"Life and Pandemic" - Spring 2020

NEW FORUM
Spring 2020
A literary journal

New Forum
UCI Undergraduate Literary Journal
Spring Issue 2020
sites.uci.edu/newforum
Editor-in-Chief
Sarah Mayo
Financial Editor
Adam Timms
Design Editors
Yilan “Elanna” Tang
Karina Mercedes Martinez
Jasmine Huerta Lara
Social Media Editors
Analysa Vivanco
Zinnia Ramirez
Events Editors
Jordan McAuley
Anais Osipova
Jazmin Viayra
Special Thanks
Jayne Lewis, Professor, English, School of Humanities
Inez Tan, Academic Coordinator for the Emphasis in Creative Writing,
Lecturer, English, School of Humanities
Cover
2020 No Signature by Iris Ferman
Quarantine - Hang in There by Yuna Jo
This publication does not represent the views and/or opinions of the University
of California, Irvine; the University of California, the Regents of University of
California, and/or its affiliates.

Contents
Kristen Chastain Things I Left in the Driveway, Because I Couldn’t
Pack Them Into Boxes
Kyle Van Lant Emergence
Bradley William Holder Myself at a Distance
Kyle Van Lant The Sound So Loud
Jiaying Jing Untitled
Chloe Low Birdwolf
Amanda Hall (heart)h
Chris Okeani World on Fire
Aidin Feenstra My Magician, America
Victoria Surace-Aguirre Pandemic as Spiral
Daelyn Daniloff How to Write an Essay During a Pandemic
Rei Vignapiano Trans in Pandemic
Kristie Song Because You Are Here
Rachel Wang Lamentation for the Lost
Amanda Hall Swansong
Caitlyn Johnson What, Then, Will Be Left
Brianna Pinon Temporary Escape
Alessandro Verniani Solitude
Chloe Low April 26th
Chloe Low Sun Screen
Rachel Wang Quarantine Lens
Kristen Chastain Rattler, and Other Things I Remembered
Yuna Jo Quarantine - Hang in There

Things I Left in the Driveway, Because I
Couldn’t Pack Them Into Boxes
art supplies, applications, bicycle helmet, the barn, burnt bacon,
closed windows, the cat that lives on the corner, too much
coffee, catcalls, the chainsmoking neighbor, coupons,
dress shoes, the neighbor’s son’s drum set, desks with initials
etched into them, emails, eggshells, forgetting, french
fries that are too well-done, farmer’s markets, frost that chokes the
grass, gold and blue, graduation gown hemmed at home, getting lost,
hailstorms, housekeys, jugs of milk, karaoke on the weekends,
misery, money, the morning paper, new kids, nicknames, never
knowing which song to play from the jukebox, old love letters, odd
jobs, open windows, police patrols, parking tickets, riding the train
with your face pressed against the glass, questions, rainstorms, rabbits
that won’t quit making love out front, ruined hair, sandaled feet,
sparklers, stars, thrift stores, tire treads in the mud, tv dinners, umbrellas
that live in our closets, unopened presents, the sign that says
welcome to the central valley, wearing your cousin’s used vintage,
where do you work, anxiety, windshield with a small crack in it, a
breeze where you once were.
Kristen Chastain

Emergence
we stand on the shores of Babylon
too afraid to speak
for fear of corrupting the moment
we are unprepared and uncomfortable
like it is our first time,
like nothing could prepare us for this feeling
eyes shattered like glass
dreams replaced and warped into pleas
we sit confused in our dark corners
and ponder at permanence—
we mongrels as plague doctors in the quagmire
and the disciples of doom,
watching a conjunction of wasps fly door to door
Kyle Van Lant

Myself at a Distance
Listening to other people’s smoke detectors
Beg them to swap the batteries...
These frequent, fruitless trips to the mailbox:
They expand my lungs.
Everywhere a toilet is flushing...
The day being bright but the room being cold,
So I study faces instead of books—
Having (as I do) the best parking spot in the house.
The old awkwardness supported, even blatantly encouraged:
Giving the encountered their wide berth, as a courtesy.
Mistrust of a “general evil” likely always coalesces
Into something specific, the existential: the person.
So what then…?
The sensation that something important is happening to us. (To me.)
Doubting that this is true. A rusted signpost marked FAMILIAR, illegible.
Nothing to do but work and worry,
Pacing through the home’s rooms,
Its boundaries solidified—not as freedom (like they once were),
But as bondage: concretized anxiety, pain, and loneliness.
Although somehow I feel safer in the approach,
Knowing that our buffered contact hides me,
Makes possible the thrush of follicle,
The abandonment of tired social ritual.
I didn’t really love it anyway.
Last night, I dreamt that I hugged someone.
Bradley William Holder

Myself at a Distance
When this is all over, I’m going to rampantly shake hands.
I’m going to physically altercate:
Blow kisses and throw blows, hold onto people I couldn’t possibly know,
Tell people I hate them and love them and most importantly show them
precisely how.
The fuckers are gonna have to hold me back,
But at least I’ll be held.
Bradley William Holder

The Sound So Loud
I laid railroad plans
And grinned at the mailman.
The face of emptiness is
shapeless, soundless
Lacking Existence
Down in New Orleans they dance until blood drips on the sidewalk.
Decades hold us down like a serial warden &
Dictate the dictations like a method behind pure madness. Fuck you
I put a big ol flag right in the milky way’s black hole
and stopped time for a moment
My empress love’s freckles turn into diamonds
You throw me a bone to avoid tarring your roof
I took a vacation to French Polynesia
Just to laugh at the volcanoes
Kyle Van Lant

Untitled
Jiaying Jing

Birdwolf
canaries make
mean dogs
they tell
you what’s
the matter,
and nothing
else
Chloe Low

(heart)h
i am a gallery of
third-degree burns,
a child whose pocket
was always filled with
matches,
a bottle of aloe vera resting on
the back burner.
i have mastered
the art of
pyrotechnics,
learned what
sets you ablaze,
burned the wick
located in the
pit of your stomach.
i even transformed this
ancient grove into soft black velvet.
but perhaps
you’d rather suit the
slow burn
of a fireplace
in a nuclear suburb,
a timed stove
set to
low heat—
i am forced to
rake myself
Amanda Hall

(heart)h
across hot coals again
just to
keep warm.
sulfur wraps its arms around my neck
like a lover,
and it’s an awful smell:
charcoal, brimstone,
one step closer to spontaneous combustion—
a forgotten hearth burning itself
into oblivion,
wet kindling against the
backdrop of
potent gasoline
clinging like the scent of
a rotting corpse,
secondhand smoke
laying claim to
fragile lungs.
and perhaps i am merely
predisposed to a certain brand of affection, but
i have loved embers
before they
burst into flame,
the promise of a warm winter night by the hearth,
another body to leach away the cold—
yet these moths never seem to
outlast the
first flicker.
Amanda Hall

(heart)h
i remember weeping the night you tried to
kiss my fingertips,
numb to the sensation
after years of
acid rain.
you once
asked me if
i could
swallow fire—
i said yes.
Amanda Hall

World on Fire
Chris Okeani

My Magician, America
Snapped her sluggish fingers,
and emptied:
the streets, grocery shelves, parks,
wallets,
tear ducts,
Dreams.
In a matter of minutes, and only a month or so too late.
Waved her wand and pulled dollar bills from a hat,
threw them right through the big business buildings,
then made them disappear again, just like that.
She’s making lines fall and people vanish,
with a deck stacked backwards, pulls the first card
Joker, second card, Joker
end of deck.
Her magic is all about big bravado and bullshit
but the red stains on her cloak hide
the finer details from the naive witness
who sees strength and stars in her sanguine movements,
her hands hover with a calm confidence through the pockets,
but
these hands
all the wrong directions.
are swinging in
Thus, the magicians fable becomes flounder as the stage falls like feathers
and the doves won’t leave their roost so the only thing flying from the hat is
fear. In one last act of grandeur, to reassume her place in the spotlight, she
grabs a saw and halves the state into two pieces, but she can’t mend the split.
I favor the nation like this.
Aidin Feenstra

Pandemic as Spiral
afternoon is morning is cereal or eggs
on bread is lunch is sandwich or leftovers
is pasta is dinner or pizza maybe on the weekends is days off
is sleeping in is everyday is
tuesday friday monday thursday sunday wednesday
is movie night is pizza and drinking is groceries now
and again is washing and washing and lysol and washing is
fresh air is “so nice god we haven’t been outside in two weeks”
is more washing is refilling the soap is wiping the doorknobs
is turning into OCD it sometimes feels and how are those people doing?
is other people is risk is fear is distance is
Zoom is bad connection is lag is the opposite of intimate
is Jackbox games is seeing friends is missing friends
is cancelled plans is concerts and proms and graduations is congratulations is
grad school plans is moving is the people we wanted to see and the cafes
we wanted to visit and the shopping we wanted to do and the beaches
glowing fluorescent blue is protests is privilege is goddamn OC white right
middle class jackass Karen needs a haircut masses is four more weeks
of quarantine is cabin fever is meditative videos is exercise and yoga is
livestreams is social distancing is social media is social is antisocial
is not owning Animal Crossing is Anime binges is Netflix and chill is
horny on main is Twitter is TikTok is Instagram is TikTok is Twitter is Starbucks
closed is no work is no pay is unemployment is stimulus checks
and unemployment benefits is their economic crisis versus my
survival is savings spent is rent to pay is the same apartment every day
is stuff that needs fixing but is it safe to put in a work order and have someone over
is fear is washing is disinfecting is washing is disinfecting
is death toll is people is family is holidays is Easter Birthday
Star Wars Day Mother’s Day 4th of July
is Zoom parties is drinking at home is weekends alone is
online shopping is spending is economy
is Amazon is not taking care of employees is essential workers
is nurses and doctors and fast food mascots apparently? is
capitalism is anxiety is feeling trapped and hopeless
is long drives to get outside is masks and washing is disinfecting is lysol
is suffocating is suffocating is suffocating is suffocating is
coughing sneezing sniffles allergies is worry
is stress baking is sweets is gaining weight is exercising
is routine is schedule is time is
alarms is late dinners is bedtimes
Victoria Surace-Aguirre

Pandemic as Spiral
is laying awake on Twitter at 4am is
wake up then eat then shower then eat then work then eat then sleep is
night is afternoon is morning
Victoria Surace-Aguirre

How to Write an Essay During a Pandemic
In the morning when you wake up, drink a glass of water and
make some breakfast. It has to be early though because if you eat too late
and take your pill anytime after noon it’s gonna be an absolute mess. If it
hits you at 2pm you’re guaranteed to be up until at least 5am, and you
definitely don’t want that. Because when it’s 4:30 am and you’re laying
in bed trying your best to listen to meditation podcasts that are
“*~sure to ease you into a blissful sleep~*” you’ll get frustrated because
the guy’s voice sounds like your grandpa, and your grandpa had one eye
because he accidently walked into a nail once, so you can’t stop thinking
about what you would do if you walked into a nail.
When that happens, try progressive muscle relaxation. Think
back to what you learned last semester when you had to read a “Stress
and Relaxation” book for a psychology class. When you remember, start
with your feet. Squeeze them at about 80% of what you can do so you
don’t hurt yourself. Once you’re shaking a bit, release the tension and relax
your feet. Do this for every body part, moving from your feet to your
calves and upwards all the way till you get to your face. When you finish
and realize that you’re still not relaxed, do it again. Then again. If you’re
not sleepy by then, just get up and take some cough medicine.
Tip-toe across the hall and be extra careful when you open your
Nana’s door so that you don’t wake her up. But when you inevitably do
wake her up, you have to be prepared. Wear a defeated expression on
your face and sigh before saying, “Nana, I had a bad dream and I can’t
sleep.” Take a moment to blink at her with sad puppy eyes and then ask
her if she has any advice.
When she squints her eyes and asks in her sluggish New Yorker
accent, “Well, what’d you dream about?”, act like you’re really thinking
for a second. This is important --squeeze your eyebrows together and
touch your face-- that’ll really sell it. Count to five in your head, and then
sit down on her bed so she doesn’t feel like you’re hovering over her. Remember
that you’re not supposed to touch your face or be within six feet
of another human. Stand up before she realizes. This is when you shrug
in defeat and say it must’ve left your mind. Eventually she’ll offer you
some NyQuil. Seem hesitant before giving in, it’ll be more believable.
Once you’ve taken it, walk back to your room in the dim morning light
and finally close your eyes. Right when it feels like you’re about to hit
the edge of sleep, your alarm will go off.
The next day will start and your brain will be absolutely incapable
of producing thought.You’re not tired but you’re also not awake.
Daelyn Daniloff

How to Write an Essay During a Pandemic
You’ll feel like one of the zombies in any one of those cheap horror
movies. Don’t worry, that’s normal after taking two cap’s full of cough
medicine while trying to come down from an Adderall high. At this point
you’ve regressed past the degree of being a functional human and your
survival instincts will kick in. So, binge eat. Eat everything you can.
You’ll want to go outside and catch a squirrel with your bare hands to
roast over an open self-made fire. Don’t, that’s weird. You live in suburban
Orange County and your neighbors will call the police. Just open the
fridge and eat all the leftover mashed potatoes and ice cream you can.
When you’ve eaten everything, fall into a food-induced-amphetaminecome-down-NyQuil-come-up
coma.
Wake up at 3pm when your cat starts licking the melted icecream
off your chest. Start to cry, first with little sniffles and then a fullblown
wail. Cry because you haven’t seen your friends in weeks, you’re
weeks behind on your virtual lectures and have gotten nothing done
with only 7 hours left to write a 10 page research paper. Cry harder because
you’re disgusting and covered in half-eaten food, you now weigh 8
pounds heavier than yesterday, you’re in the middle of a global pandemic
and you saw your neighbor with the Trump flag on the news yesterday
yelling “live free or die”, and on top of it all your cat is starting to puke.
Take a moment to let it all sink in-- not your cat puke, clean that up before
it stains your Nana’s rug.
Once you’re done cleaning and crying you’ll probably feel really
exhausted. Give yourself a break to restart your mind and take a nap. Set
your alarm for 30 minutes. When your alarm goes off, press snooze and
sleep some more. Then press snooze again. And again.
Finally, wake up in a panic when you start dreaming about your
essay. Reach for your phone before realizing that it’s dead since you
didn’t charge it last night because you wasted all your battery trying to
listen to sleep podcasts. Grab your laptop and flip it open, look to the
time and see that it’s 11:56pm. Realize that nothing has gotten done.
Your essay is due in 4 minutes. Tense all your muscles again like how
you did last night when you were trying to relax, and scream. Scream
again, but more blood-curling this time. Remember that your Nana is
home when she waddles into your room at lightning elder speed to make
sure you’re alive. Assure her that you’re okay, you didn’t fall, you’re not
hurt, and everythings fine as you close the door on her. Fall onto the floor
and rip out a few strands of hair to check and see if you’re still sleeping.
Daelyn Daniloff

How to Write an Essay During a Pandemic
You’re not. Email your teacher and beg for an extension. Cry yourself to
sleep on the floor.
When you wake up at noon and see that your teacher granted
your extension, try to start immediately. Notice that it’s already too late
to take your pill, take it anyway, you need it. Promise yourself that today
will be different -- it’s not.
Do it all again.
Daelyn Daniloff

Trans in Pandemic
I feel trapped, like a prisoner in my own home.
I’m called by a name that isn’t mine, pronouns that haven’t fit for years
Terms of endearment for a little girl that was never me.
That’s not my name, I wish I could say
But I never told them what my name is.
I feel trapped, like a prisoner in my own home.
I felt safe, surrounded by friends.
I was called by the name that is mine, the pronouns I have claimed
Nicknames for the person I have grown to become.
But now that’s all gone, for we’ve all moved back home.
Except for me, “home” is the place I left.
I felt safe, surrounded by friends.
I want to feel free again, in more ways than one.
I need to see my city again, I need to hear my name again
Everything I left behind
I need to feel my friends’ hugs again
but I can’t
not now
not yet
I want to feel free again, in more ways than one.
I will survive this, for I am strong.
I call my friends, ones who know my name.
They offer their support, and I mine.
They provide me a respite from the hell we’re living in
And we know it will end, but we know not when.
I will survive this, for I am strong.
Rei Vignapiano

Because You Are Here
In the mornings, I wake to soft sunlight pooling in from behind worn
curtains. Is it Tuesday? No, maybe it’s Thursday. The grass outside my
window is freshly cut, wet with morning dew, and covered in a warm
glow. I yearn to touch it, to feel it beneath my fingers, prickling at my
thighs even though I am allergic.
My baba has never been happier, overjoyed that I am home every day.
“It’s the greatest, isn’t it? There’s no place better than home,” he exclaims
in Chinese.
“Right,” I mumble back in English.
I haven’t been home in years and, though I am well in my twenties,
I have become thirteen again. I wear my middle school P.E. uniform
around the house and to bed. My room has stayed the same—the dark
blue sheets teeming with white and green sharks, the lone brown stuffed
bear on the far edge of the bed, the painting I made for Baba pinned on
the wall beside me. It’s of a rabbit, his zodiac animal.
This is the best. He says it often. And while many of my days these past
few weeks have been spent in bed, knees to my chest and eyes swollen
with tears, I nod and attempt to smile to return his eager expression. I do
it, but I avoid his gaze.
Baba’s hair is graying now, spilling from the sides in a tangled mess, but
it doesn’t bother him. I like to watch him make dinner sometimes, but I
see how his fingers have grown weary, how they sometimes shake and
falter as he tries to grip and steady a knife. He’ll ask me to tie his hair for
him when it starts to fall into his eyes, to roll his sleeves back, to grab a
bowl—not that one, the other one—and to help him prod at the pan from
time to time so whatever’s on the bottom doesn’t burn.
When we eat, his eyes track what I “mm!” at, his chopsticks ready to
shovel more into my bowl. Every day feels like a monotonous regurgitation
of the last, but every day I am surrounded by his love. When we are
out of apples, almonds, or peanut butter—my favorite food groups—he
asks me again and again how to pronounce them (just in case).
Kristie Song

Because You Are Here
“Xingren is almonds, baba. Suan nai is yogurt.”
“Ok, yo-gur. Yo-gur.”
Then he dons his mask, a pair of wrinkled gray gloves, shrugs on his
jacket, and leaves for the store humming to a Teresa Teng song from the
70’s.
I still feel hopeless sometimes. The grass looks a little more dull each
day, the sunlight more blinding than soothing. I’m still in that ugly gray
shirt about eighty sizes too big, a ferocious lion on the front with my
name scribbled in black sharpie underneath its gaping mouth. I am angry,
helpless, anxious, and worst of all, directionless.
But for Baba, he continues to smile and laugh, eyes squinting and voice
cracking when I say something funny. When I appear in the kitchen.
When I look back and smile too—a real one. He’s always said that I take
after him, that no one understands him better. I felt guilty that I couldn’t
understand what he’d meant before, but I think I finally do.
“It’s the best because you have finally returned. Because you are here
with me.”
Kristie Song

Lamentation for the Lost
Rachel Wang

a graceful body is never kind—
i remember this as my neck strains
to form a perfect arch,
Swansong
locked limbs desperately imitating the
effortless glide of a bird in flight,
the girl in the mirror replicates my movements,
follows me at dusk to sway across the surface,
an oil-slicked pool frozen solid—
we wind like laurels to the beat of the
wintry breeze,
coiled serpents
poised to strike with
pretty venom—
but the spotlight transforms
the lake at night,
and winter
collapses under the strain of
intolerable heat—
the moon’s face shatters
in two.
so we twirl until
our pointe shoes turn to
tatters,
until our tendons
pop like
corks of expensive champagne,
the diamonds gleaming upon the lake’s surface
growing sharp like
glass shards beneath bloodied feet,
Amanda Hall

Swansong
repeating the familiar steps as we
dye
this stage red—
my mother once said
a good performer never
removes their mask.
so i shield these
clipped wings
from the audience,
lifeless stumps infected
by their
sick disease—
balance on
webbed
feet,
disregard the shadow
hanging off my back that glares from
the water’s icy reflection.
they
crack the whip and
i think
i hear
the girl behind the glass
weep.
the piano is starting on
opening night—
my downfall set
to the key of a minor—
Amanda Hall

Swansong
the note
falls flat.
a pirouette
ending in
fractured
bone.
Amanda Hall

What, Then, Will Be Left
Sit and hear me, he said. In the days after the apocalypse there
will be a great empty. No trumpets will announce it, no horsemen will
bring it, no mighty bang, only the silence that comes after. You will be
sitting with your children or your grandchildren or your great grandchildren
or you may not be on this earth at all. But you will feel it. Slowly.
It will creep behind you getting nearer and nearer like a shadow as the
morning sun crawls across the sky; and noon will come and it will tap
you on your
shoulder. And it may again recede and you will forget, rather you will try
to forget. But buried deep in our collective soul is the empty. The world
has indeed ended but the apocalypse is just a word describing the times
when we feel it most. When we can no longer bury death in the future,
lose isolation in the crowd, drown out our own pestering thoughts with
songs of cities and dances of dealings. When our great castles, yes stand,
but, empty. When the voices of friends ring far to reach you, but can only
sound, empty. When labor continues to toil the earth but the fruits of
these efforts feel, empty.
It will be ok at times. You will know the empty to be peace. You
will use the silence for sleep, the isolation for reflection, and the stillness
for new creation. You will know the end to be a new state of being.
You will turn to the past for the knowledge of your ancestors, the future
for the possibilities for connection, and the present for the discovery of
self. Yes, you will bask in this new light and it will be good. And then
you will hear your brothers crying. You will see your sisters lying in the
streets. You will witness your fathers’ destruction at the hands of your
mothers. And you will shut it out. And you will be flooded so you will
hide. The waters will rage so you will lock the door on them. And they
will still rush in because no mere door can stop them, there are cracks
and openings that surround you constantly, bombard you with the pounding
of the waves, calling your thoughts to them, breaking into your sanctuary
and washing you out to seas with horizons you cannot perceive.
Your lungs will fill with the tears of your people the sirens singing only
their screams. The roars of these oceans will deafen you. Yet, deafened,
you will no longer hear them. The tears are not felt on your already saturated
face, the songs of the sirens surround you but do not enter. And you
may forget.
You may forget what you have heard and you may forget the
nature of life and you may forget that the world is over and the empty is
here. You may try to warm yourself by the sun, you may try to occupy
Caitlyn Johnson

What, Then, Will Be Left
your hands with work and play, you may try to embrace your brothers
and sisters and keep them to your arms. But you forget that these are
empty. You must remember or you will be proved wrong. Warm yourself
with memories, occupy your hands with keeping your body still, and
embrace only death. Build your arc, yes, but sail in the waters that surround
you, one eye on the horizon and the other on the waves. Dwell in
the empty for your time, and then move on. There are laws that we must
abide by and this is one of them.
Hear me, I know as I have lived it. And those that came before
me lived it as those who came before them. The world has ended many
times. In her time, in my time, in your time, there was a great silence
that hushed the thundering of fools, brought peace in death, and lured
our minds only to its song. There are bodies, strewn across the valleys,
locked in prisons of fear, and frozen by uncertainty. There will be time,
a still time, a frenzied time, and still more time. We feel it in our bones,
we live it, we are there, with no glimpse of light from within our darkness,
with no concept of any other kind of being, only what we feel. We,
humanity, hungry, tired, cold. We, families, impoverished, ground down,
isolated. We, you, me, dead, gone, buried. And yet the words you hear
are not the whispers of a ghost, but the ramblings of a persistent life, the
cloudy recollections of an ancient mind. A memory remains, and those to
remember it. A scar remains, and those to ache from it. A body remains
and those to mourn for it. Come famine plague war death there comes
after. And you wonder why.
It will not be the end because it can’t be. No, we won’t be freed
that easily. You will live because you have to. Death cannot overcome
life because without one there is not the other. And so you will keep
running towards one and away from the other though as time goes on you
lose certainty of which. But the running will never cease. We run like
roots in the dirt, proliferating, searching, fighting. We run like scavengers
in the wilds, hungering, stealing, scrounging. We run like fevers in the
bodies of the dying, burning, climbing, driving. We are weeds, parasites,
a sickness on this world, uprooted, cut off, eradicated, returning. This
world is a sickness in us, fevered, struggling, fed. Yes life is pandemic. If
there is breath to catch, blood to let, there is life. And let it spread.
Let it fill you. Stop running, just for a moment, and let it fill you.
Let the sight of darkness fill your eyes, let the sound of tears falling fill
your ears, let the fear and distress of all fill your mind. And your heart.
Fill that too, but with something new. Not what is around you, but what
Caitlyn Johnson

What, Then, Will Be Left
is in you. Then run again. Let this fuel you and keep running. Run on by
the ruins, by the shadows, by the ash. Run on too by the growing trees,
by the children’s games, by the shining sun. And see them all, and hear
all, and learn. All these things are here and will be and have been.
Hear me as you know in our collective soul they continue. Perhaps
that is our lot in this universe. To continue. To live our story so that
others can hear it and live it again. Yes the message gets smudged and
reinterpreted and rewritten along the way. Here it is flood where there
it was fire, here it is beast where there it was brother. But perhaps the
message fairs for the better in this. Maybe one day we will learn. Maybe
we have. Many things have changed from our mothers’ day, and many
are the same. Life though is change, and after the world is destroyed, we
shall see the faults that broke it and fill the holes in our fathers’ stories.
We must re build, and better, lest we mistakenly build dams to block the
waters that wash us clean.
We must look around and count the dead. We must look around
and clear the dirt-caked windows. We must look around and see ourselves,
what we have done, who we have killed, what we have saved. We
must tally our actions and plan again. How will we prepare, how will we
protect, how will we reassess. We will not understand why, but we must
learn the how. Learn to stave off our evils, control our hungers, give to
all our fellow beings, and wrench life from the dead earth like a flower
plucked from impenetrable secrets of the desert. We will work, without
understanding, but we will work. We will never know what it was, what
it all is for. A breath, held unrelentingly after having been fought so hard
for to win, finally released when, spent, understood, accepted.
Yes the world has ended many times. Let it again. Next time,
there will be a next time. We will do better, fight harder, run faster. Good
or bad right or wrong that is what we do. We run from the empty inherent
in us but we are thus pushed toward what we have deemed good.
Fullness, is laughter, love, and life. Yes and what is at once full is also
empty, lovely wretched, healthy sick, living dead, because without one
there is not the other. They ebb and flow like the tides, dragging us under
and pushing us farther. They are the shadow, cast only when there is sun,
throwing darkness and providing cool shade. They are the fire, whose
path is destruction, clearing away death and bringing warmth and light.
They are the earth, containing our dead and our life, burying what’s gone
and feeding the seeds of new birth, supporting our restless feet and swallowing
our weary bodies when our time is come. In the days after the
Caitlyn Johnson

What, Then, Will Be Left
apocalypse they are what is left. They are all around us, they are within
us, they are us. And no matter how we run from them, they shall continue.
Caitlyn Johnson

Temporary Escape
My mind enjoys
the way clouds feel between it’s fingers
and underneath the soles of its feet
calluses budding out from old skin
from how many times
it’s made this climb
It seems to think
that the higher it explores
altitude will morphe into physical space
miles apart from the mangled and desperate thoughts
hanging around in the trenches
of the forefront of my headspace
My mind has decided to keep climbing
adamant and stubborn
even when it loses its grip and is hanging by
it’s last trembling hand
it breaks itself to reach up and grasp the ledge
Each time we reach the top
It is me who must dangle my shoes
over the edge
all the scary things are fuzzy like
the negatives of an old disposable
and I know I can’t live here forever
But,
oh,
look at the view!
Brianna Pinon

Solitude
Alessandro Verniani

April 26th
Today is lovely,
slow moving and
warm as grass in July.
The honk of a lone
ice cream truck
has no one to hear
except the birds picking
at the cracks in the sidewalk,
searching for food or home or something
new.
Yet nature can be a craven thing.
A horse will run at the
slightest sound,
and the most beautiful fish can hold
the most
dangerous poison.
But today has no fear or
pride,
only sunlight dappled over
whatever lives underneath it,
lovely and warm as
grass in July.
A yellow prayer.
A silent gospel.
Chloe Low

Sun Screen
I like sunscreen as
in sun screen,
aged wooden lattice
protection,
diagonal lines
cut
and intersecting in a cooling pie’s crust
or otherwise crossed out
words in a diary
written with fervor in the light,
in either case handmade and
sacred but my sunscreen is like
sunscreen
plastic container and oily residue
on cheeks,
it sits next to nail clippers and
hairbrush by a
north facing window,
never sees the sun,
only sees me,
not handmade, not
sacred,
not anything but
every morning, without fail,
ten years.
Chloe Low

Quarantine Lens
Rachel Wang

Rattler, and Other Things I Remembered
old bicycle frame, how are you these days
lean and limber as i remember
back when our scarves doubled as our belts
we’d share secrets like only you
knew what noises baby sparrows made,
only you knew that peanut butter
and cheese was some kind of ambrosia,
where the bb pellets went after
the colorful trenches were dug up and then
smoothed back over again.
dear old frame, you work and that in itself
makes me want to duck and cover
till the little red welts are stickers peeling off
of my overripened skin, tell me
why did we all stick our fingers curiously
in the same nest, go trudging all
safari-like through the same tall grass?
quick and trembling as the tiny
body packed with venom and derision
fueled by one too days that cut it
just a little bit too close, bent wire met
bent body and i’m scared was
the only thing you could understand.
Kristen Chastain

Author Bios
Bradley William Holder (Myself at a Distance)
Bradley William Holder is an English and Philosophy major, slated
to graduate in 2021. He was a hermit before it was cool.
Chloe Low (Birdwolf, April 26th, Sun Screen)
Chloe Low is a first year English and Literary Journalism major.
She lives in Sacramento County and enjoys raspberries and comic
books.
Amanda Hall ((heart)h, Swansong)
Amanda Hall is a 3rd-year transfer student
and English major at UCI. She loves
women, carbs, and listening to vinyls. Her
last brain cell lives in Lady Gaga’s purse.
You can usually find her processing feelings
of intense yearning, drinking tea, or walking in the park.
Daelyn Daniloff (How to Write an Essay
During a Pandemic)
Greetings fellow humans, I’m a double
major in the school of Social Ecology and
I have mites in my face, we all do. While
we might be experiencing this pandemic
differently, we still all have the same tiny
arachnids cuddling up inside our pores, so just remember -- you’re
not alone. I hope you enjoy this possibly fictional and possibly
very realistic story about struggling to get absolutely anything
done at all during this quarantine. Peace and Love.
Rei Vignapiano (Trans in Pandemic)
Rei Vignapiano is a third-year Computer Science major. They
transferred to UCI in Fall 2019, after spending 3 years in community
college. Outside of school, their hobbies include watching

YouTube, playing Animal Crossing, and letting their friends show
them movies that they’ve never seen.
Kristie Song (Because you are here)
I am a graduating senior and will be
attending UC Berkeley’s Graduate program
for Journalism as my next endeavor.
I hope to continue telling stories that are
meaningful for others through a variety of
mediums but have always found writing
to be my most comfortable retreat.
Caitlyn Johnson (What, then, will be left)
Originally from San Francisco (and presently living there due to
the pandemic), Caitlyn is currently a second year studying Film
and Media Studies and English at UCI. Her work has actually never
been published before this year (though another of her pieces is
being featured in Neon Anteater Renaissance’s 2020 spring issue)
and so she is very excited for this occasion! Aside from writing
short fiction, she spends her time writing scripts and making short
films, listening to music, and watching a whole lot of TV.
Brianna Pinon (Temporary Escape)
My name is Brianna Pinon. I am currently,
as I write this, a third-year education
major at UCI. I have been writing since I
was in the second grade and plan to keep
writing until I die (whenever that may
be). Without the constant support from
my family and boyfriend, I would have
disintegrated from stress. I hope everyone
is well and to appreciate the people
out there trying to make the world a
better place while holding all the broken
pieces.