Write on the theme of "community". Images to include from the group: gardens, forklift, the subway, a painting, winning a bronze metal in something.I leave my house in the morning and board my train to work and I wonder who I'm doing it for. The person next to me mumbles an apology when we bump shoulders in the almost-light and I think "yeah, I'm doing it for her". I smile and try to say this without saying it by telling her "no it's totally fine" in a way that's too earnest and too loud and too toothy for the time of day. I say this without saying it by moving over just enough to give her some space but not so much that she thinks I'm offended. I wonder who she's doing it for. I hop off at my stop and run as fast as I can up the steps to exit the subway but not so fast that I fall into the scaffolding and the men in hard hats maneuvering a forklift at the top. I try not to make eye contact with them, and I do that for me. I keep my head down and throw one foot in front of the other until I'm down the block and up the stairs to work and my coat is halfway off before I realize all the lights are off and it's Saturday and I don't work today. I laugh into the empty rooms and they echo and I do that half for me and half for the people I imagine to be there. I don't button my coat back up as I make my way back outside. I head to the city garden where I take my lunch sometimes, but of course it's locked because, of course, it's Saturday. I squint in between the wrought iron bars and wonder if the half-planted bushes know it's Saturday and I wonder who planted them and who they planted them for and what does it mean that they didn't finish the job. I stay there for a while before moseying back to the subway like the home team swimmer who's used to third place. I make it all the way home and wait too long for the elevator and when I decide to take the stairs instead, I'm halfway up the first flight when I see it arrive. I run up the rest of the steps to beat the elevator so I feel better about myself and I wonder if that was for me, too. Two sets of yellow-green eyes wait for me at the door and they get their little salmon treats in an act that is kind of for me but mostly for them. My coat makes it to the rack and I forgive Saturday for coming late.
By Claire-Frances Sullivan
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 I am drowning.
The water leaks into me, Into my cracks and crevices, Filling the very heart of me. I am broken wood, Paying the price for my weakness, Water spilling over me like Water. Like blood. Through the black spots dancing before me, I see a face, A halo of sun. You are an eclipse. Through the blue blankness I see Your hand plunging down, With the last of my strength, I reach up to you. Your hand around my wrist, Water at my ankles like shackles, Like anchors. You tug, but I am too much. Come up, come up, come up for air, Somewhere beyond t he abyss I can hear you shouting But I cannot come up for air. And I have never held your wrist Like you hold my wrist. You have never clung to me for life, So when I slip, You let me. By Molly Burdick I can only eat so many walnuts to try and heal my heart I heard walnuts fix the brain like probiotics It rewires things. But now I'm covered in walnuts have a dry mouth and your name is still on my tongue. By Amy-Catherine Welch  The sun is rising. I know I should get to bed, but I can’t stop thinking about her. I keep replaying our goodbye in my head, the way she kissed me so gently, the way she batted her little eyes. And the way she flew off, perfectly silhouetted against the full moon. It’s only been a few hours, but I miss her. I’ve just been circling the cave since then, picking at the occasional rat, but I don’t have any appetite. The butterflies in my stomach make it hard to eat.
Finally, I give in and head inside. My parents will kill me if I stay out any later. The sky is streaked with fiery red by this point, and my eyelids are getting heavy. I dive into the cave, hoping to slip into my room unnoticed, but it seems like the whole colony is up, blinking at me from their hanging places. It’s easy to pick mom out from the crowd. “Have fun?” she pings at me sarcastically. I click back nonchalantly and dart under them, into my tiny cavern at the back of the cave. Mom and Leslie follow me, Leslie giggling the whole way. “What are you laughing at?” I click. “Shouldn’t you be asleep? It’s well into morning.” Leslie rolls her eyes. “I stayed up for the drama.” She latches onto the ceiling and hangs next to me, grinning innocently. I look to mom in exasperation. “Walter, we just want to make sure you’re being safe,” she coos. I had almost settled in on the ceiling, and I nearly lose my grip. “God, mom!” I ping. “Don’t be gross!” We have a silent hang-off, neither of us blinking. Finally, mom sighs. “Fine. Just be back by curfew next time.” I grumpily wrap my wings around myself as she flaps away to rejoin the adults. Leslie starts humming “Here Comes the Bride” next to me, but I swing my wing out and knock her off the ceiling. As a warning. Then, I drift off into dreams of my love. By Molly Burdick by Amy-Catherine Welch pt 1. (in August)The rain came down softly on my skin the last time I saw her a metaphor All I ever wished for was a cabin in the woods for us to run away together so I've been looking up flights to Ireland looking at borders looking up masks and Hepa filters holding on to hope like a thread above me swaying Early mornings make me think of her you... what is second person third person anyways except a device and a way to remember. Is it a sin that I just want to abandon my acting career and grow vegetables? I miss theatre with every fiber of my being. Maybe I can put on a production of Hamlet, lying under tomatoes and cucumbers and I can feel the drama in the rain and shout these stories to neighbors and through screens I want to dance loudly here. pt 2. (in October)I sit in silence
vines grow in cracks around the bend Tiny gardens in a concrete jungle aching to be wild but confined by a fence built by man I want love and wind to sweep me away to live inside the scarecrows my neighbors put up to see the world through straw Will it wash away my fears? The ruins around which we gathered
were smaller than we’d expected. The photos that upon a cursory glance had seemed to express views from mountain tops and precarious paths, had, by generous estimation, been taken from a stepladder, or perhaps a milk crate. What we all came to see, the central figure we had thought to be hundreds of feet high was a stepping and golden pyramid. We had all seen it so often in movies and documentaries we could all picture it with our eyes shut. But what no photo could capture and what none of us knew to expect, was the sand. After we removed our packs leaving outlines of sweat on our shoulders and backs, we kicked off our boots and peeled off the thick woolen socks that would have taken us up to the precipice we had planned for, our toes sank into the silken surface as into liquid as we paced around the tiny ruins. The pyramid in reality came up to my hip. It was curved, slouching off to one side like melting ice cream. We all looked to each other dusty toes and sweaty shoulders wondering: Had it changed, or had we all remembered it wrong? By Laura McCullagh "One of your characters is a piece of furniture." I used to work for Peewee Herman. In a chair’s world, that’s becoming a god. On the show, Peewee talks to you like he’d talk to a human. You have lines to say in response. Peewee doesn’t talk to you in between filming, but I knew the man loved me like I loved him. Knew. It isn’t until years after the show ends and you stop watching the reruns that you put it all together: I had lines to say, but they weren’t chair lines, they were person lines coming through humanity’s most valuable player: the chair who wanted a seat at the table. You get an ego, think of yourself as a high chair, but every human who ever saw me still assumed I was their salvation should they be tired. My only rescue was having a reserved sign: they don’t sit on me because they’re afraid of disrespecting another human. That’s why I tell people Paul Reubens was just like his character Peewee Herman, because the closest claim I had to autonomy was to be reserved by someone benevolent. By Maxim Vinogradov Wildflowers sprout up beneath The deck chair you loved Still sitting where you left it You built this desk with your hands Its aspen veneer Peeling and stained with spilled ink We borrowed the chair That sits in the living room Too heavy to move You built my bed wrong It’s creaked since its conception It will creak always By Molly Burdick It's been lonely these days, at work. I sit in the corner of the room, waiting for customers to come in. It's hard, though. With COVID. Less people to drink coffee, less people to want to stay awhile. I miss the feeling of it. I miss the gentle scrape of my legs against the floor in anticipation of someone carrying a mug and a book. I miss the pressure in my back when someone finally sits down. Sitting, perched on my sturdy form, talking to someone or working on their laptop. I miss wondering if they'd stay in my embrace for a few minutes, or even hours at a time. I stay here, my rectangular wooden frame pressed back against the wall, wondering when I'll feel the warmth of a soul in my arms again. It could be days, could be longer. So I sit. And wait.
By Claire-Frances Sullivan When first I awakened in the lungs of the Earth
and I first felt the Earth take a breath, I was not made of matter one could see or could touch, but I was thought that could see and could feel. So when I awakened in the lungs of the Earth and I first felt the Earth take a breath, the lungs expanded, so pink and so clean and contracted around me again. Nine hours an inhale and nine again out I soon felt a heartbeat join in. Somewhere within my amorphous self a beating had decided to start. Confused, I cried out with no vocal cords and the Earth so kindly responded. She shared her thoughts and I shared mine glad for some form of companion. As I was conscious in the lungs of the Earth and she was sharing her mind I began to feel oceans wash over my surface in time with the breaths of air. I could feel the land move cracking, shifting, shaking, releasing deep within my depths. Through the mind of the Earth I could feel the sun warming me so kindly as I turned. I could feel the blanket of warm air wrapped tightly, safely ‘round my body. I could feel, in the lungs of the Earth something growing something shaping something becoming a force of its own. I am awake in the lungs of the Earth and I am beginning to take a form. I don’t know what I am but I can see what I’m becoming and so, I think, can the Earth. She is beginning to fear me and as I grow eyes I weep for her demise. For as I grow a body like a cancer in her lungs she has less and less room to breathe. One day I’ll climb out wretched, pale, and caked with dirt, to cast shadows on the ground. I’ll dive in the oceans, I’ll stomp up the mountains, and perhaps take a breath of my own. By Laura McCullagh Leave the light on
when you go I want to see the cluttered desk I want to see the bed at rest I want to see the shelves of books I want to see the hanging hooks I want to see the empty chair [I want to see you sitting there] Leave the light on every night Just like you used to do And pull the shades closed, too The light inside is you by Molly Burdick |
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