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Augsburg buying Ecstasy

Skip to main content. Main menu Home. Augsburg University Archives. Search Term. Home College verse -- Augsburg University x Search results. Search results. All rights reserved. There is no why. Los gallos cantan tu amanecer, y te rondan The roosters sing your dawn, and trucks camiones sin mufle en tus calles. Without mufflers circle about your streets. And between blocks made of cement, Y entre cuadras de cemento, I feel what lies rooted beneath. You tread on the earth with your profound feet, Pisas la tierra con tus pies profundos. Amidst your foundations. Te rodeaban los cerros de plata, Silver hills surrounded you, coronados de cedro, caoba, y guayabo. Crowned with cedar, mahogany, and guava trees. Your rain forest can still be felt in the air. Tegucigalpa, al no verte, te imagino. The yellow on the kitchen wall, pots where the frijoles cook for of sunflowers vibrates on the hand-painted toys. Now these mugs, the ones Dulces wrapped in red, yes it will be spicy. Anything dripped with glaze on the inside, are the best for a you could want lives in mercados. The fruits are fresh. Its skin taut with with such love and care like everything is here. The the promise of relief and you find yourself with a box salsa for the tacos is always spicier than the merchants of them. It is fine, it is only four dollars. The best smells live here, la comida is made confess. La gente drizzle that on white tablecloth. It drips with glaze that shines in salsa verde and noses soon run. The aguas frescas the sun. All kinds of pottery, small lizards that hang are swallowed down burning throats. Antojitos are 13 sold in abundance. Here in the mercado we find her, amid the that children rarely hold, at all the alebrijes. She ignores sellers of pottery and food, amid the mugs with color the ones that cost siete. She knows her dad will buy dripped on them and the salsa que no pica. So many to choose She loves the mercado for these reasons. The from, animals and non animals, all colors that god has colors are her blanket, her relief in this heat. She is safe created sit on the alebrijes skin. Here people do not look at her when she speaks to her ama in the language her ancestors were thinks, which do I want? Which alebrije will sleep next forced to learn. Here she can wander around, look at to me and ama? Her dreams wake her, when the night the alebrijes that she so much loves, here she is safe. Which will be Cual quieres? The She and her papa are standing in the middle burden Rosa carries is much too heavy for a child. It of the mercado, between all vendors and colors. Eyes dark brown, with wrinkles that wink at you, and make you feel warm. It is Friday, the end of the from the night Rosa and her padres came. How dark quincena, when money seems plentiful. The mercado and cold it was, in the desert at night. Her ama gave is busy, everyone buying what they need and what her the last of their water. Her papa wanted to surprise her with a new focus to what others cannot see, did not know hunger addition to her collection. So they stand in the heat of there but she knew pain it was a different pain, one the midday, her eyes big, sweat on her forehead. She knew how hungry her parents were. She stares at them in awe. Up, down, up, down. Left to right. Rosa saw many things, pobrecita. She knows In her dreams, she walks the desert alone. Her right but will not sell. The landscape never ending. The earth heat beating down on him for months maybe, alone. They cry and hope that kinship instead of loneliness. She is their cactus flower. She likes when he laughs her. In her dreams she is also careful of the snakes. There is no color, just the shadows playing tricks and objects wrapped up. They look up on melting into others. None only thoughts. Like the cactus flower, maybe she will come. The girl feels the sun, how it seeks to touch spend her whole life here. Her re birth, her blooming, more than her exposed neck. She wishes this moment her death. The alebrijes, animal and non animal are there on the alebrijes, watching how their heads bobble too, on the windowsill. Her papa tells her que todo va with the absent wind. Who will protect her? They stand by the vendor while the pig gets vendor whose skin was loved by the sun and her new So many to choose from. Animal and non puerco wrapped in newspaper. Her dad looks, and wonders for a minute, Que es eso? What is it? It looks like an animal. A pig that does not look like a pig. It was honestly 15 Here, I will repeat again, she is safe. I can feel them there, all the time. Listening, sitting in the rocking chair as I read poetry aloud to them, looking at me patiently as I take breaks to absorb sections, coming over to lean on my shoulder when I close my eyes. They are strangers and loved ones alike, peering in curiously as I tend to my plants and then vanishing, popping in if I mention a name that they are connected to, stopping to smell the mint and the incense and enjoying the fires I light for them on the coffee table. I am - not quite afraid, but I am buzzing, anxious. It is just under the surface, all the time - that pull of the connection, to the spirits that show up around me. In this, I have become more aware, that when I close my eyes, I can feel something within me - my spirit, my soul, the ants that creep along my veins They are trying to detach from my physical being, become moths to force their way out of my pores, and the only thing keeping me anchored is the cat lying on my hips, the only thing keeping me rooted her steady breathing to remind me of her living heart. In this, someone - perhaps, myself - has pried apart my ribs so that my heart and lungs are out in the open, panting, beating, desperately gulping in air and blood, and I am exposed and aware of everything I can feel the oil under my skin, pooling in my elbows and my left hip, circling around my spine and my throat and attempting to creep up up up to join with the dark something that sits in my mid-left-frontal Cortex And in all of this people tell you to conquer your biggest fear, but how the fuck are you supposed to conquer it when that fear is the death of a loved one? Nineteen, and, just like, that he is gone. No one is supposed to be fatherless at nineteen, at eighteen, at twelve - and yet this is all across the world, these griefs and sufferings. They find a trapped mouse, still alive on its trap, slowly dying of starvation, dehydration, of the twisted position it is stuck in, and there are choruses of ewwww and oh my gosh! They discuss what to do with it - and it is going to die, no matter the conversation I listen to, no doubt about that. I can feel the mouse, though, and I am struck silent - I can feel her spirit seeping away, the quiet struggle and the unknown acceptance, my heart matching hers it is a female, I know it, somehow , and I feel like collapsing in sorrow for another life s gone. It is morning, and I am mourning again. All I want is to feel alive, in this dead world of spirits and the creeping fingers of death, always reaching, reaching. I am Itching for my body to bloom - bloom with ink, spiraling out of my skin in all the just-hidden places, to make physical my thoughts and aches and pains. At least this is something I can control, right? When did the World start to feel so empty, so cavernous? Perhaps, at a point of intersection we agreed to exist outside one another, and carried on- perpendicularly. The wind is the only direction I can find- although fickle and inconstant. I hear it whisper through the trees and I find more meaning in the leaves than in the voices of any person around. It is me and it is them and I am lonely. I can only wait and hope that the quiet emptiness pacifies my bleeding mind. And then what? The time traveler sat down next to the witch at a bench outside, both an hour early to a movie they managed to be two hours late to. Before the movie can even dance with British action movie stars, the mother calls. Higher in, peaceful fog, the cover of wistful solitude. Steady footing a luxury, light and swift on narrow paths. Grandma Mary had paper was being passed around the stuffy written her dying wishes so openly and honestly, and hospice room among my aunts, uncles, and her tender words were just too much to handle right cousins. It was the middle of March, and unseasonably now. I read her words over and over, and before long I warm. I was just in time to hear my aunt retelling the nurses claimed to read to my dying grandmother the story of how she discovered the yellow paper every night. In sweaty palms, and I immediately felt her words pull at a twisted sort of way I think we were all thankful she a soft spot inside me: Carry a rose down the aisle for was not conscious right now. The nurses told us each me, and I will carry you in my heart. Feeling unhinged by my sudden onset of tears, I peeled myself off the ground and swiftly left, Catholic Church. The whole pinned up around her neck. She held a single rose. There were white calla lilies that looked like tiny upside-down and those around me were laying sniffling heads wedding gowns, delicate yellow layered roses like the on shoulders and clutching the arms of loved ones. The with black loafers that prayed for mercy while they choir voices picked up where the bells left off, and I groaned in the silent church with each step he took. I smiled into the rose body was glistening with what could have only been and thought about the story she told me right before the Holy Spirit, and he dabbed his face not for tears— I graduated high school. He made his way to the podium and I closed my eyes, and the two of us were in began to speak. Grandma had been writing to her beau at Gram said. Grandpa fell I was picturing her at eighteen. Her knobby in love with her through her letters, and when they hands that held coupons and bills before me were walked down the aisle she held white calla lilies. It is now covered in elbow-length white satin gloves. The because of this story that I believe in the power of heated blanket that covered her legs was replaced by writing and the power in my own words. Mom squeezed my arm and asked if I was okay. She was handing me a tissue but raised an eyebrow once she saw my dry face. I told her I was The fresh smell of the flowers inside the church was replaced by the earthy scent of wet pavement in fine. It was drizzling over my curly red it for me. The slick mud make a big emotional scene, this was the time where clung to my black velvet heels. My family members it would be most acceptable—even welcomed. And were weeping all around me as we made our way to yet here I was coming up empty in the emotions the open wound in the ground. Soon it was over, and the choir began to body is going to lie from now on? I shifted my weight sing once more. I looked at my family so light of my life, was going to be buried beneath this distraught and I felt out of place, but what else is crooked red headstone and sloshy wet grass. Father new? I touched the little green-looped ribbon with a Mark had sent his assistant out to say his blessings. It alcohol and old Irish pub tunes she used to sing to me. My little Irish grandma, who celebrated Saint bury her in the rain, apparently. I moved out of the way and stood by of condolences and ushered us to come forward with myself, and I smiled. This was her final time making her our final goodbyes. My cousin lay spread-eagle over way through a church aisle, and she was carried like a the casket, and I looked down at the charm bracelet 37 The second-hand priest who was much hugging my wrist. Gram and I loved to speculate about the deeper meanings of dreams, and so she indulged Once again I was back in her warm cottage, me with this gem. Gram asked me to reach for a catalogue. I winced. Gram carried on as if nothing happened. Gram was so excited though, and in the end I settled on a silver charm bracelet with shamrocks and tiny silver keys. When I woke up that morning, I saw that I continued to look down at the charm my light switch had been unexplainably turned on, and bracelet, on display in a very different atmosphere, I smiled, knowing she had finally finished her dream. I spun it around and it made a tinkling sound, as if it were laughing, and it drowned out the memories carrying me and keeping me safe. As long weeping around me. This was the last goodbye to her. I placed my hand on the smooth mahogany wood, her doses of morphine. I was squeezing her hand one last time. The burial The hospice walls were listening in on us. The was over, and we slowly drifted away. You look good in my sloppy camo sweater. Did you ever think you would feel so sorely ready Well, for that summer breeze did you expect it to turn out that whipped up dust and grass clippings well after you spoke your mind the day you packed your books and trinkets at lunch and all the extra notepads and everyone was silent? Roses are dust blowing in the storm that was built not formed. Myself a survivor, I boasted. Greg told me I better harvest my luck during a luck famine. I panicked and threw off my shoes believing the red ants tore through the soles. My lungs were gnawed on. He refused. Our struggle needed an audience and Hermes arrived, but not for free. He stretched out a hand. I dove into the sea, my right hand over my left to become a sharp knife that could cut through choppy waters. I needed to make a bouquet out of deceased coral, believing there was a chance my lost humanity would scamper back and lock itself into my hands. The power struggle between the two came to an abrupt halt as street to the park by the house he lived in at the time. He then proceeded to place his head through the birth a boy. My father therefore put more effort into loop this knot created, tightening the rope until he making his relationship with her work than he could stopped taking in air. It the rope snapped. Instead of the permanent crushing was within the first two years of this timeframe that I of his windpipe, he got a couple scrapes and bruises started to notice my father preferred his new son to me. Because of the day I was born. It only name for me. Both parents were not far out of high took a few minutes, so I quickly put the packet back school and were unmarried. As such, my mother into my folder and shoved it in my backpack, climbing wanted me—not her first child but her first child by up off the floor as I did so. Much more wandered into the living room in hopes of watching traditional, my father thought I should share in the some TV. The sight meeting my eyes seemed normal fame that came with being so close to the heights. Similar expressions time before they finally reached a conclusion. In the filled all three of their faces, a mixture of happiness end, my mother won. Done with everything required of me, I and contentment. They laughed, I walked over to the armchair in the to get pregnant. She, unlike my mother, managed to corner, and we sat watching cartoons together. Why did I get stuck with this returned to our own home, I found myself struggling failure of a daughter? My eyes were drawn to the darkened periwinkle of my bedroom wall time and time again. I expected to get a score similar to hers, only a couple of points above His first text that day was something that I probably should have seen coming. For years I had the average. Once the shock of so I should have been used to it. Still, the message seeing the handwritten number on the little slip of came as a surprise. I paused my conversation with paper wore off, I pulled out my phone and texted my my boyfriend and unlocked my phone to see what father. I regretted it almost instantly. A few minutes later, I got a reply. You a grown. A deadly stare, eyes screaming at me Reading the words off my phone screen, fury started to bubble up inside of me. In fact, I hardly ever did. Knowing that any sort to send the water of my sanity over the edge of of misstep could lead to this sort of reaction, though, the pot. As it came into contact with the burner, it I had made sure to tell him before I left that my completely evaporated. When my father chose to ignore me tone until finally he picked up the call. We are going to talk about this right now. He takes his frustrations out on you blur. Instead of a three-lane highway, all I saw was a sea all the time, I thought to myself. It always blows over of black. The pounding of the warriors desperately in a couple of days. Slowly but surely the screaming started to settle into a whisper, at which point I turned to continue after a few seconds of silence. Because you already know how this is going to turn out if we start talking Not even two minutes later, my phone pinged about this right now. When the on the 1st. The battlefield was empty to become the child you thought you deserved. I tried my save for a few raging questions. What kind of father can focus so mold. Maybe it would have been better for both of us if I intensely on creating the perfect daughter that he had been able to. Maybe you could have had a better life can completely ignore his breaking of her? Not just for your sake, but for his. I had If things still fail to go as desired, however, know that I done absolutely nothing wrong, and yet he still felt refuse to give up hope. And I will continue to too many times and I am done dealing with it. You are survive, despite all that you put me through. I will continue to persevere until Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes, and my I either gain the approval I so desperately want from you throat swelled to the point of almost entirely closing. Either outcome will have the same effect. I no longer wanted to tell my father his decision was Love, going to make it impossible for me to go to college. At that moment in time, I no longer had a life to ruin. My brownness is stuck between borders. It is stuck between: whites mispronouncing Saira for they do not know how to caress my name on their tongues and a land I do not know. I ache. I exist between borders. I heal and allow myself to grieve over what has been taken. I allow myself to grieve and remember I resist between borders. My skin is blessed, with the color of earth. I allow myself now to live, to love between borders. Carpenter say she was coming? Glenn Elementary were turning red and yellow and gold. Instead, she crossed her arms 67 Ms. Heller, captain of room , let out a sigh and planted her loafer-clad feet firmly on the floor. He sat with his forehead touching his end of it. Heller said. Did you say something? Heller said, and began chose to ignore the suggestion. She uncrossed one twisting her earring again. What am I supposed to remember. Once she was sure the teacher was gone, the secretary turned to James, her hand covering the James waited for the secretary to turn away from him before posing his next question. I swear I told her to go about a hundred times since she came in here. He Ms. Abruptly, Ms. Heller reached out a hand and patted the desk twice. The secretary looked up but did moment and then spoke. I mean— how many kids usually end up here on a regular day? Is that what you mean? Not too many. Are a lot of to slip through. Which he did without making a noise until the door slammed shut behind him and he broke into a run down the deserted hallway. Outside, in the October and arranged her face into a smile, tilting her head afternoon, the school grounds were empty. She by the playground and the occasional bird flying over probably thought the motion looked kindly, maybe the athletic fields. James stopped and looked at it all for make her feel better rather than the child she was a moment, his fingers still hooked around his belt supposedly comforting. About halfway down the path, he stopped then turned back to the papers on her desk. She set the pencil down and switched the tapped at the concrete with the toe of his shoe. Then, phone to her other ear. Although coat, and looked rather casual standing there in the the ground was soft, it was still cool on his skin. He grass with his hand in his pockets and his tie loosened dug the heels of his hands into the dirt and rubbed around his neck. He looked like the type of man whose at it until the friction warmed it and the dirt smeared desk probably contained at least one drawer with, if across his palms. He was occupied with the dirt for not a full-sized at least a travel-sized, bottle of aspirin. Mitchell said, and lowered himself down onto the concrete. Mitchell said. By now both his eyes and seemingly unweighted by an attachment to any were open but he was still lying flat on his back. All this beautiful weather and all. Mitchell shrugged. No he lay. I guess. Mitchell repeated. He scratched at his head and then crossed his arms. James frowned at this but did not say anything. Mitchell let the question mull over in his down the front of his shirt. When he found the words he wanted, he spoke, although pensively as to give the illusion that he was finding the words as he went. While he thought, he tried to straighten Ticonderoga pencils and little girls with them stuck in Mr. If I had to guess. Well, my Mr. Mitchell watched as James teetered on mother and father I guess. He kicked at a few leaves on the wall and spoke again. Mitchell could think to say. Mitchell patted the concreate beside himself where James had been like an imitation of a sneer than an actual sneer, like he sitting just moments before. He pinched the stem between his index than thirty seconds. He watched it until it lay still. I remember. And why should I believe you? The but still insisting on it nonetheless. That was me. Only occasionally a wind came through and shook the trees, but even Mr. Mitchell wagged an I-should-have-known finger in the air and nodded his head theatrically. It was. Mitchell said, breaking the and thin throughout the school grounds, the way silence. Just after the far-off bird fell silent, the quiet spoke to illustrate what he meant, although James was between the two by the wall was broken. On the wall, Mr. Mitchell shifted easily hug them to his chest. With his right leg pulled up He breathed in as if he were going to say something onto the grass now and bent at the knee, Mr. Mitchell else but then stopped, apparently thinking better of raised his eyebrows at the boy and waited for him to it. James, too, took in a rather deep, although shaky, say something else. When he finally did speak, it was breath and then remained silent. He began to wipe at in the same small voice as before. It was just sitting there. Mitchell was still; he was waiting for James to speak, not prompting the boy in the slightest. In fact, he looked almost accustomed to the act of silently waiting for the boy to speak, hardly moving at all for fear of disrupting him. On these rocks depends the fertility of the earth. De estas piedras depende The gods keep watch; Cipactli, la fertilidad de la tierra. Along the horizon that passes through worlds. Smooth stucco painted red, El templo gris recuerda cuando llevaba And when the gods were honored un estuco pulido pintado de rojo, In the form of a fetus buried inside the uterus of the earth. In the womb of the volcanic earth. Rises up in light, reflecting the sun. The energy crisscrosses the stone steps Al fondo de la calzada, se levanta iluminada From side to side, zigzag. Human breath amidst the heights. La luna vigila years to come. G R E E N Even the air we breathe is processed, has to be now that the fires in the north and west have flung particulate matter across the continent. AIDS eso que no te importa it does not matter, what matters is that we are her daughters do not grieve her anymore here I do but here we have enough no la conozco. I sat alone in a seat toward the front warm glow of a vending machine. As I sat up, of the bus, head propped against the window, feeling there was a nice, chilly sensation as my bare the vibrations as we thundered along the highway. I sat For the last fifteen minutes, my attention had been there half-asleep, feeling the gentle rumble of the split between the pages of the book in my lap and the coin-operated soda dispenser against my back and passing landscapes to my right as it changed from tried to figure out what exactly was happening. In my flat farmland to a wall of towering pine trees. I was lost, drew closer to our destination: Camp Wijamego. A tangible excitement could be felt as we my high school, there is a tradition in which, once The bus traveled northward along Interstate a year, the band, choir, and orchestra kids pile onto 35 toward Duluth, Minnesota, doing just over 70 buses and go on a fun little retreat together to 95 someplace the teachers deem exciting enough. We that things would be okay, the lingering fear that my then spend a few days engaging in miscellaneous sleeping disorder would act up on this trip would not musical activities, participating in team-building leave the back of my mind. I took it over the alternative: going to school absolute worst-case scenario for any high-school and doing homework. Back student: being caught naked at a school function. A low hum of high-school voices filled the Understandably, I began to panic, my heart beating bus, mostly originating from the back of the bus, out of my bare, hairless chest. Given that my wiener which was where the upperclassmen dwelled—the was fully exposed, I quickly scurried out of the open cream of the crop from Central High School. I sat and into the dark nook behind the vending machine. We played on the tennis demented creature while nakedly sulking in that team together last year. Well, I was on the B-team, damp corner. There were so many questions being and he was on varsity. Am I still in he at least knows my face. Of course, he was also the lodge? Why am I naked? Where are my undies? While my current predicament may seem rather odd to most Anyway, we were all assigned random ordinary people, waking up in places other than roommates, and with my luck, Ryan and I were set to my bed has actually been somewhat of a common be roomies on this trip. I had not yet talked to him, but occurrence throughout my life. That was not somnambulism; however, most people affectionately what was worrying me though. I had never been on refer to it as sleepwalking. News chair in the living room, or in our creepy, dungeon- travels fast in high school, and if even a single soul like basement with the multitude of centipedes and were to find out about this, the entire school would spiders. One time, I even woke up in our front lawn, know in a matter of minutes. When I slept over at somehow I doubt he would keep this secret for me. Every ounce of raid their fridge in my sleep. Eventually, I would have to leave my cove and these nighttime escapades became less frequent, journey out into the frightening world. I was happy to have left my sleepwalking and bed-soaking days behind me. Fast-forward to the end of freshman formulate in my mind. I imagined that I was James year. My dossier made it clear that about staying in a lodge in Northern Minnesota for a avoiding detection would be absolutely imperative in few days. Oh, how wrong I was. Slowly but surely, a loose plan began to It also read that in order to stand any chance of ever Okay, deep breath, dude. Pull yourself together. Obviously, I need to exactly where the hell I was. This meant that I would get back into my room and for reasons that need not be have to sneak around and find my bearings. I took stated, nobody can witness me doing this. I highly but I could use all the help I could get , and slithered doubt that my sleepwalking alter-ego was considerate out from behind the vending machine into the enough to grab one of them on his way out. Simply illuminated hallway. Similar to the Predator my genitals, I tiptoed through a long hallway. Staying scanning the jungles of Val Verde in search of its next as low to the ground as possible, I glided down the trophy-kill, I scanned the room for any signs of life. I long corridor, all the while keeping my bloodshot detected no movement and picked up no auditory eyes peeled for any clues regarding my current cues; everything was eerily quiet, a little too quiet whereabouts. I was at the very least relieved that I was still in the hotel. There were no stairwells or overweight, middle-aged man with a rosy-red nose, a elevators leading out of the hallway. It seemed that shiny baton hanging off his utility belt, and powdered proceeding through the lobby was the only viable doughnut residue caked onto the large caterpillar- course of action. I stood in front of that door for a few like mustache rested upon his top lip. There was a good chance that once I passed two hands, covered up my nuts like a greedy squirrel. I to myself. He was your prototypical security guard: an down and I gathered enough courage to peer into the With my naked body as my witness, it was lobby once again. The man who I will affectionately time to make my move. Slowly, I edged the door refer to as Paul Blart from now on was seated open, one creak at a time and peered through the motionlessly behind the front desk with his head slit into the well-lit lobby. The large room seemed tilted back slightly. There was no way that I nostrils. Paul was definitely fast asleep. It was this stroke of good fortune that gave rise to a tricksy, devilish idea. Up to this point, I had no clue how I was planning on actually getting into the room little, naked mole-rat, I quietly crept along the ground, inching ever closer to the treasure awaiting me behind the desk. I was nervous, exhausted, and sweaty, but I had to endure. There was too much on the line to turn back now. If I could slip past Paul and grab one of the reeked of powdered doughnuts and cheap coffee. This would As I peer around the edge of the desk, I found myself be an extremely delicate and potentially hazardous face-to-face with a pair of stained khakis. I was fully exposed. If only I had a ring that could grant me the power of invisibility. Stealthily, I slithered across the large room, getting closer and closer to the front desk. The gravity and sheer ridiculousness of what I was about to attempt felt like the weight Hand. After ten feet of naked body and the crime scene as humanly possible. Without making a peep, I rounded the corner of the desk, made my way past the dirty khakis, and headed towards the prize. Almost there, almost there Then out of nowhere, I heard a heavy grunt and cough echo out behind me. Every nerve in my body tensed up and I curled up into a tiny ball on the floor. I lay there on the ground scrunched Paul, my unclothed booty raised with pride. I was so nervous that I in unnoticed. On the other entirely. After a few of the tensest moments of my life, hand, walking around the halls of a camp in the nude I opened my eyes and slowly looked behind me. Paul was no time to get cocky. When I eventually pass had shifted slightly, but he was still out cold. I had to put this minor speed the fall. No, stop! Now is not the time part of me decided that it would be a good idea to to fantasize! At this point, I was a mere foot from the take the elevator. Like a stupid lab rat, I was enticed key cards. Upon At that moment, I wanted one of those keys more entering the metal box of doom, I nonchalantly than anything in the world; it would be my ticket out tapped the button for the fourth floor and watched of this nightmare and back into reality. I had traversed the lobby, slipped past Paul—the fearsome, slumbering All I had to do was get to the room and slip dragon—and The elevator jerked up floor by floor as I leaned against the wall, eyes closed and head resting finally, I had arrived. The treasure was within reach. Things were going Despite the circumstances, I felt a very real sense well, considering the position I was in less than an of accomplishment. With a slight grin, I hooked my hour ago. At this point, I had gotten quite used to my arm up and grabbed a handful of key cards off of au naturel state, but even at four in the morning, I was the counter. There was no way I was going to risk fearful that the elevator would come to a halt and an the card not working, so I took a few backups, just in unsuspecting visitor would enter my naked, metal case. After retrieving the precious cargo, I shimmied tomb. I was home room behind him. I could hardly look at Ryan as I passed him, but Despite this, upon exiting the elevator, I I wasted no time getting into the room, immediately checked both ways to make sure the coast was slipping into my Pink Floyd boxers. He followed me clear. It was, thankfully. Yet again, as I made my way into the room. But then, I saw it. Okay, just sneak in unnoticed and put all of these shenanigans behind you. I was now perched on the side of the bed, looking down at the reached out for the door. But just then, with a creak, ground in shame. Again, as if on cue, the fear I had felt many times that night flooded my senses. I sighed. It would be easier just to explain. Well, never looking down at me, eyes wide as saucers. It was quite like this but The door opened, and before me stood a was looking at and really struggling with it, looking at this skinny, pale, naked body in front of him. After a sleepwalked into my room and peed all over my few moments, he blinked as if coming to his senses. Everything I had ever loved! I screamed at him for hours the next day, How hard is it to make it to the toilet! Ryan let out a smile, now done reminiscing. I awoke the next morning in my own bed, thankfully, yet still filled with the dread and embarrassment of the night prior. I slipped on my jeans, a hoodie, and my sneakers and went off to face my social reckoning. Upon arriving at the mess hall, I found Ryan and posse already gathered there at a table in the corner, no doubt waiting to get a peek at the freshman who was found wandering the grounds of Camp Wijamego in the nude. Yet as I walked past their table, there were no jeers, no taunts, no social ridicule. The only glow radiated from a string of icicle lights laid semi circle in the center of the room. The leader of the halo, a little black girl turned self assured chair woman says take a step into the circle if you identify as African or black and we all step. Step into the circle if most of your friends are the same racial or ethnic background as you and we all step. Step into the circle if your authority figures look like you and no one steps. Step into the circle if you ever watched the fire die in a set of eyes that are brown as yours, whether in person or on video and we all step. Step if you ever felt unsafe walking the streets at night and we all step. My eyes are fixed on the icicle lights the whole time. Take a step if you a stutterer only I step. Take a step if you identify as queer only I step. Take a step if you identify as non-binary my feet twitch whole body jerk and stop like slammed brakes a myriad of irises pierce holes in my skin and my eyes are fixed on the icicle lights laid semi circle in the center of the halo the whole time. Its glow is a sneaky portal. A lone body landlocked like a peeling corpse gawked by a ring of crows. The lone body steps. I tried it. I loved it. I used it more than anything in life, And the only thing that I carry with me today is the awarded t-shirt and much strife. Years went by and a decade removed, While looking back, I am the only one that noosed. When I went to buy drugs for the first time, No one told me that these drugs would become more important than a perfect rhyme. Not only lies my drug-dealer told me, but lies I told me So that I convinced myself that this is who I wanted to be. Once it set in that I made a mistake, I thought that I could undo it by a few more extra minutes to bake. Treatment centers, jails, and suicide attempts became more of who I am Than scholarships, marathons, and a full container of jam. I have been caught in a cyclone of cynicism meshed with regret, Even Eddie Vedder living my life would have missed that fret. I know the direction in which I am starting to lead And thankfully I no longer have to worry about putting in a not-guilty plea. They lurk in the shadows, A dark reflection which shows Our flawed mortal souls bare. I feel I should as a flame dances in your hand like sunset on your palm. Meandering down my calf, meeting the underskin of my knee. Every knot untwists, Bluedark slips between our fingers, and my body bends for you. The fire undying patterns my side and the warmth crawls like rainfall from the ground. Now your hands are laced around my waist, a binding I cannot escape. And every unsung lullaby seeps from my heart when you do let me go. There is a man who took my safe place There is a man and poisoned it with terror, who sends spiders crawling under my skin, with dread of a surprise. A fire sign standing on the beach where Cancer became a wave, a chitin tsunami rising dark across the horizon. Cancer sucked the shoreline of his future out, out, o u t, and then sent it crashing back in again. Cancer covered the Aries fire, dousing his flame and finding its way into the brain and with the lunar pull of the moon it tracked, down, down, down, pulled by gravity along the outer orbit of his spine, paralyzing lungs as Cancer flooded them even after the waters receded. Cancer laps at the banks where Aries stood and each wave that hits the ground strikes, eroding it in a crumbling chorus of Abide With Me Fast Falls the Evening Tide. This is have been immersed in stars. Together smoke and steam are breathed in through my lungs and with another spell are expelled into the air where they circle the room in a translucent veil of lazy cosmic ghosts looking for their next haunting. Puckering my lips I blow a steady stream of magicked air and they dissipate before the power of my voiceless incantation. Ted could only nervously to screw this date up. Styx, at the local Olive Garden, waiting on another round of unlimited breadsticks. What does one say to the living embodiment of death itself, that his chosen topics of conversation, ranging from let alone a woman? He could already feel witty, charming, or insightful things. On the contrary, the disappointment radiating from underneath her most of what Ted had spoken throughout his life was that seemed to emerge over and over again no matter completely unnecessary. Prying an original sentence catching himself mid-blunder. The steam from his minestrone that had tickled his lightly Death gazed down upon the insignificant, cowering mortal. What thoughts could be dancing in that shadowy ether? Not this shit again. It would mean a from calamitous uncertainty to comforting certainty. Still, within the confessed. You probably know more than anybody pretty? His longing looks into the obsidian void where her face should be would Ted blushed. Ted was in a row. Like most children, Ted hated Death at their first encounter. However, after a few goldfish Death giggled. I have always belonged with exploits, from the time he spotted a mouse by the you, I just never realized it until now. Tide detergent combo pack with a second pack free. Speaking of which, how were you able to find me? And All the while, Death responded with equally impressive please, be specific. If expect to see you in a place like this. Speaking of charmers, I see you figured it out. You are the goal. What made you decide to go into that The bright glow that radiated off of life hospital and try to find me? If dying elephant me? Black looks really slimming on her. I can settle for her. Suddenly, Ted began to shiver as an icy aura began permeating throughout the room. Think hard. Actually use your feeble little mind for once to actually think. She turns every person into her own little from you. If I want to hurt you, I always will. If Ted replied. I I want to love you, I always will. They told me I qualified and was all set woman I love. The most influential book in the entire to go on the show, but they accidentally invited the world promises that being with me will be a paradise, wrong Ted Butkus. In the end, I just had to settle for an but still no takers. Are you really so dense? I know exactly what you mean. I never cared about you. I trying to get you to tell me how you can see me, how mean, look at where we are right now. If you wanted to you can sneak up on me. Instead, you wandered around, looking for me, shallowness for you. All I had to do is raise that not- still clinging to her. Ted stared at the noble, bubbling, stewing. Had this been another mistake? Death slowly finger in her zuppa toscana. A thought. A simple little thought. Death pulled her hood back. The hairs on his arms but here it was. The to rise. They expanded and grew bulbous and filled thought bloomed and grew larger and larger still, until with pus. They bubbled and Ted finally had something to say. Death was a corpse, still and silent. Or actually of red, wriggling bumps of flesh. His body ballooned the absence of life. Nobody knows, you Death, not as if it were being pumped full of helium. Within just really. You drift in and out of Life so infrequently. And one second, it was over. I spend so little time with Life across the restaurant, covering the ceiling, floors, and that I got stuck in the same plane as you. You cured the house of being filled with demented wailing in the halls and fist-sized holes in the walls. Let it slosh against the sides Of your veins. I hate dogs with covered in the stuff. You the moment you take your eyes off of them. A dog is one of the most poorly designed animals there is. Worse yet, some moron could club seals for a living and every dog on Earth would still love you. Even Hitler had a dog who loved him. That kind of love is just a feeble imitation of the real thing. Embraces and kisses are precious, and like all thought it would be a great idea for dogs to release a precious things, they have to be earned. Olaf is his name, a sing-song voice she used only for special occasions. The press photographers snapped our dog in the first place; he was a replacement. The our pictures, and Dad handed the box to me. It was an exciting time for everyone. It receiving a thumbs-up from the lead photographer. I remember lying on the floor with a of the cameras. Suddenly, Dad burst through the front door looking Loosening my grip, I allowed Freya to leap free. His red cap and scratching her ear with her back paw. I crawled down shoulders were covered in patches of snow, and his on the floor next to her and ran my fingers through beard was flipped upwards, veiling his nose and eyes. I Freya turned from me and wagged her tail in response. It was tender smile, the kind that After bringing the box to my bed, I held it tight to my radiated a soft glow and made your anxieties drip chest. It was the smile she scratching at the cardboard, but after a few minutes wore every time she had a picture to pose for, a voter the sounds ceased. It was the smile that made Dad, me, and now Freya fall in love with many parenting books on what to do if your kid her. But instead of becoming the rest of the evening. Enter Olaf, the replacement dog. I carried her into my room barreling at you every time you get home from school. Freya barked frantically. When that animal Holding my palm to her mouth, I tried to listen. After a while, everything was silent, and Freya face. Then comes the drool. I felt a sharp pain in found in-between couch cushions, onto my already my finger from the sudden clenching of teeth into starstruck face. Olaf is more slug than dog, leaving a my skin. I whimpered and held Freya so tight that she trail of slime wherever he goes. Determined to keep her from leaving, I grabbed a shoebox out of my closet and pinned her in the box. I placed the lid on top and weighted it down However, none of that compares to his neediness. Personal space must not be something they teach in dog training. If I sit down for a moment, with a large textbook filled with pictures of dinosaurs. Some deranged lunatic thought he was a holy prophet, and of all the lie down at my bedside. Even when Mom gets home seven billion people in the world, he decided that my from Washington and she gives him a smile and a Mom was the antichrist. A bullet lodged head over back to me. At the hospital. May never walk again. Nothing we can do right now. Or she. I just remember leaving anymore when Mom tried to bring me along to the hospital. Instead of waiting alone. He approached, ready to lick his could sit at home and draw. Nothing profound really, slobbering tongue all over me. I darted into the front room, and I could the one thing I do that Mom would never approve of. If barely breathe. Pillows and socks were shredded hidden under my bed, she would pin me to the wall all over the floor. A trail of slobber led directly to my with her eyes. My comics, everything I had ever written kept even disappointed. With a cold utterance, she would in a shoebox under my bed, had been ripped apart. Others laid finely shredded like confetti. I smiled, cares anymore. And then you realize something is off. Maybe it holy shit, Olaf, for once in your life your drool is useful was for Mom. Maybe it was out of guilt. I just remember for something! I sat curled long, following the trail of slobber. Right then, something buddy! A pain seared through my foot, and water filled your mom in the hospital and your flashlight dies, do into my lungs. My body was soon swept up by the river, know what you think? My Fucking a large boulder in the middle of the river. Slick with Flashlight Is Dead! Suddenly, a tug at by a bear trap or eaten by a bear, and your dumb ass my back stopped me in my place. I could feel myself has no way to get home. So you kick around. You being pulled against the current and onto shore. As young as I remember him when he died, swollen face, bald, and leaking pus from the cracked edges of his putrid dry skin. And maybe because I was young, And maybe because he was young? And maybe because the article said he smelled sick. Anyways, boy did I feel silly. Sorry, Dad. The red collects underneath my fingernails. A fretting, spitting, and affixing my fists but never flexing or nightly ritual. Moon peers in through the slats of my blinds and paints a square of light on my legs. I look at moon, imagine liquifying her and pouring her over my Frosted Flakes. I imagine Tony the Tiger sitting at the foot of my bed, smoking a cigarette. I imagine having sex with Tony the Tiger. I regret this. I know I should have broken up with him not Tony the Tiger when I tried to spoon him one night near the end, and he pushed me out of bed, and while I hunched on the floor, I imagined for one brief, electric moment that I grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head clean off. Oh What is this? Oh I think I feel it coming now. My Library Giving. Research The Place to Start. Teaching Faculty Resources. Collections Course Reserves.