Nom de Plume The

I s s u e 0 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 3

Presented by the Creative Writing Club

Contents S h o r t S t o r i e s 4 Chrysalid - Jennifer Nangreave 5 Hype - Sam Jowett 7 The Bird King - Devin Barnes 8 When Things Go Bump - Amber Hanif 9 Mirror - Anna Tran

P o e t r y 1 1 In The Middle of Night - Leah Mahoney1 1 Crave - Iva Stankovic 12 Chinese Lanterns - Michael Don Gyssels 12 Freaks - Jason Cantalini14 Fixed Stars Do Not Exist – a sestina - Helen Ngo16 Variables - Calyssa Erb 17 From Dusk to Dawn - Taylor Rae 18 Pananoic - Michelle Harder20 Glass Castles - Hillary Poole

S c r e e n p l a y

21 Outcast - Christopher Beaulieu

Acknowlegements This publication was financed by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Student Donation Fund. With-out them the Nom de Plume would not have been possible. Special thanks to the Department of English for helping to spread the word, to the executives and members of the Creative Writing Club for a fantastic year, to everyone who dedicated their time and effort toward making this publication the best it could possibly be, and most of all, to everyone who submitted their work. I hoped they would be good, and they were. #feelsgoodman

We hope you enjoy reading the inaugural issue Nom de Plume as much as we enjoyed making it.

- Nom de Plume Team

Editor- in- ChiefTaylor Calder

EditorsHana NiwairiAmy Higgins

Graphics & Design EditorJulie Phan

Photos by Kerrie Winegarden, Chris-topher Beaulieu, Anna Tran, and Julie Phan

Creative Writing Club

Our Mission

The Creative Writing Club exists to provide aspiring authors or fascinated students with a social and physical space to share, discuss, and constructively help them to achieve their goals, whether it is to become an author, to become a better writer, or to share their vision with their peers.

Who We Are We are a newly ratified club at the Wesern Univeristy. CWC hopes for students to be able to meet others who share similar interests to themselves. If you love creative writing as a reader or writer, we welcome you to sign up for club membership.

C h e c k U s O u t

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Some of our guest speakers over the year Cornelia Hoogland (left) and Maria Cootauco from WattPad (right)

Chrysalid Jennifer Nangreave

The first thing that happened was his moles started dropping off.

He peeled the first one from the knuckle of his right ring finger whilst sitting in the bath. It left a red mark not unlike a burn from a tiny cigarette. He stuck the mole between the taps, on the bit of metal that an-chored the plug chain, and finished rinsing his hair.

It was his hair that went next. Two weeks lat-er he had lost all of his moles which he kept in a matchbox on his bedside table, and had a dis-tinct feeling of disquiet about the whole thing. His skin was now a smooth, unblemished alabas-ter. He was already wearing long sleeves at all times. He took to using an eyeliner pencil to mark out moles on his hands and face; he bought one special. It was then that his hair began to come out in handfuls. It littered his pillow every morning, clogged the drain in the bathroom. He collected it up with flawless hands and put it in a sandwich bag.

Even his eyebrows moulted. His eyelashes dropped out over the course of three days, a re-markably excruciating experience where his eyes watered near-constantly. His leg and arm hair came away as he pulled on his clothes each morn-ing. Every time he took a bath he had to scoop hair out of the water before letting it drain.

He was utterly hairless a month after the first mole had given up. He was smooth as a baby. It took a little getting used to, developing a penchant for hats, and diligent mole-artist-ry, but he took it in his stride. He thought it would just be something he could adapt to.

Then his fingerprints began to fade.

It was with a certain sense of horror that he noticed this; he found himself unable to leave the barest hint of a mark on a clean glass. He felt as if he were disappearing.

If only he had someone he wanted to kill, he thought mournfully. As it was he just felt he just felt robbed. Robbed of his identity of whorls and loops and arches. His fingertips were now blank, like mannequin fingers. His hands looked like drawings.

The fine lines around his eyes and mouth disap-peared over the next few weeks. The funny birth-mark on his hip, the wrinkles of skin across his knees, the scars on his shins. Soon he was the most perfect specimen of human form that had ever existed.

He hated it. He drew extra moles to compensate, moles he had never had. He took watered down acryl-ic and painted lines and wrinkles into his im-maculate face. He knocked into things on pur-pose to try and draw a bruise to the surface.

His new skin was hard to ruin. When, in a fit of desperation, he had taken an X-Acto knife to his elbows, it was like trying to cut thick rubber. He made a tiny mark that refused to bleed and was gone the next morning. He was impenetrable.

Even the inside of him was tougher. Wracked with curiosity, he ate a sharp stone and found it in the toilet bowl a day later, unbloodied.

He was a fake houseplant of a human being. He was nothing.

His skin got tougher, thicker, slower. It drew him down as if he were full of wet sand. Pretty soon he couldn’t walk very far without having to sit down due to the sheer weight of his own flesh,

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Short Stories

the same flesh he had always had – ex-cept not. This flesh wasn’t his. It wasn’t meaty anymore, it was clay, it was rock. He couldn’t leave his apartment. It was too far. Too perilous, given his condition, his odd appear-ance. He didn’t nightmare of murderers anymore, but of people with chisels and pneumatic drills. Even so, heights intrigued him now. He wondered if his shell could stand the impact. Whether he would roll away unharmed or shatter like a geode. Then one morning he woke up almost entirely immobile, and the decision was made for him. The effort it took to drag him-self to his balcony was indescribable. He leant his stony gut against the railing and wished he could feel the wind on the mar-ble of his cheeks. He blinked for the last time, found himself unable to lift his eyelids again. He could hear the wind but couldn’t feel it. He raised both arms, a veritable war against gravi-ty, locked them above his head. A statue poised.

In the end he didn’t jump; he fell.

Hype Sam Jowett Are you ready to begin? How could you not be? You’ve waited an eternity for this. The anticipation, the rumours, the rave reviews. The moment in which you can literally become de-fined. The verdict is out; life is great.

Society praises and worries itself over an after life, but what they instantly forget when they’re born is that there is a before life. A time that some

equate to be a field prep or a briefing, a sneak pre-view before the main event. All of these miss the point, because as soon as you are conceived into it, any information beforehand immediately evaporates, leaving you to face the world completely oblivious. You’ve spent the before life exposed to the millions of immaterial television screens that infect this incorpo-real realm, scrutinizing the details and intricacies that life permits. Watching as other beings go about their already existing lives. Ravishing in the thought that you will soon join these beings in their own game, playing by your rules, acting out on the things that you want to. In short, life looks fantastic. You have a plan, even if you won’t remember it when you are conceived. You’ve seen the places on the screens that you want to travel to, seen the careers that you want to immerse yourself in, seen the arts that you want to praise, seen the place where you want to eventually settle down and have a family. And now it’s here. Anticipation crescendos as you head for the launch area–even though space is malleable here–ready to be injected into your new body. The managers of this en-tire program tend to rush things, even though time is a non-issue as well. They do, however, have a moment to explain to you the basic structure of what your life will entail. They ask you if you want to hear the new details. You nod your metaphysical face. What’s the harm in hearing a few spoilers when you’re not even going to remember them anyways? Taking your confirmation in stride, one of the man-agers begins to go into details of your initial status.

Right away, your smile drips into a frown.

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Wait, what?

It’s wrong. Everything they’re explaining to you is wrong. Not wrong, they say. This is how you are going to start life.

But it isn’t what you imagined. Or pictured. Or wanted. Your parents are not what you pictured them to be. You’re being born into a completely different place than you imagined. Your hometown can hardly be described as a town at all. Your home is merely a house compared to the image you have sculpted in your mind. All of it. Every last bit of it is a jarring tangent of what you expected. A massive crutch. A taint on what you expected to be perfect. And you haven’t even begun– You’re not even the sex you wanted to be. Don’t worry, the managers say. Your parents will socialize you into the customs, you’ll learn to understand the identity that is assigned to you. You’ll adopt this life. You’ll learn to accept your limitations, get accustomed to the barriers, work over them. And that’s when you understand it. Even before you’re born, your life, in extraordinary circum-stances out of your control, is setting up barriers already. People are already determining ahead of time what you can or cannot do. Structures, far larger than even people, already dominate your life before it has even begun. time what you can or cannot do. Structures, far larger

than even people, already dominate your life be-fore it has even begun. All of this time you’ve been looking at the ideal model, the model you created for yourself. The ivory tower that you have occupied for the last eternity. But you’re not the only one in charge. You’ll be expected to adapt to what’s given to you.

It’s not a blank slate. You promise yourself you’ll supersede your ‘po-tential’. You’ll shatter your limitations, you’ll overcome the barriers, that you’ll live to your ide-al. But they’re all promises thatwill be irrelevant in a moment.You promise yourself you’ll supersede your ‘po-tential’. You’ll shatter your limitations, you’ll overcome the barriers, that you’ll live to your ide-al.But they’re all promises that will be irrelevant in a moment.

As you step into the device that will conceive you, your consciousness gnaws away in your head, anxiety prompting the question.

What will come out of here?

Will it even be you in the end? Or something com-pletely different?

Flash. And your last conscious thought dissolves into oblivion. The device whisks you away. It only takes a second. Now all there is is new-born innocence. A fresh mind. A new life. A blank slate.

But only for a moment.

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The Bird King Devin Barnes

“Once upon a time, there was a king of birds who lived atop a snow-covered mountain peak, looking down at his subjects from above the clouds. This Bird King had magnificent, rainbow wings that stretched all the way from East to West, and rumour said that – if he was in a foul mood – he’d shake his wings and scream at the top of his lungs, and out would pour his feathers, raining down like little dewdrops. They were all manner of fascinating colours: bright pinks, luminous ba-nana yellows and blues that gleamed like shards of the noonday sky. They scattered themselves in a colourful heap ‘neath the mountain where the Bird King dwelled, and were often carried by fresh breezes to neighbouring towns, and so legends grew of a mighty creature who dwelled on the mountain. Passers by heard the Bird King’s hor-rible screeches and mistook them for the sweetest of music, for he was a creature of true divinity.”

“Yet his cool, facile stare had begun to wane, and tears streamed from his eyes like glistening stars along the snowy mountain floor. The Bird King could barely move: he opened his beak to “Caw” for help and a strained, sombre wail came out; it sounded like sweet music to the townsfolk below, but the Bird King was in pain.”

“He lay on a snow-covered mountain peak, his fee-ble cries for help lost in the lonely winter night.”

“Harsh winds tore his rainbow wings as the Bird King drew a final breath, a murky sadness cloud-ing his eyes as his feathers fell to the towns be-low.”

When Things Go BumpAmber Hanif

You know those nights when the whole house is quiet, and your room is pitch-black, save for the dim light coming from your digital clock? And they glow red to display some ungodly hour like four am or two am and your eyes open inexpli-cably and you wonder why you’re even awake?

And then you hear a noise. Maybe it’s your sister next door getting up to take a piss, maybe your par-ents are trying to squeeze in some quiet sex while the kids are asleep, maybe it’s the ice machine in the fridge making its usual thumps and bumps, maybe it’s a tree branch scratching against your window.

But during those nights when the whole house is quiet and your room is pitch-black save for the dim light coming from your digital clock and they glow red to display some ungodly hour like four am or two am it is none of these things it’s that chick from The Ring with greasy black hair drip-ping over her mottled face it’s the freaking psycho from Psycho wiping the blood off his knife and he’s left Marion naked and bloody in the shower and he’s coming for you and it’s the ghost from The Grudge crawling out of the ceiling to kill you in your own bed and why did you watch all of those movies you should have watched the eighth freaking Ice Age like you secretly wanted to but you went to watch all those movies with your friends and god you hate those idiots and it’s all their fault now that your eyes are wide open and your heart is thumping against your ribs and you keep staring at the coat draped over your desk chair that looks like a slumping corpse in the dark and Jesus you wish you could be sleeping again.

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This is when Reason and Logic leave your brain. They ooze out of your ears and gush out of your nostrils and slowly gather themselves and crawl away, off of the bed and across the floor and out the door.And this is when you pull your Blanket tight around your head and chin and make sure your feet, your precious feet with those beauti-ful little toes, are safely tucked away underneath it and all hands are in its soft confines as well. Ladies and gentlemen, you hear dimly, please keep your hands and feet inside at all times.

And because Reason and Logic (your good-fer-nut-hin buddies who only stick around if they’re hav-ing a good time) have left, you think, Ha! Take that! Just try and get me now! I have my Blanket on! My feet may have been sticking out before, but s’all good now! You do this. You do this all the time. We all do.

The question is, why? Don’t get me wrong, the Blanket is fantastic. It’s soft. It’s warm. It’s hold-ing all of your body heat beneath it, all of the heat your body radiated as you slept soundly, and you know it’s there because you feel a draft the moment you lift it up. The Blanket is kind of like that one pair of jeans that can make you feel like you have skinny thighs after you’ve eaten five Big Macs or that breakfast cereal you can always fall back on when your mother makes fried eggplant or some other monstrosity. It’s there for you, man! It’s right there and you’re all wrapped up in it all snug and tight and if the Blanket was a person, you would totally make out with it out of gratitude. You do this. But in the daylight, when you’re thinking clearly again and Reason and Logic fi-nally show up and slap you across the face like

you abandoned them, you want to laugh at yourself. Maybe that noise wasn’t the psycho guy with the axe or the deformed corpse-come-back-to-life, but let’s say for instance, that it was a street preacher pedophile who was going to steal you from your bed and make you his sex slave. Think that sounds just as far-fetched as the others? Google Elizabeth Smart for a refresher. So if there was some real danger, far more serious than the product of an overactive imagination com-bined with blockbuster horrors and those stories you used to hear at camp, would the Blanket be able to help you? Do you really think that by tucking yourself away into the soft comfortable warmth of a freaking bedspread that you can shield yourself from the sick world just outside of it? That the Blan-ket can create a force field against butcher knives and machine guns and dirty kidnapper hands? No. You don’t. But try telling yourself that when things go bump in the night. You might try to puff out your chest next time and tell your-self to stop being an idiot, but you have to tuck your feet in when you hear a creak. You have to. Just know that although the Blanket will make you feel good and safe and protected and strong, it does nothing. It’s a literal security blanket. It’s there for show, but when Jimmy Yoo-haw rips it off of your vulnerable pajama-clad body and whips out his axe, you’re on your alone, darlin’. All you can do is scream like a ban-shee and fling out your feet and swing punch-es blindly and hope for the best. But know that. You are on your own.

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Mirror Anna Tran

I listen to the cadence of Mallory’s footsteps as they quietly pound against the stairs. She walks up to me, stares at me, then turns to walk away from me. The beauty in her blue eyes is lost within the deep sea of wrinkles. I stand in the hallway facing two rooms: the kitchen on my left and the dining room on my right. It’s not worth it, I tell her. You don’t understand, she says I don’t know how to get through to her, to make her understand, to make it obvious to her that Walter is a poor excuse of a husband. “Mallory!” Walter bellows. His voice roars fierc-er than a lion who is trapped in a cage amongst the lost souls that travel from town to town, set-ting up tents to perform magnificent acts for or-dinary people. Their relationship follows the movement of swinging trapeze performers, soar-ing high into greatness before swinging low into misery and then back up into the air. And like performers swinging between trapezes, they are always floating above the ground. There is al-ways a chance of falling fatally to their death. The greatest excitement comes when one perform-er flings her body outwards towards the other performer, grabbing his hands as he hangs upside down on a trapeze. But one slight miscalculation and she could free-fall in the air before making a horrific contact with the concrete. The moment between flying to the next trapeze and hitting the ground is so fast that she is unable to comprehend what is happening and what fatal mistake has just occurred. In that final moment of agony

she forgets how spectacular her performance had been prior to the fall. The uneven sounds of Walter’s footsteps mixes in with the sound of his fist smash-ing into the walls as he searches for Mallory. She walks carefully, as she always has, juggling Walter’s problems over a fine line of hope. The weight of their financial debt and trust issues has grown increasingly heavier and heavier, and as Walter comes nearer and nearer, Mallory panics. I watch as she runs to the breakfast bar, throwing her arm out in search of her lifeline. The phone! The phone! She cries. Where is it? She rips open the drawers, almost pulling them out of their homes, desperately searching for the phone.

Where did he hide it?! She sneaks into the next room, the dining room, which hasn’t hosted any visitors or any kind of festivities in the last twenty-five years. Against one wall is a large wooden chest with slid-ing doors. She gently slides the door open and wiggles her way in. Once I can no lon-ger see her body, I see the wooden door close. In the darkness I can only imagine that her heart is pounding against her chest so loudly as if banging on the wooden chest to give away her hiding space. Shut up, she’s probably telling her heart. Her deep breathing perhaps responding to her

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pounding heart, expressing the mutual fear of be-ing discovered by Walter. The knot in her throat perhaps choking in agreement. Her body must have betrayed her by making un-intentional noises because Walter finds her cower-ing inside. Walter, don’t! I scream, but my defence does not prevail. I helplessly watch Walter shove the sliding door open and dig his fingers into her hair to drag her out. Stupid, he spits at her. Worthless, worthless wom-an, he calls her. She struggles to find her balance as he continues dragging her into the kitchen. He shoves her into the breakfast bar, using the ledge to choke her. She struggles to find her balance as he continues dragging her into the kitchen. He shoves her into the breakfast bar, using the ledge to choke her. Mallory, watch out! I’m screaming, but it’s too late. Walter pushes Mallory into the side wall of the staircase. After hitting the wall, she falls back a bit. Walter catches her and holds her by the roots of her hair. He pulls his arm back, then throws her into me. Mallory’s blood is all over me. Or I’m all over Mallory. I’m not quite sure because there’s so much blood mixed in with fragments of the table and metal junk from the bowl.

I look into Mallory’s eyes and see my reflec-tion. She looks at me and sees her reflection. I see a million pieces of myself scattered across the floor. I watch as Walter stumbles out the front door, dan-gling the keys Mallory had frantically searched for two minutes ago. I feel her warm blood growing cold around me. I see her skin turning white as the sunshine begins to seep into the hallway through half-opened curtains. Together Mallory and I lay broken in a million pieces on the cold hardwood floor. I’m not sure how long I’ve been laying here with her for, but the eerie silence tells me that Walter will not be coming back.

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In the Middle of Night Leah Mahoney

Occasionally I am awoken in the middle of night with the devastating realizationthat nobody loves me.

The air sucked from my lungs,I am left sinking, gasping,as I lay alone in bed.

Unable to breathemy eyes sting and they begin to water.

I am certainI shall never havea decent night’s sleepagain.

CraveIva Stankovic

My mind bites into streetlights,And I blow stars onto the black canvas,My breath creating half-life.Defined by a perception,I crave the dusty taste of empty buildings;The hollow space promises rejuvenation.But then I remember voices,And I drive by your house.Exploring the abandon,I smell stale remnants of you.Caressing your blue shirt,The aroma teases out memories,But maybe I imagine it.Time has passed,And our teenage angst I yearn to feel again.But it is better to drive away;These recollections are void,As are these buildings.Feeding here has not quenched my hunger.

Poetry

Chinese Lanterns Michael Don Gyssels

1The Chinese lanterns drift through the night sky;Their flames flicker distantly: luminousClouds, glowing like streetlamps through tear-stained eyes.Warmth gently overcasts the moonless nightCanvas and soothes like a lover’s embrace.Paper and wire constructs feign in answerTo hopeful pleas: rising and swooning–lively,Dancing like breath’s mist drawn in the deadOf winter: souls rising above the self.Now contained in Chinese lanterns, they drift:Reverent of the encompassing sky,Defiant of the enveloping dark.

2

This new combination of fuel and flameBrings new life to the dead and new hopeTo the living: A testament from soulsThat linger amongst the corporal beings.These shimmering distant celestial forms,Effulgent beacons beckoning from the unknown:Radiant memoranda from the godsWhich sparks fire in the hopeful hearts of men.They burn in eager unity and standIn stark contrast with imposing darkness,These flames that flicker and dance with life.

3

As black encroaches, Hope’s conduits wane:The glorious blazes that had forgone Death’s shroud soon become new martyrs:Casualties of the imminent fate.The lively dance of flames slows to a waltz,Submitting to the inevitableClosing of the mortal celebration, And only an echo of the tumultStill rings through the dark, deflated dancehallAs exhausted dancers shuffle away.They wander into the cold winter night,And thus do the lamps extinguish their lights.

The sole levity of paper cannotAchieve flight; the exhaustion of fuel leavesThe paper hearts slackened, like human hearts,Their mirrors. Once, bolstered with warmth to fightThe kiss of Finality - his cold hands;Now, unseen, floating towards the cold ground:These Chinese lanterns lost amongst the dark.

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FreaksJason Cantalini

I wish I was a moon pie seller,A purveyor of goodsSweet to the taste.

Instead, I am a stand-up fellow,The type who stands up,King-crab faced.

Oh, to be a carnival-goer,The type who gawksAt the beast in his cage.

If only I didn’t glower and lower,Rattle plastic bars,Pull safety chains.

But, you must see,I wasn’t always this strange fellow.

It beganIn a black hush,A wordless rush,A shifting sea,Of nameless tides,Of castaway souls,And phantom brides.It is night,A pewter night,Of rasping and clanging:Of pewter menWith pewter earsAnd solvent voices.

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A fleshless body,Erect in a terminal of a room.Spartan, gaudy,A fluorescent tomb. The hairs of his toothbrushShot out and around.To him, a pagan idol:Freyja, Aphrodite.A hideous roadTo a ruined townLay before him.

Almost unthinkingly,Certainly unblinkingly,He took it.

The corpse-man stumbled,Putrified in the hall,Past the facesWith moon piesRaised so high,They were hardly faces at all.The dead-man’s dirgeSauntered on.

On to the ball,The corpse straightened his tie,Grifted his suit,Coughed up his lies,And stepped to it:Grinning, splitting,Seeping down into their hearts.Was this corpse’s way?Did the corpse even care?

The corpse woke,A snake in a mongoose’s lair,A bee in the belly of a bear.He thought of what he had seen:It was plainly absurd.No one had ever taught the corpse to dance.

Among friends, was the corpse,At least ostensibly so.His swiss-cheese smile was riddled with terror,His deep-fried demeanor crackled and spat.Seated on the padded floorboards,He feared the moment that coffee-cup eyes would turn to him,When shot-glass hearts would close to his.Yet he wished for it so:A fly in the headlights,A deer in the ointment,He wished for it so.

A monster aloneIs a monster who moans,A monster who yearnsFor dark jackets,Funeral urns.

But a beast with a crowd!A corpse with a retinue!Shall howl out loud!Smile sadly with queue!

But then,Quite simply,These freaks wouldn’t be freaks.

Like the maggots of his mind,The corpse had made his choice.The beast,Though he wept and slurred,Loved his master well.

The two lived on,Happy in plastic cage,Happy in pewter grave,Happy as only a freak can’t be.

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Fixed Stars Do Not Exist – a sestina Helen Ngo

I. [We are] two stars in a galaxyDrawing closer as we orbit each other againBound by the laws of time and space, ever so rationalFixed as long as the great universe will standWe are the epitome of science; exhibiting the unknownWill we be stable forever? Perhaps it will all change tonight

II. Light-years have separated us for millennia, but not tonight Against the laws of cosmic tradition, we will take a standWe cannot fight this wish anymore, catching fire, breaking rational(e)The Milky Way itself will become undone, a changed galaxyAs celestial chaos ensues; they thought this would never happen againAll eyes are on you and me as we drop a match on the great unknown

III. The zenith will draw an invisible line upon our hearts tonightAnd we will dance upon the horizon at altitudes unknown The people on Earth will watch our trajectory, trying to (under)standThe mysteries hidden in the depths of a great galaxyMen and women of science, of astronomy, of the rationalWill be amazed by Nature’s dazzling show again

IV. And exactly what is it that captivates the galaxy?It is the meeting of two polar opposites, an experiment unknownThe axis of the very universe will be transposed tonightAs two hearts collide in a “once in a million” fireworks show againNature itself will fight back with evidence of the rational But it is too late; our light shines brighter, we will (with)stand

V. So, welcome to this strange new galaxyHome to my heart, nothing to you [yet] but the unknownThat will soon change; scientists always try to (under)standWe are both pawns in the game of Science, but not tonightRight now, this moment, Logic is eclipsed by wonder againAs you make me forget the reasons why—irrational

VI. One day the world will look back upon this and they will (under)standThey will say, “Remember those two, the stars that chased the day into night,And then, in the face of danger, laughed at the unknown?”And they will hope for such another brilliant show againIt is not often that one will dare to challenge the rationalBut you and I, we are sparkling so bright that we can be seen in every galaxy

VII. The very Sun is eclipsed by blinding radiance tonight, as we abandon the rationalAt the precipice of the galaxy, a place I thought I’d never see againAs we stand with our hands clasped against the great unknown

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VariablesCalyssa Erb

You told me if I wasn’t part of the solution I was part of the precipitate.Some days that’s how I feel,adrift.

I never understood chemistryhow your fingers weresupposed to intertwine with mine,(‘supposed’ is not a definitive analysis buttry defining the paralysisof a proven hypothesis),a reaction, ofrepulsion we’retwo ends of the same side andwhat is attractionbut just oppositionthat finds a way next to each other.

You told me it has to do with chemistry,that there are pieces in the brain that are notfinding their way across chasms of thoughtreactors, (unclear) nuclear testing grounds for relationships;I never really understood what science had to do with romance.

But I guess it is that flame,(‘guessing taints the data’ you saidbut isn’t professing love the same thing),the flame we cultivate on the burnerso safe and secure, and all the precautionsdon’t prepare us for the real world where that flame will go out with even justthe whisper of words.

Here I am:the precipitate,adrift,amiss,watching the solution ofprotons and electrons mingle,and I am a neutron,no charge, sometimes just part of the clump to fit in and maybe that’ssatisfactory.

When you look up at the stars at nightmost of them have already died, andwe were like galaxies that were too far. By the time your light reached me, we had already died.

I mourn the ending, but I can’t find the words because it took light years.Light years to be crossedand only a nanosecond to rip us apart,and you will remind me that light years are distance and seconds are timebut this is why we couldn’t last.When I was still working out the chemistry you were at physics,trying to find the physicalrepresentationbut there was always miscommunicationin therelationbetween different subjects.I was just another subject for experimentation, andeverything is open to interpretation (except forcoldhard facts).

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And the fact is I still smell your presence when Iwalk out that door,and I still see the shape of your smile buton someone else’s face.

I will never understandhow you could record figuresinto data when numbers don’t reflectcharacter. So I precipitatereciprocatedfeelings,swirl them around until they mixthen watch them settle.

We will never settlein the same way again.

From Dusk to Dawn Taylor Rae from dusk to dawn the feathers of birds graze clouds as the sun kisses the earth. the rain mists over vacant fields like how wind whispers its hushed hymn. and although the day descends, night both rises and falls,

igniting stars as soft elixirs.

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ParanoicMichelle Harder I. Inside My Pretty Room at the Shelterred-rimmed eyesmuddied mucoid eyes marred mocking moulding

pearl-round eyesmarry ceiling’s sea

sugared panes eruptto insistent touch

soggy eyes of prancing cherubs press slime melt

clink clatter clacksplat II. A Warm Beverage in Winter

I waited for her camera eye to notice mevirginal queen on my curbside thronesurrounded by my shopping cart and all my plastic bags

oh my beautiful robot, roaming subtle metalsent by GOD to bless me, mend me

blessed are the brokencoin shall transmogrify into a stream of warmth sliding down my choking gullet

III. Friday Mass at 1:45 P.M.

oak-cool pews receivesupplication of scabby knees.sonorous echoescareless stainglass:Francis of Assissi capturedhealing hands outstretched.

requiem aeternam eternal rest take you all

Mary’s stare delightsblue eyes glittering to the gulping beat of angels gorging on guts

purpled abyss of brainbellows veritable vengeancestench, cramp, whimper

fucking frolicking frolickers

feck! fack! fickle!

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no rest aint no restno rest for wicked – what?

sweetly singchoired cherub faces:behind rounds of cheekgreedy swollen tongues

IV. That Long Walk Home

eyes burst con - crete

watchful blisters beneath calloused feet stomping stamping gelled juicy fibrous strength

feet trail slimy tears

V. Midnight Benediction

virginal queenon my curbside throneI smile Mary’s smilewhile brilliant shardsof lucent eyesshatter heavenrapture the sky

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Glass Castles Hillary Poole

We lived In little glass castlesSunlight bouncingOff every surfaceAn invitation for ruin

She dusted her cheeksWith cherry blossomsDressed in bows and whistlesLike a prize pup on leashKicking our pactTo stay sweet foreverUnder the dusty bed

We livedIn a house of mirrorsWildfire words reflectingOff every surfaceAn invitation for ruin

She spat out each roundBehind the slammed doorSour spots on my skinVictory badges in war

Now her treasures Line the sidewalkAnd bricks soar through glass housesLike sharp beaks freed From a cage lined with newspaperWe fall down so easily

Her fingerprints trail Through the kitchenMy feet grinding shards into sandBlowing blood bubblesThe holes remind meWhere sky used to be

And every night the wind laughsThrough chimes of broken glassAshes, ashesWe all fall down

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Screenplay

OutflowBy

Christopher Beaulieu

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