The Wayne Literary Review 2022

Escapism

Editor: Savannah Wan Co-Editors: June Donnellon Raelyn Galatioto Gabrielle Kelly Faculty Advisor: M.L. Liebler Cover Design: Savannah Wan (Digital Media)

2022 Edition Wayne State University Department of English 5057 Woodward Avenue, Suite 9408 Detroit, Michigan, 48202

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Dear readers,

Escapism can mean many things in literature; it can mean venturing into fantasy worlds, traveling to another time period, or even relaxing on a beach a thousand miles away from your snowy Detroit neighborhood. Regardless of where we escape to, we all have similar reasons for doing so --anywhere is better than here. The beauty of writing is that it's the only artistic means that can allow someone to live behind someone else's eyes for a period of time -other than VR headsets.

The year 2020 brought the dawn of a global crisis that would forever reshape the way we understood the world. The pandemic's wake would consume countless lives and leave society vulnerable and fragmented, unlike ever before. In this, 2021 became a period of reflection and relearning. As the world continues to make strides toward a new normal, many of us are still searching for ways to escape the bitter sap that has held firmly to so many parts of our existence.

This edition of the Wayne Literary Review features over 30 authors who will creatively discuss reality, teleport us into another world, or distort reality as we know it. We hope you enjoy reading our diverse group of authors.

Be well and stay safe, – The editors

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Table of Contents I.

Short Stories

Fatal Portrait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Jeff Amato Night at the Buffet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Daniel Webre Minnesota Morning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Zary Fekete Where Were You Last Night? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Nilay Gingade Before Sergei Returns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Charles Joseph Albert

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Reverie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Lia Rechdan Before Data, We Had the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Tracy Ross Getaway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Reema Rao-Patel “Double Face” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Jeffrey L. Ensroth

II.

Poetry

A Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Rahi Shah

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The Fretted Fringe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Nathan Bishop two AM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 semia-imani hamlin

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where do we go when we sleep? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 semia-imani hamlin the vacation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 semia-imani hamlin Cages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Brie Garbin Reaching Out After Low Tide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Christopher Clauss Urge for Going . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Stephen Benz Down and Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Stephen Benz Hitchhiker’s Nightmare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Stephen Benz Streetlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Mary Anna Scenga Kruch Dear Pink Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Mary Anna Scenga Kruch Si, Lo Sono Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Valerie Smith No was born eight feet tall on a warm afternoon in December . . . . . . . 58 Valerie Smith Young Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Kara Crank huitlacoche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Marianne Samano Heaven Doesn't Know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Faith Shekinah Howard

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In The Fairy Garden (Bella Farfalla) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Faith Shekinah Howard The Black Woman Looking In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Faith Shekinah Howard Pigsty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Jackie Flick Contingency Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Jackie Flick A Balloon in a Child’s Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Dana Stamps, II The Trees Saved a Turtle’s Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Sara Cardona The Woman in the Far Away House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lenny DellaRocca

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Moon in the Sheep Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Lenny DellaRocca Then There Was That Night When, What Was it? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Lenny DellaRocca A Poem for Mirror Girl (Yesterday’s News) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Shoopy Reed Hourglass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Ilsa Kelleigh Dog and Luggage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Scott T. Hutchison Roller Derby Queens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Scott T. Hutchison Putting on Airs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Scott T. Hutchison

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Praise keepers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Jeff Schiff Stroking the Dark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Jeff Schiff The Angler Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Jeff Schiff Sleeping with the Priest in Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 George Bishop After Passing the Accident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 George Bishop Barbicide® Feast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ian Levine

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Five-Day Panic Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Ian Levine Samsara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Emersyn Li Mitosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Emersyn Li

i. Ghost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Grey Snyder ii. Spring Fantasy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Grey Snyder SPELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Bradley Strahan Daydreaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Brizzy Blue crawling my way out of my life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 BEE LB

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self portrait as voyeur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 BEE LB A POEM BY DR. RIEUX (Or Dr. Seuss Meets the Apocalypse) . . . . . . 110 Michael Salcman, Innisfree Poetry Journal: Number 34, 2022 Woods and Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kiah Becker

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Rocky Mountain National Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Kiah Becker Tent Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kiah Becker

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Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

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Fatal Portrait Jeff Amato Elizabeth finds herself shrouded in darkness. The last thing she remembers is lying on her bed at Shady Pines, waiting to die. She spent her days lying in bed. Like a dying red rose, her body withered away and became decrepit. The Lord may have taken much, but her hearing was sharp, becoming more astute when her other senses left. She would lie and listen to the sounds of the decaying house around her. The creaking of floorboards ready to snap under the weight of the robust attendant; rattling of rusted sewage pipes; humming of static as electricity radiated from the silent television screen; clicking of rodent feet smacking and scratching, squeaking and sliding on metal, wood, drywall, and cement.

She would lie there and listen to the silent whispers emanating beyond the paper-thin floral-printed walls. “Room 121, the widow Mrs. Liz. Poor dear soul, it’s as if she’s waiting for grim death to take her and reunite her with her husband. Been here seventeen years, that one.”

One night, engulfed in the darkness of her cubicle-sized room, Elizabeth listened to the rain beat against the dilapidated house, differentiating the sources of the sounds. The rain against the window produced a gentle tapping; a rough smattering against the bricked exterior; from the overflowing leaf-clogged gutters, a heavy and rough cascading downpour. Then, through her paper eyelids, spots of yellow and red disturbed her personal darkness. Her eyes sprang to life, and through blurry vision, she saw a light outlining the drawn curtain, framing the window in all its splendor. She reached for her glasses on the nightstand next to her bed and slipped them on, bringing the world into focus. She exhausted herself, forcing the covers from her body. Years of inactivity and malnutrition ravaged her, making her eighty-eight-year-old physique almost incapable of such drastic movements. With great effort, she compelled her body to follow the demands her brain issued until she was sitting on the edge of her bed; all the while, her gaze never abandoned the window. She rose from the bed in sporadic slow movements, shuffled and dragged her feet to the window, and drew the curtains.

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Pure white radiance engulfed the room, but she dared not look away as she saw two silhouettes dancing in the distance. She held her hands in front of the window, hesitating as she felt the discharge of heat.

Darkness was gone, the rain dissipated; she felt like her body and soul were merging with the light. This must be what death is like. Are angels coming for me? This is what I’ve been waiting for, but am I ready?

Elizabeth reached forward, placing her hands on the glass, embracing the light, and in an instant, it gathered around the dancing figures and imploded, filling the room with darkness. She was falling and drifting into a deep well with no end, a rabbit hole of her own creation --darkness. Darkness in the understanding. Darkness in reality --internal, external. Somewhere, a final candle faded, and all that was left was smoke drawing gray shadows. Fade to black.

Elizabeth awoke shrouded in darkness, lying on a rugged carpet placed over wooden planks. Her head felt clear. She rose with little effort; her old bones no longer struggled to find strength. Bathed in a lightless world, she rubbed her eyes with the knuckles of her index fingers, trying to adjust to the darkness; instead, the harder she pressed, the more she saw the embedded image of two illuminated figures dancing in the distance. She stretched her hands out in front of her, searching for anything tangible. Extending her arms to her side, she paddled her hands, soft and gentle, as if she was lost in a vast ocean trying to keep afloat, and with the tips of her fingers, she glided them on a flat rough surface. As her fingers slid across the walls, she heard the familiar hum of electricity. She turned around and saw the distant flickering of a ceiling light, and below was a framed picture of an image too distant to take shape. Elizabeth urged her body forward, spending little effort. The further she walked, the more distant the image became. She stopped and placed her hand against the wall to gather her composure. As she felt the coarse texture of canvas, hundreds of lights sprang to life, revealing the hallway where she stood. Under each light appeared a painting. Her hand rested upon an impressionist painting with a white frame. The grays, blues, whites, and reds blended, creating a foggy image, but the visuals of a woman with her hand on a cradle, in which a baby is resting, were distinguishable. The gently swayed brushstrokes alluded to the baby being rocked back to sleep’s comfort. Elizabeth is reminded of the nights her mother would spend rocking and persuading a distraught baby back The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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to sleep. As she caressed the canvas, one by one, tears followed the curves of her cheeks, rolling down her chin, tapping the rhythm of sorrow on the crimson carpet.

Elizabeth continued forward, making her way to the image below the flickering light. She shuffled her feet, slowing her pace as she examined each painting: a young girl riding her bike in an empty leaf-canvassed street, a distant father and daughter standing on a beach allowing the ebb-tide to bathe their feet, a young woman smiling, holding a brown and black German Shepard in a barren apartment where boxes lined the walls. As Elizabeth made her way towards the image below the flickering light—progressing slowly, as the closer she got, the hallway seemed to expand further—she halted her movement when she happened upon a painting of a blanket and a wicker basket in the middle of a blue field. She reached out her hand, gliding her fingers across the ridges of the red frame. Slowly she drew her fingers to the canvas, which created ripples in the painting as if a pebble was dropped in a still pond.

Elizabeth felt the wind caress her neck as her hair drifted towards the fire-like sky. She ran her right hand across her face, feeling the smoothness of her almond skin. Holding her hands in front of her, she was astonished by the manicured nails, the slim fingers, the absence of veins and loose skin. She heard the gentle flapping of light wings as a black-winged butterfly fluttered by, landing on the tip of her right index finger. The butterfly expanded its wings, revealing spots of amber along the wings’ borders. The black butterfly began to flap its wings until the movements became slower and slower, then it slipped off Elizabeth’s finger, floating into the palm of her left hand. She watched the poor creature undulate its six legs until it inevitably collapsed and ceased movement. She held it in her hands and watched the black wings become gray, then crumble to ash and drift away in the wind’s cool breeze, dissipating. Her eyes began to swell, then blur, filling until the dam burst, and a single tear rolled down the curve of her face.

A rough-gentle finger brushed a strand of auburn hair that was out of place. “There’s no need to shed a tear, my dear sweet, Elizabeth.” A voice, soft yet rugged.

Her eyes slowly shifted from her ash-stained palms to a familiar, comforting voice. “Frank!” Elizabeth cried as she threw her arms around his neck, burying her face into his firm chest.

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“Why does my darling feel so much sorrow?” Frank said as he caressed the back of Elizabeth’s head with his right hand, intertwining his fingers with her thick, wavy hair.

“I…” Elizabeth said. “…I am exhausted by all the pain that accompanies life. I cannot comprehend such beauty when all beauty will inevitably die.”

Frank slid his hand from her head, taking her chin in his palm, prying her from the safety of his chest, until he was staring into her wide brown eyes, and she, staring into his hazel eyes; as though it were the first time. “Do you remember the day we met?”

“You came to me,” Elizabeth said. “You said you sensed a dark cloud.”

“An aura, I said.”

“Yes, an aura. Then you asked me to dance. I was inclined to say no, but you had a way about you,” Elizabeth said as the left side of her mouth began to curve upward, “a gentleness that made it feel as though my darkness could fade.”

“And do you remember the story?” he said, holding her hands, raising them to his lips, and kissing them with soft taps. “The one I told you as I held you, and you swayed in my arms?”

“It was a sad story, about Apollo and the woman he loved—” “Daphne. And what made it so sad, my dear?” Frank said, sliding his thumb along the side of her face, collecting her tears.

“Because Apollo loved Daphne with such passion, but she would never love him back.”

“Cupid’s cruel trick,” Frank said. “A sharp gold arrow for Apollo.

One blunt and lead for Daphne. Apollo chased her far and wide, but she continued to flee and eluded his grasp. Exhausted, she pleaded to the The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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River God to transform her body. She would rather be relieved from the confines of her natural form than accept Apollo’s love, for that was her curse and one Apollo must bear. She was stripped of flesh and blood, for bark and sap.”

“It’s a sad story of love’s cruel fate,” Elizabeth said.

“You might think the story has a painful end, but I think it has quite a spectacular ending. When her body changed, Apollo adorned a crown made of laurel to honor her memory. The very laurel that Daphne became. Daphne’s memory is forever displayed upon Apollo’s head. A reminder that his love for her is eternal and her beauty always will be.”

“But I cannot comprehend a beauty that will never die.”

“I can because I am staring at the source of all beauty. And even as your body will inevitably shed its features and you will leave your physical form,” Frank said as he took her right hand and placed it on his chest, “the memory of you and your beauty will remain forever here.”

The field of blue arose as thousands of butterflies filled the vastness of the orange sky, revealing a sea of green. Tears began to paint the side of Elizabeth’s face as she grasped Frank’s cheeks in her tender grip, pulling him closer, closing her eyes, and feeling the firmness of his lips against hers. He took her hands in his, lowering them to her lap. She opened her eyes and found that the field, blanket, basket, and butterflies had dissipated. She was holding Frank’s aged hand as he lay in a hospital bed, the beige covers pulled to his chest. Machines thumping to the rhythm of his quiet heartbeat.

“There’s my beauty,” Frank said with a fading voice, struggling to catch his breath.

“Don’t speak, my love.”

“If I don’t speak, then how will I express my love for you.”

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“I’m not ready for this,” Elizabeth said.

“Remember the butterflies. Everything, one day, will fade to make room for more beauty. Just because we will depart does not mean our beauty will die. In our memories, it will live on forever. I will be a part of you forever.”

Frank’s hand became limp in hers as the constant beat of the machine altered to a prolonged note, one with no end. Elizabeth collapsed on the chest of her lifeless husband, wishing that her heart had stopped as well. Closing her eyes, succumbing to the darkness, leaving her soul in that hospital room, she couldn’t feel Frank beneath her, nor could she smell the stale air of death. Slowly, she opened her eyes, blinking the world into focus; in front of her, was a painting of a woman holding the hand of a dying man. She was in the painted hallway staring at an endless stream of memories as the lights, one by one, began to burn out until there was one; the flickering light at the end of the hall. Below: is the painting that was out of focus.

Arms outstretched, she slid her fingers along the hallway as she walked towards the last flickering light. Heat exuded from her fingertips as she dragged a rainbow of blue, yellow, purple, black, red, green, and white along the walls as she inched towards the out-of-focus painting.

As she neared, the image began to fade. Within a butterfly-patterned black frame rested a blank canvas. Elizabeth stood before it and felt clarity that had eluded her since the death of her husband. She placed her hands upon the frame, feeling its smooth texture. Her hands found the roughness of the blank slate. As she brushed her fingers upon its blank and rigid surface, the paint began to bleed onto the white until an image emerged --a woman, old and withered, lying in a bed. She has searched for peace all her life, and when she finally found it, it was stripped from her. So, she lied and waited. She lay in a bed, surrounded by a decaying world, scared by its cruelty. Waiting for death to free her soul. The image that appeared before her wasn’t that of a broken woman; it was of a woman who was free. A woman who has found desire, who has finally discovered love’s embrace. No longer is she lying in wait; she is reaching towards destiny. She is ready to depart.

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Night at the Buffet Daniel Webre

The space itself was like a stockade for animals. As soon as you entered, you were herded off into a system of wooden fences that terminated at the register. My shoes stuck to the linoleum.

“No, Pepsi’s not okay. Give me Dr. Pepper, then,” said the man in front of me.

“Leave the drawer open. I want some change,” said the woman behind me as I paid.

The dining room was vast, though divided into four sections with wooden partitions topped with plastic plants. I chose a table close to the buffet area so that I could observe the workers chopping vegetables. I marveled at the abundance of the place.

This was the produce section. You could build a salad from the ground up or start with a quarter wedge of lettuce in a bowl and add on from there. As healthy as these options appeared, I didn’t think I could spare the room in my stomach. There was too much other food to sample. But I liked being here in view of all these fresh vegetables. In fact, the whole back wall of this enclosure was a supermarket-style refrigerated case where piles of cucumbers, cauliflowers and other veggies awaited selection by the chefs. It was a garden oasis amid an otherwise meat-market atmosphere. But don’t misunderstand --I had come here to eat.

My first plate was piled so high a piece of fried fish flipped right off and onto the floor. Whether I picked it up or left it there, it would be rude either way. But I opted to retrieve it with a paper napkin and turn it over to the waitress, who had seen what I had done. I aimed to eat everything else on my plate and had plans to refill it, except some of my selections proved poor. These I broke into pieces and scattered them about, covering the larger bits with a napkin.

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The white napkin on my plate must have beaconed to the waitress like a flag of surrender because she approached my table for the first time that evening.

“Have a good night,” she said.

And I said, “I intend to . . . right here at this table.”

Irene smiled and took the plate but seemed confused by what I had just said. She must have caught on when I returned from the bar with another heaping plate.

With my initial hunger quelled, I felt at leisure to key in on what was happening right in front of me in the produce staging area.

In addition to the constant chopping, another employee was tending a barrel-shaped piece of machinery made of gleaming stainless steel that perched on a countertop and discharged amber-colored water into a sink. I watched in fascination as my teeth battled a piece of chewy steak. What sort of device was this? I had never seen the likes of it. The mystery was soon solved when another lady approached from the kitchen, opened a compartment, and began unloading golden potatoes that had been scoured clean of their skins. As she carried away the tub of abraded tubers, I could see that the stream of water spewing from the device’s side no longer ran amber but had clarified. Soon the lady returned. This time her basin was loaded with unpeeled potatoes, which she placed one by one into the open maw of the machine. She closed the door and flicked a switch, and the whole assembly began to rattle and shake, and the water darkened again. It was a miracle.

A woman in loose-fitting clothes slowly entered my field of vision, almost gliding, with no discernable pumping of her arms. The billowing folds of her white garment perhaps made her appear more massive than she might have otherwise been. I just could distinguish the steady shuffling of her feet. The whole effect—white bulk juxtaposed with such an image of plenty all around me—reminded me of ocean traffic. Specifically the extraordinary cruise ships that left port down by the Convention Center, their movement so slow and dreamlike that the thought even now transported me to some idea of a Caribbean paradise.

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“Eddie? Is that you?” I heard my name and realized it was coming from the person pausing before me, prompting me to remember where I was, and I felt a brief wave of shame as I recognized my friend Barbara.

“What are you doing here?” said Barbara.

I told her what seemed to me was the truth: “I am feasting.”

“Why, of course. I just meant --well, you don’t live around here, do you?”

“No, not really,” I said. “But places like this don’t exist in the city.”

“I suppose not,” she said.

I had her with that one. Something must have caught her eye, though, because she smiled, and drifted off again in the direction of the carving station. Barbara was a nice woman, a good woman. They don’t make many Barbaras anymore, I concluded. My attention returned to the gleaming potato peeler, and suddenly I felt the urge to tell Barbara: “We live in an age of abundance.” But I was sure Barbara had other things on her mind. I resolved to tell her another time.

I became so engrossed with the potato peeler dancing its little jig upon the countertop that I did not realize someone spoke to me. I thought it might be Barbara stopping over on her return passage. But this was a strange, hairy man.

“Hey, Bub,” he said when I first noticed him. “You dropped this.”

He held out a steak knife.

“No, sir,” I said to him. “Mine’s right here,” and I gestured toward my steak knife balanced properly across the upper right-hand portion of my plate. That’s when he introduced himself as Felix. I said, “Pleased to meet you, Felix,” but I really wasn’t, and I didn’t offer him my name. He could call me Bub if he wanted to.

Then Felix said, “I guess I’ll go on back to my table, then,” and I told Felix that sounded like a fine idea.

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The potato peeler had lost its luster, and the two heaping plates had started to settle and maybe swell up a bit in my system. I had lost my momentum, and my plans for feasting all evening no longer seemed compelling.

At first, I blamed Felix. Irene could easily have sent him over to scuttle my plans for a third plate. I imagined him shedding hair all over the food bar, and my stomach seized. I turned in my chair as though stretching casually between rounds of the meal, and there was Felix sitting two tables over, watching. He smiled and sent a small wave of good fellow feeling in my direction. I nodded and rotated back toward my plate.

It seemed that Felix ate alone at the buffet, too, but I didn’t want him to conclude that we were birds of a feather or cut from the same cloth or some nonsense. I was perfectly content sitting alone and appreciating how far we as a species had come with regard to kitchen technology.

Now Barbara was passing by for real. She’d been gone so long, I’d nearly forgotten about her. But I admired her unhurried elegance and the intricacy with which she had stacked the short ribs intertwined on her plate. No doubt about it, Barbara was good people and I silently wished her many more nights at the buffet.

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Minnesota Morning Zary Fekete

The wood was so dry that it ignited almost as though it were paper. Paul stood up from the fireplace and grabbed the keys from the bowl. He had read the weather report that morning, so he grabbed the thick hat.

It took him only a few seconds to get to the car, but his fingers were already cold. Thankfully the engine had caught on the first try. He sat, waiting for it to warm up. The weather folks loved this. Apparently, Minnesota would hit a new low temp record later tonight. Currently, it was minus 20. Paul grinned as he thought about it and even his teeth felt cold.

He finally threw the car in gear and inched onto the icy street. Mornings were considerably easier sober. There was no shaking. No fog. A few months ago a morning like this one would have been unthinkable.

At the post office, he collected several bills and was about to close the box when he saw a smaller letter wedged in the back corner. He tugged it free and saw that it was dated last week. He saw the return address, too.

He didn’t open it. Instead, he walked back to the car and laid the envelope on the seat next to him. Even though the car was already cold again, he didn’t turn the key.

He remembered the last thing Dave had said to him. Paul still had three more weeks to go in the clinic, but Dave was done that day. When his ride came into the parking lot Dave had turned to Paul and he said, “Call me when you get out.” Then he left.

Paul had called. But Dave never picked up. Sometime later, Dave’s mom had called him. She called him several more times, each time more fraught.

He sat in the cold car, staring at the envelope next to him. He didn’t open it. He didn’t need to.

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Where Were You Last Night?

Nilay Gingade

Where were you last night?

My mind drifts into reality. Wherever I am… I’m not quite sure…it’s almost morning. The sun peeks out over the horizon, almost like an actor looking out between the curtains… its light turning the sky into lurid blood.

Where are you?

I sit up. Push myself off the mud. Take inventory of myself; the last thing I remember was going home… going… no, I remember that woman. I was opening my door and it was dark and raining and there was this woman under this flickering street lamp, standing in the rain. She was on the other side of the street, with no cover, no umbrella, just getting drenched. The woman seemed to be waiting, but for what it wasn’t clear.

Occasionally she’d push loose drippy strands of her raven hair from her eyes… or look around as if, maybe, her patron had arrived.

Where are you?

A woosh behind me. Almost sounds like thunder. It’s behind me. I’m in a field—a red barn and silos and a farmhouse on one side, a silver goat grazing out in the distance. This grass has been chewed to but an inch. I look around—behind me; a freeway. The interstate. And parked on the side of the road is a car—an old blue Ford pickup, old tarp in the bed.

Innocuous. People don’t notice it; it's the best quality. Attention is rending.

What are you doing here?

Like a moth to a flame, I feel drawn to something—someone, to my left.

It feels almost alive. I stand up, and walk, muck sticking to the soles of The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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my feet. I walk towards that goat. That silver goat on the other side of the field… that goat with gilded horns and cogent words... it stands up on its two legs and stares… stares at me with its beady dead dyes… and I blink, and it’s gone. But I can feel it. I can feel it in the air. It’s beating in my ears. Like glass scraping at the inside of my skull. Like knives in my eyes.

Something is wrong.

I run, run as fast as possible, towards that wretched spot where the goat stood. And instead, I find a hole. A hole marked by a spade planted like a flag in the dirt. Eight feet long, three feet wide, six feet down; in that hole is the woman, the woman in the rain, and the woman is at the bottom of the hole.

What did you do?

No, no, no. I turn around. For a second, it feels… only a second. Glance back at my truck. I just gotta get my head on straight. I gotta fix this. I grab my shovel and turn back… I just gotta clean this up. Clean up this mess. Except the woman is gone. The dirt is pressed, different, as if she climbed out. She was dead… she was not alive… I know she wasn’t alive.

Was she ever alive? I twist my head, around and around, for some hint.

She can’t have just disappeared. This is the middle of nowhere. But I can feel her. I can feel her like glass in my eyes.

I stare out… out at the sunrise. The sunrise that isn’t. The sun, the sun has reversed course. It’s got stage-fright. It’s scared. It’s creeping back east. Down and down and down until it’s safe and under the horizon. The sky is falling: it’s raining, it’s drizzling, it’s drizzling, and then it’s pouring.

It’s pouring down, pouring down on me. It’s a monsoon of dread. And soon I’m drenched: drenched in rain and fear.

You can’t escape.

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Before Sergei Returns Charles Joseph Albert

“Fffrrrgh! Hmmmmngh! Rrrrr, rrr!”

Pan Zielinski glares at me as I finish putting the duct tape on his mouth. His angry bloodshot eyes remind me of Papa, though I haven’t thought about him for a long time. I straighten up to look down at him, tied to his chair, and he keeps pointing his ugly face up at me, glaring with nasty dark eyeballs. So I take one last long piece of duct tape off the roll and slap it over his eyes. When he yanks it off, it’s going to tear the shit out of his eyebrows if he tears them off.

I sit back down on the broken car seat we use for a couch and don’t think about Papa, I don’t think about Sergei, and I definitely don’t think about what Pan Zielinski just said. I put that shit clean out of my mind, and I turn the game up to watch Bolsinero make another crazy-ass pass to Márquez... but of course, he misses. I sit there during the commercial break fuming that I had to be the one to babysit. Sergei’s the one that grabbed him. Sergei—the Kidnap King of Donbass.

Pan Zielinski started talking to me, and I don’t know why Sergei didn’t tape his mouth shut because it’s hard not to think about what he said. I don’t want to think about it, I just want to watch some soccer. This Márquez guy is a joke and I’m glad he keeps missing because Papa always hated him. Papa took me and Lauzi to a game once and we spent most of the time laughing at Márquez. The only reason he was on the team is that he was some big shot’s brother.

I didn’t watch soccer for a long time after Papa died. I had to go live in the garbage dump with Lauzi. Shit, there were a lot of kids who lived there. Maybe a hundred. So we were all excited the day Sergei’s gang came there to pick up cash from a drop. And then we all shit ourselves when the police cars came screaming in and there was a big shoot-out.

The cops were shooting everybody, not just the bad guys but us kids too.

Lauzi… her head was… by the cops. The fuckers.

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I came running out to grab the gun from a dead cop so I could start shooting at the rest of them, but instead Sergei grabbed me. He called me a hard ass and he told me to come to live with them.

And now here I am. Now I sleep on a real bed and eat cooked food.

And we all talk all day about how much we hate the cops.

I also hate the rich guys—the bogati. The svinya, Sergei calls them, the guys who run everything and pay all the cops to shoot us and stuff like that. That’s why Sergei kidnaps them.

The soccer game is almost over; it looks like we’re going to win.

Pan Zielinski is crying or something. Like I care! If Sergei doesn’t get the ransom money, he said I have to shoot Pan Zielinski in the head.

If I was man enough. “Yeah, you bet I’m man enough,” I said. That would be a chance to get revenge for Lauzi, against the cops and the bogati who own them.

Only when we started talking did Pan Zielinski tell me he’s not even from Ukraine. He’s from Poland. So he could be paying our cops to shoot kids? And now he’s crying again. Shut up, Pan Zielinski! Can’t you just shut up?

I’m part of why he’s here—I ran out in front of Pan Zielinski’s car and pretended that they hit me. His driver didn’t want to stop because he knew it was a trick. I could hear Pan Zielinski yell at him, and when he got out to take a look at me, that’s when they grabbed him.

It busted my arm when the car hit me. Vanya took care of it. That’s why I got this tape all over my arm.

Anyway, I figured out a while back that Sergei wasn’t an angel or anything; he made me run out in the gunfire for the money bag, made me jump in front of the mark’s car, shit like that, so I already thought he wasn’t so great, even before what Pan Zielinski said to me.

One time Sergei even thought I was killed and left me where I‘d fallen. But I was just knocked out. Something hit my head in that shootout. I woke up on the side of the road and finally made my way home, and Sergei looked surprised. And actually, he didn’t look happy either—just surprised.

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right now. He’s got a super rifle team and they shoot anybody who even looks like Sergei, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they get him tonight.

This Pan Zielinski guy is supposed to be worth a million million. He made the mistake of coming to Donbass for some kind of deal. We grabbed him from under the noses of twenty armed guards, right outside his hotel. No wonder Bronsky wants to get Sergei so bad.

But damn it, I can’t get out of my head this thing Pan Zielinski said.

I try to watch the next soccer game but his question is still swimming around up here, driving me crazy. I think I’m going to give Pan Zielinski the knife.

Sergei should have been back here by now anyway. He never takes this long for a pick-up. Maybe Vanya ratted on him. Or maybe Bronsky finally shot him. If he did, he and his officers are probably going up here to rescue Pan Zielinski. And I’m as good as dead.

Pan Zielinski had asked me how I joined the gang, and I told him.

And then he asked, “Why did Sergei lead the cops to the dump?”

That’s when I slapped the tape over his mouth. But now I can’t shut up that question.

Sergei’s a bastard, but he’s not as bad as the cops—that’s what I used to tell myself. I’m stupid and almost got killed twice, and I used to think maybe Sergei cared but just didn’t want me to know it so I wouldn’t get soft.

Only Pan Zielinski didn’t even know me, and he shouldn’t have stopped the car, but he still cared more than Sergei did when I broke my arm.

Sergei was able to grab Pan Zielinski because the dumb Polish bogati made the driver stop for me. Tough luck for him. Only now, he asked me why Sergei led the cops to the dump? And I can’t get that awful question out of my head. But he’s right. Sergei knew we were there. The only thing that makes sense is that he wanted to use us kids as a human shield. And yes, I know, the cops didn’t have to keep shooting, but there’s no way around it: Sergei’s as much why Lauzi’s dead as Bronsky is.

A noise outside. At first, I thought it was Sergei coming back, but it’s just a dog. That’s when I caught myself wishing I’d already done something.

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So now I’m going to do it. First the kitchen, and then to the Pole.

“Here’s a knife, Pan Zielinski. I’m putting the handle in your hand.

Cut yourself loose and get out of here before Sergei comes back. And don’t look for me. I’ll be long gone.”

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Reverie Lia Rechdan

Aspen walked through the school halls that she had grown so accustomed to. The walls held bulletin boards covered with upcoming events and recent exam scores from the week prior. A couple of familiar faces walked past as Aspen clutched her book closer to her chest and held onto her messenger bag's strap.

A couple of whispers were thrown about. They were far too quiet for Aspen to make out, but she could feel their gazes on her.

With that discomfort on her consciousness, she hurried her pace back to her room. ***** Aspen pulled out a small brass key from her skirt pocket before knocking softly on the wooden door, “Can I come in?”

Cedar’s bright voice called back, “Yeah, jeez, you’re late.”

Aspen shook her head, a smile beginning to creep on her face as she opened the twins’ dorm room door.

The room was distinctive to the two different personalities that slept there. The left side of the room looked to be less lived in, the coverings on the bed were bleak, and the desk across from it was piled high with notebooks, textbooks, loose-leaf paper, and blue, red, and black pens. Despite the seemingly put-together nature, everything was messy and scattered, a sort of organized chaos.

The right side of the room, on the other hand, was actual chaos.

There were clothes strewn throughout the room, which unmistakably have a point of origin. Along the wall was a large watercolor painting against school regulations, but by pulling some strings, she got away with a minor scolding from Blackstaff.

The painting itself held various shades of reds, browns, and blacks, contrasting Cedar’s bright and neutral demeanor. The swirls on the canvas seemed to bleed into each other, interwoven with care, Seeming to pull you in from its core, ripping you into different directions.

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She also had an easel at the foot of her bed; lined with parchment to give a layer of protection from the paint that also sat around the legs of the easel.

A pair of arms wrapped around Aspen’s neck from behind, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Where have you been? I’ve been so lonely.”

Aspen let out a small laugh, tossing her books to the side and landing on her bed, a few of them bouncing off and tumbling to the ground.

“Stayed a bit after, found a lead on my magic….” She trails off.

“And? It feels like there’s more to the story.”

“I still need a name for it, don’t I?” Aspen scratches her chin.

“You’re avoiding the question,” Cedar teased, slightly sticking out her tongue. “...I lost track of time!… And I got kicked out for the professor’s next class.”

“There it is!” Cedar stuck her tongue out and lightly tapped Aspen’s head, “You need to stop getting so absorbed in work.” She let go of her sister and moved to stand in front of her, doing a little dance as she did so, “Live a little.”

“I- You know I can’t,” Aspen walked over to the books that fell over onto the ground and placed them back onto the bed.

Aspen sat on the edge of the bed, tousling her red locks, “I get why I had to leave, but it was so damn annoying. I was onto something-and now I lost that train of thought.”

Cedar walked over to her sister, pushing the books further over to sit down, resting her head on her shoulder, “You’ll find it eventually if you found it once, you can do it again, but please take breaks...you need it...you really do, y’know that right?”

This brought Aspen back, it wasn’t the first time she’s heard this or had a conversation akin to this, and it most certainly would not be the last. Past conversations with her sister echoed in her head: “Aspen, it’s been hours; you need to sleep. Give it a break and come back to it with a clear head.”

“Have you eaten today? You can’t focus on an empty stomach.

C’mon! Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking for you for hours, and I find you in the hidden corners of the library…oh? You didn’t know that much

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time passed? Let’s go back to our room, you’ve been cooped up here long enough.”

Aspen shook her head, taking a moment to recollect herself before letting out a sigh, “Maybe later. Gotta go visit mom.”

Cedar’s body tensed up, “Oh….”

She cleared her throat, “I know you don’t like visiting her, but uh, if you want to visit her...I think she’d appreciate that.”

Cedar jumped up from her spot and headed over to her easel, “I’d love to, but haha gotta paint, see taking breaks from my own magic does wonders!” She haphazardly grabbed onto the paintbrush, accidentally knocking over the paint, “SHIT.” “Okay.” Aspen gave a slight chuckle and a pat on her sister’s shoulder before grabbing a small pouch of gold, double-checking for her identification, and heading out the door.

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Before Data, We Had the Moon Tracy Ross

I am sitting before my computer screen listening to techno music. I am on the wrong side of middle aged. I now have a one on one repore with my machine as I stare at the glowing screen, looking back on fifty three years of life. I had always prided myself in knowing that I was born a month shy of the 1969 moon landings. When I was taken home from the hospital I was cradled in front of the TV set as Neil Armstrong took one giant leap for mankind. I remember my parents starting out in a respectable little house in Detroit, Michigan. my father was a mail carrier and my mother was a stay at home mom.

During that time, Detroit was half on fire and full of hippies. My family was a joint effort of first generation European immigrants and Louisiana born Creole African Americans. My parents were bold enough to be an interracial couple who got married during a time when marriage between whites and blacks was still illegal in many states. I was a by-product of hipsters and multiculturalism during a time when both my parents were not welcomed in many states. They even had trouble traveling to the towns surrounding Detroit because they would be stopped by policemen questioning if they were lost.

Very early on in my youth, I knew I was different --I was damn near white and surrounded by a predominately black bourgeois culture I did not fully understand. There were family members on both my father and mother’s side of the family who called my brother and I “darkie” children or “zebra” depending on which racial side they were on and the political direction of the wind that day. My mother had been expected to marry a nice second generation Ukrainian boy from New England or New York and my father was supposed to marry a nice upstanding young black woman --just not too black. Fortunately, they were introduced in college.

The Vietnam war helped my father quickly propose marriage in the early 1960’s, and my brother and I made it to Earth. We were not only the children of baby boomers who, by default, were progressives based on the The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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color of their skin. We were also placed in survival mode early on because of the tumultuous climate of Detroit in the late 1960s and early seventies.

Thankfully, our young minds didn’t grasp the horror of the riots of 1967 and 1968 --how the city burned to the ground just miles from where we lived. I remember that the mornings smelled like burning cars from the Ford Motor Plants. The singed stench of burnt raw metal and splintered wood from clapboard houses lingered at least a year after the assassination of MLK. Now, as I write from my tower of sanitized political correctness and globalization looming inevitably on the horizon, I smile sadly at the far away quaintness of it all. “Comfortably Numb” plays on my music selection through my computer and I realize that through all the pain, I have become a cold hearted son-of-a-bitch --yes, me. The progeny of the hippies, the freaks, the peace-nicks of the world who would march into hell for a heavenly cause despite heaven being on fire.

I say this because I have a pretty objective view. I won’t use platitudes to make the situation more pretty or profound than it is. I was raised to believe in humanity’s most hopeful potential. But through the years, I have been pushed to the breaking point when the scales have tipped in the other direction. At about the age of five I realized that when you give power to the people, nine times out of ten, they don’t know what to do with it.

I saw Detroit scurry out of survival, out of fear of obsolescence, turn to paranoia and distrust of those who populated the neighborhoods and communities because they were betrayed by General and Ford Motors.

We fought for the last nuts and bolts of the machinery, beating ourselves to death with the very lead pipes we had cannibalized off of the rolling car chassis of the factory assembly lines.

Vietnam was the beginning of the no exit war strategy in guinea pig form. It was the springboard for how the money would operate and flow under the dynamics of constant war and crisis. For a short while, with the Mother’s for Peace and the protesters, we thought we had the power of agents of global change. It had seemed for a week of nightly news The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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reports, the media had swung in our favor, giving the people the empowerment of progressive propaganda and 24/7 coverage.

Some say that the Vietnam war and Nixon brought on Watergate. I say that if it weren’t for Vietnam, there would be no Watergate. You see, there is a difference. During Vietnam, something strange with the medium and the message happened. Pictures became more powerful than words. Images became more powerful than language. One picture could reach a billion souls and speak through the veil of different languages, alien cultures, a billion disenfranchised illiterates. They see them and say a culture was born. We can instantaneously absorb a famous Vietnam War image of the enemy getting his brains blown out and screaming at the top of our lungs “BANG!” We will all get the idea.

Enough said.

The nightly news catwalk was on and Watergate had center stage. It was such an entertaining circus that no one noticed our civil liberties go down the toilet. With each evening news special, we supposedly learned about the surveillance state as if it was a brand new shiny toy, forgetting that only two days after the phone was invented, so was the tape recorder. Heads were chopped off and they rolled only to be put upon totem poles for the benefit of political correctness and integrity. But what was really going on?

Along with images taking over the imagination --video slowly killing the radio star, we as a world were being truncated in our language. Hence our understanding of the human condition and our abilities to communicate. The world was shrinking due to the accessibility of transportation. The trans-Atlantic cable, trade, corporate greed and the inevitable new and improved glass free beaches brought to you by the DOW Company.

During slavery, the masters were evil enough to realize that if you take away the language of a people, you take away their capability to operate and organize effectively. How do you take away a language and knowledge from the people who brought you flower power and sit-ins?

You give them the power of pictures which override anything the mind can conceive before they can get up and change the channel. Render them speechless. How brilliant indeed. Make the nightly news a fashion The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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show, with blood and gore, and Nixon standing in front of a Mobile Exxon sign, saying, “I am not a crook…!” Give the people what they want, god damn it. Give them so much truth at 360 degrees that their heads will twist right off, their little minds not having a chance to ask, “What did you say?…Gobble, gobble, plop!”

In the end, between the scotch and whiskey and bourbon shots, even Nixon didn’t know why he wanted to be a fly on the wall. And everyone who was caught with glue on their feet like bad little flies, did their time as sentenced by a jury of their peers for their love of apple pie on the Fourth of July.

That’s when research and development had a great little idea. They figured out how to put a trillion bits of information on a metal chip with a glob of silicon. They figured out how to make everything dependent on the one utility we all eventually would worship --energy. When Getty once assumed, those who would rule the world would own the mineral rights, he realized early on that no matter what form the mineral rights took--Earth, rubber, lights, electricity, solar power--it would end up being an energy war, not a war of combat for land and sea.

With language in the back pocket of a medium that needs energy and electricity to operate, and an on and off switch dependent on the accessibility of that power, who is to say who gets the last word…? Can we equate the power of language with the accessibility of data? Hence, is freedom illusory and the choice to not partake in the grid ultimately a joke?

I wish I could say it was different --that I wasn’t a cold hearted son of a bitch. I wish I could say, after all is said and done, that I carry the torch for Mom and Dad. That I want to work for our survival, that I want us to be envoys for the rest of the universe to spread the goodness of mankind and all the wonder we have to offer to other intelligent life out there. But do I have a choice?

We have killed the planet, consumed more than half of the natural resources and have become prime examples of man’s inhumanity to man in the name of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The world is kicking and screaming in the high chair, fighting globalization like a poisoned bowl of corn flakes, thrashing about in the throes of beliefs, The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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and freedoms, and greed. It is time to regroup. It is time to swallow the milk with the honey and realize the species mutates forward despite war, pestilence, and ignorance.

Before the data, we had the moon. Before flower power, we had a chance to get it right without the great boomerang of liberalism coming back full throttle and hitting us in the face, rendering us unconscious.

You would be amazed that we don’t see the cycles, but those that don’t know history, or even look back, are doomed to repeat it.

It is 53 years since the 1969 moon landing, not that it was the first or will be the last, but it was a watermark in human consciousness during a time when, for a sparse moment, between the killing, between the peace keeping smear of jingoistic war mongering, that we had grasped a world collective vision of where we could go.

The space program in its infancy has its origins in Europe during the early turn of the century, especially Germany. It took until 1969 for Americans to be the center stage audience for what the human species was finally ready for--to step outside the bubble--if just for a few hours--if just for a news broadcast--if just for the blink of an eye between seeing helicopters on TV in the jungle and commercials for Tang with our morning eggs and toast.

Then the question arises. When does the shit hit the fan? How long is the incubation time between invention and popular consumption?

How much do the R and D guys really know and do we really care? There are statisticians working out your future grand children’s demise and how many cans of Coke or Pepsi they will consume in their lifetime for the benefit of sugar futures. Sure. Are you getting the picture? And when sugar cane can’t be grown any more in the good, dead earth, it will be made in a petri dish and poured down the gullet of diabetics like liquid gold.

Remember, before the data, we had the moon. And after the data, we still will, because after all, wherever you are there it is, an estranged satellite pulling at the liquids of your innards like an ancient carnal ritual, telling you that 53 years is quite enough time to realize going backwards doesn’t pay. There isn’t enough silicon in all the grains of sand on the beach in the world to build a stairway to heaven. Moon children The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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go forward, because, after the bank’s been broken, what have you got to lose but the chains you were born in? Happy 53rd Birthday, moon children! Welcome to the brave new world.

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Getaway Reema Rao-Patel

Anyone who owns a car in the city is a poser. I never said that to anyone, but it was a conviction that I clung to. Hearing the ring of doors closing on the train as a cue to run, squeezing through only to be pushed up against someone’s overfilled backpack, and accounting for extra time to transfer from train to bus when traveling east-west was all a part of authentic city living.

We did have a car – a peacock blue Chevy Equinox that a nurse once made fun of when Jay picked me up after surgery. Oh, there is no way I’m missing that blue. I defensively reminded everyone that the car was a mandatory work perk. The Chevy remained street parked on Evergreen with last season’s mud still caked on the outside and a lingering new car smell on the inside.

So, when March 13, 2020, rolled around, I complained to myself as usual about how packed and balmy the bus was, not realizing it would be something to miss. After that last ride, we locked ourselves at home in a panic and stowed our transit cards away on the nightstand next to our passports and the car keys. We traded our precious freedom for the confines of our apartment – navigating endlessly between the kitchen, living room, bedroom, living room, bedroom, kitchen, bedroom.

The next weekend – had it only been a week? – Jay said, let’s go for a walk in the same tone, he might’ve said let’s go to Paris; I already bought tickets in. We had not ventured out for a leisurely walk yet. The only time we left the apartment was to pick up staples from the over-priced corner bodega, armed with hand sanitizer like mace and bandanas haphazardly tied around our faces in lieu of masks we couldn’t find anywhere. The bandana constantly slipped and tugged at the wisps of my hair that got caught in the knot. I saw police patrolling the neighborhood, sternly telling people to keep walking, no lingering or The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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sitting on the park benches allowed anymore. Suddenly the crisp, open air felt overwhelmingly stuffy.

I need to be on my own, I said and grabbed the keys roughly. I need to get out, like out-out. By the time I got to Evergreen, I had forgotten where the car was parked. Both sides of the street were fully lined with cars that hid the peacock blue. I searched up and down haphazardly; more panicking than looking. Someone must have looked out their window and thought, poor girl, this is what one week of lockdown will do to you. Three minutes out on the street, but thirty minutes in my head.

When I found the car, I fell into the driver’s seat, and salty tears filled my cupped hands. Crying was now a daily occurrence, but most of my tears rang out the unanswerable questions and indescribable fears inside me. These tears were different; they shed weight. I found the car, yes. But I also found space in a place that was not the bedroom, kitchen, or living room --a space to feel, a space to physically and emotionally move within the all-encompassing stillness of the world.

Just keep driving anywhere, I repeat. When the hyphenated lane lines begin to merge into one, my disjointed thoughts, too, become an unimportant blur. Right now, I do not think; I simply feel. Along the lakeshore, blue skies and green water spread so far that it feels like it is washing into the car. The skyline becomes drenched in honey at dusk, and the orange hues slowly trickle down my own arm perched on the window. In the dark, we do not know where the highways end and the sky begins, streetlights sparkling amongst the stars – the vastness in stark contrast to the overbearing tree-lined streets at home.

Without a destination, the motions of driving turn rote. But its effect does not. I am addicted to movement and the changing sights around me. In these moments, life is living and breathing again.– Of all the roads we took, we never ventured to the suburbs. Even with its seemingly free, wide-open roads, its settled-down stillness was magnified by people shuttered inside their homes. I found it stiflingly quiet.

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them in over four months. When can we see you? Mom asked every week. Every time, the question stretched our time apart longer and the distance between us farther. Even over the phone, I could hear her voice echo in the house. I imagined their quiet street, now primarily empty nesters, and felt a pang of guilt.

I resorted to the car, but this time with a destination. We can’t meet at home, but maybe we can meet somewhere outside halfway? That evening we pulled up in the parking lot of a taped-off neighborhood playground. The lingering rain left everything slick and muddy.

My parents pulled up in the spot next to us, and Mom rolled down the passenger window. She reached across to hand us double packaged veggie wraps from home and a bag of my favorite fried sweet banana buns. Buns were only reserved for special occasions. And right there, we dined as a family for the first time in parallel. This is nice. Despite the rain wetting our laps and having to put up our hoods for dinner, I genuinely meant it. It is. I can’t believe this is our life now, but I’m really happy we did this. I memorized this image of my family framed by the windows of my getaway car.

Heavy, dark rain clouds chased us all the way home, but I felt like the rays of sun that fought their way through. This car, the road, the wheels in constant yet aimless motion no longer felt like just an escape – as cathartic as it was. It was now my enabler. No longer was I witnessing life outside the car. I was living and breathing again.

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“Double Face” by: Jeffrey L. Ensroth

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A Memory Rahi Shah

I stare out the window And see a hazy landscape in the distance Wisps of smoke Bearing the figments of my perceptive eyes Reminding me of a memory, An anamnesis I’ve carried in my back pocket: Sitting amidst the heaps of snow In the Himalayas, Hearing only the fluttering Of the prayer flags And the reverberating sound Of the Sitar and the Santoor The divine echoing from The space that embraces me Seeing only the crystal rays of the sun Illuminating the silhouettes of Mountains, miles away My restless heart stumbling Between the states of Longing and Belonging Forgive it, For it’s a thin line An eternal dance Just like the inevitable emerging Of the night At the dawn of dusk And the gentle melting Of the night Into the arms Of the morning’s cusp.

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The Fretted Fringe Nathan Bishop

The fretted fringe, where family's form best.

The outskirts of the cityscapes, where forlorn men Join women in communion, tender sharing Of hardship tossed in self-denial in workplace Receptacles. With napkins lies the woes of The days to hazes lost, breaks to smoke, and nights gone.

No more! The outskirts lit in neon carve in night a Horizon, new and crowned in green, now offers up A drink or two, a smoke, a seat.

The effervescent Pepsi-Cola air, in glasses, shared With tablespace to spare for poker games and tales Of loss and gain. Men and women intermingled With copper, gold, and silver in their jaws Put out their smoldering worries underfoot Discarding them like cigarette butts.

All still standing, all as one, make a toast.

To each of us, that make the fretted fringe.

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two AM semia-imani hamlin

Tossing and turning.

Dreaming of… dandelions.

Running through dandelions.

And grass.

The pollen blows around me.

What am I running from?

But I'm allergic to pollen.

Maybe that’s why I'm so itchy.

Or am I running towards something….

They say my new medicine can cause rashes.

I am so itchy.

These rashes can be fatal, somehow.

I guess the good outweighs the bad.

I didn't know rashes could kill you.

I think my alarm will go off soon.

I can hear my dog eating.

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It's a little late to be eating.

Or is it early?

I want to stop running so I stop running.

My dog doesn’t know what time it is.

I know I’m dreaming but I can't wake up.

The pollen sticks to me.

God, I'm so itchy.

My nails are sharp.

I wake myself up.

I take a deep breath.

I close my eyes again.

I’m still itchy.

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where do we go when we sleep? semia-imani hamlin

“hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly” -- Langston Hughes a dream is a ticket to a place other than here unknown where you go whether you’re far or near the joy is in the journey not necessarily the place so float on the path and fly through the space the time you spend

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will feel way too quick cuz you’re moving through where it doesn’t exist find peace in your escape and enjoy the moment hold on to your pass your access to roaming

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the vacation semia-imani hamlin

i’m home finally. it feels so great to be back i missed my bed, i missed my friends, and now it’s time to unpack that baggage was overweight and was the reason for my trip i felt like i was drowning, maybe i went on a ship? i genuinely don’t know because i don’t remember leaving but i do know i’m back now from some disconnected dreaming The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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Cages Brie Garbin

In the deepest parts of the darkness you sit in, do you think of me? more than silence

My thoughts are nothing

You must only hear the devil inside your ear, promise and hope.

She sings me a song of

Can you taste the lies dripping from her sweet tongue? memories of home

She tastes like

Do you cling to the familiar taste?

“I promise.”

“I do” I whispered,

The clock keeps ticking, Tock Tick Tock Tick

Tick Tock Tick

It’s a never ending cycle, Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock

Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick

Moving and breathing and nothing more.

I am screaming

I am beginning to suffocate,

What will you be doing in your protected safe haven? for forgiveness.

I am begging God

My world is caving in, leaving wrecked buildings. destroyer of worlds,

While I am the

My shattered heart cries. the tears.

And I slowly kiss

I look at the setting sun, darkness,

I am cloaked in

I look to the rising moon, fingertips,

I cannot see past my

It brings me solace, that when I look at the sky, you cannot see it. had a window.

More than anything, I wish I

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Reaching Out After Low Tide Christopher Clauss

Sinking a boot into salt marsh mud changes the experience of nature The toe breaking the surface release of sulfur dioxide that lingering smell of rotten eggs one eventually gets used to

What once was a placid wetland the smell of brine and the chatter of gulls becomes a foul but familiar thing, that odor and the sucking noise the boots make when we try to pull them out

We smiled when our love was new

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let the salt air fill our lungs and shared the moment secure in our shared faith and each other’s arms.

I don’t remember what it was that first boot through the floor of marsh hay sinking and not letting go Perhaps it was an election or the potluck or the meeting where they told us membership was closed

Sometimes we struggle together hold our noses, lend an arm and pull each other out of the mud Other times we fend for ourselves trusting the other will always come alongside if it gets to be too much

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Today we are both stuck grimacing at each other and laughing in between on occasion We are each shin-deep in mud flat and the tide is coming in close enough to grab a hand far enough away that we could almost kiss if we leaned the right way but today we don’t

Instead we each whisper a prayer inaudible in case it doesn’t come true but loud enough we both know we’re doing it Blessed be the salt marsh the mud-crusted marsh hay the tiny periwinkles making their way up the blades and their even tinier radulas The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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There is always the question of whether to just leave the boot behind and maybe at the end of today it is what we will need to do but our love is too stubborn We will find a way somehow We always do

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Urge for Going Stephen Benz

The thought of another road trip at once entices and appalls.

All those miles to cover, the tedium of the American highway—to what end?

Long hours of solitude, soul searching, dramatic monologues—sick of yourself.

And yet, in spite of all misgivings, here you are, loading the trunk, filling the tank, racing off into the boundless wasteland.

Ten miles out, magpies watch from wires.

A hundred leagues on, road signs conjure towns but no towns appear. Every exit seems to go nowhere, a land of remnants: grassy sidetracks petering out, billboards in tatters, an abandoned mine, a derelict drive-in theater. You hurtle ahead into mirage while in the mirror magpies drop down to scour the trail.

Days on end it’s like a movie of someone else’s journey.

Zoom out to an overhead view, a long shot of the turbulent horizon: There’s your car in the middle distance, stirring dust, heading straight for calamity: bad weather ominous engine noises fissures roadblocks detours the sudden dead end—no way to back out

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Down and Out Stephen Benz

Back in there is where we camped, south of town along the tracks leading from the switching yard.

You would think it’s easy to jump a freight.

Not so. You need skill, know-how, good bit of luck.

Along the tracks leading from the switching yard dangers abound; guards bring around bad dogs.

To dodge them you need skill, know-how, lots of luck.

You’re sure to take a beating now and then.

Danger waits wherever you’re bound—guards and dogs, hunger and rain, drunken teens. You stay keen, still you get a good beating now and then, and it’s time to move on down the line, to more hunger, more rain, more drunk kids keen to mock your misery. “Posted no vagrancy” means the time has come to move on down the line, jump a boxcar after the watchman passes.

Vagrancy means nothing but mockery, misery, hiding out in wet bushes, a cold night. Wait until the watchman passes, jump on board a boxcar that bangs, skirls, lurches, then stalls on a sidetrack.

Back to the cold wet bushes, waiting all night, thinking about coffee, thinking about dry shoes.

A sidetracked life of banging, skirling, lurching, stalling.

Least you’ve got comrades: Bodie, Ringo, Utah Joe. Chatting about coffee, dry shoes, women, failure.

Nothing easy about jumping freight, the drifter’s life.

You need comrades like Bodie, Ringo, Utah Joe. Back in there is where we camped, south of town.

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Hitchhiker’s Nightmare Stephen Benz

It’s the hitchhiker’s worst nightmare: waiting on the shoulder for a ride when the Law comes skidding.

Get a move on pal, your kind ain’t wanted here.

So on you go, trudging toward the outskirts.

But the cop comes back before you get a mile down the road.

Guess you didn’t get the message, pal.

You hard of hearing or just thick in the head?

If it’s one thing you’ve learned, there’s nothing a hitcher can do when the Law wants to bust your ass.

Next thing you know you’re spread-eagled against the cold metal of the cruiser, teeth smashed into the hood.

One swift kick sends you down into a snow-filled ditch.

Middle of the night and you’re still walking the lost highway, too cold to bed down. Stupor and chill, stupor and chill— you feel it in brain and bones. When headlamps crop up, you crouch in tallgrass, you slink behind signposts.

Night owls watch from darkened trees.

But in Hassle County you can only get so far. You know what’s coming over the horizon: Can’t evade it, pal, can’t dodge it, can’t get away, not this time, not ever.

Sure enough, here’s the wailing siren, the spinning blue and red lights, the highway patrol on the prowl for someone answering your description.

The searchlight flares, and he’s got you dead to rights.

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Streetlights Mary Anna Scenga Kruch

My sister Linda had the run of the neighborhood in Detroit -- could come skipping home at twilight after games of freeze tag or red-light green light with friends across Shoemaker or French Road.

No rush. She knew every crack in the sidewalk every crack in the road so streetlights meant nothing to her.

But suburbia was all new concrete and brick and the kids --- forget the kids who were all pipsqueaks hopscotching and jump roping to stupid songs like Bubble gum bubble gum in a dish How many pieces do you wish?

Heck, they’d miss at three jumps when she knew she could have made ten but would not have minded if they asked her to hold the rope or join in. But they never did.

She was getting used to staying solo indoors when her old Detroit neighbors were set to visit so she was up early thinking about street games waiting on the porch a good three hours her eyes boring down the street like a tunnel staring down the rails for a train.

Finally, she checked with her mom who was only slightly apologetic: Oh, that’s right. Mrs. S. called to say “Not today.”

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With eight hours before streetlights came on she emptied nickels and dimes from her world globe bank for an escape caught Bus 12 headed east to Belle Isle strolled through the Conservatory ran through the gardens spent a good hour at the fountain snapping photos for families before hauling off to the aquarium to make faces at the fish.

Back outdoors she noticed the wind whip up so figured she should head home when she noticed the man who ran the hotdog stand running after a plastic bag with the last of his buns. She jumped into action to rescue the bag just before it flounced into the fountain.

She enjoyed hotdogs from her new friend and dozed on the ride back but awakened to find she missed her stop when the driver called End of the line!

But four miles from home was plenty of time to get back come skipping home at twilight to the street with no potholes round every uncracked corner way before dark before the dumb streetlights blinked on.

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Dear Pink Room Mary Anna Scenga Kruch

You afforded brief retreat for me until I could confess sheltered intimacies to my journal in you, my pink room who offered lovely Veiled Rose above matching floral paper until the shouting started: at times Mom to oldest brother dispersed after each had shouted their say Mom’s cheeks rouged Coral points as she returned to dinner prep meatloaf punched and in the oven followed by a much-needed smoke; my brother’s face raged Wild Berry as he lifted a few L&Ms from Mom’s purse hair slicked back comb in back pocket English Leather trailing in his wake as he headed outdoors to argue GTOs over Camaros and do you recall Dad and my sister?

Clashes could last (it seemed) hours carried Dad to the yard Magenta mouth pulled into a tight line whistling crossly as he watered peppers along the back fence needed quiet drowned out by souped-up Chevys cruising down Gratiot while my sister’s face flamed deep Flamingo The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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as she pushed me out and slammed the door so I unobserved and Crepe-faced blew Bazooka bubbles as I left for a brief escape down the street to see my friend Susan marked time talking Tiger Beat and 16 returned 30 minutes later to find them all at table tumblers in place settled into shades of Shell and Salmon.

I settled for fleeting peace stood the storm of discontent until I could confess sheltered intimacies to my journal once more in you, my pink Veiled Rose room.

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Si, Lo Sono Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito Valerie Smith

Bad was not my first TV show.

Indosso mia madre’s Alabama smile.

Si, sono nato in Danimarca.

Mandalorian was not my first movie.

Gideon has Papa’s Italian hair.

Si, bruciato su Broadway dieci anni prima Tom and Penn in Taps.

A white sheet loosely covers miei ricci.

Si, I did time with Eddie. No lines— I listened with Papa’s eyes, mia madre’s mani cioccolato tucked in my pockets.

I am an ensemble of kings, not I Soliti Sospetti. I want you to be taken and desperately surprised.

Yes, I am Dean Big Brother Almighty.

I wouldn’t be here without Ossie and Rubie, Sam, Larry, Jasmine, Tisha, Roger, and Spike…

Aaaaah si, I know who shot Malcolm.

Non sono stato io, ma questo e problema, si?

Denzel and Angela our only solace.

I’ve gone digital, il capo del futuro, a Far Cry from finished. It’s Papa’s voice sollevamento, and Mama’s killer smile.

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No was born eight feet tall on a warm afternoon in December Valerie Smith

No emptied the womb No filled the room No was a baby starving for conversation No behaved well for a two-year-old No kidding No cutting No child left behind No snuck out the house to star in a tearjerker No peeking No, wait No just said No was quiet as quiet was kept No kept getting into trouble No skateboarding No smoking No trespassing No exit No picked a fight and won No lo contendere No justice no peace No enlisted and put it all together per standard operating procedure No-limit soldier No mercy The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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No sweat No one knows what happened to the other plane No took down seven yesses No gave rank and serial number No lied when asked No remembered everything No studied history No renounced religion No became an artist No tried to shrink one day No picked up the pieces No moved to New Orleans and almost drowned No is where charity gets No got lost and turned around in expedition No has a headstone over an empty grave No condemnation No chance in hell

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Young Girl Kara Crank

She was 16, a confused soul.

Dreams of glitter and gold took hold and her morals she did let go.

Letting the threads of her virtue hit the floor.

Saturated with the lust of a man and the girl he described; a hoe.

She said to herself: “Young girl you need this, this world is bulimic, taking you in and spitting you out.”

Promises of dollars would take her mind.

Her celebrity would grow and grow with time.

A beautiful girl, now 18.

Within two years she became a dope fiend.

Because the reality that love wouldn’t find her, with her legs wide open, would blindside her.

“So money makes me cum” would become her motto.

Her meal ticket, the body that rivals a model.

They loved her!

But still, she felt the pain.

She’d get her fix from the man selling cane.

Saying: “Young girl you need this, this world is bulimic, taking you in and spitting you out. What would it take for you to see this?”

20 years now.

Her face is known, yet not for her riches.

Glitter and Gold, and not for the body, for which she sold.

For the junkie she became, as a poor young girl, youthful in vigor, yet mind deteriorated.

Body in harm, as her soul humiliated.

The drug that once loved her, now intimidates! Scared to leave it, she’s bound to its fate.

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Saying: “Young girl you need this, this world is bulimic, taking you in and spitting you out. What would it take for you to see this?”

What would it take for her to see that she went down a road which she couldn’t go back.

She looked in the mirror with a vertical crack.

In the reflection, her and her crack.

She injects it in, yet her reflection doesn’t.

Her reflection rises, when she doesn’t.

The mirror's crack disappears and the beautiful face of a young girl takes its place.

Begging the girl to return back to her, when her dreams were still real and not just a blur.

The girl began crying at the words she was relaying.

As the girl continues all the while saying: “Young girl you need this, this world is bulimic, taking you in and spitting you out. Now it’s too late for you to see this.”

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huitlacoche Marianne Samano

after “Straw House, Straw Dog” by Richard Siken our maize starts here, stems from its own root

where the wet blue tongue of a milpa suspended in sleep machete arms cut with the ears through throat

the

sifting past husks of blood-worn cerros, where serpents sing under two-starred moons & the back of your hand tastes like fungal earth of twice living gods; a rare delicacy mud bakes in the still-wet hut

of your longing

with two fanged fingers you scoop the blooming dark

place it on my lips & feed it

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to the hungry animal of my heart

in a burnt-down house, already burning, about to burn i wake in the mouth of dreams.

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Heaven Doesn't Know Faith Shekinah Howard

Heaven knows no desire like mine.

No element can withhold or describe a being’s yearning for connection.

There is no grass, no tree, no spirit, that can pull me away from you.

There's a brand-new world built between the gaps of your teeth.

A new solar system that spins in the corners of your eyes.

Heaven knows no love like mine: A universe born of magic that formulates deep down in my core and leaves only a sweet, sticky substance that coats the tongue with unbridled affection.

The blind wondering on hills made of warmth; like the sun fell from above and crashed down into my arms.

It is not becoming complete, not finding meaning or a new system of beliefs.

It’s a place of escape nestled in that small cranny between your arm and shoulder, a deep dark place that I want to sink into and never return from.

Heaven doesn't know what was created on earth it only knows I've built a new one with your essence dripping like dew all over it.

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My eyes glaze over lost in the thought of an experience, just a moment of connection.

Souls tied and bound by celestial thread that I wrap myself in.

Breasts protruding between strings of fate.

A tight burn around the waist that leaves a bright blistering bruise against galaxy skin.

A warmth that never leaves that poor heaven will never see.

I wrap myself in a bottle built of you.

I, the gravity that spins planets.

You, the inertia the constant force the searing pain the bubbles that pop in my gut that remains dormant.

My joy, my wonder.

Look heaven, creation has made creation.

A formidable new force that keeps me spinning in a world between the cracks of the universe.

Look in awe at the power of a single soul rejoining.

I don't need you.

I am you.

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In The Fairy Garden (Bella Farfalla) Faith Shekinah Howard

Through golden gates, I enter.

Vivid colors of grace swirling in a whirlwind of wonder before me.

Dark shadows of nature blossoming in congruence beneath me.

I see buds of violet in beautiful clusters greeting roses like lone wolves beside it.

I look up to see a sky made of glass and a ground of hard clouds.

In the corner of my eye, the slender feet of fairies bask in the homes of birds out for dinner.

One here, one there in a cascade of fluttering wings.

One who hides and one who glitters, kissing innocent faces.

Gliding, zipping, and whipping around defying strong gusts of wind.

Sunlight bouncing off beads of dew, while rainbow shadows start to turn blue.

The moon rises in the east, its beauty summoning new life.

Sleepy ethereal faces hang lazily from sappy trees, their serene visages gleeful and smiling in every angle.

Beauty radiates through the leaves; I have finally found Nirvana.

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and have grown a pair of wings.

Up and up I fly; And then I awaken.

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The Black Woman Looking In Faith Shekinah Howard

I got my own little reality.

Sometimes I walk with a little extra swing in my hip, just because I feel good.

When I fling my arms and legs around trying to connect with a force not seen, it’s because I have a place to be that doesn't exist on this plane.

It's in my wildness, in my refusal to walk straight-backed and my inclination towards dancing past bedtime, that I created a world of my own.

In here, I'm Victoria.

A vampress, a femme fatale of the night.

I wear pearls because they glimmer like the whites of my fangs and I walk only in heels because they make me tower over men.

That's Victoria.

I got her when reality called me weak.

Some days I'm Charlotte.

A princess in a country shrouded in greenery; a woman made of sunshine and rainbows, hope and prosperity, love and innocence.

Something like those damsels that they show little girls on TVs. That's Charlotte.

Her bright world of butterflies and dragons opened up when mine was shrouded in a darkness like sour molasses.

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that nobody else can hear a deep thumping noise that I feel bouncing around in the pit of my stomach.

It takes me back to lives once lived and to new stories waiting to fill up my cup deprived of wonder.

I have my own little reality, one that shifts and changes against the winds of the world the world that wants the Black woman to not look in.

Sway hip from one side to the other, bouncing my merry way into worlds that you'll never get to see.

There goes that Black woman and the personas she takes on, always turning and looking in.

In to where Victoria and Charlotte expand worlds where the Black woman looking in is safe.

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Pigsty Jackie Flick

consider how rotting begins below the skin of something entirely healthy consider the process of decomposition while these walls begin to mold consider how you’ve wound up with no protection in this useless body that demands a savior seemed silly to plan for infinity in such a finite slice of atmosphere consider how some foods smell worse than others as they go bad consider all these fallen idols you’ll never have the chance to consume consider the stench coming from the damp heart of this house flowing up in cracks between floorboards pricking the nostrils, stiffening the spine consider my mother’s bedroom my baby teeth in a jar The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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on her nightstand consider my demand to see them to take them back into my ready mouth consider these commodities that time does not touch an engravement in the flow toward expiration our only way to skip this staling finite and taste our sweet infinity.

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Contingency Plan Jackie Flick

your next life awaits you in the motel off twelve-mile road where cracks in cheap cigarette stained wallpaper reveal the departure points of so much hapless recess these things are passed down from one good man to the next affording us this half-baked heritage so you may afford to rent this room for the next couple of months some fathers get better others will not yet all will become the reluctant signifiers of time stretched out on a twin mattress and wearing cloaks of red at the back door at midnight as they search for their mothers

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A Balloon in a Child’s Hand Dana Stamps, II

and, if it floats away, there is a chance it will soar high, beyond bird-Zen-masters, until the balloon sinks, the truth only experienced then, not among the nimbus,

smog, helicopters, 747 jumbo jets but down, low, humbled … yet dreaming the Myth

of Balloon into being, its self-awareness turned organic like just another earthy animal, like a great ape, a fiction teller extraordinaire, the one,

for example, telling this fiction, a metaphor (lie) of a puffed up balloon,

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and pop, the truth of shredded plastic, a corpse of the balloon is—but will be resurrected, yes, forevermore—a seed planted, grows into a balloon tree. Sorry, this, and most fictions cannot be, not any kind of strings attached

to hold on to it, permanently, as truth; but, in a well-leaped faith

balloons again, reborn, imagined right royal instead of baby blue …

Why not? Sky’s the imagination, until gravity is proven true (despite our opinions about balloon transcendence), a balloon is not a spirit, yet this type of aggrandizement is often believed, except by the child who lost, un-storied, a wholly balloon.

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The Trees Saved a Turtle’s Life Sara Cardona

The trees saved a turtle’s life The fortress is falling, stars fading.

The freak, the turtle without a shell To joyless to play, sad and preyed upon An injustice, where was the needed protection?

But in the middle of the fortress unprotected An oasis shining bright, shelves like oaks It found delight in climbing the oasis trees It could see distant lands of adventure See the mouse that rode a motorcycle See through the eyes of the horse See the fourth-grade boy and his brother See the girl in the overgrown garden In this oasis, the turtle was growing a shell The predators were puzzled, they could not bite The turtle still dwells lonely in a glorious shell

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But this turtle is the oddest of reptiles A slow creature who can climb trees

I used to watch TV in the dark The colors on the screen brighter than day What was on? It changed so frequently Soap operas with surreal, hanging plots Comedies with half-formed non sequiturs By noon, I could not recall what I watched It really did not matter, I still enjoyed watching Now, there are no new episodes, just reruns The dullest of the dull in faded colors I just watched this episode yesterday Distorted by static, spiteful hissing I am glad when the screen fades I no longer watch TV in the dark

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The Woman in the Far Away House Title of a Poem by David Tucker

Lenny DellaRocca

Someone told me not to talk about her, the angel.

The wind might push you from the roof if you try to guess her name, he said.

Even to say trumpet or lute, those little hints on the tongue could give you away.

And when you walk into a loud room, even friends might quiet down if you so much as yearn for her with your eyes.

But I’ve never listened to his ideas, his guesses about who to call when something is about to happen.

If I could discover just a little about love, where it comes from, or hold the angel when she’s gasping for air, it would be worth the scorn, the eye rolling, the stigmata that might stain me.

So yeah, I talk about her a lot, up here, where I can almost see her.

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Moon in the Sheep Water Title from a line in “Sometimes the Moon Sat in the Well at Night”

by Marie Howe (from The Kingdom of Ordinary Time)

Lenny DellaRocca Everywhere in the world it’s this cozy light that baffles the animals.

And they wouldn’t be blessed if it kissed them, the light, because it’s the old bewilderment in their eyes.

Dank with earth these fog-beasts know only sex and hunger.

I’m like them, the animals, dumb with wonder at a puddle of muddy rain that aches with a ruined moon, the bloom of it half wrecked in the water.

Grounded halo.

We gaze at it, quiet, when it’s night cool. We take it into our bodies like a wild seed from the sky.

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Maybe I’m wrong about them, the animals, maybe they’re connected to the gods, Zeus, who from the beginning of the world, slings down light in pieces.

So it’s not longing in their eyes.

It’s witchery.

It’s opium for beasts, and poets lost in a dreamy caesura about Who and What and Why. About language and its mystical power to evade understanding anything but faults and apostrophes etched or reflected in runes or rain under trees, in fields along tracts of sky in water, where the two-legged and four alike are cut up, cut off but still connected to their source, like slices of light in trees, glyphs and hoof-prints all over the world.

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Then There Was That Night When, What Was it?

Lenny DellaRocca

Something about Dark Side of the Moon, Kirk said, and the Miami Planetarium.

And acid, I said.

He said, Take the purple one.

We didn’t remember where we got the milk truck.

The planetarium guy played with the star machine, his hands going booga-booga above the electric hummingbirds.

Cygnus the Swan slashed her silver X across Leo the Lion like Miss Emma Peel flashing her foil in a duel.

Kirk said look at those violet equations in the mouth of the Wizard of Oz, who winked at us from a yellow comet.

But the planetarium guy let go the darling ropes of the wonderful balloon, and gravity was back.

I said Saturn is falling out of the universe.

Kirk said the planetarium guy is putting it in the back of the police car.

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but she was a Scorpio, and drove off in the milk truck yelling We’re all ethereal, we’re all ethereal.

Sparks were shooting out of my penis.

The planetarium guy was ready to lock us in overnight.

I gripped Auntie Em’s arm. I don’t remember where I come from, I said.

I’m a light beam, and I don’t think I’m ever coming back.

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A Poem for Mirror Girl (Yesterday’s News) Shoopy Reed

She’s big, She’s small, She’s short, She’s tall, She has no business looking at herself all of the time.

In mirrors that are real and mirrors that are fake she’s consumed with looking; always, always, looking and thinking: “Today I’ll Be Surprised” With cloudy eyes, frazzled brows, and splintered lips she’s consumed with retching; always, always, retching and thinking: “Go Away” She’s loud, She’s soft, The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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She’s high, She’s here, She’s everywhere she looks– It’s annoying.

In mirrors that are real and mirrors that are fake she sees Her. With scissors she hacks; always, always, hacking away the fibers that have framed her.

A fruitless pursuit for fleeting fright while her eyes are still foggy, brows still scruffy, lips still cracking, she believes in that fleeting fright.

“Oh, Mirror Girl,” She’s always transient.

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in a never ending game of Identity Theft.

She’s him, She’s her, She’s near, She’s far, she has no business occupying every piece of the Planet, yet she does.

In mirrors that are real and mirrors that are fake.

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Hourglass Ilsa Kelleigh

Sometimes I wish I was still little, a kid, without a responsibility.

We could play all-day as the sun made its way, our hourglass in the sky.

The streetlights awaken with a roaring buzz, making it known it is time to go home.

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Dog and Luggage Scott T. Hutchison

Pack mates emerge from the bowels of their home carrying the big foreign-smell containers; they brush past her as if she is invisible, caught up in their flurries of stuffing small spaces and nooks with inconsequential pieces of their lives before abandoning the den. She no longer attempts to share the pack’s excitement at such moments, knows what this laughter and bark mean for her, the least member: the quick leash, the careening car ride to the land of chain link fence and concrete ground, where she will find herself surrounded by the disconsolate howls and whines of the deserted, dejected. Touches will be offered there— by unfamiliar hands, a few kind-sounding words during attempts to play catch with a foreign-slobbered ball, garbled voices containing no menace, but no respect, no love. Everything feels far away. The pack will leave her in a place where there is no rug, where the food does not taste the same. A chemical scent she cannot lick or shed away grinds into her coat when she lies down in the hard corners.

She knows that when the containers roll she can no fully longer trust playful opportunities to heel beneath the same sun.

The pack always returns from their roam, welcomes her to take her place. But something unfamiliar lingers each time. The ominous dreams never leave—the ones that make her kick and cry herself awake in the night, visions they believe are nothing more than chasing a family of rabbits across the distant fields.

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Roller Derby Queens Scott T. Hutchison

When the Killer Q-Bees make their entrance, skate onto the banked oval against our Cheery Bombs, everyone pivots in their folding chairs—tonight we’re all jammers bumping up against the ropes until there’s glory and a winner.

My wife’s a Bomb, explodes the arena and the Bees’ hive in the name of MOAB, the Mother of all Busters. I love her exaggerated character and the woman I made vows to.

She once played field hockey, hooped at center, threw discus. No She’s a big I-ain’t-playing-with-you kind of girl. Our daughters have never known fear when she’s rolling. They know the script, how Mama-MOAB’s gonna clear the way. They love sitting in on Two-Team post-game pot-luck suppers.

The CB’s use their share of the door-take for uniforms, skates, elbow and knee pads, helmets. Hard-earned cash dollars go back into local shelters and rehab centers. It’s all heart-earned.

Lots of the folks in attendance have been attended to.

The Cheery Bombs come with the lit fuse of the young, old, mid, round, short, lean, fast, squares, t-angles and everything Woman. The teen skaters and young fans all want to be in my wife’s history class at school. She teaches what she calls

broad lessons on how one size doesn’t fit all-- how to be in the game, long as you want, just the same. There’s a cost—she’s honest, leaves the makeup behind and slingshots truth. When the Bombs show up for practice, they put down their briefcases, their aprons, their babies. They must carry The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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their own health insurance, purchase Flat Track Derby coverage for an annual fee--out of pocket. Each skater pays league dues, signs liability waivers. Though only recommended, MOAB believes in wearing a protective bite-guard and hard-shells on her wrists.

When a student raises her questioning hand in my wife’s class, pearly whites flash out at all the brilliance, while a strong scrawl writes PATIENCE and PERSISTENCE on the board.

She goes over the Rules: it’s a game of positioning, timing, engagement, assists, target zones and blocks; their history’s always been about moving fast to avoid, but handling the trips, impacts, and the arguable penalties. The voice of experience tells them: once you’ve mastered communication and entered the revolutions of the game, nothing can truly knock you over the rails—if somebody busts you, you get back on that track. Doesn’t matter if you’re a blocker or a jammer in this life--if you want a piece of the action, gear up--get ready for full contact.

Don’t let anyone keep you from the goal. It’s called winning. It’s a good way to roll.

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Putting on Airs Scott T. Hutchison

I like to think that I’m original, that I sail the decks of an exclusive ship, along a windy sea of plenty.

Disguised, I pirate porches—seasonally--for a mere two months a year. I pilfer only Omaha Steaks.

I recognize Styrofoam treasure chests with dry ice in their veins--and suddenly I’m grapple-hooked and boarding, swashbuckling with arms full of booty toward two large freezers humming in the criminal cold of my basement.

I scoff at what the indiscriminate idiot-bandits out there discover: boxes full of crawling mealworms, glitter bombs sly-packaged just for pilfering rogues. The only stooping I do knows nothing about the contents of paper packages tied up with charitable strings. I anchor myself a spyglass-length back from the brown-truck hub, pursuing as the fleet sails for various horizons; I pick a different target each day.

Follow at an honest distance. And when I see that snow-colored Nebraska label, I’m already tasting bacon-wrapped filets, sirloin burgers, salivating over the prospects: marinated flank steak, stuffed sole with crabmeat.

If you’re fancy enough to quick-order gourmet combos from that flat corporate piece of cattle-land, then I imagine you have enough money to handle a few complaint line calls without it being too personal. Your delayed and exasperated issues will be fixed and shipping out again. Me, I spend a jaunty November and December in a sea-shanty chorus of Polynesian pork chops, caramel apple tartlets, jumbo franks and chocolate lover’s cakes.

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I’m blood-sworn to thievery for Christmas fellowship, inviting my fellow brigands over for feasting. We sit at the tilting table, dividing with laughter. I serve them in fine—their eyes glinting like the burial-price of a golden earring, Their goblets are raised at my annual rum-punch magnanimity, their scurvy bellies once again full. They remember their risky lives, their skulls and bones when they see the serrated steak knife clenched between my grinning teeth: a toast, to the seasonal wind blowing us down.

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Praise keepers Jeff Schiff

those that latch on while you doze those you’ve wrestled give and take down the weedy shore hoisted with handnets lipheld or dropped on decks doing the bassboat mambo all herky jerky iridescence all flipflopping their way home

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Stroking the Dark Jeff Schiff

for Delta Eddy

Custom is encouragement enough as we sit and swig a liter of rotgut balanced on the shag rug So often has dinner ended in this bottle I'm convinced all nourishment is followed by potable fog Tonight too food then drink and we’re barefoot toward the eighth hole par five mist or rain 540 gets you home mercifully less from the women's tee In our stupor only the green counts: The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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dollar a putt blind but for a flashlight taped to a bendy flag

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The Angler Channel Jeff Schiff

Gotta give it to them those vested Eddies and Earls and inbred Calebs foot danglers & rail spitters gaggling at the public launch Bell’s Two Hearted in the cold hold leeches in their faux wicker creels bored as standing water or honeydo husbands swivel to cast snap to hook & set drag to fill the landing net

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Sleeping with the Priest in Winter George Bishop for Alan

In his house were many rooms that weren’t his, and where I woke was one. By morning God was gone, he was gone and I was where the booze had taken our holy talk.

It was Sunday. It was winter. Warm air rose from the furnace, rippled through the drapes like fish in a net, like a soul struggling in a stranger’s past. When I left, I knew I’d never come back, but I’d have to. I could hear his sermon from the door as I stepped away, the one he’d been rehearsing for years, the one I’ve been trying to talk a god into ever since. ____________________

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After Passing the Accident George Bishop

As I move through the night, failures reach out like the poor from their eyes and the miles begin to stretch like panthers at dark. Even instinct was all for pulling over, waving time by. On the seat beside me my small bag of success fit perfectly.

It was enough. Where I was going I could be late, and no one would notice if I were early. Besides, I was just outside of somewhere, where they thought they were going, where they thought they arrived.

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Barbicide® Feast Ian Levine

i wasn’t allowed in the top drawer of Father’s bureau so i thought that’s what would make me masculine when i looked inside, i became the Tenzin Gyatso as long as i had the discipline i imagined touching His things in a certain order would open a door locked by an ancient order. that if i were a good safecracker, exploiting all of the lock’s faults at last, i would feel the rugged beat of My Papa’s Waltz i had to choose five of my previous self’s things buried amongst one hundred other objects: yahrzeit candle melted like gold fillings picking up the broadcast of Chanson d’automne let The Life that [They] Have pass for a schilling don’t trust the green grass on the lawn pocketknife sharp as Jocasta’s brooch a patina of Apple peels Caesar’s wife must be above reproach before the sweetened juice congeals boar’s hairbrush weathered like Ulysses’ breaches cerulean Barbicide® waves crashing against Pinaud-Clubman fine talc beaches walnut hilt splintered but lasting wristwatch counting time like Scheherazade’s tales until the ticking becomes adagio betting against C(h)ronos with a martingale as Billy said, “so it goes.”

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yarmulke as silken and strong as the Nemean lion between the fingers of a haggler in a Moroccan market yet buried under gym socks like boulders on Zion the drawer that I opened was his patriarchate

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Five-Day Panic Attack Erik Moyer

My chest knocks like the police. I jangle awake four hours before my alarm.

I dreamt of you again. Now, you greet me. Every hour of every day, you greet me. A ghost, a grandfather clock. I retch the night’s stomach acid into my cat’s litterbox. The dawn air is wet with heat, yet I shiver like a chihuahua without its striped sweater. I haven’t eaten in two days, my gut a raisin. I down another triple dose of SSRIs and baby aspirin. I haven’t achieved an erection in six days. I crawl to the balcony for a drag. The flame trembles in my hands like a sinner. My heart is a woodpecker egg hatching. I want you out but need you in. I can see the Barcelona sun sprout from the sea like a golden turnip.

The orchids reach skyward in morning prayer. I step outside myself and drive a hatchet through my skull.

This calms me.

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Samsara Emersyn Li

I lived in a field of wheat I lived in a red barn, in the bonfire, & in the wind the sadness will never end, my aged hands splattered in paint guide my new self’s small fingers along a page, “please love something other than painting” I whisper as she writes what she cannot see in our letters to each other I feel myselves converging when we paint with words from our mind together between the same lines I made alone, before her the sadness will last forever I feel everything constricting the flow of blood to my brain when I think of a woman’s touch her fingers caressing The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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every part of my human vessel, She unravels my brain & twirls it around her fork the brain has no nerve endings, I can’t feel myself become an ape as she slurps me away The sadness will never end, yellow paint tastes like stars & daffodils when the world is black & white I can paint the sun on a cloudy day I can paint a smile on my face I already knew that I would die one day but I never knew the sadness would truly last forever, and that my heart has bled in every life

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Mitosis Emersyn Li

He pulls me beneath Moth colored sheets We lie atop a broken clock Watching each other's dreams As we slip away from the earth, The sun touches him It caresses his brain I kiss his hollow skull, We melt into a single cell & divide into copies & divide until there is nothing Except for the vacuous space between us, He dims the saturation of the room But I feel the warmth of monochrome eyes watching me undress, he traces my nervous system with slim fingers I feel him running up my spine, it makes planets collide he becomes the only color in a world enveloped in greyscale there is warmth in my empty sheets, when I feel his phantom touch lingering on my old weathered skin The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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i. Ghost Grey Snyder

Earth to me, Earth to me, My friends say I'm doing it again.

I said PTSD is a promise-breaker once.

All I should want is to live every day like it's my last, but I'm living every day like it's my last and it's not what everyone thinks it is.

Would you hate me if I said everything is more boring than my brain fog?

Am I ever really somewhere?

Remind me to call my depersonalization astral projection around my witchy friends.

Throw myself around the room like a voice, a distraction so my body doesn't find me, safe around the corner while they keep chasing down the hallway.

Experiencing reality is so 2016 anyway, being present in the moment is “cringe”, I was so embarrassed when I was thirteen and feeling my feelings, instead of this emotional LaCroix like my entire life is three blocks over and someone is thinking really, really hard about it.

I wonder if things would be better if I could at least be my whole self for my loved ones.

I'm not even my whole self for myself.

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Yell to myself “Olly Olly oxen free”, but there's no one there to do it.

I guess I'll keep haunting everywhere I go, I guess I’ll keep haunting everywhere I go, A cold rush and the faint sense that you are not alone, At least I chose to haunt you.

Earth to me, Earth to me, Earth to me, Dig my heels into the floor in my chair.

Way to land.

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ii. Spring Fantasy Grey Snyder

Wish I could take you to my grandmother's for spring break, I used to always daydream about it as a kid, We could walk on the pier, under the street lights, Away from the music and the crowds, and try to find big fish under the water, that private thrill of leaning over the edge of the dock, It would take everything not to push you in, but wouldn't it be funny, and you'd dry up right away in the warm Florida air.

I'd always wanted to take you for a walk at sunset in one of the parks, among the meticulously planted flowers.

I remember the petunias the most, our Eden under the willow trees, Spanish moss lazing on the branches, draping off of them like sleeping leopards, like curtains for some romantic play.

You could wrap your arm in mine and I'll escort you, kiss you while the sun dons you with a halo, you angel.

I swear the bees are humming Sappho fragments like psalms, We could make love in the sunroom, Oh, to listen to you moan in the quiet of the night, Save for the insects singing loud enough to hear through the windows, Your skin under the lamplight like this, is glowing, you know?

Take off your floral blouse and your cute shorts, and I'll take off mine in return, The whole vacation I want to show you the part of me from Georgia, Soft, Fuzzy, Fruity, Sweet.

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SPELL Bradley Strahan

It's always far mountains, cities of jade and silver, towers half hidden on a misty ridge that draw the cracked lodestone of desire.

We're always leaving for incense islands, places of green water that speak of sun and brown lips tasting of salt and mango.

In crowded stations magnet-eyes burn in stranger's faces.

Within its cage of bone the wingless moth strains toward a distant fire

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Daydreaming Brizzy Blue

Adventuring on the seas Bright waves caressing our faces the salty smell of seawater lingering Suddenly gasping for air Looking frantically around Fleets from enemy ships Sending cannon shots, surrounding Shock waves sloshing water— Brackish to the face—directly Into our unsuspecting flank In an instant, Our vessel capsized Our defenses shattered Our responses delayed Our morale truncated Yet one voice slicing through clouds of disdain reaching dregs and droplets left from willpower and energy long since spent— blinding rays of daybreak break my concentration construction of characters' futures blocked from creation bringing me back to frigid air and siren blare just outside my window The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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crawling my way out of my life BEE LB

i once dreamed of a life so big it spilled from my hands, seeped into the floorboards, leaked all the way down to the basement. a life so big it resisted any kind of holding this is the way a child dreams when they can still fit beneath the box spring and the floor. i once came so close to freedom i could taste it: salt in the air and blue stained lips. as always, fear drove me out. that was half a decade ago and what do i have to show for it? a knot of tangled curls. a longing refusing to stretch thin. a few nearly faded scars. and often, the absence of hope. i paint a sun into my home in an effort to chase happiness. i pull life from water and my own two hands. i find myself sinking into the past and attempt to pull myself out of it. i look up at the trees i once thought towering and placate my desire with the absence of memory. there are things i am meant to be doing, i’m sure. coaxing beauty from the tongues of strangers, for one. instead, i sit staring at the face of my past. instead, i am always crawling my way out of my life.

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self portrait as voyeur BEE LB

the life / the touch / the small, strange connection the shared breath / the wind, the water / the joy scene from a distance, the fear the climb / the hold / how touch comes so easy the lift / the closeness / the parting ways the fear, seen from a distance the water welling / the salt flooding oh, to spread / to fall / to look / to jump the dance / the departure each missed moment / the descent / separation the long trail / momentous coming together / apart / together again the sway / the push / the running toward the blanket / the body clutched tight the kneeling / the pulling this could continue on forever / still it won’t / the separation made private / the ending unwitnessed

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A POEM BY DR. RIEUX (Or Dr. Seuss Meets the Apocalypse) Michael Salcman

In quarantine it seemed the obvious thing to do All of us read The Plague by Albert Camus But for a critical cow outside the gates going moo And silent birds flying above our city’s zoo Not many felt disappointed or filled with rue Spending our days with The Plague by Albert Camus When the bill for arrogance and greed came due We paid more in pride than vouchers it’s true What a poor exchange we had made for social glue Blindness and spite from The Plague by Albert Camus No more trips to the gym or standing in queues No unmasked meetings beyond casual ones and twos No enlightenment came on slow walks to the loo— All of it foreseen in The Plague by Albert Camus.

(the poem first appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal: Number 34, 2022)

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Woods and Back Kiah Becker

I went to the woods and came back with words. worry drowned out by rain fear of inadequacy taken astray in birdsong discontent flooded away with sprouted green moss and ferns that fill the air like the fluttering in my chest when our eyes lock with love the same when I dream of the mountains ocean and forest I’m away from the earth and my lungs scream “run as fast as you can.”

I’m home in the trees and I’m patient with the freedom to manifest words I come back with when I go to the woods.

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Rocky Mountain National Park Kiah Becker

I’m learning to live again as the mountains tower above me and the spring frost bites my fingers the pencil rushes to the paper like air to my lungs and when I thought I’d hold my breath forever I’m singing again.

A song that tells of the strength the mighty earth has shared with me of the love I’ll share with the children after me So it seems that the winter held the forests silent the lakes still and the joy buried beneath the ground but alas We are alive.

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Tent Rocks Kiah Becker

New Mexico sky turquoise like the eye of the storm I thought I’d never survive but the fire of the rock was also within my soul keeping me alive and when I doubted how far out the end would be I looked beyond the horizon and saw that it was me.

The eye of the storm.

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Contributors Jeff Amato is a California-born fiction and creative non-fiction writer specializing in horror and fantasy fiction. He is a first-generation college student who studies English and creative writing at Wayne State University (expecting to graduate in May of 2022). Currently working for InsideOut Literary Arts, Jeff teaches poetry in Detroit public schools. He received the CC Warrior Merit Scholarship, WSU 2-year promise grant, and the Joseph J. and Mary E. Yelda Endowed merit scholarship in English.

Tracy Ross is a poet and writer. Her first collection of short stories Binary Logic will be released in late 2022 (Between the Lines Publishing) and her third collection of poetry Relics & Rituals will be coming out in spring of 2022 (Shanti Arts Books). You may learn more about her and her work at https://www.rosspoet.org/ Daniel Webre's short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, Pinyon, The MacGuffin, Watershed Review, Willow Review, and elsewhere.

Zary Fekete has worked as a teacher in Moldova, Romania, China, and Cambodia. They currently live and work as a writer in Minnesota. They have previously been published in Goats Milk Mag, Shady Grove Literary, Journal of Expressive Writing, Ginosko Literary Journal, SIC Journal, Reflex Fiction, Potato Soup Journal, Cholla Needles, Rabid Oak, Every Day Fiction, and WINK. They enjoy reading, podcasts, and long, slow films.

Nilay Gingade is a student at Wayne State University who is unsure whether he should be writing this in first or third person. Regardless, Nilay is a passionate writer and poet who is interested in speculative fiction genres. In his free time, he rides motorcycles and volunteers with the Red Cross.

Reema Rao-Patel is a writer from Chicago, published in "The Lipstick Politico," with forthcoming short stories in "The Avalon Literary Review" The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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and "Kitchen Sink Magazine." She is honored to be chosen for the inaugural juried workshop by American Short Fiction. Her micro pieces and other musings can be found on Instagram @reema.rp.

Nathan Bishop is an undergraduate student at Wayne State University who is studying English. Currently in his first year, he resides on campus and hopes that the summer will bring him more opportunities to write.

A storyteller at heart, semia-imani hamlin is a filmmaker and writer based in Detroit. She received her bachelor’s degree in film production from Howard University and is pursuing her master’s degree in creative writing at Wayne State University. When she isn’t reading or writing, she spends most of her time caring for, and obsessing over, her dog Lola.

More of her work is shared on her Instagram @semiaimaniwrites.

Brie Garbin is a queer author from the Metro Detroit area. She is graduating in the spring of 2022 with a degree in English and Creative writing. Her writing stems deep from her heart and past experiences. She finds inspiration in the feelings no one likes to talk about, music, and nature.

Christopher Clauss (he/him) is an introvert, Ravenclaw, father, poet, and middle school science teacher in rural New Hampshire. His mother believes his poetry is "just wonderful." His daughters declare that he is the "best daddy they have," and his pre-teen science students rave that he’s "Fine, I guess. Whatever."

Stephen Benz has published four books of creative nonfiction, including Topographies and Reading the Signs (both from Etruscan Press). He has also published a book of poetry, Americana Motel (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), along with essays in New England Review, Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, and Best American Travel Writing. He lives in Albuquerque, where he teaches at the University of New Mexico.

Website: http://stephenconnelybenz.com Mary Anna Scenga Kruch is an educator and writer inspired by her Italian family, social justice, and the natural world. She has led a monthly writing group for 10 years and supervises student teachers for Northern The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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Michigan University. Mary Anna published a textbook for teachers called Nurturing Motivation in Young Adolescent Writers (2012), a poetry chapbook, We Draw Breath from the Same Sky (2019), and most recently a full-length collection of poetry and prose, Grace Notes: A Memoir in Poetry & Prose (2021). Recent poetry appears in Ovunque Siamo, Humana Obscura, and Red Wolf Press and is forthcoming in The Wild Word and Blue Heron Review.

Valerie A. Smith writes poetry to speak on behalf of the voiceless. She is a student of the Ph.D. in English, Creative Writing, and Poetry at Georgia State University. She earned the MA in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State University where she is currently a Lecturer of English.

Above all, she values spending quality time with her family.

Kara Crank is a beautiful spirit who has been writing since she was 12.

Poetry was her first love. It has carried her through her grief and tribulations. She’s a mother of three little people, a full-time student, and works full time. For more, follow her on social media: - instagram: @Karebyk - Facebook: Kara Alexis Marianne Samano is currently studying English and Graphic Design.

Her work explores the intricate intersections of Mexican-American and queer identities.

Dana Stamps, II. is a poet and essayist who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cal State University of San Bernardino and has worked as a fast-food server, a postal clerk, a security guard, and a group home worker with troubled boys. A Pushcart nominee, poetry chapbooks “For Those Who Will Burn” and “Drape This Chapbook in Blue” were published by Partisan Press, and “Sandbox Blues” by Evening Street Press.

Lenny DellaRocca is the founder and co-publisher of South Florida Poetry Journal. A Pushcart nominee, DellaRocca has published two full-length collections of poetry and two chapbooks. His work has appeared widely since 1980.

Shoopy Reed is a poet and noise-maker who writes so that she doesn’t forget who she was yesterday.

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Scott T. Hutchison's work has appeared in The Georgia Review and The Southern Review. New work is forthcoming in Evening Street Review, Appalachian Heritage, Naugatuck River Review, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, and in Fiction Southeast.

Jeff Schiff is the author of That hum to go by (Mammoth books), Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, The Rats of Patzcuaro, The Homily of Infinitude, and Anywhere in this Country. His poems, essays, and photographs have appeared in more than a hundred and thirty publications worldwide. He has been a member of the English/Creative Writing faculty at Columbia College Chicago since 1987.

George Bishop is a poet living in Florida. He attended Rutgers University and his work has been featured in Main Street Rag, The Meadow, Cold Mountain Review & New Plains Review. His chapbook Following Myself Home won the third annual Peter Menke Prize in Poetry at YellowJacket Press. He also has several chapbooks and a full-length collection.

Ian Seth Levine holds a B.S. in English and an M.S. in Professional Writing from Towson University, Maryland’s preeminent teacher preparation college. He has taught English composition for Miami-Dade College, York Technical College, and Piedmont Technical College. Ian’s poetry has been featured by The Free Library of the Internet Void, SORTES, and Wayne Literary Review. When Ian isn’t teaching his students or clients how to improve their writing, he volunteers as a blogger with the American Red Cross. Learn more by visiting iansethlevine.com Erik Moyer is from Hillsborough, New Jersey. He holds a BS from the University of Virginia and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. His work has been featured in Apricity, Bluestem, Constellations, Hawaii Pacific Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Lullwater Review, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He works as a data scientist and lives in San Diego.

Emersyn Li studies English and Creative Writing at Wayne State University. They work as a writing tutor and a teaching assistant at the university. In their spare time, they binge horror movies and dabble in The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

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various modes of visual art such as photography, digital art, and charcoal drawing. To see more of their writing, find them on Instagram: @temperanc3_

Grey Snyder is an undergraduate Public Health student with a minor in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, at Wayne State University.

They have been writing fiction and poetry for more than seven years. In 2021, Grey won the John Clare Poetry Prize and was recognized by the Academy of American Poets. Grey’s work currently explores queer sexuality, gender, trauma, and intimacy. They live and work in Detroit, Michigan, with their many houseplants.

Bradley R. Strahan taught poetry at Georgetown Univ. and at UT, Austin.

He has 7 books of poetry & over 700 poems published worldwide. His two latest books, This Art of Losing and A Parting Glass (his book of poems written in Ireland) have been translated into French.

BEE LB is an array of letters bound to impulse, a writer creating delicate connections. They have called any number of places home; currently, a single yellow wall in Michigan. They have been published in Revolute Lit, Roanoke Review, and After the Pause, among others. They are the 2022 winner of the Bea Gonzalez Prize for Poetry.

MICHAEL SALCMAN: poet, physician and art historian, was chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland and president of the Contemporary Museum. Poems appear in Arts & Letters, Barrow Street Review, The Café Review, The Hudson Review, New Letters, and Poet Lore. Books include The Clock Made of Confetti, The Enemy of Good is Better, Poetry in Medicine, a popular anthology of classic and contemporary poems on doctors, patients, illness & healing, and A Prague Spring, Before & After, winner of the 2015 Sinclair Poetry Prize.

Both Shades & Graces, inaugural winner of The Daniel Hoffman Legacy Book Prize (2020), and Necessary Speech: New & Selected Poems (2022) were recently published by Spuyten Duyvil.

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