Break Room
by Mary Sarsfield

Everyone was whispering

About it

Words hushed until they were inaudible against the sound of the wind rustling the leaves outside

Or the photocopier

Humming.

Three dress sizes in a month,

They said.

Her flesh expanding to accommodate the growth.

I asked her one day,

finding her alone in the Break Room

fork poised in the air-

“are you happy?”

She looked up at me.

Retorted,

“are you?”

We sat in silence.

Listened to the photocopier

Hum.

I Can Lie
by Frank Etzler

all you do is take

your hands

finding their ways into my pockets

and then

damn

I’m gonna say what the hell just happened

rape rape rape!

it’s only twenty dollars

but it’s more like the friendship is on the line

you gotta feed those addictions

selfish

feed the me feed the now

and who really cares if the rest of it falls to shit

as long as we got a pile of money

drinks at our sides and cigarettes in our mouths

Thoughts on Aisle 7
by Marina Wright

Hey there green eyes

I can feel you slither up

inside me, making your eyes

my own every now and then

making a space for yourself inside my chest

to hide out in – for when I’m feeling

differently

but I have green now, instead of the brown.

I’ve always wanted something else—

I wanted green eyes, blue yes purple eyes

those of Elizabeth Taylor, or Holly Wright

or some mystical queen of Avalon…or Cleopatra’s gold ones, maybe

and not my boring old brown eyes

Green eyes now do you see

that Barbie car in aisle 7,

sometime in ’92

yes that life-sized hot pink

convertible

for six year old girls to drive around their back yards in

the one I got to ride at a birthday party

the small Barney I got because we did the chores

was nothing compared to you

Damn, at 20 I still want that fucking car

its promise of a pink, girl-oriented freedom

Inside a fresh lawn with a white picket Fence

Green eyes well do you

Remember the yard we had

Holly and I—we’d climb Mount Fuji

instead of walking the road to get to the house

if it was an Indian summer it was mount Vesuvius,

and we’d fight over when it was gonna blow next

and it was Candy Land in winter, snow reaching our waists

it was easy to just sit in the powdered sugar

of our private mountain in January

and what about the teepee dad made

with its blue tarp and the sticks that the woods

gave us so we could sit inside

be shamans under the stars

Hey green eyes do you remember that—

no I guess not. You weren’t there.

you were still in aisle 7, and at that birthday party

hating Barney’s purple fur because it wasn’t even pink

and he didn’t have wheels like some toys did…

You won’t leave soon,

will you?

because you make me itchy,

but I always did want green eyes

Anyway

Marina Wright is a sophomore English major and a Literary writer for Generation.