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“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” – John Paul Sartre. “Let me count the ways.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning I. September 13, 1977 – 0 I was born 13 years after segregation ended in the U.S. And even though the laws had changed, the psychological and emotional trauma had not ended for my family and community. My grandparents were my parents, it was either be adopted or be raised by them and so they took me in at three months of age. In 1977 Jimmy Carter was President, The miniseries Roots appeared on television, Apple Computer was first incorporated as a company, Elvis Presley died and Star Wars was born. In ’82, as far as I remember, we were reading in kindergarten. We all had the same book and the teacher, Ms. Margaret, called on members of the class to read a sentence out loud. And though I knew the words, for some reason Ms. Margaret let the other kids read out loud but not me. When I relayed this to my grandmother, Grandma immediately told me the teacher hadn’t let me read out loud because I was Black. Looking back, there was never any hard evidence this was true, but there wasn’t any hard evidence this wasn’t either. Certainly, to my grandmother who—was born in rural Mississippi in 1923, and didn’t see segregation end until she was 41 years of age—it was true enough. Grandma never questioned Ms. Margaret about why she wouldn’t let me read in school; instead she told me that I could read to her, and she could read to me. And so every night after school I’d read Bible books for children and Little Golden Books about dogs and trains. I would take my index finger and follow each word and if I didn’t know the word, I’d sound it out, and if I missed a word, Grandma would correct me. Reading after school taught me the difference between just getting an education and learning. My grandmother was either knowingly or unknowingly instilling in me the values of self-education and not waiting for the teacher to spoon-feed me, but to read on my own outside of class. Practice on your own after school. Learn for you. Learn to be a better you. The heart of seeking freedom. Thank you Grandma for that. September 13, 1984 – 7 When I reached 7 it was 1984. Ronald Reagan was president. I was in the second grade. The Olympics came to Los Angeles that summer. Michael Jackson’s Jheri curl caught on fire doing a Pepsi commercial. My grandparents let me watch R-rated movies—movies my friends couldn’t see, like Beverly Hills Cop and Purple Rain. As long as I read my Bible stories afterwards it was okay to watch them. Sort of like eat your broccoli and you can have cake. Every other Saturday Grandma took me to the theater. She’d go to sleep in her seat, and I’d watch the film. When the lights turned on, I woke Grandma up and we left. Movies allowed me to dream in a way books didn’t. Movies required more use of my five senses. The smell of fresh popcorn, the taste of stale popcorn. The physical travel to a movie theater: a separate, sacred, place that wasn’t my everyday home. I could sit in a dark room in a soft chair, look up at a huge screen and see larger-than-life faces surrounded by sound and explosions and that synthesized ’80s music. 1984 had Ghostbusters, not that 2016 remake. 1984 had Red Dawn, not the 2012 remake. 1984 had Freddy Kruger and A Nightmare on Elm Street, not that 2010 remake. 1984 had the original Terminator. And, of course, the original The Karate Kid. The world stage was complex. 1984 was 20 years after the end of racial segregation in America, but I could still turn on the evening news and watch Black people in South Africa being abused under Apartheid. It was one thing to feel safe as an American and another thing to feel safe as a Black person—and if you were both Black and American, there was always that rift. In school, we were spoon-fed fear and stress. The teachers would tell us to work harder in school because children from both the Soviet Union and Japan were going to get ahead of us, and as American children: our grades were not just crucial for us, but for our nation’s future. We had to compete to be the best world leaders. And of course, more movies in and around 1984 reflected this. Rambo II Sylvester Stallone vs. the Southeast Asians. Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. the South Americans. Missing in Action I and II Chuck Norris vs. the Vietnamese. Rocky IV Sylvester Stallone vs The Soviet Union. The Delta Force Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin teamed up to fight the Middle Easterners. America kicked everyone’s ass in the movies, and I watched them all. White American men scared the shit out of the entire Third World on the movie screens long before Black American rappers began scaring the shit out of the White world on audio cassette tapes. But it was Bugs Bunny who had the biggest influence on me. Before my eighth birthday, I watched an episode titled: His Hare Raising Tale in which Bugs Bunny tells his life story to his nephew Clyde, recapping his adventures as a baseball player, then a boxer, then a vaudeville performer, then as an air force pilot, and finally an astronaut. Bugs Bunny did it all before Forrest Gump did it all—and at seven—I wanted to do it all, too. I was going to play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers like Kareem, run the 100 at the Olympics like Carl Lewis, and, in my off season, I was going to be an archeologist like Indiana Jones while living on a farm with my animals. I held big dreams in my little body. And every day after school, just as when I’d read with my grandmother in kindergarten, I dreamed, I practiced, I read on my own, and I made a whole lot of lists about who I was going to be and what I was going to do. September 13, 1991 – 14 It was 1991 when I turned 14. George Bush (the father) was president. Black people celebrated the ending of Apartheid in South Africa, and wept at the death of Latasha Harlins, the 15 year old girl shot in the back of the head by a convenience store owner in Los Angeles over a bottle of orange juice. Rodney King was beaten and we watched it endlessly on the television news because there was no internet back then. Magic Johnson announced he had HIV, becoming the most famous face of AIDS. The Gulf War began, and the Soviet Union Dissolved—so all that B.S. they’d told me in elementary school about studying hard to compete against the Soviets meant nothing anymore. Rap music became the budding popular form. 49 rap albums came out that year and I owned 17 of them. My grandparents still let me watch R-rated movies, and listen to gangster rap: I had it good. The only deal was I had to read the Bible, go to church, believe in Jesus and make As on my tests and so I did. At the age of 14 I had a different set of dreams. All of those Bible stories for children I’d read with my grandma in kindergarten, and all of that Bible reading I was doing on my own, turned me into a low-grade fundamentalist. It wasn’t my dream anymore to be the human Bugs Bunny, but rather the Black Billy Graham; I was going to be a minister. In fact, Grandma would often tell me, “Boy, you gonna be a preacher one day.” And so after school I studied my Bible and did my research on what it took to start a church and go to seminary. Still, I could not divorce myself from gangster rap. It wasn’t that I liked listening to words like nigga, bitch and ho, it was because I liked the direct poetry of it all. Rappers weren’t singing and rappers weren’t speaking; rappers were doing something else. And they were talking about social issues that the pop singers were not. I liked rap songs because they weren’t love songs. They were like movies. They addressed Rodney King being beaten, R&B singers and Gospel singers did not. It was the specifics that I enjoyed. And so after school I began writing weird, unpreachable, experimental sermons. I took what was in the Bible and made it as raw as a rapper would make it. Unpreachable sermons about God with R-Rated language. That was my budding literary style: a blending of the sacred and the profane. If Ice Cube wrote a sermon what would it sound like? Hmmm. And then, a magic day came. February 17, 1993, I wrote my first poem in Mrs. Stevens’ high school English class. And the more I wrote poems, the less I wrote sermons. And the deeper I got into poetry, the less I was into gangster Christian fundamentalism. Poetry saved me from being a bona fide religious nut; and it wasn’t just the craft of poetry. It was The Path of Poetry. September 13, 1998 – 21 I turned 21 in 1998, and Bill Clinton was president. I lost my enthusiasm for the movies: there were a lot of remakes. City of Angels remade the 1987 movie Wings of Desire. Godzilla was remade from the 1954 iteration. Psycho was remade, scene for scene, shot by shot, from the 1960 film. And of course, Less Miserables was being remade yet again. Anything rap or hip hop after 1995 I avoided—I’d become a hip hop snob. My thing was poetry. I had written over 800 poems. But only 6 had been published—two in my high school newspaper and four in the college journal. I was one year into having a poetry band and in ’98 we were still called The Maples because I wrote poetry under maple trees. Two months after my 21st birthday a sheriff pulled over my grandmother and me. I was in the passenger seat and she was the one driving: a tail-light had gone out. His only questions, however, were to me: “Are you in trouble?” “No, officer” “Are you on probation?” “No officer.” “Are you on parole?” “No.” “Let me see your ID.” I gave him my college ID to show him I wasn’t a nigger. “No, I don’t want that,” he said, “Let me see your driver’s license, the DMV one.” He gave my grandmother back her license and a fix-it ticket. Then he handed mine back saying, “It’s a good thing no one in this car is wanted for murder. Have a nice night.” When I was in kindergarten and Grandma taught me to read, because she said that Ms. Margaret didn’t want me to read because I was Black, I thought it was strange because I sort of liked Ms. Margaret. Sort of. But at 21, I didn’t like that cop. And for the next 10 years I would have run-ins with sheriffs who were far more aggressive. I would be stopped, thrown on top of cop car hoods, fondled between my legs by female sheriffs searching me for drugs; I was made to sit on the curb while people in their SUVs stared, some laughing at me, my arms contorted into joint locks and Jiu-Jitsu chicken wing holds. It was all due to false reports and mistaken identity. And each time I was let go with the words: “Have a nice night” or “Be safe.” I never got an apology. Never a “We’re sorry.” Not even a “Thank you for your patience.” And far be it from the female cops to thank me for letting them grab my jewels. The fear, the anger, the embarrassment darkened my writing and I started touching on new themes. September 13, 2005 – 28 I turned 28 in 2005 and George Bush (the son) was president. YouTube went online. Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. I developed a caregiving routine for my grandfather, changing diapers and distributing medication. After Grandpa died, Grandma was next to be cared for; her Alzheimer’s was progressing. I’d had a couple of poems published, but I was working in a library cubicle 40 hours a week to pay my student loan debt—six years after graduating. Caregiving necessitated I divide my writing time up with bathing, feeding and taking trips to the doctor. The same grandparents who had taken me in as a three month old infant had become my elderly infants. There are two nests. The first nest I experienced as a child. My grandparents taught me lessons intentionally as they took care of me. The second nest, I experienced as I got older. My grandparents taught me lessons unintentionally as I took care of them. The first nest is a common one, the second nest not so much as it’s tempting to avoid the bondage associated with caregiving—so the nursing home can rob a child or grandchild of that second nest. But that second nest is where many of the spiritual secrets and wisdom lie, and I hadn’t learned these lessons from church alone. I’d specifically avoided becoming a teacher because I wanted to write and perform and not take my work home with me. Lo and behold, the duties of caregiving became a round-the-clock job I worked at home. Folks become caregivers at 50; I was 28. I had no wife, no girlfriend, no children, but my band was still live. We had four independent music award nominations but no record deal, no traveling tour—still chasing the dream. September 13, 2012 – 35 I was 35 years old and my grandmother was 89. In 2012, the same woman who was born and raised under, and had suffered under, Jim Crow segregation, had lived long enough to see the first Black president of the United States. But Alzheimer’s had taken her mind. “Ain’t no Black President,” she’d say. “Ain’t no cracker gonna let us in office.” “But Grandma, he’s already been President for 4 years. He’s about to be President again.” “Shit. You talkin’ shit. Ain’t no Black President.” “Okay. Whatever you say.” Caregiving was one of the greatest gifts thrust on me: the greatest gift to build and deplete me, and because of that I needed therapy, so running became my therapy. By 2012, I had already run fourteen 26.2-mile marathons. There was freedom in running and the emotional high of just going none-stop. The same euphoria I got as a kid from sitting in a dark theater staring at the stories on screen, I got from running now. Running also helped my writing. Maybe it was all that oxygen going to my brain, all those endorphins kicking in. I never listened to music when I ran those long miles, and because of that I was able to form lines of poetry, come up with dialogue between characters, restructure plots, and fashion imagery in my head along the way. Of course, I’d forget a lot of it by the time I was done but enough remained. As a child, the Bugs Bunny in me wanted to be an Olympic runner. I was already too old for that but nothing kept me from running for me, as in kindergarten when nothing would keep me from reading for me. Six months and seven days after my 35th birthday, I watched Grandma take her last breaths in the hospital. While my relatives stood around her crying, I shed no tears. I whispered, “Get up, Grandma. Get up. Prove ’em wrong. Get up. You got more. Get up.” When the electrocardiogram went flat, I stared at the line like a hypnotist and whispering to it, “Move. Move line. Move. Move up. Move. Move.” Mystical powers of suggestion are not strong enough to trip up a marathon runner; the willpower of a marathoner is stronger than words, and my grandmother had finished her marathon. 89 years long. I shed no tears that morning. I’d shed tears 19 days prior; when the doctor told me she only had four days to live. I cried that night. I cried and I thanked my grandmother over and over, “Thank you. Thank you, Grandma.” For taking me in as a baby, for reading with me after school as a child, for praying for me at all stages of my life. And at that point I felt ashamed. Ashamed that after all of the work my grandparents did for me, all I did with my life was write poems and chase a music career. Sure I had gotten my master’s degree. I was the first in my family to attend a four year university and graduate. The first to visit foreign countries without having to join the U.S. military to do so. The first to be a published writer. The first to record an award-nominated album. But I was still poor. Still in debt, with new student loans. And I would go into further debt paying hospital and funeral bills. My other friends had families and careers that made money—real money. What material fruits did my English major give me other than a list of firsts? I had entered my own Gethsemane. II. At a writer’s conference I listened in on a panel discussion entitled: “We Got Here as Fast as We Could: Debut Authors Over 35.” The words “as fast as we could” choked me up because I still hadn’t made it. 365 days a year, I probably worry 365 days that the mark I’ve left on the world really isn’t big enough. Robert Hayden, in his poem “Frederick Douglass,” called freedom a beautiful needful thing. Beautiful and needful aren’t always pleasurable. I say freedom can also be a painful tugging thing, a painful pulling thing especially when dark forces come along. Looking back on what I’ve walked through every seven years, I’ve discerned that I’m never really free. I’ve always had to go into some sort of bondage to liberate another aspect of me. It’s all currency. Trade this freedom for that freedom. Although I haven’t lived long on this planet, I’ve lived some. Much of what we live through we don’t take notice of, till it has passed; or until, as with film, a crappy remake reminds you later of how good the original was. As a poet it’s a big no-no for me to take my moments for granted, but I am guilty of doing so. A professor of mine in grad school, the poet Matthew Zapruder, once told me: “Getting published shouldn’t be the higher goal. The higher goal of a poet should be to obtain a certain consciousness. A wisdom. A freedom.” I keep a piece of laminated paper in my wallet, with a passage from Rope Burns by F.X. Toole. I refer to it often to guide me through myriad Gethsemanes: “About the only thing I haven't done in boxing is make money. But that hasn't stopped me anymore than not making money in writing has. Both are something you just do, and you feel grateful for being able to do them, even if both keep you broke, drive you crazy, and make you sick…Rational people don't think like that. But they don't have in their lives what I have in mine. Magic. The magic of going to wars I believe in…the magic of will, and skill and pain, and the risking of everything so you can respect yourself for the rest of your life.” Fitting, isn’t it, that it’s only a myth that our bodies are renewed every seven years at the cellular level? Fitting that—for a child born into a newly unsegregated America, a boy who wanted to do it all, a ganger preacher, a target of the cops, an enriched, impoverished caregiver and a man mourning his first real teacher—the words that I keep close were written by a man who trains fighters. Larry Handy leads the award-winning poetry band Totem Maples. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appear in such journals as Cog, Proximity, Quiddity, Rivet, Storylandia, Straight Forward Poetry and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of California, Riverside. His horror novelette Paper Cuts: 1000 Paper Cranes was published by TWB Press. His essay “What to Do When Grandma Has Dementia” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was listed in The Best American series under Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2016. When not writing he is practicing Chinese martial arts or running 26.2 mile marathons. SoCal is his home.

Facts can be more fascinating than fiction. Ming was acutely aware of that, but sometimes he wondered if he could tell one from the other without flights of fancy. On October 2, 2019, during his visit to his mother in Jingzhou, Ming went out of his way to host a gathering in Songzi, his native town which he left permanently after finishing high school. Throughout the party, all the attending “comrades-in-arms” remained high- spirited, some singing the old songs aloud, some playing mahjong attentively, others eating the local snacks with terrible mannerisms while chatting boisterously about their shared experiences in Mayuhe, a forest farm adjacent to the Yangtze River, where they all had “received the re-education from poor peasants” at the same youth station during the Cultural Revolution. For Ming, this was not only the first time to see these old comrades after 42 years of separation without knowing their whereabouts, but more importantly, the only opportunity to pay off his last “emotional debt,” something he thought he was still owing to Hua, who had immigrated to Australia years before he retired from his main job as an independent tutor, translator and publisher in Vancouver. When the party finally ended in the middle of the night, he managed to strike up a private conversation with her, though only for a couple minutes. “Hua, you know why I have come all the way from Canada to attend this gathering?” he asked. “Like all of us, you want to see old friends while we still can move around, don’t you?” “No! I have few friends in my entire life, nor do I really want to see anyone except you!” “Why me?” “There is one thing I have been wanting to say to you in person for almost half a century. Now that we are all lining up for our final exits from this world, I….” “What is it you must say to me?” “I loved you, while we were laboring together in Mayuhe, and…” “Really? Some comrades did mention this to me long ago, but I never believed them, because you yourself had said nothing like that.” “That’s why I owe you a confession, long overdue….Still remember the tuner you gave to me in the summer of 1975?” “What tuner?” Hua looked bewildered as they were joined helter-skelter by other comrades, who, all in their mid-sixties, well knew this to be the last occasion to goodbye one another face to face. Before getting into a comrade’s car back to Jingzhou, Ming rushed to ask for Hua’s weixin number and said meaningfully to her, “Let’s stay in touch thru weixin, shall we?” But once back to his home in Vancouver, he found it hard to communicate with Hua. For one thing, knowing she spent almost every waking minute together with her husband after retirement, Ming saw it as utterly imprudent to video- or even audio-chat with her. A polite seasonal greeting was certainly customary, but frequent conversations about their old days would be alarming, let alone any in-depth discussion about their long lost relationship. Textual messaging seemed to be a viable option, yet it too was overly restrictive and troublesome. With his fingers getting clumsier and eyes blurrier nowadays, he simply hated typing Chinese characters on a small screen. This being so, all he could do was to constantly forward to her whatever posts or moments he found interesting or relevant. In return, Hua would make casual and succinct comments on what she had actually viewed. Undoubtedly, this was not the way he hoped to remain in contact with her. Shortly after the Chinese New Year’s day, Hua complained that she was stuck at her parents’ residence in Songzi as lockdowns became the order of the day in response to the new coronavirus outbreak in their native province of Hubei. To kill time and fulfill one of her fondest teenage dreams, she mentioned she was taking online lessons in color-lead painting. Hearing this, Ming realized there might be much more he could share with her than he had thought, so he became more enthusiastic about sending her beautiful photos of landscapes and visual artworks as well as inspiring stories about Chinese or western artists. But what he most wanted to do was to get answers to two questions that had been bugging him recently: one was how come Hua remembered nothing about the tuner, something he had been hiding in the depth of his heart as the first token of love he got in his whole lifetime; the second was why he and Hua failed to become husband and wife despite his strong belief that they had been karmaed for each other in this world. Only by finding the truth would he emotionally “die with his eyes closed,” as the Chinese idiom goes. On a weekend evening in early summer, well before he could find a chance to bring up the topic with Hua, his wife happened to notice the brief but flirting textual messages he had sent to Hua. “Something going on, eh? You two seem to contact each other too often!” she said in a suspicious and sarcastic tone. “Nothing at all, just joking as we used to in Mayuhe,” he explained. Nonetheless, alerted by this incident, he began to resort to underground communication to avoid jeopardizing his marriage. After all, he could not afford to get himself into another emotional debt. Aged 64, he had gone through all the storms of life, now he wanted to make sure to see nothing but rainbows for the rest of his life, even when there was no sunlight. But he was curious enough to search for the truth about his fated connections with Hua. Time after time, he would indulge himself in recollecting the details about how they worked together in Mayuhe between 1974 and 1977. As the leader of the youth group, he was neither tall nor really handsome, but he showed himself to be a highly ambitious youngster with a strong will power. Not surprisingly, he had several secret admirers who were actually very pretty, but he only had eyes for Hua; to him, she not only was the sexiest and most beautiful of all, but also had a good sense of humor in addition to a cheerful personality. In fact, he had fallen in love with her at first sight when he happened to spot her during a meeting at high school one year before. Since they came to receive ‘re-education’ in the country like millions of Mao Zedong’s red guards, he had developed a crush on her. Part of the reason why he tried so hard to outperform others in Mayuhe was to prove himself worthy of her attention. Each time they chanced to be shoulder- carrying trees together, he would love to tease or make fun of her, while she appeared to enjoy the clever way he joked with her. In the spring of 1975 when all the boys at the youth station started to learn to play the erhu or the flute, she gave him a tuner supposedly to help him set the tune, but she did so in such a private manner that he readily took it as a special gift, nothing less than a solid token of love, though never explicitly proclaimed as such on her part. However, though he loved Hua tremendously and believed that she loved him as well, he hid this feeling even from himself, knowing his top priority was to win the opportunity to go to university, however slim it might be. Once he achieved his first career objective, he would make the proposal, which he believed she would readily accept. Then, with the help of his family connections, they could go to the same city and get married in due course. But given the sociopolitical realities of the day, his plan for their joint future would have been thwarted if the political authorities had discovered his romantic relationship with her. Alas, it was to his surprise as much as to his disappointment and humiliation that Hua asked him to return the tuner towards the end of the year. Thinking she might have a new sweetheart, he decided to focus on his career development. Though he had a hunch that Hua had given the tuner to his major rival named Pan, a much taller if not smarter or more handsome comrade, Ming said nothing about his suspicion, nor did he disclose his love for her to anyone; instead, he had kept his jealousy, pain, self-pity and shame to himself even until now. After graduating from Shanghai Jiaotong University, he did have several intimate relationships, but he eventually married his wife because only she could ‘beat’ Hua in some sense or was as attractive to him as Hua. It was not until he began to thoroughly examine his life after his semi-retirement that he realized Hua as his lifetime model of love, that is, someone who embodied all female attractiveness to him. When he met her at the October party, he could not help falling in love with her again. To his amazement, he found her even more attractive than before. Already with two grandchildren, she looked as if still around forty, even sexier, more beautiful and definitely more graceful than when he saw her last time in Mayuhe. A true lady rather than a Chinese dama, a stunner she really was, he said to himself. But how come Hua had no memory of the tuner? Given the way this little gadget of hers had set for him the tune of love, if not of life, this was something simply unthinkable. Perhaps she remembered it too well to admit it; she felt the need to safeguard her happy married life; she had a strong sense of female dignity; or she hated to be “debunked” in an emotional sense. There could be many underlying reasons for her persistent denial, he thought. The more Ming pondered over this tuner episode, the more he craved for the truth, and the more he started to miss her, especially as the Pandemic made it increasingly difficult for them to reunite in person anywhere or anytime soon. To alleviate his ever intensifying yearning for her, he conducted longer and more frequent text-talks via weixin until one day in August, she wrote, “If we were really karmaed for each other, I would wait for you in Mayuhe in our next life.” While this remark might well be disregarded as a lip serviceby anyone else, he took it so seriously that he began to address her as his “dear future wife.” Every so often he would even request her to send him her photos taken in different years, because he wanted to “make up for the loss of [their] otherwise married life in this world” and to “become familiar enough to readily recognize her in their afterlives”; and with words and images, he invited her to co-build what they called ‘weixin home,’ a virtual residence where they could play with the idea of living together as a loving couple. He was clear that all such effort was just an illusion on his part, but she apparently did enjoy this cyber relationship to some extent. On the morning of December 27, he was doing stretching exercise when he hit upon the idea of resuming to write his book Love Letters from Vancouver, which he had initially intended to be his first (autobiographical) novel in Chinese, but later thrown into his garage after getting a sharp criticism from his first reader, one of his closest comrades-in- arms in Mayuhe who had become a well-read software engineer in Silicon Valley. On the same evening, Ming told Hua that the book, which was based on his quite dramatic life experiences up until 2000, was devoted to his first date; but now, he was all geared up to recount his life experiences from the millennium to the present. Since then, he would write three to four thousand Chinese characters every day and, exactly one month later, he finished this extremely challenging job. During the whole writing process, he was as excited as he was eager to share with Hua all his ups and downs on every front, though he had no idea about what impact it might have on her. To him, she was both his closest reader and his best or most informed critic. On Valentine’s Day 2021, he wrote a love poem in Chinese and sent it to her as a gift, in which he articulated his long-cherished feeling for her since their separation, in which he told her he had loved her profoundly while in Mayuhe, and still did so now, though he loved his wife nonetheless. After typing the three Chinese characters and hitting the send key, he turned off the light, but felt too nervous to sleep because he had broken the language ban she had imposed on him, and concurrently too guilty because he had done something unfaithful to his wife. Perhaps, without bodily contact, such “spiritual derailment” or platonic love might be excusable, he told himself. No matter what, love was running wildly in his inner space as in the virtual world. At the end of March, after much waiting and scheduling, he finally got his first chance to call her. It was an almost 5-hour long chat over the phone. During this passionate and informative conversation, he did not mention his first e. d. experience with his wife partly because of Hua just two nights before, but he and Hua talked a great deal about each other’s life experience, family situation and health condition. At one point, Hua told him frankly that after receiving his special Valentine gift, she spent almost two weeks struggling fiercely with her own sense of being a good traditional woman before deciding to resume communication with him. “I was waiting nervously for your response all that time,” Ming said. “If you had stopped responding to my love message at all, I would have never contacted you again, but fortunately you forwarded a meme to me later, though totally irrelevant to my confession.” “Even now I am still hesitating if I should keep in touch with you,” Hua said. “I fear I might have fallen into some sort of trap.” “Don’t worry! Since I am in the trap already, I would push you up to safety even at the cost of my own life,” he assured her. “But don’t say those three words again!” “What if your ban makes me suffocate to death?” “Don’t worry; I could readily call an ambulance for you,” Hua said, jokingly. “There would be no time for that. You should perform a CPR on the spot,” Ming continued by changing the topic into a pun. “Only if you were really dying!” Hua got his pun and extended it right away. “The moment your lips touch mine, I would resurrect!” As in Mayuhe, she enjoyed such allusive and light-hearted conversations with him, whereas he found it utterly unthinkable that Hua should have lost all her memories about the tuner. Her innocent response made him wonder if the whole matter was actually one of his own illusions or imagined events as she suggested. But on second thought, he was just as sure that Hua must have some unknown reasons to continue hiding the truth. With no hard or handy evidence to authenticate his story, he had to put aside her nonchalance about the whole matter, though it sometimes caused him to feel deplorably perplexed, hurt and even ashamed of the way he might have overestimated her feelings for him in the first place. To remain faithful to his wife, he even thought of giving up his pursuit of the truth or terminating his contact with Hua. Being a respected grandpa now, he certainly would not want to become a laughingstock for anyone as a victim of “first love complex” that was typical of the young; nor had he had the slightest intention to develop an extramarital relationship with the same person after such a long lapse of time. But somehow he just could not help missing her more and more. To soothe his lovesickness, he turned to poetry and, in a matter of mere several months, he wrote almost fifty love poems, all inspired by and thus devoted to Hua. For him, this was certainly some achievement: he had written and published all kinds of poetry in English (which he had begun to learn at age 19 as a college student in Shanghai), from what he called “mini-epic” to “bilinguacultural poems,” from “dark fantasy” to “dinggedicht,” in disparate forms and styles, yet he had never been able to compose a single love piece. The reason was he had never experienced any truly inspiring love, he believed. But now though he was still not really sure about Hua’s affection for him, he had drawn so many strong inspirations from her that he had not only completed writing (and self-published) his Chinese memoire Love Letters from Vancouver, but had more than a dozen love poems appearing or forthcoming in literary journals across the English speaking world. On 26 April 2021, just one day before receiving his first shot of Pfizer against covid-19, he hastily self-published his collection of love poems under the title of Limerence, just in case he, with his heart condition worsening, could not survive the probable severe side effects of the vaccination. Of course, he never mentioned this book to Hua, because he planned to give it to her later in person as a happy surprise, something like her tuner, or as his intended token of love. A few months later, Hua was diagnosed as having cancerous cells in her lungs during her annual physical checkup. While she suffered greatly, more psychologically than physically, he gave her his best support by teaching her how to build a stronger inner self to overcome her fear and defeat all misfortunes. Right before she was pushed into the operation room on the morning of August 12, he advised her to print the Chinese character for ‘love’ on her left hand, and his name on her right, promising that his love would be her most powerful guardian angel. And much as he had expected, she had a very successful operation. By the time she was fully recovered, he had written several dozen more love pieces, many of which were soon to be published. When circumstances finally allowed them to video-chat with each other on weixin, they began to spend nearly two hours together online every day though living on the opposite sides of the world. Among all the topics they touched upon, they enjoyed talking about love, sex and art the most, though they both felt quite guilty and embarrassed at first. From their daily communications, he learned almost everything about the development of their relationship. For example, Hua told him, to his great joy and comfort, that she had been keen on reading every page of his Love Letters earlier in the year. Also, knowing what he had gone through in the past few decades, she had felt not merely happy for his achievements on every front, from family to finance, from work to poetry, but also sympathetic with his sufferings, including his health problems and psychological setbacks, especially the way he functioned like a money-making machine with no lubricant of love or care. In particular, she developed a strong emotional attachment to him though with an equally strong sense of guilt while in the hospital. She admitted longing to say “I love you, too” to him on receiving his Valentine message, but considering their relationship to be so “abnormal and immoral” (and “imbalanced” as he had often added), she had often thought of putting out their love sparkle before it became a sweeping fire. “What eventually made you decide to continue our relationship?” he asked. “I am not sure, but I felt I must follow my heart, mustn’t I?” Hua responded. “Of course you must! So karmaed as we are for each other, we should follow our hearts together, be it a bliss or curse on us.” “Sure, why not! After the operation, I may not have so many more years to live anyway.” “An enlightened girl! So, you are really sure now? Isn’t it a happy thing to be your whole self rather than only part of it? -- I mean to live with our free will…” “Sure thing! For the past sixty years, I have been living mainly for others, now it is time to live for myself.” “That’s why you decided to lift your speech ban on me and allow me to say ‘I love you’ after receiving my Valentine message?” “Yes, I do treasure your lifelong feeling for me, and I do want to let you know I love you too, only it’s too embarrassing even to talk about love as old grandparents.” “No love is embarrassing, just as no love is wrong, ‘abnormal’ or ‘immoral,’ except perhaps it could be ‘imbalanced.’ Don’t you think we grandparents are as much entitled to love as the young?” “Whatever you say, we are really too old to love like young people.” “But our love is just as passionate. Physically we are no longer strong or energetic. Old as I am, I’ve become softened on both ways, so much so that I cannot satisfy you, an extraordinary woman with the physique of a forty-year old, but without enough sexual power, even without penetration at all, we can still make love in countless alternative ways. Just as we can talk dirty together on weixin, we can also make babies together in our bed of art and poetry. At least, our love can help each other maintain good health besides good looks.” “Anyway, we must keep our relationship underground, however beautiful or helpful to ourselves, or people would find us ridiculous and disgusting.” “Still care about how others might look at us?” To protect each other’s spouse from getting hurt, Ming and Hua decided to tell all the white lies about their mutual love, and reached two basic agreements. 1) they would face all possible challenges to their relationship together until their last breaths; and 2) they would have part of their ashes mixed and buried together in Mayuhe after death. Upon signing their love agreement at the outset of 2022, Ming was further inspired to write a long and hybrid book in English, into whose fabric he tried to weave all his ‘bests,’ including his most insightful findings about life as well as his worthiest life experiences. By adopting a highly innovative narrative framework and exploring his true relationship with Hua in terms of spiritual growth, he hoped to raise, and offer his answer to, this question: how can Adam and Eve live together happily as they grow really old? In a larger sense, how can the aged regain their lost pureness, beauty and nearness to the Supreme? Meanwhile, Hua embarked on a series of color-lead paintings, most of which he would use as illustrations for his book. In so doing, both of them felt as if being reborn into love and living in a paradise regained. In the meantime, he had never really stopped trying to dig the truth about the tuner, the very starting point of their relationship. But for all their efforts, she failed to retrieve her memory, if any at all. She did admit liking him a lot while still in Mayuhe, but she did not love him as he believed she had done; it was only after she received his valentine gift that she started to feel seriously for him. “But how do you account for the tuner you gave to me back then?” he asked once again, thinking that she might be, unconsciously or unknowingly, playing the classic game of love with him. Indeed, love could be an emotional battle between a man and a woman: if one had admitted loving the other more than the other way around, one would lose at least part of one’s own attraction, if not the whole battle. Unsure about the depth of Hua’s feeling for him, he kept hoping she would one day break free of her reserve, the chain of moral restraints, or whatever else had been blocking her memory about the tuner. “Sorry, Mingming,” Hua explained, “if the tuner thing were not an invention of yours, if I had given it to you as you remembered, and requested it back later to give it to Pan Lihao as you had suspected, I must have done all this just to help you guys learn to play the erhu.” “You mean you gave it to me not as a token of love, but nothing more or less than a learning device?” “Sure thing! If I had intended it to be a love token, how could I have asked you to return it to me and give it to Pan instead? What a childish and ridiculous thing to do…. that would be completely against my character!” “In that case, our relationship was based on a misunderstanding, an emotional error to begin with?” “You bet, but a very beautiful one, isn’t it?” “Sure it is! Except that it makes me feel painfully embarrassed about how I have been flattering myself in our relationship all these years!” “But my affection for you now is true!” “Well, I think I must accept your explanation. It seems to be the only logical answer to my questions about the whole matter.” A few days after ‘resolving’ the tuner myth and finishing the first draft of his hybrid novel “Back to Eden,” Ming received a video call from his mother across the Pacific, who showed him a small package meant for him. “Just open it, Mom, and see who has sent me what is inside!” It turned out to be none other than the tuner! Dark red, one inch long, in the shape of a tube, about the thickness of a little finger, with a metal reed at one end getting somewhat rusty. More intriguing was the short handwritten note that came along with it from Pan: “Long long time no see, old pal! The other day, I was browsing randomly online when I happened to find your Love Letters. From your memoir, I learned Hua had actually given the tuner to you first. If I had known this fact in Mayuhe, I would never have kept it as a special souvenir! Now that you two seem to have developed a real (extramarital?) relationship despite old age, I send my very best wishes as well as this little thing (I have no way to contact her). Keep it well, Pal, hope the tuner would not tune out your marriage as in my case!” Author’s Note: This story is inspired by and thus devoted to Helena Qi Hong ( 祁红) Yuan Changming grew up in rural China and has published 18 poetry collections in English. Early this year, Yuan began to write fiction, with short stories already appearing in Aloka (UK) and Kolkata Arts (India) or forthcoming in Lincoln Review (UK), StylusLit (Australia) and Nashwaak Review (Canada), among others. Currently, Yuan is working on his trilogy. Yuan also has 4 poetry collections released since May 2022: All My Crows at: https://www.coldriverpress.com/ E.dening at: https://lnkd.in/gPGwupbB Homelanding at: https://www.amazon.com/Homelanding-Yuan-Changming-ebook/dp/B0BB1JBS37 and Sinosaur: Bilingual-Cultural Poems at: https://redhawkpublications.com/Sinosuar-p504579309

A Miniature Castle Surrounds My Brain Think: 2lbs of hamburger meat plopped and nestled in a shoebox. Think: a drawbridge, moat, archers on battlements, a ballista on every tower, gatehouses, a portcullis, turrets, and huge vats of oil and tar, fire at the ready against a gooey pink horizon. Enough defenses to keep the thoughts out, most often. But in actuality, the thoughts, invasive by nature, are strategic. They bide their time. They wear no colors, because they fight for no Country, no cause but to lay siege on my brain. For fun? For sport? Just because they can? The thoughts are mad in that way. An army to themselves: paranoid delusions, irrational fears. Everything I’ve ever done wrong, back again to torture and interrogate, bind me on the rack. Before bed, the thoughts sense a slippage, a weakness, an opening, and they collect like plaque. No need for gigantic wooden ladders or battering rams, they pile on each other as most pests do and storm the gates, breach the curtain walls. Overcome, I shake and sweat that near-surrender, vinegar-like sweat, bombarded by thoughts. Is that Honda Odyssey from this morning still parked out by my mailbox? I am increasingly concerned that its owner wishes to murder me with some knife/gun combo weapon, or strap a bomb collar around my neck. Did I remember to lock the sliding glass door? By now I’ve learned to sleep with one eye (and my video doorbell app) open. What’s worse, empirically: dying a horrible, painful death by a strangely inventive intruder, or wasting my life worrying about such a thing as I spiral deeper and deeper until I’m wholly unable to parse out real threats versus imaginary. Reading a book, I get no further than a page. A potion of minor healing. Doom scrolling Twitter only feeds their frenzy. A spell of swift destruction. Listening to a podcast invokes an enchantment over the land. A momentary mercy. The thoughts scatter, disorientated, unfocused. I bet wherever you leave a fingernail on Earth is where you can travel to in the afterlife. In their confusion, I make it through the hatch. I situate my makeshift raft to escape down the river of sleep. Where I’ll wake up on the other side, full of rations and reinforcements to take on a new sun. But just as I kick off the cold dirt, launch from the sediment and begin to drift along the water, the thoughts recoup and attack in hoards. They play out past ill deeds in my head: me, a high school sophomore, crouched down by the safe under the register at Mr. Tony’s Pizza. Constance, my older coworker, is mopping front of house. It’s after close. I angle my body perfectly away from the security camera above my right shoulder, to make it look like I’m scrubbing the tile floor with a wet rag. Really going to town on the mozzarella eternally congealed in the grout lines. But I’m not. I’m fishing for a twenty from one of the big bill envelopes. Though it’s not a chain restaurant, no corporate lords or ladies to Robinhood from, Tony underpays and we don’t make tips. In the parking lot after our shift, I convince Constance, reluctant, but kind to a fault, to buy me a tin of chewing tobacco from the Speedway around the corner. I pocket the change. Even though that was fifteen years ago, the thoughts make me worry about the potential harm that solitary, immediately repugnant pinch of Grizzly Wintergreen did to my gumline, the cancer that’ll undoubtedly grow. They make me worry about talking over the phone to schedule a dentist appointment. They make me worry about a nicotine addiction I may somehow unknowingly have. They make me worry about Tony, likely retired, living a thousand miles away in Mesa, Arizona, calling the cops to throw me in jail for stealing from him way back when. But most of all, they make me worry about Constance. I was too demanding. She for sure hates me. I don’t remember if I even said thank you, and regret using her all the more. I know I must act fast to not be eaten from the inside out. To not fold up, crumble, lose my last supply of reason buried deep in a dank crypt, hidden away from these barbaric thoughts. God only knows what would happen then. I rush to the medicine cabinet. Not for milk of the poppy. Not for valerian root. Not for poison-dipped chocolates. Not yet ready to accept defeat. But for a fighting chance. 10mg of maximum strength time release melatonin. My vat of oil and tar. Fall asleep faster. Stay asleep longer. I choke down the pill and wait with a shrewd smile. Because I know what’s to come. Because I have been here before. And I will be here again, so says the soothsayer. There will be complete obliteration. A clean scorch of the battlefield. Sweltering blazes of absolution and fury. There will be sweet, if only temporary, victory. Subject Line Mercy Daniel ate a quick lunch on the hotel’s terrace, the seat across from him empty, and thought about the difference between true atonement and self-flagellation when he was interrupted by a gentle buzz in his pocket that caused him to hold his phone up, lean forward until it recognized his sleepless, unshaven face, which, after some time, finally populated the subject line of an email he’d just received like invisible ink under a blacklight that read: Hey, wait a sec! We know you didn’t mean to leave 101 Ways to Forgive Yourself & Other Lies unpurchased in your cart. Come back now for 10% off with code WHOOPS10. Don’t worry, we’ll keep it right here ready and waiting for you. Paul Rousseau is a disabled writer with work in Roxane Gay's The Audacity, Waxwing, Catapult, Jellyfish Review, Pithead Chapel, and Wigleaf, among others. You can read his words online at Paul-Rousseau.com and follow him on Twitter @Paulwrites7.

only the finest of china for this trauma so i grab the best of my mother’s bowls wash it twice with wine & honey before chipping teeth on its edge i draw water for the bloodbath and plunge in the fruit of my under-ribs with fingertips too water-plump too wrinkled to remember their prints because i put bars around this heart dreamed them into citrus-fiber ate my own self out & broke back in only to be cold with love purpled with bruising wounds soaked through with wasted potential G.L. Maverick (she/they) is a being, just like you, and would like for you to remember that your days are numbered... but there's no sense in counting down. Maverick is a poet and aspiring novelist who lives with her family in Virginia (US). While more of their work can be found in Apricity Press's 7th Issue & Corporeal Lit Mag's 2nd Volume, chances are you'll find Maverick sitting in a tree or on a rooftop, pretending she doesn't exist. Feel free to monitor their nonsensical musings on Twitter @gracenleemav.

The first thing a baby can do is cry. Stimulus response, vocalised, after that first smack. Tears, and the wordless wail. That tap. Hush now baby. Hush. The first thing a baby can do is hold on. Tiny fingers grab, look at you baby, so strong not as a skill learned, but as a delicate need, innate. Palmar Grasp Reflexes disappear, but oh baby girl that need? Need never dissipates, even if small hands fail to find reassurance to hold onto. Unlearning reaching out is to be gripped by fear, instead of a helping hand. Baby, wipe those tears. It’s to seize small comforts wherever they’re found. It’s to clasp secret hopes to a broken heart. The first thing a baby can do is react. Shhh baby, shhh, please. It’ll be all right. Startle reflexes, triggered by loud sounds or movements, disappear after two months. Don’t cry, baby. Don’t. But when slammed doors are repeated refrains? Who’s laughing now? Baby doll. Huh? Reflexes transformed, tension memories transmute into impulses, averting ire with jokes, or hiding silent, until storms pass. Hey. Baby, now’s not the time. The first thing a baby can do is breathe. The most natural thing in the world is transformed, when the world narrows and stills. Shock sets in, and then wham: the world crashes back, drumming into the body, which can’t catch up. Can you breathe with me. Baby? One breath at a time. Come on. Breathe. Movement, sound and light are doors slammed into a rabbiting heart. Uh oh baby, what’ve you done now? Stuck between first and last things. Rebecca Dempsey’s recent works feature in Corporeal Lit Mag, Unstamatic, and Five Fleas. Rebecca lives in Melbourne / Naarm Australia and can be found at WritingBec.com.

There are certain writers, who you feel ‘get you’. Almost like they took something on the tip of your tongue and finished your thought for you. “Total Rhubarb”, the latest chapbook by J. Archer Avary, is a case in point. In this collection, there is a conversation with the reader. He is showing you his exploration in words that resonate on a very human level, making you feel that it’s your story too. He navigates the disappointment, disengagement, and trauma we all go through with clarity and wit. “First Day of What Passes for Spring”; a move away, second-guessing, this poem reminds me of those moments in life when we sit alongside our decisions wondering who was inhabiting our bodies when we made them. There is a willfulness in this piece and a true understanding of the flaws and fallibility in our desire to make a change. How vehemently we resist what is best for us! I love the last two lines of this poem. I won’t state them here because you must read them in context. I promise you, you won’t see them coming. There is something accidental about ‘progress’. In “Prime Seats at the Beer Garden” Archer Avary sits us in the middle of one of those new-fangled microbrews made from an old cannery or some other industry and shows us around the facade. As someone who lives in a city that is repurposing old industrial buildings into condos and microbreweries popping up on every street corner, this piece felt very relevant. The dying of an old industry, the popping up of another in its place, and the randomness of what is deemed successful skirts the edges of this piece. It’s simple and descriptive and I can’t tell if he’s pulling my leg. But that’s the beauty of this collection. It’s always a possibility. If you’ve never seen Steve Martin’s SNL skit “Holiday Wish” I suggest you find it on YouTube before reading “High in Lemony Pines”. This reveals a gift of Archer Avary’s; to put a very earnest sentiment in a form and flow, that reveals so much about the ‘narrator’ in very few words. “Give me a cabin High in the lemony pines Where i can eat steak all day Learn the banjo,” It goes on to say the sentiment similarly throughout but in unique ways that peel back the onion on a character not revealed. I thought this poem felt a bit like a folk song. By the end, I couldn’t tell if he meant high altitude or high, high in Lemony pines. “Boris and Betty” is a poem where I felt that Archer Avary was using sleight of hand to reveal a love fading by diverting our attention to the grim reality of a baby hamster’s birth. He seems to be weaving this narrative of the cogent story in front of you, as a totem for the loss of a relationship. He slips the ‘real tale ’so off handily into the margins, you could swear the ball was under the first cup. But it had disappeared altogether. The juxtaposition of modern middle-class life and war in “This Hot Tub is a Bomb Shelter” is one of those poems that reveals for us that one step removed from guilt and that two worlds exist simultaneously, yet it doesn’t try to rectify this conundrum. Voila! The guilt’s there, and then it’s gone in a puff of smoke or hot tub steam. The incredibly creative and again, humorous “Items Lost in Transit” is a particular favorite of mine. The structure made it feel like I was looking at a diorama not reading a poem. A museum to what we lose both, tangible and intangible. Each section of the poem, titled by the item, what was happening at the time, and where it was found gives you a little insight into something innately human and the talismans we inadvertently leave behind for others to find. I love this poem. It’s a full experience and a bit of an adventure. “Tales of Near-Death” felt like a Gen-X anthem of disengagement, scabby knees, and deep scars. “I will bore this And future generations With telling & boisterous retellings I will shout it from the water tower Atop the beach nut building Tales of near-death” I wonder if this is what happens to us aging Gen Xers? Looking around at the bubble-wrapped generations after us, wondering where the passion has gone. Do we bury the trauma of our lonely, dangerous youth in these stories? Who are we to judge with our back alley tales of mundane self-violence, the gentleness, and compassion of those that come after? After all, aren’t we the ones who taught them this gentleness? This piece brought up so many questions for me and how I approach the retelling of my story. For example, I recently spent an evening with a group of friends who’d been so since 7th grade. They talked about how they used to whip each other with rubber fish until they left scars. With pride. This poem reminds me of that reckless experimentation, the lost hours of nothingness that we filled with painful initiations, and the dreams that never came true. The poems all have a deliciously dark humor that I find almost irresistible. J. Archer Avary’s collection embraces life in a way that feels today like a distant ache in my heart or the fish-tailed scar on the wrist. Life hurts, but the joy is in surviving, with a good laugh at it all. "Total Rhubarb" will be out 9 Jan via the fine folks at Back Room Poetry. J. Archer Avary (he/him) was born in the USA and now lives in Northeast England. Kellie Scott-Reed -AEIC of Roi Faineant Press and host of “A Word?” With Kellie Scott-Reed.

Your analogies are too cumbersome, Colin used to say. They should snap. Yours don’t snap. Colin could be a real drip. I don’t miss him but sometimes I feel his absence. He would argue that these are the same. Colin could never tell the temperature of words. I didn’t notice his absence on my birthday last month or our anniversary just the other day, but last night at the beach I thought of him because he would have been overcome it was so various and beautiful. When I was nudging my way through all those skinny empty trees in the forest, the sun blasting in between them like a strobe light I thought of him, and then on the flat beach, the horizon soldered shut, and the sky bursting with every kind of cloud and all the colours including a bruise of rain over Niagara and a pink smudge over Rochester I think was snow. And then over the bluffs thousands of birds shifting like a single organism – the kind of thing you expect goes on in the sea – but so strange and sudden in the air you feel like it’s a flash mob. Not unlike what would happen if you shook all the letters off this page. They’d swoop and stretch, turning one after the other until an instant of invisibility, and then a dark slam in a corner where they’d gather into a new shape, some punctuation loosening at the edges and so on, until they would fall back into place or nearly. That’s the part Colin didn’t understand. If you let the words just go, without trying to craft them to death, when they sink back into place they never quite catch their breath and you can feel it. Colin said my willingness to write imperfectly was a cop-out. He said my similes were sloppy, my coincidences unlikely, too many run-on sentences and inconsistencies especially with punctuation. I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t tell him I think mistakes create a sort of intimacy, and that I like to write in the honest atmosphere of their residue. When the birds finally sank into the trees at the bottom of the bluffs I kept hoping they’d turn up again but they didn’t, so I looked back at the lake. The moon, slumped on one side, was lodged in a darkening sky and right below, like he’d fallen from it like an egg, stood Colin – big eyes and round mouth as usual – resting-surprise-face I used to call it. Beside him was another me. I wish I could say she was taller or thinner or that her hair was a different colour or she had opposite taste in clothing or we weren’t both terribly pale – but I cannot. We shared moon-faced hellos before I loped away and sank like the birds into my dark car. That night, I let the phone ring three separate times. Of course it would be Colin trying to explain why he broke it off with the real me in the first place but I didn’t care in the same way I don’t care about mistakes and omissions. All I cared about was the wine, the salty cheese room-temperature and sharp, and the cat – our cat – applying a sort of pressure on my lap each time the phone rang as if the shrill of it increased gravity. One of the things I liked about Colin was he never knew where to put his happiness so it stuck out all over the place in an alarming and hilarious way. Also that he didn’t have a sense about how he looked – not a clue – which at first I thought was a hoot but after a while I wished he would tone it down because in those secondary colours and Steve Martin plaids he could look like a clown. I suggested grey and other monotony and he fell out of love with me the way something falls off a bridge. There. Did that fucking snap? Sherry is from the wilds of Ontario. She writes the kind of stories she longs for and can rarely find. Feeling Funny

CW: ableist slur He came to town as a first round pick, expected to only be making a minor league pit stop before getting called up by the Flyers. Then, suddenly, three years passed and he was a third-year Sacramento Railroader. On this night he was in some dumpy motel up north. The Roaders had gone up by The Most Dangerous Lead in Hockey, two goals to nil. Call it superstition or call it statistics, the lead was surrendered. The Yakima Maniacs won 4-2. Some men have gone out of their way to inform me that this isn’t actually the Most Dangerous Lead. I don’t give a shit. When our little alternative press paper grew to have a sports page, I was promoted to its editor (read: burdened with its responsibility). I used to write about music, man. For our ritual postgame facetime, I called him in his dumpy motel. He answered wearing sunglasses. A piece of paper was folded in front of him as a name plaque, THE SOUTH DAKOTA KID scribbled in Sharpie. “What went wrong tonight?” I humored him. “We played like shit, Yakima eats shit, we never had a chance.” “Coming up, Saturday night you play the Olympia Senators. What’s gotta change going forward?” “Let me tell ya, we’re about to go all Julius Caesar on some Senators, baby.” “Is that on the record?” “Huh?” “Caesar was killed by the Senators. Not the other way around.” He sighed and took off his sunglasses. As it happened, he would neither attempt nor risk assassination. When the team bus left from Yakima he wasn’t on it. He was traded in the night. This time a phone call. No cameras. Everything off the record. A blunt of indica had rendered me utterly In Da Couch. I could hear my voice deepen every time I spoke between the puffs as I tried to follow his mania. “What the fuck! Portland? Fuckin’ what! I don’t know anything about Portland!” “I heard it’s weird,” I offered. “Right. Right, and we have to keep it that way.” He said we, so I asked, “What does this mean for us?” “Dude, I’m fuckin’- - - I gotta - - They’re gonna call me, to set it up or whatever. Probably gotta get off the phone soon, right, you know, to - - Fuck! I used to be good at hockey, y’know? I was always the best, growing up. School, college. Now I’m the one holding everyone back. How do you deal with it?” “Um?” “Maybe this is a good move. Maybe they’re affiliated with some booty buttcheeks team like the Coyotes, maybe I’ll get promoted easier. Do you know who they’re with?” “They don’t have an affiliate.” “What do you mean?” “They’re unaffiliated. There’s no promotion out of Portland.” He didn’t say anything. I had to say something. “So, earlier?” Smoke wafted out of nostril and mouth. “I’m gonna assume you meant the indefinite ‘you.’ When you asked about holding everyone back. Not the personal you, as in me.” “Sabrina, don’t act like I’m not retarded.” “Don’t say that.” “I am though!” “Don’t use the r-word.” “Can we not talk about words right now? Whether they’re - - indefinitive or whatever?” Should I point out again this habit, this intrinsic entitlement, how he thinks he can get away with saying anything because he’s “just sayin’?” “I don’t think, I just talk.” As if that’s a defense! Will he ever hear how he’s a product of the pillars he was placed on in some flyover backwater because of prepubescent talents for a game… I lost my train of thought and returned to him mid-lament. “What can I even do now! I’ve been sentenced to hockey purgatory.” “Puckatory,” I offered. “Fuck,” he agreed. I took another drag. I couldn’t tell if I could hear him smoking too or if I was just hearing myself. “One thing,” I started, then coughed. “One thing you gotta admit.” I coughed more. “One thing you gotta admit! You’re still playing hockey. That’s nice. At least your dreams have a minor league. A lot of careers don’t have that. There isn’t a minor league for chemists or lawyers or, uh… Spies?” “If you think there aren’t minor league lawyers, you should meet my divorce attorney.” We laughed. I’d met him when he was twenty-two, half a year in with the Roaders, four years younger than me, and in the middle of a divorce. He said getting married young was the small town way. I said I was born and raised in Sacto so I wouldn’t know about small towns. I was a product of the 916. I hated the Lakers, and would forever, and loved the Kings and the Roaders and sagebrush and skyscrapers, and would forever as well. My great-grandfather had been a construction worker and wa buried in the wet cement of Folsom Dam. He said it was weird to tell him that on a first date, and we’d fucked ever since. I defined our relationship so flippantly because commitment comes to me as a terror unlike any other, but by the time of the Yakima game we’d been together longer than his marriage had lasted. I stabbed out the blunt. There was silence on the line. “I don’t know what this means for us,” he said finally. And because the concept of purgatory always makes me think of Waiting For Godot I said, “There’s nothing to be done.” Which I guess is how we broke up. Burke De Boer is an Oregon-grown, Texas-based writer and botanist. His western novel "In Sheep's Clothing" is available from Third Eye Sockeye Press.

We Watched a Dog Die on the Weekend of a Wedding We sat -my daughter and I- on a park bench eating a snack. A treat after a long walk; a restful pause before a busy day of family and friends. Across the path another family and their dog. A large ball of fluff and fur resembling a shabby wolf- lying still. Close beside it lay another dog- wagging its tail. A few family friends stood nearby all waiting and watching. We sat, snacked, and watched. We sat and snacked and I began to comprehend. Unknowingly, we had joined a vigil. A mournful wait for an impending release, and final goodbye. A moment imbued with love and imminent loss flush with the light of a midday sun. The stillness of the moment was broken by a needle produced from a white van A short walk and a shot is buried into fur into the pink flesh beneath all that fluff and fur. The dog dies Right before our eyes. We sat there and… I thought of our dog at home. I thought of grandparents, parents, siblings, spouse… of hospices and palliative care teams, visitations and funerals I thought of loved ones and friends of tragedy and truth. I thought of my young daughter sitting close beside me Uncomprehending, uncomprehending, uncomprehending. The silence of the scene was disrupted by my daughter’s curiosity: What are they doing? Why are they crying? I fear a day of real comprehension For her For me. What was this we were witnesses to? This haunting scene- this Holy moment- So exposed to the elements to all eyes and passersby. The second dog continued wagging its tail. Uncomprehending, uncomprehending, uncomprehending. We packed our snack And returned to our walk. What else were we to do? A Waking Thought I dreamed a nostalgic nightmare The cool caress of a lover’s hand once so familiar, now distant and nearly forgotten returned to me in my rest. I wake haunted by the memories this vivid vision has invited so rudely into this room. As my partner, my friend, My chosen companion- lay asleep beside me. Why trouble my mind with such fantasies, Dream-weaver? deceiver, who seeds my thoughts with what-if’s- What was… What could have been… As my waking mind begins to shake The dreary dreamlike state and return once more to the reality that is- I love this life: all that has come and all that is and perhaps all that will be. But damn my dreams that break this bliss causing my mind to wander this restless wonder when I wake.

I met John Yamrus through an online forum. I was a newbie in the poetry world, published for about a year. John invited forum members to contact him with questions and comments. So, I did, with no idea of who he was. Or what he wrote. As he and I continued to chat, I found out that, over the course of a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John has published 35 books, including poetry, novels, memoirs, and a children's book. When I asked him which of his books would be a good introduction to his work, John recommended that I buy his latest book, “Selected Poems: The Director’s Cut.” When the book arrived, I was shocked at how thick it was. Was I ever going to get through it in my lifetime? I read the first poem, and I was hooked. I finished the book in one sitting. How is that possible? John’s poems are compact. He sucked all the fat off, including imagery and capitalization. All that’s left are the bones. Excellent bones. he asked me how do i write a poem, and when do i know that it’s done. that was a fair enough question, so i gave him a fair enough answer. i told him that i write it all down. i write it all down and start cutting. i keep cutting till i hit bone, and when i do, there’s your poem. “The Director’s Cut” isn’t a book. It’s a gift box full of wonders and surprises. So, sit on the floor with me while we unpack this box. Believe me, you should sit on the floor. One of the trademarks of John’s poetry is surprise endings, and you don’t want to fall down laughing like I did. A poem might bubble over with memories, and end with a swift punch of reality, such as: you lay in bed and there’s a train whistle somewhere off in the distance and it takes you back to a place and a time you don’t even care to remember where it was or when. back to a place with dirty sheets and dust in the corners and under the bed and you start thinking about why and who and where and how and you know it doesn’t really matter because there will always be trains and beds and sheets and the sun coming up as you wait for another day that’ll bring you that much closer to whatever it is that’s out there, waiting to finally do you in. I love the poems he writes to and about his wife. They are unabashedly, nakedly honest, and John clearly adores her. "stop opening things with your teeth,” she said. “number one, you’ll break a tooth. number two... well, it’s just a nasty, ugly habit. and i don’t like it, so, cut it out.” she was right. she always is. “besides, when you do something stupid like that it makes you look like an ass-hat.” i couldn’t argue with logic like that. so, i put it on the table, thinking maybe this time i actually bit off more than i could chew. You’ll find poems that shrug their shoulders at everyday realities like fishing, weeds, relationships, housework, and drinking beer. If you’re looking for answers, John won’t give you the pleasure, although he might pose some funny possibilities. he kept her picture in a drawer next to the bed and every now and then would take it out and look at it, hard, like it held all the answers. it didn’t matter that the picture was more than forty years old, and she was a no-good, squeezing bitch. no, what mattered was a man’s always got to have a dream, and this was his. I don’t know a poet who doesn’t write about writing (including rejections, poetry readings, interviews, and other writers). If I ever had the balls to respond to a rejection of my poetry, I’d definitely send the editor one like this: "Dear John: Concerning your most recent poem... as always, it’s engaging and technically correct, but you’re beginning to sound a bit one-note to me. How about trying a poem that isn’t about other people’s poetry – or, better yet, a poem that doesn’t even mention poetry?” hi; i’m writing to you to let you know i appreciate your concern for my literary safety... but, poems are like cookies... sometimes you just get cravings for one particular type. right now, i’m into chocolate chip. that being said, in taking your comments to heart, i went back and checked... i’ve sent you exactly 39 poems, 13 of which are about the writer’s life, or writing. i have no real defense for that. i’m afraid i AM a writer, and the only subject matter i have is me. however, that still gives you 26 other poems to consider. you can also be happy in knowing that of those 26 poems, there’s not one mention of writing... there are also: zero unicorns zero faeries zero dappled daisies zero mentions of cutting my wrists zero use of the words “life sucks” and zero poems entitled: "Life, Love or Death." you can also feel confident of finding poems that talk about picking my nose, going to the fridge for a beer and watching my dog take a dump. thanks for your continued interest... best... always... john Then there are his dog poems (I’m a dog mom, I think they’re wonderful). This is one of my favorites: the neighbor’s dog is old and deaf. she sleeps all day, pees on the rug and throws up every chance she gets. i promise i won’t do that poet thing and compare myself to her. i can’t. i’m not deaf yet, and it’s been weeks since i even came close to peeing on the rug. John knows how to portray the joys of aging and impending death, for example: i never thought i’d end this way. chronic pain 24/7. it hurts to move, it hurts to sit, it hurts to breathe. that wasn’t supposed to be me. i expected to be hitting my 60s fully formed. the crazy old guy who hit all the elevator buttons and ran. never, no way did i expect for this to happen. but, that’s okay. you play the hand you’re dealt. besides, inside i still am that guy i wanted to become. and whoever’s responsible for that other thing... you and i gotta talk. The shiniest treasure in the gift box is John himself. In his poetry, you’ll find him fearless, funny, realistic, and a man who pours his guts into every poem. Read this book, and you’ll find yourself liking him as much as I do. *** In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John Yamrus has published 35 books (29 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction and a children’s book). He has also had nearly 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A book of his “Selected Poems” was just released in Albania, translated into that language by Fadil Bajraj, who is best known for his translations of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Pound, and others. A number of Yamrus’s books and poems are taught in college and university courses. His most recent book is “Selected Poems: The Director’s Cut” (Concrete Mist Press, 542pp). *** Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Interviewer and book reviewer. Faker of fake news. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” https://amzn.to/3uEKAqa “The Big Unda” https://amzn.to/3IxmJhY “How to Get Me Up in the Morning” https://amzn.to/3RLDaKc Twitter: @NolchaF Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nolcha.fox/

after the song “Pink Venom” by BLACKPINK Thick edge of paradox no other appeal to sex quite as persuasive: four women sing syllepsis, steam smooth, and break your brain. This is not a game, but Fun making fun make fun in a Fun Factory. I recognize the play from womanhood, the expertise of a phrase tangled in a wrench, turning a careful wild sequence. Listening to the song, I think, what am I allowed? What can I take, am I too thread-stripped a different woman now, but the syntax I know: every drop in the beat a dare – (like a comma) mark a rest, then double down. Alison Heron Hruby is an associate professor of English education at Morehead State University, where she teaches courses on adolescent literacy and directs the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. She completed the AWP W2W program this past summer in poetry as Amorak Huey's mentee and is new to submitting poems for publication.

all green was the name in the house where they lived rose colored it was and full of anxiety hamlet and papa hamlet fell out because hamlet would not get a haircut or stop having sex in his room or stop smoking that hash or give over playing bass in our band or even go to school papa hamlet was rich and so never felt shame but writhed in disgrace and rage mama hamlet wrung her hands with woe over what was to become of her longhaired dopestained son there was always a lot of shouting we did our best to ignore it one gray and windswept day we were there for a jam in a room on the roof where the maids did laundry old school tintin was there with a brand new nikon so we smoked a few cigarettes for show leafed through some playboys mugging for the camera i had some new boots on i hold the picture still later we strapped on our gear and played through our set always loud sometimes good into the last act with doubled vox distortion boosters tintin burst in shouting run for your lives and we did there from the rooftop we saw a giant waterspout weaving and looming over saint georges bay we watched like rabbits frozen by the awful sight as the funnel made landfall down by the sporting club and the crust of the land broke its back and it staggered on the biscuit colored streets a great bath of salt fell from the sky on the neighborhood of manara and the lighthouse tall and striped black and white they say fishes and seaweed and sand fell too but i never saw them all green was the name rose colored the villa one day I went by to find them all gone and my guitar on the front door landing safe and sound in its case w v sutra was born in Africa and raised in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, borne hither and thither on the surging tides of cold war and soft power. He has been at various times a rock musician, a public health professional, and an educator. He began writing poetry during the Covid-19 lockdown. His work can be found in various online journals and at wvsutra.com . He lives and works on a horse farm on the shoulders of the Holston Mountains in East Tennessee. Twitter @w_v_sutra