New Forum | Summer 2021 Editors' Issue

NEW FORUM

S U M M E R 2 0 2 1

T H E E D I T O R S ' I S S U E

CONTENTS

FICTION

Emily Anderson

Sierra Myer

Bradley Holder

*Blooms

Clipping

Returns

4-6

13-17

20-26

POETRY

Gina Johnson

Celina Tiqui

Grace Tu

Evangeline Brennan

David Dulak

Monic Gonzalez

Dion Kim

Amanda Hall

I Wish I Could

Kahea

Young Love

Listening to “The Talk”

Monocuco

Happily Ever After…?

Pink Skies Above Jirisan

**Another Year

7

8-9

10-12

18

19

27-29

30

31-32

PHOTOGRAPHY

David Dulak Disparate Pathways 33

*TW: Brief Mention of suicide

**TW: Brief Mention of Sexual

Assault

NEW FORUM - 3 - SUMMER 2021

“Blooms”

Emily Anderson

They found you bloated and blue at the edge of the river bank. Sand formed clumps in your

hair. Bugs scurried across your face. Purple bloomed on your lips. Your spine had shattered

in the fall.

Someone called 9-1-1.

9-1-1 called me.

I met them at the morgue. I drove an hour and a half to get there, inhaling the smog on the

interstate and trying to make sense of all the brake lights. And when I got there, you were

bloated and blue. Purple bloomed on your lips. Your spine had shattered in the fall.

I nodded because I recognized you by the scar on your chin from when you were seven. You

were out at the jungle gym, swinging on the bars with the blue paint that had been rubbed

off at the top by hundreds of sweaty hands. And I watched you fall. You twisted in the air to

land, not on your knees or on your hands, but on your chin. And it split open right then. But

you didn’t scream. You just cradled it in your hand and the blood ran down your arm and

dried a rusty brown. I drove you to the hospital. And you came home with a scar and the

blood still brown on your arm.

A few days later they asked if I had found a note.

You didn’t leave one.

Unless you folded it and hid it in your books, or in the jar of brown rice, or behind the Van

Gogh print that you framed after college.

Because after I saw you, bloated and blue, frozen on that sterile steel slab under florescent

lights, I tore your room apart. I cut open your mattress with the scissors you bought at the

dollar store. I read all your notebooks. You left nothing crumpled in your glasses case or

behind the Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. Nothing in your pillows or under the carpet.

Because I peeled it up at the corners. It came up in big strips. And I sneezed in the dust. You

didn’t fold it up and put it in a pen, like how you passed notes in elementary school. You

didn’t put it on the inside of a lamp shade. Or stick it between the slats of an air vent.

*TW: Sexual Assault


But I left the Van Gogh on the wall. Irises.

“Blooms” (cont.)

Emily Anderson

Blue.

Purple blooming.

On your lips.

In Van Gogh’s garden.

No one saw you jump.

I say how do they know that you jumped if nobody saw you jump. You might’ve been

walking. Thinking. Looking at the final stubborn leaves on November branches. You

might’ve been praying, looking out over the bridge thinking that God hid answers in the

river or up in the sky. You might’ve leaned a little too far. And tumbled and hit your spine

on the rocks and gotten sand all tangled in your hair.

But I look for the note.

Because I know. I know that you stood at the edge of the bridge and looked out and got your

answer. Or thought that you did. And that you jumped.

You never hated pain. You didn’t cry when you cracked your chin at seven. Or when you

broke your arm at ten. Or when he hit you at fifteen. Or when you crashed your car at

twenty because you didn’t see the brake lights.

You wouldn’t fear the rocks. The being blue. The purple blooming on your lips.

But here I am. Wondering that maybe if I empty your kitchen cabinets I’ll find a piece of

notebook paper, folded and stained with ink, hidden among the Cheerios. Because maybe

you leaned too far. Even though I know you didn’t. And maybe you cried when you split

your chin, just after I went to sleep that night. And maybe you leaned too far.


“Blooms” (cont.)

Emily Anderson

The scar on your chin. The purple blooms on your lips.

Maybe it’s behind the Van Gogh.

Maybe you leaned a little too far.

Emily Anderson is an English major with a minor in literary journalism who loves Joan Didion

and bad sitcoms. Post-graduation she plans to haunt her local library, visit New York City, and

avoid any questions about her future endeavors. Nevertheless, she will continue to write short

fiction that explores the relationship between trauma and interiority, and glean inspiration from the

sadness of herself and others.


I Wish I Could

Gina Johnson

I wish I could tell you everything

Past destruction, the sadness

But my lips are sealed shut

With the fear of tomorrow

I wish I could show you

How to comfort me, hold me, feel me

But my hands are tied

With ropes of rejection

I wish I could listen

To your soothing words without doubt

But my ears are deafened

By my baleful thoughts

I wish I could taste

The sweetness of your scarlet lips

But my head is turned

Averting the risk of falling for you

I wish I could smell you

Engulf myself in your cloying love

But my nose is filled

With the must of yesterday’s heartbreak

Gina Johnson is a 3rd year English and Film double-major minoring in creative writing. She uses

poetry as a way to express and understand her emotions, often sorting through muddled thoughts in

the process. When she’s not writing, Gina can be found on the court playing for UCI’s Womens’

club volleyball team.


kahea

Celina Tiqui

when i first saw her,

i couldn’t tell what i felt.

love? admiration?

anger? jealousy?

realization?

she was wearing pink

but her heart was dressed in white

blessed and ready, walking across

towards the altar of you.

holiness follows her around

as if she’s the angel that brought it

to the rest of us.

when i first saw her,

i couldn’t tell what i felt.

but i could tell what you did.

your eyes widen like saucers

whenever she crossed your sight

i watched as your fingers twitched

trying not to reach out

the stupid look on your face

that was always there

somehow looked stupider.


kahea (cont.)

Celina Tiqui

it was like looking in the mirror.

her name called out towards the heavens,

and so they split open for her

god leaving his mark wherever she went

she was beautiful

blessed

beloved

and yours.

Celina Tiqui is a 2nd year student working on her English and Education Sciences degrees, along

with a minor in Creative Writing. Born and raised in the Philippines prior to moving to America,

she is inspired most by her relationships with people and places. She loves reading, playing video

games, and listening to every genre of music under the sun.


young love

Grace Tu

you’re not sure what catches your eye at first—

was it her angelic, innocent eyes

that seemed to focus on you with adoration

but quickly avert bashfully whenever you looked in her direction?

or was it the way she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear

whenever she smiled softly at your words?

regardless, you’ve fallen head over heels for her.

“this is love,” you tell yourself

as you drown in the pink bubbles that fizz in your heart

like a refreshing taste of soda on a summer day.

you shower her with your love and affection,

and you want the whole world to know, loud and proud,

that you are in love with her.

if she wanted the stars,

you’d catch them for her,

and if she wanted the moon,

you’d make sure it shined only for her.

for her, you’d do anything, anything—

because you love her, for god’s sake,

more than everything else in the world.

she was a little hesitant at first,

scared that you’d break her heart into a thousand pieces

that she’d never be able to piece back together.

but you reassured her with your whole heart

that you loved her and only her,

that you’d stay by her side no matter what.

you took her hand, and maybe still a little reluctant, she did the same for you;

this moment was one to last forever, you thought with a smile.


young love (cont.)

Grace Tu

every day was rose-colored with her.

bit by bit, she lets you into her world,

introduces you to her friends and family,

who tell you that “if you ever make her cry, i’ll make you pay!” as they greet you.

“who do you think i am?” you ask, laughing. “i’ll protect her, no matter what it takes.”

she swoons at your words, and everyone else nods in approval,

and you smile at this fresh experience,

at this young love you knew would never wither.

she takes you to all her favorite places, brings you on all her new adventures,

dyeing her canvas with your colors.

she tells you about her dreams and aspirations,

about her fears and insecurities,

about how much she wishes you were in her past,

about how much she wishes you’d be there with her in her future.

you nod along absently to her excited rambling,

ignoring the fact that you were, without a doubt, getting bored of her.

too clingy, too annoying.

it’s been a long time since you felt those butterflies in your chest;

the pink soda lost all its fizz, and all you taste now is bitter regret.

she’s complaining and crying too often, and it’s getting on your nerves;

she says she’s insecure, that she’s scared you’ll leave her,

and you really don’t understand why —

what, did she sanely think you were going to leave her for your backups?

(you can get what you want easier with her, anyways.)


young love (cont.)

Grace Tu

her constant nagging and her sensitive nature is too much to handle;

really, it’s all her fault that things ended up like this.

when you pack up your things and leave her behind all alone,

you don’t feel any remorse or sorrow;

instead, you call up all your friends for a party

because you’re finally free, for god’s sake.

little did you know that you broke her heart into a thousand pieces

that she’d never be able to piece back together,

that you’d scarred her in ways you never even considered.

but did that matter?

the pink bubbles started fizzing in your heart once again

as your gaze wandered to someone new.

you’re not sure what catches your eye at first—

was it her confident, beckoning glance

that seemed to pull you in with such force

that you were certain she knew was irresistible?

or was it the way she wasn’t afraid of showing her emotions,

that she was bold and unafraid and different?

regardless, you’ve fallen head over heels for her.

“this is love,” you tell yourself

as you forget about the girl you once loved for a mere second,

the one who loved you most ardently.

Grace Tu is a 2nd year Literary Journalism student hoping to double major in Business

Administration as well. She is passionate about writing, fashion, music, and travel; in her free time,

she enjoys hanging out with friends and getting to know her peers. This is Grace’s first time

attempting poetry, and she wishes to learn more about how to improve her writing from all the

talented writers around her.


Clipping

Sierra J. Myers

He wakes up when the sun is setting, dusk’s bruised light roaming across the left side of

his face. He lies face-up in the heat of his sheets, arms spread, the backs of his knuckles

dipping off the bed’s edge to either side. His white comforter smells like sweat and engulfs

only his right leg, the rest spilling to the floor. He is barefoot and shirtless. A wireframe fan

churns on the nightstand, rotating side-to-side without pause.

He stands but does not turn on the apartment’s light, only moves to push the curtains

next to his bed aside. The cityscape beyond the window is uniform, a yawning expanse of

dark buildings broken up only by the neon crown of the cinema, the blinking of the

helicopter pad on a nearby rooftop. He leans forward and puts his forehead to the glass. His

apartment is on the forty-second floor, and the converging roofs of surrounding skyscrapers

hide the street’s shape far below. His thick fingers ease the curtain back into place. When he

pulls away from the glass, a circle of fog remains.

A desk juts out from the stippled plaster wall on the other side of his bed. The size is

unusual for the room’s cramped neatness. Five feet of glossy, dark wood supporting a

keyboard and mouse, a computer in a clear-sided case, and two screens.

Old Post-it notes cover the edges of the screen on the right, curling away from the metal

like drying leaves. 59m12s, 58m24s, 57m50s, 57m20s, 57m07, 54m23s, 53m46s, 53m42s,

49m02s. The times were penned proudly, once, and pinned within sight. The notes flutter

when the rotary fan turns to face them, the oldest ones threatening to fall, devoid of

adhesive. The screen on the left is marked, too—bits of phrases and words scribbled on

fresher pieces of paper, taped to the bottom. check fence behind cafeteria use paintball

gun to clip outside of arena go into the forest right away, left from Grizz

With the curtain shut, the apartment again becomes quieted by static darkness. He

crosses the room and sinks down into the desk chair, already hollowed in the shape of him.

His fingers settle upon the computer’s power button while his other hand moves to cup the

mouse, thumb brushing the swell of it. The computer’s cooling fans begin to whir. The

chair’s leather clings to the meat of his bare back, his thighs.

On the wall above the desk, there is a large map. The iconography is childlike and

imperfect, printed with digitally-imitated crayon strokes on the glossy poster paper. A

semicircle of rainbow cabins in the middle, with one window each. A blue swimming pool,

textured with round strings of interconnected w’s. Trails curving through the jotted grass. A

cafeteria. Trees ballooning like clouds around the poster’s edges: a forest. The entire map

has been circled in black marker—a great wall of ink, trapping the pool and trails and cabins

within it.


Clipping (cont.)

Sierra J. Myers

He brushes the keyboard’s spacebar and the room fills with colored light, both screens

coming to life. The screen on the right displays a digital stopwatch. On the screen to the left,

a cartoon compass appears against an olive-green background. In a font that resembles

interconnected twigs, the short line of text beneath the compass reads, CAMP ROBIN

HOOD. His pupils shrink to pinpoints, but he does not squint nor look away from the image.

After a moment, he retrieves a pair of headphones from the desk drawer and cups them

around his ears. Exactly beneath the headband’s warm, insistent pressure on the top of his

head, there is a shallow dent in his skull.

The fan turns again toward the desk. Two Post-it notes shiver violently, then tear away

from the monitor on the right, settling like petals on the dark wood. He wipes his palm on

his thigh, then mouses over the on-screen text and clicks. The room is quiet and still. By no

mistake, the stopwatch on his second monitor does not begin to count upward.

You are Aspen, an eleven-year-old boy. You have fallen out of bed, and the hardwood

floor of the cabin presses against your cheek. It is midday. Through the single, high window

held open by a small gold chain, you can hear cicadas singing outside. The sunbeams

coming through are tinted green from the canopy outside. You prop yourself up.

“Yo, Aspen. Why you down there?”

The voice belongs to Green, a sharp-eyed kid who only goes by his last name, standing

near the open cabin door with his swim shirt on. The sunscreen on his forehead isn’t rubbed

in all the way. You know he gives you a hard time in later interactions no matter how you

respond.

“I think there’s a bear problem.” You choose to make the joke even though you don’t

find it clever. Green rolls his eyes. He points to the bunk bed behind you.

“Don’t forget your bracelet,” he says. “We have to turn the beads in at the end of the

day. Make sure to get twelve. Twelve—don’t forget.”

You nod, loose curls of brown hair falling into your eyes. You always find it to be outof-character

for him to give you this advice. He’s a vicious boy with few positive qualities,

though if you talk to him at the after-credits campfire cookout, you’ll learn, without surprise,

that his divorcing parents are to blame for his behavior. The game has programmed every

child to be blameless and redeemable.

You watch Green head out onto the porch and sling a towel from the railing over his

shoulder. He wiggles his bare toes in his sandals for a moment, looking around, then walks

down the steps and up the hill out of sight. He moves with an awkward mix of thuggish

swagger and middle-schooler self-consciousness. You turn toward the bunk and pull your


Clipping (cont.)

Sierra J. Myers

bracelet from beneath the pillow. The leather cord is fitted with a single, solid blue bead.

Your wrist looks small to you as you wrap the cord around it, the jut of your bone sticking

out.

You walk outside. Beneath the shadow of the redwood trees is a dirt-and-grass clearing,

surrounded by ten cabins. A slow-moving but steady stream of boys walks past, grouped in

twos and threes, wandering up the hill and laughing, dragging sticks through the dirt. They

wear swimming shirts or camp tees, the compass logo large on their backs. A mesh of

sunlight and shadow covers the ground, shifting from side-to-side with the movement of the

branches above. Faint upbeat music plays from up the hill, near the pool. Redwood needles

have been neatly raked and piled near the clearing’s edge. You’ve seen the scene hundreds

of times, but it still feels different without the threat of ticking time—closer to how it must

have felt the first time you were here, you guess, though you can’t remember.

You look up. The redwoods converge like a great cathedral, hiding the sky far above,

and a strange feeling rises in your chest, too large, somewhere between longing and

possibility. Then you move, picking around the wet tee-shirts and the abandoned pairs of

shoes, heading down the porch steps.

Across the way, Grizz lounges in a chair outside Cabin 7 with his long hair tied up in a

bandana and a sun hat covering his face. The counselor appears to be sleeping. There is a

brown bead sewn to the brim of his hat. If you’re interested in gathering the quickest twelve

beads, you’ll begin by stealing this one. From there, you’ll head up to the pool to challenge

Green in a high-dive competition, wagering your blue and brown beads—best trick wins,

winner takes all. Upon losing, Green will run up the hill in a long, insult-filled chasesequence.

You will catch him, seize his red and yellow beads, and continue to the nearby

paintball arena for the black bead. All perfectly efficient, trying to shave off the seconds.

The first five of the twelve.

But instead, you walk downhill. You walk until the clearing narrows, and the sound of

the pool music fades, and you are left only with the sound of your own feet. Poison oak tries

to herd your path, bursting up from the ground on the right. You step carefully between

bushes, and the redwood branches reach lower and lower above your head. All of the cabins

are behind you now, but even so, boys wander in the forest ahead, emerging from tree trunks

and partially-transparent stones, stepping through the landscape. They have brown hair and

smooth, unfeatured faces, as though meant to be overlooked, and when they pass by, their

heads shiver on their shoulders, warping diagonally before straightening. They do not speak.


Clipping (cont.)

Sierra J. Myers

You aren't expected to be here. The knowledge makes you feel unmoored and alight

with unlimited strangeness, like an astronaut drifting away from Earth. It's thrilling in a way

that is different from your usual race against time. The redwood foliage thickens again,

predatory around you, nearly doubling in intensity, and still you walk forward. The fixed

camp is at your back, and the shifting landscape is ahead.

You walk. The bushes and branches become so thick that you cannot see, the fuzzy

close-up textures of leaves filling your whole vision. You turn in a full circle, and the mess

of green and brown shifts but does not clear. You look down at your chest; the branch of a

nearby oak tree is extending cleanly through your T-shirt, through your stomach. Panic—but

no, you're not hurt. The sight is good. It means you must be deep enough in the forest to

make an escape.

You crouch down, slowly, and the oak branch in your stomach slides upward through

your chest, your neck, settling there like a threatening hand, a shadow at the bottom of your

vision. When your left hand touches the soil, it falls through up to the elbow. You lean down

and your shoulder goes through, too, met with no resistance. Wonderful and terrible, being

deeply submerged in something but unable to feel it. You can see the black interior of the

oak branch going through your head, nothing else. One more push should be enough. You

lean down with your full force.

Rather than falling in, you are met with an abrupt series of images. The transparent

underbelly of a pool, the nothingness behind a closed bathroom door, the concave inside of a

featureless face. Black-and-white geometric bursts, a full view of the sky and sun, and then

you're back on the forest floor and your body is spasming, sneakered feet twitching one way

and your small legs the other.

You can't see beyond your own body. The oak branch is still through your head. You

push forward, again trying to fall into the ground, but you can’t move forward, nor withdraw

your submerged arm and shoulder. You feel desperate for change. Nothing moves, not in the

way you direct. Your body continues to twitch. You are afraid.

The apartment is dark again, and the sound of his breathing heaves louder than the

spinning fan. He stands and bats his headphones to the desk—a sharp crack of plastic against

wood. It is the middle of the night. A bubble of heat surrounds the desk, emanating from the

now-still computer. When he steps away, the warm room feels cool in comparison.


Clipping (cont.)

Sierra J. Myers

He walks to the window, crossing beside the bed, one hand curled into a thick fist. He

reaches for the curtain as though to push it away. He walks to the bed and sits, letting out an

involuntary noise. His hands settle cumbrously on his hips. Then he stands again, walks to

the window, and pushes at the curtain. He does not look outside, but turns back into the

room, watching the light from the city settle across the map.

Sierra J. Myers is an English major with an Emphasis in Creative Writing. She’s pleased to be

graduating, but even more pleased that she had a chance to write as much as she did during her

undergraduate experience. She hopes to one day muster the diligence to write a novel or two. In her

writing, she aims to capture the strange, hard-to-describe atmosphere found in dreams.


Listening to "The Talk"

Evangeline Brennan

The light from a door half-cracked illuminates

the hallway I stand in, listening to the soft murmur of your voice.

It was the thing that stopped me in my tracks, the sternness,

trying to express the importance of this moment

with each stressed word of your voice. You’re scared

but you don’t want them to be. Just alert.

They are children—your children—in middle and

high school, one barely a teen and the other not quite

an adult. And you fear that someone

in a blue uniform won’t see them as such, as your babies.

So you tell them to be careful, to be respectful even when

someone is accusing them of something they didn’t do. Even when

they are scared for their life and have a gun pointed at them.

With startling clarity, I realize that this is THE talk.

The one my mother never had to do

with my own brother and me because

we are white. Even if our heritage says different,

and screams nandito ako while pulsing through our veins.

Our skin gives us privilege that your children,

my cousins—the ones who call me Ate—

don’t have. Because of the color of their skin

and the people that would tell them who they are

before speaking to them, who assume everything

from nothing. So here I stand,

listening to the talk for the first time

at twenty-two years old, surrounded by

brown carpet,

brown walls,

and white skin.


Monocuco

David Dulak

Mujeres de la noche

Living in a paradoxical place

Deemed as a state of freedom and acceptance

But outnumbered by the zealots and bigots

Discriminated for her appearance

Judged for her health

Harassed for her feminine identity

Looked down upon for her profession

She suffocated above the surface

Laying motionless for fifteen hours

Viewed as unworthy for the medical attention that she deserved

Her injustice caused an uproar

The people shouted her name in fury

Now the streets are silent

It has been a year and the people seem to have forgotten about her

Nunca la olvidaré

David Dulak is an English major currently finishing his senior year at UCI. His interests include

creative writing, art, music, film, pop culture, fashion, and news. Writing is his passion but he also

appreciates reviewing works from other writers. He enjoys traveling, attending social gatherings,

catching the latest releases, and cuddling with his dog. His favorite memory at UCI was

coordinating events for aspiring writers to share their voice.


Returns

Bradley William Holder

kat’s tale.

We were standing outside the store, the early morning’s perspiration, by then, dry at the

backs of our shirts. The sun had already begun its descent, and the time of year, that

obstinate end of July, put the parking lot’s color scheme somewhere between grayscale and

sepiatone.

I’d never spoken to her this long before, but I’d seen and definitely heard her, most

mornings, walking around the building—ecstatically greeting employee and customer alike.

She was pretty but a little older, a thing most obvious in the skin around her eyes. Pulling

down her mask—light blue, none the worse for wear—she every now and again dragged on

an electronic cigarette, which lit up accordingly. “Kat’s super hot,” one of the guys at work

had said earlier that week. “If I wasn’t married...” Even if you were, buddy.

Or so I hear.

Fifty yards away, the dwindling queue zigged, making corners of a straight line, the few

customers left (the patient ones, the ones who knew to wait) holding the hands of their

children, the leashes of their pets, while a guy I’ve known a while, whose name I never

have, apologetically directed them inside.

Kat and I were on curbside duty.

“Sometimes, I kinda forget what I’m doing, you know?”

“Uh, I think so,” I said. I made a quick gimme gesture with my right hand. She passed

it.

A sound like percolating coffee, like a bong that whispers.

“What do you mean?” but lower, bassier than my normal register.

A thick, fragrant cloud of milky vapor rising, then disappearing. “This shit tastes like

flowers.”

“I mean that sometimes I kinda forget what I’m doing. Like I just wake up. It’s because

I had brain damage once.”

“Woah, really?” passing it back, putting my mask back to the bottom of my nose. “Can

I ask what happened?”

“Yeah, I was kidnapped, something like four years ago, by this guy I was dating. We

were driving in his car, and I said something he didn’t like, so he hit me. It knocked me out.

He tried to take me to his parents’ cabin. I was missing for five days.”

“What the fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus Christ. How’d you get away?”


Returns (cont.)


“On the way, we had to stop for gas. While he was distracted, I just fucking ran. He had

a record, was wanted for killing someone, I think. Didn’t want that to resurface probably.”

I wondered if they’d been sleeping together.

“Man. I, uh, I’m really sorry that happened to you.”

“It’s okay! Not your fault, obviously.”

The line at the front of the store had somehow grown. It extended about as far as the last

front window, through which could be seen a sizable corral of shopping carts (spray painted

maroon) and an elderly employee armed with disposable gloves, off-brand disinfectant, and

countless rectangles of microfiber cloth.

“Did you tell anyone?”

She began to answer, but a white SUV pulled up before she could finish. “Hold that

thought,” she said, quickly approaching the vehicle with her clipboard. Within seconds, she

was gone, striding toward the store, her speed belying the length of her legs, a cloud of

ambrosial smoke the only suggestion that she’d ever even been there.

She came back in a huff, her long ponytail pendulum-swinging, parcel in bicepted grip,

her only other free limb adjusting her mask. Her thank-yous and well-wishes breached the

barrier of the firmly set car’s window—secure as a double-bolted door, trusted as a

quarantined companion—thankful and receptive though they were, and after passively

acknowledging that the line seemed to be growing still, larger and closer to the store’s

nursery entrance, wayward in the way that good stories are, she replanted herself beside me,

proffering the sup of her vape, and asked, as if never bothered in all her life, “What were we

talking about, again?”

Leaving me, of course, to bring it up. “Uh, you were talking about the time you had

brain damage.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

“Sometimes you forget what you’re doing.”

“Yup.”

“I’d asked if you told the police.”

“Right.”

“Well, did you?”

“Actually, I didn’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“He said that he’d hurt my family. Out of concern for their wellbeing, I promised to

never tell anyone. He came here once, a few years ago, and the goddamn store manager


Returns (cont.)


didn’t do anything. She wouldn’t even get anyone to walk me to my car, just offered to call

the police, and I was already pretty clear that I didn’t want to do that.”

“Hm.”

“Fucked up, right?”

“Seriously fucked up.”

I looked back at the line, each unit of isolation (some singular, some plural) standing

apart from one another, each facing the same direction, more or less, significant little atoms

in the matter of our world—their sum total having now wrapped itself around the building,

out of sight, growing and growing always out of sight.

“This shit’s never gonna change, is it?” I said, reaching for it again.

“No, probably not.”

travis’s.

On account of a rather booze-filled evening (and preceding midafternoon), bradley’s

currently curled up on one of the wicker chairs in the breakroom, his flannel shirt removed

and placed over his head, his short legs contorted such that he doesn’t slip out, something

like twenty-five minutes left on his lunch hour, his mind tottering in and out of

consciousness like someone resistantly coming down, his breathing imperceptible to those

around him. Travis—tall and broad-chested, long brown hair wrapped in the manliest of

buns, a trailer park stache and drawl to boot, revving up to tell a story from his youth—

who’s taken to him like a cat to knocking shit over, threatens to kick anybody’s ass who

wakes him.

“Homie, one time I was walking off beach boulevard, had just got myself a new fucking

mp3 player, shit was like two in the morning. All of a sudden this fucking bigass pickup

races by, pushing like ninety, but then just fucking stops out of nowhere, right in the middle

of the goddamn road. There ain’t nobody there, just me and this fucking truck. I don’t know

what else to do, so I just keep walking toward it like.

“I could tell something’s up, yo, but I’m just trying to get where I’m trying to go.

“You ever in your life know that something bad was gonna happen, like you didn’t feel

safe or something, but instead of taking the long way or whatever you walked right the fuck

into it?

“So I’m walking for like ten minutes, feels like, before I reach it. The engine’s still

running when I get to it, though I guess I could’ve noticed from the smoke coming off the

back. Just when I’m in view to see it, to see that there’s like actual people in there, from


Returns (cont.)


the back window, you know (?), both these fucking doors fly open, and these two bigass

motherfuckers with like crowbars and shit jump out. Then they drop me, dog, got me down

on the sidewalk, beating me within a cinch of my life, right (?), and like some bitch’s still in

the car, I could hear her, fucking yelling, like calling me a pussy and shit, saying like,

‘What’s wrong, bitch, ain’t you a man? Ain’t you gonna defend yourself? Get up off the

ground, you pussy-ass bitch!’

“I don’t even know how much time goes by, feels like it could be a few hours or like a

few minutes, right (?), but I ain’t tryna piss nobody off more than they already are. Way I

figure it, there’s something that these fools want, and they jumped me, right, just to make

sure I didn’t keep them from getting it. There ain’t no fucking way I’m gonna keep it. I’m

outnumbered, fool, so I fucking curl up and take that shit, I take whatever they’re trying to

give me and I give whatever the fuck it is they’re trying to take.

“So long as they let me keep my life.

“Finally, it fucking mellows out, right (?), but at this point I can’t even fucking see

anything. I can, like, hear my heart beat and feel my blood moving all slow through my

body, like in my fingers and shit, but the pain’s like not even a thing anymore. I remember

feeling the grass with my fingers that honestly, you know (?), I was pretty sure were fucking

broken to shit. I remember how cold and wet it was, like the coldest goddamn wettest thing

I’d ever fucking felt. I hear them say something like, ‘Hey bitch, thanks for the tip,’ some

smartass shit like that, you know (?), and they follow, they probably follow the cord to the

mp3 player in my pocket, right (?), and they fucking take it and, like, my backpack with all

my stuff, too, leaving me there, barely fucking alive, bro, and I hear them get in their truck,

all fast as fuck, and peel out, the engine roaring off until it fades all the way out, nothing but

the sound of the streetlamp buzzing above me and that still wet coldness in the air and the

salt off the ocean and the taste of the blood in my mouth and pretty much nothing.”

“The weird thing, bro, is that I never told anyone this until right now. I kept that fucking

shit a secret for years, bro, and I think I finally realize why. I’ve been shamed of that shit

because I know now that even then I should’ve gotten my bitch ass off that cold wet ground

and defended my fucking self. Even if there’re ten or even fifteen of those goddamn

motherfuckers, even if they had guns and shit, even if I had nothing to hold onto but a few

fucking dollars, bro, I shoulda stood my ground and fought my hardest for whatever it is that

I had. It ain’t about money. It ain’t pride. Naw, man. It’s because I knew, lying there,

breathing all broken, thankful to be alive and shit, that as soon as those fuckers were on me,

dude, I was searching like a goddamn light for a reason to back down,


Returns (cont.)


to let them have it. Because of the passive nature of my very self, dude. I don’t know what it

is, if it’s about my dad or my brother or my mom or what. But it’s there. Always has been.

“The problem is that, dude, there’re times when we gotta fight. And some of us don’t

want to, alright (?), I get that. But we’re the ones who need to learn to, more than anybody

else. And the ones who know to fight, dude. They gotta learn to not. It’s all about doing

what’s the hardest thing for you. Like I don’t know you, dude. You don’t know me. But the

thing is, is that we all need to move closer to the center. Back to the center of the spectrum

of our individual, what’s it called (?), like, predispositions and shit. If we can do that, just

try an’ be a little more unlike ourselves, bro, from time to time, then I think we’ll probly be

okay, in the end. Sometimes, I don’t know, sometimes I just think that some people, I don’t

know who, just some people out there really need to hear that.”

theirs.

Dirk and Mastiff, brothers, are in the parking lot on a Sunday, semi-convincingly

dressed like either plumbers or electricians, struggling somewhat to situate the cylindrical

body of a water heater onto a flat cart the color of rust.

Mastiff, the younger but more assertive of the two, holds the cart still by its handle,

while Dirk hugs the thing, jerking its weight with a torso much thinned and softened by the

frequent ingestion of beer and reefer—made all the worse by a lifestyle, despite the

exceptional quality of his family genepool, completely devoid of physical exercise.

He’s taller than the heat exchanger, and his brother as well, by a good five inches,

though not quite as round as either, requiring him to slouch considerably. “Come on, man,”

says Mastiff. “Why the hell would you take all the weight on your damn back? Straighten

that shit out and use your legs.”

“Aight,” he says.

“That’s it, there you go. Come on, let’s get in there. We don’t got all day.”

“Yeh...”

They approach the store’s southernmost entrance at a leisurely pace, the older matching

the stride of the younger. Mastiff pushes the cart with his left hand, awkwardly using the

other to hold the water heater down by its top. The cart is unwieldy, like so many others,

with overuse and inattention.

Summer’s almost over, but it seems like it always has been.

“Mask up, fool.”

With better months once pushed between the care and obligation of bitter guardians,


Returns (cont.)


the brothers, as boys, had played with cigarettes not quite smoked down to the filter in the

abandoned outer edge of their aunt’s apartment complex—the long way to the pool, which

hadn’t been cleaned in god knew how long, and somehow smelled worse than it looked.

Mastiff had only just begun to realize that despite his comparative smallness—then less

pronounced than now—he possessed a remarkable edge on his oafish elder. It was watching

it happen, as precocious troublemakers often quickly learn to do: his older brother

consuming what had remained of a discarded butt, the instigator wondering what it tasted

like. So he asked. “Like a fucking cigarette,” was the reply.

The line outside is short—

the line at the desk longer, but not by much.

Once inside, Mastiff removes his notepad from the waistband of his work pants. Each

yellow sheet is smooth as if steam-pressed, with script calligraphic in glide and selfawareness.

Serial numbers, case numbers, dates of the year. Three rows. Straight lines

meticulously made. Each specimen carefully contained in boxes of equal temperament and

dimension. No stray marks or blots of ink. The penman, whoever it’d been, was nothing if

not damn careful. “This is for them,” he’d said before, explaining it. “Makes it look legit.”

Dirk had nodded, clicked the top of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, signaling

understanding and then something like ennui right off the cuff.

Curtains. “The mask, I understand,” says Mastiff. “But the gloves, I don’t know. You

see, the cashier picks up the scanner, puts it back in the holster, touches her phone, cleans

the holster and the phone with the spray, picks up the scanner again, gets whatever was on

her gloves back on the scanner. Ironically…” [he clears his throat], “...the handle of the

spray bottle may be the dirtiest damn thing in the whole store. Ain’t nobody cleaning that.”

“Yeh, word.”

In its infancy, the plan suffered from various setbacks. Getting the thing the right way

took a time or two. “It’s all about establishing trust. You and me. We have something

working against us. Looking the way we do. We need to compensate.” That time they didn’t

go far enough, when Mast’s girl’s brother answered the door. The first few times when they

hadn’t called ahead, which was optional anyway, but certainly—as Dirk was frequently

learning and relearning the importance of—made a good impression. The time the heater’d

rolled out the bed of the truck on the 405, nearly killing three people. “The only way we’re

going to get good at something is through failure,” Mastiff had said. And then, “The more

you fail, the more compelled you are to succeed.”

Curtains. The cashier knows what’s coming the moment they walk in the store. By the

time the brothers reach her booth, she’s on the store’s landline, reading from the laminated


Returns (cont.)


pages of a three-ring binder. Mastiff sees her glance at his notebook, which he has at this

point placed on the counter in front of him. Through the plexiglass partition that divides the

two of them from the one of her, she says, “Be just one second.”

Curtains. “Hey, miss,” he says, gently tapping the notebook with an index finger. “We

have the case number right here. You don’t have to call.”

“I know,” she says, a little testy. “Management just prefers it when we do.”

“Alright, no problem.”

In the back office, loss prevention is checking the cameras. “I know these pendejos,” he

says. “They do this, move from store to store, returning water heaters on the pretense of

being plumbers and shit. Who knows where they get them?”

“They steal them, I’m sure,” the manager says. “Okay. Let’s call the cops.”

Curtains. Curtains between them. Mastiff gets something like a premonition, on him

like a shiver. Curt. He feels for the keys in his right pocket. He puts his hand on his

brother’s shoulder. “Yo,” he says, glancing at the line behind them. Curtains. “Stay here. I’ll

be right back.”

“Yeh, aight.”

Dirk moves not quickly but with intention, locking guilty eyes with the onlookers who

will soon replace him. He comes to the automatic doors, noticeably faster—“Excuse me, sir.

This isn’t an exit.”—but only once he’s out of sight. The doors decisively shut behind him

—“I know, sorry.”—like the billowy curtains of a stage production. His keys are out, and

he’s playfully, or perhaps nervously, swinging them around his middle finger—like a cat’s

toy, like a pistol. The parking lot is still, the summer’s sunlight covered with a blue-grey

mist. The wind coming in from the shore, too far to see but close enough to feel, touches his

skin; and he looks at it—still moving, panicking only to the extent that he’s acting, acting

only to the extent that he’s moving. “No choice,” he says to himself, throwing the keys in

the bushes nearby. “Not one.”

The employee at the door, her pride wounded by this customer’s seeming lack of regard

for the rules, watches him walk toward Magnolia Blvd. “What a asshole,” she says.

C-curtains.

Bradley William Holder is an English and philosophy double major and Southern California native.

This summer—after graduation—he hopes to read lots of German idealism, work earnestly in some

coastal city for a pitiful wage, and, when so moved, compose weirdly honest, stylistically

experimental coming-of-age fiction with characters all loosely based on himself. He possesses

vague notions of one day pursuing higher education.


Happily Ever After…?

Monic Gonzalez

Dear MC,

I'm sorry

I know you want a happily ever after

But

It's not what you think

See, you can reach what you dream

Suffer through it all, and achieve it

But that doesn't mean,

That you won't have any more problems,

After.

That nothing will ever challenge you,

After.

That things will be easy,

After.

Yes, you will be happy,

And yes, you will get what you worked for.

And you will get that happily ever after...

But like I said, it may not be, what you,

First thought it was.


Happily Ever After…? (cont.)

Monic Gonzalez

After, your first great,

Challenge,

Problem,

Battle,

Pain,

You will experience another difficulty.

It can come in many different forms,

But it will be there.

The great thing is, it makes the next one,

Even better.

The overall journey of life,

Our book,

Simply does not consist of one main

Plot, or genre,

But many.

It's up to you to write your own book.

If you do nothing, just wait for the inspiration, to pass you by,

You won't get to write everything you want in it.

You don't know how long your book is,

And you don't control how fast it's pages flip.

You just write. Write as much as you can,

At the very best you know and can.


Happily Ever After…? (cont.)

Monic Gonzalez

Learn from what you have written.

And create your many happily ever afters.

Love,

Yourself.

Monic Gonzalez is a first generation Latina from a small town in the Central Valley of California.

She loves to spend her free time watching anime and playing video games, and hopes to finish

writing a script during the summer. She’s pulled inspiration for her works from hardships in her

life, and hopes to share other’s stories as well. She will soon be entering her final year at UCI

pursuing a Film & Media Studies Major and Digital Filmmaking Minor.


pink skies above jirisan

Dion Kim

my mother used to tell me that sunsets were sad

because after the glow, there is a blooming darkness.

“sunrises are better because there is a whole day ahead of you.

always remember that.”

village girls never get good guys—

we are perpetually fractured like bone china in

the remains of grandmama’s cabinets, sharp and damaged

from grandpapa’s drunken strikes.

what good is learning the difference between sunrise and sunset

if the end result is always a murky twilight?

we girls sleep in an everlasting shadow. we are born

and die in it.

mother, i wish to see the pink skies above jirisan

but i am too far underground. it seems that digging

is fruitless for i am imprisoned in the roots of

our misfortunes.

when one is beneath the soil, there aren’t any sunrises or sunsets.

there isn’t an end nor a beginning, only a monotonous droning

in my ears by the men who like to smoke

by the gravestones, dropping ash on all of their

lost wives and daughters.

Dion Kim is an English major who likes to go by a multitude of signatures. The name changes

depending on the weather and the amount of sleep she got the night before. Dion likes music, cats,

and sour belt candy. She drinks way too much instant coffee and is currently in an iced americano

frenzy.


Another Year

Amanda Hall

Another year

of patronizing saints from every dating app, brain-rotting takes

on stan Twitter, standstill traffic on the interstate.

Three-hundred sixty-five swirls are reaped and sowed like wheat—

overgrowth littered with missed phone calls, ghosted emails. I watch potential chase its

tail before heading back to bed, bone-tired.

When my assailant slips off of me and into her car, I double-check the math:

two-dollar ramen under two-thousand dollar rent. A half-pack of hard cider to get piss

drunk. A single notebook, packed to the brim with pages of secondhand baggage.

The assault clinic has a pamphlet on gardening—

there’s dirt and observations about the way plants live and die and live again. While

writing a poem, I realize we’re all trying to accomplish the same thing.

Still, my mother accuses me of killing everything I touch:

the succulent on my balcony, mysteriously decomposed. High school

friendships, dusted like artifacts. My appetite, sparse and unpredictable.

I’m full from choking it all down—


Another Year (cont.)

Amanda Hall

fatal flaws like prescription pills. The truth, messy and spit-slick from

their fingertips. And of course; my sexuality, pickled in a jar and

soured for public consumption.

Most days, it’s impossible to remember how the world turns;

but when I’m careful, I still feel it. Another sunset, smoothing back my

hair. Another sunrise, stumbling to protect me from the darkness.

I reel from the shock, haunted all the way home.

Amanda Hall (she/her) is an English major with a CW minor. She worked as Editor-in-Chief of

New Forum during UCI’s 2020-21 school year. After reaffirming her bisexuality last summer, she

made the executive decision to be as obnoxious about it as possible. Amanda’s previous and

forthcoming poems can be found in The Scribe at UCI, The Patient Project at UCI, New Forum at

UCI, Rainy Day Magazine, and The Foundationalist.


Disparate Pathways

David Dulak

David is an English major currently finishing his senior year at UCI. His interests

include creative writing, art, music, film, pop culture, fashion, and news. Writing

is his passion but he also appreciates reviewing works from other writers. He

enjoys traveling, attending social gatherings, catching the latest releases, and

cuddling with his dog. His favorite memory at UCI was coordinating events for

aspiring writers to share their voice.


ADVISOR

SPOTLIGHT:

INEZ TAN

Inez Tan is a fiction writer, poet, and

educator based in southern California and

Singapore. Her debut collection of short

stories from Epigram Books (Singapore,

London), This Is Where I Won’t Be Alone,

was a #2 bestseller in Singapore (Straits

Times). She currently teaches creative

writing at the University of California,

Irvine and serves as New Forum's faculty

advisor.

THANK YOU, INEZ!

You can visit her at ineztan.com, and

grab physical and digital copies of This

is Where I Won’t Be Alone on Amazon.

NEW FORUM - 34 -

SUMMER 2021

New Forum | Summer 2021 Editors' Issue

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