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Tranquility
Volume 1 Issue ii
was drop dead gorgeous. She was church girl wholesome, yet enticingly erotic. To say it short, a ratchet she was not...but something to covet? Perhaps. Her eyes said she was a boss and she exuded the kind of confidence reserved solely for royalty. She truly didn't care if you were the shit or if you cleaned up the shit; she just came to do her thing and have a good time and no one dared tell her No.
We soon made eye contact and of course, I smiled when she smiled. Then, I
turned around and did my best to ignore her. When she eventually stood next to me and ordered her drink, I felt those metaphorical butterflies in my stomach. Actually, I felt them literally.
I became nervous and insecure in the one place I thought I could be impervious. After all, this was my bar. Whos this girl, coming in here and stealing my thunder? Even my favorite overly-confident bartender seemed a little shy. He had nothing better to say to her demands than As you wish. No sly comment, no fancy trickshe even had to ask for the cherry.
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After her drink was made, I couldn't help it. If he wasn't gonna grow some
balls and say What's up? I had to...right? So I said, Hi, I like your boots. Stupid! Who says shit like that? Well apparently, it was perfect because she sat down and began talking to me like we were old friends. Was this my soul mate or did she just have a kind soul? Either way, I was captivated by her.
flip flops. I made a joke about her not wearing her ugly brown boots this time, and instantly the butterflies in my stomach were killed by the talons of the confident eagle now in my soul.
Primality
By Dori Cameron
Subtlety is insanity. I am the object of attention But not affection. So...Ive tasted the sweet fruit That turned me into god. It wasnt what I thought it would be. Why werent I born a tiger or a bird? Then I would have little Responsibilities or inadequacies. My stare, once vivacious, has escaped And I cannot find it, Not even in a mirror. I wish I could roar, Then someone would listen, Even if only in fear. If I had a Song to sing, males would Show off their colors and Fight for my company. How is it, that I am Hateful of my own species? My impatience consumes me, Even more than Pride or Wrath, my Favorite deadly sins. If I were a siren I would never die, And my existence would be Of epic proportions. I want to Escape myself, and perhaps fly South forever.
Let it simmer two more minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Some stock is saltier than
others so definitely taste as you go. If you want smooth gravy (of course you do) use an immersion blender and blend til smooth. If you don't have an immersion blender you can use a food processor or a regular ol blender. Blend in small
batches and be careful not to burn your hands off. Viola! Gravy that would make your mama proud. ***If youve never cooked with nutritional yeast before, please dont be intimidated
the nights are longer and the weather is 1/3 cup of flour starting to get chilly, nothing says 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast** "comfort" like a scoop of mashed potatoes with lots of gravy.
1 teaspoon of sage 2 tablespoons of olive oil salt and pepper to taste
by its weird name. It lends a depth of flavor to the gravy that shouldnt be missed. Its easy to find at your local grocery store and its a great source of vitamin B12. Boom. Vitamins in yo gravy! Now its healthy, right?
experimented with lots of recipes until I and garlic and saute until soft, stircame up with this: the perfect vegan ring constantly. This will take about gravy. Now, I can enjoy my favorite and Omnis alike will devour it. better. comfort food again. Trust me, Veggies Your Thanksgiving just got that much
three minutes. Then add the mushrooms and cook until soft. (about five minutes) Add the flour, nutritional yeast, and sage. Keep on stirring.
in and see if we can smooth it out and have some fun with it. This also holds true for the opposite; we can take a perfectly normal, comfortable evening and flip it on its head and create more discomfort than a scorching case of herpes! Your levels of comfort and discomfort are dictated by how you handle the situation in front of you, making sure it doesnt overtake your emotions. We dont let that happen and neither should you. Keep calm and do as we do: make the best any given situation. Heres a scenario: lets say youre at the bar/club with your friends on the other side of town, you all rode in together to make sure there was a designated driver & save on gas. Everybodys smiling, laughing, drinking, and trading stories. Perfect right? This is pure comfort, but not where this tale was headed. Toward the end of the evening, you meet up with some nice ladies that invite you and your buddy back to their hotel room. Youre a bit tipsy but, this seems like a fantastic idea & you go for it. Youre still in your
comfort zone, so you all pile into the nearest cab and call your other friends to tell them to not wait up. When you arrive at your destination, you realize the hotel is nothing more than a dingy motor lodge. Uh oh, what have you gotten yourself into?! Discomfort sets in...now what? Make the best of whats left the night, of course! The next morning you wake up hungover, in a room youve never seen before in your life, next to women you dont know, and no way to get back home to meet your obligations of the day. Discomfort, once again, has set in like a case of the bubble guts on a hot day while stuck in traffic. Dont sweat it! Be calm and calculate your next move, which at this time of morning should be to take a quick video or picture of the mess youre in and hightail it to the nearest diner for some coffee, get the hamster back on the wheel, and a sweet ass plate of pancakes & bacon (extra crispy, of course. ) This is where you plan the remainder of your getaway. Catch a cab, bus, train, or in our case, call one of your four best friends that anyone could have to come pick your dumb ass up. Great, the plan is set, your belly is full, and youre ready to take on a new day. Comfort at its finest!! The disclaimer of this tale is there are many other factors to make this scenario work without a hitch, confidence, loyalty, trust, and most importantly, friendships that encompass all of these qualities, but thats for another months discussion.
by Dori Cameron or six days straight, there were nightmares. I woke up with alarms blaring, an evacuation of the city ensued. Confused, I dressed myself and wandered out of my open front door. Fires and sirens pierced through me, quivering. Then, I saw them. With white masks and a troubled gait, I had to become one of them. I spotted one, fallen, cheaply made yet priceless, slipping it onto my face. My skin remembered the hot feel of plastic, a Halloween costume from nearly a score ago. Darting, my eyes followed and mimicked the walk of another, disjointed and awkward. Others without masks were swept up quickly, ignited by a quick scream, their feet grabbed so quickly they fell twice as fast. This was the sixth night.
n the seventh night, I surrendered. A heap of exhaustion and sadness, I had my talk with God. I let go. I pleaded, No dreams tonight. Please. I need to rest. I cant handle another. Defeated, my head hit the pillow once more, expecting the same outcome of the previous nights. The running from zombies, the car accidents, the chaos. The insanity. uddenly, I am heading into a familiar place. It was abandoned, but it was ours. I knew what to expect inside. The crunching of tiny shards of broken glass, the sharp sense of rusted metal, the hollowed out windows.the shadows, the light fixtures hanging from tall ceilings. The waffled stairways, the offices with walls broken out, drywall caking and dusted into piles. The toilets, shattered. The porcelain faucets, dry and decimated. The spray paint, poorly executed. The stub-end railroad tracks. There was history here, history I always pondered, fascinating, unknowable. Comforted, I walked inside. emarkably, the factory was alive. The walls were intact in vivid colorthe machines blackened but not rustedthe conveyors moving parts at a steady pace. The workers in white hard hats blowing sparks upward, a vibrant heat to them. The steam engine parked in the tracks, unloading. The time card clock, ticking. The metal slots with operation cards, a bright green. The grinding of metal, the loud shouts over humming machinery. The unexplainable relief of not having a nightmare, but a newfound understanding of a place I hold so dear. On the seventh night I talked to God. And He listened.
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by Victor Estrada
SKEREEREEEEEEEEEEEREEEEEEEEEE! My eyes groggily arouse themselves from slumber...how long have I been sleeping? What time is it? Whats that noise? The light emitted from the televisions tube hit my corneas in blinding burst of white noise, beating down on my retinas like John Bonham 15 minutes into a Moby Dick drum solo. My irises begin to come alive and focus the white halo in front of me into something that begins to resemble an image. That does itHes a frickin nerd.hehehehe... The words crawl their way out of the televisions tiny speaker metallic and distorted, threatening to rip apart the tiny cardboard cones and ooze themselves onto the floor like freshly hatched spiders from an egg sac. There is a man on the television. Hes hiding behind a mask. The background sways and tilts with a hypnotic pulse, making my stomach uneasy. The voice worms its way into my ears again, threatening to rip my sanity away from its mooring. Catch the wave... It is screaming now. Its voice swarms at me like a hive of angry bees, loud and overbearing. The figure is crowding the screen now, swaying and bobbing like an angry jack-in-thebox. I wont realize until afterwards but my skin has developed a thin layer of cold sweat, my cerebellum unconsciously reacting to the blitz on the screen. Your love is fading... The background continues to lurch back and forth in uneven time. My equilibrium is slipping from me. The room starts to oscillate, the walls shifting into a nauseous blur. The figure continues to bounce around the screen, its voice weaving in and out, like screams coming from an eaten tape. Theyre coming to get meee I dont see the rest. Im already down the hall, my stomach ready to vacate its contents. When did I get up?
each other, flying closer and closer together until they reach out to each other and lock talons. They hold each others claws and tumble out of control toward earth. Then an unknown communication happens between them and they let go of each other at the same time, just before they would hit the ground. After this ritual, they are mated and both eagles build the nest, hunt, take care of their young, in equal parts, taking turns at the work. There is comfort in their equality and unmatched trust. Eagles are birds of prey. They are predators who can reach heights of flight almost beyond our sightline. Their sight is impeccable. But they test their mates, trust them, are loyal to them, and bond with them until death. Instead of finding the prettiest or brightest or loudest mate, they look for equality in skill and one whom they trust to skydive with out of their realm. I feel as if their ritual sums up the relationship that I know to be real. Unconditionally knowing and loving someone takes trust. We are all simple predators and we sneak and soar and use our minds and tongues as opposed to our wings and talons, but we are animals just the same. But I find comfort in knowing that even the basest instincts of violence or self-preservation can be outweighed by love. If there is anything that can be trusted in the world, it is this. Unconditional bonds are created by flying together and by falling together and most certainly by saving each other from that fall by letting go. These I know to be true and they define how I have come to know love, be it with myself and a fellow predator. Sociopaths on a common flight.
Wondering who the man on the television is? Scan here to view the mystery for yourself!
A Quiet (Dis)Comfort
by Roy Barnes
hind. It wasn't until they squeezed and held the embrace so tight for such a length of time, that he finally noticed and came back to the now. Her grip felt like an angel's wings wrapping around him; the touch of her flesh against his own like his own little slice of heaven. Her voice that was where the real magic existed. He felt the warmth of her breath against his ear lobe, sending a shiver down his spine hard enough to make his legs quake. Her words, a whisper of comfort that he had never known. He never wanted to leave this moment. This brief, fleeting moment that he knew would end far
too soon. A voice from the other side of the door would end the moment, his eyes opening abruptly as he glanced towards it. The reply that left his lips was monotone and bland, something that he wouldn't be able to recall twenty minutes later if he had been asked. His roommate gave a sidelong glance at him as he exited the small bathroom alone.
An Unspoken Secret
water relaxing muscles far too tight and knotted while reddening the skin underneath its heat at the same time. The tiny box of a room, little more than a commode, sink and shower, had long since filled with steam so thick that even when he finally did manage to drag himself from the soothing warmth of the water, his vision was limited to things that were within a hand's breadth from his eyes. A tradition for as long as he could remember, he managed to navigate the room masterfully, finding the edge of the sink bowl and using it to brace his weight. Again, the water was turned on; the steam from the sink's hot water adding to what already hang in the air.
His tattooed hand reached up, smearing some of the moisture drops that had collected on the mirror
so he could see his own twisted visage. A nose crooked from being broken too many times, piercings in various spots around his features and eyes the color of darkened leaves as they lay upon the ground at the end of fall all stared back at him. Again, his head dipped downwards, spitting into the bowl of the sink before cupping the warm water to splash against his face. Staring into the sink bowl, he let his eyes close for a moment as his thoughts drifted backwards in time.
So far and so deeply back into his memories his mind drifted, that he barely even notices the warm
holding back all day came flooding out just at that moment. There were no tears streaming down his face, no heavy sobbing of his shoulders as he cried No. His pain his discomfort was entirely internal.
"I'm so sorry."
Inner Chaos
By Lord of Shadows
Broken bones Unanswered phones Make us Isolationary Thats how to find A cannibalistic state of mind Yea, water into wine A cannibalistic state of mind
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Cover photography by Paul Meir Werkmeister Model: Emily Nickel | www.MiserPhoto.com
ABOUT THE EDITOR: Dori Cameron is a member of The Jezebelles (www.GirlRockChoir.com), the worlds only GIRL.ROCK.CHOIR. based out of Riverside, California. She is a lemon-eating, Guinness drinking, bike enthusiast...and oh yea! She also writes!
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A subtle torture lies beneath the all-too-solid skull, The torture of unrealized becoming pains me nightly when the evening mist and moon call out and beckon me to leave behind the sullied flesh and mundane world to join them in an unreal union of mystic mind and primal power. Deep inside, immortal shadows pound against the cruel confines of human birth, inhuman life and dormant force unrealized. The spectral shadow trapped within forever presses, creeps and strains for liberation from common days and numbing nights trapped under lights. It sometimes rests but never weakens, growing with each sacred night spent in that divine dimension I create with moonlight, mead and music and one sublime, delicious evening, it will slip free and the transformation will be complete, beginning a new, Surreal eternity.
Maybe dragons had it right Attack attack attack and hide I am my own cross to bear
The fish apart - lick its scales Blood runs down the dragons tails