Fall issue 2022

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Arts & Letters
Fall 2022 Volume 26 Issue 1

INKLINGS ARTS & LETTERS

S T A F F
Cassiani Avouris
Eleanor Prytherch
Gabby Hoggatt
Sophia Balsamo
Cosette Gunter-Stratton
Annah Hahn
Ava Shaffer
Chelsea Hoy
Wren Whitehead
Sydney Scepkowski
Deanna Hay
Jonathan Fanshaw
Angel Hardy
Riley Courtney
Nya Hodge
Max Kaufman
Co-Editor in Chief
Co-Editor in Chief
Art Director
Writing Director
Business Manager
Outreach Chair
Outreach Chair
Social Media Chair
Social Media Chair
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff
Editorial Staff

Dear Reader,
Welcome, welcome! Whether you're
making your inaugural foray into
the annals of Inklings or returning to
witness the latest creative happenings,
we're elated that you've found your
way into our pages.
Guarding entry to the following
pages are a pair of wary cows and
their lifejackets. They will usher you
in to meet some of our most curious
characters yet. You'll encounter several
goblins, a decorated snail, an unruly
pancreas, a federation of cutthroat
fangirls, and maybe the most exquisite
Toby you will ever lay eyes on. All
bound within this volume.
The book you hold tells many stories,
but perhaps the one that coalesces from
them is one of transformation. The art
and writing in the following pages tells
of transformations from summer to fall
and fall to winter, of growing up and
growing old, of gender and personhood.
We watch as fruit decomposes into
earth to wait until spring.
Before you move along to your
reading enjoyment, some thanks are
due, first and foremost to our staff.
It's been a unique pleasure to watch
this issue come together under their
careful consideration. The time and
deliberation they've put toward it this
semester is admirable and deeply
appreciated.

We thank our contributors, who are
truly the wind in our sails each semester.
To our returning and new creators, we
salute you and your creative endeavors.
Inklings is more proud to be able to
offer a platform to showcase the weird
and wonderful talents at this university.
This particular issue special to us,
reader, because it is our first as editors.
We're following in the fabled footsteps
of editors past, and we want to thank
them for passing down their editorial
wisdom. We're honored to continue the
Inklings tradition.
Lastly, we want to extend our gratitude
to you, dear reader, for chancing to
pick up this volume. We don't doubt
that you'll be entranced, intrigued, and
enticed by what it has to offer. We wish
you well as you set off on this ramble.
Earnestly and contentedly,
Cassiani Avouris & Eleanor Prytherch,
Co-Editors-in Chief

these pieces were chosen by
an editorial staff of trained
undergraduates. the staff discusses
submissions without knowing their
creators, shares interpretations
and critiques, then votes on each
piece. our organization prioritizes
formal excellence, innovative
methods, and unique perspectives.
send submissions to
inklingswriting@miamioh.edu
inklingsart@miamioh.edu

contents

Olivia De Leon
Mel Hale
Angel Hardy
Deanna Hay
Gabby Hoggatt
Delaney Kirby
Juliana Lee
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
art
A Little Privacy Here?
This Is Not To Be Looked At
Chit Chat
Ceramic Clown, My Beloved
Fairy Joy
Gender Euphoria
Teary Eyes, Pretty Bones
The Moon And All Her Flowers
In a Dream
Rot
Toby
Violet Butterfly Study
Gastropunk Versus the
Anthropocene
Breathing the Same Air
Off to Bed Starboy
Stasis
Deep Blue
Echo

Juliana Lee
Maggie McLaughlin
Allison McLean
Tayler Stephens
Mary Visco
36
37
38
40
41
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
art
Link Bridge
Unwelcome
Multi-Dimensional
Curious?
Rural landscapes
Untitled
Dark July
Cowboy Control
Ladders
Passing Through
Woah, What's that Goblin Doing?
Untitled

r.p. almy
Cassiani Avouris
Sophia Balsamo
Anna Boyer
Liz Browning
Riley Courtney
Jonathan Fanshaw
Kit Gladieux
Cosette Gunter
Gabby Hoggatt
Sarah Holtz
Max Kaufman
55
56
57
58
60
61
62
63
65
67
69
71
72
74
75
76
77
letters
an ode to having a thousand
mothers
An Ecology Poem
homespace of the yearning
Blue Sunrise, Night Letter
For the Love That Sprouts From
My Chest
Heavy Metal Mimesis
Oral Recipe: Spaghetti with Catfish
Heads Passed Down to My
Father's Father
Chasing Gold
Road Trip (cw: abortion)
be present//disobedience
Honey Cut
Cyclops
mortality in sunder
Auntie xoxo (cw: homophobia)
hallelujah my soul will
paradise, ruin
I Hope To Post This On Facebook
One Day, If I Remember My Password

Max Kaufman
Jackie Michaud
Lucia Morello
Savannah Perry
Eleanor Prytherch
Sydney Scepkowski
Ava Shaffer
79
80
82
84
84
85
86
87
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
letters
Talking? Are We Talking? What's
Going On Here?
Where I'm From and What He's
Left
Garden Trap
Remembrance of the Lake
rip
I'll Hold You
and the sound of her hands in the
kitchen
elegy for transsexual youth
sexual assault case dismissal
(cw: sexual assault)
dying young
found objects oct. twenty two
paint rock NC
say the word butch right now
third year gothic
Threshold Held
The Horrific and Grisly World
Domination By Virtue of Boyband-Obsessed
Teenage Girls
(cw: violence, suicide)

Jazlyn Simon
Alex Turner
Madalyn Wardin
Lorna Wodzak
109
110
112
113
114
116
lava lamp sing me to sleep
ode to my dad who's 68 and giving
me more time to miss him
Deja vu
No More Giggly No More Jiggly
Ugh Boy
Wash Cycle

ART

A Little Privacy Here?
Olivia De Leon
oil paint
18

collage and acrylic
This Is Not To Be Looked At.
Olivia De Leon
19

Chit Chat
Mel Hale
linocut print
20

ink
Ceramic Clown, My Beloved
Angel Hardy
21

Fairy Joy
Angel Hardy
ink
22

acrylic paint
Gender Euphoria
Angel Hardy
23

Teary Eyes, Pretty Bones
Angel Hardy
acrylic paint
24

The Moon and All Her Flowers
photography
Angel Hardy
25

In a Dream
Deanna Hay
oil paint
26

oil paint
Rot
Deanna Hay
27

Toby
Deanna Hay
photography
28

mixed media
Violet Butterfly Study
Deanna Hay
29

Gastropunk Versus the Anthropocene
Gabby Hoggatt
lithography print
30

mixed media
Breathing the Same Air
Delaney Kirby
31

Off to Bed Starboy
Delaney Kirby
posca pen
32

posca pen and ink
Stasis
Delaney Kirby
33

Deep Blue
Juliana Lee
ink
34

ink and watercolor
Echo
Juliana Lee
35

Link Bridge
Juliana Lee
ink
36

ink
Unwelcome
Juliana Lee
37

Multi-Dimensional
Juliana Lee
ink
38

39

Curious?
Maggie McLaughlin
hard ground etching print
40

chalk pastel
Rural Landscapes
Maggie McLaughlin
41

42
Rural Landscapes

43

44
Rural Landscapes

porcelain
Untitled
Allison McLean
45

Dark July
Tayler Stephens
photography
46

Cowboy Control
woodblock and monotype print Mary Visco
47

Ladders
Mary Visco
monotype print
48

Passing Through
line etching and monotype print Mary Visco
49

Woah, What's that Goblin Doing?
Mary Visco
oil paint
50

oil paint
Untitled
Mary Visco
51

LETTERS ART

54

an ode to having a thousand
mothers
r.p. almy
finding a way
to patch up my needs
hollow bandaids on my bleeding knees
get tough love from her, sweet talk from another
tight hugs from strangers
mother, mother, mother
55

An Ecology Poem
Cassiani Avouris
Sunken uprooted pack soil break//
off
sit on the running trail banks,
stillmoving water cools
years of sensory need
(gurgle: ought be the wrong word)
Silt condenses along ribcages and femur
overtake your head with creek chilled stones & stories
this is an instruction poem.
for the plants//
dead, they line my resting bed and i
carry the burs on my back pocket
56

homespace of the yearning
Cassiani Avouris
When all the trees usher with the soaring clouds each branch & bough
waves like lake michigan//stirs swimmers ache my calf bones (see
I am from that shore) of open windows lofted sleep pulling// into early
mornings please begging of the milkweed in the dune grass let me//
climb your heights again
57

Blue Sunrise, Night Letter
for nastia
Sophia Balsamo
there is nothing so lonely as one point of view
consider:
a house with one window.
a car with no mirrors.
a sky that never changes.
tap, tap—
back and forth weather report.
you say: snow's coming down
say, flurries get caught in my hair, stuck to street corners,
white outlines sketching out the t[o,y]pography of a city. an icy
archive.
e-tunnel vision expands. pixel breathing wormhole growing
wider and wider and wider—
Here, the air's warmer.
the autumn's dry fast breaks slow, january
snow missing its cue
later and later
i say: the leaves stir sinister
say, the wind gets stronger these winters,
scales rivers
like snow plows, a tor[r,m]ent of sparking
aurora mists.
key by key, we talk about trees, overcast shapes.
rains and suns. clouds greeting us in waves. the light-darkness
of our waking
living in the instar-phase of each other's shadows.
tomorrow. i know there is always fog rolling out, a reminder
58

of all i can
not see in the distance
these weeks say sunshine is a failing currency.
and still, you draw me outside.
point at the birds and the streetlamps and
the early bus stop stations full of apparitions
my eyes would miss a world away.
midmornings i swear i feel your soul
absorbing the fluorescence
reflecting bright off snowdrifts
take in with me moth gold sunsets.
Together we wake up telegraphing futures into cyberspace.
59

For the Love That Sprouts From
My Chest
Sophia Balsamo
dearest ones, secret treasures I press close,
tight against the swelling of my breast
a surprise seeded by time in the meadows
of my skin. wished upon a star and was blessed;
body tug-of-warring in its baser elements
you make me desire myself
an us rippling beneath my eyelids, tenements,
closets, closed-door love. hidden room behind the bookshelf.
they see you and weep, a witness of the soulshine
seeping out the pores. a gender-fucked benediction
of black ribbons predators would no sooner strip-mine
from this garden. end this unnatural affliction.
ignore their eyes, darling— the free feeling of you dancing is too
much
before, i was only nurturing wistful boyish daydreams of your touch
60

Heavy Metal Mimesis
Sophia Balsamo
IN THE BEGINNING
the moon is bright CHRISTshine burning
sweat collecting slick beneath
denim and leather
fog machines / blinding lights / black nights -- sea of madness
here: broken beer bottles crunch
underfoot in pentametric beats
harmony in tune with the devil's strings
stargazer, they'll whisper as you cross their paths
black cat low class washed-up smeared with dirt and daemon's
blood
NO VACANCY in their era of prosperity
gorged on sin // lustdesire for living
OH satan OH lord we do not believe
haunting specter whose flesh we try on like a halloween mask
we met at your black masses [see: bars on the bad side of town]
made up your prayers and spells and curses
not a rebirth, a repurpose / brimstone burning in the pits of our
stomachs
this is how a story starts, but it's not where it ends.
61

Oral Recipe: Spaghetti with Catfish
Heads, Passed Down to My
Father's Father
Sophia Balsamo
basil and bay leaf spin
caught kaleidoscoping
in the spice-red walls of past-and-present kitchens
steam gets caught in our throats
thick phlegm sticking in layers
family dinners settle like rings in the esophagus
in hazy memories, baby hands sting sharp– hangnails aching–
when your dad shows you how to peel garlic
there are scars on your knuckles from baking,
stove-burns etched accidentally into palms just like your father’s
you watch him balance a youth’s passion with a man’s duty
jobs that leave him back-breaked and cigarette-stained,
unspooling that stomach-deep, fill-you-up type of love
he passes on in greasy takeout boxes. soon, you’ll be spoon-feeding it
back to him, hard day’s labors leaving his recipe box empty.
62

Chasing Gold
Anna Boyer
In the last days of summer,
I chased the sun down
long strips of crumbling sidewalk
and out from beneath trembling leaves,
but it laughed as it left me
holding only chilled mornings
and crystallized puffs of spent breath,
cracked lips and stinging skin
from a seasonal sucker-punch.
I went looking for the sun
at the tops of mountains and
in between the cracks of a tennis court,
dredged the bottom of drained swimming pools
and along the shoreline, checking
in the 18th hole and hiding beneath corn silk.
But glitter is not gold
and nostalgia is not now.
The sun has pulled a blue silk sheet
over itself, nestling into pillows
as it prepares for a grey dream
with the bears and ladybugs and groundhogs.
In the first days of autumn,
I made myself a cup of tea
and sat on the porch
wind tugging and threading through my hair
63

wind tugging and threading through my hair
the taste of cinnamon on my lips.
I watched a neighborhood cat
slink across the dry grass and under a bush like a time-lapse shadow
as the dregs of summer slipped away.
64

cw: abortion
Road Trip
Liz Browning
1. Royal Pine
She hadn’t seen him in three months. She hadn’t been inside his car
in over a year. Her bracelet no longer dangled from his rear-view
mirror. Her lip balm no longer took up residence in the crook of the
passenger seat door handle. Her hands sat in her lap instead of her left
palm resting on his thigh and her right swimming on the wind out the
window.
His car still ran smoothly. His bedroom had always been a mess
of pop tabs under dressers and condom wrappers wedged between
mattresses, but his car remained nearly impeccable. His pride and joy.
She told herself that his car was the reason why she was here. His car
was reliable, clean, able to drive 300 miles of corn fields there and
300 miles of corn fields back.
2. Hold the Line
Similarly to Ben (the Acura MDX, named after the Michael Jackson
song), his taste in music had hardly changed. Perhaps his affinity for
music exclusively released before either of them had been born should
have been a red flag. But she hadn’t minded it then, and she almost
got emotional when hearing it again now. She had hormones to blame
that on, not genuine emotion.
The switch between pop synths and electric guitar solos was the only
sound that filled the sleepy space between them. They’d left at 7:00,
earlier than either of the night owls ever otherwise attempted to be
awake by. She sipped at the energy drink he’d offered her when he
picked her up and tried not to think about the cardiology article she’d
read last week about the negative effects of caffeine on heart health.
3. Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization
He was the only one who knew about her situation. She felt like a
traitor to her gender for not leaning on her female roommates for
65

support as she’d waited on the answer from the magic 8-ball of a
stick she’d peed on. She’d sat in the corner of the bathroom and
watched every second count down on her phone’s timer. She’d nearly
vomited when she read the results and then got the same result for the
next two tests she took.
It would have made sense to call her mom right after, or her friends,
or her boyfriend (the accomplice in this predicament). Instead, she’d
called him. She’d cried. He’d listened. He’d stupidly asked if it was
his despite the year plus of time since they’d last had sex. She’d know
her decision immediately. The getting there was not as immediate.
He’d said yes when she asked for a ride.
4. Chi-Town
In another life, or maybe just a year ago, she wouldn’t have needed
this reunion, this road trip. She could have ridden the twenty minutes
downtown with a friend and then gone right back home right after.
Instead, she was choking down a McChicken as they crossed the
Illinois state border and checking for the ninth time that she had her
driver’s license and health insurance card with her. It was noon now.
She would probably be home a little after 6:00, a reasonable time to
get home from “work.” No one would question anything.
66

be present//disobedience
Riley Courtney
efface
deface torn apart
See ANNIHILATION
I was 14 at a park at the end of August
Could it not have waited til September?
That month feels worshiped
wordly wrong
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cessation summer:
when the bile in the streets
stops sticking to the palms of my feet
IT BURNS!!!!!!!!
hard coating churned out
simple messages:
I don’t think I love you anymore
He’s dead, stop crying, you didn’t know him
cessation in accumulation of a gold puckered ending:
the transformation of rain
as it became something
I wanted to kiss you in
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANNIHILATION
lie flat
stop walking in the middle of the crosswalk
in a rejective defiance to the bustling movement of feet
And an invitation for street cars, trains, and taxis
To run me over until I have no excuse
67

68
Someone call my manager
I’m only 16, I can’t come into work today
I’m making out with the ground
Yes it’s sexual and Yes you should tell him,
He’ll enjoy that
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Honey Cut
Jonathan Fanshaw
Sticky fingers pry at the honey bottle, twisting, turning,
tweezing drop by drop. Half-empty, I set it on the table by the twicechipped
plate. A toaster dings in alarm, having barely burnt a flakey
biscuit, my morning meal. I pull it out, plop it down, and proceed to
do the same for myself, chair rattling on risky limbs. It’s 7:00 AM
when I notice it humming by the door.
I’ve always hated bees.
Suited up in jackets of yellow and black, they’re far too
formal. Buggy eyes blank with hollow heads. This way, that way,
must make, must serve. A busy bee, the bee’s knees. Bees, bees, bees!
That incessant BUZZing in my ears when they pass my head, swiveled
for stings that could kill a grown man.
Why sting? Why serve? Why make? Flower to flower you
collect, create, celebrate, then back to the grind-comb. I mean, a
9-5 for all your lives and cast out to die in sixty days? Time after
time after time, glorified, but never justified. Meet your quota, have
your picture pasted to a wall, drizzled in enough sweet to sicken you
senseless.
What could they be? Without the pheromones to function
every morning, what could they do? But the Queen says no. After
all, it’s not their place. Droning on and on, six sides (no mistake) and
they’re happy. Flutter off and find the brightest pink petals - so happy.
Only servants, only meat.
...I sigh.
My morning breakfast is engulfed in that gilded glaze.
Meagre, but enough. Bed and hair unkempt, fine enough. The cap of
my uniform, despite the hole in the brim, would be enough. And as
I lock the door to my flat behind me, at exactly 7:23 AM, I hear that
familiar thrum of thin wings trailing and I-
69

SMACK
And with the stinger still burning in my finger, I snarl.
I’ve always hated bees.
70

Cyclops
Kit Gladieux
The drive is longer than I’d like, so
we count headlights to pass the time.
two
four
six
eight
nine!
I hear your breath hitch and
I wish that we could bottle our laughter as
we punch the ceiling of
your Jetta in perfect unison.
The transmission jumps sometimes,
but we’re solid.
71

mortality in sunder
Cosette Gunter
pooled blonde thing
on a bed in a house no one laughs in
the bunny in the backyard
stopped just long enough to
l oo k
yet not long enough to
make a difference,
deliver a message or
become a friend.
it’s been zero days since
the last accident, but
at least the blanket is soft
and the plants are alive
and
the blanket is soft.
72

it’s become clear
that nothing is
and no one actually knows what to do most of the time
because
there’stoomuch
and not
enough
in any given moment
the house creaks under its own weight
under the girl
under the bed
and maybe tomorrow
will be day 1 again
maybe tomorrow
the bunny will come back
but for now,
the blanket is soft.
73

Auntie xoxo
Gabby Hoggatt
cw: homophobia
◄Auntie xoxo
see past conversations
*she told me what you said
*your husband seems like
a dick
*not sent*
<screenshot>
we r leaving the mall now
*deceiving foul thing
*don’t fucking talk to her
*I’ll leave every room you try to
share w me
*bad influence on my daughter
*spreading lies and poison from
your greasy little queer fingers
*not sent*
there’s construction on I-90
*over my dead body you little
shit
*not sent*
today
Mom has ur crockpot
it’s on our porch
alright
*im going to get her free
*cold souled bitch
*not sent*
74

hallelujah my soul will
Gabby Hoggatt
rejoice that you are here they say
what you mean, I beg, loosen your tongue and peel back the gilt
adorns every corner of the cathedral and I’ve never seen such beauty
in the eye of the loveless beholder, care outweighed by
my side, you promised, you promised
savior with arms outstretched but never in reach
inside yourself, find something worth my goddamn time
enough for this, I think
it through think it through, spend the night in prayer
at an empty altar, scream to a deaf god
almighty, hallowed be your name
means strength, somehow, I’m convinced my parents switched me at
birth
rips me apart like so much wet tissue paper
thin skin, perhaps this fall will finally break me
I am not one for caution
tape in brilliant yellow streaks across my mother's china set
your gaze upon the path of righteousness and
beg.
75

paradise, ruin
Sarah Holtz
two water skim bugs play tag near a plastic bag full of rots
poison to those the Ams have deemed Are Nots,
who vehemently are and cry out in lowly decibels,
weAre! weAre! weAre!
a shredded red solo cup fills the gap between two sunny rocks and
carved letters in silent bark
may as well be bullet holes.
an invisible war, all those in favor weave in irreversible knots their
bright and eternally stretchy orange picket
webbing to strangle the border line between one land and another.
the Ams have it, and the Are Nots have not,
straining and tearing from multitude lock,
nearby
rusted bars twist their shrapnel spines inside forgotten cement.
yet the water still flows and the snake still suns,
in perfect harmony with this creeping narrowing chaos.
76

I Hope To Post This On Facebook
One Day, If I Remember My
Password
Max Kaufman
There are little humans who set up camping tents on the spokes of
sprinklers, and that’s not what this story is about.
Their economy is constantly destroyed by water damage, so they’ve
decided to forget that they have an economy all together.
It would seem they are always back to being hunter-gatherers, scared
to trade. But they are really just quite loving to their own things.
A neighbor will share a piece of chocolate cake without worry.
I lost my wallet once. It’s brown leather. I used to be embarrassed that
I had a brown leather wallet because my mom called it “designer” or
“fashionable” or something. I thought boys weren’t supposed to like
those kinds of things. Or care. Or look like they like or care. I didn’t
really care even. It was just the wallet I had.
I lost my wallet and I found it again and no one had taken anything
from it. It was at the Art Institute. I left it next to a Picasso painting. I
thought maybe someone would think he was accepting tips. Picasso
doesn’t know me. Not right now, at least. I left the wallet there and I
walked away hoping I would lose it so I could find it again in cubes.
I’m not friends with any of the people I write about. I think I could
write better stories if Picasso would reach out. Or if one of the little
humans who set up camping tents on the spokes of sprinklers asked if
I wanted to come and forget about money with them. I would do it, I
think. I have lost my wallet before.
There’s nothing really special about any of this. I just thought
someone should know.
There’s nobody to read it really. I just thought someone should know.
77

I’m not upset, I’m just sort of flaccid. I do things without - - - - - - -
I have to go.
Maybe I’ll set off the fire alarm. I want to trade things again.
78

Talking? Are We Talking? What's
Going On?
Max Kaufman
My body surprised me, doing something I didn’t know it
could do, in the summer before fifth grade. My body surprised me by
knocking on the door to my midsection and unplugging the power
cord to my pancreas. It just stopped working. “It just stops working,
that’s what an autoimmune disease is,” they said. Okay. That’s fine.
I didn’t know it was working in the first place. They tell me it’s
important. Okay. They tell me I’m the pancreas now. I give out the
insulin. Okay. That’s fine. Needles? That’s fine.
But what about the real thing? It’s laying there, unmoving, I
can see it. Sort of floating and bumping, and altogether not tied down
or attached to anything by way of any power cord. This is not okay.
Not fine. There’s no light for the pancreas. I wish I could at least buy
it a gift card. Poor, unsustainable endeavor. Dependent little organ.
You made my body your coffin. I’m happy to carry you. Okay? That’s
fine. I see you like a bagged goldfish.
Don’t you want a proper burial though? Or do you think you
will boot up again soon? Or do you think? Or do you dream? That’s
what I wonder. You must see yourself in a brighter place than this. Go
there.
79

Where I'm From and What He's
Left
Max Kaufman
I am from snowplow-excitement, pile
of icy white soft, standing
to see over the sill. I am from Jess’s footsteps.
I am from memory of mountain
thuds on wood floors.
(Pictures of wagons
and me, pulled
by him, moving
where Sophie, so mellow, moved.)
I am from snow in my boots,
too cold to notice right away, “keep playing!”. From
late nights in Neon Heights, from Spotify links
back and forth—nothing else.
From post-audience inspiration, from playing too loud,
“keep your arm straight, keep it down,”
we threw the frisbee. He left me
his boots when I started crying from the cold.
He left me a snow angel to lay
in, too big.
I’m from
elation and laughter,
I’m from Falsettos,
beginning to end.
80

He knew how cold the boots would get—
I only could know after. He left his very best—
his—
Brother.
81

Garden Trap
Jackie Michaud
Maybe a green grid
stretched tightly over the garden
teeming and golden
still controls my whims and
keeps clusters contained.
Maybe love could sneak over the side
of a rim of a strand of a part of the plastic
and stay with me.
Maybe storm cloud lightning
could zap the grid taught
snap the lid off
of my cage so
we can rage, so
grind the sage down
for us to sneak out.
Seal my yearning
with yours, please.
Tell them you demand to.
82

Remembrance of the Lake
Jackie Michaud
Bottom windowpane at eye level, tip toes
and French toast still on the back of tongue,
little girl sees mother, cross-eyed young.
Look, out in the lake, that’s her.
A couple of seconds of squinted gaze
for little girl to see the freshwater swimmer,
her mother, leaving, wedging under the peninsula.
My mother is a fish,
A Vardamanian symbol of Christ, or
just death,
except she really was there, my father
said so.
Foggy-headed young searching for my
Hawaiian cake topper from years before,
I forgot about my mother,
as the fish
a moving spot just under the green surface,
disappearing - but somehow returning soon,
fully human, and dry.
83

rip
Jackie Michaud
To specify:
I’m story-sinking-swim
and I steal your hazel eye,
tread, misuse your fumble fins.
Sorry, let me just say –
This river writes stories
while I sing; if I may
float soggy paper alle-gory.
I’m broken finger backwards
but, let me clarify:
Numbered wax sticks warn
me fragile bones and cloudy eye.
Zip pocket tight tonight,
I know a tidal wave, she’s no singer.
But listen: I might
sink if you do,
point, jeer, linger.
84

I'll hold you
Jackie Michaud
while the train passes.
My inner arms
cover your hands
curled-over knuckles
plugging your ears –
Let me absorb
the static,
Let me steal
your pain.
For all of you
to flow into me
through the squeeze of
our hands,
we race away
from the shaking
tracks; the threat
of the oncoming
scream.
85

and the sound of her hands in the
kitchen
Lucia Morello
so you turn the corner and there’s your mother:
great watery forever-body extending until
her grey becomes the sky,
little white motions ready to rock
you to sleep,
and the reflected clouds, indifferent as always
so you immediately burst into tears because
how could you forget your mother?
keep taking your eyes off the road
as if she’ll suddenly dry up,
relinquish those fresh-fish bodies
and haunted, taunting ships
so when you wake up the next morning
you think you’re somewhere else
—that cold stranger no-light bed
where the parked cars watch your sleeping form,
and you wonder how you didn’t feel it—
the distinct bite of the air, the adulthood monsters
abandoning their playtime
that brief moment looking at the backs of your eyes
until relief enters you like a stab wound
you sit up, green walls, thinking
who will you be, who will you be when
these wicked suburbs become foreign to you?
86

elegy for transsexual youth
Lucia Morello
do you remember the way your mother held you?
beautiful girl back then, all
sunshine curls and cherub smile
you would never be
that beautiful again
oh, but it’s one thing to remember the littleness
of it all, the stout legs and bubbling mouth
but what of— the older girl—
do you remember her long, messy hair?
the newly exposed midriff, the little twos
peeking beneath the sternum
and now, this—
desexualization of the world’s bitch
remember when you used to be a commodity?
cut all that hair off and made your body a warzone, no—
your body was always a warzone,
you just learned to call it what it is
stopped being your mother’s daughter,
stopped being your mother’s anything
do you remember the way she held you?
she used to tell you you were beautiful
now she avoids your strange ghost self
87

no one looks at you anymore—
do you remember when you were something to be bought?
you walk through walls, you repeat “hello?” into the dial tone
are you there? it’s me. i’d like to talk.
do you remember when we used to talk?
so maybe you’ve never known how to be a body beyond that box,
beyond sale tags and price scanners, look in the mirror and find
your own personal mannequin-barbie-doll-slut
remember when the things you liked were cool?
traitor— defector— you are learning to take up a space
you had taught yourself never should be occupied
you are learning to fill a room.
you are ballooning upward and outward to fill the whole
goddamn house and no one will ever get back in
do you remember the girl eyes?
not just yours, no, they were never yours
do you miss them? i don’t think you miss them
but— they aren’t— gone—
why can’t you connect? why can’t you connect?
what is so fundamentally wrong with you
that you are never going to laugh at the appropriate pitch,
never going to walk with the right amount of sway,
never going to feel safe alone at night,
but never going to not walk her home anyway
do you remember walking her home?
do you remember when you weren’t the danger in the night?
it doesn’t matter anyway
who knows you these days?
88

what eyes hold you in any manner of verisimilitude?
who knows you these days?
sometimes— you wonder— if it is your mother
whose pain’s place produced you
who taught you, above anything,
how to be good, and not like a hero but like a prisoner
you are never going to be able to save her.
but what does she see when her eyes meet yours?
her daughter died years ago and left her with
this gaping wound (that’s you)
bleeding all over the carpet and not bothering to clean it up
and who wants to hold a gaping wound?
ruin their costume— i mean— clothes— i mean— body?
who wants to ruin everything they’ve worked for?
(that’s you)
do you remember the way your mother held you?
89

sexual assault case dismissal
Lucia Morello
cw: sexual assault
I AM ALWAYS GOING TO GET FUCKING EATEN.
THE PROBLEM WITH PREY ANIMALS IS THAT THEY ARE
DESIGNED THAT WAY.
THEY HAVE EVOLVED TO BE, EVENTUALLY, CAUGHT, TO
DIE AT THE TEETH OF
ANOTHER.
I HAVE EVOLVED TO BE CAUGHT. TO DIE BETWEEN A WILD
CAT’S JAWS.
TO DIE BETWEEN HIS JAWS.
THERE IS NO OTHER DESTINY FOR ME, NO LIFE IN WHICH I
FIND SANCTUARY FROM
THIS LIFELONG GAME OF HUNTING AND BEING HUNTED.
THE REST OF MY LIFE I WILL SPEND RUNNING. THE REST
OF MY LIFE I WILL DREAM
OF TEETH.
90

dying young
Savannah Perry
she was pink!
a puffy posie with pretty
practical petals;
persistently you find her planting
her pale and frail fragments
of flesh for feeling.
forget power,
pleading. fawning. willing.
feverishly you just watch
her, that wondrous woman’s
faint and fragile
body,
as she fractures every piece of herself on the floor.
91

found objects oct. twenty two
Eleanor Prytherch
Don’t underestimate elderberries just because of their small size,
NOTICE THE LOG JAM AND RECENT STREAM CHANNEL
CHANGES NEAR HERE
E
A
T H E R I C H
GRASS FED
BEEF
TENDERLOIN
ROASTS
GROUND BEEF
_NDIANA M3LONS
Fall Mums
Farm Fresh
Brown Eggs
S W E E T C O R N
We are super friendly even though we HISS and get up to THREE
INCHES
92

paint rock NC
Eleanor Prytherch
more road grit grinding in my hip sockets this year
than the clear cut sad summer like a slow cold
river when the lines came easy
to be honest no good poems came out of that
hiking trip except this
no tears shed over sandwiches because I
ate that whole thing without any fear
i’m not fading from myself
only in grief for the year lost
to my own vicious love, sucked under into
roiling with sand in my eyes, oh well
the last 25 milligrams evaporated from
me at the end of June and now my whispers
are hoarse on the street at night and
chords of songs wake up and I remember
who she was that used to live here and doesn’t
anymore
93

say the word butch right now
Eleanor Prytherch
I want you to say queer about me I want you to look me in the eye
say lesbian without a flinch
your lavender latte ethereum
means nothing if you won’t
don’t even say the word it grits against your
freckleblush strawberry softness gimme a break
I want to dissolve “what’s your aesthetic” in the hot water
rinsing the dirt out from my nails
read my lips I cuff my sleeves
while none of you look at me
there’s no room for my rough streak in a cottage
and if you won’t say it I won’t stop
94

third year gothic
Eleanor Prytherch
when I got back to ohio it would be a rebirth
is what I said but
it filled me back up like a garden with lush
old wood and fish at my skin in the water and I
still had dreams
she says in the fall it’ll be the season of
forgetting and maybe hexing maybe
the three of us can sit on old floors
with candles salt and wish the worst but
I’ll lean on still bony knees and hold it like a
stone under my tongue
95

Threshold held
Sydney Scepkowski
Threshold
Held:
Walked in the warm thaw home and thanked the day
First, kicked sandals with flattened soles
Socks picking up corner dust of the living
Room, blank besides the memory of city color framed
Above the rug sized small for a child’s room or our
Coffee table, broad for evanescing, stretching
Slotted sunshine for mother
Of thousands, offshoot
Propagating in a teacup and a cored candle jar
Before you turn off the last light, sit on the floor
Until your leg falls asleep or longer
Under the hollow of the guitarStrings gritting
Gratitude:
A week of never stopping, cupped in a papasan chair.
96

The Horrific and Grisly World
Domination By Virtue Of Boyband-Obsessed
Teenage Girls
cw: violence, suicide
Ava Shaffer
It took them two days to outsmart The Pentagon. Three days
to seize The White House. Four days to buy out all major corporations
in America. Five days to storm and conquer every metropolitan city
in the United States. Six days to contact and coordinate with their
members in other countries to confirm that every major city across
the globe was now under their complete control. In total, it took the
teenage girls six days to take over the world, for the sake of their
favorite boyband.
This was her fifth Onboarding this week, and if things didn’t
run perfectly smoothly she was going to shoot someone in the head.
The elevator moved slower than usual, amping up her annoyance at
having to teach yet another new recruit how things run here at The
Boyband Revolution’s Headquarters.
The Headquarters was located in New York City, inside
the new and improved Empire State Building. When the teenage
girls took over the world, they renovated the musty old tower into
something much more to their liking. Now it had throw pillows,
boyband posters covering every wall, and pink carpet. They kept the
large glass windows overlooking the city though, those were nice to
gaze out of and be reminded of all that they control now.
The girl in the elevator accessed the jukebox on the wall’s
touchpad screen and punched in a song, I Want You, Baby. The
beautiful chorus of five boys sang out to her through the speakers,
their melodic voices soothing her nerves.
Oh baby you’re so kind, I wanna make you mine. Oh baby
you’re so bright, with you I know it’s right. Oh baby you’re so
-
97

pretty, I want to feel your- heart.
Tommy, Ryan, John, Chris, and Kyle. The Bloodlust Boys.
The reason for this all, the reason why this building, this revolution,
this girl, is here in the first place. She thought of them now, perched in
The Bachelor Pad on the top floor of The Headquarters. Maybe they
were strumming their guitars, long luscious locks falling into their
ice-blue eyes. Or maybe they were roughhousing with one another,
fighting over a game controller or the last slice of pizza. Or maybe,
perhaps, they were doing nothing at all. It didn’t matter, just having
their presence nearby warmed the heart of so many, especially the
disgruntled, overworked girl in the elevator.
Their smooth teenage boy voices echoed from the elevator’s
speakers, filling her heart with glee. Especially when the bridge came
with Chris’s solo, she clutched a hand to her heart and felt the lyrics
deep in her soul. Who cares if she has to spend countless unpaid hours
training another person to join The Revolution’s Headquarters, if the
training is for her boys she will do it gladly.
The elevator dinged open. Her mood dropped.
Standing outside the sliding metal doors was a short redheaded
girl, in the typical Revolution attire of a bulletproof vest, with
a The Bloodlust Boys concert t-shirt pulled over it. Her shirt was from
their third album, Make You Mine. An underrated classic, in her eyes.
Maybe this new recruit wouldn’t be so bad.
“Hello,” she said, reaching her hand out to the fresh-faced
ginger. Once their hands connected, the girl yanked the newbie into
the elevator, already punching in the code for their next destination in
the building.
“Welcome to The Boyband Revolution. I will be your
mentor and tour guide. My name is ChrisGirl64, you may call me
ChrisGirl64,” she told her sternly. Looking down at the redhead’s
nametag, she was pleased to see that the new recruit had already gone
through the naming ceremony before coming to Onboarding. Her
name was JohnGirl8751.
ChrisGirl64 remembered her naming ceremony like it was
yesterday. The day she stepped onto the large silver stage in the
basement of The Boyband Revolution’s Headquarters, completely
98

naked except for a portrait of her favorite member, Chris, of The
Bloodlust Boys painted on her stomach. That was the day she was
stripped of her old name, her old life, and given new versions of both.
She was the 64th Chris girl to pledge her allegiance, life, and heart to
the boyband.
As the elevator doors slid close, JohnGirl8751 regarded her
with wide, astonished eyes. “Wow, you must be one of the originals!
They told me at the training camp it’s not common to meet someone
in the double digits.”
Tucking her short brown hair behind her hair in dignity,
ChrisGirl64 replied, “It’s not common. You should be honored.”
The other girl bowed her head in a show of deep respect.
Just then, the elevator doors opened to Floor 2 of The
Headquarters revealing a long hallway, the red walls covered in
framed photographs.
“The first step of Onboarding is always to take you through
our history on the ground floor. We believe it is important for new
recruits to remember our origin, before we were the world’s highest
dominating power,” ChrisGirl64 explained in her tour guide voice.
She led the newbie into the hallway, pausing before a massive
fifteen-foot photo of The Bloodlust Boys. Tommy, Ryan, John, Chris,
and Kyle. The five teenage boys of the same height and almost exact
same facial structure grinned back at them from the frame, white
teeth shining. All with various shades of shaggy blond hair, they wore
matching outfits, a mixture of red and black polo shirts with tight
skinny jeans. The girls loved those skinny jeans more than they loved
world domination. Which is saying a lot considering how much they
really loved world domination.
Littered around the shrine were various displays of affection
for The Bloodlust Boys that members of The Revolution liked to
come and leave on their lunch breaks. Love letters, homemade
cupcakes, underwear, locks of hair, a bloody knife. Anything to show
the utmost devotion.
ChrisGirl64 and JohnGirl8751 paid their respects to the boys,
bowing their heads to their gods and blowing a kiss to their favorite
99

member. Then they continued onwards. “As you, a diehard The
Bloodlust Boys fan should know, the boyband began on July 23, 2010,
when five of the most beautiful and musically talented men in history
joined together to bless us with the gift of their song,” ChrisGirl64
said, waving a hand towards the photos arranged in chronological
order on the walls.
There were pictures of when the boys first started, big smiles
and boyish haircuts. Gaps in their teeth and lanky frames. Then
slowly, the photos started to show their rise in popularity. Their
charts and cash grew, as did their hunger for power. The crowds in
the stadiums they performed at started to multiply. Girls covered
their walls floor to ceiling in The Bloodlust Boys posters, screaming
and crying at concerts, spending their entire savings on boyband
merchandise and their latest albums. It was all there, displayed
proudly on the walls. The love, the hysteria, the devotion.
They came to a halt before the next photograph, an ornate
golden frame causing it to stand out. Inside the intricate frame was a
vinyl record of one particular, world-changing, deadly song.
“This is what started it all, isn’t it?” JohnGirl8751 asked, her
voice somewhere between horror and awe.
ChrisGirl64 nodded. Lately, she had been getting bored
during her Onboarding sessions, but this part never lost her attention.
“March 25th, 2015. The day The Bloodlust Boys released their
highest-grossing song, Kill All Men, Baby. The day they called upon
us as their loyal servants to kill every man. Well, at the least the ones
that made the foolish decision to not pledge allegiance to the band.”
Next to the photo was another touchpad screen, with the song
already pulled up. The album art consisted of the five boys, all dressed
in head-to-toe black, smoldering sexily towards the camera lens. She
pressed play and let their harmonic voices take over.
Kill all men, baby. They won’t treat you like I do, baby. Let me
love you, baby. Come follow me, baby.
Next to this photo was a framed photograph of a pretty blonde
girl with a button nose and freckles.
“KyleGirl1,” ChrisGirl64 explained. “She was the first to
100

answer the call. She sawed her boyfriend’s legs off with a sharpened
CD of The Bloodlust Boy’s popular album, You Belong To Me. She
was pretty bummed when the CD could no longer play, though. But
she has been Kyle’s right-hand woman ever since, and that keeps her
pretty happy.”
“She’s kind of like your- I mean our- leader, right? Under the
boys, of course?” JohnGirl8751 asked.
ChrisGirl64 nodded. “Yes, in some ways. She’s basically a
spokesperson for what the boys want, most directions coming straight
from Kyle. She’s so lucky to be so close to them.” ChriGirl64 had a
wistful tone in her voice, for the power of KyleGirl1’s position or her
proximity to their loves, was unclear.
She shook her head to rid herself of the thought, “But she
wasn’t the only one who took drastic measures for the attention of The
Bloodlust Boys. These other girls helped us get to where we are now,”
she said, motioning toward the rest of the photos.
In one picture stands a smiling girl with curly black hair,
TommyGirl3. She’s holding up a bloody The Bloodlust Boys band
poster, the edges bent and crumpled. Rumor has it she used that poster
to give deep papercuts to her father until he bled out on the kitchen
floor. Kind of impressive that the poster didn’t rip that much.
Another photo showcases a curvy girl with braces, pointing
to a The Bloodlust Boys shirt she is wearing. RyanGirl8 used that
very shirt to strangle all of the male teachers in her school, letting
them hang from her makeshift noose until they were dead. She had to
retrieve the shirt afterward, of course, it was a limited edition concert
tee.
“Wow,” JohnGirl8751 gulped.
“This is only the beginning,” ChrisGirl64 replied with pride.
She walked her through the rest of the gallery, the
photographs indicating in excruciating detail how exactly the teenage
girls who answered The Bloodlust Boys’ call took over the world.
How it began with just the men in their homes, then their cities. How
the hundreds of thousands of teenage girls banded together to take
down major political figures and law enforcement. There were still
101

some men left over, but they were complacent and pathetic, bowing to
the wrath of The Bloodlust Boys and their diehard followers.
How easy it was for them, the overlooked and picked-on
generation of girls, to form an unstoppable, deadly force. Nobody
saw it coming, but the teenage girls were not surprised by their own
power.
ChrisGirl64 checked her watch, sad to leave the only section
of the Onboarding tour that filled her with glee. Although there were
posters of The BloodLust Boys on every wall of the building, she
found herself missing this gallery and all of its glory. “Let me show
you the other floors, so you can get the full picture,” she said to the
newcomer, and they entered another elevator that took them up to a
higher level.
JohnGirl8751 heard the sound of metal clanging and shouting
before the doors even opened. Once they did, she had a full view of
a large gym, with punching bags, weights, swords, and other highquality
violent weapons. There were four full-sized boxing rings in
the sweat stenched arena, where ripped teenagers were pummeling
each other into the ground with a ferocity only exhibited by those who
are used to chasing boyband members down streets and fighting their
way out of security guards grasps at concerts. People always thought
teenage girls were so weak. When they finally figured out how wrong
they were, it was much too late.
“This is the fighting gym, where we train our soldiers. That’s
how we control a lot of the world, through brute teenage force.
Most people here are RyanGirls, because he likes his women buff,”
ChrisGirl64 explained. JohnGirl 8751 surveyed the room, noticing the
beefy arms of the fighters, their biceps bulging under their tattoos of
Ryan’s face.
ChrisGirl64 pointed toward the right of the elevator, where
another doorway leads to an even bigger open space.
“That’s the armory. We keep most of our weapons in The
Boyband Revolution’s Headquarters. Machine guns, ammo, grenades,
you name it. Took it all from the Army, you should’ve seen their faces
when thousands of teenage girls stormed their camps. They were
afraid to hit us, I think. Made it all pretty easy,” she said.
102

JohnGirl8751 took in her surroundings quietly, asking few
questions as they walked through the floor. They toured the facility
for a while, until a beeping noise sounded from ChrisGirl64’s hip.
She quickly pulled an advanced walkie-talkie, pink and bedazzled of
course, out of her pocket.
“Yes?” she asked impatiently into the device, annoyed with an
interruption to the Onboarding she so desperately wanted to finish, so
she could go listen to her favorite album, Let’s Be Together in peace.
“We have an issue on The Hacking Floor. Some of the
security cameras on the top floors have gone out,” a high-pitched
voice echoed from the device.
ChrisGirl64 sighed. “Be right there,” she mumbled. As she
led JohnGirl8751 to the upper Hacking Floor, she vented about the
call. “This happens all the time and then they fix it without my help.
I don’t know why I need to come up there. They would never call
KyleGirl1 to handle this kind of low-level shit.”
Like the training gym, JohnGirl8751 could hear the next
floor before she saw it. The sounds of computers dinging, keyboards
clacking, and mice clicking hit her ears before she saw the room.
But when she did, she was astonished. Rows and rows of high-tech
computers lined the blue-tinted space, all with complex code and
numbers scrolling across the screens.
“We hire a lot of JohnGirls here, because he likes his women
smart. Most JohnGirls are familiar with coding from when they used
to hack into music databases to leak songs early from The Bloodlust
Boys,” ChrisGirl64 explained. “These girls helped us get into The
Pentagon, crash the stock market, access powerful people’s personal
data from their phones, and control anything that’s digital nowadays.
So basically, everything.” She then hurried off to take care of the
security camera issue.
JohnGirl8751 surveyed the room on her own, watching the
brilliant girls at work. Their cheetah-print nails tapped incessantly
on the keyboards, their eyes narrowed and focused on their screens.
All that power, at the tips of their acrylic fingernails. She noticed
that every girl’s mousepad was the face of a different boy from The
Bloodlust Boys, and she noticed how silly Tommy looked spread
103

across the mousepad’s fabric material.
She could see herself working here, hunched over the
computers, controlling the world’s markets, websites, data, and
people. She was smart too, but not because John likes smart women.
In fact, she didn’t give a shit about what John likes. Or what any of
the others in The Bloodlust Boys likes. But she was not about to admit
that right now. Not when this was the only safe place for her.
At that moment ChrisGirl64 returned.“Okay, all sorted. Like
I said, just a blip. Something about The Bachelor Pad’s cameras going
out. But the boys up there know what they’re doing, so if they wanted
the cameras off then I’m not concerned. I trust their judgment more
than I trust mine,” she said, her faith in them unwavering as always.
“Can we go? To The Bachelor Pad, I mean?” the redhead
asked immediately, eager to explore more of this twisted building and
see the real reason why this revolution happened in the first place.
“No,” she said firmly, authoritatively. “That’s restricted
personnel only and you’re not-”
ChrisGirl64 was cut off by the sound of her walkie-talkie
beeping again.
“Hey! Hey! Can anyone hear me?” A tinny, frantic, male
voice shouted from the device.
Even over a walkie-talkie, the sound of Chris’s husky voice
was unmistakable.
“Chris!” ChrisGirl64 shouted into the walkie-talkie. Her face
turned bright red and she almost dropped the walkie-talkie from her
now shaking hands.“Hi! What do you need? I will get you anything.
Anything.” She leaned against the wall for support, sure her legs were
going to give out soon.
dead.
“Please, I’m in The Bachelor Pad, I need y-” The line cut
ChrisGirl64 looked at the redhead, her pulse thrumming. “I
guess we are going to The Bachelor Pad.”
ChrisGirl64 gave herself a pep talk in the mirror of the
104

elevator on the ride up to the very top floor. As they passed the
countless other floors, she thought about how they were all filled with
important information on The Revolution that the newbie needed to
learn. But damn the Onboarding, that can wait for another day. She
was going to see Chris. Chris. He said he needed her. She had never
felt so ecstatic in her entire life.
But when the doors to the elevator slid open to a deathly
silent Bachelor Pad, and a metallic smell assaulted her nose, her
excitement quickly drained away.
The Bloodlust Boys, always pale but never this pale, were
laying in disarray in the center of the room, limbs bent at unnatural
angles and blood pooling around their toned, 6-pack-ab bodies. What
was once a sexy mancave with low-dimmed lights, leather couches,
record players, and pool tables was now a murder scene.
Tommy, Ryan, John, Chris, and Kyle.
Tommy was lying face down on the carpet, with Ryan splayed
awkwardly on top of him, the fabric of his flannel shirt stained dark
red where his once-beating heart was. John’s typical long golden locks
were tinted a nauseating scarlet around his neck from the deep slash
across his throat. Chris was lying next to the couch, his face streaked
with crimson spilling from a deep gash on his forehead, the blood
flowing into his beautiful blue eyes. And on the couch…
Straddling Kyle, the love of millions of teenage girls, on the
black leather couch was none other than KyleGirl1, blood coating
her hands and her clothes. Kyle’s chest was still, his eyes wide open.
There was a long, sinister knife sticking out from his right eye socket.
KyleGirl1 was shaking, her tiny hands full of tremors. As if
she could sense their arrival, she looked up, locked eyes with the other
girls. She looked scared and powerful, but mostly scared.
“I had to do it,” she wailed in the direction of the girls coming
out of the elevator, hot tears pooling down her porcelain face. “He
told me he didn’t want me anymore, that he just wanted to spend time
with his boys.” She cried again. KyleGirl1 grabbed the roots of her
platinum blonde hair, pulling hard, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“What am I without him? What am I without any of them?”
105

She asked, her eyes frantically searching the faces of her dead idols
for answers.
Before either of them had a chance to move towards her,
KyleGirl1 shot to her feet. Her pink The Bloodlust Boys t-shirt was
heavy with blood, clinging to her figure. “If I don’t have him, I don’t
have anything!” She sobbed, before taking a running leap towards the
large glass windows.
death.
Time slowed. Glass shattered. KyleGirl1 plummeted to her
Shock overtook the room. JohnGirl8751 looked at
ChrisGirl64 to see what she should do. These were her idols, the loves
of her life, the reasons for her very being. What should she do now?
Cry? Scream? Throw herself out the window too?
Instead the brunette just mechanically, slowly walked over
to the record player next to the blood-splattered leather couch.
Leaning over the warm carcass of her once beloved idol, ignoring his
congealing blood and open eyes, she lifted the needle off the record
player and replaced the vinyl with a new one. The ambient, upbeat
pop sounds of The Bloodlust Boy’s hit, It’s All Over, Baby, played
softly from the speakers.
That same mechanical walk lead her to the drink cart, where
she grabbed the neck of a The Bloodlust Boy’s themed vodka bottle.
She moved towards JohnGirl8751 and slouched against the cement
wall until she was sitting on the red shag carpet.
“I’ve always loved this song,” the former said. “It’s my
favorite.”
It’s all over, baby. You and me. Everything we’ve been
through, baby. It’s clear to see. Now that we’re forever apart, baby,
where will you be?
She nodded her head solemnly to the cookie-cutter lyrics,
a single tear streaking down her face. Even in times of irreversible
crisis, The Bloodlust Boys' music could cure all.
JohnGirl8751 slowly lowered herself next to the crying girl,
sitting crisscrossed applesauce. Shock enveloped them both like a
106

cruel hug, urging her towards vulnerability. “Can I tell you a secret?”
JohnGirl8751 said after a while. The room was beginning to smell
worse, rotten.
ChrisGirl64 nodded.
“I’m a lesbian.”
ChrisGirl64 didn’t even open her eyes. Unphased, she replied,
“Yeah, me too.”
JohnGirl8751 turned to the girl in shock. “What?” Suddenly,
she felt something akin to hope spring into her chest. “So you don’t
actually love these guys either?” Her eyes were shining now, the
excitement there evident. “I only joined The Revolution because
the RyanGirls were about to ransack my city and I needed to get
somewhere safe,” she confessed.
ChrisGirl64 finally opened her eyes, but they didn’t reflect
the same hopeful light as the other girl’s did. “I love The Bloodlust
Boys with every ounce of myself,” she said, her face more grave and
serious than ever before.
“Why?” JohnGirl8751 was baffled. “How could you love
these guys? How could you follow them, idolize them, worship them?
You don’t even want them.”
The silent tears continued flowing from ChrisGirl64’s eyes.
She shrugged, the movement sad and defeated. “They were the first
things ever made specifically for me. The first time I ever felt like
something was marketed just for me, and girls like me. A boyband,
who sings about how much they love and cherish me, how they will
treat me right.” She shook her head, “No, not me. Us,” she amended.
“They sang about how they would treat us right.” She waved her
hand towards herself and then out the door, motioning towards the
countless floors below them that were filled with other teenage girls
with big hearts and nowhere to put them now.
“That kind of community, that love, that sisterhood,” she
sighed. “It was beautiful.” The wistful look on her face made the other
girl wonder what she was missing.
JohnGirl8751 still couldn’t wrap her head around this.
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“But why did you let it go so far? How could you let yourself get
brainwashed? How could you kill for them?”
ChrisGirl64 shrugged again, taking a swig from the branded
vodka. She didn’t even flinch as it went down. “I don’t think it’s
possible for us to love anything in moderation. All our life we are
told to give everything we have to men. Our smiles, our attention, our
hearts, our minds, our bodies. We were never taught anything besides
total devotion. So why are you surprised that we would follow these
boys to the end of the Earth?”
A somber silence fell over them. Neither one of them knew
what to say after that. The dreamy song came to an end, a final baby
uttered over the speaker.
“Listen, ChrisGirl64-”
“My name is Anna,” she said. Took another swig. Avoided
looking at the couch.
“Anna,” JohnGirl8751 said, rolling the sound out on her
tongue. Anna flinched as she did. She wondered how long it had been
since someone had used her real name. Years, probably.
“I’m Lauren,” the other girl said. She wasn’t sure if she was
expecting a response, but Anna didn’t give her one. They sat in silence
again, listening to the faint plink-plink-plinking of Kyle’s, (or John’s,
or maybe was it Ryan’s?) blood drip onto the hardwood floors.
“So what do we do now?” Lauren wondered out loud. She
didn’t know if she was expecting an answer.
A steeled expression came across Anna’s face. She took one
last swig from the bottle, glancing longingly at the face of Chris
printed on the label. “I heard there’s a new boyband, in Korea. Called
The Berserk Boys. I’ll have someone call our contacts there, and we
will redirect.”
“Redirect what?” Lauren asked.
“The world’s greatest weapon,” ChrisGirl64 replied. “The
love and devotion of teenage girls.”
108 109

lava lamp sing me to sleep
Jazlyn Simon
lava lamp sing me to sleep
give me dreams, give me dreams
green sludge and floating stars
tell me this is where home is
break two eggs on an iron skillet
trust me with two pinkies
and never say a word to anyone
tell me it’s time for breakfast
feed the vines with a water faucet
give them life, give them life
i tell you silently that i think of you
tell me that i could grow here
kiss the lemongrass for luck
dash it and stir and watch the pot
i am in dire need of your presence
tell me i have a place here
you are cooking and i am waiting
it will never say what i want it to
i love you and it is foolish,
it is foolish.
109
109

ode to my dad who's 68 and giving
me more time to miss him
Jazlyn Simon
my father keeps leaving the refrigerator door open
and when he does remember to close it, he’ll have left the milk carton
on top
setting it there while he perused for something else, forgot what, and
shut the door
the milk is warm by the time anybody notices.
and my father keeps playing his saxophone (which one, i’m not sure);
apparently there’s rules to these things, a soprano is not the same as an
alto is not the same as a tenor,
and he’ll talk to me for hours, if he could without getting sidetracked,
about the different finger placements, about the subtle difference in
sound each one makes, one more deep and chesty, one more light like
laughter
and i couldn’t relay the information if i tried, no musical inclination
was passed on in the genes, but i hear it in the way he plays,
it’s everywhere-but-nowhere, and sounds like amber-colored bourbon;
(i’ve never drunk bourbon, but i’m sure my dad has, when you’re as
old as him you’ve done everything once.)
he starts to tell a story and i’ll think
ah, i’ve heard this one before, the one about how his friend michael
was struck by lighting by his mailbox,
but i pretend i’m hearing the story anew, like it’s magnificent to me;
telling him i’ve already heard it would just make him say, "figures!"
110

he talks about his friends and people he once knew dying
i think it reminds him of his own mortality
(it certainly reminds me.)
he takes meds everyday, so many yellow-orange bottles with white
caps in our kitchen
you could make a joke that we’re a pharmacy, though maybe not a
very funny one
(my dad would laugh; he loves to laugh, even when it’s not
appropriate, even when everyone inside the bitter-silent car would
rather do anything else.)
he leaves the fridge door open and i wonder silently if it’s a stepping
stone
i think i’ll know when he can no longer remember how to play
saxophone,
or tell me again, again, the difference between the notes, what an
octave is,
for all the time i’ll have neglected to soak it up before i’ll wish i could
hear it forever
111111

Déjà vu
Alex Turner
Deja Vu
How many fucks do I give?
"uh-one, uh-two-HOOO, uh-threeeee..."
How many clicks does it take
to get to the center of your self-worth?
Only Instagram knows.
B u t
There's more~
***
wait!
Soft lullabies hymn me to sleep.
I want to defeat them,
to scratch away every remaining flake of eye crust.
Is it us, Or is something within?
One-two-three
One-two-three
One-two-three.
Finally, an empty glass.
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No More Giggly No More Jiggly
Madalyn Wardin
greasy sleazy egg
burnt out bum
pan on stove
lap licker
soaked finger
chopped liver
smoke swing
dirty drag
alarming
pour pungent whirl
hips foil
no cheesy no easy
yell sex yell
spoil yourself
he’s gone
if he was here
we’d make some pancakes
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Ugh Boy
Madalyn Wardin
ugh boyyyy, u make me wanna swoon
but sometimes i think of a substitute
someone who would have more than 2
centz to pay for my steak moo
ugh boyuy, i get in a mood
so i say bye so soon
i run out dropping spoons
from cups 2 the door 2 move
broke boiz are good @ a woohoo
please god milk me 2 the tune
boi, i miss working from dawn to noon
counter call makeup girl talking bout poon
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wish you could talk abt ur poon
but u talk abt what shoe
u like cuz u the few
who notice when the pedicures new
come’on letz dance
dance like the dance shoop
bop don’t fall down the stoop
round n round inna loop
we keep eachother in scoops
bowls separate but close 2
far from touching our headz snooze
ur the 1 thing i don't wanna lose
115115

Wash cycle
Lorna Wodzak
Another year tossed to tumble
because December’s just a shrinking shirt.
It’s a lonely cold cycle,
not that you would know.
Big and small hands meet at 12.
I hold my own hope in a bottle.
It’s perched behind the vanity mirror,
placed with wringing hands
that wish you wouldn’t drink the last drop.
It’s your place until it’s mine
and it’s mine when the halls echo empty,
the sound of boots hitting the hardwood
hangs to dry in the yard.
It’s always been my duty
–from the moment the world kissed me and called me pink–
that when the day lay old and dying,
(and you’ve come home from your disaster path in baby blue)
(and you’ve no more patience for me than I have for you)
to know
to wring
to echo
to hang
to dry
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further encounters at
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inklingsartsandletters.wordpress.com
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felicitous thanks to
C a t h y W a g n e r
S a c h a B e l l m a n
F r e d R e e d e r
C O S M O S

Cover art: "Echo" by Juliana Lee