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Juncture Paper napkins over water glasses, scarf-draped lamp hey presto flourish, quick wrist-reveal: a cage of birds that start to sing the sky to sunrise, goldfish in a bowl. The plot twists, ultimately turns like the worm—saw it coming said with dry satisfaction of the detective show, mystery novel. Puzzle piece snicking into place. Revelation. Pale horse in dawn light. Rider in shadow, lost. Fields show themselves, stubble-jawed, scratchy morning breath of fog, stumbling punch-drunk day. Inheritance My father made us breakfast each weekday morning. Cereal pre-poured into bowls the night before, paper napkins atop. He’d scowl if they fluttered off on a gust as one of us hurried past. Sugared loops with milk, and soft-boiled eggs that he scooped into blue melmac mugs for us. One slice of toast with jam, orange juice poured into small glasses, their heart and diamond patterns faded from red to a peachy pink. Our meals regimented, the way he wanted us to be. Wanted our mother to be. A gruff for chrissake if I loaded the dishwasher wrong, or my sister left a drawer in disarray, rolls of saran, tinfoil and wax paper jumbled, edges flapping and ragged. Do I bog down in details, let the reels of a childhood, of a parent’s legacy unspool? I don’t need a memory palace, no pat mnemonic, to situate my father’s pride in responsibility, his rags-to-business-suit story, his tall stance in topcoat, that brown fedora with a pinch-front crown. The military made him, gave him his upright bearing. Spine always held straight thanks to 5BX Plan exercises each day. At the lake, he’d float board-rigid on water, sporting hat and sunglasses. Or stretch out full length on my quilt alongside small me, cross ankles as he read a bedtime story. Later, he built basement rooms for my sister and me. My space, a refuge where I sank into the chaos and comfort of books. I would read past sleep time, bedside lamp burning. Overhead, floorboards creaked. I heard Dad’s noctambulant pacings, hard soles of his leather slippers slapping on lino, on hardwood as he turned off lights, lowered the thermostat, readied the kitchen for morning. The percussion of his movements alerted me to put my hand on my own lamp’s chain, ready to switch it off when his tread approached the top of the basement stairs where he might see its glow. If I mistimed or, lost to reading, forgot to listen, his voice would ring out, deep and cross: lights out! When footsteps finally passed above me, along the upstairs hallway to my parents’ room, then halted, I’d snake out an arm, turn my light back on. Fingers chilled, coverlet to chin, I would hold the book, circumventing his control, and read until my eyes ached. In my teens, I felt the chafe of rules even more, saw him as inflexible, mean. Home from party or pub, I’d slink by the chalk board posted for us to record the time of our return. And from the TV room’s open door, he’d call me in to where he sat, broadside me with questions. My traitorous dog sniffing at my breath. And, caught out but aggrieved, I squared shoulders, set my jaw like his. He had no heirlooms to leave me, but my stance now echoes his. Softened, I hope, enough to bend. Airplane A man wants an airplane to like him; he brings it things. It hums and thrums, he thinks, with pleasure at his offerings, useless as they are—toffee, feather boas, a coffee table. He tries all the endearments he can think of: liebchen, petit chou, dah-ling. But the plane doesn’t hear him over the jet whine. It loves the sky, it yearns for wing-room, for clouds. It doesn’t have space for liking, that watered-down emotion. It loves, it loves. Frances Boyle is a Canadian writer, living in Ottawa. Her most recent book, Openwork and Limestone, is forthcoming in fall 2022. In addition to two earlier books of poetry, she is also the author of a Rapunzel-infused novella and an award-winning short story collection. Places her work has appeared recently or is forthcoming include Rust and Moth, The Literary Review of Canada, Paris Lit Up, and Resurrection Magazine. For more, please visit www.francesboyle.com .

Germit Honely lopes out of jail into the sun, ready to leave the place in his rear-view for good this time. He side-eyes the squat brick buildings and fences topped with barbed wire as they slide behind, then continues down the road past a small patch of pine woods without another glance. At the intersection he turns toward town. The unaccustomed sun is bearing down hard; Germit slows his pace. The road is four-laned and busy. Vehicles whoosh unnervingly close. A figure in front of him by the length of a football field is strolling along the same sidewalk and gawping around at nothing, like a tourist. Germit glances back and there’s another loser shuffling along behind him. The three of them out-processing at the same time today. Three dipshits on the way to nowhere clutching clear plastic garbage bags – the mark of the inmate. Germit’s bag holds a pair of flip-flops, two pairs of boxer shorts, five formerly white tube socks, an unread bible, a toothbrush and a dead cell phone, minus the charger. He thinks about ditching the bag but doesn’t want to cram his pockets with the stuff, even if he is wearing cargo shorts. In his cell, he had a copy of Ashleigh, Bashfully, a romance novel which he hadn’t read, but liked the cover due to Ashleigh’s ample cleavage. It had come from the jail library, really a bunch of donated paperbacks dumped on a table in an interview room. He’d stuffed it under his mattress before he left, for the next guy to enjoy. Another intersection, a bigger highway, and a McDonald’s on the corner. He’s worked up a sweat now and would like a Coke, despite the decimation it will do to his already suspect teeth. Something he learned from a magazine article. A problem is that he has the same amount of money he went into jail with. None. Zero dollars. Zero cents. He’s thinking he can go in and ask for a cup of water. Sometimes they’ll do that for you. And maybe find a big cup someone left around and fill it with Coke and ice. It would help his walk on this sweltering day. The jail was always too cold inside and he didn’t go outside long enough to realize summer was truly here. Now he’s finding out. The shirt is stuck to his back with sweat. When he worked at the car wash he always had some change in his pockets. Despite the fact they never split the money from the tip box fairly at the end of the day. Germit suspected the car wash lifers had the system rigged so they’d get a bigger percentage. And since he only worked there a few weeks he got the shitty end of the tip stick. But he had his own system. He made a few dollars of his own each day pocketing the spare change he found in the cup holders, under the mats, under the seat, in those little nooks that took the place of ashtrays in the newer cars. When someone complained he would say the vacuum guys must have sucked it up. Until some sneaky customer had one of those dash cams facing into, not out of, the car. It was a shitty job anyway. He crosses the parking lot and is about to enter when a security guard, an old bulky guy in a gray uniform with a wide black leather belt cinching in his gut, steps outside and gives him the eye. Like he’s been watching Germit approach from inside, noted the clear bag, and came out into the heat to warn him off. Heading off jailbird trouble at the pass. Germit alters his angle slightly, and without making eye contact, continues through the parking lot like he was just passing through, cutting the corner on his way to somewhere better. Maybe Arby’s. Once he’s off McDonald’s property and can’t feel the eyes of security on his back, Germit waits for traffic to ebb and runs across the road, a little awkwardly because he hasn’t run in a while. On the other side he cuts back to the direction he intended to take, towards town. The McDonald’s detour threw him off track. Tandy is standing in her front yard cooling down after a six mile run. She’s finished the water from the bottle she’d set on the porch before she left and is taking the opportunity to survey the plant bed. It needs weeding and maybe more. She’s never planted a garden; this one came with the house. With a little research she can figure out what to do with it; what to plant, what to weed out. How to adjust to normality? Do normal things is one suggestion. A garden is about as normal as it gets. She’s about to go inside to shower when there’s a voice behind her. She knows without turning it’s the kid she passed a half mile back. Walking apparently aimlessly, clutching a plastic bag, sweating like her. “Hey,” he says, almost gently. Not aggressive. She turns. He’s standing in the street. Not too close, like he knows to keep his distance. “You got a charger?” She glances back at her truck in the driveway, about to say something smart like she doesn’t drive muscle cars but he’s digging in his bag and emerges with a phone. Cracked glass face, seen better days. “Not for that type. No.” He looks up the street a little, then back at her. “Another one of those?” He nods at her empty water bottle. “It’s pretty hot.” She debates being rude and saying no, but it seems uncalled for. He’s not really young, early twenties. Skinny, undernourished. Like one of those kids who miss a lot a school and always seem to be just getting over head lice. When she comes out of the house with two bottles he’s sitting on her steps. She knows she shouldn’t be buying plastic but can’t bring herself to trust tap water yet. She hands him one and sits down, a step above and not too close. “You lived here long?” he asks after gulping half the water. “About four months.” He finishes the rest quickly. “Do you live around here?” “I did,” he says. “My Aunt still does.” He nods up the street. “I’m gonna go see her and try to stay there for a while.” That’s when she guesses he’s come from the county jail. The bag that’s obviously not from a store. His pale skin. A passive demeanor she associates with certain prisoners. It’s about a two mile walk but she knows where the jail is. “What’s your name?” he asks, looking back at her for the first time. She tells him without correcting when he mishears. “I knew a girl named Candy in third grade,” he says. “Maybe fourth.” “Wasn’t me,” Tandy says. He examines her as if he doesn’t believe her, not getting the straight-faced joke. “I’m about thirty years older than you,” exaggerating a bit. She hopes the age difference will convince him she’s not rape-worthy, if that’s his intent. She doesn’t think so, but you can never tell for sure. He looks around, like he’s wondering why he’s sitting here talking to this older woman. “Hey, can I use your bathroom?” Tandy thinks again about saying no, but decides to err on the side of trust. She’s spent time in close quarters with a lot worse than this kid. Her father would advise against taking unnecessary chances, that sometimes no is a good choice, but his voice is fading with time. She leads him inside and he stops in the hall to look at the framed photos on the wall. The ones she doesn’t want in the bedroom or the living room. Small groups of men and women in dusty camo and rough weather gear posing in front of squat structures with snow-capped mountains looming behind. She simultaneously holds the faces in her mind and pushes them away. “Were you in the Army?” “More of a civilian advisor,” she says. It still pains a deep part of her to look at the photos, but when she moved into this house she felt the need to put them up. To not forget. “Most of those people are gone now,” she says. He doesn’t seem to understand. “I knew a guy that went to Iraq as a cook for some big company. Made a ton of money. He came back and blew it on meth and a motorcycle.” “This was Afghanistan. Excuse me for a moment,” she says and moves into the bathroom. She locks the door, stands at the sink, and looks at her face in the mirror. If she hadn’t disappeared inside to send an e-mail announcing that their day-late and potentially Grade AAA+ source had arrived she would have been one of the dead in the photo. The dusty red Subaru finally eased through the barricades and she ducked through the door to spread the good news when the explosion pushed her to the floor. She washes her face and realizes she left a stranger alone in her house. A criminal. When she steps into the kitchen one hand is in her purse and the other grips one of her new kitchen knives. One of the big ones. The knife drawer is half open. He looks at her like a kid caught, terror mixed with defiance on his face. Then he raises the knife. Tandy steadies her breathing. She stands ten feet away and wills her mind to swing into the present. It takes a second. This can be dealt with. She has faced rage-fueled people. This is not one of them. “What’s your name?” she says. “What?” he says, doing some adjusting of his own, not as adept. “Your name.” “Germit,” he says, confused. He looks at his hands, one still in the purse, the other with the knife, like he’s wondering how that happened. Jesus, she thinks. Germit. What a handle. He’d barely have a chance in life. She’d bet a retirement check the neighborhood kids called him Germ growing up. On the base they used to bet on anything. Which gate guards would actually show up for work that day. When the fresh eggs would run out. Which high value target would be found first. The payoff was in cups of coffee. You lost, and over the next days you brought the winner however many cups of coffee you had wagered. The coffee was free in any case. The wager was in the serving, the care it took to make it to their specifications and deliver the coffee to your colleague. Tandy would bet right now that Germit has never tasted a good Irish whiskey, or any Irish whiskey. She feels the need for action, and taking advantage of his confusion, takes a chance and moves away from him to the little overpriced bar cart she found in an antique store up the road. “Want a drink?” she says, holding up an unopened bottle of Bushmills, the only spirit her father kept in his house. Germit looks at her like his mind is somewhere else, like running out the door with her wallet. But he shifts into the present and sees what’s in front of him. “What is it?” he says. Bingo. That would have been a ten-cup wager, two days’ worth. She’s already removed two heavy Waterford glasses from the second shelf of the cart. She twists the cap and feels the snap of the seal breaking, letting him see her movements, and pours about three shots into each glass. No ice or water. She takes one and eases into a chair without turning her back on him. “Good whiskey,” she says. She takes a sip without trying to sell it further and concentrates on not letting her hand shake. After some time he sidles to the cart, curious about the arrangement. A bit of luxury he hasn’t experienced before. He takes the glass and sits awkwardly on the sofa opposite her. She’s not going to mention the purse, still on the kitchen counter, or the knife, now lying next to his leg. Like it didn’t happen. There’s no reason to trigger his guilt or shame or whatever it is he’s burdened with. He’s takes a sip and makes a scrunchy face at the burn. She sips, but not as much as she lets on, to encourage him. Get him a little loose. That could go either way of course. He takes a bigger sip, getting used to it now, and looks at her. Maybe she should have added water to make it more palatable, but it seems to be going down okay. “This isn’t bad after the first one,” he says. She fake sips, holding the glass with both hands. “Listen, Candy,” he says, a coming-clean moment. “I just got out of jail. It’s my second time as an adult. I tend to screw up a lot.” She sips for real this time, to avoid pointing out that he’s done it again. “I just did six months for grabbing a tourist’s purse downtown,” he says. “I snatched it and ran. The lady’s husband was behind me calling me a little shit and yelling that he was going to kill me. I looked back at him and when I turned around again there was a police horse blocking the sidewalk and I ran face-first into it. The public defender told me I was lucky to get six months and luckier I didn’t get stomped.” She watches Germit and lets him talk. “My mom was in rehab. They got one of my Aunts to come to my sentencing and tell the judge that I hadn’t been right in the head since I was born.” He drinks a little more, the glass almost empty now, and she thinks he’s closed his eyes for a second. She could run for the door but considers another course, keeping her hands around the glass so he won’t notice how much is left. “Are you hungry?” she says when the gap between words gets too long. “I’m starving after that run.” “I didn’t eat breakfast,” he says. “I was too nervous about getting out.” And I’m nervous about the opposite, she thinks. The knife is still next to his leg. “You want a pizza?” He’s a little loose now, some chow would be good. “Sure. Meat lovers.” Her phone is on the table where she left it before the run. She puts the glass down, partially concealed by a candle. She presses 911 and waits for the answer. “Hey,” he says, watching her. “You didn’t hit enough numbers.” “Speed-dial,” she says. “I call them all the time.” She can’t remember the last time she ordered a pizza. Five years? Six? The dispatcher answers and after a pause is quick on the uptake as she asks for a pizza and gives the address. Are you in trouble? “Yes.” Is it someone you know? “No.” Are they in your house now? “Yes.” Is it one person? “Yes.” “Candy,” Germit says. “Why all the questions?” “She’s going through the toppings. Do you want pepperoni?” “Just get the meat lovers. All of it,” he says. “And ask if they have any job openings.” Candy is kinda cool, Germit thinks. A soft touch. Like an aunt. Maybe she’ll let him stay here for a while. She has enough room. He could cut the grass or something. Of course he’d have to smooth over any bad feelings she has about the knife. He doesn’t know why he even pulled it out of the drawer. One of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. He thought he was going to rob her but after a drink or two he doesn’t feel like it. She’ll understand. She seems like one of those teachers who know to let things roll of their backs, like if you call them a twat because they fail you, then next year act like it never happened when you’re sitting in eleventh grade English Lit again and you’re nineteen years old. True story. He thinks he hears her mention the word knife but he must have nodded off for a second and can’t be sure. He didn’t sleep much last night because he was getting out today and kept having dreams about the guards refusing to release him for some bullshit reason no one ever would explain. She puts the phone on the chair next to her and tells him they’ll be here with the pizza in a few minutes. “Thanks Candy. That’s real nice of you,” he says. “Sorry about the knife and all. It’s just that nothing seems to be going my way for the last year or so and sometimes I don’t know what to do.” She let the snake into the henhouse. Not a fox, the other, the one in the Subaru was a fox. Sneaky and lethal. This is like a baby snake, dangerous in its cluelessness. “You’ll feel better after they get here,” she says. She’s staring outside now, must be hungrier than him. “What are you looking at?” She turns to Germit as if she’s forgotten he’s here. The look on her face is so blank for a second that it almost scares him. He’s seen that expression on the guys you avoided in jail. “What did you say you did over in Iraq?” She doesn’t answer. She’ll remain Candy who worked in Iraq to him. Suddenly, she’s hungry for real. It seems crazy, but she’s starving. A serious hankering for something familiar. Improbably, there’s a restaurant downtown run by Afghans. She’s been there twice. “I’m going to order something else,” she says and picks up the phone without worrying about his reaction. Germit doesn’t move and just listens as she orders a Chapli Kabab, gives her address, and puts the phone down. He seems unconcerned. He’s watching her. “What were you talking? Iraqi? I’ve heard enough Spanish to know it wasn’t that.” Not accusing. He seems to have placed some trust in Tandy now, either due to the whiskey, his nature, or a combination of the two. She almost feels bad about calling the police now. Almost. “What? I just ordered food,” she says. “Yeah, in not English.” She’d switched languages without conscious effort. That was a first. A stress reaction. “Pashto, she says. “Sorry.” “You must be hungry,” he says. “Pizza and whatever else you just ordered.” “The pizza’s for you,” Tandy says, and looks out the window for a minute. “Here they are,” she says brightly. “I’ll go pay,” and she’s up and out the door before he can say her purse is on the counter and still has the money he didn’t take. He gets up, knife and drink forgotten, stumbles a bit and reaches for the purse to bring it to her when two cops slide in the door with their pistols trained on his chest and a mean look in their eyes. He drops the purse and gets on the floor like they tell him. Resisting is not his thing. Another shitty day. He wants to cry. “You could have helped me Candy,” he says loudly, accompanied by flying spittle as he’s being led out the door with his hands cuffed behind his back. The cop standing next to her cocks his head at the Candy and checks his notepad. “It’s Tandy. He wanted to hear Candy,” she says. “So that’s what he heard.” “It’s a way of life with these guys,” the officer says. “Hear what they want and ignore the rest.” He’s appraising her now, almost visibly wondering about the seeming coolness with which she handled the situation. For occupation she’d merely answered retired. “You didn’t have to turn me in,” Germit yells while being escorted across the front yard. “I’m sorry,” before the back door of the cruiser closes on him. Tandy and the officer trade a look. She hands him the clear plastic bag. “This is his.” “That’s convenient,” he says. “They won’t have to give him another.” She watches as the officer’s attention turns to a car pulling up. “You expecting someone?” he says. “I almost forgot.” She walks into the house and comes back with her wallet, found on the floor. She goes to the car, hands over a twenty, exchanges thanks with the driver, and returns to the officer with a take-out bag. “Did you order that before?” he asks. Tandy displays something related to embarrassment. “During.” She smiles for the first time. He shakes his head and looses a burst of a laugh. “That’s a new one.” The officer looks at her as he’s leaving. “I suppose you know this could have turned out a lot worse if you hadn’t kept your head,” he says, with a ghost of a smile. “Yes,” is all she says. She wants to eat before it gets cold. Germit slumps on the hard back seat of the patrol car. The cop turns his head slightly. “Looks like you picked the wrong house today brother. That woman took you down without lifting a finger.” “Candy’s a badass,” Germit says. “I think we could’ve been kinda friends if I hadn’t fucked it up.” Tandy lay on the cold gritty floor for what was probably a few seconds, ears ringing, dirt dusting down around her, instantly knowing that it was the end of so much. She pushed herself up to her knees to crawl outside and see what she could do.

Content warnings for eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and body shaming DAY 18: 168 lbs Dear Bobby, I can’t believe it took me 18 days to realize. If I had realized earlier, I would have started on March 1 like you. Just like how I grew my hair out and bleached it blond to match yours. I’m pretending to do calculus, which I’m sure you were blissfully spared from. I mean, you married at 18. From prison! If only I was good with girls like you. Adrianne hasn’t spoken a word to me—at least not any I want to remember—since eighth grade when Mr. Feagley forced her to dance with me in Phys Ed. Once I drop a few more pounds, once I’m no longer the fat kid she snickered at, then she’ll notice me. I’ve gotten down to 168 lbs so far. It’s not great but it’s better than 203. I bet Geraldine adored you. Best, Laurence DAY 20: 165 lbs Dear Bobby, I should have done calculus instead of pretending because now my mother is yelling about my C+. I wonder what you were like in school. If you and Geraldine were the popular steadies or the quiet kids falling in love from the back desks. I wonder what you thought you wanted before the Provisional IRA. You made the right choice though. I can’t imagine you as a doctor or factory worker or whatnot. You fit one image and that’s the boy in a blazing gunfight with the police. The man who refused to wear a prison uniform or break under torture and finally, to eat. You always fought with utmost courage and perseverance. I wonder what your mother thought when they caught you with the guns and gave you five years. When they gave you fourteen the second time around. I bet she was real proud in the end. Best, Laurence DAY 24: 161 lbs Dear Bobby, Sometimes I get away by saying I have homework to do, but as dinner’s the only time we see Dad, Mom’s pretty adamant about it. I take a few bites and fake the rest. I hide food in a napkin when I can or smear it onto the plate so it looks like I ate and left residue. Sometimes it’d be easier to eat, and sometimes I’m hungry enough to, but each calorie adds to my weight and nullifies my progress. The temporary comfort of food isn’t worth what it takes to get rid of it. Even “healthy” foods are calorie-laden. Take an apple for example. It’s 95 calories which at a basal metabolic rate takes your body two hours to burn. Two hours your body will not shed fat. Today, I gazed at Adrianne too long and she whispered to her friends and they all wrinkled their noses at me. I didn’t even mean to stare. I glanced at her for a moment, and before I knew it, my mind blanked and ten minutes passed. Ceecee says they told everyone what a creep I am. I bet they wouldn’t say that if I were hot—if I were skinny. I decided to take my school’s advice on self-care and treated myself to as many laps around the school as I could. It was only one lap. It worries me. Once, I could do two and still have energy left. Best, Laurence DAY 28: 158 lbs Dear Bobby, Ceecee and I turned eighteen today. Dad took a day off to celebrate, and Mom pulled out all stops making us red velvet cupcakes and meringues, Ceecee’s favorite. I should appreciate her hard work. Before, I would have, but now I know what sugar does to my weight. One taste when Mom prodded the cupcake toward me and nausea overcame me. I ate so she wouldn’t suspect anything and immediately regretted it. One of those things contains 250 calories. 5 hours of basal metabolic rate. I gave the meringues (80 calories, 1.6 hours) to Ceecee, who dug into them gratefully. My sister’s lucky, getting to eat whatever she wants whenever she wants. But I remember there’s no point in envy when you got where you are by not eating. “I need to work on the history project.” “Honey, it’s your birthday,” Mom said. “Homework doesn’t stop for birthdays,” I replied. I needed to get to the bathroom before my body absorbed the cupcake. “Please, Mom?” “Let the kid go,” Dad said. I have never been so grateful to him in my life. I went to the bathroom and vomited three times, just to be sure I got everything out. The scale showed 158 lbs after that. I jogged until I lost so much breath my ribs caved in on each other, a reminder that I’m still too heavy to run properly. You could run, Armalite rifle slung over your shoulder as you rushed headlong into the shootout. Best, Laurence DAY 31: 156 lbs Dear Bobby, I’m pretty sure I’m the only student who read books and old newspapers instead of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Maybe I try too hard, but I’m always meticulous with history, especially if it involves you. It paid off today when Mrs. Simmons reviewed my project notes and said she looked forward to the final product. I grinned at her all class, never mind that Adrianne rolled her eyes at me, telling another girl that I was a “complete suck-up.” That is a direct quote. Xander came over for dinner today, which was great cover. I’m too polite to eat while listening to my sister’s boyfriend, who might also be my only friend even though he’s a year younger. Even if it was mostly Ceecee jabbering about researching this year’s local candidates. “It’s an off-year,” she said, “but, like, I still want to vote, you know? And I want it to matter." She looked at me. “You should do some research, too, Laurence.” I wish I was in Fermanagh and South Tyrone in 1981 so I could vote for you. In America, we only have middle-aged businessmen with too much free time. And how can they compare to the young freedom fighter who coordinated the hunger strike, epitomized the revolution? Best, Laurence DAY 35: 153 lbs Dear Bobby, I’ve had to catch up on calculus, and each problem takes hours at a time because of my stupid headaches. At least I have a valid excuse not to go to dinner now. When Mom brings me food, I toss it out once she leaves. The downside: I can’t escape the smell. It drives me dizzy with the constant reminder of what I am, the fat kid who everybody called an apple bobbing in the swimming pool and who disgusts Adrianne. The guilt is inevitable, but I remember your words: if I die, God will understand. Between bites of calculus and your autobiography, I beam at my project. I love the timeline of your life from your birth to the Provisional IRA to the Maze Prison and the hunger strike. I love the newspaper clippings, the audio bites from the BBC coverage of your strike. When I’m really delirious, I picture Adrianne watching my presentation with eyes enraptured and mouth agape, dropping her pencil as she concentrates on nothing but me. She’ll reconsider everything she ever thought of me. She’ll see me as erudite and charming, no longer the fat kid. Which won’t happen because Adrianne’s not the type of girl to like this kind of thing and even if I am erudite and charming, I am still the fat kid. I’m far from where I started at 203 lbs but it’s not enough. Best, Laurence DAY 38: 150 lbs Dear Bobby, Everyone looked at me weird during my presentation today, especially Adrianne. I guess I did take twenty-five minutes and gulp and stutter a lot. I blame my swaying legs. My head careens when I stand, and it takes me a moment to reorient. “Thanks for that,” Xander whispered when I sat back down. “We’ll spend another day at least on presentations.” Mrs. Simmons called me over at the end of class. “You were wonderful,” she told me. I got the strange sensation that a cruel taffy maker was pulling my brain out of my skull. I rubbed my temples as hard as I could. “Obviously, you worked hard on this. Would you like to pursue this further? I know of plenty of summer opportunities.” I nodded, digging my knuckles deeper into my temples. Strange how one pain can distract you from another. “Laurence, are you alright?” I nodded. “Xander’s waiting for me,” I said, because he was. “Are you alright?” Xander said as we walked to our next class, the dreaded calculus. “You look way different than, like, two months ago.” I didn’t think so. I check my appearance every morning along with my weight. It’s frustrating, how despite my losses, nobody can see it. “Of course,” I told Xander. “Laurence, you’re wearing a winter coat in April. You’re sure there’s nothing wrong?” “Yeah. I’m just cold.” If only I did look different. Then I’d know I accomplished something. But I’m sure there were days when you wondered if you made any difference or if you strived in vain. Yet you persevered and starved for 66 whole days. Jiang / Dear Bobby Sands / 9 Best, Laurence DAY 39: 149 lbs Dear Bobby, Xander can’t keep his mouth shut, can he? I’m chilling (literally, it’s been so cold!), thumbing through your autobiography, when Ceecee bursts into my bedroom. “Laurence, what are you doing?” she snapped, marching to my desk with her hands on her hips. “Reading.” “No shit. Look, Laurence. Xander says you throw away your lunch. Like, all of it.” “I always eat too much for breakfast.” “Stop lying. You haven’t been buying anything.” Ceecee’s mouth adopted a disapproving tilt. “And now that I look at you… Laurence, you look so different.” Why does everyone keep telling me that? “I’m fine. Just not so hungry anymore.” Which is the truth. I have to stop myself from tossing away the entire lunch box. I hate opening it. The mere sight of food evokes memories: Adrianne and her friends, the endless stream of side eyes and snickers, how I found out in the worst possible way that while I loved her, my body ensured she thought the exact opposite of me. “Look, I don’t know how long this has been going on, but…” Ceecee shook her head again. I disgust her, too. “Ceecee, I have to work.” Mrs. Simmons introduced me to a journal that publishes historical research essays by high school students, and I need to get something about you in there. I think I’ll write about how you radicalized the Irish Republican movement. I hoped Ceecee would drop the subject, but at dinner, Mom wouldn’t stop staring as I pressed peas under my fork and smeared them around my plate. She pulled me aside after Dad volunteered to wash the dishes. She noticed I didn’t eat dinner, and that Ceecee told her I didn’t eat lunch or breakfast either. She said now that she thought about it, I was thinner than before. I reminded her that I am not thin. “That does not mean you cannot eat, Laurence,” she snapped. “You are not anorexic. I will not have you pretending you are.” A caustic laugh exploded out of me. I know exactly what I am—I’ve done the research. Some might call it a disease, some might call it shameful, but if you did it, I can’t see why it’s anything but good. I tried to escape to work on my essay, but Mom dragged me bodily to the dinner table and shoved a slice of bread (110 calories, 2.2 hours) in my face. “Eat,” she ordered. I needed to appease her, but looking at that piece of bread, I couldn’t. The thought of all those calories brought tears to my eyes, and I knew that even if I did shove the bread into my mouth, I’d want to spit it out. It hurt so much to gulp it down as quickly as possible. I went to the bathroom and hollowed everything out. Nobody can ruin my perfect streak. Not Xander, not Ceecee, not Mom, not Dad. Best, Laurence DAY 41: 148 lbs Dear Bobby, Every morning, Ceecee watches me get into line at the cafeteria and purchase a donut (240 calories, 4.8 hours) and eat the whole thing. I tear it into small pieces and chew like a sloth so the first period bell will ring and I have an excuse to dash to the bathroom. Then, just in case, I skip first period to jog. First period’s my study hall, which I need because not even a miracle can save my calc grade, but this is more important. Same goes for lunch. Xander makes sure I open the lunch box and scarf its contents. Ceecee drops by even though this isn’t her lunch period. “I’m not hungry” will trigger her alarm mode, so I never say it. I lick my lips as if I relish the yogurt and the apple slices with peanut butter (435 calories, 8.7 hours). I hate Mom for it. It hurts. It hurts so much to put those calories into my body. It hurts to swallow. Everything but water hurts my throat and stomach. At least I can trust my middle finger. I know where to press because, like lock and key, there’s a bruise in my throat and a matching one on my finger. In the Maze Prison, they called you leader. In Fermanagh and South Tyrone, they elected you their MP. In Belfast, they adorn walls with your face and name. All around the world, they christen streets after you. A little more, and Adrianne will notice me. Best, Laurence DAY 44: 146 lbs Dear Bobby, I’ve started to wear two shirts and a hoodie and winter coat. I think it’s the coldest April mwe’ve had. I had to lean against the railing to catch my breath halfway up the stairs to history. Adrianne and her friends sauntered up to me. “It’s like middle school, isn’t it? The fat kid can’t get up the stairs.” They snickered and finished the steps. I’d like to point out that I had no trouble getting up the stairs in middle school. I huffed a bit, sure, but I always got up. I arrived five minutes late to class, but Mrs. Simmons didn’t utter a word. Either that or I didn’t hear. Adrianne’s words echoed louder than bullets, drowning out Mrs. Simmons’ lecture. Once the cold lets up, I’ll shed my layers and she’ll see the real me. When Ulster loyalists terrorized your family, you didn’t cower. You fought back. You joined the Provisional IRA and took up a gun. Getting locked in the Maze Prison didn’t stop you. You kept fighting, kept giving the middle finger to your oppressors, this time by refusing to eat. I will, too. Best, Laurence DAY 48: 143 lbs Dear Bobby, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Mrs. Simmons was lecturing about you—you!—and even mentioned my presentation, but I was so cold and dizzy, I didn’t catch a word. Xander snapped his fingers in my face. “If calc keeps you up that late, I’ll do it for you.” I shrugged. “She’s talking Bobby Sands. How are you, of all people, zoning out?” Then he frowned and said, “You alright, Laurence? You’re looking worse for wear.” “It’s just senioritis.” I glared at Mrs. Simmons for the rest of class. I cannot have Xander ratting me out again. Not when I am so close. You starved yourself for 66 days. My gut tells me that if I follow in your footsteps, everything will turn out alright. You starved because you loved Ireland. I love Adrianne. Best, Laurence DAY 49: 142 lbs Dear Bobby, This time, Mom burst into my room while I reread your autobiography. “The school called today,” she said. “They have received multiple reports that you’ve exhibited a concerning weight loss. So, Laurence, would you care to explain?” Xander ratted me out. “I thought you were getting better!” Mom threw up her hands, her face twisted with distress. “You were eating! And now they’re recommending professional treatment.” Which is a fancy way of saying they’ll tie me to a hospital bed and track my every movement. I can’t have that, not with my essay, not with exams coming up, not with me so close to 66. “I will not have any child of mine confined in a mental hospital,” Mom went on. She rocked herself with her head in hands. “You’re not sick. You’re not sick. My son is not sick.” When you refused to wear a prison uniform, they confiscated your bedsheets so you couldn’t clothe yourself with them. You sat naked in a cold, cramped cell for 22 days rather than capitulate. “From now on, you stay home.” Mom fixed her unblinking eyes on me. “We can’t have the school forcing me to hospitalize you.” I don’t care what they do to me, I won’t stop. I will keep fighting like you. Once, I thought it was cool to share a name with Laurence McKeown, your fellow striker, but now I wish I didn’t. There is no glory in quitting. Best, Laurence DAY 53: 139 lbs Dear Bobby, After I ate the small dinner (370 calories, 7.4 hours) Mom set out for me last night, I went to the bathroom, as usual. But this time, Dad yanked the door open—I will always regret that we have no locks—to find me bent over the toilet with my fingers stuck in my throat. Now they won’t let me go to the bathroom within an hour of eating. I tried to get sick in the shower today, and I did, but I don’t think it made any difference. When Mom and Dad are at work, I run laps around the house, and when they think I’m copying Xander’s notes, I pace my bedroom. I can never keep it up for long, not with my limbs trembling like jelly or the cold cutting to my bones. You survived beatings and torture. You persevered, and in return, 30,000 elected you to Parliament, 10,000 rioted in your name, and 100,000 attended your funeral. I’ll fight, too, until people see I’m more than the fat kid. Best, Laurence DAY 59: 131 lbs Dear Bobby, I pushed the bookcase and bed against the door. It’s the only way to fix it. I brought everything I need to last the week. A case of water (0 calories and ingesting water speeds up metabolism by 30% for the next hour, or about 15 additional calories. Besides, you starved, not dehydrated). My laptop so I can email Mrs. Simmons for assignments. And of course, your autobiography and this notebook to keep me company. You’re the only one who understands. I wrap myself in blankets like you did before they got confiscated, except I actually have clothes underneath. I’m so cold as I shuffle across the room, counting laps through chapped lips. If you could go 22 days naked, I can go 7 like this. Best, Laurence DAY 60: 130 lbs Dear Bobby, Someone—I think Dad—is pounding on my door, shouting at me to let him in. It hurts my ears, so I press my head into the pillow. It helps for a bit, but now Ceecee’s wailing like a banshee. “Laurence, please! Please! Open up, please!” It shreds against my ears, and if I had any strength left in my sour throat, I would scream. But I only shake and shiver and bleed my soul onto these pages. DAY 60 It took nearly everything I had in me to stuff my shirts into the door to muffle the yelling. Not that it means much now. The shouting and banging stopped an hour ago. I didn’t consider that I can’t avoid the mirror, and thus, my fat self. While I wait for Mrs. Simmons’ email, I pull the thing off the wall and smash it in my closet. I ache all over. Bruises cover my limbs though I can’t remember anything that might have done that. My eyelids droop, and I write through the narrow slit I can keep open. Tiocfaidh ár lá. Our day will come. The last thing you wrote, the motto of the revolution. Tiocfaidh ár lá. Tiocfaidh ár lá. Tiocfaidh ár lá. Best, Laurence DAY 63: ??? lbs Dear Bobby, They finally let me have the paper and pen. I’ve sat here for ten minutes tapping the pen against the plastic desk. Because what can I say? I failed. I’m in a hospital gown I can’t refuse in a bed I’m not allowed to leave (you once refused to leave your cell but I don’t think that applies here). They started by pumping glucose into my blood. I spent the night doing the math and it’s 200 calories per liter. Two hundred fucking calories. 4 full hours of basal metabolic rate. I had spotted the ambulance parked on our driveway, red and white and blue lights blaring, so I knew to fight when they unhinged the door. They had to hold me down, all four paramedics, to load me into the stretcher. Is this how you felt after you fought your hardest but got arrested anyway? When you found yourself in prison again after less than a year free? They diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder. You protested because you refused to be degraded into a common criminal. I wish I could do the same but I don’t know how. After the first night, they said I couldn’t stay on the glucose drip forever, so I’d eat or get force-fed. It was my choice, but the thought of a tube shoved up my nose scared me into agreeing. The nurse gave me tomato soup and a sandwich. It made me so bloated it hurt and I told her so but she still made me finish. She refused to tell me the calories. I’m like you in the Maze Prison except I have no fight left. Best, Laurence DAY 66: ??? lbs Dear Bobby, Today should have been the day, but it isn’t. I should have received an end to Adrianne’s ridicule, to all of it. Instead, I got my parents in tears. They apologized, saying they’d noticed how thin I had become, but they hadn’t wanted to believe I was sick. They showed me a photo of myself in the hospital bed. I wonder if I resemble you in your last moments. “Please cooperate with them,” Dad said. “We almost lost you, Laurence.” He pressed his forehead to my hand. “They said any further would have ruined your heart.” At least now I can see what difference I have made. Best, Laurence One year later Dear Bobby, I spent five months in the hospital and took a gap year because of that. Ceecee switched her college choice last minute so she could stay close to me. I’m headed to the same college this September alongside Xander. I gotta say, I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have him and Ceecee. I said the hospital felt like prison, but I’m glad I went through it. Though it’s difficult to eat so much again, I’m doing my best to maintain a healthy weight. The discomfort has subsided over time, though, so hopefully, I won’t need surgery. Mom and Dad allowed Ceecee and me to take a trip to the Emerald Isle. If you were right about anything, you were right to love your home. It is, truly, the most beautiful place on earth. So here I kneel at your grave. I offer hardy fuchsia, the green-and-orange flag, and this last letter. I give you the blessing of your people: May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft on your fields. It is the least a martyr deserves. I give you Bono’s words: Fuck the revolution. Where’s the glory? Because maybe you became the martyr, the hero, the face on the banners, but what about the wife and son, the parents and siblings you so recklessly left behind? Goodbye, Laurence

My Love Is Like A Little Blue Lada My love is like a little blue Lada packed to the ceiling with melons pressed against the windows and stacked on the dashboard, rolling along the mountain road through vineyards past picnic spots under pines twisting high up the hills impossibly full and moving steadily. I pass it going just a little faster but you aren’t with me on this drive and you can’t eat melons because they make your lips swell and I remember that slowing down enough to let it catch up to me impossibly full and moving steadily. Three Stones A young stone in a brown sling revolves Above smooth shoulders wondering why The weight of the world is much lighter Than they say it is- and he releases The Earth flung fast into curved space Rotates to consider the sun unphased And looks away another cold evening In autumn years and finally sets hard In the broad brow of a humbled man Holding gray his head in weary hands Deep regret and the impact of time Strike a crater to put the dark to rest Ryan Keating is a writer, teacher, and winemaker on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His work can be found in publications such as Saint Katherine Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, Macrina Magazine, Fathom, Dreich, Vocivia, and Miras Dergi, where he is a regular contributor in English and Turkish.

A skateboard dangles from Seth’s left arm, scuffed grip tape scraping his skin, the filthy wheels still spinning. With his right arm, he unlocks the wooden gate and lets himself in, not bothering to close it behind him. A quick glance around the party reveals no signs of dogs, just shrieking children and tired parents with shirts stretched across bulging bellies. He sees Kelly mouth the words “Jesus Christ.” He watches Danielle whisper something viciously to her husband Jack then storm off. He hears Lisa hiss at Ricky: “You seriously invited Thirst!?” Someone somewhere mentions “last time,” and the phrase hangs suspended in the air, suffocating the mood like a damp quilt. Seth navigates his way through the minefield of plastic children’s toys, his eyes focused on the cooler up against the side of the house. He shakes a few male hands, reciprocates some forced, tight-lipped smiles, and nods at the sparse greetings of “Hey, Thirst!” He doesn’t particularly care for the nickname, but nobody ever asked his opinion. Seth Hurst said fast enough sounds like “Thirst” anyway. At the cooler, he clears off two nearly-full beers from the lid before opening it and plunging his hand toward the bottom, fishing out an ice-cold can. He twirls the frosty aluminum between his fingers, looking for the ABV. 4.7%. Smirking, he drops the beer back into the ice bath, selecting instead a double IPA, obviously part of a hipster variety pack. 8.2%. Much better. He cracks open the can on his way toward the recycling bin to deposit the two empty airplane bottles of Devil’s Cut that he polished off during his quick cruise over. He notices Danielle posted up next to the bin, so he turns sharply and walks in the opposite direction. Instinctively, he pats his back pocket, and warmth flows through his chest as he feels the half-pint of bourbon. “Thirst!” a clap on his back sends a spray of beer foam from his mouth. Ricky stands beside him, looking out over the hordes of children running and falling, screaming and crying, snotting and slobbering across the backyard. Tucked away toward the fence, a brightly-colored pinata swings lazily from the playset, a donkey with a gaping grin, teeth clean and white, eyes wide open as if holding in a fart. The children’s playset looks like the set to a children’s play: a giant dark wooden pirate ship complete with a climbing wall up its starboard side, thick ropes suspended from the mast, and a brown sliding board curling out from the poop deck like a dog turd. The maudlin donkey dangles from the bowsprit, waiting indifferently for a child to spill its insides out on the ground, its guts surely matching the flamboyance of its exterior. Seth shakes his head as he remembers pitching the idea to his friends about having an adult party, complete with a bouncy house and pinata. But instead of filling the pinata with candy, he’d said they’d fill it with adult fun: airplane bottles of booze, lottery tickets, loose Black & Milds, bottle openers, condoms. “Who the hell still uses condoms,” Jack, an overweight father of three, sneers, scratching the bald spot beneath his scally cap. The idea of celebrating his upcoming 40th birthday by exclusively drinking 40s was also nixed as soon as he opened his mouth. A reference was made to his infamous Thirsty Thirty party, and with it, the conversation ended. Not surprising, as he couldn’t even round up the troops for Thirsty Thursdays anymore. “Thirst! I’m surprised you came!” Jack says now, suddenly standing next to him. “I mean, after last time and all…” Last time. Seth couldn’t remember what the last time was. Or when it was. He could remember the sultry weather that turned the Fritos and generic tortilla chips left out in the bowl limp. He could remember skating home as the sun was setting, that happy hour when the day yields to night. Stopping to buy a six-pack. He could remember arguing with the clerk who told him they were closing and that he wouldn’t sell him beer anyway. Seth couldn’t remember the outcome of the argument. He could remember pissing behind the Dumpster, his urine mixing with the wretched-stinking garbage juice trickling from the drain at the bottom. He could remember standing outside the door to their home, struggling to fit his key into the lock, the metal bent from popping the caps off of bottles at Jack and Danielle’s. That was back at the old place. Before he lived alone. Jack and Ricky are talking about how much of a pain in the ass building the playset was but stop awkwardly when Seth looks at them inquisitively, silently trying to recall an invitation to help. Ricky mutters an excuse about checking on the kids or the cake or some bullshit and slinks off. Jack follows. Seth finishes his beer, crushes the can in his fist, and heads back to the cooler. Besides the lone lightweight pilsner, the only cans left are tall and skinny flavored seltzers. Seth frowns and fishes out a brown bottle, a regular IPA that appears to have been left over from the last time. Using the plastic bottle opener he keeps in his pocket to avoid ruining the key to his new place, he pops open the beer and slips the cap and opener back into his pocket. With beer in hand, he meanders about the party. Sunlight filters through the sparse leaves still stuck to the crooked branches of the trees. Kids clutch juice boxes and Capri Suns, scampering across the yard screaming and squealing. Adults laugh and sigh and gossip and complain. “Thirst! Cheers!” Greg clinks bottles with him. His girlfriend (or wife? He can’t remember), Brandy, forces a smile. At least he remembers her name. “I can’t believe you still skate, man,” Greg offers, an ambiguous smile snaked across his face. Kelly mutters something to Brandy about driving, or not driving, and the two women separate themselves from the men. “But I keep forgetting you moved, so I guess it’s not that bad of a trip. Last time you were here you were still living with...” Danielle interrupts with an announcement that the cake is going to be served. Children scramble toward the house, dropping toys on the lawn and knocking over lawn chairs along the way. Adults slowly shuffle toward the back door. Seth polishes off the beer and grabs another bottle from the cooler. He starts reaching into his back pocket but stops, remembering the talk of “last time.” He waits until everyone has entered the house before making his way toward the back of the yard, his eyes set on the monstrous pirate ship and the dopey dangling donkey. Behind the pirate ship playset, on the port side, is a latticed ramp leading up to an enclosed area with a gunport on the starboard side. Seth slowly climbs the ramp and makes himself comfortable in the darkened cabin. Or at least as comfortable as an adult could get in the belly of a children’s playset. He fumbles out a pack of cigarettes from his left pocket and lights one, making sure to blow the smoke out the opening on the port side so no one would spot him. Three drags into his cigarette, he realizes he has nowhere to ash and feels like an absolute asshole doing so inside the cramped cabin. He quickly chugs the rest of his beer, surprised at how much is still left, and ashes his cigarette into the bottle, stifling a hoppy burp. With a satisfying soft snap like that of a wishbone splitting, he cracks open his back pocket bottle of booze and takes a solid sip. After the previous cooler-chilled beers, the bourbon burns his throat and heats his breath. His head immediately feels lighter, and he floats cautiously, awkwardly, like a week-old dollar store helium balloon hesitatingly hovering above the floor. He leans back against the wall and smokes. When was the last time he was on a playset? When was the last time he played? When was the last time he was here? He exhales his last drag from his cigarette and drops the stub into his empty bottle. The cherry extinguishes with a pleasant hiss. His eyes scan the dark interior of the pirate ship and stop when they meet the eyes of the pinata donkey staring blankly at him through a crack in the wood. “Cheers, party animal!” Seth laughs to himself. He takes another deep pull from the bottle and coughs. “I feel ya, man,” he tells the paper mache party supply. “I used to be the life of the party, just like you.” He sips. “Guess I passed the torch. Now I’m just an ass,” he adds, laughing out loud and bitterly to himself. Yup, Seth thinks, just a lonely pirate on a suburban booze cruise, sailing the seas of make-believe ease. A boozy buccaneer, at the mercy of the winds and tides, riding those amber waves of fermented grains. He sighs. It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when the children loved playing with him. The funny uncle, all energy and no discipline. The one with silly faces and wacky dances. Uncle Seth, not Uncle Thirst. When was the last time the children addressed him? Back when not just the men talked to him? All of them at that? Back when he was Seth? Before he was Thirst? A screen door slams and Seth snaps to attention. Footsteps on wooden stairs followed by a trail of screaming children approach the playset like a herd of Clydesdales. Seth scrambles to his feet, bashing his head on the low ceiling above him. He has to decide what to do. What would the moms say if they found him holed up in a children’s playset, reeking of cigarettes, alone with a bottle of booze? He could hear Ricky explaining to the rambunctious children the rules of the pinata. “You gotta whack it HARD, right in the middle. Pretend it’s your worst enemy and really unleash on it.” Seth slumps back down and hides beneath the gunport. He can see the crowd of children lined up behind Ricky. Parents stand holding cell phones and their breath. He begins inching his way toward the port side, toward the latticed ramp that would lead him to the back of the ship, hidden from the view of judgmental moms. He’ll circle around the stern, past the brown turd of a sliding board, and join the group, watching from afar, innocent and supportive. As if he belonged. As if it wasn’t just Ricky who had invited him. THWACK! Feet first or head first, he tries to decide. THUNK! His empty ashtray bottle thuds on the leaf-covered lawn. To his relief, the dull sound of a hollow Wiffle ball bat weakly connecting with the pinata drowns out his clumsy mistake. CRACK! Cheers erupt, stunted by Ricky's voice. “Almost! One more hard hit and you got it!” Seth guides a foot onto the latticework of the ramp. He stops when he notices someone’s kid staring at him. He holds a finger up to his lips. And slips. SNAP! The crowd erupts in cheers. A child screams. The sound of the snap lingers in the air, like a damp twig being stepped on beneath a pile of rotting leaves. The top half of the pinata lies crumpled on the ground, a dented gash split right behind the forelegs. The ass-end dangles from the string, spilling candy onto the ground beneath it. From Seth’s vantage point, it looks like a rainbow fountain spewing up from the weedless lawn. Thirst dangles there, a pathetic pendulum, his fractured fibula protruding preposterously from his sweat-sheened shin, his outstretched arms scratching the grass beneath him, his ears deaf to the static noise around him. Items rain down from his pants pockets: keys (house, not car), lighter, cigarettes, bottle caps, the two empty airplane bottles, the half-empty half-pint of bourbon. The children who haven’t noticed scoop up candy spilled from the donkey’s torn-open belly. Those who have noticed cry, faces buried in their mother’s tasteless shirts. Someone vomits. Suspended upended he feels no pain. He smiles, his face a frown to everyone else. His eyes meet those of the destroyed donkey, soon to be discarded along with the candy wrappers and wrapping paper and paper plates. And he knows this will be the last time. TimDeMarco is a teacher, translator, writer, and wannabe musician. His translations and original works have been published internationally, and his debut novel, Release Me, will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2023. He currently lives in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. Visit him at timdemarco.com

As we hit our first bout of turbulence, drifting across the Pacific, you flutter kick within me. My life has become monumental, yet I am ill-equipped to become your mother. Were this plane to crash, how would I protect you? Dada joins us from Korea, walks us down the aisle. Days, I lull you with the drift and flow of waiting tables while Dada looks for work. Nights, you flip and kick, flip and kick while Dada cradles us and worries about finding work. You buy us time to prepare, wait five days past your due date. When you arrive, you do not cry. Dada cannot find work, so he returns to Korea. We stay in your uncle’s cold, damp basement until we take our second Pacific flight to join Dada before he starts his job on a cargo ship. A stewardess places you on the pilot’s lap while I nap. When we land, Dada wants to leave you with your great grandmother while we go to market, but I do not want to leave you. She is going senile. It is so difficult to walk away, to worry that you will not safe, but Dada gets angry and insists. When we return, Jinju-halmonie has filled your bottle with instant coffee grounds and swaddled you in towels—you are bright red and shriek-shriek-shrieking. Dada sets sail, and we return to Canada. I find an apartment and two jobs. Apply for university. Days, I scan items, blip, blip, blip. After work, I strap you to my chest and we walk and walk along the river. My mind drifts and I tell you stories about the beautiful life we will have. At night, I cough and cough while heavy metal blares upstairs. I work. I cough. You learn to walk. Dada docks in Portland, so we visit. I cough but pretend I am not sick because I do not want him to worry. You cut your first teeth. On your first birthday, I start university. Dada docks in Vancouver, so we visit. I cough and cough. On the way home, there is turbulence, a snowstorm, so we land. I cough and cough and cough. You are happy and strong, and you do not complain that I am not prepared. I do not know what is wrong with me. I do not know what I will do if I cannot take care of you. I am so afraid because I hack-hack-hack can’t stop coughing. I am drowning. Other stranded passengers lend me diapers, fish crackers, money for the vending machine. Finally, we trudge through the snow to our front door before I collapse. Six years pass. After too much turbulence, we move to Montreal, to a rented one-and-a-half, so we can start over again. You shoot flimsy plastic arrows at squirrels in Sherbrooke Park. We eat poutine and walk in the shade, visit the humongous new library on Sainte-Catherine. I worry about money, worry about my health. When I find a job in a small town, we start again. After school, we bike or skate, cook together, read books. At night, I correct and plan and cry a lot. Weekends, we visit museums in Ottawa or take the bus to Montreal. Your dad promises to visit but doesn’t follow through. You bawl because he lied. I sob because he broke our hearts. Weep because I am exhausted from all that cough-cough-coughing I did years ago before I lost my lung. Before we drifted to Korea and back home again, before your dad and I divorced and he returned to Korea. What if you never see him again? I don’t know how to fix this. How to protect you. How we’ll survive. One day, I cannot force myself to go to work, so I take a leave from my job. Days, I cry in bed until you return from school. We read Roald Dahl and books about dragons. We cook and watch movies. Nights, I cry because I cannot picture our future. I do not know what to do or how to be okay. We drive four days back to where we started. New home, new job, new school, new friends. We try again, but there is too much turbulence, and nobody can help either of us. I teeter between crumbling to dust and rising from it. You have no father. I have no choice but to return to teaching. I am drained after school, but I cook. We read together. We paint rocks. We are both full of sorrow, but neither of us cries. Neither of us laments. At night, you shut the door to your room, so I do not know how to reach you. And I disappear until I am numb from sighing in the empty house. I become a machine—mark, mark, mark, plan, plan, clean, clean, clean. I make bad decisions about men until, again, there is too much turbulence. Surprise—we’re moving again! I swear this time is the last, but you do not trust me anymore. No longer admit your disappointments. We stop reading together. We never visit museums or art galleries. Never paint rocks. Your sea of tears dried up long ago, but mine drowns us both. We cannot talk because we are barely holding our heads above the tide. We dogpaddle to separate islands, build moats as large as the Pacific. Keep our bridges drawn until you are the age I was on our first Pacific crossing. As the turbulence fades, we dismantle our defences, slowly drift together and start over again. Rachel Laverdiere writes, pots and teaches in her little house on the Canadian prairies. She is CNF editor at Atticus Review and the creator of Hone & Polish Your Writing. Find Rachel's latest prose in Burningword Literary Journal, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Bending Genres, Five South and other fine journals. In 2020, her CNF made The Wigleaf Top 50 and was nominated for Best of the Net. For more, visit www.rachellaverdiere.com.

Clouds surround Aragats peaks as we ride in a shared taxi to Gyumri. She watches the grays slither rock to rock, plume like apricots, retreat as snakes. She’s quiet. It feels like she hasn’t spoken for a year, since the doctor looked up from his clipboard and said Adoption? The body can live a lifetime without making another. The body can live after pushing a body out of its own flesh. Here in this bowled valley of cow pastures, where light presses against the body’s blueprint and tethers its form to the stones, I want to pour the sunset into my water bottle, pass it to her, tell her I’ll always put poems about sailing the seas beneath her morning glass of orange juice. I want to lug these stones that have burned under the pasture’s sun to our apartment, stack them high enough to block out the moonlight bending around the roofs and onto our backs as we make love. Here, in a shared taxi with strangers, I imagine last night. Our skins together on a mattress without sheets. But now she stares ahead. Sunrays in pupils. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. The want to make isn’t what the world needs, isn’t what it needs. The rays between us is what matters. The whispers before we sleep. These poems are influenced by Alex's Armenian heritage through his mother's side. Alex enjoys writing poems, translating Armenian and Arabic poetry, and the color purple on hazy days. He works as an educator in the Detroit Metro area.

Downtown I found a handwritten sign: Have You Been Having Unusual Dreams? There was a number to call. That was all. I think I saw it yesterday, because I don’t remember taking a walk today. (But it wasn’t a dream. I would remember that.) At the coffee shop, the baristas thank me for not screaming at them over a three minute wait. (It wasn’t a dream. Someone would have screamed.) The coffee shop has a number to call, comments or concerns, and no one ever answers. I leave a message: you’re doing your best. My own voicemail is always full of messages I can’t bear to erase. I call myself anyway, tell the dead air: you’re doing your best. Today I found a different sign downtown: Sweet Dreams - Sleep Deprivation Kills. That must be true because I don’t think I ever sleep and I’m not sure if I saw that sign, or any sign, or if I would have seen a sign if I had left the apartment - and it may have been days since I did, and when I say today I may mean yesterday. And if I don’t sleep and I didn’t see that sign then it may become more true, and it does feel like being killed. I’m always looking for signs and I find them, sometimes - in days that seem like dreams, that twist and turn into sleepless nights, that toss and turn with me as I dream that I’m dying while I lie awake - but if or when I don’t I still dial my own number, reassure the silence: you’re doing your best and it feels like being killed. One day I might see a sign with a number to call for someone more worried about doing their best than the knife at their throat but I’m pretty sure that no one would ever answer and the voicemail would always be full of messages no one could bear to erase for comments or concerns or someone’s last words. Christine is an artist and writer based in the Pacific Northwest. Christine’s writing explores themes of chronic illness, trauma, and nature. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Salamander, Rust and Moth, CHEAP POP, Reservoir Road, and elsewhere.

I ONLY WANT HIM WHEN HE SMELLS LIKE WHISKEY & CAMELS When he's just steel plucked new calluses into his fingers. I want to jar every chord that blooms into the next room on only neurons, spit, and calcium. I can't get enough of it. I wanna fuck him to the reverb. Conduct his symphony. Bud from the demise. I wanna sip soft morning light from his pale champagne eyelids. Lick the sleep from his poppy fields. It makes me so moonlit forgetful, daffodil laughter dripping pink and canary from my blackberry winter lips. I only want him in hollowed halls, when he's void-shaped and I'm plasma untouchable. I'm a drunk, and he's a wet glass of gin. We fit together in ways I don't think other people ever have. What a beautiful morning to leave on the porch bulb, light a cigarette, pour his ghost a glass, and flourish in fitful lunacy. WHAT THE AFTERMATH MIGHT HAVE LOOKED LIKE HAD I NOT STEPPED OUT OF THAT CAB In this poem, the cab pulls up to the Holiday Inn. The Australian gets out, finds an American woman who will actually fuck him. The girl uses her mouth, tells the driver, Keep going. The groom from the second-floor bachelor party sleeps alone the night before his wedding, dick flaccid, hands statuesque. The girl, safely home, sheds her white and marigold dress to moonlight instead of up against morning's brash knuckles. She folds it into the trash with the last handful of her adulterous ex's guitar picks, hazel clippings—not because they are spoiled. She has simply outgrown them. This is the poem where she does not wilt in the end. She blossoms helianthus from her chasmed canary throat. Kait Quinn (she/her) was born with salt in her wounds. She flushes the sting of living by writing poetry. Her work has appeared in Reed Magazine, Last Leaves Magazine, Crosswinds Poetry, Chestnut Review, and others. By day, Kait is a legal assistant living in Minneapolis with her partner, their regal cat (Spart), and their very polite Aussie mix (Jesse).

FUCKIN SUNSHOWERS We were drinkin beers And eatin five-buck rib half-racks At the bar down the street Paddy Mack’s in Chicago Our Wednesday ritual Something to feel at home In that giant city we lived in For five years Years ago It’d been hot and muggy And the sun was out Then a shower started Without a cloud in the sky A drunk got up off the bar And walked to the open doorway Put his hands on his hips And snorted out loud “It’s a fuckin sun shower” Years later in a new city The sun is out and a sprinkle comes And we laugh and say to each other “It’s a fuckin sun shower” And thank god for drunks We saw in bars in Chicago PEANUTS One peanut will fill us Nut so big it comes right to The skin of the shell She gained twenty pounds on one And so did I in sympathy Could we afford another peanut I had barely lost the weight From that first peanut Could we really do this again But another peanut grew And now we got two Same as Mom and Daddy did EATIN FROM GRANDMA’S PURPLE HANDS We went out early to avoid the heat And picked all the ones that were ripe Sat all day in rockers shelling peas Into plastic hospital throw-up tubs Grandma’s hands were deep purple From the colored hulls Those empty shells fed the guineas We blanched the fruits of our labor And put them in Ziplock baggies We sucked the air out And put them in the deep freeze And it all took only twelve hours And we fed ourselves Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma and currently resides with his wife and two sons in South Carolina. In addition to publishing his short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction online and in print at places like Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop!, BULL Magazine, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Gorko Gazette and Red Dirt Forum, he has published several novels and plays with Red Dirt Press, Cowboy Jamboree Press, and Leftover Books. He is the founder and editor of Cowboy Jamboree Press and Magazine. Van Winkle is named for the oldest Cartwright son on Bonanza. Find him and his publications online at www.adamvanwinkle.com and @gritvanwinkle.

Jeffrey was walking along Larkin Street through San Francisco's Tenderloin district towards the Civic Center Plaza. He was stopped at a red light at the corner of Geary Street and saw Jenny, a nervous, emaciated neighborhood addict pacing about the doorway of the Outsider bar, talking to herself or someone Jeffrey couldn't see. She had shoulder-length dirty blonde hair and bright vacant blue eyes. It wasn't so long ago that Jeffrey thought her beautiful, or something close to it. Today she appeared particularly haggard, as if something unpleasant she'd been managing to avoid thus far had finally caught up with her. “Hey, babe,” she said, wobbling on her heels, “you got a dollar or two? I need a fucking burrito and cigarettes really fucking bad. I'm dying here.” “Sure, I got ya.” Jeffrey pulled out his wallet, planning to give her a few dollars, and opened it to find only a twenty. After double and then triple checking his pockets for something smaller, he pulled the bill from his wallet and handed it to her. Her eyes lit up. “Shit man, you fucking saved my day!” She clasped her skinny arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. Her breath was hot and stank of whiskey, her body of old sick sweat. “Not a problem,” Jeffrey said, pulling away to cross the street. “Pop by here on your way home, and we'll get a drink, honey!” she called. Jeffrey smiled and waved his arm. On the block between Ellis and Eddy Streets ragged tents of the homeless lined the sidewalks on either side. Empty-eyed addicts, street dealers, and the generally destitute wandered openly about the street, oblivious and impervious to the traffic. Undesirables, herded by the powers that be into the concentrated area of a handful of blocks and largely left alone, so that the rest of the city might remain tourist friendly. An impressive array of dreck was strewn about the concrete or loaded into grocery carts for sale or barter. Obscure videotapes, CDs, cassettes, and warped record albums. Tattered books and pornographic magazines. Expired food products. Piles of mismatched shoes and obsolete textbooks. Broken luggage and crates of busted cookware. Bundles and strings of useless wires and cords knotted and coiled together like piles of lifeless snakes. An open-air museum of things that nobody wanted or ever would. People were arguing with ghosts, aliens, the air. Pissing in doorways and on the hubcaps of cars. Prone and inert on the sidewalks and in the gutters. An altercation was happening between two men outside a tent on the sidewalk in front of a Vietnamese sandwich shop. A scrawny shirtless man who bore a genuinely striking resemblance to Charles Manson was throwing what looked to be chunks of meat at another man who was holding a large piece of cardboard before him as a shield. “Get out of here!” the man with the cardboard yelled, “Get out of here or I'm going to fuck you up!” The man with the meat chunks hesitated and then chucked another volley of three or four pieces. A skeletal woman sitting outside a tent drinking a tall can of malt liquor turned to the meat chucker and yelled, “Go! Just go! He's gonna beat your dumb ass if you don't!” The man's meat ammunition appeared to be spent and he grabbed an almost empty bottle of something from the sidewalk, tucking it under his arm. He kicked over a crate of assorted broken things, flipped off the man with the cardboard shield and ran down Eddy Street yelling about how fucked someone was going to be when they saw him again. Jeffrey stood among a small group of passersby who had paused to watch the scene. Carnage of some kind or another in the neighborhood was an ever-present fact, but some animal thing within him wouldn't let him continue on his way if there were the possibility of violence to be witnessed. Things settled down to the usual level of minor chaos and he continued on through blocks of tents and waste. Outside the Civic Center station, the man to whom Jeffrey assigned the name Rasputin was at his usual place, pacing about, mumbling to himself, making indecipherable hand gestures. He was a cartoon version of someone who had been stranded on a desert island or neglected in a small prison cell for many years. He wore broken sandals and was adorned in tattered rags of things that once perhaps were valid pieces of clothing. Wiry, stray tufts of hair sprouted haphazardly from his otherwise bald head. He wore a long and matted gray-black beard. Rasputin spotted Jeffrey from quite a distance, as he always did, and raised his arm, palm faced open in front of him as was his custom, like an arcane greeting from some secret society. “My friend,” Rasputin shouted in Jeffrey's direction, “my friend!” Jeffrey raised his arms in a gesture meant to convey that he regrettably had nothing to offer. Rasputin positioned himself at the entrance to the underground station and continued his two-word litany as Jeffrey grew closer. “My friend! My friend!” “My friend,” Rasputin said once more when Jeffrey reached the stairway. Jeffrey again haplessly raised his arms and said, “Sorry man, I got nothing today.” “Tomorrow?” “Tomorrow,” Jeffrey assented. Rasputin nodded his head resignedly and put out his fist. Jeffrey bumped it with his own and headed down the stairs into the station. He made his way to the trains and waited with the late afternoon crowd at the edge of the platform. To his left was a large angry man stuffed inside a wheelchair that was a good amount too small for his body. He had gray stringy hair that sat heavy on his shoulders and a formidable beard, stained and unkempt. He wore a gray tank top, stained as well. Despite the chilly weather, he wore dark blue shorts, his oversized legs spilling out of them, white and sad, with large bandages wrapped about the knees. He wore tattered black tennis shoes, only one of which had laces. He sat there scowling in his chair like a bitter and defeated Santa. The man talked incessantly, a barrage of insults complimented by droplets of spittle. Initially, Jeffrey assumed the insults were aimed at no one in particular, just the traitorous universe itself, until he noticed a small middle-aged Asian woman standing to the left of the man's chair. She had bobbed gray-black hair and thick glasses with large circular lenses and wore something that resembled surgeons' scrubs. Jeffrey realized that the man's tirade was directed at her. She occasionally nodded slightly with solemn contrition and offered whispered apologies. Or she would just listen with her head hung low as if she were a child being chastised. Jeffrey guessed her to be the man's caretaker. At her side was a large aluminum stroller carrying four paper bags of groceries. “Do you know how long I had to wait at checkout before you arrived?” the man asked. The woman stood silent, looking to the ground. “Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes! Do you know how embarrassing that is? Sitting there at the counter with my cart full of groceries like an idiot, with no way to pay for them! The man at the register looked at me like I was a dog turd, It was a nightmare! Twenty minutes! I told you to be there at four, and you know I get done early sometimes! The ice cream must be half melted...the meat will be spoiled by the time we get home...unacceptable!” He looked around at the others waiting on the platform, hoping to find something in their faces that offered empathy for his incomprehensible situation. The people gazed expressionlessly at their feet and their phones. The man continued his berating, the bits of spittle flying from his mouth, the woman silently taking it. Jeffrey tried to stop listening. The train arrived and the sea of passengers exiting parted to either side of the man in the wheelchair as he careened onboard, yelling that he was disabled and their ineptitude at departing the train in a timely manner could well prevent him from getting home at a reasonable hour. His assistant was close behind, pushing the trolley of groceries. Jeffrey filed on board with the rest. He passed the wheelchair man and glanced at the assistant's face. In her eyes, he imagined a momentary flickering of something he took as a plea for help, or mercy, or understanding, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared, her eyes once more dully resigned. He shuffled on and found a space two cars down. The train was crowded and Jeffrey stood in the middle of the car pressed close to his fellow commuters. Laid out on his side across two of the seats in the center of the car was a man of no discernible age wearing a heavy trench coat. His eyes were glazed and half open. He held out his hand open-palmed in silent want when someone chanced to look his way, and mechanically lowered it again when it was obvious nothing would be offered. He was a figure from a haunted carnival ride, performing his rote movements repeatedly to the discomfort of those around him. Jeffrey stood a few feet away and from the corner of his eye, he saw the man's arm rise and fall in this manner numerous times before he dug around in his pockets to find three quarters, a dime, and two nickels. He put them in the man's hand the next time it was raised. “Thank you,” the man said in a quiet and amiable voice. “You're welcome, sir,” Jeffrey replied, turning his attention to his phone. “Hey,” the man continued, “I don't do no drugs or nuthin. I drink, though. Just beer. I just drink me some big 'ol beers.” The man smiled to himself, thinking about it. “Nothing wrong with that,” Jeffrey said. “Just some big 'ol beers,” the man repeated, smiling. He stretched his hand out again as the train stopped at the 16th and Mission Street station and a good amount of people filed on and off, averting their gazes as they did. A young red-haired woman boarded the train and stood to Jeffrey's left. With one hand she clung to the strap hanging from the ceiling of the car, in the other she cradled a phone. She typed into the phone with impeccable nails attached to fine, delicate fingers which danced across the tiny keyboard with remarkable grace and speed. The woman was engrossed with whatever was happening on her phone, which allowed Jeffrey to gaze upon her unabashedly. She had a pale, elfin face, perfectly adorned with a smattering of faint freckles. She laughed silently to herself and bit her bottom lip as she typed. A faint perfume drifted from her that brought to Jeffrey's mind the color of pink. Jeffrey imagined himself someone who possessed the power to lightly touch her shoulder, somehow, in a manner neither creepy nor threatening, and tell her she was beautiful. To strike up a conversation in a way that wasn't awkward. People did it all the time, supposedly. He saw it in movies and on TV. It happened in books, and he'd witnessed it himself in bars, libraries, and grocery stores. Yet it seemed such an impossible thing to put into execution. He could find no entrance to such a world. He forced his eyes from the woman and back to the man stretched out on the seats, who put out his hand as he sensed Jeffrey's gaze. Jeffrey gave him a quick smile and a nod then turned back to the red-haired girl to find her engaged in conversation with a young man of unremarkable presence wearing a backward baseball cap and a San Francisco Giants jersey. They were talking as easily as a pair of intimate friends, though as best as Jeffrey could tell they had been strangers just moments before. The train reached the 24th Street stop, Jeffrey's destination. The man in the wheelchair barreled his way through the crowded car. “I need to get out first,” he shouted, “I need to get out first!” The assistant trailed with head hung low, pushing the melted ice cream and the spoiling meat in the rickety cart. The man was there, stretched out across the two seats, his eyes far away and his hand stretched out wordlessly. Jeffrey emerged from the station out into the plaza at 24th and Mission Streets and maneuvered his way through people trying to sell him things he didn't want, asking him for things he didn't have to give. He sat down on a metal bench to tie his shoe. The plaza was scattered with people in broken wheelchairs, riding stolen bikes or electronic scooters, propped up with cranes or crutches. Boom boxes sat on the cement or on benches, booming. A group of young, attractive people were setting up tables and handing out pamphlets. A blonde woman who looked like any number of local newscasters from most any small town in America was doing a mic check in preparation for a proselytizing session. Christian country music was playing from the sound system as her associates passed out cookies and muffins to encourage the sinners to stick around for the Jesus talk. None assembled there had any real expectation of being saved, but from experience, they knew more baked goods would be handed out at the end, so they found places to sit with their muffins and malt liquor. A Mexican woman was pushing an ice cream cart festooned with little bells in a slow circle around the plaza, giving the scene a surreal Christmas-like soundtrack. Jeffrey headed South on Mission Street, his destination the art-house theater currently screening a newly restored version of Pandora's Box, the silent film starring Louise Brooks. He made it a few blocks until he came upon a large police presence spread about as far as he could see. Assorted police cars and trucks were parked haphazardly in the streets, as well as a handful of ambulances, firetrucks and other official-looking vehicles. He walked until the yellow police tape forced him to stop. He stood with the crowds of onlookers and denizens of the neighborhood who were arguing in vain with the officers in attempts to convince them to allow them return to their homes located within the taped-off areas. Jeffrey asked some of the assembled people what exactly was happening. The best he understood after patching together various accounts was that a hit-and-run driver had plowed into three pedestrians, critically injuring two of them. The driver struck a man in a crosswalk at 19th and Mission, pinning him against the side of a northbound bus. The car then leaped onto the sidewalk and struck two passengers, a man and a woman, who were exiting the bus. The car continued awhile on the sidewalk at a very high rate of speed. The driver and a passenger initially fled the scene but eventually returned and were detained. Jeffrey asked an officer how long it might be before the area was cleared and the officer replied, however long it takes. Jeffrey stood there thinking how the comic book shop he had hoped to visit was in the restricted area as well. He turned around and walked back toward the station. When he got to the plaza the blonde woman was telling everyone how merciful Jesus was if you made the choice to open your heart. The amplification was turned up very high in order to drown out the boomboxes and the general cacophony. Some of those gathered about were sipping from tall cans in brown paper bags as they learned about the paradise that waited for them if they but cared to embrace it. Others were sleeping, making drug deals, wandering uselessly about, staring wide-eyed to the sky as the sun shone down upon it all like some unconscionable machine forged for the sole purpose of manufacturing loneliness. Two skater kids seated on concrete steps were shooting up between their toes, and Jeffrey started back down the stairs into the station wondering if Jenny might still be at the bar.

The morning rises every morning. I dream my head bleeding. I don’t know why. When I wake up, I dress my eyes in Gucci and coat my throat in Motrin. For breakfast, I fall in love with your nose three times. Outside, willows weep. Jesus keeps sneezing from all the Myrrh. Days dressed as toothpaste, I tell you I wish I had a reason to walk you home from school. It’s a light beer kind of day. On TV, Jimmy Butler walks up and down the aisle of a private jet, singing Hootie and Blowfish. For lunch, I subtweet my subtweets. I take you to the zoo, where we spend the afternoon staring at the sky, counting the balloons vacationing in the clouds. I wear you home even though you’re a decade too heavy. For dinner, I build you a poem about the river that swallowed the smaller river. I tell you, Eventually, even water goes dry. I tell you, I could kiss you and I know exactly why. Leigh Chadwick is the author of the poetry collection Your Favorite Poet, the chapbook Dating Pete Davidson, and the collaborative poetry collection Too Much Tongue, co-written with Adrienne Marie Barrios. She can be found online at www.leighchadwick.com and on Twitter at @LeighChadwick5.