QUIET RIOT

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text by DANIELLE BRYL-DAM Treat them like any large predator.

Carry bear spray at all times.

Pocket knives are probably a good idea.

Remember, they are more afraid of you than you are of them.

In a pinch? Phone a friend!

People on cash cab do it all the time.

Or, you could point the phone at them, and pretend it’s a taser. Chances are he won’t know the difference.

During the event of an attack, playing dead can reduce the level of injury – especially if the boy has been employing the”dominant white man” method of choking unprovoked.

After a few minutes, check your surroundings.

If he has left, get up calmly and slowly, and flee in silence.

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art by SAMA AL-ZANOON

art by REILLEY KNOWLES

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art by MAXWELL LUCAS

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HAIR text by DANIELLE BRYL-DAM The first time my mother cut my hair I was in the fifth grade.

People started talking to me then; the rich honey plume sheared down to a feather duster, I became less than extraordinary. Gone was the flash as I darted between green doors, a momentary glimpse of an unblinking eye behind rich, waving bark.

When the layers grew back, the voices didn’t die down; rather, like the hum of crickets in the cracks of my father’s apartment they drown me out.

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“I love a woman with long hair,” murmurs the boy in drama class, winding the strands around his pinky. The customer older than my father says “it’s beautiful It must be good for pulling.”

My coworker, thirty, tells me he can’t wait to hear me sing for him, asks me to chop away the softness, because “it’ll get in the way when I fuck you.”

In the shower, my fingers curl around the snarls, until all I see are dripping feathers sticking to the white walls the sounds of water slapping between them reminiscent of males’ humming and clicking.

I shut the stream off, they do not silence.

In the mirror I pin the locks so the tips stick out like palm fronds behind my head; I can still see bites itching on my throat; precisely whose I cannot trace.

I reach back, pet the down with two curved fingers - and then I let the ruffles fall, tumble down the front, my nose peeping out, a fleshy beak - I wrap the knotted ends around my wrists, my boxing gloves, and get to work.

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Allow me to help you with the steps towards my annihilation text by LENA GAHWI

art by SAMA AL-ZANOON

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Allow me to help you with the steps towards my annihilation.

Step one: tell me that I come from barren lands with nothing but sand and the black gold that flourishes in your pockets.

Step two: shame the mother tongue that nursed me into existence. Pull it off my lips, word by word, letter by letter. Rewrite my songs in your melody and then purge them of sound.

Step three: remind me that I am less than you, and that my existence is relative to yours, because I am the ‘evil’ to your ‘good’, the enemy in your ‘good fight.’ The blemish you cannot erase, the sound you always hear.

Step four: allow me to feel as if I am a part of your world, welcome me in, offer me hope to lean on, and a home to call my own. Then quickly remind me that when you give, you also take away. Vote for a tyrant that feeds off my demise and tell me it's not personal.

Step five: tell me how unreasonable I am to be angry. Anger is not productive. Anger is too messy, too rowdy, too radical. Anger tarnishes your pearly white world.

Step six: my name is too heavy on your tongue; you have no time to say it. Remind me every day that my life is not worth your time.

Step seven: kill my people in front of my eyes. Kill them. Go for it. You have the power.

You’ve been doing it for as long as we can remember.

Step eight: hear me scream. I will scream until your ears start to bleed, I will scream until the earth shakes along with my voice. I will scream.

Step nine: realize that you can do nothing to stop me. We have been resisting as long as you have oppressed. You don’t have the power to end my struggle. Defiance is in my blood. Revolution beats through my limbs.

Step ten: watch me rebuild your world in my image. The image of the broken, the abandoned, and lost. I will reshape the world in our memory, in more steps than you can count, in more colours that you can fathom.

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art direction, photography + styling by DIYANA NOORY models by ALICIYA JAMAL + BIANCA LINHARES-HUANG makeup by MELISSA WONG clothing painting, styling + assistance by REBECCA MCLAREN jacket painting by MAYA CHAMBERS assistant by GLORIA XU

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I don’t get a seat on the bus. I need one, but no one will stand up to offer me one of the “blue” seats at the front of the bus. I don’t look disabled—I don’t have a cane or a walker and I’m not an old woman, frail and wobbling on the spot, looking like a strong gust of wind could sweep me off. I’m a 23-year-old “healthy-looking” young woman.

Who would give up their seat for someone like me?

On days when I need to get on a bus, I have to plan my day around making sure I can grab a seat before it fills up with other students. I have a pin on my bag that says “ASK ME ABOUT MY TRANSPLANT” in vain hope that some kind person will see it and offer me their seat, but so far the only person to actually ask me about my transplant was an old woman in a hospital elevator. Besides, it’s not the heart transplant I received 3 years ago that makes standing difficult. Having a transplant means I’m no longer dying because I’m no longer in heart failure. My heart is probably in better shape than the others around me.

I’m disabled; I’m registered as such with the university and with the government of Ontario.

But my disabilities are invisible. You can’t see the chronic pain and fatigue, aside from the implication of the dark bags under my eyes which I hide with concealer. You can’t see that several gastro diseases wreck my intestines. You can’t see that my immune system is fragile and one sneeze away from landing me in bed with an

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infection. None of my illnesses are visible, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less real or I have no need for accommodation. It’s difficult to be accommodated when you “look fine”.

If I’m going a short distance, standing is tolerable but it comes with its risks. Public transportation is not encouraged for transplant recipients (or anyone with a compromised immune system). I can practically see and feel the germs around me; I imagine them landing on my skin and invading my bloodstream with every breath. Crushed like a sardine next to people who don’t cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze, I can hardly breathe. I get off the bus and bathe myself in Purel, taking deep breaths of fresh air outside of the stale bubble of the bus’ atmosphere. At least if I can get a seat, maybe at the back of the bus, I can angle myself away from the person sitting next to me; breathe into my own hand, the window, or my jacket collar.

But no one will stand for me. I won’t ask for a seat, because who will believe I need one more than the next person? I don’t know if the person I ask is also sick, or has had a longer day than I have.

To sit and think and write about just my commute is a lot for someone with brain fog. How can I explain what brain fog feels like when there’s a concrete wall right behind my eyes, blocking all thought processes and words from me? People with a certain “thing” are the best to educate on

The Thing, but it’s ironic that articulating anything about it takes so much time and energy because of The Thing. The energy it takes to protect myself while I’m outside is enough to exhaust me, so I drink coffee and obsessively sanitize my hands out of physical necessity. Mentally, I have to fight to keep my head above water. It can be all too easy and comfortable to complain about how unfair life has been, how much pain I’m always in, how the world caters to a very specific kind of person.

Doing that keeps me down, though, and prevents me from actually enjoying life.

I didn’t get to choose the cards I was dealt, but I can choose how to play them. I CHOOSE to focus only on the positive things I have in life. My health—for what it’s worth—has been relatively stable for two years, I’ve come out on the other side of a painful breakup glowing and doing better than before. I’ve got my adorable kitten and good coffee. I love my video games and my writing and my makeup and my leggings (that I live in because jeans hurt too much). I love the music on my phone, the pretty pens I use in my journal, and the stickers on my laptop.

Things are good.

So planning my day around bus stop and bathroom locations is just a part of my norm, and I know how to make the best of it.

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E C N A I L P M O C T EN

SIL

art by LUCY VILLENEUVE

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Quiet wore a calm sweater that day, put on her face remember cause they’ll ask.

Couldn’t stop hushed noise in this black-liquorice culture.

Quiet engines rev They just want a taste, girl. Pretend you can’t listen can’t hear unmoderated calls no one names civil disorder.

Quiet, his worship of your silent sides unbuckles with haste noiseless theft, destruction of property. She’s no 80s female assassin; she lies still so it’s over sooner.

Quiet’s lightweight, thrown around fast. Filling sacred space Why are you so easy to use?

Police break up our protests, walk by with riot gear smiles.

Quiet are you getting any errors?

Know your place you’re no essential resource.

Pretend the trend ends with you, that it’s less pain than a pin prick.

Quiet, what happened to lashing out?

They tore your lace, beauty marred, chest unrest what happened to your scream?

photo + text by BECCA SERENA

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Helplessness “Helplessness” is reflecting on a tragic event that took place in Beijing, China. Staffs of a kindergarten school that belongs to RYB Education company were accused of drugging and abusing students. This tragedy caused an internet outrage, however not long afterwards many articles that aimed to expose RYB’s devastating misconduct had been censored or taken down. The reason given was that the articles “contained sensitive/ political/violent content”, and many people had already gotten used to strict internet censorship.

However, when things like this happen, it sickens us to know that the government is trying to manipulate what people can see online to shut out our voices, hide the truth, and avoid conflict. As a result, we can only sob helplessly. Our capacity to make an impact on the society is weakened when our freedom of speech is deprived. Punishing pedophilia and spreading awareness of this misdeed should not be censored. It is heartbreaking to see that justice is not being served once again.

Chester Bennington Story

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photos + text by JESSE XU

Back home, people used to avoid talking about mental health issues. When I was young, I often got sad and confused. My parents would just say: “You’re so young, there is no way you need help for your mood.

Just go to bed and sleep, everything will be fine tomorrow”. I do not blame them for not being understanding because I know that they care. The way people view mental health issues is just a whole other story back home. Often, people with mental health problems will be regarded as “freaks”. Only recently have people started paying more attention to the importance of mental health.

I was hit really hard when my favorite singer Chester Bennington committed suicide; Linkin Park got me through a lot of tough times when I was young. This is actually the first photograph I worked on. I wanted to use this picture to both pay tribute to him and raise awareness of depression. The microphone and the headphones represent his career in music, and the unplugged microphone cable symbolizes how he is no longer with us. The intertwined tissues symbolize complex and negative thoughts, and the alcohol bottle reflects on how he binge drank to cope with his emotions. I believe photography is a powerful tool for expressing concerns about mental health.

founder of Out of Stock Apparel, creative director, modelling + editing by Christine Park model + creative direction by Kate Wang photography by Amin Sharifi editing by Vincent Yu

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