ORPHEUS

The Literary Journal

of
Lindsey Wilson College










Vol. XIII Spring 2011 No. 1







 












O RPHEUS
Spring 2011
Volume XIII No. 1

Editors
Liz Comstock
Christina O’Rourke
Meagan Ray
Kendall Sewell

Faculty Advisor
Dr. Allison Egnew Smith

Founder
Dr. Tip H. Shanklin

www.lindsey.edu/orpheus
 ORPHEUS

Spring 2011

The Lyre of Orpheus Placed Among the Stars

Drawing by Eduard von Engerth (1818-1897)

A Publication of
Lindsey Wilson College

© Copyright 2011
All Rights Reserved



www.lindsey.edu/orpheus
 Table of Contents

Tip H. Shanklin, Featured Faculty………………………………………………6, 7, 8

Christopher Ausbrook……………………………………………………………….60
Tiffany Berger……………………………………………………………………….20
James Brown………………………………………………………………...19, 28, 73
Liz Comstock………………………………………………………...29, 42, 58, 63, 71
Maria Cooper………………………………………………………………...11, 26, 61
Brandi Crowe………………………………………………………………………...18
Kacie Goode………………………………………………………………………….42
Ashley Graves………………………………………………………………………..13
Stephen Graves………………………………………………………………….. 21, 40
Megan Hadley…………………………………………………………………... 25, 45
Katie Hammond……………………………………………………………………...34
Matthew Hicks………………………………………………………………….. 44, 64
Megan Humphress………………………………………………………….. 35, 49, 77
Sam Johnson …………………………………………………………………10, 36, 50
Victoria Joseph……………………………………………………………………… 63
Phyllis Lewis…… …………………………………………………………………...48
Amy Lea Martin…………………………………………………………………….. 77
Christina O'Rourke………………………………………………………….. 35, 47, 70
John Overby ……………………………………………………………………..22, 69
Luis Parra……………………………………………………………………….. 14, 39
Brittany Pike……………………………………………………………………. 23, 34
Meagan Ray …………………………………………………………15, 28, 43, 52, 73
Jessica Rinesmith…………………………………………………………………… 57
Nick Schrager…………………………………………………………. ………...13, 74
Kendall Sewell …………………………………………………….9, 20, 30, 41, 51, 76
Anna Sundean………….……………………………………………………………. 38
Brittany Rose Wesley………………………………………………………...46, 65, 72
Danae Wesley………………………………………………………………………...16
Notes on Contributors……………………………………………………………….. 78


























 













Editorial and Standards Policy
The editorial staff of Orpheus welcomes and encourages submissions of poetry,
short fiction, creative nonfiction, artwork, and photography from any current Lindsey
Wilson College student. While preserving the freedom of creative expression,
responsible standards of decency regarding language and images are carefully observed.
The editors reserve the right to edit both the form and, in rare cases, the content of
submissions. Final decisions regarding acceptance or rejection of questionable content
are reserved for the editorial staff in consultation with the journal’s faculty advisor.
All submissions to Orpheus must be typed and must contain the following
information: name, phone number, local address, class, major, and hometown of the
writer/artist. All artwork and photographs should be submitted in camera-ready black
and white.
Editorial and other staff positions are open to any current Lindsey Wilson College
student based upon experience or interest.
The ideas and views express in Orpheus are solely those of the writer/artist and do
not necessarily reflect the ideas and views of the editorial staff or those of Lindsey
Wilson College.






























Preface

April, which is National Poetry Month, has arrived, and with it comes a new
volume of Orpheus. And like spring, this is a time of renewal. For the first time, the
journal will feature an online edition on the college’s website; this year we received a
record amount of submissions, nearly two hundred in all; and I am very happy to begin
my new role as faculty advisor. In the spirit of rebirth, the editors asked the founder of
Orpheus, Dr. Tip H. Shanklin, to be the featured faculty. He has graciously written the
forward to this issue as well as three new poems.
Arthur Quiller-Couch once encouraged writers to “murder your darlings.” And
this is exactly what the writers in this issue of Orpheus have done. The pieces featured
tackle an array of subject matter—some difficult, violent, dark. When students bristle at
the darkness of a piece in my creative writing workshops, I often remind them of what
Tobias Wolff said: “Far from being depressed, my own reaction to stories like these is
exhilaration, both at the honesty and the art. It lets us know we’re not alone.” Certainly
the writers featured in this edition let us know that we are not alone in our experiences.
As Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast, “The spring always came finally but
it was frightening that it had nearly failed.” Without the following people, Orpheus
would nearly fail, too: thanks to the student editors, Meagan Ray, Kendall Sewell,
Elizabeth Comstock, and Christina O’Rourke. The editors and I are also thankful for
those who have donated to the journal—both financially and in regard to time. Finally,
thanks to the English Program at Lindsey Wilson College for its continued support,
specifically Dr. Kara Mollis, Dr. Tip Shanklin, and Dr. Mark Dunphy for serving on the
Orpheus Creative Writing Award Committee.

Warmly,
Dr. Allison Egnew Smith
Faculty Advisor, Orpheus

























 











 



Foreword

Orpheus has entered its second decade of publication, and as its founder and initial six-
year faculty sponsor, it is an honor to have been asked by this year’s editors to contribute
a few words and some new poems written for this volume. I am most grateful to them for
the opportunity.

Endurance is my theme here. And so it does not, in fact, surprise me that Orpheus has
been such a lasting success. When I began teaching here in 1998, one of the first ideas I
had was to start a literary journal for our students; a public forum for their creativity and
their voices. I also wanted the journal to reflect the College’s mission statement. At the
time, some were skeptical that it would work or endure; some even disparaged the name
Orpheus; but the journal is still here and that is what matters most. Over the years, there
also always, always have been many ardent supporters of and financial contributors to
Orpheus. Too many to name, they have my lasting gratitude.

T.S. Eliot once described his momentous poem The Waste Land as “the relief of a
personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life . . . a piece of rhythmical
grumbling.” Eliot was not a guileless man. (His remark reminds one of Prospero abjuring
his skills of magical conjuring in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.) Regardless of what
continues to inspire and motivate our writers and editors – personal grumblings, insights
into the human condition, voices from a darkness awaiting a reply, perhaps the
beginnings of a literary career (yes, this has happened too) – I believe Orpheus will
continue for another decade, and another, because it has always been an authentic place
for an ongoing creative and passionate conversation; a conversation that reminds us all of
what it means to be human in the first place.

THS
02.12.11






















Peril
Tip H. Shanklin

One who has a why to live

can bear almost any how. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In the public garden

heavy with snow,
so early and cold that there are no birds,
the crocuses still weeks and weeks away,
it is as if
the large bronze-green figure, head tilted,
looking down not ahead (as the sculptor desired it),
might begin to speak:
‘I went on alone through the lightless world and it killed me.’
The secret remark,
as startling as the bitter air,
might really have been the sudden sound of
a snapping branch, the burden
of a bit too much.
Looking down from the middle of the bridge,
the iced-over river
holds the figure’s reflected shape
in blue film, in brittle double.
Searching my coat pocket
for paper and pencil,
a sparrow alights on the bridge railing,
sending skidding snow
just over the edge.




























6
Some Things That Can Be Saved
Tip H. Shanklin

Poetry is capable of saving us;

it is a perfectly possible means of overcoming chaos. ~ I.A. Richards

It is hard to deny that

the species ist kaputt.
Though in the doomed land
there may still be
some things that can be saved –
The clock’s face
in peril. The bicycle
abandoned by an anxious heart on an autumn road.
The only key locked in the box.
The blue-hued letter from Paris Par Avion
that never was opened: amour ruiné.
Aptly,
a taste for ancient ruins and a need
to travel to them for silent solace.
The uncanny
quiver of a windy night.
A filament of fire in the darkness
to compensate for the loss of faith
in humanity. Not any. Not any longer.
Of course, the insatiate eyes
of artists that could again see
what could once be seen in light.
And a hearing seer
whose music of words
would be like the force of Orpheus
who bent the will of death for love.
This is what is at stake. So say it. Because
the unspoken can never save anything.
























7
Antiquities
Tip H. Shanklin

To share in the deathlessness,

Which is the envy of this life. ~ Friedrich Hölderlin

When time affords it me,

I live in the ancient world
where I come to life
in ceaseless searching.
I do not live there out of horror
and disgust for the present – one can at least
impose oneself on the present – but because
in this field
the dead do not stay dead
though I cannot tell
who is the more restless,
they or I.

Here, long past

the day-lit world
and its twisted confusions,
I sit alone
in the lamplight
consuming and absorbing the exotic language
of these chattering, dazzling Greeks.
Here, beyond the heat
and the smell of laurel,
time is suspended – as it famously is
in Keats’s ode to the urn.
Here, then is now.
Here, I can step more than twice into the same river.
Here, through gate after gate,
I go where I love, where I belong,
the paths lit by low fires that show me
I am back at the beginning, the archê.
Here, words are riddles of blood
that can make things happen
with a vengeance.
Here, nothing is murmured
in gray corners; words glint like sunlit bronze
and sound as if everything could be true,
even the gods.

8
Instructions
Kendall Sewell

You could say soaring across

the clouded firmament is a perfectly fine
metaphor for life with its bumps
and lurches and (occasional) crashes,
but let’s speak candidly here.
That’s too easy.

So, I’ll give you a new one

to roll around, ponder, and consider;
Open your eyes to the dark basement
of your grandmother’s old mid-twentieth-century
house, and you’re tucked in the cobwebbed corner
with nary an idea of who
you are or what
you are doing there or why
you know it’s your grandmother’s house,
you — in the darkness — alone.

Speculate if you will, and beat

the words to death but please don’t bind
them to old Billy’s chair (and least of all, don’t make him watch).
Give them a nobler death than that, please.
Let me not digress;

In that suffocating, inexorable dark

you strike a match
and like God you’ve created light.
Flickers the flame in an explosion
of minute proportion, flaring the brightness
of hope against the eternal
dark that is her basement.
Quick—must be your movement
For—quick—that flame shall die.

Ponder that and consider giving

thought to the words and not the image,
or thought to the image and not the words,
but please don’t make
an allegory out of a plum in an icebox
and please please don’t make
a picture into a didactic rose
and please please please
don’t squeeze the life
out of a poor, helpless verse.
9
Phobic Love
Sam Johnson

I nurse my fear, keep it close and safe

And the blackness it swallows is okay by me
Because it takes care of me and infects all my friends
So they can be closet cases, too

As my body walks and talks and moves

I sit somewhere within it, afraid and sweating
Because my best friend is fear and he
Takes real good care of me,
Even as he devours all my friends
Yeah, he takes care of me
Even as he devours all my friends

I keep my fear closer than I should, I guess

But I love it like I love my pain
Which I also keep close, and she infects my friends, too
But that's okay, because it makes me the same
And we're all swallowed up in black
Yeah, one day, we're all in shadowy black

10
The Deer
Maria L. Cooper

I.
Whose eyes are these?
These eyes staring at me,
These eyes staring so deeply into my own,
Those soul-searching, life-giving eyes.
Eyes that see all.
Eyes that know all.
Eyes that understand.

I've seen these eyes before

Yet they are one-of-a-kind.
They were my mother's.
My father too once had these eyes.
Now they are mine.
They belong to me.

I saw them once in the face of an angel in a dream,

A teacher, A nurse, A stranger, my deer.
And I see them again in the face of a soft-hearted soul.
I see their light.
I see the twinkling smile.
I see the wisdom.
I see it all.
And I feel safe.
Safe by knowing that there are still those with eyes,
To be connected with, to be seen, to be understood.
I feel safe, and the urge to draw near.
My heart is filled with contentment, with warmth,
That I might live,
That I might thrive.

II.
I pull my heart
and my eyes
from the animal's hold.
I see her body;
She is dying.
She is calling to me with her eyes,
With her mind and soul.
She's been rundown, run over
By someone hurrying to live their life
But her path crossed theirs
Here is where it stops
Where her life will end.
She does not want to be alone.
She trusts me. 11
I focus my eyes on the road ahead.
Tears well up and overflow.
For my poor deer, and for my mother.
For broken connections
And the broken hearts that result.
For my heart.
I turn the radio up, and sing.
My heart will go on.

III.
The sun sets and rises and sets again
Those Phantom eyes are haunting me in my dreams,
Those ever-beckoning eyes.
I do not want to focus on the road ahead
Not now
I want to pull over onto the shoulder
and weep.
Weep for the soft-hearted souls.
Weep for those who are not.
Cry because of my father's eyes.
Those unseeing soulless eyes.
The eyes of a true animal.
For all the lonely people,
Isolated and set apart from the rest
By my eyes
I want to cry “I want a father, a mentor, a shoulder, a friend with those
eyes.”

I want to pull over

But I do not want everyone's eyes
to see the real me.
I do not need an audience, a stage.
The whole world is my stage and I need a place to be real.
With someone who is just as real.
No more playing parts.
No more soap opera stars.
I just want to be seen, to be understood by those tender eyes, those caring eyes
Is that possible? Or did I just ask too much?

I pull my heart and my eyes from their hold.

Focus my eyes on the road ahead,
Turn the radio up and sing.
I will survive.
And the radio plays
“Walkin After Midnight” by Patsy Cline.
12
Circle of Life
Nicolas Schrager

I saved a bee’s life,

Caught between the screen and the glass of a window.
In return he stung me
And died.
So is my punishment,
Punished for interfering with the circle of life.

Ashley Graves

13
Minutes
Luis Parra

The clock
6:23 advertising.
the past on thirsty,
and the present is an athlete without feet.

It’s already 6:43

and the body of the minute that happened,
I said well you live here like it or not.
And nostalgia gets home in my head
and given the 6 to 50.

Who told you that

it was the dream you dream once
who told you that
my future even turn upside down,
it’s already 7:16,
and the body of the minute that happened,
I said I ruined your strategy,
nothing is left but have to learn to live alone
if you still have gills.

The house is nothing,

that a cemetery of stories
buried in pits,
some call memory.

Minutes
as salt in the wound,
it happens to me life
spending the clock

Minutes
they are the morgue of the time,
corpses of moments
that is never coming back
no clock back back.

14
Mediocrity
Meagan Ray

I fear that I will live vicariously through racing spidery words sprawled on neat linen
pages
That I will find release through foreign words, strange words, not my own
For I could never really speak like they do.
I have a southern twang that peers from the shadows of my throat
And I never sound quite as sophisticated as my brain thinks I should.
But I will reach towards the path that leads to, oh, I don’t know. Happiness. A platitude
like that where I will be scarred by grin lines burned along the corners of my
mouth and I will be deafened by the roar of ecstasy against my head and I will
skip as the wind trips my step and tugs against my hair.
And I will ache for the sugary taste of beauty on my tongue as I am blinded by glass
citadels stretched along the skyline and I will be aware of my heart careening into
my rib-cage, free-floating, detached from the harsh membrane that holds it still.
And I will crumble to my knees when I realize that I cannot be, oh, I don’t know.
Everything. Anything. When I realize that I am not what I set out to be when I
was a little girl. I didn’t wish to be a ballerina, but I wished to spin in glitzy
carnival circles, Christmas lights like fireflies lit about the world. I didn’t wish to
be a singer, but I wished to scorch my mouth as I gasped like a sinner released. I
didn’t wish to be a pilot, or an astronaut, but I wished to lie against shreds of
pavement and fall asleep enamored by the sheen of stars against my vision,
mesmerized by trippy lightshows of fireworks against the night, hummed to sleep
by chirping cicada voodoo. I didn’t wish for everyone to know me, some kind of
fame. But I wished to know myself.

15
Tin
Danae Wesley

Made in the night by a sad little man,

By the hands of a player of God.
Awakened by sunlight,
Edges sharp, senses keen,
And a girl in flight,
Stopped short by his silver sheen.
Clang
Who could ever fall
For a man of tin?
Who could ever fall
In love with such a sin?
But down
They
Fell.
Clang
What a horrid sound
When she was not around,
The silence of an empty man,
And clamor of his shell.
Clang
Her heart would pound,
And his would not.
If love meant sound,
For love, her heart would drum.
Clang
For love, his hollow hum.
He would serenade her a heart of song,
The chimes and feeling,
All in one.
And every day, his whistle cried,
Until the day she died.
Until the day she died.
Clang
There is nothing left to sing.
Nothing more to feel or play;
His lover’s taken wing,
Her steady rhythm, died away.
And down

16
 He
Fell.
There may be a cure
For a broken heart,

But none for the broken voice.

In the woods, he’ll wait,
In the woods, he’s safe.
But through his tears, he’ll rust,
In the rain, to crust;
With his axe held high
And his eyes open wide,
His voice forever in a silent sigh.
And there was no more
Clang.

17
Unanswered
Brandi Crowe

An abyss contained by silver edging

Your own unexplored ocean
The surface skimmed
Translucent depths carelessly unknown

Warm hands grasp cold edges

Unsure you can handle what lies within
Chin parallel to the floor
No turning back

Brown eyes on red ones of the same color

You remember why that's so
Another strike of lightening
Straight to the heart and the pain screams normality

A liquid imitation of your looking glass falls

Shatters silently as more rush to join it
It cannot be left alone
Can't be like you because nothing should be

Thunder, and your storm turns red

Your facade cracks and the edging empties
Pieces left behind are unsupported
You recognize the irony

An increased rain adds depth to your ocean

The surface no longer affected by individual drops
You know all the answers
Who are you?

18
Weathered Irishmen
Jim Brown

The rain trickled slowly, coming from a bright grey sky with the underlying sun
masked by heavy clouds. The wind lightly breathed on the tall grass which waved
slightly, keeping in the direction of the cool air’s flow. A road wound between the hills
emerald with the grass. Its puddles and gravel reflected the bright sky, wet from the
lulling rain. The blades closest to the road intertwined and brushed against the worn fence
which followed the road, one weathered with rusted barbed wire crippled by age and
hanging from the cracked gray posts that still stood stout with a few leaning away and
towards the road. All was quiet spare the faint sound of the wind in the grass. He had
ridden this route almost daily for the past thirty years. From home to work and back
again, church when he could, thinking of only the work that had been done and the work
to be done. Turning the pedals with a conscience funneled by these thoughts, he never
went beyond the spectrum that founded the world which in he delved himself.
Keeping to a promise, his daughter, the only other for which he had provided the
last few years, had gone on to make another home. His wife whom had passed many
years before had always stayed in his thoughts, as had his son whom had long
disappeared to the Americas. He, having never remarried nor sought another
acquaintance, ignored the calls of others on the habits of geese. Staring at the clouds as
they passed over head, he let the drops fall on his aging face as he recollected the past
years. The grass cool and wet on the back of his neck, the dampness of that beneath him
soaking through his faded shirt, he thought of it all. Settling for what he had never
consciously asked for, content with what was given turning away at the chance of change.
It would be a few hours to dark, and no traffic had passed for some time, not even a bird
in the sky, concerns of which were now beyond him. His home sitting empty and dark, a
cavity in which there would be nothing but memories, somewhat sullen, to keep him
company. He thought of the tavern down the road, where he had few times stopped. It
was always full of a crowd too depressing to accompany and he wasn’t one to drink
much. He loved his home country but not the life he had come to know, how he had come
to make it as it was he was slowly figuring. His living to raise his daughter, keeping a
quiet life. The rain began to pass finally and the wind stopped. He rose took a deep sign,
and stretched combing with his hand the beard that ran along the edge of his face.
Squinting in his thought he popped his back and looked out over the hills around him,
emerald as always in the light with a small house far in the distance.
Against the sky he spotted a gull, white with yellow beak, he could scarcely make
it out but it was unmistakable all the same. It flapped overhead, passing without glance
and undeterred in its direction, away from the glow behind the clouds, towards the coast,
towards the sea. His spirit stirred, the smell, the feel of salt and spray, the sound of taunt
sail in wind, a hull skimming waves with ease all flashed in his mind’s eyes. He pulled
his cap and gathered his bike and followed, stopping only at the post office along the
way.

19
Storm Winds
Kendall Sewell

In the heat of hot July nights

there are sometimes storms that push
their way eastward, or southward—
or whichever way-ward—
nestling themselves just above our city
to pour welcome upon us.
Lightning flashes and thunder crashes
And smile do we who do daily toil,
and salt the earth with our tears.

Daily on, we who toil do carry,

and some us know it and some of us don’t;
It’s no matter, really.
Truth is in the storm:
Revelation is in the lightning.
In the flashes
(glimpses of a reflection of something)

Tiffany Berger

20
Anonymously Spoken
Stephen Graves

With eyes of Florence and loches of the Rhine motherly her eyes fall like Berlin the wall
that binds
In mind our wounds will heal, but scars will be left behind
Fragments of a war lost only in time
Our moment has come, as clouds part and the darkness begins to shine
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the beholder is blind
Looking forward to the end as the journey has past the line
A sonnet is not a sonnet without a look first through her eyes
A prayer is spoken as my breath slips suddenly away
Lifeless I lay and in her arms I pray to die
No happiness will I ever see like the one my heart for love does bleed
and in the end there is only one, not you, but me and I hope this is a lie
As I write and I hope, my words are my tears and only the ink is left when I cry
One final breath, one final thought, one final sin, one final...
Why?

21
Suck it Art
John Overby

A picture paints a thousand words

But a pen paints so many more

Not just one scene

It tells a whole story, an entire book

Filled with a wild journeys

Tantalizing tales of bravery

An astronaut, lost in space

Never to return home again

A scary, snowy mountain hiker

That ends up thrown in the slammer

A self-help author with drug problems

The family turmoil that follows

Perhaps a summer fling

Just a small love affair

A man that’s been stuck in Limbo

And his struggle to return home

Alien vs. robot wars

With a million battle scars

A death row inmates’ lullaby

A crime he didn’t commit

A superhero who’s a drunk

One that just completely sucks

The power of the pen

The greatest tool of all

Your wildest dreams

Are just a page away.

22
My Hatter
Brittany Pike

Please sit down!

It's time for tea.
We're great company,
that Hatter and me.

Delusional dreaming.
Farfetched schemes.
Radical ideas.
Fantastical things.

Cooridoors and passageways

with zillions of turns.
Which way is up?
My mind how it burns!

A racing of thoughts
in a whirlwind of colors.
I'm the only one here,
there are no others!

Preposterous nonsense.
Oodles of ideas.
Do not blame me,
the idea was...his.

That Hatter is here!

I know it is so.
You claim you can't see him.
Just look, there he goes.

Through twists and turns

he runs away
when someone confronts him,
he's shy you could say.

He scatters the thoughts

which I have collected.
Millions of obstacles
he has erected.

23
As soon as he comes
he's practically gone,
scrambling my senses
making everything wrong.

To catch him, I know

would keep things intact.
Help me find Mr. Tress,
S. Tress to be exact.

24
Phone
Megan Hadley

Bing, buzzing, or vibrating

The damn phone, it’s always ringing
Each gesture that it makes sends a chill through my spine
Sometimes I sit and hold it, and just watch the clock tell time
The poor thing gets interrogated; I can tell it’s hostile towards me
I’m always prying it for information, searching for the answers I can’t see
E-mails and text messages, but these aren’t what I’m waiting for
I check it and check it, but can’t help begging it for more.

25
Emotion and Reason
Maria L. Cooper

I do not find it easy to love those

Who do not love
I do not find it easy to love those
Who love too freely without reason
It is easy for me to love those
Who do not love easily, are not loved easily

I do not love due to a person's actions

Nor is my love due to physical attraction
My love is deep
My love can not be explained but is felt
Do you feel me?

My love knows not age, race, gender, religion

My love knows only love
That feeling buried deep within
That electrical magnetic touch
That rushes from your essence to mine

Your potential to love I love

Your power to choose to love me I love
For, my love, you are stronger than I
I could never choose not to love you
From the moment we were united
From the second our selves recognized the other
I was made incapable of not loving you

I love you for the bad you've done

I love you for the good
I love you for the struggle each choice makes
I will love you forever more
Whatever strength that takes
For you are not loved easily, nor easily do you love

But, O my love, no one else could be loved as much as you

For with you am I made complete
For I am love and in you my love is made true
Can you feel my energy surrounding you?

26
Do you love me too as I feel you do?
Or have you not figured (it/me) out yet, so cute

The whole purpose of our lives is to just be

And in being we are to love

Why swim against the current

When the peace that overflows
Will make you whole?

Why do you choose to let me go?

Once are hearts are made to truly see then,

and only then,
will our minds be liberated and set free.

27
Mason-Dixon Line
Meagan Ray

Perhaps the real difference between us isn’t geography after all

(And maybe I do like to be barefoot, but I like to be bare everything, barefoot, barefaced,
Free from the restraints of normality and the laces of shoes so choking on one so swift)
Perhaps, after all, tea is better when doused in sugar
And compliments sweeter when laced with a drawl
Perhaps my tongue’s scamper towards colloquialisms is not a sign of the darkest
unintelligence, but a turn towards a higher level of thinking, perhaps the ability to
converse with all kinds of people is greater than the ability to intimidate
(And maybe I do say ‘hon’ like a burnt-out waitress, but no one could call me
inhospitable. And if you’d pay attention to things around you, directions like ‘turn
left at the Simpson’s silo’ and ‘keep going past the tractors’ would not be so
foreign)
Perhaps these hands, cow-milking hands, jar-canning hands, are just as strong as your
taxi-hailing hands, French-tipped hands
Perhaps I am proud. Perhaps I am proud that I can see the brilliance in mosquito bites
from achy summer nights, the glory in the dust-filled barn full of shrill chick-
chirps, the splendid scent of fresh earth beneath sweaty fingernails
Perhaps the real difference between us is my ability to see what is fantastic in every
culture, to swampy starlit evenings, to breathless neon nights.

Jim Brown
28
As insomnia conquers yet another night,
Elizabeth Comstock

the imperfections and failures surface,

shining in their blistering light.
she calls to mind her recent descent into madness.
no longer working out, making excuses for herself,
losing her disciplines she worked so hard to establish.
she eats, but no longer purges.
she thinks, but no longer writes.
she gets no work done,
writes no masterpieces.
no motivation,
no desire,
simply
riding out
her gradual descent
back into madness.

29
In Remembrance of Lilac and Sunlight
Kendall Sewell
He spoke with love in his heart and truth in his voice when he told her that he
loved her, and he noted the scorn in her voice and hate in her eyes when she in return said
the same. No, perhaps it was imagined. Yes, imagined, of course. He was always
imagining the things that were not there. Or were there, and they were imagined. Or were
imagined and were there, too. They told him he imagined too much and knew too little,
but he knew much more than they.
She dished a large helping of green beans and mashed potatoes onto his plate. The
beans were equally cut as he preferred, yes, and kept away from the mashed potatoes.
There was ham already on his plate, and she did as he liked and kept it from the other
helpings of food. Separate is best is how he always felt, separate is best and good. He
liked that she knew how he preferred his food, but didn’t like that she might not be there.
No, she was there. She had cooked the food that sat steaming on his plate and he felt
himself drooling like Pavlov’s dog because of it. Pavlov. Who was Pavlov? A neighbor,
certainly, yes. No, that wasn’t right. He knew the name. Or had he imagined it? They told
him he always imagined things. That he imagined too much and remembered too little.
They. They, who weren’t his friends. But she was a friend. She, whom he knew was real.
“Eat up,” she said. “It’s good, I promise.”
He nodded. Yes, eat. He would eat. She had cooked, and she was always a good
cook. He remembered liking her cooking. And her hair. Her long brown curls. Soft curls
that tickled his face when she kissed him. He remembered loving the way her hair held
the lingering smell of her shampoo when he awoke with his head nestled against hers.
Her soft skin, smooth and pale and lovely. He had loved it. He had loved that and all of it
and her. He remembered, and he remembered that he still did. Surely that wasn’t
imagined. No, not imagined. They told him he should remember rather than imagine, and
he remembered. He remembered that he liked her cooking. He would eat.
Eat. Man shall not live on bread alone.
Bread alone. Who had told him that? He remembered it. And they said he
imagined more than he remembered. He had surely remembered that. Had Frank told him
that? He liked to remember Frank. Sometimes remembering Frank was hard, though.
Sometimes he thought he’d imagined Frank, too. But the things he imagined were hard to
remember. It wasn’t so hard to remember Frank.
He remembered loving Frank. He thought about it, sometimes. Love was hard to
remember sometimes, too. They told him he imagined things too much, that he had to try
to remember instead of imagine. But remembering was hard. It all went away so fast.
Any memory he had. Frank. (Where was Frank?)
“Is it good?”
“Where’s Frank?” he asked.
She smiled. He didn’t like the way she wasn’t really smiling. “Frank would want
you to eat, James.”
James. Yes, that was it. He looked at his plate. The mashed potatoes were
mounded into a mountainous glob with a lake of brown-gravy steaming in the center. He
thought he remembered liking the potatoes like that. James. It seemed right.
A man walked into the kitchen as he sat eating and he remembered that he did not
like him. He looked unlikable, and James remembered not liking him. He didn’t like the
30
black hat that he wore, or the black coat and the red flannel shirt beneath. The man had a
black beard, too, and James remembered not liking his beard. In fact, he despised his
beard. He didn’t like his beard and he didn’t like the man.
She kissed him, though, that man with the black beard and the black hat, and
James picked up his plate and dashed it to the blue-and-white-checkered tile of kitchen
floor. The china shattered, and ham and beans and mashed potatoes became a single
conglomerated mess. He didn’t know why he’d thrown the plate, only that the man with
the beard should not have been kissing her.
“Dammit,” muttered the man with the beard, pushing her aside. “I got it. Don’t
worry.”
She walked over and patted James on the shoulder. “He hasn’t had a good day,”
she said, and moved closely to the man with the black beard and whispered, “He’s been
talking about you-know-who, today.”
You-know-who.
He knew who you-know-who was. They thought he didn’t, but he remembered.
They were always telling him he should remember, and they didn’t know that he did.
Frank. Frank was you-know-who, and Frank was dead. That’s why he wasn’t there.
You-know-who had killed Frank.
No, that wasn’t right. He had imagined you-know-who. No, he had imagined that
you-know-who had killed Frank. You-know-who was Frank.
Where was Frank?
“He’s always talking about him,” grumbled the man with the beard. “His damn
brother died twel-”
“Shut up!” she shouted, and the man with the beard looked up at her.
James liked that she had said that but didn’t like that she hadn’t really. But she
had. Surely. Where was Frank?
“The litany of lives lost and lives given in silence are surely no more or less than
those lost and given in blood,” James mumbled, his hand rigidly gripping the glass of
water in his left hand.
“What?” asked the man with the black beard.
“I will not be given unto silence,” said James. “I will not be given unto silence or
blood.” Thus spoke James, and he remembered.
“James, please calm down. Calm down, love,” she said softly, and patted his
shoulder. He didn’t like how she didn’t really mean it.
The man that James remembered not liking wrapped his arm around her waist.
Her slender, perfect waist. The man with the black beard had his arm around her waist
and James knew that he shouldn’t be touching her. He knew that was real, and he
remembered. He hadn’t imagined that. They told him to remember more often, and he
was remembering much today.
“That was a line from one of his poems,” she whispered to the man with the black
beard. “I just remembered. Wasn’t it, James? That was one of your poems from long ago.
Remember?”
Poems. He remembered. Some he remembered then, and remembered once
remembering them. That was long ago, though, and he hardly remembered what was
from long ago. That was what they always wanted him to remember. The things from
long ago.
But then, as he stared at her and the man with the black beard touched her side,
31
James remembered. He remembered poems, and he remembered a man named Whitman
whom he had read. He remembered others, too. Names that faded before he could
remember them. He saw their faces and remembered their names along the spines of
book after book, words that faded before he could truly remember. Books. He
remembered those, like the poetry. He had read them – had written them – and he could
remember their pleasant feel to his fingers and the smell of their lovely, dusty pages to
his nose. But he couldn’t remember them. He couldn’t. But they were there, and he
wanted so badly to fish those memories out of the swallowing dark.
Swallowing dark. Why had he thought of that? He remembered that. Perhaps he
had said it once in a poem. Yes, a poem. He had written poems.
He remembered the poetry. When he remembered the poetry, he remembered it
all. He remembered books, poems, names, and everything in between. Everything came
at once, flaring briefly like a flickering streetlight illumines poignantly the darkest of
alleys; an instant later the darkness would return, but for a moment there was glorious
light. In that light, he remembered. Mostly, he remembered her.
He remembered her and knew that the man with the black beard should not be
touching her in the way that he was touching her. Again, he remembered it all.
“Lydia,” James said. His voice had a low rumble to it, growling like a whispered
roar. “Lydia… Lydia, why?”
“James!” she gasped, stumbling backwards into the stove.
James stared at his hands as he sat in the kitchen chair. “These hands,” he
murmured. “What are these hands for now? They are foreign and useless to me.”
“James...” Lydia’s voice broke, and she looked away.
“They are useless, yes,” he said. “Yes, useless.” James looked up and glared at the
man with the black beard. “Useless? Not useless, perhaps. Not for some things.”
James was a large and strong man, and though his hands were useless they were
not powerless. His fingers felt right around the man’s neck. They squeezed tautly, and he
felt the skin compress against the tender neck bones and James felt the man’s hands
grapple onto his arms. The man was strong but James was stronger.
They fell upon the floor with an echoing smack, and Lydia screamed and pounded
James’ backside, but he remembered why his hands were around the man with the black
beard’s neck and he pressed even more firmly, as if he were working to clasp his hands in
prayer with the man’s throat compressed in between. He squeezed and continued to
squeeze, and the man grunted and their bodies become sodden with sweat. It was all very
quiet, save for their low groaning and James’ short, quick breaths. He felt tired, but he
pushed Lydia back and let his weight fall upon the man beneath him and soon felt his
breathing slowly cease.
Moments later, James released his hold on the man’s neck. The man with the
black beard lay still, unmoving. He eyes were fixed in an empty stare.
Void of life. Void of existence. A vacant vessel, yes.
It seemed right to have remembered those words.
Lydia was crying. She crawled across the kitchen and pressed her face to the dead
man’s cheek. “James!” she shrieked, and said no more. Her words were lost in her tears.
James stood and walked to the stove. He prepared himself a plate of ham and
green beans and mashed potatoes, keeping them separate as he preferred. He sat down,
and tried to remember what he had remembered earlier. There had been a reason that
Lydia was crying. Perhaps he had imagined it, though. They always told him that. He

32
never wanted to imagine things, but he never knew when what he was remembering was
imagined.
Poets, maybe? Had that been it?
No. Not them. He didn’t remember poetry.
Lilac. Her hair had smelled of lilac and sunlight. Her skin had been smooth like a
weathered pebble against his rough and calloused hands.
His hands. What was their purpose now? They were worthless, useless like his
empty soul.
No, he was imagining these thoughts. They were not his.
Dismissing all thoughts from his mind, he smiled at the woman lying on the floor
of the kitchen and spooned a helping of warm mashed potatoes and gravy into his mouth.
“Lydia,” he said cheerily, smiling in her direction. “Fix another plate, won’t you,
Lydia, dear?” He glanced at a calendar on the wall. It had pictures of horses on every
page, and he remembered that she liked horses. “Lydia, it’s Friday and I’m sure Frank
will be coming tonight.”

33
Masquerade
Britney Pike

Obscure in thought.
Delighted in guise.
Searching eyes scan my frame,
head to toe and back again.
Fooled by what they cannot see,
they judge me.
But how? I ask.
For the same mask that adorns
my face, is also positioned upon
theirs.

Katie Hammond

34
Well
Christina O’Rourke

Liar, you lie so well

Well what should I expect
Expect the hollowness
Hollow like a porcelain doll
Porcelain dolls’ smile emptily
Empty like you feel
Feeling too much to handle
Handling too much at a time
Time that there is not enough, yet too much
Of the buried truth
Truth that will set you free
Freedom will break the chains
Chains can be repaired
Repairing words are not possible
Possibilities are endless
Endless like the lies
Liar, you lie so well.

Megan Humphress

35
Predation
Sam Johnson

You’re so thin I can’t hold you now

So frail from disuse
And all that dust in your attic
Denotes there’s no use
But still I grip your form
Still I hold your flesh
Xenophobic, stripped apart
Nothing but a viral mesh

It’s made to hold you together

But now it’s torn you apart
The skin, so appealing
Ignoring the heart
And what kind of human,
No, no: what kind of fiend?
Could do this to someone
Whom upon him leans?

I see your sunken eyes

So dark in your skull
And I want to heal them
I want just to pull
And have you pull back
Instead of wasting away
I’ll hold up your body
I’ll polish your day

On the snowy white clouds, they...

They beckon the rain
Precipitation which
Could rinse clear your pain
If only we’re lucky,
If only you hold
There’s just nothing left now
Your tears have grown old

It’s an ancient crime now

That repeats every day
And he grins his teeth at you
In that predator’s way
Stealing out your lifeblood
Draining out your will

36
Even though you still speak
Your spirit’s been killed

You’re just a body now

The animate dead
A cadaver with no joy
Just pictures in her head
The playback, cinematic
Haunts your days and your dreams
Through nightmares ever darker
Still pulling at the seams

He says you’re only his

That you’re always his
A toy of blood and lymph
Never resisting this
And you pray that he forgets
That he skips a single glance
But that will never happen
You never stood a chance

37
Rape in the Mind
Anna Sundean

I feel you. Your feelings grow more intimate

With every kiss you draw me in, as a spider and its
Pray for guidance in this situation. What is right? What is
Wrong for me to think these thoughts of lust toward
You continue to commit this action as your lips migrate lower
With every kiss you make me want it oh so bad, but I stop
You stare up at me with those deep blue eyes and start
Again I cease you. This time you don’t stop, rather you continue
On top of me you ease yourself as I’m fighting you in my
Mind my words, for my breath is running short
With every kiss that you perform on my body drawing me into this
Sin is not of god. They why do I want it? Tell me it’s
Rape is not wanting it. If I believe I don’t want it, then I’m
Innocent is being pure, which no longer I am for these actions
Continue telling myself its rape in my mind.

38
The Problem
Luis Parra

The problem was not finding you,

the problem is to forget.
The problem is not your absence,
the problem is that I wait.

The problem is not the problem,

the problem is that it hurts.
The problem is not to lie,
the problem is that I believe you.

The problem is not the play,

the problem is that it’s me.
If I like it for free,
who am I change.

If I was wanting alone

as to force you to do
The problem is not love,
it is that you do not feel the same.

39
Sinking In
Stephen Graves

I drown in the thought of your lips touching mine

Whether by accident or misfortune that venture does me fine
In constant torture I stare and wait
For that moment, that instant for the barrier to break
I wait wondering if I'll ever know
Is she the one true love that I'll hand my heart to hold?
Will I warm her soul when its cold and our hands are held close?
If I chose, I suppose it would be just a dream
But a kiss means nothing unless it is shared between you and me.

40
Lament Seen in a Wineglass
Kendall Sewell

He passes her there by the bistro

each morning as they each go about their early routine.
He travels west, she east,
and her raven hair always dazzles him,
and she quickens his pulse toward explosion.
They meet and smile and say the howareyous and the finethankyous
and it’s over very quickly
and each day ends
quite bleakly.

He wonders why he thinks of impressing her while matching his tie to his shirt,
and she wonders why she imagines him as she chooses the perfect dress,
and she selects the perfect necklace, even still.
But they merely meet and smile and say the howsitgoings and the goodthanks
and he thinks only of the significance of man’s lowly place
before the gods.

And one day it comes to him

as he finishes his meal in his chosen isolation.
The cheap wine slips from his hand,
and the wineglass shatters into a thousand shards of desolate damnation.
“These, our lives,” said aloud and alone.

And in his mind he sees the devilish saints crowd around in black
and hooded raiment, each holding
a golden goblet of crimson Christ-blood
in a sort of perverse communion,
toasting his death with wicked grins and evil teeth.
And the wineglass slips from his hand.

The blood splatters and

—maddening—a rush to the head:
An epiphany found in blood-red wine,
though there is no feast
and there is no transubstantiation.
There are bloody outlines staining the edge of memory.

41
The fly on your wall can keep his position,
Elizabeth Comstock

I’d rather be the pillow you rest your head upon.

The pillow you cry in and the pillow that muffles the screams of delight in the night.

Kacie Goode

42
I Go Mad
Meagan Ray

I mark my days on concrete walls where

Others marked before like
The hieroglyphics of hope the
Ancient loonies scribbled before
They went mad inside these
Concrete walls where
We found remnants of crackers that
The roaches forgot to consume at
Our feet that refuse to kill yet
Only designed to run they
Go numb with misuse as we
Beat for an opportunity to
Escape these cells of
Academia that holds us the
Saddest of captives for we know
There must be more than
Scratching one’s days on an
Empty dorm room wall.

43
Velvet
Matthew Hicks

As my hand cuts
the red velvet crease
starts to show
a tInglIng feelIng spreads through
to my fIngertIps
my arms start to quIver
my head Is spInnIng
lIke a top on a table
my heart races then stops
lIke a halterIng crash
the velvet crease turns Into
an ocean of crImson
runnIng down then drop
splatters on the floor
lIke a tear hIttIng a cheek
I have a feelIng of remorse
I have a feelIng of regret
I have a lonely feelIng
I feel fear, sadness
yet wIth all of these feelIngs I smIle
I smIle cause wIth all of thIs
It hurts nothIng lIke my heart
blIsterIng paIn I feel day after day
from lonlynes, I search
for the one star brIghter than the rest
but lIke a leopard In a crowd
I am shunned away
I long for the one thIng I can’t have
for the golden crown of a kIng
when I am a mere peasant
I reach out for a hand that has taken another
so when that last moment comes
when the velvet water begIns to pour
smIle, cause the wound wIll heal
mIne will not
for the wound I hold
cannot be cured
the scar I have
Is deeper than the ocean floor
the one I reach
the one I adore
adores everyone else
and wants all the other bIrds
and doesn’t want
the bIrd with the broken wIng. 44
Broken Melody
Megan Hadley

He stood behind me with his arms around me and whispered into my ear
He’s not the one I wanted to say it, but it was what I wanted to hear
We lay together, cuddled up…and I couldn’t help thinking it was wrong
Being in his arms, while he sings to me our song.

45
It’s Just Another Day
Brittany Rose Wesley

A heart-wrenching scream in the alley,

The black-and-blue does not stop.
No one seems to be bothered,
But, they whisper that four-lettered word.
It’s just another day.
A little boy peeks into the toy store window.
His clothes are tattered and dirty,
There are bruises on his arms and legs.
But, the manager grunts and shoos him away.
It’s just another day.
A young man sits down at the café,
Eyeing the women with a come-hither look.
His conscience says don’t do this.
He looks at his ring with a critical stare.
It’s just another day.
Another walks down the aisle in a store.
His eyes catching the gleam of silver and gold.
He wears a filthy grin when no one notices.
His wallet is empty but his pockets are full.
It’s just another day.
She’s carrying a cane, moving it to and fro.
Her eyes say nothing, but her smile says it all.
Gangs of boys push her to the ground.
They all laugh and make fun of her.
However, she smiles and says,
“It’s just another day.”
A white cloth covers the bloody corpse.
There’s a hustling crowd behind the tape.
They want to see the most gruesome sin,
Not caring for the who or the why.
It’s just another day

46
Once More
Christina O’Rourke

I want. I want it so badly.

The burning need.
I need. I need. I need.
Gasping
To put it down. To walk away.
Oh, but the desire is so strong.
Just a little. Just a taste. Just once more.
Perspiring
No, no, no.
Yes, yes, yes.
Oh, by God help my soul.
Return, go back.
Leave, move on.
But.
No buts.
Shaking
What if?
No what ifs.
Heavy breathing.
Stop it.
I can’t do this on my own.
Yes you can.
No I can’t.
Yes, you can.
Sobbing
No. Please?
Never, not again.

47
Free Verse: "Love"
Phyllis Lewis

What life, what dreams,

what passion in my life-

to know that which I

have never known before,

to taste that which has

never touched my tongue,

warmth, liquid and gold,

giving and taking alike.

Sharing all that is with

with all that may become.

The light you have shattered

the darkness with-

Never did I know

how black was my world,

till your love

caused the sun to rise in it.

48
Megan Humphress

49
Aqua Regia
Sam Johnson

Dissolution.
Can we hold hands?
Does it dissolve the container it’s placed in?
Only composed materials?
Compounding.

Solvent.
Even gold?
Do you love me?
Water is universal, now.
Solidify.

Solution.
When it dissolves, it mingles,
Mixes, dances, limps around.
Where did you wake up?
Dissemination.

Acidic.
It burns if you touch it.
An ultimate medicine.
Does it salve your ills?
Base.

Sleep.
It’s hard to measure,
Natural chemical response.
Are we okay?
Awaken.

50
Automaton
Kendall Sewell

Grind with the gears

and operate efficiently
like the newest operating system and you’ll go
far, tells our reflections.

Automatic apparatus—
Robotic, programmed movement.
Card-swipe, drive on and red-light stop, break,
do it all again in fifteen.

Smile and exchange.

Never really know
(or remember, really)
what really was really—
Or has ever been.

Carry on in monotony
mistaking mundanity for vigor and vivacity.
Run
Like the fastest software
And pass me (and button click)
And forget that (exit, switch program)
And never really sleep.
Only run and run and run
on an autopilot-kind-of quiet release,
a separateness and an uninterrupted
socially-connected
unfettered and unrelated
silent and automatic world.

51
CATHARSIS
Meagan Ray

For whoever’s listening

I.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by tradition, cynical desperate

dependent
Scrambling along cracked sidewalks dimly lit by security lights surrounded by lethargic
flies and summer mosquitoes
Searching by the light of cracked cell phones for some kind of amusing event worth
retelling at a post-adolescent lunchtable
Who giggled at empty tales over cheap soda and swore they’d remember the joke to tell
Gatsby later
Who threw money at materialism in an effort to escape the terror of being another
number in a vague term called generation y but why care? Why bother?
Who wept to realize our art was a parody and joke
Who inhaled books in order to get good jobs, not because they are a driving life force
Who memorized clever clichés in order to be at the center of the room at another dull
party, wishing they could be cutesy and kitschy, wishing all the alcohol wasn’t
gone
Who wrestled with God by night and denied their own existence by day, wondering if
they were just a computer program like Spielberg said
Who were labeled as entitlement brats, but we’re just as good as anybody, I don’t want
everything given to me I just want someone to give a shit about me
Who were told to be humble and told to be the best in the same voice
Who were jailed for marijuana while convinced that O.J. was guilty
Who ran away to join an army or join a cult or join a movement or are all those really the
same thing anyway?
Who screwed in alleys because momanddad are home and they wouldn’t understand the
ecstasy of brooding tumultuous gasping riotous fucking
Who stayed up late watching porn and youtube and searching for the newest buzz to find
at least the semblance of life happening
Who supported homosexuality abortion drugs peace and tolerance but were deemed too
young to matter
Who colored slogans on white tennis shoes in order to plead for individuality
Who mixed their own Kool-Aid
Who ate food stamps and bummed cigarettes
Who watched the unhappiness of the squares and swore they would never follow that
path, so they went to art school and slept around and drowned themselves in
coffee and whiskey
Who weren’t the Lost Generation or baby boomers or Beats or Hippies or Yuppies or
anything really except a basket of puppies trying to figure out how to grow up in
the gutter

52
Who were only paranoid about facts, not the antichrist or tattoos or 2012 but about Wall
Street and war and death
Who fought through the depths of the cyber atmosphere instead of with chains and
crowbars
Who opposed family values but lived at home because rent is too high
Who watched the world crumble to desperate, arthritic knees and swore they’d put it back
together even if they couldn’t put themselves back together when the threw
themselves away
Who read every banned book and refused to accept traditional constraints of humanity
Who dressed in plastic and cellophane smiles, glittering shimmering incandescent
fakeness “made in China” stickers stuck to the bottom of long stiletto tips
Who were not color blind but saw the world in every promising shade and hue while still
being more skeptical about the inner thoughts of man
Who could debate over anything, but who has the time? Twisting digital watches around
thin wrists in order to absorb lost moments and communicate to the movers of
chess pieces that this little pawn wanted more than capture by the pristine queen
who gets to move in whatever direction she likes or the cocky rook who jumps in
inexplicable patterns that are impossible to gauge or the wise bishop or castle that
slides along the length of the board with splintering accuracy or god forbid the
ancient king who keeps the board moving
Who couldn’t remember when Kennedy was shot, but remembered being pulled out of
chalky classrooms to watch New York explode in a Pollock burst of color
Who watched the oceans move in a whirl of destruction but rebuilt with an arrogance
they could not truly feel
Who could warm the earth but could not do the same for burned-out tepid hearts
Who never slept with the lights on, tripping in the dark for a drink of fluoride water, but
made love under fluorescent bulbs because life is too short for the imagination,
one must use every sense, see hear smell touch taste
Who swayed to baby-makin’ music and throbbed against strangers in a bizarre search for
a rough mysterious harsh pulsing feeling they could not find
Who worshipped the cult of the peculiar, feathers glitter techno kazoos anything but the
classical, we make our own classical, we’ll spin in a world of our own making,
joining hands and walking on water, we’ll spit at naysayers and hippie-get-a-job-
ers
Who struggled to remind themselves that their parents were once young, who fought to
keep the ancients young, who fought to stay young
Who were so enamored by perfection that they dropped out of college because failure
was too looming and eminent to ignore
Who began their careers as cat ladies early
Who frantically ached for someone to share their smoldering hearts, searching to find
being in another being
Who googled their own name in the search bar and realized they had done nothing
Who realized they were nothing but also knew that they couldn’t judge the worth of a
life, even if one’s own source of life streaming crimson lovely blood sells on the
black market
Who scuttled in dumpsters to find something for ebay
Who downloaded stolen folk music because art at its most beautiful base value was to

53
 make people think and feel and even if the world sells those two things it should
be free
Who supported each freedom but fought with the first amendment tongue instead of the
second amendment weapon
Who poured out salt shakers and made lines on restaurant tables in order to scare the
waitresses
Who lay awake wrapped in cheap hospital sheets and only wanted to look outside and
feel the glow of stars and bite of bugs on their legs
Who sat on rooftops and wept, for they knew they were falling apart, and the choice of
crawling back into confining window or rolling off the building was too pressing
Who kept trying, but knew their demise was pre-determined

II.

What barren bitch keeps us empty and trite, demands that we pour our guts on the
cracked dirt and dries it as we scramble to wet our ashy mouths, oh Lazarus let a
drop fall on the sinner’s tongue
Atlacoya! Wretched! Mercenary! Glutton! Oil and rain smattered on canvas! Newspaper
blankets bleeding ink onto vagabond bodies! Blistering ballads a breath against
our bruises! Boring prophesies that cannot save us!
Atlacoya! Atlacoya whose skin is painted bronze! Atlacoya whose hair is peroxide
yellow! Atlacoya who smokes the same cigarettes as Mick Jagger! Sameness in
Atalacoya! Oneness in Atlacoya! Identical in Atlacoya!
Atlacoya who must be known! Atlacoya who must be popular! Atlacoya who sleeps with
senators! Atlacoya who sleeps with stars! Atlacoya the centerfold for fucking the
right man!
Atlacoya who worships sanity! rosaries! sanitariums! crucifixes with the body of Christ
raised up against gilt plastic! ten commandments! lawsuits! dharma! pay out the
hoo-ha for yoga classes! pay for what’s free! bottled tap water! yum!
Atlacoya who worships conformity! rolled bop socks and soft rock! wizards! vampires!
zombies! monsters under the bed! freaks on top of the bed! yabadabadoo! jeez
louise!
Atlacoya who promises boys education if they fight! Atlacoya who promises girls babies
if they shut up! Brainwashed in Atlacoya! Ransacked in Atlacoya! Patriots in
Atlacoya!
Atlacoya who took liberty and gave security! Atlacoya who rewrote holy documents
rather than write new ones! Atlacoya who led the masses to be made into solent
green!
Atlacoya who made stereotypes! cheerleaders! jocks! nerds! losers! goths! druggies!
preps! punks! basketcases! hipsters! nutjobs! rebels! bastards!
Homeless in Atlacoya! Dreamless in Atlacoya! Thirsty in Atlacoya!
Atlacoya whose veins are filled with ancient order! Atlacoya whose skin is covered with
symbols! Atlacoya whose breath is ripe with the blood of individuals! Atlacoya
whose heart is raw thumping consistency! whose heart never slipped up in its
pattern of beats because her heart never surrendered!
Atlacoya who made us all bricks in the wall! Atlacoya who did nothing to bring down the
Berlin Wall! Atlacoya who did nothing in Rwanda! Atlacoya who did nothing in

54
 the cities! Atlacoya who sat on her judgmental pompous ass and criticized!
Atlacoya who grew fat on the bodies of babies! Atlacoya who took Swift literally!
Atlacoya! Atlacoya! fake Chinatown purses! real human suffering! Oprah suggests
literature because she’s a genuine scholar! Cosmo sells the orgasm! McDonald’s
makes you fat! tabloids! news! gossip! read all about it!
Towers to Atlacoya! Rain dances to Atlacoya! Sacrifices to Atlacoya! Prayers to
Atlacoya! Threats to Atlacoya!
Atlacoya who kills authenticity! Murderer! Liar! Whore! Jezebel!
Atlacoya who is a virus! Atlacoya who shoots into subway stations! Atlacoya who passes
along country roads! Atlacoya who still travels Route 66 just as fast as the nearby
highway!
Atlacoya who will not bend! who will not pour out golden rain! who will not cure our
young coughs for newness! who keeps the earth sizzling with ritual! who
encourages habits!
Atlacoya who has nine lives! Atlacoya who cannot be killed! Atlacoya who cannot be
contained! We wear your chains! We curse your name as we slide into your bed!
We wrap our heads around your power as we wrap our hands around our throats!
nooses! guns! dynamite! goodbye! nail me upside down for the sake of
originality! oh brave new world that has so much fucked up in it!

III.

I’m with you in America

Where we are all free and equal and similar
I’m with you in America
Where you see the whites of scared eyes and the blue of bruises and the red of drip-drop
pitter-patter blood
I’m with you in America
Where we trek across the frozen land of liberty, apple pie and milk and honey
I’m with you at home
Where you grow madder than I
I’m with you at the institutions
Where Grandma is dying but surrounded by the best medical care available
I’m with you at Waverly
Where you hope to see a ghost of insanity but all you really have to do is save your
twenty bucks and look closely in a mirror
I’m with you at the JFK Space Center
Where we put men on the moon but could not save them from the infinite orbit of space
that envelopes us all
I’m with you at the cinema
Where beetlejuicebeetlejuicebeetlejuice could not perform the full instantaneous
exorcism necessary
I’m with you at the therapist’s office
Where you write out checks to learn your childhood was bad and you want to fuck your
own mother
I’m with you at revival meets
Where you twist your purity ring around your finger while daydreaming of slipping your

55
 hand up the preacher’s daughter’s skirt but shut up! Satan! Temptor! Demon!
Only virgins go to heaven!
I’m with you at the polls
Where I am not safe and you are not safe and now we’re really up shit’s creek
I’m with you at the protests
Where you wallow in the hot sweaty sticky mass of flesh that is group think
I’m with you at the universities
Where you learn that Skinner was right and Salinger was right and Darwin was dead
wrong
I’m with you at the cafes,
Where you sugar down your coffee so that it loses whatever strangeness it might have
created in your soul
I’m with you at the malls
Where a zillion shades of plastic cannot make you worth the hunger in your handbag
I’m with you at the bookclub
Where A Clockwork Orange prompts no horror but only sympathy for madness
I’m with you at the office
Where you are throwing in the towel, flinging towels out the window, bawling down
clinical hallways and being told to ‘shusssh’
I’m with you at the unemployment office
Where you are a number and I am a number
I’m with you at the monuments
Where you are amazed at granite statues that rival the Tower of Babel but we could never
really reach god, we could never really reach greatness, give me your poor and
hungry and we’ll ostracize the hell out of them, Irish need not apply, dirty
Mexicans need not apply, wear colored blue-eye contacts faux Aryan
I’m with you at the day cares
Where the kids yowl for mercy but are raised in stifling, sweating ovens in order to
protect them from the big bad world and bleached bread
I’m with you at the hospitals
Where they take your eyes and kidneys since the back of your license says ‘donor’ and
you’ve literally given everything for your country and humankind, why stop in
death? because even your guts are not your own, why let it be?
I’m with you at the morgue
Where you are just a lump under a sheet, returning to the ground in an iron vault instead
of the simple dust you are, trapped by modernity to the very end, choked in a
secure coffin instead of melting with the worms
I’m with you at the cemetery
Where ashes to ashes we float away and grow crazy, perhaps we would’ve been better off
sequestered in Rockland after all

56
Secret
Jessica Rinesmith
I have a secret. Locked up behind bars disguised as thin, pink lips, hiding behind
enormous white teeth and lodged in my scratchy, dry throat. It will not move. It cannot
move.
I barely think about the secret. Contemplating about it allows it to slide up my
throat, and the further up that it travels, the harder it will be to keep.
I've kept it for a while now. Not a soul knows, and I intend for it to always be that
way. I haven't told my Mom or Dad. I haven't told my sister or brother. I haven't told my
adorable golden retriever, White Banana, or the flowery-printed walls pressed around me
in the silence of my room. I haven't even told my diary.
It's not my secret to tell. It's yours. It's your secret, but I'm keeping it. We both
know it's safe here.

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Night terrors
Elizabeth Comstock
I awake to piercing screams, breaking the still of the night. It’s happening all over
again. She cries No! No! Stop it! I roll over grabbing her hips, pressing my body onto
hers. She wails and screams muffled names I recognize from her stories. I grab her wrists
to keep her from pulling out her hair. The hair she already ripped out tickles my wrist as
she twist and turns. She is screaming and crying, re-living it over again for the thousandth
time. She’s incredibly strong as I scramble for grip of her arms again. She keeps hitting
herself and me, arms wailing around and legs kicking. I, now under her while she lies
with her back to my chest, whisper it’s ok baby, I’m here. I’m here. Shhhh. Her body
begins to tremble as she begs for him to stop. I hold her tighter, hugging her so tightly she
cannot move. I wonder which one it is this time, and for how long this one will last. I
begin to grow weak from the constant thrashing. I try for it seems like hours to get her to
come back to me. Whispering it’s ok. Krystal, I’m here. I’m here baby. You’re safe. It’s
ok. Shh. I love you. Forty minutes go by before she jolts straight up, wide-eyed, and
panting. She rolls over on top of me, drenched with sweat. We make eye contact, her
mascara from earlier now runs lines down her cheeks. I can tell she is back, but she is not
coherent yet. I smile crookedly and kiss her. She lays her head, now soaked with sweat
and tears, on my chest. Her warm body shakes as she relaxes each muscle and lets herself
melt into my chest. I whisper It’s all over now baby. You can sleep. Knowing what she
was thinking, I reassure her I will be here when you awake ,my dear. I promise. She sighs
a near inaudible I love you before she drifts off into, now peaceful, slumber. I shortly
follow, and we drift together into our dreams.
I awake to the dark room. The lighting suggests the omniscience of a candle-lit
cabin off in the woods somewhere . I lie in bed, snug in the cool of the sheets on this hot
summer morning. And She lies next to me, half naked in the cool of the sheets. We lie
facing one another, her head upon the powder blue satin pillow offsetting her mocha
colored hair. I adjust my head onto my hand, propping myself up on my elbow. We both
lie there, half naked, in the dim light gazing into one another’s eyes, peering in to the
depths of one another’s souls.
She starts telling stories, looking up at the white clouds painted on my blue
ceiling. I watch her hands as they play out the stories, hanging on every word.
We both laugh, as the story ends on a lighthearted note. I take hold of her hand and hold
it tightly. She turns and looks at me, no longer focusing on the clouds. She huffs up at her
wavy chocolate hair through the corner of her mouth in an attempt to get her hair out of
her face. My heart weighs heavy in my chest as I know that she’s holding back, afraid
that her story might break me.
I smile, reassuring her of my strength and love for her. She moves in closer, our
hips pressed against each other. Our body heat offset by the fan circulating above. I
slowly move in, pressing my lips against hers. It’s honest and pure, no hidden motives of
sex or seduction. She takes a deep breath, I watch as her chest rises and sinks back down,
exposing her ribs. I gently pull her body closer to mine, entwining our bodies as if we
were one. I lean in and press my lips to her ear, and softly whisper I love you. You can
trust me. The fan hums above, and the sound fills the room.
10 seconds linger in the air like the odor of morning breath. My heart begins to
pound in my chest, as I begin to be as nervous and tentative as she. I breathe slowly,

58
trying to remain patient as I wait for her to gather her strength.
She tells me the story, of the first time she was mutilated. Her body shakes, but
not from the cold wind coming from the fan above. She tells me every excruciating
detail, the rasp in his voice, her friend in the other room letting it happen. My stomach
churns in anger and guilt, as she sets the scene in my head. Still, she goes on. She tells
me each word that his dirty ash tray of mouth said to her. My hands ball up into fists and
I can feel the blood rushing to my knuckles as all my muscles tense in rage. She tells me
what he used, to rob her of her innocence. She tells me how she went numb and tried to
block it out. My chest is bursting with fury with each detail that escapes from her lips.
She tells me how he would slap her so she paid attention. She told me how he told her she
wanted it, and he was going to make her feel good. I have never felt this much hatred for
any, thing, before in my life.
She’s told me these stories before. Each one gets worse as she trusts me more and
more. With each story she shows me more of herself, of who she is, and how she came to
be. Each story is a window into her entire being, for only me to see. The window, a
painful part of the healing process, as if cleansing a wound with peroxide, necessary for
healing, but excruciating all the same.
I keep a soft face. Squeezing her delicate yet strong hand tighter with each deep
breath she shutters, reminding her that I am here and she is not alone. In the silences of
the stories I picture what I’d do to the bastards if I ever saw them, going into gory detail.
I try not to let my body show the rage I am tackling inside.
Despite my best efforts to hide my anger, she sees. She sees the pain I feel for her,
and the guilt I place upon myself. She reassures me that she is fine and that she wants me
to never see those men. She assures me that each story she struggled through brought her
closer to the woman she is today, the woman with me.
She finishes her story, and I softly wipe away the tears that managed to escape her
eyes, trying to hide the tears in mine. With a heavy heart, I lean in and give her a kiss on
her forehead. She smiles, heavily, and curls into me the way a child curls into their
mother after a nightmare. I put my arms around her as she settles her wet face into my
bare chest.
For a moment, our hearts beat as one.
And for a moment, everything is ok. And I protect her from the cold outside.

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I, Refrain
Chris Ausbrooks

A younger spirit in a rooted body

Oh to dance the dance electric to take the road less traveled
To say I’d rather not
But life does not allow such frivolities.
Focus…that is the dance…Maturity its song
Were I a stronger man
I’d spit in the eye of those who demand I follow the well worn path
But the lot I’m cast speaks of “better” things
Things that others step on me to achieve
This is what man calls success
I call a yoke
Forced to trudge through the field of mediocrity
For a semblance of individuality
A crumb of self in a loaf of conformity
Words...the true teller of tales…the weaver of dreams
They speak when the mouth is silent
My cry, a soundless cacophony to those who would not listen
These words…my song
My epic
Read them and hope for yourself a moment of self
Free from the fetters of society
Break free and do not ask “What now?”
We all must paint our own portrait
And call it by its true name…self
My brush is Time and Imagination my paint
I need only to think it and it shall be!
Yet the bit of compliance pulls me back
Back to the world of sensibility and nightmare
A world that seems to have lost its sense me
By relying solely on the whole
But do not weep for this soul, for I cannot lament for yours
I could no more paint for you
Than you could write my song
I, alone, shall rage here now…with these words
If only for a moment
Against the tempest of docility and cry
I am me...and that is all that is or will ever be!

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The Paramour
Maria L. Cooper

The warmth of your skin upon my lips

So soft, so smooth
I kiss, I kiss
Feeling you
Now I am tasting you
With my tongue I am feeling you
“Are you thirsty? It is so...so...so hot in here. I am thirsty”
“Then let us drink”
The liquid burns my throat and leaves my lips tingly
The warmth from my belly oozes thru my body
To the very ends of my finger tips
I brush them across your cheek
Behind your ear they travel
Down the nape of your neck skipping
Over your collarbone to rest upon
Your breast
You breathe deeply and I withdraw
Your eyes how they want me
and yet how they push me away
The phone rings
“I'm sorry I have to take this”
“But of course feel free”
You try to keep your eyes from locking
with mine
But you cannot resist me, love
You turn from me
My hand touches your thigh then
embraces your waist
While my head leans ever so gently against your back
And kisses your bare shoulder
I feel you grow weak
You're falling into me
You cannot resist me
“I'm sorry I'm going to have to call you back”
“Mmmm...now where were we”
“Yes, where were we”
“I do believe we were about to settle in for a nap”
Comfortable with the idea
You snuggle up against me
Your head against my bosom
So tired you are, so in need of me

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You have had a very long and interesting day
And while parts may have been my fault I will make it better
I smooth your hair and kiss the top of your head
Then reach to turn out
The lamp
It is darkness, but we are not alone

62
Blinded by Zippo lights
Elizabeth Comstock

Drowning in Maybelline tears

Arms tattooed by ruby red designs
Covered by gaws and ace wrap.
Ribs buldging from the chest
Shoulder blades completely defined
Burn marks in places no one else can see
Eyes bloodshot
Insomnia taking over
Body shivering. Shaking. Cold
Stomach growling
Insides churning
Eating itself
Cramps all over
Jaws clenching
Air pierces the lungs
Each breath is more painful than the one before.
Hell. My lonely, inescapable solitude
Blood release, tears, pain
My own bittersweet abyss
And its all mine for the taking
My sweet paramour
Calling for me
Engulf me in your misery.

Victoria Joseph

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Making Love to an Angel
Matthew Hicks

Our eyes are locked

A gaze of volcanic passion and starstruck love
Heartbeat racing
pulse is rising
Desire is growing
with this infatuation

We are bonded together

forged as one
The allure of your gaze
Is amazing and enticing

The touch of your lips

is tantalizing and addictive
your gorgeous body entwined with mine
as you rock with your luscious hips
The sensation cannot be defined

Your smile is radiant

like the stars in the sky
I marvel at your heavenly structure
God blessed me with you by my side

Making love to you

is my only addiction
but with that contemplation
I will accept with ease
Cause there is nothing that compares to you and me
And this feeling I get as you lay on my chest
God how I am blessed.

64
Just A Little Hope
Brittany Rose Wesley

Seven days ago, the city of Evermore was once a city that had very well kept
green lawns, happy children, loving parents, and a sturdy government. It wasn’t like that
anymore. The lawns were full of weeds, the children were gone, the parents were gone,
and the government had collapsed.
The buildings were desecrated by plagues. The bricks that had once bolstered the
beautiful buildings had fallen, either flown, or melted off. The courthouse that was once
in the middle of the city was just an empty floor of stone that had once belonged to the
basement floor of the courthouse.
There was once a high-towered church that everyone joined for worship on
Sunday mornings, and occasionally Wednesday evenings. There used to be sunflowers
that paved the way to the stone steps of the atrium. There were now dead bodies. Bodies
that had once been wearing Sunday morning clothes of periwinkle blue dresses and black
suits. You wouldn’t be able to tell one body from the other. It was a disaster.
There was no more hope for the city of Evermore.
Or was there?
Although the church seemed as if it was completely destroyed like the buildings
around it, it was surprise to see that it was not so. The bright, intricate doors that once led
god-fearing people inside to worship were completely closed, but the glass windows in
the doors were cracked. There seemed to be no way to get inside.
However, upon closer inspection, there was one small hole from the destruction
under the front stone steps. Inside the church, it wasn’t as bad as it could be. Although the
windows were all broken, some of the stained glass still remained behind the pew. A
picture of Mary and Joseph was just one of those pictures.
The rows of seating were drenched from unnatural hurricanes. Bibles and hymn
books that were once held up in the front of the seats were now soaked and had been
thrown in every direction, as if an angry child walked through the aisles and threw a
tantrum.
The one thing that was still standing was the cross. It was the only thing that was
left unharmed in the church. Water dripped from the ends of it, but it was not singed, or
moved from its original placement.
Was it even possible?
A small noise assailed the silenced room. It was the only noise on Earth.
Hiccup!
Crawling out from under a fallen table was a small head of red curls. The head
turned upward, and a child of three or four with twinkling blue eyes bent at her knees and
looked around. Her surroundings did not disturb her in the slightest. Yawning, she rubbed
her eyes and got up off the floor. Her face was dirty with bits of dust and grime from
sleeping on the ground, but there was still a little tinge of red to her cheeks. She was
wearing a dirty, pink and white Sunday dress. They were now play clothes to her.
The little girl turned around, put her hand back under the table, and took a teddy
bear that was once white. It now had only one eyeball and its right ear was dangling with
bits of string. “Come, Teddy,” she whispered and hugged her teddy close to her, as her
arms shivered in fright.
65
 Hiccup!
“Excoose me,” she said, walking towards the back of the altar where a leaning
bookcase was. On the lowest shelf, there were boxes of cheese crackers and vanilla
wafers. The girl took the box of crackers and opened it, sticking her hand in while
making sure her teddy was still in her arms. “You want some, Teddy?” she asked as she
held a handful of crackers in her hand. The teddy didn’t respond. She made her way to
the pews and sat down, not caring that her bottom was getting wet from the soaked
cushions. Hiccup! “Excoose me, again.” She swung her legs and pretended to feed her
teddy. “Teddy? Do you know when our Mommy and Daddy are coming? Evyone left.”
The teddy bear didn’t answer her.
The little girl put the box down, wandered toward the doors, and tried to push
them open with her dirty hands, but they didn’t budge.
She was trapped.
The little girl sniffled and sat down on the ground in front of the doors, waiting. “I
want my Mommy.”
Several minutes passed and then the little girl heard something.
“ – do you mean there’s one left? Haven’t you seen the look of this place? Earth is
nothing. There are dead bodies scattered outside the church. It’s ridiculous. You should
have made it a little cleaner. There shouldn’t even be a single human alive after this kind
of destruction.”
The little girl stood up quickly, almost toppling over in her urgency. She ran
behind one of the pews in the middle. The voice was not familiar to her.
“Why would you care? Even if there’s someone here, they’ll be close to death
anyway. You should know Famine already took care of it.”
The front doors banged open and were thrown off their hinges. The girl squealed
in fright and her eyes widened. She quickly put her hands to her mouth to silence herself.
Salty tears streamed from her eyes down her pale, gaunt cheeks.
“You have got to be kidding me! The cross is actually still standing. Even after all
of this. I detest that child. I thought I had Him thousands of years ago, but – Yes, yes. I
know!”
A tall figure with flowing, black hair stepped into the church. His eyes were a
soulless black and there was no kindness in them at all. He was wearing a pitch-black suit
with an undone black bow tie. The only thing that wasn’t black was his skin, which was
actually quite pale compared to the little girl’s. In his right hand, he held a scythe. In his
left, he held a cell phone to his ear.
The girl moved her head so that she was able to see the strange person. She
couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t think he looked mean. Her older brother wore the
same costume when they dressed up for Halloween last year. She giggled and her tears
stopped.
“Have you any idea what this human looks like? Are they male or female? Young
or old? Or even where they are hiding in this desecration? I don’t see anybody, just a
rundown church. I’m losing my patience with you, Lucifer. Even though you’re the – “
Hiccup!
“Wait.” The figure removed the cell phone from his ear and moved forward. The
little girl popped up from behind the pew. The stranger’s empty, black eyes bore into her
blue ones. “Nevermind,” he said into the phone and flipped it shut without hearing
the answer, putting the phone inside a pocket of his suit.

66
 “Hi.” The little girl said, waving her hand and smiling at him.
The figure stepped forward, but did not move too close to her. He lifted his mouth
into a small smile and bent at his knees so he was at her level. His black hair moved to
the side of his face as he tipped his head sideways and spoke in a kinder voice than he
had on the phone, “Well, hello there, little girl. What might your name be, Sweetie?”
“Are you a stranger?” she asked, biting her bottom lip. “My Daddy says I’m not
allowed to talk to strangers.” The figure chuckled.
“No, I am not.”
“Oh,” she said and smiled widely at him. “I’m Hope,” she pulled up her teddy
bear, “and this is my bestest friend, Teddy. I’m almos’ four. Wha’s your name?”
“You’re four? You’re a big girl.” The figure bypassed her question smoothly.
“You wan’ know my birfday?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “It’s
Seppember 13, and it’s really close. Thas what my Sunday school teacher said. She’s
smart.”
“That must be exciting. Do you know what you have planned for your birthday
party?” The figure wanted to smile at her exuberance. The little girl’s eyes were bright as
she nodded enthusiastically. It had been a long time since she was able to talk to someone
besides her teddy bear.
“I goin’ to Chuck E. Cheese’s! Sara, Mary, and Joey is coming too. They my best
friends.” She stood up and hugged her teddy bear tight, “You have a best friend, Mr.
Sir?”
“No, I don’t.” he answered her.
Her eyes widened and she reached out a hand to his face and patted it, “Everyone
needs best friend. I be your best friend, ok?”
The figure took her hand from his face, cradled it in his own, and swung it back
and forth in the air between them. There was a small silence between them and then his
cell phone began to ring. The figure ignored it and said, “It’s my birthday today. How
would you like to get some chocolate cake and ice cream with me?”
“I really like chocolate. I can have sprinkles on da ice cream, Mr. Sir?”
“Oh, of course. Anything you want, Sweetie.” His eyes twinkled and he stood up,
not letting go of her hand. The cell phone started to ring once more and the figure sighed,
annoyed. He leaned his scythe against one of the pews, took out his cell phone, and
looked at the Caller ID. It took him a moment to speak, “Just give me a moment and we
can go get that ice cream.” He watched her nod, then flipped his phone open and put it to
his ear.
“What?” the figure asked angrily. There was silence from him as he looked down
at the curly-red-haired girl who smiled at him. “Yes. She’s still alive.” Pause. “I really
don’t like talking to you, but I guess you have a point.” Pause. Hope started to swing their
hands back and forth again, already getting tired of being quiet. “I would think that
someone of your reputation would stray from making such a statement of pride. For
instance, the miraculous cross still standing behind the pulpit!” He rolled his eyes at the
answer on the other line. “I didn’t sign up for the job, pal. Moreover, stop calling me that.
You know I do not like being called that. It is a degrading name.”
“Mr. Sir, I getting hungry.” Hope said, pulling on his arm with a small frown. The
figure looked down at her and heard a small sound that came from the girl’s stomach. It
was unmistakable.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you something soon,” he said and went back to the

67
conversation on the phone. “Well, when do you want her?” Pause. “I have one request.
Make sure Gabriel isn’t there waiting at the Gate. The angel gives me the creeps. You
should give him another job.”
“Angels are perty,” Hope pulled on his arm, frowning up at him at his description of an
angel.
The figure looked back down at her and raised his eyebrow, “Are they? That’s
interesting, I didn’t know they were.” There was a sound from his cell phone and he
rolled his eyes. “If Gabriel is not there, then yes I will come immediately.” He sighed.
“You know Lucifer is not going to like this. He called me before you, wanting to get here
first. He had first dibs.” Pause. “I don’t have a heart, pal, so I can be heartless. Oh! Don’t
start saying that mumbo jumbo. It doesn’t suit me.”
“Mr. Sir, my stomach growled again!”
The figure quirked his eyebrow, “Seriously?”
“Mmhmm,” she nodded.
“I’ll be there soon. If that angel is there, then I will not be doing you any more
favors for the next century. That’s a lot of dead guys.” The figure flipped his phone shut
and looked down at Hope with a strained smile. “Come, Hope, I’m going to take you
home.”
“Mommy and Daddy there?” she asked happily.
The figure looked around the church, nodding. “I have no doubt.” The figure
picked up Hope into his arms and exited the church. As they started walking down the
street, Hope got smaller and smaller … and then there was no sound of feet upon the
ground, nor the happy giggling of a little girl.
Death snatched Hope. For good.

68
The Night Awaits
John Overby

He sits in front of his plasma television.

There’s a drink at his side.
A Seinfeld marathon is on,
But he knows what’s coming.
The night is coming.

He sits pondering the worst,

Hoping for the best.
But the clock keeps ticking,
It keeps tocking.

His possessions are countless,

And so are his duties.
One night off is all he asks.
Just one night.

The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler

They’re all in Arkham.
But they always get out.
Always.

The clock has finally ticked its final tick.

It has tocked its last tock.
It’s finally nighttime in Gotham City.
He takes one last drink,
And he’s off.

69
Roses
Christina O’Rourke

Just as a rose comes

it goes.
Just as you are born
you die.
While a rose is wilting
you are dying.
And just as the last petal
falls
and touches the ground
without a scent
in the air, your breath leaves
you
and there is nothing but
deadly silence.
Just as a rose falls,
so do you.

70
Master of Evils
Elizabeth Comstock

I knew I shouldn’t have done it. No matter how bad someone is, you shouldn’t destroy
them. Be HE was no human. The deeds he did, no other human being could look into his
mind without wishing death upon themselves to end the torture. His mind is twisted; it
has a whole being of its own. Living off victims, parasitic, disgusting. Prying into their
feeble minds, putting thoughts in their minds, changing their morals, making them think
they have no self worth. Such manipulation causes the rest of the world to suffer.
Convincing his victims that they have no worth, ripping away their dignity, stripping
them of their well-being. A master of evils. His knotted soul gains pleasure from their
pain. Their tears and blood making him wet. He takes delight in their piercing screams,
agonizing torture. Gut wrenching pain, his arousal. Fantasies just like the nightmares of
others. His hopes, his dreams, his desires, to become notorious, yet never restricted by
rules of others. The destroyer, the giver, the master of evils.

71
Only Fairy Tales
Brittany Rose Wesley

There was one who dreamt in shadow,

Trapped in a cursed cage,
Wishing to fly high,
Dancing alone in the dark,
Believing only fairy tales.

72
Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
Meagan Ray

I used to slay dragons, back in the day.

Bitter air chaffed my nose crimson as I stood against terrific/terrifying creatures
My hair flew in my eyes as the wind wrapped sheets of January at my angled jaw
But now it’s spring, and thus the real monsters appear
Because horror I can deal with but ecstasy?
Sprinting spinning swirling ecstasy?
I can shimmy over NO TRESPASSING signs, but WELCOME mats? alarming
Because, well, what if I embrace it? if I welcome the revelry/revelations of the new, if I
shed winter skin and slice the stubble on my legs away, if I glisten in the balmy
sun and rub ice cubes along my angled jaw and as they melt I melt
And what if I was wrong? what if there is joy in deceit and I was tricked/taken by the
optimism of naivety?
What if the meadows I fled to by day are cemeteries by night? and the coffin has space
smeared inside for me?
But what if I’m only paranoid?

Jim Brown

73
Untitled
Nicolas Schrager

Scattered across the passenger seat of his gold ’93 Ford Ranger was his supplies;
three bottles of water, two Cliff bars, an assisted opening pocket knife, a Ruger Single-
Six, a book of label-less matches and his last pack of cigarettes… Winston’s. Everything
but the pistol either slid rattles or rolled across the seat as he drove along the abandoned
dirt service road.
It’s a common misconception that the desert is always hot. The truth was, our
nameless character was cold. Very cold. The desert temperature can be unforgiving at
night, especially in the winter. The biggest desert in the world is Antarctica he thought to
himself as he exhaled with an open mouth so that he could see his own breath. It was six
antemeridian and the sun poked up from the horizon in front of him. No matter going to
or coming from, the sun was always in his face. He made a note not to walk towards the
sun today. No need to be miserable, today of all days.
After twenty more minutes of driving he turned off of the service road and began
driving into the desert, winding around the dead growth, rock and cactus. There was no
need to disturb them, no need to leave a trace of where he went or where he was going.
Three hours before this when he had awoke, he skipped his coffee and instead made a
cheese sandwich and washed it down with Maalox and Coke. That was an excellent
breakfast. It wasn’t filling but soothed his stomach which was rotten from the whiskey
and egg dinner from the night before. After breakfast he called in sick from work. No one
was in the shop but he left a message on the answering machine just the same. He wasn’t
sure why he hadn’t said that he quit.
The Native-Americans called these sorts of things “Spirit Quests” or “Spirit
Journeys.” He thought to himself that he guessed that that was what he was doing, except
that he had no intention of returning to civilization or his life with some kind of new-
found vision of what was, what is or what is to be. In fact, there was no plan to return at
all. There was no point to. It wasn’t exactly a plan to die either, but he knew that he
would. That- was inevitable. The thought of death did not haunt him, but he had
wondered then why he have even bothered with the gun, It wasn’t for self defense or for
hunting and he thought; Maybe I’ll just do myself in when I can’t walk any further.
After a while longer of zigzagging the rough desert terrain, our nameless
character slowed the aging pickup to a stop. He lit the first cigarette of his pack and
inhaled deeply. This is where my journey will begin he thought and from the floorboard
of the passenger seat he picked up his Jansport backpack that he had had since high
school (which seemed like a century ago) and put his food and water in. He put the
cigarettes and matches in the front pocket of his flannel jacket and once out of the truck,
he put the holstered pistol on his belt. This was it, the point of no return. Turning around
now was pointless, Even if he had, he wouldn’t remember how to get back to the service
road. He slung the bag over his shoulder and slammed the door shut. One last look
through the window revealed that he had left the keys in the ignition. He decided that he
would leave them there, it’s not like anyone was going to steal the truck. Conserve your
energy, conserve your water, conserve your food, there’s no need to rush to your death
he thought- and then; don’t walk towards the sun.

74
 And he was off.
No step in particular was difficult to take, but the first ones he took were in stride
with ease- and had he looked back he would have seen that there was a slight breeze that
erased the print from every step he took. Nature agreed with his plan and was helping
him disappear. That day- was meant to be.

75
Under an Overpass and During a Rainstorm
Kendall Sewell

there is silence
and a hushed stillness.
Quiet reflection and
a two-second eternity
of utter other-worldliness.

Fleeting,
it’s the murmured breath before

the plunge;
an order to the bedlam
and a short interlude in life’s trivia.

[A glimpse of serene simplicity] – gone, and

(Cut to black)

and the water falls

(and the water falls)

and the water falls

and it deafens you.

76
Those Need Us
Amy Martin

Those who cannot speak need a mouthpiece from those of us who cannot shut up.
Those who are in pain need those of us who have been in pain and have survived.
Those who are hurt, need those of us who are blessed enough to know how to heal.
Those who are not worth saving need those who must save them all.
Those who are on their last leg need two to carry them all the way.
Those who cannot sleep need those of us who are dreamers.
Those who are broken need those of us who have already been mended.
Those who have no one need those of us who have too many.
Those who cannot find hope need us to show them there is.
Those who are lonely need those of us who know what it is like to be alone.
Those who can only make it one step at a time need us who are willing to step a mile.
Those who are on their last breath need us to give them ours.
Those who are without, need those of us who have too much.
Those who don’t know where to turn need those of us who wrote the map.
Those who are hungry need those of us who can feed them.
Those who need need those of us who can give to those in need
Those Need Us.

Megan Humphress
77
 Notes on Contributors

Christopher J. Ausbrooks, from Scottsville, KY, is a sophomore majoring in Business

Management at the Scottsville Campus.

Tiffany Berger is a Junior English/Journalism and History major from Cumberland

County, KY. She is grateful to all her friends and family for encouraging her love of
photography.

James Brown is who he is, and is thankful for his many teachers, who are no fewer in
number than each individual whom he has ever come to know.

Liz Comstock is legit. Ask your mother.

Maria Cooper is a senior English and Secondary Education major. She is a free spirit and
a romantic who likes to take the time to stop and enjoy all the precious things in life. She
loves to listen to music and dance, to cook amazing food, and to spoil her two darling
furry babies, Lilly and Jazzmin.

Brandi Crowe is a freshman from Mount Hermon, Kentucky. She’s a Bonner Student
Leader and in ACES. She loves incorporating art into the everyday.

Kacie Goode is a sophomore from Bardstown, Ky. As a Journalism major she finds this
collection to be a refreshing break into creativity and individual expression.

Ashley Graves graduated with a degree in Communications from LWC and is currently
working on her Masters in Human Services and Counseling. She serves as graduate
assistant for the Women’s Studies program and directs the Catherine Wilson Center. She
is also planning for her September wedding while taking care of her four precious dogs.
Stephen Alexander Allen Graves from Milltown, Ky is currently a 3rd semester senior
who participates in Band and Wrestling. Je parle francais beaucoup, l'espanol un peut, y
nihongo sukoshi demo musique es ma vie, y mi vida es musica.

Megan Hadley has become a lot of things but was born a poet.

Kathryn -aka- Katie Hammond a senior double major in Human Services and Counseling
and Christian Ministries from Russell Springs, KY.

Matthew Hicks, from Columbia, Kentucky is a sophomore majoring in journalism.

Megan Humphress is a sophomore from Louisville, Kentucky, majoring in History.

Sam Johnson lives in Columbia. Majors in English. Would be the hardest endboss ever if
you faced him in a video game.

78
Victoria Joseph, from Essie, KY, graduated 2010 with a Master's of Education in
Counseling & Human Development and appreciates the beauty that is found in every day
life.

Phyllis Lewis is a non-traditional student from Greensburg, KY. She returned to finish
her degree after a 15 year break in her education, taking care of her family. She is mother
of 5 and grandmother to 15. Her goal is to teach Secondary English Education. She says
the support of her husband helps keep her going.

Amy Lea Martin of Corbin Ky is a non- traditional student majoring in Human Services
and Counseling at the London campus. At 34 she works an EMT and is a Graduate
Assistant at London. She is pursuing her degree so that she can provide a better life for
her daughter Jenna.

Christina O'Rourke is a second year student double majoring in English and Elementary
education. While long walks on the beach are great, she really enjoys creating alternate
realities and multitasking way too many things at once.

John Overby is a Journalism/Writing double major from Creelsboro, Ky.

Luis Parra is a senior Communications major from Venezuela. He plays varsity baseball
at Lindsey Wilson College.

Brittany Pike is a senior Psychology major from Taylor County, KY. She says it’s not
always easy transforming feelings into words, but once you do there is no greater
freedom.

Meagan Ray would like to thank her haters. Look at me now!

Jessica Rinesmith, from Shepherdsville, KY, is inspired by anything and everything,

from a simple trip to the grocery store to something someone has said or done.

Nick Schrager believed that paper never judges you, but learned that readers do; thank
you reader.

Kendall Sewell is still scrawling in the details with a wastebasket by his side.

Anna Sundean is a sophomore from Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. She is a member of the

track and field team and is majoring in English/Education.

Brittany Rose Wesley is a junior from Bowling Green, Kentucky. She is majoring in
English Literature, and hopes to become a writer.

Danae Wesley is too cool.

79
The Legend of Orpheus

The ancient Greek mind was both subtle and skillful and the legend of Orpheus
(pronounced or΄-- fee – us) amply epitomizes this. Orpheus (‘he of the river bank’) was
the son of Apollo, god of poetry, and the Muse Calliopé (‘she of the fair voice’), who
gave birth to him on the banks of the Hebrus River in Thrace. Such was his power of
verse and song, he could move the trees and rocks and tame wild beasts. He was given
the gift of the lyre by Apollo. When his wife Eurydice died from a serpent’s bite during
their wedding celebration, Orpheus, in his grief, descended to the underworld – no easy
task for a mortal – to attempt to win her back from the land of the dead.
Arriving at the judgment seat of Persephone and Hades, rulers of the underworld,
Orpheus began to sing his lament for Eurydice. So sweet was his voice that the dead,
including Eurydice, flocked to hear him, weeping for the beauty of the upper world,
which was lost to them. Persephone and Hades were so moved, they chose to let Orpheus
take Eurydice back to the world of daylight, on condition that he not turn to look at her
until they had reached the upper world. Hermes, the guide of souls, led them on the
arduous journey back to the land of the living.
With his foot on the very threshold of the day-lit world, Orpheus, whether from
impatience or anxiety, turned around too soon – Eurydice was not yet out of the realm of
the dead. Because of the edict of Persephone and Hades was irrevocable, Hermes was
forced to lead Eurydice back to the eternal darkness. Though Orpheus wandered for days
through the dark caverns and tunnels of the netherworld, pitifully calling out his wife’s
name, he never found her again.