Holiday World

Holiday World

They lost me on purpose. They always do. They come here to Holiday World, knowing my cousins all hate Splashin' Safari, so they leave me around the Jungle Jets. Then after they, you know, wash themselves off, they slink away.You want a description of them? My dad's wearing cut-offs. He's on the rides. He's the first to go. My mom's name is Anne and I don't know what color her hair is. I know what color it's supposed to be: brown, like mine, but she dies it red and black and there's some purple in it today. What do you mean distinctive clothing? She's got a bathing suit on. A one-piece with a pair of cut-offs and yellow flip-flops. No, no hat. No glasses. No lifejacket or hair ribbons.

We came up here to Indiana from New Orleans after Katrina drowned our house. We're staying with my aunt and uncle. They call us Displaced Persons. I can tell they're tired of us. And I can tell you this right now; I'm sick of them too. All they eat is cereal. We've been through a hurricane, so they think going to a water park is this great treat for us. They keep taking us here and my mom keeps coming, then leaving me.

They try and make the cement here look like sand. See? You can see the indents of shells pressed in. The concrete next to The Wave is supposed to look like a beach, like a disguise. It's all pretend. That's what my cousins say. That's why you call this place Lost Parents and not Missing Children, isn't it? Everyone's trying to be funny. Everyone's pretending. I'll tell you straight out, they're not coming to get me. Here? They only look for kids, not parents. It's like a safe house.

All they play is Beatles music here, too. Why's that? Shake it up baby. Twist and shout. I miss jazz. I miss the blues.

My mom? I told you the last place seen: Jungle Jets. Look for her. You'll see her walking. She just walks around and around the water, never going on the rides. She'll be carrying a Big Gulp. She drinks the free soda and gets her hands and feet wet. She walks and walks all around the water, as if we haven’t seen enough to last a lifetime.

Margaret McMullen

Reflecting Through Cows

“Cows are my favorite animal,”she said at a friend’s houseas we waited for the spaghetti to cook.“They’re like elephants but more chill.”Maybe it was the Indian in her; maybeit was the American in methat thought it was the Indian in her.The cheese on the veal melted,blending into the red sauce.

I was reminded, for some reason,of the time downtown at the Koreanrestaurant, when I taught my friendshow to use chopsticks, a skillthat I learned at a young age,but rarely used growing up.

Kyle Carrozza

To Dr ----

My dear professor, I beg your pardon.I yawned, I doodled, did not pay attention,but your monotone, consistent as it is,cures my insomnia.One spoonful, derivative of x,and I dream dreams(about math, of course),arithmetic oblivionof integrals and differentiation,until I wake upas a result of the chalkyou threw at my head.

Charlee Redman

Canned Vegetables

“We’ve become ghosts of something greater tonight, you know. We’ll haunt these rooms, each other, for the rest of our lives”. The door shut behind him with the same delicate sadness of a book being placed back upon the shelf once it had been finished. I hadn’t spoken or moved an inch in the past hour and now all I wondered was where I should put my hands. There is nothing more disarming in this world than removing someone from your life. Everything on my body felt alien, as if my soul had been transported to a place outside of me and I was looking in on this fragile girl with her back curved against the wall; unaware whether she could move or speak, but entirely lost in her being. The intricately marked boxes of my former roommate needed to be moved and were blocking all of the light that typically saturated the cracks in the wooden floorboards where my bare feet swept back and forth. The light would come back, incongruously enough, once his possessions were gone. I am counting the minutes until the neighbors fall into their bed, touching the wall I’m facing from the other side and drinking in each other’s scents and tastes like they’ve never spent a goddam night in bed before. “It’s always something new for us,” the girl tells me when I see her in the grocery store. “He’s a brilliant surprise that I keep unwrapping and discovering”. I grab the canned vegetables and stare at her as if she’s speaking German. Her face is absurd and shaped like a bedpan that’s been used by every patient in the psychiatric ward where she works. I touch her arm and tell her I have to get going, but that it was a pleasure seeing her. It’s her routine to shout down the aisle something about meeting for a drink soon and mine to pretend I never heard a thing. At least we’ve got that in common.I hear the clamor of the locks and know he’s back to grab the rest of his things. The boxes are moving and the waves are swelling in my eyes, but I don’t know how to move again. The ghosts are all around me, just like he said. He’s in the other room and in this bed at the same time, brushing my hair out of my eyes and wiping away the tears while the boxes keep moving back and forth from the door. I know my ghost is in the room with him, sitting on the floor in his flannel shirt and sipping coffee while he tries to pretend she’s not watching his departure. She’ll weave her fingers into his and pull him down next to her, telling him all about the colors she’s found to paint the mural in the bedroom. He’s dealing with his own waves.

Kristin Anne Blacker

The Igloo Movie Theater

The North Pole winter had been colder than usualbut huddled snug between the two fuzzy yak-fur blanketsthere could be no way for us to tell. In the igloo movie theaterthe penguins served us hot popcorn on trays of melting iceand the steaming hot chocolatewas smooth as the curve of your legsand your lips, as soft as I rememberedcompleted your body so perfectlywarm and radiating out. Holding you tight, there at the great frozen hat rack of the worldI laughed as we looked out through the frozen airpast the velvet red seats lined upwith shiny brass poles along the aisle and the Eskimos touching round red nosesso passionately like lovers always should do. As we looked out past the polar bear audiencesitting so politely and clapping their furry white pawstogether in a great roaring of applauseout to the vast semi-circle ice ceilingand the aurora blazing brightlike mystical Christmas lights shining in the sky beyondI turned to you and said, “Those polar bears are so cordial aren’t they?” And you smiled at me, and thought:“What a silly thing to say”but you nuzzled your nose still deepergetting lost in the warm depths of my chestand there you laughed to yourself, just a little.Polar bears would never really clap like that. And the movie might have been a hitbut then again, we could never care.Our world ended at the length of an armAt the end of a kissand the silvery screen held so high up aheadmight as well have been emptyor might as wellnever existed.

Jim Rose

You Shouldve Seen Her

Legs plagued with black liver spots,she squints at me through her thick rimmed glasses,already too weak for her ever-worsening eyes,a tube passing through her saggy skinned neck.After the prompting, "Remember? Rajiv's daughter,"She smiles, teeth yellowed except for where they're missing,(it's terrible to admit but she's terrifying)and says, "Oh girl, you look just like me."I shudder.

My grandma walks slowly, with a cane, but she's still walking.She burps and farts and takes her dentures out in public,but she recognizes names and faces,remembers how to say "no English" into the phone when it rings,the names of all those gods she lines up in her bedroom,prays to for the happiness of her children, and theirs.Mostly she watches soaps,the heroin doe eyed, the vamp in western clothes,and talks about how she did things in her kitchen,about home.

Sometimes, when I remember how old she is,when I remember that no man is mortal and that no woman,no matter how old or crazy or boring,should be alone,I make her a cup of coffee with milk and extra sugar.(I'm the only one who gets it right.)That's how I learn that Dad was her husband's favorite,that home is the smell of over-ripe mangoes and neighbors that speak your language.That's how I learn that a man thirty-four years deadcan still make you cry. No matter how old you get, you remember your husband.

That's how I learn what it feels like to find out,at the age of eighty-four, in a foreign country,that you've out-lived your first born, your only baby girl."She was beautiful," she told me."You know, you look just like she did."

Swati Prasad

Ben Franklin

Get your fingers off my face!This indignity is difficult to take -all your grubby hands touching my skin,immortalized and impregnable,on worn green paper.

I see what you use me for;cheap transactionsat the Wall Street Dollar Menu,crumpled up in pocketskept company by lint and gum wrappers.I was a great man,renowned in England and in France.

I pass from hand to hand,metallic clink, brush of skin,and you don’t even noticeI was watching you the whole time.

Charlee Redman

After the Miscarriage

Two weeks later, I put the cardboard boxes - the same ones that we kept everything in after the shower - in his room. I stackedthe small ones inside the big ones and -I feel terrible for this - thought maybethey had been emptied prematurely.Folded clothes, unopened wipes, shoes,tongues perfectly even, their little mouths agape, I eventually packed everything back into the boxes but could not take them back up into the attic. Some nights, I would wake up and walk over to that room,almost the same way as I'd once imagined that I would. Moonlight crawlingthrough the blinds, the walls were bareand the bureau empty.I stared at the boxes and thoughtof how the room looked the sameas when we moved into our home.

Kyle Carrozza

Provolone on Rye

"A turkey panini, fries and water, please.Grilled cheese, provolone on rye, coffee. Thanks." The waitress leaves and I hiss, I might not have wanted that.He grins, "No? I'll call her back, then."He makes a motion but I stop him, embarrassed like always.It's true. It's what I would have ordered myself.I have been to this diner,with the old Greek waitress who would wink when he payed,an infinite number of times, always with him butnormally not quite like this.The food comes.I pull the halves apart, or try.The cheese resists, melting, pulling together.Separation is hard, I've heard. I had not known.The mayonnaise that has crisped my ryeis his favorite. He pours gobsof the white stuff, perishable egg pudding,onto his fries. I look on in disgust.He takes one, eats it slowly, smiles.I am playing with an empty canister of half-and-half,drinking my coffee and forgetting to eat."Just like always." He laughs.I should throw his water across the table,yell, "These habits aren't yours anymore,and anyway I've changed."I'd walk out of the place,triumphant.But it sits in front of me, provolone on rye,so I eat.

Swati Prasad

Organs

In my youth, when asked if I would rather live with a full heart and an empty mind, or with a full mind and an empty heart, I chose the first. A carefree conscience led me strait to an empty-minded girl. She would empty lungfuls of lies upon my ears daily. She would empty my bank account to buy imported objects and empty literature to perhaps incite empty conversation. She professed empty promises of her love-filled heart with a smile as fake as an illusionist’s prop. After dinner she would usually empty her stomach and whine about her empty feeling of weakness. When I alluded to a tender or funny moment we shared, she had forgotten, and so I chose to forget her.Now, when asked if I would rather live with a full heart and an empty mind, or with a full mind and an empty heart, I choose the latter. Not because I am bitter, but because living is full of complications, and loving is thoughtful. I know that the heart cannot properly function without the mind. I’ve been seeing a one-eyed girl with cleverness, clumsy hands and a complete sense of humor. Her mind is full of musings of depth and sentiment. My once empty heart is now full of laughter. Her heart is empty because it’s impaled by a steering column somewhere on Interstate 8. The paramedics resuscitate her and the hole is now filled with a mechanical one. After the operation, she says she loves me, and for the first time ever, I believe it fully because I know even a girl with a clockwork heart can love.

Max Moon

Hours to Share

I imagine you:an ornate teacup full of moonshine,sitting crookedly in front of a harmoniumon the beach in December--your back turned on the worldand its atrocities.You appear sentimental,waiting to be understoodgazing across the Pacific,imagining me:alone in Kanagawarain-drenched--laying on my backin the gardensbleeding from the gumsonto cobblestones,orchid petals,and scatteredfront teeth.laughing.

I might be wrong

Max Moon

Flowers for Someone

My grandmother loved pink roses.Bouquets of them surrounded hermahogany casket.Lady bugs hid in the petals,scattering about the churchwhen the service started.I sat next to my mother,her face pink from the tissue’scaress—I could not comfort her.

After the service, I picked up a bouquetand gave you a dozen pink roses.You sniffed, removed the plastic,and slid them into a vase half-filled with water. You called themlovely, as you put them on yourdining room table.A week later,I am sitting in your dining room,and you thank me again for the roses.I stare at their evenly cut stems,breathing in their rich air, watchingthe once pink petals turn brown and stiff.

Kyle Carrozza

The Paper Butterfly

Round, round, roundin circles you runwhile the sun never ceases to stare you down

The image fadesas you come before me now:opposite, a table apart

Silence is the blanket we're shivering underwhile we waitfor our voices

Your restless hands fall upon a sheetblank with unsaid wordsand thin as beauty

Spindly fingers work the edgesbending and foldingsmoothening each crease to perfection

In the end, you cup a paper butterflylight as a sighwith wings that gently fold, unfold

Lifting your head,our eyes wash over each otherwith all the cold of knowing

Standing and turning aside,my eyes are drawn to the sunbut I am ashamed by its honesty

Almost carelessly, your flat palms bend,your fingers stretch toward the groundand the paper butterfly tumbles

Wings askewit falls to the endless cool grass belowmaking not a single sound

You joining me at my sideis harder than crying -I only see the butterfly

Gently,you press one hand over my lipsbut you can't stop my eyes from seeing

Behind meyour footsteps fade;you only forgot this

Amanda Marie White

Taciturn Tantrum: A Tawdry Tongue-Twister

Observe The Obelisk Isrith: an obstinate obstacle to our oral obliteration; an orchid in an obligatory unorganized orchard of organic offal. The intellectually tenacious tribal tribunal of purple pandas triumphantly transcribes this tablet of trust, preventing our parallax proclivity to the prosaic and paltry past in an attempt to indiscriminately immortalize and immunize Isrith from impetuous infidelity. However, every verisimilar vision vaunted in verbosity yet veiled in vivid vitality vanishes. The veracity of our vernacular is victimized as vicious visages of vehement villains vent violent vocalizations through vacuous vocations. Avaricious invaders vanquish our vulnerable villages before brainless brawlers befoul the beautiful bastion of brilliant banter, bringing Isrith below the brine in battle with a barrage of brutish banality. Lecherous lords of lands leagues away licentiously lobotomize life by leveling libraries, leaving lunatics to lecture lurid litanies in a lost language.Eventually an effusive accumulation of offhand assonance and alliteration epitomizes an orator’s exasperation. He finds folly in the frantic flow of fiendish phantasms from his failing pharynx, while whispers whither with every wanton and wasted word. It’s as if succinct and scathing sub-standard speech superciliously severed symphonies of soliloquies at the source. It resembles the requiems of religious ruminations ruling rural regions: rubes in rapture; a ridiculous reassignment of right, wrong, and reconciliation. Rare remaining panda refugees resiliently refute the recently-risen rapacious reticence in reminiscence of the relic’s reign. Despite the decadently depressing duration of desolation, dreams defy death and a duo of daft daredevil descendants dive down into the depths and rediscover Isrith, the dated dialect. Direct decipherment commences, causing caustic controversy in a conclave of crude crustaceans. Fragments of phonetics are found and filtered from the filth of fifty fathoms. A sudden surge in socialization ceases six centuries of silence as a preposterously pleasing pandemic of poetry spans Pangaea, proliferating panda population. (as pretty purple pandas are perfectly prone to prosper upon punctilious pageantry and pomp!)

Max Moon

Cuzco

The shoeshine stand appears to be crafted from the planks of antiquated schooners, a veritable throne of peeling paint and splintered edges, but in this moment it is more perfect and imperious than any other chair in existence. After an overly filling supper, my head is throbbing in pain brought on by the altitude of this isolated city in the foothills of the Andes. Ari, a grinning industrious Ketchua boy of seven, grasps my hand with his leathery brown paw and drags me toward the raised bench, rag and black burnish at the ready as I sit, wearing my ragged old sweatshirt. “My name Ari. You speak English when I work, Gringo. I make your boots shiny!” he winks and chuckles. The chair is more than comfortable. The year-old Lanzera sneakers hugging my feet are nothing more than floppy scraps held together by cracked rubber soles and cloth laces, miles beyond their usefulness with long-disintegrated stitching. But Ari was born to swindle; an expert in quibbling with tourists and deftly flashing irresistible puppy dog eyes. I didn’t stand a chance arguing, and may as well be wearing military boots as far as Ari cared. I ask him where he learned to speak English so well, and he smiles and points to the adolescent sitting on the sidewalk next to the throne reading a tattered novel.“Mi hermano Manuel”. He spits on my shoe and starts polishing. Manuel smiles and nods, teeth shining white in contrast to his smudged face.“Hello. Excuse my rude brother,” says Manuel in a perfect American accent, “Please rest. I’ll pour you some coca tea. It helps everyone’s headaches here.” He roughly cuffs Ari’s head. Ari frowns and stares fiercely at Manuel in protest. Manuel pours the tea from a battered coffee pot into a Styrofoam cup and hands it to me, wiping his brow with a checkered flannel shirt. I thank him and introduce myself. Small children deftly kick a football around in the half-stone, half-brick alley. A man across the street with dirt-caked hair, bloodshot eyes and chasms in his forehead puts out his roach and coughs a pungent green-white cloud. He picks up a cheap guitar with only five strings and starts to fingerpick in a strange rhythm.“Tito Loco,” points out Ari. “he do not like Gringos. Not like Manuel. Manuel he want to study English in Lima.” I nod and take a swig of the warm liquid while trying to evade Tito Loco’s menacing, yet far off gaze. The coca tea is watery, but crisp with a faint taste of anise. Manuel pulls a small dated victrola from under the stand and begins to turn the crank, ever so slowly. A strangely fascinating droning sound underlies the piercing sound of needle scraping vinyl. I start to feel better as the tea takes hold. Ari is rubbing black shoe polish all over my white socks through the threadbare sneakers. I could care less.“This is a recording of los grillos or The Crickets,” says Manuel, “if I speed it up you can easily tell.” Manuel spins the crank faster, and I can tell that it’s the familiar sound of nighttime crickets chirping in the woods. Tito Loco starts repeatedly sing in a beautifully uncharacteristic voice the word “Gérmenes” while continuing to twang the plastic strings. Tears roll out of the creases of his sun-baked face. A colossal white Christ-figure with arms outstretched in benevolence is silhouetted against the setting sun, giving the statue the appearance of being wreathed and haloed in shimmering Pentecostal fire.Manuel cranks slower again and I’m transported, without moving into blissful delirium. Time itself seems to decelerate as I lethargically sip the analgesic tea and enjoy the haunting orchestra of molto ritardando crickets blended with Tito Loco’s melodious serenade. Foreign constellations of the southern hemisphere begin to pierce through the indigo firmament. Ari’s childlike voice fades and echoes, and for the briefest moment, I suspect I hear the breaking waves on the coast hundreds of miles away. I begin think strange thoughts in a hypnagogic trance. I feel almost as if I’m recalling memories from another conscience, reminiscing on a past that my person has never experienced. Dazed, in a deep baritone, I say, “Here at the world’s table, our consciences are one.” I feel complacent, but have no control over my actions. I watch myself riffle through my wallet and hand the boys fifty dollars. “Tonight we feast, muchachos, for tomorrow is the Summer solstice. Let us celebrate our freedoms at saqsay waman, before diligently resuming our studies.” With heavy eyelids, I sense that I understand the source of reason for everything, and wonder just when the world will wise up and decide scrape us humans off its back before drifting into a hypnotic slumber.

Max Moon

Weeping

Moon on black waterrippled by a touchof a sole snowflake – silence bends a willow downinto the lake so leaves drown.

Amanda White

From Battery Mendell Campground

It is not the rifle.It is not the sword.Maybe the sheath.From the ocean, you can see the slit in the bunker,the slit where a soldier would aim from,the slit where his muzzle would flash.The cold concrete glares, looks impregnable.Inside, the paint is chipped. The concrete deteriorates.One gets a panoramic view—a magazine viewof the waves gently rolling on to the beach.Graffiti provides the caption:“LAUREN EMILY + DAD”“GRINS”“Another ghost”“J.L. + G.M. ‘79”

Kyle Carrozza

Big Taste-icles

I love steak becuase I'm a man,Don't cook that bitch, jus' give it a tan.Red and Juicy, blood is real good,Taste like Jesus thought it should.

Matthew High

Seabreeze

Where the sun paintedoceans gold and glittering,we made our last stand.

Tow'ring over sandfrom our impregnable rocks,futures passed our lips.

Tarot gave but tips,vague predictions that were soonswirled by summer wind.

I made my choices,stepped down into the kayak,and launched into sea.

Trying to paddle,(and failing) I glanced backwardsat receding friends.

Amanda White

Uriel

An angel's freckles are a stellar map. Guidingus to our homeworld.

Max Moon

Brother and I

In spring we had tulips, bursting red and yellow by the driveway. On the first day of school, Mom would ready the camera; Brother and I would pose, bending to smell a single tall yellow one or a red bunch of three. The trees above us created a perfect backdrop of powder pink blossoms. When a breeze came by, it would shake the branches, and soon we'd have a lush carpet of lily- colored petals to cover the ugly cracks in our driveway.

In the summer, there were weeds to be pulled from that very bed and no school to save us from the job. So, diet cokes in hand, Brother and I would toil, pulling one prickly green invader after the other with our garden gloved hands. When we were bored and it was too early to come inside, we would launch them at each other, grenades of imperfection.

In the fall, this same tree gave small fruit. The looked like cherries, and maybe they were, but we were never curious enough to ask or find out. Brother and I would step on the fallen ones that littered the driveway, watching the wine colored jelly ooze out. He'd cry "guts!" and I'd wrinkle my nose in disgust happily.

In the winter, there was snow. The blue prints for the small impregnable white fort with the built in bookshelf (his idea) were left on the kitchen table and accidentally thrown out. I was too young to shovel snow, and a girl. That winter, Brother grew up without me.

Swati Prasad

Responsibility

In the front row(he is studious,or at least he pretends to be)eating sunflower seeds.

Before the story continues, a bit about sunflower seeds:they are never a good idea. Bits of wood and excess seasoning are often found mixed into the bag; the shells break and stab the unsuspecting eater's gums. They are only ever moderately decent if one eats them outside, so that the shells can be spit properly.

The teacher waxes on about the earth's crustand political strife in Pakistanwhen suddenlyEruption!saliva-soaked brown shards explode all over the front of the room.

Everyone looks, but our hero does not notice(he is in the front row)anyone except for the girl beside him,who leans away slightly.He sees her from the corner of his eye.

The teacher stutters,makes a slightly drawn out "uh,"as if thinking of what to say next,and the lecture continues.

Some janitor will clean it up.

Chad Ostrowski

Car-wash Blues

The amazing thing about washing my car in the park is, I never had a car before, but now I have one, though it is a dirty one and needs a hosing. It's not really my car; it's more like a repossessed car, the kind that a repo man would take possession of. And it's not really dusty or smudged, because it's been repainted. And what I'm trying to do is remove the outer coat of paint so I can find out more about the original car, the car that was disguised to make it harder to repossess. So I'm not really washing the car. I'm coating it with paint thinner. But the chemicals don't work very well. I'm sand-blasting the car, and I'm doing a pretty good job until passing people start asking me, “Is that really your car?” To which I have no answer. All I can do is get into the car, start it up and peel out of the park, mowing down anyone curious enough to get in my way.

Thaddeus Rutkowski

el fin de semana

estoy muerte enun campo de batallasonrisa triste

Max Moon

is this weird?

drinking down the rest of ourbabysitter's leftover diet mountain dew hopingthat just a little of heryouth and passionand spirit willpenetrateand pourinto me

what was the nameagain of that riverof forgetting?

Joseph Reich

A Midnight Surrender

The blackened windows blow in cool airRippling my skin with goose bumpsLying backward over the sofaFeet outstretched over the back like radio towersMy hand loosely fingers the remote controlAs meaningless images flash across my foreheadA constant barrage of the human effort to manipulate the mindI press ‘mute’ and let the images bounce off the wallsCollide with the furniture and finally fly out the open windowsUnobserved and Unwanted.There’s writing on the wallsMagnificent, curvy, loose wordsGiant scrawls and tiny scribblesRun, and crawl, and climb Oh so delicately, Oh so faintly.They’re searching, theorizing wordsThey’re fighting, philosophizing wordsThey’re clueless, crying wordsIt makes one deaf to listen to them.They swirl in the air, whispering in my earBegging me to come play, come make them realBut they are too weakI am unmoved From my limp positionThese soft cushions, these comforting blanketsWhy venture outside of this world?Why break down these structured walls?It’s late thoughAnd these words are callingThese scribbles on the walls grow strongerTheir ink darkens, blackeningMy ears ring from the noiseThe cushions prickle, the blankets itchDreadfully impossible to mute such a clamorThe beautiful writing slips off the wallsCreeps to my safe havenI feel myself slidingMy hair hangs loose over the edgeMy eyes bulge with the pressure of rushing bloodA crack shivers my spine as it falls to the carpetMy feet are not slow to followThe words surround me nowDarkening and swirling ever fasterI sit blind inside this tunnel untilA white flash forces my eyelids to snap shutA blank pageA solid flying object clips my ear and lands in my lapI pick it upI obey, I surrenderI play with the words, I make them realI write.

Amanda Schwab

Death is Merely a Transition

Like asymphony, wetraversethe emotionunitingsomber wintersand glorious springs,in turn writingand creatinga perpetualballadof existence.As babies weanas kids scream,as lives end,the deadreunitewith the living inthe perpetual songof memories.This overtureof infiniteinstrumentscreates a melodyfrom loveand happiness,and changestempo withfear and regret;but the musicwill neverfail to portray the beautifullyric of transition.

Alexander High

Time Expand!

Chad Ostrowski

Buck-Fifty a Minute

Buck-Fifty a Minute

His heavy breathing breathing breathing grows harder harder harder with groans and

“Oh God”

Filling the phone line with fake fornication for‘daredevils’ as advertisements address them or

deadbeats

as the girls who work here call them.The second hand passes twelve for the fifth timesince this deadbeat has held me on the phone, or —something I don’t want(but can’t help)to think about — held mein his arms in his mind, imagining me imagining him.He’s slowing down,

So I startsquealing slightlyacceleratingmy own breathingbut making surethat I keep

his breathing heavy because he has to hold onfor a few more minutes for me to receive reward for “Finest Phone Fuck” for February and finally

be able to afford to finish the tattoo on my face.

Kyle Carrozza

The Lonely Runner

Two people; a man and a woman; both young, same age about; she seems caught in an odd, historical cross-section of the early Renaissance, the mid-eighties, and her own childhood; he seems overly concerned with the future; not concerned, to be fair, just encapsulated by the potential; he stands in awe of what could be while she obsesses with what has already been; as he races towards the future, she desperately clings onto the past; their opposing velocities continuously accelerate towards the moment when their shallow bond breaks as in a cosmic game of red rover; they will uncontrollably race in different directions, the common ground between their respective timelines growing smaller and smaller until they are separated by decades or even centuries; she will only exist to him as an out-of-context historical memory and he will only exist to her as a faint dream of the impossible.

A lot to assume from an instant, perhaps, but I rather grasp for ways to pass the time. I can no longer remember the last time a second past. I sleep for what feels like hours, hoping when I wake that a new second will have ticked away, continuously disappointed. My once short, dark hair now hangs long and gray, and my own memory of my face bears little resemblance to the shaggy bearded gentlemen I have seen in reflections, although I prefer to avoid them now. They are merely reminders of the inescapable doom to fall upon my body, likely before the clocks strike noon. If my shade remains, I pray limbo is somewhat more exciting, or at least less timeless.

‘Timeless’ best describes my world, although it is not entirely accurate. Time is merely so slow as to be practically still. I was running at the time. It was almost noon, and I was late for an appointment, but at 11:58, something happened. No logical or even fantastic explanation has ever been given to me for why, but it remains 11:58 to this day. That last phrase obviously makes little sense, but it is hard for me to abandon my old vocabulary. I have walked the miles in between my home and the office hundreds of times now, and the irony of the task is not lost on me. Little is lost on me, in fact, for while my body withers away my mind remains intact, seems stronger than ever. I remember every moment since the incident, but perhaps I should, they add up to less than three seconds.

For the first few ‘cycles’ (perhaps a more appropriate term than ‘days’), I would visit my family, searching for sorrow or longing in their faces, but none exists. It will be least a half hour before the even remotely suspect anything, and that is far too long for me. My son sleeps off a hangover, my daughter stares at a still of reality TV with empty eyes, and my wife moans in ecstasy in my neighbor’s arms. Disheartening, perhaps, but my feelings towards all people are rather dulled. Their statuesque existence is so dehumanizing that my emotions towards them increasingly weaken, progressing towards absolute zero.

I have decided waiting bores me, so I have taken to writing these thoughts down. I do not know if they will be at all recoverable. They will likely be dismissed as insanity, deranged creativity, or confusing nonsense to whomever finds them, but I do indeed grasp for ways to pass the time. My situation is nebulous enough that I am not sure if suicide will have successful results, but even if it fails, I am not far from wasting away unnaturally, so a final testament still serves a small purpose. I cannot avoid the urge to reflect, despite my hatred of reflections.

While my life has been trapped in this handful of seconds, I am, in a way, free from the bonds of society that so plague the statues around me. We consistently, verging on constantly, measure ourselves in relation to each other, like the young couple. We depend upon each other for definition. I, however, am surrounded by a world that has absolutely nothing to do with me, and the nature of my existence becomes more and more disconnected from the standards I remember from my past.

If we only focused on our own problems and possibilities without the need for comparison, but we have so built our lives around the idea of relativity that when we abandon such comparisons, everything falls apart, the structure breaks down, things become timeless.

No one is anything, we are merely ourselves.

Devin William Daniels

Spin Spinning Spun

Years ago, I didn’t get motion sickness. There was a greasy gravel parking lot carnival where I climbed on a spinning tea cup; a ride held together with paper clips, and didn’t fasten a belt around my waist. There were teenage girls whose crescent moon blue fingernails fixed themselves on a spinning steering wheel across from me and spun the sunken cup faster, harder, faster, faster. I became so spellbound by those little sparkling half moons and a lilting chorus of laughter that my chin drooped to my chest until it eventually, obviously smacked the metal wheel in front of me and split. The spinning sensation never left. I hold onto the floor, onto the bed, onto the bar stool and often taste a viscous, coppery blood on my tongue.

There are times, now, when I sit in the middle of my bedroom during a blackout and stare myself down in the mirror. One person rarely sees herself eat or drink or smoke or sleep. The sound of one’s own voice feels only vaguely familiar in a room full of strangers. I don’t understand the movement of my tongue around familiar words in the mirror. The inflection of “hello,” for instance. “Goodbye.” These are only examples. An ex-boyfriend told me I blinked too much on camera.

At the circus, nothing scared me but the grandness of space.

Before the tea cups, I’m on a VHS tape lifting a turquoise dress over my head in the middle of my lawn. Later, I’m running around second hand furniture naked as I came, brazen, unashamed, with a serious white wool scarf ripped around my throat. I still finger my throat when alarmed; I pull at taut skin.

My hand tears around the rim of a glass – a hand that carried me from coast to coast as part of a desperate pair. These hands fingered a typewriter in a back bedroom closet when the turquoise dress would have swallowed me whole. I remember the staccato punch of black keys; letters garbled by my illiteracy. I chewed my tongue and delicately mashed keys with an increased intention and felt my cheeks grow hot and numb.

We lose vision and hearing, nicotine confuses taste buds and scents, renders them unreliable as the flu: is there any way to lose the touch of those keys under my fingertips? Can I forget what I must? The mirrors I distrusted. Was it the fluorescent lighting that allowed me to forgive myself for so badly botching the experiment? Would there be a way to forgive the kick of metal against my palm? The immense weight of something so small? The swelling June heat etched into my skin but this thing in my palms stayed cold. Tears made my cheeks itch and more welled as I couldn’t remove one hand from that Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum revolver to scratch; for fear that one wrist wouldn’t be strong enough. I had an audience to my back, a target behind such an expansive grass and gravel lot that I couldn’t trust any of my senses to find it. I kept my eyes closed but the kick of the trigger shot up my forearms and into my chest, and landed there something too dense to cough up.

Angela Farrell

Sobering

“Change has come to America.”But change hasn’t come to me.When my heart began to spill overit was the Jager moving my lips(or was it the vodka?)because God knowsI cannot speak.Collapsed on a kitchen floorwet with mistakesand speeding toward sobriety,I realize this:despite my former hopeI am nailed shut.

Amanda White

Revelation

I see the pictures that spin in the spaces of my headthe insides of my perfect eyelidswhere they twirl and dancebrighter than all the graying lightsof the shivering world outside

I see their figures swirling in optimistic patternsto an invisible wind in the blacknesslike virgin snowflakes on a fiddler’s tunethey float untouchedby the rough meddling handsof a world too realto ever actually exist.

And they melt as I touch themwith my soft sweaty fingerscruel barbaric utensilsclawing at the wings of mothswishing to pull them wing from wingand throw their beautiful bodiesto the howling earth.

But they slip from my fingerslike dreams from a morning’s light.And they are so much more beautifulwhen I watch them from afar.

Jim Rose

Freedom

Every moment, I rememberVictory from my dreams: sitting on a hill for thirty-six hours,Even through the rain. My thoughts:Rare experiences are inexpressible. I dreamtYou were here in my dream. I did not sleep, but I saw you there.To me, you looked a little sick. I carry you in my Head and you bounce around with all the other thoughts:I who say you are a dream am a dream myself. Night-time—you gave your ears to the air.God speaks too quietly, you said.IStillPretend I do not hear you. The stars are not Ears but eyes, blinded by the clouds.Read the sky and tell me:Memories of those overcast days;I’ll sing the song forming in my head—Tomorrow a wise man may explain it;That tomorrow will not be for another ten thousand generations.Every year the clouds peel back like curtains—Day-light is like truth in a dream.

Chris Moore

Desmond in the Desert

Hot eyeball of sun, and nothing lives here very long. Into this scene comes Desmond, cowboy cool, patch of sweat across his back. He is dragging a bag full of a dead man and all that stolen cash Desmond’s heart is pounding close to 50 MPH. He falls down, long gulps of hot, dry air stealing the cool from inside him.Shortly behind is Darlene, dressed all wrong for this. Cocktail dress and peep-toe pumps. She limps from the bullet in her right, exquisite leg. Blood, the color of her toenails, trickles down like a map river.“Car’s dead,” she says, throwing the keys at Desmond’s chest. He is a dark rock on the desert floor. “Well, I can’t carry you and the bag.”This is a moment she should have seen coming. They only met last night at the Casino Bar. A sandstorm of vodka and sex and Desmond telling her about a vault he knows with an easy guard. Darlene should have known better, but she went brainless under Desmond’s touch.Next thing, she’s distracting the guard and there goes Desmond sneaking by and bagging up all that cash. Minutes later, the guard shooting Darlene as they try to escape. And Desmond shooting back..Now, the three of them in the desert, Darlene standing there like a tree. The right thing to do is to take her. Desmond knows this. With that shot-up leg, she’ll never make it out alive.Then he looks over at the bag, silent and sure. He could ditch the body and spend the cash. Desmond’s never been much for gambling. Beside, bags don’t talk, he thinks as he looks up at Darlene, and the slot machine, of “tell, don’t tell,” that would be spinning forever in her eyes.

Francine Witte

Little Girl’s Song��For Chelsea��Although you may sit and calmly drink tea,�your mind is shackled, to your body enslaved.�Sylvia Plath with her head in the oven—�you’ll never be as pretty as she.��Gouge, gouge away, gouge it all away.�Your prostitute sister all prodded and chained,�separate from you even by name,�for you could never reach her sway.��It’s easy to fall victim to your own pretty face,�so squeeze your eyeballs until there is only pus,�hurl your heart from the window, it never gave you luck,�string your corset tighter, tighter; you’ll choke on lace.��Now twirl and turn your knives on everyone,�the ones who reject you, those who once loved you.�Hoping you’ll kill their spirits in one swift move,�you carefully, carelessly pierce each one.��All the blood that spins around your head,�will never, ever dry as long as you are dead.���Valerie Lute

Front Yard in Autumn��An acorn falls onto my lawn, it’s grass�thinning like an old man’s hair down to rich brown skin.�A squirrel, glassy eyes and fat gray tail�dashes to pick it up. �He stuffs it into his mouth and with the same urgency,�running off, probably to bury it somewhere.�Geese bleet overhead, their gray feathers only shadows�against the falling light of the autumn sky. �The few trees that still have leaves see that the others don’t.�A western wind blows, their branches bend—�They’re gesturing to each other desperately.�They know autumn is coming in. �Tomorrow morning’s sunrise, will be later than today’s.�Hibernation, loss of leaves—nature surely knows�The plants in the yard will soon fall fast asleep—�in the spring, they will take their waking slow.��Kyle Carrozza�

The undiscovered country��I was sailing on a ship from Denmark�When in the night, the pirates came,�And they told me I might never begin.��With the boards rough beneath my cheek,�I dreamed of dark floors and pools of light.�I dreamed you were angry�And I dreamed of flight.�We were unsafe and the world was ending all around us.��We rewrite the commonest tragedy;�It is always a story of leaving.��They were holding my hands�But all I could see were the stars.�“This, this is a desert sky” you said,�And the waves whispered all around.��Jessi Lehman �

The Death of Dreams��Is never sad, �else they would not die.�They are forgotten,�moved over,�for some more beautiful �life,�some brighter future.�And if, someday, �the once-dreamer recalls�some childhood fancy,�some delusion born of ignorance,�She will laugh,�or snort,�or shrug,�but rarely sigh.��Chad Ostrowski�

Between Power Lines��Walking, holding the moon between two sagging power lines,�stumbling drunkenly back and forth on the street to keep it in bounds.��And if someone should come from their home�and shout to me,�there under their wide-open moon,�I will respond from beneath mine confined�that no, I do not know where these roads lead.�They are too dark to see,�they end in black forests,�and I am not of this place.��And if one should walk with me,�I in front or perhaps beside,�they will not see my imprisoned moon,�they will not know I have confined it�to live between strands of copper.�"Stop stumbling," one will say,�and I will smile�knowingly,�laugh at this little secret.��And if our paths should diverge,�roads forking towards restaurants, towards trees,�I will not say goodbye.�We knew each other for less than an instant,�we knew each other not at all (I never even asked one's name),�our bond as insubstantial as my moon's cold home.���(If I could clamber up poles�and tight-rope from city to city�holding the ever-free moon above,�I would shout to them, there in their doorways�that though we are small,�much too small to see�where every road leads as it winds through the trees�at least they are roads,�and not these damn wires�that shock me and pop as I wobble along.)��Chad Ostrowski�

Birds Dont Go to Church On Sundays��“It’s the exception that proves the rule,”�your mother would say in an insistent, almost�dismissive tone when you pointed out to her�that the birds—made on the fifth day—flitted�from branch to branch on Sunday mornings�while you had to dress up and go to church.�They do not have to shower, they do not�have to comb their hair, they do not�have to put on ironed pants, they do not�have to tie their shoes.��One summer day, talking with a friend,�birds chirped overhead making you think�of that moment in your childhood, and�you realized the obvious: that birds�do not have pants or shoes or any reason�that they must look nice. Birds glide�in the area above the trees that they�have no word for and rest on the branches�made only for them to rest on, and you did��not have to dig in the ground for breakfast.���Kyle Carrozza�

What if I want to be a Man? ��You say safe sex�requires factory-made�latex tubing. �I say safe sex�doesn’t require�me knowing�your name.�You say�we need a little bit�more time. �I say all you need�is a little bit�more liquor�baby. �What if I want�to be dangerous?�What if I want�to be a man?�What if I want�to make�a thousand little�babies? �Oh�never mind�now all I want�is to go�take a piss. �(A very manly piss.)��Jim Rose�

Yoshis��Super Nintendo Yoshi’s�defunct�who used to�ride the quickest-accelerating�go-kart�and fire onetwothreefourfive redshellsjustlikethat�Jesus�he was a scaly dinosaur�and what I want to know is�how do you like your longtongued lizard�Super Mario���Kyle Carrozza�

�Antidotes��Thousands are distributed to single residents.�Hanging in transparent capsules on end tables, windowsills, and desks.�Counteracts the neurotoxin of loneliness.��Your new one-way friend never asserts rhetoric or complaint.�It can only be the victim of betrayal and negligence�when left with empty guts and tainted cytoplasm,��An antidote, or just a siphon?�Pure and absolute loneliness�can be found, studied, and examined�behind the curved lens of a goldfish bowl.��Max Moon

Angles��Crossing the lawn, I watch my feet�skim across the grass through a sea�of rolling red and orange leaves.�You approach from far away�and already I can see�where our paths, projected tenuously,�will converge.�Perpendicular lines form the perfect right angle,�but that is too big for me.�Lying next to you,�I want you so much closer than ninety degrees.��Charlee Redman�

Trickle-Down Economics��Politicians explain capital as trickling down - �that is, that those with the most�will spend enough so that what they have�will be distributed, spent, and redistributed�until it makes its way to the bottom, the ones�with the least. In hte bathroom�of the Capital Building, a senator�jiggles his penis. His last few drops�spatter in the ivory urinal, slowly running�down to the hole in the bottom.�He does not flush. He does not wash his hands.���Kyle Carrozza�

life is sweet at the edge of a razor��Shop-rite janitor�a loudspeaker over screams�“spill in aisle nine”���Max Moon�

Alien Highway��Winter's misty night air shines in the light�of the refreshingly cool and wet raindrops�floating on top of what appears to be neon�lit alien highways winding through the fog.��Joseph Chirum���

Pest Control��So welcome. Leave. �Run your hand over dewed grass and laugh. �There’s a power plant to your left �ready to shower your midnight picnic with something sparkling and toxic. �But you forgot to pack anything to eat. �So clap. Let him laugh. �There are cars waiting for you in vacant gravel lots. �And honey,�they have oxygen masks. �With the ease of breathing �it becomes natural to feel �the place where your heart used to be. �The thing which replaced it has spark, �grit, and grab. Personality �and electricity. �But it’s rotten. �“Aren’t tomatoes supposed to be bad for you now?” ��Angela Farrell�

Kallimazoo��If i could fly out of a gooses'�mouth, i surely would leap,�free from all worldly constraints.��Gliding softly towards a dim�universal pitch which finds me�waiting here on a timely ledge.��Alligators stare at the lonely�souls glittering in the morning�dew, which glares like beef stew.��All together, hum drum few, toss�a dime, and see who count a few.��One, two, and more than you,�put it all together and kallimazoo.��Joseph Chirum�