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The Apprentice WRITER

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apprentice writer : 1 by working on one or more of the four magazines the Susquehanna Writers Institute Faculty editor: Introduction publishes each year. If you are interested in Glen Retief Welcome. The Apprentice Writer learning more about the Creative Writing annually features the best writing and major and progams related to writing rose editors photographs from 4,000 entries we sponsored by the Writers Institute, see the P : receive each year from secondary schools back page for a summary or go to Jacob Dolan-Bath throughout the United States. Every susqu.edu/writers for details. Angela Frey September we send copies printed as a public service by The Daily Item in Send material to be considered for next Poetry editor: Sunbury, PA to nearly 3,500 schools. year’s issue to [email protected]. For Caroline Knight full submission guidelines, please visit susqu. Susquehanna’s Creative Writing major edu/academics/10602.asp. Please be sure to now enrolls 170 undergraduate students. include your name and address on each page. Final Selection Editor: Our program in Editing and Publishing The deadline for submissions is March 10, Alyssa Moore gives our majors an opportunity to 2015. showcase what they have learned Web Design Paul Crowe Table of Contents Michael Doran

PROSE Production editor: 4 Phoenix Song ~ Whitney Xu Dylan Shaffer 8 Turbulence ~ Tara Sharma 13 And the Silence is a Beautiful Thing ~ Tiffany Wang Special thanks to 18 Self Portrait ~ Tiffany Wang 21 The Insomniac ~ Connie Guo Codie Nevil Sauers 26 A Gardener’s Guide to Heartbreak ~ Kathryn Ippolito 29 The Waitress ~ Kathryn Ippolito 33 Ivy ~ Rachel Foster 35 After Death ~ Sara Zhou 36 A Woman Takes Pills ~ Jiyoung Jeong 38 Nanu ~ Simran Malhotra 38 Grind a Layer ~ Danielle Weidner 41 Downstairs ~ Alyssa Mulé 39 Swallow-Song ~ Beatrice Lee 42 Something Borrowed, Something Blue ~ 39 of electra ~ Beatrice Lee Rachel Pietrewicz 40 Empanada ~ Eliza Scharfstein 45 Tnis is nom I see tne morlb -This is how I see the world ~ 40 Courtesy of the School Paper, the Lawrence ~ Carolyn Todd Allison Huang 46 Truro Red ~ Joline Hartheimer 43 February in Hong Kong ~ Letitia Chan 48 Back Home Again ~ Elizabeth Satterfield 44 in The Absence of a Sky Train ~ 51 Liberation ~ Olivia Evans Kamonphorn Buranasiri 52 Blue ~ Sarah Betancourt 45 Chicago, Quiet Illinois ~ Kate Busatto 53 Red ~ Mallory Chabre 46 The Bund ~ Ruting Li 47 King of the World ~ Tiara Sharma 47 Delhi Braveheart ~ Tiara Sharma POETRY 49 The Inuit ~ Caleb Tansey 3 This kind of you ~ Sophie Cloherty 50 Watching Children at the Marketplace, One Day ~ 3 Biology of a City ~ Alyssa Mulé Jiyoung Jeong 5 Barcelona ~ Shoshanna Israel 54 Bruising ~ Letitia Chan 6 How it felt to be touched before and after ~ 55 Missing Girls ~ Tiara Sharma Caitlin McGowan 6 Sestina for Senescence ~ Clémentine Wiley PHOTOGRAPHY 12 The Vase ~ Allison Huang 15 Paulie and the Primates: Live! at the Musky Barn ~ 7 Knots and Branches ~ Hye Rin Yang David Merkle 16 Dakota’s Winter Wonderland ~ Dakota Thomas 15 Coastal Portrait ~ Clémentine Wiley 25 Untitled ~ Julia Reinert 16 Arktikos ~ Tucker Huston 32 Perception ~ Tyler Gleeson 17 Sloppy Seconds ~ Allison Choi 37 Laurel Lake ~ Richard Randall 17 Red Eulogy ~ Lisa Zou 41 Line 1 ~ Scott Bodnar 20 The Dirty Side of Glamour ~ Allison Choi 44 Untitled ~ Julia Reinert 24 The Rose Garden ~ Jo de Waal 50 Tree Windows ~ Nickolas Stagaman 25 Cali Soul ~ Sophie Cloherty Cover photo: Control ~ Madeleine Sargent 28 Ballet ~ Erinn Goldman 31 Ars Poetica: Birds ~ Letitia Chan 32 Skin ~ Aleah Gatto 34 Mother and I at the Farmer’s Market on a Sunday Morning ~ Ruting Li 34 Communion ~ Allison Huang 37 4H Rambling ~ David Merkle

2 : susquehanna university Biology of a City Alyssa Mulé Atlanta, GA Advanced Writers Workshops In Copenhagen I’m sifting through skin Each summer, the Writers Institute offers the one-week Advanced Writers Workshops for High School Students. to find the heart of the city but successfully excavating The 2016 Summer Workshops will take place in late June or only one slender wrist. early July. Participants live on campus and concentrate on fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. The fee of $810 (early application by April 15th) covers all costs, The tourist boat slicks including room and board. through the silken water, Go to susqu.edu/writers and click on “high school students” for with the matter-of-fact motion more information and an electronic application. of practiced punishing. Rubbery wires run the length of the pitted bridge, red and blue like the veins and arteries of one forearm This kind of you laid bare to the bone. Sophie Cloherty Wellesley, MA At the front of the boat, the tour is October thoughts, in the suspension of your radio guide an effervescence of the mind. over off-road gravel. The stamp speaks too softly To know, you said, is to want. of your sweatshirt on my skin for me to comprehend and too June came and so did rain. made me wish that moments loudly Rain that whispered soft could be like envelopes, licked and for me to ignore. like the letter of a lover sealed Jerking my head upward landing on s sounds the way until they reached familiar hands. in a sudden and savage desire to pine needles brush understand, a child’s face. I realized you I catch a darting phrase here or were a ticking, bound there, a Danish name. to the minute hand the same way Occasionally my jetlagged mind a New York train is bound wanders to the rattling of tracks. Two to the idea of the night ahead, people to sleeping in this sharp-boned city. like beat-down shoes strangled over a telephone wire, the same My breathing will slow as I lie wire sweetly snuggled that carried the 80’s bands running in a rib, or a thigh, on your stereo, the only part of or a shoulder of Copenhagen. you I could feel pulse. The electricity Over the sea and the elusive stars I of my mind became currents will soar, where you thrived. Two am came until I awake tomorrow morning, and I realized we were star-crossed, when morning breath and blues always wishing to be trapped will jar me from epiphany.

apprentice writer : 3 though jumbled and messy, was un- by his expression. As I played, I won- Phoenix Song like anything I had ever heard. I was dered, Why is he looking at me like infatuated. Once a week, a stoop- that? There was nothing hard about Whitney Xu ing Chinese woman with jet-black the piece. It was not particularly fast Madison, NJ hair and an underbite would come or complicated, there were no im- When I was born, my father to my house and guide me through pressive chords or scales. However, I swore he would never make me learn titles such as “Buggie Boogie” and saw how much he enjoyed listening the piano. “Witch’s Waltz.” During my first few to it, and I played many more De- lessons, Miss Sun assigned me two bussy pieces for him to make him “Every single Chinese kid in the songs per week. Then three, then happy. world plays the piano,” he would say four. Finally, I began to play through Mr. Buchanan would not smile to my mother. And he was right. In the songs in each book before being through my lessons, like Miss Sun our tiny circle of friends, all of whom assigned any of them. I could not would; he frowned, sucked on his were Chinese, every child we knew play enough. I loved the symbols on teeth, and furrowed his eyebrows. At attended piano lessons once a week the sheets of music. At the sight of a the top of each page of music, Mr. and practiced for half an hour every crescendo, I would hunch my shoul- Buchanan would write: 9/16, 5x, day after school. ders and hammer my fingers down 120 -- the date, repetitions needed, Weeks after I turned three, my with more and more force. My hands and the tempo. I practiced over an mother bought a toy xylophone at flew off the keyboard, darting like hour every day, sometimes two, with the consignment store, each note a embers from a fire, whenever there my mother sitting beside me patient- different color of the rainbow. My were staccato notes. My favorite part ly. I watched YouTube videos obses- father set it down on the carpeted of playing was the way my hands sively, staring enviously at Martha floor of our cramped apartment and felt. If I concentrated hard enough, Argerich, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and played the notes of “Twinkle, Twin- my fingers became quick and nim- Arthur Rubinstein, marveling at the kle,” and I clapped my hands togeth- ble and bent in ways to create clear, perfection of their performances. I er in excitement. I grabbed the plas- pleasing harmonies. The technicali- no longer enjoyed the feeling of my tic wand and banged out the notes ties of piano enticed me. After a year fingers flying across the keys; rather, that my father had just played: red, learning with Miss Sun, she told my I relished in the triumph I felt after red, blue, blue, purple, purple, blue. parents to find new teacher because I conquering a piece. My purpose He was astonished. He took the mal- had played through all the songs she when playing was to complete a let back from me and played “Mary taught her students. song without making any mistakes. Had a Little Lamb,” and I quickly re- Mr. Buchanan assigned me more In this way, the piano became my claimed the stick, tapping the ceram- sophisticated pieces. These were at enemy, but as the songs I played be- ic blocks: yellow, orange, red, orange, much higher tempos, and many end- came more complex, I was rarely yellow, yellow, yellow. My father was ed with grand, classical chords that I able to claim victory. I cried when I childishly delighted and spent the af- slammed down with all the strength practiced a Polonaise by Chopin for ternoon playing simple melodies for I had in my arms. My mother always three weeks and still could not play it me to imitate on that tiny xylophone. asked me to play for guests, and I through flawlessly. A fissure formed That evening, he searched through found that they were most impressed in my relationship with the piano as the newspaper for ads from piano with pieces that had the highest pressure built slowly inside of me, teachers in the area. speed and the loudest sound. cracking my ribs every new day I sat My first piano was a light caramel When I was in sixth grade, I in front of the piano. brown, upright, Baldwin with keys played Claude Debussy’s Arabesque, I spent ten years with Mr. Bu- tinged yellow at the edges. The day No. 1, one of his most famous piano chanan, during which I played Bach’s we got it, I bounded onto the bench, compositions. I remember my father Well Tempered Movements, Cho- sitting on my knees to reach the listening from beside me, and when I pin’s etudes, Haydn’s concertos, and keys, and fluttered my fingers over glanced at him, his eyes were shining Tchaikovsky’s Four Seasons, com- them. The tinkling cadence of notes, with longing and awe. I was confused peted in annual local competitions,

4 : susquehanna university and performed at Carnegie Hall I did not notice her until one day, with another group of his students. before rehearsal began, I heard her Barcelona After that performance, my parents play Bach’s famous Cello Suite, No. sold the aging Baldwin and bought 1 Prelude. Shoshanna Israel a baby grand Yamaha. I both loved The piece was not difficult. Her Maple Glen, PA it and despised it. When I played at fingers slid easily up and down presto, the notes sounded crisp and the neck of her cello, and her bow Your uncle teaches you carefully clean like coins clattering on marble. strokes were slow. After the first mea- to flick a fan like a dancer However, the clarity of the strident sure, goosebumps exploded across all in the wrist pitches also rang out every mistake I the back of my neck, and I remem- until you are delighted made, and made every missed note ber shuddering involuntarily, just by a portrait of stylized flowers nakedly obvious. Its lacquered black from these simple notes. Neurons in body, beautiful at first glance, was my brain collided from pure musical You are far from elegant, too easily covered in smudges and epiphany as her bow sailed powerful- hardly the flamenco girl fingerprints. When I looked up from ly over the strings of her cello. Each sketched in your souvenirs the bone-white keys, I would see my triad carried both jubilance and sor- who smiles, like she’s got a secret reflection in the glossy paint. When I row, the vibrations of her strings amidst the ruffles of red was fourteen, I met my own eyes and sending explosions of emotion into realized that I saw no joy in them. the air. I stared at her with longing Auntie takes you out one day Eventually, even the thrill of fin- and awe. and guides you in maze of sun- gers cascading through a scale was That day, I went home and sat warmed stone not enough to keep me on the bench. down on the piano bench gingerly. I where you get lost amidst The technical skills I had developed lifted the lid, dusty from months of kaleidoscope Gothics seemed worthless. Piano siphoned neglect, and clenched and opened and duck into tapas bars, the energy from me, and by the time my fists. A familiar energy rushed praying you look old enough to I had played Felix Mendelssohn’s down my neck into the tips of my blend in. Rondo Capriccioso, the last song I fingers, as if my body knew what to would play for two years, every chord do. An old fear wriggled from the We drop coins in the buckets of brought fatigue to my bones. When I cellar of my mind again, the fear strangers finally told my mother I wasn’t going that I would mess up, that the grace And you are shocked by the to my next lesson, I saw her cry for notes would slur or that I would play geometry of this place, the first time. But she did not argue. a B octave instead of a C during a all curves and swaying hips, The lid of the Yamaha lay closed climactic progression. I shook the Architecturally feminine, and inert for months. School books thought from my head and opened You feel very flat and pale and and magazines piled on top of it, and the book. My fingers instinctively small. my mother would run a cloth over rested on the first chord. it when guests came over. I avoided Until one thursday during siesta, looking at it, but its black looming Auntie tells you the story of the figure dominated the room. cathedral I did not end my relationship with And how it’s always being built, for music altogether. I still played viola hundreds of years in the school orchestra, squeaking You take in some solace, along with out concertos along with the other the stained glass orchestra members. I met Surekha That the best things can take a during my first year of high school while. orchestra. She was a small, dark Nepalese girl exactly one week older than me and the first chair cellist.

apprentice writer : 5 and i felt like the world was an potatoes in a dish, How it felt to be empty place peels, slices, fries—sixty years she’s and i picked the leaves off of my taken these steps. touched before and mother’s succulent on the window Her skin sits in grooves—time sinks, after pane it doesn’t fly. to see if they would ever grow back Flushing, afternoon sets Caitlin McGowan again. into clouds slipping past Mamaroneck, NY the bar’s sign painted with a spilling in my party dress in her kitchen, glass. the pressure of a brisk and rugged the cool counter grazing my belly, boulder the room wept flash jazz Still as glass, leaves crater bruises on my naked and felt like living inside of a Pi- the village lake holds its sky like a thighs casso painting. giant dish grass stains on the cotton hem of with his moth-eaten fingers where wives in the past my underwear. tracing the small of my back, with baskets of clothes and gossip i feel the wind nipping behind my i feel the scent of camel snus would step ears and racing to reach my center to the edge and set the flash of his camera and i felt my lips curve downward up scrubbing boards. Now plastic ignite goosebumps on my shoulders, crescent, scatters under the surface striped by his sugar coated fingers and i felt recessive planes in flight. wipe cream away from my upper lip and when i was alone again and suddenly the night and the win- i felt brittle to the core. The people who fly ter and the gauntness of my skin see only how the trees fleece the hills is ever evident. from across their windows’ glass, Sestina for Senescence not knowing that dinner is set with my hair full of baby’s breath, Clémentine Wiley soup warms the dishes and soon we hear clopping steps he smiled at me with out his teeth Edinburg, TX as the cows trudge past. giggling, i fought an urge to bite This morning Grandpa leans on the down table, heavy-set, Their owner tractors behind, a rum- the space between his pointer finger and swears as a boy he’d see soldiers bling echo of the past. and my tongue march past Most of the village from country to lessened this window dishing city flies as the small piece of somebodies light, where flies but he follows in his father’s foot- gods body dissolved in my mouth now flit in to crawl on glasses, steps. and i felt like even though i could be and Grandma comes down the My grandparents offer him wine in holy now steps. maybe this wasn’t how. a glass. He pauses to dish Mom’s lips purse as Grandma steps on the neighbor who stays inside in my rain boots, toward the kitchen to set with his new TV set he sat on the step above me breakfast, hustles to pour coffee in and on the market’s new step—sell- in the late afternoon in july our glasses. ing tourists key chains and shot we played hand games This is routine though only a week glasses. and he told me horror stories about is past The church bells ringing, the where he was from since we boarded the plane to fly— alarmed pigeons flying and about the devil and about little as guests, we shouldn’t even wash —dishdishdish—drift into the past: girls dishes. and when we went inside i cried for sullenly as the cows, steadily as the sunset. 3 hours For lunch Grandma tosses skinned

6 : susquehanna university Knots and Branches Hye Rin Yang Hackensack, NJ

apprentice writer : 7 muscle grew in with years, even after he graduated high school. She Turbulence though she could always see perfectly is remembering how he announced Tara Sharma fine. One day after school her moth- to her that out of everything there is er drove her to an optometrist so that to do in the world, he just wants to Sharon, MA he could tell June that it doesn’t seem make things with his hands. Right now she is remembering like there’s any problem. Twenty- She asked, “Like, in life?” the time when she was sixteen years twenty vision, both eyes. But be care- “Yeah. Like bread, for example. old and her mother asked her why ful—the more you squint like that, Or, I don’t know, a scarf ? Or a let- she was squinting. The room was not the more likely your eyes are to get ter.” bright, and the question asked was used to the way that feels, and you June remembers this in the car not a confusing one so her mother don’t want to end up getting thick right now, and she looks at her broth- told her she thought it bizarre, un- rims when you have perfect vision er at the driver’s seat. She finds his necessary, for her to squint. And she now. June is remembering how on hands. They are veined with dirt. is remembering the way her mother the highway ride home that day, her She wants to ask him if he still keeps held up three wiry fingers, a few days mother was just a silhouette while up that garden on his terrace. later, when she caught her doing the she softened her vision, very much “Hands are basically like trees squinting thing again: June, can you consciously this time, at the dark branches,” he said in that same see this? Should we take you to the air in front of her, blurred her eyes memory. “But no, really! Think eye doctor or something? until the red lights and yellow lights about it. I mean, don’t they just look And now June is remembering expanded and intersected and soon like the most weird, irregular part of how later that week, her mother saw formed perfect spheres of translu- the human body? And they’re pretty her squinting once again, this time cent fuzz, squinted until the lights strong, too.” across the kitchen table at her father grew bigger than the cars themselves, “So, you want to let your hands while he spoke. Why are you squint- until they lensed the whole nighttime get all gnarled and thick?” She knew ing at me? she remembers him say- freeway in high beam incandesce. in that moment that he said these ing that to her, in the middle of his June is doing it again in the win- things to her that summer so that sentence that she can’t remember, so dow seat of her airplane tonight as when he moved across the Atlan- she shook her head quickly, looked she scans down below to a lit city be- tic, she would remember him as a down to her lap, tucked her chin in neath her. She likes the cars and the brother as mature as she was, even if between the bones on her neck and people and the hairs of roads when he was younger. June knew then that held it like that for five long seconds, they are small and blurry, when she Lee was just making a box—a box stretched her eyes as open as they is hovering thousands of feet above, she could fit all her memories of him went until she felt the skin of her top so that her eyes can squint them, into, something that will last in her lid fold onto itself. June is remember- squint hard, into looser lines and mind for moments like this, until new ing how when she tried to look back boxes to intersect, lacy with haze of conversations could be had years and up at her father after those five long light. She feels the clean jerk of the years later. seconds, her eyes fell back together. plane’s wheels dropping and she sets In this memory on the highway So she tried looking straight up at into ground. The runway loudens Lee told June that he didn’t care the rust on the chandelier, and finally and loudens after the wheels pound what his hands looked like, he only her eyes grew into ovals again. on the ground, for speed, and then wanted them tough and useful and She is remembering how squint- quiet, slower, to stop. strong so that he could make things ing just came into her eyes the more The air is dark when June’s with them. June is wondering if his she watched the places around her. brother Lee finds her at the terminal hands are now as tough as he want- She got used to the way her eyes gate. As he drives out of the airport ed them to be on that day, years and would defocus every time the world parking lot, she is remembering the years ago. gave her sharper angles, harsher conversation she had with him when Now she wants to start a conver- angles, to deal with—and she soon they last drove alone and together on sation with her brother in the driv- found herself able to control it. The a highway. Perhaps it was the summer er’s seat, but instead she finds herself

8 : susquehanna university looking at her own hands. His whole time when Lee skipped school, when letter-writing plan never really went he was in tenth grade. She knew too well for him; he made this clear all along, and she loved it—she just The next morning, June sits on a to her by now. never told anyone. Her mom never small futon in Lee’s living room, and “Your flight was okay?” he says even found out. She remembers that she is drinking tea. now. So she looks at him. morning. She was a senior. “Does Mom still eat oats every “Yeah. Wasn’t too bad. God, I “If you tell Mom I swear to god day?” Lee is pouring himself Corn- haven’t taken a plane in forever. I I’ll tell her about that time you hitch- flakes. hate them.” hiked last summer,” he said, as they “Could you imagine anything “Planes?” walked down the driveway. else?” “Mostly just the turbulence.” “Dude, chill. I’m not going to tell “I mean, Dad hated oats. I hate June wants to ask why her broth- Mom. This is hilarious. I can’t be- oats. Do you even like oats? Wait, do er’s car smells like cigarettes. But in- lieve you’re doing this.” you want breakfast?” stead, she looks at the backseat of the It’s because she thought her mom June straightens her vision and car through the rearview mirror. She would find out anyway. She thought she is looking across the small living holds her eyes there for a minute, be- her mom would somehow taste it room and into Lee’s kitchen. June cause she is hoping that Lee is maybe in her morning oats, smell it in the lets her brother’s outline cloud into a looking at her, thinking about what shampoo emanating from Lee’s long brushstroke smudge. She lets the he has to say before he says it. bathroom, and feel its textures in black lines separating the kitchen’s li- He starts. “So how have you noontime light. But that day when noleum tiles stain into the white, so been?” June and Lee came home, she was that soon her eyes blotch them into “I, uh… good.” napping in her bedroom. When they grey. She lets the kettle on the stove He continues. “How’s mom woke her up, she asked them to go turn to one fog circle. She scans. She been?” get the newspaper from the bottom blurs the door, wide open, into the “I mean, you’ve talked to her on of the driveway. She claimed it com- walls, the hallway behind it, leading the phone, right? She’s the same.” pletely slipped her mind, as did go- to the doormats of other families. June tenses her back against the ing for her daily walk—where did She blinks to force her eyelids wide, seat. He is swerving through a cor- the whole day disappear?—when to get the shadows out. She places ner. they asked her about it. her mug on the table, walks into the “Does she still work? Do you guys, June feels the car slowing in front kitchen to join her brother. like, do anything together?” of a whitewashed apartment build- “June, do you want to see the ter- “I mean, not really. It’s the worst ing, as Lee turns the dial on the ra- race? It’s cool. And at this time of now. She’s more talkative then she dio. day, it’s really cool.” has ever been. Which doesn’t make “I don’t know. Like, she never “Right. I forgot you had that.” any sense, right? But nothing she used to talk that much. Now it’s like “It’s perfect. I like the open space, says has any motion any more. Like her words are too thin. She just says I guess. And you can see everything something is dull. You know what I them for filler.” June is still waiting for from up there, too.” June watches mean?” her brother’s face to shift. “It’s dumb, how Lee’s eyes are wide and smooth “Not really.” Lee’s face is blank. though. She thinks the more she says and lit. “I don’t know. I don’t really get it. to me, the fuller we’ll both be. I can’t June follows Lee up the concrete It’s a bit much sometimes, to watch even listen to her, though. And then block terrace. her like this.” June looks at Lee. “It’s she’s alone too, and then she’s tired. And soon they reach the last step hard though now, because it’s only Do you know what I mean, at all?” up and June watches her brother me at home now. It’s like we’re both June is thinking that Lee probably stand by the greying ledges, watches blind to the other, or something. cannot trace their mother like this, in the way his hands are swatting at the You know?” Her eyes melt into blur, his memory. June wonders if Lee can sunlight, watches how his eyes be- quickly. She waits. sense, at least, that this is why she got come the shape of fish. Next June Now June is remembering the on the plane. watches her brother’s hands move in

apprentice writer : 9 his vegetable garden. June is stand- could look at the crack in the egg and er, then unraveling. ing just above the top step leading to see the four minutes inside of it. June “I don’t really think of fixed the bleached terrace. She is still and squints back at the clock, and closes things—her things—when I think silent and squinting as she watches her eyes. of her, like that. Do you know what her brother—who is kneeling by the And in six days, again June is boil- I mean?” June watches Lee look up box of vegetable garden—plant his ing two eggs on Lee’s stove. She looks at the filmy sun. “Oh yeah, June, did hands in the whitewashed morning. at the clock for four minutes until the you like that terrace? The light al- eggshell splits, just enough to look ways seems to be the best up there, like a shadow. She is even remember- all the time. It just works out that June is looking at the clock. “Do ing that her mother always said that way.” Now Lee drops his eyes on his you remember how Mom would eggs contained themselves. They feet and June tries to do the same. always bring us boiled eggs on the were like a whole meal in one little She doesn’t hear him right now. She way home from school?” The clock’s natural case. She removes the eggs makes her hands look like they are hands still look linear when she is from the boiling water, rolls them up stretching— she tries to crack her thinking about how her mother in individual squares of aluminum. knuckles but the new air bubbles had to get her hearing checked last She places the oval in the seat of her haven’t yet formed. She turns to him month, when she would talk and talk hands, and because it is warm she but he has already started the car but was never able to respond. curls her other fingers around the back up. “Oh yeah.” Lee sits on the straw shiny aluminum egg, and for maybe He keeps driving her towards the rocking chair beside her. He holds a a whole minute she just holds like airport, and the air darkens more crossword puzzle. He hasn’t written that, warmth rolling and steeping too. And now her eyes need the feel anything in the boxes yet; just notes into her palms. The egg is warm as of squinting again—so she is squint- on the side. hands. ing and blurring the space in front “And she would wrap them all up She places the eggs in a brown of her until she sees a beach in the in aluminum foil and then pack them paper bag and then in her backpack. bronzed sky, but she makes it look like up in that old army green lunchbox, Her suitcase sits unzipped by the some shade of morning to her mind. the one with the holes on the side, door. Lee has gone to get the car. This is what she is imaging right now, and then we would go to Borderland when together she and her brother Park to eat them?” are skimming over the highway in June watches Lee be silent, before She is doing that thing again— so a small Toyota. And she knows that he looks up at her. “Okay. Yes.” that the outlines of trees and build- her eyes will eventually tire out, her “I mean, do you remember her ings and highway lines blur into one squinting will be strained, that soon as that?” June still watches Lee be si- cohesive, multicolored fuzz—when she will see only other cars again. lent. “You probably do, right?” She Lee drives her to the airport. June She is very much awake. Still, she lets him be silent now. tries to smudge the whole, wide 6PM defocuses her eyes. June just remembers the way her sky into just one color. Right now it She is imagining in these eyes mother taught her, when she was old purges sunset. that night bleeds with the first blem- enough, the Four Minute rule. Let Lee stops the car. June watches ishes of morning. She is imagin- the water come to a rolling boil in his vision stream to the road. They ing that she is at the beach with her the pan, then put two eggs in there are pulled over on the side of the brother, perhaps at that curious time and wait for four minutes before tak- highway. Rush hour traffic makes the of 5AM, when the eye can see the ing the eggs out. One of the eggs air wobble. first whispers of light steaming out probably will have a little crack down “You know, June, I think mom’s of the bands in the horizon, but the the side. But four minutes is the per- boiled eggs never stuck with me as sky above is still dark, almost like fect amount of time. And June is re- much as they stick with you. No, I that one little splotch of light is like membering how her mother never don’t really think about them that of- a translucent bit of the sky. That’s needed a timer back then—she just ten, I guess.” what it is right now, that’s what she knew when the time was up. She June is knitting her fingers togeth- is imagining in her squinted eyes.

10 : susquehanna university And yes, she and her brother are go- again each time she feels the turbu- lap, keeps them that way until wheels ing fishing, in the ocean, their knees lence. He told her everything that hit ground. are in the water and they are fishing one time, when she was young and in the same way that their mother her brother still younger. He even taught them when they were young, said that it could be such a nice way And maybe it’s just because of the together, and they are casting off in to go, go with the clouds outside the jetlag, but June’s eyes are aching to sync, their lines are getting tangled window made real. see her mother without defocusing. up in the seaweed in sync, brother “Even if the turbulence took over June will not blur her old, old mother and sister and mother close by, to col- the whole thing, and everything was now. Now, June is looking from the lect pockets of moments like these, shaking and everyone shook right baggage claim through the interna- these white and silent and glorious out of their seats, and yeah—imag- tional gate and she is seeing now the moments right here, these moments ine that, June, everyone wiggling on arch of her mother’s shoulders, thin that justify something. the ground—even then, we would black strands of hair and a soft face still fall for, like, two whole miles. now, a small portrait that stands still You’re not going to get hit for two and waits. June is alone on her overnight whole miles of time.” In a few moments June is placing flight home. She doesn’t see any her backpack on the airport’s lino- clocks around her, because, after all, leum floor so that she can hold her she couldn’t measure two thousand In this moment on the airplane, mother now, speak to her and listen miles in linear hours. So she lets this June is realizing why she needs to to her now, see her hands. When she time that she cannot tell defocus her blur her own eyes. June squints her sees the slowness in her mother’s re- eyes, and then everything she sees eyes because she wants to see in actions and the space in her mother’s blurs into her brother, sitting at the between things. She wants to see voice, June will watch her brother window seat and sleeping: she’s re- the world in her brother’s focus be- watching the world. She will hold in membering the way he would fall cause June is realizing that Lee never her eyes his two miles of time. asleep as he stared at the darkening squints because Lee does not need to clouds. She hated the way he insisted squint. And still, Lee does not see his on taking the window seat when they mother’s face in things. He can see were little because he would always her in between things. fall asleep, wasting the views that she could’ve enjoyed. She always thought the window seat was for peo- Then there is the sleep that June ple who liked to see metal airplane longs for during that overnight flight. wings touching clouds, for people There is morning, and June watches who wanted less than an illusion. But the morning spatter the clouds that right now she can’t see anything on soon turn saturated with light, no earth through the dark of overnight walls to hold back daytime in miles flights. So she holds her own hands of sky. Her eyelids even feel a bit under the overhead florescent whine, more translucent, every time she and one is warm and the other is tries to sleep. cold. “Why do we know that clouds Plane lands and June’s eyes hurt aren’t actually solid?” She can hear and she is fearing that maybe she him in this voice, this voice of ques- was squinting the whole time on that tions that she knew many years ago overnight flight. June is extremely but still to her sounds clear. sleepy when she thinks, for the first time, that perhaps her hands, too, are like her brother’s hands—like She listens for her brother’s voice trees. She keeps them folded in her

apprentice writer : 11 The Vase Allison Huang Princeton, NJ When we arrive at my godmother’s home, I feel that I have fulfilled the filial piety expected of a daughter too tall for the red qipao and matching silk slippers, and too brutish

to wrap my arms around my godfather’s small figure without feeling sharp bones, as I perch like a decorated vase at the small oval table, watching my father

sit stone-faced and unfamiliar at the other end. The casual array of spiced meat is too much for my mother to leave alone,

she wields a pair of shears from a used biscuit box on the counter and proceeds to ceremonially trim

the gray tails off of shrimp, as if two years had not passed since we last labored in the tiny kitchen, and a meal is conceived over the shriek of boiling tea.

At the table, everyone makes fists to pray a family prayer—my first in months, and I relax against the connected elbows, which tumble over each other to try to feed one another, the serving spoons forgotten,

as my sister plods away at the ilys, omgs, and lols underneath the table, face as taut as the white, pixeled screen, and sweet garlic cloves drown in the golden sauce of sticky fish.

I help myself to seconds.

At some point my mother begins to cry, wrinkling her brow in a tired knot, eyes like pale shells glued tight. I hunch next to her, shriveled in my tight traditional clothing, and she grasps my godmother’s hand

across the table, which looks natural now, even as the disjointed handshake levitates over a sculpture of clear stark bones, of blue-rainbow oyster shells which undulate in pink rims,

but surely their arms will ache soon. I wonder

who will let go first and if my mother will hold my hand instead, or maybe

the leather handle of the purse in her lap, surely I understand what she means by loss, what it means to be torn from the motherland,

to return each year because it was the apartment that gave her, the allowance that she must pay back, surely I understand

the greatest Trojan defeat of my mother, who sits at the computer most days to program her way out of a past that keeps haunting her, shadowy travesties that trail and wash up on the gray wallpaper of the room.

12 : susquehanna university meet me. Oh, don’t worry, you can my hands were shaking as I felt the And the Silence is a stay right here in the house, where frog’s rubbery skin fray apart – you can watch me from the window (No, Katie, it’s not supposed to Beautiful Thing with Jillian and Kylan. Don’t be hurt. No, sweetheart, don’t cry, don’t Tiffany Wang silly, darling, of course they’re real, cry. I’m royal, you know, so all my Denton, TX I talk to them all the time, don’t subjects demand this from me and, I. I? Yes, Katie, they’re right here, I because you’re my daughter, they I was told my mother was officially don’t understand why you can’t see demand it from you too. Katie, it’s diagnosed when she was twenty-four, them, don’t you hear them speaking? alright, I promise. Just don’t move but she’d lost her mind long before They’ll take you to find me soon, real and this will just sting – Katie, come then. Ever since she was eighteen, soon – I promise.) back! KATIE! ) the fucking shadows began speaking – and even now she was still – and l lost my grip on the knife to her, caressing her, hugging her, everywhere, lingering in the darkened as it clattered to the table. Emily slapping her across the face. They corners of the house. sighed and reached over to grab it, danced with her day and night, God, make it fucking stop. as I bit down on my lower lip and switching masks as angels or demons, blood bloomed. always lingering close by. She first II. She gave me a sharp glance. “You met my father in the hospital after I remembered the rattle of okay?” hours of surgery, because the voices orange bottles, which held the snowy My nod blurred into a quick wanted to see what color her heart pills that tamed her mind and made shrug. “Yeah, sure, fine,” I said was and so did she. the smoky images vanish for a short quickly, my words colliding into one My father was a man who hated while. It was then that we could go another. the city where he worked and down to the beach and play, building The look in her eyes became one saw my mother as more than the castles out of shells. Whenever I of complete pity. surrounding gray world. Perhaps he walked down to the ocean, I still “If you’re sure,” she said was drawn to her golden hair, her looked for the skeletal remains of the sympathetically. Then, she went back crimson lips – her brilliant thoughts, grand structures we’d once made. to slicing into the frog, pulling apart which became so closely interlocked When I was eleven, she emptied its intestines as I wondered if this with the whispers by the end that it all the white capsules into the water was how my mother felt, right before was impossible to separate the two. and watched as they melted into she slipped into the cold embrace of Somehow, though, she was deemed nothingness. She smiled and told her beautiful shadows. fit and released from the hospital, me that Jillian had informed her she with prescribed medication clanking didn’t need her life to be dictated by I V. in her drawstring bag. After that, my some useless meds – and, if I loved My mother had a tattoo of three parents dated, eloped, and moved her, it would be our secret. One seahorses on the inside of her left away, to the place where my father month later, she walked into the forearm. She told my father it was to was born. ocean and never came back, because celebrate our little family, but I knew But if it had been me, I would she discovered that she loved the she’d gotten it during her month of have torn up any discharge papers I voices more than she loved us. “recovery.” Secretly, I was positive could find. I would have made sure that the hissing suggestions of Jillian she had proper care and locked her III. and Kylan had had something to do in and thrown away the key and Insanity was hereditary. with it. never looked back, because anything It was what I was thinking Two months ago, I stood outside was better than her – whenever Emily Song, my lab the Lucky Dime Tattoo Parlor, with (Katie, Katie – darling, can’t you partner, and I were cutting up a frog the outside walls painted an ashy see my friends, waving there from in biology. It was my turn to make blue-gray, and signs peeling away the ocean? I’ll introduce you one the incision, in a horizontal strike from the windows. I planned on day, you know, but first they want to across the poor thing’s belly. As I did, getting something simple on my side,

apprentice writer : 13 to cover up the faded scars from half city, where they hoped she would to a low, hoarse growl. “Tell him I a decade ago. As I rattled around the just disappear into the masses. She need to go,” she choked out, and that loose change in my pocket, pondering became someone else’s problem, and was the only thing she repeated the how to convince the man behind the that was the way it remained. entire trek back to our house. “I need counter to give me a tattoo without For her funeral, it was just me, my to, I need to, I need to.” parental approval, the dim sunlight father, and the local priest. When the A few weeks later, she got her caught my forearm. There, steadily service was over and we’d thrown the wish. creeping up my skin, was the faint coffin into the September ground, outline of three seahorses, two larger my father gathered me in his arms. VII. than the third. “You’ll always be your mother’s girl,” After the incident with the frog, I I lurched away from the building he said, crushing me to his chest. worried even more. After all, I was as a ghost tried to claw its way into I didn’t tell him that was exactly nearly eighteen, around the same age my head. I ran home as fast as I what I was afraid of. my mother was when she first “met” could and locked the door behind Jillian and Kylan. I thought I was me, praying that 1-3/4” of oak VI. starting to hear the flutter of sounds could keep out the swath of noises There was one night when she wherever I went – so I went down beginning to fill my ears. As the wouldn’t stop screaming. to the shore to collect my thoughts, silence stretched over me, the tattoo It was after she’d been so pushing my sleeves up to my elbows. grew clearer, stamping down into my convinced that she had wings. She The waves pranced around my bones. spent hours describing them to me – legs cheerfully. Hello Katie, they So I got rid of it the only way I (Look how gorgeous they are, chimed sweetly, kissing my cheeks could – with my father’s razor, as darling. Jillian likes the color best softly. Hello, hello, hello. I sat cross-legged on the tile floor. because she says it reminds her of And here was the problem – Jesus When I was done, everything was a snow, but I think I like how free they Christ, all they ever said was hello, sharp, radiant kind of quiet, except make me feel. I’ll be flying outside in filling my ears with the gorgeous, for the ragged exhale of my breaths. a while, if you’d like to come. No, I terrible words that I loved. After that, I unpacked all my won’t fall – I’m an angel, dear. Angels I put my right hand in the air and winter clothes and began wearing don’t ever fall.) waved weakly. “Hello,” I said back. long sleeves and avoided the ocean, – but my father caught up with because I couldn’t bear to have its her as she was walking up the sloping VIII. manic salt graze the scabbing scars. incline, which overlooked the sea. He My father was a man who had tore after her, blocking her way as he taken a beating from life. He was V. yelled, “Katherine, what the hell are sitting at the dinner table when I I was constantly terrified that you doing?” arrived back at the house, thumbing I would be just like her. It was a She started to scream, her voice through old photo albums from ridiculous notion to think that one shredding the air and stuffing my the past. I caught a glimpse of my day, my mind would suddenly flip a brain. She was cast in the smoky light mother’s grin, before he flipped the switch, cranking out the voices that of the stars as she tried to pull away page and her smile blurred into my I hid from. Ridiculous and crazy – from him, reaching out towards the baby picture, beaming crookedly. but there were moments when I felt ghosts that only she saw and begging “Where have you been, Katie?” like I was slipping into the place my them to help her. When they did he asked. mother had been a part of. nothing, she hit my father, but he “Beach,” I replied carefully. When she first imagined the pulled her close and held her to him. He looked up at me. “Are you sure voices that eventually consumed her, I hid behind him, and I saw her you should be going there?” he said, my grandparents thought it was just focus on me. Her eyes widened, tears just as carefully. He let the words he a phase. They signed her up for the reflected in her eyes and pooling couldn’t say hang thick in the air – farthest university from them and down her cheeks. Her screaming (No, Robert, I’m just taking a shipped her off to an overcrowded instantly cut off, as her voice dropped walk down to the water later. Yes,

14 : susquehanna university I’m taking the medication and, yes, I’m fine. No, no reason, I just think Paulie and the Coastal Portrait it’s a stunning sight, don’t you? You Primates: Live! at the Clémentine Wiley can leave Katie with me for a little Edbinburg, TX while. No, darling, we’ll both be Musky Barn okay. I love you.) David Merkle I carry my words in a sloshing – as a stillness blanketed us. There Glen Rock, NJ bucket, was no whispering, no voices – just spilling only piddly things. the two of us, staring at one another. Grunged-up drug monkeys I never liked numbers that I felt the healing scars carved into Bang piano keys and blow sax slide, stack, click together or my wrist and thought that I should reeds the talk whirring tight as tell him, maybe in a single, quick Give hand to the drumsticks and speedometers’ gears. I fling sentence. I would share how scared I eat out the mic with their groggy the net, watch the greenblue­ pulsate was and the noises I was hearing and voices over it. then he could take me to the hospital But no heavy guitar, this is a surf- where he worked to find me what I rock-jazz band On Tuesdays at Sweet Gregory P’s needed to stay sane. the pulled pork burger is 25% off, He repeated my name hesitatingly, Circular melodies news drones from the TV, and I but I couldn’t. I found that I was my And then rectangular ones want to mother’s girl through and through, And then triangular ones tell the owner about how and, just as she had never told him And eventually, chair and barstool- I tore out of the waves a about dumping her pills in the shaped songs dripping bulk ocean, I couldn’t speak to him either. netted, never seen so much silver I didn’t want to break whatever he But the barstools don’t jive with the slapping the deck— still had left within him, because he monkeys— but don’t. Days, wanted me to be normal and happy, They’re more grounded that way just like what he’d wanted for her. years, these The second I told him, it would all •••••••••••••••••••••••••• years fall by like come crashing to an end. droplets penduluming “I’ll be okay,” I said. “I love you.” All the alcoholics leave after only one at a time Then I went up to my room and one surf-rock-jazz tune sparkling and magnified shut the door. I knew I would tell him Muffled grunts and treacherous until they tremble, let go one day. sighs to lose shape in the sea. But today was not that day. “They’re no rock band.” “Just a bunch of apes,” they would IX. say That night, a dim haze clouded over the moon. I slipped out of the By the time the monkeys finish house and found myself facing the their set, sea. I sat down on the rocks gathered There is nobody left to enjoy the farther back from where civilization encore met with sand, and I looked out at the waves that stretched before me. •••••••••••••••••••••••••• And everything was beautifully, maddeningly silent, just like it had In the green room, they are re- always been. warded with complimentary beers Though they would prefer some bananas

apprentice writer : 15 Dakota’s Winter Wonderland Dakota Thomas Hamilton, NY

miners chipping away at glacial ice, grounds, Arktikos resilient. but dooms it; like Tucker Huston dying leaves. Upper Saddle River, NJ I, too, toil away in the dark. Love can only do so much for a wasteland. Soft mints poke Wait for the golden gleam, playfully at arctic my lantern in these shadows, soil; life persists. the moon in this night sky. Green turns golden purple: Like the warm Caribbean poppies under eternal sun. basking in dawn’s infant rays. Lives here are Our star loves these hallowed

16 : susquehanna university Sloppy Seconds Red Eulogy Allison Choi Lisa Zou Milton, MA Chandler, AZ

my grandfather wants to be cremated near Tiananmen

in Beijing where his eldest son protested, while the Square slips through

his views — once more to reach the nirvana he never believed in, the coffin cycles

past the cabin his uncle built during a better dynasty with trunks of weeping willows outside the cemetery

where he spent his youth and the cabin’s roof held my grandfather’s baby teeth, he told me

it was a family tradition —teeth decaying for centuries on a roof above three generations, my brother

lacks the Chinese to tell— and my grandfather does not know two apartment complexes stand where his home had

and his son’s dog which chased away the thieves had not aged but was shot by a new neighbor who did not know my grandfather

much better than I did.

apprentice writer : 17 my fingers had been stained a dark, and the sea kissed his face, while his heavy gray, I put my hand in hers, molecules broke apart and the bones Self Portrait and we walked to the car together, that held him together unknit them- Tiffany Wang feeling the ground collide and crash selves into fragments. I spent hours Denton, TX beneath us. lying on his bed, staring up at the ti- I. “We’re okay,” I say, my voice ger that he’d somehow managed to I do not realize how drunk Katie shaking. I say it again, though, and paint onto the ceiling. Its fur practi- is until she nearly drives into the tube then again, holding onto the thread cally crackled as it bared its teeth at slide on the elementary school play- of hope that she will somehow be- me in a half-smirk. I thought about ground, our red car skittering against lieve me if she hears it enough times. how I knew that he never went any- the rubber chips. where without his sketchbook and “Shit!” she says, and jerks the II. hated coffee and loved the sunset steering wheel wildly. The tires I don’t really see Katie again un- right before the clouds came up, crunch onto the paved streets as Ka- til Saturday morning, when she has when the sky was hovering on uncer- tie slumps back, folding her fingers finally recovered from a spectacular tainty. I thought about how I knew over a dented metal can. She takes hangover. I go downstairs for break- so many stupid things about him but a deep drink before sighing heavily, fast to find her at the table, eating I didn’t know my own twin wanted dropping it back in the cup holder. cereal with the newspaper propped to die – and then the sobs came all It misses and bounces down, where against her bowl. I sit down across over again. it rolls under her chair and out of from her with an apple. “Morning,” But Katie stole liquor from our my sight. She brakes violently as liq- I say. parents’ cabinet and hid in her room uid seeps onto her shoes. “Shit, shit, She smiles out at me. “Morning,” and never brought up Davis after shit.” she says back, before returning to that goddamned call. She was chis- In the map inside my head, we the comics. A smear of glitter is still eled from stone, as she drove her car can turn right, make a sharp turn, lodged to her left eyelid. around in the dead of the night, with continue up the incline. If we follow Both of us ignore the empty chair the radio up much too loud. Some- the path upwards, we’ll reach the that’s next to mine. Both of us ignore times I joined her, sometimes I didn’t, place where my twin brother listened the frantic clacking of a computer but whenever I did, her makeup was to the ocean calling his name. There, keyboard down the hall as our father always perfect, she was always drink- he stared out at the edge of the world buries himself in fixing the lives of ing heavily, and she never cried – and decided he could draw better other people, and the alarm that is never. from the sea floor than he ever could going off in our parents’ bedroom At least, not in front of me. on dry land. that our mother will ignore. “Cassie?” Katie says, slurring Instead, we are perfectly fine the I V. slightly. She looks at me blearily and way we are, because a taped together What I know about Davis’s I look back at her, at her chipped, family of two functions just as well as sketchbook: purple fingernails and her glittery a family of five. It has an unassuming brown cov- makeup, which sparkles enough to I gnaw on my apple and bite into er, so at first glance it looks like an ward off the ghosts around her. seeds. ordinary book Two weeks ago, Davis was locked He’s drawn an opened palm on in a wooden box and thrown into the III. the bottom left of the cover in black December ground. Dad left as soon She didn’t cry once. Sharpie. When I place mine over it, as it was over and Mom booked it After that phone call came, my it’s an almost perfect fit to the nearest bar, as I stood rooted world exploded. There were days He never let me look in it. When- to the spot, breaking Davis’s old where I literally ran out of tears, ever I asked, he just smiled and shook charcoal pieces apart in my pocket. choking on my breaths as my mind his head ruefully, like just consider- Katie stayed beside me the entire continued screaming. I kept pictur- ing the thought was ridiculous. To be time, changed from my older sister ing Davis suspended in the air, how fair, drawing was always his thing, so to a beautiful marble statue. When he must’ve looked as he hit the rocks I probably wouldn’t have understood

18 : susquehanna university anything symbolic and elusive within quiet, manic gleam in his eye as he his creations anyways V. maps out the ice melting beneath my It’s in front of me right now, half- I need a pair of clean jeans. skin. hidden underneath a stack of old art It’s stupid, but nobody in the Are you happy now? I ask the magazines on his desk house does laundry anymore, and waves that whispered his name at two Even the air is completely still. I I’ve run out of clean pants that I can AM and the cold wind that slowed never realized how much the missing wear, so I sneak into Katie’s room his fall and him – because he’s every- presence of a 5”7 boy could crumple when she’s at the store to steal a pair where, painting the sky around me a up a structure of a house and every- from her. I flick on the closet light glowing orange. God, Davis, I am so one left inside. and shadows slant everywhere. lost without you. I sit down and gingerly place the The walls are covered in writing. There’s no answer, but I listen as sketchbook on my lap. I almost ex- Furious, haphazard writing, hard as I can anyways. pect electricity to fly when I touch it, where the pen has broken through as a thrill rises up in my belly and the wallpaper and bled through un- VII. lodges in my throat. I open it to the derneath. There are paragraphs that I give Katie two things whenever first page and stare – cover endless space, which clash with I see her at breakfast. The first is a Because there’s nothing. No mag- the shattered sentences that loop water bottle, because I can’t keep nificent painting or even a hurried through the clothes. Between these, watching her drink herself to death. sketch – no indication of the hours angry print shifts into angrier cursive The second is Davis’s sketchbook. that Davis spent, his fingers gripping and becomes consistently messier as She blinks. “Thanks?” she says, a pencil and flying over the paper. her handwriting spirals towards the peeling the label off of the bottle, but Instead, an open void yawns at me ceiling. not touching the book. lazily, grinning a Cheshire grin. Letters leap out, catching me by “It was Davis’s,” I say, and, im- My movements become frantic. I surprise and blinding me: I hate you, mediately, her eyes harden. But she flip through dozens of blank sheets I love you, I miss you, God, Davis, can’t shut down now, and I begin to as the cream-colored papers disin- you idiot why didn’t you talk to us, speak faster, my voice pouring out. tegrate softly. I’m halfway through you killed us, killed us in the worst “I get it now, Katie. Not completely when I notice the fragments lodged possible way – and – God, I’m so pissed at him for in the metal spine of the sketchbook, The air around me sits on my deciding to leave because maybe we and I bite through my bottom lip. chest as Katie’s words claw into me, could’ve helped him, but it was his Davis once told me something about melting into my skin. I look away, but choice. I was in his room, and I saw an artist never destroying his own for all the wrong reasons. Despite the this – and, now, I get that he was in so work. Now, as I pull paper strands fact that I have just invaded Katie’s such of a shitty place that he thought from the dulled spiral, I begin to see private sanctuary, all I can think is there was no other way.” inside my brother’s mind – and ev- that I have stumbled upon a grave- The water bottle skids across erything he managed to hide so well. yard of words. the surface of the table. “Okay,” she The cover of the sketchbook says, standing up to go. reads that there were originally 250 VI. Desperation pulls at my lungs. pages. Out of that, 189 are torn out. I follow the map in my head to “Look,” I say, and pull the cover 60 are blank. And one is filled in, the place to where X marks the spot. aside. I swear, Katie’s eyes widen with the explosive force of Davis’s Then, I stand at the edge of the as she sees the paper shreds. When thoughts. world and look over. I get to the blacked-out page, she It’s somewhere near the end. Dear God, it is so beautiful. turns away. “Maybe we don’t know The entire sheet of paper has been I’m seeing what Davis must have why he did it or what he was think- blacked out in thick, unforgiving seen in the last seconds of his life and ing when he did or anything else. But strokes. On the back, in my twin’s my fingers bite into my knee. Was it in the end, we couldn’t have seen it, messy script, he’s written four words worth it, Davis? I think, fire spilling and the only thing left that we can do in thin, red ink: into my veins. I can almost imagine is to remember him – so stop push- Davis Adams, Self Portrait him drawing me right now, with that ing him aside and pretending that he

apprentice writer : 19 didn’t exist.” thin underline of vanilla soap that he Katie and Davis, though, I find that And I see her trying to hold it in used to use. The sketches taped to his I can’t bring myself to do it. To the – hold everything in. Except Davis wall blink at me curiously as I bal- slumbering cliff, we are just dream- didn’t just draw art – he was art, and ance a brand-new sketchpad on my figures quietly passing through, slip- art has a way of pulling stars into knees and begin to draw. ping in and out of everything as eas- never-ending darkness and causing It’s slow, painstaking work, as my ily as it breathes. I think that Davis oceans to murmur broken promises pencil bumps over the paper clum- would be proud of me for the whole about life and beauty and love. It can sily. I try to capture everything that aspect of artistic realization, as I build and shatter, and it’s shredded I can remember about the way the erase and continue. us like one of the drawings he made cliff looked today, suspended on the When I finish, I find what I’ve that could uproot forests and move brink of waking up. In my mind, I done is in no way perfect. mountains. can imagine the swirling waters at But, to me, it’s a start. “Stop hiding,” I tell her fiercely, the bottom, and the exact way the because that’s what she’s doing: hid- sun was caught between the rocks. ing behind the smooth marble sheen All of this I want to layer into that encases her features and freezes my work. As I start to put in me and her tears. I put the sketchbook in her hands, and we share the weight of ten million pounds of paper and ash. last week—they all must run “Stop hiding, Katie.” The Dirty Side of marathons in their lives, yet And, finally, she does. Glamour here they are now, transfixed, Allison Choi as the clock steals minutes from VIII. Milton, MA the spell of their daze. In the middle of the afternoon, We resemble a Klimt’s The the cliff is a sleeping giant, shudder- is when I find myself Maiden, ing quietly beneath our footsteps. We at a basement party, quilted in each other’s caress. lean against the sturdy wooden fence, stretched long on the rug The rest of the night falls yel- close to where the sky and water in- like milk spilled from a carton, low, terlock with one another– a clashing the smoke from my cigarette warm beer fuzzing down tying a cloth around of light blue against a darker, more our stomachs, a sentiment the branches of my fingers, relentless shade. crawls underneath my skin, saying, “Your body has given up the craving of specialty “My little brother is dead,” Ka- on you.” because these nights dial down tie says. Her voice is hollow, cracking But the mind, to average until the hum of down the middle. the part of myself that is a well ESPN “So is my twin,” I reply softly, overflowing with wonder, is the only noise in the room, staring downwards. There’s some- can’t stop being alive. and I know, there are forces thing about the aching pattern of the After knocking back much greater than the sub- waves that catch me, smiling at me in sweaty tequila shots, stances the saddest way I have ever seen. eye-shadow splotches that warp our visions, the Minute after minute ticks by, fad- over my face the way oil spills cliques formed in ing into hours. I study the ocean and lurk into rivers, my head the girl’s bathroom, the seventh Katie sips from the water bottle, as spinning, webbed with glimmer, as lover I’ve had, or gatherings like we think about how to put ourselves I look this back together – because the edge of at the people around me, when we’re all here the world doesn’t necessarily mean the jock football player, not for each other but rather the end of it. the blond petite, for a notion that we have who supposedly cheated on her to be here. IX. boyfriend I sit in Davis’s chair, and smell the

20 : susquehanna university person with a shiny degree breezily slant downwards to splat against handed me a slip of paper on which windshields and windowpanes, to The Insomniac they had scrawled their illegible slip down the projecting eaves of Connie Guo signature with an air of self-assured neighborhood houses, to be pumped Katy, TX nonchalance. So I never cared much out of overwhelmed downspouts, Day 1 for doctors either—therapists, if you to slither into murky sewers, and to Tonight I can’t sleep. It’s not for want to be specific (though, to be fair, collect into amorphous puddles by a lack of exhaustion—anything but the feeling was never one-sided). impermeable concrete curbs. that. My eyes are bleary and dry They were always trying to square Despite the weather, I decide I and strained, the papery whites shot the circle, trying to psychoanalytically have to leave my small one bedroom through with threads of red, spider- categorize and pigeonhole things apartment because there’s a like veins. My eyelids are heavy, they couldn’t understand. They tried cockroach in it. It was clambering up weighed down by sagging lashes, to tell me who I used to be and who the bare white walls, flitting this way and they fall over my eyes like thick I am now; who I should be or could and that, its wings fluttering noisily folds of drapery; I can feel them stick be or will be, one contrived self against the sides of my bookcase. when I slowly peel them open again. birthing another in a series of endless I’m not leaving because I’m Weariness swims in the sludge of my Matryoshka dolls. They told me my scared. The cockroach just wouldn’t shrunken blue veins, oozes like pus mother left because of a man named settle down enough to let itself be from my open pores, and I have a Freud and that my brother hated me killed. It was always burrowing into headache pulsing painfully against because the Aztecs used to sacrifice nooks in the furniture, under the my forehead, trickling down to my people to the gods, or, rather, their refrigerator or between the couch temples. gods, the Mesoamerican version of cushions, and landing in distant My mother used to take sleeping hand-me-down deities as opposed ceiling alcoves, out of my range. I pills when she couldn’t sleep. I to the other kinds. But they claimed had tossed a few books in the roach’s remember the thin cylindrical that they were all right now, that general direction in an attempt to orange bottle she always kept on her everything was fine. They assured knock it down from its high perch: nightstand and the noisy clacking me their gods didn’t need blood Plato’s Republic, Hume’s A Treatise of compact little pills shuddering in anymore; they were quite docile of Human Nature, Freud’s The the plastic container. But the dosage now. They’d gotten better, had some Interpretation of Dreams, Sartre’s the doctor prescribed her ended up counseling, took some medication. It Nausea, centuries of intellectual being too large, and she got addicted had all been proven to work—they abstractions and human discourses to them. guaranteed it. soaring through the air to hit the wall I never liked pills. Her bottle of But what really makes me in a succession of soft thuds, falling sedatives used to leer down at me question my sanity is why I was onto the cheap striped carpet with when I was a kid, mocking, with willing to pay almost one hundred their pages splayed open like shot sharp serrated teeth-like ridges bucks an hour for expensive bullshit birds, not quite on mark. around the plastic cap. They were when the Internet could’ve spat out I tried to ignore it when it became unsettling. I never knew what sorts cost-effective cheap bullshit after just clear that I was unable kill it, but of insidious chemicals were packed five minutes with a decent search the two of us couldn’t escape each into those tablets for me to digest, engine. That thought is especially other. I was acutely aware of its all that concentrated artificial stuff depressing on a night like this. existence and the obtrusiveness of swarming around my synapses to its proximity, and I couldn’t breathe screw with my brain and bodily Day 2 or think or pretend to sleep without functions, arbitrarily flicking things It’s raining outside. The sky picturing it as a blemish on the pale off and on like nondescript light pours curtains of waterfalls into the walls of the adjacent room, scuttling switches. Yet I was supposed to pop soupy predawn darkness. It hasn’t in a repulsive bug-like manner them like candies because a doctor let up since this morning. Incessant across the carpet, brushing against told me so, because some insouciant multitudes of plump raindrops pots and pans, the TV remote, the

apprentice writer : 21 kitchen countertop, or, God forbid, of white light, and the man must cockroach is waiting for me. For scampering onto the bristles of my have noticed them too because his the next few hours it sits on the toothbrush. movements start becoming more bookcase and reads Nietzsche aloud Since I could not stand its presence rushed and jerky out in the middle of to me in the muffled dimness of the and since it refused to absolve me of the street. The spectacle’s somewhat bedroom as pellets of rain continue it, I had no choice but to initiate a hilarious and sad at the same time. maniacally hurtling themselves consultation in order to formulate a The car—a purple van—doesn’t at the windowpanes. I manage to solution for this impasse. We agreed appear to slow down, and I begin catch something about an old man that the apartment was too small for to wonder, rather belatedly, if I am descending from the mountains both of us, but the roach obstinately about to witness a case of vehicular and something about him dragging refused my suggestion to find some manslaughter, if this man in front of around the corpse of a tightrope other place to stay for the night, me is going to get run over and burst walker through a forest before things citing the concern that it might like an overripe fruit. stop making sense. As if they ever drown in the torrent. And although But then he scurries awkwardly did in the first place. I hated and was disgusted by it, I had to the safety of the sidewalk, half on The roach is gone by sunup. to sympathize with its predicament his bike and half off it, and the van and instead chose to leave myself. skates by, kicking up a spray of water Day 3 I didn’t take an umbrella. I droplets as it disappears around a I’m wandering tonight, the same probably lost mine somewhere or corner. path I took the day before. My lent it to someone, so instead I dug I stare after it for a few seconds apartment was too empty, too still, out a flimsy raincoat from the back and take a couple of swigs of my and the stillness amplified the sound of my closet, stuffed its front pocket mineral water (it tastes slightly of my neighbor’s hacking coughs with a bottle of this funny tasting metallic) before glancing down emanating from just a few feet away mineral water and left the street where the fat man had through the thin plaster walls. In the There is a slight chill in the air disappeared. The road is lined with bleary daze of insomnia, I listened tonight. It pinches my skin, scrapes flat-roofed, low-lying houses with to the old brick building creaking on the insides of my throat raw, and darkened windows, sheltered behind its crumbling foundation, groaning I can feel a resonating ache in the shadows of overgrown bushes with age. The maze of leaking pipes my teeth. My breaths crystallize, and untrimmed trees. A few houses, nestled in the papery walls shuddered diaphanous white billows curling though, glow with a warm yellow light and gurgled with every errant late up into the blackness above, and the like luminescent islands in a dark sea, night toilet flush, and I could hear smell of wet grass and concrete plugs and I can peer straight through the the churning of my blood in my ears, up my nose. windows to see the blaze of television could feel precious water evaporate As I make my way to an screens where mindless streams of through the pores of my skin. There’s intersection, I see a fat man on a bike, images flicker one after another. a line in the sand somewhere, a high completely exposed to the downpour, In other rooms there are cluttered school friend once told me, between trying to cross the street and hurry desks and blank, mask-like faces lit being alone and being lonely, a into his subdivision despite the fact up only by the glaring brightness of certain point when silence turns to that the streetlight for cross traffic computer displays. Time runs down suffocation. shines a lurid green. around them as though they are I almost wished the cockroach I can’t make out much except that candlesticks dripping with rivulets of had stayed. his white t-shirt has taped itself onto hot liquid wax that pool and harden The rain suddenly starts up again his rotund figure in a not-so-flattering at their feet like clumps of solid fat, when I cross yesterday’s intersection manner and that he’s struggling with white and opaque. as though it was waiting for me to the bike, unable to push himself off I wonder if I should keep going, get there. I keep going in spite of the ground and pedal away. The but I’m running low on drinking this, not stopping as I pass by the headlights of an oncoming car blind water so I end up trudging back to fat man’s subdivision. I walk in the me for a brief moment, two cones my apartment complex where the direction of a nearby commercial

22 : susquehanna university strip which glimmers like a trove of water tonight as I force myself in a convenience store a month ago, jewels up ahead, a world away from onwards with brisk strides, daring for the first time in years, still small the muted, quiet lives tucked in the myself to not glance at the squirrel’s and freckled and red-headed, taking sleeping houses behind me. rotting carcass as I hurry by. I keep a pint of strawberry milk from the But before I get far, I notice a to the sidewalk, my shoes squelching refrigerated dairy display. squirrel, roadkill, which is common in inch deep puddles as I pass But then the woman across the enough. I’ve seen several instances glowing neon lights of sleepless 24- street tilts her face upwards and the of this with other animals such as hour stores. Streetlamps cast sickly artificial light slants queerly along birds, possums, and even armadillos, patches of sallow yellow-orange light the broad planes of her face. In all carelessly littered by roadsides on the streets, and there still seems that instant, at that angle, she looks and by the shoulders of highways, to be a slick sheen of rainwater over improbably like my mother—even but only when passing over them in a everything, leftover from last night. more so when she swivels her neck car. When it’s like that, you go too fast It softens the sharpness of the night to meet my eyes. I hear her voice, to get a proper look; a fleeting peek and blurs bright, colorful signposts, my mother’s voice, scrape insidiously over the front bumper maybe, with humming with electricity, into against my ears, whispering: Don’t the indistinct shape of the flattened smears of fuzz, coating the roads so look at me like that. cadaver rising up into your eyes. But that they glimmer with the watery In the end, however, when the you can never glean much more than reflections of car lights. sparkling backdrop of the dealership that before the car rolls over it and Across the street directly in front slinks behind us, I find that she really glides off. It’s easier that way, easier of the huge, luminous parking lot looks like me. Her eyes are a reflection to forget things you don’t quite see. of a car dealership, I see the outline of my eyes, wide and fearful, her lips The view’s different from the of a woman keeping pace with me parted and her expression vaguely vantage point of the sidewalk. on the opposite sidewalk. She has a surprised, as though she’s treading The bowed head of the streetlight purple hoodie raised over her head on the edge of an epiphany that illuminates the spot where the and olive-toned skin, but the sharp, never quite comes in its entirety but squirrel lies prostrate so that no jabbing pins of light highlighting the that is rather stingily doled out in details are hidden from sight. night air around her prevents me portions throughout the passage of Patches of dried blood stain the from discerning her facial features. years. pavement, dark and glistening in the Even so, for a second, she seems I glance away, frightened by the fresh rain, and its mangled guts have painfully familiar, like an ambiguous sight, and when I look up again, my spilled out from the left side of its approximation of the sister I never image has gone ahead of me. I stop stomach like a mess of tangled fleshy had or the cat I couldn’t keep. to watch it slip into an unlit street, worms, a kind of pinkish-maroon We move along at the same disappearing as if it’s a mirage made color. Its body is deflated as though speed, taking the same steps, and from mist and scattered pieces of it’s been popped open, and one arm when she turns her head to the side, refracted light, a retreating shadow. is outstretched, crushed at the elbow. I realize that she looks a lot like a I crawl back to the misery of Water darkens the squirrel’s pelt, and classmate I once knew from middle my moaning apartment building it feels wrong for me to stare at it like school: a small girl with freckles and after that, spooked. There are fewer some gaping onlooker desecrating ginger hair who I never talked to, a things worse than finding yourself in the sanctity of the image, watching half-stranger who flickered by me in the dark, especially when you were with a mixture of revulsion and school hallways in brief flashes every never looking in the first place. sympathy, a strange ambivalence. day for almost five years before she For a moment I even feel like crying. vanished from them and reappeared, Day 5 I don’t. pale and bloated, in a nearby lake I don’t know why I can’t sleep. a week later, deposited there by a My mother died about a month ago. Day 4 tributary and gorged with murky I’ve forgotten exactly when. But then I drink from a newly opened river water. Or maybe she had moved again she also died when I four—or bottle of that disgusting mineral away instead, and maybe I saw her was I five? And yet again, I’m pretty

apprentice writer : 23 sure, when I was fifteen. She might to imagine that things will smooth have kicked the metaphorical bucket themselves out then, like the final a few more times between now and unraveling of the last great epiphany then, but the point is, it’s the sort of or the unveiling of the grotesque thing you get used to after a while. punchline at the end of a bad joke. I was once told that I suffered— But most of all, I imagine watching that we all suffered—from some sort the daybreak until I have to look of attachment issue, but sometimes away, until I’m tunneling backwards I wonder if it’s more because our or forwards, into regression or lives are collapsing inwards today ascension, ricocheting against myself to counteract the expansion of the till it’s over, everything flung apart universe; if we’re buckling under in the centrifuge, my eyes burning the weight and pressure, colliding against the incandescent sun. inelastically against each other, warping and deforming in distorted perfection in hopes that somehow we might stick, that we might cling. I like to think that might be it. The Rose Garden I’ve finished off three bottles of Jo de Waal water in the past two hours. I think Greenwich, CT I’ve run out. I’ll have to get more in the The barbed wire memorial in torn prison rags morning before the dehydration sets iron rose buds circling spreading his wings quietly in as it always does. The exhaustion a meager sandy pit I walk around darting into the abandoned town hasn’t gone away; I can still feel it of Arnhem hanging thick and heavy from my would become a measure of my during work detail bones and crowding around the roof sadness of my mouth, my tongue. I wonder taking flight if I can reach the end of the earth, a Nazi concentration camp the big drop off, that dangling ledge Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort from darkness, from the sandy pit pushing into uncertain obscurity. filthy words I spit in native tongue of public torture The world always appears flatter at prisoners called ‘the rose garden’ night. my father captured in the autumn For a second I allow myself to I of 1944 he walks beside me now entertain the thought, and I imagine but my own feet become heavy walking to that unforeseeable edge: was four years older than I am clogs down and down and down, skin now so I creep, heel to toe around the bulging with weariness, traversing a young man, holding the same coffin-sized space the whole length of humanity before cool blue in his eyes he must sense the weight I carry the sun comes up. Greater than as mine Columbus or Magellan or Drake. kijken, “look,” he says pointing to I try to imagine my arrival: filled a Dutch man with chapped hands, sailing sparrows with a fullness, a bursting, reaching crooked teeth lifting our blue eyes to sky the conclusion of a long midnight a resistance fighter, pilgrimage to find myself on the starved, beaten he an old man reaches for my other side of life, wherever that yet hiding a falcon’s spirit hand drawing me away might be, and turning my head to had escaped somehow alders, poplars casting long slate see that the rain has let up and that shadows on damp ground. the earth is filling out again. I want

24 : susquehanna university Cali Soul Untitled Sophie Cloherty Julia Reinert Wellesley, MA Tamaqua, PA The Santa Monica Pier is legend of where your mother kissed a boy she didn’t know. The Valley is a secret field of books that grabbed your hands and pulled you where paper cuts don’t heal. Lombard Street watched your brother’s motorcycle become infinite at two thirty am Western Standard Time. Griffith Park curved to let your body forget in another behind observatory lights. San Fran- cisco Bay became a two-year stand. Five o’clock Golden Gate traffic sang your mind, because your mother forgot the boy on the coast, your brother didn’t have wings, just wine. The apartment on 23rd Blvd, Malibu showed you fast is easy, good even. Ventura taught you sound is the only way to know life. Your children sleep in the room tucked behind the kitchen, warmed by the down feathers that will carry them far into the pieces of you.

apprentice writer : 25 allow yourself a taste of the “Big them off and turn them back on and A Gardener’s Guide Empty”; explore it, and you will learn Cary Grant will still be there, charm that life is much .,l worth the living. and dimples and tailored fedora, or to Heartbreak Those who sit with their feet dan- Anne Hathaway will still be in the Kathryn Ippolito gling over the edge of a cliff will most middle of her trembling, haunting readily pull back if someone, indeed minutes that earned her high-profile Riveredge, NJ anyone asks them to not to fall. Let recognition. But right now, neither is this book be that concerned stranger. your concern. Day 1 Though the Big Empty seems invit- On the second day, wake up early. It is okay to break pots on day one. ing, once you’re there you realize the I don’t mean setting you alarm for Watch the terra-cotta collapse into act is not as profound as you were fifteen minutes in advance of your dust and fragments, like a long aban- hoping, and letting yourself spin off usual time-- I mean the empirical, doned mosaic. Try and glue them through this expanse was not worth headache inducing, coffee-commer- back together using that gorilla glue the exhaustion and the heartache. ical early. he promised to mend your picture On day one, make yourself a mug Meet the sun. frames with. Use all of it. Make a of tea. Buy ten flower pots, the kind There is ineffable pleasure in early mess. The pots will feel empty, much that shatter. Buy some strawberry morning quietude. Unlike the noise- like you, much like your home. seeds, some gardenia seeds, some lessness of the day before, this blush- For the first time in some time, you basil seeds, and some seeds of your ing silence pirouettes around you like are alone. Most surprising about the choice. Let some pots break. Fill the a child trying to draw you to play. aloneness, if I recall correctly, is the others with soil. Leave a package of Beg off your cares, and with you to quiet. Silence sits on your tile floors seeds on each pot. the arms of the waiting sun. and on the high shelves of your Important A/N: Crying on this day is Someone once said that the cost of dark wood cabinets. It suns itself on optional. Sometimes it makes you feel better, the aeroplane is that birds lose their your back porch, taking the place of sometimes it makes you feel worse. I wouldn’t wonder. The cost of learning is the laughter, of murmured conversation, presume to decide for you. There’s nothing loss of the magic ordinary things of the snapping that filled the final wrong with you either way. Remember that- once possessed. In the early morn- weeks of your time together. Fill it. -now it’s all spilt milk. The best way to ing, in the space where the world Pour into your earthenware. Stuff handle the situation is to clean it up, and breathes, there is the distinct feel- it with paper, or chocolate, or earth. pour yourself another glass. ing, like electricity in your finger tips Open your tap, race yourself to flood and at the ends of your hair, that you the cold liquid over the top, watch it Day 2 are the only person awake. Now, the funnel out the hole in the bottom. Good morning, and well done. You voices of cynical condemnation, the Leave it to drain on your counter. have made it through an undeniably cold reason of textbooks that van- I remember lining up mason jars miserable day. On the bell curve of quished your daydreams, the wear full of water on my window sill. Sun heartbreak, the first day is one of of a life that moves faster than the sifted through, distorting the trees the worst. But you’ve made it. And Earth spins--these things are sub- beyond, warping the reflection of that means that this is not the time to dued. In these rose gold hours you my hands. I stared into the glass and eat the Chinese food in the back of can sit back and live. And yet, this is water until my eyes blurred. the fridge (even if that’s always been not merely a day of admiration and They say that being in space is tre- what you did when she got home late meditation, either. It is a day of re- mendously like drowning…every di- and you had had a long day, and nei- sponsibility. rection is boundless, the solitude in- ther of you could stand before the After the appropriate civilities have frangible, the danger ever present. It stove, so you curled into each other been paid to the sun, go back inside is quite possible, I learnt that day, to on the couch with your paper cartons and plant your seeds in the pots have a near-Earth engulfment expe- of rice and hot vegetables). Today is they’ve become acquainted with. rience. It is just as dangerous as the not a day for black and white films Push a small hole about four or kind between the stars or deep in the and pining. The blessed thing about five inches deep into the soil in each sea, and just as thrilling. Therefore, films, after all, is that you can turn of your pots. Leave the surrounding

26 : susquehanna university earth rather loose, and place your myself recall spectacular sun show- the cold sunshine. Everything ached, seeds in the hole. Cover them with ers and something of a hailstorm. and it felt as though nobody deserved care, and follow the packages in- There may have also been any of happiness in a world that could treat structions for watering and sun. the following: elephants, red umbrel- trust so glibly. Even the most altruis- las, orange groves, and incandescent tic among us would deign to classify A/N: Would that I could be more spe- light bulbs. Wide brimmed hats and this lash back as “preparing the less cific for you, but if I were, how could this hi-top shoes will usually accomplish experienced among us for ‘real life’”. possibly be your story? I had you choose the job perfectly well, on any day, in But like a game of hide and seek, some seeds on your own because now they any climate. this avoidance of people who “could are yours to manage and believe in. No one Arrive at your designated destina- never understand” is not one you else would have chosen the precise seeds you tion just before the morning rush, want to win. After so long of seeking chose for the same reasons you had at that when a few late night stragglers stum- you out, your friends will return to moment. An inimitable act. There. Have I ble from their transportation com- the cookies on the kitchen table and made you feel responsible? If not, you can partments: those shirts wrinkled, or the games in the cabinet, and wait be sure I will keep trying. This is your story, high heels in hand, or children with for you to come out on your own. All and even if it does not feel like it, you are the hands firmly anchored about com- the while you sit crouched in a closet, tipping point, the unassuming hero. forting rag dolls and valiant stuffed or beneath the sink, the empty glory bears. Take a seat on a bench, side of the only one who hid so much bet- Day 7 pressed into the cool metal of the ter than the rest, finally realizing that This day is a day for travel. Anon- armrest, and begin to observe. you were ultimately excluded from ymous travel is the cure for a mul- The first few minutes will be loud. the game. titude of ails, not leastwise because Pneumatic hisses, the urgent click of Today is a day of letting people it allows for the observation of oth- the heels of demurred commuters, back in. You are not the only one ers and the absorption of some un- your own blood in your ears; a thou- whose been hurt, and you’ll find, if doubtedly-much needed Vitamin sand thoughts will catch you, a wisp you give them the time, that a sur- D. Begin planning the night before: of cologne that makes your memory prising amount of people do under- find the nearest train station, mall, hitch, the concerns of a busy day to stand. bus stop, or park. (I would have said follow nagging at your frayed sleeve. But not yet. Remember bell curves, airport, but remember, you’re the Allow them to wear themselves down and know that everyone has one. hero now, and you have a selection to silence, and allow the rest of the Look for signs of it, and when you of fine jars along your window sill, world to seep into the ensuing qui- see them all together, it may play a cradling plants that need you. You etude. Notice the wrinkles at the cor- song. can no longer simply whisk away on ners of the eyes of painted ladies, the While you are out you will need to a month long adventure as we once heart traced over and over by the ab- run some errands. Top soil, a trowel, dreamed we would, exotic fabrics sent minded hand of the surly busi- a sturdy pair of gloves with a quilted hanging from your frame, and beau- ness man. design. Enjoy yourself, for tomorrow tiful foreigners attempting to catch There is something inherently self- will be hard work. your eye.) Be prepared to purchase a ish about this particular recovery one way ticket. process. Day 23 The next morning, wake up as I left my loved ones at the mercy of Today starts with breaking soil. early as you despised me for com- my loyal doorman and my answer- Your plants are spilling over the edg- manding on Day 2. It will feel easier, ing machine, myself lost beneath es of the terra cotta pots you once and you will begin to acclimate to it. blankets and tissues and tea bag threatened to destroy. Broken hearts It’s like opening your eyes underwa- wrappers. I snapped responses to and broken earth go well together. ter; the uncomfortable and hazy sen- polite offers of assistance, and when By now you will have started to build sation gives way to an entirely new I deemed work worthy of my atten- up habits, waking up early, breathing world ripe for exploration. tion, I stormed from room to room, in and out, running water for a bath, On such a day, it is essential to be scorning the timid hellos of my co- grinding coffee grounds to dust that prepared for any kind of weather. I workers, drawing my shades against you pour numbly into the fine filter,

apprentice writer : 27 and your mechanical listening as wa- expected the impact to kill you—but those unanswered voicemails and ter begins to boil. You’re in the habit it didn’t. Sitting in the wake of your newly freed up schedule. Your plants of being alive again. And almost landing almost does: staring at the have you. Once you have sufficiently imperceptibly, you will start to heal. ladder leading back up, and wonder- tilled your chosen plot of land, fill the There’s an itchy heat that lets you ing if you could ever trust that same holes you dug with water. Let it soak know you’re going to make it, if you equipment to hold you up again. through the earth, turning it soft and don’t keep ripping the sutures out. Get up and run for it: add weight velvety black, before transplant your In French, the expression for run- to the creaking scaffolds of your shoots. They will look smaller than ning away is “se sauver”—to save life. Tu te sauves. Start small. Smile ever, with a sky unframed by win- oneself. It’s an alternative never pre- at people on public transport. Stop dowsill and ceiling, and nothing to sented in the princess films of my cursing at the weather. Get dressed separate them from each other but childhood. Rapunzel eternally sus- up. It will feel dangerous and a little the sunshine and the scent of air pended in the tower, Snow White careless, like walking without look- that settles on your shoulders and forever asleep. But stopping here ing where you are going. That once fills the space between their delicate would be closing a book at the seam rosy future has faded into obscurity leaves. Yet, even a few inches above page. Prince Charming forever hold- again, its path taking a hairpin turn the ground, it seems that they are ing one shoe, or caught in the briars without you. You might imagine once more at the top of the world, in around the castle, his horse caught monsters where there are wonders, the center of the sun’s gaze, looking with hind legs embarrassingly in the trying to make out what lies in that down, and finally seeing everything air. You close the book and take a mist, and never take a step closer around them. deep breath, and everything looks because you are afraid of being sure like it’s going to crash from its deli- of the worst. Assume you will make cate suspension. Two lives hinged on it. Make plans for the third of next A/N: The trick to tightrope walking is an overlapping moment, calamity in month, buy yourself a gift, transfer to not look down. The trick to gardening is sight, but with the promise of a hap- your seedlings to bigger pots, walk that you will take from it what you give. pily ever after. without looking. The trick to mending a broken heart is to That’s not quite what happened to What you do know is that he called open your eyes. you. to collect the coffee table and a hat A pair of hands reaching out. A he never used to wear. You have plane ticket, a canvas cap. Ten let- ters, two letters, one. A goodbye, a half-hearted apology. The end of Ballet forever. And then the prince takes a Erinn Goldman detour, right around the enchanted Greenwich, CT clearing, the tower, or the glass cof- fin—and you’re left with a choice and They say the Russians temptingly retreated into their land’s heart, an ending sentence. Whether it was while the French pursued into the oozing cold. he, or it was you, someone flipped They say the Russians burnt their city, that page, and the stories diverged, like burning their country’s finger so the French couldn’t suck any blood and your chapters ceased to overlap. from it. Tu te sauves. It didn’t feel that way They say the Russians watched the French congeal into ice by the at the time. It felt like a suspension, hundreds, and a snap. As you tumbled toward the safety net, you wondered if you as the French quaked like still-alive tails severed from chameleons. could break right through. The net They say the Russians erected frozen French bodies into ballet positions, was inches below your outstretched splattered standing across fields lit by moonlight and snow. fingers; you could feel the heat from They say the corpses performed static ballet, your body hitting the thick ropes, like curdling ambitions of this Revolution. reflecting, returning. And you half

28 : susquehanna university attendees that the slideshow neatly looked away, as if I were a shocking The Waitress presented lies. I found my pea-coat, sight. Kathryn Ippolito worn in the elbows and the pockets, Taped to the door was a leaf of collected my supermarket package computer paper, apologizing in a River Edge, NJ of jam cookies and my post cards bland script for our unavoidably It was a small square advertisement from my mother, and left the door detained host who would come as in the local bulletin, between the unlocked. soon as possible. We stood in the charity drive at the elementary school I had gone with my dad to an grey November snow in complicit and the wedding announcements. AA meeting once. It was just after agreement of polite introversion. “First meeting of the Society of the first postcard arrived. That day, People continued to arrive as if they Waiters, this Thursday afternoon, he had gotten his shoes shined and hadn’t planned on coming, but saw the old church on the corner.” There his hair neatly trimmed, and we a group, and allowed their “natural are several such churches in my had walked to the gymnasium in inquisitiveness” to compel them to town; but anyone who had arrived the high school, two towns over. He detour. before the snow set in at the end of carried some crayons and paper for We dared not speak until the September knew it referred to the me, but I had sat in my folding chair, meeting began, and were instead steepled building down the block with my lukewarm tea, listening. In content to stare enviously at each from my house, which had recently succession, the people in the circle other’s thermoses and packages of been converted, at the behest of had risen, said their interminable cookies, refusing to impose upon the dwindling congregation, into a first names, and always, “I’m an someone who came more prepared community center. alcoholic.” As I walked down the than ourselves. For a few brutal The advertisement recommended street, I rehearsed, “My name is moments, I considered going back bringing a thermos and cookies. It Aileen, and I’m waiting for my down the block to search for my also said arrive by 3 o’clock sharp—I mother.” I shook off the similarities black coffee and leaky thermos—or considered the stress on punctuality to the AA meeting commute, and the at least a pair of gloves—but I was ironic, given the subject of our voices that cheerfully imposed on me prevented by searching eyes, and the meeting. Perhaps they thought it through the years: “like father, like understanding that if they saw my would ease our minds, to know that daughter”. retreating back they would assume I everything would happen when I could see that two or three wasn’t returning, and I would so miss it was supposed to. I think it just people had already collected on our belated host. I instead reread my left us with anticipation to spare. It the church’s front stoop. Framed by postcards, words I had worked to was 3:05 and I could not find my hoods and swaths of hair, their naked memorize, and then forget. I went cracked plastic thermos and I had expressions ranged from tremulous in order of their arrival, in order of run out of half and half. It was the to peeved, curious to compassionate. the wear on their glossy fronts, in first meeting, and surely they had It was a disparate collection of order of the fade in the ink scrawled begun without me. I imagined a neighbors and strangers: people on their backs: my mother had just semi-circle of chairs around, and a whom I brushed past on public arrived in America, the weather was projector-lit screen with the words transport, or listened to on the local beautiful, and everyone’s teeth were Carpe Diem. There would naturally radio, or who had seen me grow up. straight. She would send for me just be a bespectacled man, checking People who had nothing to connect as soon as she had a job. As soon as his pocket watch incessantly as he them, but certain defiant set to their she found an apartment. As soon as told us that time was relative, and shoulders, and a light at the back there was money to spare. As soon that when it (whatever it was) finally of their eyes that I could only call as someone could take care of me… happened, all of our anticipation hope. One man caught my stare, I tucked them into my pocket will feel condensed into a matter of and watched me progress, knowing and thought I would observe the days. Running the projector from the that we were too far apart to call out collected attendees instead, to try back of the room would be a woman a greeting. When I arrived on the and understand what had really who couldn’t bring herself to tell the church steps, he gave me a nod, then brought them to the steps of a

apprentice writer : 29 converted church in an unseasonal round and too-loud for the group on the man with the upturned collar. He snow. There was the student across the steps, the same way it sounded smiled, and we carried on in silence. from me, with his hood up, and one on the radio as he refuted his I was sifting through my post headphone dangling over the collar opponent’s jibes. He cast about an cards again when the woman next of his jacket. He kept pushing his apologetic glance. His mouth was to me stood up straight suddenly and glasses up self-consciously, one hand moving but all of his round vowels brushed down the stairs, knocking stuffed in his pocket, and in the other collided and I couldn’t make out his a few of my cards to the ground. I a laptop and resume. He was the meaning. A few minutes later, a black stooped to pick them up and the one that had watched me approach car rounded the corner, and slid into woman with the braid helped me. and once you had made eye contact an imagined space in front of the It was hard not to see my mother’s with someone it was very difficult to church steps. The candidate adjusted flourished signature at the bottom see anyone else. I made a conscious the campaign pin on his lapel, offered of each, although she tried to look effort to show him I had noticed us a glowing smile, and saw himself unaffected as she brushed snow other people. Next to him was a to the back seat of the car, which from the card. As she handed them voluptuous woman in work clothes. sped off down the street as quietly as back, I could see an apology in the Cuffed jeans and spattered toe it arrived. He was the first to leave. limpness of her outstretched hand. I steeled boots were visible beneath The man who had been on the steps quickly put them back in my pocket, a velvety man’s jacket. Her thick (and who had smiled when I arrived, and gave her a tight smile, fighting auburn hair had been pulled into a playing absent-mindedly with a key the urge to tell her that it was alright. sensible braid, and the lack of make on a chain), moved up to take the Over the past seven years, it had up on her face made left her laugh candidate’s place in the shelter of become habitual to apologize for my lines visible. She was the sort of the door. He had his collar turned up mother’s absence and insist it meant person I would smile at if I passed and a pair of glasses tucked into the very little to me. her in the street. She almost caught pocket of his overcoat. It had been half an hour. I was my eye, and I hurriedly looked away. The next person to break the viscerally regretting the coffee I The slick footprints in the frost, the silence was one of our later arrivals, abandoned in my rush. The elderly note on the door, the woman next an elderly man clutching a diamond man mumbled something about to me. She leaned up against the ring. He stifled wild coughs, trying to “popping off for hot chocolate”. He handrail, folding and refolding a thick retain the control to slip the ring onto left an awkwardly shaped silence for sheet of paper. I read the elaborate his finger, lest it fall into the snow. It any of us to ask for a cup. When heading font: Will and Testament. barely fit past his first knuckle. He none of us obliged, he tipped his cap It had creases through some of the shakily took out a handkerchief, with a doubtful “see you next week” clauses, smearing the cheap ink. It dabbed his mouth, and fanned and was off down the stairs. was unsigned. She almost folded his red face. Then he replaced his It was just about too much. I had in a rhythm. In half, in half again, handkerchief, and removed the ring been gnawing my lip with indecision, into a triangle, and again, before from his finger, before looking down giving rise to metallic pain in the cold. the thickness of the paper stopped to avoid the woman next to me, who Before he had rounded the corner, I her. But the more she did it, the less paused her vicious folding to glare. gave the man and woman half of a carefully she went, and soon there The student passed between them, wave, refusing to look up at them. I were off shot tracks in the ink where breaking her stare, and not slowing picked down the stairs, and followed her sharp creases had gone awry. as he gave the man an almost my old footprints back through the I looked up at the sky. Snow imperceptible pat on the arm before street. I went through my unlocked was falling more steadily now. The jamming his cold fingers back into door, and found that my coffee had mayoral candidate who had been his pocket. The old man watched gone cold. I made a fresh pot, and tapping his foot since the moment him disappear down the block. He tipped 2% milk straight in, until it he appeared on the stairs checked looked at the ring, and back down was light and creamy. I poured a cup his watch again, took out his mobile, the street after the student. He shifted of the opaque liquid, and added two and placed a call. His voice was up a couple of steps, with a glance at sugars. I took it to my front window,

30 : susquehanna university to peek at the remaining two on the that way for some time after I had stoop of the church. I saw the woman stopped being able to see her. I draw in the snow with the capped toe pretended I could see his shoulders of her boot. I tried to imagine what raise in a sigh as he stood up straight, I would have seen if I had stayed. and turned to face the door. He took The old man had not returned with the key that he had been swinging his hot chocolate. They looked at the from its chain, inserted it into the sky, probably noting how they had lock, brushed off his hair, and swung lost all track of time in the woolen the door open. He looked both ways grey light. The woman gave the before stepping in and shutting it man a fixed look. He nodded. She behind him. turned, flipping up her collar, like his, and trudging down the stairs. She paused at the bottom, looking back reluctantly. He waved her on, and she turned her back to me, and set off, becoming a smudge of dark blue and reddish brown in the faded distance. The man stayed leaning against the door, watching her go. He stayed

Ars Poetica: Birds Letitia Chan Atherton, CA

They are heavy and light as They are singing a silent song. It has to the dregs of your mind till their snow. It starts when you come upon no words. It brings you close, closer, reason steals into air, each a a hatchling fallen from its nest, finds its way into your lungs tearing crippled when I walked away carrying the breath from man and you think one in your palm that shudders weight of the stranded. Had I your shoulder blades, too, might and subdues. They shrivel up; known break into wings. they leave you in surrender. they’d steal my words, I would have They hatch cupped him overflowing. in their own time, moist and Not one remembers your death scraggly or mine. You wake up to find one Who would have known a baby bird till they shake themselves dry, spring drinking from your ear. They hold could weigh so much? These shapes and take flight—these all of our dying pieces. You feed crevices creatures the cursor these broken words are full of him, a body plastered in who rake themselves across your that won’t come out right. the beginnings and ends of feathers page, Their beaks widen as eyes, that have never been—the birds, carcasses burned into letters, once crying, crying. they winged, now jagged, scant, small- have made a home for themselves. toothed. They breathe in the crooks of your They know thawing better than limbs, tucked in the space between March each snow. Their shapes recede. They rib, wedged between bone and skin. cling

apprentice writer : 31 Perception Tyler Gleeson Clarksville, MD off little boys who ride bikes popping out from underneath Skin without handlebars through the livers, Aleah Gatto skinny streets. hearts thumping against rib cages, Ramsey, NJ and lay On the shoreline, tanner’s skin is all our love, all our cards, on war- We change our skin every peeled off in layers, pierced tables. morning. and in the South, it divides Texas Like cars with oil, it runs dry, and Mexico But we will always wear our skin, blackens, from fusing together, becoming one surely, browns, the warrior organ. skin. and put on new skin with every bloody rising sun, When the sun tips into Africa, the Maybe we should get rid of our white skin skin, and forever be like the snakes of zebras is bisected by black rods rip it off all our newly-borns for the who crouch in the underbrush, and that stick up from their hides. dawn of hiss, an age of just bone and flesh, and shed. In the Gaza strip at daybreak, stomachs bombs singe skin

32 : susquehanna university threatening to tear off the roof or around and around until we didn’t stab holes through the windows. You know who we were anymore. But be- Ivy and I listened to it howl as we lay in ing there with you made it better. I Rachel Foster the dark and painted pictures on the think I told you that. When I did you Liverpool, NY ceiling with our flashlights. We talk- laughed and said you were glad that ed about how we could see dust float- I was there too. I don’t think you un- The snow falling that night was the ing in the flashlights’ beams, looking derstood what I meant. thickest it had been all winter. The like stars. You said maybe our solar At one point we made peanut snowflakes looked like billions of system is just a speck of dust in some- butter brownies. I don’t know if tiny clouds, flitting around like ashes, one else’s flashlight, and I laughed, you remember that. We were only unable to resist the cruel push and but I believed it for the moment and half-aware all night, stuck in a stu- pull of the wind. The wind was ev- sometimes I still do. por brought on by the eeriness of erywhere, brutally tearing the leaves We listened to The Smiths for the weather and the seemingly per- that had somehow survived the past hours as we lay there. We didn’t need manent darkness. Looking back on few months from their branches. Its to speak because he spoke for us, but that night, I can’t remember what vicious screaming was indiscernible we did anyway. How else were we I dreamed and what I lived. When from the agonized wails of the trees supposed to stop the darkness from the timer went off you were sleeping mourning their losses. The suffer- rushing into our brains? The flash- and you didn’t wake up from it. I re- ing that night was inescapable, from lights helped somewhat, but mostly member looking down at you lying the cracked ice in the gutters to the they illuminated the shadows in on the floor with a pillow clutched broken sticks and rotting leaves bur- the corners of the room and in the to your chest and thinking that I was ied under mountains of snow. Ici- corners of our heads, making them so lucky to be your friend. I repeat- cles hung like spears from the trees, easier to see and harder to ignore. ed that out loud, but only the wind threatening the life of the soft ground All of the dangerous thoughts leak- outside heard me. I ate the brownies underneath. The battleground out- ing out of our ears were caught by alone at the kitchen table. side was impossible to ignore. the dark room and thrown out into I fell asleep after eating them. And there we sat, in the middle of the storm, so we didn’t have to think Loneliness and chocolate tends to it all. Your house huddled against the about them anymore and the snow do that to you. When I woke up you storm, surrounded by dozens of tall, could instead. were sitting on the couch with a pen precariously standing trees, protect- All night we were never able to tell and piece of paper in your lap. You ing us from the violent bluster out- what time it was. For a while we tried were shaking and your hands were side. If someone looked closely they counting the hours by watching the cold. I held your hands and kissed could see that the roof was dotted moon through the window, but there your forehead and I told you it was with countless crudely fixed holes, were no holes in the heavy clouds to going to be okay. I don’t know how most of them acquired during the let any moonlight in. Eventually we long we sat there but eventually you three-day-long hailstorm we had gave up trying to keep track of the started breathing normally and you back in 1993. The front door, too, time, deciding that our night couldn’t said your world had stopped spin- was ruined during that storm. You be governed by minutes and hours ning. said that your mother finally scraped anyway. You loved it, like we were in Do you remember the fun mo- up enough money about a year ago a pre-technological world and all we ments too? Those are harder to re- to replace it, after nearly a decade of had was ourselves and each other to member because we took them for listening to your grandfather com- keep us company. The time we had granted. I remember we sat on the plain about how the wind punched together was only ours, you said, and floor in front of the couch and played him in the gut every time he walked it was wonderful; we didn’t need any patty cake, our hands clapping along by it. clocks to tell us that. I thought it was with the thunder that started about That night, though, the new front kind of scary, being awake in the dark halfway through the night. We whis- door did nothing to shield us from the for so long; time seemed to blend pered the song to each other, for- wind. It crashed against the house, together, like a vortex, spinning us getting that we were the only ones

apprentice writer : 33 who could hear ourselves. When the how the smell of fresh fruit gathers thunder stopped we stopped, and we Mother and I at the at the made pancakes. You burned them Farmer’s Market on back of your throat, pools there, and I spilled batter on the floor, but a Sunday Morning reminds you of we didn’t mind. We ate breakfast be- the last time I was a child begging Ruting Li fore dinner and everything was good. for a box of strawberries, the white Milton, MA We went outside when the sun carton started to rise. God, it was so beauti- Look, today the peaches are ripe, stained red by juice, berries sitting ful. The snow was still falling but it flesh dipped sticky wasn’t violent anymore, and it was in dust. See, even the swallow stops under the sun before they faded like tinted pink from the sunrise. The sky to shadows was throwing a blanket over us and look at the plums, skin-deep shine into the blank background. the rest of the world, making every- rubbed up by thing silent and peaceful. It was still the lady whose forehead wrinkles. windy but we weren’t cold. We made Tell me snow angels and a snowman, and we gave them all names and stories. You ran through the snow across your Communion front yard, falling to your knees when Allison Huang you reached the edge of the street. Princeton, NJ You turned to me and said, with a euphoric smile on your face, that you When I played the piano in the background of communion, were happy. Do you remember that? they almost forgot me in the corner and I had to raise my hand I’ll never forget it. You asked me if to ask for a small biscuit the size of my thumb, it would last and I told you I hoped so. How could I have known? I didn’t Imprinted with a little cross and specially designed to melt know. I didn’t know. You laughed in your mouth, but still wildly and said you hoped so too and the wind whipped your hair around The audible chewing of people’s jaws as they work the wafer your head like a halo. makes everyone stare at the carpeted pews

My father passed away when As if when Jesus broke bread over the cedar table everyone was silent and waiting for his shaking hands to accidentally drop the bread he was breaking

hands shaking with the weight of what he was about to do, hang from his wrists from damp and rotting tree and feel his body slowly seduced by gravity and sinking into the heavy air

All this for a torn curtain and the haughty sheep which sit at the table now, With their mucous eyeballs lolling at every swallow and bobbing Adam’s apple,

and listening to the music that I attempt to spin, rasping metallic twinges that groan with every creak of the old wooden keys.

34 : susquehanna university books made their way into the base- clarity and soulfulness, it’s gone just ment, locked away in a room that my like my father is. I don’t know where After Death mom told me was “too dangerous” it went, or if it had just left with him Sara Zhou to enter. There were a few photo – to heaven, to hell, to nothingness – Oakland, NJ albums and his violin, but his physi- and sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever I was eight years old, after a battle cal absence became an oppressive hear it again because if it’s not true, with cancer that ended on a cold emptiness that crept its way into the this afterlife, that sound no longer ex- steel table. I hadn’t been there for the master bedroom, the music room. I ists. final minutes, final hours of his life slowly began to lose his voice, and So now it’s just the memories that before his liver transplant. Instead, I the sound of his violin playing in the I’m left with after my father’s death, had gone to school. My father had morning. There was no more talk the violin playing, Paris, memories battled his way through university about hospital visits, about bills or that remind me of love and happi- and green cards and the Chinese surgeries. Just a small funeral, where ness. All except for the very end. I’m Cultural Revolution in order to get I had been steered skittishly away almost glad, because I can still re- our family to the United States, so from the open casket. member my father as my Superman, wasn’t he invincible? Of course he My most aching, desperate wish vibrant and alive, playing his violin in would come out of the surgery good is to have had that last look. A last the early mornings so that my mother as new. And, looking back at it, I was memory. We did have a lot of those, and I would wake up to the music of also very, very scared. memories. Like when I had just be- Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, instead In my first eight years I didn’t re- gun to learn violin, we visited a shop of painted stiffly with a mortician’s ally understand the significance of with instruments printed with crazy hand. Even if there is no afterlife he death. I never attended a sermon or zebra stripes and duck heads, and I still exists in my own memories ex- religious service or funeral, but my squealed in excitement, “Look how actly as I knew him to be, even nine Christian friends spoke of paradise, cute they are! Can I have one, please years after he’s been gone. of salvation, and sometimes of hell. please please?” My father said no, Now as my family and friends Never of death itself, though, just I already had a gorgeous, new vio- in China grow older, my mom and what could happen after. I suppose lin, but I begged and pouted and fi- I are making more and more trips that very few children can grasp a nally he caved to my puppy dog eyes to see them before we have to part concept as finite as eternal rest. and granted my request to at least with them, too. Generally, they don’t So when I came home the night try out the instrument printed with change much from year to year – my father died and my mom rushed neon polka dots, as long as we played a wrinkle here, a liver spot there, to me and hugged me so tight and a duet together. Maybe it was only nothing detrimental. But this year said “Daddy’s gone,” I cried with- “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” but it we visited one of my parents’ clos- out knowing why, because “gone” sounded so happy to my five-year-old est friends before they moved to the to me had no meaning. Where was self when I glanced at him playing United States. I met her once, when “gone”? Heaven? Hell? It could have a leopard-printed violin with a fond I was five years old, but I don’t- re been oblivion for all I knew, because smile in his eyes. I sometimes resent- member her; I was told that she was the word is just as explicit as “no- ed that he scolded me when I played a brilliant traditional Chinese doctor, where.” My strong, resilient dad who a wrong note or if I didn’t eat my loved by all her patients. had hoisted me onto his shoulders on vegetables, but he was also the per- But what I saw wasn’t the clever, top of the Eiffel Tower just months son who held me on his shoulders on wise woman whom I had come to before his final surgery, he couldn’t the Eiffel Tower so I could be taller expect. Instead, there was a frail old just be “gone.” than all of Paris. He was gentle but person rocking in a wheelchair, sing- But over the next weeks, the re- strong, smart and kind in life. Now ing to herself and knocking a teacup mains of my father’s life began to I play the violin he left behind, but against the table. She was blind, her disappear. My mom donated most the sound has morphed with humid- brain destroyed by Alzheimer’s dis- of his clothes to the Salvation Army, ity and age, almost unrecognizable ease. Her once beloved family and and his work papers and history compared to what I remember. That friends sat all around her, but she

apprentice writer : 35 couldn’t remember their names; years ago. My legs feel heavy when SEA—pile in cabinets. She talks to even when they gave her hints and I wake up in the morning. There’s her boyfriend, who says that she will encouragement, like, “It sounds an aching in my wrist that wasn’t get better, and she keeps taking pills. like the word for light, I know you there last summer. Soon, I too will For their three-year anniversary, know who I am,” her stare would be grow old, and now I wonder what it they are back at her favorite restau- completely blank, and she sounded is I will leave behind for people to re- rant, but she does not eat, and slips frightened, paranoid. She couldn’t member me. a pill between her teeth. He notes eat soup without spitting it up. She that her stomach has gotten fatter, needed help from a hired companion and doesn’t offer to give her a ride to go to the bathroom. back to her house; at her house, What scares me the most about she takes pills. She wonders if they that encounter is that not ten years can flush through her veins to wash before, this woman was a completely away distress. At the kitchen table, different person, sharp and articulate as pills dissolve and diffuse through- and healthy. My parents knew that out her stomach, she notices that the person. I met that person. But I’ll pomegranates have shriveled like never remember her now, because ugly shadows. One by one, she toss- she’s been robbed of her senses and es them out, thumping echoes. Her her entire mind. To me, that person fights with her boyfriend, nightmar- from ten years ago never existed and ish dreams, and aches all grow like never will, and when she dies, all that grass roots that bed into her belly— will be left of her will be the image of A Woman Takes so she takes pills. On a Tuesday after her mumbling nonsense under her work in March, she finally sits on a breath and spilling tea on her lap. Pills hospital bed while the doctor tells Maybe for her loved ones in China Jiyoung Jeong her about something else that has it’ll be different because they’ll have Auburndale, MA rooted inside her: a baby. memories of who she was, but I am Inside her, a child—just a little absolutely certain that those will still A woman takes pills. She picks embryo—sucks in pills. Curled like be marred by those of her condition up a call at 1 a.m.—your father has a seahorse, it pretends to not exist; today. It’s horrifying to think that, if passed—and with a clench in her it only flinches when the woman memories are all what is left of a per- heart, a knotted sickness in her stom- swallows pills. Capsuled beneath son after they die, a single moment ach, she pops a capsule (Thalido- her ribs, it consumes pills through can completely shatter an impression mide, white) that she had bought for its belly-tube. Pills spill into the baby, of a person you thought you knew, her father’s upset stomach last week. and they cinch its bones (too early). because my father’s condition prob- Sitting at the kitchen table with day- Tied like a knot, it digests pills and ably wasn’t that much different from old pomegranates, the woman takes whirls in water, stumping round hers in the few weeks before his pass- pills. From the glass surface her cra- walls. Some days it steeps in warmth ing. Weak from chemo, wrapped in tered eyes stare back, and she curls and dreams—until, stepping in the IVs, manic from pain medication. her toes against the January-cold shadowed kitchen, the woman sighs I’ve read about what cancer treat- linoleum tiles. She knows that her and glides pills down her throat. ment is like. Maybe if I had seen him father must have taken pills before The child receives pills, and one day, that last day, my image of him now the accident, murmuring: those god- bursts onto a soft sheet, coldness and would be different, too. But I didn’t, damn streetlights give me headaches light stinging its eyes. The woman’s so he’ll always be my lovely, intelli- these days. At night she writhes in screech—my child—forks through gent father. And that, that’s a bless- white sheets, cased in insomnia; she its ears, and it squirms on its needle ing. wakes to take pills. Pharmacy bottles spine as white figures rush to cram I’m seventeen now, but already dressed in labels—Thalidomide: pills between the woman’s lips. I am not who I was one, two, three TAKE AT BEDTIME FOR NAU-

36 : susquehanna university Laurel Lake Richard Randall Washington, D.C.

Gods make out 4H Rambling In the steady stream of streetlight David Merkle Glen Rock, NJ My friend scampers past them on all fours Out there in the gathering fog of Chasing after some marijuana- my uncensored youth induced mailman Candles tire themselves out Who, at one point in his life, had And bowls light shoved his dignity so far down his And beers empty throat And girls spit at me from their That he forgot to take it out bedroom windows

apprentice writer : 37 But my brain felt like melted, mushy jello. “Maaaayyyaaaa!” my grand- Nanu mother shouted my name. “Lunch is Grind a Layer Simran Malhotra ready.” That was a lie; lunch would Danielle Weidner Millburn, NJ be ready in ten minutes. But since I Livingston, NJ had nothing else to do, I began my As her paper thin, creased, veined walk to the dining area. Grind a layer hands moved slowly over the key- Even though it was scorching of blue slab into board, she turned her head and gave weather, my grandfather’s dhurries a wave that’s me a sheepish smile. “I forgot,” she were laid on the marble floor. The elegant like the night; said, a line I had heard many senior dhurries had different patterns and press your lips against citizens say. But I had learned to be friezes, both Western and Indian. its’ salty grain when patient, so once again, I explained Each dhurrie was multicolored – ce- it stoops nearer. how to use the shift key to type the rulean blue, yellow ocher, cadmium @ sign. “Ah, now I remember,” she red, alizarin crimson, ultramarine I hope you remember said. She smiled and the wrinkles at blue and more. As I dragged my the curve of my lips under the corners of her eyes seemed to lift bare feet over each dhurrie, I could the sombrero-shaped up like the corners of her mouth. feel the years of work it took to pro- canopy of that tree, “You know, the reason old people die duce these pieces of artwork. My and that Monday night is that they become useless.” grandfather treasured these dhur- where we walked ries; after all, the weavers he trained the sandy banks; had made them. But now the factory toes immersed in lays abandoned as he retired due to the earth the way It was ninety degrees, and there his illness, hepatitis C. I was in you. was no electricity. The inverter When I got to the dining table, barely kept one fan revolving on the my grandmother was frantically You were my medicine; patio of my grandparents’ auburn deciding which napkins looked the this belonged in a movie. and manila two-story house. India’s best. “Maaayyyaaaaaa!” she called, monsoons brought humid weather, her back facing me. the kind that allow a sticky residue to “I’m here,” I replied. hands rested on the table beside his lie on one’s skin throughout the day “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you dirty plate and a white paper bag. He and force one to have several baths were behind me,” she said, turning had already eaten his meal, which to keep cool. I lay on the geometric around to the sound of my voice. My consisted of dal and soybean roti. patterned bed sheet that covered the grandmother smiled. I liked it when He smiled meekly as I sat down. settee as I counted the number of she smiled; all her wrinkles were in But it was a sad smile, a smile of flies and bees that flew by my head. the right places, and her face seemed surrender. The smile turned to a Even though the patio was shaded, to radiate warmth and goodness. frown as he looked at the white pa- the devilish sun had still found a way I gave her my metal-faced smile. per bag. Pills, I thought. He hated to reach me. My skin had become “Lunch is almost ready, so sit here, taking his pills; he hated having to the same color of the dark wood next to Nanu,” she said, patting one rely on something. He was an entre- that was the flooring of my house of the wooden chairs. preneur; he never relied on anyone in America. I resigned my arms and My grandfather sat slightly or anything other than the dhurries legs in a position of surrender to the hunched at the table; he looked like a he produced for a living. But he was heat. war veteran. But he was still in battle. old now, circumstances change and The smell of the broiling butter He was fighting against his own body people change. masala chicken emanated from the in order to win more time to remain Slowly and shakily, he unclasped kitchen. I heard grandmother’s loud, on Earth. His spectacles sat pre- his hands and reached for the paper booming voice as she instructed the cariously on the tip of his nose. His bag. In the background, my grand- servant on how to prepare the salad. I face was sullen and sad. His clasped mother was clanging pots and pans should be studying, I scolded myself.

38 : susquehanna university in the kitchen. Once my grandfather this heavy season down from the grabbed the bag, he pulled it closer north shore to the bayside to him and emptied out its contents Swallow-Song onto the dining table. Pills of various Beatrice Lee I will give you my name, colors – cerulean blue, yellow ocher, Ramsey, NJ cut it deep in blacked blood, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, ul- wrap you ruby-throated in the tramarine blue and more – laid on come here little bird and taste molted feathers of daylight, the tabletop. dig your tongue to my wounds, I knew he didn’t want me to claw into my skin and Croon you a lullaby watch. He didn’t want me to know drag down on so as to sing myself he was sick. But I always knew he this calicoed beast to sleep was sick. In fact, I don’t remember cut me up him not being sick. a coward, The servant came and put a warm pleading, glass of water next to my grandfa- let me stand for ther. He cringed at the sight, but he the dirt-veiled wombs my began to open up the packets of pills. mother made, woven from those Twenty – that was the number wet of pills he had to take. I sat there indian summer days and for fifteen minutes watching him put too much syrup on your pancakes of electra pill by pill into his mouth. I stuck to Beatrice Lee my chair, both physically because of little bird come sit on my poplar Ramsey, NJ the heat and mentally because I was tree shocked. How can a person have to outside the window fly right in it’s there are hellions on the night- take that many pills? But most of all, been open too long train, why him? What had he done to de- come sing me songs of the last they cross the nadir into the serve this? winter storms and how your lungs light-core above my The electricity came back on. fill bedside and trace flames across my up with bramble and bubble over rib, two reach torches around my throat hush now, spread your wings over and When Ms. Lin left, I just sat in the whisper, taste. the computer room alone staring out fire that’s sparked in the hearthside, of the window. It was raining out- curl up around it as you they cackle up charcoal and gaso- side. Little droplets pitter-pattered would your kin pry open their line, against the window. I thought about bones and lick ignite a rush from the corner of the my grandfather. Would I too become up their marrow rug, useless? spew your father’s last words, cook crawl up a brocade curtain and it into swing gore and let it clot, let it come through the window frosted down a typhoon, over by sealights. a heart-shower, let it pelt your wings and in his cabin, the conductor blows drown you smoke rings in the last sips of daylight. christen yourself to my book, tonight he will sit in his rocker un- my sinew, let your beak drip this der yellowed moons. cherry wined-blood onto raw he will not move to remind the light pulp, trace the outline of he is there.

apprentice writer : 39 Empanada Courtesy of the School Eliza Scharfstein Paper, The Lawrence Brookline, MA Allison Huang Princeton, NJ Outside the Valparaiso YMCA is a street speckled with stray dogs and humans. The man with the I noticed, other than its uncanny ability cap and tarred to use magnanimous words, that the Lawrence article fingertips pulls down the gate. about the visiting of Billy Collins was written before I hand him three coins that click against his rings, say con queso, he even got here. This owed itself to the uncanny ability and, in a waxed slit of paper, hold of writers to write in past tense about something that dough crusted never happened yet. I wonder with burns and cheese. what they felt after squeezing out the series of preterit I remember Septembers, when verbs, if their brains were firing axon terminal to dendrite branch, Rosh Hashanah instead of the other way around, or when their mothers called brings my mother’s brisket to the table. if they couldn’t speak without evoking the score of their Saturday Sauce soups in oil, and I see faces: basketball game, ancestors in black and white nailed which they hadn’t played yet. I wonder, to the wall of my grandparents’ if when they stepped outside, apartment, Moses holding a rod to a state the snow began to melt into the gutter, he would surrender, the long dress even as it was mid-January, of Ester. The seams of my Challah rip, and if they saw a rag of brown leaf floating back up and memories of lives reattaching to a branch before I never lived braid into the seeing it flush a vibrant green. If they churnings of my stomach. saw the first bud On the street corner, cheese shooting from the ground, slits in between my teeth, and I see tight petals still frozen with sleet. a city slanted in steepness, these hills staircasing up and down, full of murals painted on stone: a dictatorship, a freedom, an artist. The nearby crashing of waves onto silted sand sifts through my mouth. In the houses shacked by roofs, people sip stories I’m beginning to taste.

40 : susquehanna university Line 1 Scott Bodnar

Downstairs Alyssa Mulé Atlanta, GA

The girl knows what perfection is. directives strewn with “darling”s. tap-dancing ribs? At least, she knows what it is not. She fancies that she should hate She picks up a novel from her It is not her neat little room, the the jeweled necklace weighing down bedside table. Words are meant to smallest bedroom in a large house, her neck and the Victorian furniture fill the night with their possibility of not the plush pink chair she curled decorating her room. Somehow, she perfection. up on as a child. Not even the stacks cannot quite muster up abhorrence of books on her sagging bookshelf, for what she considers her own. creased and wearied with age. Feeling all the worse for her lack She cannot hear the sounds of of loathing, she allows herself to perfection echoing from downstairs. wonder whether she could traipse Unlike in the books she devours downstairs, feel welcoming gazes laid (with protagonists she relates to), she thickly upon her, kiss her mother and doesn’t hear parents screaming and chuck her younger sister’s chin. arguing, the shrill shatter of glass, She couldn’t. siblings bawling. The only noises Unaware of how or why, she feels that spiral up to her strained hearing the walls of her room acutely. With sound like what any other girl might this knowledge she cradles, how can deem perfect—carefully controlled she simply descend the staircase into laughing, polite inquiries, gentle warm arms and cold sweaters over

apprentice writer : 41 that my parents had been together see our eyes. Something Borrowed, forever. But then I find out about this other man who had existed in V. Something Blue my mother’s life before my father. In seventh grade, I learn about Rachel Pietrewicz I feel betrayed, hurt, outraged on genetics: Punnett squares and Hackettstown, NJ behalf of my father. But my parents dominant genes and recessive genes sit me down and explain to me how and blood types. I don’t pay attention I. love works. much—I’m more interested in Six years before I am born, Love, apparently, is not as simple history than science—but a few my mother is engaged to a man as I’d thought it was. My mother details stand out to me towards the who is not my father. Perhaps hugs me and comforts me, and when end of the lesson. When a mother she is happy in this relationship, she locks her gaze on mine, I know and a father have a child, you can perhaps she is scared to leave this that everything will be okay because use Punnett squares to guess what relationship. Perhaps even my I love her and she loves me. color the child’s eyes will be. I don’t mother doesn’t know. Regardless of My mother has blue eyes. understand this process, the ordered my mother’s personal feelings about little boxes lined up on my worksheet, this relationship, she is all set to go III. determining the outcome of a totally through with the looming marriage Whenever someone pages random, seemingly unpredictable and take the only next step left for an through the piles of family photos process. engaged couple. Wedding cakes are spread throughout our cluttered, Life is more complicated than that, tested for taste, dresses are altered, cozy living room, they will inevitably I think. I raise my hand to question songs are chosen. The wedding is remark upon the resemblance. They the legitimacy of the Punnett squares coming together beautifully. feel inclined to inform us that we all process, and my teacher sighs and With three days left before my look alike, as if we had not known tells me that, believe it or not, every mother is set to exchange vows with that before. “You share the same problem can be solved with a pencil the man she thinks she loves, she genes!” They tell us, as if they are and paper. changes her mind. Phone calls are scientists making a discovery worthy I don’t believe it. made to the village of people involved of a “Eureka!” exclamation. But my teacher goes on and on in the wedding. The cake is cut and At a young age, I learn to roll my about these silly little squares, so plated, shared among the employees eyes. I start to play around with them. at the bakery. Dresses hang uselessly The color blue of eyes is a recessive in closets, ready to collect dust, or IV. trait, hiding behind the color brown, perhaps, in some cases, they are At first, it is just my sister and which is dominant. A mother with shredded in rage. Songs that had me. Two girls, two years apart. blue eyes and a father with blue eyes once meant something now mean My mother dresses us in matching can only produce a child with blue nothing, and they can no longer be outfits, and at certain times and eyes; they cannot produce a brown- listened to without bringing back certain ages, we can pass for twins. eyed child. But a mother with blue a flood of painful memories. My “How precious,” strangers on the eyes and a father with brown eyes mother decides she doesn’t want street say, coming far too close for can produce a child with any color a husband or a marriage or a new comfort. “They have the same eyes!” eyes. Recessive or dominant, light or house, or maybe she just doesn’t Then, the twins come along. One dark, it’s a toss-up. The outcome of a want the man she’s supposed to girl and one boy, twelve minutes couple with eyes of different colors is marry. apart. My mother doesn’t dress unpredictable. He has brown eyes. them in matching outfits, but they My father has blue eyes. can always pass for twins. “What a II. handful,” strangers on the street say, VI. When I first hear about my steering away from my mother with Age fifteen is when I start to think mother’s almost-marriage at age her four children. about what-ifs. What if I had been eight, I am shocked. At such a young, They don’t come close enough to born a day earlier? What if I had vulnerable age, I had assumed

42 : susquehanna university been born a day later? What if I had see the anger in eyes like mine. When missed the bus this morning? What if my mother tells a joke she’s proud of, February in Hong I had gotten to the bus stop early? I I glimpse the gleam in eyes like mine. wonder how different my life would I guess I understand why Kong be if any those what-ifs had actually strangers want to remark upon the happened. resemblance between the members Letitia Chan One of the what-ifs I ponder of my family. It is quite extraordinary Atherton, CA most often is what if my mother to see six different people with the You and I, in the swelling had married that man? What if she same color eyes. tide of people, watch our breaths had married him and never met my mingle and dissipate, read each father, or met my father but never fell VIII. other’s smiles as we clutch in love with him, or met my father In tenth grade, the guidance our lantern by its bamboo frame. but never pursued a relationship counselors lead us in an anti- The orange glows translucent, with him because she was already bullying/confidence-building/ a pregnant woman’s belly, stiff married? Would I still exist in some suicide-preventing activity where yet capable of breaking, the heat form, a child of hers and her almost- everyone in the class has to make warming my hands. I wonder husband? Or would I not exist at all, a list of characteristics, physical if these frail shells are enough the genes I am made of simply not and otherwise, they love about to hold us, hold our hopes, combining to form a single human themselves. After we all mull over our etched on their paper skins. being? answers for ten minutes, scratching We do not hear anyone count I think I would still exist, but I’d away in our notebooks, tapping our be different. Maybe I would love pens against the desks, searching above the crowd. Perhaps science and hate history. Maybe I the blank walls for inspiration, the an impatient child somewhere would be taller. Maybe I wouldn’t guidance counselor in my classroom lets go, one, then two, slowly, need glasses. asks us to each share two things from lanterns lifting off, and the flicker Maybe I would have brown eyes. our list, one physical characteristic in your eyes to hold on to me and one other. as the weight slips past our fingers— VII. My classmates shyly tell each Every member of my immediate other about how they love their see, a thousand tangerine candles family has the exact same shade of naturally straight hair, or their long rising, jellyfish from ocean deep. blue eyes. The recessive genes from legs, or their eyebrows. They name Their boxy heads ascend my mother and father carry over things like their athletic ability, or into the black of night, tickle to their children, with no dominant their fashion sense, or their skill at the sky red through the haze, brown genes to take over and hide putting on make-up, or their singing flames kindling the sea gold. the blue from view. talent. The students share their My family’s blue eyes unite us. favorite things about themselves in a They tell others that we are related. line down the classroom, zigging and We all have hair in various shades zagging to follow the formation of of blond and brown, nothing that the desks. Finally, it is my turn. immediately stands out as being “My sense of humor,” I say. “And similar. But our eyes are instantly my blue eyes.” recognizable as being part of the same family. I borrowed my eyes from my parents, and my siblings borrowed them from me. When my youngest sister cries because the boys at school are mean to her, I watch tears tumble from eyes like mine. When my father raises his voice, I

apprentice writer : 43 Untitled Julia Reinert Tamaqua, PA

but to hide from the tourists. finished In The Absence of a drinking all their offerings, the last Sky Train Meanwhile, all the gods and drop eastern from the back of a motorcyclist Kamonphorn Buranasiri heroes arrive to split moralbone stargazing in the ticket booth. He Lakeville, CT and spit satangs at the platform’s swears Siam is not the place for prayers beggars, he can see her weaving galaxies or questions. The station is overrun geckos, and prophets feigning dark out of skylines, claims the heavens with insomniacs and barmen fits are man-made, and stops to make building shelter out of train tickets of sleep in the unemployment line. an itch. and last week’s gum, wanting nothing By dawn, the mosquitoes will have

44 : susquehanna university me tested for learning disabilities. differences. I was diagnosed with dyslexia in Being dyslexic makes me able Tnis is nom I see tne fourth grade. to look at the world and see the morlb - This is how Discovering I was dyslexic did amazing potential that exists in I see the world. not have the resolution I thought diversity. Dyslexia has given me the Carolyn Todd it would in my life. I did not know tools to see the beauty in difference what it meant or how I was supposed and the passion to change the way Erie, CO to feel. All I knew was that I did we define intelligence. not want to be defined by it. I was I want to show the world what I Life is often jumbled, upside down, unable to truly comprehend how see. or backwards. It is an adventure dyslexia was affecting me until a few full of fascinating, intriguing people years after being diagnosed. I was at waiting to be discovered and I the store with my mom, and I read advocate for the different, brilliantly a sign I thought said “buswash”. I Chicago, Quiet wired minds. In society, when a became utterly puzzled by how a bus person is labeled as different, a could fit inside such a small store. Illinois negative stigma is instantly placed My mom helped me sound out the upon them for the shallow human Kate Busatto word, which actually said “subway”. Sewickley, PA eye is unable to see all the factors As I watched the letters rearrange that play into someone’s life. Having to what everyone else could see, I “Chicken in the car faced these challenges of being finally realized how differently I saw different, I have learned to be open- and the car won’t go” the world. That was the first time I is what my minded when encountering new began to understand what having people. Being a part of a community grandmother dyslexia meant. called it. that is often disregarded as incapable Dyslexia is both a blessing and a Now, 4.0 pessimists has motivated me to want to travel curse. I struggle every day, working invade the city the world advocating for children twice as hard as other students. I get and it’s tainted. with learning differences. stereotyped as stupid by people who Maybe it was always After being born in France and do not understand what it means to tainted for me, moving to America at the age of four, have a learning difference. However, the fat splat of what I knew to be normal became I refuse to give up. I have learned the asinine water in the abnormal. I went from blue, importance of standing up for myself wholegrain Illinois. white, and red, to red, white and and others. I am now a coordinator I remember my blue; kissing cheeks to shaking hands; for Eye to Eye: a mentoring based grandmother’s fur from speaking French to speaking program that partners high school getting beat down English. I struggled in school and students with middle school students by the wind on was noticeably behind in my spelling in order to raise self-advocacy skills Michigan Avenue. and reading abilities compared to the in a safe environment through art We stopped in other students. I remember the days projects. In listening to my mentee’s hotel lobbies when my heart would pound and my struggles and sharing my story with for a bit of cheeks burned with embarrassment her, I have watched her confidence sun-colored noise as I stuttered through reading a few grow as she becomes comfortable and some sentences out loud in class. This with her learning difference. atom movement. traditional school system told me Remaining optimistic through The shearing breath that I was stupid, and I believed it. my challenges can set a powerful of the city was quiet, As my confidence decreased and example and this experience with so cold your my reading and writing refused to my mentee has grown my passion for car won’t start. improve, my mother decided to have advocating for those with learning

apprentice writer : 45 The cabin was covered, like all of young blood all over our beach tow- the identical rentals sprawling out els. I dumped the soiled bread into Truro Red around us, from floor to ceiling in the garbage pail, the slices landing Joline Hartheimer fishing paraphernalia: sailboats and with a satisfying plump, and rinsed Upper Saddle River, NJ fishing hooks and seashells and sea the bloody blade under the fau- The blood-red strawberries feel glass nailed to every surface. I always cet until the water ran clear again. cold and swollen in my pale winter complained about how cheesy it all And with that clear water I washed fingers, their tangy juice stinging the was. Above the loveseat was a series the sand off the strawberries that I cuts in my cuticles. They may be of time-lapse photographs of coast- packed in our beach bag that morn- “out-of-season” and shipped in from lines eroding, the once strong and ing. some Latin American country much muscular arm of the Cape becom- The strawberries ended up being closer to warmth, but I can feel the ing flaccid as years passed by. A col- our lunch that day. And those were essence of summer lying right up lection of plastic jello molds, shaped the last strawberries I ever saw trick- against my skin, a precious keepsake like lobsters, were the main kitchen ling down your chin. that will be showing signs of rot by decoration, complemented by an- Wednesday. And they remind me of cient boxes of the cherry-scented fluorescent red powder in the cabi- The Bund that time I was sitting next to you on Ruting Li those teal blue lawn chairs, our gold- nets, with expiration dates too scary Milton, MA en toasted toes peeking through the to read. You told me once that jello pebbly sand as we tossed the green is this giant conspiracy, that all the We stop, tonight, at the railing. leafy tops behind us into the dunes. flavors actually taste the same when The lights of the buildings We sat in silence - not an awk- you hold your nose, and the smell is dance in the water ward one, one that felt just right – the only thing that makes lime taste the way we used to, your right hand resting on my thigh, any different than orange. I wish I sock-footed sisters watching the murky blue tentacles had believed you. on the wooden floor. of the tide creep towards us, melt- We would stand in that tiny gal- Across the river, a sign flashes ing childhood dreams of sandcastles ley kitchen, hipbones connected as I love Shanghai. and shell collections in their way, left I stirred the pitcher of iced tea and I think, I may love it too: behind by the rambunctious family you sliced the Portuguese bread we the street dust, 4 RMB pork buns, that had set up camp front of us. Af- had picked up that morning in Prov- the sun in the afternoon, peachy terwards, we would barefoot-tiptoe- incetown, holding hands while wait- through the pollution. jump over the steaming black asphalt ing in line behind friendly gay men I remember the time we left to get back to the beige minivan, and wealthy Boston retirees, their ac- the window open all afternoon, and whose furry seats were sprinkled with cents filling the bakery. The serrated the city stink cracker crumbs and smelled of or- knife sliced the side of your knuckle crept in, the taste of car exhaust ange juice and sunscreen. You would so perfectly that it didn’t look real, like rusted coins spent on popsicles, always bump your head on the door the fresh cut like a line drawn in chrysanthemum leaves and garlic getting in, and end up holding your the sand. But soon blood swelled at oiled in the kitchen below ours. swollen temple while you drove back the site and eagerly poured over the At ten, the clock tower sings to the cabin, cursing under your break in your skin, the droplets fall- and the city stars will blink out. breath. And I would always stub my ing onto the slices of bread, which I’ll stand and look at the skeletons big toe climbing up those splinter- absorbed them thirstily. of buildings, watching infested stairs. Frightened at the realization that the river silt rise up at low tide, The screen door would bounce you were in fact human, and mortal, the coal ships floating by long into against the doorjamb as it closed, and getting closer to death at each the night. sending flakes of lead paint from the second, your face became pale and There’s too much of us here, fifties floating down to the welcome you coldly pushed me aside to run to but I could never be alone mat, like dandelion pods in the wind. the bathroom, leaking your fleeting with this city.

46 : susquehanna university you used when you woke up in a King of the World hospital bed with that cloudy blue eye. Tiara Sharma Quincy, MA To this day, your used sketchbooks lie stacked That afternoon in your mother’s next to your father’s photo. As you front yard drape you told me the story of how Shah a fresh garland of flowers over his Jahan picture frame, cut off the hands of his craftsmen you tell me you would never believe so they could never build anything what they’re saying, Remember the word, sharam, the else like the Taj Mahal. that the Taj is sinking, slowly, into shame in her eyes. Your notepad was filled with the Yamuna. sketches Every night, I dream of those As you and your five friends pin her of the black mausoleum you builder’s hands at the river bottom. down, imagined he would build Every night, I wake up scared for remember your sister’s broken and the silver bridge over the how much you do not know. marriage, Yamuna River the night you set fire to her that would connect him to his wife husband’s veranda for eternity. after you saw her purpled ribcage, Delhi Braveheart wounds that never bandaged You carried me on your shoulders Tiara Sharma properly. so I could finally reach the worn Quincy, MA clothesline. As you cup her breasts, I pulled the rope down as far as my “If my daughter or sister engaged think about the man who groped arms would allow in pre-marital activities and your daughter’s chest, and released. You held my face as a disgraced herself by doing such the fight that ended in a scar clothespin things, I would most certainly take behind your ear, clipped your left eye and it swelled this sort of sister or daughter to how she has slept between you and as large as my fist. my farmhouse, and in front of my your wife every night. entire family, I would put petrol Deep wells lie in the mattress where on her and set her alight.” –A. P. Mukesh, as you force a steel rod your father’s body Singh, defense lawyer in the 2012 into her, once moved and where your mother Delhi rape case think of Goddess Durga riding into still sleeps. battle on a tiger, You return to her every autumn to As you sit in your bus outside the conch shell, lotus flower, and fold your things movie theater trident in hand, in your childhood cupboard, sit on and spot the slim girl in jeans, how you offered Her silver trays full the veranda remember the nights of sweets, while the sound of temple bells fills your mother spent kneading dough begged her for escape from your all of Jammu, and boiling lentils slum. and sketch the house you always to welcome you from your night Remember that Durga is in your wanted to build shift. daughter, across Greenbelt Park. “Perfection Remember when, three years ago, in our daughters, in the ones that within imperfection,” she found you “wear wrong things,” you say, finishing the thatched on the rooftop with a bottle of Vat and in this Delhi Braveheart whom roof—the exact words 69 and the local village tramp. you leave on the road.

apprentice writer : 47 reminding me there is no food. No retreat to the shelter of the house. I Back Home Again money. No man. I can now hear Sis slip inside and tiptoe up the stairs, Elizabeth Satterfield and little Bubby racing through the somehow fearful that any sound empty, white-washed hallway, filled could ruin the momentary happiness Independence, WV with ignorant bliss while the baby of the rain. On the second floor, Music crackles inside the faded sleeps quietly. But the cicadas are I walk quickly past my locked radio, drifting out of the dingy lace silent. The dog has stopped barking. bedroom door. In the gloom, I grope curtains that sway in the heavy Static comes across the radio. The for the nursery door. My precious summer breeze. There is a low hum wind is not touching my face. My baby sleeps peacefully, contrasting of cicadas in the distance. The wind sorrowful eyes shoot open, and my the turmoil that rages within me. I caresses my face, blowing away the weary legs stand immediately. I scoop him up and bury my face in tears that have silently slipped down scan the horizon quickly for signs the soft nape of his neck, smelling the my cheek. I am standing inside the of disturbance. My hopes are high. last scent of him. I retreat downstairs aging screen door, covered in three Maybe he has returned. But his with the fragile creature in my tired layers of flaking paint. I lightly tiptoe after-shave is not in the air. His old arms. I sit once again in the rocker, onto the porch, pushing the creaking Ford pickup is not rolling into the watching Sis muck up her dress, and door out of my way. driveway. His broad shoulders are Bubby catch rain on his tongue. I I sit down on the white rocker not beneath my heavy head. nearly smile, a genuine smile, but and look out over the expanse of the Instead, I smell rain. It is heavy, I catch myself. For I once had joy barren land beyond my small porch. muggy, and moist. It fills my and peace in my homely life. He The thinning hay leans in the wind; lungs and chokes me with the first took the pleasures I experienced and a dog barks in the next county over; happiness I have felt in months. The turned them on their heads, giving my vegetable garden has yellowed pale sun has sought shelter from the me a personal relationship I never significantly as the drought has impending storm. The dark clouds realized could be had. I learned worsened. The absence of rain has hover above me, threatening to pure love that comes from the soul destroyed all hope. As I sit and deluge the land with fresh life. A and gushes on those fortunate to be recollect the dry and disastrous crack of thunder splits the sky and near it. He taught me endurance past weeks, I close my eyes and let lightning illuminates the dark scene. and loyalty, something many do not the rocking of the old chair lull me Fat drops hit the metal roof and understand. It was an old-fashioned to sleep. I can hear footsteps on the screams of excitement can be heard concept of promises, camaraderie, second floor of the farmhouse. They from inside the house. brotherhood--and I embraced it all, retreat down the splintered stairs I continue to gaze in amazement as did he for it stemmed from his and slip out the screen door. A small as the beads bounce off the hard very passionate being. hand touches my arm gently. and unwilling ground. Two pairs My reverie is interrupted by the “Momma, are you gonna’ fix of footsteps pound down the stairs, radio, which has emerged from supper? We’re gettin’ hungry.” My and the slam of the door sharply the static aggressively. The blare eyes open slowly. I stare stupidly hits my ears. “Momma, Momma! of the weather alert echoes in my ahead. I do not know how to answer Look! It’s rainin’!” Four little hands head, and my eyes squeeze shut her because there is no supper. But I grab my skirt urgently, pulling me tightly, as if my sheer will can make put on a weak smile. out into the rain. The stout drops it is just a systematic test. But the “We’re goin’ on an adventure, Sis. slide down my bare arms and face. blare is followed by a serious voice, To Mammy’s house!” The corners Soon I am soaked to the bone as are proclaiming the possibility of a of her eyes turn upwards, and her the children, who are dancing in the tornado. My broken heart drops front teeth are absent. She runs back magical puddles and imagining that into the pit of my empty stomach. I inside the house, slamming the door life is perfect. I look at the complete run through the torrent and scoop behind her. I close my eyes again, joy emanating from their rosy faces up my babies, racing toward the ignoring the intruding thoughts and wish I was as carefree as they. underground cellar, toward safety. that are running through my mind, The rain stills beats steadily as I The baby screams in confusion as the

48 : susquehanna university rain pounds off of his little cheeks. We of a single ray. I shed no tears stop in the moment when I realize I scramble inside, grabbing the door because the sun would simply wipe feel pain. I look down and see red behind us, huddling in the farthest them away. Instead, I lie down in the seeping out of my abdomen. I touch corner silently. Sis folds her hands damp grass and look at the cloudless it tenderly and sway, falling to the and offers prayers up to God while sky that is full of possibilities to the ground. As I lay there, evaluating Bubby clings to my neck in sheer rest of the world. To me, it is a clean my life, I realize who I am and what terror. I myself am stiff with anguish slate that was washed with tears, I have chosen to be. I remember as I light the kerosene lantern, anguish, and sadness. As I clear my the babies, sleeping in the cellar. I rocking the baby and hushing him mind, I become aware of the sounds remember the man I loved, who left earnestly. My only thoughts are around me. Crickets chirp near my me to fight for us. And now it is over. survival…survival without him. ears, birds sing in the old oak tree, Our protagonist freezes in the reality of and gravel crunches in the driveway. the moment, the reality that she cannot live. I know that sound. It is the truck. She cannot live without her better half. For His truck. he is gone, he was gone six months ago when My eyes flash with passion, and he joined the service. He left her with only my body runs toward the sound. My a kiss, a perfect, younger version of himself, mind is racing and so wanting the five hundred dollars cash, and a dying farm. impossible to be probable. My soul She knew when he climbed into that old soars above my dreams in the clean Ford pickup and the dust flew behind him, sky and graces the tops of the trees, he would not return. Five weeks later, the mocking the world below it. I am telegram was delivered. The ceremony was running in the middle of driveway beautiful, the flag now sitting on the mantel toward the pickup. I see his rugged, beside his service picture. Everyday she sat smiling face through the windshield, in the parlor and looked at his face and the and I throw back my head in The Inuit flag for which he had fought. Every day laughter. I come along side his door Caleb Tansey she cried inwardly and smiled outwardly. as he slows. I grab the door handle Washington, D.C. But her courage is decimated. Her joy lies eagerly as he steps out to envelop me in a pine box at the church down the road. in his strong arms. As I clasp onto it is a barren road, save a husk Her heart lays shattered on the tear-laced his figure, my tears flow freely and standing lone ground. wet his shoulder. I kiss his cheeks in the gray The kerosene lantern flickers again and again yet he stands rigid. watching me as the flakes fall off, and my mind has yet to regain I hug him tightly around his neck its strength. The deadly storm has but he makes no move to return the only we two in the frigid air passed after what has seemed like embrace. I step back and stare at his it sews dread through my tripes. a thousand years, and the children chiseled face. It is pale. Without life. i feel the echoing pulse have fallen asleep. I lay the baby Without love. down on the nearby quilt and push A shot resounds throughout the i reach in my mouth on the cellar door above us. I stand valley. A bullet tears through his and vomit words in the full sun of a new day. My chest. My eyes widen in disbelief, that splash among the bodies. sad house still stands nearby, and and I let out a silent scream. My puddles of water lay in the yard and mouth opens but no sound is heard. it sees i am broken, opens its throat: driveway. The air is fresh and full of I reach out to catch his falling figure foreign tongue cut from the tundra, life. My rocking chair tilts back and but he slips through my hands. His through and through i am devoured. forth in the soft, relaxing wind, and body does not lie on the ground, and the radio hums quietly. the truck is gone. My head spins, and all i feel is the flame of the Inuit Sunshine plays across my face, I glance around me furtively, looking as i fold into its fire. and I let it. I embrace that warmth for signs of him. My ears ring and I

apprentice writer : 49 Watching Children hurls a couple pork chop pieces for lunch at Now, one by one they slip at the Marketplace, the kids now and then. under Uncle, white knuckled buyers and fruit—impossibly One Day They drag their dreaming like Jiyoung Jeong shadows like unwanted luggage, dead men in search Auburndale, MA heads bobbing over of their bones. Uncle says they are dirt. He fruit and meat stands. Uncle just sits at his stool behind apples and listens to their tangerines, cigar perched between tongues swell in pleas, voices frail lips to burn like skinny branches thawed his throat and lungs until from February snow—crab hands he coughs. Used to be one of blue them, I know— with morning cold, halo arms he murmurs something about cold around empty winters and tin bowls. Tree Windows Nickolas Stagaman Hubbardsville, NY

50 : susquehanna university When summer did arrive, I just had to step off my cliff. Liberation boarded a plane from Newark to the In the Dominican Republic, I Dominican Republic. What I didn’t learned that we all stand on the Olivia Evans realize, though, was that my journey edge of our own cliff. A leap of Downington, PA would so distinctly resemble the cliff, faith, a single step, is all it takes to It just takes one moment, I thought and that in jumping, I would light a send you sailing into the beauti- to myself. I stood at the top of a fiery inferno within me. I knew from ful blue lagoon below. Once you’re thirty-five foot cliff, and in looking a young age that I possess an acute there, nothing can stop the adrena- down, I had neither desired nor awareness of those around me, and line that pumps your veins full of planned to jump, but out of sudden I have always steadfastly believed life, bringing it back to your heart. impulse, a sudden moment of cour- that people matter. In Dominican, Searching for passion is exactly that. age, I turned to my friends behind I realized that this belief I hold so Sometimes you just need one mo- me, smiled, and stepped off the closely relates to a concept called ment of complete, utter fearlessness edge. What did I have to lose? “human security,” a field in which I to find it. I fell in disbelief at my own ac- found myself immersed for twenty- tion; adrenaline took over my body one days through service projects. and sent endorphins to the furthest It is, undoubtedly, my answer to, reaches of my limbs. As I hit the “What’s your passion?” water, happiness became my only The funny thing about the word emotion. In my “YOLO” moment “passion” is that it originates from at a lagoon in the Dominican Re- the Latin word “pati,” which means public, it didn’t take long to realize “suffer.” Quite literally, passion that I should strive to feel this way stems from pain, and that holds true not just once, but every day of my with mine. The flames now within life. I couldn’t help but think that me sting everyday because I know living with a true passion must feel that we live in a world where 780 this empowering. million people don’t have access to For as long as I could remember, clean water, where 2.7 billion people “what’s your passion?” posed the live on less than $2 a day, and where scariest question of my high school having food, clothes, and shelter career. At a rigorous magnet school makes one richer than 75% of the in suburban Philadelphia, I always population. Yet, that pain leads me felt like everyone in my class could towards solving these problems, be- answer so eloquently, so surely, cause I can look at them and better but I never had an answer myself. understand them through a human I would answer with things I en- security lens. joyed –travelling, chemistry, student While I escaped to the Domini- government – but it never felt right. can to lose myself in the beauty of To me, passion should light a fire it all, I actually found myself. In a inside you. It makes you want to country rocked by insecurity, I saw do things you’ve never done and go the true value of community, lead- places you’ve never gone to follow ership, understanding, and service. it. Yet there I was, late in my junior All the while, for the first time in my year, without a flame within me that short life, I felt entirely fulfilled with could drive me through. Quite hon- and passionate about my actions. estly, I felt burnt out. I began to wish There, among the impoverished and the year away, hoping against hope the struggling, I felt most alive when that summer would come sooner. giving a piece of myself to them. I

apprentice writer : 51 She rushed to claim the left swing, sun was fading early in the day, and Blue the one that she had always had an the beginning of a chill was in the Sarah Betancourt affinity for. air. He didn’t mind. He had always He followed close behind, unable liked to be out at precisely the wrong Doylestown, PA to look away from the crisp, clean moment. I. Sky dress that hung effortlessly around It felt like generations had passed It was cold that day. Too cold to her. The right swing had always since he last ran down this street, be outside for this long, but she didn’t been his favorite, but for now he since he had been young, reckless, care. She had finally made a new was content to stand on the left and and naïve. Now he knew better, and friend and was determined not to let listen to the sound of her smile as the strolled carefully: there was more this one escape. It was a sunny cold, periwinkle flowers grew up around to life than this small town with its with a lazy cerulean tone, a deceiving his destroyed shoes. Easter egg houses and pure white cold that almost made it feel warm. fences. She had never known this place was III. Navy Still, he was not ready to give up here, but she loved it the instant they She ran through the dark his childhood realm. He sat down arrived. midnight, letting her feet lead. They slowly in this new, aging body. He no “It’s really not much,” he said, knew where to go. She did not think, longer swung to the heights he had dropping her hand abruptly, suddenly only ran. The envelope clutched to when he was king of the world. He staring at the frozen ground. “I just her chest, she was unsure of when the caught one of the last crimson leaves really like it here,” salty tears had started to flow. Soon, as it danced toward his head and She didn’t reply, but instantly they reached the carefully scrawled tucked it next to the velvet box in his knew that there was indeed ink and began to blur the words. jeans pocket. something that set this place apart. The soles of her shoes pounded the She took his hand again and his head street; her shirt clung to her body in V. Robin’s Egg jerked up; his soft eyes were alive, he the late-night humidity. Amid the thick scent of new was intrigued by this girl he had only Without meaning to, she had blossoms there was a sense of new just begun to understand. Together ended up there. Of course. For just life. Birds gossiped excitedly to each they sat down on the swings and a moment, she paused. The only other. Gleaming cars breezed by, quietly propelled themselves toward sounds were her quickening pulse their bold hues streaks across a lush the winter sun. and the rhythmic crickets. Then the green backdrop. She shaded her tears took over. She sank into the face with a delicate hand, her nails II. Powder familiar curve meant for a little girl, painted a ballerina pink. Despite The flowers had barely begun and sobbed until she could barely the shadow, her eyes crinkled at the to peek through the receding snow, breathe. Finally she stopped to look corners in the sun’s golden light. their tiny heads reaching for the up at the sky: the color of a bruise “Again, again!” cried a small egg-yolk sun. Though it had begun dotted with shimmering silvery voice filled with joy. The innocent to thaw, it really wasn’t time for a flecks. laughter of a child who had yet to summery sundress yet. She didn’t see the world echoed above nature’s mind. His shoes were decrepit and IV. Denim chatter. needed to be replaced; the stubborn His steps crunched over decay At the bottom of the hill, he snow worked its way closer to his and crumbling leaves. They were stood behind the left swing. Its toes. Nevertheless, they pulled each now less vibrant and more a burnt occupant was new, but the shining other breathlessly down the hill. brown. As bits of nature clung to his sapphire eyes were the same. He “You’re crazy,” she laughed, feet, he mumbled to himself that it glanced up to the crest of the hill to talking more to herself than to was time for a new pair of shoes. The wave. She hesitated for a moment, him. The emerging grass had knees of his pants were threadbare, remembering. She rushed down the done something to her; she had threatening to burst at any moment. hill to join them. abandoned her usual careful state for He should probably get around to one with which she was unfamiliar. replacing those, too. The autumn

52 : susquehanna university giggles. plopped herself on the charcoal Red I held my business card out to her, leather sofa. Tears of the same color Mallory Chabre “Just promise me one thing.” rolled over her flushed cheeks and Her eyes traveled suspiciously the small freckles dotting her nose. Vernon, CT to my crotch and I redirected her I had encountered many young She came to me on a Sunday. In immediately, flushing every shade women ready to die, but for the first all honesty I couldn’t be bothered of drowned-out pink, “Please don’t time I didn’t know what to say to the with lady problems at any other time burn down my house.” helpless creature on my couch. than the weekdays, but her voice was She laughed again and removed small and insistent. Then she said it. the card from my hands. Three little words. “I need you.” February 1, 1995 “Hey, man, you don’t look so Belle paced the length of my good.” office with her flaming hair tied up Spencer was half-heartedly January 4, 1995 and her fingers curled around her sucking on a Popsicle like a five-year- “Why are you here?” hips. She sighed, “I just don’t see the old while I pretended to watch the My questions always seemed point anymore.” game. unnecessary on the first day. It’s no I cupped my face with my palms “It’s nothing,” I mumbled, “just a wonder I usually came off as vaguely and rubbed my smooth skin over patient.” disinterested in those painfully the stubble. Then I made the worst “A girl?” He asked, his voice obvious bonding rituals. mistake of my career: I thought going up an octave and his eyebrows Her case file sat casually on the aloud. “Neither do I.” dancing seductively. table beside me and my black espresso I glanced at the framed document “Shutup, Spence.” coffee. I knew what made her worry on the eggshell wall: Benjamin He was right. Of course he was. lines so deep, but I needed to hear Gallagher, Ph.D. I couldn’t say You live with a guy for 5 years and it from her. I wanted to see her wet how many times I’ve wanted to suddenly he knows everything and her lips just before the moment she tear it down and shatter the frame. your blood type. decided to trust me. How long has it been since I was Belle was driving me crazy. In the “Well, Ben, I’m your classic passionate about filling up the sink past week, I had seen her three times case of romanticized depression. for dishes? Late night documentaries, on the street. THREE. Apparently Although, after I set fire to my jackass ramen in coffee mugs, or even casual she takes walks in the park on ex-husband’s house, some said I arguments with someone significant? Wednesdays when I go running. needed more than medication.” She I realized the older we get, the more The woman stops for every dog that shrugged, the corners of her mouth we lust after ordinary things. shits in her general area. It made me twitching at the last part. My eyes continued to wander think of a show I caught my mom Jezebel O’Reilly was patient 26 in around the room as Belle kept watching about lonely old women the last three years and not one of moving, dodging pieces of furniture. hoarding animals for love. I shivered them was ever so ballsy. I pretended she was dancing. and kept running. “I’ve heard worse,” I said with Although, my office was hardly a On Saturday, I went out to eat a nervous smile. I’d never been so space for any kind of hip-hop swing with my sister at a local dive and scared of a woman. dance combinations. It was small, BAM there she was with her teeth in She laughed hysterically like a consisting of living room easy chairs, a burger that made her hands look child with a secret she would enjoy a desk of files, and a grounded light like a child’s. keeping as long as I begged for it. I fixture along separate stretches of By the time Sunday came cringed at the sudden noise. wall. I wouldn’t call it homey unless around, I ran smack into her at the “I’m available on Tuesdays,” the rest of the city burst into flames. grocery store on 7th. I’m not too she informed me between lingering She made a small noise and big on small talk, especially with my

apprentice writer : 53 by her sudden change in emotion. Her voice was quiet. “Belle. My Bruising name is Jezebel. No one but my Letitia Chan mother ever called me anything Atherton, CA different.” “It’s just a nickname, you know like…” I trailed off. I didn’t know what it was like. I’d called her that ever since I noticed her in the park with her pale skin reflecting sunlight like a thousand tiny mirrors and her posture: poised, alarming, definite. “Forget it,” she whispered shuffling toward the door, “I need to go.” She slid her black suede pea coat from a hook on the door. I grabbed her arm. I don’t even remember getting up, I just remember touching her like she was the only thing I felt like fixing. “Belle means beautiful in French.” She stared at me like a boy at a school dance with no clue where to put his hands. And then she left. She left me standing on a rug the color of poison ivy. My heart, cracked and oozing. I watched her walk to her car from the window. She wouldn’t bother with the seat belt. I loved never being able to tell whether she was forgetful or dangerous or just didn’t care. At the last moment she looked up at me standing awkwardly above her. Her clients, but damn can she talk your “A lot of things,” I blurted out. I smile was electric in the moonlight. ear off. And shockingly, it wasn’t ever regretted it immediately. I decided I I spent the next hour rolling a off-putting in the slightest. I started suck at my job. pair of faded white dice until they to feel comfortable with her. I went She gave me a look like King tumbled over the edge of the table. home and took two showers. Leonidas going into battle. “Shut I imagined that was what it must “I think I need a drink.” the fuck up.” have been like to think the earth was “I’m so sorry, Belle, I didn’t flat or to succumb to a mid-life crisis mean that,” I breathed, completely that ends in divorce and a wrecked defeated. Ferrari. Her eyes locked on mine. I think a lot about the world when She threw her hands up. “I “Why do you call me that?” She I’m alone. It’s something I learned shouldn’t have come here, god, what looked innocent; subdued. from her. You numb the brain with is wrong with me?!” “Call you what?” I asked, stunned pointless ideas and conversations

54 : susquehanna university until you forget about meaningful things. Distraction is guilt’s best friend. I took advantage of her that Missing Girls night. Tiara Sharma Quincy, MA

“This year, UNICEF reported that 43 million of the estimated 100 mil- lion women worldwide who would have been born if not for extraneous I got the phone call at 3am. circumstances, including gender-specific abortion, would have been Indian. The woman on the other end said I In the past, newspapers and billboards advertised sex selective abortions. should take a vacation. None of this is said in the open. But it is clear from the numbers that In- That morning I would update my dia’s girls continue to go missing.” patient list to twenty-five. -Neil Samson Katz, PBS, April 26, 2007 Spencer would bring hot wings and milkshakes for breakfast because The day we went to the Bawe Mata temple, that’s as close as he gets to “I’m a woman fell at my feet. sorry.” “Mata is in our daughters,” she cried, The funeral would be a couple clasping her hands together. of weeks later. Her body would be My mother kicked her away at its most peaceful, with pills in and readjusted the dupatta covering my head. her tummy and her eyes closed. I As we made our way towards the chamber won’t wear black or grey like all where Her shrine was kept, the other unhappy people because I saw the woman clutch her stomach. I know she’d just scrunch her nose and mumble curse words in the most Let us not speak charming way anyone can. of the midwife’s hands massaging I think I’ll remember her in red. Glory Lily and hot oil into the girl’s abdomen, For passion, for experience, and for the salt of her new husband’s skin people like her: with hearts like the the last taste to leave her tongue. sun. Let us not speak of the silver anklets returned to her village in a plastic bag, the funeral pyre lit for the girl who still rests at the bottom of the sea. As the fire burns, let us listen: they are calling for a time when they rode into battle cross-legged on tigers, conch shells, lotus flowers, and tridents in hand. Let us listen: this is the sound of India’s girls breathing in unison.

apprentice writer : 55 NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE 514 University Avenue PAID Selinsgrove, PA 17870- SUSQUEHANNA UNIVERSITY 1001

Susquehanna University’s Writers Institute try, a nonfiction magazine, and a magazine State, UNC-Greensboro, George Mason, provides students with the opportunity to of fiction and poetry from Susquehanna Rutgers, and The New School. receive nationally-recognized undergradu- student writers. ate training in all forms of creative writing If you would like to know more about any through its Creative Writing Major. Stu- Endowed Writing Prizes and Scholarships: of the programs for high school students or dents work closely in fiction, poetry, creative Writing scholarships of $5,000 per year receive information about the Creative Writ- nonfiction, and the technology of editing are available to incoming Creative Writing ing Major at Susquehanna, and publishing with faculty who are the majors based on the quality of their writing see our web site at www.susqu.edu/writers or widely-published authors of more than forty portfolios. Prizes of as much as $1000 are contact Dr. Glen Retief, Director, by e-mail books. Small workshops and one-on-one awarded to students chosen each year on at [email protected] or by telephone at 570- instruction are enriched by the following the basis of work published in our student 372-4035. programs: magazines and in senior portfolios.

The Visiting Writers Series: Seven writers Internships: Susquehanna’s Creative Writ- visit campus each year (One of them for a ing Majors have had recent internships with week-long residency). Recent visitors have national magazines, advertising agencies, been George Saunders, Andre Dubus III, professional writing organizations, nonprofit Li-Young Lee, Billy Collins, Sharon Olds, foundations, newspapers, public relations Advanced Writers Workshops Robert Boswell, Jayne Anne Phillips, Louise firms, radio stations, churches, businesses, For more information about our Gluck, Eavan Boland, Nick Flynn, Dago- and schools. summer Advanced Writers Workshops, see berto Gilb, Ted Conover, Tom Perrotta, our ad located on page 3, or visit: Carolyn Forche, and Melissa Bank. Graduate Programs: Within the past five years, Creative Writing Majors have re- www.susqu.edu/about/writersworkshop.asp The Susquehanna Review, Essay, and ceived fellowships or assistantships to such RiverCraft: Three distinct magazines outstanding graduate writing programs as are edited and produced by students— Iowa, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Indiana, a national magazine featuring work from Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, Pitts- undergraduate writers from across the coun- burgh, Houston, Boston University, Ohio

56 : susquehanna university