Volume 2 May 2012

A smorgasbord of short fiction, poetry, and all-around awesomeness.

Nervous by Sarah P.

A gentle, fluttering creature, Soft, sweet, sensitive; Slowly, so slowly, They flitter over the very pit of her stomach. Cautious and weary, its lowers itself, It feels for the ground it needs To be stable. Without it, it has nothing. Without it, there is no reason to try. There is no reason to care. A hum, bright and colorful, Illuminates the daybreak of a new song, One that only he will know; one that only he can answer to. It’s so complicated, this melody, It’s head­spinning, and breath­taking, and mind­bogglingly Confusing, And leaves her in the biggest wreck— But it’s simple, so simple. Simply something the roll of her tongue cannot annunciate. But she knows. At first, it is only a flicker; But soon, that single flame grows hot, And yellow is soon orange, and orange is soon red, and red is soon blue, And soon, such colors cannot contain the pandemonium To the point where it takes its purest form: It turns white. And although it lacks color, its heat burns the itching fingers Of the fearful but strong; Of the fearless but weak. And it’s then that action lead to re­actions, And words mix together in ways they shouldn’t, And suddenly, so suddenly, It all comes to down to one thing. One choice, one option, and no other standing offer. And chaos ensues.

They multiply, the once quiet beings, And form into great, shaking, winged beasts. They flap and exhilarate to The flip­flop, flip­flop of her wildly beating heart. In their raging fury, Begin to form a dance. A— A performance of sorts. An act to push him away, to show him that he’s is not needed. To prove him wrong. But they . . . lie. They tell such great lies. Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime! They scream hurriedly, The yearn to release all and every daring emotion unbearable, And the fear, the unimaginable fear Pulses through their tiny, fragile, little veins. They think, they worry, they scramble. What if he never knows? What if he finds out? What if he doesn’t care? What if he does care?— But then a great darkness hovers over them. Laughing; they’re all laughing, all of them. The dooming, torturing sound Bounces off the dark walls and echoes back in their ears. Worthless. That is what they think of her. That is what they see her as. Of course; since when did she fit their standards? And to them, she will never be good enough. And for him, she will never be good enough.

Girl in Newport The memory faded Like an old photograph. The dress marked her as the upper crust As it blew in Newport’s gust. Her smile distorted through the glass A toast to good company. Sooner or later she will notice me, Her invisible devotee. A skeleton that has nobody, With my skin peeling atrociously. The sun’s glare off the window of the limousine, I’m closer to the guillotine. I essentially fell in love at first sight, I don’t know how I endure every night. The birds in the treetop, Mock me with their songs. Lately I’ve been getting looks full of suspicion, Even the best sometimes go into remission. I return defeated, My happiness depleted.

by hannah e

her porcelain kiss breathing ice

if you smiled more I would never

need to listen

Iremember

your secrets andvoiceless

brokenwords

Magnetic Poetry

she could have had the music his family cared to much

her time was limited their moments with god felt near the woman. no girl was out of time

she died in a flash the child was dead in a hour

her heart stopped the light was too bright

it was done.

I laugh like a child surrounded by magic but

haunted by the eyes of his father

She smiles like an angel who can dazzle this night

of decay and fever

My Name’s Russell by Syrena P.

My names Russell. I’m 17. I live with my abusive dad in New York while my disappointment of a mom lives in California with the doctor she ran off with when she went for a checkup of my unborn baby brother. I work at Free Spirit, a bar, café and restaurant. I’m between jobs and finishing college trying to make ends meet with the bills my worthless dad can’t even pay. I’m a stupid bus boy who everyone stares at because of the bruises on my neck from 2 weeks ago, the night my dad came home in an infuriating mood because his boss gave him a bad report for coming in late all the time because he was out drinking each night.

I was at work that night trying to finish cleaning up after the loud obnoxious college kids came to party, the dumbfounded idiots I call them, spilling beer and food all over the place and smoking away their life just because the rangers won the game of the season.

After the high schooler’s left a woman with the body of a model and shinny hazel hair that made her stand out walked in. She looked like every other woman but something about her smile made me know she was covering up something a smile that made me know her life wasn’t what everyone else thought It was. I had a gift ‐‐ something my mother told me I always had. I could see past the B.S. someone was trying to put up for someone else to believe ‐‐ a “front” my mother called it. My boss started yelling for me to hurry up the table because the woman I was staring at was eager to finish her business. I moved away from the table to go into the back room to call my best friend Caleb to talk about all the popular kids, to talk about how bad we wanted to get out of college and to move to L.A. and make the business we knew we were good at: Music.

Music was everything we knew, we lived for it we knew it was the only thing that would be there for us when the world we lived in turned upside down. As far as I was concerned, I thought we were pretty good, with me on bass guitar, Caleb on drums, and Jason on electric guitar. Our band is called terror of the night. Whatever Caleb would have to wait, because my boss was apparently trying to scream my head off. I rolled my eyes god what the hell is wrong with this place. I walked away knowing I couldn’t deck him in the face or else I would lose the job.

When I was putting away the dishes I saw that the beautiful woman I had seen before was now sitting with a man I knew had money, he was wearing a suit that had gold cufflinks and shoes that looked like you could sell to buy a house. I could over hear their conversation it was about some sort of papers just as I was about to walk away she said something interesting

“Do you have the papers the lawyers want them tomorrow?”

The man was clearly trying to be calm, maybe I missed the beginning.

“Why are you doing this bre? I said I was sorry now you want a divorce? What is going on with you? You know I love what we have!”

“What we had ‐‐ past tense ‐‐ and well since I caught you and my best friend Saporta on valentines day it’s hard to believe that you love what we had.”

“It was nothing, she doesn’t mean anything”

“Phil, I didn’t come to discuss something that’s already impending upon us when you forgot out 5th anniversary”

“Bre come on..”

Bre sighed she was fed up of the fighting for something that was obvious to everyone but him.

“Phil can we just get this over with this, I’m sorry but I don’t want to do this anymore”

“So I guess this is our last dinner together”

“I guess it is. Don’t think I don’t love you it’s just that I will always love you in my heart just not here and I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

“All right, I get it, lets just eat and talk I guess.”

By the time I realized I was still listening my boss blocked my view.

“So you’re eavesdropping on our customers ‐‐ how about you eavesdrop on your own time?”

God I’m so sick of this place everyone’s a complete ass when it comes to money. I punched the wall. I hate it here. Then it hit me I could take the money I needed and leave I wouldn’t have to stay here I could live with Caleb and his big brother Derek. I took the money out the cash register feeling excitement shoot through my body. I didn’t move because I wanted to hear the end of their conversation.

“I will never forget you Phil. I just want to move on is all.”

“Bre don’t leave yet”

“I’m sorry. Goodbye”

I walked out of Free Spirit feeling exactly that, free. When I got around the corner I didn’t feel free anymore, I felt disgust with myself for doing what I did. The wind was cold and biting against my face so I pulled my jacket closer to my face. After I got far enough away from the restaurant I sat down on my favorite curb it was close to where the street dancers danced you could see they liked what they did in every way. I put my beats on and sat for hours thinking of what to do. When it was finally dark enough that you could see the fireworks from the stadium I watched them they stopped at around midnight. By then, I was lucky enough to keep my eyes open to walk home.

When I realized what I really did I t hit me I’m nothing if I can’t get by on my own with stealing or lying. I was going to return the money as soon as I had the chance tomorrow little did I know there wouldn’t be one.

I put my hood up on my jacket and started to walk across the park a short cut to my house. When I got to the front door I could smell the tobacco. My dad was smoking again, probably even drinking. I opened the apartment door to my house and walked in.

Something hard hit me across the face it made my head feel light and my vision go blurry. Here we go again. My dad hit me repeatedly I felt useless and that’s exactly what he wanted me to feel.

But this time was different. I could see tears in his eyes but he kept going. I thought to myself “enough is enough.” I grabbed what I didn’t know was to be a gun at the time out of his hand and kicked his legs from underneath him and started to hit him with all the force I had in my body all the anger I felt inside. When he was bleeding I hit him even more when he begged me to stop I spit in his face and screamed

“What do you mean stop? I’m not the one doing anything wrong! It’s what you’ve been doing to me all these years and never seemed wrong to you!”

“Son you don’t know what you’re doing”

“Know I’m your son because all these years I’ve been thinking I was the dirt on the bottom of your shoe!”

My dad tried reaching for the object in my hand. I hit him across the face while as the tears run rapidly down mine. I can’t believe it came to this.

I hit him more ‐‐ probably 50 times more. I kicked him I heard a crack. There goes a rib. I kicked again and his nose broke. I kicked three more times causing the bones on his right side to break and his jaw to fracture. When my dad was out of breath I took a piece of glass that had broken off the side of the table where when I kicked him he had landed into. I picked up the shard of glass and cut his face his arms all the while holding him down with one arm.

He screamed out in pain. Good. I was letting all the angry that he had been poisoning me with for all these years out. All the venom and absolute infuriating deep hate I had was bubbling over in a split second. When I finally saw in a flicker at the side of my eye was what I was holding. A gun. I didn’t think, I didn’t, I didn’t realize till now what I’ve done. But I didn’t care.

I took the gun. With 3 shots I shot my father through the heart and killed him. I spat in his face and kicked him again. I’m not sorry one bit for what I did; he was a worthless man with a cold heart.

And what I’m telling you now. All that you know is what I told the judge, the therapist, the counselor, and my patrol officer a month ago. And till this day I’m still not sorry. He deserved to die.die.

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“Guilty” By Sarah P.

So, here’s the funny thing, this, funny, funny story that I’ve got here for you. Really, it’s just gonna’—knock your socks off. (Not that you’d be able to tell.) Um, anyways . . . It was the morning, the very early, very dreadful hour of the morning, and the sun was still rising, and most people were at the threat of crashing into each other, and everyone was heading out to find themselves a cup of jo—well, that’s what I was doing anyways. I’m not much use to anyone unless I’ve had some caffeine in my system. Do you drink coffee? I’m rather a grouch without it. So, do you like coffee? But I guess you’re still quiet young. Oh . . . no? Well, that isn’t incredibly awkward at all, now is it. I guess I didn’t start the conversation off that great anyways really; or maybe this isn’t really a conversation since I’m the only one who’s actually contributing, and conversing,as this supposed to be a conversation. Continuing on with this, uh, lovely story; I was driving to my destination—that being my friend’s house, not that you really, uh, care, do you? Okay, never mind—but! I was driving to my destination, not far from our neighborhood, when suddenly: something was running in the middle of the road. It was just sort of circling around, running back and forth between the roads. You know, just like any other stupid— I mean, just like any other animal in the middle of the road would do in the first place, right?

Uh, so, as I was saying, this animal that was currently in the middle of the road happened to be a dog. Yes, it was barking and such. But, here’s—here’s the real kicker. This is just, gonna’ kick you right, in the behind. Like uh, like a golf club, like a big, heavy driver. . . . Is that just me that finds it funny then? Oh, I guess so . . . Look, I—Um, I mean, listen. Does listening work then? Is that better for you? Um, sorry that’s incredibly awkward. Alright, well, I’m not going to lie to you. This dog was—it was your dog. But I swear, I didn’t find out until later! . . . ‘What am I talking about?’ Oh, that’s right; I haven’t actually told you what happened. This is great. Today, your dog died; it was run over. I’m so sorry. But, but I can explain this! I can explain this perfectly, because . . . Because someone else ran over it. Yes! That’s exactly what happened. Um, who? Who ran over your dog? Oh, see, that’s easy. I mean—don’t see, I mean . . . Sorry. Anyways, the person who ran over your dog is our other neighbor. Yes, our next door neighbor ran over your dog. And not me; Never, ever would I do such a thing . . . Ever. Yes, I know it’s terrible, isn’t it? Terrible.

FAT GIRL‐ A Journey – RELOADED

The fat girl looked like a blob.

It was because she ate like a slob.

She wanted to be thin,

But she couldn’t stop eating everything.

She thought she was damned to always be fat.

She sat up every night crying and reading The Cat in the Hat.

So she gave candy and junk food the boot

And started eating fruit.

But she cheated and became corrupted;

She did the opposite of what the doctor instructed.

She was supposed to keep the fridge door shut

In order to get rid of the fat on her butt.

She wanted to be transformed into a hottie,

Indeed, one with a nice body.

Reality, it was time to face it:

That weight watchers test, she had to Ace it.

She turned into a weightloss sensation,

A woman who could change the nation.

In the mall one day she took a glance

There they were, those skinny jean pants.

Caelan M.

Morte Carnaval

The Ferris wheel creaks in the wind

Like an old man’s joints.

The dusty ground still littered with posters,

Food wrappers,

And cigarette butts.

Wind snaps at the faded Big Top,

Giving glance to the glitz and glam

That once was.

Restless horses on the merry­go­round,

paw

the

ground.

A wall sheds scraps of poster advertising a magic show.

The echo of carefree joy and temporary naïveté.

The carnival is old and dying,

Some would say Death has come and

snatched

its

soul.

Glimpses of its former beauty can still be seen:

There’s elegance to the Ferris wheel’s

Slow revolution.

The look of the Big Top is vintage.

A certain je ne sais quoi

To its essence.

Built on illusions

But is more than real than us. By Hannah E.

By David A.

Abandoned library The library used to be a beautiful place to read and develop your mind. Now it is only full of old information and unusable materials. It looks as if someone tore the place apart, planted trees, and punched a hole in the ceiling for light. The trees are mature, although some look like they were planted only a month ago. The structure of the library looks as if it is over a century old and had been empty of people ever since it was built.

Now we have entered this abandoned building, and we see how sad a place like this can be. We looked around to see what was left: nothing much other than books and broken furniture.

Suddenly, we came to a strange section. A dead body. It was not much, just a pile of bones. We ran a DNA test on the remains to find out who the person was and how they died. We found his name was Edmund Golcher and he had died due to smothering, probably because the library had sank 200 feet underground. The Life of the Woods I wonder, I wander through the woods The moments in my life flashing before me I feel like a kind of a bird swooping through the trees Chills run down my back when the cold on my skin The thrill of me being in the woods Leaves me without words I took the knife out of my belt And stabbed a bush I felt the rigid branches of the shrub Then I heard a roar

Hold On There is a lot of love

Live a long with life full of longing and acceptance

Never let the door speak words of discouragement as it closes before you

Always try no matter how illegitimate the outcome may seem.

Because god is merde la tète sometimes

And you are just going to have to deal with life’s crap

by Adriaana M.

The Ugly Duckling

By Caelan M.

The ugly duckling always felt different. He was constantly teased and bullied by his fellow ducklings. His

mom didn’t even like him. He spent the nights crying. Until one day he met a crow. But the crow was

grey and ugly compared to all of the other crows. The duckling thought to himself “hey, he must know

what I’m going through.” The two of them developed a friendship. One day the duckling asked the crow

how he dealt with the constant taunting. The crow turned his head and replied “I killed them.” Surprised

by the answer he was given, the duckling asked how he did it. The crow told him about his training and

practice he did everyday to prepare for the slaughtering of his family. So the crow trained the duckling in

the ways of mass murder. A few weeks went by and the duckling’s training was complete. The next day

he was taunted by the other ducklings. Big mistake. The ugly screamed with rage and grabbed the

closest rock and beat the nearest duckling into a bloody mess. He then went on to slaughter the rest of

his family. He then turned on his mother. He backed her in to a corner. “You never helped me,” he said.

“You never even tried to stop them.” Before the mother could respond, the duckling was upon her;

savagely beating her face in with his bare wings. He then consumed his family in a feast with the crow.