The Crash

The Crash by Ashley Espinoza Inspired by Aftermath by Elane Johnson After my car slid on the ice and another car hit me. After you had said you weren’t sure you wanted to be a father. After I googled if my seven-week-old fetus could die during a low impact car accident. After I searched and searched every website for an answer. After I found out that, while pregnant, I shouldn’t go on roller coasters or horseback rides, and I shouldn’t be in a car accident either, but no websites would tell me an answer for a 15 mph car crash. After I called to ask if you had made your decision. After I learned the due date was September first. After you didn’t answer the phone, but you did answer the text– you said you hated to say it, but you couldn’t do it. After you never called ever again. After the hospital staff asked if I was sure there wasn’t a name I could put under the father section of the birth certificate. After I cried because my daughter does not have a father. After no one held me. After no one but me held my daughter when she cried in the middle of the night. After I saw you once and hid from you. After I saw your truck as I drove down the highway. After I still look for your truck even though I know you no longer drive that one. After I looked you up on Facebook. After I still look you up and stalk every post looking for an answer. After I am still single six years later and I see you on Bumble looking for something casual. After I cried for years and years and years over you. After I stopped wondering if you would ever care for my daughter. After I drove down your street to see if you still lived there, even though I would have no way of knowing that answer. After I stopped wondering if you would call and change your mind. After my daughter is all grown and probably looks like you. After she asks me to caress her arms in the same way you used to. After she looks right at me and says, “Anyway I don’t even want a dad.” Home Nonfiction Home Art by Dominick Williams

I’ve Lived So Long as a Dream Girl

I’ve Lived So Long as a Dream Girl by Jacklin Farley I’ve forgotten what it’s liketo be real. Betweenmeals, I pinch up belly fat, chubbybunny marshmallow bitessandwiched by my suspiciousfingertips. I then attempt to conjuremetabolism like a monsoon of ChinaSlim Tea and sugar-freeHaribo gummy bears throughmy blood. So it goesfor those of us past the acceptable agefor playing Bloody Maryand comparing thigh gapsat sleepovers. As I get older, I realizeit takes velocity to existin organic form, especiallymine. One minute, my lovelanguage is sophisticated curve, peachslice drippingsweet with juice. The next, it’s an aspirin tabletdropped into a liter-sized Pepsibottle with the cap screwedshut, transparent jugularbulging with carbonated excess seekingevaporative exodus in the snack aisleof your local Walgreens. It’s on the daysI feel the emptiestthat I want to explodethe most, feel like I am runningthrough a Reese’s peanut buttercup fieldencased by green Jell-Osalad, that I want someone to unbucklemy ankle straps and call me”kitten” despite the factI haven’t been teacup-sized since I was fourteen, despitemy repressedscheming to eventually fit my fatass back into Paris Hilton’s handbag. But ifI can’t have hipdips, whipped creamon my titties, or armpit jiggle ready to embrace the lipsof a saxophoneplayer, do I even wantthis life? I must be eating more to have such energyto philosophize,to embrace living like a back alleyduct tape Brazilian: throbbingand shameless, fleshyand blushed down to the bonein places no one else can see. It’s painful, butat least I can feelmore than nerve damagein my hands, the urge to hold my coffeecup in a compactor-tightgrip to register even a Celsiusof warmth. Call it my own methodfor moderation, aftermathof disorder. Call it crèmebrûléeing the wound after it curdles. As longas you sing, paradoxof my digestive tract. For I know one dayI will cease to be cute. For all I know, todayis that daypouring into my palmsover my belt line, spilled pitcherof milkshake, too much lovein my handles. The world can tell meI am too oldto be silly or fat. It won’t stop mefrom molting, coming backin a different skin. For I thinkI am rather too young to be dead. Poetry Home Art by Winslow Schmelling

The Crash-old

Nonfiction Home Art by Dominick Williams The Crash by Ashley Espinoza Inspired by Aftermath by Elane Johnson After my car slid on the ice and another car hit me. After you had said you weren’t sure you wanted to be a father. After I googled if my seven-week-old fetus could die during a low impact car accident. After I searched and searched every website for an answer. After I found out that, while pregnant, I shouldn’t go on roller coasters or horseback rides, and I shouldn’t be in a car accident either, but no websites would tell me an answer for a 15 mph car crash. After I called to ask if you had made your decision. After I learned the due date was September first. After you didn’t answer the phone, but you did answer the text– you said you hated to say it, but you couldn’t do it. After you never called ever again. After the hospital staff asked if I was sure there wasn’t a name I could put under the father section of the birth certificate. After I cried because my daughter does not have a father. After no one held me. After no one but me held my daughter when she cried in the middle of the night. After I saw you once and hid from you. After I saw your truck as I drove down the highway. After I still look for your truck even though I know you no longer drive that one. After I looked you up on Facebook. After I still look you up and stalk every post looking for an answer. After I am still single six years later and I see you on Bumble looking for something casual. After I cried for years and years and years over you. After I stopped wondering if you would ever care for my daughter. After I drove down your street to see if you still lived there, even though I would have no way of knowing that answer. After I stopped wondering if you would call and change your mind. After my daughter is all grown and probably looks like you. After she asks me to caress her arms in the same way you used to. After she looks right at me and says, “Anyway I don’t even want a dad.”

Soil and Water

Soil and Water by Angela Townsend We did not see the mermaids coming, but surprise is the prerogative of mythical creatures and Executive Vice Presidents. Ten years into fundraising for the arboretum, I thought I knew where to find all the knotholes and gnome settlements. They are mostly in Sol’s office. Sol founded New Jersey’s only arboretum for endangered trees. He tells people that he does not, “by and large,” like people, but then he sits on the floor with them when they cry. I do not think I would have lasted so long at an arboretum where people do not cry. Sol favors the forest’s urchins. This attracts a certain genus of donor. Sol calls them “toasty.” I call them “Sequoia Souls.” Sol scolds me for using the word “soul” like table salt. In the lunchroom, our gypsy moth experts and soil scientists want to recap shows about dragons or debate the merits of vegan cheese. I always have to bring up souls. I remind Sol that he poached me from my plan to become a pastor. He reminds me that my gift is convincing people they have empathy for trees. One inch into the topsoil, my blurbs are all about the understory. Sol allowed me to name our major gifts society “Sequoia Souls.” He did not love it, but the “big giant donors” might. People who donate five thousand dollars to save objectively unattractive trees deserve a name. I reminded Sol that nobody feels grown, whatever the spoor on the sides of their eyes may say. Sol reminded me that he does not, “by and large,” like people. The local gazette ran my press release, and Cornelius Wagner Jr. called to enroll as a Sequoia Soul. I should call him “Corn.” His father was born in Germany, so the Black Forest was in his blood. He would direct his foundation to send the check. He would be a Sequoia Soul. I looked up his name online. Corn was the Executive Vice President at Manatee Memories, LLC. At this news, Sol pronounced Corn “burnt to a crisp” before I could go further. I bristled. Since I was born without bark, I maintain a moderate-to-severe case of donor infatuation. Corn was already in my ventricles. Sol had to understand. Corn told me he gave his days to “feeding the ocean of joy.” Sol asked if I was planning to accept Corn’s hand in marriage. That could be good for the arboretum. I insisted Sol pull up Manatee Memories’ website. He did, then took the Lord’s name in vain. Manatee Memories is an “aquatic imaginarium.” Manatee Memories is the world’s preeminent manufacturer of biologically accurate marine mammals, designed for “compassionate thalassic play.” A solemn Corn greets you on the home page, moist eyes behind trendy glasses. “I’m Corn Wagner, and I invite you to the place where the sun meets the sea.” At this, Sol reached for his recycling bin and placed it over his head. “I’m Sol Diamond, and I have just contracted a stomach virus.” I reminded Sol that Corn was sending us five thousand dollars. Sol peeked under his blue plastic shroud and grabbed at the air. I knew this meant he wanted one of the individually wrapped pretzel rods on his desk. I knighted him with it, dropped it in his hand, and let him know Corn would be visiting for the first time on Monday. Sol spent the weekend on a scavenger hunt. He emailed me twenty-nine times. Since I was going to be a pastor, Sol knows I am never off duty. Souls call on Saturdays asking if we received their Snoopy checks for the cherry trees that do not bear fruit. They write on Sunday afternoons to tell me that their nephews died, which is a strange thing to tell the Development Director in the arboretum unless you have sat on the floor with her. I call them from my personal number. They text me pictures of their cats, and then I need to flag them in our database as my personal friends: “Do not solicit without Lizzie’s permission.” Sol suggests we name this group “The Invasive Species.” Sol knew I would be checking email as he found Corn facts. Sol has two doctorates. Sol founded an organization without rival in the deciduous sector. But when Sol writes on the weekend, he blows his cover as the boy in the backwards baseball cap. His emails to his “defrocked priest Development Director” read like graffiti. “PopCorn has too much butter.” “Corn done lost ALL his kernels.” The evidence would be embarrassing, if Corn were not a soul. Every video on the Manatee Memories website seemed to feature Corn, in various states of pathos, confessing why sea lions or belugas meant so much to him “as a human being.” He clasped the toys so tightly, it appeared he might pull the walrus wrinkles taut. He spoke about three-inch rubber baleen whales with the ecstasy usually reserved for shamanic activity. He spoke, mostly, about himself. “Whatever he’s doing is working.” I felt protective of Corn. “They are a jillion-dollar company.” “Not much competition,” Sol fired back. I shimmied up my remaining memories of Pastoral Counseling 101. “Maybe he’s doing generational repair work. His father came from a landlocked country. Corn claims the sea.” Sol had his own hypotheses. “Corn feels like a SMALL stalk. Maybe his mama invented dessert pierogi, and his papa was the bass player for a band called Untrustworthy Eyebrows. Corn wants to be BIG WHALE. Corn feels like PLANKTON.” I was tempted to remind Sol that such speculation is unbecoming of a grand soul who has repatriated thousands of trees. I was laughing too loud. There was one last message on Sunday night: “If he doesn’t bring us both a humpback, I repudiate his five thousand dollars.” Sol needn’t have worried. Corn had a briefcase of mermaids. I was not privy to this when I gave him the grand tour of the

Impermanence

Impermanence by Rebecca O’Bern The bay window opens to the north.It’s foggy out. I grab the gray, knittedsweater you bought my last birthday. The dead pull us apart so easilyas if we’re the ones wrapped in tight string,transmuted into nothing in the dark. I never used to believe in dying. No needwhen an afterlife awaits, a resurrectionsuspended in clouds and dust. Death, then, becomes a cold marathon,maybe a sprint, but somethingwith end. Something measured between existing and existing again,moon to next moon. Sleep and light.Your daughter picked up your ashes today, and as our fingertips touchedI was reminded again how I didn’t callenough before our last words diminished to smoke that always tastesof home, doesn’t it, wood stove burningevening timber. I wasn’t lying about the bay window, curtains drawnand tied back, staying put, can’t help ifsmoke plumes escape to the trees. Poetry Home Art by Keegan Baatz

Lil’ Gullivers

Lil’ Gullivers by Kye Roper “The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that… they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have.” – Paulo Freire “They talk. They think. They’re ready for adventure: Introducing Lil’ Gullivers – Playtime’s never been so alive!” – AstroGo, Inc.® “HEY.” A man steps out of his suburban home at the cul-de-sac end, wearing the contemporary attire one might expect a middle-aged member of the bougie class to wear on a casual Saturday morning (old teambuilding t-shirt from work, khaki shorts). He is pissed. The USPS driver is hustling halfway back across the lawn when he halts mid-step, startled at the yelling, and swivels around.           At the threshold, the homeowner puts on his best power stance – though little more than a minor landed gentry to the world, while on his lawn, inside his doorstep, he is secret King of his single-family detached home. Also, he’s been tracking this package all morning. “Hold on,” the man yells. “I’m right here.” The delivery man crosses back. “Just need you to sign here, please.” The man impatiently scribbles something resembling a child’s crude line graph atop the signature line. “You didn’t even ring the doorbell.” “And here, please.” The man impatiently scribbles again. “I was waiting right inside. You didn’t even bother ringing the doorbell.” The delivery man scrunches his face. “I did ring the doorbell,” which is true. “I rang it several times,” which is not true. But also, screw this guy. He doesn’t know his ‘customers’ – who are only sometimes right, but in this case a right asshole – and likewise doesn’t know the man had just prior been locked away in the basement when he arrived. Doesn’t matter. He is constantly delivering packages to this address, packages of identical dimensions, same company, multiple times a month, and has come to feel mild apprehension pulling up at this particular curb due to exactly this sort of interaction.  He figures the guy’s got an online shopping problem. Sees it a lot. 9-to-5ers burying themselves under credit card debt because damn, is it satisfying, the click of snagging some unneeded new thing, the tiny hits of endorphin bursts that one hopes in their sum will add up to some greater happiness, maybe even equal to the sort of halfway decent vacation they wish they had the time and/or cash to afford.  A vacation, those bite-sized luxury purchases – it’s never really about the receiving. The real hit’s in the waiting, the jitters of expectation for alleviating, maybe even curing the malaise of it all. The problem with next-day delivery is that there is no waiting. That’s why the clicks keep clicking unceasingly.  It’s kind of sad. Or would be, but again, screw this guy.  “Here you are, sir,” the delivery man intones.  The man gives no reply. He grabs the package. Kicks the door shut behind him. His right hand is turning the basement knob when a woman, his wife, calls down from the upstairs study.   “Jaaaaaassooooon.” “Yes?” He answers, annoyance in his voice. “Was that the doorbell?” “No, he didn’t even ring the doorbell.” “Who is he?” “Nobody. Nobody rang the doorbell. It was the wrong number.” “What wrong number?” “Wrong house number, I don’t know.” “Jason. You didn’t order another of those creepy things, did you?” “No,” tearing the tape off with his teeth, “of course not.” “We’ve talked about this.” Under his breath, half-muffled since the tape’s proving quite hard to tear off, “feels like all we ever damn talk about.” “If you’re wasting more of our money on those things then I swear, I’m not kidding, we’re returning it.” “Our money?” He scoffs to no one but himself, descending the basement stairs. “My money.” In the inner circle of the inner sanctuary of the basement, he sets the contents on the table. It’s a toy. No, an action figure. No, even worse: A collectible. The clear case is a classic plastic display box, the top of which reads, LIL’ GULLIVER. The tagline reads, Like You, But Small! This particular model’s label reads, LIL’ VELVET GULLIVER. Jason removes the figure and positions him standing up atop the table. Lil’ Velvet Gulliver is a 10-inch-tall plastic figure, wearing an early 18th century, Georgian era style of dress. Knee-length, double-breasted coat with fitted silhouette, accentuated by decorative buttons; high-collared shirt and thigh-high breeches, lots of lace; delicate stockings held by garters of elastic fabric. Everything, from the cravat tied around its neck down to its buckled shoes, is made of purple velvet. Eggplant purple. Beautiful, sensual, eggplant purple.  Lil’ Velvet Gulliver blinks its tiny eyes three times and cranes its neck up at the moon-faced giant.  Its voice is high-pitched and squeaky as befitting a lil’ figure. “Why hey there big buddy.”  “Welcome,” Jason says. “My name is Jason.” Lil’ Velvet Gulliver smiles a big smile. “Hi Jason, nice to meet ya… Don’t know who I am.” “What you are.” “Don’t know that either,” it says, its carefree smile still plastered on. “No, I’m saying you’re a what. I purchased you off ToyBuy.” Shrugging amicably, “If you say so.” “You’re a Gulliver.” “Gull-ehh-ver,” sounding out each syllable as if committing it to memory. “Correct. More specifically, you are a Lil’ Velvet Gulliver.”  “That sounds fun.” Jason shakes his head. “It’s a literary reference.” “Oh wow, I’m a literary reference.” Lil’ Velvet Gulliver scratches its head with a pause. “I can’t read.” “Of course you can’t. In short, Gulliver’s Travels was a satirical travelogue published by the Irish author Jonathan Swift in 1726, featuring Lemuel Gulliver, a fictional surgeon also trained in navigation and mathematics, who visits strange and fantastical lands on several voyages after his ships are destroyed, blown off course, and attacked by pirates.” “Sounds like our Gulliver shoulda stopped getting on ships.” “Well, he wasn’t a real person. Like you.” “Oh.” “You see, Lil’

#ratgirlsummer

#ratgirlsummer by Melissa Rudick We sit on the toilet, our inside-pants around our ankles. We sprawl on IKEA couches covered in weighted blankets. We rot in our beds, having laid down for just a minute many minutes ago. Blue light reflects in our eyes. Our thumbs in constant motion, swiping up again and again. The thrum of the air conditioner plays in the background. Outside, cars honk at jaywalking pedestrians. Inside, a smoke detector beeps again, reminding us we better change that battery later.  We are bored and dissatisfied and we want something different. We have been let down. We believed if we just did what was expected of us, if we stayed nice, if we shrunk down, if we performed happiness, that happiness itself would find us. We would be content, finally. Now, we are wising up. It’s a rigged system, we tell each other. There’s another way, we say.  We look into the front-facing cameras on our phones. We talk to our mirrored selves. We proclaim that there will be a vibe shift. There will be no more Hot Girls, Chill Girls, Not Like Other Girls Girls. We will have a new energy, what we dub B.R.E.- Big Rodent Energy. It is #ratgirlsummer, we say. We heart each other’s posts. We comment in all caps. We write YES. We write LOVE THIS SO MUCH. We write THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.  We find each other.  We see clips of a rat carrying a giant slice of pizza down the subway stairs. We think how we could really go for a giant slice of pizza. We leave our homes, dressed to please ourselves. We wear shorts, some of us for the first time since childhood. Our thighs spill out. We feel the hot night air on our legs. Legs that are pale or hairy or dimpled. We are too skinny and too fat. We are wild and unwanted and beautiful. When we see each other on the streets, gulping hot cheese as we scamper by, we smile big toothy grins.  “Crush that slice!” we shout. “Your hair is EVERYTHING!” we reply.  We find treasures on our excursions—shiny things, precious things. We collect them and bring them home to surround us. An incomplete inventory of our hoard is as follows: friendship bracelets, gel pens, trading cards of BTS members, water bottles, books, yarn, iPods, and earrings that dangle and sparkle. Some of us gather stuffed animals and pile them high on our beds. One of us has a penchant for outer space, spending hours each day in the sourcing and acquisition of cosmos-related paraphernalia. We are unapologetic in our enthusiasm for these things. There is no cringe in a #ratgirlsummer.  You scrunch up your faces and ask, “but why a rat?”  The girlies that get it get it and those of you that don’t, don’t. How could we explain that to have a #ratgirlsummer means to have freedom from caring how the world sees us and to do what we want to do, when we want to do it?  We quote Mary Oliver and say, “We choose to let the soft animal of our body love what it loves.” “But a rat?” you ask again. “A filthy, disgusting rat?” We stop talking. You prefer us as kittens or bunnies, to be held in your hands, petted, cooed over, and contained. There is no point in the explaining, we know. You are incapable of understanding. Only we can hold space for this.  We learn that a group of rats is called a mischief and we decide right then and there to host a mischief. That night we light up the group chat. There are details to figure out, plans to make. Initially, there is division over where to hold it. We consider whether the venue ought to align with our values. Finding none that do, we focus on other matters. Margaritas, for example.  Let’s not forget the apps, we write.  We would NEVER, we reply.  We send images of rats in sunglasses. Rats on skateboards. Rats in tutus. We laugh react to each one.  YESSSS, we write. LET’S CAUSE MAYHEM. We arrive as individuals still getting used to being part of a group, a collective, a community. In each other’s company we feel at ease and we think this is how we were meant to live- together, not alone. We are young and old, mostly female but not only. All are welcome, we say, being a rat girl is more about attitude than it is about gender. We dance and drink our margaritas. We gnaw loaded potato skins and we roar with laughter. The servers give us looks and sigh as they clear our dishes. We take turns connecting our phones to the bluetooth speaker, selecting songs that make us move, make us sing from our bellies. You poke your heads in the door to see who is causing this ruckus. You leave quickly upon seeing us intertwined and bound together, an undulating and ecstatic dancing mass. We are UNBOTHERED, we shout. We are happy, at last.  We make our way home, piled into taxis. We look out for each other. No rat girl left behind, we cry. Once home we don’t bother with changing out of our clothes. We make a nest of our covers and we fall asleep, quickly for once. It is a deep sleep.  As we awake in the morning from easy dreams we find ourselves transformed in our beds into gigantic rats. We look at the pink of our tails curled around our bodies, the tips reaching our faces. We are covered in brown fur, we stroke it with our fingertips. We giggle at our softness. We notice our thumbs are gone. We don’t miss them. We are not alarmed nor surprised by this change in our forms. We are not Gregor Samsa. We do not feel shame about who we are. We know we are us, made better. We sit up and our whiskers

Granite Basin

Granite Basin by Sofia Fall I used to run up there on Perseverance Trail when I lived in the apartment  on top of Gold Street where it met Basin  Road and all I had to do all day was run or walk for miles in the rain and try to think of nothing except false hellebore holding droplets on its pleated leaves in perfect viscous spheres. It was early in June. The only  person I knew in the whole drenched town had taught me that false hellebore  was poisonous to humans. It causes  the heart to slow, induces vertigo. I couldn’t  stop picturing how it would feel to chew the leaves to stringy pulp and watch  the mountains go blurry and succumb to the mists that always enveloped them,  until it was all dizzy and invisible, me and the narrow trail above the gorge through the illuminated valley. I wanted my heart to go so slow no creature  could discern its beating. Instead, I just kept running, tried to make it every day all the way to the washout without stopping, ran faster so the hellebore became so smeared and green in my peripheral vision it glowed. I hated having to live every moment in real time, always seeing with utter clarity. I hated letting every single leaf of that abundant verdant poison go. Only the bears ate it.    Poetry Home Art by Robin Young

Polishing

Polishing by Erica Reid after Laura Read I store recordings of birdsong on my phone.  I don’t know which birds, or how to learn,  or if it’s important to know. I need to earn prizes for things, always have. My mother called me an apple polisher & she was right.  Who gives someone a dirty apple? I do  everything the right way, & when I can’t  I cry. On my phone you can listen to birds from 2016, they may not even be alive anymore. Did they say all they needed to say? Would they be proud of me,  replaying their chittering with a studious expression? My mother was not proud  that I wanted the world to love me, that I  craved little head-pats from strangers & made homework for myself, then  completed it. Cemeteries are great places to overhear birds. Often I read wives’ names  from the headstones, in case no one else  has spoken them aloud in a while. I polish the marble lambs on baby graves with my  sleeves. See how good I can be? See what doesn’t bother me? It is time I knew these birds: where do they sleep, do they learn  faces, do they play favorites? Which ones drill holes, which ones like apples, which ones are red? Word by word I’ll learn their language,  the kind things they might have said. Poetry Home Art by Marina Leigh

Falling

Falling by Ashley Hoiland Last night my daughter came to the side of the bed with a nightmare still in her eyelids. As I slid her body, like a velvet puppy, under the sheets next to me, she said the dream was about a war.  And I see how the soft folds of her six-year-old brain  could get there.  The next morning, she fell on her scooter and told me after, “I fell violently to the ground.” And is there another way to fall?  When the cottonwood tree in the backyard had to come down, five men pulling with a rope guided her body, 80 feet of it,  piece by piece, back to the earth.  The whole house shook when each section hit the sloping summer grass.  I wondered if the tree would forgive me when I took down the fence and allowed the men into the yard to take her. And today, on a Wednesday morning,  when my sister and her daughter went to get the breakfast check at Denny’s, an older woman in a booth alone had already paid for it. So, to my own daughter going forward, some falls are violent,  and sometimes a stranger catches you believing, at all costs, that you cannot be broken, not this time. Poetry Home Art by Emily Rankin