Home Video #7: What Are You Waiting For?

Julia Goode

Desperation clawing at my throat like a

wounded dog whimpering for a gentle touch

and I cannot stop asking for whatever it is that I

want and this body is. It is, however incessantly I

beg it not to be, and where can it go? and when all

of the aching grows thorns in my throat and palms

I put myself to bed, and the world and the moon

are both outside my window, and I press my back

against it and let the cold seep through the glass

and into my spine in hopes that it might put

me down, like a convulsing beast, because that

is all that is inside of me – this spine, convulsing,

and in between dreams and fitful sleep, I press

my hands against my ribs and splay my fingers

and feel all of the open, empty space in between

desperate spine and flesh, like a film on sour milk,

and the empty space vibrates with static and shivers

like gravel under tires, the way we used to shake

in that old car on those early summer nights,

all laughter and sweat and chattering teeth and

blood under our fingernails, and nothing mattered

but the setting sun beating down on the back

of our necks and the way the car shook like it might

all apart from under us, and we would tumble

and roll down the gravel-grass hill and end up

somewhere entirely unfamiliar but we wouldn’t

mind, because we’d be shaking with laughter and

ecstasy and a desperate wanting for something

that we couldn’t put into words, even then,

but we were much closer to finding it,

and you would say it must live

somewhere between the horizon and the

sun setting over it and I would say it must

live somewhere between our cracked ribs

and the gravel digging into our palms

and you would say if we run fast enough,

we can catch the sun before it sets and

we can find it and I would say if we cut carefully

enough, we can dig under our flesh and we

can find it and I would look up and you would

already be running, darting off with dust and

gravel on your heels, sprinting for the horizon,

and I think that if anyone could outrun the

sun, it would be you. and so I watch,

one hand still splayed against my ribs,

pressing gravel sharp against flesh,

watching as you run and run towards

something unseen and when you disappear

in the distance, I choose to believe

that you found it.

Montana Burack

Biography: Hello! My name is Montana Burack, and I am a second-year student studying Environmental Sciences. After taking a photography course in high school, I began taking photos on outings with family and friends. Since then, I have enjoyed pursuing photography as a hobby. I try to fit some time to snap photos into the busy chaos of my life since photography brings me a lot of hapiness! In my free time, I enjoy hiking, skiing, snowboarding, reading, looking at old atlases, talking to myself, and daydreaming.

Artist Statement: This photo was taken somewhere in Wyoming, where there was little except open country, ranches, mountains, grass, and rabbitbrush, hours away from any major town. Something about the rural landscape is just really magical and dreamlike.

Julia Goode

Biography: Julia Goode is a theatrical artist, an author, and a poet. Their work can be found in Bacterium Magazine and Eunoia Review, as well as their chapbook “To The Things That Let Me Down,” available on Amazon. He loves explore topics like identity, relationships, and memory, and how those things affect the way we interact with the world around us.
When not writing, they can be found doing hair and makeup design for local theatrical productions through OSU Theatre and Albany Civic Theater.
He holds an Associate’s in Applied Biology and is finishing a Bachelor’s of Science in Theatre Arts.

Artist Statement: “Home Video #7: What Are You Waiting For?” is, at its core, a piece about memory and the way it lives inside us. Most of the piece is one run-on sentence, written that way to evoke the feeling of an old, blurry memory that seems to almost run over itself as you recall it. Memories are not always remembered perfectly, and the way that memories change a little every time we revisit them is inherently haunting.