Issue 35.0
Editor’s Note
To the Washington College community ―
It isn’t a truth invisible to me that I have the privilege of being the first Editor in Chief in several years not faced with taking the helm during a time labeled on behalf of the collective as unprecedented. Our most recent former Editors in Chief, including my own incomparable predecessor Eylie Sasajima, each navigated turbulence with a dignity and compassion I will sincerely endeavor to emulate.
I’ve found, though (and I recognize this stems, perhaps, from a college career in which every year took drastically different forms), that precedence tends to operate as a nebulous concept at best. Collegian this year, in many ways, is returning to its most theoretically precedented form. We’ll once again have four issues in print, we’ll be resuming workshops, and we’ve reintroduced a position to our team of editors with the hope of connecting more directly with our community.
We’re also putting in the work to better embrace that community in ways we’ve been unable to previously. In every way we can, we’re investing our attention in those who invest their attention in us: hosting launch parties, revamping our Publications House and website, and striving to establish connectivity beyond the scope of our pre-established spaces. In a sense, Collegian is a living, intrinsically variable thing — alignment with precedence is not our primary ambition, nor is the maintenance of any preconceived status quo. Our endeavor is to be persistent in our growth and enduring in our progression.
This first issue of our 35th volume is comprised of the work of a team I am unyieldingly proud to be a member of. Caryl, Joshua, Lucy, Vee, Seth, Sophia, and Iris are brilliant talents with editorial insight beyond even their cumulative years. It is my distinct honor to work alongside them, and my genuine joy to offer their words and their art up to you now. I hope you’ll handle it all with care.
Be good to one another,
Sophie Foster
Editor in Chief
Table of Contents
Untitled by Sophia Lennox (header image)
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
“Patrimony” by Joshua Torrence
“The Shore” by Lucy Verlaque
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
“Untitled, Unknown” by Caryl Townsend
“moonlight in bedroom window while i change” by Iris Scherr
Fox and Doll by Vee Sharp
“Memory Lane” by Lucy Verlaque
“Teenage Birthday Mosaic in Blue” by Sophie Foster
Winter 2022 by Caryl Townsend
“On the Topic of Generational Trauma” by Iris Scherr
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
“Lineage” by Sophie Foster
“last rites” by Joshua Torrence
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
“My Trip to the Aquarium by the Sea” by Seth Horan
(Un)Tethered by Vee Sharp
“How Sleep Made Me Trans” by Caryl Townsend
“everest on bended knee” by Sophie Foster
Days and Hours by Caryl Townsend
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
by Joshua Torrence
Patrimony
Beneath milk and star, porch light on and whirring, an empty house
rose erect and mighty amidst the shrill yearnings of toads.
A child alone across the road stood still, his hair in a long braid
someone had knotted down his spine. He was staring at a ghost
waving from a window above the lichened awning. She had two wings,
it seemed, and an eye on each side of her skull, like a chicken.
No smile, barely a face. She only looked on, waving. No chicken
was ever so calm as this waif. She turned from the window, and the house
wrapped her deeper into its shade, drawing the child closer. What wings!
And that woman with her dinosaur eyes! Hidden in the dewy grass, all the toads
went hush as he took his first steps from the road onto the lawn. Yes, a ghost
will do that. Diminish distance. Open a door. The child’s blond braid
had grown brown, wet with sweat. Without knowing it, he pulled the braid
into his fingers as he mounted the porch, donning its light. He knew a chicken
as a baby once, a black rooster, who pecked him bloody on an old barn floor. No ghost
could hurt me half as bad as that, he thought, drifting like air into the unlocked house.
As if one with the child and one with the watching moon, the toads
remained silent, slimy, settling into a nervous vigil. The woman’s rustling wings
were a sad sound, bright green and chafing against each other, the type of wings
a parrot keeps at its side in a rusted cage. The tight, dirty braid
had wet the child’s fingers; he couldn’t stop fiddling with it. Where there are toads,
there are tongues, tongues uncurling and catching. Even a frightened chicken
has a tongue, has a language. All but a house
speaks; a house only eats, eats every voice inside it, digesting nothing. A ghost
is such a voice. Sound bound to wallflower and floorboard. Himself almost a ghost,the child crept, reverently tiptoeing his way toward the wings.
Shadows. Cobwebs in corners. The welcome mat frayed. To house a house,
what does it take? Dusting china. Sweeping glass from underfoot. The child put the braid
in his mouth when he saw a trail of feathers leading to the living room. Too chicken
to follow it, he sucked on the brine of his tangles. Outside, growing hungry, some toads
flashed out their separate tongues. Spirits — little flies that keep buzzing in toads’
translucent throats. Moths latched to porch lights. He caught a glimpse of her. Can a ghost
touch what is not of its world? She was weeping feathers over a hearthstone. Can a chicken
fly? Almost. Almost. The child breathed. The woman heard; she walked to him. With her wings,
she made a circle around the child, cocking her head at his being. Letting go of his braid,
the child took two fingers to his lips and placed that kiss on her blank forehead. No house
could have bargained for such a gesture. The toads let loose their love songs. Wings
furled into words forgiving the night of its quiet. There was no ghost. Just a father, unbraiding
his son’s wild hair. The house became what it contained — hugs. Hugs as ancient as chicken.
by Lucy Verlaque
The Shore
I was raised on day trips to the beach.
Though my family’s house was located in the Santa Clarita Valley, belonging to a suburban oasis within mountain walls, it’s the coast I think of when I think of home. The days in which I could escape suffocating desert heat and instead breathe in the soothing spray of salt air seemed to pass through my hands like the sea water I reveled in; I treasured them like the fragile shells I picked up along the sand.
Though fleeting, these days produced a peaceful aura that could be replicated nowhere else. I walked down the shoreline with my siblings, finding tidepools in the rocks along the way. We garnered tar on our soles and seaweed around our ankles as souvenirs from our journeys. Seal sightings from cliffside heights stunned us into silence, while flashes of dolphin fins sparked cheers of excitement.
Our towels and sandals were always tossed carelessly in the sand; we were impatient and only thought of racing toward the water. I soothed freshly sunburnt skin in a sea that never warmed, painting my lips blue with the Pacific chill. I thrived in the freedom of those tumbling waves, diving recklessly into their desperate depths.
It’s the western coastline that became the haven of my girlhood, within those blurred lines where sky melted into water and unknown melted into possibility.
When I think of California, I think of its beaches.
I fell in love quickly.
He and I were both born in New Jersey. My family brought me west long before I could form an attachment, but he grew up there, spending summers at his family’s beach house on the shore. Despite my roots, I had never been to a Jersey beach in my twenty years of life; from the moment I told him this, we argued over coastal superiority.
“West coast is the best coast,” I teased. “Can’t argue with the rhyme.”
He was a good sport and went along with my joke even though I knew he disagreed. We were both aware of nostalgia’s hand in our biases, after all; our loyalties lay firmly with our respective upbringings.
He visited me in California a few months into our relationship. I was excited to show off the beaches I’d been praising; I was conceited and convinced there was nothing like them. I bragged about the mountains, purple and hazy beneath the thick seaside air, towering impressively over the water. I pointed out the wildlife and the landscape, how the coastal towns seem to blend in seamlessly with the natural beauty. I was proud of the Pacific and its swells of royal blue.
But we both got distracted easily. Somewhere between ocean views and flushed smiles, my eyes were bright and shy and, for the first time, I impulsively said, “I love you.”
Now, when he thinks of my west coast beaches, he thinks of my lips — thinks of those three words tumbling from them like the waves on the rocks below us. I doubt he even remembers the mountains against the shoreline, sloping into the sand and greeting the sparkling tides.
When he thinks of California, he thinks of me.
He brought me to his family’s beach house one weekend in July.
The land was flat and the streets were tightly packed. I watched rows of tall buildings pass by from the car window; they all had sharp white trim that glinted brightly in the sun.
The shore was crowded too, brimming with beach umbrellas and sunburnt bodies. I was admittedly intimidated by the volume of people along the wide stretch of sand, the swimmer-spotted sea, the chairs and ice cream carts and voices. I leaned back in a borrowed recliner and tried to adapt to the buzz of the unfamiliar atmosphere. He sat in one next to me, smiling with ease.
We walked down the shoreline, dodging swarms of strangers and bold seagulls. The sand was dotted with lonely shells that had washed in with the tide; there were no tendrils of seaweed to accompany them. When he took me paddleboarding, I was taken aback by the affability of the Atlantic, which glowed teal under the daylight — the waves were rough, but it took no effort to adjust to the water’s warm temperature.
As the day progressed, so did my peace of mind. I grew used to my new surroundings. I began to forget about the overwhelming expanse and overcrowdedness and lack of mountains.
But back inside the beach house, he pointed out photos on the wall—decades of summers spent and memories made — and I thought about how I’d still never be able to love this beach the way he did. Those family photos weren’t mine. Neither were the reclining chairs, or the paddleboard, or the Atlantic.
Instead, I’d fallen in love with the way the Jersey sun tanned his skin; the way the ocean water lingered in his hair and fell from his eyelashes; the way the town and house and memories brightened his smile.
When I think of the Jersey Shore, I think of him.
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
by Caryl Townsend
Untitled, Unknown
I don’t think any body
was meant to hold
this soul of mine.
No true honor
in possessing the handbook,
whether it be true
or simply just sacred.
Its concepts,
its hair and muscle,
its adherence to sound,
its measurement of limbs,
its unwillingness to enjoy
loud laughter, or
making a mind known.
But I wonder,
often, how love fills —
fits in a mass
with no borders.
No name for
how fruit falls off its own tree,
rots, propagates,
sows its own seed.
Gender that is bitter,
mushy, rotting, waiting,
for a lovesome child
to fingerpaint identity
with whatever remains
it has around.
No matter.
It cannot be
held within a palm,
neither the dysfunctional system
it grows around
for the sake of two.
But growing nonetheless,
like the weeds before me,
mint, dandelions,
bachelors’ button, chicories —
I’ll bloom alongside roadkill,
and hope for a stranger
to love the rarities of me.
by Iris Scherr
moonlight in bedroom window while i change
my uncle is a moth to the moon;
he said he follows what doesn’t
hurt the eyes. my mother reaches
for her partner in a crowded room;
she grabs her husband’s hand.
tired eyes that fly open on order.
in mend i am a single grain of sand.
i reach for her in a crowded room,
but she’s not married to the idea of children;
she’s married to her man.
we don’t look at the sun when she’s changing,
but the moon stays in the corner of our
window while we drive. our parents
know that luna makes us act crazy;
my mother and i fall from the same sky.
my soft dog had his tail fall off, his fur gone
rough to muddy concrete. we let him in the river
to swim the groggy surf’s murk. he munches
crawdads in the broken stenches.
we eat pieces of my grandpa’s broken liver.
my passive father walks with the clock.
i am sorry, i am sorry, i say.
reckless with innocence, he only wipes my tears
when my cheeks grow hot —
but not for this, not for god’s fallen kiss.
they all pick the sins of my forget-me-nots.
i am growing up, i am growing older. they forgot
i was young. i say i am sorry for interrupting,
sorry for eating the only fish in the groggy sea.
i think to myself, i see the moon, and he sees me.
Fox and Doll by Vee Sharp
by Lucy Verlaque
Memory Lane
When we moved to Memory Lane, I was seven years old and not yet acquainted with the concept of change. The few months prior had become especially stressful for my unsuspecting parents, who were just trying to find a bigger place in a more affordable location; they hadn’t anticipated that my attachment to our old home would influence tearful tantrums and bad behavior at open houses.
The day we visited the soon-to-be-new house, I was stony-faced and prepared to sulk. My mother brought me to the window seat at the top of the stairs, which overlooked the street below. She took my hand as we sat together. “This could be your window seat,” she said. “You could sit and read here every day.” I took her words and turned them over in my mind a few times, picturing myself perched in that very spot with a book in my hands and the world laid out before me beyond the glass. I softened a little at the thought of it being mine.
Though reluctant at first, I adjusted to our new home quickly and found myself venturing beyond the window seat’s corner. My younger siblings and I became fast friends with the next-door neighbors, who were around our age and shared the wall that separated our backyards. We often scrambled over the rough bricks to greet each other, ignoring the scrapes that peppered our fragile skin from the precarious climb. To return to our yard we leapt off the wall, soaring over a large lavender bush and landing in a circle of overgrown grass.
Our backyard was small, but so were we — in our eyes, an entire ecosystem existed within that space. Our imaginations thrived alongside the flowerbeds; we painted wooden birdhouses and planted them among the clovers and bluebells, a fairy-sized replica of our own neighborhood. The lavender bush watched over them, its velvet petals extended protectively like porcupine quills.
Most days, we ran around outside with the neighbors until the deep afternoon sky became pastel with evening. In the mornings, we walked to school with them, turning at a bend in the road and passing a honeysuckle bush that grew alongside a lengthy wall. We picked the flowers and bit the ends off to sip the few drops of nectar enclosed within their stems. It was a ritual that seemed to sweeten the looming school day that stood between us before we could return home and repeat the cycle.
I’ve become better acquainted with change since I was seven. Years fall around me now like snow, gathering incrementally in a white film that seems to blend the past with the present. I can’t remember the last time I sat in the little window seat or spoke to the neighbors. The backyard seems to have shrunk even more now that I’ve grown tall and my siblings have grown taller. The lavender bush has been cut down. The grass and garden have been replaced with flagstone and turf. The honeysuckle bush down the road has disappeared, too. Time taught me to love the Memory Lane I had been so reluctant to move to and transformed it before I ever got the chance to tell it so.
by Sophie Foster
Teenage Birthday Mosaic in Blue
Thirteen
I watched the ceiling fan flick cool air away for hours on the night that led me into my thirteenth birthday, overcome by the conviction that I’d make a grim reaper pledge in my sleep. Every day that I spent as a twelve-year-old I became increasingly certain that I’d never make it to thirteen, unable to envision myself popping bubblegum past gloss-pinked lips. In middle school, I was all elbows and teeth, slim corners and touchy wires. I couldn’t frame myself in the shadow of the girls on TV when I teetered in my mother’s high heels on beige carpet. I didn’t believe I could be anything I couldn’t construct in my head with all the vivid surety of a final girl on the big screen. I spent the night concaved at the corner of my bed frame, phone screen digitizing the hours that fell away and my own living breath keeping me aware of the air around me until it hit 11 a.m., the time I’d plunged into things thirteen years ago, and I couldn’t argue that I’d become a teenager in spite of it all.
Fourteen
I PicsArt-edited my face onto a banana the day I turned fourteen, plaster-stuck in a “so random” era where nothing was quite as funny as a synthetic mustache above the lip and the greatest honor I’d ever received was a computer-inked paper Oscar award for dumbest iMovie video from my best friend. My mom let me celebrate fourteen with overplucked eyebrows and hibachi at the place down the road. I was told fourteen was the first real teenage year, the one where high school began and I’d learn to open my lips to cheap vodka. I’d cut my hair and shave my legs and learn to lie ferociously, and I was ready to call it all rites of passage. For all my Clorox-bleached hair and freshly straightened teeth, I couldn’t stop leafing back through children’s books, fluttering pages turned flammable wings. I kept a journal sporadically then, calling it a book of letters to mature me. I memorized vocabulary words and tore them all out of their binding a month or so after my birthday, when middle school ended and summer hit steady.
Fifteen
My last birthday party was my fifteenth, and I spent it burning elbow-to-elbow with the other three Aries in my class, Converse-stomping the sidewalk and pretending to balance clockwork. We hovered by trellises, nothing to climb but everything to pause by. All of us, clothed in close-cut t-shirts and skinny jeans that hugged, had newly cut same-length hair that stroked our shoulders, the hair of children playing pretend. I’d been tugged by hearty, pilled yarn through almost a year of high school, and I patterned this passage as an oversized sweater, billowing and puffed. I thought a lot about bricks while I moved into fifteen — chest-pinning, ankle-tugging bricks — and I had an image of them as irreversibly, singularly, exclusively mine.
Sixteen
I traded a sweet sixteen for a sold out concert downtown, one I wouldn’t go to now but felt dazzling at then, up late with sloppily winged eyeliner and French-braid-waved hair. I wore the already off-trend Adidas I’d begged for that Christmas and stood up in the crowd even as the people around me tired and took their seats. I carried myself through the city with my cratered young energy, the kind that powered me through miles of walking every day as a plea for calmness from my keyed-up body. This was the birthday I celebrated with weed I didn’t know how to smoke from an apple bowl in the rain. It was the year I didn’t learn to drive. My therapist and my mother and my barely-touched journal called me fragile, and I felt like maybe I should agree.
Seventeen
My seventeenth birthday was the last birthday I spent believing I could marry myself to ease, and even as I was living it I remembered very little about it. I wore maroon florals and went fabric shopping and called myself a dancing queen to anyone who’d listen but no one who’d watch. It was all mirrors, all backwards and false brightness. I gifted myself platforms to stop feeling small.
Eighteen
I became an adult while applying glittery eyeshadow on the floor of my childhood bedroom with a Winnie the Pooh poster tucked beside my desk next to me. I said for awhile that I spent it alone, but more truly I spent it cupped by gaps of air, spacers between my family and me. My grandparents visited in medical masks and everyone sat in hilled pockets of my backyard, eating sushi in the spring chill. I took photos and felt like I had something to show.
Nineteen
Hours before I would have turned nineteen in a cinderblock-and-linoleum dorm room, I packed a bag and drove ninety minutes off campus to get back home. I dressed myself up as a firepit and pretended to have a boldness I didn’t. The semester had hollowed me out as thoroughly as an intangible thing can, so I glued press-ons to my gnawed-down nailbeds and overdid the makeup on my sleepless skin. I framed the day with videos of myself in the sunlight creeping over the windowsill, self-slashed hair in pigtails on either side of my face, talking in whispers to myself as if I could possibly have anything left to say back.
Winter 2022 by Caryl Townsend
by Iris Scherr
On the Topic of Generational Trauma
Eighth grade. I’m lying down for the first time all day. My eyes slowly fall shut. My room is quiet. There’s always an unsettling feeling in the dark; I’m used to it. Goosebumps appear over my neck. I’ve always convinced myself I was a mind reader and could feel when someone was watching me, like in the movies. This time is no different. I turn around to see a peak of light from outside. A man, slowly creaking open my door, facial features remaining stiller than floorboards that croak at night. A glinting smile — no, a smirk — blurred behind a beard. Eyes wide, possibly brown, behind glasses, although it’s too dark to tell.
“Dad?” I ask out; he’s the only man that lives in my house. But my dad doesn’t have a beard.
I sit up in bed. Who is this man in my room? My body freezes as if Medusa herself is staring back at me. My chest feels compressed. I take several shallow inhales at once and then forget how to exhale. I watch as he slowly closes the door, eyes never moving away from me. When the door shuts behind him, I wake up sitting. I can hear my heart jumping in my throat. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I check all the rooms — I wake up my sister. I wake up my parents. They convince me it is a dream. I go back to bed.
*
Same year. I had once read a story about a woman who was attacked by a ghost and shared it online. A commenter said that the ghost was a good spirit because it had three fingers, which it had used to scratch her. I don’t know how many fingers an evil spirit would have — but I begin to worry. Panic. I’m lying in bed face-down to my pillow. I could feel fingernails scratching at the back of my head. I shove it away with my hands but to no avail. It keeps scratching. I convince myself it’s a witch or a ghost. My legs can’t move. How many fingers does it have? I ask myself over and over again. One, two, three, or four? One, two, three, or four? But I’m too focused on the stubby hands clawing at me to actually count.
Then it squeaks.
That’s when it hits me, the dream logic, that there must be rats scratching at the base of my skull. I try to flip over, but I can’t. I try to move them away with my arms, but I can’t. I try to kick my feet, but I can’t. Imagine thinking there are rats in your hair and not being able to do anything about it? All of this happens in early morning hours after the sun rises. Disgust riddles me. I wiggle in my mattress sheets. They dig in my hair. Crawl over the back of my head. Their claws rip painfully at my skull.
The scratching and squeaking stop. I look around, finally able to move. I brush my fingers through my hair, checking for bugs, mice, anything that could be perceived as dirty. The feeling in my last dream follows me through to this. I think about the man from the previous one and briefly imagine his hands clawing at my scalp. Even when my fingers come out clean, I know that something is wrong.
They’re gone. Or they were never there.
*
It’s the summer before ninth grade. I’m in bed with my foot dipping out from under the blanket. Normally that bothers me, but today it will be fine. I’m exhausted and don’t have the energy to fix it. I lay there. It bothers me. I ignore it. When my eyes finally close, I forget that my foot is hanging below the covers.
I wake up to something grabbing my ankle. It pulls me out of my loft bed. I fall on the floor with a grunt. The dark ominous tentacle wraps around my foot. The creature continues trying to drag me away. I cling to one of the legs of my bed, gripping it until my knuckles turn white. I brace myself for death. Like a shadow, it’s about to swallow me whole.
But I’m not in pain. The creature pulls me out of my bed, I fall seven feet on my ribs, and don’t feel anything.
This is a dream.
I wake up breathing heavily in bed. I treat it as a barrier of protection. With this, nothing can ever touch me. In all the previous dreams, the blanket is also covering my foot, but this time will be different because this one is especially bad. A piece of my brain slips away. I pull the blanket back over my foot.
*
Ninth grade. I’m in the chair below my loft bed. I can’t move again. Confusion overcomes me because I remember going to sleep in my bed, not the chair. That’s when I notice the man standing there — was he the same one? He also has a beard, but no glasses. He smiles wide and mimics animal noises as he strolls over to me. Like the last man, he grins. But this one is unnatural — it never leaves his face. Even when he says “quack” repeatedly like a monster.
As he comes closer to me, I try to yell, but any sound that would come out of my mouth is like letting out a breath. My screams sound like I’m blowing through a straw. He hovers right in front of me. His hot breath lands on my face. The body is heavy like a bag of sand. My body is heavy like a bag of sand. I just sit. He smiles like every other man in every other bad dream.
When I wake up — for real this time — I’m in my loft bed.
*
Eleventh grade. I’ve been staring at my phone for the last several hours, blinking rapidly. It’s currently 1 a.m., around the time I can force myself to fall asleep from sleep deprivation. In a few hours is around the time I wake up sweating because of something grasping at my bare body. Closing my eyes doesn’t work. Staying up doesn’t work. I watched YouTube videos about people who train their brains to go directly into REM cycle. Because of this, they only need a half hour of sleep to be fully rested. They could do whatever they wanted with their spare time. Maybe I can do that — a half hour of sleep means seven and a half hours less of night terrors.
A half hour is still too much. I go downstairs and make sure the doors are locked. I sit on one of the chairs and wait for the sun to rise. Perhaps I could go to sleep when it is light outside.
My horror shows itself in my writing. One dream I have is about my mom getting hung inside my house. After, I leave my sister to die as I run out the door with my dad. She screams from upstairs, and a surgeon modifies my dog’s body on the kitchen table. I write several stories about this.
The dreams succeed in convincing me there are bugs in my bed, witches under my mattress, and men in the doorway. It is the men that scare me most of all. None of them do anything to protect me.
The night I did stay up all night — until 7:30 a.m., I went back to bed, figuring it would be easier now that it was light outside. I remember tossing and turning and feeling as though something was touching me. I reached for the hand, or whatever it was, and grabbed it, trying to defend myself. I pulled it out of the sheets so it would stop touching me to see it was not a hand but a snake. I held it over my bed. It hissed at me. I dropped it. I looked down at the floor from my loft bed to make sure it was dead.
That was the last time I had a dream like that.
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
by Sophie Foster
Lineage
It’s Saturday when I crack eggs to filmy unbirth ―
No-sun striking me mistied, gray, twinkling secession.
Flour undernail, flower underfoot,
respectively pledged to powder or flavored a shrug.
Taste the too plain, the too sweet,
the no-sun.
(When Gram died I listened for breathing,
heard a whirring fan and a pair of loose lips,
sculpted batter into fingerholds that smelled like sick sweetness
and no sun).
August calls me pallid or caffeine-tongued. I cut off my hair again, I cut
angels out of ancient cookie dough.
No inclusion, no groupage, no collective,
no sun.
None of this reroutes the turnpike. I like words that are
so much, so delicate, so sunny.
by Joshua Torrence
last rites
when i heard about the sun — how one day it would not deign
to set and how its red, sick eye would widen and devour, killing day
and reddening and spilling into night — i laughed, and knew
i would not live,
so i picked up my phone and learned
a new language from a pea-green owl (as if to signify wisdom),
i polished my glasses and ate pb&j’s for breakfast,
washed the dishes, wrote a song and sang it
to a man i was trying not to fall for, i fell,
and did so gracelessly, down hills and up stairs
in a strange, inscrutable hurry, as if in a rush
to get somewhere, i ran, i walked, i danced, i laid down,
i lived.
living felt like pulling the sea and pushing it. i had power. i grew tired.
breathing, i let the light make me, and the dark, that dream, undo me.
god was sun and voyeur, shocked at the world it made in its good gaze,
burning and staring, warming me and watching me, watching my body
as if loving me.
and the flames will flood in
and my family will set stones over my eyes
and all will be dark and god itself will grow weary
and turn away from what it made by touching it at last,
unmaking it, setting the land and seas to shambles,
annihilating itself, tossing loose rock through space
where nothing breathes and nothing bends,
where nothing is all.
i will not be loved,
i am beyond loving. the earth will take me in.
i will shrug off heaven if i can’t have my body.
my body is me,
and i will keep it.
there are mushrooms and worms and more
darkness where i’m going. i will take off my shoes,
be bare and ready. be myself — mycelium, inheriting,
pulsing, connecting, remaining.
Untitled by Sophia Lennox
by Seth Horan
My Trip to the Aquarium by the Sea
July 31, 2023
I was supposed to go to the aquarium in the city with Dad the other day, but when I woke up, he wasn’t even out of bed yet. I instinctively knew something was up. I called to him from the bottom of the stairs, but he didn’t respond, so I went up to check on him. Of course, I knocked on his door, and when I did, he said to come in. He looked sick, the poor fellow. He’s been under the weather for the few months it’s been since Mom went to live across town for work, or something, so I’ve been trying to cheer him up. That’s part of the reason I wanted to go to the aquarium so bad — to get him out of the house and spend some quality time with me. Also, because I really like the ocean.
Once I was in his room, he motioned for me to join him by his bed. Up close, I could make out the purplish bags under his eyes and the redness around them and on his nose and cheeks and forehead. His hair was all flat and greasy too. When I stood looking at him, he was looking at me too, and then reached out and pulled me in for a big hug. The hug felt a little awkward, because he wasn’t even sitting up, but I let him hug me, since I figured he must be feeling pretty bad to not even make me breakfast. When I went downstairs and saw that he hadn’t made any, I just went to watch TV until I felt it was about time we should be leaving.
When I finally managed to pry out of his surprisingly dry and sour-smelling arms, he just sighed and looked at me some more.
I was starting to get impatient with him, as I’m sure most caregivers do with their uncooperative patients, and finally just blurted out, “What?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well. I don’t think I’ll be able to go to the aquarium today. Make sure you go sometime soon.” The tension in his face relaxed into a smile as he finished saying this.
Obviously, none of that made any sense, so I asked him, “Will you come with me, or do I have to go by myself?”
“I can’t go with you, but don’t let me stop you.” After that, he leaned in to kiss me on the forehead, then sank back down into his sheets, where he watched me as I left for a second before closing his eyes tightly. I made sure to close his door after me, so I didn’t disturb him with my breakfast.
Dad’s always saying weird stuff like that and expects you to know what he means. It used to get on my nerves, but I guess some people are just like that. In any case, I’ve gotten really good at interpreting him. When he says to do something soon, what he really means is, “Did you do your homework yet?” Like when I ask him if we can play Mario Kart, and he says, “Soon.” I guess breakfast is a little like homework . . .
I ended up eating Captain Crunch, which I’m only supposed to have on occasion because of how sugary it is, but I didn’t think Dad would be able to tell.
Then I went up to my room to grab my journal and a pencil. I ruffled my hand in my pocket on my way to make sure the cash was still there. I slipped it from my father’s wallet on his dresser after he closed his eyes in his room earlier. Then I went down to the laundry room and grabbed my shoes. I tightened the Velcro with one hand as I opened the side door.
Our house was on a road that came off the main one a little bit. From our yard, you could see the beginning of where the woods started to get really thick. I wasn’t allowed to go in there by myself in case I got lost, Dad said. Well, Mom said it first, but Dad’s been saying it since Mom moved away. Dad’s garage is in the yard too. I know some peoples’ are attached to their houses, but ours isn’t. It might be less convenient, but Dad said he likes to pretend to be a taken-for-granted scientist or engineer or something while he’s in there. That’s where I keep my bike, so I always make sure to pretend to be his assistant when I go in there, even when he’s not.
I used to think the basket on the bike was girly, but today it came in good use — it gave me somewhere to put my journal. I couldn’t have used my backpack because my school stuff was in there and Dad gets mad when I leave my stuff lying around, even if it’s in my own room, which I don’t get at all. And besides, how come he gets to have his dirty clothes laying around all over the place and have a whole mountain of empty water bottles by his bed and have his TV on, even when he's not watching it, but if I do any of that, he throws a fit? I get that he’s sick and all that, but excuses like that are unacceptable.
I rolled my bike out from the garage and along the side yard to the front of the house. The front of the house is where Mom kept her garden plots. The flowers and other leafy and stemmy plants have all grown large now, but they look nice. Dad makes sure to take care of them since Mom’s gone now.
When I passed them, I thought about writing about my morning so far in my journal, but before I could, I heard what sounded like someone heaving and sobbing, and I thought Dad must have been sad that I took his money. I wanted to buy a souvenir from the aquarium. I know I should have turned the money back in, but I thought Dad would understand. Also, I was a little scared that he would yell at me, so I hopped onto my bike and pedaled down the street.
·
The main road passed by a few expansive fields of grass and corn, but they were always bordered by more woods. I heard from Dad that the city where the aquarium is is surrounded entirely by water. I really wanted to see a place like that before I officially entered fifth grade. I could imagine standing on the dark blue carpets patterned with lines that trace the floor like the light at the bottom of a pool, surrounded entirely by a deep purple light. The light from the tanks would dance on my face. . . . I could swim through the aquarium and look out the window at the open sea, the sun trickling through the waves into the free and salty waters beneath the surface . . .
As I was thinking this, from down the road where it turned around the side of the hill it cut through, I noticed something greenish bobbing toward me along a current of wind. I was nervous for a second, but as we got closer, I could make out flippers and a large brown shell like a tropical shield on its back.
We were about to pass each other when the turtle started to drift into a small opening in the line of trees by the foot of the hill. I thought she might be going to the park, but since the trails can be a little confusing, I pedaled after her. She’s a long way from the ocean, after all.
When she saw me following her, she turned around and tread in place for a second for me to catch up. Then, she asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m Makai. Who are you?”
“I’m Leilani. Why are you following me?”
I told her about the trails.
“You’re so kind, Makai. I’d be glad to have you accompany me. But where, might I ask, are you off to?” As she spoke, we started along the cool, sun-dappled ground underneath the trees.
“I’m going to the aquarium in the city!”
Leilani’s face bubbled up, her eyes and mouth smiling wide. “It’s beautiful there. Sometimes I visit to talk with the other sea turtles.”
“I thought so.”
Her eyes and lips tightened suddenly. “Are you okay traveling alone?”
“I’m pretty anxious about it, but I really want to go to the aquarium before school starts, so I’m going anyway.”
“Why are you hurried to go before school starts?”
I thought for a moment as streams of light flashed over my face. Down the way, I could see a fork in the road.
“School stresses me out with all the work I have to do, and summer is the time I’m supposed to relax instead of work. Dad’s been busy or sick all summer, so I haven’t gotten to relax yet. Not like during an official vacation, anyway. Besides, during the school year, Dad’s pretty busy, even on weekends. He never has time to do anything, the poor fellow.”
At the fork, I pointed left, where the trees gave way to more sun, and the trail had weathered a bit from the rain last week. The right path was shaded and sturdy, but it only went in a loop, and you’d have to come right back.
“How come your dad lives such a sad life? He should loosen up more and play with you even if he’s a little busy.”
I nodded as I pedaled. “And he should give me more of an allowance if he doesn’t want me to swipe money from him.”
Leilani’s eyes widened and her mouth hung open a little when I said this. I told her why I swiped the money, and she seemed to understand.
“Do you know why your dad is so sick?”
“I think it’s because my mom moved out. He’s been like this ever since. To tell you the truth, I’ve felt really down too, but at least my mom gave me this before she left.” I held up my journal for Leilani to see. “Mom said she’d always be there for me whenever I’m anxious or sad, but if I couldn’t talk to her, or didn’t want to, to write in this journal. She said that pretending you’re talking to someone you trust can help relieve you of what’s weighing you down. I haven’t felt like that much, but I like writing in here anyway. I brought it with me to record my experiences at the aquarium, but when I get the chance, I’d like to write about you too.”
Leilani looked at me with her head cocked for a moment. “I never knew my mom and dad.”
“Is that so?”
“Sea turtles are born in the sand. When we hatch, our parents have long since returned to the sea. Left between the hungry birds on the beach and the vastness of the ocean, we have no choice but to paddle our bodies into the seafoam and let ourselves get carried out by the undertow.”
I told her that sounded pretty lonely.
“It can be, but that’s just what life is like for sea turtles. I imagine it’s different for people — you guys are supposed to have families.”
“How come?”
“I read in a book from the library,” Leilani started, “that human babies are helpless by themselves. It’s parents who help the babies stay safe and healthy, who teach them right from wrong, what’s important and what you can forget.”
“I think I read that one too. I’m just wondering, though . . .” I trailed off as the path before us started to fade into common dirt. We must have missed a turn somewhere. I realized I didn’t know where I was going, and I suddenly felt a great tightness in my throat, and a trembling feeling in my stomach. I didn’t want Leilani to be mad at me. So, I kept talking, like I knew where I was going.
“Why do people have to struggle so much just to stay alive? If that’s what life means, then what’s the point in all that?”
At the moment I finished, Leilani looked like she could sense the hesitance in my voice, the uncertainty in my movements. “We’re lost, aren’t we?”
I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I just froze.
“I don’t mind if we are. But I’ll need to get to the park soon so I can play before the sun goes down and I have to go home.”
My chin fell to my chest, and I just looked at my feet as I thought about what to say. Finally, when I’d made up my mind to ask her if she wanted to come with me instead, I lifted my eyes and met the gaze of a sunbeam coming through the trees where Leilani should have been. I guess she got tired of waiting for an answer. Maybe if I had known what to say . . . or maybe if I hadn’t asked a stupid question in the first place she would have come to the aquarium with me.
·
I found my way back out of the maze of trails and started down the main road again. Passing by the same trees and rocks and flower patches was a little boring; I felt like I should have forged through the undergrowth at the edge of that path. I guess I was able to see the backs of everything, though.
The main road flowed down, up, and around in swooping curves, like the movement of the tide. As I biked along the slope, I glanced every so often to the side, trying to see if I could make out the ocean through the lace of leaves or over the tops of the sparse buildings, but I only ever saw more woods.
Eventually, though, I reached the tunnel. The tunnel sits at the edge of town and winds like an S through the base of the small mountain the town was built on. Beyond the tunnel lies a tangle of asphalt and concrete I’d never dared to traverse alone. When I ride through the civil wilds with Dad, I always wonder how he can keep track of where we’re going.
But the real trouble wasn’t the tunnel and its snaking, grimy dullness or the knot of roads that waited to bake me into a confused exhaustion under the midday summer sun; what truly made my gut wrench was the creature who walks the tunnel, who has never set foot outside it.
You might think I’m being childish, but this spring, when my age was still in the single-digits, and right before Mom left, we all were driving through the tunnel when I caught a passing glimpse of something in the reflected rays of the headlights, no more than a foot long — but with pale, expressionless eyes and a gaping maw filled to bursting with needle-like teeth almost as tall as its head. The beast’s skin was like moist, rusting leather, and it seemed to be traveling by the footpaths hugging each wall of the tunnel, hunting. I haven’t been through the tunnel since then, but I’ve heard at school that sometimes kids go into it and never come out; undoubtedly because of whatever is living in the depths of its gloom.
I got off my bike and crept to the void-like, looming mouth of the tunnel. (Actually, now that I think about it, does the tunnel have two mouths? Two butts? One and the other — and which opening is what?) I steeled myself with a deep breath, a shake of my head, a smack of my cheeks, and a firm nod; then I crossed the threshold.
Immediately, I felt the air brushing past me grow cool, and the moisture sticking to my skin, suddenly like a thousand pin pricks of ice, sent a piercing sting up and down my spine. Usually when Mom, Dad, and I passed through the tunnel on our way to Grandma’s or the amusement park off the highway, there were a few other cars around — but today, I was alone. And I felt my heart begin to pull harder and harder at the inside of my chest, even though my limbs felt like less and less blood was reaching them, and my head felt like a rock.
I knew what was happening to me, so I was easily able to force myself deeper into the belly of the tunnel. I learned about it in a book. It’s fear — a consequence of an animal’s desire for survival. The thing with fear is it sometimes makes you want to run away, but they say the creature in the tunnel senses movement, so you have to step carefully.
At some point, I noticed my feet were beginning to hurt, so I turned around to see how far I had come. From where I was, the light from outside barely reached me, and the dim orange lights lining the tunnel every few yards flickered softly, which made my eyes hurt and caused me to see a bunch of fuzzy shapes wherever I looked. Behind me, I could make out the heat rising off the asphalt—
Then I saw something caught in a shadow lurch forward. It was small, but it was on the same side of the road that I was. I rotated my head back around slowly and continued walking on. Immediately after, someone called to me.
“Hi. How are you?”
I didn’t respond.
The voice repeated itself and I was quiet again.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The voice sounded friendly enough, but I couldn’t bring myself to check if the body matched.
I kept walking in silence, and eventually came only a handful of orange lights from being free. I turned around, barely moving a centimeter a second, to check if whatever had spoken before was still following me — and it was. I whipped my head back around and I felt tears boil up into my eyes — from fear or frustration, I wasn’t sure. I recognized the creature’s ugly face immediately.
It spoke to me again. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“How do—” My body felt stuck. I wavered back and forth for a moment before I could convince my legs to keep carrying me on.
“What was that?” the creature asked. It was closer this time, and I felt a couple hot tears stream down my cheeks, and suddenly feel just as frigid.
My body seemed to turn on its autopilot while I wracked my brain over what to do. If I talk to it, will it still eat me? If I’m quiet, will it get mad?
I decided to respond. I struggled as I spoke like every word sent me deeper into a pit of quicksand. “I was going to ask how I know you’re not going to hurt me.”
“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
How can I trust it if it might eat me? “Okay, then I trust you.”
“Do you really?”
“As long as you stay back there.” Come to think of it, if the creature was so intent on eating me, why hadn’t it done so already? Was it toying with me?
“That’s not really trust, then, is it?”
What did it want from me? What do animals want? I thought to myself, ignoring its question. Survival. Reproduction. Where did that leave me? This past school year, we talked about the necessities for survival. Food. Water. Shelter. Of course, after an animal has obtained these three things, it can think about reproduction. I don’t know exactly how that works, so I didn’t worry about it then.
What else does an animal want? What do I want?
“That’s not really trust, then, is it?” It repeated itself again.
“No, I guess not.”
“Then, at least tell me your name.”
I nearly stopped walking for a second. Was there any benefit to telling the truth? . . . Any to lying?
“I’m Makai.”
“I’m Dutton. . . . So, Makai, why are you traveling through the tunnel?”
I told him about my plan to go to the aquarium. “What about you?”
“I live here.”
“In the dark? Alone?”
“Yes.”
“What do you eat?”
“Are you worried about me eating you? I’m sorry, I eat fish — and sometimes turtles.”
Leilani flashed across my mind. Could he have eaten her before? That would explain why she suddenly disappeared . . .
A sweaty chill trickled down the center of my back. I could feel my heart clog my throat with every beat.
Dutton spoke again. “Are you alright?”
“Why are you following me?” As I said this, I felt a panicked relief wash over me to be just a few more steps from the main body of light rushing in from the exit to the tunnel.
“I—”
Hearing Dutton choke himself back, I felt the urge to turn to him, causing my body to twitch.
“I want to talk with you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
He wants to talk to me? I knew people were social animals — was whatever this guy was one too?
I looked over my shoulder at Dutton. “Why do you want to talk to me?”
He hesitated to speak, at once slowing to a halt.
Some time elapsed and the distance between us grew, my eyes still locked on him. Then, in an instant, I couldn’t see, my vision off-white and splotchy. The top of my head felt like it was burning.
Startled, I took a step back and stopped too. I squinted and blinked frantically and tried to focus back on Dutton’s silhouette coming in and out of focus. I had forgotten, at this point, about the fuzzy shapes I saw earlier in the dark, but now most of Dutton had been replaced by one — even when I closed my eyes, it stood where he did.
Seeing me stop, Dutton called out to me. His voice was soft, but the tunnel was otherwise silent, and his voice carried to me easily. “I’m lonely.”
I was never a fan of listening to people’s problems. Not because I didn’t care, but because I was never sure how to respond, and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. So much so, that hearing Dutton say that made my head throb, and I felt dizzy.
Despite that, what bothered me most was that I only developed more questions than answers. What about an animal’s desire — for survival, for reproduction, for community, for something — makes it want that? Speaking in terms of evolution, survival, reproduction, and community all make sense, and perhaps even entertainment . . . but what’s the throughline other than science?
Realizing I had been staring blankly at Dutton, who stared right back at me, his bottom lip curled up tightly. I finally said, “Well, I can talk with you for a bit. But only for a bit, so I can make it to the aquarium on time.”
I turned to the butt of the tunnel, and in the light, I recognized him as not a monster, but an angler fish.
“That’s okay. Talking as much as we did has already made me happy. Just promise we’ll talk again.”
“I promise.”
And then it hit me.
·
I left the shade of the tunnel for the burnt early-afternoon sun. I didn’t turn around to see if Dutton watched me leave, but I knew that he was gone. I wasn’t sure if I would see him again, but I knew I’d keep my promise, if to someone else.
I looked off to the left — and I could see a distant, rippling blue. At long last, a taste of the sea. But I couldn’t stare for long. The glistening of the sun off the pavement must have been too much for my eyes fresh from the tunnel, because I soon began to cry again — like each small star of light was a piece of salt sent directly into my eyes. I didn’t make it far before I couldn’t see at all and had to sit down. I scooted under the full, low branches of a nearby tree off the side of the road and leaned my bike against the trunk.
While I waited for my weeping to stop, I got to thinking again.
If life is based on the desire for happiness, how can one be happy?
In fact, I meditated on this thought for so long, that as the sun approached the horizon, I heard a familiar voice coming toward me with a rattling rumble, calling my name.
When I looked up, tears dried from my face, I saw Dad’s car roll to a stop in front of me.
Dad was still calling me as he leapt out of the car. “Kai! Baby—” He fell to his knees and embraced me — and I let him. “Are you alright? Where have you been?”
“I’m okay. I’m going to the aquarium.”
He pulled back, holding my arms firmly at the cuffs of my shirt. “Is that why you left?” He pulled into me again and sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
Seeing Dad like this made my chest feel tight and my stomach like throwing up. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. Why didn’t I take you to the aquarium? You could have gotten so hurt . . .”
“How are you?”
Dad pulled back slowly this time, his brow furrowed, and his eyes darting between each of mine. “What?”
I repeated myself.
“Baby, you don’t need to worry about me, I’m fine.”
“But you were so sick this morning.”
“That was . . . nothing.”
I lowered my eyes and shook my head at him. “Don’t lie to me, Dad.” The poor fellow. Always lying to cover himself. He’s got to learn that he’s only hurting himself by doing that. No one’ll want to be his friend anymore.
Dad made something like a scoff, but he was smiling while he did it. “Alright, you stinker.” He laughed, then sighed. “I’ve been feeling really sad recently.”
“Because Mom moved away?”
He said, “Yeah,” and I said, “Me too.”
A look settled onto Dad’s face; his eyes relaxed and the corners of his smile stretched higher, wavering with each quiver of his lip.
“We can’t change that . . .” he started, but he trailed off.
“I know.”
“But I still miss her very much.”
I told him I felt the same. “Do you think we’ll see her again?”
“Maybe on occasion.” He brushed over my head. “I don’t want you to hold this against her.”
“I won’t.”
Dad let out a laugh again. “You seem so sure of everything. Do you even need me here?”
It’s embarrassing to say, but I was overcome with emotion then, and I threw myself into his chest.
·
On the ride home that day, Dad said that the aquarium was closing soon and promised me he’d take me over the weekend. It’s been a couple days since then and, even though he still seems pretty down, he’s cleaned up his room, and he plays with me after work, so I’m not worried about it. He still hasn’t increased my allowance, though.
Anyway, thanks for listening, Journal.
From the garden with love,
Makai
(Un)Tethered by Vee Sharp
by Caryl Townsend
How Sleep Made Me Trans
I should have never learned that I could stay up to watch the sunrise or how to weep in a way that hurts the dip in my chest, not disturbing the person through the wall. How I feel my stomachache and my eyes heavy and the back and forth. The between near and far sight. The warmth is no longer there — why wish for it back? The hair that grows and the people who hope for it to go away. What is now considered dead and what has always been there.
I can go to sleep forcibly, but then I can never leave it. I’m a loyal boy, stuck to the sheets, admiring the comforter, held by the pillow — keep sleeping, wish tomorrow, rest now, no need in standing up, in any of the ways listed. I was never the type who lost sleep, never the kid that denied a nap. That way I’ll never have to kiss a star and learn the ways of gravity, and skyness and blueness and Saturn’s rings. They will never have to know of the names I have gathered and the mascara mustaches and the lovers that have tried me out.
It’s about comfort in comfort. Buying time before the question. And here I lay leftover, no longer a shape you knew me by, holding my little stuffed animal from when I was 5. A husky with blue plastic eyes, and yes, she is a girl. My grandma told me she is a boy, and her name is a boy name because the tag said so. But I named her Sarah, because she told me she is not a boy, therefore she is not. And at night she still sleeps with me all the same.
by Sophie Foster
everest on bended knee
(after Evie Shockley)
stone crisp lilt to the air on the popcorn-creviced sidewalk : : lighter-stoked in the city garden, slick swears tripled as buzz-thick sermon : : rouged invigoration blending with smog, up to wood-rung windows : : later, city highway-grabbed on a sunday, windows down, long-legged conspiracy, craving the stretch : : pearl and pumping radio : : gaze pinned long to the sped-depletion of the wishbone fringe : : tracking skyline and septa trolley : : sun glint darlings : : sweetened gray-netted phantoms in the street crowds : : white teeth and mellow smile : : wading into the atlantic and across it, taller, taller again : : platform plastic wearing off slow, pinning spirit on the sworn future, not so sound but always rose-hipped, gilded in tenderness : : topping the earth (toppling it over)
Days and Hours by Caryl Townsend