NCSSM Blue Mirror Volume 6 Issue 2

8/6/2019 NCSSM Blue Mirror Volume 6 Issue 2

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volume VI issue II

luemirror

jlf

t

dlitt

winter 2011


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THE STONE

AGE DID NOTEND BECAUSE

THEY RAN OUTOF STONES.

Sheik Yamanicover image

TanglewoodSydney BrowningDigital Photography


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table of contents

cover

page fteen

page two

page fourteen

page six

page twenty-four

page twenty-two

page eleven

page nineteenpage eighteen

page tenpage seven

page twenty-three

page one No. Much worse. by Taylor Housepage four On 9th Street by Jozef Lisowskipage ve Precipitate me by Jennifer Kronmillerpage eight Eighteen by Maili Limpage nine A Comma Between Birth and Death

by Jennifer Kronmillerpage twelve Coeehouse by Jozef Lisowskipage thirteen along a mountain path to aspen by Maili Limpage sixteen We Are Not the Same by Taylor Housepage seventeen blue veins by Leah Mlynpage twenty Michael Kors and I Have Ocially Changed

Our Facebook Relationship Status. by Maili Limpage twenty-one Consumption by Jennifer Kronmillerpage twenty-ve neverending. by Mara Guevarra

page three

page twenty-sevpage twenty-six

art

lit


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Tangled threads of played out wordsSeem to oat between us nowLike something repulsive and terrifyingNeither one of us want to take them.

Oh, our words have been collectingA warehouse full of miscommunications.In the back they keep those terrible threeAnd not the I or the Love or the You.No. Much worse.

Love was never the questionWe knew that one all along.

No. Much worse.It was the I and the Am and the Scared.It was terror rattling on our tonguesAs we tried to weave our threadsAnd the chills dancing on our skinWhen we put the words aside.

There was no answer of what to doA concrete ending just wasnt right.

No. Much worse.We took our poorly stitched heartsWhere regret runs deep in the seamsAnd we threw them away. Learn

No.

Much worse.Taylor House

page one


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ng Tree Taylor HaagDigital Photographypage two


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Shirt Andpage three

Ash GrayDigital Photography


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he said, baby, thats a signicant gure you got theregesturing towards my

personality? So they always told me(they called it electric, but electricity is a currentand I am not currently feelingquite up to a relationship, if you must know)

I said, No, these things arent adding upBut it was a friendly gestureAs the static crinkled the safety word in the background::oklahoma:

so that the dierence could be established betweenmolesting and comforting and simply throwing bodies.

A lot of it was just attraction, since I had more massPhysically, as gravity pulled us in,but then dropped us empty-handed outside the circle.And I see condence does come at intervalsbut not frequently enough for meto believe you when you say yes.

I am a cold-blooded solution mixing with drops of perspiration,a terrifying shriek as my genes unraveland leave me as two strands: then and now(Id like to unzip your genes any time, of courseexcept then wed have to replicate these mistakes)And boy, what we need is a catalystto get us moving out of this depression in the earth.

dont let it spill, dont let it breakdont slip on the acid stainsor ever place your hand on a burnerbecause apparently every surface is out to get you.Though if theres that much re in the earthI suppose it makes burning bridges that much easier,and cutting ties too.Maybe all of life is just a craft project.

Precipitate me

page five

Jennifer Kronmiller


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Busy Bee Jos Luis Salazar EspitiaDigital Photography

There is a severe miscalculation here that I led him onbut you broke it down,Punching me, crunching me like numbersDraining me of all emotion but factual facsimiles.And I know I had it sometime,Seeing it mirrored in your own sentimentsBut I lost it somewhere between smiles and nods

somewhere in the round-o error.


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And Then There WeTyler KissingerDigital Photography

page seven


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Youll remember turning eighteenbecause it was all too soon,waking up to nd your fathers trustthrobbing like a small bird hidden behind the dress

youve been hauling around for years,its last heartbeats peeling away with mulberry painand the eighth grade.Voting rights, Marlboros,porn mags aside,

youll never see your brotherquite the same again,now that you know where the hard-earned dollarspends its weeknights away.

Youll be eighteen and still holding on to eight,one ll-in-the-blank from a punctuated smileand a wardrobe of right words,stammering when thegodawful hemorrhage of past yearscatches in your throat.Youll remember the nights

your mother locked the back doorto nd it swinging on its haunches,

the breakfast you thought would never end,the entire house drowning in sunlight.

EighteenMaili Lim

e None

page eight


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Between silences,I lean back in my chair and adjust my shirt,smoothing out wrinkles with my ngers andplaying with your hair awkwardly.Sometimes I kiss you, just to occupy our mouths.

Between raindrops and thunder clapsI can see your blurred gure trickling away.Your car drives o, splashing up puddlesand I stand with my umbrella,wishing it could last longer.

You pop the question during the football gamebetween the commercials for Glad and Prozac.

Between wedding vows I hold back sneezes.Its weird, I know, but thats all I can think about.And how tight my dress is and how sweaty I amand how embarrassing it would beto sneeze in front of the whole family.

We take turns changing the diapersand making dinnerand waving goodbye to the kids.

I settle in comfortably as a placeholder,the role Im used to.

I write sentence fragments on the shopping listwhile my family plays outside.Emptiness creeps in, but I quiet it with sobs.I live between lives, not in them.

A Comma Between

Birth and Death

page nine

Jennifer Kronmiller


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BridgetteMaili LimPencil


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The rst man has a shaved bald headand an anemic look about him

chemo patient or just self-consciousfreakzoid, I have no clueHe backs up, hands in his zipped up lands end cardiganhis ngers twirling and twisting throughthe cloth of his jacket.

The second man walks in,toting a six year old boy behind himlike a dog.I stare into his weary, tired eyes

as he picks up a mocha,sits by the microwaveand dreams about death.

And the woman,she sits by herselfheadphones snaking down her neckeyes glued to her monitor

and the other woman walks inukelele in handand outside, the man plays hisbattered violin

and next to me, a coupleis talkingstill alive, she saysawwwww, he saysand they keep on talking

And right nowI would like nothing morethan another coeeanother year,another life.

But in place of that,I can settle for watching these freaks.

Coffeehouse

H

uma

n

TylerH

ayes

Sketch/

DigitalArt

page twelve

Jozef Lisowski


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I tell him I will love himuntil the world keels over,until the sun splinters into sequinsraining heavy aluminum,our eyelids furled under jewels of its exhaust.

Someday,I say

someday the world will keel overand I will cut awayfrom all that has ever been mine

to walk barefooton the broken side of the road.

You can follow me,I say

and you do,cradling my belongings in yourochre-stained hands.

Behind usthe world screamsof crumbling dream things;moons and stars,the pitter-patter remnants of you and me.

along amountain path

to aspenMaili Lim

page thirteen


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PasserbyTyler HayesPhotography/Digital Art

page fourtee


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W

indow

and

Colour

TylerHayes

Photography/D

igitalArt


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We Are Not The

Same Taylor HouseA literal living translationAuthenticity wrapped in imitation paperBound tight with miscommunicationPaper mache faith

Hollow andLifeless.

Under the same roofMe. You. We.Divide.

Child of Cain speaking of oppositesTo collection bins down front

Light and dark.Love and hate.Slow down they are only catching the endWith cardboard lies out in the street.

Playing blameA bet you cannot loseForget vanishing vaporNo, the head has lost its rule

The body no longer looks out with golden eyesPointing ngers in the blind.

Love is love is love is loveExcept.When its not.

page sixteen


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blue veinsLeah Mlyn

i wish you were the little blue veins that makewishbone and y shapes on my left wrist. that waywhen i moved my skin you would move too. thatway you might see me through everything else(its really all transparent anyways). youd be an

integral part of my anatomy and your presencewould move through my ngers, through and overmy whole body. you could sort of gingerly brushmy tendons or bones or muscles and i would beonly a little afraid of you. youd be on your way tobecoming stronger and youd be by my side all day

A

raceliM

araGuevarra

Acry

lics,Marker

page seventeen


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Michael KChanged Our Face

page nineteen

La Honduren

~


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rs and I Have OffICiallyook Relationship Status

There was a timebelieve mewhen Michael Korswas not

the answer toLifes rhetoricalquestions.But now I eat andeat and eatandit lls inmy gaping waistbandand Michael Korsno longer thinks me prettythe way he used towhen I was twosizes more transparent;porous beingthat I am -what worldly provisionscan caulk the hole

sired by the voidof a lifetime?

sh Gray

igital Photography

page twenty

Maili Lim


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I devour empty hourslost minutes of potential and wastestrapped down like concrete

to my porcelain dinner plate.worries, too, i savordelicate bites of if-onlys and but-thensand my mothers fears which she spoon-fed me as a kid.

i consume oil, they tell me in ecologyi ransack the haven of greenery,of titanic-sized iceberg holes(bigger than my heart, i know,

and lled with less space.)

a bite here, a bite therethumbs dusting o lines casually under the tableand teeth chattering on moldy tin,i eat and eat existence away.

how can you understand my habits, though,my distorted perceptions?

so you just sit there, washing dishes,soapsuds and bubbles playfully dancingwhile you tell me,I know you didnt eat at school.crumbling words that i munch on:You look so skinny,

you hardly touched your foodohdearmydearohchild you look so thin.

but i have consumed myself,worn myself down to bare bones with all the meat picked o,left smoking on a grill while dogs beg for scraps.and i have lled my body withso much congealed uncertaintyand steaming hot bowls ofpathetic neediness, begging for releasethat im afraid theres no room left in my stomachfor dinner.

M

ConsumptionJennifer Kronmiller


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tery DoorJos Luis Salazar EspitiaDigital Photography

page twenty-two


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page twenty-three

Quiosco Jos Luis Salazar EspitiaDigital Photography


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Beauty of an Enigm

Ma

raGuevarra

Acr

ylics,Marker,Watercolor


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my heart is ooding,with a constantdrip-drip-dripof nostalgia and runny noses

and hesitated words,something that stings in my throatbetween regret and hypocrisyim trying to remember your face now(because i cared for you a lot, you know)but youre blurring in with the edges,fading into the background noiseuntil i forget what your laugh sounds like

youre like the icks of watercolor paint

stained against my palm,pretty for a moment -but there it goesas i turn the faucet on,the colors runningdrip-drip-dripdown the drain

neverending.

page twenty-five

Mara Guevarra


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FearNo.2

MichelleYe

Colored

Pe

ncils


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The Sky of a

Tree Called Life

Mia de los ReyWire and Pape


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B

lueM

irro

rWinter2

011

Anita GandhiPeter GeMark GrebenAbigail GruchaczKatrina GutierrezTyler Hayes

Jennifer KronmillerBrenna Muldrow

Jenifer SpositCathy Wood

Anita GandhiAlyssa Mathewson

Jennifer KronmillerSaima AkbarMolly Bruce

Tina ZhengJiexi CaoTyler HayesAlyssa RabelMia de los ReyesCharlotte Laun

Jos Luis Salazar Espitia

Editor-in-ChiefLiterature EditorArt EditorProduction Editor

Maili LimJozef LisowskiMara GuevarraNick Liu

John Woodmansee

Strawbridge Studios


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Documents

NCSSM Blue Mirror Volume 6 Issue 2