Issue 4 (Spring 2025) Archives - Page 4 of 6

Mexican Theme Park

By Dana Garcia Mendez

Only mexicans can enter
But we let anyone who is valid in.

You don’t have to worry about
The verde or ICE.
We worry about
the type of neive to get.
There is all the flavors
You can imagine.
I always get leche quemada y tuna.

You don’t have to worry about chismosas
Because it’s a
“Chismosa free zone”

There will be cuetes every night.
There will be fruta con chile
Or esquites whatever you want.
There will also be all kinds of agua frescas.
If we forgot one let me
Know.

You don’t have to worry about
Who’s making everything.
The people
who called us
“wetbacks”
or
“beaners”
are working,
Very hard in fact.
I will train them
To satisfy my gente.

Don’t worry though
Dance the night away
There is going to be banda
I heard.

Don’t worry please
You deserve it.
Everyone will talk about the carnival
Because there is
No way
That you will leave unsatisfied.
All the Mexicans would not
Want to leave.

Author Bio

Dana Garcia Mendez

Dana Garcia Mendez is an immigrant and first generation student. She has been writing poetry and short stories as a hobby until it became a passion. Dana’s writing is a reflection of her life story. In hopes of helping someone through her writing.

Only on the ground do I see the sky

By Paul Dolby

Some dimes, some nickels in my satchel, oh
If I had quarters too! Then I would hear
And feel the jangles, chimes remind me—no!
Those days at prayer chanting words austere—
So flustered, I had fallen; the coins flew ways
Upon the cold ground and rolled
Among the cracks my pleasure is astray
In between the lines and I and I sold
My heart my rhythm for a beat
Satchel and lackluster metal bits
And slammed on the concrete
I lay in gum and spit
Sweet seraph, star on high, from world unbound
Come here, come now, and I will hold your sound

Author Bio

Paul Dolby

Paul Dolby is a third-year at the University of San Diego studying Philosophy and English with a Classical Studies Minor. He loves reading, working at USD’s Writing Center, translating Latin texts, enjoying delicious food, and sleeping. Thanks for stopping by!

Prisoner of the Ribcage

By Hailey L. Parkinson

Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump

What is this vibration
Deep below hidden behind the bars
Of a cage made up of bones?
Entrapped away from reach
Of the wanton greedy hands
Of any man who dare draws near.
Locked away for sacredness
In hopes to never be hurt again.

Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump

Yet it is still pounding
Desperately
In want to be heard,
Felt, acknowledged.
A desire to be held as it once had been
In the long lost years of
A lovely past turned
Green.

Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump

Yet it has been ignored for so long.
It has not called out like this
In so long.
Has it been weeks?
Months? Years?
It no longer remembers the
Restless butterflies that soar
Or the initial panic of the beginning.
It only remembers
Feeling, feeling, feeling.

Thud-ump

It misses feeling.
Misses stirring, dropping,
Dancing.
Oh, how it would dance
When it had been nurtured and loved.
How it wouldn’t dare crawl back
In the safety of its enclosure.
No, it had once been released
In reverence and worship.
Off its leash —
No cuffs, no chains,
No restraint in its capacity.

Thud-ump

Free;
Wind blowing through my hair,
Gentle fingertips caressing and tracing,
Eyes locked on the possibilities
Of eternity rarity,
Embracing this

Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump

It’s hands are clutching at the prongs
Of the ribbed cage,
Anticipating of a new devotion;
A passion of wildness
That plucks at its strings
In harmony like a harp.
Screaming into the chest cavity,
Ricocheting,
“Listen to me!”
In its melodic yet cracked voice.

Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump

This is the first time it has spoken to me
Since the incident.
First sign of life when I believed it
Benign;
Dead from lack of attention.
First time it has begged
With clenched fists against my chest,
Being devoured and drowned in agony
Of longing and desire
To be set free once again.
To embark on an adventure that could
Only have it crawling back
To where it is safe in its
Enclosure.

Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump

But his hands are reaching out
And it reaches for him, too.
I cannot deny it any longer
Even though every other being
Is in protest.
The logic, the mind,
The sense of it all.
But it does not care for sensical actions.
Does not bother with
Half-hearted maybes or baby steps.
It wishes to
Jump, jump, jump.

Thud-ump

Don’t look at me with those doe eyes,
Don’t look within me
Knowing what is held behind
Bars of protection.
Daring to release what you want
But I am terrified to give
Will only create
Feeling, feeling, feeling.

Thud-ump

Oh, how she wishes for
Feeling.

Thud-ump
Thud-ump
Thud-ump

Author Bio

Hailey L. Parkinson

Hailey L. Parkinson is a junior at California State University, San Marcos, majoring in Literature and Writing. Parkinson is a commuter from San Diego, California as she furthers her education. Her ambitions are to be an editor, publisher, and a New York Times Best Seller, though is currently a part of the fiction team for the 318 Journal at CSUSM. Parkinson is a poet and novelist, with one manuscript completed and much more to come. She writes with inspiration from her own personal life and experiences, diving into both the dark and bright parts of the human experience.

That House on Maple Drive

By Hailey L. Parkinson

That house on Maple Drive is far too big for the
Elderly couple who lives inside.
The lawn is too hefty of a task for them to accomplish;
The neighbor’s boy mows it for them instead.
They thank him with excellent baking skills, gifting him with treats.
They’re always making something;
Pies, brownies, cookies, and chocolates.
Spoiling their neighbors with charity and kindness
As grandparents would to their grandkids.
The windows are draped with curtains of sea foam blue
Along with shutters that always remain open,
Welcoming anyone who would like to stop by.
Sunflowers grow in their backyard
Within a wilted garden in the far-left corner.
Shaky hands and blinded eyes can only take care of so much.
The walls are decorated with family pictures that are at least
A decade old.
Oh, how those kids have grown.
The color scheme within their décor
Masks over the emptiness of that home.
Half of their hearts reside in Nebraska and California,
Tearing them apart.
Those toy rooms assigned for boys and girls,
Who now make their way in adult lives,
Remain vacant.
Endless chests of toys never to be played with.
They babysit the neighbor’s kids
So that the toys don’t get lonely.
So that they don’t get lonely,
In that house on Maple Drive.

Author Bio

Hailey L. Parkinson

A Dog’s Fur

By Hailey L. Parkinson

The hair left on my clothes, car, and blankets
Were once my biggest concerns.
Now I never wish to remove them
From where they sit.
They can be embedded into every piece of fabric,
Every corner of this house,
And every inch of my heart
For the rest of my life, if needs be.
The horizon may bring us something unfortunate,
But your fur will remain behind
Reminding me of your once loving presence.
It may lay with dust and drive my nose crazy,
But I’d rather sneeze and remember you
Than have to completely say goodbye.

Author Bio

Hailey L. Parkinson

Dreamscapes of the Metaphysical

By Emily Holman

You can also download the PDF via this link.

Author Bio

Emily Holman

Emily Holman (she/her) is a queer, autistic author with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from California State University, Chico and is currently working on a Master’s degree in Literature and Writing at California State University, San Marcos. She is also an editor at “The Infinite Blues Review” and “In Her Space Journal.” Holman’s short fiction has appeared in Doors of Darkness by Terrorcore Publishing, “Into the Night” by Ghostwatch Zine, “Trembling with Fear” by Horror Tree, “Lust at First Bite” by Nebula Nexus, “The Manzanita” by California State University, Chico’s English Graduate Council, and many others.

I wrote these short stories (“Dreaming in Color,” “Theo’s Dreams,” and “Your Reading with Circe”) as a part of my undergraduate Honors thesis at CSU, Chico in which I researched dreams and their meanings, as well as their relation to the metaphysical, and produced these three short magical realism stories.

“The Early Years”

By Citlali Meritxell Diaz

You can also download the PDF via this link.

Author Bio

Citlali Meritxell Diaz

Citlali Meritxell Diaz is a queer Mexican-American poet and writer from Oxnard, California. They grew up in a town of Southern California rich with Mexican and Chicano culture as well as constituted majorly out of immigrants, which includes Citlali’s family. Their culture is an integral part of Citlali’s life, identity, and writing. Apart from a love for his family and roots, Citlali has a passion for reading which is why they are studying English and ancient Greek literature. Citlali’s hope is to continue writing as they pursue a career in teaching the subjects he is passionate about.

OTHERLAND

By Eloisa Gomez

You can also download the PDF via this link.

Author Bio

Eloisa Gomez

Eloisa Gomez is an aspiring novelist from Escondido, California. As an avid lover of video games, anime, and YA fantasy novels since her childhood; they’ve been inspired to write their own fantasy works based on the things they love. Sometimes, they also become fueled by her own trials with mental health; writing poems and darker fantasy stories. OTHERLAND is Eloisa’s debut chapbook telling the story of a girl going through the dark memories of her past and learning to let them go.

Cyborg Perspective

By Zev Anbar

Click the image or this link for the full experience.

“Set in the near future, this game is centered around the exploration of how the imposition of prostheses functions as a metaphor for dominant cultural powers seeking to control bodies they deem uncontrollable.”

Author Bio

Zev Anbar

Zev Anbar is a graduate student in their final semester in the CSUSM LTWR M.A. program. Zev’s areas of interest are Disability Studies, Cyborg Theory, and Creative Writing and he hopes to study further how the use of accessible technology in creative writing impacts reader perception.

Immolation

By Jonas Mufson

Click the image or this link for the full experience.

“Immolation is an interactive story created using the Twine storymaking toolset. After you read the text on each page, you can select one of the options in red to progress to another part of the story. Immolation could be considered part of the Horror genre, but ultimately it was created to process my own emotional reactions to horrible things that happen in the world. There are three intended endings.”