Fall 2019

The Eye publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, literary analysis, research, and artwork by students from NHTI—Concord’s Community College, and other students throughout New Hampshire. We celebrate student voices and experiences!

“Free Falling” by Kelsey Dobmeier

This groom could make a nun swear. I meet with hundreds, yeah, you read that correctly, hundreds of engaged couples a year, but this groom has me on my fourth flute of champagne and I’m a lightweight. As a wedding DJ, I have the pleasure of working for a different boss every weekend, AKA the bride. I met with Sarah and her fiancé David a year in advance, helped them plan their idea of a perfect wedding and watched them charge the bill to their father’s credit card. I choose not to think about where the money comes from, as long as the deposit goes through before someone backs out.

Her father must have had to take out a second mortgage on their home because they were getting married at Searles Castle. This mansion in Windham, New Hampshire, is a standard bride’s fairytale. An nineteenth-century castle fit for a princess and her betrothed. Acres on acres of intricate stone work, lookout towers, spiral staircases, grand fireplaces in every room, and a severely pornographic statue of a man to greet you in the courtyard. I only work here a few times a year since the majority of couples that book this venue can afford a band and not me with my sound system I purchased off Facebook Marketplace. 

“Morphosis” by C. Payan

My spirit is a hurricane; molecular, transmogrified
A violent bout of thundersnow; ionized, electrified
And even though my spirit is haunted by that shadowed Nevermore
By that gaunt and ghastly raven that stalks the ghost of Baltimore
The molten fury flows, the ember spark it grows
And it glows in my bones and ignites the heart of stone
I am alone, forsworn, dashed by my own hands
A specter roaming, an errant being in those lands
Yet I am an inferno, a twisted blade set aflame
A towering inferno, you will know be by my name
And though I may be but a transient being in this life
In this strife, I continue onward toward that mountain peak
I seek a destiny chosen with my own broken hands
A future among these broken lands
And the sands of fate, the imperceptible roar of time itself
Can not stop me now

“Enough” by Cassandra Bonacorsi

I stand barefoot on my cold driveway, alone.
I scream to the stars in the sky, pretending they are listening.
I ask them if they know who I am,
Why I am nothing unless a boy says he loves me.
I ask them why I am still Depression’s prisoner,
And Anxiety’s bitch.
I ask them why I let the bitter taste of coffee-
Fill my empty stomach.
Why do I continue to disappoint my family,
My friends,
Myself? 

I ask them if the waves of happiness will ever stay.
I ask them if I continue to sew myself into other people-
Will they all rip out the stitches.
I ask them if I will ever write about something other than pain.
Will I ever be more than a line in someone’s life story,
Or will I always be a background character?

I realize I am kneeling on the pavement of my driveway.
Every breath feels like knives in my chest.
I whisper one last thing to the stars
I just want to be enough.