The literary magazine of Hagerstown Community College
David Yohman
Silent Sentry
A soldier stands watch in a cold dark place
He looks out on a cold dark night
A lone sentry keeping his friends safe
A chill goes up his spine
He sees movement in the cold dark night
He challenges the intruder from the cold dark place
Only to be pierced by a nameless face in the cold dark night
The soldier lies facedown in that cold dark place
Struck down by that nameless face
Nathaniel Philip
Code Blue
Bells ring,
Lights flash,
Sirens blare.
Adrenaline rushes.,
Vision tunnels.
Woman cries,
House fills.
Everything stops.
The automated voice breaks through the silence:
“No Shock Advised.”
Madness starts.
Clothes are cut,
Chest is compressed.
Sweat drips.
For him, we breathe.
For him, we beat.
The automated voice breaks through the silence:
“No Shock Advised.”
Knees buckle,
Tears drip.
Engines start,
Roads clear.
Two bodies left.
One life continues.
Even the voice is silent.
Aaron Ross
Speed of Light
Beating pulse, like a clock in your chest.
It is ticking, ticking like a timed race.
Leading up to this, you’ve found such zest.
But out of time, sweat drips down your face.
Your steadiness: a still and sunny sea.
Hush baby, hush and sharpen your eyes.
Raising your bow, you begin to see,
The eagle’s arrow glide through the skies.
The deer; in arrested flight.
Rustling, shuffling, distant.
Hit with the speed of light, such might, such plight.
No longer nonresistant.
Triumph, like sweet scents of clover.
Breathing, breathing in the air,
As you approach your take over.
Bow still in hand, none can compare.
With no time to spare,
Shame and regret set in like a collapsing chair.
Valerie Green
Is It Really Forever?
Is it love or lust?
When your body is against mine
Then you whisper the word trust
And everything seems fine
I am amazed by your charm
Your body built to please the eye
But when you wrap me in your arms
Thoughts wander through my mind
Are you faithful, do you tell lies?
For your actions speak louder than words
Your interest in us is a mystery
I do not know where we lie
You seem so persistent
But yet why
You sleep with other women
You never winked an eye
Until one became pregnant
Then it was good-bye
Forget the family you once loved
You say these things happen with time
However, is it just a lie?
Is history just repeating its lines?
The kids and I are left wondering why
Ariana Litten
My Greatest Treasure
On a wall inside my room
Hangs a Polaroid from long ago.
March 4th is the day—
The date handwritten below.
Among this photo
There are many things:
An alligator hand bag
And a seventeen hundred dollar ring.
If this house were to catch fire,
There is one thing to be had.
The Polaroid, inside my room,
Is the treasure I would grab.
In the photo there are two butterflies.
One is black; the other is blue,
Resting on a wicker chair.
You have never seen a more perfect two!
The wings of the blue
Are like a soft cotton sweater,
Untouched by a cruel child’s hand,
Not one sticky finger.
Green eyes so bright,
Long legs with toes dipped in black.
Its arm reaches for the other,
And the other reaches back.
Beside the blue, the black sits tall,
Wings wrinkled and tattered,
Shattered remnants of the past.
You can see the blue across its back.
Each blue spot has a unique shape—
One like a kidney, one like a lung.
Many others are scattered across
Like music notes in a song.
There is a scar
On the left side of its chest.
On the same side there is a gap,
Where the blue’s head does rest.
The mature black butterfly,
With antenna shortly clipped,
Sits elegantly in the crowd,
Teaching the other how to be missed.
Oh how sweet ignorance must be!
To be blind with eyes wide open!
To hear a hundred words,
But not one to be spoken.
However, this was not the case.
The black taught the blue many things
But most importantly
How to fly with grace.
Don’t roam the streets at night;
They will assume you to be a moth!
Fly where people will see you;
Let them admire your wings, at your own cost.
“Never let them touch you!” she would say.
That blue will fade to black!
That beautiful blue sweater
Will be stripped right from your back.
Remember to rest on the roses!
The creator made them too!
Stay close to other butterflies,
Ones just like you.
Now, observe a butterfly.
It has no home.
Don’t look away for just a moment,
For the next it will be gone.
But unlike that photo
That has begun to fade,
The memory of that black butterfly
Will never go away.
Sara Pietrzak
Waiting for a Second Chance / Never Alone
I am twenty-five and alone for the moment, but this is not the moment I want to be alone. Alone in a seventh floor hospital room, I am full of tentative hope. My doctor just came to tell me that after eighteen long months of surviving on hope, prayers, and sheer will today is the day I will receive a lifesaving double lung transplant. Buoyant in my hope, I am grounded by fear and something more—the knowledge that somewhere, maybe in this same hospital, a family is grieving because of my chance to live.
I call my husband, who tells me not to get too excited—most people waiting for a transplant have a false alarm—and that he will be here soon. The next call is to my mom and dad, telling them that they can begin the six hour drive from N.Y. and that I couldn’t have picked better parents if I tried. My voice cracks as I tell my dad that I love him. I talk to my sons; they are 6 and 2, too young to understand what’s about to happen, but I need to hear their little voices one last time. I need to say, “I love you,” maybe for the last time. I wish I could hold them, smell their little boy smell, and place “I love you” kisses on their cheeks.
The cleaning lady comes in and says, “Hi.” I have been here for three weeks, and we have become friendly. I tell her my news, and she drops her supplies to hug me, sputtering in Spanish words that I don’t know but comfort me nonetheless. Her smile feels like the sun right now. The transplant coordinators arrive with my husband, and things get busy very fast. New IVs are put in, and questions are asked. The coordinators speak as if I’m not even there, but it’s ok. My husband is there, and I am not alone. He is the dock where I am secured, steady on the turbulent, unsure sea.
Transplants require so much more than the patient, so the professionals disperse to handle the details. I hardly notice as the doctors, nurses, and coordinators leave us. Jim, my husband and hero, lies next to me on the hospital bed, and we just exist together. We don’t speak; there is too much to say. How do you distill a lifetime, a marriage, into words when they hang on an unspoken precipice?
My arm aches from the fresh frozen plasma being pushed through the IV into my veins. Hot packs, warm blankets, and a dangerous hope combat my need to complain. I feel unworthy of this chance at life, and yet I refuse to believe it will be anything but a success.
The nurses come to collect me. It’s time. I fervently wish my parents had made it; I want my dad to tell me that everything will be okay. Adorned with my pumps and tubes, I settle into the wheelchair. My husband is allowed to walk with me beside my wheelchair all the way to the operating room door. We refuse to say good-bye, but we eat each other’s face with our eyes, committing every feature to heart. His eyes are fathomless, holding emotions neither of us can name. A hug, kiss, and “I love you” later, I leave him behind to face the biggest unknown.
The operating room is freezing and busy. A million different people with a million different jobs don’t even notice I’ve arrived. My nurses, the ones who will care for me after surgery, are there, and the nurses and anesthesiologist responsible for me during the transplant are introduced. They are excited and friendly. Transplants are not an everyday occurrence, even at Johns Hopkins. I’m moved and clucked over. In the rush before, the floor nurses forgot to have me change from my flannel nightshirt into a hospital gown. I reluctantly surrender my last piece of home to assurances that it will go straight to Jim. It feels silly to be sad over an old, worn nightie, but it is the only thing that is mine in this foreign place.
Once I am dressed in a backwards gown, my nurses help me onto the operating table. I take as deep a breath as my sick lungs allow and lay on the impossibly narrow table. As the anesthesiologist explains what happens next, I am strapped onto my own crucifix – my arms spread from my sides. There isn’t much time to be concerned. My oxygen is removed, and a mask takes its place as a voice tells me to count backwards from one hundred. I only remember counting to eighty-seven.
Some people describe out of body experiences, visits from long lost loved ones, or even visits from angels. I have no such encounter. I am here, and then I am gone. It is as if a light switch is turned off and then back on again. There is no perceived passage of time, just a blink. For my family the night is much longer. Jim spends the duration of my surgery alone in an empty waiting room, the clock on the wall his only companion. My parents arrive just in time to see me wheeled out—a bump, bundled under blankets and machines, their little girl, alive for now and most definitely not alone.
Jessica Smith
The First Sign of Gray
“Eeeeeeek,” I shout
In my highest pitched voice.
Was it from the stress
Or maybe the three boys?
No –
Definitely from the daughter.
To get rid of this thing,
I swear I’d slaughter.
I hop on Facebook
To examine my friends.
The worst thing I see
Is a couple of split ends.
I can’t help but
Fail to understand.
I grip the thing tightly
In the palm of my hand.
Ewww!
I can feel it linger.
Its dense sense of aging
Grasps to my finger.
It permeates
Throughout my whole body.
I immediately feel sixty and
As if I should join the Medicare lobby.
Oh my gosh!
I know people will stare.
It looks so out of place
Being the only one there.
Goodbye, American Eagle.
Hello, C.J. Banks.
You know what? I’m cutting it all off.
I don’t care what anyone thinks.
Now my husband is going to leave me, and
I’ll have to buy a few more cats.
Or I could get it dyed
Or buy some fashionable hats.
Who am I kidding?
I might as well accept my defeat,
Start looking for walkers and
Make people with manners give me their seats.
I’m going to be the old lady
Eating at Bob Evan’s alone,
Pinching young boys’ cheeks
Until my body turns to stone.
My chest is pulsing rapidly.
I can barely catch my breath.
I better call Homewood and get an oxygen tank
Before I’m forced to greet Death.
I feel my hunchback begin to form and
My bones start to decay.
I soon feel too old for Crochet Club and
“Ya know, back in my day. . .
We used to hike fifty miles uphill, in the snow.”
Oh no! I’m turning into my mother.
I closely examine it in the mirror again.
Oh, brother!
I could see this from a mile away!
Maybe even four.
Well, not me, because I’m an old woman,
Who doesn’t have 20/20 vision anymore.
Next come the arthritis, dementia, and cataracts.
I’ll have to buy Depends because
I won’t be able to control how my bladder acts.
THOMP! I hear someone
Come in the front door.
Creek, creek. He’s coming up the steps.
Creek. Only five more.
Is it menopause already?
I guess that has come and left.
Maybe it’s my social security check
Or at this rate, maybe Death.
“Honey, you here?”
My husband calls from the top step.
Here, I look like Betty White, and
He looks like Johnny Depp.
With no time to improvise,
He opens the bedroom door.
With no surprise, he points out my gray hair,
Only to find more. . .