Issuu

H0LL0W ZINE H0LL0W ZINE

H 0 L L 0 W Z I N E ’ S F I R S T B I R T H D A Y

32 candles

one birthday almost passes without my brain catching up to my body. but before the bell tolls some hidden sadness falls from meis pulled from me, like melancholia is a river and March 11 is a flimsy hatch on the floodgates and the final hour of today is a strong wind.

I know without knowing that Ophelia was born under a Pisces sun, that it was on her birthday that she chose to surrenderdress pockets full of rocks, embracing the icy river’s kissthere is one way to cease the passing of time.

P H O T O B Y @ A M O N G T H U N D E R S

Antifolk singer-songwriter and storyteller TheyLoveThem weaves a new narrative inspired by spirits and whispers in the night.

I truly believe that there are two types of songs that we write as songwriters: Songs that are for us, and songs that are about us.

For years I only wrote songs about me: My story, my life, my pain, my growth. With this album I conjured spirits. These ideas came to me from the universe. People in love, people in accidents, people in pain, people going through a really tough divorce. I don’t know any of the people in these songs, but they inspire me. Their resilience in the shining light of danger.

At the end of the day, sometimes all we can do is feel, deeply, honestly. No matter how hard it hurts. No matter how much we’re rejected. That’s what “TheyLoveThem” is about.

Listen to “TheyLoveThem”! 9 new songs about love, loss, a car crash, a revenge plot, and finally finding purpose.

TheyLoveThem TheyLoveThem

InmyJesterEra

Being nonbinary means to me that my identity is constantly being targeted, questioned, and brought up as some sort of game I felt like a clown, sure, but even moreso I felt like a jester I’d get on stage and do my little dance and sing my little songs but it felt like I was just trying to please the king.

When I made this jester outfit, I reclaimed the idea of being a jester I will still tell my stories I will still dance. I will still sing. But as the jester I will do it with the energy of someone who cares so deeply about themself that they can look hot as hell as a jester while they do it.

My identity is not some sort of joke, but if I can make others uncomfortable, as a therapist, I know that that means that they are growing. I know that that means that they are asking questions. Good.

MusicTherapy

As a professional music therapist, I work with others to help them find their voices. So often, capitalism makes us believe that we aren’t allowed to ask questions, or speak up, or advocate for ourselves. As a critical theory based music therapist and queer theory focused music therapist, I strive to allow my clients to feel heard, and to understand what that power means. The power of being alive, having a voice, and feeling strong even when the world feels against you.

There’s no reason to hide behind who others want you to be. There’s no more time for that.

I want to help you find your voice. Reach out to me if you want to work together. I offer sliding scale pricing based on your finances, and I adjust that rate depending on your needs as we figure out how to survive in end-stage Capitalism together.

Bottom of the Barrel

b y @ w a n b l i c o d a a r t

I am in the bottom of a lake.

I look up and I see my fate.

All the thought bubbles that have escaped.

Becoming the hope that seems to fade just away. You will not like what comes to the surface.

The stones that were once pumice. Are now somehow as concrete as words that cannot ever leave me. Because in the end you will leave me.

Eyes opened and underwater as my lungs are filled with happenstance. The victim but a delicate dance.

Where I mustn’t move on chance that something worse could advance.

I am at the bottom of a lake.

Where all the rope could just swing. Me into you and you into me.

I see all of who is in the air. What really happened?

Why did I not just leave there? The victim is just a delicate dance.

It is not a sway.

It is everything that washed away all else before that day. While forgiveness is paraded around on the ferry that carries all my dreams away.

I see I am so sunken in. All the drugged and drunken spins led me to who I was then. But, I am in the bottom of the lake. In a barrel weighted down by my past mistakes. I can not stretch my body. I have stretched my mind. And it is the only thing I have to strengthen. I recalled my favorite childhood book. Is there a knocking on this tin cylinder?

A tender woosh. Has anyone found me? My naivete must be at it again...Did I find me? Long ago the bottom of the barrel ‘me’ released my vision of becoming Edmund. It is just me at the surface now because in the midst of my isolation I learned I am only patient not vengeful. I left my vengeance in the bottom of a lake. Accompanied alongside my misery.

My body was used to being contorted to the distortion of anyone else’s reality. Because, who am I after all that? So, now all I have is my delicate dance and I am absolutely no Dantes. I am just the fluid escaping every eye that is engulfed in thoughts of there is nowhere to go from here. Every clamoring of the word ‘disappear.’

I am just here to remind you the only way out is up. I want to listen to you tell me all the clues of how to find you again. May I please provide you some Faith? Even when you ignored your instincts. Even when you were vulnerable. Even when you felt completely scorned.

You are meant to be and I want wholeheartedly for you to just be. You will do everything you can once again and be far more than your healing.

The only vengeance necessary is removing yourself from toxicity.

And know that the Universe will always show us exactly that:

We could never touch its creativity in the sense that we are mean tto be dancing where we are and are who we are in our totality.

We my friend are the examples of a wrath on a raft so that even bottom of the barrel ‘we’ can carry each other joyfully.