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2 Vortex Magazine of Literature and Art November, 2014
Table of Contents Art Almost Wed, Kirsten Young………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.23 Bear, Carli Hemperley………………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.8 Cain and Abel, Ryan Landry………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.14 The Mattress 2, Erik Riviera………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.4 Who Left this Here? Erik Riviera………………………………………………………………………………………… p.18
Fiction Sinking, Morgan Best……………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.21-22
Media Citadel Wrist, Nicholas Austin* Ultimately, Jack Evans*
Nonfiction Inside your Duluth Bag, Emily Walter……………………………………………………………………………… p.15-17
Poetry Baby Yard Sale: A Conspiracy Tale, James Hicks…………………………………………………………… p.19-20 Damage, Georgette Rainwater…………………………………………………………………………………………… p.13 Death, Do Not Come, Duyen Ha………………………………………………………………………………………… p.10 Monster, Kirsten Young……………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.12 My First Love Poem, Kirsten Young……………………………………………………………………………………… p.24 Naivité, Duyen Ha……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.11 Poor Woman’s Abortion, Duyen Ha…………………………………………………………………………………… p.5-7 Stress, Brandon Rogers………………………………………………………………………………………………………… p.9 Sunrise and Sunset, James Hicks………………………………………………………………………………………… p.25
*to view selected media works, please, go to ucavortex.com
Vortex Staff
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ucavortex.com
Editor-in-Chief/Emily Qualls Assistant Editor/Emily Walter Layout Editor/Dannis Fu Assistant Layout Editor/Anastassiya Khvan Copy Editor/Kaitlyn Wyre Assistant Copy Editor/Chandler Gaines PR Consultant/Mya Hyman Faculty Advisor/Garry Craig Powell
Art
Art Editor/Holly Dickson Art Judges: Paige Yutsus, Carli Hemperley, Keairacca Evans, Kirsten Young
Fiction
Fiction Editor/Jonathan Clark Fiction Judges: Wells Thompson, Ericka Cannady, Michael James, Brandon Rogers
Media
Media Editor/Bates Isom Media Judges: Marissa Shoemaker, Alicia Brautigan
Nonfiction
Nonfiction Editor/Courtney Ragland Nonfiction Judges: Hayden Reed, Lauren Noirelle Hodges, Audrey Bauman, J.J. McNiece
Poetry
Poetry Editor/Christopher Hall Poetry Judges: Ernest Goldwood, Elizabeth Gambertoglio, Amanda Skaggs, Maria-Isabel Gillette
Scriptwriting
Scriptwriting Editor/Chad Percival Scriptwriting Judges: Rebecca Stobaugh, Jordan Willoughby, Marissa Shoemaker
The Vortex is the student-operated art and literary magazine for the University of Central Arkansas located at 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway, AR 72035.
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The Mattress 2 Erik Riviera
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Poor Woman’s Abortion Duyen Ha
A papery thin wallflower Clinging to the leaves Whispers in a tiny voice: “Remember me, remember me.” how did you survive, you tiny one of my womb? did god endow thee with Samson’s strength to be forgotten all too soon? to me, you were trampled by dirty feet, boxed in a bloody room. seasons arrive in their due time, yet untimely did you come. i remember how you dared to bite and suck your thumb. yes, your flimsy petals were no thicker than my pinkie’s knifed-in ridge. but you brought to me perplexity as one who should but refused to wilt. then time came and fair autumn threw her leaves away, obedient to the sea. i thought i ought to pluck you out like a virulent yellow weed— but poseidon bared his foaming teeth; and oh, wallflower, i retreat i retreat.
6 you know, you beat me when at last i discovered those unused aloes and spices, perfume that yet hovers upon your misshapen pistil. i had uncovered your linen mask and there you lay wholly untouched, gleaming, jewel like a newborn. why did your life-water not run out? for i had made certain to drain your vitality. but how you sprouted! you grew! your roots sucked everything in! —while i, your gardener, only grew thin. i remember well that tattered yellow dress you loved along with that headless old doll. in my worn yellow dress you tried not to walk but to crawl. and i cried and hee-hawed. the nights in the south were long and they drawled as i rocked you to bed, but you thrashed and you clawed! in frustration, i burst, “if only you died!” and though your speech was imped, you made a sad noise. i know your mute thoughts. i was not your first choice. … i lose myself sometimes… between the wedges of all our lost days and all our untidied yesterdays. and i know. i know. old folks and new people we’re just a crumpled old rose. i watched you as the wilting began: your dingy leaves died. i could not understand why your growth became stunted, but i remember how you wailed and you grunted. and
i was mad for your belly grumbled, but you fool! you refused what i hunted! still mute as you beat your insistent fists upon the cracks of this rundown place, panting. Never fixed securely on this central vine, oh, You!—the enigmatic sprite! You!—the Yellow Flower whose faded sunbeams have lost all… all… their fairy gold. and i had to learn then existence only serves to undo our precocious growth. how futile… how futile! our silly plundering of cities and churches! we cling to dead treasures as we wail over lifeless bodies. damn these death-filled dirges! You must have known this truth for You grew like a weed until You did go.
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Bear
Carli Hemperley
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Stress
Brandon Rogers
It crashes on the chest Pressing, pounding, beating. Wisps of grey blurring into blackness Consume like a swarm. Every bee stings, every bitter breeze Bites the flesh until numbness seizes the senses. The day of reaping comes before its allotted time So the yield is stripped by thousands of ravenous teeth. No fire burns quickly. No scythe cuts swiftly. The death of hope is slow— E x c r u t i a t i n g But there is no tragedy in its Death. Hope never completely dies, And in that lies the true malignancy of expectations. Hope gleams from its lofty aerie where Even the hopeless can see its light. It is unattainable. It burns the hopeless, Killing them without death. They are crushed by the darkness and lost in it The pressure increases more and more. Day by day Second by second, the force shatters both mind and marrow It suffocates. It burns. It becomes Hell. Forever darkening, forever heating Forever gnawing, forever— choking.
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Death, Do Not Come Duyen Ha
I have faded as fast as the dying fall When leaves of orange and red desist From trees that blow against Nature’s all, I have faded as fast as the dying fall. I have felt my body writhe, gasp for air, and crawl As cool numbered days snuck past and sneered At I, shadow boiled to needless drawl. I have faded as fast as the dying fall. Those who saw me blaze like gold now in ecstasy scrawl My name, never to be forgotten—Oh! Forgetful minds! Do not sigh for I’ll enthrall; I have faded as fast as the dying fall. Still, as unprepared men beg God for another death-call, I do not flinch. My heart remains steadfast. I Have few phrases but these final words (whispered small): “I have faded as fast as the dying fall.” The dying fall… The dying fa—! i live and die With strangled <shriek> Then d i s c o n n e c t e d cry—
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Naiveté
Duyen Ha
Cuts and bruises are simple gifts, The simplest ones boys give to girls To say in terms of love let live Between us friends, woken to the world. The twisted pinches and stolen coins are Seldom thought as banter blistering In boys’ minds, but to their lovers dearest Are young love’s reason for laurel withering. Persistent voices clamor ceaselessly In the enamor’d’s idle ear. Yet ill help from eager pals teasingly Open the door for not love, but sneer. And though time makes place for setting And sea draws bath for sun, There looms no prospect of wedding For the loved girl or her loveless one. If ever had the young boy listened To his father’s tried-and-true advice, The lad’s glassy eyes would not glisten With stifled tears from a woebegone night. True, yet still does the harvest remain vast And plump do the apples turn, shining new. But naiveté blows intertwined with the wind And fruit rots, for the good laborers are few.
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Monster
Kirsten Young
My skin prickles in the cool air that the fan blows against my bare body. I squint at the needle as I try to lace the fishing line through the small hole. It is near impossible with the way my fingers shake in anticipation. I succeed. I tie it securely. I smile to myself as I shine my lighter over the sharp metal. Sterilization is important, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want an infection. I look down between my legs, I grimace at ITS grotesque normality. I take the fatty mass of the right Labium Majus in my trembling fingers. Tears stream down my cheeks as I push the needle through the tough layers of skin and fat. It forms a small popping sound as the needle breaks through the skin other side. I whimper at that sound. It hurts. It hurts so sweet. I continue sewing the flesh until the two sides are woven together like they always should have been. I look down again. It is not beautiful like Barbie. But, it is the closest I can come to perfection, for I am only Frankenstein and my body is my monster.
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Damage
Georgette Rainwater
the butterflies are the morbid part feet scratching my intestines wings stealing my breath until I choke and vomit at your feet you never seem to mind and even smile as I wipe my mouth but you never sit closer and it leaves me wishing that insects could cause more damage
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Cain and Abel Ryan Landry
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Inside your Duluth Bag Emily Walter
Kavu Wallet: There lie 23 cards of all kinds of authority, purpose, and information—a driver’s license branded under 21, a boating license, CPR certification, blood donor card for A positive, voter registration—all indications of having achieved something. Debit card, library card, free coffee card, business cards for a bank, a salon, an eye clinic, the chair of a writing department, two college campus employees, and a counseling service you damn near depend on. Kohl’s card, Sonic card, Hastings card, an insurance card, a SIM card from your last phone, a hospital volunteer badge you stole from your father, the one you used to sneak into their onsite gym. You also have a school identification card, a free pass to easy living and an old, worn, folded up green notecard well over four years old, inscribed with longstanding words of encouragement: “Today I want you to be strong and believe in yourself. Stay focused on one lap at a time. I know you can do it.” The names of past teammates and your track coach’s high expectations in the times he assigned to you on one side of the card—their faces you still remember because it was only a short time ago you were a child then, a sixteen year-old-mess of a girl who found happiness in the people around her when she was running—running as fast as she could to make herself faster, stronger, and better. You remember their full names and you miss them with the intensity of a lost team you may never have again—strange, because you hardly knew them at all. One-dollar cash, eleven cents, a pencil, a small notebook from 1998, Splenda packets, and a blue ink pen adorned with your only source of true peace nowadays: your home. “Enduring Love” by Ian McEwan: A hardback in a dust cover, with names of modern poets written in pen on the back cover. You are a huge fan of this British author, favorites being “Atonement” and “Sweet Tooth.” McEwan speaks to the writer inside of you whenever his narrator breaks fourth wall and seemingly gauges for your opinion of where he should go next with his story. That touch of metafiction provides a unique perspective and it keeps you intrigued in his stories even when they go boring for a chapter or two. A storyteller of tragedy and predestination in determining the fates of his characters and the story, you love it. You love the feeling of God in your fingers when you write a story and you love “Enduring Love” like a tourist loves Italy. You breathe in the smell of trees whenever you read the leaves between the covers—trees and ink long unscented but you smell them anyway, romantically. Idealism bleeds on those pages like the bleeding heart behind your eyes, but you must continue on and diversify, as the poets on the back cover say to you. Hurry on to Annie Proulx and her stories of the ruthless Wyoming wilderness. Plastic Water Bottle: 20 ounces of any brand that will do. In your old age of twenty years, you like to stay hydrated. Fits perfectly inside a large bag and you, being the person that you are, always have a large-ass bag. Also provides evidence of your environmentally healthy desire to recycle and your dis-
16 trust of city tap water. Nothing will do to assuage your paranoia about anything that you can’t personally oversee, for who would be so silly as to trust something they don’t know everything about? 17 Dollar Headphones Inside a UV3 Sunglasses’ Sleeve: A mouthful of convenience, you would say to that if anyone else had written it. You don’t know what happened to your UV3 sunglasses, but considering you were ten when you got them, they wouldn’t fit anymore—likely they were lost to the Atlantic when your family still vacationed there on its long coast. Inside are white, curled up, and crumpled iPod headphones you think you stole brand new from someone, but you can’t remember whom from; your hands get sticky when they get greedy, but you’ve never shoplifted once. The dark blue sleeve—a strange, little memento of your mid-childhood that you carry around for easy transport in case you have to switch bags in a real hurry. You like to think that you’re chameleon for that reason, but you were certainly never in The Sting—though you secretly wish you were, the sucker you are for the blond-haired Robert Redford in his younger days. iPhone 3 with Tire Case: Technology becomes you, as does your choice of the cheapest cover you could find. If you were clumsier, you’d need a stronger case to protect it from rocks and concrete—but you don’t have butter fingers, so you never drop it. Only for baseballs, basketballs, and soccer balls that you can’t hold onto—hence why you run, ride horses, and shoot firearms instead. You never leave it without a passcode or private browsing on the Safari app, you don’t accept cookies or leave history information, and you have no other apps except the ones that came with the phone. You leave as much room as possible for the music, because without it, you’d always be frustrated. You know your priorities with what you want digital and easily discovered by anyone who knows how to hack into an Apple phone. Your bank information never sees the inside of your SIM card because you never check it there—you check it only where the security is strongest. You like to think of yourself as smart—at the very least, you’re quite cautious. Takaungu Pouch from Senegal: Came as a bonus inside a purse you received on your last birthday—as your brother told you: “Forged by the hands of many African child laborers.” You use it for all the contents you don’t want rolling around all over the place within your bag and again, for easy transport. You carry a lighter for fires in case of any apocalypse that may occur and not for cigarettes, a compact, mascara, and eyeliner for the rare occasions you care enough to look different, chap-stick for your perpetually picked lips, triple antibiotic ointment for your scabbed, swollen fingers, a contact case full of ibuprofen for the migraines that drive you to pass out on the couch, an empty contact case for your one bad eye, pencil lead, a small flashlight, a free flash drive, eye drops, a pen from a rental facility, tweezers, a tampon, nail clippers, bump keys (just kidding, you didn’t have the guts to purchase them via that locksmith website—once you were presented with the warning against illegal activities, you left the website and tried to teach yourself the manual way of picking locks). You could break and enter anywhere if you honestly wanted to, but you have a conscience that won’t let you. You’re like a child scared of the law by her parents and the moral crusade you believe the cops represent. You hate cops, but you never step on their toes and you fear them like Big Brother coming into your house on a drug raid to shoot your dogs and find jack shit—only prescription drugs for a kid with no muscle mass who can’t walk. See, you love dogs probably as much as you hate cops and whatever child labor probably made the orange and green patterned pouch in the first place. Contact Solution: You have on the off-chance an eyelash slips onto your contact eye drops that make it seem like one of your eyes just got high. You’ve been carrying the same solution, in the same bottle, for the past three years or so. Clearly you don’t pluck your eyebrows enough—otherwise you would have had a fresh bottle on hand by now. But hey, it saves you money and that is always important in your mind.
17 Degree Deodorant: You hate smelling bad, simple as that, and it is best to have quality products that last longer than three hours, rather then having to refresh your pits before a long run. You wear a Sportsman’s body odor masking agent—how tough you must feel. Keys: You have five of them—house, apartment, car, safe, brother’s place—a car remote, an NRA key chain that is actually your father’s, a screwdriver you jacked from on old Chevy truck, and pepper spray—never do you feel safe without it, just like the knife in your pocket. Should you ever drive anywhere and stop at a red light, you can grab the spray in a hurry if someone tries to carjack you—yes, you think about these things and your dreams remind you of them every time you have an entire night to sleep. You imagine having conveniences on your keys like spraying strangers or tightening loose screws in a doorknob and it is remotely clear to you if it never was before that control is your thing— covering all your bases for all possible wildcards that you may encounter. Recycle=save the world, no cigarettes=no cancer, fixing a tire=very useful to know, love=can’t ever hurt you if it doesn’t find you, isolation=you are the only enemy, friends=loneliness would kill you if you didn’t have any. Birth Control and Chewing Gum: They share a pocket together and serve opposite purposes. The pills save you from unwanted babies and the Orbit saves you from the awkward moments of bad breath. Both, however, were designed to be roommates in their strange level of packaging. Your pills were a gift to yourself at the start of college and sexuality, a way to take some of the burden and worry off your shoulders in only the way a carrier can worry—a carrier of genetic malfunction that brings no effect upon on you, but on any boy who would be unlucky enough to be called yours and born to die within thirty years. That burden would eat you alive without those pills and you would remain a pubescent virgin until your tubes got tied. The chewing gum is mostly for your brother on the few occasions you drive him anywhere and he is your living example of what malfunction awaits your sons if you are careless enough. A crippled boy with a Cushoid face looks at you with twenty-eight eyes every time you go to take your daily dose of saving grace. Elvex Spherex Sunglasses: You want to be able to work heavy machinery on a bright, sunny day for some reason, so you wear these shades should anything fly at your face. They withstand the force of branches stabbing for your eyes—in fact, they’re strong enough to last for years and heavy work, may it be construction or farm work. Your father provided you with them, since he works hard for a living and he bought a pack of fifteen or so and you didn’t turn down the high quality gift for nothing. You actually gave your previous ones away at that moment because you had bought them for ten dollars at Wal-Mart—you’re now a sunglasses snob. Journal with Focus inscribed on the front: You wish to write for a living should you be lucky enough to go that way, and at the same time you fight depression like it’s a schoolyard bully. In those moments when you need to crawl your way out of a disoriented stupor, you find that book from a Romancing the Stone store and you spill onto the page, sometimes in a chaotic jumble of fragments that no one else could possible decipher. You don’t use it every day—in fact sometimes you go weeks without using it—but unpredictability is profound in the business of depressive spontaneity and you don’t ever know when you might have something to say and need a scroll of sorts to write it on. The edges of the pages are green, although some of it washed away on a rainy day. It saves your life in your lowest of moments and you produce some of your best metaphors in that state of scrambling to come back to life. It is the only kind of journal you ever had a chance of completely filling out from cover to cover, which you don’t necessarily find comfort in, but at the same time it strokes your writer’s ego when you see all that you can produce when you are in your worst state of mind. You are provided hope for all the possibilities of your best state of mind and, man, does that drive you eager to keep trying a little harder each day that you don’t let yourself fade away.
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Who Left this Here? Erik Riviera
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Baby Yard Sale: A Conspiracy Tale James Hicks
Darkness crawls from every corner clawing at the light, swallowing it. Tiny creature, welcome my life force and my spirit. The sudden bright explosion of eerie florescent bulbs above extract the charm, from beneath the skin. The bleached bones transform into protruding features as flesh and muscle melt away and the hardening bone crumbles into a fecund dirt for some other existence. The ultimate suspire. What a beautiful day. The sun rises over the eastern horizon. Pink flowers bloom. The public’s gathered where man and woman grasp each other’s hands and pursue new beginnings and tuck the elder generation into the most foreign edge of memory. It’s a yard green and vibrant, fresh and crisp. Who owns the yard no one knows. The house behind it is a topic of mysticism, but what a lovely mission that tables sit amidst the excited crowd with white cradles atop them. Beamy faced young couples are determined to choose one of the cuddly bundles of love and affection to be their own. Nowhere else in the city can lovers get their infants. It’s a baby yard sale. They come free if you pay the price of promise and years of the future to feed to them. They are hungry and jumpy and plushy faced and helplessly in love with their lives.
20 Josiah, the old cynic, arrives with his hair full of grey and his ironed buttoned shirt —his pants at his waistline floating like a cloud hit by a warm updraft before the storm, his skin wrinkly like a finger in the cool water. He wards away a beautiful east coast toned dreamer with his cane of twisted wonder. He says, “I’ve seen things, horrible things take place in that building. Children consume the vigor of the ancient.” He addresses the populous that moves by him quickly ignoring the show of his idiocy. They lift their babies toward the heavens and smile for pleasure and sweet delight giggling and grinning at everyone dancing round and round in the joyous gold aura that provides the newborn glow that took sky and conquered the moon. One day, they all will collect more years and witness how their number disappears like Josiah did that day with his discovery locked up beyond the door of mind under that bright flare of light that was so abrupt. And there is today another Josiah that takes his place. I realized the truth. Goodbye to the world that will never know and still would never believe, but I am enlightened though dying beneath the shine of the florescent glass that tosses its light like daggers into my stripped frame. I know that the cost of new life is the death of the life that preceded it. I look as Josiah did and other Josiah’s did and will do into the eyes of destruction and disintegrate into nothing more than a pillar of salt sacrificed to the administration that controls destiny with the looming hands of Thomas Malthus that transcend death to invent death for another. These are the memoirs of my mind to never be read or heard. “But be careful,” I cry within myself, “Don’t be so naïve.” Lying tight on my back, I tilt my head and behold the giant magnifier and the created doll beneath it. Maybe it is for the right cause that it should have my energies. After all, I have had them for so long.
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Sinking
Morgan Best
The pale blue sky began to stain yellow along the tree line, making all the leaves glow like fireflies. Every time the wind swirled through the branches it took them away and released them over the water. I pulled a cranberry colored maple leaf from my hair and leaned over the edge of the canoe to let it sail away with the others. It twirled slowly on the surface of the lake like the thin second hand spun on the face of a clock. I gazed at the turning leaf. It didn’t have anywhere to be and even if it did it wasn’t like it had a choice. The current swept it away towards the bank like time sweeps over the young, making them withered and gray. Staring at the helpless leaf I pondered my own path. Having been pushed by the currents of conformity and struggled against the waves of those who claim to adore me. As I brushed my fingers over my bellybutton I knew that I never wanted them to feel the way I do about my roots. A light flicked on in the distance drawing me away from my thoughts. He had just got back from his run. Some evenings I went with him; we would climb through the forest till we reached the base of the mountains and then we would make our way back to the cabin, it was about four miles there and back. He didn’t mind going on his own and neither did I. Honestly, I think I slowed him down, but he won’t say I do. I saw his silhouette move in the kitchen window, putting on the kettle. Then he vanished from the herb adorned frame down the hall to our bedroom. Goose bumps sailed down my spine as I thought of the warm water pouring from the shower head; I could almost feel the droplets splash on my face. I closed my eyes and embraced the warmth of the imagined water. When I opened my eyes I saw his tall figure return to the kitchen. He poured mugs of cider, pausing to let the steam brush over his face. It had become a tradition of sorts to curl up with a warm mug and unwind together. I would join him on the sofa and rest under his arm with my journal in hand, filling the pages with notes and sketches for my latest piece. On the television set across the room men would chase a puck over the ice and he would jump in his seat when anything exciting happened, jostling me. My book was full of words ending in strange wayward lines. He would settle back down, brace my arm with his hand and stroke up and down it with his thumb. Always followed by an apology kiss on the cheek. The blur of men on the screen would fade out and he would peer over my shoulder and read, suggesting ideas whenever I seemed to be stuck. They think he isn’t right for me. I know that. But they can’t see the life in his eyes when he looks at me. Those grey blue windows are my world. Just his presence wraps around the storm in my soul and ceases the wild waves. I would only dream for my little girl to find a man like him. A man that calms her spirt and sets it on fire all at once. The sun had set, casting a deep shadow over the lake, and a chill slithered down my spine. It was time to go home; he was waiting for me. I picked up the oars and dipped them into the icy water. As
22 I pushed forward on the handles the paddles dragged through the lake as if it were filled with honey, and when I tried to pull them back they resisted against me so hard that they snapped, sending splinters of wood and freezing water in the canoe. I jumped in my seat and the canoe rocked unsteadily. I leaned over the edge and watched my snapped paddles rush into the depths of the lake. My feet began to feel numb. I tried to pull my knees into my chest but my legs wouldn’t budge. I looked down at my feet but could only see my ankles. Panicking, I pulled harder but it only caused the canoe to rock and slosh freezing water over the walls. It formed puddles around my ankles that slowly crept up my calves as I leaked through the solid floor. Fish. No, snakes. Fingers? I felt them wrap around my bare skin and pull down. I screamed for him and was answered by a rough tug that submerged my knees. I felt the familiar fingers grasp tighter every time I called for him. I tried using the seat to pull myself up but my hands fell through it and I plunged into the lake. Sharp cold waves consumed my body and the hands kept pulling me deeper into their world. I looked down at them. Their lifeless looking hands were all I could see. Fingers strangled by wedding bands. They were never happy. Cold spots began to erupt on my cheeks and chest like land mines. As one exploded it set off the next all the way down to my toes. I was freezing. I tried swimming up but it wasn’t any use. A hand shot through the bottom of the canoe. He was here. As soon as his name left my lips I was sucked down into the darkness of the lake. I opened my eyes. Thunder rumbled in the darkness. I was soaked in fresh water and my nostrils flooded with the smell of rain. Frozen from confusion I laid in the puddle of sheets. Slowly I moved my knees into my chest. The hands were gone. Looking up I saw the open window. I stretched my arms up and pulled the pane down into place. Strands of wet hair stuck across my face and neck, and I brushed them off with my trembling hands. Goose bumps crawled across my skin as my feet hit the icy tile floor. I tip toed across the hall to the washroom. Steam rose from the faucet and filled the tiny space with warmth. I stripped off the heavy sleep shirt and hung it over the door to dry. My skin tingled as the water poured over my eyelids and cheeks. It trailed down the frozen curves of my body, washing away the frost until my skin glowed pink. My toes sunk into the fluffy bathmat, droplets of water shed from my skin making craters around my feet. I retrieved an oversized sweater from my dresser and wrapped it around my fresh skin. Then I went to the living room and opened the maple trunk in front of the sofa. A thick colorful quilt rested in the bottom, and I took it in my hands and carefully positioned myself on the sofa, draping my hair over the armrest so I wouldn’t soak my shirt. I covered myself in the soft cotton and took a deep breath. The rain continued to fall outside. A drop slid down my cheek like the drops slid down the window panes. One after the other until the edge of the quilt was soiled with salty tears. My cheeks dried and I began to sink into a deep slumber.
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Almost Wed Kirsten Young
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My First Love Kirsten Young
My body is not my own But her hands tether it to my soul In twenty years my body has been explored Yet, my soul has only been torn But her eyes see more than flesh Her touch creates energy Pulling heat up from my soul into my skin Listening to her breath my fears vanish Her scent invades my lungs I welcome her aroma, as it inflates my soul Each touch of her lips sews my life to my hips I stretch to touch her whenever she is within reach The feel of her skin reminds me it is real As she takes a drag on her cigarette, I am jealous I grasp her shirt because At any moment she might disappear Disperse into the air Like the smoke from her lips.
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Sunrise and Sunset James Hicks
Primitive ceiling of human innocence before the binding sins of Eden, sunrise, sunset, leak your golden blushed form from beneath the melancholic blue that at the spring of your bashfulness was soft but hardens in the late afternoon. That fleshy navel sun sears through the sky skirt of the indigenous east and west. Rejoiceful eyedew provokes the image to liquefy under the heat of pure uncapped emotion. Oh, swung over the naked yellowy fire is quickly the curtain of day or the curtain of night. There is hope of freedom in the sunset and a covenant of promise in the sunrise. The same is in the water. Treasures of happiness are drunk by the eternal blue sea, and a goodbye is reverberated through the ocean wind. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Remember me.â&#x20AC;? Oh, not while the tide is blue. But meet me at the sunset where the liquid is silver and gold like mercury where all my love letters line the horizon of dreams. Meet me there where love can finally strip itself of all shy blue and be bold and visible and innocent once again.
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VORTEX NOV. 2014