You see, my parents were always picky about their food. They wouldn’t eat this, they wouldn’t eat that. Very choosy. Which sometimes got them in trouble. That’s why it was particularly peculiar on Thanksgiving Day that they ate the whole meal themselves. My mother does not like turkey, but she ate the thing whole… My father hates cranberry sauce, yet he satisfyingly licked the sticky remains off his fingers. They did not even tell my brother and me to come down to eat.

Summer was when their “habits” really set in. On a hot Saturday afternoon, we all decided to go to the community pool to cool off… My parents had other ideas. We arrived, and they drank all the water in the pool. Nobody could swim.

That Sunday, we went to the cathedral in town. The sermon was about gluttony. How ironic.

The next day, the weather was terrible—storms everywhere. So, my father stole the lightning from the sky and ate it whole. One day after work, my mother came home and ate the patio. I was afraid she would start on the whole house. This continued for months… They were ravenous.

Their worst episode was at our cousin’s wedding… Everyone dressed in their Sunday’s best. At the reception, guests cheered on the newlyweds while my parents made their way to every table… More importantly, they ate every plate and wiped them clean. The caterers did not have extra food to spare.

One day, we were watching television. I asked them, Why are you like this? The pool, Thanksgiving, the wedding—why did you consume everything?

They said, We are not sure.

I replied, You know you are gluttons?

They said, We have the right to do anything—but we will not be mastered by anything.

I said, If you are given to gluttony, I should put a knife to your throats.

They said, We are scared, something consumed us.

I said, What?

They said, Open us.

I said I would not.

They said, You have to see, we are not your parents.

I said I would be convicted of murder and I am too young to go to jail.

They pleaded, Please, please open us and see. Pretend we are gifts. We are afraid. Save us!

I said, Don’t be afraid (even though fear consumed me).

They started screaming, Save us!

I slit their throats. Red spilled all over the floor like a river running through a valley. As did my tears. I heard something in the other room. I saw my parents, but not in their mortal state. They were beings but not humans.

My mother smiled and looked down at the table. Thanksgiving dinner was served.

Grace Reed was born and raised outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. She attends Towson University and plans on graduating with a degree in Mass Communication on a Public Relations and Advertising track in 2021. Her writing speaks louder than she does.

Featured image: Frank Lindecke

I performed a speedy pre-scan of Beth Ann Fennelly’s 52 micro-memoirs, Heating and Cooling.  I stopped at page 63.  The word Beyoncé caught my eye at the top right-hand side of the page.  I knew this book and I would be great friends. I was curious to see where America’s national treasure would show up in Fennelly’s life.  

I was surprised to find Beyoncé tucked between the lines of Fennelly’s memoir, “The Neighbor, The Chickens, and The Flames.”  It’s a short, fascinating read about a rogue chicken, stolen eggs, a chicken coop caught on fire, and the brief mention of a monopoly match.

I devoured Fennelly’s memoirs.  I read the book over again.  I enjoyed myself.  Why not?  It was like having drinks at the bar with a good friend—you know, the fun one.  The one who always has a story to tell.  You sit behind the bar in a tall chair, one hand cupping the thick wet glass of a cold pint, legs crossed, facing her, phone in purse, never touched during time spent together.  It isn’t needed because this is Beth Ann.

She takes you to a game of pool in a biker bar, to Barcelona, to a living room where she discusses false teeth with her father-in-law, to her nail salon, her bed post, her marriage, her children—yes, even marriage and children, which can be so incredibly boring in Facebook posts, become entertainment when Fennelly shares them.

You snort, almost spitting out your beer when she tells you about the dead cat in plastic wrap next to the vodka in her friend’s freezer. 

It’s not always fun and games.  Sometimes you get serious, as close friends do.  She recalls the strained confession of the words “I love you” to her father.  Those words were hard to say.  You lean in close, touch her arm, you’ve been there too.

 But then she shakes the heaviness of the moment off with an eye-roll of a story about the “commodification of art,” and some other small grievance about an obnoxious “rival poet” she remembers from grad school. Other writers can be so annoying. 

I drank all of Heating and Cooling in.  Over-served—52 rounds.  I stumbled home—giddy, warm, smiling.  Happy to have had the honor of a riot of a time with Beth Ann.

 And now, it’s your turn.   

I have a gynecologist appointment today. I’m scared, strangely. And I’m just now realizing that I’m not scared of my doctor per say, or the sterile smell, or the plethora of expired magazines, or the bubbled-bellies of the women sitting next to me, or the crinkle of the paper under my naked lower half, or the way my youthful blue toenails look next to a graying head, or the way I feel I’m being pulled open and explored like a crime scene often disrupted. But I’m just now realizing that I’m scared of what lives between my legs. We share a heartbeat.

I remember all of my friends getting their periods. I remember girls whispering about how Sarah uses tampons, not pads like the rest of us – of them. I remember girls shuffling off to the bathroom with their little purses wrapped around their bodies, like sashes of womanhood draped across their chests. How desperately I wanted to wear the same, display the same.

It’s almost comedic, how many times I’ve told men I believe I’m infertile. It’s just a feeling, I say – to myself or to them. It’s because I don’t understand what shares a heartbeat with me. And if I can’t understand that, how would I ever understand a child inside of me?

I thought getting my period would make me feel in sync with my body. It might help me understand. Why do my elbows ache when I put my weight on them? Why do my thumbs swell up in the morning? Why do my teeth feel scratchy when I chew on ice? Why did my body tremble when I climbed the rope in gym class? I quake at the thought of anyone else exploring the part of me I share a heartbeat with. You don’t have to do that, I always offer. Maybe it’s more so Please let me understand that part of me before you do; let me explore this uncharted territory on my own.

My aunt and uncle have a big house on the outskirts of the city. Old and beautiful and complete with additions. They’ve owned it my whole life, and yet I still have dreams where I’m exploring dark corners of the house. I never manage to construct a complete correlation between corridors. I think I idolize its enigmatic appeal. But if given the opportunity to pass through each doorway, I’m unsure if I would.

My period has never been normal. “You’re lucky,” I recall my friends telling me. “It’s always once a month for me, and like floodgates.” They wanted the way my body rarely decided to mourn its loss of possibility. And somehow I found myself sobbing in back bathroom stalls because my body refused to evolve. I don’t understand why I still find myself crying, though I’ve achieved this sense of womanhood I so desperately cried out for. Why do I suddenly stumble upon myself sitting in the shower like that? Or why am I standing at the gas pump like that? People can see you, I have to tell myself. And still, I’m crying. I’m happy, there’s nothing for me to be stressed about. And still, I’m crying in the grocery store. Maybe I need to talk to somebody.

“I had my period every other week when I was living in Florida,” I told my gynecologist once while staring at the porous ceiling tiles, looking for a pattern when there was only chaos.  She didn’t have an answer. “No real reason to be concerned,” I recall her saying as she closed my legs like she was done with her afternoon reading.

Perhaps my fear of that part of my body could be attributed to a violation. Or violations. I wonder if there’s a place they’re piling up, like parking tickets on a dusty dashboard. Like a dusty dashboard left abandoned in an otherwise empty lot on the edge of a dense wood. Like a dense wood that holds a needle in the haystack, abandoned and waiting to be sorrowfully discovered. A body once kissed and touched and held and loved, now swinging like drying meat on display.

I keep desperately trying to pay these violations off in whatever ways I can. Three glasses of Hendricks and a desperately generous tip. A desperately warm smile at the stringy girl waiting in my therapist’s office. A collected face and back turned to the funeral, desperate handkerchiefs stashed up my sleeves. The desperate clown. Desperate to understand and possibly distract.

I think I’ve digressed. I’m terrified of the creature that lives between my legs, the thing I share a heartbeat with. The monster and victim all in one. I want to love it, to proudly march down a crowded D.C. street for it. But here I am, telling myself I’m scared of the sterile smell that tugs to attention the hairs on my arms, of the magazines haphazardly stacked waiting for someone to make a move, of the tiny babies struggling to win their little wars in the womb, of the vulnerability of my station on that damn paper, of the practically faceless who’s searching for the details of my personal fortress, of the tool being prepared to pull me apart, of the way I’m being held open and explored like the crime scene I am. All instead of admitting I don’t understand the thing that supposedly defines me. We share a heartbeat.

Christy Kato is a 2018 Acting and Theatre BFA graduate from Towson University. She maintains a “very personal” blog that serves as a cathartic outlet for herself, but was created to encourage others to share their personal stories of struggle and growth. This is her first publication.

Check out her blog below!

https://www.christykato.com/?fbclid=IwAR3JyzPEjJoRY0HLbPYrAUgTUmXRYiAkiXdC-ROE5Tp5jxvFgYuh5aKAy-A

I am writing to ask if you’d like

to dance again in the kitchen.

I have never been much for a phone

call, as you know. I was thinking

I could bring boas and peacock

flumes for our shoulders and the waists

of our pants. All the times you’ve tried

to teach me the Charleston 

with my eyes closed—this time,

I’d like to open them. We can put ice

in the beer because you prefer it

that way. We can smoke

your Slims as we make our way

through six rounds of gin

rummy. At midnight, we could eat

half-truths as you tell me how you fell

in love. I’d like to fall

asleep in that bed while you play

solitaire at your desk—just once more.

Carmelita, this could be read

as atonement but I must live

with the choice I made, having never sent

this letter. They called me an hour ago

to tell me that you had died.

Yesterday I sat beside you,

you still able to hold my hand.

I heard you mumble along

to the song we once circled

our hips to and I could only sit dumb

and cry. Carmelita, they’ve told me

that you’ve died and I can only sit here

pouring over a letter I never intended on sending you. 

Alison Hazle is a poet/writer and art school survivor. She plans to pursue an MFA somewhere far away from Baltimore.

The photo above was taken on West North Avenue in Baltimore City—right outside of Mondawmin. I was pursuing a photo series of the artist Iandry, a 2009 MICA graduate whose art decorates the city. He was painting the “Wall of Wisdom,” a mural which consists of six portraits of historical change makers: Frederick Douglass, Matthew Henson, Fanny Coppin, Robert W. Coleman, William S. Baer, and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. I would travel into the city twice a week to document the progress of the mural—an experience that was never dull. Each visit, I would watch Iandry encourage community members to get involved in the painting process. Passersby would be given a few simple instructions, and minutes later they were a part of this beautiful masterpiece. He would receive kind words flying out of car windows, gracious thank-you’s from those walking down the street, and an overall approval from the community. I remember him saying once that art doesn’t change people, but it can inspire people to make the changes they want for themselves.

Baltimore City, often considered to be a not-so-nice place by outsiders and even some insiders, holds a lot of beauty in my eyes. My love for the city was planted my junior year of high school when I began working at a restaurant in Federal Hill. Before anyone calls me out, being exposed to this one type of neighborhood didn’t allow me to truly claim love for the city yet. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college, when I started dating someone who had spent their whole life in Baltimore City, that I began exploring it in a whole new way. Infatuation with the start of my relationship and newfound friends led me to be intoxicated with excitement every time I had a chance to go to Baltimore; suddenly Towson was of complete disinterest to me.

I began to learn and come to know more neighborhoods—Charles Village, Remington, Hampden, Fells Point… Some of which are definitely in the process of being gentrified. But, nonetheless, my love was expanding. It was then that I found myself becoming very defensive over those who only saw Baltimore as a crime-ridden, “ghetto” place. My best friend recently had a conversation with someone she graduated with. She stated that she was planning on moving to Baltimore, and his response was, “Oh, you’re moving to the ghetto!” Both of us were completely awestruck by the sheer ignorance of his statement. Media coverage of Baltimore does an unjust job at countering the bad with the good—I suppose that goes for everything though. Just because windows are boarded up and certain places have a higher volume of crime does not deem them ugly. Crime by some does not account for all. Inner city Baltimore has been put through the ringer. For those of you who have your doubts about the beauty of this city, please examine the systemic oppression that has grasped many parts of the community so tightly. We are all very different from one another but that does not mean we are not all beautiful. The good that people like Iandry are doing is going unnoticed by those people who are so quick to deem Baltimore a bad place. During my time photographing him, I also photographed another artist named Gaia. To me, they are physical proof of Baltimore City being beautiful. They turn walls into art while also seeing the beauty that already exists. The location of the “Wall of Wisdom” mural wouldn’t be considered the safest place for me to be venturing by myself. My boyfriend, who once lived there, always left me with a “be safe” every time I went. I think it is experiences like this that help me better understand communities that differ from my own, and without them, I too would be ignorant.

Natalie Jeffery is a twenty-two-year-old food enthusiast who thrives by using words and photographs to uncover the world in front of her. With women’s issues at the forefront of her interests, she would like to use such creative devices to promote gender equality.

Let’s speak of the grizzly bear

in the middle of the room.

Thick black rambutan branches

dripping citrus under the sun.

What extra powers are suppressed

beneath? Lulling opponents to sleep

with each bend against the wind. Hope

is lost if you stare directly into the void

because by then, arms will outstretch

to consume its prey & what other

response is justified when under

direct attack & the focal

point is to stifle the air around you.

Any creature backed into a corner

remembers they have to survive &

remembers that they have skin

beneath their fur that can be penetrated

unless they quickly realize that

it isn’t the hair that wards off defenders

but the hidden keen teeth that refuse

to help another man’s hunger.

Joshua Nguyen is a Kundiman Fellow, collegiate national poetry champion (CUPSI), and a native Houstonian. He has been published in The Offing, The Acentos Review, Rambutan Literary, Button Poetry, The Texas Review, Gulf Coast, and Hot Metal Bridge. He is currently an MFA candidate at The University of Mississippi. He is a bubble tea connoisseur and works in a kitchen.

A swing brushes the cement low, in slow motion, as if drawn through night’s deep syrup, as if burdened, holding the dark ball of a child hidden in the twilight’s smeary sleight of hand. They must be there: it’s some trick of the bare winter branches and sallow moonlight. Their shivering laughter rattles like dead leaves across the blacktop, rubber-soled high tops slapping concrete.

Genelle Chaconas is nonbinary gendered, queer, an abuse survivor, has mood disorders, and feels proud. They earned a BA in Creative Writing from CSUS in 2009, an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University in 2015, and 50k of debt. They never learned to “photograph” but take photos. They’ve been published lots but don’t namedrop. Their chapbooks include Fallout, Saints and Dirty Pictures (little m press, 2011) and Yet Wave (the Lune, 2017). They serve as head editor for HockSpitSlurp Literary Magazine. They enjoy scifi and gangster flix, drone/noise/industrial music, and long walks off short piers.

I recently had the chance to ask Kyle a few questions about his craft.
 
Who inspires you?
 
Inspirations change over time–not only the writers themselves but the media and genres you consume. So I’d say—over the most recent ten year period—Alan Moore (author of the Watchmen comic series), Miyamoto Musashi (legendary swordsman and author of The Book of Five Rings), poets Nikky Finney and Solmaz Sharif, emcees Kendrick Lamar and Phonte Coleman, bands Idles and The Dø.

I’ve noticed that in many of your poems you use humor to address serious issues. What inspires that approach?
 
I never think of myself as properly “funny”. (I fear that consciously being confident about that actually inhibits the work it takes to actually be funny.) But I think poems—any piece of art really—calls you to be the artist you need to be to create that poem. Sometimes there is readily available irony in a serious matter, and that poem may call for you to be funny because, let’s be honest, people don’t come to poems to learn morality or to learn how to become aware of their own political blind spots. But poems can do that to you when you are willing to internalize them for a different reason—be that the humor or be that the language or the form. I always like to remind myself and others that “art” is “artifice”—there is something consciously fabricated or contrived about it. We know where reality is, and most people don’t walk in that direction. Art is a portal to a different engagement with reality. So you can travel through a humorous poem about something dire and come out on the other side more willing to see and walk towards the darker human realities. Maybe.
 
Do you think that being based in D.C. influenced the political nature of your most recent book of poems, Honest Engine?
 
I don’t believe in that political / personal dichotomy. Almost everything we do is steeped in our battles for equality and representation (or for some maintaining their advantage in terms of privilege and power). If anything—contemporary D.C. being such a superficially political city (as far as party politics are concerned)—I think living in D.C. helps sharpen my perspective on what is sincerely concerned with the lives or fates of people and what is a performance of concern or outrage. D.C. is full of (well-paid) political performers. I never want to be that. I want to be someone living his way into writing sincerely about how real individual human lives are impacted by the policies of our national and global leadership.

I’ve heard that you’re working on your next book of poems. Which themes are prevalent in that book/what can readers expect?

The new book, Anagnorisis, is an attempt to speak frankly to the politically dominant American audiences about how it feels to be who I am at this moment and how it felt to have so much disdain for my particular humanity (urban, blk, male) collectively expressed by the electorate’s support of the current president. I always assumed modern Americans would not go that far to express hatred, fear, and resentment. But since they did in electing (or allowing the election of) this president, then I need to be honest about the lived ramifications that event has had for me and other vulnerable populations I am close to. In different ways, many of the poems express this sentiment: I have lost faith in you and this is why. If that faith is ever to be restored, I will need a good reason. I will need to see effort.

What do you think being a successful writer entails?
 
Success—you have to think about that professionally and artistically. Professionally, it will be different for everyone depending on which bourgeoisie goals you do or do not seek to attain as a “professional.” Some people need to win certain awards and fellowships or publish in certain venues. Others maybe just want a book with their name on it. You set—and adjust—your own professional goals over time. The artistic goals are met—or failed—one work at a time. I’d say a successful poet continues to find ways to challenge themselves while maintaining a healthy relationship to the process of making art. (Self-destructive art making practices aren’t “successful” to me.) It’s really a challenge against the self. You are the only one who knows the scope and depth of your intentions, and therefore, I’d say, you are the only person who can judge your artistic success and hold yourself accountable to those standards.

 
For more on Kyle Dargan, visit his website, or buy his newest book, Agnorisis.

Charlotte Smith is a writer and artist living in Baltimore, Maryland. She is currently a student at Towson University, where she majors in Mass Communication and minors in Creative Writing. Charlotte hopes to use art in many forms to make sense of the world, particularly the social issues that she sees affecting herself and others in daily life. She is particularly passionate about the rights of women and minorities, and likes to work with publications that are committed to sharing their stories. More of her work can be found online at Lithium Magazine, where she is a staff writer.

One: Evan Nicholls can live in it. He can wave to an orgy
of cows under the field oak. Nod to the bull on the hill.
Sleep back in the steel bed, by nobody or somebody.
 
 
Two: Evan Nicholls can kill in it. Probably on accident,
a person or himself. The mathematics of truck plus tree.
Or the barrelling off of a sea cliff. Make somebody a body.
 
 
Three: Evan Nicholls can pick-up and go in it. Become
nobody. The rubber could scree like a chicken hawk.
And ‘Bye.’ Forget both the living and the dead.

Evan Nicholls has work appearing in Passages North, Maudlin House, THRUSH, Pithead Chapel, GASHER, and Whurk among others. He is from Fauquier County, Virginia. Follow him on Twitter: @nicholls_evan. Read more at https://evannichollswrites.wordpress.com.

The following interview is with Andi McIver, the author of “Ubuntu,” which will appear in our next issue. “Ubuntu” is an amazing nonfiction essay about the life of McIver as she grows up in South Africa, a place still haunted with the remnants of Apartheid, having only just institutionally ended in the early 90s. “Ubuntu” explores how a young girl comes to terms with her skin color and identity in relation to the racial division she was born into. The interview was conducted via email by Kennidi Green, one of Grub Street’s nonfiction editors.

How did you first hear about Grub Street?

I work at the Writing Center at Towson University, and I often saw Grub Street staff meeting in the office.

What made you start writing nonfiction?

I’ve always loved stories and learning about people’s lives. I’ve wanted to write a nonfiction piece for years. To be honest, though, I probably wouldn’t have written “Ubuntu” had I not taken a nonfiction writing course with Professor Vanasco. 

As a nonfiction writer myself, I can sometimes find it difficult to write about something that is both interesting and engaging. Have you ever felt this way personally? Do you have any advice on this issue?

I actually haven’t struggled with this much, fortunately enough. I think it’s because I write about stuff I genuinely care about, so it’s easier for people to engage with something the author is obviously invested in. I really believe people will always respond to an author who writes about something she cares about in an authentic and honest way.

From my personal experience, people seem to have a pretty good understanding of what fiction writing is. However, the general understanding of what nonfiction writing is seems to be a lot less clear. How do you personally define nonfiction writing?

To me, it’s writing based mostly on fact. While I think it is admissible to maybe neaten up dialogue, changing data moves a piece from nonfiction to fiction.

I absolutely love all the facts you include in your piece. Did you have to do a lot of research while creating “Ubuntu”?

Thank you! I didn’t actually have to do a ton because I grew up surrounded by South Africa’s history. The research I did was more to find a credible source to include in my work.

“Ubuntu” is an amazing piece that is eloquently written. I can’t help but wonder, have you ever been published before?

Thank you so much (again)! I’ve never been published for creative writing, but I have previously been published for a research paper I did about social media’s impact in Yemen during the Arab Spring Uprising. 

In the section titled “Anger,” you describe the strong emotions you feel in relation to the world around you. At the end of the section, you write that this anger now propels you forward. Can you elaborate on that a little? How does your anger now move you forward? You also mention that your anger is different now than how it was previously. How so?

What I’m referring to is an intolerance of racism (and injustice in general) – and even more than beyond simple intolerance, this anger is a reaction that says, “What’s happening isn’t just unpleasant and unfair, we cannot allow it to continue for another second.” Many people I know find social injustice upsetting or unpleasant, but few of them let it affect them enough to actually be compelled into doing something to right said wrong. This is what I mean when I say it propels me forward: when something disturbs me to the point of me feeling this anger, it gives me purpose to make a positive difference to whatever issue this may be. 

There was a point when I felt so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of inequality in South Africa (and globally, but that’s really an entirely different story altogether) that I just couldn’t find the strength or energy to begin to try make a difference as I felt helpless to even make a dent. Now I feel as though I have the knowledge to know how to actually do something constructive about working toward a more just South Africa.