I S S U E 5 L EV I TAT E T H E M E D D O S S I E R : A L O N E A N D T O G E T H E R L EV I TAT E L E V I TAT E L I T E R A RY M AG A Z I N E © I S S U E 5 ii Copyright © 2021 by LEVITATE Literary Magazine All rights to the material in this journal revert back to individual con- tributors after LEVITATE publication. LEVITATE Literary Magazine c/o Creative Writing Department The Chicago High School for the Arts 2714 W. Augusta Blvd. Chicago, IL 60622 www.levitatemagazine.org LEVITATE accepts electronic submissions and publishes annually. For submission guidelines, please consult our website. iii 2021 Staff Editor-in-Chief Gwendolyn Henson-Myers Managing Editor Susanna Lang Lead Art Editor Mia Dusenberry Lead Creative Nonfiction Editors Amelia McCabe and Lonye Scott Lead Fiction Editors Allan Ayala and Alex Friedrich Lead Poetry Editors Gray Dawson and Valerie Hooser Publishing Intern Kayla Nierva Design Geoff Gaspord Contributing Art Editors Amaya Baylock, Skye Bruner, Fotini Maris-Asimakopoulos Contributing Creative Nonfiction Editors Mia Dusenberry, Gwendolyn Henson-Myers, Amelia McCabe, Fotini Maris-Asimakopoulos Contributing Fiction Editors Melanie Abarca, Amaya Baylock, Isaiah Ortiz, Joshua Phillips Contributing Poetry Editors Skye Bruner, Micheal Brown, Ania Swift Social Media Allan Ayala and Amaya Baylock iv Table of Contents Cover Kenneth Ricci I Am Leaving Creative Nonfiction Marco Etheridge The Tennis Instructor and the Tolling Bell 1 Max Forstag Those I Wonder About 6 Michelle Muñoz Breadcrumbs 9 Art Ilaria Cortesi The Mind Still Travels 12 Alexey Adonin Man on the Beach 13 Poetry Fasasi Abdulrosheed Oladipupo At Lampedusa 14 Kathleen Kirk Cassandra Predicts the Melting of the Glaciers 15 Cassandra Makes a List of Baby Names 16 Kyrah Gomes valkyrie 17 Ololade Akinlabi Prayer for the Memory We Cannot Hold 19 Kaci Skiles Laws The War 20 Veronica Nation Turning the Lights Off 21 Brylee Russell Skinny Moms 23 Noah Stienecker You Have One New Notification 24 Heidi Speth Meant To Be 25 Roxanne Thibault The First 27 R. Nikolas Macioci Jesus in the Afternoon 28 Gale Acuff At church everybody wants to die and 29 Abigail E. Calimaran Elegy II 30 You Are Holden 32 Art Anne Cécile Surga Marble Sculptures 34 v Fiction Julia Laurie My Brother and the Bulls 37 Helen White Good Bones 49 Allison Whittenberg Why Didn’t You Call Me September 11th? 58 Cynthia Moritz Wedding Dance 66 Art Emily Rankin Jawbone 80 Heart of Hearts 81 The Bloom of Night 82 Emel Karakozak Flower of Life 83 Themed Dossier: Alone and Together Kerri Fisher Gatherers and Hunters (essay) 85 Qrcky Art let my people go (oil on canvas) 90 Bennie Herron the nickel song (poem) 92 mama and them (poem) 93 Sharon Kerry-Harlan My Brother’s Keeper (quilt) 94 The Great Pretenders (quilt) 95 Nicole Kim Smoke and Fog (charcoal on paper) 96 Hilary King Two Women Carrying a Ballot Box (poem) 98 Karen Anderson Servant Leader (digital image) 99 Courtney LeBlanc The Usual Things (poem) 100 Nancy Cook In the Midst of a Political Convention I Find Refuge in Quarantine (poem) 101 Lauren Scharhag Women Alone (poem) 103 Brendan Connolly battleship (poem) 105 Salena Casha It Takes Practice (essay) 106 Kenneth Ricci Made For Each Other (collage) 108 I Am Leaving (collage) 109 1 CREATIVE NONFICTION The Tennis Instructor and the Tolling Bell Marco Etheridge In 2018 I wrote a personal memoir about a chance meeting on the Vienna U-Bahn system. It was just another day, just another ride aboard the busy subway system in my adopted Austrian hometown. I could not know that a brief encounter with an American couple would have a profound impact on my life, or that I would still be remembering and writing about it more than two years later. We were four human beings brought together by whatever forces bring people together. During the brief few minutes we shared, these strangers told us a heartbreaking story. Their words collided with my world, forever altering it. More impactful for me is that these same hor- rible events have played out again and again, tragically and senselessly, over the intervening two years. Here, in part, is what I wrote: * * * My wife and I are onboard the U-4, one of the U-Bahn lines that make up a part of the miraculous Vienna transit system. The U-Bahn would be the New York City Subway, or the London Tube. The sun is shining into a man-made canyon formed by two block stone walls that tame a small river, the Wienfluss. The silver passenger cars rattle and sway along the river. The concrete and stone canyon is dappled in sun- light. The scant flow of the river shines a bright ribbon. We are below the street level; stone building façades parade past above us. A young Austrian couple is sitting opposite us, our knees almost touching in the space between the opposing seats. We avoid direct eye contact, following the social protocol of public transit. The train rattles into the darkness of a tunnel, wheels screeching against the tracks that curve into the Karlsplatz station. We are under the old city, the Opera House, ground zero for the masses of tourists that flood into Vienna. 2 An automated voice announces the station in Deutsch and English, reciting the many possible connections to trams, buses, and other U-Bahn lines. The young man and woman rise from the bright orange plastic seats. The train makes a final lurch as it stops. Departing passengers sway against the inertia, suspended from yellow hand loops. Righting themselves, they spill out onto the busy platform, replaced immediately by an equal flow of passengers waiting to board. Two people fill the vacant seats in front of us. They are obviously Americans; I know it before they speak. Their clothing is a mix of sub- dued pastels, colors carefully matched; American brand names clearly state the country of origin. They are a couple, a man and woman, middle-aged, upper middle class, tan and fit. The man is wearing a bright yellow wristband, one of those silicone bracelets that feature a motivational slogan. I lean my head close to that of my wife, murmuring in my school-boy German. There is a smile, a direct look, perhaps on the part of this man sitting with his knees almost touching mine. I do not remember now, yet the silence is somehow broken. Then we are speaking, the polite questions of travelers. Where are you from? Ah, Seattle, really? I am quick to point out that I live in Vienna, married to the lovely Austrian woman sitting next to me. The American woman mentions a daughter living in Vienna; they are regular visitors. Civility requires a question of me. I ask the couple where they are from in the States. Parkland, the man answers; Parkland, Florida. The wound bound to that name is still fresh, unhealed and raw. One of the deadliest school shootings in a string of such tragedies. The name is far too potent to escape memory. They are both quiet, solemn. They have seen the recognition cross my face. On February 14th, 2018, Nikola Cruz walked into the Freshman Building of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Cruz was nineteen years old, a former student of the high school. He was armed with a high-powered rifle. The young man climbed to the third floor of the building. At 2:21 PM, he opened fire on students and teachers, gunning them down methodically. When he stopped firing the weapon, seventeen students and teachers lay dead. Another seventeen were wounded. As police converged on the scene, Nikolas Cruz left the dead and dying victims behind. He was arrested 3 in the nearby town of Coral Gables soon after the shooting, but not before he stopped to purchase food from two fast food restaurants. The man is speaking now. Yes, he says, Parkland. The groans and rattles of the train car fall away. The man’s voice is not loud, but it fills my head; there is nothing else. He tells us that he is a tennis instructor. A portion of his work is teaching tennis to the students at that same high school. He describes that horrible day, the lines of law enforce- ment vehicles blocking the road to the school. He speaks of the flood of frantic phone calls and text messages from students and parents, people trying desperately to connect with a loved one, to tell their parents that they are safe, or to hear that their child is still alive. I see the pain etched across the man’s face. He tells us of the call he received from one distraught mother. Her daughter was missing, unaccounted for. The daughter was one of his students. Hours later this young woman would be listed among the dead. The man has stopped speaking. The story is over; the dead are still dead. I hear my own voice: No parent should have to go through that. No, the woman says, no parent should have to go through that. She looks up and away, far away, as if looking to a distant shore across the Atlantic Ocean. Her gaze returns from that far off place, her eyes on mine. We are sep- arated by nothing, each of us parents, each of us sharing that darkest, most dreaded fear. An automated voice fills the crowded car, announcing the next station. The train shudders as it slows. This is our stop. I feel as if we have been on this train for hours, yet we have only passed four stations. We make our farewells, rise from the orange plastic seats. There are no degrees of separation now, only a raw and abraded commonality. My connection to these two people shatters any imagined boundaries, scattering the useless splinters to the floor of the train car. Then we are walking on the platform, weaving through the shift- ing crowd. The train pulls away with an electric whine, bearing the two Americans to their daughter. Gossamer threads run between all of the people on the platform, shining strands from them to me, and from We are separated by nothing, each of us parents, each of us sharing that darkest, most dreaded fear. 4 me to them. I see it, this shimmering net of silver filaments that moves as we move, binding us all together. The actions of one of us send a pulse through the shifting web, a signal to all of us. I feel the signals reverberate, feel them pulsing through my chest. It is as much as my heart can bear. * * * I revisit these words two years later, trying to make some sense of where they fit in this world. In my mind’s eye, I see the American couple sitting across from us as if it happened only yesterday. Yet in the passing of a few short years, the story these people told has not become a distant tragedy. Rather, the horrific murders at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have become another senseless tragedy in a long and mournful tolling of funeral bells. The news reports scream out at us from the television screen, from our smart phones, from our computers, again and again. Children gunned down at their school, or shoppers murdered in a department store. University students slaughtered on campus, or concertgoers mowed down while the music played. The deadly toll goes on and on and on. The words I wrote after that fateful meeting have become redundant. They are as meaningless as the empty calls for thoughts and prayers that are meant to somehow assuage the horror of our collective madness. These acts of madness continue to rise up in what feels like an all-engulfing wave. The ill-fated year of 2019 saw more mass shootings in the USA than there were calendar days to contain them. The wave breaks over me, threatening to pull me down into the depths of despair. To embrace despair would seem justified, yet I know it to be as worth - less as trying to stop violence by merely thinking or praying. The words of the poet John Donne reach across four centuries, pulling me back from the deep. “Each man’s death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind.” Yes, I am involved, for I am bound to humankind, and glad to be so. The gossamer threads I wrote of still run between all of us, shining strands that link us all. Madness and violence may tear at the silver net that holds us, but the net will only fall away 5 if we allow it. Knowing that we are inextricably bound together, I understand that the human beings around me are not strangers. When a parent sends their child off to school, not knowing if their son or daughter will return, it is my child they send. When a spouse sends their beloved off to work, uncertain, it is my beloved that walks to the bus stop. It is not they who go out into the world, but rather we. It is not they who are gunned down, but we. When one of these falls under a madman’s bullets, we all fall. I hear words spoken that are as deadly as despair. They are words meant to lull us into an acceptance of what is unacceptable. Couched as talking points, they become almost as deadly as the bullets that cut us down. There is nothing to be done. Pandora’s box has been opened; the evil is loosed on the world. It is too late. My despair is replaced by anger. I accept anger over despair, having nothing else. Perhaps the time will come when I find motivation in love, but for now, anger is the goad that moves me forward. To say otherwise would be to lie. In my outrage, I reject the voices of inaction, of resignation. I reject them utterly and completely. We are capable of amazing things when we embrace what holds us together as one. I believe this as I believe in gravity or the air that we all breathe. Human beings, linked by a common cause, can become a powerful force for change. And what could be a simpler, more of a common cause, than the desire to have our loved ones come home to us at the end of the day? 6 Those I Wonder About Max Forstag In middle school, my classmate George had the unsettling habit of whispering my name during study hall: “Maaax,” he’d call out repeatedly, each time more elongated. George was quiet, distant, socially awkward. Tall and slender, he had cold, expressionless eyes and a sinister smile. Despite his behavior, there was something off about George, for which I felt sympathy. When I could no longer ignore his taunts, I’d turn to face him, “ What , George?!” to which he’d laugh nervously. It was a laugh that carried a lot of pain and was unaccustomed to being heard. That summer, George shot his father in the back of the head. Following a decade of physical and verbal abuse, he’d had enough. Convicted of voluntary manslaughter at 13, his childhood was over. I never saw him again. Many years later, I was completing a teaching practicum at Portland Community College. One of the students in the class was named Abdulrahman. He was like many of the Saudi male students to whom I’d taught ESL: self-assured, outgoing, and eager to please. Abdulrahman loved reggae music and bore a resemblance to Bob Marley, an image he likely cultivated upon arriving in Portland. For a reading assignment, he chose Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father , which he discussed with passion and credited for having greatly expanded his worldview. One afternoon after class, I was preparing to walk home, when Abdulrahman pulled up in his gold Lexus. “Teacher, get in,” he offered cheerfully. A month later, Abdulrahman ran over a 15-year-old girl driving that same car at double the posted speed limit. Two weeks short of his trial for voluntary manslaughter, he was covertly whisked out of the country, never to be seen again. When we moved into our apartment, the other tenants were passively friendly: Jane was an urban planner whose moans reverberated Convicted of voluntary manslaughter at 13, his childhood was over. I never saw him again. 7 through the building whenever her girlfriend visited; Kendra was a massage therapist we affectionately called “The Giant” due to her lead- footed stomping on the floorboards above. But the tenant we were most drawn to was Larry. Unlike the rest of us, Larry was a local who worked construction and loved waking at the crack of dawn to go fishing. He was the only one to offer us a housewarming present: Three pounds of frozen walleye that he and his brother, Trent, had caught in the Columbia River. We learned tidbits about Larry and his sort-of girlfriend, Tina, while smoking on the front porch or grilling on the back patio. Often, we were joined by Trent, who was effortlessly conversational and clearly admiring of his older brother. One summer evening, Larry casually referenced his prior incarceration. Not wanting to probe, we filed the thought away without a word. That Halloween, we were watching the horror film Cube in Larry’s apartment when he broached the subject again. Without elaborating, Larry went to the kitchen to pour himself another drink, leaving us in uncomfortable silence. “He was busted for dealing,” Tina murmured through clenched teeth, her wide eyes stealing a furtive glance toward the kitchen. She looked paler than usual. That spring, I was roused by an early morning text from Jane: “ Are you guys okay? ” Getting out of bed, I crossed the living room and flipped open the Venetian blinds. Larry was slumped on the curbside in his boxers, head bowed, clutching a machete in one hand and a Rambo knife in the other. Across the street, a dozen police officers had their guns drawn, all pointed at Larry. Tina was nowhere in sight. A paralyzing standoff ensued as the police tried to negotiate with Larry, who gesticulated wildly, swinging the knives at whatever demons were inhabiting his thoughts. Eventually, he stood, extended his arms to the side and dropped the weapons in each hand, before slowly approaching the police, falling to his knees, and being taken away in handcuffs. We’d later find a loaded handgun on the back patio and a trembling, swollen-eyed Tina in the upstairs apartment, which was littered with shattered glass and a cache of empty bottles. Trent came by the apartment the following week to move Larry’s belongings out as he awaited trial. When he saw us, his usual jovial expression had been replaced by one of anger and disappointment, but 8 not shame. “You don’t get to judge my brother,” he warned. “You don’t know what he’s been through.” To this day, I can’t help but wonder about Larry. And Abdulrahman. And George. 9 Breadcrumbs Michelle Muñoz I miss the inconvenience of breadcrumbs. Their idle discomfort lying between couch cushions or on tabletops waiting to be broomed, or wiped, or vacuumed. I also miss the smell of toast. Her toast. My grandmother would make buttered toast and Cuban coffee every morn- ing, because American coffee “tasted like shit.” She would limp weakly on her walker from her room to the kitchen while scratching the tile floor. I miss her intentional silence. She would sit timidly at the dining room table facing the swampy view—mangroves and algae tracing the rim of our backyard pond. She would only talk if spoken to. I haven’t seen breadcrumbs in two months. The heart attack came three weeks before COVID-19 mattered—there was a time when it was just a rumor. The two strokes came a few days after that. It seemed as if tragedy came rushing in like the endless pit of algae sitting in the pond outside. You can try dredging it out, but you’ll drown before the water is clear. My grandma now sits still in an unintentional silence. She is bedridden. She can no longer move or get up to go to the bathroom. She can no longer make toast or use her walker. She is helpless. I look at my phone and notice the time: 9:49. At ten, we clean Ma. That’s what I call my grandmother, a slight homage to her being my second mom. Cleaning entails removing her diaper and wiping her feces clean. I rush downstairs and see my mom sitting helplessly in the blue chair outside of Ma’s room. There’s no metaphor to make out of the blue chair; the color theme of my house has been blue for years. “How long has she been awake?” I ask. My mom barely has the strength to look up. “About an hour.” “Do you want to clean her at ten?” “Yeah.” We head inside her room and it’s pungent like always. It’s the same dirty smell that stains elderly homes: pee and poop. Ma’s eyes 10 twinkle as she sees me. She has enough strength to muster a few words: “Hola, amor.” “Hola, princessa,” I respond and smile back. “Okay, roll her over,” my mother says. I roll Ma on her side. She’s lying on a hospital bed that the hospice provided. It has all the mech- anisms one sees in a hospital bed, even the little remote that reclines the core and legs. I grab Ma’s hand and place it on the side rail of the bed. My mother begins wiping. It smells like shit. I look at my grandma. She doesn’t seem upset or embarrassed. Her dull expression appears content. Or lost. With blank eyes and hollow face, she probably has no idea what’s going on. Ten months ago, she would have cried with embarrassment that her daughter and granddaughter were cleaning her. Now her eyes have lost their gentle emerald glow. They’re more timidly green now. Her hair has lost its artificial dyed blonde. We let her go white. Her English has completely disintegrated into fractured words that she recalls from her novellas. She can barely speak her native Spanish in complete sentences either. Ma has endured a lot in her life. That’s what my mother always says. Marrying a man ten years older just so she could leave Communist Cuba—her mother wouldn’t have let her leave the country alone. I bet she could’ve done it though. Ma was always fiercely independent. She was a seamstress too. She made wedding dresses in a small New Jersey bridal shop when she first came to America. But her pricked fingers paled in comparison to the dread and abuse she endured from my grandfather. That, I know too much about. She still cried at his funeral two years ago when her mind was sound. I figured it may have been the regret of what was lost. My mother said that she and her brother endured the worst abuse. Every day they were beaten and screamed at by my grandfather. My mother went through years of therapy to try to reconcile the lasting trauma. She spent years trying to rationalize Ma’s absence in her abuse. The lingering reality that Ma stood on the side while her children were beaten and abused. But I don’t think my mother ever truly let go of Ma was now barely a spark in the forest that my mother waited her whole life to burn down. 11 the resentment. And as Ma got older, my mother’s anger never left; it spread. Instead of reconciling and understanding the brokenness of her childhood, the only person who could provide any closure was barely alive. Ma was now barely a spark in the forest that my mother waited her whole life to burn down. “Why don’t you ever make conversation when we’re in here?” My mother asks. “It’d make the time go faster.” “That’s what I hate, you know. Talking.” I shy away from my mother’s disapproving expression. She stays silent and finishes cleaning Ma. We roll Ma on her back and put on a new diaper. Then we turn on the TV and put on the news. And leave her alone. “Don’t you feel anything anymore about any of this? That’d you like to talk about?” My mother tries to invade my consciousness with her eye contact as we leave Ma’s room. I don’t let her and stay with my gaze facing the floor. “I feel too much,” I respond. That was something she had taught me well—feeling too much. “I just wish you’d be around us more. You hide in your room a lot.” The act of looking at something long enough can ruin it. So as I closed my eyes and isolated myself, it was never because of my timid- ness or disgust. It was because I didn’t want to ruin the image of Ma. “I understand,” I respond. I let out a helpful grin. It feels insincere. “I want to say something really terrible,” my mother trembles and looks away from eye contact. It looks like she’s about to throw up. “I’m waiting for Ma to die.” She looks up at me with her pupils expanded. Her brown irises have never looked paler. She expects me to disapprove. I understand. Little does she know that we are all waiting for our mothers to die. 12 The Mind Still Travels Digital collage Ilaria Cortesi Using mixed media digital collage, I turn thoughts and feelings into surreal images by fusing vintage imagery with the natural world. The results are dreamy sci-fi landscapes and punchy collages inspired by the punk aesthetic of DIY, sometimes thought-pro- voking, sometimes playful and cheesy. My pieces draw inspiration from music, society, literature, ukio-e and sci-fi. I often repurpose lighthearted vintage imagery to explore themes such as feminism, mental health and human interactions. Each piece begins the same way: with a single word or thought that evokes an image. I then (digitally) slice, layer and arrange pictures until a new visual narrative emerges, characterized by vibrant color and paper-like textures.