Category: Nicholls

The Issue of Child Brides
Maggie Garcia 

In almost every country in the world, millions of young girls are forced to marry men who are  much older than them. In many cases, these girls are not allowed to make the decision to marry, or not to marry on their own. Even if these girls were able to decide, they are children and do not have the mental capacity to make such adult decisions. They are stripped of their childhood, given away as property, forced to be subservient to their husbands, and grow into oppressed women. They are sexually, physically, and mentally abused and exploited.  Not only is this dangerous for the girls involved, but it also greatly affects society as a whole. The issue of child brides is a global crisis that must be addressed in order to protect these child victims.

In order to prevent these marriages from occurring, one must understand why these marriages take place. In many societies, typically patriarchal societies, daughters are viewed as a liability. Families in these societies often want to get rid of their daughters as soon as possible, and the easiest way to do this is to marry them off. By marrying their daughters off, families pass all financial responsibility to the groom and his family. Since older adult men typically have an established career, they are the best candidate to take on the responsibility of a child bride (Child). In exchange for this financial burden, the men receive a submissive young bride to bear children, satisfy his sexual desires, and take care of the household (Fanning). Recently, the number of child brides in Asia has risen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people have lost their jobs due to the pandemic and must rid themselves of the financial burden of a daughter. Because of this, the work of people who advocate for these girls has been undone (Child). These girls need the help of the world now more than ever. 

Although the child bride crisis is mainly an issue of child protection, it must be looked at as a women’s rights issue as well. As stated in the article, Early Marriage and Women’s Empowerment: The Case of Child-Brides in Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia, “Women, especially those who marry as children, experience various forms and degrees of exclusion and discrimination. Early marriage is a harmful traditional practice that continues to affect millions around the world” (Abera 1). Women who were married before the age of eighteen face more adversity than those who were married as adults is solidified in the findings of the study conducted by BMC International Health and Human Rights. This study found that women who were child brides are more likely to experience abuse from their spouse than women who marry after their eighteenth birthday.  The study found that women who marry after  eighteen are considered to be stronger and more empowering. . These women  were also more involved in household decisions rather than having to submit to their husband’s choices as child brides do (Abrea). Clearly, the continuation of child brides keeps women in a submissive state and helps to continue domestic abuse . 

Although these young girls are children, they are  expected to leave their childhoods behind in order to become the ideal wife for their husbands and their families. They are ripped from school, not given the opportunity to make friends or develop opinions, and are forced to grow up before their childhoods have begun. They are placed in  new homes and must immediately assume their new role, often doing the most unsavory household tasks. As stated in Married Too Young, “As the newest member of the family, she’s assigned the most difficult household chores. Typically, she must cook, clean, wash clothes, and trek long distances to fetch water and firewood. Some even suffer beatings from their new husbands. Some girls work in slave-like conditions, too timid to speak up to their husbands or in-laws” (Fanning 1). On top of these slave-like conditions, they are expected to satisfy their husband’s sexual desires whenever he demands and bear children as soon as possible, sometimes as young as twelve years old. These young girls are forced to be sexually intimate with their adult husbands or face being beaten or sent to live on the streets. (Fanning). These girls are forced to put their bodies through the trauma of childbirth and  raise an infant all before the age of eighteen. 

Although it is easier to think that these types of marriages only happen in  third-world countries, this is not the case. It is true that India has the most child bride cases in the world, however, there are cases in almost all countries including America (Burris). Underage marriage is still legal in several states. The fact that it is legal for these marriages to happen  shows how little protection there is for young girls who may become victims of this practice. Thankfully, child marriage has fallen out of favor in the eyes of society in the western world, even though they still occur. Unfortunately, this was not always the case. Child marriage was widely accepted by society until recent times, as illustrated in American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States by Nicholas L. Syrett, “Mayne Reid was not seen by his contemporaries as a sexual predator, nor did Elizabeth Hyde’s family prevent the union from occurring. Once they married, Mayne and Elizabeth’s relationship was considered fully acceptable, both legally and socially” (Berman 1). This quote speaks about the marriage between thirty-five-year-old Mayne and fifteen-year-old Elizabeth in 1853. Clearly, this is an issue of the past and present of America. It is important to understand that this crisis is occurring in even the most developed countries and therefore needs to be addressed at a global scale. 

Although there are laws in place in India to protect these young girls from becoming child brides, these laws are ineffective. Unlike in America, eastern countries have different views on child brides as a society. The belief  is that it is not morally wrong to marry young girls off to older men and that doing this will be beneficial to the girl and her family. Based on studies and accounts of the girls who were subject to such marriages, this is not the case. (Burris). As stated in Why Domestic Institutions Are Failing Child Brides: A Comparative Analysis of India’s and the United States,  “For many of these countries with a high prevalence of child marriage, social and cultural values hold more weight in the community than state-enacted law; thus, domestic legislation banning child marriage is weakly enforced”(Burris 153). Because this practice is so ingrained in their society and  these countries  have very patriarchal social structures, society turns a blind eye to the laws against child brides. The law enforcers often turn a blind eye to reports of marriage between an adult man and young girls taking place (Burris). Because of this, children in these countries are not protected by the laws that were meant to protect them. 

In order to combat the failing laws and lack of protection for these girls, there are arguments that state that these girls should be protected by the International Labour Organization because of the child labor they are forced to perform in their new households, such as caring for elderly relatives, performing household chores, fetching water, and other tasks that would be difficult for any child to perform. If child brides were protected under child labor laws, it would make child brides less attractive to prospective husbands by removing the free labor aspect (Şişli). Although this idea has the potential to provide an extra layer of protection for young girls at risk of becoming child brides, it is likely that these laws would also be ignored by society. Even if the International Labour Organization decided to work against this issue, the families could simply continue with marriage in secret.  

Although  laws against child marriages are needed, the greatest hope for the girls who are at risk of becoming child brides is Payal Jangrid. Payal was almost a victim of child marriage in India, she was rescued by activists who fought against the practice of child brides and also fought against her own marriage. Payal challenges the views of the tradition of child marriage and now fights to raise the voices of other young girls. Payal, now eighteen, is on a mission to educate young girls and families in rural areas of India. She teaches children to be their own advocate and to speak up for themselves even if no one else will. In 2013, Payal was elected leader of her village’s Child Parliament and was able to publicly speak out against this practice and call for change.  Now, Payal is studying to become a teacher and was able to eradicate child marriage from her village through education and advocacy. She hopes to spread her message and her story across the world (Graf). Payal’s story is an inspiration for other child bride victims. She not only proves that it is possible to escape the statistic of becoming a child bride, but she also proves that it is possible to change the views of the societies that glorify these marriages and hopefully one day end them permanently. 

These children are not only ripped away from their families, their education, their friends, and their childhood, they are also exploited and viewed as property rather than as human beings. Although there are laws that are meant to protect these girls in some countries, not all places have these laws. Even in places that have such laws, they are often ignored by society and by law enforcers. This is a global crisis that does not have enough awareness, especially in the western world. The continuation of this practice perpetuates other global issues such as gender inequality and domestic abuse by continuing the idea that women and girls are goods to be traded and should assume a submissive role in the household. Fortunately, there are activist groups and leaders like Payal Jangrid who are working hard to change the views of society in the eastern world. However, this will not be enough to save all of the girls who are at risk of becoming a child bride. This is a global issue that must be addressed at a global scale for the sake of the girls  it affects. 

 

Works Cited 

Abera, Mikyas, et al. “Early Marriage and Women’s Empowerment: The Case of Child-Brides in Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia.” BMC International Health & Human Rights, vol. 20, no. 1, Dec. 2020, pp. 1–16. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s12914-020-00249-5.

Berman, Cassandra N. “American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States by Nicholas L. Syrett (Review).” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 38, no. 3, Sept. 2018, pp. 578–580. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/jer.2018.0065.

Burris, Camellia. “Why Domestic Institutions Are Failing Child Brides: A Comparative Analysis of India’s and the United States’ Legal Approaches to the Institution of Child Marriage.” Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law, vol. 23, no. 1, 2014, pp. 151–176. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,cookie,url,uid&db=edshol&AN=edshol.hein.journals.tulicl23.9&site= eds-live&scope=site.

“‘Child Brides Rise in Asia amid Pandemic.’” Eastern Eye, no. 1575, 11 Sept. 2020, p. 23. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,cookie,url,uid&db=f6h&AN=145633661&site=eds- live&scope=site.

Fanning, Karen. “Married Too Young.” Scholastic Scope, vol. 50, no. 3, Oct. 2001, p. 19. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx direct=true&AuthType=ip,cookie,url,uid&db=f6h&AN=5275891&site=eds- live&scope=site.

Graf, Christine. “Raising Their Voices against Child Marriage.” Faces, vol. 35, no. 4, Jan. 2019, p. 30. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,cookie,url,uid&db=prh&AN=133515759&site=eds- live&scope=site.

Şişli, Zeynep, and Stephanie A. Limoncelli. “Child Brides or Child Labor in a Worst Form?” Journal of Labor & Society, vol. 22, no. 2, June 2019, pp. 313–324. EBSCOhost, doi: 10.1111/wusa.12407.

 

by Dr. David Middleton

I put “Poets” in my title in quotation marks because I am using that word in the broader sense of the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), who, in his famous essay “A Defence of Poetry” (1821), defined the “poet” as anyone who uses the imagination to create works of beauty, truth, and goodness. So a “poet,” in Shelley’s sense, could be not only a writer of verses but also a novelist, a short story writer, a playwright, an essayist, a musical composer, a painter, a sculptor, as philosopher, a law-giver, and so on.

That said – and as you know – we are not meeting in person this year to celebrate the unveiling of a new edition of MOSAIC because of the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Instead, we are following recommended guidelines for our own health and safety and for the health and safety of others, and we are seeing to the needs of others, including family and friends, in the proper manner, and as best we can.

In such days as these, the question may very well arise: What, if any, is the role of the “poet” in a time like this? A poem cannot stop the spread of a virus anymore than it can stop an advancing tank during a war.

The answer is that we need our ‘poets” now more than ever, just as we need our doctors, nurses, other health care professionals, pastors, priests, and workers in essential jobs and industries such as grocery stores, pharmacies, law enforcement, fire departments, the military, and elsewhere.

The role of the “poet” today is to create the works of art we need right now in all the different media, works that bring us together by means that may fall under such headings as consolation, empathy, understanding, mourning, resistance, heroism, questioning, remembrance, community, evocation, prayer, and praise – to name only a few.

When the Irish poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) died in January of 1939, just as war clouds were darkening over Europe and Hitler was moving toward the height of his power, the English poet W.H. Auden (1907-1973) wrote his famous elegy “In Memory of W.B. Yeats.” In the poem, Auden mourns the loss of a great poet whose presence, and new verse by whom, might have been a great consolation and a source of inspiration as war became inevitable.

Auden admits in his poem that “poetry makes nothing happen” but he adds that it is “A way of happening, a mouth.” A poem cannot stop a war (or a virus), but a poem can bring – give voice to – healing, comfort, sympathy, heroic defiance, and so on, as stated in italics in the paragraph above.

 

Auden’s poem ends:

Follow poet, follow right

To the bottom of the night,

With your unconstraining voice

Still persuade us to rejoice;

With a farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,

Sing of human unsuccess

In a rapture of distress:

 

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.

Similarly, on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 – what we now remember and refer to as “9/11” – I was in my office in Peltier Hall preparing to teach my afternoon class in writing poetry. As news spread of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and horrifying pictures of the attacks were seen on TVs and computers all over campus, faculty and students were given the choice as to whether to hold or attend classes that day or not. There were good reasons for making a decision either way.

I chose to hold my poetry writing class but made attendance optional. Years later, I wrote a poem, “Infinitives,” inclusive of lines on 9/11. Eventually the poem was published The Sewanee Review, America’s oldest continuously publishing literary quarterly, founded in 1892.

The last stanza of the poem quotes lines from Shakespeare’s great play King Lear. Lear dies holding the dead body of his daughter Cordelia – an event that would be for most of us, if we were in Lear’s situation, “beyond words.”

But nothing for the poet must ever be said to be “beyond words” – or beyond the other media of the “poet” broadly defined. The lines from Auden that I refer to and read aloud to my poetry class are those quoted just above.

In my poem, the word “you” refers to an old Louisiana Tech English professor of mine (he loved and taught King Lear) who said that worrying about the grammatical error of the “split infinitive” was trivial now that the atom had been “split” and nuclear war threatened the very existence of all life on earth. Gloucester was a supporter of King Lear who was blinded by Lear’s enemies.

 

But then, on 9/11, when the planes

Flew into towers that fell into themselves,

Firebirds consumed with shearing wings aflame

And only ashes rising from their ash,

The word came down to let our classes go

If the stunned students felt they could not bear

To try to learn with terror in their heads—

Jumpers to streets a hundred floors below—

And yet I walked the halls past empty rooms

To hold my class in writing poetry.

 

And as I went along I thought of you

Who many years before had overheard

That exacting grammarian and judged

A solecism something trivial . . .

So when I reached the desktop podium,

Opening the worn handbook to a page

Turned down at our last meeting, I looked up,

Then told those who had come that they could leave

For family, priest, friend, counselor, smoke or drink

Though I would teach if even one remained.

 

I quoted Auden on the death of Yeats,

The poet’s role to pity, heal, and praise,

Mastering the craft and going by the book,

And though they all were shaken, lost for words,

No one rose to go as I stressed again

That rules of verse can set a poet free—

Caesura, line break, meter, rhyme, and stave—

Significance bound up in space and time

Like particled infinitives unsplit

In atom, grammar, host, the maker’s art.

 

And while I spoke I felt you standing there,

Your love for “unaccommodated man”

An “ancient love” like blinded Gloucester saw,

Still fixed in syntax and its hierarchies,

Those old subordinations, phrase and clause,

Philology, the chain of being, wed,

Though we would ask, “Is this the promised end?”

“Or image of that horror?” “Fall and cease!”

If words should fail and language come to harm

When dying kings hold daughters in their arms.

 

So practice your craft, fellow “poets” of Nicholls and MOSAIC, in this very trying time, and, as the great English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) said so well so many years ago, strive to bring to humankind in all you do and are, and in all the art you make, “relationship and love.”

 

David Middleton
Poet in Residence Emeritus
Nicholls State University
April 9, 2020

 

Twirl

by Alexandria Prosperie

First Place Albert Davis Fiction Award

Growing up, Charlotte never knew she’d have such an affinity for lights. Not for how they
worked, or for aiding her vision. She appreciated lights for their ability to blind her. When lights change color and flash and follow you around stage, you can’t see the lingering eyes. The slack mouths. The tight fists on the top of the sleek bar. She can’t see a damn thing. For all she knows, she’s alone, dancing because she has something to celebrate. Dancing because she likes to. Because she’s happy.

An electronic cat’s meow vibrates through the speakers and wakes her from her daydream. Who really knows if they’re happy? One day you’re fine—the next you’re convincing yourself that you only have to pull this G-string up your ass a few more times to get where you want to be.

Her leg slides up the pole. Even though the lights have shined on it for hours, it still leaves a chill on her skin. She’s flying now. That’s what it feels like the moment she starts twirling.
Flying. She pulls herself up, twists her body around the pole, opens her legs, then slides down. Her whole night consumed by variations of these moves. Over and over. Pull, twist, open, slide, pull, twist, open, slide. Everything around her one blur of light.

“Take it off already!” someone yells. Probably a frat boy, or maybe a husband whose wife started saying no a while back, or maybe it’s the guy who always cries when he hires her for private dances. Maybe it actually is a woman. It’s hard to tell.

She leaves her pole alone and bare and starts her promenade toward the voice. As she unclasps her bra and throws it, the cheers begin. She finds her gentleman caller—a new face— playing with a wad of cash, sitting at the only chair in front of the blood-red booth. His cronies are cheering for the other girls on stage, telling them where they can sit—it’s not on a chair—and yelling for more beer.

The sound of glass shattering doesn’t stop her from forcing his legs open with her ass. She continues on, but when she turns toward him she sees the chaos at the bar. Some drunk roid-rager is following the bartender, shoving the liquor bottles off of their pristine mirrored shelves and yelling about being ripped off. In seconds, Rooney’s there, bat in hand. He grabs the dumbass by his neck and pins him to the chrome bar until he stops fighting back.
Her bachelor didn’t even turn around to look, but then again, why would he when her tits were so close to his face?

—

She sits on her back porch—if you could call it that, it’s just a small slab of cement with plastic chairs–and finishes her imaginary cigarette. A real cigarette has never made it to her lips because she refuses to get more wrinkles than necessary, but she needs one now. She can’t sleep and her stress proves itself every time she looks in the mirror and is welcomed by dark craters around her eyes. She’s tried everything the internet has told her. Yoga, meditation, massage, sex, masturbate, eat apples. No, eat ginger. The list goes on and on, but nothing works. So she’s left to her imagination and inhaling her joe seems to be working.

The orchestra of crickets puts her mind at ease as she looks toward the rows of sugar cane. Even though the leaves are as sharp as blades, she’s always had the strangest desire to run through the field. Far and deep. Just to see if she could find her way out. She’s pretty sure she could. But what would she do if she couldn’t?

She flicks her faux cigarette on the ground and starts to get ready for her nightshift.

—

The dressing room is a megawatted hub for beauty. They can’t get their contours perfect if they don’t have the right lighting. The floor is covered in glitter, sequins, and feathers.

“Tonight never wanted to end, huh?” Chasity wiped off her makeup in her mirror, already changed into her leggings and tank top. She looks like she’s going to a yoga class instead of straight to bed.

“God, I know. How many guys did Rooney have to kick out tonight?”

“I don’t keep track anymore,” she says. “Anyway I’m sure you didn’t hear about this in your “science” classes, but I saw Kaku’s tweet about new evidence that could possibly tie string theory and loop quantum gravity together. They don’t know much about it yet but they’re saying…”

She goes on a five year story about string theory. When Chasity goes on these rampages–and she does often–it’s best to just sit and nod your head until she says everything she needs. If you ask her a question you’ll be sitting for a ten year story instead.

“I’m telling you. Someday soon I’ll be the next Isaac Newton.”

“Well, of course you will. I heard he was super boring too,” Charlotte jokes.

“Whatever, bitch. Don’t come crying to me when I’m on the cover of Science Today and you’re still talking to Joe Smith about how sad his life is. Have a good night.”

“Bye, asshole.”

Call her small–minded but she thought that when she came here she’d find emotionally damaged strippers who would need Charlotte’s psychology skills. She’d be able to sit with them and help them sort out their feelings about their tortured lives. By redeeming their self-esteems, she would help each one of them, and they would appreciate her for it.

What she found instead were strong-willed women who were here because they chose to be. No underlying issues of confidence; they couldn’t care less what others thought. And not in a way that you could tell they were convincing themselves not to care, but in a truly indifferent way. They are who they are, if you don’t like it you still have to deal with it.

Most of them didn’t even need the money. Want it maybe, but need it, no. And she couldn’t really say that they were materialistic either. Chasity has two kids at home, who she eventually wants to send to private school. “They have my brains. I can’t have them going to the shit schools that I went to.”

Fiona, one of the oldest at the club, is the chairmen and founder of so many non-profits no one could keep count.

If you ask Melissa why she does it, to her it’s simple. “I know where I stand. I don’t have the brain for school. I don’t have the patience to deal with people in stores and I’m pretty fucking good at taking my clothes off.”

All of these women have separate lives. Their club lives and their home lives, none of which consisted of a double-wide trailer or drugs or men in wife beaters. They were just normal lives. Buying groceries, taking care of family, going to events in the city. Normal.

Charlotte has separate lives too. School and club. She could lie to herself all she wants, but deep down she knows she isn’t here just to help her grades. Even though her psych professor was against it, she thought if she could get into a situation where being degraded wore on her psyche—like it would with some of the patients she’d work with—she’d be able to understand better. But it was really the money. It all comes down to money. No student debt. No stress. New toys.

—

Her new stilettos click as she struts up the white stone steps. The echoes of the piano and choir can be heard from outside the wooden door. She’s late. As she opens the door incense brandishes its scent in her nose and the cool air leaves bumps on her skin, her senses violated by a place that supposedly incites peace. The choir’s symphony of voices serenades her with some song about a precious hiding place.

She searches the glowing faces in the congregation and takes her seat next to Lanie. I was straying when Christ found me…

“Wow.” Lanie leans close, giving Charlotte a look as if she’s just left a nightclub then went to church.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just really expected you to go up in flames when you walked in.”

Charlotte closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’m flipping you off right now.”

Precious hiding place. Precious hiding place.

Who was she kidding? She thought the same thing, even felt her skin burn the moment she walked in. But she was feeling guilty lately. Not for stripping, but for not committing. Everyone is supposed to believe in something, right? It’s a yes or no situation, not the “I’m not sure about this or that” bullshit she’s been thinking. Church was supposed to clear things up for the goer, not make them more complicated. Not make their stomachs churn with guilt because they are questioning God’s existence while sitting in a church pew.

That’s why she’s friends with Lanie, though Lord only knows why Lanie is friends with her. Lanie brings balance. An every Sunday church attendee, Lanie brings spiritual faith and optimism to the table. She’s one of the few true religious people Charlotte knows; the real true to Jesus people. The ones who don’t judge. The ones who try to help others. That could help Charlotte. God bless her.

The preacher talks about how rewarding it will feel to get where we are meant to be. Through happy times we should be grateful, and through hard times—even if it’s difficult—we should still be grateful. Because we all go through these times and our Father is watching us. He is ready to accept us through anything.

At that very moment, a light above the altar flickers and goes out. Probably the works of the devil. It’s surprising that no one in the congregation passes out.

“How much longer do you have?” Lanie asks as they walk out of the church.

“I owe school a little more, then I’m done. Probably like a month.”

The putrid smell is stronger than normal. The bayou that runs behind the church must be steaming. Nothing like the smell of mud stew.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Of course I am.” Charlotte focuses on the swaying flag in the front yard.

“What happened to your cheek?”

Charlotte has to swallow down the bile that builds up in her throat.

Four children are having a rock throwing contest in the gravel parking lot while waiting for their parents. A little boy throws his rock and screams in a younger girl’s face, “Beat that.”

“Lanie, I’m a spastic woman who dances on a metal pole. Bruises everywhere.”

The little girl winds up her throw with baseball player grace.

Lanie nods, but Charlotte knows she’s doesn’t believe the story. She should try to persuade her. The least she could do is put her friend’s mind at ease, but she won’t be able to convince her. Mustering the effort to make up a story seems like way too much today.

The rock flies through the parking lot and lands well past the boy’s. The little girl looks surprised for a moment that she won, then she yells with joy and twirls around with her arms wide. The boy moves like a whip, sticking a foot behind hers as he pushes her down.

“You probably aren’t even a girl. You’re a little boy.” He stomps off.

Goddamn it hurt. The sting. The words. He smelled like nicotine and motor oil.

Charlotte helps the little girl to her feet, both of them hiding their watery eyes. “It’s all right. You’re gonna be okay.” Her eyes bore into the little girl. “But if that happens again, you need to push back.”

No doubt or fear, since my Lord is near.

The girl nods, wipes her eyes, and runs to her mother.

She’ll be okay.

She’ll be okay.

—

She drives through the city and parks behind the club. They have private parking, but there’s only one light and you have to walk through a small alleyway to the back door. Doesn’t help that Rooney never works on Thursdays, and the other bouncer is a jackass.

She thought she saw the guy’s face lurking in the shadows and she let out a small squeal. Just the light reflecting off the car in a strange way. If Rooney were here, he’d already be by her side, but mister doesn’tgiveashitaboutotherpeople is here instead, and she walks the rest of the way by herself.

Pull, twist, open, slide, but she’s not flying tonight. She’s too tense; her anxiety maximized by all the tricks her mind is playing on her. All the men at the club look like him. Now, almost every sound she hears makes her jump. Her chest is tight and she feels like if she takes a deep breath she might explode. Sounding like a sledgehammer inside her head, her heart can’t slow down. She can’t help but think that he’s hiding somewhere, waiting for her.

“Come on. Get into it, girl,” someone in the audience screams.

No time for trauma right now. Don’t think about it. With her hand on the pole to steady herself, she takes a deep breath and forces the air out in a loud sigh. Putting on the seductive mask she’s never supposed to let slip, she pokes out her chest and arches her back. Strippers are put on this Earth for one thing, and if you disagree just talk to some of the people yelling at her.

Her shift is over—finally. As she saunters off stage to collect her things she knows she won’t last another month here. She’s leaving. Leaving and never coming back. No two weeks notice—do strippers even do that?—no talk, she’ll just disappear.

Though it’s warm and bright, there is something sterile about the dressing room. How could she have missed that? The white walls. The tile floor that’s probably used in every hospital in the country. The smell, like a landfill for cheap Bath and Body Works products.

She’s done. She won’t have to deal with this shit anymore. The smells, the music, the people. She won’t be degraded anymore—well, she won’t be degraded as much.

She sighs, slides into her car, and pulls the door closed. She’ll be back tomorrow.

by Michael E. Mathieu

Look! A swimming shadow,
she rises from Sheol.
A spectre, a phantom—
wiggling and twitching,
darting to and fro.
A sickle tail, angled fin,
cutting ‘cross cobalt blue.

She thrashes her bent dagger
in vain; they’re plastic lures.
Ah! She feels the steel—
the fury of Furies,
a blue sea Mastodon!

Like an outraged Messiah,
she walks the mirrored sea.
Kicking crystals and diamonds,
incandescent sides, aflame.
Then–an ephemeral hole,
for the cerulean blue sea,
tis all that you leave.

by Julie Franks

Black water meets grainy shore—my shoes are ruined. I take a step farther and my pants get heavier. My favorite song blares from a bright red Gremlin speeding past with the windows down, a sign for me to take another step. It’s harder to stand, so I let the current have its way with me. The strings on my hoodie float past my head. The world grows darker as I drift. My eyes close and the ocean claims its prize. As I wait for my ending, I see his face. At least he won’t see me cry here.

by Cyrus Picou Jr.

For the eighteen years I’ve traversed the open road, I’ve always noticed how the blacktop roads seems to have a smoother quality than their concrete brethren. The transition from the rough concrete to the smooth blacktop is joyous. As I lie here on the asphalt, listening to the whimpers of a weenie dog limping back to its house and feeling the subtle burn of the cool air, one thought fills my head. Has the blacktop always been this rough?

That night started out like any other. I was working on my homework, trying with every ounce of willpower not to put it off until later. My cousin Josh opened my door and invited me to go on a bike ride with him and my brother Shane, which was the equivalent of throwing my homework into a bottomless abyss.

We followed our normal routine but, unlike the past few nights, the air was unusually comfortable. This didn’t occupy our thoughts for very long, however, as Josh and I noticed that Shane, who usually led our little pack, was falling behind. Then, as we rode in the adjacent neighborhood, a weenie dog chased us as far as its shock collar would allow.

As Josh and I rode on, we noticed Shane was no longer behind us. We’d left him in the dust. With nothing else to do, Josh decided to see how fast we could go. I felt the hellish burn in my legs as I pedaled as fast as I could. We were fast, and I was about to be furious. As I checked my speedometer and discovered we were going 26 miles per hour, that little weenie dog, this time collarless, ran into the road right in front of me. Before I could even think what would become of the poor dog that I just ran over, my face was burning from sliding on the rough blacktop road.

As I lay there, it occurred to me that this blacktop wasn’t like all the others. This blacktop wasn’t smooth. Of all the blacktops that I could be lying on, it had to be this one, rough and jagged.

by Sarah Boquet

The trees had this artistry to them, a beauty that reflected on the water they guarded. I couldn’t pinpoint where I sat, despite the thousands of times I’d trekked the area. The scenery always seemed different when I roamed alone; the trees that generally danced in the wind stood still, and the crows spoke a more tranquil, melodic tune. Even the creek sat silent.

I watched the six and seven-year-olds run around the wooded area in the same manner I used to. I’d been instructed to keep a close eye on them, as if they would disappear to a place we all unconsciously desired to visit. The children were never as fearless as I used to be, never as audacious and presumptuous.

Perhaps, maybe, they deserved a day on their own, a day to truly feel amazed by the mere concept of this place. Perhaps these six and seven and eight-year-olds needed to sit on the wooden bench, surrounded by maple and oak and the caterpillars that fell on your shoulders, begging to take them to a place they’d always imagined. Maybe the children needed to laugh a little more and trip a little more and cry a little more. Perhaps they needed time to run off course, over the bridge that was constructed by Katrina’s wrath, and into the land I found my soul in. Perhaps these children needed to be lost, disunited from the society that reprimands them for being courageous.

I stood from my resting place, my observation post, and followed the dirt trail that opened to the world I shunned. For a second or two, perhaps maybe five, I turned back toward the children, who were doused in nature, who had disregarded the exodus of their lifeguard, and bid them good day, for when they realize they are alone, they will finally find the serenity we all await.

by Sydney Bergeron

Papers filled with failures were strewn across the bed. The girl let her eyes follow the dancing strips of sun at the window. She’d been sitting here searching for something— something clever to hide beneath the words, a thought worth thinking. Hands drawn up to her face, she took notice of the small lines that riddled her palms. These lines, so tenderly placed, stretched across hands that were once new. Lines from the first days branch out for innocence, laughter without price, a promise for the future. They’d seen the first book she’d ever held, the arrival of a partner in crime, and messes in the kitchen—chocolate-smeared cheeks and batter rain. Lines etched there not just for uncontained happiness and the best of yesterdays, but for broken promises, loss and sacrifice, for sleepless nights.

Thin markings of pink and pale apricot bend and adapt to the journey, claiming their place as permanent. They’d seen so much and yet so little. Just above faint green and purpled veins, other lines seemed to shy from the surface. Lines for tomorrow? Or were they for another “someday”? The girl smiled and watched her hands for a moment longer. Had someone years ago done the same, looked at these lines this way? Surely they’d seen traces of the kind of long day the world has already forgotten, signs of true dedication, a life lived with passion. They had to have found something worth more. Catching the light in fragile fingers, time marked right there on her palms.

by Allison Curth

The rosary beads pooled in my palm. I weaved them through my hands, between each finger. The nun beside me counted another bead and muttered a Hail Mary, but I pulled my rosary into a game of Cat’s Cradle.

“You should know better, Sister Joan,” Mother Superior would say if she saw me. “Rosaries are for praying, not playing.”

I pulled the beads tight and imagined the delicate fingers playing along as they used to. They grasped my own as her amber eyes filled with wonder. “I want to try!” I gently intertwined our fingers with the old fraying shoestring. But the sound of the bell brought me back to reality. It was time for Mass.

Father gave his homily on the importance of the saints as intercessors. I had my own saint to pray for me. Her tiny fingers had turned the pages of her prayer book as I had read aloud our bedtime prayer. When we finished, those sweet little fingers clutched her book to her heart. “Jesus loves me very much!”

“Yes, darling. Very very much.”

Not three hours later, my beloved saint had evaded hell— but not the Flames.

by Hannah Kidder

First Place: *The Albert Davis Fiction Award*

The woman stooped low. She cradled the dead raccoon in her arms before laying it into a sack that hung from her shoulder. She finished her round of the neighborhood, finding a flattened squirrel whose tail had fallen off. There was also what she guessed was a crow, but it was hard to tell. She brushed down the feathers and her thumb dipped into its skull. Maybe it was a young raven. It went into the sack as well. She walked to her house, careful to hold the sack in such a way that it didn’t bounce against her hip too hard. She walked into the backyard and closed the gate behind her.

Her spade scraped away small chunks of dirt. The sun had begun to set by the time she finished the carefully-squared hole. She laid the raccoon in and pushed handfuls of dirt over him. She patted it into a mound and topped it with a small rock. Sitting back on her heels, she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The squirrel and what remained of the crow got their own graves and stones too. She brushed her hands on her pants and stowed her spade and sack.

She padded through the back door into her kitchen and filled a glass with tap water. Dishes were piled in the sink, spilling onto the counter. The window above the pile was dirty and smudged, but she couls still see the rocks in her yard. Some had words marked at the surface where she had painted their names. Others were blank, names forgotten to the bleaching sun, lying on grass where the graves had flattened and grown over. She sat at the kitchen counter. In another world, he’d be stooped down beside her in a garden of flowers, not bones. She looked at the small silver frame that held a picture of a newborn baby. Pinned to the wall next to it was a newspaper clipping: “Local woman mourns loss of child in house fire. No remains found.”

Her baby was ash, long-lost to the wind. She looked out of the window again and wondered if he was there. The mud she stomped off her boots, the sand in the park. She pictured her son with the raccoon, swaddled in the dirt.