Welcome to June’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine. These selections explore metamorphosis: what sorts of changes people can go through, when and why we change, what inspires us to change, what sorts of changes nd losses get forced on us, and when and why we can be afraid of change.

Humans are complex, capable of a wide range of feelings and actions that may seem contradictory at first glance.

Some of this month’s narrators aren’t sure whether they care about their fellow creatures, although the entirety of their writing belies their surface lack of empathy.

JD DeHart’s poetic speakers seem thoughtful curmudgeons, yet with a soft spot for fellow writers. John Robbins gives us poems of disdain, with their grumpiness relieved by the speakers’ finding a sense of connection to fellow literary ‘pirates.’

Mark Carver’s poetry reflects a cautious mix of optimism and skepticism about human nature, while J.J. Campbell’s speaker feels disgust at human frailty and embraces death as an inevitable escape, even while feeling a bit of connection to the ‘lost writer’ he mentions.

And a few of the speakers resemble ‘lost writers,’ people on the margins who provide a vantage point through which writers can make complex observations on mainstream society, or who are themselves outside the dominant culture enough to be able to comment on it.

Grant Guy’s pieces present people who are wounded, retired, or otherwise left behind or on the edge of society without melodrama and with calm observation. Cheeta Born2Dv8 Lachender presents a wandering traveler’s tale. His character is a, thinker, somewhat of an outcast due to his nomadic, unconventional lifestyle and poverty, yet sees himself in the tradition of the great Jack London.

Being able to think in a different way can be a catalyst for personal change, as we see in Joan Beebe’s poem, where the narrator gradually shifts her thinking from self pity to hope. Chimezie Ihekuna’s first installment of his screenplay The Success Story presents an accomplished student who, over a holiday visit to his family, finds the time and space to realize that he can and must follow his true passion. Chimezie Ihekuna also contributes a set of voice-overs to this issue, experimenting with different identities as a way of finding and expressing his own.

Jonathan Hine’s piece illustrates the moment when, during a physical and psychological journey, one realizes that one has changed. Allison Grayhurst presents a panoply of reflections on potential transformation: people who find themselves changed through embracing committed love and partnership, people who fear and draw back from that type of experience, and, finally, the very basic and life-altering moment of giving birth. Jeongeui’s paintings of natural scenes symbolize interior personal journeys, as she explains through her artist’s statements, and Liz Hughes, in her monthly Book Periscope review column, reviews stories of survivors. M.E. Hinton’s protagonist, in the novel Brothers, a Roman Empire slave boy, escapes multiple times in attempts to change his circumstances, while Marcy Browning details her treatment for and recovery from breast cancer in her memoir Better Days are Coming. 

Several contributors are in search of something, which they may or may not ever find. In the prologue to G.X. Chen’s new novel The In-Laws, a wife and son lose track of time while mourning the sudden death of their husband and father in an auto accident. Poet John Sweet offers up a string of memories of losses: romances and lives that have passed away. In a piece from her upcoming poetry collection Perfection, translated into Serbian, English and Japanese, Tatjana Debeljacki ruminates on the loss of a deep romantic connection.

Ryan Flanagan stretches the humor in his vignettes to the point of absurdity, then offers up praise for childhood, when that sort of thinking would have been more natural and enjoyable. DS Maolalai’s speakers seem always to be thinking of elsewhere: the play someone’s girlfriend creates at work, the breakfasts they order away from home, the view they could enjoy if only they had more of a view out their window.

Mahbub returns with a set of pieces where the love the speakers seek is idealized, inspirational, and just out of reach. And Bhavani Rao speaks to the elegance of vintage housewares and antiques, reminiscing in a way about a lost past made more beautiful because it is distant.

We hope that these pieces will inspire you towards your own journeys and reveal to you the capability you have towards positive transformation.

I-80 Nevada

i was stretched

tight across the

wide open vistas

& high desert plains

but the feeling of

impending catastrophe

had passed

i had finally

lost my grip

everything

i knew about myself

was gone &

never coming  back

Prologue

It was a dreary winter day in Boston. The gray sky was brewing up yet another storm that could cement the snow already on the sidewalks into banks of ice that wouldn’t disappear until late spring. A funeral home that hadn’t been renovated since the early fifties sat on the corner of a run-down street. It had a dark and damp interior, and the heat was anemically generated by a space heater. Shivering since she had walked into the room with her son, an eight-year-old wearing a pair of glasses that looked too big on his small and angular face, Emily Shi sat with her hands clasped tightly around her knees, trying to suppress the constant urge to scream and cry. She had been trying so hard and for so long that her fingers were stiffened into the likeness of the claws of a bird of prey.

Shy and timid, the boy sat close to his mother, glancing up at her constantly and anxiously. Emily was wearing a black jacket with hand-knotted buttons and a matching pair of black pants; her face was deathly pale and expressionless, as of a marble statue. He had tried to grab one of her hands but failed miserably because they were clasped as tight as iron hooks, so he had resigned himself to taking hold of her sleeve.

Staring at the closed casket in front of them with a pair of startled eyes, widened further by the confusion of a child who couldn’t get his mother’s attention, Peter Shi trembled. He had hoped to see his father, who hadn’t been home for the last several days, but with the coffin firmly closed, he didn’t know what had become of him. Was he inside? He knew his mother had brought along his father’s best outfit because she had thought there would be a public viewing.

It was a secondhand suit that Emily had bought from a thrift store in the neighborhood. Peter vividly remembered his father’s reaction when he first saw it, black with thin gray stripes.

“When will I have the occasion to wear a suit?” Rob Shi looked at his wife incredulously. He had been working as a chef at a Chinese restaurant since his family had migrated to the United States.

“Plenty,” Emily replied, counting on her fingers. “First of all, you’ll need it for the wedding of your friend’s son.” The wedding had been scheduled for the following month, and the Shi family had all been invited. “And then there’re Peter’s graduations.”

“Graduations! He’s only eight years old! Besides, I can’t wear a suit for the wedding because the banquet will be held at the restaurant where I work. Have you ever seen a chef in a suit while cooking?” Because he was the chef, the owner had given his friend a 20 percent discount.

“It doesn’t matter,” his wife said dismissively. “In a few years, Peter will graduate from primary school and then middle school, high school, and college. It’s the custom in this country that the father of the graduate has to wear a suit to attend the ceremony.” She looked down pleasurably at the ensemble that had been laid out in their bedroom. “It was only ten dollars, and the color looks great on you.”

G.X. Chen’s The In-Laws is available here. 

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This is an excerpt from Tatjana’s upcoming collection, Perfection, where poems will be translated into English, Serbian, and Japanese.

CLOSE TO ME

Togetherness disappears.

We are lost while leaving ourselves.

It’s too late for finding symbols.

The expression is a form of research

at the entrance of voice ventricles.

We sacrifice slow reasons to the quick words.

Parting is a chronicler with no chronicles.

Interpretations are hinted in the meanings of values .

Let’s not torture the lions with the inner space of the sky.

We have lost the gemstone.

The search is wasted effort.

We nurture the faith of case circumstances.

Cheek shows the traces of palms.

For too long we dream the threats of responsibility.

Ironic solution of doubting we have left for the end.

We demise traces for the orphans.

God was praised, unfortunately.

From the scriptures we take out when needed.

We did not realize that all is prone to cease.

And a deep gap between the kisses,

We did not admit.

Link to the book will be available soon! Here’s Tatjana’s author page. 

Critical review of Perfection: 

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PHONE SEX

My mother always put on a posh voice when she answered the phone

unless it was his sister

Your sister is on the phone she would say.

His face would light up

like at no other time

and he would run out to the phone.

Grab the phone and put his hand straight down his pants.

Big smile on his face

He never put his hand down his pants when he talked to anybody else.

Guess he really loved his sister.

POLLACK

The young Polish girl on the beach told the same story to the young man she had just told to the polish girl

the only difference being that she told her in Polish.

All I heard was the pepperoni and the salami but it was enough.

The clouds have rolled in from the sea now

and I get up to go.

Just as well I have no desire to hear that story again

In English

or Polish

Pepperoni and Salami

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