thecliffhanger.

(where sentences go to die)

Created by Dina Peone

Edited byDina Peone

&Emma Duvall

Sarah Lawrence CollegeBronxville, New York

the Cliffhanger (vol. 2)Copyright © 2013 by Sarah Lawrence College Student SenateAll rights reserved. Published 2013Printed in the United States of America

Contact the creator: dinapeone@gmail.comSUBMIT to cliffhanger@gm.slc.edu

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Designed and typeset by Dina Peone

This book is set in Caecilia, designed by Peter Matthias Noordzij in 1991.

What exactly does that mean? Here we like it short and sweet. The Cliffhanger designates a space for the so-called in-between. This experimental pock-et-sized zine is the parenthetical limbo of creativity. Finally there is a home for the underdeveloped, those rootless shards of verse, sketches-in-progress. The interlude of consciousness, so to half-speak. Simplicity. Brevity. Here the fleeting or still-born ideas may retreat. Submit your bits of dialogue, micro fiction, run-on sentences that cling to suspense or nonsense, and fragments of poetry. You get it. Postcard riddles. Broken refrains that end far too…

We embrace the incom-plete.

CONTENTS

bekkah olson · 5jillian clark · 13

elan kwiecinski · 15tim amerman · 20priscilla lui · 24

alexandra duvall · 25 sofia collins · 26

robert milby · 27chloe sariego · 30

sally howe · 32emerson henry · 34josh langman · 35

jacqueline muir · 43lauren scheck · 44michelle eng · 48

marina marcello 49blue caban · 51

margaret norway · 52angelina peone · 54

xac james · 61lauren yaro · 63

donald kenly · 64emma duvall · 65

dina peone · 70

5

How We Surviveafter The Rehumanizing Project

Bekkah Olson

(somewhere a breezea curtain expandingsuspendedin its tiebacks)

(meditation groups meet heremy eyes hurtwhen they closebirds sit on the line)

(tighter than a decadespent starving farmers)

(I wish I could tell youhow it feels to be a photograph)

6

Haiku (Sea Pockets)

Sea pockets: where theearth keeps all the fish that ittraded for silver

7

Driftwood Valentines

Izzy’s back from California.She leans forward to kiss meas if our distance had been

nothing morethan state lines.Her lips are wet cigarettesand I admit I once was a smokerbut I thought I’d kicked the habit.

8

Cara’s giggling in the waterless bathtub as security taps on the

door,as if despite the light and the lockthey’re not sure we’re in here.Her laughter breaks off like

driftwoodand floats through the center of

campus.

9

Sophie has coated her bedroom walls

with plastic glow-in-the-dark stars.

She slips some of them into my palm.

The sky is just a theory, she says,and I wonder if it’s more beautifulto be here and hard and staticthan to be unreachable.If it’s better to glow only in the

darkthan to exist only halfway in

light.

10

Emily hands me a beerand I say it’s my favorite brandbut only because I love the yellow

of the label,and isn’t it enough to love

whatever you can hold?Isn’t it enough to glue together

valentinesfor the girls still willing to walk

you homewhen you forget your bodyand find it damp like a towelthat hung out on the line all

night?

11

Sam walks me home, pigeon-toed in the cold 5 a.m. I brew her

peppermint teaand we talk, soft as birds’ wings,about wood and rice paper.I give her my favorite hoodie,the one I usually sleep in,and I must still be drunkbecause I tell her she can keep it.Sleeplessness swingslike a hammer between usand she gives me her number.

12

I wonder if she didn’t kiss mebecause she’s shy or if thisis a typical dawn for her.I wonder if it’s betterto let my suffering bones break

off like driftwoodand walk themselves homethan to let them be dry and

rotting in my body.If it’s better to palm the sky as

plasticthan to let it be so far away.If it’s ok to pick up smokingjust to see if I could quit again.

13

1. nostalgist Jillian Clark

i’d rather have you hereto tell you about the worst

hangnail of my life

a sad, red coyotein a canyon slice of skin

you’re wrongand in a loud mess of teethyou’re a mirror not reflecting anything—well that’s just a picture frame

14

2. two hallucinations

your poems are beautifulin the way horse teeth are: too-

straight mirrorsside by side and shining

they don’t carry homewhat they didn’t bringif they need parentheses or not i can’t call it

thank my stars, i say!you’re about to see how beautiful

i don’t feel

15

Elan Kwiecinski

He smells like strong coffee and going to see a man about a horse

and if he ever had fleas they’d be militant fleas:

miniature Bravehearts on battlefields of flesh

16

Behind the Gates of the Goblin Fairy

The sights that I saw made me ever more wary;

17

falcons of stone still tearing their prey,

their pieces stacked high in a bony bouquet.

18

The columns were mighty, in heavy grey shades

each pair framing sculptures of monsters and maids

19

And still I had even yet to enter,hovering there in the threshold’s

centerfearful of devils and demons and

such,and awful things you mustn’t

touch.

20

Tim Amerman

Not dead yet, but aiming the wheel there,

and pushing at full throttle.

21

Met at a bonfire.And after that, always after

dark.

22

She’d scream blasphemies to the sky,

shooting the bird to God or whatever

passing satelliteand I felt I was in love.

23

But like a negligent surgeon, she left some of her hardware behind.

24

Priscilla Lui

It took me all these years to understand what Lou Reed meant when he wrote the song “I’ll Be Your Mirror.”

25

Alexandra Duvall

Human beings in love. It knocks you out. No breath for a second. You know you are more alive than ever. Fight or flight.

26

Sofia Collins

The last scream shall be the demand

for only the microscopic vibrations of sound

only the stream of water, the flow of the wind,

the falling leaf, to be heard

27

Snow Ghosts… Robert Milby

I used to get drunk on women, now I get drunk on ghosts.

Diaphanous consorts arriving from skull dream,

ripening parlors, in winter frost, without opening a window.

They enkindle gaslight posts, threatening to consume an entire library,

where they’d lain dormant for decades.

I used to peddle youth’s passions, now I knit shrouds of

consequence, determined monastic meditation

with texts, in abandoned suspicion.

...

28

...

The room smells of winter breath, Snow wind and ghost mouth.

Ice under the nails of Oak hands, hoarfrost in the hair of maple bark.

I was once a young man, gardening intrigue in orchards and patios;

seeking spirits of youth’s proud etudes.

29

Dilemma

She plead (before a council of stars)in the parking lot of the diner.We realized the Moon was

approaching its zenith; the Harvest Moon.

She bled from dutiful wounds,Marred by the marriage bed and

held by consequence of time. Who were her sisters, name by

name, life by life?Was her yarn pulled from the

tapestry of an epoch of unreason and hubris?

Were the shades; the hues original to her tale alone?

30

Chloe Sariego

I keep having dreams about us underwater, dreams of you pushing me off your back

31

from “Everyday Poems for the Everday Poet”

There are just some things that can break your heart forever: a man my father’s age saving

a brownie for later; blisters on my mother’s hands

32

Sally Howe

It was August in New York. All our therapists were on vacation and we were going crazy. Devin stubbed out her cigarette on the patio and cried into her long hair; she leaked tears and snot and said, “I hate myself. I just hate myself so much,” before fleeing to the bathroom. Shawn, ever empathetic, followed her. The rest of us stayed outside in the baking heat, looking at our shoes or bare feet, picking our cuticles, wishing we’d gone after her or glad we hadn’t, closing our eyes in silent contemplation, opening our mouths to speak.

33

Nora is screaming in the dark again.

She says there are spiders in her hair

and then the light is on and my mother is there.

This isn’t even our house.

34

Emerson Henry

“I know,” she says. “But still.”

“But still nothing, Maddy. It’s not your problem.”

“I want it to be, though. Doesn’t that count for anything?” she asks. They are on the roof. He is holding a cigarette. The knees of her jeans are wearing thin.

“No, Maddy. No, it doesn’t.”

A minute passes. All he can hear are pigeons cooing, and then she says, “Don’t say my name like that. It’s not punctuation. It’s not punishment.”

35

Txts Josh Langman

I have 349 friends in 11 countries. I know what each of them looks like and what they’re doing. We can’t use Facebook in school, so I eat lunch alone.

36

Jamie, you need to text Mike and tell him to give you Stacy’s number so you can text Stacy and tell her she needs to tell Emily to call my phone so I can find it.

37

We were sitting in the forest at night, when the campfire had almost burned out. We were telling each other all the things we’d never told anyone. Cmd+Shift+4.

38

I said something stupid to Tyler today. Backspace! Backspace! Backspace! Goddammit, the keyboard in my head is all jammed.

39

No one came to my birthday party. They were busy pretending to be at the party online.

40

When I went hiking, we stopped at the top of a mountain. I tried to watch a hawk flying in the distance, but it was too pixelated to make out.

41

The power lines got blown down in the storm, so I’m texting you by candlelight.

42

Sometimes a day can feel as long as a lifetime. One of those days that’s so full of things it just doesn’t fit inside itself, a day so full to bursting that

43

Your Lolita Jacqueline Muir

Your Lolita’s butterfly wings Don’t glistenLike they do in the pictures.She does not shineAs she didWhen you unpin her and ask her

to twirl for youEven though you bribe her with Ribbon and cream and ethanolShe does not danceShe does not open her eyes

44

Lauren Scheck

Why is the ghost of my futurenot haunting me?

45

I do not feel about you in prose.

I feelaboutyouin poetry.

46

Reflections Don’t Count:

How sadthat I will never seemy own face.

Why does my haircut matter?

47

You write Your name to mark Your territory.

I write mine to remind myself that I exist.

48

Michelle Eng

I’ll remember your stern graying face kneeling at the stream bed, cloaked in red and framed on the coffee table. I’ll remember these things while I’m heating up left overs in your microwave. And I’ll remember these things while I’m taking your boots to places you’ll never see.

49

from “Break Through” Marina Marcello

And you, the fairest of them all,

Delicate, blind, groping— like a seed,

Anchor your heart to me

50

Hunting

I caught you In the process of My self-discoveryAnd you were ensnaredBy my insecurity

51

Honestly Blue Caban

Honesty Admits Illusionthe gravel is notHowever muchI insist— goldIt is graveland is as roughas gold is goldand i like it

52

Margaret Norway

I am where your youth will stayCollecting dust while you’re away.

53

Strangers clustered together in the dim light like lovers sharing a secret.

54

Angelina Peone

i noticed his bottle of Evan Williams

he told me he drinks sometimesi told him i drink toobut he didn’t offer me any

55

Why so glum, dream boy?Nightmares got you down?

56

it’s thunder, my brother,hellbent boy,the wicked never journey

wise warsleeping flesh slipsbehind the fire

57

An unreliable narratorSlowly sipping beer

58

can hiccups come in kisses like wishes?

inhaled little fishes swim down into my lungsand breathe in the fungus

this must be what love is like

59

the girls are fallingasleepon the couchand i am wonderingwhat the hell kind of Indian am ito leave my bongos behind?

60

whirlwinds in the wonder why

61

Land, Ho! Xac James

We are carried upon a wave, spat out upon this foreign shore.

“We’re uncorked,” the Captain spat as dolphonemes play in the sinking craft.

“The crew of the SS. Bottle set sail to be shipwrecked on this word.” The crew omit the typo and continue reading, “The ferryman must be paid so, so ante your tongues.”

...

62

...

“Out we’re poured upon the earth,

drift as flotsam since our birth,the new words stuck inside the

mouth,for want of wider berth.”

The silent crew marches through bleach white sands until we gaze into the mouth of the jungle. Inside live savage words without names.

63

Lauren Yaro

hundreds of daysthousands of milesan almost loveran authentic otherchanges upon changes later,yet we still have not

64

Iambic Heartache Donald Kenly

yet I am the last maple leaf who clings to your

branches on a snowy day.

65

Emma Duvall

i.return: injured deer

in backyard.

66

ii.a dream in peripheral

vision

you half-opened window

67

iii.our faces walking home:

acorns, acorns

68

iv.your eyelids, the purple—

69

v.blackberries and roaches a pine tree

rain.

70

When the Poor Exotic Insect on Its Back Stops Kicking Its Legs and HowIt Reminds Me of Kafka Dina Peone

On a lazy afternoonI hardly noticethat twitching thing on the tile

floor. I´m on the toiletcheering him onjust as I think he´s given upor dead. When I returnhours laterhe is still there.

With a huff I flip him over.He moves on a dozen little legslike nothing ever happened.

71

[untitled]

He doesn’t lock his door when he leaves but when he returns the inside bolt slides gently to a click. He rarely exits. I’m the opposite.

My door is left wide openwith the keys still in the lockand when I step out,which I often do,I seal the entrance behind me.

72

Guess what washed up on the shore.

Better luck next time.

73

She tip-toed into a confessional booth and came out a tap dancer.

74

Quotation marks are devil’s horns, I say. Pass the salt?

75

She hasn’t moved since the day she looked up “this” in the OED.

76

Folly, have you seen my socks?

77

Secret

I tried to hide itbut the mice found outwhen they invaded the garbage,took it back to their hole,shared it with the fleasand now the bugs won’t let me

be.I bribe the mice with mozzarella. I knew I should have burned itbut I didn’t have a match.Next time I will flush it soit can be the plumber’s problem.

78

Dear face in my bathtub soap bubbles,

come see me sometime in my dreams.

79

I love you, Winter.That snow lie.When you’re aroundthere’s snow reason to cry.

80

she purrs like a chainsawtrembling with fearandwipes the frosted glass clear—

nothing appears