ISSUE TWO - HOMETOWN

JOURNAL OF ERATO
Issue Two - Hometown
Editor-in-Chief
Holly Zijderveld
(she/her)
Senior Editor
Lena Stein
(she/her)
Graphic Design & Artwork
Marcus Kerr
(he/him)
Marketing & Finance
Shiva Shah
(he/they)
ISSN (Online) 2754-1339
ISSN (Print)
Printed 2021
www.journaloferato.squarespace.com

JOURNAL OF ERATO
Issue Two - Hometown

JOURNAL OF ERATO
Issue Two - Hometown

If I’d been told, Charlie D’Aniello
Depression
“Pandemic Boyfriend” A (mostly) Roadtrip, Adrienne Rozells
Sex
the Great Big Safety Deposit Box in the Sky, Gabriel Ostler
Death
i. (childhood)
Can’t Stay Young, Aleah Dye
Food
Fallacies of Youth, Makenna Dykstra
Blood
A Letter to My Childhood Crush, Averie Prince
Abuse, mental illness
Mississippis, Lara Abbey
Blood, death, gore
a text to audre lorde, Kyrah Gomes
Bood
ii. (adolescence)
The Girl Who Was Not Really A Girl, Pim Wangtechawat
Blood, sexual assualt, violence
tuesday night sunsets, Megan Pitt
Drugs, alcohol
daydreaming my regrets, Ellen Warren
Death
Small, Grace Watts
Death
superfood, Jasmine Kapadia
Blood
years under, Roy Duffield
Blood, allusions to suicide, death
iii. (adulthood)
something i have learnt about growing up, Abbie Howell
Self harm, body hatred, violence and death
The Widening, Lorelei Bacht
Blood
“I’m Never Eating There Again!”, Andre Peltier
Death
Power-Chord Lawnmower, Tom Goodyer
Death
Siren, Aarani Diana
Misogyny, food

Issue Two - Hometown
Contributors
i. (childhood)
J. Archer Avary, Aleah Dye, Anisha Jackson, Makenna Dykstra,
Magi Sumpter, Clem Flowers, Ruth Beddow, Hannah Kludy, C. T.
Dinh
Guest Artist
Alex Wilson

as the girl-child hangs from her knees
dangling spindly arms into the geodesic dome
of the jungle gym
her mother sits watching from a picnic table
attention split, more or less,
evenly between her two children
as the boy-child traverses the monkey bars
he also navigates the complex social hierarchy
of the playground
his mother reads the latest parenting books
she knows to give them space
and not to hover like a helicopter
as the see-saw pivots on its fulcrum
the girl-child is up and another girl is down
it is easy for her to make friends
as the boy-child competes for dominance
he wants to impress the others
to run faster, to jump higher, to be the best
his mother worries about scrapes and bruises
she carries first aid kit
with juice boxes and raisins for snacks
when the girl-child’s shoelace comes untied
she looks to her mother
to tie them up just right, not too tight
as the mother checks up on her boy-child
she knows it’s too late
perched atop the slide, he jumps off
J. Archer Avary
J. Archer Avary (he/him) is a well-travelled piece of
shoe leather. He resides in a humidor on a desk
surrounded by red corinthian leather, where he edits
Sledgehammer Lit. His debut novella ‘the dog sitter’ is
out in July via Daily Drunk Press. Twitter:
@j_archer_avary
time slows down as the boy-child descends
he is the bravest of the boys
his mother winces as he lands on his feet
as the boy-child pretends to be uninjured
his mother collects the girl-child
another afternoon spent in urgent care

I swear, each toy in my childhood bedroom has more life than I do. Pink and green
and loud, they do not have to settle. They are an uproar, and I am a whispered
conversation in the grocery store. Nostalgia isn’t always kind, you know. I think
about roasting marshmallows and playing charades, the smell of chlorine
summers, and I feel good. I can hear my family’s laughter. But something shifts,
and I feel sick. It’s like the memories felt too good for too long, and now my body
is rejecting them, searching for something wrong. Ruby the Bunny stares at me,
hard, and I wonder if she can recall something that I cannot. Was every summer
the way it was supposed to be?
home is far too sweet
I have always loved sugar
and hated toothache
My mum doesn’t like the way my dad stirs their tea.
He stands half asleep, his attention on the pigeons
engaged in mating rituals.
A tornado in a teacup,
of undissolved sugar and not enough milk.
She snatches the spoon,
jolting him out of a daydream.
Stir in circles, then left and right across the mug’s diameter.
Repeat until you have a satisfactory solution.
I’ve learnt how to apply honey
to a burn, to pretend to sleep,
to fall in and out of love, over and over.
Aleah Dye
Aleah Dye (she/her) primarily writes poetry, tending
towards topics of morbidity, love, mental illness, social
justice, and philosophy. She is dreadfully afraid of
imperfection and spiders, in no particular order. She
has a one-eyed cat named Ivy and a one-track-minded
(food!) cat named Rosebud. Aleah hopes to make
hearts grow three sizes with her words. She is a 2020
Sundress Publications Best of the Net nominee and the
graphic designer for perhappened. Read her latest work
via Pen and Anvil Press, Feline Utopia Anthology, and
Southchild Lit. Follow her @bearsbeetspoet on Twitter.

When I was a younger girl,
I plucked fox tails from
sidewalk gardens.
I believed them to be wands
left behind by sorcerers.
The downy silk memorialized
the aura of spells cast
in pursuit of planetary transcendence,
and whatever else we forget
to remind ourselves in the morning.
Childhoods live only in storybooks,
though, a fact I prove when
I wrench the plants up by their roots,
leaving no hope of rebirth for anyone.
Without a backward glance,
I abandon the magic and my mortality
like snake’s skin in spring ––
Far too easy, far too smooth.
Give me a challenge, damnit.
The sharp stalk trails
a line of blood across my palms
that soaks the spells red
until the only divination
is my dream itself.
I wave the now naked tails wildly and whisper
our secrets to the world.
Come back to me.
Makenna Dykstra
Makenna Dykstra (she/her) is currently a graduate
student pursuing an MA in English Literature at Tulane
University in New Orleans. She can often be found in
the local parks, writing, reading, or admiring the oak
trees.

to describe one of life’s many obscure sorrows—
1. suitcase wheels scraping across asphalt driveway to the front door, the zippers
choking even more than they were before you left. you didn’t bother to fold your clothes
this time, packing them inside for the long trip back to the mothballed closet. you swear
the bus took a different route home—time passed twice as fast with your head on
michael b.’s shoulder, your skull candy earbuds sharing one half of ed sheeran’s
“photograph” with each of you.
2. standing in the doorway, your grey camp t-shirt sweatstained in the pits, denim capris
glued to every inch of your legs. you’re tanner now, at least below the elbows. the air
conditioner hits you quick & shoots you back to reality. you haven’t felt this alive since
tuesday, canoeing with michael b. & rita j. over seven sluggish, rocking seas. your mom
lights a candle that smells like “alpine air” to calm the aftershocks.
3. your bedroom has become foreign to you—uncharted land. your bedsheets are
tucked neatly into place, creased from their summer-long coma. you abandon your
suitcases on the carpet & go from shelf to dresser drawers to shelf again, inspecting
each speck of dust as an independent species never-before-seen by scientists. your
mom calls & says she’s cooking spaghetti. your mouth waters. you told michael b. a few
weeks in that you missed your mom’s cooking—you told him to come over for dinner
some time.
4. you pull out your iphone 5 & text michael b. you tell him you made it home safe,
followed by an emoji where your tongue is sticking out. play it cool, you say. you’re cool,
you’re on fire, you’re a rockstar—you’re everyone you told him you were. & now you’re
home, slouched in a beanbag chair you outgrew so long ago. gazing down at the
straining suitcases on the floor. you shut your eyes tight and think of the sun.

"Life should be blissful, and blissful doesn't mean just a small happiness. It's huge. It is
profound."
David Lynch
Divorced since I was 8,
My folks tried their best to give my little brother & I
something resembling the normal they always saw on TV, but never got in their youth.
Because life never has Rusted Root on the soundtrack, or a funny cleanup montage
Set to "Our House." So they got us McDonald's
& took us to Blockbuster & we got plastic pro wrestlers from Wal-Mart & every weekend was a
guaranteed trip to the movies.
We learned quickly not to mention if we'd seen it with the other parent on the Saturday before.
After all, we were young & happy to do anything we could to not see the sadness in their eyes.
Plus, another chance to see Ace Ventura mock the Monopoly guy over oceans of cherry coke
& smuggled in sugar was always a plus
(Mom used her purse- Dad used an oversized
work jacket because who the hell has $5 to pay for Junior Mints or Twizzlers when it's 2/$2 at K-
Mart?)
Dread of the awkward small talk at the ritualistic handover on Sunday evenings at neutral
ground (usually a gas station) & pretending I didn't feel weird hearing other kids talk about being
bored to tears at dinner with their folks, celebrating another milestone anniversary.
Real life, always waiting outside the climate controlled Shangri-La, always flowing through my
fast forward mind like the speedboat Jackie Chan broke his foot diving on in Rumble in the
Bronx.
But for those 90 or so minutes every weekend,
I could shut my brain up & relish projector lit bliss.

Ruth Beddow
Ruth is a young-ish poet based in London, with roots in
Birmingham. She works in local government by day
and writes poems by night. In 2021, she was shortlisted
for the Poetry Business New Poets Prize, Plough Prize
and Teignmouth Prize. Her work can be read in places
like Wild Court, Write Out Loud, CP Quarterly, Re-Side
and Ink, Sweat and Tears. She writes about the relationship
between people and place, as well as her body,
class and OCD.

Alex Wilson,
in response to ROCK YOU

i know that crocuses are types of irises that grow mainly in lilac mauve yellow and white
and the lilac variety are the most commonly picked by young children who tie short stems
together which a long blade of grass to present to their mothers
i know that the silver circular tabs at the bottoms of glass candles are called wick sustainers
and that they hold together that which is burnt and that which is warmed
i know that sauté means to quickly fry in hot fat something like onions or mushrooms
and the heat fogs up windows in small kitchens where mothers hum in front of stoves loving
those pans and the lit candles and the wilting bouquets of crocuses and the way her children skid
on the peeling linoleum floors in sock feet laughing
Hannah Kludy
Hannah Kludy writes most mornings and edits for
Nocturne Magazine. Her work has been published in
magazines such as Neuro Logical Literary Magazine,
Sledgehammer Lit, and 34th Parallel. Follow her on
Twitter at @KludyHannah.

BOOM-BOOM-TCH—it’s the king of the
playground, ready to put the first-graders back
into their place. Two sneakers should do it. Two
stomps at just the right tempo and the whole class
claps the third beat—BOOM-TCH—we morph into
a rock band made out of six-year-olds, born twelve
years too late. Pudgy fists bang cafeteria tables and
dirty rubber soles break the ground. WE WILL, WE
WILL, ROCK this elementary schoolyard like it’s
Wembley Stadium, young & sweet enough to think
that the world was a swingset and small enough to
feel like we were on top of it. WE WILL, WE WILL,
ROCK the monkey bars that we just got big enough
to climb, boots dangling over wood-chips, jeans ripping
as our grip inevitably gives. Our knees skid the ground
like it’s our stage. It’s raining. We’ve got mud smeared
over our hands and our face and our teachers plead
for us to please keep ourselves tidy, but like the big men
we all will grow up to be, we stomp—BOOM-TCH—
and we—BOOM-BOOM-TCH—light up the playground
with sparkling sneakers and a guitar solo made out of
hoots & howls in your name. Thank you for writing us
a song we can touch. That’s all we want to do when we
are young and muddy and the recess bell is yet to ring—
touch everything & anything. Touch the whole damn world.
after Brian May
C.T. Dinh

after Freddie Mercury
C H AMPIONS
I was a good loser, darling. Before I knew it was a rock
anthem, I heard this song live in the kindergarten classroom
from the kids that always win, yet I sang along anyways
knowing full well I would never join them. There’s no time for us
losers in a gold-star world, but remember, we are good losers. We fail
fair. And because we are clever losers, darling, we can feign
victorious for as long as it doesn’t matter: write names into a
gleaming yearbook, claim our paper-plate prize. We’ll spend
our sentence singing kingship to ourselves, sand in our
mouths, until they bring us out for exile. On graduation day,
may we finally call checkmate, crown ourselves queens and
champions, rub the silt from our eyes. May we lead this pompous
circumstance while we can. May we raise our fists like revelers
and rock stars, memorize this kingdom one last time—
our clapping footsteps rain roses and tassels onto this
reborn world. Glorious. Shining. And tonight, as tangible
as a ribboned diploma—ours, darling. Can you believe it?
Right between our fingers, a world to rock and rule if we dare.

Baillie Puckett
Baillie Puckett graduates from the writing for children
and young adults MFAC program at Hamline
University in July 2021. She lives outside Los Angeles
and spends her non-writing time watching too much
Food Network. Find her on Twitter @BailliePuckett.
In a month I learned:
- desperation smells like sweat
(a certain boy comes to mind)
- and comfort smells like flowers and sweets
(God bless Bath & Body Works)
I've grown accustomed to the scent of Sweet Pea
and can no longer bear the thought
of being tainted by the stench of someone like you.

blink! a
breath your hand
in mine
step and
there; that moment
spun glass
and swallow-tails
do you jump
first or i?
we land
in paradise-bursts of
flowers
laughs bright
dragonfly-eyes and
that’s
when
i
know*
wait! don’t leave me yet
i need to tell you how
a heart can be a hand but
also not. when
you saw that wasp you put the sweet
slick glass of mango nectar
on the table without a second
thoug ht and in they went to drown, flies
and wasps and the very top
of my finger —just
for a taste, and by the way
i still have that spare kidney
i don’t use
so when you say sometime s
i think i’ve never known anyone
arms crossed behind your head
blue sky , high insect-buzzing grass
i watch the kaleidoscope of colours
spin under my skin and say,
you think?
Laura Martens
Laura Martens is based in London, UK, where she
writes things and sells books. She loves skyscrapers,
busy train stations and cafés with window seats. Her
debut novel was published in Germany in 2011.

first movement strung
patience across a bridge of
flaccid, iron strings
cue in the cellos
(measu re 63), with your
right hand , crescendo
orange garlands to
fall at our heels- paint the stage
bitter vibrato
now, suggest applause.
caw to the masses , praying
is most effective
I yearn for the touch of the dusk;
When w e can bask in the glow of a setting sun and gaze
Outward to the horizon, sharing stories
Over cold fries and lukewarm milkshakes;
Curfew tapping its fingers on watch screens ,
But the conversation is louder than the shouts of parents,
Inevitably grounding us for not calling to say we’d be late.
Nothing else matters than the warmth of a ten-degree sun
As its light caresses our features,
The breathy voice of incoming spring whispering,
That t omor row will be
A better day.
Imogen. L. Smiley
Imogen. L. Smiley (she/her) is a twenty-three-year-old
writer from Essex, UK. She has anxiety, depression and
an endless love of dogs, especially big ones!
You can support her by following her on Twitter and
Instagram at @Imogen_L_Smiley.

I had fallen in love,
as only a fourteen-year-old girl could,
my soul all in,
my heart full to bursting,
and he had definitely not fallen in love,
but I was okay to have around.
So when it was time for us to go home
after the church youth group meeting,
I would walk him home
in the dusk as it turned to night
because it was a longer walk
and I could be with him
just that little while longer,
time spent not holding my hand,
not hugging at his door,
and definitely no metal-mouthed kisses,
but if I were lucky,
maybe he ’d punch me on the arm.
And we walked down Miller Avenue,
oak and elm trees lining each side of the street,
the streetlig hts glowing orange,
he was wearing his gold and black football jersey,
and I was wearing whateve r I thought
he might notice,
and it was the end of summer
and the school year had just started,
and he had a crush on some dumb cheerleader,
and I would give him thoughtful advice,
and we would stand awkwardly
outside his house for a while,
and then it really was time for him to go inside,
so I’d tell him I ’d see him later,
and I’d walk back home alone.
In a Northwest Indiana bedroom,
three girls are bent over the deck of cards,
boug ht that evening from Barnes & Noble,
the prettiest deck they had,
with soft female nudes,
vibrant colors,
shiny gold edges,
the cards shuffled
and arranged in the shape of a cross,
laboriously looking up and reading the meaning
of each card aloud,
The Magician, The Chariot, The Four of Staves,
The Five of Cups reversed...
The ancient power of sight and prognostication
being harnessed on this night
to lay bare the mind
of an oblivious teenage boy.

Heidi Pickover
in response to Tarot Reading

Rex Williams - Gold Star
photograph
a photograph exploring the
relationship between childhood
and adolescence, and
the complex tension felt with
the idea of "good behaviour".
Rex Williams - Growing Pains
modroc and oil paint on A2 mountboard

Megan Pitt
Megan Pitt is a 16 year old writer and avid reader from
New Jersey. As editor-in-chief of her school's newspaper,
she enjoys not only editing the work of others, but
gaining inspiration from them. Writing is her passion
and she hopes to pursue it in France in her future.

elegy for seventeen
A Memory Passing By
sweltering summer days / bellowing pavement / in step with my dog / the days her joints didn’t
ache / I took the road with the antique bridge / white stone / cupped by ancient hands / you two /
pulled up beside me / your tawny car paint / bold in the light / to all the hours that find me / I can
still see kindred toothy grins / matching green eyes with flickers of stolen sun / oh! how those
precious moments in time / would latch to my soul / you in your blue flannel / and him with his
disheveled hair / I choose to remember both of you like that / blood bonded / not baring teeth /
from the sheets I shred / I build worlds / to appease the howls that haunt me / where you two
stayed the same / as the day of your small town Sunday drive
here is the driveway where i wept into the steering wheel,
periwinkle rain quavering, guitar case in the backseat—
the leather not yet frayed, strings like barbed wire
on calloused hands. how it lay across my lap on lonely nights,
those bars with sticky-polish wood, beer amber-sloshing
and fuzzy neon flickers. all smudged-up mirrors and
slamming stall doors, water tipped back like shotglasses.
sweat-soaked palms and seventeen-year-old salvation—
that bloodflow to the head as song swelled
as room hushed
as shadows spun,
eyes gleaming in the murk-light. all that rapture, the rap of
thumb on string, that rush of heat. voice trilling,
cresting,
a syncopated soprano,
and afterwards,
all those hands skimming the tabletop,
saying, you’ve got time you’ve got time don’t you dare
give up.
seventeen—
the age of concrete-paneled hallways,
pencil shavings, suburban dullness, and my hushed defiance—
those fevered afternoons in the attic,
ink-pen lyrics while they
trailed by out the window, backpacks hanging.
classrooms always a noxious haze, my hands reaching never
touching. how they called me quiet
tossed back their heads
while i sat smiled stared dead-ahead till the final bell,
waited for those thursday nights, faces gliding in and out
through a fog of smoke, each note quivering—
someday i’d be stadium-hollering,
strobe lights singeing my body red-hot-purple-golden
while they screeched from the back row, swearing,
we were wrong we were wrong, oh, here it is—
your voice, your high-hill howling, this glittering ignition!
Kelli Lage
Kelli Lage lives in the Midwest countryside with her
husband, and dog, Cedar. Lage is currently earning her
degree in Secondary English Education. Lage states she
is here to give readers words that resonate. Awards:
Special Award for First-time Entrant, Lyrical Iowa.

I think I’m meant to be small.
To whistle with the wind. Unheard but felt
in the prickling of your skin.
It is the way I imagine god to be
for that rare believer: a presence humming cleanly
at the crumbling base of all things.
As a child I would search my skin,
frantic to find a pulse, to be certain of life within.
Quite alive, I’d decide to find God some other day.
Today, I sang aloud
walking through my stolen town.
People forget, but the air does not.
I will stay sounding in the hum of the bells,
felt by lonely gatherers.
Not at weddings,
weddings are too big,
just at funerals.
Grace Watts
As well as poetry, Grace Watts enjoys making art of all
kinds, painting and singing especially. She tries to
write truthfully to her own experiences whilst
exploring within a traditional form, allowing you a
look into a few of her thoughts as she works at trying
to understand them herself.
all my best friends
i kissed and then someone boarded a plane.
all my best lines
i burned into your leather jacket. we hold
half-smoked cigarettes in our pockets until our knuckles crack we
can’t share a joke because it is too cold to tell any
and we can’t go home because no one knows we are out.
there are bottles in our school bags and hickeys under sweaters
you let me take the first sip, we resurrect chivalry
you hum a song and i dream over the lyrics.
we board a train that drives through fields
that never seem to stretch out far enough
and none of this is a metaphor:
when we kiss it’s just a kiss
when you leave me you only left me
when we share a wine bottle
it’s nothing but a wine bottle
and I can spin none of it into salvation
no matter how many new words i learn.

Heidi Pickover
in response to high school
romance in e minor

overhead, the highways press their hips together,
still scared to kiss. i rip out your throat with my teeth,
smile through the bloody sweetness. loose a tooth
in the process.
pick at the loose threads
until our shadows unravel. it is still quiet,
so you try to swallow
my mouth;
we both wince.
how come our bodies can pass in
the grocery store and nothing happens?
i take the mess on my hands to the kitchen
and make you a sandwich.
cut your glossy heart into thin slices
like ham.
i wash you cherries
and put them into my best bowl.
you can spit
the pits into my palms; i will eat them up.
Jasmine Kapadia
Jasmine Kapadia is an Asian-American poet and high
schooler. Her work has been recognized by Malala
Yousafzai, KQED, Good Morning America, and
elsewhere. She has work featured or forthcoming in
Kissing Dynamite, the Eunoia Review, and All Guts No
Glory, among others. Find her on Instagram:
@jazzymoons

The summer after senior year, a friend and I jumped off the roof
into the hot tub. It started with a distressed letter. It was angst,
and real pain, and brownies, and Goethe.
She drove three hours before I even had an answer written.
Her mascara running down her face, dark stains and wet sunflowers
on her yellow shirt.
Her cheeks had become a map of what she told her parents
and what she hadn’t. A treasury of grief and rage, she said,
“I’m not sure where home is.”
We held each other, shaking in the driveway, trembling,
knowing tears were medicine, salt and symbols
of regret, sadness, pity. Faustian emotions. Ending emotions.
We were between hell and the future in my back yard. Remember,
in summer, a deal sounds like the Top 40. How do you choose
a crossroads when everything intersects?
She deserved to be happy, we all did. We believed. There were no demons,
just a pitchfork in a far field, just a stolen bottle
of butterscotch schnapps.
She smiled, and the moon smiled a thin grin, thousands of miles away.
The corner of her mouth, a small twitch, her hand and mine on the bottle.
She said, “Let’s run away and see the ocean.”
But we settled for something closer to home,
standing on the shingles, staring at the light
beneath the whirlpools.
We cannonballed together. I remember splash, the cascade,
the pain of impact. We laughed, because we were still children,
and glittered.

Alex heard me pull up and came out.
“Hey.”
“Hey. Where’ve you been hiding?”
“Want to go for a ride?”
“Where do you have in mind?”
“Nowhere in particular.”
He fired up his CG and we roared out into the night, weaving among the cat’s
eyes that vanished like shooting stars in the churning blackness beneath our wheels.
The eyes of a rogue fox lit up in the darkness, two green lights blazing from the shadows
at the roadside, then they vanished too.
We play this game where one of us cuts our lights, suddenly disappearing, and
see how long we can go without getting scared. Too long, Alex says.
We got onto the bypass and Alex really opened up. I hung back a bit, got all set
up, then came blitzing past him at full throttle, laid back in the saddle like a bed, feet up
on the handle bars, hands behind my head, smiling at him as I passed.
The look on his face when he turned and saw me. Worth any amount of risk.
I love these little stunts. First I tried riding one-handed, then no-handed... Now
there’s this one I’m working on, the one that finally got Indian Larry. You get up some
speed and then stand up on the saddle, arms stretched out like Jesus on the Cross or
Rose on the Titanic.
I managed to get my feet up under me, get into a crouch, lift my hands off the bars, the
cold night wind on my cheeks, howling past my ears... One of these days, sooner
rather than later, I’ll pluck up the courage and stand up all the way.
We ended up – as we always do – wandering the aisles of the 24-hour Tesco in
Eastbourne, looking for I-don’t-know-what. (Whatever it is, they never seem to have it
on the shelves.)
I picked up an apple instead.
There’s this girl who works nights there. I’ve seen her quite a few times – always
picture myself striking up a conversation, fancy myself as “the mysterious apple guy”.
But I never do.
There’s always something there to stop me: another customer’ll get there first, or
she’ll go on a break, or – like this time – everything is perfect but I just lose my nerve
and can’t think of anything cool enough to say.
After that we rode up to Beachy Head (aren’t we lucky to have Britain’s highest
chalk sea cliff, and world-famous suicide spot, just up the road from home?) We sat on
the edge looking down on the deaf and distant lights of Eastbourne.
A sign told us that “the Samaritans” are “always there, day or night”.
Another said, “things can only get better”.
When we got back to the bikes there was a police car sitting in a parking bay. I
could see the guy in the passenger seat looking right at me.
After a brief Mexican stand-off, they got out the car and sidled up.
“Alright, lads? A little late to be out riding, isn’t it.”
No. “Is it?”
“Yes, it is. Why don’t you head on home.”
Because if we wanted to be at home, we’d be at home. “Why?”
“Listen, are you ‘avin’ a giraffe?”
“What?”
“I said, are you having a giraffe with us?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.” Genuinely didn’t.
“Of course you do. Don’t be lippy with me, boy. It means
you’re trying to have a laugh with us.”
“On this occasion,” said the first cop, “we’ve decided not to
take any action...”
You mean, about that law we didn’t break?
“...We saw your mate throw ‘is bottle back there, so if you’re not careful, we’ll ‘ave
you for littering. Not to mention arguin’ with a police officer. Now we strongly advise
you ‘ead ‘ome pretty sharpish. We don’t want to see you again tonight.”
They turned to go, then the first one asked me, “do you have insurance?”
“Yes.”
“Oh yeah? Who’s it with?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t.” Is that a crime?
“You’re with Europa Group. Remember that next time.” He said smugly, pointing
his finger at me, then turning to get back in the car.
They’d run a check on our number plates before they’d even got out.
“Then why did you ask?” I said.

our conversations, but we don’t have a recorder. It always feels like we’ve realised
something revolutionary, ground-breaking – an epiphany so far ahead of the times
that no-one else would even understand – like we’re on the verge of the meaning of life
and if we only stay out for one more hour, we’ll get it for sure.
It’s probably more like just which girls at college we fancy.
Anyway, Alex started yawning and I said, “yeah, I’d better go do some college work,”
and rode home and washed the fox blood off my hands.

begins with you and me, lip-to-lip and beating fast.
you lean in close and spoon hummus into my mouth,
whispers of better futures threaded into a shawl around
your collarbones. we are behind the korean supermarket
where we are invisible, swirled into a bubble of our own
making. like all bubbles, this one pops as soon as i touch
your cheek too tenderly when i should have bitten
hard enough to leave a mark.
a year later, we duck into the unisex library bathroom
and lock the door, crowding up nose-to-nose. the mirror
is cracked down the side like walnut shells littering the
sea floor but you don’t really care because you’ve snuck
in some hummus and one spoon. it’s a secondhand kiss
when you lick the spoon and then give it to me, eager to
place a thin hand over the waistband of my skirt and finally
let go of who we used to be and enjoy our time now.
in the summer after senior year, your neck is flaming
with sunburn as you knock back peeled baby onions like
pearls sliming down your throat. we are thigh-to-thigh today,
your bubbling hand around my waist & pressing into the dips
on my hips. we do not talk about the fact that after this, we won't
see each other for four years. instead we talk about that time
one of those big dragon fruit seeds got caught in your braces
and i extracted it with my tongue. you give me an anklet that's too
tight when you kiss me and say you love me when really
you just want someone to feed hummus to at night.
Salone Verma
Salonee Verma (she/her) is an Indian-American emerging writer from Virginia. Her work is
forthcoming in Backslash Lit, Pollux Journal, [sub]liminal, and more. She has been
recognized in the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards. Find her online at
saloneeverma.carrd.co

& ariana said god was a woman. my god is either
a woman or freddie b/c when u hold me, i feel like
warm putty stretched out over ur fingernails so
hand in hand, we walk out, augmented,
bickering about tv & other mundanities,
hands drooping in the midsummer heat like
dead worms on the pavement, except darker.
u look me in the eye once, mouthing at the air,
shining like there’s milk draping ur shoulders
but all u wanna say is that u can rub arnica
into my shoulders next week when ur parents
aren’t home & ur sisters are out with their friends.
i wonder if they’re gal pals like soccer teams or
gal pals like us, driving our fingers into each
other’s palms & tasting the salt on secondhand sips.
u laugh at me when i say this b/c statistically, we can’t
all be gay, right? hey bhagwan, that would be too much
for our parents b/c they can’t even deal with one of us.
(freddie, can't u hear us? can't u see we cant our hips
b/c we wanna become mercurial & proud-brown like u,
lying together in each other's arms like a constant?
maybe then home will be a place again, a cramped apartment
of our own where u rub the skin of my wrist while we dance in
our own kitchen after coming home, grinning like kajol in ddlj.)
so i pull u into the space under the bleachers & finger ur acrylics
while we eat sweetcorn together, sweating salt like the ocean
but only half as vast. & finally we have come home.
Salone Verma

Issue Two - Hometown
Contributors
iii. (adulthood)
Abbie Howell, Lorelei Bacht, MP Armstrong, Andre Peltier,
Taylor Rossics, Gabrielle Roessler, Tom Goodyer, Aarani Diana,
Byron López Ellington, Charlie D’Aniello, Adrienne Rozells,
Matthew Schultz, Gabriel Ostler, Marcus Kerr, C.M. Gigliotti,
Averie Prince, Fran Fernández Arce, Lara Abbey, Kyrah Gomes,
Zoe Grace Marquedant, Hannah Chua Wen Ning
Guest Artist
Grace Watts

Abbie Howell
Abbie Howell is a 19 year-old English poet who adores
writing about the surreal, love of all kinds, and the
impossibility of being human. Find her on Twitter
@abbiehowell_
it is that the movies make it look simple / characters may be filled with angst, simmer
away at their molten edges / but there is always breakfast on the table / the lighting is always luminous and
bright / and the parents are always there / the gleaming pillwhite of their teeth shining against the backlighting
of suburbia / where every problem ends promptly / wrapped together in the flourish / of a 90-minute ribbon /
but who can say this is the truth? / i came of age like a squeal of butter in a flaming pan / childhood dissolving
until there is nothing tangible left / except the reality that we /
are tugged to-and-fro by clay parents / who have been moulded into harsh angles, brash mouths scolding /
dismaying the hands of their creator who has long since abandoned them / characters are poisonous in their
contradictions / and i know i shouldn’t blame them but i want to /
in the movies carefree tendrils of sleep-mussed hair / were carefully preened by the gnarled hands of a stylist /
who works 3 jobs to pay her mortgage / just to make sure her kids are fed / so that one day they, too, can wither
away / movie bullies who crushed a locker into a cruel caricature / of john or jane doe’s body / are not permitted
to make eye contact with such actors on set / so if this is all life is /
i will present the marrow of my bones as a gift / think if i peel away the layers of my gross exterior / then maybe
someone will love me as i am / i am baby bird to whom no mother has returned / the nest is concaving and i
am falling and screaming / we are restless and bored and forgotten all at once / our eyes burn as we pry them
open / to swallow fistfuls of the horizon / and the sun will not set for us no matter how much we beg /
we scream we’re just 16 we’re just 16 we’re just 16 / but suddenly you’re 19 and live alone / in a city far from what
you once knew / i know life is not a movie that will not end in 90 minutes / i am bone-tired but my story / will
continue still

Is it the bird of ambition, the bird of fear,
that makes you run, run, run? “What is it
that you are running away from?”, asked
the psychiatrist. It was winter, morning,
Paris - I did not understand. I remember
crossing the street, sure of myself, of my
plan to migrate to the reverse side of the
map - at the red light, I tapped, tapped
my pocket. Build me a sailboat or a plane,
and happen me with extreme prejudice:
I am nothing. And I want to see it. Come
on, let’s move the plot along a bit, buy us
a ticket to the next tick-tock of the old
clock. The door awaits, with its drunken
sailors - the half-an-inch of beer left at
the bottom of the bock now spells:
Adventure! Adventure!
*****
When I turned a hundred, I had
my widening, which we are not allowed
to talk about. I will say this: I was
plunged in the cold stream, and cut open
and scales, d my entrails fed to the small
fish, until I grew new ones.
I did. Having reddened the stream,
I bloomed into magnificence; I learned:
there is absolutely nothing to fear.
If I can find my way back to the house;
if I can skin a squirrel without help;
if I can slam a bird down in one shot;
then I am old enough to bear.
And bear I did: all ten of them alive,
and ready to lumber - four of them now
about to widen in their turn, I press
their dress into the fragrant moss,
wing of the panic bird, everything
needed to brew out kind into being,
singing, singing, the necessary paints
*****

How many restaurants
did my old man
storm out of following
this statement?
No one knows for sure.
Certainly, there was the inn
on US 12 a couple hours west
of Detriot.
He ordered the Alaskan
salmon
with asparagus .
Smothered in rosema ry
and lemon,
it looked
spectacular,
but the
fact that it was still
a little too frozen
was too much
for him.
Before that, it was
in Petoskey.
A Chinese place
opened up in town
between the Joanne Fabrics
and a hardware store.
He had lived
in New York so, by rights,
he was a Chinese food
connoisseur.
Forty years on ,
the place is gone now.
It was small and dark
and lacked the trappings
of the more up-scale Chinese joints
like Tiki statues, Mai Tais,
and fish tanks.
we only went once.
One solitary carry -
out order of
chop suey and egg foo young later,
and that was all she wrote.
We never returned .
A block down the
street was our town’s first and
only Mexican place.
Mom and Aunt Marcia
loved their Margaritas;
I loved the taco salad bowls.
Every birthday
when my folks asked
what I wanted for dinner
it was “La Señorita” I replied .
Dad had a problematic
working lunch there once though...
he and his colleagues
got food poisoning.
La Señorita
offered free meals
to accommodate them
“No thanks,” he replied.
Then there was the Mom and Pop
place on Plymouth Rd.
with perogies
and Polish sausage .

I remember Route 50,
I-270 ,
The Belt Parkway,
and start to chart a pattern
of living fast near unstable places.
I tell my therapist that I-4 runs east to west
and he corrects course,
rolls out the invisible map
of our small talk,
illustrates that it actually goes
north to south.
He speaks with a drawl like pineapples,
popping other sour truths out
onto the round table
and the Knights Collective –
me plus 11 other fractured
coastal transplants –
smile through puckered
teeth.
It’s unsettling to look at a thing
that should make sense.
Nonsense polarities divvy up
directions meant to guide,
enable clear paths.
I end up the pin
floating in the ocean
caught somewhere offshore
because no one taught me
how to enable Location.
Five years later,
I’m the master of my own commute.
I leave secret breadcrumb trails
that cross-stitch my place
into The City Beautiful.
When my therapist brings up I-4,
I tell him that I too
am a work in motion.
29 6.43
Gabrielle Roessler
Gabrielle is a creative sprinter - she writes poems, short stories, and essays
that prove she made great returns on her therapy investments. Her piece
"Rx for a Dream" won Storyteller's 2021 Poetry Contest and appears in their
summer issue. She has additional work appearing in Orange Blush Zine,
Warning Lines, Hyacinthus Magazine, Headcanon Magazine, and
Sledgehammer Lit. She is inspired by myth, magical girls, a healthy fear of
space, and overheard conversations that never happened.

Grace Watts,
in response to something i
have learnt about growing
up

I had my guitar lessons in the basement of this leatherworker’s which used to be a record
shop which used to be an abattoir. The stairs down were coated in a dry-blood paint that grew
thinner and thinner until the final, bare step. The air became stiffer here, smoke-bruised. And
everything was steeped in laryngeal bleed of unhealthy-looking amps leaking through
practice room doors - ‘Back in Black’ congeals with ‘Smoke on the Water;’ ‘Stairway to Heaven:’
such cocksure incoherence.
My guitar teacher’s name was Gareth - must have been late twenties. He was never not
in jeans and leather. When he hum-sang ‘Seven Nation Army’ he replaced “I’m gonna fight ‘em off”
with “I’m gonna file divorce.” I laughed, he laughed and his long hair flopped like it did when he
plodded out for a cigarette or rolled his head back in sympathy with a guitar bend’s
skyward arc. He taught me to do that too, wielding a guitar like a bone-saw. I thought of pigs
wailing, rending metal. His band was called The Fame Kills. He gave me a plectrum with their
name biroed on.
to snap when middle-age unseams our pretensions like a gut released from skinny jeans, leaving
us boring for all to see? Life seems both too shallow and too deep. Sometime later, Gareth got a
job as project manager on a construction site and the lessons ended.
Last Christmas, I googled The Fame Kills and found a JustGiving page set up by his wife.
I didn’t even know he was married. He was 34 when he died - it didn’t say what of. I clicked
through the comments - “top bloke and great band member, always remember you, pal,” “Rest
in Peace, keep heaven rocking.” Different words for shocked and heartbroken - speechless - too
young. And there’s that sense that the years don’t pass, but struggled for breath. They return to
the surface at unforeseen moments, struck free of meaning - you just never thought they’d return
so soon. All of a sudden, you’re clicking through the comments, crying, because even though the
most vivid eventually have to concern themselves with the prosaic task of dying - even life’s most
minor territories are shot through with grief.
One time, my dad asked Gareth if he ever mowed the lawn, because he couldn’t picture
him behind the wheel of a lawn mower - if “behind the wheel” was the correct terminology. Gareth
smiled, said he had mown the lawn before. He had swept a patio too. In fact, there was probably
a whole host of monotonies that were beyond the pureview of the half-hour-a-week I saw him for,
just as he never witnessed the simple embarrassments of my life outside of those half-hours, the
small dramas and toxicities of male adolescence, the growing pains. He split open the cranium of
a Bug Light and taught me how to stomp a fuzz pedal with gusto. I pictured him legs steepled like
Johnny Ramone, lancing a power chord across the lawn at exactly the right angle so as to
shiver free the tops of bright green grass blades, beheading an earthworm in the process. I see,
said dad.
It was the way he seemed outside of it all, somehow exterior to the great wave of life’s
endless admin. But, as well as fronting The Frame Kills, there must also have been Wednesday
nights where he listlessly sweated onions or filed tax returns - insipid; he must have discussed
bin collection times with more-up-to-speed neighbours - insufferable - or spent long Sundays
cleaning out the accumulated pile of whatnots from his childhood bedroom - insurmountable.
What if we let ourselves be known at our most ordinary? Would we be less brittle for it, tend less

you come to me seeking love,
enchanted by beauty,
- looking for a light.
something celestial,
blissfully soothing.
you call me a siren,
sent to eat your heart out.
to you I am glittering,
glistening, glamorous
all the things you’d want,
- a divine goddess
please have no illusions
for I am only human.
while you see wings,
my skin is papery thin,
stretched over delicate hands.
green veins run streams downward
I can’t sing
or enchant you in any way
but perhaps
my existence
is already more than enough
I am a heartbeat.
pulsing pressing
Alive
I am real.
I am human.
somehow in me
you expect to find a home,
- or another land to conquer,
or an answer
you call me a siren
as if I’m not just anyone else.

dreary with love is the texas rain
waking up to the red chirping birds
and hill country deer in little herds
and gray rainy clouds ten miles high
a drizzle so soft from the gentle sky
upon deep green of juniper trees
and great live oaks shaking in soft breeze
If I’d been told that I was to exist
with crashing waves hung upon my walls
and from my books and old and dusty mist
to cling onto my stony dolls;
if I had known that I was meant to follow
the same yearnings of my childhood years
would I have saved myself a swamp of sorrow,
a cave of anger, and a lake of tears?
Yet, my spirit would not be mine, nor would my quill,
nor would these words in ink as black as coal,
if Apollo had not seen it right to spill
the vestiges of beauty on my soul.
And had I to suffer it all again for the sake of being me,
that lake of tears would swell, and grow into the sea.
dreary with love is the texas rain

And so much wasted time lingers
in the gloaming orange-white sky
that melts like a fumbled creamsicle
upon the summer sidewalk scorch.
I only wanted to write a verse
and to telephone my grandmother;
or to tell my wife I love her.
But for the brume of unease
chasing my unfinished afternoon:
lake-tide of dishes in the sink,
pinwheeling laundry, unspoken
constancy pulling at my tongue.
Matthew Schultz
Matthew Schultz is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. His
recent poems appear in or are forthcoming from
Sledgehammer Lit, Southchild, and Warning Lines. His
prose-poem collection is forthcoming from ELJ Editions
in May 2022.

here’s my ticket stub for every bus, concert, and experience
had and held for posterity
here’s every story I told, ranked in ascending order
by audience reaction, clung to bitterly in each moment
a fact is repeated wrong until the lapse of an era gives up
and leaves the tale behind
here’s my heart it’s hard and willing, unfulfilled but defiant,
contradictory yet idealistic . . . ‘till the metronome ticking
is flicked off by an impatient teacher
carrying on, my license for, used rarely but to great effect
in the nights I’ve endeavoured so hard to forget
because I am, above all, pragmatic,
and I wanted to give my self-prosecution
less evidence for the trial
it’s all gathered and catalogued, annotated and embroidered,
meticulously patchworked into a quilted narrative
meant to be passed on but mostly set
to fray through choice development
listen, I know you can’t take anything with you
but I’d like to send something ahead

A shock?! Erratic yet fading,
fleeting,
limited.
Explosion: Central Dynamism
chaotic, frequent
chaos
chaos of most frequent order:
chaotic reducing
Yearning to seek,
understanding in most convoluted, visual
form:
misstep? burst of misguided judgement
grip forward to
exponentially growing slip.
Confusion beyond norms
norms
expectations - I - complacent -
Marcus Kerr
Marcus (he/him) is an artist and graphic designer in the
UK. His work is highly experimental, conceptual and ever
changing. Marcus places a heavy focus on the idea of
interaction and communication. Combining practices and
pulling from multiple creative disciplines allows for a
further exploration of his themes. Poetry is a further tool
for conceptual communication and a way to blur the lines
between identity and outward, universal ideas explored
throughout his work. Find him on Twitter @marcuskerrart
and Instagram @amarcus_
How can soft intensity, tactility
become rough in -
slip, reduction -
such a way?

Grace Watts,
in response to Power-Chord
lawnmoer

Tonight my shirt is unbuttoned most of the way
so that it drapes off my shoulders
and he’s nipping at my lower lip when I break
away. My cheeks are wet. I’m crying. It takes
a moment for the fog to lift from his eyes, and
the look of alarm that replaces it causes my stomach
to seize up. “It isn’t you,” I blubber, “no, I’m fine,
I just - need a sec.” I say the last few words into
my hands as I bury my face in them. I don’t know
why the candle ad from the Review resurfaced, or
what it means that it did so just now, but it
reminds me of my dad and his habit of burning
candles this season, and the need to be home
among people who know me too well suddenly
crushes me. I need to see the puzzle of our quirks
fit together before my eyes. And I love the time
I’ve gotten to spend with Mike, but knowing there’s no
way for me to introduce him to them, to people who
might appreciate him more than some, sharpens
the nostalgia to a fine point. But the immediacy of
the two of us is one thing I have to depend on.
“What is it, honey?” Mike is saying as I come back
to myself, soft and light. He tucks my hair behind my ear.
I shake my head. “Just thought of how far I am from home.
“I’m fine.” He looks skeptical. “No, you’re not.” I start
to protest but I know he’s read me for the truth. “No,
I’m not. I miss my family.” He draws me in, wrapping
his arms around me and resting my head on his shoulder.
“Sure you do. It ain’t easy.” I make a noise. “No, it ain’t.”
And we stay like that for I couldn’t say how long. I realize
I’ve never stopped to listen to his heartbeat.
It’s the sound of all right.

I know it’s not the worst thing that could happen in a relationship. There was a lot of
miscommunication on my part as well. I didn’t really know how to talk to people when I was
younger, especially people that I liked as more than a friend. You know that I grew up in a
tricky family. Tricky families can take your voice away from you, and pretty soon you’ll
realise that you physically can’t talk to people that you like out of the sheer fear of rejection.
I’ve gotten a lot better at talking now. I’ve only really dated two people, but I initiated it both
times. I never thought that I would be able to do that six years ago. It makes me wonder what
would have happened if you first met me at the age of twenty-three instead of when I was
eight...
Dearest,
I hope this letter finds you well. I hope you’re coping during these strange times. I’ve been
stuck in my parents’ house for the past two years, and it’s making me think of things I would
rather forget. I was living here when it all went down. This is the same house that I would
come back to after another rough day at school. This is the same bedroom that I would come
back to cry in because it wasn’t safe for me to show my feelings anywhere else.
Do you still think about me? Am I still a person to you? Or am I one of the many ghosts of
your past?
I remember how I felt when I used to be around you. Pure, innocent euphoria. That distinct
feeling of falling in love for the first time and knowing that your crush feels the same way. I
haven’t felt anything like it since. I remember how the corners of your eyes would crinkle as
your smile lit up the room. It was the best thing I had ever seen. Whenever I date new people,
I pay close attention to their smiles, and I think of you.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m going crazy when I think about you. I know I liked you a lot -
and I think you liked me back? Our last year of high school was so confusing. So many
mixed messages. I would always catch you looking at me. I could always find your eyes in a
crowded room. When we started to spend more time with each other, you would joke with me
and touch my hands. It was my first time trying to purse a romantic relationship with
someone. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I knew that it felt right.
And then you asked someone else out.
Do you remember the look on my face when I stared at you with tears stinging my eyes,
threatening to make an appearance in front of over fifty people? I can only assume I looked
terrible - the look on your face is something I’ll never forget. Complete shock. Then a wave
of pity. I had to leave the room when I saw that. I couldn’t handle it. My friends tried to help.
They told me I was so brave for facing you right after I found out about your new date. It did
nothing to ease my depression, though. Once you start drowning, it’s hard to stop. Once
you’re in the water, it tries to pull you deeper and deeper. Your feet become lead and you
start to sink.
When I think of you, I think of the sharp pang of rejection and the bittersweetness of first
love. What do you think of when you think about me? Do you think of deep red taffeta and
curled dark hair? Or do you think of crutches and tears, whispers spread across a whole
school, and fond glances turned to hasty turns of heads as we caught each other starting
again?
Sometimes I can’t tell if you ignore me because of your anxiety or because you just don’t
care. I like to think it’s the first reason - you always come across as a decent guy to me. I
know what it’s like to think that everyone secretly hates you. I find myself thinking about that
every day. I know that you regret what you did, and I get the feeling that you don’t want to
talk to me because then you’ll have to acknowledge that I exist. You would have to put a
name, a face and a living, breathing body to the one mistake that you made when you were
seventeen. Or maybe I am just making all of that up and you genuinely couldn’t care less.
I think I’m done trying to fix this. It’s a shame because even if we didn’t end up dating, I
think we could have been really good friends. We do have a lot in common, you and I. But I
can’t keep wasting my life on a man who doesn’t want to see me. I’ll never forget the
feelings I had for you, but I have to live my life too. I doubt you’ll ever read this letter,
anyway.
I know you have a bright future ahead of you, and I can only hope that the same can be said
for me.
With all my love,
Averie

My brother sent me an anchor to keep my homesickness
below the tides. He also chipped in
when I couldn’t pay my first month’s rent. He had left home
first and I bite my tongue every time I picture him packing
as betrayal. After every nibble I’ve learned to brew the blood
congealed in my mouth and cleanse the stains in these emptied walls.
My brother sent me a calendar without weeks to lose
track of time. But nobody told us homesickness would insist
like a buoy peaking its horrible head overnight. Mornings
are loneliness shaped like blankets and malformed pillows displaced
from the childhood home. My brother is eleven years older than me
and I miss the way he would just know
how exhilarating it feels to buy your own spoons and forks,
fill the cutlery drawer yourself, hang a kitchen towel by the stove, scatter
hard-candy wrappings all over the floor. How homesickness
clutters the corners of every room. How
home-cooked meals are suddenly tasteless without your mother’s
touch of salt. Most of all, I miss how he would pick me up
to face the incoming waves, holding me above his head
in the split of a second to announce passing ships who I am.
My brother built me a lighthouse and said not to worry about the electricity bill.

But this isn’t. His thumb comes off and the apple rolls to freedom - a clean break, only leaving a
nebulous dust cloud that swirls itself around in the sunlight as witness to the act. I hold it for a
second, turn it around on the axis of my wrist. No blood, no screams, no nothing. Statuesque. I
wonder how it would taste. Would it explode in my mouth, like gunpowder pop rocks, or else
cloy to itself, make like mulch and sit heavy on the lining of my jaw?
I find myself not sitting on this thought for too long as my eyes flick upwards, drawn to the snail
trail of apple juice - a silvery-white stain chalking everything it touches. Forward. Right. It leads
me all the way back to the bathroom and when it stops, propping itself up the spotlight
emanating from the window, there’s a bite mark. It’s wet and frothing. The bubbles burrow
themselves through the yellow flesh, brown on the edges, where the skin has crawled away,
eroded itself, and they spit at me. Before long it’s leaking a puddle of saliva, drowning
surrounding tiles, popping and ricocheting and seething. Something hits my foot. It’s cold and
hard.
Another apple. Hissing and slobbering. I pick them up, each palm licked by a thousand sweaty,
sticky tongues, open the window, and throw them out. There, gone. I turn on the tap, water,
sweet water, streams down my hands. I let it rush down my forearms and the whirring takes me
somewhere, anywhere else, where I can be clean again.
But not for long. I turn around and the apples have me backed up again. Some spit, some
dribble. Either way, ladders have started to appear in my tights, rendering the skin wholly
defenceless. I kick and stamp but more and more barge in. There are piles of things now.
Working on my arms, my chest, my face. My hands red-raw and cracked, I see wrinkles and
veins run races with eachother. Cavernous hollows of cheekbones and eyebags are soon to
follow, then the hair, drifting down like grey dandelions. Closer and
Closer, as I too fall down. Shedding my clothes like a second skin. Butterfly lungs part ways and
beat on the bars of my ribcage. Burning, burning, burning - so hot that wax tears drip-drop
down, transubstaniation of the flesh. I try to open my mouth, cry some approximation of pain
into the world so that somebody, somewhere, may feel it bite into them with a fraction of hurt,
but only the last of my bile and blood is given way out of the Glasgow wound. Black.

a text to audre lorde
i hope u know that i shelter yr words
just beneath my tongue, waiting: strength rises, like
blood from under the bruised skin’s blister.
did u see stars the first time u kissed someone?
did the explosion brand fireworks into
yr retinas?
did it linger in wisps of whitened heat, arcing
sparks of light? did u taste crushed cherries,
a thrumming pulse, warm blood? did u
retreat from the destruction, or hurtle towards it?
who laid starfished on their bed giggling and
w ho went straight for the shower to scrub their skin
until it blistered in cherry chapstick?
if i said ki**ed, would u have read kissed
or killed?
when u closed yr eyes,
did u mourn the death of a star,
or celebrate it?

In a perfect meeting of my seas, your cool roommate’s favorite country singer covered
a song I loved in high school. It’s early aughts indie meeting modern Americana. Kacey
Musgrave’s cover of “Somewhere Only We Know.” Cello reverberating through the BBC’s
Piano Room. It’s a song I once paired with peach-os.
The video on MTV. Basement audience. Your mom folding clothes in the next room. The
battle over the volume button. Special effects. Boyish men in scarves. British accents. Tim
Rice-Oxley's soft face and the potency of a rain-streaked window. The penny-shaped street
lights. Empty roads. Spirits. Texts. Car speakers.
Drives that accumulated in a slideshow of telephone poles, school buildings. Local
landmarks. Historic districts. The first time you thought of being. Heart propped like a stage
door. The sudden need for a somewhere.
It was the year everyone grew out their hair. Casually, seriously wearing button-downs,
but never with a tie. Until loose ties with the knot slung round the clavicle became a thing. Then
hair dye. That costuming.
Those dramatics. The need to say something saved your life. That meaning. To stay up
all night, just thinking. About getting caught. Getting up to something. To wonder, what happens
after you go home? Out there. That strange promise of an external life. A beyond. The
borderlands.
Crossing River never felt like leaving. You had to go past it. At least try to. I should have
done something useful, like dream of moving to California. All that should have. Want
something different.
Want to hold perfectly still. Can everything just stop for a minute? Arguments. Siblings.
Out-of-state schools. Divorces. Cul-de-sac, round-about, dead-end, burnout. A red light
flashing. I don’t want to be here. Pick me up. Eternally a cell phone ringing.
Speed dial your name like an emergency number. Again. The call and response of “come
get me.” Can you? Calling shotgun. A twenty. A sling bag full of nothing. I don’t know where
we’re going. Not yet. Doesn’t matter.
Distance is measured in time. Not miles. A cursive path out of the suburbs. Check your
mirrors and merge. Go wherever the roads lead you then turn around. Don’t have the courage
to cross state lines or a license. Make that choice. Be your own DJ.
Crack jewel cases, ninety-nine cent bags of CVS candy. Stolen nail polish. Suggest
bands our brothers listened to. Older siblings, the original music critics. Then we discovered
magazines. Perfume inserts. Tell-all to the taste of blue raspberry slurpee.
Feel like the only two people on the planet. Hands in stomach pockets. Oversized. Not my
sweatshirt. All the time spent in malls and still mostly hand-me-downs. Jeans and tshirts. You
were a small version of someone. Becoming someone else. You still needed help deciding
where to turn.
Well, I don’t care if you don’t care. Stay. Lay on a ping-pong table you drag onto the
driveway. Burn in the heat, but look so cool doing it. This is what passes for excitement in the
places where there are no tall buildings. Scorched pavement. Don’t want the banana smell of
sunblock. Only ruler-thin popsicles that come in colors not flavors. Rolled ankle running across
the asphalt. Back into the basement, to write lyrics across our Converse and find meaning in
permanent marker.
Does it sound different because I’m different or does it sound different when you’re not
walled in by open windows. Belted, singing. Promising we’ll still hang out on weekends. The
same. It’s about time.
The town changed. The side streets have swelled into parkways. The split-levels of
friends are full of young families. The mostly gravel lot grew an apartment complex. Nowhere
to put the car. No reason to save our quarters anymore. Intersections we skidded across,
drag-racing curfew through our up-and-coming. Baby billboards talk about luxury like we’d
recognize it.
So full of potential. Going somewhere. Aren’t we? Finally got that good reason to leave.
Only be back in passing, not stopping, but rolling down the window for a few blocks. Would I still
be here? If this place had been anything, would I have gone anywhere? My own personal
nowhere.
I hear you’re still around.
Zoe Grace Marquedant
Zoe Grace Marquedant (she/her/hers) is a queer
writer. She earned her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence
College and her M.F.A. from Columbia University. Her
work has been featured in the Analog Cookbook, the
Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Talk Vomit. Follow
@zoenoumlaut

I came of age in the midst of fear and anxiety. On the day I turned eighteen, the whole nation
was at home, the risk of leaving the house much too high. School was out, but for once us
students weren’t happy about it. Technology was our saving grace. As messages travelled
through the air to my phone from my friends’, my birthday felt at least a little like a celebration.
I came of age in the midst of fear and anxiety, yet as I came of age my fear and anxiety melted
away. I crossed the bridge and said, “Let’s do this,” with a gaze full of grit and determination.
And I am doing it. Life isn’t perfect, but it was never supposed to be perfect anyway. So life can
come at me, but I have the power now to face it, all thanks to my coming-of-age.
I remember how a few years ago, when no one could have predicted the current state of the
world, I was surrounded by all my classmates on my birthday and felt the loneliest I ever had.
The physicality of people doesn’t necessitate the emotional presence, it seems. Now, two
years in a row, I have felt loved and seen despite being alone in my room. Deliveries of
Starbucks and birthday memes uplift my spirits, and I am glad to know that fear cannot
overpower love. The coming-of-age of a person is a special time and nothing, not even a
pandemic, can remove the magic of it.
To come of age in a time like this really makes one realise how lucky they are. Lucky to be alive,
lucky to be able to age at all. We all complain about getting older, but maybe we’d complain
about staying young as well. Aging means we’re growing and developing, physically, mentally
and emotionally. I couldn’t imagine staying a child and forever being under the watchful eye of
a parent. To most of us, coming-of-age means independence. Independence is one of the things
we crave most. It seems rather silly to moan about getting old now that I realise how much
more I can have in my life as I grow.
Since I’ve come of age, I’ve been able to imagine more. My mind paints multiple pictures of
possible futures, each one more exciting than the last. Rather ironic, considering children are
supposed to be the most imaginative people. But maybe the imagination of an adult is even
better, because children imagine fantastical worlds that don’t exist, but grown-ups imagine
lives that can actually become reality. People fear the loss of childhood, but I say the loss of
childhood brings opportunity, as long as the memory of childhood remains.
I vow to remember the joy of my childhood, to look back to the happy times that only children
can fully indulge in. But I will take the feeling of being able to do anything in the world, and bring
it with me as I journey into adulthood. In childhood I dreamed of what I’d do when I grew up, and
my coming-of-age was a bridge to the stage of my life when I can bring those dreams to
fruition. Yes, my dreams have changed, but that’s to be expected as time goes by and my
collection of experiences grows.
Don’t be afraid of change, I tell myself. For too long I have clung onto old dreams, refusing to
admit that I don’t want them anymore. My coming-of-age was the turning point in the plot of my
life. It pushed me to acknowledge that I’ve changed, gotten new dreams and new goals. It
encouraged me to let go of the past, and my goodness, how liberating it has been! Even as the
responsibilities pile on, the weight on my shoulders is lighter than before. I have clarity and
direction, something I didn’t have as a child. Growing up is better than it seems.
Hannah Chua Wen Ning
Hannah is a 19-year-old girl from Singapore who has
been dabbling in writing since 2019. She loves the Arts,
especially literature, theatre and dance. Her other
hobbies include crocheting, listening to musical
soundtracks and playing card games.

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