Eight Hours

By Alma Ariaz

She asks me, over unsalted food-court fries,
Does your boyfriend also twitch in his sleep? Men
twitch on the cusp of sleep because
they succumb to it so fast, untortured
by ache or thought, their bodies
need to check they’re still alive.
 
Sleep paralysis chains me when I’m tired enough
to rest my head; I think
I’d rather twitch. I keep a pillow
over my head to trap the dark out of sight,
so sometimes I’m paralyzed underwater
or gasping with a mouth that isn’t there.
 
I tell her this remembering a time
when she confessed to the same thing.
She asks me, casually between bites,
Do you also see men when you’re paralyzed?
Maybe it’s always men because they’re
the one fear we all have in common.
 
When I feel the tug, when my muscles
stop yielding to my nerves, I wiggle
one finger. My obligatory version
of the manly twitch; it keeps me alive.
Some nights, sleep feels like my mother’s
arms, like being small enough for her to carry.
 
Other nights, sleep feels like succumbing to death.
 
They now say women need nine hours
a night, not eight. The statistic defaulted
to men. Sometimes, when I almost cross
that border, my boyfriend twitches
in his sleep and wakes me up. It’s good.
​If I stop moving, I may die.

---

Cover Letter: I Promise, Market is My Church

By Alma Ariaz

Dear Hiring Manager or God
dearer than the family
I can’t provide for:     Please provide, for
 
I am cornered      like Market              cornered
like Market               (goods)       proven
     not so good after all               I promise
 
I have Market       (-able skills)      and
Market          (able body and will,
                       not succumbing)
 
circle back         (twice around the earth)
and touch     base, get back to me       in three
weeks, when the Market       (might collapse)
 
Market       (solving my problem)
Market       (rent is still, somehow,
         $2000) Market, Manager, God,
 
dare to hold      my mortal hand
through velvet       latex        gloves
         pretend your sneeze     or short change
​         couldn’t fund my mother’s mortgage.
 
Dearest Market       I’ll be good         won’t be
       overcome with grief on my lunch break
won’t be overcome at all         won’t take
       an extra advil from the drawer,
 
pretend I never was
       a child who dreamed.
If I dream, I’ll dream
                         of You.

---

Man vs. The Ground He Stands On

By Alma Ariaz

An icy knock-off Chanel cigarette,
the way the French intended.
Cartons shatter the continuum
of grass-splitting concrete;
 
Trash cans in the park
are packed away in autumn,
so children must frolic
through ash-adorned snow.
 
A swing set fills with cinder,
an adept thumb flicks the remnants
of the tumor-painted paper that
is, after all, just a plant.
 
A lone swan hisses in battle
against an unleashed Chihuahua
on the riverbank. Its owners
look the other way.
 
Nature takes its course.
A crowd stands, taking
in their stake on oxygen,
pretending that they aren’t
standing in its way.
 
The path of least resistance
​is not the path of least pain.

---

Define Evolution

By Alma Ariaz

as the gradual development
of a species to ensure it prevails.
Child molesters no longer drive white vans.
 
Now, they drive a stale bargain
against reforms in the HR department
so their fantasies don’t stop at imaginary,
so they can ogle while they eat
the rye sandwich their wife packed.
 
Corporate brands are your friends.
A Chimera that catches and fits your body
into a canyon with human-shaped holes.
 
Some women avoid the tolled track
from No to Fine. Some learn
inevitability is best confronted.
 
Toddlers, still toothless, are taught:
scream Fire, not Help,
because fire hurts everyone,
while help will not come
​for those who hurt alone.

---

​Alma Ariaz (she/her) is a writer from Toronto, Ontario. She works as a freelance copyeditor and a social media manager for Arrival Magazine, Humber Polytechnic’s student-led literary magazine. Her current projects include a science-fiction novel and a collection of visual, mixed-media erasure poems. Her short stories and poetry have been published in literary journals online, including Writers Resist, 50-Word Stories, Mulberry Literary, and Ink in Thirds. You can find her on Instagram via @soulscrambling.