Check Engine

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Check Engine

She happened to be driving down the highway when it first flashed on, that little orange light upon the dashboard.

“What’s that?” Daisy asked him. “Some warning light came on.”

Richard glanced over at it, then said, “Oh, that. It doesn’t matter. Those things just come on sometimes.”

“But what does the symbol mean?”

“It’s the check engine light. Could mean almost anything.”

“Are you going to check it out?” Richard worked as a mechanic in one of the town’s three repair shops.

“Usually it’s nothing.”

“But how can you be sure?”

“There’s a machine at work that checks the codes. I’ll look it up on Monday.”

She wasn’t sure he would, but what more could she say? After all, the Buick was his car, not hers.

When she pulled into their driveway, he got out without a word and wandered into the garage where he kept all his tools. She wasn’t sure whether or not he worked in there. Every time she went inside, he didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular, just staring off into space or swinging a ratchet aimlessly.

She began to unload the car, carrying the packages inside and putting them all away. The house wasn’t really theirs; it was only his. Always, she was aware of this little difference, knowing that in some fundamental way, their life together was not her own. She owned no single part of it, owned nothing really but her makeup and her clothes. So she never left things a mess, the way she might otherwise have done. She kept things picked up and put away. It was a way to earn her keep.

She had been living here with Richard for coming up upon a year. It was the longest she had lived with any man, at least since the change had happened, since that day with Clyde. Usually they lasted anywhere from a single night to three months at a stretch. Somehow, things with Richard had been different. She didn’t think that it was love, but they had fallen into a routine. Weekdays, he went to work while she did the laundry and the cleaning. She cooked dinner every night but Fridays when he took her out for beer and pizza. On the weekends, they often went out to Klamath Falls, the nearest city of any size, to do the shopping and buy some cheaper liquor.

The next day was Sunday, and they had a couple of people over for a barbeque. Grilling was one of the few things that Richard always liked to do. He had a large meat grinder, and he made his own special burgers, grinding some garlic and onion in with the meat to season it. Other times, he marinated chicken or steaks or pork chops using a blend of soy sauce and pineapple juice. When the meal was over, the men all went inside to watch the game. They weren’t picky, but watched whatever sport happened to be playing. If there were women too, they sat around with Daisy in the kitchen, smoking cigarettes and playing cards. She didn’t have much to say to them. They had all been born in this little town, and none of them had been to college. What do you say to people like that? If there was a way to talk to them, Daisy never got it figured out.

Sometimes there were no women, and Daisy cleaned up the kitchen, then went outside to get some air. She would take her phone and pretend she had some friends to chat with. But mostly, that was just for show. Daisy had no real friends. She used to have some, back in San Francisco. But when she left with Clyde, she hadn’t kept in touch. And after the disaster, she hadn’t felt like explaining. So there was only her sister left, and even she didn’t know it all.

On Monday and Tuesday, Richard went to work like normal. He didn’t mention the light, and she didn’t ask him about it. On Wednesday, her normal in-town shopping day, she took him to work and dropped him off so that she could have the car. The check engine light came on as soon as she turned the key in the ignition.

“Did you check out the code?” she asked.

“The code?”

“You know, for the check engine light.”

“I told you, it doesn’t matter. I’ll check it when I have the time.”

Perhaps, she thought later in the day, Richard after all was right. The car took her safely to the grocery store and the gas station and the place where she got her hair cut. The car drove normally. It didn’t shake or make any unexpected noise.

When she got home, she put up the groceries and called her sister.

“How’s Richard?” her sister asked. It was always her first question. Daisy knew that every time she called, her sister thought that something must have happened. In the past, that had been true. She called when things were heading south. But with Richard, nothing of significance ever seemed to happen.

“He’s fine. Same as always.” Daisy searched for something else to say. “Last weekend, we had a barbeque. He made his onion-garlic burgers.”

“So are you becoming a little hostess?”

“No, I wouldn’t put it that way. I just bought some coleslaw and potato salad. The only work I did was cutting up some carrots and some apples.”

“Well, I don’t know what you see in him. Or in that little town.”

“Well, I guess it’s a living.” Daisy wondered what her sister thought of all her recent men. It wasn’t that her sister was a prude or anything like that. Still, she must have wondered.

“What else is going on?”

“Nothing much. Well, I guess there’s something. But maybe I shouldn’t tell you. It might be too much information.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. Out with it! I want to hear it all.”

“Well, Richard is doing fine. In fact, I think our sex life has improved. He comes home each day, and we do it in the kitchen or the living room. He likes to bend me over the table and take me from behind. Whenever he does that, he’s so hard and it always lasts for such a long time. I didn’t think he could be like that. I mean, in the beginning, things were just plain in bed, you know, but now he’s like a tiger.”

“So why the change? What happened?”

“Well, that’s just it, I don’t know. One day a few weeks ago, it just started. Instead of waiting until we were in bed, he came right through the front door, unzipped his pants, and went right in. It was crazy. I was so surprised, I hardly knew how to respond. But God, let me tell you, it was sexy.” Daisy paused, and then continued. “But don’t you think it’s kind of weird? I mean, that seems like the sort of thing that you start out with, not something that happens ten months later.”

“You’re right. It is a little weird. Did you ask him about it? Was he afraid you wouldn’t like it?”

Daisy laughed. “I don’t think that’s it at all. He’s working class, you know. He’s not that into feelings.”

“Do you really think he’s right for you? I mean, it’s great you’ve been with him for awhile, but what do you have in common?”

“Not much. But I like him.”

“But you don’t love him?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so. But if the sex keeps up, maybe I could learn to.” At this, however, Daisy frowned, and it was as if her sister heard her.

“Something’s wrong. What is it?”

“Well, it’s just that since it started, you know, the better sex, he’s been so distant. Like he’s distracted.”

“Does he love you? Maybe he’s thinking of proposing.”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think he really—“ and the front door opened. “Look, I have to go. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

“Alright. I guess he must be home.”

Daisy had barely hung up with her sister when Richard came over and hiked up her skirt. The television in the kitchen was on, and Richard bent her across the counter and fucked her as he watched the news. When the weather forecast was ending, predicting rain tomorrow, he came, then held her hips in place for several minutes as he lingered there inside her, panting and pushing her head against the counter.

When he pulled out, he asked her what was for dinner.

“Meatloaf and potatoes,” she told him.

He grunted. “I’m going out to the garage, but I’ll be in by seven.” That was their standard time for weekday dinners.

She prepared the meal so that it would be ready just a little early. Then she went out to the garage to tell him dinner was on the table, and she found him in there on his phone.

“Alright. You go, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

He came in ten minutes later just as the food was getting cold. After dinner, they watched a movie and then went to bed and went to sleep.

The next day, he took the car. She couldn’t help herself, and she asked him. “So the light? You really think it’s nothing?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

“Alright then. I won’t worry about it.”

“That’s a better attitude.” He kissed her before he picked up his lunch that she had packed.

“Richard?”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t say you liked my hair.”

“Your hair? Did you do something different?”

“I had it cut.”

“I can’t see any difference.”

“Well, it was just a trim. To even it up a little and take off the split ends.”

“Well, I guess it’s nice,” he told her. “I had better go. I don’t want to be late.”

That evening, as soon as he got home, he took her once again upon the kitchen counter. This time, she managed to turn her head; she did it when he was distracted, just when he was about to come. She saw at last what he was doing, saw that he was on his phone. Of the screen, she only caught a glimpse, but she knew immediately what it was. He was watching porn.

It didn’t look professional; the image was too shaky. Just some homemade video. The one thing that she noticed, and the thing that seemed most strange, was that the couple in the video were in the same position that she was in right now with Richard. Even the countertop looked the same.

When she thought back later over the brief image she had seen, she realized there was something else. It had been a red-haired girl, but the man was not in the frame, just his penis penetrating her. It was as though he himself were taking the video at the same time that he was fucking. He might be holding his phone and watching the very image as it was being filmed, he himself a voyeur to his own act of sexual intercourse. The thought should be disturbing, yet Daisy found it turned her on. Richard wasn’t home yet, so she put her finger up inside her panties. She wondered if the man in the video could possibly be Richard. But if so, he was with some other girl. Some red-haired girl. It certainly wasn’t her.

This brought up something else. If it were true, did he have plans to film her too? And if he did, would he tell her? Or just hold her head down and do it? Would he still want her after? Or would the video of her be enough?

That night, he took her in an armchair in an awkward new position. Her back was oddly arched, but the angle of his penis felt good inside her. Different. There was no counter to push her head against, and so she risked it. She turned to see that he was on his phone. She couldn’t see the image this time. She could only imagine what it might be. But she thought it must be of a girl stretched across a leather armchair with one foot tucked up against the seat. She wondered if it was the red-haired girl. Or whether it was her.

The next weekend, Richard invited two other couples over and told her to pick up several steaks. After the meal was over and the men had gone off to watch baseball, Daisy made up a pitcher of cocktails and brought it in to the two women. A few drinks in, she brought up Richard’s last girlfriend. She knew her name was Ginger, though she knew almost nothing else about her.

“She was a real bitch, that one,” one of the women replied.

The other one agreed. “Richard’s dated some pretty awful women. I guess he got lucky this time around.”

“I’ve heard about a few of them. Wasn’t there one with bright red hair?”

“Sure, that was Ginger. It wasn’t real, you know. She dyed it.”

“What happened? Do you know why they broke up?”

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you. She wasn’t from around here, and she left town right after he kicked her out.”

“So how are things with Richard? Do you think maybe you’ll get married?”

“Sure would be good for him to settle down. In high school, he was always wild.”

“I don’t know,” Daisy answered. “He’s never mentioned getting married.”

“Well, of course not. I mean that’s the woman’s job. You have to bring it up and up until he thinks he can’t refuse.”

“Really?” Daisy thought this small-town culture was really quite confusing. “But if he doesn’t want to, won’t he resent it?”

“The men here all know they’re expected to, one day, but they try to hold out as long as possible.”

“Yeah, it’s some stupid point of pride.”

“It’s high time you brought it up. You know, he’s been seeing you longer than anyone else I can remember.”

“She’s right. I think he’s finally ready now.”

“Well, we’re going on a trip next weekend. I guess I could bring it up then.”

“Where you going?”

“Down to Monterey.”

“That’s fancy.”

“Yeah, you should definitely do it then. If he’s taking you on vacation, it’s a sure thing that he likes you.”

At the time, under the spell of the margaritas, Daisy thought she just might do it. But a few hours later, when the company was gone, when he was hiking up her skirt and thrusting himself inside her, she wondered whether this was really a marriage sort of thing. Before she brought it up, she had to know what he was really doing. Was he watching his old girlfriend while he was fucking her? And is that why he was all of a sudden so turned on? Maybe it wasn’t her he wanted.

The trip to Monterey would take some time. They were going the long way, driving down the coast on Highway 1. She had known of the famous highway, had been on it just a little, back when she lived in San Francisco, but she had never driven this much of it before. She liked it. But she wondered why it was that Richard had suggested it. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the scenery. Or to her, for that matter. His mind was somewhere else, somewhere far from Highway 1.

They were not too far from Monterey when she pulled over to the shoulder to let him drive for awhile. The road was dark and deserted. Daisy hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. Still, it didn’t matter. They could sleep in the next day, as long as they wanted to. The check engine light was still on, she noticed as she had gotten out, the engine still purring like a kitten. The fact that they had driven so far without the least trouble seemed to prove his point that nothing was the matter. Daisy was ready to give the matter up, though she found it odd that the light should come on without a reason.

About ten miles down the road from where they stopped and traded places, Richard started to pull over.

“What’s wrong?” Daisy asked him. “What are we stopping for?” There was nothing around at all, not even far off in the distance.

“It’s not me,” he answered. “It’s the car. The engine just shut down.”

The car coasted to a stop. Richard got out and popped the hood. Daisy got out too and watched him.

“I can’t see. Better get the flashlight. It should be in the glove compartment.”

Daisy went around to find it. She riffled through the contents. The flashlight was there, down at the bottom, almost invisible behind something that looked like an old photo. She switched on the light and saw a crumpled picture. The girl in it looked somewhat familiar. Perhaps it was her hair.

She took the flashlight out to Richard, then went back inside the car to wait. She found what she was looking for, and then she picked up her purse.

She saw a light in the rearview mirror, a light that was approaching quickly, but then began to slow. A car pulled up behind them, and Daisy got out to see who it was. It was not a cop, she realized with relief, just some guy in a nice sedan, the kind you don’t see up in rural Oregon, no, more like the kind they drive in San Francisco.

The driver didn’t get out of the car, just rolled down his window.

“Hey, are you OK? You need some help?” The driver was a man, and there was no one else inside the car. He looked at Daisy, and he smiled.

“I don’t know. The car just stopped. For no reason. The check engine light was on.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Monterey.”

“I’m going that way too. I can give you a ride there, if you like.”

“Let me go ask Richard.”

She ran over to him and found him, head down, staring at the engine. “That guy says he’ll drive us to Monterey. What should I tell him?”

Richard only grunted and ignored her.

Daisy opened the passenger door and took something out. Then she went back to the car that was waiting.

“He thinks he can fix it.”

“Fix it? Out here, at this hour?”

Daisy shrugged. “He’s sort of a mechanic.”

“You sure you don’t want a ride?”

Daisy caught his meaning. He leaned over and opened the passenger door. She looked at Richard and the stalled out ancient Buick. She looked at them and thought the guy was right. It might be time to leave.

Jennifer Handy explores sexuality, psychological trauma, mental illness, homelessness, severed family relationships, and environmental issues through fiction. Her fiction has been published in A Plate of Pandemic, MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture, Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal and is forthcoming in Bridge Eight, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, Great River Review, and Half and One.

‘Aubade for JC’, ‘Fatherhood’, & ‘Sadie Miller’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

aubade for jc

while light from outside snow
highlights your white-wired
beard hairs & speckle your dark chest,
i’ve never felt the warmth of another
& safety that hides
in the crook of your neck
waiting for me on this winter day.
any day/all days.
your lips are opened like the wrapping paper
on a christmas gift snuck early
beneath a droopy-needle pine
& your glass-blue eyes flicker beneath
petal-like eyelids. the baby monitor
rumbles with soft-kid-snores & your heavy
breathing gives me a reason to know
i have searched 34 years for
a soft-edged/gentle/quiet/white/
morning love; not knowing you existed
in this light or bed or room or city.
i’ve been looking to find
a push my hair behind my ear for me,
matching initial tattoos at the kitchen
table on the second date,
forehead kisses when you think i'm sleeping
during afternoon naps, & late start
mornings beneath sheets. all i know is
my body shakes itself
inside out beneath you & if that isn’t something
then i don’t know how anything
exists in this world. & yet
during this body-breaking
all is still & there’s no noise,
idea, or being that could bring
me back to before
you & i existed/together.
until this past december, i never
knew of the fusion of beings
or the existence of depending on another.
now it’s here. in the quiet,

that’s not quiet & in the brightness
of light creeping through blinds.
there are interlocking fingers, & legs, hair
spilling onto pillows,& sheet-covered torsos, bent backs,
crooks & crevices, & laid-on arms,
the delicate insides left out -
waiting to be picked
up by another in a world
built of alarm clocks, color-coded
schedules, & calendar pings.
instances of things we never
knew would breathe life into us
found in the early morning/
the stillness of light.

Fatherhood

To witness
you with our baby
tubes running like small
backwood creeks
across the trunk of her body,
the size of your hand
heals the fatherless childhood I had.
A childhood
I didn’t know
the difference
of never seeing a man
provide unwavering gentleness,
rooted like an oak tree.
Never knew how
a soft voice could fill
the spaces of a broken body
& addiction is not woven
into the fabric of masculinity.
Strength is quiet &
intentional &
dedicated & fills up
the room slowly,
an ocean reaching the shoreline
bit by bit.
There was nothing
to compare & yet everything
rests on your shoulders
as your arms
surround her body.
You press her to your beating
heart, for 45 days
straight & I witness
what it means to crack
yourself open
letting the light in
brightening other’s shadows.

sadie miller,

you were named within an hour
on a cross-country road trip
as your dad zipped us
back from kentucky to south dakota,
a state i swore i would never return to.
things change & minds can change too
//remember that when moments get hard &
you worry about what happens
if you learn more or grow & new possibilities
look as sweet as blackberries
try them//
on december 8th i knew things would never
be the same as i sat across from your dad
laughing so deep, i never felt more alive
or more like myself. & every fear i knew
crumbled like dry leaves beneath feet.
now watching you,
nearly 11 pounds at 5 months old,
you laugh fully. mouth extending,
showing mountains of pink gums.
dimples rippling over the pond of your face
//always laugh fully, letting it take over the room
filling up spaces not originally made for you
but you built for yourself//
your siblings cradled you
when they,themselves, were nothing but children,
& prayed your little 3-pound body
would live through the night your heartbeat
dropped. they practiced consoling their cousin’s
baby dolls to be the best for you
//love B & E always
they will always be there for you//
don’t forget that 912 franklin, our home,
is made of board games, art-lined walls, spilled
sodas, zach bryan crooning records, kisses,
& pizza crusts left for dogs to eat.
it’s muddy socks from trampoline jumps,

the best you can do on homework, heavy-gripped
hugs & hands held on couches piled with
extra blankets. there’s always time
for naps, late-night television shows, belly laughter,
paint brushes left unclean, noah kahan stick-poke
tattoos, stories of won recess superbowls,
broken drumsticks, opened books, solved
math equations, empty drawn-on coffee mugs
& everything
in between.
//remember, the best is found in the quietest of moments
& times that feel messy. remember that love isn’t linear
or comes when you want it, but instead, at times you need it.
remember you are the best of us we could offer
& it still won’t be enough for you//

Whitnee Coy has an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University's Bluegrass Writers Studio. She has two chapbooks of poetry published "Kintsukuroi" (Finishing Line Press) and "Cicurate" (SD State Poetry Society) and have been published in various literary journals such as "Havik: The Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature" & "Jelly Bucket".

The Fish Tank

Photographer - Tobi Brun

The Fish Tank

I’m sixteen.

The boy’s dishwater blonde hair is just long enough to cover his eyes. I call him a boy, but my memory contains no detail of his age. He could be a man. He is older than me—that much I’m sure of. I let my mind tell me he is something between—on the verge, maybe, of
manhood or of an adolescence that will stretch on longer than it should. Or, of something else I can’t quite name. I gaze at him through the fringe of his unwashed hair. His eyes aren’t what hold my attention, but the knowledge that he’s high on painkillers. He parts his hair so strictly down the middle it makes me think of Moses striding through the Red Sea, sandals on dry ground. The boy rubs my feet between his warm palms. It’s intriguing—the way he asks permission to do this. My heartbeat hammers my ears. Without hearing myself say yes or no, I watch him reach down and slowly lift one of my feet into his lap, followed by the other. Another boy exists somewhere in the dark periphery, in the back of the trailer with my best friend, L.

She follows him, her hand in his, until they disappear into the bedroom at the end of the hallway. They stay quiet for a while, long enough for her absence to become a marked presence in my memory. As the boy rubs my feet, I stare across the room into a fish tank casting a purple glow into the dusk. Late summer clouds flare up inside the window frame above the aquarium, pink and orange, before they fade, and the sky goes slack. The darkness turns to nothing, a deep canvas for the pinprick of stars and the sound of cicadas wailing at the new moon. The purple glow reflects off the inky glass. In hindsight, I understand the nothing that happens that night is something. He, the boy with the hair parted in the middle, addicted to pills, doesn’t require anything of me but to lie still while he touches my feet. Yet, there is an unasked question—some dread I can’t put my finger on. I feel the purple lure of the fish tank stain me as I lie on that couch. It lodges in me then, leaning me toward neither red nor blue, but a sick leaching of both together—something secondary, a stalling in the middle. The purple is inextricable. I define it now as the yearning of my adolescence—the desire to be desired. I don’t want this boy, but I do want more than this.

Last year, I turned forty. Since then, I’ve been toying with the idea of reckoning, wondering what the enduring questions of my life are as I allow myself to peer over my shoulder, back into the blank spaces, the irrelevancies that seemed so important to my younger self. Why did I think certain trivialities were important and would remain so, even after the memory faded from view?

Out of the ether of my past, this foot rub materializes to something concrete, like an anchor keeping me in place, dropped somewhere deep into the purple glow of that fish tank. It marks time, denotes context. Now, I look back at myself and think, this is the first thing that ever happened to me. I am born here. But, really, this foot rub is the birth of my curiosity. About myself, about what can happen—about L. and what she does in the back bedroom with the boy she follows there. The question grows inside me—when will whatever is happening for her happen for me? When will a man look at me like that? Take me by the hand, lead me somewhere dark? When will I be chosen?

Something in the fish tank’s purple glow reminds me of a fever dream, some unknowable landscape unleashed in my psyche. There is the feeling of being sunk, delving under. Of something not quite right. It is like the flicker of a television into a dark room, only nothing moves. The purple should be banal—simply the color of the pebbles at the bottom of the aquarium flinging their hue on the far wall. But, nothing is always something, the way the color floats up, skims the surface of memory. The purple emerges from the depths. I imagine the fish study me through the bleary wall—they wonder why I let that boy touch me at all.

This—the fish tank and the foot rub—is the first of many times I’ll wait on L. That night marks the beginning of something I can’t yet see, how she is becoming older than me, even though we are a month apart—my birthday in June and hers in July—Cancer and Leo, the best of
friends. That night, when L. follows the boy back to that bedroom, down the dark hallway, she begins to know things I won’t know until much later. This widening distance between us plants the first seed of jealousy in me. Even though I can’t define it yet, I want her freedom. There is nothing holding her back. Where I am constrained internally, L. is always completely herself.

So much of who I am back then is wrapped up in almost. In falling short of what could happen, who I could be. L. is different—she acts, makes decisions. She goes places, does things. Has relationships with boys. I tag along, always an outsider. An observer. I am forever on the couch getting foot rubs from boys, while she is inside a boy’s room, doing something else. It seems to me that L. lives as if she has nothing to lose. Carefree, grown-up. Sophisticated, even when we are still too young to know what that means. She seems headed, sometimes, for destruction, but her consequences glitter like sunlight on a rain puddle. I want this lure, this shine. Sometimes—often—she follows the voice of the Sirens, but even when she crashes on the shore and burns like a shipwreck aflame on the horizon, it is a beautiful burning. She makes sure of that.

Now, I think back to the version of me who is there, staring into that aquarium. I wonder, what do know now that I didn’t know then? That night is near the beginning of something big and disastrous in L.’s life. But I am still on the verge, still looking for whatever it is that will catapult me into adulthood. I am still looking for the thing—the boy, the love—that will take me off the rails. I believe then that growing up comes hand in hand with heartbreak. On some level I am right. Something about the inertia in the scene frightens me. I can’t be bothered to say no to something I don’t want. I can’t be bothered to turn on the light or tell L. I don’t want to wait on her. Or to tell that boy no, I don’t want him to touch me.

Any difference in the realm of memory, any alteration, a slight shift, and the tectonic plates of the past can move. Everything I know could be different, shifted slightly to the left, just one degree off. But, then, I wonder, is it possible to remember something wrong? Or are things just how they are, and how I remember them is how they exist, hard and fast, in my memory— incorrect or not? That’s the kind of moment it is, looking into the fish tank, into the purple murk. It is pivotal, a hinge. Something in my perception tells me the fish tank and the foot rub isn’t all there is, isn’t the whole evening, the whole story. There is everything else, too—and, how I feel about it. L. is in the bedroom at the back of the house. In my mind this amounts to her being chosen. I am on the sofa cringing as the boy grazes each of my toes with the tips of his fingers. This is the first and most pronounced of many tiny moments of comparison. I don’t want to be chosen by the same boy who chooses L., I just want to be wanted, desired. And, I want to be anywhere else but here.

Whatever is right in front of me is there because of what lies behind me—I am a product of accretion, an accumulation of pasts. I am made of little litterings of light flung on the path after I already walked it, the half-dried footprints leading me through wet, disintegrating leaves. This single memory of having my feet rubbed is the context of all my accumulated selves at one point in time, staring into the swirling purple water. It comes to mind the way a shadow might materialize. An image floats up, out of the darkness, like a candescent creature in dim water. I’m surprised by the persistence of this memory—such a seemingly meaningless event, but an experience all the same. What other moments are there just like this, ones too insignificant to even remember?

I don’t want to imbue meaning into a scene that holds none—I can only say it was a turning point. A scene I look back on now and think oh yes, that happened. And, and then, everything changed. It’s a flag planted in the soil, marking the place where everything ended, and everything else began. It’s the kind of thing only picked up on the trail walking back, only noticed in hindsight, on the return journey. It comes to mind that I may never know what I was doing—when I let that boy rub my feet. The soft accumulation of my experience may never make sense to me.

Behind me, silhouettes creep slowly. The room I occupy—so recently filled with golden radiance—now brims with cool shadow. I watch as the dog follows a warm block of light cast from the storm door across the wood floor. The sun disappears, buried in blue. I sit wondering if what I feel is regret, or if it is simply the way time passes, how memory discards absence, abandons it on equal footing with presence.

Anna Oberg is a professional photographer based in Estes Park, Colorado. When she's not arranging family portraits with the perfect view of Long's Peak as backdrop, she focuses on writing tiny memories and small stories. She has been published in Hunger Mountain Review, The South Dakota Review, Mud Season Review, Pidgeonholes, Causeway Lit, The Maine Review, decomp Journal, The Festival Review, and Split Rock Review, among others.

What You Look Forward To

Photographer - Tobi Brun

What You Look Forward To

Do you smell that?
A charred scent that fills my nose
and draws water from my eyes.

The smoke clogs my lungs,
forcing me to grasp at whatever
air I can find.

Soot hammers my taste buds,
leaving a burnt sensation lingering
in my mouth.

My skin bubbles against my bones
as the heat rages through my body
from cinders that were once trees.

The screams of people fleeing drown out
the blaring sirens of a dozen firetrucks
and the crackle of dancing flames.

A clear accident, planned by those
who deny allegations, who hid their pollutants,
who turn away from the damage they have caused.

A planet killed and for what?
The push for innovation and change
lead only to death and destruction.

Do you smell the smoke? Taste the ash?
Hear the screams? Feel the flames? See the end?
This is the future you have to look forward to.

Magdalena Broderick is a 2024 Bridgewater College graduate. She spends her free time reading, writing poetry, and spending time with her horses. She enjoys exploring the idea of how the passage of time affects individuals, society, and the planet in her poetry.

Birthdays Are for Redefining

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Birthdays Are for Redefining

I stare at the names in my Snapchat contacts and idle my finger above the “create group chat” button. I am in the early stages of creating a plan to celebrate my twenty-second birthday, which is a week away, and I need to decide who I will invite to a party that has not yet been planned. As I look at the names of people I have known for years, I hesitate over whether to pull them all into a virtual room and discuss the details of a day celebrating me or if I should scrap the idea altogether. The names of these people once felt comfortable in my mouth along with the words “they are my friend,” but over the last few months, I have found a sour taste poisoning the confidence in that sentiment. It is normal to grow apart from people you were once very close with. That’s what people older than me would say. But is it normal to question if someone is your friend at all or if they ever have been? I question this after years of built-up papercuts that have turned into a gash, scarred over, but still sore.

In the past, my birthday was a sacred day, it was a day that got to be about me. People were nice to me on my birthday and that was huge to a little girl who spent most other days being picked on or excluded. Everyone wanted to come to my birthday, as I spent weeks planning the themes and details of the celebration. It didn’t matter where we went. The arcade, the waterpark, or my mom’s basement where we set up couch forts and stayed up all night. My birthdays were the most fun. Even though I had lots of people to invite to a birthday, the group of friends I grew up with were not very healthy. They talked violent amounts of gossip about one another, got into fights (sometimes physical), and played other friends against the one they were mad at, leaving them

isolated. I knew at the time, even at age eleven, that relationships like that were toxic, but I wanted to be liked, wanted to have friends, needed to have “friends” to invite to a birthday. At age eleven I felt like a friend was a person you should be loyal to no matter what, but my notion of loyalty was to allow others to walk all over me, while I provided support and companionship to those, who in hindsight, didn't even like me.

Merriam-Webster defines a “friend” as “A person who has a strong liking for and trust in another.” Strong liking. Trust. By this definition, I have only ever had one fully platonic “friend” that I had been sure liked me and who I felt mutual trust with, a girl who I no longer speak to because of her lifestyle choices involving drugs, men, and morality. I held onto her for a long time while she continually chose her lust for self-destruction, I wanted to be loyal, but you can only tell someone so many times why she shouldn't be doing hard drugs and why nothing is worth getting put in juvie before the repetition becomes exhausting.

I grew up wanting a perfect TV friendship. One where the two besties would see each other every day; and have each other's backs amidst the rumors, boy troubles, and growing pains; one where I could confidently call someone my “best friend” without awkward hesitation that I was stepping on someone else's toes. But as I've gotten older, I wonder if that wish was realistic. I called Brittany Dunham, a girl I had known for years, my best friend one time. I unintentionally did it in front of Kailee, a girl who has known Brittany since she was a toddler, but who would also call her fat and dumb behind her back. When my sentiment of our relationship slipped, Brittany stared at me with her giant blue eyes and froze, looked at Kailee’s glaring face, and said I

was “one of her best friends.”
Since the early two-thousand-tens, musician/actress Selena Gomez and country-turned-pop icon Taylor Swift have been best friends. They are often seen by the paparazzi on outings from lunches or shopping sprees, they attend one another’s events and concerts, and they almost always sit together at award shows, whispering gossip back and forth to one another. At surface level, they are what I wanted growing up, a supportive, loving sister who had my back, despite the rumors of being a poor performer and needing autotune to sound good. But as I have gotten older, I've learned that a 100% supportive friend may not be realistic, and I find it strange that they have never made a song together. Maybe a “friend” isn't someone you share everything with, whatever the reason as to why they haven't made music together, it seems like these two stars don't mix business with personal.

I read a book back in elementary school titled Friendship According to Humphrey by Bett G. Birney. The books follow a school pet hamster named Humphrey who, through wacky adventures, learns what being a “friend” means. This often involved using kind words, not discussing someone unfairly behind their back, including them in conversation and plans, and respecting them in every general sense. I wanted to have friends like Humphrey did and wanted to be a good friend.

Ashlynn, one of the names in the Snapchat contacts, told me I wasn't being a good friend a few weeks before finals. She couldn't understand why I, a full-time student working six hours a day, did not want to come to her apartment after every shift and watch a movie with the rest of our

friends. She didn't understand why I didn't want to be around my friends after a shift and why I wanted to go home to rest and do homework. “You can do your homework here,” she argued, while her baby boy screamed for more milk, and her boyfriend screamed at his video games. I wanted to be around my “friends”, I loved them, but can someone be a “friend” if they don't see each other at least once a week? Does friendship expire after not seeing one another for a specific amount of time? I wanted to prioritize a full night's rest over my friends. Did that make me a bad friend? Ashlynn seemed to think so. I ended up apologizing and said I would be there next time. I wonder how many times a week Selena and Taylor see one another.

Scrolling through the names on my phone and analyzing them, I can’t help but feel frustrated by what I was seeing before me. The Oxford Dictionary adds in their definition of a “friend” that it includes mutual affection exclusive of romantic or sexual feelings. I frown at the name of the boy who got me to sleep with him while I mourned the disintegration of my first serious relationship, claiming I could trust him with my thoughts and my body, only later to tell other friends that I came onto him. I shift my focus to another boy, one who more times than I can count tried to hit on me while drunk, and finally to the boy who would jump at the opportunity to sleep with me if my boyfriend and I broke up. If you asked him, he would claim he is my boyfriend’s friend like he is mine.

Shaking off my disappointment for the men I know, I move to the women. I stare at the name of a girl whom I have not seen more than twice since she got into a relationship almost a year ago, the friend whom I have helped move thrice who talks about me behind my back, and finally,

the girl who she talks about me to, who I had helped recover from drugs and held while she cried when her boyfriend cheated on her.

If there is a definition of a guy-friend I would say it is something like “A boy you initially view as a brother, who you trust like a brother, that is until they reveal they want to sleep with you, leading to you feeling uncomfortable wearing a swimsuit in front of them.” If I could define girl-friends it would refer to “Either the best mutual platonic sisterhood you could have, or the most isolating experience that creates insecurity, resentment and cattiness. Does not have to be mutual.”

My experience with “friends” has been a heartbreaking one filled with whiplash, but I doubt I have been a perfect friend in return. I have said the wrong things, and have been selfish and too opinionated, but I can rest easy knowing I have always tried to be at least an honest, loyal, and true friend, like Humphrey.

Swiping up and down my Snapchat contacts screen in frustration, it hits me. My definition of what constitutes a “friend” has changed since childhood, and I haven’t noticed until now. Unlike in the past, I don't have the desire to invite any of these people simply because they’re people I have attached myself to. I am tired of feeling the weight of expectations I am putting on myself and others while receiving minimal effort and maximum judgment from “friends” in return. My efforts are unappreciated, my intentions misunderstood, and while I have been allowing people all of my life to put their shoes on my neck, and accepting that this is the weight of a title like “friend,” I am denying myself other possible friendships in the name of loyalty. Or maybe it has been comfortable to stay in relationships that I don’t quite fit in.

I have known most of my friends for more than four years, some as long as six, which is enough time to have fights and disagreements with one another, but at the end of the day, we all are drawn back to the group by a bonfire kickback or a birthday, much like the one I have been mulling over. A lot of different factors could be what drew us back to one another like magnets even after nasty fights, but the most common theory among our group was that we viewed one another as “family.” I believed for a while that people you've known for a few years could hold a candle to blood relations, but my friends never paid for my tuition, never held my hand while I underwent medical procedures, they didn't even stop being friends with my ex after he cheated on me. My family did. What kept us together was familiarity, comfortability, and perhaps a trauma bond or two so that we would have people to go camping with, travel with, and celebrate birthday parties with.

It had taken me twenty-two years to learn how to be all right in becoming unattached to those who have not applied equal pressure, and for the first time in my life, feel comfortable celebrating myself with those whose intentions I do not need to question. Feeling a sense of assurance, I swipe my finger up, on the Snapchat app, erase it from my homepage, and with it, the half-baked group chat disappeared.

I decide, in the end, not to plan a big birthday party. Instead, at twenty-two, I conclude that I have to give up on needing to be celebrated, by people who are arguably not true “friends.” Instead, I will plan a small dinner for myself with my family and boyfriend and let the “friends” who give halfhearted questions about whether I am doing anything for my birthday, a gesture of meeting them at a local bar later that night, a place they would be either way, birthday or not.

Esabeau (Esa) Harrington is a senior creative writing student at Rocky Mountain College in Billings Montana. Her work often involves the relationships in her life and also includes themes surrounding mental and physical health.

‘It's Funny What People Will Say & Do to Relate to One Another’, ‘The Separation’, & ‘A Sky of Bombs’.

Photographer - Tobi Brun

It's Funny What People Will Say & Do to Relate to One Another

Her purple-hued legs, as long as my fingers
& the tubes that ran throughout her body
were as thick as her pine-needle arms.

When you explain to people
your baby is in the NICU, they never know what to say.
Prattle about a baby they once knew
who survived or read about
in a Facebook post. They preach phrases like normal,
you’d never know, even graduated early, or
only had a hole in their heart to make you feel relieved.
Jostle, how lucky you are & how thankful
you should feel. Your baby will be fine, & these moments
will pass when you can’t hold her, feed her, bathe her,
touch her petal-thick skin that you once grew.

Curious people ask if her eyesight
will be okay & I wonder if oxygen
lines will snake through her nose forever.
Or pry if she will always be so tiny - can she catch up?
All I can think of is that because she was born
so young, she hadn’t learned the reflex of suckling
& swallowing. No matter how many breastfeeding articles I read,
it would never matter as a toothpick-sized orange
feeding tube winds through her nose for nearly 45 days.

It’s funny what people will say &
do to relate to one another.

When in the dark of night, while everyone rests
& IVs streak both of your arms, you cry
with no sound, so nurses or your husband don’t hear
because you should be thankful you survived.
She survived.
But your body feels empty
& your arms pine to hold her
foot-long body next to yours in rough
patterned hospital sheets.

Instead, in the quiet beeps of hospital rooms
you grieve the dreams you had
for your pregnancy, birth, & the beginning

days of her life.
Grief’s like heavy weights
tied to your feet as you learn to walk again,
shuffle one foot after another
to the NICU in the morning light.

The Separation

Before they pulled her wet-slicked being
from my numbed body, they prepped us
we may not hear her cry.

Minutes before, her heart rate dived
to a faint tap & her 3lb body
had stopped moving.

No matter if I had changed position,
sipped chilled water, or however deep
they dug the ultrasound wand into me;

her life-filled body had become lifeless.

As my body rocked back &
forth like a swing in the wind, they carved
through 7 layers of my body.

I shivered from the coldness of metal tools
slicing thick tissue & the nurse to my right
gabbled everything they were doing, reasons why, & I couldn’t hear a thing.

Only thoughts of how
my 7-month-old baby that had grown a part of me
may not scream, cry, feel, or be alive.

My husband rested his hand on my hairnet
& soon we heard little bleats, a wet lamb
dropped in a pasture left to survive.

In a moment, we became two entities
left to laugh, wail, & feel the world’s aches
separate.

a sky of bombs

i can’t help but think
how things would be different if she
came under sky-cascade of bombs
on the gaza strip,
explosions like the uncurling of broken bones
snap in the sky. images of starved babies,
four in one hospital crib
in darkness without electricity & running water.
their misshapen heads, ribs raised
through bodies like the flat
& sharp keys of a piano.

women, like Walaa, their bodies
inside out to give birth on the bitter,
cracked earth between refugee tents with only
her uncle’s wavering flashlight &
vibrations of bombs ricochet. no medical care
& a baby’s limp purple body between her legs
waiting to be starved.

Whitnee Coy has an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University's Bluegrass Writers Studio, and has taught creative writing throughout the past 13 years at various programs and colleges/universities including at Oglala Lakota College, a tribal college on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She have two chapbooks of poetry published "Kintsukuroi" (Finishing Line Press) and "Cicurate" (SD State Poetry Society) and has been published in various literary journals such as "Pasque Petals", "Poem Memoir Story PMS", "Jelly Bucket", and "Havik: The Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature".

‘Convivium’, ‘Hylas’, & ‘Antinous’.

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Convivium

Hearing the golden youth play the lyre
I - blushing, joyful - turned to see you
then here with me
but now...

Hylas

You slipped into wretched waters
Led to a bloodied fate by nymphs
deadly, leaving me lonesome,
o forever tender.
By moonlight I, widower, mourn my love
hearing unwillingly those murmurs and sighs
rising from the hellish black depths
very soul aching.

Antinous

The garden flourished with bright birdsong and fragrant herbs
together we laughed and played here.
But the brilliant hour fled
now you sleep, eternally
silenced by the river.

Lee Lanzillotta is a writer originally from Virginia. He is currently based in Rome, where he studies Classics. His writing has been featured in Melissa, Vox Latina, the Gay and Lesbian Review, and Remus. You can find him on Instagram @leelanzillotta.

‘Midnight Voyage’, ‘Method Metamorphosis’, ‘Natural Selection’, ‘Release the Doves’ & ‘No Flash Photography’.

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Midnight Voyage

Head upon my cotton pillow,
bones sinking into my mattress,
I suddenly plunge through my bed,
descending into an infinite abyss,
engulfed by foreign air.
This new oxygen suspends all pain,
so i wear a smile throughout my descent.
Until, in the blink of an eye,
I collide with an ancient, cryptic ship.
Unflinchingly, I gaze up—
to find a pirate with transcendental eyes,
leading me to the fiercely familiar plank,
bearing a tall tale hook for a hand.
He gestures for me to jump,
unafraid, I tread down the creaky plank,
until I reach the end, in awe.
For it’s not water beneath me,
but the limitless midnight sky.
Glancing back to smile at the pirate,
he appears different now,
because that pirate is me.

Together, we grin like the Cheshire Cat,
mimicking the waning crescent moon below.
I mouth the words “thank you,”
while my other half waves goodbye.
Bracing for what’s to come, I step off,
first one foot, then the other,
and before I realize,
I’m swimming in the cosmos,
colliding with the constellations.

Method Metamorphosis

I was born into this world
with one singular purpose;
to perform.
My mother once told me
if I truly wished to, I could change.
But somewhere along the way,
I gave up and forgot
what it means to truly, be alive.
With each subtle movement
I ensnare the ever-cathartic crowd,
as my own life’s crafting slowly slips away.
Until I met her—
the one who effortlessly
broke down my defenses.
Now with a child, something shifts.
In her eyes, I discover a sacred sanctuary;
she becomes my anchorage

where my scripted performances dissolve,
yet I remain cherished.
Fast forward to that scorching August day;
my child, my best friend,
suddenly turns three.
She prances around, playing dress-up,
clad in her tulle wedding dress,
decorated with a pillowcase veil.
Reenacting princess tales,
she runs to me, exclaiming,
“I want to be an actress!”
I now understand my mother’s wisdom,
but I brace myself as I say;
“if you truly wish to, you can.”
“if you change your mind, you also can.”
For the first time,
I breathe in freedom’s taste,
embracing the concept of rebirth,

eternally grateful for my mother’s pivotal words.

Natural Selection

Survival of the fittest—
I stand at the starting line,
No weapons in hand,
Only shaking bones to bear.
When the siren sounds,
My rivals break out running,
Yet I remain still in the mud,
Embracing the end I see coming.

Release the Doves

In many moments,
Life grew scarier than death.
Years of silent torture
Irreversibly stole pieces of me,
Robbed my brightest days,
And seized my innocence too young.
I only want peace
To escape my poisonous brain.
So, if one day I pass
And it is said that my death is not fair,
Do not shed tears,
For it was my life that was not.
And in death's embrace,
I might finally be free.

No Flash Photography

Cynical was the girl,
Who never knew security.
Timid and reluctant, she roamed,
With a wretched heart that grew cold.
Living in a carcass made of glass,
It was so easy to see inside of her.
Weak was the girl,
Who then watched her heart bleed out on display,
Analyzed as if she belonged in a museum.
So, she learned to con the crooks and culprits,
And made a living off her own priceless melodrama.
Wickedly clever was the cynic from the museum.

Nicole Stewart, 21, is an actor and writer based in Southern California. With a background in theater and a love for storytelling, Nicole is also dedicated in the world of poetry to explore different routes of creative expression. She has sharpened her craft through various life experiences and is now channeling that experience into creating her debut poetry book, which dives into themes of contemplation, resilience, and the complexities of human emotions. She hopes to offer readers a glimpse into her world of imagination and emotional layers.