The Apprentice Writer

Cinema Farce Resurrection Author Jennifer Zhou Katie Friend Laila Player Beijing, China Canonsburg, PA Teaneck, NJ

n the back row of a Beijing Poets murmur that bagel was as soft as a

cinema, as the music swelled over Poets somber pillow. no, that’s not true, it Poets intrusive the speakers and Judy Garland 1. was more like a I From the immediate fastidious pulpit flickered across a dim screen, I saw my marshmallow. it’s as if the sweetness of there is a sense of hideous and repulsive father cry for the first time in my life. starlings doused in orange, oral that same marshmallow can be tasted at

It surprised me. My father had acceptance. Validation as deep as the this moment. the hot cocoa felt like a fire perverted scheme of perfumed always been the authoritative type; one in December in my stomach with every stringencies with false pretenses. The gulp i took of the smooth chocolate day when I was six, I came home from operative word here is redundant. I look school to find him standing calmly in the to your eyes and see hazel retrieve. All is beverage. and how could i forget the well, I notice your wrenching sobriety. middle of the living room, booking a sizzling, hot, crispy fried fish i had for There is talk and mockery of jaded, transcontinental flight while a small lunch. the well seasoned collard greens diminutive men with intent of gentle platoon of moving men bustled around death- softly teeming, feeding on the flesh were bitter but contained a juice that can

him. My mother and I were moving to which dances before your eyes in curious never be found in a can. the mac and revolution. Monotonous gazes influenced Australia, he explained after he finished cheese was delightful, it was perfectly by a continuation of strategic privacy. baked to a degree. thank God i was home the call. Yes, sweetie, you have to go, There is valor in the velveteen iris of your your mother wants you both to move back deprecated advancements. alone because i was able to smack each

home. No, sweetie, I’m not coming with Poets lustful gooey shell between my teeth. Poets soft you. But I’ll visit all the time, I promise. Poet quiet amongst the distilled (Continued on page 6: And then, noticing my hysterical approaching hours of dawn Resurrection) protests, he attempted a smile.

It’ll be an adventure.

Like in Wizard of Oz—

remember? With Judy

Garland?

I did remember. He’d

brought home a bootleg DVD

of the film earlier that year

and we’d stayed up until

midnight watching it,

engrossed. (Continued on page 2: Cinema) Bright Out Jawon Kang Kingston, PA Spend a week immersed in writing with Susquehanna’s nationally recognized authors! JULY 21— 27, 2019 Live the life of a practicing writer through intensive writing workshops and one-on-one conferences. Concentrate on fiction, poetry, or memoir. The $1025 fee (discount given for early applications submitted by April 15) covers all costs, including room and board. Scholarships are available. APPLY ONLINE AT: WWW.SUSQU.EDU/WRITERSWORKSHOP V o l u m 36 e (Continued from glassing over with boredom as I dutifully growing dark around us. page 1: Cinema) briefed him about my life at school. The Eventually, we reached a boxes of chocolates started appearing in squat dirt building in the middle of It was the first Western movie the bin, untouched. nowhere—Memory Film Centre, the we’d seen together. Then, in the fourth year of our flickering neon sign proclaimed in Of course, I replied. exile, my mother told me that we were Chinese. The rundown building looked So we moved. I didn’t fully going back to Beijing to visit. more like a public toilet than a film center. understand why my father was staying Now Playing…. I found China in a worse state behind in Beijing, why he and my mother than I had left it in. That was the year of I squinted at the sign, incredulous. were apart and no longer spoke to each major air pollution—when our plane Now Playing Wizard of Oz, starring Judy other except with words like custody and touched down, I looked out of the Garland. settlement. But I sensed, even back then, window at what seemed like an My father slammed on the brakes. that moving to Australia was an act of apocalyptic wasteland. It was summer in We’re not going to the restaurant, escape. I knew they were both fleeing— Beijing, a scorching one, and as the he said. We’re going to see a film. from their marriage, from each other, stifling breeze crawled along the runway, from whatever had suddenly and Inside, we bought our drinks and swells of yellow dust billowed like irrevocably shattered between them. squeezed our way into the back row. As ghosts. My father greeted us at the gate the halogen light bulb flickered off and ♦ with pollution masks. When he drove us the opening credits rolled across the stage, At first, I found everything about home, he switched on his headlights so out of the corner of my eye I could see Australia strange. In my mother’s tiny the beam could scythe through the soupy that my father had visibly relaxed. He had hometown of Rockhampton, most people air. removed his stiff work blazer and, for the had never stepped foot outside of the I’ve been given a promotion, he first time that I could remember, he had Podunk neighbourhood in the Podunk explained as he drove. I’m spending more loosened his tie. city where they were born. To them, time at work now, a lot more time. But At the end of the movie, when hearing me say I came from China was as I’ll still take you to the park on the Dorothy was bidding farewell to her shocking as hearing a green-skinned, six- weekends, he added, like an afterthought. friends in Oz, I leaned over to him and limbed alien announce that they heralded You understand. whispered: do you remember? We’ve seen from the moon. For the first few weeks I tried to understand. My father this one before. after they bombarded me with had always been busy, but he now He didn’t reply. On the screen, questions—where’s China? What’s it like worked such incredibly extensive hours Dorothy was tapping her red shoes and over there? Is it true that you eat dogs that he often spread out a blanket and reciting the magic incantation that would and pray to Mao Zedong instead of God? slept in his office. On the few occasions bring her back to Kansas. There’s no —but I never managed, in my faltering that I visited him there, he sat ramrod place like home, she was chanting. English, to stutter out a single answer. straight in his chair, refusing to make eye Do you remember, Dad? When I But even more disconcerting than contact and replying to my questions with was six? the culture shock was the absence of my evasive monosyllables. On the weekends, There’s no place like home. father. It was strange to live without him, he drove me to the park or to the museum to not wake up to the sound of his radio It was the first Western film we and waited by the car while I finished blasting, or to pull my white shirts out of saw together. amusing myself. Then he dropped me off the laundry and find that he’d smuggled I turned my head and saw tears and told my mother that we really bonded in a red sock and stained everything pink. glistening on my father’s cheeks. together, as if these awkward excursions He visited, of course—every few months were supposed to make up for years of There’s no place like home. he’d show up on the doorstep proffering a paternal neglect. I never mentioned the tears. But box of chocolates for me and a cheque for But one day, about half a year later, sitting in the car, I asked him if we my mother. For the first few visits he after we’d forged this uncomfortable could see a film together next weekend. even forced himself to be interested in arrangement, we got lost on our way to a our activities. He’d take me to the library, restaurant and found ourselves trapped in drive me to birthday parties, politely a dense maze of ramshackle buildings. feign interest when my mother held him My father was in a bad mood— hostage with our endless list of something had happened at work, I complaints (no car, poor heating, guessed, although I knew better than to intermittent electricity). Eventually, ask. His mouth was set into a tight line, though, the visits grew less frequent. By his hands clenched so tightly around the the end of our third year there, he steering wheel that his knuckles were couldn’t stop his eyes from white. We drove in terse silence, the sky 2 Of bravery and courage body seemed to reject

Ears hidden in a swarm of cinnamon the brittle air. The locks landscape had changed Hidden, but always there Scarecrow before my very eyes; shifting from tall Listening trees of angry green that hid the wide, Pigeon in the Sky No fear of others’ judgment pressed upon Riley Moore her skin blue sky, to fields of brilliant grass Gibsonia, PA Her skin infused with wildflowers of every color.

So smooth like caramel and almonds And then it was just rock. Orange and Tall Natalie crunched together and molded into one to gray and white swirling together into the We used to see her there shape a face dirt as mountains loomed in front of me. Tall, Boxed glasses outstretched creating a Tall Natalie symmetry between her coffee bean eyes When I finally scrambled up to the top, it As if she didn’t have a care and sloped nose was as if I had opened my eyes for the She used to dance on pigeons, That radiate a kindness that floods the air very first time. Their wings stretching out to A solemn look ties her lips into a neatly Ever since I first picked up a catch her amidst the fluffy clouds pressed bow book, I have loved reading. I love how I Tall, And a smile pins the edges upwards to can get lost in a captivating story and Tall, form a crescent Tall Natalie A crescent moon surging rays of light into leave the world and simply forget. The the darkness Now I see but a gravestone emotion creates beauty for me. I have The only being luminous enough in the Alone in a dark field read stories that made me cry, made me depths of the night Noticed by everyone – ignored by laugh, made me angry, left me in awe. To be noticed by the people down below all The only voice in a sea of somber silence Because someone decided to create Tall, Her head held high like a marble statue something out of nothing. Words make Tall, With no fear me feel human. Tall, In her coffee bean eyes Tall Natalie Never before had I been so aware No fear I saw the desolate Scarecrow with of the sheer delicacy of something I had In her crescent moon lips the purple – rimmed glasses … thought to be eternal. The Grand Teton Grasping rose up and stood the hand of a little girl taller than the resiliently against clouds the sky. I was so

Tall, close - it felt as

Tall, though I could Tall, trace every crease Tall, and bend in the Tall Natalie rock with hands. I She wanted to run in the wanted to drag my Olympics own skin across

She ran the skin of this through desolate Earth; let my cornfields Nothing Less Regina Caggiano Simsbury, CT Now her blood soak into feet are buried in the mud, and she owns the cracks and empty spaces. a cement factory Mountains of Words The singing, the ringing, the Tall, Lucie Green stinging never seems to cease. There is a Tall, Pittsburgh, PA whispering voice in the back of my head, Tall, encouraging me to record the things I see Tall, “These are things and one can love things. and feel. And so I do. I try. Sit and watch Tall, But one cannot love words.” Tall Natalie the world change. Let your heavy eyes - Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha No one came to her funeral droop and wrench open them again to see find beauty in the written word –

the difference. It’s so still, so serene and in poetry and in novels, in songs No Fear stoic and graceful yet somehow hesitant, and in stories. I find beauty in Lauren Azrin I as if a breath is being held in, because of White Plains, NY stories that are told from the heart, stories fear (always because of fear). I felt my into which the authors have poured their heart beating softly, trying to remind me Her hair warped in loops of frizz souls. sprinkled chestnut of the rocks and the voices. Spin above I remember summiting Table Parted through the top of her head like my head and float down gently in a sea of the path through a maze Mountain. At 11,106 feet, it was the familiar beauty. I can’t seem to highest peak I had ever climbed, and my 3 recall all that I have to Thinking of Aleppo sticks say. Mountains and Glows to the walls of Catherine Buchanan my plum flowers, lakes and rivers. The sun and the Clarion, PA Bedroom no more, I guess… moon and the world, the world is ending, Stay - to see my clock’s face scale I am thinking of a city buried in the east The paint in metabolic evening light. you know, because I’ve seen it in the sky. of the ancient world Before my eyes As continental plates move down where silk strands were stretched and Are sheetrock palaces painted ghastly and sideways into the mantle beneath cut blue. another plate, the earth’s crust is folded now burned at the edges. I used to see chocolate feathers outlined in and deformed by lateral compression to blue I think of the songs sung in the citadel form a mountain range. Over time, wind Nail polish and red lipstick quickly shed today drowned out by buzzing metal and water, and all the greater forces erode in the mirror’s light. birds I would rub sticky fists to my tired eyes, at the foundation until there is nothing and crumbling of rubble. To pity the makeup rag tasked with left. And then the process repeats itself. removing continents from her face. She Creation of something out of nothing. As It must choke like concrete leaded lungs sticks them into the wastebin, from which I will humans, we don’t live long enough to see going to bed every night waiting in the darkness later retrieve them, humming scales this happen with our own eyes. And so To mask the noise of the crinkling bag for the screams of your child. for me, mountains are the strength and ripe with Proximity’s plums. stability that never fades. It must be like a static slap to look out at I called her “Orchard” for the parsley and Pencil to paper. More the world plums meaningful, more powerful, more with a hand outstretched Which inexplicably gave her only romantic. Somehow we have and not another to hold. oppressive blues, But which seemed to me great been given this gift, one that gifts from on high. Her allows us to reach up and far bathroom scale and wide and one that allows us Used to flicker, and in a moment light to compress, tighter and tighter, With the proof of her heavy accepting the coolness of harvest. Sticky shadows. I like to think my Maple and cream incredulously grasp is strong. I want to do dripped from my eyes. more than force and bend, I And it was somewhere between want to capture the moments the wanting I’s and the senses. My eyes feel And the cornucopian trips with fistfuls of plums heavy and I just want to make That I first heard her curse the sure my awe and gratitude are red-hatched sticks known. I love the noise and the Of table shirts - and the neatly- scrawled look and the simple release. numbers - and the blue Turn me sideways and let me Nail polish. I asked her why know what you find. Something she endured, and there was elegant and beautiful and phoenix light Behind her deep, grey, half- unnecessary. smirk, replete with glimmering Yet, as I stared into what Rain Shadow Effect James Blume Summit, NJ scales. I saw as the heart of the earth, nothing had ever seemed so fragile before. The Persephone Waits at She said “It is for you that I carry my worth-weight mountain was a mirror, and I, its the Door to please the scales reflection. I saw myself broken open Anthony Christiana Of green-suited men - and that I wipe the through change and I knew. I knew that I Hopatcong, NJ continents from my eyes was human and I knew that mountains Here in the artificial Light In tangled hatches of sticks, Of our second-rate suburbial painted were words and I knew that words were And in woven patterns of grease-laid plum. mountains. And I knew that I loved the scales, It is a color chosen if only for the sale we mountains and I knew that I loved the She sheds her daily coil for blue found over the current blue LEDs and leather couches, her eyes Of my heart. Does melancholy have a words. In that moment, all I wanted in the Running purple like fleshy plums. hue? For you, alone, I hope my love world was to capture all that I felt and all She asks me to turn on the light. sticks…” that I saw. And as I desperately clung to my emotions, I realized that I didn’t I oblige, but can’t help but ask myself: For you I will renounce clock-face

know how to keep them alive. How much longer of this light, darkness with bathroom mirror lights, Anyway? Until my taught-skinned wick and minor scales.

4 For you will forge great on the ground to examine the outcome of lobster in the pot are cities of calcium sticks. my horrible mistake. Its body was limp. not the same. The first They will be my body, Its antennae were broken. Four legs still one is not food and the latter is! and I will be their eyes. moved in the air as if it was confused. I This time, I accept both truths. Even when my palette is deep plum with got up, stung. the churning mix of earth bent on The girl who cried on the streets isotonic equilibrium, Perhaps if the ant didn’t move at for the death of an ant, now cooked a

I will persist. And for you, I will make all, it wouldn’t have been so horrifying. lobster for her family. sure that the sky will be light blue. But it moved to grasp onto life. I consoled The lobster doesn’t move myself that it was a mistake. anymore. Here Lies Lobster Ten years later, I stand over Here lies Lobster, and yesterday’s Jiwon (Elizabeth) Im boiling water. “Just put it in!” my sister perspectives. Mercersburg, PA pipes up behind me, getting more

grab the muddy shell of a lobster; frustrated. “It’s no big deal!” I finally The Year As I drop the lobster in the water carefully, “Freshly caught,” the guy at the Experienced It In I market had boasted this morning. and close the lid. I can no longer tell who It squirms in my hands, making it hard is trembling. The lobster? Me? As my Color Maya Berardi for me to hold. The lobster’s beady black hands lower closer to the bubbling water, Pittsburgh, PA eyes bore into mine and its feeble tremble the heat brushes the surface of my skin. I

can’t stop staring at the steel-lined, glass reverberates through my fingertips. summer stumbled to its fatty toes lid that fogged up from the steam. “Hurry up!” my sister complains as a toddler, green. from the living room. As I watch the amorphous bluish- brown lump inside turn a bright red that our mouths pucker One, two, three. I used to count. to paint with berries, blue. seems artificial, I want to run away. I Four, five, six. I planned my steps before

want to throw myself onto my bed, pull a walking when I saw an ant trail marching I guzzle your laughter blanket over my head and hide. But I down the road. I tiptoed and kept my like lemonade, yellow. can’t. As it loses its earthy muddy mark, eyes on the ground, cautious not to step something in me shifts. on them. As I passed the ant trail, I my fingertips chill stiffly remembered a bedtime story my mom Here are two competing truths: I on the doorknob in winter, pink. read to me, Gulliver’s Travels. I like eating lobsters and I don’t like killing your tongue became a fire poker, wondered, would they lobsters. striking hard and think of me as sizzling, black. Lilliputians did of Gulliver? My heart a lame apology swelled with happiness dropped from your teeth, when I successfully purple. crossed the trail without harming them. I deny you silent I was proud of my concession, difference from the and permit myself rage, red. boys in my kindergarten class who as the color wheel tore crickets apart with Caution Wet Paint Laura Suarez Ridgefield, NJ becomes a dinner plate grins on their faces. These two statements are mutually and I devour it

Until I stepped on an ant. exclusive. Were mutually exclusive. My whole. younger self judged one to be either a I imagined a giant looming over villain or a saint—one couldn’t be both. me and bringing her foot down on top of A person couldn’t possibly have a good my head. I imagined dying slowly. heart while she stepped on an ant? But I I imagined the air leaving my lungs. I never wanted to be a villain, and most imagined the pain becoming so much that lobster eaters aren’t ill-hearted. it swallowed me and then—finally— Nonetheless, it is hard to accept that I am becoming no more. not as faultless as I had hoped to be. In I gasped. my idealized world, the muddy lobster I My breathing uneven, I kneeled grabbed twenty minutes ago and the 5 doesn’t mean my father's forgetfulness all i receive is scornful

has left a mark on me. so why should i looks. we’re always

forget how i have treated you. you remind preaching about love is

(Continued from page 1: me of myself. i will call you and tell you love. there’s so much confined anger in

Resurrection) we should get the tattoos now. your eye my melanin sometimes i step out and

roll comes through the phone and i’ll tell remember that my body once changed the to wash it all down i had iced tea and the you i’ll pick you up and we can have entire east coast. cubes of ice hitting the glass was music breakfast at 2 a.m. in the morning. meet to my ears. - for black dark skin girls only. you halfway to the tattoo shop. don’t ask - writing this during SAT prep 6. he takes me out on nice dinners me why i called you now, let’s just do classes like his daddy taught him right. good this. i have always needed you. i need you thing about me is i don’t make up a fright. 2. she made me grit my teeth until to remind me that i exist in the most i’m good to him. i don’t argue and i never they fell onto what would have been loving and hateful forms of human nature. look at other men. his devotion to me is gums. yet i had been rotting away ever - i need you equal to the one i have with God and it since i realized that my work of art could 4. there’s a lot black women have to turns me off. i act the part a man like him be found in a god damn flea market. be mad about. but personally her history needs. in this relationship i am the woman losing my job to a piece of garnet is gold. oh so gold, a young one like me but he sees problems. this salary is for a because i am only a pebble you can find has no right to go down chasing down her girl who goes out with friends and comes at your local ninety nine cent store. the past. and still i write. our bodies they back home with men who make seven fear of falling in a hole of rent that is curve like routes that lead to unmapped figures. he makes four and he found out months overdue would have become my locations. runaway runaway into his about how much i make and all hell broke reality. and as soon as i was hanging on a chambers. our men it is in their genes to loose. now my dinners aren’t good wire she used her words to lure me into not protect us. i wonder if the boys who enough and neither is my expensive body. world i had never considered. but of sag now would have put as much effort he’s out there working late for not much course the fluid movement of her hand into protecting our bodies during the and still he pays the bills he says to me. against that college ruled paper had been 1800’s. we’ve created a dynamic that is oh i’m sorry dave i’m more productive the birth of greatness. instead of losing not an excuse for how my future husband than you ever could be even as you being my job, i was able to create the most could act. the opposite female she too an able bodied straight white male. i know earth shattering novel with my most hates me. once upon a time her husband my worth so he stops yelling at me with destructive competitor and come home found her body to take the shape of a anger when we’ve already broken up. his with a thick paycheck at the end of the washboard. a woman had taken her place, words spit out bolts infused with pain day. and now when i’m seen with her husband about my dad and other irrelevant things. - that song reminded then he goes i’m special me of you to you. my tongue drips 3. you remind me that honey but you aren’t the i need to be humble. you woman in everyone one of have seen the most ugliest my books. character come out of me. - for feminists. it’ll hit me at night on if i was your boyfriend i’d sunday. there’s this show i be the one who’d ask to like to watch and the main get me a cold beer from character will say the fridge. sometimes something and she’ll just you’d take my crap, but sound like you. i press the tonight you wouldn’t. i’d power button on the slam the fridge door hard remote control and i will as i’d swallow down your choke on the foggy “f**k off”. we’d like to Californian air. and i begin drink and i’d chuck the to cry cause i remember beer at you hard enough that everything people so that it’d hurt but that know me for, what i have you wouldn’t bleed from grown into, this title that i Dreaming and Drifting Jennalynn Fung Chandler, AZ my anger. the drink not have is erased when i being cold would push you to yell at me remember who i was a few years back. the way i do to you. i’m tender so i’d let just because aging happened you have mine and because of 6 our nature our fingers Caroline watching planes pass by would touch and you’d Charis Shin and trying to guess the never really understand a Woodcliff Lake, NJ stories of the passengers that she can’t man’s need for touch so you’d laugh like see. he smell starts to linger on love ends once i start punching walls that “Seat 15C. She’s stuck in the your clothes even after you remind me of you. after i came from that middle seat, but that’s okay, because she’s come home and put them bar i’d find you shaking from a panic T on her way home to see her husband, so through a few cycles in the wash– tumble attack and i’d act as if everything was being sandwiched between a few dry, just like it says to on the tags tucked fine until you’d start heaving. my arms strangers is the last thing on her mind. She away in the inseams. And that smell, it would hold you tight while i tease you got that promotion a few years ago, but it bothers you, because the only way you about how panic attacks are only for pale meant that they’d be sending her abroad really know how to get rid of it is to stop skin. we’d talk about writing at midnight to China to handle the marketing branch talking to Caroline. You like her; you’ve and call it love so that we could call it a there, so this is her first time back in the known each other since you’ve been in night. the next day we’d wake up and say States in a while. And she’s excited,” diapers, and tolerating that God awful i hate you more times than we’d greet Caroline looks at you out of the corner of smell seems like a small price to pay. She each other. i’d ponder why the shrivel her eye, “because she’s making it back in can make you break into laughter just by down my spine felt beautiful as you told time to celebrate the five year marriage twisting her delicate features into a silly me to break my skull. we’d talk about anniversary, and she has all of these face that just doesn’t seem to fit her, since writing at midnight everyday, call it love things planned. What do you think is she’s got a pretty thoughtful look about so that we could call it a night. waiting for her?” her most of the time. - for something little for us “Well,” you say, tilting your head Amelia’s Amaranth She’s lying on the ground back and feeling the brick wall dig into Paris Cipollone with her legs propped up your neck. You close your eyes for a split against the wall, staring up Purchase, NY second, trying to imagine Passenger 15C, at the sky, watching planes

pass by and trying to guess a thin woman with a habit of fiddling with She traveled her mundane route, the stories of the passengers the ring on her finger. “Her husband, he’s when the flower picked her. that she can’t see. a nice guy and all, but a little bit wishy- It secreted its enticement, washy, always struggling with dipping and swirling until But it’s hard to keep all of that in commitment. And being away has made it hit her: mind when her words are swallowed up fresh octopus from the Mediterranean her gloss over all of his faults, it’s tinged Sea, by that cloying scent. You can almost see all of her memories with nostalgia so they crisp drops from the first Saharan rain, it, wafting around her in the same way seem a little bit sweeter than they actually soothing spring blossoms in luscious that ink or paint feathers away when a were. She’s got a fancy dinner reserved, at meadows, drop of it falls into water, kind of like the restaurant where they had their first sweet carnival cotton candy. tentacles that reach desperately out date, but little does she know that when She followed its scent towards her. You’ve given up on trying to into a sea of flowers: she gets home, she’s going to find him cordial chrysanthemums, get them away from people for a while tangled up with another woman on a dotting daisies, now, but because it’s Caroline, you’ve couch that’s unfamiliar, ‘cause he bought zealous zephyranthes, been pushing them aside when you see it while she was gone, and she looks each caressing her senses, them. The tentacles always seem to jolt in each pinching away her vitality, annoyance. They ease away for a bit, but only one flower offering. you know that they won’t leave forever. She spotted her flower. You’re sitting outside with her, The lonely amaranth cutting class because c’mon, it’s June and reached, proud, toward the sky. It curled its stalks school ends in a week and you have to to the wind’s will, loosen up a little, Caroline tells you. but didn’t bend. You’re leaning against the brick wall near

It suffered winter’s wail the back entrance, feeling your skin and summer’s scorn, prickle every time a janitor or but didn’t perish. groundskeeper walks by, but nobody says It surpassed the garden’s creation, anything. Caroline’s not sitting normally; but didn’t bear time’s burden. she doesn’t get why people have chosen She leaned forward. Her fingers brushed its fuchsia petals an upright position to be the go-to. She’s and she inhaled lying on the ground with her legs propped the amaranth’s never ending up against the wall, staring up at the sky, life. 7 apples. You had looked around curiously, you just don’t know around and realizes that but you couldn’t see anything until you about her, and there’s a nothing looks the same noticed thin, nearly transparent tendrils anymore and–” lump in your throat that is

Caroline cuts you off. “That’s that you could trace back to the little too hard to swallow. twisted,” she half smiles, “but I guess I squirrel. “Caroline–” you had started to “I want to fix that story,” you tell should’ve expected that from you, huh?” say, because something was wrong, her, looking back up at the sky. The plane something was off, but she was too busy “Things like that happen. You’re is all but gone, leaving behind nothing but tiptoeing closer and closer. just a serial sugar-coater.” a cloudy trail. She was just a few feet away, “I can think of worse things to She humors you, the way she reaching out with an outstretched finger, be,” she retorts, and you can’t help but always does, choosing to temporarily and the smell had grown stronger and laugh because yes, there are so many forget about the gash on your neck and stronger until, in a disconcerting instant, worse things to be, and you’re glad that instead plopping down next to you. The in a flurry of feathers, the squirrel was Caroline is as different from you as she two of you stare at the heavens, and you plucked from the ground. As a hawk is. And it’s in that split second that you turn slightly so that you can see her carried the squirrel away, its talons dug think that when the smell gets so uplifted face out of the corner of your eye. into soft flesh, and tufts of fur and drops startlingly strong that you rear away from “Passenger 15C,” you take a deep breath. of blood rained down onto Caroline’s her. It’s such a sudden movement that “She’s been through it all. She struggled horrified face. But you hardly noticed, you fall backwards against the brick, being so far away from home, thrown into because you realized, in a moment of hitting your head, hard. It’s funny, you a country all by herself, but it’s made her alarm, that the smell was fading away as didn’t even realize that you were leaning stronger.” the hawk rose higher and higher into the towards her in the first place. Caroline hums with approval, and sky. “Are you okay?” Terror flashes while she’s not looking, you flick one of across Caroline’s face when you reach up the tendrils away from her wrist, praying to the back of your head, and your hand that they’ll go away forever. “It’s been a comes away dripping with blood. “Hey, while since she’s seen her husband, so what happened? You okay?” She props she’s not quite sure what’ll happen. Or, I herself up on her elbows, reaching out to guess, I’m not really sure what’ll happen,” you. You try not to flinch away– that you say slowly. “But she’s boarded the smell, it both nauseates and worries you, plane anyway, a little nervous to return and you should be the one asking her if after so long. And she finds herself next to she’s okay. another lady who’s going to her son’s wedding, and the two of them end up In a flash, you remember the first Caroline had run over to you, talking. And you end up realizing that time that you smelled that smell. It was sobbing, and you had plucked a piece of every single person on that plane has a back in the first grade and Caroline was fluffy white fur out of her golden- place to be, a set of arms to come home there with you, even then. She was streaked hair, but your mind was to, and every single one of them is hoping climbing the slide during recess, instead churning. You had smelled that eerie to get home safely.” of going down it. She had asked you to smell, you had known that something was slide down while she went up, so the two The school bell rings, and the wrong, before that something wrong had of you ended up in a pile of limbs double doors open as students pour out of ever even happened. And that smell somewhere along the middle. And it was the building. Caroline hops up. “I forgot. I would haunt you for the next ten years. It probably around the fifteenth time that have to watch Brady tonight,” she says, appeared around your next door neighbor you were doing this when Caroline gathering her things. “Mom and Dad are the day before he suffered a heart attack, stopped, and squealed at you to come, going out for dinner.” She laughs, reaches your family friend minutes before he left hurry and come, because look at that little out and squeezes your hand. “That was a a house party a little bit too tipsy, and baby squirrel over there, don’t you see it, better end to your story, you know.” your grandmother the night before she it’s on the lowest branch of that tree over Then, in a flash, she’s gone, because passed away. there, and isn’t it just adorable. Caroline is a whirlwind wherever she Caroline is standing over you right goes, running towards the parking lot. She Caroline had insisted on going now, cupping the back of your neck and bumps into a few friends on the way, closer, and she had grabbed your hands dabbing at the blood with a wadded up carrying the scent away with her, and you that were still a little bit grubby from napkin she finds in her pocket. That smell watch her as she gets smaller and smaller digging into the dirt earlier to drag you is all over her. You suck in a sharp breath, in the distance. closer. It was then, as you neared that and Caroline pulls her hands away. “Did little squirrel, that you smelled something You feel sick to your stomach. that hurt? I’m sorry. Are you okay?” sickly sweet, like fermenting You hope she’ll get home safely too. You’re okay, you know you will be,

8 Bliss Piano Hands her close to his heart, Cecilia Innis Charis Shin and its gentle beating Chesapeake, VA Woodcliff Lake, NJ soothed her until she could

feel the pieces of herself clicking back Bliss is like falling. e had beautiful hands– together. She clasped his hand in hers, and

hands with long, slender she saw how motor oil and grease had The other day I received a glimpse of fingers meant to caress good in the world, H made permanent homes underneath his ivory piano keys. Knuckles, she knew, and I think it’s safe to say I was nails, how his palms were rough and were never the most flattering part of happy. weathered. Her distress must’ve shown on anyone’s body– gnarled and raisin-like her face, because he laughed and lifted up skin stretched over delicate bones. And her chin so she would meet his eyes. I knew it was temporary. yet, there was a certain beauty in the way “Just write, my dear.” And then I knew it was the most fleeting thing his knuckles bent and flexed over the she understood that he had quit since daylight, piano, so she protested bitterly when he but it was good enough. performing for her, so that she could sleep became a mechanic to make ends meet. in on the mornings when gravity seemed There is this sort of stronger than bliss? normal and in a perpetual dragged her mood “under the weather” down, so that she way of living. could stay home It’s not too awful to mull about like and write like she everything had dreamed of is awful doing since until you get this childhood, while he gut-wrenching, tinkered with cars fleeting, even though he had beautiful, always been more moment of Rapunzel's Tower Julia McDonnell West Chester, PA of a bike person. joy. “We’ve got bills to pay,” he said But there was a clamp around her

with a matter-of-fact shrug. “And I can creativity that tightened whenever she sat that shatters the whole world. always play at home.” From that day on, down to write, and that tightness would that sets fire to your he woke up every morning with the sun. spread to her throat, preventing her from complacent despair. She could never rouse her own body early speaking her mind. At first, she blamed that doesn’t let you shut off your brain enough, rising only to give him a groggy the pills that she took every morning– that drags you out of bed in the morning. kiss before her drowsiness pulled her that blamed them for the hollowness that gives you an undeniable will back under. But she would wake up later, would blanket her thoughts. And yet, she to feel. with the rising guilt in the pit of her knew that she could not stop taking them.

stomach keeping her from eating She remembered, one day, how she had So, naturally, you loath that breakfast. watched a documentary about victims of momentary spike. She would sit at her office desk, severe hypothermia, how, when it got That motivation, tracing her finger in the thin layer of dust cold enough, the blood in their bodies That persistence to live. blanketing it as she stared at the blinking would rush away from the extremities to

You see that all this time you were cursor on her laptop. She had thought, the vital organs. Perhaps, she mused, that once, that it was the laptop that was the was what was happening to her. All of the Falling. problem, and had bought a beautiful energy backing her creativity was being

leather-bound notebook on a whim. But sapped so that she could muster the And that falling was like just a few days later, she spilled coffee on strength to wake up on the days that the dreaming, its thick, cream colored pages, and was world had a bleak gray tint. (numb and unreal) filled with such inexplicable anger that until you hit rock bottom And so she could not write, no and have to figure out she tried to tear the book to shreds. Its matter how hard she tried. how in the leather had refused to yield, and she sat On one particular morning, she World and cried in the middle of the linoleum managed to get up as he did. He made her you’re going to kitchen floor until he came home from breakfast, as she fiddled with the coffee crawl to the top work. just to fall pot and tried to figure out where the again. He knelt down next to her, pulling bottle of creamer was, and then 9 Yours Truly Disney World. We’d Karen Lu been discussing that when he was younger. Kids always grow she waved him out the door with a Eatontown, NJ up so quickly. He wouldn’t get scared by promise that she would see him in a few September 2, 1995 Donald Duck now, would he? I have to hours. Her heart lightened when, as he ear Linda, apologize to the both of you for that. I pulled out of the driveway, he rolled How are you? How shouldn’t have fooled around and tried to down the window and blew her kiss, and have you been faring lately? scare him when he was two years old. I she spent the next few hours watching D Please don’t mind my terribly clichéd had worn a shirt with Donald Duck on it blinking cursors and empty pages, intro. I actually want to know how you’ve at that time. waiting for him to come home. The been doing recently since I haven’t heard stifling silence seemed to magnify with As I was thinking about writing to from you in quite a while. I don’t have a the ticking of the clock’s second hand, as you yesterday, I had been writing rough TV in my room and the one in the shared the light outside faded into a startling drafts in my mind all day (I had to plan living room’s always dominated by a darkness. the letter in my head because they patient with bipolar disorder. He only wouldn’t let me use a pencil). I thought of But just as her impatience and likes to watch the news and Animal Matt and Donald Duck, so I wanted to confusion began to give way to panic, the Planet. He watches them all day. This find that shirt I was wearing that year. phone’s tinny ringing filled the empty really isn’t a good place to treat people You know I only have a few shirts, so I house, and she felt so reassured by the with bipolar disorder because they don’t thought it would have been here. But I sounds of something, anything, that she teach him how to control his emotions. couldn’t find it. I even went to ask Dr. almost just let it ring through. Eventually, They let him do as he pleases. He’s Williams. I asked him if he they had seen she picked it up, but once she heard the already injured almost everyone who’d a shirt with Donald Duck on it when they words of the stiff, formal voice on the tried to use the television. Every time, the were checking in my bags when I came other end, her hands began to tremble and nurses have to use sedatives in order to here. He replied very quickly, and said the phone clattered back onto the move him away from the TV. I’ve been they didn’t. I wanted him to really think receiver. beaten up by him too. It happened on the about it, so he pulled out my admission He never came home. first day I came here. He kept on records and handed them to me. Two months after that day, she watching news about terrorist attacks, In my personal suitcase, there was pulled out the same leather notebook for even though the images were too a grey shirt, a pair of jeans, a light blue the first time in what seemed like years. despairing to watch. The ground was on scarf, a blanket, a pair of combat boots, a Her hands shook as she flipped through fire, the buildings were crumbling, and pair of sneakers, a wolf figurine, and a its warped, coffee-stained pages, and the streets were littered with trash. I photo of you and me. I don’t quite almost without thinking, she reached for remember there was a limping dog remember when we took it, but you were the pen resting on her nightstand. “Write wandering back and forth in the ruins as holding onto me and I looked kind of for me.” She could almost feel him well. I didn’t know if it was rummaging startled—I was still afraid of cameras at whisper over her shoulder, could almost for food, or searching for its master. I also that time. I’m still no good even now. I’ll feel his piano hands wrap around hers, didn’t know what that cameraman was never make any progress. guiding the pen to meet the paper. “Write thinking, either. He kept on filming that “That’s impossible. That shirt for me,” he whispered again, as the dog. Why did he do that? Everyone in the must have come with me.” I’d said to Dr. cloudiness in her consciousness slowly living room was crying. There was a girl Williams. washed away. “Write for me,” he said a who hid her face in her hands while she “Are you sure you packed that final time, shaking loose the stopper on cried. Some people left, some continued shirt? Were you the one that packed your her creativity. playing chess, but the atmosphere was stuff?” Dr. Williams had asked me. And so she wrote. heavy. I could practically feel the dense I was then silenced. I wasn’t sure. air. I had wanted to switch the channel, so I wasn’t the one who’d packed. He I got beaten up by that guy. But don’t packed for me. worry, it was nothing serious. He only

broke my nose. It was an old and battered shirt. He probably threw it away. Regardless, I don’t think they

would have channels that air the Paris About them not letting me use a

Fashion Week either. It’s been over for a pencil to write, don’t worry. It wasn't

while, right? because I did anything bad with pencils before, it was just that the doctors and Where are you at now? Are you nurses here are really careful about things on your holidays yet? I remember you’d

been saying you wanted to bring Matt to like that. When I had asked to 10 write a letter, they our arms tangled together. You always It’s because of the

suggested for a nurse to smelled like flowers. Not only flowers; savageness of misery that

help me record my you smelled like leaves and fresh earth. I so many of us suffer from it in our heads, thoughts, but I declined. Anyhow, I’m had tried to find a scent like that at the unable to weed it ourselves. cramped up in my room in a hot candle store, but I couldn’t describe it to Anyway, back to what I was

September afternoon right now, writing the employee. However, he seemed to talking about before. The nursing home to you with a plump nurse sitting at my understand what I was trying to get at. He isn’t bad at all. The Wi-Fi connection is side. She never took her eyes off of me in said it was a mix of orange blossom, stable and the scenery is pretty nice. You fear that I might suddenly plunge the alfalfa, peach, and tree ferns. I had one would love the sunset here, wouldn’t you? sharp tip of the pencil into my neck or custom-made. It smells just like you. Tell me. Reply to my letters. eye in search of death. I also recall that I had built a After the swing incident, he sent

I tried to make her leave. I told swing on that oak tree, from some old me a radio. A portable one. The sound her, “I won’t do it. I won’t try to kill ropes and a slate from the broken boat. I quality isn’t the best, but it’s a good way myself.” had tried to build the same swing in our to pass time. I’m not using it anymore

First of all, I haven’t thought free space here a few days before, since now because Dr. Williams took it away about dying in quite a while. I already there are barely any recreational activities last night. He thought I had smashed the made a choice between life and death a here, but I wasn’t able to do so. The record disk to cut my wrists. security guards saw me when I tried to long time ago. I chose death. But let me But it wasn’t like that. I did break take the hammer from the storage room. explain. Consider this, you’ve only tasted one of the records, but it wasn’t like that. Coca Cola before but not Pepsi, so how They immediately dragged me back to I simply didn’t like the songs on could you make any distinction between my room and had Dr. Williams inject that record. I used the plastic knife I hid them? How can you make a decision sedatives into my neck. After that from lunch to cut myself. when you don’t even fully understand the incident, they spoke with me. They After inspecting my wounds, Dr. choices given to you? thought I was trying to commit suicide Williams debunked his own theory about with that hammer. Now that I’ve experienced both my method of suicide and decided to life and death, I can say this: life is a switch out the nurse that usually sent me wonderful thing. I still have so many my meals. So now, I have to face a much books that I want to read, so many more experienced nurse. She’s at least movies to watch. I still want to taste your twice the size of me and always has a homemade recipes and visit you and stony expression. Perhaps you’ve met her Matt. I want to take walks by the sea, before. Her last name is Lee, and she has hand in hand with Matt running ahead of two sons. Does that ring a bell? She us and tugging us along, his little feet smokes, but I don’t. Perhaps I would try. I leaving behind cute footprints. He would should try to learn something new, run so quickly and so far, that we would develop new habits. Smoking, drinking, have to yell for him to wait. He would playing poker, or maybe something else? dive into the freezing ocean, shivering at I’m not sure if I should have a clear goal the cold. Nevertheless, he could swim or to simply live aimlessly. To strive for a against the current, driving forward, just destination, or to stop thinking and stop like his mother—you. He would take wanting altogether. after all your wonderful qualities. Hammers are for building and I’m starting to think that I fixing. Why would I do such a thing with I digress. I was only informed that shouldn’t read so much, meet so many a hammer? one could commit suicide with a pencil people, and speak with so many people. I Can’t those people think of when the nurses brought it up. Who shouldn’t meditate or reflect in my free would even do that? Pencils are for anything else other than suicide? Must time as the nurses tell me to. Thinking too writing, aren’t they? they always assume that all of us here much can easily turn us into pessimists. dream of nothing other than death? Yet, it is true that words can kill. After much consideration, I’ve come to a If pain could be directly converted I really like the scratching sounds conclusion that I should throw away my into death, then there would be no need of pencil against paper. They remind me ability of speech. It shouldn’t be too for mental institutes in the world. We of the rustling of the leaves of the white difficult, for I’ve mastered the English wouldn’t need people like Dr. Williams. oak we used to have in our yard. Do you language ten years earlier. Give me ten They would all lose their jobs and be remember? Mom used to love napping more years, and I should be able to forced to weed lawns and fields. Perhaps against that tree. We would lean against completely throw my language abilities that is their job. They weed in our minds. her, too, in the afternoons with away. 11 Human languages would hug me and tell me that although I try not to hold

don’t make sense at all. you didn’t understand what I was saying, on to any hope.

Don’t you think so? you thought I was a genius and that you I’m not feeling very well right

The human language is vague. loved me. now, it might be because of the side

I most admire the toddlers who I love you too. You mean effects of the medication. are just learning to speak. They are able everything to me. You must understand at I really, really miss you. Has Matt to express any of their thoughts in the least that, right? grown taller again? I miss you both. clearest way possible no matter what. But Did you call me and leave ~♦~♦~♦~♦~ with us, we only sound the surest when voicemails? October 25, 1995 we say “I don’t know.” Don’t call me. Dear Linda, What does Matt talk about Reply to my letters. When was the He visited again today. He finally nowadays? Does he tell you about his last time you’d actually written anything spoke about you. days at school? Does he complain about on paper? When you signed the divorce He said to me, “When you and I his teachers? Does he get along well with papers? first met, my his classmates? Does he relationship with get jealous of kids that Linda had already are able to play soccer begun to fall apart. with their fathers after That’s why I went school? Does he argue back; I wanted to with you, and demand relive that feeling I to know why you had had when I met her for him? the first time.” I know I’m To which I already asking so much replied, “Love lasts of you, but could you only for a moment. please treat him gently? After that, all there’s Just a little more gently. Heading Out Aneesha Kumra Short Hills, NJ left is tolerance and I know both of you love him very much, I don’t speed, I don’t drink and compromise.” but children are children. They don’t drive, and I definitely haven’t hit anyone Nurse Lee had left the room to us. understand that form of love. He with wine bottles. I get up at six o’clock He then asked me, “Is that what you stubbornly fights against the world and, every day, I make my own breakfast, I really think?” when he injures himself, he would then read, then I have lunch. After lunch, I No. It wasn’t. think that your love is hurting him as would take walks and visit the garden. At well. We’ve all been through this, five o’clock in the evening, I would go I looked at him. He has beautiful haven’t we? and visit the flowers that I’d gardened. eyes, they remind me of home, of a plain of warm earth filled with lush, green So please, treat him gently. I’m doing very well. I just miss plants and colorful flowers. A piece of It’s not that I believe that you so much while living a life of a land full of hidden danger. It was like gentleness and love can truly change prisoner. standing atop of a waterfall with turbulent anything. Sometimes, they only make I’m not complaining. I know I’ve tides at my feet. I dove, headfirst into the this world seem even more senseless. But been through much worse things in my swirling current. at the same time, how would we survive life. It really was the worst. But I’m We embraced each other and we without them? The world’s too barren, trying. I believe that I’ll get better. I cried together. yet too crowded. won’t give up, and I’ll get better. I didn’t expect him to say that he I feel like my writing has begun I want to die. More than I’ve ever shouldn’t have sent me here, alone. But to get worse. Perhaps I should ask for the wanted to. he had no choice, he wanted me to get nurses to check my spelling and Yesterday, he came. We only better because he thought I could. He grammar. I probably don’t need to. spoke to each other briefly. He asked me hoped I could. You’d understand what I’m saying, what I was working on lately. I said I was I told him with my arms still right? The thoughts I’m trying to convey. writing poems. He looked very happy around him that I loved this world. I love I started learning later than you did, but when I said that. my grades were still much better than every tree and leaf, every speck of dust, I will continue to send you my yours. I remember we used to take every ray of sunshine. I love the pack of poems. I write all over my heart every French class together. When I would wolves that had raised us, our mother, our day. Because I love you. recite poems to you, you siblings, the first gust of spring 12 breeze, moths that fling peaceful sleep amidst the hurricane. I’ll Homo sapiens.

themselves into the fire, be thinking of you, of Matt, and of him. A species prone to

the smell of buttered So please, don’t set up a grave for incomparable sensation, breakneck brain popcorn, the fairy tales we used to read, me. There’s no need of memorial for my function, and authoritative decision- poems, art. I love everything that I see, I lifeless soul because by then, I will be making capabilities. A species with quirks love everything that I hear. There are so part of this world already. Part of the tree beyond imaginable and a drive many wonderful things in this world, so and leaf I fell in love with, part of the genetically enhanced for optimum many things worthy of loving. flowers, part of the drifting clouds in the survival. But the fundamental life

Living. Life. Even simply existing sky. question still comes into play each time is such a glorious thing. I’m no longer fearful. we look out the window at any vast expanse of greenery or sweeping plane of I love you and Matt. Yours truly. water. Why are we human? How are we I love him, too. different than the deer that roam about on I asked him, “Could we just stay An Anatomical highways, the dogs we have in this moment forever?” Order domesticated, the pigs and chickens we To stay in the moment when I Maya Berardi slaughter for their meat? How are we loved the world. To make this moment Pittsburgh, PA different than our college dorm mates, last forever. in biology, we learned genus and species that random passenger on the bus, our He started to cry harder. He said, and the words tasted delicious in my grad school English Literature professor? “Linda is dead. She’s been dead for five mouth. Why are we who we are? Why am I me? years. It isn’t your fault. No one knew genus, species I whispered Some argue that it’s science that that a drunk driver was going to be then renamed my cat felis defines who we are. Anatomy. The inside with so much scientific grandeur. speeding towards her when she crossed of a human is so pungently distinctive that street.” the next day in class we awed from that of an ape’s, or a chimpanzee’s, What was the use of telling me? as we touched skull. real, or even another human’s. Firm advocates What would change if I knew? I refuse to an elk's, hard and white of science focus on the brain, a human’s accept it. You were my family and my like kitchen countertop. proudest organ, when searching for an closest friend. Without you, I am nothing. answer to the basic philosophical query. then driving home I passed a farm, My life ended the same moment The human brain is the largest of all the blur of a horses flicking tail and a yours did. animals when it is compared to the sheep's soft mass, “She didn’t blame you. She said and Darwin would’ve been so proud I corresponding body size. One-tenth of our you were brave, that you were battling saw them entire body is comprised of this one organ against your weaknesses this whole under proper labels, as equus, ovis, that operates for us, thinks for us, and despite the warmth, the farmer's time.” prepares for us, reacts for us. hand, You’ve given me the perfect Human brains have about 5 main the moonish eyes, the tongue, the bleating answer. birth sections. The right and left hemispheres

I have been consumed with mourns, the bells tinkling arrival or silent are split by the corpus callosum, a wide when folded in sleep, underneath it all, fighting against my weaknesses my length of fibers bridging between the two only bone. whole life. It sounds so heroic as if I’m a sides. In front is the aptly named frontal warrior that’s been battling against the lobe, which harbors personality and hideous beasts. So Different Yet the association areas for thoughts and

I guess I must come to a Same memories. On the top of our skull lies the Allison Lin conclusion. I’ve told you everything parietal lobe, maintaining speech and Albany, NY about me, so please don’t mind such a understanding. Above our ears are the

human temporal lobes, coordinating the short letter. hether we’re plumbers sensory sites for hearing. Hidden And please don’t mind all of the for the average underneath the back of our skulls, like an letters I’ve been sending you. W American household unpolished gem, is the occipital lobe, in It won’t be happening again. toilet, Con Edison workers figuring out charge of visual acuity and corresponding why the damned plug isn’t working, I’ll be leaving, too. I’ll be treading sensory phenomena. The final and landlords complaining about the tardiness against the night to welcome the dawn. I perhaps most important part of the brain that magically overcomes their tenants will become another speck of dirt in the sojourns beneath all the lobes, decisively when payday comes rolling around, or earth, and a butterfly will carry me leading down into the spinal cord. Our CEOs of prodigious companies overseas, somewhere far, far away. As its wings limbic system and brainstem, made up we are all human. flap ceaselessly, I will fall into a of some seemingly insignificant 13 organs, don’t look it, but another species. The studies proved that Crusades, fought

contribute a huge amount humans have a distinct learning age for between Muslims and

to our overall well-being language, proving right (or wrong) the Christians, waged thousands of people and survival. The amygdala manages all hypotheses of both John Locke, who against each other in order to secure the nasty emotions like anger, fear, and proposed the ability to learn language is Jerusalem, or the more current Palestinian surprise. You don’t want this to be possible despite age, and Noam -Israeli conflict for the Gaza Strip and the triggered, especially not in a hormonal Chomsky, who promoted the idea of an West Bank. Shi’a and Sunni Muslims female. Gentlemen, take note. On a more innate language acquisition device at constantly instigated clashes with the serious note, the medulla oblongata, a birth. Speaking individually, a person’s opposing party, the reason being their funny name, has a not so funny function. language can set them apart from so many dissimilar views on Islam. Hereditary

If disturbed, this thing could mess up your others. Communication relies heavily on disputes led to civil war in tens of involuntary bodily functions, such as your the ability to understand each other, and hundreds of small city-states. Imperialism eyes blinking, your nose breathing, and language is the primary factor in how we wasn’t much of a religion, but it can yes, your heart beating. Next up, the comprehend each other. We have over readily be classified as a belief that led cerebellum, commonly (and jokingly) 6,900 languages in the world, not countries to oppressive tactics in an referred to by many biologists as the counting the hundreds of dialects (from attempt to satisfy their overwhelming

“little brain,” controls basic motor skills different parts of the country where the greed. The Spanish believed that they and balance. More fine-tuned motor skills mother language is spoken) that have were superior to the Native Americans, are managed by the central nervous formed over the years. Chinese, Japanese, and so slaughtered and displaced them system, through the passage of motor Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian, without so much a moment’s hesitation. neurons firing after receiving ‘messages’ Russian, Hindu, Swahili, British, English, White man’s burden was a similar belief from sensory neurons located throughout just to name a few. Thus we can be that caused Rudyard Kipling to transcribe your body. divided from the animals and into smaller the now famous poem under the same

This collaboration of organelles groups, but how can each one of us name as the ideology, then leading to and cells make, as scientists so fervently distinguish one another from the next European country after European country claim, humans human. They claim it to be person who also speaks our dialect? to go out into the world and force their science that can explain why we are Language is who we are, but if you think way into lands that were already securely smarter than other animals, why we can about it, is that all really you amount to? I inhabited. Nevertheless, religion is only form civilizations, why we can utilize believe that we are more than just the another part of your mindset, however technology to its fullest potential. And words that come out of our mouth and the dominant it may be in some people. It that part may be true. But then you ask. way they come out. could never account for your entire being.

Why is it that we don’t practice Thus, our original question remains cannibalism most of the time? Why is it uncovered- and unanswered. Let us that we have specific gender roles, some continue pursuing that elusive definition. more severe than others? Why is it that What about emotion? True, the we have a hierarchy where the poor and joys and sadness of life do make up a lot deplorable suffer while the rich and Religion. After all, we fight great of who we are. In various studies about sometimes undeserving benefit? Those wars for it. Why wouldn’t it be able to ‘feral children’ from around the world, it questions can’t be answered by science, explain why we are who we are? You are has been discovered that children who and while biologists and chemists may sit what you believe in, as so many great were raised without human contact scratching their heads, you can be open- gurus have once said. A frame of mind. A whatsoever were generally incapable of minded. Since science can’t answer all of set of values. We’ll never know if experiencing emotion as fully as ‘normal’ our philosophical uncertainties, let us animals have religion like ours, but it can humans do. Compassion, kindness, anger, look for a different approach. See the be affirmatively said that ours is the most happiness, depression, shame, guilt, human through another lens. intricate of them all. Religion has shaped sorrow, joy, the list goes on. And on.

Language. Humans have a written world history so immensely during the Ancient Greek mythology noted emotions and spoken language, unlike the animals. era of the Earth. Animism that worshiped such as revenge, spite, and envy to be

We are unique in that we can speak, nature and spirits, Roman paganism that illnesses that would plague mankind for record, and manipulate a conjoined set of featured 12 gods and goddesses based off millennia. Sumerian, Roman, and early strokes on a piece of paper to gather of Ancient Greek mythology, Olmec and Aztec polytheistic gods were meaning from it. Global evidence can be Confucianism that stressed filial piety and excruciatingly fickle, a quality given to seen in the studies done by renowned education, and a plethora of others. them by the original creators of oratory professors and researchers worldwide on Religious ‘homelands’ were sacred to a myth, in what many historians believe to

children raised without human specific sect of people and taking that be an attempt to humanize them.

contact, either in isolation or by away from them meant war. The Obviously, they play a huge 14 part in the lifestyle of period, where you really can’t recall was always alone, and

humanity, and contribute anything because your brain hasn’t then realizing that boy’s

principally to how we developed enough. After that, our cousin had just died and he himself had a can separate ourselves from other species memory spans anything and everything, strong learning deficiency. Wait. That’s that roam the planet. Each person can but still varying depending on personal actually my memory, but you get the idea. respond to the same stimulus differently. neurological characteristics. Usually Our memories make us who we are. And

While you may start wrinkling your nose flashbulb memories, or memories that they define us from the other animal in disgust at a cheesy romance film, the stand out strongly because of their link to species. Personally, I think memories are next person can just as easily begin a particular emotion or feeling, make up a great indication of who we really are. crying hysterically at the heartfelt tone of the majority of what we can recollect They hold snapshots of our world: the the movie. You might experience high from our earlier years in life. For things we hold closest to our heart, the indifference at a typical city landscape, instance, I can remember my first day in stimuli from the outside world, our while I might ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ with pre-kindergarten, when I met my best reactions to them, our perceptions of the delight. friend for the first time. I remember the thoughts of others, our personality, our

Emotions make us the same, yet colors of the foam puzzle carpet that lay family, our friends. Distinct from all else, at the same time they set us apart from strewn across the floor, the wooden smell your memories are something that can one another. Closely linked with of the individual cubbies, and even the never be taken away from you by another personality, emotions are the silent but tiny pink and white shoes I was wearing person. They’re yours and only yours. deadly catalyst of all levels of conflict: at the time. I can remember painting They’re your gift from that greater being physical, mental, and verbal. However, strange twisted roses with my childhood up there spinning our fates. they can only account for what you do in friend as a gift for our second-grade But then the argument claims that the present. Only your ‘now’ is affected teacher, the pride I felt when the blob of it’s only your past. The older you are, the by your emotions; only in your present red paint on the page took on a shape that more memories you will accumulate over can you react to the stimuli thrown your resembled less an amoeba and more a the years, but the same also applies to the way. Almost there, but not quite. flower. My best friend’s mom’s daycare; opposite: younger people have fewer

Memories? Interesting take. We the white rickety stairs leading down to memories. So the young look towards the will never know for sure, but we can the basement; the soft luminosity of the future, which is not encompassed under suppose that animals do not have the bathroom light that he always claimed he the span of what you can remember. same encoding proficiencies as us. The would change but never did; the bleached Therefore, memories alone can’t be the sheer size difference in our brains gives lace-filled room upstairs he and I would answer. further evidence that our memories as go to study for an upcoming test by Alone. That’s the key. If just humans are much more detailed and quizzing each other relentlessly. Just as memories cannot answer the question of vivid than those of who we are, why not the animals. As combine memories, science would have emotions, it, we have much physiology, greater capacity for language, and both trivial and religion. Together substantial they have the power information; our to explain life’s power to retain greatest and most knowledge of past essential inquiry. events is unequalled Why are we who we Mariposa Abigail Dehmey Elizabethtown, PA in the animal are? What makes us kingdom. Each one of us has a unique how my memories reflect my life and the who we are? Your emotions, paving the collection of memories from our past; no things important to me, my brother’s way sporadically with highs and lows. one’s “full stack” is quite the same. Our memories reflect his. Maybe he Your memories, cradling your past as hippocampus directs the short-term remembers with utmost clarity the first gently as the barely-there touch of a memory, before it is filed away into long day he fell into the pond by our house, the mother to her newborn. Your language term memories in the previously frigid air, the laughter of his friends on and your religion, boosting the emotive discussed association areas. We are the banks, the weight of his clothes quality of the present. Your physiology, generally able to remember our past after dragging him down. Maybe he representing the foundation of your the age of 3 or 4. remembers the regret at being team future, and your personality formulating

Before that is a blur scientists captain and not choosing one particular the details along the road. Your world,

label the infantile amnesia boy to be in his group, because that boy your life, your… you. 15 Rituals ♦ “The plate.” “Make Edward do Malia Chung “Eddie,” Kimberley calls. “Get it,” I say. Milton, MA plates.” “Hey, I thought we didn’t have She’s making breakfast, smearing “When elephants encounter any more plates,” Taylor whines, a piece the skeleton of an elephant out in the floppy bacon around in fat and flipping of egg stuck to the corner of her mouth. “I open, doughy pancakes. Her cigarette dangles ate dinner on a Tupperware lid.” they methodically take up each of the out of the corner of her mouth, smoke bones and distribute them, curling into her hair. “It’s for Momma,” Kimberley in a ponderous ceremony, over the shrugs. neighboring acres.” Kimberley’s my sister. She’s “You’re stupid,” Taylor huffs. - Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell nineteen, and she’s the one who remembers to buy the toilet paper. She “Look, you even gave her the best bacon.”

Into a clearing the herd works at the Payless, tucking scattered “Taylor…” Edward sighs, picking moves, its gentle hulk, shoes into mashed cardboard boxes. up Momma’s plate. its ghostly shadow, pausing “We’re out of plates,” Edward “It’s not like she’ll even look at in hushed hesitation says, stealing a bag of chips. “And you it,” I snort. before the body, now collapsed shouldn’t smoke indoors.” to a modest pile, “C’mon, Kath. Shut up.” bleached and brittle, skinned “Ed, you can’t eat crap and then ♦ ears like ocean Rays. talk about health.” With my Momma, there’s no nice

“Uhhh…Fair.” way to put it: She’s been dead for five The elephants curl their My brother’s full name is Edward trunks around bones years. John George Baker — you know, like a in eerie kindness, exploring Not actually. bunch of British kings mashed together. holes in the skeleton. As in, she’s still here. Still fat and He’s frumpy and kind of chubby and a meat and bone, still blood and flesh. Heart One trunk latches onto a femur, rocking it huge pushover, and the only resemblance still jumping in her ribcage, fluttering in back and forth, dried joints. I see to royalty is that he sometimes her wrists, creaking in her chest. Still A bird lets loose a mournful call stutters like George VI. But Kimberley from across the watering hole, stirring made of muscles shifting under skin and says the name fits him. He’s going to get them sour breath. out of here. But trust me. She’s not alive. from this study of grief, “Taylor, have some eggs.” ♦ this recognition of their own Kimberley flops scrambled eggs into a existence, before lumbering pink plastic cup. “We’re out of plates. Get “Let’s paint again today,” back into their lives. a fork from the bin.” Kimberley decides.

“I don’t want any eggs.” Taylor “It’s dry?” I sigh.

My Goddamn Pink rubs her lips together, coating them in “Yeah.”

House matte pink. She checks her reflection in a The painting thing is Kimberley’s Kaya Dierks spoon. project. Momma loves flamingos, so San Francisco, CA “Eat the eggs.” Kimberley has been repainting the whole

live smack-dab in the middle of Taylor’s the youngest. She just house pink. Not a blush pink, either, but

Nowhere, Ohio: twelve square got platform heels and she’s been this bright fluorescent color that looks like I miles of bobbing rooftops and hobbling around all summer. Like she highlighter barf. soggy fold-up lawn chairs wrapped in doesn’t know how to use her legs. I don’t really get it. Like, a neon sticky ribbons of interstate. My town’s “Kathy,” Kimberley says to me. house. like a city stretched and pulled into “Take a plate to Momma.” “Make Edward do it.” I rub my distortion — houses and trailers dotted And then there’s me — Kathy. sweaty palms down my jeans. across an endless highway. Katherine. I’m the kind of girl you forget “Katherine!”

It’s a place made of tar roadways, about. I’ve got straight brown hair and “Alright, alright. I’m coming.” hot and tacky like bad black licorice. Of sun-stained reddish freckled skin, little Kimberley peels open tubs of rusty bitter water and grimy plastic nicks littered across my forehead from gloss hot fuchsia. The paint’s the cheap garden gnomes. Greasy windows, where I’ve picked at my pimples. I’m stuff, moldy and clumpy. It smells of sour crinkled metal. Fried chicken that comes tallish and steal Edward’s oversized Star milk and hand sanitizer mixed into a in a bucket. Wars t-shirts because they hide my soggy puddle. Ohio’s like molasses — syrupy, breasts. And I like Fritos. I smear the paint onto the roller, slow. People just get stuck. “Kath,” Kimberley nudges me. then glop it over the wood. In a 16 few hours, the surface his pulse shuttering under my fingers, dropping the fork and

will fracture, gloss alive. slumping. She places the

crinkling like aluminum “Ouch, Kath,” he whispers. food on Momma’s bedside foil. The paint keeps bubbling and “Hey, Momma,” Taylor table, sighing. “We’re not going peeling, cracking over the wood, so we says, laying a hand on her bony shoulder. anywhere.” keep having to start over. But Kimberley “We’ve got some food.” ♦ doesn’t care. She rolls her paint on “Is that my Miracle?” It’s hot outside, the summer fat smooth, covering the splintering edges. Momma’s voice is rusty and wispy, and heavy. The heat seeps into my joints, “Kimberley—” broken. “Taylor, Taylor.” curls in my lungs, presses into my skin. “Oh, get over it.” “Momma, eat,” Taylor The air hangs, unmoving, thick as

♦ places the Styrofoam package in her cheesecake. I’m stuck painting again,

On Sunday, Kimberley decides to hands. “You must be hungry.” drops of sweat rolling between my go out and get a Denny’s steak for “Oh, my little Miracle. You know breasts. Sunburn is splashed over

Momma. It’s thick and reeks of butter you’re Momma’s little Miracle? Yes, you Kimberley’s nose and neck. and blood. It’s even got a little lump of are. My Taylor.” Momma sighs. We’ve only done a little bit of the potatoes sitting on the side. Kimberley “Momma, please. We got this for painting, and have been covering the pays for it with her last, crinkled, ten you. Denny’s. Please. You loved steak.” wood in random rectangular patches, so dollar bill. “Know why? Because — our house looks like it’s wrapped in a

“Taylor, take it to Momma,” everyone said that — that it wasn’t strange sort of pink quilt. Kimberley’s

Kimberley says, pressing the styrofoam possible. That I was too old. And I said, I next to me, half-dried paint peeling off box into Taylor’s hands. “She likes you said to your Daddy, ‘Let’s hope for a her hand. My Dr. Pepper is sweating in best, God knows why.” miracle.’ And here you are.” Momma my hand, tears of water condensing on the can’s sides. Taylor walks up to Momma’s pets Taylor’s hair, her knuckles swollen door, resting her fingers over the brass yet boney. “Taylor.” “Hey, Kimberley?” I ask. “Why knob. Pauses. “Momma, please eat,” Taylor are we doing this?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. whispers, forcing a fork into Momma’s “Because.” She puffs on her limp hand. Momma’s muscles are like cigarette. “I want a goddamn pink house.” “Go on,” Edward says. “It’s uncooked dough, the fork flopping alright.” “Momma won’t ever see it, you through her fingers. “Eat.” know.” She pushes the door open. The “Taylor, when you were born, hinges whine. Momma’s laying on the “Shut up and paint, Kath.” your Daddy said, ‘Oh, Suzanna, it’s a bed, turned away. I can count the brittle ♦ God-Damn Miracle baby.’ Jus’ like that, knobs of her spine through t-shirt. The a God-Damn Miracle. Oh, Taylor,” she television is on mute, pixelated screen sighs. “I miss your Daddy, I do. But he’ll flat and flashy. The images flutter like be back — he’ll be back, see, because he butterflies over Momma’s glassy, open needs to see his Miracle Baby. He just eyes. Yesterday’s breakfast sits on her has to. He’ll come back in no time, see, bedside, cold, the bacon soggy from because a Daddy like that, he just can’t - congealed fat. won’t ever leave without seeing his little Momma’s so thin that her bones God-Damn Miracle.” look two sizes too big, her delicate skin barely stretched over her skeleton. Her “Please, Momma. Just a bite.” But shoulder blades are sharp under her shirt, Momma’s gone now. “Please, for me.” prominent like angel’s wings. Her eyes “Your Daddy’s just a little lost, bulge like grapes, too fat for her starved but he’s searching for his home. Right by skull. It’s like her insides have been his Taylor.” Momma smiles, her chapped scooped out, and she’s just left as a shell, lips cracking. “He’ll come back! I know a carcass. it, he’ll come!” Momma squeezes

Taylor strokes a greasy clump of Taylor’s knuckles together until they turn hair from Momma’s face, her fingers white. “Promise me, God-Damn-Miracle, gentle. I’m careful to breathe. Like promise that you’ll stay until he comes!

Momma could just blow away. I squeeze You gotta — because he’s comin’ for at the fat of Edward’s arm, digging my you!” nails in, feeling his tendons pop over his “Don’t worry, Momma, I’m not

bones as he squirms. I can feel going to leave,” Taylor mumbles, 17 Kimberley between her lips. “Now give me a light, nobody knows what to

struggles with her lighter, would you?” do.

her hands fumbling over “I…Kimberley.” Kimberley brings the food in the catch. Her fingers slip once, twice. today. She opens the door, holding a “Kathy, then.” “Here,” Edward says. His fingers floppy styrofoam takeout steak. Momma I just stare at her. She’s got are sure as he flicks the switch. He just stares right through her, like she isn’t straight brown-blonde hair, her skin presses the dancing flame to her dangling even there. tanned to a permanent, crinkled crimson. cigarette. Kimberley puffs lazily. “Momma,” she whispers. “It’s Eyes a hazel like confused mud. There’s a time to eat.” “Thanks.” gap between her two front teeth, big

He sighs. “You should quit.” enough you could slide a penny through “Is that my Miracle?” Momma asks, unmoving. “Taylor?” She blows smoke in his face. it.

“Shut up, Eddie.” Dad was going to have it fixed for “No, Momma, it’s me,” Kimberley says, shifting closer to her. “Kimberley.” “He’s right,” I whisper. “He just her. doesn’t want you to die, Kimberley.” “Any year now,” Kimberley says. “Taylor?”

“I’m not going to die,” Kimberley “Okay.” “No, Taylor’s in her room.” huffs, shifting her weight. “Smoking I grip the lighter, flick it. Watch “Oh.” She pauses, then stares at can’t take me down.” the little flame flicker in the crisp sunset Kimberley, eyes milky. “My Taylor.”

Kimberley started smoking when air. Press it to Kimberley’s cigarette. She “Kimberley,” Kimberley corrects.

Dad left. She went out for a bit and came inhales, long, holding for a few seconds She opens the takeout box and unfolds the back with mint toothpaste and a pack of before slowly exhaling, eyes pressed shut. napkin, placing it on Momma’s lap. She

Camels. I don’t know who’d sell Smoke drifts between her lips like a presses a plastic fork into Momma’s fist. cigarettes to a fifteen year old wearing a whisper. “Eat.” frayed Bobcats baseball cap and cherry ♦ “My Taylor,” Momma says. “My flavored drugstore lipgloss. miracle.” She pets Kimberley’s boney Today the paint is like mucous — hand, empty eyes staring into the paint of “Kimberley, would you ever let sticky, clumpy, runny. Kimberley clamps the wall. me smoke?” Edward asks, quiet. down on the cigarette between her teeth

Kimberley chuckles, scuffing her shoe and sucks in. “Momma, I’m Kimberley,” against the ground. “I’m serious.” Kimberley argues, voice strained. “Kath,” she breathes, looking up “Kimberley. Not Taylor. Kimberley.” “No,” Kimberley says, crossing and squinting. “We’re almost halfway.” her arms. “Everyone said that — that it I look up. The pink is practically wasn’t possible,” Momma mutters. “That “So why? Tell me. Why are you— radioactive puke: It’s hideous. ” Edward exhales, shaky. “Just tell me.” I was too old. And I said, I said to your “Yeah. I guess we are,” I say. “Because,” Kimberley says. Daddy, ‘Let’s hope for a miracle.’ And Kimberley traces the paint, where here you are. My Taylor.” “Because why?” the gloss shell is splintering. “Momma’s Kimberley sighs, closing the “I might as well live my life how gonna love it.” takeout box. She pauses, pressing her eyes I want to,” Kimberley says, staring at the shut. half-pink house. Her eyes are glassy, shaded. “I know, Momma,” she whispers, defeated. “I know.” “You want to die? Just go one random day?” ♦

“What does it matter?” Kimberley It happens on a Saturday. chuckles weakly. “I don’t have a future.” I get home from my shift at Happy

“Kimberley, that’s.” Edward Joe’s, apron hanging off my neck, greasy sighs, running a hand through his hair. “You think so?” I stare at the bag of takeout in my hands. I push the

“That’s not. True.” dripping paint. “You really think she’s door open and shuffle through. gonna come out here and see this?” “Oh, Ed,” Kimberley breathes. “Kath?” Taylor asks, looking up

She smiles. Tiny, sad. “You’re so sweet, “Kath, I don’t just think.” from her homework. “Do you have food?” Kimberley exhales long, smoke drifting you know that?” She takes a last puff, “Yeah,” I say. “Here.” I slide a out of her mouth and resting in the hot smoke curling artfully over her ears. She soggy burger over, slouching into a seat. air. She grins. Sincere and small. “God, I grinds the smoking butt into the ground We sit, chewing in silence. know so.” with the tip of her sneaker. “So goddamn “Death of a Salesman,” Taylor sweet.” She flips open her pack, pulls out ♦ announces, “has got to be the a fresh cigarette. Sticks it Momma is getting worse, and 18 stupidest thing ever mouth. fingers of light reaching

written.” Kimberley walks up to me and over the pink roof. Grasses breathe with the wind, flirt with “Yeah, maybe.” I steal one of her flicks her lighter on. She pauses. the spilling sunshine. We stand there fries. “Your teeth will get really nasty, together and watch the sky bloom, purple “Like, a dude just offs himself. you know,” she says. and red water coloring into a blurry mess It’s plain stupid.” “I know.” at the horizon, veins of ink seeping “Sometimes stuff isn’t supposed I inhale deep, the sharp smoke through the color. to make sense. That’s just life.” curving into my throat and burning. I “She’d have loved it,” Edward Taylor stares at me, Coke halfway exhale, smoke spiraling. I watch it curl sighs. “I just know she would’ve.” to her lips. into the air, then vanish. “Yeah.” I feel my lips cracking “You know what, Kath?” She ♦ into a smile. “Yeah.” frowns. “You’re pretty smart, for a stupid After the service, Kimberley pulls ♦ person.” out the paint. This is my Momma’s legacy: “Gee, thanks.” “We,” she huffs. “We are going to A soft dead body, the four broken “Seriously.” paint this house pink, goddammit.” kids huddled around it. A room in our “Shut up, Taylor.” I grin at her. It takes hours. We glop clumps of house, door closed, bedsheets still “Take some of this to Momma, okay? ” paint onto walls, windows, jeans. rumpled. A smoking habit. A thousand “Fine.” She grabs the bag and Kimberley climbs onto the roof and wasted steaks, a God-Damn Miracle. And walks down the hallway. I hear the door almost falls off. Edward picks at his a neon pink suburban house in the middle creak open. And then — a shriek, raw fingers until they bleed. Taylor cries of sticky, slow Ohio. and red, terrified. silently, face contorted. It’s enough. “Taylor?” I ask, jogging towards And then the house is done. We

Momma’s room, pushing open the door. stand on the street and stare at it: neon

“Taylor? Taylor, what’s happen—Oh, paint falling off in clumps, porch curving

God.” with age, brittle wood splintering.

“Kath,” Taylor’s eyes are red. “Look at that,” Kimberley says.

“Kath — she’s. She’s —” “Our goddamn pink house.”

♦ The sky cracks open and a shard of sunlight dribbles onto the porch, the The funeral is small. We stand gutters, the roof. It sets the color aflame, under a blue tarp tent, priest sweating in the gloss pink like a thousand flickering his robes and scratching his stiff collar. A fires, the slivers of scraggly wood like dog won’t stop barking. burning butterflies. Momma rests in a coffin, her “God,” Taylor whispers. “It’s so broken body contorted, pained features beautiful.” smoothed over by foundation. She’s like The world comes to life around a doll, painted, primped, posed. I imagine our house: The sun falls and fades, her body under the layers of deodorant: muscles exhaling, fat liquidizing, heart rotting.

It’s over quickly. That’s because it was cheap.

“Should’ve gotten insurance,” the priest jokes.

Once we get home, I steal

Kimberly’s box of cigarettes. I tap one out onto my palm and stare at it: a little paper worm stuffed with sticky tobacco. I roll it between my fingers, then slip it between my lips, my hands shaking.

“Give me a light, would you?” I stand opposite of Kimberly, the cigarette

dangling on the edge of my

Somewhere in the Pacific Rachel Brown Newark, DE 19 Outstanding Poetry

turning to the stove, flips fried rice over Impalpable She keeps her real veins deep in her skin, itself Hana Widerman even the doctor said so Milton, MA with a wooden spoon: bits of ham, bean sprouts, onion. The kitchen fan when he tried to draw her blood. He told her to make a fist, searched her forearm I’d never heard of putting sugar on grape- fruits, of peeling them to eat turns on to scatter the smoke. We have to worry about the fire alarms like he was running his fingers over a plate of dried rice. I wasn’t too surprised. instead of cutting them in half, knifing around their edges even when we take showers with hot wa- ter, scrape our hands across the mirror I haven’t seen her kiss my father since I was ten. Even then it was puckered like my mother does. I began to steal sug- ar packets from the dining hall, to see parts of ourselves. My mother doesn’t close the bathroom door anymore. and awkward, eyes open. In the kitchen my mother mentions her first boyfriend, eat them on the roof of the observatory where I once saw a blond girl It’s always a crack open, light punching through. For years, my father an engineer student at Tokyo University. She peels pears, leaves their skins wrapped in a green blanket with a boy. They impressed each other has been calling her naked body ugly. He still wants her to look at him, in the sink. I wonder if she had ever felt like a pear yielding to gentle pressure, wants to joke with me now that I’m old softly in the metal of the roof. They enough to understand looked like my mother the innuendo of how they used to tear up if she ever wants to feel soft fingers pressing in between her knuckles. the bedroom sheets yearning to eat a small plum, the juice when they were feeling young. slipping down past her wrists. She hands me cold slips of pear before

The Apprentice Writer www.apprenticewriter.com

PRIZES HIGH SCHOOL WRITERS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT $200 THEIR POETRY, PROSE, AND PHOTOGRAPHY FOR PUBLICATION & PRIZES. to Outstanding Writer in poetry CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: and prose September 15 to March 15

In addition to being published in the 2019 edition, selected writers will be chosen by a published author to receive the prize of Outstanding Writer or runner-up in both prose and poetry. $50 SUBMISSIONS: to Runner-Up in poetry and prose HTTP://TINYURL.COM/APPRENTICEWRITER2019 Questions? Contact Codie Nevil Sauers at The Writers Institute, Susquehanna University, at [email protected]

Poetry Runner-Up money [his] best, Ode to Miami Beach has disappeared to, yet insistent does [his] best.” To its waiter at the taco Malia Chung that he stay right here: joint who worries about his brother Milton, MA “can’t leave the warm weather,” jailed in a DEA bust and stops when really he doesn’t know to help the pretty student practice her To its faded red sidewalks, bubble how else to live. To the strangers Spanish. gummed who race along the jetty waving off To its overpriced waffles, to its full and cigarette butted, strip club the Royal Caribbean, which will return friction. advertisements pulled by prop planes, next week, 200 of its passengers violently To Langston Hughes’ Dreams and Adrian its women who cross their Prada heels— Castro’s food poisoned, and the armless man on cocktails by embryo shaped pools, Lincoln The Sound Of One Immigrant Clapping hammered into the rails and the hard-core techno which pumps who taught himself to paint landscapes of an apartment building in a back alley past midnight, washing out with his toes. To its opioid addicted off onto the boardwalk, pulsing underwater lady who waits in her wheelchair on Washington. Say I arrived through this like modern Morse code. To its high- Ocean Drive, portal school mutters about taking off your underwear This is now my home…. And just over the dropout who sells restaurant “when your legs bridge, appliances and dreams don’t work no more.” To its speedo-ed to Wyndwood’s unbound street art of being a restaurant owner; roller skaters, and the baristas downtown of sleeping women, alligator princesses, almost fifty, still partying with long ponytails and stretch-lobed Hollywood’s original gangsters, on weekdays, smoking pot piercings, the red moped dressed as Santa and Bob Marley’s “Loveism,” with breakfast, wondering Claus, its throbbing neon-pink heart. V where time has gone, where and the Cuban Uber driver who “does o l u m 36 e Outstanding Prose

of honey and spice elegance. I have homemade aloo paratha for Arushi Avachat 4. Language, a little from both sides of lunch that day, one of my favorite foods. I Pleasanton, CA my family. When I was younger, I watched my mother roll spiced potato and

his is what I know of India: spoke a tangled conflation of Hindi dough into thin, circular sheets the night

1. Summers spent on dirty and Marathi, all muddled into one. I before, every movement patient and T rooftops. My cousins and I go pull the two apart as I get older, learn deliberate. She let me help her make the up here every afternoon of our visit. the differences in their sounds. Hindi last few, but mine were obviously

The streets of Jaipur glitter below us, is softer, lighter, has more shape to it. amateur, bumpy instead of smooth, more

and there is dusty air and peeling Crushed velvet and honey. Marathi is paint-splatter shaped than round.

paint and laughter. harsher, sharper, has more jugular “What is that?” Taylor asks me

2. Baba’s singing. His music fills the sounds. Edges and corners and spice. when I open my lunch box. Her voice is

space between us on car rides to I don’t know much else. curious, not very kind. She leans in closer,

school. His voice is rough like i. wrinkling her nose. “It looks weird.” crumpled paper and thick, gravelly, I’m seven when I learn my culture is Embarrassment crawls into my but it carries a certain sweetness to it something to be ashamed of. stomach. “It’s called aloo paratha,” I tell too. I don’t always understand the her in a tiny voice. “My mom made it.” It’s lunchtime, late summer, and words; my Marathi isn’t strong I’m sitting at the shaded tables near the She wrinkles her nose again, and enough, but I like to listen anyway. cafeteria. I’m with Taylor, the first friend her freckles stand out darker from the 3. My mother’s beauty. Baba has a I made after moving into town, and a few movement. “Looks gross.” picture of her from when they were other girls I don’t know too well. They all A little heat rises in my cheeks. I young. She is in black and white and have inside jokes I don’t understand and want to tell her it doesn’t taste gross, but I the corners of the photo are creased shared memories without me. I try, but don’t. I’m too embarrassed to say a word. from time, but you can see her there, it’s hard for me to fit in. (Continued on page 22: dark eyes and fair skin and honey) Prose Runner-Up The Windy City tightened their children’s jackets and soaring steeple, ivy covered sides, and Sophia David encouraged them to move with a purpose. intricate stained-glass windows. He liked Swarthmore, PA Overprotective chihuahua owners to imagine that he was on a real rivers slammed their brakes, bundled their babies in the finest doggy observation deck. Perhaps at the top of the

jammed their horns, and fleece. Dedicated joggers dashed through Willis Tower, on the real ledge, the one D rammed their cars, doing the snow, letting nothing keep them from he had dreamed of standing on so many anything to barge into the endless stream their exercise. times. He imagined how the city would

of motion. Tires sent slush flying, soiling The world was a blur. Each person look, seeing the tops of buildings instead

pant suits of angry women and striking on their own track, like trains. Watching of the bottoms of feet. He imagined what

fear in the hearts of unprepared pigeons. it all was Edward, like a derailed car life would be like as one of those whom

People flooded the doors of Starbucks, sitting unnoticed in a bustling station. he so closely watched each and every day.

pushing and shoving, all for a much Through it all, the wind continued to roar, No, he didn’t imagine, he remembered.

needed cup of coffee. The cup of coffee blowing sharp needles into faces, Edward had not always been

that would get them through frustrating especially Edward’s. He tugged on the homeless, in and out of shelters, and

phone calls, incompetent secretaries, slow sides of his worn out jacket, sinking down without family. He spent his first years in

Uber drivers, and a misheard lunch order. a little lower. He watched feet. All day. a loving home with two caring parents

The whirling wind was barely heard over Everyday. He saw the dress shoes of and a younger sister. They were by no

the voices of distracted coffee-drinkers, millionaires, the six-inch heels of their means wealthy, but they had everything

obliviously yelling into their phones. It wives, the sneakers of yoga instructors, they needed to be happy. Edward was on

was only felt, a silent force of nature, the sparkly flats of little princesses, and track to go to college, when his father lost

pushing into the faces of each and every the shoes of spoiled puppies. After years his job. Falling into a deep depression, his

living thing, attempting to hold them of sitting on the side of almost every father took to alcohol. Soon after,

back. Hard as it tried, the determined sidewalk in the city, Edward had found Edward’s mother left, “looking for the

population persevered, ignoring its icy the best observation deck. He sat on a husband she deserved,” and took

chill. They moved faster, heads down, not small ledge, leaning against the short Edward’s sweet sister with her. stopping for a minute, not taking a second black fence of a glorious church. It had a (Continued on page V to look around. Mothers o l 23: Windy) u m 36 e (Continued from might think in a way Alina never did, so my mind, and it’s all I page 21: honey) in the end, I give in and join. can think about. Color Our big performance is the talent flushes my cheeks because he’s right, it is The conversation moves on to show. It takes place during school, and all weird, and more than that, I’m weird for another topic after a few short moments, students attend. I wear salwar kameez and being a part of it. but the shame still sticks there, thick and red lipstick and nervousness, and when I I swallow hard and smile, like I’m heavy. I realize I’ve found another reason peek out through the curtains to see the not bothered, but thoughts are spiraling in I don’t fit in here. crowd, I spot my two best friends sitting my mind. I shouldn’t have agreed when I don’t bring Indian food to school in the front row. I tell myself to breathe, Mamma wanted me to join. I shouldn’t again for years and years. that they won’t make fun. No one will have; I’m not like Alina; I care what ii. make fun. people think. I don’t want to be weird. I

I hate speaking in Hindi and Marathi want to be liked. I watched my mother roll when people are around. I don’t want to spiced potato and dough Sixth grade is the only year I’m in be Indian in public. into thin, circular sheets Bhangra Club. When my parents ask me

At home though, my parents the night before, every why I quit, I don’t know what to tell them. movement patient and always have me speak to them in honey deliberate. I think I recognize even then that it’s not and spice. Baba actually makes me repeat about the dance and it’s not about the boy; my words in Marathi every time I speak The boy I have a crush on is the it’s something bigger, something worse. to him in English. MC for the talent show. He has chestnut- The need to be like everyone else. Shame

“Why?” I whine after one such colored hair and dark chocolate eyes and I I can’t get rid of. I want to unzip the skin moment. It’s elementary school, just a am as in love as an eleven year old can they gave me. few months after the Taylor incident, and be. When he announces us, I walk onto iv. I hate the terrible weirdness of the Indian the stage with all the confidence and Middle school passes on, and things at syllables that roll off my tongue. “I only poise I can manage. home start to change. Mamma and I fight need to know English. I’m American.” I The actual performance isn’t too constantly now. She is demanding, wants don’t say it, but it’s implied: Not like you. bad. The audience loves the exoticness of too much. I’m never good enough for her.

My words must hurt him, but he our costumes, the clacking of the wooden My sharp mouth doesn’t help things, stands firm, and eventually, I repeat instruments, and I hear my friends clap either. Baba is the glue, the unlucky myself in Marathi. and shout my name as we dance. I think I mediator, that keeps us from falling apart,

iii. enjoy those five minutes, actually. It’s holds us together.

When we were little, my older sister and I just the moments after I hate. When my mother is angry at me, spent our weekends and this is often, her choreographing dances careful English slips. to Bollywood songs. Or There’s a more obvious rather, she accent. Rounded choreographed, and I vowels, forgotten r’s. followed her lead. We Words squished would spend hours together, off tempo. twirling our hands and When I’m angry too, shimmying our hips and I’ll point it out. Correct mouthing lyrics we her pronunciation, Unearth Akhila Bandlora Phoenix, AZ didn’t fully understand. make her feel stupid. It’s

I remember this when I’m in sixth Nate, the MC, approaches me cruel, another reminder of her otherness, grade, and my mother pushes me to join once we finish. I’m sitting backstage, and sickening guilt crawls into my the Bhangra Club. Bhangra is a type of drinking a bottle of water, exhausted from stomach the moment after, when she

Indian dance, different from the the dancing. “That was fun to watch,” he falters in speech.

Bollywood moves my sister and I spent tells me. In a way, I’m projecting our summers practicing, but it’s I smile and force myself to speak; my shame onto her. Making her feel she reminiscent of old times all the same. I always forget how to when he’s around. should be embarrassed of her accent

Mamma wants me to participate, just like “You think so?” because I’m embarrassed of my culture.

Alina did when she was in middle school. “Yeah,” he says. Pauses, laughs a It’s awful, wrong, and I don’t know how

I don’t know how to say no to her, how to little. “A little weird, but entertaining.” to apologize for it, how to make it right, explain that I’m embarrassed, that I am He says it matter-of-a-factly, nothing so I never do.

insecure and care what people cruel in his tone, but his words stick in 22 v. the very culture they made fun of me for Diwali is on a

One day, late in the belonging to. Thursday this year.

winter of my freshman The sight makes me sick, but Mamma spends hours in the kitchen year, a boy tells me I look “exotic.” He’s there’s a part of me that wonders, If they making my favorite snacks, most fried handsome and tall with bright eyes and like Indian things, why can’t I? and dripping oil and carrying the promise of heart failure if overeaten. white skin, and for some reason, his I think that’s when I start to opinion matters to me. “You’re pretty for realize the blame doesn’t rest with them, On the day of, I pack some chakli an Indian girl,” he adds too, dimples it rests with me. Their closed minds and in a ziploc bag and bring it with me to cutting into his cheeks. prejudices are meaningless in this. I’m the school. I share the snack with my friends

This is masked prejudice, not a only one responsible for my shame. during lunch, and most of them love it. compliment, but something like But the inevitable also happens, and The problem with remorse is that someone tells me how strange my food validation still flushes my cheeks. I give it comes after, when the wrong has been him a “thank you,” and it’s months before looks. done and can’t be made right. I feel it I regret saying it. once too much is already lost. This time, I don’t freeze up like I That’s the worst part for me. Not did all those years ago. I smile instead When I can’t read the Hindi of my his words, but how I take them. For and tell her it tastes amazing. childhood journal entries, swirly loops of years, I let myself feel small because of writing in a language that doesn’t belong I feel a new kind of shame now. Not of the color of my skin. It took a boy to tell to me anymore, when my grandmother my culture, but of myself. I’m trying to me there was some semblance of beauty calls to speak to me in Marathi and I have make everything right, but it’s a slow to be found in my exoticism for me to to ask her to repeat herself, because the process. feel worthy again, if only for a moment. edges and corners and spice of her words Every once in awhile, I like to vi. sound foreign in my ears, then, I finally remind myself of the things I know, the

Spring rolls around. Soon, I see white understand what I’ve done. things I’m made of. Summers spent on girls like Taylor walking down the halls This is the price of my shame. If I dirty rooftops. Music, beauty. Honey and with henna-painted arms (“I got it done push my culture away for long enough, I spice. at the fair!”), talking of music festivals might actually lose it. I add something else to the list and bindis and cherry-picked pieces of vii. eventually. Pride.

(Continued from page 21: could find, and stole what he needed. He Sandstorms at Delhi’s Windy) spent decades in jail and decades on the Bazaar streets, but he would always return to his Adithi Raghavan Edward did everything he could to make favorite spot in front of the church. Sammamish, WA ends meet for him and his father until the From a window in her mother’s final day of his father’s life. Truly alone, office far above, a little girl watched. Safe (I) grounds for trickery’s proliferation: Edward became focused on money. He as she was from the frigid air, she knew it could not bear the thought of his own life sporadic firefly lights strung through the well. Each day she looked out at a small bazaar repeating that of his father’s. Living on black fence and an even smaller black pierce the night’s licorice black tapestry, the southside of Chicago, Edward did man huddled against it. She looked its boundless edges engulf boisterous what was easiest, he sold drugs. He told closely and saw his feet, peeking through cries himself he would stop just as soon, as he the gaping holes and ripped soles of his perturbing forlorn stability. had the money to figure out a new plan. shoes. She wondered how Edward had This plan was one that he would never sly ethereal vines of wandering scents gotten there. She wondered how she saturated in rebellious smoke have. As all drug dealers inevitably were, could help him. What she didn’t realize, interwoven with aromatic cardamom, Edward was arrested, and sentenced to was that she already had, because for the float years in jail. When his sentence ended, first time in a long time, someone noticed nonchalantly. Edward was filled with hope, excited to wafting tendrils tickle gleeful him. Finally, the wind stopped blowing, countenances start his new life, and determined to stay the world opened its eyes, and the world marked with amber kisses of light. within the bounds of the law. He went saw Edward. north, staying away from the dangerous outside the shacks outlining the streets, drugs and dark alleys of his home. Soon, protruding talons of hooded conman Edward faced the discouraging reality vultures that he, a criminal, would never be hired. merge with inconspicuous soles.

He slowly gave up, ate what he 23 within the crooked stalls afternoon violence prolific? on balancing between lightly grows in the night what foundation rooted wooden until finally someone tears ought the right to daggers and each trachea subsistence be grounded if the earth is self-annihilation from the metal roof abortifacient? the aid separated precariously sitting above, of the farmer is what one needs, not the

light talk of armchair politicians; rib by rib a speckled veil of wind-whipped grains man shall not live on bread alone, but All that is left is the beating seed guiles the merchant’s deceptive playing man cannot live without bread. the heavenly juice flowing through each cards jala vein. from the innocent’s angelic orbs. the rickshaw leaves not the worker. Stripped of those fingers noonday hours of walking in sultry dust, that used to feel the breeze (II) metamorphosis: the water bearers fill matkis with sickly the nerves are gone. hemlock; waddling behind them, yet the fervor from oil lamps flickering children with a puddle of lost tears, bone- amongst the shadows Les Troubadours dry throats, parched heels, transform this sandstorm into infallible Woojin Lim cardboard & blood diamonds. glass of truth. Surrey, British Colombia agni unguent, mud-cracked, confused, as thick as a conman’s ego but as hollow canso carious shrapnel, shibboleth— as a vulture’s soul and as clear as ma’s forgetful lilacs fade away into sticky violence shouts & whispers childhood last words a bit of chalk & bone in coal; campfires; the recounting of stone’s story, I don’t like liars pilgrims sell cows for beef. the shantih. shantih. shantih. wrinkles in time forever silenced in a (III) clarity: vayu rosewood an underground cicada, she burrows box, cradling clair de lune, marble & finally. & claws beneath yellamma’s exoskeleton, debussy talons retract. yearning the mellow orange bells of the cathedral glass c r a c k s to revolt against her inborn condition; but drop she knows Lungs icicles in fiddler throats, counting spiders she cannot shed her skin & spread her Jeremy Hsiao & stars wings, as wishes, Walnut, CA in soft sheens of vigil, heavy thoughts like a butterfly, polka-dotted in flutely remain lyricism; her future When you put your ear to the fertile soil below; the river weeps while she reads, is of hazy skies, thick layers of smog & the respiratory systems of the jungle of halcyon. nausea, Malaysia alba veiled in the paradox of plenty. short- breathe for you, the black swan perks her neck; she wakes lived, death by in through the roots up asphyxiation; the beetles are dead, out through the cartilage in slush, drifting atop ripples, simulacra. the fingers that tingle in the wind evanescence & shunya always sensing. existence, here today, gone tomorrow, the sisyphean task of the dalits, the nibbling untouchables, climbing on the soft-custard clouds she treasures It reaches out to be seized barefoot & crumbling in dusk nihilism, dearly held, savored the throes of red the night sky is filled with churning stars; waving to be picked up. tape and black snow, falling, recurring on under and the moonlight’s tense breath, there is ever onward, a soft broken cassette spool The rambutan music & in inhaling and exhaling in its place among light, her unsheathed heartbeat knocks on möbius strip; ayyavazhi’s pathis branches jutted together soul, is a broken shard of terracotta, an waiting out its life to be snatched footprints in the snow—all is reducible to tossed in wooden buckets poetry asymmetrical kaleidoscope, a splintered sold by the pound mirror. the two ends of the ganga never meet. at bustling night markets. The Pancha Mahabhuta Yet, it remains bronchi in the foliage Suburban Street Woojin Lim held in the hands of those above. Brenne Hoeven Surrey, British Colombia For now. Studio City, CA

bhūmi Night shrouds the suburban street slope The fruit dangles like alveoli. what good is an abstract right to food if like a secret. Two hundred sixteen thousand beats, one has no tangible means to procure each & distribute crops? how can a man be The sight, greyscale: glistens with dew in the mornings taught to fish if the river runs dry, true black asphalt, emanates honey through the infrastructure tatter-de-malion, war & 24 mirrored ash gutters, moved slow, but that was ‘cus Paulie at bein’ a gangster, ya

lawns like sooty lashes, didn’t move for any man alive. Or dead, know? So then Paulie

pairs of tarmac windows, now that I think of it. He was this fat, comes out from the bar, sees silver sparrow trees hairy guy with slicked back hair, a golden us playin’ chess, n’ tells me that the king and their linen halo, cross around his neck n' a cigar in his left don’t move like that, n’ I say I moved it footprints left hand. I remember he had this gravelly like that cus we were playin’ checkers. from a moon voice and a thick Brooklyn accent. At which must be somewhere, ¨Ya tellin’ me that ya boys don’t caught behind iron mountain hills first my Pa and Ma liked that the job I know how to play chess?¨ Paulie asked. had was across the street with some or waiting at the heels ¨Nah Paulie—I think I watched a of a pewter mug stop sign, Italians from the same place that my Ma game once, but I don’t know it,¨ Frankie cotton knit bushes, grew up in, n' it didn’t hurt that my older replied. black currant roofs, brother was workin’ there too. My old Once Paulie was done laughin’, he house numbers stark man said American kids were lazy against pearly backgrounds, sat down n’ started to teach us. If bastards who never did nothin’. Big fellas traffic lines, someone asks ya, I didn’t say it, but would pull in n' toss me their keys n' trust bridal runways Paulie don’t look too scary—fat Italian me to park their Cadillacs. N' here I was, sharply painted men never do. But right then? Well, it down the road. justa little kid—I could barely see over might have just been a feelin’, ya know? the steering wheel, n' I’m parkin’ fuckin’ The sorta kind ya get before the bad stuff A siren Cadillacs! My brother was higher up than happens in movies? Just when all the shit swallows closer, I was—he helped Paulie by runnin’ to the is ‘bout to be dropped on the pretty-boy- sound gulping up local packie from time to time. He liked space and space and space, lead n’ all? It was like that I guess. Paulie to talk ‘bout how he would become the the man’s voice, an eye was sittin’ in just the right place so the red New Don of the East Side, like how he swollen shut in its socket. lamp that was above the bar door drowned would waltz to the front of the line at the Traffic lines disappear, one, his face in this blood-red light. His eyes bakery without anyone given’ ‘im shit, n' then two, three, four weren’t black no more—they were sorta the truck melted into the concrete, the baker would come out sayin’ crazy lookin’. Ya could swear ya saw all only visible by light it covers up. ¨Hahwahya Frankie? Wha can I get ya of his past sins reflected back in his god- Bolted to the car top, today?¨ Christ, Frankie was a good kid. damn face. It was kinda freaky, that’s all. a megaphone, broadcasting I think it was a Friday, or it coulda I wasn’t scared or nothin’. into starless sky, been a Monday. I don’t know—but it was blasting until he breaks So Paulie puts all the chess pieces fuckin’ b-e-a-utiful. That’s all I got for into static, the man’s voice, where they’re supposta go. He picks up ya: beautiful. Ya ever been to Brooklyn in garbled bits of aluminum. king, n’ puts it to his lips like ya do a the fall? Ya should. The red leaves with It bends sky, cross, n’ says in his gravelly voice, ¨This warping air like exhaust fumes the church brick—gorgeous, just is the boss, the head honcho. Ya get the as the truck’s shadow passes, gorgeous. It was the church we went to other guy’s, ya win—simple. But he’s trembling off into the night. for the funeral, come to think of it. tryin’ to get your King, so ya gotta defend

Wasn’t a guy for the church, Paulie; it. He moves any way he goddamn Kings Stay Kings always goin’ on ‘bout how sin wasn’t chooses, ‘cus of he’s fuckin’ royal !¨ He David Wentzel forgiven in a church. Ma said that the laughs n’ we laugh too ‘cus we don’t New Freedom, PA Salvi’s told ‘er that Paulie ain’t allowed wanna be disrespectful. ¨But a king is in the church no more—bad business hat’s how I got the job at nothin’ without his army, and his army is workin’ with a gangster. Paulie’s place; I mighta been so goddamn loyal he ain’t gotta do jack T twelve or thirteen at the time, Anyways, me n' Frankie was shit.¨ lookin’ for an after school job. I mighta outside of Paulie’s place. He had just got ¨Sounds a bit like ya, Paulie¨ I been a fuckin’ baby, but I knew the this chess set as a business gift n' he let us says. Italian men who drank all night were the take a look at it. Me n’ Frankie was usin’ ¨Ya right there kid. This is the big shots on the East Side—the gangsters. Paulie’s board for checkers—I had two queen: she’s the go get shit-done piece, ya They amazed me, ‘cus they did whatever crowns n’ Frankie didn’t have any. He know?¨ Me and Frankie nod—anyone they wanted: double parked n' nobody didn’t know how to be smart, Frankie gave them a ticket, played poker all night didn’t. n' nobody called the cops. Tony Cristo Frankie, well, Ma said he was a ran the cab stand for Paulie, a local spot ‘live wire’—I say he was a goddamn for all of us, n' a few other places. Paulie crazy sonuvabitch. He wanted to be a was the boss of everyone on the East Side gangster like the other fellas, n’ didn’t let

of Brooklyn—he might’ve nothin’ stop him; he just wasn’t too good 25 who's got an Italian “That ain’t how it work, ya started sellin’ drugs.

mother knows she’s the- dimwit. The King—he stays king. Lota people left after

go-get-shit-done one. Nobody’s takin’ his goddamn place. Ain’t that. It was a good song,

Fathers ain’t nothin’ compared to an nobody got what he got—he got class. sorta jazzy: angry mother. Ain’t nobody takin’ his goddamn place.¨ I knew I’d go from rags to riches

¨Sounds like your Carla,¨ says Then I remembered somethin’—I (do ba doo)

Frankie. Carla is Paulie’s wife; she's the don’t know how I fuckin’ knew this, but I If you would only say you typical gangster’s wife: they have bad did. ¨I thought the pawn can change— care skin n’ wear too much makeup, they Can’t it Paulie? Can’t it?¨ (ba do da) don’t look too good—the stuff they wore ¨When ya right, ya right¨ Paulie And though my pocket was thrown together in cheap, a lot of said. He hadn’t dropped the mean may be empty pant suits n’ double knits. The worst part demeanor yet. ¨Yeah, kid—’ cept the (da do da) is that they look beat up—they mighta pawn, if he makes it to other guy’s side, I’d be a been goddamn crazy, but it didn’t stop he gets to be a Queen. And remember, the millionaire their husbands from takin’ a swing. Queen ain’t no bitch¨ Shame I guess. Paulie was smokin’ with the red ¨So if I get it to the end? I win?¨ light over his face when Frankie got this ¨This is the rook; it moves like Frankie asks. wide grin n’ said ¨Unless they’re some this,¨ he dragged it back n' forth, ¨n’ this,¨ ¨Ain’t ya been listen’ kid? smart pawns, right Paulie?¨ Paulie n’ left to right. ¨It's a lot like that stash Goddamnit, ya got shit for ears?¨ Frankie chuckled a bit, shook his head, n’ said, house on O'Donnell street.¨ apologizes like a madman, n’ Paulie ¨Not even then, ya wise guy.¨ ¨But a stash house ain’t goin’ waves his arms about until he finally I don’t remember so good what nowhere,¨ Frankie replied. Like I said, cools down. ¨Ya gotta get his king in happened next. I think Frankie stood up kinda slow. checkmate.¨ Then he sorta got sad—like and pulled outa cigarette; he liked to ¨Think ‘bout it: we tryda’ move he had just hadda bad thought. He leaned smoke n’ all—I used to tease him that he the stash last week after the Corrieri’s back on his chair, pulled out a cigar, n’ lit was rippin’ off all the bastards at the bar. took a crack at it.¨ We both shook our it. It was kinda beautiful, if ya can He told Paulie that there was a problem in heads up n’ down n’ mumbled, ¨Yeah imagine it—a sad gangster with a cigar in the kitchen, and Paulie told him to deal yeah.¨ his left hand, the smoke drifting through with it, but Frankie kept sayin’ that he ¨So who are these?¨ I asked the red light. ¨Ya see, in this game, the hadda come back. They left and I started Paulie. I was holdin’ up a pawn—they’re pawns—well, they get killed quick.¨ See, lookin’ at the chess pieces. Then all outta the small ones, ya know? Look like Paulie wasn’t no youngen; he was an old nowhere I hear gunshots. Then more they’re fuckin’ bald. bastard. Old bastards are sad fellas when gunshots. I was fuckin’ terrified and I ran ¨Them? They’re ya know ‘em. back home; I didn’t look pawns: I guess they’re back or nothin’. The like ya dealers, the next day ma said that lowest. They move like there had been a fight this,¨ he said as he pulled and that Frankie was in it forward, ¨‘cept when charge of sortin’ out the they fight.¨ He tapped it problem—Paulie’s twice on either side. orders. It was cool, Frankie hadn’t been knowin’ my own brother payin’ the greatest of was gettin’ to be a attention up until now, gangster. But then he but just then he was Nature's Ornament Abhay Rao Holmdel, NJ didn’t come home for a actually focusin’—one mention of those Sorry if I start up, I don’t like while, and ma started to cry a hell of a lot bastard pawns n’ he’s all in. talkin’ ‘bout this stuff—gimme a more. Somebody told me that Frankie’d cigarette, will ya? “So Paulie—howdoya getta be the try to shoot Paulie with a pistol, n’ then king?” Frankie asked. Ya could tell he I think it was just then that the old Frankie got shot by somma Paulie’s guys. was tryin’ to be all nonchalant ‘bout it, fellas on the other side of the bar started I went to his funeral a week later—Pa real smooth n’ all. ‘Cept he fucked it playin’ this old radio. My neighbor wanted an open casket, but ya can’t do up—he looked like he was tryin’, n’ Rodney was there, n’ he was passin’ out that if ya face is fulla lead. He just got a that’s the worst thing ya can do. Paulie this little flask to the other fellas there; memorial service, but only the family got all defensive, and gave Frankie the they laughed like Italians, n’ so nobody went—nobody from the bar. Paulie sent

eye. kicked ‘em out. Rodney was a nice fella; orders from the hospital that used to work in the gang ‘till people 26 learning how to ride a bike is one of my around at certain spots nobody who wanted ta proudest memories yet. so that the coolest kid of go to church next I once lived in an apartment the bunch, an older boy Sunday betta go. Kinda sad, ya know? He named Edward, would perform a trick complex known as Ridgeway Trace, now wanted to be a big shot, but ended up and all of us could stare in awe and bow extinct and wiped off the face of the earth tryin’ to kill one. down to his holy coolness. Of course, as due to the evil power of corporations. The Sorry that I’m gettin’ all soft on soon as everyone left, I’d try to replicate apartment complex served as a haven for ya. I don’t like to tell nobody ‘bout the magic, but I always ended up with a children that lived and worked their entire Frankie. I’d thought for a long time that couple of cuts and bruises. lives to win a game of hide-and-seek. To God hadda plan for me—for my brother us children, the entire apartment complex One day, I grew weary of my too. He wanted to be a big shot, and so he was a metropolis of younglings: we peasant classification and decided it was thought God wouldda got ‘im there. After formed gangs, established territory, and time to take a massive step into manhood listening to the priest with his fuckin’ had the most competitive of competitions and learn how to ride a bike, no matter the handfulla dirt I couldn’t believe none of in Pokémon. We had factions, borders, circumstances. The first step: convincing that shit. I didn’t know nothin’ after alliances, oaths, wars, and everything else my parents to teach me. The second step: Frankie died. you’d find in a Lord of the Rings film. ride all day every day until I get it right. But I know this for sure: men die, However, a cluster of welded metal The third and final step: profit. As you’d countries fall, n’ God betrays, pieces held our complex ecosystem expect, the plan didn’t go accordingly; it

But the King? together like a concrete foundation: failed before I even reached the first step.

Well, the King stays King. bicycles. My parents were unwilling to aid me on my dangerous journey into masculinity, Everyone had a bike in the so I had to travel the wretched trek all by Girls in Gardens apartments. Bicycles were our form of my lonesome. Therefore, I went outside Brenne Hoeven transportation, our cavalry, our pride, and with my cheap, miniscule bicycle into my Studio City, CA for some, our life—although we did not small “backyard,” which was just an have much of that anyways. In fact, as in Cub fingers grappling through awfully cramped fenced area of cemented Strawberry leaves searching many other cultures, we had our own gravel. For red social hierarchy ranging from the “losers”

For a sweet heart to split 16 ways to the “cool kids,” which was based solely The backyard truthfully did not For a bite to take home to Mom on three things: age, video games, and, have much space to work with, as two- Squash cucumber basil radish thirds of the fenced area was cemented Button-sized tomatoes still held most importantly, bikes. The older you Round inside their mouths were, the more video games you had, and gravel and the remaining was just a pile & in their pockets the newer the bike you owned, the higher of rocks and pebbles. I placed my bike Little dress floral ruffles you traveled up the hierarchical ladder. down on the rough terrain and screwed Seeds collected off and removed the training wheels along In home-sewn patches Where was I placed in this prepubescent & in their eyelashes caste system? I was the equivalent of an with my shame. It was time to discover Pollen from Tuesday’s flowers Untouchable in Indian society. my maturity, my masculinity, my Not one will grow to be afraid of bees independence, my pride, and my life. I Their buzzing or I was not only one of the hopped on the saddle of my small but Sacrifice youngest, but I didn’t have the privilege mighty stallion and built up the courage & in their dreams of being able to ride a bike. The kids who Hands held behind leaves to lift both of my feet off the earth. As hadn’t learned how to ride a bike were Strawberries tucked in-between soon as I fearlessly placed my feet on the Every honied petal palm furniture to the rest of us, not even pedals, I instantly fell with excessive acknowledged as human beings. I force on the rugged ground. Being a four- An Appetite for happened to be a computer chair, as I was year-old, I wanted to cry out to my Success still in possession of the most humiliating mommy and completely give up, but I Marcos Garcia object one could possess...training asked myself, Does Spiderman cry and Memphis, TN wheels. Asking to hang out with the cool give up when things get tough? NO! As a kids was already a daring act, but asking ruised elbows, scraped result, I got right back up, wiped off my to do so with training wheels was a death knees, sweaty tears, and a childish tears, dusted the rock off my wish. Being as idiotic as I am, I regularly starving determination. Try, skin, and got right back on the bike. I B asked. At the time, I had one and only one fail. Try harder, fail harder. Never-ending continued riding straight into the pile of goal I wanted to achieve in life, which lack of success, appearing so until the rocks and pebbles to cushion my fall for was to be a cool kid. The group traveled starving determination feasted upon the the rest of the day, from noon to dusk. in packs, and I always tried keeping up as long-awaited savor of accomplishment. much as my feeble training wheels would The sun began to drop along with Although quite an exaggeration, allow me. The group would also gather my patience. Bedtime was 27 coming. Still, before I quick at ninety degrees (like snubbing out it first manifested itself in

had to go back inside, I a cigarette) the loudness of a knee caught in a chest, September children wanted to try one last a knuckle ground between ribs. time. All scraped and bruised, I sat on the barricaded in dog eared paperbacks and bike saddle and glared directly into the Sebastian raises a padded arm, isolation soul of the rock pile. This time, I wasn’t beckoning; there was the security of stillness going to fall. I placed my feet on the my father nods, and I move into the ring, silence paves a yellow brick road for unease pedals and started pushing, and with all squaring left foot forward, right foot back, the energy I had left, I forced myself to green gloves raised to temples, then i tried to ground myself in other people keep my balance. I could feel the rocks released upon my first jab, feeling to let them grab my ankle before i floated and dirt staining my skin and mixing with the thrum in my shoulder as my arm fully into blood from the scrapes and cuts I had to extends, the give of the pad as my the dark October cumulonimbus clouds form a dirty, brown color. The sweat knuckles cupping their ideas gently in my hands poured into the openings of my skin squeeze in their wraps, the momentary as a child holds a blue Disneyland balloon twist which stung like hand sanitizer in a paper of my right hip, the image of my but they gripped too tightly cut. I tasted salt on my lips as the sweat godmother, and i found myself poured over my upper lip where it met pinned down, gang-raped, on a beach, the half way with sand and gravel. It formed the most sound full of helium of my quads quivering, fists snap disgusting of tastes I ever tasted, which I to optimists back into place, Sebastian yells Power, had associated as the taste of half way power! perseverance. I closed my eyes, bracing to the thorny ground the sting of sweat in my eyes for the impact against the rocks, but that to pessimists as my thighs and arms didn’t happen. I opened my eyes in bruise quietly—a Turkish man gropes my careful not to pop confusion and realized I wasn’t falling; mother the wind I felt against my face was not on a bus tour, Again! the tug of an popcorn yellow memories overextended from falling, but from riding my bike. I that taste of calf muscle as I jab, hook, block, then did it, I could finally feel my hair blowing twenty five cent bubblegum the ding of the bell, the shuffling apart of so freely with a smile I could not contain flavor’s the same feet, the creak fades as fast and tears escaping from my eyes. I was of backs bending in silent bows. no longer a piece of furniture, but a part fear leaves the taste of long chewed of the cavalry. And when “Mi Gente” pumps through the speakers juicy fruit sticks

at the end of class, everyone begins amplifies The Art of Eight dancing, colors and sounds Limbs Sebastian clapping to the beat as into a burton-esque wonderland Malia Chung Stephen’s body rolls of blue raspberry insecurity Milton, MA with the big guy in the green muscle-T, and green glass doubt Enrique breakdancing in the center of the sound gurgled by loudness On Fridays my father drives room. Sebastian tangled headphone cord bending round the sharp unraveling his knuckle wraps symphony of talking turn, a slight swerve into the left lane, to the music’s beat, waving fading in past the blue ribbons around his hip-swaying out the empty truck lots, slowing as we cross circles. The daughter in the bridge, glimpse Boston before rolling of the guy in a grey t-shirt makes eye out forward again, the minivan bumping contact in over train tracks and into Hyde Park. with me, and I want to smile.

We pull up in front of the old mill The song ends. We have to go home. and suddenly it's still building, My father says, “You drive.” bricks patchy-black, now i see the Muay Thai kickboxing gym April Roses uprooted oak trees where eight men, shaved-heads, warm-up Delaney Coldren of my November hurricane with jumps and squats. Moncks Corner, SC and

fluorescent lit etchings of They prop open the fire escape door in a late summer field full of fear stained glass horror with a 50lb weight, rather than newly budded sunflowers let loose the slap of plastic and overgrown grass my salty face skip-ropes against the sweaty blue mats, with red veined eyes the anxiety sprouting among turnips low grunt of shin against pad: foot crinkles like

cocked potato chip bag litter 28 as a mother would a child tables were out of the

the next morning has question. The ones who

thick beads of sapphire she was a mother sat at the heads might rain think they were in charge, and no matter worn as a crown she had a daughter in how hard each of them tried to gain the with arms leading to the backseat of upper hand, no woman could hold more wet snow piles of winter her crashed first snow van power than the rest. Anarchy had to be a month one was being gone driving around sharp curves civil matter. too fast to see “I suggest we put it to a vote,” but not being laid to rest in a plot of her girl bloom Pestilence said, lifting her chin so her face slightly frozen earth too early for spring flowers caught the light. Her blotchy skin and or burned to ashes dark circles around her eyes were more slowly slipping into the i don’t want my motherhood to be made prominent than usual. loss of myself and my words of happy meals and abandonment “But we all think our ideas are stuck in December chemically imbalanced happiness best.” Famine glared at her with piercing,

sweet and quick silver irises, her cheeks hollow and bones i replayed the idea that i would be pulled like blue raspberry pixie sticks jagged. She was sharp, every part of her. along “Which you shouldn’t, because only one in circular riptides of remembrance chasing stability until my family topples of us is superior.” romanticizing meaningless memories into icy water dripping yellow paint War laughed, her flaming red lips and forgetting moments so i buried myself on the last day of curved in a derisive smirk. She gestured circled in red sharpie winter to the pool of swirling water in the center the past an inkblot stain on morning to pave way for March saplings of the table, the images blurred. “And that as the snow banks melted would be who, exactly? You? Famine, month two was made of relationships please. The apocalypse ought to come easter laid thawing soil on scattered seeds about with a bang, not a whimper.” with my friends made of January obligations April roses awoke “Ladies.” Death’s cool murmur dressed in gowns of red silenced the others. The black hood and embroidery thread thin as i unraveled in spring robe she wore hid all but her lips, her pale connections and spidery hands. “It will do us no good keeping us together Consumed to bicker while the Doomsday clock ticks with the elmer's glue Athena Ho ever closer to midnight. We have minutes of past friendships Woodinville, WA to decide. Let us use them wisely.” wearing out frigidness keeping me An anachronism in the concrete jungle “You’ve been awfully quiet,” from forcing people to Shivering in the broken light of the Famine said. “What do you suggest?” lampposts become paperweights “My ideas are of no importance. for the blowing printer sheets Resolutely turning from the man that However we choose to end the humans, I follows too close, the pad of heavy boots in my thunderstorm of flurries a little too loud on cracked pavement will still have to play a role. The

Stale air swirling, dancing, somehow apocalypse can happen without starvation, linger on the edge of more alive than she is bloodbath, and disease, but death is winter iced window frames Consumed in her own being, oblivious, inevitable. It is best if I remain impartial.” waiting for an invitation yet paradoxically self-aware, skin to begin vibrating with the subtle glances of the Pestilence snorted. Her noise of as construction paper shards others rushing past, maybe walking a little impatience disturbed a fruit fly, which of elementary colors faster, afraid of being infected by the buzzed about her frizzy hair. “You think parasite that makes her clutch her coat a fly to the floor little tighter yourself noble to remove yourself from on the back of jack frost Am I truly captain of the ship I entitle the equation, but really you are afraid to

myself? make your opinion heard. Silence is February was what i could become

cowardice, sister. Cast your vote.” we buried my aunt in the cold Apocalypse “We haven’t taken anything to a Kate Foley with whispers of who she was vote yet!” Famine shouted, slamming her Lebanon, PA covering her grave with evergreen fists on the table. She was so frail, she

he women sat at a circular barely rattled it. “There are still more i was told i was like her and was afraid table, their hands folded on details to discuss.” of sharing her high school hatred of her the surface to prove none of figure T “Oh, for the love of so i hid my body from myself them had anything to hide. Rectangular 29 Lucifer.” War rolled her They leaned forward, peering into the have stolen from me. Don’t speak to me of blazing eyes, swung her abyss. holiness for I am not legs up onto the table to And an abyss it was. A shadowy whole. Don’t speak to cross them lackadaisically. Her attention silence. An eerie nothingness. A me of love for I do not know it. could not be held for longer than a wasteland. moment if the matter at hand did not “But—” Famine stuttered. “What Wolves Briana Troise involve swords clashing or blood happened? I didn’t do a thing, I swear!” Upper Saddle River, NJ spraying. “You and your details. Sisters, “Pestilence?” War questioned her if we talk and do not act for much longer, sister. went to church camp”

I fear I will die of boredom before the Pestilence held up her hands. “I humans have even been destroyed.” These are words I have done nothing.” “I have mentioned to just “Typical,” Pestilence huffed. All eyes turned to Death. She about every person I’ve met after my trip “War, you lack patience. We cannot let twined her fingers together. to church camp. I have not said it to impulsivity rule us. Fighting is messy and “It seems the humans needed no sound cool, however. I have neither unpredictable—” assistance from us, after all,” she mused. boasted nor hid my experiences of the “Much like you,” Famine added “They eradicated themselves, their own upstate island camp that harbored gay in an undertone, eyeing War’s crossed worst enemies.” kids, crazy spirituals, and the occasional legs. Her fingers curled wanderer who was only into fists on the table. there for the fantastic cafe Pestilence service. Contrary to the continued as if Famine had assumption of many, I did said nothing. “—but not hate church camp, nor disease is impossible to did I hate the people who avoid. Eventually the chanted about men in the water, food, even the air sky all day. The food was will be contaminated.” great, the camp was “And disease isn’t beautiful, and the coffee Forgotten America Regina Caggiano Simsbury, CT messy?” Famine leaned was cheap. I met many over the table in an attempt to intimidate She stood from the table. people who I find intriguing enough to the others. “It makes me sick just “I wonder . . . why is that tale so remember the details of their character, thinking about what you’ll do to those familiar?” yet, never their name. No, I don’t talk humans. I’d rather watch them wither The other three bowed their heads, about church camp because I despised it, away, neat and tidy, than be forced to unable to meet Death’s gaze for reasons but rather because I was fascinated by it. witness them vomiting up their other than the fact that her eyes were To see inside the looking glass of intestines.” hidden by her hood. other people is something unlikely and “You paint such pleasant pictures, usually unpreferred. Although they will “This is where I bid you farewell,” all of you,” Death said. “But your fatal tell you otherwise, mankind has always Death said. She turned with a gentle flaw is your pride.” had an issue with seeing things from the swish of her robe, striding from the room. “What do you mean?” Pestilence other side. They skirt around the borders “I have many souls to collect.” inquired. of other people's world views, inspecting

Death’s shadowed lips curled up. Confession with suspicious glints in their eyes and “Instantly, you leap to the conclusion that unsure sniffs. They circle an opinion that Meredith Tamirian your gifts serve the greatest purpose. Did Allendale, NJ differs from their own with their hind legs you ever stop to think that perhaps there hunched, tail between their legs. I am not I want to grab men by their throats, was another, simpler way?” excluding myself from this experience. In down down down I will breathe my fact, church camp gifted me with the one “Sister, cease these riddles,” War siren song till they are left with apricot groaned. “Clearly you know something pits in their stomachs, the fruit of my way I could see the other side without love, we don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t flash baring my sharp teeth. picked and spit out, picked and spit out. Solitude and Survival. such a gloating grin.” They will then understand what it feels Death pointed to the whirlpool in like It was when I handed my mother to be completely empty, barren: giving the table. “Look for yourselves.” my new iPhone 6, hoisted my bags up to and my sides, and sat on the old, white seats Pestilence and Famine stared at giving but saving nothing for oneself. Forgive of the boat that would carry me to my Death quizzically. War waved her hand me Father for I want to steal from those over the whirlpool, stilling it. who week-long home that I realized I 30 wasn’t in Kansas human being and I’m not an object. I emerges from the cavern,

anymore. Staring at the have the right to wear what I want.” a little worse for wear, and gratitude ever-shrinking dock For the rest of the week, Ms. only goes to those who do the where my technology, my friends, and Smiley smiled at me a little broader than unexpected. she, creating and my world waited for me, I realized I had the other kids. In fact, I got no praise for stepped into someone else's waterhole. this defiance other than the other girls in recreating, tears her stomach to shreds in a world where even Sitting in my cabin bed, hearing the rules my position, guilted into spending a week the birds speak in tongues, squares of the camp recited to me even though I of their summer 5 hours away from home. her shoulders and says life had been sent multiple letters with the I learned more over the long week I was camp rules in bold, I became acutely there. I found out Ms. Smiley had is just the feeble trappings of a tired set of aware that my life, for a week, would be recently been in a breakup. I found out silicone teeth anyhow, and I, Polyphemus extraordinarily different. she grew up in a strict, Christian family. I reincarnate, hunger, slurp blindly, say The rules sounded something like found out she cried in the shower when this: she thought no one could hear her. I tell nothing. now the old birds are back but No tank tops. No loop earrings. this story to my friends, yet every time I still she returns, diligent,

No see through shirts. No crop tops. No remember the soft echo of weeping to the caverns. keep your eyes open too long in this darkness two piece bathing suits. No shorts above bouncing along the bathroom tiles and the knee. No phones, no music players, through the cabin door, I wish I hadn’t. I and you’ll go blind, that’s what the man wish she found something better. I wish no books that were not spiritual. No, no, said mama and I, no, no. Rebellious teen that I am, I felt I she found someone better. I wish Ms. dependent. somewhere in this would get a kick out of showing them a Smiley could wear whatever she wanted choking there is a clock and it is little bit of my world. and give people genuine smiles. There ticking and she, without and I, within and “Why?” was something mechanical and controlled the rocks start to fall. about the way she talked about God. I felt My counselor, a perky blonde girl - the turmoil in her head as she explained with a smile held up by bobby pins, still life: two white pills, held the sin of homosexuality to a bunch of between fingertips, swallowed swiftly looked up from her counselor's teenagers who just weren’t buying it. The before descending into hell. my father handbook, as if surprised. I was never used to eat breakfast, world was God to Ms. Smiley. She grew confident. She must have gotten this

up on the other side of the looking glass, question before, must have heard it from now drinks a glass of orange juice, peering over at the strangers on the other many people, but I somehow felt smacks his lips, smiles and side with the same suspicion her peers empowered by putting my name onto that hides the hands masticating his head. had, the same way I still do. I was forced eight hours dancing atop list. to get to know Ms. Smiley for more than “Why can’t I wear tank tops or recalescent coals only to buy her sexist, homophobic undertones. I was two piece bathing suits or short shorts?” I cleaner shoes and there’s still forced to become a dog of her pack, to spoke what the girls in my cabin were just barely enough for one meal. two become her kind. I was forced to look pills—call it a polynomial thinking. Or, maybe I wasn’t. I’m into her head and see the copying honestly not sure which one's worse. machine inside. function, increasing exponentially, “Well...” Ms. Smiley rested her and I, unnoticing, mock, belittle, handbook on her mattress, taking a deep sing sloth for his sitting. tireless tenacious breath. “Imagine a pizza.” A Portrait: My tolerant tremendous

That was it. That was my call, my Mother Emily Perez and I, thankless, tactless, terrified. waypoint in. That’s how I got her, Signal Mtn, TN - smoked her out from the back entrance in me are these dual flames burning and out where she was vulnerable. I a portrait: my mother, eleven years lost, neon waters swiftly churning listened to her with claws at the ready. browns her blood before not done yet for yet I’m learning cracking her heart into the frying and all the while a steady turning “You have the lid open on this pan, slickens the stovetop with - pizza and you can smell it from the other back and back again: a clock side of the room. It looks delicious, but seeping spinal fluid, smears slices of but louder this time. you can’t have this pizza. So, don’t do bread with the insides of her that to the boys. Don’t bait them with the arteries, plates each dish delicately with the walls of her cells, pizza.”

I retracted my muzzle and constructs herself: while deconstructing. sneered. the beginnings of fear:

“I’m not a pizza. I’m a she bears, breaks, approaches. another meal devoured and she 31 - her head slightly, worried she’d offended flung into her memories

and I, Polyphemus the kind man. “I’m sorry, what was that?” at the feel of the rustic reincarnate, awake. He smiled as he looked up into the wood against her

rearview mirror. “I asked if you come fingertips. Looking Back from out thisaway?” “Adalyn! I told you to stop Sierra Archer She offered him the briefest of swinging on those posts. You’ll fall and Port Allegany, PA smiles, lips quirking softly and her hands break something.” Her mother sat on the

ivulets of rain trailed down writhing in her lap. “I do,” she replied porch swing, her hands sewing a hole in

the glass of the window, quietly, hoping her tone would convey her brother’s faded Levi’s. Mama was a R blurring the landscape that she didn’t wish to discuss any further skinny woman who always wore an old beyond the otherwise limpid glass. The details. She didn’t have to worry what he skirt, her hair tucked into a wild bun, a air within the car was dry, the rattle of the took from her voice, however, as a huge few stray hairs hanging down over her ancient heater battling against the vocals oak tree came into view, the green leaves brow. Her careful eye was focused on of Dolly Parton on the radio. Every small bobbing under the tapping of rain. “The Adalyn, who was busy twirling along the pothole and bump caused the car to jolt next house ahead.” banister, hands reaching for the next post and buck like the horses in the fields they as her bare feet danced upon the recently She hiccupped and a great painted wood. passed. hole opened up within her Adalyn’s breath created a haze chest, a storm filling the She smiled toothily, eyes void there. Adalyn cast one across the window, her nose brushing the gleaming, and her mother’s words fell on last look over her shoulder deaf ears. “Watch Mama! I’m on a cold surface with every jerk of the as the taxi drove her away. vehicle. Though what little heat came tightrope!” from the heater had thoroughly warmed The taxi slowed to a stop at an old Adalyn brushed her hand past the her, she pulled her denim jacket closer farmhouse, white paint peeling as rain railing, running one hand up her left arm. about her shoulders. The shuddering that poured from the broken gutters. Adalyn It had been broken shortly after the third seized her didn’t come from being stared at the old house and took in the time her mother had asked her to get chilled. Her hazel eyes followed the sight of the pink rose bushes hugging the down. She wished she could say she curve of the land, every subtle slope and wraparound porch, the violet morning learned her lesson, but the following every dip. Adalyn knew each house that glory that crept up the lattice. Every color summer she broke the other arm. flitted past, knew how many fence posts was accentuated and darkened by the The front door clicked open and were between the start and the finish. heavy rain, making the white house seem her head snapped up, broken from her

The man in the front seat, a beefy bright against the dreary backdrop of a reverie. A young woman stood before her, man with a baseball cap on and one hand gray thunderhead rolling across the fields. possibly only a few years older than on the steering wheel, tilted his head An older Camry was parked in the Adalyn herself. She was thin, with long back, his curiosity freely expressed on his driveway. Despite the way it had aged, it blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. Her chubby features. “So, what’s the Ada looked just as it did the day Adalyn left. green eyes were wide as she took in

Taylor doin’ in my cab, forty miles from “You want me to wait? I can turn Adalyn. Surprise was evident on her the city?” He asked curiously with a twist off the meter if you’d like.” The driver pretty features, but a warm smile graced of his hand on the worn leather of the turned around to face her, his right arm her lips anyway. “Hello.” Her lips steering wheel. stretching to brace against the shoulder of remained parted as if she wished to continue, but didn’t quite know what to Adalyn didn’t turn to the passenger seat. say. acknowledge his innocent question. The Adalyn couldn’t tear her gaze man had been going on for a while now, from the house. “That’s alright. I don’t Adalyn, used to this reaction and his ramblings only blending in with plan to be too long.” understanding that she had come

Dolly. “I mean, Ada Taylor. No one will She unlatched the door and exited unannounced, stretched out her hand, believe me when I tell them you were in the car. She ducked her head and trying not to peer past the woman into the my cab. I mean, my wife has seen all quickened her pace to escape the cold house. “Hello. I know you don’t know your movies, Miss Taylor. Every single drops of rain that fell on her hair. She me, but I know this place.” Feeling one.” His southern accent pulled at his shuddered when the water dripped down suddenly awkward with her hand held out words and made them brighter somehow, her collar onto the skin of her neck. She before her, her other hand clenched friendlier. stepped up onto the porch, the stairs against her jeans and she shuffled her feet. “I . . . uh, I used to live here.” She has His words continued, meeting creaking with each step. Her heart acted with the most famous of people and deaf ears as Adalyn continued her intense pounded quickly in her chest, the has been at ease at the biggest premieres concentration on the passing farmhouses. tightness in her chest almost painful. She and red carpet events, but now she There was a sudden lull in his stared at the wide door, her hand coming was out of her comfort zone. constant speech and she turned to rest on the chipped banister. She was 32 She hadn’t felt this self- window seat and just pull her knees up “They need to

conscious since the first and watch the storm. This wasn’t her go . . . so smart . . .

day of kindergarten. house anymore. She wasn’t even sure she going to do?” The woman grasped her hand would have permission to revisit. “I know . . . think of something.” finally, her thin fingers warm and a bit Jenna crossed her hands across her Adalyn heard quiet footsteps dusty. Adalyn looked down and saw that chest, her eyes wrinkling as she studied behind her and her older sister, Penny, she had flour clinging to her skin. The her. Adalyn didn’t blame her for her stood there, her eyes sharp with sadness. other woman seemed to catch on and hesitance. Finally, after a few moments of She held out a hand to both of them. immediately withdrew her hands and pregnant silence, Jenna gestured for “Come on. Let’s go to bed.” wiped them on the apron around her Adalyn to follow her. She complied, Adalyn skipped the loud stair and neck. “So sorry, I was just baking some passing from the front room to the padded down the hallway. There were pie. My name is Jenna Cooper.” kitchen. Jenna crossed around the island three bedrooms. Her parents’ had slept in “Adalyn Taylor.” Adalyn offered and paused at the counter where she’d the largest room, the one on the left. The her own smile. been rolling out some pie crust. “Why door was shut and Adalyn didn’t go near Jenna tilted her head slightly, don’t you join me for some pie? I can call it. Instead, she headed for the rustic door stepping back into the house to make way for you when it’s finished.” at the end of the hall. It was partially open for her. “I know.” Adalyn felt relief so strong that and Adalyn gently pushed it open. It was Adalyn dragged her shoes across tears came to her eyes. “Thank you.” the small bedroom her brother had lived the welcome mat as she stepped over the Jenna nodded and turned back to in. A child lived in this room now, the threshold. The scent of apples and baked her crust. Adalyn let out a few breaths walls covered in superhero posters and a goods tempted her immediately. She before turning back to the front room. She twin bed pushed into the far corner. The swallowed and felt her heartbeat continue quietly ascended the stairs, her hand large windows poured the dim light across its quick pace as she swept her gaze slowly following the steady incline of the the toy-covered floor. Adalyn smiled and around the front room. There were a few railing. She paused at the top stair, could picture Will, glass all over the floor, changes. Pictures of a family she didn’t hearing the familiar squeak of a loose a baseball bat in his hand as he cried that know hung on the stairway. There was board. he hadn’t mean to hit the ball towards the new trim along the house. doorway to the kitchen. She backed out The large archway to the and turned to the final living room was white door. It was repainted an off-white. slightly ajar, inviting But she felt suddenly at her to enter. She used ease, letting out a shaky her hand to guide it breath. The ache in her open. The first thing she chest was different now, noticed about the room an intense longing that she and Penny used to grabbed her and Fishing Elizabeth Epstein Plymouth Meeting, PA share was that the walls whispered memories in “Shhh.” Adalyn whispered, were still white. The carpet was still there, her ears. pausing at the top stair. Her little the very first step into the room stained by She could feel Jenna staring at brother, Will, clung to her arm, his eyes nail polish that Penny had dropped when her. Adalyn cleared her throat, feeling wide with excitement as they snuck Will had scared her. The room now guilty again for intruding. “I’m sorry, I through the dark. “I hear Mama and seemed much bigger than she just needed to come here again. Recently, Daddy.” remembered. No furniture lined the walls, I lost my mother. And I. . .I just needed to The distinct voices of their parents no wardrobes or nightstands or beds. come back. To see my home again. I echoed through the large house, the Instead, an easel stood near the window, swear, that’s all, I just want to relive kitchen light flooding into the dark foyer. canvases lined the walls and a table of some old memories.” Adalyn frowned; they didn’t sound happy. paints, brushes and other supplies stood

Jenna’s smile had changed, a Her Mama’s voice was strained, like nearby. subtle change like the way the house had when she cried. Daddy’s deep rumble was The canvases took her breath evolved over the years. It was a sad tired and filled with something Adalyn away. Each one held a watercolor painting smile, one that pitied her. It was exactly had never heard. She could only catch a of every aspect of the house. One depicted what Adalyn hadn’t wanted. She didn’t few words from both of them. the house during a sunny day. Another want anyone’s sympathy. She felt ready “I don’t know . . . a few years . . . clearly showed the tire swing that hung in to run up the stairs and find her we won’t have enough.” the backyard. 33 Adalyn crept access to early morning sunrises as he hands gripped, her head

slowly into the room, downed his coffee. Adalyn crossed the hung in her hands. She

crossing carefully in kitchen, her shoes making the smallest of said nothing and that hurt front of the easel. Her window seat was noises against the hardwood floor. Jenna Adalyn more than if she had been angry. exactly the same. The same pink cushion, was cutting the pie at the island, eyes “We can’t live off five cent cans. I’m the same view. She crawled up into the focused. going to go out there and get us money.” seat and peered out the window. The “Did you find what you were She growled back. “I’m sick of living like lonely apple tree still stood near the looking for?” Jenna asked, not unkindly. this. I’m sick of living here.” fields, the rope and tire gently swaying. Adalyn watched the clouds part, Daddy’s upper lip curled. “We’re The storm was calming, and she felt her the sky clearing to reveal the blue sky. getting by just fine.” His anger faded, chest loosen with each thump, thump of Drops glittered on the emerald ocean of replaced by a deep weariness. “Where her heart. She fell at ease against the grass and the flowers bowed with the will you go?” cushion and watched the fat raindrops roll weight of rainwater. The dark Adalyn’s anger hadn’t faded as down the window. thunderheads crept away in the distance. her father’s had. “Hopefully, far from She clutched a pillow close to her “I think so.” She said quietly. here.” She turned on one foot and left the chest, tears streaming down her face. Her Sucking in another deep breath, she house, making sure to slam the front door parents had sold her horse this morning. turned back to the woman. She moved on the way out. Dawnchaser had been her best friend; silently over to the empty dining room Jenna set down a plate of fresh she’d grown up with the spotted draft. table and sat down. Several papers littered apple pie in front of Adalyn. She gathered She’d been a good work horse and once, the table top and she glanced over subtly. up the mail and pushed it further down the during her birthday, they’d given out Several bills. table before sitting down as well. Adalyn rides. But money had been tight lately picked up the fork and took a bite, the A grocery list. and Dawnchaser wasn’t needed. Her warm tang of the apples meeting her taste She glanced around the kitchen heart was broken. She watched out her buds. The sugar from the crust matched and little things suddenly stuck out to her window now, as the trailer was pulled the apple taste and she was reminded yet like the apple tree in the flat yard. There away down the dusty road. Dark brown again of her Mama. was a small jar in the corner filled with billows of dirt clouded her visibility and “You’re an amazing artist,” coins and a few dollars. An old pair of soon she lost sight of the horse’s trailer. Adalyn murmured once she’d finished her jeans were stretched across the chair She hadn’t argued with her father pie. Jenna let out a soft chuckle and across her, a patch in the knee and a when he’d declared that they were selling collected their plates. sewing kit on the countertop. A collection her. She had merely nodded meekly and of water bottles and soda cans were ‘It’s just a hobby of mine.” hid away, despite his attempts to comfort gathered near the sink. She felt pain in her “I’d like to buy all your her. She knew they didn’t have much heart and looked once more to Jenna. paintings.” money, and she didn’t A plate clattered blame him for trying to do to the floor and shattered. what was necessary. Adalyn shot to her feet It didn’t hurt any and bent down to help less. pick up the shards. Jenna Jenna’s call from was fumbling to do so on downstairs announced that her own. They both the pie was ready. Adalyn paused and looked up at was startled that she had each other. Jenna had sat in the window for so Gatbsy Christian Stone Paramus, NJ utter shock and disbelief long. She’d been lost in “You’re gonna just up and leave in her green eyes. her thoughts, trying to recover precious then?” Daddy snapped, his calloused “Why?” she whispered. memories. hands wrapped around the back of the Adalyn smiled widely, the first She got to her feet and took one dining chair. His face was red, but his genuine smile she’d accomplished in last long look around the room and the eyes were even more so. They were years. “They hold a lot of memories for paintings of her home. Then she bloodshot with late nights, with early me. And the house I have now is too descended downstairs to the kitchen. mornings, with the stress of trying to take empty. They would look great on my The sun was peeking out from care of his family. His thin face was tired, walls.” She knew that it wasn’t the full behind clouds and pouring in through the age lining his eyes. His cheeks were truth. Jenna didn’t need to hear her true windows of the kitchen. The kitchen had sallow. intentions or how similar Adalyn had been her father’s favorite place, the Mama sat in the chair where his once been to her. A sudden huge picture windows granting thought crossed her mind. 34 “Unless you’d like to something of herself. back to nonsense from sense. keep them. That’d be fine She twisted back in her seat and

too.” tapped the driver. “To the city please.” The North Korean Jenna covered her mouth with her She wiped the tears from her face and hand, a wobbly smile adorning her face. released a shuddering breath. She Tractor Kaya Dierks Her eyes shined with unshed tears. relaxed against her seat, wet eyes pointed San Francisco, CA Flustered, she managed to get some forward, and a determined look on her sentences out. “No, no, I. . . I can always face. n the other side, there was a paint more. I live in the house; I don’t . . . Adalyn didn’t ever plan on tractor. After three years, I I don’t need paintings.” Her voice shook looking back. O can still picture it: A with sincerity. “Thank you.” machine like a Hotwheels car, creaking Adalyn, secretly relieved, helped a poet’s curse over the dirt hill, never quite reaching the crying woman to her feet and dumped Adithi Raghavan halfway before slipping down. the broken plate into the garbage. “I’ll be Sammamish, WA It was the summer of sixth grade, back in a few days with some people to and I was in Yanji — a city in the furthest tick tock collect them.” She promised. Perhaps it reaches of northeast China bordering wasn’t much to her, but by Jenna’s North Korea and Russia. More mindless keys massage the seams of life’s reaction, it was a miracle. When she endless toils importantly, it was the home to my looked at the mother, she could only see crimson rivers sizzling at the unexpected grandfather’s extended family: two dozen bursts of rain falling from the sun’s eyes, her mother, trying her best to take care of cousins, aunts and great-uncles whom I trickle along the course of the veins her family. had never met before. at the center of it all: a ticking time bomb She left shortly after, waving a That day, we had all trundled onto goodbye. She traveled down the wet tick tock. CLICK. an aching bus and headed for the North sidewalk, the sun warming her. She Korean border. This was not the DMZ, paused at the end of the lopsided keys stop playing. but the China side. The border was a sidewalk, glancing back. She imagined a sun stops crying. cracked concrete bridge connecting Yanji rivers begin fading. little girl balancing on the banister, to the bleak, broken hills of North Korea. clinging to the posts with loud squeals of Shops and dirty convenience stores tugs of sudden intense memories drawn laughter. strings of pathos. littered the surrounding streets — a tourist Adalyn sat back within the leather a whirlwind of whirlwinds whisks party embracing a grim wasteland. You seats of the taxi and the driver jumped up fleeting letters into an incoherent jumble. could walk halfway across the bridge, a jigsaw. from his sleep, startled by the slamming unsupervised, if you were a Chinese of her car door. “Sorry, I was just citizen. it beckons you to solve it. catchin’ a few winks, Miss Taylor.” My brother Kian had bought an you create sense out of nonsense until the She kept her focus on the house. pieces shapeshift into their final off-brand ice cream drumstick at one of “It’s alright. Just take me ho-” She conjunction. the convenience stores. He licked it, paused, realizing what she’d been about slowly, his hands covered in sticky, but it’s not finished. to say. It didn’t seem right anymore. “Just melted vanilla goo. We watched the take me back.” tractor together: up and down, up and your silent master of death whispers all down. He started up the car, pulling out the imperfections, and away from her home. Adalyn stared a creeping upon the edges of the puzzle and “It’s funny,” he said. etching scars into our piece. moment longer, heart full and memories I stared at the broken-down town pressing her mind as the distance across the river surrounded by miles of fix it. increased between her and it, until she starved, bare hills. People are trapped finally lost sight of her childhood house. over there, I realized—some of my an infinite loop begins as layers of Tears tracked down her face, her evolution compound upon each other. relatives are trapped over there, stranded cheeks red, and eyes swollen. She minute details reveal countless hours of in a world of headlines and debate, pensive moods like tree rings reveal age. hiccupped and a great hole opened up military marches and mysterious, within her chest, a storm filling the void terrifying super-weapons of global one day you manage to break out of the destruction. there. Adalyn cast one last look over her loop. shoulder as the taxi drove her away. She an onlooker analyzes your work. I watched the tractor creep was finally away from the poverty and the upwards, the desperate wheels snapping. struggle. They would do better without and now, you’ve created a jigsaw for Somehow, a part of me was there — and a them to decipher. her. One less mouth to feed. She part of that was me. Was I too made so it begins and ends, could finally go make of sand and tree stumps, rusty 35 metal and nuclear Trying not to make eye Pitampura, 1984 contact as if bombs? A silent, cold Esha Kataria I will taunt her terror crept over my Ellington, CT body. I make tea for grandma in her grey mug Cars buzzing around “No, it’s not,” I finally said. and walk upstairs to her bedroom on the busy streets of Delhi the painting of Shiva lines the “What?” honking angrily at each other bedstand “It’s not funny.” like enemies impatiently waiting to attack On the verge of falling

The tractor slipped. the tv box is screaming but she’s sleeping, I wake up to the sounds; like there is nothing wrong

The cars, the street vendors, the white Nothing at all LILIES noise of the tv blaring I set the warm cup at her bedside table Blythe Petit the dust flying in through the window and walk out quietly, turning off the Baltimore, MD My eyes are blinded by the sun television on my way out, not wanting to wake her Eyes that barely clear the podium —— Gaze out and are met by hundreds My eyes are heavy with fatigue Of strangers who gape back like I board the yellow crowded bus with My clothes damp monkeys. children screaming fighting yelling I jump into the cold shower and try to I sit with a girl in my class and close my relax, unable Clinging to a tree that is no longer there, eyes trying to block out all the chaos To scrub off The perfume of funeral flowers this burden of Wafts through the air. I’m wearing my newly ironed blouse and responsibility Laughter and tears are the black my pleated skirt Dots on a porcelain domino. my black shiny flats have already turned Fried Rice brown from the dust Where is the line between appreciation Iris Martin The heat already creating and loss? Teaneck, NJ sweat stains under my arms Bath Towel e is three years older than I struggle to keep my eyes open Emma Hubbard you, drives his father’s car I had stayed up last night studying Baltimore, MD and calls you baby. You’ve H

always been fiercely independent, but Musty coral towel, The bus finally parks in front of the when he tells you to cook for him you You smell of peaches & basil large building, the Indian flag throw your head back and laugh, but of As you swell above and below me Blowing in the wind And envelop me The colors orangewhitegreen course you agree. You agree and you tell In garlands of underwater gardens but- merging into the sky along with the sun him you’ll make him fried rice; you tell him that you’re so good at fried rice you

Not the deep & murky underwater I stand in the lines of hundreds of can make it in your sleep. That inhabits rusty buoys and haunted old students at assembly But you don’t tell him you trees I hear the Indian National Anthem have. You don’t tell him that whenever (gutted and saturated playing and bow like mossy mummies) my head in respect someone mentions fried rice, even in passing, you remember the way you used Nor the underwater of a downpour New day, but nothing new to wake up at 6:30 and turn on the stove.

Of salty teardrop rain, You don’t tell him about putting the —— The kind of rain that makes old men howl coffee on while you washed your face in And dogs anticipate with eager, aching the kitchen sink. limbs I come home before my siblings You tell him you’ve made it the clothes still hanging from the Rather the underwater of secret stone line “bout a million times” but you don’t tell fountains Only getting dirtier from him that every time you used your coarse the dust From which cold, herbed water hands to separate the clumps of cold rice, Gurgles and teases you were just mirroring the movements of Beneath apricot and fig trees a headache gnaws at my brain your mother and grandmother and every Before rushing eating parts of it constantly woman who came before you. Because In eddies and whirls fried rice is as hereditary as brown eyes To croon and cry I walk into the tiny kitchen, the house girl is cleaning Over the wilted crocuses and type 1 diabetes. she is wearing a shaggy sari, its colors You tell him you used to make fading fast it for your family all the time, but you she nods to me in servitude almost leave out the way your little brother Fear 36 used to wake up around by his elbow? It’s almost a constellation. Food Doesn’t the same time the oil Call it filtered sunshine on teenage boy & it won’t come home with him. became hot enough to Taste Good An ink blot blossoms in the water. Looks cook with. So you threw the rice in the Anymore like a smudge of blood on a war Casey Rae Borella pan while he cooed in the highchair, photographer’s lens Verona, NJ fussing over his formula. He loved the except there’s no war here. This is the

moment—frozen—just way you danced with a spatula in one used to count my calories like before. hand, dancing to a song that has yet to sheep. My head on the pillow, play. You danced even though you were Rebirth I staring up at the ceiling, I re-played tired cause he’d cry if you didn’t. their leaps into my mouth. Usually by that Jeremy Hsiao Dancing and fried rice were always acts point, I wanted to spit them out and send Walnut, CA of loving servitude. them back over the fence. But alas, unlike

Loving servitude the same way Reshaped with added dust sheep, calories could not go back to where you’re willing to stand in this boy’s caught in the jet engines of Boeing 747’s they came from unless I threw them up. returning to the streets of Johor Bahru kitchen and live out the role you were It’s the first day of February 2010. to live again. taught to fill. You became a woman the I am in third grade and my 9th birthday first time the popping oil burnt your The scent of Malaysia inhaled from was just yesterday. Today is special forearm, and every sleepy morning since touchdown, because my class has a special visitor: an then. You want to care for him the same from the streets lined with water-wasted exchange student named Jan from the walls, way you begrudgingly portioned fried Czech Republic. All the girls in my class to the apartment buildings that shelter rice for the rest of your family, selflessly are going to be fighting over him, so I shops beneath and without question. to the decaying waste in deep gutters, need to make an impression on Jan. I But he says he doesn’t like rice, the country turned inside out. wake up extra early today (I’m nine now and you remember how hollow you felt and nine-year-olds need time in the falling asleep every night knowing you’d Eyes peeled for a second time, morning to do their hair). I pick up the wake up and do it all over again. You refreshed in rain that pours outfit that I laid out the night before, a a flickering bulb, fading in and out. remember the too-familiar ache of the white collared shirt, brown pants, and a early morning hustle and the new ache of brown sparkly sweater. I cover myself in I find my second place of birth, leaving your father’s house and the new fabric, inch by inch, until the ensemble is half a heart pumping into the juices of pangs of uselessness. fruit, complete. Hairbrush in hand, I head to the You say nothing in reply and he or the milk in ice kachang, mirror. My room has pictures all over it - tells you it’s just rice. the cooking oil in grills, mostly pictures of me and my friends. an array of beautiful And to him it’s always been just Eleanore’s legs are thin enough for her to collaboration rice. wrap her fingers around them. I look in of confusion and order, the mirror. Olivia eats ice cream and the battles of legendary Malay warriors BEFORE (two koi like Hang Tuah cheesy pasta every single day, but she still against his long lost childhood friend, wears a size 8-10. I am not pleased with fish in water) found in pasar malam booths. what I see. The MKA polo fits Maddie the Rukmini Kalamangalam right way. I throw my hairbrush at the Houston, TX Among her mountains are hidden mirror, but luckily - it flies into the wall treasures The shadow of whiskers like an invitation instead. It is 6:45 a.m. and my hairbrush is caressed with clouds with the address missing. A fin stuck in the wall. It is 6:46 a.m. and I am coated in sprouts of trees, like jellyfish but more tulle. a city whose branches and skyscrapers on the floor, crying. I am the fattest girl in Craterous tulle; black swan reach the stars. the third grade. And I’m not stupid. I pirouetting on the moon.

Tulle skirt with cigarette know I’m the fattest girl in the third Malaysia wraps my skin in warm burn holes; laddered grade. Madison shouts across the hallway, tights. embrace. proclaiming that she is still 50 pounds. I Iron stain on tulle; muddy. Her soul slips down my throat am a whole 35 pounds heavier than Burned tulle drowned; in nasi lemak, in roti canai, in their soft Madison. I am nine years old and I weigh Ophelia enters drinks the water with her head split open. with the air that I breathe 85 pounds. Madison asks me how much I It sizzles. two years, two views weigh. I say that don’t know, but we all a time capsule from both the past and Light glinting off scaled arms like know that’s a lie. I could never forget how future merman preparing for battle. Drape him much I weigh - the number 85 is branded in tadpoles- a garland to keep. See stored in one place. on my brain. that collection of freckles Dad still glares at me 37 when I eat off mom’s babysitting, and the kids are asleep. All I and a skeleton of who I

plate. I usually cry after want is a fruit rollup, and there is a was.

family dinners. Eat your plethora of fruit rollups in the pantry. I don’t write my weight on my own food. Are you really sure you should Breakfast: one hardboiled egg (70) and mirror anymore. I threw the pink expo be eating that? Haven’t you eaten enough green tea (0). It’s better to eat hardboiled marker out and replaced it with purple. already? Soon the echoes of his voice eggs rather than scrambled –with My mirror now reads “love yourself first” turned into the echoes of my own. We scrambled you consume extra calories and “today is what you make it.” I try to don’t have family dinners anymore. from the oil. Sometimes I skip the egg all remind myself that a few pounds heavier It’s the summer after 8th grade and together. Green tea is good for your or a few pounds lighter, I am still me. I try I’m going to the New Jersey State Fair. immune system – it’s like natural weight to look at food without Julia is picking me up at immediately recognizing 6:00 and right now it’s the calories of each item. 5:30. Sometimes I like the I deleted the calorie way I look. I haven’t tracker from my phone. bought new clothes in a Starving isn’t cute while, but I know I can anymore. I am not better make do. Sometimes the all the time, and I will boys at school say I’d be admit that. There are still prettier if I made myself days where I love shrink. I want to get a nice Toil Ziya Xu Pittsburgh, PA watching my hands Instagram picture tonight. Maybe I loss tea. I plug breakfast into “Lose It!,” shake. But that’s not every day. And that should skip breakfast. I have a small walk the calorie tracker I’ve been using for the is what matters. in closet in my new house. Maybe I past month. It tells me that in order to should skip lunch. It’s never that lose 10 pounds by when school starts, I Horses of Catastrophe can eat 1200 calories a day. But that’s organized though. Maybe I should skip Sabrina Alvarez dinner. I grab the first pair of shorts I see fine, it seems like more than enough to Taylor, PA and put them on. Maybe I should just me. I check my tracker to see if I can fit Winter’s waste skip them all. The closet has a full-sized in a fruit rollup. Lunch: one Rxbar (210). Wrapped white Waler. mirror that hangs on the door. I walk over My mom’s friends tell me that I look A king’s crown to the mirror and suddenly I’m nine great. Skinny. They joke and ask how I Conquered from confinement. again. Here I am, staring at my reflection, did it, if I can share my secrets. I just so utterly displeased. My thighs are the laugh it off. Laughing burns 35 calories in Battles born from blood size of the ocean and have craters all over 10-15 minutes, did you know that? Bring Barb’s blazing brick. them like the moon. I look like a washed Dinner: - wait, never mind. I’m not Swords show stories up whale. I look like an elephant. I am eating dinner tonight. I am well under my Of snakes striking souls. drowning myself in the thoughts of how daily limit and it’s probably fine if I eat Bottomless bargains much I hate who I am. I want to rip my this one, tiiiiiiiny fruit rollup. The crinkle Beckon black Blazer. thighs off and let the tide pull them away. of the wrapper and the bright red color Bread burdened by balance I want it all to go away. I want to be entices me. I’m pretty excited for this Break by beggary. someone else. I want it all to STOP. fruit rollup. I open my mouth and I realize This time, I’m not holding a - I am physically incapable of eating this Pale pink poppies hairbrush. The glass shatters and my fruit rollup. I want to eat it, but I just Present pale Persano. Silenced slaughter knuckles are bleeding. I’m on the ground can’t. I try to bite of a piece but suddenly Summons Samael’s scythe. again, just like third grade, except this I can’t chew. I try to chew, and I spit it time I’m trying not to sit on shards of right back up. How did I become this glass. The mirror is broken and so am I. way? I am now 123 pounds, the skinniest Zero Nina Gerszberg I have been since 7th grade. And I am My room doesn’t have a full size Towaco, NJ proud of myself. I am proud of the way I mirror anymore. I have to go downstairs get dizzy when I stand up. I am proud of into my parents’ room to use the mirror. do not believe in the number zero. the way my hip bones protrude out. I am On my bathroom mirror, sometimes I I believe that when you subtract proud of the fact that people are jealous write my weight in pink expo marker. If I one from one you get a number of how I look now. I am proud of the I’m constantly reminded of what a called zero. But zero is but a number, and monster that I have become. Somehow, I disappointment that number is, then I will unlike other numbers, it cannot be applied have eaten myself whole and spit myself work harder for the number to decrease. to real life. Allow me to explain. All back out. I am a shell of who I used to be numbers show the amount of Tonight, I am 38 something. So if you the men had done to me. Even after all a better neighborhood

have the number one, my dignity was gone, I still did not

and you apply it to the believe in zero. If you took away my I don’t even know what’s that’s supposed world, you can get one orange or one true dignity then I would truly have nothing. to mean love. However, I do not believe the Absolutely nothing. But you can’t have That when I see struggling situations number zero exists. See, zero implies nothing because you can’t have a zero Put up a black screen? that you have nothing, and I do not amount of something. And I know I do Or when I see the color red automatically assume believe in nothing either, because nothing not lie when I say this since you can’t That’s a juvenile teen? would mean you had the absence of have zero amounts of anything since there something. But nothing is still something, is no number zero. So even now, after Forget all that everything, I still do not believe in the and if you have an absence of nothing I embrace where I’m from you have something. And since there is number zero. And at least I got culture unlike you always something, there can’t be a zero Even as I swallowed the 20th pill, bougie lowlife bums amount of anything. There is no zero. the most I had ate in as long as I could So listen up on what I plan to do This is what I believe. I always have. remember. Even as I faded out of Pay attention as to what I need to go thru When there was only one bottle of consciousness. And even when I finally Or else imma have serve you some alcohol and one scar cut into my face, I left all the pain behind, I still did not serious deja vu did not believe in zero. I did not think believe in the number zero. And this is that the man holding the bottle was my the only thing I can remember to be true. I plan to succeed father, but I did not have zero Fathers. I I know it’s true because an absence of Make sure that all my struggling brothas and sistas take the lead did not have no Father. I will always something is nothing. And nothing is still Give back so that struggling mothers can have my role model because I cannot something. Meaning, I cannot have count up that rack have zero fathers, because I do not nothing. I cannot have a zero amount of Make sure they sons get that A+ back to believe in the number zero. anything, because that would mean there back

Even after the 8th hospital visit, is nothing, when really, there is always You say cut them no slack? Well Imma give em all of that when my Mom took me out of the house something. So even now, at the end, I still So much to the point where it start to feel and put me on the streets, I still did not do not believe in the number zero. like crack believe in zero. I refuse to believe, because that would mean I had no place The Good Hood Since day one I been on a mission to call “home,” meaning I had zero Bobbi Asse Everyday people tell me my dreams are a homes, and I know that cannot be true Newark, NJ fiction But I won’t let the conflicting because I do not believe in the number Since day one I been on a mission contradiction stop the so much needed zero. Everyday people tell me my dreams are a justification Even when the man knocked me fiction Because my form of glory can’t be told out and took my Mother away, I still did inna short story not believe in the number zero. I know I am right because even after the last of my I am expected to be too good for the hood family was torn away I still had a family. That I shoulda grew w/ a sophisticated I know this because if I didn’t I would childhood have no Mother and I do not believe in That when I grow up, I should move into having no Mother because that would Editor: mean I had zero amounts of family and I do not believe in the number zero. Glen Retief

Even as they forced me away Selection Editors: from the last spot where I saw my PJ Lombardo, Christina Joell, Keri Brady-

Mother, taking away the very last thing I Benzig held onto, I still did not believe in the Final Selection Editor: number zero. Even as they began treating Emily Gibbs me like my Father had, I knew I had Print & Web Designer: something because if I didn’t, it would Jason Ferris mean I had zero amounts of anything and Print Content Editor: that can’t be right because I do not Lin Seavey believe in the number zero. Special thanks to: Even as I felt the wind taunting

my bare skin. Even after all that Codie Nevil Sauers 39 Teachers and The Apprentice Writer students, we want to hear from you! What is YOUR favorite piece in this year’s edition of The Apprentice Writer and why? SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS Susquehanna University #apprenticewriter Writers Institute ______@writersinstitute_su ______@SU_Writers ______

"Susquehanna University has the best undergraduate writing program in the United States." —Robert Boswell, Guggenheim Fellow and New Yorker fiction writer

Thorough. Challenging. Substantive. These are just some of the terms independent reviewers have used to describe Susquehanna University’s creative writing major, one of the most rigorous and successful undergraduate programs in the nation. Students work closely in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction with faculty who are widely-published authors. Small workshops and one-on-one instruction are enriched by the following programs:

The Visiting Writers Series: Six writers visit campus each year (One of them for a week- long residency). Recent visitors include Kazim Ali, Eula Biss, Lydia Davis, Aminatta Forna, Nick Flynn, Lia Purpura, George Saunders, and Lauren Slater.

The Susquehanna Review, Essay, and RiverCraft: Three distinct magazines are edited and produced by students—a national magazine featuring work from undergraduate writers from across the country, a nonfiction magazine, and a magazine of fiction and poetry from Susquehanna student writers.

Endowed Writing Prizes and Scholarships: Writing scholarships of $5,000 per year are available to incoming Creative Writing majors based on the quality of their writing portfolios. Prizes of as much as $1000 are awarded to students chosen each year on the basis of work published in our student magazines and in senior portfolios.

Internships: Susquehanna’s Creative Writing Majors have had recent internships with national magazines, advertising agencies, professional writing organizations, nonprofit foundations, newspapers, public relations firms, radio stations, churches, businesses, and schools.

Graduate Programs: Creative Writing majors have received fellowships or assistantships to such outstanding graduate writing programs as Iowa, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Indiana, Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Houston, Boston University, Ohio State, UNC - Greensboro, George Mason, Rutgers, and The New School.

The Publishing and Editing major, our partner program at the university, teaches students technological and practical job skills for working in print and digital media. Students are able to showcase what they learned by working on one of our four magazines.

If you would like to know more about any of the programs for high school students or receive information about the Creative Writing major at Susquehanna, see our website www. susqu.edu/writers or contact Dr. Glen Retief, Director, by e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone at 570- 372-4035. V o l u m 36 e