Scared

By Extra Small

Things I’m scared of:

Being in a band.

Not because of performing,

I’d be scared of having to organize events

because I have a hard time

getting my friends together

for brunch.

Talking to strangers.

Things I’m sorry about:

Not playing enough piano.

Not buying you

More gifts.

Investing too much

emotion.

Not investing enough

emotion.

Not saying sorry.

Things I pray about:

Things I’m scared about.

Things I’m sorry about.

You

The Mother's Den

By Jem Morgenstern

Grass grew up from the cracks in the floor and it was the first time I had seen so much green. I’d never been on that floor before. Access is restricted to gardeners and communication directors, so growing up in a family of analytical health specialists and sanitation inspectors never granted me the opportunity to look inside. Usually, the deeper down you go in the tunnels of Saint Wilgefortis, the more frowsy everything looks, so I was expecting the lowest level to be the shittiest concrete tunnel possible. It wasn’t. The hallway from the elevator to the doors to the gardens already had me dumb with wonderment. Vines crept up the walls and onto the ceiling. It was bright. It smelled like the few floors we have above ground. It was immediately inviting.

Linda stepped out of the elevator and said her goodbyes before the doors could slide shut, turned away, and headed down the hallway to the gardens. Her suitcase’s small wheels struggled their way over the bumpy overgrown floor. She chose to wear a dress today - a yellow one with floral patterns - she looked like a daffodil and fit right in. I could tell she was happy to be there, but it was difficult for me to empathize with her happiness because I was beginning to realize that it could be the last time I would see her and the smile that got me to pry open my mouth and share the contents of my jar of thoughts with her. I forgot to prepare myself to say goodbye. The reality of the separation didn’t set in until that moment. I never knew if she felt what I felt about her, but I always hoped - and still do hope - that she knew I loved her.

The machinery yanked the elevator back into action. Besides the guide, I was the last one in. I should have been the first one out, but I stayed on so that I could spend a few more moments with the women I grew up with and learned to love despite the distaste I had for so many of them. It was a long ride. The guide was visibly frustrated, which I always assumed was because she would have been on her way home by then, if I hadn’t decided to take up more of her time. When we reached my floor, I attempted a friendly goodbye and thanks, but her acknowledgement seemed hesitant.

Being on the above-ground levels of our shelter is much different than being below. There are windows; not many, of course, for safety, but there are windows. Everything is a lot cleaner. Because the work we do in the labs requires absolute sterility, it’s kept spotless. Even the uterine tank that was abandoned due to a previous contamination incident is cleaned as often as possible. This disparity in quality of life does leave me feeling guilty, but I always justify my comforts by excusing it with the importance of my work. Without our expertise and work in the labs, our child production would end. In turn, our society’s longevity would be cut short and there would be nobody to open the doors when that time finally comes. That longevity is also threatened, if we’re unable to reach a compromise with the women from the lower floors. They have roles that are essential to the continuation and guarantee of safety for everyone in Saint Wilgefortis. If they don’t do their jobs, we will be incapacitated. It’s because of this, and not because of my long-over relationship with her, that I say we need to give Linda what she wants. She controls the gardens. If she feels the need to, she could shut down our supplies. The same goes for all the other leaders in resource management, who are all on her side this time. If we’re going to claim that we’re not greedy, we should show that we’re not.

Quiet Boy

By Extra Small

There is a very quiet boy in my class. He is cute.

He doesn’t talk a lot, so I don’t know if he’s smart.

But I don’t want to judge him.

He doesn’t laugh at the same things other people do

When we are watching a documentary in class he actually watches it.

He waits for people to exit the door when he’s prolly been wanting to leave the class for a long time.

He’s always plugged into something.

I hope it’s not anything too heavy or American rock-typey stuff.

I feel guilty for hoping that.

I wonder if he likes Lord of the Rings or if he judges people who like Lord of the Rings.

There are only two kinds of people when it comes to that, right?

I don’t think he thinks about himself too much.

He is probably an altruistic angel.

In fact, he is probably morally superior to everyone around him.

Quiet but not shy.
He’s perfect

for now.

Linoleum Casket, Suburban Funeral

By Jem Morgenstern

It felt like her chest was folding itself into a fist, like it was collapsing onto itself and coiling into a ball. Her body followed - folding down and coiling into a ball on the floor. Her cheek brushed against the cold linoleum and she could feel how filthy it really was. She never spent time looking down, but it became clear that the convenience store employees didn’t do much maintenance. She thought about that awhile. About the dirty floor pressing against her face and how much she hated it.

Then she thought about dying. She was so sure that these were her last moments. She wished she could die somewhere else. She wanted to die of something else. To her, this was embarrassing. Her body fucked up and killed itself. If she had any say in how she got to die, it wouldn’t be something that was her fault. Maybe she would get hit by a car. Maybe she’d get shot in a mugging gone wrong. No matter what it was, she wouldn’t want it to happen anywhere near that filthy floor. It wouldn’t have been anywhere in that shitty little suburb. Ideally, she thought, she would have lived a full life, married rich, and died peacefully in her sleep on a bed worth more than her current liquidated networth. She wouldn’t be grating her cheek against dirty linoleum. Her eyes wouldn’t be fixated on mold underneath shelves of Doritos. She wouldn’t be able to feel her body choking the life out of itself.

One of the employees from the counter walked over to her. He was wearing a black polo that was given to him by the company. Black, but you could still see the stains that he might not have tried to wash out in the first place. His hair was greasy - brown, but maybe it was blond. He smelled like stale tobacco and unwashed hands. She was glad she couldn’t smell his breath.

She didn’t know how many seconds she had left, curled up on the floor, surprised she could still think so clearly, and terrified that the bacterially cultured young man would somehow make everything worse. He didn’t know what to do. Every instinct he had told him to ignore the woman on the floor, but he he knew that wouldn’t go over well. Nobody else in the store knew what to do either. He asked her a question.

“Ma’am, do you need any help?”

The words came out the exact same way they did when he said them to customers who looked like they couldn’t find what they needed between the six rows of shelving in the store. As if it were a normal situation that could be quickly resolved. He stood there waiting for an answer from the woman dying on the floor. She had to collect as much bodily capability as she could to give him a response that might be indicative of the severity of her issue. A grunt was pushed out of her mouth that loosely resembled a plea for help.

“I’m g’in’ to get a manager.”

He still didn’t have any instinct for what he should do in the situation, but his quickened pace suggested he might be beginning to understand how serious it was. It was taking longer for him to get back than she thought it should. Her vision was losing focus. She felt nauseated. Any doubt she had about dying today was gone. It was certain. She knew she would die.

Scrawls

By Jem Morgenstern

The Beast is terrifying. A giant head that sits in our town square. It has no lips, so the rotting gums and gnarled teeth are always exposed. It has no eyelids, so its green eyes are locked into an intense glare. They follow passers. It knows them. We don’t know why it chooses the people it watches. Sometimes, it begins to open its mouth and it lets out a gruesome breath, as if it’s about to say something to us. The breath that smells like dying trees. It sounds like wind rolling through a narrow canyon. When the jaws slowly part, it sounds like a creaking mill. The leathery, rotten loose skin on its face stretches and you can see all the marks that were carved into its face by the old settlers. The settlers before us that we know so little about. The ones who left, went deep in the forest, and disappeared. Who might be the ones who haunt us. Who might be the ones who creep out from the shadows with boney fingers that feel like claws. With arms that look like nothing but charred bone. With the same teeth as The Beast, the missing lips, and missing eyelids, too. Some of them have strands of hair hanging from their smooth, speckled scalps. When they stray from the dark, we light our torches and burn them. It’s the only thing that gets them to leave. We have to burn them. We’ve stopped trying to find the connection between them and The Beast. We tried for hundreds of years, but we never found anything. We never learned anything about The Beast or the ones from the shadows. So we let it all continue. We live with The Beast’s stares and groans. We live with creatures reaching out at us from the dark. We all feel the dread. The dread that clouds our sky. It feels like we’re reaching the end. An end that we don’t know. We didn’t find it in time. We don’t know what to look for. We didn’t know what we were trying to find. So the end will come and we’ll wait for it. We’ll see what will come.

Nice Thoughts

by lei

I've been having lots of nice thoughts lately. Like I could write a note and stick it on their door. Maybe tell them they're pretty cool, maybe leave a plate of unhealthy sweets. Like I'll be ready whenever she needs me. Like I'll hug her when I see her. Like I want to lay on the empty side of her bed, or just rest my head on her arm, and ask her if she knows she's my favorite person. Maybe because she feels like home now. Because I equate their smiles with a past life that included blood, not bleeding blood but the blood that flows without asking—I didn't ask to be your daughter, but I am and sometimes I forget that. I smile and say it's fine when I accidentally knock into a stranger's arm (did I do it on purpose because I've forgotten—and at the same time never knew—what it feels like to be close to somebody? that's another matter entirely). I hold the door open, even if the person is quite far or may not even be headed my direction. Sometimes when I hear strangers curse just outside my window because the door is closed and locked, I feel the urge to yell out the window if they need to get in—I always feel obliged to start conversations with strangers by asking obvious questions I already know the answer to—and tell them I can come open it for them. But I never do. I just smile at the thought, admire how nice it is, then return to that flat piece of space designated for sleeping that my body and mind have morphed into a burial site.

Ten Second Snaps

by lei

you poured your fears
in ten second pictures
laid them on my lap
inside my mouth
stitched a story of hurt
that shamed every complaint
I'd ever thought to mumble
onto the inside of my cheek
and every piece I swallow
reads the memory stored
in sloppy red digital marker

of how your eyes saw more
pain than any twice your age
could've managed to stomach

of how your shoulders slump
lower than mine
and maybe that's why you told me to stand up straight

of how his disappointment
looms above your knitted brows
and shadows every clever joke
and digs creases of worry into your thoughts
deeper than the ones I carve into my forehead

but this is not about superlatives
this is not about ers and thans and mores
or you versus a world that doesn't get it
doesn't care

this is about how I held every ten second fear
you sent across a desert at 2 a.m.
each entirety in my right forefinger
but the fear and pain and hurt didn't feel
foreign or shock or hurt
it felt right at home
felt like realizing the child you are in my eyes
had always forced its rent on my heart
and grew up in the crevices, cowering
but always whispering what pain crept, raging behind your smile
to my clogged, fearful ears
so when you snapped
every ten second fear
seemed to stream from your half-caught face
and my piled-up half-dismissed worries
simultaneously.

and my body calls out in the night
just to be crushed in your heavy arms
one more time
even silently the letters formed by your thoughts
of what your mouth would say if it had the choice
to be heard by my wide-open ears
brings a smile to my heart
even when the words you would say
would say nothing at all
it's just nice to know they're there.

this is in part a story of admiration
this is in part a hope that I won't lose you
this is in part the only way for me to cling
for me to remember
the way the hurt
the way the fear
the way the truth
slipped out so seamlessly
in one of those trivial apps
that every parent fears will be the undoing of society
and I just fear will be the early onset of my Alzheimer's

mostly I just want to remember your smile
the one that curls the lids of your eyes
past Asia (just ever so slightly)
and reverts your manhood
back to the childhood where it belongs

mostly I just want to remember your stubbly black hair
as it smashes itself into my shoulder
making home for your head out of my weak flailing arm
that won't ever complain

mostly I just want to remember your heavy heavy hand
decorated by oddly baby-soft skin
resting on my head
flicking through strands of my ever-straight hair
or slipped inside the coarse, smelly rubber
aimed right for my nose

again and again and again

and every time that red-filled square pops up
your favorite color
I try to pin what I want to remember most
squashed between the 9ish inch screen
and my tired right forefinger
and hold on for as long as I can
but it's always gone within ten seconds
or less

Decisions and Switches

By Jem Morgenstern

He put on an uncomfortable sweater made of an acrylic fiber. It was blue. One tone. Patterns were made with alternating thickness and textures. The sleeves were baggy, the body fit well, the neck was perfectly round. He always wore it with the same extra-thin henley underneath, despite the distaste he developed towards undershirts for indiscernible reasons. It felt cumbersome, but it was worth doing for this sweater. He didn’t like acrylic fiber either, but this sweater knew him. Wearing this sweater, he felt like his character could be fully understood. Any stranger looking at him would understand who he is. He put on a pair of blue underwear; he put on his pants that met at a good midpoint between comfortable and figure-flattering. He grabbed his wallet, keys, and made a last-minute decision to wear a hat. It was a simple but well-crafted baseball cap. He felt confident in his decision to wear this outfit - an inviting real depiction of himself. He forgot to shave.

Winter’s cold breath was receding. The sun warmed the pavement, the dirt, and the trees. The occasional gust of wind was all there was to remind him it was technically still Winter. It was beginning to sound like Spring. It’s something he always forgets. The warmer seasons have so much more noise than the cold ones. Everything wakes up. Everything shifts. No more lumps of salt on the sidewalks. No more signs warning walkers of the slick stairways. Kids get sick on the swings at the playground. Parents get sick of watching them. All the Christmas lights have been taken down, besides from the houses who have them up all year - never lit. People stand outside with their cigarettes and they don’t have to shiver. He stands outside with his cigarette. It calms him down. Long breaths in, long breaths out. As it burns his lungs and fills them with tar, it teaches him to regulate his breathing. He considers staying out there. Not going in. Going for a walk instead. Enjoying the fading Winter instead. He can’t. He has to go in. The cigarette is nearing its end. It drops to the ground and he presses down on it with the sole of his shoe - extinguished and pummeled into the ground.

He turns around, walks a couple feet, reaches his hand out to the door’s handle. He gives it a tug. Lighter than he expected it to be, it swings open. His footsteps illuminate the silent room. Clacking on tile. Heads turn and look away. They know why he’s here. They see him so often. They’re acting casual for the others in the room and they’re silently, internally preparing to flip a switch to take themselves from friendly to empathetic, as if they’re mourning the same loss he is. They aren’t. He’s at the counter. He answers questions. He makes the decision they were all ready for him to make. The one they knew he had to make because he couldn’t afford to make another one. He doesn’t want to see it happen. She was still warm. She still looked alive. Her hand was there for him to hold. He wanted to see her with the little bit of life she still had in her. Because he didn’t want to risk feeling regret over not having the courage to see her again. Because he wanted to give one more chance for a spark of hope. No spark. One last goodbye. He left the building, got help making the arrangements he would need to make. They stripped her of the lines of fluids that kept her alive. Switches flipped, plugs pulled. He was glad things were on their way to being over. He was glad he didn’t have to worry anymore.

He sat down at a table in a cafe he hadn’t been to. He could feel the sweater on his body. He listened to people making the decision to get cold drinks instead of hot ones. He decided to wear something lighter tomorrow. And something with warmer colors.

He Says

By Late Night Writings

“No matter what, I don’t think I’ll ever believe you.”

Then we went back to talking about the usual stuff. My day was okay. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. His day was busy. His days are always busy, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. Either of us could have said more about our days. Either of us probably would have liked to hear more about our days. We like listening to each other talk, even if neither of us ever have anything interesting to say. Neither of us like to talk much though.

It was one of the rare days that one of us could start a more substantial conversation. The subject got us both talking. We both replied to the other’s comments with more than five words. Somehow, I think we both managed to make a lot of our responses more than one sentence. More than five words. More than two words. That doesn’t happen often. I think we were talking like that for a little over five minutes. It didn’t feel long, but it felt long. Maybe if the conversation had stayed on the initial topic, it would have gone on for even longer. But it didn’t. It turned a corner and led us somewhere else.

I was still giving instinctive responses. Just saying the first things that came to mind. He gave me an opinion that I didn’t agree with. I asked him to elaborate. He did. I still didn’t like it. The conversation didn’t turn into an argument or anything, but the mood was definitely different now. He wasn’t too defensive, I wasn’t too aggressive. He explained his position the best he could and I understood why he held that opinion, but I still didn’t like it. I said that it’s a good thing I love him. Then, he said he loves me too. He said it with confidence. He said it like he meant it. But then I said it. I said it with confidence. I said it like I meant it. I said that I don’t and probably won’t ever believe that he loves me. It might be true. I might not believe that he loves me. He might care about me, he might like me, he might like like me, but I don’t think he loves me. I’m not sure how he took it. We both brushed it aside and changed the topic immediately. I don’t think it’s because either of us were afraid of addressing the issue. I think we both just need some time to think about it. We need to wait until we both have the energy for another short, long five-minute conversation.  Maybe longer.

Thought Addiction

Thought Addiction
By Lei

I like you in the folds of my brain

I like you lingering in last night’s sleeplessness

where you feel like a disconcerting dream

 I cannot quite shake off

I like you wandering through my lucidity

weaving in and out of the sanity

 I pretend to maintain

I like you where you are

just far enough away

 for me to sometimes forget you exist

I like you hiding in my memory

& then suddenly attacking the forefront of my brain

 with some arbitrary moment in our past interactions

  usually one I spent ninety percent of in my mind

   worrying you were criticizing every bit of me

    or imagining some extended version

     of our current conversation

      and then replaying the moment

       on an endless loop

        in the ensuing days

         like the favorite song

          I can’t get enough of

I like you popping up

cropping out reality

 as I try to focus

  on anything else

   anything that’s

     not you

I like you even in my angry realization

that you’re not who my mind tells me you are

 no matter how often I want you to be

I like you slipping

trickling

 falling sweetly into place

  never into my arms

   always into my mind

I like you as you are:

my very own idea

 the one that never

  fails to make me

   smile

Pompous and Single

By Late Night Writings

I feel like shit pretty much all the time, but I function well enough to do what I need to do. I’m miserable, but I use it to my advantage. My life isn’t that bad, really. I have some pretty good things in here. I just don’t let them make me feel better about myself because they aren’t the things that I want to make me feel good. I don’t want nonspecific joys. I want incredibly specific joys. I only want those joys. When one of those nonspecific things plugs the drain in my tank of happiness, I will yank that plug out and let the happiness drain. I want to be fixed by what I want to fix me. Those are things I probably won’t get. Maybe I only want them because I can’t have them, but I really fucking want them, so I am going to get them. I’ll put forth all my effort. I will use all my patience waiting. I will make more patience and more effort to use. I will be happy on the terms I want and I won’t let the happiness from stupid little things infect me. Those should-be-grateful-for things that I am not grateful for. I will be spoiled. I will let myself be spoiled. I want to spoil myself with the weird things that I want. I want to go across that bridge. I am not talking about a metaphorical bridge, I am talking about that little bridge that’s completely unnecessary. I will walk up that delightful staircase at the end of that street I would otherwise not have a reason to visit. I will get fucked in a magnificently expansive field in the middle of the day. I will go see that abandoned building. I’m trying to sound like I have a specific building in mind, but I don’t. I want somebody else to choose for me and I want them to take me there. Spontaneously. I want to do all these things with somebody I love to be with and I want to feel like they love to be with me. I want them to be as excited about my stupid adventures as I am. Maybe two people. Maybe three people. As long as we all enjoy each other, love bridges, stairs, fucking in fields, going to buildings, and every other stupid thing I might want to do or they might want to do that I want to do too. I want to feel that belonging. I want to satisfy my self. I want to live the life I want to live, the life I see, the life I think of. If I can be happy in the one I’m in, I don’t care. I don’t care about this life that I am living. I want the life I want, and I want to be happy in there.

I will do every unnecessarily specific thing I want to do. I will do every single one of them and it will make me happier than I deserve to be. But I want to be that happy, so I will be that happy. I’m going to do it and I will be nauseatingly proud of being as happy as I will be. People will look at me and know that I have what I want, just because the smile I’ll be wearing will be as pompous as I will feel. That smile will be my badge of achievement. It will let everyone know that I am happier than they will ever be. In the mirror, it will remind me that the effort I put into getting what I want brought me all of it and more. My pompous smile will be worn proudly.

Souvenir on the Skin

By Jem Morgenstern

During the day, it’s so hot that even the rocks burn. Even in the shade, my skin boils. Looking through the windows, all I can see is the heat. Sitting by those windows, I can feel the heat seeping through to strip my skin of the little moisture it’s able to retain. I treasure the little water I’m allowed to use each day. I worship the plants that thrive six levels below the surface in the greenhouse we rely on to survive. I’ve never seen a bird. I’ve never stepped foot outside. All I’ve heard of the outside world is that fixing pipe H on the exterior East wall is the worst experience of our engineer’s life. Nobody else wants to talk about the outside. When they step back in, they ignore the questions I ask. Most of the time, it’s like they don’t even hear me talking. They’re always tired. They smell like dirt. They get extra water for the trouble they go through out there. The torture of the sun.

Someday, I want to go out there.

I want to feel that dry air, that dirt, the sun’s rays that burn everything they touch. Even if I can only get out there for a second, at least I’ll have felt it. Even if I only get to reach my arm through the gateway, at least a part of me will know what it feels like to be out there. A piece of me might be scarred by the sun. A patch of my skin could be a souvenir from the outside. It could be my own piece of the sun. I could look at it to remember the electric sting and the torrid air. The barren outside world would follow me on a reddened splotch of scar tissue.

But they’ll never let me out there.

I’ll never feel that air.

I’ll never be consecrated with a scar.

I’ll never be tortured by the sun.

Human Intentions (and other unknown luxuries)

human intentions (and other unknown luxuries)

by leiani brown

why’d you tell me you two were close?

why’d you say you missed me and hated the distance between us? why’d you say you were out of money, then splurge it on a trip up the coast with people who were not me?

why’d you ask me how to make your friends like your wife?

why do you look at me like you could eat me, like there’s a hate bubbling just beneath those eyes and it’s no secret?

why’d you tell me you deleted the one person i care about most?

why’d you laugh when i told you he died?

why’d you tell me it was gonna be okay? why’d you tell me i didn’t have to sit by you, like you were some kind of burden, some pity acquaintance?

why’d you tell me you were institutionalized? why’d you say it like that?

why’d you try to take your life? didn’t you know it’d break their heart?

why’d you tell me you liked boys? why’d you scream it in a confined space on the night that was supposed to be someone’s utter bliss?

why’d you tell me you loved it? why’d you ask me to do it again, with just you?

why’d you assume you’d be so replaceable?

why’d you ask me to go with you?

why’d you keep it a secret? how could you ask me not to talk, to suppress the truth that was ripping apart your body? couldn’t you see i was already silent?

why do you share with me your life, in ten second vids? did you ever want to really know me? did you give it up after just two tries?

why’d you tell the world i was your happiest memory? then look at her like that?

why’d you ask me to open up? and pretend to understand my silence? then shout at me for volume, in front of all of them? then go on laughing, like you couldn’t see me?

why’d you thunder with applause?

why’d you take those pictures?

why’d you tell me not to trip?

why’d you teach me how to hit? why’d you tell me i could win? why’d you invest in me?

why’d you wait until i spoke first?

why’d you stop replying?

why’d you stop replying?

why'd you stop replying?

the answers are a luxury

my own confused human jumble

will likely never claim

and your intentions are yours i know

but wondering will always belong to me