Relatability

Cover image Field: “Stormy Fields” by Loren Zemlicka Hands: Amy Randall

Table of Contents

Family Flash of a Dream 1 Dear Old Dad 2 Nostalgic Emotions 4 God 5

Dear God 6 Nightly Prayers 7 Friends 8 “Why don’t we just start our own band then?” 9 It’s Been a Memorable Eight-Year Friendship 10 Closed Off 12 Prude. 13 Media 14 Lucifer’s Cage 15 Harry 16 Nature 17

Fluidity 18 The Nightly Dream 19 Perfection In Time 20 Summer Nights 21

Self 22

Dear Young Me 23 Move Along 25 Do You Know Me Now? 27

Family

RELATABILITY   1    

Flash of a Dream I was falling asleep thinking about the words weird and strange. Weird has a negative connotation of insane or gone mad, while strange is seen in a more peculiar sense and less overused. But then the flash happened: I remembered from years ago, I believe it was a dream from high school, maybe sophomore year, though an argument could be made for freshman year - five years ago. My garage door was open with two red cars inside, both just skeletons. My dad was building them again, making them better with new parts. It was a cloudy day, no day in particular, but my neighborhood kids, excluding me of course, gathered at the pool and tennis courts. I walked around the neighborhood on the gray sidewalk alone. I was called to from the neighbors with a hello or help. The grass was dull and foggy. I suddenly found myself with a dog at the pool, well, the basketball courts outside the pool more precisely. I was watching the others I disliked so much and I swear the distaste was mutual. Until the epitome of my despair walked up to me and was out of character. He was friendly and kind. He asked if I wanted to join them, I said sure. I guess I was also out of character, but the next thing I know I’m back home. Rather, I was standing in the garage heading for the open door leading inside. There were my two golden retrievers, behaving even with the escape so easy. They were out of character. My dad was in the kitchen, drinking his coffee in his big blue cup that housed the permanent stain inside from years of routine. Three scoops of Folgers and a big glass of hot water - I used to help him make it. He was in perfect character.

2   RELATABILITY    

Dear Old Dad She ran from the bus after school to meet you, to have you pick her up and spin around. Her giggles infected you and you finally set her down. She ran inside to put her Tweety Bird backpack away, to spend more time with you and your cars. The smell of motor oil absorbing your copier-ink aroma. She ran around outside with the dogs while you were working under your jeep. The oil-stained blue square cloths littered the cement floor. She’d ask for a snack and you’d give her a riddle. If she got it right, she got the snack, if she got it wrong, Tough Noogies. Every day she’d come home right after you did. She’d run to you, expecting to be lifted and spun. You only ever let her down when your back hurt. There were days she didn’t understand why you were so mad, she didn’t try to anger you. It would be years before she knew the stories. She’d figure it out along the way on her own, years down the road when you finally were gone, out of the house, not yet seeing another woman. There would be the lingering smell on your clothes, on your breath, and the way you walked was wrong. But she never said anything, for fear you losing temper. She tried to watch a movie with you each night, but you never made it half way through. Your empty plate would be left dirty, balancing between your stomach and arm. She’d see one night after getting you comfortable, the fork under your unconscious leg, stabbing, without your notice. The morning would show no remorse, no acknowledgement, and would bring the same conversations as the day before. This wasn’t an accident. This was a choice: your choice. You know how she feels, how she always felt,

RELATABILITY   3    

once she found out your fermented, dirty little secret. She’d been in the car with you on multiple occasions when you weren’t about your wits enough to be safe. She was just a little girl and you stole her father away. All it took was that liquid courage to start the hate again. You’ll never be free of the deadly monster underneath.

4   RELATABILITY    

Nostalgic Emotions They were nights that I look back on now, missing them with such intensity my heart aches. They were nights my parents were gone with my sister for a game or something else, I never cared. They were nights I would walk in your house and smell your cooking in the air, and my stomach would jump, excited. They were nights I sat in the darkness alone watching Tarzan, listening to Phil Collins: You’ll be in my heart. They were nights I sat with you reading a book where the mission was to find hidden objects, and we usually did. They were nights I would watch Kiki on VHS before the night fell in the summer time: I’m going to fly. They were nights I spent in my uncles’ old room with the empty twin beds you kept for us, your grandkids. They were nights I spent watching The Nanny on the small black and white television set and fell asleep to the radio. They were mornings I woke up to your voices in the kitchen, drinking coffee for breakfast, still dressed in robes at the table. They were days I stared out the small window facing the front yard that housed my favorite tree, its leaves the colors of fire. They were days I spent with the warm air caressing my young skin while I played with the many stuffed animals. They are the memories I cling to when I see you and the thoughts I hold dear to that house. So much has changed. The tree is now gone, I whisper to the wind. The shelves taken down, stuffed animals followed. The house changed hands, and the breakfast table with it. My uncle is missed by all, and his old bedroom, is desperately empty.

RELATABILITY   5    

God

6   RELATABILITY    

Dear God You help me when I’m in need,

and desperate. I can feel you there with me when nobody else is around and I’m crippling in on myself, lost and alone, streaks of salty water burning my face, breaking sobs through the silence surrounding and circling me. I’m encrypted by the pain, pushed onto me unforgivingly, unnecessarily, and undeserving. You stand there with me, rubbing my back, carrying me. You whisper soothing words that only my heart can hear and I stop for a while, understanding. Freeing myself within the madness, breaking the black, sticky tendrils created from hatred and disapproval from those around me. Anxiety loosening it’s hold from me. Together I can be free, free from this undeserving ostracism set by the people who surround me unwillingly and undesired. With you I am free, I am saved.

RELATABILITY   7    

Goodnight Prayers Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless my family who takes care of me, my friends who really care. God bless my dreams that I hope to someday share. Bring me happiness worthy of my heart. Bring me truth that I never have to part. Living in depression makes life so much work. But where can I change when in the shadows is where they lurk. The darkness consumes, destroys and batters. I’m barely ever left with a little thing that matters. Help me in my endeavors of my true life ambitions, and I can find my own happiness through Your own premonitions. I trust in Your time and thought, I believe in Your actions and moves. Believing in you keeps me alive and barely above many blues. So here I lay myself down to sleep Too tired to keep counting sheep. I’m wide awake to new adventures until the time comes for moldy dentures. Time is what I give you as you gave to me, and here I wait in bed to see how much more I live to be. Amen.

8   RELATABILITY    

Friends

RELATABILITY   9    

“Why don’t we just start our own band then?” You’re going to feel so raw for a bit. You’ll feel numb and not fully there. You’ll learn how to cope, not forget it. But let’s start from what got you here. Kay-bear always asks if you know a band. This time you didn’t say they sounded familiar. This band was new to you, but old to the scene. They were your real start - your new beginning. You met two girls face to face for the first time. You knew who they were but never paid much attention. Over the next two years you’ll wake and fall asleep to texts from them – your four best friends. From them, you’ll come out of your shell, laugh and smile more. You’ll be told you finally look happy for the first time in your life. They’ll teach you about confidence and love, bravery and trust. You’ll have your favorite moments, memories, and pictures with them. But there will be a time someone says something to someone else. Your world will appear to be collapsing, never to be salvaged and saved. Drama will follow, surround, and consume your new life and friends. It will be the final straw, the last time, the real break up of the band. You’ll try hard to keep the peace, but you’ll just be ignored. You’ll keep trying to be best friends with everyone still. You’ll have no control over their new lives and decisions. Who would expect you to? They’re old enough to do this. My point is, you’ll be sad again, more unhappiness. But this had to happen you know. They’re living. You can move on sometime too, but you don’t. Not fully. You have to remember everything. Kay-bear is moving back, applying for college again, Pandii is engaged and expecting little baby Sophia. Tay is dating this guy and she seems really happy, and Miley is studying imaging science at Ivy Tech. This experience will give you so much to enjoy. You’ll write papers about it all, books even. You’ll have easy nostalgia to go back to. You’ll have your favorite memories. We started the band as TGG. Then we called us KAATE. Our bond was special. We were so unique.

10   RELATABILITY    

It’s Been a Memorable Eight-Year Friendship It’s nearly impossible to choose just one moment in time,

one memory that beats them all with my best friend. So I’ll tell you about all of them.

Kay Cee’s first house was just ten minutes away from mine, about two minutes driving from the school, twelve walking.

The house was next to a park where we spent equal time on the wall talking as we did on the swings and jungle gyms.

Her queen-sized bed covered in our favorite tiger blanket where we spent more time laughing and dreaming than sleeping.

Inside jokes formed from the bobble Buddha on her desk, and I learned about more musicians and anime than I can remember.

Her dad would constantly try to scare us and laugh with his toothy grin. He always easily called me his new daughter - I was his adopted third.

The house that had so many shared stories, parties, movies, and antics, now sits empty,

abandoned, while the three of them moved elsewhere.

Her second house was half an hour away from mine, about forty-five minutes from school, I can’t imagine walking.

She and her mom lived with Terry, a friend with two obnoxiously fat pugs that cried whenever someone walked in and panted so loud, rooms over could hear.

I’d drive myself over, grab a mountain dew, and walk in the house without invitation.

I would often be stared at creepily from my best friend’s window facing the porch: our first laughs of the night.

I would be tackled the second I stepped in her room. We marathoned Ouran High School host Club in Terry’s king-sized bed a room over,

and got in trouble for laughing so loudly while her mom tried to sleep. Her futon was comfortable but couldn’t compare to her old bed, but this one saw more laughter than the last,

less sadness between us all. We would be falling asleep watching TV and the second we tried to go to bed, we were laughing so loud, joking around, and were too hyper for 3am on a Saturday.

Woken up, we dined on hash browns with ketchup and eggs, and another mtn dew.

She never told me when she was going to make it, she just appeared with two plates.

We had midnight drives to the store for snacks, trips to the park three minutes away but my favorite was driving for fifteen minutes to get Cassie at night

surrounded by fields, the silence between us was perfectly comfortable. This house is still lived in, but just last week she moved back home to an apartment

with her dad, my adopted second father.

RELATABILITY   11    

I’ve stayed there before. Her third house is an apartment, about twenty minutes from mine. I don’t know about school length because we graduated before we could test it.

This house has one linked memory, the night before a convention with two others.

Hot chocolate in the morning at a café five minutes away,

the end to a reading-race of a book. I thought I lost my ring in that place.

Sleep actually occurred that night in her dads’ new apartment where he lived alone. But the next time I stay there, I guarantee there will be

laughing fits, scare tactics,

breakfast, and hot chocolate.

I can’t wait for more memories to fill that new house.

12   RELATABILITY    

Closed Off Please let the door be closed. Please let the light be off. Please don’t be sleeping. Please don’t be in the building. Separating two sides of the world: we have what goes on inside, but it’s unknown to the outside. The world is private and wrong. Last year it was always open, it meant we were in. Now it’s always closed, it means the world is out. The world only sees what we want or what you decide to share. Which are usually lies your bitterness and anger. I’m not sorry you can’t change me. I’m not sorry you’re angry about it. I’m not sorry you don’t like me. I’m not sorry you can’t handle it. I’m sorry you have to live with this, that I really don’t care anymore. But I have to live with that too on top of everything you do. You’re always so underhanded for no reason but to be angry. We both know I’m not going to change, you’ve tried long enough so let it go. This wall you’ve put up is entirely your creation, so stay angry that you’ve failed. but stop pitting my friends against me The door is meant to keep things out, I’m using it to keep things in. You’re using it to separate me from them.

RELATABILITY   13    

Prude. I would like to confess something now. You’ve been seen. Seen by me. And that’s not a good thing to be. I know your secrets, I know your motives. I know what you’ve been saying behind my back, making them turn theirs on me, someone who has done nothing wrong. Unless you count standing up for myself, for my morals, my beliefs. And excuse me for wanting to have a conversation that doesn’t revert to sex, to personal stories I don’t want to hear about. You latch onto the fact that I know what I want from life. From those I want to be around. But what makes that a sin? Why is it bad for me to be a prude? I’d like to confess that you’ve been seen. You’ve been heard, someone’s taken notice. Your cruelty to me for my morals is unwarranted. How old are you right now? You’re treating me as if you were twelve, grow up and get over yourself. The fact that you can’t make me conform to your ideals messes with your mind. You’re in a whirlwind of confusion. You still don’t know I am aware of it all. Call me a prude to my face one more time and you won’t need to keep saying it behind my back. Man up to me if you have a problem. Don’t lie to my face when I ask if there’s something wrong. You’ve been seen, you’ve been warned, I’ve confessed.

14   RELATABILITY    

Media

RELATABILITY   15    

Lucifer’s Cage I watched you in the cage, partly bloody circling the bars in a hellish rage. Age was hard on your heart. Two chosen others took his offer. Who I desire is a man’s older brother lying in my arms. Holy water – saving humans. Large bottles around chipped tables. Many times he prayed in the car, body crumbled, ignoring the growing lies. Last year he left unwillingly over the angel proof cage & your soulless, dark eyes hated the sight of a man, living. I see a boy who kills saving lives.

16   RELATABILITY    

Harry My life remembered in this book. My past forgotten had thus took. Dreams of love and hope of life. Kept me through a fretful strife. Feathers floating through the air, let me speak to the chambers heir. Spin the dial to the past, a traitor back, no longer masked. Keep him close – he’ll pierce the veil. Solve his name you cannot fail. Destroy them all – find the seven. You found your destiny at age eleven. Here I am after fifteen years, still with you, more tears, less fears. When you’re with me, I’m not alone, as you said – “Hogwarts is my home”.

RELATABILITY   17    

Nature

18   RELATABILITY    

Fluidity The way the rain disturbs the waves, the small splatters in the silence. The fog covers the sea to stop us from seeing water hitting water, causing bigger waves; a disturbance to normality. I am the rain to the sea and the sea to the rain

and the fog to it all. We add to each other and grow, only to be taken into the atmosphere again. Just to start over with this routine.

RELATABILITY   19    

The Nightly Dream The white orb hangs in the sky waving at the water below in calm ripples. The serene overcast of light shine below the black sky. The stars strung up higher and lower than before the sun set. The trees outlined by the white light cast off into the night by the dark. The leaves reach higher to touch the sky, the one I’ve so hoped to reach myself. The wind moving them in their might so they scream in frustration of missing the moon. The silence of people in for the time breaks all noise barriers and falls on deaf ears. Who else would stay out to watch, and wish on the stars who’s light took years to reach our eyes, only to be gone in a blink because we were too busy to look up?

20   RELATABILITY    

Perfection In Time The clouds so free and warm: the perfect day to be outside. The sun shining about the town, the water tower casting a shadow. Soft wisps call to the dreamers to touch their fluffed texture of life. The brightness of day including the clouds. The red roofs among the town cheer. The stream the perfect place to wade, trees are the best places to read, to get lost in a book, a new world. The church peaks out, welcoming. The stream rushes past for life, dirt quickly coats your dancing feet, you are greeted by the animals living in nature and houses around. You can laugh and live in this place that welcomes from every angle, from the sun-filled clouds above to the green earthy trees below.

RELATABILITY   21    

Summer Nights Twinkles above from the galaxies far away reflecting twinkles below from the bugs in flight. The smoke of the fire smells fresh and lively with the crackles creating a calm in us all. The cicadas surround us with their music, and the crickets join in with their hairy legs. The music of the night is joined with soft voices whispered in the wind of the beauty around. Heat had held us prisoner in the light, but now we’re covered in the healing rays of the moon, the cooling sensation of life and enjoyment, fulfillment and pleasure graze our skin and we laugh. The trees encrypt us while we willingly stay, too mesmerized by the beauty of simple love. The stars shone brightly for us as we thought, and the moon smiled down on us as we stared.

22   RELATABILITY    

Self

RELATABILITY   23    

Dear Young Me I’m so sorry that you’ve been through so much at so young. I want you to know that it may not get much better, but you will find yourself. You will find minimal happiness, you will find escapes, and you will learn so much. Please be strong. There are a few people you can count on, but a lot more you can’t. Find the right ones, trust them with yourself. They’ll stay with you, but some will move. I know you need a hug, and someone to see you. If I could be there for you you’d never be alone. He messed with your mind. It isn’t your fault. This mess was forced into your life You’re memories become dear, closer to you than you will know. Pictures and videos clutter your hard drive and stories form. Drama starts and dreams end but she’s still there for you, your best friend of two years. It’s now going on seven more. There will always be days you feel unwanted and unloved, you will feel unaccepted, and you will feel alone.

24   RELATABILITY    

But there will be days you are in love with life. you will be happy with nostalgia, you will feel at peace. You still live in the past, you’re afraid of the future. You stay in the moment but you will never forget. Forgiving hasn’t gotten any easier but I want you to keep trying. Keep moving forward. We will get there someday. When you get sad, remember that you are loved and important. If not by those around you, then by the you who learned to love. So face your difficulties head on, you will get stronger. There is always a light at the end. Do not ever let it go out, we’ve made it this far.

RELATABILITY   25    

Keep Moving On Lost and confused I wait. Wronged and beaten I sit. The anxiety holds me again in it’s thick, sharp claws. Unfair judgments thrust at me and they seep into my skin, burning, boiling, burrowing. Their thorns stick and stab. They move deeper and hit raw muscle, tissue, and flowing blood. They want to stop the flow from my heart to my life, staunch, spoil, spill. I’ll make it through again. Just one more night alone. One more night of torture. I’ll be fine in the morning. This is all known territory, remembered, restrained, routine. My stomach is worse than butterflies or knots. I’m being stabbed from the inside out. My breathing speeds, my head fills with light gas, blindness sets in, darkness, direct, deep.

26   RELATABILITY    

I have to calm myself because nobody cares. Nobody knows about this, what they cause for me. This pain is constant here and I keep living my life, continuous, courageous, controlled.

RELATABILITY   27    

Do You Know Me Now? You learn so much about someone by listening to their favorite song. Mine is Dream by Priscilla Ahn. Do you know it? But you can also learn so much about a person by finding out their favorite little things. Those moments nobody really thinks about. The moments they can share with other people and only smile. Or those moments of privacy they love and feel free and complete. I could tell you a few of mine. I could start out telling you about the way the engines of airplanes in the sky fill me with calm joy and I can only smile. Or my favorite thing to wake up to on a Saturday is when I hear muffled voices of life floating through the floorboards. Those perfect white puffy clouds on a blue and breezy day fill me with complete awe for the world and I close my eyes and breath deeply. Even when I see the bright full moon in the night sky, surrounded by its star friends reflecting on its life below, watching. Or the cold blades of grass between my toes in the dewy summer mornings of my childhood. Moments connect with memories and my emotions run wild with the whispers of time passing by. Do you know me yet?