down in the dirt
internet issn 1554-9666
(for the print issn 1554-9623)
Janet K., Editor
http://scars.tv.dirt.htm
http://scars.tv - click on down in the dirt

In This Issue... Fritz Hamilton Denny E. Marshall Christopher Hanson Mel Waldman Kirby Light Kelsey Threatte John L. Campbell Henry Sane Ron Richmond Sarah Lucille Marchant Jim Carson Brian Looney Peter LaBerge Penn Stewart Kelsey Hebert Ashley Fisher Robert Brabham J.E. Harris Elle Pryor Phyllis Green Tim Moraca Eleanor Leonne Bennett M. Robert Fisher Joseph Hart Laine Hissett-Bonard Robert D. Lyons Corry O’Neill Ben Macnair Janet Kuypers

Note that any artwork that appears in Down in the Dirt will appear in black and white in the print edition of Down in the Dirt magazine.

Order this issue from our printer as an ISSN# paperback book: or as the ISBN# book “Symbols Manifest”:

Boric acid all over my room, not Fritz Hamilton Boric acid all over my room, not a bug left standing/ I look among my books, & there lies the noblest bug of them all, me, Fred Hammy, with nary a tentacle moving, lying in the battlefield as dead as I am buggy/ after the first bug there is no other/ swarms of buggy femmes gathered about my specimen to offer their last respects/ the first time they have ever respected me, a hero of history but still no respect/ they respected Hitler in the bunker more than they ever did me/ me at best a bug in the oinkment, treated like a crashing boar, but no worm in the pork am I, a bug mounted on a slab of earth with a pin through my heart/ on exhibit among other lepidopterans pinned like Jesoo to our final destination, but nobody to take us down & put us in the cave, & nobody to get our rocks off & help us escape to India to be a capitalist like Adam Apple to write a book about it like Smith Apple & start a revolution of geedy motherfuckers, & the more money we can store behind the apple door, the more the mothers like it, until we own the entire orchard, worked by illegals for less than minimum wage, a nation full of bugs exploited by big agriculture, & down plummets a vulture to pick me up in his beek & eat me pin & all/ I should have followed Jesoo to India & fought the European settlers with the rest of the Indians, but instead got pinned for all I sinned, & now I’m a bug with nary a hug, & all the Boric acid I can eat ... !

Dirt in my sockets/ dirt Fritz Hamilton Dirt in my sockets/ dirt in my mouth/ dirt in my skull & dirt in my belly/ the flesh is gone replaced by dirt/ the clothes have rotted away/ there’s only bone & the dirt that’s turned to stone/ the soul was never there but for its myth, as something for a body to play with/ we’re back where we began/ they call it dust/ for this we fussed?/ as if our essence must?/ there is no essence/ Plato gives us an idea only/ there is no matter, only energy/ & energy is but a dream, but without matter, can there be form?/ it comes as nothing & goes as nothing, so why love?/ why care?/ they’re nothing to nothing, & nothing’s there/ there’s nothing when you comb your hair/ there’s no there there anywhere/ to be fair, there’s no fare so why beware?/ there’s nothing</B> nothing any-</B></font> where ... !

The Breeze Denny E. Marshall When the sun And the moon holds you Clouds spell out your name All the mountains are parachutes Reserved The wind the same

Janet Kuypers reading the Denny E. Marshall poem the Breeze from Down in the Dirt magazine (v099)

Watch this YouTube video read live 10/11/11 at the Café

Concussive Happiness Christopher Hanson A group of friends, A gathering, Overlapped And away, Persists Where all know all With, “You think you know me?” In the all too honest background. An answer to the above – Our assumed empathy exists, When truthfully It truthfully eludes - “You think I know you?” “I” Or rather the “We” in the “here” And “now” - A lesser form, And not our truest, Hides the “real” and deep within. Each has a pain, Relatively at least And perhaps our only concrete notion Of who the “other” is. A non-biological truth Founded upon A shared organic ancestry Where The skeletons in the closet Translate as - Lacks of ambition, Ambiguous futures (at best), Swept away addictions And tears in the night, Torture. We shed our daily frown, For a fake smile, A facsimile And play for the pains we do not share. Its a place Where the hidden words, The bad words, The blasphemous words Slip - “Help me!” And just as quickly Retract - “Never mind.” We hide it deep And hide it well, Because it’s when it’s Shared That we become what we try to Avoid - Attached And in fear of losing Each other. Thus remains – The perversion of perception. As we hold to this State of confused, Or concussive, Happiness. And only later will we all cry, As we’ve all gone home And alone.

“The man with many names.” (the Christopher Hanson Biography)     I was born “Christopher Hanson” in Minnesota; Born in the same hospital as Bob Dylan, not that it matters. I remember very little from this snowbound world having actually grown up in California where I picked up the nick-name, “Cloud,” I don’t know why, simply, “Cloud.” While in good old San Fran, I made nice with some fellows and females of Japanese decent. I picked up a sword, I learned to eat sushi and wander in between the realms of Aikido, Iaido and Zen. They dubbed me “Kazuki.” All aside and all names following me into college, I studied for five years at the University of Wisconsin and graduated with degrees in both Criminal Justice (to bust-up a broken system) and Anthropology – I love people, what can I say? During year five of college, I’d acquire my latest addition, “Yang Yun,” my Chinese name. The name basically translates to, “a tree in the cloud.” This was the name given to me by my wife, the love of my life that I met while studying abroad in China. Since my graduation in 2008, I’ve lived in China for nearly two years as a teacher and within this last year, have finally made it back to the states, wife and all. It’s been a wild ride and something tells me that it’s just begun. As for my “writing” and my “art,” it’s a time-honored tradition and way of life – at least for me.     I’ve travelled the world, I’ve come home. I’m educated, I’m uneducated. I write, I write and write some more. I drink and write again. This is my story, maybe your story and somebody else’s story. I write, I wander, I write and I love, this world and the many facets/faces of it – simply complicated.     I’ve been, or will be, published in, “A Brilliant Record,” “The Stray Branch” and “Down in the Dirt,” and am looking forward to continuing down this literary, literal and metaphorical road I venture.

The Cage Mel Waldman     I live in a cage ten stories below Grand Central Station. My master used to lock the cage and disappear for days. He left no food or water. Now, each morning when I wake up, I find food and water and discover he’s left the cage unlocked. What shall I do? Perhaps, he’s poisoned the food and contaminated the water. But I’m starving to death. I must eat. And my thirst is unbearable. I must drink to survive. After I satisfy these needs, a distant voice inside my head whispers to me: “It’s time to leave.” I cringe and shrivel up and crawl to a corner of my dark home. I close my eyes and travel to another time and place where I’m human again.     Now, I wake up in a luxurious hotel suite with a mammoth bedroom with a king-size bed, a surreal circular living room with Dali paintings and work by an unknown artist obsessed with Manhattan, a long rectangular kitchen, and a gargantuan bathroom. Outside my red bedroom is a curtained terrace.     I wander through the suite. On the kitchen table, someone has left me breakfast. I devour an omelet with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and peppers, white toast, and margarine and a large cup of Dunkin’ Donuts hazelnut coffee. After breakfast, I notice the photos and paintings by an artist named Mark Sadler. One painting is entitled Hotel M and seems to be an expressionistic painting of the skyscraper I’m in. It reminds me of Munch’s The Scream. From within the walls of the hotel, a human beast screams endlessly into the barren universe beyond.     Soon, I turn on the TV and watch CNN. The human beast from the Hotel M speaks to me.     “Welcome, Mr. M to Hotel Mars. I hope your stay here is pleasurable. We’re thrilled to have you as our guest.”     The thing shrieks incessantly in my head. I turn off the TV.     I saunter to the terrace and open the curtains. I scream. I’m trapped inside a gargantuan cage with bars. Outside, they wave at me and cheer.     A captive beast on exhibit in a human zoo, I gaze at the gorilla-like creatures that captured me.     I run around the suite and search for an exit, a door or window to freedom. No exit. Inside the bathroom, I struggle to open the window. But it has bars too. Outside this window, the creatures gaze at me and laugh uproariously.     Between Scylla and Charybdis, I close my eyes and travel to another time and place. When I open my eyes, I’m back in my old cage. I shrink into a crumbled sphere of Hell.     I open the unlocked cage. Beyond, is a subterranean labyrinth I must travel through to be free. I leave my cage and follow a dimly lit path. In the distance, I hear the monsters howling. Yet I continue on.     As I slink across the maze and trudge north, my strength and courage return. But soon I will face the monsters.     My dark journey seems endless. Then suddenly, I hear the loud shrieks of the monsters coming from a cavernous room. I enter. Inside this eerie space, I hear their ghastly ululations. Yet I go deeper into the tomblike room. I’m surrounded by their horrific screams although I can’t see them.     Soon, I pass through a tiny space with mirrors. I gaze into the mirrors and shriek. My screams are endless and consuming. They swallow and transform me. Once more, I have power and strength.     I face the monsters and they are me, buried in the secret caverns of your mind. You must keep me in a cage, for if you give me a little freedom, I will rise to consciousness and destroy you.

BIO Mel Waldman, Ph. D.     Dr. Mel Waldman is a licensed New York State psychologist and a candidate in Psychoanalysis at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies (CMPS). He is also a poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. After 9/11, he wrote 4 songs, including “Our Song,” which addresses the tragedy. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines including HAPPY, SWEET ANNIE PRESS, CHILDREN, CHURCHES AND DADDIES and DOWN IN THE DIRT (SCARS PUBLICATIONS), NEW THOUGHT JOURNAL, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, HARDBOILED, HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, ESPIONAGE, and THE SAINT. He is a past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature. Periodically, he has given poetry and prose readings and has appeared on national T.V. and cable T.V. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, American Mensa, Ltd., and the American Psychological Association. He is currently working on a mystery novel inspired by Freud’s case studies. Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, a mystery novel, was published by iUniverse in February 2006. It can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. Recently, some of his poems have appeared online in THE JERUSALEM POST. Dark Soul of the Millennium, a collection of plays and poetry, was published by World Audience, Inc. in January 2007. It can be purchased at www.worldaudience.org, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. A 7-volume short story collection was published by World Audience, Inc. in June 2007 and can also be purchased online at the above-mentioned sites.

Ten years in the same town Kirby Light Buildings Roads Telephone poles Sidewalks Strip malls Wal-mart I remember, ten years ago When this part of town Was nothing but fields Trees are gone Town homes are going up Half built And advertised on the side Of the road On big signs I once kissed a girl Amongst some trees Where a bus stop now is I walk down the street Where I live And what once was a Cow pasture Is now A construction yard A sign near the sidewalk Says there will be a Costco there Soon the tentacles Will stretch so far that they wrap around And meet each other And no man will know Solitude And the only place anyone will find God Is in his house Which is also made By men

Symbols Manifest Kelsey Threatte Tattoo skin to remember my frail shell Hang heavy hoops to feel the tug Punch holes in my ears, nose, lips, brow Past trials passed and failed Wear faded green cargos, barely cling to hips The first pants I was kissed in Knotted bracelet clasps my wrist Tie tight, hold tight, hug tight Inward made outward Material pieces pierce, ink, cloth, and clasp I want to remember life Remind myself of myself Smudged, scratched rings, tarnished, Celtic tree I want to feel my hazel iris Confronted with my weight Recognize my face Brush scars upon my skin Stories I may otherwise forget Memory laid bare Symbols

Janet Kuypers reading the Kelsey Threatte poem Symbols Manifest from Down in the Dirt magazine (v099)

Watch this YouTube video read live 10/11/11 at the Café

Kelsey Threatte brief bio     Called a hundred names in a dozen cities. A twenty-something English teacher in the city of brotherly love born in the town that begins with Love. Returned from a year of self-discovery in the birth place of the three monoliths. Drunk on Bedouin whiskey, high on Chefchaouen mountain air.

Jackboot and Mary John L. Campbell     The rural lane wound through Eastern Connecticut, yellow signs warning of severe curves, decaying barns and shabby houses dotting the countryside. It had been a hard winter so far, bare gray trees reaching towards a pewter sky like skeletal fingers. A steel blue Cadillac appeared on the road, driving much too fast and hugging the outer right side of the asphalt as it came around the curve. It missed the figure walking there by less than a foot, and its horn blared sharply before the car vanished.     Lou “Jackboot” Moran trudged along the gravel shoulder, head down, black wool cap pulled down over his eyebrows. At four-hundred pounds he looked like a green wall, shuffling along in a stained, olive green fatigue jacket. He didn’t notice the Cadillac, didn’t notice how close he’d just come to dying. One of his hands was shoved deep in a jacket pocket. The other dangled, swinging with each step, holding a five pound sledge from which blood still dripped.     The trailer was a quarter mile back. Mary was inside on the floor.     And on the walls, and on the ceiling.     Amid the hot dog rolls of skin that was the back of his neck was a red and black tattoo of a swastika. The hand holding the sledge had a smaller swastika in the webbing between his thumb and index finger, and the letters H-E-I-L were tattooed across his knuckles. The hand was bloody, too, along with his coat, and his meaty face had a spray of crimson dots across it that was quickly freezing in the sharp December air.     Another car rushed towards him, a big silver Buick packed with senior citizens headed for the Indian casino a few miles down the road. Going as fast as the caddy, this one hugged the center line as it hummed past, but the rush of air it pulled behind it still made him squint and try to tuck his head down deeper into his jacket. Jackboot plodded on, wheezing with his mouth open, breathing plumes of white and swinging his hammer.     Mary had a smart mouth, and she didn’t know when to lay off.     “Louie, you’re putting a dent in my mattress.”     “Louie, you’re the dumbest dope dealer in New England.”     “Louie, you smell like you pissed yourself.”     “Louie, Nazi’s are fags.”     “Louie, you got me pregnant.”     Nope, didn’t know when to shut up, the worthless skank. She was quiet now, though.     The road straightened out, with a snow-covered field across the blacktop on the right, and a tattered line of dead reeds on the left. Beyond was a frozen pond, frost-covered and white.     Filthy trailer, dirty welfare whore who ran her mouth. Should have solved that problem weeks ago. A bitter wind rattled the tree limbs and burned against his exposed skin.     “Louie,” Mary said. “Hey, Louie.”     Jackboot stopped walking and looked left, out onto the pond. Her voice wasn’t in his head that time. She was there, out on the ice, as white as the frost under her feet. Except for her caved-in head, which was a bright red bloom.     “Where do you think you’re going, fat ass?”     Jackboot snarled and turned to face the pond, gripping the sledge tightly. How the hell had that dead bitch gotten here so fast? And now she had the balls to stand there – well, float, since her feet dangled a good foot above the ice – and act like he hadn’t shut her up?     Mary laughed and flipped him off. “Yeah, fat boy. Can’t do nothin’ right, can you, Louie?”     Jackboot shrieked something unintelligible and charged down the embankment, blundering through the reeds like a clumsy animal and out onto the ice. This was one bitch who needed more killing. His Doc Martens thudded on the frozen surface, frost crunching beneath them as he slid and ran towards her, arms pinwheeling.     Mary didn’t move, just stood there dead with that stupid smile on her face, enraging him even more. Jackboot’s face was turning purple with exertion, his heart slamming in his chest, his breath coming in short wallops as he closed on her.     Gonna kill you better this time, he thought, raising the sledge. Mary watched him come, didn’t cower or cry or try to hold up her hands to stop the hammer like she had a few minutes ago. He slid towards her, spittle flying from his dark lips as he screamed her name.     And then there was a crack, and another crack, and four hundred pounds of Jackboot Moran broke through the ice and plunged into the frigid waters of a Connecticut pond. Jackboot’s hammer sank with him, and as the cold embraced him and pulled him down, so did something else.

Why No One Likes Us Henry Sane     I still can’t figure out why no one likes us.     It’s not like we’re especially different from everybody else—we have our insecurities, our imperfections, our virtues and vices, just like the rest of them. We don’t hold grudges, we only take up arguments when we feel we have something to defend. Should the opportunity arise, we are usually willing and able to make friends; but truth be told, most of us would prefer to keep to ourselves.     But it’s impossible to ignore the watchful eyes. They scan us with burning intensity wherever we go, refusing to grant us comfort. We shop at the market, the eyes watch us. We dine at the deli, the eyes penetrate us. There is simply no escaping the harsh, unanimous judgment. But even so, we try to remain optimistic. For example, we often try to win friends over by helping out those who seem in need; but as soon as we are just beyond earshot, the assisted party always turns to his neighbor to criticize our barging in on his business. The gossipers then quickly spread the news of what they deem our “most shameful act,” because, for whatever reason, everyone considers our minutest action to be of the great interest. As such, it only takes until the next day for the newspaper to catch wind of the story. Like everyone else, the newspaper reporters love to disgrace us. They report the story with unprecedented bias, mocking what they call “an unwarranted intrusion and policing of a stranger’s personal affairs.”     As per our tradition, we often debate in our Family meetings why no one likes us.     My Mother, like me, sees what I see; but her inconsolable grief over the subject is far beyond that of my own.     My Sister couldn’t care less what we believe. She fits in well at school and other social clubs, making friends everywhere she goes. I try to convince her that they are using her for reasons of greedy intent, but I know she never listens. Nor does she seem to understand.     “We have money,” I tell her. “Do they ever call on you without needing something?”      She is like my Father in this respect. He too will not listen. However, his reasoning for disregard is simple—he is wholeheartedly apathetic. He has a high-paying job, which he likes; but sadly, his status isolates him from most of the community. He does his shopping and dining and all other public activity very quietly, unaware and unconcerned of any intrusive stares or hidden mockery. Nothing short of physical impediment could possibly show him the truth. Unlike my Sister, who continuously rolls her eyes during our Family meetings, my Father sits silently, neither interrupting nor inputting.     My Grandmother sees things as my Mother and I see them, only her place is much more hostile. Since she was my age, she has watched the general friendliness and generosity gradually shift to its present state of bitter unease. Naturally, this has upset her tremendously, being that our Family is her utmost priority. She frequently recalls the Family meetings that took place when she was a little girl, wherein she and our kin would discuss much happier matters, sometimes so open and jovial that neighbors would be permitted to join us if they happened to be over that evening for tea, dinner, or just general socializing.     And then there is my Uncle. He contends that this is all in our minds, that we are irrationally paranoid, and that we have many lifelong, loyal friendships to be proud of and thankful for. My Grandmother concedes many such points of my Uncle’s arguments, but further assures him that she is of a flawlessly sound mind and is therefore no fool to the truth of our neighbors’ blatant discriminations. She often questions his ability to perceive the truth, but, as often happens, he dismisses her and counterattacks her aging state, contending that times have changed, that her arguments are completely lacking in merit.     And so every week we hold our Family meetings, the one side against the other, all for the Family’s greater good, internal hatred becoming an issue at a surprisingly rare rate. My Grandmother heads up the one side, with my Mother often adding in her hysterical ravings as emotional evidence; meanwhile my Uncle heads up the other side, my Sister rejoining that the argument itself is, as she says, stupid. Father looks on like an aging dog, or like a bored spectator, quietly sipping his tea in an emotionless state of passive bliss. It is I who plays referee, for I am neither wholly on one side or the other. I fear that without the role that I have chosen to take on, the debates might become excessively heated to the point where we will split off into separates, each half unable to tolerate the presence of the other. (Indeed this happened once when my Grandmother was young, long before my assumed role as the Family mediator.) The participants frequently forget that our meetings and debates are always in the best interest of the Family, and I am there to remind them of that fact. In truth, I straddle the fence that divides our contests. Like my Grandmother, I believe that no one truly likes us. But I also believe we have a tendency to overreact to various situations, thus feeling for my Uncle’s argument. So maybe we put ourselves in these circumstances, I often think.     My Mother frequently brings up the patterns in her daily activities. She mentions how certain places tend to treat her somewhat less favorably than do others. One of the worst of such places is Ed Tam’s Deli, she says. With my Grandmother’s backing, she insists that we avoid the deli altogether.     But as my uncle contends, we can’t not go to Ed Tam’s Deli. They have the provisions we need and so we must go there regularly to obtain them. “Are we to starve?” he often asks. “Are we to look to our own soil to provide us with bread? We simply haven’t the land, nor the resources even to consider such an enterprise,” he concludes.     And so the argument folds at that moment, for Grandmother and Mother know they have nothing with which to retort. He is right. We must get what we need from Ed Tam’s Deli.     My Grandmother often accuses my Uncle of being the cause of our misfortune. It is he, she says, who has been the aggravator, the one who initiates trouble. My Uncle, in attempts to deny his guilt, ignores my Grandmother’s pleas for him to remain in our house and avoid the confrontations that his personality type simply cannot help but incite. About this, I cannot agree more. My Uncle is the general cause of our Family’s suffering, plain and simple. It is his outright and unconcealed stubbornness that tends to create controversy. Yet he obviously means well for us all. He is a man of unending honor, generally compassionate toward the hardships of others. However, the Townspeople often dismiss these traits as mere façade, convinced that he is, in actuality, nothing more than a greedy, manipulative and uncaring monster. Granted, it is not unwarranted that they hold such an opinion.     Our misery lies in the fact that everyone associates our whole Family with my Uncle’s actions, whether wicked or noble. And, speaking frankly, this is not entirely fair. Why should an entire group be judged by one party’s misdoings, when each individual member has his own distinct characteristics, convictions and associations? I, for one, always try very hard to be friendly with the Townspeople. In truth, from what I observe in most of them, I admire and respect them and sincerely wish we could put aside all differences and be the greatest of friends. Yet they obviously cannot overlook the Family from which I come. My Uncle, being the dominant personality of our household, is the figurehead of our entire Family, and nothing short of his death would ever put an end to the consensus reactions of negative feeling. However, one must also point fingers (if such is to be done) at both my Father and my Sister. My Father, our Family’s breadwinner, is very miserly with his money, making more of it than he knows what to do with. He goes into Town, buys whatever it is that he wants, much to the disgust of the on-looking crowd. My Sister displays signs of arrogance and stupidity. She carries herself like she is the seed of divnity and that everyone in Town should feel lucky to catch even the slightest glimpse of her. She throws around my Father’s money like it were rice at a wedding, making “friends” with everyone who wants what she has. She cares not for her education, finding it pointless, and she is completely lacking in appreciation or understanding of what constitutes genuine artistry. She makes no attempt to hide these loathsome characteristics, willingly going about the Town uttering extremely stupid things, sometimes openly denouncing the Town’s artistic achievements as depressing or, as she so crudely says, “not fun.”     I feel especially terrible on behalf of the one Family member whom I have failed to mention, my Infant Brother, who sadly will grow into the same luckless state as the rest of the Family. He is, after all, just learning how to speak; and yet he is, I am sure, just as despised as the rest of us. Should I even go to great lengths to shelter him from the corruption my Uncle displays, it would be of no matter to the Townspeople. The same goes if I attempt to shelter him from my Father’s wealth and my Sister’s stupidity. The Townspeople will find a reason to hate him, simply because it seems to be in their best interest. Perhaps it will be because he is blind to his heritage and the things our Family has come to represent. Should he become apprised of such information, he will be hated for not rebelling against it. Should he rebel, he will be hated for taking his wealthy state and security for granted. And should he defect to the Town, disowning our Family altogether, he very well could be accepted into the Town’s fold—but it is inevitable that he will still be hated for whatever reason the people might individually choose. Once he is of the proper age to make an informed decision, regardless of where he ultimately sides, whether with my Grandmother, my Uncle, the Townspeople, or no side at all, ultimately he will always be hated purely for the fact that he is of my Family’s blood.     Naturally, this is a fact that I have had great difficulty in accepting. Still, though it is indeed a hard pill to swallow, I refuse to hold grudges. I do not blame my Family for the inherited alienation, nor do I blame the Townspeople for their past and present judgments. But I do wish our plight would be heard by receptive ears. After all, why should my Infant Brother suffer—nay, why should our whole Family suffer without even the slightest chance to exhibit our own individual distinctions? Is that truly just? Is it reason alone to hate us all because several of us are, for whatever reasons, found to be disagreeable?     Unfortunately, these questions may forever remain a mystery. But not all hope is lost for me, for I am grateful for what I have. And, perhaps most importantly, I can be entirely certain of one thing—that despite the unfair prejudices, despite the cruel divisions, and despite our own internal differences of opinions and lifestyles, my Family will, for as long as we are free, always stand like a nation united.

Henry Sane bio     Henry Sane is an avid enthusiast of literature. He reads it, he writes it, and, at Columbus State University, he studies it. Henry has only just begun to submit his stories in the past few months, but his work can be found in Jersey Devil Press and Quite Curious Literature.

The Illegitimate Furniture Ron Richmond     A man awakens to find his wife tossing the sofa into the street.     “Why are you doing this?” he shouts as an ottoman sails past his head.     “I must rid our house of all this illegitimate furniture,” she replies, hoisting a coffee table overhead.     “But I always assumed they were married,” whines the man.     “Not so, they are all the offspring of illicit furnication,” she says.     “Oh! You bastards of illumination,” the man shrieks as he angrily throttles the lamps.     “No!” screams his wife, “The lamps were lawfully wed, you’ve just orphaned the nightlight in the bathroom.”

Janet Kuypers reading the Ron Richmond poem the Illegitimate Furniture from Down in the Dirt magazine (v099)

Watch this YouTube video read live 10/11/11 at the Café

Gridlocked mind Sarah Lucille Marchant i.     There is something about the way trees bend to lick my Eyelashes and stick me together with wax. My senses flicker. Leaves brush my hair, scratching sounds harmonize with ever-present torture threats, and I do not recall choosing this route home as myself. ii.     Coral-colored tablet crunched between teeth: there are pills for insomniacs, yet nothing soaks through to chase away my shadows. Every supposed remedy allows the Dark to echo still. iii.     Surroundings juxtapose with these horrid images as radio static gnaws my eardrums away. If a mockingbird imitated my cries, the poor creature would make nightmares broaden out of gray, releasing the language the dead use for their lullabies. iv.     One night when I felt the most stable, they found me swimming in fire; later they told me I couldn't stop grinning as I watched my skin blossom into wounds. I have learned that I cannot find refuge anywhere, not even behind my own bones. v.     Nerves grate against mouth in hospital drip, and every offer of escape is a lie.

Only Songs Remain (A Facebook Tragedy) Jim Carson We find love and lose it but the songs remain. Joy lingers in the space between the notes, ours to remember when mood strikes. Each worn and familiar tone recalls passion’s burning once fierce but now dormant. Chance can change the state reunite the lovers and reignite the memory. If only for a moment we can dance again in the rain and puddlejump as children. But death can come in an instant to turn the rain cold and chill us to the bone. And the puddles then become reflections mirroring the sorrow of our anguished faces drowning in the tears that are their source.

Loving At Arm’s Length in the Spaces of the Day Brian Looney     Loving at arm’s length in the spaces of the day, when the clouds provide a break. You are exactly one yard away, standing on one leg. Your balance is remarkable. You have enough for two.     The first terror hits us like a slap, and you careen to the earth before I can catch you. Just stay down for awhile; clump the dirt in your fists. I’ll be there in a second. Or get up, if you can.     Loving at arm’s length in the spaces of the day, once the earth stops its shaking. You’re in the same spot as the dust settles, standing like a scarecrow, straw arms out. I knew you weren’t real. I even told you so.

Janet Kuypers reading the Brian Looney poem Loving at Arm’s Length in the Spaces of the Day from Down in the Dirt magazine (v099)

Watch this YouTube video read live 10/11/11 at the Café

Brian Looney Bio     Brian Looney was born 12/2/85 and is from Albuquerque, NM. He likes it when Lady Poetry kicks him in the head. The harder the better. Check out his website at Reclusewritings.com.

My Alcoholic Sister Peter LaBerge wine peeks out from in between the cracks of her lips until all i can see is the dark circles hung like ugly curtains around her eyes my sister, the sister the sister that i’ve always looked up to lies— a little white lie, feeble and tears caught in between the branches of her eyelashes cords are plugged into her nose from unknown origins— we trust the doctors know what they are doing— my mother is crying lightly like one could imagine whipped cream crying its way to the bottom of a parfait glass there’s no applause when they save her life but inside we all cry a little bit more   Previously published in Leaf Garden (May 2011)

Peter LaBerge Bio     Peter LaBerge is a sixteen year old up-and-coming writer. Though he was only introduced to writing poetry recently, much of his work is featured or forthcoming both online and in print. In addition, five of his poems were recognized in the 2011 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and he is the runner-up for the 2011 Elizabeth Bishop Prize in Verse. He is also the editor/founder of The Adroit Journal (http://www.adroit.co.nr), a literary publication dedicated to charity. His previous publication credits include Leaf Garden, Burnt Bridge, The Blue Pencil Online, The delinquent, Burning Word Magazine, Indigo Rising Magazine, The Camel Saloon, and more. He is also a photographer, with photography appearing in This Great Society.

Viva Las Vegas Penn Stewart     Shelly and John were eloping. It was the middle of the summer and they decided to take a weekend trip down to Las Vegas and get married. There would be no whining bridesmaids, no drunken best man, no expensive photographer or caterer, and best of all, no cranky in-laws. She wanted to think that is was all John’s idea, but she wouldn’t have agreed if there hadn’t been some kind of allure. They had been living together in Tulsa for two years, just playing house. It had gotten to the point where she wondered if the relationship was too safe. There was no real commitment, only a lease to a one-bedroom apartment bound them together.     “We can go Route 66 all the way. We don’t need a map,” John said.     And without really even thinking about it, she heard herself say yes.     They had been on the road for fifteen hours, with John doing most of the driving. Shelly dozed off and on, but she felt an uneasiness inside her that made her jolt awake several times. She kept expecting something to happen, but every time she woke up everything was fine. Reluctantly, she let her eyes close. And then she awoke because things were too quiet. They were at a gas station. John was inside talking to the clerk. The glow of the fluorescent lights splashed out onto the pavement around the little store. Beer, Milk, Ice, was printed in big red block letters across the top of the store. She could see him gesturing and pointing, and then the clerk pointing in the opposite direction. John nodded, took a sip of his soda and then pointed again. She could see a rack sitting on the counter top that looked like it contained maps. Shelly wondered what it was about men and directions.     There was a sudden clunk from the back of the car. The hose from the gas pump disappeared behind the driver’s side rear fender. She turned and saw John holding up both his hands in front of him with palms together, and then his right hand moved up and away like he was talking about a fork in the road. He wiggled his right, and then said something. And then he wiggled his left. The clerk nodded. John and the clerk both looked out at the car. Shelly closed her eyes. She didn’t know why; it was instinct.     A moment later she heard the nozzle taken out of the back of the car and the clank of it being replaced on the pump. The door creaked and he sat down. Shelly lazily opened her eyes. “Where are we? She asked.     “200 miles from Vegas.” He took a long drink of his soda and then started the car.     “Do you want me to drive?”     “I’m good,” he said.     He put the car in drive and turned on the headlights. The little oasis of light shrunk behind them as they headed into the night. John looked over at her and smiled. She yawned.     “Stop that,” he said.     “Sorry,” she said.     The hum of the road made Shelly’s eyelids heavy, and she began to doze again. Something inside her said she should be more excited about eloping. Wasn’t this supposed to be romantic? Even if it was just a weekend jaunt to Las Vegas, she was getting married. She thought about the glitz of the city: neon, clanging slot machines, a pyramids and the Eifel Tower in the middle of a desert. But the drone of the road won her tired mind over. The thoughts about what was to come slipped away as though they were tethered by a thin string that slipped through her hand. Sleep wrapped her in its arms and dragged her down.     John wanted to arrive in Vegas while Shelly was sleeping. He wanted to nudge her awake as they approached the strip and the huge, gaudy Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. He imagined that she would stretch her arms over her head and give him a smile. In that smile he would see their future. She’d move over and lay her head on his shoulder as they drove down the strip, looking for wedding chapels. He wondered if she’d go for the one with the Elvis impersonator or if she’d want to do a drive-up window ceremony. Afterwards, he saw them driving to The Palms or The Sands. He wondered if The Sands was still standing. Something in the back of his mind recalled it being imploded. A controlled demolition, was a phrase that seemed to float into his head. Anyway, even if The Sands was no more, he wanted some place with lots of kitsch: palm trees and neon, round beds that rotate slowly under a mirrored ceiling in a gilded red velvet honeymoon suite.     Shelly opened her eyes. The sun was piercing through the windshield. The glare made her wince. She felt like she was perspiring and reached over to turn on the AC, but it just blew hot, dusty air.     “I tried that already,” John said. “Of all the times for the AC to go out, huh?”     Shelly’s mouth was dry and pasty from sleep. She looked around for something to rinse her mouth out. All she saw was the empty soda bottle on the floorboard from the night before.     “We got anything to drink?” She asked, knowing the answer.     John shook his head. She knew she should have said something when they were stopped at the little store. Her mother hated that she was passive. “You’re like a doormat,” she said.      “You’re right, Mom.”     Her mother sighed. “See?”      But it was hard for her to change. She preferred to accept things as they were and then gripe about them later. She dug in her purse and found a little travel-size tube of Crest and put a dab on her forefinger and rubbed her teeth. The paste felt like grit in her mouth. She waited for some saliva to form, but her mouth stayed dry. She gave up and rolled down the window to spit but a blast of hot air made her swallow out of shock.     “Goddamn it’s hot,” she said. But John just stared straight ahead, nervously glancing down at the instrument panel.     “Are you okay?”     “Yeah. Just want to get there. You know?”     “Do you want me to drive?     John shook his head.     “How much farther to Vegas?     “We’ll be there soon.”     “You’d think there would be more cars on the road. Are we still on 66?”     “The clerk at the store told me that 66 doesn’t actually go through Vegas.”      “Where are we?”     “About a half hour out.”     Yucca plants, tumbleweeds, and distant mountains filled the landscape. The skinny two-lane road stretched out in front of them, shimmering in the distance.     “Come on,” John muttered.     The engine began to make a knocking sound, like there were steel ball bearings in the pistons. Shelly leaned over and saw the temperature gauge obscuring the letter H. Droplets of water began to hit the windshield. They left a chalky trail on the glass as they disappeared on their way toward the roof. The car started to slow down, even though John’s foot was pushing down on the gas pedal. Steam poured from under the hood and then the engine died. The hissing of steam got louder as the tires on the pavement slowed. The empty road ahead of them stretched to the horizon.     “Come on, goddamnit.” John pounded on the steering wheel. He turned the ignition and the starter whined to life. The engine caught and then there was a loud metallic thump and the car filled with a heavy blue smoke.     They coughed and waved their arms at the smoke like it was a bad dream. John pulled the car to the side of the road and flung his door open and was out before it came to a stop.     Shelly stumbled out and fell onto the gravel shoulder.     “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” He yelled as he kicked the car. Steam hissed out from under the hood. Oily smoke came from under the front fenders, totally obscuring the wheels.     The suddenness and the oily smoke left her breathless. She forced herself to cough, to jump start the breathing process. At that moment she remembered a time when she was on a bus in Tulsa, heading to school. An old Black woman with wide white eyes full of panic was wheezing, hands at her chest like they wanted to rip through the flesh and pull out whatever part was causing the problem. It was an asthma attack. The paramedics had come and rushed her off to the hospital. The memory turned some crank deep inside her and she inhaled, the process began again. And as her chest heaved with each breath she recalled how everyone who had been on the bus stood around afterwards, uncertain if it was okay to resume their lives. Somewhere in the back of Shelly’s mind she also seemed to remember reading that the woman had died.     Shelly sat up, dusting the sand from her jeans. John was holding his foot and cursing. The air was so hot. She finally caught her breath well enough and stood up, and felt a little dizzy. She walked over to John.     “Are you okay?” She asked     “Fine. Just fucking fine.”     She looked at his side of the car and saw three large dents, the first in the back door and the other two in the rear fender. John sat on the dirt shoulder holding his leg.     “So where are we?”     John looked at her. “Where are we? We’re in the fucking desert.” He picked up a handful of dirt and flung it. Shelly dodged the cloud of dust and pebbles.     “See that? It’s fucking desert. Shit!”     Shelly waited for him to calm down. Sometimes his temper scared her, but he had never raised a hand to her. She walked over to the car, opened the back door, and found her overnight bag. She started going through it, leaving underwear and a pair of slacks on the dusty road. She put on white sun visor and rooted for something else. She reached back and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. A moment later she found the bottle of sunscreen that she had imagined using at the hotel pool. She squirt the sunscreen into her palms and slathered it on her arms and neck.     John sat there watching her deliberate moves, his big toe throbbed. He wanted to take his shoe off and see what kind of damage his fit had caused but was afraid that if he saw it, he wouldn’t be able to walk on it. And walking was the only way they were going to get anywhere.     “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said.     Shelly didn’t turn around.     “Hey, Shel. Look, I’m sorry. I was just mad. You know? That guy at the station said this would shave an hour off our time. I just wanted to get to Vegas. You know? And this shit happened.”     They had been on the couch watching TV a week ago when one of those Vegas commercials came on; he thought, what the hell.     “Hey,” he said. “Let’s go get married in Vegas.” He could’ve said, Let’s go gambling, Let’s go get drunk, or Let’s go and have crazy sex like we did when we first met. But the M-word rolled off his lips. And then she said yes. That was when the thought of being married hit him. He loved Shelly, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to settle down. It all seemed so permanent.     There was a smirk on her face. “What’s so funny?”     Shelly turned and looked at him. “This. This whole idea of running off to Vegas to get married. You know maybe there’s a reason why most places make you wait a few days.”     “Are you saying to don’t want to get married now?”     “Right now, I’d be happy just to have a bottle of water. I think getting married is pretty low on the priority list. Don’t you?”     She was right. The important thing was to get out of the desert. But with the pain in his big toe, he didn’t know how far he would be able to walk.     “So how far back did you turn off the main road?”     “I don’t know. 30 minutes, or so.”     “Let’s assume the guy at the station knew what he was talking about, and that you turned down the right road, how much farther are we away from Vegas?”     “I’d say maybe half an hour. That is if we were driving,” he said.     “So we might have 30 miles of desert in front of us, and another 30 behind us.”     She was making him feel stupid and he was about to go off on her again when he saw her sit down and put on fresh white socks and her tennis shoes. She looked up the road, and then back down the way they had come. Without a word she walked back the way they had come.     John stumbled to his feet. “Hey, wait up.”     Shelly didn’t look back, but she did lessen her pace, just a bit. John hobbled up next to her, doing his best not to put any weight on his big toe.     “I think we’re closer to Vegas than to the turn off,” he said.     Shelly didn’t answer; she just kept on walking.     “Shel?”     “Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?” She asked without breaking her stride.     “Pretty sure.”     She didn’t stop.     It was one week since John had asked her to marry him. No ring, just an impulsive moment. There was a little voice in her head that told her it wasn’t a good idea. She had always envisioned a big, traditional wedding. But there was something exciting about the spontaneity of John’s idea. Something made her say yes. They had decided the day before yesterday and they were on the road to Vegas the following morning. Before they left, she called home. She wanted to talk to her mother, but she was out and it was her father who answered the phone. His voice was scratchy, as if he had just woken up.     “Well, if that’s what you want,” he said.     Shelly wanted to tell him how much she loved John, and how this just seemed like the right thing to do, but all she could think of was her father, probably still in his pajamas, holding the phone with one hand and looking down at the nails on his other hand. Whenever he disapproved of something he always found his fingernails interesting. He wasn’t the type for pejorative lectures; his silences were critical enough. Finally he broke the silence.     “Just remember, for better or worse, baby girl.”      “Tell mom I love her,” she said.     “Will do,” he said.     There was a click and he was gone. Shelly held the phone in her hand a moment, looking at it, trying to see her father at the other end. She wondered what he was doing right now. Was he crying? Was he just going about his normal morning routine? She thought that she probably would have felt better if he had gotten angry with her. Shelly never saw him mad. It was always her mother that told her how hurt or angry he was. Just once she wanted to strike a nerve and get a visceral reaction out of him. But if running away and getting married in Vegas—Sin City—didn’t get a rise out of him, it seemed that nothing ever would.     “Wait a sec. I need to get my hat.”     Shelly stopped and he ran-hobbled back to the car and opened the trunk. He unzipped a side compartment of his golf bag and pulled out a crusty green cap. The brim was stained from sweat and the outer edges of the stains were lined with a fine line of salt. He knew Shelly hated the hat and had tried more than once to throw it away. He put the hat on and smiled at Shelly as he made his way back to her. He was slightly out of breath, but he still had a big grin on his face. He could see that she was looking at his hat, and there was something about her hating it that made him giggle inside, even out here in the desert.      Shelly glared at him for a moment, her arms akimbo.     There was as much heat coming up from the pavement as there was coming from her. John looked around for some high point, a place to get a longer view, but everything was flat.     John saw Shelly lick her lips like she was getting ready to say something, but she shooke her head ever so slightly.     They had lived together for two years, and he knew she was beginning to wonder where their arrangement was going. He had a found a piece of paper from a notepad that she had tried names out on: Mrs. John Davis, and then Mrs. Shelly Davis. They were written and then scratched out. He didn’t know if she had scratched them out because she didn’t like the sound or the look, or if she didn’t want him to see her doodling. But he had seen it. It was in the garbage, next to his hat. He wondered which was thrown away first.     When Shelly saw John she tensed up. She wasn’t angry about the hat. It was just a stupid stained hat that needed to be thrown away. She was angry about the smirk on his face. He had gotten them lost in the desert and he hadn’t taken care of the car well enough to get them were they were going. She thought that if he couldn’t take care of a stupid car, how was he ever going to take care of a family. He looked like an overgrown kid with a shit-eating grin on his face, hobbling up the road. She wondered if he would ever catch up.     “Okay, let’s go,” he said.     Shelly stood still as he walked ahead of her. She wanted to kick him, or hit him with something. There weren’t any rocks around big enough to do any damage, and then she thought that she could go back to the car and get the tire iron. One good whack on his head would be enough she thought. She wanted to feel the weight of the steel in her hand, she could imagine the tire iron cracking his skull, the sound of bone being shattered. It would be slightly muffled because of the damn hat.     “Com’on Shel. What are you waiting for?” He yelled, still smiling.     “Fuck you!”      She couldn’t believe that it came out of her mouth, but it felt good. She wanted to say it again and again. But she didn’t.     John was nearly a hundred yards ahead of her. Sage bushes, Yucca plants, and cacti stretched in every direction, divided by a lonely ribbon of ancient asphalt. The road had been black at one point, but most of the tar had been worn away leaving sun bleached pebbles bubbling up to the surface. The centerline was yellow, but each line of paint had crackled under the relentless sun. A rich blue sky hung over them; in the distance three black shapes were flying in a lazy circle. John was still looking back her, waiting. It looked like he was trying to decide if he heard her correctly. Shelly licked her dry lips and thought once more about the tire iron, and then began to move down the road.     “Look, I’m sorry about all this,” he said.     She walked briskly right by him without a glance at him. He thought that maybe he shouldn’t have stopped and waited for her. His big toe was throbbing, and every step shot pain up his shin. He started walking, doing his best to keep up with Shelly.     “Hey! I just wanted to get us to Vegas, you know. I wanted to wake you up as we passed the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.” He gave extra emphasis to the word fabulous.     Shelly just kept walking.     “That clerk—”     Shelly stopped and turned around. “Just shut up. Would you?”     “I’m sorry...”     Shelly started walking again. John stood there and watched her for a moment. And then she stopped again.      He had a sinking feeling in his gut. Shelly was on the side of the road looking at an old metal sign.     “What’s it say?”     Shelly didn’t answer. She just kept looking at the sign, shaking her head. John finally reached her and turned to look at the sign. Nellis Air Force Test Range Department of Defense No Trespassing     “Shit,” John said.     Shelly looked at him for a minute. “Yeah. Shit,” she said. “Let’s get going.     “Hey, I’m really sorry. I—”     “You’re such a fucking idiot. How did you not see that sign?”     “I don‘t know.”     Shelly turned her back on him and started walking again. John glanced a the sign once more and began to follow.     “Well what does it mean then?” He asked. When the words let his mouth he instantly regretted the question.     Shelly turned on him. “Think about it. We’re in the desert, in Nevada. What does the word ‘test range’ make you think of?” John couldn’t look her in the face. “I don’t know. Bombs?”     “That’s right! This is where the military tests their bombs. Okay? You drove us into an atomic test site. You know mushroom clouds? Jesus Christ!”     John looked out into the desert and scanned the sky. He looked back at Shelly as she walked down the middle of the road. He knew that the Air Force no longer tested nuclear weapons above ground, but he wasn’t going to point that out to Shelly. There was enough fallout already.     She took long strides as she walked and stayed well ahead of John, but the distance didn’t seem to grow. He couldn’t tell exactly when she slacked off to keep from leaving him behind. His toe had gone numb, but the pain in his shin made each step a chore. He thought about Dr. Strangelove, that crazy movie with Slim Pickens riding an atomic bomb out of a plane, and all the mushroom clouds that they showed in the end. And while he remembered smiling at that scene, right now it didn’t seem all that funny.     John wanted to think that this would eventually make an amusing anecdote, something told at a cocktail party twenty years from now. He could see Shelly hobbling along in a nice dress with a martini glass in her hand as she parodied him. She would smile about it and their friends would think that they had such a great relationship. They would be jealous because John and Shelly could laugh at the bad times. But that was down the road a ways. And at that moment John wasn’t even sure they would ever be on that road.      He tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace. He was also worried what Shelly would think if she were to turn around and see him smiling, again. She’d probably lengthen her stride and leave him behind for buzzard bait.     “Hey!” he said, “Do you think we can take a break?”     At first it seemed Shelly didn’t hear him and kept walking.     “Shel! Com’on. My foot’s killing me.”     She stopped in the middle of the road with her arms on her hips. John made his way to her and said, “Just five minutes, okay?”     Shelly didn’t want to answer. He knew what was going through her head. It was his fault that they were out here. It was his fault that he hurt his damn foot, and now it was his fault that they were going to have to spend even more time out in the desert.     John looked at her. “Well?”     Shelly looked at her wristwatch and said, “You got four and a half minutes left.”     John gave her a hard look and then sat down in the middle of the road. The heat from the asphalt burned its way through his pants, but he couldn’t get up.     Shelly stood looking up and then down the road. She had never wanted to see another human being so badly in her life. Even one of those truckers with the chrome silhouettes of reclining naked girls on his mud flaps would be all right. She would just jump into the truck and not even wave goodbye. Shelly thought about what her father had said on the phone: “For better or worse” echoed in her head. The road trip down here was good. They laughed, sang off-key together, totally ruining an Eric Clapton ballad. Was that it? Was that the only better they were ever going to have?     “Okay,” she said, “Let’s get going.”     John didn’t look like the rest had done any good. He put his hand up, silently asking for help. Shelly looked down at him, and for a moment she thought about walking away. Then off in the distance something caught her eye. Something was glimmering. She tried to make out what it was. It looked like just a pinpoint of light riding along the horizon. She didn’t say a word, just pointed. John looked and saw it, too. Maybe it was a patrol from the Air Force base, or maybe it was just someone else who was on vacation. But it was defiantly a vehicle that was reflecting the rays of the sun.     Shelly looked at John’s foot and said, “Do you think you can make it?”     “I don’t know. You could probably go faster without me.”     She knew he was testing her, or at the very least tempting her, but she didn’t care.     “You’re right,” she said. She looked around for some semblance of shade. A scrub oak, a putrid little tree was just off the road. She pointed to it and said, “There’s a little shade over there.”     John looked over his shoulder at the overgrown tumble weed.     “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said.     “Okay, Mrs. John Davis. I’m holding you to that.”     Shelly gave John a long look and helped him to his feet. He hobbled through the sandy dirt and plopped down on the soft earth next to the tree, and looked up at her. There was fear and doubt in his eyes, but he didn’t say a word. “Stay here,” she said.     She bent over, removed his hat, and gave him a quick peck on the top of his head, just the way his mother used do it when she put him to bed. Shelly turned quickly and was back on the road heading away before he had a chance to ask a question. He lay back in the sandy earth. The sky was cloudless blue and he thought how beautiful it was. It was like a deep ocean, and he felt like he was floating over it. He began to imagine the embrace of the water, the swell of waves. Goosebumps covered his flesh as the coolness of the imagined water overtook the heat of his body.

Never Alone Kelsey Hebert     From inside her hospital room, Remy watched her mother not able to decipher what the doctor was saying, but knowing that something wasn’t right. She had a fluttering feeling in her stomach that she just couldn’t ignore. Her mother’s lips didn’t move but she started to cry. Inside, Remy started to panic. What was going on? Remy knew she had leukemia. She knew at any moment her disease could be fatal and that at any point something could go wrong. Something could go wrong and she would only have moments to live. Seconds, minutes, hours, no one knew how long she had left.     The hospital had been Remy’s home for several months now and she was getting sick of it. She hated the blaring white walls and the white sheets and stupid TVs that detached from the wall so they could move closer to your face. She liked the color the balloons and flowers brought to her dreary room but she hated that people felt bad for her. She wanted to be home, in her cozy bed with the ivory comforter and the support of her family surrounding her.     Remy’s mother entered the room interrupting her thoughts. You could tell she was trying to get rid of the bulk of her tears, not wanting to worry Remy, but she already knew what was coming. She had expected it from the way her mother reacted to the doctor’s words. “What’s wrong mom?” Remy inquired half urgently, half expectantly.     “Remy honey, there is a problem,” her mother replied stuttering of the words.     “What mom? Tell me,” Remy demanded.     “Well baby, according to your blood work, your leukemia cells have overcome your normal cells and you will only have hours to li-li-live.” Remy started weeping.     “If I have to die from this, with no way to prevent it, I don’t want to die unhappy. I want Dad to be here and Tage. Can Taylor come too? She was the only one that cared for me in school and very important in my heart. She made my time in school worth while.” Remy tried to be convincing. Trying to convince her mother that all she wanted was to enjoy the rest of her life with her family, but deep down inside, she was horrified. She didn’t know what would happen when she died. She cried with meaning knowing that it would be the last time she cried. The last time she would be in the hospital bed. The last time she would see her mother, her father, her brother and her best friend. The last time she would live here, on Earth.     Remy’s mother left the room, still sobbing, to call all of the people closest to Remy’s heart. Remy watched her mother as she sat on the phone, her makeup smeared across her face and her eyes sunken in. She knew this was it, but she didn’t want to live her last moments depressed. She wanted to be strong, not only for herself but for her family too.     “You’re father and brother will be here soon and Taylor is on her way.” Remy’s mother startled her out of her deep thoughts. Remy stared at the ceiling not wanting to see the look on her mother’s face. Seven minutes later, everyone rushed into the small room. They must have been speeding, Remy thought, because it was at least 15 minutes to get to the hospital.     “I want a moment with each of you separately. Mom first, then Dad, Taylor, and last Tage,” Remy choked out knowing what she wanted but also breaking the deadly silence that was filling up the room, suffocating her. The others left leaving her alone with her mother.     “Mom,” Remy stammered, “I don’t want to die.” Remy said urgently, trying to be strong but letting her weakness seep through the cracks.     “I know Remy honey,” her mother replied, “but it’s going to be alright. You will be okay.” Remy could tell she her mother was also trying to make herself believe this. Believe that Remy really would be okay and everything really would be alright.     “I love you Mom. I will miss you but always remember that I love you more than anything else in this world.”     “I love you too Remy, more than this whole universe. You have been the best gift anyone has ever given to me and I’m sorry you had to live your life this way.” Her mother’s tears dripped down on her hospital gown as she stooped down to give Remy a hug.     “Thanks Mom,” Remy replied, “Could you please send in Daddy? I will see you in a little while, when I finish talking with everyone.” Her mother left the room and her dad entered hesitantly. He walked as if his movements could kill his daughter, like one wrong step and everything would end. “Hi Dad,” Remy stammered.     “Hi honey. Remy, I want you to know that you are one special girl and I would never give you up. I love you so much and I want you to know that we will never ever forget you and that you will be just fine.” Remy’s father broke down. He was trying to be strong but he snapped like a twig. He started bawling. It was the first time that Remy had seen her father cry in all her life and she started crying with him. He wasn’t the emotional and nurturing kind of person. He was always the sturdy one in her family. He was always tougher than thick black leather, unbreakable.     “Dad, I love you too,” Remy whispered through her tears, “don’t forget to remember me and I won’t ever forget you. I will always be daddy’s little girl and that will never change. Even if I leave this world I will spend the rest of your life in another.” Remy’s father left the room without saying another word because he couldn’t through his tears. Remy turned away from the door. She didn’t want the horror to go on. She heard the door open and close and turned to see Taylor coming to her bedside, already sobbing.     “Taylor, I just want to thank you for everything. You were the only friend I had during school and you made it so fun. You were the only one in school that wasn’t scared that I had no hair. Remember when we put the tack on Mrs. Fallangi’s chair before she sat down? We had so much fun together and I want to thank you for it.”     Taylor looked at her for a moment, tears hitting her favorite Hollister shirt like daggers. She wasn’t sure what to say so she replied with “You’re welcome” and “I love you too” and left the room. Tage was the last to enter. He came in with a look of distress on his face. He wasn’t crying yet, trying to be the big brother that he was, but you could see the anguish in his eyes. Tage and Remy had been close siblings since infantry and this one single moment was ripping them apart. Physically and mentally shredding them to pieces.     “Tage,” Remy muttered. Her crying had stopped for a moment, but tears were welling in the corners. “Thank you for everything. Especially thanks to all the times you helped me after I got this disease that has to end my life today. Thanks for all the times you brought me my dinner in bed and gave me a bucket when my treatments made me sick. I’m going to miss you Tage, everything that we used to do and everything about you. I’m going to miss how you would hug me after school knowing that I was with you one more day. I’m going to miss the way you told me goodnight before you went to bed yourself. Remember all those times when we climbed that tree in the backyard waiting for Mom to call us to dinner and we would just sit up there at laugh at her when she did? Remember all those games of soccer and baseball where you would knock me over and make me chase you all around the house? Tage, you are the best brother anyone could ever have and I love you to death. I have always loved you and always will.” Remy’s words faded at the end of her last sentence and she realized that all of this was making her weaker.     Then it started, Tage started to cry. It started slowly, only a small trickle but soon the tears were streaming down his face like a river. This weakened Remy even more. Seeing her dear brother cry was the worst thing she had ever experienced. It was worse than her treatments and even worse than dying.     “I love you too Remy and I remember everything we did together and I always will.” He sat down next to her on her bed and bent down to give her a hug and kiss on the forehead. Then for moments they sat there lying in each others’ arms, silent.     Remy could feel her muscles starting relax. She felt her whole body become weak. She whispered slowly to her brother one last time. “Bye brother,” she said and slipped slowly into the unknown. As her eyes closed and she drifted into the side of her brother’s chest, Tage got up.     “Goodnight Remy, for you will suffer no more.” He replied as he kissed her closed eyelids and got up to go to the door. He carefully placed Remy’s head against the pillow behind her. When he reached the door, he looked back at her one more time. Her limp, skinny body lay still. Her beautiful turquoise eyes shut. He opened the door and stepped outside, closing himself out from Remy and Remy out from this world.

Waiting to Reach, art by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Body in the Bedsit Ashley Fisher It was a fortnight before they found you, lay on the bed in an old pair of jeans and the blouse your mam bought you for your birthday; staring blindly towards the window which over-looked the soap powder factory, your left wrist gaping (had you been too weak to tear the second?) beside an emptied vodka bottle. Had it been a “slow news day” you might have made the front page with your dad’s favourite picture of you, taken last spring just before you left school. As it was, six hundred jobs had gone at the shipyard and you were relegated to the “in brief” section, squeezed between a church fête and the sixth annual spring plant fair.

Ashley Fisher Bio     Ashley Fisher was born in South Cumbria, England and currently lives in East Yorkshire. As well as performing his poetry around the country, Ashley co-edits the small-press magazine Turbulence. He also organizes the Fresh Ink Open Mic nights in Hull. His website can be found at www.ashleyfisherpoetry.blogspot.com.

Inches Robert Brabham     It took only one yank to get the lawn mower going. It’s got a damned 160 cc Honda engine, no shabby lawn equipment here, Jack. He wished he had double-checked the height of the deck to make sure he was razing a strict two inch cut on the verdant green fescue. There was some unofficial club out there somewhere whose members measured the height of freshly cut grass throughout the Good Neighborhoods of America, scuttling in the cover of night, Ben was sure. An assiduous fellowship to be sure, whose only matriculation is the ability to hoist a ruler.     Ben stepped off the driveway and began mowing. He thought he had heard some other mowers running, their calls echoing across the neighborhood before he got started, maybe when he was checking the oil, noticing it was getting pretty dark, going to need to change it, gotta make sure the engine purrs. By the way Jack, you got a small dipstick. What the hell else were you supposed to do on a Saturday morning when you live in a Neighborhood?     The first pass was fruitful and he could see the rear bag was already showing signs of weight. He had waited too long. But it wasn’t his fault, it was raining last weekend. So you mow one evening, you bastard. Why didn’t you, now? Gonna be comments. Ben was already sweating and he wiped his brow. Think of the money he saved by getting a little push mower with a fer God’s sake Honda 160 cc engine instead of a lawn tractor with a cutting radius of eighteen feet. He started his second pass, the left wheel crossing just over the line of the first pass. Ben didn’t care for making intricate patterns in the yard as though it were some golf course or checker board. Just mow it out and keep it trim and collect the cuttings in a garbage bag so it doesn’t choke the grass or something and get your hands stained green for about a day or so. He wiped more sweat.     Look at the freaking crab grass. He had seen it for a while and had intended to pull it before cutting, but his back was aching from lifting patients all week at work so screw it Jack, a little crab grass was going to have to lay in wait. What the hell were those other weeds called? Is that a patch of mold in the low spot?     Third pass was going quicker, the beastly green beard was shrinking, his turns requiring a little dip on the handlebar to make the sharp corner, use your hips, man! Don’t let go of the safety bail bar ‘cause it will drop forward and kill the engine and then you gotta stop in the middle of your yard like a putz and restart her. What the hell was he trying to remember at work? He had forgotten to document something on a chart. What the hell was it? Screw it, Jack, there’s grass to be cut.     He was passing the small maple tree in the yard from which he had recently removed the stabilizing ropes. They had told him to leave them up a year and he had done so and it was long enough for the strap around the twine to have grown into the crotch of the limb where it joined the tree. Looked like it was going to heal okay. No one would see the scar in the branch bark.     He made another pass by the tree and wondered why he wasn’t getting closer. Normally he was arching around it by now.     Why the hell should he rush it? There was just more stuff to do after that, upkeep the house and yard after the cutting was done. Damn, he had meant to do the perimeter spray for fire ants last weekend after the rain. Don’t rush, try to enjoy the great outdoors with the scent of freshly cut grass and engine exhaust.     It was downright strange he hadn’t gotten closer to the tree when he made another pass. Again, why rush? It never took more than maybe a half hour to cut the yard, the diligently manicured front and the sparse growth of the back yard, the main reason for fences and stone paths and rock gardens. Gotta focus on the front, gotta make it nice and nicer.     On the next pass Ben stopped and looked at the tree, but held the bail bar tight against the handle bar of the mower.     Why the hell was he no closer?     Screw it, Jack, you’re just rushing. Don’t you remember, pleasure in your work? Make that yard look super pretty. The rear grass catcher bag looked weightier so it was collecting more clippings, ergo, it was still cutting.     So what are you waiting for? With one hand he pulled the front of his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face, could feel it catch on the beard he hadn’t shaved that Saturday morning because it was Saturday and an appointment with the yard didn’t necessitate too much in the way of morning ablutions. At least not in a middle-class Neighborhood.     The next pass he found he was no nearer the tree and he cursed out loud. He scanned the yard and couldn’t find an explanation. He had been keeping the right wheel just over the cut line the whole time, no wheel marks of deviation. It wasn’t a brainy task to hack down the grass.     Screw this a second.     Ben released the bail bar which stopped the motor and he pushed the mower over to the open garage door. He was afraid to turn around for untold numbers of neighbors might be scrutinizing him, wondering what prompted this untimely siesta. He eyed the dried grass that had collected in the contours of the top of the mower deck and started to get the whisk broom, but hesitated. He pushed open the door to the foyer of the house. The air-conditioned air was at once too cold and dry and he shivered, feeling the sweat on his back and legs and everywhere.     He advanced to the kitchen where Paula was working. Her head snapped up.     “What’s wrong?” Petulance, stir fried with surprise and curiosity. Kiss kiss.     “I just wanted to get a beer.” He opened the fridge and saw her glaring at the dirty hand with which he opened the door, the other dirty hand with which he retrieved the cold can.     “I thought it was Miller time after the job was done. It’s still morning time.” She picked the rag back up and resumed polishing the silverware.     “Gotta think outside the box sometimes. Don’t want to fall into the same routine, you know.” He opened the can and took a sip which nauseated him immediately. Why was his pulse accelerating?     “Just so you get the job done,” she said and sighed.     “What does that mean?”     “Well, I’ve been breaking my back in here all morning and you’ve only been out there a few minutes. You said you were going to do the yard.”     “I am. I just wanted something to drink. It’s no crisis.”     “You just can’t seem to keep your word lately with the chores. I do more than half and I’m sick of it.” She was rubbing the bejesus out of a butter knife.     “That’s not fair! I do my share around here. Why can’t I get something to drink?”     She sighed and kept her eyes on her task at hand. She was braless in a loose tank which she usually wore on weekends and he could see her breasts jiggling with the movements of her cleaning. He burned with self-betrayal when he felt his body respond to the sight. The grimace on her face hastened his retreat to the garage.     He drank half the can and swooned from it. The yard sat waiting. Who might be watching, waiting for his return? He/she/it would see the beer and understand why he stopped and speculate on his sobriety. Let ‘em wonder.     He could see no breaks in the mow lines. He must have just wanted to finish too soon. Probably was running over the same path twice. Impatience. Now that will get you an ugly yard, dude. Gotta be vigilant, gotta take your time and not miss a blade. He looked around the garage and smiled when he saw a watering can. He strode across the lawn and placed the verdigris copper pot on the edge of the cut line. He returned to his mower, choked it, and gave the old engine a yank and it roared to life on the first try. Quality engine, that is.     Ben maneuvered the mower just ahead of the water can and began mowing. He was sweating like hell as he maneuvered around the yard. He reached the pot and found he had indeed made a new cut pass. He could feel a smile break across his face. He took the water pot and tossed it back towards the garage where it landed on the concrete and the head of the spout broke off and clattered a few feet from the pot. Screw it. A small price to pay for the reassurance of sanity. Onward.     He made a few more passes and realized he was making no progress. Wait, no, you’re just rushing again. Just rushing; just wanting to finish.     He didn’t hate mowing the lawn that much. Hell, it was nice to look at it from a distance like some finished mural over which he had labored for months and view the beauty. He didn’t mind cutting the grass at all. What about that lovely smell? He made another pass and realized he should have definitely been making a semi-circle around the tree by now, had to. He wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his t-shirt and winced at the sweat that was stinging them. The mower droned on and he realized he was standing still. He looked at his blanched knuckles vibrating on the handle bar.     He slowed his pace and watched the ground under him as he passed over it with the mower. What was there? Mowed grass of course. In front of the mower there was too-tall grass and behind him there was nice, pretty, moved grass. What’s the problem?     Ben made three more passes and was no nearer the tree. He released the bail bar and let the engine die, but it protested and coughed and sputtered, stammering at the interruption.     Ben entered the house again and shivered from the cold air-conditioned air.     “Jesus Christ, what are you doing?”     “Listen, you won’t bel –“     “You’re right I don’t believe you. You said you were going to vacuum the living room carpet and sofa after you finished the yard.”     “I am, but listen –”     “And that’s going to be one more thing I’m going to have to do. Again, just like last weekend! Fuck!”     “Goddammit I’m cutting the grass, I just...”     “What?”     “The engine’s cutting out and -”     “Oh fucking great. We can’t afford to take it in for a repair. We just got those border stones for the flower garden in the back yard which you haven’t dug yet. Doesn’t the lawn mower have a warranty? Don’t you remember where you put the warranty? Forget it; I’ll look for it myself.” She stomped away to the front den where sat the computer at which he had masturbated after she fell asleep last night and next to which sat the black filing cabinet. “You have to do help more than this, you know! I work just as hard as you do all week...”     “Listen, I’m getting it.” He wanted to boot her fat ass bursting in black spandex and felt nausea roll over him. She was bent over the last drawer of the filing cabinet and thumbing madly through the papers, stacks and piles of papers. “Christ, I’m going to have to put on a shirt and do it myself. Why don’t you just go to sleep or something.”     This fury was not new, but the intensity was. A sharp pinpoint of pain stabbed the left side of his forehead. He trembled and felt tears welling. What the hell was he supposed to say? Why the hell couldn’t he say it?     “I’m going to go finish,” he mumbled.     “Fuck you are, you can’t fix anything.”     “I’ll fucking fix it, dammit!” and he slammed the door behind him. She threw the door open and shrieked at him, “Don’t you fucking slam the door on me! I’ll leave!” and then she slammed the door.     Look at all the objects in the garage, look at all the heavy objects that would sound so good as they were thrown against the fucking wall. Look at that sledge, a five pounder. How nice would it be to pound a hundred holes in the drywall?     The mower was waiting on the driveway. Behind it was his little car with the small starburst crack that some road debris had left in it a couple of months ago, another task he failed to find the time for.     He picked up the weedwacker. There was no way he could fail with this. He had wanted to start by trimming out the yard first anyway since it required the most energy. Logical. Who says you can’t start with the wacker? He had cut the yard enough to know what he couldn’t reach with the mower.     Why not do the whole frigging yard with it? He could move in circles and watch every blade of grass around him at all times. He checked the gas and it was almost full. He checked the oil. Just fine. He put the strap over his shoulder and yanked on the cord. It whirred and chuckled. He pulled and produced a cough. He pulled and pulled.     Fury is as fury does and he took a chair with both hands and was about to fling it into the yard.     Stop!     He listened to his rasping exhalations. The yard was out of focus.     Stop. Just stop.     Children rode by on their bikes, laughing; a smaller one scrabbled madly at the pedals, feet slipping off, trying to keep up with the older ones.     Ben restacked the newspapers and placed the weedwacker upright against the wall. He finished the beer which was warm as urine and of the same palatability.     The little mower growled to life on the first yank. Just before it woke, he though he heard something heavy inside the house. He wiped sweat from his forehead.     He returned to the yard, the cut grass already dry from the hot sun and he moved ahead, slowly, very slowly. He looked at the broken leg of the English Garden armchair in the back yard and tried to look at the trees. He wiped his mouth and felt something. It was blood and he wondered when he had bitten his lip.     At the back edge of the yard he turned the mower, dipping low the handle bar, bail bar tight and snug in his white hand. He wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeves. The tears kept the sweat from stinging. Ben wondered if he could make himself stop weeping before he faced traffic on the road.

Love Eternal J.E. Harris     Outside the picture window in Joe and Lanie’s breakfast nook, the sun shimmered on the lake water. Inside, on the other side of the glass, the couple sat across from each other, gazing at the view.     Town regulations prohibited the use of motor boats and jet skis before 11 a.m., so the water was still undisturbed. Patches of wind roughed up sections of the water in a random pattern, first this way, then that, then disappearing altogether, then gusting heavily.     “Flukey,” Joe said, watching.     “Like us,” she answered.     “You think?”     “A little.”     “I never thought of myself as flukey. I’ve always thought of myself as way too predictable.” His voice was bitter.     “You aren’t cursed.” She knew what he was saying. When they’d met, he’d warned her: “I have a three year curse. Every relationship I’ve been ever been in has lasted three years. No more, no less.”     His warning didn’t scare her. They delighted in each other’s company, living close to the water, swimming, windsurfing, skating, waterskiing. Splashing, tumbling, laughing – those were the words that would best describe the last three years. She had loved every minute, and she still did.     “We aren’t cursed,” she said. “We have love eternal.”     Joe slouched in his chair.     “Sure.”     “Men forget.”     “Women....” He heard the tone of his voice and stopped. Better not to argue.     The sky was a white mixture of clouds and daylight. The lilac hedges Lanie had planted to form a boundary from the neighboring yards on either side were in full bloom, and the scent drifted in through their open window.     “Let’s go for a swim.”     “It’s May. The water’s still cold.”     “Brisk,” she said. “It’s not a polar bear swim. Think of Katharine Hepburn.”     “I don’t think we underestimate the pleasure of suffering.”     “Not suffering. Fun.”     They changed into their suits in their bedroom, side by side. She saw him not seeing her nudity as she changed. But still, he accompanied her, and they made their way out to the front porch, down the steps, and across the grass.     The shoreline was rough with rocks the size of mollusks with sharp edges. Wading in, they didn’t touch each other, didn’t help each other across the rough section. They walked instead of swimming until the water touched their chins.     Her feet left the ground before his, and the chilly water on her face sent a little shock through her system.     When she resurfaced, Joe lay floating on his back. His pale belly, rising above the water, revolted her. In an instant, despite her own argument that the three year curse didn’t exist, Lanie felt the love, which she had believed to be eternal, vanish. #     A year later, Lanie looked back on that day without missing Joe, but still a little puzzled. So odd, she thought, the way the love had simply vanished in an instant, as though it had never existed at all.     The mystery of it all, not any sense of longing or regret, called her back to the little cottage where she’d spent three years of her life. The sun was setting when she got into her car, so by the time she turned right onto Lake Shore Road, the darkness of night had settled around the cottages.     Warm light poured from the windows of the home they’d shared together. Joe had installed solar lights along the stone path that led to the front door, so even at night the beds of newly planted purple and yellow pansies flanking the walkway made the scene look like a Thomas Kincaide painting.     Enchanting, she thought, and then she saw through the curtainless window the long, red hair, the bare woman’s back, the passionate lovemaking between Joe and his new love.     Watching them, Lanie imagined that like her, the redhead had listened to Joe’s story about the three year curse and believed it was a story Joe told himself. The electricity of her love and passion for Joe would have been a far more vivid counterargument to his tale of woe. She was not cursed, she would have thought. She would be the one to break his supposed curse.     Even when their relationship had ended, Lanie hadn’t believed in the three year curse, because the love had left her, not him. But now, looking at the redhead without a trace of jealousy, without a trace of envy, she remembered that Joe had never said he would fall out of love with her.     Women always left him, just as she had done. After three years, just like her.     Joe believed in the three year curse, but he also believed in eternal love. With each new woman, he gave his heart and soul.     Lanie pitied him. She had never believed in eternal love, so she didn’t miss having it. She got in her car and drove away without regret, and she never looked back. #     “Do you know the when I first saw you?”     “A year ago,” the redhead answered. “The day you went swimming with your last three year curse.”     “Do you think we’re cursed?”     “I know we’re not,” she answered. “We have love eternal.”     Joe looked into the blue eyes and knew it was true the same way he’d known it was true with Lanie, the same way he’d known it was true with Nancy, the same way he’d known it was true with Rebecca, the same way.... #     She was happy to be the female, the memory-keeper, the one who slipped out through Lanie’s skin a year ago to rejoin the millions of her female kin in the water before sliding in through the skin of her new host, the redhead. She remembered the other hosts – Nancy, Rebecca, the others. She knew them better than Joe did; she missed them sometimes, probably more than he did. For a time, she had been each of them.     She knew that in two years, she and Joe would go for a swim. She would slip out through the skin of the redhead, reunite with her waterborne kin, and then slide in through the skin of a new host, proving to Joe once again that he was fated to a three year curse. A few days later, after the old host had her epiphany and left him, and despite his better judgment, Joe would see her in the body of her new host and find her irresistible.     And when his host, Joe, died, they would rejoin. Like so many times over so many millenniums, they would once again become a single being, both male and female, making their way through the groundwater, into the rivulets and streams, arriving at last at a suitable freshwater lake.     They would lay their eggs, divide into male and female, and seek a new pair of hosts, continuing the cycle of love eternal.

Committed Elle Pryor     The knife was so sharp its edge fitted snugly between the looped ridges of Greg’s fingerprints, just a slight touch was all it took to break through the skin. The cut was not deep enough to draw blood though; a tiny crescent of white ectodermic tissue rose above the rest like a wave on the wash. Clenching his fist, he pressed down with the blade onto the taut flesh of his arm. It felt as if he was cutting through the rind of a soft brie cheese. Slowly, blood oozed to the surface, carnelian drizzles trickled leisurely over his wiry arm hair. During these moments, his body seemed like nothing but a haggis, covered with a fine layer of intestines that once ruptured allowed his insides to escape.     He passed the knife to Debbie and kissed her. With some trepidation she copied him, rigid steel and pliable skin met and she adopted a chopping technique she had learnt while watching chefs prepare food on day time television. Starting from the tip of the slightly curved edge of the blade, she rolled it over her defenseless limb as if she was slicing a crisp cucumber.     “Too deep, too deep,” Greg said, snatching the knife from her. Debbie stared down in horror at the welt she’d created. While dainty, red rivulets of blood decorated Greg’s forearm, hers was smeared with ugly, misshapen blobs.     “Wha.. wha.. what should I do?” Debbie stuttered, tensing up so tightly that her mouth momentarily stopped secreting saliva.     Greg froze, becoming fixated by the sight of her absconding body fluid, but then he suddenly recovered, stood up and pulled her out of his bedroom towards the bathroom. She placed her arm under the faucet of the tap and started to cry. The clear water stung as it touched her sinews, nerves and cells. It mixed with her still flowing blood to form a pink waterfall that revolved like a satellite image of a spinning cyclone as it tumbled into the plughole. The maize colored hypodermic level of her skin had been exposed, the place where her fat had once hidden.     They both worked in the same call centre, plugged via their headphones into a telephone like two hospital patients connected to an intravenous drip. Throughout the day, they gave the same replies and advice to a line of customers whose voices arrived into their ears after a short warning buzz. Sometimes, Debbie was jolted awake at night when this sound reappeared in her dreams. Separately, they attended a work social event that was organized during Christmas. After drinking copious amounts of half-price happy hour cocktails Greg showed her the rows of scars on his arm,     “It’s just something to do.” he explained with a casual shrug.     That evening, she had questioned him about his self harming. The way he described it was so nonchalant and casual as if it was the same as someone biting their nails. So she decided to give it a go. He said it would make her glands produce endorphins and she would experience a natural high. Instead, she was weeping uncontrollably,     “I want to go to the hospital.” she said in a hushed, broken voice.     Greg shook his head quickly, “It’s really not a good idea.”     “What do you mean?”     “The nurse will probably guess that you cut yourself.” he said; his voice trembling a little.     She was confused and replied, “So?”     “They could commit you.” he explained as he ran one anxious palm over his shaved scalp.     She was shocked by his words, by the suggestion that someone might consider her insane. A few years ago, a friend of hers was committed but her behavior had been bizarre. Jane had been rushed to a psychiatric hospital after climbing up a crane so she could hitch a lift with a spaceship. For months before, she had trained for her new life by bouncing on a small trampoline, believing that when she was suspended in the air she was experiencing weightlessness. Debbie was surprised when she heard the news. People had talked about the odd exercise regime she was following but nobody had assumed that she was mad.     At first, Jane was distraught to find herself in a hospital instead of on another planet and blamed the foreman who had rung the police for ruining her life. Jane wondered if this was actually the place where the spaceship was landing and whether the series of events that had resulted in her forced admittance was all part of the plan. However, when she was forbidden from exercising, she decided that she must be at the wrong location, the exercise regime was a very important element of the whole process and only her enemies would try and make her stop.     The messages she’d received from the people wearing denim shirts had been obvious and incontestable until the doctor informed her that the code she was using to decipher their words was a referential delusion. ‘Excuse me’ did not actually mean ‘x marks the spot’, so the crane she had been passing at the time was not a pick up point.     “But the man who said that was wearing a denim shirt.” she explained. It had all added up, including as well the shopkeeper who informed her that the space ship would arrive in five months when she handed Jane five coins and said,     “Here’s your change.” There were even hints in the articles she’d read on the internet and once a lark had sung to her that they were looking forward to her arrival.     “The bird was not singing to you, that was an auditory hallucination.” the doctor replied.     Sometimes, she was certain that he was wrong and that instead she had attained a higher level of consciousness and was able to sense things that other people couldn’t. Not everything could be explained by science she thought to herself, the big bang theory was just a theory and it could never be absolutely proven. Her denial that she was sick, the psychiatrist informed her, was also a symptom of her illness.     His medical jargon blurred into a meandering babble at times and she stopped listening and remembered how free and content she’d felt when she climbed up the crane’s ladder. It had been a hot day and by the time she reached the top she was sweating heavily, the view had been wonderful, she could see the undulating, sage hills that surrounded the town in the distance and a seagull flew by, glancing at her as it passed as if to encourage her on her way.     “You’ve never met any of the people who helped me, so how can you be so sure it was my imagination?” she said resentfully.     “No one helped you.” The doctor said impatiently.     She told the doctor about her many enemies,     “They shouted insults at me.” she answered.     “Did you meet them?” he asked, suddenly leaning forward in his chair and smiling as if she had said something important.     “No, they were far away, that’s why the people wearing the denim shirts were helping me escape.” She stared at him; he said nothing for a long time while he wrote in a notebook. Later, she thought about what she had said and his silence. She remembered that a woman had insulted her again the day before, she recognized the voice but this was not really possible because she was living somewhere else now. It was then that she began to wonder whether this voice was real. Something in her head seemed to relax as if a muscle in her brain had been pumping iron repeatedly and was now exhausted. She did not hear the woman’s shrill, hostile voice again.     Debbie slowly took her arm away from the tap and grasped a few sheets of toilet tissue in order to catch the nasal mucous meandering down the shallow of her philtrum.     “I’ll say it was an accident.” she said.     “That might work.” Greg paused, “My tattooist Sid cut himself too deeply once with a razor and said someone tried to mug him.”     “I could say that.” she said hopefully between sobs.     He paused and considered this for a moment,     “Maybe, you don’t have any other scars.” Greg peeled off his white T shirt and used it to carefully wipe the water from her arm. He then wrapped it around her cut; he pressed downwards and she winced with pain,     “Sorry,” he said anxiously and he reduced the pressure, “this will help the bleeding.”     The material soaked up the blood like litmus paper, the color dissipating from crimson to salmon.     Glancing at Greg’s watch, Debbie realized that she had been bleeding for nearly ten minutes.     “What happened to the tattooist?” she asked, sniffing.     “He was committed,” he replied, carefully avoiding her eyes, “and given electrotherapy.”     “For just cutting himself?” she queried with disbelief.     “Yep,” his voice grew hoarse, “they gave him tiny shocks until he answered the doctor’s questions correctly.” Her fear was escalating and she pictured herself lying on a stone slab, bound with leather straps, convulsing wildly, as watts of voltage were pumped through her body. Sid’s ECT sessions had actually been far less dramatic. The anesthesia administered before by the nurse relaxed him completely and his muscles had only twitched slightly.     At the hospital after they had seen his scars, they bundled him into an ambulance and drove him to the psychiatric unit. After a few sessions with a psychiatrist, they diagnosed him with severe depression. This was despite the fact that in the real world he had a steady job and was rarely sick. He was thin anyway but the shock of having his life stolen destroyed his appetite. When his girlfriend left him, he lost about twenty eight pounds in weight. Nobody had called Sid crazy then; they were just sympathetic and tried to revitalize him by arranging evenings of drinking in bars populated by plenty of friendly, single women. The nurses were concerned though, worried by the untouched meals and his reticence.     When he sat on the bed before his first ECT session, tears welled up in his eyes, for some reason he thought about his ex and remembered when they had lain in bed together, she with her arms around him complaining about his long hair tickling her face. Afterwards, it felt like his brain had been rearranged and the reason why he couldn’t eat moved to another place as if a picture in his head had been divided into squares and scrambled. Even though the first had removed his inability to eat, he had to be administered six more electro therapy sessions. His anger grew at being treated like some kind of psychopath, forced to have ECT in a place that seemed like nothing but a prison for people who were not normal enough. He was told that his hostility was caused by his depression and that he had turned this anger on himself when he repeatedly cut himself. He decided they were all idiots and ignored the doctors as much as he could. His contempt earned him a year on the psychiatric ward.     Debbie moved Greg’s hand and slowly unwrapped the T-shirt hoping that the cut had stopped bleeding. She wanted to leave and never come back; she couldn’t remember ever having such a terrible time. Breathing with some difficulty, Debbie removed the last layer and stared at her arm nervously,     “Its stopped.” she exclaimed.     “Yes, the blood is starting to clot.” and he clapped his hands and smiled, put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the lips; she giggled.     “I have some plasters and antiseptic lotion in the bedroom.” he said tenderly, rubbing her cheek.     “Ok,” she replied, sighing with relief.     As they walked down the hallway towards his bedroom she put her arms around his bare torso. Several tattoos on his chest moved when his muscles tensed and she rested her head on the razor sharp talons of a scarlet dragon; his body covered with pitted scales. The piercing yellow eyes of the monster looked down at her and for a second she thought that she saw them blink.

Paint Phyllis Green     My daughter, Barbara Vivier, age 63, has informed me she is pregnant. She has been living with me for a year. She has spent the entire time in a deep depression because of the death of her husband, actually ex-husband, and of this time she has been in bed, alone. So I’m thinking, this sounds biblical.     I was relieved when she came to live with me because I have become afraid of a young man who took painting lessons from me. He has taken to sitting in his car in front of my house and staring. He has sat there for hours. I have reported him to the police but they say they can do nothing unless he does something. This seems ridiculous. He should not be there. He should not be staring at my house. I find it strange and frightening. I am eighty-six, not strong anymore. I don’t have a gun but I’m thinking of getting one. Perhaps he is mentally deranged. Did I say something that offended him when we painted? Did I not praise him enough? Did I praise him too much? What does he want with me? Why is he always there?     So having Barbara move in made me feel more secure but he, the former student, Horace, worries Barbara too.     If we go to the grocery store, he is lurking by the produce. When we have a doctor’s appointment, we think his car follows us. We drove to Seaside one day and he was sitting on a bench on the Promenade. This cannot be coincidence. I took my car to the dealer so they could look for something attached to the bottom that would let him trace our moves. They found nothing they said... unless he got to them first. Yes I am paranoid about him. My thoughts flit to conspiracy.     Barbara has three children from her marriage to the professor. She was a student who fell in love with Professor Vivier and had two children when he finally agreed to marry her and then they had another child. I don’t know what she saw in him. But she adored him. He left her for another student when the oldest child was eight. Barbara taught first grade and raised the three children. The Professor sent money. Barbara remained in love with him. He has now died and she is in mourning. She was not invited to the funeral although the children were. She is inconsolable.     And now she is pregnant. At 63! I have heard a famous TV star gave birth at 59. With twins? Anyhow Barbara has become a different person since she found out. She is laughing all the time. It is lovely to hear her musical laughter after all the moaning and tears. But a baby at 63! It will tire her out and I won’t be much help. I get very tired and need my sleep.     We go to see her father and my husband in Astoria. Lars Sanderson. You have heard of him. Yes, the famous painter who demands and receives over six figures for his paintings. Yes he is the one and although we started out together living in hovels and giving up food to buy pigments, brushes, and canvases, he became a sought after painter and I stayed a teacher and my paintings muster no more than $5000 if I’m lucky. But he is good to me. We live apart and have for years. I think Barbara was only three when we took up these arrangements. I live in Portland and Lars resides at the meeting of the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean. We spend every Christmas together and we cuddle now that old age has set in. I love him. Just can’t live with him. We gift each other with a painting at Christmas. He doesn’t have to sell mine so he keeps them. He says he cherishes them. That is so sweet. I hold on to his as long as I can but then I need money and I have to sell. It breaks my heart because they are so beautiful.     Lars doesn’t like my former student stalking me. We have come to call it that even thought the police don’t. He phones or texts often now to make sure Barbara and I are okay. It’s very tender. But he is old too, eighty-seven. We are old and crotchety     Barbara has started to paint! The amazing pregnancy I assume. She had painted as a very young child but when Lars left she stopped, wouldn’t enter the studio (the closet I called my studio where I painted). Her paintings are primitives reminding me of Grandma Moses but not of farms. Barbara’s are of the seashore and waterfalls and lavender fields, all very Oregon.     I have just lost my teaching job. Rather, I gave it up because of an incident. I became suspicious of a let me kindly say obnoxious student with brassy red hair that looked like a wig whom I suspected of being Horace, my stalker, in disguise as a transgender. I rushed out of the classroom and phoned police and pointed him out and asked the police to arrest him. They dragged Horace away struggling and screaming to the police station and when a police woman oversaw him undressing, a pudgy woman was under the red wig—yes it was a wig so I was right about that— but it was not a man and it was not Horace and it was just an obnoxious woman who was taking my painting class. I felt I had to resign. Of course the woman is suing me and the police department and it got to the newspapers of course and all the mortification that goes with that so now I, Karin Nilsson, am not teaching painting anymore and I am a bit of a laughing stock. Even I can laugh about it but not about the lawsuit.     Barbara’s pregnancy has now become clearer. It is not biblical after all. When the professor left my daughter she begged him to leave her sperm which she then had frozen or whatever you do with it and then she had the doctor inject them into her sixty-three year old womb and viola! Modern science, what will they think of next.     So we go to her doctor as she wants me to see the ultra sound. I think it is quite fuzzy but Barbara and the doctor see an embryo and they identify it as a female. I will have another granddaughter. Barbara names the embryo Grace. When we exit the doctor’s office I catch a glimpse of The Stalker, Horace, rounding a corner. “Barbara, look,” I say. “It’s him!” And once again I become nervous and apprehensive.     Barbara’s grown children think the pregnancy is wonderful. So all is well there. They phone her at least once a week and are very solicitous. They are scattered about the globe. Ryan is studying at Oxford, Teresa teaches second grade in Houston, and Melanie is backpacking in Thailand. As best I can remember, Karin Nilsson. MORE PAINT     My daughter, Barbara Vivier, has grown quite large. The doctor ordered another ultrasound and four more embryos were discovered. Quintuplets. We are trying to get our thoughts around this. Barbara must have total bed rest now. And she must consider having some embryos aborted surgically so the ones that survive will be healthy and free of physical disabilities. It is too much for me to fathom. I am too old for this. Now Barbara is back to weeping. She doesn’t want to part with one embryo. She finally decides no, all or nothing. No messing with her uterus. She believes the babies will somehow make it. She is determined.     I get a phone call, very disturbing. Lars has had some kind of spell and he is in an ambulance coming to Portland’s St. Vincent’s. He wants me to meet him at the hospital. I phone my neighbor, Mickey, and ask her to come stay with Barbara. She hurries over. I rush out the door with my purse and car keys and I see coming toward me that miserable Horace, The Stalker. He is in my way and he is holding out something in front of him.     He says, “Teacher.”     I think he is going to block me and so I either push him or brush by him and he falls backwards and I hear his head crack against my sidewalk. I concentrate on getting to my car, climbing in, starting the motor and backing out the driveway to meet Lars. I can still hear the crack of his head and I glimpse a dark splotch on the sidewalk. Is it blood? He still lies there. Have I killed my stalker? I push hard on the gas pedal and zoom toward the hospital.     I wonder if I have killed a man. Did I push him or brush him? I used to think all black and white and now I am thinking gray to save my butt. I dial HOME on my cell phone and tell Mickey not to let anyone in the house. Then I dial 911 and say, “I think the stalker might be in my front yard.”     Lars has had a small stroke. He is able to write me a note to go to his house in Astoria and make sure it is locked with all his paintings safely inside. It is a two hour drive. I go.     Lars’s house is open and empty. I am so tired and bereft. Then his neighbor, Harry, comes toward me and whispers “Got them all in my place. Safe and sound.” I collapse. “I was just getting ready to lock his place up.”     Harry invites me into his cottage and makes me a cup of Earl Grey tea and then I drive back to St. Vincent’s to report to Lars.     “Harry took care of everything,” I say. “When you get out of here you must come and stay with me. I will take care of you, darling.” I stay with Lars as long as I can and then I go home.     There was still what looked like blood on my sidewalk but no Horace. I still did not know what happened to him. Did the police find him? Is he dead? As best I can remember, Karin Nilsson. THIRD COAT     Barbara Vivier, my daughter, who is 63 and pregnant with quintuplets, is now being sued by Professor Vivier’s widow. Elysia Vivier is demanding the embryos. She claims the Professor’s sperm belonged to her and she wants the babies when they are born. Barbara finds this to be most amusing. She is still in bed, as ordered. Her laugh sounds like bell chimes from dainty Swiss cowbells. Barbara loves getting the best of Elysia but I fear another lawsuit.     My red headed wig lady found out I was the widow of Lars Sanderson and she has upped her demands in her lawsuit. Yes, sadly I lost my Lars. He did not get to live here but had another severe stroke and had to go to a nursing home where he only lasted a few days. I stayed with him there and my neighbor and friend, Mickey, looked after Barbara. Lars and I could not communicate with words, but we never needed words anyhow.     I have not seen The Stalker for months. I don’t know what that means. I don’t ask. I told Barbara what I think happened and she agrees it is best not to know. But is it? Sometimes I have bad dreams. Perhaps I will go to jail.     Lars’s paintings are very valuable. We have them in safekeeping, I cannot say where but they are in a good place with proper temperatures and they are insured and fine. We will sell one when the quintuplets are born. We will need money then. We now know that two of the embryos have something wrong. We believe, hope, the other three are healthy.     Barbara is still painting. She lies on her side and paints scenes from her childhood. It pains me that Lars is not in the paintings, only in the one around the Christmas tree. Were we foolish to put painting ahead of love? Barbara is now represented by my gallery and she gets $500-700 for a painting. She is so pleased. I know she will soon top me and perhaps be as famous someday as her father. I would like that and I would be jealous. Both.     Elysia Vivier came to call. She was in hysterics. She looks much older than she is, the result I think of being married to a man who cheats. She was a teenager when the Professor married her. She is serious about getting Barbara’s babies. Barbara thinks she is insane. Elysia touched Barbara’s huge stomach and then kissed it and baby-talked to Barbara’s uterus. Barbara kept snickering. I was disgusted and didn’t offer her tea or cookies. She finally went home after threatening us both.     Barbara screamed and then I knew it was time to go to the hospital. The babies wanted to be born. We had waited too long. They were supposed to be taken early by caesarian.     Mickey drove although how foolish we were. We should have called an ambulance. As best I can recall, Karin Nilsson. THE LAST LAYER     Barbara Vivier, my daughter, and I live in Astoria in Lars’s house. My new grandchildren are three years old now. Grace, Rudy, and Peter run around the yard that looks out on the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Maureen and Toby have developmental disabilities and they reside in special wheelchairs equipped with oxygen and fancy computers they have learned to communicate with to steer and to try to seem like the other children. They all smile or giggle, even little Toby who probably is the less gifted of them all. We adore all the children and wouldn’t have it any other way. Barbara has lots of hired help who tend to the needy ones and play with the healthy ones.     We have a wonderful view. We are high on a hill. Our large lot is enclosed with iron fencing and gates. The Quints are slightly famous although we never sought that. Reporters and photographers come by once in a while, especially on the birth day but we don’t let them in the grounds.     Horace, The Stalker, comes by with an interpreter. His name I have learned is Uris, not Horace. I can’t even spell his last name. He speaks little English. The first time he came by he wore a large bandage on his head and I noted his head was misshapen. I thought, really, it was four years ago that I knocked him to the sidewalk! But it wasn’t about that. He has a brain tumor. His interpreter informed me. I hope she wasn’t blaming me. Uris says he was trying to get up the courage to ask me what I thought of his paintings. He had not understood me in our class. Have I ever felt so foolish?     So now every few weeks or so I give his interpreter a critique of his newest painting. Uris and the interpreter stand outside the iron fence. I am still a little guarded with him. But he seems pleased when I think a painting is good. And listens carefully to the interpreter when I explain what it is lacking. He never fails to thank me. And of course I feel like the biggest idiot. But he still does not get inside the gate.     I am moving back to my little house in Portland. My painting has been neglected for far too long. My fingers are arthritic and sometimes shaky but I think maybe it will make me grow and maybe it will make my paintings more free. I am eighty-nine now. I must give my talent one more chance. And Barbara and the little ones will be fine here. Barbara knows it is something I must do. I will miss her and the children but we will visit. That is how it went as far as I know and maybe it is not entirely accurate as I am failing and quite aware of it. But this is what I remember and so this is what I am telling, Karin Nilsson.

You Find Yourself at a Loss Tim Moraca     On hands and knees and panting on the floor, a broken mirror reflects a fractured face you can’t recognize. Rivers of sweat drenching sickly green skin, bottom lip puffy like yesteryear’s cotton candy, but the eyes—hazy weights sunk deep—those are yours. Fragile and furry as white lab mice, the two orbs ransack the mirror’s crooked maze. But there’s no cheese, no start, no finish; no wanton scientist looms above, and the mice tails writhe through your brain and into your throat like tiny pink snakes and it makes you want to scream.     The face in the broken mirror disappears.     Under rows of blinding fluorescents, two walls and a scuffed marble floor fall away to a single point, the apex of an empty pyramid. The lines of intersection waver, curved rows of ants hypnotized, sucked out through the corner of the room. To escape! there, through the cold walls. If only the ants would pick you up and slip you out.     Looking left and right, you grasp for a true exit. A young nurse sleeps in a sprinter’s stance by the water fountain. His scrubs are purple with cartoon squirrels and speech bubbles ordering, “Go nuts!” He’s a pretty boy, pompous, grades paid for by daddy, probably has a girlfriend, too.     The squirrels prancing down his right side are soaked and dark, and a crimson puddle grows on the stone tiles below him.     You shuffle and squeak across the floor and topple his slumped body, revealing his pale face. He shares your son’s arching forehead and wavy hair. Dread holds its blade to your heart; you don’t want your son to grow up like this nurse, murdered in his late twenties at work by some crazy. A shame, really. Unfortunate collateral of the recent chaos.     Ammonia and lilies clash in the psych ward lobby. Opposite the nurse, the head security guard sits peacefully next to an old green couch. His belly fills his tan uniform and spills over his belt, and his hat barely hangs on to his tussled hair. Stretched wide in a V, his legs look relaxed, inviting as your parents’ when you were young. A thin, careful line treks across his jugular. Fresh blood trickles down his neck, a lively mountain stream over smooth pebbles. The serenity of outside beckons, but the victims are heavy shackles, pleading for a eulogy.     A young woman in white, now red, is slung over the receptionist’s window. Her left arm drapes gracefully, reaching toward the ground, her slender hand curled as if to scoop vile smears off the floor’s natural brilliance. A stabbing sensation hits your gut and your brain as you rise to one foot, the other, then all limbs outstretched for balance. You stumble toward her in cumbersome boots. Her blond-streaked hair flutters angelic around her ear; a diamond stud earring catches the artificial light and radiates rainbows. She is so beautiful. She always was.     The buzz of the lights and electronics grows and saturates the room, and you wince and turn away from her.     Lying face-down, the fourth body is splayed as if his appendages are tied by rope to bed posts. You remember him from the papers, the madman who raped and murdered a handful of homeless women last autumn. He was the target, yes. The others were not, but it doesn’t matter now. The rest of the building’s occupants evacuated, lucky for them.     You roll the patient over and grimace. His garments and skin are sliced from throat to waist, and his eyes are open, wide with shock, sparkling teal, and cutting through to your insides, to a place where night reigns under physical layers. His lip is raw and bulging. You brush the tender wound on your face. Too much like your own. But you are not him; you cannot be insane, not like him. You are the innocents, those pure and tragic martyrs.     Sirens encroach upon the room’s white noise.     You sigh and shut the patient’s eyelids.     Of course you are him. He has eyes and skin and blood, too. The four bodies rest in your hesitant presence, awaiting judgment already received. Their deaths plead for closure, for acceptance, for sympathy. You are all of them, and you want to drag them together in a pile and hug them tightly and tell them you’re sorry they’re dead. It’s not your fault. It might be your fault. You are good and evil, both at once, forever until death when you are neither: just an old vessel tattered and discarded, buried or burned. You want to die now, if only to escape the loneliness.     A megaphone booms, seeping through doors and windows. “We’re coming in.”     “For who,” you think. “For me? None of us is any better or worse, not the handsome nurse or the brave guard or the pretty girl or the evil criminal, or me.”     You panic and drop to the floor, imitating the dead. You did this. No, you couldn’t have done this. They are not strangers, but neighbors, friends, family, love. You must help them, even as the ants ignored your plea for escape. You must become their flawed hero, recomposed of the scraps of their corpses. Oh, to break free and wash away existence, but, so much stronger, entranced by the need to stay stuck here, never forgetting, images branded into your squishy, throbbing brain, melancholic and marinating in human accord.     A commotion down the hall, and, “You! Who are you? Put your hands where we can see them!”     You did this. No, you couldn’t have done this. You hate them all; you love them, too. What were you thinking? Who do you think you are?     In the broken mirror, everything else disappears. These leaden boots, these ruby-stained fingers and submerged eyes, this whimsical burden of life, these are you.

Rabbit Hole M. Robert Fisher     Was the drinking a problem or an aberration? The last thing I could remember was drinking my ninth scotch and considering making a phone call. I had no epiphany, I had no cliched moment of clarity; the sun could have never shown or maybe the clouds never parted. I was myself in all of my own infected glory.     I awoke the next morning in an unfamiliar, pastel colored bedroom, with stuffed animals lining the floor and an unconscious black girl asleep next to me that I didn’t recognize. It reeked of perfume and incense. My head wandered but didn’t spin or pound or ache. I never had a typical hangover anymore, just the feeling of my body rotting from the inside out. I’d crossed a threshold that many rarely lived to describe. Or so I imagined. Such hubris.     I watched her sleep for a few moments. Staring at the back of her head, with her messy long black hair, and bare shoulder blades, I wondered what kind of woman she could be that she let me share a bed with her. It was then I realized that we were both nude. My instinct was to run but when I sat up the pastel colors began circling around overhead and fell back into the coddled comfort of her sweet smelling, almost therapeutic, sheets and comforters.     “Ray,” she whispered shaking me.     I grunted and rolled to my side and instantly knew something felt amiss.     “Ray, wake up,” she said, “I think you had an accident.”     My eyes shot open with the kind of vigor as if waking from a bad dream. I could feel the moist, urine stained blankets and sheets around me. I could smell my squalor polluting her sanctity.     “What happened?” I asked for a lack of better things to say.     “You tell me,” she said as she hopped out of bed and began putting on some clothes.     She was beautiful, which made the circumstances all the more daunting. She didn’t go to bed with me, I thought, but a version of myself that I literally had no access to.     I sat up in her bed.     “I’m sorry,” I started, “I don’t know what to say. This should be embarrassing.”     “It isn’t?” She asked with a surprisingly amused smirk.     I don’t know,” I started, “Is it?”     She laughed. Not the kind of laugh you get when you say something intentionally funny, either.     “What happened last night?” She asked.     “What do you mean?”     “We can’t tell Tiff,” she said.     Tiffany was a girl I’d dated casually but she was always jumping in and out of relationships. She lived under the delusion that we could remain friends and I lived under the delusion that I could be happy being the person she fell on when she was unhappy. I was like her own personal drug problem, personified. The sad part was that I found comfort in it.     “Why would we?” I asked in a way to suggest that the thought would have never entered my mind. Because truth be told, if I left right that instant, I would have never known they were friends or that was how we’d met. I could have lived my life and she could have lived hers. Tiffany would have never entered anything remotely close to our brief stratosphere had she not said her name. I thought about this and realized that I didn’t remember anything and yet I didn’t care and had no concern of what might have happened. That concerned me.     “I don’t know,” she laughed unemphatically. Nervously, even. “I just know your history.”     “Well, I’m not sure what she told you, but I’d hardly call getting drunk and fucking while she ignores phone calls from her boyfriend a strong basis for a relationship.”     “Is that really all you do?”     “We talk a little.”     She laughed.     “I’m only saying you have nothing to feel guilty about.”     “But I do,” she started, “Because she has been telling me that she’s been planning on leaving him for you.”     “She likes to talk,” I said.     “What do you mean?”     “I just mean she hasn’t and saying the words doesn’t make them fact,” I started, “It bothered me at first but I can honestly say that I don’t care what she does, anymore. I have nothing to feel guilty about and neither do you.”     She rolled her eyes and started gathering my clothes together for me as if some gesture to illustrate just how annoyed she was with my lack of empathy or guilt or whatever. Another woman expecting me to be something I can never live up to or even lie because I am never told what it is.     “I can’t help feeling the way that I feel,” she said sternly as she handed me my clothes. “You should get dressed so I can drive you back to your car.”     Guilt is a funny thing. I had recently read a short story about a man in his fifties meeting all of these children he’d fathered over three decades for the first time. And most of them were angry and resentful of him never being around, despite them turning out to be fairly well adjusted adults but still had to blame something on him like their inability to get the job they want or keep a man. They weren’t drug addicts or whores. They were just miserable like most Americans. And he just sat and nodded letting the guilt sink in and swim and as he went on not defending himself, his daughters grew more and more inimical and gaudy. Like his guilt was a drug and the more he hated himself the better they felt but it was never enough. They just wanted that feeling to last forever. I just wanted him to say “You’re the result of a fucking orgasm. Let it go.” But he just sat there and nodded. I guess I am just built differently. I guess I don’t feel guilty when I am supposed to.     On the drive to my car she hardly spoke to me at all. She’d occasionally mention something about an audition or a photoshoot or an open mic she performed at. She was kind of the scourge of this city, in that she simply wanted to be famous. She likely had no desire to be good at whatever it was she did.     “I met Jude Law there and his agent there,” she said driving by some bar on Hollywood Blvd.     “Is this all supposed to impress me? Does it impress most people?”     “I don’t know what else to talk about,” she said annoyed.     “Most people that talk about art in some capacity talk about it passionately.”     “I’m very passionate. I was once on CSI.”     “I’m not sure I am following your logic.”     “It’s seen by millions of people. It was a speaking role, too.”     I just laughed and closed my eyes. She eventually pulled up beside my car.     “Hey, can I ask you something?” I started before I got out. “Why’d you take me home with you last night?”     “Well, you were nicer than you are now, funnier, too. But you looked so sad after Tiff disappeared.”     “So, you felt sorry for me?”     “Pretty much at the time but less so now.”     I smiled. It was a very clever insult and I appreciated the unexpected layered context. Or maybe I just gave her too much credit and created subtext where there was none to be intended. I liked my version better.     I got out and never saw her again. At least not yet.

Optimism Joseph Hart In a mental hospital I wrote Incessantly at verses to get good, To recreate and see my fate with Keats And write poems that were beautiful. A woman (young) on the ward with me Read my verse and sternly with a stare Told me that her friend wrote of himself (Implying some profound sincerity) Poems that were truly beautiful And when he was done destroyed them all. Then she handed back my sheaf of papers - And that was all she said.

Janet Kuypers reading the Joseph Hart poem Optimism from Down in the Dirt magazine (v099)

Watch this YouTube video read live 10/11/11 at the Café

Your Fault Laine Hissett-Bonard Dear Julian,     I just want you to know this is your fault.     A small amount of blame can be laid at my feet, but only because I should have known better. I should have known a twenty-two-year-old boy like you, with your bleached blond hair, your big brown eyes, your body like a diabetic’s sticky candy dream, would never end up with an old guy like me. For God’s sake, I’m almost thirty, practically at death’s door already.     Still, I let myself believe we had a chance. If you were unhappy, you could have let me know instead of stringing me along for over a year, calling me honey and baby and sweetheart to my face and laughing about me in your nineteen-year-old lover’s arms in my bed while I sat in a cubicle for ten hour stretches, working overtime whenever I could, desperately aiming for that promotion and the pay hike that would accompany it. All I wanted was to make enough money to give you everything you wanted. I guess I never really knew what it was you did want, or that no amount of money could buy it. Then again, maybe he could be bought. It’s a pity I’ll never have the opportunity to find out. Nothing would satisfy me more than letting you walk in on me with your precious Kyle and watching your face crumple and witnessing your heart break the same way you witnessed mine when I walked in on the two of you.     I’m also to blame for putting up with your bullshit for thirteen months. That’s another reason I should have known better. If you were someone my own age, I never would have allowed myself to be trampled on like a mildewed bathmat. I was blinded by your beauty, obsessed with your body, intoxicated by the taste of you, and struck dumb by your endless stream of bubbly, inane chatter. It didn’t matter how often you got drunk and insulted me, or, worse yet, got even drunker and hit me. Your rage was as intense as it was inexplicable; if I only knew it was triggered by your passionate urge to be with someone who wasn’t me – by your feelings of helplessness at being “trapped” in a relationship with an old man – I would have set you free.     That’s one thing that really burns my ass, Jules – you were by no means trapped. If you had only told me you didn’t want to be with me anymore, I never would have forced you to stay. I know why you didn’t want to leave, though; I was your meal ticket. As long as I worked and let you live for free in my apartment, you never had to do a thing, aside from your infrequent auditions. I don’t know why you haven’t landed an Oscar-worthy role yet; no one knows better than me what a convincing actor you are.     I only wish I hadn’t given so much of myself to you. My self-worth no longer exists; I only saw myself as an extension of you, validated by your love and your place in my life, and now that I no longer have either, I may as well cease to exist. That’s why you’re reading this letter. I’m going to leave it on the kitchen table on top of the box of your things that you asked me to have ready for you. I’m assuming you’ll be here today; you’d never leave your precious laptop in my hands for longer than a day. If you’re reading this and it’s not Tuesday, well... cover your nose before you come into the bedroom. It’s not going to be pretty, but again, I can’t stress this enough: this is your fault.     Just to make things easier for the medical examiner, in case it’s not immediately obvious, yes, I took my own life. (It feels weird to write that, considering that as I write this, I’m still perfectly alive, but by the time you read this, these words will be true.) The two things I didn’t put into your box of stuff were your bottles of Xanax and Ambien. It’s lucky for me that you refilled both over the weekend, and even luckier that you didn’t have time to collect your belongings before I chased you out into the hallway in your underwear along with your pretty little boyfriend.     I didn’t dare ask at the time, and it’s probably good that I’ll never know... but I can’t help wondering if he’s as good to you as I was. I wonder if he’ll meet you at the door with a silent, non-judgmental hug when you get home from another failed audition with your lips curved in a frown and your eyes cast downward. Will he get up extra early before work to cook you breakfast? Will he put up with your violent mood swings and incessant drinking? Will he pick up, without complaining, the clothes you leave on the floor and the dishes you leave in the sink (not three feet from the dishwasher) and all the other shit you leave strewn around as if it’s his job to clean up behind you? I wonder if he’ll think your ass is worth it, at least for as long as I did.     That’s the worst part. For all that time, at least at the time, your ass was worth it. My logical mind was clouded by it. I was able to put everything negative aside and be sustained by the mere thought of climbing into bed with you at the end of a long day. I probably wouldn’t have felt that way if I knew how much time you spent in that same bed with Kyle. In retrospect, I should have known something was up. I never saw you lift a finger around the house, but the sheets were always clean when I got home.     I’ve ceased to care what anyone thinks of me. I’ll be a laughingstock, but it won’t matter, because I won’t be here to endure it. My coworkers will gossip about the pathetic loser in the back cubicle who killed himself because his barely legal boyfriend cheated on him. They’ll never know – because you’re the only one who does, and you’ll never admit it – just how bad things were, or how much of my self-respect was tied up in my relationship with you, or how utterly worthless I feel now that you’re not a part of me. They’ll never know how mercilessly cruel you were when you drank, or how deeply the things you said cut me. Every word was like a knife carving away a little piece of my soul until all that remained of me was a shell – filled only by you, by the words of love and devotion you spoke when you were sober, by your lies and false promises of forever.     You know, I actually feel bad for Kyle. I’m sure you say the same things to him – if not the awful, ugly, terrible things you said to me while drunk, then at least the same promises and declarations of love. A month ago, if anyone had asked, I would have sworn I knew you better than anyone on the planet did. I bet if anyone asked him right now, he’d say the same. Do you plan to tear him apart from the inside and leave him shattered and empty, too? There’s no way of knowing. The only person who knows your intentions is you, and no matter what you said or how earnestly you said it, I’d never believe a word out of your mouth again.     I’m glad I’ll never have to speak to you again, actually. I tell myself I’m too damaged by your lies to trust you again, but I think if you took me into your arms and stared into my eyes the way you used to and just once tucked my hair behind my ear, I’d fall in love with you again on the spot. It’s stupid and self-destructive, yes, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I’d rather be self-destructive on my own, though, so I’m not going to wait around for you and find out.     Yet... there’s a part of me that does want to see you again. That’s how strong your hold on me is, even now, after you’ve already chewed me up and spit me out, even after you said the nastiest things to me you could come up with. If I was the melodramatic type, I’d wait until you got here and make you watch as I offed myself in the most gruesome, bloody, disturbing way possible. Instead, I’m taking the coward’s way out, swallowing some pills – probably washing them down with some of the booze you left that I paid for– and crawling into bed, where I can still smell your hair bleach on the pillowcase, to die alone, the way I was apparently destined to do anyway.     Now I’m getting angry, angrier than I was for that first split second when I came home from work early yesterday to surprise you and ended up getting the surprise of my life instead. You evil, sociopathic, narcissistic little shit! You thought nothing of the way I felt; you didn’t care in the least that I devoted my entire life to you, spent every minute of my time thinking of ways to make you smile, spent every spare penny I had on you, opened my home and my heart to you, and made a complete fool out of myself falling for your every lie. You don’t care what you’ve done to me or how much pain you’ve caused me. You’re probably smiling while you read this; I wouldn’t be surprised to see you chuckling over my suicide note and maybe even blowing a great big bubble with that nauseating watermelon bubblegum you like.     I need time to think.     It’s an hour later now, and my entire perspective has changed. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to feel this way. I never thought I could hate you, Jules, but for better or worse, everything I feel or think or am now is because of you. It doesn’t seem fair that I should have to bear this burden alone when you’re the reason for it. Don’t get your hopes up; I’m still going to do it, but I’m not going to do it alone. Maybe you’ll never read this after all. Then again, maybe I’ll have time to read it to you before the light in your beautiful brown eyes dims. I’ve carried you, drunk, to bed enough times to know I can handle your weight. You’ll be here within an hour or two. I’m glad you still have your key. You won’t expect me to be waiting behind the door with the big kitchen knife. I can’t wait to see the look on your face. The bed has soaked up enough of your bodily fluids by now that it won’t matter when your blood drenches the mattress.     The bright spot in this is that you’ll fucking hate to die lying next to me in bed. If there was one way you wouldn’t want your charmed, vapid little life to end, it would be just like that. I owe you at least that much – making your last few moments on earth as miserable as possible.     Never forget: this is your fault.     Fuck you very much,     Shaun DeVille **     Dear Kyle,     Trust me; I did you a favor.     Best of luck,     Shaun Deville **     Dear whomever reads this and/or finds the bodies,     I’m only sorry you had to be the one to find us. Otherwise, not at all.     Sincerely,     Shaun DeVille

11:11 Robert D. Lyons Make a wish, It’s 11:11. The moon passes through the shutters Just enough to barely light her face. The old, hand-me-down spring mattress creaks as she pulls up her legs. She sits Indian style with her eyes fixed out the window. Her chapped lips are mumbling something, But I can’t make out a word. Every night she counts the seconds as soon as the hands of the clock Hover above 11:11. She knows these aspirations help no-one. Still, she sits on the corner of the bed every night Like she is drifting in and out of some hazy dream. I always ask her what she is wishing for. She says she wishes for the things she already has. She wishes because she knows that with each tick of the clock All her loves are fading away. She wishes because she can’t bear the thought of losing them. She wishes because it makes her life feel more than real, More than just the hands ticking away. When she looks into the starry night the world is just a fairy tale. It makes her feel content, As if her wish already came true.

The Necromancer Corry O’Neill The Necromancer says, “Let The rotting world Rot, For there Is No compassion Where there Is No grave. And there Is No grave In the rotting world, Unless There there Is Compassion,” The Necromancer says.

Janet Kuypers reading the Corry O’Neill poem the Necromancer from Down in the Dirt magazine (v099)

Watch this YouTube video read live 10/11/11 at the Café

The Artist’s Self Portrait Ben Macnair He wears his scars with pride, pulls at the wounds until they bleed. A face like a map of experience. He has the face he wanted, but not the one he needs. The tattoos are not permanent marks of pain, they are the rituals he went through to join the tribe, and the arguments he has are not with himself, but with an unjust God. Darkness is hungry. it threatens to shallow you, and in the foreground stands a man, as he sees himself, at the mid-point stage of a play that is only written. He is all splodges and lines, closed eyes blocking out the world, a Boxer’s nose, caused by drink and not an opponent’s fist. An image where life has removed hope, hanging on a wall of a millionaire’s holiday home, where the canvas is seen as being far more valuable than the artist who poured himself into Lines, splodges and whirls, half a century ago.

Crazy Janet Kuypers 1994     This dialogue is transcribed from repeated visits with a patient in Aaronsville Correctional Center in West Virginia. Madeline*, a thirty-six year old woman, was sentenced to life imprisonment after the brutal slaying of her boyfriend during sexual intercourse. According to police reports, Madeline sat with the remains of the man for three days after the murder until police arrived on the scene. They found her in the same room as the body, still coated with blood and malnourished. Three doctors studied her behavior for a total period of eight months, and the unanimous conclusion they reached was that Madeline was not of sound mind when she committed the act, which involved an ice pick, an oak board from the back of a chair, and eventually a chef’s knife. Furthermore, she continued to show signs of both paranoia and delusions of grandeur long after the murder, swaying back and forth between the two, much like manic depression.     For three and a half years Madeline has stayed at the Aaronsville Correctional Center, and she has shown no signs of behavioral improvement. She stays in a room by herself, usually playing solitaire on her bed. She talks to herself regularly and out loud, usually in a slight Southern accent, although not in a very loud tone, according to surveillance videotape. Her family abandoned her after the murder. Occasionally she requests newspapers to read, but she is usually denied them. She never received visitors, until these sessions with myself.     The following excerpts are from dialogues I have had with her, although I am tempted to say that they are monologues. She wasn’t very interested in speaking with me, rather, she was more interested in opening herself up to someone for the first time in years, someone who was willing to listen. At times I began to feel like a surrogate parent. I try not to think of what will happen when our sessions end. * Madeline is not her real name.         I know they’re watching me. They’ve got these stupid cameras everywhere - see, there’s one behind the air vent there, hi there, and there’s one where the window used to be. They’ve probably got them behind the mirrors, too. It wouldn’t be so bad, I guess, I mean, there’s not much for me to be doing in here anyway, but they watch me dress, too, I mean, they’re watching me when I’m naked, now what’s that going to do to a person? I don’t know what they’re watching for anyway, it’s not like I can do anything in here. I eat everything with a spoon, I’ve never been violent, all I do, almost every day, is sit on this bed and play solitaire.     Solitaire is really relaxing, you know, and I think it keeps your brain alive, too. Most people think you can’t win at solitaire, that the chances of winning are like two percent or something. But the thing is, you can win at this game like over half the time. I think that’s the key, too - knowing you can win half the time. I mean, the last four rounds I played, I won twice. Now I’m not saying that’s good or anything, like praise me because I won two rounds of solitaire, but it makes a point that as long as you know what you’re doing and you actually think about it, you can win. The odds are better.     I think people just forget to watch the cards. Half the time the reason why you lose is because you forget something so obvious. You’re looking for a card through the deck and the whole time it’s sitting on another pile, just waiting to be moved over, and the whole time you forget to move it. People just forget to pay attention. They got to pay attention.     You know, I’d like to see the news. I hate t.v., but I’d like to see what acts other people are doing. Anything like mine? Has anyone else lost it like me? You know, I’ll bet my story wasn’t even on the news for more than thirty seconds. And I’ll bet the news person had a tone to their voice that was just like “oh, the poor crazy thing,” like, “that’s what happens when you lose it,”     But I want to see what’s happening in the real world. I just wanna watch to see what, you know, the weather is like, even though I haven’t seen the sun in a year or two. Or, or to hear sports scores. They won’t let me have a t.v. in the room. I think they think that I’m gonna hot-wire it or something, like I’m going to try to electrocute the whole building with a stupid television set. They let me have a lamp in the room, like I can’t hurt someone with that, but no t.v. They won’t even let me have a newspaper. What can a person do with a newspaper? Light in on fire or something? If I had matches or something. But it’s like this: I’ve never been violent to nobody in all of the time I’ve been in here. I haven’t laid a hand on a guard, even though they’re tried too many times to lay a hand on me, and I haven’t cause one single little problem in this whole damn place, and this is what I get - I don’t even get a t.v. or a newspaper.     You know, I don’t really have a Southern accent. See? Don’t I sound different with my regular voice? I picked it up when I started sounding crazy. See, I’m not really crazy, I just know the kind of shit they do to you in prison. I think it’s bad enough here, I would’ve had the shit kicked out of me, Id’ve been sodomized before I knew what hit me. I think this voice makes me sound a little more strange. I’m actually from New York, but I mean, changing the voice a little just to save me from going to prison, well, I can do that. Here it’s kind of nice, I don’t have to deal with people that often, and all the crazy people around here think I’m some sort of tough bitch because I mutilated someone who was raping me. Oh, you didn’t hear that part of the story, did you? Those damn lawyers thought that since I wasn’t a virgin I must have been wanting him. And he wasn’t even my boyfriend - he was just some guy I knew, we’d go out every couple of weeks, and I never even slept with him before.     What a fucked up place. You see, I gotta think of it this way: I really had no choice but to do what I did. In a way it was self-defense, because I didn’t want that little piece of shit to try to do that to me, I mean, what the Hell makes him think he can do that? Where does he get off trying to take me like that, like I’m some butcher-shop piece of meat he can buy and abuse or whatever? Well anyway, I know part of it all was self defense and all, but at the same time I know I flipped, but its because of, well shit that happened in my past. I never came from any rich family like you, I never even came from a family with a dad, and when you got all these boyfriends coming in and hitting you or touching you or whatever, you know it’s got to mess you up. Yeah, I know, people try to use the my-parents-beat-me line and it’s getting to the point where no one really believes it anymore, but if a person goes through all their life suppressing something that they shouldn’t have to suppress then one day it’s going to just come up to them and punch them in the face, it’s going to make them go crazy, even if it’s just for a little while.     Society’s kind of weird, you know. It’s like they teach you to do things that aren’t normal, that don’t feel right down deep in your bones, but you have to do them anyway, because someone somewhere decided that this would be normal. Everyone around you suppresses stuff, and when you see that it tells you that you’re supposed to be hiding it from the rest of the world, too, like if we all just hide it for a while, it will all go away. Maybe it does, until someone like me blows up and can’t take hiding all that stuff anymore, but then the rest of the world can just say that we’re crazy and therefore it’s unexplainable why we went crazy and then they can just brush it all off and everything is back to normal again. It’s like emotion. People are taught to hide their emotions. Men are taught not to cry, women are taught to be emotional and men are told to think that it’s crazy. So when something really shitty happens to someone - like a guy loses his job or something - and he just sits in front of a friend and breaks down and cries, the other guy just thinks this guy is crazy for crying. Then the guy rejects the guy that’s crying, making him feel even worse, making the guy bottle it back up inside of him.     I think people are like Pepsi bottles. You remember those glass bottles? Pop always tasted better in those bottles, you could just like swig it down easier, your lips fit around the glass neck better or something. I wonder why people don’t use them anymore? Well, I think people are like Pepsi bottles, like they have the potential for all of this energy, and the whole world keeps shaking them up, and some people lose their heads and the top goes off and all of this icky stuff comes shooting all around and other Pepsi bottles want to hide from it and then the poor guy has no Pepsi left. And how can you do anything when you have no Pepsi left? Or maybe you do lose it, but you still have some Pepsi left in you, and people keep thinking that you don’t have any left, and then they treat you like you shouldn’t be allowed to tie your own shoelaces or you should be watched while you’re getting dressed.     Can’t you turn those cameras off?     I heard this story in here sometime about Tony, this guy that was in here for murder, and after he was in here he went crazy and cut off his own scrotum. I don’t know how a man survives something like that, but I guess he did, because he was in here, and from what I hear he was using the pay phones to call 800 numbers to prank whoever answered at the other end. Well, I guess he kept calling this one place where these women would answer the phone, and they got fed up with it, I guess, and traced it or something. They got the number for this hospital, and talked to his doctor. I think he told them that Tony cut his balls off, now I thought doctor-patient records were private, but I suppose it doesn’t matter, because we’re just crazy prisoners, killers who don’t matter anyway, but he told these girls that Tony cut his balls off a whole two months ago. And then he called them back, talking dirty to them, not knowing they knew he was a murderer with no balls and they laughed and made fun of him and told him they knew, and he hung up the phone and never called them back. True story, swear to God. Can you just imagine him wondering how they knew? Or were they just making a joke, or...     Did you know that I write? I figured that if they won’t let me read anything, maybe I could put stuff down on paper and read it to myself, I guess. I try to write poetry, but it just don’t come out right, but I’ve been trying to write a thing about what I went through, you know what I’m talking about? Well, I just figure that if other people that are in prison can get best sellers and make a ton of money, then so can I, I mean, my story is better than half the stuff that’s out there, and I know there are a lot of women who have a little part of them that wants to do what I did. I think all women feel it, but the most of them are taught to suppress it, to keep it all bottled in like that. But now that I think of it, what am I going to do with a bunch of money anyway? I’m never going to get out of here to enjoy it or anything. Anyway, how would I get someone to want to read it in the first place, now that everyone thinks that I’m crazy.     Sometimes I get so depressed. It’s like I’m never going to get out of here. I think I wanted to have kids one day. It’s easier, I guess, not having to see kids, I guess then I don’t miss them too much, but...     For the longest time they tried to get doctors to come in here and talk to me, and you know what they did? They got men doctors - one after another - and then they wondered why the Hell I didn’t want to talk to them. Amazing. People really just don’t think, do they?     I guess it’s hard, being in here and all, I mean. I was going to go back to school, I had already taken the GED and graduated high school, and I was going to go to community college. It was going to be different. Sometimes I wonder, you know, why this had to happen to me, why I had to snap. I really don’t think I could have controlled it, I don’t think this could have happened any other way. It’s hard. I have to find stuff to do, because otherwise all I’d want to do is sleep all day and night, and I suppose I could, but then what would happen to me? At least if I write a book about my life, about this whole stupid world, then maybe everyone would at least understand. It wasn’t really my fault, I mean, I think we women have enough to deal with just in our regular lives and then they keep piling on this sexism crap on us, and then expect us not to be angry about it because we’re taught to deal with it all of our lives. Maybe this guy was just the straw that broke the camel’s back or something, maybe he was just another rapist, maybe he was just another drunk guy who thought that he could do whatever he wanted with me because he was the man and I was his girl, or just some chick that didn’t matter or whatever, but shit, it does matter, at least to me it does.     I know I’ve got a lot of healing to do, but I haven’t really thought about doing it. I mean, what have I got to heal for anyway? To get out of here and go to prison? Then I’ll just get abused by guards over there, have to watch my back every second of the day. At least here people watch my back for me. They think everything and anything in the world could harm me, even myself, so they’re so overprotective that nothing can go wrong, unless it goes wrong in my own mind.

Janet Kuypers Bio     Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.     She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.     She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.     Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the weekly Chicago poetry open mic at the Café, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).     In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, and the Stories of Women. Three collection books were also published of her work in 2004, Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art).