Category: Creative Nonfiction

A Family Outing 

By Elijah Cordura

The First Day 

I sat down at the dining room table, expecting the worst. As I was coming back home from a graduation trip to Big Bear Mountain with my friends, I got a text from my protective older sister: “Be careful, Dad will tell you he knows,” I felt the anxiety rushing through my head. What will he say? Is he mad? Does he still love me? What would my brother think? My friends were all laughing and screaming songs at the top of their lungs because they still had enough air left to scream. My breath was taken away from the moment that message popped up into my eyeline. 

“Don’t freak out, it’s going to be okay. I’m here with you,” another one of my sister’s warnings pops up, this time trying to console the raging anxiety that is filling my head. 

I feel a little air seep into my lungs, but just enough to reply to my friend as she notices that I’m not breathing. “I’m good,” I say to her. She notices the a tear trying not to roll down my face. She quickly caresses my arm and gives me her “I’m gonna ignore this but you’re a really bad liar” face. I let my phone glide up to her hazel-colored eyes, she notices the warnings my sister left me and quickly whispers, “You’re going to be okay. If you need to run at all and make an escape, my house is down the street.” I thank her and tell her I think I’ll be fine, and we do the handshake that we’ve had since we were thirteen years old. 

My other friend drops me off at my house. I take a moment to grab my bags and stall going through the front door. I take a deep breath and turn the doorknob. I am immediately greeted with shouts from my family, as I haven’t seen them in four days. My sister looks at me and gives me a look—one that only I saw. My dad, unaware that I know he’s going to out me to my brother, says, “Go change, we are going out to Korean BBQ.” He doesn’t like Korean BBQ; he always says how much he hates paying a lot of money to go grill your own food. My heart rate rises faster because I know he’s only suggesting this to soften the blow of outing me. Although my mom and sister already know (I’ve told them privately myself) I am still shrouded by this imminent feeling of doom in my chest.

My sister and I are texting each other all the way to the restaurant. My anxiety still rising because I know something is about to happen at dinner. We walk inside, and I’m trying not to let out the biggest scream anyone has ever heard. We start eating, and I’m waiting, waiting, and waiting—but it never comes. The dinner is filled with stories from our childhood that we find funny because we were weird little kids. My mind is slowly forgetting about the reason why I was even scared and anxious in the first place. We arrive home, and everything is as normal as it seems. No one mentioned anything, and I escaped back into my hiding spot, where things don’t try to out you. 

The Next Day 

I woke up as usual, this time a little later because I was so tired from my trip with my friends. Still feeling a little weird from the day before, I try to make myself believe that today would be free of anxiety and scary details about me that my dad would out. 

Walking down the stairs, I noticed my entire family eating sandwiches my dad had made. “Good morning,” he says, mid-spreading the mayo on the bread, “Do you want a sandwich?” 

“Sure,” I say, making my way to my normal seat at the dinner table. The sliding door is open, letting in the sunshine and the chirping birds. Today is peaceful, today is nice, I think to myself as my dad places the sandwich in front of me. 

“I’m just going to say this because I think we all know at this poi-” My body freezes.. Today was supposed to be peaceful, it wasn’t supposed to end like this. I was supposed to let him know when I was ready. “You’re gay!” Those words surround me like water trapping me in a claustrophobic box. My head begins to spin as I look around at my mom, my sister, and my brother, who are all shell-shocked that my dad decided to do it right here, right now. 

The tears are uncontrollable. My brother is the first one to get up and hug me, I feel the warmth of his arms wrapping around me as I sink into him—my brother, the

person I was most afraid to tell. The person who I looked up to and didn’t want to be the annoying little gay brother that he talks badly about with his friends. 

He is then followed up by my dad, who, up until this point, was still talking. He was saying something about how much he loved me and why he was upset that I was so scared to tell him. “I love you, you know that. Why didn’t you tell me?” I was taken aback, I was going to, but you took away my chance by outing me yourself. I wasn’t ready to tell my brother and father just yet; he took that chance from me. 

My father was getting teary-eyed, and my mother and sister already sobbing for me and being relieved that they don’t have to hide it from anyone but themselves anymore. My brother let go of me and said, “You’re always my little brother, I love you.” 

Feeling robbed of a chance, betrayed that I couldn’t tell my entire family in the way that I wanted to, I realized I was probably never going to be ready to tell my brother or my father at that moment. I was never going to be comfortable enough. There was never going to be a right moment, and the anxiety would never be low enough to say the words, “I’m gay” to my family. 

I felt betrayed, but I was still accepted. I realize how lucky I am to say that because I understand that not everyone can. I am still loved, and being gay will never change the way my family thinks of me.

Author Bio

Elijah Cordura

Elijah Cordura is a third-year undergraduate Literature/Writing student at California State University, San Marcos. Along with being a student, Elijah is a queer Asian Hispanic individual who adores reading and writing about experiences that other people might feel connected towards. He comes from a loving and accepting family from Southern California. In his free time, Elijah loves spending time with his family and friends. 


House

By Veronika Kremennaya

I know everything about the house that’s somewhere in the middle of the longest street in the world. Many people walk by it, all at different times, but none know it quite like I do. For some infinitesimal amount of time, it was the first house on this street. One day, for the same amount of time, it will be the last.

Its beige walls and dark brown shingles stand strong against the elements, unassuming in the sea of homes. They all stand at various distances away from one another- some have what could barely be called a gutter between them while this one in particular has several meters between it and its neighbors. There’s enough space that the owner went and added a fence all around, so it’s nearly impossible for the kids to see anything of its facade from the sidewalk. You have to find a few lesser-known holes in the fence to peer through, but you’ll never see anything but weeds. The adults can see over the fence, but they choose not to look.

It was a nice house for a while. Pride of the neighborhood, of the one who built it, and their friends. As time went on, a crack formed on the pristine beige exterior. A hairline fracture at first, exacerbated by what felt like frigid rot from the weed roots seeping into the foundation. These veins of imperfection grew the more people noticed them. The cracks spread and spread, eventually becoming spiderwebs of cracked paint across every corner of every wall. Some asshole kids threw bottles over the fence, never caring if they’d ever hit anything. They tended to never hear any response from the weeds catching their bottles, but sometimes a crash would ring out and they’d run far.

“It’s the owner’s fault.”

The owner always built the fence just a little higher after that, repainted it too so it looks nice to all passersby. Eventually, the adults all started saying “What a nice fence” instead of “What a nice house.” They’re both the same color, what does it matter? The owner didn’t know what to do. Everyone liked the fence, that’s all passersby ever look at, so they kept building it higher and higher.

Until finally, even the adults couldn’t see over. That’s fine, they all probably thought, that fence is hiding nothing but weeds and cracked paint and broken bottles and holes. It’s just a house, not a home like every other building on the street. Those adults walked miles up and down the street, they’ve seen so many houses that they’re proper judges. They’ve all seen what goes on behind fences like these, and they all thought they knew where it was headed. If they actually paid attention, they’d have noticed that the holes in the fence were painted over years ago. Hiding the damage was the cheapest option as opposed to fixing it.

But they never stopped talking behind the owner’s back.

“That house is an eyesore, when’s it going to get demolished?”

“Does anyone even take care of that house?”

“I don’t think anyone lives in that house.”

“That house used to look really nice, what happened to it?”

“What kind of house needs a fence this high?”

I don’t remember when it happened, but the owner stopped painting the fence. Weirdly enough, it’s also when people stopped caring about it. Nobody knows the owner died in a way they couldn’t understand, or maybe they never cared to begin with, but the paint’s been etched into and scratched off so the wood almost bled underneath. Maybe everyone just got used to things.

“The owner did it to themselves.”

The owner would probably say it’s just the birds.

There have only been two others going in and out of the house the entire time it’s been here. The only people on the outside who know what the house and owner are really like, but their homes are further down the street, closer to the edge crumbling off into the abyss. Once they’re gone, will what they know of the owner and the house die with them or will someone new be let in?

I wonder about the house sometimes. When it’s nearing the end of the street along with its decrepit neighbors, will the weeds have finally outgrown its fence? One day it’ll be gone and forgotten by everyone. It’s already been long forgotten by the kids who threw bottles at it, one day it’ll be forgotten by those who built it. Will there be anyone alive who saw the house as a home?

But right now I can’t see it as a home, this body of mine.

Author Bio

Veronika Kremennaya

Veronika Kremennaya is a current student at CSUSM pursuing Literature & Writing Studies. They love writing, drawing, and playing video games. Their writing and drawing focuses primarily on the worldbuilding they’ve been working on since they were a kid.


Into the Wild and Evolutionary Process of Literary Journalism

By Eric Joel Rodriguez

How does Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer relate to the many ethical concerns in literary journalism? How does it showcase the latter part of literary journalism’s evolution? Into the Wild is a newly released book about a young man named Chris McCandless and his journey. He went off to Alaskan to become one with nature and escape from the materialistic and stressful reality of everyday life. However, his journey ended up costing him his life. Consequently, journalists cannot interview him or get any information from him on a first-hand level. The absence of McCandless may bring about some ethical concerns, such as the reliance on omniscient narration and fabricating certain events to make them more captivating than they were, skewing them away from the truth. However, Krakauer refrained from relying on these as he utilized interviews with McCandless’s family, people he crossed paths with, and McCandless’s diary entries. Krakauer’s book has similarities to both early and newer literary journalism writings, it has some of the literary elements found in early literary journalism pieces, and its investigation was similar to that of Hiroshima. However, unlike the earlier writings, Krakauer refrains from meeting some of the ethical dilemmas that the earlier writers faced, such as omniscient narration and fabrication. These ethical dilemmas decreased as literary journalism evolved. This is where Into the Wild stands in the context of literary journalism’s evolution

            First off, while Into the Wild is undoubtedly at the end of literary journalism’s evolution thus far, it does not go without saying that it still contains some elements of literary journalism from its earlier developments. In his anthology titled, The New Journalism, new journalist Tom Wolfe describes how literary journalists “[combine] in-depth reporting with literary ambition: they wanted to make the nonfiction story shimmer ‘like a novel’ with the pleasures of detailed realism” (Kerrane 17). This is one of the aspects that many of the early writers had, and while literary journalism has evolved significantly since Tom Wolfe’s time, it still possesses this one aspect. It is very apparent in Into the Wild as it is seen as a novel rather than a simple news story; the book uses literary devices such as descriptive language many times. A prominent example is when Krakauer describes the Devils Thumb’s appearance: “Vast and labyrinthine, the ice cap rides the spine of the Boundary Ranges like a carapace, from which the long blue tongues of numerous glaciers inch down toward the sea under the weight of the ages” (137). This is not the type of writing one would regularly see in a traditional news story; rather, it is like that of what novels have. It contains literary devices such as similes to captivate the reader.

            In addition to having some of the literary journalism elements, Into the Wild shares similarities with some of the earlier works. One example is John Hersey’s Hiroshima; it is similar inthe way in which the investigation was conducted was like that of Hiroshima. This is because John Hersey was not there to witness the explosion. Likewise, Jon Krakauer was not there when McCandless when on his expedition. While the two stories share this similarity, there are prominent differences that should not go unnoticed. While both relied on the same type of resources to create a narrative, the way that they went about it differs. Unlike Krakauer, Hersey also relied on omniscient narration, which is where the author assumes the subjects’ minds. An example is when he writes about Mrs. Nakamura’s emotions the night before the bombing of Hiroshima:

Mrs. Nakamura went back into the kitchen, looked at the rice, and began watching the man next door. At first, she was annoyed with him for making so much noise, but then she was moved almost to tears by pity. Her emotion was specifically directed toward her neighbor, tearing down his home, board by board, at a time when there was so much unavoidable destruction, but undoubtedly she also felt a generalized, community pity, to say nothing of self-pity. (11)

This creates the ethical dilemma of omniscient narration because Hersey is assuming her emotions without relying on an actual interview to confirm this. This is not necessarily wrong but can cause some readers to distrust the author since it does not explicitly indicate that he got it via interview. Krakauer had the same issue as he could not interview McCandless, but he refrained from relying on the omniscient narrator and assuming McCandless’s thoughts by instead utilizing other people who knew him, his family, and his documentations, such as his diary excerpts.

To add to the previous paragraph, Krakauer uses his own personal experience to speak on behalf of McCandless; this allowed him to enter McCandless’s mind without using omniscient narration. Furthermore, it was his way of compensating for his inability to interview him. In his book, Krakauer describes how his personality was very similar to that of McCandless: “As a youth, I am told, I was willful, self-absorbed, intermittently reckless, moody… Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused me in a confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please” (134). This was one of the more prominent strategies that he used to reveal his subject’s mind without crossing any ethical barriers. Hersey did not use this strategy for a few reasons, the most prominent ones being that he did not identify as many parallels with the subjects and that use of the omniscient narrator was not disliked as much. This is one of the differences that indicates the evolution of literary journalism and how it has evolved. Hiroshima represents an earlier piece of literary journalism since it was written in 1946; Into the Wild would not be written for another 50 years. One of the most notable differences between the two is their respective use or lack of use of omniscient narration. The loss of omniscient narration in stories is one of the ways that it has progressed, and this loss is clearly seen in Into the Wild and other newer forms of literary journalism.

A further notable difference between Into the Wild and earlier works of literary journalism is that Into the Wild does not fabricate certain instances. Fabrication is when an author adds supplemental and non-existent details to entice the reader. An example of a story that does is Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the most notable example being the cemetery scene at the very end. This was a scene that Capote completely made up for the sake of enhancing the story. In part, it talks about how a character named Dewey “had spent several hours at Valley View weeding his father’s grave” (341) and “stopped at a tombstone marked with a recently carved named: Tate” (342). It goes on to describe the graves of the Clutter family: “four graves gathered under a single gray stone, lie in a far corner of the cemetery – beyond the trees, out in the sun, almost at the wheat field’s bright edge” (342). Some readers may interpret this as an ethical dilemma since Capote is adding details that were not originally there, thus skewing the story from the truth. However, in the early stages of literary journalism’s evolution, these supposed ethical dilemmas had more toleration since people simply wanted a story to be interesting.

Despite the differences between Into the Wild and the mentioned earlier pieces, Lillian Ross’s “Portrait of Hemingway” is an example of early literary journalism that it shares similarities with. Ross and Krakauer are similar since they both utilize the “fly-on-the-wall” approach, which means that they simply observe and do not use omniscient narration. In Ross’s piece, she lets the characters be as they are and does not interfere with the narrative; “Ross observes Hemingway as he has lunch in his hotel room, buys a coat, looks at paintings, and meets with his publisher” (From “Portrait of Hemingway” 129). The same is true with Into the Wild as Krakauer simply documents McCandless’s journey. The author’s note clearly indicates that Krakauer was not to interfere with the story and wanted to “minimize [his] authorial presence” (Into the Wild author’s note). In addition to being distant in the story, Ross’s purpose was to allow the reader to learn more about Hemingway, much like how Krakauer allowed the reader to learn more about McCandless. She taught the readers about Hemingway by simply showing how he naturally acts without judging. An example is when she is transparent in how she describes his demeanor: “By the time we reached Abercrombie’s, Hemingway was moody again. He got out of the taxi reluctantly, and reluctantly entered the store” (Ross 131). Ross was known for writing people “as they are,” which is a stark contrast from the earlier forms of literary journalism, such as those from Tom Wolfe. Although this story was written not long after Hersey’s story, it already shows some form of evolution taking place in literary journalism. Hersey’s story did not utilize the fly-on-the-wall approach; Ross’s did. This shows one step of progression between the two stories, and Krakauer continued it by using Ross’s method.

While Into the Wild has similarities and differences with earlier works of literary journalism and represents how literary journalism has evolved, it also shares similarities with newer forms of literary journalism. An example of a newer piece is The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm. This is mainly because it brings up the concept of writer-subject relationships and indicates that the subject is more dominant: “The subject, like the patient, dominates the relationship and calls the shots. The journalist cannot create his subjects any more than the analyst can create his patients” (99). This same idea is seen in Krakauer since he is simply using McCandless’s notes to write about his journey; besides his own personal anecdote about Devils Thumb, he is only basing his writing off McCandless. He even described himself as an “impartial biographer,” which means that he has no bias over the person whom he is writing about. With this in mind, Krakauer simply wanted to tell McCandless’s story as objectively as possible. Also, each chapter started off with a map showcasing McCandless’s whereabouts in each moment. Krakauer did not come up with this; he simply followed McCandless’s footsteps, which, in a way, made McCandless the so-called leader and Krakauer the follower. This is a demonstration of the concept covered in Malcolm’s book. It is also another example that marks a progression in literary journalism’s evolution as the earlier writings did not cover this topic, yet Krakauer and Malcolm’s writings – two newer stories – did.

So far, this has covered the similarities and differences that Into the Wild shares with both older and newer forms of literary journalism. It will now transition into discussion about the ethical dilemmas that Krakauer faced. As mentioned in the beginning, Krakauer was not there to witness McCandless on his journey. Furthermore, McCandless did not survive, which eliminated the option of having him interviewed. This makes Krakauer decide whether to rely on omniscient narration and assume everything that McCandless knew. A previous paragraph mentioned how Krakauer’s anecdote served to get into McCandless’s mind without using omniscient narration. It also forces him to decide whether he will fabricate and skew the truth or simply reconstruct the story so that it is as congruent with it as possible. As mentioned, one of the differences between Krakauer’s book and earlier novels is that Krakauer did not fabricate; rather, he reconstructed. Reconstruction simply takes pre-existing data to support the narrative. Krakauer chose to refrain from using these ethical dilemmas by reconstructing McCandless’s journey by interviewing McCandless’s family, those he crossed paths with, and reading his diary. An example of reconstruction is how McCandless’s “diary entries following his return to the bus catalog a bounty of wild meat. May 28: ‘Gourmet Duck!’ June 1: 5 Squirrel.’ June 2: ‘Porcupine, Ptarmigan, 4 Squirrel, Grey Bird’” (166). These details allowed Krakauer to put isolated facts together to make a narrative, which correlates to the definition of reconstruction. It is not fabrication since it does not add anything new to the equation. Because of this, Krakauer’s narrative ended up being more authentic and truthful. This shows how literary journalism has evolved since earlier writers, such as Hersey and Capote, did rely on these elements but more recent writers such as Krakauer did not.

Into the Wild is a more recent form of literary journalism and represents the current timeframe in literary journalism’s evolution. It shares both similarities and differences with earlier works that preceded it. In regard to similarities with the earlier works, it contains some of the literary journalism elements spelled out by Tom Wolfe, such as how it reads like a novel. It also utilizes some of the early methods that are still used, such as “fly-on-the-wall” reporting. In regard to differences, it does not rely on ethical dilemmas such as omniscient narration and fabrication. As literary journalism evolved, the use of some of these ethical dilemmas decreased. Into the Wild also shares similarities with newer works, such as Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer as they both cover the concept of writer-subject relationships. To correlate with this concept, McCandless was dominant over Krakauer as Krakauer’s job was to simply follow his footsteps and reconstruct – not fabricate – his journey. Even though Krakauer could not interview McCandless, he managed to refrain from using these ethical dilemmas as he simply relied on McCandless’s family, acquaintances, and diary entries. These resources allowed him to meticulously reconstruct his journey; thus, he did not need to rely on these ethical dilemmas. Into the Wild shows how literary journalism has evolved by losing some of the elements that some might interpret as untrustworthy and keeping the original craft that makes a news story read like a novel. This is done to make the facts dance.

Author Bio

Eric Joel Rodriguez

Eric Joel Rodriguez is an industrious, innovative, and highly motivated student pursuing studies in Literary Journalism (Major) and History (Minor) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).  When not writing or studying, he enjoys reading, listening to music, and hanging out with family and friends.


Intercession

By Ashley Sargent

The carpet was rough under her knees as the almost-sixteen-year-old surreptitiously cleaned up the random piles of toys and veritable pieces of clutter dotting the living room. She could hear the calm, undulating voice of her grandmother reading a story to the younger children, one of which was asleep on her arm while another was nodding off, brown, long-lashed eyes fluttering open and close.

The teenager rose from the floor and slid into the seat next to the sleeping boy, pulling in the youngest child in the room, a towheaded boy of nine to her side, who immediately pulled away to return petulantly to his toys. A moment of repose was all the girl could muster, and then she was up-up and back to the incessant movement yet again. Another pause broke the pacing; the girl thought she heard a voice outside or perhaps a car door but there was nothing that followed.

“Why don’t you sit down?” spoke the grandmother, her kind eyes flickering outside and back in again, belying the absentminded worry resting in the depths. “I don’t want to fall asleep,” admitted the girl, shifting back and forth on coltish legs. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you, dear,” came the quiet response. The girl moved across the room to the desk, where she perched on the edge of the chair and laid her hand beside the corded phone. Almost immediately, her fingers started tapping an irregular rhythm that correlated with the beginning of a pulse that had begun within the teenager’s head; a throbbing that started from the center of her brain, skirted down and around her petite ears, vibrated through the slightest tremble of her lower lip, shot down the length of her arm and coalesced into a steel, spiked mass in her stomach.

There rose a small murmur of sound from the couch and the girl looked up to see her grandmother and siblings all looking out toward the bank of windows that led outside. Then she saw it too, the car lights that slid unbidden through the glass and reflected off the opposite wall, announcing the arrival of a visitor. Already the girl was up and out and halfway to the door without even realizing she had moved. She felt her grandmother reach behind for the doorknob, but she was faster. When the door opened and revealed the grim face of her mother, she knew the worst had happened.

The keening noises were loud, and it took a moment for the girl to realize they were words, even longer to recognize the sounds were coming from her own mouth, shaping, “No, no, no,” over and over. Tears distorted her vision as her knees buckled and suddenly, she was lifted and clasped tightly by a tall man who was attempting words of comfort, words of intercession to the token God of the household.

Time slid and distorted and images, snapshots of loss and turmoil reveal themselves. The girl sees her mother sobbing, face split in fractured pieces and eyes gone, clutching a girl of ten, a boy of eleven, a boy of nine, while a toddler shrieks, legs straddling across a bulging, distended stomach. Nights slither into days and the girl finds herself perched on a hard pew, feeling absolutely nothing but cold as she watches a girl of nine gather her courage and read a lengthy list of words to a crowd of people. Again, time slides sideways, and the teenager finds herself cradling a tiny, wriggling bundle of female hair, skin, and nails, feeling twinges of happiness intermixed with sorrow and deeply rooted wrath.

Moments soon began to be defined by feelings, a strange, heady brew for this no more a girl, not yet a woman. Sweet, tender instances like the smell of her baby sister’s skin after a bath collude with intense anger and passion stemming from the introduction of a first love and inevitable first broken heart. There are dark moments still but now they are punctuated with happiness as well. Flashes of beauty appear as the girl-woman discovers life and ways to fill the deep concentric hole in her heart. Twice a year, the girl-woman stops, remembers, and falls apart.

It is enough.

Time keeps on and the days fly by. A picturesque scene of dark, boiling clouds, flickering candles and intense feelings cleaves into one snapshot of a woman in a white dress, hair in curls and a deep blush imprinted on her cheek. The woman clings to her grandfather’s arm as he tries unsuccessfully to hold back unwelcome yet exultant waterworks, steering her down a long pathway and into the waiting arms of a handsome, rakish man. The woman, transformed by utter bliss, glances around at everyone she has ever loved, save one and is at peace. She flashes back to a moment where she hands over tools to a dark-haired man with glasses and great hair, grease smudging his cheek and her hands.

“I miss you, Daddy,” whispers the little girl inside her.

Author Bio

Ashley Sargent

Ashley Sargent is a second year student in the CSUSM Creative Writing Program. She has a long history of technical and marketing writing within the IT industry and now is pivoting to feed her soul with creative sources of artistic expression. In her spare time, she resides in Fallbrook with her husband and three dogs and also loves to coach and practice jiu jitsu at her local gym.


Amaya Jones

DREAM LIFE DECAY

I run around Diamond Park under red glow, a gentle stirring in the air like steam rising. Pink clouds floating by me in sluggish lanes, and my eyes never settle on one spot; a black-eyed golden retriever with devil horns, the moon reaching below skyscrapers, the ground torn in and replaced by ebony-colored rubble. I hear a round of shots echoing from above, I’m opening the eyes I didn’t know were closed.

—And still, I’m only half awake. Every blink is bathing me in red glow.

But every moment I’m opening my eyes again, finding a white grainy ceiling, and
shifting above torn leather. Then a brown face peering down at me, sagged under tired lines heightened with fright, to a closer, louder cry of gunfire, until the leather couch beneath me becomes oak flooring, until the looming brown face becomes my crying mother, arching her body over mine as glass distantly shatters.

My eyelids slip shut, the red glow fragments.

My hips swaying in navy blue, and worlds expand like I’ve eaten the wonderland cake. I’m smaller, in uniform, a white stained polo and a pleated polyester skirt. My hair has regressed half a decade, the swarm of coils split into two and braided on either side, white flower barettes poke my cheeks whenever my head moves. I see my third grade playground and a crowd of kids without faces to linger on. I hear the recess bell extending well beyond it’s scheduled four-second ring, and suddenly it’s all I hear, suddenly every kid is running to somewhere behind me but I can’t move my feet. My sight is fixated on the oak trees coating the hills. The flurry of feet trample my own.

—And I rise again to a soft voice repeating my name. My skin nipping and breaking in

the creases of the oak floors.

My mother’s fist clenched around the hem of my nightgown, and dragging me through the living room, to the kitchen. My toes clamp down as well, and I try not to flinch when a nail snags off from one of the jagged tiles. The shots are closer, there are doors somewhere opening and closing. Brandon’s face is frozen in the doorway. He looks surprised, but not startled, and I know he’s been awake the entire night. He is saying something to my mother. My mother’s face is becoming bothered. Their voices are raising, to yelling, firing, yelling, silence. With my face on the floor, I see his blue striped socks move swiftly away from the kitchen.

In the back of my head, a dream still spinning. I close my eyes for one minute, two, three.

I’m with my father now in the old silver pickup, turning in the roundabout. Brandon and Breah ride in the back with the groceries, laughing at Iyla across the street as she gapes at the floating kids. Dad yells something out the window, and they immediately sink back down. I’m thinking about my red and white bicycle. I’m hoping Mom will let me blow up the kiddie pool for the second time today. I’m picking which Barbie to bring with me to bath time, and a thick, hot breeze smothers my face. Dad lifting me out from the car seat, Brandon and Bread lugging in the bags. I smell potatoes in the kitchen. Gospel music stubbornly pours out of every speaker.

A red glow in every corner of the house. The walls bend back.

—And the hot breeze turns cold, and Mom is hugging me tightly from behind, yelling over my shoulder and in my ear. Brandon opens the front door, and I swear I hear bullets thumping along my porch. He’s yanking himself away and throwing the door back into it’s hinges. He’s on his knees, crawling to the slump that is my mother and I, and his voice is half wonder, half dread, going on about some guy with an Ak-47, about never seeing a gun that close before, and I am watching my brother for the first time become somebody else.

I’m fully awake and waiting hours for the sirens. They rarely come here. I’m looking out the window and seeing neighbors uneasily do the same. A man across the way is talking loudly, saying all the cars got fucked up, and Mom is praying on the edge of her blow up bed that her car is still in shape to take her to work in the morning. Brandon’s excitement for the night has trickled out, and he shuffles back into the bedroom. I’m sitting on the black leather couch, as my cat, Dyson, purrs against my ankle.

The cops come when all has already become final. They knock on the door and ask my mom a few questions. I squirm when one’s eyes falls on my tense shoulders, and they’re saying words, but my mind can’t form the sentences, sounds become an auditory collage, “gang,” “suspect,” “dead,” “dead,” “gang,” and I’ve been up for too long. I go back to my spot on the couch and drape the quilt over me, I feel a weight pounce over my legs and settle at my feet. I think of faraway things, and picture the red glow in only a corner of the ambiguous dark of my eyelids.

And I’m there in Diamond Park, in navy blue, leaning out the window of the old silver pickup. I hear a gentle stirring become the clangs of a school bell, I smell heat in the air, threatening to surround and smother me. And I’m waiting for a body to form, feet to somehow carry me like they never have before.

Amaya Jones is a junior and English major at NYU, with a minor in creative writing and media communications. It’s her third year living in New York, though she grew up in Northern California and spent most of her childhood living in Oakland and Sacramento. While her writing tendencies lean more toward the poetic side, she’s recently widened her creative scope to short fiction and nonfiction pieces. If not writing, her time is spent working on the editorial board for one of her school’s undergraduate literary magazines. This will be her second publication in a creating writing journal, and her first nonfiction publication.

Deviyani James

Detachment

Living freely in a body estranged from the mind, the couth of a lovely soul weakens, wearing thin of its profoundness; attributed one of a kind.
Exploited for its resistance, the soul wanders in search of its true calling, a vessel of hope to be determined.
Here lies the docility of the soul along with the outer body, needless to attach itself, independent of its purpose.
Allowing the mind to align, factors a balance of control between the turbulence of the soul’s mental capacity and its bodily composition.
The disposition of mind and inner body reconcile given time to manage and navigate the depths of a soul, lacking attachment to the outer body.
A sappy experience uncovered by the soul, absorbing the feats of the world, remaining invulnerable to the turbulence caused by disorder.
A mania that grows stronger, collapses, forcing the mind to take over the body, leaving the soul defeated; hollowed in chaos.

Did You Know? [Sentiments]

Did you know?
Did you know that—


I yearn for your devoted attention,
an impromptu love drenched in golden teardrops from the stars above.


Did you know that—


You are the lingering passion that conceptualizes the world of my existence,
an enticing presence that duals the fire set to my raging spirit.


Did you know?
Did you know that—


The serendipity I’ve become acquainted with keeps me afloat, you are the
rhythm to my flow, the remedy to my pain; I deem you as my greatest asset—
my sunshine in the presence of rain.


Did you know?
Did you know that—


My grace for you is everlasting; the adoration I harbor for you in this
fashion may not be tarnished or ravaged. It would be the world’s greatest
travesty if my keenness for you diminished for a lifetime.


Did you know?

Deviyani James is a senior at New York University studying sociology with a double minor in philosophy and creative writing. She is an avid reader and writer, as she enjoys indulging in literature, poetry, and prose simultaneously. Insofar as she finds the utmost solace in writing and being able to express the depths of her emotions, she is currently working on her very first book, a memoir/anthology that will better establish her unique writing style and rhetoric, to be published in August 2024.

Emmanuel Loomis

Loose Change

You must know by now that your past experiences shaped you into who you are today. You graduated high school. At some point, you found the freedom of driving your own car. You moved out of your hometown and started a new life free from the bad memories of the past. Memories of parents splitting, your life being reshaped, losing friendships. Memories like that November night you didn’t go to Walmart.

As you climbed into Blake’s mom’s SUV you were so excited to go there. You finally would have a new pocket charger for power outages. You could get that special flavor of chips that stores walkable from your place didn’t offer. Jeffery had the idea to go to Walmart. It would have been the perfect night for it. But you weren’t even going close to there. You realized this a bit after Blake broke the engine-filled silence.

“Did you get the tools, Jeff?”

Jeffery produced a pair of bolt cutters and a small crowbar from his bag in response. “Hell yeah brother! It’s finally time.”

The event you were sure was going to follow wasn’t entirely new to you. When you first met Jeffery you both went to a private Christian school in the eighth grade. He tried giving you the idea that since your caregivers sheltered you so much you could get away with anything. You two snuck out plenty of times at his parents’ house during sleepovers. You would ring the neighborhood’s doorbells and leave oranges on their mats, imagining their reactions as you ran to hide. Eventually, you thought this type of attitude was okay. How could it not be when it was so exhilarating? You had met Blake once or twice before. He and Jeffery liked to make elaborate plans and play them out like they were hardened ninja-criminals.

“Time for what?”, you ask. You didn’t want any part of this. At this point you were too far from home to be dropped off and walk back.

“Blake and I have been eyeing this warehouse. We think it’s been completely abandoned; we never see any cars parked outside of it. It looks like it used to be a mechanic shop so we’re looking to score something cool,” replied Jeffery without remorse, “Sorry, I should have let you know we were doing this.”

From there you decided to stay quiet and try riding this one out. In the years you’ve known Jeffery he built an insane fixation on cars, trucks, basically anything with wheels that one could mod enough to “turn heads”. Blake shared this same love. An old mechanic’s shop was where they needed to be. They would get tools for free without a statement on Jeff’s Grandma’s credit card. This had been an issue for them before. They surely didn’t want that to happen again. Plus, Jeffery had now gained quite the experience in thievery. For him it was almost natural. It was something one in their right mind was meant to do.

When you arrived, you could see many other warehouses lit by moonlight. No other signs of human activity were seen. It was around one in the morning. The air around you felt cold as you stepped out of the heated car. Jeffery handed you one of the tools and even that had an ice-like chill. You thought back to a time when you were watching a show about ghost encounters with another friend of yours. The host said there always seemed to be a noticeable drop in temperature when spirits were around. The ghosts of mechanic’s past must have been surrounding you on that hill, trying to signal you to do anything but disrupt their territory.

You felt petrified in fear when you stood and watched your friends struggle with busting the lock to the warehouse’s entrance door. You stood there, crowbar in hand, initially suppressed to the fact that they were trying to get your attention.

“Hey,” Jeffery said as he shined his flashlight directly in your face, exposing you to whatever eyes, electronic, ghastly, or human, could have seen you in that dark night. “If you’re not gonna do anything, can you at least hand me the crowbar? You can keep watch out here if you don’t want to come in.”

Reluctantly, you did as he said.  You then receded back to your frozen position and waited a few minutes after the halo of their phone lights faded away. You were certain the cops would come. The exact second you’d hear sirens you would run as fast as you could up the adjacent hill. They would never find you in such a desolate wasteland of forgotten private property. But the sirens never sounded. The darkness remained unchanged by alarming lights. You were okay. You decided you’d all be fine. You then went in, curious to see what they were finding.

You were met with an immensely open room lit by one small bulb. Jeff and Blake must have flipped a switch when they broke in. Monotone colored desks were arranged around the center of the room. Scattered documents and parts were strewn across them. An old RV sat in the back-middle of the garage. It had been jacked onto stilts. You saw that each of the wheels had been taken off and the parts of the axel that had made ergonomic travel possible were showing rust. Webs fell from the undercarriage of the mobile home as a skirt would from a royal princess. Her prince must have taken her apart and sold the parts of her away that he still thought valuable.

You jumped when hearing a loud clatter of tools coming from the room parallel to this one. It must have been where the others were. You knew then that you would never be like them, prowling through the belongings of others to find some piece for your loosely afforded puzzle. You would work for what you wanted. There must be a way to thrive without the need for crime.

You followed the noise into the room they were digging through. It was the big man’s office, the general of motors, the mason of mechanics, the father of all fixes.

“Air tools! I found air tools man! We gotta take these.” You had never heard Blake so excited. He had seemed constantly sedated in situations beforehand.

“Alright, cool! I found a sweet ratchet set I want too. This must have been like $300 new. Maybe I could even resell it,” Jeffery then turned to you with a ridiculous smile on his face, “Manny, why haven’t you grabbed anything? Don’t be lame, all this stuff is forgotten about anyways.”

“Nothing really matters to me here though, Jeff. Don’t you think they’ll come back for it someday?” You say this to him in truth, you didn’t care about tools or cars, you were close to seventeen and didn’t even have a license. You didn’t end up getting one anytime soon either.

Jeffery stared at you with a look of confusion you had only seen in your father when you told him your life’s career would involve video games, “Just look around. You’ll find something.”

So, you did look around. After all it was an office, maybe you could find something in there to use. You walk up to what must have been the boss’s desk. Documents were neatly organized into a miniature shelf on the left side. To the right of those was a stack of empty clipboards, followed by empty space, then finally a small cylindrical tin with an inch long slit in the lid.

Around its cylindrical form were repetitions of fantasy-like pictures, one of a chicken with an apron full of easter eggs, another with a white rabbit playing an egg-colored drum, another with a girl petting her bunny, and the top one showing three more white rabbits coming out of a bed of grass. It must have been bought during Easter, a holiday that you remember to be full of church sermons and violent egg hunts. You were the one who would go straight for the egg that looked different than the others. You knew that egg always had to be the one with the money.

You picked up the tin and realized that it held weight. Giving the thin metal a shake, you heard coins, and looked up to see Blake and Jeff standing in awe at what you had found. Their smiles had morphed into wonderous expressions. You had found the one thing more valuable than any free air tool or ratchet set. This treasure could be whatever you wanted it to.

You wanted this feeling to last forever, but as the three of you tried to find more money you were abruptly stopped by a set of red lights you failed to notice before. It was an LED alarm clock with the time and date set exactly. Clocks had to be reset all the time because of county-wide power loss. The ghost who had told you to leave before were remnants of the people who had still worked there daily. You rushed the news to Blake and Jeffery, who processed it in a flash. You all were gone within two minutes. It took a few moments after the surge of escape-induced adrenaline dispersed that you realized you still had the tin.

* * *

As years pass, you continue filling the tin with loose change you got from the rare times you use cash. It floats around the various surfaces of your room. Sometimes it sits on top of your dresser. Here it catches rays of sunlight that give it an amber glow at dusk. When you close the drawer after grabbing your jeans it will frequently fall and cause a loud rattle as it hits your bedroom floor. You’d then move it to your desk, where it will get caught on your mouse while you take your anger out on video games or difficult homework assignments.

You continue changing but the tin stays the same, frozen in time as if the magic of Easter never ends for it. The bunnies sit still in silence watching you try and find your own eggs. They look at you in shame. You took them from their home, snatched them from the existence they were meant to endure. Your coins were not meant for their vessel.

Though for some reason you see it as the imposter. Every time you add change a sense of clarity that your stash is growing washes over you, but you are quickly left with the pain of knowing you can’t let the tin go. It sits within your belongings as a scar you can afford to remove. You are afraid of the pain you might feel when it’s finally gone.

You wonder what memories it held before. You wonder more about the moments you took from the mechanic that would have happened if you had just let it be. Perhaps the mechanic was saving for the coming holidays. What could have been a few ice-creams for his grandchildren was a bag of Doritos and some Hostess cakes for you. Did that junk food form a meaningful bond? Did those scratchers you spent months of change on give you any benefit?

At one moment you’re working back in the place where this all started. Yards away from where you got in the car and didn’t go to Walmart. You’re bussing tables for a summer gig, trying to save up money for your move.

That restaurant had become like a recital to you in the years you’ve worked there. You bus the tables like performing a synchronized dance. Every pattern stays fixed in your muscle memory, wiping the table with an elegant curtsy, carrying trays of drinks as if they were a ballerina twirling on your fingertips. You moved to the Spanish music fluently, not fueled by words you didn’t know but by the passion the artists had when recording their songs. Your coworkers sometimes call you robotic in the way that you process and complete tasks in rapid succession. Now you see Jeffery there at table eleven, sitting in the same spot where you’ve hid from your boss’ cameras to roll silverware at your own pace. Seeing him caused an error to appear in your choreography.

He looks older now, more mature, more like the truck he drove to the restaurant in was from his own money that he worked hard for. At first, he doesn’t recognize you. You make yourself known when asking if the table needs refills. You were excited about seeing him, but he looked to you as if he were hiding from the shameful misadventures you had before. You don’t remember much of the small conversation you two had. But you do remember the last line of advice he gave.

“Keep your head on straight, bud.”

It felt as if he took your face in both of his hands and spit directly in your eyes. You never saw him after this. You still hope it stays that way.

Eventually you’ll forget about Jeffery, or Blake, or even the tin as it sits in your storage unit when you’re twenty years older than you are now. You’ll grow into a full career with more important things to worry about than Easter or power outages. Maybe you’ll even get your own mobile home and treat it like royalty as you travel the kingdom with your family. Later your own children will go through adolescence, finding their own Jefferys and Blakes and tins that you may not ever learn about.

As you meet your death your belongings in that storage unit will be auctioned off to the head mechanic’s grandkid. They would be so excited when looking through your forgotten loot to recognize their Papa’s coin tin. They’ll wonder how it got there, and if maybe their grandfather would have liked to see it again before he too had passed. Now they’ll learn that for most of their life, and until you could no longer exist enough to help it, you held on to that tin.

Emmanuel Loomis is an English major at California State University Chico, active in the writing of both personal and academic work. He strives to create worlds that give a sense of escape while commenting on themes that deserve more attention. Emmanuel has before been published in Butte College’s student newspaper with his poem “Ode to Meat” and is currently working on a composite novel of fictional stories titled Siblings, Friends, and Those Who Need Them. He stays active in campus activities and enjoys the feeling of being around friends, family, and people who cherish writing as a creative expression.

Jeremy Ray

The Runt

Butch was, effectively, my family’s mascot. Born from a mid-size poodle father and a very small Boston Terrier mother, he was sadly predisposed to looking like a gremlin, with wavy hair, a half-snout with a prominent underbite, bulging terrier eyes, and a poodle’s frame without the curly hair to provide extra bulk. He looked half-feral, and was so flea-ridden he had chewed the hair off around his own tail. But what better pet than a Gremlin for a family of half-Orcs anyway.

Butch began life as the runt of a litter of four. He had no name, he was “the runt, y’know, with the spot” on his head. None of Fletcher and Lizzie’s progeny had names then, as they were not planned or expected right up until they were born. We were going to get them up to weaned and then give them away. But one day, all the puppies were chasing each other through the upstairs of my grandmother’s split-level, and all the older children were chasing each other through the bottom level, until it boiled up into the top level, and because no innocent act goes unpunished, my cousin ended up stomping on the runt, with the spot on his head. 

He was dead, we all knew. But we took him to the vet, we being someone in the family that was not me, being seven and all. He came back, was given six months, “or until his brain grows into the indent of the skull” and hemorrhages, to live. I volunteered to care for the doomed creature, as it was wrong to give someone a puppy that was likely dead before it could know its name. My dad, ever insistent on doing right whatever dumb thing you were doing, rigged together a baby-bottle with a straw-nipple I or my sisters could tape to our finger to let him suckle. He grew, and within a few weeks was on to solid food, and as his siblings disappeared, he got more and more. After a long debate within the family, the only constant of which was “Je-sus not Spot” we landed on Butch, named after a Boston Terrier TY Beanie Baby, as was the style at the time. 

Butch quickly became our mascot. He was loud, mean to strangers, constantly hungry, and he communicated in headbutts and scratches more than verbally. His favorite pass-time was to chase the cat up the stairs until she turned and chased him down, where at the bottom, he’d turn and remember he was bigger and chase her back up. When we moved to the townhomes, he was perpetually angry at the wall for making noises, but he had access to The Woods. My older sister, Stevie, would often volunteer to walk him, just to hang out with a boy, usually. But for weeks, every time she took him out, he’d return with a stick. Once, I went with her, and my 11-year-old self had to hear my 16-year-old sister’s newest “boy-who-is-a-friend,  leave-me-the-fuck-alone-mom” warn her about the “and-a-condas” in the Kentucky woods, after which I decided to just wander away and play fetch with my dog for what I assume to be rather obvious reasons. 

I had tagged along only to witness the phenomenon Stevie had laughingly related a day or two before, when she’d told a story about our “dumbass” dog to drown out a commercial– or maybe Joe Buck, an equally abysmal thing to listen to. I threw the stick Butch had kept in the kitchen by the door for a day now, and he ran straight past it and out of sight, and then came stumbling back with an entirely different stick. This happened almost every time Butch went into The Woods, until one trip with my younger sister, Samantha, and me, the stick he brought back was about 3 feet long and a little over an inch in diameter, roughly. This branch was about twice as long as Butch himself, but he was insistent on bringing it home. He made it to the door, carrying it proudly at the halfway point, trotting confidently, when it hit both sides of the doorway. As Samantha and I laughed at the cartoonish display, he backed up, tried again, and failed again. Then, he backed up, tilted his head in confusion, before he seemed to have a tiny dog eureka moment and strutted in confidently. After a few days, my youngest sister, Carol, hit Samantha in the back with the stick, and it was confined to the patio. Butch was so distraught that he sulked until he became an Outside Dog. 

When they put Butch down, I was sixteen, maybe seventeen. I was digging in the garden, installing the pond Mom wanted and Dad was willing to maintain when she ultimately abandoned it. The metallic beige minivan pulled back up the drive, past the tree I can still smell blooming, that I can still remember screaming with cicadas, cicadas Butch would eat until he got sick the year we moved in, on up the drive to where our family had put handprints into concrete to celebrate the permanence of a house we lost within six years. My mother got out first and approached me. Dad came around from the back of the van, the long way, past the cargo door. I didn’t stop working and I didn’t let that tiny spark of what wanted to be hope breathe at all. My mother started off tearful, explaining he was in pain, it was what was best for him, there was nothing that could be done. My lack of response was rude, I’ll admit, and cold, and I took no small revenge in watching her fingers twitch in restlessness. But the problem with a well-intentioned lie is that it is still a lie. And so I continued digging her pond as she lied to me about my dog. When she finally got fed up and left, I glanced up to my father, who had the decency to look away. 

“The worms had gotten to the point they were digging holes in his gut.”   “It would’ve cost a thousand to put him through the treatment to force’m out,”   “another who knows how much to patch up the damage already done,”   “and then we’d have to deworm the whole front and back yard.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “He was a good dog.” He wasn’t. I nodded anyway, wondering if it was pity or envy that burned where his human hand had sat on my shoulder. Dad walked inside. I let the Orc rage take me, when I felt my face leak against my will. The hole for the pond was about a foot too deep, and I had to fill it back in a bit the next day. 

The people that bought the house removed it.

Jeremy Ray is an aspiring educator, a conflicted veteran, an escaped Kentuckian, and a feral child, listed in reverse chronology. His work aligns itself against light and its encroachment upon the dark while still attempting to explore the dark himself. He also takes himself just a bit too seriously and should probably calm down. Someday. 

Doug Harris

What Does it Mean to be Crazy?

Let me be clear, my intention is not to praise nor scorn anyone’s cause, but only to provoke examination into a controversial topic. Having said that, the modern day definition of “crazy” is used as an umbrella term for anything out of the ordinary that is not considered normal. Many scholars and laymen agree with this summation, but not everyone knows that with cultural insight the concept of normalcy and insanity is found to be relative to its context. So this is to say that what is categorized as sane versus crazy is all in perception of the perceiver; aka “eye of the beholder”. For example, a handshake when greeting others in the Western Hemisphere are deemed polite and appropriate. While in Asian nations physical contact is deplorable and bowing is more acceptable. I want to explain that in evaluating these two opposite ends of the perceived behavioral spectrum, the observer should include all relevant data no matter how ambiguous. Not taking in the whole picture from a situation can lead to clouded judgment; like prejudice, bias, and bigotry.

 When a person is misunderstood by others based on different livelihoods, this is called ethnocentrism. It means judging another’s life based on the values of your own. This is misguided and should be avoided through approaching a foreign encounter with a clean slate. For our minds to be opened one must make a conscious decision to not close ourselves off from new things. We have to concede the fact that we will never know everything and can always learn more. If we presume to know enough about a topic, then we cannot grow. The quality that I believe prevents this the most is hubris, but humility clears a path for us. Let us not aggrandize our egos, but rather be at peace with our own strengths and weaknesses.

The two ubiquitous labels, “normal”, and “crazy”, put behavior in either favorable or derogatory categories, with the former being inclusive and the latter feeling shameful. With this I mean that one brings people together while the other tears them apart. It is not fun to be ostracized from a collective, that you previously were a part of or wanted to be accepted in. My guess is that the average Joe would conceal their ignorance on an act through labeling it as “crazy”. Peer pressure has a critical part to play in this as nobody I know wants to publicly appear dim-witted. Since incomprehension is an awkward mental state and gives off vulnerability, it is thought as more convenient to place a characterization. All of this is done in order to mitigate discomfort and maintain the status quo.

 Everything I have put forth in this paper should not be judged as people are weak-willed, but only that they prefer to avoid conflict and have things be copacetic. Confrontation is stern, black-or-white, not necessarily effective, and always brings up pain. I have reached the notion that terms, “normal” and “crazy”, were made as archetypes with one goal in mind; to ensure survival by avoiding disorientation through eliminating misinterpretation. As you have pored over my paper though, I hope you have not found my prose to be long-winded or pedantic, for I am just trying to explain my purpose adequately. I meant to delve deeper into this area of stigma and add some clarity to it. It is not enough for only myself to retain this knowledge, but I must spread it as far as I can as well. For as former Vice-President Al Gore once declared, “If we want to go far we must go together”. Even though his cause was different his message still rings true, for we must start thinking differently if we are going to move forward. If I have succeeded, then maybe I have given a little solace to the anguished, and made my readers a bit more enlightened.

Doug Harris is in his fifth year at CSUSM, and is pursuing his bachelor’s degree in literature and writing studies. He loves reading and writing as a way of expressing himself, and exploring life, all at once. He is a proud twenty-eight-year-old introverted and highly sensitive young man, with a mild case of autism as well perseveres through several mental health issues. Overall, he is thankful, fortunate and glad to have the opportunity to thrive at this wonderful school, and pave the way for me to have a worthwhile life going forward.

Haley Smith

Narcissist

Content Warning: Mention of Suicidal Ideation

I was my mother’s emotional support animal. As a child, I would bring her tissues from the bathroom to blot her eyes and blow her nose when she cried and I would hold her until she stopped. She cried a lot and I never knew why, just that I could sometimes make her stop. Once, when my mother was crying, I told her that the angels said she shouldn’t cry. She wasn’t an avid Christian―she didn’t have it in her to be dedicated to anything but bad habits―but for some reason this stuck with her. I think it made her believe I was some kind of prophet or medium; that I had an ability to commune with forces unseen and she took comfort from it. In reality, I was a child that needed a larger and more magical entity than myself to comfort my mother and decided the alleged words of an angel speaking through me was something my mother would listen to. She did. I never received the same comfort. My mother never kissed, hugged, or told me she loved me. One night, I went to her room, hugged and kissed her goodnight and told her I loved her. For a long while, I did this every night. When I realized it was never going to be reciprocated, I never did it again. 

When I grew older, she would keep me home rather than allow me to go to a friend’s house. She would tell me no, and when I asked her why she would say, “Because.” I grew frustrated with this and took initiative. I started planning everything precisely with no obligations for my mother. I planned a ride there, I planned a ride back, I did my chores and then some beforehand, I finished my homework, and then I would ask her. She would tell me no, and when I asked her why she would say, “Because.” I stopped taking no for an answer, and found that if I became a thorn in her side, and if I kept asking why, and if I kept telling her all of the things I did to be able to go, and all of the arrangements I made, and if I got loud, and if I got persistent, and if I pestered, she would break and let me go just to get me to stop. I didn’t care what I had to do, as long as I got out of that house. I realized later she didn’t want me to go because she didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to spend time with me, she didn’t want to have dinner together, she didn’t want me to help her clean. She just wanted the peace of mind of having me in the same house; the peace of mind that if she was going to be alone, I was going to be alone along with her. The more she tried to keep me close and caged, the more I fought to get away. I would leave the house for months at a time, washing my underwear in a friend’s bathroom sink until the spell broke and I was dropped off at home and I went back to devising a way to break free again. She blamed me for this later, telling me I left her in that house alone when she needed me, but I had lost interest a long time ago in preening and tending to her preservation as if she were a troubled plant determined to rot.

She would tell me things that other parents knew to keep to themselves. I asked her if she loved me and she told me she didn’t because I was being annoying. She would complain about my father not paying child support and sent me as a collector for my father’s debt. She would tell me of all the things she could possibly take him to court for and all of the petty ways she could possibly do to make his life worse. She would tell me that she was struggling to pay bills and that we were going to lose the house. She told me it was my fault I didn’t hide my Christmas and birthday money better and that’s why it was stolen by the drug addict “friend” she let roam the house unsupervised. She told me if I didn’t start behaving she would send me to live with my dad. Then―when she realized I would go live with him of my own volition―she told me she would kill herself. She told me I was a selfish, heartless bitch. I asked her who she thought I got it from.

Haley Smith (she/her) is a fourth-year Creative Writing major with a certificate in Copyediting and Publishing at the University of Cincinnati. She was a poetry editor for the Fall 2023 issue of Short Vine, the University of Cincinnati’s undergraduate literary journal. She wants to be an editor and author in the future. She loves fiction, poetry, and is recovering from her life being swallowed whole by the Sarah J. Maas universe. In her free time, she likes to spend time with her daughter (who also happens to be a puppy), read, and find reasons to buy “a little treat.”