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Devotion ‘After this manner therefore pray ye’ Matthew 6:9 (KJV) I hide Behind The Mouth Of My Son And whisper, God, are you listening to me? Broda, look wetin you don cause The look of my boss looks at me, a questioning only an Option of a plague is the right answer. There is only one face: the one he sees every time. The fraud You represent in the news. I am useful. I honor myself with labor. Yet, I cannot deny The weight, the punctuating doubts when his voice commends me. You are the reason; my pure honesty is embroidered in Probation. You are the reason, They say when my kontri people give honesty a face, it is a mask. You are the reason; I am crippled by elephant shame. I falter: my voice in smithereens, when they ask, “Where are you from?” You are the reason why I cannot dance, when Diaspora music plays. He will ask me now, “If I pay you, Won’t you run away?” He will ask me again, “If I send You to America, won’t you run away?” The third time: The hurt is deep, the wound continues to fester. Goodness Olanrewaju Ayoola is a Nigerian poet and teacher of English who reaches out to poetry as escapism from the contentions within and around him. His poetry appeared recently in Hellebore, Mainsqueeze, Querencia, Periferias Journal and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net Award Nominee and author of Meditations (WRR, 2016). Say hi to him @GoodnessLanre

I noticed Eve first at the Bad Ass Café in Dublin in Temple Bar. She sat across from me and I thought she looked a lot like my favorite singer, Ani DiFranco. She had a tiny nose ring that pierced her tan skin. She had the attitude, too, like she might have been the badass for whom the restaurant had been named. She spoke in a Georgia drawl that enthralled our Irish orientation leaders and she wasn’t shy about complaining. “This menu sucks,” she said loudly after the waitstaff had arranged four tables into one long banquet setup to accommodate our group. “It’s full of meat dishes.” She continued to scan the menu with her dark eyebrows pulled together. “On the back page, there is a vegetable soup and a pasta dish,” I said. “Thanks.” She held her hand out across the table. “I’m Eve Lourdes. “Isabel Juarez,” I said, and shook her hand firmly, like I was applying for a job. “I’m from California.” “You’re Hispanic, aren’t you?” she asked. “My dad’s Mexican, mom is white.” “Yep, I’m half, too. My dad’s Puerto Rican,” she said. We sat with two dozen Americans that night, all exchange students headed to universities across Ireland. After dinner, two of the other girls pulled out tattered passport books to compare travels. “You’ve been to Hong Kong, too?” Amelia squealed when she saw one of a dozen stamps in Catharine’s pages. “Don’t you just love the night market?” “You know, the one in Taiwan is even better,” Catharine responded. “You’ve been to Germany, too? I’m backpacking through Europe after our study abroad year ends. I can’t wait to get back to the clubs in East Berlin.” My own passport sat snugly in a borrowed suitcase back at the youth hostel with a stiff blue cover and one stamp from the day before when I landed at the Dublin airport. *** For the second week, the orientation leaders shipped us off to Bray, a suburb 40 miles south of the city. “You’ll be paired off and staying with a family for four nights,” one of the leaders said, and passed out envelopes with our assignments. Catharine and Amelia squealed and hugged when they saw they were paired together, as though they were long-time best friends and hadn’t just met seven days before. I knew lots of girls like them back at my private college in California, girls who arrived on campus with brand-new Miatas or Beemers. I showed up with Pell grants and a 20-year-old Honda, scholarships to cover my tuition, and a work-study job to cover gas. “What a surprise,” Eve said when she opened her envelope. “We’re in the same house. Of course, they put the two Hispanic chicks together.” “Maybe they just paired us off alphabetically,” I said. *** At the homestay house, the family’s seven-year-old daughter followed us from room to room. The girl held up wispy blond braids that were unraveled at the ends. “I have braids, too,” she said. “But yours look funny.” “Mine aren’t braids,” Eve said. “They are dreadlocks. Like Bob Marley.” The little girl scrunched up her nose. She didn’t know who that was. “I like how youse Americans talk,” the girl said in her lilting Dublin accent. Eve and I sounded nothing alike. “Are you sisters?” “Nope,” Eve said. She caught my light brown eyes with her nearly black ones and laughed. We looked nothing alike either. She was lean and stood a half foot taller than me. “See you later, kid,” Eve said as we grabbed our backpacks to head out and explore the town. We ran into Catharine, Amelia and another girl Charlotte on the road a few houses down. “We’re taking the train back to Dublin to do some shopping,” Catharine said. “Want to come with?” “Nope,” Eve said. I followed her out of the suburban enclave on Camaderry Road, under blue, clear skies, the last vestiges of summer. “Let’s hike up Bray Head,” she said. I looked down at my boots and baggy jeans. I didn’t feel prepared for outdoor activities. “How long is this hike?” I asked. “I don’t know, Isabel, but when will we ever be here again?” Eve said. “It’s our one chance to do it.” When we started our ascent, the sun shone brightly and the temperatures were in the mild 70s. But as the incline became steeper, a cold wind blew across us from the Irish Sea below. Never the athletic type, my calves ached halfway to the summit and I clutched the green guardrail to propel myself forward. A group of brown-haired tourists passed us on their way down. “A tu izquierda,” the man at the front of their line said. Eve and I exchanged a look. “Does that happen to you all the time, too?” she asked. “Yeah, everyone assumes I speak Spanish, but I can barely count to 10.” As we reached the top of Bray Head, the blue skies receded suddenly as a volatile cloud bank rolled in from the south. The sun blocked, everything around us fell into a neutral gray. “Let’s go before we get caught in this storm,” Eve said. But as we turned, the skies shifted again and the sun came back out to follow us on our descent. Back on flat land, I followed Eve past the quaint storefronts along the Strand. We’d been walking up a tree-lined street with red brick houses for half an hour when I stopped. “This doesn’t seem familiar,” I said. I opened my backpack to retrieve my tour book and turned to the entry for Bray. It was too small a place to have a map. My chest tightened at the thought that we were lost. “Let’s just keep walking east,” Eve said and she continued up the sidewalk in the direction we had been going. “Everything will be fine. We’ll figure it out. Or we’ll find someone we can ask.” We came to a park where two boys kicked a soccer ball back and forth. They wore jerseys for a team I didn’t know and black Umbro shorts. They might have been 11 or 12. “Hey.” Eve called across the grass and waved them over. The redheaded boy picked up the ball and jogged toward us and his blond friend followed. “Can you tell us how to get to Cuala Road?” Eve asked. “We’ll help youse out for blow jobs,” the redhead boy said and the other snickered. Eve’s eyes darkened and her body bristled. “Cheeky little bastards,” Eve said. “How about you tell us the way, and we don’t punch you in the nuts?” “I was just jokin’,” the boy said. “Keep walking until you get to Sidmonton Road, then turn left. It’ll turn into Cuala up the road a ways.” We left the boys behind. “Guys are assholes at every age,” Eve said and kicked a trash can at the edge of the park. “Even before they hit puberty.” That night, we went to the Hibernia Pub across from the waterfront. As soon as Eve pushed open the thick oak door into the dim bar, we saw the other American girls. “The Stepford Students are here,” Eve said with a sneer. “Come on, be nice,” I said. Catharine and Amelia stood around a high-top table, their slender jean-clad hips cocked out at an angle. With their light hair and blue eyes, they looked like locals. But their high-end puffer jackets gave them away as well-off Americans. They ran their fingers through their hair and giggled at the American boys who brought back drinks from the bar for them. Charlotte stood at one edge of the table with a glass of water, a blank look on her face. She wore a peacoat that looked a lot like mine even though her cheeks looked flushed in the warm bar interior. I waved toward their table. Charlotte was the only one to wave back. Eve and I took seats at the bar where we ordered Bulmer’s cider. It was the cheapest thing on tap. One of the boys from the other table came up and signaled the bartender. “Two cranberry vodkas,” the boy said. “Make it top shelf.” He placed one drink in front of Catharine and one in front of Amelia, and rested one hand on each of their hips. *** We headed to our final destination—the University of Ulster, Coleraine—the first week of September. Eve, Charlotte, and I stopped briefly to drop off our luggage in campus housing, then went straight to the university pub. When we pushed through the double doors, the smell of cigarette smoke mixed with spilled beer and the sour scent of boys who hadn’t showered in a week hit me like a wave. But after a pint of cider, the smell faded. Halfway through her pint, Charlotte’s blond head bobbed from side to side. Her hair was short, but uneven, as though someone had taken a pair of scissors to it without looking. Her designer clothes wrinkled around her middle. “Are you okay, Charlotte?” I asked. Her head dipped and her eyelids drooped down to hide her aquamarine eyes. She jerked her head up and said, “I’m just peachy. Like Georgia peaches.” I leaned toward Eve. “Charlotte seems really wasted. We should take her home.” Eve gulped down the rest of her cider and I left my half full glass behind. “Charlotte, let’s go home,” I said and held her elbow to keep her steady on her feet. I picked up her coat. It was the softest fabric I’d ever touched. I rubbed my fingers across it again before I handed it to her. “What is this made of?” “Cashmere,” she said. “From Kashmir. No, London.” Charlotte wobbled. Eve held one arm and I held the other as we walked through the night back to the campus houses. Eve deposited Charlotte on the worn brown sofa in their common area. “Duty done,” she said. I left for my own house two doors up the block. *** My boots dug into the soft mud on the path across the field behind campus. I flipped up the collar of my coat against the rain and slipped my hands into my pockets for warmth. At Cromore Road, I crossed the wet traffic lanes to the strip of houses along a frontage road. Catharine and Amelia lived with some Irish students in the blue house in the center. “We’re going to Johnny’s,” Amelia said when I arrived. Catharine knocked at the white house with #17 on the door. A tall boy with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other answered. “Hey, Johnny,” Amelia said and batted her doe eyes at him. Catharine walked in, headed straight to the fridge and helped herself to a beer. “That’s one of my housemates,” the tall boy said and pointed to a boy with curly blond hair who sat on the couch. “My name’s Catharine. I go to Wellesley in Massachusetts. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.” “Didn’t get into Harvard, did you?” the blond boy said. I laughed, and then tried to stifle it. “My parents are both professors in Cambridge,” Catharine huffed. “So I didn’t want to go there. But I could have gone to any Ivy if I wanted.” I moved to the living room and sat in a blue armchair that smelled like second-hand smoke. “I’m Sean Casey,” the curly-haired boy said and glanced my way. “I’m Isabel. I’m from California. I go to school somewhere I am sure you’ve never heard of.” He chuckled at my call back. “You’re funny, Isabel. I thought you might be Spanish.” “I’m Mexican, actually,” I said. “You can see it in my Frida Kahlo eyebrows.” “Do you want a beer?” he asked and nodded toward the fridge. “No beer for me,” I said. “I don’t like it. I usually drink cider.” I took a longer glance at him. His blond hair looked wet, as if he had recently come in from the rain. He had a smidge of light eyebrows obscured by his tortoiseshell eyeglass frames. He caught my gaze and his bright blue-green eyes invited me in, like a warm, tropical sea. But Catharine broke the trance. “Hey, we’re gonna play Crazy Eights, Izzie. Want to join us?” The nickname made me cringe. “I’ll play if Sean plays,” I said. *** I skipped the uni and spent my evenings at Cromore Road in hopes of seeing Sean again. The next time we went to #17, Sean cast a smile my way and pulled two bottles from the fridge. He sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to him. “Have a drink, Isabel,” he said, and held out a bottle with a red apple on the label. “I bought it just for you.” His baritone voice blocked out all the chatter from the other girls and his roommates. A chill ran across my skin even though I hadn’t taken my coat off yet. “How are you liking Coleraine so far?” Sean asked, his bright eyes aligned with mine. “It’s good. Could use a bit less rain maybe?” I watched his lips around the rim of the bottle and thought about how they would feel on my neck. *** “We’re going out clubbing tonight,” Catharine told Sean. “Do you boys want to come?” “I’ll come if you never call me a boy again,” Sean said. “I’m 26, I’ll have you know.” When we arrived at Kellys in Portrush, house music spilled out onto the street as drunken students pushed out the door on the way to the chip shop up the block. Inside, Sean settled in the corner of the room by the bar. Catharine grabbed his hand as she took one step toward the dance floor, but he resisted. “I’ll hold the table. For when you need a resting place.” We moved into the middle of the room. Within seconds, Catharine and Amelia had boys circling them on the dance floor. They paired off with the best looking two. I moved in their periphery to the deep beat of the music. Amelia and Catharine found a new set of boys who bought them cranberry vodkas that they held aloft overhead to keep from spilling on the dance floor. The room filled to capacity as the night grew later and people became clumsier with their drinks. I arched my body away from everyone who cut a path past me to get to a bar or their friends. Someone behind me brushed against my back and knocked a pint glass against my shoulder. Half the glass spilled down my back. I turned to find a short, rosy-faced man with greasy hair in front of me. “Sorry, love,” he said. “Want to dance?” He grabbed the wet spot on the small of my back and yanked me toward him. I swerved away from his touch. Sean appeared and wedged himself between me and the man. “Leave her alone, mate. She’s not interested.” Sean scanned my face. His green sweater made his eyes more emerald in the flashing lights from the deejay booth. “You okay?” he said, in his deep voice. “I’ll dance here for a while. To keep the odd fellas away, like.” At the end of the night, we spilled out into the damp air to catch a taxi home. I stepped with a zig and a zag on the wet sidewalk, tipsier than normal from the ciders Sean bought me and giddy from Sean’s hands on my waist as we danced. Catharine linked arms with Sean and pulled him away from me. “It was really nice of you to dance with Izzie to keep that one creepy guy away.” Catharine peered over her shoulder at me, her head tilted and her eyebrows lifted. I knew the look. Pity. “Next time we go out, you’ll dance with me, right?” Catharine said. Sean ignored her as he climbed into the front seat of the cab. The rest of us squeezed into the backseat. “Two stops tonight,” Catharine said as she leaned across me to talk to the driver. “Stop on campus first and then drop the rest of us off on Cromore Road.” She had staked her claim with Sean. I sat with my arms crossed against my chest and breathed in the smell of cranberry vodka as the other girls exhaled into the tight quarters of the car. *** “Where have you been all month?” Eve asked when I popped into the uni a few days later. “I was hanging out with Catharine and Amelia for a while,” I said. “Why do you even hang out with them. They are snobby and entitled. Must cost a lot when you have to buy a round of Grey Goose.” “We mostly just hung out at a flat with some Irish guys they know,” I said. “Your face just went all red. Did you hook up with one of those guys?” “Nothing happened.” I bit my lip. “I mean, Sean and I kind of danced at a club a few nights ago, but Catharine started flirting with him at the end of the night so I don’t think I have a chance.” Eve’s eyes narrowed “She probably only wants him because she knows you like him,” she said. “Don’t let her push you around.” Eve might have been right, but I didn’t plan to go back to Cromore Road. “How’s Charlotte?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her in weeks either. “She hasn’t been around much,” Eve said. “Maybe she’s been studying.” Some Irish students Eve knew from class joined us at our table and she shifted from ordering ciders to whiskey. “Did you know the Women’s World Cup is going on right now?” an Irish boy at the table next to us said. “I didn’t even know it was a thing until I saw it on the telly.” Like the sudden storm clouds that rolled in on us in Bray, Eve’s mood went from jovial to surly without warning. She stood and hovered over the table next to us, her shoulders back and her chin raised. “That’s because men never value women athletes,” Eve shouted into the boy’s face. “I have nothing against women athletes,” the boy said. “Especially if they wear tight uniforms.” Eve’s brown cheeks turned red. She leaned over the table’s edge and spit into the boy’s pint. His eyes widened and his mouth gaped open. “That’s the most hurtful thing anyone has ever done to me in my entire life,” he said. Tears glistened in the boy’s eyes. He picked the nearly full pint up and pounded it down on the table. Dark stout sloshed down the sides of the glass. The creamy head formed a pool next to an empty bag of crisps. “If this is the worst thing that has ever happened to you, you’ve lived a lucky life,” Eve said, her fists clenched at her sides. I touched her shoulder and she whipped around to face me. The anger dissipated. “Let’s go,” I said. We walked out into the rain. “I get so tired of all this anti-feminist bullshit,” she said. “I get tired of fighting all the time. Don’t you?” I didn’t answer her. Flight was more my style. *** The next time I went to the uni, I spotted Charlotte in a corner alone. Her half-closed eyes scanned the room, but she didn’t register me until I was almost next to her “How is your semester going?” I asked and sat down with a cider. “I needed to explore the Irish peace talks,” she said. “To find a safe place to bunker down.” Her sentences were stilted as though she were thinking of the next word as she spoke each one to me. She picked up her right hand and examined it, then did the same with her left. “Are you in an Irish history course?” I asked. “I’ve been reading about the Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement.” She opened her blue eyes wide and then shook her head. “I need to stop the bombs from going off,” she said. She tipped her pint too soon and the liquid dripped onto the legs of her Calvin Klein jeans. “Do you want me to walk home with you?” I asked. “When you finish your drink?” “Okay, Isaaaaaaa-bel,” she said. “You can be my protector.” *** “Isabel,” a voice called across the slick walkway as I exited the library into the low light of dusk. I recognized the sound of Sean’s voice even though I hadn’t seen him in a month. I got goosebumps on my neck at the sound of my name vibrating in his deep register. I turned and his green eyes caught mine. “Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?” “Grand,” he said. “You haven’t visited Cromore Road in a while.” “I’ve been busy,” I said, and I thought of Catharine’s arm linked with Sean’s. “Are you busy now? Grab a pint with me at the uni.” He slowed his long legs to match my stride and I couldn’t resist changing directions for him. In the uni, we settled on the quiet side of the bar away from the jukebox. “How’s Catharine?” I asked and tried to keep my face neutral. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’ve not seen her since the night in Portrush. You were the only bit of good company there, Isabel.” My face broke into a wide smile at that and I blushed at the compliment. “I’m going home soon. To California,” I blurted out. “I know, Isabel,” he said, and clinked his pint glass against mine. “To making the most of your last weeks.” We finished the drinks and walked out into an evening drizzle. Our footsteps echoed against the concrete of the empty walkway and I let Sean choose our direction. As we crossed the parking lot that divided campus housing from the academic buildings, I saw men in uniforms in dark rain slickers outside Eve and Charlotte’s house. The men talked to the Irish girls who lived with them. A Royal Ulster Constabulary car sat with its lights on, its front wheel against the sidewalk curb. “Have you ever seen cops on campus before?” I asked and an ache spread from my stomach to my head. “I have friends who live there.” “Dunno. Don’t think so,” he said and took my hand. He led me toward Cromore Road. “Best if we stay out of the way. You can check on your mates tomorrow when things quiet down.” The ache retreated at his touch, replaced by a hunger to be closer to him. At his house, I sat down next to him on the couch, one leg folded under me so I could angle toward him. He reached over with one hand and brushed my brown hair away from my face and the back of his hand stroked my cheek. I touched his curly hair. It was soft and damp from the rain, like I imagined lamb’s wool might be. He leaned toward me and kissed me, a soft, sweet kiss, until I pulled myself closer to him and he pressed harder against my lips. I wanted to ask if he had liked Catharine, if he’d slept with her, but his hands on my back pushed the question out of my head. I closed my eyes. His lips on my neck fired off all the synapses in my brain and I melted down into the couch. Then a phone rang and drew us apart. “Wait here.” Sean smiled at me as he picked up the receiver, but soon he turned his back to me and his shoulders tensed. “Okay, sir. Yes, I’ll make sure to keep an eye on that flat,” he said and hung up the phone. “What’s going on?” I asked. “That was the head of housing,” he said. “They let me know they are moving someone from the main campus due to a conflict between roommates.” He was a senior warden for the houses on Cromore Road, and like my resident advisor in the dorms back at home, he got free room and board for minimal effort most days. “Does this have something to do with Eve and Charlotte?” I asked and the ache returned to my stomach. “I can’t really say anything. But you should check in with them tomorrow. Let’s have a cup of tea and I’ll walk you home.” In the morning, I brought coffee and biscuits over to Eve and Charlotte’s house. Eve answered the door, her dreadlocks pulled back into a messy ponytail. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. She jutted her chin out like she did when she was angling for a fight, but she’d lost her edge. “What happened yesterday? I saw police officers over here.” Eve took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her eyelids trembled, but when she opened them she had managed to force back the tears. Eve described the events of the night before. She came home from the library at 7 p.m. One of her roommates had ordered a pizza so she sat down to have a slice in the kitchen. Charlotte came downstairs in a bathrobe and slippers and started screaming. “She kept saying that I’ve been stalking her and I tried to break into her room,” Eve said. Charlotte took off one slipper and threw it across the room at Eve. Eve ducked down and the slipper whizzed past her head into the sink. “She said I threatened her with a knife,” Eve’s lips trembled. “One of my roommates tried to calm her down. And another one ran to the payphone and called the cops.” Eve paused and put her head in her hands. “Did you guys get into an argument before last night?” I asked. “I haven’t even talked to her since the start of the semester,” Eve said. “I would never threaten her or hurt her.” “I believe you wouldn’t hurt Charlotte. Maybe she misunderstood something you said. I’m sure you can clear it up.” I reached out to touch her arm reassuringly, but Eve stood up and paced around the kitchen. “You don’t get it,” Eve said. “She threw something at me for no reason and she got moved to a new flat for her own safety.” Eve’s lower lip quivered and big tears slid down her golden skin. She handed me a slip of paper. It had a date and time for an ethics hearing. I understood then what was at stake. She could get sent home. She could lose her scholarship. She could be expelled from school back in Georgia. It could ruin her life. “I am sure everything will be fine,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.” *** While Eve awaited her fate, Charlotte’s sister Victoria arrived from Paris, where she’d been studying on her own exchange program. Victoria walked into the uni and all heads turned toward her. She stood tall and elegant, in a kelly green coat and luxurious leather riding boots that were the absolute wrong choice for the rainy Antrim Coast. She shrugged off her coat to reveal a sleek cream sweater that I imagined was cashmere and a charcoal pencil skirt. Victoria had the same aquamarine eyes as Charlotte. “When did she arrive?” I nodded toward them. “A couple days after the move,” Sean said. “She shouldn’t be staying in student housing this long, but I’m trying to go easy on Charlotte. And trying not to be a hypocrite.” I’d been staying in his room for a week. “You don’t think Eve really threatened her, do you?” I said. “Eve said she didn’t do anything. I believe her.” “You’re probably right, but didn’t you say she spit in someone’s pint one night?” “She wouldn’t hurt Charlotte and this could ruin her life.” My voice got higher and louder. Sean put his arm around my shoulder. “I am sure everything will be fine,” he said. He kissed my cheek. “Don’t be mad. Stay at my place tonight.” He held my hand as we walked through the mud path to Cromore Road. *** We were deep asleep in Sean’s twin bed, curled under his duvet, when the pounding on the door roused us. Sean jumped out of bed. He quickly threw on jeans and a sweater. “Occupational hazard of being the senior warden,” he said. “Stay here.” I peeked out from his bedroom as he answered the door. Charlotte stood on the stoop. No jacket covered her striped pajamas. She looked like a bedraggled orphan in the rain. Her face was splotchy and she repeated the same thing over and over. “They’re trying to break in. My new roommates are trying to break in.” Sean coaxed her into the house and we both noticed the drip of blood on the beige carpet at the same time. “Charlotte, what happened?” he asked in a slow, soothing tone. Then I saw the red gash on her hand. “What happened to your hand, Charlotte?” Sean walked her to the kitchen and ran warm water over the cut. He searched a half-assembled first aid kit for a bandage. When he couldn’t find one large enough, he wrapped her hand in a tea towel. “Hold your hand up against your chest, Charlotte. Have a seat on the couch. Isabel will make you a cup of tea.” I put the kettle on and sat next to Charlotte while I waited for the water to boil. Tears streaked her face and she let out staggered sobs. I put my arm around her wet shoulders. “You’re okay. We are going to help you. You’re okay.” The kettle whistle pierced the room and knocked Charlotte into a more sober state of mind. I handed her the cup of tea. “Thank you, Isabel,” she said. “You are always so kind.” Charlotte’s sobs subsided as we heard another knock at the door. I answered to find Victoria in her beautiful green coat thrown hastily over thin, silk pajamas. “Shit, I’m sorry Charlotte woke you up in the middle of the night,” Victoria said. She wrung her hands and her face looked pale in the porchlight. “She drank too much and I think she had a nightmare, or something.” “She has a massive cut on her hand,” Sean said. “I called for some medical help to check her out.” Victoria’s eyes skirted past Sean to her sister. “Please, just let me take her home. I already know what’s wrong.” Victoria came into the house then and crumpled into the armchair, her legs akimbo. “Charlotte has schizophrenia. She was diagnosed last year. She was doing okay, but she stopped taking her medication when she got to Ireland.” At that, Charlotte’s shoulders shook with a silent sob. I looked from one pair of aquamarine eyes to the other. Anger rose in my chest. “Why didn’t you mention this to anyone when you first got here?” I clenched my jaw. “She asked me not to say anything,” Victoria said. “I didn’t think it would hurt anyone to let her finish out the semester.” “It hurt Eve,” I said through clenched teeth. “Eve could get kicked out of school for what Charlotte said.” “Who is Eve?” Victoria asked as a siren announced the arrival of an ambulance. Charlotte’s parents flew in from New York to collect her the next day. They paid for the damages to a window she smashed, the origin of her cut. And a rumor circulated that they made a donation to the university to keep things quiet. The school officials canceled Eve’s ethics hearing and apologized for the misunderstanding. I stopped by Eve’s house to check on her that afternoon. She sat at the kitchen table in pajamas even though it was late in the day, her eyes cast down. “I’m glad everything worked out and you’ll get to stay the rest of the year. And Charlotte is hopefully getting help.” Eve looked up at me and I saw my image reflected in the pupils of her dark eyes. “You don’t get it. People are always going to believe the pretty girls, the rich girls, the people with money, over us.” Instead of anger, her voice lowered in defeat. “You might think you fit in with them, but you are just like me, Isabel,” she said. “If Charlotte had accused you, who do you think they would have believed?” I didn’t say anything. My flight response kicked in and I headed to Cromore Road. That night curled under a duvet with Sean, I rested my head on his bare chest. Lost in a haze of new love, I dreamt of what my life would be like if my last name were Casey instead of Juarez. But Eve’s words gnawed around the edges of my happiness. “If Charlotte said I was threatening her, would people have believed her or me?” “You, of course, Isabel,” Sean said. He ran his fingers through my hair as he kissed my forehead. “You are so…easy going.” Melissa Flores Anderson is a Latinx Californian and an award-winning journalist. Her creative work has been published by Vois Stories, Rigorous Magazine, Moss Puppy Magazine, Discretionary Love, Pile Press, Variant Lit and Twin Pies Literary. Her work “Not a Gardener” was featured in City Lights Theater Company’s The Next Stage and Play on Words San Jose. She has read pieces in the Flash Fiction Forum and Quiet Lightning reading series.

THE CALL Drawn to the edge— that tug from within, that umbilical hook. Hand of God, or my own mind? It doesn’t really matter. The void whispers; coaxing me closer – One more step, Icarus-breathed, I taste the fall, the reckless call of gravity, & my heart folds itself into a paper bird. REGINA Virgin bride, when you left the royal bed the first thing you did was kill your sisters. What choice did you have? You were programmed for survival, not mercy. Hive Priestess; dishing out just enough pheromones to keep yourself alive. It can’t be easy, knowing that your crown could fall at any time, that you’re precious, yet dispensable. Mother of bees, your succession is guaranteed by your jelly-fed daughters; murderous as knives. One day you’ll have to choose whether to fight or fly. The queen is dead, long live the queen. Corinna Board lives in a small village in the Cotswolds and works in Oxford, where she teaches English as an additional language. She loves her job, although she often wishes she had more time to write poetry. Her main sources of inspiration are art, nature and mythology. She can be found on Instagram @parole_de_reveuse and on Twitter @CorinnaBoard.

As I was leaving her apartment one afternoon, she took me by the hand and led me around her building to the garage. Showed me the motorbike underneath a blue tarp there. All sleek chrome and mean intentions. I was surprised. She didn’t look the type. She worked in an office and was a saleswoman of some kind. Medical equipment, I think. She seemed so damn proud and really looked something else draped over the handlebars , smiling that pink lipped smile, hair hanging down. I really liked the idea that I was fucking a girl who rode a motorbike. But she never rode it once while we were together. I didn’t know why. She was one of the kindest I had at that time. Better than I deserved or needed. We found each other in a dark place, searching for a little bit of light. Promising we were just using each other to forget about the one before. Seven months later, when I left her for the one who almost killed me, she cried hysterically and I was surprised again. She didn’t look the type. I saw her once, a few months after, riding past me on that motorbike. All sleek chrome and mean intentions. She still seemed proud and was still something else. I held up my hand in an apologetic kind of wave. She gunned the throttle and was lost to me in the night city traffic. I liked to tell myself that she didn’t see me, but I know much better by now.

Language falls from the sky, As my eyes, fleshly opened, After two days Drinking straight, Lungs full of the black weeds of time, Strangling notes like newborns, Their limbs leak water, like spiders out of the Sides of my mouth Until it tenderly covers my mother’s skin, Encrusted with layers of human ash, Watered by tears Fallen - Falling forever. Sparrows line my legs And speak the sky into my ears, I have no time to lie in limbo, Suckling the stale air like milkshake Flavoured by my dreams - My nightmares Beatific in ritualistic despair No, my eyes roll back To rest in the womb of the skull Until my limbs dissolve into the dirt Every wrinkle flattens out Into the body of the earth. I am a seamstress who Stitches together the torn skies Into the shut mouth of my father. Lightning blooms painfully Through the cracks in the night's surface, Before being dragged down by god’s tears To birth the morning into my eyes, Heavy with our memories, Projected into the cemetery of our skulls, Our years seem nothing now. David Hay is an English Teacher in the Northwest of England. He has written poetry and prose since the age of 18 when he discovered Virginia Woolf's The Waves and the poetry of John Keats. These and other artists encouraged him to seek his own poetic voice. He has currently been accepted for publication in Dreich, Abridged, Acumen, The Honest Ulsterman, The Dawntreader, Versification, The Babel Tower Notice Board, The Stone of Madness Press, The Fortnightly Review, The Lake, Selcouth Station, GreenInk Poetry, Dodging the Rain, Seventh Quarry and Expat-Press. His debut publication is the Brexit-inspired prose-poem Doctor Lazarus published by Alien Buddha Press 2021.

I still want you, moon after Brenda Shaughnessy I read righteous rage of a poet telling you to fuck off calling out all the ways you invoke our lust monkey O, you-- my beloved excuse—I offer up nasty behavior and every slanted sin in your name ugly cry during the day-- waive white underthings drink plum wine until your pearl sweet glow your pulsating lily resurfaces from primordial broth roundplump—antigravitational-- one perfect breast ahh, I’m sorry for how Brenda treated you my patience for the noon sun is below crimson (Chad of a star, if you want to talk tools) you are worth one hundred thousand of him, my kitten nightblossom-- tipsy silver lilac, opium dust sticky milkweed at the side of a summer dirt road even when I can’t see you, moon, I feel you inside you never condemn me to drown in night’s waters alone crying on new year’s 12:01 am as January strips skin from the new year I count day to night as the bud’s plumping advances through my blood the air gold dipped in graceful fragrance petals unfurl curves of skin and your wrists are branches the boughs bend a brushstroke blossoms and snow those twin perfumes crisply entwined both ephemeral, almost vernal the naked way you tug at sleeves to escape the magnet of this flower opening between us my winter was a long gravel road black skies observed robe of thorns and twine and you, oh you warm fall of the most tender snow blanketing recesses of old pain of years’ denial my plum covered heart Golden shovel of Otagaki Rengetsu’s “evening plum blossoms” photograph I lay sleepless last night envious of a world that held you before me it was a picture: you— on the cusp of womanhood eyes dark starless midnight I burned jealous your smile barely hidden by curls imagining past winds touching your skin bygone sunlight kissing upturned lips something fluttered weighty a moss-covered ache I didn’t know how to name a fire that trembled taste of bitter orange and iron I finally found relief dreaming myself those three pines stretching behind you the grass under your bare feet— the paper this photograph was printed on superfluous you say you have been small for so long but now feel the entirety of the spaces you inhabit-- they seem more --- airy a cocoon around you more breath between your words even the trees stand taller you say you feel like high tide I imagine you a California red-sided garter snake (childhood oddity) kaleidoscope of turquoise, crimson, azure dancing double-helix down my brainstem around-and-around-and-around each notch of my spine I will my bones bleached white under a sphalerite desert sun a more perfect setting for the jewel of you: all slithering roses and water you are so young and new in this big space, my love and I can’t stop staring at the delicate egg-tooth above those delicious lips will I too be absorbed or become vestigial as a dewclaw? to catch you up-- cause you pain -- when you wind forward so sublime into this new life Nicole Callräm (she/her/她) is a nomadic bureaucrat and disciple of existence in all her life-affirming and confusing manifestations. She adores rideshare bikes, red wine, and Osmanthus flowers (preferably a mix of the three...all at once). Nicole has been published in A Shanghai Poetry Zine, Nude Studio, Kissing Dynamite, and Rat's Ass Review. You can find her on Twitter at @YiminNicole.

Let it ride He has always been relentless when it comes to the chase. As a boy tossing coins for sweets, luck was his sugary hit. All the other kids smelled fear when tempted with one more spin. Attached to a father’s addiction, his small steps followed shadows in racecourse betting rings filled with the noise of men so sure of it. Fists full of cash and the same stories of fake glory repeated ad nauseam. It’s in his blood now, a transfusion the speed of light through his veins chasing the next race, a hard whisper in his ear whooshes through his brain. The winning post is his only orgasm, away from tactile moments he lost. He thinks hesitation is for losers, winners never blink- stare deep into the sucker’s soul. That ping every week from a text- another insider with a crystal ball; A golden prophecy - a sure thing. Calle Sin Salida (Dead End Street) Mamá has 3 sons still young enough to hide their tears. Her eyes the colour of cacao sink deep and dark telling her story. 6 days every week- rising with the first robin song, returning with the fumes of the colectivo; Chained to the local factory, lines of sweatshop wives sewing heart shapes to a Latin chorus of the needle beat. Lila Downs screams heart filled boleros to their shared lunches of muted longings. The three brothers go to school but soon the shadow of work will be calling like sunset. In early evening they kick a flat football on streets paved with dirt until the last light disappears. Their Abuela casts a shadow, fading in the house. Papá as long gone as the last train after midnight. It’s the only way Get rich faster than light. Incinerate your eyes with the prize. Wear headphones so nobody can hear the beat of that music. Sit alone at the afternoon cinema, wait for the same story to unravel. Listen to silence as words spew out like soda from a shaken can. Hide inside bubbles made of steel that no pin can ever pop. Sell your soul to pray for a miracle. Drift in and out of your evening stupor- reality dissolves on your numb tongue. Leap onto a moving train that is never going to stop. Smell like leftovers and Listerine. Ghouls crawl up your nostrils. Leave an empty diary in the desert- it screams of madness in its padded cell. Walk with stones in your shoes. Hidden secrets inside those silk socks. Hand out business cards at funerals because life must go on. Waste everything on the buffet table. Let it all rot while the bands play. It’s the only way. Damien Posterino (he/him) is a Melbourne-born poet writing in Mexico. His poetry explores characters, conversations, and capturing moments in time. His work has been accepted by 30 different publications including recent editions of Sledgehammer Lit, Rough Diamond, Crow Name, The Madrigal Press, Roi Fainéant, Fish Barrell Review & Paddler Press. You can find him on Twitter @damienposterino

a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass deep reverb echoes off my face my cranium thin vibrating party walls I knew this skull from long ago and to this end we all will come but not tonight no way a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass I’m on a nightclub balcony but could as soon be or not be upon some castle ramparts ghastly prevaricating indecisive in languorous admiration of the mass those dance emotion bodies moving down the Haç. a drum a drum and bass and bass - bad bass bounce Bambaataa bad rub - a - dub - dub - dub if ever nightclub kingdoms fall we’ll all build castles from the rubble of the Dub. my ears are now in 3D now all-hearing a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass strange Techno reimagining of Strange Fruit or maybe we have eaten of the insane root? I find a dry ice room of fog and filthy air a chill-out zone with next to no one there some walking shadows signifying nothing and nothing outside this moment matters (though I don’t know why I wrote that line because I never thought it at the time - just lived it) and in this moment I know not when or where or who I am no one / I am Shaman. an Acid House remix of Slave to the Rhythm drab inhibitions busting out of prison percussion clatter rattled like the rending of all chains my mum would say these tunes all sound the same (but clearly fa so* young and clever we know better). a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass now hearing colours now tasting flashing lights now feeling hot now feeling cold as ice meaning lost and found in the dungeon of the night. I coyly request a Paradise Garage mix the flowers of Ophelia - DJ Violet says she’ll play that later Mick Hucknall dances on the Frantic Elevator old Holden Caulfield dithers over a dagger (I’ll always love that dude) a sweet prince and a symbol wait for fate under a Killing Moon Hunter S Thompson drops another quaalude some post-punk band trash In the Mood indie beats as fast as pumping iron throw another rhythm in the cauldron Rosencrantz and Guildenstern suck cocktails in The Gay Traitor** a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass out of the body experiences transcending race and gender just another night down the Haçienda dancing to the Mondays and the Roses popping pills and powdering our noses a mindfulness of mushrooms coming up (we quit before we got serious neuroses) we thought we could do anything leap mountains part the seas we thought we were as bad as Holy Moses where bad means good fair is foul and foul is fair something is rotten there so somehow still smells sweet my memories dance as fast as funky feet. if this decadent reign must be o’erthrown I can’t help thinking it’s still better than what came after - sly normalisation of gent rification / austerity / corruption a rising tide of lies hath made of us a sad and small- er, nation preferring dis dis disco discombobulation I feel more at home in Haçienda dislocation. a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass. Exeunt Notes * do re mi fa so la ti do. ** The Gay Traitor - a bar in the basement of the Haçienda nightclub.. A word from the author: This long poem imagines a night at the Haçienda nightclub (Manchester, UK), where the poet and various characters from literature and the 1980's music scene are partying hard.

We’d split remainders of bottom-shelf half-gallons between the six of us at Jason’s and it wasn’t until after 11:30 we realized we needed to ring in the new year with Prince’s song “1999” but I’d left the CD back at the house. My brother Dennis and I didn’t grow up in town so we weren’t too good at riding bikes, but this was important and the clock was ticking. He grabbed Cepheus’s bike from behind his place and took off down Forge Avenue, cutting through the graveled sidewalk that ran between the churches. The rest of us sat on the porch steps howling at his wicked witch wobble silhouetted under the one security light on the block. Nicki and Amy shook with laughter against my knees on the step below me, then went back to kissing and whispering over shots of tequila. When Jason bumped his shoulder against me like he was claiming me for his own, I didn’t pull away. We were surely going to kiss at the end of the countdown, I thought. Start the year 2000 with sparks. I watched Amy’s hand tangle in the curls behind Nicki’s ear. It was seventy-some degrees out, humid enough to shake a few damselflies up from the Mud River. For the first time it set in that something funky was going on with the weather, that maybe this whole global warming thing was the real deal. The Mormon boys who lived in the place on the other side of Jason’s sure thought something was going on. Usually on nice nights they’d sit on the porch swing with an acoustic guitar none of them knew how to play, singing for the floral dress girls they also didn’t know how to play. But tonight it was like the end of the world. They were out back in the gravel turnaround, their black ties flying, white shirts untucked and covered in grime from wood they dragged up from the riverbank. They built up a big pile, almost like a pyre, and doused it every so often with grill lighter fluid. The whole back end of Forge Avenue stunk with fuel and the blackcats Jason had been tossing out after every shot. His index finger and thumb were black from the firecrackers; I couldn’t tell in the dark if it was dye from the packaging or he had burned himself showing off. He was already numb-drunk and drinking faster than ever. He hogged as much of the tequila as he could before Dennis got back, because he knew Dennis would drink whatever was left. He tossed another shot back, flicked his Zippo over a fuse, and lobbed a blackcat into the gravel under Cepheus’s bedroom window. Nicki and Amy jumped every time. Cepheus wasn’t going to wake up from that little pop; he was half-deaf from his own heavy metal drumming and once he passed out he was usually out until noon. Cepheus was like a headbanger groundhog. If he showed up to a late-night party you knew you had to watch his shadow for some big sign. That was Cepheus, cymbals and symbols and the simple things in life. He wasn’t bothered by nothing. Jason offered a drink to the Mormons. Three of them did their polite, flat-palmed western wave and went back down the riverbank for more kindling. A fourth stopped to chat like he was the leader of the group. This guy went by the name Zeke. I always wondered if they took on fake identities when they went out into the world for their missionary thing. Zeke was cute enough, kind of square-toothed and square-faced. Clear-skinned, shiny-eyed the way kids raised in strict but rich families always looked. He wasn’t my type. He combed his hair straight forward like all the ROTC guys who thought they were the next Julius Caesar. Zeke held his shoulders perfectly straight, too. He probably thought he was charismatic. He sang Hootie and the Blowfish to the floral dress girls. I don’t know, maybe he was charismatic to them. He stepped onto Jason’s porch and smiled so hard I could hear the spit click in his cheeks. Zeke held the shot glass between the fingertips of both hands like it was a cup from a child’s tea set. “It’s the end times,” he told us, and took a tiny sip. The other Mormon boys dragged up a bone-white limb of sycamore and laid it straight up in the air. They twisted a few sale bills and stuffed them up underneath the pile, squirted a little more lighter fluid over the wood for good measure, and stood back. One boy tapped at his black wristwatch and yodeled, “Quarter ‘til!” He tossed a match and the sycamore branch became fingers of upside-down lightning sending sparks up into the sky. Zeke balanced the shot glass on the porch rail, gave us a close-up cowboy palm-wave, and jogged back to help stoke up the flames. Nicki and Amy twisted around to confer with us about the end times. “What the hell?” Amy shouted. Her hair glowed like straw in the backlight of the bonfire. Dennis was wobbling bad by the time he got back at 11:57. He was so out of breath he couldn’t tell us what he did to warp Cepheus’s front tire and twist the handlebars so crooked. He just gasped “Made it!” and delivered my Prince CD from the inside pocket of his blue-jean jacket. Jason snatched it away to get it queued up in time. He turned up the TV so we could hear when the countdown started and propped one stereo speaker out the window. Dennis collapsed beside Amy like he’d just run a marathon or something. I don’t know why Jason was so obsessed with having “1999” playing at midnight. He didn’t even like Prince – he made fun of me when I admitted I had the album. Turns out that was the way he was about religion, too, making fun of it and then wanting God around at the right time. Maybe Zeke could see it in him. Maybe that’s why he was always nice to Jason even when Jason was a dick. Especially when Jason was a dick. Prince got the party started, post-haste. I craned backward to see Jason inside doing a cheesy knee-bend dance and struggling with something at the kitchen counter. On the TV, a montage of fireworks and the wobbling Times Square ball sparkled and exploded into half-static. Up in New York they were playing “1999,” too. My heart thumped in anticipation of a kiss. “This is it!” Jason yelled. He hustled out the door with a half-unscrewed champagne bottle and launched the cork against the wall of Cepheus’s house. He took a big swig, then sauntered right past me down the steps to flick a blackcat at Dennis. We all counted down together, the Mormons and other, unseen neighbors shouting across Forge Avenue. At five seconds to go, Zeke leaped right into the bonfire. The flames licked up in surprise. He high-stepped out the other side unscathed, slapping his shirttail exactly at midnight. When he spun around to face us, his face was contorted in a maniacal grimace. The other boys jumped in one by one, each screaming through gleaming square teeth and running back around to go again. Jason and Dennis got in line to jump through the pyre, too, chanting the words “nineteen ninety nine” and stomping fire off their sneakers between chugs of champagne. Jason shouldered right into the sycamore branch like he was doing battle with the devil. The white limb toppled sideways and released a spray of sparks over the gravel. Zeke squared off with the bonfire and cleared the whole thing in a running jump. He puffed his chest out like he was going to King Kong-thump. He was at the height of his powers and about to lose control. Something about the end of the world, the whole thing going up in flames, was irresistible to guys. Maybe there was something to this end-times stuff. Even Cepheus stepped out onto his porch to watch. I hoisted the liquor in offering to him; he looked like a good kisser under all that shaggy hair and he was a much nicer guy than Jason. But he only lifted a hand in a groggy greeting and retreated back inside. He was shy. Maybe in the new year. Nicki and Amy just went on giggling against my knees. “You guys are so dumb!” Amy shouted. Prince’s squealing guitar echoed off the brick backsides of the churches, back to us in a split-second delay. I poured out the last shot of tequila for myself. Along the rim of the shot glass, firelight illuminated the overlapping lip-prints of multiple people – Jason, Amy, Nicki, Zeke. The worm rolled onto my tongue and I imagined I was kissing them all into the year 2000. Edie Meade is a writer, artist, and mother of four in Huntington, West Virginia. Recent work can be found in Feral, Still: The Journal, New Flash Fiction Review, Fractured Literary, Ghost Parachute, and elsewhere. Say hi on Twitter @ediemeade or https://ediemeade.com/.

She was not what I’d been expecting; not less but somehow not quite enough. She was a stunner, slim waist, cross-legged now on the rug; a wine glass between her knees, balancing not falling. I was telling her about Caracas; she feigned interest but she was waiting for me to touch her. I don’t know how I could tell but I could. I knew that I wouldn’t and she would make a scene. I got up to change the record and instead walked into the kitchen to fix myself a whiskey. She unfolded her legs and leaned back on her hands, forming creases that I didn’t want to see. She wasn’t an intelligent girl but she showed a willingness to please. She had initially scoffed at my apartment then said she loved it. I didn’t like that about her. It implied lack of character. I wanted to tell her so but I didn’t. She could be wrapped up in bed with anyone she wanted. The pretense was ugly. I wanted her gone. I was tired and I didn’t want her sleeping over. I listened to the clock ticking, finished my drink and went back into the living room. ‘I’m gonna hit the sack now. I’ll call you a taxi. We’ll do lunch, yeah?’ Her face registered disbelief, ‘You piece of shit.” She scraped her coat off the sofa. I envied her for the first time that evening. She felt something. She would take that home with her. After the doors slammed I vaguely wondered if I’d made a mistake. I cleared up the living room and went to bed. I dreamt something sweet, but the truth is I didn’t want to tell anyone about it.

The world courses on arhythmic heartbeats, now too fast, now too slow-- vulture-winged clouds swoop, then fly, circling just beyond range. No storm tonight. But soon. Earth pulses, resetting tides rise and fall, each wave similar, each unique, vanishing in a tumbling froth, kissing the sand. Astronomers say the moon wobbles, and I watch her, waiting for the hiccup in her song. But she gazes at me, silver and serene, with merely a slight tremolo in her hum. Merril D. Smith writes from New Jersey, where she walks along the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published most recently in Black Bough Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fevers of the Mind, Sledgehammer, and Dead Skunk.

Luna and John sat side by side, a pair of clocks unwound into stillness. Their faces stared forward. Backs leaned up against a cracked plaster wall. Hands no longer moved to avoid the circumference of each other. The thin skin of an old air mattress sagged beneath them, bought for a camping trip they never took. There were only a few hours left. Before Luna vacated her apartment. Before they fully committed to this belief that life paths resembled things straight and narrow as planks. John would stand at the end of an aisle and wait for someone-not-Luna who wanted things like a French tulle veil and a child’s hand tucked in her own. Luna would take off down an airport runway where she hoped that old ties to this childhood city would finally snap as Flight 802 soared up towards new skies and unknown clouds. That’s the thing with planks. They have foreseeable ends. And Luna figured that perhaps if she hurled herself as fast and as hard as she could, she’d be rewarded with something open and blue, devoid of uncrossable borders and lines that existed even when left unsaid. JENNY WONG is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst. Her favorite places to wander are Tokyo alleys, Singapore hawker centers, and Parisian cemeteries. Recent publications include Acropolis Journal, Five Minutes, and Tiny Molecules. She resides in the foothills of Alberta, Canada and tweets @jenwithwords.