California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Orozco, Benjamin

English

Human

Mahdessian, Helena

Origins

Manzano, Harrison

Owl Pellet
Cut me open,
like a third-grade child 
learning the intricacies
of the owl’s digestive tract.
Find faded singsongs,
wishes to plunge ink into flesh.
Examine torn fabric,
sun-bleached
imagery, forgotten
idolatry.
Feast your eyes
on shattered
polycarbonate gluttony
that at one time held the depths of the ocean.
Within the folds of regurgitated 
matter, the promise of an individual,
but all lies crumble beneath the eye of the scalpel;
like the nine-year-old biologist
you will find nothing but hair and bones.
129


Owl Pellet

Alfaro, Christina

The Making of a Self 
Portrait
walk on that very thin white line sweetie
Pure white walkways
Stay off dangerous dirt roads 
uncharted, missing labels
you’ll lose your way if there’re too many choices sweetie
razor party in the bathroom
the birth of a morning ritual
small smiles sprout to see 
 stainless 
  gleaming 
    skin
below jungles of foliage 
only a raised eyebrow at the destruction of 
protective layers
and later  heavy grief 
to watch all the pieces of me wash down a drain
ten years later 
dye poured down a sink
excess pigment 
that belongs on someone else’s head 
it lacks my essence 
115
fails to capture my
 Image
   Idea
    (who made this self portrait?)
blood flows down drains
heavy with my story 
green and purple pulses full of fuel and fire
floating into a draining universe 
a shrinking box that I don’t fit in
warning as soon as it hits the surface —
rotating siren
no chance to begin an unnecessary race
no new labels in a world full of
  phony ideas
     stuck.
Just follow the white line sweetie
In a phone on a screen on a lifestyle page 
emulate a woman I’ll never know
configure 
reconfigure 
recalculate
act like I’m a damn machine
And not the woman I am
I was just skipping, which wasn’t enough 
Turned into a race 
116POETRY
I just wanted pen and paper, which wasn’t enough
aimed for the Olympic medals instead
what is a poet going to do?
what does a poet have to say?
sometimes all I can hear are his words on replay
I thought I could change the world too when I was your age
sometimes I don’t know where my words begin
where do his end
unexpected la rains and long isolated walks
school strikes and kindergarten talks 
College classes and yogic meditation
pandemic closures and home experimentation 
I’ve arrived
a moment full of pitiful irony 
the world has slowed 
given us back   Time
I contemplate my 
  Patience
    Silence 
      Stripped wisdom 
I forfeited when asked
gave up my only weapon
they know what I did not
our ability to break through lines
damage small boxes that never contained us
117POETRY
eternal dedication to stand as a monument against 
their Declaration of What a Woman Ought to Be 
I’ve become
 homegrown
Took back what was stripped
 away 
Carried along by those who stepped off the white line first 
who radiate their natural light
on our dreams
opened doors that had been locked and hidden
I say without
 remorse 
  or nostalgia for things passed
they never knew 
 not a damn clue 
  what I’d become
118POETRY


The Making of a Self Portrait

La Puma, Sheree

Th
e
 Y
ea
r 
W
it
h
o
u
t 
M
ea
n
in
g
Th
e 
ha
rd
es
t t
hi
ng
 a
b
o
ut
 lo
si
ng
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
d
au
g
ht
er
s,
 a
 y
ea
r 
w
ith
o
ut
 s
un
ri
se
. O
n 
th
e 
ho
ri
zo
n,
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
ab
se
nc
e
b
lo
o
m
s 
as
 h
ea
ve
n 
tu
rn
s 
its
 b
ac
k 
o
n 
b
ar
re
n 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  l
an
d
sc
ap
es
. 
A
m
o
ng
 th
e 
m
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in
g
, t
re
es
, a
 re
al
iz
at
io
n 
th
at
 w
in
te
r 
w
ill
 n
o
t m
ee
t  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
sp
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O
ut
si
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y 
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in
d
o
w
, a
 n
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us
 o
f s
to
rm
s,
 n
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h 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
w
in
d
s 
in
 a
 c
o
ld
 v
al
le
y,
 d
ry
in
g
 u
p
 b
lo
o
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lin
es
. H
o
w
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  c
ro
w
d
ed
m
y 
g
ri
ef
 b
ec
o
m
es
, a
 m
us
eu
m
o
f d
ay
s/
ni
g
ht
s 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
la
ye
re
d
 
lik
e 
a 
se
cr
et
 e
ac
hi
ng
 o
n 
re
p
ea
t. 
Th
e 
p
as
t
er
as
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 p
re
se
nt
. W
ha
t’s
 y
o
ur
 n
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Re
m
em
b
er
 h
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w
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la
ug
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w
he
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I w
ra
p
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 &
 w
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 P
ap
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us
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w
ith
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 d
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 I 
ki
ss
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 y
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13
6
ch
ee
k.
 M
y 
he
ar
t w
id
e 
o
p
en
/r
aw
. Y
o
ur
 lo
ve
 
d
et
er
io
ra
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g
 li
ke
 
so
m
et
hi
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sk
in
ne
d
. 
13
7
PO
ET
R
Y


The Year Without Meaning

La, Andrew

Solitude

Vasquez, Maya

64
he stood on his pedestal– cutting a piece of my heart out. 
 Biting the fatty piece– blood spurting from 
     open artery. I can’t
 
let myself be sacrificed to a God 
     who does not love me. Liberating days 
  long gone– where they didn’t feel like
 
I was going to drop dead– Am I dead? 
   returning and dying 
     for the hundredth time–
 
He was going to kill me again. I could see it 
   between razor sharp teeth and lizard eyes. 
     Hunger. For the fresh taste of
 
fear and grief– the loss of home 
  in those lizard-like eyes. Back when he treated 
       home like church.
 
Back before he chose to be God 
 Walking with humble auras, skin that 
  kissed sunlight. Our cats nuzzling
 
his ankles with their cheeks– Now their tails puff 
   and they scatter. I can see 
   our angry god, vomit-covered wife
 
beaters and shredded khaki shorts. I blink and I still 
    remember him– freshly inked tattoos, germaphobe 
     hopeless romantic,
 
Shots of espresso, a love for dance, 
   I open my eyes and see my god– 
              Where did he go? 
 
“MY GOD”
MAYA VASQUEZ
A


"My God"

Morris, Cambri

The Importance Of \u27Becoming Mud\u27- a mircoreview

Alvarado, Corie

|  56 |
C o r i e  A l v a r a d o 
T w e n t y - F i v e  M e d i o c r e 
B i r t h d a y  W i s h e s
From five thousand seven hundred
and seventy-seven miles away,
happy birthday.
I wish you a lifetime of lukewarm coffee
and unflavored oatmeal, served by a wife
wearing a striped flannel onesie—who
loves asking questions during a
movie you’re both seeing for the first time.
Long buffer times when streaming on Netflix. Videos
with incorrectly synced audio. A
dinner table with uneven legs. The sensation
of 100 lost sneezes—in a row.
The world’s smallest water heater.
Group conversations that change exactly
when you’ve thought of a clever comment.
Lots of pre-planned sex, only at night with the
lights turned off—socks on.
Half-mast erections on slightly
overcast mornings. A month full
of overcast mornings.
Flimsy toilet paper in cramped bathroom
stalls. The middle seat on a fourteen-hour flight.
|  57 |
Twenty-Five Mediocre Birthday Wishes |  Alvarado
I wish you beautiful children that
chew with their mouth open—who
leave Lego booby-traps on the kitchen floor.
Non-fat milk
in your Raisin Bran cereal—stale
from a clumsily closed box.
But
I will never wish you a woman who listens
to your insecurities on a Tuesday at 2:15 in the
morning, caressing your hands—parked
across the street from your mother’s old
house. Not a woman who spends the
first twenty-two minutes of her day
staring at your face while you
sleep, memorizing every shadow and freckle.
I will never wish you that
because I am already gone.


Twenty-Five Mediocre Birthday Wishes

Bradford, Halasius

NR
Instructions for Looking at a Mirror
It must be known that when we look at what we call a “mirror,” we look at 
something that we are never going to understand, something that exceeds 
any possible conclusion. Although as an object it is just a piece of glass with 
crystalline silver paint resting on its back, it is also a magical and sinister 
instrument that turns us into objects as well. Everything this silver foil faces will 
be enclosed in it, immediately transforming it into a part of the mirror.
Mirrors are the inverse of fire. Everything that reaches the fire turns into fire, 
while a mirror becomes everything he observes. Therefore, I wonder which one 
would burn the other if we place a mirror in front of the fire. I declare myself 
incompetent to determine the outcome, but what I do know is the four proper 
instructions for looking at, and looking into, a mirror.
1st Lower-Level Safe Instructions (transforming “look at” to “look into”):
● You should load yourself with enough patience to endure the infinite 
amazement of beholding the object we call a “mirror.”
● Since you are going to see yourself reflected in it (or an image very similar 
to you), you must face it with extreme caution. Statistics have proven that 
that image is never going to match what you know/assume about yourself.
● When you look into that space, you will realize that your environment is 
reflected in the mirror, reappearing on the other side with less depth and 
with more mystery. That is because the mirror is watching.
● Notice that there are two of you in the same room where the mirror is. That 
is the consequence of this object being a door to unexpected places.
2nd Medium-Level Instructions (getting seen by the mirror):
● If you get within two inches of him and lock eyes with your image, you 
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will suddenly become eerily less familiar with yourself. You will even 
scare yourself. At that point, a sense of being watched by a stranger will 
overwhelm you. Since you will be glimpsing at the perishable quality of 
life, you will feel the presence of your death. Yes, the ancestors of human 
beings did not know that they would die until they found their images 
reflected in a natural mirror. Probably a lake.
● In this step, it is advisable to do all kinds of silly grimaces to de-dramatize 
that mortal feeling. Thus, laugh at that imperfect image; the same one 
that others inaccurately see of you.
● But, if instead of de-dramatizing you prefer edging on the madness of 
trying to understand several planes simultaneously, you must proceed to 
the next level of instructions. 
3rd Dangerous High-Level Instructions:
● Place two mirrors of similar dimensions to face each other. Then, stand 
between them. You will have reliable proof of what it is like to look at the 
face of infinity, being you the only obstacle to it. In that instant, you will be 
getting a glimpse of the Infinity-Non-Eternal. Why not eternal? Because 
there will always be something between you and that chain of countless 
successions. What always stands between you and infinity is nothing but 
your own sight. Just to be clear, the more you pretend to observe infinity, 
the more you will be a hindrance to that. Now, if you are determined to get 
into that rift at all costs, follow the instructions from the upper-level.
4th Upper-Level High-Risk! Instructions:
●  At this advanced level, it is highly recommended to rip out your eyes one 
by one before entering the intersection of the two mirrors watching each 
other.
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