Shenu Kathymoon, Author at Blue Marble Review

One Last Time

By Shenu Kathymoon

My bag is cluttered with uncapped black pens, a conventional banana, and an old journal. I eat breakfast, slowly peeling away the skin of the freckled, dark yellow fruit. It is slightly smushed on the top, but the more bruised it is, the more sugar I will taste. It sits in my mouth sweet and smooth and I swallow nervously when my right leg begins to twitch uncontrollably. My craving for sweet becomes sour when I chew my cheeks. If I hold in everything, I’ll be okay. The antenna of the banana falls on my thigh and I stand to throw my plate of oatmeal away, but before I rise, my anxiety does. I stay seated.

We are dismissed later than usual and as I walk alone towards the glass doors, I catch a reflection before everyone swings it open. I should straighten my frizzed hair and scrub the yogurt stains from my jeans.

Perhaps my obsessive behavior gets the better of me, but it helps me to be calm. I like bananas and apples and oranges because it takes time to get to the core. It takes time to get through all the fiber. It takes time to be fulfilled.

During the day, I spend my time with my friends. From past experience, I find that everyone loves good company, but not when it’s not benefiting them. I guess there’s something selfish about being possessive over someone and wanting their attention 100%. It takes effort, but when I go all-in, I expect my friends too. But I guess that’s not how every relationship works. If I come across someone in my life that devotes some time to me, I appreciate it like hell.

One of my friends likes sitting under trees and talking about them, absorbing every branch as if they were the veins in her arms and observing every pattern on the leaves as if they were creases on her Led Zeppelin t-shirt.

“I gotta go back, I need to write about that tree we just passed,” she says, and she walks backwards and into the maze of cabins.

My heart rate has slowed down a bit since breakfast. I am grateful that the river is sparkling like shiny vanilla mousse beside a flickering candle. That candle being the sun; orange and alike, I wonder how beautiful it must be on the inside if I were to peel back its layers. It would be dark red like my shorts and not the color of blood but the color of royal enigma, waiting to be understood.

I rest my head on the riverbanks and I wait until my friend meets me by the canoes. The substantial end to my thoughts are like damaged neurotransmitters; I am in need and I am disappointing. I’ve accepted some things about myself that I cannot change. My plate of food in the early morning, my clothes when it’s warm outside or chilly inside, the people I choose to spend my time with are all things I can tweak and adjust to my liking. But I wonder if anyone had to tweak me like a rough draft of a story, would they like me with my hair short or my hair long? Am I just a plain package, camouflaged like a crumb on a large plate? If there’s one thing I am never short of, it’s promises and I promise that they would find that beneath the honey mocha skin, I am blue and I am burning.

Shenu Kathymoon is a writer and poet, attending Miami Arts Charter. She has been published in numerous magazines and literary journals such as Rattle Young Poets Anthology, Creative Communications, Critical Pass Review, and more as well as Silver & Gold Keys in Scholastics. She was born in Sri Lanka, but is raised in Miami.

The Universal Donut

By Stuti Kute

I am walking through a supermarket aisle and I sit down — for no reason, of course. It is utterly nauseating how science has let me down, over and over again, and trampled over this kiddo’s dreams. They say that this universe is a big— like a really big gap that’s black with some humongous light-emanating stars at every nook and crook, here and there. And what? Even the Greeks had it better — don’t mind the chaos, nonetheless.

Here’s the thing, I hold every science notion of how stuff works by its ankles, upside down over a cliff and loosen my grip until it slips from my palms and oops! — might as well relish the girly scream. Good riddance.

The universe is a donut. A big, fat, succulent donut straight from the fantasies of every American cop. While humanity is the icing.

So beautiful is this truth and such intoxicating and sensual concoction is this icing — all luscious and colourful with seven billion flavours. I assume that you, who are reading this, are among the icings— Vanilla. The person across the table at the café you are in, maybe she is raspberry. While I, who stands presently in spirit just beside your right elbow with my dog and peek into my own work — I am chocolate.

Now that I have made you a teensy bit aware of my speculations, the insignificancy of the problems of everyday— the barista at Starbucks who didn’t quite hear that you wanted it NOT to be decaf (Who wants to be stuck with a venti decaf?), or that mall cop high on Red Bull and giving you a migraine with his SEAL behaviour, or being stuck in a horrid traffic without an audiobook— I am sorry to say but these are just a part of that intoxicating icing. All these commonplace wound-ups and things that get you furious, are they really worth it? Look at it as a speck of icing dust on a relatively larger speck of icing dust on the largest speck of icing dust of all — you. You are a flavour in yourself. So very important to the flavour of the universe-donut. Hence it is of utmost important— of universal importance, that you retain that flavour.

As, for some reason, I am in a supermarket. After recovering from the trauma of getting bullied by science and his cronies, I am up and going again. I pass the aisle of emotions where I stop for window-shopping, because I really don’t buy into that stuff. The shelves of hate, avarice, envy and lust are so very crowded that I want to stop, drop the jar of peanut butter in my left hand and yell for all I am worth, that it’s not worth it. You guys are spoiling the net flavour of the universe. Just a hint of cinnamon is good, needed even. But stuff goes wrong when it begins to overpower. Go to the shelf of love. That beautiful thing, lined with antiques of age so old that no one even remembers.

And with one glorious sweep of your muscular arm, hoard the entirety of the shelf’s content in your cart. SWOOSH and SWOOSH.

Arm yourself with love, wear love’s armour and helmet, shod your feet with sneakers of love and put on a smile and take over the world, my love.

When I say love, I do not necessarily mean romantic love — no Jack and Rose, or Romeo and Juliet. That’s another shelf altogether, all gooey and cheesy and puffed with pink powder and loads of Chanel no. 5. I mean love for everything that is alive. As well as the air of the mountains and the water in the lakes and that beautiful oak in the backyard. That kind of love. My kinda love.

From behind your right elbow, me and my dog have floated from around your back, to the left and now I give you a gentle nudge— go, my friend, be the flavour you want to be. I never said that these came inbuilt in your default factory settings. If you want, be chocolate or raspberry or vanilla. You can also be one of those originals— chicken waffles and what not. I wouldn’t care, as long the original remains authentic.

But don’t forget love. Never forget love— my kinda or your kinda.

Stuti is a tenth grader from Mumbai who currently likes nothing better than an idle morning hour with a cup of coffee, a little notebook and a quiet little alcove in her favourite cafe. Give her an iced latte and she will sprinkle it with sarcasm with a hint of secret sly remarks which are too inappropriate for public exhibition (Tongue in the cheek; twirling her glasses). She believes that a woman who wears no perfume has no future (Coco Chanel, of course) and is a feminist to every definition of it. Oh, and she is lactose sensitive but likes most ardently, the sound of a latte.

What Practice Makes

By Meghan Rennie

“Are you ready?”

I nod. Readjust my grip and nod again. Bend my knees a little. Nod once more.

This time I’ll do it. There’s nothing holding me back.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Liesel shouts from the pitcher’s mound in a rare show of concern. “You’re bad at baseball. So what?” She repeats, “You don’t have to do this.”

But I do, I do. And I’ve already done everything I can to help my chances: I switched bats, I switched balls, I tried it left and right handed, I used different swinging techniques. Now I have the combination of variables that work best. This has to be the one.

Lord so help me, I will hit that ball.

“April! Are you listening?”

“Yes, yes. I can do this!”

“If you don’t though, remember that it’s okay—”

“Just throw the damn ball!”

I’m angry now. I mean, I’ve been angry ever since Gym class, where I found out how truly bad I am at using a bat.

(“How could you not know how to hit a ball?” Liesel asked then, taking her baseball cap and turning it backwards on her head. “You know how to do everything.” “Shut up,” I answered her, brilliantly.)

I’ve been angry the whole afternoon. But now, out on the school ball diamond quite some time after classes have ended, “borrowing” the gym equipment and using my best friend as a pitcher-slash-coach, my anger has been simmered to the perfect point. I pack my rage into a tiny combustion chamber in my chest. It will fuel me, and fuel my bat, and fuel the baseball as I hit it out of Earth’s atmosphere. I can do this. I can do this.

I nod for the fourth time. I strengthen my grip. And Liesel, after an overindulgent eye-roll, relents. She throws the ball.

It flies forward. I give it everything I’ve got.

It’s a clear miss. My bat keeps searching, straight and blind, and the force of it pivots me against the dirt. I spin in nearly a full circle then yell out at the diamond, “God dammit!”

“Told ya!” Liesel calls back, her usual smug self. I point the bat at her, trying to think of a comeback, then give up, tossing it away. It clanks hollowly against the packed dirt.

Turning around, I stare at the baseball, which has hit the jangly chain-link behind me and come rolling back. I don’t know what to do, so I kick at the dirt with my sneaker until a bit of dust comes up. Then I walk over to the bat and pick it up again.

“One more time,” I say. Liesel groans, but I ignore her, grabbing the baseball and throwing it back to the pitcher’s mound—throwing is something I’m good at, at least. I return to home plate and get into my stance, nodding, gripping the bat’s handle.

“I’m ready!”

Liesel squints and pulls her body back before throwing. I focus on accuracy. I don’t need a home run, I just need a hit. Anything.

The ball bears down on me. I swing.

And I miss.

I don’t spin around this time. I don’t throw anything, I don’t curse. I just inhale; close my eyes, and groan, sighing out until my lungs are empty. When I open my eyes again, Liesel is walking back from the mound.

“Sometimes you have to face the facts,” she says, reaching home plate.

“I don’t want to give up yet.”

“I know.” She wraps an arm around my neck and leans on me. She grins. “You’re too stubborn.”

“Do you need to head home now?”

“Nah,” she lies. “I do need a snack break, though. And we can even work on homework. Do something you’re actually decent at.”

“. . . Fine.”

She smiles. Still draped around me, she leads me off the diamond, towards the bench with our backpacks resting on it. Her skin is warm against mine. It makes me buzz.

We take our backpacks farther out onto the field and sit cross-legged side-by-side, grass prickling our bare skin. It’s hot out; we’re both wearing clothes that let us feel as cool as possible while still abiding the dress code. I’m wearing a pink tank top and shorts, and Liesel has overalls, a white shirt, and a sky-blue baseball cap. Adding that to her straight, dirty-blond hair and the freckles on her nose, she’s the poster child for “summer tomboy”.

I’m not a poster child for anything—looks-wise, at least. I’m too busy to bother with fashion.

Liesel has pulled our textbooks out, although we both know they won’t be used—Liesel hasn’t opened hers since the second day of school, and I’ve already reviewed mine and made notes with better wording and summarization. I pull those notes out and read over them aloud, hoping some of it will happen to stick in Liesel’s mind. I know she doesn’t care about the upcoming exams at all, but I can’t help caring for her. I don’t have enough worry for myself, apparently.

Liesel understands what I’m doing and seems to try to pay attention, but after a while she lies down and I get the sense she’s lost interest. I keep talking anyway, to help me remember but also to give my mouth something to do. I go through subject after subject until my notes have all been read, then I try to recite facts by memory. When I’ve done enough of that, I start talking about my extracurriculars: piano lessons, dance class, student council. Things like that.

I run my mouth until my throat feels sore. It’s something Liesel and I do sometimes, when we’re bored and have nothing better to waste time on. I talk until I lose my point, until I’m only speaking for the sake of speaking, as we both stare up at the wide swipe of sky above us.

“April?” Liesel murmurs.

“Yes?”

“You have a nice voice.”

I look at her, and immediately glance back up. Liesel gets this way sometimes, when she’s leaning against me and we can feel each other breathing and something inside her just melts, for a moment. I’ve seen it in other places, too—backstage before the school play where our hands almost touch, right before we get our cues; days in the gym changing room where we’re both aware of how blatantly we’re not staring. Times like that.

She gets this way, and so do I. I think we both know what it means. What it could mean, what it would mean, if we acted on it.

What it will mean is that we will continue to be best friends for years to come, always close but never colliding, running parallel and living our good lives and not interfering with anything when I have worked so hard to make my life perfect—

Liesel’s great. But it isn’t worth it.

Thinking about it too much makes me stomach-sick. I need to distract myself.

Liesel is dreamy-eyed and staring at the clouds. “Are you sure your dad doesn’t want you home?” I ask, knowing full well that he does.

“No way.” Her voice is still mushy. “Aren’t you the one with all of the extracurriculars you need to be doing, anyway? You can’t be late to your lesson where you recite the digits of pi while composing piano music while riding a horse. Or whatever.”

“I’ve got a day off. My instructor’s on vacation.”

“Must be nice.”

“Liesel,” I say.

“Yes?”

“I want to try again.”

She groans. Thank God I’ve snapped her back to normal. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I stand up and lean over her, disrupting her vision. She flops an arm over her eyes to block me out. Then she starts getting up.

We pack our things into our backpacks and head back to the diamond. “This is the last time,” I promise her. “Just one pitch. I’ll see if I can hit it. Then we’re done.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m serious.”

She stops and looks at me for a moment. Something in my expression tells her I really mean it. No more do-overs this time. It’s now or never.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll pitch.”

I head to home plate, grabbing the bat and positioning myself: Readjusting my grip, bending my knees, backing up the slightest bit. Readjusting my grip again. I can feel my pulse in the base of my palms. It taps against the bat.

Liesel takes her time picking out what she deems to be the best ball at the pitcher’s mound. She’s taking this as seriously as I am, for once—I can’t remember a time before where I actually promised her a do-or-die moment. She grabs a ball and looks back at me.

Mentally evaluating my body, I feel the urge to readjust once more. I ignore it and squint out at the horizon line. The day is starting to slow down, to cool off, to tint orange in the nearly-but-not-quite-setting sun. Normally, I’d have left school grounds a lot earlier. By now I’d be finishing up whatever lesson I was in. I would head home for dinner with my family, spend some time texting or reading or procrastinating. Practicing a hobby, maybe. Doing things with Liesel or without Liesel, always accomplishing something new, checking achievements off of lists. Then I would go to bed and start over again the next day.

I stare Liesel down. And I nod, just once.

She nods back. Moves her body, perfectly, and throws. I hold my breath. The ball comes, I see my chance. And in my do-or-die moment, everything feels clearer. And in my do-or-die moment, I know exactly what matters.

The ball is rushing forward, and it’s coming and it’s coming and it’s coming—

Meghan Rennie is a fifteen-year-old writer, musician, and art enthusiast, who has an affinity for cats and chocolate oranges. Her work has previously appeared in The Claremont Review, Skipping Stones Magazine, and The Courier.

From the Editor

By Molly Hill

Dear Writers and Readers,

It’s been pretty gray and slushy in our part of the world. Monochromatic. Lots of old snow and black ice—typical January. Not to worry though, we’re bringing you a collection of poems this month that’s arriving just in time.

While we don’t have theme issues, we’d like to dedicate this particular issue to the concept of escapism: the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy. (Merriam-Webster)

There’s so much change happening this month, and for those of us in the U.S., well we’re having a significant “administrative” change. It’s hard to know how to be and lots of suggestions: mindful, resilient, resistant—the list goes on.

Enter our ten creative poets and one incomparable artist. Farah, Vivian, Maya, Arah, Melody, Emily, Katrin, Moira, Peter, and Rachana—thank you for your wit, vulnerability and imaginative poems. And cover artist Karen Ahn (karenahn.com) sent us artwork saturated in color, magic and talent. This is a slimmer issue but we think you’ll agree there are gems here. Our gratitude to these contributors and to all of our submitters. The future looks to be in good hands.

Enjoy the escape.

Molly Hill

Editor

Dismantled

By Rachana Hegde

I am whittled down to eight years old: all shaky hands and

fingers stunned numb. There’s a muted street & a house

hiding behind a lamp. The gutter overflows with pre-dawn light and

the manhole is a wound cauterized, awful in the way it droops.

A bedroom lies dismantled. I rest a hand against its underbelly,

learning how a house moulders. My parents are cluttered, scuttling

around an orphaned home. This place looks like the still life of a fruit

covered in soot, hijacked & rotting in the palms of our hands.

A year passes. And still, there is an awful light in my

mother’s eyes when she looks at the sky. It is different.

I know her fears intimately: contorted & swarming.

Ten years later, a pheasant couches me, in a bland sketch of

sakura trees. Cherry blossoms scale the mountains of my childhood.

I am looking through a window & seeing my parents dappled

with moonlight. Distance is coiled in the strands of our hair.

I reverberate with antiquity;

& each place is a second chance I will not miss.

Rachana Hegde collects words and other oddities. Her poetry has been published in Alexandria Quarterly, Moonsick Magazine, and Hypertrophic Literary. You can find her reading, drowsy-eyed, or at www.rachanahegde.weebly.com.

Words for Feelings We Can’t Describe *

By Katrin Flores

Ruckkehrunruhe

I forgot

how the hot, sticky wind of

a hundred passing metro buses and jeepneys

felt on the shins–

the pleasant aching of feet

at the edge of a crosswalk–

when my legs were swept up

by the velvet lining

of a living room recliner.

I lost

the New Orleans roar–

the steam of a fresh jambalaya

and greasy oyster po’boys–

caught in the fibers of a shirt

when I stuck it in the washer

with a cup of

mountain fresh

And all the morsels of

the world I’ve captured in

a photograph

fade each time

I scroll past it in a

two-thousand memory

digital photo album

ruckkenrunruhe- n. the feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness

Monachopsis

The garden holds like

the surface of water

until the gate swings open

and I,

with the careful smack of

yellow flip flops against

stepping stones,

arrive in New Gethsemane

But the crabapple tree

whispers to the bitter gourd

the mustard greens

the cherry tomatoes

the chickweeds

and with a thin, spotted finger

points

I cannot be the ant

on the ochre fence

with them–

only a thoroughbred

among them

monachopsis- n. the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place

Katrin Flores, a student in the School for the Creative and Performing Arts program, is a junior at Lafayette High School. Besides writing, she is passionate about Jesus, hoards lipstick, plays the violin, and occasionally writes on gum wrappers when she’s desperate.

*poetry inspired by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows*
www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com