Bossier Special Issue

BOSSIER

SPECIAL ISSUE | FALL 2020

DUMPLINGS Editor-in-Chief Aden Choate Creative Director Chloe Suzuki Managing Editor Leina Hsu Layout Director Joyce Yang Art Director Emily Hardy Mini Issue Director Olivia Lebo-Planas Business Manager Fran Mbonglou Head of People Rose Dallimore Head of Marketing Kat Woodard

CONTRIBUTORS Anya Wahal Ashley Bradway Esmanur Sensoy Jennifer Linares Madeleine Walker Max Zhang Megan Wee Rose Dalimore Shraeya Madhu

COVER ART BY 2

Clara de Solages

THE B-TEAM 2020 Active Editors Akanksha Sinha Amber Nguyen Anya Wahal Cynthia Desmet Jennifer Linares Madeleine Gibbons-Shapiro Layout Designers Gaby Gura Geritza Carrasco Joyce Yang Neilah Rustemi Toella Pliakas Resident Creators Christina Dropulic Emily Hardy Sofia Kuusisto Marketing/Social Media Alex Smalto Kat Woodard Lauryn Reynolds Michelle Renslo Nadine Abdel-Rahim Samantha Carrillo Outreach Kayla Zamanian Rose Dallimore Sophie Allan

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Masthead 3

Table of Contents

5

Issue playlist

4

Letter from the Editors

by Neilah Rustemi

isolation feature 6-7

by Gaby Gura

10-11

by Toella Pliakas

8-9

12-13

by Joyce Yang

by Geritza Carrasco

Community feature 14-15

by Joyce Yang

18-19

by Neilah Rustemi

16-17

by Toella Pliakas

The opinions expressed in Bossier Magazine do not necessarily represent the views of Georgetown University unless specifically stated. All content is submitted freely by individuals and may not express the views of the Bossier Magazine Staff.

3

Letters from from the the Editors Editors Letters I have been thinking a lot about the shape of this year. The way it began unassumingly and bathed in the golden light of a decade to come, the way it shifted and fractured us all, the way we grew, somehow, and found unity in a desire for change and reckoning.

I have been thinking a lot about the words I have read, the voices I have heard, the art that has been created over the spring and the summer and this peculiar autumn. All these mediums through which scratch at understanding, all these footprints by which we mark ourselves as here, existing in this particular time, in the spaces we see and feel and come to understand as home.

I have been thinking a lot about this magazine, about Bossier, this archive of experience and creation. It has taken me a long time to get used to the wonder and thoughtfulness it has brought me.

For that, I am grateful: to Bossier, to the creators who make its pages breathe, to the dedication of the B-team and the way they have kept this community alive, amidst the fallings off of familiarity and light, and also, of course, to the readers who make us all feel seen.

This isn’t the issue we were expecting to piece together, but it is what we need for now, recognition of solitude and community and how we attempt wholeness by traveling between.

All my love to this publication and the people it has tethered me to,

Thankful I get to be here in the form of this issue with you all. This one’s a little different from semesters’ past.

We explore solitude and community, two concepts representative of our existence at this moment in time. I have been spending more time with myself than usual; I appreciate the time to slow down and reflect. My connections with others have also become more deliberate and meaningful. However, I do miss running into people on campus, meeting friends of friends, and the freedom of spontaneity. Life has been tough. For some much more so than others. I’m sorry I can’t be in person there with you, but I hope I and everyone else on the B-team can bring your some solace with this issue.

At this moment in time, the situation is still unprecedented and still uncertain.

The future is foggy so let’s focus more of our energy on the present. Take some time out of your day to create something– art, writing, a loaf of bread, a playlist, a new outfit that makes you feel freaking fantastic. I’m telling you it’s so worth it. Creation>consumption.

I’m trying to be more mindful of this balance. As soon as you’re done consuming this piece of work, create something for yourself and relish in the moment you’ve completed your creation.

I am so grateful that I was able to create this moment with you all this semester. Really appreciating this calm in the chaotic and I hope you do too.

Much love,

4

Aden Choate, Choate, Aden Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief Chloe Suzuki, Suzuki, Creative Creative Director Director Chloe

THE B-TEAM PLAYLIST

Motion Sickness - Phoebe Bridgers

Fast Talk - Dawn Golden

Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas

Rainbow Bap - Jaden

Fluorescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys

Lightning & Thunder - Jhené Aiko

Deep End - Holly Humberstone

Self Care - Mac Miller

CAN YOU HEAR THE MOON - Grady

Pause - IAMDDB

5 Peach Fuzz - Caamp

Sunspots - Mango Safari

Ripple - Grateful Dead

IN A DREAM - Troye Sivan

Catastrophize - Noah Kahan

SUNRISE - MICHELLE

Window - Still Woozy

I Like That - Janelle Monáe

5 Feel Something - Clairo

Foolsong - Still Woozy

A Girl in an Oxygen Tank

by Esmanur Sensoy I have a ukulele that I can’t learn, a painting that gives me nightmares, flowers that are dying, some mistakes that have no soul, should I pet a fish? I think fish know more than we do, or they are like us, most of them, the ones we can see and touch, the ones that are convenient because they are delicious and healthy. the others can be used for beauty, of course, but don’t they wander in the dimly lit sea, and escape each other’s shadows for another day not to be eaten, not be catched, or not to become clowns in a rich oxygenated tank. a girl was I stared at them, but they never stared back at me. not so good at consciousness, are they? what about the deep sea? it is the unknown, we don’t know it, no one, fishes? how funny people send spaceships above the sky to learn if there is life but no one sends a deep-sea ship below. what is so great about the sky that it excites so much more than the ocean? or do we not mind what is ours, but i know everyone would go crazy in an alien invasion, to re- own, from sky, to care about above than ourselves, always. even the unreachable, wander, curiosity, they say. we resemble the fishes in that way, they never try to swim down, always above, we are the same, they did not see me when i was a girl looking at them depressed in a tank, not good at consciousness, funny, i see them with an ached smile. and i am 6 them, how funny, how sad...

yearbook notes | 2 intro | 3 masthead | 4 letters from the editors | 6 playlist | 7 dreams & memories | 8-9 glints & glimmers | 10-13 distress | 14-15 movement & feeling | 16-19 resilience amidst violence | 20-22 our feminist utopia | 23-25 healing with laughter | 26-28 learning to love | 29-33 losing it | 34-35 reflections | 36-37 auras | 38-39 beautiful things like you | 40-41 masturbation | 42-44 growth | 45-47 seasonal | 48-50 introspection | 51-54 lavender is a type of mint | 55 &exit | 56-57 quote page | 58 yearbook notes | 59

See all content from the contributors on our online edition at bossiermag.com

by Jennifer Linares

7

ask me to tell you about myself, and i will not make a single sound. i will close my eyes and wait for you to follow. it will get real dark. the birds will flee in fear— the knot of sparrows and the flock of finches moving as one to escape the weight of this new night. the cicadas will hush. the horizon will lose its shape, bending from a line into a circle and then fuzzing into nothing. cue the lights: first, the glare of hospital beam, painting my mother in gunmetal gray, the table garish and cold. in that pool, i wailed for the very first time. then, the afternoon sun glazing

8

a white marbled government building into a shade of pale orange. there, a boy tries to climb the columns that held

the roof up. gravity refused, and since then, he has preferred to float. the floor sinks into an ocean and you’ll find us bathed brightly on a waxy stage, stuttering when our lines finally come. the parents will laugh, nervously. don’t worry— your dad probably isn’t even there. mine wasn’t. the yellow glow of the street lamps will come next— in the church parking lot, and then the cobblestones of the college i can barely call my own, and then the ones by the highway, flying by as i hold my breath in the dark spaces in between. to jump rope with your breath is to say, will this game end? is anyone still counting? and who holds the rope, anyway? the last light is the one above the dentist chair, where i am asked where the cavities came from. it’s just a hollow, sir, i will say, numb. it’s just a hollow.

9

Solitude

by Madeleine Walker

10

11

instreamspite of things of consciousness,

(

10/03/2020)

Even sitting outside alone feels like dirty escapism some days. Right now, I’m out where I used to huddle with my friends in autumn afternoons, shoulders touching, lips close to lips, stifling giggles and unwary of particulate spread. I don’t think a pandemic is a lesson from God. Mass death is directionless, and so is solitude some days.

Blind and directionless.

Or at least that’s how I feel, zapped and drained.

I feel like a fucking microwave meal—reheat, resurrect for sustenance only.

Soggy.

Motivation is hit or miss.

I pray more.

I smoke more.

I collect words.

Newness is delectable. I am trying to hold on tight to discernment,

but that requires my presence, and the little peach pit of unevenness is

extra heavy in my stomach in the mornings.

Presence is hard. as. hell.

There is something effervescent about this spot in the woods now. The change to autumn is uncanny. I know it comes every year, but the chill and the lump of nostalgia forming in the back of my throat hit me like a truck. This year is odder, more surreal.

I always contextualize this season socially. I think of the layers of clothes people wear, the drinks we consume together, the humidity forming in a subway car of warm bodies coming in from the cold, the movement and festivity of shorter days and longer nights, whole-hearted commentary on the frigid sunshine and the smell of the air. Now the smell remains, and the 4:00 autumn light brings tears to my eyes. I almost wasn’t expecting earth to keep turning without us. Without me. But sure enough, it is 58 degrees and my fingers are stiff.

I remember now that this world is not a human place, not a social place.

rose dallimore

12

This planet is not meant to be all about us. I drink my tea alone and accept the sweet smell in the air without saying “the air smells great today.”

Perhaps this era is the ultimate Catharsis.

That the deer poking their heads into urban life see an opportunity, and the leaves falling undisturbed do not have anything to say.

13

i h s e ma t e p o il f i h inds you wel

in january 2020 my iphone is replete with— omw! brunch @ 11? can’t wait! but one second and a lifetime later,

by: Anya Wahal

all i have in these turbulent times is, i hope this email finds you well. naked reminders of lost connections, missed places, and distant people.

irrefutable and overpowering, solidarity and loneliness sweep my insides and leave behind a dirty laundry of emotions for everyone to see. my community is a blanket and a netflix party with friends from a far-away planet, cameras and screens.

14

but community must be more than that. i’m looking for more. community cannot be a blanket or a netflix party with friends from a far-away planet, cameras and screens.

ll community must be the small acts of kindness i see every day. neighbors, friends, families, embracing my dirty laundry. separated by distance, not by spirit. community must be the painted rocks in my neighborhood that say “hope� in rainbow colors. community is socially distanced zumba classes in senior centers and virtual graduations for hardworking students and proud families. community is the love we find in one another not brunch @ 11 but small, beautiful, complete embraces of the heart.

photo by: Anya Wahal

15

Naptime

by Megan Wee I like waking up from a nap on the couch When it is a beautiful day — to be inside I know if I stepped out the door I’d want to be back indoors And gaze out my smudged window I think, looking out that window, this is the way The afternoon sun was always supposed to look A picture of serenity, that you only achieve in the latter half of the day When the pressure to do something dissipates Before i fall asleep again I want to tell you that i dreamt about you flying to me Here, in Singapore Picturing you in places around my city Sweat soaked shirt in a cafe Because it’s romantic to sit outdoors even in sweltering heat Walking on streets that are busy, not like yours in manhattan are But bustling in their own right Walk along the river at night Rainforest in the morning Though if we went to the zoo we could do both, stroll from one to the other And debate zoos at the same time (Sometimes they help animals and sometimes they really don’t) It would be nice if it was the kind of day Where we talk about zoos and prattle on about cafes Even if i could only talk to you with pixels Dotting your face like freckles

16

There won’t be any planes to catch anytime soon I don’t know the next time we will see each other again, But it was really beautiful today And I think there will be more days like this

Campfire

by Madeline Walker

17

18

19