Inkling 2017
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
INKLING Volume 27 Spring 2017 Inkling is the creative arts magazine of Lone Star College-Tomball. Students of LSC-Tomball are invited to submit poetry, essays, short stories, or artwork for this annual publication. All copyrights revert to the authors and artists. No portion of Inkling may be reproduced without consent of the individual contributors. Senior Editors: Dawn Houldsworth Daniellie Silva Rosalind Williamson Editorial Staff: Lucy Alvear Mary Kouns Advisers: Mari Carmen Marín Catherine Olson Kyle Solak Cover Art: Night Lights (Photography) Daniellie Silva When I was younger, I was only focused on being in front of the lenses. As I grew up, I saw the beauty of being behind the lens. This picture was inspired by a scene in Tangled where Rapunzel goes into the kingdom to see floating lanterns. I wanted to experience the contrast of the fiery lights on a moonless night, so I packed a blanket and headed to a lights festival. The heat and the flight of the lights created a hazy environment, which caused the blurriness of the background on that still night. My inspiration also came from the model, an old friend. The people in our lives not only share inspirational moments with us, but also help create them. Thus, without her, there would be no photograph. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Inkling staff, editors, and advisers would like to extend their sincerest thanks to Lone Star College-Tomball for the opportunity to publish this twenty-seventh edition of our magazine. We’d like to thank sponsors of this year’s reading series: LSC- Tomball Library; Faculty Senate; First Year Foundations Division; and the Office of Student Life. With their support,Inkling was able to host an on-campus reading and an interview with 2016 Texas Poet Laureate, Laurie Ann Guerrero. Additionally, Inkling would like to express our vast appreciation to Mary Kouns and Daniellie Silva for their efforts in transcribing and to Catherine Olson for editing the Martha Serpas interview for publication in this year’s magazine. And, of course, tremendous thanks go to poets Martha Serpas and Laurie Ann Guerrero for sharing time, talent, stories, and poems with us as part of our visiting author series. We offer heartfelt thanks to current Dean Melinda Coleman in the First Year Foundations Division. Thanks also go to Shannon Marino, Danielle Thornton, and Sousan Abdul-Razzak in the Office of Student Life, and to Pamela Shafer in the Lone Star College-Tomball Community Library, for supporting us throughout the year. We must thank the Inkling faculty judges, Kim Carter, Steffani Frideres, Bo Rollins, and Earl Staley. Finally, we mustn’t forget English professor Douglas Boyd, longtime Inkling judge, proofreader and grammar sage, for the consistent editorial direction he has brought to the magazine over the past twenty-seven years. Most of all, special thanks go to the talented and inspired students of Lone Star College-Tomball. Each year, we collect hundreds of submissions, and in the end, we are able to showcase only a handful of the creative works that LSC-Tomball students have to offer. Many thanks to all of the student contributors this year, in past years, and in years to come. This magazine would not be possible without them. Inkling Table of Contents String Theory by Jack Young 1 Second Place Poetry Winner The Falcon’s Cry by Chelsea McKenna 2 Third Place Prose Winner My Self by Mary Kouns 4 The Raven and the Student by Kathryn Chuchmuch 5 Laughter by Dawn Houldsworth 8 Fall by Mary Kouns 9 Your Heart by Zaynab Ali 11 My Body of Thoughts by Haley Smith 13 Defiant, Like a Candle in the Rain by Caleb Price 14 First Place Prose Winner Meds by Katie Riley 18 Pawn by Zaynab Ali 19 Words by Michelina Olivieri 20 An Ode from Paper to Pencil by Daniellie Silva 22 Third Place Poetry Winner Small Talk by Zoe Jones 23 Inexorable by Christopher Kessinger 24 Gay Conversion Camp by Lucy Alvear 27 Being Human by Daniellie Silva 28 A Hidden Reality by Sarah Thomas 29 Home by Michelina Olivieri 32 First Place Poetry Winner Portrait of Wisdom (Colored Pencil Drawing) by Darrell Svatek 24 Second Place Art Winner Mesarthim (Watercolor) by Emma Simoni 35 Third Place Art Winner Take the Breath from My Lungs (Charcoal/Ink) by Adrianne Gerlach 36 First Place Art Winner Watch Your Step (Photography) by Daniellie Silva 37 Ruin Study (Photography) by Dawn Houldsworth 38 The Sky Is on Fire (Charcoal) by Adrianne Gerlach 39 Beauty and Chaos (Acrylic Painting) by Darrell Svatek 40 Darth Vader (Prismacolor Pencils) by Lance Kretzschmar 41 All Your Boats in a Row (Photography) by Jordan Scrivens 42 Oceanic Sky (Acrylic Painting) by Katie Riley 43 Toy Mountain (Pencil Drawing) by Darrell Svatek 44 Empty Space (Watercolor) by Emma Simoni 45 Mysterious Morning (Photography) by Wendy Palmgren 46 Reflect (Photography) by Mary Kouns 47 Butterfly on Flower (Photography) by Dawn Houldsworth 48 Larger Than Life (Photography) by Jordan Scrivens 49 A Conversation between Martha Serpas and Inkling 50 Transcribed by Mary Kouns and Daniellie Silva Special Snowflake by Mary Kouns 65 Clark by Kathryn Chuchmuch 66 Crush by Zoe Jones 68 Free by Zaynab Ali 69 The Murder That Wasn’t by Erin Larson 70 Second Place Prose Winner Untitled by Mary Kouns 76 Anxiety by Lucy Alvear 77 Forget by Michelina Olivieri 78 Milk Is Mythology by Daniellie Silva 80 Voyage de la Vie by Erin Larson 81 A Pebble by Kathryn Chuchmuch 83 Contributors’ Biographies 84 Inkling Editorial Staff and Advisers 87 Submission Guidelines 89 Second Place Poetry Winner String Theory Jack Young Imagine your life as a ball of string. If you wanted to change just one small thing, You’d have to unravel this big messy sphere. A red knot means anger, a purple one fear. All knots of all colors all wrapped into one. You just want to change it, and then you are done. You find the disaster, an ugly chartreuse. It’s big and it’s ugly, and shaped like a noose. The knot takes time, so you undo some more. Piles of string lie all over the floor. It’s undone now, and straight as can be. Now how do I turn this heap back into me? 1 Third Place Prose Winner The Falcon’s Cry Chelsea McKenna I was dying and had never been more sure of anything during life. With death came a certainty that I had not been afforded before. I had wings, wonderfully grand wings. I was a falcon. I must have always been a falcon, but I could not understand how I had not noticed before. How did I not? Humans were fickle, irrelevant things, while I was a work of art. Every stroke of my wing was a brushing of paint onto the canvas. Each feather was sculpted to a shape and pattern that were uniquely my own. My sharpened eyesight took in every component of the obscure cell that held me. Every surface was composed of repeating packed gray stones. A tin pail sat in the back corner, the smell assaulting my newly keen senses. In the adjacent corner sat a soiled pile of hay. Atop the straw lay a human, or what once could have been called a human. It lay very still, with hair now the color of sludge draped across its cheek. It had long ago lost the privilege of clothes, so every honed edge of it was visible. The human’s legs were sticks that had long since been out of use. The left leg veered off to the side below the knee where the bone had snapped the final time it had attempted to walk. The arms were noodles draped carelessly over a deeply sunken stomach. Each rib was framed by a taut layer of translucent skin. Its face had been beautiful but was now nothing more than angles and shadows. Two shadows came into the compact room as the door slammed open with a crash. The crippled human’s eyes opened slowly, but the body remained still as stone. The newcomers grabbed an arm apiece, hauling the human up to its feet. The human’s face remained expressionless as its head lolled to the side. They dragged the frail human out—really it was more of a shell—and I followed. The foolish shadows had left the cell door open. At the end of the hall was a window. Sunlight spilled in, warming the cool, unfeeling stones beneath it. I could already feel the light of the sun on my feathers and the touch of the wind on my face. The 2 jealousy of the clouds as they yielded beneath the all- encompassing strokes of my wings was tangible. Then I turned away from the window to look at the trio. The two massive shadows were pulling the shell along. The acrid scent of copper assailed my senses, and I knew the shell must have begun bleeding. With a final look towards the window behind me, I followed them. The cluster of them soon entered a room that was similar to the cell but more spacious. At the back of the room stood a humanoid shape. A hood was pulled low over the face. I could not see the eyes, but I felt them all the same. They were inky, bottomless wells that saw every part of me. The abhorrence coming off of the hooded humanoid was palpable. It recognized me. Then the eyes shifted from me to the shell, and I wanted them back on me because it would surely break.