TELL YOUR

STORY
 SORIN OAK REVIEW
VOLUME 30
2020

Copyright © 2020 St. Edward’s University

All Rights Reserved

The Sorin Oak Review is an annual publication of St. Edward’s University.

The views expressed in this journal are those of the individual authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the editors, staff, or the university.

St. Edward’s University

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2020 Sorin Oak Review

Printed by OneTouchPoint, Austin, Texas
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS
Dear Reader,
This issue marks the 30th volume of the Sorin Oak Review. That’s three
decades of issues being published here, at our St. Ed’s campus. When we, the
editors, sat down to discuss what being a part of such a long legacy meant to us, we
were overwhelmed. We shared our personal feelings and experiences, but the one
thing that kept coming up is the sense of community we all share. Our dedicated
designers embodied this concept beautifully within the cover design of this issue.
We see this issue as being an addition to a larger narrative; even if it may seem
like it stands alone, this volume is a part of a long line of issues published by the
Sorin Oak Review. This new volume 30 is entering into a longstanding community,
represented by the roots on our cover that every reader becomes a part of as they
open the issue. However, just as we strive to honor the legacy that this issue is
entering into, we also want to look towards the future. We want to hear new stories,
and we want to see creativity grow as time moves on. Everyone has a story to
tell, they just need a safe space to do so, a judgment-free zone to be heard and
cherished. Which is why we implore every reader to find your own way to “tell your
story.”
Our sense of community is what led us to our motto of “tell your story.”
Oftentimes, producing creative work can feel lonely and can make a person feel
isolated. The creative process can happen anywhere—in your bedroom, taking a
walk, in a coffee shop, during class, in the middle of the night, over a cup of tea—
but it can feel lonely because creativity happens within the confines of the human
brain. However, after the inspiration, the iteration of creating, the self-doubt, and the
introspection comes the best stage: sharing. While being a creative seems lonely,
every artist through the action of creating is contributing to a larger community
where art can be expressed and shared. It is our opinion as the editors of this year’s
volume that, in a world of individual accomplishments and individual creation,
real success is collaboration. Real success is community. Especially with all of
the behind the scenes work that so many people have put into the creation and
completion of this journal despite the obstacles presented to us by the worldwide
pandemic of COVID-19, we have certainly learned the importance of community.
We have integrated this sentiment into every aspect of creating this year’s issue.
In the past, our writing and visual departments have been completely separated.
However, it was important to us this year to remain as collaborative as possible.
We understand that sometimes words are insufficient in conveying a particular
emotion, and sometimes art is unable to convey what words are able to express.
That is why we have strived to create a bridge between the written word and the
experience of the visual arts within this 30th volume of the Sorin Oak Review.
We can’t even begin to stress how important this goal is to us. We believe that
everyone’s stories—unique, beautiful, traumatic, etc.—should be told. It shouldn’t
matter in what medium a person chooses to express themselves. A story is a story.
Human experience is diverse and the discrepancies between each individual’s
experiences are what allow us all to learn from each other and to be inspired by
each other to create. To the people who understand the importance of this mission
and the importance of the Sorin Oak Review as an artistic medium, thank you. To
our amazing faculty advisor, Sasha West, thank you for all of your guidance and
facilitation of our creativity. To our wonderful visual faculty advisors, Tuan Phan and
Jimmy Luu, thank you for helping our designers produce artwork that highlights
all of the best of their abilities. To Dean Sharon Nell, thank you so much (words
aren’t enough to express our tremendous gratitude); without you, we wouldn’t have
even been able to print this issue amidst the trials of the COVID-19 pandemic and
your generous, above-and-beyond support is invaluably appreciated. To all of our
wonderful staffers and review board members, thank you for your dedication and
passion for the arts that we are able to celebrate in this volume. To every contributor,
thank you so much for allowing us to share your stories with the world and for
inspiring us to become better artists ourselves. Finally, thank you, dear reader. We
hope that, after you read this issue of the Sorin Oak Review, you are able to connect
to someone else’s story and that it inspires you to tell your own story.
With much love,
The Sorin Oak Review Editorial Team
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
8 THE HOSPITAL WHERE I WAS 29 ICECREAM STRIKE 52 baby, you told me it was 70 the Gate
BORN FORGOT TO CUT THE POEM BY JILLIAN HORTON all a choice POEM BY NICOLE CACHO
UMBILICAL CORD POEM BY VICKY ORTEGA
POEM BY JESSICA ENRIQUEZ
30 DEVOUR AT YOUR LEISURE 73 BRAIDS, DREADS, BEADS,
POEM BY KAT MCCOLLUM
53 AN EYE SCRATCHED BUNDLES
9 to my miren (蜜人) POEM BY JENNIFER SLAVIK POEM BY MADI COTTON
POEM BY VICKY ORTEGA
31 MY CALF (SLAUGHTERHOME)
POEM BY VICKY ORTEGA
54 ROAD KILL TALLY 74 LUNA MOTH
10 BLUE POEM BY KAT MCCOLLUM VISUAL BY ARI REYES
POEM BY ARIEL CLARY
32 PISS OFF, BLONDIE
75
PROSE BY ARIEL CLARY 55 YOUR NAME IS A PALINDROME WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE
11 BUTTERFLY TELESCOPE POEM BY EMMA BERNHOFT AMERICAN?
VISUAL BY ARI REYES PROSE BY ZAINA ALI
38 FINGERMOUTHS
POEM BY VICKY ORTEGA 56 KAITLIN VIOLA
12 RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH A VISUAL BY JENNA BUCHANAN 77 MY FAVORITE PLACE
SUNFLOWER POEM BY MADI COTTON
POEM BY ERICK NAJERA 40 BUSY BODIES PART 1
57 A PIANIST’S LAST REQUEST
BUSY BODIES PART 3 POEM BY ARIEL CLARY 78 APPROPRIATION
15 WHEN I’M DEAD I WILL BE VISUALS BY TORI STELL POEM BY JESSICA ENRIQUEZ
BEAUTIFUL
58 ONE-HUNDRED DOLLARS
POEM BY KAT MCCOLLUM
42 THE PROCEDURE POEM BY EMMA BERNHOFT 79 DUMBO, BROOKLYN
PROSE BY ANNIKA STROUT VISUAL BY ANDREA GONZALES
16 SOMETIMES YOU CAN SEE
59 WE LIVE, WE DIE,
PEOPLE'S PAIN
POEM BY JENNIFER SLAVIK 47 WHISPERS WE LIVE AGAIN 80 MANAGED MAGIC
VISUAL BY EMILY LAWSON VISUAL BY ARI REYES POEM BY MADI COTTON

17 BETTER
48 I AM TWILIGHT
60 WHEN THE FLAME DIES 81 WRITING THE FUTURE
POEM BY EMMA BERNHOFT
POEM BY JILLIAN HORTON PROSE BY ALEXANDRA MOJICA POEM BY JILLIAN HORTON

18 A CLARIFYING MOMENT
VISUAL BY ALYSSA NOEL 49 THE HEART OF THE HEART
67 WHISPERS REMADE 82 STAFF
POEM BY EMMA BERNHOFT VISUAL BY EMILY LAWSON

19 THE ICEBERGS
50 84 CONTRIBUTORS
PROSE BY LOGAN ROBICHAUD
CONFESSION
POEM BY KAT MCCOLLUM
68 EXPATRIATES
POEM BY JESSICA ENRIQUEZ

28 FEVER DREAM
51 PLAYING WITH FIRE
69 SUN-KISSED MIGRANT
VISUAL BY EMILY LAWSON
POEM BY JENNIFER SLAVIK WORKER
POEM BY MELVIN VIZCAINO
 Jessica Enriquez
THE HOSPITAL WHERE I WAS BORN
FORGOT TO CUT THE UMBILICAL CORD
–after Diane Seuss
My mother says
that I’ll grow up to marry a man
one foot taller than me
We will live in a mobile home on the outskirts of the city
where wildflowers bloom and spread like untamed fire
I’ll wash his linen shirts with Woolite
like father’s
and watch them dry in the afternoon sun
while bones shrivel and wings disintegrate
I’ll sit in the old chair bitten by the invisible dog
on a porch eaten by termites
and watch the moon dwindle and dissipate
behind the branches of pallid trees
She will come visit every so often
wearing that detestable, oversized coat
mid-June
to remind me that plates
must be rinsed before cups,
coffee brewed before the sun peeks
through the window
and that chick wings must always be clipped at birth
8 9
to my miren (蜜人)
Vicky Ortega
i wonder how much honey you’ve had to swallow: to
sew your eyes together, to teach my mouth how to
say numbers, letters of the alphabet, without crying out
for the honey entombed inside your glossy, aching throat.
 
you’ve had to sew your eyes together to teach my mouth: to
glue itself together, to preserve your voice inside me because
the honey has entombed you inside your glossy, aching throat,
bathing you inside the coffin of your body, a sweet honey hive.
 
you’ve had to glue yourself: to preserve your voice inside me, to
coat my hands with small drops of your bloody, embalmed body,
bathing you inside the coffin of my body, a sweet honey hive,
because you’re my medicine, miren, my very own mellified man.
 
you’ve had to coat my hands with drops of your embalmed body: to
make yourself a confection of honey in my open mouth, curing me,
for you are my medicine, miren, my very own mellified man,
you’ve become a pot of gold sweat licking down your cold body.
 
you’ve become a confection of honey in my open mouth, so i can
say numbers, letters of the alphabet, without crying over you
becoming just a drop of gold sweat licking down my warm body.
i wonder how much of you i’ve had to swallow too.
 BLUE
Ariel Clary

He was melting into the waves,

being tossed from here to there.
Some would say he didn’t care to swim,
that he was waiting for the hand of the sea
to draw his last breath from his quivering lips.
Others thought he didn’t know how to swim,
that he was scared and beaten black and bruised,
falling and tumbling in rhythmic waves
to make it look like he meant to.
But really, he did more than swim.
He melted. He adapted and changed
as he needed, to fit a glass or fill a pool.
Those who understood were pleased,
but he never was. He was blue.

BUTTERFLY TELESCOPE
Ari Reyes

10 11
 RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH
A SUNFLOWER
Erick Najera

I catch a flower in its natural habitat and dismember it from the ground. I lift it up to She loves me not.
admire its body, and suddenly a deja vu hits my consciousness. I remember a harmless An old demon replied laughing, he confessed to me that his name was Yahweh, he also
and childish game in which I decide to submerge for old times. told me that he sent his son to earth just to fuck things up more.

She loves me. She loves me.

I feel how all her eyes protect me from the unknown shadows. I still remember the first time you undressed that neon color smile of yours in public, you
She loves me not. perverse and adrenaline exhibitionist that I adore.
Out of nowhere, two simultaneous heart attacks crash against my thorax, one for each She loves me not.
lover. The pure gold statue that I will sculpt one day in your honor will be rusted, and it will
have a decadent bismuth color.
She loves me.
Now I read binary code and it makes me laugh. She loves me.
She loves me not. Eve was created from Adam’s rib. But, to create my love, God disarmed the Eden from
this world and compartmentalized it in one unique and youthful soul.
She loves me. She loves me not.
Colors from my childhood suddenly appear, those that one can only remember with the The tree where we meticulously carved our past, present, and future is sick and is slowly
help of melancholy.  rotting, peeling away our most beautiful passages.
She loves me not.
The light burns down after an explosion that sounds like a funeral scream. Now She loves me.
everything around me is opaque with an unbearable heat. I’m the color of the battle cry, the hope that emerges from the soldiers’ souls because
they always have your love for company, motherland.
She loves me.  She loves me not.
The tides of my brain finally calm down, thanks to that drop of hope that fell into that None of my actions produce any sound; not the steps, nor the laughs, neither my tears
deep sea. nor my inner drums. I entered a solemn and comatose mourning for you.
She loves me not. 
I am shipwrecked in salt while my mouth breaks in thirst, and the only thing to drink is She loves me.
old water from a camel’s back. Everything looked more alive. Is it normal for the walls to smile with me when I think
about you? Normal for my cigarettes to perish because they can kill me and will part me
She loves me. from you? Is it normal that not even the worst poems can bring everyone down because
All the gunshots cease for a complete second. your smile is waiting for them at home?
She loves me not.  She loves me not.
It was only to aim better at the victim. I received eight from eight different felines: leopard, panther, lion, tiger, wildcat, cheetah
and cougar. Each one said that I was a fool for believing your love. 
She loves me.
I shoot blessings to the all-mighty thanking him for his gratitude upon this inept insect She loves me.
who found you and regained faith. I can’t wait: to travel with you and see the tilapia emigrate to the Sahara desert, to watch

12 13
 the camels take a dip in the Dead sea, to have everything turn upside down just like my
head when you arrived in my life.
She loves me not.
Everything is confusing. All the objects make disturbing sounds, my notebook cries while
my books mock me, and the only thing with a harmonious melody is the liquor in the
house.

She loves me. 

WHEN I’M DEAD
She loves me not.
Choose carefully: I WILL BE BEAUTIFUL
What was your feeling when you realized that she doesn’t love you ___.
Kat McCollum
a. The poor miner within my chest discovered a new rock-bottom.
b. A mixture of ice and glass passed through my veins.
when i’m dead i will be beautiful
c. My demons burned down the last church within me and hanged the priest who sang
pale skin and painted eye
hopeful songs.
lips tinted unnatural red
d. All of the above.
formaldehyde as perfume
coffin as my bed
She loves me.
Mayday, mayday! An unidentified object penetrated the emotional barrier, it seems that it
when i’m dead i will be beautiful
wants to infiltrate and enter into your arms, conquering from there.
what a waste to be put in the ground
She loves me not.
where only the worms can see me
Without you, I’m stranded on an island where the sun never goes down. My only
their mouths loving holes into my flesh
provisions are flares and the only things in this pusillanimous place are snakes and
the sockets of my eyes as their nest
jackals.

when i’m dead i will be beautiful

She loves me.
a dying rose promises more beauty than it holds
Fuck yes! She loves me in spite of all my flaws and problems. She laughs from the
the red deepens and turns to black
complexes that haunt me at night. She hugs me without fear of getting bitten by my
the leaves wither and fall back
demons.
She loves me not. 
when i’m dead i will be beautiful
Are you sure that she doesn’t care about all that? 
contained beauty
in a vase or in a coffin
She loves me.
cannot escape the beholder
Of course she doesn’t care, she is going to be with me whenever I need her. If not in a
physical way, she will be my saint that takes care of me when I sleep.
when i’m dead i will be beautiful
She loves me not.
rotting flesh pallid as a ghost
And she will stay just like all the other people that left your life and let you drown in this
for every longing eye my body will be host
pit of despair?
forget the future preserve the past
beauty is beheld best under glass
She loves me?
She loves me not.

The last petal finally kisses the floor.

14 15
 Jennifer Slavik SOMETIMES
YOU CAN SEE BETTER
PEOPLE’S PAIN Emma Bernhoft

Not in the loose skin I like peaches, but somebody told me Florida has oranges so juicy
Gathered under a slanted eye I can hear my mother scream from across the country: “Use a plate!”

Or in forgotten stubble Every time a train rolls through Jackson at the stroke of midnight, a little girl goes missing.
Blanketing a long chin

But in the memory of a father
Weak in his limbs
Of a mother
Frowning beneath wiry hair
Sitting below silence
I wince
In moments of peace
I stopped putting that gun to my head. I burned my ex-lover’s t-
shirts in a Pagan ceremony behind the carport. Almost set the wooden
fence on fire, but my neighbors were cool about it.
I put a crystal by my bedside table, took my annotated bible
to the Savers behind my old apartment complex. I read a book
on capitalism and went to a protest at the capitol, but realized
I was still too depressed to care about anything other than getting “better.”

Under a soft soft I wrote a poem at 5 a.m., chain smoking Marlboro hundreds, listening
Smile
to the falling of the rain and hearing the rumble of a train. Reminiscing
I breathe in hard gasps of hurt
about sleeping outside on a mattress in the dead of winter when we listened
At the sight of everyday people. to the snow drop and the rumble of that Midwestern train. You told me
about that urban legend and dropped your keys down the city drain.
By reading the crinkle
In pant lines
Dear mother,
By studying
The reflection of copper I think I am getting better. I know you don’t want to hear this, mother, but I stopped
In a zipper putting that gun to my head. I sold my guitar, and I’m on a train headed towards St. Augustine.
Mother, I know you did your best, so I’m trying to get better to be better. I promise I will pay you
I forget
back. Please visit me in Florida. There are oranges here, and it’s a quick drive to Georgia.
And fold their misery
Into laundry
Tucked tight Love always,
Between lobes of memory your daughter

In everyday people
I erase the
Father
Holding pieces of himself
Together to smile

And
The mother
Ringing a fit of laughter
Between her hollow spaces.

16 17
 THE ICEBERGS
Logan Robichaud

He buys a pair of overpriced gloves at London Heathrow before finding a cab and
giving the driver the address of his deceased grandfather. Rummy only met the man once,
as a child, on the occasion of another family death. He can recall only that the old man
made him a lumpy bowl of oatmeal with some strong tea. Well, and that he gave Rummy
the talent that would become his namesake.
However, with his mother gone, Rummy has been called upon by his grandfather’s
estate to sort through his things, decide what to sell, keep, throw away—and, over the
course of the call, the executor of the will made it known there’s one particularly valuable
item. Rummy imagines it’s a piece of jewelry or some sort of familial artifact, maybe even a
safe whose combination they think he knows, somehow. He hates to travel, but the cards
haven’t been in his favor as of late—there are debts he’d rather leave in America.
The executor stands in the doorway when Rummy arrives, shivering and wet.
“May I take your bags for you, sir?”
Rummy rubs his hands together and nods. The executor (whose name Rummy
can’t recall) has a bushy black moustache and the build of a porter. The man leads Rummy
through the home, full of so much mahogany and ceramics, trinkets and antique settees
and suit jackets all dry-cleaned and bagged. Rummy strolls through while the executor
seems set on a track.
“Would you like to follow me, Mr. Amin?”
Although Rummy legally owns everything, he feels that the executor has dominion—

A CLARIFYING MOMENT this pale, corpulent, sad-looking man. He follows the executor toward the back of the home
where he pulls a frayed cord, revealing a ladder into the attic. The executor holds out his
Alyssa Noel hand, as if for a beautiful woman.

18 19
 Rummy cannot help but laugh. Is this how all the Brits are? Hopefully, his cousins
and aunts and uncles won’t be so goddamn cordial. For the time being, he defers to
the executor’s performative politeness and walks into the attic where the prize of his
inheritance awaits, a huge painting of ice and water: The Icebergs.
Weeks later, once the rest of the items are sold, the painting’s grandeur fills the
home, escaping the confines of the work and spilling into the real world. The out-of-frame
sunlight beams through the foyer. The ancient glaciers creak with the walls. The water
seeps and drips and freezes on the hardwood floors. At least, this is how Rummy perceives
it.
With the executor at his shoulder, he couldn’t see what the big deal was, but once
he shuffled it into the living room, (against the advice of said executor) he understood. He
holds onto something important. He has spent hours sitting in front of the painting (nine
feet long and over five feet tall) and observed it in every light. The colors reveal themselves
differently in darkness, fluorescence, tungsten, flashlight, candle. The thing is so unique,
lost for decades, that no one’s certain the price it would fetch at MacDougall. They’re
guessing somewhere in the half-a-million range.
His grandfather must have kept this secret his entire life—the painting sold to an
unknown party at the turn of the century and dropped from public view, too much war
and disease and tragedy to keep track of every masterpiece. Rummy’s family bought it for
nothing compared to its current worth, and he can’t imagine selling it, even though he's
still short on his debts.
And, truthfully, Rummy isn’t one much for art, but the painting before him cries with
meaning, though he can’t articulate what that meaning might be. The ice imposes with
entropy, the water reeks of oblivion, and in the foreground lies a single broken mast, a ship
sunk, an expedition lost, imbuing the painting with some human sense, said humans lying
dead and frozen, stuck in time and agony at the bottom of the sea.
He recalls the catch-phrase of Indiana Jones, This belongs in a museum! But Indie’s
treasures never made it to those museums. They fell between tectonic cracks or were
stowed away in warehouses. No, Rummy isn’t Jones in this situation—he feels more like the
old knight guarding the Holy Grail, duty bound and unwavering. This painting is the Grail,
too divine for a museum guard or a velvet rope to protect. He must always be by its side.
Except, he has to return to America soon, painting or no painting, to his life and his debts.
Where would he even begin to find a home for it? Should he just call up the Louvre or the
Met, tell them he has a masterpiece in his possession, and request a briefcase of cash like
a hostage situation? He doesn’t know shit about all this.
——
Two men sat in a cafe, reading the newspaper, picking at their collars and their
diminishing hairlines.
20
The first man only ever reads the front page news, for there is only so much time in
the day, and, as he sees it, spending time on anything other than the most important news
is a waste.
The second man adores the mid-paper curiosity pieces, the sections on topics
outside himself, the goings-on of lands he has never seen. He has been known to take
on ornithology, ancient history, Greek theatrics, etc. depending on the week and his
temperament.
“So what is it today?” The first man asked.
“That Frederic Church is working on another large work, icebergs this time,” the
second said. “Good thing. Us Americans deserve a place in the galleries, as I see it.”
The first gave a grunt.
“How is that?” the second joked.
Smiling, the first man said, “Well, don’t you think there are more important things
happening on both sides of the Mason and Dixon?”
“I wasn’t arguing that, but don’t you think this is a matter of some importance?
President Lincoln frequents the theater, as I understand it. It keeps him grounded to the
eternal subjects of Life.”
“Still, I think he’d be better spending his free hours conceiving of something that
could delay further this war we’re heading toward.”
Putting down his paper, the second man asked, “You want him to play compromiser,
take off his hat and borrow Henry Clay’s?”
“I think it wouldn’t be the worst idea.”
“I think there’s something to be said about the fact that Clay, smart as he was,
never so much as made Vice President. Wouldn’t you think?”
“And you are suggesting that the reason may be that Clay didn’t go to the theater,
or didn’t read about artists in the paper?”
“That’s just reductionist, and I will not humor such insult.”
“I just really don’t see the point in scribbling pictures of ice and water when what
lies on the horizon is blood and dirt.”
“So there is no point in some grand expanse of nature lest we are conquering,
excavating, reaping, planting our flag in?”
“Precisely. Politics, I hate to inform you, is not only a fact of life. It is the fact.”
The second man raised and flapped his newspaper in a punctuative way before
saying, “Well, frankly, I’d have to disagree.”
——
Some kids brought their yo-yos. Some of them, just a ball (foot, basket, base, etc.).
And then there were the type that brought cards—baseball, mainly. They’d trade them
on the playground, listing players’ stats, rolling off nicknames and attributes and famous
21
 games like these were mythical men. None of that interested Reyansh. Why would he
want to talk about the accomplishments of some other guy? The only thing Reyansh ever
brought to the school yard was a good pack of fifty-two, and the other kids ate it up.
Reyansh, on his one trip to England as a boy, spent the whole time inside (what
with all that gloom and rain) where his grandfather taught him to play every card game he
knew: Poker, BS, War, Rummy. And soon, even though Reyansh didn’t care much for toys
and trinkets, he started making playground bets, and he started winning. Kids didn’t call
bullshit like adults, didn’t question how skilled you were or weren’t, didn’t try to renegotiate
after they had their asses handed to them. They might cry, even throw a tantrum, but most
of them just shrugged, bit their lips, and handed over their losses because them’s the rules,
and no one respects games more than kids.
The problem started when kids put up items with real worth, lunch money and
good gloves. The vice-principal called Reyansh into the office. He got a call home and
three on the ass, but it was all worth it because when the vice-principal called him in, that
lady with the grey-gold beehive (which, to be fair, was in at the time) said, “Take a seat for
me, Rummy.”
It was perfect—all good card sharks have a nickname! And just like kids never
questioned the rules of a game, neither did they question the origin of Rummy’s nickname.
(Never mind the fact that it was probably just the snark of a woman too white and too
uncaring to learn to pronounce the name Reyansh.) That was the day he was born.
As a kid, knowing the rules was enough to win, but high schoolers knew the rules
and had nothing better to do than practice, practice, practice. They had better stuff to bet
too, money of their own and cigarettes and stuff they stole. Rummy learned all his pals’
tells, but by graduation he had learned that every person is just a bundle of reactions:
watch a man draw his hand and read the cards on his face. He could take just as much
money from a stranger as his own brother. He got good.
So, what the hell happened? It’s been almost a year now of lose, lose, lose, and he’s
never had it this bad. He’s had to borrow money, first in the thousands so he could win it
all back with one hand, but then smaller amounts: hundreds, twenties, a few quarters for
the kiddie tables. He’s begun biting his fingernails and grinding his teeth with the regular
junkies and gamblers (which he is not).
He’s been taught to distrust his judgment, but it’s all he has. The evaluator sits
across the table from him, sipping at a three-sugar cup of green tea. His bowtie is puffed
like a plastic carnation, and his comb-over seems intentional. His tailored pants reveal
colorful argyle socks. Rummy would call the guy a fag, but he’s pretty sure that’s what these
people call cigarettes. He could sure go for one. Do the Brits let you smoke in buildings?
“So, Mr. Amin, have we come to a decision?”
“I’m not sure yet. How many thousands?”
“It’s hard to say, really. Pieces like this one, sought after and lost for decades, are
one of a kind, of course, so there’s really no telling. In the six-figures, for certain.”
22
“And what would happen to it then?”
“Well, any number of things. It would most likely be lent to a museum.”
The lilt of this man’s accent does nothing to win over Rummy. He’s seen television
about these kinds of people, and he read the first few links that came up when he did an
online search for art market. Nothing good. According to the web, the painting could end
up in some private collection or in a warehouse in Sweden for who knows how long, even
more hidden than before. And mustn’t (listen to him, one week in England) there be some
reason his grandfather kept the painting from the world? It’s not like the man didn’t know
its value. Galleries across the world (meaning London and New York) have been searching
for years. And yet, Rummy’s grandfather kept it to himself. He must have climbed the stairs
every day, sat in the single-bulb light, and stared at it for hours. The clear blue water. The
jagged white ice. And the mast. According to the art evaluator, the mast was added after
the painting was completed and presented, to much bemusement. What was it saying?
What was the purpose, the story, the epiphany? Rummy doesn’t know, nor does he care.
He needs only to protect the painting, but he must also protect his financial stability, and
his reputation, and the unbrokenness of his ribs.
“How do these art sales work? Do people ever sell things with a, uh, a rule or
something to make sure the painting, well, a condition of some sort—”
“A caveat?” the evaluator suggests.
“Yes, a caveat, do people ever sell paintings with caveats?”
“Well, there are rules about these things, but yes, caveats are not unheard of.”
Rummy says, “In that case, I have one.”
——
Even though Alfred was a critic, and a renowned one at that, he paid the twenty-
five cents to view The North, Frederic Edwin Church’s newest painting. When he entered,
Church was the only one in the viewing room, sitting like a ghost beside the canvas. The
painting had been given an ornate frame and sided by curtains. No one would accuse
Church of lacking showmanship, but the artist sat on a stool with a book open.
“Welcome,” he said without lifting his eyes, “to The North!” His tone was more self-
mocking than self-aggrandizing, and the flippancy with which he regarded the painting, a
whole man tall and nearly twice as wide, made Alfred chuckle.
Church looked up and squinted at him, “Alfred?”
“Mr. Church, it’s a pleasure.” Alfred reached for the artist’s hand and was limply
reciprocated. “I have been a fan of your work for some time now.”
“Yes, well, thank you. You and all else here.” He gestured to the empty room. Outside
the walls, a war was being fought, flags of two creeds, men of a single nation. The Civil War
had begun twelve days prior.
Whenever the War was brought up at the Times, Alfred avoided the topic. He had
23
 never been one for politics and he had only ever grown up in the city. It didn’t seem to be
his war. He knew more of Frederic Edwin Church than Ulysses S. Grant.
“Go on and take your notes,” Church said with a morbid turn. The back of his coat
was rumpled and his hair matted.
Alfred stared up at the thing, seeing it for the first time. He had not a single
immediate reaction. The expanse of white, the dirge of blue, held for him no association.
It elicited neither memory nor story. The title, The North, was obviously meant to be some
connotation with the Union, and yet there was no evidence of a single man in the work,
not even a footstep or an illumination of ice to suggest the Holy Spirit. Where the whole of
meaning lay inside Alfred, soon dread filled. He itched to take his eyes from it, to leave the
room and return to the sun, to argue with the service-person over his order at the deli, to
squabble with his wife over who was more honest, to lie to someone for the sheer pleasure
of besting them—anything but be subsumed by the blank canvas. He scribbled his notes,
trying his best to be genuine but complimentary, to write a dotted-line around his only
thought: Church has lost it. It being? His talent? His fame? His connection with his fellow
man? His grip on reality? All of the above. Again, Alfred shook the artist’s hand before
running out into the street, hailing a cab, and directing the driver to his office.
——
Rummy checks the prices on the cafe’s board, even though he is now, and forever
will be if he invests, a millionaire. (He can’t even say the word without italicizing it.) He
decides upon a caprese sandwich and an americano (haha) before taking a seat near the
window. He wants to assess the people walking in, but the condensation gives everyone
the same melted figures and faces. From a mix of nerves and exhaustion, he has trouble
even chewing. Each motion of his jaw feels like it may be the last he can muster.
About halfway through his sandwich, a man sits across from Rummy with a plate
in his hand. The man takes a napkin and wipes his hands before taking a corner bite of his
raspberry scone. He smiles at Rummy, the corners of his eyes pinching, as if he has known
the boy all his life. Beside the man, sits a woman who keeps her face close to her mug,
steam filling her horn-rims.
“Hello,” Rummy says. Without meaning to, he has taken on the voice he always
uses when talking to elderly people. “My name is Reyansh. You must be Mr. and Mrs. Mill?”
They nod, gentle in their manners as if they had not the means nor the wherewithal
to plunk down two and a half million dollars for a painting. “It’s a pleasure,” Mrs. Mill says.
Her husband mumbles that he agrees, a few crumbs falling from his lip and into his
beard. His wife wipes them away with a handkerchief from her purse.
“So,” Mr. Mill says, “we were told by the sellers that you had some hesitancy about
selling the painting. Is that true?”
Rummy notices that Mr. Mill speaks with an American accent, Southern from the
24
sounds of it. “Yes sir, it was. A lot, actually.”
Mrs. Mill purses her lips and tilts her head at Rummy, “And why is that? It was your
grandfather’s, I understand. Were the two of you close?” She’s British.
“Not at all,” he admits. “It was just...it must have meant something to him, right?
It was special. He knew what he had and he kept it. He hid it. He inherited it, like me, I’m
guessing, but he didn’t want other people to have access, to see it even, for some reason.
He had a reason, even though I don’t know what it was, and so I felt like I should honor
that. But...”
“But you needed the money?” Mr. Mill suggests.
“Yeah...I needed the money. But also...it felt selfish, to keep the thing to myself, for
just me. But, too, I didn’t want the painting to end up in the wrong hands, but the auction
house said you can’t really be choosy with these sorts of sales, if you want to make a good
buck, and of course they thought it’d be worth just a fifth of what it got, but still, I told
them that I had to meet whoever bought it. That was my one caveat, as we put it, my one
condition.”
“And here we are,” Mrs. Mill says with a red-cheeked smile.
“And what is it you want to talk about, young man?” Mr. Mill says.
“Well...what are you going to do with it?”
Mr. and Mrs. Mill look at each other, “The painting?”
“Yeah, the painting. Are you gonna keep it in some offshore storage container or
something? I heard that’s what people do when they buy art, expensive stuff like this, for
tax breaks.”
Mr. Mill laughs to himself, more crumbs now on his sweater, but Mrs. Mill places
a warm hand onto Rummy’s. “Son, we’re not going to deprive the world of this work. We
want to share it. Jonathan here, he’s from Dallas, if you couldn’t tell from his voice.”
Mr. Mill, sipping from the mug, shoots a wink.
Mrs. Mill continues, “We’d like to donate this work to the Dallas Museum of Art,
to be a part of their permanent collection. I love the United Kingdom, but it’s time this
American boy made it home.”
“That makes two of us,” Rummy mumbles. His eyes burn, his hands shake from the
caffeine, his back aches from the unfamiliar bed he’s been sleeping on. “So why did you
buy it, then? Why so much money on this one work?”
“Well, we love Church, after all,” Mr. Mill says, “and this particular work is absolutely
unique in his oeuvre, unlike anything else. It’s not just beautiful—it’s sublime. And isn’t it
our jobs as men and women to facilitate that sublimity? Not to conquer, or take, or own,
but to mediate. That’s why we bought it. We’re but mere auxiliaries my boy, just as Church
was.”
Rummy nods to himself, Mrs. Mill takes her hand from his, Mr. Mill places the rest
of the flaky pastry into his mouth.
Rummy understands now. This isn’t about his grandfather, or himself, or the Mills,
25
 or Church. It’s about those icebergs. “Would you like another scone, Mr. Mill?” he asks, a
smile emerging across his oily skin. “I’ve recently come into some money.”
——
This would not be like the rest. Imagine all you know of him until this point, the
Andes and the Amazon and the American plains, and submerge them in the pure blue
behemoths of extremity—icebergs. He became enamored like the rest of the world. When
that explorer disappeared in the Arctic, a whole expedition was made of uncovering the
mystery, an entire book devoted to the findings. And so the world turned their noses north.
Who craved life any longer? Life finds a way, they had been told by their preachers and
scientists—but the land of ice seemed to suggest otherwise. Yes, there were fish, seals,
penguins, but real life meant human life, and no man could seem to manage a long-term
engagement with the great white wilderness. The painter chased the curiosity of his fellow
man, with his fame and wealth in tow. A rowboat and a sketchbook. A friend and a wish: to
portray that which was sublime, in all its beauty and terror.
Only none of the men and women who entered the painting’s exhibition felt
anything other than a vague admiration for the craft of the painter. No one could deny his
skill with a brush. And yet, they never cried, cheered, grinned with giggles as they had
for his previous work. They nodded, thanked him, and left. What was different? Church
wondered after the exhibition. He stood in his American studio staring at The North. It
was to be shown in two months’ time in London, and he needed it to go well. Not a single
American buyer had shown interest, too concerned with the War.
Church sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the work. Could they not see the
immense beauty he had found in the unimprinted north? There stood no flags or men,
not even an animal. Never had Church been so certain of God than when he stood on the
ice with his notebook, but too, it was then that he realized that God did not need us. His
Holy Father remained great regardless of man. Terrible in the classic sense. Church had
reckoned with this as he painted, but no one appreciated that.
All around Church sat sketches of potential additions—penguins, polar bears,
travelers, himself even. None of them spoke to what he wanted to convey, the danger of
trying to capture or control or own that which was never meant to be, that greater than
any man. Calling it The North had been a mistake, he realized, a sad attempt to pander.
He has snapped brushes over this, taken a knife to lesser works, shut his door and left it
unanswered when his friends came for him. An artist who does not grapple with this, he
convinced his insane self, is no artist at all.
He took a blank notebook. As he always did when he was lost, he returned to his
curiosity—what inspired him in the first place? The ice, yes, but he had heard a story, as
with many of his best works. He had read The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas by
Francis McClintock, an account of McClintock’s own attempts to discover what became
26
of John Franklin and his men in their expedition of the Arctic. None of the men returned.
They abandoned their vessel and expired on the ice. And yet, the Brits celebrated this man
as a hero, an emblem of human endeavor, perseverance, relentlessness in the face of the
unknown. They revered him, but for what? His death?
Church hated the Brits for how they held up a failure as an example of human
achievement, for they never considered that Franklin’s journey to the Northwest Passage
had been the worst kind of folly—sinful. To trudge through that hellish land to the north,
to Church, seemed sacrilege, a thumb in the face of God. Why not accept that there was
some land out of our reach? Church thought it would not be an admittance of failure to
mark some areas of the world untenable. To do so would show restraint and wisdom,
two virtues his fellow man had not shown of late. Sitting surrounded by his work, Church
almost hated the explorer. What a foolhardy captain, an irresponsible leader. An idiot.
And maybe in his first rendering, Church realized, he himself had contributed to
the objectification of this brutal land. As was his usual way of doing things, he depicted
the sun hitting the icebergs with pristine and vibrant color. The canvas invited the viewer,
encouraging them to take a step onto the ice. The beauty was deceptive, the danger
unspoken, but no one understood that. And so he sketched.
He first thought to paint Franklin’s two ships, Terror and Erebus, the ironic names of
which must have struck even their victims. But no, that was itself a romanticization, so he
sketched Franklin himself, broken and stumbling across the foreground, but that seemed
grotesque, even in his still-simmering hatred. It was not the men or their vessel he wished
to depict but their failure, so he began to trace outlines of broken pieces of the ship. First,
a British flag, but no—this was not about a nation or a man or a ship. He drew ambiguous
planks, but these were not striking enough.
Finally, he settled on the addition to the painting he would now call The Icebergs: a
single crooked mast, lying at the edge of the frame. It neither sank nor jutted. It sat. Even in
his notebook, separate from the rest of the work, that mast could almost make him cry, in
its futility, its utter failure. But he needed them to know, anyone who would pay a quarter
for this painting. Beware the sublime. Caution against destiny. Once he finished his sketch,
he took up his brush, dabbed it into his oils, and set out.
27
 ICE CREAM STRIKE
Jillian Horton

Amy’s sweet creme bracelet

Rests on her lithe wrist
Soaked in vertically rich strawberry dip
It was a gift

Elbows enclosed in fiberglass cones

Hair as straight as her back, both coated in cream
Rose coffin nails itch at a peanut-brittle seam
She laughs a bit

Blueberry stains sprout from her skin

Soft-served lemonade trickles beneath blackberry lips
Ankles, waist, and wrists adorned in similar gifts
She says that she slipped

Blueberry bits on her arms, knees, and more

Pooling milk drips onto the parlor tile
Cherry red sap bleeds through her teeth and into her smile
Her tights have been ripped

“You’re no longer in style.”

FEVER DREAM
Emily Lawson

28 29
 DEVOUR AT YOUR LEISURE
Kat McCollum

You hunched over me,

pulling out my entrails with your smiling teeth,
my blood smeared across your mouth.

When you look at me there is hunger in your eyes.

Is that how you look at her—or is it just me?

I keep secret gifts for you. It’s strange

to hide something
so innocent,
like jars full of baby teeth, MY CALF (SLAUGHTERHOME)
as if moms were serial killers
hiding dental records to avoid detection. Vicky Ortega

You look at me and suddenly I’m wet our home, a myriad of carnivores
and slippery as a newborn soaking in the liquids of its own afterbirth. slick tongues, bittersweet teeth carved of loss
eyes wide, stitched against peeling paint on wall
I’ll take out my dripping heart and deliver it to you like dessert. always lurking, buttered fingers sunk between teeth
Put it in a to-go box, mosaic mouth watering, shattered baby skin meat
take it home, cracks hard to stitch quickly, bloodied wooden floorboards
save it for later. tell me, sweet calf, when full where to go?
Devour our home, a myriad of carnivores, milk for what it’s worth
at your leisure. sweet being, dulcet turnover, bloodied from past
never was our home full when lights were all on
Alone in bed, staring at the ceiling thinking of you as you lie beside her.
Inside her.

Is it just me?
Or do you call her by little nicknames too?

You’re tearing my insides out. Or maybe I’m tearing them out myself, and feeding them to you
like feeding a tiger through the bars of a cage.

Lips and teeth

eyes and tongue
long arms and long fingers
you shouldn’t touch me but you do.

Flick the thought of me away

as casually as the toothpick you use to pick my guts out of your grin.

30 31
 PISS OFF, BLONDIE
Ariel Clary
“Mom, what? What’s wrong?” Jett asked. Samantha didn’t help her son’s horror
as she screamed at the top of her lungs, flung herself off the couch, and started violently
slapping her husband’s fat face and chest. He was more shocked than any of them to see
the rage so successfully present in her eyes.
“What’s wrong with mom?” Carly clutched her brother’s jacket excitedly, searching
for answers. Samantha yanked on her husband’s stained white t-shirt but it just tore. This
resulted in rolling him out of his chair and across the dirty clothes, textbooks, and papers,
leaving a trail of marshmallows and corn flakes along the way. Heaving and sobbing joyfully,
she was fueled by an energy that she had never felt before as she rolled her husband out
the front door and onto the sidewalk. She touched him more than she had in years, putting
her hands in places she never wanted to before: under his belly, his chin, sweaty places
with rashes, prickly hair, and mysterious lumps. His clothes showered out the door on top
of him. All the while, he screamed some unrecognizable words in a deep, liquidy voice. Her
response was a cheerful, “Piss off, blondie,” and a door slamming shut.
A beautiful, independent mother stood hunched over the door with her hands on
the frame. She relaxed her shoulders, wiped her face, and turned around to see her six
adorable little children staring at her curiously with round faces and large, innocent eyes.
She put her hands behind her back, leaning back onto the door, revealing her thin, youthful
frame, as she smiled confidently back at her family.
***
“Piss off, blondie.” It was so loud and the door slammed right after, then it all echoed
somehow in a muted house. Jett snickered away from Carly’s room. His voice was nasty;
what a terrible thing to think about her own son. Samantha woke up early to something
hideous every day. Today it was way too early, 7 p.m. She didn’t need to be at the hospital
until 9. She didn’t have a good excuse to leave before 8:30 p.m. Perhaps her car needed a
half a tank of gas. It was better to not let it get too low. She heard somewhere it runs the
engine down if you keep filling it up when it’s on E. Either way, she felt like she needed to
leave as soon as possible.
She felt bad for feeling this way. Really, she did. People were probably talking about
her like she was a stereotype, a workaholic—a mother who was never home for her kids, a
mother who loved her job so much she’d rather spend time making other people mothers.
Don’t read too much into that.
Could she even be called a mother? She had eight of her own babies, but that was
just because she knew how to do it so well. It would be a shame for someone with her
knowledge and her birthing hips to not bring tons into the world, right? But no, it was Jim,
32
her husband. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be home. She had to work if he wouldn’t get
his ass off the couch.
He was a reason to hate the world at home. She couldn’t even remember what
his skin looked like when it wasn’t blue. His face became one with the TV. A single
marshmallow sat upright on his breasts. How could he even see over it and his stomach?
“I don’t have time to cook dinner tonight. I better get to work.”
He gave a pathetic grunt in reply. It’s not like that would be a problem for him. The
coffee table made of cereal boxes was always next to him, so he never got up. Well, only
to go to the bathroom. His butt-print with skid marks would remain deep in the recliner.
Shit would be smeared on the toilet seat too. That’s the real reason Samantha had to get
to work early. She had to pee somewhere.
“Abusive. Both of you.” Carly had stomped out of her cave for attention. Her
aesthetic matched the door behind her covered in red food coloring and “Do Not Enter”
signs. Eyeliner streamed down her face and blood down her forearms. Samantha ignored
the lower half of her daughter’s body as much as she could. She thought her makeup made
her look dead, but she would be a hypocrite to say anything. No matter what, her own
makeup always looked like she had slept in it for days. Sometimes she had.
“There’s left-over lasagna in the fridge,” she snapped at her ungrateful daughter.
“Left-over, frozen lasagna. Lovely, mother.”
“Ah, don’t listen to her. She’s just in a pissy mood because My Chemical Romance
broke up today.” Jett echoed the same vile snicker Samantha woke up to.
“Mom, Jett ripped my Gerard poster,” Carly wailed dramatically before peeking at
her family to see if they cared. When they didn’t, she screamed and slammed her body
against the wall before crawling into her room, forcing carpet burns and scraped knees
along the way. The same “piss off” and door slam was repeated. That was Samantha’s cue
to leave.
“Jett, apologize to your sister, and get her a new poster, okay?” She slipped him a
20 before she remembered what he’d actually spend it on. She felt bad for enabling his
addiction, but really that’s not enabling. She just told him to spend it on a poster. It wasn’t
her fault whatever he used it for.
“Sure thing, mama.”
Maybe the 20 was a reward, if we’re being honest. Because, deep down, she adored
it when Jett teased his sisters. First of all, they deserved it, and second of all, at least he was
home being a kid instead of dealing drugs and getting his girlfriend knocked up. One of
these she knew he did for sure. The other she was waiting for him to confess. She wished
he’d hurry up so she could at least make sure Bethanee had a successful pregnancy.
“Mom, did you reschedule my MRI for the 13th? I can’t miss the recital.” Another
33
 one came in before Samantha got to leave. This one was Casey; yes, all 5 of her daughters’
names started with C. Jett was the only exception to the letter and gender scheme.
“I thought we already talked about this—”
“Not really,” she obnoxiously interrupted.
“I don’t think you should dance until we figure out what’s wrong with your ankle.”
“Well, Samantha, I already still do, every day. Not that you would be involved in
the career I am subjected to suffer because I lack the parental guidance more fortunate
children have been blessed with.” Ballerinas are so fucking dramatic.
“Okay, you know what, sweetie, get Caitlynn to reschedule it for you. I have work
tonight.”
Excited to hear her name, the oldest daughter, Caitlynn, called Samantha into the
kitchen to try the homemade bread she was making. There was no way that any bread
made in that kitchen could be sanitary and safe to eat. She pretended like she didn’t hear
her.
“I have to leave but I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
She was grateful that Caitlynn cooked, but she just didn’t want to participate
in taste-testing. Plus, she really needed to leave if she wanted time to fill up with gas.
Stumbling over the piles of dirty laundry and unused textbooks and papers, she followed
the narrow path to the front door. She dusted play-dough crumbs off her feet before putting
on her socks and shoes.
No one said goodbye. Before she walked out, she stared into the mirror by the front
door. She really was getting older. Maybe her eyeliner smudged because of the wrinkles
under her eyes. Her long, black, frizzy hair was the only halo she’d ever receive. It doesn’t
matter, she thought. When she got to work, no one cared about what she looked like. She
could never look as bad as the mother in labor. And there were no mirrors at work.
***
She had just never seen anything like that before. No, the baby didn’t die. But that’s
just the thing. It was something that felt worse than death to the parents. Something that
moved her more than any other tragedy she had seen. Something that moved her in a
direction she never thought she’d be able to go.
***
It was a normal day at work. The labor went well, and the parents were so very
happy. Things rarely went badly, and when they did, there were protocols for grief.
“I’m so sorry. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
This was why Samantha loved her job. She brought life into the world and handed
it all purple, slimy, and rabid-looking to the brainwashed, loving parents. Brainwashed in
34
that they thought it was the most beautiful thing they’d ever seen. I guess it is to them.
That’s none of my business… A grown man crying tears of joy with a goofy, sobby voice.
A woman overcome with pleasurable endorphins, despite a ripped, fractured vagina. The
height of the moment. The most magical scene. Samantha smiled and soaked it in with a
sigh before taking the bundle of joy back to prep him like a body for a funeral. What could
she do to make him look spic and span?
Just the usual; nothing new. She checked his temperature, his heart and respiratory
rates. All perfect.
“Jack, his name is Jack,” the mother called excitedly from behind the curtain.
Samantha smiled warmly in response because she was too busy to speak. She forgot the
mother couldn’t see her. Besides, she wasn’t sure if she was talking to her or not. Probably
not. Whatever.
“Oh, Noah.”
“Oh, Rose.”
Things sounded right with the parents. Samantha couldn’t be happier with how
satisfying things were going.
She measured the baby’s weight, height, and head circumference.
“You guessed right on the weight, dad,” Samantha called out, receiving praise and
appreciation from the husband and a humorous scoff from the wife. This brought a smile
to Samantha’s face. The baby was so quiet. So good. She put a clamp on the cord’s stump
and cleaned it. He didn’t even wiggle. The next step was the eyes.
Two drops in each eye to prevent infection. Gently, she pulled his left eye open. It
was cloudier than usual. She chalked it up to potential infection and took a note for the
doctor. One. Two. Didn’t even whine.
As she tugged on the right eyelids, they didn’t open. Sometimes they can get stuck,
especially if the eye is infected. It definitely needs the drops then… She pulled a little harder.
Jack whined a little, so she shushed him sweetly.
“Hey, nurse, what was the height?” The husband called hoping to win again.
Um...shit…
Samantha didn’t answer. It really wouldn’t budge. She felt a lump in her throat and
her chest tightened. That’s stupid...This just happens sometimes. You know it does. It has
before… She yanked on his eyelids roughly. Jack started to cry. Gotta do what you gotta
do… Her hands were shaky.
“Shh, it’s okay sweetie, I’m almost done.”
“What’s she doing in there?” The wife asked her husband in a raspy whisper.
The curtain moved and the husband walked over and looked at the son. God, it’s
not like I’m hiding back here, no need to yank the curtain around…
“What’s wrong?”
Samantha meant to say, ‘nothing at all,’ but her subconscious had her blurt out,
“Huh, that’s weird…”
35
 “What’s weird?” Screamed the mother. Why don’t you just calm down and trust me,
bitch?
“What’s wrong with his eyes?” When the husband asked this, Samantha finally
noticed how odd they really looked. The left was misty, and the pupil misshapen. The right
looked like it was sewn shut, no eyelids at all.
“Oh, god… Noah, what is it? His eyes? What is it? Tell me.” The wife was sent into
hysteria, of course. Samantha clenched her jaw and yanked so hard on his eye that it bled
at the tear duct. Jack screamed and cried that shaky, infant guilt-trip.
As the husband yelled for help, Samantha’s jaw dropped in horror. She was
ushered into the hall by the doctor, who seemed a savior to the parents. It took an hour for
the ophthalmologist to get there, and another hour to get the diagnosis. What Samantha
overheard was that his left had coloboma and his right had microphthalmia. What the
parents heard was that one eye had a hole through it with very limited vision; the other
was abnormally small, permanently shut, and visionless for life.
***
Samantha took a deep breath and entered the room with her hands folded and
eyes teary.
“I’m so sorry. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
Noah shot up out of his chair and stormed at her. She took a couple of steps back
confused. His face was stained with tears and blood from scratching his skin with his nails.
“It doesn’t open, you fucking idiot!”
Rose laid in bed blankly, catatonic, as if her life was over, and she had nothing else
to live for.
“You did this!” Noah grabbed Jack and stuck his little face into Samantha’s.
“You did this to my son!” Jack screamed. Noah’s face went from angry to sorrowful,
and he sobbed into Jack’s chest, wiping away his tears gently.
“Make it better. Please, make it better.”
The doctor took Jack from the father before he fell at Samantha’s feet and sobbed
on her shoes.
“Fix it, please. God, give him my eyes. God, please give him my eyes.”
The doctor tried to hand Jack to the mother to calm him, but she refused to take
him.
“I don’t want to see him. Get that thing out of my face…”
“That thing? You call our son that thing?” Noah finally directed the anger to a
woman other than Samantha.
“Just because something is wrong with our child doesn’t mean he is dead to us. You
don’t just get to check out of this reality.”
Rose honestly looked hideous laying there like a shapeless blob as she picked up
36
the bowl of ice cream next to her and tried to bring it to her lips. Noah knocked it out of
her hands, and the bowl fell on her breast and white drizzled down her many chins. She
laid back and closed her eyes in annoyance. Noah looked over her for a minute in anger
and disappointment but was too exhausted to say anything to her. He looked nauseous at
the sight of her. He walked away and took Jack from the doctor. His energy would only go
to his baby now. He accepted his wife’s defeat and knew Jack needed twice the love from
him. He bounced up and down gently and sang to Jack in a low voice to soothe him. His
chest was large and muscular. Jack rested on it safely.
As Samantha stared at the father, standing triumphantly in the fluorescent light,
she felt sick. She looked over at the lump of a mother and felt vomit rising to her throat.
She knew what she needed to do.
***
Her vomit coated the trashcan by the elevator. The tiles were crooked all of a
sudden, spinning too fast. She couldn’t walk straight. She ran to the car, panted as she
started it and scraped the eyeliner out of her neck rolls. She didn’t even notice the beeping
all the way home, begging her to buckle up. The cops were probably too scared of her face
to pull her over for swerving. When she got home, her face was finally dry but crusted over
with snot. No one asked her what was wrong. Why would they? She never noticed them
before.
She fell onto the couch, hard like lead, hyperventilating with horror and excitement.
Jett came and sat next to her and cracked a joke about the Xbox or some kind of video
game. She was too stupid, too old, too selfish to understand it.
“But really, though. Mom, I need to tell you something… It’s. It’s about me and
Bethanee.”
Slowly, she turned her head with wide eyes to look at her little boy with sympathy
and love. For the first time in years, she studied his face. It was so adolescent and ugly. His
skin was oily and covered in acne. His hair was greasy and blonde. His eyes baby blue and
bloodshot. He was so precious. Samantha reached out slowly to touch him. Deep in his
eyes, she saw her baby, she did, and she cried loudly, sobs forming like cotton balls, one
after the other, rolling out of her mouth, tears out her eyes, and snot out her nose. She held
her angel’s face and pressed her wet cheek to his. She kissed his forehead passionately
and hugged him close, pressing his chest against hers.
“Mom, what? What’s wrong?” Jett asked.
37
 Vicky Ortega

FINGERMOUTHS
—after Richard Siken’s Crush

On the night we met, between the alleyway of the bar between
your home and the abandoned church on the single main road of our town,
I went to sleep on your bed,
and dreamt we were
underwater, our heads        barely under the lapping edges of your filled bathtub. Your
         dirty coffee cups, swimming in your sink, were broken into
                                 ten pieces,
          like my fingers inside you. And you kept reassuring
         me, with your hands inside my mouth, twirling the ghost of my baby
teeth out of memory, it was okay to breathe without taking my stumbling fingers
         out of you,
  in and out and in and out and in and in—
         because it was the only way to keep our love     alive.
     I dreamt we woke up beneath your bloody linen sheets,
with our heads turned backwards, our bodies yearning for each other.
And we realized the secrets we carved
                       out of lust
              were bred onto the ridges of our spines and each valley
                                      was where you had bitten me hard.
Hard enough to draw blood.                You animal. My back was your
           favorite prey, a feast of lovemaking you thought would satisfy
the cravings buried beneath the dirty pile of clothes hidden beneath your soiled bed.
           Your back        was a landmine of forbidden desires I could never cross
                      with my wholly nakedness.     You turned your head away,
and with my newborn fawn legs,
                                                          I tumbled between your lion of a body,
            my body backwards, my face eager to see you,
as you reassured me it was better for me this way, telling me
                        how slow, to go, how to,                     breathe slow,
           with your hand wrapping around my body,
fingers searching for my open mouth,
            in and out and in and out and in and in—
I didn’t cry ugly,
                        I didn’t say anything about the way your head
           shook, the downpour of salt from your hidden face, drying red on your sheets,
even as I hungrily licked them
                                             dry from your long lashes whenever your head turned
to the side. You didn’t point out the way
           my hands shook,
                       earthquakes of eagerness, milk curled fingers,
           trying desperately to drown themselves
                                                                       backwards inside you.
I think you began to cry so hard, I almost began to dream
                                                            we were underwater in your bathtub again,
            sobbing hard enough with desire, while I drew red seas
                        out of you, my growing, claw-like fingers choking you
from inside your mouth.
You tried to show me, desperately, how to breathe in the murky, bloody water
                        to make
                                   wine inside our bodies. You told me we would never
make it to the surface with just my bare hands. So,
                                                                        we breathed,
in and out and in and out and in and in—
I still wake up wondering if you ever enjoyed
teaching me how to breathe with our fingers inside each other’s                mouths.

38 39
 BUSY BODIES
Tori Stell

40 41
 THE PROCEDURE
Annika Strout
Trinka sat by herself at lunch like she did every day. She had gotten used to being
ignored once the novelty of her body wore off. When she first went back to school, she tried
to act as if nothing had happened and be her know-it-all self. Before the procedure, she
was given dirty looks as if she justified the homework all the teachers assigned, but now
she was attacked. Both verbally and physically, she was silenced. Even her so-called best
friends threw everything from trash to (if they were feeling particularly mean) water on
her, causing her to short out. She didn’t technically look any different from her classmates,
except for when she took the patch off of her left eye. The crystalized maroon marked her
as one of them.
When she first got her diagnosis of brain cancer, even the people who made fun
of her for being her show-offish self pitied her and wrote her hopeful notes. Everyone
thought it was a death sentence. She thought it was funny that once she started dying,
suddenly everyone wanted to listen to what she had to say. However, when her parents
were approached with the controversial procedure that could save their daughter’s life,
they chose her being alive over their own prejudices on what was called “The Biggest
Scientific Breakthrough of the 22nd Century.” Even if that meant she would never be the
same again.
When the procedure was first announced it had an uproar against it. Some people
were happy that a cure for cancer was available. But even the supporters were wary of
what being cancer-free meant in practical terms. Desperation by those affected started
the trials, and while there was only a fifty percent success rate, a lot of people were willing
to roll the dice if it meant a chance at life. Those of whom in which the procedure failed,
showing abnormal and fast developing “powers,” were shot upon waking up from it. But,
those who survived without any of the “disturbing” side effects got to live their lives again.
Even if every time they left their homes they were met by mobs of people with signs that
read “Kill the Bot-Brains” and “Kill them before they turn.”
Trinka remembered sitting at lunch with her parents when a group of people came
up to them.
“You’re not supposed to be alive,” one of them said to Trinka.
“You’re not even human,” another spat.
Trinka would’ve cried, but her tear ducts were removed so she wouldn’t short
herself out. Her parents tried to make the group go away, but even as they were leaving
one of them turned to her dad and said, “You did this. And when she turns, you will suffer
the consequences”.
“What does this mean, Dad?” Trinka asked.
“Don’t worry,” her father said, “if you were going to turn, the doctors would have
42
known right away.”
He tried to be comforting, but Trinka saw the worry in his eyes, it was as if she was
a stranger sitting with people who pretended to be her parents. At home that night she
heard her parents arguing.
“Are you sure we did the right thing, Ria?” her father’s booming voice tried to
whisper.
“She’s still our daughter,” her mother replied.
“Is she?”
“Of course she is,” her mother retorted, then took a long breath through her nose,
“at least she acts like her.”
Trinka looked at herself in the mirror for a long time that night. With her patch, she
thought she kind of looked like she used to. But when she removed it she saw the mark
of evil that people couldn’t help but point out to her. She still felt like herself, but she had
a sinking feeling that she might be sent to be terminated. This was when she took a vow
of silence, maybe if she stopped talking completely, everyone would ignore her and she
would blend into the background. When she was little, she wanted to be a motivational
speaker and influence people’s lives. But now she ate lunch alone, silently. She once
wanted to be a part of this world, but now she lived a voiceless existence. At least this way,
if one day she disappeared, her parents would remember her as the girl she was before
the procedure, not the scrap metal that stood in her place. They used to call me Trina, she
thought to herself.
Her vow of silence worked, it carried her through her day to day life, and her
parents would sometimes give her distressed looks, but she was never sent away. She
was a smart girl but she also wasn’t the first person she knew who had the procedure. A
year before she got her diagnosis, she knew a little boy who was in the late stages of skin
cancer. His skin was a bluish color from lack of oxygen and he had a breathing device he
carried with him at all times. He looked like a walking corpse, so when he didn’t come to
school for three weeks, everyone assumed the worst. However, after the fourth week of
his absence, he came back. When he came back, he was one of the first success stories of
the treatment. The mobs were smaller back then because everyone assumed that no one
survived the procedure, so he didn’t immediately get ambushed at school, but everyone
noticed something. He was a little off. When Trinka went to hug him and congratulate
him on his miraculous recovery, his skin was hard and cold like touching a door knob in
the winter. His face was even hardened, to the point he could barely smile. He was more
talkative than he used to be when he was sick, but his movements seemed aggressive.
He was much stronger than the other kids, and bent the monkey bars when he played
43
 on them. Once his classmates took notice of this, most of them kept their distance. Even
his close friends began to stay away from him once his hands started breaking the Legos
when he would play with them. One day, by accident he elbowed a young girl and broke
a few of her ribs. He apologized profusely, but after that day no one saw him again. It was
around that time when the news began reporting on the people who had to be “sent away”.
This was also when doctors began implanting the maroon marking in the survivors eyes,
so people could identify those who had the procedure. Trinka remembered waking up
from her own procedure and looking in the mirror for the first time. She didn’t have any
irritation from the marking, it was just there like a mole. And at first she thought it was just
a contact lens, but the way her eye would expand with a slight beep when her pupil would
dilate made her think otherwise, it made her feel queasy. It was like the eye was connected
to a database. Like she was being watched.
Trinka was relieved that she wasn’t given hulk-like strength after her own procedure,
but she noticed her mind worked differently, faster than most kids. She had always been
an unusually bright girl for her age, but she really took notice of her mind when her father,
a professor of calculus, left a few homework assignments on the kitchen table for later
grading. She could do them like they were basic addition. She didn’t tell anyone this for
fear it would make her a target for examination by the doctors who checked up on her from
time to time.
She tried to assess how her parents felt about her by listening to their conversations
they had about her when she wasn’t around. She didn’t need to creep around them though,
she could hear them from her room. This was also something she didn’t feel like she should
mention to anyone. After her vow of silence, they did talk less about her and more about
others like her. The success stories, the failure stories. She remembered one night she
heard them talking about how the world wasn’t like this when they were kids.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have waited to have Trinka,” her mother had said.
“I know what you mean, Ria. Maybe if we would’ve had her earlier she would have
been born into a world with cleaner air; a world where there weren’t so many children
getting diagnosed with all sorts of illnesses from the looming smog.”
Huh, Trinka had thought to herself, well that would have been nice.
Trinka had heard from both her parents and the news that, after the third world
war, pollution was at its all time highest. Those who could afford it put their children in
expensive private schools where the air was filtered. For people who couldn’t, they had to
pray that their children didn’t have compromised immune systems or they would have to
bury them. Or they’d send them to get the procedure, which was free in monetary value,
but had other ways of revealing its true cost.
44
Thankfully for Trinka, her mind had expanded to the point where she really didn’t
need others’ company. She was perfectly fine thinking to herself. She sometimes missed
having her parents hug her, but otherwise was perfectly happy within her own head. That
was until a perfectly healthy boy in her class was diagnosed with lung cancer. She knew
his fate the day he went away. And she could see it across his pale face that he knew it
too. When he returned, he did so with the same Scarlet Letter that Trinka wore, covering
his left eye. He had learned from watching Trinka that he should stay silent. And maybe he
wouldn’t end up like the boy who vanished. He did approach Trinka though, one lunchtime,
after many days of also eating by himself. Trinka was sitting at the back of the dusty
playscape, behind the rusted slide which had been nicknamed “The Shredder.” No one
came by there. But even those sitting farther away would give Trinka looks of disapproval
and shake their water bottles, reminding her of the fragility of her mainframe.
“Hey,” he said sheepishly.
“What do you want?” Trinka responded.
“I.. I don’t know.” The boy took a pause, “When did people change your name? It
used to be Trina right?”
“I don’t remember, it’s been a long time since my procedure. I guess people just
thought adding the K would give my name a metallic sound.”
Trinka turned back to her lunch thinking that the boy would leave, but he took her
answer as an invitation to move closer to her. Trinka looked back at him with a glare.
“What’s metallic?” The boy began.
“Like, metal,” Trinka said with an edge to her voice. She shot the boy a dirty look
then returned to her lunch once more.
“Why don’t you want to talk to me? Aren’t you lonely?”
“I chose this life. And lonely or not, at least I am living.”
“I thought people ignored you though.”
“They ignore me because I’m quiet. If the regulars see us bot brains together, they’ll
think we are conspiring against them.”
“Oh, I know that word. That means that the regulars think we’re going to kill them,
right?”
Trinka’s eyes darted around the mainly empty playscape with the exception of two
kids on the swings. “Yes, you’re right. How do you know?”
“My mom says it to my dad a lot when they think I can’t hear them.”
Trinka tried to keep her eyes from widening and causing her metal eye to beep.
“You can hear people from far away? I can do that too.”
“I guess we’re pretty similar,” the boy shrugged his shoulders.
45
 “What’s your name?”
“It’s Nik. But I’m Nink now, at least that’s what the regulars call me.”
“Well Nik, if you call me Trina you can talk to me sometimes. Just if people start
staring, you will need to go away.”
“Or what?”
“Or if they think we’re evil and trying to hurt them. There are more of them than
there are of us. They can hurt us. They can force us down that slide, and if they do and
Shredder tears us up revealing the parts of us that are metal…we’ll get torched.”
“Aren’t we stronger than them?” The boy seemed unphased by her warnings.
“Are you trying to get us noticed, kid?” Trinka whispered.
“I’m just saying. We shouldn’t have to be scared of them. Do you ever think that if
Ethan had fought back, he wouldn’t have been sent away?”
“Ethan,” Trinka said, “that was the name of the boy who vanished. And, well, I don’t
know. I’m just trying to stay alive, ok?”
“No one ever said Ethan is dead.”
“Then what’s your theory, Einstein? What else could’ve happened to him?”
“My mom works in the factories…she says the failed bots get…disassembled.”
Trinka’s eyes widened and she couldn’t stop them. The beeping in her left eye was
audible and the kids on the swings looked back at her. She saw them start to whisper,
glancing back at her and Nik as they swung.
“Maybe we need to talk more,” Trinka said, her voice shaky with fear. “Maybe we
need each other.”
“Maybe you’re right, but what’s our goal here? To leave school?”
“Survival,” Trinka whispered. “Now go sit somewhere else, if those kids leave,” she
glanced at the swings, “feel free to come back.”
Trinka allowed Nik to sit next to her after the swinging kids got cold and went inside,
and they ate the rest of their lunch in silence. Trinka knew something was happening,
and the word “disassembled” rung in her echoing ears. She grasped onto Nik’s hand,
the feeling of his skin was human and comforting. They spent their lunch staring into the
horizon clouded by the smoke that seemed to come from somewhere that shouldn’t exist.

WHISPERS
Emily Lawson

46 47
 THE HEART OF THE HEART
Emma Bernhoft

I loved a woman once. Spring

rolled from her body like drops
of dew. Her moss entangled
curls trailed the hemlock grove,
transforming everything into
I AM TWILIGHT water. I am a recluse with
a waterlogged heart and I fall
Jillian Horton in love with every mortal
I meet. Pieces of me,
Some mornings scattered across the sea.
I wake, with the sun halfway across the sky But now, I’ve sharpened my teeth.
And I am a wonderful Lady, who has no need for Knights I fell in love with a woman once.
Sirens wept when she
Some midnights passed them by and Ares turned
I struggle, sleep a thousand hours away from my mind rivers into blood because he
And I am a confused Boy, looking to the stars for a Guide could not have her.
I begged the gods to make me
When mornings eclipse into classes a goddess so I could watch her, floating
I wake, a Squire searching for answers and stories of ships from above, my face
And I am lost, wondering if wandering between binaries is a safe state to attend class in hidden by my hair: my first love.
A body and a body make
When midnight happens at lunch time bodies of water to bathe in
I struggle, contemplating skipping the part of the day where I sit by myself and drown out the noise of the city,
And I am left listening to the Lady, who wonders why her clothes feel like vacant cicada shells this underworld pit of hell
where that man touched me.
Sometimes, through dawn And now all I wanna do is be touched
I worry, that I will walk into class and I will still be a Boy by you, but I’m scared to shave
And I will be referred to as “her” and pretend that feels fine down my fangs and cut off my
hair. They will grow back, but I fear
And sometimes, through dusk that my heart has survived its last
I worry, that the About the Author page will only speak for the Lady harvest. I’m dissecting it to find
And I will never get to tell the world that yes, I am a Woman, just not all the time the heart.

48 49
 CONFESSION PLAYING WITH FIRE
Kat McCollum Jennifer Slavik

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. The flickering candle Hot hot
Bless me Father for I have sinned and it felt so good. Beams in tiny bright pills I can play rough too
That I want to swallow If I suck
It’s been seven You quiver
days since my last confession. The embers inside the shine Closer
Bubble silently If I blow
I confess what we did in my bedroom at my parent’s house in the blue half-light. And weld a fixed gaze You can feel
I confess to the way her skin felt against mine, On me Your death
cool and impossibly soft like
satin. I’m cozier the longer I linger But I won’t
I linger and lean I can’t breathe or
I confess to my hands in her hair and hers in my mouth and my tongue I’ve never been looked at I’ll encounter night blindness
in hers and no room left at all for the body of Christ. With such thought I’m finally
Only my body and hers. Not alone
Your eyes say it won’t hurt But
I confess that of all the Holy Sacraments, Is it just an accident? I can’t hold
the way she tastes is the holiest. That it burns? My
Of all the Seven Deadly Sins, Breath
her absence is the deadliest. There are some things For long
You like
I accept my penance but I ask Like when I tilt away your hot pool I need
not for forgiveness, I feel no remorse. So you can eat more of the wick
I won’t utter another Our Father You’re fixated on me Breathe
or recite a single Hail Mary. And your stick
Because all the fires of Hell could never deter It’s you
me from all the pleasures of Heaven. You like to burn burn
Burn I want something Or
That much Me
The fuel and purpose
But I
Hot hot
Should I let you? Can’t
Immolate a finger for you
See

50 51
 AN EYE SCRATCHED
Jennifer Slavik

I drove blurry A flurry of sheets

Between the whites of lines Spinning corners of the room
Lost me
Hearing faint male falsetto And I
Chiming With sorry regret
Angry notes Found my nail
Rising Meet the soft white
The spongy white tissue
Cars streaked and I tapped Of his eye
The gas
Between flashes of light I saw only the glisten
baby, you told me Leaning for the radio
Of purple splatters
Stain deep matte
it was all a choice Waves of discord
Flooded
And I ate the noise of
Glass that fell before
Vicky Ortega And pounded
To the smash of glass My finger and I
baby, you told me I could drink all (the whine. the wine) you tore from my mouth, came when
The slam of cabinets Watched as he
Grew very tall
you pushed into my spine and you told me it was (for lore. for love). you impaled me, took my
I pressed my nails deeper Threateningly
right hand, severed me, and you told me it was (to be eaten. to be Eden). you took away my eyes,
In the flesh of the wheel Erect
forced me to touch you blindly, and you told me you could never rawly drink (our Bloody
And narrowed the dizzy dark And noises rose loudly
Mary’s. our bloody baby’s) flesh was a watered wine sitting inside our connecting mouths, From him
never making it inside our aching bellies, never existing. (inscribed in us. inside of you) rose a I found home. The fuzzy pressure Against me
sentence I could trace with my body near your swirling belly button, unable to ever read it out, Racing
for our vows were just fictitious (umbilical cords. unbreakable words) were wrapped around my Behind I felt my finger blush
tongue, never letting out a sound, and you told me I wouldn’t need to untangle myself long To the door At the mistake
enough to moan out your name, for a divine marriage required only one man (to be present. my I choked to save
presence) was to be trapped beneath a veil of sod, hidden behind the epithet of gifts waiting to I trembled passed But the man
shower onto us if we ever decided we wanted ourselves (to alter. at the altar), I kneeled beneath And retraced the ride in noise, clutching In front
you to cover the mirror of your body, for your Lord told us from the start our love could never be
A glowing ache in my finger. Was lost underneath
A face pumping
sacred inside our consummations of imbibing His Son’s (mirages. marriage) started a fire in
I sunk deep in a weak cushion Blood boiling
between our legs; to enshrine our insides golden, to profess our holy worthiness, and you told me
And the looming memory of him Livid meth
we first needed to be full on your Lord’s naked body before we could ever rebirth ourselves,
Ambushed.
without breaking our bodies in two. but who knew the only way into a city of our unity was (to The man’s voice pushed
bribe yourself. to bride myself) clean. I forgave you for hiding yourself inside me, but baby, And I saw Objects glided
baby, did you know my body was still hard inside your fictitious womb; my voice running How his love And I found myself left
through your blood echoing, confused, cursing; baby, baby, you told me I could drink all your— Had changed. With half the bottle in me
And the rest on the floor
And I’m left
With an aching finger and him
A swollen eye

52 53
 ROAD KILL TALLY
Kat McCollum
Emma Bernhoft
That’s eleven.
Five birds, three possums, two armadillos and one deer.
Road kill tally may be one of the darker road trip games,
YOUR NAME IS A PALINDROME
but it passes the time,
and opera makes you cry.
and it’s the only one player game I know.
My love is a stream of bright white light; a three-
I drive on, counting dead animals, playing music too loudly, pronged plug straight into my heart. A three-
trying to leave the thought of you behind me on the side of the road. thousand mile long cord, connecting
me to you and you to me.
I pass a yellow road sign labelled “church”
as if it were a warning, I remember. We buried that baby bunny
as if it were falling rocks or a dead end. in the backyard
Look out, churches ahead. of your house
It seems like all that’s out here are churches. on Maryland and Belleview. You felt bad
Churches and cemeteries.
for digging into the dirt, but I promised you
that the ground would heal and close
Strange how they go hand in hand,
itself back up. So we planted some seedlings
death and its answer,
damnation and salvation. in a sea of peonies and lemonade
The church cannot be without the cemetery. started to sound nice. I watched you saunter
Religion cannot be without death. back up the porch stairs, skipping
It knows our fears the broken step. I waited awhile,
and feeds on them, but went inside to find you
pray or be preyed upon. face down on the cold tile floor
I pass an animal so mangled it’s unrecognizable. of the kitchen. Summer in Milwaukee
That’s twelve. swelters, so we turn the pillow over and lay
on the cold floor.
I turn up the music as I pass by yet another cemetery.

At the start of us, I had to ask myself:

I still hold my breath every time I drive by one,
What sorts of things
but I can’t hold it every time I pass a squashed bird
or every time I think of you. should I keep from you?
Otherwise I wouldn’t breathe at all.
I was scared that you would die. Now,
The highway becomes like a pet cemetery, we don’t speak.
a road kill graveyard,
an eternally open casket funeral no one was invited to, If you die, I will have no way of knowing.
but everyone attends. If you die, will you promise to let me know?

If only I could leave your body parts

scattered among the others,
smeared along the highway.
That would make thirteen.

54 55
 A PIANIST’S LAST REQUEST
Ariel Clary

I brush each key of my piano

to the sound of rain patter
on my window.
Melodies blend with air.
This sound has an aroma
of a pomegranate
as fresh as the blood
pulsing from my heart.
Curtain-sifted merlot light
hugs me—weightless,
tingling, floating
in a pool of
warm, maroon,
aphrodisiac juice
that pumps
from the keys
into my veins.
Then out my nose
and ears and eyes,
gushing ruby tears
to sigh, it’s filled the room,
now I’m drowning.
At this moment,
dying is the most
arousing pleasure
felt. Slowly, gently
pulling my soul
from my body.
KAITLIN VIOLA
Jenna Buchanan

56 57
 ONE-HUNDRED DOLLARS
Emma Bernhoft

My mother gives me one-hundred dollars, again, and requests to someday

live in my (future) backyard in a tiny house. She will wear purple
and ask for nice appliances. I should be able do this for her.

When my father dies I will build my mother a tiny house in my backyard. She
will wear purple and call me by one of my sisters’ names. She
will sit in a wicker chair on the front porch and drink rum and diet coke.

Someday I will have a garden in the side yard of an ivy-covered brick house I purchased
from the bank. Some nice family will be forced to foreclose. I should be able to buy
a house someday, because my mother gave me one-hundred dollars.

When my father dies I will sing at his funeral and I will not cry. One sister
won’t show up and the other sister will be all too present, offering everyone stale
coffee and making up stories about him. She will wear his leather coat.

When he dies I will not listen to Neil Young or take the top down on his convertible. If
I get the car, I will sell the car for a fair price and pay off my mother’s debt. I will run
as far away from Texas as the border will allow, and I will take my mother with me.

One-hundred dollars here one-hundred dollars there

two new sweaters here and one pair of boots there
half my rent for October when I kicked my boyfriend out
five-hundred dollars for my Rav4 when it broke down
twelve home-cooked meals when I ran out of my
meds and couldn’t leave my house to get a refill.
a case of beer a carton of cigarettes an eighth of weed and
one-hundred and twenty-five dollars for therapy, because
when my father dies, I will need someone to talk to.

WE LIVE, WE DIE, WE LIVE AGAIN

Ari Reyes

58 59
 WHEN THE FLAME DIES
Alexandra Mojica
Inocencio’s shift ended. Yet the guardia that was supposed to take his place hadn’t
arrived. He kept glancing towards the stairs, waiting for the shadow of his replacement to
appear.
Where is Francisco?
The prisoner behind the door paced. Paused. Inocencio tensed. Then the prisoner
resumed his pacing. Inocencio counted the seconds, wondering if he miscalculated. Surely
his shift ended ten minutes ago. Francisco will arrive. Something has delayed him. He will
arrive. He will. Inocencio could wait a few more minutes. Tonight would not be the first time
Francisco arrived late. Always slowly coming down with thumb and forefinger fiddling with
the olivewood bracelet about his left wrist. Never really meeting Inocencio’s eyes or saying
anything except after Inocencio’s first night. And for last night when he bid Inocencio a
buenas noches.
When he heard footsteps, he straightened, relieved. “Fran—” he began. The familiar
shadow he was accustomed to seeing as Francisco’s small stature morphed into someone
else when it reached the bottom step. “Jefe?”
His boss’ frame filled the doorway. His expression was unreadable except for the
twitch of his mustache. And the dark shadows beneath his eyes. “Francisco won’t be
coming.”
Inocencio swallowed, hearing the ba-dump of his heartbeat racing. Not coming?
Was that even permissible? He tried to form the words he wanted to ask, but he knew the
answer. There was no one standing behind his jefe, prepared to take Francisco’s shift.
Inocencio noticed then the wrinkles on his jefe’s long-sleeved shirt. Creased in
places that were usually smooth. The left wing of his collar was turned up and to Inocencio’s
surprise he wasn’t wearing the starched coat Inocencio once envied. Thinking back on it,
the shirt resembled the one his jefe wore yesterday. Did his jefe not return home for the
night as he was wont to do?
Inocencio didn’t have time to ponder when his jefe sighed, hooking a thumb in his
belt, next to his holster. “Well, I’m sorry Inocencio. But since no one else is coming, you’ll
have to fill in for Francisco tonight.”
He couldn’t do it. He would go mad if he had to stay the night, preferring the respite
the afternoon shift provided him with. Why Francisco? Inocencio should be on his way
home with key in hand, ready to unlock his front door. Not here. “We cannot leave the
prisoner unguarded,” he said instead, knowing there was no escape. It was him or his jefe,
and he wasn’t the one with the coins or the weapon.
“I know you’ve been here all afternoon, so I’ll make sure to bring some food down.”
His jefe walked halfway back up. “Inocencio, for this you—”
60
“Abre la puerta!” The prisoner pounded on the door, kicking and scratching,
startling Inocencio, his knee striking the table.
His jefe ignored the words and Inocencio’s display. “You can have the day off
tomorrow.”
“Por favor!” The prisoner pleaded. “Señor.”
Inocencio remained silent and unmoving as the prisoner continued. His screams
coming out in rasps. Grating his ears. Inocencio could survive another night. Tomorrow he
won’t be here. He’ll be at home seeing to the horses he recently purchased. In the morning,
he’ll pay for milk from his neighbor with pesos rather than the manual labor he tended to
pay with. He’ll eat his eggs. Then he’ll sit outside his door on the tree stump he chopped
and talk with his friends. He might even kill a scorpion or two. If the weather remains warm,
maybe he’ll ride his horse down by the river and greet Luisa along the way. She might
even—
“Guardia, por favor.”
She might even invite him over for supper. He’ll compliment her on her cooking
skills and maybe, just maybe, she’ll toy with his curly hair. Then she’ll ask him about his
new job. About the prisoners that never walk back out. The cell that has claimed lives.
She’ll ask why he would allow any prisoner to enter the cell? Why he remained working
in such a place? Why he didn’t do anything? She’ll wonder if he was the one killing the
prisoners one by one as if their lives were his, the moment they crossed the threshold of
the cell. Inocencio shook the thoughts from his mind.
He could hear the prisoner sniffling, holding back the whimpers Inocencio had
heard from previous prisoners. The choking sobs that will emerge. The cries and curses
that will be cast at him. Then the whimpers again. Circling back. Over and over. Until
morning came and all was silent.
Inocencio wanted to tell the prisoner that if he survived the night, he’d be free in
the morning. These walls, as constricting and damp as they are, and the ceiling, as low
and cobwebbed as it is, will not be the last thing the prisoner will see. The last thing the
prisoner will see is Inocencio grinning and waving. But the words were a lie. They held not
a drop of hope. All the prisoner could do was pray and wait.
The night was now beginning, so Inocencio lit a candle.
~~~
The flame extinguished at the same moment the prisoner lashed out against the
door.
61
 “Abre la puerta! No me dejes morir.”
Inocencio quickly lit the fifth vela of the night, rose from the chair he had been
sitting on, and with candle in hand peered in through the small window of the door.
“Intenta dormir,” Inocencio said, knowing the prisoner had not slept since he arrived early
in the afternoon.
“I close my eyes and they will remain forever closed,” the prisoner said. “Don’t let
me die, Guardia.”
Inocencio returned to his seat, setting the vela down on the table next to the plate
of crumbs that, half an hour ago, contained a stale tortilla and half a ladle-full of beans.
The prisoner had every right to fear sleep, he himself didn’t dare close his own eyes. In
the darkness, there was always something to fear. Sitting in the dark cell alone with not a
whisper of an idea of what had claimed the lives of previous prisoners, only increased the
dread.
He’d had nightmares. Of ghosts that hovered over him, then through him, claiming
limbs, mind, and heart. Of shadows that seized, smothering him until he wheezed out his
last breath. Sometimes it was nothing but a constant ripple of wind. A caress so soft yet so
cold that his whole body succumbed to numbness.
Inocencio felt it then. The presence of something looming. Of the thing, the sombra
that could come for him. His skin crawled, and he was afraid to blink. The vela flickered,
and he jerked his head around, attempting to thoroughly scan the room. But his eyes
wouldn’t focus. There was nothing there. He knew that. And yet in the morning, he was
always greeted with a lifeless body.
How long before this prisoner was claimed? Most die before the third vela was
lit. When all was silent and dark. He could hear the prisoner mumbling a prayer, hear his
breathing through the door. This prisoner could be the first. Tonight could be different.
Was that not what he believed before? Hoping that the prisoner would walk out the
prison cell. But they never do. Not a single one of them. Their life was no longer theirs once
the door closed behind them.
Inocencio licked his lips, peering over his shoulder to where the keys hung from a
nail on the wall. He could do it. Slip the key into the lock. Open the door. Let the prisoner
out. Keep him bound and quiet next to him until morning. Then the prisoner could be set
free. He won’t end up like the rest of them. José. Daniel. Matías. Benito. Santiago. Inocencio
hadn’t seen a mark on any of them. Any sign of the sombra that leeched their very soul.
Abre la puerta! He could do it. He wouldn’t have to carry out the prisoner’s body. Or
stare into a mother’s face. A father’s. Brother’s. Sister’s. No one would scream or lash out
at him. No one would beg him for their loved one’s last words.
Inocencio jumped to his feet, the chair nearly toppling to the ground. His right foot
shifted. He willed himself to move. To take that first step. To reach for the keys. He half-
expected his jefe to come barreling down as if he could hear his very thoughts. Inocencio
62
tightened both hands into a fist, pressing them hard against the table and peered over his
shoulders towards the other door. The exit almost seemed as if it was moving farther away
yet so close. Beckoning him, taunting him like the cell door. What would become of him if
his jefe caught the prisoner outside his cell? Cage Inocencio in with the prisoner?
Inocencio hadn’t been able to forget his first night here. Ten nights ago. The blood-
curdling cries of the prisoner begging for release. And he, unaware of what he had signed
himself to for a year, snatched the keys from the peg on the wall and tried opening the
door. All the while shouting for his jefe.
Inocencio had barely cracked the door open when his jefe yanked him back by the
collar of his neck, slamming the door shut. “Never open the door once it’s closed!” his jefe
ordered, gripping his worn shirt so hard Inocencio was sure he would rip it off him. Before
his jefe left him alone with a prisoner gasping for breath, he stripped him of his holster.
It had been his first warning. Inocencio feared there wouldn’t be a second one. He
never read the contract. He should have, but he believed the job was simple: guard the cell
he was assigned to. And it was but he was never told what else it would entail.
He sighed, shoulders almost caving in, but he held himself erect. With his eyes
trained on the door, he picked the vela back up, the flame caressing his left cheek. He
ignored the slight sting and found himself moving around the table. And then he slid
against the door, setting the vela down next to him. The prisoner seeing the glow of the
flame moved from within.
From outside, the clop-clop of horses’ hooves resonated. He could hear the
creaking of wheels turning against the pebbled ground. Then the vulgar remarks of a
drunkard waking in a fit. Glass shattered. A horse’s neigh.
Inocencio drew up his knees, resting his head back, and shivered. Strike the door.
Cry out. Maldícime. “Curse me,” he whispered. Even the thrum of his own heartbeat was
deafening. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba—
Something small and light hit the ground from within the cell. Inocencio stiffened.
Then again, light taps as if it was bouncing. Once, twice, silence. Then again. Whatever it
was rolled this time, increasing in sound, then it stopped. Inocencio waited for the sound
to resume but he heard nothing. His chest tightened. Was the prisoner dead?
“Why has it not come for me?” asked the prisoner.
Inocencio startled, knocking the vela down. The flame snuffed out. He scrambled
for the vela in the dark.
“¿Qué esta pasando?” the prisoner asked.
Inocencio felt about with his hand, crawling on all fours. He touched something
small and round and, fearing what it was, snatched his hand away.
“Guardia?” the prisoner insisted, tone pitched high.
Inocencio kept searching, turning in circles. ¿Dónde está? He felt something against
the side of his right calf. Inocencio didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe. His nightmare
63
 was coming to pass. The sombra will claim him bit by bit. Kill him along with the prisoner.
Maybe he would die, and the prisoner would live. An exchange he didn’t bargain for. But as
the seconds passed the only pain he felt were on his palms and knees where they met the
rough ground.
Gradually, he urged his body to move and erected himself while gingerly reaching
for what touched the side of his calf. Relief loosened the tension in his shoulder when he
felt the undulations of the wax and cylindrical shape of the vela.
Digging into his pocket, he fetched another match and lit the vela once more. He
only had one match left now.
The prisoner asked again what had happened. Calmed and not seeing a sombra
but his own, he answered, “Nada.” There was nothing to elaborate on. And if he dared
speak what he believed was going to happen, he feared speaking it out loud would make
it come true. Because, if Inocencio was honest with himself, he was also a prisoner.
“Estoy aquí,” the prisoner said lowly, trying to comfort Inocencio with his mere
presence on the other side of the steel door.
The prisoner should be maldiciéndolo, not comforting him, the guardia who was
not guarding him from the true threat: the sombra within the cell.
Minutes passed in which Inocencio was relieved to hear the gentle snores of the
prisoner. He remained seated where he was, listening to each inhale and exhale of breath.
Steady and comforting. He smiled and dared to close his heavy lids, breathing in and out
with the prisoner.
It was only when he heard a light knock against the door that Inocencio realized he
had fallen asleep. He blinked a few times, trying to get a grasp on his bearings. He was on
the ground. There was the chair and table. The wick of the vela was at its end.
“Guardia.” The light knock came again. “It’s here,” the prisoner whispered, dragging
himself away from the door.
Inocencio’s skin prickled as if a cold breeze from outside whispered its way into the
cell and snuck between the crack where the door and ground were but a fraction apart.
Inocencio closed his eyes. “As am I.”
The glow of the flame faded. Inocencio whispered a prayer and crossed himself.
~~~
“Amen,” his jefe whispered. He no longer bothered examining the cell or even the
body. “We’ll have to notify his sister. I’ll send someone down to help you carry the body. I’ll
write his name in the book with the others.”
The book. “He’ll write the prisoner’s name the day they arrive, and the day they die,”
Francisco had said the morning after Inocencio’s first night, after José’s body had been
removed. “He is not the first, Inocencio,” Francisco reassured him. “And he won’t be the
64
last.”
“What’s in there? What killed him?” Inocencio had asked.
Francisco never answered. And maybe he didn’t know or maybe he did.
Inocencio crouched next to the prisoner’s slender body, setting the sixth vela down.
The prisoner’s mouth was slightly parted, a gasp he barely managed. His head lay askew,
eyes widened. Inocencio followed the prisoner’s gaze toward the corner nearest to the
door. There was nothing, not even a spider’s web or a rat’s droppings. Only the sombra that
comes and claims.
When he returned his attention back to the prisoner, Inocencio was about to turn
him onto his back when he noticed something written on the ground. There. Next to the
prisoner’s hand. Traced with dirt was a name.
Tristán
Inocencio immediately looked away, forcing the image from his mind but to no
avail. All the names cascaded before him. One after the other in a torrential rush. José.
Daniel. Matías. Benito. Santiago. And now Tristán.
A man no older than he was.
Inocencio breathed deeply and turned Tristán over. His dark hair swept over his
angular face. Inocencio pushed it aside and gently closed both his eyes and mouth. He
wiped the trickle of drool with the pad of his thumb. There was a smudge of dirt on his
sallow cheek, so Inocencio brushed it away but realized it was only a birthmark. A dark
mark that felt raised. A mole he didn’t recall seeing when Tristán walked in. But then again
Inocencio never surveyed the prisoners.
“The wagon cart is outside,” his jefe said, returning alone.
Inocencio rose slowly, drawing his eyes away from Tristán’s serene expression.
“With your permission Jefe, I would like to write his name down,” he said.
His jefe did not object. From within his trousers, he pulled out the book.
Inocencio stared at the outstretched hand, at the book. He had expected the book
to be a volume on his jefe’s desk, but it was only this. A pocket book.
His jefe only stood at the threshold, waiting for Inocencio to walk over and take
it from him. Inocencio took slow, tentative steps towards him. Wary. On his fourth step,
Inocencio reached him, but he also felt something digging into the sole of his boot. He
grasped the pocket book just as he lifted his right foot to peer below. It was small and
circular in shape. A bead?
Inocencio frowned, setting the thought aside and took the pocket book from his
jefe. He opened it to where one of the pages’ corner was creased.
“There’s a pen and some ink in my office. But first the prisoner.”
Inocencio wasn’t paying attention to his jefe’s words, his eyes on the last entry.
Franciso Robledo. 18 junio 1883. 19 junio 1883. Quinta vela.
His eyes then trailed downward to where the bead was and when he picked it up
65
 at closer inspection, he saw it was of olivewood. His breath left him.
“Buenas noches, Inocencio,” Francisco had said to him. Inocencio tried to remember
if Francisco said anything else, if fear etched his face. He recalled nothing but buenas
noches.
He stared hard at his jefe.
“A year, Inocencio. That’s the contract. It’s all I ask for.” A threat but it was also a
plead. Desperate and broken. Had Francisco broken his contract then? Went against the
demands of the state by releasing the prisoner as Inocencio had planned to do? Or had
Francisco taken the prisoner’s life, a quick and merciful death? Francisco had the weapon
to do so, never stripped of it as Inocencio had his.
Inocencio wondered how many weeks or months Francisco stood guarding the
cell. How long he had planned this? Long before Inocencio’s arrival? The morning after
Inocencio’s weapon had been taken? Yesterday afternoon before coming in for his shift?
He also wondered how long his jefe’s contract was with the state. If he even had
one. His jefe’s face had never been gaunt but round and plump. But Inocencio had noticed
the shadows beneath his eyes. The slight downward curve at the corner of his lips. Had
they always been there and Inocencio failed to notice, so preoccupied envying his jefe’s
clothing?
Maybe they were all prisoners, claimed by the greater sombra of the state.
Inocencio tucked the pocket book into his trousers and gestured to Tristán’s body.
Did his jefe carry Francisco’s body and the previous prisoner’s? Even now his jefe hesitated
to come into the cell, but after a moment took the steps and together they carried Tristán.
When they were finished, Inocencio went to the office and wrote:
Tristán. 19 junio 1883. 20 junio 1883. Quinta vela.
He handed the pocket book to his jefe and didn’t release until his jefe met his gaze.
“Did Francisco have any family members?”
“Only a father in la Colonia. Ramiro.”
“Half of my earnings. Send them to him from now on.”
Letting go, Inocencio returned down to the prison cell. He paused at the threshold
of the cell door. Not out of fear nor to scan. Only to watch the flame dance. The glow that
warded the sombras away.
And from the corner of the cell, Inocencio felt the whisper of a breeze again, then
the flame was doused.

WHISPERS REMADE
Emily Lawson

66 67
 EXPATRIATES
Jessica Enriquez

these were the same streets,

potholes where feet stumbled
sundays, ’specially sundays
on the way to pick
ripe guavas from the market,
yellow suns glimmering
in open air
ready to be massacred
by expectant mouths
anxious to receive
god’s elixir—
a sign that they had not been
forgotten, exiled
from the promised land,
SUN-KISSED MIGRANT WORKER
a place overflowing Melvin Vizcaino
milk and honey
and you and I but two I am the son of a sun-kissed migrant worker.
girls dancing in midday heat, Me pregunto si el sabor de las naranjas le corre por la frente a mi padre.
twirling american dresses I hear the engine of the truck syncopate con el canto del gallo.
unaware that we are strangers
in our own land Veo los ojos de mi madre al despertar. Ella me mira como si yo fuera su mañana.
I want to taste the oranges of the past to better taste the future.
Yo soy el hijo del trabajador inmigrante bañado por el sol.

I pretend to forget the paths that my ancestors walked mientras le limpio las botas a mi padre.
Siento el peso de las naranjas as I learned about my ancestors.
I touch with my right hand the experiences of my parents y con la izquierda alcanzo las
experiencia que nunca tendrán.

Me preocupo que no sea digno of my opportunities.

I cry for the suffering de mi gente.
Vengo de las injusticias, del trabajo duro, y del sueño Americano.
Y por eso soy Mexicano-Americano.

68 69
 the Gate
Nicole Cacho

Here’s a LatinX Commie and Hemingway, Herself again “Afraid of the

First Gen a Cure and a Clash, friends, love Male-Dominated
ever-changing Bliss outside the Gate. Found Industry?”
Status. not alone, no silos Hell No lady
blue-collar father, A beginning starts D&D, swing dance Why do this?
professional turned upon the Hilltop Numbers, models “At least you’re in”
stay-at-home mother all colors Pitch to the CFO Snakes everywhere
don’t ask for Socratic seminars Project approval be the Hilltopper.
Status. Jo’s coffee chats Gate’s disappeared
Citizen, resident Uncommon Halfway through
Immigrants. Objects found Offer comes job interview
near the Big Top. Inside the Gate offer arrives:
Colors all around Rotunda performances he asks Her, Dallas, oof.
uniforms in check Doyle chats on Napoleon Tell him about it (Stay!) Year to wait
Mass at 9 AM Gate’s disappeared. Her silence conquers to claim Victory,
in the Golden State Say goodbye now Key in hand
Second mortgage? No money? Get a job. Lost to the Gate. to open the Gate.
Damn, let’s move Cashiering at
Houston? Dallas? Whole Paycheck American Dream’s not dead Graduation day
Austin’s safe. fancy tailgates Self-made woman First in the family tree
300, 400, 500 steep will conquer with a Master’s
Color’s now white “This is how Yellow Brick Road Degree
big house on bargain the other half speed through path waiting to be paved
officers, retirees lives.” Gate will lose. Gate lost.
now engineers
“House is cheap!” Raising tuition? Go back, educate Dallas isn’t Austin
out goes the door Graduate, 3 years Finance upon never has, never will
“Ebony’s classier” office job in the world Forty Acres money all around
Gate’s appeared Color’s now white 10 months? travel back a century
young now old Piece of cake Mercedes perfumed
Keep your head low, earphones in Gate will lose. of Sophistication
Push through it 8 hours a day, be brave Where’s HEB?
more money, familiarity Jody on the airwaves Little Color, 17 girls One foot in,
grow up, good grades Money cooked in jargon One foot out
time’s almost done Year after year Cash Flow Bros with the Gate?
make new friends dead end job CEO Uncles
not Coach, not bougie ideas pitched, thrown out nice engineers, econ snobs Fancy job, corporate card
Anti-Establishment nothing to come a skating Russophile friendly faces
Gate’s in the way. men in suits interviewing Greek symbol
To the Drag! Skip to Kismet Leave. every week, every day Burberry coats
Dance in the rain GPA requirement to apply suit’s not comfortable
“Counter-Reformation!” Tech job SAT score? Really? Rejected Europe on the reg
Colors again, young again Imposter syndrome rampant.

70 71
 She is in the Gate.
“Bought a BMW”
“Invest in Myanmar”
“15-foot tree”
What is this place?
What language is this?
The Gate within the Gate
stands high in front of
Her.

Ethics amuck,
keep up with the Joneses?
BRAIDS, DREADS, BEADS, BUNDLES
Believe not the hype Madi Cotton
Depreciating asset, Genocide
Deforestation.
She wraps around my finger like she’s begging not to leave my hand, but I still let them touch
her. She’s been violated. The shape will never return to the perfect cable coil. So soft, “like a
Save Your life
white person’s!” They call as they stroke me like a dog. “That’s fake,” the girl with the short
Save Yourself
see what You’ve done, ponytails says to my braided tendrils. When her hair fell out in class, I gasped. “That’s nasty,”
how far You’ve come another one said to the oil on my scalp. How so? I should’ve asked. How is it nasty? To sit
You deserve to be here between my mother’s legs and let her run her hands through my coils. Moisture sinking into my
Dear Hilltopper, strands and into her hands. How is it nasty? To preserve the texture my ancestors fought so hard
Dear LatinX, to show proudly. Not a cap, but a headwrap. How is it inappropriate—to protect my strands from
Dear First Gen. the cold? Words drowned in ignorance no longer hurt me. No, you cannot touch it.
American Dream’s not dead.
It’s the Key to
the Gate within the Gate.

72 73
 WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE
AMERICAN?
Zaina Ali

After a two-month summer vacation in India filled with family fun and exciting
Indian wedding festivities, it was time to go back home to reality and begin the third grade.
My family embarked on our two-day long journey in Hyderabad, India. We had a layover
in Doha, Qatar, and from there we traveled to JFK airport. We were exhausted after our
long journey and just wanted to be home. However, we weren’t leaving the airport. I didn’t
understand; what was the hold up? Why aren’t we going home? At the time I did not have
an understanding of anything that was happening. It turned out that my name was on the
“no fly” list, which is a list formed to prohibit people from entering or exiting the United
States. This is part of the Terrorist Screening Database. And my name was on it? How
could that be? I was only eight-years-old at the time and had no knowledge of terrorism,
or even what it was. The only reason for this that I can think of is the fact that my name is
an Arabic name, and it’s just as common in Middle Eastern countries as the name “Abby
Smith” in America. Therefore, I must have been mistaken for someone else. The authorities
took me into questioning with my dad, since I was a minor. They asked my dad a lot of
questions: Where was I born? Where do you live? Why did we go to India? I was born in
Chicago. Pennsylvania. We went to India to see family and to attend my uncle’s wedding.
They eventually realized that an eight-year-old American with a My Little Pony™ suitcase
was innocent, and we were free to go home to Pennsylvania.
Now that I am older and educated on politics and history, I am frustrated at the
fact that even though I am an American citizen, I was treated like an outsider. I was born
here and have always called America home. Where would I go if they didn’t let me in? I
don’t have any other country to call home. Even though I fit all the legal criteria to be an
American citizen, I felt like I didn’t belong or deserve my rights just because of my name.
This airport experience was one of the many times I have felt the title of “American”
being taken away from me. Usually I felt it taken away from me because of cultural

LUNA MOTH differences. For instance, I would bring Indian food for lunch in school and the other kids
would bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Lunchables™. Sometimes they would
Ari Reyes tease me for not eating the same food as them. I remember the embarrassment I would

74 75
 MY FAVORITE PLACE
Madi Cotton

Desperate hands, clinging to tradition

and the hope of a new day full of new techniques 
fight over my earth-red heart
to see which of them I choose to moisten and mold
feel, so I would try to fit in more. I would ask my mom to pack American lunches. Looking my innocence into a tool
back, I now know that they could say whatever they wanted and it wouldn’t change the fact to catch the ash of burned leaves
that I am an American. However, when the immigration system, the system which basically from a family tree.
controls citizenship, questions your American identity and stops you from entering the
land you call home, you cannot help but feel betrayed. It makes you wonder: what does it Speaking from the heart isn’t enough
really mean to be American and who should be allowed to determine that? I’ve learned
I personally believe that the root of this identity crisis of mine was due to the fact because, once the kiln is hot
that Islamophobia is a real issue not only in our society, but also in the world’s society. I and pain is baked so deeply into flesh
was judged and accused of being harmful because of my Muslim name and nothing else. that our children will carry on
The immigration officials had no idea how old I was or anything else about me. That cannot the same arguments we never tried to end,
be a fair way to judge someone. there’s no use trying to change, lest you crack
My faith has always played a major role throughout my life, as it has shaped my and shatter and begin completely anew.
values and morals. I know that my faith is all about peace, however, the media shows
the opposite of this, leading to many people not really knowing what Islam is about. This Oh how I yearn to kiss and pinch 
results in Islamophobia. The media focuses on the actions of a handful of people, and fresh, chubby cheeks, malleable to my love and teachings
their millions of viewers blame and mistreat the one billion people who share the same about how to knead the pain into themselves so they come out
faith. How can that be fair? More people need to be knowledgeable on the truth of Islam, learned 
so that Islamophobia can be less of an issue. If a person of a race or a religion that is well with designs of wisdom and patience etched into their backs
represented in the media performs an act of terrorism, is their whole group blamed? No,
since people are already familiar with that group. Instead of prematurely glazed
Now, every time my family and I travel, we expect to get stopped and checked with pain sealed onto their skin so prominently,
twice by TSA, even though they claim the check is random. I now, unfortunately, always like a gnat forever caught in between 
expect unfair judgment due to my experience in 2009, as it was my first experience of the earthen wall of a pot and the honey-glaze that coats it.
Islamophobia. It was that same experience that opened my eyes to the truth, to the flawed
world in which we live. Until I am just set
enough to not bend under the pressure
of hands gripping me, failing to remold me
but powerful enough to leave a thumbprint on my back,
I return to the studio and sit at the table 
coated in a home-cooked meal poisoned with love and
sickly sweet enough to leave a bitter taste on the tongue.

76 77
 Jessica Enriquez

APPROPRIATION
—after Jericho Brown

The men in my country have been taught to believe that

Women are property,
A plot of land made for a marketable production,
Although the plowing makes it infertile.

Although the plowing makes it infertile,

Women in the village light altars in the pastures

To burn bodies corrupted by an innate desire for contact

Of gentle fingers sliding against ribs—

Ribs and hips that must be repressed, rebuilt

To please hands outstretched to impose or ravage

Pigweeds, thistle any living thing born outside order,

The order of a figure made in the image of God.

The women in my country have been raised to believe that

They are property.

DUMBO, BROOKLYN
Andrea Gonzales

78 79
 MANAGED MAGIC WRITING THE FUTURE
Madi Cotton Jillian Horton

APRIL 6TH, 2019 2 A.M. We are wallflowers

Playing dress up in your apartment
When ink touches creases the page, I turn every muted emotion into a vibrant color hue. Anger
Dancing and taunting for hours
loves crimson sparks fire. Everything burns until I am ready to stomp it out. Sadness turns to
navy is the river. Where tears flow down my cheeks, over my tight lips holding bubbling words.
Our wigs hide our self-made bangs
Down my neck, over my shoulder to the tip of my pen. Drip. Drip. Drip. Onto the page where I
Mom’s hooker heels fit
write create. Every word is perfect here, and I am not afraid of jade rots the hills with envy. No
We wasted life chasing change
need to be jealous of those who are listened to appreciated. I take my time to craft my words,
because only I can tell this story. Here, I am Ladon, powerful and majestic, guarding my exposed
We’ve sprouted through saltwater
heart fruit with a flick of my wing. Ah, if only I was one of the many dragons occupying the
Tattooed over old scars
space in my mind. So confident, unbothered by what they lack. But I can be! With this pen I
Rewritten shadows who ask to stay longer
write my own ending. Under each arm shoulder blade I add a wing. Thin and obsidian sharp and
Who won’t look at ours
deadly. Each beast shines violet is regal. With heads held high, I walk amongst them after a
ferocious battle of fire and tongues. Until they curl up for a peaceful rejuvenating sleep. Each
Our trees have been uprooted
unlike my feelings heart but aching all the same.
We’ve tasted Zoloft instead of sweets
But together we are all one kind
And now we can live on the same street

80 81
 STAFF
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LITERARY REVIEW BOARD VISUAL REVIEW BOARD
KRISTYN GARZA JESSICA ENRIQUEZ VY NGUYEN
Kristyn is a junior English Lit major. By working for the Sorin Oak Review, New
Literati, and Arete, she hopes to gain publishing experience for her future aspiring JAZMIN VELASQUEZ VICTORIA CANTU
career working as an editor for a publishing house. As a bisexual Mexican-American
woman, Kristyn is passionate about promoting healthy and creative expressions of ARIEL CLARY KATIE GONZALES
everyone’s individual identities.
GRACE HORVATH MIKAELA TAN
VISUAL EDITOR
KATE NEUSCHWANGER LILY PERKINS FEDOROFF
AMY TRUONG
Amy Truong is a senior Graphic Design major and curious creative born and raised SARAH WHALEN CASSIE HERRERA
in Texas. She loves creating bold visuals and developing meaningful experiences
for people through her digital and print work. After graduation, she sees herself ALANA AUBER ARIAH ALBA
working in product design and interaction design.
JILLIAN HORTON RAYE SAVAGE
JUNIOR VISUAL EDITOR
ANNALYSE GRANOWSKI
ALEXANDRA NAVAS
Alexandra Navas is a graphic designer with a keen interest in color theory. With an JENNIFER SLAVIK
emphasis on UI/UX design, she is currently exploring how to craft the best possible
experience for users. Besides her graphic design work, she also created digital HARRIS BAUMANN
marketing strategies and social media content while interning for 360 Marketing
Solutions.
AMBER VASQUEZ
PROSE EDITOR MATTHEW LAMM
VICKY ORTEGA
ALEXANDER NINO
Vicky Ortega is a junior English major and Art History minor. She likes boxing up
her heart in poetry and playlists till she finds a better way of getting rid of it.

POETRY EDITOR COPY EDITORS

EMMA BERNHOFT JESSICA ENRIQUEZ
Emma Bernhoft is a graduating senior majoring in English Literature and Creative
Writing. She has been floored by poetry since she was a young child, and is full of SARAH WHALEN
gratitude for being a part of this issue and seeing it come to fruition. Emma hopes
to become the editor of a literary review, while publishing poetry on the side. ALANA AUBER

JILLIAN HORTON
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
ALANA AUBER JENNIFER SLAVIK

82 83
 CONTRIBUTORS
ZAINA ALI
Zaina Ali is a Computer Science major at St.
Edward's University, and is currently in her
first year of college. In her free time she enjoys
photography and drawing.
EMMA BERNHOFT
Emma Bernhoft is a senior at St. Edward’s
University, studying English Literature and
Creative Writing. She draws inspiration
from memory and mythology and uses her
experience with addiction and mental illness in
her poetry. She has no idea what she’s doing,
but she’s doing it anyway.
JENNA BUCHANAN
Jenna Buchanan is a student at St. Edward’s
University, studying English Literature and
Art. She is interested in unique presentations
of storytelling across all mediums and takes
inspiration from the people around her. Jenna
likes to work collaboratively, combining
ideas and synthesizing them with her own
perspective.
ANDREA ANGELI GONZALES
Andrea is a third-culture kid from Cebu,
Philippines. She loves baking, photography,
traveling, and exploring the outdoors. You’ll find
her reading a book or planning her next big
adventure.
ARIEL CLARY
As an honors student and Writing and Rhetoric
major, Ariel has worked with Sorin Oak at St.
Ed’s from 2019 to 2020. She’s inspired by the
gothic and modern grotesque genres, admiring
authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Charlotte Perkins
Gilman, and the Bronte Sisters. As an aspiring
author and professor, she hopes to continue
contributing to the literary community.
VICKY ORTEGA
Vicky is currently a junior at St. Edward's
studying how to put the "lit" in English
Literature. She likes conversing with the moon
in her sleep and planting gardens of words on
paper in her wake.
84
MADI COTTON
Madi Cotton is a senior Creative Writing
major, French minor. She has always been a
storyteller, and decided in fourth-grade science
that writing would be her career. She would
sit through class writing her novel when the
teacher wasn’t looking and, from then on,
would continue her writing career all the way
through college, where she now serves as the
Editor-in-Chief of Arete, the academic journal.
She mainly focuses on fantasy novels and short
stories and is excited to explore her poetic side
as she continues honing her craft.
NICOLE CACHO
An alumna of St. Edward's University, Nicole
Cacho enjoys writing on any topic that comes
to her mind, be it poetry of the LatinX journey,
fiction based on her home of Austin, Texas,
or research on economic impacts of differing
time periods. Though she studied International
Business and can work her way around an
Excel sheet, her love will always be the words
within the pages of a book. Aside from a
writer, Nicole is also a sister, a daughter, and a
musicophile.
EMILY LAWSON
Emily Lawson focuses on making art that's
ambiguous yet still personable. She mindlessly
documented turning points of her last year
in abstract ways, and hopes that through
the tones and marks made on each of these
three pieces, each viewer can get a sense of
something emotive. Whatever the feeling each
viewer may have, she just hopes each person
feels as though they can relate to the pieces
she makes, regardless of whether or not they
know the emotion being portrayed.
MELVIN VIZCAINO
Melvin Vizcaino is a junior at St. Edward's
University. Being a first generation student, he
sees all of his experiences as not just his own,
but also experiences for his family. He knows
that minority voices and experiences tend to
be shut out and he hopes that his work shows
that people of color and their experiences are
important no matter what they are.
JILLIAN HORTON LOGAN ROBICHAUD
Jillian S. Horton is a current student at SEU, Logan Robichaud is a Political Science major
and is studying Creative Writing. To help and Writing and Rhetoric minor from Austin,
understand their mental illnesses and gender Texas. His work has previously appeared in
identity, they began writing poems in 2013. New Literati and Arete.
Even though writing has decoded many of life's
mysteries, they continue to write for the sake of ANNIKA STROUT
others who may have had similar experiences.
Annika Strout is a third year English Major with
a concentration in Creative Writing.
ERICK NAJERA
Erick Najera was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco. ALEXANDRA MOJICA
As he grew up, so did the violence in Mexico. At
the age of eighteen, he moved to the U.S due Alexandra was born and raised in a small town
to the insecurity in his hometown, which has in west Texas, moving to Austin to (hopefully)
affected his style as a writer ever since. receive her BA degree in English Literature
at St. Edward's. She is currently a senior and
spends her spare time reading, studying about
JESSICA ENRIQUEZ
herbs, and video chatting with her family back
Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Jessica home.
Enriquez is a senior at St. Edward’s University
majoring in English Literature. TORI STELL
Local Austinite, Tori Stell is an Art major,
JENNIFER SLAVIK working in a variety of mediums. She draws
Jennifer Slavik is an English Literature student inspiration from the world around her with a
interested in how writers grapple with the focus on observing people's day-to-day life. At
loss of meaning in a poststructuralist era. She St. Edward's, Tori hopes to continue her interest
wakes up distraught asking herself, "where can in exploring the many different perspectives of
I find the transparent referent in language?!" being human through her art.
But later accepts a postmodern nihilism,
traipsing the smoggy cityscape marking little
words in a little journal.
ALYSSA NOEL
Alyssa is a junior Mathematics and Biomedical
Engineering major.
KAT MCCOLLUM
Kat is a senior at St. Ed's. She enjoys writing,
thrifting, and feeding her pet rats human flesh.
ARI REYES
Ari is an artist/illustrator and a senior at St.
Edward's, studying to get her bachelor’s degree
in Art. Her main interests in art range from a
love for the natural world (seen through her
Pantheist beliefs and practices), a captivation
for astronomy and neural science, as well as an
appreciation for folklore and the mystic/wiccan.
85
The Sorin Oak Review title comes from the giant oak tree on
the St. Edward’s campus. Named after the founder of the
university, Father Edward Sorin, it is over 120 years old and
is believed to be one of the oldest trees in Austin. The benches
around the tree provide a view of downtown as well as a quiet
place to study and/or read a book like this one. The Sorin Oak
will always represent strength, tradition, perseverance, and beauty.

The 2020 Sorin Oak Review was printed by

OneTouchPoint

Typeset in Cholla Slab OT and Acumin Pro

Stock: 60# Offset, White Text
Cover Stock: Neenah Paper, Classic Natural White, Classic Woodgrain
Traditional Finish

American Scholastic Press Association Awards

2010, Volume 20
First Place

2009, Volume 19
First Place with Special Merit

2008, Volume 18
First Place

2007, Volume 16
First Place with Special Merit

2005, Volume 15
Best College Literary-Art Magazine
First Place with Special Merit

2004, Volume 14
First Place with Special Merit

2003, Volume 13
First Place with Special Merit