Incite Magazine x MSU Diversity Services (Soapbox) - May 2021

A COLLABORATION BETWEEN

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COVER ART by SASHA MOUETETE NDEMBO LANG OPPOSITE ART by LABIQAH IFTIKHAR

Dear Reader, From all the staff at Incite and MSU Diversity Services, thank you for your interest in Soapbox.

This collaboration came naturally, rooted in the idea that art and creativity are intrinsic to our identities, and these forms of expression can be both healing, and transformative.

Our theme “Existence as Resistance” is inspired by the daily act of simply being and existing as a form of protest and resistance. It is to acknowledge that within the context of our current culture and community, our very bodies, our very existence, and our very lives are a threat to power.

Within these pages you will find work curated by (but not limited to) talented Black, Indigenous Peoples, and folks in the 2STLGBQIA+ community; in the face of a system working to silence and wipe out these communities, their existence alone can be a force of resistance.

Safe Wishes,

Tenzin EIC Content, Incite Magazine

Sara Director, MSU Diversity Services

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content

metalsmith eesha rehman october 19 2020 sofia palma florido white boy entitlement jasmine yang often I sit adeola egbeyemi of memory noah yang eternally coloured raisa chowdhury hidden magic maia poon dandelion emma zhang ocean’s girl sara emira skin trisha yadu white privilege roya m stone town faris mecklai broken love sahelee singha on what we left behind and replaced it with anonymous temptation zara khan rosaline lisa shen kusina? cocina? hannah rose rosales where, my love jesaya tunggal daughter of diaspora – an act of resistance k.h anjaan my goddess riana bagtasos kohinoor bangla anonymous

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archival edit 15 hanan abbas stay sobia mahmood untitled sasha mouetete ndembo lang archival edit 4 hanan abbas oxymorons anonymous untitled labiqah iftikhar we will not be silenced sara emira archival edit 1 hanan abbas tulips labiqah iftikhar archival edit 8 hanan abbas untitled sasha mouetete ndembo lang through her eyes zainab husain archival edit 2 hanan abbas design labiqah iftikhar untitled yvonne syed polar expression (song) anonymous

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ART by HANAN ABBAS

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Metalsmith

ART by SOBIA MAHMOOD WORDS by EESHA REHMAN

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I hate how I am all too malleable to you The instant you tell me quiet Because you don’t like the sound My laughter becomes ugly My voice becomes deafening And the very reverberations of my whispers are unbearable to me The instant you tell me “You don’t look good like that” My face turns gruesome My form is misshapen My hair isn’t long enough to hide under and The mirror becomes something I am afraid of But the instant I manage to pull at the splinters of my self-consciousness Carefully puzzle them into the barest resemblance of a spine You treat it as dissent As though the very thought of me trying to turn myself into something I can bear Is disrespectful to you So back down I melt Back into molten self-loath I shrink down until there is nothing of me left in my flesh Tuck my will away into a crevice I’ve forgotten I let you hammer away Make me into what you prefer And let you remind me How lost I’d be without you. x

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WORDS by SOFIA PALMA FLORIDO

Amor mío, If it were up to me, I would spend each waking hour staring into your eyes and listening to your voice. You could speak, sing, or whisper and I would hang unto every vowel and sit on every comma with you patiently. I would spend each resting hour in your arms, stuck to your right side in a warm, homeostatic embrace.

I could watch you think forever, I could watch your eyes stare into solutions and your mind dance with scenarios. I could listen to you narrate theories and hypotheses and sit in unwarranted certainty until truth arrives.

I wish for truth to never arrive. I want to remain asking questions and seeking answers by your side, I don’t want resolutions or settlements, I want minds wrestling and filling boundless holes with ideas and words. I want us to never settle or resolve what was never meant to.

I want our silences to have meaning and our pauses to be thoughtful.

I do not want us ever to end. x

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The words you mutter Under your breath, I hear them The looks you give When you think I am not looking, I feel them You whisper into my ears, Your tongue laced with venom and your breath reeking of bigotry, I Do Not Belong And You Are Better Than me Know your place white boy Know that you don’t belong any more than I do on this land we call home Know that your ancestors lied, and manipulated, and raped, and slaughtered, and abused, and Do. Not. Forget.

For a single moment of your existence That we stand on ground stained by the sacred blood of thousands before us Know that your language isn’t any more beautiful or eloquent Than the one my mother and father speak in Know that your religion isn’t any more holier than mine And the blood running through your veins isn’t pure Remember all that The next time you speak to me, And the next time you breathe. x

WORDS by JASMINE YANG

White Boy Entitlement

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Often I Sit Often I sit and see several shows Set in eras of goss, gowns glorious Or in kingdoms, noble and serious, That hold dark beasts and circean chateaus.

These shows all had the handsomest of them Jewels, which set on flesh above the heart Shone not simply in ornamented parts But reflected light planned for these women.

Anyone would receive a rueful scoff If request were asked for site to stream The genre of these shows are clear, is not?

A woman fleshed out and with skin like me On a big screen, thriving and still well off?

We’re denied she: the genre’s fantasy. x

ART by SASHA MOUETETE NDEMBO LANG WORDS by ADEOLA EGBEYEMI

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Each period of my life is remembered in a different tint. My childhood living with grandma in Wuhan is a dusty green. The tall tree pushed inside our apartment when I opened the window, and shook leaves and bugs alike onto the floor. Grandma would sigh her deepest sigh, and double-step to undo the damage.

Staying with my mom and dad in Shenzhen is a deep orange. The AC whistles cold air and spits droplets of condensation on my page of math. I liked to pretend the AC was crying with me in frustration at long division, our tears merging on the page.

Changing countries to Canada is a golden yellow. I opened my thermos to find my stinky lunch, feeling jealous of kids who brought pizza, sandwiches, or juice boxes. Shame was often there — for looking different, sounding different, and smelling different.

Living in a student house in Hamilton is a moldy caramel. I cleaned solidified droplets of grease at the bottom of kitchen cabinets and sorted out the congested garbage.

That leads us to now, transparent and HD. Each moment turning into memories, and becoming a part of who I am. x

Of Memory WORDS by NOAH YANG

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Eternally Coloured WORDS by RAISA CHOWDHURY

I am eternally coloured Living in a white and light world Utterly defined By the abundance of my melanin I bear this everlasting scar That they call skin I am divided from the rest Neither beautiful nor ugly Simply Indifferent My country thrives on indifference They call it diversity Yet when asked about my culture Their ignorance falls at my feet I have masked my existence in a coat of deception Surely that is my only form of resistance I have put on a facade of pride for westernization As if they had not given my people years of deprivation I am eternally coloured Living in a white and light world For my inferiority is unchangeable But my resilience is Implacable x

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Hid

ART by HANAN ABBAS WORDS by MAIA POON

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dden Inspired by Common Magic by Bronwen Wallace and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

You didn’t know you were so replaceable.

Like concrete bricks being stacked once more, patterns in their edges resurfacing, your shape is somehow so easily filled.

You suffer silently, while two more souls have been entwined, phantom braided bracelets encircling a stone wall.

Ethereal, ephemeral. Are three letters really worlds apart?

But it’s not always like that.

Sometimes, the tragic pop songs and 80’s ballads start to make sense.

You begin to understand Persephone’s lament — once a wallflower, always a wallflower.

An old friend, trapped in the wrong decade, wishes someone would make him a mixtape — even though tapes and recorders no longer inhabit the realms of adolescence.

He creates hundreds of playlists, dedicated to autumn leaves and rainy days, yet he’s the only one who listens.

And you wonder if your dreams seem philosophical, too.

Your sister envisions a world where an abundance of female protagonists speak about politics and body rights, the meaning of a multicultural society — more than just men and romantic nights.

You understand where she’s coming from — you’re Asian and female too — but sometimes you just want to enjoy the stories.

The word just — glass and bubbles seemed fragile, transparent at first glance, but you have since discovered the aeons of pressure they withstood to be where they are now — fueled by fires of efflorescence.

You just don’t know, and yet, you will see.

You’ll savour your best friend’s voice like an apple’s myriad flesh.

She will break and heal herself in tidal waves, interactions between the celestial and Earth, as you gravitate, together and away, shattered and mended, perdendosi — again and again.

A word floats like a dandelion pappus: light as a feather, foreign as a mermaid’s flesh.

The mailman, the banker, and the car mechanic sit and watch the world go by, as instantaneous, epistolary as the regrowth of weeds.

How many of us have had the same thoughts, the same storms?

Begin again, renewal — Endings are as universal as falling. x

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To be woman And colour Is to be too loud Yet forgottten - Oxymorons

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ART by ANONYMOUS WORDS by EMMA ZHANG

Dandelion It is my understanding that I am the Dandelion. poised and patronized to be simultaneously a shining token to be collected and shown off by exclaiming White Children to thrive behind and only behind a White Picket Fence to not touch but be dominated by a White Man’s Gaze to be an upstanding citizen with the “inspirational” strength to pay taxes receive straight As and unabashedly declare my presence in the cracks of the wall vandalized with the statement “in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness” --be my testament my witness, and cower in my un-blossoming as the flower the model yearning my contentment as the weed

My roots of Amber and Gold will thrive in spite of being systematically cleansed from the carefully curated lawn as my 现实 is a revolting profanity too obscene for the ones with trademark Blue irises filled to the brim with contempt for the color Yellow the ones with a high pointed nose too narrow for the stench of soy sauce and intergenerational trauma But in my dream of Yellow nectar and sunbeams, I purse my lips not to croak out a begging whimper, not to gag out a state-mandated “thank you”, but to blow myself away and defyingly scatter pieces of my existence, sowing my legacy into a garden I may never see --- x

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OCEAN’ Home is not a place; it’s a feeling, a state of being.

I wander I know no home

feel no attachment to land, But the ocean Will always have my heart What’s the use in being attached to a land That changes in the hands of its leader?

I’d much rather give my soul to an ocean To a spirit too wild to be shaped by the laws of the land A beautiful rebel It’s at times like this When I’m at my lowest That I take long drives to the ocean at night

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’S GIRL As the waves caress the coast

One by one They embrace me

Serenading me in a language only we know Welcoming me home Breathe in I feel my lungs filling with the cool air And I’m brought back to my childhood The bustling streets of Alexandria Eating mango ice cream in the glistening sun Impromptu karaoke in the back of a taxi cab Breathe out I open my eyes and I’m brought back to the present Looking at the ocean And longing to be home Soon, I promise myself But for now, I drive away Knowing that no matter where I go The ocean will always be my home x

WORDS by SARA EMIRA

Author’s Note: This piece embodies the struggles of growing up between two countries and never feeling 100% at home in either of them. No matter where I go, I often find myself longing to be elsewhere. My family immigrated from Alexandria, Egypt over a decade ago and this poem pays homage to its beautiful view of the Mediterranean.

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SKIN As a kid, a color was just a way to have fun with paints, But as an adult, it is a gateway to being discriminated.

Something unique is always turned into something deviant.

Being different doesn’t make me any less human.

We love animals for their vibrant colors and call them beautiful, but humans with vibrancy are deplorable.

Learning to embrace the skin that we come in is not what we are taught, Fair, tall and slim is the motto we shall base our life on.

It shouldn’t matter what my skin looks like as long as I am embracing it, But the demons in my head start to dishonor it.

What a society we live in where there is no unity, Everyone’s after each other’s skin like it’s the end of humanity. x

WORDS by TRISHA YADU ART by LABIQAH IFTIKHAR

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I wonder why it’s called the human race As if living involves Being the fastest Being the best

Me and you You and me Never stop going Because for some of us This is life or death.

We carry our families on our shoulders While trudging into the unknown On this marathon.

Me and you You and me Are part of this Exhaustive marathon The end never in sight.

The people With shiny shoes Sometimes race in cars While we go barefoot Isn’t there a ‘No cars allowed’ Policy anywhere?

Some people are faster With shinier running shoes.

They’ve got people Handing them water And drying their sweat Me and you You and me Have holes in our soles Run in the scorching heat While wearing winter coats Not fit for the race It seems.

The people With shiny shoes Like to stop and watch us struggle Like the tortoise and the hare They feel good taking breaks While we crawl towards them On this marathon.

WHITE PRIVILEGE ART by SARA EMIRA WORDS by ROYA M 25

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Me and you You and me Don’t have supporters On this marathon Don’t drive cars On this marathon Might be slower On this marathon But we never stop We don’t take breaks We make it to the finish line Wherever it is Using the power of our names Our skin To make it to the end Of this marathon. x

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STONE TOWN The sand in Canada is cold, flaky, and white The pink people camouflage into snow like mice in the wall But I am used to hiding in deserts where red dunes are nomads and secret oases tease to be found Give me a date palm Instead of these oaks where everything that is bigger is thought to be better Sugar cane juice with ginger and lime I want water and sweetness to play a game with me Hidden in spikes and under mountains of sand Waiting for me to find Cool walls of stone and floors of marble They want me to be ice– Cold, hard, sculptable.

But I want to be liquid so no one can hold me and I can slip through your fingers like silk

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There is heat in my blood But apathy on my skin There is tanzanite in my eyes And onyx on my rings

So look into my kohlstained eyes and promise To take me back Where the sky is red, the earth is black, and the water is clear I want to get lost in the labyrinth And have stone town lose me Like I don’t matter Like I don’t stand out Like I can’t be seen x

ART by HANAN ABBAS WORDS by FARIS MECKLAI

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There is heat in my blood Tanzanite in my eyes

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Broken

Love

L-O-V-E Four letters, one emotion.

They say love conquers all, It is beyond reason, voids all logic, and is pure devotion, It is in Shakspeare’s sonnets, Neurda’s song of despair, It’s as eternal as the words of Yeats, and as tragic as Hemminway’s life.

What is this love that so many feel?

Is it in the hope a mother has for her children?

Is it in the silence of a father, who is desperate to protect his family?

Is it in the pain of leaving behind the women who raised you?

In fire that burns someone you once knew, In the memories of the happiness they once gave you, To know love, do you need to know pain?

How can I know love?

If all I have seen is a mother who has lost all hope, A father who became his own silence, And the women who nurtured me to climb life’s slope, Slowly crumble under the grey hair and the droopy wrinkles.

How can I know love?

When all I see around me are eyes with no sparkles, Washed away hopes and forgotten dreams.

Can love exist in suffering?

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WORDS by SAHELEE SINGHA ART by LABIQAH IFTIKHAR

Movies tell us love is magical, Religion tells us love is divinity, But can love be taradiddle?

Can it be depravity?

Can love only exist if it’s shared, or can it be solitary?

Is the love that’s shared stronger than the love that’s unrequited?

Or all that we know about love, meant to be cautionary, A warning of the heartaches, the teardrops, and the defeated.

Every action has an opposite reaction, If love is to bring happiness, can it also bring the possibility to be broken?

How can I know love?

If all I have known is smothering pain, Soulless eyes and cries like a mourning dove, Can love exist amongst lonely terrain?

All encompassing, life changing; love that poets write of, Can I ever know that love without tragedy? x

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ON WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND AND REPLACED IT WITH Over here we spread like leaves. Over here our beauty is not the same beauty. We don’t love the same. The cry: I traveled so far and wept so long just for this? When we were young nobody taught us how to build a home or the tangled art of saying goodbye. So what about the bodies we left behind?

Their ghosts are banging at the door. To forget lineage we inherit ways of living that are perfectly unlike our ancestors’; by then the anthem has rewritten the limp tune, becomes an excuse for strangers we meet in hotels asking, “Where are you from?”

The look they give when we answer, “Here.” Say if we’re not careful the patriotism might crucify us – please, I swear one day it will. x WORDS by ANON ART by HANAN ABBAS

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TEMP TA TION Forbidden skin meets searing sun.

Wind dances over flowing locks.

Bare legs brush thorny grass.

A shameless daughter laughs, living for bits of sin, freedom.

A shameless daughter, wishes to know what it is like to exist without sinful limbs or sinful laughs or sinful skin.

To exist, exist without sin.

She sits under hidden trees, skin feeling sun neck feeling breeze dreaming of small deprived pleasures.

Freedom. x 32

WORDS by ZARA KHAN ART by SASHA MOUETETE NDEMBO LANG

R SA I N E O L

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It’s a Saturday morning, and she’s standing by the sink, peeling onions in our small, sunlit kitchen.

A ray of light streams in from the East, illuminating particles of dust that hang, suspended in mid-air around her shoulders, like a halo of gold.

I sit at the table, fingers curled quietly around a mug of tea.

— and the sound of the knife against coarse wood mingles in with that of running water, and birds twittering through willow trees.

Her back is to me, but she must have heard me think, because she turns to me, smiles — These are the moments we fought for. x

ART by ZAINAB HUSAIN WORDS by LISA SHEN

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The windows over the sink open outward, like a book, inviting in a soft spring breeze

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kusina? cocina? even if she has never met the islands even if the language barely travels down her tongue

i tell her stop looking at mestiza her skin like coconut milk no wonder she is halo-halo stop looking at mestiza let mestiza thrive but let morena thrive also let her live like leche flan cheeks warm like fresh baked pandesal

she compensates in teleserye in pancit and lumpia she compensates with a flag in her instagram bio sometimes the sun kisses her to sleep her personal limelight will her blood test show that it is full of stories that are not hers to tell? x

WORDS by HANNAH ROSE ROSALES ART by HANAN ABBAS 37

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i meet her in my camera roll this time i don’t introduce her to a filter to a lighter saturation

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Where, My Love

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WORDS by JESAYA TUNGGAL

What should I owe, my love, for a trip beyond the sea?

Where must I go, my love, that we might be one, you and me?

My heart of brass: like two ores, smelt in one.

Lit by flames of switch and manilla grass, warring within, as moon with sun.

Where can I flee, what must I do, to realize the comfort of your hands?

No longer wandering, finally beside you; home at last, the motherland.

Two nations, one man, three worlds apart Yet for me, my love, remains only a broken heart. x

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Daughter of Diaspora, comfort is a euphemism they have used to cut off your tongue to cover their racism which leaves you numb.

You are a threat to their system.

They say you are one of them, that this land is a kaleidoscope of multiculturalism.

But then, when the soil tinges your skin they call the melanin therein, a sin.

But you are not only the termination of their discrimination,

You are also the flagbearer of feminism.

And this makes them uncomfortable, makes them yell not all men.

They want the claws of comfort to clip off your wings but

You are a phoenix.

From the ashes of patriarchy, you will rise again You will not wear the burden of their definition.

For them, comfort is an invitation to become complacent but remember,

comfort is a warzone.

They do not want you to challenge their norms, unless you choose to accept their scorn.

But Daughter Of Diaspora, your every breath is an act of defiance.

Your existence— an act of resistance to these societal pressures.

So you must shatter the ceilings and build new doors, because we will not call it comfort until it comes at our terms, until our voices are heard until there is room at the table

for all of the sisterhood. x

WORDS by K.H ANJAAN

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Daughter of the

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MY GODDESS the soft whispers of nighttime hearing artemis calling out to me the huntress herself horn blaring as she rides underneath moonbeams across the wasteland of my front street but i am confined to the weight of my sheets the heaviness of my pillows pushing down on me i hear the sounds of athena her sword clashing against shield her shouts ignite the basilisk inside steel and bronze, leather and animal hide she is a tapestry of war crystalline eyes beckon to join her ranks but i am planted firmly in my place an olive tree whose branches yearn beyond my own garden aphrodite’s warm breath across my skin in my ear she hums sweet nothings soft ceramic skin flush against my own blushed cheeks and rose tinted lips enticing me to follow into her silk but i am lovesick and poisoned far beyond any aphrodisiac she offers i cannot be healed

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hera’s brow is strong as it furrows never one to hear a demand ignored her bitter tongue lashes out and i feel the bile creeping up my throat she offers me the heavens but i am weak and i am mortal i am bound by my ancestors and descendants to tradition and faith and worship to another the goddesses tempt me to their altars asking me to bow at their feet and give alms but my mind and soul were claimed by another far before my own existence i was promised but i am weak and who am i to deny a goddess x

WORDS by RIANA BAGTASOS ART by LABIQAH IFTIKHAR

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Kohinoor Bangla Growing up, I had never once seen a Barbie doll that looked like me I asked my mom for one once, and a tanned brunette beach Barbie was the closest there got to me The closest representation to myself that I’ve ever seen on TV is the token Indian I am not Indian.

I refuse to let my identity be reduced to a generalization.

In the 6th grade, when my teacher asked me where my family was from I said Bangladesh She didn’t take my word for it Insisted that I was from India That Bangladesh was merely a part of India 11 year old me takes the desktop globe sitting on the classroom shelf and brings it up to her Points to the tiny country that is its own land mass, next to India Still, she cannot wrap her head around the idea of my ancestors being independent of India Like reducing the radiance of the Moon to being just a part of the Sun I am 11 I don’t know how to tell her that all brown people don’t come from the same place Our rich diversity, wiped away and erased from the ignorance, going unrecognized even whilst we take up space.

Fast forward 10 years and things are about the same When I tell people my roots trace back to Bangladesh Non-POC seldom recognize the name You know your ancestral language is a minority when Doug Ford releases a video telling people to stay at home during COVID-19 in 22 different languages, and yet, yours is still not included.

I struggle to see myself depicted accurately in anything So when I saw ‘Kohinoor Bangla’ in Microsoft Word, I didn’t expect that a font name would be the closest thing to resonate with my culture but it did And Kohinoor Bangla is the font That this poem is written in. x

WORDS by ANON ART by YVONNE SYED

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It’s so exhilarating and refreshing when someone shares your views and philosophies on life.

You can be yourself.

No need to tirelessly explain.

It makes you want to hold space for them.

But instead of moving things around in your head to make room, it’s as though they fit right in, no changes to be made.

Merging effortlessly into your life.

Like they were meant to be there all along. y.s.

SOAPBOX

incite magazine volume 23, issue 1.5 “soapbox” Published May 2021 Incite Magazine is McMaster University’s creative arts and writing publication. We

aim to unite a community of creatives by promoting self-expression, collaboration, and dialogue within our university campus and the city of Hamilton. Every aspect of Incite’s writing, graphics, multimedia, and event production is carried out by our

wonderful student volunteers. If you would like to get involved, feel free to get in touch by emailing incitemagazine@gmail.com. incitemagazine.ca issuu.com/incite-magazine facebook.com/incitemagazine @incitemagazine

editor in chief (content): Tenzin Gyaltsen

editor in chief (arts and production): Donna Nadeem

layout directors:

Elena Wells & Madeleine Randmaa

treasurer:

Victoria Schofield-Zioba

communication director: Michelle Yao

contributors: (Writers): Anonymous, Anonymous, K.H Anjaan, Riana Bagtasos, Raisa Chowdhury, Adeola Egbeyemi, Sara Emira, Sofia Palma Florido, Zara Khan, Roya M, Faris Mecklai, Maia Poon, Eesha Rehman, Hannah Rose Rosales, Lisa Shen, Sahelee Singha, Jesaya Tunggal, Trisha Yadu, Jasmine Yang, Noah Yang, Emma Zhang, (Artists): Anonymous, Anonymous, Hanan Abbas, Kassidy Appiah-Kubi, Sara Emira, Zainab Husain, Labiqah Iftikhar, Sasha Mouetete Ndembo Lang, Sobia Mahmood, Yvonne Syed

content editors:

Alex Chen, Sara Emira, Katie Lee, Karen Li , Sophie Marchetti, Hooriya Masood, Sowmithree Ragothaman, Hannah Rose Rosales, Ariella Ruby, Vicky Xie, Noah Yang

art managers:

Julianna Biernacki, Graeme Fishman, Labiqah Iftikhar, Julia Lindsay, Sandy Luu, Larissa Shular

layout editors:

Caroline Bredin, Yoohyun Park

cover art: Sasha Mouetete Ndembo Lang

MSU Diversity Services: Roshan Ahmad, Blessing Akinniranye, Caitlyn Alegbe, Benhur Amare, Arash Aria, Abarnaa Arithas, Sofia Palma Florido, Gauri Gupta, Hargun Kaur, Laura Li, Yambakam Nyangani, Dixon Jude Pinto, Amal Qazi, Guneet Sandhu, Haleemah Shah, Iknoor Kaur Sidhu, Ebunoluwa Soneye, Sara Tamjidi, Rida Tauqir, Sarah Yang, Ilziba Yusup msumcmaster.ca/diversity facebook.com/msudiversityservices @msudiversity

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POL A R E X PR ESSION

SONG by ANONYMOUS 47

To choose to write is to reject silence.

- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie