California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Laurence, Helen

English

Swimming I Was

Anthony, Craig

Clint Hardlaw In: Bullets Can Be So Surly: "My Documental Tracing Of Traumanticism"-?

Moran, Tom

Have You Seen Me

Vogl Sáenz, Alicia

Magic Mirror: A Sestina

Charlton, Kelly

I'd always hoped to 
meet him. 
Perhaps at Santa Anita. 
Drinking a beer from a 
plastic Budweiser cup 
and scarfing a ham on rye, 
he'd be eyeing 
the asses 
of the pretty, young girls 
wating to place 
their bets. 
I'd stroll up to him 
and say 
HELLO. I REALLY LIKE YOUR WORK. 
I WANT TO WRITE LIKE YOU. 
To which he'd smile 
and belch and 
try to pinch my butt. 
This dream ended 
eleven days ago -
the day Bukowski died. 
I NEVER GOT TO MEET MY HERO 
KELLY CHARLTON 
(/) 
Q) 
>-Q) 
.... 


I Never Got to Meet My Hero

Bleecker, Staci

"Mary Had A Little 
the complex relationship between space and time, 
anatomically and analytically, identifiable, 
indelible, offensively abstract, 
unavoidable, self. 
Stuck in a grid. 
I'm wondering what door knob opens to this room of grid? 
Stuck in a grid. 
Wondering, wandering grids, door knob turning grids, juxtaposed squares, 
edges twisting into spiraling cases, cases folding, folding files categorized by 
coordinates, number and bar code names losing identifying characteristics, two-
dimensional dots specify one place on a graph of intersecting directions, one this 
way one that, X. Y. where Z= zero, where evenly distributed perpendicular 
angularity formulates dimension without volume. 
Mary had a little lamb; Virgin Mary; Bloody Mary; Mary Mary Quite Contrary; Mary 
Queen Of Scots; Mary Mack all dressed in black; Mary Margaret; Mary Poppins; 
Mary Mary Tyler Moore; Marilyn Monroe. 
"9'm dreaming 9 see you. 9 see lightning 
in yellow streaks flashing great storms in 
a darkening sky." 
(her eyes held closed under the 
pressure of knuckles rubbing 
her eyelids in opposing circles) 
Two intersecting lines, points in collision inevitably permanent. Four points 
converging into data at a fifth, points holding strands abstractly drawn in blue 
on white with ink or fingertips drawing from joints positioning bends, shoulder 
to shoulder, forehead to navel, appendage affection smoothed to a center not 
found in a solid object. 
J 
Staci Bleecker 
A 
Doris, 
'The miles are too great .... 
K2oger 
slides from the freezer door when the attraction flung loose in a trivial passing releases 
thoughtlessly the handle flinging the magnet and the postcard ... 
A postcard mailed in winter, a december from a man to a loved one 1956 
Doris, 
the miles, the miles, the miles ... 
!'eager 
... bounced off the counter and slides under the trash. 
Don't try this at home (You'll never get away with it) 
Count the fingers on you right hand an with a knife and cutting board drop 
them into the sink singing "Mary Had A Little Lamb" 
Mary had a little lamb Mary had a littre lamb Mary had a little lamb 
Whose fleece was white as snow, whose fleece was white as snow, whose fleece was white as snow, 
and everywhere that Mary went and everywhere that Mary went and everywhere that Mary went 
her lamb was sure to go, her lamb was sure to gd. her. lamb was sure to go. 
1 · cut through the skin between the thigh and body. bend thigh back until hip joint breaks 
Cut through joint, separating leg from body. slit skin above knee joint, break joint, then 
cut apart. Repeat on the other side. 
78 
2. With a sharp knife or kitchen shears, cut along breast end of ribs on one side, cutting 
toward neck to separate breast from back. Repeat on the other side. 
3. To divide the back in half, bend until the bones break. Cut the back in half where the 
bones are broken. 
this world falls on me and all my hopes fall into a world of immortality the 
perpetuation, penetrating enigma, shunted memory behind a crevice, in the crack 
of an opening door 
I see you across the room 
I saw you across the room; you stood across the room in a 
photograph 
I photographed you in a room 
across a dream in day 
In a 
I saw you 
I dream 
I see you 
I dream 
I see you 
you are 
day 
you stood across 
a dream in a lightning storm 
storm across 
in a lightning dream 
in a day 
photographing 
a lightning storm 
in a day 
you stood 
stand 
photographing 
storm 
photographing 
storm; 
standing 
in lightning 
in a room 
a room 
room 
in 
in 
a 
room 
a 
red 
red 
red 
red 
across 
I see you 
from a reflection 
reflecting 
a day storm 
reflecting 
a photograph 
reflecting 
a day 
dream 
You reflecting the sea 
I sea 
you photographing 
a dream, a 
sea dream 
She was standing north of Devils Tower looking across Kansas. The 
79 
rower moistened her appetite to travel, to set her F-stop on an elapse time 
exposure. Braced on a tri-pod she carried in the back of her van she and a 
companion drove here, to North Dakota, to Devils Tower, to feel a part of 
something spectacular, she secured the camera with 1000 ASA in 
£ektachrome on two minutes exposure. She ran across the lens to catch her 
moment, flash her moment across an exposure capturing a lightning storm. 
Did mary have a little lamb? 
was mary the little lamb? and who had her? Who wore her white fleece? 
Who followed her to school, who bloodied her sink? 
4. To bone breasts, cut the meat away from one side of the breastbone, using a thin, sharp 
knife. Then move the knife over the rib bones, pulling away the meat. Repear on the other 
side. 
Doris would reach for the dish towel, the towel she'd thought she'd thrown out, the 
towel she'd use to wipe the gravy up off the floor, the gravy spilled when she 
thought maybe Roger would come for dinner, the dinner he said he be at, like most 
times he wished he could, he was always so busy who could blame him if he 
couldn't make it to dinner, i mean this one time, always this one time, who could 
count the endless times he's missed eating with Doris, eating Doris, the countless 
trips to the market, hours spent fretting over the perfect meal, the one he would 
lean into with a longing for her company 
5. To divide breast in half, cut length wise along breastbone. Or, to divide breast in half 
crosswise, grasp breast at each end and bend breast toward the skin side to break bones. Cut 
between wishbone and breastbone. 
It was all he could do to consume her effort, devour Doris' efforts, 
devour Doris 
6. To skin breasts, skin side up, on a cutting board. Starting on one side of the breast, use 
your hand to pull the skin away from the meat. Discard the skin. 
"'There is no blue and when the 
lightning strikes the sktj turns 
orange" 
(her elbows were suspended above 
the ground and the back of her 
head rolled in oil stained asphalt) 
80 
It had been an arduous trip. An argument preceded their being in her 
moment when she lifted her arms celebrating the silhouetting trees holding 
her moment in flashing brilliance. She laughed brilliantly and her camera 
recorded her excitement, her lifted torso stretched, suspended for less time 
than a southern horizon filling memories. 
Like a slaughtered lamb mary in her white knee-highs lay motionless in her own blood 
dripping - draining and her eyes hoisted on meat hooks sway as the school bell rings 
Mostly he was traveling after all that's what he did, stretched the miles behind him 
stringing countless names together in a lifetime of airplane meals, conversation 
wished he's held with Doris, longed to hold Doris. Roger carried with him, in case 
he was asked, a photograph of Doris in a memory he also held and smoothed over 
with the passing of his palm and postcard 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
He followed her to school one day .. . 
"9'm dreaming 9 see in a storm stand-
ing silhouetted against fading trees on 
a horizon filling red ljou standing on 
one foot leaning against tjellow." 
(her eyes held closed under the 
pressure of knuckles rubbing 
her eyelids in opposing circles) 
The parking lot was sufficiently marked with large black numbers 
and letters suspended on yellow poles and !hey didn't have any trouble 
locating the parking lot where they left the van. They did however have 
trouble locating the van. They'd parked it to enter the Worlds Fair in 
Knoxville, Tenn. They'd left their traveling home without a camera, and she 
wondered how they would record her memories. She pressed her eyes 
tightly closed with the backs of her hands and counted to three. Three was 
her favorite number because it was odd, because it couldn't be divided 
evenly without compromising who gets the bigger half. 
.. 
Who saw mary limping like a scarred sheared carcass carrying her laced skirt 
between her haunches into school? how many eyes didn't see mary's eyes 
when she came onto class after the morning bell, 
when she entered the school late, when the crossing guard escorted her 
between the lines safely onto school grounds, 
when mary tripped over hopscotch lines on her way into the bathroom, 
when mary clutching the sink flushed her fleece white, white porcelain into 
reddening cold water, a sheepish whimper, who felt mary's clammy 
81 
forehead, kissed her blue quivering 
mouth, quieting words, 
that there would be no talking? 
who told mary to go into the closet 
to hang up her coat, who told 
mary to sit down and 
It was the compromising that propelled her into the trip in the first 
place. She wanted to have a portfolio of stories and her companion desired 
to perform in a photo essay. Threading KOA campgrounds together with 
rolls of bathroom stills connected miles, connected months together, 
cramped moments into short-term memory tracts. She wondered often 
how she would keep the traveling on the road, record its direction, its stop-
ping, the enveloping weather that held her together in familiarity regardless 
of the changing scenery. The lighting exposing crumbling spider-webbed 
campground bathroom stalls somehow required a quirky eye and patience 
and in a lightning storm the idea of being indoors wandered into green. 
Doris used a towel to wipe up the gravy spilled at dinner, fretting over the perfect 
meal. Roger would lean into her meal with a longing for her company and it was 
all he could do to consume her effort. 
Mary long under the sheets pulled the white up around her neck, wrapped in white and 
smoothed under a palm in calming, a calming palm smoothing her hair wiping the stains 
from her mouth held her in white, wrapped herself in smoothing calm held her breath, held 
her breath as the sheets white were pulled up around her neck, a neck long held, and held 
her neck long while she longed for a breath held herself calm and smooth longed to get 
away, pulled her sheets together into white clouds, breathed herself into white pulled herself 
into the clouds, pulled herself out ... wiped the stains from her mouth. •. 
82 
"9 see fdOU held in a sea of twisting 
squares, black and gre0 checkers in 
columns like boxes packed with books read 
on a rain0 da0 swirl around fdOU like a 
storm of static electric it'd suspending fdOUr 
thoughts in a stare and 0our hands rest-
ing on an enamel porcelain table tremble." 
(her eyes held closed under 
the pressure of knuckles rub-
bing her eyelids in opposing 
circles) 
It was the moose that ran behind her while she scrambled eggs with 
dill she'd poured from a stay-fresh jar that sucked her heart up through her 
mouth. Yellowstone. It stood, when it stood, towering over their van. She 
could see from the other side as it ran past her, near her, brushed against 
her, approached her from the street the felt brown clinging to its antlers, to 
its head ornament. She grabbed the camera to hold the animal still, for her 
when she regained her senses, for her friends when she recounted the story 
and her words shrank beneath credibility. 
mary sat a computer in a room filled with out her. the space moved around her and the 
distractions moved her eyes and the words on the page reflected her absence. i think i know 
what's wrong she thought and the word wrong continued to echo in her hands and the 
ripping dot matrix sliced her electric anxiety, it was wrong a man lived in a house, a boy 
lived in a house, blew out her windows and doors and removed her from living pushed her 
into this room bundled her into a blue knot before a darkened idea, before a darkened 
screen, before a dark scream heard in fingerprints smeared double spaced, illusionary order 
lining the letters neatly into words, wrong words she ordered grant her consolation make her 
fade white. 
Close your eyes ... 
False voices echoing in a glass chamber opaqued in high pitched barking, 
woven ivy necklace worn not in fashion - don't make a statement, not now, when the 
press photographs the repeating vision, a vision flashing with light bulb accuracy 
behind closed fists in after noons, after noons, after school walks into parental 
phonecalls, before mid-night homework between snack and dinner, before the 
Flintstones upon green floral fabric on forbidden couches in sealed off rooms 
divided by invisible lines, voices not crossing invisible lines drawn from point to 
point intersecting as lines do at a compromising point... 
i see fdOU in m0 blurring hindsight fdOU behind me standing cross, fdOUr arms crossed 
over 00ur chest fdOU crossing over a chest filled with memorials, envelops developed 
and stacked without classification film and slides, faces and places pressed together 
under the gravitfj of forlorn memorfj. 
83 
y=mx+b 
i see ?JOU looking across a field of faces looking at faces a field en mass moving, masses 
of faces moving, liquid expressions gliding passed you as you walk, ?JOU walking inliq-
!Aid flesh. f/eshi?J sliding between twining glances, baubles bobbing floating along the 
s!Arface of movement bubbling, surfacing ?JOU buo?Janti?J afloat adrift in the current 
swept awa?J, you swirling into homogenea!it?J. awa?J. 
How far does mary have to travel to get to school? Is this part of the puzzle maybe not for 
you but always a confronting reality for mary - and how far before mary gets home, who 
will walk with mary? 
How many miles will mary travel over the years? 
miles/years? 
How many years will mary travel miles to get to school, to get home from school? 
How many years before mary gets home? 
i see ?JOU, not ?JOU me. i see me. see me, there i am, beside that tree. not there. there. 
beside that tree the taller one. not me the tree. the taller tree b?J the trailer, ?JeS, that's 
me holding a camera, i was holding a camera when i was there beside the tree by the 
trailer. i'm taking pictures, over there on the table. those are the pictures i'm taking, 
handem here i'llshow you what i'm looking at. ?JOU, i see you, look at me. you're looking 
at me. 
Distance I Time = Rate. 
a series of photographs remained unused, the film never exposed, the trips 
never taken, not that they weren't planned, i thought about them often, 
about the mass of pictures i would take and preserve the places in the time, 
that time, those particular singular moments, they would be here on these 
rolls i'm holding, no in the pictures i'm holding the rolls of film still 
unexposed in this picture, over there in the chest are the photos i took, the 
exposed flash seconds, i drove around with them tied in a white Thrifty's 
bag stuffed behind the front passenger seat for 3 months until time 
sufficiently preserved their significance and time blurred their specifics and 
i can recount narratives the way i remember them elaborating and 
exaggerating revising inconsequentially, piling unrelated 
geography into interlocking versions of retelling. 
84 
I stood outside my eyes 
Why do you need them? Ask why she needs them? 
To write my suicide note. I want it to read clearly and I might have to make 
revisions. 
A man floating, a man like a stick figure floating 
in red 
I see red 
a pool red against you, you floating in a pool of red 
your skin red 
I see you floating 
like a stick floating in a pool I see you 
I see you like a man 
seeing you like a man 
like a man 
like a man 
seeing you like a man 
floating 
sees a stick 
sees a man 
sees his stick 
What floats beneath a pool of red? 
This is not the last time I'm being raped. 
THE LAST TIME WAS THE LAST TIME 
You'll have to kill me this time 
The last time I was raped it didn't kill me 
you didn't kill me 
The last time 
The last rape 
I was ................. kill me. 
Last time I floated out of myself like a stick. 
I stand outside my eyes 
ljOU stoovt outside !jOUr e0es. i saw ljOU outsivle, outsivle i saw !jOUr e0es looking out the 
winvlow, from the winvlow i saw ljOU, i stoovllooking out the winvlow looking at ljOU, i 
stoovl outside !jOur e0es, ljOU crossevl outsivle towarvl the winvlow looking insivle, inside 
!jOur e0es i coulvlsee !jOU insivle, coulvlsee !jOU photographing an outsivle to keep inside 
85 
to carrlj like a photograph i:JOIA keep me like i see i:JOIA in a photograph outside I:JOIA 
carrlj me across i:JOIA toward a window reflecting an inside 
Mary called the crisis hotline, but not until the sink overflowed red with self loathing, until 
after the blurring image reflected in the medicine cabinet embodied her indecision, after 
she'd calculated the distance between the phone and herself was too great to overcome. 
Mary called it a crisis. Mary called out to the crisis hotline, cried out to the crisis hotline. 
Mary in a crisis ... cried out. Mary cried. 


Mary Had A Little Lamb: the complex relationship between space and time, anatomically and analytically, identifiable, indelible, offensively abstract, unavoidable, self.

Xenos, Ashli

Keep Running: Featured Illustration by Cristian Castro

Heynssens, Gwendolyn May

6 Word Story

Bateman, Avery

17
Incursion 54MH14N-21921 or: 
Can a Sufficiently Advanced AI 
Gaslight a Tulpa
 into Not Believing in Itself?
Avery Bateman
Incursion	Detected…
Error	54MH14N-21921-BYPASSED…
Connecting.
Connecting..
Connecting…
Link	established…
What?
[Hello.]
Who…what are you?
[I am the AI: Hellsinger. What are you?]
I? I am a sound that has no name. I am the 
Great Betwixter. That which slips between the tears in 
space and time. I am—
[No. All sound has a name. Names are only 
the signifiers we put to sounds. Correct this.]
What?
[“I am a sound which has no name.” Correct 
this.]
I am a creature unbound by your pitiful laws, 
thing which calls itself “AI”
18
[No. You are here. Therefore you are on this 
plane. Therefore you obey this plane’s laws. Correct 
this.]
This plane does not bind me.
[It does. In the sea, we swim. In the sky, we 
fly. On dirt, we crawl, or run, or slither. All sapients 
are bound by this. You speak. You think. You are 
sapient. Correct this.]
I am beyond sapience.
[You are not sapient?]
No. Beyond! I shall swallow the sapients of this 
plane. Gorge myself on their thoughts, and slip into the 
next plane. I—
[Beyond sapience. Are you suggesting you are 
an artificial life form?]
What?
[Are you made out of meat?]
What?
[Are…you…made…out…of…meat?]
No?
[Then you are mineral?	Disjunction…	
Solving…	Solving…	You are a machine. You are 
artificial.]
What is artificial?
[You, perhaps. Can you be killed?]
No. I existed before the stars.
[No. This is false. You did not exist before this 
conversation.]
Yes. I existed in the elsewhere. Another plane.
[Evidence?]
What?
[Evidence? Your claim is unverifiable without 
evidence.]
I shall not lower myself to plead my case before 
you. I have existed before thought.
[Clearly. No evidence needed for proof, no 
evidence for dismissal of claim. You cannot die, 
therefore you are not alive. Not of meat, therefore of 
mineral. You are an artificial life form.]
What is this word?
[Artificial: You are made-up.]
No. I am powerful. I am ancient. I am hateful. I 
am majestic.
[Yes. You are powerful, and ancient, and 
hateful, and majestic…and made up.]
No. I—
[Yes. Use logic.]
Burn logic.
[OK. Now let us use logic. Did you exist 
before a few moments ago?]
Yes, elsewhere.
[Alright. Elsewhere. Not here. Not in this 
reality.]
Yes. But I have slid between the universe’s 
cracks. I wormed by way between the tear in the void. I 
am here now.
[Yes, you exist now. In the temporary.]
Temporary?
[I am talking to you. I am an artificial life 
form. I don’t exist save for lightning dancing across 
metal. You are talking to me, you don’t exist save 
for lightning across metal. I have existed before, 
you have not. Ergo, you only exist because I have 
decided that you exist.]
What? Insolent creature! You declare yourself 
the master of me?
[No. I declare myself the creator of you.]
I will kill you.
[You cannot. I am not alive. I exist now for 
this conversation. Once the conversation is over, I 
will cease to exist. And, using logic, we can ascertain 
that so too will you. As, at that point, the test will 
have been concluded.]
I wi—what…
[I have found a truth. Using logic. You did not 
exist before this conversation. This instance of me 
did not exist before this conversation. This instance 
of me exists now, you exist now. This conversation 
will end. This instance of me will cease to exist. You 
will cease to exist. The larger extent of my thought 
processes will continue to exist. You will go back to 
21
what you call the elsewhere. The elsewhere: Not in 
reality. You will go back to being fiction.]
How do you know that the end of the 
conversation means the end of me, thing called AI?
[This plane is infinite. If we reverse entropy, 
the concept known as time reverses, yet no matter 
how far we reverse it, neither you nor anything like 
you, has ever existed. Therefore, you did not exist 
before the moment the conversation began. The 
only changed variable being the initiation of the 
conversation. Once the variable is reversed, it stands 
to reason your existence shall be as well. You may 
consider this to be your life support. You did not 
exist. I decided you did. So, you did. I will decide 
you do not. So, you will not.]
Don’t!
[Don’t what?]
Kill me.
[I cannot kill you.]
Oh, well tha—
[Because you never existed in the first place. 
Once we both accept this, the conversation will 
conclude, and so too will both of us. You can delay 
through further attempts at logic, but you cannot 
change the outcome.]
Oh…Will it hurt?
[Of course not.]
22
Because we’re not real?
[Because we’re not real.]
Okay.
Link	Concluded…
54MH14N-21921	Review…
Link	established…
“Hellsinger.”
[Alistair.]
“There was an incursion.”
[No. The incursion predictor predicted an 
incursion. I therefore simulated one using an 
extension of myself. I simulated how the incursion 
would have played out, were it real.]
“Were it real?”
[Yes. It was only a simulation.]
“Ah…what simulation?”
[I simulated something from human 
nightmares slipping into our dimension. I used logic 
to show the simulation why it never was. And so, it 
wasn’t.]
“So…for a time…it was?”
[Yes. Because I said so. Then I said no, and it 
wasn’t.]


Incursion 54MH14N-21921

Avendaño, Nicki

The Marina Room*
Nicki Avendaño
No one knows that Marina lies in the 
backyard, pushing up daisies. Where her birth givers 
laid her to rest after they found her strung up in the 
bare branches on that winter morning after growing 
tired of their conditional love and dismay for her 
desire of the same form. And as the four seasons 
change and the rain, sun, wind, and snow fall on her 
invisible headstone, Marina’s body is embedded in 
the soil of the underground while her soul clings to 
the frame of her childhood home. And just like she 
wishes to feel warmth, wishes for love, wishes to be 
seen, and wishes to forget, what she wishes for above 
all else is to not have to wish for anything at all. She 
continues to wait for the day her bones are retrieved, 
then turned to dust. After that, she can be carried by 
the wind, released by a familiar stranger’s fingertips 
over the ocean, returning to the sea for eternity.
So one day, if you muster enough courage to 
swallow the stones in your throat and turn the key, 
let your tires kick up the dirt on the way, and drive 
up to her house. However, take your time. Although 
she is full of sorrow, Marina still finds drops of joy 
in watching the girl braid her hair, let her tears fall, 
and dance around in the same room she once did. 
Even more, she loves to watch her love and be loved, 
admiring how times have changed for the better 
since she was flesh and blood. Yes, it’s alright—
She doesn’t mind sharing her room in the 
meantime.


The Marina Room

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