Issue 1
Daughter
Copyright © 2017 by Daughter Literary Magazine.
Dear readers,
women, adventurers, dreamers, feminists, artists, and naturally, anyone else we’ve missed:
One thing unites women everywhere: we are daughters. Whether we are loved, lost, fulfilled, grieving, exploring, changing, abandoned, or [insert adjective here], we are daughters. We want to bring creative work about our role as women to the eyes that need it. ​ he vision for this first issue began with a cheap bottle of Cabernet on a downtown patio in T Madison, WI. As sisters, we laughed, cried, and talked about the changing relationship we have with our father after the death of our mother almost four years ago. And we realized that women everywhere were having their own experiences just as beautiful, painful, and universal. As we read through the submissions for this first issue, we were struck by the power of each piece. Thank you to each and every artist who submitted their work. Every story, photograph, and art piece demonstrates the human experience. We are united as women of different colors, shapes, backgrounds and values, and though society is quick to teach us to see those differences, we are all women nonetheless. And we are strong. You’re about to embark on a journey of love, pain, laughter, grief, misunderstanding, and any/all the bittersweet moments that fit in between; the moments of a lifetime. So, turn the page! Enough from us. Welcome to the world of daughters.
Love and light, Lauren and Sarah
Co-founders:
Lauren and Sarah Boritzke are sisters from the Midwest. With Journalism and English degrees, Lauren likes to bring stories to life and also grows herbal and plant experiments in her Minneapolis living room. Sarah is a Milwaukee butterfly passionate about helping others, making a difference, and stopping to smell the flowers. Drop us a line: daughterlitmag@gmail.com.
Artists
in order of appearance
Priscilla Daniels Sarena Tien Joan Leotta Nicholas Hoffman Zoe Berman Epiphany Jones Sarah Boritzke Shawna Rivedal Cayan Benjamin Emma Bahnson Diane Exavier Jody Britz Raegan Niemela Marlena Chertock Sarah Winter Yoon Hyuk Park Tracie West Anne Mulrooney Priscilla Tan Alexandra Behr
PRISCILLA DANIELS
Two Sides to an Accent SARENA TIEN
“Look, there’s pizza!” my mom says. Since we’re at the Short Pump Town Center, I dismiss her comment — pizza places aren’t unusual in a mall. But as I look around, all I see is PacSun, The Children’s Place, Tara Thai, Avalon, and Macy’s. “What? There’s no pizza,” I say. She points to PacSun. “Look, right there. Pizza!” “That’s PacSun, not pizza!” I exclaim, but I’m laughing. These exchanges between my mother and me aren’t unusual. Although she’s a gifted linguist—she’s fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, and at least three other Chinese dialects—we live in America, so people never see how smart she is. Why? Linguistic discrimination. Her English isn’t perfect, and as soon as people hear that it’s accented, they judge her. I’ve witnessed bank tellers condescendingly call her “sweetie,” cashiers give her the judgmental side-eye, and museum docents fail to conceal their confusion. She speaks a different sort of English, the kind that turns “Ben Franklin” into “Beth Lincoln,” “Woodman Road” into “Goodman Road,” “will” into “whale,” and “pascal” into “bus-kyle.” But despite sometimes struggling to decipher her English, I still find her phonetics endearing. Apparently, my brother and I are the only ones who do. Everyone else sees it as a way to change my mother’s status from “person” to “accent,” regardless of where we are in America. Before we leave Philadelphia for Richmond, a flight attendant asks my mom and me, “Do you understand that you’re sitting in an emergency seat?” The previous airplane ride had been full
of turbulence, and I’m afraid I’ll throw up if I open my mouth, so I just nod. The attendant looks to my mom, who asks me, “What does that mean?” Too tired to explain what an emergency exit seat is, much less figure out how to translate it into Chinese, I mumble, “We’re sitting in an exit seat.” “I’m not sure,” my mother tells the flight attendant, who is still looking at her. “Can you follow my instructions if an emergency happens?” the woman asks. In response, my mom smiles and laughs, clearly hoping the woman will go away. We took a midnight flight and now it’s morning and we’re exhausted. The attendant mocks her laugh and, not even bothering to look at my mom, says to the woman sitting across the aisle from us, “I don’t think so.” My desire to vomit aside, I could punch this blonde-haired, pearl-earringed flight attendant. “Do you guys want to move up there?” she asks. Despite phrasing it as a question, it’s obviously not a choice. I unbuckle my seatbelt, grab my purse, and move up two rows into an ordinary seat with significantly less leg room. “Hey, you forgot your bag,” my mom says, sliding in next to me and placing a motion sickness bag on my lap. Part of me wonders what would have happened if I’d thrown up on the flight attendant. I’m tired of people defining non-native English speakers by their accents. We need to start seeing them as people.
From Under Dead Leaves JOAN LEOTTA
Walking, not running hard Not sure how much to push my body with first baby on board. Eyes ahead calculating time yards of pavement stretched ahead. I had to stop for a breath. Looking down, beside the walkway, beneath a pile of dead winter leaves I spotted wild violets pushing out. New life. If I had not stopped to breathe I would have missed it.
NICHOLAS HOFFMAN
Untitled
ZOE BERMAN
You throw cigarettes and shut blinds no one thinks I’m any good that I can’t make something sound different and interesting and of use to— why don’t they think I can do anything then let me maybe… […] ? do we think he can tell? hard to say, but at least he’ll touch me when we get into bed tonight […] and I’m spinning… discordant syncopation when the song just really sucks but he wants to fuck me ! and he doesn’t usually say
things like that because it’s dirty. so it was cool that it happened and even though I will be sleepy, we get to play under a tender, temperate moon. Stillness, But it sounds like a cheap, rattling alarm clock in an echo-y bathroom on a shelf.
you were saying? I’m still hungry she said as she was busy trying to hate someone who is perfectly fine. you don’t get it, she’s stealing you! from me she didn’t do anything for you or me, for that... the lake is navy and dark teal, but it’s also a little grey.
hieWhite curtains Curtains (on Bright Mornings) (on bright mornings) Seven in the morning. Every morning, seven. I wake up to find you still sleeping, one arm behind your head, the other around me. This morning’s no different. We sleep like we’re married, sometimes I think we’re married. You snore a little sometimes but I never mind. I wake up at seven, the sun is too bright. Sheer white curtains weren’t a smart idea, but I’m not the smartest person. That explains a lot, people say. Like, why I’m with you but not with you. Why I can’t seem to see that you’re good for me and for more than just a few hours. At half past seven, I’ve made myself a coffee. Three creams one sugar in the little mug you got for me a while ago. I never make you a cup because it would feel too much like home, a place where you should stay for more than night till morning. Home is a place you don’t wake up and find your clothes neatly folded beside you. This isn’t your home, you can’t take comfort here. Sometimes I won’t even let you in. Half past seven and you’re in the shower. I started to notice you keep soap next to mine and it reminded me of the mug you put in the cabinet. You want this to be your home, you let yourself in. It’s eight and you’re watching me read, perched on the kitchen counter with your keys next to me. I’ve eaten the eggs and washed the dishes, there’s nothing left for you. Einstein defines insane as doing the same thing over
and over but expecting different results. Every morning at seven I wake up, thinking you won’t be there when I do. Every morning you get up, thinking I won’t make you go. We’re insane but we’re in love. We’re in love because we’re insane. I’ve been reading To Kill a Mockingbird for a month now, but I finished two years ago. Two years ago you called me Boo Radley. “You’re shut in and you shut everyone else out.” Two years ago I called you Scout. “You keep trying to break down an impossible door.” And you smiled and I didn’t know why but after two months of Harper Lee I finally understand. If Boo didn’t stand a chance against an insatiable little girl, what chance do I have against a man with nothing to lose? And you have nothing to lose. “I have you.” I can hear the words coming out of your mouth, feel your hands on my face. Smell the scent of your soap on my pillows. You want this so badly. Why does it matter? Why make this harder for you than it is for me? It’s been seven years and you still ask for a key, and I still wake up at seven in the morning making one cup of coffee. Seven years and you still won’t give me the ring that’s in your pocket every time you come now. I watch you walk out the door again and I know—I know that tomorrow I will wake up at eight.
SARAH BORITZKE
It Would Never Happen t SHAWNA RIVEDAL Claire tells me about it one evening, after midnight. The story spews out of her mouth —As if she owned it, and lost it— Splattering on the concrete like gameday vomit. Words bubble up From the hole where her mouth used to be A signal she is boiling her skin from within, Reliving a year that started with Svedka and tears. I saw Claire claw at my face that was his And yet tonight I want to clamp her lips shut with my fingers, Force her to swallow another woman’s fate and let it fester In her mind and not mine. But I replay the news story when I walk at dusk and so I search “East Side Bike Path Attack” Because no one wants to talk about rape Unless it’s safely buried in literature, Entombed in our minds as fiction. The attacker does not look menacing. He is a charcoal drawing, Of average build and average height, Wearing a hoodie and loose jeans. So he terrifies me. The article says what everyone needs to think: The woman’s limbs will heal; she’ll run again. Concealing reality with optimism to ensure That poor stranger will be erased from our heads. But I think of my friend —Finding her rapist in the cupboards, on her fingers, Plastered on familiar faces— The words no newspaper will ever publish.
to Me Every person wants to think, needs to believe I would never run at night or walk alone Be a shameless flirt or wear revealing clothes Or drink so much I couldn’t escape, I couldn’t scream no.
CAYAN BENJAMIN
CAYAN BENJAMIN
And I
EMMA BAHNSON
TeLL mE wHAt IT FeEls LIkE when you cum on my stomach when it dries in my hair slides down my throat leaves me sick to my stomach [a canvas of skin painted with salty shame and submission]. an impish smile three Y CHROMOSOME kisses, and I, I wipe his cum with the tissue he GRACIOUSLY hands me over his slowly softening cock. I wipe his cum off of my breasts and I, I wonder something along the lines of who am I what does this make me this might as well be piss for the way it makes me smell like the cracks between bricks in an alleyway your mom told you never to walk through for the way my skin burns with shame.
Counting
(while Dr. TallBear talks about family chosen and not chosen) DIANE EXAVIER I had a daddy once. He died when I was nine. So, no, I don’t need another one. I have two mothers. One of them now lives with me. I stole her in the middle of the night, took her with me on the bus leaving New York. She never sleeps. She sits on my coffee table, hard for her to breathe from behind plastic sheets. She sits in my phone. I used a guard made of plastic to push her out of my mouth. My mother is looking for me. I walk through cities evading her gaze.
Seeing the Light JODY BRITZ
As a teenager, I was one rebellious girl. Out of nowhere, my young self who loved collecting leaves, walking in the woods, playing with grasshoppers in the backyard, and being with my good friends transformed into a girl who was extremely disagreeable to life in general. I was a “tough girl.” I started hanging out with guys who were older than me and friends that smoked pot and did various other drugs. School no longer interested me. I skipped classes and mocked and talked back to my teachers. To say the least, I was not engaged in learning. I can’t count the times I was suspended from school for disrespecting teachers, tripping kids in the hallway, and even getting into a fight with a teen that was pregnant. I was downright rude to everyone except my delinquent friends. The horrible temper tantrums I had were notorious; they were episodes in which I would literally destroy anything in my path. At 16 years old, “tough girl” ran away from home several times and most often ended up staying the night at a boyfriend’s house. He lived with his sister in town. I had a “job” babysitting for my boyfriend’s nephew, which basically involved hanging with my friends and doing drugs while the little boy slept. We were hanging around one evening, and one of my friends was holding up a plastic baggie with speed in it. Joints were being passed around. SHIT. Someone was at the door. As I turned to look, I saw my mother coming. She stormed into the room. I was not only scared that she would see me in this “drug den”, but also I was embarrassed and humiliated in front of my friends...that she would have the nerve. She grabbed my arm, pulled me out of there, and drove me home. I was the tasmanian devil on that ride home. Who was she to tell me what to do? I was so mad at her. I was yelling, fighting back emotionally. I don’t even remember what she was saying, if anything because I did not, would not, listen to her. In my mind’s eye, she was quietly seething as she drove me away.
My moth trying to get to I hated being c her in the hallw not-so-delicate One day friends—when I cop pulled up had reported m police station. I was a bit intim station. As I wa my mother in a was crying. Somethi my mother as s hardened hear
her was my enemy. She was always o me, help me, and keep me in line. controlled. I remember walking past way at home one time, giving her a e nudge to show my disdain for her. y, I was walking the streets with my I was supposed to be in school—and a and took custody of me. My mother me as a runaway. I was taken to the I have to admit, the tough girl that I was, midated walking through that police as walked through the station, I spotted an office, the door part-way open. She
hing happened to me that day. Seeing she cried shook something loose in my rt. It was the first time that I began to
NICHOLAS HOFFMAN understand the pain I was causing her. The look in her eyes revealed all the worry she felt for me, her love for me, and her fear of what was to become of me. It shook me to my core. As bitter and rebellious as I was, a part of me recognized I was still loved and wanted. My mother was not going to abandon me, no matter how vicious and mean I was. That was the beginning of coming back to my mother and finding my soul. Although I continued with some rebellion through my adolescence, I saw my mother not as my enemy but as my savior. She rescued me when I didn’t know I needed rescuing. She stayed true to her role as a mother: protect your kids at all costs. She has molded me to become the woman I am today. She is a true role model in what a woman can and should do for her daughter.
RAEGAN NIEMELA
This isn’t a poem about motherhood MARLENA CHERTOCK
since I can’t give birth. I’m fertile, or so I think, like pumpkin seeds just waiting to fall out of a carved crooked smile. No, I can’t get pregnant because my back at 25 is hunched like an overgrown sunflower, too heavy to hold its stalk-spine straight. Sticky peanut butter hips, pain spreading like a child blowing dandelion seeds into the wind. Another body inside would topple me over, so I won’t birth another weak weed. Sink my roots into soil instead.
#NoDAPL
This year, water protectors (daughters and sons alike), came together to protect our Mother Earth and push back against the old story of the institutional violation of indigenous land rights. Oceti Sakowin, one of the many encampments on North Dakota soil, housed thousands of people, including Natives from more than 280 indigenous tribes. One of the most remarkable sights at this camp was the Avenue of the Flags.
SARAH WINTER
Our First Durian YOON KYUK PARK There we sat atop a perch musing on its rounded form cut it we dared not, not yet its primal beauty unperturbed, like fresh fell snow in morning glow a baby chick with half-shut eyes the world was manifest in fruit a fruit we dared not cut just yet Yet all must come to pass in time and hungry she was, o’ ravenous girl! with knife in hand she grabbed the stem and hacked away without remorse, like fields of white in ruins by feet and baby chicks grow up to roost innocence lost, the spikes made way for doors to odors left best unsaid At day’s end, we sat in silence, the hollowed out shell to remind us both what it was to rob an essence and take the life of beauty in bloom, at day’s end, we brushed our teeth we shuddered then to lingering scent which ruptured when we cut the fruit and took the beauty of life in bloom
PRISCILLA DANIELS
for the daughters who grow up to become mothers TRACIE WEST Some of us daughters grow up to become mothers, and although I didn’t realize it was something I wanted to be, I certainly had a lovely example of how to be a good mother. I’ve always heard that a mom is the best example to a same-sex child. This is a pretty big responsibility and comes with big shoes to fill. I’m blessed, though, because my mom was a good example. She always smelled like green apples, and I thought she was by far a more beautiful mom inside and out than any other mom I had come across. She did happen to own a business, but it didn’t stop her from being “Room” mom at school, cooking full course dinners, and always making sure we had clean clothes to wear. She was one of those Super Moms. The day I fell in love and realized I actually wanted to marry and become a mother was a really big deal. Most of my life, I was just happy being the daughter, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be married or have children. I admired the part of my mom who was a businesswoman. She showed me that woman can be whatever they want to be, no limits. Well, it happened. I got married and the babies started to come. I first had two boys and oh, how I loved and adored my
beautiful boys, but my heart still yearned for a daughter. I cherished my relationship with my mom and wanted a daughter to share similar things with—things that are special bonds between moms and daughters. Boys don’t have periods, boys will never know what cramps feel like. Our third baby was a girl. She became known as the “littlest and only girl”. The funny part about human beings is that no matter what influence others have, they become their very own person. They ultimately are who they are. They are born as exactly who they’re meant to be the day they arrive into this big, big world. I always hated pink, and guess what happened? My little girl loved everything that was pink. She was drawn to sparkly, fancy things. Sometimes I would say, “Whose child are you?” But very, very quickly I realized I was to honor her
likes. I wasn’t supposed to make her into what I thought she should be. I was to support what she was drawn to, and what she found to fill her soul. When she was tiny, I let her dress in whatever she felt like. I allowed her to play hard with her brothers and come home with a dirty face. I let her help me bake cakes even if it meant a very messy floor, and I made sure to read to her lots, even on top of our roof where we always danced in the rain. I even tried to convince her once that girls don’t get sick. We have special powers; we just have to believe in them. I wanted her to remember me one day as a mom who supported her dreams, who dreamed with her, and who made this world feel safe and full of tiny miracles each day. I wanted her to experience this life in the magical way that she naturally was drawn to. My biggest piece of advice to her has always been one simple sentence: “Never lose your childlike wonder.” It’s the key to a
very peaceful and happy life. I’ve been a mom to a daughter now for almost 15 years. It goes by super quick, and my goal is to enjoy each and every stage as it happens. She isn’t tiny any longer and so our interactions have changed as she has changed. I joined Snapchat because it seems the place to connect with her these days, and just last year we decided together to start a mother-daughter project. Once a month, we think of ideas for a photograph together and then set up for our portrait. As the years have passed quicker than I would like, I realized photo-documenting our life had been done, but very little of it included myself with my children. I look back on my childhood and I have very few images that include me and my mom in the same photograph. This put a fire in me to begin intentionally documenting myself with my only daughter. I have loved this project, and I hope to continue it as long as we possibly can.
TRACIE WEST
Recipe to Reduce Pain Pain peto Reduce MARLENA CHERTOCK 1. Dump an entire bottle of bubble bath into your filling tub. Make sure the knob is turned to scalding. 2. Fetch a bath bomb you were given as a present. Smell them all, choose jasmine or lavender or chamomile. Something to soothe. 3. Watch the bath bomb shoot foam to the top of the water, like tectonic plates are shifting in your tub floor. 4. Pour epsom salt in, too. 5. Put your feet in the water and adjust. 6. Back out onto the rug because it’s too hot. 7. Go back in because this is what you want. Sit down, carefully, lean back against the cool tiles. 8. Close your eyes and listen to the bubbles crinkling like so much tissue paper. 9. Gather a handful of bubbles and lather onto your chin. 10. Admire your beard. 11. Slide deeper into the water, careful not to bump your head on the tub rim. 12. Soak. 13. Prune. 14. Admit that it’s too hot and you’re starting to get a headache. 15. Sit still while the tub drains away the last of the bubbles, the jasmine petals from the bath bomb. Trace the water funnel with your eyes like you’ve done since you were a kid.
For Taylor Swift Fans Turning ANNE MULROONEY In millennial culture, 22 is the last hurrah. True, the dazzling undergraduate years are past, and true, the thrill of legal bar-hopping has worn off, but Taylor Swift’s song, “22,” still confers righteous happiness, freedom, and confusion upon us all. “Don’t worry,” we hear her whisper between the lines. “You’re still young. No one expects you to be an adult. You’ve all got time.” On behalf my generation: thank you, Taylor Swift. Your song officially extended the forgiveness only afforded to the young, to us, the 22-year-olds of the early nineties. Some elders say we should have it figured out by now, but because of you, we know better. Getting lost, rationalizing bad decisions, dating frivolously and foolishly: these unforgivably irresponsible behaviors are forgivable only when perpetrated by young people. And this is because, of course, “they’re young. They’ll figure it out.” This forgiveness has been a miracle, if only for our minds. We can all forgive ourselves for not having anything figured out. Good ol’ TSwift has officially included us in the category, “young people”—and, simultaneously, has sanctioned our inner turmoil. We know we’re a mess. We don’t necessarily like it, but it’s the truth. And it weighs so heavily on our existence that celebrating it feels more like a survival technique than a lifestyle choice. Now, thanks to Taylor, 22 means young in millenial canon. Our lives aren’t just nebulous messes. The fact that we have nothing figured out is…fun. Expected, even. A rite of passage. On October 12, I turned 23. And with my undergraduate career solidly behind me—along with too many drunk Friday nights singing karaoke and too many break-ups with too many scrubs—I’m realizing I’ve been coasting for too long. Taylor Swift bought me some time, but even she can’t save me now. It’s time to be a grown-up. What does that mean, though? I’ve been thinking about it. I’m laying down rules for myself—rules for adulting. That’s what you do when your life needs meaning and order. And if your twenty-second year was anything like mine—like Avril Lavigne went to an eighties after-prom party and kissed a really tall, dumb jerk for way too long—you could probably use some meaning and order, too. I’ve got pages of plans, structures, and syllabi—strategies for my adult years in three different laptop folders. I’ve been really organized about all this.
23
I know life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, but I need all the help I can get. How can I make peace with my soon-to-be past without writing letters to my future self? How will I know I’ve grown if I haven’t listed and tracked the ways I wanted to grow in the first place? How will I become the person I want to become without deciding who that person is? How will I recognize myself? How will I grow up? I want future Anne to know I’ve always wanted what’s best for her, that I’m sorry for messing up, that I was just doing what I thought I ought to be at the time, and that I needed to be the mess of a 22-year-old I was before I became…whoever it is I’ll be. Someone good, I hope. For all the 23-year-olds I know, here’s a gift from my 22-year-old self. She’s not so far behind me now, but I fear I might forget her, like I did my nine-year-old and 13-year-old selves. Twenty-two, for all its shit shows, is a year I hope will live on in some protected pocket of my soul. Because she’s the me who wants, more than anything, to get better. I have a feeling I’ll need that girl to be with me for a long time. On the eve of my twenty-third birthday, here’s what I wrote myself:
Being 22 has been just what Taylor Swift said it would be: miserable and magical. Now that it’s ending, I’m working on sifting through the misery and finding where the magic was. I’ve been paying attention to things that make me feel less lost, hurt, and incompetent. And I’ve been paying attention to what makes me feel pure, free, and awake. Continue this project for future adult years. The important thing has been figuring out the feelings I want to chase and the feelings I never want to feel again. Put succinctly, the first step in preparing for adulthood has been this: pay attention. As a 23-year-old, I’ve been saying no to things that make me tired and yes to things that make me happy. I’m well rested and emotionally stable. If that sounds boring, then you’ve never known the hell of being a weeping, manic insomniac. I used to imagine being a grown-up as an endless string of unpaid bills, cubicles, computer screens, evening sitcoms, and getting fat. I clung to my weepy, sleepless mania for a long time, not liking life but not liking the alternative grown-up life, either. And I bet, for the people who’ve never taken self-care projects seriously, a lot of lives look a lot like that picture. I think a lot of people, wittingly or unwittingly, think of their lives in the shadow of that dichotomy. But being well rested and emotionally stable is the good part of being 23. If we keep paying attention, if we throw out misery and chase magic, if we refuse to let ourselves become any more miserable than we were when we were 22, then growing up is going to rock a hell of a lot harder
than Avril Lavigne. Once you’ve finished eating breakfast at midnight and making fun of your ex, worlds on top of worlds open up. All that time spent dressing up like a hipster will be better spent figuring out what you like. I like waking up early. I like writing lists. I like cutting out pictures of gardens from magazines and taping them to my wall, so I feel like I’m sleeping in a jungle of flowers. I like going to church. I like basking in the sunlight of each season, no matter how hot or cold. I like noticing how each day arranges itself, the wind and branches and clouds all dancing a little differently than how they danced the day before. I like noticing how my mother tilts her head and listens when I tell her about my day. I like American literature and good poetry. And I really, really like writing. Whenever I wake up early, or write a list, or cut out a picture of a garden, or do any of these things, I don’t feel lost. I don’t feel old or young, either. I don’t feel like I’m drowning in existential chaos or slowly marching down a cubicle-lined path toward death. I feel free. I feel like the girl I’ve always been, under it all, for so many years. I feel ageless. I’ve decided I’m going to give myself permission to be free from competition, from my peers, and from myself. I’m going to remember that life is long and things will fluctuate, and nothing is certain. I’m going to find more beautiful things to set me free and live my life as if time doesn’t exist. I’ll tell myself, “See that world out there? You’re part of it. You were born here. You belong.” So, fellow millennials, here’s to hope, and here’s to growing up.
PRISCILLA TAN
My heart gallops into war, like the menacing drum beats from Jumanji. Blobs of sweat plummet from my ashen face and dive into the ground. I crouch down and soak up my vulnerability and fatal thoughts. Dazed, paralysed, defenseless, and alone. At long last, my heart hits the brakes, it eases up. My breath returns. I ask, “Will it ever end?� I think back: it did, and it will again.
Panick Attack
NICHOLAS HOFFMAN
On the West Side of the House ALEXANDRA BEHR The light spilled in and Sprawled across the room, The wall, the floor, the bed It bathed the sleeping creatures In serenity: licking their curls softly They’re warm from the sun, but Your bed is still cold Yet somehow It is still a relief To live in the mist You’ve left behind I want to remain in The tones of golden forever
“When life gives you grief, give life love, patience, and understanding. We all know our time is limited on this earth. Truly make your life mean something to yourself and others. Believe in yourself.” - Katherine Boritzke
We can’t wait to publish Issue 2 with more spectacular work from daughters of all kinds. As the magazine develops, we’d love to see an even more diverse pool of art, stories, and photographs. Visit us at www.daughterlitmag.com to learn more and to submit.