POEM
Paper Heart
Amy Sara Lim
Amy Sara Lim
If you saw the paper stars
shine their light on me,
would we sail away today
on the paper sea?
If you saw a paper rose
would you stop to smell
its saccharine petals
just before they fell.
Would you pick it up for me
to fix with tape and glue,
or realize it’s just paper;
less than me or you.
If you saw my paper heart,
entranced with all your glee,
you’d pick it up and cast away
the reality of me.
shine their light on me,
would we sail away today
on the paper sea?
If you saw a paper rose
would you stop to smell
its saccharine petals
just before they fell.
Would you pick it up for me
to fix with tape and glue,
or realize it’s just paper;
less than me or you.
If you saw my paper heart,
entranced with all your glee,
you’d pick it up and cast away
the reality of me.
PROSE
Beneath the Eyes
Milan Sanchez Welsh
Milan Sanchez Welsh
In the whispers of the night, I awoke to a buzzing in the darkness. And then a hum that sounded like a thousand moths underneath the midnight air, beating heavy at the bedroom door. The air was hot in the smoldering darkness, so I oozed out from the sheets and reached for the door that was lit with an orange glow around the edges.
Opening it, a swarm of locusts burst in and flew through me like rain. As the breath of air died down, I began to wander down the languid halls of my insanity. The forest colored walls began to speak in a lost language that echoed through the notes being played by a violin somewhere far down the hall. I looked down to find rivers of blood that were slithering beneath me like serpents. I could see my reflection trapped in its pools of liquid horror, and it is in this moment, I realized, that there is no going back.
Turning a corner, I stood dead center in a ballroom of chairs, filled with sitting mannequins all holding out their hands to me. They all offered cherries that I unwillingly took.
The lights around me began to fade. All brightness in the room was diluted by shadow. The depth of the vanilla colored walls was swallowed by warm shades of red. The frantic coyote eyes that were watching me shaking in despair glimmered all around in the falling darkness. The ground beneath me began to spin, and so did the watchful eyes that became spinning comets all around me in the blackness of the empty universe. The black hole that was consuming me vanquished all consciousness until my memories drowned in the descending room forever.
In the darkness they sang, “He is here among us. A nameless fear that has no face, for he has the face of all who see. He is the fear in us all.”
I cried to them, impaled by darkness, “If evil did not exist, there would be no good.” All shadow from the earth lifted and played like mad children, drunken with insanity.
And then, as if speared through the heart, I awoke again in sheets damp with sweat. I was wrapped in their endless caverns of silk that knotted my grieving body. As the morning glistened through the window, shy with sunlit tears, I began to slip quietly out of a dream I did not forget.
Opening it, a swarm of locusts burst in and flew through me like rain. As the breath of air died down, I began to wander down the languid halls of my insanity. The forest colored walls began to speak in a lost language that echoed through the notes being played by a violin somewhere far down the hall. I looked down to find rivers of blood that were slithering beneath me like serpents. I could see my reflection trapped in its pools of liquid horror, and it is in this moment, I realized, that there is no going back.
Turning a corner, I stood dead center in a ballroom of chairs, filled with sitting mannequins all holding out their hands to me. They all offered cherries that I unwillingly took.
The lights around me began to fade. All brightness in the room was diluted by shadow. The depth of the vanilla colored walls was swallowed by warm shades of red. The frantic coyote eyes that were watching me shaking in despair glimmered all around in the falling darkness. The ground beneath me began to spin, and so did the watchful eyes that became spinning comets all around me in the blackness of the empty universe. The black hole that was consuming me vanquished all consciousness until my memories drowned in the descending room forever.
In the darkness they sang, “He is here among us. A nameless fear that has no face, for he has the face of all who see. He is the fear in us all.”
I cried to them, impaled by darkness, “If evil did not exist, there would be no good.” All shadow from the earth lifted and played like mad children, drunken with insanity.
And then, as if speared through the heart, I awoke again in sheets damp with sweat. I was wrapped in their endless caverns of silk that knotted my grieving body. As the morning glistened through the window, shy with sunlit tears, I began to slip quietly out of a dream I did not forget.
ARTWORK
Finch
Molly Spurgeon
Molly Spurgeon
PHOTOGRPAHY
Footprints
Bella Magdaleno
Bella Magdaleno