March 2017 – Post Script Magazine.

2016-2017, Issue #02

Letter From the Editor

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

Dear Reader,

Hello and welcome to Post Script Magazine.

At the beginning of last year, the creative writers of Barbara Ingram School for the Arts were tasked with creating an online publication to share what we love doing. Thus, Post Script was born as an online general feature magazine. Through our articles, stories, poems, and the occasional lifehack, we shared some of the things most important to us.

With this issue, we’ve begun to encourage the submissions of writing from outside of the creative writers and have since welcomed two new writers to our staff. We invite anyone from Barbara Ingram to get involved if they please whether it be this year or somewhere down the line. If you’re a student at Barbara Ingram and want to work with us, please contact either myself or Maddie Sokoloski, our department liaison.

The theme we’ve chosen for this issue is ‘discovery’ (credit to Nathan Retherford for the idea!). In contrast with our previous issue being centered around ‘place,’ discovery is all about what we don’t know, what there is to explore, what we learn from each other and new situations. Just by existing, we’re constantly discovering.

So please enjoy, be inspired, come discover with us. And as always:

speak loudly, write louder.

Sincerely,

Max A. Gamerman

Editor in Chief

Find the index for our second issue here

2016-2017, Issue #02

Index

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

Poetry

Achilles and the Art of War / Evette Davis

Adopting Unwanted Gifts Or, This Is All I’m Left With / Josh Snyder

Ars Poetica / Tyler Hoffman

The Big House / Derek Frazier

Cheese Stick Love / Sara Malott

Gravity / Evette Davis

Noir / Derek Frazier

Red / Rachel Shaw

Shattered Stained Glass Or, Living Amongst the Stars / Sara Malott

To Those Who Will Date My Little Sister / Derek Frazier

Nonfiction

Dear My Itty-Bitty Self / Derek Frazier

Drowning / Claire Dever

He Proved I Wasn’t Bulletproof / Sean Callahan

The Street Conquistador / Sean Callahan

To the Boy Who Didn’t Love Me Back / Taylor Bassler

Fiction

The Color of Kings / Aevin Mayman

Office Bakery / Aevin Mayman

Open Spaces / Aevin Mayman

Painted Red / Claire Dever

Rocky Road / Claire Dever

Sammy / Aevin Mayman

2016-2017, Issue #02, Poetry

Achilles and the Art of War

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

By Evette Davis

We live in a world where Greatness is the general to You.

Greatness lashes, forbearing at your heel.
The same one that Achilles fell front on, and says,
“As far as you go, I will follow.”

Greatness tells you that he bruises your weak spots only to help you.
To this, I have discovered that Greatness specializes in the Art of War.

He knows that your weaknesses can be conditioned like Pavlov
can craft an armor of callous so thick
that it is Strength.

You are a soldier,
quivering in line.

Only in drills done later do you stand without falter
and know that for as long as you live,
Greatness works in your favor.

2016-2017, Issue #02, Poetry

Adopting Unwanted Gifts Or, This Is All I’m Left With

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

By Josh Snyder

Hold a mirror to yourself
and consider the eyes that stare
back at you. When you cannot stand it,
blink.
Wonder how on earth you did it.

Now look at someone else.
Study their movements,
how they cover their smile
when they laugh,
how they burst with passion,
how they could talk for hours.

Notice the way they soften,
their hands resting over yours
like flower petals falling overtop
each other. Watch them finally
blink.
And wonder:
how marvelous.

Time will pass.
When you look at yourself
in the mirror and study
the structure that looks
back at you, observe
the similarities
you have collected.

You will laugh at yourself,
hands coming up to hide
your crescent moon smile.
You will fizzle out after
becoming a firework
of passion, and you will think:
how did I do that.

Realize how you have been shaped
into something new.
You are no longer yourself,
but rather a fusion
of those you admire. Had admired.
Of those you love. Had loved.

Cram these new things into the spaces
where the old things were.
The parts of yourself you never meant
to lose will be replaced by the parts
of others you never meant to consume.

Keep these things safe.
Cherish them for all
they are. Cautiously
raise your hand to cover
your own smile,
and think,
incredulously:
my God, here I am.

2016-2017, Issue #02, Poetry

Ars Poetica

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

In Response to Beau Sia’s “a slow disease”

By Tyler Hoffman

It’s a slow disease, but not terminal.
You will lose your grip slowly. Don’t hold on,
because the loss will be rough, but not fatal.
In time you will use the pain, call upon
the hurt, draw with the dreams you have given
up. Create with all that has been unfulfilled.
All you have ever made will be riven–
not fatal. There is more blood to be spilled,
But all that has been spilled is never lost.
Take what you have torn, and then weave a net.
Catch what you can with it. Let your exhaust
be the I ams you sing– your own duet.
Pain and hurt will sing for themselves. Go, make
what you can with all that you have. Create.

2016-2017, Issue #02, Poetry

The Big House

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

By Derek Frazier

Cheap sheets and
big dreams can’t keep you warm.

Neither can a three-page love song.

So I’ll work through the days and nights,
trying to keep bills off the table,
so we can live in comfort.
You might say that I’m working too hard,
that it’ll be the death of me.
To that I’ll say:

“One of these days
I’m going to buy you a big house
and it will have a wrap-around porch,
a massive garden blossoming under
blue gartered windows, a rope swing
and a large picnic table
with homemade apple pies, and long green grass
where our kids can run.
They’ll pick wild herbs and read
books under the shadows of the tall
pine trees.
They’ll laugh and share smiles
while we watch from the shade,
drinking cherry wine.

We will put it on a hill
that slopes down to town.
Growing by the front door is
an apple tree where we will stretch
a quilt under the stars and watch Venus flirt with Mars.
The city won’t be able to reach us.
We will lose them in the dust of our long
dirt road, all those smells and sights and sounds
of the metropolis.

And when nightfall finally comes
we will push my grandmother’s chair,
the old coffee table, and a hand-me-down couch
against the living room walls.
So we can dance
beside our night light shadows,

under the roof of our home.”

2016-2017, Issue #02, Poetry

Cheese Stick Love

Posted on March 26, 2017December 27, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

By Sara Malott

It was just your everyday
flimsy cardboard
takeout box.
The words “thank you”
and “come again”
were printed on top.

I want to be the reason you smile
every time you see pink roses
that look just like the pink roses
on the dress
I wore to your grandmother’s birthday party.

Every inch of the box
covered in yesterday’s grease.
The smell of the garlicky contents inside
overpowered our refrigerator
and soon I could almost hear my name
being whispered by the brown greasy box.

I don’t want to be
the reason you wake up every morning.
But I want to be the reason you take a shower
because you want to smell nice
for me.

So I took the box,
opened the box,
sat down with the box,
and marvelled at the cheese sticks
I found inside.

And then, my brother came home.

I don’t want to be a nice little house on the hill
that you look up at every now and then
and think:
“That’s a cute house!”
as you drive home to your superior house
because it has more to offer.

There were tears, shouts, and slamming doors,
hard feelings and despair.
He wouldn’t talk to me the rest of the day.
He was looking forward to them for so long.

I want someone to be angry about my absence.
I want to be loved
like JFK
and Elvis.
Like new pencils
and old books.

I felt like a deflated balloon.
I took away my brother’s happiness.

I want to be what what your car smells like.

I want our love to be friendship.
I want our love to be fireworks and lightening bugs.
I want our love to be winter and summer
all at once.

If anyone takes you away
like I took those cheese sticks,
I’ll die.
But it’s nice to know
that I have something to die over.

I want our love to light
the entire town on fire.
Well, maybe not.
Because then we have a big flame
that burns out too fast.
And I want us to last.

I want a cheese stick love
important enough,
but not so important
that it’s scary and stressful
like college
or big tests
or gym class.

And
I want it to be with you.

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2016-2017, Issue #02, Poetry

Gravity

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

By Evette Davis

You guzzle salt…
Hypersaline, you’re a dead sea
of dense dreams…
deconstruct yourself.

Whole worlds collide at setpoint,
it’s you

who knows not of balance,

you
who has yet to find
that worlds can be held by polarity.

Chaos is just emotion
stripped of gravity.

2016-2017, Issue #02, Poetry

Noir

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Post Script Magazine

By Derek Frazier

I came home at twilight,
sore from work, tired from the hours.
The sky was ebony, no birds in flight,
lights gleaming from the city’s towers.