SWAMPFISH

SWAMPFISH

BY JAYCEE JAMISON

photo assist. JANETTE CALDERON

THIS ZINE IS ABOUT

LOVE

NO MATTER WHAT YOU READ

SWAMPFISH

DEDICATED TO: SELFISH, WILD, EVIL, CYNICAL

GREEDY, DISGUSTING, DEPRAVED, AMORAL, DEGENERATE WOMEN.

I LOVE YOU.

RAW FOOD DIET ......................................................................................................... GRIEF THE PITFALLS OF SHOOTING AT NIGHT AND SELF-DESCRIBED CREATIVES ....................................................................... OBSESSION TEAR FREE SHAMPOO ........................................................................................ THE PAST I H8 MY LOSER BOYFRIEND <3

................................................................ GETTING LOST

t e i D

RAW FOOD

SINK DREAM

YOUR OF

A

TEETH DIET

IN, OF

MASTICATE, ONLY ME

L

ast year, three days before Valentine’s Day, I bought two ribeye steaks, each one almost two inches thick.

It was more than I’d ever spent on meat.

They sat slumped, one on top of the other on the top shelf of the fridge, next to my almost rotten

produce and miscellaneous IPA’s still wearing their plastic collars.

after you called me, two days before Valentine’s Day, I laid motionless for five hours.

It was 10pm but it might as well have been noon, light still reaching me through the blinds.

The moon, my brilliant

friend, it’s so lovely to see you. at midnight I took a steak out of the fridge.

Carefully untying the string around its waist, on the paper supported by both of my

letting it rest open hands.

Every line of fat, every fiber familiar. It’s slick with residual blood. The taste is a mid day soccer game, to the cool grass, my own sweat seeping

face pressed between parted lips.

I’m chewing the grass, it turns wet and hot in my hands.

I rip away at the muscle of the cow, with every half masticated bite.

My shirt sticks to me so I remove it, spine in place. Shoulder blades nearly piercing I wipe my I just picked blackberries from the garden outside so my Please have some, just one blackberry, they’re sweet and perfect

SWAMPFISH

asphyxiating myself snapping and jerking through my skin. fingers on the mattress fingers are stained red.

I pulled every thorn off. ■

OBLIT ERAT SO UL DES

T E MY W IT H S IRE

SWAMPFISH

I

I was told once that I invented looking mysterious in liminal spaces.

There’s a strobe cutting a bright line down an endless field.

I hold my lace skirt up as I move towards the white spray painted X in the grass.

The damp blades leave small white lines on my boots.

It’s dusk, and the white dwarf propped up beside him is poaching my eyeballs slowly in my sockets. They turn in boiling water every time I blink.

The red light of his camera blinks back at me.

Jaycee

Say the line “I don’t love you”

I don’t believe you.

He’s squinting at me looking through the viewfinder.

My heels are sinking into the wet ground.

The words he wrote appear clearly in glowing green letters, moving quickly across my eyelids from left to right every time I close them: I don’t love let me go,

you. You’ll please

be

happier please

with

someone

else,

please please.

Read the lines as I wrote them Jaycee please, you’re so talented, you’re my favorite actress, it’s a pleasure to capture you, a pleasure for you to touch my work, please read my lines, say my words to me like you mean them, the words are meant for you, for your voice, make the script yours, make them your words, you have to believe them now say it to me,

look right here and tell me.

I can’t meet the fishes’ eye, I squish my heels in the mud.

These boots should be leaving muddy tracks on the floorboards of his mind.

The feet in them should leave prints on the matte white paint on the walls.

The flash dries the mirage from my eyes,

I stare into it:

“I don’t love you, I promise” I force my eyes shut, the last of the water running down my cheeks, when they adjust back to darkness I see the camera blinking alone in the liminal field.

He’s no longer behind it, I see his silhouette punched out of what’s left of the sunset. The sun is just about to dip below the horizon, only a fraction as bright as me now with the star’s borrowed light bouncing off my skin. Even still, I find myself kicking at the white painted grass on my mark waiting for him to return to the camera, waiting, watching him watch her leave.■

SWAMPFISH

THE PITFALLS OF SHOOTING IN THE DARK AND SELF-DESCRIBED

“ CREARI V ES ”

MAKES SUBHUMAN

YOU FEEL

LOVING ME

S

TEAR FREE IM ENTIRE

SCARED LIFE

I’LL

SPEND MISSING

when i was 7 i cracked a glow stick directly into my eyes It marked my sheets with a neon orange, luminescent smear, like something you’d see on SVU. I sat in the bathtub, my mom cradling my head under the faucet the flow forming shallow pools in my eye sockets.

She rested the palm of her hand on my forehead, scrunching her fingers in my hair where more glowing, ectoplasmic gel was residing, shaking back and forth to let the water follow the clumpy black curls to the drain.

I watch 7 year old me from the other side of the tub.

Residual orange goo gives the water a soft glow When i sink low enough, my knees, my stomach, my chest become small islands, their shores outlined by bioluminescent algae.

MY YOU

I rest my head back on the porcelain, his fingers glide over my scalp in circular motions. he’s kneeling beside the tub, the same way my mom would.

It smells like L’Oreal Paris Kids Tear Free Extra Gentle 2-in-1 Shampoo, Sunny Orange His hand is on my forehead, shielding my face from the water.

I open my eyes to look at him—the first boy I ever really liked I’m 13, I’m 20, I’m 7. He reaches into the pool to hold my hand.

Water splashes from the shower onto the floor, onto his rolled up shirt sleeves. Tiny droplets cling to individual curls.

“Do you still like me?” The three of us ask.

He smiles in the way I see him etched to the walls of my mind, “all I know how to do is like you.”

In you lies a version of myself I try to remember.

We murmur these words back and forth until the magic of the orange-colored glow-sticks wears off.■

S

E

HAMPOO

Swim, Citrus, 9 Fl Oz.

SWAMPFISH

EAT ME

SWAMPFISH

K

KNOW ME

M y favorite words are “I’ll see you tomorrow”

i h8 m

B

It’s always supposed to be there, why is it so hard to find?

He told me that, then the clock started ticking. The bike stops, the handlebars are in the soft place under my ribs.

Hands reach out instinctively and meet the thin Ride his thin blue bike down the gravel path, cul de sac, palms open, the air the weight of everything drives my chest to gliding between fingers. the ground, my jaw, my nose, my knees.

Stop in the neighbors yard, jump through the sprinkler I roll on my back, I can’t see the stars spitting on the sidewalk. anymore just hazy blue lights Open the mailbox next door and read every letter. They have a package on the porch, the dress inside fits perfectly. I turn my head back to where I came, with The red house with white shutters has a lemon tree falling heavy with fruit out of their backyard.

I peel one and eat it like an orange, rich pulpy juice sliding down my forearms.

Everything sticks to me now, the cheap rayon dress, lawn clippings, everything everything

everything

My cheeks red and spot in the sun, open their back gate, walk the dog.

The street lights flicker on, I’m laying in the center of the dead end, using my hands to trace constillations.

Where’s Polaris?

It’s everything to me.

I flip up the kickstand, hands gripping the gummy handlebars as I move away from the light.

The stars are getting brighter, tall grass beating against my shins as I carve up the hill.

this slight elevation I can see the cul de sac.

I lay long enough to watch his back porch light turn on, leaving his thin blue bike mangled in the path I tear off down the hill.

When he kisses me I taste the iron from my nose, a bite of lemon, his menthol cigarettes and our toothpaste.

I sit in his lap in an overstuffed flannel Eyes fixed upward, I’m triangulating one of millions of tiny balls that become more visible recliner, he kisses my knees and tells me

it’s not my fault. the faster I pedal away.

It’s finally tomorrow.

You find it by locating the teaspoon on the cluttered black velvet tablecloth. My eyes sift We’re moving as one, back & forth. I know I was looking for something but now I don’t through crumbs, bones, and broken plates.

my loser

BOY

NOW WATCH ME D E C O M P O S E

FRIEND <3

remember anything

anything

anything. ■

SWAMPFISH