magazine
TO OUR SPONSORS. FOOLS MAGAZINE IS GENEROUSLY FUNDED BY FOUR ENTITIES THAT SAW POTENTIAL IN THE FOOLS TEAM & OUR EFFORTS. WE WOULD LIKE TO FORMALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THE MAGID CENTER FOR UNDERGRADUATE WRITING, THE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION, THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA STUDENT GOVERNMENT, AND THE CITY OF IOWA CITY ARTS COUNCIL FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO FOOLS MAGAZINE.
The ideas and opinions expressed in this magazine are not representative of the University of Iowa.
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Five volumes, and here we are. Fools Magazine has grown exponentially since its conception two years ago, and its foundations are cemented into the art and literary landscape of Iowa City. We have put a roof over the heads of creative misfits, and empowered them to share their work unapologetically. As Fools evolves, we hope that you can see how fluid we have become in our identity as an organization, and also in the composition of our contributors. We pride ourselves on serving as an expressive outlet for our contributors and our audience, and the work we put in is undoubtedly returned when someone opens the magazine to find a part of themself inside. While each volume is different from the next, our mission has remained the same: to curate an honest narrative of the experiences of this exact time, in this little sector of our universe. Our growth is a direct result of the support we receive—from our readers, contributors, sponsors, friends and family. We’ve achieved what we have always wanted: telling stories, sparking conversations, fostering new ideas, and expressing our deepest vulnerabilities. We are sharing a timeless history of our truth, our humanity. With that, we present to you our fifth volume. We hope you cherish it as much as we do. From us to you, The Fools Editorial Board
E D I T O R S . JENNA LARSON
ELAINE IRVINE
CHOSIE TITUS
KENZI RAYELLE
HANNAH GULICK
editor-in-chief
writing editor
design editor
design assistant
writing assistant
ELLIE ZUPANCIC
GABBIE MEIS
JOE FLESNER
RILEY NAKAGAWA
NICOLE PAGLIARI
managing editor
writing editor
design editor
design assistant
writing assistant
SETH MOFFITT
ALEX KRAMER
VIVIAN LE
HAYLEY ANDERSON
GABBY ESTLUND
treasurer
web editor
photo editor
photo assistant
web assistant
CONTRIBUTORS. ALEX ESCALADA
ELAINE IRVINE
JANIECE MADDOX
MARIAH COOPER
SAMUEL HALE
pg. 29
pg. 31,43
pg. 12
pg. 9,29
pg. 38
ALEX HERRICK
ELLA BOYD WONG
JAYME BIGGER
MERIA IVY
SKYLER BARNES
pg. 3
pg. 38
pg. 35
pg. 5,27
pg. 5
ALEX KRAMER
ELLIE ZUPANCIC
JOE FLESNER
MONICA JUAN
SUCHAETA HEDGE
pg. 16
pg. 1,15
pg. 3,6,9,15,16,19,51
pg. 50
pg. 13
ANNA BANERJEE
FRANNY MARZUKI
KATIE PRINZ
NICOLE PAGLIARI
TYLER STERCULA
pg. 31
pg. 47
pg. 49
pg. 39
pg. 3
BAILEY GABRIELLE
GANESH LAKSHMANA
KENZI RAYELLE
NICHOLE SHAW
VIVIAN LE
pg. 11
pg. 34
pg. 29,34,45,46,47,49
pg. 9
pg. 6,19,35,41,43,47
BRIANNA JORGE
GRACE OETH
LINDEY CARLSON
PHILIP RUNIA
ZOE HERMSEN
pg. 45
pg. 6
pg. 39, 45
pg. 27
pg. 1,27,47
CARTER MELROSE
HANNAH GULICK
LIV HARTER
RILEY NAKAGAWA
pg. 12
pg. 51
pg. 46
pg. 5,11,38,41
CHOSIE TITUS
HAYLEY YORDANOFF
MAGGIE NIPS
ROCCO ROMANO
pg. 1,12,13,19,27,31
pg. 31
pg. 45
pg. 41
DAVID PETERSEN
HIBBAH JARMAKANI
MAJA ELLA
SAGE ANDERSON
pg. 46
pg. 50
pg.11,34
pg. 39,41
1
AN AU FROM HOME
3
THE FACTS ARE THESE
5
WE ARE THE THINGS...
6
THE ONLY GIRL
9
ASHES TO WHITE BLACKNESS
11
WAX FIGURE
12
THE WRESTLING MATCH
13
SHADES OF A SARI
15
YOU BROKE MORE THAN US
16
JANELLE MONÁE: QUEER SUPERHERO
27
POCKET MELODRAMA
29
ROSA
31
DINNER TIME BLUES
34
FIVE METAPHORS AND YOU
35
STILL MY MOM
38
THE FROZEN GROWS
39
THE THINGS THAT I KNOW
41
UNLIKELY COMPANIONS
43
POUND MOON ANGEL FOOD WEDDING
45
THE POEM THAT BLINKS
46
THE SYRIAN EXPERIENCE
47
HOW TO DISAPPEAR
49
PEREGRINE
50
CALIFORNIA DAYDREAMS
51
ACT(s) OF MEASUREMENT
AN AU
1
FROM HOME by ellie zupancic
If an astronomical unit is
Do you note the moment unconsciously, or make
roughly the distance from
a mental reminder for when you return the same way,
the Earth to the Sun,
re-entering a plane suddenly
then as I see it,
familiar again?
it will take a mere nineteen years for
In the space behind me
me to get to you.
I leave written letters, and
I feel like I have already travelled this distance
family keepsakes, and
over (and over, again)—
untold legacies
when I leave home
from the graves of women in our families
I pack my grandfather’s camera
floating unprotected in the atmosphere;
(one that my father spent a week repairing for me
when I begin the voyage back,
before he presented it in his palms as an offering of
the space surrounding me carries
love and labor,
dust and the ghosts
and apology).
of those women
I keep it in my backpack, and attempt to capture
seeking to take their ornaments back,
the depth of the space around me,
to grant them asylum in Earth, past her sweet fleshes.
and I open my mouth wide,
I photograph my mother’s mother
so that as I travel I might swallow some of
on my grandfather’s camera and
the lengths
she smiles for a fleeting moment
between us.
so I may capture her permanently,
If you walk far enough from home, when, exactly,
then returns her way.
do you realize you no longer recognize your surroundings?
illustration by zoe hermsen | design by chosie titus 2
T
H
E C T S F A
A R
E
T H E S E
by tyler stercula These are the facts: it is just after midnight and the swelling
Quiet pervades Brighton House, save for the muffled laughter
on my right cheek isn’t going down.
I hear from the floor above. I hear the laughter better in the
As I look out the second story window of my empty shared
stairwell and I walk away from it.
room, the trees hiding Nasir Lake seem to shrink. They seem
There aren’t any lights on the eastern face of Rutherford, a
so meager, barely able to uphold their duty of delineation
castle of a boys’ school complete with torturous classrooms
between frozen field and icy water.
and regent spires. All staff living on the premises stay
My attention shifts to the north as the rectangular golden light above the rowing house flicks off. My eyes fill the sudden
in those--thankfully, mostly west-facing--towers. The rest commute from the city. It doesn’t seem worth it.
void with blooming purple-green plumes. They look like
The dark cold night gently hits my naked skin as I make my
bruises on impossibly dark skin. The light stutters back into
way across the field to the rowing house. It takes me too long
being.I don’t want to pry my face from the cold window.
to notice the perfectly clear winter night sky. Orion is brightly
But I do.
splayed at zenith. Stargazing is best in the winter. There’s no
These are the facts: he said I was different, I said he was too; now I have a bruised rib. When I finally step out into the hall, I feel like vomiting. I can’t tell if it’s the sickly green carpet lining the floors or seeing the hole in the wall made by my head. Maybe both.
3
turbulence in the air. These are the facts: I am spinning around on a rock at over fifteen hundred kilometers per hour and orbiting counterclockwise around the sun at over one hundred thousand kilometers per hour. The tilt of that rock is what causes the seasons, not its environment. I am too naive.
Snow crunches beneath my bare feet and squeezes through
I have to steady myself inside the boat as it shakes under my
my toes. I bend over in the field to pick some up and mull it
weight. While the freezing Colorado air permits snow-covered
in my hands. It feels soft like powdered glass and it clumps
gothic roofs and fields, it does not allow Nasir Lake to freeze.
together when squeezed, like wet sand. I miss the beach. The
Not even its surface. Something about the sediment at the
light above the rowing house flicks off. This time the absence
bottom makes it a salt water lake. I don’t like geology, I just
reveals not only darkness but also silence. My eyes fill the
know saltwater is harder to freeze
void with bruised flowers and my ears fill it with angry bees. It comes back on once I reach the door.
Still, I feel like I just broke a surface of glass, like my presence
The interior smells damp and musty. Two sculling boats hang
doesn’t seem to mind.
on the far and back walls. A bin of oars sits in the corner between them. Faded orange life vests line the other wall. In the center of the shed, a heavy wooden rowboat sits atop curved wooden scaffolding. The sport never appealed to me; besides, the sculls need two men to operate successfully. They’re long, thin, and light and bastards to steer. I open the eastern garage door and pull the rowboat from its stand. The gnarled wood grates against the rocky slope leading into the water that quietly laps at the shore. At me. I grab an oar, push
destroyed some Platonic ideal of nature. Of course, the lake
I row toward the center, splitting my attention between the water and the sky. It’s not an even split. I note that Vega is only visible in the summer which means looking up at the winter sky is like looking out of the back window of my parents’ station wagon on those long road trips we used to take. I reach the center of the lake and steady the boat and lay down. The stillness of the water and the boat and my breath exaggerates the celestial traffic. With my eyes unfocused, I can see the
off, and jump in the boat.
relative motion of...everything: the moon around the Earth, the
These are the facts: just as this rock revolves around its star,
school of hyenas, the stars through the sky, my head through
that star moves too. It drifts toward Vega at nearly seventy
the wall.
thousand kilometers per hour and orbits clockwise around the center of the galaxy--some indescribable hole in space and time and common sense--at almost eight hundred thousand kilometers per hour. It was the first kiss I ever had, even if it was a mistake.
insecurity of a boy who is ok secretly holding hands around a
My eyelids stick together as I blink away frozen tears. The coldness of the night air finally pierces my skin and hits me harder than anything else tonight. I reach over the edge of the boat and dip my finger tips in the water to bring myself back to reality. There’s always something colder, always a bigger picture. These are the facts: at over two million kilometers per hour, the Milky Way Galaxy is zooming toward some mass of literally universal scale called the Great Attractor. Before it reaches this fated place, our galaxy will collide with its nearest neighbor, Andromeda. Whatever awaits us at that cosmic destination, we will not arrive as we are now. I will not be here forever. I will not be like this forever. But I will always be me. The facts are these: the sun rising over Nasir Lake and the world is too big for me to care about small things..
illustration by alex herrick | design by joe flesner 4
WE ARE THINGS OF DRY HOURS AND THE INVOLUNTARY PLAN This compulsion forces our heat to swallow us whole, white-hot chills, we disappear under the guise of acceptance, we are more tolerable. We are unseen. Ice us. Water isn’t foreign to our lungs, perhaps, we grew from the plants rotting in the ancestral - perhaps we are being punished. Perhaps when asked to put our hands up we confuse it for worship, we are things of the involuntary plan. We pick cotton in our own modernity.
by skyler barnes title excerpted from “kitchenette building” by gwendolyn brooks | Illustration by meria ivy | design by riley nakagawa 5
THE ONLY
A CONVERSATION WITH ROBIN GREEN by grace oeth | photo by vivian le | design by joe flesner While reading Robin Green’s memoir, “The Only Girl: My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone,” I was transported. I was with her when she was victorious, happy, and full of light. I was with her when she was bitter, depressed, and mourning. I was fascinated with the woman on the page and wanted desperately to meet her and talk to her. She described her childhood, the time in her life living in California and writing for Rolling Stone, her experiences of finding herself again in Iowa, and her twenty-five-year career in television writing. I contacted Green, and she delightfully agreed to meet with me at our local, independent bookstore. I was nervous to meet someone so intimidating, who had accomplished amazing things, but the moment we started talking, she became the voice I was so comfortable with when reading her book.
6
GRACE: Something I really appreciated [in your book] was your open tone and humor. ROBIN: I just feel when I am reading memoir,
GO: How was publishing your memoir different than other projects that you’ve written? What made this different?
women want to hear what it was like, [we]
RG: For one thing, this was my first book. I had to write a
want to hear more. I
60-page document as a sales tool. It wasn’t like going in a
just didn’t want to hold
pitching to a network in two minutes, it was a really thorough
back. There are are not
exercise. Also, the length of it and depth of it. It wasn’t like
enough sexually explicit
a proposal because it was four or five times as long—sixty
descriptions. I know I should
probably
times as long! I had never done anything of such a sustained
save
nature. [Writing the book] took nine months, which I hear is
it for fiction, because
short? So in all, it was around three years for one project. I
my husband was like
don’t know how people do it, really. I have friends who do
“Umm,” when he first
this for a living, this sort of writing. I don’t know how fiction
read the book.
writers do it, it’s a different thing entirely.
*both laugh*
GO: Speaking of Iowa, you earned your MFA here. What made you decide to come here? RG:
I
initially
came
because
I had sort of run my string out there in the Bay Area, and I did my Rolling Stone thing. I was just lost, psychologically. I was alone, alienated. I didn’t belong. So, I moved to Iowa! I heard about the writers’ workshop, and I thought, “Ooh! A writers’ workshop, that sound cushy!” I wanted to go to a safe place where I could start my life again. When I got here, I remember being in a phone booth, sweating
GO: What prompted you to come back?
in August, and I was saying to my
RG: [I] met [my husband] here. We’ve had a whole life together, knowing
mother, “It’s really beautiful here.
each other, being together. Then when we finished working, after we had done all this television together for 25 years. Because of that, we’re big supporters of the University [of Iowa]. I really think this is a good place. When I first got here I was really when
surprised, you’re
coast—both
because from
the
coasts—you
just don’t understand what it’s like here. It’s a good place to start your life again! And maybe we’re starting again a little now. I thought I was done, that I had put everything away. My husband likes this Romanian saying—even though he’s not Romanian—about when you put something together from a kit, there’s always a piece left over. And they say, that’s what you use to start the next project.
GO: Did you intend to write in a more feminist lens? Or was it natural to point out all the jobs where you were “the only girl”? RG: I don’t know if [the book] necessarily is feminist. I read about this brilliant scientist who was a woman in the sixties and invented the console computer that landed the first man on the moon. She was given the medal of freedom, and I think it was Obama who gave her the medal, which was very meaningful. He said he had
It’s just like the east coast, with all its trees and hills. And there’s a river running through the city!” But more than that, when you come here there’s just a certain feeling that’s different than being on the coast. You feel the world as a whole here—there’s a global consciousness you can see. You understand that there are different worlds and there are different realities. This one is very grounded and non-bullshit. It’s relaxing in a way.
asked her what it was like to be a trailblazer, and she said, “You’re so busy being a trailblazer that you don’t think of yourself being that at all.” Now, what I did was not that. I didn’t land men on the moon, but I did what I had the opportunity to do. I am a feminist, but I wasn’t a particularly conscious feminist.We were the first generation the have the pill, it was a very liberating time. I suppose I was a female who was out doing new things for a girl, but I didn’t set out to write a feminist book. Even at the proposal level, there was a publishing house full of women who didn’t like it.
GO: Really? RG: They thought I was bragging about myself. They thought I was too pleased with myself. Which is so untrue!
*both laugh* 7
GO: I’m just surprised because I didn’t get that! RG: Right? They felt resentful of me. It took me aback, but I guess there are different views on what I did. Yes, I’m competitive, but I had no intention of making anyone resentful, or to feel bad, or to make anyone look bad. I envied the other girls in the office. They were just starting women’s groups, but I wasn’t a marcher. I wasn’t that kind of a feminist. I was a lonely girl, and I think that’s what took the toll on me. That’s what sent me here [to Iowa], to start again, to find a mate. Is that feminism? I don’t know.
GO: Your writing style for this book is humorous and reflective, and a multitude of other adjectives. What was something you tried keeping in mind when you were forming the language of this memoir? And how was this different than your television writing or your journalistic writing? RG: It was my voice. [The book] was very much my voice. I’m finding my voice again. It’s full of feeling. It’s full of love, and hurt. It’s an emotional voice. Journalism, it involves the mind and thinking. It’s that kind of focus—forming your thoughts, making your impressions into arguments. When I started TV writing, a whole world of feeling opened up where you could be dramatic, you can make people
laugh, you could make people cry, and that was thrilling. But this book was different from either of those things. It got to be everything all at once. I can’t say that it was an unhappy experience. It was the most fun I’ve ever had writing. And... I love the book. I do! I’m sorry, but I’m just so happy— especially because I got to honor certain people that I loved, and that I’ve lost, and I got to go back and spend time with them again. I don’t think I’ve quite done them justice, but I did something. I just wanted to tell my truth. I think truth is important.
GO: Have you been contacted by any of them, at least in a negative way? RG: No, I have not. I’m stunned…and relieved. My agent told me that the life of a book is long. With television
*snaps,*
it’s gone. I don’t know what I’ll hear, but I haven’t heard anything negative. No one has complained…although some people could. A lot of people are dead, too!
*both laugh*
GO: Did you have any reservations about writing this book, specifically related to the relationships that you talked about? Were you afraid of what people would say — RG: Yes.
I’m finding my voice again. It’s full of feeling. It’s full of love, and hurt. It’s an emotional voice. GO: What other books inspired you?
RG: No, it’s true! When you talk to lawyers—
RG: I read other biographies and autobiographies. Of course, Mary Carr.
and the British, they are such sticklers,
That’s how it started. I love books like that, I do. You can get lost in that genre.
because they have much different privacy
Then I read a whole lot of Rachel Kusk, she’s a fiction writer. She wrote a three
laws over there. Much more stringent libel
book trilogy which is really wonderful. She also wrote three memoirs, and I
laws—so they’ll say, “What about...Kit
bought them at my bookstore, and I can’t seem to get into them. So, it’s weird.
Carlson?”, “Nope! Dead,” And they’re like, “Great!”
GO: Is there anything next for you? RG: Not concretely. [My husband and I will] finish teaching. We’ll go home to New York. We’ll go to St. John for the winter, we’re there for like, three months. And I hope that I start something else, I just don’t know what it is. I’m just… right back where I was lost and scared again. I don’t know why I don’t stop. The following is an excerpt, read the full piece on foolsmag.com
8
ASHES TO WHITE
9 9
The following is an excerpt, read the full piece on foolsmag.com
Heat shoots through my curls like
Remember when I was tied up in that jump rope in
water traveling through xylem.
fourth grade because my skin didn’t look like the
Nature ruined.
other kids—too Black to fit in with the White; White
Kinky curls that come with my mixed skin flattened to
walls, Whiteboards, White people.
One dimension of Whiteness.
Remember when they told me to be proud because I was
A package ripped apart.
a strong Black woman, and then I went home and the
It hurts to see my Blackness straightened out.
salty liquid that secreted from my eyes dripped down my skin in the same streams the showerhead created,
Rebellious frizz fighting humid heat.
flowing down my skin like a babbling mess.
It sears my scalp, and I wish
Remember when—
Black and White would work together. Instead, they I can’t remember the last time someone didn’t look battle against one another,
at me differently because of my hair, my Black hair.
locked in a war I never seem to win;
Do you remember?
Have you ever seen a shape with conventional curves? I stroll down Madison Street, through the underpass of the railway, and onward. Heat swelters on the backs of thousands of Blacks.
My curls are tighter than they ever were, chocolate
They struggle within societal constraints,
in color, Black in nature.
Swirling around in their grief; hot and dark.
The wind sweeps through and messes up the part I had.
Dark heat drips down the back of their necks,
I don’t care.
matting Black to their Scalp.
People still stare when I
They rage against the construct of
stride into their line of vision.
Race, Status, Gender.
People still ignorantly make comments or touch my hair. He had a dream.
I have a nightmare.
People still shift in uncomfortable consternation at my kinky roots. But I am no longer afraid.
Remember when I was the Jezebel, the Mammy, and the Angry Black Woman.
My hair is a part of me—it shouldn’t be controlled,
Remember when they told me how “cool” it was that my
shouldn’t have to be.
Blackness oppressed me—y’know, so I could pay less
Natural hair was distant from the embrace of pride,
for college tuition.
culturally.
Remember when they were jealous of my Black curls, so
Perhaps because Whiteness was safe, and Blackness
they pulled on them until my scalp itched with the
wasn’t, still isn’t.
prickle of restraint against their ignorance.
I won’t let the system tame me. I am free.
by nichole shaw illustration by mariah cooper | design by joe flesner
10 10
WAX
I want to melt to the ground And harden in the cracks of a sidewalk I want to hibernate between the rocks and dirt And wake up to the warm sun beaming down on me
FIGURE by bailey gabrielle illustration by sage anderson | design by riley nakagawa 11
‘DA MN IT !’ he said when he didn’t beat the bear in the wrestling match
‘ Ahhhr rawhhh harrw.’
like he thought he most definitely would. The crowd grabbed the bear by the paws and hoisted him on top of the pile, bear
Well said bear, but I cannot shake my competitive spirit enough
noticeably confused, since it had no clue what a crowd-surf
to bear-hug-it-out.’ the man conceded.
was. They lofted the bear a wee-bit high and its snoz hit the ceiling fan.
The bear tried to plead with the man but he had made up his mind. The man walked out and the bear, disheartened to have
‘Agrowwwwwllllaaa!’ the bear let out.
demoralized this opponent, soon made for the door as well. As his fur slid against the knob, the door flung open, and standing
‘Get that man a salmon!’
there, drenched by the globby rain was the man.
A bucket-man, meaning, a man who hauled around a bucket,
‘Come here, you son of a bitch!’
slid out from behind the bar and grabbed a salmon by the gills and threw it up to the bear, still suspended and thrashing at the
The man and the bear embraced, damp and smiling, and later
air, most definitely livid.
left the bar as equals.
‘I don’t understand, I was so prepared.’ The loser put his head down and headed for home. He wasn’t going to watch this crowd celebrate this bear’s swift victory. The man could only imagine all the victories this bear had accumulated in the forest: decapitating a hiker who wandered too far from camp without a weapon, another bear of equal or larger heft, probably gave Artemis a run for her money. ‘Arrrrrhhhaawww!’ The crowd froze, it seemed as if the bear was calling out to the loser. ‘What do you want, bear?’ ‘Ahhhraaaawwww.’
WHAT DO YOU WANT BEAR?
The bear stepped off of the pile, now walking upright like a human and trudged over to the man, putting his claw on the man’s bare-back.
by carter melrose illustration by janiece maddox | design by chosie titus 12
SHADES OF A SARI
by suchaeta hedge
13
A dense jungle had materialized before me. A myriad of dark
I liked to imagine a time when the saris weren’t in storage
scarves were wrapped around the cabinets like twisted vines
and were being used to their full potential. When they were
clasping the trunk of a banyan tree. Wrinkled blouses, like
worn to rituals, ceremonies, weddings. A time when when
budding Begonias, peeked out of open drawers. Clinging to
this lost world was a reality and the ruins were a realm that
the hangers, just like monkeys on a tree branch, monochromatic
people cherished. A time when saris were as sacred as I
formal dresses hung just out of the reach of my curious grip.
still believe them to be. However, I had to accept that this
It took me a number of seconds before I realized it was my
beautiful place had to disappear into the shadows. The saris
mother’s closet. At a single glance, the jungle seemed to be
had to be hidden away for my mom to adjust to the new life
the final destination of an exhausted adventurer. However,
she had begun in a new country. After all, not many people
spending the majority of my childhood delving through this
in this new land could see the sari’s value past being a pretty
wilderness, I knew that the treasure laid just beyond what
outfit, just as greedy adventurers often couldn’t see a beautiful
appeared to be the ‘x’ on the map.
world past the sparkling of gold.
Hidden away, behind an enticing forest of thick, American
In my younger years, the enchanting adventures behind the
clothing, were spectacular remnants of a lost world. My
garments ensured my return to the jungle whenever I could
mother, when she and my father traveled to the United States
find time for a quest. For hours, with the help of dozens of
from India, had brought her treasures with them; she had
saris, I uncovered the vibrant old world that was buried under
not realized she would have to hide their prized possessions
the wilderness. A lost person, a lost culture, a lost world–all
away to find acceptance in the new world. Traditional Indian
were hidden in the many layers of a sari.
clothing–captivating churidars, luscious lehengas, sumptuous saris–is what I worked to uncover when I played treasure hunt as a child. The crumbling towers of outfits glimmered with brilliant colors; my eyes soaked in the crimson reds, lilac purples, and lime greens. I owned a modest collection of churidars and lehengas; however, I desired a sari–a garment made of extravagantly decorated fabric. A rite of passage to my adulthood–as my mother always said I was too young whenever I hopefully asked–saris seemed to be the key to understanding the beautiful ruins of this forgotten realm. I reached my hands into the piles of messily folded garments; I saw myself uncovering precious relics. One sari’s thin silky fabric kissed my skin while another’s thick material prickled my fingertips as I draped it around myself. I ran my fingers over the golden embroidery, picturing myself deciphering mysterious etchings on an ancient artifact. There seemed to be a story woven into the fabric of every sari that my mother hid away. I envisioned a babbling brook pooling at the base of a cascade as I unfurled a sari the color of the sea. Bunching up the silken material of a fiery red sari, I imagined how it would feel to clasp the torrid sun with my bare hands. In trying to discover more about this wonderful land, I had created a world of my own.
HIDDEN AWAY, BEHIND AN ENTICING FOREST OF THICK, AMERICAN CLOTHING, WERE SPECTACULAR REMNANTS OF A LOST W O R L D .
design by chosie titus 14
YOU BROKE MORE THAN US by joe flesner I start five steps behind trust & four steps ahead of doubt I take three breaths and tell myself to calm down but when two texts light his phone, my throat tightens Just one of the impulses that were never mine but you pass through my mindway & won’t look in my eye still, sometimes I pull over to wait for the light those speechless mosaics of rose and October kiss the shoulder like you did mine but clouds cause crashes & I was distracted by your glare when the lies snuck by glass glittered the pavement you found a replacement you said you would change, but you changed your mind now when comfortable, I reflect sin motion & as a precaution, I shine my brights I look both ways through his reflective smile with a brick in my waist, I overanalyze compressing each moment to see what’s inside because I’m five steps behind trust & four drinks in it’s three a.m. and I’m too broken to see that maybe you won
photo by ellie zupancic | design and photo by joe flesner 15
THE QUEER SUPERHERO MUSIC DIDN’T KNOW IT NEEDED by alex kramer
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She shields her bravery in the shadows. She transcends disguise. Her cape is a three piece suit HER
SUPERPOWER
IS
THE
and bow tie.
ABILITY
TO
STUN.
And honey, has she stunned. This April, Janelle Monáe
amongst the norm. She has produced hits that range from R&B,
dropped an album the same week she publicly came out
electronica-pop ballads, and even tracks resembling operatic
as pansexual. She embodies the queer superhero the music
punk. Matched by her insane knack for rap, she is a three-
community needed even more so than the LGBTQ+ community.
course meal that doesn’t pair well with others because she doesn’t need to. She is her own feast. Her energy – dare I say
Music lovers (and gay fans) everywhere have been waiting
– rivals her mentor, the late-great Prince, who was a sexual,
with bated breath for her to utter the words as easily as hinting
spiritual forerunner in gender fluidity. May he rest in peace
lyrics graze her lips. Those words finally came when she
and purpose.
confirmed her queer identity to Rolling Stone in April, stating, “I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.”
The LGBTQ+ community needs heroes, make no mistake. But music is not so insular. Music is a universal mode of
As she rolled labels around, it was hard not to feel a heartbeat
transporting convictions, fast-tracking influence and propelling
within the gay community and myself. Labels were created
ideas in a highly vulnerable way. Art, yes, but especially
by others to delineate a group of people as “other.” Labels
music, is a stronghold used to sway the opinions of whoever
aren’t for LGBTQ+ people – that acronym is for mainstream
is listening. A lot of people listen to Janelle Monáe – people
consumption. Monáe’s confusion made her more relatable.
who are struggling to come to terms with where they fall in the
My own queerness was reflected back at me as I continue to
schema of identity politics. My own self-actualization would
grapple with an idealistic label lurking over my shoulder.
have come around a lot sooner had I known queer, female love was not the stigma media portrayed it to be.
The LGBTQ+ community’s back is heavy with misunderstanding and our own internalized homo-/transphobia. It feels like
Monáe’s strikingly heroic come-out is testament to black queer
falling backwards through liberation when the community
women in music, dismantling a fear of black female sexuality.
preaches acceptance but practices judgement. The music
Within the genres she straddles, some are not so forgiving
community is shiny with possibility.
of queerness. R&B is notoriously heterosexual, rap frequently includes homophobic slurs like cherries are included on
There is no hierarchical pyramid of identity. Things aren’t so
sundaes, while pop cauterizes originality into a smooth-edged
binary, and despite her black and white suit, neither is the
package. As she says in 2013’s Q.U.E.E.N., whose original
ArchAndroid. Artists like Monáe force a skewed mindset to
title was recently announced to be Q.U.E.E.R.,
choke on its dismissal of female queerness as experimental and illegitimate. Over the past few months, she has released
“Hey sister am I good enough for your heaven? / Say will your
vibrant music videos such as “Make Me Feel” and “Pynk” that
God accept me in my black and white? / Will he approve the
burst with charged representations of female love.
way I’m made?”
With the deluge of one-off artists who sound so similar to each
It’s a dangerous world to open up to when popularity, success,
other, Monáe’s dissonance has loitered on the backburners.
and religion threaten to leave you.
She queered her music to perfection, a rare, odd gem
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“I consider myself to be a
FREE-ASS MOTHERFU*KER” Even with artists like Frank Ocean and Sam Smith coming
a spot in the mainstream, it is burning the water out of that
to the arena, proud and loud, music is a hard industry to
stream. It is creating tides against a current.
conquer. It is brave for a queer woman to defy a business that makes her livelihood by owning her identity in the public eye.
Monáe is already successful on her merit and independence.
She could be rebranded as “that gay girl musician” or tamped
Her influence is far-reaching and she can use that for good.
into a token.
There is a whole dictionary of reasons a person chooses to come forth with their sexuality and an even longer one about
But she danced on caution tape and here we are. She is
why they do not. Monáe didn’t have to do this. She could have
calling on a nation’s support and waiting for the dust to clear.
queered the world – like Freddie Mercury, dodging questions
That is power. That is Monáe’s brand of power.
until the grave. There is a reason she did this and a reason why she did it now. 2018 is a time of flux and flow. People
One artist does not change the tide but can become a catalyst
are afraid, queer women even more so. She hasn’t quelled all
for a dangerous thing – hope. It is not a hope for acceptance.
of the fear, but she’s born some of the brunt. And we salute
Being “queer” is defiance. It is a rejection of norms for oneself,
her for her it.
for one’s identity and one’s love. Queerness isn’t raiding for
collage and design by joe flesner 18
CLANDESTINE
model leo perenzuela | photos by vivian le | design by chosie titus and joe flesner
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THERE IS SOCIETAL PRESSURE TO BURY VULNERABILITY AND HARBOR IT UNTIL IT BECOMES TERRITORIAL, RECONSTRUCTING ITSELF INTO FORMS OF ANGER AND RAGE, BOILING ITSELF DOWN TO THE FOUNDATIONS OF “HOW TO BE A MAN”.
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POCKET MELODRAMA by philip runia
My coat is itchy. Wool isn’t supposed to feel that way. The finer kind, anyway. The warmth from his grasp has disappeared, separated by that old, yet familiar, barrier of isolation. A chilling shiver creeps through my veins, causing my spine to shake and my neck to jerk. The coat isn’t warm enough. It was expensive enough, surely. The cold seeps through regardless. A moment ago, I could not breathe. My heart clenched up slowly at first, in the way it does while watching the opening salvo of a horror movie. Or rather, the sudden twinge of pain when thinking of a melodrama that struck me or worse, the feeling when I watched for the first time and tried not to cry in front of a friend.
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Tears prickle my eyes, my blood immobilizes and accelerates all at the same time. I don’t breathe, trying not to let him know how much I’ve been affected, how laid low I am in that moment; when the movie becomes my life. The moment when I stop to wonder haven’t I seen this before? I say goodbye. I watch him try to interrupt me. I see his pleading eyes beg me to understand why he is leaving why I’m helping him go. I do. I hate it. I heard that it’s a man’s exit from your life that hurts the most, not his entrance. After your walls are broken there is nothing left to be demolished. My coat is purple. The color of a welled-up bruise that has been under the skin for a while but has never quite lost its pangs. There is some yellowing as well, all mixed together or surrounded, and disgusting. The color of eggplant, which I’ve never had a taste for. Too, too bitter. Yellow is complementary to purple. A healing color?
But the coat fits well enough. It scratches me as I lean toward his retreat. My fingers are numb now, turning purple to match. The coat barely warms them. The pockets are deep and have another pocket inside. For change or wadded bills, keys, a condom or piece of gum. No change, only folded paper, the expensive kind, thick like parchment, which unfolded becomes a photograph. The scene, serene, was captured unbeknownst to us. As if it’s illustrated. We’re happy. I run my fingers across your face. The texture doesn’t feel like you; it’s not warm. No stubble. No pressure upon my hand or face from your nuzzle. Unlike you, the paper yields to me. I rip it into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, into uneven, torn bits of skincolored ink. A shred with your eye catches mine as bits of you flutter to the ground. I tell myself, “told you so.” I’d said it before but I used to be easier to shut up. My smile curls with disapprovement. You float away in the wind. The wool scratches my numb, yellowed, whitening hands when I shove them back into my pockets. There, it’s warmer. I may have a paper cut.
illustration by zoe hermsen | photos by meria ivy | design by chosie titus 28
ROSA
by alex escalada illustration by mariah cooper | design and collage by kenzi rayelle 29 29
i do remember grandma’s house well-
the next day, a man in a suit came to grandma’s with my aunt
the luscious lilacs, the taste of tea, the scurrying of squirrels.
and uncle,
more importantly, i remember all of the things we did there-
scurrying around the house like a rat searching for scraps.
we laughed and we played, we danced and we sang.
my aunt told me, however, he was looking for bottles. afterwards, he spoke to grandmother,
but those memories are stained
her orbs of onyx reflecting nothing but pain and regret.
by the stranger in grandma that would arrive with the dark and sing strange songs to no one
what i remember next are clouds, the absence of sun, of blue,
but the walls and the floorboards.
an unfamiliar grey car, and
these songs were not grounded in any semblance of pitch or
grandma’s sunken face.
rhythm, no;
it seemed to sink far past
each note was built upon ocean waves,
any sign of laughter, dancing, or singing,
one crashing into another.
enveloped by the darkness, encircled by the pupil now lost her in eyes.
during these performances, i dared not try to speak to her
but my eyes were clear that day--not a tear felt upon my cold lips
for she acted like a puppet with its strings all tangled up,
i remember; i would’ve never forgotten
so i kept in bed and fell asleep, the stench of sweet, rotting
for back then, the only thing i wanted in the whole world was
bread piercing my nose.
to cry, to feel something. i hated myself for never being able to.
yet somehow i always forgot the strange songs when the sun
But I understand now,
and i got out of bed
what I couldn’t before:
as we laughed and danced and sang all of our concerns away in the warm summer air. time could not stay, however, and i soon noticed a wheeze in her laugh, a limp in her dance, and a quiver in her song. night would come again and grandma would belch her strange songs with vibrato and gusto, the sounds of broken glass, crumpled aluminum cans, and unscrewed corks serving as her accompaniment. i began feeling accustomed to tucking myself in with fear dancing in my heart, in tempo with the music never leaving my ear. eventually my aunt and uncle came to visit, but they did not meet grandma with smiles and embraces, rather blistering gun fire-i knew it was about the singing. that night, grandma tucked me into bed my special light; my sun to her sky, she said
“
a severed rose always wilts, no matter how beautifully it once bloomed.
A SEVERED ROSE ALWAYS WILTS, NO MATTER HOW BEAUTIFULLY IT
her love clear in sight, my fears sunk like lead everything was all-right, no one in my sun’s shining stead oh how glad i was that grandma didn’t sing that night— or at least waited until i fell asleep.
ONCE BLOOMED. 30 30
DINNER TIME BLUES
by anna banerjee
illustrations by elaine irvine | photo by hayley yordanoff | design by chosie titus 31
a father is water-logged by the salt-water
//
he consumes alongside his morning toast,
oh no! she’s cut off her head. she’s gone and the blood of christ like dockworker’s sweat.
done it. left her with no choice, he did, yes, he did.
men who claim saltoftheearth only find immortality
rabbit holes fit only little bunnies and looney-tunes. in the myth they hand to their daughters.
but this one takes her down-down-down
if he is to be the hydra, many headed and ferocious,
until all that’s left is this puddle on the floor. can’t you see? his daughter is medusa. he cannot look at her
she’s gone and traveled down the rabbit hole once
as he climbs up the stairs upon which she
and for all. (or at least, until she defeats the queen prostrates herself. fought over, blood spills
-mother.) did you see her cut off her head?
prose — he understands but cannot become.
in plain view too, she did. i did not see the knife and she becomes but cannot understand
but i saw the cut, all jagged and fresh. we all knew
the aching that dwells so resoundingly within her
this day would come. the prodigal child cannot maintain so she paints yellows onto canvas, distilled
both her head and her status. did you see
rays discolored by the whiskey
the snakes strangle themselves upon her head? rhythms that swirl through it. she used to wonder
wound up among themselves, orgy of self.
what her head would look like
their inability to subsist on fantasy if only it rolled around, around, like a bowling ball
capsized the boat. can you imagine?
along the paths well traveled, knocking down feet.
tendons holding tight to fathers but now, she wonders what it would look like
snap under the weight of self-inflation.
if she lost it altogether.
his heads have all grown back — but did she would they miss her? she asks no one in particular
not know that hers can only grow to stone?
but hopes for a response all the same.
little alice in neverland, gone fishing with hush-hush-hush, her mother whispers and points
a hook in her hand and her head as her bait.
at liquid courage. hush-hush-hush. and she is
what a wonderland his daughter now traverses while strangled by the shadows that engulf
he lays in bed. in his sleep he speaks in tongues:
her and the figure to her right.
you have to cut her head off the clinking of silverware. dinner, he proclaims, is over.
for you are still not safe in your home.
but before putting her fork and knife
// down, she cuts her head off in one fell swoop so that he may be finally safe in his home.
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return. resurface. reassemble. needle and thread in hand, she carefully sews her head back on — tightens her screws with dental floss in front of the bathroom mirror. she’s excused herself for now, but soon she will be beckoned back to her seat at the table. a girl does not lose her head only once — this too shall pass. mint and salt intertwine in the seams of her neck, drip and swirl together
...BUT NOW, SHE W O N D E R S
down the drain. she turns on the tap, watches water rush to cover the stains of impropriety. look now. while she traversed unsaid depths,
WHAT IT WOULD
is it possible that she came across him? would she have seen the way he pillaged his own crypt in desperation for a definition?
LOOK
LIKE
schrödinger’s grave-robber shone a light into empty space and found truth. the light in the bathroom goes out. door opens.
IF SHE LOST IT
father-hydra sits at the dinner table and his multitude of heads outshines any others. dessert is served and a family eats rum-liquor around the table. she lifts her fork to her mouth, smiles. why cut off heads when simply sewing your own on tighter will suffice? in the corner of her mouth, a cockroach makes its home.
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ALTOGETHER.
FIVE METAPHORS AND YOU by ganesh lakshmana
Diluted dispensaries deciding dolled up fate drawings (of) Enlarged forehead dependent Elegies in earthy face corals, (while your) Kinetic kit-kat lips quiver like kindness; (and) Subtly stall all the stereophonic war sounds (raging amidst) White whiffs of unrestrained warmth Right here inside cardiovascular halos Again and again and again and again. (every single time I touch you)
illustration by sage anderson | design by kenzi rayelle 34
STILL MY MOM by jayme bigger
THINGS THAT I KNOW: my mom completed multiple rehab programs, she attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings for years, she was diagnosed with several mental illnesses, her prescription list was almost as long as her rap sheet, her body was found in her home in August of 2018, and her autopsy results suggested organ failure due to overdose.
THINGS THAT I DON’T KNOW: how much of her mental illness was natural and how much was drug-induced, what her drug of choice was, whether her suicide was premeditated or if it was mostly accidental, how long her lifeless body lay in her home before a neighborhood friend thought to check on her, and whether or not there was anything my family could have done to change her mind.
photos by jayme bigger | design by vivian le
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She was a woman desperate to be loved, and she didn’t think there was anything she could do to right her many wrongs.
My sister Darsea holding the box contaning my mom’s adshes and said, “This doesn’t feel real. This little bix is Mom.” My mom’s porch left untouched weeks after her death, except for the gloves abandoned by law enforcement after retrieving her body.
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After a lifelong struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction, my mom took her own life. It’s hard to say to what degree of it was intentional—had she been planning out exactly how she’d do it for weeks, or did she wake up one day feeling so alone that she thought she was better off? We don’t know. For most people, my mom will be remembered for all of her manipulative behavior, the lies she told, and the hurt she caused in order to satisfy her cravings. I want so badly for an alternate narrative. Mental illness and dependency waged wars inside of her, selfsabotaging until everything in her life was left in ruin. However, she was a woman desperate to be loved, and she didn’t think there was anything she could do to right her many wrongs. For years, I sat on the sidelines silently waiting for the moment when she could tell me she was sober and have it be true. I never needed her to be perfect, I just wanted her to find healthier coping mechanisms. I pushed her away to protect myself. It hurt way too much to have so much hope, and to have it be taken advantage of time and time again. It hurt too much to love her unconditionally. If I had known that my silent treatment would be answered with a handful of pills and a box full of her ashes instead of her sobriety, I never would have followed through. From now on, I can’t blind myself with possibilities of a better relationship. I will never get the chance to say, “We didn’t always have the best relationship, but she’s clean now and we’re trying.” Instead, I have to say, “I stopped talking to my mom when I was 18, and she died alone when I was 21.” I never wanted her gone. I wanted her to stop shoving me aside to satisfy her own selfish impulses. I wanted the side of my mom that taught me how to maek homemade candy and loved book just as much as I did, to be the only side of her I ever had to see.
My sister held the box containing my mom’s ashes and said, “This doesn’t feel real. This little box is Mom.”
Regardless of the fact that I had convinced myself that I would never talk to her again, she is still my mom. Some part of me believed that she would continue her vicious cycle for the rest of eternity, somehow outliving even me. I never thought I’d have to live in a world where my mom wasn’t stirring up trouble somewhere else in the world. There is something to be said in the way that she continued to love my sister and I. There were periods of silence—when she was obviously using—and they were followed by periods where she left a voicemail every day to remind us that she was proud of the women we were becoming. She made sure to express her love in every letter, text message, and phone call, especially throughout the years I wasn’t responding. She tried, even when I wasn’t willing to try anymore. I can’t bring her back and make everything okay. All I can do now is make an effort to understand the burdens she carried. I have to try to forgive her, and I have to try to forgive myself for never getting to this point while she was still alive.
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THE FROZEN GROWS by samuel hale The frozen grows in rows and rows and throws its frozen throes by rows of roses, frozen roses, chilled to the bone on the frozen throne. A frozen rose grows in a grove of groves, posed and deposed on the frozen throne. Alone the rose stands tall, in rows and columns of columbines. This freezing and transpiercing transpires in spires, those columns raised with pyres, frozen pyres and ice-capped fires. Malignant, parasitic, and inimic– such freezing breeze brings a thorned throned rose to its knees. Alone it stands and in this demands anew a new wane from the moon it grew to. Its leaves breathe breeze, that freezing breeze. It gains new life in strife, and warms its forms to that which it was born. A sun may shine in its lifetime, but until such time, such sublime time, it bides its time. Take in that which it breaks in, so that it may breathe breathe breathe anew. In lieu of you who knew it grew so few and far between, I lean to that which I’ve seen, a mean of meaning, seen and unseen. Seeing is not knowing, and knowing is not understanding, and understanding is not feeling. Feeling is living and breathing your feeling, to stay reeling, reeling in whatever finds itself on your hook. Hooked it or hooked you? Hooked itself. Let me speak my idioglossias and let them speak theirs. Layers and layers bear theirs and mine, but what kind? A kind of fine line, lining my spine, lines and spines entwined in mine. Theirs, a fair pair of affairs on bare squares, tears and tears, and tarries on. But yours! Ores and ores waiting to be mined and mined. These ores of ours, waiting by the hours. Such are these flowers. In rows and rows, in columns and columns, frozen, and solemn.
illustration by ella boyd wong | design by riley nakagawa 38
THE THINGS by nicole pagliari
THAT I KNOW People tell me things.
I tried to angle away from him, to avoid eye contact so that
I know that the woman down the street does not think her son
there he was, his nose pressed up against the other side of the
he would feel less inclined to acknowledge me. But suddenly,
loves his wife. She told me when I stopped to let her pet my dog.
glass, making smudges on its surface. I took a deep breath.
I know that the librarian’s cat might not make it through the
“Hi, Mike,” I try to sound cheerful. “I was thinking that after
winter. He told me this when I confessed that I did not have
this, if there’s nothing else you need me to do, I could head
the $7 to pay my fines.
out early.” It comes out sounding like a question.
I know that the little girl next door only likes one of her Barbie
“I wrote a movie script once,” he replies, running a finger
dolls, but that she keeps asking for more because she wants her favorite Barbie doll to have friends. She told me this when I dropped a quarter into the glass jar labeled “Start Up
over the counter and inspecting it. “Hmm,” I nod, scrubbing away at a crusty bit that refused to
Money for a Lemonade Stand.”
surrender to my soap-soaked rag.
I know that Mike, my manager at Melrose Cafe, is trying to escape.
“Well, it’s almost a movie script,” he confesses. “There’s no
It all started when I was gleaning the glass display cases. My
I almost open my mouth to tell him that drawing is not the
favorite part of every shift has always been wiping away the smattering of crumbs left behind by whatever the Chef’s Special was that day. Mike approached me, in the way he approaches all his underlings when we’re trying to clean quickly so we can leave fifteen, seven, even three minutes early.
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dialogue, but I have the story all drawn out.” same as writing, but I bite my tongue. “Don’t you want to know what it’s about?” he asks, and I want to say no. I don’t say anything; instead, I paint a dripping no on the glass with my rag soaked in glass cleaner.
“It’s about time travel,” he says and it’s almost painful to
“She’s murdered. And when the man goes to pick her up for
watch his eyes light up.
their date, he sees her body being carried out of the house. Then he meets this scientist who is working on time travel and
“Sci-fi?” I ask, trying to keep the disdain from dribbling off
they pair up to go back in time and prevent her from meeting
my upper lip.
her ex-husband so she never gets murdered.”
“It’s more of a love story,” he corrects me and I almost drop the
“Why wouldn’t they just stop her from getting murdered? It
bottle of glass cleaner. The thought of a man who reprimands
seems like less work.” Mike’s brow crinkles and he rubs his
others for scooping too much mac and cheese into styrofoam
chin.
containers writing a love story is almost too much. “Well, the thing is, his body has to be in the same place, but “Blending of genres...how daring,” I mutter. And, because I
his mind knows that he’s time traveling.”
can see that he isn’t going to leave me alone, I venture to ask what it’s about.
“If his body has to be in the same place, then how is he supposed to save her?” I ask. Mike taps his nose.
“Well, the opening scene is actually a split screen. A split screen of a man and a woman getting dressed to go out on
“That’s just it! He can’t change anything. He can’t save her.
a date,”
He can’t go on the date. Fate is fate and no matter what choices you make you’re bound to end up in the same exact
Perv, I think to myself.
place.” Mike looks around the cafe, at the sleepy employees putting salad into coolers and wiping down soda machines. I
“They both have the same song playing, like it’s fate or something.
wonder if the tremor in his hand is just my imagination.
And then they both go to brush their teeth and the man looks in the mirror and everything is normal, but the woman looks up
“I think it’s really scary to think that we live in a world where
and sees her ex-husband standing behind her.”
not even time travel gives us a way out,” I say quietly. Mike clears his throat.
Against my better judgment, I set my rag down and lean closer to Mike, “Then what happens?” Mike smiles, looking past me,
“You missed a spot,” he points to the smudge his nose left and
enjoying the feeling of having an audience.
walks away.
illustrations by lindey carlson and david petersen | design by chosie titus 40
UNLIKELY COMPANIONS by rocco romano
As I walk through the dense underbrush of the forest, I have never felt more alone. Except for vile animals like rodents, worms, and insects, loneliness is my only companion. It has been a companion for some time, rarely absent from my side. In the forest, however, it grasps my side with a tightness I struggle tolerating. Though tolerate it I must, for I will not let it hinder the serenity displayed before me. Despite preferring the comfort and cleanliness of staying indoors, sheltered from the elements and filthiness of what is outside, there is still a part of me that is drawn to the forest. It is not as unclean or disorderly as I perceive it to be while inside. It’s as if the window through which I gaze at the outside world is distorted, blinding me to the truth of what lies beyond its thin glass and frame. I pay no mind to them now, as the lure of the forest has me entranced, leading me deeper through its abundant vegetation. Animals of a friendlier sort appear as I walk further from the world of man. I come across a doe and her fawn, each with their necks craned to the ground as they nibble at dandelions and weeds. When I take a step further, the ears of the doe perk up as my foot snaps a twig. The doe is now looking at me, with black, unyielding eyes staring straight into mine. Though the innocence of the doe does not frighten me, I cannot help but feel threatened. I can tell I am under heavy scrutiny. She is analyzing every attribute of mine, deciphering whether I am a threat to the pair.
DESPITE PREFERRING THE COMFORT AND CLEANLINESS OF STAYING INDOORS,
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THERE IS STILL A PART OF ME THAT IS DRAWN TO THE FOREST After what seems like an eternity, the doe bends her neck down and continues eating. Despite fearing the doe exercising her motherly protective instincts of charging at me with her hooves, I consider myself overlooked. The doe’s quick dismissal of my presence denies me my sense of belonging. Lacking a place within the forest, I am left with my companion of loneliness, which sinks its talons ever deeper into my skin. Two foxes jump over a stream, one with fur of burning fire tries to nip the long, bushy tail of the other the color of mahogany wood. They dash right in front of me. I might as well be a ghost, unseen to all walks of life. Watching the color of the foxes mix as they roll on top of each other, I recall the sight of a wildfire: the never-ending flames burning wooden tree trunks and branches, careless of its impact on the local ecosystem. Next, I see a fallen tree; its tangled roots sticking out of the bottom desperately trying to burrow their way back into the earth. Observing this collapsed, hardwood tree, I see a similarity between it and myself. We are alone. While all of its siblings remain firmly planted in the soil, standing beside one another feeling the warmth of the sun, it was alone, shaded underneath the canopy. I notice the decomposing tree trunk – ever-consuming bacteria and fungus eat away at its former cells. I am shocked at how quick the forest is to rid itself of life that came to its end. At the moment of death, everything is overlooked or forgotten. With death comes decay, and with decay comes despair. I sympathize with the tree’s despair and ponder the inevitability of being as alone as the tree is now when it is my time to decay. Progressing further into the forest, I feel a sudden relief as I recall the deer, the foxes, and the dead tree. I realize forms of both life and death accompany me, and that my lonesomeness is a delusion. No longer does my former companion of loneliness attach itself like a leech, for now, I am finally free from its control. Liberated from loneliness, I think back to the fallen tree and see we still have something in common. We are not alone after all.
photo by vivian le
| illustration by david petersen | design by riley nakagawa 42
by elaine irvine Drench me in olive oil, or in icing, or in pink lemonade, glaze yourself in still-dripping not-set meringue, and say “Sugar… honey… feed me.” Stickymess. I will, I will again.
Garnish myself in ripe berries, or in almond cream, or in rosemary, decoration of not-yet-too-firm marzipan, and whisper “Sugar… honey… feed me.” And I do, I will, again, and again.
SUG H
photo & design by vivian le
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SUGAR... … SUGAR... … SUGAR... … HONEY... HONEY... GAR... … HONEY... SUGAR... … HONEY...
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A POEM THAT BLINKS by maggie nipps
1) the sky smells like pumpkin guts and buzzes as intensely as a thicket of bumblebees. i kick acorns and they rattle on smooth pavement. rivers slither pass - i see glinting embers in the ripples.
2) blackberries have broken under my skin, but that’s nothing new. it hurts to the touch, but i think i don’t mind. drinking soup made of fever dreams, feeling midnight wild. the stars have the uncanny glow of elevator lights.i see silver flashes and am unable to swallow.
3) i’ve blown away all my eyelashes and none of my wishes seem to come true. glass bits land in my palms and i fight urges to squeeze, let the shards turn red. maybe blue - the air is void of oxygen anyway. i unclench my jaw, prying open like a bobby pin.
photo by brianna jorge | illustration by lindey carlson | design by kenzi rayelle
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THE SYRIAN EXPERIENCE by hibbah jarmankani
I’ve followed every headline for the past eight years. I’ve seen every picture. I’ve come to expect the worst. But to expect it is different than to drive down a street soaked in water and blood. I watch the asphalt absorb the mixture; the road thirstily welcoming any release in the heat of the summer.
Buildings that once stood tall and proud now lay in ruins littered with bullet holes of various sizes. In peering through some of these holes I could see whole dining rooms tattered with destruction, toys haphazardly thrown around, shattered picture frames capturing memories that families had been forced to leave behind.
photos by hibbah jarmankani | collage by liv harter | design by kenzi rayelle The following is an excerpt, read the full piece on foolsmag.com
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HOW HOW HOW TOTOTO DISAPPE DISAPPEARHOW DISAPPEAR AR by franny marzuki
If you want to disappear, the first step is leaving.
Change your name. Feel it on your tongue and speak it to
Pack a bag full of only the essentials. Just t-shirts, sweaters,
past life. Sing it in the shower as your old identity burns off
shorts, jeans, extra socks and underwear, a toothbrush, and a journal to track where you’ve been and who you’ve been. Leave the extraneous behind. Your phone and laptop should
your reflection until your old name sounds like the echo of a your skin and emerge raw, red, and free. Get the first job you can find. It would be better if you were
stay, they only remind you of who you used to be.
somewhere secluded—washing dishes in the back or cleaning
Take no pictures with you. The most important part of
make friends. Allow yourself to smile at your boss, laugh at
disappearing is forgetting. If you carry the faces of the past with you, all they will do is sit heavy in your back pocket and pull you back to the home you discarded. Skip teary goodbyes. Most people don’t need to be reminded of this. Those who want to disappear don’t have many goodbyes to say. Once you’ve grabbed all the money you’ve saved up (this should be a few thousand dollars to be safe)
houses until your hands perpetually smell of bleach. Don’t jokes, and listen to your co-workers’ woes, but never answer any of their questions about you. Once people start to invite you out to bars or indulge in your company, you must leave again. Before you go, make sure to write down everything in your journal. The name you used and what you wore. The small town you lived in and its country roads. The co-workers you met and the job you had.
you can leave.
Everything.
Your first stop should be at least four states over. Avoid
Continue the cycle. Pack your bag and book a train to the
airports. Try taking a bus or train, people are less intrusive there. Sit by the window and pretend to sleep. They will let you pass without conversation.
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furthest destination. Find a new name and change your hair. Build new walls. Grow distant from who you used to be.
Enjoy your new-found freedom.
WHOW TO DISAPPEAR TOHOW DISAPPEAR TO DISAPPEA
illustration by zoe hermsen | photos by vivian le | design by kenzi rayelle 48
PEREGRINE by katie prinz
i. I lay tracing circles around the freckles that decorate me. I lay tracing freckles, making solar systems out of my body, counting polka dots in the sky wondering if I was ever a constellation. I whisper to the world and soon the sun beats her warm words back, I think she thinks about me too. the next night she shows me Orion I am connecting the dots.
ii. sometimes I pretend my freckles are each person and place and thing I’ve ever loved. on my right shoulder lies my three sisters behind my ear is my mother arusha, tanzania is sprinkled across my chest. someone once told me that freckles are where god kissed me— here and here and here. I look at my naked body, the world I made of myself, every lover smiles back. my mother sings a chorus of constellations surface on my body as I enter that sun. it’s beating and I can’t believe it, I’m singing back. my god kiss me here and here and here.
illustration and design by kenzi rayelle 49
CALIFORNIA DAYDREAMS by monica juan In the month of May I sit and watch inside the window coated with yellow dust. In a room with no air conditioning, eighteen pairs of hands scribbling mad. Eighteen pairs of eyes, all but mine, blink with the seconds three-thousand-six-hundred times. I wonder what it would be like to sit under the shade of the trees giving birth to the delicate white flowers. If only I could lay on the grass each individual strand pumped full of water and painted over bright with green. There is no drought here. I’m Interrupted by the shuffle of books, the close of zippers. My feet go tripping outside onto nature’s carpet. I forgot how the grass leaves a rash on my skin, the yellow polka dots of pollen poke at my nostrils, and the wispy white callery pear blossoms smell like wet dog.
painting by maja ella 50
01 PART I: INTRODUCTION to THE WAVEFUNCTION
THE ACT(s) OF MEASUREMENT by hannah gulick
if i am one plus you and you are sitting outside the window in the moon as a frame against your spine and your stomach, a profile of a shout like a sin, in the space straight above the garden you’re carved from a tree limb in the space right below the southern cross, the shadow of beanstalks and sun-flowers and tomatoes a distinct shade from yours reach toward yours - it is at night; a shinbone so loose it thinks it’s an elbow, you are lost (you are) in the body but only in the body still in the body somehow somehow still in mind and body parts, gliding— we are a superposition.
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PART II: BEFRIENDMENT of THE WAVEFUNCTION
if, one day or one time, you met me organic and soundproofed on a pier or under a pier or next to a pier or outside my front door, and it stuck. like a simulation of
stickmen and stick
figures with toothpicks for shins and jam jar lids for heads, stimulated you would have looked (across an ocean or a lake or through the sun) and i would have materialized for your eyes like a portrait of the Mona Lisa with beer caps for eyes and a broken lip, i would have stood on the street and said “hello�, but if you had looked tomorrow or yesterday or after a moment, i would have been on a porch framed as Self Portrait in Profile against a window that could have been the moon, i would no longer exist as my former amplitude, as my former wavelength, meaning: what i could have been is dependent on: position and time. what you could have been is dependent on: position and time. what we could have been is depending on: time and position and i could have been the mona lisa but i cannot anymore.
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photos by hannah gulick | design by joe flesner 52
PART III: A BRIEF QUANTUM MECHANICAL GUIDE to SUPERPOSITION and BEFRIENDMENT
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then:
if:
one + you = me
and:
me - you = one
22m2(x)dx2+V(x)(x) = E (x)
should equal the sum of our parts (body and mind), the sum of our positions (time and space), the sum of our wavefunction(s).
PART IV: COLLAPSE of THE WAVEFUNCTION if you say you are going to the moon, isn’t the same as saying to the sun, isn’t the same as to infinity.
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isn’t the same as going. this is because of the act of measuring - giving birth to distance, to miles and miles and miles, to difference.
there aren’t many thoughts i own that i have not already (in past or future), there aren’t many ways to see two profiles vibrating against the moon in the distance, so distant from the morning
PART V: COPING with THE WAVEFUNCTION THE THE THE THE
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ACT ACT ACT ACT
OF OF OF OF
MEASUREMENT CAUSES THE COLLAPSE OF THE WAVE FUNCTION MEASUREMENT CAUSES THE COLLAPSE; MEASUREMENT CAUSES MEASUREMENT.
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