Bossier Issue 7

BOSSIER BOSSIER

by Charlotte Boehning

DUMPLINGS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

BUSINESS MANAGER

HEAD OF OUTREACH & EVENTS

HEAD OF MARKETING

HEAD OF PEOPLE

LAYOUT DIRECTOR

ART DIRECTOR

MANAGING EDITOR

CONTRIBUTORS

CHARLOTTE BOEHNING

Aires Miranda-Antonio

Olivia Jimenez

Elaine Liu

Rocco Graziano

Sebastian Bedoya

Aurore Ndayishimiye

Claudia Chen

Clara de Solages

Samantha Freedman

THE B TEAM

EDITORS

Sienna Brancato

Natalie Chaudhuri

Charlotte Boehning

Madeleine Gibbons-Shapiro

Rachel Harris

Samantha Helflrich

Leina Hsu

Olivia Jenkins Fatoumata

Taylor Kahn-Perry

Jaden Kielty

Philan Morgan

Ankushi Mitra

Amber Nguyen

Renae Salunga

Zahra Wakilzada

LAYOUT DESIGNERS

see table of contents, p5

OUTREACH & EVENTS

Casey Rae Borella

Narisa Buranasiri

Maia Farell

Lea Farhat

Alexandra Giorno

Natalie Kim

Fran Mbonglou

Lauryn Reynolds

Akanksha Sinha

MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA

Reagan Crittenden

Kiki Davidson

Cynthia Desmet Villar

Anita Kelava

Jennifer Linares

Emilia Toledo

Kat Woodard

RESIDENT CREATORS

Maya Archer

Samantha Carrillo

Syed Chapman

Amanda Estevez

Kakazi Kacyira

Olivia Lebos-Planas

Isabel Vlahakis

BLOG FEATURES

Maddy Langan

Elizabeth McDermott

Jonathan Mejia

Tiko Mkheidze

GENERAL MEMBERS

Charlotte Boehning

Mai Pham

Sophie Septoff

SEBASTIAN BEDOYA

GERITZA CARRASCO

SAMANTHA CARRILLO

AL CASTILLO

CLAUDIA CHEN

ADEN CHOATE

CASSADY CUNDARI

CLARA DE SOLAGES

MAYDHA DHANUKA

RILEY GANZI

MADELEINE GIBBONS-SHAPIRO

ISABELLE GROENEWEGEN

SONYA FARES

JULIA FEIGEN

SAMANTHA FREEDMAN

OLIVIA FRANCIS-ANSPACH

KELLY GOONAN

KATIE GLASER

HANNAH GRECO

ROCCO GRAZIANO

ANNABEL HENEGAR

MARGARET HODSON

OLIVIA JIMENEZ

SASHA JOVANOSKI

JADEN KIELTY

NATALIE KIM

STEPHANIE LEOW

TIKO MKHEIDZE

JONAJI METH

KATHLEEN NEILL

ANGIE NEWMAN

LUCIA PIETO

TOELLA PLIAKAS

CAROLINE PORTERFIELD

MICHELLE RENSLO

MANDY ROMERO

KOYUKI SAKURADA

SOPHIE SEPTOFF

EMILY SHAMBAUGH

MAYA SILARDI

MYIAH SMITH

AKANKSHA SINHA

TIMMY SUTTON

EMILIA TOLEDO

GWENDOLYN VILES

LINH VU

EMMA WOODRUFF

LILY YAMAGATA

ZOE TARA ZEIGHERMAN

HELEN ZHANG

COVER ART: by Charlotte Boehning

“Truth

by Toella Pliakas & RC Kakazi Kacyira “Hear

by Allison Herr & RC Amanda Estevez

20-21 by Chloe Suzuki 22-23

by Sayrin Kang

24-25 by Kimberly Jin 26-27 by Joyce Yang

“The Side Unseen” | 28-29

by Gabriela Gura & RC Samantha Carrillo

30-31

by Joyce Yang

32-33

by Toella Pliakas

“(de)conforming Black bodies” | 34-35

by Stephanie Leow & RC Syed Chapman

36-37

by Toella Pliakas

38-39 by Serena Lu

40-41 by Kathleen Neill

“Women in Healthcare” | 42-43

by Isabelle Groenewegen & RC Isabel Vlahakis

44-45

by Mary Grace Yaeger

46-47 by Rachael Johnson

48-49

by Zoe Tara Zeigherman

50-51

by Geritza Carrasco

52-53

by Geritza Carrasco

54-55 by Sayrin Kang

56-57 by Gabriela Gura

58-59 by May Tan

60-61 by Gina Kang

62-63 by May Tan

64-65 by Stephanie Leow

66-67 by Joyce Yang

68-69 by Mary Grace Yaeger

70-71 by Chloe Suzuki

72-73 by Serena Lu

74-75

by Kimberly Jin

My Dearest Bossier,

7 has always been my lucky number. Being born on the 7th kinda just does that to you, ya know? In honor of our luckiest issue yet, here are five (cause we don’t have time for seven) reasons why I love you.

1. Bossier, you have had my heart from the beginning. From the first issue I held in my hands to signing off on this letter. You’ve made this campus a brighter place for me.

2. The most wonderfully special people all claim the B-team and nothing makes me happier. Georgetown can be a place of chaos and this semester especially I have been at a loss for words, constantly trying to catch my breath, and every time I found myself breathing normally it was because of you.

3. There is absolutely nothing like you. The B-Team tripled in size this semester we went from 20 to almost 70 and you didn’t flinch or wither, just opened your arms wider and filled more people with love.

4. You make me a thousand times cooler. Recently I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to meet a younger version of myself and I know Bossier is one definite thing to make me seem 100% cooler than I am.

5. You teach us all to be more creative, more lovely, more interesting, and more vulnerable!

Thank you forever, thank you always, thank you. with all my love.

Dear Bossier,

I cannot believe I am writing this, at this very moment, surrounded by old whirring Macs beneath the weight of four floors of tired & resilient students. Throughout my time here, I have spent countless hours in this room, working on pages of issues past, tweaking and creating, in a constant state of awe for those students above and around me, for those students who shared themselves with us, for those students who create and create yet never hear a word about it. I have to wonder, who let me be here? Who allowed me such a great privilege? While I am undeserving of this role, know that I am infinitely grateful.

Working on you now seems different, though. It is my last time writing a letter from the editor. And in a few months, it will be my last time stepping out onto O as a Georgetown student. As I reflect on my time here, I cannot separate you from me. My time was spent in joy and disarray, sadness and triumph, failure and light, and throughout all of that, you, Bossier, were there. Some of the hardest times in my life came out of college, and you were the one to squeeze me tight, to cry with me, to lift me up. I wish I knew a better way to repay you, but I may as well, at the very least, say thank you for giving me a home and a family when I so desperately needed one.

There are many others I need to thank to commemorate my final year in charge of this beautiful org. To Aires, my fearless partner in all things Bossier, getting to know you has been one of the greatest joys in my life. I cannot wait to see you kickass next year and in the future. To contributors, thank you for trusting us with your work. This ‘zine exists entirely because of you. You are strong, your art is beautiful, and we love you more than you know. To readers, thank you for giving us a chance, and for allowing the hidden portion of our student body to be heard. To Rocco, Narisa, & Sophie, thank you for keeping Bossier constantly alive at home, and for your invaluable contributions to the org. To my sister, thank you for giving me the confidence freshman year to trust my creative instinct. To Tommy, thank you for your undying support. To the B-Team, thank you for catching me when I fall, especially for helping me honor little Imogen’s life these past two years.

I love you, Bossier. You are my everything.

Armageddon 2020

by Lucia Pieto

1. This is the year I spend as a cannibal

2. I’ll have a lot of time to read and write

3. I’ll be able to feel the freedom of walking around and talking to myself with nobody around to hear me

4. Nuclear pollution will change all the plants and animals

5. I’ve been preparing for this loneliness

6. I’ll find a wolf orphan with three eyes and two sets of teeth and raise it. It will trust me and we will survey the desolate land together

7. Toxic dust will fill the air, so I’ll have to wear a gas mask all the time

8. I’ll live in a bunker with my wolf friend

9. My wolf friend will be immune to the gases so he can walk above while I’m sleeping to keep watch

10. I’ll lose my arm while being attacked by a herd of feral bison and I’ll have to replace it with a metal one

11. The nuclear waste will infect a subgroup of humans who lost their faces so they’ll try to hunt me for my face

12. I corner one of this subgroup and try to eat him but I only get his hand and he gets away

13. Eating his hand makes me sick because he was infected with nuclear waste

14. I stop making the distinction that we used to make between people and animals

15. I can hear plants speaking

16. In the spring I plant a nuclear garden

17. My flowers hate me and spew acid at me but I still love them

18. I have a snake problem

19. Air can think for itself now

20. At night the sky turns bright shades of pink and orange

21. You can see what you’re breathing

22. When the time comes I’ll dissolve my metal arm in water

23. I’m always bored and hungry

24. Trees also have feelings. I live beneath a living forest. Not alive like it was before. It’s a human. I live under a green human body

25. I have no purpose at all

26. My life won’t strike me as much different than it was before

27. Sometimes, there’s still power

28. Whenever I go outside, I get the urge to scream, “This was all for you!”

29. Before, I wanted to go feral. I’d talk about it all the time. Now I can become that person and stop talking

30. My wolf friend named himself. His name is Sammy

31. I’m a lot less angry now

32. My bunker is now my small home. I have a full domestic life away from the outdoors and the feral version of me who lives out there

33. I don’t have a purpose but there was never a purpose to begin with. There’s only intention. There’s still a point to all this. The same point that existed before. I could feel it then. I can feel it now. I can always feel the presence, ride the wavelength and nothing will ever be able to destroy it.

by Margaret Hodson

R I S E

by Taylor Kahn-Perry

In honor of the student climate strikes worldwide

I.

I wish that the moon was the skull of God and the tight rotations of light every night— tiny beams of pearl glow—swept over Earth in splashes of divine might.

And if the moon is God then our matriarch Earth is the patchwork of a thousand heavy heartbeats, mothers asleep with eyes wide open, foreheads creased beneath blinding darkness.

If the moon was God, maybe it could halt mankind’s ritual beating of Mother Earth, the yearly, hourly tug of her skin and seas and soil and skies, the perpetual plight of her sons and daughters, ripping her apart at the seams and each other too. The children strayed too far from home this time, have forgotten that Mother is home. And Mother is bleeding, burning, warming, red hot and sweaty

from a fight over a will that hasn’t yet been written. Soon children everywhere will flee homes (land and each other), shuffle their bodies inside Mother, search for a space as safe as the womb—perhaps the electric bright rainbow of a coral reef or the familiar dance of the annual shifts of seasons, that rhythmic watercolor blending of heat and air and light. (All lost now, like loose change or matching socks.)

Who will get what’s left of the seas? They learned their forever lurch forward from Mother’s children, how to want space and take it, how to rise and spread and fill without a care.

And the forests? With their raging tempers, wildfire heat. First cut down to fuel industry—tree limbs the beginning of wealth and trade and take— it’s no surprise they respond in flames.

Mother’s children have left her burning, between rapid fire and glacial action.

II.

Unless the moon is not God, but rather the light of thousands of young bodies, slinging their legs down city blocks with posters high and voices shrill and proud. The kids born into a world built on want sprint through streets in breathless pleas against greed, prying their Mother back from the grasp of generations of thieves. Body to body with feet planted firmly on the ground, the young ones, the brave ones, do not back down, and chills abound, and this time not from misplaced seasons, but from fervor and fear and love for thy Mother and her golden sunflower light beams.

Even I Weep for the Weed

by Lema G

As she plucked the weed out of the Earth that bore it

The Dandelion weeped.

Stripped from the warm bosom of the Mother that gave it life losing its only home.

The dew which had collected on the soft gold crown rolled slowly down its green sturdy stalk. and so death and rot began their harvest on the unsuspecting flora.

Then, like the changing tides, time swept in a denouement of new life and new meaning.

Laid to rest in chocolate locks like satin, a bed was made for the weed to lay tucked in firm.

An adornment of beauty, a heedless garnish for the harvester.

Then the bed galloped and glided giving one last gallant turn about the scene of foul play, a most grotesque funeral march

In this warped reality, newfound twisted purpose, beauty meant to adorn another being and not to just be. Then nothing.

The Dandelion flittered and fell slowly, then all at once.

No sign of life.

No vitals where vitality once was the beau ideal. Alas the burden of life no longer rested on the blunted crest of the dandelion

So safe and sheltered it landed back in its mother’s arms. The first and final resting place.

A true and proper burial devoid of fanfare.

And as Nature with her sapience so proclaims

From earth the weed came, and so to earth the weed shall return.

Lehitraot

by Emily Shambaugh

I was remembering our jar of marbles when I found it under that twin bed. They had been cleaned of the grime of children’s hands by time but also aged out of their transparency.

Keeping pace across the hardened floor a dulled, sprawling rainbow the sound almost roaring of a hundred balls pouring some getting lost, others navigating together,

but yours remaining still the twisted center frozen in time with the same striking blue that radiates from an early fall sky cooly fringed by a too early winter.

“Big Sur: A Love Affair” by Charlotte Boehning

(I) serenade

i saw a cricket in my doorway; across from him a fallen comrade. it seemed as though he curled his antennas & spidery arms to bow in mourning for his lover, smooshed in the corner.

i used to hear crickets under my bed— there are insects in my room! there are singing insects in my room! and I smashed a pillow over my face to avoid

any contact with loud, spidery legs. how could i? there was no noise now, (he did not serenade in grief) only a reminder that death had reached the tiles grouted to my door

frame. i never wanted to get so close. i’ve always wanted to get so close. it doesn’t smell on a human scale ( how could we? ). bring me lifeless animation; i need to repent!

Quiet In The Kitchen Corner

by Olivia Jimenez

(II) wither

don’t abandon me at this doorway; how am i to battle a cricket all alone? he is angry with us for murder— i cannot get dressed this morning!

every day i leave my body and feel the paint on the world cracking, peeling, it’s falling apart. every day i leave and venture into puppetry; move my hands in conversation (and don’t forget to blink my eyes). i hope she, dead in the corner, might rescue me

i feel uninhabitable; hollow (knock, knock) see there’s no one there but empty bone.

withering has, i swear to god, never been pretty, especially with a carcass in my kitchen. i just hope he wasn’t angry with her.

Being Desi

By Akanksha Sinha

I am desi In every sense of the word.

I have grown up in a city That is half a floating island On soil that was once a sea bed, That is 2/3rds a steaming Pot of traffic jam

So thick and tangy, full of The perfect flavors

Of my nani’s aam ka achhar, A city that is 3/4ths the Incessant sound

Of waves pounding against The shoreline, Pounding against my ribcage For hours after I pass our grey Arabian Sea.

I have grown up in a city That has told me

In every step I’ve taken, In every gaze I’ve met, That my head and my chin Should always be held high, Proud without any limit Of who I am And of the city That made me.

So what if I learnt my ABCDs

As American Born Confused Desis, And so what, if at 12 years old, Both Premchand and JK Rowling

Were my idols, literary Gods who my soul, Regardless of my nationality, Bowed down to in Reverence and humility. So what?

So what if I have a yet untamed Angry Indian goddess Who leaps to the front In criticism of this nation

Every time a news alert of The latest horrid rape case Pops up onto my phone? And so what, if this goddess Spews fire as she defends This sacred land

At every criticism she, Or anyone else, Ever makes?

I am not desi

Just because I kick ass in a sari.

I am not desi

Just because

Ghungroos and tals

Odissi and Kathak

Slow romantic Hindi songs

And soothing old-timey ghazals Have fascinated me for All 18 years.

I am desi

Because the year I was born, My mother began to Partake in Navratra

Because she gave birth To an Indian girl In whose veins

Durga would pulse For years to come.

I am desi

Because as I sit in the Pooja ghar

On a diet of fruit and water

And pray to Durga For 10 days, I can feel her become me, And I can feel her In every Indian girl I see.

I am desi

Because I will Ruthlessly shoot down And tear apart

Every part of this nation That I cannot stand.

I am desi

Because I will dream About the millions of ways I can make the difference. I can make it better.

So don’t tell me

That with English as my first lan guage, With jeans and a t-shirt as My preferred clothing, With my intense dislike For Honey Singh, I am too firang For this glorious nation That prides itself

On its ocean of diversity. Don’t tell me I don’t belong, When this city has held me In its chudi-clad hands And mangalsutra-adorned body, And raised me

Like its own daughter. Don’t tell me

That because I still have problems With the ridiculously convoluted Gender system in the Hindi language, And ridiculously pervasive Gender system in the Indian society, I am not desi.

Look me in my deep-brown eyes

And fiercely glowing Indian skin, Look me in my conviction, My anger, my drive to protect, My hospitality, and my pride.

I am desi

In every sense of the word.

BODY POLITIK

by Kakazi Kacyira

By: Amanda Estevez & Hannah kosc

Hear Them: from

I am a white man’s burden

My life is nothing they compare

I am a white man's burden

My voice it tears

All I want is All I need is A brain

I am a child

I need a hand

I am lost in space

I must need a man

That’s what she said to make him love her

But She’s a white man’s burden

Her skin isn’t of gold

I am a white man’s burden

Because I am not cold

Nadine lives in Moscow, Idaho and is a Science, Technology and International Affairs major in the School of Foreign Service. She and her brother were pulled over in their town and questioned when Nadine was just 14. She is of Egyptian descent.

“It’sreal, it isindisputable. It’s not an arguable topic, it’sareality.”

-Nadine Abdel-Rahim

Shebasksinthe sun

Likeagoddessuntouched Shedreamsincolors unseen Becauseherworldisevidentlyunique Itbecameastoryofusandthem,she said Justan ordinary man

Itbecameastoryof how the sun became

How the sirens became more than just fictional How they materialized as more than just A beacon of a savior But as something that could doom us too Am I doomed to believe

That my skin simply defies me?

Liana is from Chicago, Illinois and is an International Business major in the McDonough School of Business. Her father and brothers were the victims of a false police call that required a car search for weapons and her 13 year old brother was handcuffed. Liana is of African-American descent.

“When I was fifteen, my brother was held at gun point by a police officer for jaywalking. That is why I’m doing

Andrea lives in Los Angeles, California and is an Undecided major with a Theology minor in the college. When she was four, she witnessed her mother being pulled over and lose her car. Andrea is of Mexican descent.

this.”

-Amanda Estevez

Wo m an Divin e

Wo m an Divin e

by Cassady Cundari

The illusion of modern man, when so long ago

They deified Woman for the wonder

That lay between her thighs, a birth so Praised and wondrous—though under Stood a mounting fear, a fear of all

Her curves could bring if with her curves

Lived conviction: a desire to befall

Her counterpart. So man, he preserves This backward fear, lets it fester, leaves her underpaid, Underestimated, under. Afraid of the goddess within.

He digs up her roots and turns her over; corrodes at her Petals, convinces himself her scent is sin

When once he’d sell his soul for a whiff. Over And over he robbed her of her womanhood; Stripped her of her divinity, her dignity, Built himself a castle upon his morning wood

While calling her body blasphemy.

But what when fingers find their place

Beneath the stigma he creates—

Cloth folded over in “disgrace”

In twos and threes, they twist the gates; How puzzled would they be to find That we escape in sheets sublime

Whilst themselves they must remind: A tender gasp remains a crime.

Our “sins” their fantasies, our waist a prize, Yet never could a man surmise

The euphoria from thy own hand

My pussy deemed but contraband.

“In the name of God!” they plea, And still, I laugh, for don’t you see?

I know quite well my God is She, And Life itself is born from me.

by Geritza Carassco

ai rpla nes

by Akanksha Sinha

there’s something about airplanes  that i can’t put my finger on. as i sit in the cramped economy seat with just enough leg space to curl my toes and just enough cold air to freeze my ears off, my mind takes flight on its own,  climbing and falling to altitudes of its own sky.

sometimes i look out at the tiny squares of land that patch together like my favorite quilt and wrap around the earth as though It was a baby. If i stare long enough,  i can see it rise and fall with each of its breaths.

sometimes i look out at the earth that lays below me and i imagine what it would feel like to fall from this height. I imagine how my back would snap and fold like  the little origami swans you used to make.

i imagine floating out  to that curved end of the wing  and folding it back making something beautiful  out of something plainit’s what you did with me.

ICU 6

byKathleenNeill

There are some things that Google will never have the answers for, like “What to do” when your heart cr u m bles as you watch your stoic father cradle the hand of his unconscious one.

Neurology ICU rUIns

6 th Floor: Neurology rUIns

byKathleenNeill

the foundation is cru m b li ng and there is nothing you can do to get it back.

SaguarobyCharlotteBoehning

It’s 4pm – sun has held me hostage in this weak, autumn embrace and from a thousand miles away you are still casting your shadow on my skin. i am counting down the days until i am dust until mind is atoms you never touched until body has forgotten all things rotten until you are erased out of my existence.

it’s 4 am – moon calls on me to forgive. reflecting back the part of me that is you saying that you were too young to know ‘no’ too strong to know that you were forcing that you were tearing my body apart in the name of love; lust; and still your shadow is cast on skin, waxing waning as i break, as i heal.

it’s day night it’s week month it’s seasons tides it’s years, years, years and yet your hands are more defined on my limbs than mine will ever be; a 12 pm shade in a forever light, a permanent tattoo in a forever ink, a construct of pain, of innocence, i will never forgive. and you will never ask.

byAkankshaSinha

it’s fall. take your touch and your shades off the branches of my mind. then i will be bare. then i will be new. then the only shadow will be mine. it’s time you fade yellow orange red brown dead crumbling disappeared forgotten never existent. it’s time i begin again.

In Bloom In Bloom

by

Natalie Kim.

by Tiko Mkheidze

By Madeleine Gibbons-Shapiro

I take comfort in your melody One note is the same after the next I hold my — clang

Breath waiting for you to glide coolly You infiltrate the air aloof unvexed My chest heaves — Clang

Please, I beg, allow me to crawl to your feet To let me hold you as you have held me (In your own head for once, not mine)

I do not notice when you are gone, Soft whispers tip toe departed life on the ground and Not in the sky

Montage flows, carries me mindlessly I step forward forward forward brace myself — Clang you’re back cacophony

A yellow umbrella floats across the somber tree Your buttons come undone mechanically Eroticism drips from throaty vowels Ascends itself through the tower’s bowels

Now. We. Wait.

By Isabelle Groenewegen

By Isabelle Groenewegen

lux, lucis

By Rocco Graziano

The Morningstar shines on me, I take cover beneath his wings.

Guide me!

Lead me!

Teach me!

The Morningstar shines with life.

The apple tastes so sweet from his hands, The Morningstar sustains me.

Feed me!

Fill me!

Lead me!

Ignorance is no longer bliss in the face of knowledge.

The Morningstar warms me, While the Word feels cold and far.

By: Isabelle Groenewegen

By Isabelle Groenewegen

The Side Unseen

by Samatha Carrillo

The inspiration behind this project was the realization that different people saw me in different ways depending on whether or not I felt confident or vulnerable. I became curious to know when other people feel most confident and most vulnerable. Something I found disheartening was how much easier it was to find moments when we were most vulnerable than most confident. I want to emphasize that the moments when we feel most vulnerable do not define us and that they are moments we can use to grow.

home is Where The hearT is

Bangkok, Thailand —— Georgetown, D.C.

A blend of car fumes and smoke from street food vendors taint the metropolitan air. Motorbike drivers clad in neon orange vests snake their way through the constant clutter of multi-colored taxis and tuk-tuks. Cars crawl along the roads while crowds of pedestrians hustle along cracked pavements. The moment I step outdoors, the humidity unnervingly clings to my skin and the scorching heat beats down relentlessly on my neck. Even the occasional breeze carries along not just the scent of fried food, but also a certain muggy warmth that makes me grit my teeth.

Around me, there are swarms of tourists decked out in tacky Khao San tops scaling the streets. Groups of students in traditional Thai uniforms with black leather briefcases in hand linger about. Street vendors are hawking their handmade trinkets and spicy street foods. Enveloped in a cacophony of commotion car horns honking, whistles blowing, street sellers cajoling, music blasting, tourists chattering, and cellphones ringing I stop and wonder: what actually is it about Bangkok that makes this place home for me?

Home to me is not just the place I was born and raised. It is also the group of people with whom I share a language, background, and culture. It is the authentic piquant som tam and sizzling holy basil lathered krapao that Americanized Thai restaurants here in D.C. fail to conjure up. It is Bangkok city itself, the intricate assortment of towering skyscrapers, gleaming golden temples, and endless traffic jams.

I’ve been thinking about these questions a lot, especially after feeling homesick in college. For me, I realized that Bangkok is home because of all of these reasons. As a Thai citizen, I do feel deeply rooted to the place I grew up in, to the people I grew up with, and to the food I grew up eating. Yet, I also realized that what makes me miss Bangkok as a home so much is also what makes me miss Georgetown so much when I’m away from school. It is the difference in atmospheres that makes me think about how much I miss my other home even when I am at home. It is oftentimes true that people tend to appreciate what they have more when it is gone. The changes in environment when I leave Bangkok or Georgetown make me realize just how much both places mean to me, and how lucky I am to be able to call both places home.

Oxford Dictionary defines home as “a place where one lives permanently.” However, I believe that the concept of “home” begins specifically with the relationship that one forms with a certain place and people — and also extends to other places that have become meaningful and cherished. To grow fond of a place, to begin to love all its quirks and shortcomings, is a budding process of discovering another home. To be able to experience both worlds and to call more than once place home is a privilege that I’m learning to truly appreciate.

by Pin Kanjanachusa

by claudia chen

c once PT ualizing self on a sunday morning

I am my own body. Delicate at times, broken before, but I am my own body. I am my own lover. I tilt my chin carefully in the mirror and gaze into my reflection. Green pools. I am powerful.

The sweat that beads at my forehead is a labor of love. My hands move down my abdomen. Follow the carefully cut lines that strengthen me. Trace the sharp collarbones that call attention to themselves. My feet press into the ground. Each toe kissing the earth one by one. Dancing.

I am my own body. Rumbles of laughter that I create. Eruptions. I reflect and invite beauty. My brain is a clockwork of brilliance. Calculating. Reflecting. Creating. I am my own body.

I am a fleshy manifestation of awe. I am overwhelming. I am loud and opinionated and beautiful. I am a spectacle. Force and fragility meet in my nakedness. I am a basin of pleasure. A sculpture of desire. Lips opened ever so gently. I taste like fullness.

I am my own body. I get drunk off of other bodies. Beautiful like my own. Sip on sex and drown in romance. Get lost in the whirlpools that are you and I. Skin on skin I can hear your breath from miles away. You taste like comfort. But I am my own body. And my body is weighty. And my body is alone.

I live my life in this body. This smooth, but rough around the edges body. This confident and fearful body. This body with a history. With a purpose. How I wish I could have loved this body before.

by maya silardi by isabelle groeneWegen

To Have Existed in an Untouchable Room

by Emilia Toledo

A fair faced frau emerges and departs, locking an enigmatic door behind her. So I dreamt about the essence and life on the other side in a wild vision where we were fonder. A sacred space. Forbidden, untouchable by me until it wasn’t any longer.

Sanctimonious constraints broken and deserted by meteoric love and lust.

Unspeakable and inexpressible. As enchanting as the butterfly’s burning wing. As complex as a Nepalese mandala. Simultaneous knocking of an unfavored reality from outside. But with you, in this now eclipsed room, it’s all real. It’s all possible. In our universe I confide. The dark is for feeling not seeing or hearing or thinking in excess. For forgetting time’s rules and tomorrow’s duels

But our favorite part was the fall of this long, vexing dress to the floor where our cold bare feet stomped and danced. Our continuous song surging through every expanse yet rather quietly so as not to distract the passing hearsay birds from their natural tune of conformity. What does that room feel like now?

Is it empty or normal or have you allowed my energy to stay the way I have with yours in me?

Do you feel me in the crevices of the floors and in the arches of open doors where I’d stand watching you sleep?

Does my scent linger in complicit red sheets or is a new one succeeding?

While I wonder these things my skin pulsates with the lasting impression of you. Everlasting dreams of a now unreachable room.

“Organized Chaos” by Claudia Chen

by Toella Pliakas

Last week, my friends and I signed our lease on a house for our senior year. The house is on R St. in Burleith. It is about two blocks from campus, and five blocks away from TD Bank, where I found myself last Friday trying to wire my security deposit to my new landlord.

When I walked into the bank, the two bank tellers behind the counter were speaking to each other frantically and yelling to another employee who was looking down on them from the balcony on the second floor of the bank. After a moment, they noticed I was standing there and asked me to take a seat in an armchair in the corner of the bank. I put my earbuds in and went on my phone, willing them to resolve whatever crisis they were in the midst of so that I could finish my business and go home to do my homework.

Eventually, I saw one of the bank tellers waving to me. I took my earbuds out and walked over to her. She waved me over to her desk where she sat down behind a computer screen and I sat across from her. She asked me why I had come into the bank. I explained quite proudly that I was putting down a security deposit on a house and I needed to wire money to my landlord.

I scanned her face for any indication of understanding that she was witnessing an important moment in my life. I mean, I was making my first payment to a landlord. She didn’t even look up. Her eyes still on her screen, she asked me for a form of identification. I slid my drivers license across

the table and she looked at it and squinted. She looked up at me.

“How do you pronounce your last name,” she asked.

“Plee-ah-kiss,” I said slowly. I said it again but at a normal speed.“Pliakas.”

“Where is that name from?” she asked me.

“My dad’s family is from Greece and that’s where my name comes from” I explained.

She looked at me for a minute, cocked her head, and squinted as she had when she was looking at my driver’s license. I’ve had iterations of this conversation many, many times.

I decided quickly to save both her and myself from the awkward time it was taking her to figure out how to politely ask me how I, very clearly a black woman, ended up with a Greek last name.

Unfortunately, it isn’t a very interesting story. My mom is black, from Zambia, and my dad is Greek. They met in the United States at school, got married, and had me.

“My mom is from Zambia,” I added, quickly and smoothly.

Usually, at this point in the conversation, people ask me questions about Zambia. Where it is? How many people live there? Why did my family come to the US?

It makes me feel good to be asked these questions. My family in Zambia speaks languages I will never comprehend and practice a lifestyle I am too Westernized to identify with. These basic questions, about

geography and familial history, I can answer. This bank teller, however, was African herself and didn’t ask me any of those questions.

“I thought you might be Ethiopian,” she said instead. “You look like one of my cousins. But your name isn’t very habesha.”

Since moving to DC, many other Ethiopians have asked me that same question because of my facial features and the large habesha immigrant population here. Once they hear my name, they are usually disappointed, realizing I am not one of them. In other contexts, my name has served to further integrate me. Often, people who see my name written down will think the double l is a “y” sound. Toella becomes toe-aye-ah and people assume I am Hispanic. Other times, Greeks or Africans will recognize me as part of their community because of my name, as my face does little to clearly indicate my ethnicity.

When I go to Greek church with my dad, I always introduce myself as Toella Pliakas, taking time to pronounce my last name slowly and emphasizing the Greek sounding ending. That way I am able to avoid explanations about Greek foods and traditions I’ve known about for as long as I’ve known how to write my own name. When I’m with the Zambian community at home, I am just Toella-- the last name is omitted. I hope Toella, a Tumbuka name, reminds other Zambians of the mighty tribe it comes from as well as the culture and history I can only begin to appreciate.

Photos by Olivia Jimenez

Since the racist caricature of the Jezebel, Mammy, and the Sapphire associated with Black women since their forced arrival to this country, the underlying and subliminal messages about Black women’s bodies persist. While the Jezebel is seens as overly promiscuous with a large libido, the Mammy as a mother-like figure whose sole purpose for being is to care for her master’s white children, and the Sapphire as sassy and emasculating, it is important to note and recognize the history of body socialization with the Black community today. As we could never know the direct implications from those who experienced these pervasive and popular stereotypes, I interviewed Black womxn across Georgetown’s campus in the class of 2022 in order to espy the development of . Below, you can find their recounting moments and thoughts on the ways in which they were socialized about their bodies in their homes and from family, from institutions such as schools, what they see about themselves what they see in media and pop culture.

“My grandmother put me in certain clothes because she did not want the way I dressed to be an excuse for assault that was predominant in Senegal”

-Laisa

“My school would make us kneel to see if our shirts touched the ground, and the problem with that was Black womens’ butts were already larger”

“In the MSB, there is an unspoken dress code where I feel uncomfortable to wear jeans or a dress that looks professional”

-Aaryn

“At my school, white women wore short nike shorts and a large t-shirt, making it seem like they were naked. But if a Black women did that, she’d be called to the principal’s office.

-Anaya

“Sexualization of young girls forced my school to not allow us to wear hoop earrings and yoga pants”

-Mbatoma

“I have a traditional Jamaican family and when I’d wear crop tops, I’d get in trouble for it”

“My Jamiacan family socialized me to dress conservatively to be taken more serious”

-Iyanda

“Being Black, my dad always told me that I have to be mindful of being too different from everyone else because I already have something against me”

“A lot of Black girls are targeted in schools”

“It's not my issue if people are becoming distracted from what I am wearing”

“It’s not appropriate for me to wear certain clothing that accentuates my body, but I’ve changed that narrative for myself”

“A lot of Black women in music are always associated with what they are wearing/what they are doing that renounces their relevance to society”

Alana

Erin

(de)conforming Black bodies by Syed Chapman

“I don’t think people’s bodies should be in relation to anything so I wear what feels best for me”

“At some point, I couldn't even wear my basketball uniform because my arms were longer than my shorts”

“As I got older, I was forced to think of everything I did in relation to a social scene, rather than individual wants”

“Anything language and rhetoric that was geared to women was immediately pushed back at my school”

“I use my body to accentuate the parts I like about my body, because I have no limitations for myself”

“People talked about a little girls’ hair being ‘too grown’ but all it is is hair”

“My Blackness was always discounted by the way that I did not fit the modern-day notion of the Jezebel or Mammy”

“Not only did we create these stereotypes of women in a way to show what Black women can be but also limits your ability to identify with your race.”

“For Black Hijabi women, you always face this barrier of not having an option of what you can wear because it is always seen as sexual not modest”

“Immediately when I think of Jezebel, I think of episodes of SVU that show sexual assault with Black women, while I see the Mammy in movies such as The Help”

“A rich white kid has a favorite Black nanny because their own mother was never around, forcing the Black nanny to be so consumed and existing solely around this rich white kid”

Allemai

Jaye

Reagan

Fatou

Monique

Isabelle

California Thoughts

by Zoe Tara Zeigherman

Fuck the numbness that’s left you feeling dumbness which removes you from your connectedness of the core of your beingness till your beingness evaporates to the chatterings of your surroudingness and your life becomes something lived through the smatterings of otherness.

Connected. But then you lost the dream; a lighthouse desolate, moon shining, sea roaring. Loss controlling all but the moon: the round eternal lunatic one thought, one life, one mind, no beginning no end.

A fool to think sanity can be found anywhere in between.

The ocean fixes the soul. The soul controlled thus by the moon and thus insanity and thus we’re all doomed to fail. You sit on the beach and at one with your madness you finally are. Complete in its derangement. And it drains you to not be there. Malu. mal. malicious. malcontent.

Damned are we for pulling out weeds. But fun weeds grow and fun fights repeat and we all live with a routine to fight the insanity.

Away in the world on adventure some sanity lies. The only thing against it - freezing the body, while the mind floats away - love.

art by Jaden Kielty

That Other Thing

by Samantha Freedman

Seasonal depression still hits me in the spring Sweet cherry blossom sickness

I gag at the sight

I know what it’s like to blossom then shrivel

That’s why

It’s just so much easier to push than pull you towards me like

I’m too scared to touch anything that could bring me happiness I can’t handle the disappointment when it doesn’t

Maybe you’ll understand if I say it in consumer terms: You break it you buy it

It’s just that right now I can’t afford to pay I can’t afford to let myself be consumed by—

You know, it hurts me to say these things out loud

To detach the consuming from myself when it’s myself who’s consuming and it’s myself who’s feeding these negative thoughts To rip this part of me from my skin is as painful as it sounds,

It’s not easy living with (as) a parasite

I’m sorry if you feel that all I do is leech from you I’ll try to give more I’ll give anything to you, I just want you to be happy and I want you to know that everything in me is unconditional, because that’s love, right?

I’ve been trying not to make other people hurt, I’ve been trying to love for real but it’s hard

when I think I’m getting better but my friends are at the door and I can’t get out of bed, I just lay there breathing clutching the pillow so I can just keep breathing

That other thing pressing on my chest suffocating

Sometimes I wonder if maybe that other thing comes from stupid things, like a boring class a rejection email

When my dinner spilled all over the floor and I missed my bus and they didn’t text me back and I lost it

But that’s just silly Maybe this is all so silly

So funny

It’s funny I’m funny, it’s a joke

I’m kidding I’m playing with you, actually I’m fine.

Sakurada

Votive by Koyuki

Hamartanein

by Rocco Graziano

Have we learned nothing from Icarus? Must Phaethon’s light melt the wax from our wings, And burn away our pride? We ignore our fathers’ shrieking pleas: Stay! Wait! Stop!

Youthful Vanity breeds Youthful Tragedy. We fall to the sea, But we can not feel its kiss.

Phaethon Life-Giver and Poseidon Life-Sustainer Are nought when all has been burnt away. What remains when our hubris is gone? A still sea, a clear sky, a feather landing sadly in our fathers’ hand.

by Gertitza Carrasco

CLICK NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

by Emma Woodruff

Seeking movie moments

Flipping upside down Through the looking glass Into the crystalline blue town.

What gets lost in translation: You, the flowers’ scent, you again In a world this fantastical The details blur—how, why, when.

Capture these ephemera:

Still life, damp towels, languorous arms

The girl on the wall

Preserved in stone with all her charms.

Climbing every mountain

Not as idyllic as it sounds Forget the slip and slide

On the soaked and muddy ground.

Is it the moment or the photo

That stays lodged in your brain?

Lights on, credits roll; Feel the splash of the rain.

“Organized Chaos” by Claudia Chen

the doctor’s the doctor’s

by Maya Salardi

I swallow the smells of plastic, vaseline, and rubber gloves. Shift my weight back and forth on the thin sheet of parchment paper that crinkles too loud. Employees move to the rhythm of beeping machines and velcro being strapped and unstrapped On my arm, I wonder if she notices my wrists are still thin. The nurse asks me to step on a scale. I’ve been dreading this moment. I close my eyes and thank God it’s in kilograms.

She shuts the door and I scan the room for familiar objects that I can’t seem to find. The woman with the white coat and the clean eyebrows enters with a gust of vanilla drugstore perfume I can’t quite name. She asks me questions and I answer. Gritted smiles and feigned confidence lost in fear of the question that comes next.

How many? She asks me.

Three? Five? Six?

Eight I answer.

Eight? She says.

My chest tightens violently. I can feel my heart in my ears and I’m sweating and it’s cold and all I want is for this neatly groomed doctor to hug me.

Eight I say.

She nods calmly. Her judgment pierces through my thick sweater. She probes further.

How many in the last month?

One. I am pleading. One. Just one. Here comes the forceful laugh that heaves itself out of my stomach.

The motions that follow are warped into a slow haze I can’t really remember. She walks out with her clipboard and leaves me alone on that parchment paper I want to rip. I clench my fingers into the palm of my hand and let my nails sink in. They are laughing outside the door and I hate them.

I wish I could tell the woman with the sequined thin-framed glasses that I count him.

That every time someone asks me how many I see his smooth hands that found victory in touching me. That every time someone asks me I am forced to reckon with the idea that there was one moment in time where I was at the mercy of his grip and greed and power.

That every time someone asks me,

How many sexual partners have you had?

He ravages my broken body all over again.

I wonder if the woman with the clean manicure and the perfect teeth knows how much I hate her in this moment and How much I really hate him.

July Second July Second

by Kelly Goonan

kathleen neill

it’s days like today— as you watch the beams of light stretch down through the clouded sky to kiss the ground, brushing everything in a golden glow —that make you think there might be a god.

“Stars”

by Clara de Solages

by Kathleen Neill

there was that one night

and the one three when it seemed the whole world stretched kind of like

on the beach days later as though out in front of us that unending blue water.

dark

Snapshots of a Self Unraveled

by Madeleine Gibbons-Shapiro

September

blue purple light streams from an undetermined source and sweat races down my cheek faster than I ran the mile in seventh grade. my nude velvet only feels soft when stroked upwards, but he does not seem to mind. Big Green Bulge inflates but I push it down and oblige as his hand touches the small of my back.

October orange gray sky and navy neon floor tells me it is okay coaxes me forward tells me I need to do this so that I feel beautiful and not in the way my mom tells me. I live to tell the tale and only one spark of Big Green Bulge escapes, this time caught in my throat and lodged deep in my neurons.

February

golden brown hair white teeth pink cheeks peppermint tea breath doesn’t drink but I do and surely it’s a miracle he is here and I convince myself that performative respect for women is a personality trait worth lauding. chestnut brown off-white song elevates me before I sink sub-zero, Big Green Bulge wavered but it is back now and sloshing.

September

forest green black damp blades of grass soft wood he tells me something I haven’t heard before and Small Magenta Splatter greets me and consumes me for a day. specks of Magenta spurt from my eager lips onto others and I vow to never make that mistake again. Big Green Bulge envelopes my insides once more, says don’t worry, I will never leave you

Between

Deep Purple Pain. sits. wills self to stand / self defiance is the only way to move past this. exfoliates shaves but only the parts I want / blasts lizzo / cloaks herself in Big Green Bulge / tears away heart says only gold matters now who cares about the Small Magenta Splatter she wasn’t meant to be anyway.

September

now that Big Green Bulge protects her, she collects experiences like patches on her teal Girl Scout vest that was retired in 2008. gold mixes with ruby red and Big Green Bulge says do not mind, keep things moving.

Deep Purple Pain leaks out and flatlines in the distance but boomerangs back like we are in Australia or something. Small Magenta Splatter is trying, oh so hard, to rise up. but anxious mind and flitty fingers and unwanted body say nope! not today.

dusty periwinkle sheets yellow glow alone is when she lets herself slip away, tells Big Green Bulge to take a break, it’s been working relentless hours. moments between consciousness and dream state write the story for us and I do not wonder why infinity seems like forever until I waft down like a dove’s feather and things that were unattainable are suddenly mine.

“Self” by Clara de Solages

by Alexandra Mucher

All

by Charlotte Boehning

Japanese of a Broken Love

by Linh Vu

I bring to Japan with my broken heart

Hoping the Chozuya water of Sensoji

Would flow through my arteries and Purify it. Grandma walks slower than me

Invisible weight of my grandfather’s death

Slowing her down.

Even the Ryokucha and Kuro Tamago

Will not add 7 years to the life of his.

I stand on the morri of Meiji Jingu

Holding still for a minute when the bonsai

Beckons me to step through for a new life.

I run my hand across all visitors’ ema

Hoping their liveliness transfuse through me.

I neatly wrote a letter and put it in an envelope

Throw some 100 YEN coins. It landed and echoed a multitude of clinking noise on the red metals

Ring the bell. Bow twice Clap twice

Bow one more Lastly.

I called the Gods for their blessing of a good Life and of a healing heart.

A Young Patron of the Arts by Charlotte Boehning

photo by Olivia Jimenez

Eulogy for a Fallen Butterfly

by Hannah Greco

Yesterday, on my bike ride, flying down the grass hill on the side of Turkey Foot Road, I ran over a butterfly. Its papery wings, caught in the dance of its erratic flight, were crushed between the silver spokes of my bike before I could even react. I tried to brake, but it was in vain. The damage was done, the hill far too steep to stop anyways. The corpse clung onto the metal frame for several painful seconds as I fervently wished for it to fall off as we hurtled through the air together. And eventually it did, coming to rest on the grass somewhere behind me.

I don’t quite know what I want to say about this, because it was such a quick and random event. But the quickness, the vividness of the orange and black wings silhouetted against the green grass, the hot air whipping by, the small violence of the moment -- there’s a tragedy within it I just haven’t been able to shake. The purposeless loss of life, the taking of a life by my own hands (even unintentional), feels like something that should be mourned. Or, at the very least, recognized.

Now, if I were joking around about it (since I’m actually pretty terrified of butterflies) I’d say something like: “Awesome, one less demon fouling this earth with its creepy wings and little bug legs.”

If I were taking it a little bit too seriously (perhaps veering slightly into Jainist modes of thought), I would say: I am so, so sorry. I can’t believe this happened. What right did I have to be riding so recklessly, disturbing the home and the path of a creature who was only trying to perform its intended function: to pollinate, to take in and give back in its own small way, so that the world may be just that little bit brighter from the blooming flowers it helped cultivate, and from the way the sun sparkles and dapples on its tiger-striped wings? I wonder how long that butterfly had been alive, how many sun-drenched days of summer it got to enjoy after emerging out of that dark, cool cocoon.

If I were taking it a little bit too anthropomorphically, I’d say: Do you think that butterfly had a family? Maybe he was on his way back to his butterfly nest to play catch with his butterfly children and kiss his butterfly wife with his sugary, pollen-powdered lips. Will they wonder where he is tonight?

If I were taking it as I did in the moment, I’d say:

Oh NO. Damnit. Shit!

I’d feel:

My heart beating quick in my lungs, struggling to control the shaking handlebars as I rocketed downward, seeing the flash of orange as it hit the bike, the instant blow of guilt and remorse hitting somewhere deep inside my stomach.

I’d be:

Praying I wouldn’t touch it. Praying I would touch it. Hoping (even though I knew it couldn’t be true) that the butterfly was fine, that when it flew off the bike it was flying of its own volition, not at the hands of the wind and gravity pulling it earthbound.

If I were taking it as a relativist, I’d say: There are thousands (probably millions?) of butterflies on earth. One isn’t gonna make a huge difference. In fact, no one will even notice that it’s gone besides you. Anyway, you’ve got much bigger fish to fry in terms of worries. You should be worried about climate change. Single-use plastics in endless heaps of rot and slow, slow decay. Melting icecaps. The fact that almost 200 species become extinct every day and no one is doing enough to stop it. The anthropocene.

If I were taking it as I am right now, I’d say: I don’t know where this leaves me. Each of these is true in their own way. Each touches the truth but can’t contain the tragedy. Because all that remains now is a crushed butterfly and a sense that I’m not quite doing enough. All these irreconcilable feelings, the collision of the macro and the micro, the head and the heart, a derangement of scales, the would-haves should-haves what-ifs why-evens how-cans do-you-stills all tumbling together and then breaking apart, senseless.

But this isn’t about me. It’s about the butterfly. Who, just yesterday, was unfolding his wide, paper wings and criss-crossing across the ocean-blue sky.

Teacher! What if there’s a shooter in the woods?

by Stephanie Leow

My students sit in shaded grass, looking over their shoulders. Fluffy trees face their backs; they get off track and begin to ask, “Ms. Stephanie, what if there’s a shooter masked in those trees? Bullets are no match for our rainbow folders.”

I glance at the shadows, only shadows of trees. The kids tease and tease, telling the tallest girl she would die first, thinking a sacrifice of one would not be worse than if bullets ricocheted off two or three.

I say, “Children, today we will be drawing the skulls of 46 victims” (or was it 13 or 30 or was that child wounded or killed?)

Teaching at eighteen, I’m thrilled that my contract now seals my skin as a shield, now asks that my voice can force a shooter to yield so as to not make ten-year-olds look like ripped mesh screens, not put them in danger of having to scream, “Ms. Stephanie, will we die if there’s a shooter in the woods?” I don’t know, kids, I wish I could tell you that I’m prepared, not scared that a shooting could occur on the field of this Catholic school; I wish I could tell you that this summer the only pools that you’ll see are clear and blue and not of a classmate’s blood; I wish I could tell you that the system above made up of thoughts-and-prayers politicians would save us from that scenario, but all I can do is say, “There’s no shooter in the woods, now behave.”

But I can’t be sure there’s no man with a gun. I can’t be sure he will miss us when we run.

The kids quiet down, but the word “shooter” won’t leave their lips. Two shootings, one day--they know going outside to play in a field near woods now poses a risk of us suddenly having a gun in our midst.

So I let them play tag, run around while they can, and I remember my elementary school years. It wasn’t until high school that my voice quivered in fear, “Teacher, if there’s a shooter, what’s your plan?”

My students sit in steel chairs, glimpsing over their shoulders. Glass panes patrol their backs; they get scared and once again ask, “Ms. Stephanie, what if there’s a shooter past our class window?”

At eight years older, I’m a better match for bullets than your rainbow folders.

A Lady in a Skirt by Katie Glaser

All for Appollo

by Seb Bedoya

In These Tired Times

by Seb Bedoya

“Quito”

by Aden Choate

Now it’s September afternoon: the city is dust-burned, mad and quenched, and I chase sidewalks to kill time.

I don’t know how to feel about the waves of houses that swallow each other and swell, catching me in their undercurrent at the base of Pichincha.

From this volcano, the source of the city’s ancient heat, I watch as green grows verdant on rooftop gardens and the feeling of rain looms thick.

Musty denim, excellent mustaches, a lonely cigarette falling from a balcony, the soles of my sneakers are black.

As I wander, palo santo smokes in the street with a quiet knowledge and oracles of the valley disappear into crumbling stone.

The dogs run and then curl lazily in outcroppings of shade, dusty and solitary, always there, broken glass scratching a momentary melody.

Jazz finds me in a forgotten café, where a woman I remember from somewhere appears just out of reach, lips stretched wide with drum beat circles in shadows around her eyes.

I drink coffee grown in a forest of clouds and around the corner, a heavenly grandfather looks up at the sky and laughs with no teeth.

Painted faces find me in the vividity of other lives, in conversation with strangers, where I curl my tongue around the purr of R and deja vú takes form.

Sometimes, the sky will open in pockets, it is then that the traffic huffs and squeals before melting into the whirling stretch and fading lights of Eloy Alfaro, the mosquito hum of power lines thrumming the heartbeat of the golden blur.

NowYouSeeMe YouSeeMe

lena deb lenalenadebdeb

I feel like I am my authentic self with you, like I walk in with an “I have arrived” attitude. like the girl who has been on a journey and has grown and shaped herself and allowed herself to be shaped by others’ hands, some with a gentle coddle and others with a harsh slap. But now I have risen like a boxer in the ninth round when the intangibles make the difference, and I am proud to stand before you and raise my fists saying “I have arrived!” — what started as a love letter to you is really a love letter to myself —

Sitting on the floor of my grandparents’ bedroom, I run my hand along the coarse white carpet— Discolored from years of tracked-in dirt and made yellow by dim lighting it reminds me of a museum, an exhibition of faded photographs in which I confuse my young mother for myself; a snapshot of time in which generations of olive skin and dark hair come together on my grandma’s wooden dresser whispering to me: We are where you come from.

It is an eerie feeling being here amidst peeling wallpaper and the rattling hum of the heater As if nothing has changed since the days when my stubby limbs would sprawl themselves out in front of the boxy television set and clink together my grandma’s tiny glass sea turtle figurines. It is here, I think, from where my roots grow

At five years old, my roots grew from my grandpa’s tomato garden, winding their way beneath the gravel pathway leading up to the wooden shingles of this old home. Past the screen door, streaks of sunlight beamed in from the skylights and glided across my rosy cheeks as I bounced from one end of the hallway to the other, my teenage father’s mischievous gap-toothed grin egging me on from the wall. The first time I ever felt homesick was when my father’s parents sold this house—it felt like I was being ripped from the ground.

At eight years old, I planted new seeds, and staked a territorial claim to my living room floor. With shiny blue tiles and a red and green flowered rug, I could float on the surface of the deep blue sea just steps from my bedroom door, lie amongst the wonders of a blossoming garden even during the coldest of winters. Some nights, I would fall asleep on the couch where land and water met, listening to my father’s favorite artists pour their hearts out to me through stereo speakers.

I loved this land of daydreams, and could not bear the tragedy of the day I came home to find it under siege— In the name of Better Living, Renovations had conquered my tiny kingdom.

When I turned fourteen, I decided that home could no longer be entrusted to the places I inhabited—they were too fragile, and prone to destruction. Instead, I turned to a home that I could speak into existence, a relic of the one my grandparents had left behind.

I swallowed my English, and searched frantically through scattered memories of the love language I had so ignorantly discarded as a child, looking for home where the tip of my tongue met the roof of my mouth as I practiced rolling my r’s with my sister, pasting together pieces of suppressed heritage with scotch tape, an obviously amateur job.

I know that this has never been my place to come back to—I’ve always felt like a stranger.

When I was eighteen, I was told to find home in the bones of my own skeleton become a strong woman who grows roots within herself and waters her own garden. I etched ink into skin and drew beautiful blood to make my body feel like my own, but at twenty, I cannot shake the feeling that I am always at the mercy of others that I am hollow that my body is not a home unless it lies next to someone else’s.

I go house hunting

Looking for new arms, eyes, lips, laughter For a place that will call out to me: This is where you are meant to be—

S S

But I never settle in. Amidst love and language and the joy I think I must be incapable of feeling or do not deserve to feel I am lost, unsteady.

Amidst painted-over walls And granite countertops I feel that I must have stumbled off path.

But here,

With the sweet smell of my grandmother’s soap wafting in from the bathroom and her glass sea turtle figurines perched silently on the windowsill I begin to re-center.

With my mother’s wedding dress stowed behind closet doors and her elementary school yearbook picture smiling back at me I allow myself to take root.

LU L

byMyiahSmith

One too many restless nights, as my mind is taking flight. Flocks of sheep well behind me. Removed the veil, but still I dream of culture, capitalism, and war raging on. They call it progress, I called it song.

The sound of the universe is silent so that’s where my mind went when it said, “It’s all too loud” and the world’s so close, yet so lonely now.

I’ve been lonely how? But discovered the unconscious vow.

Can’t turn it off, the ego’s proud.

Can’t dream away the brain that’s bound to time-space. So astral projections brought me home to sing you this song so you’re not alone.

Goodnight infinity, the possibilities await.

Lest you forget

You’re the one who creates.

LA B Y

i used to sing this song when i was little, “in my own little corner” / in my own little world. that’s where i am right now.

i am surrounded by glass blocks, “sugar cube walls”, i used to call them. they were lined up in my tauji’s house to separate me from them.

i used to dream of peering through them, but here i am, glad that they distort my shape, so no one can look in but i can still see the faint fade of outside, of the lights and the parties and grime, and hear the drunken shouts of people who are enjoying their lives.

there is a wet spot on my floor, from where the pipes of the air conditioner leak upwards into the carpet, that hasn’t been fixed even though two workers came here and tried.

and i don’t blame them for it, either because it’s not like anyone else knows how. or whoever knows how isn’t available right now. maybe they’re off at work, at a better job, like how i used to dream of adults when no one was near.

there is a broken lamp to my right, my roommate’s, which i dropped off the edge of my bed after she lent it to me. it is halfway between baby blue and teal, and hunched over like the pixar lamp. sometimes i feel like i break everything i touch.

byMaydhaDhanuka

i had so many dreams for this little room, in this little apartment, tucked into the corner of centuries of grime. most of them haven’t come true. i’m wondering what else i expected.

the tapestry falls off the walls, the light off my desk. i’ve stacked myself on top of my roommate to open the space up, but instead i usually just hit my head on the ceiling in the morning, and crush myself up there in another little corner.

unintentionally, i have dominated this space, twisted it into everything i want. most of the paintings and photos and posters are mine. i am choking her out, slowly. i don’t know how to not.

i am describing my room because it is easier than describing myself. even the ugliest thing here i can twist and spin into something. but me? i am nothing more than what i am, whatever that means.

it has been like this since i was young: i read too much meaning into every little thing, but can’t control my own actions.

there are three gold rings to my left which my mother gave to me. today, in fact, i dropped them out of the pocket of my jacket onto the floor of her hotel room, and she scolded me for taking them off.

i’ll lose them, she says, and i know that it is probably true, but i can’t bear to wear them sometimes. it feels like they are choking my fingers off instead of decorating them.

each swirl of the carpet seemed to be some symbolism, some dark prediction of the unknown, that i would trace with the tips of my fingers for hours, hoping that, if only i was just wise enough, i could discern its meaning.

i am tired of being so self centered, and of starting each line with “i”. but at the same time i can’t even love myself. i am wondering what it would be like to know what a normal relationship looks like, with myself or with anyone else.

Into Fall: 10 Beauty Products

by Helen Zhang

As the temperature chills down and school starts getting busy, I figured it would be a good idea to give a list of my favorite products to use in the fall. I love all things with natural ingredients for a natural and healthy look that would last you through the stressful complications that changing weather and midterm seasons might bring.

1. Origin GinZing Moisturizer: I have run out at least 8 of this. This is oil-free gel so it is great for sensitive or oily skin. Since my skin tends to be dry in fall, it really helps because it provides great hydration. I also love the caffeine and ginseng that gives my skin an energy boost.

2. Ole Henriksen Banana Bright Eye Creme: I love the eye cream because it has great ingredients and is amazing for looking more energized. It has great hydration and really helps with dark circles.

3. Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Setting Powder: I love this powder because it is super breathable and the micro-fine texture does not cake or sit in lines. Even though it has a matte finish, it gives a luminous look. Also cannot say no to the almond oil or rose wax!

4. Charlotte Tilbury Cheek to Chic in Pillow Talk: Putting on blush is probably my favorite in the whole process. This is perfect for a sunkissed glow that offers the perfect shade mauve richness that I’m looking for.

5. Kora Organics Noni Glow Face Balm: This moisturizer is incredibly easy to use and has great ingredients such as antioxidants and fatty acids. I love it because the balm form is very easy to use and carry around. A must for a girl who is constantly on-the-go.

6. Fresh Sugar Lip Balm: This is an all-time classic and hands down the best lip balm ever. No need for more explanation.

7. Dior Diorshow On Stage Liner: This is the perfect thing if you want to add some subtle fun because it is not as crazy as colored eyeshadow but also not boring. This is for those who want an adventure without the effort of going full out. Everyone could use some subtle hint of personality as the weather gets cold and leaves turn brown.

8. Glossier Cloud Paint in Dawn, Beam: Blush is fun, and nothing like a soft peach and a sunny coral that can describe fall better. Glossier’s formula is also great and easy to work with because nothing can go overboard. Dab this on your cheek for a seamless healthy glow.

9. Andalou Naturals 1000 Roses Cleansing Foam with Rose Stem Cells: Getting great skin shouldn’t be that hard. Anything that is built for dry and sensitive skin is for everybody. I love waking up every morning to the organic and natural ingredients of rosehip and aloe. It cleanses my skin well but also leaves it moisturized. Another bonus is the foam and I just pick it up on a trip to Whole Foods.

10. Pat McGrath Labs in Blitz Astral Quad: I have always loved Pat McGrath’s products because of the high quality and pigmentation they have. Jewel tones and rich turquoises are great and fun additions to fall and any sweaters that you’re wearing.

Collage

Collage Collage

by Annabel Henegar

Put Your Records On [Corinne Bailey Rae]. Start of Something New [High School Musical Cast]. Beautiful Soul [Jesse McCartney]. Bubbly [Colbie Caillat]. Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal) [Fergie]. Glamorous [Fergie]. Stickwitu [The Pussycat Dolls]. Love You Like A Love Song [Selena Gomez & The Scene]. Love Song [Sara Bareilles]. Irreplaceable [Beyoncé]. Magic [B.o.B. ft. Rivers Cuomo]. This Is Me [Demi Lovato]. Take A Bow [Rihanna]. The Climb [Miley Cyrus]. Nobody’s Perfect [Hannah Montana].

Teardrops On My Guitar [Taylor Swift]. Since U Been Gone [Kelly Clarkson]. Sugar, We’re Going Down [Fall Out Boy]. Houdini [Foster The People]. Waiting On The World To Change [John Mayer]. Do I Wanna Know? [Arctic Monkeys]. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards [Tame Impala]. This Is What Makes Us Girls [Lana Del Rey]. Summertime Sadness [Lana Del Rey]. Naive [The Kooks]. Young Blood [The Naked and Famous]. Glory and Gore [Lorde]. Chocolate [The 1975]. Sweet Disposition [The Temper Trap].

Do Not Disturb [Mahalia]. Truth Hurts [Lizzo]. Almost (Sweet Music) [Hozier]. Who’s Got You Singing Again [PREP]. Pretty Thoughts [Galimatias and Alina Baraz]. The Waters [Anderson .Paak ft. BJ the Chicago Kid]. Keeping Me Under [Two Another]. 4AM [Bastille]. Naked [Ella Mai]. It’s Strange [Louis The Child ft. K. Flay]. When We Love [Jhené Aiko]. Myself [Bazzi]. Gonna Love Me [Teyana Taylor]. Are You Bored Yet? [Wallows ft. Clairo]. I Want You Around [Snoh Aalegra]. ROS [Mac Miller]. urs [NIKI]. Yours [SG Lewis]. Violent Crimes [Kanye West]. Sincerity Is Scary [The 1975]. Try A Little Tenderness [Florence + The Machine]. Dancing In The Rain [Taylor Bennett ft. Donnie Trumpet]. imagine [Ariana Grande]. Summertime Magic [Childish Gambino]. 24/7/365 [Surfaces]. Girls Need Love [Summer Walker]. She Will Be Loved [Maroon 5]. Woman [Honne].

Girlhood,

by Mandy Romero

Finding My Grandmother in Europe

by Kelly Goonan

the smell of the coffee takes me back seven years ago to sitting at her kitchen table. nescafé instant coffee, unmistakable. the accompanying bread and homemade jam adds to the potency of this memory, immortalized in my mind, sculpted into the folds of my brain.

we shared many moments here, completing crosswords on her placemats adorned with various species of birds or fruit. we would play her old board games and discuss my upcoming choir concert or dance recital, snacking on raspberries from her garden.

it’s funny how omnipresent someone can become all of a sudden, as if their spirit lives, hides in tiny corners of this new town and you just have to search to discover them. i found her in hummingbird-printed vintage scarves, taking me back to all the times spent searching for the flitty birds in the flowers outside her front window. i found her in gold clip-on earrings at a flea market, identical to the ones we used to tease her about, large and almost gaudy. all of a sudden, there she is, appearing as a hazy memory: just as i remember her, but somehow more real.

i imagine her walking a street like this, a parallel universe 60 years ago. except it probably didn’t look like this, how could it when a war was tearing through her hometown, when all she could bring with her was enough clothes to last the journey to a new country? still, i picture a young girl, younger than me but probably much wiser, wandering some small european avenue.

living here makes me realize how many of her habits were acquired at this young age, how being raised in europe shaped her preferences. i understand now why her favorite dessert was not a real dessert at all, but a slice of some bread with fruit in it, or yogurt with berries. i recognize this as my host family offers me something similar, asking if i want more of the dessert that looks exactly like the one my grandmother would serve (or at least try to) at christmas or easter.

here and now, three years after her death, i feel her presence so strongly, the strongest i’ve felt in all that time. something about the jam, or the coffee, or the decadent gold clip-on earrings reincarnates her spirit, and i can see her clearly again.

5006 34th Road North

by Caroline Porterfield Thump…

Thump… Thump. “The door must be sticky” my mother assures me. She asserts three more restrained thuds with her key turns, before breathing in, and ushering all her weight into one massive heave, thundering us indoors. I lunge forward, stabling myself on our wrinkled timeworn leather armchair, and shoot my mom an exasperated grin. I shake my head, smiling. My mom casts me a knowing look, grabs my hand and presses hard, before returning the grin, “Wel-come back.”

I creak around the living room. The floor must have been redone—can hardwood still look glossy after fifteen years? I look at our TV mounted in the left corner. Hadn’t I spent hours watching Lizzie McGuire, thinking the plasma screen assumed the entire wall? I wander from room to room, or rather, I re-explore.

A humming drones out from two heaters—apparently the windows on the side of my room create a cool draft at night. Plush carpeting molds to my feet. My shelves are emptier than before, as school robes and diplomas rest where stuffed animals and dollhouses and drawings and picture books once reigned. I approach the white wall at the corner of the room, scratching off little bits of paint to see if any crayon lines of my height still remain, hiding underneath layers of paint jobs. Little white flecks fall, but there’s no sign of rainbow Crayola underneath. I dig through the crumpled notebook pages in my bag to pull out an uncapped Bic pen, and on the blankly repainted wall, draw a black line right above my head.

ANODETO FEMALE FRIENDSHIP

byAngieNewman

Sun

The way my hand always Finds yours Pulled towards it

As though you were my Center of gravity. And the warmth That bursts through And blossoms And spreads into Every cell in my body Makes me feel As though every atom In our hands Was once together Part of the same star.

When you hold me in Your arms

With my nose buried In your shoulder

I can feel our hearts

Tugging against our skin

Pushing out of our ribs

Trying to find a way To be together.

But you don’t feel it. Your heart doesn’t belong In my hands, Yet mine has fallen at your feet And been stepped on A hundred thousand times.

You don’t know how much I want to write about you Like I could.

With love and wonder And amazement

That you were mine, That you were with me, By my side, As one.

by Akanksha Sinha

But nothing I say feels like It belongs to me

Anymore.

The words that fall and slip Out of my mouth

Sleepy proclamations of “I miss kissing you.”

And tear-soaked declarations

Of you not loving me

The way you promised You would.

Nothing can make me

Feel as worthless

As this.

Do you realize that You didn’t even give me a choice?

Do you realize that You buried me alive

Piling up your silence

On to my body

Forcing me to forget That I should have Something to say?

God, I can’t begin

To explain What it feels like

To be drawn to you

Like you are the sun

Despite knowing And feeling

At every step

The reminders of the flames

You cast upon me.

photo from “falling in love with D.C.” by Samantha Carrillo

The Heap

by Kathleen Neill

There is only one song on the playlist tonight, and it sounds like the bedroom that doesn’t fit anymore & the hand that grabbed the last cracked cup left in the cabinet for coffee or a little bit of that night spent alone on the drive home when the last place you wanted to be was deep in those memories.

The feelings are all still there, albeit a little twisted, “by this, and this only, we have existed.”

“Blissful Grunge” by Margaret Hodson

Lips

by Koyuki Sakurada

by Akanksha Sinha

In a 1977 rape case in Winconsin, despite the defendant’s “restoration of modesty in dress”, and went on to utter 16 years of age [referring to the defendant] and punish

More than 40 years later, amidst claims the world. We hear that we have ‘gained rather than something for which power that the men suddenly cowering a woman’s daily women possibly trauma, yet another

It is moments like these, idence of consent, that than 40 years ago – and rebuke to dress with modesty,

Most recently, Ireland has become highly progressive events in a majority-Catholic world. It was behind this light of positivity 21-year-old - yet another case in which from the night and the day after, their utter disrespect fendants were found not guilty on every single count. argued that her consent was given by her underwear: case where a 17-year-old was forced to hold up cide out of the sheer pain and humiliation of

The idea that what we wear is not consent

For what reason, then, is our underwear certain dress was red in color, or the Women around the world are posting protest, carrying placards with with their underwear. It is shorts and step out, I have jean shorts will always es, the skin we show our desires to look

Amongst up we have in their to

Address the Dress: Why Clothing Is Not Consent

defendant’s conviction, the presiding judge handed the convicted defendant a probation sentence. He asked women to “stop teasing” and for a utter the following judgement: “whether women like it or not, they are sex objects. Are we supposed to take an impressionable person 15 or punish that person severely because they react to it normally?”

that women have taken enormous steps toward gender equality, the mentality of this judge in Wisconsin is reflected in every country across ‘gained equality’, with statistics of women in offices and colleges cited, as though it were something that we could simply walk up and take, which we have had to lay down our lives in the hopes of being treated as equals. We hear that the #MeToo Movement has handed us so much who have terrorized us in darkened alleyways, in well-lit restaurants, in crowded work-places, and in the solace of our own homes, are now cowering in fear. Yet, it is not hard for us to see past these lies, so entrenched in patriarchal power that refuses to acknowledge the struggles of daily life. It is the way journeying alone is a woman’s act of bravery. It is the way men can disregard feminism and ask, “What more could possibly want?” It is the way each new case of rape is yet another nail to our palms, yet another girl who cannot be resurrected from her grave of another girl who becomes a martyr to a cause which cannot seem to win.

these, when a legislator in Ireland is forced to hold up her underwear in parliament to protest the way a rape victim’s lacy thong is used as evthe truth becomes abundantly clear, impossible for even the most misogynistic to deny: our society treats women the same way it did more often, even worse. We are no better off than the young girl who came forward with a rape case in the 1970s and was rewarded with a sharp modesty, and with an utter denial of justice.

become famous for its election of a gay Prime Minister in June 2017, and its repeal of a law that banned abortion in May 2018. Both of these majority-Catholic region were covered extensively by the media, and praise poured out on every social media site from people across the positivity that a mockery of justice was hidden from those outside Belfast, where four national rugby players were acquitted of raping a which her bloody underwear, a result of an internal tear during the assault, had been passed around as evidence. Even with the accused’s texts disrespect for women, accounts that didn’t match up, witness testimonies that more than confirmed the rape, and clear signs of their guilt, the decount. The second week of November held similar humiliation for a 17 year-old-girl raped by a 27-year-old man, when the defendant’s lawyers underwear: “You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front.” The case seemed to mirror a 2001 Scottish her underwear in court, and read out its slogan: ‘Little Devil’, prompting the acquittal of the accused. Two days later, she committed suithe brutal trial she was forced to go through.

consent and using it as a defense is simply victim-blaming is not old at all. It is something women have been stating relentlessly for generations. underwear admissible in court as evidence of our consent? For what reason have acquittals been made on whether or not a bra has lace, or why a lengths of the skirts we have worn?

posting pictures online of their underwear in solidarity, captioning it #ThisIsNotConsent. Across Ireland, people came together to march in with underwear or lining the streets with their laciest garments. In Cork, the town where the case unfolded, women lined the courthouse steps is empowering, there is no denying that. But the fact is that women are protesting every single day. Each of the rare days that I wear a pair of have to mentally prepare myself, for it is a protest not just against the body standards that I do not embody, but also against the fact that my always be held against me if someone violates my body. The choices we make in terms of the clothes we wear, the lengths of our skirts and dressshow on our shoulders, are all choices of protest. They are decisions made with trepidation, slight fears, and in full awareness of the fact that look our best for ourselves can always be misinterpreted as “Oh, she was asking for it” and “You have to look at the way she was dressed.”

the many empowering impacts of the #MeToo movement, one is the overwhelming evidence that the way we dress or the amount of makehave on are never factors in, never the causes, of rape. Women dressed with each part of their skin covered are raped just as often as women their shortest skirts – our clothes are not armor that protect us from the monsters who the highest courts in every land unceasingly find ways to acquit. What we need is to find a way to make that evident to every single part of the judiciary, so that our clothes are never admissible as evidence of consent. And so that the choices we make everyday in the way we dress can simply be that: a choice of style, and not a way to silently protest, intentionally or unintentionally, the oppressive, victim-blaming, predatorial society that we live in.

ELICITATION

I am left alone with myself too often. She lives in my head and she is not me, asking relentlessly and obliviously about the things I, me, don’t want to encounter. She is a field elicitor, a linguist with a microphone and a recorder and a fathomless purple sea of questions any observer could answer—but I am the native speaker. She wants me.

How do you say “that hurts”?

Me boli.

How do you say “I won’t tell”?

Ne će kažem.

How do you say “I can’t remember”?

I am left alone with myself too often. Weekends are a horror: any sober moment I occupy with cooking or music or video games is a moment well spent, and the rest are mad dashes in the dark to get away from yesterday’s nosebleed and the temperature outside and the memory of familiar hands on my waist. She doesn’t schedule her elicitations like a responsible field worker would, doesn’t recompense me with money or food, she knots up all my languages and throws them back with itsumo ne znaeš qué pasareru until I can’t understand her—me—either. On a boring day she starts to scream like Cassandra the prophetess, otototoi popoi dâ except she only screams sound and I have to give the Ancient Greek, I have to give words I don’t speak and will never speak because when she demands, I give. She elicits a dead language’s gibberish from me and I resent I cannot stop her. Otototoi popoi dâ.

She’s shy, thank god, scared of any others, and slips away at the first sign of foreign language. But when someone achieves proficiency in me, and I in them, she starts to get too comfortable, starts to sidle herself into private conversations to remind me this is not their native tongue—How do you say “same time tomorrow”? How do you say “judgment call”?

Judgment call? And I leap off the couch, incredulous at her nerve, and say to the non-native speaker no you aren’t me, you thought you knew but you are still learning and I am the only native speaker of myself. And I regret she surprised me so badly that I chastised a learner. Later I grow scared I never learned the word for judgment.

How do you say “don’t you like this?”

Ne ti se sviđa ova?

I’m only you.

Samo tebe sam ja.

There’s no need to hate me for it.

How the hell do I say that? And I snatch up a video game and she forces an otototoi from me before I flip the on-switch and she flees. She wastes my time, the hours and days and years it takes to learn a new language and instead she has me with my back to the wall reciting the one I already know—she wastes my god damned time. She only elicits the bad things, the stupid things, asks for the friends who have gone away and all the meals I’ve skipped and the exact third time my mother told me to act more human. Ama ne mi trebe da gu mrzim zbog toa. But there’s no need to hate her for it. She’s me. At the end of the day that’s the worst part.

I try not to be alone with myself, try to minimize her windows for elicitation. I try to snap the memory card out of her recorder and crush it. But I think I know what it’ll take. She wants my language, wants to document it for the ages—wants, somewhere deep inside her spiteful exacting tiny self, to teach it. Ni ona neće da bide sama. Even she doesn’t want to be alone. And it’s true, I don’t think I ever learned the word for judgment. But I won’t let her hold it against me—she never learned it, either.

by Sasha Jovanovski

by Margaret Hodson

BUTTERFLY EFFECT

By lily yamagata

by Sonya fares

I won’t pretend to be unbroken, Though I have been whole on occasion.

I crooked myself into most days, My body its own slant truth.

There’s a gas station by my parents’ house. It is small and I will walk there on warm afternoons.

I’ll spend my loose change on a too big ICEE And drink it before I can even make it back to the front door.

The ultimate summer indulgence: To forget yourself in sugar and ice and artificial flavor.

I forget myself into any pocket big enough to hold me. I sweat my way into seasonal deliverance.

On the best days I forget I have a body at all. On the best days I’m just a thought with a direction and that’s enough.

On most days though I am lumbering and heavy. I shuffle through the sun just to get to evening.

I orient myself towards hope. I walk and sweat and ICEE my way there

When I can.

by Timmy Sutton

I’m not good, but I’m not dead

(after a misremembering of the lyric “I am ill / but I’m not dead” from Frightened Rabbits “Modern Leper”)

A bird and a fox made friends one day. The bird used to fly far far away But the fox’s den was tidy and near, So the bird decided she could rest here.

“By golly,” said the fox, “the outside is cold Icy gales are blowing, so I’ve been told. Let me fix us a fire and make us some tea, Even when the snow stops, please don’t leave me.”

The bird hadn’t had a friend like this before And the fox’s charm was easy to adore. Less alone the bird felt with every smile shared, Despite the falling snow, she was not scared.

“Now to bed I must be going,” said the bird “Tomorrow is nearly here, not one more word!”

“To bed without a thank you?” asked the fox. Ice crept under the front door without a knock.

“I do not mean to offend, I only mean well. The sun will rise and we must wake with the bell. Why not let us sleep for the hours that are left?” The fox jumped up, jarring and deft.

“But,” he exclaimed, “I have been kind to you! I let you inside and now you’re making me rue. Outside you could be, in the wind and the snow, Alone and frozen to death while the winds blow.”

“I am grateful!” cried the bird, “but, sir, please! I am tired and scared, all I want is release. At home I have a mother, and she told me of you, To avoid wolves and foxes I once knew.”

The fox then smiled and stood up from the table, Up the wooden stairs, frost-covered and stable, Up to the attic almost touching the moon, The bird followed, shivering, into the room.

“Please,” once more the bird felt she had to try, “Please, I know you don’t mean to make me cry. You meant well at first and somehow it turned. I don’t want to be here, I think I have learned.”

“Stop now?” said the fox with a very bad grin, “I am a fox, you knew when I asked you in. You could have gone to a turtle or a fish, But instead you went with me as your wish.

And now you’re a bird alone in a fox’s den And foxes by nature are violent towards hens.” The fox lunged at her with jaws open wide, And the bird looked inside for a place to hide.

by Rene Cruz bySebastianBedoya

A Bird and a Fox byGwendolynViles

Fed Ex-ing Cold Brew: A Manifestation of Anxiety

After mulling it over for a few days, I texted him about cold brew. Specifically, the cold brew concentrate sold at Trader Joe’s for a whopping $7.99, a price tag that shocked me and my weekly $50 grocery budget to our core.

When I saw the number staring back at me, standing in the crowded aisle clad in Nike running shorts with a murder podcast blasting from my airpods, I reflected on how TJ’s was losing itself and becoming a corporate machine, sadly shaking my head.

“You have to get it, it’s a game-changer,” I typed, spending an unreasonable amount of time with my thumb poised just above the blue send button. Viewing myself from a bird’s eye view, I groaned at how absurd it was that this was occupying my time and dove off the deep end. SEND.

Minutes later, a reply.

“Is it really that good? ” he remarked.

Be still my beating heart. I bit down on my lower lip to suppress a smile and cracked my knuckles. Time to construct the perfect response.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Pause.

Muttering.

Click. Click. Click.

Hmm.

Is that too…?

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Stupid!

Clickety. Clickety.

Aha!

And Voilá.

“with some ice and oat milk it’ll change ur life, guaranteed” SEND.

Wow. Crushed it. Somehow chill and funny and relevant. My mention of oat milk? I’m on the pulse of hot culture. That use of ‘ur’ as opposed to ‘your’? It’s like I’m too cool to even bother using proper grammar.

Once again, viewing myself reflexively, I rolled my eyes back in my head and torpedoed myself onto the couch, only to immediately dart up at the vibration of my phone.

“You may have to send me some…”

Oh shit. Is that an invitation for increased contact and subtle flirting or am I reading too far in between the lines?

“Maybe for your half birthday in February” I type.

Okay, lost my flow a bit. Weirdly specific and an unnecessary demonstration of the fact that I know not only when his birthday is, but also his half birthday. Less is more. Chin up, girl. It’s fine, we’re fine.

“I look forward to having it soon :)” he jokes.

Wait ...is he joking? Or, should I send it? At this point, I could’ve really used divine intervention to make the decision for me. My roommate said I should do it. My romanticization of the entire situation also said I should do it. So, naturally, I went for it.

“This is so funny,” I told myself. “He’s going to laugh so hard when he sees I sent it. He’ll think I’m kind and caring, but also just someone who really knows how to play out a joke.”

WhowasItryingtofool?Forsomeonewhopridesherselfonbeing self-aware,thiswasaparticularlylargeblindspot.Whatever.

WhenmyweeklySundaytriptoTraderJoe’s(ourlordandsavior) arrived,Ilookeddownatmylistandpretendedtobesurprisedbythe twocoldbrewswrittendown.

“Oh!That’sright.Ineedtogetoneforhim!Almostforgot.”Igiggled.

Thehigherpowersplacedtheirfacesintheirhandsandrubbedtheir temples.

WhenIgothomeIcutasmallrectangularpieceofcardstockoutof mynotebookandwrote“Happyearlyhalfbirthday!”onit.Strange thatIwascontinuingwithajokethathadn’tworkedthefirsttime,but clearlyreasonandbasicsocialetiquettewerenotonmymind.Isigned itwithasmileyface-bettertobeoverlyplatonicthanoverlyromantic, Ithought.Thatway,hewon’tmisreadmyactions(pleasereadas:I desperatelyhopehemisreadsmyactions).

Whenitwasreadytobeshipped,ItoldmyselfthatIwoulddropitoff atFedExwhenIwasalreadygoingtobeintheareaforwork.“I’llsend itonmytime,whenit’sconvenientforme.I’mnotgoingtoadjustmy scheduleforhim,”Ithoughtdefiantly,liketheempoweredwomanIam. AsthoughIwasn’tgoingtoleaveforworkahalfhourearlierthanusual tomailit.

Isentitoffandreceivedareceiptwithatrackingnumber.“Notlooking atthat,”Iscoffed,asIcrumpleditinmyhand.

HourslaterIun-crumpleditandsilentlytypedthenumberintothe onlinetrackingsystem.ArrivingFriday.Cool,cool,cool.SomaybeI’ll getatextFridayevening?But,here’sthefunnything,Idon’tevencare. Hecantextifhewants,ornot.

Fridaycameandwent,andthenSaturday,Sunday,Mondaymorning. InthemiddleofSpanishclassonMondayafternoon,Ipeekeddownat myphoneandsawthatIhadthreetextsfromhim.

Mylittleheartalmostcouldn’ttakeit.ItstartedbeatingasthoughIhad justrunamarathonor,morelikely,walkeduponeeight-stepflightof stairs.

Despitemyactionsupuntilthispoint,forreasonsunknowntome,the higherpowersdecidedtohelpmeoutbyhavingsaidtextsarrivewhile Iwasinclass.BecauseIwasn’tabletolookatmyphone,Iresponded fifteenminutesafterhehadtextedme,which,I’msure,hadtheeffectof lookingsooononchalantandchill.

“whatagift!!”hesaid,accompaniedbyaphotoofhimgraspingthe coldbrew.

“hahahexpectingafullreview”Itypedback.Whotherelaxedgirlwho tookovermybodywasinthatmoment,Idon’tknow,butI’mgrateful. Webanteredbackandforthaboutthecoldbrew’sflavorprofileand whichingredientstoaddtohighlightitsbeautythemost(ice,alittlebit ofmaplesyrupandoatmilk-trustme).Though,throughoutthe exchange,Icouldn’thelpbutwonder...isthisaboutmorethancold brew? ArewebothusingthisTraderJoe’sproductasavehicleto connectwith eachother?AmIprojecting?

INANYCASE,whatawildride!Hislackofaresponseforafewdays confirmedthat(surprisingly)yes,Idohaveanxiety!andyes,Idolike himalot!Though,Ican’tdwellonallofthehypotheticalsthatI’ve imaginedupfortoolong.

“NorwillI!”Isay,obsessivelyruminatingeachoneoverasIpop another TraderJoe’s™peanutbuttercupinmymouth.

Oh well. One thing that certainly came out of this ordeal is that at the very least, I gave Trader Joe’s some well-deserved publicity, which is all I aspire to do, anyway. 69

For the first time in a pretty long time, I’m really happy to admit that I feel comfortable in my own skin. For years I let my freckles make me feel insecure, less feminine, and unattractive. I knew that guys preferred a simple face rather than a unique one, and so I layered on the concealer and foundation. If you’re close to me, you’ve probably told me some variation of “don’t so much wear makeup,” or “freckles are cool,” but for the longest time - to me - those comments didn’t account for the fact that there was a disparity between the adjectives used to describe my freckled face, “cool” and “unique,” and those used to describe the type of girl that guys like, who are “pretty” or “flawless.” Despite perhaps being fabricated for dramatic purpose and probably a product of my own insecurity, my reasoning for wanting to put a full face of makeup on to feel beautiful made sense.

Although I am a huge proponent of the notion that if you don’t like something about yourself - whether that is on the interior or exterior - you can change it, I think it’s important that we all feel comfortable in our own skin. That being said, growing up in an age that idolizes perfection, and compliments us as we strive to reach it, is threatening. As I began to change my appearance, people began to notice me with a positive response, but increasingly felt more pressure to maintain a look that wasn’t me. Taking my face makeup off at the end of the night, I barely recognized myself, and was often told “you look different,” depending on which of my looks people saw. I noticed people’s perception of me would immediately change, based solely on what my face looked like.

What inspired me to write this post - that I’m now realizing has become a full on tangent on what (relatively speaking) is only one trivial insecurity of one girl, are the people I’m close to. I have received so many words of encouragement to embrace my freckles that I’m actually starting to feel like I should, and have been. But compliments were not the cure to my internal struggle with acceptance. The real and only cure was making an active effort to practice self-love.

I would say I’ve been wearing less face makeup lately because I don’t really care anymore, but that would be false because it’s actually quite the opposite: I’m starting to care... starting to care about being true to who I am and not trying to change my look to please others. I am starting to care about making sure that I at least feel comfortable in my own skin.

I love makeup and the way in which it serves as such a confidence booster for so many people. But face makeup in particular fails to fix the real problem - which isn’t people having so-called imperfect skin by having freckles, blemishes, or pimples, but society critiquing us for non-defined “facial flaws” and simply falling short of perfection. The concept that we should cover up our so-called imperfections on our own face, or mask our idiosyncratic features to conform to mainstream beauty standards is demeaning and entirely disgusting.

To me, being confident in our own skin is not about looking our best, or looking better than everyone in the room. Feeling confident in our own skin is about walking into a room and not comparing ourselves to anyone else... as individuals we must not strive for the socially acceptable look, but embrace our own. My purpose in sharing this isn’t to fully embrace an anti-makeup attitude, but it is to welcome self-love and appreciation for the way we all look without it. We should cease to strive for perfection and make sure we strive for self-love. Anyway, I know this post may sound dramatic or unrelatable, considering I’m talking about a bunch of tiny dark dots all over face, but this is something that has made me feel incredibly insecure for years - and still does, and still will - but I’m proud of how I feel now and thankful for the people who have impacted my attitude.

Whether it be freckles, acne, scars, unevenness, redness, or any facial feature that temporarily appears or is there to stay, embrace its presence and summon self-confidence, the energy you’ll radiate will shine more than any highlighter advertises. I can only hope that sharing my thoughts on acquiring a sense of “face confidence” may help others do the same and see beyond the absurdity of desiring a flawless face. Take pride in your look, and find comfort in your own skin, I promise you happiness will be found alongside.

by Riley Ganzi

Angel Kisses Angel Kisses Angel Kisses Angel Kisses Angel Kisses Angel Kisses

the dangerous webs we weave

by Kathleen Neill

what i want to know, is how to entangle him.

but i can’t figure out how to.

from my instagram feed  (well i guess I could unfollow him)  but then my friend’s instagram feeds  the seven shirts  and two sweatshirts  those sheets with the navy blue xs on them his adoring curly-haired mother  and the habits he helped me form like

pushing back against my parents more and drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning after taking two multivitamins.

from  my younger sister and brother who adore him and the night that he was there when the dog died,  or

the continually growing playlists we make for each other, and the  northeast regional amtrak train portland coffee shop with the gooiest chocolate chip cookies  fast ferry from hyannis to nantucket  us route one, through brunswick.

the good  and the bad  like that one time in pray, montana (but mostly good)  that are just so fucking ingrained,  like we have become   fixtures in each other’s lives.  what dangerous webs we weave,  when we weave ourselves into other people.

but mostly,  from the memories.

beauty beyond bones by Lily Yamagata

Refracted

Glittery ogres, Bearded wraiths, The radio sky that in the mind is fleckless, free and naturally to be desired. Then the wind comes again,

by Sebastian Bedoya artwork by Michelle Renslo

again,

again.

Window rainfall recalls them. They were my joy formerly, Today I notice them and Turn away forgetting? It must’ve been a bad toke, I wonder Under the moon. I wonder, Just to come back.

An Open Letter to Lulu Wang

Dear Lulu,

by Claudia Chen

I watched your movie in theaters this summer and for the first time ever, I felt truly, honestly, genuinely represented. Thank you. Thank you for creating a movie that authentically captures so many parts of my experience as a Chinese-American woman growing up in the United States. Thank you for giving me an Asian-American character that has the complexity of a real human being, rather than the Asian sidekicks I grew up watching who were often only defined by their nerdiness (or in the rare case of London Tipton, her lack thereof). Thank you for defying the producers who initially tried to tell you that your story was neither Chinese nor American enough; the nuanced balance between these identities is what made it feel authentic, unlike the characters in Fresh Off the Boat or even Mulan.

Sitting in the theater, I recognized parts of my upbringing that I had never before seen on a screen. I saw it in the dinnerware Billi’s family uses, made of porcelain and covered in beautiful blue and white patterns. I saw it in the way Billi’s family members show their love through small acts of care: when Billi’s mom asks her how many jiaozi (dumplings) she wants and gives her an extra one, or when her nai nai (grandma), waves a scallion pancake in front of her face and tells her to take a big bite. I heard it in Billi’s broken Mandarin and her parents’ broken English, and in the way her parents talk about the U.S., still a shiny land of promise to them after all these years, even with all of its problems. I even recognized it in the white lies Billi’s family tells to “save face,” like when nai nai tells everyone to say that the engaged couple has been together for one year instead of three months.

But most of all, I recognized it when the family hides nai nai’s lung cancer from her, a secret that my family also kept from my acon (grandpa) when his cancer recurred years after his initial diagnosis and treatment. I remember feeling like my family was crazy - I couldn’t understand why this disease should be hidden from the one person whose life it affected most. Isn’t it his right to know? And isn’t it cruel to hide his fate from him? The Farewell answered my questions that have lingered for years, questions I almost forgot I ever had. Only after I watched Billi work through her inner conflict between Western and Eastern values did I finally understand my own. I finally saw what my family was trying to do by telling a “good lie.” Like Billi’s family, we were trying to shoulder acon’s burden for him, to allow him to live out the rest of his life, however long, in blissful ignorance rather than fear and dread.

Maybe we were trying to convince ourselves as much as him that everything was okay. “Look at the roots of your hair - it’s growing in black, not gray! Surely that’s a sign of how healthy you are,” my abu (grandma) would often say. I’m not sure how much any of us, including acon, believed her. But every time she said it, he’d smile. And doesn’t that count for something?

So thank you, Lulu. I am grateful for you and your movie. They say you don’t realize how important representation is until you have it - thank you for giving that to me.

Love, Claudia

too attracted to the warmth that encompasses everything from roasted marshmallows to bubbled baths too infatuated with the glow of fireflies and incomparable highs to let the flame die before it scorches us

before it scorches us

by Sophie Septoff

flick the lighter on and off on and off on and off so that i or she or me or you can take comfort in the flame

for a moment

Moving On

by anonymous

When it happened, I felt like less of a person. That somehow my feelings and concerns didn’t mean anything to him. That the respect I showed him still did not earn me respect or even agency over what could be done to my body.

In that moment, I was no longer the passenger that he picked up through the rideshare service he drove for. I became an accessible outlet for him to express his desires.

After that night, my introverted self wanted to retract back into my shell. How could I have been so stupid to think that this stranger really cared about what I had to say when in reality he just wanted to touch me, use me, have access to me. This is what I get when I engage in conversations with people I don’t know. I get hurt.

A lot has changed since then. He is so far out of my mind that I don’t even remember what he looked and sounded like, and even though I haven’t forgotten that it happened, I can no longer recall the exact details.

Sometimes, I still feel like less of a person. I’m a little more wary of strangers than I used to be. Some days, I don’t even feel like I deserve respect.

But in those moments, I remind myself that I am a good person, that I am brave for maintaining conversations and eye contact when it’s hard, and that I do deserve to be respected.

I remember how far I have come and that I am strong for not letting him and what he did to me ruin my outlook on people.

In some senses, I was very lucky. I was able to escape the trauma when so many others haven’t been able to do so. He went to jail when so many don’t. He is miles away while others are still close by.

I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at life, a chance to be more compassionate not just towards survivors such as myself but towards others as well.

I’ve been given a chance to learn to love myself and decide for myself how I want to be treated. If I could reverse what happened, I would, but unfortunately, things don’t work like that. But instead of dwelling on the past, I’ve decided to look towards the future.

Blur

Horoscopes for the newDecade

T e w a y y ou v iew yourself & how In t hepast, youhaveletinnerturmoil

Tisyear Acknowledge that instead of hard work.

y o u r i n ne r wor k is t ime to

seedstogrow.

lcrettu . I’t s item f ro a l i t i e s o r fear.

fahser & isopit ev

a hcaorpp .

I

sdnetxe otni 0202 tuohtiw erom laiceps noitnetta ot eht raeysihtdetsef . fleS noisserpxe no ruoy diseser iwht tuo l te t i n g o b s t a c le bu t a prop onent o f andfeeling sofunbalance.

self-discipline.

OGRIV ARBIL OIPROCS RATTIGAS I U S C A

transformatios & better how far you’ve come. changes . Nowi s atime s a n yti na d otod stsil .

PISCES forfne-tuningfor w h i el gnitaerc pseca

ARIES

Cherishthe havelearnedsomuchin2019 . th ink i n g twi ce as a t wi n s p i r i t N e x t y ,rae ca gdelwonkyeruo si ,yojrofemita

ing s &intuition, thenwatch failures. Te next twelve away times to celebrate neutral , savespaceforkindand all ow you t o f o w i n t o r e al t pihsnoi s w srehtohti otsrehtoesuaclliwtraeh gnileefotni detroppus ekilnu yna .erofeb eT emitdnaenutrofdoog decna uoy liw l deen t o b e s h i n e t hroug h w ithout

trueto bothyoursurroundtheinsurmountable stress & limelight, stop pushing Forthisnewyear , resetinto will use both head a n d h e a r t eef lgni s w tuohti pgnittu “ krow ” .secaps emosraefruoY ecaps ot .dnapxe naeL ecneiliser txen raey eblliw secapsotnievomuoy iwht blliwir n g hcus na ba nu -

wen syenruoj lliw retne a lacigam

w hatcomestorisewithnew months will mean more yourself and recognize ness ,growth , &even more new s paces wi th o u t f e a .r fsr .t rPezitiroi yruo nwo &stroferuoyezingocer dna elbatrofmoc ot spihsnoitaler uoy hsirehc levitcefeeromdesu y . lba e ot d iits n iug hs ht e n e g l e c t ing y our resp onsibi -

Tis year was a period of unfor this year. 2020 is theyear to notmeanyoushouldforce quick to respond and ser v e o t h e r s c e n et r o f a l l noisicedgnikam ; sawtirehtehw;raeysihtflesruoy

TAURUS GEM I N I RECNAC OEL

tsoobsrovaednewennieciojer

tuodnani fo seigolopa rof gnikat ecaps renni dlrow ni

You’ve been unkowingly waiting Justbecauseyoucansurvivedoes For th e l ast decad e you h a v e b e e n oY u r e tom snoi evah a yawl s neeb uoY yam detnioppasidelttilaebhtiw 9102 detaerc a erom ,lufyalp A raey taht sehcaet uoy tuoba eht llanfotemitasi0202 etucexey Yuo ’ levdgnoiseder iruces t y &

,evitaerc citnamor .uoy siT retuo dlrow nac naem ereht si uoytahtstcejorpgibeht inamfmoctro . 0202 i s ht e it m e t o a c t y o u p r e s e n t y ourse l f is fnally not manifestin bothpatternsofdisarray matched by years previous show of all your talent and yourselfintosurvival mod e . You I n th i s new year , sl ow d o w n , m o s t t semi t sih sevres yuo r gi.th ,secnanfrokrow

newopportunities . of r wen ppihsrentra.s semoh 56

0202.ogtitel

In Memoriam of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People Lost to Violence this Year

Dana Martin

Jazzaline Ware

Ashanti Carmon

Claire Legato

Muhlaysia Booker

Michelle ‘Tamika’ Washington

Paris Cameron

Chynal Lindsey

Chanel Scurlock

Johana “Joa” Medina

Layleen Polanco

Zoe Spears

Brooklyn Lindsey

Denali Berries Stuckey

Tracy Single

Bubba

Walker

Kiki Fantroy

Jordan Cofer

Pebbles LaDime “Dime” Doe

Bailey Reeves

Bee Love Slater

Jamagio Jamar Berryman

Itali Marlowe

Brianna “BB” Hill

art by Al Castillo

“Just because it wasn’t forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t magic. I want to challenge us to hold sweetness as sacred and not let our desire for forever erase the beauty of what was or is.”

art by Deborah Han

- Yolo Akili