Ward Report Issue 2

The art of the average person doesn’t lie within the walls of major institutions and museums. It’s on the streets, in the home and of course the internet. We don’t pretend to be something we’re not because we don’t know how to be anything but ourselves. Artists today are capable of more than ever before, this zine aims to capture a sense of permanence among the ever changing psyche of the contemporary american artist. Welcome to the ward, please know that our restraints are meant to be broken.

-Dan

Issue 2

Photo of DanBy Brendan Mark

Searching

Riverruns past adam and eve, breathing their names into the sky where the rest of them went. A lot of them are stuck falling into that same pattern of starting lives in meaningless places. It’s sad to see all of the descendants follow in the footsteps of their pompous and juvenile ancestors. Covered in dirt and shame by your fellow brothers and sisters, only to join the madness later. The only way out is by avoiding the deep dark hole, before it’s too late. And while the river runs past adam and eve, don’t forget that others are caught in the stream, and left to fight to findtheir true self.

Hungry for the Freedom LandBy Acacia Pyle

She’s running, I can see her. She’s running, her feet an awkward tumble beneath her, all lanky limbs and fury. I stand at the door, the pale yellow light hanging above me casting my shadow long ahead of me. She runs, and I know she runs from me. It takes ages, it seems, before I am capable of forcing my body after her. Where she is awkward, lanky, I am compact, a body shaped by years of running. I’ve run my whole life— from something, always. Be it a lover, or a starting line in a race, or my mother back when we fought. It seems, most days, to be the only constant I am capable of committing to. Today, however, I run towards something. I run towards her. I’m far behind, but I see her footprints in the damp grass. The night is slowly coming over us, and if I cannot catch her, I am lost. I do not know what compels this body as I run. The breath I take in puffs out in angry bursts, my lungs and heart working double time. Physicality has nothing to do with it. I listen desperately over the sounds of my own body, begging for any sign that she is near. I don’t dare shout toward her, because her anger will propel her further away. The footprints begin to veer left, towards the wood. I worry after this creature. She runs in pain and anger, and I know I have caused it.

She had appeared on my doorstep hours prior, a beaten brown bag in hand. Her legs looked endless, cased in black hose and red boots. Her overcoat was soaked, her hair a cirrus cloud in the sun’s fleeting light. I peeked behind her, seeing the clouds come over the hills ominously. She wore this grand smile on her face, her whole being compensating for the weather. Her name was Diana, and we had worked together the prior year with the Red Cross nurses, rolling endless bundles of gauze and listening to our matron regale us with stories of courageous men who would soon return and swoop us up into their lives, grateful and half in love at the sight of us. Diana and I had snickered at that, both of us thoroughly disillusioned with this idea. Diana’s mother had been abandoned by her father the moment he had heard of the pregnancy, and her mother had raised her with a thorough distrust of the male persuasion. I, on the other hand, came from a lovely family, full to the brim with proper Christian morals. I just happened to be regretfully homosexual. Even now I can’t approach the topic with my mother, who sits so deeply in her faith that I would become the biggest disgrace since the angel Gabriel had fallen. Diana was perhaps the most wonderful creature I had ever met, and it comes as no surprise that within the year we had known each other, we’d become fast friends and I had fallen in love. It’s a messy thing, this human heart. Diana knew I had unusual preferences, but she had never cared. The call of the heart seems to elude her, and this is what made me feel safe with her. It is easy, after spending a lifetime dating uninteresting boys and being forced to neck in the back of the theatre, to pretend that you too are incapable of love. It’s actually much preferable. Anyway, I ushered Diana in, removing her wet coat and hanging it above the heater

to help it dry. Diana had phoned the week before, telling me she intended to come out to the country where I had moved months prior. I hadn’t seen her since leaving New York, shortly after the war had ended and the foretold troops began to return home, their eyes hungry for the freedom land and all it’s bountiful women. The country was lovely and quiet. I could afford the small cottage I had purchased, I could grow a small garden, and I could afford my own car. I worked in a nearby town as a court stenographer. Life was pleasant. Diana grasped my hand happily, and my quiet little house roiled with her light. I led her into the sitting room, urging her to rest after her journey. I put on coffee and cut us each a slice of her favorite cake— a german chocolate mess, oozing left and right with browned butter and nuts— before sitting with her. She ate greedily, talking a million miles a minute about our friend Tanya, who’d married a soldier, and her sister Ruth, who was getting married, and her job as a bookkeeper for some large department store, and it seemed near impossible that she could breathe and eat and talk how she did. I smiled, listening, my backwards heart warm. “So tell me, what’s life like in this little town? I can’t imagine you leave this house often.” She stopped, looking around. “It is quite a beautiful home, Sarah. You did well to leave.” “Well, thank you. I guess I don’t leave much. I like the quiet.” I smiled at her. “Doncha ever get lonely?” She asks, standing and going to the window. She watches the rain begin to drizzle over the late spring grass, and I watch her. “No, people like me are better off being away from everyone.” I reply. It’s true— my mother is happy with me and when she visits, she says I live in a fine place to start a family, and if only there was a nice man at work, and that I’m still young and have some time. “Oh, Sar, you’re just as obtuse as ever.” walks over to grab her bag, then says “Where’s my room?” “It’s down the hall. Second door on the left. “ I point in the direction, and she disappears into the door. I’m busying myself with the dishes, when she comes back, her hair is pulled back into a bun and her face is scrubbed clean. She goes to my record player, flipping through records until she finds something suitable to her. I’m near finished with my work when a woman’s soft crooning begins to fill the halls. I return to the sitting room to find Diana sprawled out on my couch, her eyes sad as she sings along. her voice is unrecognizable beneath the music. “You ok, D?” I ask. She slides her eyes up to me. “I needed the quiet.” She says. I watch her expectantly, and she sighs. “Someone asked me to marry him last week, and I said no. And now he hates me and I think I hate myself a little bit.” “Why did you say no?” I work to keep my voice mellow as I fold myself onto the floor beside her. “Cause I didn’t wanna get married, Sar! I thought he understood, but I guess he thought he was the exception. I don’t wanna start a life and just watch it disintegrate into some miserable loveless death spiral. I don’t think I could bare to live a life like that.” She takes

a breath, a little tremor running though her. I watch her flop around for a moment. It’s like she’s physically incapable of settling. “It’s ok, D. It’s not meant to be and you’ll find something that works for you.” She smiles at me. “No offense, Sarah, but you’re a hermit because you can’t find something that works for you.” I shrug. “I don’t want to be with a man. It’s my curse for being what I am. It’s easier to accept it when you never see anyone else.” She knows that while I take pride in being a lesbian, the rest of the world doesn’t sit well with it. “Well that’s not true. You’re not cursed or backward, Sarah. You’re just you.” She looked at me, a small smile on her face. “The world is backwards.” We looked on at each other in silence. She was the only person in the world who knew me— every piece of me, everything that would ruin me if it was found out. And her she sat, tall and lanky, a beautiful girl with a big crooked smile and wild hair and I loved her for it, more than I could ever let her know. We snapped out of our reverie then, and she set to changing the music, while I stepped out the back door, into the pouring rain. I needed to grab some of the spring’s sweet vegetables, but I also had to get away from her, before I ruined everything with some stupid gesture of the heart. My bare feet squish into the soft mud, and it only takes a few moments before my dress clings to me and my hair begins to feel heavy in it’s bun on the back of my head. I feel cool, and my head is much more collected than it had been before. I enter the door again a few minutes later, and Diana is not in the sitting room anymore. I walk into the kitchen, not giving a damn about the trail of water and mud that followed me in. My apron is full up with sweet snap peas and small, plump tomatoes, and they tumble gracelessly into a bowl on the counter. “Sarah?” Diana calls from somewhere down the hall. “Yeah?” “Can you come here a moment? I need some help. I’m in my room.” I go to her, pushing open the door and making a futile attempt to dry myself a bit with a kitchen towel. “What is it, D?” When I actually look up, my mouth goes dry and I cannot take another step. Diana stands in the middle of the room, and I can make out the pink color of her nipples through the gauzy material of her slip. Her cheeks are rosy, her hair running down her back. I step backwards, trying to leave her to be decent because this must be a mistake— but she closes the distance between us and her lips are on mine and I can’t breathe or think of anything except for how sweet the swell of her hips feels beneath the palms of my hands. She pulls away from me, and smiles warmly. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes, why don’t we?” Her smile turns wicked, and I cannot help but to lean up once more to kiss her before she leads me back to her bed.

Sexual chemistry.Undeniable.We are on the same wavelength.Completely comfortable with one another.My hand is around your neck. I choose when you can breathe. And I time it oppositeof teasing you, then going deeper.If you could talk you’d beg for more.I let go, and you do exactly that.Our dialogue plays into the sceneLike poetry amidst a symphony.The shaking of the bed provides music.Our animalistic thoughts spew from our mouths.We haven’t seen each other in half a year. As we gaze into each other’s soulno time has passed.We feel as if we never left each other’s side.In the bedroom life is simple.And on the outside philosophies clash.I want to make a mad dash away from you.Or crash my car into a tree.I’ll do neither.

Primate House

Primate House

Spontaneously sprayin thisHeinous haters be playin thisCrayest spit Dive displaying thisMaybe shits the way it isSince a generation the laziestCause lit screens abstainin themFrom open doors it's trainin themStraining gems from favoriting Falsehoods that are not cateringFinding out where a tratior went

~Y0BBZ~

Shoutout to all the contributors!

Mike FrankfurterBrendan Mark

Alissa NaerAmanda Vaughn

Julia CarlinOisin Iodice

Orr KleinJared Peer

Rae GonzalezAnna Corso

Vishnu KalantriMally Dive

Forrest Tompkins Austin Angelo

Dan PavsicShelby Petruzzo

Josh RigneyAcacia Pyle

Alexis PolokoffKimberly Kratzer

Lindsay Brett