IN THE LIGHT, WE READ THE INVENTIONS OF OTHERS; IN THE DARKNESS WE INVENT OUR OWN STORIES.

— ALBERT MANGUEL

This journal was curated by visionary writers and designers, the students of English 239 and Art 150; only a select number of schools nationwide pair classes together in such a dynamic way. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to work on such an amazing book with the guidance of Sarah Dillon Gilmartin and Trysteen Tran. Submissions were collected from the Green River staff, alumni, students and faculty to illuminate the creativity on campus and preserve it for the future. To engage in enlightened discourse with our surrounding community, we placed a spotlight on artists and writers from outside of Green River College. We hope you are inspired by the art and literature that carries the Espial legacy.

ESP IA L 2015

We are not immortal. Some of us die numerous times before our body grows cold and finds shelter among the dirt. Versions of ourselves die all the time, becoming distant figures as we are reborn. On a Wednesday evening, I died. Collapsed onto my knees, crying out in agony from the life I was faced to look at. What I had become felt more like a memory than reality, but I have since believed in fairytales. As tears fell on my naked chest and blood fell from my hand, I did not see myself in that bathroom mirror.

Instead, I saw everything I had gone through that led up to that very moment. Truly, it all starts with love. Whether it’s a figment of the imagination or the wonderful star that is the real thing, love is still what we view it as. He was beautiful. He kissed the back of my hand like I was his queen and called me his. But that crown became a chain and his words became my life. If you live solely for someone else, is there a purpose to live at all?

Burns from being yanked by my emotions weren’t visible, but they were there. He was my controller; I can still see it clearly to this day. Secretly, he knew my torment. He played the game. With every “I love you” I would sink deeper and deeper into the ground beneath him.

I loved him to the point where I lost my sanity, the will to live for myself. My dreams and aspirations turned to dust because I followed him. I lived for his future, not mine, until one day, I pried those chains off of me, rubbed the marks they left, and dried my eyes. Instead of feeling like a victory, I felt even smaller than I had before. I turned my back on the very thing I woke up in the morning for. Now what was the point?

This is what brings us to Wednesday. I turned the shower knob and let my clothes fall to the floor. As water flooded from the faucet, it almost sounded like a thousand people shushing my thoughts, trying to silence my mind.

I stepped in, one foot after the other, as my hair began to cling to my back as I submerged myself under the torrent. I wanted to feel clean. The one thing that had made me feel so filthy was no longer a dictator in my life.

Anonymous1, 2, 3

You could definitely call this a mental breakdown

So, I scrubbed. Until my skin turned red and raw, and the scalding water scorched my skin. I still felt the same.

You could definitely call this a mental breakdown, because it was. I couldn’t stop myself from doing what happened next, for I had no pulse anymore. I had lost one a long time ago. As I distributed the soap back onto the tub ledge, I

glanced around. Orange and white, used more in the summer than on cold winter days, was a razor. It had three blades, and it’s main purpose was to rid the hair on legs that longed to feel fresh air and sunshine, but that was not its use today.

In middle school, the razor was my best friend. It silenced what I couldn’t and made everything seem a little less

UNTITLEDErin WyrschSilver gelatin print

horrible. I hadn’t visited that razor since. I was desperate though, for something. Something to tell me it was going to be alright. So, it was as simple as one, two three. My wrist, my stomach, my leg, they were all red. Red was my mother’s favorite color, but I knew it wouldn’t be after this.

I had lost all reasoning in that moment and forgotten all thought. I wanted to feel something so strong that I forgot the instances that had unfolded that day. To forget that he was no longer in my life, and that it had been my choice. I replaced pain with pain.

I was mortified, horrified, and ashamed when I finally came up for air. I wouldn’t take back what I had done though. It was the slap in the face I needed to wake up. I was free now. I wish I had realized it sooner and without doing something so downright awful, but I had lost so much of myself that I wasn’t there anymore. It lead me to fall apart almost completely.

So I washed the blood down the drain, stumbled out of the shower, and looked at myself. As I self-reflected and tears began to fall, I finally realized what I should have known all along. I had to become

my own savior, stand on my own two feet without a shudder and leave that past behind. The damage had been done, and pieces had been shattered into oblivion, never to be retrieved again. You stand in front of that mirror with a tear-soaked face and a bloody carpet from wounds you inflicted onto yourself because you have found no other way to cope with your loss of identity and innocence.

Soon, you’ll see yourself in that reflection. You’ll dry your eyes and bandage your body, for this is what I had to learn to do. You’ll be reborn again for suffering comes, but it also goes. Everyone has wounds, whether in their skin or in their heart. The strongest people are the ones who still stand tall and live with the pain while they keep on walking; keep on living, which is exactly what I’ve since done and will continue to do.

You stand in front of that mirror with a tear-soaked face

HEIFERBethany EllsworthPen on paper

Jealousy is misery and suffering is grief You want new Nikes on your feet So you clutch hand guns in these streets

You idol artist who rap all over beats And promote several additions of felonies

And I notice you steady searching for the baddest freak Who you later in life find out have STDs And now she got you standin in front of a judge Guilty is what you plea Should’ve found you a queen Who graduated with a degree

And your boys can’t bail you out But they said that been stackin cheese And they at home eatin While you in that cell starving Stomach feeling hungry So the best advice that I could ever give to you G Is to stay up in that class and for the A’s Instead of settling for them D’s

Brian Hatfield Jr.D ECIS I O NS

CUSTOM ARY P OVERT Y M IN O R I T Y S TO RYI loves park But I has to leave before dark I loves McDonald and Taco Bell Especially the fry food they sell I love my mom and dad They makes me happy after I am sad But I hates my apartment Because I am the only one without garden

Exhausted after school But plenty of time acting like a fool Playing soccer with my friends In a broken school field using a can The laughter is endless It becomes the definition of my happiness The winter sun goes down My skin made a shivering sound Time to go Back to my apartment and watch the only fireplace glow

Brilliance experience filled Watching my parent sweating over the kills The image of their stitched twitched hands Challenged the most my flimsy emotional land

Chau Spencer Yu Hong

Even though I was also stigmatized As my ascribed inscribed traits were racialized But my heart is a burning fireball Hankering after the break of a firewall Then I learned the importance of credentialed skill capital That can possibly make my stigma detachable Yes, the American Dream also beamed me To never bow to the society on me knee So, the cruel two years I beaten up my own body and ignored all my peers Just a golden goal-- Cleansing my mole

Pride-crowned years of four Diminished and extinguished as I walk out of the diamond-drizzled door My gullible self always imagined effort could send me out of the black ward But now I am mourning for my ecstatic aspiration buried deeply in the soulless graveyard Thank you my so-called elite alma mater For drinking up my tuition and time like they are my poisoned beer That is just a dribble drop of my accusation Ultimately it’s the society that sign me like an aberration For that black suit my parents bought me for the employment battlefield Have lost a hundred times even to the white criminal’s second appeal The strong image I trained myself since high school Completely crumpled under society’s glacial racial rule I just realized the glee-free reality That I just remained on the same ground besides my matured mentality I should have known that being the covert star in the bloody blue sky My social value will be perceived as eternal awry Well fuck that shit Imma thug for life Be that criminal in your mind holding a big bread knife

I love McDonald The park… is beautiful

D OWN H I L LMarquis Hill

You   see that guy in the  back row? No one else does. I    heard he got lost a  long time ago and he can’t stop running. He can’t  swim, rather, he chooses just to  drown. Ashamed to smile with teeth so big, when he sneezes, he bites a hole in his chest. But his dad always told him a closed  mouth doesn’t get fed. He had to speak up to keep  the one who means the most from fading away. But  some girls just steal your heart and never give it back. That’s  why he doesn’t love love, and loves hates him too. But he hates  himself even more, says his family’s better off without him. He heard the voice of God, and derived this from the conversation. Only a coward  would use his free wings to fly back into his cage. So he let go of everything important in his life, work, school, family, and disappeared, with no plan to return.

LIPS TIED Kim Harkjoong Soft pastel, pastel pencil and digital effect

iBE G FO R YO UR A BUSE Chau Spencer Yu Hong

First time we met Stripped, naked, virtuously seducing you Desperately behind the dead man’s fruit market  My master You dressed me nicely regularly Yet the exploding color shielded me barely Enslaved by you Sucking up my nutrition for you daily Willing to be abused and touched by your bare hands Your performance iMade you a personal magical stage And put on an astonishing show for you Completely voluntary iBuild you this enormous spider web You though, ruthlessly broke a part of it Being your garage Is torturous yet honorable Broadened my horizon by your diversity Don’t worry Remember you owned me iWill eat away the enemies’ attempts Until the birth Of my chubby copy-cat sister iBecame a worthless exhaled air Now cracked But still can uncrack your puzzle Within the anxious ticking seconds Alive but dumped iDecorated you with my shattered heart But fortunately drugged you with my nicotine part

GRAMOPHONE K Smith Ceramic sculpture

ROOST Jennifer Rive’t Watercolor

I’ve had a little too much to drink But that’s alright Life goes by in the blink of an eye So I’m letting myself fly You smile at me while I say it “I am a bird” I believe it with every little bit Of strength I can muster “Will you call me a bird?” I’ve had a little too much to smoke I can see stars handcrafted by the Gods that have spoke Of fluttering wings in the sky “If you’re a bird, be a bird” I spin and spin and spin Never stopping, always moving A smile on my face with every word “I am a bird”

I ’M A B I RDHannah Zalac

LXSTJeanne NguyenSilver gelatin print

AUTUM N FAL LS Andrew Madison The leaves rustled slowly on the trees Whispering to one another I watched their quiet conversations and wished I could understand their words alone I sat in the sun, the sky was clear Yet my cheeks felt the rain

UNTITLEDKelsey BissetCharcoal

A S I G NBrendan McBreen

they were testing the intercom in the wrong room I asked, “God, is that you?” one of them said, “yes” I told him if he were really God he would know what room I was in at which point I was struck by lightning

come to me beautiful and proud and strong full of bravado and twisted humor with that sparkle in your eye

come to me tired dirty and hungry but content the scent of the noonday sun and the afternoon rain on your skin

come to me with whiskey on your breath and lust in your words desirous, clawing hands all heat and intensity

come to me in dark fire in smolders and fits with feet of clay and mercury in your veins

come to me vulnerable flawed and broken come to me on your knees

drenched in sweat and nightmares gasping through tears haunted by loss body shattered sanity fled come to me just as you are and find my hand upon your cheek my kiss upon your lips my loving wings outstretched to warm you conceal you from the demons that hunt your shining soul

and then... when... even still... come to me shadows and whispers flickers in the corner of my eye and shivers up my spine warm memories and glistening tears on my weathered cheeks

promise me promise me always no matter your state no matter your sins promise me that you will come to me and never hide from me come and let me love you just as you are

MERCURY Jennifer Brockmeyer

UNTITLEDCrystal DanaSoft pastel

Behind the smile, behind the wave, Behind a few words exchanged,

“How ya doin’?” “Fine, Ok.”

Those replies you want-- Acceptable, untelling.

Moving on Towards separation, I see diverging In the streets and on the avenues.

The windows are dark; The shades are drawn. The summer sun’s gone down; The winter moon’s a frown.

I look around, and round. I see stars blotted out-- A passage of souls, Depleted, disconnected.

And all the while I eat, sleep, work, commute-- Round and round, all old, all told.

Life’s moments become like stale beer. Play the internet, reboot, Reach out to reconnect-- Is anyone there?

Pain exists In muscle, bone and ligament But more so in the heart As we disconnect, And I seek, and seek Though the path’s unknown or little tried.

Risk, I will; perhaps I’ll stumble Like a toddler of two Before I comfortably find the stride.

First steps are difficult And strange when tried, But I’ll see it through.

MOVIN ’ O NWendy Bell

UNTITLEDCrystal DanaDrawing

WHAT IT’S LIKEBrian Hatfield Jr.

A wise man once told me everything has a sequel I look outside to Cops killin my people Racial discrimination without justification Seems to me that the black man just aint equal.

Or maybe that’s just my interpretation Enough is enough It’s time for retaliation No more sitting around in silence I say kill them with communication

It’s easy for you to say we need to just love one another It’s hard for you to look that man of color in the eyes and call him your brother Let me turn on the television Damn there goes another

You think that mother honestly wants your condolence When she hears her son was shot and killed And a bag of Skittles is all he was holdin I know inside her heart must be exploding It’s sad but when the jury reads the verdict All it’s gonna say is This was just another Negro in the wrong place at the wrong moment.

What it’s like to be a Black Man

HENRYJustin WilliamsPen and ink

CLAIREXiaozhen SheOil on canvas

I am so lost, so lost, I don’t know when it hit me, but it did But am I lost, or am I running? Does my heart carry me away? Will I see home again?

Do I want to? Why does the thought of homeward bound send me spinning?

I am lost, but who will notice? If I’m lost, who will care? Why do I dare think of returning when freedom is already mine?

No one else can take it from me So why have I stopped running? I’m no longer running

Now I’ve become lost, all because I’ve been running Running free or running scared, running to here or to there?

Where have I been going, am I far or am I near? Am I afraid or in fear of being lost and stranded here?

Hear me now or hear me later, is this destiny, is this fate Or is it something else completely? Did I let something defeat me?

Did it happen loudly or discreetly? Doesn’t matter, no one can see me But I see, I’m lost in more ways than one, a ghost to most, among the living to some

Someday I’ll be found, or less lost than before Because this boy has become a man, and he’ll never return again

He is lost, so lost I am lost

Marquis HillLOST BOY

FRAGILEJeanne Nguyen Silver gelatin print

DOWN HOMEBetty J. Vickers

We arrive, each from different places wearing different clothes and struggling with odd-sized luggage. We are suddenly overcome with the sharp weight of memory of common beginnings when there was no separateness and we were only her little girls—her babies—at a time when we teased and played and created griefs we couldn’t fathom until our own sons and daughters made the meanings all too clear.

We talk and called it relating—secretly proud of who we have become, what we’ve managed to achieve before she brought us together again. The oppressive Southern heat stifles. Drains. Donning shorts and tank tops, we reach for fans, pour iced drinks and sit around the kitchen table with bare toes hooked over rungs made smooth by childhood toes.

We look like a bunch of scrub women, we laugh, But the quip shrivels—fragments—then morphs Into the deep wrenching sobs that had refused to Burst their tight grown-up bonds:

Dear God, did you have to take her so soon?

s al e !

plus size clo th in g

su chs kinn yma nn e q u i n s . . .

U NT I T L ED Brendan McBreen

TO BE HUMAN Jennifer Rive’tWatercolor

ATTACHMENTJeanne Nguyen Silver gelatin print

INSECUR I T YI am a living, breathing insecurity A victim of infidelity, With inner vulnerability, Searching for security.

Josephine Kuntjoro

COM MU N IT Y SP OTL I G HTEspial 2015 features a special section of art and poetry from the Auburn community in addition to the work of students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Mary Ellen Bowers, Dick Brugger, and Lela Brugger kindly provided their artwork and poetry specifically for Espial that encourages dialogue between the college and the community at large.

THE R AVENS THREEMary Ellen Bowers

War, Fate, and Death - the Ravens three, They roil the air and the lives of men With equal, raucous glee

THE RAVENS THREEMary Ellen BowersWatercolor and ink

MY OWLLela BruggerCeramic sculpture

Inhabited our world A creation of my wife A potter, a substantial Part of her life. No strife In the creation could be

Ascertained. Then he, We named Owller, Amazingly came To be: Joy without strife.

You must behold him, gaze On him, sense his presence, Get comfortable with his Being. Yes, he’s inanimate Yet life flows through him

As assuredly as the clay From which he is made. Say “Hello, Owller!” and Listen, hear what he says.

OWLLERDick Brugger

The darkness has gone. The light comes.

UNTITLEDErin WyrschSilver gelatin print

DOG DAYSBrendan McBreen

the dog in the Buick was panting his head out the window tongue slopping up all the smells of a transfer station in a heat wave

riveting could be heard across the way like machine gun fire back and forth

an immaculate man in a three piece suit and fuchsia tie stepped out of the Buick produced from the trunk a six foot bundle of black garbage bags wrapped with duct tape he slung it over his shoulder

the dog barked

flies buzzed

the riveters stopped

the bundle

shifted

and burst open

six toasters fell out

UNTITLEDCarita MurphyMixed media

A nickel and a dime A Poet’s life Eating well But only on occasion Loving well But only just inside The fingertip’s reach

Safe Harbor Safe House Always out Always … Dangerously deep

FLO RENT IN E-27Lorn Fant

FREEDOM Jian ZuDigital photograph

Leaning on their oars, their eyes hollow like the ends of black burned-out logs, the boaters stand mute—yet call with wide voiceless lips messages heard only in the marrow and not in the ear:

To-whoo to-whoo, awake awake—

Silently they drift in ragged file toward an uncertain shoreline as though moved by an old, yet undiscovered, polestar. Sheer, vaporous arms lift and sway in midnight’s pallor beckoning and chiding and welcoming:

To-whoo to-whoo, awake awake—

Then pale in the predawn rushlight they scull outward on the sluggish tide with heads bowed low in misty hoods until all that remains is the hint of a mournful owl call and the faint drone of tentative dirge  benumbed in the halls of waking bones:

To-whoo to-whoo, awake awake.

THE D RE A M BOATERSBetty J. Vickers

SECLUDEDVanessa CrestejoMicron ink pen on paper

The image is clear… Startling and disturbing. Children, Playing king of the hill Against the stark, barren desert  in which they live. And yet, the picture is far from the image I have of the games from my youth. We did not play this with guns We did not attempt to hurt one another. Just to remain on the top of The jungle gym. As I read the words, It all becomes too clear

They say you are fighting over water. You fight over something So basic So abundant in this world.

For 22 years You have fought?

This is not the game I remember.

By the end of the day, We would all go home. Together and happy.

And yet, you, go home, still bitter, still angry. and still fighting over something

This simple This abundant.

WELL SPR I N GS O F WAR, A L L OVER WATERScott Eagan

UNTITLEDCarol CuiOil on canvas

UNTITLEDBethany EllsworthOil on canvas

WINTER FO GWendy Bell

Bands of winter fog perch on tree limbs

like birds of prey.

Today, the red-vested flute player will not dance.

He has foresaken his music.

Perhaps, he shelters, dreaming

in the tumble-down barn across the way.

I peer greedily through the frosted eyes of window panes

searching for detail and illumination.

The angled walkway’s edges are softened, leaving direction beclouded,

uncertain.

The distant stone marked boundaries blur with the dividing fence

between my sheep’s pasture and the neighbor’s garden.

Inside the rooms of home I huddle from the gray

to fill an emptiness governed

by the pervading stillness beyond the windows

while the sun struggles to free its light.

UNTITLED SALT PRINT 1,2,3,4Aunna MoriartySalt print

The cool evening air rustled the leaves a festival echoed in the distance. In the shadows, I grasp your orange yukata sleeve and pull your chin up to steal a kiss

STO LEN MOMENTSAshley Wallace

LUYEISharon WuDigital drawing

My dearest love time has shattered it has no meaning i have only spoken to you some six weeks indeed two moons ago

i had never seen you i did not know your name never in this life had we spoken a word to each other or looked in each other’s eyes breathless... That way you look at me sideways Then look away smiling... ... ecstasy...

yet... i knew you were there out there somewhere all at once i feel i have known you forever and not long enough i am filled with the anticipation and giddiness of new love

i am bursting with blissful curiosity that pulsing impatience to know you all of you aow quickly that joyful desperation to solve the puzzle of someone’s heart and fill in the missing pieces perfectly with understanding and affection and brilliant – sometimes searing – truth even still i feel so certain that i know you so well already that nothing about you could ever shock me there is this seductive ease with you as if you and i are the same mystery as if we are shrouded from the rest of the world and delight in our shared secrets you and i stand apart from this plane an ancient story told many times you are my favorite story the one i read again and again always finding some new meaning with each reading a story which grows grander and more beloved with each new spark of discovery

RE A D IN G MYSTER I ESJennifer Brockmeyer

(a story cannot be rewritten by its reader. it must be taken as is... yet the reader will bring her own experiences, desires, and spirit in interpreting the text. the more we read a story, the more we understand its depth and its true meaning – especially the meaning it holds in our own lives. the story changes the reader....)

Sometimes quiet, and sometimes loud, the ocean can’t be still, it’s so beautiful and proud. It listens when I talk, it whispers when I’m worried, when I walk its shores, I never feel hurried. We share strong emotions this ocean and I, both can be sweet, yet harsh in the blink of an eye. I love to journey its great blue expanses, it makes me feel calm, my heart sings and dances. It caresses my feet with its cold embrance, Its gentle mist, softly cools my face. Awesome! Awesome! The lovely view, oh sweet ocean how I adore you.

O CE A NRoselda Stewart

SCUBA DIVERCorey CooperDigital photograph

I love this world, I love this day But wait… I hate this world, I hate this day. Couldn’t you save the date? Thoughts swirl as a kaleidoscope of twirling rainbows and rosebuds Fight for the prime-rib spot. Oh, Sun, glorious, Wondrous, Sun Give those budding rose buds your food, your time, your love, With the eternal splendor of last nights’ vendor hand out life, allow growth, and take away the dead man’s toil of strife. Give back hope Look through your scope Notice me Ignore me But never deny…me.

THE SU N A N D L I FESarah Jones

UNTITLEDDamien PayneOil on canvas

ALONG THE STREETS OF SOMEWHEREVanessa CrestejoPen on paper

I can smell time now And sage wisdom Makes an unending feast If you think that I Here to metaphorize Then be it known to you That you shall never arrive Language be your barrier If it be your wish To know To understand To truly arrive somewhere Then I set you this task Wander in an outdoor market Until you see That it Is an infinite text Of profound sadness And endless Ordinary glory You will then Never have more Nor ever less Yet you will still Have satisfying hunger

BROWN LE ATHER-15Lorn Fant

CO N FUS I O N IN LOVESarah Jones

Storm crossed lovers In an endless sea Crawl their way back to me. In finding of galaxies’ With swirling clouds Of the unknown How often is true love found? In the abyss of what’s already there Slicing and dicing we crash Into what we thought was ours Come back, come back To the lovers field of possibilities. Oh love, oh never ending love Colliding and smashing Punching with the force of a thousand angels, Swing out your claws and claim what’s yours Renew the fight Shove away screaming cries of knowledge past And stand, stand as the force Of TWO instead of ONE.

OCEAN DREAMSJennifer GustafsonOil on canvas

EMPIRE STATE BUILDINGTim LovittSilver gelatin print

Wendy Bell

P IA N O JA Z Z A N D MO D ERN MO O N BE A M T IMESAt the mauve edge of summer evenings, Liza sings the blues, singing as she plays jazzed tunes on an old rickety-rack piano by the window. While her silver cuff bracelets clang against the insistent chords, her feet keep the punctuated beat soft-shoed on the shined, yellow brass pedals. Liza’s soul reverberates with a rhythm that flows in fingered waves. …remembering, remembering moonbeam times beneath the curved boughs of the linden tree and words whispered in the garden amongst the perfumed lilies of the night. Now minding the lyrics, her weathered fingers dance, dancing to the will of the keys, accentuating the highs and lows of her heart’s antique melody.

At the mirror of the lake, groves of yellow birch trees stand.

The silver shake of turning leaves, a myriad of chiming notes, peals

like a piety of distant bells in the autumn’s cooling breath

Beyond a coverlet of weeds, near the rippling of the shore,

a calligraphic line of ducks marks the passage of the day

before the icy scowl of winter dims the lake land’s autumn song.

AT THE M IRRO R O F THE L AKEWendy Bell

UNLONELY ISLANDSharon WuDigital drawing

FLY FISHING Jennifer Rive’tWatercolor

TH E PR IZEBetty J Vickers

They trudged toward the portal where the sun slipped through, breezes blew fair and the night moon yellow. The stars descended, hanging near the dust, and cottonwoods filled the air with protean down. They followed the trails tramped by buffalo feet and stopped to rest from noonday’s might. They sang their songs on the open prairies, grateful for wind and the cooling rain. They edged the froth-topped rivers, cast lines in the crystal streams, then cooked the catch over a fragrant fire. Eyes searched each night for the elusive exit guided by streaks of purple, red and gold. They turned their backs on each morning’s birth, and moved ever onward, sagebrush dancing the paths, following the beauty, quaffing the clear water and breathing the freedom and space— toward that door, that tinted space where the sun drifted through on wings of purple, orange, reds and yellow tints— and that’s how the west was won.

HOBBIT HIKETyler McCulloughDigital photograph

STILL LIFEXiaozhen SheOil on canvas

Page Contributor, piece title

1 Anonymous, 1, 2, 3 2 Erin Wyrsch, Untitled 4 Bethany Ellsworth, Heifer5 Brian Hatfield Jr., Untitled6 Chau Spencer Yu Hong, Customary Povery Minority Story 8 Marquis Hill, Downhill 9 Kim Harkjoong, Lips Tied 10 Chau Spencer Yu Hong, iBeg For Your Abuse 11 K. Smith, Gramophone 12 Hannah Zalac, I’m a Bird 13 Jennifer Rive’t, Roost14 Jeanne Nguyen, Lxst14 Andrew Madison, Autumn Falls15 Kelsy Bisset, Untitled15 Brendan McBreen, a sign16 Jennifer Brockmeyer, Mercury17 Crystal Dana, Untitled18 Wendy Bell, Movin’ on19 Crystal Dana, Untitled20 Brian Hatfield Jr., What It’s Like21 Justin Williams, Henry22 Xiaozhen She, “Claire”23 Marquis Hill, Lost Boy24 Jeanne Nguyen, Fragile25 Betty J. Vickers, Down Home26 Brendan McBreen, (Untitled 1)27 Jennifer Rive’t, To Be Human28 Josephine Kuntjuro, Insecurity28 Jeanne Nguyen, Attachment29 Mary Ellen Bowers, The Ravens Three31 Mary Ellen Bowers, The Ravens Three

32 Lela Brugger, Owller33 Dick Brugger, Owller35 Erin Wyrsch, Untitled36 Brendan McBreen, Dog Days37 Carita Murphy, Untitled38 Lorn Fant, Florentine-2739 Jian Zu, Freedom40 Vanessa Crestejo, Secluded 41 Betty J. Vickers, Dream Boaters42 Scott Eagan, Wellsprings Of War, All Over Water 43 Carol Qui, Untitled44 Bethany Ellsworth, Untitled45 Wendy Bell, Winter Fog46 Ashley Wallace, Stolen Moments47 Aunna Moriarty, Untitled48 Sharon Wu, LuYei49 Jennifer Brockmeyer, Reading Mysteries50 Roselda Stewart, Ocean51 Corey Cooper, Scuba Diver52 Sarah Jones, The Sun and Life53 Damien Payne, Untitled54 Vanessa Crestejo, Along The Streets of Somewhere55 Lorn Fant, Brown Leather-1556 Sarah Jones, Confusion in Love57 Jennifer Gustafson, Ocean Dreams58 Timm Lovitt, Empire State Building59 Wendy Bell, Piano Jazz and Modern Moonbeam Times 60 Wendy Bell, At the Mirror of the Lake61 Sharon Wu, Unlonely Island62 Jennifer Rive’t, Fly Fishing63 Betty J. Vickers, The Prize64 Tyler McCullough, Hobbit Hike65 Xiaozhen She, Still Life

CONTRIBUTORS

WITH GRATITUDEThis journal could not have been completed without Sarah Dillon Gilmartin, Trysteen Tran, Kent Miller, and Owen Richard. We are extremely grateful for your guidance and words of wisdom.

We would like to show our appreciation for Dave Weber and Tony Sittner from Highline Community College for leading us through the printing process and publishing this book. Also, a special thank you is extended to the City of Auburn, Art 4 Culture, and Fine Arts Division Dean Christie Gilliland for your generous support.

2015 ESPIAL EDITORS AND DESIGNERS

Alexa AgustianoIn Cheong Cheang

Haley CriswellJoshua Dragoo

Taylor HayesYi Hui Hoh

Hu AoChantier “Bonnie” Johnson

Yu-Yi LeeLou Zhiping

Mackenzie MullinJulia Rutledge

Katie StillgebauerMyriah Westbrooks

Ivy Jiahui Yu