Summer 2022: Celebrating Pride
Prose
One Last Round
by Morgan Victoria
by Morgan Victoria
Simon already didn’t like to drink. He always complained about the stupor-inducing, sack of potatoes hangover he got for a three day minimum when he drank too much. And he especially didn’t like how I looked at him in the days following. A gaze he said followed him with a stinging earnestness that reminded him of cleaning a cut with an alcohol swab.
But after he sawed through his finger, that was the true beginning of the end. Blue laughed and laughed until it didn’t make sense to be laughing anymore. So much blood on both of them, on the floor, it should have rung alarm bells that it was scary. I knew right then I couldn’t have held more color in my face than a fresh sheet of snow. My hands shook and I couldn’t open my mouth all the way without making a bird-like sound of shock. Blue left the room. When he came back, he swung out and grabbed Simon’s bloody hand before plunging it into a mug of table salt.
“It’s what soldiers do.” He said with a sideways smile. The E.R. nurse disagreed and actually yelled at him when he explained what he did. His smile never faded from his face. Of course, she was a melodramatic bitch and Blue was in the right. Of course. Of course. How silly of any of us to doubt him. He still had the damn hand, didn’t he? Though according to the nurse, Simon didn’t get infected either through an act of God or pure, bumfuck luck. Blue said that considering how hideous Simon’s face was, it wasn’t God helping him out, and then ran away from the kick Simon tried to level at his shins.
Throughout all of it, he kept his composure much better than should have been expected. Admittedly, I haven’t been in a lot of circumstances where someone cuts off an extremity. But Simon just telling us where his wallet and keys were and then googling the nearest hospital felt more capable than someone who cut nearly half their finger in two should have done.
Simon cupped the mug of salt while we sat in the astringent smelling waiting room of the E.R. for a few hours. Blue rotated around in one of the plastic chairs, bending and twisting his legs and hips around until a patient with yellow eyes and a dripping nose snapped at him to keep still. He saluted him and hung upside down until that got boring and then watched a movie loudly on his phone while his face faded from the red of asphyxiation. I held Simon’s mug for him so we could play tic-tac-toe on crumpled-up Dunkin’ Donuts napkins from his glove compartment. We played until my eyes blurred X’s and O’s after every blink like I was seeing the world through a love letter. When we finally got into a room, we all sat through a flurry of nurses and one surly doctor and then got to be alone.
In the early morning, men’s button up blue of the sky, Simon leaned his forehead against the hospital window. “I want a cig,” he said, his breath fogging the glass.
“Me too,” I agreed. If I were taller than him, I would have ruffled his hair or slung an arm around his shoulders, but I wasn’t so that felt weird. Loaded without meaning to be, but too much nonetheless.
“Is it always gonna hurt this bad?” He asked, and he sounded so much like a child, the part of me that remembered the bone crushing, chest stealing fear of childhood ricocheted between my ribs. His finger looked mummified, encased in a thick swab of gauze and tape the nurse instructed him to change in three days' time.
I tucked my head against his shoulder and slugged his side in a ghost of a punch, fingers curling against his jean jacket stiff with the scent of cigarettes and dirty kitchen. “It won’t if you don’t fuck with it. And don’t listen to anything Blue says.” I could say that because Blue was on a mission to get Almond Joys from the downstairs cache of vending machines in the nurses' station. According to Blue, none of the ones for patients and their guests had any ‘decent’ candy and he wanted to get back at the nurse who yelled at him. He could say that as much as he would like, but I knew he was doing it because Almond Joys are Simon’s favorite. I stayed with Simon and we waited for Blue to come back and tell us what to do like he was Jesus. Or just a skinny, candy-bearing Santa Claus.
“It’s not that bad though, right?” I asked, not looking at him full on because I knew the answer.
Simon would have had a lot more promise if he’d just been born to a different family.
Sometimes, during sweltering summers where we could only go outside at night because the day smeared us into sweaty zombies only complacent in front of an A.C. unit or sneaking into someone’s pool, we got crossed and laid out on Simon’s roof. We only had access to it by shimmying onto his boot-printed bathroom sink and crawling through the window. One of those times, he told me his earliest memory was of his mom trying to kill him.
A ridged slat of roof tile dug into my back when I turned to him.
“My dad likes telling this story too,” he said and laughed. “I don’t remember exactly– my dad always said I had a mouth on me, even at like, seven years old–” He screwed up his face and made a funny little voice to cloak what he was saying. “Simon, you always had such a mouth on you and that got you into such,” he stressed this next word with rolled eyes and a louder, warbled intonation, “trouble with your mom.”
“What did you say to her?” I asked. I looked anywhere but his face, instead at the exposed stretch of skin from the thin tank top he wore. The swirls of his tattoos were so vivid and beautiful that I wanted to stroke the psychedelic spiral of them, press my fingers to the warmth of his black-inked olive skin. He accumulated them through friends of friends who wanted to practice on someone. Some of them were impressive and some were just a mess, but they somehow all pulled together.
He shrugged. “I don’t remember. I just remember my mom like, her face getting all twisted up and this fuckin’ rage in her eyes, fuck–” Simon paused again to laugh, at what he considered to be absurd and what I considered to be terrifying. “And she like, she tried to come at me, her hands–” He made clawing motions at the night air, at the black sky that held no stars because it was cloudy and light pollution in the city prevented most, if not all of them. “She started to come at me and my dad had to grab her by the middle,” He curled his outstretched arms and mimed pulling something broad in a quick, angry motion, “and pull her away from me while she screamed.”
At the hospital, when Blue came back with a handful of Almond Joys, all of us trundled out of there in our huge coats and scarves. Simon clutched his discharge paperwork and audibly counted out the amount of extra shifts at work he would have to do now to pay this new medical bill. The numbers swirled around and around in my head as we walked out into the biting cold of the parking lot. Blue laughed at him, clinking Simon’s keys around in his hands. The sound reminded me of this TV show Blue and I used to watch at 3 a.m. when we were little and unaccompanied, about an old-timey sheriff who liked to dangle prisoners' freedom in front of them before walking them outside to get shot. We watched a lot of late-night TV together when we were young. The house got too silent with just the two of us in it, so we would sit and watch until the sun rose and we could hear our street wake up again. Our parents weren’t the greatest either.
“Gonna have to do a lot more mopping, kitchen boy.”
Simon spat onto the ground. “Gimme my keys you fuckin’ waste of space.”
“Nah cripple, I’m driving.”
It must have been March because Simon let Blue drive us into the McDonald's drive-through so we could get those green milkshakes that taste like a sweet root canal. I remember the shine of red on all of us from the rear lights of the car in front. The way the crimson hit Blue’s hand when he placed it on Simon’s thigh. I pretended to not be staring, picking at the empty wrapper of an Almond Joy in my pocket. Simon didn’t do anything, but I could see his smile in the rearview mirror. We were all a little too in love with each other back then.
But after he sawed through his finger, that was the true beginning of the end. Blue laughed and laughed until it didn’t make sense to be laughing anymore. So much blood on both of them, on the floor, it should have rung alarm bells that it was scary. I knew right then I couldn’t have held more color in my face than a fresh sheet of snow. My hands shook and I couldn’t open my mouth all the way without making a bird-like sound of shock. Blue left the room. When he came back, he swung out and grabbed Simon’s bloody hand before plunging it into a mug of table salt.
“It’s what soldiers do.” He said with a sideways smile. The E.R. nurse disagreed and actually yelled at him when he explained what he did. His smile never faded from his face. Of course, she was a melodramatic bitch and Blue was in the right. Of course. Of course. How silly of any of us to doubt him. He still had the damn hand, didn’t he? Though according to the nurse, Simon didn’t get infected either through an act of God or pure, bumfuck luck. Blue said that considering how hideous Simon’s face was, it wasn’t God helping him out, and then ran away from the kick Simon tried to level at his shins.
Throughout all of it, he kept his composure much better than should have been expected. Admittedly, I haven’t been in a lot of circumstances where someone cuts off an extremity. But Simon just telling us where his wallet and keys were and then googling the nearest hospital felt more capable than someone who cut nearly half their finger in two should have done.
Simon cupped the mug of salt while we sat in the astringent smelling waiting room of the E.R. for a few hours. Blue rotated around in one of the plastic chairs, bending and twisting his legs and hips around until a patient with yellow eyes and a dripping nose snapped at him to keep still. He saluted him and hung upside down until that got boring and then watched a movie loudly on his phone while his face faded from the red of asphyxiation. I held Simon’s mug for him so we could play tic-tac-toe on crumpled-up Dunkin’ Donuts napkins from his glove compartment. We played until my eyes blurred X’s and O’s after every blink like I was seeing the world through a love letter. When we finally got into a room, we all sat through a flurry of nurses and one surly doctor and then got to be alone.
In the early morning, men’s button up blue of the sky, Simon leaned his forehead against the hospital window. “I want a cig,” he said, his breath fogging the glass.
“Me too,” I agreed. If I were taller than him, I would have ruffled his hair or slung an arm around his shoulders, but I wasn’t so that felt weird. Loaded without meaning to be, but too much nonetheless.
“Is it always gonna hurt this bad?” He asked, and he sounded so much like a child, the part of me that remembered the bone crushing, chest stealing fear of childhood ricocheted between my ribs. His finger looked mummified, encased in a thick swab of gauze and tape the nurse instructed him to change in three days' time.
I tucked my head against his shoulder and slugged his side in a ghost of a punch, fingers curling against his jean jacket stiff with the scent of cigarettes and dirty kitchen. “It won’t if you don’t fuck with it. And don’t listen to anything Blue says.” I could say that because Blue was on a mission to get Almond Joys from the downstairs cache of vending machines in the nurses' station. According to Blue, none of the ones for patients and their guests had any ‘decent’ candy and he wanted to get back at the nurse who yelled at him. He could say that as much as he would like, but I knew he was doing it because Almond Joys are Simon’s favorite. I stayed with Simon and we waited for Blue to come back and tell us what to do like he was Jesus. Or just a skinny, candy-bearing Santa Claus.
“It’s not that bad though, right?” I asked, not looking at him full on because I knew the answer.
Simon would have had a lot more promise if he’d just been born to a different family.
Sometimes, during sweltering summers where we could only go outside at night because the day smeared us into sweaty zombies only complacent in front of an A.C. unit or sneaking into someone’s pool, we got crossed and laid out on Simon’s roof. We only had access to it by shimmying onto his boot-printed bathroom sink and crawling through the window. One of those times, he told me his earliest memory was of his mom trying to kill him.
A ridged slat of roof tile dug into my back when I turned to him.
“My dad likes telling this story too,” he said and laughed. “I don’t remember exactly– my dad always said I had a mouth on me, even at like, seven years old–” He screwed up his face and made a funny little voice to cloak what he was saying. “Simon, you always had such a mouth on you and that got you into such,” he stressed this next word with rolled eyes and a louder, warbled intonation, “trouble with your mom.”
“What did you say to her?” I asked. I looked anywhere but his face, instead at the exposed stretch of skin from the thin tank top he wore. The swirls of his tattoos were so vivid and beautiful that I wanted to stroke the psychedelic spiral of them, press my fingers to the warmth of his black-inked olive skin. He accumulated them through friends of friends who wanted to practice on someone. Some of them were impressive and some were just a mess, but they somehow all pulled together.
He shrugged. “I don’t remember. I just remember my mom like, her face getting all twisted up and this fuckin’ rage in her eyes, fuck–” Simon paused again to laugh, at what he considered to be absurd and what I considered to be terrifying. “And she like, she tried to come at me, her hands–” He made clawing motions at the night air, at the black sky that held no stars because it was cloudy and light pollution in the city prevented most, if not all of them. “She started to come at me and my dad had to grab her by the middle,” He curled his outstretched arms and mimed pulling something broad in a quick, angry motion, “and pull her away from me while she screamed.”
At the hospital, when Blue came back with a handful of Almond Joys, all of us trundled out of there in our huge coats and scarves. Simon clutched his discharge paperwork and audibly counted out the amount of extra shifts at work he would have to do now to pay this new medical bill. The numbers swirled around and around in my head as we walked out into the biting cold of the parking lot. Blue laughed at him, clinking Simon’s keys around in his hands. The sound reminded me of this TV show Blue and I used to watch at 3 a.m. when we were little and unaccompanied, about an old-timey sheriff who liked to dangle prisoners' freedom in front of them before walking them outside to get shot. We watched a lot of late-night TV together when we were young. The house got too silent with just the two of us in it, so we would sit and watch until the sun rose and we could hear our street wake up again. Our parents weren’t the greatest either.
“Gonna have to do a lot more mopping, kitchen boy.”
Simon spat onto the ground. “Gimme my keys you fuckin’ waste of space.”
“Nah cripple, I’m driving.”
It must have been March because Simon let Blue drive us into the McDonald's drive-through so we could get those green milkshakes that taste like a sweet root canal. I remember the shine of red on all of us from the rear lights of the car in front. The way the crimson hit Blue’s hand when he placed it on Simon’s thigh. I pretended to not be staring, picking at the empty wrapper of an Almond Joy in my pocket. Simon didn’t do anything, but I could see his smile in the rearview mirror. We were all a little too in love with each other back then.
Saturnine
by Bernardo Villela
by Bernardo Villela
Once Saturnine could be seen sitting at the baby grand piano in his family’s living room practicing. On his ninth birthday, he dazzled friends and family with his virtuosity.
He was still not yet ten, but so much had changed since that party. It started with a bad bout of encephalitis. The hearing loss was dramatic and fast. Hardly any time elapsed between his being declared legally deaf and completely deaf by his pediatrician and ENT alike.
#
Nothing had been normal since then, his world had been flipped on end. His mother had hoped that the holidays, with family newly around, would change that. As she laid a steaming plate of food down—goose, mashed potatoes, and cranberry relish—and he didn’t change his expression, she knew he wasn’t there yet.
His Aunt Ingrid, who looked much like his mother, only a brunette to his mother’s blonde, said:
[“Saturnine is getting so handsome. What did the doctor say last week?”]
Regina, his mother, tried to indicate to Ingrid that they shouldn’t talk about it. Saturnine had read their lips (he started learning that quickly), got up, and got a drink to detach from their conversation.
He passed by his chuckling Uncle Oliver and saw his older cousin, Michael, banging on a plate.
The living room was bedecked with tinsel and holly, the family gathered around in whatever seats they could find.
His mother sat at the piano. He read off the sheet music that she was playing: “Moonlight Sonata.” Her eyes closed and her torso swayed back and forth as she got lost in the song and notes reverberated around the room.
As melancholy set in, he sneaked upstairs unnoticed. He took out a book about the solar system he’d had since kindergarten. When he got in a mood like this, he liked to stare at his planetary namesake.
Taking rosary beads off a nail in his wall, he began to pray.
He still recited his prayers aloud out of force of habit.
Rosary completed, he opened his laptop and closed his browser whose tabs contained research on deafness he’d been doing.
The word processing app was still open to his diary. Writing, he felt his fingers falling on to keys. He was entranced by the words appearing on screen, but there was no catharsis.
Picking up a tennis ball, he threw it against a wall angrily. The pop of a tennis ball being struck was a sound he loved.
As he stood, he saw the moon now hanging high in the sky.
#
His inner monologue was not silent, he still remembered the sound of his voice as he tried to read their lips (there was still much to learn). It was frustrating learning the basics over again.
Often he went to the bathroom just to wash his face. It was not dirty, it was a process in which he removed his sight, but he had control of it. It was not conscious.
What was conscious was that he didn’t want a DEAF CHILD AREA sign to go up, to change schools, didn’t want to be different, didn’t want to be pitied. Ever. When the words they formed with rudimentary signs said nice things, positive things, things to be thankful for, he saw the pity they tried to hide. He saw and understood better than he used to.
[“Hello”] his cousin David said. Saturnine nodded and dried his face. The first-floor powder room must’ve been occupied, why else would his cousin come up here?
Saturnine went down to continue to watch his mother play. He sat on the staircase looking out through the baluster slats. No one took note of him, they were lost in the music.
He went back up to his room. Michael and David were roughhousing. When he opened the door to his room he felt a push against his head by his left ear.
David’s screaming, he thought with a smile.
Looking at them, he saw he was right. That he could’ve guessed whenever. David was a shrieker, but that feeling made him wonder.
A staccato beat.
Michael’s laughing, he thought proceeding to enter his room. Turning anew, he confirmed that and smiled.
Saturnine ran downstairs, making Michael and David take notice.
Entering the living room, he felt small breezes and pumps of pressure coming his way— applause. His mother had finished the song.
Everyone was facing the piano. Saturnine mumbled a garbled “Excuse me,” his voice had begun to slur in his first year of deafness. As family and friends began to turn toward him he began to sign.
—Excuse me. Pardon me.
[“Encore.”] Saturnine saw a few people call out. His mother’s attention drifted from the accolades to him. Her eyes were locked on her son who was walking with a purpose.
[“I can’t think of anything else.”] he saw her say absentmindedly.
Arriving at the piano, Saturnine reaches out to the book of sheet music. He flipped to “Liebestraume No. 3” by Franz Liszt.
—May I?
Regina nodded, smiling, trying to choke back emotion.
His father walked up, nervous. Saturnine looked up at him and said [“Regina, is this a good idea? What if he can’t?”]
Saturnine merely looked at him and signed--
—Please
—OK.
[“This is one of his favorites.”] His mother tells them.
He took the sheet music, then laid his head on the piano as he plinked out the first few notes. He hadn’t touched the piano in months, it used to be his greatest joy. In the depressive state he wallowed in trying to adjust to his new reality, he stopped, thinking, How could I ever again?
Now, a calm inner quiet had come to him during this season that made him not worry, doubt, or pity himself as much. He’d sat upon this bench and played since before many of his friends could recite their ABCs. He was done stopping himself. It was something else he’d learn to do anew.
A few bars down the page, he leaned back and felt more confident, the song, unheard, flowing through him. Much like his inner voice, his memory of this music still lived within him. He could still feel it.
Regina readied her hands in a moment of doubt, thinking he would make a mistake, but he didn’t. Then she reached to turn the page for him, but he got it right on time.
With that, they all knew they were to let him finish. They watched and enjoyed. He had come into his own again. His parents still lamented that as a child in his formative years he had to adjust and redefine himself before most children have to, and would still have to do so again. But in that awestruck moment, they saw again how remarkable their son was and that they’d allowed themselves to forget that.
Saturnine felt great playing, but was a little off timing-wise on some notes as he was rusty. When he was done, his eyes which had closed—as muscle memory had taken over—opened and he saw something he’d not seen in a while: joy in his parents' faces, the admiration of his family for something other than his so-called bravery, and that they saw him at last, just the same as he’d always been now that he’d found a way to show them.
With all the emotion he felt, he didn’t want to overwhelm his parents, even at nine, even after all that had happened, so he knew what he said (signed) next would be crucial.
—Where are the Christmas songbooks?
His mother, after repeating what he asked for those not versed in ASL, laughed, wiped away a tear, and quickly found one. Saturnine opened it to “O Holy Night,” so they could all sing. His statement had been made, and he no longer needed the spotlight.
He was still not yet ten, but so much had changed since that party. It started with a bad bout of encephalitis. The hearing loss was dramatic and fast. Hardly any time elapsed between his being declared legally deaf and completely deaf by his pediatrician and ENT alike.
#
Nothing had been normal since then, his world had been flipped on end. His mother had hoped that the holidays, with family newly around, would change that. As she laid a steaming plate of food down—goose, mashed potatoes, and cranberry relish—and he didn’t change his expression, she knew he wasn’t there yet.
His Aunt Ingrid, who looked much like his mother, only a brunette to his mother’s blonde, said:
[“Saturnine is getting so handsome. What did the doctor say last week?”]
Regina, his mother, tried to indicate to Ingrid that they shouldn’t talk about it. Saturnine had read their lips (he started learning that quickly), got up, and got a drink to detach from their conversation.
He passed by his chuckling Uncle Oliver and saw his older cousin, Michael, banging on a plate.
The living room was bedecked with tinsel and holly, the family gathered around in whatever seats they could find.
His mother sat at the piano. He read off the sheet music that she was playing: “Moonlight Sonata.” Her eyes closed and her torso swayed back and forth as she got lost in the song and notes reverberated around the room.
As melancholy set in, he sneaked upstairs unnoticed. He took out a book about the solar system he’d had since kindergarten. When he got in a mood like this, he liked to stare at his planetary namesake.
Taking rosary beads off a nail in his wall, he began to pray.
He still recited his prayers aloud out of force of habit.
Rosary completed, he opened his laptop and closed his browser whose tabs contained research on deafness he’d been doing.
The word processing app was still open to his diary. Writing, he felt his fingers falling on to keys. He was entranced by the words appearing on screen, but there was no catharsis.
Picking up a tennis ball, he threw it against a wall angrily. The pop of a tennis ball being struck was a sound he loved.
As he stood, he saw the moon now hanging high in the sky.
#
His inner monologue was not silent, he still remembered the sound of his voice as he tried to read their lips (there was still much to learn). It was frustrating learning the basics over again.
Often he went to the bathroom just to wash his face. It was not dirty, it was a process in which he removed his sight, but he had control of it. It was not conscious.
What was conscious was that he didn’t want a DEAF CHILD AREA sign to go up, to change schools, didn’t want to be different, didn’t want to be pitied. Ever. When the words they formed with rudimentary signs said nice things, positive things, things to be thankful for, he saw the pity they tried to hide. He saw and understood better than he used to.
[“Hello”] his cousin David said. Saturnine nodded and dried his face. The first-floor powder room must’ve been occupied, why else would his cousin come up here?
Saturnine went down to continue to watch his mother play. He sat on the staircase looking out through the baluster slats. No one took note of him, they were lost in the music.
He went back up to his room. Michael and David were roughhousing. When he opened the door to his room he felt a push against his head by his left ear.
David’s screaming, he thought with a smile.
Looking at them, he saw he was right. That he could’ve guessed whenever. David was a shrieker, but that feeling made him wonder.
A staccato beat.
Michael’s laughing, he thought proceeding to enter his room. Turning anew, he confirmed that and smiled.
Saturnine ran downstairs, making Michael and David take notice.
Entering the living room, he felt small breezes and pumps of pressure coming his way— applause. His mother had finished the song.
Everyone was facing the piano. Saturnine mumbled a garbled “Excuse me,” his voice had begun to slur in his first year of deafness. As family and friends began to turn toward him he began to sign.
—Excuse me. Pardon me.
[“Encore.”] Saturnine saw a few people call out. His mother’s attention drifted from the accolades to him. Her eyes were locked on her son who was walking with a purpose.
[“I can’t think of anything else.”] he saw her say absentmindedly.
Arriving at the piano, Saturnine reaches out to the book of sheet music. He flipped to “Liebestraume No. 3” by Franz Liszt.
—May I?
Regina nodded, smiling, trying to choke back emotion.
His father walked up, nervous. Saturnine looked up at him and said [“Regina, is this a good idea? What if he can’t?”]
Saturnine merely looked at him and signed--
—Please
—OK.
[“This is one of his favorites.”] His mother tells them.
He took the sheet music, then laid his head on the piano as he plinked out the first few notes. He hadn’t touched the piano in months, it used to be his greatest joy. In the depressive state he wallowed in trying to adjust to his new reality, he stopped, thinking, How could I ever again?
Now, a calm inner quiet had come to him during this season that made him not worry, doubt, or pity himself as much. He’d sat upon this bench and played since before many of his friends could recite their ABCs. He was done stopping himself. It was something else he’d learn to do anew.
A few bars down the page, he leaned back and felt more confident, the song, unheard, flowing through him. Much like his inner voice, his memory of this music still lived within him. He could still feel it.
Regina readied her hands in a moment of doubt, thinking he would make a mistake, but he didn’t. Then she reached to turn the page for him, but he got it right on time.
With that, they all knew they were to let him finish. They watched and enjoyed. He had come into his own again. His parents still lamented that as a child in his formative years he had to adjust and redefine himself before most children have to, and would still have to do so again. But in that awestruck moment, they saw again how remarkable their son was and that they’d allowed themselves to forget that.
Saturnine felt great playing, but was a little off timing-wise on some notes as he was rusty. When he was done, his eyes which had closed—as muscle memory had taken over—opened and he saw something he’d not seen in a while: joy in his parents' faces, the admiration of his family for something other than his so-called bravery, and that they saw him at last, just the same as he’d always been now that he’d found a way to show them.
With all the emotion he felt, he didn’t want to overwhelm his parents, even at nine, even after all that had happened, so he knew what he said (signed) next would be crucial.
—Where are the Christmas songbooks?
His mother, after repeating what he asked for those not versed in ASL, laughed, wiped away a tear, and quickly found one. Saturnine opened it to “O Holy Night,” so they could all sing. His statement had been made, and he no longer needed the spotlight.
She is Our Rock
by Audacia Ray
by Audacia Ray
The eldest sibling, a long-haired butch who prided herself on her abilities to tend to the sourdough starter as well as fell trees and chop wood, started to feel a push down on her bones during her third decade. A much heralded butch top, a dear friend of hers, had been diagnosed with lung cancer though she was not a smoker and was an ultramarathon runner. The LHB tended to the top, delicately respecting her toughness while also nursing her through a decline that would be the death of her. “She is our rock,” their friends said about the LHB as they came to visit the top while she rested and wasted away on the platform bed the two friends had built together long ago. The LHB was proud to be a solid presence for these people she cared about, but she had nowhere to lean. Their friends squeezed the LHB’s bicep (strong now, not from wood chopping but from doing transfers for the top) and gushed, worshipfully, “You’re so strong. I could never do the caretaking you’re doing for the top.” At the top’s funeral, their community curled into the LHB’s arms, let themselves be embraced, and noticed but didn’t say that the LHB was shorter. Maybe the better word was compressed? All the layers of sadness other people had piled on through the top’s illness had created striations in her skin, which was getting harder and harder to the touch. Her time caring for the top had changed her. The tears of everyone who had leaned on her had eroded the softer sediments of her body. She was a rock.
The middle sibling welcomed and embraced her sister-mother role. Her fierce femme armor was hard-won, she constructed it out from underneath her family of origin telling her what was natural and right (not her). Her love was a house built of stones that many had carried a long distance to set down at her feet, for her to decide how they fit together and to make a firm foundation, for her to take the weight away and set her children free. Her daughters came to her for guidance, to learn whom to go to for eyelash extensions and silence about their stubbled chins. Her daughters wanted nothing but softness and hated the ways that others projected hardness onto them while desiring it and loathing it all at once. When friends reported her sixteenth daughter missing but the rest of the world appeared to move on just the same, the middle sibling planned a candlelight vigil for sixteen. Her broken body surfaced in the river the day of the vigil, floating home. Sixteen’s loved ones set floating candles down in the current, the flickering lights reflecting and growing small as they bobbed downstream. The middle sibling became curved and smooth over the years, as the demands on her time and energy lapped at her harder edges, as the current of young femmes washed over her and smoothed the hallways of her home. She was a river stone.
The youngest sibling wanted to run hot and free and liquid through the streets, wind through well-worn canyons like an orange snake. They didn’t want to be contained, held, or cooled down. They were molten and angry, had heard the stories of their siblings, and resented the ways that this expectation and demand for care had weighed them down, reshaped them, turned them to stone instead of allowing full, free expression, the lightness of feather boas and wild birds. But the pull of caretaking was strong. They, somehow, had the internal resources to show up for their chosen family. People leaned on them. They became a baker, kept the insides of the brownies they made soft, and added plant medicines to the batter. They delivered small packages of special brownies to community members who were homebound by their bodies and the anxieties that made the outside world too much. They were a town herald among their people, one who traveled among many households and spread joys, griefs, little gifts, and mutual aid among their people. But as they moved, their softness wore off. The movement made them round and agile, but it also made them cool and hard. They were a rock.
The middle sibling welcomed and embraced her sister-mother role. Her fierce femme armor was hard-won, she constructed it out from underneath her family of origin telling her what was natural and right (not her). Her love was a house built of stones that many had carried a long distance to set down at her feet, for her to decide how they fit together and to make a firm foundation, for her to take the weight away and set her children free. Her daughters came to her for guidance, to learn whom to go to for eyelash extensions and silence about their stubbled chins. Her daughters wanted nothing but softness and hated the ways that others projected hardness onto them while desiring it and loathing it all at once. When friends reported her sixteenth daughter missing but the rest of the world appeared to move on just the same, the middle sibling planned a candlelight vigil for sixteen. Her broken body surfaced in the river the day of the vigil, floating home. Sixteen’s loved ones set floating candles down in the current, the flickering lights reflecting and growing small as they bobbed downstream. The middle sibling became curved and smooth over the years, as the demands on her time and energy lapped at her harder edges, as the current of young femmes washed over her and smoothed the hallways of her home. She was a river stone.
The youngest sibling wanted to run hot and free and liquid through the streets, wind through well-worn canyons like an orange snake. They didn’t want to be contained, held, or cooled down. They were molten and angry, had heard the stories of their siblings, and resented the ways that this expectation and demand for care had weighed them down, reshaped them, turned them to stone instead of allowing full, free expression, the lightness of feather boas and wild birds. But the pull of caretaking was strong. They, somehow, had the internal resources to show up for their chosen family. People leaned on them. They became a baker, kept the insides of the brownies they made soft, and added plant medicines to the batter. They delivered small packages of special brownies to community members who were homebound by their bodies and the anxieties that made the outside world too much. They were a town herald among their people, one who traveled among many households and spread joys, griefs, little gifts, and mutual aid among their people. But as they moved, their softness wore off. The movement made them round and agile, but it also made them cool and hard. They were a rock.
She Was Steady
by Leslie Cairns
by Leslie Cairns
(Content Warning: eating disorders)
When it occurred, the love spiral went wrong, it should have been nighttime. A blood moon,
or a sliver of a fang, hung down low. Love spilling out the brim, or the sides of gravity.
We all conjure the moon when we feel lonely. We all do, yet we believe the moon appeals
only to us.
But when Hazel asks me to conjure spirits, it's midday, in the humid upstate NY summer,
where it feels like time will go on endlessly. We have that feeling we can’t unravel, that we might
turn sixty just sitting here, not knowing where the time has gone. Lazy, yet frantic.
I didn’t know then that I would turn into a walking corpse. Like the shark teeth necklaces
people wear, jangling around and you can almost forget it was taken from a real animal. That it was
once a fang. Taken from something that was once breathing, alive, and wanting.
Her hair and skin were tawny, rich, and kind. Her eyes—I didn’t realize it then, as a restless
teen—were always deep and murky, like the hollows of the ocean bottom. I should have traced them
then, every contour, every inch. But in a way, our love without romance was even richer: safe, no
arguments, a dividend of finding lavender outside after a rain. I always knew she’d run towards the
barn when she let her beagle—Maggie—out too late. I always ran towards the flowers, and she’d
come circling back. Maggie never hid in either place or was somewhere in the murky middle. We’d
find her by shouting her name, then whispering until we heard a crackling of grass. Wet and slick,
her tail brushing mud from the rain. But we went the way we felt safe. And we dovetailed back, like
ghosts, to find her again.
I was fourteen and I hung out with Hazel most, but I also toyed with being a popular girl.
My other friend, Dani, had been a friend since we were too young to starve for attention or labels.
But now, in middle school, Dani had figured out how to get her mom to pay for highlights, the good
salad bar every day, and a trial spot on the cheerleading team. She still fell when she tried to do a
backbend, but she was getting closer.
Dani was testing me every day. Have I kissed a boy, how come my eyebrows are thicker than hers, why
do I still like Doritos...
Dani’s still indulging me with sleepovers, where after a while we would giggle like we were
still in childhood. She’d grab her hands and freeze the frame so she could drool over Legolas when
the movie was paused. You don’t know yet: you are divine. You can get through anything.
But I didn’t know it then. I was quicksand, awkward laughs at cafeteria tables, superman
lunch boxes, and barrettes. It’s like everything good about us is a weakness.
Hazel never wavered though. She was steady. She played video games, wore bathrobes while
drying her hair, and painted her nails an eel green even before it was popular. She loved chicken on
kabobs, smiling at me whenever I said anything, even and especially if it was stupid.
So naive. The last time at Dani’s, she had fluffed her coiffed hair and said I could borrow
her Ouija board, claiming it was weird (after we had used it for hours, making our hands move
around the board, claiming it was the other).
I brought it to Hazel’s at 2 p.m., even after we had exhausted the sleeping in, games, and foot
twirling on Maggie’s fur...plus swimming with her family friends.
She asked if that was the board that conjured tragic things, and I nodded sagely. Smugly,
even. I knew the board was ridiculous. But we were on Atomic Project Road—aptly named—near a
power plant. We should’ve known we were so close the spirits could almost hear our heartbeats.
And so, in that way, they were tempted.
It may be a cliche that my first crush was unknown to me at the time it was unraveling, and
that we conjured ghosts from a Ouija board. Better yet, no one is going to believe it. But I do. I did,
even on that day. It was sweltering but I’ll never forget that we both shivered.
First, we placed our fingers on the board. We asked it basic questions, and to our surprise, it
moved. I played piano, and the movements reminded me of arpeggios: slow, and then with a boring
spirit.
Hazel—in a moment of wisdom—asked how he died and what to call him. Our hands paused there,
waiting to be touched.
“How do you know it’s a guy?” I asked.
She flicked her eyes towards me and covered her hand so only I could read her lips, although I
suppose ghosts hover all around the airways.
“Because I’m scared,” she said. Placed her hands gingerly back on the board. I didn’t think
to ask what she meant. I knew her father towered over her, a military man. Asked questions I didn’t
know the answers to. Didn’t smile and peed with the door open most of the time. Maybe that’s what
she meant. But I wasn’t yet old or brave.
Suddenly, I wanted to protect. Fling my arms around her like the lifeguards do in all the
movies. Shove the board all the way back to Dani’s, on the rich side of town. Have Dani, with her
flamingo-colored fingernails, deal with it. Stop dreaming of coffins, or that this spirit called himself
Mintay when Hazel looked at me.
“Let’s try it with just one finger. Then we’ll know it’s real.”
I nodded. “It is moving really fast,” I added.
She nodded. Her glasses were perfectly poised on her nose, square. Her bangs a crescendo
towards her forehead, tufts and whisps slightly sloped.
Frenzied, that tiny piece of plastic or cardboard began to move as fast as skipping rocks in
water. One & two & three. Dancing with a longtime lover, in a waltz, not wanting to go home.
Spelling the words
You will be sick
Hazel had asthma, so she muttered something about getting a new inhaler. Whiplashing,
flinging its partner, towards the ‘no’ on the board.
“How were you killed?” I asked. I felt defiant, jutting out my chin.
No, not H. You. Leslie. It spelled, then said:
I am... you are... Sick.
Listen
“I’ve never been sick,” I said. Hazel nodded in affirmation. “Not even mono or
chickenpox.”
Not hungry. Not hungry. Not hungry.
“It’s not you?” Hazel said. I realized she was ripping apart her eyelashes, one at a time. I was
the one with the faux friends and the line almost near the cheerleaders, after all. She was usually
steady, unlike me.
“I swear. I swear on Maggie,” I said.
“Please, please, tell us how you died. We need to know. It’s only fair,” said Hazel. Palms
sweaty.
Leslie sick. Do not—be careful.
Then, it dashed towards the moon, as I asked it one more time, “How could I be sick? I’ve
never even gotten strep or broken a bone!”
We barely had a finger on the game piece as it cannoned towards the moon, at the corner.
We didn’t think it mattered. When it was gone, though, we hugged suddenly. Parting. She then made
Taquitos, and there were only three left. They looked like ribs.
We went swimming that day, but I found my eyes kept lingering on her when she went
underwater, even though I knew she knew how to swim.
I kept the Ouija in my closet after that day. Hazel came over all the time, but I pretended it
wasn’t there anymore. Mintay was his name, and I started to trace my fingers over my ribcage, near
my belly button. I never got brave enough to throw it away until much later. When I was in
recovery.
Six months later, in a snowball trajectory that made little sense to me, I shivered myself into
the hospital, vertebrae by vertebrae.
Anorexia nervosa.
In hindsight, I believe it started on the day we conjured ghosts, where I took Hazel’s
enormity for granted. Not really seeing those lazy Sundays with junk food and swimming, as we
waited for summer to turn into something colder and more sinister. I know it’s not rational – unreal
– but I believe all the same. Haven’t you ever believed in irrationality, as it’s changing your mind? A
flicker of a day, or a missed kiss, changing everything?
Hazel was the first to visit. Her arms broiled over with origami birds that we scattered near
my hospital socks, rolled twice downwards because they kept falling off. We laughed but it was
brittle.
She looked at me then the way she had with our hands—full flight—on the board: that maybe we
should stop. We should listen to the moon, to him bidding us
An early goodnight.
or a sliver of a fang, hung down low. Love spilling out the brim, or the sides of gravity.
We all conjure the moon when we feel lonely. We all do, yet we believe the moon appeals
only to us.
But when Hazel asks me to conjure spirits, it's midday, in the humid upstate NY summer,
where it feels like time will go on endlessly. We have that feeling we can’t unravel, that we might
turn sixty just sitting here, not knowing where the time has gone. Lazy, yet frantic.
I didn’t know then that I would turn into a walking corpse. Like the shark teeth necklaces
people wear, jangling around and you can almost forget it was taken from a real animal. That it was
once a fang. Taken from something that was once breathing, alive, and wanting.
Her hair and skin were tawny, rich, and kind. Her eyes—I didn’t realize it then, as a restless
teen—were always deep and murky, like the hollows of the ocean bottom. I should have traced them
then, every contour, every inch. But in a way, our love without romance was even richer: safe, no
arguments, a dividend of finding lavender outside after a rain. I always knew she’d run towards the
barn when she let her beagle—Maggie—out too late. I always ran towards the flowers, and she’d
come circling back. Maggie never hid in either place or was somewhere in the murky middle. We’d
find her by shouting her name, then whispering until we heard a crackling of grass. Wet and slick,
her tail brushing mud from the rain. But we went the way we felt safe. And we dovetailed back, like
ghosts, to find her again.
I was fourteen and I hung out with Hazel most, but I also toyed with being a popular girl.
My other friend, Dani, had been a friend since we were too young to starve for attention or labels.
But now, in middle school, Dani had figured out how to get her mom to pay for highlights, the good
salad bar every day, and a trial spot on the cheerleading team. She still fell when she tried to do a
backbend, but she was getting closer.
Dani was testing me every day. Have I kissed a boy, how come my eyebrows are thicker than hers, why
do I still like Doritos...
Dani’s still indulging me with sleepovers, where after a while we would giggle like we were
still in childhood. She’d grab her hands and freeze the frame so she could drool over Legolas when
the movie was paused. You don’t know yet: you are divine. You can get through anything.
But I didn’t know it then. I was quicksand, awkward laughs at cafeteria tables, superman
lunch boxes, and barrettes. It’s like everything good about us is a weakness.
Hazel never wavered though. She was steady. She played video games, wore bathrobes while
drying her hair, and painted her nails an eel green even before it was popular. She loved chicken on
kabobs, smiling at me whenever I said anything, even and especially if it was stupid.
So naive. The last time at Dani’s, she had fluffed her coiffed hair and said I could borrow
her Ouija board, claiming it was weird (after we had used it for hours, making our hands move
around the board, claiming it was the other).
I brought it to Hazel’s at 2 p.m., even after we had exhausted the sleeping in, games, and foot
twirling on Maggie’s fur...plus swimming with her family friends.
She asked if that was the board that conjured tragic things, and I nodded sagely. Smugly,
even. I knew the board was ridiculous. But we were on Atomic Project Road—aptly named—near a
power plant. We should’ve known we were so close the spirits could almost hear our heartbeats.
And so, in that way, they were tempted.
It may be a cliche that my first crush was unknown to me at the time it was unraveling, and
that we conjured ghosts from a Ouija board. Better yet, no one is going to believe it. But I do. I did,
even on that day. It was sweltering but I’ll never forget that we both shivered.
First, we placed our fingers on the board. We asked it basic questions, and to our surprise, it
moved. I played piano, and the movements reminded me of arpeggios: slow, and then with a boring
spirit.
Hazel—in a moment of wisdom—asked how he died and what to call him. Our hands paused there,
waiting to be touched.
“How do you know it’s a guy?” I asked.
She flicked her eyes towards me and covered her hand so only I could read her lips, although I
suppose ghosts hover all around the airways.
“Because I’m scared,” she said. Placed her hands gingerly back on the board. I didn’t think
to ask what she meant. I knew her father towered over her, a military man. Asked questions I didn’t
know the answers to. Didn’t smile and peed with the door open most of the time. Maybe that’s what
she meant. But I wasn’t yet old or brave.
Suddenly, I wanted to protect. Fling my arms around her like the lifeguards do in all the
movies. Shove the board all the way back to Dani’s, on the rich side of town. Have Dani, with her
flamingo-colored fingernails, deal with it. Stop dreaming of coffins, or that this spirit called himself
Mintay when Hazel looked at me.
“Let’s try it with just one finger. Then we’ll know it’s real.”
I nodded. “It is moving really fast,” I added.
She nodded. Her glasses were perfectly poised on her nose, square. Her bangs a crescendo
towards her forehead, tufts and whisps slightly sloped.
Frenzied, that tiny piece of plastic or cardboard began to move as fast as skipping rocks in
water. One & two & three. Dancing with a longtime lover, in a waltz, not wanting to go home.
Spelling the words
You will be sick
Hazel had asthma, so she muttered something about getting a new inhaler. Whiplashing,
flinging its partner, towards the ‘no’ on the board.
“How were you killed?” I asked. I felt defiant, jutting out my chin.
No, not H. You. Leslie. It spelled, then said:
I am... you are... Sick.
Listen
“I’ve never been sick,” I said. Hazel nodded in affirmation. “Not even mono or
chickenpox.”
Not hungry. Not hungry. Not hungry.
“It’s not you?” Hazel said. I realized she was ripping apart her eyelashes, one at a time. I was
the one with the faux friends and the line almost near the cheerleaders, after all. She was usually
steady, unlike me.
“I swear. I swear on Maggie,” I said.
“Please, please, tell us how you died. We need to know. It’s only fair,” said Hazel. Palms
sweaty.
Leslie sick. Do not—be careful.
Then, it dashed towards the moon, as I asked it one more time, “How could I be sick? I’ve
never even gotten strep or broken a bone!”
We barely had a finger on the game piece as it cannoned towards the moon, at the corner.
We didn’t think it mattered. When it was gone, though, we hugged suddenly. Parting. She then made
Taquitos, and there were only three left. They looked like ribs.
We went swimming that day, but I found my eyes kept lingering on her when she went
underwater, even though I knew she knew how to swim.
I kept the Ouija in my closet after that day. Hazel came over all the time, but I pretended it
wasn’t there anymore. Mintay was his name, and I started to trace my fingers over my ribcage, near
my belly button. I never got brave enough to throw it away until much later. When I was in
recovery.
Six months later, in a snowball trajectory that made little sense to me, I shivered myself into
the hospital, vertebrae by vertebrae.
Anorexia nervosa.
In hindsight, I believe it started on the day we conjured ghosts, where I took Hazel’s
enormity for granted. Not really seeing those lazy Sundays with junk food and swimming, as we
waited for summer to turn into something colder and more sinister. I know it’s not rational – unreal
– but I believe all the same. Haven’t you ever believed in irrationality, as it’s changing your mind? A
flicker of a day, or a missed kiss, changing everything?
Hazel was the first to visit. Her arms broiled over with origami birds that we scattered near
my hospital socks, rolled twice downwards because they kept falling off. We laughed but it was
brittle.
She looked at me then the way she had with our hands—full flight—on the board: that maybe we
should stop. We should listen to the moon, to him bidding us
An early goodnight.
Hybrid Literature
If Not Your Brown Body, Why This Earth?
by Nupur Shah
by Nupur Shah
A (Re)-Working of Anne Carson’s
Fragments of Sapph0
Fragments of Sapph0
Prelude: Like the stars, as much surface-scattered as they are depth-embedded into the night, so does my re-reading of Sappho navigate for me the less-traveled road of queerness. Sappho’s poetry flourishes as much between the word-voids as inside the available meanings. Anne Carson’s 2003 English translation tantalizingly titles it “If Not, Winter” and subtitles it as Fragments, while presenting them as such. Upon my first reading of it, a deep discomfiture was evoked by the blankness gawking at me from where the words were missing on the page. However, later, I was able to reconcile with the fact that truth is always fragmentary; especially love’s truth, from which whole identities can flow. It is this flowingness of becoming and whose existential geology Sappho’s incompleteable verse maps with such beauty that defines, for me, the essence of queeribility. But narrative being every (jilted) lover’s instinct, I am sometimes urged to fill in the blanks. This is what I attempt in the two anti-fragments below, written in the aftermath of a painful farewell. I guess I was trying to ‘move on’ or not.
Words in italics & ][ as found in the original.
Words in italics & ][ as found in the original.
***
Fragment #21
sunchaliced I pour and pour my pores [
waiting for you at the promised curb [
if you have been your usual forgetful about me oh what a] pity
but do I dare let this thought spill out ] trembling
down the corridors of my brain where moons have churned & planets crushed [
because (don’t I know this) I am still waiting with my] flesh by now old age
& the long hair of darkness that has fallen over me] covers
the day in the faint fabric (always already ripped) of memory which ] flies in pursuit
of you & revenge & ravishment [
but wait self go not so ungentle off the love handles nor yet so ig] noble
for she may have had a heart yours wasn’t aware of ] taking
while you played with the one taken and asked it to] sing to us
the one the violets in her lap & your own loveburntbody both sat under this tree
from which the perfect dusk now drips to remind you that] mostly
it is for the faithful that fate] goes astray
Fragment #26
the arclight of an emotion] frequently
assails me through the blacknight whispering] for those
I treat well are the ones who most of all
invariably] harm me
I know this is a defensive longing & which (I know) is supposed to be] crazy
and yet] how can I unknow its
feeling of being a refuge an almost unburdening]
like a pale fire] flaming inside a snowmouth
what I mean is that ] you, I want
to re-remake into me] to suffer
what you have made of me because ] in myself I am
aware of this
that without you] I am not
& that with you] I cannot be
this only means that love’s way of going on] is that we exchange places
sunchaliced I pour and pour my pores [
waiting for you at the promised curb [
if you have been your usual forgetful about me oh what a] pity
but do I dare let this thought spill out ] trembling
down the corridors of my brain where moons have churned & planets crushed [
because (don’t I know this) I am still waiting with my] flesh by now old age
& the long hair of darkness that has fallen over me] covers
the day in the faint fabric (always already ripped) of memory which ] flies in pursuit
of you & revenge & ravishment [
but wait self go not so ungentle off the love handles nor yet so ig] noble
for she may have had a heart yours wasn’t aware of ] taking
while you played with the one taken and asked it to] sing to us
the one the violets in her lap & your own loveburntbody both sat under this tree
from which the perfect dusk now drips to remind you that] mostly
it is for the faithful that fate] goes astray
Fragment #26
the arclight of an emotion] frequently
assails me through the blacknight whispering] for those
I treat well are the ones who most of all
invariably] harm me
I know this is a defensive longing & which (I know) is supposed to be] crazy
and yet] how can I unknow its
feeling of being a refuge an almost unburdening]
like a pale fire] flaming inside a snowmouth
what I mean is that ] you, I want
to re-remake into me] to suffer
what you have made of me because ] in myself I am
aware of this
that without you] I am not
& that with you] I cannot be
this only means that love’s way of going on] is that we exchange places
Merivale
by Elinora Westfall
by Elinora Westfall
[Transcript]
On the 28th March 1941, Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse. The following is an Ekphrastic poem inspired by the painting of her sister, Vanessa Bell, by fellow Bloomsbury Group member, Duncan Grant. This poem is a moment wherein Vanessa is writing to her sister,
only a week or two after her death, where life continues to break back in, with all of its sharp edges.
Have you ever been to Merivale?
She writes. While
Angelica, (six), fist full of flowers, arranges them in a pattern similar to that of the painted tile of the hearth.
Violet stalks with purple faces for the V and daisies for the W while she sits, cross-legged, in the milk-dish of sunlight coming in through the half-open door.
Have you ever been to Merivale?
She begins again. Blots the end of the pen, nib down for too long on the fold of cloth.
Watches the ink bleed out blue, blue, blue…Perhaps--
She falters,
Perhaps we shall go, you, me--
A song thrush in the wisteria just outside of the window calls from her nest, Leonard whistles back from where he stands between the tulips
Vita perhaps,
Angelica hums a tune half-forgotten and half-remembered,
and the children, of course, they do so love to see you.
She smiles, watches her daughter weave her own initials with petals from the Forsythia.
And, upon our last visit, Angelica fell rather in love with a cow which she gave your name to--
Out in the garden again, just by the door, Angelica picks weeds, plucked with the hollow sound of the milk thistle or dandelion stalk
A brown cow, all doe-eyes, soft-muzzle. Standing on legs with knees like pollarded trees.
She smiles. Gains momentum. Shifts in her chair that creaks and scrapes against the flagstone floor.
Netty’s here, folding your stockings, rolling them into yellow balls like eggs—like eggs, in a basket.
As soon as she is gone, I’ll unravel them, fitting perhaps, for I seem myself unraveled.
She hears Netty on the stairs. Knows the satisfaction she will gain from this rolled nest of previously unraveled and unkempt stockings.
Did I tell you I see Vita now?
She comes to dinner in your place, sits in your chair with its back to the fire, with some hesitation, of course.
She looks at me. And I in her see you, and you in me she sees, though neither of us has spoken of this of course.
Instead, darling Tom slaps cards down upon the table, Queen of Hearts upturned, only fleetingly, between her and I,
And then, of course, Duncan slaps his card down too—the King, perhaps, of Spades, as suits him, and the moment passes, without whistle or trace--
The song thrush sings again, greets her mate with a beak of soft sheep’s wool scraps.
—only the echo for which I have spent these last few weeks digging for beneath the roots of speculation, only to find dust and grit, the shriveled bulb of a daffodil dug up too often and the skull of a blackbird buried by Angelica, I am sure, though at your behest.
Now, the ticking of the clock, the whirr, the readying, readying, then the chime. Too loud. Always, too loud.
She closes her eyes, waits, waits, for stillness, and then--
Have you ever been to Merivale?
She has digressed for too long.
I ask not because of the (now) literary bovine, but because, in passing a cottage I noticed a young woman, a girl, perhaps, sat, elbows on the windowsill, Mrs. Dalloway between her hands—and it was such a shock to see you there, so suddenly, so starkly, in this house painted the color of our Cornish sea, because you see (as only you do, you did) I look for traces of you, without knowing it at all, and I find I cannot speak, cannot say, as you would have done, so eloquently, but I cannot, neither with voice nor with pen the pain it is to glimpse you so suddenly, and so sharply within your absence.
The house is quiet, the bird has flown, Angelica has gone, the garden too tempting.
Such is death.
The stillness stretches.
But one of these days we may contrive to speak again. Who knows?
Again, the stillness
My darling Virginia, I miss you.
And this letter is nothing, without you to receive it.
The hesitancy of pen held above paper.
Yours, always,
V.
On the 28th March 1941, Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse. The following is an Ekphrastic poem inspired by the painting of her sister, Vanessa Bell, by fellow Bloomsbury Group member, Duncan Grant. This poem is a moment wherein Vanessa is writing to her sister,
only a week or two after her death, where life continues to break back in, with all of its sharp edges.
Have you ever been to Merivale?
She writes. While
Angelica, (six), fist full of flowers, arranges them in a pattern similar to that of the painted tile of the hearth.
Violet stalks with purple faces for the V and daisies for the W while she sits, cross-legged, in the milk-dish of sunlight coming in through the half-open door.
Have you ever been to Merivale?
She begins again. Blots the end of the pen, nib down for too long on the fold of cloth.
Watches the ink bleed out blue, blue, blue…Perhaps--
She falters,
Perhaps we shall go, you, me--
A song thrush in the wisteria just outside of the window calls from her nest, Leonard whistles back from where he stands between the tulips
Vita perhaps,
Angelica hums a tune half-forgotten and half-remembered,
and the children, of course, they do so love to see you.
She smiles, watches her daughter weave her own initials with petals from the Forsythia.
And, upon our last visit, Angelica fell rather in love with a cow which she gave your name to--
Out in the garden again, just by the door, Angelica picks weeds, plucked with the hollow sound of the milk thistle or dandelion stalk
A brown cow, all doe-eyes, soft-muzzle. Standing on legs with knees like pollarded trees.
She smiles. Gains momentum. Shifts in her chair that creaks and scrapes against the flagstone floor.
Netty’s here, folding your stockings, rolling them into yellow balls like eggs—like eggs, in a basket.
As soon as she is gone, I’ll unravel them, fitting perhaps, for I seem myself unraveled.
She hears Netty on the stairs. Knows the satisfaction she will gain from this rolled nest of previously unraveled and unkempt stockings.
Did I tell you I see Vita now?
She comes to dinner in your place, sits in your chair with its back to the fire, with some hesitation, of course.
She looks at me. And I in her see you, and you in me she sees, though neither of us has spoken of this of course.
Instead, darling Tom slaps cards down upon the table, Queen of Hearts upturned, only fleetingly, between her and I,
And then, of course, Duncan slaps his card down too—the King, perhaps, of Spades, as suits him, and the moment passes, without whistle or trace--
The song thrush sings again, greets her mate with a beak of soft sheep’s wool scraps.
—only the echo for which I have spent these last few weeks digging for beneath the roots of speculation, only to find dust and grit, the shriveled bulb of a daffodil dug up too often and the skull of a blackbird buried by Angelica, I am sure, though at your behest.
Now, the ticking of the clock, the whirr, the readying, readying, then the chime. Too loud. Always, too loud.
She closes her eyes, waits, waits, for stillness, and then--
Have you ever been to Merivale?
She has digressed for too long.
I ask not because of the (now) literary bovine, but because, in passing a cottage I noticed a young woman, a girl, perhaps, sat, elbows on the windowsill, Mrs. Dalloway between her hands—and it was such a shock to see you there, so suddenly, so starkly, in this house painted the color of our Cornish sea, because you see (as only you do, you did) I look for traces of you, without knowing it at all, and I find I cannot speak, cannot say, as you would have done, so eloquently, but I cannot, neither with voice nor with pen the pain it is to glimpse you so suddenly, and so sharply within your absence.
The house is quiet, the bird has flown, Angelica has gone, the garden too tempting.
Such is death.
The stillness stretches.
But one of these days we may contrive to speak again. Who knows?
Again, the stillness
My darling Virginia, I miss you.
And this letter is nothing, without you to receive it.
The hesitancy of pen held above paper.
Yours, always,
V.
my family doesn't know I'm queer / at least the ocean does
by Sam Moe
by Sam Moe
We break up somewhere off the Atlantic, I won’t hand you the anchor, I won’t help with wine glasses and guests, if you need me, I’ll be in my cabin (you don’t) and I’m telling myself I should have done better, what did I expect, you touched my arm, I haven’t been numb since. My father would’ve warned me not to love a woman like you—if he even knew she was lost at sea, stubborn as the waiting jaws of lantern fish, he might agree—your eyes are lights in the woods ashore, those same woods we carried crates of crustaceans to cook, the wedding wasn’t for hours, we saw brides chase through woods like deer, their hair soft and honey-hued, That could be us, you said. I looked over only to find you focused on deep green rollups, you rotated plates so indispensable, overwrought, and respectfully faced the guests. Service is storm themed, I don’t care, I’m downstairs praying for hail to create shelter, you might say sorry, I won’t hear you over the cacophony of blue, gray, crystal, I toss anchors overboard. Our history is hopeless, hips, harmony turned fists, I don’t trust you near my lips. The dinner guests laugh, lean back in navy-blue booths, each printed with cartoon crabs and seals. Real aquatic creatures have scars, oils, coral bruises, their beloved captain once threw trash into the sea, she tried to out me to my mother, she told me it was liberating to turn off her mind for a few minutes at a time. I’m becoming a barnacle, when I uncork wine all that comes out are sturgeons, vaquita ghosts, a moray eel tangling my wrist like bracelets. There are seagrasses, diatoms blue as the promise you gave. Fins rise from the sea, a mermaid calls my name, says sea lettuce is better than iceberg, I guess I believe her. So we leave, everything is waterwheel and eelgrass, parrot feather in bottles, messages in coralline, a locket you once gave me floating away towards gorgeous glittering water hawks, I’ll later hear the stories about how you turned your house turn into a forest, I’ll be in a cable knit sweater, I’ll be frequenting the water bars with my demigod girlfriend, the bartenders will say She sure loves salt, I’ll say, That she does, before we skip out on our tab for the icebox heart of night. I’m cold all the time, new-you says I’m beautiful, blue as lobster pearls, clam paws, we’re no longer playing games, haunting in tides and the wide-open bites of a waxen, ex-shaped jellyfish scar around your ankle. Are you icing the raw? Or are you giving into the shore, hurt, razor fins of clear-eyed manta ray gazes, I’ll never reach you again, I’d rather give up my lungs, you’ll be alright, please tell me you’re done with all that, please don’t forget to tell me you’re still alive.
Summer Job on the Night Shift / Falling Wrenches
by Randy Stauffer
by Randy Stauffer
|
The bell ends the shift at midnight.
Released wrenches echo across the shop floor as t-shirts come off. We walk out into a resistant August heat and head to his ‘72 Charger. The lime-green surface reflects the cigarette by his leg. I sidle up to him enough to brush his shoulder. Still early, we take a run to Jersey to get a 6 pack, then head to the fields behind the bowling lane, a landscape of ad hoc racing strips and lumber yards. Trying to pass a ‘69 Mustang, he hands me his beer and accelerates but expert shifting fails. Defeated, we drive to Lake Nockamixon. We finish our beers and take another. Sitting silently, the humidity explodes into lightning and rain begins to hit the windshield. I watch shadows cast by the streetlamp roll down his arm. He gives me a ride home and I sleep, closing in on dreams where we win, before waking to mow the lawn. |
Poetry
Abra to Judith (1620)
by Emma Cholip
by Emma Cholip
Accept your agony, Judith
to revel in your darkness
is how you survive.
History will not remember you
for your soothing voice
or your gentle hands,
only your fiery rage.
So use it, vindictive Judith
use the pain to show him
we can be silk against skin
and the edge of a sword
pressed against his neck.
But I will remember you, tender Judith
for the affection in your eyes
and the softness of your lips,
how we made ourselves anew
our legacies intertwined.
to revel in your darkness
is how you survive.
History will not remember you
for your soothing voice
or your gentle hands,
only your fiery rage.
So use it, vindictive Judith
use the pain to show him
we can be silk against skin
and the edge of a sword
pressed against his neck.
But I will remember you, tender Judith
for the affection in your eyes
and the softness of your lips,
how we made ourselves anew
our legacies intertwined.
euphony
by BEE LB
by BEE LB
your liquid voice trembles with the weight
of the words on your soothing tongue
the weight, too, of your body pressed alongside
my own, the velvet touch of skin against skin
movement shaping sound with intention,
potential crawling across the lilt of your
voice making its way between us, grasping
gentle the whole of you in my grip
do you see? i find myself in the curve of your
mouth, your voice a gift i cannot hold but do try
my hands reaching through the space between
us, caressing the sounds spilled from your lips,
fingers splitting the words like bread, a feast
for our two mouths’ endless hunger, waiting open
touch spills from empty palm into your waiting hand
and like this, our bodies rejoice, the frequency of your
touch is unceasing. do you see? the whispered
reverence of your eyes holding mine. i am with you, here
i trust in the language of your mouth
on mine, your voice spreading across my body
blanket-heavy in the cold of open air
i burrow into the warmth of your voice,
watching your lips wrap around the shape of new
words as they make their way across the whole
of me, the musicality of coming together, the miracle
of joy erupting from our shared, silken tongue
of the words on your soothing tongue
the weight, too, of your body pressed alongside
my own, the velvet touch of skin against skin
movement shaping sound with intention,
potential crawling across the lilt of your
voice making its way between us, grasping
gentle the whole of you in my grip
do you see? i find myself in the curve of your
mouth, your voice a gift i cannot hold but do try
my hands reaching through the space between
us, caressing the sounds spilled from your lips,
fingers splitting the words like bread, a feast
for our two mouths’ endless hunger, waiting open
touch spills from empty palm into your waiting hand
and like this, our bodies rejoice, the frequency of your
touch is unceasing. do you see? the whispered
reverence of your eyes holding mine. i am with you, here
i trust in the language of your mouth
on mine, your voice spreading across my body
blanket-heavy in the cold of open air
i burrow into the warmth of your voice,
watching your lips wrap around the shape of new
words as they make their way across the whole
of me, the musicality of coming together, the miracle
of joy erupting from our shared, silken tongue
I wake up each week / just to head towards you
by Sam Moe
by Sam Moe
I’m not supposed to trust you. my hair is falling apart
and I’ve been staring at my reflection in your mirror
for ten minutes when your soft knock shocks the focus
I don’t belong, yet you’ve invited me in, and anyway,
what’s a good dinner without someone to waste
your time? tonight you wear a dozen flowers in your
braid and your eyeliner is smudged like mine. I can’t bear
to hold your gaze so I act the part of a too-blue heart
and my flowers have molars, you reach out to encase
my dreams in your scent. I know this old talk, mirror-
and-jewel toned horse statues guard the kitchen, say
you’ll defend me if they ever find out, say my focus
is bad, say you’ll follow me into hell, and then the opus
room where opals and acorns adorn the shelves, your
fear is that I’ll leave, my fear is I’ll be eaten alive by way
of whatever hungers are lurking, these days we part
late, we pretend to hate each other, we are lake shimmer
and we only eat gorgeous green-gold oysters from bed. taste
the divine, string along friends, I’m not praying in haste,
I’m not lurking in the shawls of pasture reeds, moats
of cream-dream daffodils, there is eternal spite, mirror-
mirror mimosa dahlias, quilt-fire gladiolas, real lilies, you’re
catching me looking your way but baby don’t tear apart
my reputation, I don’t want anyone else to hurt me. away
in the garden I’m not waiting for a kiss, for a fight, for spry
leaves and ankle tears, oh someone to fold my heart, waste
my time, it helps the heat leave my ears and hands. this part
is always a sinew, whose side am I on anyway? for us
to be in the same space is just another Sunday night, you’re
right, they won’t suspect, but what if I want to light mirror
me on fire, what if I’ve burnt my life down before? simmered
in the ashes of destruction and heartbreak, I had a way
with words but now I can’t recall psalms—to tell your
truth or to lock your soul in an oak chest, well, a taste
of who I really am is as delicious as a sea-sugar, so focus
on me, we’re in this together and no one will bear us apart,
we’re mirror images of wasted time, we silver-cowboy boots
and diamond choker doves, we could put the matches away,
just once I’d like my way to not hurt my heart, I’d like you to
privately hold this star, show us that lying can win, that your
protected affection is not going to lose, I won’t hold apart, I’m better
at pretending, now let’s return to the party, darling we can’t let them
catch us without knives up our sleeves.
and I’ve been staring at my reflection in your mirror
for ten minutes when your soft knock shocks the focus
I don’t belong, yet you’ve invited me in, and anyway,
what’s a good dinner without someone to waste
your time? tonight you wear a dozen flowers in your
braid and your eyeliner is smudged like mine. I can’t bear
to hold your gaze so I act the part of a too-blue heart
and my flowers have molars, you reach out to encase
my dreams in your scent. I know this old talk, mirror-
and-jewel toned horse statues guard the kitchen, say
you’ll defend me if they ever find out, say my focus
is bad, say you’ll follow me into hell, and then the opus
room where opals and acorns adorn the shelves, your
fear is that I’ll leave, my fear is I’ll be eaten alive by way
of whatever hungers are lurking, these days we part
late, we pretend to hate each other, we are lake shimmer
and we only eat gorgeous green-gold oysters from bed. taste
the divine, string along friends, I’m not praying in haste,
I’m not lurking in the shawls of pasture reeds, moats
of cream-dream daffodils, there is eternal spite, mirror-
mirror mimosa dahlias, quilt-fire gladiolas, real lilies, you’re
catching me looking your way but baby don’t tear apart
my reputation, I don’t want anyone else to hurt me. away
in the garden I’m not waiting for a kiss, for a fight, for spry
leaves and ankle tears, oh someone to fold my heart, waste
my time, it helps the heat leave my ears and hands. this part
is always a sinew, whose side am I on anyway? for us
to be in the same space is just another Sunday night, you’re
right, they won’t suspect, but what if I want to light mirror
me on fire, what if I’ve burnt my life down before? simmered
in the ashes of destruction and heartbreak, I had a way
with words but now I can’t recall psalms—to tell your
truth or to lock your soul in an oak chest, well, a taste
of who I really am is as delicious as a sea-sugar, so focus
on me, we’re in this together and no one will bear us apart,
we’re mirror images of wasted time, we silver-cowboy boots
and diamond choker doves, we could put the matches away,
just once I’d like my way to not hurt my heart, I’d like you to
privately hold this star, show us that lying can win, that your
protected affection is not going to lose, I won’t hold apart, I’m better
at pretending, now let’s return to the party, darling we can’t let them
catch us without knives up our sleeves.
Ohio Wedding Woe Marks
by Alex Russell
by Alex Russell
I remember the dark cold field outside, it was only a 12 mile walk
We didn’t have anywhere else to be
It was like we had always been part of the flowers and their congress
All their laws were made naturally
West where the mountains are, just over the knoll…and the next knoll—and the one after that
Before the end of occult things, we had hand-written books
for spell-casting and decision-making
and curses & wishes
and dreams
Tyrannical sunlight’s constantly crashing through our windows
Your dark brown hair isn’t a novel and it isn’t ‘truth’
the way the word gets puked out at every turnpike by people who are
comfortable eating at truck stops in the middle of the day
There’s dirt on my hands and thank god it’s mine
Sunlight comes crashing in again
a screaming infuriated radioactive wavelength space power
I’m fixing the small cracks in the boat as we speak—it took me years to get you on the phone--
but one more year of this
of traveling and there won’t be any more voyages in me to make—I see you
as you are in visions that pose as dreams; both worlds of the imagination have hands--
and hands were the first murder weapon in history, ever--
…I look around and it’s the most casually depressing thing since Armageddon:
all the old meeting places have been eaten up, chewed in, swallowed, and finally regurgitated
History has its own damages and markers
I guess
We didn’t have anywhere else to be
It was like we had always been part of the flowers and their congress
All their laws were made naturally
West where the mountains are, just over the knoll…and the next knoll—and the one after that
Before the end of occult things, we had hand-written books
for spell-casting and decision-making
and curses & wishes
and dreams
Tyrannical sunlight’s constantly crashing through our windows
Your dark brown hair isn’t a novel and it isn’t ‘truth’
the way the word gets puked out at every turnpike by people who are
comfortable eating at truck stops in the middle of the day
There’s dirt on my hands and thank god it’s mine
Sunlight comes crashing in again
a screaming infuriated radioactive wavelength space power
I’m fixing the small cracks in the boat as we speak—it took me years to get you on the phone--
but one more year of this
of traveling and there won’t be any more voyages in me to make—I see you
as you are in visions that pose as dreams; both worlds of the imagination have hands--
and hands were the first murder weapon in history, ever--
…I look around and it’s the most casually depressing thing since Armageddon:
all the old meeting places have been eaten up, chewed in, swallowed, and finally regurgitated
History has its own damages and markers
I guess
Settle(d)
by Leia K. Bradley
by Leia K. Bradley
I watch my tall, tawny love exit the tent,
kissing me good morning like swatting a mosquito.
I perch on my haunches, taking mortar and pestle to lavender sprigs.
I add the lilac powder to my oatmeal, add berries, cinnamon for sultry sweet
Offer some to the moon, to the coyotes, wherever they are. Hopefully somewhere with shade.
I cook her thick-cut bacon in the cast iron, even though I don’t eat meat.
She didn’t sleep well, she says, You always wake me up.
I was dreaming of running on all fours, instinct like lupine lore,
dreamt of eating blueberries in a sandstorm.
I don’t tell her these things
just apologize instead. She nods.
I watch the thin line of her lips sipping tea in summer heat.
She won’t eat blueberries because they stain the teeth.
I don’t remember why I started loving her.
I bathe her in the stream. I let her touch me by the riverbed.
She says she feels closest to me when I’m five fingers deep
And I answer with each of them, one by one.
When the sun lilts in to sear across the west, I draw our initials in the red dirt.
She toes a heart around them with her hiking boot.
Is love supposed to feel so routine? she asks.
I kneel to touch the settled dust, smear it across her forehead with my thumb,
press my lips there.
I gather pine seeds in the canyon’s curve,
walk back to the river alone, skinnydip in the cool rush of watery rust.
The coyotes howl high at moonrise, and I answer back. No, it isn’t supposed to feel
like nothing. Some obligatory habit.
But the years between us are heavy, ground hard, months poured and packed
days into decades like dust into sandstone.
I drop my head beneath the water’s edge, open my eyes to the blur of liquid earth.
I walk back to the campsite in a white sundress, dripping wet, dust clinging to soles.
Her eyes make the distance. Wordless,
she pours herself a hot tea in ninety-eight degrees.
Neither of us will trade solid comfort for fatelessly afloat,
directionless.
Neither of us will bother to leave.
kissing me good morning like swatting a mosquito.
I perch on my haunches, taking mortar and pestle to lavender sprigs.
I add the lilac powder to my oatmeal, add berries, cinnamon for sultry sweet
Offer some to the moon, to the coyotes, wherever they are. Hopefully somewhere with shade.
I cook her thick-cut bacon in the cast iron, even though I don’t eat meat.
She didn’t sleep well, she says, You always wake me up.
I was dreaming of running on all fours, instinct like lupine lore,
dreamt of eating blueberries in a sandstorm.
I don’t tell her these things
just apologize instead. She nods.
I watch the thin line of her lips sipping tea in summer heat.
She won’t eat blueberries because they stain the teeth.
I don’t remember why I started loving her.
I bathe her in the stream. I let her touch me by the riverbed.
She says she feels closest to me when I’m five fingers deep
And I answer with each of them, one by one.
When the sun lilts in to sear across the west, I draw our initials in the red dirt.
She toes a heart around them with her hiking boot.
Is love supposed to feel so routine? she asks.
I kneel to touch the settled dust, smear it across her forehead with my thumb,
press my lips there.
I gather pine seeds in the canyon’s curve,
walk back to the river alone, skinnydip in the cool rush of watery rust.
The coyotes howl high at moonrise, and I answer back. No, it isn’t supposed to feel
like nothing. Some obligatory habit.
But the years between us are heavy, ground hard, months poured and packed
days into decades like dust into sandstone.
I drop my head beneath the water’s edge, open my eyes to the blur of liquid earth.
I walk back to the campsite in a white sundress, dripping wet, dust clinging to soles.
Her eyes make the distance. Wordless,
she pours herself a hot tea in ninety-eight degrees.
Neither of us will trade solid comfort for fatelessly afloat,
directionless.
Neither of us will bother to leave.
Strelitzia or bird of paradise
by Noemi Mangialardi
by Noemi Mangialardi
She is a strelitzia and her hair is like so
she says bite me as if she were a succulent
and I am incredibly nervous so I bite my guts instead
she then asks me what do I taste like
I tell her the salt is burning my mouth
the girl’s disappointed
and licks my tongue to see what all the fuss is about
her laugh, abrupt, is chewed gum
how it sticks on all those feelings one does not want to share
plants are bitches, is another thing she says
water-based attention-cravers, bitches
I mean, are they?
or am I an exceptionally good neglector?
I can see that we share the same thirst
our feet cutting through the dirt in the wasteland
are tired and swollen
yet, they keep on digging
well, humans are attention-seekers too, nothing new
and they perish just as good
is how I respond
her leaves and my fingers break in the same way
we give up, eventually
and waste our last breath onto each other
she says bite me as if she were a succulent
and I am incredibly nervous so I bite my guts instead
she then asks me what do I taste like
I tell her the salt is burning my mouth
the girl’s disappointed
and licks my tongue to see what all the fuss is about
her laugh, abrupt, is chewed gum
how it sticks on all those feelings one does not want to share
plants are bitches, is another thing she says
water-based attention-cravers, bitches
I mean, are they?
or am I an exceptionally good neglector?
I can see that we share the same thirst
our feet cutting through the dirt in the wasteland
are tired and swollen
yet, they keep on digging
well, humans are attention-seekers too, nothing new
and they perish just as good
is how I respond
her leaves and my fingers break in the same way
we give up, eventually
and waste our last breath onto each other
The Deviant Tree
by Mikal Wix
by Mikal Wix
Perhaps he’s the only one to breathe this rarefied air today
Sloughing off casual insults, blustering punches thrown
Skin folding over itself to thicken, like a hatchling’s shell.
Maybe he’s here to forget his father and all other barking breeds
To fool his mother out of worry, out of snot and tears
To lie to everyone except the poems and other mirrors.
But he’s not alone, barefoot and stoned by burls and bruises
Waiting behind this service station, out of sight for delight
For the eyes that lead to hands and back again.
Call him fag, girl, queen, but only if you are one
Or bud, dude, stud, if you want some
For the hands that lead to mouths and back again.
Worship him in rains that never end, like a Carpenters tune
From headwater to deluge, like the way a flash flood runs
Through an arroyo in May, claiming the filth his own.
Shelter him from the imposition of contempt by peasants
Priests, police, pundits, and scorn of other father tricks
Shifty ones claiming to save children from sophistry.
Love him in all the newborn moments behind places and in spaces
Bookstores, bars, the wharf, if you need some
For the mouths that accept what’s taken and given.
Treasure him for lovers who fold the laws into themselves
Partners, boyfriends, husbands, if you want one or two
For how to father the fate of fruit: peach, root, and tree.
Sloughing off casual insults, blustering punches thrown
Skin folding over itself to thicken, like a hatchling’s shell.
Maybe he’s here to forget his father and all other barking breeds
To fool his mother out of worry, out of snot and tears
To lie to everyone except the poems and other mirrors.
But he’s not alone, barefoot and stoned by burls and bruises
Waiting behind this service station, out of sight for delight
For the eyes that lead to hands and back again.
Call him fag, girl, queen, but only if you are one
Or bud, dude, stud, if you want some
For the hands that lead to mouths and back again.
Worship him in rains that never end, like a Carpenters tune
From headwater to deluge, like the way a flash flood runs
Through an arroyo in May, claiming the filth his own.
Shelter him from the imposition of contempt by peasants
Priests, police, pundits, and scorn of other father tricks
Shifty ones claiming to save children from sophistry.
Love him in all the newborn moments behind places and in spaces
Bookstores, bars, the wharf, if you need some
For the mouths that accept what’s taken and given.
Treasure him for lovers who fold the laws into themselves
Partners, boyfriends, husbands, if you want one or two
For how to father the fate of fruit: peach, root, and tree.
The Unholy Feminine
by E.M. Lark
by E.M. Lark
(Content Warning: gender dysphoria)
i.
“She” should be light.
It sounds light after all, the ring of my mother’s laughter
Offbeat grandfather chimes in the foyer
A tender whisper between lovers’ lips--
“She.”
She was brighter than Apollo’s sweet sun
Louder than any school bell
Bigger than life itself
And that wouldn’t do.
No that simply would not do--
Who was I — who was she — if she was not divinely made for someone else’s use?
I remember the first time someone bit my lip too hard
And they started to draw blood.
I could taste their venom,
sweeter than the tears they made me shed
And lovers’ promises stitch into my skin--
“She.”
ii.
The devastation became her.
It shut out the sun and made way for storms
To wear her out and leave her to rust--
My body was suddenly not enough
For anyone, or anything,
If I was not feigning divinity:
“Weaponize your big brown eyes,
Lashes out like daggers,
Paint your face with the ashes
Of those who have deemed you unworthy.
You are beautiful
she
As long as
she
You do
she
What we say.”
iii.
I sat at the altar and prayed for all of this to change
My voice cried and cracked at the high note
And not a sound was heard
What it means to live this way
Is to never live for yourself--
Product for the masses, holy order of insecurity,
We pray to you for assured destruction.
Is this what Aphrodite would have wanted for me?
Beauty’s beholder has a cruel sense of humor
And I find myself wanting to go blind
There is no place left for me here--
So I lock the doors behind me and seal it with a sanguine kiss.
iv (epilogue).
Years will go by and people will only hear whispers
The calls and pleas for their beloved girl long gone
The church doors will always be open for her
But she will refuse to enter
And all of her friends
All of her family
And lovers will say, “She?
She’s not around much anymore.”
“She” should be light.
It sounds light after all, the ring of my mother’s laughter
Offbeat grandfather chimes in the foyer
A tender whisper between lovers’ lips--
“She.”
She was brighter than Apollo’s sweet sun
Louder than any school bell
Bigger than life itself
And that wouldn’t do.
No that simply would not do--
Who was I — who was she — if she was not divinely made for someone else’s use?
I remember the first time someone bit my lip too hard
And they started to draw blood.
I could taste their venom,
sweeter than the tears they made me shed
And lovers’ promises stitch into my skin--
“She.”
ii.
The devastation became her.
It shut out the sun and made way for storms
To wear her out and leave her to rust--
My body was suddenly not enough
For anyone, or anything,
If I was not feigning divinity:
“Weaponize your big brown eyes,
Lashes out like daggers,
Paint your face with the ashes
Of those who have deemed you unworthy.
You are beautiful
she
As long as
she
You do
she
What we say.”
iii.
I sat at the altar and prayed for all of this to change
My voice cried and cracked at the high note
And not a sound was heard
What it means to live this way
Is to never live for yourself--
Product for the masses, holy order of insecurity,
We pray to you for assured destruction.
Is this what Aphrodite would have wanted for me?
Beauty’s beholder has a cruel sense of humor
And I find myself wanting to go blind
There is no place left for me here--
So I lock the doors behind me and seal it with a sanguine kiss.
iv (epilogue).
Years will go by and people will only hear whispers
The calls and pleas for their beloved girl long gone
The church doors will always be open for her
But she will refuse to enter
And all of her friends
All of her family
And lovers will say, “She?
She’s not around much anymore.”
when she says she loves me) what she means is
by Ashley Varela
by Ashley Varela
god was never
the blueprint.
we were
& are.
the blueprint.
we were
& are.
Winter in My Hometown
by Val West
by Val West
(Content Warning: discussions of death and drowning, mentions of smoking)
my heart is buried by the road that linked our houses--
you can see the cross and flowers they left by the stoplight.
I know, skin caked in dirt, that I will never be as clean
as I was when the snow fell over the coffee shop.
I would hike the woods in a blizzard,
see the creek beneath the street frozen over,
then come home, with frost on my lips and in my lungs,
walk past my mother smoking on the balcony.
then, only with you, could I be warm again.
we were teenagers, uncomfortably huddled over the console;
we were embarrassingly in love.
it’s a trade-off, I guess--
to lose that weight off your shoulders,
but to be left cold, the fog of your breath
leaving a trail past the lake
that resides next to the highway
in a town whose outline I trace into my ceiling each night;
it is winter, and I am unsure what I yearn for these days.
some nights, I have dreams about kissing pretty girls
behind their ears, and on each fingertip.
other nights, I’m there, at the lake
hoping it will, for once, make up its mind:
to freeze over forever,
or to finally pull me in and let me drown.
you can see the cross and flowers they left by the stoplight.
I know, skin caked in dirt, that I will never be as clean
as I was when the snow fell over the coffee shop.
I would hike the woods in a blizzard,
see the creek beneath the street frozen over,
then come home, with frost on my lips and in my lungs,
walk past my mother smoking on the balcony.
then, only with you, could I be warm again.
we were teenagers, uncomfortably huddled over the console;
we were embarrassingly in love.
it’s a trade-off, I guess--
to lose that weight off your shoulders,
but to be left cold, the fog of your breath
leaving a trail past the lake
that resides next to the highway
in a town whose outline I trace into my ceiling each night;
it is winter, and I am unsure what I yearn for these days.
some nights, I have dreams about kissing pretty girls
behind their ears, and on each fingertip.
other nights, I’m there, at the lake
hoping it will, for once, make up its mind:
to freeze over forever,
or to finally pull me in and let me drown.
With or Without
by Ken Anderson
by Ken Anderson
We sit in boring company: loneliness
and indifference. So soon, so soon.
One of us plays Christ, the other, Judas.
Shall I climb the tree or the cross?
Shut out and in, we check the lock.
We do not bind each other’s wounds.
We do not even face the mirror’s twin.
(We have hidden our love life
under the mattress with porn.)
Too late, too bad.
In bed: our mouths taped
with silence. What we shared— void.
The clock ticks. We quietly petrify.
and indifference. So soon, so soon.
One of us plays Christ, the other, Judas.
Shall I climb the tree or the cross?
Shut out and in, we check the lock.
We do not bind each other’s wounds.
We do not even face the mirror’s twin.
(We have hidden our love life
under the mattress with porn.)
Too late, too bad.
In bed: our mouths taped
with silence. What we shared— void.
The clock ticks. We quietly petrify.
Art
Anonymous Was a Woman
by Elinora Westfall
by Elinora Westfall
Once I Dreamt, Oh, How I Could Save Montgomery
by Stephen Mead
by Stephen Mead
Sunset Fantasy
by Essence Saunders
by Essence Saunders
Reviews
Music Review
|
blue water road (2022)
By Kehlani Kehlani’s album blue water road is an R&B album that was released on April 29, 2022 and is a shorter album consisting of 13 songs at 37 minutes and 53 seconds. Throughout the album, she has various features such as Blxst, Syd, Justin Bieber, Jessie Reyez, Thundercat, and Ambre. Sonically at least, it was quite reminiscent of her past album While We Wait in a way I find equally as appealing. The general sound follows her particular type of chill where, as various parts of the album go on some of them get a bit more bass and not necessarily fast, but stronger paced. There are songs throughout with lapses of silence at their opening or closing that some people may not necessarily be used to. Her voice continues to have a soft sensuality to it that comes out more strongly in the lyrics of songs like “melt,” “alter,” or even “tangerine”. Furthermore, the musicality of the beats that flow through each of the songs works well at creating a cohesive album that is easy to listen to from start to finish. Each of the songs do a job at conveying emotion and states of mind that can both be easy to connect to or just feel through the music itself. Taking in the lyrics of “wondering/wandering,” the state is certainly not difficult to feel. The album’s title track “little story” seems to encompass what the album does exactly, taking the listener on a journey through her mind, state, and growth. Listening to songs like "wish i never,” there is a portrayed stress in her response to the situation and relationship that resonates perfectly, sticking in the mind of the listener. The way “any given sunday” plays through almost knowing what they are asking is a setup of behavior that could easily be a mess but still thinking of going for it is a sensation I think a lot of people can connect to. Beat-wise, I really appreciate “get me started” as well as the comments on the stresses in this relationship and this disconnect that is so active it’s inescapable and always pushing while the involved parties see no good way for it to end because it has gone too far. To me, it also kind of seems to work with the sense of longing portrayed in “alter” with the need to bring someone closer. Going into the second to last song “everything,” the sense of the sheer connection and the “matching energy” that she sings about and how different it is from how she had been before combined with the ending reverberations of her voice makes the transition stick out to the listener. As the album closes itself out, she fills out details of the things she has had to learn in her time in life and how they brought her to where she currently is. Despite the track being referred to as “wondering/wandering,” there is a sense of new understanding that has become clearly present that listeners can feel. If I were asked to recommend the album to Kehlani fans, R&B fans, or just people in general, I definitely would. I feel as if it is not only musically really well done, but lyrically there are plenty of things for people to take in, enjoy and feel in general. It is Kehlani, so many of the songs are explicit so if that is something you tend to stray away from, note that it is present. It is not necessarily a detraction, however. Overall, I found this to be a great album that I feel has easy re-listenability that could always bring more out of the music if one wants it to. - Essence Saunders California State University, Stanislaus |
