Helen Bradshaw

It haunts me. Desert hollowed by tombs, sun scorching sunken bones, Ancient sediment saturated with broken dreams, burning desires Littered over rocks, infinitely piling, ever-reaching, So that even the thundering mountains feel threatened. 

I imagine it haunted them as well, Short goodbyes for an infinite forever weighing their backs As they trekked the lonely terrain. I wonder if they heard the coyotes’ cries, Shrill, piercing, Heard the sirens’ screeching. Shouts calling for their detainment: Wild wanderers unwelcome. 

Some made it, some didn’t. Some paid life savings to a thief, For a way to the Promised Land. Some paid with their life, Fingers grasping, reaching Across watery banks, the Rio Grande’s Cold fingers lapping around their throats, dragging them to its depths. 

Girl with Aztec skin, tongue parched And tired eyes dilated, last words Asking Mami for a drink. It haunts me to think her death was the cost For a foreign land, a safe haven drenched In opportunity, blanketed in peace. But stripped, it’s guarded by bigotry, False promises as false as its pity. 

This land scares me the most, a land That welcomes the vulnerable, protecting them In thin aluminum sheets and cages. Their faces, valued only as statistics, stare at me in the night. I stare back And imagine I can hear their cries Coming from the desert graveyard.

Monse Juarez

 

Mika Gao

What

Could Have Been:

When

a football is forced

From

your arms upon impact

With

blue tinted astroturf

Sound

of the hit loudest in your head

 

From

your arms upon impact

The

ball heaved

Sound

of the hit loudest in your head

The

sidelines silent, but for the coach’s voice

 

The

ball heaved

And

probably recovered by your opponent

The

sidelines silent, but for the coach’s voice

Screaming

exactly what is expected

 

Probably

recovered by your opponent

And

likely returned for a touchdown

Screaming

exactly what is expected

The

scoreboard serves to remind you of your mistake

 

Likely

returned for a touchdown

Because

a crowd loves an underdog almost as much as a winner

The

scoreboard serves to remind you of your mistake

And

you consider a job in the hometown hardware store

 

Because

a crowd loves an underdog almost as much as a winner

And

you come from a small market city

You

consider a job in the hometown hardware store

Where

you could wear a high school championship ring to work

 

You

come from a small market city

Below

the rust belt, above the bible’s buckle

Where

you could wear a high school championship ring to work

Admiration

would lather your day

 

Below

the rust belt, above the bible’s buckle

Even

when you mow the lawn

Admiration

will lather your day

You

will remember

 

Even when you mow

the lawn

 

Blue tinted astroturf

 

You will remember

 

The force of the

football

 

Max Wolpert

Ruth Nelson

Predictably, his fingers and tongue are the first to go. Appendages tingle, tickle, then numb. He scrunches up his toes, picking up some strands of the shag rug through those novelty Christmas socks he’s got on—you know the ones. Plush and ugly bright. He gets a nice little brush of sensation, some reassuring tightness in his knuckles, before his feet go cold all over and he can’t even feel the nappy velvet of Santa’s beard on his ankles. 

He calls out for Stevie, of course. But his tongue goes fat and tangled in his mouth and then he’s just moaning out some liquified syllables. Just mewling. Just drooling, now. 

His knees don’t take long to give out from there. He’s already spread out belly down on the carpet by the time he finally goes boneless at the waist and ragdolls entirely. 

Upstairs, Stevie is having a far nicer time. She’s swaddled in one of her Winnie the Pooh pullups, curls toweled and braided back by big brother. They’d had grilled cheese and played pretend as doctors and princesses. She’s got Rocky, her little brown teddy, wearing a mini tiara and stitched back together with glittery duct tape from where they’d vivisected him, carved out his stuffing and delicately packed it back in place. She has him pressed up tight into her chest. Is squeezing the hell out of him, actually. 

Downstairs, Sunny struggles to breathe. Circulation cut, chest whistling. 

Stevie loves her teddy. She really does. He’s a Christmas present, a plush tawny Build-A-Bear with the most perfect little smile. With big brass button eyes and fluffy little ears that sprout from the top of his head like cotton ball curls. She thinks of Sunny. That’s the only way she can fix his hair when they play pretend. She holds him out, gives him a little shake. Stevie loves her teddy’s smile. 

Sunny’s feet just brush the ground as he’s lifted up, up, up and back and forth. Arms hanging lazily out and a small, stiff little smile cementing on his lips. A vacuous thing. A dumb little thing, brainless, void of judgement, and picture perfect. She smiles, he smiles, and it’s the worst thing they’ve ever shared. 

Natalie Merizalde

 

He’s still just staring up at me, and the gravel’s jumping under my feet as the train goes by, and the diamond sparks in its box like a live wire. I’m sweating already. My knees are shaky. What do I say? What do I do?

I say “no,” watch the hope in his face crash as the train screams by. The grind of the wheels and the engine drown out whatever he’s saying, so I just watch the way he mouths the words, still down on one knee, pinned like a bug under glass.

He cries. I comfort him. We both part ways to call our respective mothers. He gets engaged fourteen months later to a pretty redhead, gets a promotion, raises two chubby daughters, plays golf with his IT friends, sends his girls to college, retires early, flies his wife to Hawaii, dies smiling and full to the brim with love.

I date and break up and date and break up and date and break up again. I think of him. I call him sometimes when I’m drunk, listen to the cozy domestic background noise as he tells me, for the fifth time, that I’ll find the one. Or I call late at night, when I know he won’t pick up, and listen to his sweet daughters’ voices chiming from the answering machine.

I adopt two cats. The gray one dies. I get another.

 My cat scratches at the neighbor’s door one day, a fit blonde guy, and he follows her back to my apartment, where I’ve died alone in the middle of cleaning out my fridge. Brain aneurysm.

  No. I don’t think so.

So I say “yes.” He starts crying anyway, jumps up and hugs me so tight I think we’ll both topple over onto the railroad tracks. We have to wiggle the ring over my knuckle. The diamond stares blankly up at me.

 We walk hand-in-hand the whole way home, laugh our way up the stairs, spend the night in bed, wake up exhausted. My ring catches on the sheets, catches in my hair, catches on my shirt-sleeves in the morning.

He gets his promotion, golfs with his work friends, leaves me behind in the kitchen stirring pasta sauce. No pretty daughters to get underfoot. He wants them. I want them. But it turns out I’m the problem.

 He stays late and forgets to call, and I yell at him over the phone. The sauce boils over. I boil over. We fight and make up and fight again. He spends more time at work. I try a spin class, try a book club, try a smoothie maker, try an affair. I pick up hobbies and turn them over in my mind and set them down again. There are no kids to keep up appearances for, so we don’t bother. We separate in July.

 I adopt cats. They die. I adopt more. I die alone. It’s a trap, and I want none of it.

 So maybe I don’t say yes. I don’t say no. Maybe the train screeches past and I push him out in front of it, turn on my heel, walk away and keep walking as the diamond flashes under the wheels.

 Maybe I cry for a few days. I call my mom. The newspaper runs a story on it, and they interview me. “Grieving Fiancée.” I meet the sweetest guy at a support group, and he asks if he can take me to coffee. Just to talk.

 I say, “Sure.”

Maggie Weber

From the moment my one leg slipped out of the blanket
to cool its sunburns and blisters again

I knew I might never find peace; I’ll be stuck
counting sheep between dreams again and again.

I knew, that there were parts of my body
gasping to breathe in full breaths again

that also my nightlamp just would not stop blinking
so I pulled the plug out of its socket again.

And I knew my fingers would tremble at 90°
conscious to speak in whole words again.

So I settled. My braces needed tightening in
case my lips started to twitch again.

I knew that the thoughts in my head, racing,
were struggling to find their pace again

so I got out of bed and drove in my jammies
at 90 on the highway to Wendy’s again.

Niharika Shah

The tulips are blooming,

so I guess that means it’s spring. 

The pollen chokes me, 

these warming days choke me, 

and I long for the bitter cold that 

made me feel alive.

Now

I feel like a fat 

housecat unable to do 

anything but lounge in the sunlight, suspended 

in this tepid existence, 

in this old house,

feeling time ooze around me, 

like sap filling my mouth, 

covering me up, fossilizing me 

in amber. 

 

Olivia McKnight

Ronald Poole II

This poem was the winner of Alloy’s Winter Art and Poetry Contest; writers were challenged to create something relevant to the theme “Endings and Beginnings.”