APIARY 12: The Genre Jawn by APIARY Magazine

THE GENRE JAWN

ISSUE 12 THE GENRE JAWN Apiary Magazine, 2021 Philadelphia, PA

Founded in 2009, is a magazine of contemporary poetry and prose featuring writers from the Philadelphia diaspora. We publish work from writers of all ages and backgrounds, in print and online. is also its staff: we are a collective of Philly writers dedicated to championing and amplifying our city’s dazzling literary scene. Our mission is to further connect and inspire Philadelphians through the power of their own words, and to celebrate Philadelphia as a great literary city on the page, the stage, the screen, and in the street.

Cover artwork by ShirminaGeneva

Dear Reader, Welcome to APIARY 12: The Genre Jawn. This is the first issue in APIARY’s history devoted entirely to cross-genre, hybrid and interdisciplinary work. In these pages, you’ll find pieces that bend the borders between poetry, prose and visual art to tell stories through new shapes: ancestry and complex family histories in itemized lists, apologies broken apart and alphabetized, trauma and healing unfolding in footnotes and acupuncture diagrams of literal feet. There’s more to explore online, too: visit apiarymagazine.com to see video poems and multimedia work from this issue’s authors! APIARY 12 also gave our editors an opportunity to work together in new ways, teaming up across genres to review submissions together outside our usual wheelhouses. While we embraced the chance to read work beyond our comfort zones, this year was a challenging one for our team in many ways as well. The pandemic stretched us thin as several of us lost old jobs, started new jobs, taught classes through COVID, went back to school or finished degrees ourselves, moved to new homes or welcomed new additions to our families – all while navigating a constant evolving threat we’re still learning to live with and adapt to in real time. This issue is not simply a celebration of changing forms: it’s also a meditation on the pain and loss that so often necessitates change and reinvention. It’s a space of tension where authors trace indelible traumas passed down across generations, carried in body after body, transmuting in cycles with no clear resolution or end. Held together, it seems to say: when you need to express something that happened to you, to your loved ones, to your community that defies closure and can’t be processed in straightforward paths, then you need a shape for writing about that experience that’s defiant, too – one that creates a new path, a new process. Whatever path led you to this issue today, we are so grateful to finally deliver it to you. APIARY has always been a labor of love, but this issue is a testament to the perseverance of our staff, the patience of our authors, and the support of the Philly literary community, our friends at CultureWorks, and our partners at The Philadelphia Cultural Fund and the Velocity Fund. Thank you. We hope you get lost in these pages, share this issue with a friend, read your favorite piece aloud to a family member, teach a piece from this issue in a class, and, when you’re ready, pass this magazine along to someone who has never picked up APIARY before. Thank you most of all, dear reader, for helping us carry these words back into the world. XO, The APIARY Staff

PROJECT DIRECTOR Steve Burns

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Alexa Smith

POETRY EDITORS Kai Davis Alexa Smith

FICTION EDITORS Amanda Buck Davon Loeb

YOUTH EDITOR AND AMBASSADOR Ronnie Nocella

JAWN: A Philadelphian Lyric Chris Butler

Notes on Epigenetic Trauma Emory Brinson

Precipice Jade Fleming

On why curses are generational Jade Fleming

Misdirection Jade Fleming

In This History I Am a Mother Thrice Vriddhi Vinay

The Jade Bonsai Will Kill You First If You Let It Vriddhi Vinay

I Hate Being Bipolar. It’s Awesome. Adrianna Caputo

Notes from a Class on Trauma Hannah Soyer

26 Alphabetizing an Apology Letter Hailey Spencer 32 Sea Salt Bailey Quinn 34 Grief Painting Haibun Sean Lynch 35 Tending Rachel Hsu 38 Nothing Ever Happens Cherry Nin 42 In the Key of You Tomas Nieto

50 Bios 3

JAWN: A Philadelphian Lyric Chris Butler

If you did not already know, jawn is the ultimate Philly word. A champion expression candied creation of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). A word bigger than the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and more lit than all The Roots Picnics combined. A word that also means all The Roots Picnics combined. Growing up, my favorite jawn was the golden globs of lava known as cheese whiz flowing across my steak gently nestled in an Amoroso roll. Jawn always meant anything, but when your recent memories of the city are committed to memory jawn means everything. One memory I recall was in 1998. I was eight back then and my mom’s communist flag red Ford Escort was stolen. I’m sure when these angry young bulls flustered by capitalism spotted my mom’s car they said “this jawn is the one.” Their hearts were cold as Rita’s Water Ice on a January night. The next morning my mom’s brain froze like when you eat that jawn too fast. I was not shocked. This was West Philly, and when they cover people from around here in the Inquirer, they call this jawn “hardscrabble.” Whether it was throwing the haram skinned football, the oompa loompa colored basketball, or iron sharp bullets, unfortunately nobody was simply playing games around this jawn. In high school when we took racially targeted standardized tests, we prayed that homies and ourselves would pass that jawn. When we smoked that upper decibel kush rolled into a brown skinned Dutch at The Plat we hoped the homies would pass that jawn. One Sunday in summer 2007 I was reminded that I am a crab living in a barrel dressed as an American ghetto. Another crustacean could tell I would soon escape our hood, and he wanted to pull me back in one last time like a trout on a Lake Erie fisherman’s hook. In Philly we call a gun a burner, but when he put that jawn to my chest it made me cold as ice. Luckily after running my pockets he did not heat me up and melt my newly frozen sculpted self. I never called the laws because snitches get stitches, but also because I don’t trust anybody who wears a bulletproof jawn to work. Jawn is not always sad, one time before college my old head gave me some business tips. He said when I got my tax refund I should invest that jawn on the stock market. But I never listened and I took a pretty jawn from Montgomery County to the Phillies game and blew the rest on sneakers at Ubiq on Walnut Street instead. I guess I just wanted to be Will Smith and Wilt Chamberlain, another Fresh Prince, an Overbook nigga who liked to stunt. When I graduated from college I became a writer. But really I wanted to be like the word jawn, authentic, unique, and bigger than any New Yorker and the word joint could ever be. More original the Declaration jawn that the colonizers wrote in 1776 telling England to fuck off. As wild as that jawn is, I often wonder what happened to the Lenapehoking jawn that the Natives wrote saying they want Chester, Philly, Camden, Trenton, and Manhattan back. I guess that jawn got lost.

BODY MAPPING WORKSHOP

Body Mapping: A Mixed Media Workshop for Survivors and Loves Ones In June 2021, Apiary’s Poetry Editor and NextFab x Leeway’s 2020 Art and Technology Artistin-Residence Kai Davis facilitated a two-part mixed media workshop for survivors of sexual assault and their loved ones. Through photography, writing, painting, and collage, participants worked in pairs and individually to explore themes of body awareness and intimacy, to document their healing journeys, and to commune safely with fellow survivors. The collages born from these sessions can be found throughout the pages of this issue and on apiarymagazine.com.

Artwork by Anaïs Mateus

Notes on Epigenetic Trauma Emory Brinson

1. i have a panic attack in a museum of my own history

In the National Museum of African American History we look for ourselves in walls of photographs and quotes obscured in cursive. Toni Morrison tells me that dying is the meaning of life, an end to make the middling worth it. I choke on tap water in the bathroom, suffocating on this realization somewhere in the throng of lynchings and riots: I am an act of being built solely on an assumed identity. Surely, my past can be found somewhere within these walls, but there is no concrete knowing, only the push and pull that has somehow grown roots into my DNA, made itself a piece of me without permission. Outside, there is an exhibition on the importance of tracing your genealogy through an age of firestorms, but how can you trace a lineage that was never meant to survive? There was a systematic undoing of identities, a remaking of brain matter. My mother touches my cheek, watches me drown without her eyes and warns me against losing myself to the undertones of the dead. It is too late. I have scattered throughout the basement levels: a concourse of destruction. Find me in the recreation of bloodletting. Watch me break into a thousand pieces of unmoored history.

2. i came from her, and she from me

Years ago a woman shrieked and split and bled, sacrificing too many pieces of herself, womb water spilling within the soil and a seed sprouting. There was no other option but to bloom. An embryo of pink and soft hued umber, a violation of want. She wailed with the ghosts and this bloodline sprung from the unspoken tragedy: my body, crafted from mass grave sites and words I dare not say even in reclamation. This is drowning on dry land, becoming something despite yourself. I do not know whether I should be grateful a slave wasn’t willing to leap for anybody, her lungs not compatible with waterlogging, or if I should wish that she had learned to fly, held onto herself just long enough to drown.

3. there is truth in the nightmares

I look for names in books with yellowing pages; images flickering in sepia tones through my head, searching for answers that have not existed for years. My grandmother’s photo collection consists mostly of gravestones, old and withered with peaceful consequence. I spit saliva into a plastic chamber of hopes, ignore the blood tint and pray it will define my demons, documentation for my nightmares. In my dreams there is an empty room, a bed’s creaking, flames reaching out of the fireplace like they will be able to liberate the child on the other side of the door. The rattling, ghostlike, continues. I am 32% English, but I prefer not to think about logistics. There are unanswered questions pounding against the walls of my aorta, synaptic endings rubbed raw with constant firing. There is nothing more to say when I wake. I don’t know who I am. The mirage in the mirror blinks, both accusing and forgiving. She had a name once, perhaps a mother and father too.

YOUTH

4. the questions that plague me

They say you can inherit trauma, genes marked with signs of war or famine or an age of suffering. I think if you took a microscope to my skin you would find a deadening: black mold encrusting each tiny molecule. What must happen when the sorrow is lodged in every scrap of your existence? When the body knows it is not meant to exist, that to stand here and breathe is a rebellion in its own right? I relearn myself on instinct, rewriting my genetic code as an act of resurrection. Create from a legacy of living to die and dying to live. I fragment my body again and again in this museum bathroom, see my own corpse in Emmet Till’s casket 3 floors below. I paid my respects and swallowed their prayers all at once. Vinyl tile sways under my feet, toenails blue like I am the one drowning. My fists grind into glass shards like I can rip the history of agony from inside. I know myself to be the descendant of torment. I know that there were women here before me. Blood pools under my tongue, in ragged lines across my back, a collar around my neck, phantom pains that do not belong to me. Who are you?

Who are you?

we exist despite cauterized genes, inherit overcoming too

BODY MAPPING WORKSHOP

Artwork by ShirminaGeneva

Precipice Jade Fleming

Reality is difficult to prove when you think the ground is an illusion that is going to swallow you if you move if you breathe too hard and your lungs expand so you move that if you try to readjust the tightness of your pant waist then you move that if you blink you move that if you wipe the tears and snot and keep sniffling and rocking on the top of the desk you don’t remember sitting on but can feel because it is stiff and sfill you move and if it moves you move you can’t move so you hold your breath and don’t think about your nails in your arm meant to ground you while you don’t think about the ground that will swallow you if you breathe too hard and blink too much and don’t think about how no one is going to save you because no one is going to save you because no one saves the black kid and you didn’t want it to be about the black kid or violence or pain but it’s always about the black kid about violence about pain and it’s never about you it’s always about the money never about you it’s always about the food never about you it’s always about the grades never about you it’s always about the years of silence never about you it’s always about how you can’t exist and no one is going to save you because no one has time or thought to save you from the hole in the ground that is covered with a magician’s sleight of light you cannot move your thumb to scratch your palm because you will move and touch the ground and you will fall and the ground will open up and you will be swallowed if the notification rings it is a trick to get you to move to get you to the ground to get you to fall if the door knocks it is a trick how do you know there is another side if you can’t see the other side it is another illusion like the hole in the ground that will swallow you if you move if you touch the ground if you fall into the hole when no one knocks on the door when no one texts you when no one saves the black kid the wave passes you step on tile you leave the room to wash your face you wish the ground really could swallow you up

On why curses are generational Jade Fleming

once in a while reincarnation is waking up from a god complex– you a small soul– the world you’ve positioned yourself to rule a jenga tower– the inner child you’ve never loved finally at peak tantrum– god being both the father and the son– in sabbath school they teach you god is all knowing and then they teach you disobedience makes him so angry he causes mass confusion and separates the languages at the tower of babel– imagine coming home every evening– a carpenter with dreams of touching heaven a few floors from reality, and you wake up to give your family a goodbye for the morning and you lose every word for i love you in ways they can understand– as if god didn’t know the heights his creations could reach– as if he hadn’t made them with his own hands in his own likeness– fuming children often know “better” but haven’t learned the “niceties” of keeping their anger tucked away– your poems have always spoken for you– every draft a new lifetime– never quite right– the lesson never quite learned– if you scream internally loud enough someone will make out the words to hold you– you are met instead with a finger pointed toward a corner– this is the repetition of condemnation– the inescapable garden of eden and a trap door– is the serpent’s whisper what Icarus heard before he fell– did it warn him he was too close out of a moment of empathy– begging him to come back down– perhaps every errant feather a fallen angel– a past life– rushing to bring him back to his senses a little too late– or selfishly welcome him back home– i’m certain his eyes were to the sun as he backed into hell

View video for this piece at apiarymagazine.com 10

Misdirection

When my grandmother was only a mother she, like the other mothers and aunts, worked in other countries to send money back home. She loved my mother through Aruban baby dolls and pretty Venezuelan shoes. They are friends now. They speak on the phone every night.

Before my mother had me she left the shack houses behind. Like her cousins and schoolmates she chased homes and jobs in the same country. She found American jobs cleaning homes and shit. She works the nightshift. I come home from school in time to say goodbye.

In This History I Am A Mother Thrice Vriddhi Vinay

The first daughter I birthed was cesarean / my stomach parted by thumbs like an orange / for a child which would only cry at competing decibels / until its mouth was stretched and frayed into pulp / I didn’t know where to place it when I knew it would never speak / face loose now like the back of its aunt’s embroidery hoop / its lips too tattered to ever utter Amma / to thank the person it once built a nest in / called the house a home / my mother brought it to where we lived in specific Hindu tradition / its neck gilded in chains until they weighed like a noose / I didn’t know if I believed in a (G)(g)od that only saw some the same / so I closed my blessing into the door frame / pressed until the crying too died out / pretended that would absolve me / I think it was reborn as my mother the way the corners of her face spread into a wail / I think she really missed me / My second daughter was a stillbirth / that is all / I cried this time / at all the memories I had fantasized / my mother never asked if this was a different father / as my stomach exhaled into a plume / I think if I told her she would have cared / My third daughter widened my vagina past my worth / it only sighed in my arms / in a sauce of both of our fluids / its hands complete / just like its father’s / my mother clasped her hands like prayer when the nurse awed how delicate in their construction / like a sword in my chest I was the only one crying / in what world would the hands I never want to live on me before in me / months / grow to ever hold mine / I was in so much pain my legs swam in a bed of sheets / at night only moaning / my hair curled like my foremothers’ set in my own sweat / the doctors grew scared / sent my mother and my daughter home / for days she didn’t visit / when she returned my organs were hollowed out like a dissection rat’s / my body now more of a bowl than a carcass / my mother asked / “is that really her?” / my daughter recognized me / cooed in a voice of healing woman / my mother handed it to me / and I kissed its little fingers / before taking them off with my teeth / then limb by limb / kiss its sleeping face / before swallowing it whole / body a home again in me /

The Jade Bonsai Will Kill You First If You Let It Vriddhi Vinay

mma used to catalogue the cycles of when the orchid in the sink’s window would bloat A and collapse. By week two, when it had gone roach back from drowning, she coaxed it into accepting patience as its feeding: two ice cubes in its soil a week, left to melt over hours of the sunlight turning the dripping faucet under a prism.

Everything green that enters my room browns a little but never dies. The jade plant by my bed and white women’s envy of my violence rest as outliers.

3. W hen they lock eyes with the men who follow us home and say “I feel like a piece of meat” and I say “I always feel animal. I was birthed from a shrub a different genus and never bottle-fed past somewhere subhuman to barely human. I am scared how comfortable I am with this discomfort” they nod that they understand as if I was kidding. 4.

mma missed one week of ice cubes and, tenderly, the orchid grew brittle. She understood to A let it go before its stalk grew limp.

henever a new set of hands are allowed on me, my favorite slutty game is to tease if they’ll W flutter off me if I refuse. I’ve evolved so, so used to my chest speckled from sucking after both permission and denial.

6. T all brown girl, vixen shaped, you are so tiny in their hands. How dare your lineage has survived through anger’s preservation but you are never not supple. Oh, how they reject devouring a woman on a plate when the knife slivers her to dress atop some chickpeas, naked. 7.

mma killed every jade cutting I had forgotten when I left for college, neither over- nor underA watering. I think this was her miner’s canary for saying the daughter who knew how to make things grow, who could alchemize one life into another, had just passed.

8. Th e boy who did not let me leave as that swollen hour passed, counting the ceiling tiles on my stomach, graduated. Passed. The mint plant I’d blend to feed the hands permitted to confide in is now barren and useless. Passed. 9.

or every man who I’ve been told is of my same species, white women tell me they lick their F lips in anticipation. I think they forget when they dine I belt my stomach until it draws into a figure eight incapable of cannibalism. Hours pass. Days. My saliva dries in strings and threads my lips shut. I’ve emaciated until the bones armoring my torso protrude like a harp. White woman, slowly, weave my threads between your fingers like a braid and play the saplings a song. Salvage what isn’t of womankind into song for something left innocent.

10. A mma buys a new orchid. It dies even after the ice. She folds it under the compost, buys a new orchid. It dies. She just bought one that survives only amongst the dust of the dining room table, a faded image of my sister and me in pigtails above the sink as its tombstone.

YOUTH

I Hate Being Bipolar. It’s Awesome. Adrianna Caputo

After Kanye West and Hanif Abdurraquib When I tell you that I want the version of myself who lies paralyzed on the floor to suffer/ what I mean is I want to take her body/ curled like a dying child/ and shake until she leaves herself behind/ leaves herself behind and becomes something new and free and bloodless/ Bloodless?/ What I mean by that is I want her unbleedable/ clear and pure/ so/ what I really want is that ancient river water to pulse/ through her veins/ Rivers like the ones our ancestors used to cup/ their hands fleshed and earthen chalices/ and press to the thirsting mouths of their own children/ Rivers like the ones that dampen valleys/ so they can be cut into/ and cut into is what I mean when I say suffer/ When I say suffer/ I want to take the curled up girl and saw around her skin like a stencil/ peel away a calloused and windworn edge/ grab the new and wobbling outline and cradle it like an afterbirth/ When I tell you I want the version of myself who runs free and bloodless more than I need the weight of prayer on my tongue/ more than I want my own flesh to zip itself back up like a cape over my shoulders/ more than my bones need breaking/ breaking as punishment/ and breaking as a way to bring the body back around to itself/ but/ there is only ever the version of me on the floor and the one silent in vigil over her/ and we both spit suffer like it’s a dogma/ like it’s written on the backs of our eyelids/ like it’s a brand/ so/ lie down/ you dying child girl/ please/ let me shake you into something free.

BODY MAPPING WORKSHOP

Artwork by Rabiyatu Jalloh

Notes from a Class on Trauma Hannah Soyer

Assuming, then, that trauma has a voice.

Assuming, then, that trauma is a wounding: the incision made down my back when I was eight years old.

Assuming, then, trauma as a result of the wound: the insistent terror I encounter in the face of “I consent,” the hazy feeling in my body during other medical procedures, my writing. 3

Assuming, then, that the body itself provides the link: It can become difficult to hold both these truths simultaneously: Without spinal fusion surgery at eight years old, you would have died and you don’t want to die. You also don’t want your disease to magically disappear. When you think of the body as a link, you think of the body as the answer, or at the very least, an answer. You also think of your friend who had a similar disease to yours and who died when you were a freshman in high school after her parents took her off life support. What percentage of the circumstances leading up to her death were rooted in her body? What circumstances were not? 4

Assuming, then, that this is not an exaggeration: You cannot remember the first time you saw a romantic relationship involving a disabled individual represented in the media. Maybe 2016—the release of Me Before You coincided with your first realization that you have panic attacks, dissociation your most recognizable symptom. You sat outside your grandparent’s house and cried, feeling as if you were floating right above your body, and that the flowers in their backyard, the cement of their patio, the wood of the ramp that traversed the step into their house—all of these were not real. It took you awhile before you could talk, but you finally answered your mom’s question of what was wrong by saying, “There’s a movie that just came out where the disabled protagonist falls in love with his helper and then he kills himself at the end.” 5

Assuming, then, that the individual cannot be separated from the collective. 19

Notes from a Class on Trauma (continued) Hannah Soyer

Assuming, then, that there is no guilt-free speech: Also all in 2016–an employee at a care facility for disabled individuals in Japan writes a letter stating, “I envision a world where a person with multiple disabilities can be euthanized, with an agreement from the guardians, when it is difficult for the person to carry out household and social activities.” He later murders 19 disabled individuals living in this facility and injures 26 more. Julianna Snow, a five-year-old with a form of muscular dystrophy, tells her parents she doesn’t want to go back to the hospital the next time she is sick and wants to go to heaven instead. Her parents oblige and she dies. 14-year-old Jerika Bolen, who had the same disease you have, decides to end her life, citing intense pain as the reason, pain that was unable to be effectively managed. There is a “last dance” held in her honor. Two important components of Jerika’s identity that are often overlooked: she was black, and she was openly queer. 7

Assuming, then, that trauma marks the body–the scar down the middle of your back should not be read as a signifier of social trauma, but rather as a mark of privilege that you have access to and can afford this medical procedure. 8

Assuming, then, a pattern of non-consent.

Assuming, then, a pattern of non-consent: The realization that your body isn’t yours might come to you instantaneously, in the moment that four residents file into the room behind the doctor, and you’re sitting on the table with your shirt off, slouched to the side because that’s how your muscles work and that’s what they’re all here to see. Of course the doctor asked you and your parents if it was okay for the students to observe, and of course you and your parents said yes. You are six years old. You don’t understand how consent works. You understand that you have the ability to say no, but you exercise this mainly in what one might consider normal six-year-old activities, such as playing imaginary friends with your brother, or not giving up a certain crayon at school. This isn’t exactly what one would consider a normal six-year-old activity, is it? Being looked at by doctors and medical students in this way? 10

Assuming, then, a pattern of non-consent: Something happens to you when you are (you think) in 2nd grade. When making drinks at your apartment with A., the girl you are dating, you tell her about the abusive helper you had your freshman year of undergrad, the gaslight-y, manipulative friend but more than friend from a year or so ago, and then you say something that you surely only say because of the alcohol inside of you: “There was this incident with a man when I was little. I’m still stepping around it and only recently realizing how much that experience shaped me.” You don’t say anything more than that; your instances of trauma feel inconsequential next to hers, and you don’t want to undermine her experiences with details of how your helper at that time–who worked for the elementary school you went to and stayed with you all day–had carried you out of the bathroom after helping you and placed you in the lap of a man you detested (you don’t know why you had such a strong aversion to him, but your guess would be that he made you feel small and helpless and insignificant. Once you realized you were being carried out of the bathroom to be placed on his lap, you started screaming and crying, which somehow cruelly mixed with the laughter of your helper. You think the man was laughing too. You were wearing shiny blue pants, like 2nd graders do. This is all you remember of this experience, but you did not want to go to school after that, and your mom had to assure you each morning that this man wouldn’t be there–what does this mean?) The point of telling all of this now, though, is not to illustrate how your mind or memory went blank after you had been placed in his lap (you have always been, for the most part, physically at the mercy of others), but how the intricacies of this memory are not ones you want to divulge to the girl you are dating. You don’t want to tell her all of this, you want to kiss her. You want to curl your body into hers. 11

Notes from a Class on Trauma (continued) Hannah Soyer

Assuming, then, an impossible dichotomy: the imperative to tell vs. the impossibility of telling. What Audre Lorde meant when she wrote “Your silence will not protect you”–not that bystander’s complicity will circle around to harm them (although, sure it will), but that our own omissions will not end up keeping us safe. 12

Assuming, then, that trauma fractures linearity: Time behaves oddly in response to bodies being stolen. It splinters and warps, bubbles and collapses in upon itself. For just this moment, though, entertain the notion of time as straightforward, and learn to go back. Go back decades to your grandmother giving up her job at a music store to have children, centuries to the farmers’ wives being defined in relation to their husbands, eons to the women who kept their children alive, who kept their families alive, who did what they had to do which sometimes meant, you’ll come to understand, sacrificing parts of themselves for others. Sometimes, the parts of themselves that they have no choice but to sacrifice are their children—the ones whose lungs are too weak and filled with fluid, the ones who cannot see, the deaf ones, the lame ones, the ones who twitch and scream and cannot vocalize their understanding of the world in front of them, who cannot, for instance, say no. But of course these children never did belong to their mothers, just as you will come to recognize that your body, along with not belonging to you, also does not belong to the woman who birthed you. During the years that you teeter between childhood and loosely defined adulthood, (loosely defined because if adulthood equals autonomy surely adulthood is a lie), you spend a lot of time wondering if girls are born already shrouded in armor with knives for hands, and if so do they tear up their mothers’ insides on their way into the world or do the gouges only make their mothers’ bodies stronger? 13

Assuming, then, that trauma fractures time: When you say The girl I’m dating, you’ll stop mid-sentence, wonder at your need to continue to refer to women as girls—is it because you, yourself, feel stuck in a perpetual girlhood? Is it because of the perceived infantility that haunts disabled individuals well past their infancy? Alcoholics stop maturing after their first drink, time stops turning after a body is stolen, if a body was never not stolen, does time pass for the woman living in said body? 14

Assuming, then, that trauma entails leaving: A body without fear as a body refusing to harbor the belief you will only be known in your abandonment. A body without fear as a body that does not have to do anything besides exist to keep others from leaving it. If you have to have left the traumatic experience or site of the traumatic experience seemingly unscathed, seemingly becomes the word you latch onto. 15

Assuming, then, bodies as stories: During undergrad, you work on an investigative journalism piece cataloging the abuse of people with disabilities and learn this–In the time period of January to June 2014 alone, there were 3,161 reports of dependent adult abuse made to the Iowa Department of Human Services. 16

Notes from a Class on Trauma (continued) Hannah Soyer

Assuming, then, that narratives produce catharsis.

Assuming, then, the need for collective memory work: The disability community will never agree on how to talk about the deaths– of Julianna, of Jerika, of so many—because the disability community is made up of individuals, all with differing perspectives and different histories of hurt. You didn’t know Julianna Snow or Jerika Bolen (You had met Jerika once, actually, at a conference—the narrative isn’t that neat). You didn’t know their bodies, you couldn’t know their pain. You would like to hold these two truths simultaneously: As a child, during a particularly terrible battle with a respiratory infection, like Julianna, you had begged your parents to let you die, and you are lucky (surely this is the right word, as precarious as disabled life seems to be) that they had not obeyed your wishes. At the same time, the amount of ongoing, physical pain that Jerika talked about you have no experience with (the acute physical pain you’ve experienced from medical procedures are isolated in their acuteness and intensity to the time of the procedure. The pain following your spinal fusion surgery is hazy—you know it was there, but have only flashes of memory of it). It seems cruel to silence her voice even more than it was systemically silenced as a black, queer, disabled woman by saying she should not have been allowed to end her life. 18

Assuming, then, the erasure of the body: You want to honor Julianna’s and Jerika’s bodily experiences, their bodily pain, their bodily fear, while still questioning what was at work to make it so easy for them to choose to die. Is a choice really a choice if you’re being told over and over again that your life is not worth living, that you are a burden to your caregivers? Is it a choice if you’re 14 years old? 5 years old? 8? The traumas don’t match, the choices don’t match, the pain is not commensurate, how could we even think they are commensurate? But what choices need to be made to keep living? 19

Assuming, then, there is no definitive settlement, no resolution: You could never quite figure out—still cannot quite figure out— what happened after you were carried out of the bathroom in 2nd grade and placed on the man’s lap. 20

Alphabetizing an Apology Letter Hailey Spencer

A a a a a a a a a a a able able about about about about about about abuse abusive accepting actions actually actually actually after after after after again again aggression all all all all all all along along already also also am am am am an and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and angry any any anything anything anything anyway apologies apologies apologize apology are as as as as as as as as ashamed asked assumed at at at at at avoided avoided B back be be be be because been been been been been blame blow break break breakup but but but but but but but by by by C came can can can care caused centering certain chose clarity close cold 26

coming comments commitment conflict congratulations connect consideration contact continued continuing conversation cycle D day dealing dealing dear decision deep deep deeply deeply did did did did didn’t didn’t didn’t difficult disgusted divorce do do do do doing don’t don’t don’t down E easy effort elizabeth emotional engagement entirely especially especially especially even even eventually ever ever everything expect experience extended F failed fall feel feelings feelings felt felt finally for for for for for for for for for former forward forward freely friend friends from from from from from fulfillment fully G genuine getting grateful gratitude grief

H had had had hailey hailey happened happiness happy harm has has have have have have have heal heal heart held honest honestly honestly honesty honesty hope hope hopes how hurt hurt hurtful I IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I’ll I’ll I’ll I’m I’m I’m I’m if if ignore in in in in in in in insightful instead instead instead into invaluable irresponsible is is is is it it it it it it it it it it J just K kind kind kind kindness kindness know know know known L learn leave let let level like like listen listened

living living long long look look look look lot lot M made made major major make many married me me me me me me me me means meant met messy mine minimized more move move much much much much must must my my my my myself N need need need needs nervous never news New York no no no not not not not now now now O occasionally of of of of of of of of of of of of offer offered offering on one only open openness or or or or or other our our out out over over overdue owe own own

Alphabetizing an Apology Letter (continued) Hailey Spencer

P pain partner passive poetry post posts posts potentially pretend process process processing put Q [no words in use] R reach reached reading ready realize reason reciprocate reconnect reconnect regret relationship resent resent resentment response response rude S said same say say say safely safety scary Seattle see see seemed selfish sensible shared should showing so so so so so so so so some someone sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry spouse stand 28

start start started still such suggestions T taken taking talked talking thank thank thanks that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the them them then there there thing things think think think this those through through time time times to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to together torpedoed towards towards transparency treated treated treated treating tried tried tried tried truth U unacceptable uncaring uncomfortable understand understand undo unfairly unfounded up upset upsetting V very visit W wants was was was was was was was was was was was was way way way way way ways we weight weird

we’re were were what what what what what when when when when when when who who why will wishing with with with with with with with with words words work would would would X [no words in use] Y you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you’d you’d you’d you’ll your your your your your your your Z [no words in use]

Artwork by Miriam Harris

BODY MAPPING WORKSHOP

Sea Salt Bailey Quinn

“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it—you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.” — Richard Siken On the first day, your naked back exposed as you slump down, your shirt inching up to introduce your bare skin to the cold wall—that is when you will notice it. You won’t know how you could have possibly missed it. Perhaps it is because you never had your heart broken while boiling pasta. Or been dumped while chopping vegetables. Or you were never told that they don’t love you anymore and maybe never did while measuring out what you thought to be sugar, but turned out to be salt instead. Perhaps before this moment you have never had your heart broken in your kitchen, but you can’t say that anymore. And somehow even when the words fall off of their tongue, even as the glass shatters as it slips from your hand; even as you back into the wall as they run from the scene of the crime, you will only notice the paint. How it is peeling. How the flakes are pooling onto your hardwood flooring. How it overlaps onto the wall, crests and troughs of shaky handy work reminiscent of fresh snow banks in February. And you will remember painting it with them. You will remember collecting color swatches from the paint section of Home Depot and you will remember choosing “Sea Salt’’ instead of “Cream” because you thought “Sea Salt” sounded more grown up and more fitting for a house of new beginnings and crown moulding; although you didn’t know what crown moulding even was, but they did, and you loved them for always knowing what you didn’t. Like where your keys are, or how to change the smoke detector batteries, or how to leave you in the middle of the kitchen you painted together. On the second day, you will not look past your feet. You will tell yourself this was for the best, you are better off, it was bound to 32

happen, you should make them regret ever leaving you, but you won’t be able to look past your feet. You won’t be able to look in the mirror, because you will see the shirt they left behind, three sizes too big, hanging off of your drooping shoulders, sleeves still damp from wiping the tears. You will see the bags under your eyes like rotting figs, and then you will remember reading the comparison of eye bags to rotting figs in a poem somewhere, and you will think you can smell the death and decay radiating off of your heart. You will only be able to look at your feet, and yet you will not notice the paint, or at the very least you will allow it. You will ignore the way the layers of paint chips will coat the floor of the kitchen —“Sea Salt” will appear to be coming in, overtaking the “Robin’s Egg” blue walls, a tide of only foam, sucking in the sea and leaving only mist. After the first week, you will learn how to make coffee again. You will take a shower, and still get back into their shirt, but at the very least you will put on fresh underwear and fuzzy socks. You will learn how to play house. You will do the dishes. You will bake banana bread. You will fill the hole in the bed with new pillows. You will consider getting a cat or a haircut. You will probably get neither and just bake more banana bread. Your steps will slow and slip as the white paint begins to fill every room up to your ankles. You will fill the dishwater, and you will use an old mug to scoop out the paint as it sloshes onto the dishes and fills the detergent capsule with milky liquid. Even when the frayed threads on the hems of your jeans become glazed, and harden over in “Sea Salt,” you will not acknowledge the tides of white paint lapping at your ankles. You will be wondering what they are up to. You will be wondering if they have moved on, if they are handling it just fine. You will want them to be happy and you will not know why it hurts so badly. And then you will realize the mug you have been using was their favorite. You got it for them two birthdays ago. You will not believe they left it, just like that. Left you, just like that. And then it will hit you all over again. And it will feel like you have been shot. Hand to the chest, tears collecting in your

YOUTH

eyelashes, like empty buckets left out in the rain, bubbling over. You will fall to your knees as the dishwasher starts, as the coffee gurgles into the mug, as the baking timer dings, as the paint soaks through your jeans, as the tears pour down your face and dilute the paint until it is translucent and you can see your rippling reflection on the surface. After the first month, you will be dumping pails of paint out the windows. Even when you use the books on your nightstand to paddle your mattress to your closet, the bedframe sunken somewhere down below; even when you sleep in your rubber rain boots, you will still not acknowledge the flood of white in every room. You will wake up, only to cough up chalky white chunks of congealed paint, and then you will continue on. Some mornings you find it easier to breathe than others. Sometimes it will feel like you are drowning on dry land, except it is not dry, it is only white paint, covering every wall, every surface, and submerging everything and sinking anything that comes near.

as ever, you will realize the paint still overlaps just the slightest between the wall and the floor. The smallest crests and troughs still dip down to the hardwood, still rise to the shores of “Robin’s Egg.” As you slip to the floor, head resting on the rug, surprisingly dry and the stripes still iridescent, you will, perhaps forever, think about how you are laying on the floor thinking about the small gaps of paint of all things, your head on a rug, your body still covered in paint, their old shirt destroyed and laying dejected on the front stoop, and about how the kitchen might look good in a “Sage Green” shade, and perhaps you will go to the Home Depot and pick up a sample and some new brushes and you will not go near the white paint.

It is not until after the first year, you will finally notice the paint. It will not happen when you buy only white clothes so the paint soaked clothing will no longer call for attention. It will not happen when you find out they are with another and you wake up face first in the paint, the moon reflecting off of the surface. It happens when you try to remember what color your walls used to be, and you cannot recall. The “Robin’s Egg” was your choice. You had thought it was perfect because the light streams through the kitchen window when you make pancakes in the morning and it hits the mirror just right. So you bought a blue sweater. So you will paint your ceiling blue, because everything else will be leached of color, only “Sea Salt” creeping up every wall, but not what is within reach. Not what is manageable. You buy white curtains with small forget-me-nots embroidered all over, and then once you realize you are tired of swimming through the unrelenting tides of paint, you will open the doors. You will break the windows. You will use their old shirt to shove the rising waves of “Sea Salt” out of the door, out the windows, out, out, out out. And it will feel easier to breathe. And you will realize how much you missed color. And as you back into the kitchen wall, as blue 33

Grief Painting Haibun Sean Lynch

When I imagine the cemetery where my mother is buried, I can see the ocean from her grave, but in reality, that is not the case. Instead, houses, trees, and hills block the view of the sea, and the closest body of water is the Cape May Canal, not the Atlantic Ocean. The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed the waterway during the Second World War in order to create a safe haven from Nazi U-Boats that stalked the coast. Now, only yachts and dolphin watching cruisers use the canal. If and when the sea overtakes the Jersey Shore, I imagine this point will stay afloat, the cemetery’s height on t he slope of the hill becoming an island amid ruins of submerged vacation homes. It will happen both gradually and suddenly, as we stand in the middle between the time of the last catastrophe and the next. I look up from my mom’s gravestone and see the moon rising in the east from the Atlantic Ocean and the sun setting in the west beyond the Delaware Bay. Everything that is man-made is monotone: gray monuments to the dead, houses painted white, black asphalt holding summer heat, chain link fences reflecting starlight off steel silver. Everything that is natural is multi-tonal: greens of grass and trees, the layered watercolor sky blues, yellows of corn stalks in the field beyond, my arms and hands that are covered in scars of pinks. Even natural and man-made sounds differ. Every bird chirp is unique. Every car driving in the distance is the same. I walk off from my mom’s grave toward my parked car and the smells of the grass and sea salt air transform suddenly into the plastic and metal interior of an automobile. I say, “I’m sorry, mom,” and drive away from the weight.

a skeleton rests at the bottom of the ocean

Tending Rachel Hsu

2021 river rocks, wood, paper 4 x 96 x 96 in.

View video for this piece at apiarymagazine.com 35

Tending (continued) Text from gate-folded brochure (available as a takeaway in the gallery) Rachel Hsu

Beholden to the words and wisdom of Ross Gay, Cathy Park Hong, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Teju Cole, and Ocean Vuong. And Raelin—you, who I have yet to meet, and who I have loved before knowing.

Nothing Ever Happens Cherry Nin

1 To fully admit to yourself that you want to be an artist, to attempt to break through the shame of that, of wanting something for yourself, something so dripping in Capital, amongst the collapse of it all—will the systems that uphold my dream even be in place? I want them to fall, I usher this collapse onwards, I poke at the beast. I enjoy doing things quickly. There is always a rush even when things must happen slowly and most things must, and this extreme urgency is the most uncomfortable part of being a human, this disconnect, this being stuck in time thing, this never having enough of it. Yesterday I was reading Eileen Myles and they said something about needing to write quickly as to avoid making too many decisions. Harry Dodge said that the art object itself isn’t the thing, because the thing is moving so fast that the object can’t keep up. These are two arguments for rushing. But maybe they are also arguments for surrendering, avoiding overthinking. There have always been great artists, in different worlds, outside of capitalism. They are tucked away but I need them like I need wind. Do you know where they are and would you mind sending me links to their work? Feeling this curtain cloud in front of my face brain. Rat said my characters are always about to explode. So am I. 3... Th is condition of being lodged in time… do you feel it too? I know not everyone does. It’s like dysphoric. It’s like 2... t he feeling of your appearance not matching how you feel on the inside. I know you can relate to that at least. Most things must. 1... S orry I have to go now, before this thing starts leaking meaning.

2 James Baldwin’s character Giovanni said that you don’t have a home until you’ve left it and once you’ve left you can never return. I think a lot about familiarity and connection to place and non-place and placelessness. I am not quite sure where I want to be yet. I am 25 and I miss my dead mom and I want a family. I am seeking signs of something. I think that being queer and an artist is really about non-place, about trying to find place but being perpetually sort of in the shadows. We 38

are trying to make a place, we are all doing the same thing (floating, getting by, working our asses off ) so the thing we are doing is okay, queer artists have always done this right? And they are grown up and okay now right? They have places and freaky families and were kind of late bloomers but now go to parties with other famous queer artists right? But this is not the 20th century right? We don’t get happy endings just the toxic aftermath right? Saying all of this I realize, what about AIDS and white supremacy and the many other horrific things? And so I realize I am really only thinking about a select group of people who made it to middle age, seem to be doing fine, at least by the standards of this world, even in this world. But still. I doodle in my journal: THINGS GET BETTER OK. At night I am asleep but actually I am in a very long tunnel, I am alone but actually I am with all of you, each and every one of you, and there is a light at the end and I (we) are walking towards it but it is going to take a long time, much more time than we have time for and much more time than we have hoped for. WE WILL have small moments where we can breathe again and I will smile at you as we pass each other on the street and I will feel like the luckiest person in the world just to see a stranger’s (your) entire beautiful face. Beautiful day, isn’t it? Nothing ever stays the same. That’s the only thing I feel I can really count on. The sky too. Though I heard that some scientists want to pump sulfur into the atmosphere to slow climate change which would make it so that the sky is no longer blue. Yeah, gorgeous.

3 Jackie Wang writes about the idea of oceanic feeling (which I understand as a sort of transcendence, a universality, or the feeling an artist gets when they feel the compulsion to create), describing it as a manic defense against pain, a thing rooted in pain, but also something that can be experienced as ecstatic joy. A terrible gift, she calls it. Hannah Black says that New Jersey looks like the apocalypse already happened and nooone noticed. These four walls. Trenton’s motto is TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES, and there is a green bridge in the city that says it in all caps and you can see it through the window when you are taking the train from Philadelphia to New York City and you will be a bit startled by this, its bitterness, you will be entertained by it, but you yourself will never actually step foot in Trenton and you yourself will not feel this thing rooted in pain. You will think, Trenton is the kind of place where nothing ever happens. But also I read that something is

happening—Trenton is infested with crows. To the point where the city enacted sonic warfare (loud sounds of crows in pain) against the crows to get them to leave. It sort of worked. There’s shit absolutely everywhere. You can’t even read the street signs. How can I acknowledge my fear, my grief, my shit, without letting it take over? I wake up each day still living, still needing to scurry from one place to another under dark, crow-filled skies. These four walls. Making art makes me shit and also suppresses my appetite. It’s part of my morning routine. My friend is sitting next to me on a grimy coffee shop couch. This was a while ago. I’m like a lab rat, she is saying, moving her hand up and down through the air. When something feels good I keep hitting the button for more. A terrible gift. Experiments have shown rats will forgo food to the point of starvation in exchange for brain stimulation or intravenous cocaine. At least that’s what it says on Wikipedia.

just wonderful? This breathing, these moments. I truly enjoy “academic” writing, I truly believe in “common language.” Maybe I should just talk like me. What a feat that would be. When I heard this, Fred Moten saying that the thought of the outside can only occur from the inside, Rat and I were inching towards the end of making a movie that we will have worked on for a year. I am proud of the fact that we have been working on it for a year and so you will probably hear me saying it several times, I can be quite repetitive. Wait I don’t use the word “quite.” I can be really repetitive. That’s better. Repetition in any form reminds me of chanting, of some ancient song meant for transcendence. Because of this I tend to think of repetition as one of the most effective artistic devices. Anyways I wrote it, the base of the movie, I think last March or April, and we have been shooting it slowly, scene by scene since. But the thing is that the movie has been changing over time—what we have now is different from the original document. We play characters and we have become those characters

4 In an interview Fred Moten said that the thought of the outside can only occur from the inside. The interview was at Harvard it was extremely long and extremely formal and the interviewer’s introduction was about a half hour long, very difficult to follow, created an awkwardness that hung in the air throughout the rest of the conversation, palpable even to me, a person watching through the dirty window pane that is Youtube, way after the fact. I’m not sure if Fred Moten is queer but he is evidently very influential to queer artists which I think makes sense because his ideas are rooted in Black study and so could be relatable to a multidude of marginalized groups, people occupying other types of insides. Today it is snowing, it has been snowing for days which is great because it means I don’t have to go to work and can instead stay home and do my real work. I look around my bedroom and think that the funniest thing about being me is that I made up my entire life. I mean I guess there is sort of a vague precedent or equation I am trying to follow. I guess I am sitting at my desk at 11:00 AM in a short sleeved t-shirt and I guess every so often I turn to look over my shoulder out the window at the snow still falling into soft sugary piles. I guess I am curious about how I want to write, how I want to make things, and is this even a decision I can really make or do I venture out only to inevitably return to a natural equilibrium that is my own and how do I know that I’m there. This is a question of style I guess. I am always so poisonously unsure of myself. Isn’t it all

and the characters have become us, you know? It is a fantasy, but it is about us, over time, through seasons. In it, my character Maggie finds a door to an underground world. She needs it and so the door makes itself available to her. She renames herself Maggot, enters the underworld, and finds a realm of artists doing freaky shit. She also meets Rat’s character there, Dirt. The movie is about Maggot and Dirt, their relationship which circles around conversations through space and time. Part of it is that Maggot and Dirt are struggling to decide whether to remain underground where they feel a sense of belonging or to return to the surface, visible and in service of others. The thought of the outside can only exist from the inside. It is all very insular. In the end Maggot decides to return to the surface, but Dirt can’t: there is a difference in identity. Dirt is a trans woman of color and so can only exist inside, in the underworld. Maggot is white and cis passing. She can exist outside, amongst dominant culture. But once outside she will forget Dirt, the door, the underworld. They say a teary goodbye, Maggot leaves, it ends in snow. Isn’t it all just wonderful? This breathing, these moments.

Artwork by Mateo Genoveva

BODY MAPPING WORKSHOP

In the Key of You Tomas Nieto

After Patrick Rosal I drift back to it in the middle of a grocery store or when the sunlight hits the Plexiglas. This was years ago: seconds ago. How long could you hold this note? Music is the art of combining sound and silence. When the note is just right, the blunt is felt from the inside out. So, I became a musician. My first track went like this: I counted the click of locks the number of knives the days it’s been since and the seconds it takes to—

I can still pin the bang to the edges of my teeth. Shoulders back, feet first, red stoplight gone too red. You wanted it and it came fast. Full devastation—heavy with angels. Your Honda gone. The street so wide Saint Peter was a block too soon. Two cars: a whole story skidding across a street; screws, fenders and pieces of windshield—an alphabet for God unpiecing bit by bit. I read once that at any given time only part of this world is gruesome.

And at that moment, all of it hinged from a telephone wire.

In the Key of You (continued) Tomas Nieto

It was raining when I got the call. Each line of water dropped: a question. What time was it?

The whole story or just the point?

Is he okay?

What do you mean you don’t know?

What did the doctors say? Was it an accident? The purpose?

What was the intention?

The match? The flame? The ends of question marks scattered below me—a garden of slate blooming around my knees. That night, I made the splatter wider.

So how long can you hold this note? Silence is half of the song. No matter if you can hear it or not.

In the Key of You (continued) Tomas Nieto

There is only so much water a body can hold until it starts claiming another—when the sky gets too full or a dam on the edge of disaster, the bloated legs of Grandpa or the way we cling to so much impermanence at once. Water is all we are and all we are floating in. You must let it run through you before you can drink from it. So, drink from it.

It was on some street in San Diego, ending and beginning under the same sky—two ends running at each other. Double spiral. Circling teeth. Black hole. Blazing. And in the moment before impact, you unlocked Jesus and nebulas in the perfect of this pause, where the bullet balanced on your neck right before you said God. It was over as soon as it begun—twisting a key into a lock. There is no language for this, only shudder, disappearing in an instant, leaving a swollen throat where the hard-mute escapes into thin air. I am so sorry. Me, on one side of those words. You, on the other. I spoke into the circle of my ten fingers to make sense of this: a stampede coursing through you, through my lips, clear across an intersection, out

into forever.

There is no stampede here. Just the rushing clarity of seeing you everywhere and nowhere at once.

In the Key of You (continued) Tomas Nieto

I’ll ask one more time: how long could you hold this note? Listen:

BIOGRAPHIES

Emory Brinson is a freshman at Brown University studying Literary Arts and International Affairs. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the National YoungArts Foundation, and Hollins University. Recently she was a finalist for the Passages North Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize.

Cherry Nin is an interdisciplinary artist with a practice that includes writing, video, performance, and sound. Alongside her art practice, Cherry is an organizer. She is the co-founder of writer’s collective Word Club, and Krissy Talking Pictures, a video art organization in Philadelphia for queer artists without access to institutions.

Chris L. Butler (he/him) is an African American and Dutch poet/essayist from Philadelphia, PA living in Canada. His debut micro chap, BLERD: ‘80s BABY, ‘90s KID (Daily Drunk Press) is set to be released in August 2021. He is the Associate Poetry Editor at Bending Genres and a feedback Editor for Versification Zine. You can read his work in or forthcoming with Alternating Current Press, Flypaper Lit, Trampset, Perhappened Mag, The Bayou Review, and others. Jawn is absolutely his favourite word.

Bailey Quinn is an English major from Connecticut. Her writing is fueled by the magic of ordinary life.

Adrianna Caputo was born and raised in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey. She is currently earning her BFA in creative writing at Eckerd College. She lives at home with her dog and two cats. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Glassworks, The A3 Review, and Humana Obscura. Jade Fleming is an emerging poet and lyrical essayist currently residing in Philly. Xey are a black nonbinary poet with a B.A. in Literature and Concentration in Creative Writing. Xeir writings often broach topics of mental health, identity, ancestry, and the supernatural. Rachel Hsu (b. 1992, Seattle, WA) is a Philadelphia-based interdisciplinary artist who works with visual art, language, and poetry. She holds an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and a BFA from Western Washington University. Sean Lynch is a poet and editor who lives in South Philly. His poems have appeared in journals including Hobart, Meow Meow Pow Pow, and Drunk Monkeys. He’s the founding editor of Serotonin, on the editorial board of Moonstone Arts Center, and serves as the Program Director of the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association and Writers House in Camden, NJ. Tomas Nieto is a writer and educator from San Diego, California. An alum of Las Dos Brujas, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and VONA/Voices, his work has appeared in Solstice Literary Magazine, The Rumpus, Mud Season Review, and others.

Hannah Soyer (she/her) is a queer disabled writer born and living in the Midwest. She is the founder of This Body is Worthy, a project aimed at celebrating bodies outside of mainstream societal ideals, and Words of Reclamation, a space for disabled writers. She is the editor of The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, an anthology of poetry from disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent writers forthcoming from Sable Books, and her work has appeared in places such as The Rumpus, Disability Visibility Project, and Entropy. Hannah also happens to be a cat and chocolate enthusiast. Hailey Spencer is a poet, writer, and director. She coproduced three webseries as a founding member of the independent studio Arsenic Martini Productions. Her poetry has been published online and in print. She lives in Seattle with her wife. You can find out more at haileyspencerwrites.com Vriddhi Vinay (she/her) is a poet and of South Indian background and student from the Philadelphia area. She is interested in research into gender justice, post-colonial studies, and revolutionary South Asian histories as well as the archival of South Asian women’s colonial anthologized poetry. She has had work in Cosmonauts Avenue, Penn Review, Kweli Journal, and The Inklette.

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