Category: Spring 2023

爸爸妈妈，你们快一点儿吧 (Mom and Dad, Please Hurry)

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by Zoe Gurney

I want all I was robbed of.
I want to experience giving new year’s blessings for 红包.1
I want to cheer on dragon boat races during 端午节.2
I want to sweep the tombs of my ancestors for 清明节.3
I want to eat mooncakes with my family during 中秋节.4
I want to learn about my 家族.5,
I want to know the meaning of the name I was given upon birth,
if I was granted even that.

Take responsibility for your actions (or lack thereof).
Am I not your daughter, too?
为了让我进入这个世界，妈妈不是吃苦吗？6
I am owed answers.
I am owed the truth.
I am worth the effort of your search, am I not?

Then search.
Endure the pain and countless failures that precedes success.
永不放弃.7
Your daughter is waiting, but she does not have the strength
nor the stamina to wait forever in unresponsive silence
with only her anxieties whispering doubts
to her already fragile mind.

1 红包 (hóngbāo): red envelopes that symbolize good fortune and prosperity; during the Spring Festival (starts on the 23rd day of the 12th month of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar), red envelopes are filled with money and traditionally given to children by their older relatives

2 端午节 (Duānwǔ jié): Dragon Boat Festival, starts on the 5th day of the 5th month of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar

3 清明节 (Qīngmíng jié): Tomb-sweeping Day, occurs on the 1st day of the 5th solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar

4 中秋节 (Zhōngqiū jié): Mid-Autumn Festival, starts on 15th day of the 8th month of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar

5 家族 (jiāzú): clan; family

6 为了让我进入这个世界，妈妈不是吃苦吗? : To let me to enter this world, didn’t Mama suffer?

7 永不放弃: Never give up.

Three Untitled

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by Sophia Sherwood

Cream or sugar? Or
Both? You decide. It won’t matter
Once you stare down the center of the

Tallest tree.
It will not give you the
Answer. But it will bring you comfort.

The sand that buries
You does not care about your
Loneliness. But you will feel warmth beneath

Its fingertips.
The carpet of your childhood
Home reeks of mildew. But you will not

Care.
The page of that
Book you always meant to
Finish longs for
Your touch. Will you ever
Invite it out for coffee? Maybe it prefers

Tea. Will you ever know?
The bread you used to always bake
With your father is stale. But it will still taste

Just as it once did.
It does not matter, you
Go on ahead.

There are roots everywhere.
I see them, tangled and beaten
Beneath the basement of my
Childhood home.

I see them beneath the very ground
You walk upon, as you leave
Behind everything old in exchange
For everything new.

I see them weaving and tightening
Around the old LGBT support home
I once went to, when I was young
And scared and didn’t know a thing about the world
Or myself.

I see them dragging and
clawing at the sleeves of your shirt,
Begging you to stay when you know
It would kill you.

Our paths may never cross, but
Your roots and my roots
And his roots and their roots and
Her roots are all
Constantly growing,

I wonder about the ways in which yours have shaped you,
Just as mine have shaped me.

Mouths sewn shut
So as to not breathe too deeply
To breathe too deep is to let
The fire in
And we all know how fire burns

But the warmth can be so sweet
Delicate, fragile, like a violet
In first spring’s awakening
A tender embrace, a kiss

The kiss singes like flame
Something insatiable
Touching everything
Like a forest engulfed

Mouths sewn shut
But the thread is burnt away
We are gasping, breathing each other in
I bring you a bouquet of violets
But they wilt in the warmth of my hands

You say we are fire meets gasoline
I say we are flame meets flame
Only, I would never burn you, lover
I’ll sew my mouth up again just for you.

This Story is Unavailable

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by Phoenix Alarcio

What’s the cure for the lone wolf, hungry
to howl with her pack? What’s the cure
for fictionalizing real life, fashioning your
fantasy out of ratty paperbacks and diaries

found at the flea market? Thumb to a random
page in every book. Each first word strung
together makes a sentence. Each insult flung
is just a jest. Everyone’s LARPing, fandoms

collide like pinball machines and I am stuck.
Like pushing on a pull door, I fumble to form
friendships in this pressure cooker cacophony
of love ideologies. To communicate or to cut?
That is one question. Can I even trust my own
perception? Or am I merely sleep deprived?

The Witch and the Queen

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by Ava Fischer

Not-so-long ago, in a not-so-distant land, there was a small village nestled on the edge of a forest called Silverwood. For many years, laughter filled the village as the children ran after marbles and play-acted fantastical stories. Little princes with uncombed hair and boyish grins would slay the dragons, saving the little princesses who gathered berries in their skirts and hid at the first sight of danger. Erica, a wide-eyed girl of ten was content just as she was, playing princess. Meg, a girl equal in age, though seemingly unable to temper her wild demeanor, quickly grew tired of the same old stories.

“I do not wish to be a princess,” she said one day. “I want to be a witch.”

The younger children froze, eyes wide, but the older children only sneered.

“There are no witches in this world,” a child of twelve said.

“Though,” another added, looking Meg up and down. “You are certainly as ugly as they come, with your rumpled skirt and your stilted gait.”

At this, Meg stomped away. Erica ran after her, ignoring the mocking whispers of the other children. Further down the hill, Meg slouched, sitting in the tall grass with her dirty skirts and her spindly legs folded up under her. Erica followed suit, grabbing her friend’s hand and squeezing once.

“I think witches are much more interesting than princes and princesses,” said Erica thoughtfully.

Meg looked at her, leaning in so that they bumped shoulder to shoulder.

“You are frightened of witches,” Meg teased, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “They live in the forest and eat little golden-headed girls like you.”

Erica wanted to protest but couldn’t help herself from giggling.

“Isn’t everyone afraid of witches? Isn’t everyone afraid of at least, something?” Erica asked.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Meg replied stubbornly. “Besides, if I were a witch, I could do whatever I wanted, no matter if my skirts were rumpled and dirty.”

“And what would you do if you were a witch?” Erica pressed.

Meg thought for a moment. The breeze ruffled her dark hair and the sunset lit up behind her, casting a warm glow.

“I would spin straw into gold,” she replied. “We would be rich, and you would no longer have to be a miller’s daughter. We could live together without a care in the world.”

“My parents say we must always care,” offered Erica gently. “They say that the prince will be looking for a bride in a few years’ time and someone rich must come along because taxes on lumber and straw are much too high. But even so, the realm will soon be in debt.”

Erica didn’t quite understand the word “tax.” Though, “debt” was becoming increasingly familiar in her vocabulary.

“Well, I suppose if the prince needs a wife-” Meg jested.

“Did you not hear a word I just said?” Erica complained. “He will host a ball and look for a match who boasts money and power-”

“And beauty and grace,” Meg teased, wrapping her arms around her friend. “Perhaps he will fall for you. The fairest of them all.”

Erica rolled her eyes, though she leaned into the embrace. “He will not. Besides, I could never leave. I would much rather stay unmarried than leave the Silverwood.”

“Then you shall live your days as a spinster,” Meg countered, her mouth quirking up into a smile.

“I suppose we shall have to spin together.”

Meg smiled at that. Erica thought she was the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen.

~

It did not take a ball for Prince Philip to find his bride. Many years passed, and one day as he returned from a hunt on the edge of the Silverwood, he spied the beautiful blonde maiden. She was fetching grain from the fields, accompanied by a nondescript companion. Immediately taken by the lady, he received the blessing for her hand in marriage. Within three days, the miller’s daughter was whisked to the palace and crowned Princess of the Realm. In time, she became Queen.

The King, however, had done the Realm no fiscal service by taking a poor miller’s daughter to be his Queen, no matter how beautiful and kind. The years rolled by, and the Realm’s coffers dwindled. The poorest of the lowborn faced starvation. When the most secure of the highborn worried about losing their pristine estates, Philip began to hold council meetings behind closed doors.

It was no secret that the Realm required gold, so it was no surprise when rumors began to crop up of a terrifying monster on the edge of the Silverwood. This monster they say, spun straw into gold, offering it to the highborn of the Realm, but only for a steep price.

Both King Philip and Queen Erica ignored the rumors. Philip because he simply did not believe in magic, Erica because she didn’t dare to hope.

One night, after a particularly terrible visit to the poor surrounding villages, Erica locked herself in her chambers and wept, for there seemed to be no hope for her soon-destitute kingdom. She awoke to a glimmering strand of gold spooled on her pillow, right next to her cheek. It was as if someone had taken a thread of yarn and turned it, well, into gold. The next day, after a night of whispered prayers to whoever had sent the gold, another thread, longer and thicker appeared in her wardrobe. On the third day, after a night of the same, yet another thread appeared on her windowsill, the longest, most golden strand of them all.

This time, a note accompanied the gold. Written on the wrinkled parchment was but one name, accompanied by two words.

Come home.

Erica began to hope.

~

The years had been kind to the Silverwood, still wrapping around the glen, bending their branches as if embracing the little cottage that now stood at the forest’s edge. The years had been equally as kind to the woman standing in the cottage door, clad in simple flowing robes, her dark hair unbound and free.

Meg’s face was inscrutable. Erica tried to ignore the feeling that her heart might burst out of her chest at any moment.

“You came,” Meg said, by way of greeting.

“You called,” Erica replied, holding up the three golden threads. The gold shimmered in the afternoon light. “How could I ignore the word of the most feared witch in the land?”

Meg pursed her lips, turning on her heel. “Come inside.”

The cottage was small, though hospitable. On the far wall, a fire crackled warmly, across from which sat cozy armchairs atop thick rugs. Meg made no move to sit in the armchairs, instead pausing in the center of the room to turn. Erica’s gaze snagged, for in the corner of the room sat a spinning wheel and a simple basket of straw.

Erica looked at her old friend. “They say it is a monster who spins straw into gold.”

Meg nodded. “That is what they call me. Monster.”

“My citizens call you a monster out of fear,” Erica said after a moment. “They fear your name.”

Meg only raised a bemused eyebrow. “My name?”

“You call yourself Rumpelstiltskin.” Erica chuckled. “A clever play on childhood words.”

Meg only shrugged. “Many monsters come from childhood. I suppose you think ill of me for it.”

“And what do you think of me?” Erica asked, approaching softly. “I suppose you think I am nothing. Running off to wed the prince, just as you always predicted.”

Surprisingly, Meg shook her head. “You had no choice but to leave, I see that now.”

The fire crackled warmly, though Erica made no move to unbutton her traveling cloak, as if her old friend might disappear at any sudden movement.

“Are you lonely?” Meg asked suddenly.

“What?”

“Up in that cold palace?” Meg pressed. “Are you lonely being Queen?”

At that, Erica had no response.

“I perform my duty to the kingdom,” Erica replied carefully. “For the good of my people.”

“And you are happy?”

Erica frowned. “You are aware that I came here seeking aid. This is diplomacy.”

“Is it?” Meg mused. She seemed to be enjoying this.

Erica shook herself. “What must I do to acquire some of your spun gold?”

“Any manner of things,” Meg said.

Erica only raised her eyebrows. “Such as?”

Meg moved closer to the fire. Erica followed, keeping a distance from the other girl. This was diplomacy. And yet, in the ache of a childhood lost, why did Erica want to wrap her arms around the other girl and never let go?

“For a highborn in need of my services, I might raise a monstrous price.” Meg mused, gazing into the fire. “A firstborn child, perhaps?”

Erica froze in her tracks, only relaxing when Meg laughed lowly: it was but a simple jest.

“But you are a miller’s daughter…” Meg tilted her head, considering. “You are an old friend.”

“And what is your price?” Erica swallowed. “For an old friend?”

Meg hesitated before responding softly.

“A kiss.”

Erica stilled. Meg was no longer smiling, instead looking curiously at Erica, gauging her reaction.

Erica’s stomach flipped, but she found her voice, nodding once. “If a kiss is what the witch requires.”

“Is it what the Queen wishes?” Meg’s voice was quiet. “I do not wish to force your hand.”

In the golden firelight, Meg was the most beautiful girl Erica had ever seen.

Her heart answered before her mind. “It is what the Queen wishes.”

The first kiss sealed the deal.

As quick as it happened – a ghost of soft lips meeting oh-so briefly, Meg’s hands clasped in Erica’s – Meg pulled back. Erica suddenly felt cold. Was that it? Was the deal struck? Meg searched her face as if she was wondering the same thing.

Meg whispered, “I asked you to come back. And you did.”

“You asked me to come home,” Erica replied. “And I missed you.”

The second kiss was worth more than all the gold in the kingdom. Meg’s lips were warm, and Erica blindly shucked off her traveling cloak, allowing it to land in a puddle on the velvet carpet. She pulled Meg closer, and they held each other so that the space and time and history between them no longer mattered.

Coming back to the Silverwood was like following a thread of fate that had intertwined, tangled, and snapped all when she became a princess. Now, that golden thread knit itself back together, little by little.

After what seemed like either hours or seconds, the queen pulled back, examining the witch’s face.

“Perhaps you should have named a different price,” Erica whispered, her voice hoarse.

Meg looked at her, questioning. “And what would that be?”

“A true monster would take the King’s wife for her own,” Erica said.

Meg stared, not quite daring to believe. “Is this what the Queen wishes?”

Erica smiled against her lover’s lips. “Yes.”

Meg chuckled. “A deal is a deal.”

The third kiss was a burning blaze so that Meg and Erica felt they had never known the bite of cold or the sting of loneliness. Their intertwining thread of fate glowed golden, stronger than ever before.

~

No one ever saw Queen Erica again. At least, no one who would admit it. Satisfied with the gold, the King had taken a new wife within the fortnight. Erica was known simply as the Queen Lost.

Though, on the edge of the Silverwood, it was known that in a small cottage there lived two witches. Villagers still warned their children against the vices of witches old. But, for the children of millers and farmers, blacksmiths and beggars, within this cottage there could be found a warm fire, a hot meal, and a place to rest, for those brave enough to seek the comfort of companionship.

The Old Gods

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by Elyse Yost

This city is ruled by statues; ancient things that wander the streets and narrow avenues, lingering in the city squares at night. The sound of scraping stone can be heard echoing around corners even without their gray, glazed eyes within sight. They work alongside the looming cathedrals and form councils amongst themselves. When peaceful, their voices exist in a range too low to be heard by the modern human. When angered, their voices are the rare thunder that comes quickly in autumn. The unlucky ones, lost in battle, holy war, or oblivion, lie below the street. They reach their fingers up to the pavement, perhaps to be found and worshiped once more. On a cloudless summer day, the lucky may find themselves surrounded by thousands, gathered to grant their offerings. Travelers know these gods and cross land and water to see them. Meanwhile, the residents take on a silent form of worship. They construct their railways and roadways carefully, so as not to interfere with the statues and their homes. They share lunch with them and go about their day loving what is ancient.

Just over a month after I arrived in the city, I was on my way across town to catch dinner with friends. I had just gotten off the tram and decided to walk the rest of my way. Dusk was starting to fall over the bustling bodies and orange buildings, and this site was meant to be viewed from the street. In the center of the plaza, there was a pair of statues caught in battle. A pair of military men stood to the side, guns hung on straps on their shoulders. I was not quite sure whether they were trained to protect the gods from the people or the people from the gods. The passersby moved through the plaza, circling the pedestal in which the statues stood. As I looked closer, I saw the path altered by an old couple on the sidewalk. Below the statues, the two softly slow-danced to music coming from a nearby restaurant. The woman rested her aged hand on her husband’s shoulder and they swayed in the midst of the bustling pedestrians, seemingly moving in slow motion. I couldn’t help but slow my pace and stretch my head to watch them as I passed. I could imagine how the scene would have looked decades ago, even centuries. The lovers were painted so young in the shadow of the old gods.

The Man Who Couldn’t Fly

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by Annie Johnson

I saw a man jump off a bridge today. I was just walking home from the office, and there he was, arms spread wide as if he would sprout wings. And when he fell, for a moment, I really thought he would. Holding my breath, I waited for his body to stop its rapid descent and propel up, far, far away.

But he didn’t, and soon enough, I could hear the splash, a boulder in a lake. I waited until the sirens came to leave. I didn’t want to see his bloated, purple body when they pulled him out of the water.

I’ve seen dead bodies before. They made us cut open fetuses in Anatomy lab once, taking out the tiny pink heart with our tweezers. There was a pregnant girl in the class who cried the whole time as her little scalpel broke through the wrinkled skin, clutching her own belly with her other hand.

But this was different. I never saw the fetuses die, never saw their little hearts slow down or lungs freeze mid-pump. I didn’t watch them plummet off a granite bridge.

My husband, Nick, and I eat microwave burritos for dinner. We make small talk about the consistency of the beef and our downstairs neighbors who won’t stop fighting and definitely not about the man I watched die today.

I’ll save that conversation for the bedroom when he lies panting and blissed out next to me, or for never.

Maybe I’ll tell my sister when I see her over Thanksgiving. We’ll stand in the kitchen, washing dishes while our husbands watch football, and I’ll say, “I saw a man kill himself.” She’ll want details. It’s the true crime fanatic in her, the part that craves other people’s tragedies to make her feel better about her own.

“I thought he was going to fly, Lisa. I really did,” is what I say in my imagination, and she stares at me with wide eyes and a kind of sadistic enjoyment.

Later that night, I scour the local news for headlines. Man Jumps from Bridge. Tragic Suicide of Community College Professor. There’s nothing of the sort. Instead, I spend the next hour reading about the elementary school having a gas leak and a gang leader dying of cancer. It’s riveting and momentarily makes me forget about the man who never sprouted wings.

Nick comes up behind me and kisses my neck.

“Come to bed, Joanna,” he says. “You’re tired.”

But when he’s on top of me, his face flushed, I can’t stop seeing the man. I bury my fingernails into Nick’s back, the place where his wings should be, and I tell him to stop.

“I have a headache.”

I watched a man die today.

“Oh, okay.”

His rhythmic snoring keeps me awake. I breathe in time with it, like it’s a metronome because I fear that if I don’t, my heart will stop.

Just like his.

The next day, I end up on the bridge. I don’t know why or even how I get there. But suddenly, there I am, looking down at the water. It’s more green than blue, polluted with smoke from the General Motors down the street. It makes me wonder if it stung his eyes when he fell. What it tasted like.

I wonder if it tasted like regret, a mistake. Maybe it tasted like freedom.

My feet dangle off the edge. It really is so easy to fall, I realize. It could happen in an instant, in the blink of an eye.

“Miss?”

I whirl so quickly that I nearly lose my balance, my fingernails scrambling for purchase in the granite. A girl, her hair in two blonde braids, stares at me, wide-eyed.

“Are you okay?”

She’s little. Too young to watch someone jump.

I slide off the bridge.

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

She doesn’t need to learn that people can’t fly today.

That’s a lesson for another life.

The Life of a Tower Princess

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by Sophia G.S.

I watch as ivy grows
Up the tower I reside,
Where each creeping vine knows
Where rays of sun manage to hide.

Up the tower I reside
Climb fools looking for gold,
Where rays of sunlight hide
Now waits for them a death so bold.

Climb fools looking for gold
Through window panes of broken glass,
Waiting for them a death so bold
From knights of well-earned class.

Through panes of broken glass
The fools’ fates are not seen,
From the knights of well-earned class
Fly blades and fists unclean.

The fools’ fates are not seen
But I must sit here nonetheless,
The flight of blades and fists unclean
Brings to me no new distress.

I must sit here nonetheless
As creeping vine move slow,
Resigned to me no new distress
I watch the ivy grow.

The Day I Knew I Could Never Love You Again

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by Morgan Acord

The day I knew I could never love you again,

An old, orange, orbit of a cat sprinted across my path,
the crust on his eyes set on the little girls calling for him,
His hanging jowls barely missing the potholes,
much like the crust over the lacerations on my heart,
were determined for Morticia-Gomez passion
almost unreachable

Throbbing and vibrating like a blade of grass,
I saw your “bleating like a calf after me” as your own pathetic desperation.

The day I knew I could never love you again,
was the day I knew I was no longer your fool,
But I was destined to be “the beautiful little fool”
I promised myself I would never be.

(The Great Gatsby Line and The Roaring Girl Line)

The Batman of Davis

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by Elliot Russel

I had been at Davis Street Park for only a minute when a man, about five-foot-eight with a lopsided Leo Tolstoy beard, seemed to be taking his chair for a stroll. It was a beautiful midcentury piece; a blue-grey aluminum construction, complete with a natural wooden seat and back, fastened on with silver screws. He walked in unannounced from Merrill Street, plopped his MoMA-worthy chair beside one shoulder of the skateboard half-pipe, perched atop it, and thoroughly examined with a point-blank stare a steel sign listing the rules of the park.

The sign and the man upon his chair stuck out like two towers from a sea of concrete, all laboriously decorated with spray-paint of every color; it would be a waste of my time and yours for me to recount entirely what these adornments looked like because of their sheer quantity. Quantity, and the fact that they merged with one another, each piece flowing in, out, and over another in breathtaking anarchy for the trained eye.

The chair, while beautiful, was a quaint sight among the chaos. If I were Henry, a friend of mine who arrived at this very moment, I would’ve stopped to admire the furniture before venturing into the skatepark, where all except a few of the park-goers congregated. A regular with one foot in the skatepark and another in the overwhelmingly elderly world of flea markets, he buys and sells vintage furniture to one day fulfill his dream of pulling up to Davis in a Dodge Charger. In the meantime, he’ll keep collecting Herman Miller chairs and impulse-buying $700 Omega watches on eBay.

He shook up a few of our friends at the picnic table then dropped in on the halfpipe with a firm step onto the front of his board. It was the first of many warm spells during this frigid Michigan winter, and it had been the first day back at high school after winter break: the high school I had graduated from the year prior. Tucker, fifteen, with a black hoodie tightly wrapped over his navy-blue locks, lit a cigarette and passed it to Stan, sixteen, who looked like an adolescent Jim Morrison clad in Carhartt. Time went by before either party made note of the other. The man, still atop his perch, had taken a graffiti wipe to the sign, which like most of the park’s surfaces had long been used as a canvas by the park’s artists. He seemed to me a good Samaritan, a Johnny Appleseed type.

Nobody hassled him. Nobody commended him either. At this point, he’d settled in, a stack of paper towels and plastic bags under a leg of his chair to keep a sudden loss of balance from sabotaging his mission.

The skaters at the picnic table went on taking drags off the cigarette and passing it around, all the while debating the location of Sicily (which, they agreed, is a region and not a city) and the listenability of Tom Waits (whose smoky drawl may be draining, depending on the ear).

“The pomelo is the biggest citrus in the world,” remarked Gus, another regular who was taking a rest from incessant kick-flipping. Gripping what he called “the smallest citrus you can get,” a tangerine, Stan dug his thumb into its core, and you could hear its flesh turn to pulp. “That’s how I’ve always done it. That’s how you know it’s a good one,” he said.

Perhaps my fascination rubbed off on them because Gus caught a glimpse of old Tolstoy, who’d turned the park’s hopeless set of rules into the spickest and spannest surface in all the Vine and had now placed his chair facing another sign near the entry to the park.

Sitting in on the skatepark-side discussion, I couldn’t help but focus on the valiant, crusaderly figure. What would move him to do such a thing, to take time out of his day to clean the disputed surfaces of the skatepark, where this public self-expression – tagging – reigns supreme as a sort of technicolor turf war?

“He’s the Batman of Davis,” Gus said. Everybody chuckled, and despite the fact that the purveyors of this very artwork were all around us, nobody griped. They didn’t share the sense of ownership that he had; a sense of teenage apathy permeated from their little concrete jungle, like the cigarette smoke that drifted from between Tucker’s fingers and had us all reeking of that tobacco smell of reckless youth, or stifled middle-age.

Henry left for work and the others hit the nearby bodega for a dinner of canned meat and tortillas (“They’re homeless cosplaying,” another regular chipped in). I waited, and now alone, situated myself beside this “Batman of Davis.” It was then that I realized I’d seen his face before, and that my assumptions of goodness hadn’t been unfounded. Countless times he had been downtown or perhaps at the farmer’s market, peddling an array of progressive petitions regarding abortion rights, voting rights, and such. Truly a citizen, one who keeps eyes and ears above ground: a freakish sight among the disgruntled youth of the skatepark, the remaining of which were engrossed in a tense game of SKATE.

“Aw, you almost brought that back down,” said one shaggy-faced guy in a white hoodie to another in a black hoodie.

“Ollie? Ollie over the rail?” the black hoodie said, then botched the landing.

“Game over,” declared the white hoodie, crooning like a videogame announcer.

I can’t say I passed judgment on any of them, though I sat and transcribed all they said like a court notary. And I can’t say that I have any personal stake in Davis Street Park, though I visit it frequently. While I’d never met or even seen them before, watching these two play SKATE felt indescribably familiar. It was like watching every skateboarder in every skatepark in America frolic in the pleasures of mundaneness. If I could derive so much joy from kicking around wood and wheels, I might be the happiest person alive.

It was dusk and the cold set in. Soon, Tucker, Stan, and Gus came skating down Minor Avenue with their goods. Tucker donned a new hot pink ski mask, while Gus had forgone his planned meal for an oatmeal pie and Pringles.

With his duty done, our Batman had grabbed his chair and gone on his merry way. He left nothing but an impression and took with him who-knows-how-many-year’s-worth of Sharpie ink.

Gus sat at the picnic table and munched on his oatmeal pie, now moon-shaped with a bite taken out of it. “I liked the graffiti on the sign,” he said.

Sonnet for What’s Between the Lines

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by Phoenix Alarcio

How do I know I am captivated by you?
Your googly eyes, dark as bark arrest me
like I’m a high schooler playing hooky,
caught pants down in the janitor’s room.

Why do I say I’m going, but I’m not out the door?
My questions, sharp as darts at an Irish bar,
pierce your alveoli. Your answers on par
with Yoda make me stop keeping score.

I see you in an unsolicited script I unearthed
between the cushions of the orange couch,
at work. I can’t help but think it’s divine, a sign,
though I don’t believe in God. Maybe flirt
and find out? Maybe fuck and fall out?
Boy, tell me again, what are my lines?

Sonnet for Night Walks

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by Shannon Abbott

She takes risks walking in the night alone,
feeding desperately on the cold moonlight.
Danger must be something which she is prone,
entering a monster’s den for more to bite.
Eerie music whispers to her, baby—
She tumbles into a haven for hell.
Beasts in tailcoats begin to serve her tea,
and red lace covets her like a love spell.
It seems she has crashed the devil’s birthday,
accidently, on her midnight walk.
With wine and cake and whiskey she might stay,
though her family will protest and talk.
     Yet here in hell she feels so safe and true.
     To women at night, she invites you too

Silence at 3am

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by Hayden Ruben

When the world is asleep,
I am awake.
Insomnia is a monster.
A black cloud,
That eats melatonin
By the handful.
I want to sleep.
I just can’t.

It’s been seven years since I slept well.
I’ve forgotten how it feels
To be well rested.

But it’s almost worth it,
For how quiet the world is,
While it sleeps.
How dark it is,
While the sun rests.
To know the moon understands,
And keeps you safe,
Even if it can’t gift you a dream.

Parent to Child

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by Leo V. Kaplan

I let the ideas sift through your mind
like fine sand through an hourglass;
the notion of a revolving world,
with a flaming sun in its center,
the concept of a malleable future
and an obstinate past,

the idea that a month after your school starts
the trees’ green will shift into orange and red
and fall ethereally to the grass and dirt.
That before life returns
the ground will be wrapped
in a frigid blanket of glacial white.

But also that, as color returns to the world
then so too will the leaves,
and that your school will end
and you will frolic in the heat,
and that the rain will fall not in white blankets
but in light, beautiful droplets,
and that August will come again, and school too,

and that just as the seasons shift
and drag the world through a maelstrom of color,
so too will people come and go,

and that when my colors change in autumn
and I fall to the ground
and am buried under the snow’s coffin
someone else will come, in your spring,
and green will return again.

But you just looked at me
and said

“then I’ll just see you at the end of August,
when school starts back up.”

and I hope you haven’t changed too much
by then.

Moores Park

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by Claire Taylor

In the beginning, I
tumbled, glass shards in palms,
hollered at trucks storming across the roundabout, and
chucked pinecones from the trees.
I planted my feet in the acorn-littered cement.

I was sugared tomato sweet,
swinging my bare legs against the rungs of stools,
smothering toast in swamps of raspberry jelly,
and leaving sticky fingerprints in borrowed books.
I sang deep into the night, refusing to go quietly.

I scrambled up to climb a maple
with arms outstretched,
and I truly believed that together,
we would rise out
above it all.

Houses splayed like a rainbow of matchboxes,
sky split open like a grin,
sun soaked and shivering,
ever higher
with each shuddering branch in hand.

And there we were,
climbing hydrangeas,
and morning glories,
and I,
all reaching heavenward
for the outrageous joy of growing.

Meet You at the Mailbox

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by V. Amador

It was unreasonably cold outside, and since fate seemed to favor me so, I obviously had to be wearing the least appropriate clothes for the weather the first time I met you. You’ll have to excuse me for that, I didn’t think I would be out for so long, you understand? No matter, what’s done is done. You’ve already seen me in my tie-dye too-short shorts and my two sizes too small acrostic shirt that spells “FATHER” that my aunt got me for my birthday, not realizing it was a Father’s Day shirt. I would say that’s about as bad as first impressions can go, but these higher powers never cease to surprise and embarrass me in equal measure.

I waddled as quickly as I could to the mailboxes and fished out the key to open my box, fumbling a bit from freezing fingers, thinking the faster I went maybe the faster I would get back inside. I try the key and it doesn’t work. Why wouldn’t the damned key work? And then I saw you, just a house over, walking down your driveway and going down the sidewalk straight towards me. I mean, you were definitely going for your mail, which is the box just above mine, really. But for a quick instant, I couldn’t believe that oh God someone has come to laugh at me.

Any reasonable person would have just swallowed their pride and gone back inside, changed clothes, and double check that they have the right key. Whether it’s because I’m an unreasonable person or I’m incredibly lacking in pride, I instead went through every key on my key ring just before you arrived and none of them worked.

I stepped aside so you can get to your mailbox, and thankfully—which in hindsight maybe I should feel a little offended at—you didn’t spare me a second glance. You opened your box, grabbed your mail, and you were going to leave me in the cold so I can figure out what was wrong with this stupid mailbox on my own. But you didn’t leave. You heard me sigh while I looked frustratingly between the few keys in my left hand and the supposedly correct key in my right hand. And you, blessedly patient you, asked me:

“Do you need help?”

Part of me wanted to say No! I can do this on my own! I am an independent human being! The trials and tribulations of a mailbox will not best me! Leave me alone! I’m not weird! but what I really said was:

“Yes, please. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

If I was implying anything else with that answer, it either flew over your head or you just really wanted to help me with my mailbox.

“What’s your number?”

I pointed at the box and handed you the key. Like the fool the universe has made me out to be, you turned the key and opened it on your first try. I peeked inside and there was nothing. Not even a letter about student loans, which as awful as it is to be reminded of, at least there being something would have made the biting cold worth it. Now I’m flushed hot with embarrassment, and I tried to walk away empty-handed.

“Why don’t you try again?”

I barely registered your words and you putting the key back in my hand, moving to the side so I can try. I slotted the key in and turned it, but it wouldn’t budge. Why won’t this stupid key turn and why won’t my stupid mailbox open and why are you so nice and still here??? I wanted to give up, but you were still there. So I tried again with a little more force, and at this point, I thought I was going to break that stupid key because I know I’m not turning it in the wrong direction I just saw you do it and-

You grabbed my hand that was tightly clenched over the silly little key and it stops my grumbling. My hand just barely loosens, and in your surprisingly soft hold, you turned my hand which turns the key and the mailbox clicked open and I felt ridiculous.

“What,” is all that came out instead of any sort of “thank you.”

“Huh, that’s weird.” At least you didn’t sound upset about not being thanked.

It was only then that I finally got a good look at you. I had already dug my own grave with what you had already seen of me just in those five minutes, so I was almost over all of my embarrassment when I blurted out:

“I guess I’ll just have to ask you for help more often.”

And you, amazing you that endlessly puts up with me and my stupid mailbox and every dumb thing I say to you every morning just smiles and says:

“Okay, I’ll see you around.”

Maybe the Man in the Moon is Real

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by Morgan Acord

Mom always told me about the Man in the Moon
how the cat jumps over him, though I didn’t know these peculiarities until she held his hand.

Some nights, my cat yanks my ear and leads me further,
into my grandma’s parlor, the hum of the evening news.
Sitting, dozing off on plush carpet,
barely knee high to the arm of the sofa.

Fog outside of the windows,
an external curtain alarms me,
But your light leading, coming down,
the stairs, comforts me

I yearn in the darkness where I know
there are plastic angels, music boxes of Gibson Girls,

The Miller High Life Girl smooths your hair

I shiver in the lonely cold,
but I feel you lift me,
carry me up the stairs,

I nuzzle into your breasts, they smell of powdered lavender,
like the wallpaper climbing up, up, up,
the crescent moon smiling at me,
Old moving picture actresses twirl and blow us kisses with their petite cherry lips.

You lay with me in a day night bed,
stroke my tiny face, that you said graced you with sunshine at noon in mid-August.

“Come,” you say
“come”
and the sinking joy I feel, as you slip away and I wake.

May I Offer You a Rose

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by Zoe Gurney

There once was a time when I spoke freely.
Without a care in the world, I would voice my
complaints, compliments, worries, and aspirations.
Seen. Heard. Living.

But now, with a maturing, thinking mind,
I realize that the world is unwilling to listen,
to see, to appreciate its beauty without
judgment or discrimination.
Its unfairness and inequity strike down the
weary
while raising the
corrupt.

And yet, amidst all the pain and temptations,
We choose to struggle to survive another day.
Even if we must embrace the
countless voices
that sweetly suggest succumbing to a
painless end,
We embrace life. We embrace community.
We work to embrace ourselves.

Today, I still work to claim my voice.
Although there are people who try to steal,
to discourage,
to erase,
to undermine me,
they are not my greatest threats.
Above all, I seek to remove a
claw of steel
locked in place by none other than
myself.

The claw rests gently on my throat. A constant
warning.
Disobedience is met with strangulation.
To voice my true self, I must accept the pain,
the bruises,
And remind myself that pain is inevitable but
suffering does not have to be.
Most bruises heal in time, and any that linger
shall serve as honorable battle scars when I
emerge victorious from the
soul-sucking whirlpool of my mind.

In this ever-changing, cruel world, I journey on.
Treasuring the beautiful array of colors that
shine through moments and people,
I crawl through the thickets of the rose bush
with the optimism that I will, one day,
be able to extend a thorn-pricked hand
to the steel claw and kindly offer
a rose in place of my neck.

Little Red Wagon

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by Shannon Abbott

I carry my curiosity wherever I go—
it is bright red with four wheels.
I’ve been accumulating dust and dirt on my walk,
still I never let go of the handle.
It used to get me in trouble—this wagon behind me,
when I would carry home buckets of worms,
in my little red wagon.
But after 20 years, the load gets heavy.
Knowing has become responsibility—
and the answers sometimes bite and bruise.
The red paint is dulling and cracks
and the wheels whine when I turn them.
Stuck in melancholy mud, I stand silent
and I wonder why I even bother. It irritates me.
I wonder where I went wrong, but then again,
when did cynicism turn to rust? I am not
complicit with expected mundanity.
Why have I not yet learned how to sail a boat?
Or how to play piano?
Somewhere in my wagon, I find a book about sailboats
and we keep trudging through together.

Infatuation

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by Sophia Sherwood

I want to have meaningful, deep connections. Like
Open wounds.
Bleeding and pouring and gushing
And when there’s no more blood and they’ve crusted and dried over
I want to bandage each other up and kiss the scars and hold each other
Like we are pools of water in
Each other’s hands

And then I want to thank each other
For the good time
And say I love you even
When you’re ugly and mean and broken
And kiss the scars

I think that’s why I create those same
Wounds in myself
Desperate attempts at connection
A yearning so insatiable
Gashing tearing gnawing

But I find nothing but bone
No more blood to drink
So I seek out that of others
Clawing at their hearts and begging to be
Held but begging in the form of
Consuming

Please, baby, just look at me
Just look at me, everything will be okay
I don’t want to hurt you
I want to hurt me and I want you
To tell me you love me anyway

I want to open you up and eat your heart
And every piece of meat that makes you up
Until there’s nothing left but bone
Hollow and beautiful

I want you to see me as my worst
Most horrifying self
And think
Despite it all, there’s still love

Why can’t we eat each other without the labels?
Why don’t you want me to caress you, swallow you
Whole just so we can go and taste others
Soon after?

Why don’t you want empty I love you’s
And burning kisses
Nail marks down your back followed by
Inside jokes and empty promises?

You don’t want my double edged sword?
You don’t want my poison
My tar, seeping out of your ribcage?
You don’t want to stuff each other to the brim
With smoke and honey?

Baby, that doesn’t sound good to you?
Why, oh why not? I don’t understand

My charred flesh isn’t appealing to you?
You said you wanted a piece of it
Just to carry with you, a reminder of me
I’m cutting off every inch now
Flaying myself, just for you, lover

I’ll tie up my carcass with a pretty
Red bow
Just for you, lover

Aren’t you happy?

I didn’t mean it when I said I love you
I’m sorry, I promise I didn’t mean it,
Lover

Not in the way you think, at least
My love is a far different version
A melancholic rendition
More synonymous with death
Or decay

More akin to a forest fire
Burning through everything everywhere
All at once

Oh, no, I burned you didn’t I?

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it
I promise I didn’t mean it
We can kiss again once I’ve cooled
Can’t we?
Won’t you hold me again after your wounds have
Scabbed over, lover?
Won’t you look at me again?

I promise I didn’t mean it when I said I love you

I promise I didn’t mean it

Please don’t be afraid.

In the Palm of My Hand

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by Sophia G.S.

If I could fit you
in the palm of my hand,
I would carry you with me
where ever I went.
Like a doll made of foxtail,
soft yet prickly,
never a weed in my eyes,
only hands and head and heart.
No matter your size my
heart is yours,
red and beating between your
fingers, soft and pale.
I pulled it freely from my chest
to give to you,
because I could tell
that’s where it belonged,
held so tenderly
like it were something precious.
You tell me sweet secrets
that mean nothing
and I listen,
sat beside you
and watching unseeing
because there is nothing else
in my world
that isn’t you.

What I wouldn’t give to be you,
so we could be together always

I’m Only Sleeping

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by Claire Taylor

A few summers ago, I was finally officially diagnosed with depression for the symptoms I have faced for about half my life, but sometimes I think they got it wrong and I just really, really, love sleep.

I love the way sleep transforms my weary limbs, the way I can feel its pull in the muscles of my face, the weight of the blanket on my skin. It embarrasses me sometimes; my friends’ parents tease me about how late I sleep every time I see them and something in me shrivels even as I see the love in their eyes. Sometimes I feel like I am wasting my life when I think about how much time I spend occupied with sleep.

It is an intrinsic part of human existence, so much of our lives revolve around sleep. We spend our days wishing we could be sleeping, chatting about drowsiness, worrying about a tendency to over or under-sleep, not to mention all the time we spend actually asleep. Give or take a few hours of sleep, our level of functionality can change drastically. The best studying advice I ever received was that no matter how much I felt I still had to learn before an exam, there was no amount of anxiously rereading information that would help me as much as a decent night’s sleep. Our minds need rest to be able to process and respond to the world around us. To have the ability to sleep is a wonderous thing; anybody who has spent nights restless knows this.

I come from a hearty line of slumberers. My father is known for sneaking off at family gatherings to pass out on the couch for hours at a time, his father regularly falls asleep in his chair mid-conversation, and my other grandfather had a notorious habit of resting his eyes as he sat in the front pews at church. My mother describes her first year of marriage to my father by laughing about how much time they spent sleeping, curled under the covers because they couldn’t afford to raise the heat. When my immediate family gets together, we spend most of the time all passed out with books in our laps in various corners of the living room. It is a gift I have inherited, this joy in spending my time unconscious.

It’s not as if I am always asleep; I still stay up until the small hours of the morning some days, often finishing homework, sometimes without cause. I think it’s because the thing I love about sleep is waking up, not falling in. There’s just this perfect moment in the mornings when I wake up and feel my body freeze, mouth open and tongue heavy in my mouth, scarcely breathing for the beautiful stillness of it all. I crack open the blinds of my eyes and let the world glint in, let sounds begin to wash over me, the echo of people puttering downstairs, the comforting hum of the fan. When I let myself move again in this moment, it is only to roll over and fall back asleep.

Sometimes I want to sleep forever. Not necessarily in a coma way, or in the disappear from the world sense (at least anymore), I just sometimes wish I could freeze time and take a ceaseless nap for a couple years. I don’t even do that much honestly; I don’t know how I am so tired all the time. Maybe my shoulders just ache with the weight of carrying my head around all the time.

I used to wake up and barely be able to hold my body down from the excitement of a new morning. My first introduction to the concept of too early was when my mother gave me her digital watch and told me that the first number had to be at least a 6 before I could clammer into her room to wake her and begin the day. I remember the agony of waiting, staring at the watch I had strapped to the pale-yellow bedframe because it was too big to fit my wrist, willing time to speed up.

Now, even when I am getting up for a good reason, no matter how excited I am for whatever it may be, dragging myself out of bed is a clawing battle of wills. I gnash my teeth and feel like weeping at the sound of the second alarm, the third, the fourth, at the second repeating because I snoozed it. I make my alarms chirping birdsongs or lilting melodies by John Denver or Carol King, sentimentally convincing myself that their sweetness will set in, and I will wake up glad to be conscious again. It hasn’t worked yet, but my roommates have developed opinions on which ones are the best and worst to hear on repeat. I am not the easiest person to be around in the morning.

Does this mean I have lost my joie de vivre? Struggling to get up in the morning is one of the most stereotypical symptoms of depression. I picture a dark room and someone in an all-gray sweatsuit lying in bed, surrounded by piles of crumpled tissues with light streaming in from the crack in the closed blinds to illuminate a single tragic tear running down their cheek. And like, I’ve been there, but most of the times I have been at my most miserable, I did not sleep, I did not cry. I moved through life without feeling it. I did not feel the joy of a cool sheet against my skin or the tingling relaxation of my muscles as I drifted off.

I believe as creatures, we need so desperately to be able to sleep and cry. There’s a line, obviously, I’m not saying it is good to constantly be sleeping and crying, just, we undervalue them both sometimes. There is this belief that if you let yourself soak in a moment you are wasting your life. There is a need to always be doing, moving, accomplishing.

Maybe, just maybe, we can let ourselves just be.

Roll over, my friend. Go back to sleep

Grape Jolly Ranchers

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by Annie Johnson

My father has always resented me. Just a little bit. Not the kind of resentment that sets a fire in your stomach, just the kind of casual disdain fathers have for their daughters.

I remember asking my mother, back when I was very young, why my father hated me.

“Oh baby,” she said, kissing my head. “Daddy doesn’t hate you. He just likes football.” Then she went back to the kitchen and left me to play with my dolls alone.

I tried to like football; I really did. I checked out books from the public library all about Walter Payton and the ‘34 Bears and read them in bed late at night with a flashlight. But I could never get more than halfway through. Flags and sacks and touchdowns were white noise to me—I wanted stories about princesses, where no one ever got tackled.

So, my father took my brother, Jack, to football games. He bought him a baseball glove and drove him to all his soccer tournaments. He gave me fake pleasantries at the breakfast table and forgot if I was turning eight or nine.

Once, when I was ten, we went on a family road trip. I sat next to Jack in the backseat of the minivan as we sped down the highway. He wouldn’t stop blowing in my ear. When I yelled at him to stop, my father whirled around, red-faced.

“Be quiet, Sarah!” he snapped. “Do you want me to crash the car?”

I could feel my face flush. “No,” I said in a very small voice. Jack wore a self-satisfied grin. I kicked him.

“Sarah kicked me!” Jack tattled, pretending to be hurt.

“He won’t stop blowing in my ear!”

“Jesus Christ,” my father groaned. Swerving sharply, he pulled off on the closest exit and into a gas station parking lot.

“You deal with this,” he told my mother, before stalking inside.

I started to cry, shame bubbling in my stomach.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whimpered.

“It’s okay, baby,” she said. And then she followed my father into the gas station. She came back ten minutes with my slightly mollified father and a bag of Jolly Ranchers.

“For you.” She handed the bag to me and wiped away tears.

I rustled through the bag very quietly. “Does anyone want one,” I asked.

“I’ll have one,” my father said, reaching a cupped hand behind his seat. “Do you have any grape?”

“Grape is my favorite,” I told him, and he gave a noncommittal grunt of thanks when I pressed it into his hand.

When I was eleven, I asked my father if he could come to my dance recital. He said that he would try to make it. When I stepped on stage in my leotard, I scoured the crowd for his face. I found my mother, smiling widely, next to my brother, who’d fallen asleep.

“Daddy had a meeting, honey,” she told me afterward, rubbing my back as tear tracks streaked through my blush.

I never told him about another recital. I quit ballet the next year.

I’m thirteen now. It’s Christmas morning. I’m sitting, cross-legged, on the ground next to Jack. Shreds of wrapping paper are scattered around the room. But there’s still one more present under the tree. Jack buzzes with barely suppressed exhilaration. We both think it’s his—probably a new baseball glove from our father. When my father picks it up, I see Jack’s eyes light up. He’s sizing it up, trying to rule out what could be inside.

“This is for you, Sarah.” He doesn’t really meet my eyes, just kind of tosses the package in my direction from a few inches away.

I gape at him. He’s never gotten me a present before, not for real. My mother writes “from mom and dad” on all our gifts but I know that he’s just as surprised as I am when I open them up.

Jack watches me with poorly concealed jealousy as I tear the paper.

It’s a large plastic bag, and for a moment, I think it’s a bad joke. But then I look inside.

It’s full of Jolly Ranchers, only the grape flavor.

I stare at my father. “Grape is my favorite,” I tell him.

“I know,” he says.

Double Sonnet for Loving the Bandit

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by Anonymous

1
God’s name is Google and I ask them if it is
normal to feel like a sinking buoy, too heavy to
tread water, too light to sink like a bullet into
flesh: and it’s been lifetimes since I’ve felt the
thrill of slam poetry and snaps and the ecstasy
of calling men out on their bullshit. If sensory
deprivation tanks were among the FBI’s verified
methods of torture, that would be this hellyear.
Time is a desert in an hourglass with no oasis,
no respite for the cacophony of self call-outs.
I am alone in the bathroom at 11:39 in the dark
and I am thinking about walking to the knife
and playing stab between the fingers because
I am this family’s vestigial organ. But no,

2
it’s these peeling white walls who have made me
prisoner. Wake up. The world is burning, the pan
is charred black as the india ink you spilled when
you tried to imitate Lunch Money in second grade;
remember how happy you were? Remember how
happiness works? It’s a reverse spin cycle. You
gotta take the heat before the swim. You are
my favorite poet. Is that vain to say, or am I
exercising an unalienable right? Remember how
you gave Owen a resting bitch face when he came
out? How now you’re the one on the receiving
line, and all you want to do is let the phone hang?
You are a desert nomad in an oasis standoff with
a bandit and the bandit is you. Wave and say hello.

2008 Recession Sestina

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by Shannon Abbott

I want to get rich quick because parasites
have sucked my memories penniless. Subprime
assholes with expensive clothes want to play God?
Then make it rain the way Armageddon came with risk.
Gamble away a marriage, a home, but such greed
will blossom like a corpse decaying with fraud.

Terms meant to confuse and mislead have become clear: fraud.
Wall Street seems not so mighty when cowardly parasites
infests its funds—still—the beast called greed
has conceived righteous revenue: subprime
loans. Because the housing market will never fail, no risk.
That was the story that existed, but not in the eyes of God.

When lies become instant gratification, pray God
forgives that outstanding debt. Ignorant fraud
has blown like a balloon and there is the risk
of a nations death. Yet no one quits. Like parasites,
houses are the hosts and the thing that is dying. The subprime
mortgage crisis thus appears! All for greed.

Old news preying upon the poor, such old news greed.
Yet it prevails everyday—maybe even against God
because crisis turned to disaster with CDOs. Subprime
loans and CDOs sound severe but it is as simple as fraud.
Suddenly, the balloon pops, the bubble bursts, the parasites
are tumbling down a downwards arrow all thanks to a little risk.

And still, some are too big to notice the risk—
But I was small. The government may have bailed out that greed,
but it did not give me back my home. Those parasites
turned my six-year-old sorrow into a number. And God
watched as I lost my security. Watched a marriage crumble like fraud.
Those B rated bastards did not have to watch some subprime

story. A parent crying on birthdays and Christmas? That is a subprime
savior paying for the giants’ risk.
Now I am older and frugal and I recognize that fraud.
So keep feeding upon bullshit stew but greed
is a sin. Though the government might try, God
does not bail-out from hell. Not lowly parasites.

I learned that fraud is spelled subprime
and not to trust parasites addicted to risk.
So here I warn the greedy: fear God