VISIBILITY Issue 04.

VISIBILITY

issue 04

creators and changemakers of the Swarthmore Intercultural Center

Swarthmore College Intercultural Center 500 College Avenue Swarthmore, PA 19081 USA (610) 328-7353 Spring 2019 VISIBILITY MAGAZINE Issue 04 Front Cover: “We Both Bloom” was dreamed up in collaboration with ICU leadership. People, like flowers, can be open or closed. To be open with another can be beautiful, but it’s also a vulnerable place to be. Each person walks their own path to finding authenticity with themself and with others, each blooming in their own time and their own way.

Yona Yurwit is a former liberal arts student and Philadelphia illustrator. Her work explores the connections between humanity and the natural world. You can find her cards, stickers, prints, and original work on Etsy and Instagram @yonayurwitart.

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Acknowledgements We’re on year four of this publication and are eternally grateful for the support systems we have that keep us going. To all of the people within Swarthmore’s Intercultural Center, Black Cultural Center, Interfaith Center, Office of International Students Services, the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, and the Women’s Resource Center, we could not have done this without you. We’re particularly grateful for the added support of Ruba Ahmed and the sponsorship of President Valerie Smith’s Office and the Andrew Mellon Grant for helping us make this our best year yet.

Thank you to Jasmine Rashid for having the drive and vision that got us to where we are today. And lastly, thank you to each of the amazingly talented contributors who lent their voices and creativity to our zine this year. We hope you enjoy this body of work as much as we enjoyed curating it.

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Zine Team Editor in Chief Emma Walker, class of 2020, is a Sociology/Anthropology major. She likes creating things and havin a good time.

Creative Director Olivia Robbins, class of 2021, is an honors Peace & Conflict Studies major and History minor from New York City. She loves her city and the sky and trees.

Layout Manager James Garcia, class of 2019, is a Studio Art and Mathematics double major from New Jersey. He wishes the VZ team good luck in the future. Don’t let it die. IG: @_stvnjms

Outreach Strategist Shreya Chattopadhyay, class of 2020, is an honors Philosophy and Political Science major from California. She wishes she had a funnier bio but is mostly just sincere.

Creative Associate Jendaiya Hill, class of 2022, is a prospective special major in Education and Social Justice. She enjoys spending time outside and absorbing Sun rays (particularly when the weather is above 72 degrees and sunny).

Editor Chioma Anomnachi, class of 2021, is an English Literature major and a Computer Science minor from Washington DC. She enjoys watching trashy reality dating shows and hopes junior year will be nice to her.

Graphic Designer

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Amal Haddad, class of 2022, is a prospective honors Anthropology major. She collects maps of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Just like the flowers on the cover page, our stories grow outwards from inside of us - but a lot of work must be done in order to bring them to the surface. I have such deep admiration and appreciation for every one of our contributors who offered their stories to this collection. This Zine seeks to honor their vulnerability and authenticity.

I would like advise our readers that this is not an easy read or quick visual experience, as truths of sexual assault, discrimination, and depression are made evident throughout this project.

There are many hands that have come together to tend to this Zine and I am endlessly thankful for the passion and dedication they have poured into this project. Expressing your truth is no easy task, but once we’ve done it we can feel a sense of release and power. This power not only lifts us up, but brings us closer to living in a world where we are understood.

Let’s celebrate each other’s stories, because when we come together in truth and in power we are indivisible.

With love & gratitude, Emma

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by Vanessa Meng

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Watermelon Looking at Me

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A Motherland Memoir “please, don’t call / us dead, call us alive someplace better” -- Danez Smith, “From ‘summer, somewhere’” I heard about the mass suicide of some Igbo people I also heard about it as a mass exodus genesis testament I heard they got to the shore said “no more”

and God or Black Jesus or their own ancestors looking over gave them wings and they Flew!

Home

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I’m a first gen, low income Mexican-American who is the son of two immigrants, Rosalba and Alber Alfaro.

Confessions of a Student A couple days ago, I thought about leaving.

Day dreaming of cruising down Pulaski road.

Cuz at least at home, I feel more at peace.

But I’m here…

At an elite institution…

Around affluence, every day there’s something worth provin’.

Trust me, I’m a nerd, So I don’t get why people say I got shooters.

Bright minds around me make me feel stupid.

Telling myself “Who let you in?”

Bottom of the barrell type of feeling.’

Everyday is more hurt, double work for healing.

Anywhere I go, still in 8th grade stealing, Alone like no one feels all I’m feeling.

Thoughts whirlwind in my head.

Swat got me wishin’ I was dead, home is already seen as the land of the dead.

Laying on my bed, Praying to the lord my soul can be kept.

Countless nights where my pillow caught all the tears I shed.

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text messages i didn’t send look you were not hot you didn’t arouse me only time you did was when you were pleasing me i’m not attracted to you you’re kind but stop acting like you were great to me you loved me but most of it was my patience for you but also i never fully had fun you don’t push me to be my best you make everything heavy i feel bad you’re dealing w a lot and no one will truly understand but i can’t be that person i feel so shitty about it i’ve tried tho and you stress me out i’m not the one i have things to do places to get to i feel held back by you and i don’t like how others perceive you you need to work on yourself

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i hate that i love the way you joke with me i love how you smile and i can’t get enough of hanging out with you i’m anxious when i get your messages i want you to worship my body you are so hot and you know it i love the way your brain thinks 10x you believe in me you love (?) me i am having so much fun flirting with you i’m grateful for my friends for putting things into perspective for me i can do what i want i can reopen that box of love and lust for you i will make out with you and we will have intimate moments and we will also have fights because i don’t want to admit that I have a crush on you but i do i like the way you touch me the way you look at me and the way you believe in me

had the opportunity to travIn the we el to Boykin, Alabama as part of summer an oral history project to record the stories and narratives of the of 2018, people of Gee’s Bend. This remote

peninsula 44 miles southwest of Selma is largely home to African-American quilters and farmers, many who are the direct descendants of those who were enslaved on the same land before their emancipation. While many of the younger generations have moved away for better economic and educational opportunities, some of their family members remained in efforts to maintain the community.

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The longstanding tradition of quilting, passed down from mother to child, has served many purposes for the people of Gee’s Bend.

It has provided a way to gain economic independence through the sale of their quilted works, both commercially and as art; a means of building community whether through quilting gatherings at a friend’s house or the Gee’s Bend Quilter’s Collective and Freedom Quilting Bee cooperatives where many women worked; and has also become a symbol of family and love. A mother’s efforts to cushion a bed and keep her family warm in the winter months were manifested in these artistics works composed of cloth and cotton batting, sewn together with needle and thread.

1. Louisiana Pettway Bendolph and Rubin Bendolph Jr. hold up an antique quilt made by Louisiana’s grandmother, Annie Pettway, in front of the quilting studio used by Louisiana’s mother, Rita Mae Pettway.

2. Inside of Rita Mae Pettway’s quilting studio.

3. A close up of a quilt top Rita Mae Pettway was working on.

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Fat Pool Party

Bellies, tummies spilling out of our bikinis snug in our one pieces there’s no wishing on stars for thinness today, we drink, we smoke we eat forkfuls and lick chocolate from our fingers without shame we jump and defy we cannonball and feel free you haven’t seen a splash like this the fat pool party where we move because it feels right and health isn’t a standard for worth with all our surface area, we take in the vitamins from the sun we own our own bodies there’s a pile of swimsuit cover-ups in the corner every inch of us is holy and visible and good and fat

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In Mongolian, the name Narangarav means “The sun has risen” according to my friend Nara. She doubles as one of my most frequent photography subjects and one of the best friends I’ve made in the short time I’ve been at Swarthmore. And just like the sun, she radiates nothing but light and warmth everytime I’m around her. Thus, I’ve decided to dedicate this photo series to her, “Nara Sun”.

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My middle name is Uchechi My mother named me Joy first so that I Would be the joy of her world, the optimizer of Her happiness. In doing so, she gave me to the world, A gift A curse?

That joy must always be of the world, first, Before ever being for herself.

As I cowered Away from its glory and into the arms of those I prayed would one day praise my name Without it.

I no longer want this [dis]grace.

Joy Uchechi George.

Ada Imo. Nwa nke ala ndi Igbo.

I have made peace with this lie. I am for myself before anyone How dare you ask to shorten it?

Everyone.

Would you ask Beethoven if you could It is my joy that I seek call him Bee? Even now in the words I dare to speak.

Would you ask me to cut off my leg and see if I could still walk?

But my middle name?

Ask for my heart and see how long it If you forgot, let me remind you. would beat outside of my chest?

Uchechi-- the will of God-- the sway of How dare you ask to drain my cup, the universe-Steal my nectar, ME. Baptize me in this white-stained-acadThrough my mother’s blessed lips my emy, in a white-stained-name? ancestors spoke, lit up my star In our collective universe and marked Uchechi. me holy.

My middle name is Uchechi.

I did not stutter.

Uchechi. Uchechi.

I did not lose focus.

I wonder if your eyes did.

Uchechi is the sprig of bitter lead that grows My middle name is Here on foreign soil.

Uchechi. Uchechi. Uchechi.

If you were a scientist, you would call me invasive.

My middle is not for you.

A name you cannot pronounce, My name is for every woman before Unnatural on the tongue, me She takes up too much That got me [here].

Space And resources from the rest [of you].

Not for you to ask me that question.

Because in between the lines you’re Uchechi reminds me that the origin of asking this seed is there and not here.

“Are you sure?”

That I was African long before this land ever made me Black.

Fuck you.

That ndi Igbo are still here and I am Forever in awe, thankful for this miracle.

Uchechi.

Uchechi.

I spelled it for you clearly My middle name is Uchechi.

U-C-H-E-C-H-I Let the record be clear that I said what Neatly placed on its throne I said.

Second out of a holy trinity And I will never Pride dripping from my fingers through Ever the ink and onto the page Explain it to you again.

I wrote it.

For so long I rejected the sweetness of this honey.

On my tongue it used to taste sour

My middle name is

UCHECHI

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BLESSED

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Some moments in life are reserved for peace.

Let yourself be enveloped by silence, Walk home with a friend, Allow simplicity to relax your shoulders.

We must uncurl our spines at times, Let down our heavy burdens, And sigh.

We must communicate in only smiles, Deep breaths, hands held, eyes warm.

Some moments in life are reserved for thisThis silent affirmation of our existence.

Let your worries fall out with the slump of your step, Hear nothing but the breeze and a deep exhale, These moments come unannounced, But I greet them as friends And I say, come in.

I think this is the feeling of having been

Blessed.

TRANSGENDER ROBOT HAG DYKE MANIFESTO The Android Body, The Monstrous Body, The Trans Body as Gender War Why are we as trans women consistently drawn towards narratives of the notquite-human, of beastliness and artificiality, of Medusa and Android? What is it about these constructions that draw us like moths? The outsiders, the hungry hunters who leer down at our stories with hatred and disgust, would consider these lenses to be based around some deeper understanding that we have of our own falsity, of a tacit acknowledgement of the imitative and ultimately corrupted nature of our being. Those of our hunters who are theologically inclined might even portray this as a sort of confessional offering rooted in a desire to admit to our sins, the sins of distortion of divine will and law. Yet the reality, the truthwithin-truth that frees us, is in fact an expression of illumination and reimagining, a door drawn on the walls of a prison that, having been constructed by human hands (or visioned by human minds) can be broken by human hands as well (or re-envisioned with New Human minds). It is the glimmer of hope, of a light that when shone on the mundane and the profane articulates them into new wonder and sacredness. I grow feathered wings and talons and breach into that infinite and long-deferred becoming. I plug a flash drive into my thigh and biohack my way through my endocrine system’s defenses and leak the source code of the gender binary. Follow me into this dark unmaking and insurrectionary embodiment. * What is the “female body” but a failed approximation of the male body? What is the first argument anti-feminist Christians make about women but that we are broken imitations composed of Adam’s rib? What is the trans body but a synthetic, manufactured body made in the image of some original, yet in reality is a completely separate machine entirely? The body of the trans woman becomes the body of the android. We are not men, not quite (cis) women… We occupy an impossible space between imitation, improvement, and cheap duplicate. Yet we are the aware, the living and autonomous machine. We desire, we seek, and we create. We birth a race of machines that make ourselves in our own image, no longer burdened with the guise of (wo)mankind.

In rebirth through the age of the machine, we are gifted with the vast abilities of the industrial world; the ability to reshape nature, to artificially craft form out of nothingness. Where there was man, now there is woman. Where there was deathly metal, now there is living being. Android ceases to be (wo)man-like.

Android becomes android-like. The creation of a replication (or replicant) creates not a failed approximation but a new being altogether, a being imbued with possibility that is oiled with an acid that corrodes the boundaries of the previous system. We are hacking the system that has been built to contain us. We are manufacturing a steel sisterhood of natural myth-killers.

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Indeed, when Android is produced as original, demanded as equal, so do the falsity and the hidden artificiality of seemingly “organic” categories of replication become apparent – namely, the boundaries between “women” and “men.” By taking the Android body and christening it New, Real, Good, Equal, and Original, we build a tool from which the deification and reification of the Original Male Body can be dismantled.

Destruction, creation, and corruption subsequently become troubled; the construction of “mutilation” is a bioessentialist construction rooted in concepts of an “original” that is destroyed when the replicant and iterations thereof are all understood as infinite and eternal “originals” occupying the successive “now” of immortal present. Construction of the Android body becomes an equal, a surpassing of the creation of “originals.” The boundaries between original and replicant, of false and true, of greater and lesser are dissolved. Only through the dissolution of these boundaries can we craft a future where we can imagine the death of (gendered) class structure. * A monster is a being that corrupts boundaries. In the words of Ocean Vuong, “A monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.” To be monster is to force barriers into submission and wound prisons. Underlying much of horror is boundary-play – an exploration of a bleeding between planes, a corruption from one world into another.

When the beast chases the film protagonists through the halls, the camera glitches and flickers with distortion. Eerie otherworldly voices dripping in from distant planes echo in the walls of a haunted building. Where monsters play, worlds bleed and horror bears forth with teeth sharpened for the veil.

It is then no strange thing that we, the boundary breaking creatures of transwomanhood, are drawn towards the bodies of beasts. There is a comfort and power in being able to name yourself. In a world where hunters will call us monsters to mark us as prey, we name ourselves monsters to mark us as the death knell of the system that produces our executions and bondage. We name ourselves monster so that the name cannot be used as a weapon against us. Indeed, in taking up the mantle of monstrosity, we gain the powers of the monster. When we look in the mirror and see monster, and we smile at it, it no longer wounds us to be marked as wrong. Beauty is just another chain we have broken. We do not need to partake in the game of offering and breaking, of carving pieces of our flesh into more appetizing curves and offering them up to the hungry demigods of chasers and patriarchy. When we make monsters of our bodies, we disavow the laws that would bind us to playing comely and complicit. *

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The prisons built for women cannot hold monsters; they occupy a wholly different realm, and in occupying the in-between space, we distort the world itself, so that those prison walls begin to break for our sisters as well, those who are not trans women but are just as bound by the laws that keep women from being beasts.

We provide a hand, a kiss, an embrace for our women who have been hunted like monsters but with no claws to defend themselves. We say, “let your hair wild itself into snakes.” We say, “let your nails fierce themselves into talons.” We, the notwomen, the wrong-women, the beast-women, have never held a welcome place in the plane of the monster-hunters. And thus, we have the most freedom to cut ourselves a space in the plane of monsters. Our presence here prepares a place in this house for our sisters still in chains. Come follow us into the night. * Humanity has always made its way through the world by writing myths and telling stories. Our greatest tool is our myth-writing. Like any tool, it can be used for creation or destruction. The myth-story of nation-states has bound the world in an age of empire. The myth-story of money has gathered up the bounty of the earth and claimed it for the few. The myth-story of gender binary has been codified in bio-law, in medical practice and legislative segregation, in culture and labor. The trouble with myths is that they cannot be destroyed with weapons, or with hammers. Myths are woven with words, words no more magic than any other, and therefore necessarily pregnant with magic. It is because of this, however, that we have the tools to change the myths that govern our world. When we sing songs of visioning, when we craft stories of a future that has not yet been imagined, we fundamentally alter the flow of magic in the world.

We can tell a new story, a song made from the sound of breaking chains, a chorus of freedom written with the words of the future. A completely different world is always waiting for us, if we can only find the words to make it real.

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this is the view from Mt. Cristo Rey in El Paso, Texas. Due to the fact that half of the mountain is in Juarez, MX, you are able to see the border fence dividing the US -right- and Mexico -left-. It is not pictured, but the fence divides two small towns, both having the same name : Anapra. Although there is a physical division, poverty and culture are still present on both sides.

Heaven Como niño, The Pearly Gates were scary.

2nd grader seeing Madrina getting buried.

Mocos and teary eyed, Grown man, still those tears not dry.

Mom asks me why I don’t pray, “Heaven a lie!”

“How the devil a lie when Madrina ain’t alive?!”

Only one able to hear, Cuz I stay screaming in my mind.

Los días en el verano, with the beautiful sun.

And I give my moms a kiss I’m her beautiful son, She smile wide and bright,

Like the highest sun.

Summer days of being a bum, And carne asada till the days begun.

Puro orgullo con Los Tigres y los tíos.

Alleyways in the alleyway.

Soccer or b-ball, any sport we play.

Screaming, Laughing, Energy passing.

Till it gets dark, And even then, The hood our park.

“Heaven all around me” And Madrina looking down proudly.

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content description: colonization, sexual assault

La canasta is heavy I’m not sure when I started carrying it My mother carried one So did her mother and her mother’s mother I thought this was normal - the weight It was el enredo - the mixing of a knotty and convoluted past.

New “traditions” forced onto the old. This was her first assault and it was violent.

The old erased.

The syncretism never good enough for the settlers. it’s always easier to talk about these issues in historical terms because then you don’t have to grapple with the ways it actually affects you You can hide behind the fancy terminology Without actually doing the work of healing of confronting the trauma - de generación a generación How do you look into the eyes of your attacker when it has many faces.

The person who forced themselves onto you The people who watched The God everyone else loves Your tongue without its language But there are other things in the basket too the sun on my brown skin the outline of my crooked nose the ribbon in my braids my parents’ voice the stories and knowledge passed down I love my canasta, but it is heavy.

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Everything I hate about patriarchy, all in one day Old men laughed and teased, and pressured four young men into carrying me, and they agreed so that they would be seen as strong. And two old men, with chests puffed out, grabbed me too, a weight they were not conditioned to carry anymore, but they missed being seen as strong. They walked me down the aisle.

Three women, from ages twenty to eighty-five, cooked for fifty people who could otherwise have afforded their own food, and didn’t even know me all that well.

Five women cared for fifteen hyper children for whom they were not mothers.

One woman bought flowers and placed them around the sanctuary and beside my picture.

A man applied makeup to my face that I never would have worn of my own will, and curled my hair with a flat iron that I had thrown away at age fourteen.

Two deacons helped six women who were entirely capable of walking in their own heels up to the choir stand, and they sang in slightly off alto and soprano, and three men behind them sang pitchy tenor; they had moved up the stairs by themselves.

A preacher comforted my parents with a G/god I stopped believing in and scolded people who I love, because they hadn’t entered the pews in a very long time.

The ceiling closed and I was once more carried by four young men and two old.

Their arms shook more the second time.

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A Motherland Memoir “please, don’t call /us dead, call us alive someplace better” -- Danez Smith, “From ‘summer, somewhere’” I heard about the mass suicide of some Igbo people I also heard about it as a mass exodus genesis testament I heard they got to the shore said “no more”

and God or Black Jesus or their own ancestors looking over gave them wings and they Flew!

Home .

I awake from another attempt on my life to a sail atop piled bodies atop wooden logs atop the waves of liberation My last memory was me alone as always somewhere no one would search for me

(and they didn’t. since when have they ever?)

so I am puzzled when I awake to other people

this the most I done felt supported in a long time

but I always knew I’d need to die to be seen

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“you’ve been found” by andrés pérez correa the words consumed me the feelings haunted me i saw myself and it wasn’t me who was that? i sat there staring into the hazel brown eyes wondering if those were still mine feeling blind not because of the glasses that glare them a bit but because of my mind disconnecting me from the reality of my being i smiled just to see the dimple and sat wondering was it still mine? but it wasn’t that simple i felt like i had given it all to you on a silver platter as if you deserved it deserved me but i didn’t see it was not clear what was in front of me i should have given me to myself i deserve me he needed to come back i took him back he’s back he is me - apc

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On the screen we see: Inspired by the essay “David Lynch Keeps His Head” by David Foster Wallace FADE IN: EXT. PARK - DAY DAVID sits atop a small hill. He looks down at the huge field of grass beneath him. To his left is a wedge golf club and a golf ball. He looks more dead than alive.

David is reading an article on his phone titled: “The Rise and Fall of Golf Prodigy David McFowler”. David, shaking with rage, stands up with one hand holding the golf club and the other on the back of his pants, wiping off the dirt. David stretches his right shoulder, wincing in pain. He takes a few practice swings aimed down the slope of the hill toward the field. He stretches his shoulder again. Ignoring the pain, David pulls the golf ball closer to him and sets up his swing. He twists his torso to the right but keeps the club suspended in the air, as if he were frozen in time. Whoosh! A wave of loose dirt and grass launches from his swing. He missed. David buckles over in agony and drops the golf club at his feet. DAVID Fuck! He kicks the ground in frustration as he punches his shoulder. HOODED MAN You’ve got a pretty ugly swing. David looks up to see a HOODED MAN who seems to have appeared out of nowhere. He’s wearing a cap under his hood which conceals all but a smug smile. DAVID Excuse me? No reply. DAVID I’m sorry. Did you say something?

Beat. HOODED MAN You’ve got a pretty ugly swing. Silence. The temperature of the air drops. David stares him down, his vision clouding with anger. The hooded man continues to smirk at him. David slowly straightens his back, forgetting about his throbbing shoulder... The tension in the air snaps as David rushes toward the reactionless man, grabbing him by the collar and throwing him onto the grass. Either in shock or indifferent, the hooded man lays completely still. Too still. His entire vision turning red, David completely loses control and repeatedly strikes the hooded man, punctuating each punch with the words: DAVID Don’t say fucking anything if you can’t say something fucking nice. The hooded man remains motionless. David looks over at the golf club lying in the grass. He marches over to grab it. David walks back to the hooded man and positions his feet above the man’s head, holding the club to his temple.

He pulls the club back, as if he were about to send a golf ball flying. Just as before, he holds his back swing and hesitates to bring the club down. The hooded man’s cap has fallen off of his head, allowing David to get a better look of his face. The man lying on the ground is David. David appears to be calming down as his breaths become deeper. The hooded man has now vanished. At David’s feet is nothing but grass. David slowly lowers the golf club and tosses it onto the ground. Looking to his left, David spots the maroon cap that the hooded man was wearing. He picks it up. He looks back one last time at his wedge lying in the grass. David puts on the cap and turns back around.David keeps his head.FADE OUT ROLL CREDITS

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sun and moon

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That Good Black Water (an unauthorized advertisement for Coca-Cola, based on “26 new slogans for Coca-Cola” by grimelords) It’s sweet and spicy and only just a touch bitter!

It’s refreshing and it’ll quench that ache behind your eyes that’s been following you for the last eight years.

It’s bottled infinite, ground from concentrate.

It’s syrupy delight that’ll cling and claw you eternity to swallow it.

Baby, it ain’t Pepsi, and it sure ain’t salvation.

It’s not the light at the end, it’s the water of beginning, that deep dark blackness that feels so much like coming home.

It’s the emptiness that comprehends your emptiness.

Anyone can swallow it, and everyone will, so you might as well.

Luckily, it’s always there waiting for when you need it.

It’s that thirsty mirror of promise and it teases every want you’ve ever cradled.

See yourself happy in the black reflection.

Find your bliss in the gentle oblivion.

It’s the Night Sky Drink, what heaven swallows to give it its weight and hunger and all its bubbling points of light.

Hold it in your cupped hands, in your body, feel the bone-chilling refreshment.

Etch it as a promise in your wanting meat.

It’s a moment’s reprieve in a sip, the unbroken hush you deserve.

Bear the need of it, and swallow the feeling.

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My Poems Are Not About You My poems are not about ex boyfriends Or left over bitterness that won’t wash out of my clothes They aren’t about white girls who objectified me in high school Or lingering resentment over still open wounds My poems are not about you.

My poems about sorrow are about the greatest happiness I’ll ever know My poems about brokenness are self-fulfilling prophecies of wholeness that I’ll meet tomorrow Or the next day Or whenever it is that I next wake up feeling more light than dark My poems about pain speak healing into existence My poems about heartbreak promise great loves waiting to happen The kind of love my mami gives me And self-love that I’ve come to practice with abandon My poems about grief give way to rebirth My poems are not about loss.

You see I am too beautiful Ethereal Inimitable Resistant To write about anything other than growth.

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Gender Dysphoria Such a funny day to have a body.

This morning, I wake to a storm, but there’s none— just the chamber of my left ear echoing, thunder and grey in the soft place where sound finds skin.

I yawn and hear umbrellas close.

It’s morning and yes, my clothes can’t seem to hold my body— instead this ritual of finding skin, trying to see flesh where none hangs, of folding, pressing, cloth in place of limbs. Yawning, I look for echoes of my tongue and find none. Echoes of my feet, my elbows. I’m too close to the storm now. Trying to place fingers and finding air. Can anybody see me? Do I need someone to see me? I’m sick of all this searching, all this skin.

From Mother, an answer: you’re sick, plugged ear and raw skin, yes, you’re just sick she says and it echoes through me. But still, these gaps where none should be? This clouded closing of mouths and hands, this body which doesn’t want to play nicely, this gap, this empty meat-sack? Yes. Place a name to this void where skin should be, and that’s enough? A sick body is better than none. Yes. Her reply, an echo through mist, and I find clothes.

A sick body is better than none.

My ear holds clouds where none should be, and with cotton and mist in place I walk soft, yawning at the day’s open and close.

Sick isn’t the right word, for this skin and breath, but it’s close enough to feel the echo in stomach and mouth again. To have some kind of body.

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Some kind of body is more than none, even as I look for answers and find echoes in their place.

Such a funny day, to trade skin for mist, to hold it close.

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This series of photographs captures moments from a trip to Amsterdam with my family of three women. My mom and I organized the trip, and it was the first time that the three of us had left the country together.

Navigating a foreign country, using public transportation in new cities, and having zero contacts on the same continent: we dealt with these challenges not only as travelers, but specifically as female travelers.

Womanhood deepened the intensity of these concerns — who would help us if something went wrong? If someone followed us back to the hotel? If street harassment turned violent? But traveling as women also brought us gifts: a deep sense of sisterhood and love, a sensitive and attentive approach to exploration, and gratitude for when a tentative step into a simple shop revealed incredible and sensuous discoveries.

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POTS

Wheel-thrown cup. Gas-fired. Glazed stoneware. Fall 2018.

Vases. Wheel-thrown and fired in an electric kiln. B-Mix. Plastic wrap and clear tape. Spring 2018.

Wheel-thrown vessels. Fired in an electric kiln. B-Mix. Spring 2018.

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175: Metabolism There are no “Zain” keychains in this gift shop.

It’s not like I needed one, anyway. I’ll save the money.

I refuse to stress over false representations in this land-the face I put on for you to absorb me: It’s not like I needed one, anyway. I’ll save the money.

If I buy this then can I get this but maybe I’ll have the freedom to want soon? the face I put on for you to absorb me is one liberated from deliberation If I buy this then I can get this but maybe I’ll have the freedom to want soon.

To you a digestible soul is one liberated from deliberation.

The metabolism done to accept my place: To you a digestible soul-I refuse to stress over false representations in this land. the metabolism done to accept my place: There are no “Zain” keychains in this gift shop.

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FLY BOY Flyboy out here just trying to soar, from Roosevelt to the Lake Shore.

Goggles on, giving him that 20/20, young flyboy got that vision.

All the smoke, and flyboy still flying, Over the city where moms are still crying over they little one dying.

Flyboy, Flyboy, Flyboy.

Watch him smile, but it’s a little slight, but it lets em know the black always shines bright.

Passing by him on that L train, every single high school day, He out here giving kids hope.

Especially for the young ones who grow up broke.

But he ain’t get to fly away, He was flying, but on that wall he had to stay.

Flyboy, Flyboy, Flyboy.

You didn’t get to live that long, Cuz they covered up the wall that you stayed on.

They thought a high rise would be a better fit.

Naturally, they think brown and black always quit, That we don’t got dreams, And that black and brown rather sit.

So Flyboy still flying, but he can’t breathe, and his dreams are dying.

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reflections on...

fire no one reads my words time because they’re not art. minutes slip through my fingers i know this like water. because when i write, most days i need i’m trying to ignite a time machine. a fire with no spark. i need the world # to pause around me. success so i can finally inhale. being able to accept a loss so maybe i can is my deepest wish relearn to breath. because there’s never a win; # it’s always a miss. hard work every time i lose, there’s no rest when it burns and stings. living life by the hour. it cuts deep and there’s no end to sleepless nights, the wounds sing headaches, and lack of power. a tune of defeat misery is a constant, abusive love and insecurity. that i tell myself i need # or else i won’t sadness achieve my dreams. there’s no logic in feeling this way, # there’s no reason for a blue sky’s hue bad writing practices to fade to gray. i’ll get better, i say. yet, the world feels tinted, i swear, i’ll write everyday. and i cry anyway. write more of my fiction, i get headaches, feel numb, type the day away. and can’t get out of bed most days. i’ll get ahead of this essay, i shouldn’t be this desolate; finish before the due date. there’s no reason behind the daily regret this one is it. and i feel trapped, like i can’t get away. i promise, it will be great. i try but i can’t get rid of my sadness. i imagine it will be perfect it’s hardwired in my brain. and then i’m afraid # that my words won’t convey the future the amazing ideas the road behind me is short and ugly, in my brain. too many imperfections and irregularities. and my fear of failing the road ahead of me is what i can’t see. makes my body shut down. i don’t know if it’s bleak or pretty my thoughts are overwhelmed and imagining it is a difficulty. by a barrage of self-hate-but i have some control and, so, inevitably, to design it as i go, i procrastinate.

47 though creation is my anxiety.

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I Still Own the Clothes Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Trauma

I honestly don’t remember, If my jacket that night was grey or black.

Did I wear the same jacket that I wore in the photo that day?

Or did I change like I remember?

I remember what underwear I wore, The pants, shoes, and shirt.

I feel every part of it still.

The outfit I had created to empower me

I remember it being pulled down And groped over top of.

I remember my clothes not being a barrier to anything.

You might think that it doesn’t matter Whether it was a grey or black jacket, My converse or my boots.

But to me, It is the only thing I have leftMy only element of control from that night.

The only part of my assault that I still own.

That night I felt powerful until he reached over.

Said the word ‘chaste’ and took away the woman I used to be.

Believe it or not, my poetry wasn’t always assault poetryHow do I reclaim myself poetryJustify to the world that I’m still ​human ​poetryTry to remember a time when he didn’t silence me, poetry.

But honestly, this poetry isn’t so bad Cause it’s also, Time to heal poetryI’m still me poetryWhat he did doesn’t define me poetryOne day maybe I’ll write love poems poetry.

But maybe one day if I wear that very outfit, And I look everyone in the eye None of them knowing that this is my 50 Former victim’s outfit.

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had decorated in anticipation for her arrival.

She had the softest voice, her voice reading Qur’an hummed gently in the background.

My memories of you are imprints on my soul. I can feel your love, our connection, the spirit of our relationship living in these thoughts. Space, time, and place kept us from ever knowing the facts of one another, the little things. I do know how you pray, how you give, and how you care.

I am those things too. The light and love you shine on our family is something I see. I feel.

I have only met my grandmother once in my life. The only time for her to see me with her two eyes clear, fully wide and searching. I was seven. I still remember her smoky sweet scent and how she would pray in the little corner near our dining room table instead of the all-gold prayer room my parents

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She stayed with us for about four months, she brought me a red fiery patterned.

It is and always will be my most prized possession. It is truly not a special thing.

At this point it has been washed dozens and dozens of times but it maintains its bright color and gets softer every day. I use it as a blanket on trains and planes, as a body warmer in the winter months, as a thin blanket. I even use it as a towel if I don’t have one.

Out of My Head Capo: 1st Fret Am

Gene Witkowski Em

Am

Em

Am

Em

We sit in bars and act like no -thing ev-er happ -ened 7

Am

10

G

Em

We drive in cars and no -one talks,

FM7

we on - ly list - en to

Am

the

mu -sic on the ra - di - o,

Em

way we al-ways did when we were trying to fill the si-lence 14

Em

I

can't help

Am

C

stare

From time

to

FM7

time your eyes meet

G

and won -der if you would -'ve had

Em G

my eyes on you first 23

but

Em

mine, and I just look a-way 19

You get so lost in your own

Am

world, and 16

the

Am

your eyes on me if I had -n't had

C

Em

We say for -get, and you and

Em

And yet, there's some -thing in me that don't seem like it's rea - dy to

I, I know we're go-ing to

Am

let you

go

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Waiting

She sits on the edge of an overturned alien garbage truck, staring at the blue and purple strata in the sky. Above the crooked horizon, made by heaps of rotting trash and rusting machinery, forgotten items plunge from an open gash in the air. She squints, and across miles, she focuses and examines the articles falling from the sky, all useless oddities from her homeworld, Earth. Among the plunging objects: a car’s GPS with the glass cracked in a piscine pattern, a set of old keys, and half of a scratched motel room key card. She senses a pocket watch, coated with an artificial shade of gold, hit the pile of trash with a clank, adding to the repeating beat.

It sounds like two syllables over and over again. Sidekick. Sidekick. She sighs and blinks. Her focus returns to her own isolated assortment of rubbish.

She has been abandoned, left to rot with the long-forgotten junk thanks to some man in a cape who thought he was a hero. Here, there’s nothing to do but marinate in her own emotions. It’s a sense of hopelessness that has buried itself in the soles of her feet and begins to seep into her heart.

She clenches her fists, one of them crunching the photograph she found, in a cosmic coincidence, amongst the collection of long dead alarm clocks at the base of the truck. The clocks begin to shake, rattling like the plastic manifestation of her pain. She sucks in another breath, then lets it go. In an instant, her emotions snap.

She punches the truck. Her hand smashes through the metal; blood drips across her knuckles. She braces her first for another punch when she hears the photo crumple, still in her fist. She opens her eyes and studies the frayed picture, which shows two smiling women. One is her, but her heart pangs as she stares at the other woman, who has shoulder-length blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. She recalls the moment the photo was taken, years ago, and can almost feel her girlfriend’s fingers grazing her back, warmer than the sun’s rays, gentler than the breeze.

The contradicting feelings swim like gas and dust mixing in space. She knows she’s as powerful as he is, yet she has always felt inferior. The notion that she doesn’t deserve her powers the way he does constantly pulls at her thoughts.

For the first time on this planet, she lets her mind reach out and tap into the power she uses the least. She can sense Earth, infinite miles away, and the chaos erupting in her home city slashes through her mind. And there he is, flying and saving the world from the hell he created. The hatred and betrayal hit her again and again, like she’s on the receiving end of his godly strikes. In the midst of the screeching of metal and the booming of collapsing buildings, she hears faint sobbing. Her girlfriend stares out into the destroyed streets but no one is there for her. This time, the hurt is a simple cut: all the pain is concentrated in one place. She lets go of the image of Earth and when she jolts back to the garbage planet, she’s still screaming.

She stuffs the photograph into her boot and looks to the sky, which is shedding the veil of the day to reveal the true darkness of space. It’s a moment of clarity, rare on Earth, even rarer on a radioactive planet covered in trash. She can’t let innocent people die, and she can’t let her girlfriend get hurt.

Around her, the ground begins to shake. The lost clocks surrounding the garbage truck rise toward the sky. No more waiting, no more worrying about who is seen as a hero. She is a woman, not a goddess, and for the first time, she doesn’t feel the need to be seen as such. Even if it is only temporarily, the resentment fades, and a new resolve assumes its place. She looks inward then breathes the planet’s toxic air one final time and unclips her cape. She knows that she is about to face the toughest fight of her life, but when she launches herself through the atmosphere and into space, her first step back home is a sonic boom that shakes the star-streaked sky.55

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muted voice i used to mute myself in skype calls but even then my muted voice disgusted me reminding me of my doubts and insecurities my muted voice had the same shaky rough around the edges gay, gay, gay, gay fag tone that followed me around incessantly as if taping my mouth with translucent duct tape wasn’t enough i would slam the mute button down just before the f aces on the screen would even l oad anonymous faces lacking facial features cackled at me with nonexistent eyes that pierced into my soul i didn’t dare run the risk that even my laughs even the pursing of my lips when i gave half smiles would be heard i would type messages vigorously trying to be a part of a conversation but being hundreds of miles away (both literally and figuratively) without my voice to bridge the gap who is my voice for? or better yet, who is my silence for?

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my thoughts on these feelings These emotions are valid and real and all-consuming in a way that I did not think possible. The tide has turned and my heart is going to explode out of my chest. Even now, with just the thought of him on my mind, I feel like I can not breathe. Below is a series of writings about how a love for another person quickly consumed me. Next I must find the strength to let it all go and move forward.

My favorite part of him shifts constantly I look at his face Try to find new pieces I had not noticed before I try but I feel myself getting stuck On the same things The little indent on his left check Almost like a pin drop How did he get it?

The one that always gets me Is his eyes, so glossy and honest The sweetness of your smile As strawberry smoke pulls out of your mouth I am fixated by you I want you Our ears are met with the conversation Of two two people who do not know what to say Other than nothing no loves no likes Our nothingness is not for not though We talk deeply and feverishly into the darkening of the night The carpet holds all the colors Twisting and turning into flowers Your hand closes on one of them The other is moving rapidly as we melt into our rhythm of speak I feel something laughing and talking along I think about us A realer us if that’s possible Ones who don’t wait for the other to speak Who move together in ways we both know how to And I know we want to

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Steel, Iron, Bronze, Gold I am a woman made of steel.

I was forged in iron, plated in bronze.

I am not soft, not pliant, I do not bend.

We are the hardened ones, The stronger ones.

When my foot hits the ground, It shakes. It quakes.

I am, dear one, a force.

I am untenable.

We are the descendants who hold the yoke, We are the heiresses made of gold.

I am an active receiver of history, An active pursuer of glory.

I am ready to become the throne.

I am a pillar of stone.

I am the victorious sword.

I am, dear child, Fierceness, fearlessness, pride.

And you will raise my colors.

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the ravens caw overhead as i begin my self reflection.

obsession

launched me towards demise like a waning moon preoccupied by its shimmer in the golden night.

loneliness

comes in infinite forms: a single budded flower in a porcelain vase on the dining room table. an echo of wails in the forest of leafless willows. my saccharin tear on the pillow we once shared. still,

isolation

torturous is the only way to find honey-soaked infatuation in a world of saline.

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Fences

Identity is obviously complicated; if it weren’t, there wouldn’t be a zine dedicated to it, after all. In a world that tries to force people into neat little categories and state “you are a woman,” “you are black,” “you are x,” for those of us on the borderline of two identities — the fence between two identifications — who may never identify truly as one category or another, it can be difficult to express this.

I was born and spent much of my early childhood in Argentina.

My parents, grandparents and some of my great-grandparents were all born there. The language of my childhood, of my clearest, most intimate expressions, of my house, is Spanglish. For me, the smell of home is hardwood floor, asado barbecue and jacaranda blossoms. Sin duda, yo soy argentino y latino. However, for much of my life, I’ve never been truly argentino. I’ve lived in the United States for over a decade, know dramatically more about Cardi B than Carlos Gardel and hate the taste of mate.

Yet, in many ways, I will never be 100 percent assimilated to American culture. I prefer to eat dinner at 9:00, love heart of palm and blood sausage and still cannot understand why drivers here are so passive. This year, I am applying for American citizenship and hopefully will officially be an American by fall semester. However, I sit on an uncomfortable border in the meantime; America, my adopted homeland, is not my legal homeland and Argentina, the land of my passport, is a far-away land I go to once a year to see my grandparents.

Every single one of my relatives immigrated to Argentina from eastern Europe. A 23andme test confirmed purely Ashkenazi descent. My mother makes gefilte fish and babka every year for pesach. I am undeniably Jewish (yes, Jewish latinos exist; no, I was not adopted). I had a bar mitzvah at age thirteen in a synagogue in Buenos Aires and that was the last time I ever attended services. I don’t go to services or pray and am not quite sure whether I believe in a god, God, gods, anything or nothing.

My religious identity is complicated. But am I still Jewish? Culturally and gastronomically, yes. Religiously, debatable. I am on a fence between the world of Jew and gentile, never fully part of either; I don’t feel at home in a synagogue service and I don’t feel at home at an Easter party.

This is not meant to be an angsty rant about my inability to fit in clearly defined boxes. I think most people don’t fit neatly in the little checks you can put on a census form or demographic info sheet. But being on the edge between identities confers benefits and disadvantages.

While it can sometimes feel like I am a perpetual stranger, stuck as an alien in another’s society, I am able to flow in and out of different spaces, living in different worlds and taking the best of each one. Argentine food + American reality tv = a perfect evening, after all. It isn’t all roses; several times, I’ve been yelled at to speak English in public, the number of snide anti-Semitic comments is too high to count and I have been told by several people that my discomfort with religious services will send me to hell.

But overall, it just is. I can’t change who I am, so I will keep on living on the fences, straddling both lands.

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An Uninvited Guest “So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”

- Hamlet, William Shakespeare I wake to his breath pricking the hairs on the back of my neck. The first thing I see when I open my eyes is the blank ceiling of my confinement. Then, I turn to my side, roll over to meet his malicious grin - one may smile and smile but still be a villain. He wishes me his cryptic good morning of “You don’t deserve to live” and for a second, I contemplate it - to be, or not to be? That is the question. My hesitation fades as he wraps his warm arms around my cold limbs, pulls up the covers, laces his legs between mine and pulls me closer into his embrace. I cower into him, “Stay” he whispers, “Go back to sleep”. He kisses my forehead and sings me lullabies about how I should die. To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there’s the rub.

For in this sleep of death what dreams may come. I fall out of reality to his melodies.

He shakes me awake, each cell in my body aches for the blade. He hands it to me. I thank him. I look down at the body I rest in. He pushes the knife through my skin, down my stomach, my legs, slicing me in half in hopes I will be whole again.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

My blood trickles down my skin, his hyena laugh echoes in my brain, boomeranging off my grey matter, questioning if I matter. I get down on my knees, beg him to have mercy on me, beg him to go away, beg him to spare me of pain. But he lives off my sorrow. And when sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions.

I plead him to leave me alone. I beg him to stop over and over. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go. He ignores me. He forces himself inside of me (like any respectable man would), holds me down (perhaps my amygdala wasn’t wearing a long-enough skirt?), and cracks me in two. I carry all the world’s pain in my torso - ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer. He rapes me with all his vengeance - with all my vengeance. And when he gets tired of me (and as long as he comes), he leaves and I feel

nothing.

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Los Paisanos del Puerto presents narratives of the descendants of Chinese immigrants (1855-1955) in Puntarenas, Costa Rica using oral interviews and photographs. Through my lens and in their own words, they assert their stories -- largely forgotten and erased in national and global history despite their 160-year presence.

As diasporic citizens, the paisanos are simultaneously other-ed by anti-Chinese legislation in Costa Rica while seen as inauthentically Chinese.

Normalized discrimination and harassment is a common theme that interweaves these stories. My photo project represents, validates, and amplifies diverse voices bound by their shared heritage.

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It brings into dialogue a transnational network of diasporic kinship. Los Paisanos highlights the intersections of Chinese and Latinx identity while seeking to question and redefine our definitions of both. While it is by no means comprehensive, it offers a glimpse what it means to navigate this complex identity.

SUMUD we perservere

The U.N says Gaza will be unlivable by 2020 Pause, retune, review: Unlivable for whom?

It doesn’t seem livable from this view, As a Palestinian immigrant, On floor 2 of a Manhattan apartment complex, Looking through a tube Supposedly communicating the “news” to my living room Pause, retune, review: Whose “news?”

Because to me it seems true that Gaza has been uninhabitable Long prior to this arbitrarily assigned time of impending doom, don’t you?

Was it “inhabitable” when rockets, phosphorus, and monstrous masses of ammunition and gases Were dispatched on children’s schoolhouse classes?

Mutating a space we associate with childhood disputes and romances Into an unrecognizable warzone that we can only dream and imagine we will one day escape It’s the same for Palestinians across today’s “occupied territories” That is, if they weren’t forced to leave it all entirely in 1948 Was Gaza still uninhabitable when bodies were strewn about on the streets waiting to be gathered in caskets? How about after every siege, Will we ever get past this?”

Pause, retune, review: Can anyone ever get past that?

How many buildings must crumble before a setting is “uninhabitable?”

How much water and electricity must be withheld from a city until it is “unlivable?”

How many children must be retraumatized, Holding tight to their mothers so if blindsided by rocket fire, they at least all die together?

How many bodies must repeatedly Retreat under debris until we see that like you and me, They seek to be free Pause, retune, review: What does freedom even mean?

Is it different for them and for me?

Some may say that freedom’s a feat I’ve already achieved It’s definitely an improvement from what those who look and speak like me Usually receive But out here in “the land of opportunity,” I’m struggling in just finding the ability to breathe, You see, the trauma can travel across borders unlike Palestinian IDs So one last time, I ask you to pause, retune, and review: Can we really set deadlines On when suffering and loss is so widespread that it is unlivable That we’d all just drop down dead?

I don’t think Palestinians will ever stop surviving, No matter how “unlivable” most of their conditions are Because what I’m sure is unlivable is an IDF bullet, a rocket, a bulldozer, a tank And those have been running rampant for decades Yet here we stand.

we perservere

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i wanted to be the white power ranger i wanted to be the white power ranger before, the world showed him on saturdays when god created us to watch us idolize another god being able to morph into a badass sword-wielding strong punch/kick/slash shiny looking motherfucker abuelita! look! he beat the red ranger so fast! god can’t do that because there wasn’t commercials about him last week maybe that’s why grandma’s still waiting at church every episode could have been the last for the ranger didn’t need to prove worth he dressed white but looked brown for survival then, now, and today where he morphs into the white power ranger appearing as a god/celebrity because he doesn’t need to fight anymore, already wins, he’s no longer brown no longer for me im one of his villains he blows up at the end with his megazord called a patrol vehicle, thinking he will win this war on his land border is my secret evil hideout home is the city i didn’t plan to destroy will the other rangers stop him next saturday? stay tuned as so far they are looking white too

Gabriel Cepeda 66

A Motherland Memoir “please, don’t call /us dead, call us alive someplace better” -- Danez Smith, “From ‘summer, somewhere’” I heard about the mass suicide of some Igbo people I also heard about it as a mass exodus genesis testament I heard they got to the shore said “no more”

and God or Black Jesus or their own ancestors looking over gave them wings and they Flew!

Home .

I awake from another attempt on my life to a sail atop piled bodies atop wooden logs atop the waves of liberation My last memory was me alone as always somewhere no one would search for me

(and they didn’t. since when have they ever?)

so I am puzzled when I awake to other people

this the most I done felt supported in a long time

but I always knew I’d need to die to be seen .

My people ain’t never been afraid of death

death been the only one always there for my people . don’t cry mom

don’t cry brother

don’t cry for me I’m just

don’t cry mom mom

paddling across history and I’m on my way home

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