AUGUST 2020 / ISSUE 2.0

August 2020 / ISSUE 2.0

FRANCES

TAROT

cover by Jordan Midgley

*all handles tagged are from Instagram

dear readers, thank you so much for your support regarding our first issue! we are tremendously happy with how it turned out. it was a challenge running our platform alone, but our team has expanded! find their interviews in the back of this zine. you might have asked: what is tarot? tarot refers to a deck of cards used in spiritual practice. cards may include The Magician, The Empress, The Sun and so on. readings, either performed by a reader for someone else or self-performed, are done to give the receiver insight into their life and concerning question(s) they may have. we think it’s the coolest!

~ 30% of combined profits from Issue One and Issue 2.0 will be donated to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.

marshap.org xoxo, frances

THE EMPRESS

I lived alone with my mother for my first twelve years. People thought she was weird. No one ever said anything directly but I could tell. They liked her but you can like someone and still think they’re weird. She was taller than average, with long orange hair that faded. And when she walked her hair would sway behind her. She wore these silver rings that always clanged against her keys when she tried to open our apartment.

My mother wasn’t unaware of what people thought of her. No, she knew. She just didn’t care much of it. My brother once told her, “You know, Mom, they kinda think you’re an odd bird.” To which she looked up from her boiling pot of potatoes and said “Well, I’m no bird.”

I have a brother and a sister. My sister, Julia, is fifteen years older than me and my brother, Asa, is twelve years older. I don’t really ever remember living with them when I was younger. We share different dads, me and them.

And honestly, I’ve never met my dad. My mom used to tell me she just willed me into existence but the older I got I realized that was a lie.

My mom’s name was Emily and she was the manager of a small antique furniture store. She always wore sweaters and long dresses and she never drank coffee and only drank tea. “Coffee’s bad for your aura,” she muttered once when Asa was drinking it. She slept every night with a tarot card underneath her pillow and when I was seven she started telling me to do the same.

My mom really liked tarot cards. Every night before we picked ours, she would ask what I was hoping to see. I would always say the Moon because it was the prettiest card in her deck. Then we would put a card under our pillows without looking and in the morning, reveal. She would sit on the side of my bed and explain to me the meanings until

I had them memorized. “Well, this is the Chariot. It means willpower, strength, direction… Did you dream about those?” And as of a seven-year-old, I always said yes.

Her deck was beautiful. The cards were yellow with orange diamond flowers on the back. The words were written in gold and all the other colors were limited to those of warm colors, except the occasional blue for emphasis. She decorated our apartment around the cards too. I realized this when I found her reupholstering our previously green couch. We had orange cabinets, red dishes, yellow flower pots. The walls were blue. If she found art at her antique store that she felt like represented a card, she would frame it immediately and hang it up. It was like we lived inside the deck.

I mean, she was living inside the deck. Literally.

Somedays, she would be so persuaded by her cards. If they predicted misfortune, she’d refused to leave the house and keep me home from school. If they predicted love, she’d quickly arrange a date with the first man she’d meet. On nights she slept with Emperor underneath her pillow, she’d be very talkative about the fact that I did not in fact have a father, as if I had somehow forgotten that.

THE HIEROPHANT

Asa did not like the cards. When he was younger, he went along with much of it. He’d go through the motions every night. Pick the card. Sleep on the card. Dream about the card. Look at the card. Think about the card. He’d drone on. Sometimes, even giving her permission to read his cards in full.

But just before he moved out, he stopped playing along. He quickly pulled the plug and refused to discuss it. There was never any event that explained it, never any reason given. My mom and he never speak about it and I’m

not really sure what happened. I once saw her bring up the cards around his daughter and he shot her a look and she quickly piped down.

When my mother did speak of Asa, it was always very highly. She spoke of how he picked the right girl, had a good job, had a beautiful daughter. There was always a tinge of jealousy in her voice though, small bits of envy peppered in. She would quickly try to hide it, change the subject, pretend she was making a joke, anything to repurpose her words.

When I was twelve, I moved in when Asa. My mother had been gone for two days. It was a Sunday and she had to work and then run to the grocery afterward, so I didn’t really think too much of it when she didn’t come home for dinner. And even that night, I wasn’t worried. She was probably out with friends or something. This wasn’t super unusual, for her to disappear for a few hours. She’d never been gone for two nights in a row, but I didn’t think anything of it.

I was cooking eggs on the skillet when Asa banged on the door. “Vanya!” He screamed. I couldn’t tell who it was so I quickly ducked underneath the table. Another loud crack and the door flung open. “Vanya?”

It was just Asa.

I popped back up from underneath the table.

“What?”

His face relaxed and his shoulders fell. “Thank God.”

He shoveled some of my clothes into a backpack and asked me to get anything I needed for school. He grabbed our passports, social security cards, my mom’s license, bank information, my birth certificate, any evidence that we existed, and threw them into a tote bag. He told me to unplug everything, turn out the lights, and asked me to be sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind.

On the way out, I realized, he had kicked the door

in. The doorknob was busted and the wooden frame was splintered. “I don’t think the lock will work,” I muttered.

“I’ll call the landlord.”

“You know, you could’ve knocked.”

In the back of his car, I realized something had happened and I was going to stay with him. He called his wife to say he found me, I was fine, he was bringing me back, no, he hadn’t told me yet. He glanced into the rearview mirror then, just to see if I was listening. I was.

Something had happened to my mother. Or rather she had happened to something. The cops had been called on her and she was being held somewhere I was never told.

She was sexually assaulted, then lit a building on fire, trying to kill the man. She succeeded. But she also killed two other people.

After that, I lived with Asa. THE TOWER

I think I turned out okay. The rest of middle school flew by and high school was a walk in the park. I picked a local college and lived at home with Asa. I studied graphic design and afterward I got a good entry-level job working at a design firm. I didn’t date anyone. I never have really. I’ve flirted here and there and I’ve slept around for fun. I live with a few roommates now. I have a good group of friends.

We go out on the weekends. We drink. We dance. We do fun things. We do normal things.

One night, we were all staggering back to Cara’s apartment, still laughing over something Lily had said to the guy in the bar. “No! No, it’s funnier than when you say it!” I giggled again. Lily leaned onto me as Cara jumped ahead of us.

Then Cara stopped and pointed down the streetsteps to a window shop. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Guys,

look! We should so go in!” She babbled. Her face illuminated with excitement and with the neon lights from the window.

We hopped over to her, eager to see what had sparked her attention.

“No,” I said immediately.

“What! No! We’re going!”

It was a Psychic. The sign read Fortune Prediction, Palm Readings, Tarot Card Readings, Walk-ins Welcome!

Tarot card reading. I shook my head and stepped backward, leaving Lily to stand on her own. “No, I can’t go.”

“Van! Who cares if it’s real or not? Like, come on.

We always get to do what you want to do…” Cara whined, turning to Lily for backup but Lily was watching me stagger around the sidewalk, struggling to breathe.

I think they yelled my name, but I was walking through the vacant street. I started to cry.

They yelled after me again. Lily drunkenly ran behind me.

Then, the Physic Shop door swung open and a squat lady poked her head out. “What’s going on out here?”

I yelled in surprise and toppled over. She had scared me. I thought she would be my mother.

Then I realized, kneeling in the middle of the street, maybe I’m not okay. Maybe everything being easy didn’t mean I was okay.

JUDGEMENT

Between moving in with Asa and crying outside the Physic Shop, I’d only seen my mother a few times. I’d only really spoken to her once.

I was fifteen and it was the first time she came home.

She had barged through the front door, dropping all her bags and jacket to the ground. Her eyes scoured the house,

judging everything, searching every corner. Then she saw me.

She flew forward to me. “Mom!” Asa yelled after her.

She grabbed my face with both hands and looked into my eyes. Her hair had faded. Her skin had wrinkled. Her eyes were wide and glossed.

“Oh, Vanya. Look what they’ve done to you. You look just like me.”

I was paralyzed in fear. I had distanced myself from her, convincing myself I didn’t really know her, she wasn’t really the women who raised me, I raised myself, she didn’t wake me up every morning or teach me how to make eggs, she didn’t brush my hair and braid it; our relationship was a blip in my existence, a stain that had washed out. Then I remember that those nights she was gone, I had still put a Tarot card underneath my pillow. No one told me to do that. I just did it because I believed it.

“Where did you go?” I asked, my cheeks twisted in her hands.

“Vanya, do you know what they did to the witches that didn’t burn?”

I swallowed and tried to shake my head as best I could with her hands holding me so tightly.

“They made me live.”

Reese Givens she/her

Kathleen Day @artist.kday she/her

MEET JAMIE “So, basically when I say porn is interesting, I say that because it’s so fake. Even if you look up lesbian porn, it’s not two girls having sex – it’s two girls having sex for a guy. It’s clearly made for men.”

*Jamie is not on the FRANCES team.

Jamie Nance @jamie_has_fun she/her

Jamie Nance, based in Kentucky and Chicago, is a multidisciplinary artist and art historian in her final semester at Columbia College Chicago.

Find the full interview at francesmag.com.

What a Deck

To realize one’s worth, they have to speak to themself daily, allowing whatever painful thoughts that may linger enter their mind and heart. One must allow their psyche to feel every last raw emotion, regardless if it is heinous or benevolent.

Dakota works at Hound Hole. If you’ve never heard of it, you’ve probably heard the teenagers around the inner city call it the “Hell Hole.” It’s run by Dakota’s cousin, River, who’s the only family Dakota has connected with. Dakota hates big crowds, loud noises and even those optical illusions you see on Facebook. These things stress them out.

So you can imagine their joy when the only job that was available to them was working in a store with Karens, Bobs and very traditional immigrant families.

They don’t like being yelled at, they don’t like being looked at. They don’t like having to pick up the messes these incompetent people make just because these people are aware of the fact that Dakota will be told to pick it up.

Next to these selfish people, there are others that join into the rowdiness of this retail hell. The Washington Waterbirds, a college volleyball-no, the college volleyball team, are practically local celebrities. People flock to Hound Hole to get a glimpse of these jock’s shenanigans or to just watch them toss a ball around and make each other laugh.

These jocks, however, have taken a blatant interest in Dakota. Number 9 in particular. Admittedly, his crush is obvious and innocent but when the team shows up at the store, Dakota slips into the back where River keeps all the occult items. You know, the ones that would upset the extremely Catholic folk that come in for Senior Sunday.

They didn’t know jack shit about the occult or witches or whatever people called it. They simply liked to linger in there, walking as slow as they can, pretending to pick up

i“tems while their prairie green eyes scan the shelves. The only time Dakota can really feel true solitude is in this tiny aisle of this massive building. When they see others in the aisle, they swerve back to the empty one and breathe in deeply. It’s much easier to be alone. It always has been for Dakota.

But they can still hear Number 9 beyond the silent faces of the moon and the sun. Dakota tries to focus on the silence but it can be haunting, disconcerting without knowing that other people are there. Solitude only feels true when Dakota knows there are other options. They wanted the quiet, they purposely drove themself away from the noise, the voices, the tacky knick-knacks and second-hand blouses from the 70’s. Simple, monochrome, quiet merchandise that were very clear about what they did; an ouija board, sun and moon decals, candles, skulls, black cats and tarot cards. To Dakota, these things were simply a familiar stranger in the muffled background.

But they wondered what Number 9 was doing. It was an intrusive thought, one that forced their brain to turn back on and think. They didn’t want to allow these thoughts to exist, Number 9 was a nuisance compared to Dakota’s sanctuary aisle. He was loud, made his presence known and purposefully interrupted the flow of things. The world belonged to him and Dakota belonged to the world.

“Dakota to your register, please.” The intercom sliced through another moment of silence. Dakota grit their teeth and waited until they heard it repeat it’s demand then sped out of the aisle, knocking into the corner of a shelf and hearing something thwack onto the ground.

They froze in their tracks. Dakota scanned the open and empty aisles, customers gathering at registers to purchase their things and leave. They were alone.

Their eyes darted at the fallen object; a plastic-wrapped package of tarot cards. Despite having no prop-

er packaging, the cards looked as good as new, the intricate pattern of flowers still bright with color. Dakota picked it up to see the face in these still saturated colors and tilted their head at the sight of an old man with a cane and long beard, standing near the edge of a cliff and looking amongst the vast open ocean as the sun was setting. Or rising. Dakota couldn’t tell.

“Hermit…” They mumbled, nodding to themself.

The card was beautiful enough to be framed, dark lines highlighting the colors that were reminiscent of a rennaisance painting. They flipped the card to see it’s backside then back to see it’s face. They felt their chest tighten as they gazed at the old man at peace, simply adoring the view. So simple but so moving. They wanted to sit on the floor and hold the package with both hands, taking in the charm of this card, the noise of the busy store turning down, down, down until it was muted.

Dakota had traveled before but not in a way that they wanted. Running away from home is different than allowing yourself to be on the open road. Kansas had a lot of open places where Dakota could disappear but in Seattle, they had to find corners and edges where no one would bother them. They liked observing. They liked being alone.

They wanted to take this card home.

Their eyes darted around again, making sure no one was there to watch them slip open the package and take Hermit out. They just wanted to feel the texture, know what Hermit felt like on their fingertips and in their palm. Tarot cards were bigger than regular ones but always managed to be hand-sized. Like a sword or a pen, it had to be comfortable to hold in the hands of it’s owner.

Dakota felt the edge of the card, exhaling calming at the smooth, almost velvet feel of it. They didn’t know if these cards were in order or if they needed to be thrown out, there was no price sticker. But Dakota really didn’t care.

In between their forefinger and thumb, Hermit was smooth and reassuring.

“Dakota!” Someone shouted out of Dakota’s sight, causing them to jump and drop the cards. They nearly screamed at the sight the cards falling out of the package face-down. They’d never be able to find Hermit again then get to their register.

“Oh, shit! Sorry!” It was his voice. Dakota felt a rage bubble in their heart, blood boiling as they dug their front teeth into their bottom lip. But before they could respond as they always did with him (annoyed) he was on his knees and picking up the cards. Their face softened.

“Here!” Number 9 laughed, handing Dakota a small pile of the cards as he continued to pick them up. “It was just-I dunno, uh, River was looking for you and he wasn’t sure if you left early or what so I thought hey,” He tapped the top of the last pile of cards and handed it to Dakota.

“Why don’t I help?”

The two locked eyes for a second, Dakota’s throat closing up as they stared into gentle brown eyes. Number 9 had an easy smile on his face, one that pushed his cheekbones up to his eyes. Dakota felt their heart start to race around in stupid circles as they gazed at every feature on his stupid face. He tilted his head like a stupid puppy, still smiling.

“Tha-”

“Oh, wait!” Number 9 snatched up a card he had left behind. “Don’t wanna lose this guy, either!” He chuckled.

He handed the card to Dakota face up, showing two skeletons holding each other’s hands and pressing their foreheads together. Dakota felt their heart grow cold as they stared at the red roses intertwining the skeletons, stems leading down the title of the card: The Lovers.

Dakota slipped The Lovers behind Hermit and squeezed the deck tightly. They looked up at Angel and

inhaled slowly.

“Thank you.”

Zoe Leigh Elerby @scriptureperfect99 she/her

MEET MADS

Mads Ines Moll @angrymads Mads Ines Moll is an illustrator and painter, focusing on the subjects mental illness and human experience.

they/them

BEING AN ASL MAJOR, DO FINE ART AND ASL INTERSECT FOR YOU? So, I would say ASL doesn’t tag onto my narrative work […] because it’s not mine. It is not mine to have. It is the deaf community’s [to have]. I’m studying ASL in order to serve them and not take from them, but I do feel like ASL and art do intersect a lot. ASL is completely visual, and so is visual art. There’s a lot of awesome deaf artists who are literally doing the most, and it’s an art form they can fully participate in.

tell me about the differences of digital and fine art from your perspective.

The fine art that I mostly do is acrylic or oil painting. I guess I do a lot of digital painting that emulates the style, but for me – I think they do overlap a lot in terms of subject matter. I don’t think I draw a lot of divide between the two. My digital art is mostly figurative portraits, somewhat abstracted, and I guess that’s the same when I’m painting on a physical canvas. The only thing that I think where the divide happens for me is fine art and illustration – on paper or digitally.

Who are your subjects? what do you find a muse in?

Especially when I’m painting, I don’t take a lot of inspiration from other artists necessarily. I take a lot of inspiration from what’s around me and the experiences that I’ve had.

Just, like, my iPhone camera roll. I take a lot of photos of the things and people around me. I’ll take pictures of my random hookups. I just like taking pictures of my experiences so that I can paint them later.

I’m currently working on a series called Body Count, in which I paint all the people I’ve had sex with from a reference, and then I paint all the people I’ve been in love with from memory.

What’s the end goal with Body Count?

Most of what comes out in my art isn’t a well-crafted message of me trying to say something, but more of me just spilling my thoughts out on paper and people can derive something from that for themselves. What I’m trying to achieve is to make some good art.

What role and/or importance does music play or offer in your art?

I would say a lot of the music I listen to helps untangle my thoughts. It kind of helps me understand what I’m feeling in just a better way – in a way that makes sense to me. Honestly, I don’t understand what I’m feeling a lot of the time.

I think that helps me put out art in a way because I do also make a lot of art with words on it. I’ll make comics with thoughts and stuff […] and music really helps me put these thoughts in sentences that other people can understand. I think that it always makes me very happy when people resonate with [my work]. My art serves me in that way, as well as other people.

On the line of “serving,” who and what will your art serve as you progress in your career?

I think what I really what my art to be is a place of understanding and a place of solace. There are a lot of things way darker that we all experience, even me as someone with mental illness – I experience a lot of what other people

don’t. We think we’re alone in these experiences, and I’d like my art to become a place of understanding and solace to help other people know that they aren’t alone.

What would you like to say to conclude our talk?

A shared human experience is the most beautiful thing, and there are more of them in the world than you think there are.

*Mads is not on the FRANCES team.

BOOK REC

The Sun Warmth is more than a temperature, Warmth is something I feel in the crook of your neck and under the hem of your night shirt.

Warmth is your legs intertwined, threaded like fine silk fibers embroidering my skin with bright colors and light laughs.

It’s the security and the safety that comes with having a love that finally feels like coming home.

Muse My muse Creeping behind the beeping, Tiny vibrations reverberating Bouncing through my skull Winding down my throat and Dripping down He forms a sediment Porous and heavy He pools around my heartstrings Pulling and stroking Caressing me softly He starts to speak Black-eyed Susans bursting from the skill Of a tall-eyed man Slim built with a layer of cotton, Softening his fire The fire burning Below his rib cage Lungs strong and black A coal stove His hands go to my face Speaking comfort Built from a life of burnt wood And tattered scars

Gentle, he takes me Allows me to wrap my arms Around his middle And against his skin There I find A land of which I forgot Truly existed at all; Peace He speaks with stars on his tongue, Opalite eyes Singing a trembling “Please take me as I am�

A muse is he, But too a worn soul With a heart of tempered glass Love is what he seeks In every word And every action He finds a story Latching on To bards and poets He fills the hole Carved in his stove To him empty, To others Filled with daisies And lilac

A sight to behold Though to himself Simply just A terra-cotta pot Occupied by A small sapling Looking to make His place in the earth.

XIII Forever is bullshit.

When the word forever is brought into question all I crave is for someone to shoot me on sight.

Forever is the word we use for needy false promises, what we pray to uncaring gods, deaf to what we’re offering.

When you say forever you don’t mean forever.

You mean as long as the tether reaches, as long as the sand still drips, as long as I serve a purpose to you.

I am your pleasure, your guilty, dirty little thing.

I am your toy that you bought In an impulse shopping spree, discounted: “Free!—with strings attached.”

I am your forever fool, eyes down, eager steps, following wherever, whenever for the smallest bit of affection.

Codependent and clingy, an emotional mess tied together with gauze pads and Neosporin, ripping at the seams along my thighs.

Countless times I’ve ripped them open just for you.

A torn-up teddy bear with a limp and a smile, shaking in anticipation or lack of sleep, skin bright and shiny with a gross gloss of three am sobs and fake enthusiasm.

Forever is bullshit.

But bullshit, is all I’m trained to believe.

Cypress they/them or he/him

MEET DANIEL Daniel Kayamba @kayamba.photoz Daniel Kayamba is a filmmaker and photographer in Chicago, IL. Find our interview with him at francesmag.com. he/him

*Daniel is not on the FRANCES team.

“Finding a community of people who look like me and have the same experience as me was a blessing.�

Summer Fruit Sunsets

The summer before I left Andrea for college, I landed on one of the hottest years on record. The humidity spilled into the later months, pushing back autumn as if both of us had willed its extension with our selfishness to spend as much time as we could together. She seemed like royalty perched on a throne of moss-covered, wooden railings and rusted lawn chairs, looking at her imaginary subjects, inviting me into her kingdom as if I was some esteemed guest. Two queens from separate decks. I couldn’t piece together why I didn’t act on my impulses, or why I never asked the questions I should’ve. Yet trying to dissect those memories was like wiping the dust off an old antique: You just have to let it be, forzzen in time and fragile.

And here she was, wearing only a navy sports bra with matching colored basketball shorts. (Was the coordination on purpose? Was I supposed to notice?) She sipped away at a virgin piña colada, nonchalant and relaxed even though her mother was gone for days. From her demeanor, it was almost like she had only gone window shopping a few towns over and would be back for dinner. In reality, Andrea didn’t know when she would return. The reason why was heavy for both of them to bear.

It was a Wednesday, but with the lazy July sun, days seemed to merge together. It didn’t matter to keep track of time when there was so much of it and with nothing to do. Andrea reclined under the back porch umbrella while I stood and inspected the volleyball net sprawled on the grass, thinking of how to pop it back up. The backyard itself wasn’t particularly large, but it opened up to acres full of uncut grass that eventually led to the outskirts of a small forest. Technically, it counted as unclaimed land she would’ve called her own, but there was no use wandering the tall grass that harvested ticks and dear droppings. Even

still, the view was breathtaking, especially at dusk when the sun fell perfectly behind the tall oak branches. I often hoped she might call me over every time the sky turned different colors, like some god was picnicking in the clouds, peeling orange rinds and spilling cherry juice. That was the sunset she witnessed every day here.

Reflecting now, I know the sunset was a ruse masking what I really wanted when I came over that summer. I’m sure it was obvious from every time I caught myself studying her movements a little too fervently, or when I thought for too long of what to say, often coming off as awkwardly silent instead. I imagined her reciprocating, but couldn’t assume anything with certainty, even when I translated each touch from her as some grand admission she wanted me to know. I realize now that was all I wanted. I wished for Andrea to see my hesitation, how intimidated I was to speak freely, and for her to help me relieve those thoughts so she could properly react to them, even if she couldn’t give the answer I wanted.

Bianca Rodríguez she/her

MEET ANGEL WRITER

Angel Marie @anggelmmarie she/her

Who are you?

Greetings, my name is Angel Marie!

I am originally from Anaheim, California, where I lived for a majority of my life. I recently moved to Chicago, where I’ll be a freshman at Columbia College Chicago. Growing up with severe anxiety has caused me to struggle with sharing my craft publicly. Attending a school in an entirely new state fairly far from home has urged me to take more risks, so when I saw an announcement for FRANCES on the student feed of the CCC app, I took a leap and submitted my written piece, “Dear You.” This not only led to me getting published for the first time, but also granted me a spot as a new team writer with such an amazing group of creatives.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWWARD TO? As a new team member, I’m hoping to get over my fear of sharing my work. My writing has always been the most personal piece of me. I have been writing nonstop for as long as I can remember, so each line holds either a piece of who I am, a glimpse at what I’ve endured or a peak into my thoughts. I’m hoping to continue creating emotional content for FRANCES, but I also aim to become more comfortable with more structured storylines. I am currently working on a novel, so I hope in the near future I’ll be able to have some excerpts of it featured in our upcoming projects as a collective.

MEET DAVIDSARAH WRITER

Davidsarah Kaplan @___davidsarah they/them

What do you do?

I’m a student in the BFA program for Indigenous Liberal Studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts, a photographer, amateur writer, activist, organizer, thot, and dyke enthusiast who also happens to work as a hair stylist assistant on the side.

What do you create?

I’ve worked mainly with digital photography but I’ve dabbled in film as well. When I take pictures I’m building a world I want my audience to live in. I do the same with my writing. Everything is about documentation to me. I want the audience to be included in some special and intimate moments. I want to share my experiences with everybody who wants to listen.

I’m totally obsessed with the concept of warped reality.

We’re all experiencing ‘reality’ in super different ways and then we argue with one another about what’s true and what isn’t. I feel like we need to be celebrating that and all the different experiences we have. I know it’s corny but like the analogy that all living things are each a little leaf on a tree.

We all are photosynthesizing the light through our own little cells but it’s all coming back to the same source.

How does being Indigenous influence your work?

I belong to the people of the place of the fire Citizen Potawatomi Nation. I didn’t totally get what it meant to be Indigenous until I was in fourth grade and started paying closer attention. I started researching my tribe and asking questions. It completely changed my perspective on myself.

Learning about the people you come from always changes you and it certainly solidified my existence in my own world. Like, I think of all my ancestors from every group of peoples my genetics originated and it grounds me back into reality. I’m a real life person and my body is real.

Everyday my experience of being someone of Indigenous heritage changes as all of my identities do. I’m Jewish and how I interact with that part of my culture changes daily as well. Both ethnic histories I hold in my body in spirit guide me throughout the world. I make art for other people like me. Other Natives and/or other Jewish queer kids navigating the nuances of being alive.

Who inspires you?

Kate Bornstein for sure. I think about their work constantly.

I’ve read and re-read their memoir ​A Queer and Pleasant Danger​a hundred times. Kate’s mind is so freaking incredible and their ability to communicate some really intangible and abstract concepts like time and gender is mind blowing.

Everyday when I write I think, OK, how can I get my message across with love and compassion like Kate? How can I make this accessible to the largest number of people?

I’m also absolutely inspired by Tommy Teebs Pico. I read a couple pages of one of his poems and I instantly am filled with some divine fire energy that pushes me to write. His work is revolutionary to my little brain. It’s like the best breath of fresh air ever and it fills me up entirely. If I ever feel lost I pick up ​IRL o​r ​Nature Poem ​and I can relax. Plus, Teebs’ work ethic is so respectable. He grinds grinds grinds and I aspire to feel that kind of power someday.

Do you have any projects coming up?

I’m currently crafting up a digital zine of my own. I’ve been thinking about making one for years and I’ve finally found myself in a place with all the pieces readily available. In the next few months I’ll be putting that out in the world so keep an eye open. I’m also so thoroughly grateful to be included here at Frances alongside some incredible creatives and artists. This is the coolest project to be included in.

What kind of future do you imagine for yourself?

After I finish my undergraduate I plan on attending acupuncture school for the Five Element Lineage. I hope to team up with a group of traditional and holistic healers and pack all of our knowledge into a couple of vans or campers and travel across the country. I want to work directly with Reservations and village communities to bring back true and traditional healthcare. I want to help create the spaces with the resources necessary to empower all Indigenous and sacred peoples to reconnect with their holy traditions and knowledge. None of the western nonsense of what healthcare is. The government has never been an ally to us as Native peoples and I intend to very much use all of my power to remove their presence to open the space for true healing.

pages 42 through 51

by Davidsarah Kaplan <3

Full Moon One Full Moon touches me quietly and i surrender. Full Moon sees my reflections early meets my gaze We celebrate across the sky in the throes of Summer That sweat that expands and gathers Spirit of Sex, Romance, and Magic Between our bodies and the world is so desirable I want it on the edge of my toplip i want a Full Moon every night my hand resting on the back the warm glowing touch the letters and the words falling out of the mouth, the hot breath from between the lips I eat and am eaten

Sunlight/Moonlight Criseyde was given a tarot deck by her father. Before he died he performed readings for friends and family and whoever needed it always free of charge. He was an occultist and professional piercer. He had many gifts to give. He had given her a simple and traditional variation of the Rider-Waite deck and a book to accompany the cards.

We held them in the light of the living room lamp and Criseyde shyly smiled at them. She shuffled them between her painted fingers, “They’re cool.”

In the early morning hours I opened my eyes to the room faintly touched with sunlight. I stretched my whole body up and off the couch. I held the deck in my hands and set it down before me on the rug. From inside my dan t’ien I touched the deck and breathed it in. I asked the cards to show me my past, my present, and my future. I shuffled.

I looked up their names in the book but I can’t remember them now. I looked hard into the pictures and I read into the small passages letting myself inhale it up in whatever way it wanted me to.

A week later I told my uncle, a student of the Arica School, how I felt. I told him, “The first card was a picture of a man with some wands or something. But the passage spoke about him being small minded and stuck inside himself. Someone who is one-dimensional. That’s the relative mind. All ego, you know.

The second was a woman and something about the moon.

Something about following the phases of the moon. So I

guess it’s saying to follow the moon.”

“Like it’s telling you to ​go with the flow​,” I heard him smile through the hundreds of miles between us.

“Yeah. And the third card, my future card, was another woman, maybe some kind of priestess or queen or something. The book described her as some divine feminine energy. Totally connected with the greater Spirit. Completely beyond all this, just purity of mind. That’s the absolute.

Enlightenment and beyond.”

Six months I am still learning from the reading. I still view “being” as “doing” and I’m wandering around looking for an opening to jump inside of. I’m always three steps behind the present. I want inside. I want to open my eyes and be without anything pinching at my strings.

My five element acupuncturist practitioner, a Shambhala Buddhist, recently gave me the advice: “Learn to swim among the changing patterns. Let go of your prior beliefs.”

This is the second time this message has reached the palm of my hand and the rim of my ear. I’m still learning. I’m in motion still. One day I will have forgotten the desire and replaced will be embodiment.

For now, I’m familiarizing myself with following the flow.

I’m tiptoeing around it in the mornings and between my fingers in the afternoons, I toy with it. Evening time I have dropped it out of sight and then I yelp as I step on it.

By moonlight, I am slowly falling asleep beside it in bed.

I reach my arms around it as it touches my face tenderly.

And we sleep all night embraced until the morning comes

and we begin again.

Donna releases a deep sigh, as she searches through her tarot deck. She selects the Empress from the deck and places it in the center of her altar. Tonight, she will do a compass spread. The incense burns her nose as she inhales deep, exhaling slowly from her mouth. She keeps her eyes closed as she begins to shuffle the deck.

The sounds of her father watching the news float up the stairs to her. She does her best to ignore the death counts, the new cases, and the warped views on the protests occurring a few blocks away. Typical of her father to be watching Fox News, even at a time like this. It takes her longer than normal to filter out the sounds of the world, she blames it on stress.

When she’s centered, she places four cards face down around the Empress. One for each cardinal point. She takes a moment to appreciate the backs of the cards, and she flips the South card over, longwise.

The Devil, telling her where she comes from. She looks into the eyes of the creature depicted in front of her, feeling her mind get lost for a moment. Then, her eyes drift on their own. She looks at the woman kneeling at the creatures’ feet. The woman is tied by the wrist to a man across from her. The loop of the rope is large enough that she could slip right through. She feels the card reminding her that some bonds are all but imaginary.

She takes the knowledge from the card and turns to the next. She flips the West card. It tells her what lies behind her. She sees a Lion with a small white face peeking out from the mane. They are staring directly at her. Strength. It is then that she knows what she must do. She flips over the next two cards and snaps a photo, barely looking at them.

Her phone goes into the pocket of her shorts, and she scrambles to her desk. She puts on a baseball cap to hide her short hair. Next goes a mask and a pair of sunglasses. It’s dark out, but she figures they could hide her face.

She quickly and quietly begins to slip out. She makes it to the front door, before she hears her father call.

“Donnie! You ain’t goin’ out in this, are you?”

“No, dad.” She responds. She hears her voice automatically get deeper, like it always does around her father.

She winces internally at her own voice and at the lie. “Just gonna watch a movie with the boys.”

“Yeah, you better.” The threat in his voice is implicit. She winces again at that and slips into her sandals. They were the most feminine thing he would let her buy.

“No son of mine is going to be out wearing flip flops.

Thong between your toes is as bad as a thong in your ass.”

He’d told her.

She makes it a block or so away, before she remembers to finish her reading. She does her best to get back into the right mindset as she walks down the street, listening for the sounds of a protest.

The third card tells her what lies before her, and it is apt. She sees Justice, a red-haired giant of a woman. Blindfolded, she wears the purple robes of royalty. Her bronze crown, scales, and sword glimmer as though gilded in gold.

She looks to the final card, telling her where to go.

The Tower. A brown brick building, struck by beams of light. Two people hurtle from the top of it, both wearing robes of purple. She wonders if they deserve to fall. But the card tells her where to go.

As she approaches Trump Tower, she can see and hear the throngs of people. They carry signs, they scream, they chant, and she isn’t sure how to join them. A face she half recognizes through a mask comes up to her out of the crowd. It’s a classmate, Bryan. He smiles at her, she figures, and reaches out for a fist bump.

“Welcome aboard, Donnie! Get in here!” She thinks for a moment, before she responds.

“It’s... Uh... Donna, actually, I, uh...” He holds up his hands and smiles at her.

“Say no more, sister. Glad to have you with us.”

She notices a small rainbow pin on his lapel, and she looks up at the Tower and nods. The Tower hadn’t been struck by beams of light. It wasn’t falling apart before her eyes, and neither was she. Now that she’d told one person, it would be much easier to tell more.

Patrick James he/him

MEET ZOE WRITER she/her

Zoe Leigh Elerby @scriptureperfect99

Talk about “The Number Nine.” What prompted you to write this and what’s the importance of queer representation in fiction?

“The Number Nine” was a small piece dedicated to myself to get to know my character better. Dakota Tyler is a very complex character with multiple names in their head and the trouble of being raised in an intolerant, abusive household in the deep south. Dakota is my first nonbinary character, I created them when I was about 13 years old to be the love interest of my older character Angel, who was also my first Lakota-Sioux character. I’ve been working with Dakota for years, tweaking them with the help of my friends and from feedback from nonbinary folk. As a cisgender woman who knows what it feels like to finally be represented (at age 9), Dakota is an important character to me and the people I love. I figured that a simple love story with a b-side of a coming of age story would benefit the literary world.

What other publications is your writing in? You talked about another magazine – how’s that going?

I have two stories published by Columbia College’s 43rd edition of Hair Trigger Literary Magazine, I am published

by Nervous Ghost Press, a young publishing company run

by Latinx creators. I’m featured in their debut anthology Writing For Life. And, of course, I’m featured in the debut zine for FRANCES. :) I’m currently waiting to hear from about 20 different companies about my submissions.

The story you submitted for Issue One is just an excerpt. Can you talk more about the project and any other projects in your queue?

“The Number Nine” is actually an excerpt of an excerpt of the fuller novel Cause of Death: Desolation starring Dakota.

This project is one I’ve been working on for several months, Dakota being a character I project a lot of my own issues onto and also those of the trans community. As a queer person, the transgender community is close to my heart.

I am cis, but I do think fabric is just fabric and have often been mistaken as, well, not the gender I identify as! Next to Dakota, I’m working on a project surrounding 5 mixed latinx siblings titled Complexities in the Infrastructure. Then I have another I’m working on a few fantasy and urban fantasy stories without titles, one, in particular, that does have a title is called “The Enterprising Atrophy of a Chthonian Knight”. It’s based around the game of chess, a young assassin falling in love with a sex worker that completely throws his mission off the rails. I’m looking forward to sharing more with the world and FRANCES in particular.

Atlas Stallman they/them

HONORING OLUWATOYIN SALAU 2000 - 2020

MEET REESE WRITER

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR WRITING. I’ve been involved in the arts since I was very young, mostly sticking to painting and photography. While I enjoyed those and (I think) I was good at them, I struggled with finding my footing there. I never felt like I was truly able to express myself and any stories through my visual art and when I did it felt forced. About a little over a year ago, I started to writing seriously and found it come far more naturally.

Writing felt oddly familiar though I wasn’t experienced in it. It was like riding a bike that I had never learned how to.

I find most of my writing revolves around loss and identity, unintentionally or intentionally. I’m still trying to explore what that means for my work and what that means for me as a person!

WHAT MADE YOU APPLY TO FRANCES? In most aspects of my life, I’d say I’m pretty sure and confident of myself. I typically enjoy discussing my work and find that critiques make me a better artist. However, sharing my writing is still something that I’m anxious about, simply given the fact that I haven’t done it a lot. I don’t like it when fear or anxiety makes my decisions for me so I try to face that headfirst. I really applied to FRANCES as a leap of faith, in hope it would force me to be more comfortable

talking about my writing. And so far it has!

Your submission for Issue 2.0 is great! what can you say about it?

Like I mentioned earlier, most of my pieces tend to circle around loss and identity. I find those themes often crossing too. I like to focus on specific details of identity and how it shapes you. In this piece, I focused on what it meant to be a daughter, even after you lose that part of your identity.

Whatever your parents do, whoever they are, it will always affect you, even years removed from it. I think sometimes losing part of your identity (e.g., daughter) is more of metamorphic than the actual loss of the parent. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to grieve the loss of identity too, something Vanya, the main character in my story, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let herself do.

Reese Givens she/her

Two of Cups I ask Gale how the hell she even found this place and she says something about exploring and whatever. It’s not a real answer, but I wasn’t expecting one. She sets her bag down and pushes past me, somewhat harshly, to sit on the edge of the cliff. Her legs dangle over the side like she’s sitting on the trunk of a car. I smile at her back because she can’t see me doing it.

I sit beside her despite how easily she could push me over and ask her when she started going places without me. She tells me, around the cigarette between her purple lips, that she sneaks out every morning to get away from my stupid face for one fucking second. I take the cigarette out of her mouth, tell her I hate her, and put it in mine. I inhale smoke and the black sky in one breath. Everything is dream-like. I want to jump into the rushing water below us and let it take me somewhere else. I wonder if Gale does too.

She sprawls out over the rocks and looks like an angel in the lack of light. Her face is smooth, round, soft, but her eyes don’t match. They’re dark, chaotic, and I always figured they were stolen. When she closes them, it’s like closing the curtains on a windstorm. It’s the reason I chose her name.

Maybe it was months ago, or years, or days.” You’re leaving behind everything you have right now. Everything you are.

What are you, if not your name?”​​She turned her eyes to mine. Her looking at me like that was akin to standing in the eye of a hurricane. “Suggestions?”

A gale is a powerful gust of wind. It’s a storm, a whirlwind, a tempest. A gale can’t be contained.

“Perfect.” The breeze over the riverbank picked up in approval, ruffling her black silk hair and my blond curls. She smiled into it. I smiled at her. She kicked me into the river.

Immediate thrashing, gasping, blueness seeping into my bones, air forced out of my lungs. My head finally broke the surface, and I looked into her hurricane eyes. “You’re River.

Always running.”

She created me from water and air. I didn’t believe in God until I met Gale. I like to imagine she didn’t believe in anything until she met me.

She opens her eyes, inhales the ether, and takes her cigarette back. Smoke swirls out of her mouth and nose like she’s created every cloud in the sky. She sits up, reaches for her bag and pulls out two red solo cups and a bottle of cheap wine.

I ask her where she got all that and I know my surprise is all over my face, where all my emotions are, all the time.

She says she stole it from some corner store while I was knocked out all day. It makes sense because it’s something that a person could do, yes, but not something Gale would do. I’m struggling to make the connection that Gale is a person when she shoves a cup into my hand. I’m not paying attention and wine sloshes over the rim and splashes on the ground between us. When Gale rolls her eyes it’s vicious and world-ending. She calls me a dumbass, and my lips turn upwards quietly.

She holds her own cup towards me, and when we knock them together the sound is drowned out by the steadiness of the running water and the catastrophe of the wind. I bring the cup up to my nose and smell the earthiness of the wine and the metal in the dirt. She and I take a sip before looking at each other. We laugh at the same time and the sound is identical to the wind and the water. The wine tastes terrible.

Azrin Manzur

MEET JAKOB ELTON JOHNâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S FAVORITE MUSICIAN he/him

Jakob Leventhal @jakobleventhal Find the full interview at francesmag.com.

The Waarior’s Vice

One night, Vice was training well after everyone went to bed. At some point, Creed had woken up for his routine trip to the bathroom and approached Vice. The concerned man tried to talk Vice into going to bed to get proper rest, but the aggravated fighter retaliated and their heated exchange boiled into a brawl, with Creed taking the first hit. Creed defended himself while trying to reason with his enraged opponent but Vice refused to hear his plea.

He was out for blood and he made sure to not give Creed a chance to fight back. His strikes were wild and abrupt, Creed couldn’t dodge them all, yet he evaded the heavier blows and got a few jabs in, focusing on Vice’s vital points.

Those few jabs were enough to wear down Vice, making him livid. Before he could strike, Creed took the opportunity and pinned him down. He asked why Vice hated him, but Vice couldn’t bring himself to admit his grievances to himself, let alone the source of his anger. His frustration and tiredness broke him as he realized that, at his best, Creed had bested him. He shoved Creed off, and warned him with a scowl that he wouldn’t let him win again. Before they left to settle for the night, Kára made herself known to the two.

She had watched the loud fight that awoke her. Vice’s heart sank as she expressed her disappointment in him. Not only had his excessive training led to his decline in battle, but he also aimed to kill a fellow fighter. Káras loathed “Friendly fires,” Vice stared into her olden lion eyes and immediately could tell that she lost all respect and approval of him. All he could do was look away.

From then on Kára focused on training Creed, leaving Vice to train on his own. With his fighting spirit damaged, Vice lacked the motivation to continue. He mostly stuck with the basics and had drastically decreased his workout regimen, he couldn’t bear to look Kára in the

eye, let alone in her direction. The days melded together by the time Creed approached him, asking for a quick spar while Kára was away, which puzzled Vice — considering their last confrontation. Creed insisted that he was over that fight, coasting the jaded warrior on his feet. Before starting, Creed told Vice that he wanted to focus on certain move sets that he was having trouble with. He figured that Vice would make a good spotter as they fought. Vice couldn’t tell if he was trying to lift his spirits or not, but it wasn’t working. Conversing with Creed only irked him. He wanted to go back to being alone, but with nothing else to do, he reluctantly agreed. At the very least, he could get a good punch in.

Creed lunged at Vice, who took the blow head-on.

Creed gawked, asking where the fiery fighter he knew was with a swing. Vice evaded the attack that time. As they continued, the steps and rhythm of his opponents were familiar.

Creed stammered at beats and flowed with other moments.

Vice recognized these movements. Creed had caught up to his skill level. He was learning his fighting style. He dodged the routine movements with ease while demanding to know when he started learning that fighting style. Creed admitted that he only started about two weeks ago. Vice scoffed, stating that he had a handle of the movements by that time, then showed off to Creed by fighting with the same movements. Vice’s steps correlated with his arm movements. His feet skidded the ground like skates on ice as his arms balanced him out while striking Creed, causing him to fumble.

He got up with a joyous determined grin, complimenting Vices skill, begging to show how he mastered those movements. Vice felt conflicted. He wanted the skill all to himself, but Creed’s words tickled his fancy. It had been a while since he’d received genuine praise, even from himself. Still, he opted to negate Creed’s need, turning his back on him, but Creed would have it; he halted Vice in his tracks plead-

grip, telling him that he’d lost the drive to fight, but Creed called out his bluff, figuring that Vice was distressed over Kára’s lack of respect for him. Vice blew up at his words and blamed Creed for aggravating him that night. Creed retaliated, reminding Vice that he had no one to blame but himself. With a slip of the tongue, Vice admitted his faults before cutting his words short. Caught off guard by his own voice, Vice broke down. His shoulders quaked as he desperately held his breath to cover the whimpers that crawled out of his mouth. He held his eyes shut in hopes that the tears would stop bleeding out of them. Creed’s grip eased into a gentle press on Vice shoulders as he let the broken man heave out his pain in silence. Vice let out a breath and quietly uttered his woes to his misery, Creed listened intently to Vice’s story, confession, and faults. He acknowledged his dread of losing his masters’ praise to someone else, that he self-sabotaged their dynamic in the end, never gaining Káras approval again. Creed stammered over his own words, trying to sound positive as he assured him that Kára told him to go to Vice for help with his training. She might still be mad at him, but she still considered him a good fighter. The words were hollow to Vice; he simply requested to be alone. Creed reluctantly walked off, but before he was out of earshot, Vice promised that he would help Creed with training tomorrow.

Cristina Benavides

Life’s Reparations

My house sat empty and alone back then. It had no other houses to call friends, no neighbors. It was a wooden and brick two story house, like any other house, with the wood panels painted a light grey and the bricks a deep wine red. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and lots of potential.

It was constructed on a new plot of land that had been prepared for new housing, and my family was fortunate enough to snag it as soon as it hit the market.

It sat by itself, like I did back in high school. Like my house, I had no one else to call my friends, and I sat empty and alone during those troubling years. I used to live in the country, where education wasn’t exactly spectacular. The suburbs seemed like a scary place for me since it was full of way more than I was used to. More cars, more noise, and just more people in general. I was relatively new to suburban life in general, and my house and I were about to break in new experiences.

My house has sustained quite a bit of damage ever since my family moved in. Some debris has knocked out the glass windows on more than one occasion. Wall fissures seemed to appear every other day and nearly destroyed the foundation. And don’t even get me started on what I would find in the closets! All I’ll say is that it was surprising.

Like my house, my high school life became damaged every once in a while. Every patch I would make just kept breaking over and over again. Like I said, I was born and raised in the country, and the way we did things out in the country differed from the more modern conveniences that suburban life offered. My classmates liked to make fun of me for what they called “my old-fashioned living”, because apparently everyone back in the day lived on a farm, according to them. The kids at my high school were very digital, and always had their noses stuck in their phones.

I, however, was more of a hands and knees kind of girl. I didn’t mind getting my clothes muddy, and I knew how to take care of animals. Not to mention I was probably the only student at the school who could actually ride a horse.

The others called it weird. I just called it life.

Their criticisms of my style of living was the debris to my windows. I had emotions made of glass, very brittle glass, and every time I replaced the panes, they broke immediately. Just like how the rain would sometimes pour through the upstairs window, I couldn’t help but cry every once in a while. I too found surprising things in my personal closets, mostly amazing talents that I didn’t know I possessed. Unfortunately, I had been hesitant to allow one secret to come out; I won’t get too detailed, but let’s just say that my parents weren’t exactly fans of rainbows. But I did eventually tell them, resulting in more debris. Word got around my school, and the teasing was relentless. I couldn’t fix my windows as quickly as I had used to, and the debris started to impact my foundation in a way that no amount of concrete could fix. My mental health started to suffer, as my house did countless times. I couldn’t keep up with the damage, and the fissures grew and grew every day. I had deeply considered ordering an emotional wrecking ball to destroy myself just so I wouldn’t have to suffer. My home was destined to suffer the same fate.

But thankfully, things began turning around for both myself and my house. Yes, we were both in terrible condition, but we were able to get complete overhauls. Despite all of the broken glass surrounding me and the cracks in my foundation, I graduated high school and was able to enroll in an Ivy League university, which had been my childhood dream! As for my house, my parents had saved enough money to renovate the entire place. The foundation grew sturdier, and newer, stronger windowpanes were installed. Our walls were patched and given a fresh coat of

paint. I barely recognized it anymore!

I was able to purchase new glass for my emotions, guaranteed to be tougher than they were before. I had the reinforcement necessary to withstand criticism that came flying at me. Occasionally one or two would cause a crack, and some tears would leak through, but they were easy patches. I grew happier with myself and the way I decided to live, but of course I had to make some renovations of my own in order to adapt to an ever increasingly suburban life.

I never thought about wrecking balls ever again, and my foundation didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sustain anymore damage. I felt as though my spiritual and emotional being had moved to a better neighborhood.

But my house never moved, and neither did I. Over time, new houses were built next door, around the time I managed to make new friends that I knew would stick around. As the years passed, we sustained some wear and tear, but we had the capacity to shake it off with some help, of course. Ultimately, my parents decided to move to another part of town. But I remained in that house, the one I had come to understand myself in. My wife and our two adopted sons moved in as well, and we grew closer and closer together. My children grew attached to the house and found themselves experiencing regular disrepair, but just like with my house, we worked together to make patches.

I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I could be so similar to my house. But homes seem to have lives of their own, unique in their own way, just like people. Apparently, my house and I were a match!

Gabrielle Pelayo

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FRANCES Magazine â&#x201E;˘ 2020