2025
The Stonesthrow Review
Paris Roofs
by Leeza Pantano
Isami Doi, 1931
Jean-Pierre and Pierre-Jean sit on their house before work. They are mimes.
JEAN-PIERRE
Ah, what a beautiful day this is, mm? Pierre-Jean? Isn’t it nice?
PIERRE-JEAN
It is nice.
JEAN-PIERRE
yelling from rooftop
Hear this everybody? Pierre-Jean likes today!
Where is your costume? We have work in one half hour.
PIERRE-JEAN
…
Do you like being a mime, Jean-Pierre?
JEAN-PIERRE
Mm, But of course! I get to show off my imagination, my eye. The tourists point, kids laugh, hehe, haha! It’s an art! Makes me an artist (oooo)!
PIERRE-JEAN
…They do indeed laugh…
JEAN-PIERRE
I know! And it is delightful!
What is the matter, Pierre-Jean? Are you having trouble creating your minds circus?
PIERRE-JEAN
There is no circus, Jean-Pierre! Only us in tight jail clothes and red lipstick.
JEAN-PIERRE
Pierre-Jean, you are so silly. The black and white sets us free!
PIERRE-JEAN
Bah. Having nothing in our show is not freedom! It is…nothing!
JEAN-PIERRE
I know what will help. Go get your costume and come back out here.
PIERRE-JEAN
Hmph. I’ll show you.
He retreats back in through a window, only to come out in overalls and leather boots:
workman’s clothes.
JEAN-PIERRE
Pearl-clutch
Pierre-Jean, what is this—we don’t have time for jokes!
PIERRE-JEAN
Jean-Pierre, I start at the factories tomorrow.
He points to beyond the horizon, where smoke rises from tall grey stacks and chokes the sun.
They promised me dignity, and real work. And a better costume, as you can see.
JEAN-PIERRE
…
Ahh, Pierre-Jean. You know, you break my heart on this nice day.
PIERRE-JEAN
Well, hopefully our new monies can patch it up.
The wind picks up; they shiver from the chill. The sun dims behind clouds, smoke. Jean- Pierre lets out a sigh.
JEAN-PIERRE
Hmm. Let’s go inside, Pierre-Jean. I will make coffee. We will wait for the sun to reveal itself once more.
PIERRE-JEAN
Lead the way.
They step inside, and immediately go and huddle by a little stove in the corner of the room. Pierre-Jean sets the kettle to boil. Jean-Pierre gets out an old French press.
PIERRE-JEAN
Oh no. And now it begins.
I won’t have my coffee until Napoleon comes back.
JEAN-PIERRE
Shhh! I don’t know how you drink it any other way. It is so…without life. Not bold, nor smooth.
This is worth the extra work. A good coffee deserves the work needed to make it.
PIERRE-JEAN
Eh. That’s your opinion. My way means I can have as many as I want, and very fast!
JEAN-PIERRE
Still fiddling with coffee beans and contraption
Yes Pierre-Jean, I know. I hear it. The drip never stops. The burning smell never leaves.
But I think you would like this way, if you had the patience to learn. It has much to teach you, as well.
PIERRE-JEAN
My whole life would pass right by me if I pressed every coffee cup like you.
JEAN-PIERRE
Au contraire, my silly friend. I think the process lets you, for once, savor and think. It is a time for reflection! On mornings past and future. You are syncing with other universes, other timelines when you press.
PIERRE-JEAN
I appreciate your whimsy, Jean-Pierre; I love it in fact. But you are ridiculous.
JEAN-PIERRE
No, no. Listen to me!
He starts to measure out coffee beans to grind.
I know exactly how much we need for two cups. It’s simple.
He grinds them. The kettle boils.
Here. Now they’re ready.
PIERRE-JEAN
If it were my coffee, the whole thing would be ready. We would be enjoying by now!
JEAN-PIERRE
Makes a face
It would not be enjoyment.
No, it would be torture. Burnt and Unbold coffee! No. Let me continue.
Now look here. And now we wait.
PIERRE-JEAN
For what?
JEAN-PIERRE
He grabs the French press, and takes the metal innards out. He balances them carefully on his knees. He scoops the course grounds into the glass, and puts the metal back in.
He pours water from the kettle into the glass.
For the grounds to acclimate to the water, and begin becoming coffee.
I will press after a few minutes, but first the grounds and water must savor each other. There is no winning, no reward if I rush, or cut corners.
He looks at Pierre-Jean
Like your factories. How could you do a thing like that to me Pierre-Jean? I thought we pressed life together. Let the process, le voyage, be the victory. Now what is this about fast money and factories?
PIERRE-JEAN
I do not expect you to understand-
JEAN-PIERRE
No, I do Pierre-Jean. I do understand. It’s easier to make drip coffee. The machine does all the work, and you collect. But where’s the inner collection? Where’s the boldness, the rich flavor? Where’s your press?
Look, look.
And now, to be gentle.
The few minutes have gone by. The press is ready for force.
He places both hands, one atop the other over the French press and slowly starts pushing down. The metal releases soft swishy sounds as it flows through the water.
Right now, all the little flavors of the grounds are waving goodbye to their homes and ascending, transcending. This is their purpose, to make our coffees delicious. You disgrace them with drip coffee.
And factories.
The metal makes it all the way to the bottom, squeezing the grounds into a thin, dark stripe. Pierre-Jean looks vaguely uncomfortable.
JEAN-PIERRE
Sure, I could run them through the machine, but I’d be doing them a disservice. You understand.
The machine rips the flavors from their homes. This is bad.
They must instead surrender, as is our way. But it is also nature’s way, mm? Things are submitted to. And that’s okay.
Do not submit to drip coffee. Your coffee must submit to you. Make it with your hand, your technique. Do not be dictated by machine, Pierre-Jean!
He gets out two little cups, mismatched but made of beautiful fine china. He pours them each some of the coffee. He hands one cup to Pierre-Jean, who stares at it for a moment before taking a tentative sip. Jean-Pierre watches closely.
JEAN-PIERRE
…
Well?
PIERRE-JEAN
Well…
Your coffee is delicious. I knew it would be.
JEAN-PIERRE
And alive with flavor?
PIERRE-JEAN
Yes, and alive with flavor.
…I understand your coffee message, Jean-Pierre.
JEAN-PIERRE
So, are we taking the scenic route to work today, or your shortcut through the park?
PIERRE-JEAN
There is no need to be obnoxious. We have time today.
Suffocation and Jubilee
"MJT cats cradle" by Sgerbic is licensed
by Lucas Jackson-Peterka
Her people were already dead. It was best to think them gone, at least. Best to put it all behind her and get on with the mission at hand.
Rochelle needed to go home.
She tried not to laugh at herself for thinking of it as “home.” A myth. Some destitute legend. That hopeless dream of her grandmother’s was all Rochelle had to go on. In the cold vacuum of space, she found herself chasing a song. If a note were carrying on the solar wind, there would be no way to tell.
The stars are breathless. They talk and move and feel the same as us, but the universe will only ever take two breaths: one to begin and one to end. These are the only moments the songs can be heard. Until then, there was no chance for sound to travel in the void. Rochelle had to contend with the silence—drift endlessly in the lonely dark if she wanted to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Fun as it may sound, she had gotten tired of waiting around for the world to end.
The Big Sigh had actually been a play of Rochelle’s that had earned her some modicum of fame back at Issak Station. There was just something about the heat death of the universe that brought people together.
The satire of the play had been lost on them, however, and The Big Sigh had gained fame as a religious puff piece. How had they not noticed her criticisms of Nietzsche? The Intellectual himself! The Cult had its head so far up its ass that her proof of God was propagandized as proof of His death—and somehow it worked! She had made fun of the whole faith, their fetishization of the end; the hypocrisy of making a deity out of a supposed “no-God” and somehow, she had accidentally shat out scripture.
Fitting really. She did not much like having to think of the station at all, let alone the one memory so encapsulating of all her failures. A prophet even when I’m not meaning to be.
“You really believe all that junk?” he had asked her.
That’s what he had asked her. Twenty years she had spent researching all the old tales and records. Translations, calculations, meticulous writings, and a wasted youth—all in search of the truth. And he had asked her if she believed.
“Of course. That’s what I said, isn’t it?” She was talking to the past, but she did not much care anymore. Rochelle was near to three years on her journey now. She spoke to the ship when the memories came.
The ship had good enough manners to keep quiet.
“You have to be careful Shel,” John’s voice was lowered and chilled. Rochelle could barely make out what he was saying, even replaying the scene in her head. “The Headmistress has been looking into your ‘research’ and the Cappella Magna are getting concerned about what she’s finding.”
“Let them be concerned, I care not what they think.” The words sprung quickly from her mouth in the pursuit of confidence. So quick they sprung, as if in flight.
“You should care Shel. There have been whispers—rumors—that you’re not even calling yourself an Intellectual anymore.”
“They aren’t rumors.”
“Shel…” he said it in warning. Speak softer to me, he was thinking. Speak softer so no one else hears. There was no disappointment in his voice—John could always be counted on to believe in her, at least. Rochelle knew he feared the council though. Knew he couldn’t be trusted to betray them. Knew some part of him still bought their lies.
“John, there has been so much lost to us. So much hidden from us. I can’t trust in the Cult when they have lied so recklessly to me—to us all.”
“Reckless? Shel, what have they been hiding? Last I was here you were reading that old book your mother left behind. Was there something in there?”
“No, she was insane. I have established that.”
“So what? Are you just done with the Faith? Do you have any good reason?” He waited, but received no response. “You’re just going to keep me in the dark?” He was growing belligerent. “This is why the Cappella Magna are up in arms—an Intellectual keeping information from us all. You are a disgrace.”
“It would destroy everything if I said anything.”
“You’re a fucking liar. If you had anything at all you would’ve torn this whole station down years ago, you spiteful bitch.”
Well, he kind of believed in her.
“So I’m a bitch again?”
“You’re a traitor,” and he spat it out like hot coals. “As traitorous as that mother of yours. I don’t believe you’re trying to do anything except get banished just like her.”
“I don’t have to get banished. I’m leaving.”
“You’re what?”
A red light went off on her dashboard. Rochelle sighed in relief as the familiar surroundings of her cockpit settled in around her. She had grown used to the alleyways of her mind. During the trip there was not much left to do but wander through them. She did prefer to be present though. Rochelle thought the tedium and numbness of space easier than the pain deep in her soul.
“Guess were getting close, huh ‘ole girl,” she said, patting the console in front of her fondly. The ship, thankfully, had nothing to say back.
Only two clicks away, she thought. But the promise of sailing allowed John to filter back into her mind. It still hurt. And even though she couldn't bear the memory, it still haunted ever-lastingly.
“You’re not going to make it. Your ship will fail before you even have a chance to crash-land on some rock,” he said frankly, not minding the callousness of even the simple musing. Rochelle remembered having to forgive him a lot.
“That’s what you said about The Big Sigh.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect everyone to just forget about a thing called subtext,” he teased. They were in the middle of a full-scale fight, on the verge of losing each other forever—and he teased her.
“You seem fine ignoring the subtext of that gun around your waist,” Rochelle shot back.
“I’m not going to use this on you Shel, you know that.”
But there was no way to really know that. One Peacekeeper was dangerous enough; a Peacekeeper you thought was your friend? Rochelle could not think of anything worse.
“I’m glad you weren’t planning on shooting me, John.” She spoke with acridity. “I’m especially glad that you recognize the need to articulate that to the class.”
“Shel, I—”
“Please. Did you forget that watching my father get beaten to death by one of those batons of yours is what drove my mother mad in the first place?”
“Of course not. I—”
“You still enlisted. You didn’t forget and you still joined them.”
“These people are my family, Shel. This place is our home,” John said, pleading for her to stop. The pain of hers, too much for him to bear, lest it destroy his own delusion.
The ship came to a sudden halt out of light-speed.
John’s delusion came crashing down.
“This isn’t home, John,” Rochelle spoke aloud to the ship, but addressed her friend directly once more. “There are more places in the galaxy than Issak Station. There are more stories than they tell you.”
Through the glass, Rochelle’s myth stood before her. This journey had finally come to an end. She was home.
“My grandmother used to tell me we didn’t all start out here, out in space.”
“Always so obsessed with the start of things, aren’t you Rochelle? You ever think that if you followed the handbook and focused on the next step instead of the one before, that you might not work yourself into such a fuss all the time?
“That is what I’m doing, John. And my grandmother didn’t fuss—she told a story.”
“What kind of story? Why do you care so much about the stories?”
Space should not be allowed to be this blue, she thought.
“There’s more truth in any single story than in any of the statistics the Cult feeds you. If I were to talk about what they doctor and hide, I do not even know where I would begin. Everything they do—that you help them do—is so we will forget the before. So we will forget where we came from.”
The brilliant, planet-wide oceans stared back at her. A dead rock flanked her ship.
“My grandmother had a tale at least as old as her own grandmother—no one in our family ever really knew when it came about, just that it was old.”
More light than she had ever seen filled her cockpit. Rays of every color danced across her face as the tears started to pour.
“A tale about us, John. A story about humans. Hundreds, thousands—hundreds of thousands of them all living together under the same roof.”
Her mother’s book sat on the vacant seat next to her. Cat’s Cradle, by someone named Kurt Vonnegut—Rochelle had never been able to find the slightest bit of information on him. Books were a non-starter back on the station. Primary sources strictly prohibited. Cat’s Cradle had remained a family secret her whole life. Well, a family secret plus John. Another thing she could give him credit for. Her mother’s inscription on the inside cover sat heavy in the chair.
“A story about a home, John. We used to live on the ground; used to breathe fresh air and could travel for miles and miles in any direction; we used to be able to think about whatever we liked; about both directions one can step.”
“What happened?” he asked. Rochelle had been surprised by his genuine curiosity. She had worried the Cult’s indoctrination had been too complete—that her honesty would award her with two bullets in the back of the head. She was the killer here, though. A prophet even when I don’t want to be, she thought.
Rochelle pulled her own weapon from its proverbial holster:
“The Cult—or whoever made the Cult what it is; maybe even Nietzsche himself—they packed us all up into stations just like this one and sent us each off in a different direction through space,” she shuddered in both past and present. “My grandmother even used to say the stations were separated by color or faith. Humanity departed its planet in great ‘tribes’ of race. Segregated itself voluntarily.”
Then, she pulled the trigger:
“Then they bombed it—bombed it to death. As the stations were about to be lost to each other forever, Isaak herself released an arsenal of nuclear weapons and blew it all to kingdom come. Every other station, the Earth herself (that’s what they called the planet)—we destroyed it. The last remnants of our history and brethren, gone. And then we ran away and forgot.”
Kind of like her, really. Because even though it was only Rochelle and John who spoke, she remembered the Faith draining from him. She saw him deflating again and she knew—standing here before the legend herself—there would be no cure for his Doubt. She had done to John what her own mother had done to her.
John was destroyed, and Rochelle had to leave him, to let him sort himself out.
“I’m going looking for it. I’m going to find our home so I can say someone remembers what we did and where we came from.”
“You’re leaving me here?” his disappointment stabbing in its naivety.
“There’s no telling what I will find. I could be flying to my death, John.”
“And how is that a worse fate than what you would leave me here to do? What do you expect me to do with this story of yours?” He said story with such disgust Rochelle could hardly believe he got it out.
She shrugged. “I’ll mark the course I take. Come after me if the time is ever right.”
That’s what her mother had told her. Maybe Rochelle’d finally see her again.
“I can’t lose you,” he said forlornly.
Fitting really, she thought. “That’s exactly what I told her. She still had to leave.”
Rochelle started the landing process. A few switches flipped and buttons pressed, and the ship was descending all on its own.
“Do you think you’re actually going to find her?” His voice echoing in her ears, as the wheels of her craft grew closer and closer to the answer.
“I don’t know,” she said back as honestly as she could muster.
The nose of her ship broke through the atmosphere. She could make out the surface now, approaching ever faster.
“I just want to find some mud.” The wheels touched down. “I want to find God, and the first place my mother taught me to look is in the mud.”
“God? This whole thing really does have you as crazy as her.”
Her cockpit opened.
“Yes.”
Rochelle stepped out into the light.
Onto the mud.
“I must believe in their stories, John. I have nothing else left.”
She struggled with what to say last to him. She still didn’t know how to say goodbye.
So she leafed through the old book her mother had left for her, took a breath, and in the likeness of a baptizing priest, read her mother’s inscription aloud:
“My dear Rocky, I hope you can forgive me someday. I’m sorry for how I’ve made them laugh at us, for the burden of shame I leave you with. But I feel a sadness that will not go away. I tried my best, but I can’t bear it any longer. The loss is too much. I miss something I’ve never even seen. My soul aches, and if I stay here any longer the ache will swallow me whole. I must see the mud. I must go home. At the very least, I must try. Tell them I went crazy for me, okay? Couldn’t bear knowing I got you hurt again. I do hope to see you again someday. If you ever get it in your head to follow me, I’ll be waiting out there for you. But if not, know I love you forever. I know it’s hard to leave what you know behind. I just believe there’s something better. I have to go find it.
Yours always,
Mother”
Rochelle dried her eyes. She hoped that somehow, miraculously, the sound of it would travel all the way back to Isaak Station. Maybe he would hear.
“I’m not coming after you, you know,” he had said.
That’s what I told her, Rochelle thought. Then she set out to search for her mother, for the first time in her life, finally sure she was home.
A Letter to a Famous Poet
by Fiona White
It’s the summer of 1999 and you’re sweating. You have this manic sort of look in your eyes. I push the hair out of your face and you don’t stop grinning at me. You grab me. We’re lying on your bed, so it’s easy for you to wrap your arms around me.
You look up at me and it’s a look for the ages. Not the type you’d see in a romance movie, but in a thriller when the final girl has finally killed the monster. A mad victorious look that can only be conceived from pure accidental genius.
“I’m gonna be someone,” you say. I laugh, not because I don’t take you seriously, just because you always have a funny way of wording things. You always say the oddest things at the most random of times.
“I’m gonna be a legend, I swear, I just know it,” you continue. I stop laughing, pull you up to me, and give you a kiss. “They’re gonna make biopics about me, and paint murals of me on the side of indie bookstores, and kids are gonna read my shit in their lit textbooks.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” I whisper against your forehead.
“Dunno, them, I guess.” And we laugh and hold each other in your busted futon you always swear counts as a bed.
And that’s how the dream goes. It was once a memory, once happened. Of that I am almost sure. But now it only lives in my subconscious. Just like you. It comes to me sometimes when I sleep. My dreams are cruel like that. They won’t let me forget you.
Now, I’m going to tell you something, and you have to promise you won’t say “I told you so.” But the other day, I was walking down that old street where my brother used to live. You know the one, you met my mom there. She told you to watch your language, you told her to “fuck off,” and I prayed that the ceiling would cave in and put me out of my misery. It was all a very memorable affair, all on that street, right? So I was walking down there, and I don’t know if you remember, but there’s a cute little bookstore there, owned by a married couple. They even have a cat. I think we went there once and you called it “a place a fake reader shops to buy pretty books for their decorative bookshelves.” Well, that same cute little bookstore has a mural of you. Right on the side of the building with all the important writers. You’re in between Shelley and Frost. I laughed so hard when I saw it that I spooked the cat they have behind the window, next to the display of Atwood’s new book.
I’m not going to lie, it took me back. They got your likeness good. Your eyes are off though, too tranquil. None of that fire that threatens to burn everything around you, especially yourself.
I had an innate reaction when I saw you on the wall, I squared my shoulders. And suddenly I wasn't there anymore, I was back in our living room.
I’m standing on an apple crate you swiped from the local grocers. I’m barefoot and the wood is poking into the bottom of my feet. I’m trying so hard to keep still. My muscles are burning. I’m wearing jeans and an old work shirt of yours. It’s too big on me and hangs off my left shoulder, exposing it.
I feel like one of those show dogs after a rally, made to stand on a podium and look all pretty. You aren’t even looking at me, you’re reading Fitzgerald so intensely you’ve accidentally folded the cover back even though you hate when people do that. You're muttering something, mouthing the text maybe. I want to get up, but the last time I moved you yelled at me. I look at the VCR clock behind you. It’s been four hours. I’m supposed to be an inspiration for you to write. A session between artist and muse. But I don’t feel inspiring. I feel like a houseplant.
It takes another hour before you finally set down your book and rapidly pick up your notepad and pen. You freeze and run into the kitchen to get another glass of wine. When you get back, you write faster than I have ever seen anyone write. It’s a hurried, frenzied sort of writing. You don’t stop at all, not even to look at me, your muse. You haven’t looked at me in two and a half hours.
When you finish, you toss the pad to the chair next to you and down your wine glass in one foul swoop.
You look up at me, eyes alight with something I think I will eventually be able to understand, but never will.
“Come on, Darling. What are you doing? Come down and read what we’ve made,” you say, and motion for me to hop down. I do, and when I read the piece you’ve just made, I nearly cry. It’s like fall, this raw, unpredictable fiery thing that’s memory haunts you long after the last red leaf has fallen. I look up at you like I always do after reading your poems, and study your face. A face that kisses me, that screams with uncertain anger, that is constantly flickering between madness and genius. Somehow beyond that face, is the skull that holds the brain that conceives these beautiful brain worms. I almost can’t believe it.
“So what does my Mary Rose think?” you ask, but your smile gives away that my face has already told you what I think.
You always called me your “Mary Rose” after some famous medieval ship. I was never able to tell you it was a tragic nickname. ‘Cause the Mary Rose sank. Now it just rots on display in Portsmouth, a byproduct of a bygone era. Too subtle of a fall to even be a tragedy.
“I love it,” I say. And you laugh and go get another drink, leaving the small living room to go to a place my memory can’t follow.
I can’t seem to escape from the memories. Their assault isn’t constant, but subtle and unpredictable. The other day I went to get the mail. The wind was blowing that savory salt water air and the moment I breathed it in, I was back in Gloucester. It’s 1994 and you’re standing on the beach. The wind is picking out your curls, separating them. You’re laughing and telling me this ridiculous take on Frankenstein. You know it’s ridiculous of course. You always love to present the craziest interpretations of anything. You say it’s to keep me on my toes and make me think outside the box. But I know you do it just to make me laugh. And I always laugh, because how could I not? You’re standing there giving me a piece of yourself you never express on paper, a smile reserved just for me against the backdrop of our favorite beach, gentle waves, and incoming storms framing your silhouette.
Maybe I am like a ship because if I lose control of my mind, I swerve into uncertain waters. One slip, one stumble, and I’m back into the seven years of our life together. A life I am still unable to process.
A part of me hopes if I write down all the things I never said to you, that it would bring me closure. I know what you would say to all this internal turmoil though. “Then just move on.” It’s not as easy as that. Reminders of you are everywhere. You know, my niece came over the other day. She showed me her English textbook. It’s the new edition. It has your poem in it. Not just any one. The one you wrote about me. It wasn’t for me though, I know that. It was for the love of language, of the arts. The first and greater of your loves. Honestly, I have tried to forget it, but it infested me in ways I can barely explain, memories and soul.
There it be
The love of my Mary Rose
No greater of a ship art thee
Thou whose wood is pristine
Whose sails beckon me
They are an agent of the wind
The foreground to the sun
One gaze upon their wooden deck
Sets my heart ablaze
And my mind forever lost without their guiding light
So sappy. So ridiculously unnecessary. So unbelievably pointless. So uncharacteristically heartfelt. It doesn’t feel like you, but at the same time, it feels as if it is all of you. Every word you never had the courage to speak flows seamlessly in page after page of scribbles, poems, half-finished novels, screenplays, and songs. Pages that littered our shared apartment. Pages I had to be the one to pick up after all was said and done.
I am not a ship. I am not a muse. I was an out-of-my-depth lover to an out-of-touch poet. You are the greatest love of my loves, your expressions of love the most sincere I have ever known. Your lies, the most deceptive cruelty I have ever felt. But to everyone else, you are the world’s tragedy. A postmortem renaissance man whom everyone adores, but cannot find in themselves to love. As I cannot find it in myself to adore you. For I loved you too deeply, tragedy and all.
And if this were another genre, a solely romantic story, another life, another world if you will, I do not storm out of our apartment on that fateful November night. We sit and talk everything out, and I’m honest with you. I tell you that I am worried for you, that I know everything isn’t fine.
In another world, I stop driving away from you and our home. I turn the car back around and I find you before it’s too late. I push open the door despite the fact that your body blocks it. Like one of those viral “super strength in the time of need” stories your aunt posts about on Facebook. And the first time your name ever appears in print isn’t your obituary, but when the local newspaper publishes a story about how I found you in time and saved your life from alcohol poisoning.
In another world, I never even met you. I ignored you and never asked you to get a drink with me. You never wrote that first poem about me on a napkin on that bar counter with that chewed-up old pen you stole from the back. That pen that now sits in a box in my closet with everything else you left behind. Because in another world, we never met, and I never fell for you, and you never felt whatever it was you felt for me. I like to think that in that world, you live.
But this isn’t another world. In this world, I leave that November night and drive to my mother’s house. And when she pauses comforting me to answer the phone, I feel a horrible sense of dread that I just cannot for the life of me place. In this world, I get to see my mother’s face melt within itself as she breaks the news to me.
In this world, I am a footnote in your Wikipedia article. I am the “survived by his partner” in your obit. The symbolic Mary Rose English students write theses about. The role that goes to a C-list actor in your biopic. Now the phone rings with interview requests. Interview requests I have ignored since that one reporter in Tampa asked me a question I can’t seem to shake.
“Did you know he was going to die that night? Did he?”
I couldn’t say what I needed to back then. I couldn’t tell you the truth while you were still here, so I’ll be honest now. I’ll answer the question that made me flip off that interviewer and leave. But only to you. Promise not to tell? The truth is I think a part of me must have known it would end like this. Since the first time I saw your face hanging out of a car window, wind blowing your hair and a careful smile on your face, I have known, like how the Mary Rose must have known that tragedy was to come when it entered the eye of the storm.
The Golden Ratio
by Ben Chappell
I think Fibonacci knew of you.
Kepler, too, heard your name
when they, and Pacioli and Binet,
penned their laws and theorems.
On the objective and empirical
beauty present in nature, mathematics,
and otherwise sacred geometry,
I couldn’t say much.
Math had been your best subject
before we’d met, when our
recurrence relation
made a sum of us.
But when I lay
in your lap, facing sunward,
and rays of golden undertones
coil across my outstretched
index, middle, ring, pinkie—
I think I understand
what the ancient Greeks meant
by divine proportion.
What is There to Do in Somers, NY on College Break?
by C.T. Lark
leave and visit Mt. Kisco, then Katonah, maybe Danbury (only
if you’re really bored). eventually, run out of money.
call up a friend or two or ten, then do it again until you’ve
run out of things to say. rehearse these lines: “yes, I’m
majoring in English,” “no, I don’t want to teach,”
“I just like to write—maybe I’ll be a lawyer.” remember
that you’re your mother’s daughter, or at least pretend to
remember that when she boasts: “my eldest daughter.”
take a walk, a hike, a trip—Germany or Jones Beach—
whatever gets you away for a little longer. overstay
your welcome by returning to that school. rehearse those lines:
“yes, I’m enjoying my time there,” “no, I don’t miss
high school,” “I just like to write—maybe I’ll publish
this summer.” remember that you’re still her around these parts
and don’t even try for a second to assert otherwise. disintegrate.
alternate between NyQuil, Benadryl, and Zolpidem to forget.
forget walkable communities—sidewalks are for the discontent!
stare down the barrel of an $8.49 cup of fruit. pick your skin
‘til you find a you that you like again. don’t you dare forget
to say your lines: “yes, I’m glad to be home,” “no, I’m not
choking; my ribs are cracking just fine,” “I just like to write—
maybe that will get me out this time.”
Thoughts on Terezin
by Brionna McDonald
Swallows build and birth in their nests,
over the graves of your mothers.
In the silence of the past paved over,
a bird sings. And over unimaginable anguish,
grass will grow.
The Earth will not be salted. Not by you.
The Earth is not borne by you, the Earth bore you. All that came before
will support all that is to come
until ivy covers every blood-covered stone.
Ashes or fertile manure mixed together will cultivate
some scraggle of life—
all the same.
From: Like Objects Waiting to Topple
by Zachary Lopane
SOPHIE’s apartment. It’s far more lived in than JACK’s place, and much smaller. There are only two rooms: the bathroom and the bedroom-kitchen-living-room.
On every surface there is some shirt or skirt or tchotchke or unfinished craft or decorative light. Despite this, the apartment is welcoming and miraculously unclaustrophobic.
ELLIE stands in the doorway separating the two rooms, clearly in the process of getting ready.
SOPHIE sits on her bed, doing her makeup in a small mirror on her bedside table in the glow of warm light. She only looks up at ELLIE in quick glances.
The sun is setting, and the evening chatter from outside can be heard. The world feels, at once, alive.
Sophie
Stop, it’s good!
You look good.
Ellie
I look like.
A librarian.
Sophie
People are into that, y’know.
Ellie
I’m not trying to-/
Sophie
I’m just saying.
Ellie
It’s just not what I thought we were going for tonight.
Sophie
We’re not “going for” anything.
Just trying to have fun.
You can have fun looking like/ a librarian.
Ellie
Can I just borrow one of your tops?/
Sophie
You always do this! You don’t need to-/
Ellie
I was thinking that little black one you were wearing/ last week?
Sophie
Fine, whatever.
If it’ll get us out of here faster/
Ellie
I owe you my life/
Sophie
It’s hanging around here…
(SOPHIE glances around the room without truly looking.)
Sophie
Somewhere. Maybe try/ the bathroom?
Ellie
I’ll check the-
Yeah.
(ELLIE turns and looks around the bathroom and begins flipping through clothes hanging from the shower curtain rod.)
Ellie
Y’know, I might be able to find it if you actually cleaned up in here.
Sophie
What?
ellie
(speaking up) I was just saying it wouldn’t hurt to reorganize a bit.
Sophie
I don’t have any space to reorganize.
(half-beat)
Sophie
Y’know, not everyone can live in their brother’s fancy/ apartment.
Ellie
/Found it!
(ELLIE begins to get changed into the new shirt.)
Sophie
And anyways I don’t need to make it any easier for you to take my clothes.
(beat)
(ELLIE steps out of the bathroom, still adjusting her outfit. For the first time, SOPHIE really looks up.)
Ellie
What were you saying?
Sophie
It’s just-
Nothing.
Ellie
(laughing) What?
Sophie
Nothing-
You were right.
(half-beat)
Sophie
This- You look great.
Ellie
I told you!
(They look at each other for a moment.)
Sophie
Come here for a sec, let me see something/
(ELLIE steps closer.)
Ellie
What?
Sophie
Your eyeliner. It’s a little smudged.
Ellie
Oh shit/ I’ll-
Sophie
I’ll fix it. Don’t worry about it.
(ELLIE sits down on the bed and leans in.)
(half-beat)
(SOPHIE begins fixing her makeup.)
Ellie
Don’t make it worse-
(ELLIE pulls away for a moment.
(SOPHIE give her a pleading look, and ELLIE leans in again.)
ELLIE
I mean you’re the one in a rush and if I have to redo/ this-
Sophie
I won’t have to redo it if you-
(laughing) Stay still.
(beat)
Sophie
How are things with you and Adam?
You sounded…Stressed. On the phone.
Ellie
They’re/ fine-
Sophie
Fuck! I messed it up um…
Sorry, let me grab a wipe.
(ELLIE watches as SOPHIE moves some things on the nightstand.)
Sophie
That one was on me.
(SOPHIE moves closer to ELLIE’s face again and goes back to fixing her makeup.)
Sophie
What were you saying?
Ellie
I think-
I don’t know but-
I think It’s over for us. /
Sophie
Oh shit, what um-
I’m sorry.
(half-beat)
Sophie
How did it happen? I thought you guys were/
Ellie
No I mean-
Stop. Don’t be sorry.
We’re still together. But I think, tomorrow, I’ll tell him.
It’s just. Not. Working. I don’t know.
Sophie
El/
(ELLIE leans back a little.)
Ellie
It’s like when I’m with him-
When I’m with him, everything is happening and it’s fine but like-
I’m not really there?
Like, of course, I am really there I just-
(half-beat)
Ellie
You know when you’re driving somewhere you’ve been before. Like the kind of drive where you’ve done it so much you don’t even think about it?
And you’re in the driver’s seat and you’re making all the right turns but you don’t even-
I mean, you blink and you’re home. And it’s nice to be home, really, it is nice.
And sure. You get to skip the traffic but-
Maybe I wanted to enjoy the ride?
Like, when I’m with other people, when I’m with you I get to be present, like really take everything in.
And it’s obviously not the same situation, I mean…
(half-beat)
Ellie
I mean I’ve been with him for what? Coming on six months?
And already, we do the same things over and over and-
Adam is sweet, he’s so so nice.
I’m worried I-
I don’t want to get stuck.
(half-beat)
Ellie
I’m just taking the next exit.
Sophie
I’m sorry, I had no idea it wasn’t, um, working like you’d want it to?
Ellie
Stop it, it’s fine. Sometimes things just aren’t…meant to be, y’know?
(ELLIE leans in one more time, SOPHIE just looks as her and smiles.)
Sophie
No, El. You’re all set.
(They look at each other.)
(ELLIE looks in the mirror.)
Ellie
It looks great, thanks.
(for a moment, their eyes meet in the mirror..)
Sophie
Come on, let’s go.
END SCENE
Movement
"M24 Movement" by LRD615
by Nate Kenny
A dozen of us move thoughtlessly through the house, seeking only the yawn of the basement, and there is not one conscious thought between us. There are only pieces of impetus, like the pulp persisting at the bottom of an empty glass, that we clump together and roll towards our goal. All self now, all identity, is found in the rituals of the evening. Ceremonial acts assert my being. I drink, therefore I am. In the meantime, my ego, id, and superego huddle together on the front lawn to share a joint—the person taking the cover fee required me to leave my psyche at the door.
Our feet slap against the wood slats of the basement steps, one long millipede of Converse and Docs. I have come just in time; the band tunes their instruments with pliers, their headstocks sprouting with the bent ends of guitar strings like fingers sagging from paralyzed hands, and the lead singer goes let’s fucking do this into the mic. The walls are ribbed with wooden beams, throat-pink with bare insulation. Their nakedness sets an example.
Noise hits me like a chloroformed rag. This vibration, this anesthetic roar, is why I am here. It numbs me with a finality. I wish I had said this. I’m worried about that. All of it is gone. Our minds now only have the capacity to conjure up monosyllables. Sweat, move, want, heat, we wordlessly chant. Some form pairs to kiss, and form iambs, spondees, trochees; others swing their arms to assert their singularity, an exclamation point in the poem we write in tandem. We are all a vibration, a constant thunder, moving in circles and merging our atoms into a cloud striped with lightning and youth.
The lead singer slumps around his mic stand, and his words are suddenly above language. I realize that the only speech worth speaking is the kind that cannot be uttered without pain, without risk, as I watch him stretch his vocal cords and rend his throat into a psalm, swinging us into our clouds again, roiling us into a sea that bites at the rocks of his lighthouse.
We are a movement. We are energy. We are change, ever shifting, leaking out from the basement and onto the sidewalk, past the lawn, into the street. They should tremble in our presence, our oneness, our plurality, our paper doll silhouettes burning at the edges, joined in ash and dust, to which you, yes you, will return.
An Abecedarian Befouled in Tongues
by C.T. Lark
A question, how do I meld my mother tongue with my mother’s? My Mamaja? My
Babička? How do I lift my hands and press this broken
Cup against my lips, like a promise? Maybe I
Don’t know the word for addiction, but
Ešte trochu seems to slip so
Freely from my teeth. My mother’s tongue is lodged in my throat,
Gorged, corroded by every swallow—words like precocious, soliloquy,
Homogeneous—they smolder. It is
Impossible these days to decide whether to call him
Jano or John, even if I can trace his roots to meet mine, he doesn’t
Know how to form the words, and I can only choke on my own. Why does this language
Love to forget us?
My mother spent twenty years molding her mouth to fit these English words, out of
Necessity, hardly love. Hard to believe it’s now my drug, how willingly I
Open my mouth,
Part my throat, pretending my tongue is just another unfinished word, and swallow,
Quenched and quelled in spite of the burn. Hey, at least I can still roll my
R’s? It almost looks fake the way my blood bleeds
Serbo-Slovakian American, like a guláš of all the wrong tastes, unflatteringly
Tough through each chew. When I was eight, I learned the word
Úsměv and thought of how it contorted my lips in ways that smile stilled them.
Všetko najlepšie, ja mám t’a rád, dobrú noc—disjointed phrases are
What I speak in. Diacritics sour this abecedarian. They corrode the letters the way an R-
X can sequester, then render the throat to one purpose: swallow. So, last one, then no more
Ypsilons or carons, hindrances to my Anglo-Saxon fix. But, please, spare me just one word:
Živeli. Now, let the word soak and sog, until the lump can dislodge.
The Fear
by Libby Shkreli
The lights pulsated with hues of green and blue, constantly shifting along the ceiling of the packed room. A pounding base made the building feel like it was on the verge of collapse. There were arms around my waist, and someone giggling in my ear, but the deafening noise made it impossible to understand what they were saying.
I licked the sweat off my upper lip and marveled over the numbness in my mouth. I could feel my nose running slightly, but I was glad that my group decided to pick up a second bag.
Then a fear began to creep into my stomach, the kind of fear that accompanies benders with strangers, and slowly worked up to my esophagus. I unhinged the girl’s arms and ran towards the bathroom. Reaching the door was a feat, and as soon as I pulled my hair up, bile spurted from my mouth. When it stopped, I used thin toilet paper to wipe the seat of any residue and slowly stood up, flushing away the remnants.
I smiled at myself in the mirror. Hands that didn’t feel like my own poked at my cheeks and slowly dragged down the remainder of my face. I traced my lips and bit my fingertip. There was a primal urgency in my movements, as if I needed to capture this moment, this freedom, before it all washed away down the sink. Turning the faucet off, I left the bathroom in search of a cigarette.
“Can I bum one off you? A lighter too if you have it.” A guy from our group opened his pack and slid one out.
“Can you promise me that you’ll return my lighter?” I nodded, reaching towards his hand, but he raised it above his head. “I want to hear you say it.”
“I’ll return your lighter as soon as I come back inside.” I said with a grin. He scanned my body before stopping at my chest and lowering his hand.
“Do you want me to go outside with you? I hate the thought of you alone out there.” I couldn’t help a shudder from the residual fear. I didn’t want to be alone with him.
“I’ll be back in two seconds; I need a minute.” He didn’t argue, and placed the lighter in my hand, lingering slightly.
I left the sticky empty glass filled table and reached the entrance of the bar, warning the bouncer that I would be back, and stepped onto the concrete.
The air was refreshing and empty, which was the perfect atmosphere for a cigarette. I lit one end and inhaled deeply. Tracing my fingers through the groves of the brick building, I took a drag and focused on the sensations in my body. The vibrations started in my toes, working their way up to my thighs. My mouth was warm, and my nose was cold.
Then the fear returned, and the beat of my heart began to thump in my ears. I was sure that it would begin to beat so quickly that it would stop all together. I noticed a small entry between the building of the bar and its neighbor, quickly deciding that walking would be my best option to sober up. I turned down the empty alleyway. I focused on the sound my feet made when they hit the pavement, and stopped when I noticed grimy dumpsters that surprisingly had no scent.
There, in-between the trash, laid a man with dried vomit on his grey sweatshirt and green cargo pants. His head was tilted back with his mouth wide open and eyes staring into the sky. His arms rested on his legs with his hands clenched into fists. His chest was stagnant, especially compared to the quick rise and fall of mine.
I froze.
I knew he was dead; it was the surest of anything I had been in my life. Why wasn’t I screaming? Why wasn’t I trying to help him? Looking at his ring finger, I wondered if he had a wife or a husband. Did his mother feel her son pass? I felt like I was intruding.
I used my foot to kick him and faced no resistance. Concentrating on his undone laces, I tried to channel all the sympathy I had to decide what my next move would be. The truth was, I was angry that I stumbled upon him. Now I was met with the duty of reporting his body and getting help, and I was in no state to handle these responsibilities. Would I call the police, or would I just scream? What if he wasn’t actually dead and could come back?
I kicked his foot one more time but wasn’t shocked at the lack of a reaction. The fear was bubbling again, and I used all my strength to push it down.
The image of my lifeless body sitting between two dumpsters in an alley flashed, and I wondered what this man would do if he found me. I thought about who would miss me. Would he scream for help? Would he just walk away? Would he pull my shorts to my ankles and spread me open? Would he think about my mother?
The fear began to dissipate.
I turned towards the entrance of the alley, realizing it was just us two, and kicked his thigh with as much force as I could muster. He didn’t ask me to stop. I lifted my leg again and stepped on his stomach, placing all my weight on his abdomen while lifting my other leg and using the wall to support myself. I could feel my heel break skin. I began stomping on his stomach, and after some time, I grabbed a fist full of hair and wound my arm back before crushing his cheekbone.
I opened my eyes and saw the sleeping man in front of me. He was slouched between the dumpsters snoring loudly, unaware of the fact that I had been standing over him for the last five minutes fantasizing about his death. I unclenched my fists, silently backing away, and made my way to the bar.
The Warrior Walk
by Luca Aiello
is best done in early October
when the air’s chill doesn’t build up a sweat
and the day’s length persists
one last time. There are no subway delays
or teen gangs here, but the city they came
out of remains. A lone cab disgorges us
into Van Cortlandt Park, which in early
morning gets dampened by street rain
and dirty paws. As we stroll past Fordham,
monastery light begins to shine. Daybreak
comes over the Cross-Bronx Expressway,
a relic of Robert Moses’ wrath. It was there
that I realized how much better a BLT is
with chipotle mayo, served at a bodega with mazes
of tin cans and sleeping cats. Breakfast now
finished, we almost lunge across the RFK,
ready to feel Randalls and Wards in the heat
of 11:00, its parkland decorated with bike lanes
and family picnics. Our feet starting to blister,
we step into the bohemian glow
of Long Island City by noon, where upstarts smoke
cigarettes in an attempt to look straight
out of Godard. At 12:45, Brooklyn comes
to us with its massive weight and colorful parts.
Eating goulash at a diner in Greenpoint,
I think of Hubert Selby and Lou Reed.
In the dozen miles or so of this borough,
we get to taste the flavors of architecture: rows
of brownstones in Park Slope and Bensonhurst’s
(WARRIOR WALK pg 2, continue stanza)
minor mansions—a sociology lesson
in microculture that comes to a head
at the Panamanian Day Parade, Latin music
rumbling in the streets and anacondas hanging
on shoulders. Come 5:00, we are fully rested
at Coney Island, waves crashing nearby and bits
of Russian hanging in the air. We settle down
at Nathan’s, ordering fries and hot dogs—sauerkraut
and mustard, please—and sit outside, feet finally
unable to walk. I look at my bruised heel, think,
up yours, Achilles.
Reverse Prayer
"File:Yoga Hasta Vinyasas Pristanjali or Reverse " by Anthony Grim Hall
by Maddie Dewsbury
His power is in my hands
as I pull your wrists together.
Press palm against palm
and beg for His forgiveness.
I shake the restraint
of His judgment as rope
wraps your visage—
earning your favor
loses His. Trust
your faith to carry
what He could not.
You hold, subservient
to me as I was to Him.
Does this make me
your God
as He was mine?
spill
"Spilling wine" by gromgull
by Dylan Murphy
"i miss you”
the words spilled out of my mouth
before i even processed that i was saying them
i think spill is the right word
ex.
“in a fit of laughter, his hand knocked over his umpteenth glass of pinot noir on the table and it spilled everywhere. the living room’s new white rug drank the crimson liquid, as his mother’s shriek rang in his ear.”
ex.
“the driver should’ve gotten off at the last rest stop. the roar of his aging van’s engine seemed quiet over the instrumental jazz playing on his stereo. his eyes drooped and his grip on the wheel loosened, for just a moment. a moment was all he needed to sideswipe the 18-wheeler that was trying to pass him in the neighboring lane. he slammed on the brakes and watched, horrified, as the truck jackknifed and tipped over at the edge of the interstate. the liquid it was carrying spilled onto the road, spreading across the lanes. the exhausted driver rushed out of his car, eager to check on the trucker. a toxic stench filled the air and he began to scream fruitlessly as he watched another car about to slowly pass over the leak, the driver unaware that it was kerosene.”
ex.
“the words spilled out of my mouth, like an accident, like a mistake, like something i have to clean up, like something my mom would pinch my ear over, like something that will make someone else scream.”
Practicing Positive Self-Talk in a Mirror
"Mirror mirror..." by antkriz
by Lucas Jackson-Peterka
Here’s the thing: there used to be two of us here—me, and the kid (or is it the kid and I?). And the kid used to do everything for us. He cooked, he cleaned, and he would’ve done all this damned laundry I’ve got piling up now if he were still around.
Just the other day, he hightailed out of here leaving me to deal with the chores all alone. I’ve got to write this now. I have never been so annoyed. Writing was always the kid’s thing and it’s his story to begin with anyway (I was barely even there).
And really, I am so tired. He’s left the room a mess, left the toilet covered in vomit (and he won’t even be able to clean it until tomorrow). Writing this should be his job when you really think about it. I mean leaving the image of that toilet in my mind would be reason enough for him to have to do it; but for the kid to just thrust it all on me and dip out like his deadbeat father, I am planning an extra special, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious punishment for when he inevitably returns.
Until then, the story has to go out because I have a deadline coming up, so we’ll all have to suffer through my words. I warned you, writing is the kid’s thing. Grant me grace for any inaccuracies.
Let us begin:
Who vomits on a toilet? I mean, in it, sure. But on it?
Imagine the scene: a half-naked, cracker-barrel-pale, emaciated husk curled up on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom. Drunk out of his mind, the kid wheels his head around to and fro, in some floundering imitation of dance.
There is no music on except for the rhythmic boom in his ear. His head bobs in time to it, and there is a nice sort of cadence to the screams that eke their way out his near-paralyzed throat.
Why is he dancing? Or rather—how does one figure to dance while shirtless, and sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor?
Poorly, for starters.
He figures to dance poorly.
Why is he on the floor you ask? Well you see, the kid has just barely managed to drag himself back home while on the verge of blackout. His legs (yes, both of them) gave out the moment the door shut behind him.
That’s how he ended up here—he is simply too tired to stand. And he dances like that because, well, he knows no other way really. Only how to dance poorly.
The problem is he can never get out of his own head. The kid ends up thinking—obsessively—dance well but doesn’t notice the distraction of having a thought. Always, this is enough for him to forget that he must just dance. He’s got the heart for it (I’ve always been the first to tell him) if only he didn’t think (I was the first to tell him that too).
Why do all this thinking when you’d do it better just listening? I think to him all the time. He is too married to thought though. The kid loves the sound of our own voice in his head more than he loves being a lazy shithead (and that’s really saying something) and he especially loves making that voice sound like it’s come up with something smart.
The drink has him stupid, so tonight he’s decided to dance like shit on purpose.
“Might as well make it mine,” he says with feigned inventiveness, and I am almost completely overwhelmed by this childish audacity that I set up to strike him.
He retches.
Unfortunately, it is just a heave (my kid doesn’t give up that easy), and the pathetic, alcohol-fueled marionette starts up again.
A contemptuous backhand is raised as near to his face as can be managed without touching. I hesitate when I notice the bruises along my finger beds. It would be such a shame to let him make me crack another nail.
I just want to know what it feels like, I think. The way he avoids my eyes is infuriating; the tone of his silence upsets me; he thinks, you deserve to die. He does deserve a good beating.
Shut up, I think back.
But his dance continues, even while the warning of my strike hangs over. Something in him goads me, dares me to strike. Maybe not right now, I think. It would be quite the mistake for me to prove him right, to make all his pain someone else’s fault (especially when he’s so close to the end). Let him go out guilty, that’s what I say. My hand is lowered—reluctantly.
Sing-songy croons are stopped by a wave of nausea. Defiance escapes him as I cackle at my turn in fortunes. He flops like a dolphin on the sand, and I kneel down to watch as the life drains out of those intelligent, lonely eyes.
He has had to fight like this for a long while now, struggling for air in a punishment of his own making. Desperately, he tries to think about all the other times he has been too tired to stand, if only for the solace of solidarity. I remind him that that’s cheating. I remind him he has always been and always will be alone.
The vomit comes at once. Possessed by newfound, worser sickness the kid can no longer pretend to be in charge. He aims for the toilet.
He hits every inch of it except for that pool of water that sits in the middle. You know the place in a toilet where you would normally put what one puts in the toilet? That’s the part he failed to hit.
Nice, he thinks. The “dance” starts up again.
Can anybody fucking believe this? Look at him! He doesn’t even fucking care anymore. You’re telling me I’m the one who got saddled with all this writing business? You’re telling me this little failure doesn’t deserve to do all the work himself? The kid just graffitied my washroom throne with a mix of vodka and apples, and now he preens over his art like he’s the next Basquiat.
“Basquiat wishes,” he says, and to emphasize his creative genius, the boy empties the rest of his stomach onto the neighboring floor.
It’s a nice gesture, but the tag now more resembles a Jackson Pollock, so I compliment him on the ruined simile, and it seems to break his spirit a little.
“Yeah, but only a little,” I say, before he can (he always hates when I do that).
Leaving before he can retort, I slip out into the dark, mournful room outside while he tries to stand. An attempt to chase after me, I presume.
He slips in his own sick and begins to sob.
Nice, I think at him mockingly, slamming the door behind. Tittering loud enough to hear through the metal-plated door, I bound into the hallway. No one else is there, so I laugh again—this time a lower pitch and flatter tune.
His fear howls through the wall, incensed by my simulation of horror. I can’t help but press my ear to it so to have the terror touch inside me. A tendril of shame tickles my lobe and the rush of his screams runs through me like blood. I can hear his heart beat so loudly that I almost want to reach through and rip it out myself.
He will do it for me though, and I feel the wall grow warmer as the thought echoes between us. A blaze threatens to bring the whole building down: the anger, the resignation, his failures its fuel. There is nothing to do now except cackle. As I wait to be consumed by the flames, I lay my head and hands on the floor, laughing in time to the drum that beats on in the burning dorm room. Victory at hand, at last.
Yet, as I am laid there—anticipating the upcoming funeral, orgasming at his helpless, never-ending agony—a thought waves back at me, through the other side of the wall.
One can only stand to kneel for so long, he thinks.
I feel my own fear, clear and icy, tickle its way down my spine. He should be dead by now, I think to myself but no reassuring heat seems to lick at my heels. An odd sense of quiet hums through the hall. Suddenly a pathetic sick of my own floats up to me. For the first time, I notice my nostrils dug into the stained carpet beneath.
Have I awaited a suicide not to come? Gambled to closely to the sun? I curse the boy for being too scared to die, but the insults bounce right off. The words seem to turn back on me, the effects of their invasion immediate. The tears are unwanted.
They will not be stopped.
He assaults me from the other room with his audacity. I can feel the kid stand (how dare he) and all I can see are little threads of fractured light, as the shame pools in my eyes.
You will not rebel, I think at the tears and yet I am possessed by them. Racked with sobs and convulsions as these liquid insurgents invade my land, I can do nothing but let them run to their vacant existence below. Melded with the carpet and sweat and dirt, they evaporate harmlessly into the late-night air. It does not look as if they have taken anything.
But I find myself missing my pride.
I am too scared to go back inside the room. The kid knows it too. He could kill me right here if he wanted (I am so weak). Strike me one last time. Raise that hand to slap me and I would surely crumple into decay. I yearn for him to. I want him to know what it feels like, and I sit before the door, waiting, begging for hours until it finally opens. My knees are scraped bloody. I can see the snow through the window behind him and the pale, early morning sunlight filtering in deepens the shadows between us. Forgiveness flickers across his lashes. He looks like a demon to me, framed by the light. I tremble before him, eager for the death. Still too timid to truly claim it. I will let him do it himself, I decide, resigned to my selfish weakness.
He merely takes my hands into his. Slowly, he leads me back into the room. Music plays for real now—from a speaker in the corner. I didn’t even notice it turn on.
We begin to dance. It is a poor kind of dance though. We step forward and back; forward, and then back again. Our clasped hands sway out of time to the beat of the song.
I hear the heart pumping in my ears. And I remember a night, from months ago, when I danced like this with someone. She’s looking me in the eyes again.
I say, “This is what you call dancing?”
“I’m teaching you to dance like shit,” she replies. “That’s the first step.”
I notice my breast is beating again. “And the next one?”
“You dance alone,” and she pushes me square in the chest, shoving me out into the middle of the dance floor.
And then I am alone. She’s nowhere to be seen.
I’m swaying by myself in the dorm room, the boy gone as well.
The only remnant of them, is the pounding in my ears as their heart beats on. A shallow little bob, in time with the distant thunder of joy.
Snow falls, then falls harder—and I feel the ache of a storm approaching.
A song comes on, “American Boy.” I swallow in fear.
And I dance.
Island Diaries
by Mayra Puntier
i. first memories
she was five
the first time she remembered
feeling the world in her hands.
her last touch of a piedra,
with papa’s socks as protection
from los mosquitos.
the sky was blue
as she boarded the plane,
leaving behind the sounds of
coquis and salsa.
ii. second comings
the humidity in the air was thick,
the taste of salt pointing
en la dirección del mar.
she was sixteen now.
maria had torn through the island,
the bones of our homes
scattered through the streets.
at night the hum of generators
was a lullaby para los ricos.
mama makes cafe con leche
en la madrugada, playing
alex bueno to fill the silence
that used to be taken up by papa’s voice.
iii. final visit
at twenty-one
she knew things had changed.
the sun was warmer,
la piscina fresca,
and mama was eighty.
mama told her:
we hold our pride in our taino roots
as songs and spirits
echo with the wind.
the rio cold with their blood
as we survived against the odds.
nosotros los boricuas somos orgullosos.
us puerto ricans are prideful.