Perception Spring 2023

VOLUME XLI | ISSUE 41

Syracuse University

Perception is a free arts and literary magazine published once each

semester by undergraduate students at Syracuse University.

We are now accepting submissions for the Fall 2023 issue. We accept

submissions from undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and

staff. We ask that submitters send no more than five art and five writing

pieces. Our writing page limit is four pages, and we accept submissions in

any language with an English translation.

Any questions and comments can be sent to perceptionmagsu@gmail.

com.

Want to stay connected? Follow us on Instagram @perception_su

The opinions expressed herein are not those of Syracuse University, the

Office of Student Activities, the Student Association, and the Student Body.

Many thanks to:

Sarah Harwell

Alicia Kavon

JoAnn Rhoads

Student Association

Cover Art

Front/Back Cover

Inside Front Cover

Inside Back Cover

Center Spreads

Center Spread 1

Center Spread 2

Sara Oppenheimer – Space Angel

(digital)

Nora Benko – Split

(ink pen)

Ronan Mansfield – can't hear you

(acrylic and graphite on illustration board)

Hayden Celentano – Little Colorful Robot

(photoshop)

Hayden Celentano – Tim and Moby Gone Awry

(photoshop)

Sarah Mednick – Swamp Lady

(digital)

Dear Perceivers,

In his poem “Nostalgia,” Billy Collins writes:

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,

letting my memory rush over them like water

rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.

I was even thinking a little about the future, that place

where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,

a dance whose name we can only guess.

While we never anticipate or receive a cohesive set of submissions, every

issue somehow settles itself into central themes that ripple through its pages

and surge to the surface of one’s mind. The written work this semester was

deeply personal, describing inherently individual experiences. Reading through

these pieces is captivating in that it pulls you from your own world and directly

into the experiences and emotions of someone else, leaving you longing for a

distant memory that is not your own, and for a comfort that you do not know.

The art echoed this theme of a detached nostalgia and lingering familiarity,

but brought along its own contrasting sense of futurism and anticipation. This

issue stands out to me in its ability to cascade through and draw together little,

vulnerable pebbles of a collective memory, and I would like to thank you all for

providing us with a little window into the lights and sounds that make up your

existence.

To our writers and artists, it truly is such an honor to work with and experience

your work. Without your continued trust and support, this publication would

not be possible. This magazine additionally owes its existence to the hard

work and dedication of our wonderful team, for whom I have an eternal

appreciation. Thank you so much to Brenna Phelan for dedicating your

creative brilliance and humor to this magazine, to Kaitlin LaRosa for your

endlessly comforting presence during an endlessly chaotic process, to Kate

Eisinger for miraculously pulling the most gorgeous and artful concepts from

my most incoherent thoughts, and to Katherine Nikolau and Yasmin Nayrouz

for finding the harmony in our submissions. I genuinely adore each and every

one of you.

I am so excited to present our 41st issue of Perception Magazine, and I hope

you each enjoy the warm embrace of little remembrances within its pages.

Yours truly,

Noor Zamamiri

Editor-in-Chief

Managing Editors

Noor Zamamiri Editor-in-Chief

Kaitlin LaRosa Managing Editor

Brenna Phelan Asst. Editor-in-Chief

Katherine “Katya” Nikolau Asst. Managing Editor

Editors

Yasmin Nayrouz Head Editor

Katie Wood Asst. Editor

Hannah Murphy Asst. Editor

Designers

Kate Eisinger Head Designer

Casey Fairchild Asst. Designer

McKenzie Gerber Asst. Designer

Social Media

Julia Gershowitz Co-Head Social Media and Digital

Sydney Martinez Co-Head Social Media and Digital

Gray Reed Asst. Social Media and Digital

Grace Katz Asst. Social Media and Digital

Julia Provvisionato Asst. Social Media and Digital

Emma Fiorella Asst. Social Media and Digital

Reviewers & Copy Editors

Head Reviwers

Vanessa Walker

Isabella Brown

Reviewers

Blaze Ricco

Rosemary Crist

Michela Flood

Julia Pryor

Charles Gebbia

Sara Oppenheimer

Amreeta Verma

Maya Kleinberg

Maureen Ferguson

F. Morris Gelbart

Copy Editors

Vanessa Walker

Grace Ripperger

Eva Aurnhammer

Grace Underwood

Madeline Sloyer

Spring 2023 | 7

pork rinds by Katherine “Katya” Nikolau

I MISS YOUR MOM’S ZUCCHINI SOUP by S. Oppenheimer

Softer In Memory by Quinn Raven Young

A Dream / A Poem by Alaina Triantafilledes

Medea by Del Elizabeth Hendrick

holes by Carly Cernek

Beef Wellington by I. Alvarez

To Put Overthinking Into Words by Marlena Duliga

September 25, 2022 by S. Oppenheimer

Weather Patterns of the Anxious mind by Gray Reed

on planet anxiety by Katherine “Katya” Nikolau

Untitled by Ryan Topper

Alone by Kait Nero

sun dial by Melina Iavarone

Laundry Day by Eva Greene

The Niklas House by Rosemary Crist

Day’s Work by Fiona White

Deer by I. Alvarez

a poem for love of and in a winter’s storm by Alexandra Milchovich

seasons of intimacy by Madelyn Gosselin

Boozfonger’s by I.G. Chapin

Hey You! by I.G. Chapin

HIGH WIND WARNING by Roslyn Lydick

Grilled Cheese with Parmesan by Audrey Ledbetter

Siren’s Call by Charles Gebbia

the reality is by Katherine “Katya” Nikolau

toast by Melina Iavarone

Acupuncture by Alaina Triantafilledes

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becoming by Katherine “Katya” Nikolau

late night aromantic phone conversations by Emma Carroll Hudson

Sunken by Grace Underwood

The Gemini by Claire Aronson

Jam for Leo by Charles Gebbia

The Coming of Age by Anand Benegal

Mature but not Grown by Yasmin Nayrouz

Girl by Rosemary Crist

cherry tongue by Melina Iavarone

melancholy gaze by Julia Gershowitz

Soup by I. Alvarez

Wordless, Nameless, Real by Vanessa Walker

Halloween by Alaina Triantafilledes

Yaya by Alaina Triantafilledes

Transition to Womanhood by Julia Gershowitz

Frater Maeus by S. Oppenheimer

encounter with an estranged evangelical by Vanessa Walker

When you tell the wolves I’m home by Kaitlin LaRosa

angel by Madelyn Gosselin

Steel Jungle by Hymm

New World by Carly Cernek

homage to my legs by Charles Gebbia

Ballet of greys, symphony of nothing by Alexandra Milchovich

Mayfly by Claire Aronson

Afloat by Grace Underwood

Chronic Limerence by Olivia Happel

wednesday evening tremors by Katherine “Katya” Nikolau

mud. by I.G. Chapin

Designer Cigarette by Eva Greene

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Spring 2023 | 9

EW! by Sara Oppenheimer

Self Portrait by Nora Benko

Untitled by Nora Benko

Owl Taking Flight by Hayden Celentano

Lines and Waves by Hayden Celentano

Empty Nester by Nandita Gupta

Living Space by Madeline Sloyer

in the dream house by Bailee Roberts

Passage Of Time by Hannah Landon

Warm Heart by Alex Cao

Cow Skull Still Life by Sarah Mednick

Wise Eyes by Emma Fiorella

Wizard on Horseback by Sarah Mednick

Frog Teatime by Sarah Mednick

Little Colorful Robot by Hayden Celentano

Tim and Moby Gone Awry by Hayden Celentano

Device by F. Morris Gelbart

Therapeutic Endeavors by Olivia Happel

witch bar by Ronan Mansfield

Prayer is sinner by Alex Cao

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Refining Touch by Nora Benko

Washed Away by Olivia Happel

Joan Baez by Sarah Mednick

don’t think about the frogs by Ronan Mansfield

Baby Steps by Madeline Sloyer

Untitled by Bailee Roberts

the beer distributor by Isabella Brown

Yearning by Caitlin Spillane

longworth’s on sunday by Isabella Brown

Aubrey in Noir by Hannah Landon

Swamp Lady by Sarah Mednick

Light the Night by Caitlin Spillane

Masked by Caitlin Spillane

Family Portrait by Sophie Clinton

Parade of Planets by Caitlin Spillane

Bloom - In Memory of Gretchen Joyce Dater by Amreeta Verma

Temporality by Olivia Happel

Crowded Shapes by Hayden Celentano

1980’s Horror Film by Sara Oppenheimer

Spin! by Brenna Phelan

Little Mermaid by Brenna Phelan

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10 | Perception

pork rinds

Katherine "Katya" Nikolau

ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

i’m treading water here.

i’m treading water and swallowing salt and

shivering under three differently colored sweaters.

i wanted to tell you all that i’m sorry, but

i think my lips have dried up for apologies.

i don’t have an alibi but.

well, i’ve been staring at the popcorn ceiling.

i’ve been picking up the knife and then setting it down.

i’ve been listening to tom hall, who told me over and over

how he got to memphis. i wanted to go there too,

but then i thought maybe i’d feel just as lost there.

i decided to try anyway though, and now

i haven’t eaten a bite or slept for three days and nights.

the pretty feelings don’t feel safe with me anymore,

and i get that. i hope they return soon.

i’ll invite them over for tea and try not to talk about myself.

sometimes it’s hard. it turns out

self-involved and self-destructive share a wall.

i have a pretty boy of my own now,

like a shiny button shifting around in the fabric sea of my pocket.

i finger the space he fills to check that he’s still with me,

maybe more often than i should.

i love his lashes and his amphibian smile, but

i’m scared that i don’t deserve nice things anymore.

i’m reaching the end now, or trying to.

my neurosis feels like an escape room i just can’t solve,

even as you’re giving me fuzzy-voiced cheat codes over the

intercom.

i’m the same as you remember me.

i still pick up street pennies and check for their dates.

i still smile when i think about grandpa penny and teenage penny

12 | Perception

sharing the peeling world of my wallet, arguing politics.

i still tear up at that scene where joel and clementine cry-laugh in the

hallway.

it all itches back to what’s whole and what’s empty.

the mean isn’t always golden. sometimes it’s just mean.

i’m not profound, just pretentious. you surely can see that now.

you’ll find me eating pork rinds in purgatory,

loving the crunch, hating the taste, reaching into the bag again.

Spring 2023 | 13

I MISS YOUR MOM'S ZUCCHINI SOUP

Sara Oppenheimer

Hold me like water in your hands

Like That Phoebe song we used to sing in your car

Thighs sticky on the leather seats

Sun screaming days turned from hot to hotter

In a city burning and drowning all at once

Only silenced when the moon came up

Artemis defeats her brother night after night

In starless summer skies

Don't forget my dawnlight silhouette

Like i've all but forgotten

The glow in your hazelnut eyes

When your mother made us popsicles

Passionfruit, chicken hearts, her zucchini soup with parmesan

cheese

Made to make me feel like her own

Future Daughter In Law, Mija, Third kid, “Llamame Mama”

La pajarita

Know i meant it when i said i loved her

I hide from these clouded midnights in a city too small

Run away dreaming

to those vibrant yesterdays of never never land

It’s you i see under palm trees and the sea stung overpass

Sand filled delight, watermelon smiles

Sugarwater, sugarcane, sweetheart

Pineapple kissed fingers woven together

Waves crashing against sandcastles you begged to stay solid

against them

14 | Perception

I stood back as you clawed at their soggy remains

Kicked another down before you could see it

Do you think about the coral fortress in the hammocks?

Our own ship of Theseus behind the banyans and joshua trees

They said it was the spaniards who built it all those years before

But it’s got 1950 stamped on its crumbling concrete walls

How long do you think before the tide takes it too?

Do you think creek beds and cicadas

Sweaty palms and linoleum tile

Tarot cards, pink sheets, purple blanket

Red Tide in August bringing seagulls to your very back door

That tanline you never got out

When I spilled nail polish on your favorite shirt

And the stain spread like a wound I failed to cover

The sweet feeling of sun on your skin

you called it prayer

To me it was love

Does it sunburn sting your heart

When a dog brings you a bird?

A bird, a dog?

Which was I to you

when I put my very own bloodied Excalibur at your door

and told you to smile?

We should have built our castle closer to the Marram grass

Is your brother alright?

Is your father?

Are you?

How did you manage to get the fish to North Carolina?

Tell your mother I miss her.

I miss her zucchini soup.

Spring 2023 | 15

Softer in Memory

Quinn Raven Young

Raspberries grow wild here,

In a tangled hedge by the long white house.

Blueberries too, low to the ground and sour,

In little sprigs that pop up by the lake.

When night falls, use a red light—

Not white, to preserve your night vision—

And drag a canoe down the shore,

Then into the water, surrounded by reeds.

The sky is clear, so deep in the wilderness.

Lay back to look at the Milky Way.

Hear an animal howling far away;

Convince yourself that it’s a wolf.

Put on a bathing suit and play in shallow water.

Discover that the lake has tiny leeches.

Get out in a hurry,

But the next night, go swimming again.

Crawl into bed in your cabin

With the blanket you brought from home.

In the morning, there will be fresh muffins

On a pool table in the long white house.

EW!

Sara Oppenheimer | Digital

16 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 17

A Dream / A Poem

Alaina Triantafilledes

A Dream

A dream scurries

from somewhere,

slips between my teeth in silence.

It investigates my gut,

circles itself a few times, then curls

into a comfortable position to die in.

It sleeps in me

and in my sleep, it leads me

through the check-out line of a grocery store

that leads me into itself, unless

I purchase the right items.

There is a pushpin in my finger.

There are no bandaids, only tampons

so I stand in line plugging

the piercing with a cotton bullet.

Self Portrait

Nora Benko | Digital

18 | Perception

Now I am running

even though I did not purchase the right items and

beyond the sliding doors, there is a dripping gas station

where a man in black comes from a black van.

In my cloak, I am a shadow,

but he looks at me like a bomb.

I am a haunted sheet losing sentience.

I drop to the ground,

lie on my back in an opalescent puddle

of rain and gasoline.

At last, splattered in droplets from an impossible sky.

The man stands above me with a cigarette.

Generously, he lets me lie there

before he takes me away.

Spring 2023 | 19

By morning, the dream has decomposed.

I only taste death.

20 | Perception

A Poem

A poem pours

from somewhere,

escapes through an exhale

and drags me from my bed by the hair.

It bangs on the walls of me.

I recite everything it says,

my pen’s shadow shaking in my desk lamp’s light,

but its voice is muffled

by the thick, burgundy curtains between

what I think and what I know.

It speaks in spectral memories

of cold rain freckling my face,

of reaching into the dark

for a hand that pulled me into a crumbling embrace,

pressing into my palm a torn Polaroid

that I didn’t remember taking

until that very moment. I remembered everything.

The black van, the tampon in my hand,

the grocery store clerk behind a register,

a prophecy rippling through her body

at 1:11 pm to tell me

I am on the right memory path.

When I don’t understand, the poem’s shoulders slump.

It retreats further into a cell

haunted by a dream. They sit together.

I can hear them whispering to each other.

They know something I don’t.

Untitled


Spring 2023 | 21

Medea

Del Elizabeth Hendrick

i. medea

aren’t we all a little angry?

i’m not a bad woman

or a bad mother

i couldn’t have been a better

daughter, in fact.

so what,

if you’re afraid of me?

if I’m unpredictable?

22 | Perception

lately I’ve really been considering

falling in love with the

feeling of being

a monster.

you have no idea the capacity I have to be good

how utterly sick of it I am.

if I have to flirt with violence,

i promise you that’s not the worst that can happen.

what they refuse to tell you about me

is that he hurt me first.

all I did was even the playing field.

there’s nothing odd about a woman in the colosseum when

you think about it

blood is my second nature;

and to whoever’s listening

i hope understanding is in yours.

Owl Taking Flight

Hayden Celentano | Photoshop

Spring 2023 | 23

holes

Carly Cernek

the holes have been there

as long as i can remember

uncomfortable pinpricks overtaking me

bullet holes that grew

and grew

and grew

i try to fill them with other things

i eat as much as i can then starve myself

maybe air will do the trick

i sit in the dark for hours strangers

on my screen they mean nothing to me

next i try anxiety it twists my stomach

and the holes grow wider

and i become

lighter

soon i will fade away

it’s okay though, all of myself belongs to

me now belongs to these indifferent streets

and even if i cannot share me with others

at least i won’t

fade away

just as i’m losing hope, i find

something to keep them at bay

i spend days wandering up

and down streets filled with people

who don’t care about me their

indifference comforting

it's a feeling i know well

and i let it wash over me

it takes years of being invisible

this feeling of utter peace of

distance from my body, myself

years until the holes get smaller.

they will never fade completely

though so i paint over them as best

i can but the paint accidentally gets on

places where i’m whole

24 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 25

Beef Wellington

I. Alvarez

I decided to become a vegetarian tonight, after my father and I split a

beef Wellington and drank two glasses of Nero d’Avola. It was good,

nothing too flashy, but a little heavy like I like my red wine to be. The

beef Wellington disgusted me. The pastry, soggy from bathing in fat

and mushroom sauce, was too small for the chunk of ground meat

that engorged the whole plate. I tried to pick around the meal and

just eat the zucchini and green beans on the side, but it was of no

use. The beef Wellington sat there smugly and would not dissipate

until I brought another forkful to my mouth.

I know what he got me for Christmas. I am excited to open my gifts

in the morning and feign surprise. Before my parents divorced–

a few months prior to their trial separation–my mother and I got

into a huge fight right around December 21 or 22. I don’t recall

what we were arguing about, but I presume it was some pointless

contention that only arose because I was now conscious enough of

my femininity to make it her problem. Santa’s not fucking real, she

yelled. She threw box after box, pristinely wrapped with the corners

all folded to mathematical precision, out of the closet where she’d

hidden them. Santa isn’t real, it’s me who does all this hard work

while your father sits on his ass.

I wanted to order another glass of the wine, but then I’d have to

keep picking at the beef Wellington, so I refused a refill and dessert

and asked the waiter to bring our check. The two of us sat there in

silence, staring down at our laps or the food or outside the window

to the empty Starbucks across the street, refusing to make eye contact.

Lines and Waves


26 | Perception

The act of consuming without thinking about what you are putting

into your body seems to spit in the face of womanhood. Doing

anything mindlessly is absurdly antithetical to gender performance.

This is a lesson I’ve learned from my mother. After the pandemic

Spring 2023 | 27

subsided, it was all she could talk about. I really let myself go after

Covid. I got so fat. Look at this muffin top. I don’t even fit into my

jeans anymore. I barely exercise. I rarely ever visit her over holidays

or summer break, but I went a couple times this year, and each time

I would pull back the fridge door in hopes that there was an actual

semblance of food within its stainless steel walls, and each time I was

disappointed. Little hints of an eating disorder littered everywhere:

half-finished juice cleanses, the carrot-ginger-beet mixture

disgustingly murky with pulp; three packets of tuna in lemon water;

zero-calorie canned mocktails; pre-packaged salads well past their

expiration date. The cupboards were even more miserable. Dried

muesli, flour, protein pancake mix, an old bag of chocolate chips I

knew for a fact she’d bought more than five years ago. How can she

subsist? I always ask myself.

Maybe being a woman means teetering on the edge of existence.

I felt the most like a woman when I was 18. I was 5’7” and weighed

around 125 pounds and I had long, brown, smooth hair that swam

down past my pronounced clavicles. I fell in love with the way that

clothes clung to my protruding hip bones and how my ribcage

would swell out from beneath my skin as I stretched my arms above

my head. When people began to reach out, concerned about my

size, I replayed the sound of their inquiries over and over in my mind.

It felt so good to occupy such little space. I felt secure in my thinness.

If men were supposed to swallow air with no regard, then I was

supposed to shrink into a small corner, and with that smallness, my

body was also supposed to disappear.

The waiter asked if we wanted a to-go box, but my father doesn’t

believe in leftovers. He’s like my mother in that sense; he eats in

shameful silence, often alone, and from this guilt he vomits up some

mean comment about his body or someone else’s. He often talks

about women’s bodies when we’re out in public, and he’s old to the

point where he shouts because he can’t hear anything. Her ass is

huge, or, she has fake tits. It embarrasses me, even though he says

aloud what I think in private. It makes me wonder what he would say

about me if I were a stranger.

I asked him for a designer bag and I know he got it for me because

he called me when he was at the store and the sales associate

got on the phone, high-pitched and lilting, breathless because he

desperately wanted to close. I wonder how I should react tomorrow

when I open it, tearing hungrily past the dust bag embossed in a

huge, tacky logo. I like being tacky. I like displaying a wealth I haven’t

earned. It’s a distinctly masculine form of shamelessness, like eating

an entire beef Wellington and still ordering dessert.

Now I’ve put on at least twenty or thirty pounds.

Maybe this is why the beef Wellington tasted so wrong and oily;

I knew, somewhere deep down inside, that I should be fasting,

starving, wasting away. It was a battle to push the mashed, gray

mass towards the back of my throat. It was as if the beef Wellington

grew in my mouth, elephantine and voracious, angry.

28 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 29

To Put Overthinking Into Words

Marlene Duliga

tell me—

do you pretend not

to hear the branches

scratching

against the window

or do your eyes

just

forget to look

or

is it that your

breath forgets

to hitch

or

do you just

not love me

enough

to fear

alongside me?

empty nester

Nandita Gupta | Photography

30 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 31

September 25, 2022

Sara Oppenheimer

My home hates me, or so I believed when I woke up this morning

Sun shining onto my face, I rose knowing I could never go home

The deep ache in my bones yearned for palm trees, coconuts, white

sands, and Rumba. My hands and heart betrayed it, yearned to hold

onto the soft hips of the girl in my english class

Pulled my chest towards the faint taste of acceptance

As I stayed anchored to a tether buried deep in my skin the day I was

born.

To know you will never

Or so i believed

Like a hand reaching down from god

Cherimoya seeds falling on my lap

The sticky summer morning dripping into my nose

A majority vote

A switch in the code

My belief in my isolation no more

The pearly gates open

My lantern target becomes a beacon

As the streets of Havana sing me back home

My home hates me, but they cannot reach me anymore

With their cocoa butter and sugarcane hands they grasp at air 90

miles away I'm free in the home of the brave,

but the home of the brave has never greeted me with the warm

embrace

Of a sticky island morning, cherimoyas falling off a tree into my hand,

gifts from god itself Or so i believed

This pride is a burning shackle, a superpower, a craze

it pounds in my heart, warms my cheeks and the tips of my ears

How vibrant I shine, lantern and target together, as it chains me in

place Dancing to the merengue beat from a thousand miles away

Clapping my hands to the rooster caws, stomping my feet to the

breaking shore I can never hear again but know continue in my

absence

Or so i believed

My home hates me, but it still claws at my skin and asks me to stay

Sweet sounding memories thicken the ropes that bind my hands to

the motherland They scream they dont want me yet here i am

Torn by the beliefs of those who will never understand

What it is to love a country in the same way that would get you killed

if you said it To love a piece of yourself that needs to be hidden

To love in spite of death, pain, isolation

32 | Perception

Living Space

Madeline Sloyer | Acrylic, Ink, Photo Collage

Spring 2023 | 33

Weather Patterns of the Anxious Mind

Gray Reed

I’m sorry I can’t come over tonight to sit on your floor and drink

the unimaginable like we did when we were young. When we

would sprawl on your hardwood and stare into the infinite universe

expanding across your popcorn ceiling– reminiscing on our destinies

as if the future lay behind us.

I’m sorry I can’t come over tonight; it’s just the wind has started to

grow again. It started as a single hum on the streets behind my train

of thought but now has picked up into a lone, desperate howl.

I’m sorry I can’t come over tonight, even though you asked so nicely.

You asked with such a nature even bees would cease to sting. You

invited me over with the purest of intentions, and I’m sorry I must

decline but the wind is getting louder and I don’t want it to drown

you out. I can’t let it drown you out.

Forgive me for staying home tonight. For burying myself in the nest

that is my bed and staring at my ceiling instead of your own from

paneled floors. For listening to the wind instead of the tracks you

would have played to inspire us to paint our bare walls a shimmering

gold. For allowing myself to drown so I can throw you a life preserver

from afar.

I’ll come over next time, I promise. We just need to let the weather

run its course. I promise.

34 | Perception

in the dream house

Bailee Roberts | Digital

Spring 2023 | 35

on planet anxiety


you see me through with x-ray vision, then turn away with burning

retinas. it’s all rubble and red here, and i don’t chase after you

because i know there’s no use. back on earth, you and i swim

through a wegmans, arms linked, and you can’t find the fruit gusher

gummies you want. not everything can be perfect. not everything

can be perfect but i still only show you the final draft of myself,

hoping you don’t notice all these erase marks. there’s a warmth to

you that makes everything else feel synthetic. my life holds nothing

to complain about, but i still do, so much, and i can’t stop. i’m turning

around in a room of funhouse mirrors, seeing nothing but myself and

myself and myself until the nausea sets in. these are the things i don’t

tell you. i only tell you that i love you, and then tell myself that nothing

else matters because i mean it. here’s a story i like that i keep telling

myself: we met each other and it was really beautiful. nothing ruined

it. a year later, i came back to your parents’ house and the dogs still

licked my face.

36 | Perception

Passage of Time

Hannah Landon | Acrylic & China Marker, Cardboard

Spring 2023 | 37

Untitled

Ryan Topper

Come in from the cast

the receding shadow

your eyes can’t absorb

Tug your way up the radio wires

speak gently

Like grace dripping sweetly from your lips

reel in

Tell them you went so far & saw

more than sanity

But don’t lose your footing

you will bloom

Alone

Kait Nero

Aimless steps through the campus museum.

Guitar strings buzzing atop the highest hill.

Hurried walks with no destination.

A dim warmth, a looming sadness.

There was not much knowledge behind my eyes then.

Notes of bergamot and honey fill my apartment,

Reminding me of my mother,

And her mother,

And her mother before that.

I wonder if they felt uncertainty as I have felt it.

Today I’ll return to that hill

And see how small my world is.

Tonight I will look at the moon

And realize we are all the same.

We are all the same.

38 | Perception Spring 2023 | 39

sun dial

Melina Iavarone

The sun rose again today, and it taped me to the bed. The light

doesn’t feel like a hot hug this morning; sunbeams sting my skin and

squint my eyes as I wish a happy birthday to someone who forgot

mine. Plaid pajama pants as thin as spider silk introduce the wintery

air to my tired body. Decorating my neck is an ancestor’s locket–

inside, a creased photo of my good luck charm, but the metal chills

my chest nonetheless. My legs seep down the bedside as if they’re

soggy slices of buttered toast. I’d like to slip into a drowsy nap or

maybe a comatose state; instead, I jot down my sweet lucid dream

while it’s fresh in my mind. Scribbling blue ink, I recount a garden,

picking every primrose and adorning an outdoor table with the

freshly picked blossoms. The sunrise was a harbinger, snapping its

fingers and ending the imaginary picnic. Bookmarking the page, I

kick at the baseboard, begging it stop its thumping. Hush! I love the

sunshine, but why must it burn me so early?

40 | Perception

Warm Heart

Alex Cao | Digital Painting

Spring 2023 | 41

Laundry Day

Eva Greene

The Niklas House

Rosemary Crist

The walk to your safety is long and winding,

Through many twigs, somehow soft,

And leaves, somehow silky.

I’m let in only to the frontmost room

To meet your parents (but not like that)

And to do laundry together (but not like that).

I peel off my sweaty second skin

And change for your mirror

So the parade procession can begin,

Pile per person,

Father, Mother, and their Son,

– and me.

Me, I feel cleaner already.

The last dying streaks of sunlight fought against the darkening

January sky as my mom’s Ford rumbled over the uneven asphalt

road. My thumbs thrummed on the steering wheel, only partially

listening to what my mom was saying in the passenger seat while I

was focused on the movement of my foot from the gas to break to

try and control my speed around a woman walking her dog.

“They’re asking for one million seven-hundred fifty dollars,

it’ll never sell,” my mom said when I returned my attention to the

conversation. We were at a stop sign intersection, and I replied with

a small hum of acknowledgement.

“I mean, it’s a classic house, one of the first ones built in Virginia

Manor, but they haven’t kept up the place. It would be another million

into just modernizing it,” she continued. “They have a stone barbecue

in the back, and the lady put it on the real estate form: ‘Stone

barbecue in backyard.’ Nobody’s used it since 1965, it’s a hazard at

this point!”

I turned up into Virginia Manor. Every house was uniformly

massive, with three floors a piece and many with useless yard

accessories like pools or gazebos. The air smelled of American

capitalism and old wealth, though there remained an even split

among my peers between those who grew up in “The Manor,” as it

was dubbed, versus those living the more traditionally middle class,

suburban life elsewhere in the neighborhood. Though I belonged to

the latter group in a completely normal sized home with a normalsized

life, my mother grew up in The Manor, and hardly ever ran out

of stories to tell about her childhood in the foreign world a few miles

away from our present home.

“There was this one time, Mr. Niklas was this big lawyer, and he

sued people all of the time. He sued the people in that house”—she

pointed to a house on our right—“because they were going to put


in a pool house. But, he got really mad when we bought the house

behind them. So, my sister once had run up our backyard, and cause

there was no fence it wasn’t clear where our two yards were divided,

and before she could even get halfway up the hill your grandma got

a call from Mrs. Niklas: ‘Mary Rose is in our yard!’”

I chuckled at the nasally voice my mom did to impersonate the

past Mrs. Niklas. After rolling down the road a little more, my mom

told me to slow down on the otherwise empty street and looked

out the driver's side window. Then, she said incredulously, “That! For

a million dollars, are they crazy?” I stole a glance as well as I could

without taking my attention from the road—as I was only driving with

my permit and the last thing I wanted was to be stopped before I

even got my license—to see a looming tan, stone brick house on

our right. It had to be at least three full floors, and it was as wide as

some streets I’d driven on. Though I was cruising through the luxe

community, I may as well have been on Neibolt Street with the way

the home glared down on our car. The shutters were a 70s-style

teal, and many of them were either crooked out of place or simply

dangling off their latches. Though I couldn’t see much detail, my

mom commented on one of the upper windows even looking to be

broken and boarded up. The home was as lifeless and still as the

crisp January air.

I continued on driving, for a combination of traffic laws and the

deep chill the home racked down my spine forced me to, but my

mom continued talking. She was gesturing now, explaining, “Their

daughter is the one selling it, I guess. Mrs. Niklas is in a nursing home

uptown somewhere, but it doesn’t seem like her daughter really put

much effort into renovation.”

She paused again, then added something that struck me. “Mrs.

Niklas—that is a woman who has never worked a day in her life.”

hand and gardening gloves on, waving to the family walking by on

the road. Inside the walls of the Niklas house, the matriarch, Mrs.

Niklas sat at a vanity, powdering her face while a television broadcast

the Reagan assassination attempt. Or maybe Mrs. Niklas preferred

tuning into the then-new QVC and left the politics to the other.

Mr. Niklas would come home late, the epitome of “money can’t

buy happiness” in a human form. At a dining table, silent, with their

daughter, who was probably a recluse due to the scale of the home.

She was probably on track to become a lawyer or secretariat like her

father, though it seemed that she was selling her childhood home in

decrepit conditions decades later. She had more than likely never

grown out of The Manor, the title characterizing her life like a badge

of privilege that only meant anything in the small bubble of our own

town.

Mr. Niklas’ imprint on the neighborhood was grim. He was a

Radley-like figure, with dark features and more than likely a low,

commanding voice that had been heard a few too many times

by the sweet family below. My own grandparent’s house, bustling

with three children and a brand of love I understood to be familial

fondness. I pieced together like a historian, only catching glimpses of

the end of most of these folks’ lives, their intricate relationships and

how each individual laid their handprint into the foundation of the

neighborhood itself and haunted the street, like an unresolved spirit.

The dining table would be long—with only the three of them

hardly filling it out. The plates teal against the ivory embroidered

tablecloth. It would be quiet. I pictured the teenage Niklas daughter

dreading the daily meal. Maybe it was a source of confrontation.

Maybe it was a source of silence, a horrifying moment of pulling

back the curtain on the tragic reality of the wealthy family.

My attention returned to the car. My mom was planning on

I pictured a scene of the past. The same road, with a brighter blue

ordering pizza for dinner. She had finished talking about the Niklas

sky and brighter green lawns out of a TV show, with the Niklas house

family, I assumed, however I could not help but keep the image of the

stood tall and refurbished, the neighborhood symbol of wealth and

withering Mrs. Niklas, lingering in an assisted bedroom somewhere

modernity. I imagined a woman on their vast lawn with a hose in

nearby, with her old-fashioned makeup still plastered onto cracking

skin and frown lines etched into her face.


Day's Work

Fiona White

The Food Network plays in the tin-roof home

Crafted with painstaking precision

On the glades of Roanoke, VA.

The TV is above the makeshift cross,

Misshapen and crooked.

Count your blessings for the bad stew and roast,

Lose the attitude and “do more.”

Rake, shovel, and forget

Mama’s cold complexion when she says

“Lower your voice.” walking in

After the day’s work,

Bringing in mud from the rills.

I refuse to ask for guidance,

The longshoreman doesn’t.

We’ll joke on the route home,

Watching the seasons change.

It was a tradition for her to love us heathens

As a token for the pain.

It’s a new day

And the end crowns the work.

Deer

I. Alvarez

He tells me over dinner that he’ll die on December 12th. (Not actually).

It’s a little morbid joke, like many he’s made before. A doctor’s humor.

I don’t think I’ll ever really get it because I’ve never been the one

biopsing tumors under a transmission electron microscope. Instead

I’ve been the little girl standing to the side of the lab, wondering why

the smell of formaldehyde is so fucking addictive, watching him slice

through tissue. I’ve always been little to him, even now at twenty two.

He doesn’t like knowing I’m a woman. When we moved apartments,

he packed up my box of Trojans in silence. But I guess it doesn’t

matter, because he’s going to die on December 12th (not actually),

and I have to laugh at this idea. I’m twenty two. I know what loss is.

I see it today. The coyotes have already eaten its lower half and shit

and bile and innards are spilling out onto the dead leaves, and flies

have begun to circle the carcass. One of them lands in its left eye

and it makes me sad. I want to close them, but I don’t know if deer

have eyelids. I don’t know much about biology, not like he does, and

so he explains things to me as if I were a kindergartener. He says, my

aorta doesn’t work properly. It has become enlarged. Sometimes I

smell formaldehyde in my dreams. It sort of reminds me of the first

time I got high off of alkyl nitrites. I inhaled and inhaled and I was

flying somewhere in a parallel reality. Maybe it was one where he’s

not going to die on December 12th, or any day ever, because I can

shrink his aorta and I can unsnap the deer’s neck and I can tell him

to stop making those jokes. They taste bad at the back of my throat,

like decay or a death rattle.


a poem for love of and in a

winter's storm

Alexandra Milchovich

Cold air transforming my breath to a

dragon’s, stamping upon my glass spine,

tumbling like a child on a diseased gym mat

hunting me like I’m a prize-winning buck.

The silver blanket welcomes me,

open-armed, simple, harmless,

no fear of tangling my heart within

ropes of lion’s mane and coarse bondage.

Innocence falling in heaps from the ocean above,

little knowledge of the drowning that awaits,

our Garden of Eden, the apple plump and

ready to be devoured by whoever swims for air first.

Clutching hands through thick wool,

blue eyes absorbing green ones,

blood pumping nothing but youthful lust,

freezing but a sheen of sweat on eager, round faces.

Delicacy of bijou snow, delicacy of empty words and to

be forgotten promises, left as snow angels in the park,

crinkling eyes reflecting the sparkle as fool’s gold,

enticing, flimsy, but as harsh as the surrounding air.

Cow Skull Still Life

Sarah Mednick | Charcoal

48 | Perception

Is it the wonder of a first love?

The chill of a winter’s day?

For that, I have no answer.

Spring 2023 | 49

Emma Fiorella | White Charcoal Pencil

Wise Eyes

seasons of intimacy

Madelyn Gosselin

winter

an afternoon spent inside in hats and coats

because cold wind slips through

the cracks of your best friends’ four walls,

a home inherited from those who came before us.

robust conversation warms the room,

the raw feelings of confession are insulated

by the hoods around our ears and the blankets

we share two at a time.

spring

careful conversation in the dark on a Thursday night. we

lay on our backs, fingers intertwined under the sheets.

when you stand on the edge, here,

there’s only comfort in what comes after.

warm tears spread over four cheeks

in relief and fear of being known.

summer

a sore apology takes center stage, now,

when you’re too old to barter yourself innocent, but too

ambitious to admit you’re entirely wrong. your cheeks fill up;

hot and red opposite your best friend as she swallows

her drink down hard. it occurs to you that you’ve never felt

like her enemy before.

50 | Perception

fall

a moment of knowing between you and

a friend you always meant to get to know better. in

an apartment full of your twenty closest friends,

he contorts his face in just the right way

to make you regret that third glass of wine

because you can’t compose yourself from laughter.

Spring 2023 | 51

winter

tucked under the covers when it’s too late to walk home—

you’re both awake and you know you’re both awake but

silence and street noise fills the air like thick smog. if you

open your mouth it will all come tumbling out, splattering

the silent air with clumsy, uncoordinated words that you

would much rather keep to yourself

but they climb up your throat like bile in the bated dark.

you imitate sleep until the sun hits the window panes,

then you sit up stiffly, reach down for your shoes and

take her coat out into the snowy street.

52 | Perception

Wizard on Horseback

Sarah Mednick | Digital

Spring 2023 | 53

Boozfongers

I. G. Chapin

Hello there! I see you’ve stumbled into my shop. Allow me to

introduce myself! My name is Fellonial Boozfonger, and it is my

pleasure to welcome you into Boozfonger’s fine wines, spirits,

magical items, curiosities, wares, tears, bits, bobs, and all-around fun

little gizmos. Be careful what you touch, let me know if you need any

help, and don’t forget: you break it, your soul is bound to it by dark

magicks for all eternity (as you can see here on my little sign. Oh,

thank you! My grandnephew made it at school.)

I see you eyeing that fine gnomish vintage. It really is a lovely wine,

a few hundred years old (to my recollection); it tastes subtly of oak,

mulberries, and cobwebs. If you’re looking for something a little

newer, we have a 2021 sauvignon blanc from Italy, but it’s really not

as good. Not in the market for a fine wine? That’s no problem at all!

I have a whole wall of spirits that will knock your socks off! This one

here is the highest proof we have, and that one in the cage on the

top shelf will make you breathe fire!

Not into spirits? That’s fine! Then let’s just move past this section of

haunted items and into the realm of curiosities! We have anything

your mind can conjure, from mermaids preserved in formaldehyde

to a small vial filled with sasquatch saliva to the actual whip used by

Harrison Ford on the set of the second Indiana Jones movie!

None of those seem to be tickling your fancy but worry not! For you

have yet to peruse our section of magical items! Join me, won’t you,

deeper into the back of the store (how far back it goes is none of

your concern, thank you very much!) Here we have jewels of various

sizes imbued with spells of various potencies. This green one will

give you muscles like Popeye…or is it this green one? No it’s this

other one, the first one will make your intestines fall out of your nose.

Don’t touch that one. This staff here is said to be thousands of years

old, used by Druids in an age long past to summon beings of pure

elemental energy. I use it to swat flies that land on high-up shelves.

This shelf of books contains multitudes! Tomes with instructions on

how to connect with your past lives, tomes with incantations that will

make your pants fall off.

Follow me to that far shelf, the one with all the vials and flasks. Here

is our wide selection of potions and elixirs! Ones that will change

your shape, ones that will change the thickness of your hair, a little

something for everyone!

And over here is our kid’s section: full of various magical weapons,

autonomous toys, and those little die-cast cars that they sell at every

Walgreens.

My heavens! Where are my manners, I’ve been talking this whole

time and haven’t let you get a word in edgewise. What was it you

were about to say?


Oh…

No, I’m sorry the bathroom is for paying customers only.

Frog Teatime


56 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 57

Hey You!

I. G. Chapin

Hey You!

Yes, You!

I’ve been trying to contact you for WEEKS!

(or at least it feels like weeks)

There’s something very important going on down at the local lake!

Billy Dixon is going to jump the lake on his moped!

We better go fast; he’s going to start in like fifteen minutes!

What? You can go to your dentist appointment some other time!

What do you mean you don’t know Billy Dixon?! His dad is the city

comptroller that’s why he’s allowed to do all this crazy stuff!

Yeah! He’s been doing stuff like this for years!

Just last month he shotgunned a beer in the gorilla enclosure at the zoo!

What do you mean you don’t want to see Billy Dixon jump the local

lake on his moped?

This is the event of the season, and you don’t want to go?

I thought you were my friend.

What? What do you mean you don’t know me?

You’re in my pre-algebra class, aren’t you?

You’re not even in high school? I thought I knew you. You’ve

changed.

Fine then…

I’ll just go watch Billy Dixon jump the local lake on his moped on my own.

I’ve even heard people saying he won’t make it across so you’re

probably not missing anything anyway.

I’ll just be on my way now… sorry for bothering you.

What’s that?

You’re going to call your dentist to reschedule so you can come

watch Billy Dixon jump the local lake on his moped?

Well, that’s great news!

And I have one more piece of great news!

I’m Billy Dixon! And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lake to jump!

Hey you! Across the street!


HIGH WIND WARNING

Roslyn Lydick

I am buffeted to and fro—stumbling off the sidewalk while I try to

stuff my expensive-authentic-beret in my overfull bag—honk! a car

swerving around-close one, mister I exclaim—now I am slammed

the other way into a lamppost with yard sale advertisements torn

clean off—tripping back up the sidewalk feet almost catching in

the long hem of my coat-yeesh!-which is flapping like laminated

paper-fwubfwubfwub—oh shit-I collide with a stranger-oh fuck-he’s

walking four dogs—merde!-they run around and around me—I am

tangled in leashes—his apologies cannot be heard over the wind—

he struggles with the leashes-his face is panicked-he is pulled closer

to me-ooh la la I swoon-we are the two of us a maypole-a tornado—

the world tilts—we crash onto the sidewalk—he has kept hold of the

leashes-and has no hands to catch me—the dogs return en massethey

lick my face-they lick my haute couture eyeshadow-they lick

my tragically rouge lipstick—he yells-get off her you beastly blokes-I

nearly faint at his accent—I am still on the street—a delivery boy

bursts out of the bakery-arms laden with cakes-ah no ma chere he

cannot see me—he trips—the cakes go flying—they are carried by the

wind—they explode on shop windows—they explode on the street—

everywhere covered in cake—the delivery boy faints from shock—

the dogs break free at last-they lick the cake off his face-he sits up—

oh mon dieu-it is my brother Jonathan—I flee the scene—I burst

into a used bookstore, back flat against the slammed door, making

excruciating eye contact with twenty elegant ladies, and breathing,

breathing, breathing!

Device

F. Morris Gelbart | Graphite & Digital

60 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 61

Grilled Cheese with Parmesan

Audrey Ledbetter

Ingredients:

- bread, 2 slices

- cheese, preferably American, 2 slices

- salted butter, 1.5 teaspoons

- grated parmesan, 1 spoonful

Therapeutic Endeavors

Olivia Happel | Acrylic on Canvas

62 | Perception

1. Butter the top slice of bread and set it aside. Put a slice of

cheese on the bottom slice of bread (and take off wrapping first, if

applicable.)

2. Add the parmesan next, making an even layer with a spoon. Try

not to spill any onto the plate. (And when you do, just add the spilled

parm back onto the sandwich.)

3. Then, add some love. (This step is optional, mind you.) (Don’t

actually do it.)

4. Turn the bottom-right burner to medium. Don’t turn on the wrong

one again. Don’t. Don’t. (Turn off the top right burner. This always

happens.)

5. Melt some butter in a pan. Spread it with a spatula. Arrange a little

love in a heart on the bread. (You’re asexual. You don't have any love.)

(That’s why this step is optional.)

6. Add bread slice, butter side up, and put the sandwich in the pan.

Flatten it with your spatula and sprinkle love generously on both

sides. (That's a lie, actually. You have love. Lots of love, actually. You

love your cat. You love writing. You love your friends. You love leaves

in fall. You love your family. You love moonlight in the window.)

(It's the wrong kind of love. Frivolous. Childish. Empty poetry. Secondrate

in comparison. Third-rate, even, depending on who you ask.) (To

you it's the right kind, though. It's the only kind you really know.)

7. Let it cook for three minutes or until the bottom is golden brown.

Brown, not burnt.

8. Drizzle some love overtop. (You dated only once. A simple summer

fling. Nothing too physical, of course not—you're you!) (She asked

Spring 2023 | 63

you out. She kissed you. But you were hardly bothered when things

fizzled out.) (You miss her. You love her.)

8a. (You love all your friends.)

9. (Did you love her? Really love her? ‘Love-love,’ that’s what people

call it. Real love. Actual love. Passionate. Carnal. Good poetry. None of

that so-called “love,” this is humanity-defining love!) (Did you love-love

her? Who else, then, have you love-loved before? Who do you lovelove

now?) Season it heavily with love.

9a. (You’re supposed to know what love is. You’re supposed

to know it when you feel it. You'll know when you're older. You first

heard that when you were small. Very small.) (How would you know?

How does anyone know?)

(You hear people talk about it all the time. You always have.

Attraction: spontaneous or slow burning, it's starting to feel like some

sort of prank.)

10. (Falling in love means maturing. Falling in love is healthy. Falling

in love makes us human.) (What does that mean for you?) Flip your

sandwich and let it cook for three minutes or until golden brown. (Try

to scrape the burnt bits off the bottom. This always happens. You

really should pay more attention while you cook.) Once it's ready,

transfer the completed sandwich to a plate. (Does it matter? You

know it doesn't.)

11. Add a small dollop of love on top. (This step is optional. You love

that it's optional. You really, truly do!)

(Because it isn't a matter of accepting yourself. You accepted that

you're ace ages ago. You've embraced it wholeheartedly. Found

solace in it, found community. Comfort. Joy and undeniable pride.

The asexual flag hangs on your wall for a reason, after all.)

11a. (But it's in movies and music and conversations on the

street. In books and Twitter posts and

conventional wisdom, notions of love that don't click with you. (That

can't click with you.) You weren't made for them, not to your current

knowledge. And it doesn't really bother you. Sometimes you think

it’s fun, even, to watch the sport of romance from the safety of the

stands.)

11b. (But sometimes you're cooking. You’re waiting. You

have nothing to do but let your mind wander.)

12. Cut it into triangles (the perfect sandwich shape) and enjoy!

12a. (So you let your food burn and you think.) (And of all

the things in the world, you think about this. Like a mayfly buzzing in

your ear. (Again.))

13. Put your plate in the sink once you're done. Or in the trash, if it's

paper. Waltz out of the kitchen (and learn nothing.)

13a. (Or learn everything.)

13b. (Fuck it, I don’t know!)

13c. (What exactly have you learned from this? What

exactly am I supposed to say?)

13d. (How do I make you understand?)

13e. (I wrote this in the second person, in the ‘you,’, as

though I could grab you by the wrists and make my kitchen your

own, with its creaking stove and stained countertop and just-turned

eggs in the fridge. Like you would follow each instruction I gave

you to the letter: add cheese, spread butter, think, think, think my

thoughts in between each step on the path to comfort food until

you're frustrated by the mere concept of romance. Of sex. Of love. Of

virgins and cat ladies and naivety and all the other stupid little things

people think when you tell them you don’t swing either way. Of being

told your lived experience doesn't matter, as though I could make my

lack of love your own.)

13f. (You might not even like grilled cheese. That alone

might have taken you out of this. I'm sorry, for what it's worth, if it did.

Hopefully it helped you understand what I mean.)

13g. (When I said “you don't have any love,” did you think

that was a misunderstanding? When I asked “what does that mean

for you,” did you think I was just being dramatic? When I said “it isn't

a matter of accepting yourself,” did you think that was all a lie?)

13h. (I’ve spent four pages telling you what I struggle to

articulate even in queer spaces. Do you understand? Do you get

what I'm saying? Do you think there's even a point here worth

getting?)

13i. (Are we just getting angry over nothing?)

13j. (Am I even angry at all?)

13k. (Whatever. Whatever.)

14. Get distracted. It doesn't matter by what, just go do something


else for a while. Go boot up your poor long-suffering laptop, maybe,

and watch the newest episode of that show you like. Or re-organize

your rat’s nest of a dresser, which you really should’ve done ages

ago. Or write an essay about cyclical thoughts and being in a onepercent.

(That “one percent of the populace is asexual” statistic is

rather unsubstantiated, did you know that? From a 1940s study and

a 1990s survey, even the surveyor said there’s not enough data to

know for sure. How many other people out there, then, are burning

their dinners too?)

15. Go work until you’re hungry. Watch until you’re starved.

16. Lie awake with an empty plate on your chest. (What’s it matter?

What’s it matter? I’m here and I am, aren’t I?)

16a. (What does the rest matter, anyway?)

Siren's Call

Charles Gebbia

I miss seeing her

Up on that stage

The lights beaming down

Like she's the only star in the sky

The single guiding light

Beyond thousands of flickering souls

Commanding us

Controlling us

Sharing with us a story

That only she can tell

And yet her eyes only meet mine

No matter how big the audience

No matter how many fall to her spell

She sings for me

To me

My dearest

My muse

My love

I miss your voice

And long for it to call to me

Quietly

Serenely

Beckoning me home

To you


Ronan Mansfield | Watercolor

witch bar

the reality is


so much of this will be sad. so much of this will be walking around

in the cutting cold, aches you can’t name, and people who come

and go, then come and go again. we talk about how we’ll decorate

these empty rooms, and what kinds of things we’ll do in them. i

hope there’s more beauty to this before there’s not. you tell me how

much you hate everything, and i want to yank the heavy from you

like weeds, the roots of everything bitter coming up and apart in my

palms. instead i say it’ll be okay. i don’t know that it will. it’s the middle

of the week and i want to fix the world for you. make it shiny and

new and facing right towards you, promising to be different this time.

instead, i listen and listen and feel so sad hearing you that i almost

want to tell you about it. i don’t.

68 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 69

toast

Melina Iavarone

Fried. The flat-iron has run over these locks far too many times to

count. In an effort to look like a pretty girl tonight, I let the heat frizzle

each strand–and I wonder why I have dead ends…I’m the murderer!

I feel a boiling-hot stinging sensation on my knuckle. Fingers caught

between the plates again. Beauty is pain. My bedroom air reeks of

burnt brunette. I choke on my own heartbeat, worried the smoke

will wake the alarm on the popcorn ceiling. I imagine the inhabitants

of my apartment complex evacuating, all because of my makeover.

I let the house fire scent fill my lungs, hold my breath, and mumble

a prayer for a still-sleeping smoke alarm. I’m cold. The beauty tool

might be a weapon to my fingertips but it keeps me from shivering.

I’m reminded that my shampoo has been recalled for hair loss

allegations and I swear I can feel a hollowness in each follicle. Back to

mumbling and praying. I think my mind is playing tricks on me.

Acupuncture


The lady put a needle in my sternum

and pressed on my wrist.

To toughen up my heart’s bouncer, she said,

and thicken my pericardium.

I am a thing with thorns pointed inward, I replied.

A porcupine inside out.

I was full of winter. She aimed the heat

lamp at my feet, placed a sheet over me

Like I was pronounced dead—legs elevated, a heating pad

Beneath my back. When I said I can’t stop crying

and bleeding, she said she had an herb. She lit mugwort

on my sternum, below my navel, beside my knee.

Point when it gets too hot, she said. It shouldn’t hurt.

She used up all her moxa trying to purge

the toxins from my heart. I let it burn

and keep burning. When the heat finally permeated

my chest, the lady cheered. I should’ve been scorched,

but I was just a bit warm.

Then I was on my stomach, releasing grief

through the needles that lined my spine.

The sheet covered everything but my back

like a reptile basking. We didn’t know

what I was mourning for or if I was more Earth

or Metal or Water. Only that I was all clogged up.

I told her my left hip had been electric since the night

a butterfly bush cushioned my fall

And I limped from house to house

dressed as the Queen of Hearts.


She touched all the tender spots on my right arm

and put a needle in each one—a spiked sling.

When it was over, she listened to my pulse

and nodded slowly. Much better, she said

With her fingers on my wrist,

she pressed on the pale valley between tendons.

My heart was still made of lead, but

the nausea gave way. My hip felt much better.

72 | Perception

Prayer is sinner

Alex Cao | Photography

Spring 2023 | 73

becoming


what am i?

small and fragile and

perpetually frightened.

what are you?

quiet and loud and

looking at me with those

dark chocolate eyes.

i love you and i

don’t quite know what to do about it.

i don’t know where to

put my aches so i’ll set them down here,

where the white field of the page

asks me nothing, just listens and listens,

like a good friend should,

and the noise of the computer-keys

echoes back, mimicking dialogue.

i belong on a porch with a mug of hot coffee,

watching the world go by,

listening to birds chirping away summer days.

and you belong next to me, lover,

so i can examine the crinkles in your

smiling lips and think up too many

synonyms for the words pretty and lovely.

you make shapes and i make sounds,

together we make sense.

you answer my questions before

i ask them; in return, i bake you

pies and cookies and cakes, letting you taste

cream and batter off my fingertips

before i open the oven door.

this love is sweetest when it’s still becoming.

74 | Perception

Refining Touch


Spring 2023 | 75

late night aromantic phone

conversations

Emma Carroll Hudson

keep me up until 3am

his deep voice laughs

as the sole audience member

at my stand-up show.

i fear i’m a voice narcissus,

hogging the audio.

my headphones die

while my laptop breathes.

he speaks and I ask myself

is he okay as just a friend?

the ceiling fan grumbles

at my arrogant loneliness.

wrapped in a blanket,

i google why being alone

my heart aches knowing

i don’t feel more heat.

is more inviting than

hand holds and snake hugs.

Sunken

Grace Underwood

I dream of skipping stones

across a pale blue river

With you.

We hunt for stones that are

Smooth and round,

And fit between our hands

when we interlace our fingers.

My rocks don’t skip as far

as they used to.

I think it’s because you’re not here

to test them with me.

Or maybe it’s because I

Chuck them

Rather than

Flicking them.

Reveling in the crash disturbing

our little river.

Our hands would be stained with earth

And our feet bruised from pebbles kicked

into our shoes.

Our clothes suctioned to our skin

from when we dared each other further

Into the portal to another realm.

I like to imagine what our world

people have needs and i

would be like immobile in the dirt and sand;

have a desire to exist only

To just let the waves impact and erode.

in words i conjure

To stare at the same water around you,

as bubble whispers.

Knowing you’ll never touch the same atom twice.

To watch fish fly above our heads.

they pop and i love you

is never spoken.

I imagine what it is like not to breathe.


The Gemini

Claire Aronson

Washed Away

Olivia Happel | Acrylic, Embroidery Floss, Pen, Ink

78 | Perception

The Guinness in my glass, golden in nature, but glowing

blue under the cool LEDs in the back of this bar, resembles a

divine nectar. Bubbles twirl up the insides of the glass; I trace their

aimless paths with my index finger, leaving irregular stripes in the

condensation. My wrist bends awkwardly as my hand moves to

lift the cup by its rim, and only the pressure of my five fingertips is

keeping the thing from slipping. I take my time, moving the cup first

in languid circles, watching the liquid ripple at the surface, letting the

whirlpool grow gradually. Soon enough, though, the bubbles who

were just performing their balletic dance are now jiving merrily into

dissolved non-existence.

A high-pitched giggle snaps my attention away from the

performance, and I glance up in time to notice the pair of dark eyes

sitting across from me flash left to meet their friend’s responding

gaze.

“So,” the gazer—Audrey, I think hums. “Tell me, Aiden, when’s

your birthday?” she asks; her playful inflection indicating no genuine

curiosity. Opposite me, her friend with the eyes smirks knowingly.

I feel a huff of laughter on my side of the table as Aiden’s

clothed elbow, resting adjacent to mine, shifts against my bare

forearm. I chance a look at my companion and see that he is already

casting his beguiling smile on the girls who joined us mere minutes

ago.

“Uh, June tenth,” Aiden answers placatingly. Audrey lets out

a faux gasp. I look back at my beer to hide the roll of my eyes.

“Uh oh,” she grins. “You’re a Gemini.”

“A what?”

“A Gemini—you know, like, your star sign?”

“Oh,” Aiden frowns. “Is that bad?”

“Ah, well, you know what they say about Geminis,” Audrey

sing-songs, leaning forwards on her elbows.

“I don’t, actually,” Aiden feigns, though his eyes sparkle

Spring 2023 | 79

expectantly. He shifts closer to her–mirroring the movement.

“Apparently,” she slows, “they can’t be trusted.” Her friend

nods quietly in agreement. I look back at her: exposed shoulders

slumped as she leans back to passively observe the two’s

conversation, decorated fingers fiddling with the straw in her drink

boredly.

“Are you saying you don’t trust me?” Aiden gasps, clutching

his chest dramatically. Audrey’s chuckle morphs into a considering

hum. She takes a slow sip of her blood-red cocktail, shiny pink lips

pursing upwards around plastic, before responding.

“No, no, no,” she tuts. “Not necessarily… I’m just saying the

universe says I shouldn’t.” Aiden raises an eyebrow.

“The universe doesn’t know shit, then.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yeah, don’t believe that crap. You can trust me,” He

reaches his hand out towards her wrist, and when she doesn’t pull

away, he wraps his hand around it, staring intently at her. “Promise,”

he adds, so seriously no one could actually take it so.

Audrey is grinning. Her pearly white canines glow in this

lighting; she moves her unclasped hand to rest atop Aiden’s.

“Okay, I suppose I could give you a chance.”

“You’re too kind.” Aiden smiles back at her.

My beer hasn’t been touched for the last five minutes, but

that doesn’t stop me from pushing away from the table, my chair

scraping loudly against the floor as I do so, and muttering an excuse

about needing a new drink. No one seems to notice, and I’m heading

toward the bar too quickly to decide if I care.

It’s a college bar on a Friday night, so the counter is lined

with the unfamiliar faces of my supposed peers. I squeeze between

two people, both turned towards different conversations. To my left,

a girl with straight black hair and freckles dotting her uncovered

back is complaining about her economics professor and his inability

to follow the schedule on the course syllabus. To my right, some

dude who hasn’t fully tucked in his shirt is raving about how well

his cryptocurrency is doing on the market. As my eyes linger on

his ducktail, I reach behind myself to prod along the waistline of my

80 | Perception

own pants where, thankfully, no loose fabric seems to be hanging

embarrassingly.

The bartendress is mixing some obscure drink, the gold

bangles on her wrist rattling as she shakes the container. I watch her

for a while until we make eye-contact, and she approaches.

“Ian,” she nods in greeting. Georgia bartends on Fridays, so

we’ve become well-acquainted over the past few months.

“Georgia,” I nod back. “Fancy seeing you here.” She rolls her eyes.

“Where’s your friend?”

“Oh, you know,” I tilt my head backward in no specific

direction; she understands anyway.

“What can I get you, then?”

“Ummm,” I haven’t thought this far ahead, coming here

mainly for a change of pace. “Another beer I guess. Something cheap.”

Cheap alcohol for cheap conversation, I think as she slides

me a bottle of Miller Lite.

“I’ll add it to your tab,” she winks, then she’s talking to

another customer before I can even say thank you.

I turn my back to the bar and begin to scan the room when

I notice our table and can’t hold back a snort. I grab my bottle and

weave my way back through the high tables littered with half-full

plastic cups and people crowding around them. Three empty seats

plus a fourth filled by a dejected twenty-two-year-old, wait for me.

He is currently emptying a glass–my glass.

“Oi,” I kick Aiden’s chair, “that’s my beer,” I tell him. He looks

up at me and smirks.

“So what? You got a new one anyway.”

“Yeah, but this is the shit shit.”

“Sucks to be you, then.”

“What’d you do this time?” I ask, gesturing to the missing

company. Aiden lets out a short laugh and wags his index finger at me.

“Hey, now, don’t assume it was me. Her friend had, like, an

emergency so they had to go.” He pulls his phone from his chest

pocket and shakes it in my face. “Got her number, see?”

“A bust is a bust, my friend.” I pat his back consolingly.

His only button down shirt is soft from all the wear, but the space

Spring 2023 | 81

between his shoulder blades is… definitely not. I move my hand to

the back of his chair. “Shall we go?” The grating of wood as he pulls

away from the table is answer enough, so I take one last swig from

my bottle while he puts on his jacket, and we’re out the door.

Compared to the insulated warmth of the packed bar,

the night is chilly. My body instinctively shivers for a second, but I

shake it out and start walking. I take a deep breath of the crisp air

and feel the cold pierce through my throat and into my chest before

exhaling with shuddering relief. Aiden’s right beside me, hands

buried in his suede jacket, eyes trained on the path in front of us. I

follow their gaze and watch our feet step in sync on the sidewalk.

The grains of cement, still wet from the rain this afternoon, glisten

under the streetlights, and our boots squelch lightly as we tread. It's

a comfortable quietness, but there’s one thing left to be said.

“By the way,” I say.

“Hmmm?” Aiden shifts his head towards me, ready to listen,

and then I punch him hard on the shoulder. He yelps and stumbles to

the side before catching himself.

“What the fuck, Ian!”

“You deserved that,” I raise my voice. “You’re literally so

annoying.”

“The hell did I do?!” He yells back, gesturing frantically. I roll

my eyes.

“June tenth, my ass. You were born in fucking November!”

I exclaim. He freezes for a second, processing, and then barks out a

laugh. He continues to laugh, cackling maniacally. I watch him lean

against the wall of the building and bend over, visible puffs of air

escaping his mouth as he gasps for breath. He looks at me from his

position, and I roll my eyes again, grinning. “You’re so full of it, man.”

“Hey!” He starts to laugh again. “It’s– it’s not my fault–girls–

they eat that shit up! They’re obsessed with it! My star sign, my

birthday, if I have a birth chart...”

“Ok, why’d you lie, though?” He straightens himself up, a

picture of wisdom.

“Girls, they love a lot about astrology, but they mostly love

slandering Geminis.”

82 | Perception

“Huh?” He starts walking, but I’m still in my perplexed state.

“I dunno, it’s just something I’ve picked up, y’know?

Tonight wasn’t my first rodeo.” He turns to look back at me and

winks. “Besides, no one gives a fuck about Libras. We’re not good

conversation topics.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?!” I cry before running

to catch up to him.

Spring 2023 | 83

Jam for Leo

Charles Gebbia

Five friends remain

One fallen, honored by

A saxophone, two guitars, two voices

In a small pub, punk and virgin

Loving and full of familiar faces

On the walls

On the people

With music in the air

“Remembrance Song”

Connecting and

crossing languages

Low lights and lower stools,

CD’s, lighters, cigarettes

Memorabilia clutters

Love encompasses

And joy fills the small pub

“Love me tender, love me true”

Support in the hard parts,

love through the hardest

Labradors and leather pants,

a kilt and t-shirts,

hair as high as a houseplant

Beers and daiquiris

Tabs and testimonials

Friends form new bonds

Connections made in sounds of

Grief and laughter

Song unites between the

chalk walls and drawings

“In Rock Trust”

The “We” left unsaid and unwritten.

84 | Perception

Joan Baez


Spring 2023 | 85

The Coming of Age

Anand Benegal

…the coming of age

The vast firmament

is eaten by worms

…as fire washes

the jaded ground.

…a last sunset of violent colour

as the oceans pour into the skies…

The burning eye dims

sinks and cries as the horizon falls…

Her vision grows ever larger…

a Circle of stars

…a serpent floats

…and skulks in the sky…

aligns over the desert…

…as the tides rise and fall…in a different rhythm…

…thirsting for water

…and blood.

86 | Perception

don't think about the frogs

Ronan Mansfield | Acrylic on Canvas

Spring 2023 | 87

Mature but not Grown

Yasmin Nayrouz

When I was twelve

I was told I was mature for my age

Spoke nicely, politely, concisely

Used my manners and said a smart phrase

Found politics and books exciting

Education enlightening

When I was twelve

I was labeled: mature

And I believed it

Didn’t see the need to grow anymore

So I sped through my teenage years

Always on the cusp of letting myself make mistakes

But I was way too mature to make

So with my nose in the air I’d walk away

When I turned twenty

I realized: I’m not mature

Not developed—Always unsure

A bit misinformed

By a pair of youthful lens that I outgrew

But still wore

I haven’t seen the ugliness of the world

I sheltered myself in this bubble of “mature”

A mature person wouldn’t do this or that

Go here or there

Take risks and make mistakes

When I turned twenty

I finally matured

But not fully

At my own pace

Life is not a race

I will determine how I age

I’m still learning to walk with grace

As I gift myself patience and understanding

And hope others do the same

88 | Perception

Baby Steps

Madeline Sloyer | Screenprint

Spring 2023 | 89

Girl

Rosemary Crist

The first time I learned I was a girl, I was seven. My friends were

all boys—something that meant just as much to me as words like

“algebra” or “taxes.” I had a knowledge of gender by name alone, but

it was as blurry a concept as anything else pertaining to the closedoff

adult world. My two best friends were David and Reid, and our

bond was built on Pokemon Black 2 for the 3DS. David’s house was

our stomping grounds, as he lived in this big white, clean house

that made you think if you touched anything wrong you might be

scolded.

I recall playing hide and seek, where Reid was the seeker, and David

suggested we hide under the duvet on his bed. Facing each other

and waiting with baited breath, it wasn’t Reid, but rather David’s

mom who whipped the duvet off of us. At first I figured I had done

something wrong in this fancy, rich-person house, but instead

David was taken away and scolded. I could hear the conversation

from atop his stairs as both he and Reid were yelled at for acting

inappropriately towards “a girl.” I was only after a while able to

connect the word to myself.

When I got older, I became friends with more girls and stopped

talking to boys like David or Reid. My new friends did all of the

typical girly things—sleepovers, truth or dare, boy talk. All of it was

a childish perversion of teenage activities, being acted out by nine

and ten year olds. But, amid these games, I gained a reputation of

being the daredevil. I ate gross food combinations, spoke loudly and

confidently, and assigned myself the role as the girl who had kissed

the most boys.

I bragged all the time about how many boys I had been able to

score, equating this romantic tally to being another mark of being

a daredevil. The reality was, I had only ever kissed one boy, and it

was moreso an accident than anything. But, their names grew on

90 | Perception

my roster of fabricated stories, equating this sexual overtness with a

sense of pride and being “cool.”

The second time I remembered I was a girl was for my second kiss.

Reason being that the second kiss held more weight in my twelveyear-old

hands than the first, accidental brush on the playground

mulch. In my bedroom, clasping my best friend’s hand, I professed

to her that I believed I had a crush on her. She reciprocated, more so

than I expected. Martha and I decided then and there that we were

“dating,” a word just about as foreign to me as “girl” had been for

my younger self. Martha had “dated” a boy before, to the extent that

they hung out whenever their parents hung out and were prescribed

the label by both parents, but this felt different to the both of us.

We had chosen each other in a way that felt far more intimate than

friendship, and we acted out the steps of a relationship as far as we

knew how.

All of a sudden, lying about kissing so many boys as a kid was cast

into a new form, and my gender was no longer just girl, but the

dominant girl. Martha looked to me to make decisions, act more

sexual. In my head, I was the boy of the relationship, which felt more

comfortable compared to the girl role that I understood from my

friends.

“Womanhood” read as a punchline to me in puberty. I hated the

concept of “girly” things, as they seemed like a voluntary agreement

to be weak and fragile. I was, naturally, being fed the language of

the content I consumed, but I still felt as though through dating a girl

I had escaped this disgusting acceptance of femininity I feared so

deeply.

In the devastation of puberty, I found myself out of love with Martha.

I also discovered a new person on the other side of the relationship—

a person who didn’t even think of themselves as a girl. “Mars,” now,

identified as neither girl nor boy, which spiraled me into a new role in

our relationship. Neither of us broke it off—Mars, because they were

still in love, and me, because I was too afraid to say I wasn’t.

Being a girl no longer felt like one long joke I had to stick with my

Spring 2023 | 91

whole life, but something that existed inside of me neutrally. I was

not pleased to be a girl, but I could not have complained about it. My

clothing became loose and casual—with no hint of gender imbued in

any outfit I wore.

My first confession to the system of gender roles was makeup,

something that enthralled me. I wore makeup almost every day,

doing it as an artist rather than for outward impressions. My excuse

was that I did makeup not in a girly way, but in the same way that

gay guys did. As an art and a subversion of expectation, for I couldn’t

fathom the idea of meeting an expectation about myself. The

rebellious daredevil kicked inside of me, wanting to claw away from

the part of me that was beginning to like the feeling of being a girl.

With time, gender expression became like makeup had been—an

art rather than an outward performance. While everyday I dressed

ambiguously and casually, I also reveled in occasions that merited

a dress and nice hair and makeup. In finally leaving my relationship

with Mars, I was left as I was when I was twelve-years-old at age

eighteen: I had no clues about my sexuality and felt a ravenous tear

through my sense of gender.

“We’re all born queer” is a concept I’ve heard thrown around in

recent years to describe the onset social construct of gender and

how it affects children. To evolve from a complete ignorance to the

meaning of being a girl as a child to a direct repulsion to femininity all

the way to an acceptance of being a woman—I believe the concept

holds some weight. There were a million times in life I learned that I

was a girl, such as,

Being groomed on the Internet as a child,

Being asked “Do you have a crush on me?” by coworkers,

Being dismissed for an eating disorder because it seemed normal to

want to lose weight,

Being told “That’s how teen girls drive” when getting into a car

accident,

Being “too loud” as a child,

92 | Perception

Being “too quiet” as an adult.

The weight of the title of girl weighs heavy over my life. I want to beg

forgiveness for mocking it as a child, and in the same breath I want

to thrash against the identity and rid myself of it. I want to chase

after the little girl who was confused when she just wanted to play

Pokemon with her friends, and who thought the only way to be cool

was to be disgusting and fearless, and who was tricked by every

single man into thinking that there was something wrong with the

way she was and the meaning of the word “girl.”

Spring 2023 | 93

cherry tongue

Melina Iavarone

I was never allowed to order the cherry flavor: something about a

tongue stained red put mother off, so I grew accustomed to lemon

and mango and other much-too-mature things for a 7-year old’s

sugary palette. I remember racing my cousins up to the Italian ice

truck growing up, signing my name on the back in pink Sharpie and

getting chills up my sunburnt spine from the sound it would make

against dusty metal. A little better, I remember trying to find a patch

of shadowed blacktop to stand on while waiting in line—the hot sun

burnt the road and blistered my bare feet. I would clench onto mom’s

cash so hard I was convinced George Washington’s face would be

tattooed on my palm. The air was warm but the wind was fast and

I never trusted it with my money, even as a child. Artificial lemon ice

left my taste buds sour and my chin sticky with residue. I can hear

my cherry-hating mother in the background telling me to catch a

wave and let the saltwater wash it off. Running to the shore, I can feel

the movement of sandcrabs in between my toes, so I hopscotch the

rest of my way to the wet sand and avoid their wiggles. Too ticklish.

Off-putting, like a cherry-red tongue.

94 | Perception

Untitled

Bailee Roberts | Digital

Spring 2023 | 95

melancholy gaze

Julia Gershowitz

Melancholia pursed its lips &

Kissed your frosted cheek.

Its taste is numb

Unaltered by the simple quiet breeze.

Meaning rests on your skin

Bittersweet and ambivalent

Unsure and ghostly

You let out a sigh &

The pressure upon your eyelids became too much to bear.

As they

Finally reached down

Hiding your view of the darkness

Protecting your vision from another sorry glance

Yet, even with eyes closed,

You encounter the darkness again.

An empty unknown

And as eyelids begin to raise,

The aperture widens,

And you can’t help but to blink.

Still stuck in a haze

Starry.

Still.

Staring at nothing, but

Searching for everything.

Soup

I. Alvarez

Men spit their hardened faces towards me

and the black road curves too sharp.

Calloused hands and cowboy hats,

the sharp smell of spilled beer

and Patsy Cline warbling in the background.

I watch you wrinkle,

paper skin crumpling like a hotel Bible.

The house reeks of Camel Lites.

We stop for Panera Bread

and you pour three, four, five packets

of salt into the soup. Humming

along to Johnny Cash and you can’t even

bring the spoon to your gummy lips

without spilling.

At your funeral I can only

think of the soup. The ugliness of Iowa

on a Thursday, the men with

their faces and the Waylon Jennings

on repeat, Badlands

looming in the distance.

The soup, filmy and ruined.

96 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 97

Isabella Brown | Film Photography

the beer distributor

Wordless, Nameless, Real

Vanessa Walker

You give yourself away so effortlessly in these hours between

awareness

when desire bleeds into your dreams and animates your sleeping

body outside your own command, revealing to me what your tongue

cannot.

You must feel more here than we allow outside these walls

beyond these lips as they dance and exchange wordless affections

affirming the existence of that which we refuse to subject to arbitrary

titles,

at least we convince ourselves they are.

What else could account for warm breezes that glide on my neck

grazing cool skin that ripples and bends at the sensation,

pulling me into an embrace which screams that no closeness short

of merged souls could ever satisfy you,

layered gestures wrapped in unconscious minutes we won’t dare

discuss

when we wake and acquaint ourselves with reason again,

banishing that nameless love into its rightful, resigned state,

shielding us from the world’s presuming stares and binding names

safe, foolishly safe.

Stubborn creatures we are,

pretending we could be anything less than this.

98 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 99

Caitlin Spillane | Photography

Yearning

100 | Perception

Halloween


Ella wasn’t fond of parties, but if she went, she spent less

time at the party and more time outside of it. The outside of a party

was someplace liminal. It was for seltzer cans in wet grass and

laughter in passing. It was for hiding or for telling the truth. Tonight,

Ella found herself on the porch steps of a stranger’s house. She sat

with her chin propped on her hand, her cheek squished into her

palm. As usual, she was in strange company. That is, after all, the

most common kind of company. After twenty resilient minutes in the

sweaty basement, Ella wandered up the stairs and out the front door.

She found herself among silent smokers and passionate couples on

their way to one of their bedrooms. Ella wondered if their roommates

were home. On the sidewalk in front of the house, girls who were

only partially dressed were dressed as bunnies. They were all talking

over each other. The outside of a party was a place for comers and

goers, but Ella was prone to lingering. It was in these in-between

places where you could observe or sometimes overhear the most

interesting fragments of things that were none of your business.

The cotton-tailed girls were calling their friends. They asked

in slurred, panicked voices where the others were and insisted they

come outside before the Uber arrived. Past the girls pacing on the

sidewalk, a boy leaned against a tree. Ella could see the shape of his

breath leaving his mouth as smoke and he could see hers as heat in

the cold. If they could help it, their eyes never met.

“That party was so dead,” one bunny said to another.

“It’s always dead,” the other bunny said. She was typing on

her phone and her eyes hadn’t left the screen for at least forty-five

seconds. A third bunny recommended a party two streets over.

“It’s always dead there,” said the first bunny.

“I’m tired,” said a different bunny. This one held her

detached puffball tail in one hand. Before they reached a consensus,

they piled into the Uber driver’s SUV. Ella wondered what the

destination was set as and if the driver would be annoyed when they

Spring 2023 | 101

changed their minds and what time the driver would go to bed.

Ella’s friends were inside somewhere. She wasn’t worried. She’d

managed to slip away while they were singing through drooping

smiles and swaying on the sticky dance floor. Sometimes she’d say

to one of them that she needed to use the bathroom or get a drink

of water. She’d wave her hand in a reassuring way, like she’d be back

soon, though she had no intention of returning. They both knew

this. Ella trusted that they would find each other one way or another

before the night was over. They always managed to find her. Any

minute now, her phone would buzz and keep buzzing. Her friends

would come pouring out of the house onto the porch.

“What’s wrong?” They would ask in that voice.

“Nothing, nothing,” Ella would answer as many times as

they asked. And she would mean it too. She didn’t mind the solitude

and she needed the air. Ella could only inhale so much of the thick,

wet, recycled breath inside that house. Ella preferred the air she was

breathing now—frigid and sharp and turning her nose pink.

Ella was a well-practiced wallflower. She’d find a corner to

haunt with a good view of all the tangled bodies changing colors

in the light. For the sake of camouflage, she’d try to make her own

body as gelatinous as possible. It wasn’t easy because she had stiff

shoulders. The music was usually synthesized or bouncy and made

her organs buzz. She couldn’t pretend to know the words, but she

did weave her head back and forth like she was having a good time.

Sometimes, she didn’t have to pretend as much. Not often, though.

Once, she’d occupied a corner that was next to a pool table.

There had been a girl in a trench coat playing against a duo of curlyhaired

boys with glow-stick bracelets. Ella couldn’t tell who was

winning. Neither of the teams seemed particularly invested in the

game. When only a few striped balls remained on the table, the girl in

the trench coat offered Ella her pool stick.

“Oh, no,” Ella said. “I don’t know how to play pool. I’m a

mess.”

“Me too,” said the girl. “You can do it.”

“No,” Ella insisted. “I’m a mess that can’t play pool.”

The girl then beckoned Ella to the table and gave her the

stick. Her body was tense when the girl stood behind her and moved

102 | Perception

her arms into the proper position. It was like they were spooning,

but they were standing, and they didn’t know each other’s names.

Ella felt like she was aiming a rifle. If she had been aiming a rifle, she

would have put a bullet through someone’s neck. When Ella jerked

the stick forward, the tip slid beneath the cue ball. It did a little hop,

rolled a few inches, then stilled. The ball she’d been aiming for hardly

moved. It was an undeniably terrible shot, but nobody mentioned it.

After the match ended, Ella danced with the girl.

“I don’t really like dancing,” Ella told her.

“My name is Genevieve,” the girl said.

They kissed passionately.

Before the party ended, Genevieve gave Ella her business

card. She was a spiritual healer. They went outside and Genevieve

draped her trench coat around Ella’s shoulders while she smoked a

joint. Ella took one puff but hardly inhaled it because she didn’t want

to cough too hard and look uncool. If Genevieve noticed, she said

nothing. Ella was grateful. After the joint was finished, Genevieve took

her coat back. They kissed goodbye. They hadn’t crossed paths

since then.

That was the nature of people. All unknown to each other

and pretending or attempting to be known to each other. Nobody

would talk about how they were either going to part ways or die.

They draped themselves over one another. They exchanged more

spit than words. Close friends and strangers alike practiced this habit

of being temporary and keeping secrets. At parties, Ella could see it

in every heavy gaze. She scrutinized their irises for strands of truth,

peered into their pupils like shouting into a tunnel and waiting for

an echo. Ella looked hard behind those red solo cups and that was

the fun of it. Until it wasn’t fun anymore. Until she remembered if she

could see their eyes, they could see hers. They fascinated her briefly

but eventually suffocated her with their secrets.

“I’m going to get some air,” Ella would tell a friend when that

happened.

“Where?” the friend would ask.

“Somewhere,” Ella would say, and they’d nod at each other.

Neither of them could really hear the other. That was fine.

Then Ella would get her air. She was getting air now, on

Spring 2023 | 103

those porch steps. Ella was sure she looked bored or distraught.

Passerbys probably thought she’d had her heart broken or her night

ruined. Ella’s nights were rarely ruined, although sometimes they

were. Normally, they weren’t terrible, only forgettable. They all looked

the same: a street of dark, sleeping houses interrupted by one

house’s enthusiasm. A blue-black sky polluted by suburban light. A

subtle escape to somewhere eerie yet placid. The moment would

cease to exist once it passed, so she tried to soak in it. There were

only a few stars out and one bright planet. She could feel the music’s

rhythmic thumping like a distant storm. It was better that way.

“Alice.”

Ella raised her eyes to the smoking boy.

“From Alice in Wonderland,” he continued, exhaling smoke.

He was looking at her now. Ella looked back but only in flickers.

Mostly, she looked at everything around him. She looked at the

smoke.

“Yes,” Ella replied and smiled, very faintly. The smile startled

her. Why did she smile? She hadn’t meant to smile. She hadn’t felt

the smile bubbling in her chest or rising up her throat. Ella realized

she was not smiling about something, but instead was smiling for

something. The smile had an agenda. It came to fill the awkward

pockets of uncertainty that fill a conversation between two people

who don’t particularly want to speak to each other. So why do they

speak to each other? Maybe he felt compelled to address her. Maybe

it was the silence. But the smile, that gesture came inadvertently but

not naturally. The smile came to accentuate her blue puffed-sleeve

dress and white pinafore, only she hadn’t realized when she was

putting it on like a performance. Although, she couldn’t really take a

performance off or put it on. It wasn’t exactly a costume, but a fact of

having a body. It was like skin. “What are you?”

“It’s up for interpretation,” he answered. He was just wearing

jeans.

“Then you’re the caterpillar,” Ella decided. “The one that’s

tripping balls.”

He almost smiled. Ella liked his almost-smile. It made him

look human.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “The one that’s tripping balls.”

The caterpillar boy put out his cigarette on the tree. He

twisted the ashy stub against the bark. He flicked it onto the porch

where it couldn’t technically qualify as litter and crossed the street.

It took another half an hour for her friends to decide it was

time to leave. On the way home, Ella sat in the very back row of the

Uber driver’s seat staring out the window. Some kids her age were

walking home. It was late and they walked in groups with their bare

skin flushed pink and their hunched shoulders quivering. By the time

Ella heaved herself through her front door, it was nearly 3 am.

Her cat sat halfway up the stairs, staring.

Ella sighed and said, “You are very lucky you aren’t human.”

The cat didn’t respond. But she knew, Ella thought. The

cat followed her up the stairs to the bedroom. Ella peeled off her

everything. She didn’t bother with putting the clothes in the hamper

so the dress sat like a puddle on the floor. Ella sunk beneath her

blankets while the cat hopped onto the bed next to her. Ella had

been waiting all night for this. She and the cat stared at one another.

The cat’s pupils were round and dark in a pool of pale green. Ella

looked closely into the darkness, searching for something. She could

only see herself. But still, if she looked past that, she imagined there

was something at the end of the darkness. How else could their

warm silence need no explanation? What else could explain how the

cat curled into the crook of Ella’s arm and fit perfectly? What led her

to rest her small head on the back of Ella’s hand, to choose Ella’s thin

bones and tendons over the plush foot of her bed?

“Please don’t die,” Ella said to the cat. The cat’s expression

did not waver.

Ella imagined, then, that there was nothing to be found

behind her feline gaze. Ella was only body heat. The cat’s voice

was only instinct. The silence was only silence. The room felt a little

emptier then, so Ella tried to stop imagining. The air in Ella’s room

was light like incense smoke. The yellow glow from her desk lamp

cast stretched-out shadows on the walls. She fell asleep with the

light on.


Yaya


You walked alone along the side of the highway in slippers,

Brushed by the breath of passing cars, your cotton clothes rippling,

Muted and loose like skin. Like laundry walking.

I imagine you looked doughy

Too soft for the tire tracks at the gas station

But too stubborn to leave

Until my dad picked you up.

You wandered into bad neighborhoods

on nighttime strolls.

Was it aimless or purposeful?

What were you looking for?

All the things lost and losing still:

your strength, your recipes, your husband—

Did he ever emerge from the fog? Papou’s thick mustache and

aviator sunglasses,

Barely lucid eyes widening, mouth opening

at the sight of an olive

From a hospital cafeteria salad.

Do you follow Bladensburg’s cement streams

like they’ll lead you back to the shoreline of Greece?

longworth's on sunday

Isabella Brown | Film Photography

My dad says you hate it there

Someplace with white walls soaking up natural light,

Billowing curtains and twin-sized beds.

I wonder if they let you watch Greek soap operas

So you can chuckle and mumble and tsk at the screen

With your arms folded on a couch

While someone nearby tries to predict the plot based on your sounds

And the actors’ faces.

I wonder if you miss your vegetable garden

And your house and your husband

Like I miss your house and your husband

And your cooking.

106 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 107

Transition to Womanhood

Julia Gershowitz

If rain is the tears of the clouds,

Why don’t we wonder why she weeps?

We say it’s normal.

Maybe it’s just that season.

That time.

We use explanations to sum her up. To downplay her emotions.

She feels pain in her stomach, and we simply call it thunder.

We say that life must go on and it’s not an excuse.

She gets angry. Who doesn’t?

But when it’s her it’s called dramatic.

Just another way to make each mystery more mysterious and each

horror more horrid.

Who knows who hurt her or who made her mad?

Society only says it messes with their plans.

They just want her to be silent. To ignore her rage and just smile.

She blends into the background sometimes.

Ya know. Into the sky.

Nobody cares to check in.

Does anybody even realize when she isn’t there?

She shows herself. She opens up.

And what exactly do we do for her?

108 | Perception

Aubrey in Noir

Hannah Landon | Acrylic

Spring 2023 | 109

110 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 111

Frater Maeus

S. Oppenheimer

You speak my name and I lament

The timing of our meeting

At the edge of the sulfur pit

You shouldn’t have met me

When I searched fire and funeral pyres for purpose

Stained hands sifting

For something

Even pitiful things

To complete me

Will me to life

In the fallout of my damnation

And so I found you

Bleeding neon luminance

Clinging to a broken halo of radiance

An amalgamation of broken hands- hands which

Raised you to the stars and whispered

“This could all be yours”

Your child-eyes looking on in awe

They fell silent as they threw you from your pedestal meant to break

Built from dreams thrust upon you

Which pierced your skin from the inside out as you fell I

met you after my dreams left- I pulled them out like teeth

Clawing upwards, outwards on blistered hands

You should have met me in the sky- radiant

Basking in pyrite euphoria

Bright, brilliant, beautiful

Before I danced in my own ashes

Before I found peace among the damned

How did it feel, seeing again

A new fate, hand extended, watching you in awe

Beckoning your broken grace towards bleeding warmth?

You flinch as I touch

Your ash dusted skin

My radioactive fingertips pressing your cheek

Burning you with the trace

Of the cleaning fires from which I forged myself

You twitch with throbbing pain as I lead you

Walking endlessly

Hand in unforgivable hand

How did it feel to sin?

I’ve grown to accustomed

Learned better than to try and curse careless gods

With the hands they sculpted- with my own pain upon them

In their reflections- they were promised to us

In my heart I still pray to them, still hold their light

But my fingers are far too broken to clasp themselves

So I clasp them in yours

How did it feel, reaching for your promised stars

Only to touch scar tissue

From the same pain of which you bleed?

Your demon eyes search the sky in desperation

For redemption, I tell you this is the end

Burning your palms on boiling sands

You don’t have to walk alone

I will guide you home

You should have met me when I knew what that was

You speak my name now


Shaking off the last of your pillar debris

Eyes adjusting to the dark

Releasing your grip from your new-formed crown

I lament I first saw you as a means to completion

I say your name back

The same one you damned in the sulfur pit

As I pulled you by your burning wrists

Our goal- to rise- the same

As I guided you step by shaking step

I understood “demonic” is not a fate but a name

For a searing trail of love, a broken chorus of false angels

Sealing us together in the fires of absolvement

Our own holiness- redefined- in the intersection

Between grief and love

We don’t have to walk alone

We are each other's home

Frater Maeus, I will always guide you home.

encounter with an estranged

evangelical

Vanessa Walker

danger of relapse plainly lurks

in this herd on the street

she weaves for fear she’ll crack if she

by chance is forced to meet

with great displeasure one so cruel

as to hand her a tract

and scold a stranger who would dare

neglect to heed the pact

between her and that faceless man

she once so blindly served

sitting with mother quietly

and masking slim new curves

behind the drapes in her bedroom

when pastor came to call

and even then his booming voice

seemed hypnotic to all

with scorn abounding thundered forth

and gospel soured quick

and leers and jeers from holy men

now leave her dryly sick

enough to eye the chapel’s spire

standing ornate and tall

and wonder if He could forgive

if she might headfirst fall

into a void between two realms

with no intent to wake

for full hips and a bleeding tongue

114 | Perception

do not an angel make

Spring 2023 | 115

When you tell the wolves I'm

home

Kaitlin LaRosa

I will not ask you for your excuses.

No detailed Doctor’s Note asking for

insurance against myself and

assurance that I needed saving in the first place.

Doctors don’t prescribe aloe vera — not the good ones anyways

and besides, I have always cut through burns myself.

Nothing is complex about

sugar cubes fitting into mason jars

or cookie-cutter stairs to the —

When you tell the Stars I’m home,

tell them I’ve missed their twinkle at night.

Tell the Wolves that I used to shine once too but that

iridescent blades do the trick when daylight needs its saving hour

and all we have is

strikes against the clock

and a pocketful of sunshine

to be our saving grace this time. Or so,

I thought.

116 | Perception

Light the Night


Spring 2023 | 117

angel

Madelyn Gosselin

nestled between a bustling city

and the salt of the sea

is a little town where the blue

sky glows bluer and balmy wind

blows warm against bronzed

skin seemingly all year ‘round.

under the North American rays

he sits, back to the waves.

hands are too hot to hold,

but they lay close on the sand,

pushing and pulling like

metal to a magnet.

red and orange flames

blazing under his hands.

he smiles the type of smile

that you can’t help returning.

a tender touch to the neck.

a fit of giggles as you

catch your breath.

when orange light comes

through the open window, it

casts him in a halo. one

i am sure he does not deserve,

but he may wear it for now

against my better judgment.

here, the summer sun shines for

him.

when the sun has set,

the world changes.

cool to the touch,

his skin glows red

against the fire. his lips are

candied in chocolate

and marshmallow,

crumbs coat his upper lip.

he is sweet

both inside and out.

his skin is warm and

dark from days in the sun;

flecked with spots you can see

under dim light.

the warmth is

all-consuming now,



Masked

Steel Jungle

Hymn

Steel jungle

Walking down the paths

Surrounded by the bushes, the rusty branches

Search for moisture.

At dawn,

Take a deep breath

Feel the scent of hellfire.

Steel jungle

Delicate grasses raise their heads

And are oppressed by unknown heaviness.

A step and another step, until the road of civilization

Appears on blood and lives.

Desire for identity

To build a sweet iron home

Steel jungle

Oozing out of the land, the greasy

Liquid flow back to where it comes from.

A place once called the ocean.

Let it evaporate

And come back as heavy rain

Sill jungle

Between the valley of skyscrapers, car-rivers flow

You and I are fallen leaves and weeds

120 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 121

Sophie Clinton | Mixed Media (Newspaper, Pencil)

Family Portrait

New World

Carly Cernek

Officials believe they should act now

Until today, they sat and watched us fall apart

What once was contained spreads like wildfire

Stores closed, schools long gone–what’s next?

Anger in the streets; people are finally breaking

We haven’t heard any news in a long time

Our world balances on the edge of catastrophe

On the street, I see a mother abandon her child

The margin of error now is very thin

The child is crying now, tears blurring his infant face

I watch from my window and try

To remember what life used to be,

But I am drowning under the child’s tears.

An announcement wails from loudspeakers

It tells us not to panic; order will be restored soon

People don’t seem to hear, they keep on running

And burning and killing and screaming

And on the street the child has now disappeared

122 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 123


Parade of Planets

homage to my legs

Charles Gebbia

these legs were strong legs

they needed room to

roam around.

they don’t like to

sit still. these legs

were running legs.

they like to move.

these legs bounce in place,

they move how they want,

unless they don’t want to.

these legs are bad legs,

at least one of them is.

this leg moves when it wants

and stops when it wants.

this leg locks and limps,

drags and trips.

these legs carried for years,

ran for years,

moved in their own right,

but now they stumble.

and yet they carry still,

lumbering as they may.

they still need room to roam,

and want to run.

124 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 125

Ballet of greys, symphony of

nothing

Alexandra Milchovich

Mayfly

Claire Aronson

[For Thomas—Tommy]

Americana glimmers in you,

forgotten red, white, and blue daze,

flags smoldering to crisps of nostalgia,

lit up by trust fund teenagers,

their hand-rolled cigarettes wafting violence in silk puffs.

Granulated memories are rolling films,

shaking upon the silver screen,

in my chest, the rock rumbles,

clattering against broken, bloodied ribs,

it’s smothering you,

isn’t it?

A ballet of greys, a symphony of nothing,

its weight squashes my feather lungs,

You pry my eyes open, ripping out my scorching tears and I’m

screaming into the void of your

full eyes and off-kilter nose;

I pray for a You without a woman

so hellbent on her quest for martyrdom.

Wishful sweetness in your wasteland,

a fat pomegranate’s scent wafting for

a wandering zombie with a

fruitless mind, a barren womb, and

a rumbling stomach of ice.

Familiar splotches of heady purple on skin,

chapped lips prodding at used flesh,

eroding that stone under my breast.

A mayfly has made acquaintance with December.

The desk chair is well worn,

by you,

who never could sit still.

A mother, who lays sliced fruit like flower petals

Eats a yellow egg and curses

Pigeons perch on green copper shoulders while

The frigid cat slinks through your door for her Nap

all too familiar

Four white walls stand bare, overbearing

If I could,

I’d tug at your ears until they’re hot red magenta

Pull out your hair until you can see

And cup your cheeks, more freckles than face

And say,

As many times as I have to,

that your day is not done.

Not just yet.

The scuffs on my knees, despair follows:

digging reddening nubs of fingernails into

bars of the cage.


Amreeta Verma | Alcohol Ink

Bloom - In Memory of Gretchen Joyce Dater

Afloat

Grace Underwood

I keep my eyes closed when I float in the ocean,

And let myself be lulled into a false sense of security.

The world has devolved to a black nothingness,

Stained with the yellow, red warmth of a dying star.

The break between air and sea,

dropping and rising against my neck and stomach.

The white noise sounds like my hands are

pressed over my ears.

The chill hasn’t yet set into my bones.

For now, it soothes sun dried skin.

The smell of hours old sunscreen

still lingering by my nose.

And salt melts on my tongue,

Where it has traced over desert lips.

The little knot of panic keeps my face

held higher than the rest of me,

Pressed into a breeze that promises

more oxygen than hydrogen,

Despite the invisible fog that slips into my lungs.

I keep my eyes closed when I float in the ocean,

And pretend I am nowhere at all.

128 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 129

Chronic Limerence

Olivia Happel

why does each and every side plot

manage to uproot my existence

derail my plans

and encase my body in simultaneous fear and fantasy?

how does every new person i meet

manage to manipulate my mind

tickle my feelings

in such a way that i cannot let go?

not meant for permanency, but for thrill;

for the means to what end?

an end of pleasure via substance and sex

for a feeling of numbness

to conceal an insecurity of fear,

fear of not being remembered in someone else’s plot

they all become chapters of my story book

main characters in my plot’s tangents

whom i slowly repress, but carry with me indefinitely

i fight the urge to keep a tab on every side plot

for they are what i make of my identity in these chapters,

as i abandon my inner self

to allocate space for such thrills

perhaps deep down,

i long for the day that i comfortably drive my own plot, in solitude

the day I no longer tolerate the thrills of deep infatuation

and the scars it leaves on me

Temporality

Olivia Happel | Watercolor, Pen, Ink, Marker

130 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 131

wednesday evening tremors


the earth shakes and i shake with it,

hold my hand to the grass to feel its breath.

at night i dream of orange peels and

neon signs that buzz like hornets.

i turn the bend on rollerskates

and think only briefly about my hands

in your tangled hair. in silence we find

the rhythm again and i dream of nothing

this time, sleep with heaving, restful breaths.

you make it into my poems like a footnote,

and i audition for a part in your life

without remembering any of the lines.

it’s easy to love you when your eyes are closed.

Crowded Shapes


132 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 133

mud.

I. G. Chapin

You stand before me, your head heavy from the weight of your

transgressions.

I stand before you, knee-deep in an oak barrel full of mud.

You confess to me the things you have done:

The betrayals,

The lies,

The third, more nefarious thing.

I cannot hear you, for the mud blocks my ears.

You cry, you beg for forgiveness,

But my head has gone under, I am submerged in the mud.

“I never meant for it to end up like this,” you say.

I do not respond, only a few bubbles on the surface of the mud, and

then, they stop.

You dig through the barrel, but I am gone,

Nothing more than a memory,

Nothing less than a barrel full of mud,

Nothing at all.

1980's Horror Film

Sara Oppenheimer | Digital

134 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 135

Designer Cigarette

Eva Greene

Your new girlfriend–

The one who has a stack of seven novels by her bed

That she uses as a pedestal for her iPhone as she sleeps

Because seven is a magic number and she’s hard to read,

The one who cries rosewater and drinks cereal milk

And smokes designer cigarettes, the single pack

“Ready To Smoke” in Tiffany blue,

The one who has a pocket peacock as a pet

And flips through a vintage Vogue on the toilet,

The one who smells like a Christmas tree farm

And picks up aluminum cans off the street on her way home

From house parties for her “Personal Project” –

She came up to me yesterday and brushed the hair

Out of my face and smiled at me so gently

That I earnestly apologized for things I wouldn’t dream of doing.

She’s an altar to be worshiped day and night.

I can’t fathom how you’re strong enough not to.

136 | Perception

Spin!

Brenna Phelan | Pen and Marker

Spring 2023 | 137

Little Mermaid

Brenna Phelan | Acrylic on Canvas

138 | Perception

Spring 2023 | 139

PERCEPTION

140 your | student Perception fee

Perception Spring 2023

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