie. We would have no time to talk, to have The Conversation, before Mom would dig her claws into the juiciest treat: a situation she could fix, a dependent she could help. Then we would sit, like stupid kids, while I would groggily recall the hours I spent rehearsing my stupid monologue in the shower, a stupid speech I would never get to deliver.

That decided it. I had to do it today. I had to talk to her.

The press of a small button began a minute-long series of soft hisses from the coffee machine.

I had left Margie in the kitchen around 10:00 pm, scribbling away, complimenting my tea with lemon and honey I’d reluctantly handed over. She took no cream, holding the mug against her freckled cheek to warm it, the brownish gray liquid simmering like her eyes. She’d smiled as I closed my bedroom door behind me.

The coffeemaker chirped, signaling that the pot was brewed. I helped myself to a cup, pulled the half-and-half out of the fridge, and poured one dollop into the black coffee. The unmixed cream spun and swirled inside the rich, translucent brew. My stomach churned right alongside it.

It had to stop. I had to end it. Margie waltzing into my apartment, acting like I couldn’t see the divots under her eyes or her uneven nails, longer than I’ve ever seen them. Nails that scraped against the doorknob as she entered, skimming my defenses like fat off water and flinging them against the wall, making my words stick like the eyeliner crusting on her waterline. Last night, she smiled and thanked me for the tea and the WiFi and the quiet, because her roommates were really so loud and she didn’t know what she’d do without me.

Birds began chirping outside the lone kitchen window, one which sent scattered rays onto Margie’s snoring body.

She wanted to be without me. That was the kicker. Usually I wasn’t able to escape her shining eyes and overwhelming presence, but two months ago there was a buzz and blue light leaking into my line of vision and a single line saying exactly what she’ll do without me, it’s not me it’s her, she’ll see me around.

The ceramic mug warmed my hands. Its handle had lumps, bruises from when I’d made it in a pinch pot class with Margie last summer. I’d tried to glaze it rainbow, but instead it ended up looking like a shiny, muddy mess. At least it was leak-proof.

I took another sip of the coffee, wondering when the hell I should wake Margie and whether I’d have the balls to say what I’ve been gathering up the courage to ever since that one text two months ago.

37 / VLR

A stray paper, scanning some lines of poetry, fluttered near Margie’s nose every time she exhaled. My chest hurt with each movement.

I’d never seen Margie so quiet as when she was sleeping. She always reacted in ways that demanded to be felt, sucking in all the oxygen in a room, leaving the other occupants breathless from pure proximity. She wielded words like the pencils she twirled between her fingers, like tools spread out of a velvet blanket, their sole purpose to increase her knowledge and draw those around her closer.

That grip had reassuring pressure. A solid presence next to me, it allowed me to lean to the side for the past two years. The only issue was the fall after it disappeared, with no chance to regain balance.

From my perch at the counter I could see that Margie wore a shirt of mine that she’d never given back. It was gray, from my high school, and two sizes too big on her. I had to stop myself from walking over and rubbing the material between my fingers, the same gray jersey as my sheets, as warm as they used to be…

The unfinished lesson plans, final projects, shoeboxes, tutoring logs, and dishes loomed in my mind’s eye. My mother, with the same colorless complexion as mine, only drier, loomed alongside them.

My and Margie’s friends weaseled their way in there, too. Rebecca, Siobhan, Johanna. Wrist tattoos and head-scratching and murmurs after the breakup about giving us time, not wanting things to be weird, that maybe we should take a break from Friday night dinners for a few weeks to figure things out. Rebecca averting her eyes and Johanna full-on looking away and Siobhan tilting her head in sympathy because they’ve been there, oh sweetie they’ve been there, with one of us or with the other. We can’t afford to lose one another over something silly, now, can we? We’ve survived this long.

The bed was always warm one way or another.

Margie twitched in her sleep on the kitchen table. I couldn’t leave her there for much longer, no matter how much I loved seeing her muted in a peaceful moment. There was my mother’s colorless eyes and Kia Soul to think about, plugging down Route 29 to coax something, anything out of me after two months of what she had wished for not going her way.

I approached Margie, close enough to see the crusts of old eyeliner still remaining on translucent eyelids. I shook her shoulder, trying my best not to scare her. “Margie.” No response. “Margie!”

Her head shot up, sending papers and pens of every color askew. “What’s wrong? What happened?” she muttered, seeing past me with bleary eyes.

A lump formed in my throat. “You fell asleep again,” I said.

Margie groaned. “I was going to leave by midnight this time. I promised myself.” She turned her pleading eyes to me. “I promised you!”

I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious. I hadn’t bothered getting dressed or tidying myself before leaving my bedroom. I was wearing no bra, no shoes, and my 38 / VLR

shirt was so faded and had so many small holes in it that it no longer said “PRINCE WILLIAM HIGH SWIM,” just “PR E W G S M.” “I know you promised,” I said, avoiding her eyes. God damn it. I walked back over to the coffee pot and leaned against the counter. I need space between me and her, I thought. I can’t trust myself.

She rubbed her eyes. “It’s just that my roommates are so loud! I don’t know what they’re doing, going so hard so close to finals…” While she continued grumbling I bit back a response about communicating with one’s roommates and asking for quiet study hours on weekdays. I didn’t have a roommate, I acknowledged that luxury, but come on.

“Yeah,” I conceded, “But… we broke up two months ago, Margie.”

She immediately sobered up. “I know.”

“You ended it.” This isn’t fair to me.

“I know.”

“You’re constantly asking to come over here.” I wish she could just stop.

“I know…”

“Isn’t there anywhere else you can go?” As soon as I said it, I knew the answer. Rebecca, Johanna, Siobhan… we had all the same mutual friends, all of whom had partners, all of whom were still mourning the crashing and burning of a relationship within a friend group. If Margie went over to one of their places, she’d have to talk about me, and she wasn’t ready to do that. She was only ready to act like nothing happened.

“You’re the only place I can think to go to, Livvy.”

The old nickname expanded to fill the air. Taking my silence as complacency, Margie rose from her chair. “Oh-Livvy-ah, Olivia,” she said in a sing-song voice, to the tune of some unplaceable indie song. She had a piece of hair stuck in her mouth.

“Don’t call me that,” I groaned. Margie continued to approach.

“Woah, relax.” she exhaled as she brushed my side, reaching for the coffee. She smelled like old mornings, like a little bit of her sweat mixed with laundry detergent and Sharpie. “I just wanted a cup.” She was close enough that I could see her cowlick and the texture of her acne scars. Dry hands reached above my shoulder, into the cabinet, and drew out her favorite mug, the one with the mushroom soup recipe on it.

My chest and stomach erupted. Oh, no. It was like before but not, the uncanniest of valleys. I saw the future spiral out in front of me, shooting through time, laying out exactly what will happen. I saw the warmth, the warnings, the weaknesses, the reunions, the rebirth shifting right back into decomposition.

She leaned against the counter next to me, sipping at her heavily-sweetened coffee. It did nothing to parch her cracking lips. “What were you expecting us to do?” she asked me. “Never talk again? The lesbian community here is, like, ex39 / VLR

tremely tight. That’s a bit naïve of you, Livvy.” Instinctively I wanted to respond with I’m not a lesbian, but I got her point. Margie teased me, a familiar routine, but one I was not ready to begin again.

“I wasn’t expecting to never see you again,” I said carefully, “I just… you know I’d do anything to help you the best I can. But this much, I can’t handle…” I trailed off as she turned to fully face me. I was a few inches taller than her, but she leaned in with enough confidence to make up the difference.

“Tell me to leave, then.” I imagined her manipulating strings attached to my neck, my hands, my elbows. “I know I need you, Livvy, and you need me.” Closer, closer. “You need me, right?”

Her words. Words, words, words. Words spilling out of her hands and her pen and her mouth, as they always had, her mouth with chapped lips which I met with my own.

The smell of Sharpie grew stronger as the sweet dregs of her coffee mingled with the bitterness of mine. I blindly placed my mug on the counter next to me to free my hand and touch the small of her back, drawing her closer. I need her, she needs me, I need her.

Two years of knowing each other inside and out can’t be shaken easily.

Muscle memory kicked in, with rough palms cupping cheeks and navels pressing together with the desperation and frustration of two months apart, of finals week, of my mother on her way in her brand-spanking-new Kia Soul and arriving in two hours if I’m lucky— I broke away before she could manage to perch herself on top of the counter, shooing her hand away from the waistband of my pajama pants. “I can’t,” I gasped. “My mom is coming—you need to leave.”

Margie stood there, mouth slightly open, her lips slightly less dry than they were a minute ago. An embarrassed flush began to creep across her face. “Are you serious?” she asked.

It’s not fair to me. “You said you wanted to be open to see other people.” I straightened my back and stepped backwards. “Then go. Cut me loose. We’ll still have the same friends, and see each other often, as you said…” My throat began to close up. “I don’t think I need you as much as you say I do.” It’s fiction, a story, but Margie was familiar with those. She knew the need for them, the necessity.

Stories were how she wooed me in the first place.

“Say what you really mean.” Her face still red, she began to pack up her papers and books and packets of poems and epics. “Why can’t you just say what you really mean?”

I’m not like you with words, wielding them like weapons to serve my will. I’m better at repeating the words of others. “I am. I am saying what I mean.” Hopefully she was so angry that my face didn’t give me away.

Margie’s lips flattened into a thin line, white next to her flushed cheeks. “I 40 / VLR

get it. Loud and clear.” With a blur of blondish-brownish curls, Margie whipped open my apartment door and was gone.

The silence shifted back to its usual position. The dishes were still untouched in the sink, but a bird continued to chirp outside of the lone kitchen window. Both of our mugs sat on the counter, handles turned away from each other, lukewarm.

I shivered, and thought of the shoebox.

All that about words, and the shoebox only just then reentered my mind.

Instead of completing my assignments or cleaning or emailing my Professor about the tutoring lab I missed, my feet patted across the hardwood into my bedroom and veered toward the closet. The shoebox, sure enough, was on the floor under strewn corduroy jackets and flannel pants. It hadn’t budged for two months. It was a Nike shoebox, violently orange and frayed at the edges, filled to the brim with paper ranging from full sheets of cardstock to scraps of notebooks and the backs of receipts.

The letters had originally been strung across the walls of her bedroom, connected by ten-dollar twinkle lights from Target. There were still divots in the tops of the pages from where the clothespins had gripped.

I clumsily folded my legs and sat in front of the closet, lifting the lid of the shoebox and tossing it aside. When I’d torn the paper off my wall, I’d put the most recent pages in first, leaving the oldest at the top. Lifting the top page, I held it up to the ceiling light, allowing the purple pen to shine through the translucent pulp.

January 21st, 2020.

Olivia, You probably only think of me as that random chick from your writing seminar, but, hey—I figured the best way to study for this class is to write. I have a phone, sure, everyone does.

But the routine of handing someone a letter, a rectangle of space that’s blank on the outside but contains whispers and murmurs and all sorts of shit inside is kind of awesome, I think. It demands physical space. Maybe I just enjoy seeming like I’m smart. But anyway, I have Latin class in 5 minutes so I gotta wrap this up fast. This is a long and really annoying way of asking for your number. Well?

Peace and love, Margaret from Writing Seminar.

I remembered my resentment at having to take a writing seminar for my childhood education major. The windowless classroom, the faces illuminated by laptop screens, the first glimpse of those curls and that inclined head. She talked more than me, and when she threw words against the wall, they stuck more often than mine.

After I received that letter, I offered to drive to get coffee after class. I drove everywhere from then on, just for an excuse to pick her up.

Next paper. February 4th, 2020.

Olivia, 41 / VLR

I had a great time last night. I don’t know if I’ll ever get your dorm’s paint smell out of my clothes, but I don’t care. You showed interest in my homework, which was nice of you, but you don’t have to pretend that. You don’t have to pretend with me. I can rattle off about Adonic stanzas and Sappho’s Tiasos until I don’t know when to stop. I want to listen to you, too. Last night, you were reading your Research Methods textbook and rubbing the tip of your nose with your thumb and forefinger when you got really concentrated. I noticed that. Same time next week?

Peace and love, Margaret.

God, I remembered that research and data analysis class. I took it to fulfill a general education requirement, and I studied for it with Margie because we desperately clung to any excuse to be with each other, as people usually do in the honeymoon phase. Our honeymoon phase, before things were official, was in the winter.

We found warmth and isolated hobbies to spend the time, passing passions and rants and habits back and forth like keepsakes for later.

She kissed me and asked whether we could become official a month later.

August 13th, 2021.

Ocelle, Isn’t that word neat? I can only do so much with ‘Olivia,’ and the shape of ‘Livvy’ has become an old habit on my tongue. Its shape is nice, but you said to spice it up. I’m still going strong with the letters, a year and a half later, so God damn it if I’m not gonna keep it interesting! It means ‘little eyes,’ you know. I promise it’s a pet name. If you don’t like that one, I can do ‘iucundissima’—‘most pleasant one.’ Catullus could be an asshole, but he had some bangers.

If I’m gonna write my thesis on works by these old farts, I may as well put it to good use. You’re more worthy of the compliments than his lover, anyway.

He, Ovid, Homer, a ton of them wrote in dactylic hexameter, with stresses on syllables that looked like fingers, sometimes as directions pointing the way in the poems or sometimes the meter was grasping the lines themselves with velvet touches. If I had any original talent, I’d write in that meter for you. I’d translate the way you grip me onto the page, instead of just translating what hundreds of people already have before. Hopefully I do something eventually with this, like you probably will with your degree. Psych is so much more useful, at least way out there. You’re practical, you’re magical, and you’re my hero. Remember.

Peace and love, Margie.

At this letter, my throat burned.

I’d also read Catullus. I’d looked at translations early on in our relationship instead of doing homework for my own education policy class just so we’d have more to talk about and share. Margie always got a kick out of seeing me remember a quote, a passage, or even a theme. Because of all that reading, I now know and forever will know that sal, salis (m.), the word for salt, is commonly translated as wit.

When I was with Margie, initially her insight always brought flavor and intensity to everything, and I craved it constantly. But now. It was too much. My tongue now recoiled and shuddered and begged and pleaded to be doused, no, drowned with water. After the kiss in the kitchen, my mouth was dry with salt, barren to no end.

42 / VLR

I tasted more salt as tears crept down my face. My chest heaved, caving in, but I refused to adjust my posture. Let me collapse sitting in criss-cross applesauce on my closet floor. Please.

But, no. My phone buzzed in my back pocket.

I’m on my way up, Mom said. Jesus Christ, Olivia. It’s not like pulling teeth to respond to people.

And I still didn’t respond. Instead, I hauled myself up from my hole, face puffy, and rifled through my already stacked desk for a pen and some paper.

Let Mom come up.

Let her tell me things I already know, that I already tell myself.

Let her find a highlighter that Margie left behind.

Let her lecture me on healthy relationships, let her generalize about dating women and guess at something she’d never done.

Let her show her love for me by taking charge of my life, by forcibly offering support.

Let her be myself in the future, desperate for any sort of control to exert over a situation in which I have none.

Let her wipe my tears and remind me that I have class tomorrow, like any other Monday.

I could smell the coffee burning in its pot a room away.

Touching my pen to the paper, I began to write.

Julia Hyde

43 / VLR

The Landscape after “To Be Liked By You Would Be a Calamity” Exists not as a symptom of some other Thing’s virtue—rather, it is the other thing

Which acts as a fixed-point,

An imperfect glass hindered by indecisiveness, A vantage; The curtain of ivy, a helmet of blood, Wind tangling the branches, a shadow breathing

On a shirt. The disjoint

Patience of a whole stripped to significance: to hold Such damage.

Brenna Courtney

44 / VLR

A Long Night Gabby sat towards the back of the massive lecture hall. She was 20, an Engineering major, and didn’t know a bit of French. Why was she here, waiting for a visiting French professor to read some of his own poetry? She saw a poster advertising the event on her way to her 8pm discussion, and decided to go to it instead. She started to feel some pricks of regret though, as she watched others enter and pause next to the door, before their eyes lit up with the reassurance of seeing someone they knew. Then they would amble to the front of the hall and reunite with their colleagues or classmates or friends and chat, in French, about what happened in their lives since they last interacted just a few short hours ago.

Gabby sat alone, in a wave of empty seats.

That was expected, though, when you decide to go to a lecture for a subject you’ve never taken and for a language you don’t even know. She felt a strange comfort in her anonymity. Recently, everyone she knew, and even some she didn’t, had taken to looking at her with wide pitying eyes. Here, she didn’t know a single soul, and none of them paid attention to the ghostly figure shrouded in shadows, all alone.

The lecture began with an introduction from another professor. In English, he raved about the visiting poet, detailing how he was introduced to his work and how difficult it was to convince him to come and teach. Apparently, the professor poet was from Paris. Gabby couldn’t wrap her head around why he would ever choose to leave Paris to come to their small northeastern college town, even if it was just for a semester. Gabby would give anything to live in Paris. When they were young, she and her sister, Ava, would pretend they were French, printing out pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the French flag and putting them up all over their playroom. While other kids played House, they created a business plan for a French bakery. The only pastry they knew for sure they would include was croissants, so that made up the whole menu. They eventually grew out of their obsession, before they could even make a run at learning the language, but they always promised each other that they would at least visit one day. Now, it was too late for even that.

The poet took the stage. “Thank you for having me, and for the kindness you have all shown me. I have so enjoyed teaching such talented and passionate students.” He spoke quietly, in halting English and a thick accent. “Now, I’ll begin.” With that, he switched to French and the entire atmosphere changed in a single instant. His voice became lifted and lyrical. Gabby had no idea what any of the words he was saying meant, but when she closed her eyes, it was like she could see the images she just knew he was describing, feel the wrenching emotion she could hear in how his voice caught in the back of his throat. Some parts of the human 45 / VLR

experience must be universal that way. Gabby kept her eyes closed for the rest of the reading, letting the nasally words wash over her and rush through her veins.

She was awoken from her trance only when all of the audience members around her burst into applause. The sudden sound broke her meditation, and she jolted up and glanced around before resting a hand on her face. She was surprised that her face was wet. Tears. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried.

She ran out to the hall, feeling ashamed by the sudden display of emotion.

Her breath quickened and she looked around frantically, tears still streaming down her face. Out of her control. Finally, she ducked into a bathroom and splashed her face with cold water, a trick she had learned when she was young to minimize her puffy eyes. Gabby stared at herself in the mirror. As long as she could remember, she had avoided looking at herself as much as she could manage, seeing it as a display of vanity. But now, she slowed and examined her features: her sharp cheekbones, clear green eyes, straight black hair. The same features her whole family shared.

Her mother always used to joke that she couldn’t tell her and her sister apart, given how similar they looked. That always made them laugh, since even if they looked like identical twins, their personalities were so different that no one ever mixed them up. Gabby was boisterous and bossy, ordering other kids, and sometimes some grown-ups, for a game she made up. Ava, on the other hand, was content just being by herself. She joined Gabby’s games if pleaded to, but never formed her own. Gabby often ended up having to organize games for her and her sister. Their parents didn’t like partaking in their childish fantasies, much preferring to discuss the latest world news or more often, have each member of the family sit in their own separate areas. Gabby would usually break this isolation, bursting into Ava’s room to insist that they play a game together.

This happened even on their yearly family vacations. They owned a small beach house in Harpswell, Massachusetts and went there every Labor Day weekend to mark the end of summer. It was when Gabby and Ava would soak up their last few free days before they had to go back to school, and their parents would sigh with relief that their children would be largely out of their hands. Harpswell was a quaint beach town, but it was mainly made up of locals, even during its busiest season.

Gabby could remember one particular day, when she was around eight, Ava would have been six or so. It was perfect beach weather: the sun was bright, there was a slight cooling breeze, and the waves weren’t too rough. She spent most of the day begging her parents to join her. Even offering that they could build sand castles, or play mermaids, or dig a hole to reach the center of the Earth, but to no avail. Finally, her mom ended up screaming at her to leave them alone, that they didn’t want to play her childish fantasy games. That she was getting way too old for that and she should do something useful with her time instead. She remem46 / VLR

bered how humiliated she felt. How quickly she ran back into her room and covered herself with blankets until it was so hot she could barely breathe. She remembered a gentle knock on her door, before Ava slipped in and hugged her blanketed mound and offered to play with her instead. Gabby and Ava, Ava and Gabby.

She felt stuck in the memory, and it still felt like she was under all of those blankets. Each breath took an enormous effort. She opened her eyes but the bathroom felt smaller than they used to be. The walls were closing in on her. She had to get out of here: out of this bathroom, out of this hall, out of this school.

Taking a deep breath out, she already felt better. Everytime she got in her head like that, the only thing that could make it better was driving her car aimlessly through the long rural roads that surrounded her college campus. There were no streetlights around, so driving required focus on the road ahead since the only thing that cut through the darkness was your own headlights. Occasionally, another car would come into view, marked first by the faint glow its own lights created.

Gabby would have to pull over, half in a ditch, to wait for them to pass.

She had never driven this far away from school before. Up ahead, there was even the faint whooshing and bright lights that marked a freeway. She decided to continue towards it, at the very least to get her bearings before turning around.

Her headlights showed a stop sign ahead that would allow her to turn into a paved street that would lead her to the freeway. Stop, signal, check, turn. She took a few more turns, relying largely on her instincts, before she merged onto the freeway.

She glanced around for a large green sign to figure out where she was headed, and finally spotted it. She gasped, and the car swerved slightly before she corrected it. She was heading South to Massachusetts. Not just that, but apparently she was headed directly to Harpswell, the town her family vacationed. Gabby didn’t believe in coincidences. She pulled over rashly to the side of the freeway, ignoring the honks directed at her. Checking her GPS, she saw that Harpswell was only a two hour drive away. If she headed there now, she’d be able to stay a while before heading back to campus. She had to go.

She pulled into the familiar town and kept driving until she reached her family’s beach house. The last time she was here was with her family, right before they dropped her off for college. She parked her car sloppily in front of the small private path leading up to the beach where she parked her car. It blocked it, but it barely mattered. The beach was so far removed from the main part of the already sleepy town that there was never anyone passing through. There were no other houses within eyesight. She stumbled onto the sand dunes, sat down and grabbed a handful of sand, and felt each individual grain run through her fingers.

47 / VLR

Why had she come here?

It was dark and she couldn’t see anything. She sank back into the comfort of the sand dune, feeling the grains adjust to hold her. Her eyes flickered shut while she began remembering memories of years past, with her family–how her and her sister would play hide and seek on this very beach, sometimes worrying their parents if they didn’t come back for dinner soon after being called.

She didn’t know how much time had passed when she woke up, but she shivered slightly as she sat upright. The sun was just starting to snake its tendrils around the sky, but there was still no one else there. Sighing, she started to get up knowing she would have to start the drive back to campus soon if she had any hope of making it back in time for her first class. She pulled out her phone to see if she would need to speed back and was shocked to find that it was already 5:30am. But then, her gaze fell on the first notification at the top of her screen.

She hesitated for a moment, then held her breath and tapped the glowing notification lightly. A voicemail from her dad started to play.

“Hey kiddo.” His voice was heavy and each word was saddled with a sense of weariness. “We haven’t heard from you since we last talked, so your mom and I just wanted to check in. Are you on your way home yet? We want to wait to plan Ava’s service until you get back but we need to start…”

Her eyes snapped shut and her ears began ringing and she was simultaneously shivering and burning up. She felt her phone drop from her hand, heard it thump into the sand. She stood up and instantly began to feel dizzy and out of her own body, so she acted instinctually, stripping off her jacket and pants, shirt and socks until she stood just in her underwear.

Then she was running, running straight ahead into the shimmering blue ocean and not stopping even as the waves began lapping at her knees and she could feel the cold of it stinging her ankles. She kept going until the waves were hitting her chest and then ducked down. Instantly, the ringing in her ears stopped, replaced with a cool emptiness. It was as if the ocean acted like cotton balls, blocking out noise from both outside and inside her own head until everything just sounded like distant murmurs. The salt water stung her eyes but not any more than the tears she was struggling to hold back, so she forced herself to keep her eyes open. Her hair, her straight black hair, floated around her gently, and it all began to hit her. Ava was gone and she would never come back. They would never get to visit Paris, or comfort each other when their parents got mean, or even just lean on each other as they got older and formed their own families.

They thought they had forever but now it had all been taken away in an instant.

Gabby pushed her head above the surf and gasped for air. Dawn was fully breaking overhead. It filled the air with an orange glow that intermixed with the salty ocean air. The rising sun, the pink clouds, the rhythmic waves, it all spoke to her.

48 / VLR

Let it out. More urgently now: Let it out. She tipped her face towards the sun, still partly submerged in the ocean, and finally let her tears flow.

Sofia Heartney

49 / VLR

routine disorder winter whispers over the desert golden grass drifting on a december wind and a cup of cocoa in my hands black coffee on your side shoes skimming goat-head thorns rearing up one-two this too shall pass red sweatshirt bought with money you don’t have luminary at the side of the road an abuela stands alone selling biscuits made of lard and stuffed corn husks wise-woman merchant watching a child limp home cinderblock feet too heavy to carry step around the sidewalk cracks compulsions drawn out by a late warm winter frosty fear and shards of liquor-bottle glass green like the plates at the payday sushi place spoiled fish and cheap beer silent self-made rituals hide my revulsion counting copper pennies as you roll them chapped violent fingers show tenderness in the way they cup over mine show me how math makes meaning out of madness divide by zero with nothing to carry nothing but the blood dissolving in my mouth dust and a sweat-stained couch pillow over my head pleading mercy between commercial breaks broken fingers tap the rhythm of your burdened breath: onetwo one-two-one-two-one and a hitch like a heart skipping a beat i am back at the beginning sycamore and piñon scattered needles and leaves dot the otherwise barren campus and it’s just us walking down engineer’s way we don’t have a car and the bus line stopped running it’s us until the dark seeps in and it’s back to me

50 / VLR

hidden behind a wall of bamboo trees a cross the spire of a church caught in electrical lines and i never learned how to pray but i’m down on my knees in the kitchen of your apartment reciting good-nights learning how repetition makes sense of chaos Lex Page

51 / VLR

Fall 2022 © Virginia Literary Review