thecliffhanger.

(where sentences go to die)

Created by Dina Peone

the editors.

Dina Peone

Emma Duvall

Lauren Scheck

Alice Amundson

Sophia Manzi

the facilitator extraordinaire.

Corin Lockery

Sarah Lawrence CollegeBronxville, New York

the Cliffhanger (vol. 4)Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Lawrence College Student SenateAll rights reserved. Published 2014Printed in the United States of America

Contact the creator: dinapeone@gmail.comSubmissions accepted on a rolling basis.SUBMIT to cliffhanger@gm.slc.eduas a .word document or .jpeg file.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Designed and typeset by Dina PeoneCover Art (front: 1RETURN TO SENDER./back: FOUND: marbles) by Dina Peone

This book is set in Caecilia, designed by Peter Matthias Noordzij in 1991.

What exactly does that mean? Here we like it short and sweet. The Cliffhanger designates a space for the so-called in-between. This experimental pock-et-sized zine is the parenthetical limbo of creativity. Finally there is a home for the underdeveloped, those rootless shards of verse, sketches-in-progress. The interlude of consciousness, so to half-speak. Simplicity. Brevity. Here the fleeting or still-born ideas may retreat. (Mid-sneeze!) Submit your bits of dia-logue, micro fiction, run-on sentences that cling to suspense or nonsense, and fragments of poetry. You get it. Postcard riddles. Broken refrains that end far too…

We embrace the incom-plete.

CONTENTS

MILAH LIBIN · 6sky mihaylo · 11sam axelrod · 12

anne robertson · 14robert milby · 16

nicholas anselmo · 19 angelina peone · 20colette harley · 25lauren scheck · 28rachel eager · 30

ahna wayne aposhian · 33gina caputo · 34

hannah campbell · 39simona zaretsky · 40

mike oliveri · 42sophia manzi · 52anonymous · 55

marina marcello · 56 sarah mceachern · 58

alice amundson · 61emma duvall · 64

dina peone · 68

art by angelina peone · 41, 44, 47, 51, 54, 63, 67, 74, 75

art by sophia manzi · 53art by dina peone · 71

5

To the Reader:

We the hangers are ecstatic to offer 1RETURN TO SENDER., our fourth volume of fragments, which, in our still-born opinion, is the clearest example yet of our specific thematic aim: process.

Since our publication began in January 2013, the audience has expanded and adapted to the kind of submissions we seek. You are beginning to recognize and appreciate what it might mean to think in terms of flight.

We would like to thank the faithful lot of contributors and pocket-collectors who support our artistic vision year after year. You make this anthology what it is.

In May 2014, the founder will graduate. She sincerely hopes that the Cliffhanger. will not literally become the Sentence Graveyard it claims to be, mid-sneeze. With your devotion we can keep that locked in parentheses.

Special thanks to Emma Duvall, co-founder, who is taking over the graveyard shift, and thanks to all the new editors on board.

Please, dig in!

— hanger # uno.

6

CITY POEMS (ongoing)

Milah Libin

1

Sweet dreamswhen the lights go outand a cherry red shadowis cast on your bare back from the stop lightblinking through the curtains.How can I stay mad?When every day is an endless

streamof rooms, and I’m afraidyou are going to die.

7

2

Two birdssit atop the treeoutside my windowshaking off the rain.But they must like it,because there they sitshaking, shaking,soaking wet, their beakspointed towards the white sky.

8

3

I’m so glad my boyfriend isan only child.

4

Young black man on the subwaywearing sweatshirt that reads:“God belongs in my city”

9

5

Same conductor13 times in themorning.the 8th time he saidhow are you?We smile atone another.This is a secret.

10

6

It smells likeleatherwhen the leaves fall.Deep burnt rubyfalling past my faceon the walkto the train.

7

Fire in the tunnel.Fire in the tunnel.

11

Ellipsis Sky Mihaylo

We were a missed conversation

Heated contact With hellos and how are you’s

removed Weeks of what’s your favorite

never learnedHours of fake laughs and smilesWith no jokes to be found

We weren’t broken by shoulda, coulda, woulda’s

We weren’t whole to begin with

12

FLATLINERS Sam Axelrod

We used to play this game where one of us would pretend to die. We’d be cuddling on the couch watching a boring movie and she’d start gagging and convulsing and overdramatically pass out into my lap. I’d act as if it were an emergency and get all frantic and give her romantic CPR, my tongue somehow searching for the problem, thus restoring her back to life. I should’ve known we were doomed the time, last April, when I flopped dead in her arms and she didn’t bother to resuscitate me.

13

STOP PARKING

When I was parked sitting in the car and I couldn’t stop thinking about her and my heart was heavy and my stomach burned and my eyes stung and my scalp itched and my teeth ached and there was nothing that would console me, it was then, and only then, that I was certain I was making the right decision.

14

Anne Robertson

I hope you see tonight the honey moon

or you will have to

*

You remember too closely the sound of traffic like the loudest surgery.

Listen, my voice is

*

I don’t like loud sounds because I think I was a gunshot in a past life.

*

15

we are teeth hidden barely by spring-board lips,

*

no-one’s ever seen the universe from this angle

exit organs, enter 24 hours

*

If in nights, I let go of what I gave to my stomach,

it means I am releasing sandbags I found under a woman’s eyes.

*

Winter is less kind than before.My face is chipping but there is

no David beneath.

16

from Interstadial Love Song Robert Milby

The freeze ate more than skin; leaves, animals, plants—Summer breath.

*

A nuclear melted Ozone hole above the Pole—

Expanding and contracting; mere pinprick, even with seraphs flying

In and out for reclamation, cannot but hasten the return of a great Winter.

...

17

...

And the zenith of civilization—Science and the Arts, shall not save cryogenically

Slain children of Earth. Eternal Ice-Sleep—against their will—immured Icedeep—

Eternal chill.Metropolitan zoo—frozen.Glacial till from Mohave—carried

to quiet farmland of Illinois and Wisconsin.

New boreal Forests! Rise in crisp, coarse air.

* As promised by Shaman at the

grand fertility rites, when the oldest midwife

Recounted the lean years of stillborn babes; of young Mothers who could not

Nurse, we wait for the Return!

18

Religion

He had a key to the church.Knew the sacristy, even in the

dark.Marlboro’s on the porch, even the

nave.A knave on the porch, even in the

dark.

Transubstantiation

19

Nicholas Anselmo

I almost committed a violent actlike shadow boxing or catcallingthe name of someone precious

*

the spitting image of a loose flannel

let me down

gently

20

Angelina PeoneHe had fallen intohimself

Like an unfinished paintingColours he ran out of

*

And I feel like slumping over on my sidehalf the time

like a flower that would never be picked

21

She was / sparkling / happy // laughing / laughing // woke up with / mysterious bruises

*

flickerlips / liquid wet // taste you sizzle / moan / white lace // naked, ready

*

“Someday,when you’re older,”she would say.

...

22

And older came,

and older came...

*

pleniluniosei belloun buco nel cieloche mi fa impazzire

full moon / you are beautiful / a hole in the sky / that drives me crazy

23

One Way

We live on a One Way road near the train tracks

At the intersection of sin & innocence

Where young children play in the streets at night

& Olde Men smoke their cigarettes outside of bars

Watched over only by the Mountains

...

24

...

And the train rattles by but barely shakes the grass,

Hanging on for dear life under the patter of little bedtime slippers

Quiet riddled with laughter whispers past the door

And children have the most curious faces

When they walk by and think I’m a ghost in the window

25

Colette Harley

Doe-eyed finger spread spiders falling out

Of my mouth onto the pavement he’s singing in his sleep again.

How did I end up claustrophobic afraid of strangers and interacting with unfamiliar things?

The window cracks under the pressure of his finger pads as the sun retreats

wounded, only to rise again the next day.

I am sitting in my bathroom trying to exist on oxygen alone.

He is nowhere to be found he left the dishes in the sink. They

grow mold because I cannot get up to wash them

*

26

I am constantly comparing opposites in my life

perhaps to understand contrast better.

The difference in the shadesof blue you turn when your blood

is too thin. I think about you in the shower.I want to touch the west coast

with my finger tips. I feel the pull of geography on my

spine It makes me sick to think about

you.Life no longer defined by season The night you tried to die I was

300 miles away.I held your hand through the

telephone as your thoughtsbubbled out through a hole in

your throat ...

27

I was fourteen years old again,still in love after all these years.Why don’t you just drop dead?

*Home is the last place I bought

gas, the last place I fell asleep listening to the sound of your name.

The last place I wanted to be the last place I wanted to die.

Home is not where I was born, it’s not where I belong, it’s an idea I am constantly trying to escape.

*

I don’t think about you that often.I think about you all the time.This is not a poem about dying.

28

4 fragments for distance Lauren Scheck

somewhere on the Pacific,a boy with round glassesis washing his mouth out with

salt water

& i am thinking about kissinghis bloody teeth

*

little girls everywhererun around in summer dresseswith goggles strapped to their

foreheads& he makes me feel like one of

them

*

29

he liked that i laughedwhen i shouldn’t have been laughing

maybe it’s inappropriatenessthat keeps mashing us together

*

i am sick of hiskeyboard. dead air on Skypewhile he drinks a fly

30

Rachel Eager

every time you blink, you experience the world anew. each opened eye being born again. the way the world creates patterns, a rhythm, a heartbeat so intrinsic you didn’t even realize you’ve been keeping steady time to this song all your life, from the beginning and from before. the way you leave marks, 10 skin cells, one strand of hair, a few words stolen by the wind, an idea planted into the dirt like the fall of an acorn, a love, a family, 206 bones. the way certain things never really leave but only keep circling back, a sweet déjà vu of broken pine needles and dirty shoes and the quiet reassurance of the rising sun.

31

*

I know I’m high because when I rub my bare feet together, it’s heaven. The action rings the nerves along the smooth topside of my foot and the pressed sliding tickles my brain. I’m not at home in case you’re wondering. You should be wondering.

*

everyone thinks you’re dead but I’m just crazy enough to call your phone and there you’re alive telling me hello I’m sorry I missed your call but I hope you’re having a nice day and I’m standing with a phone cord wrapped around my neck telling you about this movie I think you’d like where...

32

...the main character gets lost in an aquarium and while studying a fish he somehow becomes a fish on the other side of the glass and he’s looking out at all the people passing by and he wonders if he was a fish all along he just didn’t know it and he runs into the glass trying to get the people’s attention for help but no one can hear him and there’s a beep and my time is up and everyone thinks you’re dead but you’ve had me just crazy enough and I call again and hello I’m sorry and again hello I’m sorry I missed you and again… I hope you’re having a nice day I say and you just listen for the tone.

33

from Little Boy Lost(Transitions)

Ahna Wayne Aposhian

And so at the end of the day, I loved what he hated: himself. His face in the mirror, the voice my body responded to, the way my mother loved him— to him, these things were either nothing or not enough. I was able to step back to admire, but he was trapped, blistering in the hairshirt that was his own skin. While I praised his progress, he brushed it off, saying it was nothing. The toothpick arms, this voice like a child’s, soft, smooth skin, the bottom half of his body: these were enemies I could never understand.

34

just a trick of the light, I hope Gina Caputo

Pulling away, “It seems like you’ve imagined this,” you said after hanging my red coat to dry (it hadn’t been raining) after the walking and the waiter and the “we’ve been circling each other for a while” you had said after we spent the movie looking at my hand closer closer

*

say i’m standing in place, only not really in place in the sense of staying perfectly still okay because the earth is always spinning on its axis in a crude circle and the axis is moving too because the earth is always...

35

...going around the sun elliptically and the sun is in constant do-si-do with an unidentified partner in the Milky Way okay, so say i’m standing still to the best of my ability at a relatively fixed point on planet Earth and i’m winging around galaxies without lifting a finger or having wings, really, when are those arriving in the mail from Amazon they said they would get here any day now, i’ve really got to keep track of those things better, so just okay who can tell me what else i’ve passed through, like has this fixed point in space housed a glutted shopping mall or a sea turtle’s murky shell or clumps of dull Martian dust or else the jagged teeth of some faraway star

36

*

and you kissed my forehead! For a time I thought you were so generous but now I think it’s a trick anyone can master, given advance notice and the right light

*

[6:24:25] There is something in my shoe and the longer I keep at it (pause 1.2 sec)

[6:24:29] John, we can’t go back, you’ll have to make up the time, keep up

[6:24:33] (silence)

[6:24:42] (rasping now) I can’t find it anymore, where did it go? Henny was at the waterfall last I

...

37

...

[6:24:50] (shuffling) You gotta keep moving

[//(concurrent with above) Easy, easy there, it’s just a trick of the light

[6:24:55] No, isn’t that (pause 3.0 sec)

[//(concurrent with above) Who are you talking about?

[6:25:01] I mean (pause, emphasis) isn’t that

[6:25:04] (silence)

[6:25:15] I thought (pause 3.5 sec) weren’t you up at the river when

...

38

...

[6:25:23] (silence)

[6:25:27] It’s just a trick of the light, I’m sure of it

*

Incredible, folks, absolutely incredible. Wasn’t she fantastic? Come on, don’t be whiny, it was just a bit of friendly misting! No one melts in a little water, right? All righty, folks, settle down. For my next trick, I’ll need a hanky, a lovely member of our studio audience, and a small bucket of LIVE

39

Hannah Campbell

Trust me, I haveten fingers and tentoes.

*There was a little babyrat on the streettoday, the street sweeperwas startled and I toldhim to save it butI don’t think thathe did.

*I’ve no idea how to carefor a rhino. Things like thatcannot be researched, noneof my friends have answers.

*

40

Elephant’s Hierophant Simona Zaretsky

Carries his tusk,Calls encouragementTo a delicate beastA butterfly with tusks.Screams melodies of loveDeclares affection worth killing ForWhile holding a box of chocolatesIn the shape of tearRed red velvetStretched tightOver flimsy cardboard.

*

Like a sunrise in my mouth…

Raspberry

41

art by Angelina Peone

42

On a Beach: A Seagull, Trapped in a Suitcase. Mike Oliveri

How it came to find itself in this stifling, velvety embrace is a mystery beyond its comprehension. Baking as it is in a leather oven on the sand.

Stick a fork in me. I’m nearly done.

Caws choked out creep through the cracked clasps of the leather bag. “Just what was your business, man?”

...

43

...

It aches. It longs for salt-air and sky. Stalling on the breeze, wheeling to dive. Fish and freedom. Mostly the fish. Movement. Fulfillment. That is its wish.

The ocean laughs gently,Lapping the shore.A sympathetic screech ripsThe air once, no more.A sweltering birdPecks at the clasp,A tattered valise prisonHolding it fast.

The coming night won’t set you free,

But its coolness might bring some reprieve.

*

44

art by Angelina Peone

45

Sometimes, when it snows IStand under the streetlightsAnd spin— Spin

Until the flecks of white andThe sheet of night

Form a funnelA tunnelA birth canal

I’m ready for my second life.

*

I slide sideways through several scenarios; my mind describes an arc around the either/or.

Ah, well. Nothing more.

46

Maybe, for once, honesty will avail me. What I want to say. What I’m trying to say—

Hang on;

let me order drinks first.

*

The best we can hope for is to stumble gracefully.

*It’s not a cure, but still, a balmAn ointment for these bleeding

palmsA wishing-well, a gift of almsTo dull the heartache into psalms *

47

t

art by Angelina Peone

48

Super Moon

Super moon—What’s special about it?Its light is mere reflection,Its brilliance an illusion,Not borrowed, but stolen.Once taken, vainly given.It casts a witch-light piecemeal,Most often in shards and slivers.It starves the eye for weeks so weAre more bewitched by its

fullness,And taken enough with the lie to

forgetHis light is stolen.

...

49

...

Turn now to Polaris.Do you know it?Can you find it?The sea-star, the lode-star,The fixed-star.Not truly fixed but near enoughTo guide those souls who dare

exploreUncharted waters.Her light is hers alone;She employs no artifice.Yet though she’s proven honestAnd served faithfully for

centuries,Few now glory her with tales and

songsBut stubborn old sailors;Their hearts open harbors for

ancient truths.

50

At Midnight

It came like a memoryLike a corpse floating on the seaUp from the deepFrom some hidden crack where

knowledge sleepsAnd through our dreaming seepsInto consciousness, and being

I bolted upright into wakingIntent to draw it inThis thought, this ghoul that had

been waitingWaiting, for me to swimIt slipped my net, once more

submergingBefore I ever reached my pen.

51

art by Angelina Peone

52

Sophia Manzi

Radical is what they call meBut myself is all I’ve ever tried to

be.

*

The house couched between the E and the X won’t let me be.

I wonder if anyone is home… and if anyone ever exits

53

photography by Sophia Manzi

54

t

art by Angelina Peone

55

Anonymous

I have been skinned alive; I love it

My flesh growing anew, shinier than before

The mirror doesn’t expose lack of skin; it reveals skin emergent, flowering, what I will be, what I am.

56

The Way It Goes Marina Marcello

There are those who star in my dreams

And we make lists of the things we’ll do

But it is those things that point Me wrong. The ones for whomI make these wishes

Are never hitsAnd always misses

57

from A List of Perfectly Reasonable Clichés

I want the Phillies to play betterWhen we’re together

*La lune de ta vieShekh ma shieraki anni

*

I see you in dreams within dreams—

Falling to the floor… *

Your wit complements my quirks

Even if you’re an ax murderer

58

You asked me to write to you Sarah McEachern

Writing poems in search barsmy feet are covered in blisters

I am sitting next to someone I do not like

I am too afraid to ask them to move

Writing love letters in French

avoir étre to have to be

59

Sidewalk Strangers

I am writing poems in my head while falling asleep.

Densely populated sidewalks full of people.

Bumping into strangersand remaining strangersafter we get a feel of each other.I sent someone a letter the night

afterthey slept beside me in my bed.Leaving indiscernible bits of rubberall over Manhattanfrom walking on sidewalk after

sidewalk.I wrote in the front of a bookthat I wanted to be friends with youwith the same intensityforever.Asleep in places that aren’t beds...

60

from How to Fall into a Hole with a Partner*

3. You kiss me and I kiss you back. I am laughing. You are serious.

6. the complexities of feeling are understood by blinking in close proximity to one another.

7. I am leaving. You are leaving. You have already left. I am gone.

*Editor’s note: these excerpts were chosen from a list of 1-7.

61

Bee as Drowning Ice Skater Alice Amundson

The open windowsare like holes in a sheet of icecovering a winter pond–

the bee buzzes around the pane(the monotonous noise momentarily interrupted

whenever she collides with the metal

frame)unable to find the aperturefrom where she first fell into my room.

62

How come we never had a swing set? I wonder as we pass a threadbare house behind the train tracks, and a swing set– its plastic frame sagging under the burden of time– in the backyard.

63

t

art by Angelina Peone

64

Postcards Emma Duvall

what was it I meant to sayin the empty kitchen that

morning—something about eggs? I think you know at least how the

sunlightdrained onto cold linoleum,how the house breathed aroundme, a silence of clocks andcool air. I think the best thingabout yolk is how it holds

togethereven when rattled thin by a fork.maybe that was the question:not why is it so quiet here butwhen will the stirring stop?

65

*

the sweetness that lingersupon the air after pouring a cup of sugar— that’s what I

wantto mail you, something tasted without tasting.when I kneel beside the gardenI find holes in half of the tomatoes— that cat birdeats and moves on. Not likeme, pressing my tongueto empty space overthe teapot, inhaling a scentsaccharine, dissolved.

66

*

the sound of a mouth unanswered

colors the rooms like cicadasor static, heard to the point of silence. my wet feet bruise the wood floor black.it is not rain, but the lackof soil to soak throughthat frustrates: always these puddles in the corner of vision.always raw roots of trees grasping for stones in earth. to find oneself sleeping in half-closed eyes of houses,always the flooded basement, and

mold.

*

67

art by Angelina Peone

68

Dina Peone

In the bookstore: a woman holding an issue of “Wild Life” is sound asleep.

In the Wild: a Bengal tiger is tranquilized for study.

69

PURGATORY CORNERS, XYPERSONALS

• Wetpuzzlepieceseeksbigger picture

• Self-loathinglonerneedsfriendtohold

mirror

• Lostintransit,followedthewrong

face

• Improperfractionintheprocessofsimpli-

fication

• Shewhokicksthroughpilesofash desires another

match (please)

70

Nodding out behind the Help DeskShe will file your complaints

71

photography by Dina Peone

72

The Password Is

I watched a moth slip into a vent.Now I know a secret.

On the train they lower their heads

except to present their tickets.

I have to laugh under my breathfor only I am permitted.

73

Tired of unresponsive men, she took up knife-throwing.

Her ad in the Thrillseeker Quarterly requesting a full-time volunteer garnered four responses— one from a recently retired skydiving instructor, which came in the form of a singing telegram; another from a professional alligator wrestler, who boasted that he’s never been pinned. She received a mysterious package from a bomb squad technician (which she chose not to open), and lastly a postcard of the Bronx Zoo from a high school janitor.

“Perhaps I’ll swallow swords instead,” she sighed over cereal. “At least then I’ll get an ooh or an ahh.”

74

75

art by Angelina Peone

76

“Do you remember your dreams?” she asked me, painting her toenails black on the floor with her back against my little brass bed. That’s when I went lucid. Her legs slowly disappeared. She, tttrembling, dropped the brush. Her mouth, too, fell and stretched into a void of surprise at the idea— hers or mine— that she was nothing besides.

77

Every year on her birthday her father sends her a cake

that she doesn’t touch for fear of poison,

love, or both.

78

from Ii

(ī, ī,). noun. the ninth letter and third vowel of the English alphabet. [I may have begun as an arm in Semitic hieroglyphs.] ii. The organizing principle by which the human ego claims ownership of a body. iii. In mathematics, an imaginary unit.

e.g. I have been a good boy this year.

Or: i2 = −1

...

ix. A secret makes the untrained eye twitch, i.e. What if we move to a new house?

79

If: (īf). conjuction. just in case that; on condition that; well we might as well suppose that; ii. Even though. iii. Whether. iv. (Used in an exclamatory phrase).

If only the morning would arrive sooner!

Or: If you do not go to bed, he is watching.

...

Editor’s note: The man is a rule breaker. An escape artist (see diagram, pp. 81-∞). What does distance mean to him whose belt could choke Orion? Our stockings and bellies get full, yet his blue eye is a black hole not to be measured. Better just leave some milk and cookies.

80

EYE WITNESS STATEMENT 46029The Case of the Missing Hipster

“Yeah, I saw him, but I wasn’t sure if I was looking at a man or a woman. Looked more like a blur, really.

“What? Around ten o’clock. He was tall, I think... and wearing a dirty blazer... Holding something close to his chest.

“Huh? It was shiny, kind of shaped like a toaster. Told me not to move ‘OR ELSE SLICED BREAD.’ I was pretty scared. I mean, I almost wetted my pants but then you guys showed up, thank God!

“I think he went thatta’ way, toward the woods. Those are his glasses... Am I going to be on TV?”