Many of the pieces in this publication deal with issues about which some may find difficult to read, such as suicide, war, abuse, mental illness, and death, among other topics. We selected these pieces for publication because we believe in the importance of confronting these issues head-on in art and literature. However, we also want our readership to be adequately informed that they will be addressed within this publication.
Reader,
The road between the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth volumes of Canto was a long one, much longer than the staff who worked on the 2013 publication intended. While the publication was not able to continue production then, it’s my sincere wish that this volume of Canto will be the first of many more. Wear pink,
yellow, lilac bright colors. Dark? People might think you have mental issues. You look at the ground when you walk. Stop that. Look straight. Neck tight. Posture. And smile. i need to stop eating my fortune cookies, they’re all coming true: a cautionary letter to my younger self I.
your parents are great indicators that nothing ever ends up perfect. they’ll read you countless stories of princesses and happily ever afters, but there’s always that bad taste in your mouth. we’re staying together for the kids but your dad is still sleeping on the couch outside your bedroom. his snores still crawl under your door like snails through thick moss. their second split will stick with you like syrup under your sleeve. you will have separation issues for the rest of your life. INT. 12TH FLOOR KANE ADVERTISING OFFICE BUILDING — EVENING
LEAH, a 32-year-old businesswoman sits at the head of a long glass table. Her brown hair is pulled back into a severe bun and her white button up shirt is no longer tucked into her navy suit pants. She takes a deep breath, rubs her green eyes, and relaxes back into her chair. LEAH clears her throat to get everyone’s attention. LEAH: Alright, everyone, I guess that’s enough for tonight. I’ll see everyone tomorrow at six. BRET: Six? It’s eight o’clock now. We can’t come in a little later? You know, since we stayed three hours over today? I wake up with a start. Not again…
“Honey? What it is it?” I turn my head to see the beautiful outline of my wife. Although we are surrounded by the darkness of night, I can still tell she’s covered up to her neck in blankets and her head is upon an abundance of pillows. She’s fighting the sleep because she thinks she can help me. These boys, they try to play the rules,
pulling strings of toy wind ups. Try to forget. These boys, they try to dance like the men, try to push out their chests. Try to forget. Our turbulent tunnel vision contains nothing but
desolate desires. A threshold of insecurities compounded into one colossal culmination. Black heart entropy erodes even infinitesimal galaxies yet the chorus of a thousand skulls is not enough to turn our intemperate eyes from tonic-clonic illusions. Leaking, pulseless wither-men
forecast stormfront microcells. Cyanide flash flood, not a dam in sight. Eviscerated leather; seeping blood, leaves a trail down the highway: skylight hemorrhage. < :// Finally left home. To perceive the ringed giant.
< My family watches through a single eye. < One last look at home. Into the infinity. < Clockwise a barren giantess of love. But not ringed. < Hover over the pale cyclops. A mass of gas, striped in storms, yet no rings. < Nothing. Nothing from family. The giants are distant. Alone, but drifting. < Calls from family are a whimper; radio frequency, but nothing more. < Until a yellow giant, surrounded by auroric clumps, floats the infinite. Retrograde motion takes over. As you flick your wicked words
and fling your curses more than just feelings are hurt when blood starts to burn insults tear at the skin of the mind the perfect one can pierce what’s hidden behind Fourth of July all over her eyes,
fierce and violently free. Luminous blue at staggering depths, my modern Magellanic dream. Explosions of light behind her smile, elegant sincerity from pillowside whispers. Like shards of glass, the laceration of her gaze tears apart any semblance of disinterest. The Hill always casts a shadow. The sun peers through the thin gray clouds that are so common in Seattle, and every ray of light it casts, Beacon Hill selfishly catches, leaving the area behind it to the west, dense with gloom—a captive, forbidden to soak itself in gold.
On the Hill, innocent little similar-styled houses form this grid of a neighborhood—a neighborhood I live in, but never felt part of. The lawns weren’t usually manicured but the green waxy color it reflected made it look almost artificial. It’s summer and most kids are inside playing their video games, watching their individual TVs in the PJs they plan to wear until their parents announce they’re taking the family out to eat that night. Only the younger kids with their white, pink-tinted cheeks thrill themselves, riding their bikes where they shouldn’t—down the middle of the street where one or two gleaming SUVs will drive every ten minutes or so. Some parents will watch them from their porches, talking to the neighbors about school systems, traffic, and news of robberies in the neighborhood. The soggy floorboards creak underneath my feet as I walk down the pier, my fingers loosely intertwined with my dad’s sweaty hand. Frowning as I look at my flip flops, I wish I could just be barefoot. Why do there have to be rules about wearing shoes in places that are outside? It’s not like my feet are bothering anybody. I just want to feel the texture of the damp wood beneath my soles. I can easily take in the scenery: the yards of open pier ahead of me, the miles upon miles of ocean around me, the strip of beach below, and the shops sprawled out at my back. I can see all of these things, but my feet are currently blind to their beauty.
As a child, I chased geese.
Madly flapping arms, jumping frantically, desperately wishing, imagining lift. To brush wispy clouds with finger tips, tickling lightly the rays of the sun, beholding the great patchwork quilt spread before me. Yet two hours ago the world was pulsating with the rumors of spring
Birds chirping and bees buzzing with the appearance of new flowers The world was submerged in the infernos of new While I lie grabbing and grasping for the old The sky turned black spotted with bright yellows and whites I search the heavens desperate for the answers of the departed No visceral response has been made to my pleas Wisps of white and grey emerges and smolders as it inches from my lips Robbed of green,
of blue, of warmth; straining beneath the crush of lethargy. Cyclical death asphyxiates the land, beckoning close the silent storm: The hum of morning deafens the senses as I pulled back the heavy, desert-tan canvas door. Reds and browns danced in the air with a cool breeze futile against the already blazing sun. Smells of musk and defiled grey water filled my nostrils as I embarked upon my morning trek. Lips burned as my sandpapered tongue attempted to moisten. My body ached and creaked as it was propelled forward with hopes on mental reprieve.
I sat upon a makeshift bench of rejected two by fours and cinder blocks. The only company was another red-eyed sleep deprived soldier. He stood beyond the massive grey concrete walls in his modest wooden shack. Rifle slung across his chest, one in the chamber twenty-nine in the mag. Finger gently rested on the safety, ready to slip into fire or three round burst if there was any warrant for a cause. My rifle laid on my lap with the same standards of operations always in effect. All I’ve ever wanted was to be loved by Vera. I don’t know when exactly I realized this or when I fell for her, but I did. Not literally with the falling part—well, maybe a few times. Then again, I fall a lot. I’m sort of a klutz that way and other ways. I do a fairly decent job of not tripping over my own feet too much, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, though, tables are a different story. I don’t think there’s been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t knocked something off of something somewhere sometime in the day. I’ve gotten better, though, if I think about it. If I don’t think about it, well, as I said, I’m sort of a klutz.
Again the stars it seems will fade,
sun start to light the sky-- Alas! Now gone the night so staid, my thoughts won’t quiet lie. I know I sleep in silence best, yet sorely wish to scream. Once again I found no rest; again I found no dreams. Oh my friend,
my love, my distant stranger. I’m writing this to you because I cannot go on, I need you to know the truth. I’m writing this to you because you’re the only man who has ever touched me in such a way that I myself, cannot even fathom. I need you to know you’re the only man who has ever made me go completely limp. As if the faint sound of your name makes my entire body tremble, and I fall I fall I’m falling—slowly. There she sat, at attention for the world’s viewing, sixteen years of age. Like a wind-up toy awaiting play time, she looked at the boys with apprehension for she knew and deeply understood their affections for her—their coveted imaginations dancing behind eyelids. She was the life of the party, stories circulating this way and that as if she had some dark secret hidden away inside her—like a treasure. She resembled other girls, tight curls, lips painted in ravishing reds, materials that hugged her body just so that they mimicked the touch of love she so desired. The girl found an opening that she could force herself through, standing, waiting for her crowd’s admiration, approval that never quite filled the void within her own heart. And each night she found pleasure in a man who she thought she knew—a man who was much like the others—a figure of momentary comfort, fleeting penetration.
I “Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” that’s what everyone said. I hated that phrase. I was about ten when the signs started to appear. One minute I was fine, sitting in my same spot in the minivan, right behind mom. Just watching the dark silhouettes of trees pass in the window. Then it would hit. My throat would close up on me. My body burned like a rapidly spreading forest fire. Sweat poured from every pore of my little elementary school body. My body had turned on me. I felt the muscles in my throat clench, as if invisible hands were grasping around my neck. I couldn’t breathe. My young lungs, though weak with asthma, longed to inflate and just exhale. My body quaked. My chest pulsated so fast that I became nauseous. Though it lasted only minutes, hours seemed to pass by. It wasn’t until the fifth time, that my health was in question.
“Five…four…three…two…one….”
He sighs. I close my eyes. “Five…four…three…two…one….” The cold metal presses farther into my skull and my skin into it. Shaking. Bruising. Waiting. I take a deep breath and open my eyes to yell. Just do it. But the gun jerks back before I can. The bang drowns out the plea. The flame drains out my life. He looks at the ceiling, allowing the fluorescents to glare into my eyes, and he throws the gun away. It rattles and scrapes across the cold tile floor. And stops. (Based on a painting by Mark Ryden)
Wind her up. Make her feel like she is nothing but a trophy that stands upon your mantle. That’s it. Now trample on her feathers, rip the tulle of her tutu, and make her fall weak with eyes tired until she remembers the motions, until she remembers the steps; until she lives, eats, and breathes the name of dance. |
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