Category: Uncategorized

Nightfall
Jay Chambers

Yellow, pink, and red all overlay the orange
of the setting sun. Complimentary colors
bathe the horizon in a coherent whole.
Elsewhere, dusk has come and blankets
the farmhouse with a smooth and comforting
darkness. The dandelions fade into black.
I turn around and see the cows standing in
the pasture. Rich tan and brindle coats have
now been rendered as silhouettes in contrast
To the final climax of color, dancing yellows,
Strutting pinks, and roaring reds, bowing now
at the end of their encore, the sun fades to black.

My Heart Is in Pennsylvania
Eva Cruz

I remember the summers in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
when I a little girl. My front yard was a giant hill
that dropped toward the street. The grass scribbled
on my pants when I rolled down the valley.
My Abuelo would yell, Eva, ¿qué estás haciendo?
Nothing! I yelled back. The grass stains
telling on me and getting me in trouble.

The cool, still nights where I would catch lighting
bugs and pretend they were my best friends.
I put them in mason jars and made lanterns
that helped me find my way in the hill’s wilderness. After I completed my quest, I let them go
and waved goodbye to the pulsating, neon lights

I slurped on homemade limber ──Puerto Rican popsicles
that tasted better than any brand name treat. But
I always popped up like a meerkat when I heard the
jingling melodies of the ice cream truck. I sighed
as my teeth sunk into a SpongeBob shaped ice cream.
It dripped onto my chubby, little face, and I later
scavenged the fridge for my next victim.

The best part were our family feasts.
Spanish beans and rice, plantains, and pernil─
Puerto Rican pork roast, that tasted better
with each bite. We sang and danced and I hoped
that my knowledge of the words
Hola and gracias would carry on a conversation.

Magnetic Poetry Sestina
Sarah Bramblett

When I got my first apartment, my mom gave me some words,
a set of magnetic poetry, to stick beside the grocery list
on my fridge. I’d spend several quiet hours scatter[ing]
the nouns and verbs. Less writing, more rearranging.
Three-hundred magnets cast a sort of spell,
transporting me from the dilapidated kitchen; it was magic.

“love,” “language,” “symphony,” “magic,”
just a few of the possible poem words.
I’d move an “a” in front of “lone,” and so I’d spell
my story. With the limited vocabulary, I’d list
my dreams: “money,” “commencement,” “music.” Rearranging
on the whim of the day (early twenties are when ambitions scatter).

My apartment often became a respite for scatter[ed]
college friends who always brought magic
of laughter, worth turning on the lights, worth rearranging
my weekend Netflixing schedule. Their simple words
coaxed me out. They’d made a list:
festivals, concerts, freebies, and I followed, as if under a different spell.

Til the curse of Sunday evening and the broken spell
meant that friends resumed their scatter[ing].
But I was left with a note he’d added to my list:
The magnet that read “magic”
held up a scrap of paper with the words
“Call Zach.” My fears found themselves rearranging.

Fears like you’re not funny enough, you’re not pretty, rearrange[ed]
as I moved the one magnetic “s” to spell
“opportunity[s].” With a name and inviting words
hopes like you might not die alone, he likes you scatter[ed]
the fears to the edge; I called him, booked a date, Tuesday at 8. Magic:
life lived beyond the list.

Zach wasn’t the one. Neither was the next guy, nor the next on a list
of dates, bad and good. Two more years of my fears constantly rearranging
until, I met you. And it wasn’t instant magic,
But you came into my life, let me in yours, and after a spell
my dreams were also scattering.
“Yes” was our most unexpected, important word.

The U-Haul’s here and it’s boxes we’re scattering and rearranging,
I pull off the sticky list of magnets; it’s our future that I spell.
The magic of the magnets is actually the wonder of the words.

Lost
Taylor Thornton

I am chaos.
I am dark.
I am fearful.
I am broken.
You are calm.
You are light.
You are courageous.
You are whole.
I am in a world I cannot understand; you walk in this world with laughter.
You carried me when I could not walk, now I am fearless.
You are the light I did not know I needed.
You were my saving grace.

Looking for Something
Dannielle Griesemer

I had gone looking for something.
Wandering. Walking. Singing. Running. Flying. Fixing. Emoting.

I was looking for something. I needed a new identity.
I was looking for a new leaf.
Where do you find a new leaf?

I went to the forest.
I sorted through leaves, looking for my new leaf.
Purple. Purple. Red. Purple. Pink. Blue. Purple. Blue. Green.
I was looking for something.
New music, people. Power. Control.

You would think that with so many trees, I could find at least one good leaf.
Foul language. Spending money. Wasting gas and time.
I’m in a forest! There are so many trees in a forest.

“Keep going, keep walking.” I haven’t heard that voice in awhile.
“Go deeper. Climb that hill.” I was so tired of looking, but I was too deep to get out.

Suddenly there were less trees. How can I find a new leaf without trees?
I began to panic. Go back, back to the trees. I didn’t look hard enough.
“No. No. Keep going.” But I’m so tired.

There is a field at the top of this hill. No trees. And it began to snow.
This must be some kind of joke.
Then I saw it.

I stopped looking for a new leaf.
Because I found what I was looking for.

A candle, not a leaf. Light, not shade.

“You finally found me” says the voice.
“Where were you when I needed you?” I wailed at the sky.
“I have always been inside you. You hid me in your heart long ago. You forgot me, my child.
Let me out now. Follow me. I will guide your feet.”

So I stopped looking for something.
Because what…no…Who I needed, had always been there.

Light’s Absence
Taryn Cyncholl

If all light was extinguished,
How pretty could nature be.
The tiny weak wimp sapling
Could never be a tree.
Existence would be despairing,
Earth icy, cold, and raw.
Water eternally frozen;
Flora dry as straw.
Hope suppressed much the same,
Beasts shiver, struggling to find heat.
Force feeding their minds warm thoughts,
Still freezing head to feet.
Fireflies freed of fire,
Lighthouses lacking light,
Result in jet black day,
Identical to the night.
No more breathtaking sunsets,
To them you can bid ado.
No more miraculous rainbows,
Or their bold majestic hues.
So I guess the creator of light,
Is who we have to thank.
For the life we have around us,
Or rather everything point-blank.
The Light keeps us from slithering in shadows,
While protecting us from shriveling rays.
Revealing clearly lit paths to follow,
On even the darkest of days.
The Light that goes on shining,
One that constantly glistens through.
The light that cannot be defeated,
Gave His life for you.

I Am a Ghost
Anna Raelyn

I am a ghost.

I was seventeen when I died from a plague that struck the coast of the upper peninsula of Michigan. I remember the fever that wracked my body, the liquids that oozed down my face. The plague came with boils, and that was the worst part. Itchy welts crawled up my arms and legs like swollen hickeys.

It was the plague that wiped out the town, that and unemployment, the deadliest of diseases. The factory that stood on the edge of the bay — that produced the charcoal pig iron used — ceased to bring in money and ceased to create jobs for the boys that passed the eighth grade. It was a wonder it had ever sprung up to begin with; people only used manufactured pig iron for some ten years.

That’s a mere breath of a second in ghost time.

I worked at the factory for a while, scooping coal into the giant furnace, black coating my lungs, but that was only a perk of being the son of the factory supervisor. My family was to survive the recession. Most others did not.

But I didn’t survive, after all.

I am a ghost living in a ghost town. The bones of the grocery store still stand. They’ve revived the doctor’s house up the hill and the theater next to the small school. I guess they decided, two hundred years later, that the town offered something of value. I watched as they painted over old walls, rebuilt fallen buildings, and reverted the town to its base, no personality.

Visitors liked the houses the best. I’d watch couples, families, boys and girls enter the open doorways, smile at the beds that used to fit five at a time, comment about how odd it all seemed.

How ancient.

I am an ancient ghost in an ancient ghost town.

Fayette State Park requires a parking pass. They profit from my old life.

It was hard to be bitter when chubby toddler feet ran down my flowered hills. It was hard to regret when tourists came for pictures of my home. Days turn to weeks turn to months. Years turn to decades turn to centuries. Time warps after your blood cools. Every day is the same. I flash to and from buildings. I sit on rooftops and throw myself off. I watch.

Ghosts don’t have the burden of walking. We can, if we wish, but flashing is faster – walking through walls, stepping out of the butcher and into the bakery in a single blink. Walking reminds me too much of humanity, of the people I left behind when I died, and the people who left me behind when they did.

I’m flashing past the boats when I see her. After fixing this ghost of a town, the living added a campground and a boat launch. The campground sits a mile away, the dirt path lined with wildflowers and scoliotic trees. But the boat launch — brand new wood glistens with water and fish oil. Boats dock along the edge, white and sterile.

If I was the kind of ghost who scared the living, I might take one. I might climb behind the wheel and ride it into the waves. But I don’t care to make myself known, so I climb pillars, watch the unloading of fish, and admire the sharp architecture.

Her green eyes make me want to whisper hello.

I was almost married before I died. Margaret Holloway. She had a nose like the perfectly sloping hill behind the Grand Hotel and straight hair the color of the dirt path to the factory, blackened by soot. I didn’t love her, which fills me with shame. Our parents thought it was a good match, but I still needed two-hundred years to learn about what it meant to love a girl.

The first time I saw Jane — I learned her name was Jane from a conversation between her and her father. It seemed it was just the two of them — I stopped in my tracks. Her hair was a dark red, an unnatural but eye-catching color. Her green eyes could be seen from any place in town.

What I liked the most about Jane was that her face wasn’t buried in technology. I didn’t know much about these “phones” everyone seemed to carry lately, but I knew they were unnatural. People aren’t meant to stare at one thing for too long, though that rule doesn’t apply to Jane.

I might watch her forever.

Jane returned to Fayette the same week every year, her and her father gliding in on a large sailboat. They didn’t stay at the campground, but instead slept in the belly of the boat.

Every year she returned with a sketchbook, gliding her graphite across the page instead of gluing her fingers to a screen.

Sometimes I stood behind and watched. She liked to wander the property and her favorite spot was the cliffs above the bay. I followed her whenever I could — whenever I wasn’t keeping small children from ripping apart the toys at the school. It was easy to guide a child in a different direction without alerting to your own presence.

I found out early on that the living don’t like to be touched. By me, at least. Confusion, sometimes fear, floods their features. I didn’t intend to scare, so I stopped. But sometimes I touched Jane’s red hair. Only on a windy day, so it’d seem like a gust of wind instead of my snow-white fingertips.

One day, I can’t help myself.

It’s her fifth year here, her fifth year sleeping in a boat and climbing the trails around my old hometown. She’s older than me now. I can see it in the way her face matures and the way she speaks to her father. I am two-hundred-and-something and she might be twenty.

After five years, I can’t help myself.

I follow her to the doctor’s house, past the wealthy side of town and into the woods. At night, the doctor’s house is the last place you want to be with a ghost, but during the day it’s not so bad.

The house is two stories, unlike other homes in town. The basement was used as an office and the bedrooms were upstairs. I remember falling from a ladder one day at the factory. I fell into the opening of the furnace, the door still open from my own careless actions. I burned a good portion of my back and was rushed to the doctor. I still remember the wet strips he laid on my skin. I was lucky it never took to infection.

Jane climbs the stairs to a door that remains forever locked. They didn’t restore the inside of the doctor’s home, so she sits on the stairs leading to it. I sit next to her, as I often do.

She ties up her hair, missing a streak of red. It curls around her cheekbone. I can’t help it.

“Jane,” I whisper. After two centuries of not speaking, my voice is scratchy. My tongue feels as fragile as brittle pig iron. Jane’s hands freeze, one holding her sketchbook and the other, a pencil. She’s heard me.

My mouth opens to say it again. I almost laugh at how good the air feels, sliding down my throat. Her name is on the tip of my tongue, when I see her face.

Lines fill the space between her brows. She bites her bottom lip. And there it is, the same confusion and fear. The wind doesn’t whisper pretty girls’ names. Her eyes scan the clearing, wide and unblinking.

Jane.

She doesn’t hear her name as I whisper it again and again in my head.

Don’t be frightened, Jane.

I reach out again – I can’t help it.

I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I can’t help it.

Her hair feels like whitecaps sweeping over my fingertips, of steep waves flooding my senses.

Jane jolts, standing abruptly from the rock ledge. “Hello?” Her voice shakes. Her eyes lock on an area just behind me. I feel eyes on my chest, then my shoulders, and finally on my face.

Eyes wide. Emeralds stuck in smooth stone.

A whisper, “Who are you?”

I flash from the spot.

Standing atop the stone grocery store, I look down at the town I know so well. The sun hangs low in the sky, changing into its evening colors. An orange glow highlights the factory, the field of daisies, the family picnicking below.

No one has ever seen me, not in my entire two-hundred years of wandering among the living. And I tried – I stood inches from strangers’ faces, screamed every word I could think of while their wide eyes tried to find the voice’s owner.

But I’d felt Jane’s eyes lock on mine. I’d seen the flash of near recognition, the clench of surprise.

She saw me.

And I want her to see me again.

Her Light Eternal
Fabrice Poussin

She shivered beneath the budding frame
Terrified of those many years to dawn
Pen in hand her gaze lost into a dark void
Horizons too distant to take a chance.

The flesh tepid under her massive yoke
She may have been a cripple in those twenties
Yet a glow, weak as it seemed near extinction
Showed the way to an uncertain fate.

Hazy humanoid shapes form upon the night
Afoot as ghosts in an eerie procession of hopes
A gentle reflection outlining timid souls
Maybe the spark to jumpstart another birth.

Aflame in the thickness of the frigid cosmos
She may vanish into an infinite realm
Yet her beacon will to burn in the spirits
Of all who believe thus forevermore.

He Was Beautiful
Taylor Thornton

He was there,
Unknown to the light he bares.
He was there,
Unknown to the love he shares.
He was there,
Unknown to the light in his eyes.
He was there,
Sharing his heart.
He was there,
Until it was time for him to no longer share his beauty.
We said goodbye to the man who was unknown to his own love.

Go Home, Kid
Tayla Vannelli

Sorrow pulls on my jacket.
I stumble along, a forced smile
ripping my cheeks into lines,
rather than crinkling my eyes.

I drag my shadow to work,
shove some joy in my pockets.
Today, I will distract myself
from the ache to run away.

I load my days with excitement:
activities, adventures, anything
to let me pretend I’m not counting
the minutes until my flight home.

I see loved ones in passing faces.
Night brings silence and loneliness,
but also hope, because another day
has brought me closer to August.

Soon, my family will drive me away.
My plane will await my arrival;
I will finally fly home to school
and put an end to this summer apart.

My life is in Georgia now.
I dread school breaks meant for joy.
No one understands my homesickness.
I’m at “home.” It’s just the wrong one.