Head Editor:Jill Shastany

Editorial Board:Meg CichonNikki Vijaybhaskar

Faculty Advisors:Professor Lucas Mann, MFAProfessor Caitlin O’Neil-Amaral, PhD

Special thanks to:Kathleen LandersJoshua BotvinWanda Perez

Stephanie SimonNatalia Mirabitu

Layout and artwork by Jill Shastany

2015

Temper has been around since 1971 as an outlet for University of Massachusetts Dartmouth students of any major to share their unique voices. While its presence over the years has waxed and waned like many publications passed down this way, well, Temper is back with a vengeance.

The editorial staff received some truly exciting, inventive pieces this year. We think our imaginative contributors will help motivate future students to submit their work and have their voices heard.We look forward to a continued presence on campus and to hearing your unique perspective in next year’s round of submissions.

Happy reading!

temperlitreview.wordpress.com

temper

Note: The artwork on the front cover and to the left of this page were inspired by Watchmen, a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. If you haven’t read it, you should. Really. Do it.

Table Of ContentsThe Acorn shawna fox 6-7

8 chucking oranges Erin Sheehan

8 Ghost of You anna gallo

9 Leveler anna gallo

Answers nikki vijaybhaskar 9-10

Life, Untitled nikki vijaybhaskar 10-11

Sunflower Seeds erin sheehan 12-16

17 Old Avenue natalia mirabito

18 A better Compromise Kathleen Landers

20 once was isaiah Nathan

Hymn Civilian carina hennessey 21-25

26 Stains of YoU Jill Shastany

27 My INheritance Joni Miller

27 BEhind Closed Doors Christina Cahoon

The resurrection Jill Shastany 28-29

Bathroom Blunders joshua botvin 30-31

May God Forgive Me wanda perez 32-34

35 Seasons Paul Horte

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Somehow, and we’ll never know how he always did it, little Murray Keating managed to find me and the rest of the gang out behind Coop’s house. We were just throwing rocks when his freckled face came looking around the corner of the house like he knew we were there. I heard someone asking how we could ditch him, but I hushed him up with a gesture of my hand. I wanted to see what Murray had to say; and he always had something to say.

“Hey fellas! I’ve got somethin’ real good,” he said as he approached our group. His eyes bounced from one face to the next until he found mine. He tried to approach, but the others crowded in front of me, arms crossed and tough-guy looks on their faces; he’d have to get through them first. Every one of us was a couple years older than him, but the grin and confidence of all his seven-and-a-half years didn’t waver for a second as the guys sized him up.

“Well, whatcha got?” Billie asked.

“This.” Murray reached into the pocket of his worn blue-jeans and pulled out a small object. I couldn’t see what it was, but Billie scoffed.

“An acorn?” He said. “What’s so special about that? There’s about a million around that old tree right there.”

“But this one is special,” Murray said. “A fairy gave it to me.”

“There’s no such thing as fairies,” Pete laughed. A couple of the other guys laughed too, but their eyes showed a glimmer of doubt. I felt my brow furrow.

“There is too,” Murray insisted. “The princess fairy gave it to me.” I met Coop’s eye and gave a shrug, starting to turn in the direction of my house. We had better things to do than talk about fairy princesses. Murray seemed to sense he was losing us, so he added, “And I can prove it!”

Now that was a phrase we all understood, and it recaptured even my interest. I made my way to the front of the group to face Murray for the first time. “Then prove it,” I said. He looked up at me for a minute, his brown eyes gleaming from beneath long tangles of reddish hair, defiant in the face of the leader of the gang. That refusal to submit to me made my heart beat just a little bit faster, but it was hard to tell if it was hatred or admiration flowing through my veins.

“Name your game,” Murray said after the brief staredown.

“What?”

“Any game you want, I’ll beat you at it. Cause this acorn is magic, and it’s good luck.”

I took a step back and surveyed my faithful band of

neighborhood warriors. Their expectant faces were all about the same shade of brown from the summer sun and a nice coating of dust after playing all afternoon in the dry heat. Their mouths were starting to turn up at the corners as they realized exactly what Murray had just said, but they were waiting for me to accept the challenge first.

I grinned. “Well, you heard him boys! Get to it!”

Each of us took a turn challenging Murray to our personal specialty that afternoon, but we were bested at every turn. He beat Coop throwing rocks. He beat Pete to the top of the neighborhood climbing tree. He beat Eddy in a bike race down William Street. He pinned Mitch to the ground in wrestling. He even beat Billie at a spitting contest. And, worst of all, he beat me in a footrace, pulling ahead of me just seconds before we crossed the crack in the pavement that marked the finish line.

I slowed down and put my hands on my knees, panting to catch my breath, furious with myself. My shadow stretched out in front of me in the low, red light of sunset, a hunched-over blob sprawled out over the pavement. I knew my mom would want me home any minute now for supper, but I kept standing there and turned my eyes towards Murray. I was mad and confused. How had we all lost against this runt?

As if reading my mind, Murray said, “Now do you believe me? I told you it’s a magic acorn.” He turned his back on me and walked off in the direction of his house.

“It’s not magic!” I shouted after him. “It’s just…just…” But what it was I couldn’t say. I had lost and I had no explanation. As Murray passed them, the other guys hesitated for a moment. I saw Eddy look in my direction and then back at Murray before he called, “Hey, wait up!” and jogged to catch up with him. One by one, the others followed suit, forming a rowdy, jostling crowd around him, praising him for his feats of strength all afternoon long. Finally Coop was the only one left.

“C’mon Coop,” I said wearily. I started to head towards my house, but quickly noticed that I was alone. I looked back over my shoulder. “Cooper.”

With an impossibly quiet apology, Coop turned and ran towards their group. I gave a sigh and trudged the rest of the way to my front door alone.

*

I knew this mutiny wouldn’t last long. The guys had left me before and always returned when they got bored of whoever had led the rebellion. Still, I wanted to put an end to this whole thing. I showed up on the Keatings’ doorstep the next

The acorn Shawna Fox

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 7

day and was greeted like a long-lost son by Mrs. Keating. It had been so long, how had I been, had I grown? I just wanted to know if Murray could come out to play with his favorite neighbor. He came out of the house with a smile on his face.

We walked for a while without saying anything, down the street and around the corner and up through another neighborhood. Eventually I broke the silence.

“So…that acorn is pretty neat.”

“Really? Ya think?”

“Sure,” I said, glad to hear the genuine excitement in his voice. “I mean, it’s magic! That’s amazing!”

“Do you wanna see it?” he asked. I nodded. He dug around in his pocket and presented his clenched hand to me. Despite myself, my stomach twisted in anticipation of what I’d see. He unfurled his fingers and there, sitting in the middle of his palm, was the acorn.

It didn’t sparkle. It didn’t shed little specks of pixie dust. It wasn’t hollowed out to be used as a bowl by some dainty fairy princess. It just looked exactly like any other old acorn. The cap was a little worn, a little bit closer to gray than brown, but the bottom retained that smoothness and sheen like it was brand new, just off the tree. There was certainly nothing magical about it, but Murray held it with such reverence that I couldn’t help but look again, just to make sure I didn’t miss something.

“Wanna hold it?” Murray said eagerly. As he poured it into my hand, I couldn’t believe my luck. He went on, telling me once again the story of the fairy princess who had given it to him, but I just stared at the object in my hand without listening to the details.

The fact that Murray had just entrusted to me with this precious possession astounded me. It would be so easy to throw it, to toss it away out towards that nearby oak tree and never see it again. If I did, Murray would probably be crushed. He might throw a tantrum. He might hate me and stop following me around, seeking my approval. But I’d get my gang back sooner than I’d even hoped. Without that acorn, magical or not, he’d have nothing.

I closed my hand around the half smooth, half bumpy, surface of the acorn and squeezed until the tip dug into my palm with a sort of satisfying pain. I wanted nothing more than to be rid of the stupid thing, and I felt the muscles in my arm begin to tense as they started to pull back in preparation to throw it, but Murray was staring at me. His mouth hung open slightly to reveal his missing front tooth as he looked up at me, eyes wide; as he dared me to do it. And I couldn’t throw it.

I shoved the acorn back into Murray’s hand and began walking quickly towards our street, my home turf. I didn’t

slow down as Murray said, “Wait up!” and came up behind me, but instead started to run, and let my feet pound against the pavement. Murray started running too, but I kept just ahead of him as we raced back home, the rhythmic slap of our shoes hitting the street mingling into a single beat.

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Under the ocean I sitCross leggedMy arms in front DreamingThe taste of the cloudsAs they sing, mouths openI bite my nails

I bite my nailsThe coral reefs, they are all snailsThe ocean waves are overwhelmedThey crash like titanium

I bare no fails

I bare no failsThe giant whaleHe nips my lap and downHe flailsDown he flailsDown he flailsI wonder why the oceanIs full of nails

Down I wail,Down I wail,Chucking oranges,I realizeI failed

I’ve been dancing in these empty rooms with the ghost of you,singing a song that we both knew.But my voice comes crashing back from these bare walls,a hollow tune I don’t know at all.

Chucking Oranges

ghost of you

Erin Sheehan

anna gallo

Nikk

i Vi

jaybh

aska

r

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 9

We need a leveler.So much joy is found in suffering. We put ourselves above others, finding something in the great illusionary divide between the high and low, the upper rim and the dust. We throw insults like confetti at the sorest of parties, finding pleasure in the pain of others, while we rise in the imaginary pedestal of our minds.But there is no pedestal.We are all,WeWe are,Two hands & one heart,Bent souls & false starts,Sore eyes & shaking spines,Stained scars & worn lines.We are the sunlit silver lining, the broken glass kaleidoscope, still shining.Sidewalk dreams on a rainy day, the last word in a world with nothing left to say.Come down off your pedestal, please we’ve gone too far.We need a levelerWe are.

Cambridge, MA, 6:00 AM

He walked towards his station, striding past the unlit worktables and humming computer terminals. He stopped to gaze at the esplanade. The sight was an eyeful. From his high perch in MIT’s chemistry lab, his asylum, the morning walkers looked like tiny emmets.

He stooped slightly and rested his forehead on the cool glass of the window. His tired mind wanted to stop, just for a moment, evade the pull of his work bench and be a daydreamer. Dream he did, but his mind kept flicking back and forth. Into the future, and back to theat fateful day when he made a breakthrough.

He looked over at his table. It sat there, in the petri dish. Lackluster , dull, with a matte texture. It reminded him of the only picture of Ma he had; old, dusty, dull and fading in a shoebox, somewhere in the attic.

He reflected on the aha moment he’d had a couple weeks ago. The test tube had stayed clear as day as the last drop of lye left the pipette. Just as he was beginning to wonder if he’d made it all up in his mind, the slim tube turned jet black. He felt the tremors in his hands trembled as the substance quickly went from a sap green to a sodden brown and then settled as a tin coating right up to the rim.

He raced out to find Prof. Leighton and finally located him in the cargo room, trying on one of those new safety goggles. The professor was all keyed up as they walked back to the lab. It was a balmy afternoon. He spied a bunch of students sprawled out under a tarp in the Danny Lewin Square. One of them was running after a dog that was apparently making threats to pee in the park. It reminded him of a vacation he spent in

Leveler.

answers

anna gallo

TEMPER 201510

Life is a tree, With leaves of old memories;

They may not be greenBut will never go unseen.

Some may charm, With mirth and warmth, While others carry gloom From the days of doom.

A baby shower, a beautiful flower, The smiles you saw and the miles you went 

A laugh with your loved onesAnd endeavors unsung

They will all stay with youTill the moment, when

The heart and the root will say, “I’ve had enough! I’ll hang up my shoes!”

And there you go and with you all these leavesInto the grave where the soul unwillingly sleeps.

Rio, with Ma and their dog Rhino. They stopped at his bench, and the professor peered into the tube.

The slender container’s insides had faded to a dull, mushy substance.

He jerked away from the window as he came out of the reverie. He loped to his desk and took in the items strewn across the surface. He plopped into his seat, and looked around the deserted lab. A chart of the Morse code was tacked up to a wall. Someone had brought in a mannequin, clothes held up with cotter pins. There was a picture of the Capitol building. A cut out of a needy-looking cat was taped to the frame. Jane was tatting doilies again. It suddenly occurred to him what a motley crew they were. They

were at the bottom of the Chemistry school’s suborder. Maybe this thing in front of him could catapult them to prominence. As the ire at his own ineptitude began to fade, the familiar, dry, ache reentered his heart. The only question he really wanted answered—would Ma be proud of him? He would never know.

Life

Nikki Vijaybhaskar

TEMPER 201512

I was born with a twin sister.

Her name was Julia, my mother told me. And I am not particularly sure if she even existed, to be honest. My mother said we were born as mermaids. She said that as we left her womb, we held hands, and greeted my mother with polite hellos, insisting that we were from a world foreign to this one. Our scales melted as we felt this atmosphere, and through this I and Julia were introduced to the Earth.

But Julia couldn’t deal living on land, she missed the salt of the ocean inside her gills. My mother said she fed her back to the sea.

Indeed the truth of my birth, and perhaps Julia’s, was that we were hatched messily beneath a bus stop sign. A woman who used to help my mum (before she was thrown in jail for distributing heroin—she was a sweet women I swear, with a freckle face, and grey hair) told me what really happened.

She told me there really was a Julia. But the chalky welts on her inner wrists told a story all their own.

If Julia existed, I thought that maybe she was lovely. Maybe she was plump, like a peach, cute and sweet herself. Maybe she had adopted parents; like I’d always wished, who braided her blonde hair, and gave her Hello Kitty Band-Aids. Maybe she was happy.

Maybe she was happy at the bottom of the sea.

*

Julia was named after the street we were born on, Julia Street.

It’s funny because, Julia Street is riddled with trees who cry.

Their leaves melt like pumpkin-spiced ice cream, silky, down chocolate bark, and chocolate chip beetles.

Sometimes, in fall, the leaves cry so much, they lose grip of themselves, and sometimes if you’re sitting, sitting just below their tears, one might land on your own flushed cheeks, and blend with your own salty sadness.

Julia Street is off of Dandelion Street, and Dandelion Street, actually doesn’t have any dandelions on it.

Dandelion Street is actually nicknamed Sunflower’s Row. Because there are rows and rows of their buttery goodness. They are perfect, like miniature stars, bright, and alive, lining Dandelion Street and melting all six of my emerald senses.

The way their sunshine petals spread, like a Japanese hand

fan—forming a perfect wall around the middle, maroon and seedy.

The sunflowers tickle my belly in the summer, and make me giggle as I water their lungs.

I even named a few—Honeysuckle and Bear are my favorite. They giggle, too, when the sun tickles their corn-on-the-cob cheeks.

They even cry with the trees when it rains.

*

Last spring I lost my soul.

She was green, I like to think, like blades of grass freckling the dog park, where little brunette girls play hopscotch, and lovers meet for coffee.

Maybe I deserved it.

Maybe it was the hole I punched through the wall at CVS when I got caught stealing.

Maybe it was the red robin whose eggs I’d accidentally bumped while sitting under the trees who cry. I’d watched them splash, milky yellow. I’d watched the motherless melt in the sunlight. I’d wondered as I’d chewed my thumb what it felt like to fry, alive, knowing you’re in the face of death, and if I would cry.

Maybe it was my mother, using some voodoo powers, from below her makeshift plot, in her own little corner of our own little makeshift cemetery.

Sometimes I visited, and decorated her with newspaper clippings—you know, the funny ones, the crudely drawn cartoons,—the ones that would’ve made her eyes bulge out with laughter, while she spit out her afternoon animal crackers—laughing maniacally like a headless chicken.

One time I even left her a McDonald’s chicken nugget shaped like a heart. My stomach grumbled thinking about that fried heart, wishing it was filling my own guts, as I watched the trees weep.

I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for not giving her a proper burial. But in my defense, I was fourteen, and after her death, the only proper friend I had were the three white hairs on my left index finger.

Maybe it was my own fault, you know, that I lost myself.

Sunflower Seeds Erin Sheehan

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 13

Maybe last year, while I was stealing Tropicanas, and ripping holes into the vinyl shower curtain that was my living room door, my soul just decided to walk away.

Maybe she packed her own cheap luggage, and salted pecans.

Maybe she’d took one last look in the mirror, one last look at my ugly, child’s face, and walked right the fuck out.

Maybe she missed me. Maybe she didn’t.

Maybe someday I will find her, sitting on the corner of Sunflower’s Row. I wonder if she will chew on her bloody thumb.

I wonder if she will remember me.

*

Last spring my mother wasn’t the only one who died. It was me too, actually.

It wasn’t accidental, but it wasn’t on purpose.

It wasn’t literal and it wasn’t figurative—if you know what I mean.

The motel room was hot as Satan himself.

I’d just gone outside to feel the breeze, I swear.

My skinny legs and pink and purple undies felt mushy in the heat of the fifteen-floor hotel.

Some old man I’d met on the streets had rented the room for me. I had to do some nasty things for the room key but I’d rather not talk about it.

The windows had no screens. Funny to admit, but it was the first thing I noticed upon entering the room. They had no

screens, so I could dangle my chicken wrists out, and imagine myself as a Titan, squishing the little people below me, with their overpriced shoes and obnoxious New York accents, their beehive hairdos and Louis Vuitton luggage.

The walls were beige, but not intentionally.

Like maybe in 1980, some carpenter splashed the walls with pristine, white paint, while sneaking gulps of vodka and OG from his rusted flask.

But the years of cheap cigars and lost little girls melted the white, beige.

It reminded me of the way our room smelled after summer rain. It reminded me of full moons, and burned chocolate chip cookies, and vanilla sweat. It reminded me of your thighs and squished ant colonies.

It reminded me of you, I guess, but then again, everything does.

*

A year before my tragic offing, I’d met another girl in a similar situation to myself.

Her name was Belinda. She had black hair, that was long, like fishing nets, and always had a cheap mint buried beneath her tongue. Her voice sounded like a melody, and I especially loved the way the sun shone through her silky hair, and the way her thighs melted together in summer heat.

She made every hair on my body stand up without even grazing me with her hazel eyes.

We sat on the corner of Maple and Pine every Sunday.

And every Sunday I snuck glances at her thin legs, trailing my gaze up through her strawberry torso, imagining dragging my bottom lip down her jutting hips, the way they would taste—salty, or maybe smooth—and nothing less.

Their own little crunch; aura; my mouth watered at the thought.

One day she asked me to come to her place. She was sixteen, and I didn’t even know she had a place to go. But I didn’t care; I whisked up my torn, faux-leather bag, put one foot in front of the other, and off we were.

I’m not kidding when I say her place was a dump. It was literally a dump.

That’s actually where I’d first seen her, visiting her aunt, but I didn’t know she had her own place.

I’d lived next door with my mum for quite a few years, actually, and had mingled with her red-headed, poor aunt on many occasions. She liked to smoke crack, and eat rats, I think.

a Year before

my tragic offing,

I’d met another

girl, in a similar

situation to

myself.

TEMPER 201514

Our own trash can was empty, I’d sold everything inside, which wasn’t much, for a bite of KFC and some new underwear, after I’d bloodied mine.

Her container breathed, like its own little life form, I swear.

Little lights freckled the walls, tickling each other, and the bulbs twinkled, especially when she smiled.

Vanilla splashed into my nose, a violet silk table cloth, the floor clad in a polka-dot shag-rug.

The silver hair on my blonde arms stood up, and again, I didn’t even know why.

Before I could stop myself, I’d kissed her.

She tasted like mints, and salted pretzels. She tasted like wet earth, and flower stems. She tasted like autumn, and days spent under the trees who cried. The next morning, when I awoke, next to her, I left her a gift. A piece of me.

*

“And I swear to god I can taste the corn maze I was lost in.

Can taste the gravel stuck in my unshaven knees, the blood gently trickling down my inner thigh.

I can taste the cold sweat on my neck, not knowing where I was, surrounded alone by stalky giants who didn’t know my name.

I can taste the broken candy corn stuck in my pockets, creamy and warm.

Can taste the leaves crunching orange and auburn beneath my boots.

Can taste my braided blonde hair, the unfinished Wal-Mart across the street, the scarecrow with too many straws sticking from his guts, the way my mother smiled with her mouth and not her eyes, can taste the pumpkin I didn’t win, when I didn’t find my way out from the maze giants.

I can taste the salty tears, while I sat alone in the stale air of the Earth, surrounded by fallen soldiers, black and blue, orange and yellow.

I can taste the crying kid, who spilled his cotton candy at my feet, watching it aimlessly melt into the pavement herself.

I can taste this in your kiss.”

*

Weeks became months.

I gave her piggyback rides; I bought her the Hello Kitty Band-Aids I’d always wanted.

We even saved up for a special trip to the movies. My first

actually.

I won’t lie, and say it didn’t scare me a bit. The way the lights flickered, like Dracula in my shitty bathroom mirror, before blacking out completely; the way precious candy and popcorn was sprinkled along the ground, abandoned. I wanted to pick it up and eat it.

After the movie, it was raining.

That weird rain, that wasn’t hot and wasn’t cold.

The kind that stuck to you like salty tears but tasted like fresh water, and blurred into your eyes, like food coloring melting into cream cheese frosting.

The puddles jumped like there were little tadpoles stuck under the surface, who wanted to shake our hands with their slippery tails. I wondered if they were friendly.

Belly hopped on my back, unexpectedly, making me fall, like a bag of bricks—but slowly, like feathers.

As little pools of blood surfaced across my knees, and Mother Rain kissed them away, I stared at her.

She apologized, embarrassed, hot-faced, not meeting my eyes.

I shoved her back, hard, she fell besides me, and before I knew it I was back—lost in the corn maze of my Belly.

The puddles opened and emptied beneath us, as I let her fill every little bit of me.

*

“Sunflower?”

“Hm?” I mumble, mouth full of grotesque black beans. 

“Do you think everything will be okay?”

I tuck my blonde hair behind my elephant ears and wrap my long, thin hands around her waist.

“Of course Belly, you have me,” I sigh, nuzzling her neck, and tickling her palm. Our way of saying, “I promise.”

*

You know, I’ve never been much for religion. My mum was, though, in her own strange way. She always told me to be courteous to the “unspeakables.”

By unspeakables, she meant things that couldn’t talk.

She meant animate and inanimate objects.

She once told me that she was “actually concrete” in a past life, and could vividly remember being made in a factory, churned and churned until out popped her toe-headed, crazy

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 15

self. She always told me she knew in her next life she would be a violet, purple and shiny, stuck in our planet.  

She told me that her chubby veins, written across her wrists were really little flowers. They intertwined through her circulatory system and into every inch of her limbs. She told me at night, if we were really quiet we could hear them whispering to the trees. Before she died, she made me promise to plant her in the park, so she could grow back to the Earth herself.

From concrete, to a flower, I suppose my mother was contradictory even in death.

She taught me that when you die, you have to take three unspeakables with you.

She took a rock, a shark’s tooth, and a blade of grass. The rock was from her past life, the blade of glass was for her future, and the shark’s tooth stood as representative to a life I was never a part of. I guess it represented something of her life before she got really sick. I don’t even think she knew anymore.

So far, I’m pretty sure I have my first unspeakable, from these current days. It’s a piece of a Belly’s old favorite t-shirt, stained with her favorite, stolen, cherry lip-plump. I keep it tied on my left wrist at all times. I know I will die with it there.

Today is a day, unmistakably similar to the day the moon stopped shining. It’s funny how these things happen, tormenting things. Sad things you never thought could happen, things that happen when your mum dies, and Mother Earth just doesn’t care anymore. 

Yet it was morning, and the sun was not yet dead, bright and orange, with her golden smile chewing up the sky.

I had just left Belly for a few minutes, I swear. I’d walked to steal a soda from the grungy old corner gas station, just like every Wednesday. I’d kissed her cherry lips, and promised I would be right back. I’d sealed the promise as we always did when leaving each other with our own funny language. “I you love,” eyes crinkling while staring into her freckled green eyes.

I’d stolen my orange soda, effortlessly, and skipped my way back with some grape pop in my back pocket as a surprise for my little lover. 

As I pulled open the door to our ragged old storage container, I could feel something wrong. The air just didn’t feel right. Our plastic walls smelled like cigarettes, chalky.

But we didn’t smoke. 

And the worst part was my Belly wasn’t there. Shit. No note, no nothing, and just as I really started to panic, I saw the blood on the back of our table cloth, sprayed crimson, like one of the roses I sent her last Valentine’s.

My stomach churned and I remember briefly gagging on our plastic floor as the feeling of panic really

bubbled through my esophagus.

*

Spray paint envelops the corners of our little storage container, you know.

I don’t know who kissed her with the black ink of a strangers touch, but I loved it. I thought it was elegant, and made our place stand out; beautiful, in my eyes. Cherry roses jutting across

letters, inconceivable to my eyelids.

I wasn’t sure what the artist had meant.

I imagined it told a tale of lost lovers, maybe a rose was her favorite flower, maybe

he’d drawn it thinking of thorns he’d stuck into his fingers, the blood dripping cherry blossoms of its

own.

I wondered if he loved her.

*

We weren’t the only people who lived at the Dump. We had a neighboring woman, we called her Black Licorice.

We called her this because one day Black Licorice convinced another elderly woman on the streets nearby to buy her some black paint from our local Home Depot.

She’d then drenched her insides with the waters of the midnight poison.

We had found her the next day shaking, and vomiting after the darkness consumed her.

We saved her.

Yet, a few days after her miraculous Emergency Room recovery, Black Licorice went missing. We joked that maybe she was swallowed whole, by the tar itself, but in reality I knew something bad had happened to old Licorice.

I held a bit tighter to my Belly at night after I tucked in our little baby mice, but I guess I hadn’t held on tight enough. I should’ve seat-belted myself to her; I should’ve melted her

TEMPER 201516

into me, and kept my razor-tongue sharp.

*

I guess I should mention I have my unspeakable from my previous life too. She’s a little beetle, actually, and the day I saw her I recognized myself right away. The way her little wings stretched as she tickled my arm, spelling my name with her insect tongue: S-U-N-N-Y. I’d asked her to come home with me and, like she understood my lips, she sat and stayed right on my left forearm. I named her Tickly, because her little legs tickled me incessantly. Tickly died a noble death at the ripe old age of eight days, and I made sure she’d never be forgotten. I keep her in a little jar in my left pocket, with some makeshift glitter spilled over her, preserving her impeccable beauty. 

I would die with Tickly too.

She reminded me of life’s past, more simple and short. A life where eight days of a giants love was enough for a happy life.

I decided my third unspeakable would be blood. Yes I know what you’re thinking. Ew. Thick, gooey, smushed-tomato, gushing, blood. But no. I’m thinking more of a masterpiece, painted godlike across my flat chest.

*

My mum always stressed to protect what was your own. I once saw her throw herself in front of a Mack truck to save one of her silly pet rats. She didn’t care about anything. She didn’t care about her own flower veins, or her nine year-old daughter. She only cared about saving “Joe” the rat.

She might not have understood, toothless with her tooth-grin, what she was doing, but in my heart I know that she loved me and would’ve done anything to protect me. 

One day she’d stolen me a birthday card. Although it wasn’t my birthday, I’d loved it. She’d skipped back to the storage container with this stupid grin of pure love written on her wrinkled face. She’d gotten down on one knee, like a knight in shining armor, ready to claim little me as her queen—and presented me with the card like it was a million bucks.

On the front was a little monkey, holding up a Sunflower, with a fluffy pink crown on her head you could actually feel. The inside was sprinkled with princess dust, and when you opened it, a beautiful melody swam into your ears: “Happy birthday to you, My daughter. I love you, I really, really do.”

*

I wasn’t thinking straight, and I wasn’t feeling good. My mind raced like my mother’s must’ve, before that night she decided she was an eagle, and was going to fly. I wonder if she flew at all before she kissed the pavement. I wonder if the lift beneath her wings was worth it.

I wonder if she was a seedling yet, I wondered if she was being watered by the sky.

*

I stumbled backwards, through the woods, blood-stained and dizzy, like a moth fluttering aimlessly against a light bulb. I didn’t know where I was going; I just knew I needed to do something.

*

Sometimes, I wake up and I don’t know where I am.

I dream of Belly. I dream mostly of our most favorite days together. Usually it is those rainy days that plague me—her favorite.

We would sit outside, letting the rain wash the dirt from our grimy toes, until we decided to guilt-trip the Mexican guy who sold coffee on the corner into giving us one for free.

She liked Mocha the best. He melted extra chocolate into the coffee, just for her. To match her hair he said, dark.

With our coffee tucked clumsily under our arms, we’d run through the mist back to our cozy little home. From here we would make love, and listen to the rain thump, and thunder-echo against our little shelter.

I dream of other things too, sometimes what cascades through colleges and nursing school.

I dream of libraries and the way books smell when the pages aren’t soaked in black coffee, and dust. I dream of the way books feel, prickly against your chewn-up thumbs, as you twist the pages, ready to fill the emptiness in your blood, your gut, and your head with the author’s own pain.

I dream of baby wolves, left without their mums, left to die, fluffy and bloody.

But mostly I dream of Bell.

*

Today I woke up with blood crusted onto my faded sheets, left from my nose, all over my flat chest. I think I know what it means.

As I dangle my chicken wrists from the top of this motel-hotel-piece-of-shit, I wonder if my mom felt like an eagle, merciless.

Or a pigeon at the talons of an eagle, begging for mercy.

Or maybe she felt like me.

Like nothing at all.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 17

The summers were hot and the pavement and gravelServed as a spot for time to unravel

Pulling me into the sound of a midnight round

That tree stood tall for so many yearsBy that old stone wall under the balcony tiersYou watched the birds feet from the window

A new memory to hold onto of a life, a future a day awayFrom it, all the reasons why my mind is cut loose, astray

And I lost it back on that old avenueCigarettes burned those memories downWhat is next should I come back around

And see the past erased awayGone with the wind on a southbound train

But that porch there still has three chairsOne for me and one for her, one for you by the table

I can still see that tree when the wind blows

A new memory to hold onto of a life, a future a day awayFrom it, all the reasons why my mind is cut loose, astray

And I lost it back on that old avenue

Old Avenue natalia mirabito

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Allure. Bedroom eyes. Come hither look. Draw you into me. Entice you with my charm. Fascination can be an overwhelming sin. Gravitate your attention to wonders of enchantment. How captivating are games of cat and mouse? Indulge yourself in the bait that lies before you. Journey into the wicked world of mischievous and playful entertainment. Knock on the doors of temptation and discover the luring possibilities. Love is a result that often stunts the progression of this seduction. Miserable are those that become complacent and ignore this magnetic invitation from plurality. Nibble on the forbidden fruits that devotion deems corrupt and a dishonesty to temperance. Only fantasy can satisfy that desire that so many stifle as to obey societal norms. Promises of loyalty can strangle our imaginations and lead to ignored impulses that smother our charisma. Quick to make commitment for the sake of normality only dismisses our natural instinct to hunt and gather.Reject the standard vows of engagement and alliance to live under your own free rule and liberated dictation. Seduction is the art of lust, a deadly sin that faith revolts against for its immoral and selfish nature. Transcend to a reality where public judgment is the true vice in society and our affairs are always clandestine relationships. Union as a means of compensation for abandonment, loss or fear of solitude legitimize its existence, until complete security becomes overwhelming.Value your autonomy and strength to self govern in this world of properness and appropriateness as to not lose your lively spirit. Weak are those who adhere to norms without questioning the intentions of those who enforce and preach that production is the ultimate goal. Xenophobia has manifested itself into our societal standards, but most are unaware of how our irrational hatred for contrast, change and conflict has grown. Yearning for passion does not have to rely on previous attachments and it does not have to produce dependency, as this logic is a falsehood. Zealous allurement can produce satisfaction that does not follow the actions of the masses, but allows you the freedom to indulge without the restraint of judgment.

A Better Compromise Kathleen Landers

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She was lightning bold as thunder,Once a cold storm, like hunger,Once a new shore to plunder,A steady oar past shipwreck

She was once seizing the seizures,Buying the plight of white slave drivers,Ruling a world of silent tyrants,Breaking the laws of lawlessness

Before her day began, the night prowled,Cursing a wayward force in nightgown,Cruising the limelight for the right sound,Eyes to the hills, but falling down

She was the hope of hopelessness,Deceitful light from a dead star;Coming in for a landing to help,Crashing, burning, gone too far

She was frightening going under,Sea monsters spawned legs, ran for cover,Earth breathed a sigh while land recovered,Just water cried, my friend, no other

She was once a cold storm, like hunger,Cursing a wayward wife with nightgown,Her husband’s plight in light, uncovered,Once was a hill, now fallen down\

“On the 54th Regiment”On the hill of honeyIn the woods of OlusteeThere were men, numerous as grains of sand Running through an hour glass, as rare as rubiesTrapped in a time of a divided landChained in the mind, past the whites of their eyes,

To the Enemy’s lie: that there were no more than slavesOn the hill of honey & In the woods of Olustee, behind blue suits of honor & Rifles, with death in the chamber & bitter poi-son to the very end

To the Enemy’s lie: that white men were deities and black men Were luxuries and Negroes in a justified hell of whiteCotton and bleeding hands, pierced by the nails of prideAnd hung under the banners of, “We Are Less Than Them.”

They, of the 54th regiment, under Robert Gould Shaw,Were breaking free from these mental shacklesWith valiant strides beside wounded flag bear-ers and volunteer infantryWith memorial frames, leaping through clouds of cannon-ball dust.When the moment played, “ye may,” they cried, “We must!”Charging Hades with a battle cry of freedomOnly forward unto death before we won.

On the hill of honeyIn the woods of OlusteeThere were men, as rare as rubiesRunning through an hour glass of gloryOn the fort of Wagner,In the dunes of sand.

Once was Isaiah Nathan

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 21

Wake up. It’s a new day.

I open my eyes to a grey popcorn-style ceiling, outdated, a mountain range of plaster turned upside down. My eyes are still adjusting, and they struggle to force perspective on the plaster peaks that seem to loom too close and dominate my field of vision.

Slowly, I push my queasiness away and roll onto my side, averting my eyes. I strain with the twisting of unfamiliar limbs and the settling of untested muscles and ligaments, working the feel of another set of foreign bones under foreign skin.

The walls are green, a more welcoming pasture to the ceiling’s mountainous ridges.

I blink heavy eyelids set into a face that feels round and soft, shaped in flat angles with a short nose.

I open my mouth, and a boy’s voice, high and untouched by puberty, falls out in chunky syllables.

“Who’s this one, Sir?”

If anyone were in the room with me, they would think I’m speaking to what is clearly empty air. However, I know better, and so I listen.

Aaron Zheng, eleven years old, resident of San Francisco, California.

The familiar voice, just barely distinguishable from my own thoughts, lingers in my head with each syllable of response: crisp, professional, and never without a tone of patient kindness. I’m told that I’ll hear from Sir less often when I’m not as new, when I’ve done more placements and can find my way around a mind. But for now, he sticks around for a bit when I’m first placed.

Aaron Zheng. Still inside himself with me, but quiet and almost unconscious in contrast to Sir’s voice and myself, restrained and unaware as if in sleep while I do my work.

My initial reaction is excitement. I have only experienced placements on the northeast coast of the continent, and if I am remembering correctly, California is on the west coast. I’ve always thought it looked nice, a warm climate with warm people, so I hope that’s true. I just finished a rough placement, a real Red Flag one, and warm people sound especially welcoming.

My second reaction: Eleven? The number sounds so small, and I’m surprised.

I had forgotten what Sir had told me a couple placements ago, that a woman—called something like “Judge”?—had decided to lower the minimum age in the program after two

young girls murdered their classmate last month. But now I’m feeling my stomach lurch, and I change my course of thought quickly, because I’d rather not think about murder with a placement to complete. I just learned about homicide on the television during my last placement, with a man who habitually watched true crime documentaries after coming home from rough days at work. After a while, every day became a rough day, and he began to feel that he wanted to experience the thrills of cold murder firsthand. The idea still makes me feel a sick clench and a raw tingling in my gut, especially after being forced to “enjoy” it while I was placed with him.

Anyway, despite Aaron Zheng’s young age, I have been in bodies this size before, and the smallness of the limbs doesn’t bother me besides the usual moment of adjustment.

I shift to the edge of the box-spring mattress and swing my legs over the side to the short carpet, shivering in the chill of the plain, small room, and I Think.

Thinking is simultaneously the most disorienting and exciting part of my job. I can recall when I struggled with it during my first few placements, the resistance of the flood of images and sensory information and memories that pounded in disjointed harmony from synapse to synapse. The thoughts and feelings may call the brain I temporarily inhabit “home,” but they reject the control of my unfamiliar consciousness just as my relatively new consciousness tended to reject them.

Sir seemed confused, or maybe surprised, when I expressed my discomfort after my first two or three placements.

“Human bodies aren’t quite used to the feel of more than one consciousness,” he had told me. “I’m not concerned, I believe they’ll adjust once the program is really on its feet and everyone’s experiencing it biannually, and by then I’m sure it will be more comfortable for you too, huh?”

I did get used to it, albeit without much of a choice. The Thinking, Sir says, is the first step to measuring a citizen’s mentality. What do they feel as soon as they wake up in the morning? That’s the first data I gather.

And so that is what I’m doing now with young Aaron. I Think. I feel the rush of habitual emotions that come with his waking and morning routine, and I follow what the brain is compelling me to do.

To my surprise, Aaron likes mornings; most placements I’ve had haven’t enjoyed them.

I pad around his bed, I pull clean clothes from a crooked drawer in the oak dresser, I slip out of cotton sleep shorts and into worn jeans and a collared shirt. He likes to dress nice.

hymn civilian carina hennessey

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I realize that he likes to hum, too, as I feel the urge to let soft notes bubble up from my throat and slip from my palate and through my nose. I, as a conscious being, must not know very much about music yet because it’s not a tune I recognize, but then I realize Aaron doesn’t seem to have a name for it, either. Maybe it’s improvised, or maybe part of a forgotten tune… Maybe something he heard once, passing through one of those powder-scented sleek department stores, and it caught his ear and he paused just long enough while straining to listen to the low melody from the sound system, before his mother gave an impatient tug on his small hand, so he never got the chance to—

Hey, now, focus.

I blink once, and the music stops, and I no longer smell sleekness and powder as Sir’s voice brings me back into my surroundings.

“Sorry. Sometimes they’re just really interesting.”

That’s good, that’s why you’re here, be interested. But don’t get carried away, alright? Now, go get some breakfast. Or whatever our young Aaron does in the mornings.

What does he do? His feet bring me to the door, his fingers enclose the glass knob and pull with a twist of his summer-darkened wrist, stepping around and across the threshold into a narrow hallway. At one end, to the left, is what looks like the front door, where lazy morning sunlight filters through a short white swath of curtain over the glass on the outside. To the right, the hallway extends to three doorways, one belonging to Aaron’s mother’s bedroom. Behind another sat the cozily nestled bathroom, which I knew was overrun by various bottles of potions and lotions and other female toiletries without having to look (because Aaron knew), and the third leads to the kitchen, from which the faint smell of already-cooked eggs and hash still calls coyly.

Aaron knows the lukewarm plate will sit next to a note in loving, slanted script, written in a rush by hands trying to juggle a purse and a medical bag and whatever scrubs his mother didn’t have time to change into before her shift at the clinic, because she always presses Snooze one more time when she knows she shouldn’t. She was running especially late this morning, the evidence being that she left her reading glasses on the table and the morning news is still murmuring from the small television tablet propped up on the corner counter.

I take the plate, as Aaron would, and set it in the microwave, letting the minute tick down as I sit at the small, square table and consider the television. I’ve never watched the news, really. Mainly I have seen shows that people call “reality TV,” for some reason, because they always complain that they aren’t realistic at all, and a few cartoons that mothers put on to babysit their kids while they do adult things like file taxes and do online shopping (I get quite bored while doing

those kinds of placements), and the dreadfully popular crime shows like the ones watched by my last placement. So now I’m interested at this idea of all the new world events being told to you before your breakfast, and I pay attention.

There is a newscaster on now—a young woman with pretty dark curls, and her eyes pierce the camera lens while she stays focused on the crew amidst the chaos of the scene behind her in what looks like a large city. New York? It doesn’t really look like New York as I know the city, but that’s the only very large city I can think of, and if the newscaster said otherwise, I didn’t catch it. A lot of people are gathered, a “rally” Aaron’s mind tells me? Or a protest? A riot, even? He’s using a lot of words, but they all seem pretty similar, so I figure it’s not the name that matters, what’s more important is why they’re gathered.

They’re angry, that much is obvious. There is shouting, some in unison with mantras you can’t really understand because the sheer amount of voices swallows the form of the words, some breaking from the crowd and yelling things out in bursts of frustration and aggression. I’m amazed; this is behavior that I’ve “seen” through some memories I’ve experienced during placements, but I’ve never really seen it for myself, even via television. It’s kind of fascinating. This is the kind of behavior that Sir tells me and the others to look for, all the signs of aggression, desperation, upset and anger. And here, so many dozens (hundreds?) of people are openly showing it, hollering and pushing and marching in the streets, and nobody is really doing anything about it. What could that mean? Is there a good kind of aggression that I haven’t yet been taught about? I am new, after all. I make a note to ask Sir later in my debriefing, since I haven’t heard his voice in a while and I don’t believe he’s around at the moment. I also want to ask him what the rally/protest/riot is about, since this must be very big news, and I can’t understand the newscaster lady anyway, since the volume is low on the television and I can’t find where Aaron’s mom put the remote.

I read the scrolling text on the bottom of the screen while I eat the reheated breakfast: “Worldwide backlash and moral debate over United States’ program to monitor public mental health,” “Third anniversary of passing of the controversial bill this month, protests continue,” “Groups threatening to take ‘direct offensive action’ on program: terrorists or vigilantes?” The words sit strangely with me, but as I try to think on it I can feel my mental limits stretch, and I know that this is beyond the comprehension Sir has given me.

I asked him once, when I was very, very young and still learning, where I could find my body. It’s a common question early on for us, I learned. We feel the consciousness of our placements, and we resonate with them, and we don’t feel like we differ very much from our temporary hosts. But there’s an obvious difference, isn’t there? Our hosts are flesh and blood, they are corporeal, they are organic, and through them we

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 23

can have the sensation of being organic as well. But there is always a thin veil there, a dullness to our senses in their bodies, a gossamer screen between their eyes that we see out of and coating their skin that we use to feel, because I am not Aaron, and Aaron’s body is not mine, and I don’t have a body of my own in which to reside. I live in the microtechnology that has been government issued in everyone’s head for decades, that has been modified for our placements. I, and the others like me, made by Sir and the others like him. They sometimes refer to us as “souls,” but we live in the air, in transmissions and in wires and in data. This scared us, scared me, once we had a taste of humanity.

But Sir assured me, like he did the others, that everything will be alright, that we have a purpose and that our design will limit our awareness to what that purpose is. “I made you,” he told me. “I won’t overwhelm you. I’ll keep you all safe, because you’re very important, and you mean a great deal to me and many others who wish that they could have saved themselves and the people they love from something so simple and human as mental illness, if they’d only just known. Isn’t that so simple? Isn’t that so important?” And I felt content with that, even if I didn’t completely understand. A purpose is something I can focus on. Isn’t that what every human being wants anyway?

So, back to my purpose. It’s 7:00 a.m., and the bell will ring at Aaron’s school, five blocks away, at 7:30. I’ve finished eating, so I drop the plate and fork in the deep metal sink. I turn off the TV tablet, and the faint vicious buzz of the distant rally ceases like closing the lid on a beekeeper’s box. I scoop up Aaron’s navy blue vinyl schoolbag from where it leans on the wall in the narrow foyer-hallway, shoving his heels into plain tan shoes (that tend to pinch and crowd his toes quite uncomfortably) as I go. The door squeaks on its hinges as it opens, the sunlight that had been muted through the curtain beaming into voracious rays that swallow up my vision in their eagerness.

The shock of the early autumn sun on my eyes means I have to squint to make it safely down the steps and deposit myself onto the sidewalk, where I can then turn my back to the overzealous sunshine and start the partially-uphill trek to Aaron’s school. I don’t need to think or rifle through memories to find it. His feet have followed this path over hundreds of similar mornings, and they find the way like a taut string is pulling them to the front doors.

A few people say hello to Aaron while we make our way: an older woman a few houses down the street with hair that looks like a cloud of steel wool, and who is very sloppy with her garden hose, wetting my shoes a bit as she says good morning; a man jogging with a dog, who I think said hello out of courtesy and not familiarity; and a young teacher in a sweet blue dress, greeting students at the school gates. They don’t realize that I’m placed with Aaron, as we just answer

and interact as he normally would. It’s better this way, Sir says. If people knew, they might become uncomfortable, and interact with the placement differently than they normally would. So it’s better this way, that I’m there a day or two, and gone without anyone—including the placement—even realizing. Unless, of course, they are a Red Flag and it’s decided that action has to be taken to protect them or others. Then reports are filed, authorities and family notified, custody filed… Lots of processes to which I know the names but not the logistics, since Sir says I don’t have to.

So, the young teacher with the sweet blue dress and the dimpled face doesn’t notice a thing, and we say hello back and walk on as usual. The sun persists on Aaron’s back and the nape of his neck as we pass through the gates, and I’m aware of how uncomfortable I should look because I know I feel only a little of its intensity compared to what the kids around me must feel, but it’s alright because Aaron likes the feeling of the hot sun on his skin, as evidenced by his deep August tan.

I wonder briefly what cool aloe gel over sunburn feels like.

And then, something feels like a snap. One moment, I’m walking across the courtyard, a cool wind dispersing perspiration beading at my hairline, and ruffling the flocks of children crowing and hopping across pre-schoolday activities on the blacktop, and the next, I’m floating, just behind Aaron’s eyes. I’ve retracted into myself somehow, I’ve short circuited? There’s something wrong and I am panicking with the helplessness of not knowing how to fix it, the urgency of such a sudden transition to wrong. I know, distantly, that Aaron has sat down, that he is spasming and unresponsive, but he will be soon. I can feel him grow dominant again in his own head.

I’m in a cocoon, I think, as I can vaguely hear the muffled sounds of classmates and teachers at Aaron’s side, some screaming but not in an angry way like the rallying, rioting protesters, no; they are scared, they are concerned, they are grabbing his arms and touching his hair and demanding to know what’s happening. So much love in such a strange situation, which I know is also a strange thing for me to think, but, I feel so detached, even more so by the second, and it’s like I’m fading away but not like the familiar leaving that happens when I’m done with a placement, and I know something is wrong and I should still be panicking, but I feel apathetic, too calm, an acceptance because I’m tired and I’ve never truly slept, so I let the blackness take me as I feel another snap and suddenly I am nothing.

*

“How bad is the damage?”

The technician knows that the thin, angled man before him is quite capable of checking that out for himself once their system is recovered. He’s the head-of-project after all, and

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he’s usually the one doing the hands-on work with the tools, entities, spies, whatever they are. But after the system was attacked, he waited it out and had his lower technicians assess the situation instead. His head’s not clear at the moment so he doesn’t trust himself. That’s what he had told a head tech in quiet tones, before retreating into his office with a heavy swing of the doors. Incidentally, behind these doors is where this young technician now finds himself.

He knows the boss is not going to like this. His time at the department has been short, eight months? (Maybe nine, hard to even tell with these hours, into the night and in chunks throughout the day; time tends to just blur until you think you’re not even a time being anymore, you’ve just become a worker bee, a spaceless, non-corporeal entity like the very material you’re working around…) Suddenly the technician definitely feels pretty damn corporeal, because he remembers with a jolt whose office he is standing in. He’s known the head-of-project as a surprisingly patient and kind person for a genius of his caliber, yet the guy could still be downright intimidating when given reason to be. The tech looks at his boss now, a normal man in all respects—just take a middle-aged and plainly attractive face and add black-rimmed glasses with a dash of neat brown hair and whiskers, and there you have it. Nothing impressive. But the young tech knows that a temper can be like a chameleon, hiding in a person until they forget to blend their true colors into camouflage. And he’s not a fan of dealing with tempers.

Then he remembers the head-of-project asked a question, and is patiently suffering the tech’s awkward pause, and the tech decides it’s probably best to end said pause.

“Incredibly, there were no casualties or major damage to any placements-in-process. Just some minor injuries, scrapes, one took a tumble down the stairs, just a bumped head. Luckily, very luckily. As for the program… there are several possibilities. It’s effectively gone, as far as we can see; they even

managed to wipe the redundant drives. All we have left are some smatterings of pre-alpha code. They were, uh, well, they were pretty damn thorough. The ‘souls’ themselves... no sign of them. They could be in the local storage of their last

placements’ chips, in which case, although fragmented, they could be recovered. They could have also been

transferred onto external drives by the terrorists, though that is unlikely. They could have effectively dissipated, been destroyed, deleted altogether along with the rest of the program, but they also could…”

He hesitates, squirms. He’s waiting for a sign of anger or violence, but the thin man’s expression

stays focused and neutral, his eyes intense. He breaks the glassiness of his expression to prod the

tech with his voice.

“Why hesitate? This is more important than your job, which, quite honestly, none of us will have soon anyways. Please, continue.”

The tech is surprised at the unexpected weariness in the scientist’s voice, and takes his time still with voicing the next theory, since it sounds just as macabre outside of his mouth as it did sitting on his tongue.

“There were multiple system malfunctions that we’re still tallying up. It’s actually very likely, we think, that they could have been scattered across the system, chips and all, and wound up in random placements, in which case there could be some disastrous mental implications for who they might end up with, but also, they may have ended up in... newly vacant… bodies. We could investigate those who have recently had near-death experiences, reports of new schizophrenic tendencies, but... If we miss even a few of them out of thousands, there will be an irreparable hole in the system. Plus we’d be spending large amounts of time and resources with a high chance of coming up with nothing.”

“Nothing?” The tech notices that the scientist asks questions like they’re

a temper can be

like a chameleon,

hiding in a person

until they forget

to blend their

true colors into

camouflage.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 25

statements.

“I... doubt they would come forward about their, well, origins.”

“Why?”

“Why would they? Would you?”

The tech can see an understanding form in his boss’ eyes, and he is reminded again how much time the scientist spent with his brain-children, coaching them through their placements and gathering the needed data. He must know their natures better than anyone else involved on the project, and his voice is steeped in resignation when he finally speaks.

“They’ll be completely lost to us. When their new host body passes, we may be able to gather the data from their chip, but, that’s time, patience, things that don’t exactly win government funding… All that work for nothing, huh?” He brushes his hand across his brow and shakes his head with an oddly amused grunt.

“Maybe this could be a good thing. If they’re out there… God, they know so much! They’ve felt the experiences of dozens, hundreds of lifetimes. Maybe they just start living among us, maybe they become great leaders, visionaries… Nobody would know. Nobody would know the difference if it’s a synthetic soul inspiring them, would they?”

He looks up at the tech again, smiling crookedly. “You couldn’t possibly be just messing with me, could you? Best to cover all bases before I polish my resume for a shiny new desk job.”

“No, Sir,” the tech replies with a wry smile of his own, “unfortunately, I’m also as serious as I am unemployed.”

*

I’m not nothing anymore; I am someone. I know that much, but I’m having trouble forming full thoughts, this brain isn’t fully developed like an adult’s. I’ve never been in a brand new mind before. I didn’t even know the chips were put in people this tiny, even before birth. I think, I feel, but in vague impressions, and the Thinking doesn’t hurt for once because there is really nothing else in here, just... me. The only thing this body gives me when I Think is warmth then stress then cold, the impressions it had of the world as it died, its functions ceasing while leaving the birth canal after the safety of its mother’s womb.

Her mother’s womb.

It’s a female, a little girl, or so the doctor says as he places her-- me, I am her now-- in my new mother’s arms.

They are dark and smooth-skinned and weak with childbirth, yet they hold me close and secure with joy.

Me, a hollering bundle. Me.

For once, I’m not sharing this mind or this body with anyone, and the ever-present veil that sits between me and the senses that belong to another when I’m in a placement is gone, and I feel so real, it’s practically overwhelming, and I can’t believe I was content with that facsimile, that shoddy shade of life that I was experiencing before. I wonder what it will be like to really be a girl. Would I rather be a boy? I don’t feel a preference, and I feel like there probably isn’t much difference if you don’t want there to be.

I feel the air scream from my lungs, and I don’t know why I do this, but I figure it’s a good thing to do since it seems to make my mother coo softer to calm the onslaught of sound. I can’t see her face, or anything really. It’s all foreign and blurred, a mess of monochrome blobs, but somehow I’m comfortable with that.

I feel the uncontrolled swing of my small fists and the curl of my toes, and know that these shapes making noise and cooing at me are supposed to take care of me now. I don’t mind that, being taken care of for a few years. Given my situation, I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter, anyway, do I? So I settle for screaming and nudging the nurse who is now holding me, and most importantly I let go of the feeling and the thinking that I’m used to doing while intruding in someone else’s life, and I happily prepare myself. This time, I have a life of my own to live.

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I stepped into the bathroomand directly into something wetbefore the toilet.It dried sticky:The pee you left on your wayout my door.I bent over as I trickled my own(into the toilet),and leaned forward to wipeit off my foot with some toilet paper.

You are always so carelesswith my things—comingand going, alwayshalfway-there but never present,haunting my bed,in the orange glowof the humidifier,with your snoring.And withdrawing.

You ran your fingeralong my seam,you tickled it out of me.But that was it;Not even the poking,or prodding, or coaxingworked after that.And all that was left wasGuiltand Shame.

And the trash smelled,and the floor was a mess,like something that shouldn’t have happened,happened there anyway.And no one was hometo take the blame;everything abandoned,like a once-likely dream;

but another note on the counter,as if you’re twelve years oldand the longest you were to spend alonewould be a few more hours.

Stains of You Jill Shastany

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 27

I wear an invisible cloakPure and white as snowCreated from goodness and equalityAn inheritance from the father of my father The cloak is invisible to mebut the children of the children can see My cloak was cut from the cloth of slaveryStitched with years of oppressionStained by tears and bloodReeking of death The cloak is invisible to mebut the children of the children can see My cloak weighted by amnesiaHeavier than steelCold chains shackle me to my ancestorsRough ropes tie me to their sin The cloak is invisible to mebut the children of the children can see My invisible cloakMy InheritanceHides shame and guiltBut only from me

The sound of oppression is the sound of silence.No tunes on the breeze. No lyrics from lips.Stifled laugher, hidden love.Away from the world passions take shape.Behind closed doors dissension rises.A heat from the heavensSafe from ever-prying eyes.Thoughts of freedom locked in the mind.Behind closed lids liberty lies in hiding.Dreams of weights lifted from shoulders.Only in sleep can freedom sing.

My Inheritance Joni Miller

Behind Closed Doors christina cahoon

TEMPER 201528

Divorce is a pretty standard tradition in my family. Similar to turkey at Thanksgiving but with less peaceful naps and more poo-smeared bathroom mirrors. That being said, I have had my fair share of “time-restricted” family members: those men and women who touched my life in fleeting ways in the most crucial of developmental stages of adolescence, only to just as quickly dissipate and fade from memory. Perhaps the tone of that sentence was too fondly reflective; in reality, losing touch with the majority of these people was nothing short of a blessing. They range from parents to aunts and uncles, brothers, and grandparents. Many--save two stepbrothers-- were more than forgettable, and if memories still linger they aren’t exactly the good kind. The exception to this rule was known only to me as Aunt Deb.

Aunt Deb was the mother of my mother’s second husband, which in actuality made her my step-grandmother (or nothing at all if you want to be a dick). But because my actual grandmother was and still is a huge part of my life, addressing her by that title would be like calling the Pope, “Rabbi.” It was simply unacceptable. For this reason, my two full brothers and myself knew her simply as Aunt Deb.She was a short and stout woman, similar to a little teapot.

She lived alone, for reasons unknown to me even now in my somewhat adulthood. I can simply speculate that her husband passed away, because only a fool would have left her. Deb was one of the kindest and most genuinely happy people I have ever met, always wearing a smile to go with her pantsuit and making us feel as if we truly belonged in the family. Looking back on it, this was probably her first mistake.There are many standard clichés your parents tell you as a

child that you will never quite understand until you reach a certain age. Whether it is the value of a dollar, the pitfalls of young love, or the dangers of trying to grow up too fast, the bitter irony is always that the askew vision of childhood will never allow these moments of authoritative love to truly sink in until the lessons are learned through firsthand miscues. Although it was never outright told to us by our parents, my brothers and I assuredly made some of these miscues when it came to the abuse of Aunt Deb’s kindness.

On certain weekends (looking back on it, the weekends my mother and her husband wanted a night out and my maternal grandparents were busy themselves), my brothers and I would stay at Aunt Deb’s house. She lived in a small two-storied condo with a semi-finished basement, perfect for housing an indoor shooting range or reckless games of manhunt. To the child’s eye, it existed as an entirely new world to be discovered by riffling through foreign laundry baskets and closets, but in reality, it was a home that was much too small to be housing four children under twelve, even for just a night at a time.

When we stayed over, we had the typical sleepover experience: renting Surf Ninjas or BioDome on VHS from Blockbuster, eating Pringles and cramming together on and around the couch in her small den to eventually fade into sleep. Before bed, she would often tell us stories of our stepfather, who she affectionately referred to as the “Devil Child,” and his regular activities, such as escaping from the bed restraints necessary to keep him from burning down his house in the middle of the night (experiences that should have prepared her for things to come). Like I said, this was the typical sleepover, lulling the woman into a routine of monotony and trust.

There was one night, however, that strayed far from these clearly defined lines of ordinary.

One dark and cold winter night, just as a fresh coating of snowfall blanketed the city, my mother and her husband made the decision to enjoy a night to themselves. We were brought to Aunt Deb’s house, and the typical routine commenced. All seemed to be going according to plan, and then there came one fateful choice: Aunt Deb decided to momentarily leave our stepbrother in charge, believing foolishly that his age translated to qualification.

Hindsight is obviously always perfectly clear, and so I can comfortably sit in my computer chair today and say this was probably not the best of choices, but at the time I was an eight-year-old with a bowl cut and self-esteem issues, I was certainly in no position to be questioning the word of an authoritative figure. What I can now imagine as an adult was that the usually meticulously responsible Aunt Deb needed to pick up a critical, life altering item from the grocery store, or save a young puppy from drowning, or help emergency crash land an airliner running low on fuel - any number of completely justifiable excuses for leaving the house for the short time that she needed, which was truly no longer than five to seven minutes. The fact that she did not even tell my brothers or myself that she was stepping out can only mean that her plan was to be gone for so short a time that the three of us would have never noticed that the hand of power had been cast to such an undeserving heir.

However, she truly had underestimated the chaos that could come from such a small hand in so short a time. Within mere seconds of her exit, we heard cries of terror coming from the downstairs bathroom, the last known location of the new king. My two brothers and I quickly abandoned our posts and shot down the staircase, only to realize that when we reached the first floor, we were ankle deep in a swimming pool not typically located in the middle of Aunt Deb’s carpeted living room. A brief examination confirmed that this was not in fact a slip and slide, but in actuality a thick stream of water steadily gaining in both ferocity and depth, finding its origins in the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen.

bathroom blunders Joshua botvin

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 29

With panic tightening my chest and thoughts of my stepbrother being sucked down the drain, à la Chuckie Finster, my next step was to the bathroom, where I saw the boy vigorously plunging at an overflowing toilet so far beyond hope that at this point even the band from the Titanic would have stopped playing. Gallons upon gallons of poo water shot from the porcelain monster with no end in sight, like a fire hydrant on a hot day in Brooklyn. Over the sound of the geyser, we could hear the shouts of our newly ordained commanding officer: primarily, more than anything, we needed to soak up this mess. My older brother made his way to the phone to call in for reinforcements, or at least advice from my mom, and my younger brother and I set to work.

Stripping the linen cabinets bare of their contents, the two of us did our assigned duty. We covered the floor of the kitchen and living room with an array of towels ranging from those freshly purchased and barely used to those that had gone years since their last drying. None were spared. When the floors were completely covered and the towels sat soaked and heavy, we gazed at one another with a mutual look of satisfaction and respect normally reserved for veterans passing one another on a busy street, quiet yet full of drawn-back emotion.

It was at this time that we realized the toilet was still flooding.

My older brother returned from the living room, phone in hand with the news from my mother, saying that the toilet should have a shut-off valve against the wall on the far side, and that should effectively cut off its supply of water. I waded my way through the marshes and applied the golden rule of righty-tighty. Instantly, and in the most anticlimactic of fashions, the onslaught faded. We had emerged victorious.

After a short collective sigh, we each took in the sight before us, like fallen brothers on the field of Gettysburg the towels lay, awaiting a proper Christian burial. The poor fools would never receive such a privilege. We collected the towels, now reeking of sewage, and, not yet old enough to be trusted with the knowledge of operating a washer and dryer, did the only thing we were trained to do, put them on the back deck to dry.

In the snowstorm.

When the last of the towels was placed in the snow, we realized our job was far from over. The floor was still soaked, and after an optical scan of the

basement, another wrench was thrown in our plans: the water was seeping in through the ceiling. With no time to think our instincts kicked into hyper speed. We did what needed to be done to solve the problem.

Minutes later, we were safely nestled in our warm den, awaiting the comforting praises of our Aunt/Grandmother. Not only had we stared adversity straight in the face, but we socked it square in the kisser, hit one right out of the park, saved the day. But for some reason, we were not received as the heroes we thought ourselves.

The cause for such a response was more than likely because what the poor, kindhearted, innocent, undeserving dear walked into was far worse than any torture scene Eli Roth could ever imagine. From wall to wall, barely absorbing even the first layer of the mess, lay every single bed sheet, pillowcase, and comforter in her house. Soaked completely through with dirty toilet water. And upstairs rest four children expecting at the very least a pat on the shoulder and congratulatory thanks for saving the house.

We were put to bed that night in silence. There was no bedtime story, and there were no bed sheets. After all of that, the poor woman did not have the heart to yell at us, seeing as how we were not related by blood, though our stepbrother did catch an awfully deserved shrieking. My brothers and I held back budding smiles as we drifted off into sleep, completely unaware of the awful things we had done.

Also, the next morning she found the towels on the porch, frozen solid around the railings and in a massive heap in the center of the deck. I guess in her state of panic she did not think to check the linen cabinets. If you are reading this Aunt Deb, you deserve canonization, and I apologize with all my heart.

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A counselor pointed to a Bible,trying to be discreet about it.A nurse asked how my “Hell” was,instead of sleep(I wasn’tgetting that).

The Rules. I couldn’tremember The Rules.To the CommandmentsI kept likening them,and likening my own behavior to Sin.I checked the Deadly onesoff the list,and I was Guiltyof every single one.

I’d had good intentionsand look where they’d gotten me.

All the familiar Easter things andthemessurrounded me—like ham, and carrot-shaped chocolatesand chocolate bunnies.

And the sun was finally out. If only I had waited another week or two.Another day or two.I would’ve come out on my father’s birthday,but my Resurrection was slower.

“A year ago on EasterI was camping on a beach,and today might be the daythat I die.”

A stranger-boy had saved me,with his car that hadThe Rosaryhanging from his rearview,

and Katy Perryblasting from his radio.

He had saved me,it was April.

“Joyeuses Pâques!”I’d screamed,before running to the plane.

I would have liked to hitch-hike again, the day I wrote that note.That time, last year, whenaway but inside and captive, notaway and upward, away and outward.

We walked the halls of the hospital one day,and I thought Sardinia was the year before,but it was the year before that,

and I knew now that God was actually real,but, yes, he had abandoned us,like Sartre said,like Madame had said he’d said.

I heard she has cancer, I have known for months.I haven’t done anything.

I didn’t know that then.Only that God had abandoned us,but the Devil was there and he waswilling to entertain each and every one of our delusions,

of my thinking No Exitmeant something about Sartre,that there was a play about some people in HellI was meant to rewrite.

The Resurrection Jill Shastany

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 31

I wasn’t Born Again but I wasborn again. My skin wasnew; I had sat and watched itdry and peel beforemy onyx, catatonic eyes,belowmy greasy forehead, abovea bodythat couldn’t figure out how to hidefrom itself and all the lightsand all the people tryingto get me to see it, to see reason.But really,

it was April; the most double-edged month there is.

It is goldenand gleaming,like a blade catching the glowof a sunset,before an Executioner drives his axinto the neck and lops offthe headof a hippogriff.

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I had everything, but then things started getting bad at work. That’s always how it starts. Things start to fall apart in the one place that affects everywhere else. They were making cuts at the law firm that I had been working ten years at and honestly I was waiting for my pink slip. They had plenty of young lawyers that had just as many connections right out of college as I did. Granted, it was all because their daddies had handed them to them, but that’s not what mattered. What mattered was that they had what I did. They might have not had the experience, but in this world experience is not as important as connections and good looks. I knew the minute I heard about the cuts the firm didn’t need me. So I thought, hey what harm could it do, as I grabbed a six-pack at the liquor store.

You’d think I would have known what it would do to me. While I was in college I remember promising myself that I wouldn’t become my parents. They were just a couple of screw ups who drank too much and yelled even more. I guess that was a naïve thought. You always become what you don’t want to be. I think that’s what most people can’t seem to comprehend: you will be all of the ugly things that you vow never to become and you vow not to become them because you know they live within you.I think in retrospect I did know what that six-pack of beer

would do, but I welcomed it with arms so wide I could’ve fit the whole world in between.

It became a routine: leave work, drive to the liquor store, grab what I wanted and head on home. It continued perfectly that way for a while. I saw no problem with it even though my wife would disappear into our room the minute I came home and undid my tie. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t greet me with the usual hug and kiss that had waited at the door for me for years. Her silence made me colder. The love that I thought would always be there was slipping away and, I mean, I guess it was my fault, but at the time I didn’t think it was. Even my own kids started to shy away from me and I didn’t notice. I just kept buying my beer and whiskey so that I wouldn’t have to deal with anything. And, I swear, everything was fine until one night my wife wouldn’t leave me alone. She had decided that enough was enough and she wouldn’t shut up about it. I sat in my recliner, smoking a cigarette in the house, while my ten-year-old Henry, sat in front of the television and, may God forgive me, I hit her. The rage was so intense that I didn’t know what to do with it and I struck her as a way of relief. I dropped my glass of whisky and ice and watched as the love of my life fell back, her beautiful delicate bottom lip bleeding.

She left me. Took the kids too. The drink cost me my wife

and my kids. I can tell you that, after something like that, a man just isn’t the same. I had to move out of the house because she said it wasn’t fair that she had the kids, but I lived in the townhouse that I was paying monthly for. If she came around the house she made sure not to bring either of the children with her because she wasn’t sure if I would be drunk and willing to hit her again. Part of me believed they were scared of me. At ten and fourteen they were both old enough to realize that what I had done to their mother was not okay. I’m ashamed to say that I’m glad she didn’t bring them around. I’d rather them believe that I just wasn’t around instead of having to come to terms with the fact that their father had become a failure.

Years after my wife had left me I walked into work and was called into the boss’s office. Just as I sat he handed me my own personal pink slip. He told me he wouldn’t have a drunk working at his firm. When I tried to contradict him he told me that you could smell the alcohol from miles away.

Driving back to my place I wondered if it all would have happened if I wasn’t a drunk, but the thought hurt too much. Thinking became a character flaw to me. If I didn’t think I was a man with a beautiful little girl and boy and a loving wife. If I did think reality felt like a freight train to the face. When I got to the little apartment I was renting that day there was an eviction notice on the door. I remember staring at it. The piece of paper was taped to my door and the landlord had started it with ‘Sorry Sir’, which made me realize how much of a loser I was. At forty-seven-years-old I was losing my job and my only place to live. The weight of it all made me dizzy. I got in my car and I did what I did best. When I walked into the liquor store, where the cashier knew me by name, I took a deep breath. It was the only thing around me that never changed. I knew that once I started to drink everything would be okay. I bought so much liquor that the cashier was uncertain on letting me out of the store. He tried to meddle his way into what was going on, but I walked right out, after paying, without saying a word. I drank all of it. Every last intoxicating drop. I drank so much

I passed out. The landlord found me close to dead in my car and had the wit to call 911. At the hospital they pumped my stomach and when I woke up they informed me that I had gotten alcohol poisoning and sitting on my hospital bed I almost laughed. I knew that one day the drink would almost kill me.”The dog in my lap barked up at a bird flying high in the

sky. I barked along with him. Maybe if I barked loud enough it would come down and talk to me. People didn’t like me much and I was tired of being alone. I knew I looked crazy, but that’s what loneliness does to you. On the other side of

May God forgive me Wanda Perez

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 33

the bridge a couple walked hand in hand. She nuzzled into his neck like it has the warmest place on this planet. My bones shook underneath the thin sweater I’d found one day at the park. Winter was coming so I was glad that I had found it. It smelled like earth and rain and there was a stain on one of the shoulders, but it didn’t matter because I was too dirty for anyone to notice.

As the couple made their way past me I got on all fours and started to bark at them, my Terrier friend Henry joining in. The girl’s high pitched scream echoed throughout the underside of the bridge. The man gave the girl’s hand a good yank and pulled her into the sunlight, where she would be safe, away from my dog and away from me.

The sun today wasn’t hot. I especially hated days like this because I knew this meant I would be cold all day. I grabbed Henry and put him in my supermarket carriage, on top of the plastic soda bottles. I knew it would be the most comfortable spot for him. If I put him on the glass bottles he would get hurt, but if I put him on the bag with my clothes it would be

a really bumpy ride for him. The wheel right underneath that bag was missing. As I made my way through the streets I continued my

story. “They called my wife to inform her that I was in the hospital and she in turn sent my daughter, a beautiful 19 year old woman. She was almost as beautiful as her mother. I remember she walked up to the bed and carefully placed her hand on mine.

‘Sweetheart.’ I said, my voice rising so that the tears that were in my eyes wouldn’t come out.

‘Dad’ she had replied, wiping at her eyes. ‘Are you okay?’

I nodded and motioned for her to sit on the bed.”

Henry barked at me and I looked down at him. He was a small guy with beautiful, healthy gold fur. Every time he moved the little bell around his neck would ring and I knew that he had a home. I’m sure his owner was going crazy trying to find him, but he had ran right into my lap under the bridge and now he was mine to keep.

“I managed to get her talking about her mother and her brother and her. She told me that her mother had remarried a man who was good under pressure and had never laid a hand on her because he thought she was made of gold, something I knew, but I guess I was never worthy of stuff like that. She told me she had been accepted into college and she had a boyfriend who she planned to marry and when she told me that Henry I started to cry. Don’t worry. I made sure to tell her that if he ever started to drink too much she should leave him.”

I brought Henry with me to the bottle exchanging place because the sun was setting and I didn’t know when the last time he had eaten was. I managed to get eight dollars back, which if I calculated right, would get me and Henry some food for the next few days. I might have to skip a meal, but it didn’t matter because my boy needed to eat. As I put Henry in the carriage I heard him whine. I looked down at him and he looked up at me with big, sad eyes so I took him out. I didn’t have a leash to walk him, but I knew he wouldn’t leave me. I got down on one knee and patted his head. “Don’t worry son you’re not an animal. I won’t put you in a cage.” With my empty carriage and Henry in tow I headed to the corner store I usually went to right before the bridge.

“Henry I’ll be right back. Dad needs you to guard the carriage okay?” I got down again and kissed the top of his beautiful head and went inside.

The man behind the counter yelled at me. He always does. “Why are you in here?” He demanded. “I told you not to come in here. I don’t need you scaring my clients.”

“But look,” I said, taking a five dollar bill and three ones out

People are

nice, but

they’re only

really nice

to people

they think

are good. I’m

not good.

TEMPER 201534

of my pocket. “I have money.”He looked at my hand and then at my tattered

clothes. “Fine. Hurry up though!”

If I could change my clothes I would. My bottles just don’t make me enough for that. I’ve figured out a system and nowhere in it is there enough money for clothes. When I’m sitting in the street some nice people give me money. On a good day I get enough money to buy my alcohol and food. Sometimes there’s enough left over to do a load of laundry at the laundromat. That usually doesn’t happen though. People are nice, but they’re only really nice to people they think are good. I’m not good.

“Henry I got some food!” But Henry wasn’t next to the carriage when I got outside. My breathing came fast as I spun around in a circle looking for my son. “Henry!” I yelled and the people around me stared. I have to find my son.

As I ran the bag of food hit my thigh. Inside I bought Henry vanilla crackers because those are his favorite. I can’t wait to see his smile.

Halfway down the bridge I saw Henry. He was staring at the people below him between the gaps in the bridge’s railing.

“Henry, son, get away from there.” I said, but I said it too mean. I shouldn’t have been so mean.

Henry got scared and walked right in between the gap and off the bridge.

“No!” I yelled and ran toward him. I knew I can save him if I was fast enough.

I threw the bag of food on the floor and jumped the railing after him.

“How about Henry? How’s your brother sweetheart?” Kelsey, my oldest, bit her lip playing with the hospital sheets. She started to blink really fast and part of me thought that I might have to call someone for help.

“He’s gone Dad.” She said, her voice coated with all of the things that she did not manage to do with her younger brother. “He died a few months ago. He made some older friends at school and they were out one night and the driver was drinking and the car flipped over.” When she shook her head one of her tears landed on my cheek. “He didn’t make it.”I stared at her. There were rays of sunlight hitting

her in a way that made her look holy. Her gold hair shone and her tears seemed to be made out of glass

in the light.I closed my eyes. “God,” I said, a sob erupting from

my chest, “Please forgive me.”

I’m not sure if it’s possible to fall backward, but as I sailed through the air, getting closer and closer to the spot of red on the cement that is Henry I felt like I was moving up toward the Heavens.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 35

It would be okay with meIf you became a distant memory.It would be okay with me,If I left here forever.

Do you remember that springWhen our eyes first grazedUpon flesh and color?I remember that springIn which persuasion ledTo bittersweet victory.

Do you remember that summerWhen I couldn’t find youAnd you couldn’t find me?I remember that summer,Because I yearned for that sweet touchOf flesh and bone.

Do you remember that autumn,When I touched you,And you touched back?I remember that autumn,Because I still feel the leavesFalling from the trees.

And do you remember that winter,In which I lost my mind?I fear that I cannot recall said winter,And all that remains to remind meIs a burn from the windOn an empty face.

I’ve rediscovered what it means to sleepAnd to dream.And now I’m living this winterWithout a doubt in my mindThat my mind is still missing.

It would be okay with me,If I could recall those memories.It would be okay with me,If we became a distant memory,Once I’ve left over the sea.

Seasons Paul Horte

MMXV