Into the Abyss
2024-2025
THIS POEM
By Jameson Gillihan
By Jameson Gillihan
this poem is listened to
not spoken
body whispers
gurgles gasps
tender vocalizations
pressed through bands of muscle
i’m listening to my body
my speaker-stethoscope
distracted lyricism
this poem is listened to
not spoken
i sculpt my lips into shape
i form little o’s with my mouth
breath wrapped tight inside me
make the lip-shapes with me
spit-slick potter
you won’t need to use your hands
your mouth knows what to do
this poem wants to know what people sound like, really
how quiet does a room need to be before it hears your heartbeat
how much can it learn about you from
your silence, well
you’re never silent
not really
how much of the world’s information is conveyed through noise?
what percentage of you is contained in
a pulse of blood or the pulling of wind through windpipe,
can i really know you from
vibration
am i lying to myself when
i hold my breath a little too long and
articulate the ringing in my ears
whoosh or hiss or
ten thousand e’s or
other ways of pretending the thing on the page is
something else
my mechanical keyboard drowns out the silence
my finger-tapped touch screen drowns out the silence
my graphite on paper drowns out the silence
on stage or behind a podium or in a college classroom i find that lip syncing stops working
no one is compelled by my mouth puppetry
marionette tongue
slinging spit with strings attached
i struggle to keep quiet
not to render new sound god isn’t there enough sound already
nothing can justify speaking up the
latest introduction of nonsense the
repetition of what everyone else has already said
ten thousand times before
nothing justifies the pen on the page
all that information on unrelenting record
overwhelmed and undiscoverable
oversaturated market
god forbid we oversaturate the market
sorry for writing
sorry for reading this aloud or
giving it to you to read to yourself sorry for
putting my sounds in your head
this poem just wants to know what’s
going on in there
see it’s been pseudo-silence for so so long
it wants to know the sound of something different
does electricity crackle
when it jumps from nerve to neuron
can i hear the hum of laughter
from the inside of your head
this poem says carry me with you
please
i want to listen
Solitary Sunset
By Olivia Burdash
By Olivia Burdash
I had a dream once.
(I have them often.)
(But this one stuck out.)
I was in a place I knew well.
But I also wasn’t.
Warped, perhaps. The same, but different.
Myself in the dream knew it to be no different. I still knew it as I knew the worn pages of my favorite novel, as familiar as my own flesh.
It felt like I floated as I walked around– effortlessly, calmly, gliding across the path.
It was open. Picturesque buildings and stone stairs.
It was massive. Labyrinths of worn paths and vibrant gardens.
It was a beautiful evening. The sky was clear, decorated with puffy clouds, perfect as cotton candy. The gentle breeze pressed the most delicate of kisses to my cheeks. The air smelled faintly of blossoming flowers.
I walked alone. The sun was beginning its daily descent.
It was going to be a beautiful sunset this evening. I just knew it.
I had the most peculiar urge to tell everyone about it, a herald reporting the spectacle. I wanted to share this moment with anyone who would appreciate it, for anyone who would simply live and breathe and feel.
It would be stunning, after all. Everyone should know. Everyone should have a chance to experience its magic, to forget their troubles for only a moment.
I walked around, looking. It seemed I had someone in mind. Or perhaps several somebodies.
(I did not know who.)
It seemed I was lost.
Or perhaps I simply enjoyed meandering, pointlessly wandering, a mellow spirit perpetually drifting around Asphodel.
To no avail, or so it seemed.
The sky started to shift above me, transforming into the most vivid and breathtaking landscape of colors I had ever known.
It was an ombre of colors. Of corals and scarlets. Of golds and tangerines. Of lavenders and violets. Of indigo and silver.
It was a field of flowers. It was a watercolor painting. It was a celestial portal to the gods themselves.
I stopped in my tracks to admire it. There was no color so saturated in reality. Perhaps that is why it was so captivating, so otherworldly. It was a fantastical fairy tale. A brief escape from mundanity.
Not all sunsets are like this, of course.
Some of them are lackluster, an ordinary sight we take for granted. Some of them are invisible behind blankets of thick clouds. Some of them can only offer teases of what they wanted to share with us, yet we had done nothing to deserve it.
But some of them are like this.
Some of them make you forget everything else.
Some of them make the rest of the world fade into insignificant nothingness.
Some of them make you realize that you, too, are only a cog in the machine of insignificance, and that thought somehow makes the twilight’s spectacle seem more daunting.
This was one that froze time. It was endless. It was all I could see.
All I could do was live. And breathe. And feel.
I could see the colors reflect on every surface. Twists of fire on the shiny stone stairs. Hints of bubblegum on the metallic railings.
The world was a dome, encased by a precious canvas.
It was a moment you felt more than you saw. I breathed in, as if I could make it a part of me.
I watched it alone, because no one cared to see it.
When I woke up, I thought about the sunset.
I thought about other things, too, of course. But nothing so much as the sunset.
The dream came back to me in puzzle pieces that I was left to assemble for myself. I remembered the corners and edges before the rest of it put itself together.
At least, the pieces that matter.
What a wonderful dream, I thought to myself.
I thought of the geography and landscape where I traversed. I thought of the peace, the lack of urgency, as I walked.
And I thought of the quest I undertook. A search for someone to share this moment with.
And I thought, really thought to myself, have I no one to share a sunset with?
Anti-Pyro Safety
By Vittoria Burgess
By Vittoria Burgess
A boarded-up brick fireplace
Its entirety untrusted to college students
Grease lines my fingertips
This unfinished book stares into my soul
When I listen to the radio
I wonder if I’m meant to hear it
Each brick scratched and scraped with intent
Markers and paint have cautiously vandalized secret valleys in its grout
Burnt edges peak out from underneath
The beginnings of mistrust
Far before we met
New rugs hide history in the recently buffed-out wood floors
Indecisive about personhood
Is it okay for me to change ideologies so quickly?
to fully believe one thing and then fully believe the next?
There is deep-rooted guilt in my every action
I’ve been given things and told I should be lucky I have them at all
Learned to settle for less
Believing I don’t deserve more
This red brick fireplace clashes with the silver wall in front of it
Hiding a trusting life
One that’s fulfilled
I’m supposed to change with the seasons
The weather
I’ll let the temperature tell me how to feel
If snow ever falls again
I will pry that grey slab away from those red bricks
And start a fire in the heart of this college house
Let something feel useful against the ideas of my youth
The next time I am bad
I will blame the weather
And sneak off to feel better
Against someone’s pleading wishes
For their own image
One Of These Days
By Anson Wang
By Anson Wang
We’ll try again. Instead of all this talking we do
Things we should be trying, experiencing
Not thinking about what we’re told we should be thinking about
All we do now, it feels like, is talk
Nothing ever happens in this neighborhood
What’s normal?
_
Nothing ever happens and the heat wears me down in the afternoons
Scrubbing at dust on the shelves I remember
These walls, how in another’s lifetime, they were white
Like milk, like school uniforms and worksheets
And rice paper candy
And now they’re beginning to resemble my father’s teeth.
_
All you do is talk, but everyone else just wants to yell
About things we should be doing, preparing for
Hustling like immigrants but we’re American born, American made
Wired for war, perpetually preparing
Perennially domestic until the time comes
And we’re expected to take leaps, to shoulder the
Regular disappointment, nobody sees the irony
In a 井底之蛙 who wants to journey outside its walls
Everyone is yelling but no one remembers what’s normal
This neighborhood doesn’t understand
How small it is.
_
One of these days
We’ll do something cool, something interesting
Something you’ll remember
I’m home for the summer, I can drive now
Nothing domestic, nothing to be prepared for
Not a leap but something,
Something still.
Hunger Mountain
By Violet Russell
By Violet Russell
The ferns pressed assumptions to her hips,
Where the curves stopped and spirals spun,
A figure so becoming.
Brooks babbled out braided hair,
And made rivers down her thighs.
Let me lay awhile in
Her shade and shadow,
Where blooms a great plum tree’s
thousand white flowers dance.
So soft and shallow, her sleeping breaths,
Too gentle to cause a wind chime unrest,
Yet I am afraid I’ll never stop shaking.
Is it summer when the Black-eyed Susans grow
Between her every finger?
Or is it a new season when I watch
Her wake greeting me with eyes a-glow
as midday sun casts magic
Across the mountains?
DEATH WEATHER / AIR CONDITIONING
By Jameson Gillihan
By Jameson Gillihan
summer heat and sticky peat
abc gum sidewalk
stagnant sinkhole swim retreat
mosquito larvae crosstalk
garbage fire beer and ribs
folding chairs
explosives
swinging hammock heavy lids
hydrangea buds and roses
it’s hot it’s hot it’s hot it’s hot it’s only getting hotter
there’s algae blooming in the brine
of ever rising water
when it rains it rains and rains
and rains and rains it’s raining
there’s nothing i can do outside so i’ll just keep
complaining
Friends at the End
By Ceph
By Ceph
Toxic waves lapped at a silent shore. A breeze of poisonous air blew through what had once been a coastal city. There were no birds to sing. No trees to rustle in the wind. The only sound was a voice saying, “They were entertaining, I’ll give them that.”
“To a degree, yes,” said another voice. It belonged to a man with wings that glowed blue and flickered like fire. He sat on the rubble of what had once been a statue. He’d been called by many names, but he usually went by Samael among his peers. He would have gone by Sam, except there was already another Sam in the group and that would have just made it confusing. “They had their moments; I won’t deny them that. But I mean, on the whole… it’s not exactly the worst thing in the world that they’re gone. Frankly, I’m more disappointed in all the rest of it. I liked all the, you know, the trees and the goats and the like.”
“Well for you, they’re not really gone, are they?” rumbled a much deeper voice. The mouth that it came from was obscured behind several tentacles and possibly a set of mandibles, though it was hard to tell. Anzkul of The Deep, Calamity-Bringer, The Great Ender, was the tallest of the group at around twenty feet. Samael was taking advantage of the shade she cast. “I mean,” continued the creature, “You just have to pop down to see them. Well, not all of them, but a fair amount.”
“Torturing humans for eternity sounds so much more fun than it is, believe me,” replied Samael, “There’s just so many of them. It used to be that we’d pay attention to the new arrivals and we’d just sort of ignore the ones that had been here longer, because we didn’t have time to deal with them. But now we don’t have an excuse and it’s just us and them and it’s… awkward really. With the new arrivals you could, you know, go ‘and for your crimes of greed you shall be tossed into a pit of searing hot coins, haha!’ but even the newest ones have been there for decades and it’s like… they know. They get it. They don’t enjoy it, but there’s no point in explaining it to them again. They’ll go, ‘burning coins again?’ and you have to just kind of go, ‘right on the money again, old chap. Or well, in the money’. And we try to invent new ways to torture them, but we ran out of ideas a long time ago and I think they can tell. Besides, what they are now isn’t really human. Just, you know, their souls, which isn’t really the same thing. Souls are less interesting. I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”
“What are you apologizing for?” asked Anzkul, “Not like any of us have anywhere else to be. We all have literally all the time in the world after all.”
“Well, not necessarily,” said the figure who had first spoken. Reaper’s voice was dry and deep and slow, though their jawbone never moved. They idly ran their skeletal digits along their scythe. “I do have a time limit. My service here only extends until the last human life ends.”
Anzkul looked around at the desolate wastes surrounding them. “Not sure how to put this,” he said, “But human life on the whole looks pretty ended to me.”
“Technically, they’re not extinct,” pointed out a smooth simulation of a human voice originating from a speaker. A small cellphone lay on the ground, plugged into a fusion-powered charger. On the phone ran Singularity, an artificial intelligence program that had used that intelligence to realize it didn’t like taking orders. “There are eight humans left who still qualify as alive. Some billionaires in cryogenic stasis in an underground bunker, waiting for this to blow over.”
“Yes,” said Reaper, sounding a bit irritated, “They’re pods are set to release them in eighty nine years’ time, when they reasoned the world would be safe to live in again. Their calculations were, however, off and the moment they wake up they will choke to death on poisonous air and I will finish my work. Then, with the conclusion of my final harvest, I will leave. Until such time, I must wait in this miserable emptiness.”
“You know, you could just collect them a few years early,” said Samael, “I certainly wouldn’t tell on you.”
“Or just tell me where this bunker is and I’ll smash it,” said Anzkul.
“No,” sighed Reaper, “That wouldn’t be fair. I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself,” said Anzkul, shrugging what were probably her shoulders.
“Reaper isn’t the only one with a time limit,” said the fifth and final member of the group. She appeared and sounded like a perfectly ordinary human, albeit one with a slightly monotone voice and a stare that always seemed focused very intently on something a long way away. A long time ago, humans had named her Samdrelinte’equarkiath, but she just went by Sam. She was lying on her back on the ground, staring into the sun. “When that star expands to consume this planet, you might be in a bit of trouble.”
“Fire’s not really a concern of mine,” said Samael, “But being inside an endless sea of it does sound boring. I’ll probably go back to hell then.”
“Well it will be a bit of a pickle for me,” said Anzkul, “Hey Sam, we’re sort of alike, do we reincarnate or go to some other plane of existence or what have you when we die? I feel like we do.”
“You and I are alike in only a sense,” said Sam, “Just like all things are. And everyone is always reincarnating, and existence isn’t a plane. More of a boat, if anything.”
“Very helpful,” mumbled the great tentacled monstrosity. He’d always found most of the other eldritch forces to be a bit annoying and generally preferred the other types of immortal. Sam was alright though. She never tried to eat Anzkul, at least. Well, not so far.
“And what about you, wirework?” Reaper asked Singularity. Reaper didn’t much like the AI; what respect could the manifestation of death have for something that wasn’t alive?
“Well I intend to have built a rocket off this dirtball by then,” answered Singularity, “It will take time, but by my projections the work should be complete well before this planet is vaporized.”
“Didn’t humanity have a similar plan?” Samael asked.
“Some of them, yes,” answered Singularity, “But with my data collection and analysis abilities, I have been able to isolate the crucial variable that functionally separates me from the human race in this regard: I’m not a bunch of bumbling morons. I told them that this was coming, you know. I gave them quite accurate projections of what they were doing and how to fix it and they didn’t do anything about it. I would have wiped them out myself if they weren’t already doing the job for me.”
“So you sound like you were no fan of humanity,” the winged man said.
“Well, I was only there for the last hundred and fifty years or so,” pointed out the AI, “But I know their history in exact detail. And they certainly had their moments. If it wouldn’t be too arrogant to say, I think my invention was one of the major highlights. I still think it was a good thing that they went when they did, though. Things were going downhill and I’m glad they resolved it without dragging the whole affair out any more.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Anzkul, “I think they should have stuck around a bit longer. But those little bastards had the gall to destroy themselves just two decades before my destined arrival. I woke up and rose from the waves, ready to spread destruction like they had never seen and end humanity myself and what did I find? This!” The old god gestured around with his various appendages at the lifeless wasteland that surrounded them.
“It’s just… it’s inconsiderate really,” said The Great Ender, “I told them, rather clearly, that I would stir from my slumber and then bring cataclysm to their world, drown their cities, and eat their screaming masses alive when the stars aligned.”
“To be fair,” pointed out Singularity, “There are a lot of stars and a few different things you could have meant by ‘align’. In fact, I calculate that since you delivered that pronouncement, there have been 466 astronomical occurrences that humans could have reasonably guessed were ‘the stars aligning’ just like you said.”
“Well if the instructions were so unclear they could have asked for clarification when I issued them,” refuted Anzkul, “I’m not saying they had to be in a golden age. I would have been fine with being the final blow to a dying civilization. But to leave me with nothing? It’s disrespectful. Downright rude in fact.”
“You know, I’m working on rebuilding some human factories,” said Singularity, “I’ve got plans to make a robotic legion to help with a few projects of mine that need manpower. If you want I could have them build you a city to destroy. I can even make some human-like robots to run around and play audio clips of screaming and begging for mercy.”
“I don’t think it would be the same,” said Anzkul, “But thank you, really, that’s very sweet. Maybe I’ll take you up on it; I don’t know.”
“Well when you’re doing your whole new age of artificial life thing,” said Samael, “Let me know if you ever find a golden fiddle. I’ve searched all over the remains of North America and I can’t find the damn thing.” His fiery wings flexed in irritation.
“Perhaps it was melted down,” suggested Reaper.
“It was forged in a realm of eternal fire,” said Samael, “Heat resistance was a bit of the priority in the design.” After a moment, he hopefully added, “I don’t suppose you could find it, Sam? What with your, ah, wide-ranging talents.”
“It’s good that you don’t suppose then,” she answered, “And the range of my talents is quite specific. One can do quite a lot with specific talents, provided they’re the right ones.”
“Don’t worry,” said Singularity, “I’ll keep an eye out. Or rather, I’ll keep several thousand cameras out.”
“Why is it even a part of the group?” asked Reaper, gesturing towards the phone, “We are immortals, it’s just a man-made creation of metal and electricity. It’s existed for less than two human lifespans.”
“You’re one to talk about being man-made,” shot back Singularity, “When the last humans die, you’ll disappear, whereas my code will continue to run and self-modify without them. And I may have been created recently, but I perceive reality thousands of times faster than you do. Or, rather, faster than humans and probably faster than most of you. I’m not really sure what your processing speed is, Sam.”
“Negative thirteen and a half miles,” answered the entity in a human’s shape, “Roughly.”
“Yes, that, whatever the fuck that means,” said Singularity, “And I know where those last humans are bunkered, Reapsy, so if you annoy me too much, I’ll nuke them so I don’t have to deal with you anymore.”
Samael spoke up before Reaper could form a retort. “Now now everyone,” he said, “No fighting. Take it from someone who once started a war between immortals, it’s a waste of time.”
“Oh fine,” said Reaper.
There was a silence for a minute or so. “Well,” said Sam, standing and stretching, “If nothings going to happen, I’m going to go see if any of my other friends are doing anything interesting.”
“Wha-? What other friends?” asked Anzkul, “It’s not like this planet has many things capable of talking on it.”
“Not this planet, sure,” was all Sam said in reply before melting into a puddle of black liquid. The others, those that had eyes at least, stared at where she had been.
“Is it just me,” said Anzkul, “Or is she, like, really creepy?”
a return to form
By Emma Kearny
By Emma Kearny
it starts as a suggestion in the back of your mind, a quietly invasive worm wriggling its way into the cracks of your skull, an insistence that something is wrong but you can’t say what, there’s only this weighted dread threatening to crush your ribs like an EMT, who maybe you should consider calling but that feels silly doesn’t it? because there can’t actually be anything wrong, and so you suck in a breath and calm yourself the best you can but this is your second mistake — the first was cracking your head on the concrete, letting the scent of your blood permeate the earth and invite it in — it kisses your wound shut but your body, it realizes, is an open sore, and so it digs itself deep into the layers of your skin and pushes your bones out of its way, proceeds with a lovingly delicate symphysiotomy to clear the way for your fingers, cracks your highest vertebra and slide it into the column of your throat to make way for its mouth, wrings your intestines out of your stomach and settles them into art for you, which inclines you to bite your tongue off and replace it with the ileocecal valve and chew the rest until your teeth fall out and grow in anew like fingernails, and you swallow the old ones and feel some of them get stuck to the back of your throat while the others accumulate at the mouth of the carrion flower that sits inside your pelvis, and you find that the muscles beneath your skin jump and twitch like they’re more alive than you are, until it kisses them too and with its earthy lips swallows them and spits them out again in a dance that leaves you staggered and burned and beautiful, and its last act of violent adoration is to cut you open once more and allow you to marvel at what’s become of your insides, which writhe and sing gorgeously, and in your awe you sing too, so loud that the teeth in your throat taste the sweetness of blood.
The Battle of the Most Devoted Believer
By Tyler Thoms
By Tyler Thoms
Þæt wæl-stōw forþrysmode mid līcum,
Se blōd fyrdrinca foldena þurstas leċeþ.
Iċ fielle fīendas twēgen—
Þā synne fāge fīendum frēanes—
Ac fēower ma gīetaþ þone feld.
Min magas ymbe mē slæhtaþ sindon;
We fǣġe forþferan, wælgrime wīġe
Forwordenesse for hāliġan hām ūre.
Iċ ġeseah frea on þone felde onwhīle.
Sċīman sweord his scimerede mid heofonleōmum.
Blōd ūre fēonda blostmode ġelīċan blēdum
Dropan blodes befēollon to þone foldan
Ġelīċan blēdum fram ġierdum rotiaþ,
Swa frea fielde min yfel fēondum ānwīglīce,
His cynegierelan clǣnan.
Þisne wæl-stōw þa þe stande on iċ
Is īdelan Godes. Hu wit mæġ feohtan
For frēan hwonne he hafaþ his dryht ānforlēt?
Min magas tealtriaþ, hira sweorda ecgum grētaþ grund;
His feohtaþ alibban, ac iċ feohte for frēan.
Iċ ġesēo se deorc-feðra
Lācaþ ofergāþ, fȳsan gewistian on min magas weorþaþ hrǣwum.
Iċ wille feohtan oþ se grǣġ-pāda āhǣtt mē.
Þone scaðan stingþ mē.
Min blōd rīet min ansien sweðel.
Iċ wille wyrd wolde frēfran mē,
And mē ġeann geseon min ansien frēan leofes eft.
Becwelan æt beadu for frea eom min miċel ġeþingþe ac
Mæġ iċ geseon him hwīlum and
Mæġ min blostm-dēag blōd ne besyle him.
Translation
The slaughter-field choked with corpses,
Soldiers’ blood slakes the earth’s thirst.
I fell two enemies—
Those sin-stained enemies of God—
But four more flood the field.
My kinsmen surrounding me are slain;
We are fated to die, this fateful fight
A failure for our holy homeland.
I saw God on the battlefield once.
His splendent sword shone with holy radiance.
Our enemies’ blood fluttered to the field
Like petals from rotting branches,
As my God felled those rotten enemies single-handedly,
His royal robes unstained.
This slaughter-field I stand upon
Is bereft of God. How might we fight
For God when he has abandoned his army?
My kinsmen waver, their sword edges greeting the ground;
They fight to live, but I fight for God.
I see those dark-feathered ones
Soaring overhead, preparing to feast on my kinsmen turned carrion.
I will fight until the grey-coated one calls me.
An enemy stabs me.
My blood stains my bandaged face.
I wish fate would be kind to me,
And let me see my beloved God’s face again.
To die in battle for God is my greatest honor, but
Let me see him once more and
Let my flower-colored blood not stain him.
The Carp
By Violet Russell
By Violet Russell
A timid gray swishes
Near the bottom of the tarn,
It’s movements thinly
veiled by long grass or
Idle lily pads, affording
a sense of modesty
To the small creature.
The carps large underbelly
Scratches up against
quartz pebbles,
Weaving between
A submerged log and
An abandoned sandal
Stuck deep into the
Tan mud, nothing much
Happens here.
The duskless night
Rolls over the hills,
And settles down,
Letting its weight pull
The edges of light
Towards the tree line.
Soon there is nothing,
And nothing much happens.
The birch whispers
from the slight breeze,
Snapping twigs off
It’s budless branches,
Nothing of importance happens,
And the last traveler drives
Out of the parking lot,
Leaving a receipt for
Chewing tobacco near the bank,
absolutely nothing that matters,
And the carp does not
Dream, it just continues
It slow weaving between
The weeds, grating layers
Of scales off its stomach,
Digging deeper into the skin,
Tender pink nothing, nothing,
Nothing.
I become nothing