INKLING

Volume 21 Spring 2011 Number 1

The Inkling is the creative arts magazine of Lone Star College-Tomball. Students of LSC-Tomball are invited to submit poetry and short fiction as well as fine art, graphic art, and photography for this annual publication. All copyrights revert to the authors, artists, and photographers. No portion of the Inkling may be reproduced without consent of the individual contributors.

Advisors: Dr. Rebecca L. Tate Amy M. Hirsch Dr. Greg Oaks (Fall 2010)

Advisory Board: Doug Boyd Dr. Greg Oaks Katherine Reynolds Dr. Bill Simcik Melissa Studdard Senior Editor: Mariah Medus

Associate Editors: Robyn Arcia Udo Hintze

Editors: Elizabeth Acosta Felipe Collazo Andrea Henrici Staff: Kathleen “Kitti” Ballard Mary Faler Jeremy Birkline Cecilia Granberry Andrew Croes Kim O’Brien Jones Vinh Do Jessica Kelly Madison Estes

Cover Art: Planet Garden Jennifer Ellison Inspired by her classroom studies of the earth’s origins, the artist developed her own theory of the creation and maintenance of the universe. Her imagination led her to create a creature who grows planets. In his planet garden, this creature uses his leaf-like antennae to search endlessly for voids in the universe, and when he detects one, his single arm launches a ripe planet into space, filling the void.

InklingTable of Contents

Baking by Kim O’Brien Jones ...................................................................................................................................... 1 First Place Prose Winner (Tie)

Father’s Day by Vinh Do .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Arizona by Victoria Kerr ............................................................................................................................................... 7

This Isn’t a Poem by Mary Faler ................................................................................................................................ 10 Second Place Poetry Winner

Key to Freedom by Madison Estes ............................................................................................................................. 11

Relishing the Last Stand by Michelle Hunter-Robinson ........................................................................................... 13

Just Gettin’ By by Cecilia Granberry ......................................................................................................................... 14

Art History by Udo Hintze ......................................................................................................................................... 19 Third Place Poetry Winner (Tie)

Little Flickers by Sara Grayum .................................................................................................................................. 21

Sunshine by Tara Thomas ........................................................................................................................................... 22

The Wingman That Doesn’t Feel by Aaron Boland ................................................................................................. 23

A Cappella on a Dirty Mattress by James McAuley ................................................................................................ 25

A Poet’s Love Story by Bradley Gilbert ..................................................................................................................... 26

Ana of Oz by Jesus Chapa ........................................................................................................................................... 31

Funny Knife by Mariah Medus .................................................................................................................................. 33

Disappointment by Sara Grayum ............................................................................................................................... 35 First Place Poetry Winner

Mysterious by Taylor Lewis ....................................................................................................................................... 36

My Secrets by Andrea Henrici .................................................................................................................................... 37 Second Place Art Winner

Bottoms Up by Mariah Medus .................................................................................................................................... 38

On the Edge of the World by Luis Lima ................................................................................................................... 39

American in a Post-American World by Udo Hintze .............................................................................................. 40

No Freedom of Choice by Bethany Noack................................................................................................................. 41

Woman’s Wood by Robyn Arcia ................................................................................................................................ 42 Third Place Art Winner

Seashell Shore by Dylan Shotton ................................................................................................................................ 43

Thoughts by Andrew Dang ......................................................................................................................................... 44

Battling Anoles by Jennifer Ellison ............................................................................................................................ 45 First Place Art Winner

Pavo by Robyn Arcia ................................................................................................................................................... 46

Lies by Bethany Noack ................................................................................................................................................ 47

Sound Clarity by Andrea Henrici ............................................................................................................................... 48

Wizards Do Exist by Eduardo Zavala ........................................................................................................................ 49

Magic in the Fall by Luis Lima .................................................................................................................................. 50

Simple Happiness by Marlene Morales ...................................................................................................................... 51

Unearthed by Kathleen “Kitti” Ballard ...................................................................................................................... 52

Another Dimension by Madison Estes ....................................................................................................................... 53

In Pieces by Charles Rankin ........................................................................................................................................ 54

Act Human by Andrew Frazier ................................................................................................................................... 55

Destined for an Early Grave by Courtney Rector ..................................................................................................... 56 Third Place Prose Winner

Peace of Mind by Michelle Hunter-Robinson ............................................................................................................ 61

New Text Message by Adam Zuazua .......................................................................................................................... 62

Homecoming by Courtney Rector .............................................................................................................................. 63

Mandalas by James McAuley ..................................................................................................................................... 65 Second Place Prose Winner

Milky Way by Stephanie Carpenter ............................................................................................................................ 69

Oil Spill by Tara Thomas ............................................................................................................................................. 70

Torn Sock by Kathleen “Kitti” Ballard ....................................................................................................................... 71

The Last Intervention by Mason Wayland ................................................................................................................ 73

PTSD by Robin McKnight .......................................................................................................................................... 76 Third Place Poetry Winner (Tie)

Unrequited by Mary Faler .......................................................................................................................................... 77 At My Own Pace by Jesus Chapa ............................................................................................................................... 79 Squid Wednesday by Vinh Do ................................................................................................................................... 80 First Place Prose Winner (Tie)

Inkling Staff and Editors ........................................................................................................................................... 86

Contributors’ Biographies ......................................................................................................................................... 87

Writing Submission Form (2012) ............................................................................................................................. 89

Art Submission Form (2012) ..................................................................................................................................... 90

Selection Policy and Contest Information ............................................................................................................... 91

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First Place Prose Winner (Tie)

BakingKim O’Brien Jones

There were two things Connie and Hal looked forward to doing that Sunday. One was going to dinner at their son Stevie’s house. Their kids and grandchildren would be there to help celebrate the couple’s anniversary. It had been forty years since she and Hal had married.

She awoke at 6:30 a.m. but lay in bed for the next half-hour, her eyes closed, her head on Hal’s chest, listening to the rhythmic beat of his heart. They had slept in the same bed for all those years, and she never tired of his life’s cadence.

Five months ago, during one of the few physicals he had ever had, Hal had gotten a life-threatening diagnosis. He had been the kind of man who never got sick: he exercised, Connie fed him sensibly, and he took his vitamins dutifully. There had been no history of the illness in his family; then, suddenly, pow, eight weeks of chemo and then surgery. The treatment had gone well, and the doctor was optimistic. Hal would make a full recovery, but the side effects were way less than perfect. He and Connie were both handling them as well as possible.

Now Connie opened her eyes and looked about the bedroom at the things she cared for most in her life. Her world changed slowly from black, to charcoal, to promising sepia as she lay there. The large photo of her on their wedding day hanging to the right of their bed was slowly coming into focus. On her dresser she could see one of her grandmother’s ceramic bells, a candy dish of her mother’s filled with scrunchies and other hair clips for her granddaughters, her watch, the small Bible she carried during her wedding, and a favorite photo of Hal and their youngest son, Michael.

Connie heard a bird’s predawn song and turned her head to the window. She noted that the summer curtains were still hanging. They had to be changed in preparation for the colder weather ahead. Her eyes gazed past them to the tree outside the window.

It was a hemlock. Hal had planted it for their first Christmas in the house. It now stood tall and straight. Through the partially open window, with each stir of the late autumn breeze, Connie could smell the earthy, pine scent of its petite, almost feminine needles. A new season was starting.

She sighed and turned onto her right side, cheek and neck supported by the pillow. Her eyes scanned Hal’s profile. His face and hair had thinned, but she could still see the young man she loved somewhere just below the deep-lined surface. Like a whisper, she gave his ear a soft touch with her fingertips and smiled. He opened his eyes a crack and then patted her shoulder. She pulled the covers over him. He drifted back off to sleep.

Connie rolled away from Hal, sat up, and put her feet into the slippers by the bed. She grabbed the green, chenille robe that hung from a chair back and put it on. The early morning light had grown. She could now see most of the room without turning on a lamp.

Connie started preparing to dress for Mass. Taking her good, blue dress from the closet, she placed it carefully across the foot of the bed then turned to her dresser. From the top drawer she took

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out a bra and matching panties, pantyhose, and a half-slip. These items she also laid upon the bed. She disrobed, letting the green chenille pool about her ankles. As she reached for the first article of clothing, her eyes met Hal’s. He was watching her and smiling. She smiled back, and then taking her time, slowly dressed in front of him.

When she finished dressing, she bent down and gently kissed his lips. “I’ll make coffee before I head out,” she said as she stood back up.

“Thanks,” he smiled back. She got the coffee brewing, knowing Hal enjoyed a cup first thing in the morning. She herself

would not take a sip until she returned. She never ate or drank before communion. Some traditions were harder than others to give up.

Connie always walked to Mass by herself unless the weather was very bad. Saint Agnes Church stood only a few blocks away. Going to Mass every Sunday was one of the few things they no longer did together. Except for the occasional wedding or funeral, Hal hadn’t attended a service since Michael had been killed in Iraq.

Connie returned an hour later, walking down the long hall, its wood floors creaking under foot. Passing the kitchen doorway, she saw Hal sitting at the table reading the Sunday paper, whiffs of steam rising from his usual black coffee. Upon reaching the closet, she wrapped her coat around a hanger and then placed a matching blue, boiled-wool hat on the shelf above.

“How’d it go?” he called.“Fine.” She patted her hair in place as she followed his voice back to its source.Hal handed her a cup of brew with sugar and cream, the way she liked it, then tapped his

cup to hers. “Happy anniversary, pumpkin.” He gave her a peck on the cheek. They stood there, smiling at each other for a moment until he put both their cups on the counter

and wrapped his arms around her. “That’s better.” Connie could hear the smile in his voice.“Mmm, happy anniversary, honey.” She held him close and rubbed her hands across his back. Hal raised his lips from where they had just nestled against her neck and sighed. He started to pull

back from her. “Sorry,” Hal whispered.She leaned her head up to look into his eyes. They glistened. Connie held his head between her

hands and kissed him firmly, and then said, “I love you.”He bowed his head, resting his forehead against hers. Their noses touched, and he gave her an

Eskimo kiss. “Think it’s time to trade me in for a more reliable model.”Connie tapped his lip with her index finger. “Don’t be silly. The newer models have no

personality. They all look the same,” she laughed. “Besides you’re still recovering.” She wrapped her arms around him again and held him close. “Mmm, I’ve missed this lately.”

“I know . . .” he rested his chin again on the top of her head and huffed. “It’s just . . .”“Just what?”

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“Just,” he kept his chin on her head. “Just don’t want to disappoint you again, that’s all.”“You’re here with me.” She held him tighter. “As long as I have that, I’m never disappointed.”

She moved her head back so she could look into his eyes.“What if I can’t?” he dropped his gaze to the floor. “I mean, ever again.”“The doctor and I aren’t worrying.” She placed her hands on either side of his face again. “So

neither should you.”“But it’s been three months since . . . ”She kissed him before he could finish his thought and then rested her head on his shoulder.“It’s the not knowing for sure,” he said.“We’ll handle it.” She squeezed him tighter. “We’ve been through far worst than this.

We’ll be all right.”“I love you,” he said.They stood there, wrapped around each other, just swaying in place for a moment. “Hey.” She looked up at him and smiled. “It’s our anniversary. Lighten up!”“Yeah, you’re right.”Finally they both let go of each other and sat back down at the table, Hal reading the sports

section of the paper, Connie browsing through her favorite cookbook. They sipped their coffee.“Think I’ll make a cake with fudge icing,” Connie said after awhile.“For tonight?”“Yeah.”“Thought that would be one of the many tasks Heather would effortlessly handle.”She didn’t answer him.“Why would you want to make your own anniversary cake, anyway?” He bent his head down,

looking over the frame of his reading glasses as he lowered the paper. “Thought this was to be another big Steve and Heather production?”

“It is but . . .” She kept her head down, eyes on the page, not wanting him to read her face.“Okay, but what?” He folded the newspaper in quarters and placed it on the table next to his cup.“Just thought two cakes would be better.” She still didn’t look at him.“And that’s because?”“She’s having a special cake made by that bakery the rich and famous always use.” She gave

a shrug. “The one she’s always raving about.” Connie turned a page and pretended to read. “Jakes or something?”

“Jacques?” “Yeah.”He gave his head a quick dip to the right as he shrugged. “Sounds good.” He went back to the

sports section.“Oh, I’m sure it will be worth every penny.” She still hadn’t raised her nose from the book.“Okay, Connie. What’s going on?” He put the paper down again and then, raising the coffee cup

to his mouth, paused before taking a sip. “The ‘uber’ daughter-in-law causing problems again?”

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She could hear the slight sarcasm in his voice. He had never really agreed with her when it came to the motives behind most of Heather’s comments and actions.

“Could be.” She closed the cookbook and laid it on the table to her right.He gave a chuckle before sipping the coffee. “When are you just going to accept her the way

she is?” He put the cup down while looking straight at his wife and then leaned toward her and said, “I know she can seem spoiled and a bit self-involved, but her heart is in the right place. She’s our son’s wife, mother of his children.” He nodded once. “Don’t take everything she says or does so personally.” He sat back against the chair, seemingly forgetting his coffee. “I’m sure the cake will be delicious.” He picked up the paper yet again.

“Oh, it will be delicious all right.” She lifted her head and smiled at her husband. “It’s hazelnut cream.”

“What?” Hal lowered the paper to the table again for the third time.“Hazelnut.”“Doesn’t she know I’m allergic to hazelnuts?” He seemed a bit amazed.“She knows.” Connie got up from the table and started gathering the items she would

need for her cake.“But it’s our anniversary.”“Sorry about that, old boy.” Her head was in the pantry, but she caught a glimpse of her husband

out the corner of her eye. He looked like a little boy just bitten by a puppy. “Heather will have hazelnut cream or nothing; it must be the ‘in’ flavor this season.” Connie turned her face to him with what she hoped was an empathic grin. “Cost or anything else is irrelevant.”

She walked back to the table, her arms loaded down with cake flour, chocolate, both granulated and powered sugar, plus a large bottle of vanilla. “Wanna help?” She gave a tired sigh and grinned.

“If she’s going to be that way about it, you bet!” He stood and then reached and took most of the items out of his wife’s hands, placing them on the table. “We can put bananas in the icing, right?” He was smiling again.

“Yep, anything we want. It’s our anniversary.”They went to work. Connie was getting the cake pans and turning on the oven while Hal

rummaged through the fridge, pulling out the items needed as she called them off. She measured out the dry ingredients then leaned against him, her head on his shoulder as he creamed the butter and granulated sugar together. When he finished mixing, he bumped her with his hip.

“What’s next?” he asked.“Two eggs, as if you don’t know.”Baking had been one of those things they always did together. In the past, on Saturday nights,

when they had been young and too poor to pay for a babysitter, they would put the kids to bed then run into the kitchen and make a cake together. They’d laugh and just talk about their day, Hal telling tales of work, Connie reenacting something funny the kids had done that day.

The best part was always when the cake was actually in the oven and baking. They’d make love, often right there in the kitchen, Connie giggling that he was going to wake the kids with Hal always

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saying, “What kids?” Even later on when the kids had grown into teenagers, always roaming the house with their friends, and sex had to be delayed until a more opportune moment, baking was foreplay to the couple. Now for the first time in months, they were baking again. They both had missed it.

When the cake was finally mixed and in its pans, Hal stuck his finger into the batter.“Hey, stop that, you bad little boy.” She gave his hand a light tap as he put his finger in his mouth.

“You’re messing up a masterpiece!”Hal grinned and then stuck his finger back into the batter, this time scraping even more out of the

pan. Connie slapped his hand harder. He smiled as he rolled his chocolate-filled tongue against the roof of his mouth as if savoring it

and then said, “Yeah, what are you going to do about it?” His eyes twinkled.She stared at him for a moment and then spoke in a low, sweet voice, “Bad boys get spanked, or

have you forgotten?”“I haven’t.” They stared at each other until grins slowly grew across their faces. Connie put the cake in the

oven, set the timer, and then took his hand and led him to the bedroom. As they stood by the bed, Hal wrapped his arms around Connie and then leaned back and fell across the mattress, taking her with him. She stretched out beside him, rested her head on his chest, and listened to his pounding heart until he raised her head and kissed her.

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Father’s DayVinh Do

Ocean waves play tag withthe beach’s sand, the saltgrasstakes my dioxides away. Voicelesswhispers from my midnight slumberreplay. Do you remember?Your unexplained footsteps, outthe kitchen, out the door,in your car, off the roadwe rode together.Your distanced greetings, throughthe city’s gas. Abovethe streetlights is ourempty exchange of speech.I fought your barriersof language, and nowI fight the battles you nevertaught. I am the harried soldierbeneath the trench of society,the abandoned gun that flashedthe night, the bullet whomurdered affection, the commander’sink which signed the war, my war.And in my war I triedto read your unwritten letters,save the Franklins you slaved over,open your unwrapped giftfor the day when your oxygenentered my lungs, all emptyand lost. Where are you?

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ArizonaVictoria Kerr

She sat quietly in a plastic, gray chair with her legs crossed and her hands folded carefully in her lap. To her right was an old woman with blue-gray hair and nylon stockings that kept slipping down to her ankles so that she had to pull them up every two seconds. To her left sat a mid-forties man with would-be-gray-but-dyed-black hair, a worn-out suit, and a left-hand ring finger with a slim tan line but no ring. Across the small aisle on another row of the plastic chairs was a family of two exhausted parents and two annoying kids under the age of ten, begging for hash browns from the airport’s McDonald’s. But she barely noticed the others. She just sat with her hands folded, listening to the whir of the planes taking off and landing every few minutes and occasionally glancing at the clock on the wall to see how long until the plane would be arriving.

“You don’t have any bags with you, honey. Are you waiting for someone?” asked the blue-gray old woman to her right.

“What? Oh, yes, I’m just waiting for someone. He’s on the flight from Tempe that should be here in a half hour,” she said erratically, not expecting that she would be spoken to.

“Oh, I’ve been to Arizona. What a beautiful state. My son is flying me out to see his family. They live over there in California. Can you believe it? I mean with Schwarzenegger and all the pornos. I always tell him—my son—I always tell him, ‘How do you expect to raise a healthy family with all that porn so close by?’”

“Ah, yes, it’s a terrible problem,” she said while slowly angling her crossed knees toward the man on her left and pretending to be extremely interested in the stained, blue carpet.

“But I’m widowed now, so my son likes to get me out of the house. Hey, you said you were waiting for a ‘he.’ You look too young to have a husband, and the way your eyes lit up when you said it means it couldn’t be a brother, so I’ll guess ‘he’ is a boyfriend?” The old woman to the right asked with the air of a sixteen-year-old girl gossiping with her best friend.

She immediately angled herself back to the woman. “Oh, he’s the most amazing man I’ve ever found in my entire life,” she almost yelled so that

everyone looked, even the kids still whining for their breakfast.The old woman laughed, and the man to the left grunted mockingly.“Young love, how precious. How long have you two been together?” the old woman asked.“I found him four years ago, and I’ve loved him ever since,” she said.“Oh, how nice. How did y’all meet?”“I was living in an apartment while I went to school, and one day he moved in to the apartment

next door. It was love at first sight,” she said while beaming.“Oh, you were the girl next door, just precious,” the old lady said while holding her hand

to her heart.

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“Psshh, I fell in love with the girl next door, and ya know what that got me? A big fat divorce that leaves me having to pay alimony that’s over half my year’s salary,” the man to the left interrupted with scorn.

The old woman reached across her chest and lightly slapped the man’s hand.“Don’t be so cynical! Take it from a woman who has seen her share of life. There is no time for

cynicality . . . wait, no, cynicism. If you think you’re in love, you just go for it, you hear me?” the old lady said with a playful sternness.

The man to the left grunted a barely audible joke about going for it. She beamed once again, excited to be able to discuss her favorite topic of conversation with complete strangers. The clock continued ticking, moving closer to the plane’s arrival, and she could barely control her excitement now. Her hands uncrossed, and her feet tapped in time with the old woman’s falling nylons.

“Well, I think that’s one of the sweetest things I’ve heard in a long time,” chimed in the exhausted mother. “Do you think you two might get married soon?”

She scooted closer to the edge of the hard, plastic chair and said, “Oh, gosh, I don’t know. It would be an absolute dream come true, but we would probably have to wait until I move out to Tempe.”

“So you guys don’t live together? It’s a long-distance thing?” the exhausted father asked.“Yes, it became long-distance when he moved. He had to move for school, you know, and I

wasn’t able to go at that time. But it’s all just a matter of time. I would follow him anywhere. I know we’ll be together in the end,” she said with sincerity.

The man to the left perked up and said, “Ha, so you don’t even know then! That this is love, I mean. This guy, Arizona, could be bangin’ every semi-decent-looking girl with a nice pair from Phoenix to Santa Fe, and you wouldn’t know.”

A lightning bolt crashed across her face at the words of the man to the left, and the old woman to the right bubbled over, saying, “How dare you! I should climb over her and smack you. Just because you got divorced doesn’t mean you have to ruin everyone else’s lives. And I loved my George the same way she loves this man, and George never cheated on me.”

“Plus, they’ve been together for four years, so obviously it’s a serious commitment type of thing,” the exhausted mother said, sticking up for her.

“Yeah, and I never cheated, and we had to spend . . . oh, what was it, honey, gosh, a whole summer away from each other once,” the exhausted father said.

“Yep, when I went to New York for an internship. So you two will be just fine. Don’t listen to this man.”

The man to the left looked embarrassed as everyone cast dark looks at him.She turned to him and said, “I know how I feel. I felt it the second I laid eyes on him. For four

years, I’ve never stopped thinking about him or stopped loving him. No one can love him like I love him, and I will be with him for the rest of my life."

The man just muttered an “uh-huh” and retreated into his plastic chair.“Oh, did y’all hear that? They said the flight from Tempe just came in! Oh, you better go, honey!”

the old woman exclaimed while giving her a half-hug from the chair.

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“Good luck, sweetie!” said the exhausted parents as their kids waved goodbyes.She stood from her plastic chair and half-walked, half-skipped to where people were being let out

a few terminals away. She knew she had to be careful, but she was just so excited to see him again. Men and women of all different ages and ethnicities poured out of the terminal. She searched the faces, hoping to see his quickly so that she could make sure he wouldn’t see hers. She saw, amidst the ocean of bodies, a young man of average height and average build walk out carrying a suitcase and looking from side to side with a paranoid glint in his eyes. She could barely contain her excitement, but she had to be careful. He turned his head, almost looking directly at her. She quickly turned to hide her face. He continued walking without seeing her. She had become good at this over the past four years. As she immersed herself deftly into the crowd a few feet behind him, never losing sight of him, she thought, No one can ever love him like I love him.

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Second Place Poetry Winner

This Isn’t a Poem Mary Faler

about how I feel. These are words describing what I thought was real. Beautiful symmetry, isn’t this chemistry? No longer a reality, now a formality resembling frivolity. Thought it was devotion, such a deep emotion, swept away like an ocean full of granules of sand spread across the land or washed away to sea leaving only rhymes so elementary. Perhaps a voice within the wind, calling in the cavalry, hoping it counts as imagery instead of a lost analogy to a twisted, one-sided conversation. Did you need more information? This isn’t a poem about how I feel; these are words describing what I thought was real.

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Key to FreedomMadison Estes

“You want them? Take ‘em,” he said. He tossed the keys down. The bits of metal clanked together upon contact with the ground, missing her by inches. She pressed her face into the carpet, sobbing harder and clutching air. She hugged herself like a child with a stomachache, her eyes begging with childhood innocence, begging for it to truly be over. But she knew his words were false promises. He would never let her leave.

Water slid down the roof, falling through the holes and dampening the carpet. The television blasted noise from across the tiny trailer, perturbing the baby that screamed in the background. The two sounds collided as one. She half reached out to snatch the keys but jerked her hand back instinctively. She looked up at him with panic and then glanced towards the nursery. He nodded his head to indicate she was allowed to leave him to check on the baby.

She opened the room to pastel pink paint chipping off the walls. The infant sobbed as she lifted her off the soggy mattress. The soft lullaby emerging from the baby’s cradle ominously faded into silence. The television had been turned off in the other room. She stood in that spot for several minutes, immobilized by thoughts of sprinting away from the trailer with no possessions and hitchhiking back to Virginia to reconcile with her mother. But it was just a wild dream, and like most of her dreams, it was pointless. She dismissed it almost as quickly as it materialized.

With the child in her arms, she returned to the living room, that tiny congested space that seemed to shrink a little more each day. He leaned against one of the couches, smoking a Lucky Strike.

“I saved you,” he said. “I took you in when you had nothing, not a penny to your name. Nothing but a baby in your belly. You’ve forgotten all I’ve done for you! Well, you ain’t gonna leave me now.”

He tossed the keys, her freedom, up and down in his hand, teasing her as though she were a dog. She felt compelled to grab them from him but restrained herself for the sake of the baby she held in her arms.

Don’t let him hit me. Oh, please, for God’s sake, I’m holding the baby! she thought, as though that had any significance. She knew it didn’t matter, not to someone like him. She remembered the last time she “got out of line.” He flung her to the ground and twisted her fingers, torturing her to comply with his will like a prisoner of war. She still had scars on her arm from his nails digging into her flesh, leaving lasting marks like commas burned into her skin. He would always snatch his baseball bat and stroke the top of it, a silent warning for her to submit to him. In the end, she always did.

The silver key glimmered, tempting her as the shine gleamed in her eyes. The engravings in the keys identified each one by function: a house key, a shed key, a cabinet key that had not been used since they got it, and the only key she desired, the key to their ‘98 Ford pickup truck. She put the baby down in the playpen, as far away from him as possible.

“What you gonna do?” he snarled. She might have put a towel in the baby’s bed, tucked her back in, and then gone to sleep on their twin-sized mattress. She might have told herself it would get better

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one day, as she had done so many times before. She might have at least told herself to wait one more day before she leaves, for a time when he wasn’t expecting her to go.

She might have done these things if it weren’t for that damn snarl on his face that reminded her of all the nights that he had beaten her, raped her, and blown smoke in her pregnant face. If it weren’t for that malicious smile, she might not have clasped her hands around the cold, metal baseball bat and knocked it into his skull, smashing his face into a bloody pulp. His Bud Light shirt splattered with blood as he collapsed. He hit the floor with a thud.

At last, he would no longer hurt her. He could no longer sit on the plaid couch and watch TV for hours at a time. He could no longer curse her cooking or the baby’s mere existence. He could no longer use her as he wished, whenever he wished. She had to take a moment to look around and realize what had just happened wasn’t her imagination. The skull fragments scattered on the floor, the blood spewed all over the room, and the silence of that moment convinced her it was actually real.

She rushed over to the baby—not because the baby was in any danger, not anymore, but merely because she needed comfort. Even with her modest education, she realized that the blood soaked into the carpet fibers and all over the walls would incriminate her instantly, no questions asked. There would be no hiding the body or pleading self-defense to a jury of her peers. There would be no way out . . . except in escape. She edged towards him and took the keys from his hand. Her head turned to the side, shielding herself out of habit, afraid he would attack her even as he lay there without a pulse. She gathered what little cash they had together along with some clothes and the baby whose sweet smile was wasted, invisible through her mother’s tear-filled eyes. She threw her few and precious possessions in the truck. The events of that night repeated over and over again in her mind, as they would for the rest of her life.

She thought of the bloodstained walls and the smooth metal of liberation finally in her hand. Murder and liberation. These two thoughts struggled back and forth, resting only for a moment every now and then when she glanced back at her baby, knowing that even if she’d done the wrong thing, she’d done the only thing she could.

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Relishing the Last StandMichelle Hunter-Robinson

There are gherkins in theintercostals spaces of my ribcage standing sentry this fortnight.My viscerals salute themwhile my psyche waxes my body cachectic.I am thinned by the anorexia of my thoughts;they emaciate me like graveyard maggots.Yet the pickled infantryreturns fire, attacking with precision; bombings of Cajundelicacies dipped in chocolate spewcholerous rain on their armaments.The war is over.Colonel Vlassic led the troopsto a Pyrrhic victory, with high-caliber, ranch-dippedfried alligator and volatilechocolate-molten cake.

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Just Gettin’ ByCecilia Granberry

My name is Hattie, and I am a horse thief. No frills, no ruffles, no lace, just a plain ol’ backwoods

Virginny hillbilly. I was borned in the back hills of West Virginny and raised by my pappy. My ma died

when I was borned, so all the learnin’ I ever got was by my pappy.

I ‘member Pa tellin’ me her last words: “Take her, Luke. Love her, and take care of her. Give her

the best learnin’ you can. It ain’t gonna be easy, but you can do it.”

She kissed me, and then she died. Guess he did the best he could considerin’ he couldn’t read or

write. But what he gave me was the best raisin’ he knew how.

When I was not much bigger than a pup, me and Pappy moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains of

Virginny. He didn’t like livin’ in town, said people was a lot nosey, and he didn’t want nobody buttin’ thay

nose into his business.

Pappy was a horse thief, too, along with his two friends who helped him, Slim and Jethro. They

come along not too long after we moved to the Blue Ridge. They just sorta stumbled into camp one night,

unexpected like. They wasn’t mean or bad, just dumb. Pa said they was too dumb to do anything stupid.

Besides, they was hungry the night they showed up and gave Pa thay guns to show they wasn’t aimin’ no

harm to us. They just wanted somethin’ to eat.

Once Pa had to bust ‘em out of the hoosegow. Sheriff locked them up for gettin’ drunk and

bustin’ up the saloon. That was down in Gitlum Hollow. It wasn’t hard gettin’ ‘em out ‘cause the jail

was made out of mud bricks. Pa took Hank, our mule, and snuck down in back of the buildin’, turned

old Hank with his back to the wall, and slapped Hank on his ass. Old Hank didn’t like bein’ slapped on

the ass, and he kicked the back of the jail wall about three times and busted a hole in it. Slim and Jethro

crawled out the hole, and they took off. This was back durin’ the Civil War, and times was hard. Back

then you didn’t trust just anyone, and Pa was mighty particular about who he trusted. Slim and Jethro got

to be like family to me, ‘ventually. One time when I was a youngun, I fell in a cactus bush. Slim fed me

penny candy to keep me from cryin’ while Jethro picked the cactus needles out of my behind.

Slim was just like his name said, slim. He was long and tall like a string bean. Little as I was, he

looked to me like he was ten feet tall, but then I was only about two years old at the time. Slim did most

of the cookin’ as Pa was usually out huntin’ somethin’ to eat. Of the two of ‘em, Slim was the quietest.

He mostly let Jethro do the talkin’ as he wasn’t real bright.

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Jethro was shorter and stockier than Slim. He used to carry me around on his shoulders when we

was in camp. I loved ‘em both, and they took real good care of me. I really had me three pappys ‘stead of

just one. We was all happy together.

We didn’t really have no home, just drifted and camped out wherever we found ourselves at night.

We knew the back hills and mountains like we knew our own names—where there was secret passes and

cut-throughs to the other side of the mountains that nobody else knew about. We knew where there was

caves to hide in that nobody but mountain lions and bears knew about. There was lotsa times we’d duck

into a cave to escape a posse or whoever was huntin’ for us. Two times we ran into a cave with a bear. He

won. We moved on mighty fast.

But Pa got gut-shot on one of our runs.

They was on a late-night run, stealin’ horses from a rancher. Pa wouldn’t let me go for some

reason. They got about sixty horses out of the corral and was runnin’ ‘em out through the pass to the

valley when the rancher caught up to ‘em, and Pa took a bullet to his stomach. Slim and Jethro let loose

of the horses and went back for Pa. They had to go back through the woods so as not to be seen, but they

finally reached him. He was laying on the ground in a puddle of blood.

“Slim,” said Jethro, easily pickin’ Pa up off the ground. “Let’s get him up on my horse. I’ll carry

him ‘cause he can’t lay acrosst his horse with this hole in him.”

Jethro handed Pa to Slim to hold while he climbed on his horse. He took Pa from Slim, laid him

across his saddle, and held him in his left arm all the way back to camp.

They came back into camp as fast as they could. I didn’t know what was goin’ on but soon

found out.

“He’s hurt bad,” said Jethro. They laid him on the ground. I knew I had to do somethin’, or he

was gonna just die. We didn’t have no doctorin’ stuff around, so we just got him all drunked up ‘til he

passed out.

“Jethro, you hold him down on his left side, and, Slim, you hold him on the right side. Don’t let

him move ‘cause I gotta cut him and get the bullet out.”

When I saw the hole in Pa’s gut, I didn’t have to cut him. He had a hole big enough I coulda slung

a cat clean through him. The boys held him down good and tight while I poured rot-gut whiskey on the

hole where the bullet went in, poured more on Slim’s knife to disinfect it, found the bullet, and fished it

out. Then came the hard part, stitchin’ him up. Didn’t have no needle or thread, so all I could do was to

tear up some strips of cloth and bind him real tight.

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The next day he started with a fever and talkin’ kinda weird. Don’t know if it was from the fever

or if he was still drunk. But his fever kept risin’. I changed his bandage and saw it was still bleedin’ pretty

good, and the wound didn’t look so good.

“Hattie,” said Pa when he woke up. “You done the best you could, but all your doctorin’ ain’t

gonna keep me alive. Just go on and let me die so y’all can get on with your lives. You been livin’ my life

for twenty-six years, and now it’s time you lived your own. You been a good daughter, and you learned all

I tried to teach you real good. You done me proud, girl, and I couldn’t a been more proud if you’d a been

my son. Don’t guess I ever told you, but I do love you. Just thought you always knew. Just bury me up on

the hill overlookin’ the valley, and I’ll be happy.”

We took turns keepin’ wet rags on his head, tryin’ to stop the fever, but we didn’t have what we

needed, and Pa died anyway. He died on my watch, which was fittin’. He brung me into this world, and I

seen him out.

Slim and Jethro rigged up a sling to run between two of the horses, and we carried Pa up to the

top of the hill. We picked him out a nice spot where he could see down and into the valley and gave him

the best buryin’ we knew how. Knew he would like that. On a good night he could see us if we had a

campfire goin’.

Slim and Jethro, they was good, reliable men who was devoted to Pa and me, and by now I was

fully growed. We had a good talk after Pa was buried and decided to stay together as that was what Pop

would have wanted. He even told Slim and Jethro once, “Boys, we’re all we got, just the four of us. If’n

anythin’ ever happens to one of us, the rest of us needs to stick together.” Besides, horse thievin’ was all

we knew.

The war was in full swing at that time. The Yanks and Feds was warrin’ all over the place. But we

knew the mountains and passes and could find ‘em in the dark. You couldn’t see ‘em ‘cause the lay of the

land was pretty hard to read.

We was about out of supplies, and none of us had any money to buy any. “‘Bout time for another

raid,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Slim. “Besides, it’s gettin’ kinda borin’ around here. We ain’t been on no raids in a

long time, and I’m itchin’ to do somethin’.” Had to keep an eye on Slim cause he’d wrestle a bear just to

have somethin’ to do. Caught him one time teasin’ a young mountain lion just for fun. It wouldn’t of been

so funny if the mom hadda caught him. That convinced me he was addlepated.

Jethro was ready for somethin’ to do, also. Once when we’d been talkin’ about Pa, I caught him

wipin’ his eyes. He said dust had just blown in ‘em, but I knew better. Another time he was looking

through Pa’s belongin’s I kept in a box. Said he was lookin’ for somethin’, but he knew what all was in

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that box as well as I did. One night he got all drunked up and started cryin’ and mumblin’ somethin’ about

Mammy Mae. He wouldn’t never admit who she was.

There was a troop of Yanks on one side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and a troop of Feds on the

other side. So we decided to steal horses from the Yanks, run ‘em through the pass and down to the Feds.

If’n our timin’ was right, we could have ‘em to the Feds by the next afternoon.

We waited a couple of nights ‘til there was no moon out and decided the time was now. We snuck

up where the Yanks was campin’ that night, waited for ‘em to turn in, and located thay horses. There was

only one man on guard that night.

“Jethro,” I said, “You sneak up on the guard from behind the tree where he’s a sittin’ and knock

him out.”

“Yessum,” replied Jethro. “I got ‘em covered.”

“Slim,” I said. “You stay with our horses and keep ‘em quiet so they won’t spook the other

horses. Don’t want thay horses makin’ no noise and wakin’ up the Yanks. Try to keep ours quiet so the

other horses don’t get nervous but close enough for us to hop on ‘em and herd thay horses out.”

“Yeah, quiet,” said Slim.

I had to go and cut thay rope corral so the horses could get out and the three of us would slap a

couple of them on the rear and start the herd to runnin’. Jethro and Slim would run ‘em into the pass with

me followin’ up. By the time the Yanks woke up and realized thay horses was gone, it was too late.

That first raid got us about seventy-five horses. It wasn’t a very big troop of Yanks, but at ten

dollars a head from the Feds, and they really needed ‘em, it would keep us in supplies for quite a while.

We got ‘em to the Feds the next afternoon, but they only wanted to pay eight dollars a head

‘cause they wasn’t exactly prime livestock. Times was rough on the horses, too. They was missin’ a few

meals, but they was serviceable. But eight dollars a head was better’n nothin’, so we took it and shagged

ourselves to town for supplies.

Now, you gotta understand, this was our only means of makin’ a livin’, so this went on for quite

a while. We’d let the Feds keep ‘em for about a couple of weeks, and then we’d steal ‘em back from

the South and sell ‘em back to the Yanks. After doin’ this a bunch of times, the Yanks and Feds got to

recognizin’ thay own horses. We shoulda found another troop to sell ‘em to, but we never thought about

that ‘til it was too late. Course, it didn’t help that I’d get to the top of the mountain pass and laugh as

loud as I could. They could hear me all through the valley. From the mountaintop I could see ‘em by the

light from thay campfire, scattered like little ants. All they could do was shake thay rifles at me in anger.

They’d stand there just lookin’ at me; they couldn’t chase me ‘cause I had thay horses.

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Well, as it turns out, the two troops finally declared peace between thayselves long enough to

catch and hang me and then went back to warrin’ with each other. Yup, they strung me up from a big oak

tree ‘bout eight feet in the air and slapped my horse on the ass. He took off like a lightnin’ bolt had hit

him and left me swingin’ in the breeze like a bird ‘til I quit wigglin’. Every swingin’ dick on that side of

the Blue Ridge was there to watch. Reckon they never see’d a woman get hung.

Slim and Jethro hightailed it out of Virginny fast as they could. Onliest reason I got caught was I

was always the one bringin’ up the rear. I just never figgered where the last ones I stole from got enough

horses to replace the ones I had taken. Never counted on ‘em gettin’ more and hidin’ ‘em—dirty, rotten,

connivin’, sneakin’ bunch of rag-tags.

Maybe I shouldn’t ‘a stopped long enough to laugh.

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Third Place Poetry Winner (Tie)

Art HistoryUdo Hintze

Pablo Picasso said, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”He also saidThat computers are useless; They can only give you answers. They can never ask questions,Questions like:

How are babies born?Where can you find everlasting peace?What’s in between the empty spaces of the cosmos? Why does love feel so bad if love is so good?Who in the hell is god?Do you like fish sticks?

Art brings together Various parts of inchoate reality,Forming A unified theory of life.And that’s ART.

The universe is creative. It is artistic,It is expandingAnd expressing itself In many different waysJust like you.

I want a martini as dry as the desert, he said.The woman’s breasts were like cantaloupes. I think she hates me (But I still want her anyway.)

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You don’t have to be a writer with a notebookOr a sculptor with modeling clay, glass, or wood;You don’t have to be a photographer with a cameraOr even a painter with a canvas;We are all artists, Creating every time we interact.With

Someone,

Something,

Somewhere.

Mothers, fathers,Brothers, sisters,Families, friends,Enemies and loversAre constantly creating new things In us And around us.

To feel something Is Life.

To feel Life Is Art.

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Little FlickersSara Grayum

Kara was twenty. She peered out over the rickety, metal door enclosing a go-cart track as the

wafting smell of chilidogs hit her nose. To her right were Luke and her big sister Jessica, each hand wrapped around the other, blending into one. To her left was an older gentleman with a four-toothed grin and a root beer belly.

Once Luke and Jessica placed themselves in their bumper cars, Kara noticed the old man drifted off into what appeared to be an alcohol-induced nap. To reassure herself of this, she slipped out the matches that were peaking above his breast pocket, never once breaking the old man’s slumber. Once convinced of his inebriation, Kara began to peer over the rail, catching a glimpse of where the extra gas canisters were kept. Quietly, Kara grasped the red handle, taking a canister for herself.

Turning the canister upside down, Kara could feel the cold gas fall over her, giving her goose bumps as it covered every inch of her body. She laughed as she sparked the match, watching as Jessica and Luke swooshed past her on the track while she engulfed.

Goose bumps soon were replaced with the kind of enveloping warmth that only a shot of Maker’s Mark could create. Fires of this kind don’t burn for long. Kara heard the onlookers say, “I give her five minutes.” But she lasted all day. Oh, how Kara adored low expectations. She loved nothing more than when you finally exceed them . . . and their jaws are on the floor.

People huddled around her, but not one hand was extended except for a few who retrieved marshmallows and scorched them in the fire. She was contagious, and it had felt nice to know. If Kara couldn’t be beautiful, at least she could illuminate them with her glow. She heard some people question, “How,” “Why,” or “When?”

“I became a human torch, burning in the breeze,” she said. “And for once in my life, I feel free.”“What?” The crowd jumped back. They’d never seen fire talk, especially words like that. The sun settled behind clouds as Kara stood engulfed, admiring her golden hue. And as the

fluorescent street lamps came on, she resembled a star. Her whole being sparkled.“What . . . what are you doing, Kara?” Jessica exclaimed. “If you were seriously that cold, I’m

sure Luke would have given you his jacket! Wouldn’t you, Luke?” She persisted.“Uh, er . . . yeah, I guess . . . if you gave it back,” was Luke’s earnest response. Kara made an attempt to answer, but the fire had taken over. Watching her flesh turn to ash,

she knew the consequences. She knew for sure that this, like all fires, couldn’t burn forever. And as she crumbled, a breeze would waft into the room as would the old man and his broom.

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SunshineTara Thomas

There exists a monster just like me.A beauty perceived horrible, this beast with woven locks of decaying gold, eyes like sky-dipped daffodils, and a smile like a cliché.

He fancies himself a man, dressed smartly in the finest fiction with an appetite for carrion-womenseduced by sultry diction designed for poets, a swarthy secretion from a grinning maw full of toxic, crooked teeth.

This monster, just like me . . .a horror perceived beautifulthrough eyes not of sky, but the richest blood that, at least, remained true and ugly.

Time strikes too swiftly to spend it alltying ties with claws.I much prefer to be a creature of the night, not like these vampires who are so pretentious.The sunshine only ever helped me to see.

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The Wingman That Doesn’t FeelAaron Boland

You sit at the bar, waiting for the beautiful blonde sitting next to you to turn around so that you can drop a couple of grams of Roofalin into her drink. It’s dark; no one will see you do it, you think. You get your chance, so you drop it in and watch it dissolve rapidly as it falls to the bottom of her glass; it’s odorless, tasteless. She will never know. You watch her turn around slowly to grab her drink, and you want to engage her in conversation, but before you can open your mouth, she starts talking with sobriety.

“Hi,” she says.“Hi,” you say, confused.She continues to look at you with a smile on her face as if she trusts you immediately, and she

giggles a little uncontrollably. Her light skin and white teeth glow under the dimmed light at the bar. She doesn’t take a sip yet, so you’re a little anxious.

“Why are you here?” she asks.“What do you mean?” you say. “Are you trying to find the love of your life?”“No . . . well . . . I don’t know. I guess that would be nice. Why?”“Well, you don’t even have a drink in front of you; you’re just sittin’ here lost or something.” “I just like the atmosphere of it all, watchin’ people hook up, break up, and drink up,” you say

with a grin. She giggles and says, “You’re interesting, kinda intriguing.”You look at her confused again because you actually like talking to her. You don’t know the brand

of perfume she wears, but you like it, and you notice that the drink in front of her is Dos Equis, and you start to think of the “most interesting man in the world” and somehow relate that to her. You stop yourself from these thoughts because you came here for a reason. You watch her pick up her glass for the first time, droplets of water roll down the side, and she pushes the drink to her lips. Part of you wants to stop her, but you don’t because you’re incapable of thinking in the long-term. The beer enters her mouth in a period of time that seems to last one thousand years, and you see a drop of sweat roll from the side of her face as if she is nervous or likes you or something. The brown fluid flows down her throat, and some time later you see the symptoms of your poison begin to take effect, so you convince her to leave with you. She enters your car, and in a drunken state she says, “I’m glad I can finally loosen up after my husband and two kids died.”

Your heart drops, but you keep going because your heart is still pumping blood to the lust in your pants. She passes out in the front seat, and her head pushes up against the glass.

You take her home and place her on your bed. The light in the room gives her undressed body such definition. She is beautiful, and you wish that you could see her green eyes. Your body is also naked, and you stand before her; your mouth produces saliva that rolls to the end of your straight white teeth as you gaze at her perfectly proportioned body under the dim light and fan that disrupts her blonde hair.

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At this moment you realize that you can’t do it. She is different. You dress her back up and move the stray hair out of her face that was disturbed by the cycling air in the room and place it gently behind her ears. Her breathing is slow, and you start to feel restless. You put on a pair of gym shorts and carry her to the car.

You lay her down, gently, in the back seat and drive her to the twenty-four hour emergency clinic. It’s three in the morning, and there is no one around. You get to the hospital, but you don’t want to go in. You don’t want to risk yourself. You have a pillow in your trunk, so you take her body and place it in front of the electric doors, and you take the pillow from under your arm and place it under her delicate head.

Her head is turned to the side, her eyes are closed, and one of her knees is bent into the air; she looks like she is sleeping or maybe even dreaming sweet dreams about you. You can see the movement of the air through pine needles that swirl around her, and you think that she will be okay, and you wish that you could be there when she wakes up, but you can’t. You drive away, but you don’t understand how the drugs are affecting her. You don’t see it, and the clerk at the front desk never notices her. There is no one around. You don’t see it, but she stops breathing. You don’t see it, but two hours later, flies orbit her corpse. You don’t see it, but no one ever comes to save her life.

When the sun ascends into the sky, you wake up, and you see it on the news. You don’t see her body, but you see the black bag on the television being loaded into the hospital on a stretcher. You see the police all around the scene; you wish you could apologize, but it’s too late. Your eyes secrete a fluid, rare as platinum, for you at least, that runs down your stubbly face. All you want now is to be with her, you know that you don’t deserve it, and you know that there is only one way to do it. You pull out your 9mm that you used on someone else, and you put the barrel in your mouth. Then you place your finger through the notch to make that trigger move; your brown hair, now highlighted red, is smooth and sweet.

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A Cappella on a Dirty MattressJames McAuley

I strum tobacco stained fingers across the chords of your thigh.Missed notes: the gaping broken-toothed grin on adying man. Your Corona Lite nightlight scars purpledesigns into junk-popped pupils, and then youstopped breathing to listen to our hearts reach the slow rhythm of cellular death.

Far from the stage and lights,curled in a tighthot mess of living waste.

You hum a tune to be,a song, because I strum my fingers downyour thigh, asking you to sing.

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A Poet’s Love StoryBradley Gilbert

It was a scorching hot summer afternoon. I sat on lookout, my legs hanging over the concrete wall and my slouching back facing the backyard of the house. Sweat slid down my temple. There was a big tree in the backyard that overshadowed the delinquent grass that looked like one of Justin’s buzz cuts gone wrong. The house was what we kids called a “playground.” It was for sale, which, where I lived, meant that it was abandoned, shattered windows and all. I was watching the cars on Plains Road pass by from quite a distance away. A large empty field that had nothing but dead weeds and dry dirt separated me from society. Parents’ cheers from a Little League baseball game could be heard echoing back to the concrete wall. I heard leaves shake behind me, and a slow breeze pushed forward, cooling my skin for just a moment.

The glass sliding door opened, and Justin came out in his baggy jeans and white t-shirt. He reached his arm up and pulled himself up on the concrete wall.

“Maaan, sonn. I’ll tell ya. That was a good fuck,” was the first thing he said. “When you gonna get laid for the first time, kid?” he asked, laughing and beating his fresh pack of cigarettes against his dirty jeans.

“I heard last year you lost it to some whore from West High,” I said to him, looking off into the distance.

“Haha, man. Ain’t nothin’. She was primo shit,” he told me as he looked down cross-eyed, lighting his cigarette with a spark from his thumb.

“Anyways, where’s Katie, man?” I asked him, trying to get him to shut up.“She’s showering,” he told me. “You know girls, after you fuck ‘em, they gotta act like nothing

happened and shit.” He took a long drag of his cigarette.The glass door slid open again. I turned, and Katie was smiling by the door. “Hey, you kids,” she

said, with her hair all damp. “Well? Let’s get to this effin’ party!” she commanded.The three of us had to walk to Justin’s old beat-up, brown ‘90s Crown Vic, the kind that still had

white circles around the wheels. It had custom-made dents all along the sides from the numerous times he crashed into shit when he was barred out. We walked beside the concrete wall which met up with the street that Justin always parked at. Once in the car, I sat behind Justin, preferring to see the side of Katie’s soft face over Justin’s annoying features.

“Ready for tonight, Ben?” Katie looked back at me, smiling.“Yeah, I guess so, as long as Justin doesn’t get super-trashed and try to fight me again,” I laughed.“Oh, my God, it’s our favorite song, Ben!” Katie shrieked as she cranked up the volume. We both

sang along. “‘Love of mine, some day you will die . . .’”“What is this faggy shit?” Justin quickly turned the radio station. “That’s more like it! ‘Still

tippin’ on fo-fos, wrapped in fo-fos, tippin’ on fo-fos . . . I’m back in fo-fos . . .’”“Lame!” Katie mocked Justin as she slapped his knee, smiling.

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Justin and Katie had been seeing each other for four long months. She and I grew up in small apartments that accommodated mostly Mexican immigrants. We had known each other for about ten years and had been through a lot together.

I couldn’t help but remember a poem I had written about a month before Justin. I showed Katie that wrinkly notebook paper at our favorite park a few weeks following their encounter. We had been sitting at a rotted wood picnic table, sharing the same bench. Her eyes crossed the page, and her softly mumbled words echoed in my heart as I watched a strand of her hair fall from behind her ear:

When dawn’s soft start has cast the days beginning,I’ll be standing by the rubble of the start of the story,And there you will wait for a love only dreamed,When he stands only here, in your soft shadow.

Or something like that, I don’t really remember the rest. It wasn’t that great.“You should turn this into a song!” she told me.“I don’t know . . . I kind of like it as is,” I told her chuckling.“Oh, come on . . . I can make up the melody and then you sing it,” she had insisted, pointing at

the words on the page.“But I’m not even that great at guitar,” I said. “Justin’s better . . .”“Not really,” she had interrupted. “He just has a stolen guitar, so it sounds that way.” I turned it into a song for her anyway, which turned out crappy.

The party was about a thirty-minute drive. “Pleeease, I really have to pee,” Katie said, begging Justin to pull over. “There look! That gas station!” she yelled, pointing.

“Jesus, fine, you should have just gone earlier at the house,” he stated as he turned the car into the gas station parking lot.

“Thank you!” she said to him. She turned and smiled at me and then jumped out of the car.“So what’s your deal, dude? You do drugs, or are you just a pansy?” Justin asked, looking

back at me.“Not really, but I’m down for some shit sometimes,” I told him, glancing out my window at a

slow moving cloud.“All right, dude, let’s make tonight extra special, like a guy’s night,” he said with a smirk, shaking

a black plastic film canister. “I’ve got six pills here, and we’ll each take three.”“I don’t know, man. What are they?” I asked him.“Some pills I took from my mom. They aren’t strong. They’ll just make you feel good. Here.” He

turned around with the pills in his hand. “Just take it, man. It’ll be fun.”“Fuck it,” I said, and I took the pills from his hand and swallowed them. Justin turned around and

then threw his head back while dropping the pills in his mouth. He lit another cigarette. That’s the last thing I remember.

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All my best days were when Katie and I had gone to the park together. I remember a time on a less-than-great spring day. It was lightly raining, and the clouds were dark. We were sitting under our jungle gym on sand that was still dry.

“I don’t understand why you go for guys like him,” I had said.She was looking down at the sand, drawing little symbols and erasing them. “I guess . . . I just

don’t feel like I deserve better.”“Oh, yeah right, you are beautiful and have an amazing voice,” I told her, gently brushing her

shoulder with my palm.“Not really, and I have a terrible family,” she paused, staring into the sand. “My father beats my

mother all the time, and I don’t do anything. I don’t deserve someone like you.” She turned and smiled at me, and I gave her a half smile. I had loved the smell of her hair every time she was close enough for me to embrace it. No matter how many times she reminded me in the past how bad it smelled, I always thought it smelled like flowers. She pushed my bangs back and kissed my forehead. I looked forward to see that the rain had picked up heavily, like a mountain above us had decided to suddenly pour its weight onto us.

I woke up lying down, and all I could see was the tops of trees. My head was pounding. I slowly leaned upward, holding my head with my hand as realized I was on top of a picnic table at our park. My left eye was a little blurrier than usual. My lip hurt really bad and was swollen. I sat up with my feet on the picnic bench and tried recounting how I ended up here. There was nothing. I didn’t know where Katie was or Justin. If Justin did anything or hurt her, I would kill him. I jumped off the table and started jogging out of the park to Plains Road.

Justin didn’t really have a place he lived at; he hopped all over. His junky Crown Vic was the only place he could call a real home. But he stayed at his brother’s place from time to time. Hopefully, he was there because that’s where I was heading. His brother sold enough drugs to afford a house. It was a disgusting place. Garbage was always all over, and the bathrooms were covered with stains of human neglect, and the mirrors barely held a reflection. The house was a couple of streets off of Plains Road, so I started running.

I saw a heroin needle in the gutter. Something hit me; I could remember now. I felt dizzy and staggered to sit on the grass by the sidewalk. I put my head in my hands, and the night before came rushing back.

“You’re an idiot. How do you forget to put gas in?” I had told Justin as he pulled off to the side of the road. Katie was passed out in the passenger seat.

“Shut the fuck up!” he said. He shook Katie, and she mumbled something.Justin moved his face closed to her. “C’mon baby, let’s just do one more hit,” he said to her as he

grabbed a spoon and syringe from the glove compartment.“Dude, what the fuck? She’s passed out!” I yelled at him.He threw the spoon down, got out of the car, and opened my door.

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“I’m tired of a little fucking pansy like you tagging along with us!” he yelled, grabbing my arm and jerking me out of the car. My head hit the cement as I came crashing out of the car. I was spinning as he dragged me to the sidewalk. He stood over me with one fist grabbing my shirt and the other punching me repeatedly in the face.

He got back in the car, and I could hear Katie crying, “No . . . no, no . . .”I got up, stumbled to his door, and opened it.“That’s it! I’ve had enough of you!” he screamed. He got out, and I swung at him, but he ducked

under it and speared me in the chest. I fell again onto the cement, and he repeatedly kicked his foot into my side.

“You’re lucky I don’t fucking kill you!” he shouted and then spat in my face.I lay there for awhile and then staggered to the park. I guess I had fallen asleep there. I don’t

know why I had given up.As I was running, I tried to think of everything possible, but I couldn’t remember where the car

was parked.I finally made it to Justin’s brother’s house. I was breathing heavily as I knocked on the spray

paint-covered door and rested my other hand on my knee. Nothing. I could hear a girl whining from the back side of the house. “Fuck it.” I opened the door and walked in. The living room was empty, save for brown-caked sofas and heroin needles on the tile floor. I followed the sound that was coming from the back, right bedroom. I quickly walked to the door and turned the grimy door knob.

It was Justin on top of just another girl on a sheetless, dirty mattress.“Dude, what the FUCK are you doing here?” he roared as he jumped up and ran towards me.“Where the fuck is Katie?” I yelled at him.Justin was coming at me with his jaw clenched. He was older and stronger than me, but I had to

get him to tell me where Katie was. He threw his shoulders into my stomach the same way as before, and with all my might I slammed both my fists down on to the back of his skull just as he slammed me into the wall. I grabbed his midsection and dropped his neck down onto the tile floor, and his body gave up all its strength. The slutty girl covered herself with a sheet and looked out of her mind. I grabbed Justin’s wrist and dragged the cockroach to the middle of the living room floor. I went to the kitchen and picked up a trash bin full of cigarette butts and ashes and emptied it into the sink. I grabbed the faucet and turned the water on high. I brought the bucket back to Justin and poured the muddy water out on to his face. He let out a gasp water splashing around his mouth. I got on my knees and grabbed his neck.

“Tell me, where the FUCK is Katie?” I yelled at him, pressing my hand into his throat and then letting go with a push. He turned his head to the side and let the brown water and blood run out of his mouth, his eyes rolling a little upwards.

“I don’t know man . . . we ran out of gas . . . or something,” he said as he jerked his legs a little.“WHERE?” I screamed.“Off Plains Road . . . Squire Street I think . . . she stayed in the car . . .”

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“You’re lucky I don’t fucking kill you,” I said as I slammed my fist into his stomach. He let out a gurgling gasp.

I got up off my knees and left that place. I was heading for Justin’s car, and if she wasn’t there, I didn’t know . . .

I found the car parked with one of its wheels still on the curb in front of an old abandoned house. I reached for the back door, and that’s when I saw her. She was lying on her side across the back seats, her head resting where I had sat before. One of her knees was curled slightly with one hand hanging over the side, the other under her head. I quickly pulled the handle and swung open the door. I put one leg in the car, rested my knee next to her leg, and leaned my left arm next to her back. I shifted her so she would face upward. A needle was hanging out of her arm, and her beautiful green eyes held the kind of endlessness that you can only see once. I looked away, and my eyes blurred and burned with tears. I slowly brushed my hand across her soft face, shutting her eyes. My tears were dripping onto her clothes like slow raindrops. I pulled the needle out and threw it to the curb. I sat down in the back seat, put her legs in my lap, and buried my tears into her stomach. The events after were a blur. I was there when they threw Justin, cuffed, into the back of a cop car. I watched Katie’s mother as she bawled her eyes out when I told her what happened.

And then it was night, and I sat alone in Katie’s favorite park under that same jungle gym. I was lying on my back with my head peeking out the side and looking into the sky. The clouds were dark and stretched endlessly, like an unfinished poem. The trees were blowing against their will. I sat there trying to think of a title for a new poem I had just written. My eyebrows turned inward, and tears flooded their way across my cheeks. “A Poem for Katie,” I thought to myself. Thunder rang out, and raindrops began pouring and splashing their heavy weight on me.

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Ana of OzJesus Chapa

My old mother said I might be an angel who deserved to be in hell. The pedestal she once placed me on was deteriorated when I told her I was gay. She thought I was traveling on a perilous and promiscuous path that she could not follow. I was in no way a whore or Dorothy trying to find my way back home down a dirty, yellow-stained road. I was on a different path that was away from roads my mom had sacrificed her own happiness to pave for me. She was a hard-working woman who didn’t know the taste of sweet wine or how to remember her own youth. She was the embodiment of the Cowardly Lion. You never caught her driving a car because other drivers were as crazy as flying monkeys, she would say. My mother was easily amused by the role of the housewife for quite awhile. Over the years as the pots rusted and the walls decayed, she learned to despise it. Her once-beautiful, brown hair was thinning into short, grayish-white hair, and her light-brown eyes were surrounded by wrinkles of time.

“What kind of malarkey are you thinking of, Jesus?” she asked. “Qué piensas?”“Nada,” I said. “Just thinking of life.”“Well, stop thinking,” she said. “Eat!”She placed two bowls on the table and sat down so we could enjoy her cooking. A perfect-white

bowl sat in front of her, and a rusted-red bowl sat in front of me. The air in the house was covered by the smell of roasted chicken and rice, fused with tension. She watched me like a fierce hawk, taking care of her fledglings while she stirred the rice in an unblemished pot. My mother made appetizing recipes that would have you licking the entire plate clean, but she had awful taste when it came to her own son’s future.

“Eat,” she repeated, stabbing her fork into chicken. “I should send you to a Catholic school. Get you away from all those sinful kids you call friends. They’ve filled your head with all these extroverted ideas.”

“What ideas, Mother?” I retaliated, dropping my silver fork onto the glass table and taking a sip of Coke. “The ideas are in your head, Ana of Oz.”

“Don’t mock me, Jesus. I am your mother.”“Oh, and about the Catholic school. Yeah, Catholic priests don’t do it for me,” I blurted. She stared at me forcefully, but the ceiling fan had all my attention. It went in circles,

mesmerizing me. I wish I was lost in its swift current and soothed by the sound of the wind it created. I wasn’t though. Her gaze tore my sweet escape. I remember the day I came out to her: January 6th, 2006. The date has a sacred place in my brain and has created a sinkhole in my left ventricle. Tears ran down her face like an annoying, leaking faucet that didn’t stop though you consistently tried to fiddle with it. She asked if I liked girls, and I said “no.” Then she went on to ask me what did I like, but I couldn’t answer. I knew the response, but the bravado in my words failed to even mumble through my slippery tongue. She began to blame the “disease” on my friends, especially my closest one, Christopher—I made the mistake of telling her he was gay as well. He and everybody else are now seen as predators, and other religions are

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apparently blasphemy against her cheap morals. She had hardly seen the inside of a church this year, and her Bible was starting to have its own collection of dusty messiahs.

“Where were you last night?” asked my mother. “You came home later than you said you would.” “I went out with Lydia like I told you,” I said as I swirled my spoon, avoiding her penetrating stare. “Did you meet any pretty girls?” she asked, taking her first spoonful. “Any prospects?” “I’m not getting married. I don’t like girls,” I said with my head down, running my hands through my jet-black hair. “I actually think it might be time for me to start thinking of moving out.” “You’re not moving out,” said my mother. “You’re only twenty. You’re going to stay ‘til you’re done with school and married. What kind of fairy tale do you exist in? Those friends of yours brainwashed you!”

“I don’t live in a fairy tale, Mother,” I retaliated. “I live in the real world. Join me.”“In the real world, guys don’t dress up in women’s clothing,” my mother said.“Being gay doesn’t mean you want to wear women’s clothing,” I said, seething. “Why don’t you

get that?”She stood up and went into the cold kitchen and gawked at the clock in front of her. Time wasn’t

on her side. Every tick was another second taken from her pathetic life. She opened the drawer, took her tattered photo of Jesus Christ out, and held it closely to her chest.

“Mom, do you think I’m going to burn in hell?” I asked, looking her in the eyes for the first time.She stood there quietly, looking at her savior, and for once she seemed at peace. Then she turned

to me, and like a black panther, she struck.“Sí, mijo,” she said. “If you keep going down this path of homosexuality, you will. The smell

of your burning skin will reach my nostrils here on earth, and my heart will sense your ache ‘til I’m in heaven. Then I will be liberated of you.”

“Enjoy heaven, Mother,” I said.“Enjoy your ruby slippers, Jesus,” she said.

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Funny KnifeMariah Medus

Visualize me. Knees glued to the ground, back arched. Not just my back is arched at this point but my neck is as well.Mouth open, parched for air that I realized only a moment ago I was taking for granted. Eyes to the sky, the sky whose eyes say nothing back, just dark clouds, upon a dark sky, upon a dark universe. Why, you may ask, am I in this position? I am in this position because the man holding the knife against my neck forced me into it. Why, you may ask, is there a man holding a knife to my neck? There is a man holding a knife to my neck because I am a witness to a crime, the crime committed by the man with the knife against my neck. The same knife he used against the victim of the crime I witnessed is now being used against me. A funny little connection.A funny little world. I don’t think of this at the time, given that at the time there was a man holding a knife against my neck. As we stand our positions in the funny little connection, in this funny little world, he breaks his by leaning down, making him level to my ear. A snarling whisper escapes the man’s clenched teeth. “You know what’s coming. You saw it. You can feel it. Thing is, are you going to fight against it or just accept it? Either way, babe, you’re going to die.”

Want to see a glimpse into my mind?

A complete blank. Are you serious? I am going to die in a matter of seconds with no life flashing before my eyes? No memories? Nothing.

So here is the conclusion I came to after this realization. There was no life to flash. There were no memories.

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I wasted my life doing what I was supposed to do and not what I wanted; therefore, it was not my life to flash.

I stayed quiet in my own house instead of telling the stranger-of-a-man who lived there too to shove a foot up his ass, because that is what I was supposed to do. I went to a college, not of my choice, even though I spent every single night there alone and ostracized instead of breaking loose and finding a place where I knew I would be surrounded by people who had an affinity for life just like me, because that is what I was supposed to do. I got a mediocre job even though I could have easily left it all to be spontaneous and travel the world on what little money I had, because that is what I was supposed to do.

The result of all of these decisions I let slide past me was that there were no memories. No memories of an ounce of happiness, because I never lived my life for me. How much does that suck?

So here I am, knife to neck, no second chances and with a head full of insight that would have actually allowed me to live life.A happy life of doing what I wanted.

Funny little connection. Funny little world. Funny little connection that with the sense of death came the sense of living. Funny little world that it takes a knife against my neck for me to realize every single mistake I ever made in this life as well as the frustration of not being able to fix it. Oh, well.What is a dead girl to do?

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First Place Poetry Winner

DisappointmentSara Grayum

You are the dab of butter meltingin my morning grits, the incessant flickerfrom the candles glowing in my room.You’re in that glass, the golden dancerof bubbles tingling my nose and mouth.As I approach that stop sign,you’ll be that blinding bus,at each street corner, stealing my time, even years after graduation.

Remembering as I do, you,the highlighter that lit up my life,so bold and so brilliant. Forget the other paragraphs,yours were the only words that mattered.

It wasn’t until early on a Tuesday,the daily shift to morning from night,allowing a bright sun to greet usas the moon planned its escape.

There you were, a stranger in my bedlike a yolk surprise, cracked before my eyes.I finally saw your true colors.

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Mysterious Taylor Lewis

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My SecretsSecond Place Art Winner

Andrea Henrici

38

Bottoms Up Mariah Medus

39

On the Edge of the World Luis Lima

40

American in a Post-American World Udo Hintze

41

No Freedom of Choice Bethany Noack

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Woman’s WoodThird Place Art Winner

Robyn Arcia

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Seashell Shore Dylan Shotton

44

Thoughts Andrew Dang

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Battling AnolesFirst Place Art Winner

Jennifer Ellison

46

Pavo Robyn Arcia

47

Lies Bethany Noack

48

Sound Clarity Andrea Henrici

49

Wizards Do Exist Eduardo Zavala

50

Magic in the Fall Luis Lima

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Simple Happiness Marlene Morales

52

Unearthed Kathleen “Kitti” Ballard

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Another Dimension Madison Estes

54

In Pieces Charles Rankin

55

Act Human Andrew Frazier

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Third Place Prose Winner

Destined for an Early GraveCourtney Rector

Not wanting to draw attention to myself—it’s hard not to look conspicuous when you’re skulking around a middle-class neighborhood in the dark of night dressed in head-to-toe black and toting a tranquilizer rifle loaded with enough GHB to put down a small bear—I decided to circle around and enter through the backdoor, fingers crossed that Mrs. Panelli’s toy poodle, Sassy, wouldn’t sound the alarm.

After successfully maneuvering through the back gate and onto the patio without so much as a yip from Sassy, I was feeling pretty proud of myself until I got a look at the back sliding-glass door. What was left of it hung open, its shredded screen billowing in the light breeze like the serrated sail on a sinking ship. Dozens of smudges and muddy handprints peppered the glass. The lights were off, but moonlight filtered through the open doorway, bathing the interior in an eerie haze. Soggy footprints marked my mother’s snow-white carpet before slipping into darkness at the mouth of the hallway leading from the family room to my sister’s bedroom.

I didn’t want to believe it was true. Until I entered the house, I could still pretend it wasn’t, but there’d be no turning back once I stepped through that doorway. No one to wake me from the nightmare. I’m ashamed to say that a part of me—the vast majority—wanted to turn around, climb in my truck, and drive home where I could wrap myself in a blanket of denial.

But the Polaroid in my back pocket burned like a brand. My sister’s grave was empty. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and entered the house. After crossing the family room on

silent feet, I entered the hallway, focusing on the mud-caked depressions in the carpet, trying and failing not to look at the row of family photos lining the wall. The last photo before I reached the doorway to Becca’s room stopped me in my tracks.

It was just another snapshot of Becca among many. Birthday parties, Christmas—you name it—my mom would click away like a maniac, recording every detail of my little sister’s life. Their miracle, my parents called her. The baby that the doctors told them would never live. But she had. For ten short years, Rebecca had defied all odds and lived, despite the cancer that ravaged her tiny body.

Somehow I knew it was the last picture anyone had taken of Becca. Maybe it was the sunlightened streaks of hair framing her face or the fresh line of freckles dotting her nose. Maybe it was because in all the other photos Becca was surrounded by loved ones—my mom, my father, me—but in this photograph she was alone. She wasn’t smiling, wasn’t even looking at the camera but staring off into the distance like she was waiting for something. Something the rest of us couldn’t see.

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I pressed a kiss against the cold glass and walked the last few feet to my kid sister’s bedroom. Becca’s back was to me as she sat in the middle of her floor, wearing a stained and tattered,

yellow dress, surrounded by powder-pink walls and the princess mural I’d painted for her the summer before I moved out. Her once beautiful, strawberry-blonde curls hung limp and lifeless down her back, briars and twigs trapped amid the tangles.

There was blood everywhere—the carpet, Becca’s dress, down the side of one wall. All around her Barbie dolls littered the ground, their twisted and broken bodies splattered with blood until they looked like some macabre Disney remake of Saving Private Ryan. It took a few precious seconds for me to realize the stuffed animal in the corner wasn’t really a stuffed animal but Mrs. Panelli’s poodle. All that was left of the poor thing were a few tufts of fur scattered among a pool of red.

I don’t know how long I stood there watching her as she slowly rocked back and forth in the silence. God help me, part of me just wanted to act like there was nothing wrong with her. That sweet, gentle Rebecca Rider—beloved daughter of Hank and Marlene, and sister to Lexi—was still alive and not a flesh-eating monster.

Then the garage door cranked to life, and the spell was broken. Becca’s head whipped around at the sound. Obsidian eyes stared back at me, and a growl erupted from broken lips striped with blood. A growl that set my hair on end. It wasn’t a human sound. It was hunger and rage and death. And for the moment, it was directed at me. If I didn’t contain her quickly, she’d find a new target, our unsuspecting parents.

She was on me before I could raise the tranquilizer gun. One second my ten-year-old sister was sitting on the floor some ten feet away, and the next she slammed into me with the force of a college linebacker, propelling me back down the hallway to the family room and knocking my only weapon from my grasp. The newly raised are just that fast. After a day or two, when the black magic that fuels their unnatural rebirth begins to fade, their gait slows, and they begin to resemble the duck-footed, shambling creatures moviegoers believe them to be. Until then they’re faster and stronger than us. Did I mention hungry?

I howled in pain as Becca’s teeth sank into my forearm, skin and muscle tearing away like ribbons of confetti. You’d have thought the poodle was an appetizer and I was the main course. Did that mean my parents were dessert? Not on my watch.

I had to do something fast. But what? Try to rip my arm free and make a dash for the tranq gun, hoping I made it before my parents opened the door? Or crabwalk my ass back down the hall, dragging my sister in my wake? Both would do considerable damage to my left arm, but only one got me close to my gun fast. Casting a quick glance around the room, my eyes settled on the carving of a duck Becca and I had given our father on his fiftieth birthday. It was solid hardwood and heavy as hell.

With Becca in tow, I inched my way to the coffee table and had just wrapped my fingers around the duck’s neck when I caught a lucky break. Apparently my shifting movements had jostled her enough

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that Becca was forced to re-grip. When she released my arm to do just that, I struck. The duck caught her in the temple and sent her reeling backwards.

Using my good hand, I quickly tore a strip from the bottom of my t-shirt and wound it around my injured arm, all the while watching Becca’s prone form for signs of movement. After tucking the loose edge of my makeshift bandage in at my elbow, I jerked to my feet and made a dash back down the hallway to my weapon. I rescued the tranquilizer gun from the floor and turned back to the family room just in time to see my father step through the garage door and into the house. The clicking of my mother’s heels against concrete told me she wasn’t far behind.

My father took in the scene in less time than it took me to load a new dose of tranquilizer—his eyes zipping from my sister’s crumpled form down the hallway to where I stood, one arm holding a high-powered rifle, the other mangled and bloodied. Dad was ex-military; he knew a bad situation when he saw one. He didn’t even flinch, just wheeled around, and proceeded to slam the door shut in my mother’s face. He almost made it.

A split-second before the door closed on my mother, she looked up, and her eyes caught mine. I froze. Zombies didn’t scare me, but the look on mother’s face had me edging back until my spine touched the wall. Her gaze swept across my torso and jerked to a halt on my bandaged arm. The next thing I knew, the petite and sophisticated, Anne Klein-wearing soccer woman who raised me was gone. In her place—shouldering the door open like an enraged mother cow and sending my father stumbling back from the force—stood Marlene Rider, avenging angel.

“Oh, my God, Lexi . . . what’s happened?” she asked, and for a moment I was just thankful that she still cared. After the hell I’d put her through during my childhood . . . after refusing to speak to her in the months following Becca’s funeral . . . she still cared.

She started across the family room, her gaze riveted to the gnawed arm cradled to my side when the rustle of tulle and taffeta caught all of our attention. I held my breath as my parents’ heads shifted toward the sound, and they got their first long look at their unexpected guest. No one said a word; the only sounds filling the room were the wet, sticky moans reverberating from Becca’s chest as she came to.

“Sweet Jesus!” The words were barely a whisper. Whether Dad intended them as a prayer or a curse, I’m not sure.

Mom didn’t say anything, and that scared me more than I cared to admit. She just stood there in the middle of the room, silent tears beginning to roll down the sharp angles of her face as she watched the broken, bloodied doll that was once her baby girl attempt to claw its way up from the stained carpet. Mom tensed as if to take a step forward, but Dad clasped a hand over her shoulder and tucked her into his side.

I don’t know how she knew; I never saw her eyes leave Becca’s face. “Don’t,” Mom said. Her voice raked over me like a thousand tiny icicles, burrowing deep beneath my skin. My grip

tightened on the steel. Every instinct I had screamed for me to shoot Rebecca before she made it back to her feet. “It’s not Becca,” I said.

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Becca looked up at the three of us looming over her and snarled. I’m not sure if it was meant as an agreement or a warning. Deciding to err on the side of caution, I slid the gun’s safety to the off position with a click of my finger.

Mom’s eyes darted to mine. Cold, focused. And for the second time that night, the thought of pissing off the pint-sized dynamo that’d given birth to me made me pause. “Alexis Faythe Rider . . . ” she started, and I knew nothing good could come from her using my full name. “I forbid you to shoot your sister.”

“Mom, you don’t know what you’re saying . . . ” I tried again. “It’s not Becca.”Her scowl deepened, and a vein began to throb near her temple. “I know what a zombie is,” she

said. “I know what they’re capable of.”That she did. I’d raised more than my fair share of the walking dead before I learned to control

my little quirk. All accidents, of course. But accidental zombies are every bit as dangerous as the ones created on purpose.

Mom stared at me for a long moment. “It’s not my Becca,” she said on a sigh. “And . . . it is.” It felt like Becca’s funeral all over again, like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. “Marlene—” Dad started.“Don’t, Hank.” She cut him off with a finger over his lips. When she looked up at him, they had

one of those silent conversations married people have, the ones the rest of us have no hope of decoding.Mom’s back was to both me and Becca, an extremely vulnerable position made especially so

by the fact that Becca had made it to her feet. To my surprise she didn’t attack, only stood there, her depthless eyes darting back and forth between our parents and me.

“They remember,” Mom said, the pain causing her voice to crack. “They remember home and family.” She twisted in my father’s embrace, turning first to survey Becca then me. “Some remember love.”

I looked at my baby sister then, past the streaks of blood marring her freckled face, down her arms to the fists clenching and unclenching at her sides, like she was struggling to hold on to something. What? Her memories? The desire not to hurt us? How long before the hunger won out?

“It all takes a backseat to the hunger,” I warned. “Becca’s memories won’t overrule instinct. Not if she feels threatened.” I thrust my injured arm out in emphasis. “I didn’t bring her back. I have no control over her. Something goes wrong—and it will—it’s on you.” Was I seriously considering it?

My mother blinked back tears and nodded her assent. Behind her, my father stood taller, his hands curving over my mother’s petite shoulders in a show of support. “We’ll be careful, Lexi,” Dad said.

“You can’t keep her forever,” I told them. My mother stepped out of my father’s embrace to stand beside me. “Just for tonight.” Her hand

closed over the barrel of the gun, and only then did I realize I still held it in my hands. The nose tilted down until the muzzle tip pressed to the floor. “One night. That’s all I’m asking, Lexi.”

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“Dad?” I asked. He had a stake in this, too.“What do you need, sweetheart?” he asked.“Rope. Lots and lots of rope.” Dad slowly edged backwards toward the garage door. “Don’t got any rope, but I got a whole case

of duct tape. The wide stuff.”“That’ll work,” I said as he eased the door open and slipped out. When the door shut with a soft

click, I turned to Mom. “A whole case? Why in God’s name does he need a case of duct tape?”“It was on sale last week at Costco.” Her lips twisted into a small smile. “You know your father

can’t resist a sale. Or buying in bulk.” There was a hint of laughter in her voice. I couldn’t help but think it’d been way too long since any of us had a reason to laugh, to really

let loose. That time wasn’t now. Now was for small smiles and hints of a better tomorrow. Now was for wrapping my baby sister in duct tape and praying she didn’t get too hungry before I finished.

“Did they happen to have a sale on hamburger at Costco last week?” I asked.Mom’s smile lifted just a tiny bit higher. “It just so happens they did.”

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Peace of MindMichelle Hunter-Robinson

I search andseek one thingto find. Butit eludes me,hides behind thefallacies that cloakand bind orhazy judgmentswhich often blind.I wish butone thing sealedand signed, throughgnashed teeth andbones that grind,from battles ragedand waged inclined,to overcome tormentsmaligned. Desiring tomake time rewind,create a lifeof straight align.With purpose destinedby design, securityof thought andpeace of mind.

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New Text MessageAdam Zuazua

I am standing in the entrance of my bedroom; Karen is already asleep in a fetal position. It is 10:30 p.m.; she is usually nodding off at this time. I walk in and sit on the edge of my bed. I begin to undress. I place my wallet on the nightstand on my side of the bed and charge my cell phone. I notice I have a new text message. It’s from Sharon. “Let me know when you’re there, and just grab what you can, and hurry back! I can’t wait!” Sharon is the woman I’ve gotten to be really close to for the last couple of weeks from work.

I am sitting on my side of the bed, staring at the illuminated wall. I turn off the television. When I am with Sharon, we have a great time. Today at lunch I was really enjoying myself and her company. And after all this time of Sharon and me knowing each other, we kissed for the first time. Only it went a bit further with our hands. We got into my car, and I drove her to her car which was parked in the highest level in the parking garage. We talked of our feelings towards each other on the short ride there. I feel like she’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.

For these past few weeks, I haven’t looked forward to coming home. It’s the same old thing with Karen, harassing me about something small: I didn’t do this, or I didn’t do that. When I point out something she does, oh, boy, she cannot handle it. It’s something I’ve begun to throw in her face when we have our mid-week fight. I unlock my phone with my password. I never had a password on my phone before. I open up the message and begin to reply.

I’m not sure what to write. I leave the bedroom and go into the dimly-lit kitchen to check what’s left for dinner. I see it’s slow-roasted pork, something that Karen makes special for me. I serve myself pork over steamed rice. This is something I love, and I love Karen for it. I turn on the kitchen lights and see that she has a card left out for me. I open it, and it says she’s sorry for the arguments she’s started, and it has two tickets to the basketball game this weekend for us. I open up the refrigerator and see two sodas there for me. She knows it takes two sodas for me to finish my meal.

All of a sudden, I feel nauseous, and I have only taken two bites of my food. I leave the food out on the countertop and sprint back to the bedroom. I grab my phone and take a deep breath. Should I reply to her? I ask myself. My wife turns over and slightly opens her eyes. “Did you check the kitchen?” she asks me. I smile big, delete the message, crawl onto the bed, kiss her on the forehead, and tell her, “Yes, I did, thank you.”

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HomecomingCourtney Rector

He hiked up the hillside toward me, his shoulders slouched and the autumn breeze ruffling his dark hair. He wore khaki slacks with a white dress shirt and a striped tie, the blue one we’d picked out together for his dad at Macy’s two Christmases ago.

“You look like you’re going to a funeral,” I joked as he drew closer, but he didn’t smile. He stopped a half dozen feet away from where I sat, and I drank in the sight of him. His hair was

longer, the chestnut strands brushing his collar, and I had to curl my hands into fists to keep from reaching out to stroke a stray lock from his forehead. A part of me had hoped he wouldn’t come, but I’d been foolish. Noah always kept his promises.

“I miss you,” Noah whispered. He didn’t look up at me but kept his gaze locked on the ground beneath his feet.

“I told you not to come back,” I said. “I made quarterback again this season,” he said, and I smiled despite myself. Typical Noah. He

was always talking football, even when no one cared to listen. “Mom and Dad are really pushing for me to go out of state after graduation, to LSU or even OU, but I told them it was Baylor all the way. Just like we planned.”

I swallowed. Forced the words past the lump in my throat. “Plans change.”Noah kicked a clump of soil with the toe of his boot and tugged at the knot in his tie. “We played

our first game of the season last week against Trinity. Beat ‘em forty-one to forty. It was a hell of a game. When I threw that last pass and Tucker took it in with only seconds to spare, I looked at the bleachers like always.”

He didn’t say, You should’ve been there. I didn’t say, You have to let me go.Instead, Noah walked over to a nearby bench and sat down with his legs straddling the seat. He

raked his bangs back from his forehead with long fingers and took a deep breath. “Homecoming’s next month.”

Homecoming. A year gone in the blink of an eye. “It seems like only yesterday we drove down to Willow Creek,” he said. “God, I felt so sorry for

myself that night. How did you stand it?” He’d worked on roofs all summer with his dad, and then two weeks before school started, he

slipped and fell. Broke his arm in two places. Dale Newberry had quarterbacked that homecoming while Noah and I drove out to Willow Creek after my shift at the Dairy Queen, a stolen six pack of beer our only concession to the night’s festivities. Neither of us spoke a word as we bumped along down miles and miles of dirt road. He didn’t ask me where I’d gotten the beer. I didn’t ask him if he’d gone to the game.

I lost more than my virginity on that cool, October night. In the backseat of an ‘87 Camaro in the middle of the backwoods of east Texas, I gave my heart to Noah Tolver, a boy with a neon-green cast and a crooked smile. When I’d cried, he gathered me in his arms and kissed my lips until they tingled. I love you, Katie.

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It took me a moment to realize those words were more than an echo from the past. I’d been so lost in memory, I hadn’t noticed that Noah had stood and crossed the few feet separating us. When he sank to his knees before me, silent tears flooding his grey eyes, my heart clenched, and my arms ached to hold him one last time. With a gentle slide of his fingers, he traced the outline of my name on the cold granite. “I love you, Katie,” he repeated. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

I knelt down beside him, our knees touching though he couldn’t feel it and leaned forward, pressing my lips to his cheek, though he couldn’t feel that either. Then as fast as my shaking legs would carry me, I stood and started back down the hill.

“Katie?” I shouldn’t have, but I chanced one last look back. Noah was staring in my direction, one hand

raised to shield his eyes from the sun and squinting like he was straining to see something far away. I didn’t dare stop, didn’t dare hope. The living don’t see the non-living. It sucks, but it’s the way of the world. Instead, I blew him a kiss over my shoulder and kept walking until my tears ran out.

He didn’t say goodbye. Neither did I.

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Second Place Prose Winner

MandalasJames McAuley

“What about this one?” The old man jerked his head towards a pen-and-ink drawing held unevenly to the wall with thumbtacks.

“What about it?” asked the artist.“What were you thinking about when you drew it?”“I was thinking . . . ” The artist paused for a sip of bourbon and frowned. When he first bought

the bottle, he had been excited about its supposed brilliance and hefty price, but four glasses in, it had no more appeal than Woodford Reserve or Jim Beam. Three months ago he would have blackjacked a little old lady for the price of a pint, but now . . . he shook his head to clear his mind. “I had a homework assignment due in an hour, and I needed to squeak by with a ‘C.’”

“It only took an hour?”“It took twenty-some years.”“How do you reckon?” The man leaned forward in his chair.“I’m twenty-nine. I was about four years old when I started scribbling on walls.”“Well, then, call it six billion years. You’ve been working on this since the Big Bang.” The man

threw himself back into the armchair with such force that it rocked back and forth with a steady creak. “Pre-determination,” agreed the artist.“So what’s next? You’ve had your little show, your ‘what’s new in OKC’ interview, the phone

rings—though you never answer it. The papers print lies and half truths. You know you’ve really made it when the fact checkers stop doing whatever it is that they supposedly do. You’ve hit the big show. Are you going to hit a home run or strike out?”

“I think,” said the artist, “I’ll have another drink.” He stood uneasily and lumbered across the hardwood floor to the kitchen.

“You don’t offer your guest a drink?” the old man yelled over his shoulder.“You’re not a guest; you’re a pest,” the artist wearily reminded him, scanning the dark kitchen for

a path through the maze of dishes and art supplies. “You want a drink?” “You know I can’t drink.”“That’s why I didn’t bother asking. How crazy do you think I am?”“Crazy enough to talk with me while you drink yourself to sleep, I suppose.”The artist cackled, honestly tickled for the first time in weeks. It took him two tries to open the

freezer door. He filled the glass with ice and then dumped some out, leaving more room for the pricey swill his new friends had drolly recommended.

He splashed the contents of a hand-blown decanter into his glass, across his hand, and onto the counter. Back in his seat, he regarded the pest. He was gaunt, with yellowed eyes that jumped around the

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room like a squirrel in constant danger. In the shadows of the room, he ebbed into the darkness and then pounced back into focus with a fidget.

“I think the Marine Corps is next,” he told the pest.“Excuse me?” gasped the old man.“You know, rifles, uniforms, marching, fighting, drinking.” The artist raised his glass and stared

into the anemic contents with slothful irreverence.“But you’ve got it made. You’re one of the most talented young men I ever taught,” the old man

said. “Finally on the cusp of something, and running away again.”“Talent is meaningless.”“When it isn’t nurtured,” the old man searched the artist’s face with his eyes. “Why?”“It’s all an illusion.”“What’s an illusion?”“This,” the artist spread his arms, sloshing bourbon and sending ice cubes skittering across the

floor to be forgotten under a lamp table. “All of it, you know? It’ll drive you crazy.”“You’re crazy.” The old man waved away the smile spreading across the artist’s face.“Not yet, but madness surely follows genius.” The artist raised his glass and drank deep.“Think of what you could create.”“You can’t create,” the artist sneered back. “You can only represent. Let’s call it what it is, a

knack for seeing the big picture, for describing it, for showing others, people who lack intuition and vision, what the world looks like, smells like. What is society? What is man? What is beauty, what is God, what is the universe? An illusion, that’s what.”

The man rapped the knuckle of his pointer on the coffee table, “Seems pretty real to me.”“Well, that just proves it.”“What? Are you’re calling me phony?”“Fake, phony, imaginary. If the shoe fits . . . ” the artist shrugged.“You’re mad. It’s the drugs. I keep telling you to stay away from the drugs.” The old man’s

voice turned shrill and womanish. It reminded the artist of his mother.“I haven’t done a thing in days.”“Then it’s your drinking.”“The drinking only causes certain types of hallucinations.” The artist rapped his skull with his

knuckles and laughed without humor.They stared at each other through the darkness. The old man pursed his lips. The artist took cool

sips from his glass and stared back calmly, watching his hallucination ebb in and out of existence. The old man melted into the fabric of the armchair and fell like fog to the floor. “We like this place,” said a multitude of disembodied voices.

“I’m not happy,” replied the artist.“Not happy? Who is happy? You know, you get this from your father. The man couldn’t be

happy, not even with a full belly and a warm bed.”

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The artist tried to force the phantasm back into the shape of his old art professor, but his memories of his mother were too strong, and a wave of guilt washed over him.

She scolded him with the disembodied voice, “You know he always talked about rubbish. It’s what got him killed.” The smoke lifted from the floor and fought to constitute his mother’s short, fat frame. “Happiness isn’t something you can chase after; it’s just the willingness to let go of what should be and cling to what is.”

“Wow, Ma. That there was almost bodhisattva of you,” the artist mocked.“Don’t sass me.”“You cling to your illusions; I’ll cling to mine,” he said.“You can find strength in Jesus, and you can be happy in Him.”“Your God doesn’t exist.” The artist frowned. It was a common argument he got sucked into

every time, the round and round of religion and culture with the ghost of a woman who had never left her home county, let alone met a single person with a divergent point of view on anything that mattered.

“But it’s the little things that matter most,” she complained. But there was no room for her in the late night bourbon-sutra philosophies.

“Go to bed, Ma,” he demanded. He returned to his drink, lighting a cigarette in the emptiness of the room. The smoke scratched the back of his throat as he dragged it deep into his lungs. The ember lit the room, casting his reflection in a window as ethereal as his late-night guests. Focusing on the slow burn in his lungs, his mother’s gasping ghost lost voice and faded into the shadows of the room.

When he knew she was gone for good, he jabbed the butt out on the new rosewood coffee table, forgetting he had finally replaced his old college furniture earlier in the week. He contemplated another drink but decided to kick off his clothes. He walked into the bathroom naked, puked, spat, brushed, and then crawled into bed.

“Are you all right?” his girlfriend asked.“Yeah.”“You puked.”“Made myself. I’ve got a long day.”“Who were you talking to?”“Nobody.”“I thought you were talking to your mother on the phone.”“No.” He rolled towards her and kissed her forehead.She frowned and tucked a strand hair behind her ear. “You were talking about leaving all this,

that all of this isn’t real. I don’t want to go back to the way things were. I like it. I like having things.”“I know, baby. You stuck with me. I owe you for everything.”“You owe me a kiss.” She closed her eyes and nestled into him.He rolled onto his back, staring up into the ceiling fan as it painted swirls of stucco like mandalas

in his mind. He tried to sleep but gave up and turned back to her. A tear rolled down her cheek.“You’re scaring me, baby.”“I’m sorry.” The guilt started rising in him again, and he fought it back.

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“What we have is real, right?”“It’s the only thing in my life that is real.”“You promise?”“I’ve promised a thousand times. Forever, baby.”“You promise?” He laughed and kissed her. “Forever, I’ll love you forever. I love you now more than the

day we met.”“Tell me about that day again.”“Not tonight. I’m sleepy.”“Tell me about the book,” she laughed.“The Republic.” He tickled her, and she fought him off. “I already owned a copy, but I had to buy

a copy to impress you. What I haven’t told you was that I also hated coffee.” He drifted the backs of his fingers across the skin of her hip and down her bare thigh.

“Stop, stop.” She pulled him close and kissed him. She laughed as they kissed, and he pulled away just in time to grab her hands as they reached out to tickle him back.”

“Truce?” he asked.“Truce,” she lied. He rolled on top her still holding her by the wrists. “Okay, okay, truce, for real

truce,” she promised as he collapsed to the bed next to her. She ran a hand through his hair. “Where is that book?”

“Somewhere.”“Go get it,” she asked. “Read me the part about bankers and thieves.”“It’s late, and I’m lost,” he said. “I’ve got my show tomorrow, finally.” “Then hold me and love me.”“Forever, baby.” He wrapped his arms around her and curled tightly into the fetal position,

watching through tears as she drifted away like smoke from the crematorium that had incinerated her body.

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Milky Way Stephanie Carpenter

Fire and iceare just the beginningA jewel-tone hazewith crystals entwiningPowdered airthat sparkles with poison Fall through it, fly through iteternities chosenCorner to corner, an impossible lustGo down for some airland on Earth if you mustAnd while you are catching the last of your breathI’m up here absorbing the worlds that are left

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Oil SpillTara Thomas

Blinded by a restless moon, I weep stars like yarn that alchemize vampiric creatureswho moan and whimper in the light.

Eyes yellow and lemon-sourstrike in me something lustful.Feral blood and fucking fictionand the taste of wet vermillion.

This road now twists and rapesthe skyscrapers that pluck the blue from the sky, like blood-stiffened chimneysthat chortle and scorch the green below.

When did romance become so fictitious? When did endings become so destructive? All your books are lies. All your words are smoke.

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Torn SockKathleen “Kitti” Ballard

I looked out at the tree from the gazebo tent that had been constructed in the churchyard. That tree had been around since I could remember. When I was younger, after church, a few kids and I would always see who could climb to the top while our parents, and sometimes the preacher, would yell at us to come down. So many generations had climbed that tree, and now, on my wedding day, all I can do is stare at this memorial of my youth.

“You are just so beautiful,” my mother said as she reached for another tissue from the nearly empty box. “Why, I remember the day your father and I got married.”

And then divorced, I thought as I picked at the crystals on the poofy skirt of the wedding dress my mother insisted on. It was ugly, but so was the whole idea of Mom pushing this white wedding on me. “Mom, I just can’t handle any stories right now,” I said as I checked the mirror once more in an attempt to keep my unruly lavender and brown-streaked hair from flying in the wind.

“I don’t know why you insisted on keeping your hair dyed those crazy colors.” Here we go again with the nagging, I thought. “Because Jason likes it, Mom, and honestly, so

do I. Besides, would you really want me to be someone I’m not?” I asked, knowing I had thrown in my most common guilt trip. My mother was kind but tended to not think before she spoke.

I heard the sound of high heels coming through the grass and the voice of my maid of honor and best friend Lucy saying, “Melody, you better come quick. Your little shit of a brother got up into the tree again, and he has the ring in his pocket.”

“Christ!” I said. “Language,” my mother said as I rushed towards the tree, barely keeping my dress from tripping

me head first into the grass.As I approached, I could see his shoes lying discarded on the ground but no socks. “Crap. Didn’t

anyone tell his ass you don’t climb trees with socks on?” I said as I kicked off my heels. “Dominik, your ass is mine if I get to you!”

I saw him fall to the ground in a very well-placed dismount. I looked him over, checking for scrapes. “Where is your other sock?” I said as I leaned on the old oak.

“Hell if I know. It’s probably up in that dumb tree,” he said with the mischevious voice only an eleven-year-old can pull off.

“You got the ring still at least?” I said as I tied my hair in a quick updo with the ponytail holder that never left my wrist.

Dominick searched his pocket before nodding.“Fine. Stay here,” I said as I began to climb up this tree that had been my refuge for so long. The

dress I never wanted kept snagging on the branches as if they were clawing through it. I could hear my little brother yelling about telling Mom, but I didn’t care. Every branch that took me higher reminded me more and more of the freedom I missed. I scanned the tree and found the sock, now torn and dirty, and I looked down to see a crowd had gathered.

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My mother was there with the frown that seemed to always play on her face. I knew she meant well. Lucy was chasing after my brother. I could see my grandmother who was laughing and pointing me out to my grandpa who had a hard time seeing even though I must have been like a sore white thumb against all the foliage. I could see Jason, with his peircings and tattoos, just the way I liked him, and that really was all that mattered, not the dress or the ceremony, just Jason.

I began my descent from the tree, moving slower this time as not to tear the dress any further and back into the life I had chosen. After all, we can’t always stay in the tree.

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The Last InterventionMason Wayland

The needle kissed my flesh, straight through my cold skin into the blue vein that made a river down my arm. My blood filled the small syringe just before it was pumped back in, flowing through my body as mass numbness came over me. I slowly pulled out the syringe, immediately releasing my leather belt from my bicep. Sliding the cold needle out was the best part for me; as soon as I see the tip of that needle, I know I am about to be higher than sweet baby Jesus. I licked the fat drop of blood off my fresh trail mark and tapped the syringe on the toilet seat. I felt my chest go numb as the heroin hit my heart, pumping it through to every inch of my body.

“How long does it take to piss?” My pops knocked on the door. “Everyone is waiting for you.” I quickly slid my vial of heroin into my coat pocket, rubbing the outside of the glass with my thumb and index finger. Turning to the sink, I reached down and used an old piece of duct tape to strap my syringe and burnt black spoon under the piping. I liked to call that syringe my “Jesus Syringe” because it was my saving grace during the holidays at my mother’s house.

As I stood and turned, my eyes rose to look straight into a picture of myself at the age of eight which hung in my mother’s bathroom. My eyes were so innocent back then, my face so smooth and sober. I turned and looked into the mirror: my five o’clock shadow was on its third day; my skin was as pale as a corpse. The bags under my half-closed eyes were a darker purple than the time Jimmy Carson kicked my ass in the eighth grade. I filled my hands with cold water and scrubbed my face, hoping that it would sober me up a little bit.

I opened the door with a loud squeak to see my family sitting in my mom’s living room. My legs felt like Jell-O; if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I floated through the living room to the open seat on the leather couch. I slowly lowered my numb body onto the couch next to my grandmother. She was a small but strong woman; she wore her blue night gown and Betty Boop house slippers, just like every other night. She used to do magic tricks at our family reunions for me and my cousins; she could make scotch and cigarettes disappear.

Tears were flowing down my sister’s face as she sat directly across from me in a wooden chair from the kitchen; she couldn’t even look at me as she placed her face in the palm of her hands. My mom was sitting next to her; she extended her slender arm to provide my sister a Kleenex from the box that she had prepared on her lap. In her small hands she held “Get Clean Quick” pamphlets that she loved to get from her church.

My beautiful mother made eye contact with me and smiled; tears were running down her face. After the first time she found out that I was using heroin, it became very hard for me to look her in the eyes. Not looking my own mother in the eyes because I was so ashamed killed me inside. Her eyes are the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen. The premature wrinkles that dance around her eyes and lips are from the endless stress that I have caused her over the years. My fingers were still rubbing the glass vial that was in my jacket pocket.

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My father sat on his recliner. His lip was stretched to the max from the fat-ass pinch of dip in his lip. He was decked out in his game day gear, head to toe: Dallas Cowboys shirt with cut-off sleeves that exposed his eczema, sweat pants, knee-high socks, and his ball cap with the Confederate flag stitched on the front. There was a large eight-point buck that was mounted on the wall behind him, but if you asked him about it, he would tell you it was the smallest deer he ever shot. His eyes were fixed on the TV in the corner of the room that was broadcasting the game. Princess, his small wiener dog, sat perched up on his lap.

“We wanted to talk to you,” my grandmother said, patting my knee. “Do you know what you have done to this family? You are not a child anymore.” I rubbed the vial in my pocket with two fingers as I kept my eyes locked on her hand drumming on my leg. “Since the day you were born, you have been the light of my world.” Slowly, her hand started to become translucent. She continued to pat my knee, but she was slowly vanishing way. I looked up at her face as she whispered, “I tried.” After the words rolled off her tongue, she disappeared in front of my eyes.

I looked around at the circle of faces that surrounded me, looking for them to be as shocked as I was. They did not even blink at the fact that my grandmother wasn’t there anymore, and she sure as hell didn’t walk out of the room. I knew it was good heroin, but Jesus Christ . . . I wanted to stand up and run out the door, but the numbness in my limbs kept me planted in place on the now-empty couch.

My eyes scanned the white-walled room that was covered with my whole childhood that my mother captured through her old black camera. The pictures were bursting with joyful faces and faded memories. I had my right hand in my jacket pocket; my fingers habitually caressed the outside of the vial of goodness that rested inside. I glared at a picture of me and my sister at the Grand Canyon that hung on the wall; I was racking my brain for memories, but I had absolutely no recollection of the Grand Canyon.

“How much have you stolen from this family?” my sister said, crying hysterically. “Dad’s gun, mom’s jewelry, not to even mention grandma’s savings. All for what? Your fucking high?” I was thankful that she didn’t bring up her Dodge Neon. She was wiping her face with a fresh Kleenex when she began to fade out of my vision. When she sat back in her chair, I could see through her torso; she was evaporating. I rubbed my eyes with my dirty fingers, and when I opened them again, my baby sister was gone; she vanished from my mother’s living room.

I stared into my mother’s wrinkled face; her dark hair had long strands of grey running down to her shoulders. She had no reaction to her daughter disappearing right in front of her. All I saw in her face was the love that she embraced me with my whole life. I looked deep into her eyes, but all I could think about was the syringe taped under her sink, just waiting for me.

“How far did it get you in the end?” The words flowed from my mom’s sweet lips; she stared at me with such a deep love. “You’re out of control. You’ve destroyed everything in your path; you can’t stop by yourself. Let me pay for your treatment. We can have you shipped off today!” She held the pamphlets up and then placed them back down on her lap. What she didn’t understand was that I could quit if I wanted to; I don’t need anyone’s help. Her worldly body began to pulsate. “I love you,” she whispered, fading from a translucent state into nothing at all. I stared into the empty chair that she was sitting in just a few seconds before, absolutely dumbfounded. In a blink of an eye, the person who loved

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me most in the whole world, the person I loved most was gone, leaving me alone in the living room with my father.

My eyes transferred to meet my father’s unshaven face. His eyes were waiting for me; his glare burned a whole straight through my forehead. We sat in complete silence for a few minutes, staring blankly at one another as the ceiling fan squeaked with each rotation. He brought a red Dixie cup to his mouth and let a large ball of Copenhagen slide down the inside of the cup to a pool of blackened nicotine.

“Your kids don’t even know who their father is,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “I fucked up a lot, but at least I was around for you. Your whole family tried to help you, but you’re too thick-headed, aren’t you?” I was staring at him, as the light from the window burst through the top of his head. His translucent body made began to fade in front of me; my spinal cord trembled as the hair on my neck stood erect. Princess, the wiener dog, started to bark as they both began to pulsate in and out of my reality. The loud screeching of the stupid dog halted. My father was no longer in his recliner.

The ceiling fan and Cowboy’s game sang in harmony as the sounds echoed through the empty house. My eyes began to slowly close from the intense numbness of my face; my fingers rubbed the glass vial that was still in my jacket pocket. My thoughts seemed to echo in the empty room. I opened my eyes and looked around; the reality began to set in that I really was all alone now. The only people who ever tried to help me, love me, free me, they are all gone. I took the vial out of my pocket and held it up to the light; staring through the glass, I could see my past, all bottled up into that little tube. Tears began to fall down my face as I prayed to Jesus that it wouldn’t be my future.

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Third Place Poetry Winner (Tie)

PTSDRobin McKnight

Sometimes,The world slows downAnd all I can feel are my fingersOn the triggers—HoppingLittle chaos engines—Aching a warm, familiar ache.At least I am good At something.

It’s been hours.And I was insideMy head again.Where is this?Four walls.A house.A baby.A life.

But no machine gun.And I’m scared.

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UnrequitedMary Faler

Your only thought throughout the wedding was how easy it would be to shove the groom down the carpeted steps so that his head could bounce off the wooden pew. His back was to you; he’d never see it coming, and those carpeted stairs were red, so blood wasn’t a concern. Then, of course, you could step in and take his place, easy as pie.

“Love is a precious thing,” the minister drones on, causing you to face reality: sending Rick into a coma probably wasn’t going to get the bride to fall in love with you, no matter how tempting it was. You look at the bride, your best friend since high school, and think of how angelic she looks. Just like first period chemistry, freshman year. Theresa Wilson walked into the room, the new student, and your breath caught in your throat. She was a vision, an angel, your fourteen-year-old mind had told you, and so captivated were you, you spilled vinegar into a whole box of baking soda. Fizzing, laughing, and a completely-soaked Elliot Jones caused commotion in the room. Mr. Evans tried to get everyone to calm down, and you, thoroughly embarrassed, sunk down to the ground, trying to make sure no one saw your beet-red face. But then there was Theresa, roll of paper towels in hand, helping you even though she was the new girl in school and telling you all about how she was once doing her nails while watching a scary movie and spilled polish all over her mother’s carpet.

“Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”You’re once again in reality, looking at Theresa smile, but not at you, not since med school. You

bite your lip because the urge to scream, “I love you! Please marry ME!” is so strong and so fierce you almost can’t take it; your heart feels like it is about to jump right out of your chest. Soon a metallic taste shows up in your mouth, but you continue to bite down because you will not ruin this.

The wedding ends, and everyone proceeds out. You barely notice the maid of honor grinning at you, obviously infatuated, clinging to your arm. Later she comes up to you, a whirl of chiffon and pale hues. Her hair is a mess from too much liquid courage.

“Will you dance with me?” she asks, her voice a little louder than she probably realized, but you only shake your head in response. You feel a little bad when her shoulders suddenly fall, but your heart is broken, and the wine is very, very good.

Of course, then there is Theresa. She asks you for a dance, and you readily accept, taking her small, soft hand. You end up dancing to a slower song, one that allows you to get close. You place your hand around her waist, feeling your heart beat and your mouth go dry—though that could be from only drinking wine all night—and all Theresa does is look at you with those honey-brown eyes, warm and soothing like her smile, and ask, “What happened to your lip?”

You run your tongue over it quickly, forgetting just how hard you had bitten down. Your mind struggles for an answer, but so much wine in so little a time hasn’t really fired your synapses.

“Ninjas,” you manage to spit out. “Lots of ninjas. All here to ruin your wedding, but I fought them off. My wedding present, so can I have my toaster back now?”

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You know it is one of the worst stories ever told by a twenty-four-year old, but Theresa laughs. A sound you’ll never be able to get enough of, you’re sure.

“How did it really happen?”You purse your lips. “Trying not to cry.” For effect, you add a lip quiver.Theresa laughs again, slapping your arm playfully. At first you’re glad, but the moment is killed

by the bright wedding ring catching the light, reminding you that the delicate hand it sits on will never be yours. You dance in silence for a moment before Theresa speaks up.

“You know,” she begins, and then laughs as if what she is about to say is silly and slightly embarrassing. “When I was in high school, I had the biggest crush on you.”

You feel numb. “You did?”“Yeah,” she shakes her head at the memory. “I was so sure you’d be up at that altar with me. I

used to scribble Mrs. Elliot Jones in my journal! Funny how things turned out, huh?”You can’t respond, and you don’t have to because suddenly Rick is there, sweeping in like Prince

Charming, and you see Theresa’s face light up in a way it didn’t when she was dancing with you. “Can I cut in?” he asks, but he doesn’t need to; Theresa has already let go of you in favor of him.

Still, he pats you on the back, “Thanks, El.” He smiles gratefully at you, and they sweep off, leaving you standing alone and frozen on the dance floor. Couples move in and out and around you, but you don’t move because you can’t; Theresa’s confession might have been nothing to her, but it means so much to you. The last, broken pieces of your heart fall to the dance floor, metaphorically stepped on the by the dancers who are unaware of your anguish, least of all Theresa. She’s on the other side of the room by now, Rick whispering something in her ear as he dips her and she laughs—the way she used to for you.

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At My Own PaceJesus Chapa

I lose my voice in this warof alarms and dates. I have no use for the spellsof Gandalf or the sorceryof the Wicked Witch. Theirradiance would create the perfect gun to shoot you with, but of course I would miss. “Nocontradictions and no guarantees in the summer,” you say. Still, I wish I wasn’t soneedy for your heart. But your notions get mehigh. You’re the pacemakerpumping my heart, the war withinthat destroys my psychologicalwall, and the shovel that buries my woundedanatomy. Sometimes I do wish you would go away for the anger in me believes this Utopiawill inevitably end. But in my own way, likea boy pullingpigtails, I still keeplovingyou.

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First Place Prose Winner (Tie)

Squid Wednesday Vinh Do

You sat quietly, listening to the ticking of a clock, the whirling of the ceiling fan. Your mom’s fried pepper squid dish engulfed your taste buds with flavors of onions, tomatoes, rings of zucchini, and diced peppers, harvested hours ago from her garden.

“So, you have the girlfriend yet?” your mom asked.You choked on the pepper squid piece you were swallowing. The spicy taste heated up your

throat and the inside of your ears like someone lit a firecracker within them. “Wh-what? Girlfriend? What girlfriend?”

“Why you ask what girlfriend? You gay? You don’t know what girlfriend are?”“What? No!”“You gay, I know that one.”“Mom!” you screamed, trying to recover whatever dignity still remained.“Hang out with boys too much. See eggrolls all the time. Now all you want is eggroll.”“Mom! For the last time, we don’t see each other’s—I’m not gay!”“Why don’t you have the girlfriend? She do cooking. You come to Mama every Weds-day for

squid. You get girlfriend, you get squid all time, anytime.”“I’m just picky, okay? I want to pick the right one so you won’t be disappointed.”“Oh, that it the buuulll-shet. What I think, you don’t care.”“Mom . . . can we please just—wait, why is that out here?” You pointed at your yearbook from

your senior year lying at the edge of the table. Your mom uncrossed her arms and set her chin on the palms of her hand. “Li come today, earlier.

She want some pictures of old you. She said, ‘Oh, he so handsome, I go intra-du to my niece.’ Then I said, ‘Yeah, he handsome, but he stupid.’”

“She thinks everybody is handsome. Even that homeless guy at the corner of Cherry Avenue and Harding is handsome,” you replied and thought about how witty you were to have outsmarted her comment.

Your mom picked up her pair of chopsticks with her right hand, flipped them upside-down, and then smacked you right on the forehead. “You see? I told her you stupid. I say right thing.”

You sat in pain as you rubbed your head with the bottom of your palms. You convinced yourself that she must have picked it up from an ancient Kung-fu master. At the same time you wondered where she got all her strength after countless years of working multiple jobs and raising a son by herself while “slanging” that broken English of hers. You shifted your eyes to the yearbook and glanced for a brief

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moment; sweet memories of her sprung out from the back of your mind. You tried to erase them, but they had already sunk in too deep.

The name came back to you: Zulema, a tall girl, taller than you but the most beautiful when you first saw her in seventh grade. You gave her that letter the next day in Calculus AB. Once it was in her hands, you felt your heart beating against the inside of your chest like Vikings’ drums. She carefully slid it into her backpack and gave you a smile. You wanted to say more during that moment, but all you could give was a smile and a wave.

“Ay-ya, daydream again!” Your mom interrupted, “You ready? I go see Chang at the supermarket.”

“All right, Mom,” you said as you were feeling for bumps on your forehead. Zulema wore her hair down, and it was naturally curly, and that was your weakness. Her hair slid

fluidly between your fingers like water and carried the color of midnight when the crescent moon was shining. You called her Z, the nickname you have given her. That name was yours to use and yours alone. None of her friends ever referred to her with that name.

The aromas of the supermarket hit you the moment you stepped in. They were of spices from every corner of the world, of fish, lobster, and crab reeled in from the harbor this morning and buried in shaved ice, and of rows of wet and bright-green vegetables lined up under sprinklers.

“Heh-llo, Chang,” your mom said as she approached the woman standing behind the cashier’s counter. “What good tu-day?”

“Big catfish. Wrerry big and healthy,” Ms. Chang replied with confidence. “Oh! We make the spicy and sour catfish soup tonight, what you think?” your mom said as she

looked at you for an answer.“Huh? Catfish what? Oh. Yeah. Good,” you said abruptly as you tried to compensate for the blank

stare you offered in return to her question. “Ahah, catfish got your tangue?” Ms. Chang asked. “You don’t say ‘hi’ no more?”“Oh, hi, Ms. Chang,” you answered. “I just didn’t want to interrupt the conversation between

you and Mom.”“You a handsome boy. When you getting marry?” she asked the cursed question. “You know,

Jo-nah-tan get marry this Sunday?”“Really? Ms. Li’s little Jonathan from our old neighborhood?” you asked. You thought about a

younger childhood friend getting ahead. The thought made you feel like the weak link of the herd of your generation.

“You see?” your mom said when she barged into the conversation. “Chang, I think he stupid or gay, maybe both.”

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You placed your palm onto your face and shook your head as you quietly begged her to stop inside your head.

“Nooo-oh,” Ms. Chang said defending you.“See, see?” You pointed out Ms. Chang’s comment as you grabbed your mom’s shoulders and

rubbed them. “You just need to calm down and give me time.” “He a smart boy. He need nice girl. They hard to find. Maybe I get him with Li’s niece,” Ms.

Chang added.You immediately stopped trying to comfort your mom as you looked down to the ground and let

out a soft sigh. You felt doomed to an inevitable arranged relationship, your entire life surrendered to two late-fifties Asian women giggling in a supermarket.

This made you remember the way Zulema giggled. She giggled softly and tried to cover her smile with her hands. It was a beautiful sight whenever she smiled, comparable to the snow on top of a mountain seen thousands of miles away. You loved the sound she made whenever she was laughing; you felt like it was the ultimate thing to live for. It was similar to the wind blowing through the leaves on tree branches, so peaceful and harmonic. Whenever she was not smiling, you tried to change it with humor.

“So, Z, what happened to Hoe?” you asked once when you were sitting on the lunch benches outside the cafeteria, crowded by hungry teenagers.

“Hoe? Who is—you mean José?”“Yea, Hoe-sey,” you corrected her. “That douche who tried to punk me.” You were referring to the time José snuck into chemistry class and tried to rob you of your seat

next to her. He glared at you and bit his bottom lip. His knuckles popped out when he squeezed his fist. They were dirty and scarred from his usual “after school activities” that included bloody, clenched fists and pounds of rolled marijuana.

“You should have let me go at him,” you said. “I was about to demonstrate to him my new flying kick I had learned from a Jet-Li movie!”

She replied, “And I would have been sitting next to your hospital bed for the next six months.” She tried to sound serious, but beneath her concerns you heard a hint of that laughter that you were craving.

“Ay-ya! Snap out! Go put food in da kah, or I make you pay bill!” your mom rushed. You neatly organized bags of groceries you have gathered after being sent to endless aisles of

food with a list scribbled onto lined paper. You sat in the driver’s seat of your mom’s minivan. I’m in “da kah,” you thought. You turned on the radio, tuning to an R&B station. Your mom could be seen through the windshield, inside the minivan, still talking to Ms. Chang. You leaned back against the seat of the car as you lowered it. You closed your eyes and dreamed of her as you sang along with the radio.

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You remembered that letter again; the image of it slipping from her finger tips and into her backpack still haunted you. You stayed up one night, writing her that letter, a confession of your love. You tried to put it in the best words you could think of and trashed so much paper that night. You felt more like a deforester than a poet at your desk. You thought about how she was going to react. If she pretended that she never got the letter, then that meant that it wouldn’t happen. She had told you that one day when one of your classmates handed her a letter. Days went by, and then weeks, then months, and you still talked casually and still laughed about silly things from high school. She never once mentioned the letter, and, yet, you still waited. You waited until one day she grabbed your hand and dragged you to the emptiest corner of the school, the hallway of the gymnasium building during lunch, and stood with her arms crossed and her eyes looking at your worn out Nikes.

“I—I . . . I . . . ” she stuttered.You felt the Vikings’ drums beating again like war was uprising. I love you is what the drums

wanted to say. You wanted her to say the same.“I’m pregnant!” She cried, falling into your arms with her head on your shoulders, and you felt

her tears dampening the collar of your navy polo shirt on the side of your neck. “It’s . . . it’s okay, Z,” you said, not knowing what the right words were that could undo this

moment in time. You patted her back as you hugged her, hoping it was the comfort she was looking for. That was the moment the distance between you and her grew. She was starting to get surrounded

by her friends all the time. They discussed what to name the child, how to take care of it, how to prepare her to give that child life and hope. Everyone around her was looking at her as a grown woman, but in your eyes you saw the same girl from seventh grade who took your breath at first sight. You still saw her eyes, even clearer, like lost jewels sitting in desert sand. You still heard her innocent laughter when you cracked jokes or when you expressed your passion for dragons, lightsabers, comic books, and all other things that had exiled you from other girls. You saw and heard her the same way as time kept flowing by. You wondered if you were just denying it or if you were really prepared to accept her no matter what conditions life would put her through. Somehow, those moments still emerged from your memories as fresh and colorful as they were seven years ago. But you were no longer the same boy from those yesteryears. You left those moments in the past and pursued your career as a marine biologist who still craved your mom’s cooking every Wednesday of the week.

Your mom knocked on the window of the passenger’s side and pointed down. You recognized the signal and unlocked the door. She swung into the seat with a huge thump and closed the door. You started the engine with a turn of the key and headed for your mom’s house.

“You remember Thuy?” your mom asked.“Yep.”“She had the bay-bay last Tuh-day.”

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“Thursday.”“When you get me the bay-bay? Maybe Mama go and find nice girl and change your mind about

eggrolls. I wait so long. I die before you give me the bay-bay. ”You gave her a completely blank stare, at a loss for words for excuses. The drive home was quiet

after your mom fell asleep, listening to her Vietnamese soap opera. You felt released from her harassment today. Some peace and quiet, you thought, but the memories lingered, and your thoughts grew thicker and thicker.

You walked Z home one evening after watching a play at school. You arrived at her wooden porch when the light bulb of the electric lamp sparked, flickered, and lit up the front door. Her uncle’s blue pit bull howled, snarled, and barked at the sight of you. You gulped from the fear that sent your legs quivering and prepped yourself for a long sprint, just in case. She giggled and put her index finger on her lips vertically as she looked at the dog. The canine circled around the yard, wagged his tail, looked at her, and started to whimper. Then it headed for the doghouse while still looking back at you and panted with its tongue stuck out and its mouth open.

“Why do you always do that?” you asked suddenly“Do what? Save you from acting a fool?” she said as she snickered softly.“No, how come you always go looking for those creepy, violent low-lifes like Hoe-sey to be your

boyfriend?”“Huh? I don’t do that—well, maybe . . .” “‘Lema, s’at you out there?” her uncle screamed from within the pitch-black house. The sounds

of footsteps sent vibrations rumbling right under your feet. “Get in here and get dinner ready!”“I’ll be there in a second!” she yelled back. She walked closer to you and gave you a hug. She

wrapped her arms around you, and as you felt her hands came together behind your back she whispered, “No hearts are completely hollow.”

You stood motionless as the wind whistled in your ears an echo of her voice. You shook your head and smiled, turned towards the gate, and exited her front yard. You heard the constant tapping sounds of moths bumping against the porch light as the gate closed behind you.

As soon as you entered the kitchen, your mom started nagging, “You think too much! Always think! Be like fish man, just do! You see fish man? He don’t think; he do. He go out to the sea and catch fish, never think. What he like, he put it in the bucket; what he don’t like, he throw back. What happen when he think? You know? Other fish man fish up all the sea. Then thinking fish man go home, empty bucket, eat squid at mama every Weds-day.” Your mom was back in her kitchen, perfecting yet another seafood dish for dinner. She waved and shook her giant wooden spoon in the air with every word of her lecture.

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You laid down all the plastic bags full of various meat and leafy vegetables by the refrigerator and washed your hands at the kitchen’s sink. You shook off drops of water sticking to your hands and wiped the most stubborn drops onto your jeans. You opened the screen door and walked into your mom’s garden. The noise of the whirling ceiling fan and the smell of spices which tagged you from the supermarket faded as you walked away from the screen door. You took out your cell phone and went through the list of contacts that you have collected over the years. The wind blew through your mom’s mango tree lightly as it whispered in your ears; it seemed as if the air and the leaves in your mom’s garden were gossiping about you. You scrolled down until you saw an aged number identified with just one letter, “Z.” You took a deep breath and pressed the green call button, and you waited as the ringing tone came through the phone’s speakers.

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Inkling Staff and Editors

Selection Staff

Back Row, From Left: Vinh Do, Andrew Croes, Cecilia Granberry, Jeremy Birkline, Madison Estes, Mary Faler, Jessica Kelly, Felipe Collazo, Robyn Arcia, Andrea Henrici, Mariah Medus, and Kim O’Brien JonesFront Row, From Left: Udo Hintze and Elizabeth Acosta

Production Editors

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Contributors’ Biographies

Poetry and ProseKathleen “Kitti” Ballard is a freshman majoring in photography. She enjoys creative writing, singing, taking pictures, and shopping.

Aaron Boland is a sophomore who likes to swim and paint in his spare time.

Stephanie Carpenter is a receptionist and creative writer who likes writing lyrics, blogging, and reading in her free time.

Jesus Chapa is an English major who dabbles in writing fiction and poetry and is fond of reading. He is in his sophomore year at LSC-Tomball.

Vinh Do spends his spare time exploring computer hardware and software. He is also a fan of watching stand-up comedy and the Discovery Channel.

Madison Estes is a sophomore whose hobbies include writing, drawing, and reading (especially Stephen King).

Mary Faler fancies fighting crime and traveling to distant planets. In her spare time, she is a journalism and public relations major who lives in what some people call reality.

Bradley Gilbert is a sophomore who enjoys music, guitar, nature, and solitude.

Cecilia Granberry is a student and a housewife. She is an avid reader who also likes to sew and make jewelry.

Sara Grayum is living life like she is on the mother ship. A sophomore majoring in communications, she likes music, cooking, dancing, and learning.

Udo Hintze is an English major whose hobbies include photography and collecting coins. He is also an enthusiastic fan of nature and animals.

Michelle Hunter-Robinson is a creative writer and a freshman nursing major.

Kim O’Brien Jones is an advanced Texas Master Floral Designer and creative writer who does, in fact, enjoy baking.

Victoria Kerr is a sophomore psychology major. In her free time, she is partial to singing, reading, and writing.

James McAuley is a bartender and English major. He is a self-professed connoisseur of good bourbon and bad television.

Robin McKnight is a mother and security officer majoring in microbiology. She enjoys doing homework, volunteering, and spending time with her daughter.

Mariah Medus is a journalism and mass communications major at LSC-Tomball. She proudly confesses a Harry Potter and jalapeno chip addiction and admits a proclivity for singing abnormally loudly in her car.

Courtney Rector is a Lone Star College sophomore who is majoring in English.

Tara Thomas has a fervent interest in Japanese anime and electronica music. She is an artist of all sorts who enjoys painting, sculpting, and sewing.

Mason Wayland is a freshman creative writer and English major.

Adam Zuazua is a Lone Star College sophomore who is majoring in nursing.

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ArtworkRobyn Arcia is a graphic designer majoring in elementary education. She enjoys jamming out to Hot Chip, and wearing really high heels, and she loves her family.

Kathleen “Kitti” Ballard is a photography major who enjoys going on long walk through the woods, drawing, and camping at the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Andrew Dang is a freshman graphic design major who likes to read, sing, dance, and wear suspenders and glasses. He is also working daily to improve his prankster repertoire.

Jennifer Ellison is an artist and an LSC-Tomball art major. She enjoys studying art, camping, playing bass, and cooking.

Madison Estes is a LSC-Tomball student who enjoys traveling, going to rock concerts and movies, and hanging out with friends.

Andrew Frazier can be found rock climbing, surfing, or doing anything outdoors in his free time. He is a LSC-Tomball sophomore, an education major, and a photographer.

Andrea Henrici is a photographer and LSC-Tomball sophomore. Her hobbies include lomography, photography, and writing.

Udo Hintze is an English major and creative writer who finds “returning videotapes” a reliable alibi.

Taylor Lewis is a speech pathology major who not only likes traveling and photography, but who enjoys Starbucks and shopping, too.

Luis Lima is a writer, photographer, English major, and ardent reader.

Mariah Medus is a sophomore journalism and mass communications major. Her obsessions are Smoothie King, listening to dubstep, working in Adobe InDesign, and free food.

Marlene Morales is a proud, “clean hippie” who loves rock-and-roll and art. She is majoring in criminal justice, and she is in her sophomore year at LSC-Tomball.

Bethany Noack is a freshman nutritional science major who enjoys photography, swimming, scuba diving, and church mission work.

Charles Rankin loves to draw and is an LSC-Tomball graphic design major.

Dylan Shotton is a sophomore majoring in education. Her interests include fitness, football, and dance, and she has an affinity for movies made between the 1920s and 1950s.

Eduardo Zavala is a traveler, photographer, and Lone Star College freshman.

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INKLING(THE CREATIVE ARTS MAGAZINE OF LSC-TOMBALL)

2012 WRITING SUBMISSION FORM(PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY)1. Name: ___________________________________________________________________________2. Address (street, city, zip)_____________________________________________________________3. Cell and Home Phone Numbers: ______________________________________________________4. Social Security Number or Student ID Number: __________________________________________5. Email address: _____________________________________________________________________6. Title of the submissions (only one title per line):

1. ______________________________________________________________________________2. ______________________________________________________________________________3. ______________________________________________________________________________4. ______________________________________________________________________________5. ______________________________________________________________________________6. ______________________________________________________________________________7. ______________________________________________________________________________8. ______________________________________________________________________________

7. Major/Occupation: _________________________________________________________________8. Circle one: Freshman/Sophomore9. Interests or hobbies (to be used in author biographies if your submission is chosen):

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I hereby warrant that each of the works submitted with this form are my original works and that I own any copyrights that may be applicable to them. I authorize Lone Star College-Tomball and the staff of Inkling to mechanically and electronically publish the above submissions as they determine to be appropriate and to perform the pieces at Inkling readings, subject only to any additional written instructions, which I may furnish.

______________________________________________________

Author’s Signature********DIRECTIONS********

1. The deadline for all writing submissions to the 2012 Inkling is November 7, 2011.2. Only original, unpublished works are accepted. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please notify an Inkling

advisor if your piece is accepted by another publisher.3. Only LSC-Tomball students (enrolled in academic courses at the time of submission) are eligible.

LSC-Tomball staff members who are also college students are also eligible. 4. All submissions must be accompanied by a submission form available on the Inkling website [http://www.lonestar.edu/

submission-procedure.htm]. Hard copy or electronic submissions are accepted. Send electronic submissions to Inkling@lonestar.edu. Place your hard copy submissions in the Inkling mailbox in S-150 (Office Services).

5. DO NOT place your name on any of the submissions. Write your name ONLY on the submission form.6. Manuscripts must be typed with 1.5 inch line spacing, using standard 11-point font, Times New Roman.7. Use only one submission form per author. 8. Maximum entries per person: six (6) poems and two (2) short stories/creative essays. 9. Short stories/creative essays may not exceed 2600 words in length; manuscripts that exceed the word length will not be

considered. WORD COUNT MUST BE INCLUDED ON THE FIRST PAGE OF EACH PIECE.10. Writers selected for publication will be notified by mail. Expect notification by February or March.

NOTE: Written manuscripts will not be returned. All written submissions will be shredded at the end of the selection process to protect the author’s work. NOTE: Submissions selected for publication are automatically entered into the Lone Star College-Tomball Creative Writing Contest. Winners will receive cash awards ($100, $75, $50).

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INKLING(THE CREATIVE ARTS MAGAZINE OF LSC-TOMBALL)

2012 ART SUBMISSION FORM(PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY)1. Name: ___________________________________________________________________________2. Address (street, city, zip): ____________________________________________________________3. Cell and Home Phone Numbers:_______________________________________________________4. Social Security Number or Student ID Number: __________________________________________5. Email address: ____________________________________________________________________6. Title of the submissions (only one title per line):

1. ________________________________________________________________________Circle which apply Fine Art Photography Graphic Design Medium or process used____________________________________________________

2. ________________________________________________________________________Circle which apply Fine Art Photography Graphic Design Medium or process used____________________________________________________

3. ________________________________________________________________________Circle which apply Fine Art Photography Graphic Design Medium or process used____________________________________________________

4. ________________________________________________________________________Circle which apply Fine Art Photography Graphic Design Medium or process used____________________________________________________

5. ________________________________________________________________________Circle which apply Fine Art Photography Graphic Design Medium or process used____________________________________________________

6. ________________________________________________________________________Circle which apply Fine Art Photography Graphic Design Medium or process used____________________________________________________

7. Major/Occupation:__________________________________________________________________8. Circle one: Freshman/Sophomore9. Interests or hobbies (to be used in artist biographies if your submission is chosen):________________________________________________________________________________

I hereby warrant that the works submitted with this form are my original works and that I own any copyrights that may be applicable to them. I authorize Lone Star College-Tomball and the staff of Inkling to mechanically and electronically publish the above submissions as they determine to be appropriate and to display the pieces at Inkling events, subject only to any additional written instructions, which I may furnish.

___________________________ Artist’s Signature

********DIRECTIONS********Deadline and form: All submissions must be received by November 28, 2011. Attach the submission form to all submissions. Eligibility: Only LSC-Tomball students (enrolled in academic classes at the time of submission) can submit. However,

LSC-Tomball staff members who are also college students may submit.Number of entries: Six (6) pieces. Be sure to include the artist’s name and title on back of all pieces.Format: Original artwork (drawings, graphics, photos) or 8 x 10 (300 dpi) photographs of original art (with files on disk)

are fine.Color and size: Original pieces must measure no more than 36 inches x 36 inches. Either color or black and white is

acceptable. Submission locations: At LSC-Tomball, place your submissions in the Inkling mailbox in S-150 (Office Services) or email

Inkling@lonestar.edu for drop off instructions.Notification and return: Only artists selected for publication will be notified by mail. Expect notification by March.

Students can claim their original art from one of the advisors, usually in February.Prizes: Winners in the art and photography contest will receive cash awards ($100, $75, $50). The art piece chosen for the cover will receive a $100 cash award as well. The staff reserves the right to withhold prizes if they receive an insufficient number of entries.

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SELECTION POLICY

All entries were submitted to the Inkling advisors. They substituted, in place of the author’s or artist’s name, a number; thus, only they knew the identity of the individual contributor. Each staff member was then given a duplicated copy of each submission to be considered for the current issue. After final selections were made, the staff members’ copies were returned to the advisors and destroyed, thereby prohibiting the circulation of unauthorized copies of anyone’s work. The last step in the selection of materials was a staff meeting where the Inkling editors, staff, and advisors met to discuss and vote upon the final selections for publication. Only after final selections had been made did the advisors reveal the identity of those individuals whose works had been chosen.

CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST INFORMATION

All Inkling writing submissions selected for publication were considered as entries in the Lone Star College-Tomball Creative Writing Contest. Each anonymous work was then submitted to a panel of advisors and faculty judges: Doug Boyd, Professor of English; Kim Carter, Associate Professor of English; Amy Hirsch, Inkling Advisor; Dr. Mari-Carmen Marin, Assistant Professor of English; Dr. Greg Oaks, Professor of English; Katie Olson, Professor of English; Dr. Van Piercy, Professor of English; Dr. Bo Rollins, Professor of English; Dr. Rebecca L. Tate, Professor of English and Inkling advisor; and Ava Veselis, Assistant Professor of English. Each judge picked his or her top five in both poetry and prose. Next, each work was assigned a point value ranging from five to twenty-five. The total for each work was added, and the top three highest numbers became the first through third place winners.

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY AND COVER ART CONTEST INFORMATION

All Inkling art and photography submissions selected for publication were considered as entries both in the Lone Star College-Tomball Art and Photography Contest and in the Cover Art Contest. Each anonymous work was then submitted to a panel of advisors and faculty judges: Amy Hirsch; Eleanora Miller, Adjunct Professor of Art; Bernice Peacock, Adjunct Professor of Art; Earl Staley, Professor of Art; and Dr. Rebecca L. Tate. Each judge picked his or her top eight pieces. Next, each work was assigned a point value ranging from five to forty. The total for each work was added, and the top three highest numbers became the first through third place winners. Additionally, the judges, in conjunction with the Inkling student staff, selected from the published artwork, the piece most artistically and stylistically suited for the cover art.

Special thanks to:Doug Boyd, Professor of EnglishRobbie Powell, Office ServicesPatty Blaschke, Office Services

This issue was printed by:Kwik Kopy Printing of Tomball1215-5 W. MainTomball, Texas 77375281-351-8000