NCSSM Blue Mirror Volume 6 Issue 1

8/6/2019 NCSSM Blue Mirror Volume 6 Issue 1

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volume VI issue I

n

Fall2010

blue

mirr ro

cs s m jos r

i utaterl

a dna

l

o trf

au n

er


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I am apart of

Alfred LordTennyson

all Tha

I havemet.


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contents

page two

page six

page four

page eight

page eighteen

page twenty-four

page twenty-two

page twenty

page sixteen

page fourteen

page twelve

page ten

page twenty-six

tw

ophotographs

jozeflisowski

lim

bo

jen

niferkronmiller

drifgintbackintomemory

maraguevarra

xmarksthespot

maililim

hisringtone

brittaniehoward

running

sydneybrowning

blink

tinazheng

tre

ading,

maraguevarra

unfiltered

jenniferkronmiller

welcomehome

xav

ierjarrett

ko

rsakovssyndrome

taylorhouse

alphabetblocks

jen

niferkronmiller

latent

ashgray


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Jordon Pond: Thennie Venablegital photography

page one


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Who am I when I am not me?

I am not this long brown hair behind glass,

those cute dimples or painted cheeks in auburn,the plaid sweaters in lavender colors that Grandma loved on me.

I am skinny, yes, too skinny.

I am not the airtight girls who say they are too fat.

Is this room pink or just a paling shade of red,

shining in dark and deceptive corners to trick me

into a colorful fantasy parallel life?

I am not kitties and ponies and six petaled flowers

I am cobras and mud and thick vines of weeds.

Don't tailor to my every need

and don't tie my facade across my wrist with hearts and love and bracelets.

I am not flowing skirts and high heels that click on ice.

I am him.

I am Samantha called Sam for short,

that baritone voice too deep for these lips,

those hairy legs I don't cover up with stockings

and the boxers I bought for the boyfriend I don't have.

The devil is in the cashier girls,

humiliating me in the sections that are not mine,

are not his,

the stash of lacy bras and thongs and gigglesto fill my drawers with lies.

I am the steamy showers after gym class,

man sweat on my small frame,

his muscles over my breasts,

his eyes closing my own.

I am political correctness, a sexist joke, the kernel of truth in the lie.

Lost in my own body, in that dangerous glance into a mirror,

wrinkled across myself with seams of uncertainty and contradiction.

I am his dreams, labeled and stuffed into a box that wont hold them,

Compressed to fit into a narrow world.I am his dreams and my nightmare,

Our twisted reality.

I am Limbo.

Limbo Jennifer Kronmiller

page t hr ee


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La Merpage f our

Violette Zhucolored pencil and photoshop


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Blink.

A million shards of light pierce through my lens, shatter on my retina.

Voices.

Varying vibrations pass effortlessly through the heavy air and enter the chasm that is my hearing.

Blink. Blinkblinkblink

My eyes cannot stop moving. I take in a whirlwind of movement, flurries of bright dots and areas

of darker color

Why, shes awake!

A sudden change in tone and volume, indicating immense interest or surprise.

My body tightens (I vaguely register a slight rush of alertness and panic) and attempts to spring up.

Somehow, I find myself unable to transport. A confining sensation envelopes my physical being.

TheDrive

Blink Tina Zheng

digitalp

hotography


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(There is presently still the mystery of what a physical being is.)

A strange, disturbing awareness, akin to the panic I just experienced. Though this time, it seems

less physical. I am

Confused?

A slight deviation in the eddies of air that surround me. I strain my dancing eyes to the left and find

a bright figure in close proximity.

A tense moment, characterized by silence, immobility, and concentration.

As my eyes adjust automatically to this lesser degree of remoteness, the monochromatic figure

twists up a line on its upper body. Nuances in the air emerge from the line, now widened to an

amorphous shape and still constantly morphing. I discover the movements coincide with changes

in the tone and sounds waves that I am processing.

How do you feel?

Blink.

Again, that twisted line.

Dont worry; well take excellent care of you.

Blink. I turn my head almost subconsciously to the right. Another disturbance in the currents of air

The figure to my left widens his mouth. An echoing noise is emitted. I cannot discern any meaning

from the patterns. The new figure to my right imitates the first.

A slight push of air to my left, then pressure; I whip my head around and focus my eyes on my

left arm (what an interesting discovery: such a slender appendage). The first figure carries a long

tube.

A foreign, uncomfortable feeling within me.

Danger.

Dont worry; well take excellent care of you.

Sudden penetrating pressure on my arm. The line on my face widens for a moment. I try to stop

the uncontrolled sound coming from my mouth (so unlike how the figures echoes sounded).

It is to no avail.

The sound stops on its own, and I remember nothing more.

Darkness.

I am learning.page six


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I used to think of the world in terms of intersecting lines. I could see two images superimposed over

one another: the real world, smooth and blurred together like runny pastels, and the dissected Pi-

casso one, made up of boxes crisscrossing with squares and angles and yellow grids. I could sort the

universe into categories based on the textures that each sound made, find the mathematical mean of

all the blades of grass, and figure out the hypotenuse the sky made when it clashed with the top of atree, perpendicular to the ground. They tried to teach us left brain and right brain theory in 4th grade

but it went over both sides of my heads. I didnt understand why science couldnt coexist in the sam

hemisphere as art or why gut feelings precluded logic. They spoke of two worlds, separate but equa

but I already had two worlds on top of each other. I already had both. Although sometimes my mind

would go into overdrive and rapid-fire too many thoughts at me every millisecond, and sometimes I

short-circuited. And so then I had neither world. Just blackness.

I remember one sleepless night, plagued by childhood insomnia and too many patterns behind my

eyelids, when I looked out the bedroom window and into the petrifying fluorescent glow of a street-

light. It was a dangerous thing to do and I knew it. I was used to the extrasensory overload I receive

from most objects, the enigma caused by a leg of a chair or one tick of a clock, but usually I could

contain it in a small corner of my mind and lock it away, another paradox that would just remain a

mystery forevermore. The streetlamp, though, was different. It wasnt tangible, something that a lab

could be placed on or that my imaginary filing cabinet could hold. It was just a light. It was a center

point but with no radius, no area, just a diffusing glow of particles, and I wondered where it started,

exactly, since it never really stopped. It just grew thinner and thinner, the light spreading out to the

edges of the world, asymptotically approaching black without ever reaching it. Light was just energy

wasnt it, so where could the energy go? It could never be destroyed. And then a basic 250-watt bulb

became infinite, a vortex into imaginary numbers and imaginary worlds, sucking in its surroundings

like a vacuum or a black hole. It became an abyss of a streetlight with no size or matter or start or

end, just a pure pool of unfiltered, embodied essence.

But then it started getting scary, invading my room and engulfing me in yellow, that sickly color that

I hated and that was tainting my skin and my jaundice eyes and all the grid lines that the symmetry

in my bedroom made. I couldnt handle it. My mind wouldnt wrap around it and I became distraugh

trying to force understanding. I broke down crying, sobbing for my mom, terrified because both

worlds that I knew were coming undone and the lamp outside my bedroom window fit into neither.

was like a giant block of granite in the middle of a roaring stream, dividing the waters into tributaries

changing the paths, and I was stuck treading water on the wrong half of the river.

Thats what it felt like, anyway.

But my mom didnt understand it because she couldnt see it, and if she couldnt see it then it wasnt

real. She wanted my reality condensed, crushed back into the three dimensions it was supposed to

have. She thought there was something wrong with the connections my neurons made, something

wrong with my mind and my perception and my sanity. It turned from a gift to a problem, another

imperfection that had to be wiped away. She wanted me cured, but I could never figure out what ex

actly I was being cured of.

If someone sees things that no else can see, I always wondered, are they crazy? Or do they just have

better vision?

Unfiltered Jennifer Kronmiller


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UntitledBronwynFadem

henna


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Do Not Climb Sydney Browningdigital photography

page nine


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i am a manufacturer's defect

the factory workers went on strike.

my pieces left on the line

picked back up after the raise

but they forgot the motions

and we went back to day one.

they hot-wired my anger

right to my teary eyes.

and left a dent in my exterior

i don't shine like the others.

the compass on my heart is broken

i don't know what to follow now.

my emotions just tangled cables

now each of them the same.

and the worst of all

they altered the path of my neurons.my senses are distorted.

all i can hear is your voice

ringing in my ears,

the feeling of falling

away from you - vertigo.

your lost touch is still

sending signals up my spine.

and your image, forever lies

reflected on my retinas.

your taste embedded in my tongue.

more sour than sweet.

our memories on repeat, leaving me

forever stuck in this moment -

anterograde amnesia.

they never taught this heart how to let go.

Korsakovs

SyndromeTaylor House

page t en


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i am a scuba diver of the broken,

finding lost treasuresby dumpster diving

for thrown away people

letting the garbage i collect

turn into gold

turn into armor

and so much more

than i ever should

theres that taste of sourness

as i kiss each thin white scarkisses that taste

like bitterness and pain and lust

nights that taste

like heat and sweat

tears of salt

and one-sided love

i jump in after the broken

ready to breathe

my life into hisonly to wake up

drowning

in a sea of air

alone.

mara guevarra

treading,

Shell at Supage eleven


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set Annie Venabledigital photographypage t welv


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Acrid apathy sweating from suspended nothingness,

Bendable to your will and yet

Claustraphobically avoidant of all you say.

Dreams in black and white, sketched lazily over a colored world.

Ethereal, surreal light shows

Flayed across traffic lights that never turn green.

Gorge yourself senseless on a binge that never pays off in the end.Hide away beneath your skin,

Invisible to all except those who look, so

Just. Don't. Look.

Kill all your desires so they'll never fail,

Lose your love so that it lies undisturbed underground, and

Make way for those insecurities that you can never push away.

Nameless we all are as a whole,

Oblique masses that blur together,

Pretending that this prepubescent paradise will last a lifetime.

Quiver in your boots and quake, quell your rising fear.

Read a book on happiness in a secluded corner of a cemetery.

Simmer embers down to ashes, like the

Teachers teaching teachers while the students all decay.

Underneath the facade of normalcy is a wilder world,

Very like your own insides:

Wobbly molds of Jell-o and juvenile crash courses.

Xerox your personality, but don't forget to add a watermark.

Zip your jacket tight around your fears.

A D i f f i c u l t L o v e

Alphabet BlocksJennifer Kronmiller

page t hir t e e n

TylerHayes


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The skyswollen, gray, vastmoans, sending a shockwave through my body. My heart skips

a beat or two, or at least thats how it feels. I release the breath that I hadnt noticed I was holding for

he longest time allowing the warm air to rush past my lips and hang around me. My nostrils fill with

he smell of the day-old veggie pizza I had that morning for breakfast. I flex my fingers in an attempt t

regain control again. The empty pasture spread before us, which had once seemed so broad and openbecomes a shrinking plain of grass trying to overtake everyone of my senses. I squeeze my eyes shut

ightly.

Dude, youre always so afraid of these things, Thom says leaning over. He lightly punches me

on the shoulder and chuckles before continuing, all of a sudden growing serious. I..I know you like

boyI mean guysand all, but could you at least toughen up a bit?

My eyes, downcast before, venture upwards seeking out his face. Handsome, strong, rugged. T

mage of what a real man should be. It pisses me off how easily he can expect me to adapt to his wan

and needs, how easily he believes I can turn my true persona on and off. I move to give him that trad

mark finger of minethe one that so many bigots have been on the receiving end of, but the sky erup

n a flash of brilliance, and I halt. Sometimes, I wonder if thunderstorms are nothing more than the go

from ancient Rome fighting it out. Or maybe, that one God is just upset and needs to cry. Doesnt eve

one break down at some point?

Welcome HomeXavier Jarrett


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Whether or not Im right, I still cringe in anticipation, waiting on the clash, the thun

of the giants to arrive. Thats the worse part. Waiting. Waiting on something that you kno

will happen at any time. The noise deafens me, and I leap from the old wooden fence we

perched on. My shoes sink into the muddy ground, and I drop my handbag. I curse silent

Let me help you, Thom offers, leaving his seat on the fence and crouching low to

grab the phone that had fallen from my bag.

Just stop it! I yell at him. I snatch the phone away and shove it into my back pock

Whawhats your problem, Ben? he asks, handing me my bag back.

You! I shout. I sling the loud pink purse onto my shoulder and stare at the half-naked wan covering his shirt. These past few months have been nothing, but you criticizing ever

choice I make. Seriously, I know it hasnt been easy dealing with me as a best friend. Who

wants to hang with the school fag? Things arent easy on my end, either, though. I dont w

to feel like such an outcast, a person who has to struggle for every small scrap of hope th

my way. I have tried to be such a man. Believe me, I have tried every damn method. It

just not me. My own parents cant stand to look at me, Thom. I just wantI just want to g

home.

I pull my feet out of the mud, tuning out the horrid sucking noise it makes as the la

remnants of its dark ingredients fall back to the ground. Closing my eyes against the stale

after-storm air around me, I trudge off back towards my cara car I had taken here in hopof rekindling my friendship with the guy who had known me since we were in diapers. A

guy who had played ninja assassin with me all those nights ago when the darkness seeme

overwhelming, we couldnt see more than two feet in front of us. A guy who had left his

and only girlfriend to come to my last ballet recital. A guy who had stood by and watched

get beat down for being who I was meant to be, for being gay. A guy who had called to a

ogize that night for not being man enough to step in. A guy who I knew I loved as a broth

and could never leave behind.

Ben, wait. The tone of his voice causes me to stop. It reminds me of the days wh

things were simple. II know that its been hard, and I havent bbeen there as much a

should have, but I wanna make this riright. I turn around, and hes standing with his ar

spread open, seeming as if he is trying to engulf the entire world. The smell of his cologndrifts over, and I give in. My feet, covered in the black muck, carry me back the few shor

yards I had managed to put between us.

We can make things right again, Ben. I promise. A homea home is not somethin

physical. Its more than that. Its a place where you feel safe. Name that place, and I swea

you, I will make sure thats where you end up.

I whisper the first thing that comes to mind: Your arms.

I feel the tension in his arms relax as if he is about to pull away. I freeze, afraid that

only home I truly know is about to depart. The pressure returns, though, increasing stead

until I cant move.

If its what you want, he whispers back. The storm quiets to nothing but the occa

al rumble in the distance. Nothing disturbs the silence that has once again returned to its p

in the field.

Welcome home, Ben.

Suspended DisbeliefJennifer Kronmiller, digital photography


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ner Tyler Hayesdigital photographypage e ight ee n


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I walked a mile your shoes like you said to

I crossed the desert in a purple haze

Now you dont know what Im talking about

You see I should have started back again

I spent my life being chased, chasedThen I met you and I could rest my head

Until the drink rot that bed

And fifty men in Italian suits marched into our room

Their cigarettes drove me away

And you stayed

Why did you stay?

I have a few tricks up my sleeve

So the devil wont catch me anytime soon

But I do like that bass you play

So I crept back into our roomAnd there you lay with someone else

So I took my hammer and it fell

You yelled but it didnt do anyone any good

And I was running again, the fifty suits were back

And now my hands are broken and burned

My mind is cracked and turned

And one drink will save my life

The Devil finally chased me down.

RunningSydney Browning

page t we n t y


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I was working late, Daddy said to my Momma.

We were all sitting at the dinner table, eating my favorite spaghetti with meatballs.

Momma gave me two meatballs today because she said I was growin up to be a big boy, just

like my Daddy. I was almost finished with both of them already, but when I looked over at

Momma and Daddys plates, they hadnt even touched theirs. I figured they didnt wanna grow

anymore; thats probably why they always call each other fat.

Please, Phillip. I want to work this out, but we cant get anywhere if youre going to-

Momma stopped talking cause Daddy gave her a real mean look and put his hand on the table.

I looked at Daddy then I grabbed another roll from the middle of the table. Right when I was

about to take a bite, Momma got up from the table and went upstairs. Daddy finally looked

up from his phone and took another bite of his dinner. His phone started ringing, and I played

along to his ringtone with my fork.

Cut it out, kid, he said real mean, then he took his phone out of his pocket and laid it

on the table.

I stopped then and ate the rest of my dinner. Then, a couple of minutes later, it rang

again. I tried real hard to hold it in, but I couldnt help playing along to the ringtone again.While I was boppin my head to the beat, Daddy hit me on my head with his fist. I fell out the

chair and hit my head on the cabinet under the sink, then I screamed - but not a lot cause I

aint no sissy. I tried hard to keep the tears in my eyes, but they came pourin out and I got real

scared then.

Get up! An stop cryin like a little girl, he yelled.

I was cryin real hard then, and I knew I was gonna be in trouble cause thats when he

got up from his chair. He started walkin over to me, pullin off his belt while he came, and I

could tell that I had made him angry. Right then, Momma came back downstairs.

Phillip, stop it! You cant keep hitting him like this!

Stay out of this, its between father and son!

I tried to crawl over to Momma then so she could protect me, but Daddy kicked me and

I had to stop. Thats when he pulled back his arm real high, and brought the belt down on me

so hard that I could feel blood on my back. I think I fell asleep then, cause the only thing I re-

member after that is black.

***

When I woke up, Momma was cleanin my back and puttin Band-Aids on it. Daddy was

sittin in his Lazy-Boy chair, watching football and drinkin beer when I looked over at him.

When he saw that I was awake again, he started laughin real hard.

Little punk finally up for good, eh? Kid goes unconscious after the first hit! An you say

hes mine, he said, laughin even harder.

Thats when my Momma did somethin I never thought shed do. She picked up a opencan of beer on the table, got up, walked over to Daddy, and threw it right in his eyes! He

yelled and got up real quick, rubbin his eyes while he ran to the bathroom. I looked at Momma

and she told me it was alright. I was still tryin to figure out though why she did that she knew

Daddy was gonna beat her for it.

When the water stopped runnin, I got scared for me and Momma. Figurin that I had to

be a man and protect her, I got up and walked real slow to stand in front of her. My back was

still hurtin a whole bunch, but I sucked up the pain so I could save her.

Jason, sweetie, what are you doing? she asked me while she tried to push me back

onto the couch.

Protecting you, I said real simple.

t

i l l F i

d

His Ringtone Brittanie Howard

t y l e

r H a y e s


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Daddy came out of the bathroom then and kept clenchin his fists while he walked over to

us. He had a real mean look in his eyes while he was starin at us, and his lip was pulled up a little

like a angry dog growlin. As soon as he got close, he pulled back his fist to hit me. I closed my

eyes and tried to make my muscles strong so I wouldnt fall, but right when I was expecting to feel

it, I felt something go past me and heard Momma scream. When I turned around to look at her,

she was half laying on the table and half laying on the floor, tryin to get back up. Daddy pushed

me down and went over to her, then he grabbed her by her hair and threw her on the couch.

Stop it, Phillip! she screamed, tryin her best to push Daddy away. With one hand Daddy held

her down, and with the other he kept hittin her in the head. After a couple of minutes, Momma

stopped makin noise and her body just sat there, not movin at all. Daddy got up and put his fin-

gers on her neck, then his eyes got real big. He started backin away then, grabbed his keys and

wallet, and went out the front door real fast. I figured Momma was pretending to be asleep so he

would stop, like I do sometimes. I walked over to her then to tell her it was okay that she could

stop pretending because he was gone.

Momma, its alright. Hes gone now. You can get up, I told her, shakin her arm.

I heard the truck in the driveway start up, and the engine made a whole bunch of noise as it

went down the road. I looked at Momma again and she still wasnt movin, so I pushed her harder

this time. Nothin happened, so I kept trying, until I was practically beating her to wake her up.

The tears started comin again, and I sat down and laid my head on my Momma, hopin she wouldwake up soon.

His ringtone went off again and made his phone fall off the table, but this time, I just sat real

still with my Momma.


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Waves of Grain Annie Venabledigital photograph

page t we n t y- t hr e e


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Two icebergs in your father's gold Acura

and your car seat swells

with my liquid contents. Fourteen days

till summer clocks in,why haven't you thawed yet?

Frostbite folds mechanical arms

over your loud little treasure:

X marks the spot where

Blackbeard didn't give a shit,

burying more selfishness

than I could ever attempt.

And although you tell me

I will not let you worm

your way inside

I want to explain

your eyelashes remind me

something of the butterflies I caught

one grey summer with my bare fingers,

the fragile life wilting

between my child's hands.

X Marks the

Spot maili lim

page t we n t y- f o ur


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we walk under lined-up lamp posts,

and i look up at you,

so that i can find your smile

in the dim lighting;

you go ahead of me,

your body far,

the distance between us

growing as big as our awkward silences;

i dont cry out

but i wish that just once

just this one time

you could look back at me,

and see me reaching out to you,my kindred spirit.

mara guevarra

drifting back intomy memory.

R e l e

a s eMara

Guevarra

l i

page t we n t y- f ive


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cover image

the advent o f

mara guevarra

experimentation


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BlueM

irro

rFall2010

An it a Gand h iPe t e r G eMark G rebenAbigail Gr uchacz

K at r in a G ut ie r r e zT yler HayesJ enn if e r K r onmille rB renna Mu l d rowJ en i f e r Spos itC at hy W o odPe t e r G e

K at r in a G ut ie r r e zJ enn if e r K r onmille rJ ohn Mit che ll

Mia d e los ReyesC at hy W o o dT in a Z he n g

E d it or - in - C hie f

L it e r at ur e E d it orAr t E d it orPr o d uct io n E d it o r

Mail i L im

J o ze f L is ows kiMara GuevarraNick L iu

J o hn W o o d man s ee

St r awb r id ge St ud ios


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Documents

NCSSM Blue Mirror Volume 6 Issue 1