Satori 2025

SATORI

SATORI

2025

Winona State University

© 2025 Satori All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Published by Satori Winona State University Winona, MN 55987 Cover Art: Gone Fishing by Elysia Beynon

satori An inexpressible feeling of inner enlightenment.

Our mission at Satori is to provide Winona State students with a platform to express their voices, fostering the growth of art within our community. This year, we celebrate our 55th edition, capturing the present moment and showcasing the creations of today.

We aim to stand as a testament to the importance of art, offering a space for those who believe in its power and beauty.

Satori serves as a time capsule for the creative expression and perceptions that our current society ignites.

SATORI STAFF Faculty Advisor Dr. Liberty Kohn Design and Technical Editors Elida Roskamp Lucy Severson Ashley Shorba Emily Sowers Fiction Editors Jack Guimont Jack Mulvaney Elida Roskamp Poetry Editors Madeline Avila Ashley Shorba Art Editors Lucy Severson Emily Sowers Vibe Coordinator Jack Guimont

Table of Contents Aspicio..............................................................................

8

Dreaming Beyond Home..................................................

9

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Except for When It’s the Worst.........................................................

10

The Wild Yonder..............................................................

12

Hope.................................................................................

13

In Eye of the Beholder...................................................... 14 Shame............................................................................... 15 Briarcombe Curtains........................................................

16

The Good Old Dexters......................................................

17

Emanation........................................................................ 21 Adolescence...................................................................... 22 Night Train....................................................................... 24 Houseguest....................................................................... 25 Olive.................................................................................

28

Heart of the Prairie..........................................................

29

Stolen Sisters.................................................................... 31 Snapshot at the Iowa Border, November 2024................ 32 Antiques and Crafts.......................................................... 33 Cristo Valley.....................................................................

34

I Hate My Kitchen............................................................ 48 Swinging Canvas..............................................................

50

My Sun.............................................................................

51

Polebridge, MT................................................................. 52 Bubba...............................................................................

55

Transcending.................................................................... 56

What’s Said in the Dark..................................................... 58 A Walk Around the Lake.................................................... 59 A Blissful Moment in Time................................................ 60 Tough it Out....................................................................... 61 Generalized Anxiety........................................................... 62 I Don’t Know How to be Brave........................................... 64 A Moon That Sinks into the Ocean.................................... 66 Prayer for a Transgender Salvation................................... 68 Leftist vs. Rightist............................................................... 69 Imaginary Lines................................................................. 70 Through the Desert............................................................ 72 Tangled Mind..................................................................... 73 Tenderize........................................................................... 74 View from the Hudson....................................................... 75 Tree.................................................................................... 76 The Beauty of Italy............................................................. 78 Curtain Time...................................................................... 79 Winona Sunset................................................................... 80 The Wrong Side of History................................................. 81 A Sign of Hope for a Broken Window................................ 88 Girls Night Out................................................................... 89 Ways to Escape When We Have Nowhere to Go................ 92 The Roundabout................................................................. 98 Filling in the Blanks........................................................... 99 Yosemite Falls in the Style of Van Gogh............................ 108 The She-Wolf Who Mothered Rome was a Woman........... 109 A Final Evening in Solitude................................................ 111

ASPICIO Emily Sowers

8

DREAMING BEYOND HOME Osvin Baltazar Gonzalez It wasn’t my decision.

Society expected it to happen.

They say it’s natural or normal.

I thought they were right.

I did it.

I didn’t think much about it.

Therefore, I left home thousands of kilometers away.

I arrived in an unfamiliar place.

Everything was different.

I also thought that was normal.

I asked myself, what am I doing here?

Back home, as a little child, I used to say I had everything.

I wasn’t referring to material things or money or anything.

But there, I had Happiness, family, friends, freedom.

I asked myself again, why did this happen?

Then I remembered, it was society.

But I have no regrets.

I found some great things life had prepared for me Even if it was far from home.

But I know I will return.

Because no matter where I am, There will always be a path leading me back home.

9

IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR, EXCEPT FOR WHEN IT’S THE WORST Celia Stern Winter—the most wonderful time of the year!

Severe gusts of wind slice at our fragile ears Like freshly-sharpened knives. The sun stubbornly Abandons the sky much too early in the day. Thin Pairs of gloves stuffed into small jacket pockets Are useless against the cataclysmic cold. Slippery Sidewalks happily victimize helpless passersby.

Our cars will not start, and their tires will not roll.

Frozen windshields rudely resist the command to Melt. Bulky sweaters are bunched up beneath the Heavy puffer coats that we’ve dug out from the Depths of our closets. Depression creeps through Thoughtlessly cracked windows—a bitter mistake That we’ll be sure not to repeat. Out the window, We watch dead trees whose branches bend and break As the wind whirls them about relentlessly. We are Grateful for our in-home heating systems. Our shoes Are caked with slush and our entryway floors have been Made into hazards by sopping-wet winter boots. We See bright red faces and runny noses that won’t stop 10

Drip, drip, dripping. The spring sneak-peek has been Cut short by the threat of a late March snowstorm.

On a chilly morning, not an especially blustery Morning, we pause beside the window and take A closer look, one hand placed gently on the cool Glass. In our yards, beautiful pine trees are lightly Dusted like sugar on candies, a sight for sore eyes in The midst of all the chaos. Snowmen line the streets Like guards on duty while proud children peek out From behind the protective barrier of icy windowpanes.

In the houses, cups of coffee—filled to the brim and Steaming like smoke from chimneys—warm the dry Hands of shivering early-birds. Holiday-themed candles, Carefully selected from holiday-themed display cases, Flicker from their spots on our side tables, emanating Comforting scents and brightening our rooms just The slightest bit, if only in spirit. Encouraged, we smile And step outside with caution. White snowflakes swirl Through the air and land on our eyelashes, decorating Long locks of hair, coating the tops of our hats, covering Our roofs like fleece blankets finally unburied from The bottoms of plastic storage bins that live in our attics For months at a time. Hmm, we think to ourselves.

Perhaps winter is not so bad, after all.

No, scratch that. It’s brutal. The worst time of the year.

11

THE WILD YONDER Kiera Norman

12

HOPE Ashleigh Campbell Killed off, destroyed and strangled, mangled by a madman and his followers whose supposed love for their country is just a cover for seething hatred of any and all who are different.

Ruby blood they haven’t spilled yet, rinsing the map of my country into a horror story of their victory, permanently staining those who make the mistake of hoping.

13

IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER Allen Wedekind We are not our fathers’ sons, nor our mothers’ daughters.

We are masters of the masquerade, hiding in plain sight, wearing our brothers’ jeans and our sisters’ eyeliner.

We are asked our names in the same breath as we are asked what we really are beneath our disguise.

We do not answer. We never could.

We are the ones concerned parents warn school boards about; the ones with no restrooms; –we should be glad we can marry, really– the ones invading gym classes to spread our sickness to vulnerable, impressionable, normal boys and girls.

We are children, we are predators, we are victims.

We are criminals without cages: not free; on the run.

We are so tired of running, but there is little else we can do.

We are transients: we have no names, no homes, no faces.

If we ever had them, they wouldn’t recognize us now.

We are female bones buried in warriors’ regalia, male bones buried in the arms of our lovers; not-quite-woman, not-quite-man.

We never had a chance to become anything at all.

14

SHAME Dorothy Moore Shame- The most deceptive emotion.

Perhaps the worst part of the after: The post event, Is the embodiment of the grappling shame.

Shame, She meets me at the dark end of the lake.

No greeting is warranted when we gather, As she has my silhouette memorized.

Sometimes I ponder, On how I have received the short end of the stick, As I have not yet seen the rest of herOnly relying on my memory of her blank dark eyes…that never fail to consume me.

Together we cry.

She rocks me to sleep on the wooden swing, as I could envision my mother would do for me in another life.

Shame- The one with the deep gaze, Lulls me to my death, With every sweet kiss on my temple.

Will I ever escape her gaze?

15

BRIARCOMBE CURTAINS Caitlin Larsen

16

THE GOOD OLD DEXTERS Celia Stern In the big, blue house at the end of Penny Lane—a quiet street, a street where not much happened, a street that rarely saw more action than the bustle of a newsboy on his rusting bicycle—lived the Dexters. Rebus and Sandra Dexter.

“They’re nice folks,” neighbors would say, if you asked them to describe the Dexters, but then they would pause, scratch their heads, and realize that they really did not know all that much about the couple, beyond the fact that Rebus left the house for work—a bland, vague office job that nobody could quite pinpoint, not even Sandra—every morning at 7:15 on the dot, and that Sandra spent a minimum of two hours each day tending to her flowers—a task that appeared to bring her great joy as suggested by the enormous smile that never left her perspiring face.

The Dexters took pride in their big, blue house. “I know it looks like it was painted professionally, but that was all Rebus,” Sandra would boast to the ladies in her bridge club, who would ooh and ahh with feigned admiration that always flew over Sandra’s teased updo.

Rebus was well-known around the neighborhood for his handyman skills. The other men often rang him up when something in their houses needed fixing, and he was generally happy to oblige. However, sometimes they purposely arranged his visits for when their wives were off at the salon or the market so that they could pass his hard work off as their own, and that irked him. He thought that credit ought to be given where credit was due.

All in all, the Dexters were a good pair. An average pair, really, since no one knew them well enough to determine if they were better or worse than any other pair, but they were an adequate pair at the very least. They sure looked pleasant in the oversized portrait that hung in their foyer, welcoming guests with Sandra’s blinding smile and Rebus’s outstretched arm, posed as if he were beckoning visitors inside. “It looks lovely,” Sandra had squealed when she first saw it. Rebus 17

had scoffed dismissively. “The things you spend my money on.” Nevertheless, there it hung: proof of the Dexters’ love. *** On this particularly sunny Friday, Sandra was busying herself with a brand-new iron, a birthday gift from her mother. Rebus had left a pile of wrinkly shirts atop the ironing board—his gift to her, as he had so snidely told her that morning. She hummed to herself as she ironed, imitating the tune of some doo-wop song she had just heard on the radio. She often sang when she was home alone, as Rebus hated listening to her godawful, ear-splitting voice.

She didn’t think that she sounded all that bad, but what did she know? She was only a silly wife.

She had been Mrs. Dexter for almost ten years now, but she had started dating Rebus when they were seniors in high school, a favorite fact of hers. She loved to tell people that they were high school sweethearts. She loved that more than she loved her husband. Though her husband was pretty difficult to love, what with the screaming and belt-lashing and plate-smashing and all. But that was nothing that a good powder and a tearful pep-talk in the bathroom mirror couldn’t erase.

Some things can’t be erased, though. Like murder, Sandra thought to herself, still humming cheerfully. Slitting someone’s throat. Or poisoning their meat loaf. Or maybe smothering them with one of the extra-fluffy pillows that they insisted on for the sake of proper neck support.

The telephone rang, startling Sandra. She hurried into the kitchen and brought the bright red phone to her tastefully bejeweled ear. “Hello. This is Sandra Dexter. Who’s calling?”

It turned out to be Mrs. Goldfinch, the wife of Rebus’s coworker, the closest thing he had to a friend. Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch were supposed to come over for supper that evening. Sandra was going to make chicken pot pie.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone the pot pie,” said Mrs. Goldfinch regretfully. “Something has come up with my daughter.”

Sandra pulled the receiver away from her mouth and sighed. How she envied the women who had daughters. Little 18

dolls to pamper and dress up and share their secret recipes with. Rebus didn’t want children. He’d told her that if she wanted a child, she could go prostitute herself off to some hobo in an impoverished neighborhood. No children would be brought up in the big, blue house.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Lottie,” said Sandra. “Well, I hope to catch up soon!” She hung up the phone without waiting for a goodbye. The gears in her head were turning rapidly.

No Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch. No dinner party. No guests.

No pot pie. She stared at her manicured fingernails, a glaring yellow. No more Rebus. Quickly, she huffed at the preposterous thought, a compulsive thought, of course. She had heard of those before. Usually in association with a crazy person, which she was not, but she knew that they were real, anyhow.

It’s not like she actually wanted to kill her husband. He was her husband! He provided for her, he bought her nice things, he went to her charity events, he threw her against the wall when his beer was too warm. But then he fixed up the dent her body had made, since he was so handy. He truly was something special. Sandra couldn’t imagine life without him. He’d been in her life for fifteen years, after all, and nearly everything she did revolved around him. She hardly had an identity of her own anymore. Not that it mattered.

What did she need her own identity for?

“I like you better when you keep quiet,” Rebus would say, swishing his glass of whiskey, sending its putrid smell wafting over to Sandra’s nose, which would crinkle involuntarily.

Her nose crinkled now at the thought. Then her eyes widened with a new thought.

She gasped and slapped her yellow-nailed hands over her mouth. *** At about five o’clock, Sandra pulled a lasagna out of the oven and placed it carefully on the stovetop. Rebus would be home any minute now, hungry as a bull. Probably angry as a bull, too, due to whatever horrible conflict had arisen at his indistinct job. She would tell him, “Hello, sweetie!” and he 19

would tell her to get him a fucking drink. So today, Sandra planned ahead.

After she was done plating their dinners, she poured two glasses of milk. They needed the calcium. Then she grabbed a third glass, a shorter one, and set it down on the counter. She hastened over to the mahogany liquor cabinet and reached for the bottle of Old Fitzgerald. Her fingers went rigid around its glass neck. Sandra. Her grip tightened. Sandra!

She yanked it out and carried it back into the kitchen. Within moments she was knee-deep under the sink, rooting around like the pesky raccoons that always ransacked their garbage can. That’s exactly how she felt. Like a dirty, evil little raccoon. But raccoons weren’t evil for needing to eat, were they?

At last, Sandra found it. Rodenticide. Left over from when they’d had a mice problem.

Evil! Evil! Evil! She plucked it out and sat down on the tile floor, back against the cabinet. “Sandra, darling, what are those bruises on your arm?” her mother had asked, looking at her with humiliating alarm. “Perhaps you should put your cardigan back on.”

Sandra shook the memory out of her head and got to her feet, clutching the rat poison. Not evil. Smart. Resourceful.

Back at the counter, she slowly poured a bit of whiskey into the glass, concentrating like her life depended on it—maybe it did. Her ears felt as though they were clogged, she was so nervous. She couldn’t hear anything besides the trickling of the bourbon.

When it was filled to her satisfaction, she grabbed the rodenticide and dumped it straight in, no hesitation, no measurement. The glass in one hand, the poison in the other, she whirled around and froze.

There, in the doorway of the kitchen, stood Rebus. And beside him, Mr. Goldfinch.

It was quiet for several seconds as the two men stared at Sandra’s foolish weapon.

“Sandra?”

20

EMANATION Jackie Velishek

21

ADOLESCENCE Jaydon Wilson (Author’s Note: This is a found poem. Every line is the title of a book I’ve read. The author of each book is listed to the side of the title.)

Here Is a Human Being: (Misha Angrist) The Adolescent (Fyodor Dostoevsky) Selected Problems of Adolescence:

(Helene Deutsch)

The Mother, (Maxim Gorky) The Idiot,

(Fyodor Dostoevsky)

The Stranger, (Albert Camus) An Apprenticeship, (Clarice Lispector) Capital, (Karl Marx) Breaking Through, (Francisco Jiménez) The End of the End of the Earth, The Metamorphoses,

(Jonathan Franzen)

(Ovid)

Lust, (Simon Blackburn) What Love Is, (Carrie Jenkins) War and Peace, (Leo Tolstoy) Crime and Punishment, (Fyodor Dostoevsky) Fear and Trembling, (Søren Kierkegaard) Misery (Stephen King)

22

Here Is a Human Being Human, All Too Human (Friedrich Nietzsche) What Is to Be Done? (Vladimir Lenin) We, (Yevgeny Zamyatin) The Outsiders, (S. E. Hinton) The Possessed, (Fyodor Dostoevsky) Dead Souls, (Nikolai Gogol) Educated (Tara Westover) Across the Airless Wilds, (Earl Swift) Amusing Ourselves to Death,

(Neil Postman)

What Is to Be Done?

Here Is a Human Being No Longer Human (Osamu Dazai)

23

NIGHT TRAIN Elysia Beynon

24

HOUSEGUEST Grace Emiliusen the bittersweet taste on my tongue, the tension in my jaw, hear the echo of my footsteps on familiar hardwood i’m aching for the nostalgia of my girlhood while simultaneously knowing it’s out of my graspcause now there’s no space for my shoes my sibling’s nikes have taken over my shelves and my brother took my iridescent keychains off the lanyard, replaced them with a singular leather one my dad stopped buying my favorite strawberry preserves it’s just smuckers now for my youngest sister my leftover hair clips & products were claimed by my older sister’s bathroom drawers and the new detergent pods my mom bought are no longer lavender scented so my clothes just smell like plain soap all my acrylic & watercolor paints are in a plastic shoebox, i found them shoved in the back of a closet i guess they’re no longer needed 25

i was the only one who painted anyways what was once my bathroom is filled with old spice & head n’ shoulders & cologne & baseball memorabilia the one place i could truly call home, my room, somehow just takes me back but not in a reminiscent way in an i’m-17-againand-my-feet-are-filled-with-cementand-i-just-wanna-leave-but-i’m-stuck kinda way my mom’s gonna turn it into a craft room at the end of the summer so i guess it doesn’t even really matter anyways nothing seems to matter so now i just wander around the halls and try my best not get in the way of the life my family built without me do my best to not step on any more eggshells but my feet are already sliced open & the blood is starting to seep into the familiar hardwood 26

as i ask myself, again, how exactly my home no longer belongs to me but maybe i no longer belong to my home truthfully, i don’t even know if it exists Anymore

27

OLIVE Sunehra Subah

28

HEART OF THE PRAIRIE Elena Kulschar Down below where the daisies grow, there’s chirping cicadas and bumbling bees Watch out for the critters who slither, and the holes dug by the dogs of the prairie A doe guides her fawn down the riverbank, as the tawny deer bound with glee Salmon glide through the rivers that snake and weave through the prairie Fireflies luminate their way, weaving through waving grasses as vast as the sea Sprawling hills roll and dip deep into valleys like crashing waves in the prairie This is a home strife with wildlife, if only you would open your eyes and see An eagle in the sky screeches in a heartbroken cry, soaring far above the prairie Until man burned the grass, slaughtered the bison, and chopped down every tree Now all that remains is a mere husk of what was, the haunting ghost of the prairie

29

Deep roots of history dug up and torn in this so called land of the free The lifeblood of our future, the veins of mother nature, bleeding out through the prairie Don’t give up now, though the land is no longer as vast as the eye could see, buffalo no longer roam free, deep in the land lies the faintly beating heart of the prairie

30

STOLEN SISTERS Zoey Cavanaugh

31

SNAPSHOT AT THE IOWA BORDER, NOVEMBER 2024 Allen Wedekind Between cornfields, where Trump signs tower in every roadside lawn, a chunk of roadkill lay. As I approached the sign it lay beneath, I saw it had once been a bald eagle.

The eagle’s head was crooked and lifeless.

Blood pooled around its beak, marring its white feathers with red. A vulture soared above my car, waiting for the perfect moment to take office beneath the sign.

The sign was dented, still read Trump-Pence, and was streaked with the blood of that noble creature felled by some uncaring pickup truck.

In my rearview mirror, I watched the vulture swoop down to dine on the remnants of the great American dream.

32

ANTIQUES AND CRAFTS Alivia Tima

33

CRISTO VALLEY Jed Nelson “Who the hell made these damn eggs! Y’all know I don’t like ‘em when they’re cooked brown!”

Mac looked out of the kitchen’s pass-through window to whre Mother sat. She was the sole occupant of the dining room–sitting at the far end of two long, dark wooden tables pushed together end-to-end. Metal folding chairs–beige ones–lined each side.

“Answer her,” Foster whispered.

Mac, standing at the kitchen sink, gave him a look over his shoulder then stuck the soapy rag in his hand back into a glass cup.

“Yoo-hoo! Did you not hear me? I asked which one of y’all cooked these shit eggs.”

“Wasn’t me, Ma,” Foster called. He untied his stained white apron and tossed it on the metal kitchen island. He then tied up a sleeve of frozen hash brown squares and started for the walk-in freezer.

“You had the damn skillet too hot, Mac,” Mother said.

He reached into the gray, murky water and scrubbed a plate clean.

“Do you have anything you’d like to say, Mr. Mac?” Yes. Yes he did. But it was early and he did not want to blow the roof off the place. He took the drying towel from his shoulder and used it on the plate. Then, like Foster–who was hiding out in the freezer–took off his apron and tossed it on the island. He wiped his damp, water-wrinkled hands on his Levi’s then approached the pass-through window. His eyebrows furrowed as he looked out at Mother. A rotund woman, she wore her jet-black hair in a tight, slicked back bun. All the boys that lived on the farm called her Pug because that’s what her face resembled, a pug’s. Her white cheeks were always splotched with red and she wore the 34

same thing everyday: blue jeans, work boots, and a ratty, plaid shirt that she rolled up at the elbow.

With a fork in hand, she poked at the scrambled eggs on her plate. “You think someone like me who busts their hump everyday wants to wake up and eat crunchy eggs?”

Mac felt his ears grow hot. He did not feel like choking down his words this morning.

“Frankly, Mother, I don’t give a damn.”

“Ha! Spouting off like that’ll get you left with shovel duty.

You want that?”

“Yeah.”

“Great. Go on then and get started. Move some of that gravel by the bins over to the house; I need it for the landscaping.”

Mac eyed her red, round face. He eyed her double chin.

“Fill one bucket. Walk it over. Dump. Fill another. Walk it over. Dump. I’ll tell you when there’s plenty.”

Mac eyed her shitty plaid shirt. He eyed the dirt under her fingernails.

“You got that?”

“Yeah. Got it.”

She went back to poking at her breakfast as Mac started to his left for the kitchen’s exit. His hand met the door handle when Mother’s voice called out once more. “Why don’t you bring me a bottle of ketchup and some syrup since you’re still in there. Gotta save these eggs somehow.”

The freezer door opened and out walked Foster. He carried several plastic cups of vanilla and chocolate swirl ice cream that he was not supposed to have. At least not this early in the day. Below his waist he held two in each hand so if Mother happened to look into the kitchen he would not be caught. She didn’t look. She didn’t take her eyes off of her plate. He slid past Mac and exited out the side door. Home free. Ice cream for breakfast.

35

Mac pulled the ketchup and syrup from one of the refrigerator door shelves then hip-cheked it closed. Both the ketchup and syrup were in glass bottles; they felt cool in his hands. His callused hands. His hands that were riddled with splits in his skin from the dry conditions and overuse He pushed through the swinging door and started for Mother. He kept his head down as he approached and watched his feet shuffle over the faded green and black checkered floor tiles. His feet stopped moving once he was looking down at Mother’s plate.

“You see what I mean?” she said. She stabbed a chunk of egg and held it up, then shook it off of her fork. “I told you before, I don’t like when they brown over like this.”

Mac set the bottles down in front of her. She choked out a barely audible “thank you” as Mac started for the dining room’s exit.

“Since you’re still here,” Mother said as she tilted in her chair and jammed a hand in her pocket. “Why don’t you run down to the basement and get me a pack.”

Mac stopped halfway between her and the door. He turned back to see her arm outstretched and her fist balled up.

“Reds,” she said.

Mother liked to smoke after breakfast. Mac noticed she smoked after every meal. On the farm, the boys’ favorite pastime was searching for Mother’s loose change. Here and there she would empty out her pockets on a table and forget about the coins she had accumulated. The coins sat there until she left the room then were pocketed by one of the boys. Down in the basement they would steal smokes as often as they could. Mother kept a stocked cigarette machine down there; squat and bulky, it had light brown wood paneling on its sides and a finger-smeared glass front. It took coins or bills but mostly coins. Mother rarely carried bills on her. She kept those in her room.

Mac walked back over to Mother and offered his hand.

She dropped a handful of coins into his palm then waved him off. He looked down at her plate as the eggs were now drenched in ketchup and syrup. He could almost taste them 36

himself.

“Should be enough there. Reds, remember,” Mother said with a bite in her mouth.

He was free now. He brushed past her and walked the length of the room to the basement door. His mind was made up as he descended the stairs: Mother wasn’t going to get her cigarettes today. Mac entered the basement and started straight for the exit on the other side of the room. He split through two pool tables that sat in the center. To his left– against the wall–sat the cigarette machine. He could hear the sound it made when someone stole a pack; the pull-back of the knob followed by a metallic chunk as it’s let go. His eyes drifted to the bar that occupied the right corner of the room. It was beautifully crafted. Dark stained wood. Leather covered bar stools. But no alcohol. Mother kept that in her room too.

Mac pocketed the change then swung open the exit door.

He stood at the base of the stairs and looked up through the window of the door. Light filled the stairwell; it was warm.

The branches of an oak tree ran horizontal across the blue sky. Thick, leafy-green arms that were not moving an inch; a clear sign of the day that was to come: a hot one. He was up the stairs and out the door before he allowed himself any more time to stand at the bottom of the stairwell. He knew he was leaving today. Leaving now. If he stayed put in one spot too long he knew he would start thinking. And at that moment, on that farm, he did not want to think anymore.

Mother’s house sat at the end of a long gravel driveway; it was shaded by oak trees, ones that provided ample amounts of shade. The boys of the farm shared many afternoons drifting into sleep under the trees–only to be woken by the distant hack and scream of Mother’s chainsaw.

“Those damn trees are coming down,” she would say. “I ain’t molding lazy-asses.”

Mac followed a dirt path that forked to either side. To the right, it led to the boys quarters–a small shack with four beds pushed against the walls, cutting the room in half. The shack was unpainted. It was dry-looking. Splintered. The shack featured two windows: one on the right side and the other on the left, over the rows of beds. The far side of the 37

room was where the bathroom was. A bathroom shared by eight young men.

Follow the left side of the path and it led to the grain bins.

A colony of blue-gray skyscraping cylinders that kissed the sky. Mother and the boys did not farm crops; she turned them into a pack of labor-lovers. She had a soft spot for real farmers, though. Instead of having the bins sit idly by, she let her neighbor–farmer Bill Rusk–store his soybeans in them only if he brought her a bottle of Jim Beam.

As he neared the living quarters, Mac looked over his right shoulder to the tool shed, then house. Don’t come looking for me, he thought. Not now. He knew the others were out front picking up branches from a storm that had hit a few days before. He knew none of them would be coming out of the tool shed or the house; yet the back of his head burned. The image of eyes peering out of the second story window seared into his mind as his hand met the door of the shack. It opened with a creak. Morning sun rays jutted in through the windows as dust particles floated through the air. As he took another step into the room he saw Briggs standing in front of the bathroom mirror taking a pair of scissors to his shaggy brown hair.

Mac walked straight for his bed and knelt beside it, assembling his suitcase, clothes, and books that Mother gave him. Books he never read.

“Hell you doing?” Briggs asked.

Mac peered from over his bedspread. Briggs stood there looking at him; shirtless and in blue jeans with his homemade haircut: long in the back and sides, but cut the bangs short to see. They all shared this haircut. Mac’s was a mop of sandy blonde.

“I’m leaving.”

“Bullshit. Foster said you pulled shovel duty.”

Word moved fast around here. With his red, hardcover suitcase haphazardly filled, Mac flopped it atop his bed and slapped it shut.

“Shove it up yours, Briggs. I’m leaving.”

38

Briggs held the scissors outstretched and pointed them at Mac. “I’m gonna tell Pug. Wait to hear what she has to sway about this.”

Mac rose to his feet with his suitcase hanging by his side.

“Whatever she says I won’t be around to hear it.” He turned and started for the door. “Tell her she can write me.”

Before Briggs could say another word, Mac was out the door. He looked out at the empty backyard. The dirt path; the tool shed; piles of rock and dirt accompanied by shovels strewn about. His eyes drifted up to the barn swallows diving through and around the grain bins. Then to the second story window. No eyes.

The farm was enclosed by a five acre corn field. The boys agreed that it felt like the field was slowly moving in inch by inch. That was a nightmare the boys shared: the cornfield comes to life and lifts the shack from the ground, swallowing them whole. Even when harvest was through and the corn vanished each boy at one point would be woken by that dream. That damned corn.

Mac knew he could not leave by simply walking down Mother’s driveway; not with them working out front. The corn was his best bet. He hopped down the shack’s steps and raced to his left. Before he knew it he was out of the backyard and into the corn.

— “How long you been walking, kid?”

The man was driving a single cab Chevy truck. Mac had never seen a truck ride that low to the ground. One encounter with a large stone or pothole and he figured that thing would bottom out. It was shiny red despite it being driven over gravel. Nice truck, Mac thought. He stood on the side of the road and peered over the top of it–out across a corn field where the sun was blazened and working its way down into the earth. Mac bent over a bit to look at the man behind the wheel.

“Been walking since morning,” he replied.

The man grinned behind black sunglasses. He tipped up his dirtied, weathered straw cowboy hat to get a better look.

39

“That don’t surprise me. You look like thirty miles of rough road.”

“I could say the same for you,” Mac replied as he eyed the man’s oily, pockmarked skin and dust-caked white t-shirt and jeans.

“Why don’t you toss that case in the bed and I’ll take you where you need to be. Where is that anyways?”

Mac took him up on his offer and placed his suitcase in the truck bed then took a seat on the passenger’s side. “I’m heading to Cristo Valley. Hope that ain’t too far out of your way.”

“Ah, CV. That’s just fine, kid, I’m heading right through there.”

Mac slumped down into the seat and pulled at the knees of his Levi’s to get comfortable. He rolled down his window while undoing the top few buttons of his plaid work shirt.

“And drop me off at Pantyhose.”

The man bucked up in his seat. If Mac had seen his eyes he was sure they would have been as round as soup cans.

Despite the man’s initial surprise, he wore a smirk on his face.

“You want me to drop you off at the ‘Hose, huh? I like your style.” There was a pack of Chesterfield Reds laying on the middle seat. He grabbed one, placed it in the corner of his mouth, then lit up.

“How old are you, kid?”

“Seventeen.”

Mac was quickly becoming accustomed to the man’s grin. The side of his mouth turned up as he drew hard on the Chesterfield. He tilted his head back and blew the smoke upward; for a second, Mac saw his eyes from under the sunglasses. They were blue.

“Perfect,” the man replied.

— 40

His name was Poppy. He was on his way back home from a two week farmhand gig he heard about from his buddy Joe Blue.

“Sounds like Mother kept you boys busy on that farm.”

“Sure did. Probably wouldn’t have been that bad of work if she wasn’t such a horse’s ass.”

“So that’s what made you leave, huh? Her and not the work.”

“I never minded the work. I was there for my behavior anyway; so shoveling or chopping let me blow off steam.”

The Chevy continued on over the backroads. Half of the fiery sun was visible in the sky; the other was lost to the western horizon line.

“Is Mother the type to send out a search party?” Poppy asked. “The last thing I need to see are blue lights in my rearview.”

Mac thought it over. Being on that farm for nine months he had never seen her show concern for the boys.

“If she did, she wouldn’t send one out in hopes of making sure I’m safe. It’d be so she could nab me, put me back to work.”

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The two rode in silence for the next eight minutes or so.

In that time, Mac cracked the window a few inches to smell the world that passed by. The hotness of the day came and went; now the sun was gone and a hue of blue overtook the evening. There was a dampness to it. It smelled wet outside.

“What the hell is this?” Poppy said.

Mac turned his gaze from the window and saw what caught Poppy’s attention. A tall, bald man was standing atop a milk crate on the left side of the road. He waved his arms in an exclamatory fashion and wore black pants fashioned with dark suspenders. His buttoned shirt was a dirty white. He was shouting at his field of soybeans.

The man never took his attention away from the land 41

as the red Chevy pulled up. Poppy brought it to a stop and rolled down his window. The sound of gravel popped under the tires; but it was no match against the man’s screaming voice.

“Lord! Grant this earth with health and wellness brought forth deep from within your loins! So that my family and this community can thrive! Lord, look upon these crops with the most love and care your eyes hold! Lord, grant us–” “Yelling at him ain’t going to help any,” Poppy said.

“–with your steadfast, most glorious love, and continue to bring wellness to these crops and my fam–” “You keep harping on him like that and he’s going to smite your ass.”

The man’s screams came to a halt. He dropped his arms to his side then teetered on the milk crate, turned, and looked down at Poppy.

“Can I help you with something?”

“Yeah. First, you can tell me your name. What’s your name, friend?”

“Micah.”

“Micah. Well, that’s a nice biblical name,” Poppy said.

“Does the Lord ever respond, Micah?”

Micah hopped down from the crate and sat on it. “I don’t think I like your tone, mister.”

“Tone? I’m just trying to have a conversation, Micah.

I want to know if the man’s ever responded to you. Lord knows I’ve tried to get a response out of him.”

“Haven’t heard anything from him directly but I know he’s listening. Ever since I started talking to him he’s gifted us with fine growing seasons.”

“That’s great. That is truly great, my friend. But, Micah, do you know that you are like God,” Poppy said.

Micah tightened his face. “Again with the tone.”

“No, no, no. I’m serious. Look around you. You bring life 42

to this place; grow it from the ground up.”

Poppy wriggled in his seat, working his way into his pocket. He pulled out a silver lighter and flicked it to life.

“But God also takes lives, Micah. Do you think he feels bad about that? Do you think he cares?”

Micah adjusted himself atop the milk crate.

Uncomfortable.

“I’m going to come back after dark and set your field on fire, Micah. We’ll see if God comes down to help you then.

We’ll see if he really cares.”

Poppy turned to Mac and killed the lighter’s flame. He wore a smirk on his face. When he turned back to look at Micah, his nose was met with the barrel of a revolver.

“If you come poking your nose around here again I’ll blow it off. Understand…friend?”

“Yes, Micah. I understand.”

Micah pulled the revolver away, then with it, motioned for them to leave. Poppy adjusted his sunglasses, tipped his hat, then drove off.

“Jesus, man,” Mac said after a minute of silence.

“I wasn’t going to do anything. I just wanted to hear what Micah had to say.”

They came up on train tracks. Poppy slowed the Chevy as it rumbled over them. Forget stones or potholes, Mac thought. Train tracks are where the real bottoming out will happen.

Poppy took his sunglasses off and rested them on the seat between them. Mac wanted to get a look at him without making it obvious. His eyes still looked blue.

“Next stop…Pantyhose.”

— Poppy nudged Mac awake. When his eyes parted open he saw the purple glow of a neon sign. PANTYHOSE: GENTLEMEN’S CLUB. It was a beacon of the night sky, 43

calling out to men far and wide. Mac had been there a few times before; but that was not something he mentioned to Poppy. Poppy never asked why they were going to Pantyhose either.

“Since we’re here, I’m going to have a good time,” Poppy said. “But you, kid, I hope you have a plan to get in. You got a fake or something?”

Mac eyed Poppy as he was preparing to exit the car.

He had put his sunglasses back on and had a Chesterfield hanging from his mouth.

“I know how to get in,” Mac replied.

Mac popped the door open and slid out into the parking lot. Poppy followed and started for the front entrance, but quickly realized Mac was heading for the side of the building.

“Hey, hey, entrance is this way.”

“I’m using the side door,” Mac said as he continued on his path. “I have to talk to someone.”

“Goddammit,” Poppy said under his breath.

Mac turned the corner of the building and was swallowed by the dark alley of Pantyhose. A ways down was the side entrance. Hanging over the door was a single light illuminating a small circular area. A man was sitting there, looking up with his legs outstretched and hands in his pockets. The sound of Mac’s approach caught his attention.

“Use the front entrance, buddy. This door’s for employees only.”

“It’s me, Squid.”

Squid peered out past the light. “Is that Mac-Daddy? In the flesh!”

“Yeah, yeah, relax.”

Mac was standing in the light now.

“Jeez,” Squid started. “What’s it been, kid…eight months?”

“Nine.”

44

Squid rose from his seat and grabbed Mac by the shoulders looking him up and down. “You look good, man.

Are you doing alright now? Who all knows your ba–” “Is Martha on tonight?”

Squid gave his chin a scratch, thinking. “Yeah. Yeah she’s on tonight.”

Mac slipped past him and grabbed hold of the door handle. He stopped for a moment and looked back to where he came. He saw Poppy’s silhouette standing near the corner of the building. The orange tip of his cigarette burned in the night. A row of muted blackness filled the space between them.

He swung open the door and entered a purple carpeted room full of big-haired women. Some wore robes; some donned perfect, tight fitting lingerie. Individual makeup stations lined the walls of the room. Soft-hued, yellow light bulbs lined the border of each woman’s mirror. None of the women had noticed Mac’s entrance. They were too busy outlining lips and curling hair. Except for Martha, his mother. She was seated at the far end of the room; she saw his reflection in her mirror.

“Macky?”

The women stopped what they were doing at the sound of his name. Martha stood from her chair and faced her son standing at the door. Every eye was on him now.

“What a surprise, Macky. I–I…I’m confused; I don’t know what to say.”

“Can I just have the house keys, please?”

Martha was surprised, dumbfounded. She appeared happy, but there was a speck of nervousness in her eyes. She looked around at the other women and giggled. Nervous giggles.

“Um…yeah, yeah, Macky…just give me a second.” She crouched down to the floor and dug through her purse. The women eyed Mac. They did not look scared or mad. None of them raced for the fire exits; they just stared.

45

Martha rose from the ground and flashed Mac the keys with a smile. “Got ‘em.”

Her stilettos carried her bouncy blonde hair and smoky eyes across the purple carpet. Before reaching Mac she closed up her silk white robe a bit better than it was. She stood in front of him now. In front of her son that she said goodbye to nine months ago.

“You look good, Macky.” She placed her hand on his bicep and squeezed. “Did they take care of my boy?”

He knew he would have to explain later. But not here.

“Yes.” Martha rubbed her boy’s arm while looking him over. Her hand traveled down to meet his, and once there she gave it a squeeze.

“Well…” she said, dangling the keys in his face.

Mac offered his palm and she placed them in his hand. A lump formed in his throat as a choked “thank you” fell from his lips. Until now, Mac had not noticed the muffled music coming from the main stage. When he entered the room and saw Martha, the room’s purple gave way to black. The women and the room disappeared; nothing but tunnel vision on his mother.

“I’ll see you in the morning, hon.”

Mac nodded his head. “Okay.”

Apprehensive, Martha wrapped her arms around her son and hugged him. Mac balled the keys in his fist and reciprocated.

— Mac stood outside of Poppy’s truck on the curb of his mother’s house. They were under a streetlight. Mac peered in at Poppy but it was too dark to see his blue eyes.

“I want to thank you for the lift, Poppy. I mean it.”

“Don’t mention it, kid, I was passing through anyways.”

Poppy took a Chesterfield from its pack and stuck it in his mouth, unlit.

46

“What’s next for you then?” Mac asked.

Poppy chuckled then lit his cigarette. “I think that’s a question I should be asking you.” He noticed Mac’s questioning brows, drew hard on his cigarette then went on.

“You’re a fugitive, kid. Ran away from that farm, from that Mother lady. Granted, I helped you, but still. On top of that, you got a stripper mom. My mother was no saint, but I can’t help but wonder where that’ll get you. So I’ll ask you…what’s next?”

Mac was not sure if Poppy spewed wisdom or if he should curse him out. He looked from right to left, analyzing the neighborhood at night. “I guess I’ll figure that out soon enough.”

Poppy turned the key and brought the Chevy to life.

“I hope you do, kid. And hey, if you ever find yourself in Kimpton ask around for me.”

“Will do,” Mac said. “Before you go,” he dug into his pants pocket and collected the change Mother had given him. “Buy yourself a pack of Chesterfields, on me.”

Poppy stretched out his arm and took the change. As he leaned over, his face met the light. He smiled. “Perfect, kid.”

The Chevy took off then. Mac stood on the curb and watched its headlights light the way straight out of Cristo Valley. Soon, Poppy and his Chevy were lost to the night.

Headlights faded. Taillights winked out.

47

I HATE MY KITCHEN Madeline Avila I have no countertops.

I have a shoddy electric stove and oven.

I have a two-basin sink.

That’s all.

My kitchen is too small for the amount of love I want to add.

I know my family recipes.

I know the real, but not measurable amounts, A palmful (or so), About a capful, 1-2 medium sized coffee cups.

I know how to listen to my ancestors when I am seasoning.

My kitchen doesn’t allow for me to make tortillas.

I have the wooden rolling pin, My abuela’s instructions in my head, But I have no space to roll them out with love On my small kitchen table that is plagued with spills that got stuck and won’t come off.

I hate my kitchen Because there is no room for my heritage.

48

No room for the spices, No room for the music, No room for the recipes, But I must work with what I have.

49

SWINGING CANVAS Draconian Onyx

50

MY SUN Ava Diekmann In the dead of night, when I’m stuck in a pitch Black void, sometimes I see your face Bright and shining like the sun, a smile Stretching ear to ear. I want to stay With your joyous face, but I must sleep, Or I shall never let go. I must turn my thoughts To subjects other than death. I must move on And weather this torture, the pain You left in my heart when you abandoned me.

So stop haunting me across the night, Vanish from my thoughts of sadness and stay Cherished in my memories, As bright as the smiling sun.

51

POLEBRIDGE, MT Celia Stern Half past six, and the sun is creeping Up into the sky to greet the snow-capped Rocky Mountain peaks. Each ray calls out Good morning, cutting through the fog, faint and Mysterious, that floats over the treetops whipping In the wind; that whispers to the bluebirds, Blinking awake; that coaxes them into the crisp Air, into the sun’s gentle glow.

A cluster of cabins, fire engine red, Decorate the vast field, vacant at this hour.

Their windowpanes drip with condensation Like raindrops on flower petals, the result of Early-morning sunbeams splattering onto the Cold surface, the other side warmed by Breaths of life. A wooden welcome sign beckons Newcomers through the charm of chipped paint.

In town, sweet scents from the mercantile bakery Sift through cracks in the floorboards and drift Out the front door to draw in potential patrons, to Lure them out from the comfort of their cottages and Lead them to the bear claws and biscuits that patiently 52

Wait behind polished glass. The aroma travels to every Homey residence, every grassy field, every bend of the Flathead River, every turn of the North Fork Road.

The road is damp with dew. Plants and twigs are Trampled by tire tracks. A rabbit scampers across In a rush, narrowly avoiding the wheels of the rusty Pickup truck that rumbles by, sending gravel and Dust flying up into the fog that has now reached the Ground. The birds, fluttering and singing their Morning melody, remind the rabbit that all is well As long as the sun keeps on shining.

Deer search the distant meadow for a safe haven, Far away from the flock of visitors who gawk at the Sight of those elegant creatures. Past the Northern Lights Saloon—not yet open for the day—and the wooded Grove, the river gurgles and gushes, shrubs lining the Shore protectively: a vegetated palisade. It won’t be Long before kayaks and paddleboards will adorn the Water’s surface, giggles and shouts filling the air.

At the end of a long, private road, the head of which is Marked by the faded warning of a dead end, one family Is slowly crawling out from their bunks and into the kitchen, Porcelain mugs that permanently live on those wooden shelves 53

Clutched tightly in their hands. Coffee steeps in a metal pot and Seeps into their tired veins, each sip followed by a deep sigh.

Huckleberry bread gets toasted and buttered while stories of trips Past get shared, laughter permeating the living room.

As the sun continues to rise, casting a soft, orange Radiance across the rocky horizon, a powerful peace spreads Over that tranquil town, carried by the subtle breeze and Sprinkled like grains of sand onto rooftops and road signs.

Everyone can feel it, even the insects that trill from somewhere Out in the prairie. The people are happy. The animals are safe.

The business is bustling, and the forest is full of life. Let it All sink in. This is Polebridge.

54

BUBBA Jackie Velishek

55

TRANSCENDING Allen Wedekind On the first day, God saw the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. There was evening and there was morning, and there was no term for the minutes between.

He saw that this, too, was good. To be neither is beautiful, you know.

Sometimes, when I hold my breath just right, I can see my stomach pulsating to the rhythm of my aorta.

It’s like that, a reminder– a person between is no more a sunset than a cocoon, a ticking bomb.

There is beauty in a chrysalis, of course.

A cocoon is no more a cage than an incubator– A place to warm oneself while growing wings from the primordial soup that–and God, I am so cold–is a body. I attempt to forget the miracle of creation fermenting within my own abdomen.

In a pre-Internet age, I think I might have made a good martyr.

There was a time when a monarch’s death was a great loss, remember.

But we no longer exist in the times of Noah or Joan, I can no longer 56

make some grand gesture by not being. There is so little beauty in an absent sunset, so little beauty in the viscera beneath the shoes of passers-by that might, one day, have become a butterfly.

57

WHAT’S SAID IN THE DARK Elly Herrick

58

A WALK AROUND THE LAKE Lucy Severson Ice spreads over the lake.

Puddles Painted With stars.

Car beams glisten Against the crystal surface, Shining from across the highway.

It’s nature’s Light show.

There’s a nip in the air.

The wooden bench creaks, Rusted metal chains screeching and squealing And I rock And rock And rock— Like so many before me.

Stars dot the vast expanse Above my head.

I close my eyes— And I feel.

59

A BLISSFUL MOMENT IN TIME Kiera Norman

60

TOUGH IT OUT Helena Dowler

61

GENERALIZED ANXIETY Lucy Severson Is all this worrying you do

worth anything?

My anxiety is a waste of perfectly good emotions that should be

parceled

out

and felt at more fitting times.

How do you talk somebody cigarettes?

How can you be three places at once? this week

out of smoking

I have more assignments

than there are days in the month.

My generalized anxiety has been working

overtime

all the time.

My worrying doesn’t yield the

results that I seek.

Nothing changes because I worry.

I don’t have

telepathy—

62

anxiety is not a superpower.

I can’t fix the world by just worrying about it and wishing it would change.

I could throw a thousand pennies in a fountain blow out a million dandelions

Or

Or candles And worry And worry And worry— For the world to continue

to turn

And me Powerless to stop it.

63

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE BRAVE Elida Roskamp As a girl and the first child of my parents, I was taught to be fearful of the world. Well maybe not fearful, but cautious. I was taught that as a girl, the world would treat me differently. I was taught to be afraid of what the world would do to me. I was never taught to be brave.

My overly cautious nature taught me to be afraid of trying new things or getting in trouble. I’ve always been a perfectionist, which might come from being the oldest child and the oldest daughter. I don’t want to be bad at things, even if that thing isn’t something I’ve never tried before. That not wanting to be bad at something I’ve never attempted makes it nearly impossible to try. I was never taught to be brave.

My parents have always said “Just be brave,” but they don’t seem to realize that it’s not that simple. They say “It’s all in your head. What’s the worst that can happen?”

I don’t have the guts to tell them “Of course it’s in my head. Where else would it be?” I was never taught to be brave.

My siblings are all brave. They all like rollercoasters or trying new sports or going to new places or jumping off of rocks into the icy waters of Lake Superior. As much as I want to be like them, I can’t help but think of the things that might go wrong. I was never taught to be brave.

My mind is always going, thinking of the possible things that could go wrong. Like where would I go if there was a school shooter? Would I get the chance to tell my mom that I love her? What happens if I’m on a rollercoaster and the seatbelt comes undone? Would I fall out and die as the rollercoaster car runs me over at a high speed? What if I tell the person that I like that I have feelings for them? Are they just going to reject me and I’m going to be alone forever? Are they going to tell me that I’m ugly and no one’s ever going to 64

love me romantically? Those are just some of the scenarios that go through my head when someone tells me to just do the thing that I can’t wrap my mind around doing. So I end up just shutting down and not doing anything. I was never taught to be brave.

Through the years, I’ve had to do the thing that was hard, the thing that felt nearly impossible because I had no other choice. I’ve cut off friends because of how they treated me, when I didn’t want to lose the impact of those friendships.

Having to lead meetings despite having crippling anxiety that I’m going to say the wrong thing or mess up and everyone will laugh at me because I messed up. I was never taught to be brave.

People I meet for the first time regularly mispronounce my name and I don’t know how to be brave enough to speak up when that happens, so I just accept that they’ll never pronounce my name correctly. I don’t know how to be brave enough to speak up when something says something that I fundamentally disagree with, so I just shut up. I don’t know how to be brave enough when a restaurant has messed up my order in a way that I can’t enjoy my meal anymore, so I just accept the incorrect order and eat it, even if it’s wrong.

It’s never been okay for me to be brave enough to ask to be invited to something that I know my friends are going to, so I just grin and bear it; the fact that I’ll be spending that time by myself. I was never taught to be brave.

I’ve learned to hide my true self except for a select few people who get to see that side of me. I don’t feel like I’ve ever been brave enough to be my true and authentic self with people because I’m afraid they won’t like who they see. I’m afraid that my true self is too much for people to handle.

I’m afraid of sharing my interests in music, art, or literature because I fear I will be judged for having too niche of interests or too basic of preferences. I’m afraid to share my opinions because I don’t want them to be wrong. I was never taught to be brave.

And now, I’m medicated for anxiety but it’s still hard sometimes, to quell those thoughts that don’t stop. Whether it’s romance or rollercoasters, I don’t know how to be brave.

65

A MOON THAT SINKS INTO THE OCEAN Kristin Victor The dark shores of the Dominican hold our memories.

In the night we snuck away from our responsibilities.

Thousands of miles away from home, we might as well have been on another planet.

We ran so fast on the sand, running from people or running from life?

We didn’t know.

We all came to that beach for something different.

We took off our clothes and swam in only our underwear.

Our vulnerability was washed away within the waves.

We were happy.

The tide and our laughter mixed, creating a chorus.

We played like little kids.

On one end I saw the distant lights of a cityscape.

And on the other end, I saw opportunity.

The dark abyss should’ve brought fear, but the world looked endless to me.

I looked up to the moon and I was envious that this was his life every night.

I knew the moment was fleeting and I grew sad.

66

We would eventually leave wet footprints in the sand and walk right back into our old lives.

Nothing will change.

And the night on the Dominican beach would just be a memory.

What no one knows is that I am still there and can’t leave.

It’s just me, because everyone else moved on.

And if you want to find me, come to where the moon sinks into the ocean.

67

PRAYER FOR TRANSGENDER SALVATION Allen Wedekind Our Father, who is-or-is-not in Heaven, hollowed be thy name; I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be on my knees, but I’m told (in America as it is in Heaven) thy will be done: so here I am, Lord. Give us this day our passports, medications, livelihoods.

Give us this day the strength to see tomorrow. We don’t ask to be forgiven, nor can we forgive those who legislate against us. Lead us not into history, for this is the kingdom, and the presidency, and the oligarchy thy made us, so help us God. Amen.

68

LEFTIST VS RIGHTIST Ava Diekmann We have an unbreakable bond, We’ve been soulmates for so many years That it feels like forever.

We worried about distance and missed time, But we never considered this happening.

We were just kids when we met, We had no idea that beyond our little world, Was a place full of hardship and complications.

We thought nothing could break us,

— But we were wrong —

It was a subtle issue, something we didn’t care about.

But it creeped its way in, poisoning our souls like everyone else.

It spread and flowed through us, changing us.

We came to a fork in the road and I went left and you went right.

A wall was built between us, Just like the one your master wanted on the border.

69

IMAGINARY LINES Madeline Avila I wouldn’t be here today without immigrants. I owe my life to immigrants.

My grandparents, father, aunts and uncles.

But how are we the immigrants?

This was our land. Our soil. Our home.

I called my father in tears, and he reminded me that “We are a strong people.”

But even the strongest person has a breaking point.

How much oppression and hatred can one take?

We may be a strong people, but our children are still children.

They need their families, families that are being torn at the seams.

How can I not be so angry at the world that it hurts?

It hurts.

It hurts that since I have been 12, I would turn on the news and hear bigotry.

Turn on the T.V. and be called a murderer, rapist, and a criminal.

I would go to school and hear “but you’re one of the good ones.”

I can’t look at my phone without seeing more and more atrocities happening to my people.

70

My people who are seeking a better life.

Seeking a future for their children.

Chasing the American Dream.

Now they are being chased.

By men and women in police uniforms with weapons in mass We are being hunted in schools and churches.

We are hiding in a land that used to belong to us, because we never crossed the border.

The border crossed us.

71

THROUGH THE DESERT Draconian Onyx

72

TANGLED MIND Elizabeth Schneider

73

TENDERIZE Isabel Teitelbaum Eat like a rabbit then snort like a pig.

They say my fat’s delicious savagely ravaging my stomach, Poor me.

Using others’ plates as a measuring tool.

Does eating more than a boy make me less of a girl?

A breast, a thigh; plump and pumped full of hormones for them to munch.

Gobbling, guzzling, gorging themselves on my jiggling body.

Feeding their mental health by comparing themselves.

Slice me into bite-sized chunks and season to their liking; a dash of cellulite and savory scars.

Feast on me.

Eat away at me until I’m skinny.

74

VIEW FROM THE HUDSON Lucy Severson

75

TREE Greta Kirsch Long here I have stood In the deep wood The sun beats down Filtering through my canopy Turning the floor a hazy green Birds hop and scratch From branch to branch Making their home In my awaiting arms I relish in the cool breeze Tickling and twisting at my leaves But brace against the harsh winds That threaten to snap my split ends The torrential rains so relentless Against bark and flower That if I were any slighter Would surely knock me down For millennia I have shook But never wavered 76

Until the day I first saw you Transfixed by that hand of silver I almost thought you a god Never before had I seen A creature of such conviction Wield a blade so sharp and clean But nothing could have prepared me For the wretched hacking of my bones

77

THE BEAUTY OF ITALY Lucy Severson

78

CURTAIN TIME Elysia Beynon

79

WINONA SUNSET Sarah Huderle

80

THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY Caleb Kottke The soldier stands at attention smartly. Heels together, toes just under forty-five degrees apart. Enough to fit his drill sergeant’s boot between them. Thumbs on the seams of his pants, fists tighter than he means for them to be. His nails dig into the palms of his hands. He relishes the pain.

Shoulders back, but not so far that his chest puffs out, jaw set forward, eyes carefully, firmly ahead. The picture-perfect attention stance. A poster boy for order and uniformity.

His helmet sits snugly on his head. Polished and unblemished, not a dent or scratch across its dull surface.

It feels heavy and unfamiliar on his skull, and pastes his sweaty, shaved hair even closer to his head. A kevlar vest keeps the air from filling his lungs completely, and he pants every other breath. Oxygen seems to escape him, despite the open air and cool wind brushing along his exposed neck. He shivers, and beads of sweat drip down the length of his body.

His feet slip around in boots half-a-size too big for him, and the blisters he already broke and reformed complain. He stands still. He stands at attention.

He had seen the crowd before they were upon them.

Laughed about it with the guy next to him, shared a couple jokes and poorly hidden nerves. They press in on him now, and when he stares straight ahead he can’t see past the first few rows of writhing, colorful bodies. They hadn’t looked so big when they were back there. But they crush closer, and closer, constricting the troops like a jungle anaconda, squeezing the air out from their lungs, unafraid to break some ribs to do it. He’s never felt like prey before. His body screams at him to run, and it’s only the words the Army burned into his brain that keeps him from bolting. He recites it to himself, keeps it quiet so the guys next to him don’t hear how afraid he is.

He gasps in a breath from the confines of his kevlar.

The crowd moves closer, and he focuses very hard on not 81

listening to the words they’re shouting at him. He keeps on mumbling to himself, unfocusing his eyes to get away from the swirling psychedelic colors of people pushing closer and closer. There’s a girl standing right in front of him now, getting in his face, so close he can smell her breath and feel her spit hitting his cheeks and his lips when she yells. She smells like sweat, he can see it matting her long hair, and collecting on her brow. It’s fragile there, like dew on the grass, it shines in the sunlight. Her eyes are brown and deep, and full of emotions so strong he can’t find the word to name them.

He remembers, faintly, the radio report from that morning. Crowded around by their racks, all the boys had listened in as the host chattered about ‘hippies and Beatniks… opposing the draft… burning their draft cards… shouting ‘get the Hell out of Vietnam!’’. Most of the guys around him swore and spit on the ground. Sounds of war came from the speakers, and the host’s monotonous tone drawled on and on over it, dulling the helicopter’s choppy beat, and the gun fire exploding in static. He had felt a brief pang of relief, glad that he had gone into the Guard rather than getting drafted. He felt like a coward right after, and spit on the ground to get the taste of shame out of his mouth.

“Killers!” the hippie girl yells in his face, and it’s the first words he can clearly hear. He’s taken aback, his attention stance falters, he tries to step back. There are more people behind him. Soldiers, he thinks. “They’re making you killers!” her voice is strong and sure.

“I’m with the National Guard,” he replies, stupidly, caught off guard by her confidence. He’s with the good guys, the protectors, the defenders of freedom and democracy. He went to basic and he worked hard. He was fresh out, too, he could still recite rank structure, the Soldier’s Creed, every value and why they mattered. He wants to tell her these things, prove that he’s really with them, that he’s one of the good guys. He wants to tell her, ‘I’m here so you can keep yelling in the streets all you want to’.

“They’re making you a killer!” she says, and he stares at her blankly. His attention stance is long forgotten. His hands sit at his sides, unfurled, fingers rubbing at the material of his uniform. His left foot is a ways behind him, still reeling 82

back from the girl who is steadily inching closer to him.

“You’re going to kill people,” she yells, “because their lives are inconvenient! They won’t let you call them people, you won’t see them as human beings!” she’s really focusing in on him now, eyes staring unflinchingly into his and so zeroed in that he might believe he’s the only one in the crowd. He just stares at her, confused and lost, something troubled and hurt swirling in his eyes. “They’re fighting for something, too! Do you know what it is? You think they’ll let you think about their families, or is that against orders? Do you think any of them even care?” she stops, and regards him intensely, impersonally.

“Who are you talking about?” he asks, stupidly, because she’s looking at him like he’s missing something. Self consciousness and shame prick the back of his neck, and he has to get away from the way she’s staring at him before he starts to think too hard about what it is her eyes are saying that her mouth won’t.

The crowd behind her is even louder, and more unruly.

He forces his eyes away from hers, lets them wander past her shoulder, and he lets himself look and listen. Peace signs rise high in the air, on fingers and painted on signs. Larger signs, with big red letters and shitty spray paint jobs read ‘STOP THE WAR’ ‘BRING OUR BOYS HOME’ and ‘GET THE HELL OUT OF VIETNAM’. T-shirts, tie-dyed, cut up, color on every single one hang on every lithe, tanned body. They have peace signs, too, and sloppy permanent marker letters spelling out ‘LOVE NOT WAR’. He sees the same look in their eyes that he sees in this hippie girl’s.

“Do you think they see you as a person?” The words fall from her mouth and his heart drops in his chest. She’s wearing a green shirt with handmade tie-dye. It says ‘RESIST THE DRAFT’ and a big peace sign surrounds it, cutting into the letters. She has beads on her wrists, around her neck, and flowers in her long hair. She has on paint-stained jeans that have tattered and torn around the cuffs where they drag on the asphalt. She’s not wearing shoes.

“I’ve never been to war,” he says instead of answering, and she shakes her head. He can see it in her eyes, in the horror on her face. He’s with the monster. More terrifying than anything under a child’s bed, or hiding in forests at 83

night. He kills people. She sees the blood still staining his hands, but she’s offering one of her own anyway. An olive branch — peace. ‘They’re making you kill people,’ the words echo in his mind, and it dawns on him. It’s a warning, not an accusation. ‘I am on the wrong side of history,’ he realizes, sudden and jarring. ‘I’m with you,’ he wants to tell her, ‘I’m on your side,’ the words won’t come out. His fingers make a half hearted peace sign at his side, but his cowardice keeps him from holding it up. Humanity stares at him through her face, compassion for the murderous puppet he volunteered himself to be.

“This is war,” she counters, and for a moment he really understands it all. ‘Yes,’ he thinks, ‘this is war. They made me a killer,’ and he feels the thought take shape in his head, rearing back and bearing its half-formed truth to him. A low boil rises in his chest, a small flame from a match casting light on cathedrals that have been subjected to the cold and damp. It burns, and he thinks about the look he saw in her eyes when she came up to him. He feels it now, building, pressurizing, ready to burst from his throat in a cry against war, against himself.

Somewhere, somebody had gotten in their car and opened all the doors. Creedence Clearwater Revival blasts through the crowd, lyrics muffled by the shouting but still there, and the cacophony of noise, and smell, and sight overwhelms him. It fills his mind, his body, until he’s not sure he’s standing on his own two feet anymore. Neon, psychedelic crazed colors blur and sounds mix together into one steady beat and rhythm of a song he’s never heard before. The pull of the crowd starts to suck him in, he imagines that choppy guitar riff pulling him by the regulation-standard belt, and knocking off his helmet onto the asphalt. It would scuff.

He steps out of his body and joins the fray. In this state, he’s got his own t-shirt on with his own cheap tie-dye job and permanent marker handwriting reading ‘GET OUT OF THE WAR’ with a big, yellow, painted and dripping peace sign.

The paint hasn’t dried, and its cool outline kisses his chest and sticks there, no doubt staining his skin with its bold, impermanent contradictions. He has beads on his wrists, his jeans are too big and scuffed at the bottom. He’s barefoot and the asphalt burns the soles of his feet. He doesn’t have blisters on his heels, and he takes a deep breath that fills his 84

lungs more completely than he knew they could be filled.

His hair is long and it blows nicely in the wind. The heat feels good on his tanned skin, the wind a sweet taste of shade. He gets it, he’s with it, he feels on the bus in a way he could never find words for before. He feels good. It radiates off of him in waves, and he feels it pulsing back from the crowd around him. He’s one with them and their writhing, disorganized mass.

He sees himself, standing stiff, a coward’s vest and a killer’s helmet. ‘Murderer,’ he thinks, and feels the urge to spit at the ordered, organized attention stance. He sees all the uncertainty they couldn’t train out of him laid bare. All that humanity wasted on somebody unwilling to be a person.

High on the swirling maelstrom of love, compassion, and justice beating strong and loud in his chest, he feels sure of nothing more. Not a person at all, he thinks. The CCR song is still blasting, and he can make out all the words this time. He doesn’t know any of the lyrics, but he sings along anyway, and feels himself moving with the sway of the crowd and their own beat and melody. He feels high, wasted on this feeling of righteousness, and freedom. Nothing like that military boy in front of him, so resistant to humanity and all the little seedlings of feeling he suppresses that almost make him a person.

A deafening crack fills the air and launches him back into his body. He pulls himself to attention neatly. Somebody threw a bottle at a soldier. It hit his helmet and shattered.

The broken glass litters the asphalt and he has half a mind to worry about all the bare feet, but he barely has time to form the thought because suddenly the two sides fill the narrow crevice of respectable,charged space between them. They crash together, surging forward with the screams and howls of animals. They sound wild, and free, and like none of them have kevlar vests that restrict their ability to wail.

He glances back to the girl in front of him, and she’s still staring him down. That same fierce look in her eyes, embattled with conflicting emotion. They’re both standing stock still in the middle of it all, and he has to agree with her now. This is war. He hears fists meeting unforgiving uniforms, and bones cracking against concrete and makeshift weapons. Heavy batons swish through the air, a sound distinct in its own right. He’s jostled by somebody behind 85

him, and the body that hit into him flings out an arm to catch themselves. It’s the soldier that was standing beside him before. His elbow catches the girl in the nose, but she doesn’t flinch when she starts bleeding.

He’s already reaching for his fallen man, his newlytrained instincts kicking in and sending him on autopilot.

He hoists the man up and gets a firm pat on the shoulder and a grateful nod before the man disappears in the crowd again, throwing his body weight into one of the hippies and wrestling them toward the ground.

The soldier turns back, he wants to apologize to the girl for her nose, but the words get caught in his throat. She’s gone anyway. Pride, and a sick sense of duty take the place of his half hearted ‘sorry’ and he doesn’t look for her. He jumps into the crowd like his buddy had done, fists flying, and tries to bring order.

He fights for a while, he can’t see the post he was stationed at before. His lungs are burning, his body’s aching, and he’s got at least four new blisters on both his feet. His helmet is scuffed and dented, rocks that didn’t meet his skull cracked into it and left his ears ringing. He still can’t breathe, and with the people crushing around him, he’s not sure he could get a breath in anyway, vest or not. His throat burns with the need for water, but he keeps hitting at anything too colorful in front of him.

All the t-shirts from before have stains of blood, and dirt on them. A few have been torn from hands pulling at them, or from being dragged across asphalt. There’s fear now, and something sort of animal when he looks into the eyes of the people he’s fighting. Some of them barely look human, teeth bared and eyes rolling. He thinks he sees the girl in the crowd, her nose still bleeding, and staining down the front of her shirt. He thinks he can hear her shouting, the same thing she was saying before.

“You’re killers! They’re making you kill people!” but then a shoulder connects with his face, and his eyes are watering too badly to make her out if she was there. He twists around to catch the guy who did it, and throws him on the asphalt.

The guy just lays there, winded and struggling to get up.

Blood stains his teeth, and one of his eyes is swelling up. He looks like he could be feral, and the soldier kicks him in the 86

ribs quickly before he can catch his breath. The guy doubles over.

One of his men, he thinks, sets off a flash grenade a little too close to him. Orders are being shouted, he can’t make them out. He stumbles in the crowd, tries to pull himself up and out from where he’s been buried in their masses. Blind and deaf, he wanders toward the voice. He hears popping, and some stray rubber bullets catch him before he can detangle himself from the mess of limbs and bodies. He can’t quite tell who’s on his side, and who isn’t, and he throws a few elbows for good measure on his way out and hopes he didn’t catch a friend.

It takes hours for them to contain the crowd. He goes home. The news reports later that a couple people died from being crushed. They show a picture of the girl he talked to before. She was crushed by her own people when the cops brought out fire hoses. He feels bad about it, but in the end he guesses it serves her right. He doesn’t think about her or his strange, out-of-body dream again. He doesn’t pretend to understand the fire and animal passion he once saw in her eyes. He almost forgets about what she called him. Almost.

He doesn’t listen to the man with patchouli and flowers braided in ropes around his neck at the next protest. He stands smartly at attention, and flicks out his new baton.

The crowd is contained in less than an hour. He gets his deployment notice the next day.

87

A SIGN OF HOPE FOR A BROKEN WINDOW Emily Sowers

88

GIRLS NIGHT OUT Helena Dowler

89

90

WINONA PRIZE WINNERS

91

WAYS TO ESCAPE WHEN WE HAVE NOWHERE TO GO Maria Windley-Daoust - Winona Prize Winner Fiction The place where we hangout is all concrete, the alleyway tucked snug into our apartment complex. Better than the apartments themselves, because this is partial privacy from our families and a neutral third ground. There’s school, there’s home, and there’s here. There used to be a park, but they built a highway between us and them, when we were very small, maybe two or three or four. Young enough that it’s all a blurred memory now.

Dried-up concrete planters with withered stems and dusty dirt; Vida perches or stands on the edge, balances with her arms out. Showing off her Converse, which I wish I had. She says when she gets new ones I will get the old. I look forward to it. And Duncan with his duct tape, crosslegged on the scratchy concrete ground taping together tote and shoulder and crossbody bags, and the smaller ones like purses and wallets. Wallets are the cheapest, and purses $3.00.

We all have ways of making money. We obsess over it.

Mine is corn, sweet corn at the farmers’ market in the heavy heat of summer, working the till keeping numbers, and sometimes arriving early to help shuck heads. The scent wafts through the air like perfume when I rrrrip off the husks, one by one. Pure light sweet plant scent, neutral, simple. I am reliable for my age, my boss tells my mom, and she glows. Me with my crappy handheld fan, sitting in a folding chair with my hair tied up, being responsible, and afterward I will go spend some of my money on pineapple juice inside a pineapple with a straw, which has been calling me all morning out of the corner of my eye—if it’s still open by the time we close and count the money.

92

Vida, who acts older even though she isn’t, copies off of my homework, because she was desperate and I offered. Vida who is away-from-home as much as she can. Vida who makes jokes she shouldn’t. Vida with her neon earrings from the mall.

Vida with her markers and spray paint she uses to get high and she tells me to never start, because some days it’s too hard to stop—but she’s fine. She has other stuff, too, but she doesn’t show me that or talk about it too much to me. I pick up on it based on what she doesn’t say and what she avoids saying. Vida with her freckles. Vida with her undercut you don’t notice unless she ties her hair up. Vida the chameleon.

My mom buys corn like she thinks it will help me financially, personally, to buy corn. Or maybe she just likes to see me ring it up for her. She stands there in the heat, in her long draped florals, bag looped over one arm and clutched to her chest like a baby. She squints in the sunlight and watches me attentively and I go slow, robotic, so I don’t do anything she might question.

The corn follows me home, then. I head home in flipflops, thwack-thwack-thwack against hot concrete sidewalk, sweat-stuck hairs to the back of my neck, up the cramped stairwell shove open the door and the smell hits me again.

Steam and clattering from the kitchen.

When I was younger my brother taught me how to punch, in the living room. He was training to join the Army—age like fourteen? Was that right? I had to hold the sturdy soft square, red rubber over stiff foam. A punching bag, basically, but no chain connected to a ceiling. D.I.Y., I think.

So I have to hold it.

You take a stance with one foot behind the other turned out slightly—not tightrope-style, but spaced-out, solid. The aim, for you holding, is to absorb the energy of the punch 93

through your body and into the floor, and not just take it.

Later (later later, years later) Duncan offers me a hit, and I say no. I watch him instead, and I think about if I were able to do things differently, I would take the blunt from him right now, and try it, and see what happens when you go somewhere else.

French Term: L’appel du Vide. “The Call of the Void.”

Sometimes—

You shouldn’t do that out here, I tell Duncan. Listen, if the police drive by…

He tilts his head sardonic at me.

I settle on the concrete. It’s cold and rough and grit scratches at my thighs, my ankles. Lean back against the brick wall, not resting your head against it otherwise your hair will get caught in the grooves and get yanked out when you move away. I should go. I stay.

I should go, I stay—story of my life, right? Ha ha ha ha ha. Vida shakes next to me. I stand at the mouth that leads out into the street and block her from view. This is 94

something that needs to happen in private, in secret, in shadows next to walls. Cool smooth soft darkness.

I can’t go back, Vida tells me. What do you know about demons? The devil? I don’t know how to answer, so I don’t, and it doesn’t matter, her words are still coming. Don’t get close to them, she says, they latch onto your skin and dig their way inside. Always stay in your own skin, never leave it. Your skin carries your life in it. Who you are. Okay?

The brick wall is cold and the streetlights are still on, filmy yellow-orange buzzing frail around us. Weak morning light hangs dim and crisp in the sky. I give her my water bottle from my backpack and I make her drink. And I take her backpack slumped on the ground, and I hold it for her.

Vida leaves in June. Disappears, like a whisper.

What I know now is that when people say they never saw it coming, they’re fooling themselves. You spot all the signs, flashy like tinsel, and you turn over the green afterimage in your mind for a while, with a deep knowing sitting in your gut like a stone, and you talk yourself out of believing it. You are the one who walks it back to normal, who does the covering up, the smoothing out. You are the one who pacifies, who absorbs little sharp shocks of truth down deep into your body, and out into the floor, where you let them rest. And then, afterwards, you remember what you’ve done, like waking from a dream. And you understand. It’s all retroactive.

95

June 8th, when school lets out. Warm muggy weather, overflowed into a gentle gray rain, clouds hanging heavy and humid. I’m able to stay in bed an extra twenty minutes, give or take, before my mom comes in to tell me to get up it’s time for chores. It’s the first day of summer, so it’s time to deepclean. While we’re free, and before we can ease into it, my family tackles summer and wrestles it to the ground.

And while I wrestle with summer, ram an elbow against its head, Vida slips away, like rainwater slips across concrete to climb carefully into the nearest dark drain.

We all have our ways of making money. Vida’s dad swears that if she ever comes back he’s taking her to court for theft, money lifted from a wilting mattress. I hold my tongue and hope she’s gone forever.

I never got the shoes. I don’t think she left them, but it’s not like I checked her house, after she left. I save up my corn money, though, tucked in a padded box on my shelf, and I take the bus across the city to the shoe store in the back of the mall, and I buy some myself. High-tops. These ones are black, not blue, and they have flowers embroidered on the sides. I don’t know what to think of the distance.

When I get home, my dad asks me if they’re new, and I say yes, I bought them with my own money. My mom looks up sharply from the cutting board and asks how much. I say, I bought them with my own money.

She squints at me; sees what it is. She goes back to her cutting board.

96

When we’re bored, we go other places. When we’re bored we sit on the concrete, we recede into darkness, we shake.

When we’re bored we sell corn at the farmers’ market and talk it up to sell more to adults who think we’re charming.

When we’re bored we punch things or take punches, we hold, we wait, we do our homework, we talk about the devil, we slip away and go somewhere else, pulled by the flood-drain call of the void where we stand, constantly, on the edge of something yawning and deep and raw, like a brain flush with a cocktail-mix of dopamine and epinephrine, but real because this time it happens outside of us.

I don’t blame her, to be clear. In a way, I’m glad she left, even though she left us hovering in her wake, potential energy, a shaking unresolved chord that fades away into emptiness. At least one of us went somewhere else in a real way. I couldn’t have done it the way she did, even if I were her, and had less to be obliged to and all. It’s all blind faith, I guess, which I’m not good at. But now I practice it. Whether I want to or not.

97

THE ROUNDABOUT Alivia Tima

98

FILLING IN THE BLANKS Drake Onyx - Winona Prize Winner - Nonfiction I pick up the black binder that’s been collecting dust on my bookshelf for two years. I go to my room, close the door, and turn down the lights. My computer is open to an acoustic cover of the song Lucretia, a guitar version of a seven-yearold song that still brings me to tears. I feel the plastic cover between my fingers, the weight of paper in my lap, and see the colorful bookmarks peek from the pages. I hesitate. I know what lies within, I couldn’t forget, and yet I have, and yet I don’t know if my eyes will recognize the contents as the scribblings of a stranger or friend. I breathe in. I open it.

Inside, carefully organized by year and color, exist dozens of Dungeons and Dragons character sheets I’ve used, I’ve wanted to use, and I’ll never use again. My fingertips glide over the well-loved pages, the scuffs of pencil I inscribed as a teenager, the quick sketches I scrawled in a box labeled character appearance, and the memories of all the people I have been. A smile blooms on my lips as I discover a drawing of the character, Snips, I drew on October 15th, 2021, exactly 3 years ago the day I decided to open this time capsule.

I don’t claim to be familiar with the feeling of nostalgia. I don’t have a lot of life I can look back on fondly, though this binder is a rare exception. There’s not much a former foster child to remember without feeling an immense wave of loss, the awareness of a space where there should have been a family instead of absence. Maybe that’s why I gravitated to fantasy, maybe that’s why I spent years filling out character sheets instead of the nuances of my personhood; because it was the only location in my turbulent adolescence where I was encouraged to create the person I wanted to be. Or, maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. Maybe through being given the power of autonomy, even in a game, I slowly discovered the person I wanted to be with each gesture of fantastical creativity. Maybe. Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself and should explain this odd object of my affection.

99

In 2014, Wizards of the Coast released the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons to every retail store willing to shelve a nerdy little book about monsters and wizards. The game had existed since the seventies, nearly fifty years, so the expectations for sales weren’t overly ambitious. Most expected the same group of geeky white men, likely in the STEM field, to be the predictable target audience playfully ridiculed for their niche interest, but they were wrong. That didn’t happen. Instead of being sought by solely Poindexters and Satanists, thousands, millions of new hands reached for those 320 brightly colored pages promising a world of magic and wonder where anything could happen. 320 pages where you and your friends could be anything, do anything. 320 pages that would define a generation, whether it be through watching those odd multi-sided dice sneak into stores, hearing its mention in hit shows like Stranger Things(2016), or feeling a blank character sheet slip into your hands.

I can’t remember the first time I heard of that game, ironic considering it would in so many ways shape my life.

Most twenty-somethings, like myself, born post-9/11 and interested in D&D would point to the Twitch series Critical Role(2015) as their introduction to the game. Although I was an avid listener of Critical Role in 2019, it wasn’t my first introduction to D&D, that would be The Adventure Zone(2014). The Adventure Zone (TAZ hereafter) is a lesserknown podcast that debuted in 2014 and briefly surpassed Critical Role in popularity in August 2017 according to Google Trends. Of course, I didn’t know any of that at the time, I didn’t even listen to it until a year after the finale. I didn’t know why the four hosts, Justin, Travis, Griffin, and Clint Mcelroy, were so funny because they’d been hosting comedy podcasts longer than I’d been alive. I just saw a Tumblr post with some fanart of a funky elf and found myself listening to Magnus, Taako, and Merle get into all sorts of trouble. I loved that podcast. I loved it enough that a significant number of my daily drawings from 2018 were dedicated to TAZ fanart, or my own characters playing their adventures.

I find it ironic to admit that TAZ is part of the reason I 100

became a writer. The Dungeon Master, Griffin, always found a way to spin his words into something profoundly humorous or beautiful. It’s easy to laugh at the time he created a character who proudly shouted, “I’m Garfield the Deals Warlock!”, but I’d be doing him an injustice to not quote the words that trapped the breath in my throat.

“When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy.” I thought about that quote after I left my high school for the last time, realizing the final thing I’d said to the science teacher that kept me alive was an apology for enjoying my last day with a girl I don’t remember instead of a man I’ll never forget. I thought of that podcast over the lonely summer before my first year as a PSEO college student. I played a solo game of D&D with characters I made myself, voicing them in an empty room for hours, still as lonely as ever when I put my nine-dollar dice set dice away.

At some point I realized I couldn’t be everyone, or at the very least I couldn’t be my own friend. I re-listened to TAZ as the first day of college approached, hoping that maybe I could finally play D&D with real people like Justin, Clint, or Travis.

The first time I played D&D with my peers was in the fall of 2019 at a community college’s Gaming Club. The room was filled with the kind of nerds you would expect to fill the space, young men with scraggly beards tucking away their calculus homework, a colorfully clothed girl with a baggy red beret, and the young man with crutches that invited me, George. I reached into my schoolbag and pulled out my first real character sheet, a half-orc engineer named Sunny Brighttusk. She’s everything I wanted to be, everything I couldn’t. She was tall, smart, charismatic, and fun. She wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t the best at social queues, which usually led to humorous outcomes, but she cared. She cared about the adventurers she traveled with, she’d treat them like the family I never had. She was a good person, and I hoped as I joined the closest table with George at my right, my fellow players would see the good in her, and in me. We chose the table whose Dungeon Master (shortened to DM) was Nathan. Little did I know even the thought of him would still make me squirm after all these years.

101

Nathan was the kind of player who gave the D&D and the people who play it a bad name. D&D can only function with a DM, the hardest position to play as it requires you to understand and control every aspect of the game. In the case of Nathan, instead of this leading to him enjoying the opportunity to worldbuild or lament he couldn’t have a player character, he formed a god complex. No, I’m not being hyperbolic, he made us call him god. Any opportunity he had to force players and their characters to do what he wanted, a concept that goes against the core premise of D&D, he took it, and everyone treated it as normal. My biggest red flag should have been when the colorfully clothed girl, Maddy, mentioned how her character, the only female, was forced to be pregnant by Nathan. Joining Nathan’s campaign, my character was similarly forced into a direction she nor I wanted. Sunny was meant to be a bubbly and fun inventor, eager to learn and to make the world a better place, yet on session one I was tricked into joining an evil college which Sunny couldn’t leave. Nathan transformed her into an evil scientist who hurt anyone who stood in the way of discovery with my desires as her player irrelevant. I suppose the worst thing I could tell you about Nathan, is how he reacted when I, freshly 18, mentioned my character (like me at the time) was a lesbian. I’ll never forget the disgusting smile that slipped onto his greasy lips. He stared at me and the woman who would later become my girlfriend, and asked; “Can I watch?” He was several years older than either of us. It would take me several months to cut him from my life, too many months my identity was corrupted under the thumb of a disturbed man.

Men like Nathan are unfortunately not uncommon in D&D. I’d heard of incels, involuntary celibates, but I was far less familiar with the concept now than I was in 2020. I guess that’s the best group I could place him in, that subset of D&D players with their ultimate power turn women into literal objects, nothing but sex symbols with a fantasy flair, using petty excuses like ‘she’s an elf’ to justify why the fictional character they’re lusting over looks like she’s 12. I guess there’s a conversation to be had there about ‘toxic nerd culture’, the masculinity of geeky men being just as insidious as that of a frat boy who ruffies a drink. I’m reminded of 102

the movie Revenge of the Nerds(1984) when the geeky protagonist dressed in a Darth Vader costume fucks a girl who thinks he’s someone else. This moment is celebrated by the film and is also rape by deception, not that any of the ‘nerds’ in the film would care. Nerdy men’s objectification of women is often overlooked, and the rest of the film is all too eager to treat women as anything but people, much like the Nathan and the awful men before him. However, Nathan and his subset of toxicity wasn’t the only kind of D&D player, nor would he always define D&D for me.

In late spring of 2020, the beginning of COVID-19, I and several friends left Nathan behind and dedicated our time to a different game: Monster of the Week. See, D&D is one of many games categorized as tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs onward), and there exists a world of other boxes and books and dice that promise a world of adventure for you and your friends. Monster of the Week was a game I DMed for every week for almost two years, an urban fantasy bursting with life and a chance for me to create a world with people who knew my name and liked saying it. I chose a new name, Draconian, filling in the blank on the legal document of my name change as I had with so many character sheets before. The most resistance my players gave me at this revelation was a smile. I could tell you how the game we all loved ended, how I burned myself out putting too much work into it, how a friend left due to mental health concerns, and how jealousy ruined what was left of a defining game. But… I don’t really want to tell you something sad. I want to tell you something good. I want to tell you how I fell in love with TTRPGs. Every Friday night for two years, from 2019 to 2021, I’d flip on my laptop. Sometimes I’d be nervous, other times excited, and most of the time just glad to have people happy to see me. I’d open Google Docs to the notes I made of the session, the length for each started at 5 pages and eventually climbed to 50. I divided what would happen in each section into scenes, scenes easily able to change in accordance to the players’ actions, written out dialogue for every action they could take. I’d look at the clock. 7:30 pm, half an hour before the session. I clicked open Discord, invited twwhe music bot, and prepared all of the ambient tracks to be 103

used during each scene. It didn’t take long for my friends to join, their characters close behind; Katja Terzel, the badmouthed angel, Jasper Dinkle, the nerd with superpowers, Tommy Calzone, the gangster from Yorktown, and and James Grimm, the ghost detective. Then the fun would begin. I gripped my mouse, I breathed in, and I poured my soul into that game. I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t a pink-haired dyke in a foster home hoping not to wake up those who wanted me to call them my parents, I was a narrator. I could be anyone. I felt myself grow taller as I adored the polished Oxfords of Charles Irwin, the devil with the suit and tie. I pushed up my glasses and heard the nasally voice of Trixie leave my throat, eager to help the players with their tasks. I tasted copper against my fangs as I saw the players enter the football field, fear flicking in the chest of a monster who was finally cornered. I asked the players what they wanted to do, and I used what gifts I had with word and tongue to make every action they took as magical as the world they played in.

There was no greater joy I could have claimed at that time that felt better than watching my friends defeat the world’s monsters and celebrate aside them. I loved the fantasy, I loved the connection, and I loved pouring everything I was into creating something beautiful.

Maybe it was the writing I loved. After Monster of the Week ended, I quietly continued creating my characters and stories, all within the realm of fantastical worlds with real people. Well, they weren’t real. I know that. But to me, by 2021 a transgender man who recognized more faces and names from video games than memories, fantasy characters always felt more relatable. When I thought of the moments that mattered in my life, the moments that inspired joy instead of pain, I thought of the fantastical worlds behind a screen or the ones I created. Not my life. I thought of TAZ, I thought of the moment Taako reunited with his twin sister, I thought of Merle reaching out to comfort a monster, I thought of Lucretia, a woman who deleted herself from reality to save the world, finally being remembered. I felt alone, ignored, and forgotten, so I created characters I could relate to. I wrote about Sunny Brighttusk, a woman with an abusive mother who needed to prove she was better than her.

I created Lucian Heartsong because I needed a transgender man to look up to, to aspire to be. I believed in Alexander 104

of Delraine because I was a man who felt weak, and maybe me and Alex could feel weak together. Maybe the reason I gravitated to TAZ, to my own fictional characters as a writer, is because with them I wasn’t alone anymore. With people, even imaginary, I could survive my foster home, COVID-19, my transition, my social isolation, and even moving to my first apartment with my partner in 2022. I guess what began as an admiration for fantasy in a time when I had nothing else, transformed into a need to write my own stories dealing with real problems that happened to have a fantastical flair.

Maybe what I needed was to see the characters I empathized with surviving the impossible, because if they survived maybe I could survive too.

I didn’t play another game of D&D consistently until 2022, my junior year of college. I joined an online D&D group with my partner’s coworkers and occasionally dropped in at Winona State University’s gaming club. You’d think I wouldn’t step foot in another club like that after what happened with Nathan, but I suppose the allure of possible friendship was worth the risk. In an uncharacteristic stroke of luck, I found what I was looking for. What I saw when I entered Krysko Commons on a Saturday night when the club was in session was far different from my experience three years ago. I saw a person sitting in a booth with long hair with red highlights coloring in a book with alcohol markers.

I saw two men share a quick kiss before rolling a twentysided dice. I saw the predictable array of STEM major white boys, but it wasn’t really the same, that’s not all there was anymore. There wasn’t an underlying worry of hostility, of discomfort boiling under the surface of those fluorescent lights; there was laughter, there was fun. Outside Krysco Commons, I noticed the population of D&D had changed, whether it be from my new surroundings or the two-year difference.

LGBT people like myself and my partner seemed to flock to D&D in droves. The pride events I went to in Minneapolis had multiple D&D-themed products, rainbow dice, fantasy stickers in the colors of pride flags, and dragon sculptures painted with slogans like ‘trans rights’. The Renaissance festival was all too similar, every opportunity a booth had to 105

reference LGBT people was taken. It was all too easy to find scale mail in trans colors, personalized rings for a pair of husbands or wives, or colored wax candles in whatever flavor of queer you chose. However, those in attendance at the Ren fair were more revealing. I couldn’t tell you how many pride pins on bags, excited nonbinary folks discussing their D&D characters, and extravagant cosplayers with their same-sex partners I witnessed. It wasn’t just sexually repressed white boys endorsing rape culture, it was queer people that cared about consent, queer people that weren’t afraid to cosplay a character with a tail and horns or to tell a handsy ‘nerd’ to back the fuck up. I won’t pretend that the LGBT community is perfect, but generally, I’ve found their presence is far preferable to the likes of Nathan and his wandering hands. I guess you could chalk up most of those LGBT-themed goods at these events as rainbow capitalism, but I don’t think that’s the only reason for such an increase in visibility. I think modern D&D is inherently queer.

What I didn’t tell you about Critical Role is that it is some of the first mainstream media I and many other future D&D players watched that had multiple LGBT characters, specifically two important women who later married, Allura and Lady Kima. These were characters that were queer, yet fully fleshed-out human beings that were so much more than a shared kiss, a rarity not even a year after the legalization of same-sex marriage. TAZ is the first piece of media I experienced that had both a gay man and a trans woman as main characters, Taako and Lup. In both these podcasts, being queer was no stranger than having claws or casting a fireball, it was just part of their world and who they are.

Maybe that’s why so many LGBT people love this game, because they have total freedom to be whoever they want in a world that will accept them. I guess that’s what I was feeling every time I filled out another character sheet, every time I adopted a new name, autonomy. Acceptance. Through the beautiful act of creation, I didn’t just discover I was a lesbian or a transman, I forged the most important character in my life: myself.

I decided to play Sunny Brighttusk the same day I met the 106

woman who I would ask to become my wife, Chy. Together we would create endless characters, but also ourselves. At the same time we wrote their backstories, we wrote our futures as the dice of fate rolled for or against our favor.

I gave Lucian Heartsong my chest scars after my double mastectomy, and I didn’t wear them with pride like LucianLucian wore them with pride like me. When it came to writing Alexander’s story, I wasn’t just sharing his sadness anymore; I was lifting him up because he deserved happiness just like I did. What started as an adolescent hobby and interest in fantasy turned into discovering I had control of my life and could fill in the blanks of my personhood with whatever gave me joy. It’s funny how life works, isn’t it?

Anyone can play Dungeons and Dragons, that’s the whole point. Everyone, young or old, white or not, straight or queer, can pick up a pencil and a blank piece of paper and decide who they would like to be. Maybe they’ll play it once and remember how those multisided dice made that one Friday night a little more interesting. Maybe they’ll play a few Friday nights and treasure the laughter they shared with friends. Or maybe they’ll be like me, maybe a funny little game about wizards and dragons will help them find the magic in their own lives. I guess I can’t really tell you, I’m still filling in the blanks of who I am. All I can say is I’m willing to roll the dice, and excited to find out.

107

YOSEMITE FALLS IN THE STYLE OF VAN GOGH Tim Galvin

108

THE SHE-WOLF WHO MOTHERED ROME WAS A WOMAN Kaylee Nickisch - Winona Prize Winner - Poetry Prowling riverside, starved of sheep, dark hair long against her back, Only the stars guide her. Moonlight Hides beneath a cloudy veil, Dripping night-black sky down the Tiber.

She licks her teeth. Prey squeals Beneath the pendulous swing of fig leaves— she parts branches with her body, salivating for the copper of survival.

Starlight pools on red-faced life,

109

Wailing for a mother who is cradled in upturned earth.

(The she-wolf cries too; all hunger for change) With water lapping at her feet, she brings Each infant to her breast and lets them feed.

110

ONE LAST EVENING IN SOLITUDE Jackie Velishek

111

Satori Staff 2025 Top Row: Dr. Liberty Kohn, Jack Guimont, Emily Sowers, Elida Roskamp, Jack Mulvaney Bottom Row: Madeline Avila, Lucy Severson, Ashley Shorba