Nonfiction / Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

:: Animal or Winter Solstice  ::

There is something moving inside our walls. Something trying to get out or work its way in deeper.  
Something animal. Alive. I heard it first as scratching in the middle of the night, a sound soft 
enough, it could have been my husband, moving his calloused big toe against the sheets or the dog, 
twitching in her sleep, her long nails grazing the hardwood, or my son, clawing at the shelf beside his 
bed with nails chewed down to skin.
                                                                  The next night, again peeing in the dark after again being 
woken by my child screaming out for me, I thought it could have been the toilet tank, something 
loose, unhinged perhaps, the way parts of me are slowly coming undone with each sleepless night.
My child’s screams lodged between the cartridges of my neck and ear so every turn of the head 
creeks or pops, quiet, but noticeable if you are close.  
                                                                                               But the night before longest night of the year,
I swear I heard teeth. And an unsteady rhythm, like a woodpecker unable to keep time against the 
bark. But this is no bird. This, inside our walls, is wingless and angry. The sound got closer and 
louder, chewing, grating, incessant. I pressed my palm to the wall and nearly thought I felt it. Its 
longing to be anywhere else. I banged with the heal of my hand, so loud and hard the shampoo fell 
down to the shower tile. For a moment, it silenced. I kept my palm on the wall, willing it to stay that 
way. Quiet. My child was still asleep. I knew I didn’t have long before he’d be awake again. The 
gnawing and scraping returned. 
                                                           Parenthood, a repetition to a point beyond singularity. We tuck 
and kiss and hug and calm and hold until everything feels like one long night, indiscernible from another. 
Even touch, so repeated it becomes almost unfelt. Almost. I thought I saw a crack begin to form in 
the drywall, but I have terrible eyesight. I trust my hands more, and the wall felt cold, smooth, 
unruptured. 
                      Today, the sun will appear to stand still at its lowest point. I will listen for the moment 
it sinks below the horizon. It will be like a slow, steady drip from the faucet. So soft and consistent, 
we don’t hear it after a while. I’m sure we will get used to the animal too. It will find a way out or 
burrow so deep we forget it was ever there. But I know its body’s longing. The teeth and nails will 
persist, eating, moving, devouring the house while we sleep. I know it’s not its fault. Impulse. 
Repetition. Animal. How can I blame it for its nature of need unbound by want.   
 				                                                                                                                 Tomorrow, 
the night will be a glimmer shorter. We won’t feel this difference. My son will still wake screaming. 
Mama! a sound more animal than love. Mama! a hunger. He will refuse anyone else’s hands or words. 
He will demand more light and touch, no matter how bright or long each last. He will demand 
proximity. The earth closer to the sun. His body close to mine. My palm on the wall close to the 
trace of an animal. He will lose his breath and hide under the blankets on the floor at the foot of our 
bed. Close your eyes, my love, find your way towards sleep and you won’t hear terror tearing up the 
walls. 
  

From the writer

:: Account ::

While I had writ­ten most­ly poet­ry, when I had to teach a cre­ative non­fic­tion course, I began to write along­side my stu­dents, read­ing vora­cious­ly and try­ing to learn the form of the lyric essay as I was teach­ing it. So, for the last few years, I have been work­ing on what I now real­ize are linked lyric essays that deal with par­ent­ing a neu­ro­di­verse child with ADHD and autism spec­trum dis­or­der. I often found myself writ­ing the same moment, event, or sto­ry, in both poet­ry and prose, try­ing to fig­ure out which genre and form was the bet­ter fit. With “Ani­mal or Win­ter Sol­stice,” I felt myself enter a hybrid space that found a union between poem and essay. The prose blocks allow me to linger and med­i­tate on some­thing longer, and with a more nar­ra­tive pro­gres­sion, than I might in a lin­eat­ed lyric, but the inden­ta­tions, poet­ry-like, felt nec­es­sary for the move­ment of the piece, the sta­t­ic pro­gres­sion of time.  This was the first lyric essay I wrote where with­in me, and on the page, the gen­res weren’t fight­ing against each oth­er, but rather com­ing togeth­er to cre­ate some­thing new. This was the first piece I did not feel the need to write as both prose and poet­ry, because it had found a way of being both. Tell Me it Gets Eas­i­er, the larg­er book project this piece comes from, is an unfil­tered account of tak­ing care of the many bod­ies depend­ing on mine, while con­tin­u­ing to take care of my own through the act of writ­ing. In oth­er essays from this project, the strug­gles with par­ent­ing over­lap with pro­cess­ing the war in my birth­place, Ukraine, as my now sev­en-year-old express­es his own fas­ci­na­tion with death, vio­lence, and the grotesque. In the essays, I am reach­ing towards under­stand­ing him as much as I am try­ing to under­stand myself, and what it means to be his mother.

Julia Kolchin­sky Das­bach (www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com) emi­grat­ed from Dnipro, Ukraine as a Jew­ish refugee in 1993, when she was six years old. She is the author of three poet­ry col­lec­tions: 40 Weeks (YesYes Books, 2023), Don’t Touch the Bones, and The Many Names for Moth­er, win­ner of the Wick Poet­ry Prize (Kent State Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2019) and final­ist for the Jew­ish Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Poet­ry, Ploughshares, and Amer­i­can Poet­ry Review, among oth­ers. Her recent awards include the Amer­i­can Lit­er­ary Review Poet­ry Prize and a Sus­tain­able Arts Foun­da­tion Grant. She is the author of the mod­el poem for “Dear Ukraine”: A Glob­al Com­mu­ni­ty Poem https://dearukrainepoem.com/. She is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a new poet­ry col­lec­tion as well as a book of linked lyric essays which grap­ples with rais­ing a neu­ro­di­verse child with a dis­abled part­ner under the shad­ow of the war against Ukraine, Juli­a’s birth­place. She is Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish at Deni­son Uni­ver­si­ty and lives with her fam­i­ly in Colum­bus, Ohio

Nonfiction / Jasmina Kuenzli

:: All That I Can Say Now ::

            It was beautiful.

            That’s what I hold onto. Even after every­thing that hap­pened, the flash­es of glow­ing joy and sud­den, rag­ing warmth, the blasts of cold that shiv­ered me apart and turned my breath to frost, the way he built my Earth only to break open the ground beneath me …

            It was beautiful. 

**

            When was the first time your heart was real­ly bro­ken? What did it feel like?

            It was like this—

            Koi no yokan—a Japan­ese con­cept known as ‘love at sec­ond sight.’ Not love at first sight—you know bet­ter than that. But he is a match, and you are a pyro­ma­ni­ac. And you know it’s only a mat­ter of time.

            Koi no yokan—that boy over there—with the back­wards hat and the Har­ry Pot­ter tat­too, that one who has the best jokes, who always seems like the cen­ter of atten­tion, who feels the strongest out of everyone—you’re going to fall in love with him. And it’s going to break you in half. 

            What do you call koi no yokan if you see the crash, and you don’t do any­thing to stop the train bar­rel­ing down upon you? Even after all the oppor­tu­ni­ties to throw your­self out of the way, you remain there, not even both­er­ing to brace for impact…

            What do you call it, then?

            Insan­i­ty.

**       

            On the first day, he stopped and start­ed three sen­tences before he just smiled, show­ing that gap between his two front teeth, “Words.” He shrugged.  Caught me.  

            And I thought, Don’t.

            It was that gap between his teeth. Keep­ing him from being too attrac­tive, too unat­tain­able. It made him look like some­one you could trust.

**

            I don’t want to lie to you, let you oper­ate under any assump­tions. I wasn’t the damsel, inno­cent­ly lured in by some­one old­er and dark­er and dangerous.

He was 18 when we met, and I was 21.

            I was the one who knew better.

I was the one who should have walked away.

**

            Spoil­er alert: this is not a love story.

            Spoil­er alert: I’m an unre­li­able narrator.

Spoil­er alert: we nev­er even kissed.

**

            If we didn’t feel like talk­ing, we would sit next to each oth­er and read or write while we drank cof­fee. Lean, ever so slight­ly, against each oth­er. Easy. 

            I nev­er felt ner­vous, nev­er count­ed the spaces between his leg and mine, nev­er mea­sured out the dis­tance between us. I nev­er cal­cu­lat­ed when to break and run.

            With all the oth­er guys, I was crawl­ing out of my skin, inti­mate­ly aware of every hand brush, every acci­den­tal moment of eye contact.

            But I nev­er cared about any of that when I was with him.

            He was safe.

**

            What else?

            We tried to make up secret hand­shakes, but we nev­er could, because for all of my con­sid­er­able men­tal capac­i­ty, I couldn’t get over the way my hand would slide through his.

            He liked to tug on my hair ties, brush­ing his fin­gers against my wrist, when­ev­er he was try­ing to tell me some­thing important.

            We stayed behind dur­ing a thun­der­storm to watch The Princess Bride togeth­er.

**

            We nev­er said it out loud, because say­ing it was a curse. Like the name of a demon or a bogey­man, say­ing the words would spring some­thing enor­mous and ter­ri­fy­ing into being, and it would destroy us.

            What we were build­ing was too insub­stan­tial, too frag­ile to with­stand the weight of language.

            We pre­tend­ed not to hear the whispers.

            And I thought, Please.

**

            But then there was this.

A leaf blew into the pool deck from out­side, and it was shaped like a heart. I picked it up and hand­ed it to him.

“For you.”

            He rolled his eyes, but he was blush­ing when he took it.

            When I came back, the leaf was on the ground, shredded.

            “This is what you did to my heart!” I ges­tured to the wreckage.

            “No,” he cor­rect­ed. “This is what you did to my heart.”

**

            And all I’ve got is spec­u­la­tion, and my own insignif­i­cant feel­ings. Try­ing to con­vince a biased jury with cir­cum­stan­tial evidence.

            Con­struct­ing cir­cles of log­ic that nev­er lead to any­thing but more circles.

            I think I wasn’t the only one…

            Koi no yokan echo­ing in my ears, keep­ing me awake at night.

            We could look into each other’s eyes and know what the oth­er was thinking.

            I think—

**

             But this is what happened:

            I asked him.

            We drove around for two hours, try­ing to get past the wall that had fall­en between us. A big plas­tic some­thing, turn­ing the car’s space from com­fort to suf­fo­ca­tion. Awk­ward yawned between us, unfath­omable and claus­tro­pho­bic all at once. 

            So that’s it, I thought.

            And then I thought the word that’s still chas­ing me.

            Why?

** 

             Because then there was this.

            He told me he loved me. And then imme­di­ate­ly qual­i­fied it, but not in a weird way. He bab­bled and mum­bled and stut­tered, until I slammed the door in his face.

            We didn’t talk about it. 

            The words unsaid piled up just like the words we said used to, hard­er and hard­er to break through. Our silences were stilt­ed, and I couldn’t sit still if we were even in the same room.

**

            These were the last times that I nev­er knew were the last times. You don’t know the end until it’s over.

            No, that’s not right.

            What I mean is: I thought we were endgame.

            Koi no yokan. Inevitable.

            And we did talk again. We talked about our fam­i­lies, about the par­al­lel lines our lives had run. How we’d been in sync before we met.

            And I could see us in the future, sit­ting just like this. My head on his shoulder.

            I told you I was crazy.

**

            Because it was like this:

            He didn’t care about me if there was some­one else around to see it.

            Like this:

            His eyes fol­lowed her no mat­ter where she was. The way they would fol­low me when she wasn’t around.

            And this:

            “He’s fucked over every oth­er girl. You’re not the only one.”

            This:

            He lost weight and gained mus­cle. Start­ed to look more like a mod­el and less like an awk­ward for­mer band kid who was suf­fer­ing beneath the weight of his inse­cu­ri­ties. Start­ed to look less like you can trust me and more like you don’t have a shot in Hell. 

            It was like this.

            We were still friends, but he only want­ed to talk to her, and he only want­ed to talk about her, and it was rip­ping me open, and even though he could have seen it, he always looked away.

**

            What do I tell you?

            He was my best friend, but only when no one was watch­ing. And he saved my life, but he was hurt­ing me, and he was kiss­ing her, kiss­ing her, and I was cry­ing alone in a bath­room stall, because no one knew or would under­stand, because no one could see me break down, it’s been a year and you’re not even friends any­more, it’s nev­er been you, it was always her, and they’re kiss­ing, and I’m bit­ing my knuck­les to stop from scream­ing, and they’re kiss­ing, and I’m…crazy. 

            This:

            I wrote a poem about him, and when it was pub­lished, he and his friends who used to be mine took it and mocked it, read­ing it aloud and call­ing me all the things I’d thought about myself. Imma­ture. Pathet­ic. Crazy.

            This:

            He walked out with­out say­ing good­bye, two years, all those long con­ver­sa­tions and the con­nec­tions and the hands against my skin, the way his eyes would fol­low me across a room, gone. Like noth­ing ever happened.

            Koi no yokan. Bullshit. 

            This:

            The first time I saw him again, I had a pan­ic attack.

**

.

            But it’s been a long time.

            And all I can say now is:

            It was beautiful.

            And this:

            My best poems are about him.

            This:

            I will nev­er again won­der if I am capa­ble of lov­ing some­one that much.

           And I don’t think you ever real­ly fall out of love with some­one you’ve loved like this.

            I don’t think you ever love the same way twice.

From the writer

:: Account ::

            When I was 22, I learned an impor­tant les­son: You can be wrong about your soulmate. 

            When I met the sub­ject of this piece, I felt some­thing I nev­er felt before. A sense of know­ing, of under­stand­ing that couldn’t be shak­en, no mat­ter how hard I tried to ignore it, or talk myself out of it. A few weeks lat­er,   I came across the term koi no yokan while read­ing, and I knew exact­ly what it was:  a Japan­ese con­cept mean­ing love at sec­ond sight. I was sure: it was only a mat­ter of time.

            Unre­quit­ed love is an embar­rass­ing emo­tion to have when you’re 22. All of your friends are going off on adven­tures in love, rid­ing the roller­coast­ers of first rela­tion­ships, the post-apoc­a­lyp­tic breakup may­hem, of ‘real’ love.  But you are stuck at the sta­tion, wait­ing for a train that’s nev­er com­ing. Unre­quit­ed love means mem­o­riz­ing tiny lit­tle things about the oth­er per­son every day, and tal­ly­ing them up like a score­board of spec­u­la­tion, all for that most stub­born and dan­ger­ous of emo­tions: hope.

            He was one of my clos­est friends. There were times when I would get that feel­ing again, and my vision would zoom into the future, and I would see our slow talks, run­ning laps around each other’s brains, tak­ing note of all the knick­knacks and hang ups, the sud­den pit­falls and the places hid­den by cur­tains, where we nev­er let any­one else go. There were times that I felt under­stood in a way I can’t explain, a way that went beyond words. I thought that was cer­tain­ty, the call of two souls across space and time to one anoth­er. Koi no yokan. Inevitable. 

            But just because you believe some­thing, doesn’t make it true.

           Still,  I lit a can­dle and held it in the fog of his grow­ing dis­tance, of the girls he did want that he always took home, the way he always ignored me when­ev­er they were around. I wait­ed, and I was calm and petu­lant and fear­less and ter­ri­fied and awed at the strength of my devo­tion. It took a year to accept what was, instead of what I wanted.

            When I final­ly real­ized it was over, I wrote it all down. “All That I Can Say Now,” is that piece, where I lay out all the evi­dence, from the first day to the last. Where I try to con­vince myself that unre­quit­ed love wasn’t crazy; or even if it was, it was beau­ti­ful. When I first wrote it, I called it my “All Too Well.”

            “All That I Can Say Now,” says, in the same wild, heart-stop­ping defi­ance that can have you writ­ing hand­writ­ten notes in your favorite book, dri­ving through the lights of Austin, scream­ing your heart into the steer­ing wheel, sink­ing to the floor in a bath­room stall, and pick­ing up a shred­ded leaf from the dis­gust­ing pool deck: “I was there. I remember.”

Jas­mi­na Kuen­zli is an author of poet­ry, cre­ative non­fic­tion, and fic­tion and has been pub­lished with Crow & Cross Keys, The Blue Riv­er Review, The Elpis Pages and many oth­ers. When she isn’t writ­ing, Jas­mi­na can be found weightlift­ing, run­ning, and hold­ing impromp­tu dance par­ties in her car.  Her life goals include land­ing a back flip, get­ting legal­ly adopt­ed by Dwayne “The Rock” John­son, and being a con­trib­u­tor on Drunk His­to­ry. She would like to thank Bren­na and Sarah, who hear all these sto­ries first, and Har­ry Styles, who is sun­shine dis­tilled in a human being. Find her on Twit­ter @jasmina62442.

Nonfiction / R G Pagano 

:: Like a Polaroid Transfer  ::

I Along the Way.

1

The point of liv­ing in Italy the first time was to write a nov­el, some­thing that had escaped me. So I had this idea that I would try again, not know­ing what would emerge while fol­low­ing Nan­cy wher­ev­er she might wan­der and learn­ing more Ital­ian along the way.

            “Only a kitchen is miss­ing,” Gio­van­ni emailed, “which could be installed in the entrance. I could close the entrance with a glass wall and sep­a­rate it from the stair­way. To get to the flat you would go through the gar­den, our liv­ing room, and up the stair­way to the sec­ond floor.”

            “Gra­zie,” I replied.

            Around Inde­pen­dence Day, sev­er­al weeks before our depar­ture, Nan­cy received her sab­bat­i­cal, along with a let­ter from the super­in­ten­dent of schools, who out­lined all terms includ­ing what Nan­cy want­ed to do most — paint and live in Italy.

2

I met Nan­cy in Boston on my way to the Muse­um of Fine Arts. On that snowy day, we talked about our lives — look­ing sky­ward, catch­ing snowflakes, float­ing with the wind.

            Nan­cy told me about All Soul’s Day in Venice, and the Lido where she found a green-tiled Hun­gar­i­an hotel among palm trees and over­grown vines. Her descrip­tion of its emp­ty patio and three-door entrance at the top of cres­cent stairs made of cement engaged me.

            Ten months lat­er, we were married.

3

At the edge of Bas­sano del Grap­pa, near the baby Dolomites, we live on the top floor of a large home with a gar­den. Exot­ic plants and old pine trees com­mune with a Bel­gian Sheep­dog named Gedi, sev­er­al cats and ducks, and five duck­lings promised to a friend after the summer.

            Chic­ca, the moth­er duck, likes to go inside the house, most­ly for Gedi’s water but also to be in a cool place away from the August heat, not a bad instinct except she’s not trained.

            I’m not sure you can train a duck.

            She doesn’t know, so I car­ry her out­side to the pond where she pre­tends to walk on water.

            Once dur­ing din­ner in the gar­den, Chic­ca tossed my nap­kin on the ground, more than once. I car­ried her to the pond, but she returned after I car­ried her back again until I locked her in the laun­dry room by the garage, which worked except she’s not trained.

4

We’d bicy­cle with traf­fic, sig­nal­ing with our hands or using the side­walk to the old hos­pi­tal, then enter­ing the old part of Bas­sano past medieval walls and our favorite pizze­ria, against more cars and around peo­ple, by a stat­ue of Gia­co­mo da Ponte in a pri­vate square. Coast­ing down­ward took us by Palaz­zo Rober­ti, where Napoleon Bona­parte stayed twice before the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry, and into Piaz­za Garibaldi.

            Bicy­cle racks wait­ed along­side a 13th-cen­tu­ry church across from our usu­al stop for espres­so before con­tin­u­ing through Piaz­za Lib­ertà toward a stat­ue of San Bassiano, our way through the cen­ter past build­ings with colon­nades and a Zodi­ac clock across the top of the town hall. For­mer flour, oil, and salt ware­hous­es sped by, and ceram­ic and antique stores and places to buy grappa.

            Ponte Vec­chio, a wood-cov­ered bridge designed by Andrea Pal­la­dio in the mid­dle 1500s, nev­er dis­ap­point­ed. Dur­ing sum­mer, we saw men in the Brenta Riv­er swing­ing fish­ing rods, caus­ing their lines to arch in the wind. Swans glid­ed upstream. Behind us stood the back of a yel­low build­ing scarred with bul­let marks left from the Great War.

            Late in the after­noon, over­look­ing the Brenta Val­ley and its hills, we’d some­times pause under the umbrel­la trees with black cross­es and the names of men or the unknown who were hung on Sep­tem­ber 26, 1944 for resist­ing the occupation.

5

On an Inter­ci­ty train, we left the rain storms after weeks of intense heat.

            Gray clouds hung close to the hills.

            Nan­cy opened a small box of 12 water­col­or cubes, and with six brush­es, a white palette, and water in a yogurt cup, pro­ceed­ed to paint. Her ini­tial work formed a tow­er with high volt­age wires and pur­ple moun­tains along the top, and brown fields and trees along the edge. The wires appeared to fall off the paper.

            The train climbed hills before going into a tun­nel; then came out as high as the clouds in the dis­tance float­ing through val­leys and above fields of sunflowers.

            The ini­tial wash of anoth­er water­col­or showed a woman titling in front of two large win­dows. Nan­cy added col­or — red to her dress, pink to her face, brown to the tile floor, and blue around the windows.

            “This is a woman wait­ing at a train sta­tion,” Nan­cy said.

6

Atri­pal­da is nes­tled in a green province, with vine­yards over hills along­side tree-lined roads over more hills, and vil­lages wind­ing around the tops of oth­er hills, and in the dis­tance, pine-cov­ered mountains.

            Atri­pal­da had been my first home in Italy. It was where I learned Ital­ian — where I wrote Ital­ian words I had heard in con­ver­sa­tion or over­heard or read in the papers, and their Eng­lish mean­ings lat­er. Read­ing was eas­i­er. The words did not move into each oth­er the way they did in con­ver­sa­tion to pro­duce a rhythm that did not dis­crim­i­nate between begin­nings or endings.

            I was there for six months sev­er­al years after the 1980 earth­quake, and six months two years lat­er, not far from the birth­place of my grand­fa­ther near the church of Sant’Ippolisto.

7

Before the wed­ding, Nan­cy and I stepped inside Sant’Ippolisto.

            We inspect­ed the restora­tion, look­ing up at what was saved after the earth­quake and what was not, and how the two were joined with post-mod­ern lines and shapes to bal­ance what had sev­ered the sym­me­try. Below, we saw crypts with bones of ear­ly Chris­tians in cas­es of glass and bronze in a chapel with fres­coes on its ceil­ings and walls, and beyond the chapel, oth­er fres­coes of baby angels hold­ing flags, staffs, and flowers.

            The baby angels were above us, above the bride and groom too, inject­ing joy into the cel­e­bra­tion out of the choir and through­out the church, with Sant’Ippolisto and San Sabi­no, the patron saint and pro­tec­tor of Atri­pal­da, giv­ing their blessings.

8

They were most­ly but­ter­flies whose broad wings were still yel­low and orange and pur­ple on slen­der frames, next to wasps and oth­er winged insects, black with anten­nas longer than their bod­ies, and metal­lic beetles.

            Gio­van­ni start­ed the col­lec­tion in his teen years.

9/11

We were in the gar­den that after­noon. It was after­noon for us in Bassano.

            On can­vas, Nan­cy was paint­ing red flow­ers inside scrub veg­e­ta­tion with white palms on long stems under pine tree branch­es, and in the back, a fence with vines.

            I was writing.

            Chic­ca, Drake, and Duck, and the five duck­lings, almost ful­ly grown now, were bathing in a pond behind us and Gedi, asleep in the sun and dream­ing I suppose.

            “That’s the cell­phone,” Nan­cy said.

            I looked down and reached for the phone from under the news­pa­pers. It rang again, and inside its win­dow, ANSWER? appeared.

            “Pron­to,” I said. “Ciao Carmelina.”

            “Hai sen­ti­to Riccardo?”

            “What?”

            “… into the Twin Towers.”

            “You’re break­ing up.”

II Seek­ing Cover.

10

The sky was almost white. The morn­ing mist obscured the hori­zon and con­cealed the moun­tains, but in the gar­den enriched the greens and yel­lows to cre­ate an illu­sion that noth­ing else existed.

            Birds awoke on pines taller than the house.

            Rain start­ed to fall.

            After flap­ping his wings, Duck set­tled down and fell into a kind of med­i­ta­tion. He was still except for his breath­ing. By the end of the morn­ing, Duck was stand­ing on one leg, lean­ing and stretch­ing it in some yoga way. Then on the oth­er leg, he extend­ed a wing, point­ing and hold­ing the position.

11

A small stat­ue of Saint Antho­ny of Pad­ua saw us off. From his niche on a stone col­umn, which along with its twin marked the way to our neighbor’s corn­field, he looked as we walked past him and baby Jesus that he held next to dried ros­es in a worn vase behind a wire screen.

            I car­ried a French easel, oil paints inside of it, a Plex­i­glas square and can­vas, some­times two, along with my writ­ing note­books. Nan­cy had the rest — brush­es in a jar and tur­pen­tine in anoth­er, both inside a Grand Marnier tin, and rags.

            Nan­cy paint­ed out­doors at Ca’ Cornaro, before the cold when the day began to draw back.

            On one can­vas, she inter­pret­ed a stone path­way cov­ered with vines. Autumn vines, cast­ing their shad­ows, lined across the stones mov­ing over the edge of the path and turn­ing up and slant­i­ng on the grass towards a gray wall and the ever­greens behind it. Beyond the vine cov­ered walk­way, a stat­ue enters the painting.

            The stat­ues watched over us — Apol­lo and Artemide among the ferns and cac­ti on our way up the stair­way, Pomona in the court­yard, and three chil­dren of Fati­ma, but most of all Vir­gin Mary, who accom­pa­nied us out of this Renais­sance vil­la designed as a coun­try res­i­dence for rest and agri­cul­tur­al works among a for­est of cedars and pines.

12

I won­der if most artists have a sense of what they want to express, or if their instincts guide them to cre­ate and recre­ate before fin­ish­ing, then see­ing how far their work has moved away from the begin­ning and what has hap­pened along the way. The process, alive and dis­cov­ery-filled, might be more impor­tant than the result.

            Like an instant out of a Polaroid. Like a Polaroid transfer.

           The emul­sion, lift­ed from the instant and trans­ferred to water­col­or paper, con­veys an emo­tion­al con­tent cre­at­ing art that reveals who we are. Some­times the images are bare­ly rec­og­niz­able and some­times they are too familiar.

            If art reflects human­i­ty, what does it show? What did it show before Sep­tem­ber 11th? Did it warn us, cry out for help? Or is it impos­si­ble to say know­ing what hap­pened will bend the expla­na­tions mak­ing them seem some­thing else — mak­ing the symp­toms obvi­ous and eas­i­ly fore­see­able, caus­ing us to feel guilty as if we could have changed some­thing, done some­thing to pre­vent it, spec­u­lat­ing in “what ifs” to bring back our fel­low Amer­i­cans, then feel­ing angry and afraid and sad and want­i­ng to under­stand the holes in the fam­i­ly of man.

13

At the 49th Venice Bien­ni­al, South Kore­an artist Do-Ho Suh installed a room filled with minia­ture carv­ings of peo­ple under­neath a glass floor. These fig­ures look up with out­stretched arms and hands push­ing against the bot­tom side of the floor, want­i­ng to get out but con­fined to sup­port the floor on which we walked.

14

It was Dante look­ing for farm mice who chased the ducks out from under the bush­es and their home, except for Chic­ca know­ing that cat too well to be bullied.

            Drake regained his balance.

            White Col­lar, one of the five orig­i­nal duck­lings, used his beak to throw water on the oth­er duck­lings, except for Grey. I wasn’t at all sure if Grey was part of the five or adopt­ed, but I couldn’t see Chic­ca adopt­ing any duck.

            I saw light in the stu­dio at the top of the house.

            I could see Nan­cy painting.

15

“The col­ors are work­ing,” Nan­cy told me.

            She filled the paper with water­col­or — a bright strip around the edge to frame the soft­er tones against nine trees bend­ing with the wind she could not paint the way she could paint the sky. The leaves inter­twined to cast a place in the shade.

From the writer

:: Account ::

Dur­ing the 2001/02 school year, I accom­pa­nied my wife on her art sab­bat­i­cal in Italy. While Nan­cy paint­ed in her stu­dio, I hand wrote impres­sions about our experiences.

The unpub­lished col­lec­tion includes past vis­its to Italy, pri­mar­i­ly about my Ital­ian her­itage. The impres­sions acknowl­edge the ani­mals, even a baby mouse or topoli­no. They ref­er­ence heav­en and hell, Dan­te’s tow­er in the Valle di San­ta Felic­ità. They are sto­ries about the Great War on Monte Grap­pa, the 49th Venice Bien­nale on human­i­ty, Padre Pio and his stig­ma­ta, Sep­tem­ber 11th and under­stand­ing why while recov­er­ing from bronchial pneumonia.

“Like a Polaroid Trans­fer” is a small slice of that col­lec­tion. The slice is more sub­tle, more flash in its struc­ture; yet still con­veys the inflec­tion point after the events of 9/11, which moves the work from obser­va­tions to seek­ing out sim­ple places of peace.

This work, like the unpub­lished col­lec­tion, com­bines aspects of a jour­nal, mem­oir, and reminiscence.

Rich Pagano lives in New­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts. His writ­ing is some­times lyri­cal and often visu­al but always in the direc­tion of mean­ing-mak­ing. He resided in Italy for a peri­od of time and fre­quent­ly trav­els there with his wife, draw­ing on those expe­ri­ences for his cre­ative work.

Nonfiction / H. P. 

:: Versions of Truth ::

I. 

In this ver­sion, you are talk­ing to me and her at the same time. I am not the only one you’re send­ing dai­ly emails to. I am not the only one who com­mis­er­ates with you about the per­plex­i­ties of being human and a writer at the same time. But I mis­took your Face­book posts and Spo­ti­fy playlists as signs for me when they were for her. It’s hilar­i­ous. Every­one but me is crouch­ing in laugh­ter. I’m crouch­ing, too. In agony. Worst hang­over ever.

She’s hit­ting your arm now. She’s say­ing, between chuck­les, “That poor girl!” She’s look­ing in your eyes now. You’re look­ing in her eyes now. You’re say­ing, between chuck­les, “That poor girl!” You are tak­ing her arm now. You are mak­ing it soft. You are mak­ing it yours.

II.

In this ver­sion, you are talk­ing to me and try­ing, ever so slow­ly, to be my lover. In a few years. In a decade. In what­ev­er time our lives need to align like stars and plan­ets in an eclipse. You are try­ing to be my friend first, some­one I trust. You are try­ing to let me know that it’s okay to lean on you.

I am so close to rest­ing my head on your shoul­der. I am so close to hang­ing onto your arm for bal­ance. I am so close to inhal­ing the air you expel from your lungs. You are so close to inhal­ing the air I expel from my lungs. You are so close to leav­ing your arms open. You are so close to tip­ping your body side­ways so I can reach your shoulders.

III.

In this ver­sion, you are talk­ing to me like one of the orphans you vis­it on week­ends. You see me but you don’t real­ly know who I am beyond my weak­ness and my need. You only see me because of my tears. Because of the scars I thought I already cov­ered up with my tattoos.

My orphan­hood is not the only thing you should know about me. I am telling you I am also a capa­ble KTV singer. I am also a mod­est­ly suc­cess­ful jester. I am also a self-taught make­up artist. Tell me more about you. Tell me about your four sib­lings. Tell me how you learned to play the gui­tar. Tell me your bad jokes. Tell me your go-to karaoke song. Tell me why you love orphans.

IV.

In this ver­sion, you are talk­ing to me about Sartre and Beau­voir and that’s when I real­ize you’re the one I’ve been wait­ing for. You are the one I want to be my lover. You can be the sub­ject of my end­less long­ing, my best love poems, and my sap­pi­est KTV songs.

I have no boyfriend in this ver­sion. I have no one at home wait­ing for me. I have all the time in the world to fall in love with you. I have all the heart in the world for you to break open. I am hand­ing you a knife. I am hand­ing you a gun. I am hand­ing you a bomb. Destroy me. Please.

V.

In this ver­sion, you are talk­ing to me about tak­ing up Phi­los­o­phy in col­lege and there’s noth­ing more to it. You aren’t hid­ing the fact that you are a priest. You did not get ordained in 2018. You did not become the youngest priest in your province. You did not ful­fill your mother’s dreams for you.

You can get mar­ried in this ver­sion. You have no church wait­ing for you. You have all the time in the world to fall in love with me. You have all the heart in the world for me to break open. You are hand­ing me a knife. You are hand­ing me a gun. You are hand­ing me a bomb. I will destroy you. As gen­tly as quick­ly as hun­gri­ly as possible.

From the writer

:: Account ::

This essay is my attempt at pin­ning down a flur­ry of emo­tions from a recent heart­break I had. It is an uncon­ven­tion­al love sto­ry, to say the least. There are lay­ers upon lay­ers of hurt and betray­al. Essen­tial­ly, this is me telling myself mul­ti­ple ver­sions of the same sto­ry. For bet­ter or worse, I have decid­ed to share it with the rest of the world. I am not expect­ing sal­va­tion or clar­i­ty. My love has been doomed from the start. There were more ques­tions than answers from the start. But writ­ing about my grief is my way of reach­ing out to myself and say­ing, “You don’t need to drown.”

There is a lot of rep­e­ti­tion in this piece. I also used stream of con­scious­ness writ­ing. The goal was to be as raw and vul­ner­a­ble as pos­si­ble. This is prob­a­bly the only space in the world where these feel­ings will see the light of day. I am con­tent with that.

H.P. is a heart­bro­ken poet from the high­lands of the Philippines.

Nonfiction / Karis Ryu

:: Ne me quitte pas ::

**CW: men­tions of death.

Did you know?

            In ele­men­tary school, I was assigned to the same table as a boy I had a crush on and start­ed scor­ing low­er in class behav­ior because of it. When I got my report card back and saw the unfa­mil­iar let­ters star­ing back at me, the wave of shame that hit was sud­den and colos­sal. Before the age of ten, I learned that lik­ing boys came at the expense of being myself. So I cut him out of my head as quick­ly and as sharply as he had popped into it, and through sheer force of will I drilled back into myself the words MY FUTURE IS MY OWN MY FUTURE IS MY OWN.

            In mid­dle school, the clos­est I came to telling a boy I had a crush on him was by proxy. He was old­er, and a line of girls had already liked him. I scoffed ini­tial­ly, so sure I would nev­er join that line, and then a few months lat­er I was run­ning out of rooms the moment he entered them. On my last day, two younger girls approached me with mis­chie­vous eyes and asked if they could tell him.

            “Why not?” I shrugged, feign­ing non­cha­lance. The truth was I was relieved, because I actu­al­ly want­ed them to tell him. I want­ed him to know with­out hav­ing to tell him myself. I think I was afraid that if I told him myself, I would trem­ble and my spir­it would crack into pieces and he would end up tak­ing some of me with him, parts of me I would nev­er get back.

            I was twelve: old enough to under­stand that girls who felt things and said so lost their faces and nev­er got them back.

*

Did you know?

            I am twen­ty one and I am so young. Peo­ple are so quick to press their hands to their fore­heads and per­form dra­mat­ic faux strokes when they hear how young I am. We are in the same place, yet I am three, four, five, six, ten years younger. I have worked so hard to get here. All I have done is work. After all, MY FUTURE IS MY OWN MY FUTURE IS MY OWN.

            At first I thought he was impressed. Then he kept pok­ing at it, pok­ing at me, in nudges of embar­rassed laugh­ter and patron­iz­ing nods that bol­stered his pride by push­ing me down. Now I can­not help but won­der whether my pres­ence emas­cu­lates those who have to breathe the same air as me. So I wor­ried, when I real­ized how well we got along, that you would poke like he had. I wor­ried our silences sig­naled your dis­com­fort. I wor­ried our silences sig­naled your bore­dom. That my pres­ence damp­ened the room with how heavy it was. That my pres­ence bur­dened you with how too-much it was. My worst fear con­firmed, set in stone, the cold hard truth: I am a strange and over­whelm­ing con­coc­tion of fren­zy and fear and too many ideas, and you say I am bril­liant, but that is only as long as I am at arm’s reach because if you look any clos­er, you will real­ize what I already know: I am unpalatable.

            A boy I liked said this about me once, that I was too good for the guys at school. That’s all well and good, but where does that leave me? Some­times com­pli­ments don’t mean shit if you’re lonely.

            I am twen­ty one. I am sit­ting out­side of a cof­fee shop and cry­ing because I am so young, yes, but being so young at this stage in this place means that I am alone. I am alone, and it is heart­break­ing. I have a bright future ahead of me, so they say, but I can­not do any­thing about it right now because I am so young. I might have grown up quick­ly and I might know how to do lots of grown-up things, but ban­dag­ing my own bro­ken heart is not one of them. So I sit on this bench and cry because that’s what girls in love and pain do.

*

Did you know?

            When I was thir­teen I walked cir­cles and cir­cles around a lake in my neigh­bor­hood. When we lived in a city a one-hour train ride from my mother’s birth­place and a thir­teen-hour flight across an ocean away from mine. Cou­ples dou­ble-ped­aled duck boats across the water. At night some­one would busk on the plat­form, their voice echo­ing through the mic and through my head.

            When I was thir­teen I thought a lot about death. I thought a lot about whether or not I want­ed to die, and how I had no answer. I thought about how my lack of an answer at the very least sig­naled how I felt about life: that is, my utter lack of a desire for it. Yet I could not bring myself to die.

            I looked at every­one around me and remem­bered I was sur­round­ed by a dialect adja­cent to my mother’s, a lan­guage I kind-of-under­stood and just as much kind-of-didn’t, a lan­guage I was so glad not to speak and just as much longed to.

            Yet I could not bring myself to die.

            I thought about death so much I believed I no longer thought about boys. That wasn’t true, because there was a boy that year, there was always a boy, wasn’t there, for each new wound that the world ripped into me that I then fum­bled to balm with what­ev­er sub­stance was closest—whatever would do for a fan­ta­sy. I thought more and more about death in the hopes that it would make me think less of the boy, of what I want­ed him to be and what I knew he was not. Dying was eas­i­er. Dying felt more mean­ing­ful. It is more poet­ic to die than to like a boy. It kind-of-worked.

            I walked the lake in a bizarre jaunt that the bright­ness of the sun made even more macabre. I walked the lake while think­ing about dying while lis­ten­ing to a marim­ba play while Regi­na Spek­tor asked peo­ple not to leave her, feel­ing some­what more livened up by it but then because of that, feel­ing sad­der than before. Yet I could not bring myself to die.

*

Did you know?

            I am praised a lot for my hon­esty nowa­days, which is inter­est­ing because it’s when I’m being hon­est that I’m most wor­ried about being dis­hon­est. Like I’m deploy­ing my hon­esty because I know that’s what works, that’s what endears me to peo­ple. At the same time, I can­not help the things that come out of my mouth and I am very much at the mer­cy of the per­son sit­ting across from me as I help­less­ly watch, eyes crossed, my guts push out from between my teeth and spill onto the table. I am ter­ri­fied of being per­ceived as a too-earnest child and noth­ing more, but this is the only way I know how to be that feels the clos­est I can ever get to “true.”

            I’m sure you would rather be with some­body else right now, some­one nicer, some­one more pleas­ant, not some­one who was born with a tri­an­gu­lar mouth and had to train her­self out of a rest­ing bitch face by star­ing into a mir­ror and push­ing the cor­ners of her lips up for years. Here are some things I have learned over those years:

            I am admired; I am not approached. I am a stat­ue; I am not a girl. I believed that too for a while, but I am tired now. I am a girl. I was a girl all along. I will always be a girl. A girl who gig­gles and feels and cries and loves and flut­ters and laughs like every­one else.

            When I was nine­teen, I walked all the way down a hill in the dead of the night. It was a dead night. My legs were dead and my eyes were dead but my soul refused to die. It just refused to fuck­ing die. I could have walked for­ev­er. I could have walked until I died.

            Please, I cried. Let me die.

            Please, it begged. Don’t leave me, too.

            I am just a girl who does not want to be alone.

*

Did you know?

            I think I am thank­ful I did not take my life that night, or that oth­er night, or that oth­er oth­er oth­er night when I thought about doing it. It has tak­en me years to get to this thought. Late­ly I’ve been think­ing it more and more. Here are just a few:

            I think it when it is our sec­ond week of col­lege and we sit next to each oth­er in a small group where we both feel out of place. You, too? we gasp, look­ing at each oth­er. We walk in the same direc­tion after it’s over and after a while of talk­ing out­side your dorm build­ing, you say to me: Hey, do you want to just come inside? So we talk inside your dorm for two more hours, and that night our friend­ship is born.

            I think it when I turn sev­en­teen and my plan was to sit in my dorm and eat a dou­ble-choco­late Insom­nia cook­ie alone. That is when you call me, a girl you bare­ly know, because Face­book said it is my birth­day and am I doing any­thing to cel­e­brate? Let’s get froyo. No, don’t bring mon­ey, you are treat­ing me to froyo because it’s my birthday!

            I think it when years pass and it is my birth­day again, and anoth­er you waves a card into my hands, say­ing HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU ABSOLUTE ANIMAL, which I know is a com­pli­ment because I know you. The card is almost illeg­i­ble because of your noto­ri­ous­ly loopy pen­man­ship but I can read it. It is detailed, love­ly, and tru­ly some­thing only you could write to me.

            I think it when it is the mid­dle of what was look­ing like the best semes­ter of col­lege yet, but a virus hits our lit­tle life of laugh­ter and sud­den­ly we are three friends sit­ting in Meet­ing Street Cafe, angry and in shock but most of all scared that our first time togeth­er in this booth might be our last one too. Yet all we can do is smile for one anoth­er, trem­bling mouths hold­ing up taut frames. Lat­er we sit by the water and we can­not help it, the words that flow out of us. When peace like a riv­er atten­deth my way. When sor­rows like sea bil­lows roll. What­ev­er my lot, Thou hast taught me to say. It is well, it is well with my soul. We cry and I won­der if I will ever know ten­der­ness like this again.

            I think it after I move to a new city and we have known each oth­er for maybe a month at most when you invite me over for bagel brunch, and I assume that this is for some par­ty or gath­er­ing because the only way I would be includ­ed in an invi­ta­tion is if it was a mass one. But I show up at your house and it is just me, and I ask you if any­one else is com­ing and you smile and shake your head and say no, today it’s just me.

            I think it when you remem­ber me on New Year’s and send me a text because I am who you’re thank­ful for.

            I think it when you invite me at ten o’clock at night on an impromp­tu excur­sion to the beach because you missed me, you say, and there is anoth­er one of us, anoth­er friend, look, you again, you’re there!—to love is to be one and isn’t that won­der­ful—in the pas­sen­ger seat of the car you are dri­ving, and there is a pack of lychee beers in the back, and any­way you’ll be in front of my apart­ment in three min­utes so get dressed and don’t go to sleep!

            I think it when two years after we cried by the water, you are grad­u­at­ing and at your depart­men­tal cer­e­mo­ny we stand there beam­ing at you. We hand you a bag, and inside that bag is our gift: a cook­ie from Meet­ing Street Cafe. I almost cried while I stood in line for it, did you know? So cir­cles do end some­where after all.

            I think it dur­ing the silences between our con­ver­sa­tions every time you walk me home. I won­der if this is spe­cial for you, too. I think about how wor­ried I was and at times still am that no one would ever want to exist with me like this. I think about how there is no one else I would rather exist with right now than you. I hope I mean some­thing sim­i­lar to you, and while that hope is tinged with fear that I am wrong, it is beau­ti­ful pre­cise­ly because it is frag­ile, and I would much rather cling to it than have noth­ing to cling to at all. Any­way, we keep going, held by the same deep indi­go sky each time, in mur­mur and laugh­ter and silence, cush­ioned in all that I do not yet know how to say but want to let you know some­how. I am scared of what will hap­pen when I do find the words. I am scared I already have them. I am scared of what they mean. Of los­ing my face. My room­mate told me once that to ask for a place in someone’s heart is to ask for per­mis­sion to break it one day. God for­bid, but it could hap­pen. I don’t want to hurt you. Even in my own fear of my own heart­break, my first thought is of you. That scares me most of all. But some­times I dare to believe that your word­less thoughts might be search­ing for me too. I dare to trust that what­ev­er we are fig­ur­ing out togeth­er is good, very good.

            (To make a dec­la­ra­tion is to, in the back of your mind, always won­der just a lit­tle bit if you even believe what you are declar­ing. But to feel any­thing at all is to risk being wrong, and that ten­sion is what makes life real. So lean into it. Embrace it.)

            I think God is telling me there is a way. A way to con­fess with­out los­ing my face. A way to love that keeps the heart intact.

            (Or: Love is an exer­cise in trust.)

            I used to think that love was about what is said. What is spo­ken aloud. What is com­mu­ni­cat­ed through touch, through stare, what is pro­ject­ed onto a wall in blaz­ing let­ters and yelled from across a long, long room. That love is some­thing you can­not miss.

            But love is trust, and silence is sound. Love is hav­ing faith in what has not been said. Believ­ing in a glance and per­haps in the absence of a touch entire­ly. Maybe you are care­ful with how you touch me because I am some­one to treat with care. Maybe we sit side by side because we hope the time we give each oth­er says what we do not speak aloud, because the dam hold­ing back every­thing we could say or do is so thin and oh, how excit­ing and ter­ri­fy­ing it is, how dear­ly I would hold you to me if you would let me. But first I have to let you know.

            Love is as shy as it is bold. It is shy because it is bold. It takes the breath out of you to expose the heart for one sec­ond. Blink and you might miss it. But if you do, that’s okay. Trust that it is there, because you are loved. You are loved and so you love, because I trust you, I trust you.

            You are my friend. You say my name. “Have you ever judged some­one for being hon­est about their feelings?”

            No, I respond. I always thought they were brave.

            “Exact­ly.” You nod your head. You say my name again. “So why are you scared?”

            In May, you tell me how strange it is to think we have only known each oth­er for less than a year, because you feel like, in the best way, a life­time has passed between us. And I say, I can’t com­pre­hend some­times how I love you as fierce­ly as I do. And you say, you know where it says that eter­ni­ty is writ­ten on our hearts or some­thing like that, and I think, yes, and you say, in feel­ing like I’ve known you for a long time, eter­ni­ty is the free­dom to love you as if I have.

From the writer

:: Account ::

As the read­er can tell, I was twen­ty one years old when I wrote this piece. It has been revis­it­ed and revised peri­od­i­cal­ly since then, but at the beat­ing heart of this con­fes­sion of an essay was and is the earnest­ness of a per­son craft­ing a bur­geon­ing def­i­n­i­tion of love as she learns to love oth­ers and to love herself.

The inspi­ra­tion to write this piece first struck me one spring after­noon, while I cried on a bench out­side of a cof­fee shop near my apart­ment. (This scene made it into the essay. In a way, per­haps I start­ed there.) I was, in short, pro­cess­ing many firsts: my first year out of col­lege, my first year in a new city, and the chances I had tak­en on expe­ri­ences and peo­ple dur­ing that time. The love those risks had brought me, but also the hurts and the losses—and the heart­break of real­iz­ing that the time had come to say good­bye again. Grow­ing up as a mil­i­tary child, I had built up anti­so­cial detach­ment mech­a­nisms in order to mit­i­gate the hurt of get­ting attached. Twen­ty one was the year I tru­ly began to shed those walls—and had to face the beau­ti­ful consequences.

These ongo­ing tumults wouldn’t quite resolve for some months’ time. But writ­ing this piece over those dif­fi­cult sum­mer months kept me com­pa­ny dur­ing peri­ods of lone­li­ness, con­fu­sion, and grow­ing pains. I have, of course, grown since I first wrote this, and am shar­ing the expe­ri­ences and feel­ings of a past me, but I con­tin­ue to hold this piece dear­ly for its vul­ner­a­ble hon­esty. That’s the per­son I want to stay true to in all that I write and do.

Karis Ryu is a writer, artist, and grad­u­ate stu­dent cur­rent­ly based in New Haven, Con­necti­cut. She grew up mov­ing fre­quent­ly across North Amer­i­ca and the Pacif­ic as a U.S. mil­i­tary child of Kore­an descent. Her work has pre­vi­ous­ly appeared in Chaot­ic Merge Mag­a­zine, HerStry, The B’K, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. Find her in a cof­fee shop, a library, or at karisryu.com.

Nonfiction / Faye Srala

:: Unspoken ::

            Sis­ter, can I come in? The door opens slight­ly, par­tial­ly obstruct­ed by fur­ni­ture behind it. Yap­ping dogs come run­ning. Down, DOWN! STOP IT, you yell. Some­where inside a TV blares a com­mer­cial and the par­rot who learned how to bark long ago adds to the cacoph­o­ny. The cats arrive, their lethar­gy hav­ing been defeat­ed by their curios­i­ty. I take small steps into your house, care­ful not to step on lit­tle paws; they are not so care­ful with me. I try to get clos­er to you for a hug but give up in the brown and black eddy swirling below my knees.

            Can we talk? My mind is mud­dled. Wispy images flick­er, like a pho­to aban­doned in a damp base­ment. Water spots obscure por­tions, and the edges blur. Shards of bro­ken glass pulse frac­tured images; a man, legs plant­ed wide, his fists clenched, leans into a woman scream­ing. Nei­ther are whole, they are dis­tort­ed by fuzzy edges of the same torn pic­ture, pieces are miss­ing. Can you remem­ber? I ask, was it real? Stop it, you yell – the dogs are chas­ing the cats. Stop it, stop it,the par­rot chimes in from her perch in the cor­ner. Frag­ments of improb­a­ble scenes flick­er in my mind. They seethe and froth, just out of the cor­ner of my eye, slink­ing, sneak­ing, and sulk­ing. They want out – you open the door and four­teen ani­mals sprint for the back­yard. You fix your­self a drink and ask if I want one too.

            I sit at the din­ing table and fid­get while I wait, care­ful­ly craft­ing my open­ing words. I part the drapes beside me a lit­tle. A wel­come blade of sun­light cuts a yel­low swath through the dim­ness illu­mi­nat­ing float­ing par­ti­cles of dirt and fur rear­rang­ing them­selves. Unopened UPS deliv­er­ies lin­ing the walls come into focus; throw rugs and pre­car­i­ous­ly stacked junk mail com­plete the tow­ers, and I won­der in what way the for­got­ten specters of our past man­i­fest them­selves in my life. Nei­ther of us sleep. I was well into my twen­ties when I real­ized the gaunt dark and hol­low eyes of insom­nia wasn’t just a genet­ic attribute. I take a sip of the drink you hand me and wince at the glass of iced vod­ka with a splash of orange juice.

            I need to know. We can speak about it now, can’t we? Sure­ly you can explain why my child­hood is veiled behind a shroud, like a body unfit for view­ing. Do you know how hun­gry I was, or that I was four going on five when our father asked me to kiss his…, That’s enough, STOP IT, you rise to break up a cat fight. The par­rot starts to sing her ABCs in a crack­ling falsetto. 

            Your pets, they found sanc­tu­ary with you after mis­treat­ment and neglect. My splin­tered mem­o­ries, like these ani­mals, need res­cu­ing. They need to find a home too, some­where they can be safe from harm and learn to be them­selves. Some­where they can run, with­out judge­ment. Just one place of com­fort. Can they have a home with you too? You’re the only oth­er one that knows them.

            Let’s rem­i­nis­cence, sis­ter, pre­tend we’re just like every­one else. Let’s talk about our fam­i­ly tra­di­tions; except when we get to the part about what dad did, instead of in stitch­es at his antics, like nor­mal peo­ple, we’ll talk about the time mom need­ed stitch­es. Instead of crack­ing up at his pranks, we’ll talk about mom’s cracked ribs. WILL YOU STOP? You scold Pro­fes­sor Jame­son for gnaw­ing on Cook­ie. STOP IT STOP IT, the par­rot can’t help herself.

            Was mom very bold or just naïve when she gave our father his walk­ing papers? Did she know what await­ed her? Was it nor­mal to watch our mom raise her fists in the air and scream at an impo­tent sky, then drop to her knees and pound the floor in fury hop­ing the phys­i­cal pain replaced the emo­tion­al. God and the dev­il were house guests that nev­er left; we fed them, but not our­selves. As the hands of jus­tice hov­ered above us unde­cid­ed whether or not to snatch us up in the rap­ture, depraved pul­sat­ing pais­leys of flame nipped at our heels. Pros­per­i­ty preach­ers con­vinced her their offer­ing plates on our table was all that was need­ed to tip the scale. “Sow what you have in order to reap what you need. God will pro­vide,” the TV preach­er would bel­low. “Plant the seed and it will grow. The Lord mul­ti­plies the reward for a faith­ful fol­low­er.” Delight­ed to be the con­duit, his voice would cul­mi­nate in a crescen­do to encour­age the hes­i­tant. Mom gave. She gave until the cock­roach­es fled in search of spoils else­where. She blamed her­self for our dif­fi­cul­ties. Her faith was not strong enough. Maybe it was nor­mal to pre­pare din­ner from a few crack­ers and moldy cheese. Maybe that’s why mom liked wine so much, it kills the taste of cheese mold. It does.

            Years have van­ished between this per­vert­ed parade of night­mares that flair in bits of strobe light and dis­si­pate upon wak­ing. This miss­ing time, is this the rea­son nei­ther of us had chil­dren, or why you live block­ad­ed in per­pet­u­al twi­light, or for my for­mer youth­ful pow­er­less­ness to thwart unwant­ed male atten­tion? I tried once, remem­ber? I asked if you were hun­gry, too. The next day you gift­ed me two cats, res­cued from abuse. Like I need­ed a dis­trac­tion. I was think­ing too much. Please, talk to me. Hmmm? You say, as your eyes swing back from the menagerie of fos­ter fails.

            They tum­ble, swirl and curl. They need to be let out, they ask you to go out, they can’t escape on their own, they need your help, your con­sent. You open the door and a rotat­ing vor­tex of mad­ness races away.  But you’re hap­pi­er when they’re in, bet­ter than when they’re out. It’s safe to keep them in, so no one can see how many there are, or how unac­cept­able they are, even though they need to get out occa­sion­al­ly, but once they do, peo­ple will see, they’re too exposed, you’re too exposed. Bet­ter to bring them back in, where it’s more com­fort­able. You close the slight part in the cur­tains, end­ing the dance of the dust.

            The par­rot bab­bles her full reper­toire in her pierc­ing scratch; hel­lo, good­bye, A B C D E F G, peanut mm mm, bad bird bad bird whatcha gonna do (to the tune of the TV show “Cops” theme song), hel­lo, good­bye, A B C… All this inter­spers­es with bark­ing and hissing.

            My drink is fin­ished. The ani­mals come run­ning when I stand up. Wag­ging tails fol­low swarm­ing teeth and claws. I pick my way care­ful­ly through them and the cats mount­ed on box­es like sen­tries man­ning a tur­ret over­look­ing a fortress. You move the small table behind the door so I can leave eas­i­er. The parrot’s acrid voice ris­es above the rest, good­bye.

            Unspo­ken doesn’t mean nev­er hap­pened, dear Sis.

From the writer

:: Account ::

“Unspo­ken” is true in its entire­ty, except for the part about the cock­roach­es, they actu­al­ly stayed. I’ve writ­ten a series of poems and prose pieces in an attempt to under­stand, and heal, a painful child­hood. In all of my work, my intent is to place the raw ache, humil­i­a­tion, and rage on the paper while still hon­or­ing my moth­er for her brav­ery and unwa­ver­ing mater­nal instincts, who nev­er expect­ed to be a sin­gle moth­er in the 1970s. It’s not easy to be hon­est after a life­time of try­ing to sup­press mem­o­ries, and some­times cre­ative choic­es can help explain the inex­plic­a­ble. This is why I chose a metaphor – the dis­trac­tion of a house full of ani­mals is used to avoid con­fronting the past. It is an apt choice to describe the rela­tion­ship between my sis­ter and I, who is old­er and suf­fered through those extra years with our abu­sive father. My cre­ative lib­er­ties are inspired by Bren­da Miller’s “A Case Against Courage in Cre­ative Non­fic­tion,” which appeared in AWP Writer’s Chron­i­cle, Oct/Nov 2011. In her essay, Miller makes the argu­ment that some­times courage doesn’t always pay off in CNF, some­times cow­ardice in the form of metaphor, syn­tax, imagery, or using a con­tain­er, much like a her­mit crab uses a shell for pro­tec­tion, pro­duces bet­ter literature.

Faye Srala is a retired chemist liv­ing in Ida­ho pur­su­ing a cre­ative out­let with writ­ing. She earned a BS in Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado at Col­orado Springs, an MBA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah, and is a cur­rent Eng­lish major with the cre­ative writ­ing empha­sis at Ida­ho State Uni­ver­si­ty. She wait­ed until retire­ment to pur­sue an artis­tic out­let because her career was both reward­ing and demand­ing, and because she didn’t trust her cre­ativ­i­ty enough make a switch. When not busy with class­es, she bakes deca­dent desserts, drinks wine, and hikes off those calo­ries in the exten­sive Ida­ho wilderness.