- Juice Davis
The winters were fantastically cruel,
Salty spills of troubled tears dribbled down her cheek, She stared into the mundane mirror, wanting a peek,
The body she inhabited was not one she deeply desired, Her lips were cracked and her eyes were tired,
She touched the reflection with her humble hands,
Remembering that she had so many other plans.
The springs were fantastically cruel,
The bittersweet taste of her sorrows were pins and needles to her heart, Buzzing of the static emptiness made it easier for her to start, There was nothing more than silence in her mind,
Searching for the happiness she’d soon find.
The lingering light inside of her burned,
An unlighted candle, her soul yearned.
The summers were fantastically cruel,
She missed his glance and the way he talked,
Deep down in the meadow of her heart, he walked.
The crash of hail woke her from the dream,
Lights inside of her began to beam,
Maybe, the hurting was done?
Through the mesmerizing meadow she spun.
The autumns were fantastically cruel,
Growing was part of her pain,
She fought to see the broken chain,
The meadow was healthy and pure,
Never did she ever think she could forever find the cure, What was lost could not be returned,
But the gleaming meadow revealed what she had learned.
"The Meadow of Time" by Juice Davis
Juice Davis is an 18 year old high school student who is devoted to becoming a writer that can touch the hearts of all who stumble upon her work.
IG @juicedaviswrites
Wattpad @Wattpad @juicedavis
- Alexandre Michaël
‘That was back then, you remember, you were with us at the office for the summer because you didn’t have any camps or anything for the next few weeks. I remember at the office I used to do a line of coke in the morning, and after lunch cause I had no energy so I would sneak away to the bathroom, only the bathroom was through Roger’s office and it became a running joke that I had to use the bathroom right after eating,’ she laughed and sipped her coffee through thick lip injections, silently judging—always judging—the waitress who kept her distance. I’m sure she thought our server was rude, but I imagined CERB probably paid better than this hole-in-the-wall diner off Main Street, with its feeble, and probably vain, attempts at following anti-pandemic measures.
I sipped my coffee somewhat fitfully, trying my hardest through body language to express my discomfort: not meeting her gaze, sipping my coffee often (I was starting to feel it), shifting in my seat, checking my phone. ‘I was under a lot of pressure from everyone then. People were talking a lot. Saying things about your behavior. You were in video games and stuff, and Nicole and grandma were saying all these things. But I didn’t make you transcribe a dictionary.’
‘I remember specifically doing it. Like writing all the words out, and like how I felt.’
‘Then where are the papers? I keep everything. Like everything, I have it all,’ she said.
I threw out the stack of pages, on which I had painstakingly transcribed, by hand, every entry in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary beginning with the letter ‘A’ to the letter ‘W.’ It was impossible for me to imagine her having forgotten my seditious fit; the shouting and tearing of so much paper. I didn’t even recycle it; I just threw everything in the garbage.
Before I could speak, however, she barreled on: ‘Listen, when you were little, if you didn’t understand a word, I would tell you to get the dictionary out, and you’d piss and moan cause you didn’t want to copy them down and I’d always make you write them out cause when I was a kid you think Grandma and Grandpa gave a shit about how I did in school? I mean, they didn’t even know I needed glasses until like grade three and they had me in the special needs class like I was a ******.’
The waitress poured us more coffee, standing far away, her arms outstretched, holding the carafe with the tips of her fingers at an impossible angle.
‘Oh right, I can’t say that word.’ We both ordered a dish called “The Yearning Breakfast.”
‘You know what the doctor said to me, like when I came back from St. Martin, you remember the really fucked up one I think I told you. He had me like, reading these cards with words on them, like twenty of them, and he asked me what the words meant and I didn’t know any of them. And he was like
“well that’s a bad sign” and said I wouldn’t make it to thirty-five. Like I was reading these cards with these random words on them at the hospital and he was like “there’s no way you’re gonna make it.” But I took IQ tests and my IQ was always one-sixteen or one-eighteen or something like that— good, you know?’
I checked my phone a lot, and the coffee had me jittery. I scrolled through the same posts I’d already seen on Instagram. The world was on fire, somewhere out there, somewhere that mattered. At some point the waitress arrived with our food. It was quite a bit drier than I would have liked. About the diner were many framed paintings of horses.
‘You just hated writing out the definitions. You were just like that. You never did any of your math homework. I used to do it for you cause you never wanted to do it.’
‘No, I did not make you write out the dictionary. I have no idea what you’re talking about. It was important, when you were a kid, to do that, to write out the words you didn’t know but you never wanted to do it. I’d say “Okay, vas y, vas-y l’écrire— écris-le— but you never did.’
‘No, like when we were at the office you told me I had to write out the whole dictionary, and I remember writing out every word. My hand was cramped. You said you were trying to give me tasks. Stuff like “go get the third book from the right on the second row from the bottom and place it cover up on the table in the living room.” I just thought that was weird. Of course I could do that but why make me do that? I really resented that you said that. And that you made me copy the dictionary. I remember thinking it was fucked up while I was doing it.’
I started eating furiously, stuffing my face as quickly as I could even though my stomach felt like someone was taking a pair of vice grips to it. ‘Listen, everyone was saying things about your behaviour, they were saying lots of things— I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know how to raise a kid, everyone was saying all these things, telling me what I was supposed to do. I don’t know. I don’t remember doing that, if I did I’m sorry—' ‘That’s all you had to say. Why would you just say “no” if I’m telling you something? I remember it all even if you don’t. I wasn’t the one doing coke every day.’
‘You can’t hold that over me forever, dear. If I made you write out the whole dictionary by hand, I’m sorry, I don’t remember doing that.’ I finished my breakfast long before she did, since she was so busy talking.
"Merriam-Webster" by Alexandre Michaël. A word was censored by PACE Magazine, denoted by ******.
Alexandre Michaël is a French-Canadian writer and filmmaker from Ottawa. His work has been published in Matrix Magazine, and his films have screened at various festivals worldwide.
IG: @aahhhhlex
- Shelly Kawaja
Boredom. It’s a state of being we try to avoid. Every year, tourism and entertainment industries make millions off our efforts. And, of course, there’s the internet and social media. Fifteen minutes watching Tik Tok videos and it’s obvious what people will do to avoid being bored.
When I say boredom, I don’t mean the despondency you feel halfway through an eight-hour shift, or during another visit to the playground with your kids, or when you scroll through endless shows online and can’t settle on anything to watch. I am referring to the kind of boredom British psychologist, Dr. Neel Burton talks about in his essay, The Sunny Side of Boredom. He calls this “a deeply unpleasant state of unmet arousal. We are aroused rather than despondent, but for one or more reasons, our arousal cannot be met or directed.”
I grew up in rural Newfoundland; a community called Black Duck Siding. It was as boring as it sounds. There were no playgrounds, no stores, no street lights, and very few kids my age. The closest town was a thirty-minute drive, but my parents couldn’t afford piano lessons or dance classes or even soccer cleats. I rode the bus to school every day, then came home to my community that didn’t have a store. Boredom was a constant state of being, and as much as I complained I was going to die from it, I never did. Instead, I read heaps of books and wrote stories about portals to other worlds where there were plenty of things to do. Some writers are born, the rest of us are forged in boredom.
In university, my life picked up speed. I continued to dabble at writing and published a couple poems in a local anthology, but there were new friends, and studies, and bills, and part-time jobs. After my undergrad, there were more degrees and more jobs. A career. Travel. Then there was a husband and kids and houses and dogs. Family vacations. Convention. I was lucky in so many ways and had managed to ruthlessly excise boredom from my life. But I had also stopped writing. Stopped creating. Stopped, in many ways, being me.
Until everything changed. Five years ago, I was feeling pretty burnt out, and when my husband wanted to pursue a job opportunity on the Northern Peninsula I agreed to go. I put my full-time career and part-time PhD studies on hold and returned to a place I never thought I would ever return: rural Newfoundland. There were moments when I regretted that move, but living in a small community where I didn’t know anyone, suddenly a stay-at-home mom, my mind started to wander. I got bored. After being busy for so many years, boredom was a strange yet oddly familiar feeling. Idle yet comforting. Freeing. I started reading again, heaps of fiction like I used to do. I stopped watching TV. I stopped browsing social media. I let the boredom in. Welcomed it. My brain started to turn inward, probing itself, dragging me with it. I was lost in my head for the first time in forever. And it was wonderful. I started writing again.
There is plenty of research into the importance of boredom on child development. In The Art of Boredom, clinical psychologist Caley Arzamarski argues that the state of being bored allows children the opportunity to practice mindfulness, obtain a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. Michael Ungar, Family Therapist and researcher at Dalhousie University, goes so far as to suggest that parents make a point to schedule boredom into their children’s daily routine. Boredom is as important to the development of an emerging writer as it is to a growing child. Isn’t this what we aspire to do: achieve a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us? When Neil Gaiman was asked what advice he had for new writers, he said: “You have to let yourself get so bored that your mind has nothing better to do than tell itself a story.”
My life, inevitably, has returned to a busier state and finding time to write is a constant challenge. But I will never again forget the power of boredom. When I feel my space is becoming too cluttered I cut things back. I’ll cut out TV for a few weeks, or social media, or both if I really need to. I schedule weekends where I get away on my own with no expectations but to follow the rabbit holes of my own mind. We, human beings, are wired to reject boredom. When we are bored, the need to do something is overwhelming. If you take away all our go-to’s for entertainment, creative people will start to create. Quilters will quilt, painters will paint, writers will write.
In an interview with WMFA host, Courtney Balestier on Lithub, Jennifer Haigh talks about sensory deprivation as a writing technique. She says, “you have to make the world around you so bland and uninteresting that the internal world is more interesting.” We all can’t hide out in rural Newfoundland forever, but we can do what we can to welcome boredom into our writing lives, and sensory deprivation is a great start.
This brings me to my challenge: schedule an hour into your day, every day, to sit quietly with nothing but your thoughts. Ok, if that caused one of your eyebrows or the twitchy muscle in your left butt cheek to spasm, try this instead: a day with limited internet. No casual browsing or scrolling. Limit yourself to the essentials like a quick news check-in, or important zoom meeting, but no shows or movies or podcasts. How about doing that for a week? How about two? Two full weeks where you allow boredom to seep into your life like it used to do when you were a little kid. Two weeks. Just try it and see what happens.
"The Power of Boredom" by Shelly Kawaja. Photo credit: Shelly Kawaja.
Shelly Kawaja is a creative writing student in UBC's MFA program. Her work has previously appeared in The Dalhousie Review, WORD Magazine, Post-Colonial Text, CBC online, and GritLit.ca. Shelly lives in Norris Point, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Twitter handle: @kawajashelly
Insta: @skawaja
Facebook: @shellykawaja