ScholarWorks @ SeattleU (Seattle University)

Thompson, Aubrey

Fragments 
Volume 67 Discarnate Article 4 
2025 
compose 
Aubrey Thompson 
Seattle University 
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Recommended Citation 
Thompson, Aubrey (2025) "compose," Fragments: Vol. 67, Article 4. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol67/iss1/4 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at ScholarWorks @ 
SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. 
compose by Aubrey Thompson 
fall out of bed, 
pale break of dawn 
fog in my head, 
sun bleached lawn 
approach the mirror 
afraid of what i'll find 
it's never been clearer 
blood clotting in my mind 
sunken eyes, pale skin 
cling to my face 
it feels a horrible sin 
to have so much out of place 
shaky hands clutch greasy hair, 
choked cry on cracked lips 
painfully aware 
of some beauty i've missed 
awake in tangled bedsheets 
shirt drenched in cold sweat 
to forgive is too great a feat 
and i can’t seem to forget 


English

compose

Schmitt, Aiden

Fragments 
Volume 67 Discarnate Article 6 
2025 
Seattle Medical is Not Responsible for Lost or Damaged Souls 
Aiden Schmitt 
Seattle University 
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Recommended Citation 
Schmitt, Aiden (2025) "Seattle Medical is Not Responsible for Lost or Damaged Souls," Fragments: Vol. 
67, Article 6. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol67/iss1/6 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at ScholarWorks @ 
SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. 
Seattle Medical is Not Responsible for Lost or Damaged Souls by Aiden Schmitt 
Your mother made you this body but they’re taking it away to study 
Please step out 
The soul blocks 
The scan of the ribs 
They pour you out of your body  
Intimately exposed to the impersonal fluorescents  
The soft skin of your soul catches on the jagged part of your spine 
And bleeds out onto on the white tile 
Filthy and sterile 
Some part of you will never leave this place 
Gathering dust under cabinets  
Not quite dead and not quite you anymore 
They’ve made your body a ship of Theseus 
What they took was organic 
And faultless 
And trusting you relinquished it 
What they’ve brought back is a failed paper mache project 
Questionnaires and diagnostic criteria soaked in glue 
Each anomaly carefully labeled 
Each identifier pathologized 
What is a body 
If not a list of symptoms  
They’ve brought your body back wrong but there are people in the waiting room 
Unceremoniously your anemic form gets shoved 
Back into the chest cavity 
Trapped and 
Suffocating  
Leaking into empty space 
Water-damaged puzzled forced back together 
A Frankenstein’s monster 
of you and  
Yourself 


Seattle Medical is Not Responsible for Lost or Damaged Souls

Compain, Badger

Fragments 
Volume 67 Discarnate Article 15 
2025 
Sympathy Flowers 
Badger Compain 
Seattle University 
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Recommended Citation 
Compain, Badger (2025) "Sympathy Flowers," Fragments: Vol. 67, Article 15. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol67/iss1/15 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at ScholarWorks @ 
SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. 
Sympathy Flowers by Badger Compain 
In this way,   early Spring is a season of grief.  Bring gentle rain      to cleanse 
my earth body      of blood drawn out this winter.      Cleanse the dirt under my 
nails        the grime on my teeth.          Love me       
 still clamoring and 
raw. 
February presents, days of sun       small offerings       sincere apologies     
I promise       fruit will come again.     Halfway in     halfway out of the shell. 
      Shyly the Universe      bends       your crocus compensation    
  a feast for Brigid. 
Sinking my hands into fertile soil        come up for air     after unbroken sobs  
after our ritual smoke    clasp my hands from beneath and pull me down beside you 
        Birth is a bloodbath 
 Exhale        and 
thaw. 
Lips meet stomach and I’m tumbling      towards this warmth       opening my eyes 
and crawling out        running          from the carnal tear,       from winter     
like seventeen    
  still sinking teeth into me. 


Sympathy Flowers

Armstrong, Madden

Fragments 
Volume 67 Discarnate Article 19 
2025 
divinity poem 2 
Madden Armstrong 
Seattle University 
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Recommended Citation 
Armstrong, Madden (2025) "divinity poem 2," Fragments: Vol. 67, Article 19. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol67/iss1/19 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at ScholarWorks @ 
SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. 
divinity poem 2 by Madden Armstrong 
 
last night you offered me your hand 
i hesitated like i always do 
the last time i was in your house i held your food on my tongue until  
it dissolved into sand 
i was waiting for it to taste raw 
(i could bite down until i bleed) 
when your children offered me the meal i forgot the words i should say 
(thank you doesn’t cut it) 
i told you once before 
(very sternly) 
that this is your last chance 
and here you are again offering that hand 
reaching out for my heart, an organ the size of a closed fist 
(and just as defiant) 
 
recently you stopped offering your hand, choosing to grasp instead 
twisting what should not be yours to touch in the first place 
you perform miraculous works with those hands 
(making me cry over ordinary things) 
but i should not tell you things you already know 
i hope you are not (too) smug if i am in your house again 
  


divinity poem 2

Burger, Cypress

Fragments 
Volume 67 Discarnate Article 25 
2025 
GOvernment juDgement 
Cypress Burger 
Seattle University 
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Recommended Citation 
Burger, Cypress (2025) "GOvernment juDgement," Fragments: Vol. 67, Article 25. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol67/iss1/25 
This Visual Art is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at ScholarWorks @ 
SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. 
GOvernment juDgement by Cypress Burger 


GOvernment juDgement

Bradley, Mar

Six Admittances to Road Tripping in Unfamiliar States by Mar Bradley
1. I have significantly little business with Colorado, but rather much more with the
leather seats of my car. Two exes (George Strait, wrong state) live there; Colorado; car;
and I amuse myself with scribbled v’s of mountains. I’m following someone’s steps
down the 70, not my exes, although at least one also had very long yellow shoes. Blocky,
almost perfect rectangles, odd feet, but I won’t judge. Or I will, discreetly, to the cashier
at the next non-name brand gas stop. I’ll gossip a good few about how some man runs
these long highways, so I follow him. My wrists ache, and I long to fold my legs up
beneath me—criss-cross—and find triangles in the trees. Yellow shoes without point or
crease. I follow obediently, extending my ankle diagonal, keeping even speed. Someone
has yet to teach me about cruise control.
2. I pick up strangers, routinely. One tells me I’m too old to be lying about the color of
dashed highway lines, and I pretend the edge of my jacket doesn’t cover a dictionary
below my ass, keeping my eyes above the dash. We’re prone to disagreement by nature.
She tells me she’s a good country artist, and I refuse to look at her shoes, and she plays
something sweet through my stomach—plucking at the cords until I pull over and puke. I
leave her where she asks, wearing a red raincoat near the desert edge; she laughs when I
look for the v-trees. I miss her and puke again looking for a rest stop without branding.
The acid sears, the second time, and I perch on the curb by my car’s eye. While waiting
on oil for our stomachache, I try and imagine her fingertips as something real, pressing
down on my wrist to shift gears.
3. I buy cheeseburgers at these non-name gas stations. A grilled cheese? Might’ve just
been an odd turkey club, here and there. The shiny aluminum wrap makes it
indistinguishable, and they’re playing Johnny Cash on their radio. I pay—have you
seen—Twenty on pump 4. I press the back of my body flat against my car while I eat.
Shoulders to the window, handle digging at my hip. I feel her rumble and swell. I yell to
the cashier to ask what cruise control is. My fingers are greasy as they fumble over the
wheel, streaking over plastic that catches the gleam. Even as I skip over the cruise-control
button twice. By this time, my ankles have become bloody extensions, circles that push
forward and ache to feel the ground. You know the good pressure. My headlights flood in
front of me in a long circle, yellow in my peripheral. You’d know what I mean—yellow
moon and the long highway, markers made almost golden. Triangles blot out stars on the
horizon, and my headlights crest, a wave pulling in over the Bell mountains.
4. I’m ambiguous aiming for the new ocean. I think I’ve seen a good few oceans around.
The Mediterranean was the best green-blue (famous, remembered, searching), but then
again I came up on the Gulf Coast. Jellyfish corpses that reached for my toes. I hid from
them in the sand. It was December and cold, and the waters were brown. I picked up
shells, mostly, looking for ones small enough to replace my teeth. Are there any strong
enough in East Texas? There’s a drought down there now. Dark seaweed collects like a
man a few stretches of beach down, piles overlaid into make-believe limbs and tight fur
clusters. There are a group of seagulls further, clucking amongst each other. Chicken like.
One has a dark strip hanging from its beak. I imagine its mouth replaces hands. I imagine
the same for myself and widen my jaw, squatting now to grasp a new shell right.
5. I hydroplane somewhere near the border, or at least I figure so. Are there lakes in
Nevada? I think I took the right even-o-numbered interstate. My mother taught them by
veins on her legs, and I made sure to copy them down. East to West, hand passing over
the continent like a flash flood—the highways catch me in their gullets. I think, three
seconds before I hit the other car, that I don’t recognize its license plate. I have no CD in
the car. My belly aches. I’m gnawing on the back of my tongue to match my throat-salt
until a car merges in front of me. The yellow feet vanish. I hit the breaks late? Probably
without a guide. My feet were under my ass. No one else watches as their smiling bumper
sticker kisses the windshield. When I wake up, there is a sea. She opens her mouth at me
in a way that means holding as much as hunger. I go and meet her halfway.
6. I started somewhere following the blue, almost cross color wheel. Not sure if it was
the sky; maybe another car. My mother owned one similar. I’m hunting for a yellow-
shoed man, I still tell the people I pass, rolling down my side window and yelling out
while we go seventy-eight-nine miles per hour. Although the hot sun has bleached the
yellow footprints brilliant, I repeat my chase over the phone and send it to newspapers. I
dictate it to my friends by voicemail. They cluck-laugh with me, and I’ve learned now
how to drive barefoot, not putting any pressure on the pedals. When I get ambitious, I
start to tell my passenger about the way it felt to fly—feet, tires smooth over asphalt, a
whine silenced and sprung to life. I started chasing a rainstorm, I’ll decide, heart
pavement-hot in my chest. She sounds like the radio when she laughs at me too.
About the Author:
Mar Bradley is a writer and collage artist from Houston, TX who has a long list of problems with the body and its corners. They are also,
unrelatedly, very fond of memoir graphic novels and vampire movies of various qualities.


Six Admittances to Road Tripping in Unfamiliar States

Editors of Fragments

Fragments 
Volume 67 Discarnate Article 29 
2025 
Letter from the Editors 
Editors of Fragments 
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Recommended Citation 
Editors of Fragments (2025) "Letter from the Editors," Fragments: Vol. 67, Article 29. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol67/iss1/29 
This Letter from the Editors is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at 
ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks 
@ SeattleU. 



Letter from the Editors

Caplinger, Emma

Fragments 
Volume 66 Parallel Article 9 
2024 
The Man in the Alley 
Emma Caplinger 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments 
Recommended Citation 
Caplinger, Emma (2024) "The Man in the Alley," Fragments: Vol. 66, Article 9. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol66/iss1/9 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at ScholarWorks @ 
SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. 
Withering by Sophia Modica 
In the basement 
My grandfather offers me 
Nana's muumuus 
Printed with hibiscus flowers 
They smell, like stale plastic 
From the discolored bin they are kept in 
I accept 
One step closer to her 
My grandfather tells me a story 
About his grandmother's funeral 
About uncles playing large drums 
Sticky when slapped from humidity 
Hair slicked back, dark like wet charcoal 
Her brothers beating leather 
With their hands 
While his aunties danced, 
And she was celebrated 
He asks me, 
If I want to see my great great 
grandfather 
Walks to a pile of photos 
Pulls out, my drawing from kindergarten 
Stick figure, 
Depiction unknown 
From beneath, lifts a bulky frame 
A faded 5x7 photo 
My great great grandfather, 
His depiction 
To me, 
Unknown 
I did not ask his name 
My grandfather tells my mother 
Not to speak Spanish 
I fail high school Spanish 
Stumbling over pronunciations 
An earthquake of shame erupting 
On the inside of my throat 
My ancestors, 
Don't understand my speech 
I am given my father's last name 
So that every trace of history 
Is undetectable from the surface 
When I ask my grandfather 
Where we came from 
He doesn't reply to my message, 
At least in no direct answer 
My aunt tells my mother 
"If we had been born in this year 
We would be proud" 
Of being Puerto Rican 
Turns to the backseat of the car, 
Tells me the lineage rests in my hands 
I think of how my children 
(who I may not have) 
Won't hold our history 
As I can barely grasp it 
Making sense of only fragments 
Pieced together 
As my grandfather 
Withers 
And with him 
We wither 
The Man in the Alley by Emma Caplinger 
I saw him before the sun did— 
his wide face stubbled and dew-chilled, 
still and sitting against the damp concrete. 
He looked so much like my brother: 
his dark hair stuck to his forehead, 
broad nose freckled and pale. 
I stopped to watch him 
and was watching still when I saw them coming, 
flashing red against the rain-blue morning. 
When they heaved him onto their cart 
and secured his legs to the stretcher, 
his icy, nowhere-gazing eyes matched the sky. 
And as they pulled the zipper shut, 
I thought of calling home. 
Enco un ter/selfby Fern Creson 


The Man in the Alley

Sutherland, Hannah

Reflection & Encompass

Whittock, Josephina

Fragments 
Volume 66 Parallel Article 23 
2024 
Egomania 
Josephina Whittock 
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Recommended Citation 
Whittock, Josephina (2024) "Egomania," Fragments: Vol. 66, Article 23. 
Available at: https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/fragments/vol66/iss1/23 
This Prose is brought to you for free and open access by the Seattle University Journals at ScholarWorks @ 
SeattleU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fragments by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ SeattleU. 
The Crash by Rhyan Mack 
The flashing lights of the ambulance were no longer blinding. The crunching of gravel 
under boots had faded into background noise. The chatter over walkies sounded like Charlie 
Brown's parents were urgently trying to tell me something. My eyes focused and unfocused but 
didn't immediately cooperate when a figure stood before me, blocking the ambulance's lights. As 
I attempted to refocus, the red and blue glow created a brilliant aura around a woman I did not 
know well enough to trust. 
"Is this your car?" 
The voice wasn't unfamiliar, but the clarity of the words made it feel brand new. I nodded, my 
eyes following her gaze to the totaled mess scattering the highway and merging with the other 
vehicle. 
"Yeah, it was." 
I turned my head to inspect the damage I hadn't taken in yet. Debris had littered the side of the 
road, tumbled into the embankment, and buried itself both in my skin and that of the shrouded 
form being loaded onto a stretcher. The impact hadn't felt that destructive despite the 
mechanical and organic carnage I knew had been inflicted. The pain in my neck showed just 
how much it had done to me, though I'd refused the cervical collar. The ache wasn't unbearable. 
It made me feel more alive than I had the moment before the collision. 
"You wanna tell me what happened tonight?" 
"I hit him." 
I dragged my eyes up to the figure as I made my declaration. Of course, I'd hit him. My car was 
heavily damaged, but his was decimated. The driver's side door had folded in upon itself. The 
entire car looked like it had been used to demonstrate an elaborate piece of origami, then been 
discarded due to a misplaced fold. More glass littered the road than still fitted into any of the 
windows. It seemed like an endless reflective sea, with water stung and drew blood and sharks. 
Sharks that were loaded up into stretchers under white sheets who were hunted for sport after 
they took chunks out of surfers or divers. 
"Y'know, as jarring as it is, accidents like this happen all the time. Sometimes they're 
tragic, and someone doesn't make it." 
Tragic. That wasn't the word I'd use to describe it. I felt like I was staring through her, focusing 
on the light shining over her thin shoulders and behind her tied-back hair. Her heavy jacket, or 
at least one like it, had been offered to me what felt like a dozen times. Despite how cold I had 
been and still was, I'd shaken my head. My gaze tracked back to the ruined bits of the car. It 
couldn't even be sold for parts, not like the parts he stole from me again and again and again. No 
one bit was entirely salvageable, nothing for greedy chop shops or vultures to pick over. Not 
even empty bones or an annihilated chassis. For once, he got to experience what it felt like to be 
nothing. 
"Do you know how fast you were driving tonight? Any drugs or alcohol in your 
system?" 
"Not fast enough." 
Read the rest online.. 
Egomania byJosephine Whittock 
He told me it was like looking in a mirror. Sometimes we come out wrong, he said. The 
differences aren't substantial, or else we wouldn't be useful. Same organs, build, blood. But the 
arrangement of our faces, the slant of our cheekbones; slight technological distortions. But he 
said I was perfect. An exact copy. Uncanny. 
I know what 111 be used for. I wait in my room until then. He calls it my room. It's small. 
Cold. All of us, one after the other, lining the walls, watching and waiting. I don't know why he 
arranged us like this. I don't have his memories. But we line the walls, and we watch. 
He comes for us one by one. I think there are certain things he can't do unless we're 
perfect. But other procedures are easier. He smiles when he unlocks the doors to our rooms. At 
least, I think it s the same for the others. I don't have a view of most of us, usually, but there are 
so many of us that I can see those positioned across from me; they're a long distance away. The 
place where he keeps us is large. But if I crane my head to the right as much as the wires will let 
me and squint right underneath the operating lamp, I can see him at eye level. I'm lucky. My 
room lets me look at all the screens. I can't read them - they're too far away - but I can see the 
heartbeat monitors and the anesthesia cart and a direct shot of the table. He put me right in the 
center. 
We don't get put on the table right away. He has to measure us first, to confirm our 
similarities. Height, weight, BMI, blood type, blood pressure. MRI scan, CAT scan, bone scan. It 
takes a while. Not as long as it used to, he says. He's got the process down pat now. We come 
out standard. Less hiccups, less challenges, more progress. It's easier this way. For him and for 
us. Who likes being measured? 
The last time I got taken out, I got to sit in a bigger room, with beanbag chairs and 
posters on the walls. Everything was so clean. Really kind of him, to provide that for us. There 
were two more of me. We were waiting to be measured. We don't often get to talk with each 
other, the others and me. I didn't really know what to say. I asked what they were going to be 
used for, if they knew already. I didn't at the time. 
One said that he had a slight defect in his jawbone so he couldn't be used as a control for 
anything important. He knew that his procedure would involve his liver, but he didn't know 
exactly what would be done to it, or how long it would take. The other me was quiet. I don't 
think they wanted to talk about it. So instead I said that the posters on the walls were funny, and 
they agreed with me, and we talked about that for a bit instead. I think being agreeable is 
normal for us. We're very nice. 
Eventually he came in. He, capital H, the first of all of us. He put his hand on my 
shoulder and I knew it was my turn to go back into the large room, where all of us sleep and 
spend most of our time. I remember thinking that I must have a very charming smile, because 
his smile was charming, and looking at him is like looking in a mirror. He talked to me the 
whole time he was taking my vitals. That was a while ago. He laughed at me when we finished, 
said we were like two peas in a pod. I'm just like you. I told him that was silly, because there are 
a lot more than two of us, but he wasn't paying attention to me at that point. 
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